GF Live 2-04-22 Rise Above Painful Self-Limitation

Resisting the revelation of any existing limitation is like resenting the ocean because you never learned how to swim! The core of your being -- heart, mind, and body -- holds within it a consciousness capable of realizing a world without limitations.

Transcript

What we're looking at may or may not present some new ideas to you,

Meaning I'm not going to cover anything terribly new.

I'm going to recover and re-examine some ideas that are indispensable for a man or a woman who wants to,

We can say it in different ways,

Simply put,

Be free.

But in the truest sense of the word,

Freedom,

To have a relationship with the divine,

With the creation that they are a part of and that gives them their particular life.

That conscious relationship,

That's what we're interested in.

And in order to realize that,

We have to realize everything that interferes with it.

So that's what we're going to look at together.

So here's a quick idea that is a broad principle.

You've heard it before,

I trust you have.

We know that in the Hermetic teachings,

The idea is above,

So below,

As within,

So without.

But what that means essentially is that the inner determines the outer.

It is what I am inwardly,

The consciousness in which the moment is being reflected,

That determines the way I experience it.

Just to set the stage,

Here's a lifeguard.

We'll make him the senior lifeguard on a stretch of beach.

We'll put him in his late 60s,

Getting ready to retire,

And he oversees the people,

Their safety.

And in a way,

The lifeguard represents,

As in many of my talks,

A certain kind of wisdom,

A certain kind of experience.

It's a beautiful day at the beach.

The waves are just barely lapping in.

Sun is out,

And kids are running in and out.

And the lifeguard notices,

Third day in a row,

That a young teenager,

We'll say she's 15,

16 years old,

Obviously able to drive,

She's there by herself,

But she walks up to the shoreline,

Retreats,

Walks up,

Retreats,

And he sees her do this a whole bunch of times,

And he's watched her do this for the last three days.

And so he comes down,

And he says to her,

I've seen you down here,

Haven't I?

Yes,

I come often.

Well,

He says,

I'm just curious,

You know,

I'm here as the protection.

Why don't you just,

You know,

Jump in?

You walk up,

You walk back,

You don't go in the water.

And she looks at him a little bit embarrassed,

Kind of,

You know,

A concentrant,

Says to him,

You know,

I look out,

It's so powerful.

I mean,

It's so big.

I guess,

I guess I'm just afraid.

And he looks at her,

And he's not pressing her.

He says,

Well,

Have you ever gone in?

I mean,

Just even up to your knees,

Have you gone in that far?

No.

She said,

So you're drawn to it,

But you've never even walked in just to your knees?

No.

He said,

Well,

Then how do you know it's something to be afraid of?

Now,

Let me make an immediate parallel here.

We all say that we want to grow.

We're here together,

Not just on Insight Timer,

Those of you that listen to my talks,

Which,

By the way,

I,

Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings for free.

We say we want to grow,

But when that moment comes,

You know the expression,

When the student is ready,

The teacher appears.

Well,

When the teacher appears,

Unless the teacher brings us an apple,

We don't want anything to do with the lesson the teacher's brought to us.

We want the lessons that we want,

But summarily resist anything that even approaches the sudden sense that this thing is over my head.

It's too vast.

It's too big.

I'm afraid.

What I want to look at with you today is an understanding that if we can begin to at least acquire a taste for it,

A feel for it,

Will let us recognize we're always standing in front of an ocean.

Honest to God,

That's the truth.

I mean,

It doesn't look like it.

I'm looking out at a really foggy day here in southern Oregon,

And when it's foggy like this,

Because it's dark,

All the color disappears from the trees.

I look out at the Madrones.

Everything is in browns,

Blacks,

Shades of gray.

It's extraordinary.

But you see,

That's an ocean.

Every moment is an ocean that breaks inside of our consciousness,

And we are forever standing on the shore of a new possibility that lives within us,

But that we won't walk in because we've had too many moments in our past.

We're conditioned to believe that when we meet something in ourselves,

We run into some situation that suddenly brings up a reaction of some kind of suffering.

But now we don't want it.

I'm not going to walk into that.

I am drawn to it,

And it's drawn to me.

There's no question about it,

But I'm not going to walk into that.

And everything about your development depends upon you understanding that there is no such thing as a moment that will ever break in your consciousness,

No wave that will ever move through you that you need to be afraid of.

Not one thing that you see,

Not one creature that swims in the depths of those waters of this sleeping mind is something that you have to resist.

But we are taught and conditioned and have come to believe that there are things greater than our ability to deal with.

So that's what I want to look at with you,

The idea of learning what it means that when the teacher appears,

That the teacher has come to bring you into a moment that if you will enter into it with the proper understanding of your actual relationship to that moment,

Everything about your life will change on the spot,

And it will continue to change.

So let's look at this.

What happens in these moments when we run into a challenge that seems to suddenly be in our way?

A wave is out there,

And we're thinking about something,

And here comes this wave.

What happens?

Doesn't it seem to us that we're meeting something whose force is greater than ourselves,

Or in some instances,

Some immovable,

Intransient object?

I've been here before.

I know what this is like.

I'm not going to go through this again,

In quotes.

So that the first time we met a moment that we didn't want because we were immature intellectually,

Mentally,

Spiritually,

The experience was one of fear,

And then the fear confirms the consciousness that doesn't want to change,

And then we walk through life like that instead of recognizing.

In those moments,

Every single moment,

We're meeting nothing more than our present understanding of that event.

Every moment,

We're meeting nothing but our present understanding of that event.

So here's the first of the healing insights that I promised,

And Kate's going to put them up here on the screen.

They'll be repeated,

And I think when you go back,

You'll be able to find them.

Here's the first healing insight.

Wherever we are,

Whatever we see and experience can be no better,

Meaning no brighter or darker,

Than the level of consciousness in which it is reflected.

Wherever we are,

Whatever we see,

There is no experience better,

Darker,

Or brighter than the level of consciousness in which it is reflected.

Now you can copy that if you want.

Again,

I think those will be back up.

And I'm going to make an article out of this talk,

I've decided,

Because it's condensed in important material.

Now what does that mean?

Wherever we are,

Whatever we see and experience can be no better,

No darker,

Brighter than our level of consciousness in which it's reflected.

It means that we are always meeting our own level of understanding in that moment.

We don't meet anything other than what?

Please,

Is it the condition that I meet and experience,

Or is it my reaction to the condition that I experience?

And my reaction tells me I can't go into those waters.

My reaction tells me this is dangerous,

And I don't know anything about the consciousness that creates this summary resistance.

I just believe,

Because I've always loaned myself to that,

That this fear that I feel proves there's something to be feared.

Now I'm not talking about physically,

Obviously,

You don't walk into a lion's den.

But when that moment comes and suddenly there's someone snarling or snapping at you,

Meaning some family member or somebody that you work with is toxic,

Our attitude towards that is,

I'm not going into that,

I don't want anything to do with that relationship.

Believing somehow or other that listening to a consciousness that is intended to transcend the very limitations it meets,

Believing that protecting myself from that is somehow or other going to bring me into a time where I won't be afraid anymore,

I'll just avoid this.

No,

The depth and breadth of any event is always a reflection of the consciousness that perceives it.

In other words,

Our life can't be any deeper,

It can't be any wiser,

And for that matter any more shallow or selfish,

Than what we bring into that moment of our own understanding.

I can prove this to you if you'll just let me do so.

What happens in those moments in the past,

And you wouldn't be here if you hadn't outgrown some of that,

Those first moments when the teacher appears and we don't want anything to do with it,

But by the grace of God the lessons come back and back.

And when we finally understand something about the situation that allows us to transcend the fear that was inherent in it,

Was it the situation that changed?

Or was it by some form of grace?

Maybe by a willingness on our part to enter into just walking up to our knees in those troubled waters,

Meaning the sense of limitation?

Or was something that finally changed in our own consciousness?

So that because we had a new understanding,

Whatever that may have been,

Then through that new understanding,

We look at our life and we see the event completely different.

The event's not different,

But the order of consciousness that has met it is different,

Because we have understood that in order for this consciousness to change,

We have to walk into the limitation,

We have to walk into the thing that we fear,

We have to walk into that relationship that we don't want,

Meaning agreeing to go through something that we don't want to go through,

Not so that we can overcome it,

But so that we might come into some new understanding about it.

In other words,

Whenever our present nature meets some kind of limitation,

A barrier of any kind,

The only thing that it has run into is itself,

Period.

Which brings us to the second healing insight.

The self that resists meeting any limitation is the limitation it sees.

That's why we can't see past that point.

It is the end that this consciousness sees.

They're one thing.

The self that resists meeting any limitation is the limitation it sees.

That's why it can't see past that point.

Try and get this with me.

I look out and I see something,

I can't get past that.

It's not David and Goliath,

But somebody else looks out,

Here's Goliath,

Here's this wave,

Here's this movement,

Here's this ocean,

And it seems to be running up against me.

And I look out,

And I can't go into that.

This anger that lives inside of me,

This violence that appears at the drop of a hat,

This resentment that has been breeding inside of me all these years towards someone,

An enemy that I've carried,

God help me,

Through these years,

They're not even alive anymore.

And every time that moment appears and I look at that person in my mind,

Or I look at that problem right in front of me,

Something tells me,

No,

I can't go into that.

And what you're looking at is not what your mind is saying is there.

You're looking at your own mind telling you that what you are looking at cannot be entered into for fear of something happening to you,

And there can be nothing worse happening to you or to me than to let a fear born of a conditioned mind tell us who we are,

What we can do,

And the extent of our freedom.

Yes,

Rebecca,

The second insight was posted.

Now,

The converse of that is the true,

True spiritual development is one and the same as the realization that nothing ends in this life without the birth of something else taking place in that moment.

You look around,

Nature confirms this.

Nothing begins that something doesn't die.

Nothing dies that something doesn't begin.

And our life,

Our consciousness itself,

Is inseparable from those laws that govern that creation and the creator that produces that relationship that's right in front of our eyes.

So we're being invited by a certain understanding,

If we get it,

That any moment we run into that tells us,

You know,

This,

You can't go into this.

You'll die.

And it does say it might as well.

Something,

This is terrible,

Man,

You can't do that.

So in that moment,

We are presented with a possibility of playing a certain kind of role in this consciousness where at first it seems we've run into something greater than our ability to deal with it.

But the truth is,

In that moment,

Life has not brought us something greater than our ability to deal with.

Life has brought to us a special kind of question.

It's asking,

Guy,

Whatever your name is,

Irini,

Rebecca,

Claudia,

Thomas,

Bill,

Are you willing to change who you've been in order to realize another possibility of yourself?

And of course,

You and I both know,

We say,

Well,

Yeah,

That's why I'm here.

And yet in the moment when suddenly that the ocean appears in front of us,

Something that seems beyond the depth of our understanding,

A wave of emotion,

Crashing of thoughts,

Something that we can't quite make it out there underneath the waters there,

But we said there's something dangerous in those waters.

Don't go in.

In those moments,

We must do what no one else wants to do,

And that is to walk into that moment,

Walk into that limitation with an awareness that we take with us,

That we recognize if we don't go into this,

If we don't bring our awareness into this consciousness,

Then this consciousness will remain unaware of the content of itself.

That's what sleep is.

That's what spiritual sleep is.

That's what death is.

It's a consciousness so conditioned that it continually keeps everything at bay,

That it doesn't know about itself and that it doesn't want to know about itself because this sense of self perpetuates itself through its fears.

Just think about it with me.

I'm not asking you to say,

Oh,

Yeah,

I get it.

This consciousness perpetuates itself by standing on the shore and looking at the waters and fearing to go in because the more I can stand on the waters,

By the waters,

And not go in,

Let alone walk on them,

As my mind has said,

As we're intended to do,

Everything about my life is dedicated to figuring out how to make my life okay living with fear.

There's no such thing as fear and freedom being together,

And yet there is such thing as finding freedom from fear and using the fear to understand the true nature of freedom.

That's another story,

Isn't it?

Let me get to the third healing insight.

I don't want to run out of time.

Here's the third healing insight,

And again,

This is where we're working to understand again,

To gain a bigger picture.

Here's the third one.

The unwanted experience of being shown our present limitation is the only way that the divine can ask us if we wish to be shown how to go beyond it.

The unwanted experience of being shown our present limitation is the only way the divine can ask us if we wish to be shown how to go beyond it.

Isn't it a phenomena,

At least one day I pray to God that you at least suspect and then begin to embrace the possibility.

I'm presented with an endless miraculous phenomena.

Within this darkness there lives a light the darkness doesn't understand,

Meaning that within this consciousness from time to time suddenly appears the awareness of a fear,

The awareness of a regret,

The awareness of what an anxious wreck I am.

I don't normally see myself that way and certainly we're not interested in judging ourselves,

That's another whole story.

But there I am and suddenly I'm aware of this anxiety.

Now as a rule,

The first thing that happens when I become aware of anxiety is that I listen to the consciousness that has created it,

Start explaining why I need to be anxious and then I have plans.

Now I'm standing on the shore not walking in the water and dreaming of one day owning a boat.

But the very moment of the revelation of this anxiety,

The very moment of the revelation of this fear,

Of this resentment that I live with,

How my mind instantaneously meets somebody with a motive and wants to make that person into what I want them to be.

Every last one of those moments I'm being shown something that I could not see were it not for the divine bringing about a condition that in its unfolding brings up the content of this consciousness.

And it's in the illumination of the consciousness that is the realization of that consciousness and it is the realization of that consciousness that begins to release us from our identification with it.

Yes,

Chantelle,

In a way,

Fear is definitely a self-fulfilling.

Every negative state is a self-fulfilling prophecy because every negative state tells us,

Avoid this or control this or change him or get rid of that.

So that in the very moment that I am responding and reacting to life through the nature of this consciousness that feels this fear,

It is this consciousness taking the action.

And because the consciousness is created to be changed and the lessons will keep coming by the grace of the great teacher,

Until I understand the true lesson in the moment,

I am destined to repeat it.

That's called reincarnation.

That's the real meaning of karma,

Which is not a negative connotation.

The unwanted experience of being shown a present limitation is the only way the divine can ask us if we want to go beyond.

So the unknown moment of finding ourselves facing some thorny moment in life inwardly or outwardly is actually not what it first appears to be,

Which is something painful,

Problematic and to be avoided.

What we're actually brought to in that moment is a certain fork in the road of our possibilities.

Because if we're willing to walk in just up to our knees,

Put your toes in,

Meaning what can I see about this?

Listen,

Not just about this moment,

Because the moment doesn't exist apart from the consciousness that's reacting to it.

And not just about this consciousness,

Because the consciousness has been stirred momentarily by the condition that has brought it into that foment.

So my task must be in that moment walking in,

Just putting my toe in the water,

Is what can I see?

What is the relationship between the observer and the observed?

Not what do I do about the observed and what's wrong with me as the observer,

Or how do I fix the observer so I don't have to meet moments like that anymore,

But to recognize that they are a singularity and that that's the beauty of this life.

The possibility of our true freedom is the recognition that we live as a developing creature,

Constantly being brought into conditions created for the purpose of bringing this consciousness into an awareness of itself.

And so rather than avoiding the awareness of myself by blaming the situation for the suffering I feel,

I allow myself,

As best I'm capable of doing,

To see this moment and my experience of it as inseparable.

Then my attention is no longer divided.

And then that same attention that is allowing momentarily the integration of that realization of the truth of the moment,

The attention does the work.

Because now I'm not scrambling.

Now I'm not trying to run around figuring out what to do.

I'm not judging myself anymore.

Because that very awareness has produced a very definitive experience,

Actually a certain sense of separation,

The wheat from the chaff.

And we start to understand these interior trials that keep coming back and back,

They're there to help us see one thing.

We can't get past them as long as we remain who and what we've been.

Because who and what we've been is what we keep meeting in these same moments.

Surely you must suspect that by now.

Another way of stating that same insight is that,

And it's somewhat startling,

Is that resisting what life brings to us,

Not wanting those moments that we're invited to see,

See what?

The truth about this consciousness,

Not wanting that moment ensures it's going to come back.

What we go around comes back around.

How long does it take to actually see that?

And it may not be the exact circumstance.

We live in a world of time.

In one respect,

Everything is always the same.

In another respect,

It's always changing.

And our difficulty is bridging that understanding,

And only the awareness of that unity can bring this new possibility that we're talking about here,

Which is there's only one way to transcend the limitation of our present nature.

And that's been the whole purpose of every lesson,

Actually.

And that's to begin to understand that these limitations don't belong to us any more than does the clumsy body of a caterpillar belong to the butterfly that's been liberated from its husk.

Now I've just stepped this up.

I've said that all of these lessons come to reveal to us limitations in our consciousness,

But that these limitations are not personal,

Because every human being since the beginning of time,

Particularly since this consciousness fell into this divided state and began to create for itself kingdom after kingdom by which it could feel itself ruling itself,

Just one of these limitations is part of our consciousness.

Our.

Our consciousness.

Do you know anybody that doesn't have fear?

Do you know anybody that isn't angry?

Do you know anybody that doesn't have sorrow or regrets or an enemy?

I don't care where you live,

What color skin you have,

How old you are,

Your religious affiliation,

Your ethnicity.

Every human being on this planet is the instrument of a consciousness that is asleep to itself,

But that is intended by divine design to be awakened to itself so that the whole of that consciousness can begin to undertake the transformation required if humanity is to continually develop and take its place in the greater scheme of creation.

We almost never even consider that the anxiety that someone else feels,

We felt exactly the same anxiety,

Only maybe over a different circumstance.

You see that man pacing back and forth on the street and talking to himself,

Literally a captive of a consciousness that's collapsed in on itself,

In part because of the conditions and in part because the consciousness in this world is supposedly being healed by the political,

Moral,

And religious iconic laws and teachings,

And it's all nonsense.

You see the collapse of civilization because this consciousness is collapsing in on itself,

Bearing the weight of endless false answers and then trying to prove them true,

So I have to make something else for myself to get me past this moment where instead of walking into the waters of this consciousness,

Instead of entering into them deliberately,

Which by the way does not take will,

It takes a willingness to enter,

It takes an understanding of the necessity of it.

If I start to realize that this limitation that I'm so afraid of,

I like to play golf.

It's my exercise.

I go out and I practice.

You must practice no matter what,

Whatever it is that you are drawn to,

You are drawn to it because there are lessons in it.

I go out and I meet limitation,

And then from time to time when I understand something about the nature of the limitation,

It's transcended,

But sometimes as soon as it's transcended,

The same consciousness that created the first misunderstanding of a relationship,

It enters again.

Now how many people over a gazillion years do you think have wanted to paint or sing or play a sport and have met limitation after limitation after limitation?

A practical example of how we walk into the waters,

Of how we enter the limitation,

Is just one example.

Stop talking to yourself.

Stop judging yourself about the moment that you want to avoid.

How simple can this be?

Don't avoid the moment.

I avoid moments that seem like a limitation because something is telling me if I go into that limitation,

I'm going to get negative.

Something bad is going to happen.

I'm going to have the same experience.

You don't think when a supreme artist,

A pianist,

A violinist,

An athlete,

You don't think that that man or woman a thousand times meets a moment where it says,

You know what,

You were here before,

This is what happened.

This is useless.

All of that is child's play compared to what happens to a man or a woman who wants to have a relationship with the divine.

Because I cannot tell you how many times you will be tempted by the thought that tells you this is impossible.

You failed over and over again.

Look,

You're still this,

You're still that.

And in that moment,

What are you doing?

You're listening to and identifying with something that is judging you because you're so used to allowing the judgment to determine for you the relationship you have with the thing you've been drawn to.

Instead of understanding that what I'm drawn to,

That is authentic,

Draws me to it to give me something of itself so that I can't be brought a lesson that doesn't include in it the possibility of transcending the consciousness that meets it so that that consciousness can be reborn in that moment and then do it again and again and again and again.

We must act on this understanding.

Everything I've been trying to show you is that true freedom is not an achievement.

That's how we see it.

True freedom has nothing to do with an achievement.

True freedom is an awakened relationship with our given participation in the genesis of this life.

That's what true freedom is.

Standing on the shore,

Walking into the waters,

Letting the waters reveal to me something about the consciousness in which they're reflected.

What does that mean?

Walking into the limitation,

Not avoiding it,

Not judging it,

Not talking to myself,

Bringing my awareness into the whole of that moment so that by entering into those waters,

Those living waters,

They reveal and move in me their corresponding part.

And now suddenly I'm no longer apart from that limitation.

Now I understand my mistaken relationship with that limitation was keeping me from transcending it,

Which brings us to the fourth of the healing insights.

Whatever seems to be in our way is part of the way.

And I'd add to that idea,

Whatever is seems to be in the way is part of the way,

Because all that we meet and experience is inseparable from the consciousness within which it's being reflected.

All whatever seems to be in the way,

Whatever that limitation is part of the way,

Because everything that we meet and experience,

Every single moment of our life is inseparable from the consciousness in which it's being reflected.

That means ultimately that all of these moments that I look out and see the world and you and this and them,

The things that are going on,

I see them as separate from myself.

They're not separate from myself.

They are inseparable from the consciousness that's experiencing them.

And our consciousness experiences the moments it does based on the content of its present conditioning,

Instead of based on the understanding that it's meant to transcend these moments by realizing its similarity with them.

To know these insights that I've just given you as being true,

I can't tell you the value.

It is to realize,

Literally realize,

That creation has been made for you at this level in this time.

Made for you to explore and to discover what is timeless and true within you.

And not only is it made for you to do that,

But you have been made for that journey,

And not a separate journey.

A journey you begin to suspect and hopefully undertake,

Because you understand you're not in this world just for yourself.

That's probably the first and foremost greatest mistake in identity there is,

Produced by a consciousness that has to divide itself up from the world in order to protect itself from the content of itself that it doesn't know.

I wish I was able sometimes,

Especially here in Southern Oregon,

I have a body of students here.

May God help all of us one day to feel proper shame at how selfish and self-centered we are.

And then begin to see that the core of that selfishness has been formulated over time by a consciousness that has determined that it must take care of itself,

It must create for itself what it needs.

Because it's facing all the time these conditions,

These limitations that it meets.

And if it doesn't do that,

Then something terrible is going to happen to it.

And the worst thing that can happen to that consciousness,

And you and I consequently as being identified with it,

The worst thing that can happen to it is happening to it as it takes that selfish stand,

As it rushes,

As it's frightened,

As it's anxious.

Right in the very moment of that consciousness trying to create for itself what it needs,

It is separating itself from the Creator,

From everything that is intended to be given to us.

And this is critical.

See,

We tend to say,

Oh,

Given to me,

That's what I want,

Given to me.

Can you,

If you stand in front of an ocean,

Can you be given any more than what the ocean reveals in you?

If you walk into the waters,

Can you be given any more than the sensory experience,

The movement,

The colors,

The tides?

Can you be given any more than what every moment is giving you there?

And if you're really there and you see the beauty of it,

The majesty of it,

You don't want anything more.

Why?

Because the observer and the observed have achieved,

By the grace of God,

A realization that they aren't separate.

There is a new awareness there.

That's exactly how it's meant to be when it comes to our limitations.

The seeming ocean of them is an endless array of possibilities for us to understand that God has created something intended to be perfected moment to moment,

And that the moment to moment perfection of this consciousness is its freedom.

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