Greetings everyone, I wish to share with you a little bit about which seems like a little known personage, although he has indeed changed the lives of millions of people. What is quite remarkable is his life story, but I will get into that shortly. The reason I say little known is because of for potentially various reasons and I'm not going to speculate, but there doesn't seem to be a Wikipedia page on the guy??? I mean there's wikipedia pages on the tiniest of things right.. Although of course there are many references if you simply google his name. One such reference on the first page of search results (effectively, the only page of search results that people ever bother to look at) is the rationalwiki page talking about The Sedona Method. Basically if you were to read that page I think you would come away laughing. Admittedly this page isn't directly talking about Lester as the name of the page implies but of course Lesters teachings which by a man of the name of Hale Dwoskin, described by the rationalwiki as follows: "with a level of self-confidence approximating that of Donald Trump, the kind of salesman who could sell the Book of Mormon to Mormons." Anyways, if you search Lester Levenson this is one of the first results that comes. I'm not here to dispute anything on that 'rationalwiki.' I mean it's meant to be critical but I do think that the Sedona Method and Lester Levensons teachings do bear some merit.
The ideas mostly revolve around the idea of when we are angry, enraged we can sort of "react" or we can do the opposite, we can internalize or "bottle up" the emotion as so they would say. But there is also a third alternative not so often explored and which can give us a great realm of power and free up energy into more positive avenues, the act of "letting go." The rational wiki page scoffs at how the Sedona Method "apparently requiring $400 of CDs to fully comprehend: "
Step 1: Focus on an issue you would like to feel better about.
Step 2: Ask yourself one of the following questions: Could I let this feeling go? Could I allow this feeling to be here? Could I welcome these feelings?
Step 3: Ask yourself the basic question: Would I? Am I willing to let go?
Step 4: Ask yourself this simpler question: When?
In essence that is what "The Sedona Method" and the teachings of Lester Levenson by extension are drilling down into... But when you actually dive into the material there is a lot of "juiciness" going on. It's been a while since I listened to the Sedona Method (Also you're supposed to do the workbook while doing it, so technically it's not "just" the CDs) and at the end of the day... we are living in an information age, really for anyone that wants it bad enough, they can access the information. But alas, this post is more so about Lester Levenson. And even beyond that, what he accessed was beyond the information realm. But ironically, the right information can cause us to question or presuppositions.
Lester by trade was a physicist and a successful entrepreneur. He was wildly successful by all 'material' regards but was unhappy and in very bad health. He suffered from numerous health issues but in 1952, after suffering his second heart attack and coronary bypass surgery, he was sent home by the doctors, basically more or less to die. At home he was confronted with the reality of his situation. But this began a deep, focused period of introspection wherein he looked at his life and examined his relationship to the world around him. He looked at the times he had been the happiest in his life, and the times when he was the most unhappy.
The "Doctors orders" were basically for him to abstain from any social activities, any sort of sex life, to be on medication and have regular medical checkups. He was even told not to bend over and tie his shoes, to get a pair of slip on loafers.
Lester asked... For how Long?? And the doctor asked him his age, which was interestingly 42 at the time, like Douglas Adams affirmed was the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything. "From now on." was the doctors reply. Lester sort of lost it on the doctor, asking him why he would save his life in order to live the rest of it as an basically an invalid.
So Lester had this to contemplate as well, and in this process of deep questioning and outright intense craving for an answer of his questions, he started to realize that the times he was most happy weren't those times that he was seeking love. He realized that the times he was most happy was when he was giving and willing to share his love with others. And that the opposite was true, when he was seeking others love and attention, he was the most sad and unhappy. Ironically, it was when he realized that suicide was indeed an avenue of 'escape' from his present situation, did he realize that he had some 'element of control.' He also thought the doctors could say what they want, but he was still alive and breathing. And if that much was true, there could indeed still be some hope after all.
He questioned further, what was the point of all his material 'questing' he had been on his entire life, basically at the end of it only to end up with a sick and frail body which at the end of which would also just return to dust. Life seemed completely pointless from this paradigm. He went further asking himself "What is Life? What is it about? What is the 'reason' for my being here? What am I SEEKING? What is this world, what is my Relationship to it? How did I get myself into this mess, and how can I get myself OUT? To his last question, he knew the answer and realized, the only way "out" was death. But he thought, if he just could at least get some answers to the other questions, maybe there was indeed a 'reason' for all of this. So he went to books, information, literature. Having had achieved a "measure of success" by many standards he had acquired a large library on a broad range of subjects. He launched himself into reading as much as he could. Medicine, physics, Freud, Jung. He had read them before, but he hadn't had his specific questions. After days, his room was a complete mess. Books everywhere, some laying on the floor from where he had hurled them in frustration. He thought to himself, he was always a smart boy, he had all the information but he was left in a dreadful state with a body full of disfunction. He was looking to people who hadn't found the answers themselves and he had to look elsewhere, what he was searching for wasn't so much found within the material realm. If those answers were there he would have already found them by now.
He focused his attention from asking externally to asking himself internally, just sitting in a chair. The Doctor had told him to spend a great deal every day laying in bed resting but his mind was too active for that and he instead favoured his chair within which he was conducting the most exciting research he had ever done and the lab was completely within himself. After about a month, he realized his first real breakthorugh. He realized happiness was when he was being loved. However, he didn't feel happy, but not necessarily because he wasn't loved. He realized he had plenty of love all around him. Therefore, this wasn't actually happiness. He had to look deeper than that. In his memories, he reviewed times when he was happy. He reviewed old relationships with people, people he hadn't thought of in years. With this deep burning desire to know the answer to these questions he started to find some 'answers' to his questions, that what happiness truly is. He saw that the times when he was loving, and sharing his love with others that he was indeed happy. He tested his theory, and saw that it was true, in all the times when he was expressing his love for others it was a time of great happiness. And not only that, but it wasn't even necessary for the other person to be loving him at the time he was expressing that love. In the same way, other people's love towards him couldn't actually bring him happiness, unless he went and reciprocated this feeling back towards them.
He took this even a step further, extrapolating his theory into the present sitiation he was in. He looked back to his behaviour in the hospital, with the doctors, the nurses, the orderlies and examined his conduct with them. He realized his behavior had not been coming from a place of love. And furthermore, the thought, they didn't even deserve it, after the treatment he had received. Nobody cared a damn about me! Or so he thought. He thought nonetheless, maybe not for them but maybe for himself that he could change this feeling towards love. Even though it was difficult, he shifted his feelings towards the doctor. At first, he was only able to relive his memory with a feeling of resentment. But this was an improvement, as he felt the tremendous hate initially. He tried again, and was able to realize that the doctor did in fact care, and it actually brought pain to the doctor to have to share such news with him. He realized one by one with all the people in his life, he could do this process. He felt a great sense of relief and he says like a great weight was lifted from him, a great burden he was carrying for all these years began to shed.
He wanted to know just how far he could take all this, it seemed incredible what he had uncovered so far as the potential of this seemed stunning. As his strength even started to return, he decided he wanted to stay free of distractions and forewent any sort of social activity, even going as far as doing his grocery shopping at 2-3am as there wasn't many people awake at that time and he found the city night to be peaceful. He went on to discover the cause of his ulcers, the loss of the love of his life twenty years before, and how they had started on the day she left him. He had had a beer, and threw up. He had always wished things to be different. He felt is ulcers flare up again. He decided, right then and there, to be done with it. He dropped the thing, and to his amazement, it was gone. Twenty years of holding on gone in an instant and he couldn't help but laugh as he now only felt love towards his long lost love. He realized the ulcers were from wanting to change things around him. Additionally, he was making himself to be a victim of these things he sought to change, in the world around him.
He continued his process of 'correcting' his viewpoint, shall we call it? Throughtout ones life there are painful events with associated painful memories. Pain, suffering, envy. And not only that, but there was often even a sequence of events, one suffering leading to another. He went through event by event and corrected his way of seeing and feeling and he continued his process of healing, becoming even more energized. He would take a feeling, such as jealousy and find associated times and re-play and re-shape those times, following the chain back through all the times in his life where he had felt that emotion. It was often disguised under a facade of not caring but inside he burned with rage at those times and the intensity of his emotions still to that day surprised him.
With his perserverance he was able to make it through all these times and correct his feelings towards the other until nothing but love was felt. He was also feeling more 'clear headed' than he ever had before in his life, and continued his questioning, asking himself "what is intelligence? what is my mind?"
I began to examine thinking and its relationship to what was happening.
And I saw that whatever was happening had a thought behind it at some time prior.
And that the reason I had never before related the two was because of the element of time between the thought and the happening.
He realized that he was the one that was actually causing the events to happen to him, thinking that the world had been abusing him! He realized that changing the way he looked at the world actually changed the world he was in, and with this was a tremendous sense of freedom. He realized that he had established a set of conditions in order for him to be happy. He had to work, he had to have money, he had to have a girlfriend, etc. He removed these self-imposed limitations on his happiness. He realized that this happiness was within himself and the entire time he had been seeking it externally. He was able to achieve a state of deepened bliss and happiness, he realized that this was what he was searching for his entire life. He was able to realize deep truths, the inter-connectivity of all consciousness, he realized that there was no separation from himself and others, he realized it was only his perspective the individual perspective which framed this limitation and he was able to do away with that. One of the core foundations that Lester came to realize is that... "we are unlimited beings, limited only by our thoughts of limitation." By learning to let go of his 'needs' to have these arbitrary conditions that he put in place in order to be happy, he was able to tap into an intelligence which seems to often elude the 'thinking mind' and all of it's human shortcomings. It's almost like we are programmed to a large degree with our thinking and thought patterns and not realizing how in the larger scheme of things we are causing things to play out. And it's not easy because we also seem to have like literally thousands of these thoughts running throughout, each individual thought a sort of program with it's own feelings, motives, desires etc.
We all have these thoughts, why we can't, couldn't, shouldn't, won't, etc. Our thoughts are full of judgments, thoughts, limitations, in essence, what we think, we only think we know. And these thoughts about ourselves and the world at large determine basically the world that we are in. A lot of the problem seems to come from the fact that a lot of these thoughts are running on a sort of autopilot. A lot of thoughts we aren't even AWARE of... thoughts and emotions that almost WANT to be forgotten, but never truly are. They continue to haunt us from the shadows of our unconscious, causing us to react and further the chain of sufferings and hurts if we don't examine and address them. I suppose a great deal of power can be regained by going through our memories and seeing what lurks beneath. Examining events in which we may have been 'the victim' and even though these events are extremely painful, enraging, uncomfortable and we all know nobody likes to feel those emotions. But perhaps we are able to re-frame those events and at least release ourselves from the shackles of victim hood and blame because these traumatic life events need not torment us for eternity if we are able to make peace with them in our own way, and regain our happiness in the process. It is from this place that we can truly start to make huge leaps forward as a collective people on this planet, starting to build a better place for everyone to live in. Because so many people are seeking happiness in all of the wrong places, we need to find it within ourselves first and the world will become a different place.
Much of the information in this post was referenced from the following article, I recommend reading it for an even more in-depth story from one of Lester Levensons own Students. Lester lived with his great peace and serenity until he passed away in 1994 and taught many people on his teachings. The article can be found here. There is more to Lesters Levenson and his story and ideas/teachings which he eventually went on to do after his discoveries of self-introspection. There are also many YouTube videos of his talks if one is interested by searching him if one is curious. To hear from the horses mouth so to speak.
