The Encouragement Of Light

For those who are in anxiety, depression, or any form of distress, being in the company of someone who is understanding and calm — someone who transmits a light and easy atmosphere without denying the suffering -- is one of the most salubrious forms of encouragement. And being that for another delivers it for oneself as well.

Transcript

Welcome to In the Deep.

I'm your host,

Katherine Ingram.

The following was excerpted from a Zoom session of Dharma Dialogues,

Which was broadcast from Australia on September 6th,

2020.

It's called The Encouragement of Light.

I read something from Hafiz last night.

I'm going to read a different something today.

How did the rose ever open its heart and give to this world all its beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light against its being.

Otherwise we all remain too frightened.

We need the encouragement of light,

Do we not?

We need the encouragement of light.

Actually,

Literally,

We live by the sun that grows our food and provides warmth for our planet,

Getting a little too warm.

But we are sun-based creatures.

But it's another kind of light as well,

Isn't it?

A light that comes from the intense love that we share with each other and that you all share among your loved ones in your lives,

Your family,

Your friends,

Your pets,

And all the other creatures that you love,

All the little creatures you love.

That's the light of our lives.

Without it,

We do get frightened.

We're in a time where there's a lot of fear running about.

Understandably,

There's a lot of fear.

It's a very unstable,

Dark time.

Let's just face it,

It is.

People whose mental stability is not strong or their circumstances are very,

Very stressful,

Even with mental stability,

That can get weary,

Of course.

People are kind of falling through the cracks in lots of ways.

Perhaps some of you have even struggled with moments or even days of depression or fear or anxiety or sleeplessness,

Worry,

And so on.

First of all,

This is the time for us to hold to the values we know and cherish.

Hold to our loved ones.

Be a light in someone else's life.

You be the light.

In your being the light for someone else,

You'll feel light yourself.

It's an amazing open secret that is astonishingly not as well known as one would hope it would be.

The whole concept of being in love,

Usually people think that means in love with,

Fill in the blank.

Being in love is just being essentially a generator of love so that you're the love source.

Then you can be in love together with any number of people.

I'm not saying that they would be your spousal type partners,

But rather that there's a lot of love to go around,

The more loving you are.

Your experience of what light means becomes that of a sense of being with someone and there's a lightness in the air around the two of you.

There's a kind of brightness in the vibe,

A kind of sparkle in the vibe.

I've told this following story many times and some of you have been coming to Dharma Dialogues for almost 30 years will no doubt have heard this story or you've listened to the podcast.

Long ago,

I had co-founded this group called Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization.

It was kind of an alternative UN for nations and peoples who were not recognized by the United Nations.

It was a huge,

Huge group that we founded.

We represented 20 million people.

We worked with all of these indigenous elders from around the world and nations in exile,

The leaders of the nations in exile and so on.

It sounds incredibly cool,

I know,

But I really did not like this job.

The more I did it,

The more I did not like it.

I felt stuck in it because I had raised the money for it and I just felt trapped.

I was working in this office in San Francisco,

Our so-called headquarters.

One day,

One of my friends who had just been to visit Poonjaji,

He had just come back from India.

He was an old,

Old Buddhist friend of mine and we decided to go to lunch.

I was just in a kind of a miserable state.

I was depressed.

I was agitated.

My days were a grind in that job.

So off the two of us went to lunch.

We really didn't even talk about his experience in India.

I had never met Poonjaji at the time.

But because of the space that he was in and the delight in seeing each other,

With every step,

I just felt lighter and lighter and easier and brighter.

Then I laughed all through lunch and then we walked back arm in arm a few blocks back to my office.

In that little journey,

Which could have been 100 years in fact from where I was,

I realized I have to leave this job.

It was a lie that I was in this job.

It was a lie because it was dampening my spirit and it was calling out just the worst in myself.

I was agitated.

I was impatient with people.

In that little window of time,

In being with someone who's emanating light,

I caught it.

It reminded me of how I want to live.

I thought,

You know what?

Come what may,

I'm not going to stick in this job that any number of a thousand people would love to be doing and get paid for and they would get paid for.

Why should I stick in this when it's just not for me?

This is not a fit and it's dimming my light.

So one of the notions I live by is to really give myself permission to avoid that which dims my light.

I don't believe in any big heroics of having to put yourself in horrible circumstances that you cannot seem to overcome.

I'm thrilled and find heroic those people who can remain light in horrible,

Difficult circumstances and there are lots of them.

That's amazing.

But I also see that we each have our own limitations.

I might be strong in one area and not in another.

So to really choose and notice when you need to make a change,

But to mostly choose going to the light in your own life so that you're able to love and be happy and be easy with people and in your company they feel calmer and safer.

They feel this,

Like I say,

This sparkle of energy inside and they might feel that they could talk about anything.

It doesn't have to be some kind of spiritual wrap.

They can talk about anything and it will be infused with the light.

I always say that your well-being and your use of your attention to keep yourself on track is not only for you.

It's good for you.

It's great for you.

But it's also for everyone you interact with,

Whether it's the person at the grocery store or anybody,

The phone solicitor on the phone.

We don't get many scam calls here,

Spam calls.

We don't get many here in Australia.

But when I was in the US,

We used to get them a lot.

Because my brother died and who had been quite dysfunctional in his life and always had just dead-end,

Very hard jobs,

Even though he was extremely brilliant,

He had worked as a phone solicitor once along the way,

One of those dead-end,

Awful jobs for virtually no pay.

And he who struggled with depression already would be spending his days being cursed out and hung up on and screamed at.

And so he was really beleaguered by that.

And ever since that time,

Which was probably in the 80s,

I've made it a point to be really kind to phone solicitors or to someone whose company has messed up and now I'm having to unravel some big gigantic thing.

But they're just the person on the phone.

They're the person who's answering the phone.

They're not making the company decisions.

So to really,

As frustrated as sometimes one is with those kinds of experiences,

To understand this is a human being struggling.

If you're in a phone solicitor job,

Life isn't all that easy unless you just love your job.

Maybe there's some,

But I doubt there are many.

And so to really,

Really bend over backwards to be kind to,

Especially to people who you think perhaps are not having as privileged a life as yourself.

Now,

When one's own light is dimmed and you're struggling and you're not in a good mood,

You're not very cheerful,

Your temper is short.

Then I really recommend to basically do,

I said it last night on the call,

Make an extra effort to take care of yourself just as you would,

Let's say you had a child who's acting out and misbehaving and you can tell your child is really upset about something,

Really agitated.

Perhaps as a loving parent,

What you would do in that case is really calm the child in every way you could.

You might say,

Let's go have a hot chocolate or let's go for a walk,

Sweetheart.

Would you like to go for,

Want to go to the swings?

Or you would move the attention into something pleasurable,

Into something beautiful for the child.

But why do we not do this for ourselves?

So here's another aspect of overcoming fear with your own light,

Right?

Is in the moments when you're losing it,

When you're just feeling a swirl starting to happen,

A storm inside your being,

Those are the very moments to interrupt that process before it gets out of control,

Before all of the negative chemistry starts kicking in and then you really are in a storm because the body chemistry has now gone into a storm as well,

A depressing storm with depressing chemicals and anxious chemicals.

So instead of all that,

Instead of going down that whole storm route,

You interrupted as soon as you notice it happening and give yourself permission.

I said it last night,

We talked a lot last night about the antidote to fear being joy and being courage.

But a lot of it means giving yourself permission to choose those components,

Choose joy,

Remind yourself that you're courageous,

That you're strong.

Humans have handled so many hard knocks over the course of history.

We've had it so soft and it's in a way our disadvantage at this point,

But we've been really,

Really cushy,

Really,

Really privileged and we don't like the slightest inconvenience.

I mean,

It was very unsettling to see people fighting in grocery stores over toilet paper,

Very unsettling.

But we don't have to be part of that crowd.

We can have compassion and we can step aside,

Stay out of the fights and find your deep well of courage and clarity and easy love with everyone as much as possible.

You don't have to hang out with everyone,

You can love them from afar.

These are some thoughts on how did the rose ever open its heart and give to this world all its beauty?

It felt the encouragement of light against its being.

Otherwise,

We all remain too frightened.

Hello.

Hello.

I am so nervous because I've never spoken before and participated,

But I'm just so grateful to be here.

And lately,

I've been thinking a lot about your teaching about having courage and staying in the present moment and being a shade tree for others and how this all relates to your nervous system.

And you've spoken before about anxiety and I'm wondering if you could talk more about addressing the physical aspects of what we're going through right now,

You know,

The way our anxiety is triggered.

I know like when I go to the grocery store or these other ideas that you're talking about,

Like when you're on the phone with someone who calls you,

Instead of being a trigger for that person,

I'm a lot more conscious about being gentle and making a connection.

Beautiful.

You know,

Giving love in that moment,

Like planting seeds in the moment.

But I do struggle a lot with my body reacting with anxiety to a lot of stuff that's going on.

Yes,

I think we all do.

And depending on your own constitution,

Your own nature,

Your own conditioning,

There's not a lot to do about the arising of the reaction.

I've noticed because I tend to anxiety.

So I've noticed that the anxiety will just start,

It'll just start quivering that,

You know,

Causes quivering inside of me.

And then what I do with that is I start directing my attention.

I start either reflecting on counter ideas or thoughts,

Something contemplative.

I also do something I call widen the lens.

I try to take a very big view of life.

Not just my little life,

But life writ large.

And sometimes I kind of wind the lens way,

Way,

Way out.

There was this book that went around in the 90s.

It was called Zoom.

And believe it or not,

It was called Zoom.

And it showed this guy,

I think he's standing on a yard or a driveway.

I haven't seen it for many years.

You see this whole,

Like this big picture of this guy,

Right?

And then the lens zooms out.

And you can see always on a yard,

Right?

And then you start to see,

Oh,

There's a house.

And you start seeing the neighborhood.

Anyway,

It keeps going out into the universe until even the earth itself is just a tiny dot in the picture.

Right?

The lens gets wider and wider and wider.

And that's another thing that I do.

I sometimes remind myself of the vastness of space in which we actually do sit.

And in the vastness of time that we've made up,

The concept of time,

But nevertheless,

According to our way of looking at the world,

There's something called time.

And it goes on a very long time.

And I start allowing my attention to move into that space so that I don't feel locked down into such a tight space with the personal story,

The me,

The what I like,

What I don't,

I'm scared,

I don't like that.

What if,

Oh my goodness,

The future.

All of those kinds of thoughts definitely induce anxiety.

But one doesn't have to be locked in a closet with them.

And so then you start using your own awareness and your ability to move your attention around.

Okay,

As your ally,

As your tool that you use,

When there's a problem in your house,

The toilets leaking or something,

This bulb is out or whatever,

You get a tool,

Right?

You get a tool if the toilets leak,

You get a tool if you have to get on,

You have to get on a ladder to do the bulb,

You know,

You got to use the right tool for the right job.

And sometimes with anxiety,

You've got to counter it either with something joyful or just some reflections or go for a walk,

Move the body,

Call a friend,

All these things,

You'll find the perfect tool in your own toolbox.

You know,

You when you're talking about seeing the world from above,

It made me think of that visual of the Milky Way where the little dot and it's that point with an arrow,

It says you are here.

Yeah.

I found that when the minute I first saw that and forever,

Every time I look at it,

I feel such a feeling of peace.

So I can use that.

Beautiful.

Yes,

You can use that image.

Yes.

Have your own images and your own ideas that that that are true reflections,

Right?

Not something you're making up out of whole cloth,

Some kind of crazy fantasy belief system,

But really true,

True reflections of the reality.

And to really,

I mean,

I know this is going to sound kind of heavy.

But it's another way that I calm myself down is I say to myself,

Okay,

Be ready to die.

That one really helps.

It really works.

I've been thinking a lot,

Just in reference to that in your work,

And in all of these Dharma talks that I feel for better that I am preparing to die.

But in not in a negative way,

I'm preparing to die in with love and knowing that everything that we do every day right now matters so much to the quality of what we experience over for personally and as collectively and so just thank you so much for all of that.

The teaching on that.

Appreciate it so much.

Thank you.

Speak with you.

Hello,

Catherine,

And I've been listening to your teachings.

I moved from South Carolina to Washington State because of my three young granddaughters.

I wanted to be around family.

I toggle between deep dark despair and ecstatic joy.

I love living and I love life.

But I was a US,

I was a history teacher for my career.

And I've just been always,

You know,

Looking at information that brings truth and,

You know,

Knowing about what is happening,

Your course,

Your paper on extinction.

I just very much feel gratitude for you to speak the truth there.

And it just breaks my heart to think that,

You know,

There are three granddaughters that are almost eight,

Almost four,

And almost,

You know,

Six months old.

It's just,

I've heard you speak to your challenge with knowing what you know,

And trying to accept that.

Your teaching has been very valuable for me.

And I am trying to accept that,

That,

You know,

Anyway.

Yeah,

The point of light,

I would just,

You know,

I can get transmissions from people like you,

And from different teachers,

And I've,

You know,

Explored these avenues for many,

Many years.

But that is the one thing that is so difficult for me to accept.

There are certain things that are not acceptable to a human heart,

That are not acceptable on the personal level.

There are things that it's hard to ask ourselves to accept from a personal point of view.

And it usually doesn't even mean our own suffering.

It means the suffering of those we love,

Right?

So I think we don't have to demand that we have to accept that kind of,

That that level of things.

However,

On the bigger picture,

The zoom lens,

Right?

There I think we can find more wiggle room where you where we basically say,

Okay,

There's a way in which one has to get be quiet inside,

In the face of this historical moment,

This evolutionary moment of what is happening here on this planet.

Then,

If you look at it from a large enough view,

And it's not your personal story,

There can be a lot more calm in the heart.

And at the same time,

In a coexisting way,

On the personal story,

It hurts.

So there's a story about Marpa,

The Tibetan teacher.

And he had always taught his students in a similar way as I'm speaking about take a really wide lens.

But he would use phrases,

At least from the way it was translated,

He would teach his students,

All that you're seeing is just sort of impermanent illusion of sorts.

Basically,

Illusory only because it's so important,

So ephemeral,

It's just here and then gone.

And that's been going on a long time,

You know.

And so this illusory,

Ephemeral,

Impermanent existence to which he thought we should not be too much crept on to.

But his own son died.

And he was in grief.

He was in deep and profound grief.

And his students came to him and said,

But master,

You're in so much grief,

You've always taught us.

This is all just an illusion.

And he said,

Yes,

That is true.

And this is a super illusion.

A super illusion.

It's like,

It's like you're in the play,

And your role is going to be the one that has the most intense grief.

So it's like to understand these two ways of seeing that on the one hand,

Yes,

This is a gigantic cosmic play.

You're here,

You're gone.

You're just this creature that gets three score and 10 if you're lucky.

And you have all these adventures and all this love and all these connections and all this heartbreak and all of it all along the way.

And it's all,

It's a super illusion as you're living it.

It's so intense as we're living it.

And every little thing,

Every little glitch and every little tiny thing matters to us.

And then you zoom out.

You were just another animal who lived on the earth for a period of time.

And we think about all those who've gone before,

Our loved ones who've gone ahead of us.

And we realize as much as we loved them,

And perhaps in some cases we grieved very deeply for them,

Maybe in the immediate aftermath of their departure,

And maybe always with a little bit of a sad moment in the heart or a few moments.

But actually your own life goes on.

You carry on.

You still are living in the now and you're still engaged with all those who are left here.

So that whole gang is still here,

Popping off one by one,

But still around for the most part in many ways.

So you're constantly confronted with these two plays.

One is the very,

Very personal.

One is the vast impersonal.

And you can,

You know,

Another thing,

One of my,

My teacher Punjaji,

He had this incredible phrase that I really loved.

The wise are attracted by the eternal,

While the foolish pursue the transient and are thus bludgeoned by time.

The wise are attracted by the eternal,

By the big picture,

While the foolish pursue the transient,

Chasing after every little thing,

Gripping onto every little thing,

And are thus bludgeoned by time.

Time takes it all away.

So what does it mean to pursue the eternal?

You know,

When we're sitting with the mountain there with Noah in India,

Was sitting with Arunachala,

The phrase that often comes to me as I'm sitting there is eternal presence.

And not even that that mountain will always be there.

It won't.

Right?

It won't.

But it's going to be there a lot longer than we are.

But nevertheless,

What it represents and what and what he represented,

What Ramana represented,

Was that eternal presence that is breathing life into everything.

And all the coming and going has got some mysterious element.

And I don't mean that in any religious way.

And I'm not talking about any kind of continuation of any personal thing.

But rather that this mystery that we call life goes on.

And so it's good to kind of have part of your awareness reserved for that,

And not just be constantly lost in the minutia and in the attachments.

As much as we love all of these beings that are in our lives,

We treasure them,

It's impossible to not be brokenhearted if anything happens to one of their toes,

You know,

I mean,

But it's just important for our own sanity and for our own strength and for our own ability to radiate light to stay strong.

Talking about time,

And because of my age,

One of the things that I've noticed about ephemeralness is the ephemeralness of fame.

I knew people when I was,

Say,

In my 20s and 30s,

Who've more or less been totally forgotten.

If they were unlucky enough to be just before digital and all of that,

They're even more forgotten.

And it gives me a sort of contentment that I'm not famous,

And I never thought fame was enough to really chase.

And I also laugh at all my jealousy,

And envy and all of that negative stuff around people who are getting all this attention.

And maybe at that time,

I would have liked some and didn't get it,

You know.

But anyway,

Yeah,

Time goes on.

That's such a great,

It's such a sort of a pure and simple insight that you've just spoken,

And especially coming from someone your age who did know people who were famous and who are now long forgotten.

And it's such a great perspective,

A great teaching,

Actually.

Yeah.

So many people are tormented,

Especially young people,

They're really tormented by this.

There are these studies,

What are they,

Polls,

That they'll run in different places where they'll ask young people in their teens,

What do you want to be when you grow up?

And instead of saying,

You know,

They want to be famous.

That's what they said.

That's the highest percentage is one of these things.

It's just crazy in terms of the illusion of that,

For sure.

So many thoughts,

You know,

Love,

I love listening and being here.

And again,

Just having everyone on the same page,

It feels like I,

I feel like I fully believe that what I have right now that's true is this moment.

And that's so precious to me.

I feel like I struggle with so many other relationships in my life.

And not those that,

You know,

Really don't want to discuss things deeper than their to do list or,

But I guess I struggle with people who feel like they want to start to control their thoughts more and be able to be more in control of what they,

Directing their thoughts,

But they don't know how.

And I've heard people say to me,

They're very close to me.

It's not that,

It's not that easy.

You know,

You're,

There's not,

There's this oversimplification and I feel at a loss then.

So I guess I'm always looking for ways to explain it.

And I know like the gratitude is helpful and the focusing on the breath and what they see,

But that almost sometimes with these certain people and there's lots of examples,

They need to be busy.

It's almost when they're quiet that they have more problems.

So I wonder if you could speak to that for a minute,

You know,

Just someone who's interested,

But doesn't have any of the tools that.

Well,

One of the things that came to me to say while you were speaking is something that Poonjaji used to say is when people would say,

Oh,

Well,

This is really hard.

What you're saying,

Redirect your attention.

He would always say,

I'm telling you the easy way.

The hard way is to let your crazy thoughts and your miserable thoughts and your worries and your fears and your future pictures that are scaring you to death.

Let them run on.

That's hard.

The easy way of course,

Is to direct your thoughts,

Is to direct your attention as needed.

But in terms of how you would start that conversation with someone is you would start with very simple things.

So you know,

If gratitude is a little bit,

You know,

Too obscure,

If that's too,

Too hard for someone just beginning,

Even just the most basic stuff of watching the breath,

Doing a series of deep breaths,

You know,

10 deep breaths,

Count to 10,

Do 10 more.

Or if you're walking,

Count your walks or just start feeling in your body,

You know,

Or put your hands on your belly and feel the breath coming up and down,

In and out,

Belly coming up and down,

Like really physical things that you might just move the attention just so that it stabilizes and,

You know,

Just has something to stabilize.

And then once they get a little bit used to that,

You can talk more about,

Like today,

We're talking about countering reflections,

Right?

So it's helpful when you're with someone who has a story about anxiety to actually have them tell themselves what the story is.

If they're too shy to tell you what the story is,

They don't have to,

But for them to tell themselves the story and then ask them,

Is there another way to look at this?

Is there any other frame?

And that's what I do in my own case a lot.

I basically,

When I'm in a story that says,

Oh God,

I just got a tax bill,

Then what's the other story?

Oh,

Well,

Let's see,

Can I somehow borrow the money?

Can I move that?

Do I have to sell my house?

So just,

You know,

Just start looking at other possibilities and all the while letting go and letting be,

Right?

You're basically not fighting with reality.

You're dealing with the situation,

But you're not fighting with the fact of it.

And that's a big difference.

And that's where a lot of energy gets misspent.

As people just,

You know,

Like almost children having tantrums,

Kicking their feet saying,

I don't like this.

I don't want this.

This should not be happening.

And that's a lot of extra turmoil and stress.

That's very,

It's very helpful.

And I think the not fighting reality resonates with me in a lot of these examples because it is the most basic way of saying this is wasted energy.

Yes,

That's right.

Yes.

Fools errand.

Thank you.

Hi.

Hi.

I have a question.

Good to see you,

Chris.

Thank you for doing this.

I have a question about anxiety and how to deal with anxiety in my oldest daughter is extremely anxious.

So and very observant,

Sort of she's got a really astute quality to her.

And we're really tight.

I love her so much.

And there's a great connection.

And it,

Like probably any parent child relationships has its highs and lows.

But one thing that I struggle with with her,

I think,

Is knowing I don't have the same tendency towards a really strong anxiety.

I don't share that and come with her.

I think I do observe the goings on in the world with some,

You know,

It's not not auguring well,

But I don't tend to just doesn't wake me up in the night so much.

It doesn't,

You know,

Just kind of dig its claws into me the way it does for her.

And so while I think,

You know,

One of the things that I am able to do is just provide a lot of love and support.

And I'm really grateful for that.

What I think I struggle with is sort of understanding how to relate to her being.

She's just a very sort of sensitive creature.

And in a time,

You know,

She's 13.

And she's entering this world,

You know,

And very observant.

Right.

So,

You know,

She's scared about climate change.

She's also scared about stuff that seems like maybe she doesn't need to be,

You know,

Burglars breaking in and we're living in,

You know,

Low crime rural New Hampshire.

So she's got the whole gambit,

You know,

And I don't always know how to or if there is a way to,

You know,

I heard you talking about some of the tools,

You know,

Keeping it simple and the breathing and we've got a therapist who's working with her who's doing some of that basic stuff,

Which I think actually lands a little better than dad coming in and doing the,

You know,

Directing.

But I do I guess I want to ask because I think this is something I've heard you talk about and also something you've been pretty open that you've personally had to develop tools with.

And I don't know if there's some advice that you have for,

You know,

Things that I might do to just make her journey,

You know,

A little bit less challenging,

You know,

Just things that I can offer her or you know,

That you might recommend.

Yeah,

Well,

I mean,

What comes to say is simply that you be her safe haven,

So that she can actually express those fears when she's with you.

And you can just hold her and listen to her and say,

I hear you and then perhaps gently offer reframes about some of it,

Some of it,

For instance,

Where you say,

Well,

This is a really low crime area,

But I hear you that you're scared,

But I don't think that something like that's going to happen or whatever,

You know,

Just kind of be the listening ear and the comfort and the steady rock and not in a sense,

Try to dissuade her from the feelings that she's having.

But rather provide safety within those feelings,

Because it simply may be that she is sensing a lot that is actually real.

And that she doesn't have the wherewithal due to her own nature to not obsess about it.

So for you to be able to provide just a feeling of safety and then just as best as you can lightly direct her attention anywhere else,

But not in any resistance actually to the fact that this is arising a lot for her.

Like,

I would not pathologize that in any way.

I think there are a lot of young people.

In fact,

I know that there are a lot of young people in their teens and in their 20s who are scared,

Really scared.

And,

You know,

They're so plugged in with each other,

They're so plugged into information,

You know,

That they're learning all this stuff,

And they're hearing it,

And they're talking about it with their friends.

And,

You know,

So it's very,

Very difficult to brush it aside in any way.

We shouldn't really do that for any of those ones who are coming on to it,

We've got to figure out ways to embrace them,

Hold them.

And,

You know,

And just say,

At least here with me,

You are safe,

You can speak.

And also to not try to provide any kind of answers that you don't know to be true,

Like you do know that it's a low crime advice,

But you don't actually know that she will be spared from the horrors of climate chaos.

And so,

Smart,

Hip,

Sensitive kids are going to hear a lie,

They know it has a ring to it,

You know.

And so,

It's fair,

Though,

To say,

We really don't know what it's going to be.

We don't know what it's going to be,

And we will handle things as we go.

And you can also,

It's fair to say,

Lots of things I have feared in my life didn't come to be the way that I feared them,

And some of them didn't come to be at all.

Those kinds of statements are all true.

So,

Sticking with the deepest truth you can speak in within the context of safety for her.

And also to let her know she can always talk to you about all of this,

Any kind of fear,

Any kind of,

Just come to me,

Tell me about it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that is a lot of what I've sort of on some extent.

She'll sometimes,

Like,

She'll just call me in the middle of the night when she's at her mom's and we'll just fall asleep over FaceTime.

So,

It's a good,

It is kind of what I've,

You know,

And it's tough,

Though,

That it's,

I guess,

Maybe that's just the reality of part of it as a parent,

Right?

Maybe we just sort of come refrain throughout this satsang and others too is just when you can't lie to your kid or yourself,

You want to say,

Oh,

No,

No,

That's not a thing,

You know,

Don't worry about it.

It's a little trickier when you can not say that that from a deep place,

You know.

Right.

Right.

Yeah,

Especially you're a lover of truth.

And it sounds like she's a lover of truth.

And so,

You know,

It's looking directly at what is happening is it takes a lot of courage.

That's why I'm emphasizing courage.

And I'm emphasizing the ways that we can stay strong and courageous.

And that has to do with keeping your own joy well filled and having a big,

Big view and being grateful for whatever life you get and whatever life she gets.

And on the personal level,

It also hurts.

So all of that is in a big gigantic swoop of reality.

And it's helpful to hear and to remember too,

Not to,

You know,

Make her need to make that go away.

Just accepting.

Yes,

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Very helpful.

Thank you.

Hi.

Nice to see everyone.

Thank you for doing this.

I'm stuck in Los Angeles and it's a heatwave so it's about 115 degrees.

So it's brutal.

Nowhere near the water.

Awful.

I don't know if this is on.

I just wanted to mention something.

My father has Alzheimer's and he's 89 and he's had a wonderful life.

He,

You know,

Knows who I am.

It's sort of early Alzheimer's or whatever.

And physically,

He's like an ox.

But his wife,

They live in independent living in San Francisco in this beautiful facility that they pay millions of dollars to live in.

She's just had it.

She's not a nurturing type and it's not her personality to find solutions and take care of him.

And it's very upsetting.

So they had a caregiver for about,

I don't know,

Maybe six days,

You know,

Just 20 hours a week.

And she's just given up.

She's going to put them into memory care.

And,

You know,

Knowing my father,

He's going to go nuts.

What is memory care?

What is that?

It's where they have a bunch of activities and,

You know,

They're sort of,

They can't leave.

And of course now with the COVID situation,

I can't visit.

She won't be able to visit him either,

Even though they'll be in the same building.

It's sort of another facility within the building.

You know,

And I've been trying to sort of get her to like maybe get someone that's more qualified to deal with people with Alzheimer's to come in as a caregiver,

Not someone that's not qualified,

But she won't hear of anything.

So I know this might not actually be what we're talking about here today,

But,

You know,

I'm at a loss.

Yeah,

Sweetheart.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well,

One thing I would ask,

And it's just based on my own experience with my own father,

Who also his mind before he died started disintegrating.

And my stepmother went away to Europe a couple of times and put him in this sort of caretaker home.

And we all thought he was going to really,

Really hate it.

But because he was in there with other people in the same situation as he was,

You know,

Who were also mentally struggling,

He actually kind of had a blast.

Because he was with people who were more like him.

Sure.

So I wonder if it's for sure,

Given that your stepmother doesn't particularly like doing the job,

And he might feel her frustration.

I wonder if it's for sure that he'll hate this other thing.

He might not.

So before you kind of get too upset over something you imagine and perhaps reasonably imagine,

Because maybe you're just as we,

Knowing the father we had known,

We didn't think he would like that at all.

I mean,

At all,

But he did.

He had a good time.

And he had made friends,

Even had a friend that he kept,

He continued to see after he wasn't staying there.

And it meant a lot to him.

And I think I can imagine if I put myself in that position,

Let's say you're around,

You're around able bodied,

Able minded people,

And you're the,

You know,

You're the one who's out of it,

Who's everybody has to just take care of,

And you're the one who's being treated like you're losing it.

And then you're with a bunch of people who are just like you,

That might be strangely comforting.

So maybe you could wait and see and take the next steps from there,

You know.

And if it's really horrible,

You could fight to get him out of that program.

But,

You know,

If he's very,

Very miserable,

Then you would have a fair case to say,

This is untenable.

But again,

With so many things that we're talking about,

A lot of times we imagine things based on data at hand.

But we imagine them incorrectly.

You know,

We imagine the outcomes incorrectly.

So,

Yeah.

Well,

I hope I have something good to report next time.

Yes.

Okay.

Obviously,

There is that chance that he will be better,

But,

And I'm grateful that he's had 89 years of a wonderful life.

You know,

It's not like he's 50 or more.

So,

It's wonderful.

And also,

You know,

Caretaking someone who's advanced in those ways is hard,

And people do get really frustrated.

So,

If they're not already a caring person,

It's going to drain whatever little caring that might be there.

So,

Let's see.

Let's see how it goes.

All right.

Thank you.

We don't have all the data yet.

All right,

My dear.

So,

Once again,

We have this incredible privilege of sitting with Arunachala.

It's very peaceful there.

Older than the Himalayas.

Now,

This eternal presence of beingness.

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Blessings and thanks