The Avatar Times

exploring consciousness
issue twenty-five

The Avatar materials are designed and intended to be an effective means for inspiring the realizations and changes that will move you toward a stable spiritual awakening. They should be considered as means (tools), rather than doctrines.

Expected Results (Part I)

by Harry Palmer 

How do you achieve enlightenment?

Siddhartha Gautama lived in the forest, and then he moved to the city, lived there for a while, and then he moved to a mountain, lived there for a while, and then he moved to a river and lived beside the river for a while. Finally, under a banyan tree, he achieved a state of perfect enlightenment, and was henceforth called the Buddha.

So it seems to me that the path is pretty simple. First you live in the forest, then move to the city, then go live on a mountain, then live along a river, and then look for a banyan tree.

No? Then I guess it wasn't where Buddha was living that was important. What was important was that certain realizations and transformations were happening to him that culminated in his enlightenment. How does a spiritual path bring about these realizations and transformations leading to enlightenment?

Most spiritual paths employ various instructions, teaching techniques, rituals, and individual practices. Together these constitute the tools of a spiritual path. Some paths are more effective than others, and some paths are more personally suited to some mindsets than others. If a tool is used properly, it either produces the expected results or it doesn't. Of course, tools have other qualifying factors: ease of use, speed of result, effort involved, cost involved, and in some cases, avoidance of collateral damage.

The Avatar tools rate favorably in all categories and are remarkably effective considering the general mental condition of the people to which they are being introduced.

If you examine the current state of the world, you will find that most people are reacting according to deeply indoctrinated beliefs. Some will argue that they are not reacting and are making free will choices, but the truth is that past conclusions and old fears make most of their decisions. Nearly everyone is operating according to someone else's rules rather than their own intuitive principles. People live in what was, and they selectively perceive only enough of the present to excite their conclusions about things. The major aspiration is to be right rather than to be aware.

In this compulsive commerce of approval, most interactions are consciously or unconsciously manipulative. Most are governed by praise (pleasure) or criticism (pain). What people do and say to each other creates reactions. If the experience of the reaction is considered pleasurable, attachment develops. If the experience of the reactions is considered painful, resistance develops.

The same experience may affect different people differently. People's considerations of what is painful and what is pleasurable follow patterns created by their beliefs and memories of past experiences. If you traced the considerations of pain and pleasure all the way back to their roots, you would most likely find them associated with survival concerns: food, shelter, and reproduction.

At the present time, most of human consciousness operates like a roll of exposed film. It seldom pictures the world moment to moment as it is, but carries around pictures of what the world was like. Individuals wrestle with the fears and sufferings of the past-obstructions that rightly should be assigned to history and left there.

So this is how we begin.

The sections of Avatar are designed to encourage the realizations and changes that a person must go through to move from a life of indoctrinated responses into a life of living deliberately. The necessary realizations and changes are not the same for everyone.

Also the realizations and changes are not a straight line or an exact series of steps. Instead, they follow a winding path of necessarily unique experiences that sometimes nurture the ego self, sometimes a compassionate self, and slowly or suddenly, arrive at an experience of spiritual self. It may sound like a linear process, but it seldom is.

Yes, word lessons can be presented as a straight path to understanding enlightenment, chapter following chapter, but world lessons wander; life stops to explore. It loses it place. It falls down, runs into walls, sheds tears, and then has a good laugh as it gets up and brushes itself off. If only perfect people could experience enlightenment, very few would arrive.

Progress does not always mean that you are moving in the direction of being more compassionate, righteous, or spiritual. The unique experience you need might be painful or destructive. Sometimes the next lesson is negative, or ego strengthening, or overwhelming. Unless you are able to live a cloister life, your spiritual tools need to work on practical matters as well as metaphysical matters.

As an aside, religions tend to stall out around the high points of a spiritual path. These hesitations can be obstructions to moving forward. Sometimes a parishioner has to fall into sin and be excommunicated before he or she can move on. The last step before personal freedom may be to commit an unpardonable sin in your faith. The transgressions, honestly confronted, transform your judgments into compassion and empathy for others: Someone who always acts kindly has trouble understanding someone who fails to act kindly; not doing good might seem unforgivable to someone who always does good.

In the next issue of the Avatar Times I am going to take you through the sections of Avatar one by one and roughly describe the changes that are expected to occur in each section. But let me caution you, reading about these changes, even in detail, is not the same as experiencing them.

The Story of The Avatar Course

Are the results of Avatar permanent?

That is up to you. Life is change. I don't think you would be happy with any state of mind or experience that never changed. Avatar is more about managing change than stopping it. The expected results of the Avatar Course are skills using a set of tools. Skills tend to last a long time. I can still ride a bike, still swim, and these are things that I learned long ago.

Extraordinary Moments

I realized on this course, how I have handed over responsibilities to others in my life and then blamed them when I thought things had gone wrong. I now realize that I only did what would make me look good at the expense of what I felt in my heart. I also held the belief that everyone disapproves of me and so when I worked through these beliefs, I realized that I can do it all! 

I feel like I can really stretch myself and contribute in a real way to awakening others and creating an enlightened planetary civilization^®.

This course has taken me out of my box and I now know that I am responsible for it all. I can now stretch my wings.  Thank you Harry, Avra, Trainers, and all at Star's Edge. – D.M.

I finally have caught an experiential glimpse of the gravity of the situation with the humans and the insanity Harry speaks of. I understand why there is an archetype of the sorcerer/priest/Jedi Knight in the fight against darkness. Along the lines of Harry's last talk, it has become a commercialized meaningless story. But it is not a story. Fortifying the viewpoint of vulnerability and Higher Self while resisting darkness is the good fight. Strengthening responsibility and using compassion as our swords. The battle in withstanding and using suffering as a tool to temper ourselves to bring us into higher modes is the fight of good. The darkness of the ego and the other destructive default mechanisms are pervasive and real. And even in this, there is the wisdom of allowing it to be okay, to trust in the flow, which must be balanced with the notion of the good fight. To be compassionate with ourselves as evolving creatures, and with others in this shared consciousness is the only way the changes can be affected. To appreciate the creations of "others" being also ours, to embrace those that "know not what they do", with love – Wizards. Deliberate Love. – D.D.

After the Avatar Course, my viewpoints or my feelings about the objects is changed. Before doing the Avatar Course, I often see the objects with negative viewpoint but after the course I can see the objects just as it is. I often gave up what I felt I couldn't do, but now I have the confidence to face it more and more. – J.S.B.

It was amazing to see how much free attention and energy I had after I discovered my secrets and hidden agendas. Understanding how assumed and projected identities work made me realize that there are no more excuses for victimhood and/or making others Source over me. I am the only one responsible for my life.

One of the most amazing experiences in all courses is how, sometimes, within minutes, complete strangers are turned into friends for life.

After the EHP, I realized everything is possible. BRING IT ON!!! –A.G.

For more "extraordinary moments" from Avatar students, please visit AvatarResults.com

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With Avatar everyone wins. Every person who becomes an Avatar shifts the collective consciousness toward greater tolerance and understanding. Helping yourself with Avatar helps everyone else at the same time. – Harry Palmer

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