The OASIS experience and the ‘path of mastery’

Author’s note: The OASIS Center for Conscious Living near Cuenca is offering weekly classes beginning in mid-July focused on the “Path to Mastrery.” The following is an overview of Lesson 1, “Freedom from the Past.”. Those interested in participating can contact Louis at louisb333@hotmail.com. 

By Louis Bourgeois

Freedom from the past is the first of the “Five Freedoms.” In Lesson one, students will begin the process of the Life Map, with an Introduction to the Circle of Life, the 3 Levels of Consciousness.

We begin together by introducing our basic tools, building blocks for our entry into “a new earth.” The Path of Mastery begins with simple steps and a strong foundation. We will explore together the power of forgiveness, which comes in 5 stages. The first stage is bringing acceptance, appreciation and perhaps even enthusiasm to our past (acceptance, appreciation and enthusiasm are the levels of consciousness that describe our new earth and mastery itself).

To this end we use the tool we call the Life Map. This does not have to look like a map, per se, but you can use any artistic rendition that you enjoy. It can be a straight line, a spiral, a circle. The point is simply this: you mark your birth and this present moment, and then take the time to highlight every event in your life that you consider to be significant. Some might consider using a graph with a baseline, then highlighting events above the baseline that appeared to be positive events, and then likewise highlighting events below the baseline that appeared to be negative events.

In our book, “The Circle of Life; The Way of Transformation” we use the circle, the four directions and the four seasons to describe a life. It is helpful to apply, then, the tool of the 3 Levels of Consciousness to your Life Map. The tribal mind describes your primal experience with your family, where your basic needs for safety and security, the focus on the body, were paramount. The egoic mind describes your gradual development of independence from your tribe. Here is where your unique “person” began to take shape. The tribal mind dominates the first 20 years of life; the egoic mind dominates the next 20-40 years. Hopefully by the time you reached your 50’s or 60’s the limitations (or what we will come to call interference patterns) of the tribal and egoic consciousness will become painfully apparent. This is what motivates us to move into the wisdom of the spiritual mind, what comes as we progress on the Path of Mastery.

So, as you work with your Life Map, see the ways in which you can bring acceptance, appreciation and perhaps even enthusiasm to each and every event of your life. The key is to be applying the principle of Oneness or what we call the One Thing. There was always, without exception, One Thing going on in the development of your life. The principle of Oneness is essential to Taoist philosophy. This Oneness embraces the duality, the yin and yang, of life. How can you bring this principle, this philosophy, to your life?

Freedom from the Past simply means that we no longer hold any grievance against it. We hold no regrets. We accept that everything that we experienced, without exception, was essential to our development and ultimately our Path of Mastery. Simple lesson — Lesson #1.