You are welcome to send us questions regarding your development process, the enlightened state and of course about practical issues. If the question has relevance to others we will place it here without name or address.
Write to cecil@innerfreedom.dk or bruhn@innerfreedom.dk. We will answer as soon as possible. It can take some time if we are busy or travelling.
Is there a free will?
A question philosophers have been wondering about for a long time. The answer to this question is Mu. It´s Japanese and means “yes and no” at the same time.
From the perspective of the Absolute there is no such thing as free will as there is no one there to have it. Will is connected with persona, time, space and karma. When all this is transcended there is no such thing – only choiceless awareness remains. Choiceless awareness you could also call divine will – unforced, spontaneous and extremely intelligent.
But from the perspective of “the doer” – or even better “the actor” performing the action – there is a free will – because there is someone there to have it. It is as simple as that. This creates the problem of choice, which is something the dualistic minds spends a lot of time thinking about. “Should I do this or that?” And afterwards – “What would have happened if I had done that instead?”. This creates the constant dilemma of the “life inside the mind” – also known as suffering :o).
But do not misunderstand this – living trapped in the dualistic mind is a great school – a way to catalyse understanding of good and bad choices and fthe flowering of your heart. When there is no more need for this tough school you are set set free into the life of the constant mystery where “will” is not important anymore.
Lots of love!
Bruhn
I have done Presence work on a number of occasions and now feel a joy/presence inside whenever I allow myself. However, I would like to know if it will grow on its own or do I have to keep ‘watching’ and reminding myself that it is there to bring it in? (i understand that i am not enlightened, i just want to know if i can go about my normal activity without concern that i am slowing the process or impeding it in anyway.)
Thanks for your mail. Wonderful that you are able to connect with joy and presence. That is a precious gift. This presence and joy will grow deeper and deeper as you go on with your everyday life. Suddenly you will find yourself in unconditional freedom.
Of course there are wholesome actions you can do on your journey towards inner freedom. But we never tell people what to do (except to follow your heart). We do though explain what has been fruitful for us – and maybe you can find inspiration in that. What worked for us was to:
- to be in communication with the representations of our higher selfs daily, hourly, minutely, constantly 🙂
- to be in longer retreats with enlightened teachers – it’s like putting your ego into dissolvent fluid
- to train our bodies, minds and souls to be on higher and higher frequencies – through energy work
- to eat vibrant food – food close to the sun – like fruit and vegies – biodynamic/organic preferably
- to do what you are passionate about doing
- …and several other things……
All in all – it is not what you “do” that matters – it is how you do it – and what you ARE!! Connect with your beingness and let the doing unfold from here. Then your “doing” becomes profound.
When we connect face2face and heart2heart through courses we will be able to explain more about this – and you will experience the tools and changes directly.
Lots of love and blessings!
Bruhn
We met on the 1st May in Brighton. It was my first experience of Presence work.
Whilst i had a great evening with pleasant feelings, since then i have been experiencing a lot negativity in my mind. I sense a shift of energy and greater clarity but what’s coming up is a heightened sensitivity to my thoughts and feelings and rather interestingly a greater awareness of how my actions impact on others.
I am sure this is a positive result but it all feels rather uncomfortable at the moment. I’d be very grateful if you could take the time to comment.
Thanks so much for your mail.
Your experience is not uncommon…..feeling that something has shifted (for the better) but suddenly there is also so much “negativity” to be experienced…..
I can illustrate it best by comparing it with being in a semi-dark room – suddenly a bright light is turned on and you are able to see every little detail and every speck (or pile :o)) of dust in the room. Presence work often works similarly.
Part of the process for most people is to see – really see – how the Mind functions, comments on everything, blocks us, keeps us prisoner in fixed views, patterns, programs etc. and how the egoic Mind can NEVER be satisfied…..in it’s interpretation of Life there is always some tiny (or big) thing to be dissatisfied about. The nature of the Mind cannot be changed, but you can change your relationship with it – and part of that process is seeing it for what it is :o)
Now, I know from experience, that this is not a very “pleasant” phase in the process – but it is totally necessary and important – and wonderful that it is happening :o)))
It is also great that you are experiencing how every act and thought affect the whole/other people…..it is beginning to see that we are totally open systems – connected to everything, affected by and affecting everything :o)))
Hope these perspectives are helpful!!
Much love, Cecil
If enlightenment is a dropping away of what we are not in order to reveal our original state, and not the gaining of anything ‘new’ as such, how then can it be a something that is ‘given’ or “transferred” from one person to another?
Well, firstly….so often when we use words duality arises…..
Enlightenment could very well be described as a dropping away or a dis-identification with everything we are not, when this happens our true self, our Buddha nature emerges effortlessly. It was always there hidden behind the veils of identification with this or that.
So what Life/God/the Divine gives you in the moment of enlightenment is not your true nature but the REALIZATION of your true nature…..and after that, everything is the same, but different :o) You realize that you were already always home.
But as long as this is not your experience in every moment, this is not your internalized truth – it is merely an intellectual truth, which we sometimes get to taste with the heart or without the mind. Life/the Universe is helping us in infinite ways towards that permanent realization of our true nature and in my experience one of those ways is the Presence work, and it is a very, very powerful tool to that end.
Enlightenment is always a gift from life – and from the perspective of the absolute there is no inner or outer, there is only oneness, no one to give, no one to receive anything ;o)
Love Cecil
I feel more and more and more balanced and my senses are slowly sharpened. All in all it is moving in the right direction. Never the less I experience that some fellow humans give me a feeling of you-are-a-too-bloody-much-ego-person-stay-away-from-me. I can’t really put it into words or understand this feeling/programming/mirroring. Can you give me a little hint?
Well, there are several possible interpretations and perspectives which can be combined according to your needs – you must go into your heart and examine the feeling every time it arises :o)
1) The relation arises in you, the reaction arises in you. So perhaps the persons, who trigger that reaction in you, are representing aspects of yourself that you are not accepting/embracing……there is a great opportunity for gratitude here ;o)
2) The fact that you are reacting to this gives you an opportunity to examine more closely you concepts about how one “should” behave….your reaction is making your interpretations of reality clearer……another great opportunity to be thankful…..
3) Accept the feeling just as it is – it is what is there – just take everything into the heart!
4) Let’s face it – there is nothing strange about the fact that there are some people you want to spend more time with than others. And that perhaps the amount of time you are willing to spend with them correlates directly with the size of their ego.
But now that you are becoming more aware of your own ego and the prison it creates for you, it is possible to discover a deep compassion in the heart for a person being stuck in a “maximum security prison” and from that perspective it is much easier to be with them. Basically the egoic play is just a veil covering your true nature, which is always there to be discovered – in yourself and in every other self, every moment :o)
……perhaps you will discover other perspectives in your investigation :o)
Is the real intention with your work to save the world?
From our point of view the world does not need to be saved. From our point of view the world and everything is as it is – absolutely perfect moment to moment. And this is from where our work happens. It is a happening – not a doing in order to reach a goal.
Thereby our work is not a “Save the world project” – it is only the mind that believes it should save the world. The heart knows that the world is perfect right now in this moment – and the next.
This does not mean that development should not happen – on the contrary – development happening from the acceptance in the heart is the only wholesome development. When development happens from aversion in the mind it is just creating reactive patterns. When more and more people start to realize that and to live it – everything changes. Not the other way around.
Therefore we do not want to state that our work is to save the planet – we are driven by a passion to share this present that we received. It is a mechanism which is hidden inside the present and which unfolds in a spontaneous way. That’s all 🙂