Testimonials

Read the latest entries from
Andrew's Awareness Diary or
the Excerpts from 2002 - 2007(web page)
(or click here to download the excerpts as a .pdf file)
  

My New Life of Awareness

My new life has just recently been discovered anew, and yet by ‘new life’ I do not mean life experienced as a sequence of ongoing separate moments, in a one-dimensional or linear time, moving from this moment to the next, but rather as a constant flow of free breathing expansive awareness, interlinked too with rhythmic contraction.

At this time of my life now, after long years of intense searching and most depressive encounters, new actualisations arise, spread, dance free and fulfil their hidden potentials. This new life, which is for me ‘The New Yoga’, aided by Acharya Peter Wilberg's constant awareness of his student’s and friend’s lives, is the door that opens up further immediate deepenings, further constant a-newings of this very awareness we call ‘now’ - where all of us and all there is leads to and comes out of one boundless time-space of awareness. This boundless awareness is where I finally found myself to be home, guided by Acharya's immense wisdom, through meditation.

For many years before, I was either fully fixated 'outwards' or then focussed only on the 'inside'. I felt I was missing the inner meditative worlds while working, and meditating in silence I always longed to be more united with the world outside. For me The Awareness Principle has become my safe heaven, the breakthrough to where this former duality ceases to dominate. Whenever an emotion or thought in which I sense self-limitation arises, I feel that whatever it is, it is a sign for entering deeper Awareness, a sign to expand into its all-encompassing time-space, rather than a sign to avoid, minimise or even halt anything experienced. This, for me deeply relieving, deeply enriching, profound new way of life, is hard to grasp, for the joy it reveals is immense.

This was after being held firmly tight (starting as a teenager, in a self chosen way) within the walls of a high-demand spiritual group, where judgementality of thoughts and emotions was practiced daily and high-sounding words like Compassion, God, Oneness, Love, Unity were constantly repeated, though missing any inner content or teaching so that none of those words lead to true fruition. In this group, individuality was completely rejected and all surfacing subjective emotionality and thinking was treated as a hindrance, a low or un-divine state of self, not seen as the deeply soul-filled expressibility surfacing out of awareness - which it is.

As the rays express the light of the sun most naturally, all that arises within is most natural creativity. No thought or emotion is a thing, a being to be stamped down or lifted high up to hold onto. To use names or categories for any surfacing individual beingness, like a 'good' or ‘bad’ – is groundless. There is no good or bad in the awareness of what is, nothing that is good or bad as such at all.

Invited by the ever so wise words, the deep understanding dwelling in Acharya's teaching, I came to freely flourish, extend and explore self-individualisation, finding new sides, new selves of mine with no restriction whatsoever. To see that all I was, all I am and all that I will become resides forever in Awareness, which is the one sole truth of life, my former very strong fears and anxieties have almost immediately lost their poisonous stings, from which I previously felt forced to very much run, rush and hide away. I have been able to again enter a state of more solid peace, freer inner calmness and I come ever further to a more simple and deeply clarified understanding.

While being in the awareness-presence of Acharya, although living far away in another country, I am aware of his constant profound support and guidance, which he is able to offer in any situation in day to day life, through and in profound silent meditation.

There was a time when I felt tightly bound within this earthly time-space, I framed myself 'out', missed at every second the nourishing cord to this actually free time-space, this unlimited cosmic arena of pure awareness. Then, so suddenly, the longed for yet unexplored deeper ground calmly and safely unraveled and awoke to present actuality. All within grace! It was and still is this very moment when, from the immortal nectar of Acharya's presence, his tireless work awakens me. His illuminative writings invite all of us who dare to listen to drink the clear water of pure awareness, while he continuously points to its basic source within us, around us and as us.

Silya M., Switzerland

The essence of Hindu Advaita, Shaivam and Shaiva Advaita is the 'Science of Awareness'. This science is as old as humanity itself but has taken many forms and many names. In the 10th century it took the form of the holistic ‘threefold’ science of awareness (‘Trika Shaivism’) through the grace of Acharya Abhinavagupta.

This tradition lived relatively secluded in the valley of Kashmir for many centuries and its teachings were very much considered secret. It was not until modern times (in the 1970's) that this teaching was given to the world through the grace of Swami Lakshmanjoo. 

I have been studying ‘Trika’ Shaivism for some years now and have benefited from it greatly. What I find attractive in it is its extraordinary ordinariness and its freedom and respect for the individual (that I suspect comes natural when you see and respect every particle in the universe as a manifestation of the Divine Awareness). Yet many of the Trika teachers I have managed to find seem to be more in the field of 'Pay Me-Bless You'-business. 

Through the teachings of Swami Lakshmanjoo my heart has been filled with more peace, more freedom and more bliss. Yet Swami Lakshmanjoo is gone, and there is no one that ‘walks the talk’. Yet then I discovered Peter Wilberg’s books and website, and upon reading more and more of his teachings my heart is filled with inspiration, joy and hope.

Acharya Peter Wilberg has really updated this age-old tradition of Tantrism in a way that makes it totally applicable for a modern mind and a modern humanity. Peter Wilberg speaks from a place where he not only express understanding if the Trika but also seems have such in-depth knowledge of it that he have made it his own and is able to express it in a creative way.

I find it interesting that Swami Lakshmanjoo was considered by many of his devotees as the incarnation of Acharya Abhinavagupta's teacher. How appropriate then, that the guiding light of the revived Trika Shaivism and Tantrism of Acharya Peter Wilberg embodies so strongly the spirit of Acharya Abhinavagupta himself.

Visarganath, Norway

(Associate of the Universal Shaiva Fellowship)

NEW YOGA IN EVERY DAY LIFE

For me the New Yoga means freedom. From the very first lesson I have learnt that we are not our experiencing, reality is not our experiencing. We do not have to be the helpless victims of every random thought and emotional storm that passes through. By identifying with the awareness of what we experience, rather than the experience itself, we can open up real spaces in which to observe and consider. In these spaces we can take all the time we need to choose the responses we give, the actions we take. Without them we can only react with a “knee jerk.”

With this freedom comes such a sense of joy. Knowing I can choose my responses, gives me courage and confidence; I am learning to be brave, rather than defensive. People can get closer to me now, the more I trust myself, the more I am able to trust others. I can say no because I no longer identify with the sweet little thing who had to please everyone, and this allows me to say yes and really mean it.

C.C., Deal, U.K., 2006

The New Yoga of Awareness  -
A Life Changing Pursuit

The practice and the philosophy of The New Yoga of Awareness have given me the framework and the tools to pursue questions about myself and the world in a way that no psychotherapy, religion or philosophy has offered me before. The New Yoga contains elements of all three, it is a religious philosophy that offers practices, which are deeply therapeutic in effect, and at the same time transcend the personal experience.

Before my first tantric initiations with Peter Wilberg I had assumed that there is a world of animate and inanimate objects. After the initiation I was opened to experiencing all there was in my environment as alive and connected to me. However, this 'me' was altered through the experience of connectedness with and participation in the vibrancy of creation. The sense of ‘having’ a fixed identity was shattered because I could feel the trembling of a leaf as much as 'me' as the smoothness of a wooden surface. There was no 'me' in the old sense as a particular person with a particular history. I could chose what I wanted to identify with. This was exhilarating and scary at the same time.

Having the choice of identifying or not made it possible for me to explore aspects of myself which I had until then not even been aware of because they didn’t fit into the ‘fixed identity’ I had created in the past. This was a major psychological breakthrough, which lead to an exciting and on-going process of discovery of greater depth than I have experienced in psychotherapy. I have acquired a new sense of ‘wholeness’ and ease in relation to myself and others.

Another important aspect of The New Yoga of Awareness, however, is that it gives me the means to experience, in Tantric Pair Meditation and through individual meditations, that Everything is Awareness – that every event is an expression of Awareness, and that 'Awareness' and 'Divine' are two words for the same concept, that the Divine is nothing separate but inherent in everything and everyone, and that tuning into the divine aspect of myself and others is delightful beyond words.

The only way to describe those experiences that occurred in initiations through Tantric Pair Meditation is through poetry. Some of my poems are on this web site (click here).

What strikes me most when I think of The New Yoga is the immense richness, vastness and depth of experiencing that its practice has opened me to. This effects every area of my life - from my closest relationships and from my work as a psychotherapist to my understanding and relationship to the world.

K.H., Whitstable, U.K., February 2008  
 

A Journey in many Ways

Through years of rigorous philosophical questioning and soul-scientific research Peter Wilberg has rediscovered that source within himself, and given birth to teachings and practices, which are of tremendous sophistication and depth, and yet are immensely relevant and applicable, in even quite simple ways, to our everyday lives. The New Yoga focuses on the soul, and its body. It is a yoga, not of our outer body and its postures and breathing, but of our inner soul body or awareness body. It is how we can DO this thing called soul. It is about how we can move, stretch, shape, tone, extend, warm, feel, breathe, colour our soul … Now. Here. In the twenty-first century.

… and unlike so many “spiritual” pursuits The New Yoga does not see our physical body as something to transcend or overcome – the rather clumsy vehicle necessary only for our current incarnation. Nor does it see our bodies in the way that current medical science does – merely a conglomeration of cells and physical stuff of which we are totally at the mercy. Rather it sees our bodies as the outer form or “speech” of our soul, and as such it seeks to ensoul this body to its fullest possible degree.

Quite frankly The New Yoga makes sense of who I am as a human being, in every respect. It makes sense of my relationship to myself, to my partner, to others, to the trees, to the divine … and to the child and teenager I was. There is nothing swept under the proverbial or “spiritual” mat … It is the most complete picture of the world and my place in it that I have ever found.

In December 2004 I travelled to England to study and work with Peter Wilberg …

At this point in this piece of writing I start to stumble. Not because I don’t have anything to write, but rather that I have so much to write and I do not know where to start. And in any case how does one write about teachings that on one level may be taking place on the physical plane but on another have depths and give rise to expansions within that continue for days, weeks or months afterwards? How does one write about teaching that expands one’s everyday identity so fully into the divine, and yet in every respect brings the divine so fully into everyday life?

M.B., Adelaide, South Australia, February, 2005