Don't Fall Into The Memory Trap GF Live 7-4-26

Key Lesson #1: There are as many memory-paved roads promising a new life as there are old thoughts trying once again to escape the consequences of themselves. The tragedy is that every road built by memory eventually circles back to the same familiar destination, because the traveler has never changed.

Key Lesson #2: Memory does not merely remember life. It attempts to replace life with its remembrance of it.
Key Lesson #3: Life never competes with memory. Only memory competes with Life.

Summary Key Lesson: Every time the mind measures the moment by comparing it to some past memory, it limits the experience of that moment - and our identification with that measurement becomes our captivity.

Question for Contemplation: If there is indeed an unconscious order of memory whose will it is to seek its own continuity... might there also be another order of Will... that seeks continual creation?

Transcript

I don't think it really matters by what. Name you assigned to this idea of liberty, Liberation, Freedom? I think far more important than the name it is given. Is whether or not it's a fact. For you. It's a strange thing that men and women will kill each other over the idea of freedom and fail to see that they themselves are captive of a very terrible, Punishing idea. And that anything that challenges that idea or that ideal that they have turns out to be their enemy. And to be clear, Right at the outset, What is truly free has no enemy. That doesn't mean that there aren't conditions, Circumstances that require attention. But never attention filled with enmity. Certainly not negativity. Anyway, This is what we're going to look at together. The title of our material is Catch Yourself Before You Fall Into the Memory Trap. Catch yourself before you fall into the memory trap and. . . Let me say at the outset, I intend from now on on our time together with inside timer to allow five minutes or so when I'm done. That we can have a little dialogue. You can ask a question if there's time to answer one or two, I will. But so that we can enlarge our relationship and further our discoveries, Hopefully enhance them, Whatever the material may be for that day. Catch yourself before you fall into the memory trap. Last weekend's talks, I hope you remember, Were all connected with memory, As I will add is today and tomorrow's talk. We're going to continue exploring this important topic. The memory trap. Remember, We spoke, If you do this idea of a time bomb, How we walk around without knowing we wear a necklace of small time bombs that get lit by sudden impressions that we don't see coming and that the next thing we know we're set off, We go off. Believing that someone lit the fuse or actually put the bomb there when we brought it into that moment with us. So I want to look at this with you. And we'll start with the key lesson for today's talk that I'll ask Kate to post on the board. Read along with me, If you will, Please. There are as many memory paved roads promising a new life. As there are old thoughts trying once again to escape the consequences of themselves. The tragedy is that every road built by memory eventually circles back to the same familiar destination. Because the traveler has never changed. We haven't time to go into it, But this is the true esoteric meaning of that old idea we often quote, But don't really get, Familiarity breeds contempt. Why would familiarity breed contempt? Because there is something in us that returns time and time again to the familiar when we are not meant to live in the familiar, But freedom from it. Which is what we're going to examine together. So let's be sure we're all on the same page to get the drift here of what we are looking at. We'll get into it. We know without. I think much doubt, Even if we're seldom to admit the extent of it. That there more often than not come along these moments, Dark moments that come over us. A surge of impatience of anger. Some dark mood descends seemingly out of nowhere. A wave of fear, Some anxiety floods into us. And when that happens, It takes possession not just of our body, But of our heart and mind as well. And to see that these painful reactions. Have an actual source. Is required for those of us who seek to bring an end to the captivity. That is inherent in the conditions that they bring with them. And what is this? Inherent relationship that we have with these negative reactions? And the answer is that not one of them ever appears. And I'm asking you to see this. That can be separated from some form of sudden resistance that gives rise to them. I'm not negative until you say what I don't want to hear. I'm not angry until the moment goes left instead of right. And when you say what I don't want to hear, When the moment goes in a direction it's not supposed to, Instantaneous resistance riles through me. And then all I know to do in that moment, Basically, Is to somehow or other believe that this resistance is caused by what my reaction points to. Because that's exactly what happens, The reaction. Look, Shout. Outwardly. And it sees the cause for the pain. And before we know it, We are quite confident that we know the cause of the circumstance, That person, The news. That loss, That pending loss, Or the uncertainty. Were already wrapped up inside of a kind of interior bondage. That our mind is telling us we have to struggle to escape. Control or change the circumstance, Blame for it. This is kind of old hat for most of us, But I want to weave it into our talk so that we can get to something that underlies all of this resistance and the the pain of our life when we're caught up in it. So do you see this with me? Reaction, Resistance, Struggle to escape. And that struggle to escape is like one of those Chinese finger puzzles. And the more we try to pull ourselves out of it, The more we're imprisoned by what we believe is the world around us, The insensitive people, The idiots, So forth and so on. If we're in agreement, We'll go on. Nice deep breath. Humanity You and I. Not just present. But throughout time. Humanity forever. Tens of thousands of years has done exactly this. Unending. We have fought conditions. We've struggled to change circumstances. We've accumulated unbelievable knowledge. And through that knowledge, We have sought power. A way to possess some kind of influence that could change those people and problems that we see interfering with our security. And yet despite every. Every effort. Some form of familiar fear. Conflict. Self-doubt, Anxiety, You fill in the blank. Resentment, Some sorrow, Always comes back. Now, If you don't see this, There's no point in listening to me any further. But if you do, I want you to tune everything you've got in yourself, Because we're going to look at this. First through the lens of a couple of very important questions, And then we're going to get into something that I think is so important. Something that if you actually see will begin to change what you understand is the nature of freedom and therefore change your relationship to this world and this life that we're in. First question. If what I've described is true. How do? I'm not just talking about history. You know, We say we learn from history. We've not learned anything from history. Haven't you seen history repeats itself? We may not look the same, We may not have the same weapons, We may not have the same economy, The same climate, Blah, Blah, Blah, But history repeats itself. You can't argue with that. So we say, Well, It's better. What's better? That we don't kill each other with our hands, We use bombs. That we don't steal blatantly, But we steal economically? So the question is, How do we not see? What it is that's unfolding right in front of us all this time. All these years of tears and fears. Let's see. Nice deep breath. If you've never heard me speak of this before, Listen now and maybe make a note. All reactions are blind. All reactions are blind. There is no reaction that sees anything. Everything that we see. Is through the eyes of a reaction. And how do we know that all reactions are blind? This isn't philosophy, Science itself will tell you. Every reaction is a form of memory. Whether it's mechanical, Chemical, Physical. And all of these memories are not just built into life. All of these reactions are not just the stuff of life, But life is actually created from their interactions. So here we are, Surrounded by a fact we can't see. And because we're blind to the fact that reactions blind us when we identify with them. We are caught up in a cycle that we don't understand that goes round and round. And then we want to figure out who to blame for the conflict that keeps coming back. So do you understand this much? Are you following me? That if it's true, And we are in fact blind, Wouldn't you agree? I'll say it this way, It brings us to the main point. Wouldn't you think, Given. . . Literally whatever it is, Millennia. Of years that have failed to solve this riddle of these painful reactions. How many? Ten trillion feudal solutions? 500, 000 or 50, Some incalculable number of laws. Intended to liberate us that in turn put us into shackles? You would think we'd ask a certain second question at this point in time. That has never apparently occurred to us because we think we know the answer and go looking for it. Here's the second question. This is what we're going to examine together. What if painful reactions, The conflict that we have with so many different moments in life, What if that painful reaction does not originate in the condition upon which we blame it? Well, Here I am. I know why you are. I know why I am. I know what they said. I know how to feel, What to do. What if every last part of that is absolute nonsense? You would. And they call it axioms razor. The most logical explanation is that none of our explanations have worked because we don't understand the problem. You follow me? So I want to illustrate this idea for you with a very subtle story. And I just trust you'll get this. I won't have much time to explain it. So here's husband and wife. Been together for. 30 years. 20 years ago, He was in some exotic place and ran into her and shortly thereafter, They got married. And so as a honeymoon, Not a honeymoon, But 20, 25 years later. They've saved their money and they're going to return to this favorite vacation spot of his from long ago. They get there and they no longer no sooner touchdown. Then he starts kind of quietly fuming at first. Anger kind of bubbling up, Frustration evident. Complaining. Constantly under his breath and she can hear it. This just isn't right. No, That's not it. What's no, No, No. Finally, Two or three days, God bless your soul. Maybe she was working on herself. She finally turns to him and says, Sweetheart, Please. I'm begging of you, Get over whatever it is that has come over you. It's ruining everything. Besides which I don't think we could be in a lovelier place. What is it about it that's making you so negative? And he looks at her. Isn't it obvious? She goes, No. This place is nothing like I remember it was. Does anybody see a problem with that? Now you might, After I make a story and blatantly point out how ludicrous it is, That of course the place isn't the way he remembers it was, It is the place it is. And that demanding it be the way it was that reminds him of the pleasure of an experience long gone is the same as insisting on suffering the fact that that condition is gone as is the man that was there and that will never return. So the conflict isn't with the place that he's in, Is it? The conflict is not with the place that he's in. The place is the conflict is that he's in a memory. That he's looking out at the world around him and all of the relationships as they're unfolding through the eyes of something that never stops comparing what it was that he hoped or expected would be the source of a pleasure regained. And when not regained, It turns into the loss, Not of the place that he's in, But of his very soul, Not to mention his relationship with his wife. How many of you can see this before I go on, Please? I want to make an important transition. What if the reason for our repeated run-ins with reality is because of our unquestioned certainty that it, That moment, Which by the way has never occurred before, That a moment that has never occurred before. Is out of place. Just let that sink in. We're not trying to, You know, We're not here, Although in one way, This is Alexander cleaving the Gordian knot, Because once you see something, You can't unsee it. And once truth cleaves through some of this nonsense that this mind constantly puts these transparencies over life so that we see it through that film, Once we see it, Well, Of course, This moment's never happened before. It's a creation of the divine. But I look out at the moment, I don't see a new creation. I see something problematic that I don't recognize is because it's not going on the way it's supposed to go. So I think the moment's out of place when to be clear, A moment can't be anything other than it is in the moment it's revealed. Do you see that? Because if you do. . . Where do we understand to start looking for the source of this constant conflict that we have with life? Now I want to let that settle for a second because I'm going to bring up the second key lesson in a moment. And I want to stress. More than I usually do. The importance of contemplating Key lesson. There's so much in it. I'll leave it to you to see. Kate, If you will, Please. Memory does not merely remember life. It attempts to replace life with its remembrance of it. Memory does not merely remember life. It attempts to replace life with its remembrance of it. First, Last, Last verse. Can you see it? I look out. At a beautiful day. And all I see is it's too hot. I look at my husband or my wife, I look at the food on the table. All I see is it's not quite right, Or it should be more, Or why can't I afford better? So I never see life. I see life through a lens. That belongs to an organic, Natural, And unnaturally conditioned memory. That we don't know goes before us. Because we've never been educated. Practical memory is indispensable. Practical memory is indispensable. Without it, I couldn't recognize my daughter. I wouldn't know how to drive my car. I could never learn a new language. And in some respects, At deeper levels, There could not be certain connections that take place in a kind of a certain way. Quantum system if there weren't things that were drawn together because they are related. As we've studied recently, And I hope that you have been with me over the last few weeks, We're learning there are other orders of memory. Things that we don't think to ourselves are memories, But that we are infused with and that we are in their world. Natural memory, We talk about the pigeons, The, The, The the pelicans. How everything is responding. Under laws. Where the creature itself doesn't have a memory, Its memory is given to it by nature in order to continue the species and perfect it. So memory. Isn't just natural, There's ethnic memory. There's racial memory. Economic memory, Psychological, There's an endless amount of, In quote, Levels of memory, All of which are constantly unfolding, Drawing us into their world. And we, Without knowing it, Drawing from the content of that memory. You see, It makes sense in this world that people could hate each other for thousands of years. Unfortunately, It makes sense to you to have an enemy. You can't have an enemy without memory. And the memory says, I need to remember he's my enemy so I don't get hurt again. And the memory itself is killing you, Punishing you, Destroying the world that you're in, Stealing your soul. At least the opportunity to form and realize one. So all these different memories and each and every one of them carry old conditioned conclusions. And it's passed on as if there's some kind of prize. Boy, I could get into a rant right now. Passed on from family member to family member. As if you're doing the child a favor. When secretly you're choking their life. With these vines of. . . Victimized thinking. Regardless of what the past says. So here we are. All of this going on, Going on, Going on, Unfinished emotions, Hidden fears. Do you remember the first time you got your heart broke? I do. I remember as clear as day, My mind said, I will never, As long as I live, Ever feel like this again. I will never love someone again. I remember that. You think that that fear just goes away because you're tantalized by the next sexual encounter? It sits there and sits there and stews there. As well as these hopes that didn't get filled, The images of moments that we had hope in, But that don't come back the way we expected. And if you observe what happens, When life suddenly surprises you. Then you can start to see some of this machinery. Follow me, I'll slow down. Has anything unexpected ever happened to you? And not, Oh boy, This is great. You know, Someone looks at you a certain way. Instantaneously, You hear the news almost without skipping a beat, A certain movement starts inside of our psychology, Actually in the body. And what is that movement? It begins with something we don't see. We don't hear it. Something says, Is that supposed to happen? Is this supposed to happen? This can't be how I'm supposed to feel. And no more does this question, Is this supposed to happen? This isn't how I'm supposed to feel. On the heels of that, Because obviously things are on the wrong place, I better control and change the direction of everything that's going on or otherwise escape this. But I'm asking you, If you're following me, What exactly is this? That shouldn't be, This that I'm not supposed to feel. This that you ought not have done or said. What exactly is the nature of this that so-called steals our bliss and delivers us into this almost unending bitterness conflict with life? Can you guess what this is that shouldn't be as it is? What my mind made of it, Desire. Yeah, Those are good answers, But we can simplify it. And I will. What this is, Is my experience of the moment. So I shouldn't be having this experience. I shouldn't be feeling this way. And if I understand that the experience of the moment, Please follow me, Is inseparable from the resistance I feel to it, Then that's telling me that resistance is saying, You know what? This is going the wrong way. This is all going the wrong way. Follow me. And how do I know it's all going the right way in that? How do I know it's all going the wrong way in that moment? Is because something in me knows the right way. And what is it in me? Follow this contradiction. And what is it in me? That knows what the right way is in that moment. And the answer is memory. I know it's going the wrong way. Because I came into the moment knowing how it was supposed to go. And if I came into the moment knowing how it's supposed to unfold, That means that somehow or other, Anything that challenges the sense of self connected to that security is instantaneously my enemy and must be slain on the spot. Do you see it with me? Are you following? To be able to recognize this. We're not, Listen to me, We're not trying to do anything. I'm 77 years old. Why in the name of God? It took so many years. To even suspect. That the attempt to do something about an unwanted moment only occurs to a nature that's sure the moment shouldn't be that way because it's compared that moment to what it's sure it should have been. And it knows nothing. Let's make an important transition, If you're following me. That this experience doesn't exist without a memory that says it shouldn't be that way. No moment of itself is painful. I better put this in. You stub your toe. It's painful. But no moment of itself is psychologically painful. The pain psychologically, The disturbance that we're all agreeing is constant. Begins when memory compares the living present, The actual moment, With an image already stored in that memory. Like I have an image of how you should be thankful for what I gave you. And when you are not. Appropriately thankful for what I have done for you, All of my sacrifices. When you're not appropriately thankful. I feel that I have the right to resent you and maybe even correct you. Well, What's the real nature of that resentment? The real nature of that resentment is something in me was already vested in the pleasure of being flattered for my generosity or for my wisdom or for whatever it is that I've done for you that you don't recognize. So when you don't recognize what I think I am and did, The memory of myself, The image of myself is threatened and we're at it. So the disturbance begins when memory compares this moment to some image that that memory brought in it. So pain is the creation. Of a conflict in this nature. That compares the experience it's getting to the one it wants. That's the nature of conflict. Something comparing the experience of what is to the one it expected. And outside of that, There is no conflict in the moment any more than one part of a river is in conflict with the rest. And this is critical to understand that the resistance we feel, It doesn't belong to life. How long will it take? For you as an aspirant to be suddenly filled with resistance and realize, You know what? I can't be resisting what's going on unless I have a certain identification with what I know that you don't, With how I see this going that you clearly can't see. Constant comparison that we believe is an intelligent comparison when it's going to be the furthest thing from intelligent, Because in essence, There's no intelligence in a memory. It's just a body of thoughts. A collection of energies. So pain in this moment, If we can understand it. Resistance doesn't belong to life. The resistance is memory measuring life against itself. Resistance is memory measuring life against itself. Do you see it? Let me clarify, Kate, Bring up the third key lesson, If you will, Please. Read along with me. This is important as well. See ya! If you can, Life. Life never competes with memory. Only memory competes with life. Life doesn't compete with anything. Even the competition that seems innate in natural existence. Isn't creating destructive problems, It's strengthening and ensuring that what comes out of that new conception is better than the one that passed in order to allow it. Life never completes, Never competes with memory. Bye. How often are you disappointed? Oh God. I'm so disappointed with you. I'm so disappointed with you. How can I be disappointed with you? Unless like the husband in that story. You're not the way I remember you should be. And by the way, You've never been that way, But you're still not the way I remember you should be. What a prison. And we believe every last moment of that reaction. That comes out of some image ideal stored in some dark cavern of a museum. Unconscious mind of memory and it says you're not the way you're supposed to be. This isn't going, I'm not supposed to die. You've got the wrong person. Don't, Don't, Don't intimate to me in any way that I'm getting older. I'm not supposed to get older. I have control. Look at what I'm doing to my body and look at what you are doing to your body and to your soul. All born out of resistance to something that is natural, Lovely, And constant. Endlessly creating something new. So got to keep going. Let's look at a few examples of how memory insists that life justify its conclusions. Life is always new. Memory seeks continuity. How many times? You I Have we asked life? To repeat. What can't be repeated. Isn't that what the story was about? Isn't that man saying, I want the experience I had. And you're not doing it. So the problem isn't with me and my demands. With a memory that can't be satisfied because nothing's matching what it came in looking for. How often have you entered into a conversation with anyone? Already knowing how it should end. And when it doesn't go the way you planned, Ping. Is the problem the way the conversation went? Or is the problem that you went into a plan that had some kind of peaceful end to it that you hoped for, And it didn't. So now memory is thwarted. And when that nature is thwarted, All it can do is point to something and say, You're the trouble. Do you see it with me? Have you ever rejected? And I know this is true and God willing, You can see this. Have you ever rejected the possibility of a new moment? Whatever it might be, A new job, Learn a language, New skill. Maybe just get the heck out of your, Off your sofa. Rejected a possibility because memory whispered in that moment, No. This isn't going to work out. You failed before, You'll fail again. Nothing good waits for you if you actually stand up. Just pain. Who's the author of my future in that moment? Who is the author of my future in the moment other than a past? A memory that is, By its very nature, The source of conflict. The tragedy in this is so subtle as to almost be invisible. Some form of memory goes before us. Already enthralled? Like narcissists, Already enthralled with its own image, And when life fails to replicate or resemble the image, That memory that sense of self. Looks at the difference. Imagine if that story about narcissists, If that pond had ripples in it. The image would be distorted. And if the image is distorted, I can't, I can't fully identify with it because blah, Blah, Blah. Now I understand. So this life, This memory blames life. For the pain it creates. In its incessant comparison. Of what was. And should be. To what is. And then it fights with what is, And it fights with what is. And if you don't wake up. Fair warning. You will find and hear notice of your own passing and then you will fight with that. Because the nature that wants to go on forever. A doesn't go on forever, B creates the forever it wants to go into, And C lives in constant fear that it won't get there, Which is what the fear of death is. Memory in some respects is a form of death, Not living memory. Love the memory of nature. Not the memory of the divine that is constantly receding itself in a new system. But seen in this light, We can, I hope, Begin to recognize that we are not resisting life. This conflict is not because you're resisting life. We're resisting the collapse of an image, Of some memory. That has mistaken the experience of itself. For reality. And then fights with reality to somehow or other gather back what it feels has been taken from it. Reality can't take anything from you. Can a breeze take anything from the air? Can a wave take anything from the ocean? So these insights, God willing, I hope help explain the futility. Of running from the past. When you have a regret and relive it, You are running from the past. It's just that you think because memory is saying, If I could just get to some solution, It'll be over. No, It's never over because memory lives to repeat itself. So this ideal, This spiritual idea, And you've all heard it, Forgive and forget. Memory can't wash itself clean. It's impossible. And when memory resists the content of its own experience. And says, I want to get past this experience, Then memory fabricates another image. Something that it remembers was pleasurable and powerful. And then it identifies with this image of whatever it might be of God, Whatever it is that the image is. And the next thing you know, You're momentarily, Um, Uh, Being fed with the pleasure of a memory. Only to see it go to hell in a handbasket when conditions overcome that identification. None of these things. Are your memory. None of them. I know that's hard to understand. So much of our identity is predicated. I can speak personally, But thank God I'm no longer a prisoner of it. I did this. I'm a terrible person. I didn't do that. I could have. They did this and it caused me that. And it's so powerful, Isn't it? What's powerful? The experience of myself. And the experience of myself can't be separated from the reaction produced by one part of my mind visiting an image of memory already replete with experience and emotion and thought. And as all that takes place comes this reaction and the reaction validates it seems. This self as separate from what it is being drawn into. None of these things are your memory, And it's certainly not the source of this emptiness or grievance that we have with others. Peace cannot be found in condemning a condition blamed for the memory of it. Freedom doesn't begin when we find some new way to distract ourselves from some memory-driven experience. Freedom does not begin when we find some new way to distract ourselves from some memory driven experience. Have you ever wondered why it is suddenly you feel the compulsion you do to get up and go? Pick up your cell phone and start doing what you do. What is that? We never know because we're too quick to hand ourselves over to what that memory which is seeking, Which is what? The continuation of itself. Freedom. The kind we're talking about. Begins when memory no longer governs our attention. Freedom begins. When memory no longer governs our attention. See, Memory doesn't just govern our attention, It gives us what we should attend to, Given the reaction that produces the conflict. Freedom begins. When I'm sitting here in my house, When you're driving in your car. And a song comes on the radio. We've only just begun, And oh no, And why he, And in that moment when you are suddenly present to the movement of this unconscious nature, Remembering what it wants to remember to keep alive the sense of self inherent in the content of itself, When you're there, Now your attention stays where it belongs, Which is being a witness to the movement of memory, Instead of being moved into its world. Memory is a servant, Not a master. It was meant to be, It is meant to be practical, Not punishing. But when memory becomes master, Life is reduced to repetition. And we don't see it. When it returns, When memory returns to its proper place, It serves the moment in which it's needed. Nothing more, Nothing less. You walk into a restaurant, There's the waiter, The waitress, You remember their name. But I would add. Trying to remember their name before you go in so that you can get a favor from them is another story. Because then when you don't get the favor you anticipate because of your human kindness, Suddenly you're a captive of what you think is wrong with them or for not being clever enough to pull it off. This is why genuine awakening has always been described as a new birth. Not because another personality has been acquired. Through the manipulation and adaptation of memory, Trying to figure out how to look the right way and be the right kind of person. What do you think all that's about? But because the authority of yesterday has begun to yield to the living light, To the intelligence in the moment. That's what awakening is. Awakening can't be separated from surrender. Because in that moment, It becomes evident something has come and wants to carry me off into whatever this conflict is, Or whatever it is that I feel I'm going to be rewarded by. Makes no difference. So that I remain where I am, As I am, With what I am, And what I am has authority over anything that isn't and that claims to be who I am in that moment. Let's bring up the last key lesson, Please, Kate. Every time the mind measures the moment by comparing it to some past memory, It limits the experience of that moment. And our identification with that measurement becomes our captivity. Every time the mind measures the moment by comparing it to some past memory, It limits the experience of that moment. And our identification with that measurement becomes our captivity. And listen to this strange paradox. The very limitation of our possibility of our experience in that moment, The very limitation of it seems to us an enhancement because I'm more anxious than I was before. I'm more alive now, No you're not. You're nearer to the death that belongs to a nature that doesn't know what living is. So let's get to the last question and then we'll open it up for a little dialogue here. If you will, Kate, This is the last question for you to contemplate. Until our study tomorrow where I'm going even more deeply into this. This is a question to contemplate along with the key lessons. Please, If you will. If there is indeed an unconscious order of memory, Whose will it is to seek its own continuity, Might there also be another order of will? That seeks continual creation. Clearly there's an order of will that seeks its own continuity. At the sake of our own life and for us discovering our role in the ever new moment. But that which can see that order of memory. Is itself of a different kind of life, A different kind of light. And when we enter into that, Not only do we see where we have been a captive of this, Of some body of memory, Now we're outside of it and it becomes grist for the mill. And we participate in a new creation because we've been given that by that awareness, By that light of God. We have three or four minutes. I'm not going to just jump off like I always do. I want to engage if we can. I don't want to keep you too long. If you have anything you want to say or post, Please, Now is the time to do it in your chat box there. And if not, I'm happy to sit here quietly with you. I'm glad you were able to come on today. Literally probably billions of human beings will be celebrating something they know almost nothing about, Even though that freedom is in level and scale too. And by the way, Not without sacrifice. Frida says, I don't get that. What don't you get, Frida? Oh, How can a distraction be a memory? Well, What are you distracted to do? Frida, Here I am, I'm distracted. I'm just looking all of a sudden, Oh, I'm going to go look on my at my pictures. Why don't I want to go look at my pictures? Ah, Constitutes, Reconstitutes memory. I want to go over there. I want to go to that restaurant. I'm not hungry, But I want to go there. Why? Because memory wants the pleasure of escaping whatever the misery is in that moment of just being with yourself. And so memory postulates, Puts up an image. Image goes, Oh, That's great, Because the image what? The image has the content of past experience. Every image is the memory of a constant past experience. So that's what I'm talking about, Claudia. And what if a bad response is anticipated and the person never lets you know? And the person never lets you down. But I also realize it is my reaction. What if a bad response is anticipated? Oh, And that person, And that person always succeeds at disappointing you. Look, You can go through this life and everybody, You can, I'm not your boss. Frankly, I don't want anything to do with you as a person. Of course people are going to disappoint you. They can't help it because they're not really interested in you. They're interested in having whatever the relationship is with you in that moment, Match what they require from you in order to feel good about themselves. This is called humanity. So a person's response shouldn't be the proof that something's wrong with them. It should be some kind of way in which you pick yourself up and you look and you say, You know what, Is that rude? Yeah, It's rude. But what does that man's rudeness have to do with me remanding myself over to a negative reaction that makes an enemy of him for the rest of my life? Or that makes me resent anyone or anything that even looks like him, Because I don't know if you've noticed that, You can get around certain people and they look like people you know, And you have a negative reaction just looking at them. You've got to have seen that. How's that possible? I'm describing it to you. It's not you seeing. Kem says, Souls, You say that mastering the art of being more present enhance your discernment, Thus eliminating the possibility of experiencing situations you end up having to handle. Having to heal from us. I'm not quite sure. What you were asking there, Forgive me if you can restate it more clearly. Nicole, Distraction represents something you remembered. Yes, For sure. Sorry, I keep hitting the wrong button on this on my own. Oh, I can enlarge this chanting. Who knew that? I think that's all there is. Is that all there is, Katie? You can post and tell me if there's anything else. That's 50 minutes. I'll try to make the talks even a little bit shorter next time so that we can spend a little bit more time at least looking at these things. You must persist. You must persist, You must persist, And you must be ruthless in your persistence, And yet you must persist patiently. Without patience, You will never see. Without patience you will never see because what is impatience other than some memory demanding that the moment fit what it expects now and do it now as I want it now.

Reviews

Such an insightful talk for people who get hung up to the point where it can even be debilitating at times. On the past. Main issues for me have been letting go of things that didn't go the way I wanted or things with people that didn't go the way I wanted learning now that that cannot be changed and gaining the acceptance to let go of trying to rewrite. The script has been so helpful for me because I need to focus on the here and now. By focusing on the past I am not focusing on the present and that causes more problems in the present.

So powerful. Thank you.