A Spiral a Day Keeps the Doctor Away: Part 3 Essence

By : Rouel Cazanjian

This series of articles is my attempt to decipher some of the Phase 7 genius of Dr. Arthur Lincoln Pauls, D.O., as it has filtered through me over the last three decades. This was originally intended to be a 2-part series, but as many of you know, this work has a way of following onward to greater depths of expression. With that said, I offer you Part 3 – Essence – the hidden secret to what makes Phase 7 work.

As previously stated, these articles do not comprise a Phase 7 workshop, but rather, are aspects of the Phase 7 process that I have extracted and highlighted to enhance Phase 7 practice and enhance life in general. If you have not taken a Phase 7 class, you might consider taking one from a qualified instructor. If you have taken Phase 7, you can try adding this “Essence” step to your Phase 7 work and notice what occurs for you. For everyone reading this, Essence, as presented here, is a Phase 7 step that I developed and added as a result of studying Dr. Pauls in action and deemed that he was accessing some form of Essence or divinity without necessarily talking about it in that way when he performed Phase 7. Maybe he thought that being in a sacred space was so obvious, it went without saying. Nevertheless, Essence has been revelatory for me, and it is my pleasure to share my interpretation of it with you.

Seeing the Essence in as many people as possible has been my single-most health and wellness generator, and my practice and other endeavors have greatly benefitted as well. Essence, as described in this article, can be its own complete process or can be a facilitator to many other processes, but it first came to me as a way of successfully initiating the Phase 7 process.

Before we get into defining and describing Essence, I would like to do a very quick review of my two previous articles Parts 1 and 2 of this series, because all these micro skills ultimately blend together in the greater flow of Phase 7. Dr. Pauls had a way of making everything look so easy, and it was easy for him, because he could perform many skills simultaneously in a second-nature fashion and weave them into a singular action. Teasing out these skills and practicing them separately is a valid way to learn the complex art of Phase 7. Part 1 was devoted to the skills of becoming observant and using visualization. Part 2 was devoted to tapping into the collective web of consciousness that we all share. The integration of these two steps can be summarized as follows in this condensation:

In the act of expansion out of our self-absorbed state into a self-aware state, we naturally expand into our environment through observation, presence, and connection. Conversely, paying attention to our surroundings with curiosity connects us to ourselves and will free us from the self-conscious mind and paradoxically connect us to our intuitive universal mind. Our universal mind is inside us and outside us at the same time because it is part of the collective consciousness that we all share, and thus provides the connection necessary to perform Phase 7. Imagination and imagery occur naturally in our universal mind and are the tools to execute the steps of Phase 7.

The above, as I interpret it, comprises the bulk of the foundational skills that Dr. Pauls used in his Phase 7 work. Adding Essence to the foundational skills helps us to overcome our blocks to becoming present and effective with Phase 7 by allowing us to see things without being clouded by our personal biases. This unclouded sacred view, in my experience, is necessary to perform Phase 7, and as it turns out, can make all aspects of our lives better.

What is Essence?

All things come from essence, and all things return to essence.

Beyond all the imperfection of the world is our perfected self. The Buddha said we all have the Buddha nature within. Sufism is based on the premise that we have been separated from the unconditional love of the universe, and this is the cause of all our suffering. All religions have their versions of divinity. At times, when teaching Phase 7, Dr. Pauls was moved to tears when he talked about what he referred to as “the love.” In such cases, he was overtaken with emotion and unable to finish his class. Divinity, as defined by all religions and spiritual disciplines, is eternal and based in ultimate truth, while material things and non-divine concepts are regarded as transitory and based in illusion. All religious and spiritual paths are based on some form of divinity, but one need not subscribe to any particular belief system to partake of this gift.

If something is universally true, its truth exists on its own merits and does not need to be proven or disproven by anything outside of one’s direct experience.

I am not religious by any stretch of the imagination, although, like a lot of people I talk with, I feel a sense spiritual connection to the universe. However, I came upon this divine process totally by chance, observing Dr. Pauls, and I practice it now in my life because it makes me feel better on many levels and makes my life work better, and it makes Phase 7 possible. Later in this article, I will give you an exercise to assess for yourself if tuning into the Essence of another or yourself can make you feel better. And if that is the case, you can then have the choice and knowhow to use it in your life for your own benefit.

When I studied Dr. Pauls performing Phase 7, and yes, I studied him as much or more than I studied his teachings. I noticed that he was moving into a profound state of grace as he worked. In fact, he would not describe what he did as work at all. I could see that he was relaxing into his own Essence and eliciting the Essence of those he worked with. He just happened to be focused on spinal correction because he was an osteopath. My experience of Dr. Pauls performing Phase 7 with me was akin to becoming spiritually enlightened while my spine was simultaneously correcting – pretty amazing, to say the least.

For myself, living without accessing Essence on a daily basis results in the following:

I forget my own
I take life too
I judge others and myself to my own detriment and suffer needlessly as a
I don’t seem to get any help from the universe to deal with my problems, and everything seems like a huge
I feel alone in the
I am not as healthy as I could
I would describe myself as being stressed out and reactive, if I was being honest with myself, or blame life for all my problems, if I wasn’t being honest with

The economical beauty of accessing Essence is that, whether accessing my Essence or the Essence of another, I get all the same benefits and avoid all the pitfalls described above. It seems that we were made to remember our divinity and access Essence in others and ourselves on a daily basis.

Essence is Work and Not Work

Dr. Pauls was adamant about Phase 7 not being work. However, accessing Essence means getting our controlling selves out of the way, and that is a form of work for some. But once one can break through the resistance to the moment and surrender all biases, judgments, and agendas, Essence and the entire Phase 7 process will become amazingly effortless. Therefore, it is vitally important to realize that if any aspect of Phase 7 is difficult, it is because there is resistance to letting go of the controlling aspect of our consciousness and a resistance to allowing our consciousness to be organically informed by Essence. Surrender is the most important word to consider when are engaging in any aspect Phase 7. If surrender while staying focused is easy for you, then Phase 7 is not work, and if it is hard, then Phase 7 is work, until it becomes easier and eventually effortless.

How Does One Practice Essence?

Here is the spot in this article where you get to try this out for yourself and see if it makes sense to you and helps you. Pick someone you would like to work with that needs some sort of help, and before you attempt to offer help, see this person in their transpersonal essence. If this is easy for you, visualize this person in their perfected state and note your experience. If this is not easy, try the following steps in succession:

See the subject in an untroubled state without the problem that you were concerned
Then see the subject displaying some aspect of their best self that you
Then see beyond your personal concepts of the person to allow their transpersonal Essence to be revealed to you. If what you come up with is not about you or your personal ideas about the subject and actually takes you by surprise, you are on the right track.
Allow this transpersonal Essence perception to spontaneously turn into an image in your mind’s eye that, again, is not about you and your personal feelings or perceptions of the Now you have Essence!
Notice how you feel right now in your body. I have never done this and not felt a profound sense of peace and relaxation, and yet had huge imaginative creativity at my disposal. This is the spawning ground for Phase 7!

How Does One Practice Essence?

- See the subject in an untroubled state without the problem that you were concerned
- Then see the subject displaying some aspect of their best self that you
- Then see beyond your personal concepts of the person to allow their transpersonal Essence to be revealed to you. If what you come up with is not about you or your personal ideas about the subject and actually takes you by surprise, you are on the right track.
- Allow this transpersonal Essence perception to spontaneously turn into an image in your mind’s eye that, again, is not about you and your personal feelings or perceptions of the Now you have Essence!
- Notice how you feel right now in your body. I have never done this and not felt a profound sense of peace and relaxation, and yet had huge imaginative creativity at my disposal. This is the spawning ground for Phase 7!

Our mission is to help people to use Phase 7 principles as a life-mastery process to alleviate suffering, improve relationships, improve health, and achieve success. To this end, we offer private tutorials, ongoing online classes, and live workshops on Phase 7 principles for Life Mastery.