The Compassion Project was just launched in October. It’s very beautiful.

Here is The Compassion Exercise.

This is one of thirty exercises that can be found in ReSurfacing^®: Techniques for Exploring Consciousness, by Harry Palmer, founder of the Avatar Materials. © Copyright 1998.

Honesty with yourself leads to compassion for others.

OBJECTIVE

To increase the amount of compassion in the world.

EXPECTED RESULT

A personal sense of peace.

INSTRUCTIONS

This exercise can be done anywhere that people congregate (airports, malls, parks, beaches, etc). It should be done on strangers, unobtrusively, from some distance. Try to do all five steps on the same person.

Love is an expression of the willingness to create space in which something is allowed to change.
-Harry Palmer

They will open their Section II packs, and begin to learn the Perception Exercises, that will get them all the way out of their heads, and into sensing the world around them, directly.

With these exercises, the mind quiets on its own. Centuries of seekers have hammered away, trying to get the mind to quiet down–chatter chatter!–this technique does it so easily.

Underneath all the worrying, fretting, and trying to figure things out that we humans do, we discover this presence that just is, has always been… Life is simply becoming lighter, easier.

In the morning, some will scratch their heads, trying to figure out how to do this (I was one of these–always needing a mental formula for things!). Other people will just dive right in.

People who were closed off for years, will start to remember what it feels like to feel really alive again. People who have felt alive, will feel a lot more alive, as the resistances to life are shed.

But in not so long, there becomes a flow–a calm, clear presence, in this huge conference room–as people begin to experience the power of this profound, yet simple tool.

On the first two days, ReSurfacing^®, we were intimately with our table mates, who became our friends, and companions on this exploration. As Section II unfolds, people spread out. Everyone goes at their own pace. They start to meet their neighbors at other tables, and around the room. Connecting happens.

A while longer, and they will begin exploring their labels–how have they been seeing the world? What filters have they been putting, unknowingly, onto the world? What–that they thought was just real–do they now see was just beliefs?

Judgments are let go of; perception is increased. A space of understanding emerges. How hard we have worked to make things work, when things often work so well on their own, when we take off our judgments.

And lest I forget: This is a space of great happiness.

Moving into the latter part of Section II, people begin to really reclaim their power–resistances, fears, doubts, all the “I can’t do it’s” that we’ve held onto, or not known how to get rid of. They bring them out, usually laughing, humorously, and wipe them away.

A glow begins to form in people’s hearts, as they realize, I Do It! I am the one creating it all.

A lot of the people here will have read about this as an idea already, that they create their reality; that their beliefs affect what they experience. What they will go away with here, in the course of a few days, is the experience of it. It is the difference between studying a photo of a beach in Hawaii, and bathing in its blue waters–the warm sun, the air, the blue sky.

It is worth more than gold. And this is why they will come, some of them from halfway around the world quite literally (New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, …).

That is why some have waited months for visas; have bought plane tickets far in advance; will travel for 3 hours, or 7 hours, or 22 hours; just to get here.

That is why, they will stay in a hotel room for 9 days, bringing themselves every morning–and giving, all they have to give, to this amazing, most miraculous of experiences.

And I cannot remember a one, in my 5 years, who brought themselves to it, and who didn’t think it was the best investment they’d ever made.

Previous: Part 1 | Next: Part 3

The biggest Avatar^® course to date is starting on Saturday July 4th, the date of the United States’ Independence Day.

Hundreds of people will fly from all over the world–from Korea, Japan, Taiwan, from Holland, Germany, Brazil–and many,  many other countries, speaking many different languages, and from as many different backgrounds.

In the environment that is going to be created here, an elementary school teacher from Korea will communicate easily with a steelworker from Holland, a doctor from Brazil, and a fisherman from Taiwan.

Although translation will be provided, there are many points along the course where we learn to connect without words. There is a beingness that lies underneath words, and as we remember how to operate from there, they are not always needed.

The excitement of the course will be like nothing else–electric; alive; full of possibility!

People will settle in at their tables, and get to know their neighbors–some may be from their hometowns, and some may be from across the world.

A gentleness and camaraderie develops as ReSurfacing^®–the first part of the course–unfolds, and people begin to feel an often unfamiliar level of acceptance, openness, and permission to explore different viewpoints, different angles on life, leading to deeper and deeper insights.

The first morning begins to crackle with possibility, as people discover–for themselves, at their own pace, in their own way, untapped powers, new possibilities, hidden within the old.

Throughout these first two days of the course, we get to know each other, and we get to know ourselves in new ways too.

As the discoveries unfold, the buzz of energy, life, and excitement will be tangible as people go about the playful work of taking back their lives–uncovering lost beliefs that have kept them locked in old, unconscious patterns, or refused to let them see options that were right there all the time.

And at the end of the weekend, more people than ever before in once place, will explore their goals, from this newfound sense of freedom and new possibility. This will lay the groundwork for the phenomenal experiences to be had on Section II, starting on Monday.

(In case you hadn’t guessed it, this is a fun course! Connect with an Avatar Master if you’d like to consider being there.)

Next: Part 2

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Credit: Brian in Cleveland

As I walked in to the Avatar Course on the first day, in the La Fonda Hotel on the town square in Santa Fe, and sat down—name badge and registration form in hand, my “b.s. meter” was on high alert.

At 38, I had been through 24 years of promises by self-help gurus, promising that this—finally—would be “the” answer that would solve all my problems. I had been inspired, uplifted, and enticed by the possibility.

“Maybe this time,” I had thought—over, and over, and over again. The answer, the solution, the key I knew was missing.

Not only that—I was terribly suspicious of groups. What were all these people doing here, doing the same thing? Reading from the same book, saying the same words?

In my life, the world had seemed divided between the majority, who played by the rules, and did what they were told—and the iconoclasts, the “weird” ones, like me, who insisted—and worked hard—to think their own thoughts, do things their own way, and pursue their own purpose in life.

Thousands of experiences had taught me that a group coming together, all doing the same thing, was a sign of people who were not thinking for themselves.

And… they were all smiling so much—what was that all about? “Don’t let these people get to you, just in case their weird in the bad way,” I thought.

As the morning wore on, we did exercises—so simple, some familiar. We stared at an object for a minute. We walked around and looked at things. We had some interesting discussions.

But years and years of training had taught me to be very protective of what I let in. What were these people about? What were they doing here?

As we continued, I started to have more and more fun. I started to enjoy myself more. An amazingly simple exercise that made a past memory lose its power. Intriguing ideas about awareness, and how things worked.

Sometime after lunch, I began to notice—hmm… nothing showing up on the bullshit meter.

“All the people seem to be speaking from their heart? Check.”

“Everyone feels real and genuine? Check.”

“They’re not telling me what to think or believe? Check.”

“Hmm… Interesting.”

“But wait,” I thought to myself.

“I thought groups of people all saying the same thing was a sign of the mindlessness of our society—or worse, of a mindless cult.”

New possibilities began to form in my mind.

“What if,” I thought, “a group of people could choose to come together for a common purpose?”—As a loner type, this was a new concept to me. I had defined the world in terms of loners, and automatons. But… I was having so much fun! I was feeling better. This was so simple!

I had to re-frame my thoughts a bit. I relaxed. By the end of the workshop on Sunday evening, I felt so great, so full of possibility! I wanted more, I wanted to do the next step [Section II].

I had read Living Deliberately a few days before, and something struck me about the way he explained the ability to create beliefs. I wanted to know how to do that!

The following morning, I dove in to Section II, and after a lifetime of thinking about spiritual matters, I was inside it. I felt it. This was different.

One of the great many gifts I have gotten from Avatar, is that I would say I no longer have a “bs meter.” I mean, that I don’t have to worry about whether or not somebody is real or not. I can just feel whether they’re real or not. I can decide what kinds of people and ideas and attitudes I want to be around, and decide whether someone matches this, or doesn’t.

So it’s no longer a wall, it’s just a series of choices. Who do I want to be? What will help me get there? What won’t? All very fast, very simple.

I invite you to come, and test it out for yourself. Come, and explore past your assumptions of what’s happening, and see what’s really here. Because this is really amazing!

Photo by: Fire Horse Leo

It’s an interesting thing, that everything in our rational mind tells us that the key to being happier is to make ourselves wrong for all the things we don’t like about the way things are:

This should be like that. And that should be like this.

The more ferociously I reject the way things are (in the pursuit of the way I think they ought to be), the more I suffer. The more it persists.

This is basic Avatar, basic Buddha dharma, Conversations with God, and on and on.

Diving into my resistance using the Avatar tools this morning, I found, that I was wishing I was someone different:

Don’t look at me now—see me as I imagine myself, sometime in the future—because that guy is going to be amazing.

But don’t look at this guy!

This guy weighs too much, and isn’t rich enough, and doesn’t have it all figured out.

Just check back in a month, when I’ll have it all together; I’ll have it all figured out!

Using this process, it became obvious—in a matter of a minute or two—that I was making it not-okay to be the way I was, and was projecting myself out into an imagined future, where everything would be okay.

To the intellectual mind, this is the obvious course of action, whenever things aren’t the way we prefer (and for the mind, that is quite frequently the way things are):

I want to be like x, but I am like y, so I will criticize myself (or my partner, or my circumstance, or the whole world), and deny it, and ignore it, and squash all my ‘x’ feelings, until they go away.

They are wrong, and I will make everything right, by pushing them away.

Then, everything will be all right again.

Hmm…

In a moment, using this amazing, simple, tool that I learned on my first Avatar Course, I discovered that this was happening, without having to intellectualize it.

Without having to think it to death—which wouldn’t have worked anyway, because my mind would have kept telling me that same thing—that I should keep pushing down those feelings I didn’t want to feel, so that I could be a “better” person (i.e., not the person I am).

In a moment, I dove down, right into that resistance, felt it, was with it, and moved through it. A few minutes later, I was through to the other side, feeling the joy of being alive.

And now, I am feeling the joy of being alive, in being human. In being who I am. It seems so simple. My mind tells me there should be something more complicated.

So, I will say it again: In a moment, using a simple Avatar tool—I dove right down into the resistance, experienced it, and let it go! No long suffering, no working it out over a period of months. I was on the other side.

A thousand self-help and self-development messages talk about how you can get rich, buy the perfect house, the perfect spouse, etc., so that you can be happy.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, and Avatar can definitely help you get that, too.

But for me… well, feeling the joy of life, it made me want to write in a fashion after Lao Tzu:

Things are gorgeous because they act the way they are.

The little boy on his momma’s shoulder, looking over at me, is beautiful because he is totally present to the way he is; no thoughts disturbing that, saying “I am like this, but I should be like that.”

The light shines out of an empty hole in the world, from the space from which all phenomena arise.

Striving, everything is lost.

Letting go to the stillness of the moment, everything moves along, swimmingly, no resistance.

The ease of this present space tells me everything is okay.

In this space, peace is everywhere.

I am not a thing, I am a flow, a flow that is everywhere.

Everything marches on, in absolute perfection.

There is so much stillness available to  you right now, along this path. It is not different in nature from the Buddha dharma, or the teachings of Eckhart Tolle, or any other wisdom teacher.

But, what I have found that is different, is is fast, because it is an experiential path. It is fast, because taps in to the eternal knowing of the universe. You.

The knowingness of the universe tapped into itself, and these tools, this path, was an outcome. Come, check it out.

Photo by jez.atkinson

There are word lessons, and there are world lessons. A word lesson is an effort to convey an experience via spoken or written symbols. A word lesson can be informative or enjoyable or inspiring. A word lesson is an expression of someone’s belief. A word lesson should not be confused with a world lesson.

—ReSurfacing^®: Techniques for Exploring Consciousness, by Harry Palmer

My awareness can become so attached to I, that I forget that I am not it!

We can become so attached to our minds that we forget that we are not it.

If you have read a lot of enlightenment literature, from Zen, to Eckhart Tolle, to many others, this concept (the thought) should be familiar to you.

This morning, doing one very simple perception exercise taught in the Avatar^® Course, outside on my street, I experienced it, again.

Yet another layer deeper. Yet another life lesson.

I am life;

I am the play of shadows on a sun-dappled street in early April;

I am a field of presence.

I remember when I would study the great teachers, and I would read about how I was not my body…

I was not my mind, and awakening was not going to come through my mind.

I was bigger, brighter, and more beautiful, than I knew myself to be.

I was not even any idea I thought of as “me”.

Outside of all definition, outside of all time and space and everything, I was this definitionless presence.

Those notions were beautiful and comforting. Something they had witnessed, and were charged with bringing back to the rest of us.

Of course, what they wanted more than anything to help us experience it. “Don’t get captivated by my words,” they would always say. “Seek to find the experience.”

Condsider:

What is the difference between eating an apple and studying what an apple tastes like?

—ReSurfacing

Yet, as much as I tried to understand this with my mind, this did not get me all that far, all that fast. Worrying, struggling.

Meditation came the closest. It was so powerful. But it was so hard, too. If I was honest!

Sit there, and notice your breathing.

“But, I just remembered, I have to make a phone call…”

Meditation gives you a powerful respect for the strength of the mind.

One of the main things that is so special to me about Avatar, is that it is a path directly in to this state of awakening. Through the simplest of techniques, that takes only a day or two to learn, I am able to shift out of myself (as I have defined myself to be), and realize that I can be anything.

There is a gentleness to it, like softening in to a yoga posture, or a hot tub.

If you would like to know more about the tool I mentioned, or The Avatar Course in general, you might want to come to an introduction. It’s all about tasting that apple, and seeing what it tastes like!