Rhonda Byrne joins Hale Dwoskin for another episode of his podcast, “Letting Go & The Greatest Secret” where they discuss new and powerful tips, tools, and techniques to transform your life and to live the teachings of “The Greatest Secret” more fully.
Click below to watch the video or scroll down for a full transcript of the conversation.

Hale Dwoskin – You might think it’s normal to be plagued by negative emotions throughout your day, but life isn’t supposed to be that way. You can live your life utterly free of hurt, upset, worry, and fear, and exist in continuous happiness.

 

Rhonda Byrne wrote that in her newest book The Greatest Secret and today we welcome her back in this episode of Letting Go and The Greatest Secret, a podcast dedicated to sharing the wisdom so beautifully expressed in her book. I’m Hale Dwoskin.

 

Hale Dwoskin – Bestselling author Rhonda Byrne launched a global phenomenon with The Secret in 2006. I was featured in the book to help readers understand their untapped powers. Rhonda’s newest book The Greatest Secret is a quantum leap that takes you beyond the material world into the spiritual realm, where all possibilities exist. It reveals the greatest discovery you can ever make and shows the way out of negativity, problems, and you don’t want, to a life of permanent happiness and bliss. I’m also blessed to be featured in The Greatest Secret along with my mentor Lester Levenson.

 

 

Rhonda Byrne – There’s one gentleman who fully awakened, Hale, fully, fully, fully from just reading the apple preview of the book.

 

Hale – Haha! That’s great.

 

Rhonda – Right? And so, he was like a full, full awakening and he was in Europe I think in Sweden, one of the Scandinavian countries anyway, and yeah, he just woke up fully from the book and he wrote to me and said he is doing okay, it’s a very interesting journey you know talking and walking, he’s just been staying quiet and keeping to himself. Yeah. So that was another one, but there are lots, I wish that if anybody out there is woken up, right, right, right we want to hear. I want to read. I want to hear.

 

Hale – Yeah, yeah. Let’s invite everyone listening to this to contact Rhonda. What’s the best way to contact you?

 

Rhonda – Through thesecret.tv website and the contact us form.

 

Hale – Great.

 

Rhonda – Yeah. It is so wonderful to hear that, and I get a lot of messages when I’m doing the Facebook and Instagram LIVES. I get a lot of messages from people, they are sorting of fleeting and going past but people that have had realization from reading the book. You know it is just, kind of, isn’t it, it’s the mind still enough for you to see what’s right here in front of you?

 

Hale – Yeah, yeah.

 

Rhonda – Or is the mind just going jump in, conceptualize it all, you know, that’s really it. If the mind could just be still for a second every single person would see the truth.

 

Hale – That’s right.

 

Rhonda – Right? That easy.

 

Hale – Yeah and not only that we often believe that the truth is separate or distant from where we are right now that that awareness that we are or that beingness is at the heart of everything we are experiencing, every, every, second.

 

Rhonda – That’s true. Yeah

 

Hale – If you completely contracted or really awake to the truth to who you are and that’s why I think most of us miss it, because it’s so obvious, it’s so right here right now.

 

Rhonda – It’s so obvious. But do you know I was thinking about this this week that I think that for my life I spent a lot of my life here, out here into the future and I especially spent a lot of my life out here because I was very kind of passionate about work and ran a company and was ambitious not so much back here but a lot here and I don’t know that I was ever here, right here.

 

Hale – Yeah right in this moment. Yeah.

 

Rhonda – Right here, right here. Not here, not there, not there..

 

Hale – Not in the back and not forward.

 

Rhonda – Yeh not forward but right here. Right here, oh my gosh it’s right here. I was thinking about it this week and I feel that I’m just like the average person out there, I think most people are out here, you know, out here or out the back, looking back regret and it’s gone, it’s all gone. No need, to just let it go and forget about that.

 

Hale – I don’t know who I heard this from, but I agree with it 100%, that the past is dead, and the future never happens.

 

Rhonda – Never happens, exactly. The imperator that I was talking to you about from the Rose Cross Order he said to me about the past, what he said about the past, he quoted from the Bible, and he said, let the dead bury the dead.

 

Hale – Right. Haha. Haha.

 

Rhonda – And that was how he was saying to me, it’s gone. It has completely gone. Doesn’t exist anymore.

 

Hale – That’s right. I think one of the keys that I think I already mentioned is what you will discover as you read The Greatest Secret or you explore any truth teaching and you start to recognize who you are, you’ll get either massive complete transformation in an instant, or you’ll be like most of us where it’s a gradual opening and unfoldment. But however, you’re seeing who you truly are, it’s the beginning, it’s an opening to what’s true, what’s real, what’s beautiful, what’s exquisitely natural. Which is kind of weird that it is so natural and we miss it but any rate. Haha. So, let’s give people some tips and pointers and things they can do to support this natural unfoldment that happens as you start to recognize truth. So, what are some of things that you’ve said to people that they’ve found helpful? Or you’ve heard?

 

Rhonda – Actually I don’t know because when I’m on Facebook or Instagram live for example and I said that one thing that made that lady wake up and actually she was not the only one somebody else wrote in and said you said this thing that you didn’t way in your book and that woke me, and I don’t even, because I just sit there and it all comes out you know. But if I talk about it from the experience here..

 

Hale – Yes that’s the only way to do it, yeah.

 

Rhonda – Yeah, the experience of after awakening and just the joy of the realization which just whipped me away and I just want to tell everybody, you know and of course you can’t really like they have to realize it’s not so much something you can tell. They’ve got to realize it for themselves, but you wouldn’t want to rob anybody anyway you want them to have that incredible moment of realization because that’s just the moment of our life. But the biggest thing for me was to stay as what I am and not falling back into the mind and the ego. That was what I put all my energy towards, just finding ways to remember awareness. That’s why in The Greatest Secret that I had ‘Am I Aware’ because there was, quite a few years of trying all different things to what brings awareness. I mean it doesn’t make sense to say that because awareness is always here but what consciously, what makes awareness here that I can, I’m aware of it consciously so ‘Am I Aware’? Was really a great question to ask because the mind just stops just for that second when you ask that question because it can’t possibly answer that question at all. And just in the moment it drops and when the mind is dropped well there you are. There is awareness in all of its glory. So I did that as a practice for a long time and then I found I couldn’t even have the thought, ‘Am I Aware’ couldn’t even have it because just straight away I would notice awareness so then it became noticing awareness, staying as awareness, noticing awareness, staying as awareness and in that it became very aware of the mind because in awareness it’s peace and happiness and then the mind is turbulent and tension and holding and holding on, and all those kinds of things. So that for me is the biggest thing because the world is full, and dazzling, and distracting and there’s the practice, well practicing being a person well I had for a lot of decades and so to then just keep staying as what I am was the big thing for me.

 

Hale – Yes, yes, yes.

 

Rhonda – But as I continue to do that those steps that I just mentioned, awareness just became fuller, fuller, more open, more open, more open.

 

Hale – Yes, wonderful.

 

Rhonda – More open, more open and so it was, I mean just amazing, just deeper. Words are really hard to find because we are trying to define something that is not physical and the words from the mind all describing objects and physical things so that’s why it’s really hard to describe it but hopefully in an attempt to describe it people can feel the energy and joy that is coming from that. That’s what I mean, I had the awakening in 2016 and so since then that’s what I’ve been doing. Staying, doing everything to stay as awareness. I mean I don’t know when I’m not anymore, I don’t know when, I feel like it’s always here all the time consciously, because the mind is very, very quiet now, and there’s a constant foundation of happiness and peace and even through these turbulent times in the world and aren’t they turbulent at the moment, the movie we are making at the moment, with such peace, with more peace really than it was before. Haha.

 

Hale – Yeah, yeah my experience has been very similar. I first started recognizing this in the 90’s but if I look back at my life, and you probably, if you look back at your life now from this perspective probably would see the same thing that there were many moments before when I actually was experiencing pure awareness and I wasn’t doing it consciously, I thought it had to do with other things, as simple as watching a sunset or when I was very young I remember this moment of pure awareness where I was just fishing on this clear lake in Washington, I didn’t want to catch the fish, it was weird because I was in the boat fishing but everyone wanted to catch the fish but I loved watching them and there were these sunfish which are very beautiful fish and I was just, I had completely dissolved into this scene as a young child, had no idea what was going on, it was only after the fact and I bet you if anyone looks they’ll notice that they’ve been tasting this truth, pure awareness off and on their whole lives and in addition to it being the center of everything they experience now. One of the things that helped me tremendously was at some point in the 90s I recognize that the mind, I kept trying to get back to awareness at first and then..

 

Rhonda – Yeah, yeah. I know.

 

Hale – Yeah, yeah haha, that’s the mind. Exactly. And then at a certain point I realized wait a minute, I’ve got this backwards, it’s just the mind that’s coming and going, let it.

It has nothing to do with what I am.

 

Rhonda – Yeah because in between is awareness, right? In between, I mean awareness is there all of the time. The feeling of awareness is between the mind which I guess is why we love sleeping so much.

 

Hale – Right, haha. That’s true. Yeah in deep sleep. For many years I just focused on the Sedona Method and Lester’s teachings exclusively except for Robert Adams I was very into Robert Adams.

 

Rhonda – Yeah I love Robert Adams.

 

Hale – I met Francis and loved also in the 90’s but for decades I didn’t really listen to any other teachers but because of being in the book and me interviewing all these teaches I’ve been talking to them and listening to the other teaches, and I heard this recently, who, which teacher is it from. I hope I can remember, but anyway but the gist of it is this.. In deep sleep we think we’re unconscious, but it’s not that we’re unconscious, we’re having, awareness is experiencing the lack of experience. We’re having an experience of nothing, as opposed to of something and because there’s no mind there to record it. So even when we’re in deep sleep that’s part of the reason we love it is because there’s no distraction, we just experiencing that pure being.

 

Rhonda – Yeah, so beautiful, and we must know, we must be aware because when we wake up in the morning we always say, oh I had the most gorgeous sleep. How do we know we had the best unless we, unless we were awareness?

 

Hale – That’s right.

 

Rhonda – How would we know?

 

Hale – We wouldn’t, exactly. Exactly yeah.

 

Rhonda – I love that, what that person said about no experience. The experience of nothing, compared to the experience of something.

 

Hale – Right, right. One of things that I have also found helpful and tell me if it’s been your experience or you’ve gotten feedback like this is, that not fighting with the contents of the mind as it comes up and welcoming it, allowing it, being present with it. I know it was talked about in The Greatest Secret but can you talk more about that? The allowing for what is, to be as it is, is what awareness does naturally?

 

Rhonda – You have to work at it, yeah and if we are reacting to something well that’s just the mind. And if we’re saying I don’t want that, that’s the mind, and if we’re being critical, or if we’re judging all of that is the mind. But definitely what I did would welcome, I welcomed a negative memory that comes up or I see an image of something, like I remember I was welcoming something else entirely and I saw this image of when I was about 5yrs, and the girl next door ripped my dolls head off and we have made these dolls, and I had fluked in making a really gorgeous doll and so she ripped the head off and this image just came up and I was like WOW okay ready to go. You know that image is ready to go so just welcoming that, but welcoming any sort of negative ideas, any thoughts of especially any negative feelings, that’s how, that’s what I’ve done, religiously. Yeah, that’s what I’ve done. And so, in doing that I’m not fighting with thoughts you know all we need to do is just not identify with them not believe them, that’s the thing but the way to not believe them, where you’re not engaging the mind is to welcome. Because welcoming the mind can’t be there for that process everybody, the mind’s not there. One thing you can count on it’s a guaranteed process you can do where the mind is not there and then everything just dissolves so beautifully, and it’s just so fast, right?

 

Hale – Yes.

 

Rhonda – And it’s easy, easy, easy. I mean I can sound like a broken record because I’ll say to my daughter, well welcome that, you know and think you better welcome that. I mean it is the easy way and so most definitely that is what I’ve done. So they’re the two things and the two practices in the book, and of course all of the Sedona Method is about releasing. But they are the two practices in the book, and they are the two things that I’ve done religiously. And so, I absolutely know that that’s what happens to our life when we’re taking those steps. Didn’t Lester say that beautiful thing in the book, I can’t remember exactly the words, where he says you take one step toward the infinite, and it takes 10 steps toward you. I love that.

 

Hale – Yes, yes.

 

Rhonda – I love that, I just think it’s encouraging for people, isn’t it?

 

Hale – It is encouraging.

 

Rhonda – At the beginning.

 

Hale – The other thing is that Lester used to say instead of reason towards the truth he said reason from the truth. And what he meant by that is at least the way I see it now, if you pay attention to awareness, you’ll notice that it is pure allowing, pure welcoming, pure love, and so when we’re experiencing the love for anything or anyone or we’re experiencing the sense of acceptance, or that sense of peace, or that sense of allowing or welcoming that’s coming directly from awareness itself.

 

Rhonda – Yes, that’s right, yes.

 

Hale – And if you can, as people get in touch with that it takes the process to a much deeper level because they realize they’re not welcoming, awareness is already welcoming everything that’s appearing in experience.

 

Rhonda – Yes. Yes.

 

Hale – Have you had that experience?

 

Rhonda – Yes definitely and I think in the welcoming because if something comes up and we felt emotional there’s negative thoughts we’re resisting it. Right?

 

Hale – Yeh right.

 

Rhonda – We’re completely resisting that, so for welcoming is the way that I like stop resisting. I just welcome and all the resistance goes away, and of course the welcoming is just opening to awareness, that’s what it is.

 

Hale – Right, yes yes.

 

Rhonda – That’s all it is so awareness can be here, and you can feel the energy of whatever it was you can feel it you know sometimes you can feel it like rising in your chest and my teacher would say you can feel the energy, and she would also say the body is an automatic self-cleaning mechanism. And so, while we’re in awareness everything is, all of the memories, and all of the negativity, and all of the limiting beliefs, and all of the negative emotions are all being released.

 

Hale – Yes absolutely.

‘

Rhonda – That’s why you feel so good, right?

 

Hale – Yeah haha!

 

Rhonda – Haha! It feels so good not to have that stuff.

 

Hale – Oh I know, I know. And again, for those people still struggling a little bit remember this is not a denial of whatever is happening in your life, it’s about, it’s about the more you recognize that you are that that is aware as opposed to the one caught in the drama. The drama seems less enticing, less sticky, and you actually deal with life in a way that is so much more naturally constructive and helpful to you and everyone else, and so some people worry. I’ve heard people say to me, well who is going to take care of my life if I don’t?

 

Rhonda – Oh well, they weren’t anyway.

 

Hale – That’s right, exactly, exactly. The more you let go and recognize the truth of who you are you realize you aren’t taking care of it anyway. Awareness was always in charge, and always will be.

 

Rhonda – Yeah always, which is you. Which is you, it’s just we’ve got the wrong you. You know right?

 

Hale – Right! Right! Totally. I remember the first time I recognized that awareness was having a human experience as opposed to I had to get to awareness but otherwise awareness was already having the experience of being the human. I was ecstatic for days, I could hardly function, because we have it so backwards.

 

Rhonda – We do. For quite a while I was trying to get to awareness for about 6 or 9 months I was trying to get somewhere over there, you know awareness is over there. Even though my teacher would say, it’s not over there I still kept doing it. Then finally then I just had the realization. You really just have to realize it yourself, don’t you? And it can be the perfect word just said, it may be a sentence you’ve heard a million times before but just on this particular day you hear that one sentence and bingo that’s it. And this is super, super, super simple, this is not complicated and so the mind tries to complicate everything. Look how it complicates our lives.

 

Hale – I know, I know haha!

 

Rhonda – But it’s really, really simple, really simple although didn’t Lester used to say simple but not easy?

 

Hale- Well actually what he did used to say, either simple or impossible. And what he meant by that is that, it’s simple when you’re allowing it to see it from the prospective of the truth of who you are. Everything is so simple and so natural and so easy but if you think your mind is going to awaken to the truth of who you are, that that person or memory that we often identify with, then it’s impossible, because the awakening is actually from the sense of you, as opposed to for you. And that was also a big recognition for me as well.

 

Rhonda – Wow that’s beautiful, Yeah Yeah. I used to think, oh I just want Rhonda to disappear and just want her to go, I don’t want to be Rhonda anymore, I just want to be who I am, and even in some ways I got that messed up because I was like Rhonda is here and so awareness is over there, something else has to come and take over here and it’s not the case at all. So I realized that the one I thought I was the one that I really am. Except without the story and I think this is lovely to tell people because you might get a bit scared, oh I don’t want to lose me, you know, like I’ve invested a lot into me. Haha.

 

Hale – Yeah right, haha, haha.

 

Rhonda – Don’t want to lose me, but what goes is what was never real in the first place which is just the story from the past and all of that and the mind and you get to use that you know when you need it instead of it beating you up and with all kinds of things torturing us, and making us suffer, and everything and so that goes to that back burner. And the you that I always felt that I am, is the you that we really are.

 

Hale – That’s right. That’s right.

 

Rhonda – It’s not another you. It’s just the you without the name, we could go like this, we could say it’s the you but take away the name, and the body, and the mind take away those, and it’s the you that’s left.

 

Hale – That’s right, Yeah.

 

Rhonda – It’s glorious and that you is, so going to be.. oh!

 

Hale – It’s happiness itself. Haha.

 

Rhonda – So happy!

 

Hale – We need to change something in the world, or our body, or our mind to be what we already are. When nothing needs to change.

 

Rhonda – Nothing. No, no, no. Just go along with that mind and that ego all the time. But you can’t do that. That’s why it needs to come to awareness because if you just decide, oh okay, like I’m not going to listen to the mind anymore, I’m going to let the mind go, well that one that’s talking, that’s the mind.

 

Hale – That’s right haha.

 

Rhonda – And the mind is saying yeah let’s get him, let’s get him right? And then mind will say good on you, let’s do it. It’s the mind. It’s the mind doing it.

 

Hale – Exactly, exactly. It’s just so much simpler than that, and yes there’s nothing wrong with that person that you used to believe you were, it’s just believing you are her or him is the only problem.

 

Rhonda – And that’s the only thing, and you don’t really want to be that because that one had a birth and that one the body ends. That’s why it’s the best discovery you can ever make its the best news you’ll ever hear because there was no beginning to you and there’s no end to you. And all that is you is everything glorious that you love. All of the love and intelligence and knowing and joy and clarity and oh openness. All of the things that we strive for in our physical form are all of things we are already.

 

Hale – Yes we already are what we’re looking for yeah, what a joke.

 

Rhonda – That’s why I laugh a lot, I really do laugh a lot in talking about this because it’s such a joke. Oh my gosh.

 

Hale – Oh my gosh is right. You know I think that we need to, I don’t think anything is accidental, I think everything is perfection. And somehow, we all needed to have this misconception of being a person in order to see through it and recognize we’ve never been that. Lester used to say, people would ask him why would unlimited beingness limit themselves in this way? And he would answer like this, first you see it as a dream and then you see it as dream that never really was. What he meant by that is, if you always experience health you don’t really appreciate it’s just what’s natural, but if you experience a little disease and then you experience health, all of a sudden you really appreciate it and he said it’s the same with awareness, as when awareness gets, restricts itself into a body mind form, it can feel how dense that is and so one of the experiences itself again as pure awareness, there’s a totally different experience of it, which is beautiful.

 

Rhondas – Oh yes, it is, it is. It’s true you would never, you know we are happiness and so to experience sadness or any of those emotions that why we so strive for happiness because sadness isn’t really a lot of fun. Especially if you believe that is what you are. Yes. He’s amazing, Lester.

 

Hale – I was so fortunate. You know Lester, I had no idea at the beginning what our relationship would be like, I just met him and really resonated with him, and I knew I wanted to help him, but over and over again, when I was starting to go off track, even when I wasn’t in the same city, he’d call me up and say don’t go that way, go this way. Okay. Haha!

 

Rhonda – Oh my gosh, so beautiful. But you know look Hale what you’ve done in carrying on his legacy of his work. It’s just so extraordinary everything you’ve done all of these years and reached so many people. It’s really, really, something. He left his work in very good hands.

 

Hale – Although I fought him in the beginning, I said are you kidding you want me to be in charge of this, you must be crazy. I did, I fought I said don’t you want to start a not, I’m a non-profit and have a board and he said no I want you to do it. And I had to let go a lot. This is before I really was, I still believe that I was a person looking for awakening, so I had to let go a lot, to accept that mantle. It was only after the fact many years later I realized why he was so insistent. And also I don’t feel like..

 

Rhonda – Why was he so insistent? I ask the question because the audience are all asking.

 

Hale – Haha. When Lester was alive there were only a handful of people doing this and even when he passed away in 94 I think there were 7 thousand graduates of the Sedona Method, and now there are hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people using this all over the world, and millions have been affected by it, you know they’ve tasted parts of it, because you know the Sedona Method now is kind of up behind so many other teachings, most of it without credit, but so what. It’s behind all these other teachers and so on that level it’s reaching millions and millions of people. I don’t take credit for any of that because it has nothing to do with Hale in any way shape or form. I think that Lester knew that I’d keep myself out of the way enough that this all could come through. It doesn’t make logical sense but that’s what happened.

 

Rhonda – Yeah, it’s wonderful. Really wonderful.

 

Hale – So what else can we say to people? What other tips or pointers do you think would be helpful for people?

 

Rhonda – What are the stumbling blocks or the obstacles do you think? Beliefs?

 

Hale – Yeah beliefs, and resistance too.

 

Rhonda – Resistance yeah. I’ve just been experiencing with just letting go of resistance, and just multiple times in the day and just checking in and just letting go so like the one stop shop. So instead of letting go of that memory, or that situation, instead just feeling for…it doesn’t matter how many times I do it, even when I just come to it of welcoming resistance, immediately there’s a softening, you know, straight away. And of course, it’s way, way, smaller than it ever was before but it’s just that beautiful feeling. So, I’ve been experimenting with that because I can see you know there are so many things right especially with what everybody’s been through in the last year or so but all of that’s a gift right because helping people wake up. But they’ve been difficult times for people, and so a lot of resistance then rises up and there appears to be a lot of resistance of division, and separation, which is incredibly interesting because we’re all one and there’s no separation. But there is of that going on as well, so I see a lot of resistance and when something goes wrong oh no, and you know all of those things, and I just feel like we’re piling on a lot of resistance, and kind of my pet subject at the moment is to look at just, because the moment you welcome there’s no resistance. Like it’s the opposite of resistance. Resistance is that (pushing) and welcoming is that with your arms out and so again instead of choosing particular subjects at the moment I’m just kind of welcoming, welcoming resistance and I love it. You know I just love it. Just sort of checking in just every now and again just checking in and just opening. I don’t know how much I open anymore because it’s very open. Haha, haha.

 

Hale – Yeh, haha, haha.

 

Rhonda – Haha.I think I’m like playing a game a little bit because it’s so open and I don’t know what other word to use for people. Um. You know it’s I’m sure it’s why we, like I walk on the beach each day, I’m sure it’s why we love to walk on the beach…

 

Hale – Yes

 

Rhonda – ..or be in open spaces, we just like to take it all in or see the horizon and look up at the sky and it’s just you know so open. And it’s a beautiful feeling that, that feeling because that’s what we are, just this gorgeous, gorgeous openness. So, yes to try and explain to anybody it’s really difficult that the more that you live and stay as you are, the more open you will be, and that had me realize how closed I was before I woke up. So closed with my own opinions, the mind’s opinions, perspectives, beliefs all of these things belong to a person, and all of these things are what closes us up and everybody likes to say they have an open mind, don’t they?

 

Hale – Yes, yes. It’s a good saying.

 

Rhonda – Everyone likes to say it. Yes, it’s a good saying I’ve got an open mind when in fact we’re not very open you know as a person we’re not open at all because we’ve just got too many fixed beliefs and too many opinions and perspectives and all those things are closing us down from the beautiful openness and freedom that we are. So we don’t need any of those things, right?

 

Hale – No we don’t.

 

Rhonda – We just don’t but it’s a one-stop shop. Haha!

 

Hale – Haha, haha.

 

Rhonda – Because it’s just all you have to do is just welcome and just notice awareness, and stay as awareness and just do that, and all of those things will just disappear that people that just used to annoy won’t annoy you anymore, you’ll be like oh they’re so sweet I see me so well, nothing kind of bothers you anymore. I just wish I could just give a spoonful to everybody.

 

Hale – But you know every time we talk about it all those wonderful Facebook LIVES and all the things you do and even like this interview, people, I find I need and other people need to constantly discuss this amongst themselves, and listen to others people who are recognizing this for themselves. We are all in this one beautiful community of like-minded people all over the planet that are supporting each other in recognizing more and more of the truth of who, who they are, and sometimes people will just say something and this is anywhere in life, we’ll just say something and all of a sudden you’ll notice that, oh well you either notice, oh that’s I’ve been limiting myself the same way and rather than judging them it just dissolves inside of you. Or you’ll see their openness as your openness because it’s the same. And so, on some level I think everyone whether they think they still have more to go before they recognize the truth of who they are or they’re in a process of the natural unfoldment that happens afterwards. I think we’re all here to just support each other in recognizing this truth, and you are doing such a wonderful job. The book itself is a breakthrough, that it’s that being in mass consciousness is a breakthrough, but all the things you continue to do to just point people in this direction, is just the oneself using that particular body mind in a beautiful, beautiful way.

 

Rhonda – You’re totally right because I remember at the beginning for me all that I wanted to do was to hear it being spoken about and to listen to conversations to listen to Q&A’s and I didn’t read anymore so much, but I wanted to hear I just wanted, just let me hear just talk about this. I loved hearing about it. I especially loved and everybody is different but I really, really, loved direct, direct, direct so direct. I just wanted it right between the eyes.

 

Hale – That’s right

 

Rhonda – And I just wanted it, no sugar coating, no nothing, just give it to me as it is and so I was lucky enough to attract a teacher that was exactly like that. She is really tough but I just had realization after realization just listening to her, and somebody asking her a question and I would be sitting there,……ohh. And then all of a sudden, I just became way more open, you know, I’d be like wow. And oh I just yeah I absolutely love it and what I noticed is one of the things I noticed is memories, all of the memories that now are just fading into the sunset.

 

Hale – Right, right, yeah.

 

Rhonda – I don’t really remember a lot of things anymore, and I remember some things in the moment I remember something, I don’t have, I’m sure that’s why I feel so light, I just don’t have all the big stack of memory that I’m identified with, which is really great but sometimes I can’t remember things but I’m like this is so great I don’t remember. I don’t remember.

 

Hale – Yeah yeah, but again I believe that’s a natural part of the process. Most of the time we calibrate our life to what was, as opposed to what it is. Well actually might be as opposed to what is. You don’t need memory for that. What I’ve always noticed though I work with people, and I might not see a student for 10 years and when I first see them there’s some recognition, yes I know this person we’ve worked before but I couldn’t tell you what our last interchange was unless I need to know it. If they ask me question about it of something that happened 10 years ago it’s there instantaneously, otherwise the mind is completely blank.

 

Rhonda – Perfect. Perfect, isn’t it? Absolutely perfect.

 

Hale – Yeah.

 

Rhonda – Oh wow. And what sort of changes have you noticed with the body? What did you notice after awakening with the body?

 

Hale – Well what I noticed is several things. First off, I’ve noticed that whenever I have the awareness of the self-recognition has deepened, there’s this profound sense of relaxation that goes, it feels like to goes down to the cellular level where it’s really almost hard to describe, it’s just that everything becomes smoother, even, both and it doesn’t end at the body it’s very interesting. The other thing I notice about the body is that the body, I’m still aware of the body but that which I am doesn’t end at the skin.

 

Rhonda – No. No.

 

Hale – In any way shape or form.

 

Rhonda – No, no. You can prove that to people, can’t you with a simple exercise?

 

Hale – Oh yes. Yeah.

 

Rhonda – Yeah. Like if they close their eyes and they try and find the border of their edge of their body and space with their eyes closed.

 

Hale – Yeh you can’t find it.

 

Rhonda – No. you can’t find that border.

 

Hale – But also a wonderful thing to do is each time you recognize that you are awareness you can just simply check, does that have any boundaries that you can find in this moment?

 

Rhonda – Yeah. Yeah.

 

Hale – And instantly you can feel that it’s boundless. You don’t have to believe that that awareness is boundless, just see if you can find a boundary in it. You can’t. Or a location, can you? Does it have a specific location? No. And you can ask yourself that, does that awareness that I am is it just in this body, or is it everywhere? And if you just feel it, you don’t have to think about it, you just feel that you can feel that it’s everywhere present. Another wonderful thing that I’ve been recommending to people recently is, a way to solidify this experience of awareness for you, is to do what just did, can you find any boundaries, but then turn around and look at the world and check to see if anything you are seeing is actually anything but awareness. You can look at any object and if you look at it you can feel that that’s awareness too. It’s not separate from that one awareness that you are. In seeing that, it depends, the awareness of self-recognition because then there’s no inside, no outside, no here, no there, there’s just that which always and you I, you are, I am, all are.

 

Rhonda – Oh wow yeah. Haha! Yeah that’s great. Anything else with the body?

 

Hale – Well the body still, the body will, you know this body is getting older and so it has the usual aches and pains of the body but..

 

Rhonda – They in the background Hale?

 

Hale – Not only are they in the background. I had this experience in 1998 where I had just led a retreat, it was a small retreat, only about 40 people they are much bigger now but it was an exquisite retreat, everyone was recognizing the truth and it was beautiful and yet the body started having these physical symptoms, and 24 hours later I collapsed and was sent to the Emergency room, I was living in Sedona at the time up in Flagstaff, and the doctors didn’t know whether I was going to live or die and there was always a lot of pain. I had encephalitis meningitis. But Lester used to say you should be able to watch the body go through intense physical illness even to the point where you know you might die, and so I was pulled right into this experience and what was beautiful about it, is I was completely neutral about whether the body stayed or left.

 

Rhonda – Oh that’s great.

 

Hale – And without having had that experience I never would have believed it was even possible.

 

Rhonda – Wow that is great.

 

Hale – And it really also helped me talk to people when they are struggling with physical illness to recognize that they are not the body.

 

Rhonda – Yes and I know, sorry but I know that you used this as well that to ask the question which immediately stops you from identifying with the body and what’s going on within the body, which is, am I that or am I that that is aware of it. And that immediately stopped the identification with the body because of course you’re the one that’s aware.

 

Hale – Yes. Yes.

 

Rhonda – Yeh you are the one and sorry, please continue.

 

Hale – Oh no it’s that was really helpful but how I experience now is sometimes the body certainly has pain, but there’s no suffering. There’s the body is having these strong sensations but that’s not me. I’m not that. So, I’m still aware of it, and still take care of it, and do whatever I can to support the body on every level. You know I do Yoga, I walk every day, I do all these things, I eat a natural vegan diet of whole foods, so I take care of the body. Lester used to say, give the body what it needs, take care of the body, but don’t get lost in it. Don’t. And that’s my experience, you don’t need to get lost in it.

 

Rhonda – No. Or worship it.

 

Hale – Or worship it. Haha.

 

Rhonda – Right. I think a few might do that. Because one tends to worship it if you think it’s who you are.

 

Hale – Oh absolutely.

 

Rhonda – Right?

 

Hale – Well it’s a love hate relationship if it’s if you think it’s who you are. You love it because it’s giving you this life experience, but you hate it for the same reason because you feel, if it dies you die, if it’s sick you’re sick, if he suffers you suffer, and you feel dependent on it, and that breeds tremendous resentment. The more you feel like you are the body the more you resent it.

 

Rhonda – Yes it’s very challenging for people for sure, especially physical. Physical challenges but then a gift any way, aren’t they? There is a gift to the truth, telling us it is this, is not who you are. So, everything is like a door that opens, every difficult situation like all of the fear that people felt recently, and there’s also a door. It’s freedom. It’s a freedom door.

 

Hale – Exactly it’s a freedom door, it’s totally a freedom door. Yes. Everything we experience is just an invitation to be what we are and even if it doesn’t feel that way, it doesn’t matter, it’s all this beautiful gift inviting us to the home we’ve never left.

 

 

Hale – We are going to leave people with just one thing to focus on from everything we’ve talked about or something we haven’t covered how would you kind of summaries it, as a take away for people?

 

Rhonda – Mmm. I mean the most important thing is to ask yourself the question if you’ve not seen who you are, is to ask yourself the question, Am I Aware? And immediately awareness is there, notice awareness, and stay as awareness. To me that’s just to stay as who you are is the greatest thing you can ever do, because it just solves everything, it dissolves everything you don’t want, and it brings, everything you do want arises in its place.

 

Hale – Beautifully said. I hope you enjoyed our time with Rhonda Byrne and I wholeheartedly encourage you to get her two wonderful books The Secret and The Greatest Secret. You can get them wherever books are sold, anywhere in the World.

If you’d like to learn more about my work and my mentor Lester Levenson works and the Sedona Method please visit Sedona.com.