Be Released From Useless Suffering GF Live 5-4-24

Hoping that a memory from "days gone by” can show you the way out of any unwanted moment – and into a safer time to come – is like finding yourself lost in a dark canyon, and following the echo of your own plaintive voice -- mistaking it to belong to someone who’s come to rescue you.

Transcript

I always start by saying, Let's all be here and now. We talked about that. To be here means to be within myself, In my body, Aware of my senses in their totality. That's what it is to be here and to be now is to be in the moment that I am aware of all that is moving through me. They are secretly connected and it is the secret connection between the awareness of ourselves in time and space and the sense of self created therein that allows us to begin to have a new understanding, A lot of which we're going to cover today. So I think we'll get started here. I have a couple of stories to tell you and possibly one or two key lessons that I will ask Leah to bring in at the right moment. As always, When the key lesson is being posted and I announce it as such, Please wait to post until after it is finished being posted so everyone can have the opportunity to read it uninterrupted. So our topic is this notion that there's something that we can remember and be released from useless suffering. Wouldn't that be something if there was one thing that we could remember and it would start us down this road where we are no longer the victim of this incessant, Constant thinking, Churning, This burning? And there is, Which is the purpose of our meeting this morning. So let me get started with the story and then after the story, We'll have a key lesson that will kind of tie it together and we'll move into the exposition, Into the study part. Here's the story. Imagine a man, For that matter, Imagine a couple and they have heard as a result of their life together and the conflict in it, That there is a place, In quotes, That's called the Valley of Lost Goodness, Somewhere in the heart of Africa. And it's a bit like a Shangri-La place where men and women who find it discover a school, Answers to the questions they've always wanted to have answers to, And in essence, A place where conflict is no longer the constant. So they set out together to find this place and they wander through these various little towns that populate sparsely these deep parts of Africa. And finally, They walk into some little frontier town and they're asking around, As they have every place else, Is there someone who knows anything about this Valley of Lost Goodness and can they take them to this place? And as with before, Pretty much no luck, But as they're waiting in this like strange tavern, A kind of nattily dressed Englishman walks up, I don't know if you know this, They use English accents, At least in the Western states, Because we think there's a certain sophistication, We listen closely. And this natty Englishman walks up and he says, I do know where, I know how to take you to this place you want to go to. Really? Yes, I do. And it wouldn't be a problem. And they say, Well, Will it cost us a lot of money? No, It's very reasonable. I have reasonable costs. You pay those and we're off to find this Valley of the Lost Goodness. They set off. Now stay with me. Fifteen years later, They're still on this trek. And at a certain point, There's only so many places that you can go. The man and the woman, They're standing on this bluff overlooking this valley and they look down and they see what looks terribly familiar. Now it all looks familiar, But there are certain giveaways. And one of them is to these people that they can see a certain mountain with a certain rocky outcrop down in the valley. And I say, You know, The man says, Excuse me, Sir, I don't want to be a problem and I don't want to interfere with the process. I know you're doing the best you can and I've watched you. We've all suffered. But do you or do you not know the right direction to take us to find the Valley of Lost Goodness? Because again, I don't want to mess with it, But I think we've been here before. Not just breaking into my own story, How many times does it feel like you've been here before? In that stressed relationship, In that fearful moment, In that hunger and thirst for some kind of security that seems to be threatened. And the guide says, Look, Just give me a moment. Just give me a moment here. The man rightfully, And we have to get to this place. It says to the guide, Look, I don't want to get into a fight with you, But how many moments do you need? When each moment seems to be taking place in the same place as other moments that you've said you need the same time. In fact, Please clarify. And the guy says, Look, I'm trying to remember which way we go from here. So stop interrupting me. And the man, The woman, Finally, She steps up and says, You know, I'm afraid to ask this question and I think we should have asked it a long time ago. Sir, Have you ever been to the Valley of Lost Goodness? There's this long pregnant pause. And the guide says, No. The man steps up. Well, If you've never been there, How can you know the right direction to go in? The guide says, Hold on. Just give me a moment. The woman says, Now what do you need a moment for? The guide says, I need the moment to remember the right answer to give you so that you'll continue to pay me on this journey. Let's bring up the key lesson, Kia, Aaliyah, Akia. Knowing that a memory from days gone by can show you the way out of any unwanted moment and into a safer time to come is like finding yourself lost in a dark canyon and following the echo of your own plaintive voice, Mistaking it to belong to someone who's come to rescue you. Now can you connect that with the story? Hoping that someone is going to lead me to this part of myself, To this time of myself, To this place in myself, Where this longing that I have to be at peace with myself and to understand my part in this world because I'm endowed with it is finally complete. The great tragedy of our present state is that we look to our consciousness as it is to answer all of the questions that seem to appear apart from the moment that brings them up. When I question, Why are you like that? Why is the world this way? Why am I afraid? When I ask a question like that, It's because something in me sees the moment as the source of the conflict that if I had the answer to why the moment is like that, Then I wouldn't be in that kind of pain and I would know the path to take. But the real question that is being asked in these moments when we're disturbed, That we think is asking us, What am I to do? That is not the question at all. The real source of every question that arises us in a moment of disturbance, The real question is who am I? Because what you've said, What they didn't do, What seems to be coming, Threatens who and what I am, What I have brought with me into that moment. And when I stand there, My identity, My sense of self, Shaky as it is, Inwardly, I want to know what do I do to return to and restore my security, Who I think I am. So that literally, All of the answers that we have presently to this question has, What's the word, Has euthanized this question because it's answered by a collective set of memories that with every reaction that we have to those moments sends us out looking as it always does for yet another answer, Another variation on the theme to bring an end to whatever that temporary torment may be. Now I must say at this point, It isn't as if we don't ask questions in these moments because we do, But we need to recognize that every question that we ask is ultimately connected to some idea, Hope, Or belief that we came into that moment with that needs to be polished, That needs to be touched up, That needs some new slant to it so that every question is connected to an answer that already resides within who and what we have been so that without knowing it, We turn to who and what we have been individually, Collectively. Because these reactions, These reactive memories, You might want to write those two words down, These reactive memories. They come up and they come up with what we believe will supply us with the path to get past the pain that is in that memory itself. All reactive memories are spring loaded with some form of suffering that when that reaction triggers the content of this nature of our past, It pops up there. And when it does, We hope that we can find the new name for whatever that negativity is that we're experiencing and bring an end to it. And the fact is that we have never been able to do that. So you and I, If we understand anything at all that I've just said, We're going to have to understand what it means to resurrect, Which is the correct expression. We must resurrect the question that appears in that moment that isn't, What do I do? Where do I go? How do I handle you? But what am I being shown about myself in this moment that I might have some new understanding about myself so that apart from practical memory, How do I get home? How much chicken stock do I need for my vegetable soup? Apart from the practical use of memory, What we want to examine in the time we have together is when, When do I go into this memory, Into this default reactive memory? And why do I go into it? When do I go into this default memory? And why do I go into it at that moment? What triggers this relationship between me and the moment, The unwanted moment that the minute it appears, The next thing I know, My mind has gone into a search mode, Looking for what it says is the valley of lost goodness. When in truth, What it's looking for is a way to restore to itself the place within itself where it believes this goodness and this strength already exists. Listen to this little story to help exemplify it, Okay? So here's a dad walks in to the barn where the boys are getting into trouble. And there's three brothers. And the minute dad walks in, Because maybe they've started a little fire, Who knows what, All three of them go running and dad says, Wait, You stop right now. And they all three run. Now, 10 minutes later, The father, After questioning these boys and making the correction as needed, Finds out that the youngest of the boys had nothing to do with it. He was just kind of brought into it by his two brothers. This is a spiritual story, A true story. And he says to the son, Son, I want to understand if you had nothing to do, What was going on in there, Then why did you run? And the younger son says, I don't know, He says, I got scared. And it was the first thing that came to me to do. I got scared. And it was the first thing that came to me to do to run. So what are we learning? First, A key idea. Every reaction, Notwithstanding psychologically, Is a memory. Every reaction is a memory. It is the result of something active, Acting on something that is passive. Doctor hits the knee with a little hammer, Leg pops up. That's a reaction. It is built into the relationship. So is there a reaction built into every moment of life? That's what life is. It is a living reactor. So that into this mind, Into this body comes these moments. And when these active forces come into this body, Into this psychological body, That psychological body is already loaded with all of the past experience, Most of it incomplete, Never resolved. And when it is triggered as it is, There is a reactive memory. A reactive memory is an associated memory connected to whatever that condition seems to imply. Because as we know, There really aren't a lot of new conditions. There's just replays and variations on the theme of these moments. And boom, Like that, I'm trying to remember what to do. You said this to me. It set me off. If you can examine this, I now know when do I start looking for these answers. But what is it that's looking for that answer? What is it looking for? And you have to examine yourself. I can't do it for you. Somebody speeds up behind you or cuts you off. You get some news of some kind, That reactive memory that wouldn't be resisting the moment as it is if it weren't for some kind of comparison to what was expected or wished for. So there's the evidence that something in our past has come forward into that moment with us. And the event has suddenly brought us into the awareness of the fact that this part of our psychological body is static. It doesn't want anything that challenges it. And in that moment, When it's challenged, What do I do? What do you do when who and what we are have assumed ourselves to be? Imagine, What do we do? We start trying to remember, What's the right thing to do here? He's cutting me off. What's the right thing? I want to obliterate the guy, But another part of my memory says, No, That's not what a good Christian, That's not what a spiritual person does. Someone says something cruel to me. I want to punish them. But another thought says, You know what? We shouldn't punish others. We should love them. So this mind is a conflicted mind. It always has, Without knowing it, A certain reactive memory that comes up and brings up this instantaneous response. And the response is always associated with a host of other memories. I hope you're following me. So that I'm trying to remember, What did I do the last time I was here? Because I need to do it again, Or I need to reconfigure it so I come out with a better result. Yes, It happens so fast, But one day you'll see, Laurie, Laura, Even though it happens that fast, It is only fast relative to the part of us in which it is unfolding. We have higher parts of ourselves that can see these reactions come up like they're in slow motion. And as you work to understand our material today, You'll start seeing it. So boom, Excuse me. I turned to the guide and say, I think I've been here before. And the guide says, Just hold your horses. I'm coming up with another answer. I'm coming up with another path to get to the end of this pain. And we've been listening to in relationship with this unconscious nature for millennia, Because it's not your unconscious nature. It's not my unconscious nature. You and I are unwitting participants in its continuity. So that individually, We create a kind of collective memory based on our own past. But that past is also inseparable from a broader memory. But here's the point, Please write it down. It's not the moment that's negative. It's the memory that's negative. Our perception is the moment is negative. He, She, They did this, They did that. And my resistance to the condition creates the illusion to this unconscious nature, That the reason that I'm negative and in this pain is because of you, This, Them, Or that. And that's not true. It's the memory that's negative, Not the event that reaction blames as it recalls why it needs to feel that way. This is deep stuff, But you can start to see it. Because when we react, Have this reactive memory, What is the reactive memory trying to do? It's trying to remember what to do to escape that pain. And the pain we're in, In that moment is because of a memory that has been triggered that already has that suffering in it, That already is part of that consciousness in conflict with itself. Can you see some of this with me? Please let me know. Am I connecting? I'm not saying, Will you be able to start remembering something new? I'm simply saying, Can you begin to see that if it weren't something that spontaneously pops up out of this mind in an unwanted moment that tells us the moment is the pain, We would never even begin to suspect the moment can't be the pain. Every moment is neutral. It's created as a relationship between what it acts upon. But for us, Because we're asleep, What it acts on brings up out of that old access, This memory that's related to the moment, And then it knows what the moment is. And then importantly, When it knows what the moment is, Then it knows what to do about the moment. And to wrap all that up, It knows what to do about the moment because it's been there before in some way, And now it just simply has to rethink how to make the moment better. It isn't the moment that needs to be made better. What needs to be better is the way we respond to it through a new relationship to the moment. And if this is true, Which it is, And we must see it as such, This is what's so hard. You know, Every time, How many times a day would you say there's this moment of fear? Angela, No, It's not really to accept, Allow and surrender. Yes, Those are good words. But it isn't just accepting the moment. It's seeing that the moment I'm being given to live belongs to the dead. That reactive memory isn't alive. It's literally an electrochemical creature, A reaction stored and strengthened through the constant resistance the consciousness has to its own memory. So the task, If you can see the truth of this, The implications are immense. That's why the talk was called Remember This Truth and Be Released from Useless Suffering. No reactive memory can ever formulate an adequate response to the question of the moment. The question comes out of the response. There is an innate, Natural, Celestial reaction in every interaction between what is timeless and streaming into this world, Into our body, Into the earth of ourself, And the response to that, That initial reaction. But the intelligence trying to bring about a harmony between these, The heaven and earth, That intelligence is thwarted, It's thrown to the side. We don't know it's thrown to the side, But we're so used to identifying with what we call our intelligence, That in the moment that that reactive memory appears, We believe that everything associated with it that just flows in naturally. Have you ever marbled at this? Why is it so hard to think along a line of truth, But when you're negative, It's the most effortless thing in the world. It is effortless to be negative. I know all the reasons in the world why I feel the way I do. And as that mind revisits all of the validation of why I'm a victim of you, Them, This or that, As it revisits all of these associated memories, The body builds itself into a complete conclusion and then out of that conclusion, I can go forward, Escape the captivity of this person or moment, And find the valley of lost goodness, Which I find for about 10 seconds. Because it doesn't matter what that memory is able to recreate to bring about some kind of consolation. The conditions are illusions. They're produced by what we've imagined. And everything that we dream eventually must be awakened. By the grace of God, Everyone who dreams must be awakened. It is what we do in the moment of that awakening, In the moment of that fear when it comes up inside of us, In the moment of that tug that says, I gotta go, I gotta do, I can't stay here, I can't, I can't, I don't know what to do with myself. And every time that question appears as it must, It is answered by some kind of reactive memory. This is why if we want to understand what we're working at here together, We'd have to start recognizing certain truths as above so below. In nature, The reaction is inseparable from fight or flight. In nature, This reactive memory, Inseparable, It is fight or flight in nature. The deer can't think to itself. The turkey can't think to itself. What do I do? It responds given the memory that is endowed in its instinctual center by nature, Protecting continuation of the species. So the creature responds from instinct. You and I must start to remember that we have that part of us. We know this reactive memory, If you can see it with me, It is fight or flight. Get in there and mess with it, Fix them, Change them, Or somehow or other, Fight for what you want, Get what you want, Assert yourself, And then everything will be copacetic. And you and I, We may even momentarily control someone or some moment. But the momentary control of the event blamed for our pain is not the end of a pained consciousness that will continue to experience itself every time some situation comes along and challenges its assertion, Its identity. We must find something better and truer to do in this moment. We must be able to remember that whatever we are given to remember in that moment, Any old thought, Honestly, Anything that you recognize as needful to be done in the moment where someone has done something to you is coming to you from that consciousness that simply wants to keep you in its captivity, Working along the lines and following the path that it lays down for you to follow so that why? Remember the end of the story? Give me a moment here so that I can remember what it is that I need to tell you so that you will keep me in your hire. Don't see that I don't know what I'm talking about. Don't go into doubt. The guide is saying, What's the guide memory for us? Yeah, This is similar and maybe we crossed close to this mark, But next time we'll never come here again because we're going to become the one who finds the valley of lost goodness. Yes, Angela, Two masters. But the two masters are an unconscious nature. You cannot serve two masters. You'll love one and despise the other. What Christ was saying is that these two masters is this conflicted, Divided consciousness that on one hand wants this, But doesn't want that, That on one hand remembers this is what to do, But then conveniently forgets the conflict born of having done that same thing before. So we have to remember that these reactions that we have in the moment are a natural part. What did the father say? Why did you run? I didn't know what else to do. Why did I react that way? I didn't know what else to do because the only thing I have to call on up to this moment where I am learning and starting to see these truths, Only thing I have to call on is what the guide tells me, What my own mind tells me to do, What my own tells me, My own mind tell this is who you are. It's been threatened. You must fix this. You must change that. If you don't, There's going to be consequences. What is true in you, Your real memory never threatens. You want to know if you're listening to the wrong parts of yourself. Anytime something in you sees a fear and then asks, What do I do? What must I remember now? What must I reinvent or change in order to bring an end to the stress and pain? What do I do? When you listen to your mind, Pose the question inherent in the reaction, And then you allow that reaction to supply you with a road to take in that moment, You are back on the path that will lead you back to the same place where you will be asked again by the grace of God, Who are you? What is it that you really want? And at a certain point you realize that something in you wants what it wants, But that now you having explored its wants for millennia, Realize I no longer want that sense of consolation, That sense of false security. I don't want to live anymore with regrets and resentments, With doubts about myself. Can you have a resentment? Can you relive an unwanted moment without being in the past? There is no resentment without the past, Without memory, None. Love thine enemies. What does that mean? When Christ said it, Learn to see that the real, In quotes, Enemy of the moment is that you without knowing it are a captive of an unconscious nature that needs to keep the enemy in place so that you can remain in service to it. This discovery allows you to love your enemy because now you realize when you feel this fear, When you feel this doubt and this worry, It's not the circumstance. It is this reactive memory trying to save itself by simply remembering the next thing to do to save its bacon. So once we realize the real question in the moment is not, Oh no, How do I respond to this? Suddenly I feel anxious. I know many of you, When you're anxious and stressed, Something is telling you go eat, Go buy something, Plan a trip, A thousand different recalculations of the same content of a memory that tries to escape itself by remembering the next thing to do. Because once we understand the question isn't, Oh no, What do I do? And then rely on the guide, This memory. The real question is, What do I need to see right now with regards to this part of me that wants to respond in the same exact way it's always responded? Because I know for a fact I've been there. So the answer becomes, If you want, The answer starts with remembering that these reactions and that everything they imply about how the enemy is the moment and that you wouldn't be negative if it weren't for what happened. That right thing to remember is that it is the memory itself. It is this thing that I'm identified with that is being given to me that's the true source of the pain. You know, Buddha said, If a tree falls in the woods and no one's there, Does it make a sound? And that quotation, As I've spoken of it in the past, Simply says that there is a mutual relationship. Without an ear, There can't be something to hear. Without an ear, There can't be something to hear. And there can't be something to hear without an ear. When you start to understand there can't be the resistance to the moment without the memory that precedes it, Then you'll start to connect this fact that every time I start to have someone angry, Blame, Hate, Fear, Every time, The pain is never in the condition this consciousness blames for it. The pain is in the memory that was triggered by that moment and triggered by the way so that I could begin to have a new question, A new answer to that moment, Which is to witness the whole thing as it unfolds. Not to be a captive, Not to belong to some program, But to become a part of another order of myself that can see that memory has a proper place in the order of my life. But memory is not intended to create order. When memory creates order, I'll tell you what it does. Bring up the last key lesson, If you will, Please, Leah. Listen carefully. Violence and all the forms of hatred that give rise to it is a misbegotten creation of a mounting, Inescapable frustration itself born of the useless reiteration and identification with conditioned memory. You want to know why the world is coming apart at the seams? It's because that's all that's left to this consciousness that has created that world. It can no longer believe in its own solutions. And the more that I must find some solution and identify with it, The more I suffer everyone and everything that is against me. So you have memory, You have racial memories, Religious memory, Political memory. You have all of these bodies that believe somehow or other they exist as separate intelligent entities when there is no intelligence in any of them, When they are arguing and fighting and hating each other, Just as that's true of this mind that sets itself against itself without knowing it, And then tries to change the condition created by memory by recalling on another memory to heal itself. No, Listen to me. You have to understand, You have parts of you that when something else comes up that challenges it, Will always separate itself from it so that it can feel itself different than what, So that it can feel itself as being separate from its own reactive memory. That's what all intolerance is. That's what all hatred is. I'm not saying, Not for the widest stretch in the world, That what you see going on the world is right. It is all wrong. But I can tell you, It is equally all wrong to set yourself against it as someone better than superior to what you judge. You cannot judge without memory. Memory is comparison of an unconscious nature. And so all of the judgment that comes up, All of the enmity we feel towards all the things going on, Itself is a part of all that is going on within us that is then expressed around us. To see this as the beginning, Yes, That is the hope, Melinda. You are the hope of the world. I know it's terrifying. Trust me, It's the most frightening thing in the world to realize this little understanding, This little part of me that agrees, You know what, Instead of letting this guide tell me one more time how to find this goodness, I'm going to recognize this guide knows nothing about it and I'm going to suffer for a moment being where I am with what I am. I'm going to consciously agree to wait for the appearance of a new guide, The true God, The true voice. I'm going to dare what happens when instead of my identity being reconstituted and called back into play in order to find another, Instead of doing that, I'm going to wait in the right moment. I'm going to wait in the here and in the now, Wide awake, Watching all the mind as it formulates this question and then trails it to this answer. If you've ever watched it, You can't have a memory that as it comes up telling you what to do, By and large is not immediately put into conflict with some other memory that says, But what about this and what about that? So the task is a simple one and it's where the hope lies. The hope lies within the light within us that reveals these truths to us that set us free because freedom is not following a false guide. Freedom is seeing the false guide for what it is and then allowing that momentary emptiness to be filled by something that is true and everlasting. Then you won't have to remember what do I do? You will be part of a new intelligent conscious action that always knows exactly what to do because it is always in the right relationship with what is guiding it in that same moment. Out of time. Join me tomorrow, Wednesday night. I speak twice a week, Three times a week for free, Nothing to join. I am not your guide. I want no part of it, But I do want to explore with you the truths that I am given to see so that together we can become, By bringing this light into our life, We can bring this light into this world. Don't try to change the world. You can't. The world wants to do and will do and go where it wants to go and it's going there now and you are seeing the evidence of the best intelligence the world can muster. Imagine. It's time to abandon that false intelligence and start aligning ourselves with the real interior intelligence that is inseparable from the light that reveals how often we are captured by these reactive memories and then ruled by them.

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