The Next Adelaide Hills Enlightenment Intensive Retreat
2017 New Year Eve Enlightenment Intensive
Friday, 30 December 2016 - Thursday, 5 January 2017
Choose a 4.5 day or 6.5 day retreat.

Hello Friends,
The following Completion Letter is for the 2016 Winter Enlightenment Intensive.  It contains helpful information and support links that I hope you find useful on your journey of enlightenment and love.  It’s about a little more than ten days now since the 2016 Enlightenment Intensive has completed.  I’ve been wondering how everyone is doing since arriving back home.

Specifically how are YOU doing?  Has the re-integration back into your daily life been without difficulty?   Are you finding you desire more depth in your communication exchange with others?  Have you been more easily triggered into emotional upset?
Did you return to daily life with more energy and excitement about the projects in your life?  Have you had continued insights, realisations or direct experiences?  I’d like to hear how you are doing.

As a participant and as the facilitator of the Enlightenment Intensive I have always found that I have lots of energy following the retreat and that I’m excited to bring that energy and enthusiasm into my daily life and the projects that I’m engaged in.  Following the retreat I always want to continue deepening into self enquiry and sharing what I become aware of about myself, life and others.  Many years ago when I was an entrepreneur and business man in California as well as a facilitator of the Enlightenment Intensive I would invest all that increased spiritual energy and enthusiasm gained from the deep insights, increase in relating ability and personal growth into my business and relationships.  The business always grew and my personal and professional relationships always improved.  And I always encouraged the employees of my company to participate in the personal development programs I offered. 

The ‘Who Am I’ Enlightenment Dyad Technique is not the only dyad instruction. There are many other relating dyads instructions for clearing the mind, improving relationships and spiritual growth. 
Tell me how you want to be loved. 
Tell me how you want to love others. 
Tell me what sex is. 
Tell me your goals for our relationship. 
Tell me a problem you are currently having in life. 
Tell me something you think we agree on. 
Tell me something you like about me.
Tell me something you want me to know. 
​These are only a few of the 100 plus dyads that I’ve published in the book, Knowing Your Self, (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1490339434) . The book (paper and kindle) is divided into several self improvement programs that include: marriage and relationship, ethics and values, addictive behaviour, stress management, guilt and forgiveness, healing, enlightenment, personal development and spiritual growth.  Here’s a link to my web site that describes how to do the Relating Dyad Practice (http://www.enlightenmentintensive.com.au/the-relating-dyad-practice.html)

The seeds of awakening and expanded consciousness that you planted during the Enlightenment Intensive need continuous nurturing and care following the retreat.  If you cultivate that garden of awareness it will yield a wonderful bountiful harvest.  To be certain, weeds and various seeds will sprout that you weren’t even aware of.  “When did I plant those!” you wonder in surprise.  But plant them you did.  And it’s by taking full responsibility for what is rising in your consciousness in respect to these aspects of your body, mind and emotions you will mature in wisdom and peace.  “If you deny what is within you, what is with in you will destroy you,” said Jesus in the Gnostic Gospels, by Elaine Pagels.

In his book, Enlightenment and the Enlightenment Intensive, Volume 1, (http://www.amazon.com/dp/1492267546) Charles Berner wrote that pondering the age old question, ‘who am I’ was very good, but slow.  He observed that communication could speed up the process of self discovery because of a core principles that “the mind is generated when something is not communicated between individuals.”  When something is not understood between individuals it gets stored in the mind.  When something is understood it does not get stored in the mind.  Here’s a link to the page, How The Mind Is Created:  http://www.enlightenmentintensive.com.au/blog/how-the-mind-is-created.

Bringing into your daily life some of the balance, harmony and practices that helped us create the sacred space of the Enlightenment Intensive retreat is a good idea.  Meditation, healthful eating habits, self reflection instead of egoic criticalness, non judgmental listening are some of those supportive life style habits.  In a previous essay titled, Creating Sacred Space (http://www.enlightenmentintensive.com.au/enlightenment-making-sacred-space.html) I wrote how you can  “best support the development and evolution” of your newly awakened consciousness.

Gitesha offers a weekly healing meditation class that can help you cultivate your garden of love and awakening.  It’s a live presentation each week on internet radio.  Each week you can let her know what issues you are working on so that she can bring that into the guided meditation.  Contact her for details ([email protected]). Here’s a couple of samples for you to listen to. This weekly meditation she did during our Enlightenment Intensive (https://soundcloud.com/gitesha/put-your-attention-on-you/s-oHAcH).  And this one she did last Monday night (https://soundcloud.com/gitesha/put-your-attention-on-you/s-oHAcH).The meditation class is live on Monday nights but you have access to the recorded program throughout the week.

The Next Adelaide Hills Retreat
​2017 New Year Enlightenment Intensive
Friday, 30 December 2016 - Thursday, 5 January 2017
Choose a 4.5 day or 6.5 day retreat.
(http://www.enlightenmentintensive.com.au/registration--booking.html)

If you would like to continue with your personal and spiritual development  with me through Guidance Sessions or Private Clearing Sessions they are available in person, phone or Skype.

Spiritual and Personal Growth Guidance Session:   30 Minute Session / $30.00
Counselling, Clearing, Healing Sessions:  $100.00 / Session hour

​Contact me at:
[email protected]

A Communication Meditation: Relating Dyads

Communication exercises are not generally thought of as a meditation practice. This one is. Meditation is a sustained and one pointed focus on what you put your attention on.  In this exercise your attention is either on your partner when you are listening to them or on yourself, when you are self reflecting.  This is an active meditation and one that engages you to enter into life and living.  It has profound beneficial effects on your well being.

The Communication Meditation exercise, also known as a ‘relating dyad,’ is normally done with a partner and is not meant to be a solo self-reflective activity. The other person can be a total stranger, your best friend or your spouse.   The two people sit opposite each other.  One person gives the other a specific instruction such as, “Tell me how you want to be loved” or Tell me a problem you’re having in life” Or “Tell me who you are.”  After giving the instruction the person listens without interrupting for a prearranged amount of time, usually 5 minutes.  At the end of five minutes the listener acknowledges the speaker by saying “Thank you” and the roles reverse.  This goes on back and forth for usually forty minutes.  It is a very simple but extremely effective exercise that relieves the burdens of emotional and mental stress accumulating from ineffective and poor relating habits.   People really like the dyad process even though some find it personally confronting because they feel listened to and understood. They feel safe and supported by the formal dyad structure and guidelines in which one can speak honestly without being interrupted or challenged. People experience expanded states of consciousness with respect to the topic they are contemplating upon and they develop functional communication habits and listening skills at the same time. 

The dyad process is a modern Western communication exercise that embraces the Eastern principles of complementariness, the yin and yang union of opposites. It combines the principles of Eastern self reflection and the Western psychological approaches of honest communication and effective listening skills.  It is both a meditation that dives deep into silence and solitude and an expressive communication exercise that supports you to reach out to another in order to bring about understanding between yourself and another.

You can learn more about the Relating Dyad technique from my book, Knowing Your Self.  It's available from Amazon books.  http://www.enlightenmentintensive.com.au/store.html

“Dear Friends of Enlightenment,
   I hope you found value in your participation at the 2016 Winter Enlightenment Intensive.  This is a rather long Post-Enlightenment Intensive Teaching but within it I believe you’ll find some useful and valuable information about enlightenment and the Enlightenment Intensive.  In fact, I’d suggest you read it more than once if you find it of value.
   I’ve said many times, the Enlightenment Intensive is no different to your ordinary life in respect to the mind and it’s mental impressions that you bring to the retreat.  In daily life the mind you have is the obstacle to your self realisation.   And at the Enlightenment Intensive retreat you bring that same mind with you. It’s the mind and it’s mental impressions that troubles you and keeps you separate from Absolute Reality, God Consciousness, Enlightenment or whatever word you use to refer to the Numinous.  The essential difference is that at the Enlightenment Intensive there is a structure that keeps your attention focused on self inspection of who you are while also encouraging openness and honesty in relating to others what you discover about yourself.  
   Ordinary daily life doesn’t generally hold you to such high standards of relating, communication and self reflection.  Ordinary daily life doesn’t consistently remind you to not blame, criticise, evaluate or gossip about others and to take responsibility for what is arising in your consciousness.  In this respect it is unique as compared to your daily life.

   The Enlightenment Intensive structure is designed to facilitate a crisis, a healing crisis.  The crisis comes about as a result of your endeavour to consciously, directly know your Self. A crisis is something you think you can’t get through.  During the course of an Enlightenment Intensive you will many times encounter various mental and emotional impressions and phenomenas where you think you can’t succeed in your goal of knowing your true self.  You may feel confused, bored, blank, fearful, uncertain, emotionally upset or overly sensitive, etc.  Your mind, which you are identified with thinks the cause of this problem or crisis is outside of itself and not the source.  The mind problem solves and thinks it could be the environment and ‘looks’ for an answer.  You have thoughts like: “it’s not warm enough or it’s raining too much or the facility isn’t adequate or I don’t like the food or the bed isn’t comfortable.”  You look for something in the environment as to the cause of your problem of not knowing who you are.  If it’s not the environment then it could be the enlightenment dyad technique or the other participants or the retreat facilitator.  You have opinions like they’re not spiritual enough or they talk too loud or cry too much or a thousand other excuses in order to justify your error of blaming and criticising of others for your feelings.  
   But blaming others will not work to relieve you of the distress you feel nor will running away remedy the existential crisis of no knowing who you really are. 

   The key to getting through a healing crisis of this sort is to keep doing what got you into the crisis and that is the enlightenment dyad practice and your courageous self reflection combined with honest communication.  Facing yourself honestly and telling the truth to another is what precipitated the crisis and that is what will bring you through the crisis into liberation.  Not everyone recognises this because the mental impressions arising in the mind tries to solve the enigma of identity that has no answers or tends to make others the source of the difficulty or tries to change the environment in order to relieve itself of the conundrum of self enquiry.  You could call that approach the typical strategy of an ego centered universe.
   The Enlightenment Intensive is structured to facilitate the revelation of your true self which is at odds with your ego’s inhibition for telling the truth.  This confrontation brings on a healing crisis.  In actual fact the crisis of identity in respect to who you are is already active and in play when you come to the Enlightenment Intensive.   

   The crisis of identity and authentic relating began when you originally made a decision to not be or live from who you truly are.  It was made innocently enough but continues to remain with you throughout life even if it is buried and unconscious. And it’s with you when you arrive at the Enlightenment Intensive.  It’s a crisis of denying your true self and takes place at a primal moment of trauma when you feel it is not safe to be in a body, to express yourself and to be who you are.  At that primal moment of fear toward another you become alienated from the Homeland of your being and wander in a spiritual and psychological diaspora leaving the abode of innocence and unconditional loving acceptance that is your birthright. The author and psychologist, Arthur Janov, offers a psychological origination for this split and describes the crisis that one suffers from this mind/body/spirit fracture in his book, The Primal Scream, first published in the 1970.  Charles Berner, the originator of the Enlightenment Intensive describes this same denial of self and offers a metaphysical explanation of it’s origins in his soon to be published book, You, God, Love, Life: Self Transformation Principles. It will be available from Amazon in late July, 2016.

   Charles Berner, the originator of the Enlightenment Intensive describes the denial of self and offers a metaphysical explanation of it’s origins in his book, You, God, Love, Life: Self Transformation Principles, available from Amazon in late July, 2016
  The author and psychologist, Arthur Janov, offers a psychological origination for this split and describes the crisis that one suffers from this mind/body/spirit fracture in his book, The Primal Scream, first published in 1970.  
   From the time of this fracture forward you do not relate and live from conscious, direct knowing. Instead of relating and communicating yourself directly, you relate yourself indirectly using attitudes, personalities and various states of being.  States of being like, “I’m not good enough.”  Or “Life is a struggle.”  Or “I’m not safe with those I love.”   You will use states of being or attitudes to communicate what it is about yourself that you want another to know.  The personalities are communication devices because there is a fear in demonstrating your true self and being direct.  You fear being made wrong, being criticised, being denied.  You fear not existing?

   From the time of this fracture forward you do not relate and live from conscious, direct knowing. Instead of relating and communicating yourself directly, you relate yourself indirectly using attitudes, personalities and various states of being.  States of being like, “I’m not good enough.”  Or “Life is a struggle.”  Or “I’m not safe with those I love.” 
You will use states of being or attitudes to communicate what it is about yourself that you want another to know.  The personalities are communication devices because there is a fear in demonstrating your true self and being direct.  You fear being made wrong, being criticised, being denied.  You fear not existing.

   During the retreat you are encouraged to ‘continue contemplating’ on the object of your enlightenment and to take full responsibility, to the best of your ability, for what arises in your consciousness. This is what creates the intensity at the Enlightenment Intensive retreat. Ramana Maharshi, the Twentieth Century’s non-duality teacher and advocate of contemplating ‘Who Am I’ was one of the inspirations that inspired the creation of the Enlightenment Intensive.  He often said that the mind is like our shadow. Wherever we go, we take our mind with us.   He said that the mind is the obstacle to knowing the truth of yourself and wherever you go your mind will be with you and so you should always take the remedy of self enquiry with you. 
   The Enlightenment Intensive is always a valuable growth experience because of the power and value of contemplation combined with communication.  Initially not everyone recognises this because they are distracted by the mental and emotional disturbances that arises from one pointedly focusing on direct experience of self combined with honest communication to others.  

   Some people can’t wait to leave and get back to the ordinary life they have become accustomed and habituated to.  I'm the first one to admit, from my own experience, that holding one's attention, one pointedly on the Self is not an easy thing to do especially with a mind that is scattered, confused, noisy and intolerant.  Though it's not easy, it is worth the effort.  In principle, if not in practice, I think most of you would agree with me.
   I ask a hypothetical question.  Why do you and others hide the truth?  What are you afraid of?  I propose that the resistance is the fear of ‘letting go and letting God’, as the saying goes.  You want to stay in control. Western psychology calls that control mechanism the ego.  Christian theology would call it the devil.  I call it ignorance.  It’s this ignorance that sets the stage for a battle or conflict between surrendering, opening or accepting what is and the resistance or opposition to what is. And what is, is the way you find yourself in any given moment.

   At the Enlightenment Intensive, your partners says to you, “Tell me who you are.”  If your surrender to that command was total and with no resistance you would follow that instruction and demonstrate or present the truth of your Self. Many times after a day or two of contemplation I’ve heard a particular phrase spoken as a joke and it always gets a laugh.  “I’m ME.  Now I can go home!”  That phrase delivered with humour has the effect of trying to defuse the intensity of the moment. “I’m ME.  Now I can go home”  holds an element of truth but only if spoken from the truth and nothing but the truth. But the ‘joke’ reveals the fiction of the statement.  In fact, if it was the truth that you spoke, you would also recognise that there is no place to go home to.  YOU ARE THE Truth and you are Home.  It’s here and now.  It’s only the ego or resistance that says, “Now I can go home.”  As if there is some other place to go to other than here and now.  In other words, the Truth is only in the present moment and when you live and speak and present the truth from the truth of who you are, you are you and you are HOME. It’s only the ego that views separation.  It’s just the ignorance of the mind.  It’s not evil or wrong. 

Tell me who you are.
With love
Yoah

I’ve published several books of essays by Charles Berner, the creator of the Enlightenment Intensive, the Relating Dyad Practice and Mind Clearing techniques. And will continue to publish other volumes of his essays in the future.  If you are a facilitator of the Enlightenment Intensive or a counsellor/therapist using the Mind Clearing techniques or Dyad Practice as taught by Charles Berner then I’d like to include you in a LINKS PAGE at the end of those books.