Wednesday, May 12, 2010

The Avatar Course

As I said in an earlier post, I was in the Avatar course all last week. Actually I started a couple of days late, and I didn't graduate till Monday evening. So now, I am an Avatar! It was pretty awesome. I must say I will probably be assimilating what I've learned for some time to come. 

These days, if you mention Avatar, of course, most people think about the movie. (Truly awesome movie, too!) A few do recognize the concept from studies of Hindu and a few other religions. The course has little to do with either. I will only touch on a few of my overall thoughts on it here. You can go on to check out www.theavatarcourse.com if you wish to know more.

Simple idea, really, with far-reaching goals. The idea, to bring about an enlightened planetary civilization one person at a time, not by telling anyone WHAT to think, but rather cleaning out the cobwebs so they CAN think for themselves, meanwhile achieving true compassion for fellow beings. There is nothing exclusionary either, no "us or them" thinking. We're all on this planet together.

Each one of us sees "reality" through our own set of filtered lenses. Filters not all of our own choosing, but picked up rather willy-nilly from unbelievably random sources in our past. The Avatar course, starting with Part 1, Resurfacing, gives us the tools to decide for ourselves which beliefs are useful and which aren't. I'm not talking about particularly religious beliefs here, but diverse "lessons" we may have taught ourselves, or had imposed on us, for whatever reason in the past, and that may no longer be valid. The idea is to use the tools to sort them out, keep useful ones, clear out the rest.

There are no religious doctrines involved, no judgments levied, no right and wrong. Find out what is in there, and make your own decision what you want to keep. We all have things in our mental attics that are unbelievably trivial that continue to shape our lives today. Some beliefs served a solid purpose at one time, and no longer do, but they are still locked up in there. Others, like the weird smell of Aunt Gertie's hash, linger with no purpose, other than to give us heartburn.

Ever clean out your sock drawer? Get rid of all those un-matched, ragged, or out of style socks? How about cleaning out old programs, swap files, other detritus, out of your computer? All of that makes it more efficient, doesn't it? Defrag your mind? Yeah, kind of like that.

I took Part One, Resurfacing, last year. My partner, Cat Dancing, took the full course and went on to become an Avatar Master. That is the course I intend to follow as well, now that I have the rest of the basic course, (parts 2 and 3) behind me. We are heading out to Florida in a few weeks to do just that.

I believe it is well worth doing. Check out the website and see for yourself. There are free intro classes in most cities. See the site to locate a local master and intro. If you are here in Central Texas, let me know and Cat can talk to you.

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