Category Archives: Awakening (non-teacher)

659. Jessica Eve

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After years of radical liberation in my own absence eventually became another kind of prison, I found freedom from “Enlightenment” in the freedom to live a richly human bittersweet life, in a new way, the way of transimmanence, in which the spiritual and the material are unified, and everything including suffering is a sacred expression of the divine.

Discovering how many other people have been harmed by modern adaptations of liberation via self-negation teachings, I’ve become a Spiritual Emergence Coach, and run peer support groups for people experiencing spiritual crisis, especially related to Neo-Advaita.

Interview recorded August 21, 2022

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.


YouTube Video Chapters:

  • 00:00:00 – Introduction to Buddha at the Gas Pump
  • 00:04:02 – Childhood Panic Attacks and Existential Thoughts
  • 00:07:49 – Dissolution of the Sense of Self
  • 00:11:20 – The Beginnings of Pure OOCD and Existential Thoughts
  • 00:15:26 – Awakening Beyond Thought and Self
  • 00:19:43 – The Path of Jnana Yoga
  • 00:23:34 – Exploring the Demise of Ego and Boundaries
  • 00:27:20 – The Dark Side of Radical Contentment
  • 00:31:35 – Concerns about Neo-Advaita in Self-Help Books
  • 00:35:20 – The Relief of Realizing Nothing Matters
  • 00:39:45 – The Fear of Death and Martyr Complex
  • 00:44:23 – Embracing Paradox in Spiritual Awareness
  • 00:47:58 – The Erosion of Language and Relationships
  • 00:51:59 – The Pitfall of the Spiritual Ego
  • 00:55:35 – The Shift into Depersonalization
  • 00:59:26 – The Value of Going through Different Phases
  • 01:03:32 – Exploring New Paradigms of Reality
  • 01:07:40 – The Illusion of Selflessness and Awakening
  • 01:11:09 – The challenge of Neo-Advaita spiritual teachings
  • 01:14:48 – The Non-permanence of Flashy Experiences and the Misunderstanding of Realization
  • 01:18:32 – Interpretations of the Ultimate Truth
  • 01:22:24 – Embracing Fear and the Process of Rebirth
  • 01:26:02 – Realization of the larger aspect of one’s nature
  • 01:29:25 – Dissolution of Physicality and Meditation Process
  • 01:32:59 – Kundalini Awakenings and the Dangers of Neo-Advaita
  • 01:36:27 – The Nothing Conference
  • 01:40:17 – The Oneness of Individuals
  • 01:43:30 – Eye Gazing and Unividuality
  • 01:47:23 – The Severe Consequences of Toxic Teachings
  • 01:50:52 – Living in Boundlessness and Boundaries
  • 01:54:18 – Subscriber Notification System

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655. Victoria Ukachukwu

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Victoria Ukachukwu, Ph.D.In 2014, I awakened to the realization that being aware is my true nature. The experience of just being aware without the identity of a person who is aware was at once exhilarating and disorienting. This simple but profound realization transformed my experience of life to one of effortless being. A wonderful result of this awakening is a lasting peace that transcends all experience. In this awakened sense of pure being, the physical body is experienced as an objective sense of being, and the mind is experienced as an objective sense of knowing. There is no longer the need for an individual identity as a person who ​is living life. There is only awareness and the experience of the objective sense of awareness in various forms of expressions. The illusion of a person being aware of objects dissolved and was replaced with a pervasive sense of joy and freedom.

Before 2014, my life was based on the story of a woman named Victoria Ukachukwu who is a trained scientist with a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and is a divorced mother of two daughters. All of my experiences derived from this core identity. Over time, this identity became very limiting and questions about God and the nature of reality began to arise. Science offered no satisfactory answers nor did the Catholic religion in which I was raised. In 2010 I discovered the teachings of non-duality. In particular, the teachings of Mooji and Rupert Spira. In 2012, I went to my first ​retreat with Rupert Spira and came away with more questions. It was not until June 2014 when I went to a second retreat with Rupert Spira that all questions dissolved with the recognition of my true nature.

Subsequently, in 2019, I discovered the timeless teaching of Joel Goldsmith which further reaffirmed and expanded my burgeoning understanding of spiritual principles that illuminate the nature of being.  In his book, The Master Speaks, Joel Goldsmith reminds us that the Truth of being is eternal regardless of how many different ways it is presented. Consciousness is the creative principle of life. Consciousness is the eternal truth of being. In my experience, being aware or Awareness Itself is our true nature and our only purpose. It is Absolute.

Victoria’s email address

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Transcript of this interview

Interview recorded July 16, 2022

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.


YouTube Video Chapters:

  • 00:00:00 – Introduction and Background
  • 00:04:36 – Growing up Catholic and questioning belief in God
  • 00:09:15 – The Bookstore Encounter and Meditation Journey
  • 00:13:21 – Being More and Doing Less
  • 00:17:29 – Discovering Rupert Spira
  • 00:22:53 – Exhilaration and a sense of being aware
  • 00:28:01 – The Nature of Being and Pure Awareness
  • 00:33:17 – The simplicity of realizing true nature
  • 00:38:09 – The Secret of Harmonious Living in the Bible
  • 00:42:54 – Unity of All Beings
  • 00:47:18 – The Presence of God and Harmony
  • 00:52:13 – The Power to Overcome
  • 00:56:56 – Right Action and Restoring Peace
  • 01:00:36 – A Near-Drowning Experience
  • 01:04:19 – The Limits of Tools and Identity
  • 01:09:59 – The Personal and Universal Self
  • 01:14:19 – The Illusion of Separation
  • 01:18:00 – The Power of Clarification
  • 01:22:25 – Elevating the Level of Consciousness
  • 01:26:48 – The Release of Identity
  • 01:31:27 – Seeking the Kingdom of God
  • 01:35:43 – The Fear of Contagion and the Vaccine
  • 01:40:34 – The Eternal Nature of Being
  • 01:45:33 – Integration and Belief Systems in Psychology
  • 01:49:39 – The Master-Student Relationship
  • 01:54:25 – Freedom from Negative Emotions
  • 01:59:15 – Addressing from a Place of Power and Compassion
  • 02:03:26 – The Two I’s and the Conscious Realization of God
  • 02:08:51 – The Power of Stillness and Self-Realization
  • 02:12:51 – Rupert’s Teachings and Intellectual Rigor
  • 02:16:23 – Farewell to the Team

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634. Anne Sweet

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Anne SweetI came across the writings of a well-known Indian guru in my early twenties and thus began a twenty-five-year odyssey that would uproot me from my normal life and see me living in ashrams and committed spiritual communities around the world. The answers I sought were not easy to find, however, and the promises made by the teachers in whom I placed my trust were rarely kept.

Exhausted and disillusioned I left my last teacher and abandoned spiritual life in 2004, and during the intense and all-consuming crisis that followed I finally realized the truth of my own unchanging nature beyond the personal identity. The questions that had haunted me for so long dissolved and I was astonished to find that all seeking had ceased. Over time the shift of identity stabilized and became normalized and permanent. Grateful and content with what I saw as a private internal matter I rarely spoke or thought about spirituality and for the next fifteen or so years focused instead on my long-neglected art career. I began to establish myself as a visual artist exhibiting firstly in the UK and later internationally. I now collaborate with my partner, scientist Dr. Jesse Shore, producing artworks as Sweet+Shore, as well as my individual work as Anne Penman Sweet.

About eighteen months ago I confided in my friend, author, and researcher Amir Freimann about what had happened and he immediately invited me to participate in his research project Living Transcendence: a Phenomenological Study of Spiritual Exemplars. I was very surprised as I had no sense of knowing anything or of having arrived anywhere in particular. However, over the course of a dozen or more formal interviews skillfully conducted by him, I experienced an outpouring of spiritual insights and understandings that I had no idea I contained. It was revelatory and transformative and since then I have spoken freely and publicly about these matters.

Not long after, I started to feel a deep inner prompting to begin sharing what I had learned and understood, not as a teacher but as a friend and advisor. I created the End of Seeking website as a free resource to help simplify and demystify the spiritual search for others and to give seekers the tools and knowledge they may need to independently navigate the often confusing and at times hazardous terrain of the contemporary spiritual marketplace.

I am currently working on a book of spiritual insights illustrated with Sweet+Shore artworks which I hope to publish by the end of the year.

Key life points:

  • Born in the UK, raised in Perth, Western Australia
  • Studied Fine Art at Claremont Technical School of Art (Perth), Saint Martin’s School of Art (University of the Arts) London
  • 1978 disciple of Osho (Rajneesh) for next 15 years including 4 years living in India at the ashram and at the Ranch in Oregon for the final year as it was imploding
  • Spontaneous channeling began after the Ranch and became a full-time channeler for 2-3 years.
  • Studied with Barry Long in Australia for 3 years
  • 1996 became a committed student of Andrew Cohen, living in his London and US communities for 8 years.
  • 2000-present: exhibiting internationally as a visual artist (painter)
  • Left Andrew Cohen in 2004 and spent time with Lee Lozowick and his community.
  • 2004 Shift of perspective to Self-knowledge/Natural State
  • 2020 began speaking more publicly about my experience/understanding after participating in Amir Freimann’s study Living Transcendence: a Phenomenological Study of Spiritual Exemplars.
  • 2021 created The End of Seeking website and began compiling a book of artworks and spiritual insight and inspiration.

Website: theendofseeking.org

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Transcript of this interview.

Recorded February 12, 2022

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.

YouTube Video Chapters:

  • 00:04:46 – The Beginning
  • 00:16:42 – Cautionary Note on Opening Ourselves Up
  • 00:20:53 – Severe Consequences of Authenticity
  • 00:24:55 – Leaving the Scene and Moving On
  • 00:29:28 – Finding Stability through Meditation
  • 00:34:10 – Choosing Transformation over Seeking
  • 00:38:02 – Rediscovering Spiritual Truths
  • 00:42:01 – Discovering My Understanding
  • 00:46:22 – The Awakening
  • 00:50:19 – The Importance of Enlightenment and Self-Examination
  • 00:54:58 – Responsibility and Vulnerability in the Teacher Role
  • 00:59:24 – The Emergence of Peer-to-Peer Spirituality
  • 01:03:34 – New Approaches to Enlightenment and Psychoactive Drugs
  • 01:20:25 – The Contextualization of Experience and the Limitations of Vedanta
  • 01:24:45 – The Definition and Evolution of Enlightenment
  • 01:29:27 – Exploring Further Dimensions
  • 01:33:51 – Equanimity and Inner Fullness
  • 01:37:53 – Dissolution of the Self
  • 01:42:31 – Embracing Pain and Suffering
  • 01:46:59 – The Writing Process and Learning through Expression
  • 01:50:51 – Still Learning and Discovering
  • 01:54:53 – Understanding Creation and Divinity
  • 01:59:08 – The Importance of Ethics in Spiritual Teaching
  • 02:02:56 – Contacting Anne Sweet and Getting in Touch for Questions

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