Personal Invitation to Participate in the
Work of Integrative Awakening
Tenderness, intimacy, and awakening...As we navigate our awareness through the layers of fear and misperception which obscure our Essence, we touch the Heart, the True Self. As we learn to assimilate this experience of Heart directly into our body, without contracting in fear, we begin to know authentically who we are. As we learn to share this experience with another, this is tenderness, this is intimacy, this is awakening.
For those of you who may be interested in participating in the work of Integrative Awakening, this is a very special opportunity. Using the wisdom of Buddhist and Hindu teachings, as well as somatic and spiritual psychology, we bring these teachings down out of the conceptual realm and into a direct, bodily, and personal experience. This work is not about offering more intellectual, new age, or spiritual concepts to fill the mind. The group work of Integrative Awakening is dedicated to the direct experience of embracing all aspects of our humanness without resistance, and guiding a person directly into the experience of the Heart, the Soul; our True Nature. This work is not mystical; it is practical, grounded, and completely natural! In Buddhist teachings, it is said that awakening and freedom from suffering are simply our natural and effortless state of being.
All of us want to be more emotionally stable, compassionate with ourselves and others, and integrated psychologically, but what does this experience feel like in the body? Most of us only have a conceptual reference point for this experience in our minds, not within our bodily experience. We also want the transformation, awakening, and enlightenment we hear and read about so often, but what does the experience of awakening actually feel like as a grounded reality in our body? In this work, we bring psychological integration and spiritual awakening out of the conceptual/intellectual domain and into our own direct experience. Psychological integration and awakening are absolutely possible, however, we need to learn how to locate, recognize, and feel this Reality viscerally in the body and heart.
This work is not about offering some new, quick psychological or spiritual fix. The work of Integrative Awakening is deep, mature, gradual, and very real. Through this work, we learn to navigate our “feeling awareness” deep into the body and heart. In this way, we are able to locate the actual cognitive and feeling misperceptions of reality which were causing our confusion, anger, pain, and suffering. When we are able to actually locate, embrace, and understand the psychological and spiritual dynamics of our misperceptions, then we can transform them. This is the true inner work that brings lasting and profound results.
The work of Integrative Awakening is about True Intimacy and Relationship. Understanding and directly experiencing how to be in a loving and wise relationship with one’s own body and heart, we cultivate true intimacy. From cultivating this ‘primary relationship’ with ourselves, we can bring more intimacy into our relationships with others. However, the cultivation of true intimacy does not happen by simply reading pop psychology books about intimacy. True intimacy comes when we are willing to go deeply and intimately into our own being; touching and embracing what we have denied and resisted in our humanness. True intimacy comes when we learn to open to the direct experience of our Essence, our Soul, our Feeling Heart. Integrative Awakening is about bringing our human self and our Soul or Essence into harmonious union. This is also known as the integration of personality and soul.
It is my hope that those who are sincere and dedicated to the path of awakening and truth will come together as a group to participate in this work. Through my years of teaching and facilitating, I have found there is a profound transformational power available when we learn, love, and open together in a group format. In the East, this is referred to as Satsang; a gathering dedicated to the Truth within us.
Like a tender lover, the wisdom and compassion of awareness offers the most
intimate embrace. As we allow ourselves to embrace our human experience with
the wisdom and compassion of awareness, we are choosing openness,freedom,
and truth, rather thanfear, conflict,and misperception.
The words in the paragraph above are not poetic, nor are they symbolic. These words are not being used for the purpose of entertainment or show. The words in the paragraph above describe an exact psychological and spiritual map—a way of being that releases us from the unconscious war within ourselves. However, to find this map, this way of being, within the domain of our perceptions, feelings, and direct bodily experience is an art that needs to be cultivated. We must realize that unconsciously, most of us are resisting and fighting with our human experience. In many unconscious and subtle ways we are also resisting the radiance of love and intimacy that is attempting to enter our human experience through our heart.
We have all read and studied great teachings of truth in books and scriptures. However, applying these great truths in a way that they become authentic and real for us still remains a challenge for most of humanity. We are in the evolutionary process of learning how to apply the truth to our emotional and bodily experience. Our habitual behavior is so deeply embedded in the unconscious that it can be challenging to actually contact these levels of our being and transform the patterns.
Using our own compassionate awareness for navigating through the body, as we contact these points of resistance somatically and viscerally, we can then finally transform these deeply embedded habitual misperceptions of reality. We can finally begin to dissolve fear, aversion, and inner conflict and make the choice to open the heart and body. This is the art of somatic navigation—also known as the path of awakening!
One can obviously engage in this transformational work alone. This is the way yogis, saints, and sages have accomplished awakening for centuries. However, this may not always be the easiest way to proceed. In this time period of human evolution, psycho-spiritual initiation and awakening is a group process. We can accomplish this Great Work together and assist each other on the path if we understand the psychological and spiritual map of awakening.
I have been working with groups of people and individuals for over 25 years. In offering the work of Integrative Awakening, people have had the direct experience that transformation and awakening does not have to take place through trauma, crisis, or endless emotional processing. It can be a very gentle and loving experience. When the wisdom and compassion of the heart guides the process of healing and awakening, we can accomplish this with the gentleness that is only known by the Heart.
Topics We Will Cover for the
Integrative Awakening Weekend
Much of the work of Integrative Awakening is deeply experiential.
However, we will be opening “experiential doorways” through the following subjects:
The Actual Bodily Location of Awakening!
Relaxing Into Awakening
Cultivation of One’s Primary Relationship
True Intimacy
Opening to, Understanding and Assimilating
Soul Essence or Heart Radiance
Retrieval and Integration of Personal Power
Recognizing and Understanding the Psycho-dynamics of Our Unconscious ‘Avoidance Dramas’
Emotional Sobriety
Ending Our Internal Conflict:
Exploring Right Relationship with the Ego
Descension Into Our Primal Humanness
The Actual Esoteric Nature of this Work:
Bringing the Christ Self or Soul into Conscious Embodiment
Focus of the Work
Living Dharma Satsang and the work of Psycho-Spiritual Integrative Awakening is not for those who want excitement, entertainment, or who want more intellectual information to add to their mind. This work is not about trying to feel good by having a new experience; it is about having a Direct Experience of Self—one that brings deep transformation. This work is about feeling what is Real, it is about coming into emotional sobriety and awakening. We do this by learning how to “feel into the body” and by learning how to “open the body and heart to the Intimate Embrace of Awareness (Soul/Heart) Itself.” This work is for those who are truly dedicated to inner growth and to the True Fire of Intimacy.
* Supporting and facilitating each participant to have a direct “feeling experience” of awakening (Soul or Christ Self) in the body. This exploration will be done through “feeling navigation.” In a very gentle, noninvasive manner, together as a group, each participant will be totally supported in finding/feeling, in the body, the subtle somatic/visceral veils that obscure their deeper awakening.
* Navigating the Evolution of the Heart
* Descending into our Humanness
* True Intimacy: What is it? The truth of Intimacy is very simple, but easily misinterpreted. Each of us has our own ways of avoiding intimacy, and this avoidance has become deeply unconscious and socially acceptable. We will explore what True Intimacy really is...not by intellectual discussions that only add to the glut of information, but by going into the Fire of the Direct Experience!
* We will explore exactly what the Substance and True Function of Ego or Personality (our own Humanness) really is. We will learn how to end our inner conflict and battle with the Ego. Much of the suffering and confusion we experience is either a conscious or unconscious battle with the substance of our own Ego or Personality (our own human experience). This is very important work. Awakening cannot take place without this foundational understanding.
* Descending into and embracing our Core Humanness: Conscious Embodiment. Spiritual experiences are nice but they always come and go, and are not the necessary foundation for a fully embodied awakening. Each participant will be supported in building the “foundation of awakening” by descending into the deeper layers of the feeling body (emotional body), in a way of compassionate meditative awareness. In this way of navigation, a person is fully self-empowered to sense, feel, and gain insight into the core psycho-spiritual dynamics of their own life challenges. This brings about the only true and lasting transformation. In this way, one also learns one of the most important tools for continuing the work of psychological and spiritual evolution and awakening on their own.
* Touching our Aloneness. Touching aloneness is a foundation for true intimacy and psychological and spiritual maturity. Until we touch and embrace our aloneness without denial and resistance, we are still engaging in behavior that shows the symptoms of our unconscious avoidance of being alone and feeling lonely. If we fear feelings of aloneness, then we will act in ways that betray our own heart or cause suffering to ourselves and others.
* Exact instructions for true meditation will be offered. Most people do not know what meditation actually is, nor do they know how to meditate. Participants will be shown a very basic, uncomplicated program for meditation according to 2500 years of the Buddhist meditation tradition.
* Time will be given to personal questions and specific needs if people have pressing life challenges. There will be ample time given to individual needs. Participants will be assisted in navigating and transforming personal life challenges, and for supporting full self empowerment, they will be educated in this navigation process while it is taking place.
* For those interested, we can also approach the subject of Sacred Sexuality: Sexuality, Intimacy, and Awakening. We can explore how sexuality can evolve along with and be used to support one’s process of awakening. Bringing sexuality into the Heart. Burning in the Fires of True Intimacy.
Testimonials
It is a rare blessing to discover a professional who can skillfully support us in our awakening as we encounter our fears, defenses, and needs; yet these are the very areas that require support and liberation in order to become fully awake. Neil is a master at navigating the process of "embodying" enlightenment. As ourawareness drops down into those dark corners of the psyche, our fears, needs, and defenses, if left unseen and unfelt, will continue to run our lives, creating ego-based strategies which hinder a fully embodied awakening. I have spent 30 years on the path of development and 15 years in psychotherapy. My experienceof the work with Neil feels like the last steps in the beautiful journey called becoming human.I wholeheartedly recommend him for anyone who is serious about waking up all the way into our humanness.
- Charles Ridley
International cranial practitioner, teacher, and developer of post graduate courses for the Milne Institute
Neil's work is experiential; it'sbeyond my capacity to capture its profound subtlety in words. However, I will say that Neil is a brilliant and original teacher. Sensitive, insightful, bold, inspiring, and very funny, too! His genuine humility creates a space where we can discover ourselves in true intimacy; aplace not bound by the defenses of the personality. It's wonderfully freeing. Presenting ancient teachings and practices in a modern format, Neil's accessible work is for anyone wanting to be more fully present—and to have a good time getting there!
- Rachael Hand
Operations Manager, Mountain Community Television Channel 15
I spent seven years meditating daily. I truly considered myself to be a heart-centered person. In working with Neil, I discovered that I was living more in my mind rather than actually being at rest in my deep heart. Neil's ability to hold an unmoving, amplified field of love, as well as his gentle approach, assisted me in embracing the subtle veils of judgment and fear around the most tender and vulnerable recesses of my heart. He helped me understand and unravel layers of misperception which had been blocking my ability to open into true intimacy with myself and with others. I have begun to consciously and lovingly embrace my emotional being.My belly and womb have softened to receive more of the power of my full divine womanhood. Neil's compassion for the human condition and his empathic gifts enable him to masterfully navigate the murky waters of unconscious denial and delusion, bringing one gently into the feelings that long to be known, felt, and embraced by the light of loving awareness. As a result of learning his approach and using it daily, I am more grounded in my body, more gentle with my human needs, and more confident in who I am than I've ever been in my life. This is truly valuable work! I recommend it to anyone sincere about awakening.