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

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!