The following 3-Part Video was inspired by the following email forwarded to me by a dear friend, Chiara Ferrante:

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“I Need Your Opinion On This Tragic Event

A few years ago, Arthur Ray, one of the authors of The Secret conducted a retreat touted as the ultimate Spiritual Warrior camp that included a sweat lodge at the end of the retreat.

The price was steep, $10,000 US for 5 days.

The promise was a total transformation in people’s lives.

Unfortunately for 3 people the price was very steep.

Even though they protested of heat discomfort they were refused exit from the lodge and the life transformation for them was that they died…of heat exhaustion. Arthur Ray was charged and recently found guilty of negligent homicide.

When I heard about this event years ago it deeply troubled and angered me and as a result I began work on writing a book called “No Gurus” …on finding the teacher within. I am planning on including a chapter in the book on the pitfalls of growth work that will partly be a critique of the growth work industry, so that people can be come intelligent consumers of these type of seminars and hopefully avoid what happened to these three people.

I’d appreciate your opinion on such questions as:
What should consumers be wary of about growth work seminars and retreats.

What are some common pitfalls that people should avoid before enrolling in a workshop?

Is there too much hype and over promising of results in marketing personal development seminars eg. “after his seminar you will have no more problems ever in your life!”

Are seminars over priced?

What would you pay per day for a seminar?

What other criticisms to do you have of seminar leaders and personal growth retreats.

What suggestions do you have that would help reform the industry so that what happened to these three people will be less likely to happen again.

I really really appreciate your feedback on this.
If you will, please send this out to all your friends.
I’d love to get as much opinion on this as possible.

After I hear from you all, I’ll summarize the essence of what you have all submitted and post it on my website for anyone to read.

Get back to me at: russell@truesourceseminars.com
www.truesourceseminars.com

Wonderful blessings to you all.
Russell”
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I hope you found my video response to Russell’s email above thought provoking. As always, feel free to share your own thoughts on this important subject with the rest of our Slow Thought community by posting a comment below.

With warmth and best wishes,

Freedom Malhotra

It is easy to cross the line and exhaust yourself in impractical pursuits. The following video expounds on this tendency and reinforces the technique that bears the greatest benefit.

When you feel guilty or ashamed of what you are going through, it is so much harder to be aware of what is going on. If you condemn where you are, how can you possibly honour what you are going through?

This is the theme of my latest video. As always, I look forward to hearing your personal insights on this subject.

The deeper wound is a feeling deep within ourselves that we are not good enough as we are – that we have to prove ourselves worthy of love and acceptance (either to others and/or to ourselves). Our entire society reinforces this wound from a young age making it all the more difficult to go through life unscathed. In the following short video, I elaborate further on this wound because it is impossible to get in touch with who you are when entangled in the web of Life Addictions.

Freedom of thought is the foundation of democracy.
But is such freedom possible when people cease to think for themselves?

It is difficult to nurture free-thinking individuals in a society that grants very little time to youth and adults alike for self-reflection and self-awareness. In the following video, I offer a few insights on this subject. I hope that it will serve to be a catalyst for further discussion and inquiry.

Most people have never examined the inner mechanics of what is going on when we meet a stranger for the first time. Fortunately, flexing our Self-Awareness muscles can help us take our relationships with others to a much deeper level.

When you try to understand another, what do you seek to know about the other? Most people look for common interests or values to help them determine whether the relationship is worth further pursuing. But is this enough?

Who you think you are is not who you are. I often remind people of this because it is so easy to trick ourselves into believing that what you know is all there is to know, when the opposite is true. Your consciousness represents but a small fraction of all there is to know about yourself. This can help us to appreciate how futile it can be to understand oneself or another for that matter when we limit ourselves to the cognitive plane.

In the following video, I bring to your attention many of the subtleties related to this illusion of understanding each other.

My intention here is not to attack the Law of Attraction but more so bring to your awareness many of the things people overlook when attempting to apply its techniques.

First of all, I think it is important to evaluate your intentions behind applying the Law of Attraction in your life.

Are you running away from the pain of your current situation?

Are you creating another illusion of things improving when you finally get “there” (wherever “there” might be)???

Instead of letting the wisdom of your pain and discomfort communicate to you, are you tempted by the quick-fix method of rubbing Aladdin’s lamp and asking the genie to fulfill all your wishes?

And if you are, you are likely caught in another vicious cycle of running away from yourself. The good news is that our frustrations and disappointments are all opportunities to understand something much deeper within us. They are opportunities to uncover a much deeper desire to stop this endless running and experience our own truth.
To help deepen your awareness, here are a few important concepts to consider:

1) The Law of Attraction: even when it works, it doesn’t really work! Look around you… We are all searching. Something is gnawing at most of us. Deep down we all feel something is missing. And we are right. But here’s where things go wrong. At this crucial stage of awareness where we sense something is off, most of us make the fatal mistake of thinking that the solution is to have more of what we want. And yet, we know from experience that no matter how much we possess or achieve, we remain dissatisfied and keep searching for more. No matter how much you attract into your life, it can never be enough because no abundance in this world can compensate for deeper wounds and/or the poverty of not feeling good enough as you are.

2) Fear ands its role in the Law of Attraction:
Have you become emotionally enslaved by your wants? A good test of this is to imagine yourself not getting what you want. If you find in yourself some resistance to this thought, you are likely being driven by the fear of things not working out for you. This means that you are using the Law of Attraction as a coping mechanism for the deeper fears that are haunting you. But having more of what you want will not resolve your fears. These fears will not disappear until you learn to face these emotions and take heed to their wisdom.

3) Using the Law of Attraction to hide from life’s realities. Are you using the Law of Attraction to run away from the uncertainties of life? We want to believe that everything will turn out the way we want in the long run, but will it? What does it mean for things to be okay for you anyhow? Most of the time, what we mean by this is that we want things to work out according to our preferences and we have learned to have preferences for everything. We want every day to unfold a certain way (usually more productive or successful!), we want people to behave some way, and we want ourselves to feel certain emotions.

But how realistic is this desire? How often do things work out according to our preferences? Does contemplating this make you feel uneasy? If so, you may be using the Law of Attraction to distract yourself from your inability to accept Life with all its twists and turns.

When we cling to all our preferences in life, all we end up doing is resisting the realities of life. And years of being in conflict with life can be exhausting on so many levels! Our resistance drains the very energy we need to start creating the meaningful connections we want with ourselves and the people we love.

We have been conditioned to live in a state of perpetual lack which causes us to run from ourselves and each other. The symptoms of this madness are all around us and inside of us. But it does not have to be this way…The following video addresses several other insights related to how The Law of Attraction can become a Big Distraction.

Satyam facilitated this event which was a nice break for me. When he asked us to identify what we wanted for ourselves, I found that what came up was coming from a wounded part of my body. That helped explain why the response lacked vitality and was clearly pointing to a path that was bound to lead me astray.

The Summit is all about addressing the perpetual conflict between the sense of our greater potential and where we actually are in the moment. This is a very simplified explanation for something that is just getting deeper and deeper for me every time we revisit it.

To get a feel for The Summit, here is a small video clip sharing other people’s experiences of the event.

Like most things in life, it is hard to get results with being on and off.   Every ounce of effort counts for something but making a deep change from within takes a lasting effort. That is why I insist that Awareness is not a recreational sport – it is a 24/7 lifestyle.  You have to be willing to live and breathe it.  If you want to support your healing and personal development, you have to strengthen those Awareness muscles so that they can leverage the everyday struggles of life towards your own personal evolution.

This short video addresses this very topic.  Please pardon the filming – the shot is too close for my own comfort and yes, I know that it looks like I have a floating head.  But if you close your eyes and listen, I am sure you will gain something of value for the time spent.

CAN YOU READ THE SIGNS – Self-Awareness Series

Self – Reflection Question

How do you deal with the challenges of staying Self-Aware in everyday life?  Please share your insights with the rest of the Slow Thought community.   Have a great week!

With warmth and best wishes,

Freedom Malhotra