GF Live 11/19/22 Life Can’t Be Any Newer Than We Are

The solution to escaping our dissatisfaction with life is unimaginable because there’s only one way beyond it: we must stop imagining that if we just keep reliving the same old hopes and dreams – walking the same old lines through time – then somehow, by some miracle, we’ll step into a new life.

Transcript

Let's just do something that we're gonna really focus on today, Which is let's bring ourselves, And hopefully by the time we're done with our meeting, We'll have understood this better. Bring ourselves back right now, Wherever you are. Hopefully you're not trying to do two or three things at the same time. Be in our bodies, Attentive, Awake, And not just using our mind to think, Well, I'm in my body, I'm awake. That is useless. I want to look at something that I tried to set the tone for it in the key lesson that I wrote for this material. So I'm going to read it to you and then I'll dive into the ideas that support it. And then hopefully you will be working alongside my line of thought and using your own experience to validate, To see the parallels. Because unless you do the actual, I guess you could call it lab work, Unless you actually confirm what it is that we're talking about, There's no point to our getting together. We're not interested in having more thoughts. We're interested in understanding something of the nature of this dissatisfaction that all human beings feel. Let me read the key lesson. The topic is life can't be any newer than we are willing to be. The solution to our dissatisfaction with life is unimaginable because there's only one way beyond it. We must stop imagining that if we just keep reliving the same old hopes and dreams, Walking the same old lines through time, Then somehow by some miracle, We'll step into a new life. Just to punctuate that, What do you think is this dissatisfaction that we all feel? Maybe some of us only once in a while, But it's certainly like a bad penny returns and God willing, And I know that sounds funny, That our dissatisfaction with our life as it has been given to us, Meaning as we give it to ourselves, Should begin to prove itself incomplete. And even that in a way, I call it divine dissatisfaction. What a mystery that is. How can I be dissatisfied with my life? Now, At one level, And this is a kind of a series of gauntlets that one goes through, We think, Well, It's easy to be dissatisfied with our life because I don't have what I want in order to be free, In order to be new, In order to have what it is I imagine I need to be a whole, Complete human being. But God willing, You've begun at least to see past some of that childishness and realized that I have given myself just about everything, Really, At least within my grasp, My capability. If I see something and I can have it, By God, I'm going to go give it to myself. In one way or another, I may not be able to afford that brand new Porsche, But I can get an EV Ford or something and pretend I'm in a. . . I mean, We give ourselves pretty much everything, But the one thing we can't give ourselves. And then again, By the grace of God, We can see that something's missing. We can't give ourselves a new life. When you look out, And as I often use nature as a kind of a canvas to study our reflection of our own consciousness as above, So below, Within, So without, You look out at nature as kind of. . . I'm looking at the trees now, Most of them are bare. A lot of the fall colors are still here. Spectacular fall. Can the tree make itself new? There it is, Leaves have fallen off, It's gone to sleep. Can it make itself new? Or is the process of fall and the onset of winter, The shedding of all its leaves and the bareness of its existence for that period of time? Or is that season of the tree part of the life of the tree itself that is, Even though it seems like it's dead, Actually a phase of it being renewed? The bee that goes and shelters in the hive in the cold months, The deer, The rut that's going on now on the property here with the deer, Can any creature make itself new? And I have to leave it rhetorical. When I have classes, Which you're always invited to, By the way, Online, We do involve and we have dialogue. No creature can make itself new. It's redundant. Every creature is all the time being renewed. So it is a process of ceaseless renewal by its very existence and in its relationship with those energies, Celestial, Planetary, Divine, That ceaselessly deliver that creature into that relationship and renew it. And that's exactly the same truth for us. We can't make ourselves new. In fact, And one day, I pray that you'll see this if you aren't already suspecting it, We wear ourselves out trying to make ourselves new. We make ourselves old, Looking for the fountain of youth. So much stress and struggle trying to hold in place and relive the sensations we did yesterday or a thousand yesterdays ago, That in the absence of those sensations that we generated through some form of will, Going out and trying to create for ourselves something that would match the expectation of what we think new is, We go through that process over and over again and wonder why it is that for all of that effort that we put into renewing ourselves, No matter what we do to do it, We have to do it again and again and again. And it gets so damn old to where a person then starts to become a cynic because we realize that for all of our efforts, We cannot make ourselves new. And yet, Almost as a kind of anguish sitting in the back of our consciousness are those moments where we experience something that was totally new. I've told this story that I'm about to tell you in a number of different ways. I'm transitioning now so we can start building an understanding. One of the earliest conscious shocks that I've ever had, I couldn't have been six or seven years old, Was my parents used to take me to Disneyland quite often. And I wasn't tall enough to get into this particular ride. It's called Auto Utopia or something like that. I don't know if they still have this. And I'll try to be brief in case you know, I've recanted this. And then finally, I was so excited. I stood up as high as I could, Touch the bottom sign. I walked out there and you know, A kid looking at what an adult looks at doesn't see what kid looks at. I'm free. I'm going to have a car just like dad or mom and I'm going to drive and I'm going to go on this adventure. You can you just you like spring into the car. And that's fantastic. And this is where I'm getting the shock until one day, I don't know when it is third, Fourth, Fifth time, Maybe a year has gone by. And instead of being fascinated with the sense, The sensation of freedom, Of finally having your own car, You start to take in a little more of what's around you and you get in the car. And then you start to realize, You know, You can steer and steer and steer and it doesn't really matter what direction you steer in. The car is going where it's going because it's on a track. And I remember the immense disappointment of realizing that I wasn't actually steering the car. Maybe that sounds silly to you. For me, It was a shock. Because I had imagined a certain freedom of being the one behind the wheel, Making the choices to go left or right, Because even a child knows that looks like that the path is swaying left, Swaying right, Whatever it is. And you you just go ahead and you're driving along. And then one day, And I remember doing this, I got in the car and I just spun the wheel. And it went around and around and around, But nothing happened. It still followed the track. And then my mind was set on the next level of that auditopia where I could clearly see there was no track. And I was very excited because I did have control of the car on that track. It was always single file, But I still had control. And then gradually, As the child begins to take in and understand his relationship, Her relationship with their environment, Then you begin to realize, Yeah, I could still steer the car, But I could only steer the car along a certain set of lines that were inherent in the walls of the track I was on. So I still had to go where the track took me. And I don't know whether or not I've set the stage well enough yet, But I'm going to just insert this here before I start giving you some examples to look at to help us see how this relates to our day-to-day existence. Dear God, We're not meant to live on a track. Our life isn't meant to be determined by a set of boundaries that determine how far we can move this way or that way, Let alone where that track would take us. There is no known destination for a human being, At least that that human being with his mind as it presently is constituted can determine by steering the wheel of thoughts and feelings so as to arrive at what they got into that life, That moment, Doing that car moment that I'm going to get to this destination where when I get there, I'll have succeeded. I'll have left behind this and I'll have arrived at that. Failing to see that I can't even begin to think what it is that I want to arrive at without having set a track, Without having set a trap for myself, Without even knowing I'd done it. Because even wanting just to get to the end of a difficult moment in your life sets you on a track, Sets you on a course that's been determined by a level of consciousness that wouldn't even imagine trying to get to the end of that unwanted moment if first it hadn't been complicit in creating that unwanted moment by imagining some other place and time where it could arrive and finally be free of whatever it was that it felt was holding it back and holding it down. We just don't see the tracks. Just to break up some of the seriousness for a moment, My mind started singing Smokey Robbins' The Tracks of My Tears. How about the track of fear? Do you think to yourself that you're on a track when you look at the day ahead and the next thing you know your thoughts and feelings are firing off like this, Putting up red flags, Bridge out ahead, You won't get there from here, Now you have to get onto another track altogether, Find another guru, Another god, Find another way to ingratiate yourself to other people. All of those are the tracks of thoughts and all of those thoughts belong to the past. So what we are really running along all the time on what we believe is a life that we're choosing so that we can have a feeling of being a new human being, What we're actually experiencing without even knowing it because it's in the background. We're asleep to our own mind as it goes before us laying track and the track that it lays before us that never delivers us to what is promised as that track is being laid. What we never discover is that you can't have a track in front of you that didn't begin behind you, Meaning in the past. Let me know if you're still out there, Will you? Anybody still listening? Okay, Claudia, Yeah, I can always count on you. Good. I'm glad we have this time and I'm the first to tell you how factually in one respect difficult it is to delve into, To bring light into a world that presently has no light in it at all. How many times would you get up in the morning? And speaking of which, Did you ever, Do you know that every, That when you go to sleep at night and you wake up in the morning, When you open your eyes, You, For all intents and purposes, That's a form of rebirth at the simplest level. I was asleep, Unconscious, Had no awareness of myself, Off dreaming somewhere if I was dreaming or just in some no self at all and then all of a sudden my eyes open and overnight by the grace of what is celestial and divine in origin, We're given a process, We're given a renewal of this energy in our body, Everything heals, Restores, Is reconciled as best the body can do it without you and I messing with its own capacity to recreate and bring about new health. I wake up and what happens the moment I wake up? I'm, I, It's a, It's new. See, We don't, We don't see it. Haven't you noticed yet? I keep waking up into a day. The day is new. I'm given a new day. But what do I do when I open my eyes and it's a new day and everything's being reborn? What do I do? The first thing that happens is this consciousness begins to look at a track that it finds itself. Have you ever awakened and found yourself without having any choice on a track? Your mind, As you wake up and pass through these levels of sleep, Your mind begins to formulate already while your eyes are closed, What you have to do. You wake up and you don't want to do it. I don't want to get out of bed. How could I not want to get out of bed? I'll tell you how I don't want to get out of bed. It didn't work yesterday when I got out of bed. I'm still tired or I wasted my life. I squandered my energy in such a state that I've got nothing to meet the new day with. And when I really am there, I see that something is talking to me. It's actually laying a track that says, This goes nowhere. Don't bother. I mean, I can't go on with this. Let me get to the next stage of this talk. I've already gone through half the time and 2% of the material. Imagine for a split second. This is an exaggeration, But imagine a couple comes home. They've been on a three-month long vacation. And when they walk in the living room, They look there and they're stunned because there's like a rut in the carpet and it runs in parallel lines. It runs to a wall, Then it runs parallel to the wall, Then it comes off of another wall and it's a square. And they look and they go, My God, How could there be a square rut in the carpet? What in the world is that about? And then even as they're staring at this mysterious rut, The Roomba carpet sweeper on the other side of the living room disengages itself from its charging platform and methodically begins its journey. And what do you think its journey is? It runs right along that rut, Bounces into the wall, Backs off the wall, Makes the right turn, Following the rut, Makes another right turn when it hits the wall. It does that about six times and returns to its charging station. And as they're watching in disbelief, The man says, Oh my God, Sweetheart, I can't believe it. I didn't turn on the programming that we used to run when we're away. And so the thing just ran on its automatic avoidance cycle. It ran it through so many times every day that it made a rut in our carpet. Now, I know that sounds silly and extreme, But please, If you've been following what I'm saying, What about us? What drives us along until we're feeling like we're in a rut? How can I make the same? How can I meet any moment that is new in and of itself by the grace of God? All of that celestial, Divine, Cosmic, Timeless energy and vitalizing principles, Producing forms, All of that coming in. And I, You, As one of its intended, More dedicated in terms of purpose creatures to be this vehicle for this, I don't get any of that. What I get is what I see. And what I see is what my mind is telling me I have to do today in order to keep in place everything that I've done in order to try to make my life new. And now I have to schlep around and do all of this stuff, All of these thoughts and feelings carry the burden of my life, My past, In order to at least ensure I'm protected from anything that might mess with what I'm dissatisfied with. This isn't negative. It's so vital to understand the feeling of being trapped in life. No, It's not a little negative. This is the most positive thing you'll ever hear. In fact, If anything in you takes this as being negative, I would be highly suspicious. Because what it's saying is that somehow or other, I'm entitled to be disappointed. I'm entitled to be angry. I'm entitled to be afraid. I'm entitled to resist these moments that suddenly bring a split second where the track that I'm on isn't going to work. And I'm entitled to create for myself out of my past, Another new track. Yes, You are, You can do that all day long. But to refuse to see it is another story. What are these well-worn paths, These ruts that we run on? Just as an example, Jack, For yourself. Isn't my immediate resistance to anything that challenges what I believe is true, Isn't that a rut? Isn't the sensation that comes with rejecting some new moment, Some new idea, Isn't the negativity that appears in that moment part of a rut? The answer is absolutely. What about worrying about tomorrow? You see, For us, That's natural. I tell you that worrying about tomorrow is a rut. If a person understands anything at all from their own experience, How absolutely useless worry is, Or anxiety, And they've been a student in one respect or another of any true spiritual teaching. Take no thought for the morrow. What man taking thought can add one cubit to his stature. Seek you first the kingdom, All else is added. Every last one of these ideas tries to indicate to us that when we make a plan in order to produce what we believe will be a new life for ourselves, We can't draw that new plan from anything other than the content of our past reconfigured. Yes, Fear is a rut. Of course, It's a rut. How do I know it's a rut? Because I'm afraid of a moment. I'm not going to measure up. I'm not going to get through it. This isn't going to work. And when I feel that fear, What does my mind do? It starts laying track. And where does it get the track that it lays for me to walk to the time when I'm finally going to become fearless and free? Where does it get the track from? Oh, It gets it from my past. It gets it from the images. It gets it from the condition, The product of humanity over time. Just reinventing and reconfiguring everything that imagines will free itself from the condition it creates for itself. Whenever it doesn't understand that to step onto the track of thought outside of practical thought, To step onto the track of thought is immediately to be bound. It is that line that runs down that that kiddie ride. It is the walls that won't let you go left or right, Where every time we relive what is suggested to us in order to free us from a fear, In that same moment we are giving life to that fear by resisting the condition it says is a threat and hoping that through resistance we will finally reach freedom. Just think with me for a moment. Believing that somehow or other, My resistance to any given moment can help me realize freedom from the moment I don't want, When I wouldn't have the resistance to the moment that has appeared, Unless it threatened who and what I think I am and whatever freedom I think I've attained. Freedom isn't an attainment. It's the end of this nature, This consciousness that believes it can attain something to liberate itself. That's what freedom is. It is the negation of an unconscious process that ceaselessly lays tracks in thoughts and feelings and the plans that accompany the development of images of something I'll become or have one day, And we never see it. How about a regret? How can I come to a regret in life? Now I'm not saying there aren't things to regret. Do not misunderstand me. I'm just saying that here I run into some regret, And instead of recognizing in that moment that if I will accept the fact, The reason I've run into that regret is because I had been captured by some relationship with thought or feeling, Something I imagined was going to complete me. And then when it came to the end, Instead of realizing that freedom can't come to an end, Love can't come to an end, Instead I'm thrown back into regret, And then I analyze what happened, And in the analysis I lay another track, Such as I'll never do that again. I'll never be involved in another relationship as long as I live because human beings are dirt bags, Which by the way, Most of us are because we're filled with the dirt of the past. But what has that got to do with walking through life afraid of any relationship that brings itself to you, No matter what it is? How about the track of the word no? Isn't that a track? Somebody asked you, Will you, Would you, Would you be interested? And if it doesn't fall within the purview of the particular track that we're on in that moment, Or at least part of that greater track leading to whatever it is that we think will be some personal triumph, If it's not that, Then the answer is no. And the minute that I say no to a moment like that, I can't have said no, I can't have been negative, I can't resist that moment without being on a track that looks ahead down its own line of expectation or imagination, And then find something that it doesn't want. Yes, That's what, That's what surrender is in one respect about Sarah, But it can't be surrender within, It can't be surrender for the purpose of freeing yourself. Because if I surrender for the purpose of freeing myself from some suffering, Then I have imagined the end of that suffering through that surrendering. Real surrendering takes place when a person recognizes that of himself or herself, All they can do is lay tracks. And when you see quite clearly this level of consciousness, Such as it is, And you recognize that's its complete limitation, In that moment, You begin to die to that consciousness, You begin to surrender yourself clearly now, With no future in mind. Sorry about that. I don't know what to do about this blind, It just the light comes through and I I look like, Like, Mike Tyson or Tony the Tiger or something like that. I've got stripes, Deal with it. What is what causes this? These tracks when old tracks show up? Should we retract? No, That's the point. We don't want to retract. What we need to do is, Is live is to be alive. I'll give you an example. Is there any moment in our life where whatever it is that we have, I shouldn't say we were whatever, It's bothering me that light, Try turning this a little bit. No, That's all we can do. Anyway, When Tony when everybody when when do I when when is it imperative that I that I make a choice? For instance, When I when I find myself feeling unhappy, Disappointed, Expectations dashed in those moments when that happens, Can I get to that point where suddenly it feels like everything is just repeated itself again, Unless I got to that point in time by following a track, A track that was laid down by a choice that was made a track that was laid down by a choice that was made in a moment prior, So that then I began to live out this choice and try to complete everything that I'd imagined in order to become in order to become free or new. And I'm making points here to try to understand that when is it that suddenly and use your life, When do you suddenly feel like I've got to make a choice? When do those moments happen? Let alone how compulsive vital have you ever felt? I've got to make a choice. And by the way, The feeling that I've got to make a choice here because my life depends on it. I'm not talking about get out of the freeway. That's a dead giveaway. The reason that I have to make a choice because the track I'm on isn't going to get me where it wants. It's threatened. The track's threatened. I need a new choice. I need another track, Another thought, Another plan. And this consciousness that first of all created the condition that's threatened by the moment, Then simply just reconfigures itself and comes up with some variation on the theme. But just like the Roomba robot that created the rut and the carpet, Everything that that consciousness determines and decides will be the new path is part of the old path, Because that's all it can do. So it's a dead giveaway in that moment. So here's the point. In those moments, Have you ever noticed that the pressure of making a choice like that never appears without you running into a crisis of some kind? This is a critical passage in our time together. When is it most important that I come up with a new choice because my old choice is threatened? My identity has been challenged by something. My plan has gone awry. I've got to come up with another one. Otherwise, I'll never find a paradise. You fill in the blank. That always happens. That critical thing takes place when I run into a crisis. It's at the split second when I run into that moment that the choice says, You've got to make it. And what happens when I run into that wall, That split second where suddenly everything's gone bad, I'm stopped in my tracks. Am I not? Please, Your experience, Not mine. Suddenly, You're not what you're doing. You're not supposed to do that. You're not supposed to be like, This isn't supposed to happen that way. My God, What's wrong with it? Look at this. This is crazy. And in that moment, I run right into a wall, Don't I? And what's the wall that I run into in that moment other than something that had been an expectation, Something downstream from some image or idea that I'd imagined was going to bring about a change in my life and my circumstances and the world. And suddenly, It's dead. It's gone. Boom, I run into a wall. And when I run into that wall, What am I really running into? Please see this with me. I'm running into the onset of a sudden resistance in my own consciousness to the revelation that has come to it, That that road, That track, That belief, That image, It's not going any further. That's it. And when I run into the end of what I've imagined, Which can't be separated from the identity that's been derived from it, My identity is threatened. And when my identity is threatened, This consciousness that produces it through imagination has to come up with another identity, Another track, Another plan, Another time in the future when I can avoid this wall by making a right turn or a left turn here, And then I'll be on my way to another time and place where I won't run into these walls. And if you haven't noticed it yet, Our life is nothing but running into one wall of resistance after another wall of resistance, Followed by a form of insistence that drives this thing around and around and around. That's called reincarnation. That's called obligatory recurrence, Called hell, Purgatory, Actually, But not in a negative sense. So if we're understanding, And I have to keep going here, It's always in the appearance of that resistance that suddenly I need to make a new choice to do what. And I'm going to go into this topic so deeply over the next few weeks leading up to our holiday banquet and find out about that. What is this resistance, I feel? What's the. . . Here I am suddenly, Oh no, Oh no, No, No, I don't want to do that. I can't. I'm inadequate. What is the nature of that resistance in that moment other than what? The appearance of a pain that I thought I had put behind me when I got onto the last track, Because instead of identifying with what I didn't want, My mind came up with what I did, Who I should be, Where I needed to go. And in that moment, The pain that I thought I had escaped is just brushed back into the darkness. And I'm carried along by the sensation of the promise of being renewed, Only to find at that point in time, As it must with all conditions that are complicit in creating that sense of newness, When they collapse, There I am. And I'm left again with that sudden resistance. I'm left again with that pain. And that pain tells me danger ahead. The road is out, The bridge is gone. You cannot go any further down this line. That's the wall. But the wall is as imagined as is the identification with the pain that pops up in that moment. Renewal is on the other side of that resistance. Why? Because in order to go through that pain consciously, In order to recognize that resistance belongs to an old consciousness, Something that's reinventing itself, Not renewing itself. In that moment, If I'll step past that, Where do I step? What do I step into? When I step out of the known? What do I step into? When I step out of the known, And that's what the track is. That's what the resistance is. The pain is that what keeps the track being laid again and again. When I step out of the known, What do I step into? The unknown, The real life. I step into a relationship with the present moment, Where instead of being an unconscious participant in laying down the tracks that are the secret formation of a prison I don't know I've made until I come to the end of them and have to make another turn, Always going in a circle, Always going in a circle. I step outside of the circle of thought. I step outside the circle of self into what that self can't know. Freedom can't be known. I know when I say that. I know what happens. You're wrong, Sir. Freedom can be known. I look at what I've got. Look at what I've done. Look at who I am. Look at what people think of me. I'm free. You're not free. You're a captive of every condition complicit in bringing about that sensation of freedom until those conditions change. In the split second than they do, You're right back having to lay track. Justification is a track. Explanation, Rationalization, All of that. Now I've got one minute left. I'll go into this, I hope, More deeply tomorrow. Join me tomorrow if you can. You can find out about it online. In that split second, You've heard the expression, He or she who hesitates is lost. Now the world says that so you can leap onto the track, But that's not what it really means. The reason that he or she who hesitates is lost is because in that split second, When everything comes together, And it seems that it's a terrible moment, Everything comes together to show you that you've come to the end of that line. In that moment, And in that moment only, Is the opportunity of stepping off of it. Stepping out of time into a timeless relationship with what is present in your life. Just as an example, Because I need to do this, We step out of the stream of these mechanical, The rut of these mechanical thoughts and feelings. How do we do it? You bring your attention, You bring all of those thoughts and feelings into your awareness of them. Instead of you serving them, You begin to see them. One really important point here, As I close the talk, Is that if you will, How do I say that? Bring your attention back into your body. You see, Your body is renewing itself and being renewed all the time. Even though we're not in our body, Consciously speaking, Our body is still being renewed. It is still receiving all of the impressions, All of the influences. It is never not experiencing that renewal. So to begin with, If we just bring our attention back into our body, Keeping in mind, We would like to be aware of the whole of ourselves, At least I'm now grounded in something that is present enough to recognize everything that's coming into and through it that isn't like it. There's the unknown, And there's where freedom starts. And that's where renewal is. Rebirth isn't something that happens once. Life itself is rebirth. You and I are intended to discover the freedom that comes with ceaseless rebirth, A rebirth that we don't create, But that we realize through participating in the creation that we are, And in the creation that gave us this life that allows us to participate in what is forever being made new. I went a little bit too long. I got to go, Be safe, Step off the track, Step out of the circle, Do it. Be willing to just for a split second, Be there having no idea what's going to happen instead of being consoled by your mind telling you over and over again, Here's what happened. Here's what has to happen. It's a dead end. You'll come alive when you see that. Bye.