Thursday, October 16, 2008

Do spiritual experiences remove ego?

I have had several spiritual experiences in my life and I am grateful for having them as they given me moments of joy, however, they did not last and I am still back to square one. What gives?

Spiritual experiences can be wonderful and uplifting temporarily but the ego rises again to applaud itself for having them. It believes it has attained something and that's why we go back to square one.
Realizations that last are often facing our biggest fears and sufferings. Here are some examples...
I used to be a physiotherapist in Toronto and was unhappy with trying to please the clients according to my boss to keep them as members in our exclusive health club. Then one morning I had a vision of a beautiful old man before going to work. It was vivid and momentarily disorienting. Soon I began to believe that it was a form of hallucination triggered by my growing frustration. Six months later I saw his face in a book cover by the name of Sri Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi and knew, then and there, that we are eternal beings. I quit my position and retired to a basement to reflect on this. I started teaching soon after and founded the Unitrust Foundation in Toronto. This spiritual vision, although life-changing, did not erase my ego. In fact after writing a book "Be Aware - Be Free" and appearing on TV plus giving numerous classes I, somehow, strenghtened my ego.
After this so-called success I got married to a student and travelled to Vancouver. I worked at UBC the first couple of months but she left me to go back to Toronto to her famly. I was left penniless and being devastated couldn't work. I felt all alone. In this gut-wrenching loneliness I turned to Bhagavan and this surrender turned out to be my very real first realization. I was leaning against a bookshelf when a book fell on my lap and opened on page four where I read, "When the teacher of God is ready the students will appear." This book was the manual for teachers in a "Course in Miracles." It was soon after that I was teaching A Course in Miracles.
A couple of years later I met Sivia and she moved in with me. These first few years were filled with emotional turmoil. It was meeting this emotional upheaval that my second realization happened. It was the year 2000 and suddenly I was faced with the knowing that I am a human being. A Being playing the human role of Burt. This recognition was so overwhelming that everything became crystal-clear -- How the human is a becoming process filled with necessary egoic pain while the real goal of human life was to discover the Being that was always eternally here-now.
At this point I gave satsangs at my place.
My third realization happened when I suffered blood poisoning and was dying. I faced the possibility of death while I didn't want to leave Sivia. Suddenly a cloud burst at the hospital where I was and it was filled with so much love and joy that Burt disappeared. Everything was seen as one Being -- warm, loving, euphoric Being. A few months later I quit giving satsangs and retired to giving Supersentience sessions one-on-one and answering email questions worldwide.
The reason I have told you all this is to show you that lasting realizations happen when we face our greatest fears and trust our true inner nature. Pleasant spiritual insights, although wonderful, do not last because the ego is still in control.
With love always, Burt




Saturday, October 04, 2008

How to love yourself!

You often talk about loving yourself but isn't that dualistic? I mean doesn't it have a selfish tinge to it?

When you love yourself you will discover that it is the most unselfish thing in life. I have conducted hypnotherapy for well over thirty years (which I call Supersentience). In these years I have learned one outstanding truth and it is this...

You don't need to change yourself -- you need to love yourself!!

Picture the vast ocean as Life itself. Now seeing this vast ocean imagine the billions of surface waves and each wave believes it is different and separate. Now, what if each wave would want to belong, to feel its wholeness with the ocean and cry out in its loneliness because it feels separate from it? Isn't this scenario rather absurd when the wave is part of the ocean and the ocean itself? This is what happens through unawareness of our wholeness with Life, we feel separate and thus suffer emotional pain. Everyone who has not discovered their true nature suffers somewhat from an empty feeling (a sinking feeling) as if something is wrong. All emotional suffering stems from this lack of wholeness, love, oneness.
When we feel this emptiness inside us we automatically start seeking love. We seek love through neediness, wanting to belong, approval, acceptance from others, needing to feel important, recognized, respected but, the paradox is, that the more we seek love the more we convince ourselves we are NOT love. This increases our self-concern, our selfishness, it makes us want to feel as the center of the universe. This need makes us wake up mornings feeling miserable, empty and afraid of life. We do not realize we are denying the very wholeness we are. We are like the wave that wants to belong to the ocean but feels separate from it. It doesn't yet see how absurd and redundant that suffering is -- this is called self-sabotage or self-punishment. We are seeking ourselves believing we are someplace else. Thus we deny our oneness with life and become dysfunctional. To repeat, all emotional suffering from simple psychological fear to deep anxiety and loneliness is nothing more than ignorance of our true nature of oneness.
To love yourself means to connect with your own BEING nature which is LIFE itself. It is allowing the wave in you to recognize the ocean.
Here's how to return to loving YOU. Take the following steps:
1. Acknowledge the pain you are causing yourself by staying with the gut-wrenching feeling or heaviness in your chest etc and then either lying down or seated, place your hands over the area of your body that you feel this fear and anxiety and say, "I LOVE YOU!" -- say it a few times meaning it and feeling its flavor. Then...
2. Forgive your self judgments and ego-preoccupation known as self-concern. Follow this forgiveness with yet another dose of "I LOVE YOU!" When you start feeling relaxed do the next thing...
3. Say to yourself with a smile on your face, "Thank you!" Feel the gratitude of having the courage and foresight and intelligence to do this self-acceptance.
After a few attempts at this you will begin to feel the grace taking over your life. A shift will take place where all sef-concern will abate and in its stead you will genuinely begin to feel a love that is truly heart-warming.