Hi,
I'm Bassem.
Thank you for joining me.
It's ten past ten a.
M.
In the morning.
Take a moment to ground into your being.
I feel like what we have to talk about today is of utmost importance.
It could be life-changing for many of us.
Of course,
It always depends on the quality of our presence.
The quality also of our attention,
Our awareness.
But also,
The quality of our readiness to come out of suffering or to step out of the karmic reality that we live in.
Typically,
We look externally for markers to tell us how well we are doing in life or how we should be feeling.
For example,
Whether we should feel peaceful or not.
How safe we should feel.
How happy we should feel.
Depending on external markers.
We feel good because there are others around us.
We feel good because we've got numbers going up in the bank.
We feel safe because the world appears safe.
I think it's a prevalent condition.
I see people who are pegging their level of happiness or their quality of their being on external circumstances.
We're taught to look for external cues and external markers for whether we should be feeling safe,
Happy,
Satisfied,
Contented,
Fulfilled.
This doesn't get better with age when our identity markers start to dismantle and we start to feel like we're being stripped,
Urgent,
Frustrated,
Afraid.
People are frantic,
Wondering how to deal with this transition,
This dismantling of our identity structures.
They have pegged their internal state on external markers.
It's safe outside.
The weather is good.
I've got friends around me.
I've got money in the bank.
I'm in good health.
For my part,
I've come to understand that happiness is intimacy of being.
Or as Rupert Spears says,
Happiness is the knowing of yourself.
He says happiness is the knowing of self.
If you pull out your external investment,
Your dependence on the world,
And allow yourself to cross this great abyss,
What sometimes has been called the dark night of the soul,
You no longer count how much money you've got in order to see if you should feel safe.
You no longer base how good your life is on whether you've got friends and people around you.
You don't use these external measures anymore.
Once you cross this dark night of the soul,
Come to see that happiness is the intimacy of being.
Keeping time with your being,
As the word suggests,
Is itself happiness.
It's the meeting of you.
That's happiness.
Happiness is not an external thing.
It's not a product.
It's not an achievement.
Nor is peace or joy or feeling safe.
All of these are part and parcel of your being.
You're born with these qualities.
The outside is ever-changing.
So we're continuously justifying our unhappiness,
Excusing our behavior,
Pushing our enlightenment until tomorrow.
No one is to blame for this,
But even so,
It's our responsibility.
From early on,
We're trained to focus our attention,
The light of awareness,
Externally,
Away from ourselves.
Consequently,
We no longer recognize ourselves.
We have no sense of our being.
The only time we have a sense of our being is if we drop below the mind when we're drunk or when there's sex involved and so on,
Something that forces you to feel something of your being,
Experience or the adventure or the travel or the new meeting or the excitement,
The external.
And again,
I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with this,
But I'm saying that to depend on things that are ephemeral,
That exist in space and time,
That come and go,
Is a fool's practice.
And that's why Jesus said,
Build on solid foundations.
And that's,
Of course,
Where control comes from.
Husbands control their wives,
And wives control their husbands,
And parents control their children,
And children try to control their friends,
And teachers control the classroom.
Because when there's no presence,
You're depending on external intelligence to guide your life,
On external markers to tell you how you should be feeling inside.
In the absence of presence,
Laws,
Regulations,
And rules apply.
Internally,
You don't need law.
You know right from wrong.
Intimacy guides you,
Your movements,
Your words,
Actions,
Guides your feelings through the sense of being.
Your sense of being is the sum total of heaven and earth,
And all that is in between.
But since early childhood,
The muscle of our attention has been trained to focus externally.
This is what this is all about.
We measure whether we should feel peaceful on what's happening outside.
People who are getting their guidance from inside,
They don't cheat,
They don't lie,
They don't kill.
They don't rape.
They have no reason to.
Raping,
Killing,
Cheating,
Lying,
All of this,
These are ways of trying to ensure that the world behaves in the right way for you to be happy.
I don't feel good about myself because someone smiled at me in the street or gave me a compliment.
I feel good about me because I can feel the pulse of the universe in me.
I'm looking out,
Attuned to my internal processes.
I'm feeling my body as I'm speaking.
Why do I have to check outside to see how I feel inside?
When the identity structures that are built on what's happening outside starts to fall apart,
As painful as it may be,
That's a wonderful time because it means that you're ready to turn inward.
This is the home return,
The soul return.
This is the point where the prodigal son,
The prodigal daughter comes home from the world.
It means that you're waking up from the spell of external identification.
It means you are stepping into abundance.
Abundance is the realization that happiness is what you are.
Can you begin to feel your internal reality and make that your standard?
Every moment you catch yourself looking externally to see whether everything is okay,
You turn inward.
You start to retrain yourself.
It may take a day,
It may take a week,
It may take a lifetime.
Sooner or later you'll have to do it.
Right here,
Right now,
Can you look inward?
Wake up to the truth of being,
Feeling your hands or your feet.
Can you feel the beingness of you?
You might put some attention on your belly.
Can you listen while feeling your belly button?
If you need to put your hand on your belly to feel the warmth,
That can help.
This is the practice of awakening.
Let the whole of you,
From feet to toes,
Center in the belly button.
And keep your attention there.
Let your breathing be relaxed.
Let the whole body be relaxed.
Cultivate that ability to stay at the belly button while listening.
And then if you go walking,
You walk while feeling your belly button,
Refusing to indulge your thoughts that are invested in what the world is doing.
You're talking and you're feeling your belly button.
You're washing the dishes and you're feeling your belly button.
And you develop that muscle.
You practice that.
In time,
This will help you to come out of the mind and into the body.
We live in our thoughts.
We register reality through our thinking,
Names,
Man,
Woman,
Human.
To meet the external,
You have first to meet the internal.
That's what waking up means.
Waking up means the outside and the inside have merged.
These words are coming out of the sense of being.
Listen without losing contact with your belly.
It's the beginning.
I go up to the cafe.
I ask for coffee with my being.
I walk,
Continuously practice being.
I keep trying to come back home to my being.
From early on,
We're taught to focus our attention externally.
Now we're trying to find our way back internally.
This is what it means to wake up.
Wake up is not something that happens intellectually.
There is something that is awake in this flesh.
So we say,
Feel your belly.
This is a step in that direction.
We see the world through words.
Every word has a meaning.
Mom means she should look after me.
Dad means you should give me money.
God means you should love me.
This way you never have to find out anything about God.
You don't have to find out anything about your mom.
You don't have to find out anything about your dad.
As long as you're a soul,
You never have to find out what that means.
It's just a shortcut.
Change your investment from the external to the internal.
All right,
My friends.
I wish you well.
The kingdom of heaven is within,
Jesus said.
Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven within,
And everything shall be added unto you.
Take care.
See you another time.
You
