GF Live 5-28-22 "Three Steps On The Stairway To Heaven"

Before we can stop making circles in time – repeating and reliving a life that long ago lost its glow – we must catch the sleeping mind as it spins another dream of a better time to come and choose, instead, to enter the Light within us... whose Life is already right, bright, and whole.

Transcript

Good morning.

I'm glad that you're here this morning.

In some ways,

Particularly glad because if you're here,

You've had to make a choice of some kind,

Given that it's Memorial Day weekend.

I believe that's true.

And everyone all around the world,

At least in the places that celebrate this weekend,

They'll be busy doing things connected to what men and women do when the world creates a space for them to slip into and to find some way to please themselves or comfort themselves,

Spend time with friends and family.

I'm not saying anything's wrong with that.

I'm just saying that there's always a priority.

There's always a first choice.

And if you're here with me,

I'm assuming that your first choice is your wish to continue being refreshed,

As all of us need to be in your search and your wish to know something about the divine.

So I have a couple stories to tell you today to help exemplify the points.

Our topic,

I trust you know,

Is the first three steps on the stairway to heaven.

And I would just add before I get into the material that,

You know,

Words,

Examples,

Ideas like a ladder,

They represent things,

Of course.

But I think that we should understand that it's not so much a stairway.

That's how the idea of something that begins at one level and reaches another.

It's more actually a bridge of being this stairway to heaven.

And for what it's worth,

And if you're here joining me,

And I hope that you are,

I'm going to speak in great length on this bridge of being tomorrow.

I'm not allowed to say when and where,

But if you go to my profile or find my website,

You can learn about the free event.

You're invited,

Nothing to join.

I would urge you to do so,

Especially if you find our material today engaging.

All right,

Nice deep breath.

I want to read the key lesson,

And then we're going to dive into this material.

The key lesson reads as follows.

Before we can stop making circles in time,

Repeating and reliving a life that long ago lost its glow,

We must catch the sleeping mind as it spends another dream of a better time to come and choose instead to enter the light within us whose life is all race and already bright and whole.

That little key lesson sets the stage for the first of the three steps,

Which if you want to write it down,

The first of the three steps is self honesty.

Something hard come by these days,

Honestly.

And in particular,

When it comes to our spiritual life.

And as I was looking at the ideas I wanted to present to you today,

I came upon a beautiful little piece of a book,

I guess it was a book,

It was called The Walled Garden of Truth by Hakim Sinai.

He was an 11th century Persian poet.

And actually,

As I was reviewing the material again,

I thought,

You know,

I'm going to give an entire talk based on this little book of his.

I'll help explain some of it,

If you will.

But for today,

I want to use the first,

I don't know what they are,

Dozen 14,

16 stanzas as a way to introduce us to this idea of what is self honesty.

So if you will,

I'll begin to read this.

I'll probably interpret a little bit as I go through it.

This is the first of the three steps.

I think he illustrates it beautifully.

And as is always true,

And maybe you've seen this,

When we can be honest about something,

There really isn't a lot of thinking to do.

If I honestly see something,

I don't have to think about it anymore.

When I understand something in honesty,

Or for that matter,

If I'm honest about some place in my life where I've been dishonest,

I don't have to go into any other thought about it.

The matter is done.

Because honesty is a very unique form of clarity.

And in our wish and work to know something of a relationship with God,

I cannot tell you how incredibly important the idea of clarity is and how difficult it is in this world that is so dedicated to obfuscating,

Murking up the waters.

So let's look at this first little part.

He writes,

We tried reasoning our way to Him,

Him being the divine.

It did not work.

But the moment we gave up,

No obstacle remained.

Now maybe we haven't reached that part where no obstacle remained.

But we do understand,

Do we not,

That we've tried reasoning our way to Him.

Every which way that a mind can move if you've been a sincerest Byron at all,

You've adapted and imitated and tried all of,

I mean,

Endless variations on a theme.

But in the end,

The authentic transformation,

The change,

And by change,

I don't necessarily,

I never mean anything in a finalized form.

By change,

I mean a certain kind of peace that comes to a human being when they actually step onto,

When they find the way,

The real way,

Which is this bridge.

Because once you have found that your work at one level is done,

Now you know what is required of you and it requires consistent self honesty.

So he goes to write,

We tried reasoning our way to Him,

But it didn't work.

But the moment we gave up,

No obstacle remained.

He introduced himself to us out of kindness.

How else could we have known Him?

Another beautiful point.

When you begin to see some of the ways in which this lower level of consciousness meets everything with its demands,

And then you see in spite of how obtuse,

How thick,

How resistant one can be,

And yet by the grace of God,

The lessons continue to be brought to us in a form of revelation,

Which we're going to get to.

We're not quite ready to get all that,

Receive it,

Because it's a little too shocking.

And if it weren't for His kindness,

How else would we have ever known that there was an intelligence within which we live and that lives within us that is more interested in us succeeding to get to know that intelligence than we are actually ourselves at this point in time?

So then Hakeem goes on to read,

But it was,

How could we,

Reason took us as far as the door,

But it was His presence that led us in.

Reason took us as far as the door,

But it was His presence that led us in.

You've had,

I trust,

Those moments where you have refined,

I hope you have worked this hard.

You've gone as far as a thought can take you.

You have affirmed,

Identified with,

Tried to command you.

You've taken all the principles and applied them as point,

As to it with as much a pointed arrow as you can,

And yet you still miss the mark.

That's when we discovered that reason took us as far as the door,

But it was His presence that led us in,

Because it's always those moments where we see that of ourselves,

We're not going any further,

That we finally begin this process of honestly letting go.

Then he continues,

But how will you ever know Him,

Meaning the divine,

As long as you're unable to know yourself?

Once one is one,

No more,

No less,

Error begins with duality.

Unity knows no error.

But how will you ever know Him,

As long as you are unable to know yourself?

Self-knowledge.

There is no self-knowledge without self-honesty.

I hope you can see it.

Self-knowledge isn't me knowing that James Sinai was an 11th century Persian poet.

It isn't me being able to recite or repeat various spiritual platitudes and hang on to icons and give you all the reason why it's so important that you feel this completion when you—all that business,

That is not self-knowledge.

Self-knowledge is a completely different order of beast,

Because—and it leads us to step two on the ladder—if we really begin to gain self-knowledge,

It comes in part because we have begun to ask for guidance.

And the reason that we begin to ask for guidance is because we begin to understand how incomplete is our self-understanding,

How incomplete is the way in which we meet life,

And in one respect,

How dishonest this conditioned consciousness is.

I mean,

If you look at it with me,

We have a gazillion excuses.

This world is riddled with excuses and explanations and justifications,

Every last thing kicking the can down the road so that in the end,

I'm never honest enough to admit that if I was a fully responsible human being,

I would receive the lessons that only a fully responsible human being can receive.

And even more important than asking for guidance,

Which is the next story I want to tell you,

Is how to recognize it when it comes,

Which we'll get to in the third step.

So step one,

Self-honesty.

No self-knowledge without self-honesty.

Step two,

Realizing the need to ask for guidance,

Because as Hakeem Senai wrote so nicely,

We've tried reasoning our way to him,

But it didn't work.

And of course,

That means that I have relied on myself at every step of the way to supply me with what it is that I need to do and understand in order to take the next step.

But if I begin to see that there's just these circles,

I recognize I need something to come into me from outside of that circle.

So here's the story about asking for guidance.

It contains a number of little higher ideas,

And I hope you can receive them with me.

It's a story that I'm fairly sure it was in a book of mine called The Lost Secrets of Prayer.

At this point,

I honestly don't remember where all the stories come from,

But I'm pretty sure it was in the prayer book.

Anyway,

Here's the story.

A mother has a daughter.

Her name is Celeste,

And she is a bit of an artistic genius,

A progeny,

Really,

Showing great promise,

Even at the age of four,

Five,

Six years old.

And at a certain age that her mother deemed would be proper,

Maybe 11,

10 or 11 years old,

Her mother decides to enroll her in a special art school for the gifted student.

A natural thing to do.

So she takes Celeste to this school,

And it's a small school,

Maybe 10,

12 students,

And there's a nice teacher.

Mother meets the teacher.

Celeste walks in the room.

There's 10 or 12 kids sitting there.

And the teacher does all the greetings and says hello and explains what's going to go on.

And then she hands out to each of the students a kind of a unique easel-like device with colored marking pens and tells each of the children that what she would like them to do is to take the marking pens and as best they're able so that she can get an idea of what their level of skill is and also so that they can share with each other the things that the children are able to do,

Make a drawing of.

And then she said,

If you look out this large plate window that we have here looking out into this beautiful yard,

Find something that's natural out there that you like and draw it as best you can.

And then maybe 20,

30 minutes from now,

We'll all put our pens down and we'll examine what we've done.

Everybody's excited.

The kids go to work.

Now,

To set the stage properly,

The whole time that the teacher was talking,

Celeste's attention was outside and onto something else.

She thought she knew everything the teacher was going to say.

She wasn't that interested to begin with.

And if you understand,

She has certain natural gifts and she already thinks she's far and above everybody else.

She doesn't need to pay attention.

But push comes to shove,

Everybody starts their drawing.

And little by little as Celeste is working on hers,

Teacher's walking around and looking what each of the children are doing.

When the teacher walks by Celeste's easel,

She sees her working with these colored marking pens and Celeste isn't drawing anything at all like the teacher had asked.

Unlike the other children,

Each of them selected,

Maybe it was a bird or a fountain or a tree or some lawn and maybe some mustard growing in the field,

Whatever it was.

But Celeste was off on her own doing whatever it is that she wanted to do.

But as Celeste continued to work on her drawing and looking at what she was doing,

She began to be a little more uncomfortable.

She started out with a certain confidence,

But little by little,

Her confidence started the flag,

Especially as she looked at what she was doing.

And it didn't seem to be too good in her own eyes.

She looked around and she could see some of the other students.

There was Bruce and Betty and Sam,

And they were making some pretty nice drawings on their easels as the teacher had instructed.

So she looked back at her easel and she's more troubled still.

Now,

Just to bring you in the story,

What happens when you look at what it is that you are making in this world,

Not just out of life,

But of yourself?

And it doesn't seem to be going well.

Most of us know that then we think to ourselves,

Well,

I just need to add a little more.

I need to reconfigure this.

But of course,

When you have an easel,

It's not easy to reconfigure these things.

So she starts,

Just as we do,

Adding more and more color and more and more forms to this easel.

And it's getting worse,

Not better.

And she's getting more uncomfortable,

Not happier.

And at a certain point,

Five minutes later,

The teacher asked,

Would any of you like to raise your hand?

Anyone ask any questions about what you're doing or anything at all?

And a few kids raised their hand.

Teacher went over,

Celeste didn't raise her,

And she's just working harder and harder,

Getting more color under her canvas.

And again,

The more she works,

The less satisfied she is with what she's doing.

Finally,

She's just disheartened.

You know what it's like to feel that.

What am I doing?

Why am I doing this?

How am I ever going to get this all worked out?

And the teacher seeing her and actually waiting for this moment walks over and says to Celeste,

How are you doing,

Celeste?

Teacher asks again because Celeste doesn't answer.

How is your painting coming along?

And Celeste kind of looks up at her with a sort of baleful look,

A woeful look,

And kind of mumbles,

I don't really like what I made.

And the teacher smiles and says,

Yes,

Of course,

And starts to walk away.

Well,

This stuns Celeste because that isn't what she expects for the teacher to agree that what she's done isn't coming out,

She wants it.

And she says,

Teacher,

Wait as the teacher's walking away.

Teacher,

What can I do?

Teacher turns around waiting for a certain moment,

A certain desired effect,

And says,

Celeste,

What do you think you should do?

Again,

Thrown back on her own heels,

What do you think I should do?

She looks down and starts to talk to herself a little bit about she's never coming here again,

And I don't like this,

And I don't like that,

Full of negativity.

I think we also understand that.

And then something kind of shocks Celeste awake.

And she looks up and realizes it's now or never and says,

Teacher,

Teacher turns,

Yes,

Dear,

What is it?

I don't know what's wrong.

Won't you please help me?

The teacher smiles and says,

Celeste,

Of course,

I'd be happy to do that.

And then what happens next is the teacher walks over and Celeste couldn't have known this,

That the easels they had were special easels and the teacher takes out a kind of magic marker eraser and literally just erases everything that Celeste had put onto the easel,

Hands the easel back to Celeste and says,

What do you say we start again?

Only this time,

If you want,

I'll help you.

Celeste looks up,

Incredibly relieved and says,

Please,

I would really like that.

I don't know if the story is too simple or if it's clear enough,

But I'm telling you that you have within you an intelligence and understanding that is capable of wiping the whole slate clean.

Pulling out of the heart,

All those thorns and briars,

All of those disappointments and fears,

The memory of rejection of people betraying all that,

All of that,

That sits down there in the heart and in the mind that becomes the seed of an attempt to escape a condition that the more you visit it,

The stronger it makes you feel a victim.

This is all intended to begin to become grist for the mill so that as a person learns to be honest about their lives,

Which is so hard for us to do.

I don't know about you,

If you can't admit it yourself,

How many of you know people that they are never wrong?

There's always something for them to tell you about why it is that your perception of their easel,

Meaning of their life,

Of that moment that they are making in their life and the experience you're having around them where you can feel the bitterness,

The negativity,

The anger,

There's always a reason.

Can you imagine having a reason why I would turn and rend myself,

Let alone hurt another human being,

A good reason for that?

There is no good reason for hurting yourself,

For stealing from yourself the possibility of being engaged with an intelligence that can't wait if you could just learn to ask for guidance.

But I can't ask for guidance until what?

Until I begin to understand that I am not what I've imagined myself to be and that what I've imagined I'm going to do to escape what I don't want to be,

Born of my imagination,

That that's not going to help me either,

Something else has to take place.

And what is it that has to take place?

Because it brings us to the third of the three steps on the stairway to heaven.

Review self honesty,

No self honesty without self knowledge.

Self knowledge if I authentically acquire it requires clarity and clarity brings about this understanding that I,

My mind,

I'm a pretty sharp gal,

I'm a pretty sharp guy,

I have a lot of spiritual understanding,

I've been studying these things for 4000 years,

Just ask me and I'll tell you and at a certain point a person learns you know what I'm buried in thought.

And the thought of what I know is always accompanied by the fear of well what if it doesn't pan out?

Which means I'm not just buried by knowledge,

I'm buried by the constant accompaniment of another,

Of a corresponding set of opposites that belong to the confidence where anything can turn me into an idiot and then I'll find a way to explain that.

I had a bad day.

The third of the three steps,

Accept revelation.

Self honesty,

Ask for guidance and when I ask for guidance I have to accept it when it comes.

You know that there's an old saying isn't there,

Be careful what you pray for you just might get it in your spiritual life as you begin to develop this kind of honesty that's required that produces a wish that where you ask I don't,

Please say you know what I don't like what I've made will you please help me.

You know that's not just looking back at your life,

What about sitting in traffic and some kind of anger comes rising up in you or listening to the news and God knows you talk about a messed up palette,

An easel full of conflicting colors,

Any one of these things produces in us a whole series,

A host of reactions and up until now because we've never been able to be authentically clear let alone honest on the fact that we have never yet followed a negative reaction that produced in the end a positive outcome.

It can't,

Can't plant a lemon seed and grow an apple tree.

To ask for revelation when the student is ready the teacher appears to ask for that revelation means that when it comes and by the grace of God and that's kind of what Hakeem Senai was saying that in his kindness for whatever reason even though like Celeste and the teacher I ask I want to see,

I want to know the truth about myself and then the moment comes and instead of accepting the revelation that there's something in me that summarily rejects anything that isn't flattering or at least doesn't confirm me as I imagine myself to be,

Split second that comes I go I don't think that's right.

I think you're the problem,

I think this isn't the way it's supposed to be.

I don't accept the revelation that without knowing why I am at odds with what I'm given to see as being true about myself because you and I would agree,

I know we would.

I say I want to know the truth of myself.

I don't want anything between myself and the light of God that produces this mirror that allows me to see the reflection of the world in me and that I'm in.

I want that we say and yet I would argue with you that the task of accepting the revelation is a little more difficult than we would imagine it requires something of us.

So here's another story and I haven't fully worked it out often this and these things are appearing in me while I'm speaking to you but just as best you can I'll do the best that I can.

Here's a master artist.

So we're talking about somebody that the world admires and he has students as eventually any master will have just by his presence by what he is has accumulated and been able to articulate in terms of that skill it is a magnet it draws people to it.

That's natural,

Necessary and good for both teacher and student.

And then at a certain point in the life and the development of this artist and I dare say with some certainty that every true artist eventually if they are going to find the stairway to heaven if they are going to make the discovery that's required for them to enter into an ever deepening relationship with what is essentially divine within themselves which is really the furtherance of their art because they are taken further in their understanding of the true nature of art.

This is what has to happen.

This artist he hits a wall you know what a writer's block like a writer's block he just can't go any further and he basically stops producing and one of his best students asks questions he says I don't know I can't explain it and as it will happen quite a few people fall away because well he's not this and not that discounting all together what he is and has done only a couple remain and one of them remains and something happens and for the sake of time I've got to go through this all of a sudden the artist is reborn.

Yeah he has a complete the evidence of a complete new passion and by the way a whole new way of objectifying the art that he makes so that there's even a more direct contact between what it is that he's able to manifest and those who see what he has done and one of the students comes to him at a certain point shortly thereafter if you will and says to him what happened I mean it was like you had died and then all of a sudden it's like you're born again artistically we understand what we're talking about I hope you and I the artist says yeah yeah I said I have to tell you although I don't know how you would prepare for this I certainly couldn't in a way he said I was dying I knew I had I knew I had come to the end of what it was that I not just could see and wanted to do but what I was capable of doing he said and then he said I don't know exactly how it happened but I realized that I had everything upside down I had everything upside down students says what are you talking about the artist says I thought I was the artist I thought I was the artist but now I understand I'm the canvas I thought I was the artist and then I saw it on the canvas I'm that which is the expression of the art yes I have a role in manifesting it but now I understand and because I have this new understanding I'm open I'm not measuring myself I'm not waiting and hoping and trying to come up with something to paint I'm not trying to figure out how to keep everything going anymore I that's where I got to I wound up the slave of the very thing that was I thought would free me but then I realized the whole reason was because I thought I was the artist I'm not I'm the canvas now I don't know I hope that you understand the idea in that because I'll help in the next last 10 minutes illustrate as best I can what that means you and I and this is such an important part of our spiritual work I can actually I can't tell you how important it is what I'm about to explain take a nice deep breath let this sink in a little bit yeah sandy that's exactly right actually now that I've said that I think that was something Rumi said I am I'm not the flute player nor the flute on the note and that the note passes through anyway yes so let me go on you know we are every last one of us to whatever extent we have been able to understand it we are in fact given in this life the capacity to create to draw to write to become an athlete to explore science we are given certain gifts every one of us has given gifts they may get buried by a horrible world that we live in that doesn't care about gifts it only wants what gifts can provide it's not interested in the development of the gift it's interested in what the reward the gift can come so that we have these gifts and we are capable of creating but when we get lost with the idea of being someone who has a gift or we could get lost with thinking that we never had our gift developed and nobody gave us a chance because then we are still developing something aren't we we are created to be able to develop ourselves and if we don't have the understanding to develop ourselves then by God and for the most part something will come along in this conditioned world and it will grab hold of us and it will develop in us what it needs us to be so that it can steal from us the life that it doesn't have of its own but we are capable of creating but before we are capable of creating we are creations and this is a razor's edge this is the golden mean this is the difficulty of the spiritual life where a person has to understand I am in this world as a human being given by the grace of the divine the capacity to make out of this life manifest what I will and to do that I know I'm active I will go in and I will pursue what I want I will develop it I will learn I want to be excellent at something and this is natural this is where we are active towards the parts of ourselves where we want to bring them into development and we do so but at a certain point and I can only hope that you've reached this where I have been active and active and active creating what I want and I get to the end of it and like Celeste in the story and like Hakim writes in the walled garden of truth I realized that no matter all that I put together as someone who can create I have not brought about this heaven I've not brought about the peace that my heart seeks I've not brought my mind to arrest I'm more likely filled with fear and regret don't want to be rejected I'm more likely trying to protect what I've put together than I am given peace by it and that's because at that level we are intended if you will as a human being to to be um to take what we have been given and to develop it but now here's the point when it comes to the kingdom of heaven the latter the bridge of being our process of becoming honest and gathering true knowledge and and receiving the revelations that put us into a new level of understanding here's where everything is upside down we are meant spiritually speaking to be actively passive actively passive not passively active as we are now don't get confused I'm going to explain see we are passively active that means that you say something I have a reaction I believe that I am the reaction and then I take action based on something that was stirred passively in me to be passively active as we are now is to be a human being that's like a weather vane in the wind I am passive to whichever way the world blows whichever people say whatever people do I have this instantaneous reaction I identify completely with the reaction and that past content that old self becomes active on the spot and then I try to create a world based on an identity that's essentially just trying to cover itself and protect itself I hope that you understand what that means Ben writes no response ability yes because our response is generated by what is by the past that lives in us all that we think we are all the images were identified with that's the the way we are now is passively active but we are meant to be actively passive when it comes to our relationship to God actively passive what does that mean take almost any of the great masters what did Christ say on the Mount of Olives not my will but thy will be done translation I will not make of myself something I will not draw out this life as I would have it I am your canvas I will accept the revelation necessary to bring about the realization I require that and that I know I do to bring me into a more full understanding of who and what I am and my purpose on this planet you see we we have we have been born into a world that without our knowing it we are the we are soaked in its purposes we don't have a clue that what we call success in the things we cling to which is the same as the things we fear and hope we never lose because it means our identity will be taken from us we're soaked in purposes that that on one hand again I go back and I tell you you have an inkling you want to be an artist you want to be a great athlete by God develop that but don't mistake the idea that when you get into and through that development that that reward in and of itself is going to release you from this essential requirement that is sewn into us as a human being which is to what to be the canvas to be the living moment to moment reflection and expression of the whole of what is being given to us we are we are so far removed from the this the possibility of this sensitivity of being made whole moment to moment not whole because tomorrow I'll get an award or I'm going to go eat something in 10 minutes and then I'll get past this feeling of being incomplete whole because we are in that split second receiving everything that is being given to us and instead of reactive we are reflective instead of resisting we are accepting but in order to accept the revelation when the student is ready the teacher appears in order to accept the revelation I have to get to a point where I understand that I need to know the truth of myself I can't tell myself the truth and the truth of myself is not in any book it's not written in any scripture no human being is ever going to utter it to you there is just the intimation in the moment of realizing another order of possibility but the possibility cannot be fulfilled unless we are fully prepared as a human being to accept everything that we're given to see about ourselves even the worst things that we don't want to see we must allow that canvas to be developed why because if we ever get to the point where we by the grace of God actually are this canvas then our experience of the canvas is that it's never that the artist never stops developing it there's nothing that you'll ever you'll never have a true revelation of yourself that if you were there in this bridge of being this moment of preparation and fulfillment you'll never have a moment in your whole life that you won't see it come fulfill itself and go and the canvas remains the divine remains the artist and you and I are sold the reflection of his work.

The last part of the walled garden.

But how will you ever know him the artist as long as you're unable to know yourself once one is one no more no less that's how we get to know him once one is one no more no less one is one no difference between the canvas and what is painted on it no difference between what it's painted on and the understanding of it and no difference in the understanding of it than understanding that it goes on and continues that it is eternal in its process error begins with duality unity knows no error.

Honesty ask for guidance accept the revelation when it comes the rest is done for you you get that far you have you have taken the first three steps and will continue you and I to work to walk what life is for let's do it.

Be safe I'll see you next Saturday.

Reviews

Eternal wisdom. I am refreshed.
Guy, I am thankful and grateful for you.
Michelle