Most of what circulates under Lester Levenson’s name is the Release Technique as it’s handed to beginners — notice the feeling, let it go. This is not that. Recorded over the summer of 1989, “The Way” is a set of late private sessions in which Lester drops the scaffolding and speaks only to those already committed to going free. He distills the whole path into a few blunt instructions — want freedom more than the world, release directly on the fear of dying, get everything by releasing only, be not the doer — and then refuses to add more, so as not to complicate what is already simple.
A word of warning: this is not for the beginner. Lester assumes you’ve done the groundwork and are ready, in his words, for the “post-graduate work.”
[Transcribed from the original audio recordings by KHTang, with the help of audio-to-text conversion tools.]
Tape 1 – Side A: 21 May 1989
The way you've been doing it, the track record is, can take almost
forever. Because how long should
it take to do a three-month job?! Or three
months or less? In other words, you were not doing it. You were toying with it, playing with it, using it to better what
you really want – the world.
If you were using it to go to the infinite being that you are, you
already would have been free. Does that make sense?
So what's missing is your ‘want to’. Your ‘want to’ is the world.
And if it's the world, that's the opposite of your unlimited Beingness. And each Sunday I've been trying to give you something really
substantial to work with. Can you remember what the first one was? Anyone here remember?
Student: The first one was let go of the world and
focus on freedom.
Right, that's step
number one. And it's step number one of
the method, isn't it? “You've got to want freedom more than you want the
world.” Let me change that around a bit.
That's the way it was
originally. It seemed to be meaningless
to people, so we changed it to “You must want freedom more than you want approval or
control.” – for approval and control equates to the
world.
But I think it's better
put, “You must want freedom more than you want the world.” And if you do, then what's your behavior from
there on? Turning your head away from
the world and focusing it back on you. Doing that
which is required to detach you from the world and allow your infinite
Beingness just to be.
So step number
one is “You've got to want freedom more than you want the world.”
Okay, the number one hold down is the wanting to survive as
a body. Which comes out as the ‘fear of
dying’.
Out of that evolves every other feeling – “If I get
everyone's approval, I'm safe, I'll survive as a body.” “If I can't get their approval, I want to make them approve of me. So I'll be safe and survive.” and
that's control.
But because you're so fearful of allowing the feelings of the ‘fear of dying’ to come up, you need to
work with ‘approval’ and ‘control’ first. And when you release
that appreciably, naturally up comes the bottom ‘fear of dying’ for you to release.
But I think you've done enough on ‘approval’ and ‘control’ to directly attack the ‘fear of dying’ and work on that, and work on that...
And when you get stuck, use
the how-to and the method – “Let go of wanting to
change the feeling of stuckness.” If it's a "vague feeling", let go of wanting to change that "vague
feeling" and it releases and then you can attack the "fear of
dying" feeling.
[Letting Go of the FEELING is the KEY, ANY FEELING, RELEASE it! Which include the ‘fear of living’, which is the other side of the same coil for "fear of dying" feeling.] [Note: This sentense is inserted from Lester other tape.]
That first little
release will allow you to move up to the place where you'll discriminate and
realize the ‘fear of dying’ is
only a feeling. And that right
now you're equating it to actual death.
And that's why you don't allow it up.
If you didn't equate
the feeling of the fear, if you didn't equate the ‘fear of dying’ to death
itself, you'd let it right up and you'd
go free in a matter of a week or two. And
it is pushing hard to get up and get out. It's the most suppressed feeling we have. And you're doing a beautiful job of
suppressing it and holding it down.
So last time we did
something that's been done for the very first time. Focus in on the ‘fear of dying’ feeling.
I generally avoid it
because most people jam on it rather than carry it through. But I think you're ready, if you're committed
as you say you are, to allow the
feelings of the ‘fear of dying’ up and allow them to go out. Did you hear that word ‘allow’? That's just the way it happens.
Instead of holding it down, you allow it up and out. Because it's trying to push up and out all
the time. Every suppressed feeling is.
So
when you do it, it's easy. It comes up
in waves and goes out until the waves stop and then you're finished.
I want to give you
another very practical thing that'll help you go free. And it is this – “Whatever you do, whatever you want now, get it by
releasing only.” “Whatever you want, get it by
releasing ONLY.”
I'm underlining ONLY. It might kill you because it's so easy, it drops into your lap. (Laughing from audience) Is there anyone who has not experienced getting something with no effort through releasing? So every one of you has experienced getting something just through releasing. No effort, no doing, just releasing. And it drops into your experience.
What's wrong with that? (Laughing from audience) What's wrong with that? You've done it. You've done it more than once. (Laughing) And all things are possible when you do it that way.
Student: I just don't want an elephant to fall into my lap.
Okay, so the point I'm
making now is – from
here on, everything you want, make it a point to get it by releasing!
Do you think you ought
to write that down? I'm afraid
you'll forget it the moment I stop talking to you. That means your life is going to be
beautiful from here on.
Students: Oh, God. We can put
away all of our work clothes and tools… (Laughing)…
From here on, get everything you
want by releasing.
All right, now what will that do? It'll get you into the habit of releasing. It'll get you to use it more and more and more until it's natural, like breathing.
Now, your greatest
prize is not going to be the getting of the things that you want, but in your State
of Beingness.
You'll move
into that high, high, high state.
Because when you let go, by releasing, it's letting go and letting God. Can God do it?
You need money? Does God have
money? He could give you a trillion dollars tomorrow
if you would let him.
It's just a
letting. And basically, it's a letting
go of the ego sense – ‘I’, ‘me’, ‘my body’, ‘mind’. Letting go of the ego sense is letting God do it. It's letting the God part of you, your
Beingness, do it.
That's simple, isn't it, what I've said so far?
(Followed with short a chit chat with student for fun only…)
But this is an assignment: From here on, produce everything you want by releasing, until it gets to be permanent. When it's permanent, you're awfully close to being free.
Student:
I'm a little confused. That means
we take no action physically?
No. In your mind,
you take no action.
When you release and
you let it happen, your body goes through the motions, but
you have a sense of "being not the Doer."
“It's not me, but the Father who worketh through me” is the sense. It's letting go of ‘I’, ‘me’, ego sense
and letting God run the body.
Student: That's what I did when I did in the Air
Force.
Do it all the time. Things get to be effortless. You'll be surprised and it's almost like this – now to lift your arm takes effort. If you release, your arm floats up with no effort.
And that applies to
everything. There's no effort. When you let go of the ego sense, there's no
effort. It drops into your experience. When you do it enough, you'll learn to create
instantly. That means materializing and
dematerializing things.
Through
this process, you'll learn to materialize – even
gold. Of course, when you got the formula
for making gold, you don't want to carry it around with you. It's heavy.
The only thing
you think of is what you want, what you need. You
produce things for use, not to store up. Storing
up just shows uncertainty, the feeling I can't have so I better build it up for
the future.
Student: I was taught to save money, save money…
Yeah. (Laughing from the group)
They (the enlightened
one) never carry things with them. If
they want something, they materialize it. So, again,
starting today, we get everything we want through releasing.
And I'd suggest you put up a sign in your room – “Get everything Only through releasing.” And I think you need to really put it up over your mirror when you look at least once in the morning or wherever it's obvious. Put it up in a very obvious place.
Because it's obvious that even though you've released more than once and achieved something dropping into your experience, you don't want to remember it. You prefer to do things the hard way.
You love to grovel (abase oneself). And this will take
you out of your hovel of grovel and help you solve all problems.
Student: The thing about we love to grovel, I had
an awareness a couple weeks ago. I was
asking myself, “Why don't I let God do it?
Why am I struggling?”
And the answer came, “because if God does it, then
you won't get the Approval.” So that was
a very good eye opener. We don't want
him to do it, so we get the Approval “Look what I did. Look how I struggled to do this.”
Every time you've released completely on something, no matter how impossible it was before you released, it became immediately possible when you released. No matter what it was.
No matter what
it was. I'm saying that to dare you to
think big.
I've said so much, and
what I've said to you so far, I feel like cutting it now and letting you stay
with that. Do you have any questions?
Student: I have a question about what the second
week was. We covered the first, third,
and fourth. I was here that week. It was
the fifth week then. There were several things you talked about one of the
weeks I was gone. I went to California.
Were you there
when we decided to release directly on the fear of dying?
Student: Yeah, that was last week.
Student Hale: Oh, that week. The question you were answering that week was
how to get there faster, how to increase your want to.
And what was
the answer to that question?
Student x: Just do it.? The decision.
Oh, right. That was it.
When you make the decision to go free, it comes rapidly.
Student:
Another question I have is about releasing on the ‘fear of dying’. I understand you to mean that in our
workshops that we should even go as far as instead of asking is that approval
or control, is that survival or is that fear?
Yes, under the approval and control the workshop leader, Hale, will then ask you to look at the ‘fear of dying’ underneath it. The reason why you want approval or control is so that you'll survive. So it's up to the workshop leader to lead you further down.
Now, if they
jam, then release them on their feeling of being jammed. And when that's let go of, then they can
confront again the fear of dying. If they jam, it's just running away from the
‘fear of dying’ as though the feeling is tantamount to death.
You can keep reminding
them it's only a feeling. The ‘fear of
dying’ is only a feeling. And feelings don't
bite, they don't shoot you, they don't hit you over the head.
Student: It just keeps you bound.
No, you do.
Student: Yeah, you do.
It's only a
feeling, like every other feeling. But
the tendency to run away from it is very strong and very habituated. So now you've got to make the effort to get
it up and get it out.
And once you start
letting it up and letting it out, you'll discover you don't die each time the
feeling comes up. You survive so you can
look at it again and again.
Student: Something came to mind that Enrique said
in one workshop that was very good. – This guy was releasing on his neighbor. He said it was for a neighbor and he couldn't
do it. So she said, “Well, release on
this paper cup on the table.” And then
he did, and she said, “It's the same thing.
It's just a feeling. It doesn't matter what it's on, it's the same
thing.”
And then he
released on the neighbor.
Student: Yeah.
Okay, that's
one of the ways of a leader taking a person through a release. If you can't release on anything, you
release on the wall. Do you like the
color? Don't you like the color? So what you're telling me is that she's
using a process that works.
Student: So, if you use the same thing on death,
it comes up and it becomes overwhelmed and you start releasing on it. Something..
Well, No. Now you're contradicting what I say.
Student: Okay.
See, now you're
going way down to the elementary way of releasing. I'm trying to hold you up at the
post-graduate level. I'm taking you out
of grammar school, high school, college, and putting you into the post-graduate
college work.
No, release the feeling
of ‘stuckness’. See how you want
to change things that I tell you?
Student: Yeah, I sure do.
Release only
the feelings of the ‘stuckness’ or even the ‘vagueness’ of the
feeling. You might not even see it
because you're trying to run away from it.
Release ‘wanting to change that vague’ feeling, whatever it is. If that goes out, then you're able to
approach the ‘fear of dying’ again.
Now, also needs to
be thrown in the ‘fear of living’, which is the opposite side of the same coin.
Student: It also helped me answer the question of
wanting to die?
Because it is
in a lot of us wanting to die to get away from everything. So ‘wanting to live’, ‘wanting to die’, ‘fear of
dying’, ‘fear of living’. Those four things can be played with. Maybe you ought to write them down or do you think you
got them? Now, this should have an astounding...
Student Hale: I know, I needed to put down the stuff.
This ought to
lead to an astounding change in every one of you. And it will if you carry it through. You're being asked to do that, which will get
you free rapidly.
You can do it here
because you don't have the world telling you just the opposite, pulling you in
just the opposite direction. Here you
don't have the world pulling you. So you
can stay with it.
Student: I was working on the ‘fear of dying’ one
time and I brought up a lot of heavy physical pain. So I must have been doing something wrong,
but it took a long time to work through it.
Instead of
releasing it, you were expressing it on the body. You were making the body die. Pain is towards death. So instead of releasing it, you were
expressing it into the body.
Student: So if I get into that again, I'd have to
say I think that slowed down my releasing when that happened after that. I
still haven't let go of what all of it was.
So what can I do to get through that again?
Talk to the
workshop leader. Let him take you
through it. Or keep releasing the
stuck feelings. See, instead of
releasing the stuck feeling, you kept it going.
You were stuck with the stuck feeling and you kept it stuck.
Student: Stuck with pain.
Can you see how
simple it is? It's really
simple, if you'll do it. All right, now
you got me propping Hale, and Hale will prop you, and we'll all be proper in
the future. Which means releasing the
‘fear of dying’, getting everything we want via releasing only. Doing it without
effort. Be not the Doer.
Again, to aid your
intellect, it's just letting go and letting God, and I think you accept that
God can do it. If he can't,
I'll get you another God who can. But
it's a let go and let God experience, and it drops into your experience, right
into your lap with no effort.
Student: I have a question about the approval program and the control program. If we're wanting approval and we can't get approval, then we're wanting control so we can get approval. Is that what you said? Okay. How does that work when you're sitting in your room and there's an insect and you want to control that?
Why don't you answer these questions yourself? Why do you have to have me answer a question like that? You see why you want me to answer it? You want my approval. You want my attention. A question like that you can answer.
See, now you're bothered because you feel that maybe I'm putting you down. I won't approve of you. But all these little intellectual questions you can answer yourself, and they get you nowhere fast. They take the place of releasing.
Instead of
releasing, you're questioning things.
The whys and wherefores of things never give you any answer. They just satisfy the intellect, which is a
thing you want to get rid of.
So, please,
release only. And don't ask
whys. Why this? Why that?
It's a dumb question in the first place because asking why, “Now why
isn't it the way I think it should be?”
That's all you're saying.
Whenever you ask why, you're asking
someone to explain it so it fits in with your knowledge, which is lower than
college. That's down in elementary
school. So try to get out of the habit of why
questioning. Just do it.
Throwing up
‘whys’ is specifically avoiding doing it. So,
get ‘wise’, kill the ‘whys’. Get
‘W.I.S.E’ and kill ‘W.H.Y.S’.
Okay, I think we can
end the session now.
[This is a long lecture, and therefore I think it is best to break it up into 6 sessions — to keep focus and prevent fatigue.]
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