ACFIP Newsletter 

Issue 51  December 2016

Quarterly Newsletter of the Australian Centre for Inner Peace

Michael Dawson

PO Box 125, Point Lookout

North Stradbroke Island,

Queensland 4183,

Australia

Email: mdawson@acfip.org

Web site: http://www.acfip.org

If you wish to read previous issues please go to http://www.acfip.org/newsletterarchive.html.

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.

You can find them at http://www.acfip.org/sum.html and http://www.acfip.org/art4.html

eBooks and MP3s

1. Healing the Cause -A Path of Forgiveness.

Inspired by A Course in Miracles.

This is the eBook version of the paper back. The paper back is available from my website.

2. A Course in Miracles - Explanations of Major Themes

New book in eBook format

3. Forgiveness - A Path to Inner Peace. 

Inspired by A Course in Miracles

This is the eBook version of the paper back. The paper back is available from my website.

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.

For more details and how to purchase please visit: http://www.acfip.org/books_tapes.html

Regards 

Michael Dawson

______________________________________________________

CONTENTS:

A Course in Miracles Material

*The number one requirement for awakening by Michael Dawson.

Non Dual Teachings

*The awakening of Dada Gavand from his autobiography, Intelligence Beyond Thought,

*The Embodied Expression of Consciousness - Jan Frazier.

*Jan Frazier’s Teachings

*That Which Thought Never Touches - Adyashanti

Other

* Workshops

* Books and Audio Materials for Sale

* Links

* Inspirational Quotations

A Course in Miracles Material

The number one requirement for awakening is to desire it above all else.

But isn’t desire an impediment to awakening?

- Michael Dawson - 

Love waits on welcome, not on time, and the real world is but

your welcome of what always was. “A Course in Miracles” T-13.VII.9:7

 Release is given you the instant you desire it.

“A Course in Miracles” T-18.VII.4:3

I have often pondered on a seeming paradox. Many awakened teachers that I respect state that the number one requirement for spiritual awakening - to enter the real world as “A Course in Miracles” states it - is to desire it above all else. 

As soon as you want the truth more than anything else, you’ll get it.

That’s how it works. it’s pretty simple.

Adyashanti.

…. The means do not matter much; it is the desire, the urge, the earnestness that counts.

Nisargadatta Maharaj

The holy instant (spiritual awakening) is the result of your determination to be holy. It is the answer. The desire and the willingness to let it come precede its coming. You prepare your mind for it only to the extent of recognizing that you want it above all else.  

“A Course in Miracles” T-18.IV.1:1-4 

But as the Buddha and others have pointed out, desire is an impediment, a mind activity, and even the desire for truth-awakening must be given up.

Exchanging worldly desires for spiritual desires is

The last gasp of the separate self.

Wu Hsin

Vol. 2 The Lost Writings of Wu Hsin

The desire for truth is the highest of all desires, yet, it is still a desire. 

All desires must be given up for the real to be. 

Nisargadatta Maharaj  “I Am That”

The reaching for enlightenment is the last thing this “me” you believe yourself to be does just before it dissolves into pure awareness, your natural original state.

Enza Vita  “Always, already Free”

Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God.  “A Course in Miracles” Lesson 189

What I suddenly saw recently was this:

Say you want good health above all else. You don’t spend your time desiring it, looking forward to it, regretting you don’t have it, hoping health will come soon, envious of others who have heath, fear it will never come. No, you just do the things that bring health - good food, exercise, enough sleep, cut down stress, drink water etc. You do all this because it feels right. You forget about good health and get on with your life.

Same with awakening, enlightenment, liberation etc. You do the things that bring it about. You make your life more simple and unhurried, you relax, you gently watch the mind without judgement, you allow more silence into your life, you forgive, you let go right and wrong, good and bad, give up investment in beliefs and concepts and trying to figure it all out, forget all about if you are going to wake up and when. You do all this because it feels right. Thoughts about awakening are just that - more thoughts to gently watch and perhaps smile at.

Your day becomes your classroom: what’s happening now, if awakening happens then awakening happens. That’s not up to me so I might as well forget all about it.

I sent my insight to Jan Frazier for her opinion. I consider Jan to be an awake woman.

This was her reply.

Dear Michael,

Score!

One of the problems with desire is it tries to convince the mind that something later (the desired thing) can be real. This keeps time alive - which takes a person out of the now. Anything "have-able," anything knowable, can occur only in the now. So when desire is allowed to take its solitary expression, as you so well describe, in this moment, that is the only possible door.

Love,

Jan

So it seems we need to desire awakening above all but not fall into the trap of  over-striving, grasping, hoping and getting caught in time as in “When is this thing going to happen!”.

Adyashanti puts it like this;

The great hurdle to awakening is time.

If you are not thinking in terms of time, there is no waiting. Nor is their impatience. Your yearning and curiosity now becomes really powerful. The curiosity is there to clear out the debris, the obstructions. 

Need to take all your interest and yearning out of time. There is not even a minute in the future. All of that comes back into the present. That’s the key. 

The price is your life

We want to be free

lose the chains that bind us

reach the Sun

touch the face of God.

But we are in the way

we are the covering,

we are the veil,

hiding the precious one.

There is nothing we can do

but to leave ourselves behind

- to retain no traces of an I - 

revealing all, hiding nothing.

Get out of the way,

vanish, dissolve, just evaporate,

and the glory of him, the Sun

will pervade the universe with its brilliance.   

Enza Vita

———————————————————————————————

Non Dual Teachings

This part of the newsletter offers input from non-dual teachers. What is non-duality? The word ‘non-dual’ means not two. On the first page of the ACIM text there is two line summary of a Course in Miracles. It begins with the line “Nothing real can be threatened.”

This refers to what God created – eternal, formless, spirit. Eternal means never born and therefore cannot change or die. The Course uses the expression ‘the Christ’ to denote this. Behind all the seeming multiplicity of the universe there is actually only one essential reality. Just as all the images on the cinema screen seem different, the light that creates them is one.

There is nothing outside you. That is what you must ultimately learn, for it is the realization that the Kingdom of Heaven is restored to you. For God created only this, and He did not depart from it nor leave it separate from Himself. The Kingdom of Heaven is the dwelling place of the Son of God, who left not his Father and dwells not apart from Him. Heaven is not a place nor a condition. It is merely an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else; nothing outside this Oneness, and nothing else within.

T-18.VI.1.

The second line of the summary states ”Nothing unreal exists.” This refers to everything that is born and therefore dies - the ego’s world. Thus everything in the universe including ourselves is not real according to the Course. It is like a great dream. Only perfect oneness is real. 

There are two forms of non-duality – pure and impure. In the impure form God is aware that the universe is a dream and experiences itself through it - God's Leela or play as they say in the East. In the pure form of non-duality God is unaware of the universe. The Course is an example of pure non-dual teachings. A metaphor for this is a cinema projector where the lamp in the projector represents God. When the ego's film of separation is run past the light it is projected onto the screen of time and space. The light of God makes this possible, but the lamp is unaware of what is on the screen and would continue to shine when the film is taken away. To continue with this metaphor the light extending from the lamp is who we are, the Christ. ( See chart http://acfip.org/lightbulb.html)

You dwell not here, but in eternity.

You travel but in dreams, while safe at home. 

T-13.VII.17:6-7.

You are at home in God, dreaming of exile but perfectly capable of awaking to reality. 

T-10.I.2:1.

_________________________________________________

The awakening of Dada Gavand from his autobiography, Intelligence Beyond Thought,

“Dada Gavand's autobiography, Intelligence Beyond Thought, contains a remarkably informative description of what he did that led to his waking up. He shares with us the whole concrete experience so we are able to see not only what he did but also how it felt. We also see the ferocious intensity and motivation that were required to make the practice work. He put his whole life aside to focus on this one thing, his sadhana. Dada has no interest in scriptures or concepts about enlightenment.” From https://o-meditation.com/?s=dada.

The biog below is from http://mysticdada.org/getting-to-know-dada/

Dadaji was born in 1917 in a wealthy family from Thane. He had a happy childhood and grew to be an adventurous youth who led his cricket team, went hunting and enjoyed a life of comfort and prestige. However, at the age of 18, he suddenly found himself shouldering the responsibility of a big household due to the untimely demise of his father. While faithfully carrying out his various family responsibilities, he became keenly aware of the self-centered, repetitive and mechanical pattern of people’s lives. He saw that for most people, life is nothing but an unending chain of action and reaction, driven as they are by innumerable desires and fears. Disenchanted with the hollowness of such an existence, he therefore left his cozy home and set out at the young age of 31 to explore deeper significance of life.

After many years of wandering and a brief interaction with contemporary spiritual teachers like J. Krishnamurti and Ramana Maharshi, he realized that he purpose of life. Hence he withdrew to a little hut atop Mount Sajjangad and spent 7 months in total solitude and intense impersonal watchfulness. He grappled face-to-face with the psychological mechanism of his own mind, observing his own fears and desires rise to the surface and dissolve, thereby releasing a lot of energy. With the continual release of suppressed thoughts, more and more such energy began to build up within until, he experienced a radical breakthrough of consciousness. He experienced an inner explosion that shattered the crystallized structure of his mind, bringing in its wake a surge of dynamic, other-dimensional energy and an intuitive intelligence of another order. He was cleansed of all the stored-up psychological toxins of the past and a deep peace and joy filled his being.

He spent 19 more years in near solitude widening and deepening his vision through meditation. Thereafter, an incredible series of events resulted in several lecture tours across the globe, including 14 trips to the US where he shared his insights with leading scientists, psychologists and lay people.

The Explosion

Shattering The Ego-Mind: A New Energy Flow.

My days and nights passed in this intense, watchful, attentive state, in an almost unbroken momentum of awareness. At times I wondered where this whole adventure would take me. A deep sense of wonderment crept in about the experiences and states through which I was passing. I had no expectation or fear of any kind. I simply watched every internal movement, accepting life as it was unfolding.

Forgiveness  ... is still, and quietly does nothing. .... It merely looks, and waits, and judges not.  A Course in Miracles W-pII.1.4:1,3

My path and my journey consisted of totally facing myself and passing through the unknown. As this inner pilgrimage continued, one day the mystery of life suddenly and unexpectedly struck like a lightning bolt!

Around noon, I cooked my rice as usual and put out the wood fire. Although the rice was ready, I decided to wait a few minutes for it to cool before eating. I drew back a little and sat casually on my mat, with my mind completely at rest.

Suddenly, in that quiet and inadvertent moment, totally unanticipated, a mysterious action struck.

Something inside me literally exploded, giving me the shock of my life.

In a split second a fountain of unknown energy sprang forth from within. This surprising energy flow was of a truly new kind, different from anything I had ever sensed or experienced before. It felt soft, sensitive, joyful and dynamic yet peaceful. It filled me with profound reverence, deep awe and love. Such a mystical and powerful explosion in my inner domain was a miraculous event.

This explosion affected and transformed my entire personality. In this dramatic breakthrough in consciousness, the whole crystallized structure of the ego/mind got literally shattered. This opened up an energy flow of a totally new kind. No mind – no thinker or I – remained while this was happening. A dynamic, intuitive state came into existence, where the past in the form of memories and the future in the form of desires were not there. This brought in a flow of total now-ness.

I did not know where this flow of new and different energy came from or how all this had occurred. The whole experience happened very suddenly and unexpectedly, and was extremely pleasant and deeply blissful. I never had experienced such a flow of all-powerful energy in my life. It swept me off my feet and took charge of me completely. I was steeped in joy, dynamicity and ecstasy, reeling a real freedom and inner tranquility. Everything inside and out became intensely alive, giving me a taste of the vibrant present. A celestial shower drenched my whole being, submerging me in serenity.

Something unknown and mysterious had taken place! I was overflowing with happiness, and in that excitement I got up and even danced around the room in total abandonment. I was the most ecstatic person on earth at that moment. My life had been touched by the sublime and sacred.

How long I remained in this state I do not know. Eventually, the upsurge of ecstasy subsided, but thought activity was still entirely absent, not even lurking in the corners to come creeping in stealthily. Instead, I experienced profound quietude. The flow of this fountain of new energy slowly diminished, leaving behind deep feelings of humility and reverence. For the first time I vividly experienced a totally serene state in my whole being. I sat down on the floor and immediately became engrossed in an intense inwardness with profound silence.

From this point onward my meditation took a different form. It became a play of this new internal energy. I could sense only the flow, a glow within, of this new energy moving quietly. A momentum of twinkling energy, this fountain of intuitive flow initiated the beginning of a totally new life experience.

After a period of deep silence I fell asleep. However, my experience of sleep was now completely different as well. It became a time of internal dynamicity, without the play of the mind as dreamer. I experienced sleep as a state of serene internal existence out of which I emerged very fresh and vibrantly alive.

Later that day, after a short rest I went out of the hut. The whole scene before me shone with new depth and clarity. The horizon appeared absolutely boundless, giving the experience of infinity. It touched me to the depth of my being, intensifying the taste of timelessness. No center or ‘I’ as perceiver existed. Instead, the act of perceiving was itself an internal experience of the panorama from inside out. This new way of perceiving or experiencing a landscape which I had seen many times before overwhelmed me.

I sat down upon a wooden log, wondering about this unique internal explosion that had occurred. There came a profound sense of gratitude and fulfilment. As I pondered this unusual experience, I slipped into a deep internal silence. In this silence, I became aware of the same movement of glimmering energy.

I do not know exactly how long it worked upon me that day. Slowly the flow subsided, leaving me joyous and deeply contented.

That evening I had a strong urge to inform my mother about this mind-quake, this shattering of the ego-mind. It was so mysterious and exciting, a first-time, first-hand revelation! I realized that my mother, living so far away from me, still remained the closest person to me, and I wanted to share it with her only. I felt like going to the edge of the mountain to announce to her at the top of my voice about the amazing breakthrough that took place. This is like a new birth! Surprisingly, quite spontaneously, a message to my mother came forth in poetic form, in Marathi, my mother tongue.

I had never before written poetry. In this new expression of life, the words came out spontaneously in a meaningful way. Thereafter, for a while every day, I wrote a poem to describe this new energy and its unusual play within me.

I wrote a few poems in Hindi and even in the English language. I discovered that language was no barrier and I used to be filled with wonder at the way the words would all fall in line. On completing each verse, I would take a look at it, only to marvel at its neat rhythmic pattern and its well-integrated theme and structure:

SURPRISE VISITOR

When all wanderings and searchings came to an end

Mind realized there is nowhere for him to go.

I sat then alone, in utter humility and anonymity

Oh, then you came to visit me uninvited!

Thereafter, the nature and style of sitting with myself changed. It became a spontaneous expression of this new energy. I passed my days in the hut with absolutely no discipline of any kind, no expectation, and no hope about anything. I remained receptive, allowing the new energy to come and to work in its own way, and that took different forms. It started touching various regions inside my body, gathering around one part for a moment and then shifting to another part. It stimulated one particular area for a time and then disappeared. Like a game of touch-and-go, it was a kind of play of that amazing, glowing energy.

I had to stay quiet and empty for it to appear again to carry out its plans within me. The energy would appear – unpredictably, unpretentiously, quietly – work for a while in its mysterious way within, and then leave silently. All its movements were unanticipated, almost secret, deeply sacred. Sometimes my mind would visualize and anticipate the direction, but the energy never obliged my mind. In this way the secret inner activity went on, keeping me innocent, empty and almost dumb. It alone directed the show! Any activity of my mind would hinder the movement of the energy. Nevertheless, the energy always remained untouchable and uninfluenced by the mind.

From these months of watching the movement of thought, of seeing the mind in its intricacies and its whole structure, I had begun to realize how every idea is programmed in our brain cells from which it springs. In fact every idea, every thought, has a biological counterpart in each cell of the brain.

But now, after this explosion, I saw that no idea entered my mind inciting action. Instead an intuitive flow – that new energy – worked instantaneously and spontaneously. The new intelligence does not function through the vehicle of thought or memory, so it has no contact with the regular active brain.

I began to see, and have since understood more fully, that the brain and nervous system, as they have evolved to this point, are not capable of receiving and cooperating with this unique energy flow. They are not able to be the right instrument or medium for the expression of the new-dimensional energy. It has a different source and a new quality all its own. The nervous system and brain have developed over time, in cooperation with the mind, to be an instrument for the expression of thought/emotion activity only. Nature has helped to evolve the central nervous system as a means for the smooth functioning of the mind as a thinking, reacting mechanism.

However, this new energy, which resides beyond the border of the mind, needs a new or modified instrument for its functioning and expression. This new energy is a momentum of the present and acts spontaneously, independently and intelligently. The brain, on the other hand, functions through thoughts, calculations, memories, and the past. This new energy has nothing to do with thought, and does not use the regular active brain. Thus the brain is basically laid to rest, and a profound peace comes into existence as a natural phenomenon. This peace becomes the natural state of the whole being.

Oh My Mother

Dear Mother . . .

I am born again – a new born babe

Celebrating my new birth on this earth.

But Mom, how can a son describe to his Mother

The events of his mysterious rebirth?

You gave me the mortal birth

That brought me into this world.

But now this new birth has granted

The touch of immortality!

Oh, dear Mother, it’s an actual happening,

And I am so happy and joyful here today.

But how can I convey to you the news

About the rebirth of your son?

I feel so thankful to you

For bringing me into this mortal world.

Now I have discovered for myself

The beauty of that which is imperishable.

Oh my Mother, I am very happy

And safe on this solitary mountain.

Finally I have sought and discovered

That which was hiding in me only!

Oh my Mother,

I love you dear

How I wish you were here

To see this mysterious affair!

Dada Gavand

From Intelligence Beyond Thought,

See also Birth of Universal Man and

Beyond Mind

______________________________________________________

The Embodied Expression of Consciousness by Jan Frazier.

http://janfrazierteachings.com/the-embodied-expression-of-consciousness/

What has changed, when awakening occurs? What’s essentially different from how it was before? We’re looking at the underlying difference, rather than the changes it sets in motion, the “expressions” of awakened consciousness – the things getting most of the attention for those seeking it, like a quiet mind, equanimity, the absence of attachment, of suffering.

The deep question is this: what has occurred to enable these changes from what life has been before? It’s that the sense of what you are elementally has shifted. Whereas until now you appeared to be your story, beliefs, desires, problems, and physicality, now what feels like “you” is something entirely apart from all that. Something startlingly impersonal . . . even as it’s felt to be “inside” your body, seeming to move as you move – through space, through the day. While your story and all the rest of what you identified as your very self is now seen to have been manufactured, a compelling mind-made response to reality, now what you experience as real is awareness. The now.

If there is any “you” at all, it’s only the momentary felt sensation of awareness, which includes any engagement with the now as it’s occurring. All else is recognized as the product of the busy mind, which no longer compels, no longer seems real in the way it did before.

What’s different now is the bodied sense of what you are. This is not an intellectual knowing (which may well have been there for years prior, demonstrating the gulf between mental “knowing” and embodied knowing). You now literally do not identify as you all that previously defined you.

You realize a more true “you” already was there. And now it senses itself. It feels so substantial you can’t any longer believe in that old self that tried so hard to wake up.

No wonder it’s so restful. A vast burden has been set down.

Yet (here is the miracle) somebody is still here! Who or what is it that feels the radical relief? That can recognize (and appreciate) the difference between before and after? That travels so lightly now, savoring each moment, as if life had only just now begun?

It’s the something in you – consciousness itself – that always has been alive in you, whether or not you noticed it before. The embodied expression of consciousness – a human being – is noticing and feeling the difference. Even if you did, previously, have occasional episodes of noticing, you didn’t “live there” – till now. Before now, you didn’t “identify” it as being you, your very self, for the mind-generated self kept convincing you of its reality. The mind kept you thinking its production was precious, woundable, worth taking good care of. This self imagined that when those brief moments of peaceful well-being occurred, the self was “having an experience.” (But if you had thought to notice, at such moments, you’d have realized that self wasn’t actually there right then. Consciousness was, though.)

When that useless self has turned out to be unreal – to have always been mind-invented – the deeper, truer “self” is free at last to breathe, to stretch its limbs and move, assuming its rightful aliveness, its primacy. Awareness itself turns out to be what’s real, tinglingly alive. You feel yourself to be finally really here – and the irony is that this occurs in the pronounced absence of what you once defined as “yourself.”

Only now, free of the mind’s enduring impression of a self, has it become possible to experience unconditional love, in the absence of fear and attachment. Because the primary mission is no longer healing or getting-what-you-want or pleasing others (or yourself), nothing is at risk. You’re free to love no-holds-barred, because loving is no longer about “you.” You move with a background, ongoing recognition of uncertainty, the brevity of all things, but because it’s awareness itself doing the moving (not a precious self having density and all kinds of investment), there’s no somebody there to be woundable, needing to be adored or understood, no somebody that can be thrown off-balance or disappointed. There is only this lived, deeply felt moment, this morsel of life, and the consciousness engaging or observing it. That is all that’s experienced as real. Life is being lived . . . but there’s nobody there living it, at least not in the previous sense of a somebody.

* * * * *

Go back to before, when there did seem to be an objectively real somebody. Back to when the inner life of that person (thoughts, uproars, dreams, fears, memories, beliefs) felt substantial and important. That person suffered and wanted to stop suffering, or at least to minimize it. That person ached to have a quiet mind.

Perhaps that person you thought you were also hoped someday to become free of the whole mess – to awaken, spiritually speaking.

Maybe you’re there right about now.

* * * * *

It appears that an earnest seeker can, with sufficient devotion, become free of the familiar self-identification, the constraints of the mind. That through discipline, intention, practice, and inquiry, a seeker can move beyond the limited sense of self, to discover the spaciousness beyond it that is the deep truth of existence.

But these assumptions are failing to look at the primary illusion they’re all based upon, which is the belief that you are the self that longs, that works on itself, that strives to achieve better discipline, to have better meditations, fewer attachments, the self that makes progress or slides backwards.

What typically happens is that seekers use their narrow, mind-made selves to try to change those very selves – to become somehow free of them. As if such a thing were possible!

But this isn’t how it works. The mind-bound self does not become free. It does not find its way to enlightenment. What happens, at awakening, is that you realize there’s something else alive in you, something existing in parallel with the self, something that’s always been here. That something – consciousness itself – is the only substantial reality within. You realize the self you’d earnestly been trying to fix, to discipline or set free – the very self you’d been using to “get there” – never was real. Never could have gotten to the longed-for condition.

You realize a more true “you” already was there. And now it senses itself. It feels so substantial you can’t any longer believe in that old self that tried so hard to wake up.

So here, now, from where you are . . . If you can see this is what you’ve been doing (for decades, maybe), gently recognize the vast effort for what it is. See how it hasn’t gotten you very far.

Redirect your attention to noticing yourself doing this, next time it occurs (and all the times to come, for you can count on it, from long habit, to want to persist). Move your attention from self-judgment and the habitual effort to change (with its assumption that this self is real) to noticing how real that imperfect self appears to be.

Forgiveness  ... is still, and quietly does nothing. .... It merely looks, and waits, and judges not. (A Course in Miracles - W-pII.1.4:1,3)  [Quote added by me]

Pay attention to what awareness itself feels like, in the body. (It’s awareness that’s become alert to the seeking-and-trying-and-judging energy.)

Notice what awareness feels like, in a moment when all attention is on something (anything at all, even something quite ordinary, like pulling on your shoe). See how conspicuously alive attention feels. Notice where “you” seem to be, at such a moment. (Are you there at all? After all, it isn’t necessary to remember who you are to put on a shoe.)

Pay attention, as you continue to live, to the difference between attending and thinking – between the present-moment engagement of the senses (the body in motion, attuned to the immediate scene) and whatever happens once the mind takes hold of it and makes something of it.

Here’s the rub. The ongoing assumption that “you” are real is not likely to be recognized as (merely) an assumption, both because the self does feel so real and – this is the kicker – because to question its reality is to tiptoe up to a kind of death. The self does not, above everything else, want to discover it isn’t substantial. It doesn’t want to see that it’s not so precious after all, that all the suffering has been based on an illusion. Don’t expect it to be a welcome desolation.

How willing are you to allow that to be?

But it’s useful to watch all this happening. What could be a more vivid indicator of the apparent reality of a “you” – more compelling than its terror of obliteration, the radical reluctance to cease to be?

Don’t bother trying to talk yourself into allowing death to happen. You can’t do it (you’d only be fooling yourself), nor do you need to. What never really lived doesn’t have to die. Rather than “dying,” it simply stops feeling real. That’s the discovery: the thing was only ever in the head.

______________________________________________________

Jan Frazier Teachings

Imagine a life without suffering

http://janfrazierteachings.com

Home Page

There is a presence within you

that has never suffered.

It lives in joy that has no cause.

It is who you most deeply are.

Welcome

Some moment it will dawn on you: you’re free, and always have been. Radically free. You’ll realize you never needed to try so hard — either to spiritually awaken, or to make things happen in your regular life. You’ll realize that all along you had what you wanted. You already were it. A moment will come when you realize there’s not, after all, a problem. You will notice that the impulse to resist has left you. Things just are as they are. Inside it is weirdly peaceful, even though outwardly things are pretty much as they have been right along. It’s just that they no longer seem to be so much about you — even the ones that directly affect your life.

Your sense of who you are and what your life is about has opened, softened. A lot that used to matter is no longer absorbing. You move through things (all things) with a light-hearted ease. You can feel how struggle, the urge to make something happen — a whole life’s worth of effort — has drained right out of you, as if you’ve sprung a leak.

Children know something about this. Then forgetting comes. Grown-ups mostly have forgotten they ever knew something. Some have a little recollection, like a remnant taste of a sweetness from long ago, a fleeting bit of a song they know they’d recognize but can’t quite sing. They wonder about the source of this, how to find their way again to the origin of that inexpressible thing.

They may think they once had it, but then lost it. Or they may think they imagined it, that they dreamed up the whole thing to give themselves some kind of comfort, a respite from the daily, the difficult. But no, that isn’t quite what’s going on.

They didn’t dream it up. It’s real. It’s the most real thing there is. And it didn’t go away.

****

Imagine a life without suffering. Not because bad things have stopped happening in the world or in your personal life. But because your orientation to them has changed. Your orientation to yourself has changed. The end of suffering comes about when you find your way to that primeval sweetness that has never left you, which is the essence of every human being. This essence has never known the swelling of pride or the grip of fear. It has never been lonely or ambitious. When the familiar sense of who you are has softened and grown light, when it is allowed to fall away, what remains is a pool of calm delight. You no longer ask things of your life. Each moment is enough, as it is. Life lived within that awareness is heaven on earth. It is human nature allowed to come to full flower.

The purpose of this website is to support the opening of possibility. Its intention is not to promote any particular spiritual tradition, practice, or set of beliefs. The invitation is to discover within your own awareness the place where suffering has never taken hold. When Fear Falls Away: The Story of a Sudden Awakening (Weiser Books, 2007) is an account of just such a discovery.

The Freedom of Being: At Ease with What Is (Weiser Books, 2012) explores the nature of the self that is subject to suffering and shows the way beyond that limited self.

Opening the Door: Jan Frazier Teachings on Awakening (eBookIt, 2012) is an ebook collection of essays. It opens the reader’s awareness to the possibility of a richly human life, beyond what appears possible to the ego and the mind.

The Great Sweetening: Life After Thought (eBookIt, 2016) is the newest ebook essay collection. It invites the seeker to ask What am I? This is the heart of the spiritual search, the question Am I my ego and my thoughts, or am I consciousness itself?

You are warmly invited to explore the teachings on this website. There are essays as well as video and audio teachings.

Wishing you every opening, every letting go into joy and ease.

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That Which Thought Never Touches - Adyashanti

The human condition is characterized by a compulsive and obsessive personal relationship to thought. At its best, thought is a symbolic representation of reality; at its worst, thought takes the place of reality. Our thoughts describe and interpret both the external world and our internal experiences. To conceive of a life lived any other way is incomprehensible to most people. Thought tells us who we are; what we believe; what is right and wrong; what we should feel; what is true and what is false; and how we fit into this event called "life." We literally create ourselves and our lives out of thought. Further, we associate the end of thought with sleep, unconsciousness, or death. It is this very personal relationship with thought that is the cause of all the fear, ignorance, and suffering which characterizes the human condition, and which destroys the manifestation of true Love in this life.

As long as your experience of self and life is defined by the mechanical, conditioned, and compulsive movement of thought, you are bound to a very, very limited perception of what is real. But imagine a relationship to thought that was impersonal. This would mean that you were no longer compulsively defining and interpreting yourself and your experience by the movement of thought. If this were the case, you would no longer be limited by the conditioned perspective of thought. Suddenly your entire perspective would shift away from thought to that which was the very ground and source of all thought. A source which, because it wasn't being compulsively interpreted by thought, would be experienced as it actually is for the first time.

Why is this so important? Because when you are able to perceive this Source, you are actually in direct experiential contact with the truth of your own being. Out of that contact the possibility is ripe to suddenly awaken to who and what you really are--the Self--pure consciousness.

The Self is the context within which thought arises. Manifestation in the world of time arises as a wave out of the ocean of eternal consciousness. But the human condition is defined by a very personal and compulsive relationship to thought, which makes this realization impossible unless you are able, either suddenly or gradually, to let go of the compulsive need to know and understand with the mind. You must become more interested in the context within which thought and all experience arises than in the false security of thought itself. Most people find this very difficult because facing the context, which is prior to all knowing, is literally stepping into the unknown, which is the last place most people want to go. Why? Because thought always seeks security in itself, which is the known.

Fear and insecurity always wait for any and all who dare to probe the depths of the Unknown. The true seeker of liberation must have an uncompromising desire to discover Eternal Truth, a desire that outweighs any tendency to hesitate and contract in the face of fear. It is only when the fear of the Unknown is openly embraced that it begins to transform into the positive energy and intensity necessary to awaken from conditioned existence.

It is not uncommon in the presence of a powerful teacher, and under ideal conditions, to have a glimpse of enlightenment. But all too often most seekers are unwilling to surrender to the overwhelming implications of that revelation. The profound intimacy and vulnerability inherent in true freedom marks the destruction of the ego's boundaries to such an extent that all beings and all things become the content of one's own Self. To most seekers this is simply too much because the limitlessness of the Self leaves no room for any separateness from the whole. It is this complete lack of separation from the whole which is the very definition of selflessness and love.

The aim of spiritual practice is to discover in your own present experience That which the movement of thought never touches. This does not mean to suppress the thinking mind, nor does it mean to attempt to understand by using thought. What I am pointing toward is the Unknown: the already, ever-present, silent-still-source that not only precedes thought but surrounds it. You must become more interested in the Unknown than in that which is known. Otherwise you will remain enslaved by the very narrow and distorted perspective of conceptual thinking. You must go so deeply into the Unknown that you are no longer referencing thought to tell you who and what you are. Only then will thought be capable of reflecting that which is true rather than falsely masquerading as truth.

What I am talking about is a condition where the mind never fixates; where it never closes; where it has no compulsive need to understand in terms of ideas, concepts, and beliefs. A condition where you are no longer referencing the mind, feelings, or emotions for security in any way. What I am talking about is the complete surrender of all separateness until liberation becomes a permanent condition, and you are forever lost in the freedom of the Absolute.

___________________________________________________

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.

___________________________________________________

Other

Forthcoming Workshops on A Course in Miracles

For up to date information on my workshops go to http://www.acfip.org/fws.html

Germany 2017 Dates

Bonn - Sat 10 and Sun 11 June - 2017

10am to 6pm

Healing Ourselves and Others

from the perspective of A Course in Miracles 

Health Is Inner Peace....Health is the result of relinquishing all attempts to use the body lovelessly. 

The Holy Spirit is the only Therapist. He makes healing clear in any situation in which He is the Guide. You can only let Him fulfil His function. He needs no help for this. He will tell you exactly what to do to help anyone He sends to you for help, and will speak to him through you if you do not interfere. T-9.V.8:1-8

A Course in Miracles

Using the spiritual path of A Course in Miracles and its supplement - Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process and Practice - we will explore what true healing is: the return to our awareness of our spiritual identity. 

The cause of illness lies in the mind and not the body. By returning our awareness to the mind and forgiving the thought forms of judgement, attack and condemnation of ourselves and others we can return to a state of inner peace. The body will then return to a state of health.

To heal others, whether as a friend or as a psychotherapist, we need to learn to step aside and be guided in what to say and do . We need to remember “The Holy Spirit is the only Therapist.”

 Practical exercises will be used to help understand the ego and its mechanisms of denial and projection. We will practise forgiveness and turning within for guidance.

Topics also included:

*Healing ourselves

• Reasons for Sickness

• Special Hate and Love relationships

• The Process of Illness

• How is Healing Accomplished

• Forgiveness

• Resistance to healing

Healing others (teachings for everyone who desires to relieve suffering in others)

• The A Course in Miracles approach to healing others

• The differences between the healed and unhealed healer 

• Purpose of Psychotherapy

• The Process of Psychotherapy

• Role of the Psychotherapist

An overview of the Course's metaphysical, psychological and spiritual teachings especially in regard to healing of the mind, body and relationships will be covered. 

No previous knowledge of the book A Course in Miracles is required.   

An Evening Introductory Talk - Fri 9th June 2017

7.30pm to 9.30pm

Contact:

Albert-Schweitzer-Haus

Beethovenallee 16

Bonn 53173

tel: 0228 - 36 47 37

http://www.albert-schweitzer-haus-bonn.de

---------------------------------------------------------------

Freiburg  2017 June

Fri 16,[6pm to 9pm] Sat 17 [10am to 6pm] and Sun 18 [10am to 5pm]

Healing Ourselves and Others

from the perspective of A Course in Miracles 

Health Is Inner Peace....Health is the result of relinquishing all attempts to use the body lovelessly. 

The Holy Spirit is the only Therapist. He makes healing clear in any situation in which He is the Guide. You can only let Him fulfil His function. He needs no help for this. He will tell you exactly what to do to help anyone He sends to you for help, and will speak to him through you if you do not interfere. T-9.V.8:1-8

A Course in Miracles

Using the spiritual path of A Course in Miracles and its supplement - Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process and Practice - we will explore what true healing is: the return to our awareness of our spiritual identity. 

The cause of illness lies in the mind and not the body. By returning our awareness to the mind and forgiving the thought forms of judgement, attack and condemnation of ourselves and others we can return to a state of inner peace. The body will then return to a state of health.

To heal others, whether as a friend or as a psychotherapist, we need to learn to step aside and be guided in what to say and do . We need to remember “The Holy Spirit is the only Therapist.”

 Practical exercises will be used to help understand the ego and its mechanisms of denial and projection. We will practise forgiveness and turning within for guidance.

Topics also included:

Healing ourselves

• Reasons for Sickness

• Special Hate and Love relationships

• The Process of Illness

• How is Healing Accomplished

• Forgiveness

• Resistance to healing

Healing others (teachings for everyone who desires to relieve suffering in others)

• The A Course in Miracles approach to healing others

• The differences between the healed and unhealed healer 

• Purpose of Psychotherapy

• The Process of Psychotherapy

• Role of the Psychotherapist

An overview of the Course's metaphysical, psychological and spiritual teachings especially in regard to healing of the mind, body and relationships will be covered. 

No previous knowledge of the book A Course in Miracles is required.   

Contact:

Margarete Sennekamp

Winterhaldenweg 4,

79856 Hinterzarten,

Tel./Fax: 07652-917530

email: M.Sennekamp@t-online.de

www.Sophia-Institut.de

______________________________________________________

BOOKS AND AUDIO MATERIALS FOR SALE - by Michael Dawson

New teaching and healing materials - eBooks and downloadable MP3s:

Ebooks:

1. Healing the Cause -A Path of Forgiveness.

Inspired by A Course in Miracles.

This is the eBook version of the paper back.

2. A Course in Miracles - Explanations of Major Themes

New book in eBook format

3. Forgiveness - A Path to Inner Peace. 

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.

For more details and how to purchase please visit: www.acfip.org/books_tapes.html

Downloadable Mp3s:

1. Healing the Cause: Self-Help Exercises 1

This MP3 contains the identical four exercises as the CD

2. Healing the Cause: Self-Help Exercises 2

This MP3 contains the identical four exercises as the CD

3. Healing the Cause: 3 Self-Help Exercises in English with German translation

This MP3 contains the identical three exercises as the CD

For more details and how to purchase please visit: http://www.acfip.org/books_tapes.html

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.

For more details and how to purchase please visit: http://www.acfip.org/books_tapes.html

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

For more details and how to purchase please visit: http://www.acfip.org/audio.html

______________________________________________________

CONTACTS and COURSE INFORMATION 

Search Engine for ACIM Sites, Definitions and Articles by Joe Jesseph.

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.

Question and Answer Service from the Foundation for A Course in Miracles.

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 ......……… Biographical information and excerpts from his writings

Kenneth Wapnick on YouTube

Glossary of ACIM terms from FACIM

"The Most Commonly asked Questions about A Course in Miracles"

by Kenneth and Gloria Wapnick

Index of Links to Miracle Studies Resources ...……....... A rich resource of materials on A Course in Miracles by an ex-staff member of the Foundation For A Course In Miracle. Joe also has a blog and has recently published  A Primer of Psychology According to A Course in Miracles.

miraclestudies.net  ………… A Course in Miracles Resource Web Site for ACIM Students

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.

Miracles Studies Australia  http://www.miracle-studies.net.au  lists study groups for Australia and new Zealand

Purchase ACIM on line

ACIM Historical Recordings & Video

A Course In Miracles Pen Pals:

The Miracle Network http://www.miracles.org.uk hosts a A Course in Miracles pen pals group:

To  join this e-mail discussion group,  send your e-mail address to e.pals@miracles.org.uk.  

They will send you  updated lists of other e.pals and  inform them of your e-mail address.

Belief.net ACIM discussion:

This Belief.net web-based discussion is hosted by Joe Jesseph.

http://community.beliefnet.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=151

_________________________

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

EMAIL:       mdawson@acfip.org

WEBSITE:   http://www.acfip.org