ACFIP Newsletter 
Issue 44 - March 2015
Quarterly Newsletter of the Australian Centre for Inner Peace



Michael Dawson
PO Box 125, Point Lookout
North Stradbroke Island,
Queensland 4183,
Australia

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

New
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.
¥ 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

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CONTENTS:

* Healing Others Part 3 of 3 - Michael Dawson
* Story of Awakening - Enza Vita 
* Now ThatÕs Zen - Interview with Adyashanti 
* What You Can Do to Wake Up: Not This - Jan Frazier
* Waking Up - Wu Hsin
* Workshops
* Books and Audio Materials for Sale
* Links
* Inspirational Quotations



 

Chapter 7 - Healing Others - Part 3 of 3
(Reprinted from  Healing the Cause -A Path of Forgiveness. by Michael Dawson)


The Healed and the Unhealed Healer - Part 2 of 2


5a. The Unhealed Healer: "My client is an innocent victim of circumstances beyond his control."


Listen to what the ego says, and see what it directs you to see, and it is sure that you will see yourself as tiny, vulnerable and afraid. You will experience depression, a sense of worthlessness, and feelings of impermanence and unreality. You will believe that you are helpless prey to forces far beyond your own control, and far more powerful than you. 

(T425; T-21.V.2:2-5) 


The unhealed healer is motivated by his ego and as such must believe in its counsel. Central to his thought system is that we are victims of circumstances Ôout thereÕ in the world. What the unhealed healer believes about himself he will also believe about his client and thus reinforce his clientÕs consciousness. As the whole aim of true healing is to undo the clientÕs belief that circumstances and people can harm him, the unhealed healer only makes the clientÕs illusion stronger. 


5b. The Healed Healer: "There are no victims. We all choose the events in our lives and how we want to react to them."


It is impossible that the Son of God be merely driven by events outside of him. It is impossible that happenings that come to him were not his choice. His power of decision is the determiner of every situation in which he seems to find himself by chance or accident. 

(T418; T-21.II.3:1-3) 


The healed healer is aware that we all write the scripts of our lives, even though few of us are consciously aware of this or want to believe it. Our first choice was to be born on this planet because we believed happiness lay outside ourself. We all hope to find peace and happiness in the forms of this world. All that occurs in our lives is not by accident, for on some level we have chosen it. 

When a particular event occurs, it is neutral in itself. We then choose how to see it, either through the eyes of the ego or those of the Holy Spirit. Our ego will either be attracted or repelled by the event, whilst the Holy Spirit will see it as another opportunity to learn forgiveness and move closer to God. It is not, however, a healing approach if, when someone shares with you some pain they are experiencing, you begin telling them that they have created this for themself and their pain is only due to separation from God. If you open to the Holy Spirit, He will guide you to be with the person where they believe they are and to work with correcting the error on the level where it is thought to be. 

Jesus states, "I was a man who remembered spirit and its knowledge. As a man I did not attempt to counteract error with knowledge, but to correct error from the bottom up." (T39; T-3.IV.7:3-4) Thus Jesus met people on their own level and listened to their problems, even though he knew they were all illusory. He spoke to them in parables so that they could understand something of his truth. 

Healing, like forgiveness and prayer, is a process. If a client is in great distress because their child has been raped and murdered, the process of healing will normally be a long one. The lesson in forgiveness is obviously powerful and must proceed in stages. Hopefully, the time will come when the client can perceive the fear in the murderer as the same fear he himself carries and that both need to open to receiving GodÕs love. As he learns to forgive the murderer, so he learns to forgive himself and take another step on the path back to God.

Many of us believe that our problems originate in our early upbringing and the way we were treated by our mother or father. At the end of the healing journey, we will come to realise that all our problems stem from our fearful concept of our Parent in Heaven. When we at last heal this misperception and discover the totally loving and accepting Father waiting for us all, the need for healers will disappear.


6a. The Unhealed Healer: "I have pity for the pain you are suffering."


To empathise does not mean to join in suffering, for that is what you must refuse to understand. That is the egoÕs interpretation of empathy, and is always used to form a special relationship in which suffering is shared . . . The clearest proof that empathy as the ego uses it is destructive lies in the fact that it is applied only to certain types of problems and in certain people. These it selects out, and joins with. And it never joins except to strengthen itself. 

(T307; T-16.I.1:1-2, 2:1-3) 


The moment we take sides in any situation, the ego is in control. Victims and victimisers are both in a state of fear and both are asking for love. To empathise with the victim consciousness in another is to reinforce it in yourself as well. The client will feel justified in feeling a victim if pity or sympathy is shown by the therapist and the opportunity to forgive will be lost. Now the focus will shift to ÔforgivingÕ the enemy Ôout thereÕ in the world Ñ what Jesus calls Ôforgiveness-to-destroyÕ. 

Driven by the wrong motives and relying on his own ego strength, the unhealed healer often suffers from exhaustion or burnout. Some of the main reasons for this are:



6b. The Healed Healer: "I acknowledge your pain and I empathise with the strength in you. My loving presence reminds you that the light of Christ is within you and that you can choose again."


Yet of this you may be sure; if you will merely sit quietly by and let the Holy Spirit relate through you, you will empathise with strength, and will gain in strength and not weakness. 

(T307; T-16.I.2:7)


The healed healer works on two levels. He accepts the client where he is in his process but knows that he is not the ego that the client believes himself to be. As the healer recognises the Holy Spirit in himself, he must also see it in his client and this is what he empathises with. The healer does not commiserate with his client. The healer does not try to rationalise with the client or persuade him to change his mind about having chosen sickness. The client is unaware that he has chosen sickness and believes that he is a victim of his bodyÕs weakness. 

On this issue the Course comments, "They have no idea how insane this concept is. If they even suspected it, they would be healed, yet they suspect nothing. To them the separation is quite real." (M18; M-5.III.1:10-12) This quotation is taken from a section in the Manual for Teachers entitled ÔThe Function of the Teacher of GodÕ. We are reminded here that it is the peaceful, loving and accepting presence of a teacher of God which can provide the opportunity for the client to change his mind and choose forgiveness instead of attack. 

The client is aware on some level that his pain does not disturb the healer. He is aware that the healer is seeing something else in him, other than his ego. It is the presence of the healed healer which gives the client an opportunity to know himself in another light, to let go of the past and open himself up to his true reality. 


The only meaningful contribution the healer can make is to present an example of one whose direction has been changed for him, and who no longer believes in nightmares of any kind. The light in his mind will therefore answer the questioner, who must decide with God that there is light because he sees it. 

(T160; T-9.V.7:4-5)


The healerÕs true function is to act as a reminder of another way of being, providing the client with an example of someone who believes in the reality of the Holy Spirit and not the ego. It is not the techniques the healer uses which bring about healing. As quoted earlier, "It is not their hands that heal. It is not their voice that speaks the word of God. They merely give what has been given them." (M18; M-5.III.2:8-10) 

The Bible tells us that Jesus used his hands to heal and even his own spittle. He knew, however, that the people associated the laying on of hands with healing and believed that spittle contained healing power. He conformed to their needs and expectations by using their belief systems for their benefit. But it was his loving and gentle presence that reminded them they could choose to forgive and regain peace of mind instead of listening to the egoÕs counsel of separation, attack and sickness. Nor would the apparent severity of an illness concern Jesus, for he knew that all illness served the same purpose of making the egoÕs thought system real. If Jesus had thought that some diseases were more difficult to heal than others, he would be agreeing with the ego that there is a hierarchy of problems in this world. (See ÔThe Laws of ChaosÕ in Chapter 23 of the Text.)

In every situation where Jesus was asked for healing, irrespective of the seeming seriousness of the disease, he would know he had only one task to perform Ñ to dispel the illusion in the sick personÕs mind that he is separate from God and to show him that God still loves him and he is still as God created him.

As we tread the path of forgiveness, the light of the Holy Spirit will light up our mind as it did with Jesus and we shall extend it into the minds of others. It is that light, if it is accepted, that will heal others. When the ego is gone, only the Holy Spirit will remain in our mind to bless all whom we meet. The function of the decision maker will also disappear and we shall be guided moment by moment in what to say and do. The effort and confusion of choice will be replaced by the peace, joy and certainty of God and we shall know that we have been healed.


Forget not that the healing of GodÕs Son is all the world is for. That is the only purpose the Holy Spirit sees in it, and thus the only one it has. 

(T476; T-24.VI.4:1-2)


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Always Already Free - Enza Vita
Reprinted with permission from OneTheMagazine.com.

Awakening can happen spontaneously under any circumstance. For Enza Vita of southern Australia, the illusion of a separate self fell away at a meditation retreat, revealing an infinite sky of unshakable awareness . . .


As the story goes . . .
It was the last day of a meditation retreat, and for a few days I had been unable to sleep as a familiar wave of energy ran up and down my body.  It felt as if I was plugged in to an immense source of energy.  Even though I was functioning on very little sleep, I awakened that morning feeling good.
The bell rang, announcing the first meditation session of the day.  I sat on a chair at the back of the meditation hall and took a deep breath in and out.  I let myself relax into the cushion while being careful to maintain an alert presence.
Over the previous few months I had been working at maintaining a balance between relaxation and 360-degree openness all around, while at the same time being alertly aware.  Too much relaxation and I would fall asleep; too much alertness and I would become agitated.
After a few minutes into the session, a huge rush of energy began rising within the center of my body.  The feeling was so incredibly powerful it frightened me.  My gut reaction was to open my eyes, and I looked toward the meditation teacher.  I could recognize her facial features, but I had to focus hard to keep her face from floating away.  I closed my eyes again, trying to settle with the energy that was now shaking my body.  Then a thought floated by in consciousness: ÒWhat is perceiving this?Ó
Eyes still closed, I sensed a movement arising from a vast bottomless chasm, and as I began to focus my attention on it, it appeared as though I was looking into a reflective surface.  A shiver of horror went down my spine as I realized that what I was seeing was actually myself moving.  Not the self I was familiar with, but something so infinitely vast, totally unexpected, infinitely unimaginable, and so utterly terrifying that my mind gave up.  I disappeared into a nothingness with no-thing in it.  No forms, no sounds, no thoughts, and no selfÑjust absolute nothingness and pure potentiality.
The next thing I was aware of was the bell signaling the end of the sitting meditation and the beginning of the walking meditation.  I found it difficult to comprehend anything.  I couldnÕt remember my name or who I was.  I got up and went outside.  The world appeared different.  The trees shimmered vibrantly in iridescent hues.  There was an incredible three-dimensional quality to my surroundings.  Everything was extremely clear and had a sense of immediacy.  Every little thing was alive and present.  At this point, I laughed out loud, overtaken by joy.
My joy turned to awe as in my consciousness I began to sense a breathtaking presence.  It was incredibly vast, bright, and alive, but also personal, intimate, and intense, radiating pure love everywhere.  It was harmonious.  It was infinite.  It was unimaginable.  It was perfect.
Another meditator approached and asked me about a salad she was preparing.  Without any effort, the answer rolled off my tongue.  To my surprise, she didnÕt notice anything different about me.  To her I still appeared to be a normal and logical woman, even though I still could not recall my own name.  I found this so funny I had to keep myself from laughing out aloud.  I didnÕt feel ready to give a reason for my sudden bout of laughter, because I was not sure she would understand.
Gradually the experience subsided, and by nightfall I was back to normal reality again, back in name and identification.  In my bed that night, I reflected on my experience.
While I felt indescribable gratitude for it, I sensed that the experience IÕd just had was not complete.  If it had ended, it could not have been the Òreal thing.Ó  I knew that there was still something that I wasnÕt fully seeing.
Since I was a child, I had had many spiritual experiences like this, and they all had a beginning, a middle, and an end. They were always about ÒmeÓ having ÒmyÓ experience.  I intuitively knew that what I was looking for was not only before and beyond time and space, but also before and beyond any ideas of self.

Effortless fruit . . .
The next day I woke up feeling very sick, and for a month I lay in bed too weak to move.  Then, as suddenly as it had come, the sickness left and I decided to go out for a bit of fresh air.  I was walking down the street when suddenly I realized I was not existing in the individual shell that had once encased my personality so tightly.  The person IÕd once thought of as me, rigidly held together and kept separate from other individual existences, had melted into something indescribable, an infinite space containing everything and giving rise to everything.  I was that space, I was everything in it, and I was the awareness of it, yet the space and what appeared within the space were not Òtwo.Ó  Since there was no line to distinguish between ÒmyÓ awareness and the images I saw, I realized that this experience was not happening to a personal self.  Both appearances were simply in and of awareness, and whatever perceived this was awareness itself.
Everything appeared very normal, very ordinary, and yet something was different.  I was not having thoughts; I was the one who contained the thoughts.  The same was true for all appearances, including emotions, states, sensations, and experiences.  Everything was appearing and disappearing within the space that I am.  There were no boundaries or borders.
I was everywhere and everythingÑthe mid-afternoon sky, the sound of my boots hitting the footpath, and the chewing gum sticking to them.  I was every blade of grass, every tree, and every leaf on that tree.  I was every bird that flew across the sky, every slab of concrete I walked on, and the rubbish bin waiting to be collected.
I was also the body-mind called EnzaÑall of itÑbody, sensations, feelings, and thoughts.  As Enza I was walking in the sun, basking in it, but I was also the sun offering light to everything and bathing itself.
And I saw the truth that this awareness had actually always been here.  Right here, in what was my ordinary life, I had always been this, and this ÒmeÓ included not only infinite space but also everything in the past, everything in the future, and all of time.  Amazingly, I had never before noticed this infinite space of my ÒordinaryÓ self, because by searching for the magnificent and the exciting, I had continuously overlooked it.
What, then, was left? Just the flow of life, as it appeared, without the overlay of Òstates.Ó  States were still experienced, but only as within this wholeness, as an aspect of wholeness.

Unknown grace . . .
At first I avoided speaking about this to anyone, having decided that I was not going to share my Òexperience.Ó  At the time it seemed better to keep quiet, partly because I believed I would not be able to fully communicate it, and partly because the history of the entity I had believed to be me was one of not wanting to do anything that made her overly visible.
If I were to start talking about this, it was bound to happen that others would project their notions onto me.  I knew that I may be met with skepticism, and that some would question my intentions, that I was doing it for the money or the fame, or that I wanted to be a guru.  But slowly, as the stronghold on this mind-generated identity started to loosen its grip, I became more willing to do whatever life wanted of me, including the writing of a book if it could help others to recognize their true nature as that which is always and already, completely and naturally FREE.
© Enza Vita, 2012
Enza Vita was born in a small village in Sicily, and emigrated to Australia on her own at the age of seventeen.  From a young age she questioned everything around her, constantly seeking out the point and purpose of our life here on earth.  Her search eventually brought her to her work in the consciousness community where she became a leader in the personal development movement in Australia, working as editor for Woman Spirit and Health and Wellbeing magazines in the 90Õs, and as co-editor of Innerself Newspaper for the last nine years.

EnzaÕs outer work always reflected her inner journey É one immersed in contemplation, self-inquiry, and spiritual deepening and awakening.  Culminating in a profound spiritual realization in 2007, all her lifeÕs work came into a clear, sharp focus as she began to write and answer questions for those who came to her, which eventually came to be her soon to be released book, Always Already Free Ð What is Enlightenment and What Does It Matter Anyway?   Written in a direct, no-holds-barred manner, EnzaÕs teaching style cuts smoothly to the heart of every question, offering clarity and precision with every response.

Enza Vita, founder and director of the MahaShanti Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to the awakening of all beings, was born in a small village in Sicily. From a young age she questioned everything around her, constantly seeking out the point and purpose of our life here on earth. Her search brought her to emigrate to Australia on her own at the age of seventeen and led to her work in the consciousness community as editor for glossy magazines Woman Spirit and Health & Wellbeing in the 90Õs, and as co-editor of the newspaper Innerself for the last 12 years. Through her job, she was blessed with the opportunity to meet and study under many of the great spiritual teachers of our age and she was exposed to the wonderful writings of many others around the world. Culminating in a profound spiritual realization in 2007, she began to write and answer questions for those who came to her É which eventually became her soon to be released book Always Already Free. Based on EnzaÕs own experience, Always Already Free, guides the reader from the seeking process through the integration of enlightenment into everyday life and reveals that spiritual enlightenment is not a faraway dream, but the ever-present reality always available here and now.

To ask Enza a question, send a message to EnzaVita@EnzaVita.com


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Now ThatÕs Zen
Interview with Adyashanti

Reproduced with permission from:
http://www.buddhistgeeks.com

This is part 1 of a two-part series. 

Episode Description:
WeÕre joined by spiritual teacher Adyashanti to discuss his 15 years of training with Zen teacher Arvis Joen Justi. He shares details from his initial awakening at 25Ðwhere he realized that he was what he was seekingÐto the end of the search several years later at 31. ItÕs at that point that Arvis asked Adyashanti to begin teaching, and as he shares with us, his teaching evolved and changed fairly quickly. He shares how it changed, and how he saw it as a natural evolution of his Zen training, rather than an entirely new form.
Transcript:
Vince: Hello Buddhist Geeks, this is Vince Horn and IÕm joined today over the interweb with spiritual teacher, Adyashanti. Adya, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. I really appreciate your time and looking forward to this discussion a lot.
Adyashanti: Oh, youÕre welcome, Vince. IÕm really, really happy to be here with you.
Vince: Yeah, and I figured for most people theyÕve probably heard of you if theyÕve been in the kind of dharma world. You have a lot of really amazing books out and some audio material through Sounds True. And you have different articles that have appeared in some of the various Buddhist publications, so I have a feeling a lot of people have a sense of your background. But if they donÕt, weÕre going to sorta explore that together too.
And I thought maybe the best way to do that to start with is to speak with you about your history as a Buddhist practitioner, and now youÕre teaching as a non-aligned spiritual teacher. As I understand it you spent 14 years with a Zen teacher in California. Is that right?
Adyashanti: Yeah, I spent 15 years with a Zen teacher in California. A very little known Zen teacher. Her name was Arvis. She retired about four or five years ago. And I got her nameÐthis is going back when I was 20 years oldÐso that was 27 years go. I got her name out of the back of a book that Ram Dass had written. And sure enough, she was within 15 minutes of where I was born and raised. And I was thrilled to find a Zen teacher, and to think that there was one so close. So I called up and the next thing I knew I was at her home because thatÕs where she taught from. She had herself studied with a lot of the early Zen teachers that came here from Japan, like Soen and Yasatani and others as well. Her last teacher was, pardon me for forgetting his name, he was the one who ran L.A. Zen Center, Maezumi.
Vince: Maezumi, yeah.
Adyashanti: Yeah, Maezumi was her sort of last teacher and he used to actually come to her house. Again, this is going back almost 30 years, or probably 30 years ago if not more. So there was very little Zen and it wasnÕt as accessible as it is now. So he used to go there and do retreats at her house in Los Gatos. And after years of doing that and her being with him, one day he just said, ÒYou know, you should do this. You should teach. You donÕt need me here anymore to teach.Ó So she started to teach. And she taught out of her house. She had robes and she used to wear robes, but long ago before I got to her she had put her robes away, and just had decided she didnÕt want to start a center or a temple, or any of those kinds of forms. And so she just did it in a very sort of very quiet way. She was a very sort of quiet, hidden Zen teacher you might say, right in my backyard.
Vince: Wow, thatÕs great. That sounds like a great find.
Adyashanti: Yeah, it was for me. It was a really fantastic find. Admittedly when I was a young kid, 20 years old or so at the time, and I was attracted because I had read some books on Zen. So I had this sort of mystical kind of idea of what it was going be like. I had created visions of sort of you know, misty topped mountains and Zen temples hidden away, and people in their robes and all that kind of thing that you kind of imagine, when your imagination gets away with you.
So when I first showed up there and it ended up being in a house in Los Gatos. I was of course quite surprised and it took me a couple of years to kind of get beyond the imagination of what I thought it should look like. And it took me a couple of years to really realize what was really going on there with her. That even though it looked quite ordinary, there was something quite profound and beautiful that she was offering and that she really was, that she really embodied. She just did it in a very ordinary looking package, you might say.
Vince: And I understand that you also, in addition to studying with her, you were doing retreats and things with some other Zen teachers. Is that true?
Adyashanti: Yeah, well I told her I wanted to do one of these retreats that I had read about at the time, you know, a typical Zen Sesshin. She would do short retreats or weÕd do all day sittings and have private interviews with her and stuff. But I wanted to go to one of these Zen Sesshins that I had read about.
So she said well, thereÕs this guy up in Sonoma, Sonoma Mountain Zen Center, Bill Kwong. She says, ÒI met him once and I really had a good feel about him. I think he might really be a good person for you to go and do a retreat with.Ó A few months after that I found myself up at Sonoma Mountain Zen Center doing a retreat with Kwong and I did retreats with him probably, I would do one or two a year for probably seven or eight years, something like that, maybe longer. But when I did my kind of weekly, I would see Arvis almost every week. Every Sunday morning, I would be at her home with anywhere from 8 to 15 others.
Vince: It sounded like when I saw you writing about this time, it sounded like youÕre really pretty hardcore about it, too, like you were really into it.
Adyashanti: Yeah. Looking back on it, it was almost like kind of mysterious how I just read, literally, read the word enlightenment in a book, and it lit something inside of me. I didnÕt know what the word meant, I didnÕt know where it was leading to, but it literally just sort of lit something inside of me.
It was almost like, I like to explain it like almost catching a disease. This incredibly powerful seeking disease, I just have to find out what this thing called enlightenment is. I didnÕt really have any reason why I had to find out. My spiritual search, I think unlike a lot of people, wasnÕt motivated by suffering, by angst, or by grief or I think a lot of the emotions that are part of really what fuel peopleÕs spiritual search. I mean, there was probably some of that going on unconsciously. But, for the most part, it was just, ÒI have to find out what this enlightenment thing is.Ó
It was literally like one day I was going around just being a regular guy, and the next day, it was like a light switch turned on. I distinctly remember getting up out of bed one morning, and I just knew, I was sort of struck with this little realization. I just thought to myself, ÒMy life has completely changed.Ó Whatever direction I thought it was going in, itÕs completely altered, and it was about something else entirely. I didnÕt even know what that was going to be. My life was no longer sort of in my control, you might say. if that makes sense. This sort of spiritual-seeking thing took over my life from one day to the next.
Vince: And it sounds like, after a long time of training and doing a bunch of stuff, that you sort of had a resolution to that original disease. Like the disease kind of ran its course and you felt like there was sort of an awakening or a resolution of that. At that point you, as I understand it, sort of decided not to teach within the Zen tradition?
Adyashanti: That actually came later. The first sort of shift that I had, whatever one wants to call that shift, was when I was 25. That shift really kind of brought an end to the seeking energy. In a certain sense, what I realized was that, at least the way I had it hooked up in my mind at that time, was I am what IÕm seeking. So, all of a sudden, the seeking didnÕt make any sense anymore. What I was seeking was something that IÕd no longer saw as separate from me. I would love to say that that was the end of my spiritual search. It was sort of the end of the seeking, but it wasnÕt the end of the search, I know thatÕs paradoxical.
But really, I kept very much in the tradition and very much seeking externally, but internally, it wasnÕt looking for something outside of myself. Actually, what I was trying to do was clarify that experience that happened when I was 25. There was a very powerful shift and I knew that I was what I was seeking, but there was something about it that I wasnÕt completely clear on. I knew it wasnÕt clarified, I knew it wasnÕt finished. So, thatÕs really what I was looking at. Like, almost a koan, a spontaneous question that arose in my mind is: I know that I am this Ð I didnÕt have a name for it Ð I know that IÕm this, but I donÕt know what this is. That was kind of the next form that it took. I chewed on that for another six to seven years.
Vince: Was there a senseÉ? I get the sense that what youÕre saying happened at 25 is sort of a kindle like what they would ÒkenshoÓ or like an initial awakening of some sort.
Adyashanti: Yes. Yeah, IÕd pushed myself to the edge of insanity, and at the moment, I kind of gave up. The moment I was defeated is when everything opened up. Yeah, it was an initial opening, an initial kensho, I guess you would say. The thing that really stuck with me is that I was removed all fear, which kind of a strange thing to happen, to remove all the fear out of a 25-year-old male. Do you know?
Vince: I do, IÕm 26 now. [Laughs]
Adyashanti: Yes. You remove all the fear and itÕs like youÕre half clear or half spiritually awake. ItÕs that other half, without any fear, to kind of hold it in check that was kind of a little bit of a wild ride for the next four or five years. As I guess you would say spiritually speaking I sort of worked through some sort of deep karmic patterns the kind that had to work themselves out, but it wasnÕt just all going happen on a cushion. I kinda had to get out there and actually do some of this stuff to burn it out of my system, I guess you might say.
Vince: And the culmination I guess of that is what you talk about later in your early 30s?
Adyashanti: Yeah, yeah.
Vince: Yeah, and is that the point at which you sort of felt like a movement away from the Zen tradition toward something novel or something new?
Adyashanti: You know, the odd thing was I never really had that feeling. That was never a decision. It wasnÕt something I planned on. You know, at some point after that my teacher then asked me to start teaching, and so I did. And when I started it looked just like what I was used to. In fact, I used to carry around the zafus and the zobutons, the sitting cushions, and I used to wear my robes that I had. And we would do meditation and I would do very short talks. And weÕd do walking meditation and sort of very traditional Zen form, even though I didnÕt have like a temple and I wasnÕt a priest or anything. But I used those forms, and the thing was, it just sort of started to evolve. And what I found when I would do a talk, like a short talk, maybe 10-15 minute talk, and then IÕd see if anybody had any questions. And what I realized was I could help people work through what they were going through when we would dialogue together. I figured we could find resolution in dialogue to something that they might, that they mightÕve been working on on their cushion for three or four years. Then they could suddenly have some sort of resolution, some real shift out of it, and I thought Òwow, this is really fascinating.Ó
And so over time I just made a little more room for the talks, and the question and answer. And that kind of got a little longer and a little longer, and there was a little less sitting, although thereÕs always been some silence, some quiet time to sit before I do any teaching. And it just sort of happened very naturally I guess you might say. In fact, it was a little unsettling to me at the beginning because as time went on, and I was doing more and more of this sort of a different style, I would go back to my teacher and say, ÒI think you might want to come and see what IÕm doing. Because itÕs evolving and itÕs something quite different than you were doing.Ó
And she would just say, ÒLook, I trust you. Just go ahead and do it, itÕs all fine.Ó Of course IÕd tell her what I was doing and sheÕd say it was all fine. It was sort of like one of these jokes you know, where like every joke on the third time something happens. You know, like itÕs always 1, 2, 3 then the punch line. This wasnÕt a joke, but I went to her once, she said I trust you, just do it. Maybe a month or two later I went back to her again, and I said I think you might really want to check this out. Because I had a great respect for her and I didnÕt want to be doing anything that wouldÉ I wanted her to take a look at it, make sure I wasnÕt going astray.
Vince: Right.
Adyashanti: Because I really had a lot of respect for her and I knew that anybody can go astray. And the third time I went back to her and suggested she might want to come see what I was doing, she shook her finger right in front of my nose and she said quite sternly, ÒI thought I told you that itÕs Ok, and I donÕt ever want to hear you ask that question again.Ó
Vince: Wow.
Adyashanti: And she was rarely that stern with anybody. So it energetically, it felt like she kind of got a knife out and cut a cord that I was holding onto. Kind of like being kicked out of the nest entirely. DonÕt ever come back.
Curiously enough, a few weeks later she did show up and I was teaching on a Wednesday night. It was a Wednesday night, it was just a few days before I was going to start doing the first retreat that I ever taught. So the people who showed up on that Wednesday night, almost all of them were gonna be going on the retreat with me that weekend. The atmosphere was really very chargedÉvery, very charged and powerful.
And at that time I was still sitting on the meditation cushion when I would give my talks. And I was sitting there and I was giving a talk, then I did question and answers. And my aunt, my aunt had started to come see me, my aunt who was probably 60 at the time. She raised her hand and she asked me a question and we dialogued. And before I knew it, she just burst into tears. The kind of tears that are between laughter and sadness. She burst into tears, ran up from the back of the room, up to me. Put her head in my lap and just was sobbing, and so I put my hand on her head and I was kind of just being with her. And she just kept sobbing, and sobbing, and sobbing. And all of the sudden I understood. I was like, ÒOh, sheÕs not gonna stop doing this.Ó So I just rested my hand gently on her head and we went on.
I asked the next question. And the very next question someone was talking and they had some insight during that and they started hysterically laughing uncontrollably for about 10-15 minutes. And so went the evening, very sort of unusually charged, powerful evening. And there was my teacher at the back of the room. This wonderful lady who had trainedÐvery, very traditional Zen teacher in many ways in what she was exposed toÐand I remember thinking when the evening, wow, I wonder what sheÕs going make of this. I can still visualize her as people were sort of starting to leave the room. I saw her on the far side of the room and she was just looking at me, not giving anything away on her face. And when the last person left the room she just walked up to me, and she put that finger right in my face again and shook it in my face, and said, ÒNow thatÕs Zen.Ó And you can imagine the great relief I felt.
Vince: Wow.
Adyashanti: Great relief. And then she told me about her experience of some of these early Zen masters, Yasatani and Soen and some others. And how sort of dynamic and alive those retreats were, and how people would just spontaneously start crying or laughing. She said people had a lot of insights and there was a lot of breakthroughs. And what she saw was, as Zen kind of got more and more stable in this country, what she thought was a lot of that dynamic quality started to sort of disappear. And it became just about sitting quietly, and hush hush, donÕt laugh, donÕt cry, donÕt disturb anybody. Just sit still. And she had said you know, we did a lot of silent sitting with those early teachers, but it was really dynamic and reminded her of that. So of course I felt really quite good about that even though the form that I was teaching was evolving and changing.
Vince: Yeah.
Adyashanti: So maybe that gives you a sense of from the outside it might look like Ok, this guy sort of made a conscious decision not to use all the traditional forms, but it just sort of evolved. It was very natural. There was no decision about it.
Vince: Yeah, it sounds like from the inside there was just this natural evolution toward doing whatever works.
Adyashanti: You know that was the phrase I was going say because I literally had that in my mind like a mantra constantly the first probably four or five years that I taught, was what works? What really works? And as far as I was concerned, everything was up for investigation. Everything could be questioned no matter how old the form. Whether it was something I was doing or not, I was really, really interested in what works. I thought thatÕs the bottom line.
Because of course I wasnÕt like a priest and I didnÕt have a temple, so of course my aim was not necessarily to carry on the tradition, as such. Like a priest, that would be part of their mission. Someone that has a temple, that would be part of their mission and rightly so to sort of carry on the tradition of it. I was always interested in the awakening part of it. From the very beginning and that kind of informed me when I started to teach too. That was the piece of the puzzle that I was really the most interested in.

 

Part 2 in the June 2015 Newsletter


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What You Can Do to Wake Up: Not This - Jan Frazier

Reprinted with permission from Jan Frazier
http://janfrazierteachings.com/teachings/

The longing to become free of suffering, to rest in peaceful well-being, gives rise to various approaches, not all of which bear fruit. Here are three common ones:

All of these approaches are misguided. They are undertaken by the ego, aimed at improving itself. As if the ego could be perfected.

If so much of what passes for spiritual work is wheel-spinning, what might a person profitably focus on instead? 

The seed of fruitful effort lies in the question What am I? When everything changes, the answer to that question is different from what it was before. Not the intellectually known answer but the one that comes viscerally. You literally no longer experience what you are the way you used to.

What you wake up to is that you are not (and never were) your ego. The problem is not that your ego suffers; itÕs that you mistake it for what you are.

(In case youÕre telling yourself that you already ÒknowÓ you arenÕt your ego, please realize this is probably a mental knowing Ð and not all that transformative, as you may have noticed. Only bodied knowing indicates real change. When the change in perspective has occurred, you experience yourself differently.)

When you look back to before, you will see (such a revelation!) that what you once absolutely believed to be you was just a hodgepodge of memories, conditioning, personality, physical features, stories, ideas and beliefs, and fleeting emotional states. All of it one big unwieldy blob, having enormous weight and stickiness and emitting a foul odor. This blob was carried along in the suitcase of your mind through every adventure, as if without it all, you would cease to be.

It sure did seem like what you really were. Now, relieved of it, you can hardly believe you once invested it with reality, exhausting yourself trying to make the thing workable and impressive. 

After everything changes, really just one thing has changed: your sense of identity has shifted from all of that to something else. The blob-filled suitcase has been abandoned by the side of the road. The something else is not as easy to describe as the prior mess, where the familiar satisfaction and suffering have flourished. 

ItÕs easier to portray the after by saying whatÕs missing. Time no longer feels real to you. It doesnÕt occur to you to resist, or to make up a story about anything. YouÕve stopped grousing. No matter what, youÕre content. Since all of that other stuff about ÒyouÓ no longer has substance, you Ð the newly-experienced you Ð cannot be harmed or threatened or made to feel insecure. You no longer have the machinery to get your dander up, or to be embarrassed, or to feel especially pleased with yourself. Your mind is quiet, unless you need to think about something. 

You no longer take seriously that person you once thought you were.

What does it feel like you are, then? Consciousness. Spaciousness. Beingness.

ItÕs unmistakable that this exquisite reality has been here all along. That you have come home. There is nothing new about it. ItÕs just newly . . . recognized. Occupied.

Your sense of self includes present-moment reality Ð the now Ð whatever that may be. You donÕt feel separate from whatÕs happening. The reason it doesnÕt occur to you to resist anything is that you donÕt experience reality as if it were Òover thereÓ and ÒyouÓ are here, making assessments about it. (The assessor has gone missing.)

* * * * *

The compelling question to pose to yourself is What am I? What do you experience yourself as being?

The question is not How can I improve myself? or How can I experience higher consciousness (or get it to last)? or What more do I need to learn?

As for pursuing the longed-for condition, rest from that. ItÕs the ego thatÕs seeking a certain kind of imagined pleasant experience. Consciousness itself wants for nothing. Only the ego can want. When wanting comes, recognize it for what it is: there it is, the ego doing its thing.Then leave it be. DonÕt let it lead you around by the nose.

The memory of a period of blissful or peaceful consciousness can become a torment, a thing to attempt to re-create. You may have an idea of what it would be like to get beyond ego, and youÕve made it your goal to Òget there.Ó ItÕs safe to assume that your imagining of freedom is no predictor of what it will actually be like. See that the image in your head is a thought, nothing more. You are pursuing an idea, and itÕs located in some possible future, which has no existence independent of your picture of it.

A huge amount of misdirected spiritual work is aimed at trying to fix the ego, to make it more comfortable. The idea of Òworking on yourself,Ó that cherished project of the self-help industry, seems to have infected contemporary spirituality.

The ego, for many, has become spiritualized. ItÕs cloaked in spiritual affectation, adorned in practices and lofty ideas that thrive radically disconnected from real life. The spiritual ego takes on the tortured vocabulary of nonduality Ð Òthe character,Ó Òthis body-mindÓ Ð as if the scrupulous avoidance of the first-person pronoun will engender the experience of no-self. Intent on awakening, a well-meaning person will assume a spiritual name, give up meat, adopt a certain lingo or practice, affect Òsweetness and lightÓ as a way to keep a lid on anger and fear. Denial flourishes like an invasive plant form. People wonder why they get stuck.

If you are taking offense at this, let a light come on. The ÒyouÓ thatÕs capable of taking offense (like the you thatÕs cultivated a spiritual identity) is not what you deeply are. Only the ego can be offended. As itÕs said in A Course in Miracles, ÒNothing real can be threatened.Ó If you feel threatened by what someone says or does, by definition whatÕs enlivened is your ego.

DonÕt try to change your ego or cultivate a certain identity. Rather than judging the misdeeds of your mind-made self, simply become acquainted with how it operates. See the strength of identification with your history and beliefs. See how easily you get sucked into your thoughts, as if they were the truth. As if they were you.

If you focus on trying to eliminate your negativity, weed out your cherished beliefs, peel away your conditioning, manage your anger, or distance yourself from your difficult history, your precious attention is being squandered. What youÕre trying to do is spruce up your familiar self. As if it could be improved all the way to awake.

Do you see the folly of this?

ThereÕs nothing ÒwrongÓ with taking on a spiritual identity . . . so long as you donÕt imagine it will set you free. No matter how the ego is clothed, how it dances or speaks, underneath itÕs still its same reactive, fearful, defensive self. That wolf in sheepÕs clothing, you might say. A spiritual identity is no better than any other kind of identity. An identity thatÕs got to do with higher consciousness seems to set it apart (above), but this is just one more illusion Ð an especially deceptive one. ItÕs around every corner, waiting to trick you once more.

Your fundamental nature Ñ that which you long to dwell in, as Ð has no identity at all.  Any attempt to embody its enormity in a name, a mere word, is inevitably reductive.  No collection of ideas can hope to account for it.  YouÕre much better off ceasing to maintain any identity.  Only then can it get quiet enough inside to sense what you are apart from all definition.

DonÕt let the apparently spiritual nature of your familiar self deceive you into supposing this is anything but another project of the ego. The wolf may have changed its clothing, but the animal is the same.

ItÕs the most natural thing in the world to want to soothe or strengthen the ego. The deep motivator is to feel better. (This Ð not the longing to know the truth Ð is what leads most people to the spiritual life.) Since the ego is both the cause and the victim of suffering, it looks as though ÒfixingÓ the ego would be the way to suffer less. 

* * * * *

The real answer comes alive at a more fundamental level. Investigate the enduring impression that the ego is what you are. ItÕs the identification with ego that keeps the suffering going. That identification must occur first, before the familiar pattern of thought-induced suffering can continue to run. If you donÕt mistake the ego for what you are Ð if you donÕt take it seriously Ð it will unwind quite naturally. It will no longer so enthrall you. 

To linger in the ego itself, to focus on ÒimprovingÓ it, is only to continue to feed and clothe and house it. As if it were the ultimate reality. As if it could hope to traverse the vast distance between itself and whatever is beyond it.

When the ego gets your attention, and you become dissatisfied (frustrated, afraid, whatever), instead of going where you usually go, which is to try to improve your reaction, thought patterns, emotions, or make an intention to Òdo betterÓ in the future, simply remind yourself that this thing that suffers, tries harder, gets discouraged, and intends, is not what you are. When you let it engross you, when you believe its thoughts with an eye to solving its Òproblems,Ó you are saying you believe itÕs what you are, that itÕs worthy of attention.

It is not fixable, not radically. The level on which itÕs fixable is psychological, not existential. (Psychological improvements are not worthless, but they will not set you free.)

The ego does not evolve into unencumbered consciousness. Beingness is here already, in spite of the ego, entirely independent of its force field. Your true nature has nothing whatever to do with the concerns of the mind-made self. All that changes is that at some point one stops feeling real and the other assumes vitality, like an organ thatÕs always been with you but is only now getting blood to it.

The illusion that you can improve all the way to waking up is rooted in the illusion that you are not already the longed-for thing. You have to believe youÕre not already That in order to suppose that fixing your ego could lead you to awakeness. The whole thing is merely a perception problem. You donÕt need time to fix your ego. (There isnÕt enough time in eternity to fix an ego.) If thereÕs a need for time, itÕs so you can discover what youÕve been distracted from all along. Not so you can ÒattainÓ something. YouÕve already attained it. You just canÕt see it. This is because the thing you think you are has been holding all of your attention, your entire life.

Trying to improve your ego may result in superficial improvements to the invented self, but it will never haul you out of the world of illusion. The ego does not become lighter until it ultimately awakens. Yet this fond hope is what drives many a seeker. The ego does not awaken. The primary goal of the ego, ever and always, is self-preservation. You will never convince the ego to get out of its own way, to walk to the edge of a cliff and step off. 

What you wake up to is that you are not (and never were) your ego. The problem is not that your ego suffers; itÕs that you mistake it for what you are.

Focus on the nature of what you appear to be. Become intensely curious about how this you functions. How it is generated, how it maintains and defends and asserts and consoles itself. What it clings to for self-definition. So that you can recognize it for what it is, immediately, each time it stirs itself Ð instead of engaging with its picture of reality, instead of cringing at its antics and trying to make it behave better. 

What youÕre learning about Ð a truly fruitful endeavor Ð is what you are not.

As you observe this invented self functioning, as you see your investment in it, ceaselessly remind yourself РNot this. It Ð the truth of what I am Ð is not this. Whatever it is, it isnÕt this blob, this ceaseless loop of stories, this emotional stew, a head full of spiritual ideas. However well-meaning it might all be, however noble its aspirations. This isnÕt it.

Nor is it this. You are getting a mountainÕs worth of evidence of what you are not, even as it continues to enthrall.

At least donÕt score points for the other side. Stop telling yourself that all this stuff inside the suitcase is what a human life is meant to be about, the thing weÕre all here to discover. Keep reminding yourself: Not this, not this. DonÕt get sucked in (for the millionth time) to trying to remold your ego.

See how much you want to identify with the familiar self. It will constantly fool you into thinking surely this is real. At some point the thought will come . . . Well, if THIS isnÕt what I really am, then what AM I? Which may be scary. 

But now you are standing in front of the door thatÕs been waiting for you. So patiently, all your precious life.

* * * * *

What am I? This is what you ultimately come to. The way to prepare yourself to pose that question Ð not intellectually, but in your body, existentially Ð is to consistently recognize the ego for what it is and to withdraw attention from its concerns. You must be pressed to the question What am I? ItÕs only by the devoted Not this, not this that you can become clear of all the distraction of the suffering ego that has appeared to be fixable, that has pursued a certain kind of experience or Òstate.Ó

NisargadattaÕs teacher told him, ÒYou are not what you take yourself to be.  Find out what you are.  Watch the sense ÔI am.Õ  Find your real Self.Ó

HereÕs NisargadattaÕs description of what happened:  ÒThis brought an end to the mind; in the stillness of the mind I saw myself as I am Ñ unbound.  I used to sit for hours together, with nothing but the ÔI amÕ in my mind, and soon peace and joy and a deep all-embracing love became my normal state.  In it all disappeared Ñ myself, my Guru, the life I lived, the world around me.  Only peace remained and an unfathomable silence.Ó

One fine moment of electric stillness, it will dawn on you what you actually are. To prepare the ground for this revelation, devote yourself to the scrupulous, gutsy recognition of what you are not.


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Waking Up - Wu Hsin
Reprinted with permission from Roy Melvyn
http://www.roymelvyn.com

In general, the same can be said for Self-recognition, one must fight for it. Admittedly, there have been instances where enlightenment occurred uninvited.
Yet, in most cases, it is predicated on a receptivity, an earnestness and desire to understand. To these, no further practice as such is mandatory.
However, if the allures of the world hold sway, regardless of how profound Wu Hsin's words are, they will not find their mark.

 This day, Wu Hsin shall reveal the four pre-conditions for Understanding. They are:
(a) acknowledgement of the theoretical possibility of Understanding, 
(b) the intense desire to obtain it, 
(c) exposure to a true teaching, and 
(d) the direct apperception of the subject.

The last of these results from one's disinterest in the discontinuous.
It is one's turning away from what appears in awareness and toward awareness itself.
Stated another way, it is not attending to what-is-other, not attending to you, he, she, we, they, them, those or it.

What one is is without continuity, not progressing, not growing, not becoming.
One can step from the river of becoming onto the shore of being at any point.
The only requirement is silence, total silence.

You are where your mind is. Escape from the thought sphere, therefore, is the imperative. It is not accomplished by killing the mind, resisting thought or similar acts.
Instead, it happens quite naturally by removing attention from thoughts. Without the energy of attention, thought dies.

You need not stop thinking.
Just cease being interested.
It is disinterestedness that liberates.
Don't hold on, that is all.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Wu Hsin says no effort is required in the sense that no effort is required to be aware. Just relax, don't make an effort to relax. In that natural relaxation, what you need to know will present itself.

Thoughts appear as a necessary function in the human organism.
The organism does not decide to create them any more than it decides to breathe.
They are sourced from that which sustains and supports the organism.
To believe that you can stop your thoughts presupposes that you initiate them.

There are no goals that are not mind created.
What you strive for is what you imagine you must strive for. With the cessation of striving, what needs to arrive, arrives.
Searching is movement and therefore can never find stillness, the source of all movement.
Only this silent stillness can speak about the not-knowable.

You have failed to realize that all your running after is, in fact, running away.
Any reinforcement of the idea of a searching entity is movement away from what you claim you want.


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Forthcoming Workshops on A Course in Miracles


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



Germany 2015 Dates


Bonn 2015

6-7 June, 2015
10.00am to 6.000pm

Living the Guided Life
A Course in Miracles workshop.

This day my mind is quiet, to receive the Thoughts You offer me. And I accept what comes from You, instead of from myself. I do not know the way to You. But You are wholly certain. Father, guide Your Son along the quiet path that leads to You. Let my forgiveness be complete, and let the memory of You return to me. 
A Course in Miracles. Lesson 291

The Course states that if we do not have inner peace and joy 24 hours a day we know nothing. Although we may be competent in using the mind to live adequately in daily practical life, we need to realise its limitations and open ourselves to hearing a wisdom beyond the mind - what the Course calls the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God. This Voice can be heard in many ways - an inner knowing, words, a felt sense, etc.

We play our part by realising we do not know the way to peace and are willing to be guided and allow our mind to become quieter through forgiveness.

The workshop will explore what the Holy Spirit is, how to hear Its voice, how to tell the difference between the ego's voice and the Holy Spirit's, resistance to guidance, true prayer, the ladder of prayer and attaining a quiet mind.

Exercises will be given to help quiet the mind and open it to spirit's guidance.

No previous knowledge of A Course in Miracles required.


An Evening Introductory Talk - Fri 5th June 2015
7.30pm to 9.30pm


Contact:
Albert-Schweitzer-Haus
Beethovenallee 16
Bonn 53173
tel: 0228 - 36 47 37
http://www.albert-schweitzer-haus-bonn.de


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Freiburg  2015


June 12  6pm to 9pm
June 13 10.00am to 6.00pm
June 14 10.00am to 5.00pm


Living the Guided Life
A Course in Miracles workshop.

This day my mind is quiet, to receive the Thoughts You offer me. And I accept what comes from You, instead of from myself. I do not know the way to You. But You are wholly certain. Father, guide Your Son along the quiet path that leads to You. Let my forgiveness be complete, and let the memory of You return to me. 
A Course in Miracles. Lesson 291

The Course states that if we do not have inner peace and joy 24 hours a day we know nothing. Although we may be competent in using the mind to live adequately in daily practical life, we need to realise its limitations and open ourselves to hearing a wisdom beyond the mind - what the Course calls the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God. This Voice can be heard in many ways - an inner knowing, words, a felt sense, etc.

We play our part by realising we do not know the way to peace and are willing to be guided and allow our mind to become quieter through forgiveness.

The workshop will explore what the Holy Spirit is, how to hear Its voice, how to tell the difference between the ego's voice and the Holy Spirit's, resistance to guidance, true prayer, the ladder of prayer and attaining a quiet mind.

Exercises will be given to help quiet the mind and open it to spirit's guidance.

No previous knowledge of A Course in Miracles required.

Contact:
Margarete Sennekamp
Winterhaldenweg 4,
79856 Hinterzarten,
Tel./Fax: 07652-917530
email: M.Sennekamp@t-online.de
www.Sophia-Institut.de

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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.

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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.

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

 

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

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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 ......ÉÉÉ 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 ...ÉÉ....... 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  ÉÉÉÉ 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

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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







Nltr 44 Australian Centre for Inner Peace