ACFIP Newsletter
Issue 44 - March 2015
Quarterly Newsletter of the Australian Centre for Inner
Peace
Michael
Dawson
PO Box
125, Point Lookout
North
Stradbroke Island,
Queensland
4183,
Australia
If
your email address ends with .au I put your address on my
Australian list for advance notice of workshops I am giving in
Australia. If you do not want to be on this list please let me
know. If you reside in Australia and want to be on this list,
but you address does not end in .au, please email me and I will
include it.
If you
are new to the Course you might find my summaries of help.
New
Inspired
by A Course in Miracles.
This
is the eBook version of the paper back.
New
book in eBook format
Inspired
by A Course in Miracles
This
is the eBook version of the paper back.
The
eBook versions can be read on Kindle, iPad, Microsoft
eReader, Nook, PDF readers (Mac and PC) and most eBook readers.
¥
Downloadable MP3s of my Healing the Cause self-help
CDs now available.
See
below for details.
Regards
Michael
Dawson
______________________________________________________
CONTENTS:
* Healing
Others Part 3 of 3 - Michael Dawson
*
Story of Awakening - Enza Vita
* Now
ThatÕs Zen - Interview with Adyashanti
* What
You Can Do to Wake Up: Not This - Jan Frazier
*
Waking Up - Wu Hsin
*
Workshops
*
Books and Audio Materials for Sale
*
Links
*
Inspirational Quotations
Chapter 7 - Healing Others
- Part 3 of 3
The Healed and the Unhealed
Healer - Part 2 of 2
5a. The Unhealed Healer: "My
client is an innocent victim of circumstances beyond his
control."
Listen to what the ego says, and
see what it directs you to see, and it is sure that you will
see yourself as tiny, vulnerable and afraid. You will
experience depression, a sense of worthlessness, and feelings
of impermanence and unreality. You will believe that you are
helpless prey to forces far beyond your own control, and far
more powerful than you.
(T425; T-21.V.2:2-5)
The unhealed healer is motivated by
his ego and as such must believe in its counsel. Central to his
thought system is that we are victims of circumstances Ôout
thereÕ in the world. What the unhealed healer believes about
himself he will also believe about his client and thus reinforce
his clientÕs consciousness. As the whole aim of true healing is
to undo the clientÕs belief that circumstances and people can
harm him, the unhealed healer only makes the clientÕs illusion
stronger.
5b. The Healed Healer: "There
are no victims. We all choose the events in our lives and how we
want to react to them."
It is impossible that the Son of
God be merely driven by events outside of him. It is
impossible that happenings that come to him were not his
choice. His power of decision is the determiner of every
situation in which he seems to find himself by chance or
accident.
(T418; T-21.II.3:1-3)
The healed healer is aware that we
all write the scripts of our lives, even though few of us are
consciously aware of this or want to believe it. Our first
choice was to be born on this planet because we believed
happiness lay outside ourself. We all hope to find peace and
happiness in the forms of this world. All that occurs in our
lives is not by accident, for on some level we have chosen
it.
When a particular event occurs, it
is neutral in itself. We then choose how to see it, either
through the eyes of the ego or those of the Holy Spirit. Our ego
will either be attracted or repelled by the event, whilst the
Holy Spirit will see it as another opportunity to learn
forgiveness and move closer to God. It is not, however, a
healing approach if, when someone shares with you some pain they
are experiencing, you begin telling them that they have created
this for themself and their pain is only due to separation from
God. If you open to the Holy Spirit, He will guide you to be
with the person where they believe they are and to work with
correcting the error on the level where it is thought to
be.
Jesus states, "I was a man who
remembered spirit and its knowledge. As a man I did not attempt
to counteract error with knowledge, but to correct error from
the bottom up." (T39; T-3.IV.7:3-4) Thus Jesus met people on
their own level and listened to their problems, even though he
knew they were all illusory. He spoke to them in parables so
that they could understand something of his truth.
Healing, like forgiveness and
prayer, is a process. If a client is in great distress because
their child has been raped and murdered, the process of healing
will normally be a long one. The lesson in forgiveness is
obviously powerful and must proceed in stages. Hopefully, the
time will come when the client can perceive the fear in the
murderer as the same fear he himself carries and that both need
to open to receiving GodÕs love. As he learns to forgive the
murderer, so he learns to forgive himself and take another step
on the path back to God.
Many of us believe that our
problems originate in our early upbringing and the way we were
treated by our mother or father. At the end of the healing
journey, we will come to realise that all our problems stem from
our fearful concept of our Parent in Heaven. When we at last
heal this misperception and discover the totally loving and
accepting Father waiting for us all, the need for healers will
disappear.
6a. The Unhealed Healer: "I
have pity for the pain you are suffering."
To empathise does not mean to
join in suffering, for that is what you must refuse to
understand. That is the egoÕs interpretation of empathy, and
is always used to form a special relationship in which
suffering is shared . . . The clearest proof that empathy as
the ego uses it is destructive lies in the fact that it is
applied only to certain types of problems and in certain
people. These it selects out, and joins with. And it never
joins except to strengthen itself.
(T307; T-16.I.1:1-2, 2:1-3)
The moment we take sides in any
situation, the ego is in control. Victims and victimisers are
both in a state of fear and both are asking for love. To
empathise with the victim consciousness in another is to
reinforce it in yourself as well. The client will feel justified
in feeling a victim if pity or sympathy is shown by the
therapist and the opportunity to forgive will be lost. Now the
focus will shift to ÔforgivingÕ the enemy Ôout thereÕ in the
world Ñ what Jesus calls Ôforgiveness-to-destroyÕ.
Driven by the wrong motives and
relying on his own ego strength, the unhealed healer often
suffers from exhaustion or burnout. Some of the main reasons for
this are:
- Attachment to
results.
- Thinking that he is
the healer.
- Believing the
client has no inner strength of his own and is therefore
reliant on the healer.
- Finding it hard to
forgive himself for his own imperfections and judgements
because of the superior position he puts himself in.
- Needing to be
needed.
- Not stating his own
needs.
- Difficulty in
saying no to peopleÕs requests.
- Trying to heal the
problem at the symptom level Ñ Ôout thereÕ in the world.
- Forgetting to turn
to the Holy Spirit for help.
6b. The Healed Healer: "I
acknowledge your pain and I empathise with the strength in you.
My loving presence reminds you that the light of Christ is
within you and that you can choose again."
Yet of this you may be sure; if
you will merely sit quietly by and let the Holy Spirit relate
through you, you will empathise with strength, and will gain
in strength and not weakness.
(T307; T-16.I.2:7)
The healed healer works on two
levels. He accepts the client where he is in his process but
knows that he is not the ego that the client believes himself to
be. As the healer recognises the Holy Spirit in himself, he must
also see it in his client and this is what he empathises with.
The healer does not commiserate with his client. The healer does
not try to rationalise with the client or persuade him to change
his mind about having chosen sickness. The client is unaware
that he has chosen sickness and believes that he is a victim of
his bodyÕs weakness.
On this issue the Course comments,
"They have no idea how insane this concept is. If they even
suspected it, they would be healed, yet they suspect nothing. To
them the separation is quite real." (M18; M-5.III.1:10-12) This
quotation is taken from a section in the Manual for
Teachers entitled ÔThe Function of the Teacher of
GodÕ. We are reminded here that it is the peaceful, loving and
accepting presence of a teacher of God which can provide the
opportunity for the client to change his mind and choose
forgiveness instead of attack.
The client is aware on some level
that his pain does not disturb the healer. He is aware that the
healer is seeing something else in him, other than his ego. It
is the presence of the healed healer which gives the client an
opportunity to know himself in another light, to let go of the
past and open himself up to his true reality.
The only meaningful contribution
the healer can make is to present an example of one whose
direction has been changed for him, and who no longer believes
in nightmares of any kind. The light in his mind will
therefore answer the questioner, who must decide with God that
there is light because he sees it.
(T160; T-9.V.7:4-5)
The healerÕs true function is to
act as a reminder of another way of being, providing the client
with an example of someone who believes in the reality of the
Holy Spirit and not the ego. It is not the techniques the healer
uses which bring about healing. As quoted earlier, "It is not
their hands that heal. It is not their voice that speaks the
word of God. They merely give what has been given them." (M18;
M-5.III.2:8-10)
The Bible tells us that Jesus used
his hands to heal and even his own spittle. He knew, however,
that the people associated the laying on of hands with healing
and believed that spittle contained healing power. He conformed
to their needs and expectations by using their belief systems
for their benefit. But it was his loving and gentle presence
that reminded them they could choose to forgive and regain peace
of mind instead of listening to the egoÕs counsel of separation,
attack and sickness. Nor would the apparent severity of an
illness concern Jesus, for he knew that all illness served the
same purpose of making the egoÕs thought system real. If Jesus
had thought that some diseases were more difficult to heal than
others, he would be agreeing with the ego that there is a
hierarchy of problems in this world. (See ÔThe Laws of ChaosÕ in
Chapter 23 of the Text.)
In every situation where Jesus was
asked for healing, irrespective of the seeming seriousness of
the disease, he would know he had only one task to perform Ñ to
dispel the illusion in the sick personÕs mind that he is
separate from God and to show him that God still loves him and
he is still as God created him.
As we tread the path of
forgiveness, the light of the Holy Spirit will light up our mind
as it did with Jesus and we shall extend it into the minds of
others. It is that light, if it is accepted, that will heal
others. When the ego is gone, only the Holy Spirit will remain
in our mind to bless all whom we meet. The function of the
decision maker will also disappear and we shall be guided moment
by moment in what to say and do. The effort and confusion of
choice will be replaced by the peace, joy and certainty of God
and we shall know that we have been healed.
Forget not that the healing of
GodÕs Son is all the world is for. That is the only purpose
the Holy Spirit sees in it, and thus the only one it
has.
(T476; T-24.VI.4:1-2)
_____________________________________________________
Always Already Free - Enza
Vita
Awakening can happen spontaneously
under any circumstance. For Enza Vita of southern Australia, the
illusion of a separate self fell away at a meditation retreat,
revealing an infinite sky of unshakable awareness . . .
As the story goes . . .
It was the last day of a meditation
retreat, and for a few days I had been unable to sleep as a
familiar wave of energy ran up and down my body. It felt as if I was
plugged in to an immense source of energy. Even though I
was functioning on very little sleep, I awakened that morning
feeling good.
The bell rang, announcing the first
meditation session of the day. I sat on a chair at the
back of the meditation hall and took a deep breath in and
out. I let myself relax into the cushion while being
careful to maintain an alert presence.
Over the previous few months I had
been working at maintaining a balance between relaxation and
360-degree openness all around, while at the same time being
alertly aware. Too much relaxation and I would fall
asleep; too much alertness and I would become agitated.
After a few minutes into the
session, a huge rush of energy began rising within the center of
my body. The feeling was so incredibly powerful it
frightened me. My gut reaction was to open my eyes, and I
looked toward the meditation teacher. I could recognize
her facial features, but I had to focus hard to keep her face
from floating away. I closed my eyes again, trying to
settle with the energy that was now shaking my body. Then
a thought floated by in consciousness: ÒWhat is perceiving
this?Ó
Eyes still closed, I sensed a
movement arising from a vast bottomless chasm, and as I began to
focus my attention on it, it appeared as though I was looking
into a reflective surface. A shiver of horror went down my
spine as I realized that what I was seeing was actually myself
moving. Not the self I was familiar with, but something so
infinitely vast, totally unexpected, infinitely unimaginable,
and so utterly terrifying that my mind gave up. I
disappeared into a nothingness with no-thing in it. No
forms, no sounds, no thoughts, and no selfÑjust absolute
nothingness and pure potentiality.
The next thing I was aware of was
the bell signaling the end of the sitting meditation and the
beginning of the walking meditation. I found it difficult
to comprehend anything. I couldnÕt remember my name or who
I was. I got up and went outside. The world appeared
different. The trees shimmered vibrantly in iridescent
hues. There was an incredible three-dimensional quality to
my surroundings. Everything was extremely clear and had a
sense of immediacy. Every little thing was alive and
present. At this point, I laughed out loud, overtaken by
joy.
My joy turned to awe as in my
consciousness I began to sense a breathtaking presence.
It was incredibly vast, bright, and alive, but also personal,
intimate, and intense, radiating pure love everywhere. It
was harmonious. It was infinite.
It was unimaginable. It was perfect.
Another meditator approached and
asked me about a salad she was preparing. Without any
effort, the answer rolled off my tongue. To my surprise,
she didnÕt notice anything different about me. To her I
still appeared to be a normal and logical woman, even though I
still could not recall my own name. I found this so funny
I had to keep myself from laughing out aloud. I didnÕt
feel ready to give a reason for my sudden bout of laughter,
because I was not sure she would understand.
Gradually the experience subsided,
and by nightfall I was back to normal reality again, back in
name and identification. In my bed that night, I reflected
on my experience.
While I felt indescribable
gratitude for it, I sensed that the experience IÕd just had was
not complete. If it had ended, it could not have been the
Òreal thing.Ó I knew that there was still something that I
wasnÕt fully seeing.
Since I was a child, I had had many
spiritual experiences like this, and they all had a beginning, a
middle, and an end. They were always about ÒmeÓ having ÒmyÓ
experience. I intuitively knew that what I was looking for
was not only before and beyond time and space, but also before
and beyond any ideas of self.
Effortless fruit . . .
The next day I woke up feeling very
sick, and for a month I lay in bed too weak to move. Then,
as suddenly as it had come, the sickness left and I decided to
go out for a bit of fresh air. I was walking down the
street when suddenly I realized I was not existing in the
individual shell that had once encased my personality so
tightly. The person IÕd once thought of as me, rigidly
held together and kept separate from other individual
existences, had melted into something indescribable, an infinite
space containing everything and giving rise to everything.
I was that space, I was everything in it, and I was the
awareness of it, yet the space and what appeared within the
space were not Òtwo.Ó Since there was no line to
distinguish between ÒmyÓ awareness and the images I saw, I
realized that this experience was not happening to a personal
self. Both appearances were simply in and of awareness,
and whatever perceived this was awareness itself.
Everything appeared very normal,
very ordinary, and yet something was different. I was
not having thoughts; I was the one who contained the
thoughts. The same was true for all appearances,
including emotions, states, sensations, and experiences.
Everything was appearing and disappearing within the space that
I am. There were no boundaries or borders.
I was everywhere and everythingÑthe
mid-afternoon sky, the sound of my boots hitting the footpath,
and the chewing gum sticking to them. I was every blade of
grass, every tree, and every leaf on that tree. I was
every bird that flew across the sky, every slab of concrete I
walked on, and the rubbish bin waiting to be collected.
I was also the body-mind called
EnzaÑall of itÑbody, sensations, feelings, and thoughts.
As Enza I was walking in the sun, basking in it, but I was also
the sun offering light to everything and bathing itself.
And I saw the truth that this
awareness had actually always been here. Right here, in
what was my ordinary life, I had always been this, and this ÒmeÓ
included not only infinite space but also everything in the
past, everything in the future, and all of time.
Amazingly, I had never before noticed this infinite space of my
ÒordinaryÓ self, because by searching for the magnificent and
the exciting, I had continuously overlooked it.
What, then, was left? Just the flow
of life, as it appeared, without the overlay of Òstates.Ó
States were still experienced, but only as within this
wholeness, as an aspect of wholeness.
Unknown grace . . .
At first I avoided speaking about
this to anyone, having decided that I was not going to share my
Òexperience.Ó At the time it seemed better to keep quiet,
partly because I believed I would not be able to fully
communicate it, and partly because the history of the entity I
had believed to be me was one of not wanting to do anything that
made her overly visible.
If I were to start talking about
this, it was bound to happen that others would project their
notions onto me. I knew that I may be met with skepticism,
and that some would question my intentions, that I was doing it
for the money or the fame, or that I wanted to be a guru.
But slowly, as the stronghold on this mind-generated identity
started to loosen its grip, I became more willing to do whatever
life wanted of me, including the writing of a book if it could
help others to recognize their true nature as that which is
always and already, completely and naturally FREE.
© Enza Vita, 2012
Enza Vita was born in a small
village in Sicily, and emigrated to Australia on her own at the
age of seventeen. From a young age she questioned
everything around her, constantly seeking out the point and
purpose of our life here on earth. Her search eventually
brought her to her work in the consciousness community where she
became a leader in the personal development movement in
Australia, working as editor for Woman Spirit and Health and
Wellbeing magazines in the 90Õs, and as co-editor of Innerself
Newspaper for the last nine years.
EnzaÕs outer work always reflected
her inner journey É one immersed in contemplation, self-inquiry,
and spiritual deepening and awakening. Culminating in a
profound spiritual realization in 2007, all her lifeÕs work came
into a clear, sharp focus as she began to write and answer
questions for those who came to her, which eventually came to be
her soon to be released book, Always Already Free Ð What
is Enlightenment and What Does It Matter Anyway?
Written in a direct, no-holds-barred manner, EnzaÕs teaching
style cuts smoothly to the heart of every question, offering
clarity and precision with every response.
Enza Vita, founder and director of the MahaShanti
Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the awakening
of all beings, was born in a small village in Sicily. From a
young age she questioned everything around her, constantly
seeking out the point and purpose of our life here on earth. Her
search brought her to emigrate to Australia on her own at the
age of seventeen and led to her work in the consciousness
community as editor for glossy magazines Woman Spirit and Health
& Wellbeing in the 90Õs, and as co-editor of the newspaper
Innerself for the last 12 years. Through her job, she was
blessed with the opportunity to meet and study under many of the
great spiritual teachers of our age and she was exposed to the
wonderful writings of many others around the world. Culminating
in a profound spiritual realization in 2007, she began to write
and answer questions for those who came to her É which
eventually became her soon to be released book Always Already
Free. Based on EnzaÕs own experience, Always Already Free,
guides the reader from the seeking process through the
integration of enlightenment into everyday life and reveals that
spiritual enlightenment is not a faraway dream, but the
ever-present reality always available here and now.
_____________________________________________________
Now ThatÕs Zen
Interview with Adyashanti
Reproduced with permission from:
This is part 1 of a two-part series.
Episode
Description:
WeÕre
joined by spiritual teacher Adyashanti to discuss his 15 years
of training with Zen teacher Arvis Joen Justi. He shares details
from his initial awakening at 25Ðwhere he realized that he was
what he was seekingÐto the end of the search several years later
at 31. ItÕs at that point that Arvis asked Adyashanti to begin
teaching, and as he shares with us, his teaching evolved and
changed fairly quickly. He shares how it changed, and how he saw
it as a natural evolution of his Zen training, rather than an
entirely new form.
Transcript:
Vince: Hello
Buddhist Geeks, this is Vince Horn and IÕm joined today over the
interweb with spiritual teacher, Adyashanti. Adya, thank you so
much for taking the time to speak with me. I really appreciate
your time and looking forward to this discussion a lot.
Adyashanti: Oh,
youÕre welcome, Vince. IÕm really, really happy to be here with
you.
Vince: Yeah,
and I figured for most people theyÕve probably heard of you if
theyÕve been in the kind of dharma world. You have a lot of
really amazing books out and some audio material through Sounds
True. And you have different articles that have appeared in some
of the various Buddhist publications, so I have a feeling a lot
of people have a sense of your background. But if they donÕt,
weÕre going to sorta explore that together too.
And I
thought maybe the best way to do that to start with is to speak
with you about your history as a Buddhist practitioner, and now
youÕre teaching as a non-aligned spiritual teacher. As I
understand it you spent 14 years with a Zen teacher in
California. Is that right?
Adyashanti: Yeah,
I spent 15 years with a Zen teacher in California. A very little
known Zen teacher. Her name was Arvis. She retired about four or
five years ago. And I got her nameÐthis is going back when I was
20 years oldÐso that was 27 years go. I got her name out of the
back of a book that Ram Dass had written. And sure enough, she
was within 15 minutes of where I was born and raised. And I was
thrilled to find a Zen teacher, and to think that there was one
so close. So I called up and the next thing I knew I was at her
home because thatÕs where she taught from. She had herself
studied with a lot of the early Zen teachers that came here from
Japan, like Soen and Yasatani and others as well. Her last
teacher was, pardon me for forgetting his name, he was the one
who ran L.A. Zen Center, Maezumi.
Vince: Maezumi,
yeah.
Adyashanti: Yeah,
Maezumi was her sort of last teacher and he used to actually
come to her house. Again, this is going back almost 30 years, or
probably 30 years ago if not more. So there was very little Zen
and it wasnÕt as accessible as it is now. So he used to go there
and do retreats at her house in Los Gatos. And after years of
doing that and her being with him, one day he just said, ÒYou
know, you should do this. You should teach. You donÕt need me
here anymore to teach.Ó So she started to teach. And she taught
out of her house. She had robes and she used to wear robes, but
long ago before I got to her she had put her robes away, and
just had decided she didnÕt want to start a center or a temple,
or any of those kinds of forms. And so she just did it in a very
sort of very quiet way. She was a very sort of quiet, hidden Zen
teacher you might say, right in my backyard.
Vince: Wow,
thatÕs great. That sounds like a great find.
Adyashanti: Yeah,
it was for me. It was a really fantastic find. Admittedly when I
was a young kid, 20 years old or so at the time, and I was
attracted because I had read some books on Zen. So I had this
sort of mystical kind of idea of what it was going be like. I
had created visions of sort of you know, misty topped mountains
and Zen temples hidden away, and people in their robes and all
that kind of thing that you kind of imagine, when your
imagination gets away with you.
So
when I first showed up there and it ended up being in a house in
Los Gatos. I was of course quite surprised and it took me a
couple of years to kind of get beyond the imagination of what I
thought it should look like. And it took me a couple of years to
really realize what was really going on there with her. That
even though it looked quite ordinary, there was something quite
profound and beautiful that she was offering and that she really
was, that she really embodied. She just did it in a very
ordinary looking package, you might say.
Vince: And
I understand that you also, in addition to studying with her,
you were doing retreats and things with some other Zen teachers.
Is that true?
Adyashanti: Yeah,
well I told her I wanted to do one of these retreats that I had
read about at the time, you know, a typical Zen Sesshin. She
would do short retreats or weÕd do all day sittings and have
private interviews with her and stuff. But I wanted to go to one
of these Zen Sesshins that I had read about.
So she
said well, thereÕs this guy up in Sonoma, Sonoma Mountain Zen
Center, Bill Kwong. She says, ÒI met him once and I really had a
good feel about him. I think he might really be a good person
for you to go and do a retreat with.Ó A few months after that I
found myself up at Sonoma Mountain Zen Center doing a retreat
with Kwong and I did retreats with him probably, I would do one
or two a year for probably seven or eight years, something like
that, maybe longer. But when I did my kind of weekly, I would
see Arvis almost every week. Every Sunday morning, I would be at
her home with anywhere from 8 to 15 others.
Vince: It
sounded like when I saw you writing about this time, it sounded
like youÕre really pretty hardcore about it, too, like you were
really into it.
Adyashanti: Yeah.
Looking back on it, it was almost like kind of mysterious how I
just read, literally, read the word enlightenment in a book, and
it lit something inside of me. I didnÕt know what the word
meant, I didnÕt know where it was leading to, but it literally
just sort of lit something inside of me.
It was
almost like, I like to explain it like almost catching a
disease. This incredibly powerful seeking disease, I just have
to find out what this thing called enlightenment is. I didnÕt
really have any reason why I had to find out. My spiritual
search, I think unlike a lot of people, wasnÕt motivated by
suffering, by angst, or by grief or I think a lot of the
emotions that are part of really what fuel peopleÕs spiritual
search. I mean, there was probably some of that going on
unconsciously. But, for the most part, it was just, ÒI have to
find out what this enlightenment thing is.Ó
It was
literally like one day I was going around just being a regular
guy, and the next day, it was like a light switch turned on. I
distinctly remember getting up out of bed one morning, and I
just knew, I was sort of struck with this little realization. I
just thought to myself, ÒMy life has completely changed.Ó
Whatever direction I thought it was going in, itÕs completely
altered, and it was about something else entirely. I didnÕt even
know what that was going to be. My life was no longer sort of in
my control, you might say. if that makes sense. This sort of
spiritual-seeking thing took over my life from one day to the
next.
Vince: And
it sounds like, after a long time of training and doing a bunch
of stuff, that you sort of had a resolution to that original
disease. Like the disease kind of ran its course and you felt
like there was sort of an awakening or a resolution of that. At
that point you, as I understand it, sort of decided not to teach
within the Zen tradition?
Adyashanti: That
actually came later. The first sort of shift that I had,
whatever one wants to call that shift, was when I was 25. That
shift really kind of brought an end to the seeking energy. In a
certain sense, what I realized was that, at least the way I had
it hooked up in my mind at that time, was I am what IÕm seeking.
So, all of a sudden, the seeking didnÕt make any sense anymore.
What I was seeking was something that IÕd no longer saw as
separate from me. I would love to say that that was the end of
my spiritual search. It was sort of the end of the seeking, but
it wasnÕt the end of the search, I know thatÕs paradoxical.
But
really, I kept very much in the tradition and very much seeking
externally, but internally, it wasnÕt looking for something
outside of myself. Actually, what I was trying to do was clarify
that experience that happened when I was 25. There was a very
powerful shift and I knew that I was what I was seeking, but
there was something about it that I wasnÕt completely clear on.
I knew it wasnÕt clarified, I knew it wasnÕt finished. So,
thatÕs really what I was looking at. Like, almost a koan, a
spontaneous question that arose in my mind is: I know that I am
this Ð I didnÕt have a name for it Ð I know that IÕm this, but I
donÕt know what this is. That was kind of the next form that it
took. I chewed on that for another six to seven years.
Vince: Was
there a senseÉ? I get the sense that what youÕre saying happened
at 25 is sort of a kindle like what they would ÒkenshoÓ or like
an initial awakening of some sort.
Adyashanti: Yes.
Yeah, IÕd pushed myself to the edge of insanity, and at the
moment, I kind of gave up. The moment I was defeated is when
everything opened up. Yeah, it was an initial opening, an
initial kensho, I guess you would say. The thing that really
stuck with me is that I was removed all fear, which kind of a
strange thing to happen, to remove all the fear out of a
25-year-old male. Do you know?
Vince: I
do, IÕm 26 now. [Laughs]
Adyashanti: Yes.
You remove all the fear and itÕs like youÕre half clear or half
spiritually awake. ItÕs that other half, without any fear, to
kind of hold it in check that was kind of a little bit of a wild
ride for the next four or five years. As I guess you would say
spiritually speaking I sort of worked through some sort of deep
karmic patterns the kind that had to work themselves out, but it
wasnÕt just all going happen on a cushion. I kinda had to get
out there and actually do some of this stuff to burn it out of
my system, I guess you might say.
Vince: And
the culmination I guess of that is what you talk about later in
your early 30s?
Adyashanti: Yeah,
yeah.
Vince: Yeah,
and is that the point at which you sort of felt like a movement
away from the Zen tradition toward something novel or something
new?
Adyashanti: You
know, the odd thing was I never really had that feeling. That
was never a decision. It wasnÕt something I planned on. You
know, at some point after that my teacher then asked me to start
teaching, and so I did. And when I started it looked just like
what I was used to. In fact, I used to carry around the zafus
and the zobutons, the sitting cushions, and I used to wear my
robes that I had. And we would do meditation and I would do very
short talks. And weÕd do walking meditation and sort of very
traditional Zen form, even though I didnÕt have like a temple
and I wasnÕt a priest or anything. But I used those forms, and
the thing was, it just sort of started to evolve. And what I
found when I would do a talk, like a short talk, maybe 10-15
minute talk, and then IÕd see if anybody had any questions. And
what I realized was I could help people work through what they
were going through when we would dialogue together. I figured we
could find resolution in dialogue to something that they might,
that they mightÕve been working on on their cushion for three or
four years. Then they could suddenly have some sort of
resolution, some real shift out of it, and I thought Òwow, this
is really fascinating.Ó
And so
over time I just made a little more room for the talks, and the
question and answer. And that kind of got a little longer and a
little longer, and there was a little less sitting, although
thereÕs always been some silence, some quiet time to sit before
I do any teaching. And it just sort of happened very naturally I
guess you might say. In fact, it was a little unsettling to me
at the beginning because as time went on, and I was doing more
and more of this sort of a different style, I would go back to
my teacher and say, ÒI think you might want to come and see what
IÕm doing. Because itÕs evolving and itÕs something quite
different than you were doing.Ó
And
she would just say, ÒLook, I trust you. Just go ahead and do it,
itÕs all fine.Ó Of course IÕd tell her what I was doing and
sheÕd say it was all fine. It was sort of like one of these
jokes you know, where like every joke on the third time
something happens. You know, like itÕs always 1, 2, 3 then the
punch line. This wasnÕt a joke, but I went to her once, she said
I trust you, just do it. Maybe a month or two later I went back
to her again, and I said I think you might really want to check
this out. Because I had a great respect for her and I didnÕt
want to be doing anything that wouldÉ I wanted her to take a
look at it, make sure I wasnÕt going astray.
Vince: Right.
Adyashanti: Because
I really had a lot of respect for her and I knew that anybody
can go astray. And the third time I went back to her and
suggested she might want to come see what I was doing, she shook
her finger right in front of my nose and she said quite sternly,
ÒI thought I told you that itÕs Ok, and I donÕt ever want to
hear you ask that question again.Ó
Vince: Wow.
Adyashanti: And
she was rarely that stern with anybody. So it energetically, it
felt like she kind of got a knife out and cut a cord that I was
holding onto. Kind of like being kicked out of the nest
entirely. DonÕt ever come back.
Curiously
enough, a few weeks later she did show up and I was teaching on
a Wednesday night. It was a Wednesday night, it was just a few
days before I was going to start doing the first retreat that I
ever taught. So the people who showed up on that Wednesday
night, almost all of them were gonna be going on the retreat
with me that weekend. The atmosphere was really very
chargedÉvery, very charged and powerful.
And at
that time I was still sitting on the meditation cushion when I
would give my talks. And I was sitting there and I was giving a
talk, then I did question and answers. And my aunt, my aunt had
started to come see me, my aunt who was probably 60 at the time.
She raised her hand and she asked me a question and we
dialogued. And before I knew it, she just burst into tears. The
kind of tears that are between laughter and sadness. She burst
into tears, ran up from the back of the room, up to me. Put her
head in my lap and just was sobbing, and so I put my hand on her
head and I was kind of just being with her. And she just kept
sobbing, and sobbing, and sobbing. And all of the sudden I
understood. I was like, ÒOh, sheÕs not gonna stop doing this.Ó
So I just rested my hand gently on her head and we went on.
I
asked the next question. And the very next question someone was
talking and they had some insight during that and they started
hysterically laughing uncontrollably for about 10-15 minutes.
And so went the evening, very sort of unusually charged,
powerful evening. And there was my teacher at the back of the
room. This wonderful lady who had trainedÐvery, very traditional
Zen teacher in many ways in what she was exposed toÐand I
remember thinking when the evening, wow, I wonder what sheÕs
going make of this. I can still visualize her as people were
sort of starting to leave the room. I saw her on the far side of
the room and she was just looking at me, not giving anything
away on her face. And when the last person left the room she
just walked up to me, and she put that finger right in my face
again and shook it in my face, and said, ÒNow thatÕs Zen.Ó And
you can imagine the great relief I felt.
Vince: Wow.
Adyashanti: Great
relief. And then she told me about her experience of some of
these early Zen masters, Yasatani and Soen and some others. And
how sort of dynamic and alive those retreats were, and how
people would just spontaneously start crying or laughing. She
said people had a lot of insights and there was a lot of
breakthroughs. And what she saw was, as Zen kind of got more and
more stable in this country, what she thought was a lot of that
dynamic quality started to sort of disappear. And it became just
about sitting quietly, and hush hush, donÕt laugh, donÕt cry,
donÕt disturb anybody. Just sit still. And she had said you
know, we did a lot of silent sitting with those early teachers,
but it was really dynamic and reminded her of that. So of course
I felt really quite good about that even though the form that I
was teaching was evolving and changing.
Vince: Yeah.
Adyashanti: So
maybe that gives you a sense of from the outside it might look
like Ok, this guy sort of made a conscious decision not to use
all the traditional forms, but it just sort of evolved. It was
very natural. There was no decision about it.
Vince: Yeah,
it sounds like from the inside there was just this natural
evolution toward doing whatever works.
Adyashanti: You
know that was the phrase I was going say because I literally had
that in my mind like a mantra constantly the first probably four
or five years that I taught, was what works? What really works?
And as far as I was concerned, everything was up for
investigation. Everything could be questioned no matter how old
the form. Whether it was something I was doing or not, I was
really, really interested in what works. I thought thatÕs the
bottom line.
Because
of course I wasnÕt like a priest and I didnÕt have a temple, so
of course my aim was not necessarily to carry on the tradition,
as such. Like a priest, that would be part of their mission.
Someone that has a temple, that would be part of their mission
and rightly so to sort of carry on the tradition of it. I was
always interested in the awakening part of it. From the very
beginning and that kind of informed me when I started to teach
too. That was the piece of the puzzle that I was really the most
interested in.
Part
2 in the June 2015 Newsletter
_____________________________________________________
What You Can Do to Wake Up: Not This - Jan Frazier
Reprinted with permission from Jan Frazier
The
longing to become free of suffering, to rest in peaceful
well-being, gives rise to various approaches, not all of which
bear fruit. Here are three common ones:
- Work on the familiar self, in the
hope that it will improve all the way to awakening
- Pursue a heightened experience or
state
- Master spiritual ideas and
terminology (equating mental understanding with visceral
knowing)
All of
these approaches are misguided. They are undertaken by the ego,
aimed at improving itself. As if the ego could be
perfected.
If so
much of what passes for spiritual work is wheel-spinning, what
might a person profitably focus on instead?
The
seed of fruitful effort lies in the question What am
I? When everything changes, the answer to that
question is different from what it was before. Not the
intellectually known answer but the one that comes viscerally.
You literally no longer experience what you are the
way you used to.
What
you wake up to is that you are not (and never were) your ego.
The problem is not that your ego suffers; itÕs that you
mistake it for what you are.
(In
case youÕre telling yourself that you already ÒknowÓ you arenÕt
your ego, please realize this is probably a mental
knowing Ð and not all that transformative, as you may
have noticed. Only bodied knowing indicates real change. When
the change in perspective has occurred, you experience yourself
differently.)
When
you look back to before, you will see (such a
revelation!) that what you once absolutely believed to be you was
just a hodgepodge of memories, conditioning, personality,
physical features, stories, ideas and beliefs, and fleeting
emotional states. All of it one big unwieldy blob, having
enormous weight and stickiness and emitting a foul odor.
This blob was carried along in the suitcase of your mind through
every adventure, as if without it all, you would cease to be.
It
sure did seem like what you really were. Now,
relieved of it, you can hardly believe you once invested it with
reality, exhausting yourself trying to make the thing workable
and impressive.
After
everything changes, really just one thing has
changed: your sense of identity has shifted from all of that to
something else. The blob-filled suitcase has been abandoned by
the side of the road. The something else is not as easy to
describe as the prior mess, where the familiar satisfaction and
suffering have flourished.
ItÕs
easier to portray the after by saying whatÕs
missing. Time no longer feels real to you. It doesnÕt occur to
you to resist, or to make up a story about anything. YouÕve
stopped grousing. No matter what, youÕre content. Since all of
that other stuff about ÒyouÓ no longer has substance, you Ð the
newly-experienced you Ð cannot be harmed or threatened or made
to feel insecure. You no longer have the machinery to get your
dander up, or to be embarrassed, or to feel especially pleased
with yourself. Your mind is quiet, unless you need to think
about something.
You no
longer take seriously that person you once thought you were.
What
does it feel like you are, then? Consciousness.
Spaciousness. Beingness.
ItÕs
unmistakable that this exquisite reality has been here all
along. That you have come home. There is nothing new about it.
ItÕs just newly . . . recognized. Occupied.
Your
sense of self includes present-moment reality Ð the now Ð
whatever that may be. You donÕt feel separate from whatÕs
happening. The reason it doesnÕt occur to you to resist anything
is that you donÕt experience reality as if it were Òover thereÓ
and ÒyouÓ are here, making assessments about it. (The assessor
has gone missing.)
* * * * *
The
compelling question to pose to yourself is What am
I? What do you experience yourself as being?
The
question is not How can I improve myself? or How
can I experience higher consciousness (or get it to
last)? or What more do I need to learn?
As for
pursuing the longed-for condition, rest from that. ItÕs the ego
thatÕs seeking a certain kind of imagined pleasant experience.
Consciousness itself wants for nothing. Only the ego can want.
When wanting comes, recognize it for what it is: there
it is, the ego doing its thing.Then leave it be. DonÕt let
it lead you around by the nose.
The
memory of a period of blissful or peaceful consciousness can
become a torment, a thing to attempt to re-create. You may have
an idea of what it would be like to get beyond ego, and youÕve
made it your goal to Òget there.Ó ItÕs safe to assume that your
imagining of freedom is no predictor of what it will actually be
like. See that the image in your head is a thought, nothing
more. You are pursuing an idea, and itÕs located in some
possible future, which has no existence independent of your
picture of it.
A huge
amount of misdirected spiritual work is aimed at trying to fix
the ego, to make it more comfortable. The idea of Òworking on
yourself,Ó that cherished project of the self-help industry,
seems to have infected contemporary spirituality.
The
ego, for many, has become spiritualized. ItÕs cloaked in
spiritual affectation, adorned in practices and lofty ideas that
thrive radically disconnected from real life. The spiritual ego
takes on the tortured vocabulary of nonduality Ð Òthe
character,Ó Òthis body-mindÓ Ð as if the scrupulous avoidance of
the first-person pronoun will engender the experience of
no-self. Intent on awakening, a well-meaning person will assume
a spiritual name, give up meat, adopt a certain lingo or
practice, affect Òsweetness and lightÓ as a way to keep a lid on
anger and fear. Denial flourishes like an invasive plant form.
People wonder why they get stuck.
If you
are taking offense at this, let a light come on. The ÒyouÓ
thatÕs capable of taking offense (like the you thatÕs cultivated
a spiritual identity) is not what you deeply are. Only the ego
can be offended. As itÕs said in A Course in
Miracles, ÒNothing real can be threatened.Ó If you
feel threatened by what someone says or does, by
definition whatÕs enlivened is your ego.
DonÕt
try to change your ego or cultivate a certain identity. Rather
than judging the misdeeds of your mind-made self, simply become
acquainted with how it operates. See the strength of
identification with your history and beliefs. See how easily you
get sucked into your thoughts, as if they were the truth. As if
they were you.
If you
focus on trying to eliminate your negativity, weed out your
cherished beliefs, peel away your conditioning, manage your
anger, or distance yourself from your difficult history, your
precious attention is being squandered. What youÕre trying to do
is spruce up your familiar self. As if it could be improved all
the way to awake.
Do
you see the folly of this?
ThereÕs
nothing ÒwrongÓ with taking on a spiritual identity . . . so
long as you donÕt imagine it will set you free. No matter how
the ego is clothed, how it dances or speaks, underneath itÕs
still its same reactive, fearful, defensive self. That wolf in
sheepÕs clothing, you might say. A spiritual identity is no
better than any other kind of identity. An identity thatÕs got
to do with higher consciousness seems to set it apart (above),
but this is just one more illusion Ð an especially deceptive
one. ItÕs around every corner, waiting to trick you once more.
Your
fundamental nature Ñ that which you long to dwell in, as Ð
has no identity at all. Any attempt to embody its enormity
in a name, a mere word, is inevitably reductive. No
collection of ideas can hope to account for it.
YouÕre much better off ceasing to maintain any identity.
Only then can it get quiet enough inside to sense what you
are apart from all definition.
DonÕt
let the apparently spiritual nature of your familiar self
deceive you into supposing this is anything but another project
of the ego. The wolf may have changed its clothing, but the
animal is the same.
ItÕs
the most natural thing in the world to want to soothe or
strengthen the ego. The deep motivator is to feel better. (This
Ð not the longing to know the truth Ð is what leads most people
to the spiritual life.) Since the ego is both the cause and the
victim of suffering, it looks as though ÒfixingÓ the ego
would be the way to suffer less.
* * * * *
The
real answer comes alive at a more fundamental level. Investigate
the enduring impression that the ego is what you are. ItÕs
the identification with ego that keeps the
suffering going. That identification must occur first, before the
familiar pattern of thought-induced suffering can continue to
run. If you donÕt mistake the ego for what you are Ð if you
donÕt take it seriously Ð it will unwind quite naturally. It
will no longer so enthrall you.
To
linger in the ego itself, to focus on ÒimprovingÓ it, is only to
continue to feed and clothe and house it. As if it were
the ultimate reality. As if it could hope to traverse
the vast distance between itself and whatever is beyond it.
When
the ego gets your attention, and you become dissatisfied
(frustrated, afraid, whatever), instead of going where you
usually go, which is to try to improve your reaction, thought
patterns, emotions, or make an intention to Òdo betterÓ in the
future, simply remind yourself that this thing that suffers,
tries harder, gets discouraged, and intends, is not what you
are. When you let it engross you, when you believe its thoughts
with an eye to solving its Òproblems,Ó you are saying you
believe itÕs what you are, that itÕs worthy of attention.
It is
not fixable, not radically. The level on which itÕs fixable is
psychological, not existential. (Psychological improvements are
not worthless, but they will not set you free.)
The
ego does not evolve into unencumbered consciousness. Beingness
is here already, in spite of the ego, entirely independent
of its force field. Your true nature has nothing whatever to do
with the concerns of the mind-made self. All that changes is
that at some point one stops feeling real and the other assumes
vitality, like an organ thatÕs always been with you but is only
now getting blood to it.
The
illusion that you can improve all the way to waking up is rooted
in the illusion that you are not already the longed-for thing.
You have to believe youÕre not already That in
order to suppose that fixing your ego could lead you to
awakeness. The whole thing is merely a perception problem. You
donÕt need time to fix your ego. (There isnÕt enough time in
eternity to fix an ego.) If thereÕs a need for time, itÕs so you
can discover what youÕve been distracted from all along. Not so
you can ÒattainÓ something. YouÕve already attained it.
You just canÕt see it. This is because the thing you
think you are has been holding all of your attention, your
entire life.
Trying
to improve your ego may result in superficial improvements to
the invented self, but it will never haul you out of the world
of illusion. The ego does not become lighter until it ultimately
awakens. Yet this fond hope is what drives many a seeker. The
ego does not awaken. The primary goal of the ego,
ever and always, is self-preservation. You will never convince
the ego to get out of its own way, to walk to the edge of a
cliff and step off.
What
you wake up to is that you are not (and never were) your ego.
The problem is not that your ego suffers; itÕs that you mistake
it for what you are.
Focus
on the nature of what you appear to be. Become
intensely curious about how this you functions. How
it is generated, how it maintains and defends and asserts and
consoles itself. What it clings to for self-definition. So that
you can recognize it for what it is, immediately, each time it
stirs itself Ð instead of engaging with its picture of reality,
instead of cringing at its antics and trying to make it behave
better.
What
youÕre learning about Ð a truly fruitful endeavor Ð is what you
are not.
As you
observe this invented self functioning, as you see your
investment in it, ceaselessly remind yourself Ð Not
this. It Ð the truth of what I am Ð is not this.
Whatever it is, it isnÕt this blob, this ceaseless loop of
stories, this emotional stew, a head full of spiritual ideas.
However well-meaning it might all be, however noble its
aspirations. This isnÕt it.
Nor
is it this. You are getting a mountainÕs worth of evidence
of what you are not, even as it continues to
enthrall.
At
least donÕt score points for the other side. Stop telling
yourself that all this stuff inside the suitcase is what a human
life is meant to be about, the thing weÕre all here to discover.
Keep reminding yourself: Not this, not this. DonÕt
get sucked in (for the millionth time) to trying to remold your
ego.
See
how much you want to identify with the familiar
self. It will constantly fool you into thinking surely
this is real. At some point the thought will come . .
. Well, if THIS isnÕt what I really am, then what AM I? Which
may be scary.
But
now you are standing in front of the door thatÕs been waiting
for you. So patiently, all your precious life.
* * * * *
What
am I? This is what you ultimately come to. The
way to prepare yourself to pose that question Ð not
intellectually, but in your body, existentially Ð is to
consistently recognize the ego for what it is and to withdraw
attention from its concerns. You must be pressed to
the question What am I? ItÕs only by the
devoted Not this, not this that you can become
clear of all the distraction of the suffering ego that has
appeared to be fixable, that has pursued a certain kind of
experience or Òstate.Ó
NisargadattaÕs
teacher told him, ÒYou are not what you take yourself to
be. Find out what you are. Watch the sense ÔI
am.Õ Find your real Self.Ó
HereÕs
NisargadattaÕs description of what happened: ÒThis brought
an end to the mind; in the stillness of the mind I saw myself as
I am Ñ unbound. I used to sit for hours together, with
nothing but the ÔI amÕ in my mind, and soon peace and joy and a
deep all-embracing love became my normal state. In it all
disappeared Ñ myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world
around me. Only peace remained and an unfathomable
silence.Ó
One
fine moment of electric stillness, it will dawn on you what you
actually are. To prepare the ground for this
revelation, devote yourself to the scrupulous, gutsy recognition
of what you are not.
_____________________________________________________
Waking Up - Wu Hsin
Reprinted with permission from Roy Melvyn
In
general, the same can be said for Self-recognition, one must
fight for it. Admittedly, there have been instances where
enlightenment occurred uninvited.
Yet,
in most cases, it is predicated on a receptivity, an earnestness
and desire to understand. To these, no further practice as such
is mandatory.
However,
if the allures of the world hold sway, regardless of how
profound Wu Hsin's words are, they will not find their mark.
This
day, Wu Hsin shall reveal the four pre-conditions for
Understanding. They are:
(a)
acknowledgement of the theoretical possibility of
Understanding,
(b)
the intense desire to obtain it,
(c)
exposure to a true teaching, and
(d)
the direct apperception of the subject.
The
last of these results from one's disinterest in the
discontinuous.
It is
one's turning away from what appears in awareness and toward
awareness itself.
Stated
another way, it is not attending to what-is-other, not attending
to you, he, she, we, they, them, those or it.
What
one is is without continuity, not progressing, not growing, not
becoming.
One
can step from the river of becoming onto the shore of being at
any point.
The
only requirement is silence, total silence.
You
are where your mind is. Escape from the thought sphere,
therefore, is the imperative. It is not accomplished by killing
the mind, resisting thought or similar acts.
Instead,
it happens quite naturally by removing attention from thoughts.
Without the energy of attention, thought dies.
You
need not stop thinking.
Just
cease being interested.
It is
disinterestedness that liberates.
Don't
hold on, that is all.
Sri
Nisargadatta Maharaj
Wu
Hsin says no effort is required in the sense that no effort is
required to be aware. Just relax, don't make an effort to relax.
In that natural relaxation, what you need to know will present
itself.
Thoughts
appear as a necessary function in the human organism.
The
organism does not decide to create them any more than it decides
to breathe.
They
are sourced from that which sustains and supports the organism.
To
believe that you can stop your thoughts presupposes that you
initiate them.
There
are no goals that are not mind created.
What
you strive for is what you imagine you must strive for. With the
cessation of striving, what needs to arrive, arrives.
Searching
is movement and therefore can never find stillness, the source
of all movement.
Only
this silent stillness can speak about the not-knowable.
You
have failed to realize that all your running after is, in fact,
running away.
Any
reinforcement of the idea of a searching entity is movement away
from what you claim you want.
_____________________________________________________
Forthcoming Workshops on A Course in Miracles
Germany 2015 Dates
Bonn 2015
6-7
June, 2015
10.00am
to 6.000pm
Living the Guided Life
A Course in Miracles workshop.
This
day my mind is quiet, to receive the Thoughts You offer me.
And I accept what comes from You, instead of from myself. I do
not know the way to You. But You are wholly certain. Father,
guide Your Son along the quiet path that leads to You. Let my
forgiveness be complete, and let the memory of You return to
me.
A
Course in Miracles. Lesson 291
The
Course states that if we do not have inner peace and joy 24
hours a day we know nothing. Although we may be competent in
using the mind to live adequately in daily practical life, we
need to realise its limitations and open ourselves to hearing a
wisdom beyond the mind - what the Course calls the Holy
Spirit, the Voice for God. This Voice can be heard in many ways
- an inner knowing, words, a felt sense, etc.
We
play our part by realising we do not know the way to peace and
are willing to be guided and allow our mind to become quieter
through forgiveness.
The
workshop will explore what the Holy Spirit is, how to hear
Its voice, how to tell the difference between the ego's voice
and the Holy Spirit's, resistance to guidance, true prayer,
the ladder of prayer and attaining a quiet mind.
Exercises
will be given to help quiet the mind and open it to spirit's
guidance.
No
previous knowledge of A Course in Miracles required.
An Evening Introductory Talk - Fri 5th June 2015
7.30pm to 9.30pm
Contact:
Albert-Schweitzer-Haus
Beethovenallee
16
Bonn
53173
tel:
0228 - 36 47 37
___________________________________________________
Freiburg
2015
June
12 6pm to 9pm
June
13 10.00am to 6.00pm
June
14 10.00am to 5.00pm
Living the Guided Life
A Course in Miracles workshop.
This
day my mind is quiet, to receive the Thoughts You offer me.
And I accept what comes from You, instead of from myself. I do
not know the way to You. But You are wholly certain. Father,
guide Your Son along the quiet path that leads to You. Let my
forgiveness be complete, and let the memory of You return to
me.
A
Course in Miracles. Lesson 291
The
Course states that if we do not have inner peace and joy 24
hours a day we know nothing. Although we may be competent in
using the mind to live adequately in daily practical life, we
need to realise its limitations and open ourselves to hearing a
wisdom beyond the mind - what the Course calls the Holy
Spirit, the Voice for God. This Voice can be heard in many ways
- an inner knowing, words, a felt sense, etc.
We
play our part by realising we do not know the way to peace and
are willing to be guided and allow our mind to become quieter
through forgiveness.
The
workshop will explore what the Holy Spirit is, how to hear
Its voice, how to tell the difference between the ego's voice
and the Holy Spirit's, resistance to guidance, true prayer,
the ladder of prayer and attaining a quiet mind.
Exercises
will be given to help quiet the mind and open it to spirit's
guidance.
No
previous knowledge of A Course in Miracles required.
Contact:
Margarete
Sennekamp
Winterhaldenweg
4,
79856
Hinterzarten,
Tel./Fax:
07652-917530
______________________________________________________
PLEASE
NOTE: The Australian Centre for Inner Peace is
not a counselling or psychotherapy centre; therefore we do not
offer telephone or email service or counselling, therapy,
or crisis intervention for personal problems. Please see
the Contacts section at the end of this newsletter.
_____________________________________________________
BOOKS
AND AUDIO MATERIALS FOR SALE - by Michael Dawson
New
teaching and healing materials - eBooks and downloadable MP3s:
Ebooks:
Inspired
by A Course in Miracles.
This
is the eBook version of the paper back.
New
book in eBook format
Inspired
by A Course in Miracles
This
is the eBook version of the paper back.
The
eBook versions can be read on Kindle, iPad, Microsoft
eReader, Nook, PDF readers (Mac and PC) and most eBook readers.
Downloadable
Mp3s:
This
MP3 contains the identical four exercises as the CD
This
MP3 contains the identical four exercises as the CD
This
MP3 contains the identical three exercises as the CD
Books:
Healing
the Cause - A Path of Forgiveness. Findhorn
Press 1994
Also
available in German, Romanian, French, Dutch, Spanish and
Portuguese.
The
Findhorn Book of Forgiveness. Findhorn Press.
2003
Also
available in German, French, Polish and Romanian.
MP3s
(see above) and CDs:
Healing
the Cause:
Since
1986 I have been conducting healing workshops in the UK and
abroad, and have continually experimented to find healing and
forgiveness exercises that are effective. I have found
that a particular exercise can be effective for one person but
not another. Accordingly, I was led to develop a series of
exercises. Over the years workshop participants asked if these
exercises could be put onto audio cassettes and CDs so they
could repeat them. This has resulted in the Healing the
Cause - Exercise series - Tapes 1 to 4 (2 exercises on
each tape) and CD1 and 2 (4 exercises on each CD)
CD -
3 Healing Exercises in English with German translation. 10 Euro
Content:
Ex1.
Forgiving Ourselves.
Ex2.
Changing Perception and Finding peace.
Ex3.
Changing Perception of another - exercise for two people.
These
exercises are similar to existing exercises already available on
CDs but are translated into German.
Workshops:
1. Three
Steps of Forgiveness.
This
workshop concentrates on the process of forgiveness from the
perspective of A Course in Miracles. Includes 3 healing
exercises.
Recorded
at the Annual Miracle Network Conference in London, November
2001. 1 hour 12 mins. One CD
2. Finding
and Eliminating the Blocks to Receiving Guidance.
This
talk investigates what stops us hearing the guidance that is
ever present in our lives. Recorded at the Annual Miracle
Network Conference in London, October 20001 hour. One CD
______________________________________________________
CONTACTS
and COURSE INFORMATION
A Web
search engine dedicated to finding discussion and definitions of
terms and concepts found in
A
Course in Miracles as well as Web sites, articles and other
writings related to the Course.
Their
electronic outreach section has a question and answer service on
the theory and practice of the Course. Their database of 1,400
questions and answers is searchable. They no longer take new
questions as they feel all possible questions have now been put.
Foundation for Inner Peace..........................Publishers
of A Course in Miracles and responsible for the translation
programme. On-line mail order.
Foundation For A Course In
Miracles................FACIM
is the official teaching organisation of the Foundation for
Inner Peace and the copyright-holder of_A Course in
Miracles and all related materials. Publishes the
quarterly Lighthouse
newsletter. They have extensive on-line mail
order for their books, CDs and DVDs.
The
Foundation was started by Kenneth and Gloria Wapnick and has
moved to Temecula in California. Kenneth is my teacher of A
Course in Miracles. His body died in December 2013.
Their
publications can also be ordered in Australia at:
Adyar
Bookshop
230
Clarence Street
Sydney,
NSW 2000
Kenneth
Wapnick ......ÉÉÉ
Biographical information and excerpts from his writings
by
Kenneth and Gloria Wapnick
A
Course in Miracles Study groups
Search for A Course in
Miracles Study Groups Around the World.
The
Foundation for Inner peace also has a study group search
engine.
A
Course In Miracles Pen Pals:
They
will send you updated lists of other e.pals and
inform them of your e-mail address.
This Belief.net web-based
discussion is hosted by Joe Jesseph.
_________________________
INSPIRATIONAL
QUOTATIONS
About
three times a week I send a short quotation from some spiritual
teacher or poet to people who have requested some uplifting
thoughts. I have included some below. If you wish I can add your
name to the email list.
How
long, O Son of God, will you maintain the game of sin? Shall we
not put away these sharp-edged children's toys? How soon will
you be ready to come home? Perhaps today? There is no sin.
Creation is unchanged. Would you still hold return to Heaven
back? How long, O holy Son of God, how long?
A
Course in Miracles Lesson 250
Do
understand that you are destined for enlightenment.
Co-operate
with your destiny, don't go against it, don't thwart it.
Allow
it to fulfil itself.
All
you have to do is to give attention to the obstacles created by
the foolish mind.
Nisargadatta
Maharaj
I Am
That
When
you listen to the voice in your head, that
is to
say, do not judge. You'll soon realize: there
is the
voice, and here I am listening to it, watching
it.
This I am realization, this sense of your own
presence,
is not a thought. It arises from beyond
the
mind.
Eckhart
Tolle
The
Power of Now
One is
more likely to awaken through surrender than through seeking to
waken. The effort to awaken is the effort of ego, whereas to
surrender is to give up all efforts and to place oneself in the
hands of a vast force that is more powerful than any realization
of non duality.
When
one finally gives up one's futile attempts to make reality
conform to one's own wishes, and allows it to unfold on its own
terms, all the energy that was tied up in foolish attempts to
manipulate the universe is freed up.
Mariana
Caplan
Halfway
Up the Mountain - The Error of Premature Claims to Enlightenment
_____________
Michael
Dawson
PO Box
125
Point
Lookout
North
Stradbroke Island
Queensland
4183
Australia
Nltr 44 Australian Centre for Inner Peace