The term Avatar derives from Sanskrit and means “descent or incarnation of a god”.
Hinduism conceives an Avatar as a divine being who descends to earth in the form of a person, animal or any other type of being with the aim of re- establishing the divine law.
For other religions, Avatar is any spirit that occupies an earthly body, which is a divine manifestation on earth.
Here Avatar is a being who deliberately chooses to experience creation
“One of the goals in writing the Avatar Materials was to create a methodology that excluded any indoctrination or invalidation of beliefs. This required the most aseptic approach possible. The focus had to be on HOW human consciousness operates, not on the content of consciousness. Any discussion of content would imply the risk of being dragged into some belief system and succumbing to the intellectual impulse to say, “This is how things are. This is what it means”. ”Avatar teaches people an effective way to configure their consciousness without going into the merits of what they should configure it with. This is what I mean by an aseptic approach.”
Harry Palmer
“Avatar’s mission to the world is to catalyze the integration of belief systems. When we realize that the only difference between us is our beliefs and that beliefs can be created and discreated with ease, the game of right and wrong will end, a game of co-creation will develop, and world peace will be born”.
Harry Palmer
It was 1992 when I heard about Avatar for the first time. In a distracted way to be honest. A friend of mine had mentioned it to me but the course had not yet arrived in Italy. Therefore, not to be considered. Then, one day the same friend told me not only that Avatar had arrived in Italy, but that an old friend of hers had profoundly changed after the course. Curiosity. What could it be? How can a course be able to transform people in such a short time, in just 9 days?
A little more information and by the end of the year I had signed up for the New Year’s Avatar Course.
It was a time of change for me. After several years of working in some established companies, I had left my professional commitment which no longer satisfied me. Everything I had given importance to over the years as an expression of personal and economic independence was no longer enough for me. A sense of profound lack, of an internal discomfort had made its way into me and needed to be taken into consideration and healed.
So, a new life, and what better could I do than work on myself in a moment like this?
And here I am then with the Avatar Materials in my hands studying myself, my consciousness from the point of view of beliefs. Wow, what a strange perspective! No narration, no analytical thinking, no why. Only beliefs! Since the beliefs we entertain are truly the most powerful filters through which we perceive reality and attract the events that we say are our lives.
And it was fantastic! My mind was satisfied and now collaborated with my heart to create the best in my life. Recognizing myself as the creator of my own reality not only intellectually, but by experiencing it was a gift for which I felt deeply grateful.
From this pont on, it was a very easy to decide to deliver Avatar.
Avatar offers such a broad, unusual and new perspective on oneself through the discovery of one’s own belief systems. It is quite amazing to understand how these are the most powerful filters through which we experience our reality.
In fact, entertaining a belief is like wearing a pair of glasses with colored lenses: they filter out everything but the color they are colored with. Changing the filter also changes the experience of what is.
With Avatar we can change the color of our lenses deliberately, but we might equally want to see the world for all it is: without any filters at all.
Through these extraordinary tools we have the possibility to free ourselves from those old limitations that do not allow us to be happy; we can easily achieve the desired goals; we can direct our lives more consciously; we can explore unknown parts of ourselves, that are more expanded and wiser and full of peace; we can participate in a more detached way in the pains and struggles of the world by seeing them for what they really are; we can discover that enlightenment is a state of consciousness not reserved for the few.
Why is Avatar so different? Rather than offering a new set of beliefs on which to base one’s life, Avatar awakens us to our natural ability to create and discreate beliefs. With this skill we can restructure our life according to a self-determined model.
But will it work for me? This is the most frequent and immediate question of many. The best answer to this question is offered by Harry Palmer with another question: “How honest with yourself are you willing to become?” How vulnerable will you allow yourself to become?” The reason this is asked is that the real causes of your unhappiness, whatever it may be, and the causes of your failures, whatever they may be, are buried under layers of your own resistance. While an Avatar Master guide you, he can create a safe and compassionate space. Ultimately it is your willingness to be vulnerable that dissolves the layers of resistance. Then, the true causes of your unhappiness are revealed and you can make the Avatar tools work for you.”
Avatar’s structure is modular. Through ReSurfacing, we begin to extricate ourselves from the entanglement of old creations and return to a state of awareness. ReSurfacing is a new approach to very old questions: Who am I? Why am I here? Where am I going to? Thanks to ReSurfacing, we can find the answers to these questions by exploring the structure underlying our consciousness – our beliefs!
ReSurfacing opens up a new perspective on our life, how it works or why it doesn’t work. How far do we want to go is up to ourselves. But we may want to make just some changes. And Avatar will help us anyway.
With the Exercises and the Procedures, we have to possibility delve into our own belief systems to learn how to create our preferred reality and change those hidden beliefs that are an obstacle to operate as a source being. We turn the part of ourself that was our worst enemy into a friend who guides us. We learn how to experience reality without judgment, separation or distortion. When we are able to handle any problematic aspect of our existence from the creator’s point of view we have reached the state of existence called Avatar.
Exploring ourself through the world of our beliefs can be a truly amazing journey.
“Beliefs are not just a matter of what is true. Normally people argue for or against beliefs, about what is true. They practice something because they believe it to be true. Someone says, “This is the way to live,” and because he’s convincing, or he’s a charismatic figurehead, or he has some power over you, you believe his directives. I’m not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, but it’s the big difference between Avatar and most other practices. Avatar won’t tell you what to believe.
What it will do is to reveal what you already believe and why.
Avatar will show you how to make the connection between what you believe and what you are experiencing in life, and teach you how to dissolve a belief that is creating an experience you don’t prefer.
The focus is on exploring consciousness and changing only the things in life that you want to change.”
Harry Palmer
“Following somebody else’s path leads to who they are, not who you are. You have to make this journey alone.”
Harry Palmer
If well equipped, the journey becomes pleasant, educational and inspiring. The desire and curiosity to explore progressively increases.
Avatar is a good piece of equipment.
Its tools are designed to allow us to deliberately restructure the beliefs that form the pattern of our lives.
Our beliefs influence our existence. They determine what we perceive and how we perceive it. They influence our thoughts, expectations and actions. They form our personality. They even influence the outcome of our actions and how others perceive and respond to us.
Avatar helps us to explore the “behind the scenes” of our existence and discover the uncontrolled and unconscious beliefs that cause our life to be the way it is.
Avatar speaks to the mind in order to reach the heart. And this is a grace. Procedures and Exercises teach and enable us to discipline our minds.
And when the mind is silent, that wonderful alignment is created between mind and heart. This produces quite some previously unexpected results.
“So, beyond material success and happiness, new priorities appear in the mind-free moments of the here-and-now. What is really important? Which actions of mine have weight and which actions are insignificant? Why do I worry so much about temporary things?
“These are questions that lie along the path of personal honesty. They don’t just elicit responses, they create sudden moments of intuitive understanding – epiphanies. Certain qualities begin to evolve in your life: serenity, compassion and consideration for others.”
Harry Palmer
“People who say they don’t have time to work on themselves simply don’t understand how easy it is.”
Harry Palmer
The Avatar Course. Nine days dedicated to the spiritual awakening of people. Nine days entirely dedicated to oneself, to one’s own discoveries. Such a gift.
People are taken by the hand and accompanied in the use of the Avatar Materials so that they learn to experiment independently, while a sense of personal responsibility is awakened in them and the techniques are integrated. Then the exploration begins, the true journey of discovery through the world of one’s beliefs. An innovative approach to the study of consciousness that only Avatar can give.
The experience is wonderful. People laugh, cry, get excited, are moved, but above all they are amazed when they discover that they have slept for so long and can recover their origins.
They went through a new experience of self (life lessons) rather than accepting someone’s opinions (word lessons). And this woke them up.
And it’s just the beginning. The journey continues but now they have the tools to make this journey safe and fascinating.
One of the things I have always appreciated in Avatar is the profound respect for human beings. A feeling that, although at the basis of this methodology – I won’t tell you what you have to believe but I’ll let you discover what you believe in – amplifies as the work progresses. Working in pairs or groups, accompanied by the presence of a compassionate and attentive Avatar Master, people experience that beyond the heavy games of life, there is an ocean of infinite awareness that unites them in a profound sense of mutual compassion and appreciation.
There are no disciples. There are no gurus. Only traveling companions who share the same goal: to create a new world of understanding and cooperation.
“When our true nature – indefinite and ever-present – is realized, everyone will recognize that there is no gain in which we do not all share and no loss for which we do not all share the sacrifice.”
Harry Palmer
“I have enough problems, why should I worry about the spiritual path? Putting all spiritual reasons aside, the practical answer is that the closer you get to the state of Being Source the more control you have over your life.”
Where “Being Source is an indefinable awareness that creates deliberately”.
This what Harry Palmer, Author of the Avatar materials, writes in his book The Avatar Path: the Path Made.
The point of arrival is therefore to have more control over one’s life.
But how can I get there? And how can I get closer to the state of Being Source?
By wanting it and by wanting to start working on ourself. The very word work leads one to think of something tiring, perhaps even boring and probably not very profitable. But above all, it implies the fact that we must take action and do something. Something that produces a change, that gives comprehensive answers to the discomfort that makes us consider to walk along a path of personal growth.
And in my opinion, there is very often a big misunderstanding about this.
Today, the offer is extremely diversified: courses, books, coaching, channeling, psychological and philosophical paths, etc. And people often turn to these with the attitude one has towards swallowing the “magic pill”, the one that alone gets you through everything. It is not so.
A path of personal growth means, first of all, going in the direction of self- knowledge which is achieved with patience and dedication, with will and determination with a “work” which becomes pleasant and enriching as it progresses. Letting go of old burdens, opening up to new and infinite possibilities is not something that happens or that others make happen for us, but is the result of a commitment that a person makes, first of all, with himself.
The attitude must change from passive to active, from “Tell me what you want me to do, what I have to believe” to “I choose to be the protagonist of my change“. What follows is a reappropriation of one’s own will, of that free will that we often renounce in the name of obedience to an external source – a reappropriation of listening to ourselves and of obedience to our feelings.
It is necessary to open up to a new concept of personal responsibility which has been abdicated for so long due to a bad interpretation of its meaning linked mainly to the issue of guilt. Responsibility instead in the broadest sense of rediscovering one’s power of creative origin, which acts deliberately in harmony with one’s inner determination.
Every time I deliver an Avatar Course and I see people re-open to their own potential, I admire and appreciate their desire to get involved and to make themselves available, as the work progresses, to explore themselves and accept with growing confidence the infinite possibilities that life offers.
Thanks to this availability, the journey becomes pleasant, the interest in discovery and the desire to continue exploring this infinite treasure that we discover we are do keep growing.
This is why my invitation is always not to stop in front of glittering shop windows that promise quick solutions, but to take the path of personal responsibility knowing that this will require commitment. But that there will be more than proportional satisfactions. And it is on this basis that we will be able to meet.
“Humanity will evolve into an Enlightened Planetary Civilization. It’s possible, that’s the direction we’re going. We have passed the point of no return. We will not realize it in the tomorrow that arrives next month, nor in the tomorrow that arrives next year, not even perhaps in any of the tomorrows of our life, but there will be a tomorrow and we will get there”.
Harry Palmer
Every now and then, especially during a presentation, I am asked how I have changed, what are the areas in which Avatar has made changes in me. And this, I confess, forces me to reflect because I struggle to remember what I was like. Many years have passed since that first time I used the Avatar tools which have accompanied me and continue to accompany me on my life path.
First of all, I answer that Avatar didn’t make any changes, but it was me who, using these wonderful tools, was able to make changes. And I find it extremely liberating: I don’t have to delegate anyone, but I’m at the helm of my ship. And this is certainly a substantial change.
The thing I acknowledge the most in myself today is this ability to fully assume my responsibilities for everything that happens to me. I have stopped blaming others for how they make me feel, but I can trace everything back to myself and from this point I can intervene to change how I feel and therefore change my experience of what happens to me. I am no longer fighting with the world of which I no longer feel like a victim because I know, once again, that the work I do on myself, in addition to changing me, contributes to the change of a broader consciousness. And I know this because I have experienced it: realizing that we are truly part of the same consciousness was a moment to be reverent about.
How many times has it happened to me, and it still happens, that by suspending my judgment on a person that person changes towards me. Recognizing that my experience of that person is also my creation and that as such it is possible to modify it moves me every time.
My priorities have changed: personal success, perhaps obtained by obeying the rules dictated by competitiveness, has been replaced by the knowledge of being at service with responsibility and compassion to help achieve something bigger.
Here in the end, if I have to say how my life has changed, it is this: knowing that there is no area of my life in which I cannot intervene, because I am the origin, the source and I can work on my conscience, therefore from internal, to change external reality. It’s all so simple and at our fingertips. Confidence has increased. And that’s Living Deliberately.
“Honesty towards ourselves opens us to compassion towards others.”
Harry Palmer
Compassion Exercise
Raising the Level of Compassion in the World.
Instructions: you can do this exercise anywhere there is a group of people (airports, shopping centers, parks, beaches, etc.). Perform this on strangers in a non-invasive way, from a distance. Try to complete all five steps on the same person. The expected result is an inner feeling of peace.
Step 1: with your attention on the person, repeat to yourself:
Just like me, this person is looking for some happiness in his/her life.
Step 2: with your attention on the person, repeat to yourself:
Just like me, this person is trying to avoid suffering in his/her life.
Step 3: with your attention on the person, repeat to yourself:
Just like me, this person has known sadness, loneliness, and dispair.
Step 4: with your attention on the person, repeat to yourself:
Just like me, this person is seeking to fulfill his/her needs.
Step 5: with your attention on the person, repeat to yourself:
Just like me, this person is learning about life.
Alternatives:
It can be done within the couple and between family members to increase mutual understanding.
It can be carried out towards old enemies or adversaries still present in the memory.
It can be done on other life forms.
Source: “ReSurfacing: Techniques for Exploring Consciousness” by Harry Palmer.
Harry Palmer, author of the Avatar® Materials has been a lifelong educator. In 1976, he left his teaching position and began what would turn out to be a decade of study and investigation into the workings of consciousness. His passion for helping people understand how to improve their lives led him to create the Avatar Materials in 1987. He said: “I don’t believe there is anything wrong with the world or the people of the world, other than that they are still evolving. Things are what they are and if you don’t like them you either change your mind or improve things.”
Avatar® and RiEmergre TM are registered trademarks of Star’s Edge Inc. All rights reserved”
