Previously in several labs in the US, research was conducted to uncover the secrets of cognition. Through the most advanced western technologies (for example, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation or TMS), scientists came to realize that we do not see the world as it actually is, but only in terms of what we already know of the world. In other words, in states of non-conscious cognition (which is where most people are), memory shapes or dictates all of what we can perceive. We are thus deprived of free will and free agency.

The moment we find access to being conscious and aware in the present moment, free will and free agency are restored. Brain scans using the same TMS technology also show how the practice of different forms of meditation, learned through long retreats, in fact influence perception in such a way, that humans can rise above an otherwise unconscious existence. For all human beings, this step into conscious awareness is of primary importance for it enables us to live a happy, balanced and fulfilled life.

The question now is, how can this be accomplished? The traditional Buddhist approaches to the restoration of free will and conscious awareness require a long and arduous discipline of meditation over the span of many years. As the results of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation with experienced meditators suggest, these techniques do indeed work.

The data collected at the E.M. Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior on the Madison Campus of the University of Wisconsin, USA, demonstrate as much. The drawback is, in the past, these techniques were invented, taught and elucidated mainly by monks and other people who were in a position to live a life of seclusion and contemplation. In other words, in their traditional approaches these techniques are time-consuming and require years of dedicated effort.

The question now is, can we accomplish the same? Can the average person achieve comparable levels of conscious awareness as do Buddhist meditators after twenty or more years of practice? Living in the world, going about his or her business, and taking care of the many obligations that are taken for granted by any ordinary socially active person? The answer is, “Yes, to some degree with the right motivation, commitment and discipline, it is possible.”

There are approaches to conscious awareness and emotional intelligence that are geared toward direct recognition of what is so in the moment which bypass the mental processing via memory. EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) clearly remove the charge that past memory holds over the entire body. One pertinent example of its use in this regard, is the Core Empowerment retreat, developed by Dr. Paula Horan in the eighties which is also based on several other time-tested meditative techniques.

In the Core Empowerment retreat, destructive emotions and unconscious behavior patterns themselves become the object of our exploration. Basically, from an Eastern perspective, this is the sum total of incomplete karma, of which there are only two kinds: incomplete desire and incomplete resistance (usually to traumas which we were unable to process with full conscious awareness to complete our experience of them). The emotions and unconscious reactions incomplete karma evokes, is not judged, and neither are they rejected. No effort is made to push them away. Instead, participants are guided to directly feel them, and to cultivate a sense of exploration about every circumstance or perception that arises, whether seemingly “comfortable” or “uncomfortable”, “happy” or “sad”, “good” or “bad”. This direct feeling and recognition brings about a sudden shift in perception. One of the tools used to complete the experiences of long withheld karma is EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques), that literally clear sometimes lifetimes of withheld karma that literally take birth with each incarnation if they are not fully felt and completed by the end of each life.

Because EFT affords us the ability to complete the experiences of long withheld resistance to painful memories, we cease to identify with the destructive emotions or behavior patterns they evoke. Although we can notice and sense their presence clearly as they are brought to the surface to be felt and let go of, we simultaneously integrate without a shadow of a doubt, that this is not who we are, but only a conditioned response with which we came to identify. This can be perceived by the sense of spaciousness that is evoked as deep trauma is completed on an energetic level. Even a person’s face often undergoes a dramatic visually apparent change as the countenance clearly relaxes when major issues are completed.

Subsequently, once the link of illusory identification (attachment) with suffering is broken through noticing and completing the experiences of long withheld karma, we are freed and regain a sense of spaciousness from the density of resisted experience. We cease to judge ourselves and the same old destructive emotions or behavior patterns that were evoked by unconscious resistance, cease to rule us. In other words, often in the 6 days that the retreat takes, the same depth of balance and lucidity is achieved, which through more traditional approaches might take years to accomplish. This fast track is made possible through a combination of fine-tuned techniques and extensive experience on the part of the facilitator in helping others complete long withheld trauma.

Depending on the individual, over thirty years of experience has shown that participation in three to five, six-day retreats over a two to three year period can help to stabilize one’s ability to transcend the filter of memory and live a true present. Because all emotions are reactions to thoughts, the ability to live in the present without clinging to passing thoughts, automatically gives one the ability to transcend the pull of emotion. The result is a greater degree of equanimity in all situations, whether “positive” or “negative” and the emotional intelligence of a life lived fully from Heart.