Introduction

To be able to navigate this site easily you need to view it on a computer or a tablet in landscape mode. I do not recommend trying to view it on a phone. The main menu is horizontal above this text and has five sections; on a phone none of this is visible. To gain a quick overview of the site click on each of the headings; Principles, Tools, Background and Resources. Some of the content is shown in the drop down menu, but the heading page explains a lot more.

There are more videos available for viewing here.

A Path for Enlightenment Masters

In 2008 I circulated a final version of The Long Intensive Manual in which I summarised my experience of running long Enlightenment Intensives. Charles Berner commented on the manual both positively and negatively. In it I asserted that whilst participating in Intensives was not a spiritual path, running Intensives certainly was. Charles agreed with this assertion. Now, some 16 years later, I wish to expand on the idea that Mastering Intensives can provide a path for someone wishing to have sustained contact with the Divine coupled with a profound level of self awareness.

In most spiritual traditions there are two recognised ways to organise one’s life. The first is the path of the renunciate. On this path the individual forsakes the world, renounces possessions, relationships and sex and devotes their life to contacting whatever the Divine is in their tradition. In a remarkable talk, Brother David Steindl-Rast talks about the monastic life. “From my own experience, for whatever that is worth, I give you my word. It works!  The monastic experience in the form it is offered to us today is one possibility for discovering the things that we are all about.”

For the rest, the non-renunciates, the path to be followed is one which follows the codes of the spiritual tradition, such as being honest, non-violent, not avaricious, but otherwise engages with the world of possessions, relationships and sex. In the yogic tradition this is referred to as the Householder path. Although individuals on this path may be upright and supporters of the spiritual tradition, they are not expected to have contact with the Divine – however that is defined.

I have led my life as a householder. However I have also had profound contact with the Divine; not once or twice but many, many times. I am aware, and was aware at the time, of many transformative experiences, particularly over the last 45 years when I have actively pursued increased personal growth, self awareness and spiritual development. I feel blessed by the multitude of experiences. I am also cautious about using my own experiences to derive recommendations for anyone else; I am very aware of differences between individuals. Nevertheless as my life draws to a close I wish to communicate something about the effectiveness of the path I have accidentally followed so that others can draw conclusions and ideas that might be relevant to their own trajectory. The key starting point I wish to establish is that it is possible to follow a householder path, including possessions, relationships and sex, and also experience the Divine and be able to live from those experiences and develop a remarkable level of self awareness. You do not have to renounce! But you do need significant discipline and persistence – as will become clear.

This website has four core sections. The first sets out the core Principles that constitute the path that I inadvertently followed. Although this mostly comprises straightforward instructions, the reasons for them may not be obvious. The second section sets out the essential Background ideas that have guided my own development and which inform the instructions in the Principles section. The third section of the website sets out the Tools that I have personally found most useful. There are many other tools that can provide the same function. Either I have not tried them or they did not work for me. You are encouraged to try out all the tools that appeal to you and find those that work best for you.  The fourth section sets out the Resources that are referred to elsewhere on the site. Because I started my own journey more than 45 years ago, some of the key books that I wish to refer to have been out of print for a long time. When this is the case I have included chapters or sections of the books so that you can read them for yourself. The other two sections included in the horizontal menu are this Introduction and my autobiography Who I am.

Over the last five years I have had a number of very challenging experiences and my responses to them have surprised me. I became aware of the depth of change within my myself through these often excruciating challenges. Facing death has brought its own realisations – perhaps the most important of which is that all the years of persisting at my personal growth were worth it. The pay off has been awesome. I found this difficult to write because I want to provide you with an idea of the awareness I have gained without appearing arrogant, boastful or presumptuous. Despite many experiences of the Divine I remain a fallible human being, living with traumas from my childhood and later – but enjoying a level of peace, contentment and fulfilment I never dreamt was possible. I am certain that had I more time I could gain even more awareness and even greater contact with the Divine, but I know I am dying and this has added an urgency to writing all this down.

Approaching the End

If you are interested in how Eva and I have approached the end of my life, and the end of our relationship, you can find a lot of information here on our Relating Manual website. This includes a video of us using the Dying Dyad that we have used on a weekly basis for more than a year, plus videos of our personal experience of the process of approaching the end. (up to September 2025).