Feel Safe At Home No Matter What’s Going On GF Live 10-12-24

Imagining all that remains to be done to realize the contentment we seek – or that we must struggle with to attain some illusive peace of mind – is like trying to calm the ripples on the surface of a reflecting pond...by throwing a polished stone into its waters.

Transcript

Let's just do what we do on Saturday mornings, Which is what we should do every morning. Bring ourselves back into our body as best we know how to be aware of all of us or all of ourselves and just a few moments we'll get started. Quite a bit to share with you today. It's gonna take a little work but I trust you will be able to follow the various things kind of wide-ranging in one respect and yet very much narrowed down to a single idea, Which is the title of what we intend to look at today, Which is how to feel safe at home no matter what's going on around you. How to feel safe at home no matter what's going around you. Now I understand and I want you to understand that we hear an idea how to feel safe at home no matter what's going on around you and we look at it a world that is as chaotic as any time that is recorded anyway and probably the furthest thing there is in this endless waves of uncertainty that we feel safe at home. But I would argue somewhat that when we speak of these things, Our mind tends to think of home as this place that I live in as lovely as it is up here in the mountains of Oregon. There are other kinds of homes. We're going to look at this together. When I was sitting here just before I pushed the button that says start, I was thinking about the three little pigs. I don't know if you know the story ever so quickly, Probably politically incorrect these days, But the bottom line was that there were these three little pigs and the mother had sent them out. There was no food in the house and they encountered this big bad wolf. Now what does a big bad wolf want to do with three little pigs? And we know what it is. It wants to eat them. So the three little pigs run home and one builds a home, A protective structure out of straw. The other little pig builds a home out of sticks and one little pig builds a home out of bricks. Now, If I remember correctly, The big bad wolf says to the first little pig inside of his house of straw, I'm going to huff and I'm going to puff and I'm going to blow your house down. And the big bad wolf huffed and puffed and blew the house down. Then the same thing with the house of sticks. I'm going to huff and I'm going to puff and I'm going to blow your house down, Sure enough. But when the pig got, When the wolf got to the home of the third pig who had built his home, Her home out of brick, He huffed and he puffed and he couldn't blow the house down. And the story goes on, The fairy tale based on a fairy tale, That the wolf decided to climb in the chimney. But the little pig inside the house of brick was smart and put a boiling pot of water there in the fireplace. And the wolf died, Perished in that, In the scene that follow. Do you ever feel like there's a big bad wolf huffing and puffing to blow your house down? I'll ask, I'm asking you, Do you ever feel that way? Do you ever have this feeling that there's something going on? And your little house of straw, Your house of sticks, Even the so called house of bricks, All that I am and own, It starts to tremble. You know to bring this first little three pig story into the into the topic that I want to go. We're sitting at home, In our home, It's not made of straw or sticks. And there's a knock at the door. No sooner is there is a knock, Meaning our intuition, Something we sense, Something disturbs us from outside. And the next thing we know, The doors battered down and someone, Something rushes in, Trashes our possessions, Picks us up, Carries us off, And dumps us someplace. And even as that's going on, Or as soon as we get back, Someone is there, They show up, It's a miracle, Telling us that we have to be strong, We need to start over. Here's some, Take this money, Make a new plan, Gives us all kind of promises to make a new beginning. And that's just rinse and repeat. Knock, Knock, Knock, The bums rush, Carried off, New plans. You know, It doesn't have to be a big thing. It could be you living with a thought that you didn't invite into your own mind about a person, A problem, Something lingering, Unfinished, Something that you have hopes in, But that looks doubtful. One little thought, And the nature that creates it. And then the house that that nature and thought erects in order to protect you from the very nature that is huffing and puffing to blow that house down, To take away your security, Your sense of well-being. I want to talk to you about another kind of house, If you will, The real house of bricks. What is its nature? So I think it was in one of my books, I maybe, Actually, I don't know what book it was in. I often tell a story about Solomon, This wise old owl represents wisdom who oversees the area and the woods and the forest to make sure there's a harmony amongst all the creatures there. And in this particular story, Solomon is flying over the territory when he hears an argument down in a clearing. And there's about five, Six, Seven different species of animals, All native to the woods there. And they're all kind of shaking their fist at each other over something. He flies down, What's going on? And he finds out that all of these animals, The crows, The bears, Bobcats, Squirrels, Eagles, The jays, Robins, Everybody's arguing over which of them is the happiest in the area they live. So they're fighting about who has the most, Who is the most strong, The most secure. And Solomon says, You know, You guys just slow down a minute. They turn their attention to Solomon. And he says, What I think you have to understand is that none of you are who you imagine yourself to be, Let alone that you have what it takes to be the happiest creature of all. There's another creature that isn't even arguing with you. I can see him off there in the edge of the woods. He's not saying a word. But I tell you, Out of all the animals, Out of all those of you that are gathered here, He is the one who's the happiest of all. And of course, Everyone who thinks that they have the right to be the happiest gets all upset and the crows are cawing, The bears are growling, So forth and so on. One of them steps up. What do you mean, None of us? One of us certainly has to be. He says, No, No. He says, The truth is that the happiest amongst you doesn't need to profess being the happiest amongst you. His contentment is a silent contentment, And it goes with him everywhere he goes, As does the reason why he's the happiest of all the creatures. He feels no reason to compete. And by the way, When you really have what you imagine you do, There's no reason to boast about it at all. It's a very quiet, Complete sense of yourself. They get upset again. What are you talking about? Who are you talking about? Said the crow. Solomon looks over to the edge of the woods there and points, And he points over to a turtle by the name of Sheldon. And he says, Sheldon, The turtle, He's the one that's the happiest of all. And the eagle steps forward, He's the happiest of all. I'm this and I'm that. And the bobcat says, You have no idea how the prowess of myself. He says, Why are you saying that Sheldon is the happiest of all? And Solomon says, Sheldon, Will you come out of the shadows there and not just tell everyone why it is that you are the happiest of all, But present the evidence. Silence comes over the forest, All the creatures. And then Sheldon, The most unassuming creature of all, The slowest for sure, And the lowest by far, Definitely the most humble, Kind of walks out of the woods into the gathering there. And Sheldon says, As he stretches his head out of the shell and extends his little arms and feet out of the shell, He walks into the center of the group. And Sheldon says, Well, Since you asked, I suppose the reason I'm the happiest of all is because wherever I go, Rain or shine, I am never without a place of my own. My home is always with me wherever I go. And then Sheldon walks off into the woods wherever it is that he goes. My home is with me wherever I go. My house of bricks can't be battered down by the big bad wolf of unwanted moments, Of painful thoughts and feelings, Of those conditions that if you could, You would avoid at all costs. But that understood properly helps you add and thicken, If you will, That dwelling in which you live so that you have with you wherever you go, What it is that you need in every moment, Regardless what's going on around you, A shelter that can't be knocked down, Broken into, Let alone have something stolen from. But the question is, Having passed through this story now, Where is it that we're going to find such a home? And I want you to understand that this is not religious. This isn't some ideal. This is a verifiable fact that depending on the extent to which you have done your interior work, You can understand to some extent what it is that I'm next going to talk to you about. There is a passage in the New Testament, But it isn't just isolated to the New Testament. Every original, Not every corrupted, Every original insight that was ever passed along from a man or a woman who gained access, Listen to me, From inside this home, Inside this world that is always with you wherever you go, Was able to report from inside what that world was like to some extent, So that a person listening, Reading, Even as we're here speaking, Might feel some resonance, Might feel some relationship to what's presented. So Christ said, In my Father's house there are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. Meaning, If it weren't that way, I would let you know. But I'm telling you that in my Father's kingdom there are many mansions, And I go to prepare a place for you. Now, I can't spend too much time here. This is what people want you to swallow lock, Stock, And barrel, This idea that somehow they have some relationship that you don't and that you require, Depend upon them. You don't. When Christ said, I go to prepare a place for you, He wasn't talking about some time from now. He wasn't talking about a place in time at all. It wasn't something that was going to happen. That idea in the original language of Aramaic is, I go to prepare, I go to a place that doesn't perish. That's the actual translation of that. I go to a place that not only doesn't perish, But where those who visit it continue on. So he was alluding to a place not in time, Not made of the material of thought, Emotion, Reaction, That as a man or a woman begins to awaken and enter into this newer world, Which we have all had some experience with, And I'll show you, That individual begins to realize it was always here. You know that you have an epiphany. You go outside into nature and for a split second, You're not there wanting or not wanting. You're not looking to get some place or get away from some place. Instead, You've entered into a kingdom within yourself that was there all along, But that you were outside of, And you were only outside of it because being outside of it, That nature knows only to look outside of itself for this sense of security, This happiness. Most of us only know, Most of us live only in one such mansion, A world that we see around us and that we see through our conditioned relationship to it. This is the house of thought, The house of feelings, Structures built by reactions to the passage of certain conditions that stir us, And in that stirring, Suddenly, The big bad wolf is out there and we think we have to do something to get everything settled again, And so we go around and we buy straw, We buy sticks, And we make for ourselves a dwelling that we think in that moment in thought that this thing will work, This will keep the problem away, Or at least I'll find a builder room inside of this house that won't be contaminated or corrupted. So all the time, Building a house based on what we want or what we don't want, What we need or want to avoid, And every last one of those ideas itself traveling with the associated body of whatever that may be. Look, I'm going to ask you, How many of you know people, We're speaking of incomplete mansions, Incomplete kingdoms, How many of you know people that live only in their head? Do you know what that means, Only in their head? It means that when you talk to them, There's virtually no real life, There's just this constant kind of intellectual babbling, Telling you what they know, Easily disturbed and upset anytime a thought of yours challenges the house of thoughts they live in. That house of thought, That mansion, That little tiny dwelling in the head made of straw filled with the crackling of thought, People trapped in imagination, We know this ourselves, I want you to understand, This is kind of a rotating deal. Somebody walks up to you, They have a certain expression on their face. Now in a heartbeat, I'm caught up in these conflicting emotions, Because my mind has already interpreted what it is that they're going to do or say, And then in that negative imagination, Stirring the sense of defending myself. So here I have these unbridled thoughts and feelings, Lashing out, Pulling back, Longings that have no end of themselves, Because for that period of time, I'm in this house of conflicting emotion. And then we know people, How many of you know people, Look, We're dominated, All of us, And it's natural to one extent, Some of us are a little more intellectual, Some of us are a little more emotional, Some of us are a little more physical. These are types, And we are a combination of them. And finishing that idea, How many of you know people who live in their body? I mean, Everything is about the body, Addicted to pleasurable sensation, Running from any discomfort at all. The love of having everything wrapped around them in their little house of straw. Until of course, The phone rings, Or the pizza gets cold, Or the waiter takes too long, And all of the anticipated pleasure of the sensation goes out the door, And now that person is suffering. But they're not suffering from the world around them. That's what these natures tell us, Thought tells us all the time, That he or she is the problem, Because that mind in imagination, Comparing images, Always comes up with good reasons why the person or that situation is the problem. So you get this idea that we live in a world outside of us, And thoughts are outside of us, These emotions, These sensations, Even though they're in this body, They are outside of the true kingdom. They are aspects of the kingdom, Not the interior kingdom. But even so, I've got to move on, I trust you're following me. Even so, We wouldn't be here unless we knew something of another mansion. And I'm not talking about just a mansion, I'm talking about a kingdom in us, That for the most part, As I alluded, We have no awareness of it at all, Save for these distinct moments when, However that takes place, By a certain grace. The mind isn't engaged in what it wants, The body isn't running from some discomfort, The emotions aren't in a turmoil, Because the mind, The heart, The body, Are all at once gathered together in the name of something that allows the observer, Meaning the elements in this consciousness, To be at one, Atoned with the circumstances that are bringing up the thoughts, The feelings, And the sensations. And they are all bundled together in an order of awareness, Like Rumi spoke of, Somewhere out beyond right and wrong, There is a field, Join me there. That in that moment, There's a kingdom in us that is quite clearly distinct from all of the other houses in which we move each time the big bad wolf comes and blows it down. I want to look at something with you that I've touched on before to make a transition here. I want to look at something that I've said, There's a difference between the experience of awareness and the awareness of experience. Just listen, I'm going to help you understand it. The experience of awareness, What does that mean? The experience of awareness, Meaning the conditioned experience that we are given to be aware of in any given moment. I'm driving in my car, Someone cuts me off. There is a natural, Protective, Instinctive reaction. But in that moment, The experience that I'm given to be aware of is colored, Conditioned by my anger, My feeling like no one should be doing that to me. So that everything about the experience in that moment is a product of an unconscious nature, Bringing up the past content of itself and coloring the experience. So it isn't so much, How do I say this? That the experience in that moment of awareness is really quite different than the awareness of experience. I hope you're following me. Everything about our experience right now in any given moment is a result of our relationship to what our mind tells us has happened. I'll say it again. Everything about the way we experience stuff, You're with people, You are experiencing in that moment what your mind says you're aware of in those people. When the truth is what you are experiencing in that moment is your reactions to those people. That's what you are experiencing. But the mind asleep to itself points out and says, Well, I am aware of them and they are what is causing me this pain. So in that moment, The experience of our awareness isn't really what's outside of us. It's really an interior story where we are locked down in a house with all the various paintings and rugs on the walls, Each one conveying to us what the meaning of that moment is. As opposed to, Remember I said I want to talk about the difference between the experience of awareness and the awareness of experience. The experience of awareness. What does that mean? The experience of awareness. It means that rather than the awareness of that experience, Where everything's conditioned, The experience, The experience of awareness envelops those reactions. I'm not experiencing one thing other than myself. I'm experiencing all things as myself. I'm not experiencing you and what I blame on you for the pain I'm in. Instead, I'm aware of the fact that the pain I'm in in that moment is a relationship that is revealed in that moment revealed in that moment because this nature came into the moment with everything that it needed in order to have an enemy. It already had an enemy when it came into the moment. So my experience in that moment is already conditioned, Whereas awareness cannot be conditioned. I hope you're following me. Did I convey that suitably? The awareness allows all of the moving parts. That's the experience of awareness. Experience of the awareness is the awareness allows all of the moving parts without glomming on to any one of them. It allows all of the big bad wolves to be there huffing and puffing because that world knows because it is made out of light. It is made out of an understanding that passes all all sense of security that nothing is going to be able to blow that house down. Instead, Everything's going to blow through that house. You have your own home. It's always with you. And this is opposed to this constantly conflicted experience that we have where this this suddenly I'm aware that you're like this. I'm not my awareness in that moment isn't what you are like. My awareness in that moment is filled with resistance or attraction to whatever the condition is that stirred that consciousness into that momentary awareness. And there's an endless struggle isn't there when that big bad wolf is at the door huffing and puffing. Shore this up. Make sure that goes the way look I can't I can't do anything when I speak other than try as best I'm able to convey. Not that you suddenly throw your whole life away. But that you realize that you're living from a nature that is throwing your life away. Every time a fear a worry or an anxiety every time some big bad wolf appears at the door. Every time a plan goes south. Every time you have a bad night you're laying in bed and your mind isn't attentive to the whole of yourself. It's thinking about tomorrow and what this night means to tomorrow because now you're going to be like because tomorrow you'll be tired. You're going to be tired tomorrow because the energy available in every last one of these moments is being squandered in resistance to what that experience is telling you is happening to you. Where are we to look to use that word and that's a problem isn't it because the idea of looking connotes this idea of separation. But that's the best I know how to say it. Where is this where is But that's the best I know how to say it. Where is this where is this home? Where is this shelter? Where is this relationship with the experience of awareness as opposed to what our awareness is telling us we're experiencing. Where is this place? What is this nature? How is it accessed? One's whole spiritual search when all is said and done eventually boils down to this one place where a person realizes I'm always stressed because I'm always seeking something to protect myself from another big bad wolf. How about the big bad wolf of my health? The big bad wolf of what those people might be saying about me and some of you whether you admit it or not every time you think about somebody who has been a problem or a pain to you in the moment you think about them you create the house of straw and the big bad wolf that's out there blowing on it and you don't see that you are the house of straw and the big bad wolf all at the same time. Because in that world where there is no awareness of the whole of things this this self is always divided up into something outside threatening what's inside and this inside that's threatened by what's outside and there's no such distinction in true spiritual life. Where do we find this? And it's not by coincidence, I know it's not, When I was making some notes for this talk yesterday I came into my email something from this brilliant man I was lucky enough to know him by the name of Krishna Murthy. And he said regarding what we're talking about he speaks of it in terms of meditation which is not inaccurate he said it is not an intellectual affair. When the heart enters into the mind the mind has quite a different quality it is then really limitless not only in its capacity to think to act efficiently but also in its sense of living in a vast space where you are a part of everything. This kingdom within that already pre-exists everyone who will ever enter into it that is a way station as every kingdom is a part of what is discovered along the way in the interior journey. It is not an intellectual affair, It is not an emotional affair and it certainly isn't a sensational affair. It is a moment when the heart enters into the mind and then at that point the mind has a totally different quality because that heart and mind envelop in case as a living relationship everything that is passing into and through it including the sensations produced by the corresponding reactions which are a part of the creation itself so that that moment that quality is limitless. It's limitless because there's no one there limiting it. It's limitless because there is no one there limiting it. Every kingdom that we live in of thought, Emotion, Sensation is a limitation even as rich as that emotion might seem what we call love for others. The vastness of a mind that's exploring beautiful principles and having epiphanies each and every one of these kingdoms regardless how seemingly grand in the moment and they can present immense possibilities as long as they're separate we live apart from the other kingdoms that are intended to be married together unified the true trinity so that in that we discover not just the capacity to think without nervousness to act without hesitation but that we have entered into this vast space where who and what we are realizes that we have always and always will be a part of everything that is moving into and through this kingdom. How when our attention is safe at home in the awareness of the moment when all that is involved in the total experience this creation and revelation of the experience of the moment the creation and the revelation that produces the experience of the moment is not the experience our mind tells us when it narrows down all of that movement into something that it can deal with that it can get away from or get more of that's where we are lost that's the kingdom of imagination the kingdom the house of thought but when intellectually emotionally physically we can be completely present to the whole movement of whatever it may be that is moving into and through us and that's the key see as we are now we have this reaction to the world around us we take the reaction to be the truth of ourselves that that's who we are that the reaction then seems to tell us here's what we need to build do act on in order to get through this moment safely so the reaction becomes the builder and the only thing the reaction can build its house of straw and sticks with are the conditioned thoughts and experiences from the past that it tries to assemble as quickly as it can so that it has something to meet the moment that only exists because that consciousness is resisting its appearance because it's a big bad wolf that it thinks has come to take your life away nothing can take from you your home your real home the mansion that has been prepared for you we are the ones who wander away as did the prodigal son never suspecting that the very search for this endless happiness is the source of an endless stress and unhappiness that the whole idea that somehow this moment this big bad wolf I don't know if you can see it here here's somebody they say something to you that you don't like or you have a thought about somebody that brings up all of this past pain with them who's the big bad wolf what's it made of and if you can see it the thought as it resists the image resists the image then validates what is being resisted inside of your consciousness and you become the big bad wolf that you blame someone outside of you for huffing and puffing when you can't separate yourself from the house that this of straw that is trying to protect itself from this resistance to your own reaction we must understand how to watch thought as it tries to engage us in conversations as it asks these questions you you with due respect you you don't watch your thoughts as they start talking to you you talk to them you're talking to the nature that makes the big bad wolf because no more will you be talking to thought than the only reason you're talking to yourself is because there's something at the door knocking there's a conflict so I talk to myself how to free myself from what thought creates and imagines as a threat and then that same nature asks questions about what to do about the big bad wolf and every question it asks formulates the wolf at the door we have to learn to watch the reactions that are born out of this emotional wash and you can't separate the emotions that rise and fall those stormy feelings from everything that validates the need for you to protect yourself from what from the big bad wolf that imaginations created outside the door so now you can begin to see in that house thought and emotion are are working together in a kind of unseen conspiracy and will always have the captivity the power to capture us as long as we believe some or other that I'm my thoughts I'm these emotions I'm these reactions we must understand what it means gradually to have had so much experience I really want to stress this see you don't you don't have experience with fear you have experience with the thing that fear tells you you need to worry about you don't know about fear because fear divides itself up that consciousness that produces the threat divides itself up into what is threatened and what is threatening it so that I don't I've never been with fear itself long enough to see its nature can't be separated from this consciousness that for having created a house a place a happiness for in the very creation of that and the attachment and the dependency on it has created that which is pounding on the door anytime the conditions change Kate coming to a close here let's bring up that special key lesson and I'll make a comment and then we'll go on for just a moment or two please read along with me as Kate posts this key lesson there is no doubt some consolation in attaining an intellectual understanding of our relative place in the universe but it is not the same as realizing ourselves as not just the instrument of the divine eternal forces but as the moment to moment incarnation of their holy reconciliation this is a summary of everything I just talked to you about there's no doubt some consolation you get an epiphany an idea you grasp something there's no doubt consolation in attaining some intellectual understanding of our relative place in the universe but it is not the same as realizing ourselves as not just the instrument of divine eternal forces but as the moment to moment reincarnation of their holy reconciliation see it is in this awareness that everything enters into it is in the light that everything enters into it and is acted upon it by that light and that if you will is transformed in that relationship so that the true house as best we can understand these this idea of level and scale of mansions that ascend with their associated sense of of consolation it is in realizing that that we begin to enter into a world where it was already with us you don't know it but there's god did not make the spirit of fear you already have within you a mansion in which no big bad wolf can come and frighten you about yourself about what you own what you have none of that business and i'm not saying to become some kind of site um spiritual vegetable that's trying not to react trying not to react is born out of the pain of not wanting reactions that's a reaction trying to squash thought is born out of the fear of believing that if you don't squash it something bad's going to happen to you and when you squash thought you're squashing your own relationship the circulation of possibilities of seeing things all of this needs to be brought in and understood and then as it is as you allow listen not to find one out of three one thought one emotion one sensation not one out of three but the three in one the three in one the thought the feeling the sensation all of that engaged and entering into this kingdom that allows all of that to take place he maketh the sun to shine on good and evil alike to allow all of that to be present to be transformed to pass out as another passes in and then you are the ground of that reconciliation of these divine forces of their interactions this is exactly what t. S elliott who i love was saying when he said we shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time he was speaking of this first kingdom this first mansion we shall not cease from exploration and at the end of all this exploring we're going to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time that's what awakening is it's not getting someplace it's entering into a new order of being that already lives that we already live within and then learning to to stay in quotes in that house of brick not denying anything completely permeable to all things and completely awake to and oh and having power over the big bad wolf that exists only as a figment of one's imagination when they have become identified and attached to whatever former house of straw or sticks they built i trust we communicated catch the big bad wolf don't resist the thoughts the feelings the sensations create inwardly it's not even create allow for their interior existence with you as the ceaseless observer of their interaction not you interacting with them as something separate from them trying from them trying to prove or protect yourself as being under threat or in some dangerous psychological place 45 minutes i gotta go do your work do your work do your work i hope i see you tomorrow i'm going to talk about this in more depth find me on the online go to my profile tomorrow i talk about this topic of suffering in a way that i doubt many of us have ever heard

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