Enlightenment transmission: An interview with Dave Oshana

There is a purpose and a timing to everything, like the phone call I received out of the blue from someone named Michael Foley. He told me about his experience being in the presence of a British man named Dave Oshana, who now lives in Finland. And he proceeded to tell me about how his life has changed, about how he saves up to fly to Finland for intensive workshops with this man, and about how fortunate the Twin Cities is to have this enlightened teacher come here at the end of this month.

So I did what you would have done. I read articles and listened to commentary from Dave Oshana’s website [www.enlightenment-now.com] and I met with Michael Foley to learn firsthand about his experiences. I then arranged for an interview. That is what I bring to you here, the words of a man who uses humor to assist us toward that which we seek.

Dave Oshana says that in the early morning hours of June 19, 2000, he was sleeping and then, at 5 a.m., his whole being changed. What occurred, he says, was spontaneous enlightenment.

What did you experience at 5 a.m. on June 19, 2000?
Enlightenment. It is still resonating through my being like a roaring tsunami wave of energy.

Before I opened my eyes I could see the room and all the particles inside my body. Each had its own source of illumination. There were no dark corners. I knew something was different but could not immediately identify it. It seemed normal and familiar, but at the same time hugely different from my previous life. I could see my life’s mission flash before my eyes.

I could not remember what it was like to have been “me” the night before.

What was different for you physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually after this experience?
My lifelong search was completely over.

I couldn’t find problems in my mind. I experienced the space outside my mind: as I walked up a local road, the dramatic stories which normally would spring up and branch out like trees failed to appear. I was surrounded by tree stumps! I wandered through a grim part of London, the Valley of Death, and I feared no evil.

I could see how others were trapped in their mental illusions. I felt bliss all of the time even in dreams or during physical pain. I was overjoyed to wait in a long line. I could feel the energy streaming through my cells. These experiences are still ongoing and have been continuous since they started.

How did you know it was enlightenment?
I didn’t know what it was! I didn’t know what to say or think. I was incredibly amused by this. Then I blurted out, “I … I … I think I am enlightened.” That was a hilarious statement, because until then I had been provocatively challenging my spiritual peers with the statement, “Enlightenment does not exist!” I had not stopped seeking; I had simply stopped believing everything that I thought I heard. I had been assuming that all spiritual teachers were talking about the same thing. Suddenly, I wasn’t sure about that.

Back to the enlightenment: I instinctively knew that my incessant lifelong search was over. Whatever it was, and it seemed to be Enlightenment, it was good enough for me! My mind was flooded with random quotes about Enlightenment, which I had previously completely misunderstood and now I saw what they meant.

Now I knew that enlightenment did exist, I not only had to apologize to my spiritual peers but I had to offer it to them. Hah! Overnight, I went from being a doubting person to one who could accept the possibility of anything (after inspection, of course).

Why did the enlightenment experience happen to you?
I don’t know, but I am glad that it did! Why does your lover love you? You don’t know but you are mighty glad that she does – even humbled, perhaps?

After talking through it, sharing it and expanding it with others, it started to make sense. But I never needed it to make sense intellectually. It makes sense on an altogether different level.

All my life I didn’t want anything as much as enlightenment. I was willing to give up my life – but it still did not come – because I was not fully participating in life. I had to be IN the world but not of it.

I never felt that this life was being lived by me until now. Now I am alive!

Was it your cumulative practices over the years that enabled you to be receptive to such a transformation?
My answer today would be “yes,” but it used to be “no.” When I first got enlightened, I considered it an irrelevant question; a person did not need to copy me. The awakened state was available here and now; I could lead anyone into it. But typically it was temporary – even if it lasted for many months. Eventually a breakthrough came in my practices when I started to drop my awareness out of mind and go on fantastic journeys within my body.

There have been gurus and seekers for ages, but it seems only few people actually become enlightened. What type of preparation or personal responsibility makes the likelihood for enlightenment more possible?
The biggest ability required is the ability to encounter the unknown and go forward into it. It helps if you know, as did Thomas Anderson in The Matrix, that going backwards is not an option.

Responsibility includes the “ability to respond appropriately.” For the spiritual person, the best response to an initially confusing situation is to do nothing (where practical). When the mind avoids entanglement, then true guidance can take over. This is what Jesus and Buddha did before their enlightenment: extensively hanging out and doing nothing in the wilderness or sitting under the bodhi tree waiting for true inspiration to strike, so the story says.

When you are willing to encounter the unknown, then you have Zen mind. You could fall in love with the beauty of a single cherry blossom or face your death unflinchingly. Master that and you will have all the other necessary qualities. A healthy body and mind helps, too.

Getting it right requires discrimination, getting it wrong could burn several lifetimes (without burning karma). The guidance or presence of an enlightened person is strongly recommended; don’t practice this at home without supervision.

Full Enlightenment is full responsibility for everything. Forget yourself and everything is now yours to take care of. Remember yourself and you will lose absolutely everything, including your own mind.

Start by facing your fears.

If a seeker really wants Truth above all else, they will arrive eventually. If they secretly want something else, they need to discover what it is and then either complete it or drop it.

Be a skeptic; don’t get attached to any beliefs. Notice what it is to be a seeker.

Go outside your comfort zone five days a week.

Is enlightenment for everyone?
Enlightenment exists already, but it is not noticed. It is The Witness of your life. It’s yours already. Your life becomes enlightened when you notice it.

The identity has to get out of the way for enlightenment to permanently establish itself. It’s painful for a person to give up their identity. It does not even make sense.

The false identity (ego) resists enlightenment like the Israelite captives resisted freedom from slavery. Moses had to first take them through the wilderness (emptiness). They liked it for the first day; then they got bored.

The ego is like a rock holding down a sunflower. When the rock is removed the sunflower faces the sun. The sunflower is human awareness, the sun is consciousness.

An ego-free state is completely open to life.

Enlightenment is the natural state. It should be sought with the help of an enlightened guide to avoid getting lost. Christopher Columbus’ miscalculations meant that he discovered the potato and not yoga.

Must we be truly ready before we can slip into that experience, and is that why we don’t hear about people becoming enlightened very often?
People slip into awakening all the time but it often closes down because they cannot accept it. I am not only talking about in my group, I mean out there on the street, in the trailer park or the Beverly Hills mansion.

Awakening is not enlightenment but God’s tickle. Enlightenment is the climax, the point of no return. For some, the tickle is too much. I have met individuals who wondered if they were mad – until a spiritual teacher helped them make sense of their awakening experiences.

You can prepare yourself by becoming more flexible, by loosening your self-limiting beliefs about reality. The new wine will only find a permanent home in new skins, thus sayeth the Lord. Enlightenment transmission is the new wine.

What does it take for someone to be truly ready to become enlightened?
Face everything and avoid nothing. Be like the patron of the Twin Cities. I heard it was a guy called Paul. What a guy. He was definitely a courageous Trans-missionary.

What is it that you teach – how to open one’s self for enlightenment?
I teach how to prepare. Opening up too fast is like dragging a lifelong cave dweller out into the brightest equatorial sun. It would be irresponsible to open someone that fast.

The most important gift that I bring is energetic connection. You will discover your body’s energy field and the prime moving force in the Universe: The Transmission.

The Oshana Teaching raises awareness, energy and sense of purpose. It clears out stuck emotions and thoughts, facilitates change without unnecessary pain, promotes joy and simple living, connects you to an intelligent healing energy and familiarizes you with new states of awareness while remaining grounded. There’s much more. A seeker could install all of it into their energetic system in one download – if they were open. That would be convenient; talk is much slower!

A person has to absolutely accept “life is change” at a deep level for the awakening to become full-blown enlightenment. I had to face all of my fears, otherwise I would have failed. This was Krishna’s message to Arjuna at the start of the Bhagavad Gita.

Gradually, a person opens up to the transmission. When people come into contact with me they relax into this no-mind, acceptance and clear seeing. If later on they want to get to that space by themselves, they can practice the Energy-Work Method, which I teach as a preparation for enlightenment. Energy-Work is a moving meditation that takes a person’s awareness on an essential journey of self-discovery through the layers and dimensions of their being.

Please define transmission and how does this lead to enlightenment?
Transmission is consciousness. It does not belong to me, but clearly happens around me. A mother does not own or control “her” breast milk; it automatically flows when the baby needs feeding.

Transmission is like a mother who gently and intelligently wakes her child from a nightmare, offering the reassuring comfort of her bosom, making everything good as it truly is.

Transmission got me enlightened. It is always there – waiting to enlighten everyone.

Transmission is the intelligent dialogue of our souls planning a prison break. The prison is the seeker’s ego. It’s like that TV series, “Prison Break.” The transmission is like Michael Scofield saving his brother. He has to get into the jail, find his brother, scout out the exits, get all team members (parts) cooperating and having faith that the prison break is worth it and can be successful despite seemingly impossible odds, and that there is a better life on the other side. This was Thomas Anderson’s (Neo) dilemma before leaving the Matrix and Moses’ task with the Israelites.

Transmission is the resonance caused by my soul and your soul interacting and arranging your eventual freedom. Transmission is an intelligent insubstantial energy; its effects are felt in the body and energy field. Transmission is a word for something that happens when people are in contact with me. Transmission is consciousness come into the world of form.

Only the touch and voice of something familiar can awaken you. Transmission is the voice of your soul.

What is the experience and how long does it last?
The transmission works in an intelligent and efficient way. It does whatever is necessary. There are many reported experiences with clear similarities. The benefits of Transmission accrue over time.

I can list some effects of transmission:

• Visual field changes – They see lights of varying colors, forms, movement and intensity. Moving objects leave a trail. The world shimmers and seems less solid. Energy is seen moving from my body to a person who I am discussing with and we seem translucent. My form changes in size and shape. My face changes to other races. I disappear. During a live internet class a person might hear me say “Welcome…” at the start of the class and then “that’s all for this week” as the class ends an hour later. They go on a journey and cannot remember anything, and their normally frisky dogs are waiting quietly for them to return.
• Peace and ease – Release from chronic troubling thoughts, emotions and physical pains and illnesses.
• Happiness and joy – Laughter, amusement
• Borders and boundaries – Ability to recognize true friends, recognize games players, tricks and manipulations (not always immediately)
• Sensitivity to energy flows in own body and others
• Spontaneous detoxification of body – and dietary changes
• No-Mind or thought-free state

If the experience of receiving your transmission is temporary, as opposed to permanent, what is the value of this temporary experience for people?
Experience changes a person. No words are necessary. It develops faith and understanding. A spiritual teacher should be able to deliver something, as much as the seeker can receive. Some experiences are side-products of growth and repair.

It has to be temporary, because a person is only comfortable with gradual change. For this reason I generally recommend that a person encounters the transmission in gradually increasing dosages.

• First stage: To hear or read about the Teaching.
• Second stage: To attend an introduction event or a live online class.
• Third stage: To attend an Intensive event
• Fourth stage: And only much later, to attend a residential retreat.
• Fifth stage: To work with me on a project in real life, i.e., outside the classroom.

Personal guidance in the form of a One-to-One may be appropriate after an intensive, and sometimes an introduction.

What can we expect to experience at your events upcoming in Minnesota?
Bliss, happiness, love, deep relaxation, compassion, understanding, inclusiveness, inspiration, motivation, top of head opening, release, seeing lights, detox, insight, revelation.

How should participants prepare for the experience?
Realize that this is a rare and special event. Know what you really want and listen to or interact with me from that place. Ask your best question, one that will help you the most. You cannot prepare yourself for the changes that transmission will bring until you have experienced it. There’s preparation guidance on my website at http://enlightenment-now.com/enlightenment-intensives/preparation.html

Get enough sleep. Drink lots of water. Eat living organic foods. Stay away from strong electromagnetism. Shut off mobile phones, or even better leave them at home. Abstain from recreational drugs and alcohol for at least seven days. Consider carefully what you really want. Become more aware. Are your thoughts true? Figure out how you will determine if this is the real thing. Consider if realistically you will get such a plum opportunity ever again. Is what I have what you want? Do you want it now?

Enlightenment is being given away – that’s what it’s there for.

Has anyone become enlightened through your transmission?
They might have, but I won’t say until I know for sure. I have unimaginably high standards. I have seen substantial changes in people but nothing that I can, with absolute certainty, say is Enlightenment. I heard some seekers claimed Enlightenment after meeting me, but I am not claiming if it is so or not.

What effect has the enlightenment experience had on your life, personally?
I don’t know my old life anymore. I don’t know what it was like to have been me anymore. It’s like an old dream.

I now live for others – 24 hours a day.

I used to be a confused, private individual who thought he was a nobody and all the time planned how he could be a helpful somebody. I am now a public individual who actually helps others by some mysterious means and does not know what a somebody is.

I still get excited when I go to a spiritual event until I remember that I am giving the meeting. Then I get excited about the meeting and forget that I am giving it.

My diet, drinking, washing, sleeping and habits all changed – plus a few more which I can’t mention in a family magazine.

I am aware of the souls of others on Earth and beyond. I feel compelled to help others even if I temporarily take on their symptoms. Miracles now happen so frequently that they are normal, everyday events.

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Enlightenment with Dave Oshana

• PREVIEW: “Enlightenment: Living The Life You Were Born to Live” – Wednesday, Sept. 23, 7-9pm, Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, 3675 Arboretum Drive, Chaska 55318, $10
• WEEKEND INTENSIVES: “The 5 Essential Elements of the Path to Enlightenment” – Part 1: Saturday & Sunday, Sept. 26 & 27, 10-4pm, $195 before Sept. 23, $220 afterward • Part 2: Saturday & Sunday, Oct. 3 & 4, 10-4pm, $195 before Sept. 23, $220 afterward
• PERSONAL SESSIONS: Tuesday-Thursday, Sept. 29 – Oct. 6 (other times available upon request), $85 per hour

For information or registration, call 612.210.7936 or email [email protected]. Visit www.enlightenment-now.com.

READ: Michael Foley’s personal experience with Dave Oshana – The Reluctant Guru