Naked and Empty-Handed -- Transcendence and beyond in group workshops

About the Book

The body of the book is structured along three sections, called "WHAT?", "HOW?" and "WOW!"

"WHAT?" explains the predicament of the Human condition, in which we survive as social entities at the expense of our inner harmony and bliss. It explores the process by which since our birth, we are forced by the socio-cultural context in which we grow up to abandon and forget about our Cosmic, Unlimited dimension, how we have to learn to identify with our "persona" and our role in the social drama, at the expense of our Ultimate Identity, which is no other than the totality of Existence, present, past and future. I use the analogy of a wave who forgets it is nothing but a movement at the surface of the Ocean, and is coerced into believing that it has a separate existence, independently of the Ocean and its water, and how this illusion is the source of all human misery and suffering.

This section also explains the difference between traditional psychotherapy, which tries to fix the wave's problems as a wave, and my Transcendence therapy approach, which aims at helping the wave to remember that it has never been disconnected from all the rest of the Ocean, thus putting an end to the misery derived from the illusion of separateness and to the illusion of mortality. Indeed, when a wave dies, where goes the water that was in it? Just nowhere! It stays in the Ocean where it's always been! The form of the wave dies one day, but its substance is forever alive...

In this section I also explain how living in and through the mind is akin to trying to appreciate music, love and art through a pocket calculator, and how stepping into the realm of Energy is the way out of the jail.

The second part of the book "HOW?" is a development of the topics discussed in part one, in the context of group workshops, with anecdotes, examples taken from real situations, and it elaborates on subjects such as Fear, Breathing, Jealousy, Sex and Relationships, the Heart, Energy, Music, Trust, Observing, Taking responsibility, Talking, Taking risks, The Body, Problems, Breathing, Polarity, Violence, Teasing, Regression, Magic, Meditation

The third and last section, "WOW!" shows the fallacy of trying to attain to Ultimate freedom through egocentric efforts, reveals the contradiction of trying to be reunited with the Ocean, because that would be denying that we are One with the One already! It warns against the last illusion on the Journey, that "I can become free."

About the Author

Nito was born on march 1st, 1951 in Paris, to a Jewish family of Romanian, Russian, Austrian, Mongolian and whatnot descent. He was brought up in Barcelona, Spain, where he lived until age 17.   School and particularly Math classes have been a powerful factor in Nito's resolve to get free from the Wheel of Becoming and never have to come back in a body to second degree equations and tables of logarithms.

At the end of his psychology, sociology and anthropology curriculum, he understood that he was a prisoner of his own conditionings. So Nito left his cozy nest, and crossed the Sahara desert alone on a camel, then lived in the jungle by himself in Ivory Coast for a year, then went back to France, married a lovely Lady and had a daughter at age 23. 4 years later, Nito and his Lady parted ways without grudges or hard feelings. Nito then went to India and Nepal, practiced Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana) under the supervision of the XVI th. Karmapa, the Spiritual Head of Tibetan Tantric Buddhism. He was ordained a 'Guenien' (a monk not residing in a monastery). In 1981, Nito underwent several Group Therapists' training programs at the Shree Rajneesh Ashram, which was the most complete and intense Therapist's nursery at that time. </P>

When the Ashram closed down in 1981, Nito went to England where some of the best therapists of the Ashram were conducting advanced training programs, and furthered his exposure to the Group process. In 1982, back in France, he founded and operated a center for Human Potential Development in Avignon, and soon after, another in Aix-en-Provence. He ran workshops and meditation sessions in both places until, in 1984, he decided to create a place for Consciousness in the lush environment of a luxuriant island off the coast of South Thailand. That was Leela Celebration Meditation Center in Koh Panghan.

Around that time, on December 25, 1987, Nito was peacefully sitting on the verandah of his bungalow, minding his own business, when that immaterial bolt of lightning hit him square where it kills, carbonizing the little box where Nito used to take shelter when he was not in the mood for Light and Consciousness, left him out in the open with nowhere to hide! At that moment, everything he ever knew disappeared, and that was it! Nobody there to hide, nobody to experience, nobody to be born-and-die! Nobody that was here yesterday and will be here tomorrow . . . That was the Ultimate and irreversible Freedom: the end of the illusion that Nito was a real entity, that Nito was somebody. Somebody searching for Ultimate and Irreversible Freedom! By then, the group scene was pretty intense at Leela, and Nito was working his butt off, while co-parenting first one, then two little girls with his Thai Lady. That ís when the Rave joint opened its doors just next to Leela, and 36 hours Rave Marathons with Super Mega Techno Pop basses became the constant fare... The place was unsuitable for its previous purpose. That was loudly obvious.

Nito and family decided to close down Leela and move to the North of Thailand, near the Golden Triangle, where his wife's family was from and owned land. They lived there happily until Nito and his wife's youngest sister fell madly in love with each other (!) The situation took two stormy years to settle down, and presently Nito, his newfound soulmate and partner (the Love of his life!) and their respective young daughters are living in bliss in the bush somewhere in the Northwest of Australia, and his ex-wife comes often from Thailand to visit her daughters, her ex-husband and her sister... Nito is currently in the process of transplanting in Australia Leela meditation Centre to continue his work.

For more information please visit www.innerjourney.org.au