Consciousness of Truth: A Manual for the Enlightenment Intensive

FOREWORD

It has been thirty-six years (57 years) since the first Enlightenment Intensive was held in the San Bernardino mountains of Southern California. Many participants in the thousands of Enlightenment Intensives held since then have attained some level of conscious, direct knowledge of their true selves. Even so, it is difficult to estimate whether or not Enlightenment Intensives and the Enlightenment Technique will endure down the ages. This is because there are two major threats to Enlightenment Intensives and the Enlightenment Technique: wandering away from the Enlightenment Technique and schedules, and confusing insight about oneself with conscious, direct knowledge of oneself. This edition of the master’s manual has been designed to forestall these threats.

I have responded to Mona Sosna’s extensive questioning as she was rewriting this manual. She has correctly presented in the best manner my convictions about what enlightenment is and how Enlightenment Intensives and the Enlightenment Technique should now be conducted. This book has been Mona’s labor of love for all who seek the realization of the Truth of themselves.

Charles Berner

12 August 2004

PREFACE

The Transmission of Truth, A Manual for Enlightenment Masters was based on the talks given by Charles Berner at the first Enlightenment Master’s Training Course in 1977. A slightly revised version, published in 1981, was used for the training of enlightenment masters since then. In 1977 Berner gave up giving Enlightenment Intensives and devoted himself to meditation. In the years that followed, a deeper and clearer understanding of what enlightenment is emerged from his contemplations on the nature of Truth, and he realized that The Transmission of Truth contains some errors about enlightenment and how Enlightenment Intensives should be conducted.

When he told me his new understanding of enlightenment, I felt that it was a unique description of the Truth that was very close to enlightenment itself. It was unlike anything I had ever heard or read before and it resonated with my own experience. I felt it was important to try to pass it on to other enlightenment masters and those wanting to become enlightenment masters. With Berner’s new knowledge as my guide, I wrote the chapter on enlightenment in my own words and revised the entire manual. I have tried to give a clear explanation of what direct knowledge, consciousness, enlightenment, and the true individual are. Because these are difficult concepts, I have presented them in several ways, hoping that if you do not get them in one way, you will get them in another. Reading the chapter on enlightenment brings up a lot of the mind because the ideas contained there are so close to the Truth itself. The situation is similar to doing the Enlightenment Technique. For this reason, several readings may be necessary in order to understand the chapter. Persist even if you begin to go unconscious. If an idea is not clear, it may be clarified in the next paragraph. It is possible to become enlightened simply by hearing or reading the Truth if you are open to it.

The new information in ‘Why a Master Should Say What Enlightenment Is’, ‘Why a three-day Enlightenment Intensive?’ ‘Using only the instructions Who and What on an Enlightenment Intensive’, and the ‘Introduction’ was given to me verbally by Charles Berner. Other changes in the conducting of Intensives were made under his direction. ‘Direct Knowledge and Enlightenment in Spiritual Growth’ was written entirely by me. I take responsibility for any errors in the presentation of Charles Berner’s work in this manual.

To keep the old material consistent with the new, I have put this new edition in the third person. Some chapters of the old manual have been removed, including the one on long Enlightenment Intensives, which are no longer recommended. The remaining chapters have been revised and reorganized. A minimum age has been set for participants. (see ‘The Initial Interview’, p. 73).

The students of the old manual and those who have taken Enlightenment Intensives will notice that the phrase used to describe enlightenment, ‘direct experience’, has been changed to ‘conscious, direct knowledge’ or some variant of that. This is more accurate because it describes what is actually taking place: true knowledge being directly and consciously received by the individual. While it can be argued that the word ‘experience’ can be applied to enlightenment because enlightenment is a conscious event, nevertheless, because ‘experience’ is commonly associated with information gained by the senses or the mind, its use in connection with enlightenment can be misleading. The phrase ‘direct experience’ has probably added to misunderstandings and confusions about what enlightenment is. The phrase ‘enlightenment experience’ used in this manual refers to conscious, direct knowledge. In another departure from tradition, what enlightenment is and what the true individual is are both explained in some detail, and masters are encouraged to reveal the true nature of the individual and of enlightenment to participants. Because a true individual has no gender, the pronoun used to refer to the true individual in the text is ‘it’. When referring to gender, the pronoun ‘he’ is used in one chapter, ‘she’ in another.

Charles Berner has said that an enlightenment master must be both firm and kind in order to give successful Enlightenment Intensives. Most people are either firm or kind. The firm ones can get behind someone and keep him focused on a task with- out letting up until the task is accomplished, and the kind ones inspire others by their compassion to do what they want them to do. In order to get the participants to do the Enlightenment Technique continuously, which is necessary for enlightenment to occur on an Enlightenment Intensive, the master must be firm. But if the master does not get his love across to the participants, they will resist him. Berner says that the combination of firmness and kindness is a result of long-term evolution, and cannot be acquired in a fourteen-day training course. For this reason, he does not think that the Enlightenment Master’s Training Course is a necessary prerequisite for becoming a master. If you have the qualities that a master must have, have taken one or more Enlightenment Intensives and (ideally) had at least one enlightenment, are successful in getting participants to take your Intensives, give Intensives according to this manual, and have proven your ability to support participants through to enlightenment by people getting enlightened on your Enlightenment Intensives, you are an enlightenment master. You do not need certification or approval from any organization or individual in order to give Enlightenment Intensives. However, it would be a good idea to learn Intensives from the bottom up by cooking and monitoring at all levels until you have enough practical knowledge and have gained enough confidence to master your own Intensives. Some established masters may be willing, if asked, to take on a few apprentices and teach them, possibly even running drills and reviewing a novice master’s first Intensive.

It has been estimated that 600,000 people in more than twenty-five countries have taken Enlightenment Intensives to date. There are probably about a hundred enlightenment masters giving Intensives around the world. The world has a great need for more enlightened people, and Enlightenment Intensives are the fastest route to bona-fide enlightenment. Because enlightenment masters shoulder an important responsibility, it is crucial to keep the quality of Intensives high. It is my hope that this new manual for the Enlightenment Intensive will contribute to that, and that Enlightenment Intensives will be given far into the better future that they are helping to create.

Many people have helped to make this new manual possible. First of all, my thanks to Lawrence Noyes for editing the 1977 and 1981 editions of the master’s manual. Without his dedicated work, this present edition would not have been possible. David Wilson, Jack Wexler, Lynda May, Elizabeth Wittmer, Satyen Raja, Lucy Hahn, Katrine Browne, Don Berendsen, Laurel Hovde and Karen Henning all read and commented on the ‘Enlightenment’ chapter. Their criticisms were very helpful, prompting much reflection and many rewrites, and their encouraging remarks helped me to go on. Catherine Draut helped with the writing of ‘What is consciousness?’ I don’t think I would have made it through to the end without Don Berendsen’s technical help in formatting the book. I am also grateful for his artistic judgement and skill. Betty Cherniak gave me editorial advice and Lucy Hahn helped with formatting and editing. Lynda May, Katrine Browne and Don Berendsen proofed the final text. Most of all I am indebted to Charles Berner, who patiently answered my many questions, and who was my resource in determining what should and should not be included in this book.

Mona Sosna

Merimbula, New South Wales, Australia

January 2005

INTRODUCTION

In 1968, in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California, a revolutionary technique for achieving enlightenment was born. Charles Berner, on a rare holiday, was lying in the spring sun on a window seat in a growth center, staring at the trees, when the idea of the Enlightenment Intensive sprang into his mind. While its birth took only seconds, Berner had been preparing the ground for many years.

Berner had been asking deep questions ever since he had been old enough to think. When he was eleven, he heard a science program on the car radio as he was returning home with his family from a trip to the mountains. The program was about microorganisms (called ‘germs’ at that time) talking to each other about how they would have to mutate because sulfa, the antibiotic of those days, was going to destroy them. They were planning a campaign about how to avoid being destroyed.

The characterizations made him wonder if perhaps it was true that germs interacted with each other in a conscious, purposeful way in order to survive and proliferate. Having some knowledge of science from his parents – his mother being a professional scientist and his father an avid science reader – he extended his idea of conscious will to electrons, protons and neutrons, the basic particles then known. Unknowingly, he was thinking somewhat as a pan-psychist, who believes that everything has consciousness, meaning things such as tables and chairs. Today Berner calls himself a fundamental pan-psychist, differing from pan-psychists in that he believes that the fundamental particles, the quarks and leptons in their true state, divested of the illusion of physicality – the real nonphysical individuals – have consciousness and make choices

that affect life.

He continued thinking about what is really true and fundamental, and in his teens had an enlightenment experience as the result of an intense study of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching. Lao Tsu had said that the purpose of a door is not the door, but the open doorway. As a result of deep reflection on this idea, Berner had conscious, direct knowledge of the Tao of himself. After that the pursuit of Truth became the over-whelming interest of his life, and by the time he was twenty he was spending every spare moment studying whatever he could find on the subject, doing techniques for personal and spiritual growth, and eventually teaching others what he was learning.

It was a problem Berner was having as a teacher that gave rise to the thoughts occupying his mind which suddenly resulted in the Enlightenment Intensive concept. Over years of teaching personal growth techniques and principles, he had repeatedly noticed that people who had a hard time making progress did not know who they were, and people who made rapid progress knew who they were. Those who thought they were a mind or a personality or a body progressed very slowly. When told to get an idea or an image, they didn’t know who was to get the idea or the image. Instead of the real individual knowingly doing the growth technique, it was done through something that the individual was unknowingly confused with – the body, the mind, a personality, even consciousness itself. So even though doing the growth technique may have brought about a change in the mind, body, personality or consciousness, who had caused the change remained unknown to the individual and thus no progress was made in the individual’s own ability to make choices with regard to herself or himself. The result was that these people did not feel that they were making progress, and they were right!

The vast majority had this experience. Only three or four percent of the people Berner worked with really knew who they were. All the rest were confused about it. Realizing this, Berner tried to tell them. About one percent more would get it during his talks. To try to increase the percentage, he invented an exercise called the ‘cat exercise’, in which he had people notice that they have a body and a mind. He would have them touch their own flesh and feel it with their hands. He would say, ‘That’s the body.’ Then he would say, ‘Now imagine a cat you’ve known or seen.’ When they did that, he would say, ‘That’s part of the mind. Now notice who’s looking at the cat.’ About another half of one percent would consciously, directly know who it was that was looking at the cat, but most did not.

What to do about this problem of people not knowing who they are was what Berner was reflecting on as he sat staring out the window on that beautiful spring afternoon. Suddenly it came to him: Why not take the age-old contemplative question ‘Who am I?’ and combine it with communication techniques in the dyad format that had been the brainchild of his wife, Ava. Immediately after that it occurred to him to add the format of the Zen sesshin – and thus was born the Enlightenment Intensive. When he was later asked about the event, he said, ‘It wasn’t that I sat down and thought about it for a long time. I was just musing, “How can we help people to accelerate this process of self-evolution?” While I was long familiar with zazen techniques and the yogic reflective approaches, I knew how long they took and I was somewhat discouraged by the prospect of having people spend years to get to the place where they woke up to who they are so that they could begin to make progress.’

Soon after, Berner told some of his students that he was going to give an Intensive. He didn’t tell them much about what was going to happen, just that they were going to work on finding out who they are and that it was going to be intense. He had just acquired an unimproved piece of property in the Southern California high desert. He bought four-by-fours, set them into the ground, nailed plywood sheets on top, and bought food for one meal, which was all he could afford. He put mosquito netting around the outside and rolled out some old rugs on the bare ground. Twenty-six people came. He said later, ‘All I had was the flash of an idea of what an Enlightenment Intensive would be.’

Everyone got up early in the morning and began doing the Enlightenment Technique. The participants had paid their money, so Ava rushed to town to buy some food for lunch and the rest of the Enlightenment Intensive. The participants continued working on their questions. Then, to Berner’s amazement, on the second day, three people had conscious, direct knowledge of themselves. They knew who they were! He had expected it would take five to ten Enlightenment Intensives for enlightenments to start showing up, and here they were on the second day of the first Intensive ever given. Everyone was astounded. By the end of the Intensive, close to forty percent of the people who attended had conscious, direct knowledge of themselves.

Enthusiasm was high, so five months later Berner gave another Intensive. He gave more and more of them and soon was mastering an average of ten Enlighten- ment Intensives a year. Two of them were two weeks long and one was three weeks long. He tried everything. He found out what worked and what didn’t work with thou- sands of people – brilliant ones, dull ones, sane ones, crazy ones, talkative ones, silent ones – all kinds. Finally, after giving seventy-seven Intensives, he was satisfied that he had it right and made no more changes. After that, he gave twenty-two more Intensives. His ninety-ninth, and last, was given in 1977. 

It is only now, in 2005, after having talked to enlightenment masters around the world about enlightenment and Enlightenment Intensives, and having spent thirty-one years meditating many hours a day, that Charles Berner is making some changes to the Enlightenment Intensive. These changes are not made lightly; they are based on deep reflection over many years on our true nature and our relationships at the most fundamental level. Although Berner had long known what enlightenment is, a clear understanding of how it comes about emerged out of his reflections. A metaphysical definition of enlightenment is given here, possibly for the first time ever. While a definition is no substitute for the experience itself, it is helpful as a guide to both the master and the enlightenment-seeker; and once enlightenment has been experienced, it can be matched to the definition as a way of confirming one’s experience. The changes to the questions to be used on an Enlightenment Intensive are based on this new understanding of enlightenment. The assertion that an Enlightenment Intensive should be only three days long is based on Berner’s profound experience of the energy of enlightenment. Those of you reading this who are already conducting Enlightenment Intensives and those who wish to conduct them should use this present manual as your guide.