My book, Shift Into Freedom, is a user’s manual for your awakening that can be adapted to yourindividual learning style. I give you the map, show you the direction to travel, and offer descriptions of the territory you may find. The pointers are to help you find your own inner GPS so you can navigate your own way. But you won’t know what it’s really like until you’ve been there yourself. Don’t take my words, pointers, or impressionistic map too literally. Read initially to get the gist of the approach, but trust what you learn from your own experience.
While a detailed map of awakening can be helpful to many, it’s not meant to guide you through a mandatory, step-by-step process. There is no right or wrong way to experience the unfolding of awakening. Although I break down awakening into levels of mind, please remember that these levels are nested within one another. People have shifted levels of mind in many different ways and accessed awakening through various doorways. For example, where I have described four small, distinctive steps, some people arrive at open-hearted awareness in a single movement without breaking it down into steps. If some of the instructions puzzle you, don’t worry. This book presents a variety of ways to learn about and navigate the territory of awakening. There are general principles, of course, but each person has his or her own way of living them.
The open-hearted awareness practices provide pointers to guide you back to the living truth that’s already within you. My intention here is to present you with a hypothesis and a set of experiments. It will be up to you to try out these experiments and observe the results. My hope is that this experience will shift you into a new way of knowing and being. To learn the open-hearted awareness approach to awakening, you’ll enter a new way of learning and unlearning, and you’ll need to make this a daily habit to gain the most benefits. If you enter with a beginner’s mind and open heart, I trust you will find that the experience of freedom and love will become your motivation.
For more information about the practice, see my book and audio of guided meditations, which can be found HERE.