Relating and Spiritual Consciousness is an inspirational book on how to improve your life through communication and understanding. It's author, Charles Berner, was a teacher and leader in the field of personal improvement and spiritual growth for over half the 20th Century. He created the Institute of Ability, Mind Clearing Programs, and the Enlightenment Intensive which is a process used world-wide to seek the truth by conscious, direct knowing of who you truly are. Berner taught that relating is the central activity in your life and spiritual endeavor. In the thirteen chapters of this book, i.e., Love, Reality, Improving Communication, Acknowledgement, Criticalness and Self Inspection, Facing the Crisis, etc., Berner describes the principles of effective relating for creating an awakened spiritual consciousness while also giving down-to-earth practical exercises for improving your ability to relate with more compassion, understanding and love. Throughout the book Berner's focus is on helping people develop more ability to live a life of choice and authenticity. The primary method he advocates for helping people to relate more deeply is through communication. He offers specific communication exercises for dissolving the varied psychological, emotional and spiritual barriers that stop people from achieving what they want in life. Berner's philosophy is that to fulfill the purpose of life you have to move in the direction of improving communication and understanding between between yourself and other. Berner wrote: "You are God and each person is God. Each person is a separate god from the other. This accounts for why, even though you are God, you can't always get your way in Life. If the other person is a God, then you as a God cannot force your will upon the other. The entire activity of Life is the project of working things out between all the individuals, each of whom is a God. All the problems we are having in Life are formed as a result of trying to reach understanding between Gods. We are related only by choice. This choice is called Love. We are related only through communication, the transfer of thought from one God to another."
About the Author: Charles Berner (1927 - 2007), who was later known as, Yogeshwar Muni, created the Enlightenment Intensive. Charles grew up in Southern California, fifty miles from the city of Los Angeles. His parents raised him in a tradition of science rather than religion and religious dogma. His education and early employment was in the field of science and technology but as a teenager he discovered he also had an interest in philosophy, religious traditions and metaphysics. As a young man his curiosity and interest in life got him wondering what his purpose in life was. In this quest to understand himself he talked to many spiritual teachers, visited a variety of Southern California churches and experimented with several spiritual growth traditions. In the late 1950's he began to attend and study with a newly developing church called The Church of Scientology. By the early 1960's he was a leader, a respected teacher and even became the president of the Church of Scientology in California. But by 1965 he resigned his affiliation with the organization because he was committed to individual freedom and personal responsibility and this conflicted with the autocratic policies of L Ron Hubbard, the founder and leader of Scientology. In the 1960's he formed the Institute of Ability where he continued to teach and develop new communication methods and self reflective techniques for improving one's life. He also used similar personal growth techniques as Scientology but without the autocratic policies of emotional, social and psychological control. In 1973, while traveling on a spiritual tour of India with two dozen of his students he met Swami Kripalvananda. The Swami initiated Berner into the yogic practice of Sahaja or Natural Yoga. Berner, was given the name of Yogeshwar Muni by Swami Kripalu. The name means The Lord of Yoga. When he returned to the United States he began to teach Sahaja Yoga calling it Surrender Yoga or Natural Meditation. In addition to teaching Surrender Yoga he continued his personal daily surrender meditation practice for up to 8 hours a day for the rest of his life. In 1982, he moved to Australia to begin a life of solitude and simplicity where he continued to meditate, write, reflect and teach a small group of students who were dedicated to a path of surrender yoga.