by Heidi Attinger
Why did you do The Avatar Course?
Often, that is the first question I am asked. Underlying it, of course, is another one: “Would Avatar be something for me?”
Well, why did I do an Avatar course?
Since way back, there had been in my life a recurring feeling of unhappiness, which had burdened me and drained my energy It had become so familiar, indeed, as to invade my dreams. I was sick and tired of it. I wanted to be free.
In the past 20 years, I had been searching, studying, learning, trying out all sorts of things in the hope of breaking free, in the unadmitted attempt also to satisfy some innermost longings, to still some innermost hunger.
I happened to discuss it with a friend: would he know of some method by which I could learn how to cope with my problem before it happened and not after? It was clear to me that my unhappiness had to do with myself, that it was I who regularly let it take control of my life. Shouldn’t there also be a way to get my own life under control? My friend enthusiastically mentioned Avatar. And as he had just finished his own Master Course and seemed so refreshingly open, I signed up for an Avatar Course and became his first student. During that unforgettable week, while discovering Avatar, we—two masters and two students—passed unaware from 1991 into 1992. Truth to tell, we were often more like four students, as our masters were learning as much as we students were, which was a great deal indeed.
Whatever it had been that I had been searching for so long, the time had finally come to reap the rewards. My sense of time was gone. My family, which I had left to their own devices for the first time ever, felt precious but remote. My universe was what I could learn, here and now, from The Avatar Course. And the learning went on and on, in never-ending wonder. My reason had been trained, through 20 years of effort, but it was no longer the uncontrolled and self-serving tool I had known. It now was a willing assistant, delivering data and facts, sorting them neatly, helping with new awarenesses and recognitions, while I grew ever more peaceful, serene and joyful.
Never in my life had I ever done so much inner work as I did during that week. The chalet where the course took place was ice-cold at first and took several days to warm up. We just wrapped ourselves in more blankets and ignored the cold. And my mind, rather than being, as usual, here and there, everywhere and yet unfocused, was just right here, experiencing and experimenting along with the exercises. I explored my consciousness and learned how to deal creatively with my beliefs. I learned infinitely more than I had ever hoped I would.
We were a wonderful team up there in the Swiss Alps, and we two students certainly were lavished in attention by our masters. We had to go through the exercises on our own, though, and many questions were left unanswered or came right back at us: how do you see it? how would you do it? There was no help in those ever-recurring non-answers, and at first we often felt cheated. And yet this also constantly reminded us that the answers were, first of all, for us to find by ourselves. I realize, today, that the masters could not have given us a more valuable present. They kept us free from their own personal views and interpretations. They were not letting us down, but rather giving us the freedom to find by ourselves, to explore by ourselves, to give ourselves our own answers.
It was like no learning experience I had ever had.
By oneself, always by oneself, what a precious thing that is. How many times had I heard my own children say so. Yet I had never realized the depth of experience and satisfaction it brings, nor the despair and hopelessness which result when the impulse to do things by oneself is frustrated.
In that week, in all respects, I changed from seeker to finder and even creator. It was a turning point in my life. And as the course came to an end, I started looking forward to my own family.
On the way back, the mountain landscapes were an ever-renewed astonishment. Snow-capped mountains, sunrays piercing through the dark pine trees, soft, diffuse, light-blue slopes, while the bottom of the valley was already turning dark—had I never used my eyesight before? As familiar as the landscape had been before, never had I perceived it so totally and so beautifully. The miracles, it seems, did not end with The Avatar Course. And yet I perceived an undercurrent of anxious curiosity. What would it be like back home? How would new life and former life co-exist?
Lessons from reality were, of course, not long in coming. But Avatar worked in real life! My self-confidence and my confidence in the Avatar tools grew by the day, and the thought of helping others share the experience came up frequently. Avatar worked in all situations. It was practical. It was part of me. I needed to ask no one, to wait for no one, and most importantly, I needed to secure no one else’s approval. As my responsibility for myself and my own life grew, so did my independence and my joy, and my proficiency in using the tools I had been taught at the course.
I was eager to share with students the Avatar experience, eager to create my own community of happy, exploring, peaceful people. Taking a Master Course and teaching my own Avatar courses were the natural next steps. Life never stops flowing.
I find great pleasure in accompanying others through The Avatar Course. My personal involvement, formerly focused on myself and my family, has gradually widened to cover a much more extended family. It now aims at integrating ever more lightness and joy, and at having many others share them. Rather than waiting in despair for others to lead the way, I now act on my own. I used to hope against hope for my planet’s future. This has now turned into the inner conviction that, by ourselves, we shall make the transition to a new era, more cooperative and relaxed.
So now, the answer to the underlying question. Isn’t Avatar the right thing for you too?Heidi Attinger, Gockhausen, Switzerland
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