The title of our material today is an amazing revelation that releases you from worried thoughts and feelings.
An amazing revelation that releases you from worried thoughts and feelings.
So I won't bother to ask,
Although just to make sure we're all on the same page,
There are a lot of worried thoughts and feelings,
Aren't there?
They're our constant companion.
And because they are our constant companion,
We are constantly filled with questions about what to do with those worried thoughts and feelings.
And that's what we're going to look at this revelation that is going to change,
God willing,
If you listen carefully,
At least set the stage for changing the relationship you have with your own present nature.
Let's go.
Many,
Many,
Many moons ago.
A great man that I knew,
Mr.
Howard.
He was talking to a small group of students,
And I've talked about this before,
But we're going to look a little bit more deeply still.
He was kind of teasing us.
He said,
Would you like to know how the wise man became wise?
And of course,
Those of us that were there understood that.
Mr.
Howard was a very wise person,
So yeah,
We lean in,
Yeah,
Tell us how.
And his answer was a bit of a shock.
But as with all true answers,
They are as fathomless as bottomless is the ocean.
He said the answer is the wise man became wise because he stopped answering his own questions.
And we're going to look at that.
But in a new way.
Because.
To further set the stage.
I was hoping to convey this idea,
The idea of a question.
You know,
The root,
I can't pronounce it,
Is a Latin word.
Or something like that,
Which is to seek.
A quest.
So that real questions are intended to send us out looking not to come as our questions do with principally conditioned,
If not built in answers,
We ask ourselves questions that we already know the answers to.
The only thing that we don't know at that moment is how that answer will be formulated,
Which brings us to the first key lesson.
Kate,
If you'll put it up with me,
I trust you'll all follow.
We're going to,
We're going to have five main questions.
Five parts of this quest to find out how we can be released from worried thoughts and feelings.
So the key lesson reads as follows.
We may ask.
The same question.
About unwanted moments in life a thousand times,
And in 10,
000 different ways,
Answer it.
But until we discover what those moments are here to reveal,
We remain the same.
We may ask the same question about unwanted moments.
A thousand times in 10,
000 different ways.
And isn't that true?
How we're always framing what we think is a new question,
But the new questions are always about the same old problems.
Can you see this with me before we go on?
So we're going to have a quest.
We're going on a quest today.
I think it was yesterday here in Southern Oregon where I'm fortunate enough to stay with a friend and a student.
We were,
Several of us were down by the river.
She lives right on the river.
And it was a gorgeous late afternoon.
As always,
If we're quiet enough,
Attentive,
We can.
.
.
Have a certain experience in nature that is were intended to have inwardly most of the time,
But by and large,
You sit and you watch,
And this river is rolling by,
And there is some debris in the middle of the river,
And you can hear the sound of the water going around the debris,
The debris creating a vortex,
Much as this sense of self and its attachments creates a kind of a vortex in the stream of life,
And beautiful birds flying by,
Clouds gathered.
See the trees,
They're all more or less that we don't see it reaching up for a light that they can never possess yet without that in their,
Without that energy in their life that they don't exist.
And that river here,
The Rogue River,
Has carved through the mountain.
So basically we're sitting.
And we can see that everywhere.
If we can see it,
There is this movement of life.
And everywhere that life as it moves is reconciling.
The energies that create that movement.
So you have active forces working on passive conditions.
And in the relationship between what is active,
A will that is active,
And that which is acting on,
There is a certain necessary resistance that comes up when you put two forces together.
If they weren't somehow or other transformed into something,
You would have a static situation.
And we know life isn't static.
So here is this beautiful constant set of forces that are forging relationships that we get to see when we look out at life,
But we don't see the actual essence of these forces.
We see the forms.
But we know one thing is for sure.
That as everything marries and meets.
As I've often talked about.
In the marriage of these forces,
Something is reborn.
There is a new creation that comes forth out of that perfect union.
So that not only are the individual forms involved in this marriage and this union,
But the entire order itself.
All of the creations are involved in this ceaseless movement.
And if we can see this,
And I'll ask you because I want to go buy this as briefly as I can.
If I can see that,
If I've been in nature anywhere.
And spend any time at all.
It brings us to our first question,
The first part of our quest,
If you will.
Does life?
Ask any of its creatures.
For something that hasn't already been given.
To that creature.
To answer what life asks of it.
Do you understand the question?
Does the sunlight ask anything of the tree?
That it hasn't already given to the tree in a form of itself.
Because if we can see this across the board,
I'm looking at beautiful roses.
Does nature ask anything of that rose,
Which is what,
To open?
So that creatures may feed from it,
So that the fragrance may be,
So human beings might witness that kind of beauty.
Nature,
Life gives every creature exactly what it needs to answer what nature asks of it.
Can you see that with me?
Because it's a very important question.
So if we actually can understand that,
Then more importantly,
The next question Is life asking anything of those creatures?
Other than to take in what life is giving it.
And then for that creature to give back.
What is being created in it accordingly.
In that moment.
So that I'm describing a circulation,
If you can see it with me.
Sunlight comes down into that rosebush,
The bud forms,
The bud opens,
The sunlight gives it that,
The bud responds by taking in the energy and forming out of itself something new in order to feed the creatures,
The birds,
The bees,
Whatever it may be that participates in its life.
So we can see this circulation if I'm describing it clearly.
Everybody still tracking with me?
And we can also see if we will.
That in all of that movement,
In all of that activity,
There may be natural resistance.
For instance,
The seed,
The kernel of a corn inside of a seed husk,
If that husk wasn't creating resistance to that kernel breaking it open,
The kernel wouldn't get the strength it needs to go forth and proceed with the rest of what its purpose in life is to do.
So we can see that even though there is a kind of active,
Passive resistance,
That all keeps moving in this perfect reconciliation that is birth itself.
And if that's true,
And there is no persistent,
Dark,
Negative,
Troublesome struggle in nature,
But rather the struggle of nature gives rise to its constant success,
What about us?
What about the consciousness of our species,
Of humanity?
If what I've described to you is true and I'm trusting you can.
See that it is.
That nature never stops harmonizing with itself.
And that nature is in harmony with the planet that has given rise to it.
Then why is it another important question as it seems almost every day for most of us?
Who are burdened by some kind of stress,
Some kind of fear.
The sense of life,
That the life is demanding something from us that we're often hard pressed,
If at all,
To come up with.
In order to keep going with our life.
Can you see,
I'm trying to show you a contrast between what we are surrounded with and what we are a part of.
And yet,
Even though we are a part of that,
We are apart from it for some reason that we can't seem to understand,
But that we keep trying to figure out.
Do you see this with me?
Because we're coming to a major question,
Part of our quest.
Could it be?
And I'm putting this to you as a question that you must examine with me.
Remember how the wise man became wise.
He started asking new questions.
It wasn't just that he stopped answering his own.
How can a person stop answering their own questions unless they actually see the futility?
And if I see the futility of answering my own questions,
Then it brings up another question.
A new question.
What is the source of this struggle?
And the answer is,
If you can see it,
Could it be born of a belief?
That we don't even know we have,
Let alone that we.
Pay for every day.
A belief that not only is life.
Doing something to us.
I.
E.
Acting against us,
Creating this conflict we have,
This struggle,
But as it does,
Part of this accompanying belief that we have is that we're required to do battle with every unwanted moment.
And not just do battle,
But if we don't do battle,
We're going to face the consequences of our failure.
Can you see this with me?
I'm describing a kind of titanic struggle that takes place in this very troubled mind of ours.
Where something in us sees the expression on a person's face.
And all of a sudden,
I'm challenged.
I look at my schedule for the day and the next thing I know,
Oh,
What am I going to do?
I mean,
Life seems to do something to us,
Doesn't it?
Doesn't it feel like life is always doing something to you and,
And,
And not,
Not bringing you chocolate and milkshakes,
But bringing you some form of misery in the form of something that seems to be set against your best interest that you went into that moment with.
Can you see this?
Because I want to go on if we can.
So I feel like when I look at you and you don't look like you like me,
I feel like I have to do something about you.
A question comes up,
What's wrong with you?
We may not hear the question.
You may ask it.
God help you if you do.
But instantly I'm figuring something's happened.
I have to struggle to sort it out.
Or if I don't struggle out,
You're going to look at me like that for the rest of my life.
Life is going to keep doing this to me.
If I don't get everything the way it's supposed to be.
Next question in our quest.
Our quest to do what?
To be released from these worried thoughts and feelings.
How do we know what life is doing to us?
I mean,
It seems silly.
How do I know what life's doing to me?
What do you mean,
How do I know?
I look at you,
That's not a smile,
There's a threat.
I look at my checkbook,
I get a note from the doctor.
I don't have to be an Einstein.
This is not how it's supposed to be.
You're not supposed to be like that.
I'm not supposed to get this news.
I shouldn't have to do the things that I do.
And I'm always asked to do it.
So I know without taking thought.
In that moment.
That something has come up that is a problem that has to be dealt with.
And something appears in that same moment.
Doesn't it?
To tell us what it is that has happened.
And not only what has happened,
But what it is that we're going to have to do to get through that moment.
I'm setting the stage if you're following me.
How do I know what happened?
How do I know the way you're looking at me is a problem?
Please don't,
Don't run by this.
How do I know that when I,
I look out and I see it's a cloudy day instead of a sunny way,
How do I know anything at all about what life seems to be doing to me in that moment?
That's the big question.
And the answer,
If you will see it with me.
In that moment.
There is a very trusted source that appears magically inside of me.
And it brings a very familiar if unwanted,
Explanation for the moment.
How do I come to that familiar explanation from a reaction?
I know what's happening moment to moment by my reaction to the moment.
We know,
We believe we know what is happening moment to moment by the reaction that appears moment to moment.
A reaction that is a disturbance.
In life.
That is not self-settling the way we know nature settles all of that is taking place.
But a disturbance that seems to come out of life at me that I need to do something about.
So that this reaction is telling me,
Okay,
You know what this is like,
Not the same person,
But the same face.
Not the same situation,
But a different kind of suffering.
So that inseparable from this explanation that comes along,
Is a very familiar,
The appearance of what we would call Follow me.
Reaction,
Something has disturbed something in me,
But the me that is suddenly there feeling that disturbance wasn't there until the reaction.
So the reaction is inseparable from the sense of self that then goes on to explain the nature of that reaction.
I don't want to go too fast.
I want you to see it.
Because when I have a reaction.
I don't have to go too far before something is there that says it understands what happened.
And once it says it knows what's happened,
Then it knows what I,
In quotes,
Need in order to deal with that disturbance.
And I get what I need in order to deal with that disturbance from what?
From something that appeared as part of that reaction that is telling me,
Guy,
You don't have a moment to waste to get this disturbance settled.
So we better get going because if we don't get going,
Then we're going to lose this sense of peace.
That's,
That's kind of up in the air right now.
What am I going to do?
What am I going to do?
So therefore it is adamant that I take some action based on doing what?
Trying to resolve the experience of a reaction that has not come out of life itself,
But out of something in me that believes it knows what life is and how it's supposed to unfold.
Quite a bit in that to unpack in there,
But can you see it?
With me.
Because if you can,
And I hope you can,
Can you see that in that moment,
Here's this reaction?
Here's this resistance.
Here's this disturbance that looks like it's going to go on and on.
And in that split second,
What is taking place inside of us?
This is such an important transition in our quest to know how to free ourselves from the bondage of these worried thoughts and feelings.
Here it is.
In these moments,
Doesn't it feel as if life in quotes is throwing critical to answer questions at us?
Why does she look like that?
Why did he say that?
What should I do?
Is it always going to be like this?
How come I have to fill in the blank?
Can you see with me that when that disturbance comes,
Which we know is the re the result of some resistance or reaction we've had,
Because the moment's not supposed to be like that,
Then all of these questions start to come up inside of me.
How do I change this moment?
How do I control that person?
How do I protect myself?
And not just now.
But what I'm looking at looks like it could go on forever.
And so if I don't ask the right question,
I won't get the right answer.
And if I don't have the right answer,
I'm going to be stuck forever in the state of myself or in this,
In this situation that has come out of nowhere,
Where life is doing something to me.
How do I make sure?
Things turn out the way I imagine they must.
Please,
Because I'm working towards a very important topic here.
On our quest.
Nice deep breaths now.
What is it that we are actually dealing with in these moments?
To what end?
All of these plans and actions that seem so critical?
To what end does all of that go on?
Why am I asking these questions?
See,
The problem is this runs so deep.
You're saying,
Well,
Of course I'm asking questions.
No.
Why in that moment?
Am I not only asking questions but blind to the fact that these questions are coming up out of me like some mud from some lava pit?
Questions coming out of me and every last one of them.
Whether I see it or not,
Which is why we're doing this.
That question is an attempt.
To mitigate or to otherwise escape.
The unspoken dire consequences that I'm going to face if I don't answer the question that's coming out of me successfully.
So the urgency to answer the question is because inherent in the question is a consequence.
We never understand that we never ask ourselves a question that is born of anxiety that doesn't contain built into the unseen side of that nature.
A consequence,
Because if I don't get you to be different,
I'm going to be in this pain for the rest of my life.
If I don't sort out what I'm going to do in this situation,
I'm going to suffer from it forever.
And so what happens is that these questions come up,
They come up,
They come up,
And absolutely without understanding it,
We feel if we don't correctly answer that question,
Then we will have to go through the rest of our life living in this disturbance.
Are you following me?
Because we're working to see something quite deep,
Something that goes on so commonly.
You sit at a restaurant,
You watch someone sitting at the counter or at a bar,
Someone sitting by themselves at a bar.
What do you think they're doing sitting there?
They're either sorting through a question that drove me to go have a drink.
Or sorting through the answers that as I give myself answers to questions stipulated by my own suffering mind,
Come up with all of the dichotomous possibilities.
So now I'm,
Each question comes up with more conflict and then conflict drives more questions.
I'm trying to show you a kind of dark circulation that takes place inside of us.
When we believe as we do,
And I'm asking you to see it,
I'm not telling you,
I'm asking you,
My survival as a human being depends on answering the question that has just been asked.
Because if I don't answer it right,
I'm going to go wrong.
And if things go wrong,
There'll be more questions,
More problems.
So this is what I'm describing to you,
One of the most important discoveries a human being can make,
Because there is a very specific revelation that I'm pointing to.
I suppose it's a kind of awakening.
Follow it now.
Life itself.
Is not asking these questions at all.
When you go in nature and you see the beauty in nature?
Do you get the sense that nature is struggling to come up with a way to respond to the light and the shadows and the movement of the wind?
No,
Part of why we go into nature is because we get to enjoy a few moments without those constant questions about what do I do?
Where do I go?
Who I am?
What should I own?
What should I get rid of?
What am I going to do now?
This bombardment,
Of questions that ostensibly are asked in order to bring an end to some kind of suffering when the questions themselves come out of a nature that never stops suffering the conflict it creates in itself.
Are you following me?
I don't want to go too deep and I desperately want you to see it.
It's the theme of our talks this week and life isn't asking these questions of you.
And as we begin little by little again,
How did the wise man became wise,
He realized He had to stop answering his own questions.
And what are his questions about?
His questions are,
What is life doing?
Why is it like this?
How come they're like,
Why am I in this way?
Because if we realize that life isn't asking us questions,
What would it be like to live?
Within another order of our own being,
Which is already in place,
Or we couldn't even be talking about these things.
How free of fear one would be.
What's going to happen tomorrow?
What's going to happen in two years?
What'll happen after this appointment?
What does this mean?
The question seems.
.
.
To promise.
To restore a piece that was lost.
But the peace that was lost was because of this mind in pieces.
Is constantly trying to figure out what to do with the conflict it creates in itself.
As it finds itself disturbed by what it calls life,
When life isn't creating the disturbance,
It's revealing a divided nature that's always disturbed.
Do you see it with me?
Because this is the possibility of realizing a peace beyond understanding.
There's a line in scripture.
Looking at it even more deeply than before.
Christ was talking in Matthew 6.
Matthew 5 is the Beatitudes.
And if you read nothing else and not for the religious experience of it.
In 6,
As he's explaining quite a bit of these Beatitudes,
He said,
He was in that analogy,
He was giving this astonishing insight and implication.
What was he saying?
He's saying the lilies don't prepare for tomorrow.
They're not asking themselves,
How do I,
How do I keep these colors?
How do I keep this form?
How do I,
How do I keep this marvelous scent coming from myself?
They're not doing anything.
They're not rehearsing.
Oh,
Look,
There's a storm coming.
I better fold up.
They're not rehearsing for the disaster to come.
And they're certainly not looking out at the other flowers and go,
Boy,
You know,
That that that rose over there has a tint to it.
I'd like that's in my cheeks.
And yet,
In spite of all of that,
They bloom.
They fill the niche that they are given as part of a necessary circulation of all the things that comprise nature in her beauty.
So the lily doesn't ask questions.
Why?
I understand this is a bit of a answer for morphizing,
But They're not trying to solve life.
And the reason the lily isn't trying to solve life and understand its place and how it got there and how does it keep it with all of the attending questions is because the lily itself isn't resisting its place in life.
And that's all we do.
And see this with me,
And the place in life that I feel I have to protect.
Doesn't even exist outside of the way that I imagine it and the suffering that's produced in trying to protect a dream.
A false identity.
I knew when I was working through these ideas that I would come to this point,
So let me get into it.
I'm not saying to you that we don't have responsibilities as human beings.
Because clearly we do.
And that nature doesn't have in quotes the same if you will complex relationships that we do as we know and rightfully so I want to take care of my family.
I have obligations.
Whether I meant to get into them or not.
And by the way,
This obligatory life that all of us live,
And this is an entire talk coming up shortly.
To live an obligatory life.
What a hell on earth.
I'm obliged to be a certain way.
I'm obliged to appear in this fashion so that I can win whatever it is I believe I get when you approve of me.
I'm obliged to do what?
To keep in place what I've enabled.
And all of those obligations have a singular root,
As does all of the questions that come up with what we feel obliged to do and be as challenged.
A certain fear sits at the basis of it.
So yeah,
I have an obligation to maintain my home,
To conduct my business,
To do the things that I need to do so that others involved in my life can have a semblance of some physical,
Practical existence.
But here's the key.
And this is something you have to ask yourself.
I can't do it for you.
You have to get to the point where you actually are on a quest,
Where you're not looking for what you expect to find and disappointed when you don't.
But when you're looking,
Where you're looking for what you know,
You can't know until you get to it.
Practical.
You tell me what does practical intelligence and psychological conflict have in common?
I know I need to get to a certain place at a certain time.
That's practical.
I have a meeting.
I should prepare for it.
But you tell me what does that practical application have to do with the constant ache of a self that's trying to get somewhere because it didn't get there on time because it was busy sorting out answers to questions it had about a problem before it.
So until we start to understand there is a big difference between practical action,
Practical intelligence,
And that nothing practical has psychological suffering in it.
So where does the psychological suffering come from,
The rushing,
The anxiety?
This is what I'm looking at with you if you're looking at it with me.
Not out in nature.
And here is part of the answer,
Again,
For you to see.
We have become conditioned watching our mother and father,
Their mother and father watching them.
All the way back to and through whenever it was that was intended to be a reconnection with the divine.
Where the true religion became the tradition that this is what a good person is.
And if you fail to hit that mark,
You will be cast out.
You won't be worth anything.
So that we believe that worry proves our responsibility.
I'm tension proves how serious I am in this moment.
We believe that anxiety actually means that we care.
I remember as a boy,
I would come home.
Play hooky from home.
You know,
I'd go play football late.
I wasn't on time the way I was supposed to be.
And my mother would be irate.
I was worried sick about you and this anger was coming out of her.
Please tell me,
How does anger connect to love?
And it doesn't,
It's a false sense of self produced by a host of thoughts and feelings that as they go through it,
Thinking about things,
Isn't that true?
What if this happens?
What if that happens?
I'm not saying a mother shouldn't worry about a son.
I'm saying that endlessly thinking things through.
Is the result of a question that has been asked about what does it mean,
What do I do,
And how do I protect myself from this uncertainty that I feel?
Isn't that where we ask questions?
I'm uncertain.
How do I find certainty?
I have to ask the right question.
What's the right question?
Well,
What do I do to get rid of this problem?
How did I get into this situation?
And the answer is I got into this situation because this situation was the answer to the last question that I had.
So if we look at this honestly.
Again,
Through our own experience.
We begin to see that something extraordinary is going on.
What if the mind itself is creating the painful problems that it tries so desperately to solve.
The fact that life did something,
The fact that life is moving and changing and transforming things.
Why is that a problem to solve?
But something goes on.
And we assume these questions that we have are This is part of it.
Don't you think that you would never ask an unconscious question?
I wouldn't ask a question that.
To bring myself pain?
No,
My questions come from this very deep,
Original,
Natural intelligence that I believe I have.
So I only ask intelligent questions.
But what if something is going on we don't see?
And here it is,
You can write it down.
A disturbance appears first.
The questions arise afterward.
Something happens,
Someone says something unexpected,
A reaction I didn't know.
Some image of myself is threatened.
Because some unexpected condition has come in and changed what it is that I came into that moment holding onto,
Believing.
And in the same moment,
And this is critical now,
This unconscious nature that itself was disturbed.
Ask questions about how to resolve this conclusion it has come to.
That what it is facing is a challenge to its entire structure.
Now,
What do I do?
Am I safe?
How do I get through this?
And here's the point.
Please don't miss it.
Getting to the end of the talk.
These questions seem so personal.
So immediate,
Compelling is the right word for it.
That we rarely notice something that we must start noticing now.
I didn't formulate that question.
That question,
What do I do?
I didn't formulate that question.
That question came connected to the reaction that was telling me something had happened that was terrible.
Now what?
We believe that we formulate not just the reaction,
But the question that follows it.
And I'm trying to get you to see if I'm succeeding at all.
I didn't ask that question.
I'm sitting at my desk and I have a deadline.
I have a project that I'm supposed to work on.
And I've been mucking the day away.
I've been whatever it is.
And then suddenly I look,
Oh,
Now what?
We actually believe that when that panic comes over us that produces this question,
A question that by its nature is filled with negative consequences.
That if we can answer the question properly,
We'll be free of those consequences.
When the question itself comes out of a nature that is creating the very consequence it fears.
But you have to see it.
You have to be sitting,
Working,
Doing whatever,
And see,
Out of nowhere,
A question will come.
I mean,
If someone knocked at your door and said,
Did you lose this?
And it was some kind of a badger or a Tasmanian devil.
Would you say,
Oh,
Thank God you returned my Tasmanian devil to me.
It's ludicrous!
But something knocks at the door of life and suddenly,
Oh,
What's that?
And we give ourselves this whirlwind of thoughts and feelings,
All trying to bring an answer to a question that we didn't ask.
And why?
The question seems it's there.
It seems like the question is there to resolve the anxiety.
When it's the anxiety that produced the question.
So this fear and anxiety.
That are behind the sudden,
Oh,
Now what do I do?
Oh,
There it is,
There's the question.
What do I do to escape?
A reaction that came up.
Not because life said,
You are going to go through this.
Look what I'm doing to you.
But because something in me measured that moment,
According to its interpretation,
Came up with an answer.
It's a problem.
Now,
What do I do?
Further still.
In this unseen process.
There is something incredibly.
How do I say?
Right now,
We don't see it at all.
But I've been alluding to it all along.
The question?
That comes up,
Now what?
What do I do?
Where do I go?
What does this mean?
The question and the anxious sense of self that is asking it.
Are the same thing.
We believe when we're asking questions that we are apart from the problem we're analyzing.
We believe that when we're in the throes of asking these questions,
Oh,
Now what?
We believe that we are analyzing a problem that is separate from the me that has that problem.
Do you see that with me?
Here's the situation.
I'm not the situation in my mind.
Which is why all these questions are so important because it proves the situation is something that was done to me.
No.
The self that's analyzing the suffering in the situation has produced the situation it's suffering over.
Can you see that a little bit?
Because if you can,
It means that this sense of self asking the question,
That it wasn't.
How do I say this?
We sit,
We sit and We ask these questions.
As if somehow or other the answer is going to do for us what we have never been able to do all along,
I might add,
With all of the questions that we've asked,
Which has come to some kind of peaceful understanding in the nature of what's going on.
So here's the point,
The disturbance.
What we see with our eyes,
What we hear with our ears,
What we feel around us in terms of atmosphere,
Whatever it may be.
These disturbances what is active properly.
Touches something that in us is intended to receive.
Whatever that impression is.
So that in the reception of that impression,
Something new can be revealed.
And we can discover something about ourselves that we would never know if that moment hadn't unfolded the way it did.
But that's not how we see it.
We think the moment is doing something to us.
To me and the me that it's doing to,
I believe that's me when it isn't me at all.
It's a conditioned nature,
A conditioned sense of self.
And it's that conditioned sense of self that has the conditioned reaction and then ask the conditioned questions.
And I don't know if you've noticed this,
When you're asking yourselves,
What do I do?
Where do I go?
It's like a miracle,
Like lurch,
Suddenly I know.
I've got to figure out a new way to talk to you.
I've got to run these numbers.
I've got to change this situation.
So it's like a miracle.
I have all of the answers in the world,
Answers by the way,
That I can't see are variations on a theme that never solved the torment to begin with.
So that I'm in this constant state of trying to resolve.
What it is that I'm going through,
Failing to see.
I was thinking about the Trojan horse.
I don't know if any of us so much as lost a value in these stories.
The Trojan horse.
The Trojan horse was hiding something inside of it.
These questions that come up that seem to be resolving the battle.
Hide within them the continuation of the nature in that struggle.
So these questions,
These anxious,
Worried,
Fearful questions,
This sense of,
And the questions that come out of it,
That nature is not looking for an answer.
It's looking for the continuity of itself that it convinces you to take part in,
By bringing you into the suffering that it's producing.
So built like a Trojan horse,
This unseen identification with what?
Well,
If I solve this.
I'll get back to having peace.
But if I fail on the other hand,
And this is what I don't see,
If I fail to answer this properly.
I might,
Listen to this,
I might lose what I've imagined I need to gain.
Here's the consequence.
The promise in the question is,
Get it right.
Fantastic.
Get it wrong.
Lose your freedom.
And those opposites in that Trojan horse of a question never exist without one another.
You can't have a peace you imagine to come without the fear of losing it through a question.
Whatever costs you that moment.
So if we fail,
In essence,
We don't get to.
We don't win,
We lose what we imagined we might have won.
You're following me because I'm coming to the close of this talk.
Because if we've seen this.
.
.
Then we have what we could call a slight variation on the theme of Christ's main teachings,
Of all two teachings,
In essence.
That one must,
What is it,
One must lose their life to find it.
The variation relative to this talk the revelation that releases you from worried thoughts and feelings when finally you awaken to it.
Kate,
Let's bring up the key lesson because it's kind of exercise in the close of this talk as well.
Read along with me,
Everybody,
Please.
Losing our unconscious identification with any form of painful question.
Is the answer we're looking for in that moment.
Losing our unconscious identification with any form of painful question is the answer we're looking for in that moment.
Yes,
I said that when we think to ourselves,
Sophie.
This is the answer.
I identify with the answer that comes to the question that I didn't pose.
Remember that.
That in that imagined answer is the imagined piece.
That I believe I will regain when I finally get all of this settled.
But you can't have hope in things seen without fear of losing them.
So that the minute that my mind formulates through that question,
Ah,
This is the answer.
Go here,
Get this,
Get stressed,
Worried.
If an answer to a question seems to be positive,
Why is it so filled with pain?
Why do plans that get thwarted after they've been formulated by asking very intelligent question.
Why is there so much suffering in that moment?
And I'm trying to help you see it.
We have been deceived into identifying with an unconscious nature that hides itself from us by asking questions that keep it hidden.
And only as we start to see through the fact that the reason this question is so pressing,
So urgent.
Is because if I don't get it right,
I'm gonna have to live with this pain forever.
If I don't solve the problem in the past,
I'll be a victim of the past for the rest of existence.
So the mind formulates,
Well,
What did I do?
How could I have been different?
What should I have done?
Why is this?
All these questions,
All they're doing is keeping alive the nature that is the source of that problem and pain to begin with.
And I tell you,
As you start to see this and you start to wake up a little bit,
You will be the first to understand this,
This key lesson.
The minute that I recognize I am being drawn into identifying with this question is the same moment that I stop answering the question that comes up,
Because I'm not going to find the answer there.
The answer is in the revelation,
Not in an unconscious nature that keeps trying to release itself from the suffering it's produced.