A Path With Heart

This talk makes the ancient and esoteric spiritual teachings accessible to the contemporary mind, sharing wisdom to use in daily life. Here we explore cynicism and how to keep your heart open. In one sense a synthesis or blend of teachings that originate in Buddhism, Yoga, Sufism, Shamanism, and Mystic Christianity, the Vajra Heart teachings arise as a current path to spiritual and psychological freedom. With meditation, inquiry, and the art of presence, these teachings address the core of human suffering and confusion, and introduce the Truth that is disguised by consensus reality and its viewpoints. What exists within the core of every being is innately free, alive, and precious. These teachings convey the understanding to live these innate possibilities in a real and full way. These teachings are intended to revolutionize the consciousness of those who come into contact with them, and spark a transformation in those ready to come Home.

Transcript

Last week,

Last Sunday,

We were talking about,

We were using a phrase referring to our emotional home.

And I was saying a little bit about how we can understand our emotional home as sort of one in the same as our second chakra,

Swadhisthana.

But to elaborate on that for a moment,

If we speak about an emotional home,

What we're really referring to is a tendency to come back to a familiar place within ourselves.

And this place within ourselves is so familiar that when we are with it,

We tend to view the world in a kind of static way.

We'll view the world or ourselves or both,

Ultimately they're the same thing,

In a way that is sort of fixed,

In a way that is somewhat predictable because you've experienced it so many times before.

Take for example that perhaps your emotional home were the position of being a victim.

You would tend to look at life as victimizing you and you would tend to feel probably powerless,

Hopeless,

Despairing over the condition of your life.

So you would notice yourself over time returning to being a victim again and again and again and again.

And it would be a repetitive experience.

Now for most of us we don't realize that that's even going on.

We don't realize that we are again and again returning to a familiar emotional home or a familiar,

What I also call,

Reference point.

That when we're upon it,

Everything seems to look a certain way,

You know?

One of the things that most people will say when they're with their emotional home,

This reference point,

Is they will have the clear feeling that they do not feel like themselves.

And you can know that really profoundly when for a moment you step outside of that emotional home.

Because one of the things that people often say then is,

I feel more like myself now.

Whatever that may be,

I feel more joyful,

I feel more peaceful,

I feel more alive,

I feel more open,

I feel more relaxed,

I feel stronger.

There is a whole host of different qualities that arise when we say,

I feel more like myself.

The reason for talking about this today is that this familiar reference point that we have within us also comes with a tremendous cynicism,

Which I was talking about in class.

And cynicism is this very strong force that exists within us.

In one sense it is what tells us that we need to be hard or that we need to be guarded to live in this world.

We all have,

Every single one of us in this room and beyond this room have the experience at some point,

At least one experience where our heart was hurt,

Where our heart was broken,

Where our innocence was betrayed,

Where our trust was broken.

We all have at least one experience,

Even if it's just a small insignificant one.

But I would imagine that we all have less than small experiences of that.

And there is a tendency when you have had your experience,

When you have had your heart broken,

When you have had your trust betrayed,

To form a sort of thick layer around your heart,

What Rumi calls a glass cover.

And this glass cover over time,

Which maybe in an initial moment almost serves you in a way,

To help clarify your heart,

To help keep you strong enough to move through the thing that just happened.

Over time becomes very cloudy,

Moldy,

Stinky,

You know.

Over time becomes rusty and corrosive and all these other things,

Right?

So what maybe even at first serves us turns out to be a sort of poison.

And that poison is what I'm referring to by cynicism.

It's the quality of giving up on ourselves and the quality of giving up on each other and the quality of giving up on this planet,

You know.

It's a quality of surrendering to hopelessness,

Or not surrendering,

Let's say resigning.

It's a quality of resigning to being hopeless.

And the most difficult thing I think is to discover where this has happened in you.

Because most of us don't want to think of ourselves as somebody who has resigned to being hopeless or someone who has given up caring for themselves or giving up caring for each other.

But this has happened in all of us to some degree or another,

You know.

It tends to be in degrees.

Some people have shut down completely and some people have just shut down a little bit.

But to understand this cynicism inside of us is to understand that though we have been injured in our experience,

Though our trust has been betrayed,

Though we've had our heart broken,

The real tragedy is the tragedy of living under the protection of this armor and this cynicism.

And the real kicker with it is that it doesn't protect you anyway.

But this cynicism which we carry to protect our heart doesn't protect your heart in the least because you can still be hurt.

You still find yourself trusting and undergoing the experience of your trust being betrayed.

So even though we have this armor which seems very tough and solid and real,

It doesn't even really do the thing it's set out to do.

So there's something intended when we talk about living with heart here,

When we talk about really giving our life to that spiritual war that I mentioned.

And remember when I say war I'm not speaking of an act of violence.

In the spiritual sense war is not fought with violence.

I know language is tough in this way because war fighting automatically is the language of violence.

But we're speaking of a different fight.

And it's the fight in a sense to be true to ourselves and it's a fight to reclaim that which has been lost,

That which has been replaced by cynicism.

And cynicism takes many forms.

It takes the form of complaining,

It takes the form of gossiping,

It takes the form of trying to control things,

It takes the form of being bitter,

It takes the form of being afraid,

It takes the form of feeling like other people out there have more power than you do.

It takes the form of waging a war against those who have what you think you don't have,

Whatever that may be,

Power,

Money,

Influence,

Fame,

Looks,

Doesn't matter.

Any way in which you feel threatened is where your cynicism is operative in your life.

So we're here in a sense to end all that,

To end that war which is a violent war.

And that is done by practicing a path with heart,

To practicing with heart.

And I hope you heard me when I said that when I refer to heart I'm not referring to something sentimental.

I'm not referring to something gushy and emotional like cotton candy soft and sweet.

I'm referring to something,

Yes it has those qualities,

Yes there's an incredible tenderness and gentleness in the love that exists inside of us,

But there's also tremendous courage,

There's also tremendous strength in us.

So when we endeavor to take up a path with heart,

We're simultaneously taking up an experience where we are open,

Available,

Willing to let life in,

Willing to let life touch you,

Reach you,

To reach into your heart,

You know,

To reach in through the numbness and the not feeling,

To really touch the heart,

But not to just simply end up a weak,

Pathetic,

Emotional runt,

You know.

The purpose of doing so,

The purpose of opening oneself,

The purpose of letting life in is not to become a fool,

It's not to become a new age,

You know,

Love and lighty as they're sometimes called,

It's to become a warrior.

I mean it's to become someone who lives with love as a fierceness,

As an intensity,

You know.

So to realize that to be open and to be available to life takes more strength,

Takes more courage than it does to be cynical,

It's a profound realization and it's something that comes to us in degrees as we realize how much we are hiding,

How much we are holding back,

How much we're unwilling to show the world who we are,

What we are,

What we have to offer,

You know.

So that's what we're doing.

We're practicing a path with heart.

And if you're faint-hearted,

You won't last,

You know.

You'll find the task of living according to your heart too much,

Too much to bear,

Too much to face,

Too much to endeavor and you'll find yourself quitting or resigning to being cynical for a while,

You know.

After 10 years or 10 lifetimes you'll come back and say,

Oh you know what,

It's time to be done with this cynicism.

But the path of heart is certainly not one for those who feel weak.

Now you can feel weak and practice a path with heart,

There's no problem in that.

But there's a certain level of,

Are you up to it?

Are you up to it?

Are you up to facing this world,

And I don't mean with some positive rose-colored glasses,

But are you up to facing this world in a way where you're not just going to resign?

And nor,

So you're not going to resign,

You're not going to look at the world and the situation,

You're not going to read the newspaper and say,

Oh I give up,

It's all hopeless.

But you're also not going to look at the newspaper and then say,

You know what,

This pisses me off,

I'm going to fight with everybody about it.

Right?

It's a path in between.

It's a path in between resignation and violence.

It doesn't fit into either category.

Both ways are cowardly.

The way of the one who resigns is to be a coward.

The way of the one who fights and wars with the force outside of themselves,

That's another way of being a coward.

They're both cowardly ways.

Right?

They're both half-hearted in a sense.

We're called into something deeper.

If you hear this call,

If you feel this call,

You're called by something deeper,

Where you know it's not acceptable to resign and it's not acceptable to fight.

So what does that leave you with?

It leaves you with the quality of being a warrior.

It leaves you with the quality of being,

I mentioned jihad.

It leaves you with this quality of knowing that these are not your options.

And in that is born something else in us.

In that is born the path with heart.

Because heart is not simply love and light.

It's not simply,

I'm going to love everybody and I'm going to let them trample all over me and as the environment is polluted I'll just sit by and smile.

It's all good.

Right?

Nor is it the path of taking up arms and fighting and posting your violent messages on social media or whatever it is that goes on.

It's a space that very rarely a human being finds.

But it takes the courage to not resign and the love to not become a fighter.

A razor's edge.

A very thin line traveling between those two worlds.

So what do you make of that?

Do you have any questions or experiences or how that might apply to your life?

No better way to encounter our emotional center,

Our usual reference point than in relationships,

Right?

People are really good at pissing you off,

Aren't they?

They're really good at bothering you.

They're really good at misunderstanding you.

Right?

They're really good at seeing the darkness in you rather than the light.

Right?

No better place to practice or become aware of this emotional home,

This reference point than in relationship.

Right?

Just find,

You know,

If we just look to those areas of our life,

The relationships,

Usually relationships of some kind,

Whether it's with your partner,

Your boss,

Your friends,

Your kids,

Whatever,

To find that place in you that has either resigned or is fighting.

You know,

The place in you that wants to give up or the place in you that wants to conquer it all.

But as we're willing to face that,

You know,

I know people,

There are plenty of people out there who just avoid relationships altogether.

They just don't,

They don't face people,

You know,

They sit in their home all day or they,

You know,

Make it such that they don't have to engage with the world because to get to engage with the world is going to bring about this tremendous cynicism.

And who wants to face that?

You know,

Who wants to meet that?

Who wants to experience that?

So it takes equality of warriorship even just to be willing to face the things that arise in interacting with the world.

This is not,

As we've talked about before,

This is not a monk's path,

Not in our culture anyway of one of avoidance,

One of not dealing with the world.

I don't even think we can afford that now.

You know,

What would be the use?

There are certain non-dual personalities that assert the world isn't real.

Why should I mess with it?

It's not real.

There's nothing real about it.

I'll just avoid the whole thing.

Well,

If it's not real,

Why are you avoiding it?

You know what I mean?

So that perspective of it's all not real,

None of this is real,

It's all an illusion,

You know,

Your fears are made up,

Things that are going on in the world are made up.

I don't want anything to do with it.

Well,

If it's not real,

What are you concerned with?

You know,

That becomes a trap,

Especially for those of us who are able to grasp those non-dual truths because there is truth that this world is not real.

But to understand that it is the world of your reference point that's not real,

That's a different story,

You know,

That it is your emotional home that is not real.

That's a different story,

Right?

Nor are we suggesting here that we go out and become an activist,

Right?

We're not suggesting now the world is real,

Now go out there and fight with everybody.

Go out there and protest and resist and fight and conquer,

You know?

Because if you really look,

When you do that,

You're just involved in the same game as the side you're opposing,

You know?

When in those situations of resistance,

What we find is the party that is resisting wants the same thing that the party that is controlling has.

Same thing.

We want your money,

We want your power,

We want your influence,

We want your,

You name it,

Whatever that thing is.

So fighting is not an option either,

You know?

It very clearly doesn't work.

But there's another way,

You know?

It's a way of walking with heart.

You know,

If you're really honest with yourself,

You can look and see where you lack heart.

You can see where you give up or where you fight,

You know,

Where you resign or where you try to control things.

It's obvious to you if you're really honest with yourself.

I know it is in my life,

You know?

Where you fight,

Where you try to control,

Where you resign and give up.

Those places are pretty obvious.

They're not fun to look at or talk about.

But there they are.

I love what you're saying.

I love what you're saying.

That to some degree the path of disengagement,

It is easier and at times it is absolutely necessary to retreat from the world,

To retreat from the influence of the world.

But this path of disengagement,

This way of disengagement comes with a cost.

Comes with a major cost.

And I think that Renee is bringing a brilliant point here.

Is that part of our cowardice is that we're afraid of making a mistake,

You know?

And that's part of our journey,

You know?

Part of the journey is getting over this reluctance,

This hesitancy that we have within us for fear of making a mistake,

You know?

A really good warrior,

A really good person of the heart has made innumerable mistakes.

And each mistake that is made in the path of the heart is turned into wisdom.

It's turned into a new way,

You know?

I thought I was being peaceful but I found out I was being resigned.

What's that but just a little bit of a stand up a little taller,

You know?

I thought I was being strong but it turned out I was being violent.

What's that but just a little bit of a stand back in the center?

You have,

You must make mistakes.

You must.

There's no avoiding it.

A path without mistakes is not a path.

The only way to travel a path without a mistake is not by not getting on one at all,

You know?

It's inevitable that mistakes will happen.

And this is I think one of the things that holds,

Especially those who practice the path of disengagement,

It holds us back because we don't want to make a mistake.

We don't want to face doing something wrong,

Hurting somebody,

You know?

Finding out that we fell asleep and fell to the right or we fell asleep and we fell to the left.

So it takes the willingness to make a mistake and you can see the willingness to make a mistake is courage.

You're going to make mistakes.

Let's just get it out,

Air it out,

You know?

It's going to happen.

You're going to make mistakes.

You're going to fall on your face again and again and again and again and again,

Right?

Everybody practices a path with heart with absolute perfection.

You don't get it right.

You don't learn how to practice a path with heart and then go do it,

Right?

Imagine the cowardly lion,

Wizard of Oz,

It's a beautiful analogy.

Imagine the cowardly lion deciding he was going to have heart before he took the journey.

You see his conundrum?

You see his problem?

It took the journey to get the heart.

So if we say to ourselves,

I want to have heart first so I don't make a mistake,

You know,

The journey never happens.

It just never ensues.

And in some way we're preaching to the choir because every one of us here is on a path,

On a journey,

You know?

If anything what we're talking about is really to simply reinforce the rightness of that and the courage it takes to continue it and the courage it takes to be open,

Innocent,

Vulnerable,

The courage it takes to release this reliance on cynicism or disengagement.

How did you walk on an edge like that and not be wishy-washy?

By learning your wishy-washiness.

You know?

It's like,

Let's say,

What's it called when you tie a rope between two trees and you walk on it?

Slacklining.

Slacklining.

Let's say that,

You know,

We were slacklining.

The way you're going to learn to balance on the rope is by walking on the rope and wobbling.

Right?

That's how you're going to learn to balance.

Your wobbling teaches you.

Your wavering teaches you.

That's why when I was saying earlier in the meditation,

Nothing is excluded in this path.

Everything becomes food for the path of heart.

It's not like your wobbles are somehow off,

You know,

That you need to eliminate your wobbles and only keep your steady walking.

Your wobbles are a part of your learning.

You know,

They're necessary ingredients to the full walking of your path.

Well,

You're bringing up something that's a really relevant part of the problem is that we see the things that are going on in the world and the first question we ask ourselves is what do I do about it?

But that's really a question that's the number two question because the real question is who am I?

Right?

You can only decide what you're going to do about what's going on in the world when you know who you are.

So if your question is what do I do,

You have to realize you're asking the second question,

Not the first one.

The first question needs to be answered before the second one can be.

And this is part of the problem of what's going on in our world.

We're all looking at what to do.

But let's look at the history of that.

Right?

In the history of our planet,

People have created problems and other people have come along with solutions to those problems.

The solutions to those problems created new problems to which a new group of people arose with solutions to that problem.

That new solution became a new problem with which a new group of people came along with a new solution to that problem.

And on and on this goes.

We call it evolution.

The reality is that it's stupidity.

It's not really evolution at all.

We think it's evolution because we are fascinated with problem solving.

We're fascinated with this task of somehow thinking that we're going to accomplish something,

That we are going to fix the world.

The Tao Te Ching says it well.

It says,

If you want to help the world,

Realize it can't be done.

That's the best way you can help the world is by realizing it can't be done.

Right?

Because if you realize that it can't be done,

What it brings you to is the only thing really possible for you in any given moment,

Which is to be who you really are.

To be the truth of who you are.

Right?

And doing arises or flows out of that.

Right?

Doing something about the world arises when you,

I mean authentically and truly,

Arises when you know who you are.

If you don't know who you are,

What you do will create a solution perhaps,

But it will also bring with it a new problem.

This is why in any given country or culture or nation,

There's a revolution that takes place.

Right?

One group revolutionizes another group.

Now you have this new group in charge,

But over a period of time,

Decades,

Hundreds of years,

Thousands of years,

That one runs its course and then a new revolution has to take place.

Right?

And,

In a way,

There's learning that goes into that,

But at the same time,

There's a continual obsession with doing.

Right?

We're going to do something about these people because they've got it wrong.

You know?

We're going to do something about this culture because they've got it wrong.

And look at the wars that have been created.

Like when the white people came and brought civilization to the Native Americans,

Look at the civilization that was brought.

Look at what has been established in this country.

You know?

Not to mention all the other cultures out there.

So I think part of our task as people of the heart is to realize that we are not here to do something about it.

We will do something about it,

But it's the second piece.

The first piece is being what you are,

Being who you are,

Knowing that,

Living that.

Because what you do when you know who you are is a totally different story than what you do when you don't know who you are.

It's totally different.

Right?

When you don't know who you are,

You resort to resignation or violence in your approach to the world.

When you know who you are,

The path of heart is open to you.

Right?

So I understand our frustration.

I understand how difficult it is to look at the things that are going on in our world,

Injustices,

You know,

All of it,

All of it,

Everything that's going on.

But there's no solution in trying to do something.

I'm not saying to you,

Don't do anything.

Sit on the couch and don't do anything.

Because then I would be teaching the path of resignation.

What I'm saying though is find out who and what you are first.

Know that in the fullness of your heart,

Then do something.

Right?

Because from that place you will know what to do.

You won't feel confused.

You won't be like,

Well,

What am I going to do to fix the world?

You're going to realize there's a world that's broken and there's a world that's not broken.

And what you will be is a translator.

You will be translating the world that is not broken into the world that is broken.

Do you understand what I'm saying when I say that?

You will come to know that reality,

That there's a greater reality than the appearance of things and that that exists inside of you,

That you are that.

And as you realize that,

You will do something about this broken world,

But you will do something in such a different way than what you might have known or what you might have been taught.

And it will not include resignation and it will not include violence.

It will be of a whole different category of experience.

You know?

So if we want to help,

We need to start by self-foration.

That's all we need to do to help.

Because what you do from that exploration and that knowing,

Coming to the truth of who you are,

It can't help.

When you know who you are,

Someone said to me recently,

He had an essential experience of who he was,

And he said,

Now I know why you teach.

Because it's an obsession,

You want to share it with everybody.

When you realize how big you are,

How much love there is,

How deep the peace runs,

You can't help but want to share it with people.

It's going to be your natural instinct.

And the sharing of your love,

The sharing of your peace,

The sharing of your strength is a totally different thing than trying to get people to understand this is the problem.

You know what I mean?

You're interested in sharing peace,

You're interested in sharing love from that knowledge of yourself.

I mean what Gandhi said is really the most appropriate advice,

Is be the change that you want to see.

Whatever it is you want to happen,

You be that.

He didn't say go do the change you think should happen.

He said be,

Be that.

That's what I mean when I say find out who you are.

Because when you know who you are,

You are being that.

You're being the very thing that you want.

You want world peace,

Be at peace.

You want love in the world,

Be love.

You want justice,

Be just.

You know?

That's the only way.

You know?

Because if you are not being just and you come out and you say you're not being just,

What do you think is going to happen?

You know?

It's just the same thing.

It's just the same story repeating itself.

I'm just,

You're not.

You know?

You need to be just.

It's a game we're playing with ourselves.

I know Gandhi's words are so trite now,

They've been bumper sticker so much that people have forgotten to actually hear what the words actually are saying.

But they're true.

Be the change you wish to see.

There is no other way.

What we underestimate is the effect that has.

Look at the effect it had with him.

Look at the effect it had with Martin Luther King.

You know?

Look at the effect it had with Jesus or Buddha.

These are people who were being what they wanted to see.

And the influence is profound when we're being that.

Now contrast that with your local sign carrier on the corner who has the sign saying,

They're all wrong.

How effective is that person?

You know?

Nothing wrong with carrying signs.

If you want to carry signs,

Carry signs.

Go for it.

But just realize who you are as you're carrying a sign.

And that's the important piece,

Isn't it?

Is tuning in.

To be able to actually hear the guidance that's being given.

And the interesting thing about this guidance is that it's not a part of your familiar reference point.

It's not a part of your emotional home.

So it may arise in such a way that's not familiar to you.

That's why it requires this listening.

So that you can hear it.

It's not telling you the same thing you already know.

Right?

It's not telling you to be the way you've always been.

It's telling you something else.

This is why we practice meditation in part so that we can get receptive enough,

Quiet enough to discern what that voice is saying.

It's a great point.

So if I don't know who I am,

I can't act.

And if I don't know who I am,

I have to get very quiet first.

I have to get very quiet and very receptive.

I have to be willing to be shown who I am and what it is that my life is for,

For that to happen.

That's our task.

And you know it changes.

It's not like one static thing.

It's not like you're 20 years old,

You stumble upon,

This is who I am,

This is what I'm supposed to do,

And then it's that way for the rest of your life.

It's a moment by moment listening.

It's a moment by moment receptivity.

Because as I said in the meditation,

You can only know who you are now.

Any past version of yourself is already expired.

Time ran out on it.

This is you now.

So where is guidance going to appear?

It's going to appear now.

It's going to be here.

And that is continuous.

It's not just a one-time thing.

It's continuous.

You can find out in a moment who you are and within 10 minutes it's a past concept.

It's an idea you have now.

It's no longer true in the now.

It's a memory.

So you might have,

Let's say,

Just being silly for a moment,

Let's say that I have a true recognition of who I am.

I hear the guidance being given to me and I say,

And it says,

Go get a donut.

All right?

This is silly.

Like I said,

So you go down,

You get your donut.

An hour from now you decide,

Who am I?

What's the voice telling me?

Well,

It must be telling me to go get a donut.

So you go back down and get a donut at the donut shop.

And then an hour later,

The same thing happens.

And all day long you're just going down and getting donuts.

Worst day ever.

Next day is the worst day ever.

But what's the problem in this is that what was started as a very pure moment of guidance and receptivity has now become a habit.

It's now become a pattern.

It's no longer fresh and new.

You know?

And you wonder,

And then we wonder why we're so thirsty,

Why we're so malnourished when we keep going to the donut again and again,

When we're missing the guidance that's telling us drink a glass of water.

You know,

Eat a salad,

Whatever.

I love these really stupid,

Silly analogies.

They make it so absurd that you can't help but have humor with it.

But all things like that in greater degree as well.

Maybe you had a relationship with somebody or a situation with somebody and the guidance told you in the moment to be a certain way with them.

Now if you go about trying to be that same way with them over and over and over again,

You're not in a real relationship anymore.

You're stuck in a past experience.

And this is what we do with close relationships often.

That's why I said,

When Laura said what she said,

That they will bring us to our familiar reference points.

We will go on repeating the same thing over and over.

So our point being just to be open,

To be receptive,

To be willing to receive the messages,

The information,

The knowledge that is available to us.

I think the most basic thing is to drop the opposition piece.

In other words,

That two forces opposing each other can only continue so long as there is a mutual agreement on force against.

If one party drops that force,

This party,

It just sort of loses its momentum.

And I think in order to do that,

In order for us to drop our opposition,

There has to be a way in which we really clearly and truly understand what our opposition is.

Because often it's very difficult to drop your opposition or your fight or your war when you don't really understand what that is.

And that can be subtle.

There's a lot that goes into that because one of the subtle forms of opposition is we tend to feel,

If people see things our way,

We tend to feel connected with them.

And if people don't see things our way,

We tend to feel disconnected from them.

So part of what happens in the game of opposition is we will go into opposition,

Strangely enough,

To try to maintain connection.

So in one sense,

To drop opposition means to be okay with the experience of disconnection,

Which is an interesting phenomenon.

Because we all want connection,

But some of the ways that we maintain connection are through opposition.

So it takes,

In a sense,

I'm just picking out one little strand here amongst so many that could exist.

In a sense it then takes the courage to be disconnected,

If that should arise,

In order to drop opposition.

You know what I mean?

It's a very interesting phenomenon.

I know in saying it,

It doesn't make a lot of sense.

It's not a very logical thing.

But we maintain,

Strangely enough,

We maintain relationships of resistance with things in order to maintain them.

Take for example a bad habit you have.

Do you want to know how you're maintaining it?

You're maintaining it by trying to get rid of it.

You're maintaining your bad habit by trying to get rid of it,

Because you're in opposition to it.

And that opposition is a way of continuing the force of resistance that keeps that thing going.

Right?

You get that?

Right?

You want to stop eating sugar?

Well,

First you have to give up,

Stop not wanting to eat sugar.

So long as you're convinced that sugar is your enemy and you're against it,

Sugar has power over you.

Right?

Now sugar is going to be there all the time,

Lurking.

You want me,

You want me.

And you're going to be fighting,

No,

No,

Get away!

And so in that way,

Your relationship with sugar is maintained.

You know?

I started this practice where if I notice I'm ruminating on something,

I'll just say,

Okay buddy,

Have at it.

You know,

You can think about that all day long.

And it generally does help it dissipate.

This is the resistance,

Yep.

Yep.

That's a strong inner technique.

When you find yourself in opposition to yourself in a certain way,

It's sort of like just give it permission.

Okay.

Alright.

Go for it.

So it's not to focus on a salad,

It's just to let go of the sugar.

Well if you're focused on the salad,

You won't be preoccupied with the sugar.

But if you're eating the salad all the while,

Like,

Oh I'm not going to have a cookie after this,

I'm not going to have a cookie after this,

Then you're still in a relationship to sugar.

You know what I mean?

It's where our attention is truly devoted.

You know?

It's impossible to be,

As Gandhi put it,

It's impossible to be for something and at the same time against it.

Or Einstein said that,

He said you can't simultaneously solve a problem from the state of consciousness that created it.

We don't win out through resistance.

We only maintain things the way they are.

So let's talk about that in the larger context of ego work.

When you're working on your ego,

When you're trying to eliminate your ego,

What do you think is going on?

You're reinforcing it.

The more you demonize your ego,

The more firmly entrenched it becomes.

And the stronger you try to get rid of it,

The stronger it becomes.

It's very tricky,

You know,

Because we have worked into our spiritual culture this language of resistance.

You know,

Even,

Just be careful,

Even the way when you refer to letting go of something,

Just watch what your mind is really saying.

It's not saying I want to let go of this,

It's saying I want to eliminate this.

Right?

I want to cut this out.

I want to get rid of it.

I don't want it anymore.

Perfectly reasonable that you don't want it anymore.

But you don't get rid of it through resisting it.

You don't get rid of it by trying to cut it out.

Yes.

This is exactly what it is.

Did you hear the Chinese finger trap?

You try to get your finger out and it's more stuck.

Same sort of principle.

Reviews

Very helpful, thank you 😌🙏

This has made me think and ask more questions. Very helpful. Figure out who I am before what I should do next. Moment by moment.

Fantastic talk.
Valuable lesson with wonderful presentation.
Thank you.
🦋

Just so informative thank you so much