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.

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…

Pounding around and checking out old feeds, I found a link from finerminds.com where they pulled up an old (2003) article about lucky and unlucky people.

Of course I commented on how to make your own luck earlier, and was surprised to see in this old write up how my observations tended to explain what he had found.  Richard Wiseman original article here.

And here’s what Wiseman said of note:

Unlucky people often fail to follow their intuition when making a choice, whereas lucky people tend to respect hunches. Lucky people are interested in how they both think and feel about the various options, rather than simply looking at the rational side of the situation. I think this helps them because gut feelings act as an alarm bell – a reason to consider a decision carefully.

Unlucky people tend to be creatures of routine. They tend to take the same route to and from work and talk to the same types of people at parties. In contrast, many lucky people try to introduce variety into their lives. For example, one person described how he thought of a colour before arriving at a party and then introduced himself to people wearing that colour. This kind of behaviour boosts the likelihood of chance opportunities by introducing variety.

Lucky people tend to see the positive side of their ill fortune. They imagine how things could have been worse. In one interview, a lucky volunteer arrived with his leg in a plaster cast and described how he had fallen down a flight of stairs. I asked him whether he still felt lucky and he cheerfully explained that he felt luckier than before. As he pointed out, he could have broken his neck.

All this thinking about how their lives are rolling unlucky or lucky are really just additives. It won’t allow you to release your native freedom, happiness, or peace that’s already there inside you.  You have to really start living within your intuition – which is a very broad world, actually.

And you can see that Sedona Method releasing technique will actually take you right out of any “unlucky” scene you are involved in. Because when you take the control, approval, and security desires out of the Wiseman paragraphs, then you can’t really be anything but lucky – unless, of course, you want to play the “unlucky” game for awhile…

All life revolves around order, prediction, simplicity.

And while I’ve started revolving my own life around the Sedona Method – amalgamating this into the earlier studies I started so long ago with “Go Thunk Yourself” – there are always so many lessons to find just in living.

The most recent one is that you really want to rid your life of things you are wanting to control, needing to approve, or that require your security. It isn’t enough just to release on how these are affecting you – there’s also where you are still working to do these on/for others.

These type of scenes are just holding you back.

Of course, this goes back to that 7th step of releasing - living your life as a Master would (which just brings out your own native Master abilities, doesn’t it?)

So you can take any of the historical Masters who have lived among us (and some say still do) – or just look within yourself to see how you would like to be treated.

It’s that simple. If you are involved in some sort of continuing mess where you feel you have to control someone else’s actions or activities, then maybe it’s time to let that go. It might mean you don’t have to deal with those people any more.

But it will mean that your life gets simpler.

And, like cleaning your room, if you start doing this on a regular basis (as I advise getting your releasing going on a continuous basis), then your life becomes simpler and simpler. You live with far less effort. Which then means that magic and miracles become more and more commonplace.

There’s far more about what Lester wrote that needs study and reflection. And I’m sure I’ll be continuing this as I simplify my blogging to comics and grass-fed beef. For me, those are easy subjects to talk about, much more rewarding than other areas.

But try this out for yourself and see if these make sense. See if you can’t work at getting your own life simpler by seeing what complicated subjects you can simply drop out of your active life.

I don’t know why, but you don’t find this 7th step of the releasing technique mentioned in the various Larry Crane and Hale Dwoskin work-ups.

Practically, it’s been around as a practice since time immemorial.

Here’s what Levenson said in a tape series called, “The Way”:

7. Make your behavior that which a Master would do.

Whatever you do, do it successfully.

The more imperfectly we work, the lower down the scale we are.

The action required to go free is releasing all the obstruction.

A Master, as we’ve covered elsewhere, is someone who has already achieved a high state of enlightenment and self-knowledge. And there are more around on this planet than we consider. But that’s another essay I’ve already written.

For our use here, it is really that one sentence and the explanation I pulled from his tape – not an exact quote, but close.

People have often used others’ examples to compare and contrast their own lives with. Levenson is telling you to simply do what a Master would do.

Of course, you probably have heard that phrase, “What would Jesus do?” – which is completely applicable, just as “What would Buddha – or Lao Tse, or Confucius, or Muhammad, or any other major spiritual leader – do?”

The idea that comes to me, particularly in following Levenson’s example above, is that you always work for perfection in every single thing that you do. All actions are professional and give a much greater value than are asked for. Wallace Wattles covered that exact point in his “Science of Getting Rich.” Similarly Earl Nightingale covered similar points in his “Strangest Secret” recording.

And so very interesting was a point I first ran into from Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” – where he quotes the psychologist William James – that all you have to do is to act the part and whatever you do will take the place of any feeling you are currently experiencing. Be brave, and you are. Laugh, and then you’ll certainly be merry.

So that gives us a very practical and pragmatic approach to life. Study up on the lives and teachings of these spiritual leaders – or any Master in any field – and you’ll see exactly how to approach life from that viewpoint.

Don’t assume their persona, be your self – but make your actions those a Master would do. In other words, take all this in advisement, but throw it away if it doesn’t let you be yourself.

Because you are already a Master, we are just working out how to let your inner light shine – aren’t we?

Try this for 30 days and you’ll start replacing habits you didn’t even know you had.

I can already see where I can get some improvement out of this – I hope you have as well.

But, please – feel free to leave a comment either way.

Here’s some Levenson quotes:

Let go of all your attachments and you’ll be so light, it will be hard to stay on the ground.

Let go of all your desires and you reach the ultimate level of happiness. And when you put a thought out, it shows up.

Let go of all desires, all attachments and all these other things – and be free.

The more you let go of attachments, the happier you get – and the easier it is to get things.

We started out playing a game and wound up thinking happiness was outside of ourselves.

Do you see how this works? Of course, the usual disclaimer: reject all of this unless and until you can make it your own, deciding and proving for yourself that it has use or applicability in your own life. That you can get something out of it.

Now, the world is full of ego-traps. And the physical things you see around you are just the symbols of these. Money, houses, clothes, cars, planes, video games – all these things aren’t real. Most of them would disappear in a fire or other catastrophe.

But a person who knows how to get them can replace them at any time.

A person who is dependent on them is devastated when they lose them – and even when they think of losing them. This person often doesn’t have them and is simply stuck in the desire for them. But even if they get what they want, they can’t keep it.

Because they don’t simply see them as symbols for other ideas. Money is a humankind thing. Doesn’t exist naturally. You can’t eat it, but you can use it to get others to give you food. Won’t buy love, but you can get someone to have sex with you, or even marry and live with you for the rest of your life. Can’t make you happy, but it can get stuff which will distract you from your unhappiness for a little while.

So the stuff around you isn’t the real you. That real you is only what you find out it is. You have to start letting the Universe within you shine out.

Simply start the habit of releasing all the time – any feeling or thought about anything – just let it go. Use the release technique constantly. Then you can easily get anything and everything that you need or want. Precisely because you get off the artificial needs and invented wants.

Just remember that joke: KISS-BUTT your way through life -

1. Keep it simple, sweetheart, and
2. Sit on your butt and just release to get anything you want.

Make releasing so simple that you don’t think about it, it’s just second nature.

And quit efforting to get, or acquire, or achieve, or attain anything. Everything you really need/want will come to you if you just let the Universe within and around you bring it to you.

All this effort people put into getting stuff, that’s just making it harder. That’s a real game. Level playing field and all that nonsense. If you want to really win the game, quit playing it. Just let the game play itself. Be the witness up in the stands.

OK?

More tomorrow…

This is no experiment, this is life at its fullest.

While this may seem adventurous to some, it is really every persons’ adventure. Because if you are reading this, you are seeking peace, personal freedom, happiness, joy, prosperity – whatever you want to call it and in all its incarnations.

But I’m not here to simply parrot or explain Levenson, Dwoskin, Crane, or anyone else. These are just my own approach to this particular subject of personal clearing – if you want to call it that.

The Rules:

1. Cut out all TV, radio, newspapers, magazines other than what you need to directly live your life. Sure, if we could create a cave with temperature control and sufficient food to live indefinately, then you could cut everything out – all contact with the world for the period you are working at this. But realistically, no.

My compromise is to live on a farm with little contact with people other than a very few close family and whoever I have to deal with to get the farm business done. My freelance is on the web, so I work at this. And try to keep from going down rabbit holes by staying focused with exact actions to do daily.

The idea is to calm the mind and not let disturbances set it off again.

2. Understand the various release techniques fully. Get the books, listen to as many tapes as you have to. Get all this homework done as you can. Keep these to hand as reference, but don’t refer to them constantly. Get the basics down to simplicities that you can easily apply. (I’ve got some “boiling down” to do, which I’ll post as I can.)

3. Release constantly. Everything that comes up – until nothing comes up at all. Find your intuitive Self – and work out how to release that as well. Release all bliss as well. You’ll know when you’re done.Release stuckness when you get stuck, if you do.

4. Take no examples of anyone else as standards or goals for yourself. Not Lester, not the Christ, not anyone. In fact, release all goals and all personal standards of behavior you had earlier set. Become completely hootless about anything and everything. Attain or acquire anything and everything you need by releasing.

5. When you run out of things to release, and the world is perfect all the time, answer: “What Am I?”

- – - -

That’s the sum of it.

Doesn’t mean you don’t do anything, but it does mean you have to release constantly. Listening to TV or radio or any “news” just sets you back, as these are just distractions and arbitrarily give you more to release. You have to want your own freedom more than you want the world.

What we are working at is to get as high as we can, as fast as we can – and that upper energy level will allow much faster releasing of broader concepts.

The key points are to get the world off your back until you are fully released. I’m not going to say you are going to become a Master – that is between you and your Self. I don’t say you are going to do or achieve anything. If you follow these steps at all, what you get out is what you put in.

• Get the world off your back,
• know and understand the basics so you can apply them simply.
• Release constantly.
• And when you run out of things to release and the world is perfect all the time, answer the question: “What Am I?”

I’m not saying this is easy or hard to do. Your mileage may vary.

It is just the approach I’m taking.

And I’ll keep you posted how it goes.