How to Develop Your Intuition

We live in an uncertain changing world.

There is a curse and a blessing in this. 

The curse is there are so many choices confronting us every hour.

Often times we just don't have the complete information at hand to decide what to do.

There are times in the confusion where we lose our sense of direction.

It’s sometimes difficult to know what is really going on or to figure out what is right for us.

The blessing is that this very uncertainty is forcing us to look within for our own answers and is evolving the new capacity in human consciousness of intuition.

If you would like to develop your intuition here is a simple exercise that you can do everytime you have a choice to make in life.

When you have to make a choice between two options:

1. Think of a choice that you have made successfully in the past.

2.  Think of making that choice again and get a sense of where the “rightness” of that choice feels energetically in your body.

3.  Think of making the opposite the choice and get a sense of where the “unrightness” of that choice feels energetically in (or outside) your body.

4.   Do steps 2 and 3 over and over for 3-7 times until you get a sense of where that “rightness” energetically feels in your body. (TIP you might feel the "rightness" inside your body or heart or solar plexus and the "unrightness" outside your body or somewhere else in the body.

Think of a current choice you are facing and do steps 2 and 3 back and forth until the “rightness” or “unrightness” of it appears energetically in the same place respectively in your body.

It is easy to practice this exercise at anytime during the day when you have minor choices to make i.e. whether or not to get a donut or a muffin, to call a friend now or later, what lane to drive in on the expressway, etc.

The more you do this exercise, the more you will develop your intuition.

The more times you have been successful at using your intuition the more you will trust yourself.

Have fun with this.

Be You to Fullness

Russell

One Man's Experience of Awakening

by Miles Murphy, Toronto

I sat before my partner, contemplating the instruction she had given me, “Tell me who you are” I closed my eyes and felt my entire body transformed into a great bellows.  My hands moved in front of me squeezing the bellows in and out.  As I squeezed, I felt the heat rise straight up into my head until it burst into a blaze of white light. 

I heard a voice beside me, (our True Awakening Master,) gently urging me on,  “What do you see?”  “It’s so bright, so bright” I heard myself say.  “Look deep, look inside, what do you see?” “Tell your partner who you are?". I was only aware of the light and the light was blinding…

This was the beginning of an encounter I had been preparing for my whole life, an experience that had been waiting just for ME!  

The True Awakening – enlightenment intensive is a combination of structured communication, self-inquiry and deep contemplation… like a Zen meditation session on steroids.  Its sole purpose is to give people the tools, the time and the method to achieve a direct experience of their own true nature.

On the surface, it is deceivingly simple.  A small group of people (14 in the session that I attended) retreat from their daily lives for three full days (with an evening before for orientation and a morning after for decompression) and commit to search for the truth that exists within each and every one of us.  The True Awakening is secular and non-denominational.  It requires no spiritual or religious commitment of any kind. No dogma is taught.

We came together, one early spring evening in March at a retreat centre, north of Lake Erie, in rural Ontario, Canada.  All ages (from seventeen to seventy), five men and nine women, from a variety of backgrounds, along with the intensive Master and two co-facilitators called monitors.  We turned in our watches, our cell-phones, our shaving equipment, our makeup… we gave up our wine, our tobacco, our coffee, even our manners. 

We agreed to confine our conversation to the exercises we were given, to follow a few basic rules, to practice the techniques we would be given.  In return, our meals would be taken care of, our activities structured, the outside world kept at bay and we would be given the time and the space to focus entirely on our own inner journey.

The core of the True Awakening method is a paired exercise in which a speaking partner and a listening partner (called a “Dyad” from the Greek word for “two”) take turns at solving a koan-like question, such as, “Who am I?” “What am I?” “What is life?” or “What is another?”  The listening partner will give the instruction (pose the question), for example, “Tell me who you are?” 

The speaking partner will then enter into their own experience with the intention of directly experiencing the “one” who is experiencing and proceed to open to whatever may arise (it may be a sensation, an emotion, an image, a memory)

They then report that out to the listening partner.  It is the listening partner’s role to receive the communication – without comment, gesture or other acknowledgement, except a simple “thank you” when the speaking partner has concluded their communication to acknowledge that the communication has been received.

 Dyad sessions are forty minutes, with each partner taking turns of five minutes each.  At the beginning of each session, people change up so that they are working with as many different partners as possible.

Over time, as participants begin to strip away layers of their being, the dyad sessions can at times become quite intense.  Powerful memories (pleasant and unpleasant), painful and pleasurable experiences, bodily aches and pains, tears and laughter, strange and familiar images rise to the surface and are cleared away. 

But this is not therapy!  The Master and the monitors gently guide participants away from the entanglements, distractions and attachments of the mind and direct them to become aware of the “who” or the “what” that is behind or experiencing these ‘things’. The day is broken up with exercise periods, walking contemplation, eating contemplation (even sleeping contemplation) and talks by the enlightenment intensive Master who encourages participants to “go for the truth”.

After many hours and days of this focussed work individuals start to penetrate the many layers of consciousness and may achieve extraordinary insights, even “enlightenment”.

But, what is “Enlightenment”?  We know religious leaders, monks and other spiritual seekers have been hungering after this elusive experience for thousands of years.

Shortly after the Buddha’s extraordinary experience of sitting beneath the Bodhi tree, when he was traveling back into the world, the Buddha encountered a man who noticed the Buddha’s shining countenance. 

He asked the Buddha, “Are you a God?”  The Buddha answered that he was not.  “Are you a magician or a sorcerer?”  Again the Buddha answered that he was not.  “Then what are you?” asked the man.  The Buddha answered:  “I am awake”.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” 

The Wanderling recounts this well-known story about the Buddhist nun Chiyono and her enlightenment experience:

"Late one night a female Zen adept was carrying water in an old wooden bucket when she happened to glance across the surface of the water and saw the reflection of the moon. As she walked the bucket began to come apart and the bottom of the pail broke through, with the water suddenly disappearing into the soil beneath her feet and the moon's reflection disappearing along with it. In that instant the young woman realized that the moon she had been looking at was just a reflection of the real thing...just as her whole life had been. She turned to look at the moon in all it's silent glory, her mind was ripe, and that was it...Enlightenment."

It is difficult to relay what enlightenment is, adequately in words, for it is truly outside of space, time and ordinary experience.

The great Indian guru Ramana Maharshi said, “There is no mind to control if you realize the self. The mind having vanished, the self shines forth.”

No individual’s experience of enlightenment is completely alike.  Some come to the realization slowly, some quietly, some suddenly, some boisterously.  But there are some common characteristics of the phenomenon itself, that I have experienced:

•  The experience is direct.  There is no mediation of thought or feeling.  Boundaries are dissolved.  There is no distinction between the “knower” and the thing “known”
•  The experience is timeless
•  The experience is undeniable
•  The experience is real
•  The experience is spontaneous.  It cannot be invented or manufactured.

The experience is often accompanied by a heightened sense of awareness.  Familiar objects take on”newness” as if they are being experienced for the first time.  There is often a sense of fullness, of joy, of bliss and unconditional love.  There is often tears or laughter or a deep expanded sense of quietude or abiding peace.

For my own experience, I awakened to peals of laughter – my own! – And to the realization that I was ME, only me, totally me and that I had always been and always would be ME!   There was nowhere I needed to go and no place I needed to be.  I was whole and completely present. 

 It seemed absurd and ridiculous that this simple and obvious fact had been staring me in the face all of my life and was just waiting to be discovered.

I can say, without reservation, that the experience transformed my life. 

Prior to coming to the session, my days and nights, like old chewing gum, were beginning to lose their flavour… meaning had gradually seeped out of my life, like air leaking from an old tire until it had become flat. 

My landscape was slowly losing its colour and in danger of turning to monochrome. After I realized my true nature, and recognized myself for who I was and always had been, I experienced the world as if for the very first time… and it was BEAUTIFUL!  It still is!

So where did this remarkable technique that arise? Well it was discovered almost by divine accident by man Charles Berner the founder of the Institute of Ability in California.

Here is his account:

“In 1968, I had four or five hours one afternoon with nothing to do. I was in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California, staring at the trees in a nice quiet area. I had been pondering a problem related to my teaching experience. I had noticed people who didn't know who they were had a hard time making progress and people who made rapid progress knew who they were. I was just musing, "How is it that we could help people to accelerate this process of self discovery?"

He wondered what would happen if he combined the age-old Zen koan “Who am I” with the paired communication work his wife Ava had been working on and structured it in the format of a Zen session or retreat?

He set about putting together the first of many what would be called  3- 1/2 day “Enlightenment Intensives”. 

The results of his first intensive were surprising and unexpected: 

“I had expected it would take five, ten Intensives for some enlightenments to start showing up. But to my amazement, people were having these experiences in 2-3 days and it blew me out as much as it did them. In fact, about forty percent of the people who attended had a direct experience by the end of the intensive.”

Since that time, thousands of people around the world have been able to discover the truth of who they really are by attending a  True Awakening enlightenment intensive.

If you have spent your life wondering who you are, if you are willing to lose the cartload of baggage you have been carrying around with you and are ready to fall in love with the truth that resides within you, a vast treasure waits to be discovered in the True Awakening. 

While not everyone who attends the retreat experiences has a  breakthrough on their first journey, the experience is deeply transformational.  Some people realize the truth days weeks or months later (some on the drive home!). 

For others, the change is gradual and may take a few intensives to realize.  The important thing to remember is that enlightenment is real and attainable for just about everybody who sincerely desires to know the truth.

A number of years ago when I was first getting to know Buddhism seriously, I attended a luncheon with a number of Buddhist nuns.  At the luncheon, everybody attending received a bookmark with a Buddhist maxim or saying in Chinese characters.  

This saying was intended to describe one’s footsteps or journey along the Bodhi path.  As I have no Chinese, I asked a fellow attendee to translate for me, and here is, loosely what it said,

“Every moment presents the possibility for enlightenment”.

Then, they were only beautiful and mysterious characters.  Now I know they’re true.

Miles Murphy
Toronto, Canada
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When I was in the hospital at the beginning of November. I spent 2 days in an intensive care room with 2 other men before being moved into another room. They were either recovering from a brain aneurysm, or a stroke.

There was an older fellow about 75 who’d been in the hospital over a month who was an overt curmudgeon who’d insist on having a smoke every evening without success “I’ve worked hard in a factory all my life and I deserve to have a smoke. I don’t care if it’s bad for me! Its what makes me feel good!”

The nurses very patiently put up with his curses and never let him smoke but he’d persist every single night.

Then there was the gasping man across from me.

He was in a semi coma on intravenous feeding and a respirator. About every sixth inhalation he’d grasp desperately for air as if it were his last breath. I remember counting. It was regular. He looked to be about 80 years old. But the nurses would talk to him lovingly as if he could hear them. Sometimes he’d move a bit when they talked.

He was a puzzle to me.

I couldn't’t understand why a man near the end of his life in so much distress would want to live. Why didn’t he just give up and die? It seemed like maybe he was just afraid to die but when I put my attention on his gasping I detected no fear in his paroxysms. There was more yearning than fear. Though I was in a hell of a lot better shape than this man, I felt some affinity with him.

At first I couldn’t get the sameness.  I was not afraid to die. I had had enough spiritual experiences of life to know that life is continuous. I would live on. But still I was afraid. And when I contemplated that fear, there was a sweet and longing quality to it. There was not the sharp sense of aversion. After a few moments it hit me what the similarity was between the gasping man and me. 

It wasn’t that he was afraid to die.

He was afraid not to live.

His gasping was a grasping for life.

He hadn’t finished his living.

He hadn’t fully experienced what it was like to almost die and come back to life and feel the simple gratitude of just being in a body and being able to gaze through human eyes out the window

and watching

the wind blowing the leaves across the parking lot…

the everyday joy of looking in his children’s and partner’s eyes

and seeing

the unspoken love behind all the speaking…

the blessing of having a calling and a purpose in life

and struggling

to fulfill it…

and grace of all the wisdom that comes

from this human condition.

Like him I was afraid that I would die without fully engaging in why I was here. And it became clear to me that the tragedy of life is not that we die its that we do not fully live.

It made me sad to contemplate how many people die before their time in life, not due to some illness or accident but because they bring on these calamities because it is too painful to live their lives with no meaning. 

They miss that the simple purpose of life…

Life itself…is just living it fully.

Experiencing all of what we are experiencing in what we are experiencing.

How many people miss this?

How many people become like the curmudgeon, who in missing the fullness already present in life, try to fill their lives with something else… like too much smoking, working, recognition, acquiring, drinking, distraction…

The mind wants so much to find a meaning in life that it overlooks what is already inherently fullfilling ...

and if we don’t see it

we will find a neurotic purpose to occupy us.

Life is Living.

And when we live it fully and then examine it there’s a gold mine of wisdom in it…but the living comes first.

I must confess...

I loved that gasping man.

I even loved that curmudgeon.

They taught me a lot.

I pray that they have recovered and

teach everyone they meet

what they reminded me

about living.

Be you to Fullness

Russell

Some of you may know that on the evening of November 7th I went to emergency at Guelph General Hospital with the worst migraine imaginable. On a scale of 1-10 it was about 100. I felt as if my head was going to explode and I would experience directly the subject of one of my public talks: “Headless in a Headstrong World”.

My head felt like it was like a huge gaseous pumpkin on fire yet the rest of my body was cold. It was the weirdest sensation. Everything below my neck was shivering and above I was sweating.

After the admitting nurse examined me. I spent 4.5 hours in agony without a nurse or a doctor checking in on me. Thank God for my partner Heather who asked for a towel and gave me cold compresses and her love for the whole time. I could have had a stroke unattended and died. (I won’t go into any of my views of our so-called advanced and compassionate medical system after this experience).

Somewhere in the midst of this trauma, while lying on a hospital gurney in the hallway, I noticed my mind.

I observed my mind doing it’s pasteurizing and futurizing: looking into the past for disastrous similar events and projecting them into the future. “Remember the time you were in the hospital when you were 2 years old, remember the concussion you had playing football, remember your friend who died when he got hit by a baseball bat. Russell you are going to die; you’ll be disabled for the rest of your life; you’ll be stuck in the hospital for 6 weeks and nobody will visit; you’ll be abandoned; no-body will ever love you again…”

It went on and on and on with the catastrophising.

I had woken up again to what I have seen so much of in life, the 3 fundamental components of any event: the experience, the mind and who we actually are.

I saw my mind for the nervous fool it actually was, making up everything under the sun it could possibly disastrously imagine: full of negative beliefs, erroneous points of view, unproven conclusions with false evidence, randomly ascribing meaning to the experience.

I finally asked my mind: “Hey mind of this Russell dude, how do I know that anything you are predicting is true or will come to pass? The day isn’t over yet”.

My mind responded like a nervous witness with a false story interrogated in court, “Well sir, you see, well I, what I really mean is, golly gee, I know it could maybe be true, what I am thinking could happen is…ah, hum…well the truth be told I’m making it all up” and “POOF” like a stupid genie my mind vanished and all that was left was me and the pain.

I realized in that moment, I could make up anything I wanted about the pain because the future really was not set. I had no idea what would happen in the future because is not dependent on the past. The past and future are always interrupted by what happens in the present. (We’ve certainly seen this in our financial institutions of late. Mutual fund companies got this right “Past performance does not guarantee future results”).

Then it occurred to me that there is also an error in deciding to  make up anything positive as well. Why impose a positive meaning on the reality of what was occurring?  This is still involving the genie of the mind. That too would trap me in the mind. It is a subtler trap but it is still a trap. Maybe there is wisdom inherent in just being with the pain as it is without any imposition of positive or negative meaning.

So I chose to just be me, with the pain…just be me with the bare excruciating experience of pain…with nothing in between.

And once again I had an experience of my true self.

I saw I am separate from the pain. I felt the pain but just because I felt it, it did not mean I was it. I was not identified with it. Pain did not define me. My body did not define me. The lack of attention by the nurses did not define me… nor did whatever my mind made up. In fact nothing defined me. Death or life did not define me. I may die but I would still exist…just me without a body.

And in all of this I had a choice independent of my mind. In this situation of possibly dying I could choose anything I wanted. Being at choice is fundamental to my true nature and I am free. I could choose to throw-up, trash the nurses station, fart just for fun, leave or die... whatever.

So I chose to live…to love my partner who loves me dearly and to base my new life from living and loving more in my heart than in my mind.

About a half an hour later the doctor came.

I am alive today. And almost back to normal.

Sorry mind…Wrong.

And ain’t this life:

who we are, what we experience and our minds.

How much hell do we create with the catastrophising of the mind?

When the mind first arises in us its like a genie with one wish.  We think we have so outwitted the genie by asking with our one wish for unlimited wishes. Big mistake. Then we add all kinds of erroneous meaning on top of any event and then the genie creates that experience in the future. And here’s the craziness:

The mind does not exist.

It is not only made up but it is responsible for manufacturing all the craziness in our lives. It’s the falseness that makes up falseness. Its what does not exist that traps us. All there really is in any experience is who we are and what we are experiencing. The meaning that we add, may or may not be true. (Usually it’s not true.)

So here are my recommendations for life in case you get a broken blood vessel in your head or you’re the kind that likes a summary.

In any experience ask yourself:

“What’s my interpretation or belief about this event?”

“What is actually true?”

“What would I choose in this present moment if I didn’t have a mind to sabotage me?”

Most important:

Find out who you really are, independent of the dude and dudess your ego tells you, that you are.

Finally:

There are more humane and effective ways to get enlightened, like

True Awakening

Don’t try getting a sub-arachnoid hemorrhage to get enlightened.

It’s too painful.

All the best

Russell

What is a True Awakening - enlightenment intensive?

Who am I?

What am I?

What is another?

What is Love?

 An Enlightenment Intensive is 4-day retreat that usually begins with supper around 6:30 pm on a Thursday evening and ends after lunch at 2 pm on Monday. On Thursday evening participants become familiar with each other, the staff, the format, the environment and the technique used on the intensive.  Friday, Saturday and Sunday form the main body of the retreat. Monday is an integration period in which participants are guided to bring the benefits of the retreat into their lives

The retreat is typically conducted in a rural secluded environment. All participants stay and sleep at the facility for the duration of the retreat.

Meals are organic (when possible) and vegetarian.

The Purpose

The Enlightenment Intensive provides individuals with the optimal opportunity to awaken to the true nature of self, life and others. In the process minor or major barriers to one's deeper fulfillment in life can be dissolved so that individuals can engage more fully in all of life's experiences with a deeper connection to themselves and others.

“It was like I did 5 years of meditation in one weekend”
 Beth Clarke, yoga instructor, Kingston

What is Enlightenment?

Enlightenment has had many names throughout history depending on the tradition:  "awakening", "illumination", "transcendence", "self-realization", "kensho" in Zen, "anubhava" in Hinduism" and "unitive consciousness" in modern psychology. 

Although there may be many opinions of what the phenomena is, this is the understanding of enlightenment as it occurs on the retreat:

Enlightenment is the direct experience of the true nature of self, life or others.

"Direct experience" means beyond all the indirect methods we commonly depend on for knowing; sensing, thinking, learning, deciding, reasoning, or feeling. It is beyond intellectual understanding and belief. 

"Direct experience" also means to be in union. For a brief moment in time we are no longer separated from our real essence. We are united. We are one with ourselves.

"True nature" means the essence of who you are, what life and others are, beyond the mind, emotions and body, the one that you were born as, before all the influences of personal history and before the ego formed due to the socialization of your family, friends, school, job, culture, society, etc and the developmental influences of pain, trauma and abuse.

Three conditions are crucial to enlightenment: Unity, Knowingness and Experience.  If they are not all present, the phenomenon is not awakening.

For instance: one can be deeply in touch with oneself in meditation and feel calm, blissful and at peace but if one cannot articulate who it is that is calm, it is not awakening.

Conversely one can intellectually state an understanding of self but if an individual is not in union with his/herself and in experiential self-connection, it is also not awakening.

With direct experience one unites with one's true nature in a timeless instant, a spontaneous "aha"flash that lights up the whole being in such a way that one experiences the magnificence of the true self but also knows with absolute certainty without a doubt, the fact of one's true being. The awareness is self-evident 

“Suddenly I knew who I was. Tears just streamed down my face, I was so overwhelmed. It was so simple...and I was so grateful, not just for what I discovered about myself, but also for the total certainty associated with that experience. There can never be any doubt... I knew it in a way that didn’t depend on any feeling, idea, belief or anything - I was just directly conscious of who I was.”
 P.C. – Academic

As a result one drops more of the false personality that he/she has been trapped in and comes home to the authentic natural self and is more able to present the real being from this state. It is a simple, exhilarating and revitalizing life altering spiritual experience accompanied by a deep sense of peace, serenity, bliss and inner harmony.

The Enlightenment Technique

The main technique practiced on the intensive is called the Dyad. The dyad is a structured form of partner-assisted meditation in which two people sit across from one another to contemplate and communicate.

Each participant first selects and focuses on one of five fundamental questions during the retreat:

Who am I?   What am I?   What is Life?     What is Another?     What is Love?

10 to 12 times a day participants choose a different partner and sit across from one another on a pillow or a chair a comfortable distance apart.

During each forty-minute dyad the two partners take 5-minute turns being the contemplator/communicator or the attentive listener. The instructions are simple: set about to experience directly the essential Truth underlying their question and then tell their partner whatever occurs. There is a rest, walk, lecture, stretching or meal after each dyad. This is all done in a supportive environment under the guidance of an experienced facilitator and staff.

No religious or philosophic belief system is taught.  The workshop leader is only a facilitator. He/she does not tell participants what to believe and only gives instruction on the technique guiding individuals through any difficulties that occur as they do it. 

"The Enlightenment Intensive was the highest spiritual experience of my life." - Peter Max, Album artist for the Beatles

The Co-Evolution Principle

The central pillar of the retreat is the co-evolution principle, which is based on the understanding that the mind is composed of suspended communications associated with incompletely experienced past experiences. Optimal spiritual growth occurs as a result of completing these communications through safe and authentic relating to others i.e. we evolve together in relationship.

By structuring and focusing the relating or communication between participants
within an environment of:
- non-interruption
- non-evaluation
- authenticity and
- listener empathy
past communications are completed, the mind is cleared and openness to directly experiencing the truth is optimized.

When this focused communication is combined with the eastern technique of inquiry on a key question such as "who am I?" consciousness can grow very fast to the point where individuals can come into direct experience with ultimate truth in a fraction of the time typically required in traditional meditative practices.
 

The Guidelines

During an Enlightenment Intensive Retreat participants are asked to honor a number of guidelines. These agreements support the emotional safety, focus and effectiveness of the retreat. Participants agree to:

1. Eat, sleep and stay at the site during the intensive.
2. Keep confidential anything that is said by others.
3. Refrain from evaluating fellow participants.
4. Take care of all outside concerns before the intensive and allow any non-essential messages to be handled by the retreat staff except for emergencies.
5. Eat only the food and snacks served. The diet is vegetarian and organic when possible.
6. Avoid smoking, illegal drugs, alcohol, or caffeinated beverages. It is suggested to limit these a week prior to the retreat to avoid withdrawal symptoms.
7. Leave adornments such as jewelry, makeup, perfume, cologne, and deodorants at home or in the car.
8. Keep at home or in the car anything that may become a distraction such as books, magazines, journals, radio or tape/CD player, cellular phone or laptop.
9. Refrain from all sexual activity.
10. Put aside all other practices and put all efforts into using only the techniques taught during the intensive.
11. Observe silence outside the dyad sessions.

The Schedule

The schedule is similar but not exactly the same as many typical meditation retreats. Participants begin the day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 6 am and go until 10 pm with an hour of rest in the afternoon. The day is structured with dyads interspersed with meals, snacks, outside walks, exercise, talks and silent sitting.

“It happened just like the leader said, I was eating breakfast on Saturday morning, and like the snap of the finger, I was awake, the light came on, I knew who I was.  Every thing was new, like I had never seen it before, and it was exquisite.  I was born again, free to experience life… fully”.  Roger Groulx - Procurement Officer Ottawa

History

Charles and Ava Berner from the Institute of Ability in California developed the Enlightenment Intensive format in 1968. They had been using a dyad format in which two people would face each other and ask each other various questions concerning their relationship.
They knew from this work that many problems could be resolved through honest, face-to-face communication. It occurred to Charles after reading Philip Kapleau's book, "The Three Pillars of Zen," that the dyad format, which had worked so well in other areas of life, might he used to answer life's most important questions.

Charles and Ava gathered their students together and assigned them the question, "Who am I?" They were surprised and amazed to find that within a period of just a few days the students were having enlightenment experiences. Charles and Ava further refined the format over about 50 intensives before they felt they had the final form.

Is it really possible to get enlightened in just three days?

One of the biggest barriers to awakening (and people attending the retreat) is the belief that awakening cannot occur in 3-4 days, that it must take a lot longer. This may be the case in other traditional forms of a meditation but not the case with the enlightenment intensive.

The co-evolution process through the dyad technique is a modern process. Just as technology has advanced over the last century so too have personal growth techniques. The co-evolution process is one of these significant modern advances.

In the fifty years since Enlightenment Intensives began there is confirmation from thousands of people all over the world that the same experience that people have attained using other forms of self-inquiry or meditation taking from two weeks to ten years, occurs on the intensive in only 3-4 days!

“I’ve learned that the greatest gift I can give to others is myself, to give from who I am and not from some false personality or ego” Steven Kovacs - Lighting sales, Toronto

Yes, one can get enlightened in just three to four days. A significant percentage of participants succeed in this time. Experienced truth seekers who have found difficulty in the past with other methods may find all their previous attempts rewarded during this concentrated effort.

Those new to self-inquiry often find it easier than veteran seekers who may have to overcome their own expectations and preconceived ideas of what the awakening experience is. And many report having enlightenment experiences on the way home or in the days or weeks following the intensive.

The Steps Leading to Enlightenment

There are eight steps or stages that people pass through during the Enlightenment Intensive retreat on the way to having a direct experience of the Truth.

Participants may not go through all of these stages or they may spend a lot or a little time in each stage and return to previous stages and on occasion, jump ahead a stage.

1. Giving Answers.
One gives their partner answers that are already known. These have been learned from parents, teachers, clergy and friends. They may have been acquired in books or from other teachers. By presenting these answers to partners they are cleared from the mind.

2. Intellectualizing.
In this stage one thinks things out logically and reasonably eg.  "If this is true, then that must be true" and so on. Sometimes in this stage one may come upon the "correct" answer. But answers, correct or not, are not what one is looking for. This stage is finished when one stops trying to answer a question and begins to set about to experience it directly.

3. Phenomena.
In this stage one will have been overusing the brain to such a degree that it may begin to produce unfamiliar mental and physical phenomena. Visions may appear. The room may appear to distort. One may see auras around people and things. One may experience hot and cold flashes or waves of emotion running through the body. Not everyone experiences these but once the phenomena are communicated to a listening partner in the dyad they disappear.

“I no longer need to frantically look into people’s eyes searching for myself. I don’t dodge people on the sidewalk... I am feeling a oneness with everything. This is real a spiritual experience for me. There is no need to be lonely anymore.” - Hal, bank executive

4. The Void.
In this stage one may find the field of consciousness empty. No thoughts occur and no progress appears to be made. At this stage one stops trying to make the enlightenment experience happen by looking for the self and instead allows the direct experience to occur with greater openness. The difference between looking for something and allowing enlightenment to happen may seem subtle but it makes all the difference in the world. This stage is also known as the quieted mind and is often the end goal of many schools of meditation.

5. The Emotional Barriers
One may experience feelings of fear, anger, grief, sadness, apathy or the opposite of bliss and serenity as one experiences and communicates an emotional sense of self, which has been confused with the True Self. Feelings of fear may arise when one de-identifies or separates the True Self from these mental-emotional ego states. The key to moving through these barriers is one's willingness to communicate these feelings and experience whatever it takes to find the Truth.

6. The Enlightenment experience.
Two things occur simultaneously. First one will have a direct conscious experience of Self and second one will experience a release of energy. The direct experience occurs in a timeless instant and will be known as a definite breakthrough. There will be no doubt. One may cry in gratitude, experience ecstasy or laugh uproariously at the obviousness of the truth.

7. The Glow
The energy that has been trapped holding onto the false sense of self will get released and one's presence will radiate as one stays in union with the true self. This will continue until the direct experience has been fully presented to others.

8. The Pure Steady State.
Once the energy is discharged and one spends time fully communicating the direct experience to partners one will move into a steady state of being present in the true self and be in contact with it directly. The steady state will continue into life to the degree that one continues to present the True self to others.

“I can’t property express how blessed I feel. All I know is that it (enlightenment) is more real than anything…this sense of deep meaning and connection helps me trust that the human spirit has limitless possibility.” Brenda McMorrow – Singer/songwriter, London

The Value of Enlightenment in Life

(in the words of Charles Berner the originator of the retreat)
 
"The key to real spiritual development is self-discovery; the direct experience of who you actually are. You can get by all right living from a personality, beingnesses and mis-identifications. It won't be satisfying, but you can get by.

But with the discovery of who you actually are, you can achieve a level of satisfaction and effectiveness unavailable to one unconscious of who he is. You can fully enjoy the fruits of living.

You can make real progress toward real goals, and actually be happy, because it is now the real you living your life rather than a personality or something with which you have become identified. Also, you can take any growth technique or religious practice and make more rapid and on-going progress with it because you can bring to bear your own personal power of choice to be open and grow.

Because of this consciousness of self you no longer just grope around going through the motions, doing things simply to pay the bills and get by. Eventually, living from this direct experience of self, you inevitably find yourself moving into a deeper phase of growth in which the fulfillment of life is possible.

For most of the world's people today, just gaining the capacity to live their life from who they actually are is the most valuable thing. They begin to experience that life doesn't have to be shallow and dull. They have the experience of waking-up in life, and on an Enlightenment Intensive it is a genuine experience of self and not the result of affirmation, brainwashing or someone telling you who you are. When the experience of who you are occurs spontaneously and directly, it is a fact for all time and not just another mental shift in beingness, which many self-development programs produce.

“I now have a strength that comes from a different source, an inner strength. It just is. Its the real me. Coming from that source, life is easier and when things get difficult. I have the power and deep knowledge to deal with it.” Suzie Wasitis - Homemaker Mississauga

For someone who just wants the opportunity to go for the Truth and experience it directly, this is the best short-term technique available today. Such a person can make great progress on Enlightenment Intensives and achieve many levels of enlightenment in a very short period of time compared to traditional methods. For such people Enlightenment Intensives are like a rocket tied along side whatever daily method they practice.

An Enlightenment Intensive can be tremendously inspiring. It can turn a person on to Truth and the actuality of that Truth in day-to-day life. A person can discover that there is more to life than just gratifying the senses; that this whole business of life is not just some random occurrence with no direction or purpose. One can make these discoveries not as ideas but as living facts. Such discoveries fundamentally alter one's life.

There is a lot of value to be gained in just taking the retreat regardless of whether or not you have a direct experience. The dyad process builds person's capacity to engage with contact and openness between people. This openness is essential for a person to be satisfied in life and evolve his relationship with others. Also, as a side effect people gain communication skills almost without realizing it, especially with regard to receiving another's communications without evaluating or interrupting.
Real communication is one of people's greatest stumbling blocks in life and on an Enlightenment Intensive they can make significant gains in this ability just by participating in the intensive.

In the end however, an Enlightenment Intensive has only one purpose: enlightenment. The primary value of enlightenment itself as opposed to how one might apply it in life is its own self. Enlightenment is its own value because it is the fulfillment of life. That union with Truth, no matter how brief, is our purpose, and fulfilling that purpose is the highest and most benefit gained from an enlightenment experience.

In short, the Enlightenment Intensive is a powerful method, which produces remarkably consistent results. The method has been developed thoroughly, tested all over the world, and participated in by thousands and thousands of people. It is the most effective method for self-discovery that I have ever seen, and it is one that can be used by almost anyone.

It is an amazing development in the field of spiritual growth, to have the awakening project be available to such a large portion of the people in such an accelerated fashion."
Charles Berner- originator of the Enlightenment Intensive

“The Enlightenment Intensive format does more to help one towards wholeness than anything else I know. I have been to three, and they have been the most stimulating, awareness producing, even mystical, events in my life...”
Hilary Sinclair, Self and Society Magazine, London

Words of Praise from Former Participants

"When I emerged from the direct experience of who I am (at the Intensive) I started to laugh. All of my worries about the future and my resentments about past hurts seemed, in that moment, very small when compared to the vastness of which I was a part. In that moment I knew that joy - real joy that does not deny what is hard in our lives- is a choice. Joy finds us when we feel the elation that comes when we know that we belong- to another, to ourselves, to the world, to the Mystery that is larger than ourselves." -
Oriah Mountain Dreamer from THE INVITATION  (c) 1999 published by Harper San Francisco. All rights reserved. Presented with permission of the author.

"I discovered a bond linking myself with others, that we are all beings trapped within our minds trying to communicate our fears and need for love. I am becoming more loving, more real, more open, truthful and trustworthy"
Doug Tyler- Real Estate Rep, Toronto

"Enlightenment Intensives are very pure and powerful. The value they had for me I can't say enough about. Enlightenment made apparent to me what my mind is and what I am and I became conscious of what others actually are. As a result, my approach to Martial Arts completely transformed and my ability improved dramatically. I highly recommend Enlightenment Intensives to anyone."
 Peter Ralston- California, First non- Asian ever to win a World Championship Tournament of Martial Arts (1978 Republic of China)

"When I am in union with myself, sounds are as if inside my body, voices vibrate in my chest, colors are bright and clear, my love comes out without holding back; I speak the truth clearly from deep inside me--totally satisfying and pleasurable. My face and eyes look straight at others; I am relaxed. Nothing in me wants to hide. There is no judgment, of others or myself. My breath flows clearly as if to my toes with no congestion, because there is no congestion in my mind--because there is no mind.
I occupy every part of my body-- nothing can hurt me. I feel complete, wanting for nothing. I am gentle, at one with others. I could not hurt them. I know their thoughts. I do not think to do anything; it is done. There is no space, no delay between me and my actions. I am appropriate, balanced. Ecstasy flows through my body and being like waves. I feel humble, grateful for this state of grace. The truth has set me free..." -
Osha Reader, Director of Origin Retreat Center

"I have found the practice of the enlightenment intensive to be an invaluable experience along the journey of discovery.  I more or less stumbled on my first one, not really knowing what I was getting myself into. However, it has had a lasting effect on my daily life.  I feel a greater sense of confidence, equanimity and, surprisingly... wonder.
The methodology combines a form of Zen koan practice with Western relational psychology, though it is not aligned with any theoretical or philosophical school. The format is simple and demanding.  To discover the truth of ourselves and of existence, we must necessarily move beyond the numerous and ingenious devices we employ to avoid its raw reality.  For some people, the search for that truth is the only really meaningful activity of life.  I would recommend the practice to anyone who falls into that category." 
Sandy Fiegehen, PhD Psychologist, Peterborough

"I was overcome by tremendous emotion that welled up in great waves from within. My breathing of itself became most strange with enormous full exhalations. I felt I was breathing out all the pain and agony of the last few years - getting rid indeed of myself. I cried and laughed for a long time in Hazel's arms...We both experienced the same unbelievable total emptiness of mind.. Silence and emptiness. We were gasping out words like 'incredible,' extraordinary', 'who would have thought it', and so on. As we embraced, we seemed to be standing literally in the portals of the great void...Suddenly I solved my last question and then, turning to older koans, I seemed to get direct insight into them one after the other. Old puzzles that had fascinated me for years suddenly yielded obvious answers. The intellectual trickery was gone -here was a direct seeing into the meaning. Every time an answer bloomed like a flower in the mind, I got a shock of discovery. Not as full or as overwhelming as finding out who I was but nevertheless considerable... I look out of the windows of my eyes in a different way from before."

" I dared not initially believe that Satori could be achieved in three days. I am amazed... I have read and thought about Zen for years, struggled with it indeed, but only now do I see without any doubts its essential point. I am I and act in that. While I have had important and valuable meditative experiences before, they had never undercut the ego process or let me gain an insight into non-duality. I feel now completely sure..."
- John Crook, PhD.

Enlightenment Intensives are not an exclusive part of any organization, religious or otherwise. There is nothing to join and no one to follow. The facilitators of Enlightenment Intensive Retreats are not members of any particular organization, religious or otherwise. There are, however, teachers, groups and schools who have added the Enlightenment Intensive in whole or in part to their teachings and practices simply because the technique works.

Some excerpts of this booklet were borrowed by permission from Jeff Love's book "The 72 hour Mirror". http://www.godening.com

The Author

Russell Scott is the former owner of the Ecology Retreat Centre (Orangeville, Ontario) where he pioneered programs in sustainable living and green building. He has a broad understanding of many spiritual paths having witnessed and participated in many of the personal development programs at the centre for over 11 years.

As one of the new generation of non-guru, no dogma spiritual "teachers" he has also been leading True Awakening - enlightenment intensives for the past 25 years, helping people realize their true nature and purpose in life and let go of past recurring turmoil and suffering so that they can walk in the beauty, honesty and magnificence of their essential self.

Find out more about his True Awakening - enlightenment intensives at:
www.truesourceseminars.com
or call: 519-829-4149

What do you do if you have an important breakthrough in your life?

There are times in life when out of the blue a new significant
insight about ourselves, life or others comes into our awareness
or maybe we let go of some pain or false idea that we have
been holding onto for years and years.

Sometimes these breakthroughs can inform a new way of thinking
and feeling that can permanently change our life. Its important to
take full advantage of these breakthroughs so that they become fully
established and integrated into our being. We can easily miss this
opportunity in the busyness if life and unfortunately the
transformational power of these can be by-passed.

What can we do to keep the importance of these events in our lives?

Here's what I have found works for me and many others:

Let the breakthrough in!

This means spending time with it in all aspects of its revelation to you.

Take the time to get clear on the new thought, the insight and
the truth that has come to you. Notice there is an emotional component
of your new awareness and allow yourself to feel the joy,
the calmness or the new sense of optimism that is part of the breakthrough.

Notice that there is a new sense of energy in the body.
Let it in.
You don't have to examine or analyze why it is there.
Its there because you have let go of something you have been holding onto.
It takes a lot of energy to hold onto a false idea and try to live from it so
when you let it go energy gets released.

You will feel more alive. More radiance.

So...

Enjoy it.
Revel it in.
Bask in it.
Take a half an hour and have a beer or a glass of wine and just relax in it.

Then write done the essence of it and if possible communicate
to another person who will just receive it without debating or
commenting on it. Get the insight clarified into a gem of wisdom
and put it onto a file card.

For the next week every day read the card to yourself
and take it all in again.

This your own pesonal affirmation that you can totally accept
because its your wisdom.  It came from the guru of you and
you know its true.

You won't have to struggle with accepting it like affirmations you get from a book because you won't have to spend most of your time trying to convince yourself its true. (That's why a lot of affirmationms don't work).

You know the one that came from you is true.

And the truth of you is what will set you free.

These breakthroughs are one of the amazing things that happen
in the great mystery of existence that we are all engaged in
becoming conscious of. They inherently bring us deeper fulfillment.

Enjoy them all.

Blessings to you.

Russell

519-829-4149
www.truesourceseminars.com
 

True Awakening was developed by Charles Berner in 1968. At its inception he called it the Enlightenment Intensive. Charles Berner was a well-known innovator in California in personal transformation from the Institute of Ability and was experimenting with ways to accelerate personal growth to harness and focus the energies that are released when individuals come into contact. Could these energies be awakened and brought to bear on the quest for self-discovery?

Charles had the idea of combining the Zen practice of pondering an eternal question, or "Koan", with face-to-face structured communication between partners. He tried it out in a three-day retreat that he called an Enlightenment Intensive. The results were remarkable. Within a few days participants were having direct experiences identical in kind to those described by people who had practiced meditation for years.

The experiment was repeated and the results were duplicated time after time. Intensives worked! Over the years thousands of Intensives have been given and thousands of participants have had enlightenment (or direct) experiences. Because of its effectiveness, the Enlightenment Intensive has not faded away. It has been supported all around the world by a steadily growing number of adherents who have found it to be a pure and authentic method for going beyond the mind and realizing truth.

The following is taken from talks given by Charles on the History and Value of the Enlightenment Intensive.

In 1968, I had four or five hours one afternoon with nothing to do. I was in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California, staring at the trees in a nice quiet area. I had been pondering a problem related to my teaching experience. I had noticed people who didn't know who they were had a hard time making progress and people who made rapid progress knew who they were. I was just musing, "How is it that we could help people to accelerate this process of self discovery?"

I was familiar with zazen, and the yogic reflective approaches. But I knew how long they took and I was somewhat discouraged by the prospect of having people spending years to get to the place where they woke up to who they are.
Suddenly the whole idea of the Enlightenment Exercise occurred to me and moments later it occurred to me to use the format of a Zen sesshin, but to call it an intensive. So essentially the basic outline of both the Enlightenment Technique and the Enlightenment Intensive came to me at that time. And what source it came from I know not but it wasn't a process of sitting down and figuring it out. It occurred to me in one moment. I was just reflecting on this problem on this beautiful spring afternoon and suddenly it came to me: why don't we take the age-old question of 'who am I?" which is at least 7,000 years old, and combine it with the communication techniques that I had learned? And thus was born the Enlightenment Intensive.

Soon after, I told some of my students that we were going to have an intensive. I didn't tell them much about what was going to happen; I just said we were going to work on finding out who we are and that it was going to be intense. I had just acquired a piece of property with no improvements on it out in the Southern California high desert, and I had about thirty dollars in my pocket. I bought some four-by-fours, set them right into the ground, nailed plywood sheets on top, and bought one day's food; that was all the food we could afford until the people started to show up and made some payments for the intensive and sure enough, they came; twenty-six of them. I put some mosquito netting around the outside and rolled out some rugs on the bare ground and said, "Well, here we are." And still all I had in my head was this flash of an idea of what an Enlightenment Intensive would be.

We got up in the morning and went at it. They paid their money and my wife Ava rushed downtown during the lunch break, bought some more food and brought it back up and, son of a gun, if on the second day people didn't start having some direct experiences of Truth.

I had expected it would take five, ten Enlightenment Intensives for some enlightenments to start showing up. But to my amazement, people were having these experiences and it blew me out as much as it did them. In fact, about forty percent of the people who attended had a direct experience by the end of the intensive.

The enthusiasm was riding high, so we scheduled another intensive about three months later. I gave more and more of them and year after year I was doing an average of ten Enlightenment Intensives a year. Two of them were two weeks long and one of them was three weeks long and most of them were either three or five days long. I've been there in spades; I've tried this. I've tried that, I've varied it this way, and I’ve varied it that way. I've found out what worked and what didn't work with thousands of people - brilliant ones, sane ones, talkative ones, silent ones, crazy ones, all kinds, and for the last twenty to twenty-five intensives I made almost no changes. Now I'm satisfied that I know what I'm doing.

So I want to give you my view on what the value of the Enlightenment Intensive is. It may well be true that I am biased in my evaluation, since the method was originated and developed through me, but I will give you my views and evaluation nevertheless.

As far as growth techniques are concerned, I've personally done just about everything there is to do. I've also applied many of them as a facilitator. For years and years I tried every method I could find which seemed to hold some promise for personal and spiritua1 growth. Among these were mind clearing, gestalt, rolfing, psychosynthesis, bioenergetics, numerous meditation and concentration techniques, breathing techniques of all sorts, ability exercises, trainings and seminars of all kinds, extensive past life work, hatha yoga, dream work, emotional trauma release work, and on and on. This work was coupled with intensive research into religious philosophies and practices of both East and West, along with personal contact with many holy men and leaders in the growth movement.

 I have been at it for over thirty years, solid; and my conclusion is that in the realm of self-discovery there is nothing that tops the Enlightenment Intensive. Techniques, which have a purpose other than self-discovery, may be more effective at achieving their particular purpose, but for the purpose of self-discovery I've not run into anything, which comes close to the effectiveness of the Enlightenment Intensive.

The key to real spiritual development is self-discovery; the direct experience of who you actually are. You can get by all right living from personality, beingnesses and mis-identifications. It won't be satisfying, but you can get by.
But with the discovery of who you actually are, you can achieve a level of satisfaction and effectiveness unavailable to one unconscious of who he is. You can fully enjoy the fruits of living.

You can make real progress toward real goals, and actually be happy, because it is now you living your life rather than a personality or something with which you have become identified. Also, you can take any growth technique or religious practice and make real and on-going progress with it because you can bring to bear your own personal power of choice to be open and grow.

 Because of this consciousness of self you no longer just grope around going through the motions, doing things simply to pay the bills and get by. Eventually, living from this direct experience of self, you inevitably find yourself moving into a deeper phase of growth in which the fulfillment of life is possible.

But for most of the world's people today, just gaining the capacity to live their life from who they actually are is the most valuable thing. They begin to experience that life doesn't have shallow and dull. They have the experience of waking-up in life, and on an Enlightenment Intensive it is a genuine experience of self and not the result of brainwashing or someone telling you who you are.

 After people's defenses come down and their minds are open as a result of the long hours, the concentration and the contact, there is an opportunity available where a person can either be brainwashed by being told who he is or he can be supported in having his own experience. When the experience of who one is occurs spontaneously and directly, it is a fact for all time and not just another mental shift in beingness.

The Enlightenment Intensive is also a valuable tool for those relatively few individuals who just want the Truth. An Enlightenment Intensive points you at the Truth itself and for someone who just wants the opportunity to go for the Truth and experience it directly, this is the best short-term technique available today. Such a person can make great progress on Enlightenment Intensives and achieve many levels of enlightenment in a very short period of time compared to traditional methods. For such people Enlightenment Intensives are like a rocket tied along side whatever daily method they practice.

The only disadvantage of an Enlightenment Intensive is that there are a few people who cannot take it. It's too hard for them. Either they are not physically disciplined enough or there is something wrong with their brain. Enlightenment Intensives do not work well for individuals with significant brain damage or no discipline. But only about five percent of the people fall into this category.

 The rest can take Enlightenment Intensives with excellent results. It is an amazing development in the field of spiritual growth, to have the self-discovery project be available to such a large portion of the people in such an accelerated fashion. All a person has to have, assuming his brain is all right, is the willingness to accept to the schedule and follow the instructions. The rest takes care of itself, sooner or later.

An Enlightenment Intensive can be tremendously inspiring. It can turn a person on to Truth and the actuality of that Truth in day-to-day life. A person can discover that there is more to life than just gratifying the senses; that this whole business of life is not just some random occurrence with no direction or purpose. One can make these discoveries not as ideas but as living facts. Such discoveries fundamentally alter one's life.

There is a lot of value to be gained in just taking an Enlightenment Intensive regardless of whether or not you have a direct experience. An Enlightenment Intensive builds contact and openness between people. It builds a person's capacity to engage in that contact and openness. People become very open on intensives. This openness is essential for a person's capacity to be satisfied in life and evolve his relationship with others. Also, as a side effect people gain communication skills almost without realizing it, especially with regard to receiving another's communications without evaluating or interrupting.

Real communication is one of people's greatest stumbling blocks in life and on an Enlightenment Intensive they can make significant gains in this ability just by participating in the intensive.

In the end, however, an Enlightenment Intensive has only one purpose: enlightenment. The primary value of enlightenment itself as opposed to how one might apply it in life is its own self. Enlightenment is its own value because it is the fulfillment of life. That union with Truth, no matter how brief, is our purpose, and fulfilling that purpose is the highest and most benefit gained from an enlightenment experience.

The Enlightenment Intensive is primarily a technique for awakening, but the direct experience itself fulfills.

In short, the Enlightenment Intensive is a powerful method, which produces remarkably consistent results.. The method has been developed thoroughly, tested all over the world, and participated in by thousands and thousands of people. It is the most effective method for self-discovery that I have ever seen, and it is one that can be used by almost anyone.

Finally there is nothing I have found in years of natural yoga meditation including the depths of samadhi that in any way contradicts anything that has come up in the Enlightenment Intensive. In fact, it has done nothing but validate and reinforce it.