So Kate,
If you will,
Let's put up the talk title and then we'll see the speed we have to move at in order to make sure we are clear enough on everything.
The talk title for today,
As you can see there on the screen,
Is Practice Three Conscious Actions and Watch Painful Reactions Die.
Practice Three Conscious Actions and Watch Painful Reactions Die.
So before I ask Kate to post the key lesson,
The first of them,
Have you reached the point in your understanding where to whatever extent it's possible for you to see that it isn't life that interferes with your contentment.
It's the way that a nature within you reacts to life when it sees life as interfering with your contentment.
And if you can see even just a little bit of that,
You understand where it is that you must work and what it is that must be worked upon.
So with that in mind,
I'll ask Kate to post the first key lesson.
Read along with me,
Please.
We can't interfere with the inexplicable flow of God's life and realize our part in its revelation at the same time.
We either learn to move with it or suffer for being set against it.
We can't interfere with the inexplicable flow of God's life,
The life of the divine,
And realize our part in its revelation at the same time.
We either learn to move with it or suffer for being set against it.
And we meet as we do here because I'm assuming to whatever extent it's true for you that you have begun to realize that there is indeed something obstructing your happiness,
Obstructing your contentment.
I'm not just obstructing your right to be at peace with yourself,
Wherever you are and whatever that place may be.
So can we assume we're all on the same page to get started here?
May I,
Please?
Yes or no?
So I want to start with a kind of simple but ultimately profound idea,
And it's something with everything that I talk about,
That you as an aspirant must prove to yourself,
Do not listen to me as some authority.
Do not take anything anyone tells you as what is.
You must for yourself see what is,
See if this isn't true.
Every moment of our life,
Even those that are the least desirable,
Are in fact the seed,
If you will,
Of some unseen divine possibility that we don't know is there unless there comes a moment in which we're able to see,
And I ask you to see this,
How many people do you know are broken by even simple moments,
Shattered by something as simple as somebody criticizing them?
On the other hand,
We can see people who are broken by these movements of life,
And in another way,
We can see people who are transformed by those same movements,
The same movement that broke someone,
Brought someone into a new life.
And if you don't have examples of your own through your own work,
Think about people like Helen Keller,
Schindler,
Victor Franklin,
Men and women who in the worst possible places,
In immense pain,
Found a way not to be broken by what was seemingly battering everyone else down into submission and bitterness and cynicism,
But instead found something in those individuals that made them flower,
That opened them up to become something not just great in their own life,
But that which helped other human beings that they were involved with,
Transform their own experience.
So the question isn't what happens to us,
Because everything happens to us.
You know the expression,
Oh my God,
On any given day,
10,
000 different things happen to us.
In fact,
Last night I was watching a kind of a discovery show,
And this man said that,
I don't know how they come to this,
We have over 11 million transactions with life every second.
This brain processes 11 million transactions.
How many of those transactions are you aware of?
So something's going on.
The question is then,
What is it that's at work in us in any given moment that determines the outcome of what comes to us unexpected as most of these moments are into our lives?
Do you understand the question?
Something's in work in one person,
And it becomes a work of art,
That moment of life,
Bringing about not just a consolation and redemption in that person's life,
But the deliverance of something in that person to something divine.
Another person will become broken and die and bitter.
Do you see the difference?
And so if we can see this,
And we must see these big pictures,
We look out,
I look out here in Florida where I live,
And it's so obvious.
I talk about it all the time.
All we are looking at is one incredibly infinite constant conversion of life acting on life,
Of something greater than what it acts upon being received by what it is acting on and reconciling the will of what is with heaven and what is earth.
And in that ceaseless conversion,
Every last one of these creatures that has been acted on and converted according to what life has said,
Let's transform you into,
That creature goes through what it has no say in,
But yet continues to reflect in a perfect way,
Life constantly reconciling life.
And we've heard the expression as above so below.
And now I'm asking you to see as above so below.
If there is no moment in life where no creation isn't being brought into a relationship with that which transforms it,
How much more so must that be with you and I,
The so-called crown of creation,
Where life is acting to awaken and bring us into a realization of something that is waiting to be touched that way,
So that from out of that disturbance can come something that is innately divine,
Because that nature,
That soul is transformed by the touch of spirit,
So to speak,
Something that can transcend the moments that disturb us,
Because it is meeting it with what has been created to transcend itself.
Are we following?
Are you still following me?
Because we're going to make a transition here.
So we have to ask ourselves,
And I don't think we do,
Because when we're disturbed,
We know what's disturbing us.
You said this.
They didn't do that.
I looked like this.
You shouldn't look like that.
Before we are disturbed,
There is something waiting in us to be disturbed.
That should be clear.
But what is it then,
If I've given up on the idea that,
Yeah,
You,
Them,
This,
That,
What is it inside of me that is always being disturbed,
Inside of you that is always being disturbed?
And this is a very important transition.
And to put everything into a certain scope,
If you will,
Here is what is always being disturbed.
Who and what I have been,
Who and what you have been,
That is all that is being disturbed.
And who and what I have been,
What you have been,
What we call our past,
Carries itself forward,
Not in a living form,
But in a crystallized energetic body called images,
Beliefs,
Ideas.
And as that nature enters into the natural flow of that which is intended to act upon it,
It looks at that and it blames the disturbance it's going on and through on the only thing it can see as responsible for it.
So that what we call the present moment,
And I'm going to ask you,
Do you understand this?
What we call the present moment is really our experience of how this lower unconscious nature reacts when it's predetermined positions are challenged by the movement of life.
That's what we call the present moment is our experience largely of a negative reaction that only exists because we haven't,
Because of that,
The position,
Those thoughts and images have taken like a stick in a stream,
Creating that vortex called that sense of self suddenly troubled by what it says is causing it that pain.
Can you see this with me to some extent?
And Isabella,
Don't get caught up in trying to figure out how this applies to what you already know.
If there's one thing that I'm attempting to help you see,
All of us see,
Is that when you meet life with what you know,
You are dead in the water in that moment.
Comparison is death,
Not the sense of life it gives you of being someone who knows.
The real now,
What we call the present moment can't be known any more than what you can know a stream.
Can you stop a stream in the midst of its flow to learn about a drop of water in it?
No,
Because the moment that you separate that drop of water,
It's no longer part of the stream.
It's the exact same thing when it comes to separating ourselves from the stream of life that has come to show us what we are.
So the present moment,
The real present moment can only be realized as an experience inseparable from the moment of it being experienced.
What is real,
The present moment can only be in quotes,
Seen,
I.
E.
Realized as an experience that cannot be separated from the awareness of its appearance in this psychic system.
I hope that's not too much to chew on because we have to keep going.
Let's bring up the second key lesson,
Kate.
It will help explain what I've been working on.
Read along with me,
Everybody.
What we call now isn't so much a point in time as it is a timeless field populated by an infinite number of points.
I'll read it again.
What we call now isn't so much a point in time,
But a timeless field populated by an infinite number of possibilities,
Each appearing and disappearing into the awareness of that passive field as it is touched and acted on by celestial forces.
That's a pretty good description of what now is.
For us,
Now is when we identify with something that touches,
Something that we brought with us unconsciously,
That more accurately brought us unconsciously into that moment.
And when that position,
The pole of that person,
Of that persona is touched by life,
That persona already knows how things are supposed to be.
And when it's not like that,
Up comes this very strong sense of self.
So what this key lesson,
Second key lesson helps,
I hope,
Explain is that now isn't a point in time.
It is the revelation of something in time as can only be revealed by something active touching something passive.
And in that moment,
An awareness of an experience between heaven and earth,
An awareness of the experience of heaven meeting earth.
That's what now is.
And that interaction creates a seer.
That interaction creates a seer of its passage that has no set position in that field.
So the idea of the seer,
This all seeing eye,
Has no position in the field,
But rather as things move through the field,
Suddenly there is this sense of eye,
Real eye.
Rumi talked about this.
What was that?
Somewhere out there beyond right and wrong,
Beyond the opposites,
Somewhere beyond active and passive meeting each other,
Somewhere beyond right and wrong,
There is a field.
I will meet you there.
He is describing a level of being that you and I,
Without fully understanding,
That there is no separate self in that field and everything about our nature is protecting a separate sense of self and trying to forward it,
Which is how we lose our freedom.
I must go on.
I'll slow down.
Still tracking?
To some extent,
I trust everybody.
Because if you are,
Then can we at least suspect the following,
That what we call our fear,
What we call our anger,
What we call our worry,
Isn't ours at all.
Even though it feels so real.
How can we come to that suspicion?
Because the sudden sense of fear or worry only rises up from this dark system when something in the movement of life touches what it is fixed in and upon,
And suddenly it feels threatened by the movement of life.
Imagine a flower being threatened by the breeze that helps pollinate its companions.
And if what I'm saying is true,
That this fear isn't ours,
Then to whom,
To what does it belong?
And that's the point of this talk as we get to these first of our three conscious actions.
That fear doesn't belong to anyone until some unconscious reaction claims it.
By what I would add is an unconscious resistance to the passing moment,
As I described,
Because suddenly I feel threatened.
Have you ever wondered how you can be sitting at home,
Having a cup of coffee or enjoying a,
Whatever it is that you snack on.
And even as you're chewing,
You're,
You're,
You start,
You start chewing faster and faster because your mind started moving faster and faster and it's moving faster and faster because this unconscious nature,
Whatever it was that it saw triggered this thought and this thought came up with,
Oh,
Well,
What happens if this,
And what about that?
And you're not even aware of that.
And the next thing you know,
Boom,
You're gone.
Because some comforting belief,
Some self-flattering image,
A derivative identity carried over from the past suddenly feels like its position has been threatened.
And actually nothing has even happened.
And even if something did happen,
Which we're going to look at now,
Must we remain a human being?
Not even a human being,
I would add,
Who has no recourse other than to remand themselves over to some painful identity that is nothing other than the shadow of that unseen reaction.
And the answer is no,
It must come to an end.
And that's what this talk is about.
Because if we can see if any of this is true,
And I trust that you can,
It brings us to our first conscious action.
The first conscious action,
Which will help bring an end to these painful reactions.
The first conscious action is this.
If you're following me,
You must be able to hold all of this,
Put down your toys.
First conscious action,
Learn to see the good of being awakened.
First conscious action,
Learn to see the good of being awakened.
What does that mean?
Learn to see the good of being awakened.
Oh no,
Did you say that?
Why are you doing this?
How come you,
This is this way.
Why do I feel in that moment,
That painful reaction?
Because I'm in a dream.
I'm in a dream I don't know is being constantly spun by an unconscious system that is never ending,
Bringing itself into the present moment.
And when something in the present moment pushes against that image,
Boom,
Pain,
Boom,
Resistance,
Negativity.
So learn to see the good of being awakened means instead of going,
Oh no,
You this,
That,
Or the other,
Realize,
Wait a minute,
I've just been awakened.
See,
Do you see the opposite?
The way we are now,
When that moment comes,
We have that reaction.
We go deeper into the sleep of the nature that reacted.
No,
Learn to see the good of being awakened,
Awakened to what?
The dream that we don't know we're in.
And more importantly,
That an awakening that we can't create by ourselves.
Most of us are trying to avoid moments where life seems to disturb us because we would rather take solace in the suffering inherent in resisting what has actually come to awaken us from a nature that can only resist life.
Can you make that jump with me?
It's so radically different from this world.
Don't trigger me.
Awakened from a dream that we ourselves cannot wake ourselves up from.
Thank God for that.
Instead of why God are you doing to this to me?
Thank you,
God,
For helping me realize I was in a dream sitting here having my toast,
Which brings us to the third key lesson.
Kate,
If you'll bring it up,
Please.
Just as a rosebud cannot force itself open,
But must allow the light of the sun to bring out and reveal its natural beauty,
Neither can we awaken,
Let alone be brought into real life without allowing the light of the divine to act on us.
Real life,
The will of what is,
And all that what is creates as it moves to reveal and bring out of its own creations,
Their highest possibilities.
Real life is never not touching us.
Remember,
I threw into the talk at the top,
11 million unseen,
Unconscious perceptions this brain has in every second.
You can't have an impression,
A perception,
An interaction without something acting on us.
So I think that number is silly,
Honestly,
But it does describe an infinite set of infinite possibilities inherent in this nature at all levels,
Where something is never not bringing about a transformation within it.
We know the body's always going through a transformation.
You and I aren't calling the shots.
We're only aware of the fact that we called the wrong shot when we get sick.
So here we are and nothing,
There's never a moment we're not being touched,
Never a moment in which something in us isn't being disturbed.
And as it does with all creatures,
As I described,
It acts to disturb what?
In the creature,
It acts to disturb what that creature was the moment before it was awakened to realize its own latent possibilities.
So here's sunlight and here's this mangrove,
This mangroves on the bay.
As sun comes down,
Too hot,
All that's happening is that that energy is being received and reconciled and the reconciliation of one form of energy into a body not created to receive that form of light,
That form of energy.
It disturbs the cells in that mangrove individually,
Collectively,
And the disturbance is to do what?
To bring about the interaction and the integration of those two worlds.
Can you see it?
You must learn to see this so thoroughly that you live it.
Because in that moment,
The disturbance is there to bring forth in nature and in ourselves,
A new creation.
Yet when life acts on us,
Disturbing who and what we've been,
What's our first,
What's our first,
What's our first,
What's our first instinct when life disturbs us?
And we know what it is.
It's not even our instinct.
It belongs to something instinctual,
Literally primeval,
And that is resist.
That's the first thing we do when we're disturbed by anything.
It is a summary resistance.
Let me give you an example.
I got to get rolling here.
A couple of days ago,
I was in a little place called Panera.
It's a kind of a nice little place to get soup and bread and stuff like that.
And I had ordered something for Patricia and I,
And I was waiting for my order.
And after I placed the order,
I went and I sat down on this long counter and there was a man sitting at the counter.
He was having a salad and I was really super careful.
I really was.
I wanted to make sure I didn't interfere with his space,
Knowing how humans are.
And I pulled my chair to the end of that counter and I sat there waiting for my food.
I could feel him beginning to get agitated.
And within,
I guess what,
A minute,
With visible hostility,
A glare,
He looked at me and uttered some profanity,
Picked up his stuff and stormed off.
Now in that moment,
And I'm going to describe to you something that one day you will see as clearly as I describe it,
And that clarity is sanity and that sanity is freedom from being identified with these reactions.
In that instance,
There's a cascade of reactions.
You can't stop that,
Pretending like you're not having a reaction.
That's a form of insanity.
So here come this cascade of reactions and these reactions come before the thoughts that describe their experience.
So you can see the reactions,
The machinery start to grind up,
Wound up,
And then comes thoughts that begin to describe what now takes the form of disbelief.
The thought,
How can he,
A rejection,
Oh boy,
Was something offensive about me?
Was it my,
The judgment of the individual,
Of myself,
Blame?
All of it doing what?
All of that anchoring what amounts to a rising sense of agitation.
And here's what matters relative to what I'm describing.
That reaction didn't come out of nowhere.
Those thoughts and feelings that dress those reactions so that they could be recognizable and in their recognition,
Deliver a path by which I can get past whatever that disturbance was.
What brought all of that up and out in that moment was already there,
Waiting in this unconscious nature that couldn't do anything other than that.
That's all it can do.
It's a machine.
So the moment that took place,
The event didn't create the experience.
The old experience came forth to dress the moment.
And in the moment that it is being dressed by this old nature,
The old nature is revealed.
And without that disturbance,
I would never be able to see what I just described to you.
Are you able to come that far with me so far?
I got to keep going.
Because if you can see what I've described,
Then I'm going to give you the second conscious action that brings painful reactions to their end.
Kate,
Let's bring up the second conscious action,
Please.
Oh,
No,
I'm sorry,
Kate.
I didn't give it to you.
Here's the second conscious action.
Learn to see the good of what we are being awakened to see.
Learn to see the good of what we are being awakened to see.
The first conscious action was learn to see the good of being awakened.
The second conscious action is learn to see the good of what we're being awakened to see.
We never see the good of what disturbs us,
Because what we call good has already determined the nature of that disturbance and it's dark and shouldn't be there.
But we are taking a completely different journey,
One that most of humanity will never know.
It's everything Christ talked about.
Every true master has spent their life trying to bring into a field of some form of understanding that then can become acted on as I'm helping us to do here.
Learn to see the good of what I'm being awakened to see.
Well,
Why would I want to see?
What's the good of being awakened to see what I don't want to see?
Because without the forces of life,
Acting on me in that moment,
Acting on you,
And remember now,
Why are those energies,
Why are those forces,
Why is that will active the way that it is?
It is a perfected life seeking to reconcile all of its members into itself.
We can see that's the broad definition of nature.
Nature is connected everywhere all at once,
Even though we don't see it that way.
I assure you,
Nature lives in a field of intelligent awareness that from out of which comes all that nature and so-called chooses to do.
So here I am,
Something starts to act on me and ordinarily I refuse and I look only at what I say is wrong for doing what it's doing.
I'm saying now that now exists the opportunity in that disturbance to see the unconscious nature that is dreaming.
I get to actually see in that moment something that was completely unknown to me,
That has traveled with me since I was born.
These unseen preferences,
This unbalanced essence,
These qualities and characteristics we come into life with for the sake of being a participant in a broader life in which all of this is reconciled,
But it's only reconciled properly when we become aware of the disturbance that brings us into an awareness of that nature in that moment.
Do you see it?
See the good of what I'm awakened to see.
What do I see?
I see something I don't want to see.
Isn't that a phenomena?
I don't want to see how painful it is to be me,
To be this nature.
I don't want to see that.
I don't want to see how painful it is to live in fear of losing what I believe is my security.
How about I don't want to see how afraid I am of death.
God did not put the spirit of fear into a human being,
So says scripture,
And accurately so.
So for us to learn to see the good of what we're being awakened to see in ourselves is the same as realizing in that moment life has come to actually help awaken us to what is keeping us from being free.
Because until what is concealed can be revealed,
Which the disturbance does,
Then it can't be integrated.
It can't be reconciled to the greater will that has come to reveal it.
So if we ever hope to be free,
We must accept what is shown to us in these moments as it is being shown to us.
The simplest example I can think of,
Some of the men,
Some of the students I play golf with,
The first thing a person does when they make a bad shot,
The first thing a person does when they make that stupid remark,
The first person to think does when their face falls because something happened,
First thing they do is they look away from the experience of that moment.
I don't want to see that bad shot that is the expression of a swing that wasn't good.
So in looking away from that,
I can't see the good of what I'm given,
Which is if I was present,
I would see what produced that shot.
If I was present,
I would see what's producing that pain,
Instead of listening to and being unconscious to what presents itself as knowing what's caused that pain.
So when something rises in us,
Because something's been disturbed and stirred in us,
Like anger,
Fear,
And judgment,
To understand in that moment,
I'm being shown something that I can't see in any other way.
But here's the difficulty,
The part of us that reacts is not aware of itself.
Retrospective judgment,
Shame over what I said or did,
That's not awareness.
The part of us that reacts,
Reacts because it's identified with something and it's locked in a little dark dream of trying to protect and keep in place what it believes is threatening it.
The part of us that reacts can't stop itself.
Surely you know that,
Some of the students were talking about that last night in the student talk.
There's nothing more valuable than seeing that I know better than to have a conversation with myself about this moment,
But God help me,
Something just wants to keep talking.
And by the way,
Just as it did,
Even as I was sitting and watching all of that going on at that restaurant,
It wants to defend,
It wants to justify,
It wants to attack.
And we must understand that disturbance as the awareness of a consciousness that is a captive of its own reactions and refuses to see so,
But we must agree to see so.
So here's the point,
Something else has to happen in that moment.
Something else must be present,
Call it what you will,
A different higher kind of awareness.
And it isn't this idea of an awareness that doesn't react,
Rather it is the understanding that if there is real awareness,
It is conscious of the reactions that are moving through it.
And that's the difference.
So Kate,
Let's,
So I'll bring up,
I will bring up the third conscious action that brings painful reactions to the end.
Remember the first two,
Third one,
Learn to see the good of dying to what we see we are not.
Learn to see the good of dying to what we see we are not.
When I can see that all that is coming up in me belongs to a persona that has been a problem,
A plague for 50,
For 10,
000 years,
And by the way,
That's a fact.
Not only is that past not your past,
Neither are any of the pains that come out of it.
It belongs to an unconscious body,
An unconscious level of being,
A humanity fallen into a deep state of sleep and actually conditioning itself further and further to be the subject of the very thing it says it doesn't want.
So I must learn,
You must learn to see the good of dying to what we see we are not,
And that's the turning point.
Freedom doesn't come from controlling reactions.
It comes from seeing the real source of them,
And from seeing the real source so clearly that we understand that's not I.
I know better than to identify with something that because it is identified with some image,
Some idea,
Some belief,
All it knows how to do is go no,
No,
No,
And we must learn to say yes in the moment when we see this no nature,
Not right along on the back of what it says no to in the hopes of achieving what it says yes to in some point in time where we're going to become free.
That point in time doesn't exist.
And so we can see,
And if you will,
Even experience fear and anger,
Much as I described to you,
We can experience fear and anger aware of how real that feeling is,
But in the same moment of being aware of how real that feels to understand it's a upheaval to feel not just it's upwelling,
But to see something wants to get on that wave and ride with it and realize that whatever it is that's come up and certainly whatever wants to go along with it cannot possibly be who and what you are and are intended to be.
You see it's a lie.
And in the moment of that seeing what happens,
We are no longer a self that is reliving some regretted unwanted moment.
In that moment,
We are the awareness of that moment and we watch everything that appears in it pass,
Every position,
Every possibility,
Everything that pops up in and is intended as it comes in to go out.
And our task is to understand that the reason things stay in place that are so painful is because something in us is secretly clinging to it for the sense of self that it provides.
But for this that I'm describing to take place,
Something has to end.
The false sense of self that feels threatened,
That wants to strike back,
That wants to win the argument.
If you were left a conversation that didn't go well and you're still talking about that in your bed at night by yourself,
All of that are expressions of an unconscious nature that seeks to continue itself by bringing the energy of your life into what feeds its insistence that that disturbance shouldn't have taken place.
And when we see that,
By that seeing,
In that seeing one level of being ends.
The very seeing of it brings an end to the former form of identification and the resistance that gave rise to it.
Because I know that's not I.
It sure feels like me.
I'm ready to go with it,
But I know that is not I.
And that seeing is the beginning of dying psychologically to that body.
Not physically,
Although the body will go through all kinds of manifestations,
But inwardly.
One level of being comes to an end because that which has been disturbed is no longer given its life by that resistance.
And in the moment that one ends,
Another one begins.
The reconciliation,
The redemption becomes perfect to whatever extent we're capable of participating in these conscious actions.
And if,
And it's a big if,
If we allow,
If we agree to let this process unfold without interference,
Our participation in that revelation is the same as our transformation.
Can you see why?
Are you able to put it together?
If,
If without interfering,
Here's the disturbance.
Oh,
I,
I know,
I see the good in it because I understand how that works.
And now I see the good in seeing what that disturbance is revealing.
Before I could never even consider such a thing.
And at last I see,
For having seen the good in what's revealed,
I see the good in dying to what's been revealed because it was concealed before.
And now this reconciliation is integrating this,
The heaven and earth,
Spirit and soul.
So our participation in that revelation is,
Is inseparable from the transformation that takes place as those energies are allowed to do what they're meant to do.
Because in that same moment,
We can see who we can no longer be.
And we depart one level of being and realize a higher order of being right in that same moment.
So our understanding,
These conscious actions becomes a living reality.
And in one respect,
Awareness itself becomes action.
Now in that place,
Our life is no longer,
The experience of our life is no longer dictated by the reaction,
The experience of reacting to the moment.
Rather every moment is revealing to us the truth of this sleeping nature and how agreeing to live in its dream and be the continuity of it has,
Has cost us everything.
But now we have real coin to spend.
So we see the good in being awakened.
We see the good of what is being revealed in the moment of that disturbance,
In the moment of that awakening,
And we see the good of agreeing to let what is false die.
And to practice these three actions,
Which by the way,
I've just put words on them.
They're not really three separate actions.
They're a single movement of an intelligence that cannot contradict itself,
Let alone be in conflict with the life that has come to reveal it.
And so as we come to that relationship,
We're no longer driven by these reactions,
These fears,
These angers,
The continuation of that conflict that we have with everyone.
Why do you think you have enemies?
There is a part of this nature that can't live without an enemy that it says it doesn't want to have.
And as we see and agree to come to the end of this nature of our past,
If you will,
In all of its forms,
In that moment is born out of dying to ourselves,
A new level of being that's inseparable from what has awakened it.
