Gf Live 6-10-23 Use Negative Reactions And Heal The Past

All negative reactions are creatures rooted in the past; they are dark shadows of old fears and sorrows gone by. No negative reaction can grow, let alone deepen its roots (within us) as long as we agree to bring them into the healing Light of higher awareness.

Transcript

It's so difficult for us to understand that we're brought into this world as we are,

And somewhat akin to the story of the ugly duckling,

We're surrounded by creatures,

Human beings that look like ourselves and who seem to share in the same experiences that we do,

And that from all of those experiences,

Collectively and individually,

We then forever keep trying to reshape the world in our lives so that it will look more like what we were told it was supposed to be like,

And for all of that,

Nothing changes.

And the reason it doesn't change is because that world,

The world of Guy,

The world of my body,

The world of this consciousness that we don't just incarnate,

But that actually incarnates us,

It's just a seed.

It's not the real deal.

You ought to know that by now.

Is that all there is?

Of course,

That's not all there is,

But that's all there is in that world.

That's all there is in the world of thought.

That's all there is in the world of resistance.

That's all there is in the world of reactions.

That's all there is.

That consciousness cannot change itself,

Of itself,

And it certainly cannot change the effect of itself.

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

How this life,

Honestly,

If you look at it every day,

You open your eyes in the morning after your sleep,

And it's the reincarnation of the day before.

Maybe you go someplace,

Maybe you do something,

Maybe something else happens,

But by and large,

The way and the reason I say it's the reincarnation of the day before is because we have the same response,

The same binary,

I want,

I don't want,

The same,

What do I do about this?

How do I change that?

How do I get more of what I want?

How do I escape what I don't?

What do I do about all of this,

These things pressing in on my life?

How do I release the pressure?

How can I stop being afraid of moments that I see coming,

Hurtling toward me,

Whether it's the next 10 seconds or in 10 years because my health is failing you,

You fill in the blanks and you'll see that reincarnation is not this idea,

By the way,

It never was meant to be,

Of this,

That I'm in this body and then I take another body before you can even hope to have another kind of body.

You have to first die to the one that you're in.

And I'm not talking about physically,

That's going to happen mechanically.

One must lose their life to find it.

So let's take a look at this together.

This idea of this repetition,

This kind of reincarnation,

How our past,

As the topic of the talk says,

How our past doesn't heal,

But it seems to just come forward with us into every one of these moments and place its heal on our neck.

Ready?

Ready?

Now I'm going to ask a question that's going to sound somewhat facetious,

But it's not intended to be because in some way it's quite true what I'm going to offer,

Suggest to you.

But I must add,

And I'm sorry to delay getting into the material,

Although it's all connected.

Not one word that I say to you has any value at all.

Not one,

Not one of the words of itself has value any more than somebody telling you that there's a place on your property where you can drill down and get the most delicious fresh water in the world.

Knowledge of water is not being satisfied by it.

Knowledge of the truth is not the same as having it in your life and illuminating the moments of your life so that you don't have to relive the old parts.

You must do the work.

I've been saying that now for well over 40 years,

Maybe longer than that.

We are easily stimulated intellectually,

Emotionally,

Physically,

Easily stimulated.

But it isn't until we see how not just redundant,

But how repetitive is that stimulation bringing no real results to us at all in terms of understanding our attachment and dependency upon that constant sense of stimulation.

So what if you had a time machine?

What would you do with it?

God willing,

You wouldn't say,

I'm going to go back and invest in Microsoft.

Most of us,

If we had a time machine,

If we had done any work at all,

We'd realize we would like to,

If it were possible,

To go make the things that we did that we knew were painful to us and others,

We would like to go undo the evil that we did instead of the good that we would.

We'd like to get past that moment where our heart was broken by somebody.

We'd like to change the conditions that created whatever these characters are that rise up so easily in unwanted moments,

Taking over our face,

Our body,

Our mind,

And our heart and opening our mouth and uttering words that are horrible to say.

The source of all those thoughts,

However they came to pass,

Because we were called inadequate or stupid or we were abused or ignored in the past,

All of these things,

What if it were possible for you to change all of that?

I'm sorry,

Sometimes when I'm speaking and receiving certain impressions,

The words that come out of my mouth are so accurate.

What if it were possible to change all of that so that whatever the features are that were created in your consciousness over time,

That all of those creatures no longer had the grip on you that they do now,

The fear,

The demands?

That's what we're going to talk about.

So I better get cooking.

How do we have this time machine?

What is the nature of it?

So I'm going to ask Kate to put up the key lesson that I prepared for this material.

So don't post for a moment while she posts it,

Okay?

The title of the material is called Use Negative Reactions to Help Reveal and Heal the Past.

That's what we're going to look at.

And here's the key lesson that sets the stage.

Nice deep breath.

All negative reactions are creatures rooted in the past.

They are dark shadows of old fears and sorrows gone by.

No negative reaction can grow,

Let alone deepen its roots within us,

As long as we agree to bring them into the light of higher awareness.

All negative reactions are creatures rooted in the past,

Dark shadows.

We never think to ourselves that the negative reaction that we're having is rooted in the past.

For us,

The negative reaction is kind of grinding us.

Grinding is the right word,

But first grounding us.

Before it grinds us,

We're grounded in it.

It seems to ground us in the present moment.

The negative reaction is telling us who did what,

Why they did it,

How we have to deal with it,

What's necessary to escape the pain of it,

Or to change the circumstances so that we can reconcile them.

That's what our negative reactions tell us,

But not one of those things is true.

First,

We need some knowledge.

And sometimes I know,

And I try the best I can to bring the understanding that I have from another world within you already.

I want to add that.

To bring that understanding from another world into this world requires that we use words and that we use relationships between words and their concepts to get a picture of it,

To catch a glimpse of it.

But I want to stress this so strongly.

There is nothing that stands between you and what it is that you wish to know with your heart of hearts that cannot be given to you if you are willing to spend the time in the field.

Now by the field,

I don't mean outside in the field,

But the world outside of you is part of the field.

But the whole of the field is not just the world we walk through,

But the impressions that that world makes upon us.

So that the real field is this condition that exists when the observer and the observed,

When what I see and the seer are a singularity,

Something I intend to go into great depth over our talks in the pines that are coming up in the next 10 days or so,

Two weeks.

So you might want to find out about that if you're interested,

Want to go deeper into this.

So this field is not a passive,

Dead,

Static field.

It is a living field and it has all of these energies in them that reveal the content of the field.

Now let me get a little simpler here.

The point is you can observe all of this.

You are created to be able to observe everything that takes place in your consciousness as a result of it receiving and reflecting the impressions from what is timeless.

Haven't you ever wondered how in the world of these,

These masters,

These great physicists,

The teachers that have changed the world,

Where do they get all this information from?

Why does it seem effortless?

What,

What,

What does that?

Well,

I'm explaining it to you.

First they realized they weren't seeing life the way it was,

Or they wanted to know more about the life they were in.

And because of the wish they had,

As I assume you do,

To understand something of the broader sphere that's,

That,

That's,

That makes the existence that they just gave their attention.

They learned to observe and observe.

And first,

The first epiphanies and insights come through observation.

And then gradually the distance between the observer and the observed,

The wish to know and what's possible to know,

It gets shorter and smaller and smaller until finally a person actually enters into the world that they want to observe.

So they become a conscious witness of that world.

And then there is a very positive and constant recycling,

Including the reconciliation of that,

Of that present understanding with the new understanding that's pouring into it.

So all of that is to say the following,

I just want you to understand,

Don't get stuck with things I don't understand.

Don't complain about what you don't understand.

Go to work to understand it.

There's nothing more useless in the world than complaining.

As you'll see,

Because it even connects to this material first.

What is this time machine that we have?

You ready?

You might want to write it down.

The time machine is the fact that resistance that we feel all the time,

Resistance is a window into the past.

Resistance is a window into the past.

Now I don't mean a window into the past,

Like here I am and I see a river and it goes around the bend and I can't see around the bend,

But our consciousness is not,

Is not full of bends.

It is a line of time.

We belong to a line of time.

Everything that we've done,

Experienced,

Not just ourselves individually through our own experiences,

But collectively.

That resistance that we feel is not just born of moments where something doesn't match what I want it to look like.

That resistance is a revelation of that consciousness that in the past became attached to and identified with those images.

So resistance reveals the content of a consciousness that doesn't understand that what it is still clinging to is dead and that clinging to it cannot bring about the reconciliation with it,

Rather it inhibits that possibility.

And it's more than that.

And I can't spend a lot of time on this.

I'd like to,

I will over the weekend.

These creations,

These images that this consciousness has made and have made in it,

Watching mom and dad dysfunctional or successful and then fashioning an image,

I will,

I'll never be like that or I want to be like that so that we grow up watching the adults in our life,

In quotes,

The so-called successful individuals manifesting these behaviors and possibilities financially.

And we go,

I want to be like that.

I want that.

I want to have,

I want to be like all that.

And those images are formulated in this consciousness.

And then the energy given to them creates a kind of a creature,

An actual,

Like a little quantum packet of old possibilities.

And it sits in this consciousness with no awareness of it.

And it is a creature of time.

Resistance is the indication of some relationship that that consciousness then brings into the present moment where what it expected or wanted isn't met.

And then we get caught in the reaction to that instead of realizing that that moment where the resistance appears,

It is revealing to us,

Not just our personal quantum packets of pain,

But this human consciousness that has been carried over and carried over and reincarnated and reincarnated like bad Xerox copies until we get to a place where we think that the enmity we feel towards a certain person or a situation,

Or we can't stand this religious group,

Or we hate that person.

We actually believe this is our resistance.

It isn't your resistance.

You have just simply fallen into a world where resistance as it is resisted,

Where it is fought with,

Where reactions fuel it,

Have turned these things into something that we have no idea are within us.

So not only can we learn through this time machine called resistance that reveals this part of our consciousness,

But in that very revelation,

We can see where we are part of a broader consciousness that until we change as an aspect of it,

That consciousness itself will never change and the world itself will never change.

Are you following me?

A couple of yeses or noes would be good.

So I can go on in the board over here,

Please.

Good.

Good.

Moving on.

An important idea connected to all this.

We all know,

And we'd be liars if we said we don't have painful reactions.

We have lots of painful reactions.

The difference,

If you want to use those words,

Is that it is possible to use those painful reactions to free us from the source of them,

But not when we allow those painful reactions to point to us what the source is and then set us off in a struggle to try to change the condition that triggers that resistance and reaction,

But rather use that to become the investigator,

The detective tracking down what it is and where all of that's coming from.

Not in thought,

Not trying to psychoanalyze yourself,

For God's sake.

The painful reactions we suffer and experience in the moment they appear do not just appear by themselves in that time and place,

But rather they belong,

They are outsourced,

If you will,

That suffering from some place in a line of time,

Our line of time.

And our line of time,

By the way,

Is not just our own individual experience.

I want to keep stressing that.

Our line of time belongs to our mother and our father and their mother and father and down through seven generations,

As it says in scripture.

So that those sins,

Meaning the misunderstanding of not just the purpose of our life,

But interpreting these reactions as being the proof that we know how life should be,

All of that generates and formulates into some kind of captivity that no one knows can be used instead of struggling with.

So take a nice deep breath.

We need real knowledge.

Knowledge is not enough,

But it will stir in us a corresponding understanding that waits in this seed of the soul so that nourishing it through first self-knowledge will bring about the wish to incorporate that self-knowledge into a living understanding and finally the action and expression of that soul as it awakens to its actuality.

Resistance recreates and reinstates whatever it opposes.

Resistance recreates and reinstates whatever it opposes.

Another way of saying that is resistance to the disturbance is the disturbance.

But here's what it means.

Can you think of how many things in your life that you not only resisted 5,

10,

20,

30 years ago,

But that you still resist when it happens?

People looking at you the way you don't want to be looked at,

Getting the news you don't want to hear,

Looking in the mirror on a daily basis and realizing you're no longer that Philly or young buck that you were.

You fill in the blanks.

That resistance is still there.

I wish I looked other than I do.

God help this world.

Oh,

If you knew the evil that is being sown into it,

You would sigh.

Because this consciousness cannot stand looking at itself as it is because it doesn't understand that its reactions to what it sees is not what it is,

Not what you are.

The world is filled with that consciousness creating new content by which it can lure you into this idea that all you have to do is change the way you look,

Change how you see yourself,

Change the people that you associate with,

Change the place that you live.

If you just make these changes,

You'll finally realize this contentment that's been so elusive.

What a bunch of hooey.

No one knows it better than you do.

Because every new identity turns out to be nothing but a skyrocket that blasts into the night sky,

Shedding light that suddenly is exciting.

And then the old shell falls to the ground and dies there,

Empty,

Spent.

That's what happens to human beings.

Don't let it happen to you.

Let me go on.

Resistance creates and reinstates whatever it opposes.

So that whenever we identify with this resistance,

What happens is that we are literally serving to feed,

If you will,

And strengthen the illusion of this sense of self that is not just separate from what it sees,

But if it could get a grip on what it sees,

Then it could manipulate and change it through ambition or whatever,

And then turn what it sees into what it wants to see.

That's how it works.

It's never ending trying to change what we're perceiving so that the perceiver can feel better about what he or she sees when we understand if we've done any work at all.

The experience of the moment is not separate from the consciousness that perceives it.

They are a singularity.

So it's ludicrous to try to change the world around us because it doesn't match the way we believe it's supposed to fulfill us.

The task is to recognize that we live from an endlessly empty consciousness that keeps imagining what it needs to complete itself,

And with every new imagination,

A new sensation,

A new identity,

And with each new identity,

Down the road we go further through our line of time,

Not becoming freer,

But more bound to the very images that this consciousness creates to console itself.

So the problem is,

I gotta go,

The problem is we don't understand the nature of our own resistance,

Let alone anything about its operating system.

We have zero idea about the nature of our own resistance.

And because we have zero idea,

We remain a captive of it.

And I want you to understand this.

I'll say it now,

And I'll say it until I drop this body.

Not only are you intended to understand the nature of this resistance,

But as you grow into the understanding of it,

You will be released from everything that it not only brings into the moment that is painful now,

But you will be released from it in the past.

All of the conditions that were once your God that you thought would save you that turned out to be the slave master,

Every last one of these painful conditions in this consciousness,

When you understand the nature of resistance,

That light will begin to release you from it in the past.

Let me go on.

To us,

It seems that resistance proves that we don't want to take part in whatever it is that we're trying to escape in that moment.

That's how resistance,

Resistance says,

No,

I don't want that.

I don't want to take part in that.

I don't want any part of that.

And once resistance does that,

What comes up?

Well,

That resistance then begins to formulate all of these reactions with their explanations,

Why it is that that's wrong and why we shouldn't be there and going through that.

But the truth is,

This resistance is the ground of the unconscious negative reactions that come as a result of that initial triggering of that consciousness and what lies dormant in the darkness of itself.

So that what's happening is in those moments,

That consciousness is resisting.

Listen carefully,

That consciousness is resisting the experience of itself.

And the experience of itself cannot be separated from what it is doing to itself when the present moment triggers the content of itself.

And then up comes the pain.

It's such a,

It's so ironic.

We actually agree to daydream.

We actually are complicit with identifying with reliving the past we don't want.

And then can't understand why the more we relive the past we don't want,

The more the past lives on in us and gains greater strength.

Resistance is,

Write this down.

Resistance is a form of negative identification.

Resistance is a form of negative identification.

For us,

Resistance and the ensuing reactions seem to be something that is going to separate us from the conditions we blame for the sense of self we don't want.

But the conditions are not responsible for the sense of self we don't want.

The sense of self we don't want,

The painful experience of that,

Is this consciousness resisting reliving its own experiences.

It doesn't want it again.

It doesn't want another moment like that condition,

That person,

What they said,

Unsuspecting that the condition they don't want doesn't exist without the condition that's already in their consciousness that's sitting there as a dark seed,

Waiting by the way to constantly be replanted and replanted and replanted.

So resistance,

Going on with this,

We never see the actual resistance we feel.

We never are aware of the actual resistance itself.

What we become aware of when that resistance unconsciously,

Mechanically,

And by the way,

Naturally,

And necessarily part of creation,

Part of rebirth,

When that resistance is triggered,

What we become aware of virtually instantaneously is our reactions.

The reaction tells us the cause is outside of us.

The resistance,

If we're aware of it properly,

Is revealing the cause of that pain,

Of that unwantedness of that moment,

Is interior.

And it must be dealt with,

Understood,

Enlightened,

Illumined,

Interiorly.

Because as long as we do what?

As long as the reactions are talking to us,

Then we believe somehow or other that the reactions and the voices that attend them,

I've been giving talks on these voices,

These thoughts,

This conversation.

These reactions,

They talk to us.

Don't they seem to talk to you?

But it's critical here that we understand that the more we talk to our own reactions,

Engage in the dialogue with them,

The more complicit we become,

The more fully identified we are with the reaction of that moment as our savior from it.

Because the reaction has told us what's happened.

It tells us why it's happened.

It gives us the meaning of the moment,

Which is my topic for tomorrow's talk,

Sunday.

Join me if you will.

And so the more we become wrapped up in that ball,

Like a snowball going downhill,

Only a snowball of thoughts and associations,

The more condensed and solid it seems until there's no question in our mind that we know why we're experiencing this resistance and how vital these reactions are to reconciling the pain.

But listen to this,

Write it down if you will,

Please,

So you know.

Resistance itself has no voice.

I'm looking outside here,

Another beautiful spring morning,

I guess it's spring,

Yeah,

The solstice hasn't happened.

When I look outside,

I don't need a voice to tell me that there's beauty.

Again,

I'm going to go into this more deeply Sunday,

The meaning of it is inseparable from the relationship between the observer and the observed,

The singularity of that moment,

Of that sight,

Of that understanding is everything.

But we,

As we are now,

Not understanding the nature of this resistance as a kind of constant re-experiencing our own past,

But unaware of our relationship to re-experiencing the pain,

The sense of inadequacy,

The loneliness,

How all of that seems to us ever present,

When the truth is we're not present to how that is working and understanding it,

Because we start listening to what?

We start listening to the voices that are,

How do I say,

The banquet of bitter voices that come with each and every one of these reactions,

Telling us why we have been defiled or how we're defined by this situation.

So resistance,

Resistance isn't trying to tell you something.

The real nature of resistance is its relationship to what is acted upon it.

The light that has brought the darkness that knows itself not into some form of sudden awareness of itself.

So resistance has no voice,

But it is showing us something,

Something we don't yet know about ourselves and that we can if we want to,

But only if we understand how this consciousness in which this resistance lives,

There's no question about it,

Our conditioning,

How that consciousness that is conditioned cannot begin to suspect that its identity is based upon its conditioning,

That its present identity doesn't exist without the past.

And how it takes this identity that is a configuration of past experience,

Knowledge as it were,

And never stops comparing that body,

Those quantum packets of conditioned energy,

And never stops comparing the present moment to those packages,

To those particles.

And out of that comes this resistance.

And of course,

The more that this consciousness resists what ultimately it has created in its unconscious state,

The more real that consciousness feels itself to be.

This is why it's so hard for men and women to understand that,

As Mr.

Howard used to say,

The last thing that we want to give up is our suffering.

I'm explaining it to you,

Because our identity is inextricably interconnected with this resistance,

The reactions,

And the constant struggle to escape a consciousness that cannot escape itself no matter how many different ways it imagines that's possible.

So next question,

What's the attraction to these reactions?

Just try to see it with me,

Please.

I'm having a terrible negative reaction.

I hear about something,

I see something.

Now the negative reaction is painful.

No one can argue that.

Why am I attracted to the source of my pain?

Because when I am identified with a negative reaction,

When I'm fully caught up in it,

Looking into it,

When all that's going on,

I am in fact attracted to that reaction.

Why?

Because that reaction is the excretion of an unconscious nature that requires the reaction to validate what it feels is acting against it.

And when we sit inside of that unconscious matrix of thoughts and associations that give rise to more reactions,

And the more reactions we don't want,

The more we resist them,

As we sit without knowing it in that unconscious circle of self,

We are a captive of a consciousness that we have no awareness at all,

But that had we had in that moment when that resistance began to formulate itself,

Began to express itself,

We had even an inkling that everything that's going to follow,

That wants to drag us in,

Get us involved in analyzing,

Trying to figure out,

All of that,

The minute that happens,

We've lost the moment where the resistance would serve as a time machine,

Where it would allow us to see what has come into the present moment with us,

A kind of traveler,

If you will,

An unconscious traveler through time that this consciousness carries with it.

It comes into the present moment,

And it measures every present moment through the content of the past.

And when the content of the past is threatened by some particular situation,

Then that content thinks that it is threatened,

And that is who we think we are.

So how do we work with this?

Still with me,

Everybody?

I got about four minutes left,

I want to tell you a quick story.

Years ago,

Myself and several friends,

We went to a wildlife safari,

I don't know what it was,

Someplace in northern Oregon.

And I'm,

If you don't know me,

If you haven't studied with me,

Listened to me,

I'm a naturalist,

A kind of a natural naturalist,

I don't know anything from books about nature,

But I spend great amounts of time every day quietly watching nature.

All the creatures,

Their relationships,

All the flora and fauna,

Everything that moves them,

Everything they move,

I just observe.

I'm drawn to it,

Because something in me understands that what I'm drawn to outside is merely an expression,

A reflection of what is inside.

You can't recognize a truth outside of you without first understanding that that was waiting within you to be revealed by that relationship.

We went to wildlife images,

And when you get to,

Not wildlife images,

Safari,

I don't know what the heck it was called,

You pull in and you're driving your car through a zoo,

Basically.

Not like you're walking around seeing creatures in cages.

They have habitats.

And we're told,

You know,

It's no problem,

But when you go into the lion habitat or the grizzly bear habitat,

You are under no circumstances to slow down your car,

You are under no circumstances to feed them,

And under no circumstances are you to talk to them.

Now,

I have to admit that I am not the best when it comes to certain instructions like that.

So,

Sure enough,

We got into this habitat where Winston,

The grizzly bear,

Lived.

And there are other stories to this,

Which my wife,

I'm sure one day will be glad to tell you.

But when we got into Winston's habitat,

I wanted,

He was handsome,

I wanted to say hello to Winston.

Creatures are magnificent.

And the funny thing is,

Without saying it otherwise,

The reason they're magnificent,

The nobility,

The strength,

The character,

Is because every last creature that you or I will ever lay our eyes on,

Its character and quality is already a part of our consciousness.

We're not looking at the creature and experiencing its nature outside of us.

We are experiencing the stirring of its corresponding qualities within our own consciousness.

That's the attraction.

So anyway,

Long story short,

Not only did I roll the window down,

But I stopped the car.

And what do you think happened?

Winston came over,

Which I thought was exciting,

Until I realized that it's dangerous.

So I started to pull away,

At which point Winston glommed his like eight foot feet claws onto the tire that was attached to the back of the car.

I guess it must have been in a Jeep or something like that.

No,

It was a Pathfinder with a tire on the back.

He got his claws on it and then sunk his teeth into it and didn't want us to pull away.

Well,

Obviously I had to pull away.

So Winston got to keep the tire cover and shredded everything else.

Long story short,

What's the point?

You ready?

You've heard the idea,

Don't feed the animals,

Right?

Why?

Please don't stop.

Why?

Because if you feed the animals or if you stop there,

Then you are indicating a wish to engage with that creature.

Creature's mechanical,

Unconscious,

It will comply.

Here's the whole talk in a nutshell.

Please don't stop to feed the reactions.

Please don't stop to feed the reactions.

The reactions don't exist without the resistance.

So when there is a negative reaction,

It is because something in this consciousness that is now hidden has gazed upon something that is stirred in it,

What it has carried over that is still incomplete,

Still in pain.

The task is instead of feeding the reactions,

Feeding Winston,

Slowing down,

Stopping,

The task is to not stop there.

Don't stop and talk to the reactions.

If you've understood what I've said,

Then you realize that's the wisest thing that you will ever work to do.

Now you may not be able to do that at first.

In fact,

I can guarantee you won't because it's so fast and instantaneous,

Our relationship to these reactions that we don't know who we are without them defining the moment and ourselves in it.

But imagine a man who his brother has to go get him once a week out of an emergency care center and he's always mugged.

Finally,

He says to brother,

What are you world are you doing?

How do you get like this?

He said,

Well,

You know,

I walk to work.

Yeah.

He says,

Well,

All the way everywhere,

Sometimes different places,

There's these booths and I walk by the booth and I look in and I don't know how they have it,

But they have my complete family history,

Images and frames and fantastic pictures of this.

But the whole thing,

You know,

Lots of stuff I don't want to see,

But the soundtracks from birthday parties went on.

It's all sitting there in these booths.

What's the problem?

He says,

Well,

The brother said,

When I go in there,

They grab me,

They take my wallet,

Throw me out on the street.

The brother says,

Well,

You got to be kidding me,

Man.

Why in the world do you stop there?

If this happened to you more than once,

What would compel you to go in there and get mugged?

And his answer is,

Because I keep seeing something that I like.

I keep seeing something that I want to go into more.

You cannot go into these reactions that promise to fulfill or otherwise release you without being drawn into the world from which these reactions have appeared,

Which is the past.

And when you are drawn into the past and become an unconscious participant in it,

You will be mugged by it.

Just the fact that you have gone into thought,

Into memory,

Into these reactions is validating the identity that doesn't know itself without the content of the past.

This physical form,

This present level of consciousness is a seed.

I'm describing to you what you must see in order to begin to die to it.

And it starts with that simple idea.

Don't stop and talk to your own reactions,

Let alone to yourself about them.

Reviews

Resistance as a holding from the past is a useful framework