COMPASSION EXERCISE

Honesty with yourself leads to compassion for others

OBJECTIVE: To increase the amount of compassion in
the world.

EXPECTED RESULTS: A personal sense of peace.

INSTRUCTIONS

This exercise can be done anywhere that people congregate (airports, malls, parks, beaches, etc.). It should be done on strangers, unobtrusively, from some distance. Try to do all five steps on the same person.

Step 1 With attention on the person, repeat to yourself: "Just like me, this person is seeking some happiness for his/her life."

Step 2 With attention on the person, repeat to yourself: "Just like me, this person is trying to avoid suffering in his/her life."

Step 3 With attention on the person, repeat to yourself: "Just like me, this person has known sadness, loneliness, and despair."

Step 4 With attention on the person, repeat to yourself: "Just like me, this person is seeking to fulfill his/her needs."

Step 5 With attention on the person, repeat to yourself: "Just like me, this person is learning about life."

Love is an expression of the willingness to create space in which something is allowed to change.

If I don't do it perfectly, if I don't show up 100%, say a primary with sufficient intention, how can the Universe rise to meet me? Or, how can I rise up to meet the Universe that is always ready and in place?

There is still doubt, lack of conviction and sincerity on my part. It is still lack-lustre. The intention and aliveness is missing.

What will it take, but a second, to internally decide to say, "yes."

For me to say "yes" right now, I want to know what comes next. What am I really saying "yes" to? What does it look like? How will it be? Tell me everything ahead of time. Line it up for me. I want safety and security.

That's not what it takes though. It takes me trusting without question and letting go completely.

Adyashanti talks about yearning "for a life where you let go of the steering wheel and trust." He talks about the freedom where "life lives itself." The lecture that Adya was giving, was titled, The Full Embrace*.

The full embrace. There is an energy and feeling of participation and aliveness to it, versus that of the air hug! Superficially reaching out with minimal contact. No real exchange of life and energy. Just a little show of embracing, but not the real thing. A kind of apathetic way of being in the world.

What does it take for me to show up and embrace life fully with a resounding "yes?"

What does it take for me to get up off of the symbolic couch of my life and care?

Am I willing to be free and embody that freedom as myself? Do I want to be freedom? Adya says, that "very few want to die that much."

Today is the day. I decide. Now is the time. I say "yes." Let's begin. Right here, right now. No hemming and hawing. No waiting 'til I have perfected this skill and all of my ducks are lined up in a row. Right now, just as I am.

"Yes!" No looking back or sideways to see if I really mean it. No checking whether or not I really did it. "Yes," with all of my attention in this present moment, alert and ready.

Am I ready to let go of me and my will? I am ready to do Thy will always?

I feel an internal softening. The "yes" is there and it is my own heart.

*The Full Embrace: Volume 1 is available as a free download this month in the library section of Cafe Dharma.

http://www.adyashanti.org/cafedharma/

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This has been the most incredible experience of my life. I am a new person, and I don't even recall the old person. I will surely not miss her. The future is an incredible adventure waiting for me to create it. I feel peace within me that I never knew existed. The love I have for myself will light the world I live in; love for myself is incredible and new in itself. Avatar has changed my life and has taught me world lessons that I will use for eternity.

S. M.
Virginia

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When we moved to this house, we inherited mail-order catalogs by the pound. The previous tenants, it seems, were on some universal mailing list. That's how the Avatar Journal came to us. Something I had been looking for all my life found me.
I knew how to create things I wanted, but I didn't know how to make undesirable stuff go away. It was an art, not a science. Why did some things manifest so effortlessly and others remain stubbornly unrealizable? Maybe I was kidding myself. Plenty of theories: we have no control, we're dry leaves blowing in the wind, we're subject to thousands of years of karma, suffering is unavoidable, even ennobling.
But I was looking for a science, a way to reproduce results, a practical, modern method for attaining the state of grace, a twentieth-century update on fasting, prayer and self-flagellation. It had to exist. And so it does.
I've just completed the Avatar Course and all I can say is, Oh right, of course, this is how life works.

I. H.
Massachusetts

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Sunday evening: Day 9
We are now in the final hours of the most incredible turning point in my life. I'd never have imagined this course to offer so many lessons on such a broad and deep level. At several points I felt such an urge to run away like a frightened being, but something underneath it all insisted that I stay and face my fears. And now I know I can and will rise to the occasion. I am here to create an Enlightened planetary Civilization, and I'll do whatever it takes.

R.S.
USA

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A thousand thanks. I feel I have been showered with blessings upon blessings from Masters and students. I have never experienced anything like it before. The simplicity of the exercises and the
love of the Masters make for a powerful combination.
As one who trained in psychology, worked as a therapist and trained as a social worker-there is nothing to come near it. Through all my years of training and therapy-all my rubbish was there fully intact when I arrived at the Source List, and now it has been lifted out piece by piece. I feel the freest I have ever felt in my entire life. Thank you-so small a word but the intention with which it is said will shower you all with my deepest gratitude.
I take the journey outward with my heart open and overflowing with appreciation.

M. M.
Ireland

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I learned about my sabotaging behavior. Not feeling good enough has effected every area of my life. I didn't know what I wanted. I felt unsafe all the time. I felt angry.
I learned I was creating this. I saw it myself. I now have an idea of what I wasn't and how to get there and how to deal with limiting beliefs. THANK YOU!

Irene

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I wanted to get in touch with some of my beliefs that were holding me back and blocking me.
I learned about beliefs, attention, how they can be changed-attention-focus on what I want to accomplish and create the beliefs that I want to have, not what I think others want of me.

Heather

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Avatar is Harry Palmer's and Star's Edge International's gift to the world. I can't think of a better gift than the tools The Avatar Course gives to help individuals discover and discreate their creations and to create and experience the lives they choose.
The Master Course has helped me to realize that I create all of my experiences. As a creator I can create and experience what I want. What a great knowing-I am source!
Thank you, trainers, for the love with which you guide us through our experiences.

Shahreen
Malaysia

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I have been back from The Master Course for two months now. I am used to coming home from a course and having all the effects wear off in a week.
The Master Course hasn't worn off. Even when a lot is happening and my mind is really busy, I still have an inner peaceful knowing.
And to deal with whatever the future holds? The quiet confidence that I had a taste of after Avatar Section III is now a strong flavor on an on-going basis.
Now, what sandbox do I want to play in today?

Ralph
Oregon

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When I got to The Master Course, I found old friends I didn't even know I knew. Some of us couldn't speak the same language, but all of us spoke the same heart.

Cata Low
Texas

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The high wall that seemed to prevent me from being pure consciousness has shrunk to a one-foot high hedge-easy to step over! I am in constant joy and excitement for life.
Now things are so natural that I hardly remember that they have been a different way. My life is well balanced, my job is meaningful and very fulfilling. I have time to appreciate life, friends, nature and art. I feel free to get involved in whatever adventure I choose, but I am no longer fooled by my own thoughts or emotions. I feel secure, capable, and committed to developing a more loving way of living in the world.

Carole
France

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his was the turning point for me in this amazing journey to awareness. I realized the power and true gift that you, Harry, have offered us and the planet - the power to be in a place where the most resisted identities can be created, "tried on for size", played with and discreated at will. WOW!! What tools!

David

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Among many physical, mental and emotional maladies, I was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder and treated with powerful drugs. I now know that my ADD was feelings, stacked upon feelings, fighting to be experienced; resulting in internal chaos. I am so thankful to Avatar for the peaceful quiet I now experience inside of me.

Jenny

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WOW! I came here desperate, needing to be saved; looking for my SAVIOR.
I leave here appreciating, focused, expanded and enjoying "It". I found the savior - I Am. How can one who has been in prison most of their life adequately express what it feels like to walk through the gates and be free? What must that feel like? I know now more than ever. It is me now experiencing this newness of it all. The game is over; that game of "needing a savior". I decide.

Rita

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Mmmmm. It's all about attention, isn't it? Amazing. Attention out. No suffering. Attention on what I do want, manifestation of the primary. Attention out. There is no separation. Pure connection. It feels so good to be excited again. Alive and inspired. Part of a larger process that has purpose and vision. Thank you for the gift.

Teal

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I was a prisoner of war in Indonesia and my guards were Japanese and Korean soldiers and officers. I saw and experienced a lot of terrible things. After the war I blocked my memory to make it possible to start a new life. During The Professional Course, in Willingen, my first exercise with a fellow student was with a Japanese man. Then I had to work with a Korean man and for the group demo I chose to work with the Korean group. I used the Rat List to overcome my feelings about Japanese and Korean people, and by the end of the course I had a Japanese friend, a Korean friend, two from Taiwan and two from China. The course was very clearing.
Now, at Wizards, I have used the exercises to recover my blocked memory. I can look back in a serene way and find the answers to who I was. Again I sit near Korean students, and if you were to put a soldier's hat on one of the students you would have one of my former guards. Yet I can look into that face with peace in my heart.
I've hugged a lot of oriental friends that I've gotten to know over the Avatar courses. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clear my past.

M. Y. Dunckner
The Netherlands

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In these two weeks wonderful things happened, and it still goes on. Old pains, attitudes and limiting beliefs dissolved. I know who I am. There is expansion, trust and inner peace.
I feel free and at the same time a strong sense of purpose and responsibility too. I now know that my contribution to an enlightened planetary civilization should be guided and guarded by my higher self.
Avatar is a pearl of human development. I will honor it.

Adash H. van Akkeren
The Netherlands

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I am in awe. My consciousness is restructuring itself, becoming more and more spacious. The hard hidden edges, dark and fearful corners, the fixed polar opposites of reactive creation are dissolving as I go along on my checklist. A new I is showing up.

Anna Keller
Germany

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Teaching The Wizard Course is the best thing I ever do. In 13 days I see lives totally evolve. The power of it really brings you to your knees just watching the awakening, I feel so much gratitude.

Avra

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What I like about Wizards is the level of integrity and honesty people get to and how easy it is to get there. Wizards feels like an endless party with my very best friends.

Pieta

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From Avatar's main website (http://www.avatarepc.com):

"For 40 years the visionary ideas behind the Avatar materials incubated in the mind of Harry Palmer. Like many of us, Harry had occasional glimpses into the patterns that creation seemed to follow, but for him a glimpse wasn't enough. In 1976, Harry resigned his tenured teaching position and began what was to become a decade of study and investigation into how consciousness works.

Harry is an accomplished man without pretensions or any magical airs, but with a certain deep-seated calm and a warm and quick sense of humor. He does not look or act like anyone's guru or a corporate executive. He tends to wear tee-shirts and running shoes and is usually in the middle, though not necessarily the focus, of the excitement. He prefers incisive simplicity to any charismatic drama.

Today, few who fair-mindedly study Harry Palmer's techniques can doubt the profound effect that his writings are having on the collective consciousness of the world. Harry's writings have been translated into 19 languages, and his business model has had a major impact on the personal-development seminar industry."

Would you like to speak to me directly for more information about Avatar?

Feel free to write to me online at nicola@citcom.net or call me at (828)884-4565 or (828)421-8615.

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