Charles Berner, the originator of the Enlightenment intensive gave this talk at the Enlightenment Masters Training Course in 1977. This is the first 10 minutes of a 60 minute audio lecture. I added the vision. To order the complete audio cd lecture and many others, contact: www.selffoundation.com
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Enlightened Living Program
Enlightened Living Program
Lesson 3
FAQ: What is Enlightenment?
The Aha! Experience
It is the direct experience of the absolute truth. It has been described as the experience of union or oneness. People awakened by a direct experience exclaim, "Aha!" or "This is It!," or "OH my god!" or "I'm never going to forget who I am."
A Dictionary Definition
The dictionary says the word enlightenment means 'to illuminate,' or 'to comprehend the truth of something you want to know'; or 'to free yourself from a state of ignorance.' If you ask 1000 people on the street about enlightenment, you'd get 1000 different responses ranging from ignorance, uncertainty, preconceived ideas to presentations filled with clarity, truth and direct knowing.
Satori & Instantaneous Awakening
The Japanese word 'satori' has been translated into the English word enlightenment. Satori means 'instantaneous awakening'. It's the elevated state of self realisation that zen meditators and Enlightenment Intensive participants aim for. Zen masters poetically describe enlightenment as 'Opening the Minds Eye' or 'Awakening to your True Nature.'
People around the world who have experienced enlightenment call it by many different names depending on their language and traditions: direct experience, self realisation, god consciousness, kensho, reality, tao, truth, samadh, moksha, etc.
Pointing at the Moon
Zen masters also like to say 'pointing at the moon isn't the moon.' By this they mean that the idea of enlightenment shouldn't be confused with the thing itself. To know what enlightenment is, you have to directly experience it for yourself because words are inadequate to convey the meaning of enlightenment.
Chuang-tzu
A Chinese master of enlightenment, Chuang-tzu, lived several hundred years before Christ. He said, "Were language adequate, it would take a day to fully explain enlightenment or tao. Not being adequate, it takes that time to explain material existence. Enlightenment is something beyond material existences. It cannot be conveyed either by words or by silence."
Enlightenment is Direct Experience
The originator of the Enlightenment Intensive Retreat, Charles Berner, says, “Enlightenment is the direct experience of the truth. In the case of self enlightenment, it is the direct experience of the truth of you. By direct experience is meant by no way or no via. Not by seeing, thinking, believing, deciding, reasoning, feeling or not by any other way. Direct experience of the truth is enlightenment.”
If you’re hungry, why eat the menu?
Reading the menu in a restaurant never fulfils your hunger. To satisfy your hunger you have to eat real food. At the Enlightenment Intensive Retreat the enlightenment experience is always the main feast on the menu. Why eat the menu when you can eat the real thing?
Assignment
The Assignment Questions and Activities are to help you digest and understand the information in the lesson. You are not required to do the assignment. It is your choice to do or not to do any of it. You will not judged or graded. You may like to write the thoughts and feelilngs that arise within you from reading this lesson in your personal spiritual journal or share some of your thoughts with all of us on the Enlightened Heart Forum.
Questions from the Lesson above:
1 What does the dictionary say about enlighenment?
2 What is satori?
3 What does openning the Mind’s Eye mean?
4 Can you name 5 words that mean the same as enlightenment?
5 Is Direct Experience the same as Direct Knowing?
6 Who is the originator of the Enlighenment Intensive?
7 What does the zen masters mean when they say, “pointing at the moon is not the moon”?
8 Who is Chuang-tzu?
Extra Activity
9. Write a paragraph or two, in your personal spiriutal journal or on the Enlightened Heart Forum about what you discover from the your own self refelctions, asking questions, researching using books, the library or the internet about:
a. Who Chuang-tzu was.
b. What satori is.
10. Using The Enlightened Heart Forum, tell me what you became conscious when you had an enlightenment experience.
Lesson 3
FAQ: What is Enlightenment?
The Aha! ExperienceIt is the direct experience of the absolute truth. It has been described as the experience of union or oneness. People awakened by a direct experience exclaim, "Aha!" or "This is It!," or "OH my god!" or "I'm never going to forget who I am."
A Dictionary Definition
The dictionary says the word enlightenment means 'to illuminate,' or 'to comprehend the truth of something you want to know'; or 'to free yourself from a state of ignorance.' If you ask 1000 people on the street about enlightenment, you'd get 1000 different responses ranging from ignorance, uncertainty, preconceived ideas to presentations filled with clarity, truth and direct knowing.
Satori & Instantaneous Awakening
The Japanese word 'satori' has been translated into the English word enlightenment. Satori means 'instantaneous awakening'. It's the elevated state of self realisation that zen meditators and Enlightenment Intensive participants aim for. Zen masters poetically describe enlightenment as 'Opening the Minds Eye' or 'Awakening to your True Nature.'
People around the world who have experienced enlightenment call it by many different names depending on their language and traditions: direct experience, self realisation, god consciousness, kensho, reality, tao, truth, samadh, moksha, etc.
Pointing at the Moon
Zen masters also like to say 'pointing at the moon isn't the moon.' By this they mean that the idea of enlightenment shouldn't be confused with the thing itself. To know what enlightenment is, you have to directly experience it for yourself because words are inadequate to convey the meaning of enlightenment.
Chuang-tzu
A Chinese master of enlightenment, Chuang-tzu, lived several hundred years before Christ. He said, "Were language adequate, it would take a day to fully explain enlightenment or tao. Not being adequate, it takes that time to explain material existence. Enlightenment is something beyond material existences. It cannot be conveyed either by words or by silence."
Enlightenment is Direct Experience
The originator of the Enlightenment Intensive Retreat, Charles Berner, says, “Enlightenment is the direct experience of the truth. In the case of self enlightenment, it is the direct experience of the truth of you. By direct experience is meant by no way or no via. Not by seeing, thinking, believing, deciding, reasoning, feeling or not by any other way. Direct experience of the truth is enlightenment.”
If you’re hungry, why eat the menu?
Reading the menu in a restaurant never fulfils your hunger. To satisfy your hunger you have to eat real food. At the Enlightenment Intensive Retreat the enlightenment experience is always the main feast on the menu. Why eat the menu when you can eat the real thing?
Assignment
The Assignment Questions and Activities are to help you digest and understand the information in the lesson. You are not required to do the assignment. It is your choice to do or not to do any of it. You will not judged or graded. You may like to write the thoughts and feelilngs that arise within you from reading this lesson in your personal spiritual journal or share some of your thoughts with all of us on the Enlightened Heart Forum.
Questions from the Lesson above:
1 What does the dictionary say about enlighenment?
2 What is satori?
3 What does openning the Mind’s Eye mean?
4 Can you name 5 words that mean the same as enlightenment?
5 Is Direct Experience the same as Direct Knowing?
6 Who is the originator of the Enlighenment Intensive?
7 What does the zen masters mean when they say, “pointing at the moon is not the moon”?
8 Who is Chuang-tzu?
Extra Activity
9. Write a paragraph or two, in your personal spiriutal journal or on the Enlightened Heart Forum about what you discover from the your own self refelctions, asking questions, researching using books, the library or the internet about:
a. Who Chuang-tzu was.
b. What satori is.
10. Using The Enlightened Heart Forum, tell me what you became conscious when you had an enlightenment experience.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Tell me who you are. Animation
Tell me who you are.
This four minute creation of a "Tell me who you are" Text animation and "Surrender Your Love" song compostion was written by Yoah Wexler and sung by Melinda Blair Patterson. Yoah is also singing and playing guitar. The art work is by Melinda. Yoah did the editing.
This four minute creation of a "Tell me who you are" Text animation and "Surrender Your Love" song compostion was written by Yoah Wexler and sung by Melinda Blair Patterson. Yoah is also singing and playing guitar. The art work is by Melinda. Yoah did the editing.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Surrender Yoga Meditation Workshop
Last week, 10 April through 12 April 2009, I organized and facilitated a 2 1/2 Day Surrender Yoga Workshop followed by a 2 1/2 Day Enlightenment Intensive Retreat. The purpose of the Surrender Yoga workshop was to practice and teach more about Surrender Yoga to those who already practice it and to introduce Surrender Yoga to those who want to learn about it.
The event opened with the communal creation of both a Mother Goddess alter and an alter to the elephant headed god, Ganesha, the remover of obstacles. Following an invocation invoking the support of the divine realm and a Ceremony of Initiation, the practice and teaching of Surrender Yoga began.
The weekend training was a combination of Surrender Yoga practice, Tantric Communication Exercises, Yogic healing processes, lectures, discussion and group sharing.
I began the first lecture by showing a short video clip I created for the training entitled, Origins of Yoga, Part 1. In this video clip I propose that the origins of Yoga was inspired and originated by the creative power of the Feminine whose ecstatic impulse toward Union birthed all of creation.
In another lecture, I introduced several practical steps that one can use to enter into Surrender Yoga Meditation that are based upon Patanjali's 8 Steps of Yoga. He called those 8 Steps, Ashtanga Yoga and he wrote about them in the second chapter of the book, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Here is a video summary of that lecture.
The event opened with the communal creation of both a Mother Goddess alter and an alter to the elephant headed god, Ganesha, the remover of obstacles. Following an invocation invoking the support of the divine realm and a Ceremony of Initiation, the practice and teaching of Surrender Yoga began.I began the first lecture by showing a short video clip I created for the training entitled, Origins of Yoga, Part 1. In this video clip I propose that the origins of Yoga was inspired and originated by the creative power of the Feminine whose ecstatic impulse toward Union birthed all of creation.
In another lecture, I introduced several practical steps that one can use to enter into Surrender Yoga Meditation that are based upon Patanjali's 8 Steps of Yoga. He called those 8 Steps, Ashtanga Yoga and he wrote about them in the second chapter of the book, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras. Here is a video summary of that lecture.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
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