André Hofer - Heaven and Earth - 1 - Now

It is quite possible that no-one has ever told it to you like this, neither your parents, nor your teachers, nor your parish priest. However, it has to be told, even alone for the fact that we can pass it on to our own children. To recognise one’s Self and others as “Soul-beings” will lead to an “ensouled” life, in the real sense of the word; and that is why we are here or what we are here for.

Even at this very moment, we all are in contact with our own Soul, though some more so than others. We are just not expressing it explicitly, because most of us have not been trained enough to notice certain signals. Our Soul communicates with us using three channels:

For most people, one of these three channels is most pronounced, however, there is no “better” or “worse”, just accept it as it is. Most important is whether we notice or perceive these signals of our Soul at all and how much attention we are giving it.

The Releasing -method, which I will introduce next, and which we will refer to in this book time and time again, is a very effective and marvellous opportunity to get in contact with our own Soul.

B) Releasing

The word “release” can mean “let loose”, “let go” or also “redeem”. The Releasing -method is the lifetime work of Dr. Elmer Edward & Ruth Lindwall, a simple and humble American couple, who are promoting it since the 1970s in 40 countries across the globe.

Both grew up in Christian homes, and both were prayerful from their early childhood days. One of his brothers was an epileptic and her father was an alcoholic. Thus, they were both already confronted early in life with human affliction and felt a great wish in their hearts in wanting to help such people and, if possible, to even heal them of their affliction. They hoped their heartfelt wish would be fulfilled, and in time it should be fulfilled.

He became a medical doctor and, in addition, practised chiropractic and kinesiology. She began her career as a teacher. After their wedding they both worked together in his successful doctor’s surgery for many years.

As the years rolled by, their understanding of psychological causes for physical ailments grew and they discovered the interesting fact that one and the same therapy was successful for one patient, but ineffective for a different patient. Both really wanted, naturally, to know the reason for this, and so they prayed time and time again to arrive at an explanation for this phenomenon. Through various books and meeting with people they were encouraged and furthered their development in working with patients which helped in inspiring their own experiences, and that, in turn made the demand for their practice increase even more.

Despite all the euphoria about being able to help patients in such a way, a purely pragmatic time-dilemma emerged, coupled with the question, whether it was possible to help several people at the same time. And so they both prayed again.

At that time, Dr. Lindwall was already using a method called “positive affirmation”, and so it happened that he repeated sentences like “I love myself, I love myself, I love myself…” while jogging; and one day he had a dramatic and far-reaching experience.

He noticed thoughts emerging inside himself, suggesting: “You cannot be so naïve to believe that you love yourself, surely?!” And while he kept on jogging, he contemplated on it and then, you may perhaps guess what he did – exactly, he prayed…!

And then, the following happened: he heard inside himself “I let go of my old self-hatred”. While he kept on jogging, he said this sentence several times aloud. Afterwards, he tried out his positive thought: “I love myself” again. And this time he discovered that he could really feel this self-love somewhat, and that at least the conflicting thoughts had faded into the background. This was the hour of birth of the Releasing , the “letting go”.

Dr. Lindwall and his wife were guided by their inner forces to offer Releasing -seminars, initially in small groups. The activities were arranged as follows:

All participants, female and male, form couples and one of each couple begins with her/his releasing , while the other partner takes on the role of the tutor.

For the releasing partner it means that s/he lies relaxed on the back, eyes closed, and concentrates on the breathing only, letting her/his thoughts come to a quiet state (step 1).

Next, in this relaxed state, the releasing partner requests her/his inner Self to make known earnestly the causes for a certain problem, physical symptom or actual life topic at this very moment (step 2).

After step 2, and after the request has been made, the direction was simply to just perceive whatever happenes inside oneself: were there physical sensations, emotions or inner images? These were then conveyed to the tutor, and thus a dialogue emerged from the one heart to the other, in between which there was always time for space and time for silence, conscientious breathing and self-perception (step 3).

Whenever certain topics crystallized during the course of this dialogue, the participants were asked to begin with their own Releasing and to formulate so-called Releasing -sentences. For example, if certain emotions of sadness, grief or anger were uncovered, one could say: “I let go ( release ) of my old resentment towards A. N. Other, because he/she said or did this to me”, or “I let go ( release ) of my sadness about my father having had so little time for me, and I am breathing this out, NOW”. By doing this, the participants were able to rid themselves of (old) emotional and psychological ballast/dead weight (step 4).

After this, the participants, consciously concentrating on something positive they wished for, proved very effective as a concluding exercise, e.g. to decide for, to open themselves for or to ask for something new, like “I have decided to approach a certain person again”, “I open myself for joy” or “I am asking that my life becomes easier to live” (step 5).

The entire Releasing -process usually lasted between 60 and 120 minutes, and after a break the roles were reversed. Whoever had been the accompanying party was now the one to release , and whoever had already released played now the accompanying role. In this way it was possible to enable twenty or more people within the span of a few hours to get to know fundamental experiences about themselves, and to discern, name and release psychological causes and reasons for their current personal living condition like sickness, conflicts or stagnation.

The first and foremost aim of Releasing is to restore an inner equilibrium. The beauty of it is that it can be used at any given time any day. Whenever you have the feeling that something funny is going on inside yourself, all you have to do is to say aloud: “I release (or let go) of ….” and fill in whatever is ‘nagging’ you, e.g. “I release my hatred towards my boss, and I also release my feeling inferior to him. All of this I let go, and I breathe it out, NOW”. And, as a positive affirmation, you could add: “I am the boss of my life, and I will not tolerate and allow him any longer to treat me in this way!” The possible applications and phrasings of such Releasing -sentences are sheer inexhaustible and they have the power to change an entire life.