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DOES THIS SOUND LIKE YOU?

Most of us got into this work of helping others because of a longing to make a difference and KNOW we’ve made a difference. We recognize some beauty in humanity that calls to us from within the pain and suffering that brings people to our door. And when we can meet our clients in the space of this beauty, ahhhh, it’s a little slice of heaven, the spaciousness of this meeting. It’s precious.

For many of us, the yearning to KNOW ourselves seeded the call to help others. We may not focus on it ALL the time. After all, we’re typically focused on serving others. But how we want to know who we are, what life is, and have real answers to other BIG questions! For some of us, we just stop asking after a while and go on auto-pilot.

I get it. It’s easy to get caught up in all the doing that goes along with caring for clients and family. It’s not so easy to carve out time for ourselves. But when we spend SO much time serving others – tending to ourselves can slide off the radar, much less giving in to the deeper yearning to KNOW ourselves and others, to access a transcendent perspective on the messy pain and joy of life.

I LOVE this work. I think we have THE best job in the whole world. And, it can be easy to lose track of ourselves right along with our perspective about who are clients are beyond the stories of our lives.

And when asked “Who are you?” or “What is life?” few among us can answer with certainty, with an answer based in our OWN experience rather than conceptual understanding. Imagine how answering these questions could inform your practice AND your life.

IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

When I’m most connected with ME, it’s effortless to connect with others. I’m not talking about some idea of me. I’m talking about ME.

When’s the last time you gave yourself a whole day to explore the spaciousness of your own being?

As my friend, Satyen Raja says “When you don’t know ‘Who You Are,’ spiritual and emotional progress is slow and burden filled. When you do ‘Know Who You Are,”’the real You is in the driver’s seat of your Reality Creation.” 

WAKE UP TO THE TRUE SELF INTENSIVE

The AAIT Fellowship Training Group welcomes you to join us for a deep dive intensive into understanding the psychological and spiritual foundation of AAIT through an experiential exploration of gnosis and sunyata. Gnosis refers to direct experience of truth (DET), a deep KNOWING rather than a conceptual understanding. Sunyata is a Sanskrit and Pali word that refers to emptiness, the absolute void.

We begin the day with a BRIEF introduction to AAIT, particularly as it relates to the value of accessing empty states of consciousness when addressing client issues as well as our own. We will touch on how such states of spacious empty consciousness of nondual awareness are related to psychological healing and wellbeing.

NEXT we will begin The Gnostic Intensive. The GNOSTIC INTENSIVE was developed by my mentor, Zivorad M. Slavinski. It is designed to answer help participants access a direct experience of truth (DET). Though temporary, this deep experiential KNOWING has a lasting impact, psychologically and spiritually. Many people experience their subsequent “work” more efficient and stronger.

If this is your first Gnostic Intensive, you will begin with the question, “Who am I?”

If you have taken more than one intensive, you will be exploring questions such as:

·       What is Life?

·       Who is another human being?

·       What am I?

·       Who is God?

·       Zen koans such as “What did my face look like before my mother was born?”

After a brief lunch, we will move into the SUNYATA Session, a series of more than 60 contemplation exercises on emptiness. These exercises (dharanas) lead you step by step from one to another level of awareness, glimpsing or deeply entering the experience of Absolute Void.

For most, these experiences of Sunyata will be soft, without any noise or exxageration. It will be the same state of consciousness, where we recognize the wisdom of Hui Neng’s teaching, “In essence everything is Divine Void.” 

This state will not be permanent. It will fade after some time. But it’s effect, for many, is lasting.

YOUR experience of these states will support you in guiding your clients into steadier states of being.

IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

We, healing arts practitioners spend days absorbed in the problems and goals of our clients. We aim to provide the best possible care we can.  Many of us are drawn to this work as a calling, a calling to serve, a calling to know ourselves, to know others as best we can and to help our clients navigate life’s challenges with as much grace and ease as we can muster.

At the heart of Acceptance and Integration Training is the understanding that the true self is not limited by a narrative. The true self is a being. Our goal is for all participants to experience this truth if but for a moment. For these states do not last — until they do. 

Imagine the difference it could make to your clients if you KNOW you are more than the sum of your stories and THEY are more than the sum of their stories. 

Join us for a deep dive and walk away with new perspectives to enhance your life AND work.

REGISTER FOR THE NEXT SESSION

When: Specific Dates To Be Announced

Where: Maryville, TN

Investment: Choose the option that serves you best.

  • New Students Fee: $200
  • Returning Students Refresher Fee: $100

IF you are not sure if this is for you, call me. Let’s chat. It may or may not be. In the past, a  few people here or there did not seem to gain much, or found it “boring.” However, a couple of them have repeated the gnostic and sunyata and had an entirely different experience. I don’t know why that is. 

STILL CURIOUS AND WANT TO KNOW MORE?

GNOSTIC INTENSIVE

Across time and culture, we share fundamental questions; Who am I? What is Life? Who is another human being? What am I? What is God?

The Gnostic Intensive is experience designed by my mentor, psychologist, Zivorad Slavinski. Based on his “alternative technique,” it is designed to lead participants into a direct experience of Truth related to these questions, distinct from our more typical conceptual understanding. The Gnostic Intensive opens us to a temporary direct experience of Truth. 

To quote fellow therapist and PEAT Trainer of Trainers, Vladimir Stojakovic, “Throughout our evolution and development we gain numerous identifications or false identities, we gain impressions about ourselves and the rest of the world. These impressions consist of thoughts and emotions. They distort our perception about ourselves and the world. Whatever we experience, being that the “I” or something we perceive as non “I”, is distorted by our impressions or accumulated thoughts and emotions. They create illusion that we are a separate unit. And that creates suffering.”

 

The Gnostic Intensive can bring a temporary liberation from the conditioned self through a Direct Experience of the Truth. Yet this temporary experience leaves a deep impression that influences subsequent integrations.

Consider the value of such an experience for you AND your clients.

SUNYATA

Sunyata refers to Absolute Emptiness. This state for some is a transcendent state of empty open aware consciousness that lasts for some time. The state does fade. It can last for days, weeks or months. However, the lasting value is a peek behind the veils of the illusion of separation. 

In the Sunyata Seminar, we deepen our exploration of direct experience states of open empty awareness through a series of 60 contemplation exercises. Step by step you will be lead into and through the limited perspective of your conditioned self into a glimpse of the limitless space of True Self. Many experience the Absolute Void full of consciousness. Though it sounds profound, the experience is rather soft, as if it sneaks up on you rather than announcing itself with a big parade.

Along the way, you will learn the “Sunyata Formula for Dis-creating Unwanted States.” Finally, we will discuss integrating your experience with meditation practice.

According to many, we are now in a time of accelerated spiritual evolution. With the Gnostic Intensive, Sunyata and reliable integration tools, is is now possible to experience a quantum leap into new levels of consciousness.