Realize and Actualize
Important Disclaimer
The following is not representative of the content and energy of the teaching materials themselves; it is simply a sample course containing light, introductory material.
The actual course lessons have much more substance, are directly instructional, and are packed with experiential pointers and supporting media. They are written directly by Bentinho in the first person. This introductory material is created solely to provide an overview, to give you a little taste of how things work, and to answer some of your potential questions.Enjoy! There is More to Life than Meets the Eye
All forms of spirituality—this Academy included (although it is free from religion and dogma)—are based on the premise that there is more to life than meets the eye; that a greater happiness and clarity of being are possible. Our premise is that there is a greater Consciousness for you to tap into, learn from, transform through, and derive happiness from. There is, indeed, more than the thoughts, emotions, people, and circumstances that meet the eye.
Trinfinity Academy explains and points to the existence (and direct experience) of a vaster intelligence—what we could temporarily call a “Greater Self” or a higher existence, perhaps. This Greater Self (or whatever you have heard it referred to as before) is simply a level of Consciousness that is vaster and infinitely more intelligent than we, with our brain-selves, can comprehend. In fact, it is Consciousness itself.
We point to this Greater Self, or “Presence-Consciousness,” as we will generally call it, mainly for one reason: Because it holds the keys to your freedom, to your peace, to your Self-Realization, and to your unalterable happiness.
The beauty for you is that, if you can read this sentence, it means you have / are Consciousness, and if you have / are Consciousness, that means you can directly experience this Greater Self (Presence-Consciousness) and reap its benefits for yourself with very little introduction necessary. You can tap into this Presence consciously and seriously benefit from it. You can even come to realize that you ARE this infinite intelligence, thus freeing yourself from the confines of your mind.
This profound but accessible-to-anyone realization of the Greater Self has been called by many names throughout history, philosophy, and applied religion. You may know it as: Enlightenment, Liberation, Nirvana, or Self-Realization.
Suffering is Essentially Unnecessary
Trinfinity Academy’s definition of suffering:
“Suffering is to believe that something we desire was, is, or can be, lacking, taken away, or impossible to achieve.” – Bentinho Massaro
We want to let people know how simple and resolvable the root misperception that, in essence, causes suffering is: It is the belief, or the idea, that lack exists or that lack can someday happen to me. We want to expose this simple misperception and show people how readily available solutions to resolve it really are. In fact, we know first-hand that suffering is optional, and that it is a choice. We experience suffering as optional in our own lives. We have taught the keys to experiencing it in this way to others, and they have experienced the same results in their own lives. Freedom from suffering has become an obvious, practicable science. The end of suffering is not complicated; it is simple, and anyone can achieve it, including you.
Trinfinity Academy is thus founded on the premise that psychological suffering is completely explainable, understandable, usable, relievable, and even transcendable.
Happiness Is Available Now
We have discussed how suffering is essentially unnecessary—how it is a choice, and therefore optional. Not only that, but we stated confidently that suffering is completely relievable with some practice and understanding, and that you can do this for yourself,too.Great! Now, what about joy, happiness, passion, bliss, and ecstasy?
Happiness and Bliss…
These are experiences that some find hard to believe as real-life, everyday possibilities, and yet that is exactly what they are meant to be—everyday occurrences.
The best thing about happiness is that it can be experienced completely free from outcome, free from being affected by circumstances. Happiness can be an immortalizing experience, and experienced as untouched by thoughts, emotions, other people, and circumstances. And joy, or happiness, is available right here, right now.
A human being seeking for happiness is much like a fish seeking for water. Just as the “stopping of suffering” is a science, increasing your bliss and happiness levels (your “frequency”) is a workable science, too. It is easy to understand with the right knowledge, and simple to execute with the right tools.What is the difference between ending suffering and increasing happiness?
Two Types of Happiness
There are two types of Happiness:
The Way of Self-Realization helps you transcend suffering (into peace).
The Way of Self-Actualization helps you transform suffering (into bliss).
The end of suffering leads to a peaceful, restful, transcendent type of happiness. It is utterly stable and reliable. This way is thoroughly covered in the courses belonging to Bentinho’s First and Second Teachings. Increasing happiness is accomplished by aligning your individual consciousness with the truths (vibrations) of the Cosmic, or Higher Self; this releases ever-increasing waves of bliss, clarity, and passion into your existence. It is a highly ecstatic, joyful type of happiness, usually very expressive and outgoing in nature. This way is covered extensively by the courses belonging to the Third Teaching.
Both types of happiness aid in the increase of the each other’s saturation. They are highly complementary and we encourage you, in time, to take an interest in exploring the benefits of both for yourself.
Trinfinity Academy: How Does it Work?
Course content and structure:
Trinfinity Academy courses are divided into three Teachings; each is designed to familiarize you with that particular “realm” of Existence:
- Enlightenment: Ease by way of changeless, lucid Beingness
- Infinity: Freedom by way of infinite, timeless Nothingness
- Empowerment: Bliss by way of dynamic, expanding Consciousness
Each teaching contains several courses.
Each course contains multiple chapters.
Each chapter contains multiple lessons.
Academy >> 3 Teachings | Courses >> Chapters >> Lessons
Most chapters and lessons are time-released, meaning that as soon as you mark Lesson #1 complete (you do this manually), a timer will start counting down to the moment that Lesson #2 becomes available to you. This timer signifies the minimum integration time we want you to take for yourself with the contents of that lesson. This timer is usually set to between 24 and 48 hours, depending on the course. You are never forced to start a lesson if you don’t feel ready yet.
The only reason we enforce a minimum of a day or two in between each lesson is because we realize it may be tempting to mark your lesson complete and go on to the next one without actually spending some time with each lesson’s message and practice. However, if you want to take two weeks to re-read, apply, and absorb one single lesson before proceeding, you can totally choose to do so. There is no timer for “reaching the end,” and lessons won’t open up or stack up faster than you decide.
In this way, we give you the freedom to choose how long to chew on each lesson, while the minimum time requirement between lessons honors your need to integrate and digest information. Also, many courses build on previous courses and will notify you to first enroll in the foregoing course. In this way, we hope to eliminate confusion and optimize flow. We wish to support you in making your profound realizations real, so they become lasting transformations in your consciousness and reality—not just concepts you read in a book. The intention behind Trinfinity Academy is to make spiritual awakening both easy and real for you. Our successive course structure is the means to that end.
Course content:
An average Lesson contains:
- Written material by Bentinho Massaro that is highly instructional and to the point.
- A downloadable MP3 of the text, spoken by Bentinho, so you can take it with you and listen to it in the car, or on your mobile device before bed, or where and whenever you want.
- Some lessons will have a guided meditation you can download.
- Homework assignments include answering some questions, doing an exercise, or conducting a real life experiment where you apply the content in everyday life.
Community features:
Once you enroll in a certain course, you will get instant access to the study-group specific to that course, located under Study Groups on your My Academy dashboard. Study groups are forums used for discussing the contents of a particular course. This is where you can share your homework assignments, ask for support from other participants who have also completed (or who are in process of completing) the same course you are active in. This way, you can share and interact with people enrolled in the same course and find that you have a conscious family available to you 24/7, if you need it.
You will only find people in each study-group that have actually enrolled in the corresponding course. This ensures that dialogue in these groups is to the point of the course it belongs to, and that the people who comment know what they are talking about (at least to some extent ☺).
In addition to the courses and study groups tabs on your My Academy dashboard, the Trinfinity Community consists of:
- Activity (newsfeed): See what’s happening with your friends and post a thought or status update.
- Friends: Build a list of people you feel the strongest resonance with and wish to follow in your Activity tab.
- Messages: Private or public message friends and other members.
- Chat: Interactive chat area where you can start your own topic or question on the fly, get and give responses quickly, and see who else is online. Basically a very responsive, dynamic, and fun forum, not tied to any particular course or limited to certain subjects.
- Notifications: This shows you what is relevant for you to check out since your last visit—new friend requests, messages, or replies are displayed here and linked to.
- Profile: Edit your settings and personalize your profile and bio.
- Library: Visit the growing library of recordings and download MP3s of Bentinho’s meetings; all content is included in membership.
- Live: Only academy members have access to this. Between 4 and 12 times per year, Bentinho will deliver a live, 3-hour video workshop. This is your chance as a Trinfinity Academy member (non-members do not have access to this) to ask Bentinho a question regarding a particular course, or to simply tune in and listen to Bentinho speaking on a specific theme for that meeting. It is also a great time and place for Bentinho and the community to all come together and further appreciate each other’s presence and feel mutually supported.
Three Teachings, Two Ways
Order of course progression
Trinfinity Academy has everyone start with the first course of the First Teaching, since it covers crucial ground that all the other teachings and courses are based on. After you complete this course, Person Wakes Up to Presence, you are then free to migrate your attention to the Third Teaching and start its courses about Empowerment. The courses under the Second Teaching don’t open up until you have completed Presence Wakes Up to Awareness as well, which is the second course of the First Teaching.
These prerequisites are in place solely to honor Trinfinity Academy’s main purpose: To end confusion, not add to it. In order for Trinfinity Academy to be truly effective, the flow in which the teachings are delivered is one of its key aids.
Teaching 1: Enlightenment
The Enlightenment Teaching is designed to take you from the (mis-)perception that you are a separate person (person-consciousness), to the experiential sense of being Existence itself (Presence-Consciousness). Once your Awareness has disengaged itself from the tunnel-like reality of “being a person in a world” and has now discovered and identified itself with the Presence of Life itself (felt experientially as the sense “I-Exist” or “I-AM”), you are left with a sense of ease, and much of your suffering will have fallen away because you see who you are not (the person and its troubles).
Awareness can wake up even further to itself. Once it is aware of itself as Presence, it can realize it is essentially even lighter, subtler, freer than the presence of Presence. At this point, Awareness realizes it is aware, and is able to “let go” of identification with Presence, to the point of being able to experience itself as free, spacious, and beyond even the manifest sense of Presence-Energy.
The shift from Presence to Awareness is similar to the shift from Person to Presence; it is just subtler and leaves Awareness even freer from identification. Awareness also starts to realize that everything that exists (Presence, in short) exists within Awareness, and is inseparable from Awareness. The sense “the world exists within Awareness” arises. A sense of union, or non-duality, is discovered and enjoyed. This teaching covers virtually all essential grounds and angles that lead, in the most direct of ways, to what is most often referred to as “Enlightenment” in popular spiritual literature. It is a highly rewarding set of realizations to progress through. It will keep showering benefits into your experience for as long as you live, and probably beyond ☺.
Teaching 2: Infinity
In short, Awareness realizes that it has a source. As a result of contemplating this absolute source, Awareness is emptied out of whatever sense of self-identity by which it was still bound—even the subtlest identity: “I, Awareness.” Awareness, in a sense, merges with The Absolute during these moments of absorption, or contemplation, and this removes all identity from one’s existence, leaving you with the liberating “absence-presence” of absolutely nothing—also known as Infinity, or The One.
Scary? Only perhaps if you hear about it while you are not feeling ready for it. But it is an insanely liberating realization to have (arguably the most liberating). It is the most final, the most absolute of all realizations, and it leaves Awareness with a trace-feeling along the lines of: “Nothing ever happened or mattered, and all that does seem to happen and matter, does not happen and matter to me. It happens and matters to Awareness and Consciousness only—the perceivers of experience. I, as the Absolute, am beyond experiencing experiences altogether. I am not even touched by Awareness. Nothing that happens ever applies to me.”
The Second Teaching takes you beyond, beyond, beyond, into a finality that, if you desire it, will feel like the truest homecoming you have ever known. Oh, and although there is in a sense “no going back” from this realization (its benefits remain accessible), it is not like you’re stuck with Nothing! You also still have All-That-Is as your Self, as your playground. Presence-Consciousness is still available to you, and so is the person that you are (not). Now more than ever before, you are free to play without burning your hands. You are fearless because you know that no level of identity (including its accumulations and sufferings) are actually yours. You are the Absolute, free from all identity. Free to play. Free to learn more about the individual you are. Free to enter the Third Teaching fearlessly.
You do not ever have to go through this teaching if you do not desire to do so. You can complete all the courses under the First and Third Teachings without delving into the Second Teaching at all. It is entirely up to what resonates for you.
Teaching 3: Empowerment
This teaching can stand on its own pretty well, and does not absolutely require the supporting realizations of the first two Teachings. Nevertheless, Trinfinity Academy does require you to take the first course of the First Teaching before allowing you access to the courses under the Third Teaching. This is because within the Third Teaching, Bentinho will refer frequently to Presence-Consciousness and Consciousness in general.
Thus, the first course of the First Teaching is the mandatory basis for branching out into the Third Teaching. If you enter the Third Teaching with Awareness fully attached to the sense of “I-am-a-person,” you will not be able to fully apply the tools of this teaching appropriately. A certain level of Enlightenment is required for you to know how to play with Reality.
Which is exactly what the Third Teaching is all about—playing with Existence, playing with Consciousness, playing with who you can choose to be and what worlds you can experience and create for yourself and others. It is all about re-empowering yourself by discovering that everything happens by choice only, by vibration, by frequency. You learn that your State of Being is the dictator of what life circumstances bring into your view. The Third Teaching will reveal to you all the secrets of this manifest realm of Existence, which just so happens to all occur inside of Presence-Consciousness, or Presence-Energy, or simply put: Within your Consciousness, the world appears.
The Third Teaching also helps you more fully understand yourself as an individual, as well as your place in the collective you have decided to be a part of at this time. You will discover many passions and talents you never knew you had, and you will create an abundantly free and playful life for yourself that keeps on expanding in its scope of joy and bliss, as well as love and service to all of Existence.
Two Ways to Happiness
1: The Way of Self-Realization (the courses under the first two Teachings) leads you to the realization and direct experience of a changeless, unalterable peace. This is what is generally described as “the end of suffering.” It is a total shift in core identity, in what you know yourself to be. It is peaceful, stable, soothing, and profound. For the most part, it is inward-focused.
2: The Way of Self-Actualization (the courses under the Third Teaching) leads you to increase your happiness level by becoming more conscious of your true individuality, your true purpose, and your Higher Self’s desires. It helps you release limiting beliefs that dampen your frequency, hinder your path, and confine your bliss levels. Upon release of these misperceptions, your Consciousness naturally expands into greater joy, greater connection to All-That-Is, and a highly creative state of passion arises.
After having completed the first course of the First Teaching, you are free to either continue along the way of Self-Realization (continue with the First and Second Teachings’ lessons), or jump to the Way of Self Empowerment (the Third Teaching materials). Choosing one does not exclude you from choosing the other at a later time. All courses remain available to you!
Bentinho has often recommended considering, in time, to explore the ways of both—to embody the benefits each offers—as each way strengthens and “backs up” the embodiment of the other way. We offer a simple survey at the end of the first course, which will give you greater clarity as to which Way you are recommended to continue at this time.