Wolfgang Bernard's Advaita Teaching Homepage
Quotes from readers of Wolfgang Bernard's book "NLP and Beyond"
My intuition suggests that Wolfgang Bernard has developed a Western Zen, based on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), the science of subjectivity. He applies the robust methodology of NLP to the existential quest, with the aim of liberating the individual from his/her personal psychology. Without once having recourse to such nebulous tokens as "God" and "Love", he presents a finely articulated model of the psyche in which all terms are clearly defined in reference to human perception. He also touches on various methods by which one can become aware of what he calls the "original belief", the "prime constituent of identity" which constantly reinforces the illusion that one possesses a distinct personality. However, in accordance with NLP, he points out that methods are not effective when divorced from skill; rather than relying on generalized instructions (as in "do A, B, C to achieve D"), the aspirant should seek out a qualified practitioner to guide the process.
In studying the writings of various Eastern philosophers and mystics, I had interpreted the term "liberation" to mean the entry into a particular state of consciousness ("Nirvana"), far removed from the typical way of functioning, and from which there would be no return. Bernard's model of the psyche makes it clear that "Nirvana"---which he terms "pre-sensory awareness"---refers neither to a state, nor to an event that annihilates the functional level of existence, but to a "canvas" of being that supports and facilitates all of one's actions. This awareness cannot be created in the mind, for it already is the mind's foundation---forgotten in childhood through "original belief", which corresponds to the Eastern term "maya", the delusion covering reality. Bernard holds that "original belief" is essential to early human development, a nurturing cocoon that finally becomes an obstruction to the mature ego.
In Bernard's model the esoteric secrets of the East are de-mystified, placed in the context of modern psychology and epistemology, and applied with state-of-the-art NLP technology. I suspect Carl Jung would be impressed. The various means of presentation---exposition, interviews, testimonials and conversations---provide multiple handles for grasping this elusive subject. Bernard gathers and condenses a vast amount of the human race's accumulated knowledge concerning self-awareness, while avoiding the confusion of mixing logical levels---a tendency expressed in the many gods and metaphysical assertions of the world's religions, which project aspects of human awareness into a generalized "cosmic order".
And finally, there is the privilege of entering the presence of a human being who has opened into a rare awareness. Bernard's words recall to me Friedrich Nietzsche's dream of a gay science:
"...what I like in life: going into the depth of things in a playful manner, unwrapping, analyzing and synthesizing, inventing hypotheses, discovering new islands and being part of the search of getting to the roots of things that play with their own origins; and in all this I allow myself complete freedom to become even more curious and being cradled at the same time by the song of the sirens."
Neil Cowden
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Dear Wolfgang,
Thank you for your book. You state much that is true. We perceive our true selves when we look beyond that which we thought was reality. It is when we live our existential duty that we are truly one with the purpose. I wish to share with you two extracts from books that I am sure you will have read yourself. The first if from Assagioli :
'What am I then? What remains after discarding my self-identity, the physical, emotional and mental concepts of my personality or my ego? It is the essence of myself - a centre of pure consciousness and self-realisation. It is the permanent factor in the ever varying flow of my personal life. It is that which gives me the sense of being , of permanence, of inner security. I recognise and affirm myself as a centre of pure consciousness. I realise that this centre not only has a static self-awareness, but also a dymanic power. It is capable of observing, mastering and directing and using all the physiological processes and the physical body. I am a centre of awareness and power'.
I also value the words of Steven Levine :
' ..in the end, it is not the extraordinariness of the teacher which perplexes, intrigues and beckons the student. It is the teacher's utter ordinariness. Because he is just himself, he is a mirror for his students.
When we are with him we feel our own strengths and shortcomings without any sense of praise or criticism from him. In his presence, we see our original face. And the extraordinariness that we see is only out true nature. When we learn to let our own nature free, the boundaries between master and student disappear in a deep flow of being and joy in the unfolding of Buddha mind. '
NLP is a technology that is of great future importance. I am grateful that I have been drawn to your writing and hope that we will meet one day.
Wendy
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I would say that "NLP and Beyond" represents a serious attempt to free us all from the shackles of our personality.
In writing this book, Wolfgang Bernard has done for Psychology and NLP what Christmas Humphries did for Zen, what Alan Watts did for Philosophy, what Rudy Rucker did for maths, what Hofstadter did for cybernetics and computing and what Robert Anton Wilson did for, well whatever Robert Anton Wilson did it for. The commonality between sources and disciplines is a wonder to behold and Wolfgang is up there with them all.
They all point the way to the "nothing", a concept only accessible to the serious minded student of the "uni"-verse. But without these people, who would there be to point the way?
Although the original thinkers were Russell, Suzuki, Godel, Turing, Bohr, Korzybski and others, writers like Wolfgang Bernard and the others, are still required to make these thoughts known to the greater population and I would like to support him in his efforts.
Is this sufficient? Does the "nothing" require extra description (as if I could anyway)?
Perhaps, within the book, you could discuss the questions "What criteria do I choose to choose my criteria?" and "Why do I believe what I believe?" This clearly shows psychology to be a self referencing system and so in touch with the "nothing".
As a final amazing coincidence, my spelling checker suggested I change Godel's name to "Godless". Spooky or what?
Paul Naish
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Have you ever been in a situation where you have been looking for something for a long time, and one day you come across it just sitting there. That's the way I feel.
Thanks,
Edward
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I have been reading the sections from your book. As I read, my understanding was that 'Essential Value' could be called 'love' (may sound corny to some). As you say "everything is yes" and "when its expression impregnates all life, the questions and answers disappear" which is a state of being in tune with the life force which is a pure state of love/care/support/responsibility and what I call 'total ownership' (not in the material sense).
Essential Value you say is the "intrinsic value of an individual" (I would add the word 'system' after the word value). Are you suggesting that this intrinsic value is shared/common core for everyone? I would say so.
I felt that 'pre-sensory perception' could be called 'pre-congnitive perception'. Perception is possible with senses, hence pre-sensory implies there is no perception/perceiving/sensing. Perception without bias/filtering is without processing and cognition. Without bias, there is selfless participation with the outside world with pure objectivity which is a state of being on one's way to join the ONE ("..when the dew drop becomes the sea...").
I liked the paragraph where you finish with "what remains is the action itself, devoid of all person interest". What method can be applied to reach this state of being where a person becomes selfless where "personal value is linked with the value of all that exists" (again total ownership of life, the responsibility for the well being of all life forms, since one has become ONE)? I am not asking this method for myself; if you could only consistently, repeatedly apply this method and have people achieve that state, what a wonderful accomplishment it would be.
I'll be in touch.
God Bless All.
CMG.
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As you are well aware, NLP is becoming very popular here in the US. To say that your book would be well-received here is just too light. People are hungry for knowledge of themselves and those that are around them.
And, do know, I will be waiting in that line to purchase that book! I'd be honored to have it as part of my NLP library. (So tell them to get it published, we're waiting for good, informative NLP information!)
My best to you, Wolfgang.
Sincerely,
Kimberly
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I found the approach refreshingly new and even though I could relate it to Advaita (non=dualism) e.g. Original Belief Process = maya, pre-sensory perception = Atman/Brahman, what struck me is that this approach of exposing the non-existence of ego is free from cultural and religious overtones which makes what is said accessible to all whatever be their cultural or religious background. Also it goes to show that truth is ever revealed one has only hunt the I to find that it is a phantom.
Sudha
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My experience with Wolfgang has been life altering. There is a certain kind of knowledge that exists that is radically different than any other kind of learning. Usually it is called the "Mystical". Wolfgang's ability to describe the mystical without being mysterious is unparalleled. Most of the writings of spiritual "masters" has usually frustrated me. Synthesizing NLP and the existential quest seems to make the most elusive quest approachable, attainable and sustainable. In the book, he goes far beyond fixing behaviors, feelings and different aspects of our personality. He goes into fixing the whole idea that we have a personality. It is my strong feeling that once people that have learned how to change everything about themselves they will continue to look. When they come across this book, a sigh of relief, and a "Finally!" will be the start of their final exploration.
Christian
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"Knowledge arises when there's no more beliefs," and that makes perfectly good sense. You placed words in my soul that has had not words for such a long, long time. Thanks.
It is amazing to me that I would seek Wolfgang out for the purpose of helping a group and have, instead, after having read his book, a perfect picture of my life handed to me. Then again, maybe it is not so amazing.
Marie
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The nicest thing about your book for me were the personal parts, where people reflected on what happened to them during the process. Reading the stories
I could almost touch the space they were talking about and somehow feel what it must be like to have gone beyond 'original belief'. I found it all very clear!
Chinmayo
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I find it funny how enjoyable (though sometimes frustrating) it is attempting to explain this aspect of awareness when words will never capture the experience. Reading the small excerpt from your book has left me no doubt that you are trying to explain the very notion I am wrestling with now. Your explanations are quite clear, this is no small accomplishment!
I look forward to reading more, as I stated in my previous note to you the section on Original Belief is especially appealing to me. Just reading the words "original belief" has left an image of a moment when "I" originated. The image is still a bit cloudy, but I know for certain it is there and I am eager to remember it.
My only knowledge of NLP is from the motivational speaker Tony Robbins. I always felt that NLP only increased the ego and the "I" separation. You have raised my curiosity about NLP once again.
Thanks, that piece was quite informative! Many years ago the insight that there was more to "me" than "I" was aware of came while reading one of Carlos Casteneda's books. Your description of getting past Original Belief sounds a lot like Don Juan's description of stopping the world", I can also relate Essential Value to "a path with heart". Of course much of this sounds like parts of Buddhism and by your own accounts Zen. I have been inspired by bits and pieces of many disciplines, there appear to be infinite paths all leading to the same place. Many have tried to describe "all that is," I am enjoying your description immensely.
Dave
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Wolfgang Bernard's book is very good news indeed. In clear, unpretentious language, he describes the root cause of psychological misery -- the belief in our separate, isolated existence -- and proposes a path to transcending it. I have read many books about this quest. Most of them, coming from far-away cultures and long-ago times, have attracted me powerfully but left me feeling that, without a personal initiation by someone who is himself an initiate, I could not penetrate their innermost meaning. Here, I get the feeling that such a teacher is at hand, that far from claiming extraordinary status, he is addressing me as a fellow human being, and that he has developed a way to open people up to a profound Recognition that used to be reserved for a very small number of blessed souls, most of them leading monastic lives. The concepts he uses -- that of the "original belief" around which the ego-structure is built, and the notion of a "supreme value" superior and anterior to societal norms -- are new to me, but they make deep sense. I'm particularly moved by the testimony of the men and women who went through his training. Each of them describes his or her particular version of the wound of separation, and the seeming miracle of release from this personal hell into a liberated condition of "no self, no other." These are ordinary people, but at moments they write with the spontaneous authority of Zen masters.
Joel
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Wolfgang, your system of personal development you have engineered for NLP follows the same path as a system called "The Fourth Way" created by George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1872 - 1949) who was once a hypnotist before going on a search such as yours. In 1915 he met with a Russian called PD Ouspensky who also became involved in it and wrote two books "The Fourth Way" and "In Search of the Miraculous" which explain it very well, and as you are one who wrote such a system of developing one's consciousness, I am sure you would be able to realize just how valuable such books would be to yourself.
The basic system by Gurdjieff came about from study of various esoteric sources. The basic idea of his system is that when we were born our brain contained our "essence" (similar to what you call Essentiel value) which was what was determined by genetics. Then, experiences in life required we grow a shell, a personality, which consisted not of one but many different parts each a separate individuality, while those parts of us which would are indifferent or even hostile are kept away from each other to control a person at different times. (I know I'm being brief, please read the books, I also have web links although the information is not nearly as good as the books.) The Original Belief is called The Chief Feature in his system. Then, because people have all of these conditioned beliefs they are controlled by external influences, they are machines. Then as we shift from desire to desire, being lost in whatever part ourselves we are in, so absorbed in it we see nothing else, we are in a trance, mentally asleep virtually all of our lives. The way to become free is to (and I'm being very brief) first of all know the machine, that is our conditioned personalities. This is accomplished by self-observation and intentionally trying to increase our awareness by creating multiple lines of attention with one being on ourselves, we normally just have one line of attention and that is absorbed in whatever we are observing. Then, once that is completed a person would work to create a permanent "I" that would direct and control all of the many different feuding personalities. One of the principle ideas of the system is that people ordinarily are organic machines, they go away from suffering and toward pleasure. That gives us the ability to become conscious by using suffering, which is not only what organic machines run from (real suffering that is, not suffering brought by the imagination, which is explained in the system) it also can grow infinitely in our sleep-state, while pleasure has limits. In a state of total self awareness pleasure can grow infinitely.
S.T.
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Thank you very much for allowing me to read your manuscript. I liked it very much. It reminds me of some work I have done recently on the "Dark Night of the Soul". Your process reminds me of a conscious way to actually dive into this state. I think some ancient mystics naturally fell into this state and came out into what you call the pre-sensorial perception. I also feel that the process you outline takes an individual into this area at the edge of chaos where you to experience the full chaos and complexity of everything around you while reinforcing the evolution of an increasing complexity of information structure.
Again thanks.
All the best, Lewis
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In my humble opinion (and within the limits of my current perspective and knowledge), there is little else in the world that could benefit humanity more than for adults to discover their Essential Value and release themselves from the prison constructed by the Original Belief.
Michael J. Blackman
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It is mostly descriptive, and does not offer a structured system of practice. It presents a single intuitive breakthrough.
After deep study of ancient Buddhist texts this book seems to me like inventing the bicycle. When you invent it yourself, you understand it much better, but there are better versions.
Let me wish you success in further discovery,
Dimitry
