A Midwest Journal

A person recently elected themselves my student, so I agreed to teach as best I could.

Here’s the first installment of this:

Well, I’m honored, to say the  least. If I hadn’t gotten over being embarrassed, I’d be red-faced.

But sure, I can help you as I can. And as we do, I’ll probably use this to figure out how to train people on this – as well as helping them to train themselves and others around them.

Now we have to start before the beginning.

First, you can’t learn this stuff – and it can’t be taught. You’ll find that you are actually un-learning lots of false data heaped on top of what you natively always knew to be true.

Second, you can’t do this releasing stuff wrong. In fact, you can’t actually live life wrong. Everything you’ve went through up to this point has been a necessary step to this point. Any problem you still have with what you’ve done in the past is simply that – something in the past that is only bothering you because you are still resisting it to some degree.

And that’s what you’re here for – to learn to release and reacquire that native peace you were born with. We want to make this a permanent feature in our lives from here on out. The great point is that it’s not that hard to do.

Releasing is simple. Hale Dwoskin gives this great example:

1. Pick up a pencil or pen and hold it in your hand out in front of you. Now grip it really tightly. Really hold onto it like there’s no tomorrow. It will get uncomfortable after a bit.
2. Now, just let it go.

That’s a demonstration of how you are holding on to stuff and how you can release it.
(Now pick up the pen so it doesn’t bother you – or you trip over it.)

You’ve been taught, or learned, from time immemorial that you can’t, shouldn’t, must, mustn’t, should do or not do all sorts of actions, be or not be all sorts of identities and personalities, have or not have anything and everything around you.

But practically, none of that has helped you get real peace of mind, or perpetual happiness, or unchallengable personal freedom. All that you’ve been through has just layered on top of earlier teachings and lessons – and these simply told you that  you couldn’t.

And all those teaching moments were just piled higher and deeper on top of your native state. (See, you’ve already had a PhD…)

You are and always have been just as happy, free, and peaceful as you could ever want or need. The trick is that you’ve agreed to a greater or lesser degree that you can’t, won’t, or mustn’t. The only thing that is keeping you down is your own agreements.

Getting rid of these agreements is simple – you only have to just let them go. And they do.

Now, the way I learned this stuff was to study all the various methods and techniques that were out there. Crane, Dwoskin, Seretan. All these guys learned directly from Levenson. It ended up that the most of my time was simply listening to and reading everything I could find from Levenson himself.

Here’s a simpler way to start – all the key blog posts plus a couple of video’s I’ve found:

• http://robertworstell.com/sedona-method/zen-releasing/
• http://robertworstell.com/sedona-method/create-life/
• http://robertworstell.com/sedona-method-review/sedona-method-six-steps-sedona-method/
• http://robertworstell.com/books/7-huna-principles-serge-kahili-king/
• http://robertworstell.com/sedona-method/how-you-release-simply-easily-effectively/
• http://robertworstell.com/sedona-method/world-perfect/
• http://robertworstell.com/sedona-method/author-life-story-truth-responsibility/
• Lester Levenson – Fireside Chat 01
• Levenson Introduction to Release Technique

That last one has a word AGFLAP – which is an emotional scale of sorts. See this post for a brief explanation:

http://robertworstell.com/sedona-method/thoughts-and-dreams-not-same-nor-different/

I’d also say to go to all those sites on http://robertworstell.com/sedona-method-review/ and get all the free stuff you can from these. Dwoskin sends you out a nice CD and DVD for signing up with him, and Crane has a lot of MP3 downloads – as does Hale. Seretan’s got books, as does Crane. Start off with the free stuff and don’t take any of it seriously – nor should you take me seriously. Just “take it all for checking” as they say – and use what you can out of it.

Because you are the only one who can “free yourself” – so you have to tailor make your own tools to fit whatever you are needing at the time. Just the way it is. One size doesn’t fit all, even if it fits most.

So look over what I’ve given you above and make your notes, try out what you can that’s immediately applicable.

Now, I’m going to have to let you get on with this from this point and then come back at me with the questions you have.

There is no way to teach this in a formal classroom. That type of teaching is built on enforced resistance. You’ll have to take the more traditional method of teaching, which is ask the question you have as it comes up – and I’ll see how I can answer it from what I understand.

And you have to realize that the teacher is always the student, the student always the teacher – I’ll be learning as I go from you just as much. So please don’t mind if I ask you a question from time to time…

Once you digest all of this, let me know. I’ll be out here somewhere and will get back to you as fast as I can.

Generally, I’ve found that it’s just too simple to get peace of mind at will. You just have to really want it, and then use Lester Levenson’s Sedona Method (releasing technique) to simple get exactly what you want.

Of course, this also means that you can have all the Happiness and Freedom you ever desired. Because they are really all the same thing.

And it’s quite simple to do this. While it’s easier done than said, there is a simple two-step release process. But it’s a bit more of a Zen-related aspect to life, since you can easily get to where all those former worries just doesn’t seem to matter any more.

Simply:

1. Welcome whatever it is that’s bothering you – accept it for being what it is.
2. Consider the idea of letting it go.

With the various noises that sound off all the time around us, it’s good to keep this in mind.

How to figure out if a company or product is a scam.

Also, how you can see it you are scamming in your own life – or if you simply want to improve how people view you or your business.

If you’ve read “Get Your Self Scam Free” or the lessons from that book, you’re already well ahead of the game. You already know how to get your own freedom and happiness back.

In that book, I tell you that Cialdini, Maslow, and Lester Levenson have the key points you need to find and get scams out of your life. Those same key principles can be used as a checklist to rate the products and services in your life to see how much of a scam they are. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an Internet scam, online fraud, or someone selling at your doorstep.

I’ve made a little checklist below. You just check off what you find they are using (or misusing) to get you to do what they say or to buy their products and services. The total number of checked-off items tells you their “Scam Free Rating“. The higher the number, the  more likely they are scammers.

Scam Free Checklist and Rating Guide

_____ 1. Reciprocation - are they giving you a “free” gift in return for your email, phone, or (worse yet) your credit card number. Do they want you to pay for “shipping only”?

_____ 2. Commitment and consistency – Do they just want you to “try the first lesson free” and then pay for the rest on a monthly basis (with your credit card, again)? Monthly books, fruit baskets, or “try it and you’ll be amazed“? Rediculous money-back guarantee you hear about over and over in a 30-second ad?

_____ 3. Social proof – Is this a fad? Is “everyone” doing it? Do they tell you “don’t be the last on your block”? Are they trying to get you to be a lemming and jump off because everyone else is doing it? Does it have a fan club?

_____ 4. Liking - Are the models they use incredibly gorgeous (and well-proportioned)? Have they hired a spokesperson who is “just like you”? Is the sound of the voice and mannerisms such that you would really like to just sit and chat with such a person for hours? (Not that ugly models ever sell products, but there is the reverse of this used in advertising sometimes as well – someone so honestly homely that you begin to feel can trust them with your charge-card implicitly…)

_____ 5. Authority - Are they using a well-known celebrity who you used to watch on TV when you were growing up? Or someone in a doctor’s garb, dressed up like a chef, or maybe a minister – but these people don’t have clients or a congregation and are only actors? Is the government mentioned? IRS? Or some executive of a well-known business?

_____ 6. Scarcity - Are there only a limited number of these? Is the offer only good for a limited time? Are you one of a select few which have been specially chosen to receive this pre-release version? Is the price going up shortly?

_____ 7. Control - Does this product help you control others or get out of being controlled? Does having this product (or voting a certain way) take control away from others? Will this make you free from some sort of nasty situation – like the IRS garnishing your wages? Does this help you “get what you deserve” (favorite of laywers)?

_____ 8. Approval - Will this make people like you? Will this get you noticed? Will this help you have more friends? Does their ads have huge crowds gathered to cheer you (or someone) on?

_____ 9. Security - Does this make your life more secure in some fashion? Will you sleep better at night once you buy one of these or have it installed? Will this politician keep your neighborhood, state, or country safer?

_____ 10. Self-actualization – Is this company actually out to help you on a continuing basis as one of their clients, or are they just wanting a customer (habitual buyer) or pitching a one-off product (in order to get your phone number and credit card so that telemarketers can call you incessantly?!?) Is this company actually interested in your well-being enough to stick with you regardless of how much you spend with them?

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This post is simply to lay out this checklist. Obviously, there is much more discussion and review of this.

Some examples of organizations which rate a “perfect 10″:

• Any program (and most people) from or representing any government – 10
• Any insurance company – 10
• Any company who uses telemarketers – 10
• Any and all advertising (but not all promotion) – 10
• Most organized religions (not their original scriptures or philosophies) – 10
• Any diet plan advertised on TV or other media – 10
• All media or any company which relies on advertising for all or most of their business income – 10
• Most “big label” Record companies and the RIAA/MPAA – 10

Some examples of products which rate a “perfect 0″:

• Any product you hear about from a neighbor or friend who has actually bought it and used it, and found it works (word of mouth) – 0
• Books or recordings you’ve read which actually help you improve your life, the ones you’ve tested for yourself – 0
• Some writers and companies who tell you not to believe what they say, but try it for yourself first - 0

(Now, I don’t rate a perfect 0 myself. So don’t think I’m not a scammer to some degree.)

But do try all this out for yourself and see if this works for you. If you have suggestions on how this could be improved, leave a comment. But don’t accept this until you’ve checked it out personally.

Of course, any Master would say probably that it was a waste of time even making this blog post.

Because it is really that obvious.

It’s just that I’ve been studying right along with the early Lester Levenson material – not that anything is missing from Larry Crane’s or Hale Dwoskin’s versions of this – I’m just a bit hard-core in my research. Always wanting to dive straight into the deep end before I am in anyway certified in dog-paddling.

Lester spent many, many years reading and studying all he could to understand this state he wound up in after 3 months of self-inspection. So his lectures and talks are full of references to yogi’s and swami’s and so on. He even quotes Jesus and and Hebrew prophets with the same abandon.

Of course, anyone who is simply using releasing to get all the mess out of their lives, to get more stuff, to live a calmer life – you can just skip this particular post and continue with your successes. And anyone who simply follows any particular brand or kind of Sedona releasing method has success, almost regardless.

Except those, of course, who think it’s a scam. And for them – it is. They’ll get no results out of it. They’re right, of course.

But the rest of us can move right along with our practice and our studies and creating better lives for ourselves.

Back to my studies: this really starts to explain my recent seeming divergence into taking up Alan Watts, Zen, and the Tao.  Of course, I can get away with this as I work in Comparative Religions all the time. Even got a sheepskin that says I can.

Alan Watts starts to explain Levenson pretty well. I’ve been listening to Watts’ “Out of Your Mind” series. Quite entertaining. No-holds-barred and all that.

Where these two meet is in the Eastern studies, principally Hindu. Levenson hasn’t mentioned the Tao in any way, but what he describes as a top state undoubtedly contains what the Taoists and Zen devotees attain.

I see only that all the religions – in their basics, not in their interpretations – all are heading to a very similar if not identical goal. Buddhists are expected to become a Buddha in their own right. Christians are expected to emulate Jesus and attain a state of  the Christ (“…better things than these shall you do…”) All religions and philosophies have their various high states, but each of these compared show a similar end value.

The key point to take up here is that from an intellectual viewpoint, Watts sheds some light on Levenson’s idea of getting over the resistance you put up toward death. Levenson held that fear of Death was basic to all desires. Having to survive as an individual entity on this earth in this particular time seems of vital importance – or so it’s been called.

The study of Watts’ lectures tend to free up the intellectual points on this – how we’ve been trained through our life – and so we are then able to release these views more rapidly and let that internal peace of mind out, as well as all the happiness and freedom that’s in there as well.

And a friend pointed out recently that factually, you actually release releasing itself after a time. Which then tells that a person will essentially get to a point that releasing is just another factor in living life. No different than breathing or other organic rhythms we perform on a daily basis.

To this degree, we then let our own Zen master out. By simply releasing all the extraneous additives we’ve piled on for so long.

Worth some discovery if you aren’t already there.

And if you are, you can see that this really was an unnecessary post…

You create the world around you. Actually. But the trick is to stay in harmony with everything.

Most people are stuck at just creating things around them. They are wanting that faster car, more stylish dress or suit, the huge house. Along with this, they want people to think well of them, to admire them. And they want to keep it all safe.

To have all this, they also support various scams. Insurance, so that it can’t get taken away – and they pay huge annual fees for this. Government, so that someone has police forces and attorneys and court systems to protect what they own – of course, that costs them in increased taxes and numerous laws. Any corporation will pay out additional sums in advertising and lobbyist firms so that they can continue to control whatever scene they want.

There are just three desires which keep all this happening – control, security, and approval. Lester Levenson worked this out awhile ago.

Now, supposing people really just worked out how to create the world around them they wanted instead of working so hard with all these scams? The funny thing is, once a person really starts to live in harmony with the world, anything you want or need just shows up.

All those old philosophies have held this as true for a very long time. Remember that old saying, “Consider the lilies of the field, they neither sow nor weave, but are clothed in the finest rainment…” Jesus was trying to tell us this over 2,000 years ago. Buddha said similar, as did Lao Tsu in the Tao. When you go back to the Sanskrit and earlier to Huna teachings, you keep finding the same thing over and over.

We are all here to create a better place, to establish more harmony for all those around us. And of course, that also includes the environment and all the various other species we co-exist with on this planet. It also means people who believe differently and live different lifestyles.

But once you get to this point of just accepting what is around you and releasing everything you consider non-survival to you, it all gets quite simple.

Some key points:

• Once you get up to the point you can have anything you want, you don’t have to have a lot of possessions.
• You’ll always get your Happiness, Joy, and Peace from within. So the external world doesn’t affect you.
• There will still be Goals, but they will be intuitional – as are the rest of your life at that point. Everything just flows through you.

For me, this came as a concept that you are constantly working to help the perfection of every atom of every entity and thing around you to shine forth more completely. Because everything is generally perfect anyway. Just might need some help to show it.

The point is that you drop the ego and just Be.

Releasing becomes constant and you simply keep going up to higher harmonious levels. And the rest of the world around you (which you actually created) starts getting more harmonious as well. That’s just the way it all goes.

So just quit all the efforting and start getting more and more stuff showing up around you by simply releasing.

Studying Alan Watts, I recently came across this from his “The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”.

“…the game of life as Western man has been “playing” it for the past century needs less emphasis on practicality, results, progress, and aggression. This is why I am discussing vision, and keeping off the subject of justifying the vision in terms of its practical applications and consequences. Whatever may be true for the Chinese and the Hindus, it is timely for us to recognize that the future is an ever-retreating mirage, and to switch our immense energy and technical skill to contemplation instead of action. However much we may now disagree with Aristotle’s logic and his metaphors, he must still be respected for reminding us that the goal of action is always contemplation—knowing and being rather than seeking and becoming.

As it is, we are merely bolting our lives—gulping down undigested experiences as fast as we can stuff them in—because awareness of our own existence is so superficial and so narrow that nothing seems to us more boring than simple being. If I ask you what you did, saw, heard, smelled, touched, and tasted yesterday, I am likely to get nothing more than the thin, sketchy outline of the few things that you noticed, and of those only what you thought worth remembering.”

This really brings up that there are three basic approaches to life:

1. Take the Western concept of always pushing through to get goals, accomplishments, attainments, and acquisitions around you.
2. Take the Eastern concept of simply throwing it all over in favor of the quest to be one with the environment, the nascent creation of all which is ever present.
3. Or start really enjoying the journey rather than the end of it.

None are actually more correct or better than the other. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. I’ve listened to both Larry Crane and Hale Dwoskin, as well as their mentor Lester Levenson – each of these has a quite different take on how to approach life, although they each use releasing to forward their own particular approaches to living.

Frankly, you’ll be better off no matter which one you follow – or if you follow none of them. That is, if you want to get better.

Because, if you really want something, you’ll get it. If you want to get better, ultimately you will.

Now I got onto this study of Watts because of his lectures on the Tao, which is a great complementary study to Levenson’s Sedona releasing method. That and Jesus’ own direct words.

Funny that I ran across this answer to a question of what to do when you get perfectly imperturbable. Not surprising, though…

Listening to a rare Levenson video yesterday and it hit me tonight that this was a key to many things for many people.

Now this may not seem all that practical, but it’s the underlying idea which you should consider:

It’s spirit, mind, body – the being created the mind, and then used the mind to create the World and body.

Most of science (and religion) gets this completely different – and you are free to believe whichever you want.

Levenson holds that we are far more powerful and capable than we let on. That we can do much more than we let ourselves demonstrate.

Practically, this is true. Test it out for yourself by just applying some releasing and you’ll see all sorts of “miracles” show up in your life. The more imperturbable you get, the less effort is in your life and the more of these “miraculous” events show up.

But actually, it’s all the effort we work with that keeps them from showing up. Your natural state is one where things just show up around you. Think the thought, then let it go. Like Jack Canfield’s piece in “The Secret” DVD. (Canfield is a Sedona graduate.)

Get the idea of what you want and then simply let it go for the world to manifest. If you read Wattles’ “Science of Getting Rich” closely, you’ll see this in there. Also Haanel’s “Master Key System”. And the release technique puts Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” on steroids – his idea of a burning desire really takes off when you release on it and take the effort out of it.

But the key is that you are not in the world, the world is in you. You are much greater than the universe that surrounds you. And when you finally tap into this idea, all sorts of stuff starts working out for you. The more imperturbable you get, the easier life runs for you.

The more you start simply releasing as a way of life, the more miraculous your life becomes. Because releasing is simply getting the resistance out of everything you do and encounter.

And what you don’t resist can’t run over you. If you think it’s good for you, you’ll get more of it. If you don’t like it, it’s bad for you, then it disappears.

But of course, this is all radical metaphysics. So don’t believe a word I said here. Check it out for yourself.

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Here’s the video for this blog post…