About Shawn

Like any other person, I've experienced challenges along the way. I was bullied for years, insulted, ridiculed and pushed around. I was beaten up by groups of people I considered friends. I've gotten my ass kicked. I've had several non-consensual sexual encounters. I've lost loved ones and cherished relationships. I've had health concerns, and have been depressed.

As I grew, so did my challenges. I was unable to protect loved ones who were beaten up, abused, gang-raped, or dragged into the wrong crowd. Conversely, I've hurt people that I've only wanted to protect. I was psychologically tortured while training under my first teacher and constantly feared my loved ones or I would be killed if he felt I failed or if it suited his motivations. It was an apprenticeship under a black magician who constantly taught about the end of the world. As it turns out, my path took a far darker path than he ever intended.

Friends have betrayed me. I've had things stolen. I've lost dream jobs and spent long periods unable to find employment. I've lost my car, my computer, my apartment, and my friends. At times I've felt lost, like a fraud. Besides these, some stranger events that would require too much time to contextualize were far harder than anything mentioned above. At another point, I was suicidal and sick of trying, and I gave up. But on the last night, before I disappeared, I made a turnaround at a personal growth event.

Many of these events were milder than others have experienced. But I feel fortunate to have had such experiences, so that I can relate with people across a broad spectrum now. On my path, I started, like many, to read books and websites. Then I practiced the material.

For four years, I apprenticed under a black magician. At the same time, I wanted to surpass him, so I was getting in touch with as many people as I could, who seemed competent. I attended many conferences with world-famous spiritual masters, leaders, self-help gurus, etc. I took courses and attained certifications. I've had teachers and advisers of all paths, be it from Kabbalistic, Reiki, Buddhist, Hindu traditions or from shamanic, qigong, yoga, spiritualist practices.

I apprenticed under a spiritual master for 14 years. He didn't believe in creating disciples, but replacement masters for future generations. The path was hard and fast, particularly so when he had health concerns and had to pass on as much as he could in a short time. During this time, I picked up the name "Adi Balantu," which translates as "primordial force manifestation” and other things, more poetically.

I was an officer for an international spiritual organization. Their focus was that one reality was addressed through many paths (religions) and that it was possible through hard, devoted work to attain levels of personal mastery similar to the founders of ancient religions. Over the years, I've done many ascetic practices like taking a vow of silence for a week and multiple days in forced bliss. I got rid of every possession that held sentimental value. I stayed awake for 3.5 days in meditation and prayer. I had fasted (no food or water) for 6.5 days while working a normal job and engaging in some spiritual practice. I have slept on the floor for a year, eating simple, bland foods.

I've taught people from around the world for years. Many of these folks had "worst case scenario" type of experience, while others had faced struggles typical of Western life, or spiritual emergency. Then, I stopped teaching. I distanced myself from everyone I knew and started to ponder a better way.

While many called me a "spiritual master" (And admittedly I've used it because I couldn't find a title that seemed to fit what I did) I didn't like the approach. I felt that going forward the world would eventually outgrow the guru-centric models of development. However, the efficiency that I've experienced in that model was undeniable. I didn't want to "throw the baby out with the bathwater."

In the past, I had given students thousands of hours of support and guidance for free. Many told me that the quality of material and attention I was providing was far surpassing than what many of the famous, high-end experts gave. Since it was free, there was very little commitment on their part. Some pursued it, and most didn't even pursue. I had often received free help, so I wanted to provide the same. The quality of result for the volume of effort was unsatisfactory. I would give many free or donation-based classes, and no one would show up. When I gave workshops, people would comment on experiences of shakti and transformation that equaled or surpassed when they'd visit masters from India.

Something was wrong with the way I was doing things. I started to become aware of the work of people who did practical turnarounds in worst-case scenarios in a single session. A lot of this started with Milton Erickson and Virginia Satir. This spread out into different directions such as strategic brief therapy, strategic brief family therapy, NLP (Richard Vander and John Grinder), eventually strategic intervention and NAC with Tony Robbins.

These people, in one session, helped people in the worst-case scenarios. They were often considered untreatable by therapists that worked with them for years or decades. Some cases were thought of as impossible to cure. This piqued my interest. I've had people that I didn't know how to help. They'd be stuck on an issue that I understood well, but I couldn't find a way to help them through it. So I started to study their work.

I became aware of others doing great scientific research into consciousness, such as Dr. David R Hawkins (of Power vs. Force fame). Dr. James V. Hardt of The Biocybernaut Institute was also doing work training people to exist in deeper states of brain activity while conscious – progressing from common Beta waves to Alpha, Theta, and even waking Delta. (Note that many spiritual masters in Delta went meditating.) I became aware of this work from reading about the 40 years of Zen program. This would hook people up to machinery, to train them within a week to reproduce the brainwaves that a Zen monk with 40 years of experience could. While I've never worked with him, I've found it inspirational.

When I became aware of Wim Hof, I gained further inspiration. He too made some profound discoveries in performance and well-being that are practically accessible to anyone who can breathe. He gained attention by practical demonstration of dozens of feats at a world record level. Universities conducted studies on him, to find out a scientific validation for his method. He's even had many of his students demonstrate similar results.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who is the premier researcher on Flow, and Anders Ericcson, who is the foremost in the study of peak performance, both provided a lot of inspiration through their writing.

From there, I've invested large sums of money in coaching on many topics to deepen my skill and quality of life. During my time away from teaching, I started to gain more clarity. It's very helpful at an experiential level to work with a "Master" figure in a live event. Immersion is fast and powerful. However, life can't always be about those bursts of intensity. Nor can a person master themselves when reliant on a third party.

A committed person can make tremendous progress on their own. With principles to follow and fundamental skills, they can learn to make everyday life events such as goal acquisition an impetus for growth. When a person has competent guidance, it's much easier to stay on track and navigate new terrain. However, the most consistent way to elicit commitment from a person is to require their investment.

In the past, masters required students to live with them, perform chores, run errands, and complete assignments for them. This assured their dedication and commitment. Other traditions required hundreds or thousands of adherents to make donations and serve to keep the temple and the travel going. I prefer to work closely with a smaller number of people going for mastery, rather than huge numbers at a more shallow level.

Rather than living with me and performing tasks, I'm now going to ask for financial investment. For years, this was an alien concept to me. This will allow me to focus even more on bringing attention and value to those I'm working with. At any given time, I'm limiting myself to a small number of direct clients. This will allow me to keep quality high.

If I don't believe that we are a good fit, or that I can’t bring the client the promised value, I will not accept to work with them. This will be determined through the preliminary application process. I am currently available for the following:

• Intensives
• Speaking at an event
• Coaching
• Writing articles

At the moment, I am working on developing several courses and preparing to launch a group for people on the path.