After a recent talk, an Avatar Master, (the title given to one who is trained and licensed to deliver the Avatar course) asked me if I might not put some of the material from my talks into written form? "Wouldn’t the effect be the same?” he asked. “People will still make it mean what they make it mean, but it may remind them.”

 

I agreed. So here are some words, if they are effective they will call forth signals from within you. When that happens, lay down the words and listen.

 

 

 

QUEST

If you are like me, you have probably given some passing thought to the subject of elevated, transcendent states of consciousness: enlightenment, at oneness with the universe, cosmic bliss, nirvana, samadhi, grace, universal harmony, heaven, redemption, salvation, the rapture, perfect peace, satori, godhood, christ consciousness, etc.

 

You may have even experienced some of these states. Did you afterwards wonder, “Was it real?”

 

Well, was it? Who do you have to convince?

 

How easily we doubt the remarkable, yet if we did not, how could we cope with the ordinary?

 

It is the uncertain memory of having once experienced moments of elevated consciousness that either give us hope or give us despair when we realize the inevitable tedium of pursuing material rewards. Hope and despair are the ingredients of the quest to understand, the quest to explain existence, the quest to recover the rapture of...what? How will you describe your quest? What word-sound will you make? Bliss? The grand illumination? That! By whatever symbol it is assigned, what is sought is the ultimate prize that existence offers. The quest for transcendent consciousness. By one means or another, all beings will eventually strive for it.

 

Don't ever bet against “the quest” because it is the highest card in the deck. Even the promise of its fulfillment in death precipitated fanaticism that has left the divine right of kings and the legitimacy of governments trampled in the street.

 

All other pursuits in life will eventually fall subordinate to the quest…Do you want to accumulate millions? What would you buy? Do you want to hold the reins of power? What would you do? Do you want to soothe the agonies of the world? Why? What is it that you truly seek? Not riches, power, fame, glory, these are temporary respites, pleasant distractions, consolation prizes for discouraged pilgrims.

 

When you can get by the frustrations of failure, past the insistence upon the rightness of your lot, and dare to look, there will awaken the hope and despair of the quest. It cannot long be denied.

 

I do not believe I know what fates determine how the quest will be pursued. For some the despair is so strong that cautions are ignored. For some the hope is so strong that any suffering will be endured.

 

The quest is pursued by the use of drugs, by the use of magic, by religious practices, by science, by psychotherapy, by achieving, by embracing, by love-making, by reliving, by meditation, by bio-feedback, by fasting, by yoga breathing exercises, by whirling dances, by chant­ing by crystal energy, by guided visualizations, by communion with disembodied spirits, by studying meta­physics, by inducing near-death experiences, by following an enlightened teacher, by helping others, by high tech gadgetry ...the list goes on.

 

The quest may very well be the fundamental cause of motion in the universe.

 

My own quest began in the perilous psychedelic revolution of the sixties; and then it transformed into an earnest concern that carried me into the psycho-religious cults of the seventies for a dose of disappointment and betrayal. Older and wiser I explored the consciousness altering high tech of the new age of the eighties; bio­feedback, hemi-sync and sensory deprivation. Along the way I experienced enough temporary "spiritual highs" or "hits" to keep me looking, but still I could not always understand what I felt or always feel what I understood.

 

I spent a lot of time wondering--when hope and despair are balanced, one wonders. Might there be a path or process that would allow people to self-determinedly create elevated states of consciousness, to fulfill their quests without defiling their bodies with toxic drugs, or surrendering their life to the glorification of a well meaning con artist, or plugging into a stereo amplifier. Eventually after months of wondering I wised up. I decided to believe that such a process did exist and that I would find it!

 

The payoff came in one incredible afternoon in September of 1986, when I began to experiment with the creation of experience. The technique I used allowed me to not only comprehend, but EXPERIENCE an ancient thread of truth that ran throughout the most profound religious and philosophical literature of man. For days I defined new levels of consciousness to explore, and then settled on a state of cosmic bliss a notch below limitlessness and started to laugh. It was so simple and so obvious once it was seen; it was the culmination of my quest. Weeks later it led to the initial development of the Avatar materials that you have today.

 

 

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