TELL ME WHO YOU ARE

There are Enlightenment Intensives happening all around the world. Check it out.
Here's a short 1 minute video reminder about the value of a Dyad Partner.
It's part of a welcoming talk at an Enlightenment Intensive some fifteen years ago.

by
Joseph Rubano

This video is excerpted from the documentary video: Enlightenment: Accelerating Self Realization
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BalaLK-Tktk

My brother and friend, Joseph Rubano, enlightenment master, mystic poet and shaman
wrote the Enlightenment Intensive inspired poem, Friend By Friend
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xNuz50YCr0

Check out his AUDIO CD, Go To The Edges:
https://www.amazon.com/Go-Edges-Joseph-Rubano/dp/B01E680RSQ?

Joseph’s enlightenment inspired poetry will soon be available in PRINT on Amazon.

FRIEND BY FRIEND
Who is my mother, Who my father,
When I am being created
friend by friend?
I don't remember who I was without you.
We have been tending sacred fires for a long time
We are wanderers, drawn by the light of those fires.
Surrounded by darkness,
Emerging out of darkness,
We enter into the sacred ceremony
of each other's life.
We sing, we dance,
Humbled by the power
Of each other's presence
we pray.
We become prayers for each other.
We sing praises to each other.
And breath by breath, thought by thought,
touch by touch,
Music rises between us.
What I was, I am no longer.
Shaking with hope, yielding to your hands
I stand trembling before you.

Joseph is a mystical master magician. His potent pearls of wisdom reflect from countless angles the miracle, the rawness, and the agony of being alive. His magic effortlessly reaches the deepest places of yearning, and stimulates laughter, tears and breathtaking awe in radical recognition of the nature of Self. In this way his work, his collected poems, are an invaluable companion, sacred and powerful, in the process of coming to know Who and What we really are.
Gitesha Brendel

Joseph’s poetry speaks to the heart of the Enlightenment Intensive process and continues to inspire me and many others. I'm glad his work is being made more widely available. 
Osha Reader

Joseph Rubano's poems emanate from the source of Truth. They point to the ineffable with grace and beauty. Brenda McMorrow

Joseph Rubano is not just a poet, but a mystic, a seer, and a beloved to the muse. He dances in words and seduces the reader to rest in the spaces between each stanza. This body of work is a gift to the world. KamalaDevi

2018 New Year Eve Enlightenment Intensive
29 DEC 2017 - 4 JANUARY  2018
Adelaide, South Australia
4.5 Days or 6.5 Day
https://www.enlightenmentintensive.com.au/registration--booking.html

A Short History of the Enlightenment Intensive
https://www.enlightenmentintensive.com.au/blog/a-short-history-of-the-enlightenment-intensive

Knowing Your Self
100 dyad instructions, how to do dyads and a 5 minute gong timer
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1490339434

Enlightenment Intensive Australia FaceBook Group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/EnlightenAustralia/

This is written by Edrid who began studying with Charles Berner in 1963. It's the Forward to the book, Enlightenment and the Enlightenment Intensive, Vol 1 by Charles Berner.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1492267546

A DIRECT EXPERIENCE
Nineteen Sixties: the Earth's uptight psychic field was fracturing and hippies, social revolutionaries, and mystics were flying out through the openings made by a broad revulsion to a unconscionable war, the fortuitous arrival of new contraceptives, and novel cosmic visions from psychedelic drugs. We were in the midst of a grand awakening of the planet, and the trumpets were blaring in the heavens, signaling the dawn of a new age. In the midst of this, a small group of people had the amazing good fortune to be presented with the Ultimate Formula of Life. Let me share a bit of the history of this with you.

Now you have to understand that for something to be an Ultimate Formula of Life, it would have to make everything else pale in comparison. It's bigger than anything. An Ultimate Formula of Life is a description of the source of everything, of how it all works, kind of like the Grand Unified Theory (or GUT) that physicists are seeking (but haven't found yet). This thing is even bigger than a GUT. It covers everything, including physics, but even going beyond it.
 
We got the Ultimate Formula of Life from Charles Berner at the World Headquarters of the Institute of Ability. That was in Costa Mesa, a town next to Newport Beach, California. This was 1966. He had a deep mystical experience. The Ultimate Formula of Life popped out. I was there, along with a few others, to see it unfold.  
It is not very often that someone is shown the revealed seed of a new religion, a seed that purports to be a formula that would make sense of everything and transform the world. This was a special time and this was a special event, at least in my mind.

My close friends and I were the young, mostly male, staff at "the Institute." The Institute was headquartered in a tiny, shabby former real estate office (profoundly uninspiring). Before that, it was a beauty parlor. Charles called it the "World Headquarters of the Institute of Ability." That conceit sometimes made us chuckle, but it wasn’t enough to turn us away. Charles had set the bar high.

I volunteered part time, answering the phone, doing some printing, setting up chairs for classes, and addressing envelopes and flyers for our occasional mailings. For this, I got free or discounted access to Charles' classes.

When I met him in 1963, Charles Berner was a successful Scientologist. He had a nice townhouse in Newport Beach, a quintessential upscale Southern California beach community. He taught Scientology theory, and gave frequent public lectures. His auditing business thrived, financing the operation. (Auditing is the Scientology equivalent of psychological therapy.) I was fascinated with Scientology and hung around the Institute and made friends with the people involved.  

Now, I know that Scientology is the bad-boy poster child of new age religions. Their dark-and-creepy factor, though, started later (or perhaps I didn’t realize it until later). At the time we were involved, Scientology was inspiring (as well as fascinating). Though it always seemed to offer more than it could really deliver, it embodied some really interesting (to me) ideas and I was eager to try them out. In retrospect, I realize that what I got as Scientology was a somewhat filtered version that came through Charles. I am thankful for that.

Within a couple of years, the Scientology organization's weirdness quotient went exponential and it became embarrassing to be associated with it. In 1966, Charles had a squabble with the founder, L. Ron Hubbard, and was messily cast out. He quickly formed the Institute of Ability. At first, he taught warmed over Scientology, but after a while the operation took on Charles' own imprint and character. By being out from under the insane oppressive thumb of Scientology, his creativity flourished and things began to move in a new direction.
One by one, the Scientology elements were renamed, simplified, and transmuted. We no longer used the “E-Meter,” the electronic device they use to direct the auditing process. The term "thetan" was dropped. There was, simply, “you”, or, “your true nature”. Things like that. Most Scientology processes were abandoned as Charles invented new ones. He did, however, keep something similar to the one-on-one communication format used in Auditing. It’s just that what we did in those “dyads” was quite different.

The underlying focus of our enterprise was discovering and practicing methods to increase our ability to live life better. Charles led the way, and he kept coming out with fresh insights from week to week. These were exciting and we'd work on them in these dyads (two-person meditation/communication sessions). Getting rid of debilitating psychological barriers was one big theme. Developing new mental or spiritual abilities was another, which fits the “Institute of Ability” theme.

One day Charles emerged excited from a clearing session that he just had with a client. He announced that he had made a big discovery. He discovered a key factor in releasing people from their hang-ups. The reason people couldn't let things go was because they needed to communicate certain messages to other individuals. The act of successfully communicating a message to another, and believing it was truly received by that other, and actually really received by that other was the key.

Students of psychology in college learn about famous “theories of personality.” All the great psychologists are known for the theories of personality. I suppose that Charles did something similar. He was developing a way of describing the essence of what mind is. He was saying that he just discovered that the things that limit us are all made up of incomplete communications. Messages are stuck there that must be completed for them to clear away. When they are delivered, they disappear, leaving behind a much clearer consciousness and opened up new demonstrable abilities. He had a new working definition of the mind—incomplete communication cycles. This discovery added an important factor to our approach. We were “completing communications" as a key theme, one that strongly implied the overriding importance of improving relationships.  

Charles continued to invent new dyad practices that would clear away the mental material that was standing between individuals and preventing them from really connecting. We all worked on our relationships, finding undelivered communications and delivering them. It was a seriously rocky path sometimes, but we were inspired.

One morning I arrived at the center and there was a buzz of energy. Someone said that Charles had had a big spiritual experience. The story was that he went across the street to a fast food joint, an A & W Root Beer stand, to buy a fish burger. As he was paying at the cash register he had a deep realization about the ultimate nature of life. The realization was triggered by his experience of the girl at the register. He saw how her state was her relationships with others. He suddenly realized how the human condition revolved on this axel, and he saw it deeply, all the way to the bottom.  

Charles’ experience impacted his body. He was in a swoon as he made his way back across the street. He flopped down in a chair and said that he was so overwhelmed he felt like throwing up. He was dizzy. He could hardly walk. He cancelled his appointments for the day and, with some help, went home to rest.  
When I arrived at the center the next day, people were eagerly anticipating his arrival. We were all breathless to hear about his experience. We all speculated about what it was. He arrived with a small entourage, and it looked as though he was still unsteady on his feet. His eyes looked a bit vacant and he just wanted to sit down. He indicated that the experience made him dizzy and he had a hard time speaking.  He managed to croak out a few simple words: "It's ... the... Ultimate Formula of Life."  

The first thing that came to my mind was a math formula. "He found the ultimate math formula of life?" I thought, "How strange!" I tried to imagine a math formula that was so amazing it would make you swoon...  
But it wasn't a math formula. It was a vision that revealed what life ultimately is and how to fulfill its fundamental purpose. It was not just a view of human life, and not just biological life, but embraced all of everything—all of space, matter, energy, time, existence, your body, consciousness, mind, and meaning. You name it, it's in there. It had the Big Bang all the way up to Now and beyond to Forever as its scope.  
Charles said that he couldn't get it fully across yet. It would take time. I could tell he was still partly in the experience, in a whirlwind of realizing its implications, and he said that he would need some time to figure out how to communicate it in a way that would do it justice. He said that he'd try to lay it all out for us, but it would take some preparation on his part first.

Then his wife, Ava, took him home to rest. 

From that singular experience there began to emerge a profound new formula for life’s resolution. Over the next few months, Charles began to teach from his enlightenment experience. Everything he told us was informed by that experience. It was an amazing flow of insight and wisdom, and it was exciting to us.  It turns out, somewhat to my surprise, that I and others had a powerful yearning for what we could see in Charles' vision. Whatever this was, this Ultimate Formula, it was something we wanted. Personally, I yearned for it with a surprising hunger.

Several years later, after teaching many courses and developing many techniques, the Enlightenment Intensive emerged. It was a brilliant creation, somehow perfectly mirroring his vision of the Ultimate Formula. It beautifully combines the finest in contemplation plus the oh, so helpful communication of what comes up from the contemplation. So simple, and so in harmony with the Ultimate Formula. It is evident that, over the years, this practice has ripened and matured, becoming truly profound. And given the state of the world’s enlightenment and interpersonal relationships (you know what I mean), it is profoundly relevant. I would not be surprised if the Enlightenment Intensive and its heart, the enlightenment dyad technique, would grow into a fundamental spiritual practice, rivaling zazen, vipassana, raja yoga, and other great contemplative arts.  

Why would I bother with this history here, in this Introduction? Well, to understand the Enlightenment Intensive, to get below the surface and really understand it, you’d want to see where it came from. You’d want to have the source vision. You’d like to see the thread of logic that focused its design. You’d want to know where it was headed, and where it might take you. There should be nothing secret about the Enlightenment Intensive. It is a communication of the Ultimate Formula.

This book is a collection of Charles' initial writings—writings about his discoveries, about his realizations, about the Enlightenment Intensive spiritual practices, and the personal advice he gives to his students.

Edrid, 2013

Everyone has their own story about how they were introduced to the Dyad Practice and the Enlightenment Intensive. This is mine. I was first introduced to the dyad process in 1968 by a friend. We were both students at San Diego State University when he introduced the WHO AM I enlightenment technique to my circle of friends. The dyad seeds he dropped in my life sprouted and have continued to grow over these nearly 50 years.

The Dyad Technique (created by Ava Berner) and the WHO AM I Enlightenment Dyad Technique (created by Charles Berner) that is used in the Enlightenment Intensive has spread around the world in much the same way that I first learned about it from a friend. It spreads by word of mouth from one person to another who finds it of value. There never has been a corporate headquarters or corporate marketing program organizing its dissemination. It has been taught and shared and continues to be transmitted that way because it is a useful, effective and a powerful transformational process. It spread around the world, relatively rapidly, decades before the internet, email and the social networking websites of Face Book and Twitter. A major seed spreader for the dyad process was the spiritual community of the new age teacher and guru, Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh, who later changed his name to Osho. Tens of thousands of his students and disciples from scores of countries around the world learned to do the WHO AM I Enlightenment Dyad process when they became involved with his community. But let me not get ahead of myself. I’ll back up a bit and tell you how Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh, aka Osho, found out about the dyad process.

Like Tom, the friend who introduced it to me and my circle of friends in 1968, Jeff Love, first introduced it to England and Europe in 1971. Jeff found a nutrient rich soil there and the dyad seeds he planted grew strong producing ripened fruit whose seeds keep sprouting today.

In a publication by Lawrence Noyes, entitled Miracle of Love, Jeff Love tells the story of how he learned of the Enlightenment Intensive and how he introduced the Enlightenment Intensive to Western Europe in 1971.

IT COMPLETELY CHANGED MY LIVE
Jeff recounts that “Wendy and I and our friend Steve drove down to the desert in Southern California to do this thing called an Enlightenment Intensive. It was in the winter of 1968 and the Intensive was five days long. It was the second one ever given. We got to Lucerne Valley, drove up a gentle slope on a dirt road, and arrived at the place. There were patches of snow on the ground in these low rolling hills at the base of the south side of the San Bernardino mountains. There was mostly sand, with brush here and there, and little flat flowers with leaves that came out and hugged the ground. You could see for miles all around and it was beautiful. But the compound itself was very unimpressive. It was very utilitarian and practical, just three simple A-frame buildings, with no aesthetics at all. But somehow, everything started to click. The people were really nice. We went upstairs into a rectangular, attic-like room with slanted ceilings, and Charles Berner was there. He was sitting in a chair wearing all beige and holding a staff. He looked like a Buddhist and he looked like he knew what he was doing. That enabled me to make a decision right then to go with the program, to really try it and give it an honest chance. And I'm glad I did, because it completely changed my life.”

Jeff goes on to describe about how the enlightenment experience transformed his conscious reality and that he decided he wanted to learn everything there was to learn about the Enlightenment Intensive process. But at that time, says Jeff, there was no training program for giving Enlightenment Intensives. “So I made a deal with Charles. I said, ‘I’m not a joiner. I don't join things. I don't believe in following gurus or any of that but I really want to learn what you have to teach.’ So we arranged that I would come back and spend three or four weeks there, studying his tapes and all the stuff he was teaching at the Institute.”

Jeff followed through with that arrangement and returned to study with Charles. After learning all he could during his visit and training with Charles Berner he facilitated his first Enlightenment Intensive in the Santa Cruz mountains of California. It worked, Jeff recalls. “I don't know where I got all the confidence. It just was there, somehow. Later I realized that being in that role of the master (facilitator) is a different state of consciousness than any other. The role itself gives you the means to do it.”

JEFF WENT TO EUROPE
A couple of years later Jeff went to Europe. While in London he found out about a growth centre called Quaesitor. It was started by Paul and Patricia Lowe. Jeff remembered that at that time they had the first group of Europeans there for a six month training program to become Humanistic Psychologists. “The training consisted of group leaders from America, mostly from Esalen, coming over to train them in Gestalt, Encounter, Bioenergetics and so on. So I said, ‘Why don't I do an Enlightenment Intensive for this group?’ They liked the idea, and took a fairly big chance with it because they had to really believe that this would be a good thing for these eighteen people.”

The Enlightenment Intensive that Jeff facilitated and the training they received at Quaesitor was successful. The participants went back to their respective countries like Holland, Germany, Belgium, Sweden and Norway where many of them started growth centres. Subsequently they invited Jeff to facilitate Enlightenment Intensives at their growth centers. Jeff recalls, “I did that for several years. More and more people asked me to come to their city to give an Intensive. So for months on end I was literally going from city to city, giving an Enlightenment Intensive every weekend, in almost every country of Western Europe.”

Jeff remembers the language barrier could be overcome by using translators, and letting people speak in their own language in the dyads. “I found I could give Enlightenment Intensives under almost any circumstances. I remember giving one on a boat on the Thames River once. The room was awful. It was freezing and wet and everyone was bundled up, but it still worked.”

MAY CAIRNS AND PATRICIA LOWE
The potency and awakening power of the Enlightenment Intensive was appreciated and respected by the small but growing personal and spiritual growth movement in Europe. May Cairns and Patricia Lowe both loved the Enlightenment Dyad process and Jeff taught them how to facilitate Enlightenment Intensives.

Patricia and May were both instrumental in taking the Enlightenment Intensive to India and to the Rajneesh movement there. May Cairns who was later called Ma Prem Arup, and Patricia Lowe, who was given the name Poonam became students and devotees of Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh. Rajneesh, who years later changed his name to Osho, became a world famous Indian guru with the largest personal and spiritual growth center in the world. People from scores of countries around the world visited his ashram and became his students.

When Rajneesh was first introduced to the Enlightenment Intensive and the WHO AM I Dyad Technique he liked it so much that it became a standard workshop for the thousands of Bhagwan Shri Rajneesh devotees and visitors to his ashram. May Cairns, aka, Ma Prem Arup began to regularly facilitate the Enlightenment Intensive at the ashram in Poona, India. Jeff remembers that she had a lot of personal growth skills, loved Enlightenment Intensives and had the personal power that it takes to give them.

RAJNEESH AND RAMANA MAHARSHI
In his book, The Seventy Two Hour Mirror, Jeff Love quotes Rajneesh as saying, “That question is very good. Ramana Maharshi used only that meditation. Through that meditation he attained his enlightenment, asking who am I? That was his whole yoga, nothing else. The meditation is tremendously powerful, but one should go as deep as possible. One should allow it to sink to ones innermost core. It should penetrate you like an arrow going on and on and on, and suddenly one day a moment comes as if you are drilling a hole and suddenly the drill has passed to the other side. It is a drilling exactly like that. Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Go on drilling and then suddenly you see that you have drilled the hole, you have reached the core. And it is tremendously beautiful.”

Looking back Jeff remembers, “I feel really good about the Enlightenment Intensives I've given. They've really benefited people. Every once in a while I get a letter from someone, from somewhere in the world telling me about how much the Enlightenment Intensive helped. This feels good.”

And that my dear readers is part of the story about how the dyad process in general, and the WHO AM I Enlightenment Dyad Technique and the Enlightenment Intensive in particular, was spread throughout Europe and the world.

WHAT'S YOUR PART IN THIS STORY?