Gnostic Intensive

Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski

GNOSTIC INTENSIVE With the Alternative Technique

Belgrade, 2010

From

the same author:

BOOKS: PEAT and the Neutralization of Primordial Polarities The Return to Oneness Aspectics I CHING: The Philosophical Machine The Dawn of Aivaz (occult labyrinth novel. You enter it as one person and emerge as another,completely changed) Invisible Influences: Work with Bodiless Entities Transcendence DVD: Spiritual Technology



Publisher: Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski B.A. in Psychology Ivankovačka 22, Beograd



Copyright © 2010 by Živorad Mihajlović

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced neither as a whole nor in parts, in any way or by any means, without the written permission of the author.

  Translation into English: Editing: Proofreading: Title page: Page makeup:

Ivana Tomanović Fran Kenealy Zoran Ostojić Tarik Ćeman Nevenka Antić

Contents INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 CHARLES BERNER AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT INTENSIVE. . . . . . . . . . 11 Personality Conflicts and Breakup of Berner’s Organization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 GENESIS OF THE GNOSTIC INTENSIVE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Validation of Participant’s Experience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Opening of Intensive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Engaging Emotions and Switching Commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Advanced and Special Intensives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 PATHWAY TO THE ALTERNATIVE TECHNIQUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 GNOSTIC INTENSIVE’S ALTERNATIVE TECHNIQUE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 THE SYMPTOMS OF GNOSTIC EXPERIENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Catharsis with obvious Experience of Gnosis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Peaceful Experience of Gnosis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 The Technique Breakdown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Staring into the distance absently. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 MEUNA OR THE STABLE STATE OF MIND. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 GNOSIS AND THE PROCESS OF DEIDENTIFICATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 NATURE OF THE DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF TRUTH. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 STIMULATION OF PARTICIPANTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 CONCENTRATION EXERCISES FOR THE MASTERS OF INTENSIVE. . . . 59 EGO AND THE ETHICS OF THE GNOSTIC INTENSIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 CHANGES IN THE COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS OF MANKIND . . . . 65 MANUAL FOR MASTERS OF GNOSTIC INTENSIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Intensive’s Preparation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Goal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Short History of Gnostic Intensive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Rules of Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Gnostic Intensive’s Technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

The Nature of the Direct Experience of Truth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Gnostic Intensive’s Koans. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Value of Direct Experience of Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Checking How the Participants Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 Validation of a Direct Experience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Eliciting a DET from the participant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 The Final Speech. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 INDIVIDUAL GNOSTIC INTENSIVE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Stabilization of the Experience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 SELF-REALIZATION AND THE DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF TRUTH . . . . . . 87 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

INTRODUCTION

T

wenty-five years have passed since I published the book  Encounters with Truth: Enlightenment Intensive. In it I explored the theoretical basis for a method of spiritual growth created in  1968 by Charles Berner (1929-2007) and also discussed its practical components. The book had two editions and has been out of press for many years now. During the last ten years or so I have developed a new method, the Gnostic Intensive, which has entirely surpassed Berner’s method, so that there was no need for a third edition of Encounters with Truth. Subsequently, in 1993 I published the Manual for Masters of the Gnostic Intensive, where I described my experiences in leading Intensives and how Berner’s Intensive was transformed into the Gnostic Intensive and became a fundamentally different system. That manual also became outdated after several years, so that a new edition (since the old one sold out quickly) would have been superfluous. However, for some time now a need has existed among those searching for Truth to present a detailed description of the Gnostic Intensive (including the Alternative Technique) in the form of a book. The need exists because only I (and only a few others in Serbia and abroad) mastered Intensives, so that not much is known about how I developed the system, the differences between it and Berner’s Intensive, and most importantly, about its advantages: simple implementation, efficiency and the exceptionally short time it requires. The book in front of you was written precisely to satisfy that need. I have included in it relevant parts of my two previously mentioned books. Some parts are altered to a degree, while others are left intact. In the second part of the book, I presented the Manual for Masters of the Gnostic Intensive  with the Alternative Technique and appended instructions for leading the Individual Gnostic Intensive. I am confident that the appendices, together with the basic text of the book, will further stimulate those who want to help others on the path of spiritual growth. Charles Berner’s Enlightenment Intensive had been for many years my main spiritual activity. I introduced it to the former Yugoslavia from the U.S.A. in 1980, the same year I mastered my first Intensive. Its value was obvious to all the participants, so that it soon gained the great reputation it deserved. I have led a large number of Intensives – to this moment, between 120 and 130, and at one point I started training others to become Masters of Intensive – at first individually, then in groups. My activities resulted in a large number of trained Masters. At one time, at the beginning of the 1980’s, in former Yugoslavia there were more Masters of Intensive than in all other parts of the world combined. More Intensives were held, as well. For such a large number of Masters of Intensive it became necessary to have an adequate manual. Such a manual was first published by Berner’s disciples at his center in St. Helena, U.S.A. My late sister Bojana and I later translated it into Serbian and the former Psychotronics Society, over which I presided, published it as a hardcover manu7

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script. Three hundred copies (if my memory is correct) were published and eventually sold out. It was the first translation of Berner’s manual from English into a foreign language. I’m not certain whether translations into other languages were later made. When after more than ten years the Intensive had been altered and transformed into the Gnostic Intensive, I wrote and published (as mentioned above) the Manual for Masters of the Gnostic Intensive,  where I presented the key changes that resulted in a fundamentally new method, considerably different from Berner’s. Making changes to the Intensive was consistent with Berner’s beliefs, which I became thoroughly acquainted with in 1980 during my stay at his center in St. Helena, California. He was not strict about protecting his method and did not insist upon its orthodoxy. In his Intensive Masters Training Courses he would point out the necessity of adjusting Intensives to one’s (Master’s) own personality. Whether you want it to or not, he used to say, the Intensive originates within you and will be a reflection of your nature. On the other hand, he wanted to prevent uncontrolled alterations of his method. These two tendencies formed the basis of his approach, which he formulated in the following way in a conversation with me: “Some changes in Intensive are inevitable, because it comes from you. As long as you don’t change its essential elements, it will be my Enlightenment Intensive. If, at some moment, you change its important features, it will not be my Intensive anymore, but yours. You should therefore change its name. What you will call it is up to you.” For ten years I led Enlightenment Intensives as they were shaped by Berner. Not only that, but I also prevented the Masters I trained from introducing fundamental changes in the method. During all those years, it remained Charles Berner’s Enlightenment Intensive. In the span of those years I noticed some flaws in the method and many misconceptions which Berner had insisted were necessary components of the Intensive. For instance, he claimed that on 14-day Intensives Kundalini (also known as the Serpent Fire) arises in approximately half of participants – an assertion which his immediate disciples reiterated blindly and persistently. However, that phenomenon had not appeared in any of the long Intensives in which I took part, including three 14-day Intensives and one Intensive in Austria, which lasted for a month and a half. I remarked to the Master that led the three 14-day Intensives I participated in that he should not make assertions about the awakening of Kundalini in front of the participants, because that phenomenon never takes place. His reply was unpersuasive. He said that the arising of the Kundalini was not what people believed it to be, but that it was nothing more than a multitude of strange and “wild” ideas that come to people’s minds during long Intensives. Someone with even a minimal knowledge of yoga can not accept such an assertion, as unusual and “wild” ideas appear during   most group therapeutic and spiritual activities lasting for a long while, which would imply that Kundalini arises during them as well. Awakening of the Kundalini does not stem from strange ideas, but is a dramatic and dangerous psycho-physiological process. Berner insisted that Intensive’s technique can not be explained. An explanation means a description of “how something is done”, whereas in Intensive’s technique there is no “how”. In contrast to his method, in the Gnostic Intensive there is a very clear explanation of how the technique should be applied, which shows that Berner’s assertion was incorrect. 8

Introduction Berner had forbidden drinking coffee at his Intensives and had insisted on vegetarian food. But experience showed that people can eat all kinds of food, except food difficult to digest, and can drink coffee without affecting the success of the Intensive. Furthermore, there was an array of other strict prohibitions and limitations: men could not shave, while women were not allowed to apply facial creams. These prohibitions initially appeared to make sense, but were proven wrong in practice. I will quote here a part of my  Manual for Masters of the Gnostic Intensive: “The reality itself contains contradictions and develops in such a way as to negate its practice that proved to be a limitation and obstacle to its further growth. During the practical application I noticed that many other claims, following the Enlightenment Intensive, like untouchable laws, were also false. By methodically checking each of those claims, I have gradually introduced more and more changes into the Enlightenment Intensive. The commands, Intensive’s technique, which was perceived as the eleventh commandment, the areas to which the method was applied – all of these things changed, and the duration of the Intensive was shortened, so that it finally became an essentially different method, much faster and more efficient. It was then that I changed the name of the method, in accordance with Berner’s second request. The method is now called Gnostic Intensive or the Intensive of Gnosis.” “Once again practice has proven that everything changes: ideology, science, art, even the methodology of spiritual growth. Those who adhere to the fossilized methods of the past most certainly inhibit their own development. If we can’t find new paths in our own time, we will not be able to leave the old ineffective ways behind. As the wise men put it, a good householder creates his home from old and new things. The emergence and development of the Gnostic Intensive taught us that there is always something that can improve even the best methods and that perfection itself can be perfected.”

9

CHARLES BERNER AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT INTENSIVE

I

n order to be successful on an Intensive you don’t need to be familiar with its history, but for some people it is important to know that the Gnostic Intensive has not appeared as an isolated phenomenon, all by itself, but that it has a specific historical foundation.

The Direct Experience of Truth (DET) has different names in different systems of spiritual growth. In Buddhism it is nirvana, in Yoga Samadhi, in Zen Kensho (shallow experience) and Satori (profound state). Naturally, DET which people experience on the Gnostic Intensive (GI) is far shallower than the one experienced in the classical systems I mentioned here. It is not only shallower, but also of much shorter duration. But it does suggest potentially deeper levels that persons will eventually reach in their spiritual development. In literature, the most famous Enlightenment is Buddha’s. He experienced it after eight years of continuous meditation. It was extraordinarily profound, to such an extent that it has influenced countless generations of followers for twenty-six centuries. Zen arose in the 10th century, within Buddhism. In it, Enlightenment was reached faster, for practitioners did not simultaneously meditate upon their entire lives and all the phenomena contained there, but rather upon fragments of reality in the form of special questions called koans. Koans are, in fact, absurd questions designed to lead to the breakdown of the rational mind, for the rational mind is the main obstacle to the DET. There are about 2000 koans. They are well known in the relevant literature today. At a certain point, a stratification occurred in Zen – there appeared several schools, but the most important were Soto and Rinzai. The Soto school emphasizes continuous meditation without the goal of Enlightenment. This is its key concept: Enlightenment is nothing more than discovery of one’s true nature. Since we already are what we are, it doesn’t matter when the clear awareness of it appears. It will appear sooner or later. The Rinzai school  emphasizes the breakthrough experience of Enlightenment. Humans need such an experience and it makes sense that we are willing to make a great effort to experience it. Within the Rinzai school sessions were created, e.g. special periods lasting 3, 7 or 14 days, during which followers constantly meditate with the desire to become enlightened. For a long while, questions regarding how long one needs to meditate in order to experience Enlightenment were considered rude in the East. However, when, at the beginning of the 20th century, Masters from the East started arriving to Europe and the U.S.A., very frequently they encountered questions such as: How long does it take? When will I be enlightened? At that time the Harada school of Zen developed in Japan. Its followers strove to attain realization in a short time, during sessions lasting 3 or 7 days. 11

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In 1968 in the U.S.A., Charles Berner, an ex-scientologist, created the Enlightenment Intensive. He introduced the fruitful idea of combining communication with meditation. In various schools of Zen there is very little communication. Meditation is silent almost all the time, and the person is left to himself and his thoughts. Once a day or once every few days the disciple has a short conversation with the Master. The conversation is meant to clarify for him the state he is in and correct his technique if necessary. Berner believed that communication cleanses the human spirit of spiritual masses very quickly and he therefore requested that participants of Intensives keep the best possible balance between time spent on meditation and on communication. The second element on which Berner insisted was maximum contact among the Intensive’s participants. To achieve this, he introduced working in dyads (pairs), because such work intensifies contact between two human beings. In Buddhism and Zen practitioners would usually sit in a room with their faces turned to the wall. It was believed that seeing other disciples would avert their attention and make meditation more difficult. It is not known when an anonymous Zen Master turned his disciples to face the center of the room, so that they could see each other in meditation. From that moment on enlightenment events began occurring faster and more frequently. It was believed that seeing each other intensified the disciples’ competitive spirit. This was partially true, as Berner concluded, quite justifiably, that human contact is the most important element for quick attainment of DET. Charles Berner became spiritually active at a very young age. During the first half of his life, he visited many Masters and tried a considerable number of established spiritual paths. In 1950, Ron Hubbard published his book  Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, which became a bestseller. Around him a large group of people gathered, and the Dianetics Organization was created. In a very short time, thousands of people became members. Berner was among the first. He gained a reputation as a leading scientologist and worked for more than ten years as a professional auditor (processor). Berner took the most important Scientology courses available – the famous Special Briefing Course, among others, in 1962. Scientologists from that era claimed that he had made a significant discovery in the so-called “misunderstood words”, one of the basic Scientology principles of successful learning and understanding new data. Hubbard usurped the discovery and proclaimed it his own. From then on, at the beginning of each book (and there are many), Hubbard warned readers that they should by no means continue reading when they encounter an unknown word, but must clarify its meaning immediately, by consulting a dictionary. Hubbard’s behavior caused great resistance in Berner and led to his eventual loss of interest in the teachings of Scientology. The breakup occurred shortly after, in the mid-1960s, when the Scientologists began advertising on a grand scale the possibility of reaching the OT level (OT is the abbreviation for Operative Thetan), which required very costly processes to attain. Operative Thetan, Hubbard announced, is a being in complete control of the universe of matter, energy, space and time, capable of functioning outside its physical body, as well as without it. Berner claimed that those were empty and groundless statements, sweet carrots held  in front of the noses of naive followers, aimed at taking their money. Ev12

Charles Berner and the Enlightenment Intensive eryone who has experienced the OT level would certainly agree with him. Berner challenged one of the new OT’s by asking him to levitate a piece of paper lying on the table, and when the person wriggled out of it with transparent excuses, Berner’s patience was up. He was formally expelled by Hubbard when he began teaching some of his clients to apply Scientology processes on their own. This was an unforgivable sacrilege in the Church of Scientology, which charged for everything. However, Berner was not the only one to leave the Church of Scientology. He was followed by a large group of scientologists. It was with them that he began practicing Abilitism, as he named the method he had created, in Lucerne Valley, California. Its techniques were very similar to those of Scientology, but their aim was different. While Hubbard emphasized power, Berner asserted that the basic need of human beings is love and he therefore insisted on its realization in intrapersonal relationships, through the practice of Abilitism. When I was visiting Berner’s center in St. Helena in 1980, I heard from his close associates that, for a while after his secession, scientologists were trying to kill him. He eventually made an agreement with Hubbard to be left alone, and in turn promised that he would not mention Hubbard or his organization in any way. From that moment on, Berner consistently adhered to the agreement, and referred to the years spent in Scientology as time spent in studying past lives. Working with clients for many years, Berner made a significant observation: the great majority of people don’t know who they are. More precisely, they don’t have a Direct Experience of Truth regarding themselves. From earliest childhood and throughout their lives people acquire many indirect experiences and beliefs related to who they are, which they attain on their own or learn and accept from their parents, teachers or famous thinkers. But they don’t have Direct Experiences. If you ask most people “Who are you?” they will answer as personalities, most often giving you their names. But a human being is not its name, nor anything else it has, but rather a spiritual being, and in order to give the answer as such, a person must experience a Direct Experience of Truth on the question “Who am I?”. When a person has such a Direct Experience, he starts developing much faster in every area – spiritual, psychological and emotional. This is the first time that he acts from himself. Before that, he acted while being off his center of gravity. If he meditated, it was not he who did it, but his desire to become better, healthier, calmer or more spiritual, to be loved more, to be accepted, etc. After experiencing a Direct Experience of Truth on “Who am I?”, such a person meditates or performs any similar activity for the first time from the essence of his being and not from his personality, and therefore develops much faster. However, Berner’s assertion that a person who doesn’t know who he is can not develop is extreme and unjustified. People have developed from the dawn of time without help from such an Experience and all around us are many successful and developed people, but it is true that one develops faster and easier after a Direct Experience of Truth, especially in the realm of spiritual activities. Charles Berner claimed that he tried for a long time to figure out how to enable someone to experience directly who they are without spending years meditating in isolation or in a Zen monastery, which were the common methods at the time. One day, when he was thoroughly relaxed (which is most often the situation in which solutions 13

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to problems enter one’s consciousness), he had a fertile idea to integrate meditation with communication. Another idea occurred to him as well – that of people working in pairs (dyads) instead of working alone. In that situation, two minds alternately try to solve a problem existing in one unconscious and attain a Direct Experience of Truth on the question “Who am I?” Truth be told, Berner adopted the idea of working in pairs from Hubbard. Both the processor and the client take part in most of Hubbard’s processes, which means that there are two minds against one (the client’s) unconscious spirit. Berner expected that in group work at least a dozen three-day Intensives would be needed before the first person had a Direct Experience. He gathered a group of his followers from his Abilitistic organization and mastered his first three-day Intensive in the California desert. To his surprise, during those three days, 30 percent of the participants had a Direct Experience, and some had more than one. At the end of the Intensive, everyone was filled with enthusiasm. All the participants urged Berner to lead his next Intensive as soon as possible, and he began leading a series of Enlightenment Intensives. Soon a question naturally confronted Berner: if a three-day Intensive provides such valuable experiences, what would people experience if they worked for a much longer period? Many have proposed a fourteen-day Intensive. After some hesitation, Berner succumbed and mastered his first fourteen-day Intensive. Although experiences were deeper and more numerous, the flaws of this kind of practice also showed. People became emotionally unstable and needed a lot of time to readjust to normal life; one person even had a breakdown and ended up in a mental hospital, where he stayed for the rest of his life. These events strongly affected Berner, who did not lead long Intensives for the next few years. He later returned to them, but he was much more careful in choosing participants. Throughout his career as a processor of Scientology as well as later, when he worked with his own groups, Charles Berner was facing a personal problem which was undermining his reputation: he was not able to control his sex drive. Even though he was married to someone who supported his spiritual activities, he got involved in many extramarital affairs. Within his organization, this weakness of his was referred to with a euphemism –  “Jogeshvar couldn’t control his Kundalini”. Jogeshvar was the Hindu name Berner adopted when he became deeply involved in the Enlightenment Intensives. After twenty-five years of spiritual work, Berner went to India and eventually met his personal guru, Swami Kripalvananda, who initiated him. According to Berner, that’s when he managed to put his ‘Kundalini’ under control. What happened later indicates that some of his closest associates did not agree. After mastering ninety-nine Enlightenment Intensives, Berner left Intensives  to his disciples and devoted himself to Sahaja Yoga – the path of surrendering to Truth. In the last few years of his life he developed Lila Yoga or Lila Paradigna based on, as he puts it, his Direct Experience of Truth regarding the  fundamental principles of the universe.

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Charles Berner and the Enlightenment Intensive

Personality Conflicts and Breakup of Berner’s Organization By the end of the 1980’s, Berner had problems controlling his ego. This was obvious from his statements and behavior. His closest disciples, who perceived him as the True Master (Sad Guru in Yoga terminology), contributed to this phenomenon, by spreading stories,   but so did he, by supporting certain ideas. Berner declared his Master, Swami Kripalvananda, an Avatar. According to Oriental philosophy, an Avatar is a God in a human body who incarnates on our planet approximately once every thousand years in order to give new incentive to the spiritual growth of mankind. Buddha, Christ, and some say, Meher Baba, were Avatars. Swami Kripalvananda was an advanced Yogi, but he was far from the stage of Avatar, to which Berner exalted him. Berner was Kripalvananda’s main disciple – if your personal Master is God Himself, that means that you have a very high spiritual rank as well. This ego-game exists in many spiritual groups and cults which gather around a charismatic leader. Despite the fact that many Yoga Masters reiterate that an Avatar appears only once in approximately one thousand years, in recent years at least a dozen persons have claimed to be one, or their disciples did it for them. Besides Kripalvananda, there are Meher Baba, Sai Baba, Herakan Baba, Sri Chinmoy and some others. Their disciples are at war – they vehemently criticize all others who claim that status except their own Master, who is, naturally,  “the only true Avatar”. But that was not the end of Berner’s “cut-loose” egotistical activities. At the end of the 1980’s he made a prophecy which his disciples firmly believed: “We are about to face a global catastrophe.” He stated that it would occur in a year or two and that the whole planet would be destroyed except for Australia. Because of this, Berner moved to Australia with several of his key disciples. They bought a big ranch and began piling up food and water to help them survive for a long period. The date of  the predicted catastrophe came and went without any visible disturbance in the world. Berner then gave a very unconvincing explanation as to why his prediction didn’t come true, saying that there was a perturbation on the New York stock market. In many persons who reach a higher level of spiritual growth, at some point a need arises to make groundless and incorrect prophecies. The wiser among them control the need and do not share their predictions with their environment, but many do, putting themselves in an awkward situation, from which they later try to wriggle out, like Berner did, by providing unconvincing explanations. Paco Rabanne, a famous fashion designer who described many of his past lives in his autobiographical book  Journey: From One Life to Another, predicted that in the year 2000 an apocalypse would occur. He therefore moved from Paris to an out-of-the-way place in the Pyrenees. Joshana, a woman who led a Californian cult, gave the exact date when UFO’s would land on the lawn in front of the White House in Washington D.C. and extraterrestrials would make contact with the American government. One more cult leader from the U.S.A. stated that in 1993 an awakening of Kundalini in all mankind would take place. In short, I could mention many people with such delusions. It is difficult to say what entices them to make such predictions. Berner has, unfortunately, had the same tendency. 15

Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski

Gnostic Intensive

Most people were very disappointed by Berner’s behavior in emotional relationships. When his organization was in California, he claimed to have practiced celibacy since he had put his Kundalini under control. He would also often say that three things can ruin a Master of Intensives – money, power and sex. However, in the early 1990’s there was an unpleasant conflict within the organization, between Berner and his closest disciples. His right hand, whose adept name was Satyavati, widely distributed a letter incriminating Berner. She didn’t use his name, but everyone knew who she was talking about. She claimed that all the money the organization received went to Berner’s account. Furthermore, Satyavati claimed that Berner didn’t practice celibacy. On the contrary, he had sexual intercourse with most of his female disciples, and he also seduced the newcomers. To them he contended that control of the sex drive applies only to those who are on  lower levels of spiritual development, and not to profoundly enlightened persons like himself. What really happened within the organization is hard to say. In my opinion, it could be held against Berner that he preached one thing and did another. If he had only openly expressed his belief that there was nothing harmful in sex and that he practiced tantra, no one could have reproached  him about his behavior and there would have been no disappointed followers. Repulsed by the discoveries concerning his personal life,most disciples abandoned Berner.He then left the room where he had spent time in meditation all day long,as his disciples had previously claimed,and started traveling around the world in order to gather new disciples and persuade the ones who considered leaving to stay with him. Then he made one more mistake that considerably burdened karma.What happened in other places he visited I don’t know,but in Ljubljana,Slovenia,he promised a large group of people that he would take over their whole karma if they would remain or become his disciples.It was an irresponsible and unexpected statement from Berner.But who knows what things sleep deep inside human beings,waiting to be awakened. Finally, I must say that I wrote this chapter with much hesitation, because since my first contact with Berner I have felt great gratitude for the Intensive he created, which changed the lives of thousands of people. I believe that we should consider his personal life and his contribution to spirituality separately. I find interesting how Berner was perceived by his wife Ava at the time he created the Intensive:  “He was always absolutely present with the people he worked with,”, she said. “That was his strength. In therapeutic sessions or on Intensive, he was like Beethoven. In his private life and many other areas he was very weak. Sometimes you had an impression that there were two, quite different persons. It seems that when a person is very creative in some fields or areas, his energy completely dries up in some other fields or areas.” Charles Berner’s contribution to the spiritual milieu of mankind is significant. And for all the flaws he manifested in his personal life, if what people from his immediate environment claimed was true, he will pay a price himself, just like everyone else. Maybe this is the right moment to remind you of the old Zen saying referring to Masters, since the disciples in the East are also often disappointed in their Masters: “While you are searching for your spiritual Master, open both of your eyes. When you find him, close one.“

16

GENESIS OF THE GNOSTIC INTENSIVE

I

n the previous chapter I mentioned that in the ten years during which I led Enlightenment Intensives, I noticed their flaws, and concluded that some beliefs that people had about them weren’t true. I didn’t change anything, but elements Berner never mentioned imposed themselves on me. I observed, as did the Masters I had trained, that an Intensive was more successful if the disciples were emotionally open. When most of the participants were inhibited and closed, the Masters would say, “The group is closed; it will be difficult.” The same applied to the opposite situation – Masters would say “I had a good, emotionally open group.” In time, the question was asked: “How can I open a group emotionally and thereby have greater success?” Berner’s description  of the technique, which required that participants make a strong volitional effort to attain enlightenment, while at the same time being told that it is impossible to explain how to achieve it, created immense inner pressure in them during the three days of Intensive. People became desperate, they suffered, experienced strong catharses and unpleasant phenomena. The situation could be compared to a steam kettle without a vent, in which the pressure was rising. Only at one point during his Intensive Masters Training Course did Berner talk about the moment when the Master should “uncork the bottle” and activate participants. As far as I remember, he designated such a moment as the middle of the third day of the Intensive, when the Master gives his usual speech. However, he didn’t emphasize that moment strongly enough, and it is the most important ingredient of a successful Intensive. He said only that it was an “emotional matter in some degree”. On the first Intensives I mastered I had already realized the most important elements of a successful Intensive. They are the ability of the Master to recognize his participants’ Direct Experience of Truth and his ability to “open Intensive”. I will describe briefly these two crucial elements.

Validation

of

Participant’s Experience

Laymen expect the Direct Experience of Truth to be obvious and unambiguous, so that the participant can not have any dilemmas or doubts about whether he had it or not. Yet the situation is quite different. On Intensive, it is necessary for the Master to validate or confirm the participant’s experience (as a DET). Very often the Master must draw out into the light of awareness the participant’s Direct Experience. The situation resembles a hen who breaks an eggshell with her beak and by doing so helps its chick to enter the world. During the Intensive one may have many experiences which appear to be Direct Experiences but are not. They are insights, intellectual cognitions, catharses and mysti17

Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski

Gnostic Intensive

cal or parapsychical experiences. They may be significant for the participant; however, they are indirect, not Direct Experiences. A person can achieve knowledge of who he is, what life is or what another human being is by his intellect. Such a cognition may be valuable and important for the participant, but it is an indirect experience, whereas the only aim of the Intensive is DET, which is permanent, even eternal. Insight is a similar experience. It is a sudden understanding of relationships in life – with others, our attitude towards ourselves or towards the eschatological questions which had tormented us, and to which we had been, until that moment, blind. Catharsis is a strong discharge of emotional energy which was  blocked in some experiences. After it, a person feels lighter and cleansed, as if a heavy burden has slipped off his shoulders. Sometimes the cleansing takes the form of ecstasy. Due to the explosive power of the catharsis and the relief that follows it, the participant may confuse it with the Direct Experience. Mystical, parapsychical or the so-called “cosmical experiences” are the ones which are most often misinterpreted as enlightenment, because they are so strong and often represent revelations or new directions in life for the person. All of the mentioned experiences may be very significant for the individual, but they are indirect, whereas the goal of Intensive is a DET. Both the participant and the Master can err and accept as a Direct Experience something which is not. This is the most common mistake that inexperienced Masters make. The Master should be capable of evaluating and validating the participant’s experience directly. Logical or intellectual evaluation leads to failure, as DET surpasses the rational way of thinking. Its evaluation is in a certain way intuitive. The Master’s capacity for correctly evaluating the participant’s experience depends on two factors: his mental concentration and the number of Direct Experiences he has had himself. The more experiences he’s had,  the less likely he is to accept an identification which may interfere with his evaluation. His mind becomes cleaner and cleaner, because his spiritual masses are destroyed and the veil that enshrouds his consciousness becomes ever thinner. There are special exercises for improving a Master’s concentration; as for the Direct Experiences, a Master acquires them by participating in Intensives himself.

Opening

of

Intensive

I have previously stated that Berner mentioned only once, and only in passing, that the Master can activate participants emotionally and by doing so push them towards the Direct Experience. Since he didn’t insist on this element, the Masters of his school, even the ones closest to him with the best reputations, overlooked it. Opening of Intensive is an exceptional, powerful effort by which, at one moment, the Master emotionally moves participants toward the  experience of Gnosis. It comes down to the emotional opening of, firstly, the Master, and secondly, the participants. I stated in the beginning of the book that the whole Intensive springs up from the Master. In this context, it means that in order to open an Intensive effectively, the Master himself has to open up emotionally. 18

Genesis of the Gnostic Intensive By participating in long Intensives led by Masters of Berner’s school I became convinced that their greatest weakness was having no clear idea of the significance of opening the Intensive. I took part in a six-week Intensive mastered by Berner’s closest associate, Satyavati. In the entire period of the Intensive – forty-two days – she did not open it even once. Yet she didn’t appear to be  unsatisfied with the result, although the Masters I have trained would have called the Intensive a catastrophe. There were forty participants, and though it seems impossible, it’s true: half of them didn’t have even one Direct Experience during that long period. The speeches the Master makes around the middle of the day have very clear and limited goals: clarifying Intensive’s technique, motivating participants to persevere in their efforts and, most importantly, pushing them toward the Direct Experience. The last and most significant element was entirely missing on Satyavati’s Intensive. She told us boring stories, which accounted for an incredible sight I witnessed each day: shortly before the beginning of her speech, a group of seasoned Intensive participants, who obviously knew what was ahead of us, would place their mats and pillows in places most suitable for sleeping in the room where we worked, and would then lie down. Many would fall into a deep sleep shortly after. This would have been inconceivable on my Intensives and those of the Masters I trained. Another Berner’s Master, who had a great reputation, was capable of activating participants’ emotions, but he made a different mistake. Instead of finishing his speech at the moment when the desire among participants to attain Direct Experience reached its peak, he would often tell jokes or funny stories. The participants would cool off, and there wouldn’t be much left of their desire to experience enlightenment. I participated in that Master’s three fourteen-day Intensives and it was obvious to me that he was undermining himself with his behavior. In the context of this chapter I could say that he would first open the Intensive, then close it. In my Intensive Masters Training Courses there was always time designated for exercises for the opening of Intensive. In the course of the exercises, the candidates for Masters would open an Intensive in front of the group consisting of other participants. That represented the second-day speech where the Master was supposed to arouse in participants a powerful desire to attain Direct Experience. This could be done in different ways, usually by pointing out the value of that experience for their entire lives and the lives of the persons closest to them. Master would ask them to do it for others, and would often say: “If in your minds you don’t have a person for whom you would do it, do it for me!” This was the crucial moment of  the Intensive, but many Masters hesitated to fulfill it. Luckily for those Masters who weren’t able to do it, there’s no need to open a Gnostic Intensive. Why? The reason lies in the fact that from the first moment, the Gnostic Intensive is about opening up, slowly but certainly. You see, in the classic Enlightenment Intensive the participant continuously strives only for the positive polarity, while making an effort to attain Direct Experience, and all unrelated contents (those contents appear in his mind as masses) he ignores and tries to get rid of by communicating them completely to his partner. But in Gnostic Intensive there is a significant novelty – the Alternative technique. With its help, the contents that are not the Direct Experience are removed easily, until the mind is empty. And that’s when the Direct Experience happens naturally. 19

Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski

Gnostic Intensive

In the classical Intensive we have an accumulation of negative charge, just like steam gets concentrated in a steam kettle. As time passes, the pressure rises. The pressure is partially released when the Master opens Intensive, when it seems as if a thick stratum of ice has suddenly broken. In the Gnostic Intensive, on the other hand, we may say that the Alternative technique gradually melts the ice, like warm water, and when it melts completely, the Direct Experience is almost impossible to avoid.

Engaging Emotions and Switching Commands In leading classical Intensives for ten years, I noticed that emotional groups achieved better results than unemotional ones. This observation was confirmed by the Masters I had trained. The main way of emotionally warming up a “cold” group of participants was a proper opening of Intensive. A problem that persisted through all those years was Berner’s assertion, which I had also accepted in the beginning, that the technique of his Intensive can not be explained. I would also repeat to my participants that there is no explanation for the technique: “There is no HOW, because “ how” implies a process, whereas in the Direct Experience of Truth there is no process. You should simply have a volition, an intention to attain enlightenment and nothing else.” On one of my Intensives, fifteen out of forty participants were beginners – they were participating for the first time. In order to facilitate the application of technique, I told them that the closest thing to an explanation I can offer them would be to tell them to feel their object (themselves, life, or another human being). I told them: “It doesn’t mean that you should feel yourselves, but that is the closest explanation.” To my surprise, this Intensive was much more successful than the usual ones. On top of that, all the new participants had a Direct Experience. For a few days I was contemplating this outcome and a thought began to impose itself on me: the technique should be based on feeling. However, I needed to be sure. For that reason, on my next Intensive, I explained the technique in the old way of Berner (“there is no how”).  The outcome was much less successful. So, now I had a very clear idea about the value of basing the Intensive’s technique on feelings. On the Intensive that followed, I explained the technique in the new way again: “You should feel your object – yourself, life, or another human being...” Bingo! The success rate was again significantly higher. From that moment on, I started leading Intensives in that way. The technique wasn’t “Tell me who you are” anymore, but “Experience directly who you are!” “Experience directly life” and “Experience directly the other”. And the explanation of how the technique should be done, e.g. what “Experience directly...” means, was: “Feel who you are”, “Feel what you are”, “Feel life” and “Feel another human being”. Not only did the Intensive suddenly become more successful, but it also became shorter. Instead of three days, it lasted two and a half days, then two, and finally, a day and a half. Obviously Berner’s technique wasn’t logical and would bring participants into a very stressful situation. The Master would say: “The command goes ‘Tell me who you 20

Genesis of the Gnostic Intensive

are’, but that doesn’t mean you should tell your partner who you are, but rather focus on directly experiencing yourself.”  Telling participants what to do exactly was much more logical and easily comprehensible – “Experience directly who you are!” And in order for them to realize how to do it, the Master would say: “You should feel yourself, life, another human being.” The assertion that there is no HOW is also illogical, because the requirement on which Berner insisted – that the participant has volition, intention to experience oneself is also a HOW. Volition, intention is a process. Naturally, there is no process nor any other duality in the Direct Experience of Truth, but there is a process in the path leading to it. The practice of applying the technique in a new way has proven this to be true and has led to a much more successful Intensive in a much shorter period of time. In other words, the new technique has improved Intensive. In accordance with the agreement I had with Berner, I have changed its name. It wasn’t the Enlightenment Intensive anymore, but Gnostic Intensive or Intensive of Gnosis. Anyone who has experienced both has been convinced beyond a doubt that the Gnostic Intensive is much easier, much faster, and considerably more efficient.

A dvanced

and

Special Intensives

Not only has the Gnostic Intensive proven its superiority, but it has also made possible the opening of completely new dimensions to which it can be applied. I must digress briefly to explain how I discovered these areas of application. Berner used four objects on his Intensives because, according to him, they are the easiest road to Direct Experience (Who am I? What am I? What is life? What is another human being?). These are logical objects, because they are closest to humans. But people who have entered deeper waters of spirituality accept a simple fact – Truth is everywhere, for it is that what is. It is the basis of all that exists, of the visible and the invisible universe. A person could therefore take as an object a bottle of beer or anything else on Intensive, and he would still have a Direct Experience. The objects are nothing but gateways through which one enters Truth. A simple Zen story deals with this subject. A young practitioner of Zen is enlightened: he sees the ocean of Truth wherever he looks. He despises people who pray to Buddha in isolated places such as temples. Angrily he enters a temple where people are kneeling down around a Buddha statue, approaches the statue and spits on it.  “What are you doing, you fool?” the gathered believers shout in rage. “You’re spitting on Buddha, on Truth itself ”. The enlightened youth replies: “Let one of you show me where Truth isn’t, so I could spit there”. Some people who participated in many of my Intensives developed ideas about using the Intensive as a key to a deeper understanding of special areas of their lives. A passionate bridge player claimed that he felt as if the game had a mystical essence he could not grasp. On an Intensive, he worked on the question “What is bridge?” I tried to talk him out of it, as I knew what the final result would be, but he was persistent. Sure enough, when he had the Direct Experience, the realization that resulted from it was emptiness – bridge doesn’t exist. The same experience of emptiness had a young woman fascinated by yoga’s mantra “Om namah shivaya”. 21

Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski

Gnostic Intensive

Another associate of mine, an aikido master, wanted to gain insight into the mystical essence of that martial art. When he had the realization, he said:“Aikido doesn’t exist! There is just an infinite ocean of eternity.” A young man thought out an approach that seemed to him profoundly wise. He told me:  “Intensives are hard. I had a hard time on each one of them. I want my object to be wisdom, so that when I become enlightened I will be a wise man – it won’t be necessary for me to suffer on Intensives anymore.” Sure enough, when he had the Direct Experience, the realization was emptiness instead of wisdom. When, working with a group of associates, I considerably exhausted the potential of the classical Intensives, I had the idea to apply Intensive to other objects. Since I had practiced yoga in my youth, on the first advanced or special Intensive I asked the participants to take as an object the tips of their noses. On the sixth level of Raja Yoga, darani, several less known chakras are used to experience directly the state of darana. They are the tip of the nose, the tip of the tongue, the forehead (the place where the socalled “third eye” is located) and several others. I supposed that the experience of participants of my Intensive with the tip of the nose would be the same or similar to the experience of Yoga practitioners on that level. They experienced a very pleasant smell resembling frankincense, which aroused in them a feeling of mystical ecstasy. My disciples didn’t experience that, but they had profound experiences that varied from one participant to another. Some said:  “The tip of my nose doesn’t exist, only I exist” or “Everything is the tip of my nose”, “Only truth exists,” etc. Although such realizations may sound simple or trite, the participants had a strong feeling of fulfillment. When the object on which the participants were concentrated was the tip of the tongue, most of them could smell soil after rainfall or recently plowed soil. They also had the same feeling of ecstasy, of assimilation with the cosmos and oneness with everything. What followed was an Intensive focused on the forehead or the third eye. The participants had very strange experiences, which, although they were experienced with Intensives, they had difficulties describing. This was a typical statement: “I had a Direct Experience, but I can’t find the right words to describe it”. One of them represented his experience by showing his two palms, placed against each other, as if he were about to clap :  “You see, if I wanted to clap my hands, the short moment before they would meet – that’s my Experience.” Another had experienced his Self, but he said:  ”It is my Self, but somehow it’s the Primordial Me, it’s Me before Me.” Next, I introduced an Intensive focused on past lives, but its result was not so spectacular. Only a few persons had reminiscences of a past life, so that more Intensives had to be led to achieve good results. But I continued to be attracted to other areas of application. After several months, I introduced a new area – Intensive on sound – not any sound, but the auditory Gnostic formulas. I had studied Gnosticism for many years, using scarce available literature. During spiritual practice I had very profound experiences, but I wasn’t certain whether they were purely subjective, so that they would have value only for me, or whether they also had an objective value, e.g., value for others. In one of the texts, the most mystical of Gnostic communities, Peratae, was mentioned. Its 22

Genesis of the Gnostic Intensive name meant “ferrymen” literally, and “the ones who can go through the roof of heaven” metaphorically. In other words, they were people who knew the secret formulas for leaving this planet in their astral bodies. On the Intensive I applied two of their main formulas:  “Omazu” and “Azom”. Their meaning was not important. It was crucial to vibrate the words protractedly so that the letter “z” produced a humming sound and the letter “m” was grumbled. This is what they sounded like: “O-o-mmmmmmmmmmm-a-azzzzzu” and “A-zzzo—mmmmmm””. The participants’ task was to vibrate those words while trying to feel them. The first auditory Intensive lasted for a day and a half and at the beginning of the second day I encountered a crisis. It seemed like I had made a big mistake, as if the formulas didn’t have any value, and that both the participants and I were making futile efforts and wasting our time. That’s how it usually is in spiritual practice – “it’s always darkest before the dawn”. Toward the end of the Intensive the first person had a dramatic experience – the Gnostic formula vanished and in her mind a very clear feeling that she was God pronouncing the first word, and thus creating the cosmos, appeared. After her, the whole group had similar experiences. A female participant said: “Now I understand the words from the Bible, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’ ” I must emphasize that the participants were experienced Intensive goers, with many Intensives behind them. The news about the results of this Intensive spread widely, so that many others also wanted to experience it. Although they too had valuable experiences, they were typically not as profound or far-reaching. However, there were very profound experiences on later Intensives on sound as well, and there were also strange experiences. An elderly woman, for whom the Intensive on auditory formulas was the first Intensive ever, had a Direct Experience of herself – that is, “Who am I?” On a mixed Intensive, where some persons worked on sound, and others on various objects, some persons noticed mutual permeation of the participants and their experiences. A woman who worked on sound noticed that the person sitting in her vicinity had almost the same experience immediately after her, although she had been working on a different object. Finally, after all those special, advanced Intensives, the idea to give an Intensive on Zen koans occurred to me. They are an essential element of Rinzai Zen, and practitioners are advised to master as many koans as possible – preferably all of them. Koans are, by their nature, absurd questions upon which Zen practitioners meditate persistently and for long periods of time. Being absurd, at some point the questions cause a breakdown in the rational way of thinking by which people try to solve them, and when the rational spirit is out of the way, the Direct Experience can happen. Some associates of mine believed that the work with koans would be difficult and that it would last much longer than Intensives on our usual objects. That is the common attitude among Westerners – that what takes place in the East is more valuable and much harder to experience. Yet the approach proved wrong. A close friend of mine, a painter who lives in the Netherlands, had an exposition in Tokyo. The organizer of the exposition accidentally met a person who had lived and meditated for twelve years in a Zen monastery. He wrote a recommendation for my friend to go to the same monastery. My friend (who had experienced a number of our Intensives) honestly told 23

Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski

Gnostic Intensive

me that he had expected experiences surpassing by far the ones he had had on the Intensives. What kind of experiences people were supposed to have he couldn’t tell, since during the week-long session (an intensive course of meditation similar to the Intensive) none of the participants became enlightened. There wasn’t any enlightenment, but there were physical punishments. As soon as a sleepy participant’s head drooped slightly, the assistant would approach him and hit him hard on the shoulder with a bamboo stick. One third of the participants left the session before the end. On the fifth day of the session, the assistant approached my friend and told him that he had a visitor. He was surprised because he thought that nobody knew he was there. The visitor was the man that had recommended him to the monastery. He anxiously asked my friend how he was, as he knew that the participants were severely beaten. The friend told me that the image of the Zen session from his imagination collapsed like a sandcastle against the ocean tide when the man secretly took out a bar of chocolate from his kimono sleeve and put it in his hand.  To his surprise, he said: “Take it, take it. I know that they are starving you out in here. That’s how I survived my sessions.” I do not wish to diminish Eastern tradition, just to point out the well-known fact that the grass always looks greener on the other side. But let me return to the application of the Intensive’s technique on koans. My whole group worked on the well-known koan “What did your face look like before your mother was born?”  Experienced participants have the ability to feel when an Intensive is approaching its end. Those are the moments when a cycle is over, and any prolongation would be like pouring water into an already full vessel. Before that moment all the participants had had a DET and they began commenting to one another:  “This is the end. Zivorad will stop the Intensive now.” They were right. I stopped the Intensive before the designated time and yet one more spiritual area was experienced and lived out. The participants were a little disappointed. They were expecting something far beyond the experiences we had had up to that moment. They had experiences like the Zen books describe, but they were quite ordinary, just like any other previous experiences. When I asked them whether they wanted to work on other koans next time, no one was very enthusiastic. One of the last advanced Intensives I mastered was the so-called Golden Meditation, later known as the Triple Meditation, because the term “golden” sounded a bit like a marketing trick. In the beginning it lasted for three days, but later became shorter, just as similar methods did. The participant was supposed to simultaneously concentrate on three objects: • The so-called I-point, which is located in the middle of the chest • The inner hissing sound, and • The blue spot appearing in the middle of the field of vision when one’s eyes are closed. It is necessary to clarify the second and third elements of this method. All people can hear the so-called “inner sound”, but most of us are not aware of it, because it is constantly present. It is a kind of hissing sound, but sometimes it can be heard as humming. For some people it is louder than for others, so that there is a medical term for this phenomenon, because contemporary medicine considers it a pathologi24

Genesis of the Gnostic Intensive cal symptom and tries to eliminate it. That is a misconception, though, because that sound is implanted in human beings from the dawn of existence in order to remind them of their true nature. But only when a human being gains a higher degree of selfawareness will he question the meaning of certain, apparently unclear phenomena that occur internally. The blue spot appearing when our eyes are closed is not so obvious. If a person, with eyes closed, starts observing his field of vision, after a while in its center a “blue spot” will appear. It looks like a bluish or reddish colored blot and can be small or large. It usually oscillates, appears and disappears or changes its dimensions, spreading and contracting. On the Triple Meditation Intensive the practitioner was required to focus on those three elements simultaneously, which was difficult at the beginning of the Intensive, but easier later on. That was the first part of the Intensive. Its final phenomenon was curious – the participant had the impression of sitting inside a huge hemisphere containing his whole subjective universe. Then he would start working on decisions. That was the second part of the Triple Meditation. Since the participant experienced everything inside of that immense hemisphere, it was easy to notice all the decisions by which others affected his life. The second part of this stage of the Intensive was focusing on the decisions with which we create and influence our lives. This part of the process was psychologically and emotionally fruitful. Finally, in the third part of this type of Intensive, the participant would work on the “first and last greeting”. He would concentrate on a number of close beings (not only human beings) one by one, and would remember the first moment he was aware of one of them and then communicate it. Next, he concentrated on future experiences – situations when he would separate from that being for the last time – forever. There was typically a lot of crying and emotion in that process. In a way it was a preparation for the final separation that would take place in the future. Experienced Intensive goers, with whom I have worked the most, have gone through a great number of advanced Intensives. It seemed as if there would be no end to Intensives. But everything must end, and so do Intensives. The end came unexpectedly, when most of the experienced participants entered Meuna, or the stable state of mind.

25

PATHWAY TO THE ALTERNATIVE TECHNIQUE

I

n the late 1980s, I read a chapter on the Enlightenment Intensive in Jeff Love’s book  Gods of Quantum. He valued the Intensive more than his lengthy study of Kabbalah. In his words, Direct Experiences on the basic questions Berner used changed his whole life. Many people who have experienced Intensives say similar things. When I experienced them, my attitude was identical. In 1979 in an English magazine for the alternative I saw an inconspicuous advertisement for an Intensive. It was to be held in London. For a long time before this I had been searching for a method that would satisfy me completely, because I had undergone many seminars on various methods, but still had the impression that none of them had fulfilled me entirely. When I read that Jeff Love would master the Intensive, I didn’t hesitate. To say that the conditions in which the Intensive was held were modest would be an understatement. It took place in a half-deserted building, which was cold and dirty. The doors and windows hung loose, and didn’t keep the cold out. We slept on a hard floor in sleeping bags, pressed against each other. The food was tasteless and the portions very small, so we were constantly hungry. We worked for eighteen hours a day, starting at 6 A.M. and finishing at midnight. My first reaction was disappointment, from the room in which we worked to the composition of the group of participants. They appeared to be persons who came for a confession, not people who would fight with all their might to experience Enlightenment. On the first day, the difficult exercises followed each other in what seemed to be an endless line. The pain in my back and neck was growing stronger, but despite it I was terribly sleepy. The impressions of other participants were similar, and everyone was complaining. I will quote my experiences on the second day of the Intensive from my book Encounters with Truth: “On the second day’s morning Jeff’s deep voice wakes us up at the same time. We have only 15 minutes until the beginning of the first exercise. We begin anew, listless and hungry. Then, from the loud communications of the participants, I find out that a young man gave up. That reminds me of my thoughts about leaving the Intensive, but strangely, it doesn’t seem like an example I would follow, but like an impetus to persevere. On the second day, a strife with emotional problems begins. Should we share our fears, our actions we’re ashamed of and feel guilty about, our little games and big lies with the unknown person, who is gazing at us constantly? Many people are crying. Some are blubbering for hours. Some switch from crying to laughter and thunder-like insights into the causes of the past suffering. In the evening I experience a strong attack of fear. I have no idea what is going on with me. I’m convinced I’m going crazy, that my psychic apparatus is falling apart 27

Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski

Gnostic Intensive

and that I will never be sane again. Then the fear suddenly disappears, as if I sailed into a safe haven from a stormy sea. Then something strange happens in the room. It is very late but no one is sleepy. We’re in the mood to continue doing this. My concentration is sharper than ever; not even after many years of exercising was it so penetrating. The room is bursting with energy, and I feel like I ‘ve known my whole life many of the people present. It is only now that I feel I’ve mastered the technique, which, simple as it is, is devilishly difficult to apply... It took me two days of continuous work to realize what it is I am supposed to do, while some persons around me, who have had several Intensives, still haven’t mastered it properly.” At the end of the third day, when I’d lost hope that any of the participants would achieve the goal for which we had come, a man had a Direct Experience on Who am I. He didn’t comment on his state, nor did anyone else, yet we all knew what had happened. That’s the first time I “smelled Zen” – a “smell” which radiates from the persons who are in the state of Truth. I felt strong envy, but its other side was positive – I was convinced that that state can be experienced. During the next few days my thoughts would continually return to the Intensive. I would see images of the other participants, hear their words and remember their joy and suffering. I knew I had found what I’d been looking for since, it seemed, I knew I existed. Jeff Love came to Europe once a year. I couldn’t wait until the following year to take part in his Intensive. I wrote to him and in his reply he gave me the address of Berner’s Dyad School of Enlightenment in St. Helena, California. I contacted them, we exchanged several letters and I started preparing for the Intensive which was to be held in May of 1980. I described my experiences in Berner’s ashram in detail in my book  Encounters with Truth and in my  Manual for Masters of the Gnostic Intensive,  so that there is no need to repeat them here. In short, after many troubles and difficulties, on the second day of the Intensive I experienced directly Who I am and, in accordance with many others, I can say that the experience changed my life considerably. I will quote here a longer text from the beginning of my book Encounters with Truth, as I am not able to describe my experience in a better or more faithful way: “I was surprised, or rather amazed by that experience, although I had exhorted all my energy for two days and two nights to experience precisely that. I knew that Enlightenment or ‘Direct Experience of Truth’ is always a surprise for the being that attains it; I was expecting such a surprise; I believed that I was completely open to all the possibilities and ready for unusual experiences; I was convinced that I was free of all the preconceptions and prejudices about what Enlightenment is and how it should be reached. And yet I was stunned, surprised and enchanted.” “Direct Experience of Truth on Who I am was infinitely simpler than anything I had expected, known or anticipated. Not even the most concise expression can describe the simplicity and immediacy of that state. I was myself! I was what I had always been. That what I had always known I was. There was nothing new in me, nothing better, more beautiful or exalted, as I had been secretly expecting. Everything remained as it always had been, there only appeared a timeless moment of the direct consciousness that I am that. Nothing had changed place, and yet my whole life was changed. “ 28

Pathway to the Alternative Technique

“…  I remembered many stories and anecdotes about Enlightenment, especially by Sufis and Zen monks. Their humor used to feel multi-layered, complicated and mysterious. And it was so simple! That what I experienced was a primordial joke that every human being will experience sooner or later, a cosmic jest which changes lives. As many had done before me, I laughed at the absurdity of the universe – man searches for himself his whole life, for that what he already is. It is as a friend of mine told me when he experienced Truth about himself: ‘I felt as if I had been searching for home, my true homeland, my whole life. When I had finally found it, I realized that I had never left it, that I hadn’t gone anywhere. I’ d always been there, I only didn’t know it.’” I had paid for the ten-day Intensive Masters Training Course. But as soon as I was enlightened I felt I didn’t need it, for I knew I was a Master. Berner had the course recorded on thirty-six audiotapes. Since the workshop was to begin in only two days, following the advice of Berner’s right hand Skanda, I decided to listen to as many of the tapes as possible. But this ended very quickly. On the first tape Berner’s lecture entitled “How to be a Master” was recorded. At the very beginning he announced a simple fact: “You either are a Master or you aren’t. If you are, no one can prevent you from being it. If you’re not, no one can make a Master out of you.” At that moment I felt great excitement. I turned off the tape recorder and exited the library where the tapes were played. In front of the library Skanda was standing. “Have you begun listening to the course?,” he asked me. “I’ve already finished”, I answered. He insisted that I tell him what had happened and I briefly described my situation.  I was firmly convinced that I was a Master, that I had mastered Intensives or something similar in past lives and that there was no need to waste my time listening to things I already knew well. Skanda tried to dissuade me, pointing out that many had the same impression before me, but later, when they tried to lead an Intensive, they bitterly regretted their decision. I adhered to my decision and I have had no regrets. I had some difficult moments with participants of my Intensives, with circumstances in which I led them and with myself. I have previously described how the Gnostic Intensive originated from Berner’s Enlightenment Intensive and how it found new areas of application in the form of special Intensives. And then I created the Alternative technique. Here is how it happened. More than thirty years ago, I read in a book the statement of an excellent connoisseur of the human psyche:  “You must never forget that we live in a bipolar universe.” Even though it sounds like a superficial remark, the thought wouldn’t leave me alone for years. I had a feeling that it contained a hint of the true secret of the human being and the cosmos, much deeper than the concept of existence of polarities. I would often return to that thought and ponder it without success. Finally, a few years ago, I had nothing to do for several hours so I walked through the suburbs of Belgrade.  In a garden I saw two men trying to tear down a big wooden pole buried in the ground. They swung it back and forth and left and right, and after a few minutes, managed to overturn it. I asked myself: “How much time would they have needed if they had pushed the pole in only one direction?” I concluded that they would have needed much more time, if they were to ever succeed. At that moment the idea of the Alternative technique dawned in my mind. I went home in a hurry and made phone calls to eight people 29

Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski

Gnostic Intensive

close to me. I told them that we would try a new technique and they asked for no other explanation. I expected that at least nine or ten dyads (exercises) would be necessary for the results to show. Luckily, I was wrong. After six dyads all the participants had at least one experience, some of them even two. After a short while I led an Intensive with about twenty participants in a town close to Belgrade and that one was even shorter – only five dyads. From that moment on that became the standard length of the Intensive, although sometimes an Intensive needs to be cut short, as it is often finished after four dyads. Once in Verona, Italy, I had to end an Intensive after three and a half dyads. The cycle was over and people felt it. What is the value of the Alternative technique? Its main advantage is that it is based on the essential characteristic of this universe – bipolarity. This is a bipolar universe – nothing exists in it without the opposite or complementary polarity. There is no above without below, no love without hatred; the concept of selflessness carries within itself awareness of the existence of selfishness. At the same time, bipolarity or duality exists in the minds of humans as a reflection of the universe. The Alternative technique encompasses both the phenomena of this universe, as well as the states and phenomena of the human being as a whole. Hence its great efficiency. I have previously mentioned that the classic Intensive’s technique gravitated toward only one polarity, the positive one. Since thousands and tens of thousands of contents that follow the efforts to attain Direct Experience keep flowing into the participants’ minds – contents that represent a hindrance to experiencing it – the Intensive’s participants were required to free themselves from those contents by completely communicating them. But that process lasted for at least three days, and I’ve mentioned that there were people who didn’t succeed in having a Direct Experience even after forty-two days spent on an Intensive. That obviously wasn’t the best possible way. A technique that could empty the contents of the mind faster was needed. The Alternative technique does precisely that. You see, from the very beginning Berner pointed out that his technique does not give participants Direct Experience, it only empties their minds very quickly. And the Alternative technique does this much, much faster. That is its value, which is without precedent. Instead of directing attention and intention only at the positive pole (e.g., a Direct Experience of the object on which one is working), the participant alternately directs his attention at both polarities, striving to experience both directly through feelings. He tries to alternately direct his intention at the negative and positive polarities, and by doing so empties his mind in the fastest possible way. There were thinkers in the distant past that had knowledge of bipolarity. For instance, mystic Rumi writes:  “God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites, so that you will have two wings to fly, not one.” In the Gnostic Intensive most participants’ minds are   usually empty after two to three dyads, whereas in the classical Intensive this normally happens on the third day (a workday of a classical Intensive lasts eighteen hours), and occurs only in a minority of participants. Everything that exists is subject to change. In spiritual methodology there are two kinds of change. The first one occurs without the will of the person who creates and 30

Pathway to the Alternative Technique applies the method, when he and his followers, like orthodox fundamentalists, try to extend the method eternally. The method petrifies and, failing to respond to the new needs of people, its flow gradually dries up. People go to a new source of fresh water to drench their thirst and the surpassed method finally withers and dies out. The second type of change occurs when people who apply the system continuously search for opportunities to improve it, just like a good parent tries to direct her child to attain new personality traits and continue development where the parent’s stopped. In this better way  – through continuous change and improvement – the Gnostic Intensive with Alternative technique was created. In all areas of human activity, and so in the methodology of spiritual development, people involved in the existing methodology have strong reactions to new methods that appear. I tend to believe that such reactions are most extreme precisely in the field of development of spiritual methods.  Change is one of the basic laws of this universe. As the Buddhists put it, everything is subject to change, only change is eternal. When Bodhidharma created Zen, after nine years of meditation, it caused a strong emotional reaction in the followers of classical Buddhism. It was a sacrilege of the sacred Buddha’s teaching, they said. But Zen continued to exist and attract an increasing number of followers in China and Japan. At some point Zen split into two dominant schools, Soto and Rinzai. Their followers passionately claimed that their school was the true one, faithful to the original Zen teachings. Numerous schools and lines of development appeared within Zen. Although all are basically very similar, they differ in their interpretation of the experience of Enlightenment, the ways in which they practice meditation, as well as how they evaluate the relationship between practice and meditation. Soto Zen teaches that the practice of meditation and Enlightenment are essentially the same. An individual already is what he is and nothing new can be added. He should practice meditation regularly and not search for Enlightenment elsewhere. Furthermore, during meditation one should not strive for Enlightenment as the main goal. This form of Zen is also called Dogen-Zen, after the name of its founder. Rinzai Zen gravitates toward the immediate experience of Enlightenment. A person is, of course, what he is, but there is a huge difference between having and not having direct awareness of what he is and what life is. More recently, the Harada school of Zen appeared. It was founded by Zen Master Sogaku Harada, by combining the elements of Soto and Rinzai Zen. The system aims for a direct experience of Enlightenment in the shortest possible period. It caused a strong negative reaction in people who leaned towards more traditional teachings. The teachings of Harada and his main disciple and follower Ryoko Yasutani were transferred to the West by German Jesuit H.M. Enomiya-Lasalle and Philip Kapleau, well-known for popularizing Zen. To some degree Zen was altered again and brought closer to the Westerners’ approach. Kapleau, who gained a great reputation by publishing several books (the main one is  Three Pillars of Zen) was severely criticized by the other Zen Masters who came to the West. The history of teachings on Enlightenment shows that the story repeats itself. In a book by Philip Kapleau,  The Wheel of Life and Death, in which many of his con31

Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski

Gnostic Intensive

versations with his disciples were recorded, when asked about the value of the Enlightenment Intensive, he replied in a fashion almost identical to the critical remarks that Japanese Masters had made against him. It is one of the many express methods which have no value, he says; it is a product of Westerners’ desire to have valuable experiences overnight. Such reactions are understandable. Man dedicates a great part of his life to one system and by following it gains significant experiences and often, considerable status in society. When a new, more perfect and efficient method appears, he is supposed to abandon everything he has thus far invested in his teaching. That is certainly not easy. Resistance is even greater if the person gained reputation and status owing to the old system. We may call such people spiritual fundamentalists. They bitterly fight against new teachings that suppress and in some degree devalue that in which they invested a large part of themselves. But as I have previously stated, change is an inevitable constituent of our universe and of human beings, and therefore the new slowly suppresses the old and after years have passed, most of the followers of the outdated system have gray hair and beards. That is what happened to the systems which, at the beginning of the 20th century, were highly popular in the West – Theosophy and Anthroposophy. A visit to the centers of these teachings will show you that the same type of people gathers in them everywhere in the world; they tell the same old stories and don’t make any new contributions. As an old Taoist proverb has been teaching us for years, water is healthy only while it flows and has new confluence. When the movement ceases, the water becomes stagnant and begins to stink. Reactions to the Gnostic Intensive with Alternative technique thus far can be described as mild disbelief. Persons who experienced Berner’s Intensive can hardly believe that an Intensive can be that much shorter and at the same time more efficient. But as the method spreads, stronger reactions will certainly arise and after a while, die out. The strongest reactions will come from those who have built significant reputations due to Berner’s Intensive. That is the immutable law. Several centuries ago, Lao Tzu gave some wise advice on how to proceed when the capacity of a system is exhausted: a boat serves us well when we need to cross a great river. But once we are on the opposite side, he said, we don’t drag it behind us, but leave it on the shore and proceed on our way without it. Since the moment I designed the Alternative technique I have been checking its efficiency and have been pleasantly surprised by the results. The Gnostic Intensive on which I first applied it lasted for only eight dyads and more than 80 percent of the participants had an Experience of Gnosis. The next Intensive was even shorter – I had to end it after seven dyads. There exists an ambiguous but exact psychological clock in humans which informs us when a psychological and spiritual cycle is over. On an Intensive, the Master and experienced participants hear it most clearly. When the clock strikes twelve, a good Master will stop the Intensive, because that is the best moment to do so. When the glass is empty, trying to squeeze another drop out of it is useless and can only result in disappointment. But the story about shortening the Intensive’s duration doesn’t end there. After two or three Gnostic Intensives lasting seven dyads, there came a time when I had to 32

Pathway to the Alternative Technique shorten it to six, and then to five dyads. Though it seems impossible, that is precisely how long the last few Gnostic Intensives lasted. But when I started with Berner’s Enlightenment Intensive twenty years ago, it lasted for three days and three nights, eighteen hours of hard work a day. This shortening of duration changed many things. Nowadays the Intensive lasts for half a day. Participants come to the place where the Intensive is held after breakfast. The work begins at 10 A.M. After two or three dyads there is a break for a light meal and then the remaining two or three dyads are done. And that’s the end of it. Participants go home in the early afternoon, and about ninety percent of them have had an Experience of Gnosis. Sometimes all participants have it, while some have more than one Direct Experience. The Intensive’s rules of behavior have also changed. There used to be more than thirty of them. Now there are only a few. Drinking coffee was considered a mortal sin on the classical Intensive. Some participants, who were addicted to coffee, would secretly bring it with them and feel guilty about drinking it. Nowadays, coffee is offered to the participants during the meal. Some drink it, some don’t, but it certainly does not affect the success of either the individual participant or of the Intensive as a whole. Berner claimed that vegetarian food is a must on Intensives, because proteins of animal origin require a great deal of energy for digestion, so that there is not much left for meditative purposes. But that misconception has also been eliminated. People bring to Intensives whatever food they like. Some eat vegetarian food, some don’t. The only thing that matters is that the percentage of Experiences of Gnosis is not greater in vegetarians. If it were, eating vegetarian food would be the logical thing to do. For new people, the Gnostic Intensive in its current state is attractive and can fulfill their expectations. Yet experienced participants are sometimes disappointed. The Gnostic Intensive is too easy for them. Direct Experiences are attained easily and quickly, and since a great percentage of people have them, there is no longer a place for elitism, which was present before. On the old Intensives there were more strong emotions and much more suffering, but there was usually also a lot of love in the end. The old Intensives had forty dyads. During that time every participant would work in pairs with every other participant two or three times. In the three days it would become obvious who were the good partners in the group, and who were not, and between partners who suited each other strong emotional ties developed. One is much more open on an Intensive than in everyday life and during two or three dyads a person gets to know another human being much better than those with whom he has spent many years. On the Gnostic Intensive with Alternative technique the participant has an opportunity to work once with only five partners, and with the remaining fifteen or twenty he has no contact of any kind, so that profound mutual emotional permeation of human beings happens much more seldom. People who emphasize those weaknesses of the Gnostic Intensive have forgotten one important thing, which is something every true Master tells participants at the beginning of an Intensive:  “The only goal of the Gnostic Intensive is that as many participants as possible have Direct Experience of Truth and that those Experiences be as profound as possible!” Everything else is not as important.” 33

Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski

Gnostic Intensive

Great energy may arise, but after a while it is discharged and spent. Our goal on Intensive is not the elevation of energy, but Direct Experience of Truth. People sometimes radiate strong love, but when some time goes by many of them manifest intolerance for each other, which is something I have witnessed on several occasions. I therefore find it necessary here to repeat what I’ve just said: our aim on Intensive is not arousal of positive emotions, but Direct Experience of Truth. The Enlightenment Intensive was sharply separated from everyday life and Charles Berner insisted on the separation. On the contrary, the Gnostic Intensive has imperceptibly slipped into everyday life itself and has merged with it – they have became one. It suits the people of our time. It will continue to change and improve or will be replaced with a different, more efficient method. In the next chapter I will describe the Gnostic Intensive’s Alternative technique in detail

34

GNOSTIC INTENSIVE’S ALTERNATIVE TECHNIQUE

T

he Alternative technique is dyadic and includes shifts between actions or roles. This means that the participants work in dyads – in pairs – and that two commands are given alternately. One partner is active, the other passive. Who will be active partners is decided by the Master at the beginning of each exercise. The passive partner gives a command to the active partner: “Feel who you are here and now! “ The active partner accepts the command, closes her eyes and searches for an object: who she is at that moment. When she finds who she is, she tries to feel herself. She tries this for a while – ten to fifteen seconds. Then she opens her eyes and communicates to her partner everything that appeared in her mind or body as a consequence of the attempt to experience herself (and nothing else!). While doing this she uses not only words, but gestures and mimicry as well. She is not allowed to make any kind of selection when communicating. She must communicate everything that enters her mind regardless of whether it is stupid, vulgar, repetitive, etc. When she is finished, she nods her head and tells her passive partner: “That’s it. Give me the other command.” The passive partner gives her the alternative command: ”Feel who you are not here and now!” The active partner closes her eyes again and searches for an object –  anything that is not her at that moment. There is a myriad of such objects. When she chooses one of them, she tries to feel it as completely as possible. When she opens her eyes, she communicates to her passive partner everything that came to her mind, but only as a consequence of that attempt (and nothing else). She works in this way on the two alternative commands until the gong sounds. The partners thank each other and switch roles – the active partner becomes passive, and the passive partner active. In this way they alternate until the end of the exercise, lasting altogether forty minutes. Then they rest for five to ten minutes and proceed to the next exercise. For every new forty-minute exercise new partners are found. When a person meditates, his eyes are closed. When he communicates, his eyes are open. Time dedicated to meditation and communication should be balanced as much as possible. The role of the passive partner is very important. She needs to be entirely present and completely focused on her active partner, trying to understand her as much as pos35

Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski

Gnostic Intensive

sible. She doesn’t do anything else. She doesn’t look around, comment on her partner’s statements or react to them. She doesn’t try to help her in any way other than what has already been said, which is, I repeat, being entirely focused on the active partner and trying to understand her communications. She is not allowed to experience her own problem, think about it or react to the contents that appear in her mind during the ten minutes belonging to the active partner. Those contents are non-existent during those ten minutes. Only her partner and her words exist then. The short breaks between two exercises are also times for concentration on the object. The participants should adhere to their questions at all times. They should not think about what is happening at home, what they are going to do when the Intensive ends, etc. This is why during the breaks the Master should tell the whole group to keep to their questions. Now I will briefly explain the OBJECT of the meditation. The participant must first find the object – WHO HE IS at the given moment, and only then should he feel it and subsequently communicate to his partner what is coming up. Work without an object is lengthy and often futile. It resembles hunting for wild geese in the darkness. The hunter doesn’t see the ducks flying, but he shoots anyway, hoping that he will hit them. When one works with an object, the situation is fundamentally different. The hunter sees a wild goose and aims at it before firing, thereby increasing his chances of hitting it. Commands for the question What is life? are: “Feel life here and now” and “Feel something that is not life here and now”. The participant must find the right object – what life really is for him at that particular moment. This should not be a thought about what life is, nor a philosophical attitude about life (however profound it may be), nor what this or that person said about life, but what life really is for him at that moment. Examples are voices in the room, warmth he feels on his hand,  an image of children playing, an image of his friend or someone close to him  talking, an image of a dog basking in the sun or running, an image of a bird flying, etc. That is exactly what he should experience – real life! The same object may persist for a long period or change every few seconds. That is something the participant should not worry about – he should find what life really is for him at that moment and feel it as completely and deeply as possible. The same principle applies for the question What is another human being? The question What am I? differs slightly from the question Who am I? The participant works in the same way, but he should ask himself from time to time “Who am I?” “Who am I?” The question Who am I? refers to WHO I really am. The question What am I?  refers to WHAT I am LIKE. In order to explain the difference between these two objects (“who” and “what”) to the participants, the Master can give them the following example. If you were to come into this room with the task of making two lists – one stating WHO is in the room, the other stating WHAT is in the room, you would write down on the first list: Vera, Filip, Oliver, Olga, ... are present here. On the other list you would write: “There are nine men and six women, sixteen chairs, a small table, two paintings on the wall, a window, a door... in the room”. 36

Gnostic Intensive’s Alternative Technique Commands for the question What is another human being? are: “Feel another human being here and now” and “Feel something that is not another human being here and now.” Experience shows that the words added at the end of the commands  “... here and now”  are very important, because they prevent the participant from wandering about in his thoughts, and urge him to concentrate totally on the object. 

37

THE SYMPTOMS OF GNOSTIC EXPERIENCE

S

ince I introduced the Alternative technique into the Gnostic Intensive, peaceful “slipping into” Gnosis became the dominant way of experiencing that state. In the application of that technique we don’t have an accumulation of charges and sudden breakthroughs followed by abrupt discharges of energy, but rather a slow dissolution of spiritual masses. However, sometimes symptoms appear that followed the Gnostic Experience in a previous period. I will mention here all the main “symptoms” of the Gnostic Experience.

Catharsis

with obvious

Experience

of

Gnosis

The participant enters catharsis and comes out of it with a DET, which the Master, sometimes even some participants, can easily perceive. In the classic, Berner’s Intensive, this was a common way of attaining DET. In the Gnostic Intensive, however, this seldom happens. Catharsis takes place when a person is under prolonged pressure without relief, so when a DET happens, there is a flood of suppressed emotions. However, you should keep in mind that catharsis most often happens without a DET, because inexperienced Masters often confuse those two experiences.

Peaceful Experience

of

Gnosis

The participant enters a DET in a peaceful, quiet way. This is referred to as “the way of the dove”, because it is as if a dove has slowly descended on the participant, just as a snowflake soundlessly falls to the ground. In the Gnostic Intensive this way of experiencing DET is highly dominant, as more than ninety percent of participants experience DET in this way. The participant has dissolved his resistance gradually, the way ice melts in warm water, so that DET occurs softly and naturally.

The Technique Breakdown This is one of the latent symptoms to which the Master should pay attention. How does it manifest? The participant has applied the technique correctly, has made an honest effort but suddenly is unable to continue doing so. The technique has broken down. At the moment the participant tries to experience his object, he has the impression of skidding. As soon as he sets off for the goal, he has already arrived there. The beginning and the end have become one and there isn’t any place left for the technique, which is the intermediary between the two. The participant doesn’t realize this and keeps trying harder and harder, because he believes his persistence can solve the problem. But where can he go when he’s already arrived? He becomes desperate, because he has no idea what he should do. 39

Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski

Gnostic Intensive

The Master can remove the veil covering the consciousness of the participant with two or three short questions, aimed at the essence. His sharpened attention acts like a hen’s penetrating beak, breaking the cracked egg shell. And what happens: out comes a spiritual chick into a new, wide world. With this symptom (the technique breakdown), the participant often approaches the Master, stating that the question on which he is working has “become absurd”, that it is “completely empty” or “stupid”.

Staring

into the distance absently

This can usually be observed during breaks, though it happens during dyads as well. In the latter case, although the participant has his partner in front of him, he is staring into the distance absently or dreamily, his focus either beside the partner or “through” her. But this behavior appears more often during breaks, when the participant secludes himself and watches his “inner movie” absent-mindedly. In such a situation the Master should not rush to intervene, but should wait for the next dyad and then invite the participant for a talk. With this phenomenon, too, the Master should not insist on “opening the participant’s eyes” immediately, but ask two or three questions to see what is happening. One should keep in mind that not every participant that behaves this way is in the state of DET. All the mentioned symptoms are only suggestive of it. When the Master has several Gnostic Intensives behind him, he will most certainly discover symptoms not mentioned here, which will be significant only for him, since every Master has characteristic ways of reacting to different occurrences on Intensive.

40

MEUNA OR THE STABLE STATE OF MIND

M

euna or the Stable State of Mind occurs in people when a considerable amount of charge separating them from the DET has been removed. It used to happen when a person had undergone numerous Intensives, whereas now, with the Gnostic Intensive with the Alternative technique, it happens considerably faster, sometimes even after the first Intensive experience. Meuna is a Gnostic term meaning “I am One”. It signifies the permanent state of Direct Experience of Truth, as opposed to the momentary Direct Experience which is called “Lumejo” and means “I will shine”. I will add a few words here for the sake of those among you who have never been on Intensives. At one moment a person experiences momentary DET (Lumejo or Kensho) on the question on which he is working, which is most often “Who am I?” At that moment and a short while thereafter it feels like all his problems are solved and all his questions answered. This feeling lasts only briefly, until the energy is spent. When the participant reconnects to life outside of the Intensive, people are not as tolerant and open as those on the Intensive were and his DET attenuates. There always remains a flicker of the Direct Experience of Who I am, but it doesn’t have the strength of his original experience. People wish to have the experience at its strongest again and so they go to a new Intensive. For many years they wonder “When will I have the experience permanently, so that I am in it all the time without any doubt?” A correlate to these states can be found in Zen. The momentary state of Enlightenment is called “Kensho”, while the term for the permanent state is “Satori”. Truth be told, judging by the information gathered from many different people, Satori is a state deeper than the Meuna experienced on Intensives. In the milieu of Enlightenment Intensives there were rumors that it was possible to experience permanent Enlightenment on long Intensives. My contacts with the leading Masters of Berner’s school convinced me that nobody except him had experienced the Stable State of Mind. He actually claimed to have experienced Samadhi, the eighth and highest stage of Raja Yoga. I asked the school’s director to put me in contact with at least one such person, but he gave me an unsatisfying answer – that I perceive the phenomenon too narrowly, only through the prism of this life, while I should view it in a wider context, through the perspective of the future lives. That meant that a persistent practitioner of Intensive would need several future incarnations to experience the Stable State of Mind. This too was one of the misapprehensions following the old Enlightenment Intensive. In our case, the course of events was very interesting. My wife Jadranka (Alda) was the first to enter Meuna. A few months before our one-month Intensive, she told me that she was constantly in the Stable State, that it had imposed itself on her and that she was always what she was, just like after a Direct Experience. Since I had accepted the approach of Berner’s school, I told her that she was mistaken, that she had 41

Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski

Gnostic Intensive

reached a boundary of some kind and that she should try and overcome it on the next Intensive. Then we organized the one-month Gnostic Intensive at the center we had in Slovenia at the time. I entrusted the Intensive’s leadership to a female Master who was in my estimation by far the best Master I had trained. Many people took part in it, most of them previous Intensive goers. I was one of the participants. A year earlier I had participated in an Enlightenment Intensive in Austria, lasting a month and a half, so I knew we had a difficult time ahead of us. The first few days I was surprised by unusual feelings. Some people had Direct Experiences, but they didn’t affect me. Before, such occurrences would always arouse within me a strong desire to have a Direct Experience again myself, and with each new person who experienced it my desire would become stronger, after a while almost unbearable. Yet now I was completely calm, satisfied by the state I was in, without feeling a need to change it. On the fifth day of the Intensive I had a strange dream. I dreamed I was in an exclusive boutique, buying a silk tie. As I went to try it on I noticed I was stark naked. There were several men and women around me, but despite their presence I experienced the situation as normal, even pleasant. On the old Intensives lasting for three or more days, it was customary for the participants to tell their first partner in the morning what they had dreamt the previous night. While I was relating to my partner the dream about the tie, I felt very strange. The dream symbolized something I could not grasp, but I had a growing feeling of happiness. After a while I felt very ecstatic. I spoke very loudly, almost shouting. My behavior drew the attention of the surrounding partners, who felt that something unusual was taking place. When I worked with the second and third partners, I was unable to tell them anything new – I just kept repeating my dream. Then the thought began to sneak up on me, and finally imposed itself upon me: I had removed a huge part of the spiritual masses covering my Being, so that there was nothing left on which I could place a decoration like a tie. I was already in the Stable State of Mind we had so passionately envisioned. But the human Ego is a strange creature. It frequently happens that persons who haven’t had a Direct Experience try to persuade the Master that they have, while sometimes, when such an experience really happens, they suppress it. I was suppressing it for three entire exercises, until it became impossible. Without communicating to my partners that I was in Meuna, I was describing my state with words that were meant to conceal what had actually happened. But it didn’t work! Around me an aura was spreading, the “smell of Zen” I have mentioned, which persons with more experience can sense infallibly. People around me began to cry and curse their destinies for not having achieved the same state. Some envied me, while others were thrilled that this had happened to me. They believed that I was the first in a line of successes that would follow. Then I remembered what my wife Jadranka-Alda had been telling me about her own state, half a year earlier. I congratulated her and apologized for invalidating her due to my ignorance. My experience was so strong that despite trying, I wasn’t able to speak in a normal voice. I spoke more and more loudly – I yelled for a few hours. At the end of that day 42

Meuna or the stable state of mind I lost my voice for the first time in my life. I could only whisper very quietly, and even that was a challenge. In the few days that followed I didn’t participate in the Intensive actively – I was present without speaking. Not only did I recognize my state of Meuna, I also immediately became aware of who, among the people around me, was in that state or near it without realizing it. The Gnostic Intensive was supposed to last for a month, but we ended it two or three days prematurely, for it was obvious that a spiritual cycle was fulfilled. In the remaining time, some recognized their Meuna state with a little help from me. Hence it was one of the most fruitful Intensives. As I have stated, the word Meuna is of Gnostic origin and means “I am One”. It signifies the state of permanent Enlightenment on the first question “Who am I?” After experiencing Meuna, one cannot continue to work on the question “Who am I?” on Intensives, because the question has been emptied – he is who he is all the time. There were persons who could not accept that for them work on the first question (“Who am I?”) was finished and they tried without success to have another experience with it. But to no avail. As soon as they desired the goal again they were already there, because, as I’ve already said, the start line and the finish line became one. They were therefore forced to give up Intensives. One enters Meuna gradually; with few exceptions, there does not exist a clearly discernible moment when the experience happens. The process of imperceptible slipping into it can last for months, so that one is not aware of what is happening. There is a moment when he becomes aware that he has been in that state for some time. The state resembles the gradual warming up of air when summer is drawing near, but has not yet arrived. And then, at one moment, one feels that summer has already come. Another comparison with occurrences of everyday life would be the situation where a person lies awake in his bed in the morning without realizing he is awake, and in a flash realizes that he has been awake for a long time, but doesn’t have a clear idea of when he woke up. That is how Meuna happens in most people, although some can tell at which moment that quantum leap in consciousness took place. Such a course of events is not characteristic only for Gnostic groups. An example is also the story of the Sixth Patriarch of Zen, mentioned in many books, legends and anecdotes. He was an illiterate peasant who made his living by selling firewood. One day he heard a traveling storyteller reciting Diamond Sutra at the market, and listening to those wise words, he became enlightened. But he didn’t know it. He felt an overpowering call of Truth and went to a Zen monastery. He realized the nature of his state when he got the opportunity to compare himself and the way he perceived the world with people who had attained that same knowledge from books. By following the behavior of several people who entered Meuna, I was able to notice some crucial elements. Communication with another sentient being is a determining factor in removing the fog covering the consciousness. When a person who is in Meuna begins to describe his state, or talk about himself, another person in the same state or on its threshold will soon recognize the same state inside himself. As Zen practitioners put it, using an ironic metaphor, a thief doesn’t need to tell another thief he’s a thief, because they recognize each other. A few months after that Intensive I led another course. At the end of the first day a female participant, who had gone through numerous Intensives, wanted to share with me what she was feeling. While apologizing, she told me that she

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didn’t see a reason why she should continue to go to Intensives. From the description of her state it was obvious that she was in Meuna. I let her read part of my  Manual for Masters of the Gnostic Intensive, in which I described the state. Carrying the book she went to another room and after several minutes loud and prolonged laughter could be heard from there. She approached me without saying a word and hugged me. Everything was said and understood. Everyone who entered Meuna in that period had previously taken part in a considerable number of Gnostic Intensives and/or Special Intensives, especially on the tip of the nose, forehead and auditory Gnostic formulas. Special Intensives on auditory formulas were for most people the determining factor in eliminating the last doubts about the nature of the state they had entered. All those persons, without exception, had to overcome strong resistance in order to accept themselves in that state. That resistance and struggle against the obvious truth sometimes lasted for hours and days. A person who has already accepted himself in Meuna must laugh while listening to the crying and squirming around of the spiritual newborns. One of them was repeating for hours “Again that ‘I’ of mine and nothing else! I`ll go crazy!” What did he want? For many years he had been striving to experience that "I" of his exactly in that way – to always be "I" and nothing else. Another person was saying in despair:“This whole day I have only myself in my mind, only myself and fear that I will lose that “I” of mine.” How could he lose his “I”? Who could lose whom there? At a certain moment the state of Meuna becomes self-evident. A female participant on an Intensive of mine who had been well into Meuna without realizing it, answered my question about what was happening like this: ”Nothing special. It is only me, nothing else.” Master: “Does that ‘I’ of yours differ from the one you used to experience before?” participant: “No, it is me again, but I’m somehow different. As if I became condensed. Master: “What will happen to your ‘I’ when some time passes by? Three months from now?” participant: “It will be the same; there’s nothing to be changed there.” Master: “And three years from now?” At that point the participant burst out laughing – she understood the cosmic joke only a small number of chosen “thieves” can understand. It often happens that a participant who is deep in the state of Meuna approaches the Master and tells him:  ”I have no idea why I came to you. Everything is clear; there’s nothing to be said.” When people who long for Meuna, mistakenly believing that it is the solution to all their problems, ask a person who has experienced that state what it looks like, they receive replies that appear trivial: “Ordinary. The rain is falling, the grass is growing. That’s it.”  Or:  ”You ask me and I answer.”  Or:  ”What it looks like? Well, just as it seems. You’re looking at me, I’m looking at you. Everything is clear.”  A similar reply, well-known in literature on spirituality, was given by Bankei, a Zen Master, in the following anecdote. Bankei opened a Zen school in the vicinity of another Buddhist school. Very quickly, many students from the other school began attending Bankei’s lectures. Irritated by this course of events, the other school’s Master interrupted Bankei in the middle of his lecture. He scolded his students for abandoning his school, then started yelling

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Meuna or the stable state of mind at Bankei, claiming that the founder of his rival sect could perform miracles such as walking on water and writing the name of Amida Buddha from across a river. Bankei replied, “My miracle is that when I’m hungry, I eat, and when I am tired, I sleep.” After experiencing Meuna, people usually enter a state of spiritual inertia for a short or long period, for they don’t know what they should look for anymore. An attempt to attain a more profound Enlightenment seems to them absurd, because the direct awareness of themselves is constantly present. All such attempts resemble efforts of an eye to see itself. There is a tendency to let events and relationships happen of their own accord, without interference. A human accepts reality as it is and doesn’t try to change it, not even when it is unpleasant. If he becomes sick, he doesn’t perceive it as a tragic, or even a very serious matter. He views sickness as something that came and will pass. If he must separate from an old friend – well, those things happen – that’s life. But after a while a socalled spiritual itch appears. The person becomes interested in what is going on around him and a desire to change the situation arises in him, though more for others than for himself. Further spiritual endeavors come down to cutting one’s ties with the outer illusory world and eliminating one’s weaknesses. Furthermore, stable awareness of life and another human being is also achieved very quickly – in one or two Intensives. What I have written so far applies to Gnostic Intensives before I discovered and started using the Alternative technique. Its use drastically shortened the time necessary to enter Meuna – to one or several short Intensives, which nowadays last half a day. Some people experience Meuna even without the practical experience of Intensives. It is believed by some that famous Serbian poet Vasko Popa had been very interested in alchemy and had some experience with it. Whether that is true I don’t know, but one of his short poems contains an excellent description of Meuna. In it you can recognize the emptiness and freedom from spiritual masses that blur man’s Experience of Truth as well as acceptance of the state in which one finds himself. Here it is.

After the Game Finally the hands take hold of the stomach So it wouldn’t burst with laughter and Lo and behold – stomach isn’t there. One of the hands barely rises To wipe away cold sweat from the forehead But the forehead isn’t there. The other reaches for the heart So it wouldn’t jump out of the chest The heart isn’t there either. Both hands fall down Idly to the lap The lap isn’t there either. The rain is falling on one palm now From the other the grass is growing What can I say? 45

GNOSIS AND THE PROCESS OF DEIDENTIFICATION

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oday our understanding of the process of deidentification is much more complete owing to the many years of application of my systems Excalibur, Creaton, PEAT and Transcendence. Excalibur’s contribution was greatest, because operations with identities, their conscious creation and discreation are its crucial elements. I will reiterate what I have already said: a person would perpetually be in the state of Gnosis were it not for his spirit, that is, his Ego. It would be his natural state and there would be neither the need for nor the possibility of striving to achieve it. However, the human being has a spirit which consists of the total sum of contents which are not understood, communicated, accepted or brought to the light of awareness. When a person tries to experience himself, many indirect experiences come to his mind because certain elements of the spirit come flooding into his consciousness: physical sensation, thought, emotion, psychic image, parapsychic impression, reminiscence, hope for the future, identity, trauma or their combinations. In this way, instead of Direct Experience we get many indirect or intermediary experiences and that phenomenon repeats itself until the spirit’s contents are emptied. Intensive’s Alternative technique, just like any other method of spiritual systems worth mentioning, does only one thing – empties the consciousness of the spiritual masses. But it does it more efficiently and quickly than any other method known today. When applying the Alternative technique, the Intensive participant deidentifies from the multitude of identifications he has assumed on the descending pathway of evolution. Those identifications originate not only in this life, but also in countless incarnations during his immense past. Each identification has as its carrier an assumed identity, and it permeates whole clusters of contents related to that identity: images, thoughts, associations, concentrates of emotional energy, attitudes, judgements, convictions, values, beliefs, etc. Identifications are temporal landmarks fettering us to historical time. Deidentification of a human being makes time permeable in relation to periods of time and destroys temporal landmarks. The freer the human being is from its identities, the freer it is from space and time. For humans to form as civilized and sentient beings, assuming of identities is necessary. The process of individuation or spiritual maturation during ones life can, from a psychological point of view, be divided into two phases. The first phase is dedicated to the formation and development of a relatively fixed and coherent “I” or Ego, whose role is adaptation to the real world and social environment. Man needs Ego, because it supplies him with perceptional and cognitive functions, awareness of his boundaries and self-awareness or awareness of himself as a separate individual. If Ego doesn’t get formed, the personality remains immature and often psychotic, as the person is confined to his own unconscious. Human development does not end with formation of Ego, which is where Freud stopped. The second phase of emotional and spiritual 47

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Gnostic Intensive

maturation is the period in which the axis and center of gravity switches from Ego towards Selfhood or True Being. That road is long and difficult, often painful, and is followed by spiritual, mystical and Gnostic experiences, which primarily involve the process of becoming whole, fulfilled and liberated. That phase was intensely studied by K.G. Jung, who called it “individuation”. The essence of spiritual growth consists of a gradual amalgamation of Ego and Selfhood, which takes place through deidentification from identifications assumed sometime in the past. In the course of its development the child identifies with its body, because it is flooded by numerous and strong sensory impressions: feelings of pain, hunger, thirst, pleasure and tension. At an older age identification with personality traits begins. When the child acts according to its parents’ desires, they tell it that it is good. When the child misbehaves, they tell it that it is bad or naughty. In childhood a person assumes most of his identifications. Some people remain identified with their bodies their whole lives. The Gnosticism of antiquity called such persons hillical or corporeal. They see old age as the most terrible affliction, because then the body, with which they identify, decreases in strength and approaches its imminent end. Intensive participants free themselves from corporeal identifications relatively quickly. The reason for this lies partially in the fact that many of them have read literature on Yoga and other systems of the Far East and accepted attitudes expounded in such literature. On the other hand, liberation from identification with personality traits causes dilemmas, sometimes even fears. This usually occurs with identifications such as a person who is good or bad, who loves or hates others, is selfish or unselfish, competent or incompetent, and many others. The process of deidentification must eliminate all those identifications in order for a person to really realize who he is, what he is, what life is and what another human being is. During spiritual growth, to the great surprise and disbelief of some, people deidentify from identifications they didn’t even deem possible to deidentify from: time, space, matter, energy, existence, consciousness, cosmic beings, angels, planets, stars, gods... They assumed all those identifications in the descending phase of their evolution and they were buried in their unconscious during the eons, as if in a bottomless black hole. A truth humans must discover sooner or later is that our True Being or Atman lacks mass, energy, position in space, or any other trait or characteristic. In order to have experiences in this universe Atman accepts the limitations of manifestation and identifies with attributes, characteristics, things and phenomena. While he is identified with them, he forgets his True Nature. But the way to achieve deidentification from unconscious identifications is often intentional and conscious identification. When we identify with a person, personality trait or state consciously and deliberately, we free ourselves from the unconscious identification that previously existed. Hence the law: unconscious identification is slavery, conscious identification is liberation. That’s why in the processes of spiritual technology we often use the procedure of conscious identification, in order to perceive other points of view and remove negative energy from them. Deliberate and conscious identification is also used in other areas of spiritual work for attaining spiritual experiences. A well-known story about how Zen Master Yamaoka led famous storyteller Encho to experience Gnosis illustrates this. 48

Gnosis and the process of deidentification Encho was Japan’s most famous storyteller of his time. He would relate stories so vividly that listeners would see the described events in front of their eyes, would hear neighing of horses and clamor of arms, moans of the wounded and yells of victory. They rejoiced and suffered with the stories’ characters. One day Encho called on Zen Master Yamaoka and asked him to enlighten him. “Very gladly,” the Master said, “ but in return I want you to tell me a story the way my mother used to tell me when I was a child. I am an old man now, but I still remember my mother’s stories and I long to hear them again.” “I will do it with much pleasure”,  Encho said and began relating one of his most beautiful stories. When he finished, Master Yamaoka said: ”Indeed you tell stories very skillfully, but that was not my mother. That was you. I would like to hear the story the way my mother used to tell it.“ Encho was hit hard by this criticism. He went away, promising that he would return. He prepared himself for days, identifying with the role of the mother, and after two weeks returned to Master Yamaoka’s temple. He told him the story, bringing into it all his knowledge and feelings. The disciples gathered around the Zen Master got teary-eyed while they were listening to him. The Master said: “It was better this time. I felt that you were really investing yourself in the story. However, I regret to say you were you while you were talking, and I would like to hear my mother.” This was a hard blow to Encho’s pride. He left the monastery, swearing that he would not return until he could tell the story as Master Yamaoka’s mother had done. He dedicated several months only to that goal. He wasn’t interested in anything else but the way mothers talked to their children and he absorbed that with his whole being. He went to graveyards and listened to the laments of mothers who had buried their young children. In the evenings, he would sneak up to the windows of houses where mothers were singing lullabies to their children in cradles. After several months, he felt that he was ready. He visited Master Yamaoka and told him:  ”Now I will tell you the story the way your mother did.” He started talking. He was so lost in the story that his voice and face changed. The Zen Master was shaken. It wasn’t the storyteller Encho in front of his eyes anymore; it was his long dead mother. He was a child again, overcome with emotion. The words  “Mother! Mother!”  escaped from his mouth. At that moment Encho attained Enlightenment. And that is how Master Yamaoka enlightened Encho.

What happened in this story? The storyteller was so lost in another person that he identified himself with her completely, so that all the differences between them disappeared and he became one with her. And when the subject and object become one, we call this union Direct Experience of Truth. In order for a person to awaken and fulfill his true nature he must leave the boundaries of his unconscious identifications containing self-oblivion. This is achieved, I repeat, by deidentification. Hence the occult proverb, which at first sight appears ambiguous: ”When you lose all you have ever had, you will find what you have always been searching for.” Participants as well as inexperienced Intensive Masters often confuse DET with realizations the participant has after attaining DET. No matter how valuable the realizations may seem, they are not Direct Experiences. When working on the first question, “Who am I?”, the danger of confusing the two is not there, because the re49

Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski

Gnostic Intensive

alization is forever the same. But the confusion may occur with other questions. Here is what happens in those cases. By applying the Intensive’s technique, for example on the question “What am I?”, at some point the participant deidentifies from spiritual masses and they leave his field of consciousness. The consciousness is empty for a short while and the Experience of Gnosis can happen then, for nothing prevents the subject and object from uniting. An empty mind is the best possible state for attaining Direct Experience, although that doesn’t mean it is bound to happen. Sometimes people sit for hours in a state of empty consciousness without attaining the Experience of Gnosis. If Direct Experience happens, the subject becomes one with the object for a brief moment – when he experiences Truth directly, without intermediaries or filters of any kind. But the human Ego’s essential characteristic is its intention to exist  (at the moment of Gnosis it ceases to exist) and for that reason the Being falls out of the union with Truth back into the spiritual masses and adheres to the first available identification. The person, astounded by this, communicates to his environment as the ultimate Truth this first identification; for example, “I am time”. He usually radiates energy in this state and every word he says sounds true. However, after a while spiritual masses return to the consciousness. They contain doubts, feelings of inferiority, memories of times when we were mistaken or deceived and the like. Instead of the empty consciousness completely filled with the identification “I am time”, now there is doubt or critical judgment of one’s past experiences. In other words, the person’s Ego is in the center of consciousness again, imposing its own contents on him. Humans desire a complete and stable experience which can be relied on with certainty. A person goes to another Intensive, hoping to attain such an experience. There he experiences Kensho or Lumejo again: he becomes one with Truth, which has no traits whatsoever, and then he falls back down into the spiritual masses and acquires a new identification – “I am nothing’ ” or “I am emptiness”. That identification, too, was buried in his unconscious for many eons, but it was unconscious, whereas now it is completely awake and filled with energy. When the energy that follows this identification is emptied, there they come again – spiritual masses with old tiresome doubts and dilemmas enter the consciousness. The participant then often asks the Master for an explanation: “How is that possible? I’ d already had a Direct Experience of Truth that I am time, and now I experienced directly that I am nothing. What is the Truth? There can’t exist two Truths about me. What am I really?” The explanation lies in the difference between Direct Experience and the realization one has after attaining it. Fateful identifications are profound truths but they are not Absolute Truths!  A great physicist, Niels Bohr, pointed this out when he wrote: ”The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth. ” When a person is passing through a series of Direct Experiences of Truth, he wonders when he will get off of the Gnostic see-saw, and if that series of experiences has an end. Yes, the desired end exists! Sooner or later he will enter Meuna or the Stable State of Mind, for though it seems like he is running around in a vicious circle, repeatedly missing the haven of complete serenity and safety, with each Experience of Gnosis he destroys part of his spiritual masses. His spirit then gradually empties and his center 50

Gnosis and the process of deidentification

of gravity moves from Ego towards Selfhood. And so at one moment, although the spiritual masses still exist, they are torn up and separated from each other, so that the Follower can see the sun of Truth at every moment. He is what he is all the time, life is what it is and so is another human being. Those experiences can not be forgotten. He becomes an awakened being or Gnostic, which means “the one who knows”. Now other games await him, different and much higher than the games of beings drunk with the poisonous fumes of their Egos and the material world.

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NATURE OF THE DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF TRUTH

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n the literature you can find many descriptions of Enlightenment and its characteristics, but all authorities worth mentioning name one essential trait of the DET, without which it can not exist. In it, there isn’t any difference between the subject and object. I will explain this briefly. From our birth we have countless indirect experiences. In only one day we have thousands of them. Their shared characteristic is that they always have three elements: Subject – person who has the experience Object – that which the person experiences, and Process – through which the person experiences the object.

For instance, you are looking at and reading this text. The text is the OBJECT. You, who are looking at it and reading it, are the SUBJECT. PROCESSES of seeing and understanding exist between you and the text. Through those two processes you experience the text. I will give you another example. You are talking to a man. You are the object. The man is the subject who is experiencing you. He is experiencing you through the processes of seeing, listening and understanding. However, the process of remembering can also become engaged in this situation. The man can remember a person who looks like you. He can remember what he has experienced in the relationship with that person, etc. Sometimes, even the process of telepathy can be involved. However, no matter how subtle a process telepathy may be, it is still a process. And in DET there isn’t a process, for in it the subject and object become one, even if for a very short while. To return to our example, intuition can also become activated in the experience. Again, no matter how subtle a process intuition is, it is still a process, whereas in DET there isn’t a process between the subject and object. The subject experiences its object without a process. A question often arises –  why aren’t we continuously in the state of DET? The reason is simple – it is our spirit. The spirit is a crucial instrument for everyday life. It tells us what is good for us and what is bad, how to solve a problem and the like. But in spiritual practice the spirit is the main obstacle, for it inserts itself between us and our object and instead of experiencing a DET we gain some of the spiritual masses existing in the spirit. This will be easier to understand once you examine the definition of the spirit. The spirit is the total sum of uncommunicated contents, interrupted communications, traumas, unpleasant and pleasant past experiences, gained knowledge, facts we have heard from our parents, in school or have read in books, etc. In Yoga it is called “chitta” or mental mass. Because of it, when I want to experience a person, in53

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stead of a DET of that person I get several indirect experiences that my spirit automatically provides: memories of similar people, relationships or situations, hopes, fears and similar contents, which prevent me from attaining a DET of that person. Intensive techniques do nothing more than empty spiritual masses. At one moment spiritual masses are removed, the mind is empty and the unification of the subject and object can occur. In most cases that is a brief state, but its consequences last a lifetime.

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STIMULATION OF PARTICIPANTS

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uring the entire Intensive, the Master should stimulate the participants. He does it at the beginning, with an introductory speech, but he should also do it before each dyad. Sometimes, if the Intensive is not going well, he should give a short speech with only one goal: pushing participants toward the DET. The Master should use short stories, anecdotes or examples from previous Intensives as stimulation. Stories and anecdotes are stimulating metaphors. They say one thing while aiming at another. They should create in the participant a strong desire to experience the DET or point out to him that the DET is in front of his very nose, although he is not aware of it. The following story is best used at the beginning of an Intensive, when the Master is explaining the technique, or more precisely, at the end of the explanation, when he says that DET is the normal state, and what is not normal is that we are not experiencing it permanently. God wanted to hide the most important secret about humans in a way that forces us to work hard to discover it. He beckoned his angels to advise him on where he should hide it.

“Hide it on the top of the highest mountain, Lord”, said one of them. “That’s a good advice”, God said, “ but man will soon reach it”. “Hide it at the bottom of the deepest ocean”, another angel suggested. “That’s a better place,”  God said,  “as man will need more time to get there. But there must be a better solution”. Then Satan whispered into God’s ear:  “Hide it in the last place man will look – inside the man himself ”.

The Master can relate the following story during one of the breaks between two dyads. A man in Japan wanted for his entire life to realize the truth about who he is. When he was already middle-aged, he mounted a horse and went from one Master to another, in search of that truth. He’d seen many Masters and none of them could reveal to him the truth. He finally came to a Master who many claimed would give him what he was searching for.

“What are you searching for?”, the Master asked him. “I’m searching for the truth about who I am,” the man answered. “But why aren’t you searching for a horse?” “A horse?” the man was mystified. “I already have a horse.” “Oh, I see...”, the Master said, turned around and entered his hut.

The third story can be told in the second half of the Intensive, when some participants have already had a DET, while others are still trying hard, looking for the answers 55

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in the wrong places, usually in philosophical material they’ve read or learned. It is a story about Nasreddin Hodja. He is a deeply enlightened sage, but he conveys the most profound truths about man, pretending to be stupid. One morning Nasreddin woke up and realized that, although his beard is gray, he still doesn’t know who he is. He therefore started off for town, hoping someone could tell him. He spent the first half of the day wandering around the town, but he found no one who knew. Then, in the afternoon, he entered a shop selling clothes. The shop owner welcomed him with the words:

“Good day to you, noble sir, what can I do for you?” “You can tell me who I am”, Nasreddin answered. “I’m sorry, noble sir, but I don’t know who you are.” Surprised by this answer, Nasreddin asked: “How did you know then, when I entered your shop, THAT IT WAS ME and not somebody else?”

The Master should emphasize the words “...THAT IT WAS ME...”. The Master can tell the following story,  Great Chess Master, in the second part of the Intensive. It is especially useful if some participants have already experienced a DET so they become disinterested in the rest of Intensive, want to go home, etc. The Master should draw their attention to the fact that love for others and sacrifice make Ego disappear, and Ego is the main barrier on the road to the DET. On the Chinese court there were many persons who were most prominent in their field: the Great Secretary of State and the Treasurer, the Great Sage who was the emperor’s counselor, the High Priest... and the Great Chess Master. He was the best chess player in the empire. The Great Chess Master first defeated all opponents in China, then the great players of other countries. Afterwards he felt dissatisfied with his life. The world was so big, the chessboard so small. He therefore asked the Great Sage whether there is anything greater and more valuable than his chess victories. The sage answered:

”There is something much greater, and that is spiritual growth. But in it there aren’t any palpable rewards or honors.” “That’s what I want!”, the Great Chess Master said. “Tell me, who can teach me that?” The Great Sage told him that there are many spiritual Masters, including one that he should never go to. If a disciple fails that Master’s test, he kills him. But the Great Chess Master saw this as a real challenge. “I am going to him”, he said. After many days of tiresome journey, he arrived at the ashram of the dangerous Master. He told him what he wanted. “Do you know what my condition is?”, the Master asked. “I do. If I fail the test, you’ ll kill me.” “That’s right. Bring my best disciple.” When they brought him, in front of all the gathered disciples the Master said that as a test for entering his ashram, the Great Master would play chess with his best disciple. If he wins, he will accept him as a disciple, and kill his best disciple. If he loses, he will kill him. If it’s a draw, he’ll kill both of them.

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Stimulation of participants In front of the gathered disciples and the Master, they began playing. The Great Master could tell by the first moves of his opponent that he was a good player, but far below his own level. He felt favored by destiny. But it also occurred to him that the Master could hypnotize him or play some kind of trick on him, and so he decided to play slowly and not to raise his eyes from the chessboard. He played safe and was soon facing a guaranteed victory. While he was playing, he couldn’t see his opponent’s face. With each move, life was draining out of the young man. He was pale, sweat was running down his face and his breathing was becoming heavier by the minute. The Chess Master brought the game to its end and raised the last chess piece, which meant victory. Overcome with joy, he looked up at his opponent and immediately realized what was happening to the young man. His whole life flashed before his eyes. He realized that he had never thought of others, only of himself; he had only wanted to win without considering others. And at that lucky moment, he realized that it is a greater thing to make a sacrifice for another than to win. He hesitated only for a moment before he scattered the chess pieces, turned around to face the Master and said:  “I resign the game. Do with me what you like.” The Master said: “I’ d like to explain something to you. We live in a small village, but I’ve heard of you. My intention was not to test you as a chess player, because I know that no one in the world is a match for you in that game. I wanted to test your readiness to sacrifice yourself for others. You passed the test. I accept you as a disciple.”

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CONCENTRATION EXERCISES FOR THE MASTERS OF INTENSIVE

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’ve mentioned that one of the significant factors in validation of a DET is the Master’s ability to concentrate. Focused attention, like a laser beam, penetrates the fog covering the consciousness to reach the Truth which has begun rising to the surface, where it can be recognized. There are many concentration exercises, described in more or less detail. It’s up to the Master to decide which one he’ll do. I advise the following exercise because it’s simple and can be done in everyday situations. Here is how it’s done. In places where you are waiting for something or someone, such as waiting rooms of firms or doctor’s or dentist’s offices, airports or railway stations, choose a person (sitting close to you or further away) and concentrate on him as a sentient being. There isn’t anything special about this kind of concentration. Simply, the object of your concentration is not a painting or a thing, but a being endowed with consciousness. In order not to attract the person’s attention, you can concentrate on her without looking directly, but sideways, at something next to her. Do this for ten to fifteen minutes or longer, if you can. After doing the exercise this way several times, you can concentrate on a smaller group of people – all of them at once – three or four persons who are sitting together. In that situation you should not look at one of them, but at the space between them, so that you encompass them indirectly. As your concentration ability becomes stronger, the group of people can become bigger. This is important because while the Master leads an Intensive, most of the time his attention should be spread around, covering the whole group of participants. That is by far more fruitful and efficient than letting his thoughts wander, daydreaming or directing attention at his own problems. Masters can do this exercise in a group. Several Masters or candidates for that status can gather together on a regular basis or from time to time, and do the exercise for half an hour or longer. It is necessary that they determine in advance how long it will last. Every practitioner should keep a record of the duration of his exercises, because he will have a tendency to overestimate it. At one moment it will seem like he has thirty or forty hours of exercise behind him, but the inexorable records will show that he practiced for less than ten hours. Readers may find one of my experiences in this field interesting. More than thirty years ago (I write this in 2010) I spent a month in the home of a person I regarded as my spiritual Master at that time. He was a man of vast erudition, who knew the alternative fields very well and, as I was about to witness, had great concentration that he used as an instrument for solving problems, his own as well as other people’s. People often came to his apartment in the center of Chicago, searching for his advice. While he was talking to them, I would usually sit in the corner of a large room where the conversations took place and write or read, but most of the time I followed their discourses. 59

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I noticed something strange. People who came for advice would explain their problem, and then my host would slowly say a few sentences that appeared to be an introduction. “Considering your situation and what is obvious... taking into consideration human nature... and how problems affect us...” Those were sentences without real content, a kind of preparation for the real advice. He would suddenly communicate the advice and it was “the right one” for the questioner. The person would look relieved, unburdened, and it was obvious that the advice had entirely satisfied him. People would thank him from their hearts and leave satisfied. After a while another person would come with the same or a similar problem. The Master would act in a way that appeared to be the same as before, but would give entirely different advice. When I asked how he could give completely different responses to the same question, he answered: Haven’t you noticed that they are two entirely different persons? It would be a huge mistake to give them the same advice.” Naturally, a very logical question confronted me: “How do you know what you need to say to different people, so that the advice would be appropriate for them?” The man gave me a counsel I would never forget: ”Be entirely focused on the questioner as a sentient being and then tell him, without thinking, the first words that come to your mind. They will be the right words for that person.” In order to be able to apply the counsel adequately, a person must have strong powers of concentration. Without this the act would be worthless. The Master does not need intense concentration for a long period, but he must be capable of focusing exclusively on the questioner while he is asking his question or relating his problem. Here we encounter the alchemical formula “Dissolve and Coagulate”. Coagulation is the first phase that corresponds to concentration, dissolution the second phase corresponding to complete relaxation and communication of the first content that spontaneously comes to the Master’s mind. Owing to that advice and, naturally, to the concentration exercises, I was able to lead extraordinarily successful Intensives.

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EGO AND THE ETHICS OF THE GNOSTIC INTENSIVE

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n various psychological and psychotherapeutic systems, “Ego” has several meanings. The most commonly accepted definition is Sigmund Freud’s, where the Ego is the conscious branch of personality. According to psychoanalysis, the personality develops and matures by transforming the instinctive energy of Id (the unconscious) into the conscious contents of Ego, and the therapy also develops in this way. According to this concept, forming and strengthening the Ego is a natural and desirable process. On the other hand, many methods of spiritual growth view Ego as a temporary creation which is gradually destroyed and surpassed through spiritual experiences. Some schools of humanistic and transpersonal psychology accept this approach to a certain degree. In order to eliminate the existing confusion, transpersonal psychologist David Boadella points out the need to differentiate between two kinds of Ego – the functional and the status. It was Jidu Krishnamurti who inspired him to make this classification. Krishnamurti was a prominent thinker who considerably influenced the famous physicist David Bohm. Krishnamurti discerned two kinds of thinking: functional, the aim of which is solving problems, and status, through which we attain social status and affirmation. The functional Ego is a necessary instrument for everyday life. Its weakening and decomposition exposes us to the dangers of chaotic observations and uncontrolled reactions. An unstable functional Ego, Boadella says, can cause the state he calls “cosmosis”, in which a mystical state of mind is sought as a refuge from the difficulties of everyday life, while the boundaries of Self are permeable and vague, so that the person is often on the threshold of psychosis. Many stories of Yoga and Sufi tradition emphasize the danger of not discerning the difference between cosmosis and DET. One of the best stories is “The Righteous Man”. Here it is: A righteous man studied about his Self with a wise Yoga Master. After some years the Master beckoned him and said: “This is all you need to know. There is no difference between you and Brahman. All is Brahman. I am Brahman and you are Brahman. Brahman is the sun, the moon, and the stars. Brahman is flies and tigers, snakes and a beautiful lotus flower. There exists nothing that isn’t Brahman.” The Master’s words appeared truthful to the righteous man and he headed for home, satisfied. While walking through a village, he heard a clamor and saw men running away from an elephant gone wild. The elephant rider, who was barely managing to stay on the elephant’s back, yelled when he saw the righteous man on the road: “Move away! The elephant has gone wild!” For a moment, the righteous man felt strong fear and wanted to run away, but then he remembered his Master’s words and these thoughts flashed through his mind: “All is Brahman. Brahman is the sun. Brahman is the moon. Brahman is my Master. I am Brahman and this elephant is Brahman. Brah-

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man will not hurt itself.” His mind at ease, he knelt down on the road and started to praise the Brahman aloud…The elephant trampled him underfoot. By some strange miracle,the righteous man survived,but was crippled.He was taken to his village where he spent months recovering.Embittered,he told everyone that the Master had deceived him,and that he had paid for his delusion dearly.But since he was righteous,one day he started off on his crutches on a long journey to confront his former Master.When he came up to him, the righteous man told him everything he felt straight to his face.This is how the Master answered:“What I told you, my son,is true. All is Brahman.Brahman is the sun,the moon,Brahman is the stars.I am Brahman, you are Brahman,and that elephant is Brahman.But that elephant rider is also Brahman.So, when he yelled at you to move off the road,why didn’t you obey him?”

I use the term “Ego” in this book to mean “conscious creation in personality”, in the same way it is used in Yoga and Zen but with slight differences. In short, the Ego is an inevitable stage in human development, necessary for survival in everyday life, but true spiritual development eliminates it and in its course the Ego must finally disappear and merge with the true Self. True spirituality exhausts and weakens the Ego, but like a hellish sorcerer, it uses everything at its disposal for survival. At the moment one experiences Gnosis, Ego dies, but its disappearance is temporary. After just a few moments, it reappears in the consciousness like an evil phoenix and transforms the act that eliminated it into a new source of its own power. “I attained Enlightenment!”, Ego yells, “I am better, more enlightened and spiritual than others.” The Ego has two essential characteristics. It has an irresistible desire to exist and it creates the feeling of being separated from the rest of the world and other beings. From those two characteristics derive all the problems Ego creates for us. They are noticeable not only in everyday life, but also within spiritual groups and organizations. People proudly talk of all the self-growth courses and workshops in which they have participated and about experiences they have had. They compare their own experiences with those of others, and feel and emphasize their pre-eminence and superiority in relation to members of other groups. Their Master is better and more deeply enlightened than the Master of another group, their Master is bringing salvation to mankind and his love is redeeming all humans, although many of them are not aware of it. I have heard people praise their Master, claiming that his love caused the Berlin wall to fall. I have heard this from the followers of different Masters, and if you mention to them that members of other groups claim the same about their Master, they either become boiling mad or react with contempt. Practitioners of the Gnostic Intensive are no exception. The Master’s Ego usually soars after a few successful Intensives. He becomes convinced that he is the best Master, that he surpassed his predecessors and is the most profoundly enlightened of them all. There isn’t any fixed advice for Masters of Gnostic Intensives regarding how to deal with their Egos. The Master will slip out of the moral norms from time to time, but if he strives to act the best way he can in every situation, he will be on the right track, no matter what motivated him to become a Master – a desire to have people praise, exalt and love him, improvement of his self-image, winning acknowledgment, etc. Some Masters have low spiritual ethics, which is an unpleasant surprise for beginners, as they expect people who have been longer than they on the Path to have entirely overcome their moral weaknesses. However, this is the case with all the spiritual paths 62

Ego and the ethics of the Gnostic Intensive and methods. Alan Watts, the man deserving the most credit for popularizing Zen and Buddhism in the West, writes in his autobiography that the Great Masters of Yoga and Zen hate each other. At first sight that seems incredible, but it is true. As long as a human being has even the slightest remains of Ego within itself, it is susceptible to its tricks. And one of the worst of them is spiritual envy. It exists in many Masters but is even more noticeable in Masters of Intensive. Since I have trained many Masters of Intensive, and had many of them around me for years, I’ve had the opportunity to notice their strengths and weaknesses. Some of them engaged in malicious gossip, some tried to prevent others from becoming Masters and then there were the ones who were good Masters, but real “vermin” as participants of Intensive. They were capable of ruining every Intensive with their selfish and inconsiderate behavior. One of those Masters was the worst participant of Intensives, and  various unpleasant stories about him circulated. When he was the active partner in a dyad, he would talk loudly and continuously, emphasizing the importance of his experiences. As soon as the roles switched and he was obliged to listen to his partner he would, just as if you had pushed a button, close his eyes and fall asleep, or pretend to do so. This is the worst possible invalidation for another participant, for he has the need to communicate what is going on with him and by doing so empty the spiritual contents of his mind. And that is impossible without active attention from a partner. Over the years I received many complaints regarding that person and had many difficulties in justifying his presence. My response to those situations was also unethical, because I enabled him to persevere in such damaging behavior. But there comes a moment in the minds of most such people when a reversal occurs and they get a strong desire to change their behavior. That is why one should never write them off permanently. What is most important, when they start to express love for others instead of envy and selfishness, they become not only better participants, but also better Masters. When the Intensive’s capacity is exhausted, and that happens sooner or later with all existing methods, the Master should honestly admit it to himself and continue with other methods of spiritual growth. The trouble with this lies in the fact that many who gained recognition through Intensives are not capable of doing that. They stick desperately to that which gave them value or raised it and will not let go. In this way they turn into spiritual fundamentalists, despite the warnings of great sages. One of them, Master of Tibetan Yoga Tartang Tulku Rinpoche, stated the following:  “If you make a halt on the Path of Truth, it doesn’t matter whether you are bound by a dirty hemp rope or a golden chain.”

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CHANGES IN THE COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS OF MANKIND

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uring the last few decades a quantum leap has occurred in the development of the Collective Consciousness of mankind. But it is not over, as quantum change is a process that is still going on and is, by all appearances, accelerating. Some connect this with the concept of the Age of Aquarius, in which the total regeneration of humankind is supposed to take place. But it has been discussed for a long time now and opinions on when it actually began vary. Previously the DET was reserved for those who have dedicated their whole lives to spiritual growth. They were forced to sever their ties with everyday life and therefore lived in monasteries, spiritual centers or in isolation. That is not necessary anymore. In our time, people can have normal lives in which there is space enough for professional achievements, family and for artistic activities. Biographical data and observations of many famous people of the past tell us about their inability to attain DET. An anecdote about a German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) is an example. He was very absent-minded, just like the majority of philosophers. While visiting a greenhouse in Dresden one day, he was approached by a clerk who had noticed him apparently entranced by a certain plant.  “Who are you?” the clerk asked, taking him for a specialist. Schopenhauer slowly turned and regarded the man for some time before replying.  “If you could only answer that question for me,” he finally intoned, “I would be eternally grateful.” A famous American novelist William Saroyan (1908-1981) was also interested in who he was. He writes that we wake up each morning with the question “Who am I?” and concludes that humans can never find the answer. However, the situation has changed drastically. On my Intensives more and more often I meet beginners who already know who they are, although they not only lack experience in the field of spirituality, but they also haven’t read even one book on the subject. The possibility of achieving DET in a much faster and easier way  than in the past, the appearance of a large number of different spiritual, emotional and psychological workshops all around the world and the ever-growing number of people who take part in them all fit into this tendency. One may ask how it is possible for today’s methods to be so much faster, easier and more efficient than the traditional methods of the Far East. Three answers to this question came to me a long time ago. There are no methods which are permanently superior in any area of human activity. In the field of spiritual methodology, too, people acquire new knowledge, which then becomes the basis for new and improved methods. The second explanation stems from different attitudes toward time in the traditions of the East and West. In all the systems of practical philosophy in the East time is a component of “maya” or cosmic illusion, and therefore has no real value. Indifference 65

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to time needed to achieve goals of spiritual growth is obvious in most of the Eastern methods, so that efforts are not made to shorten the time necessary for achieving goals. Persons who viewed time as an important element of personal growth were perceived as undeserving of true spirituality. However, for Westerners time is an unavoidable factor in judging the value of a system and it was precisely in the West that systems appeared which shortened the time needed to attain one’s training goals. One of the contemporary Masters defined power as the quantity of work one can perform in a time unit and his definition reflects the attitude of most Westerners. I have already mentioned the third reason. The Collective Consciousness of mankind has opened. Goals that required a long time in the past can now be achieved more easily and in a shorter period. Naturally, exponents of the traditional teachings are often conservative, resisting the changes that are imposed on them. But the resistance can not last forever, for as time goes by, the changes impose themselves with growing urgency. The human being is not a stone tablet on which the inscription can last forever; it has unimaginable capacity for changes and growth, so that we are witnessing enormous leaps forward in the field of spiritual methodology, as well as in other areas of human activity.

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MANUAL FOR MASTERS OF GNOSTIC INTENSIVE

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n the first part of this book I gave you general information about the Gnostic Intensive, much of it useful when leading an Intensive. However, I determined that persons who want to lead Intensives find a concrete manual for mastering it very useful. What follows is precisely that. In the manual you will find much previously mentioned data, as repeating them was unavoidable. But that will probably prove to be useful, as reiteration of essential elements is necessary for their better assimilation and easier application.

Intensive’s Preparation In this book and manual, which is its most important component, you will find all the necessary information for mastering a successful Intensive. The rest is up to you. By no means does your Intensive begin when you sit in front of a group of participants. It begins at the moment you make a decision to lead it. Making the decision is a crucial moment, as it is a transition from the astral-mental sphere to the physical act, which is the world of material manifestations. The act is what truly differentiates daydreamers who spend their whole lives in towers suspended in the air and executives who build strong foundations beneath their towers. You should therefore make a decision, set a date and inform people about it immediately. In this way you will burn your bridges behind you, which could have caused you to regress into endless procrastination and defeat. Finding a room is not a problem. If you have a home which is spacious enough, lead the Intensive there. If you don’t, renting a room is the solution. There are companies which specialize in that. The best way to go about it is to rent a room where people have held different workshops before you. No matter whether an acquaintance or an unknown person is renting you the room, insist on making a short contract or at least ask for a receipt with the signature of the person responsible, stating that you have paid for and reserved the room. As soon as you have rented a room for a chosen date, send out the invitations. When you are sending invitations for the first few Intensives, especially for the first one, you should give it a personal touch. In the first place, you should address it to the person you want to receive it. This takes more time, but it pays off. Tell potential participants that you care about their presence, that you will appreciate it if they come and that taking part in the Intensive will be significant for their spiritual growth. Send out as many invitations as possible! Don’t fear the possibility of too many people coming. At this phase you have the opposite problem: how to gather enough people for the Intensive. The minimal number of participants for the group Gnostic Intensive is eight 67

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(the individual Intensive is an exception, as it involves working with an individual), but there is no reason to be intimidated if twenty or more people come. A big group develops big energy. Adjust your price to the average price of other Masters or persons leading similar one-day courses. If your Intensive is too expensive or too cheap, you will not attract people. In the first case they will not be able to pay for it, in the second, they will not appreciate it. Never lead it for free. Charles Berner led one Intensive for which participants hadn’t paid. They were students at New York University and it paid for them. Half of the participants left before the end. The time between sending of invitations and the date of the Intensive should not be shorter than three weeks or longer than a month. In countries where people tend to plan their activities more in advance you can send invitations even two months ahead, but never longer than that. If you have the email addresses of a lot of people, you can invite them two to three times. You should fill the time until the beginning of the Intensive with preparations. The better you prepare yourself, the better and more successful Intensive you will lead. It would be great if you could assist another Master before you lead your own Intensive. In that way you will “warm up” for your Intensive. During the Intensive where you assist, write down significant things you have noticed: how the Master solved a problem, where, in your opinion, he made a mistake (if he made any), and what he did correctly. Pay special attention to the way he leads individual consultations with participants, the way he checks the application of technique and the way he validates Experiences of Gnosis. Make a schedule. It will be short, because there will be only five dyads. Include examples you will give participants, short stories, anecdotes and the like. Practice giving your introductory speech and telling the stories several times. It is a good thing to record them and listen to them. Pay attention to the places where you expressed yourself ambiguously, where you were too verbose or where you lost the thread of the idea with which you started. Your speech can seem very clear and persuasive if you don’t record it, but the recording will unerringly expose all your weaknesses. If you are acquainted with my DP-4 method, use it to eliminate all your fears and insecurities and create in yourself a strong feeling that you can do the job properly. You should know that there will be crises before the Intensive begins and maybe in its first stage as well, but they are one of its components. Don’t be surprised if, during the crises, you start wondering why you burdened yourself with all these problems when you had such a nice life before. But when you get out of the crisis you will have higher energy and will be convinced that you are doing the most important thing in the world. If you dedicate yourself to the Intensive with your whole being, at some point you will see that things have started moving. participants you hadn’t counted on will apply, someone who wants to be your assistant will call you and the Intensive will take off. Goethe, who was a spiritual giant without many rivals in the history of mankind, spoke of the significance of absolute dedication to an enterprise: “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills 68

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countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too... Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.” That is the truth. At the moment you begin your Intensive, people will be in the room with expressions of expectation on their faces and will look at you as a Master. You will be tense and probably a bit frightened, but you will be a tense and a bit frightened Master, not someone who only dreams of it. No matter what you have previously done and achieved in your life, that moment will be the turning point and you will know it. You will be aware that that is your rendezvous with destiny.

Introduction Tell participants your name and introduce your assistants, if you have any. The introduction should sound something like:  “My name is... I will be your Master on this Intensive. My assistants are...”

Goal Tell them the following: There is only one goal of the Gnostic Intensive. It is Gnosis or Direct Experience of Truth. My goal is that as many of you as possible have that experience. Sometimes people refer to it as “Enlightenment”, but that term has an overtone that evokes mistaken associations and hopes of experiencing something like Cosmic Consciousness or a supra-terrestrial experience.  Direct Experience of Truth (DET) is the most normal state for man. What is not normal is that in our times we still have to strive to experience it. Having any other goal on Intensive is a mistake. Some people experience a profound feeling of love on Intensives. But love comes and goes, whereas our goal is DET. Sometimes people experience strange phenomena such as telepathy, precognition and the like, but that happens seldom. Our aim is not such experiences – our aim is DET. Sometimes participants with psychic problems hear from people who participated in an Intensive that those problems disappeared or were alleviated. But again, our aim is not to feel better – our aim is DET. If you came to the Intensive to achieve any other goal you will not attain it.

Short History

of

Gnostic Intensive

Tell participants the following: In order to be successful on an Intensive you don’t need to know anything about its history, but for some persons it is important to know that the Gnostic Intensive has very specific historical roots. 69

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Direct Experience of Truth (DET) has different names in different systems of spiritual growth. In Buddhism it is nirvana, in Yoga Samadhi, in Zen Kensho (shallow experience) and Satori (profound state). Naturally, DET experienced on a Gnostic Intensive (GI) is far shallower than that attained in the classical systems I’ve mentioned. It is not only more superficial, but also much shorter. But it foreshadows possible deeper stages awaiting us one day in our spiritual development. In spiritual literature, Buddha’s Enlightenment is most famous. He attained it after eight years of intensive meditation. It was so deep that it influenced countless generations of followers during the subsequent twenty-six centuries. Within Buddhism, in the 7th century, Zen arose. In it Enlightenment was attained more quickly, for practitioners didn’t meditate on life and all its phenomena at once, but on smaller fragments of reality in the form of special questions or koans. Koans are absurd questions the aim of which is breakdown of the rational spirit, which is the main cause preventing the experience of DET. There are about two thousand of them and they are well known in the literature today. At one point stratification of Zen occurred and several schools came into being, but two of them, Soto and Rinzai, are most important. The Soto school emphasizes continuous meditative practice without paying attention to Enlightenment. This is the general idea: Enlightenment is nothing but a discovery of your true nature. As you already are what you are, it is not important when you will become aware of that. And you will become aware of it sooner or later. The Rinzai school emphasizes the breakthrough experience of Enlightenment. Humans need such an experience, the school’s followers claim, and it is natural to make great efforts to attain it. The Rinzai school invented sessions – special periods of three, seven or fourteen days during which followers would meditate continuously with the desire to attain Enlightenment precisely in that period. At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Harada school of Zen appeared in Japan. Its followers strove to have Enlightenment in a short period, during a session that lasted three or seven days. Then Charles Berner, an ex-Scientologist appeared in the U.S.A. In 1968 he created the Enlightenment Intensive. He had the fruitful idea of combining communication with meditation. In various schools of Zen communication is very scarce. Meditation is almost always silent, and a person is left to himself and his thoughts. Once a day or once every few days, he has a short conversation with the Master. The conversation is meant to clarify his state and correct his technique, if that is necessary. Berner’s idea was that communication cleanses the human spirit of spiritual masses very quickly and he therefore required that Intensive participants balance their time between meditation and communication. The second element on which Berner insisted was maximal contact among Intensive participants. In order to achieve this, he introduced working in dyads or pairs, because this intensifies contact between two human beings. When two persons work on a problem belonging to one of them, there are two minds fighting against one unconscious spirit and the result is therefore achieved much faster. Berner expected that about a dozen three-day Intensives would be necessary for the first person to have a DET. To his surprise, approximately thirty percent of par-

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Manual for Masters of Gnostic Intensive ticipants had the experience on the first Intensive. But the other participants were also satisfied with their final experiences, although they had not attained Enlightenment. Berner mastered a few more three-day Intensives before he led a fourteen-day Intensive. It had both positive and negative consequences. On the one hand, participants’ experiences were much deeper than the ones attained on three-day Intensives. On the other, many participants were emotionally unstable after the Intensive; one of them even ended up permanently in a mental institution. Berner therefore gave up longer Intensives for a considerable period of time. He later led them again, but was more careful in the selection of participants. Zivorad Mihajlovic-Slavinski completed his first Intensive in 1979 in London. The next year, in Charles Berner’s center in St. Helena, California, he had his first DET. After returning from California he participated in one more Intensive in London, and then mastered his first Intensive in Belgrade in 1980. Since then he has led more than one hundred Intensives, and has also trained many Masters of Intensive on Intensive Master Training Courses, so that at one time there were more active Masters in exYugoslavia than in the rest of the world together. While he was staying in California Zivorad made an agreement with Charles Berner. As long as he led the Enlightenment Intensive the same way Berner was doing, he would continue to call it that. Minor changes were allowed, because an Intensive comes out of the Master’s personality. But if he introduced significant changes into it, it would no longer be Enlightenment Intensive and Zivorad would need to choose a new name for it. Zivorad did not change anything for ten years, during which he led many Intensives. He also prevented the Masters he had trained from altering the methods significantly. But during that long period he noticed the Enlightenment Intensive’s weaknesses. The most important weakness was its technique. Because of how the technique was explained, the Master would confuse the participants at the very beginning of an Intensive. He would say:  “I can’t explain to you how to do the technique, for there isn’t a HOW. Every HOW is a process, and in Intensive’s technique process doesn’t exist. You should simply make an effort of will, an intentional attempt to experience DET and continue to do that all the time.” Zivorad had noticed that emotional persons experience DET more easily and quickly than cold, unemotional ones. When explaining technique he would repeat Berner’s words that there isn’t a “how” in the technique, but on one Intensive he told the participants that the closest thing to a description would be to “feel themselves”, that is, their object. On that Intensive the success rate was unusually high. For Zivorad, this served as a motive to examine the classical technique. On the next Intensive, he returned to the old instruction that there isn’t a “how” and the success rate dropped significantly. Then on the following occasion he again said that the closest thing to explanation of how the technique should be done is to “feel oneself”, or for other questions, to “feel one’s object’, and the Intensive was again extraordinarily successful. That was the crucial moment for altering Intensive’s technique. Since then Zivorad has insisted on the technical instructions “feel who you are”, “feel another human being” or “feel life”. The percentage of participants who had a DET abruptly increased and the Intensive was cut short from three days and three nights, as it had lasted before, 71

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to a day and a half! He also changed the name of the Intensive to “Gnostic Intensive”. For several years Zivorad led the Gnostic Intensive with the new technique, but it turned out that there were endless possibilities for improving the technique, that there was always something better than the best. The following story is already wellknown in the milieu of the Gnostic Intensive. One day, while he was walking through the suburbs of Belgrade, where there are many family homes with gardens, Zivorad noticed two men trying to tear down a wooden pole buried deep in the ground. They swung it back and forth and to the left and right, and after a few minutes, managed to overturn it. He asked himself: “How much time would they have needed if they had pushed the pole in only one direction?” An hour or more, he concluded, if they would have ever succeeded. At that moment the idea of Gnostic Intensive’s Alternative technique  came to Zivorad. It has drastically shortened the Intensive’s duration and increased the percentage of participants who attain DET to 90 percent in only half a day, which is how long Intensives now last. Berner’s classical technique is like pushing a pole in only one direction. The Alternative technique requires focusing on both potential directions and is therefore far more efficient, because it is in accordance with the dual universe in which we live.

Rules

of

Behavior

Tell participants the following: In order to achieve Intensive’s goal, which is a DET for as many persons as possible, we should abide by some rules of behavior. In the old days there was a long list of rules, but now they are reduced to a minimum. There are just a few of them and they are logical. They will enable the largest possible number of you to attain a DET. 1. On the Intensive you will do only the Gnostic Intensive’s Alternative technique and never any other. Some of you practice different methods and techniques, for example, different meditations. They are usually valuable. It is quite all right to practice them when you are not on an Intensive. But when you’re on an Intensive, do only the Alternative technique and nothing else. Then I can guarantee you the greatest possible success. I will describe the technique a little later and will repeat the explanation several times during the Intensive. 2. During Intensive one doesn’t talk, except for communications during the exercises or dyads. In all other situations you must reduce talking to a minimum. You can ask another person: “Do you want to work with me?”, “Who needs a partner?” ,etc. If someone addresses you regarding something irrelevant to Intensive, simply ignore him, as if you didn’t hear anything. 3. During Intensive it is forbidden to address one’s partner directly. That’s why we use the so-called “diplomatic talk” in our communication with our partner. This means the following: during Intensive’s exercises we must always tell the truth, but while doing this we mustn’t hurt our partners or anyone else. In order to achieve this you should speak indirectly: “One person irritates me” or “Some people are dishonest”,  etc. Nobody knows whether this refers to your partner, a person in the group, the Master, assistant, your spouse, parent or someone else. 72

Manual for Masters of Gnostic Intensive 4. On Intensive you don’t listen to music, read during the breaks, take memos, smoke or do similar things. You can only eat during a break, when I allow it. That will be the break after the second exercise or dyad. Your attention should be entirely focused on Intensive’s technique and nothing else. 5. You can go to the toilet whenever you want, but you shouldn’t stay for long, because we only have one toilet (the most common scenario), and there are many of us. There are only two situations when you can’t go to the toilet: when it’s your partner’s turn to communicate and when I am speaking. Wait for your ten minutes and then go. 6. The same goes for your consultations with me. You can approach me for a consultation during your ten minutes. You can’t come while your partner is active, that is, when you should be listening to what she is saying. 7. It is your obligation to be in your place at the beginning of each exercise and when I am talking, as is the case now. 8. Persons who are in an emotional relationship – spouses, couples who are dating, siblings, etc. should not work in pairs. The best thing to do in those cases is to sit as far away from each other as possible. The only exception is the last exercise, when those persons can work together. 9. The last rule covers all possible situations. Here it is: During Intensive the Master is always right. The rule doesn’t exist so that I can mistreat you, but because unexpected situations can arise during the Intensive, when you must follow my directives. Because I and nobody else guarantees or is responsible for your success.

Gnostic Intensive’s Technique You should explain the technique with the following words: The technique is dyad and alternative. This means that it is done in dyads, that is, in pairs, and that two commands are alternately given. One partner is active, the other passive. We will determine who will be active partners at the beginning of each exercise. The passive partner gives the command to the active partner:  “Feel who you are here and now!” The active partner accepts the command, closes her eyes and searches for the object – who is she at that moment? When she finds who she is, she should try to feel herself. She will persevere in the attempt for some time – ten to fifteen seconds. Then she will open her eyes and tell her (passive) partner  everything that appeared in her mind or body as a consequence of the attempt to experience herself (and nothing else!). When doing this, she doesn’t only use words, but also gestures and mimics to express those contents. She is not allowed to be selective in her communication. She will report everything that appeared, no matter if it’s stupid, vulgar, repetitive, etc. When she is finished, she will nod her head or tell her passive partner:  “That’s it. Give me the other command.” 73

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The passive partner gives her the other (alternative) command:  “Feel who you are not here and now!” The active partner closes her eyes again and searches for an object – anything that she is not at that moment. There is a myriad of such objects. When she chooses one, she tries to feel it as completely as possible. When she opens her eyes she must communicate to her (passive) partner everything that appears in her mind, but only as a consequence of the attempt (and nothing else). She continues to work on the two alternative commands in this way until the gong sounds. The partners thank each other and then the roles change – the active partner becomes passive and the other way around. In this way they work alternately until the end of the exercise, which lasts for forty minutes in total. Then they have a five to ten minute break and proceed to the next exercise. In each new forty-minute exercise you will have a different partner. When a person is meditating, her eyes are closed. When she is communicating, they are open. She should keep an approximate balance between the time dedicated to meditation and communication. For people who work on the question   What is life?   the commands are:  “Feel what life is here and now!” and “Feel what life isn’t here and now!” For those who work on the question  What is another human being? the commands are: “Feel another human being here and now!”  and “Feel something that is not another human being here and now!” The role of the passive partner is very important. She needs to be entirely present and completely focused on her active partner, trying her best to understand her. She doesn’t do anything else. She doesn’t look around, comment on her partner’s statements or react to them. She doesn’t try to help her in any way other than what has already been said, which is, I repeat, being entirely focused on the active partner and trying to understand her communications. She is not allowed to experience her own problem, think about it or react to the contents that appear in her mind during the ten minutes belonging to the active partner. Those contents are non-existent during that ten minutes. Only her partner and her words exist during that time. Short breaks between two exercises are also filled with concentration on the object. Adhere to your questions at all times. Don’t think about what is happening at home, what you are going to do when the Intensive ends, etc. Now I will say a few words about the OBJECT of the meditation. You must first find the object – WHO YOU ARE at the given moment, WHAT LIFE IS at the given moment and WHAT ANOTHER HUMAN BEING IS at the given moment, and only then should you feel it and tell your partner what is coming up. Work without an object is prolonged and often futile. It resembles a wild goose hunt in the darkness. The hunter doesn’t see the geese while they are flying, but he shoots anyway, hoping that he will hit them. But when he works with an object, the situation is fundamentally different. The hunter sees a wild goose and aims at it before firing. By doing this he increases his chances of hitting it. Experience shows that the words added at the end of the commands “... here and now” are very important, because they prevent the participant from wandering about in his thoughts, and urge him to concentrate on the object to the highest possible degree. 74

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The Nature

of the

Direct Experience

of

Truth

Say the following: In spiritual literature you can find many descriptions of Enlightenment and its characteristics, but all authorities worth mentioning agree on one essential trait of the DET, without which it can not exist. In DET, there isn’t any difference between the subject and the object. I will explain this briefly. From birth we have countless indirect experiences. In just one day we have thousands of them. They always consist of three elements: Subject – person who has the experience Object – that which the person experiences, and Process – through which the person experiences the object. For example,I am looking at this wall(the Master should indicate the wall with his hand). That is the OBJECT.I,who am experiencing the wall, am the SUBJECT.The PROCESS of seeing exists between me and the wall.Through seeing it,I experience the wall. I will give you one more example. I am talking to you (The Master should point to one person). I am the object. You are the subject who is experiencing me. You are experiencing me through the processes of seeing, listening and understanding. However, the process of remembering can also become engaged. You can remember a person who looks like me and the things you’ve experienced in the relationship with that person. Sometimes, even the process of telepathy can become involved. No matter how subtle a process telepathy may be, it is still a process. And in the DET there isn’t a process, for in it the subject and object become one, even if for a very short while. To return to our example, intuition can also become activated in the experience. Again, no matter how subtle a process intuition is, it is still a process, whereas in the DET there isn’t a process between the subject and the object. The subject experiences its object without a process. A question often arises – why aren’t we continuously in the state of DET? The reason is simple – it is because of our spirit. The spirit is a valuable instrument for everyday life. It tells us what is good for us and what is bad, how to solve a problem and the like. But in spiritual practice the spirit is the main obstacle, for it inserts itself between us and our object and instead of a DET we get some of the spiritual masses existing in the spirit. This will be easier to understand once we define the spirit.  The spirit is the total sum of uncommunicated contents, interrupted communications, traumas, unpleasant and pleasant past experiences, gained knowledge, facts we heard from our parents, in school or those we read in books, etc. In Yoga it is called “chitta” or mental mass. Because of it, when I want to experience a person, instead of a DET of that person I get several indirect experiences my spirit automatically gives me: memories of similar people, relationships or situations, hopes, fears and similar contents, which prevent me from attaining a DET of that person. Intensive’s technique does nothing more than empty spiritual masses. At one moment spiritual masses are removed, the mind is empty and the unification of the subject and object can occur. In most cases that state is brief, but its consequences last a lifetime.

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Gnostic Intensive’s Koans You should now explain the following: There are four basic questions with which we work. They are: “Who am I?”, “What am I?”, “What is life?” and “What is another human being?” Participants on their first Intensive or those who haven’t had a DET yet, always work on the question “Who am I?” When they attain a DET on that question, they can change the question and work with “What is life?” or “What is another human being?” There are several other koans with which we work on the so-called Advanced Intensives, such as “What is love?”, “What is God?”, “What is the tip of the nose?” “What is the forehead (the place between the eyebrows, where the so-called ‘third eye’ is located)?” Groups who had been on numerous Intensives also worked successfully with Zen koans, such as “What did your face look like before your mother was born?” “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”, etc. There were participants who were trying to reach and understand the essence of a phenomenon, so they worked on the questions “What is aikido?”,  “What is bridge?” ,etc. They were always disappointed, because DET doesn’t give explanations or knowledge of phenomena. The man who worked on the bridge question had the realization “Bridge doesn’t exist!” and the man who worked on the question “What is aikido?” had a similar experience:“Aikido doesn’t exist! There is just an infinite ocean of eternity.” When a participant works on the question “What is life?”, he must find the right object, what life really is for him at that moment in time. It shouldn’t be a thought about what life is, nor a philosophy, nor what this or that thinker said about life, but WHAT LIFE REALLY IS FOR HIM AT THAT MOMENT. For example, voices in the room, warmth he feels on his hand, an image of children playing or of his friend talking to him and the like. That is exactly what he should experience – real life! The same object may persist for a long period or the object can change every few seconds. That is something the participant should not worry about – he should find what life really is for him at that moment and feel it as completely and deeply as possible. The same principle applies for the question “What is another human being?” The   question “What am I?”  differs slightly from the question “Who am I?” You should work in the same way, but you should ask yourself from time to time “Who am I?” “Who am I?” The question “Who am I?” refers to WHO I really am. The question “What am I?” refers to WHAT I am LIKE. You can give participants the following example: if you were to come into this room with a task to make two lists – one stating WHO is in the room, the other stating WHAT is in the room, you would write on the first list: Vera, Mile, Zoran, Oliver, Olga ... are in the room. On the other list you would write: “There are nine men and six women, sixteen chairs, a small table, two paintings on the wall, a window, a door... in the room”.

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Value

of

Direct Experience

of

Truth

It is important that participants realize the value of Direct Experience of Truth. Tell them: What is the value of DET? After experiencing a DET on the question “Who am I?” a person advances much faster and easier in every emotional, psychological or spiritual activity. The reason for this is simple. For the first time a person has a stable center of gravity from which he can act, a stable point of view from which he experiences himself, others and life. Until that moment those things were missing in all his experiences. For example, if he had been engaged in strenuous meditations, he hadn’t known who was meditating. Had it been his desire to be better, stronger, to have others see him in a different way, to impress his environment, to eliminate his fears or to fit into society better? But now he knows that it is he who is performing all those various activities. An activity always originates in him; he is its decisive factor. The Master asks: “Are there any questions about what I have said until now?” After he answers any questions, which he should do briefly and concisely, he should tell them: “Whoever needs to go to the toilet should go now, and then we will start working.” When everyone is present, he should say: “Find yourselves a partner!” The participants should sit, if at all possible, in rows. The Master tells them who the active partners are, and who are passive. The Master now repeats the technique one more time, concisely, and says: “Passive partners, give the command!”

Checking How

the

Participants Work

In the Gnostic Intensive the Master should start checking how the participants work as soon as possible. This usually begins with the second dyad, because there is not much time – five, sometimes even only four dyads. He asks his assistant to send him a participant or, if he works without an assistant, he approaches the participant, touches his shoulder and tells him:  “Come with me”. It is good to follow a certain order. The Master should have a list with the names of all the participants, with a short description of their appearance, unless he has a really extraordinary memory, in which case that is unnecessary. On the list the Master should note down how many Intensives the participant has undergone and, in case it is not the first one, on which question the participant is working. He should also write down the number of times he checked the work along with his observations. For example,  “She applies the technique well”, “He is not far from the Experience”, “He has trouble finding the object” ,etc. When the participant comes to you, it is always good to say:  “I want to check how you do the technique... When your partner gives you the command, what do you do? Explain it to me briefly.” The Master should follow the participant’s explanation closely and notice where he is making mistakes. In the beginning almost all participants make mistakes. When he is finished explaining how he works (if the explanation is too long you need to inter77

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rupt him kindly), you should say:  “You work quite well, but not perfectly. I want you to apply the technique perfectly, so pay attention to the following: ...”  Explain how it is done. The explanation must be very short. The most common mistake is the following. The participant says:  “I close my eyes and wait to see what will appear, and then...” In this case you should say:  “Be careful, the technique doesn’t state that you should wait to see what appears to you and then communicate it. No, the technique states that you should find who you are at that moment, and feel YOURSELF as completely as possible; to continue to feel yourself like that for 10 to 15 seconds and communicate to your partner only that which comes to you as the consequence of that attempt. Do you understand me?” Sometimes the participant elaborately describes all that appears in his mind and is often fascinated with those contents. In that case you should say: “I understand that many interesting contents come to you. But they are not very important. The most important thing is to feel the one who sees those contents (or: the one who experiences those contents), because that is you.”

Validation

of a

Direct Experience

Validation of a DET by the Master is one of the crucial elements of the Gnostic Intensive. The reason is simple – an inexperienced Master often accepts as a DET experiences which are not DET’s, but indirect experiences. Sometimes the participant has an intense experience – a catharsis after which he feels great, an insight into his past behavior, the feeling of expansion and the like, but the insights, catharses, feelings of expansion and similar experiences, even though they are significant for the participant, are not DET’s, but indirect experiences. The Master should realize whether or not the participant is in the state of DET in a direct, immediate way. But the knowledge about realizations the participant reports to him can help him to achieve that. It is important that the Master recognize that the realizations the participant experienced are not DETs. Direct Experiences are precisely what the words mean – Direct Experiences. They are neither good nor bad, beautiful or ugly. They only ARE! But since a person is a verbal being, he has the need to express what he experienced, and that is why the Master should ask him what happened, what he is feeling, etc. The simplest realization is the one the participant has on the first question – “Who am I?”  For the vast majority of human beings this realization, which the participant reports after he attains a Direct Experience, is the same:  “I am me” or  “I am XY (the participant’s name)” or “I am the one looking at you” or “I am this man here”,etc. All the realizations can be reduced to only one thing: “I AM ME!” Sometimes a participant has an intense experience which is not Direct, but he insists that it is:  “I am a Being of Light”,  “I am a Divine Being”  and the like. If that happens, the Master should say:  “Your experience is valuable, but it is not a Direct Experience of Truth. It is indirect. Continue working so you can attain a DET.” Sometimes persons come to an Intensive after other seminars and persistently adhere to the knowledge attained there. A woman approached me on an Intensive and said:  “I know who I am. I am a Being of Light.” She was unpleasantly surprised when I asked her to continue 78

Manual for Masters of Gnostic Intensive working. She called me on the phone the next day and said:  “I was in Istanbul on a seminar and there we learned from a coach, who is a great expert, that we are Beings of Light. And now you are claiming that that is not who I am.” The person had difficulties realizing that there is a difference between an indirect experience, however attractive it may be, and a Direct Experience. Naturally, the Master should not tell the participants what the realization after a DET on the question “Who am I?” is. The participant must reach it on his own. On the question “What is life?”  there are several realizations:  “Everything is life” or “There is no life”, “I am life” or “Life is!”. Sometimes it can be “Life is another human being”. Sometimes the participant is confused – on one Intensive (or on the same Intensive) he first had the realization “Everything is life” and afterward “There is no life”. But this just shows us that realizations are not DETs, but only verbal expressions of what the participant experiences at that moment. On the question “What is another human being?” the most common realizations are: “I am another human being”, “All of us together are another human being”, “Another human being is One” or “There is no another human being”. In this last case, when the participant has the realization  “There is no another human being”, the Master should do the following. He should tell the participant: “So, there is no another human being... Tell me, who exists then, who is there?”  The participants very often answer:  “Only I exist”  or “There is only me”. Then follows the final blow: “Now tell me, what is another human being?”  The participant usually says with surprise: “It is me!” The Master’s additional question should be: “When you hurt another human being, who do you hurt?” On the question “What am I?”  the participant can give you many realizations, but in about 50 percent of the cases you will receive the same answer as on question Who am I?, that is, “I am me”. The remaining 50 percent consist of various realizations which are always dramatic:  “I am everything”,  “I am life”,“I am God”,  “I am … (name of a planet)”  “I am an ocean of light”,  “I am an angel who came to the Earth”, and most commonly “I am nothing … nothingness...  emptiness”. The problem with validation of a participant’s experience lies in the fact that the realizations themselves are not a certain indicator that the participant has had a DET. Indeed, the Master should be able to judge directly or immediately whether the participant experienced Gnosis or not. The Master’s own experiences on Intensives and his memories of right and wrong judgments constitute the basis of his awareness in determining this, but insight into whether the person on whom he is focused is in the state of Truth or not surpasses the capacity of logical reasoning. If we define intuition as knowledge without contemplation, then it is an intuitive insight. The Master’s capacity for intuitive insights develops together with his spiritual level and ability to focus his attention. This ability has great value in any field of spiritual or hermetic practice, for when attention is focused, it resembles beams of sun concentrated in one spot, which can then achieve an effect they can never achieve if they are scattered. I have described an exercise for developing the ability to focus attention in a separate chapter. The Master’s pure consciousness, focused by means of conscious attention, is spontaneously drawn to the person in the group who has attained a DET or is close to it, just like a butterfly is drawn to light. From time to time the Master’s attention will 79

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be drawn, without an obvious reason, to one participant and a thought will come to him, “That person has a strange look; should I check on him?” Or the Master will become aware of having followed a participant’s behavior for a while without knowing why. Sometimes the Master will notice “something new” in a person, which apparently wasn’t present earlier. In most such cases, the persons who attracted his attention have entered the state of Gnosis or are on its threshold. This is the same mechanism by which people in similar spiritual states are drawn to each other. It also explains how a spiritual Master chooses a matured disciple and the other way around. It is a marvelous spiritual game and the Master of Intensive will be able to feel its appeal to a certain degree and in small increments. When someone is preparing to become a Master of Intensive, he expects to be told how he will know for sure who attained a DET and who didn’t. However, this expectation is not justified. There aren’t objective indicators of the state of Gnosis. In order to judge it properly, the Master must develop his abilities and gain all the necessary experiences of that kind on his own. However, there are some symptoms of the Experience of Gnosis and the less experienced the Master is, the more these signs will help him. But beware! The symptoms are only hints of a possible Experience of Gnosis, not objective proof that it actually happened.

Eliciting

a

DET

from the participant

In the West a belief is spread that in the East a disciple can  recognize  with absolute certainty  an Experience  when he attains it.  That is not true,  or at least not in the majority of cases.  The disciple needs to  talk to the Master in order to grasp the situation in which he has found himself. The Master eliminates the fog from the disciple’s consciousness by means of a short talk, usually only a few questions. When the Master sees that an Intensive participant is in the state of DET without being aware of it, what follows is a very efficient method for dealing with it. The Master should tell the participant: “Now I will ask you something, and you must answer me IMMEDIATELY, without thinking. Do you understand me – instantly!” When the participant agrees, the Master looks him in the eye for a few moments and then tells him in an ordinary voice: “Tell me... who are you?” Between the first part of the question (“Tell me... ” ) and the second part (“... who are you?) there should be a pause of 2 to 3 seconds. If the participant does not offer the right answer, e.g., “I am me” or a variant of that answer, the Master should just say: “Go back to your place and continue working.” There are some simple tricks that help the participant to become aware of the state he is in. For example, the Master can tell him to close his eyes, and then he can pull slightly on the tip of the participant’s nose and ask: “Who is feeling this?” Or, while explaining his experience, if the participant says  “I... and then...”, the Master can ask him, emphasizing his words: “Why did you say I?” These and similar tricks help the participant by removing the veil from his clear consciousness to reveal that he is the one experiencing it all. 80

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The Final Speech When the last gong sounds, the Master should say to the participants:  “Turn towards me. I have some things to tell you.” The speech should be short, because the participants are impatient to share their experiences with others. What the Master will say is up to him. It is necessary that he thank the organizer of the Intensive, his assistants and all the participants that took part in it. The last few sentences should make a strong impact: “You had valuable experiences and you came closer to yourselves. You should continue with your spiritual development in any way possible. Maybe we’ ll meet again sometime.”

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INDIVIDUAL GNOSTIC INTENSIVE

T

hree years after introducing the Alternative technique into the Gnostic Intensive, I developed the Individual Gnostic Intensive (IGI). I was able to do this because I had previously created the DP-4 method, which has amazing application possibilities and great potential for further development. The Individual Intensive is only one of them. It is a combination of Intensive’s Alternative technique and the DP-4 method in working with individuals. Persons who are not acquainted with the DP-4 method should attend a one-day workshop for mastering it. In regard to the time necessary to attain a Direct Experience, IGI is very efficient. When Berner’s Intensive was dominant it was difficult to conceive, even with the greatest leap of imagination, that such efficiency could be possible. But it is easy to explain how it became possible. I will remind you that, while explaining his Intensive technique, Berner pointed out the simple fact that the main objective of that process is destruction of spiritual masses separating man from his object. His technique was at the time a great step forward towards increased efficiency. Where Berner had stopped I was able to continue. Application of the DP-4 to Intensive’s technique brings about extremely fast destruction, dissolution and elimination of the mental masses that separate man from his object, so that nowadays a Direct Experience can be attained in the Individual Gnostic Intensive in 15 to 30 minutes. The longest individual process I have led thus far lasted for 45 minutes. I believe that the reason it lasted so long is the fact that the person was a Slovenian, who didn’t fully understand the Serbian language, in which I led the process. When a client who wants to work on removal of his problems in more than one session first comes to me, I usually begin with the IGI. The reason for this is simple. I have already pointed it out – when a person realizes directly who he is, he advances much more easily and quickly in all other psychological, emotional, and spiritual processes. The IGI shares its basic elements with the group Gnostic Intensive with the Alternative technique. At the beginning it is necessary to explain the key elements to the person with whom you are working individually: What is the Direct Experience of Truth? What are its important characteristics? W hat emotional charges (e.g., spiritual masses) are preventing us from experiencing the DET? W hich four elements constitute a mental mass and what happens when the client confronts them? (They disappear.) Which two points on the face do we use in the IGI? 83

Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski

Gnostic Intensive

The same examples as the ones used in the group Intensive should be given. The Master (or instructor) can give the Client the same examples that are mentioned in the group Intensive. This is what it would look like: An important characteristic of the Direct Experience is the disappearance of differences between the subject and the object. What separates them are spiritual masses, that is, the emotional charge existing on them. The Alternative technique of the Gnostic Intensive eliminates the energetic charge that separates us from our objects (ourselves, life, and other human beings). It would be ideal if we could experience Truth directly all the time, but whenever we try to, the energetic charge inserts itself between us and the object on which we are focused, causing separation. When an Intensive practitioner moves to and fro between polarities, they lose their charge, soften, dissolve and finally, melt together. This enables the practitioner to neutralize polarities and transcend them. Before a Direct Experience happens, the energetic charge that separated the subject from the object is emptied, so that the subject and object can unify in the Direct Experience. Over the years I have been improving this technique so that now, when it is done individually with a client, it is possible to bring him to a DET in 15 to 30 minutes. In IGI the same questions are used as in the group Intensive. Recently, people who worked on defining the opposite sex have had significant experiences. For men the question is:  ”What is a woman?” For women, “What is a man?” Before you start the process, ask the client: “Do you know who you are?” If you can tell from the answer that the person knows who he is, you should not work on the question “Who am I?”, but ask him instead:  “Do you know what life is?” or  “Do you know what another human being is?” If you determine from the answers that the person has clear awareness regarding these questions, do not proceed with the work. This seldom happens, but due to the opening of the Collective Consciousness of mankind, it does happen more and more often. If the person does not know who he is, or offers answers which are learned (indirect experiences) you should start the process, applying the Alternative technique and the DP-4 method. The client should keep his eyes closed. He should alternately place two fingers on the first two points on his face. 1. Feel who you are, here and now, and report to me the four elements you experience: image, emotion, physical sensation and thought (with two fingers on the first left point). 2. Feel who you are not, here and now, and give me the four elements: image, emotion, physical sensation and thought (with two fingers on the first right point). Even if you work without touching the points, the result will be good. Repeat the first and the second phase until most elements disappear. When the contents of the mind are emptied and the client begins to give answers related to himself or his body, you can gently pull the tip of his nose (while his eyes are closed) and 84

Individual Gnostic Intensive ask:  “Who is feeling this?” In many religious traditions the tip of the nose is considered the last point of contact of the body and soul at the moment of death, and therefore this act helps to remove the last remains of energetic charge from the Direct Experience. In everyday life, Serbs sometimes say  “My soul is in my nose” in the sense of  “I’m at my last gasp”. If the client answers the question “Who is feeling this?” with “I am”, the instructor should continue with the process as if nothing significant has happened. Sometimes the client answers “My nose is feeling it” or “My body is feeling it”. When the processor sees that the client is close to a DET, he should ask the client to open his eyes and he should tell him: “I will ask you something now, and you should answer me momentarily – without thinking. Do you understand?”  Then he should ask him in a normal voice: “Tell me, who are you?” Realizations are the same as on the group Intensive: “I am me”, “I am... (his/her name)”, “I am the one sitting here,” “I am the one looking at you” ,etc.

Stabilization

of the

Experience

The instructor can ask the client:  “Are you satisfied that you are you, and not someone else?” “Can you be someone else, and not yourself?” “Imagine that you are in your early childhood. Does your experience ‘I am me’ exist in that state as well?” “Imagine that you are now 10 or 15 years old. Is the experience that you are you still there?” “Now imagine that you are old – 70 or 80 years old. Will you still know that you are you, or will you forget that?” Now you should do the six-direction expansion in the following way: “Feel ‘I am me’ and imagine that that feeling of yourself is spreading like a wave in front of you infinitely.” “Feel ‘I am me’ and imagine that the feeling of your Self is spreading like a wave behind you infinitely.” “Feel ‘I am me’ and imagine that that feeling of yourself is spreading like a wave to your left, into infinity.” “Feel that the feeling ‘I am me’ is spreading like a wave to your right, far, far away.” “Feel that the feeling ‘I am me’ is spreading like a wave upwards, above you, far, far away.” “Feel that the feeling ‘I am me’ is spreading below you, into the depth.” “And now, feel that the feeling ‘I am me’ is spreading in all directions simultaneously – in front and behind you, to your left and right, above and below you”. Let the client remain in that state for 10 to 20 seconds and then ask him: “How do you feel now?” 85

Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski

Gnostic Intensive

The same expansion procedure should be applied after experiencing a DET on other koans. The Master can also apply the expansion procedure on a group Intensive, if there is time.

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SELF-REALIZATION AND THE DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF TRUTH

T

he usual human experiences are often scant, partial, incomplete and lacking clarity and abundance of details. In contrast to those are the experiences a human has as a whole, undivided being, liberated from the Ego, space and time. Abraham Maslow, the creator of humanistic psychology, named such experiences, which are followed by a feeling of awe of life, admiration, emotional exaltation and bliss, “peak experiences”. They are altered states of mind with a partial or complete mystical cognizance of one’s unity with the cosmos, followed by an awareness of its fateful significance. Maslow believed that dynamically oriented psychology and psychotherapy have come to a standstill due to exclusively studying sick personalities. He began studying emotionally and spiritually healthy persons in order to determine which traits make them so. He determined that the dominant trait of such persons is self-actualization. He carefully studied the lives of self-actualized people and historical figures such as Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Goethe, Franklin, Haydn, and Walt Whitman, who had emphatically sought self-actualization. Those were persons whose dominant aspiration was self-actualization, which he defined as “ongoing actualization of potentials, capacities and talents, as fulfillment of mission (or call, fate, destiny, or vocation), as a fuller knowledge of, and acceptance of, the person’s own intrinsic nature, as an unceasing trend toward unity, integration or synergy within the person”. The aspiration for self-actualization springs from the very core of the human being. We could say that it is an irresistible striving to become more and more that which a person can become. Maslow noticed that such persons, whom he calls  self-actualizers,  have a tendency to experience sudden states of exaltation and happiness. In the beginning he had called those states mystical, but later he used the term I have mentioned – “peak experiences”, because he realized that they are a normal form of experience in healthy, creative persons. They happen seldom, but have a long-lasting effect on personality. By analyzing those experiences in many people, Maslow determined their main characteristics. One feels much more integrated than in other life experiences. One feels an exceptionally profound and strong interconnection with the world and at the peak of her/his psychological powers. One experiences her/himself as a responsible, active and creative center of her/his own activities. One is free of blockades, inhibitions, fears and inferiority. One acts absolutely spontaneously and is much more creative than in normal circumstances, because her/his psychological and emotional contents come out of her/him without inhibitions. 87

Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski

Gnostic Intensive

One experiences the world dually in the sense that s/he simultaneously feels that s/he is more closely connected with the world and others and that s/he is a complete individual. A strong experience of “here and now” is present, because the person is free from the influence of the past and fears of the future. A feeling of childlike happiness and noble humor arises – a tendency to experience the world as a place of fun, a scene of an eternal game. Finally, in most cases a peak experience is not predictable, nor is it the result of an intention. It catches one off-guard. Not all the mentioned characteristics are present in every peak experience. That is why Maslow divided peak experiences according to the characteristics they contain into several kinds, two of which are dominant. In the experience we can call mysticalphilosophical, the world is perceived as an indivisible whole, as the infinite One. In the affectionate-aesthetic experience the unified world is also present, but so is the ultimate experience of the essence of love and beauty. One of the most prominent traits of a self-actualizer seems paradoxical, difficult to understand. It is the lack of egotism, and an orientation toward solving other people’s problems. Such persons aspire to actualize themselves through others. Creativity in either science and art, or in approaches to everyday or “trivial” activities, can also be observed in them. Where the world is entirely explored, well-known, flat and impoverished for others, the self-actualizers continuously discover something new, interesting and unique. Self-actualizers also have a much greater capacity for love, or the ability to give and accept love; they are capable of loving more deeply and completely and of maintaining profound emotional relationships. Self-actualizing persons are not immune to personality flaws, anxieties and fears. But in such people they are caused by objectively existing problems, not by distorted perceptions of reality, which is characteristic of neurotics. Sometimes they are also blunt and rough. If a long-time friend deceives them, they are capable, despite their great tolerance, of parting ways with him abruptly and without sentimentality. Many people suppress from their minds peak experiences they have had. When Maslow discussed peak experiences with his students, some of them remembered having them in the past, but they had suppressed and forgotten  them. Also, after those discussions, some people who had never had peak experiences before began having them from time to time, because now they were open to such experiences as valuable and normal. In the context of DET, it is most significant that many self-actualizers attained a peak experience, mystical experience, “oceanic feeling”, or a feeling of becoming one with the whole world, cosmos or nature. The question presents itself: Is the experience Maslow calls peak experience identical to the Direct Experience of Truth? Based on the characteristics of those experiences it would be justified to say that the peak experience Maslow describes represents a wider category which encompasses a much larger and not as distinct area of spiritual experiences. Peak experience comprises many strong experiences which have permanent consequences for the future life of the individual and his life orientation. They can be deep insights, ecstasies, states of extremely sharp perception, or states of great openness to oneself, other beings and the world.

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Self-realization and the Direct Experience of Truth Some peak experiences really are DET’s, but not all of them. In other words, these two kinds of experiences can be identical, but are not necessarily so. A DET has a narrower and more specific meaning. The basic criterion for judging whether they are identical is directness of experience; that is, whether the subject and the object became one, so that there isn’t a difference between them. Making an estimation based on that rule, I will repeat that some peak experiences are DET’s and some are not, although they are always experiences of great, sometimes authentic significance for the individual. I must emphasize this in the context of this book, because on a Gnostic Intensive participants have a variety of experiences, although the main goal of Intensive is to enable them to have a DET. Some Intensive participants have experiences Maslow would call peak experiences. Does such an experience turn a participant who was up to that moment “ordinary” into a self-actualizer? The answer is affirmative in most cases. If someone completes a series of Intensives, he manifests characteristics of a self-actualizing person ever more clearly and distinctly. These characteristics are not built into him from the outside – no, the tendencies and traits which were deeply suppressed up to that moment begin to rise to the surface of the consciousness and materialize with increasing clarity. As far as I know, there is only one study on how DET’s influence the individuals dedicated to Intensives. For her graduation thesis, a student of psychology on the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia), Ljubica Kolmačić, researched the differences in personality of persons who went to several Intensives and those who did not. The thesis was entitled  Personality traits, values and self-image of persons who use the technique of Enlightenment Intensive as a self-actualizing technique.  The research showed a statistically significant difference in favor of the persons dedicated to Intensives. This is in accordance with Maslow’s conclusion that such experiences leave a permanent impression on the individual, changing him for the better. It is also logical, because a DET can be both spiritually developmental and therapeutic. It has a tendency to strengthen a person’s free will, determination, creativity and compassion. Maslow’s research points out that there is no sharp, forever determined boundary between self-actualizing and “ordinary” people. Every human being is a self-creator, and whether he attains actualization or not depends not so much on circumstances as on free will and personal courage. What Maslow did not have time to research is nowadays pointed out by various schools of transpersonal psychology and systems for expanding consciousness, one of which is the Gnostic Intensive. They conclude that people can have peak experiences in a predictable manner within a practically developed system; they can become persons who walk on the path of self-actualization without exhibiting dramatic external changes. Based on my experience, I can say that the Gnostic Intensive and other systems of spiritual technology are the simplest roads to peak experiences. They are the pathways of self-actualization. That conclusion presents itself because while these systems are followed, they engage the whole person. When a person engages in an array of courses of this kind, dedicating himself to them completely, he transforms from a traveler who walks on the path of self-actualization into the Path itself. He and the Path become One. Sri Aurobindo speaks of the process simply and beautifully, telling us to invest all we have – that is the beginning; invest all we do – that is the path; and invest all we are – that is the fulfillment.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Philip Kapleau: The Wheel of Life and Death, London ,1989 Philip Kapleau: Three Pillars of Zen, Zen Center, 1980 Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski: “Priručnik za Majstore Intenziva Gnoze” (Manual for Masters of Gnostic Intensive) Beograd, 1993 Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski:  “Susreti sa Istinom: Intenziv Prosvetljenja” ( Encounters with Truth: Enlightenment Intensive) Beograd, 1985 Charles Berner: Intensive Masters Training Course (audiotapes), St.Helena, 1978 Živorad Mihajlović Slavinski: The Return to Oneness (e-book), Beograd, 2005 Heinrich Dumoulin: Zen Enlightenment, New York, 1979 Katsuki Sekida: Zen Training: Methods and Philosophy, New York, 1975

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