GF Live 6-17-23 How To Outgrow Any Old Fear Or Sorrow

Growing into a new and higher level of consciousness that already dwells within and above us requires that we realize, and then outgrow the lower consciousness “beneath” us. Before you can have a different life: before you can be happier, wiser, more at peace, and in quiet command of yourself, you must first *be* different. Being is everything.

Transcript

I want to work with you on something today. And I must say before I get into it, As I do sometimes, I have absolutely no interest in convincing you of anything. I don't want you to believe a word that I say. I have no, Honestly, No interest in being your teacher. What I am interested in, And that's why I do these things that I do, Is this process of exploration, The possibility of discoveries that transcend not just the world that we find ourselves in, But the consciousness that's responsible for it. And I don't know whether the words I say resonate as I speak them, But I'm assuming that by the fact that you join me on Insight Timer, And God willing, And I speak several times a week for free to people all over the world, You're always welcome there to share in that journey. And that's what this talk is about, A journey. I think the title of our meeting today was How to Outgrow Any Old Fear and Sorrow. And if we're honest with ourselves, And we must be ruthlessly honest, Fears and sorrows, Conflicts with others, Impatience, Depression, Anxiety, These are daily visitors in our lives, More often, As I like to say, Like bees waiting to line up and waiting in a line to get onto a flower, Only that they don't bring with them the pollination that makes the flower healthy. They steal from us the things that we don't know we don't have to give away. And that's what I want to talk about today. And I started with a very short, Specific idea. I don't know what book this was from, But it sets the tone. Imagine a daughter and father love one other young daughter. Her father is a horticulturist. He grows roses. And she loves roses, Meaning that which is opening and blooming and fragrant, Rich in color. And so much so that she asked her father, Can she have her own rose? Because he's got this big greenhouse with all these roses growing in it. And he says, Finally, Certainly. And he gives her a small rose in a little pot and he says, Sweetheart, This is yours to take care of. In some ways, It's a story that has to do with our coming into this world. We are given something to take care of. And so off she goes so excited with her own rose. So excited are we with what we call our own life. And as any little girl might do, She goes and does what she thinks is best to do with this possibility that her father has given her. And oh, I say a week later, He sees his daughter kind of moping around. He says, What's wrong? She says, My rose, It's not doing well. It's kind of droopy. He says, Well, What's going on? He already knew he had watched her. And he follows her over to a small corner behind the greenhouse where in the shade she had planted the rose, But she planted it inside of the little pot. And he says to her as he uncovers it, He says, Listen, He said, In order for things to grow, They must have something endless to grow into. And they must have all the light they need in order to do so. So if we take this little rose out of the pot and put it into the ground, And then place it someplace where it will get the sunlight it needs, Your little rose will grow into a beautiful rose. And you'll understand something you didn't understand before. So that's the story. Because I want to help us understand that we have been and remain contained out of the light and in a certain set of conditions that we have no idea how they came about because we were born into a world where the conditions that now hold us captive were part of the way we understood life to be. We were planted into a world that knows nothing of the light that gives it life, Let alone of the possibilities of allowing our spiritual roots, Our soul to be seeded and seeded into something that sees to its endless growth. So let's get in to this. Do you remember when you were young? If you can still remember. And I can remember very distinctly mom and dad, Aunts and uncles, Everybody. It was one of the ways they made small talk with us. In some respect, They would say, So what do you want to be when you grow up? Do you remember that? And please, We can have a dialogue. If I ask a question, It just takes a moment to disturb yourself and write in the little box, I remember that. That way we can keep a circulation going here. I'll be active, You're passive, Then I'll ask you to be active, Even if it's just to agree or disagree. That way we can keep it vital, We can keep it vibrant if we do that. Because I'm going to ask some more questions later. Much like I do on Wednesday nights when I give my discovery talks, Which you're invited to as well. You can find out, Seek me out, You'll find it. So what do you want to be? And I remember when I was asked, I had an innate feeling. I always loved animals, And so it seemed to me that when I grew up, I wanted to be a veterinarian. But all of us, One way or another, Have some picture. And even if no one asked you what you want to be when you grow up, You look around and you see these grown-ups, And you realize you're going to have to assume a role. Just like Gloria said, I just assumed that I was going to grow up to be a mother and a wife. And let me state, There's nothing wrong with these assumptions, With these roles that we are born into. Everybody looks around and we see these things. But what happens to us, Whether we understand it or not, Is that as we grow up and we start to see people that are successful, Or we look at this man or this woman who seems to carry themselves well, Whatever it may be, We begin to imitate and adopt certain behaviors. We don't know we're doing it. There's no clue. But as we imitate, You can't imitate without being identified. You can't adopt a quality or a persona without having imagined what that is and then manifesting what we've imagined. So we grow up into this world trying to, Without knowing that we are, To live up to how we want others to see us, How we want others to think about us. It's so, I was going to say repugnant, And it is, But it's so rampant in this world that it doesn't even dawn on us that part of the reason that we have these old fears and sorrows, That we're so often caught up in some kind of conflict with life, Is because some moment invariably comes around where someone or something challenges what it is that we have imagined ourselves to be, That we grew up into. God, I can't tell you how many instances there are, And there's not enough time on this talk to do so, Where a person starts to realize that when I grew up, I wanted to be successful like my dad, Or I wanted to be a mom, Whatever it was. And so with every one of these identities that we become rooted in, As life comes along and conditions change, Maybe circumstances don't permit me to become a mom. Maybe some kind of financial or economic or social calamity takes place, And I lose the chance of even going to college to get the degree that I thought would let me become some IT guy and make a bunch of dough. The point is that we find ourselves conditioned to believe ourselves to be someone or needing to be, And out of all of that comes this idea that I'm not growing into what I wanted to be when I grew up. I'm not making it. This is so prevalent. God, This is prevalent. Imagine being disappointed with being able to make a living because you can't make a living the way you imagined you should, Because that's how you thought others would see you and respect you. At any point, At some point, And I can only hope that you've reached this point, Otherwise this talk is moot. A person begins to realize the futility of imagining what it is that I wanted to grow up into, How I wanted to be seen. The futility of it becomes evident because every one of these images and corresponding identities, These are the things that I wanted to be. Every one of these images and corresponding identities literally comes into existence accompanied by the fear of anything that challenges it. So maybe I grow into this idea I want to grow up and become someone who's seen as witty or intelligent or brilliant or enlightened, Or you fill in the blank. And because of the identification with the image, Any moment that comes along that seems to throw mud or dirty water on that identity is absolutely rejected and feared. And then what takes place, We start to realize, You know what, This is a, This thing doesn't go anywhere. I've been trying to become this certain kind of person, Own these things, Be seen like that for a hundred thousand years. And no matter how much effort I put into protecting this idea about myself, The more I invest in protecting it, The more I'm punished by conditions that challenge it. And so at some point a person starts to realize some of these moments where ideas come into their life, That they have no idea why they strike so deeply, But they strike deeply because something has been prepared inside of that willing nature, That soul to recognize, Ah, Something's wrong. What's going on? And I want to give you one of these ideas. Hopefully it'll strike home in the words of another person besides myself, Ralph Waldo Emerson said, To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. To be yourself. We don't know what that means. 70, Almost 75 years in this body. And it's taken that long to even come close to the idea of what it means to be myself. We think we are ourselves when we are answering a fear. We are not ourselves when we're answering a fear. We are not ourselves when we're answering a fear. We think we are ourselves when something happens and we try to control or change the condition because it challenges something that we thought we have to have and be in order to be complete and successful. That is not what it means to be ourselves. That's what it means to be someone else. Because only someone else, Not you, Would agree to live under the yoke of fear or worry and doubt and sorrow and consistently accept its presence in your life. Only someone that is not you would agree to that. But we have become deceived into the agreement with this because we do not know how this identity was formulated in us, How we were brought into an identity making machine called human consciousness. That requires humanity to take on these identities so that in the very assumption of who I am and what I have to be, I'm dependent upon the world that has made it possible for me to even imagine that. Never recognizing, Even realizing to any extent that as I have imagined myself to be, Is the extent to which I live with fear and sorrow. Oh, And then something starts to happen inside of that man or woman. And may God hasten the day for you when you understand and realize to whatever extent it's possible, Which is part of the reason that we have these talks, That there is a shift that has to take place. And I'm not going to go into the details of that. I'm going to go into the details of the process of how we have to live in this world. And I'm going to go into the details of the shift that has to take place. That the journey that I've been on, The value of the journey is to discover that who set out on this journey was co-opted by an order of consciousness that decided what the journey was about. And having decided what the end of the journey was in the very arrangement of the conception of what it means to be a successful person, I lost the possibility of being myself. Another journey begins, But in order for another journey to begin, A journey must end. And there is no possible way that a new journey can begin without an old journey coming to an end. That's what everything is leading you to. That's what all of life is trying to show you. But we are so, So stuck. So that instead of what I want to grow up to be, Because that's the journey based on an identity fabricated and pushed out into the future that never arrives. And even when it does, It doesn't provide the protection. Instead of what do I want to grow up to be? Now it becomes, I recognize I must outgrow myself. I must outgrow myself. And the truth is, As it occurs to you, Because it has a thousand times, You see this impatience, This anger, This fear, You see these states and you realize, Jesus, How long am I going to be subjected to that? Having an enemy, Regretting, How long am I going to be subjected to that? And you start to realize, As does an addict, My life has been taken over by something and I must free myself. But without knowing it, You can't struggle against the condition you don't want. What you must do is struggle to see the consciousness that has created the condition. Because it isn't until we begin to turn the attention around and recognize the problem, The pain, The sorrow, The fear, That it's, You want to write something down? There's no such thing as a new fear. There's no such thing as a new sorrow. Fear and sorrow and conflict has been visited upon humanity since this consciousness fell into this divided state that you and I have entered into without knowing it. And in that divided state, Endlessly seeking an end to something that even as it seeks it, It propagates it. I must begin to understand what it means to outgrow who and what I've been. And that cannot be separated from who I have imagined and continue to be attached to and identified. I must have and be for that to happen. Now, I want to show you something and I hope you'll still following me. I'm a bit of a naturalist for those of you who've never joined me before. I live up in the mountains on a nice little house. I've got, By the grace of God, A kind of a little sanctuary here. Every day I interact with 10 or 12 deer and countless other creatures. They're all very comfortable here. It's a blessing. And I learn so much watching these animals. For instance, One of the things that I have seen and it connects intimately to this talk is that deer, In fact it happened just this morning again. There's a few girls and I'll put a video up on my Instagram account shortly. Tammy, The elder, The alpha, If you will, Is a deer. She had twins. She dropped twins probably two weeks ago. She just brought them to see me yesterday. I took a video but I hit the slow-mo button. While she's chewing, All of a sudden she's going like that. I'm talking to her little babies and you can't hear me. I'll put it up. Anyway, Here's what I learned. Deer, In fact I think this is pretty true about all animals, Deer, In fact I think this is pretty true of every creature, They model their world. Now what that means is that there's no Tammy or Tata or Tink or Little Buck or Big Dog. These boys and girls that are my friends, They don't think to themselves, I'm going to model this area here where a guy comes out and waters the trees and feeds us. No, They don't do that. But the nature in them, The way that it works is it creates a model of the world around them, Quite literally. And the model that it creates needs to stay the same because if anything in that model changes at all, They have fear. So that their confidence is a creation of a relationship to the model their mind has made of the world around them. And anything that disturbs the model, Any breaking of a twig in the distance, A squirrel running down the road, When they hear these things, Suddenly the model, The static model is moved. And when the static model is moved, They feel the accompanying state, Which is usually some kind of an alert. So anything out of that model is seen as a threat to them. It's so interesting to watch. I washed off a chair I have here and a watering can, And I put them in a different place than they usually are. And this morning when Tata came across the deck to look to see if I was going to come out, Suddenly she stopped just like that. And I could see her staring at the place where these three things were not in the same order they were before. Yes, Same thing. It's the same thing across the board. Now listen to me. It is exactly the same thing with our consciousness. It's exactly only we think we're smarter than a deer. Try to see it. Somebody looks at you and they don't give you the look you're used to seeing. You know, Most people have about five looks. And if there's a variation on any of those looks looking at you that isn't the same, You're alerted. And I can't go into all this. I've got so much to tell you. That model, You know how people talk about get outside the box? What do you think the box is? The box is this level of consciousness that without our knowing it, In order to ensure that it feels safe and secure, Models the world after what it believes is a safe, Secure model. And so it looks everywhere it goes. Everything about it is constantly comparing what it sees to what it knows things should be so it can be safe. I'm going to give an entire talk on this idea of comparison after the talks and the pines coming up next weekend. In order to break out of this box, We have to get out of that model. We have to step outside the model of that mind. And you can't step outside the model of the mind by making another model. That's what we do. This model breaks down, Build another model. That relationship broke up. I need another relationship because I need the model of the relationship in order to relate to myself as someone worth loving. Fill in the blanks. I don't have time. I'm going to run out as it is. How do I get outside? How do I get outside that box? How do I outgrow this model that this consciousness has made? And that has made us and the world that we're in, In its image so that anything that varies from the image of this world and the consciousness that creates it is seen as an enemy. So, Quick story. Here's a father and a son. We'll make him about the rebellion age, Maybe 13, 14, 15 years old. It can start sooner or later, But they've had a disagreement. And by disagreement, I mean the kid was doing something he shouldn't have been doing. And his dad, Knowing that he was hanging out with people that weren't good for him, Meaning these thoughts and feelings. Understand this is a metaphor that he was going to get into more trouble. And he was trying to explain this to the boy. And of course, The boy, Having no other model and feeling threatened by anything that threatens his image of himself and his relationship with the people that supply him with this identity, Takes umbrage. He gets irritated and he starts to storm out of the house. And as he does, His father says, Hold on, Son. Where are you growing, Young man? And the kid's caught off guard. It turns around. What do you mean? Where am I growing? Do you mean where am I going? No, I mean, Where are you growing right now? I don't understand what you're trying to say to me. Have you lost your mind? Disrespectful as the kid is. Father says, Try to understand this, Son. What we grow into cannot be separate from what we are constantly going into. And what we go into, Meaning what we give our attention to, Is inseparable from what we grow into. They are synonymous. What we give ourselves to is what we grow into. What we give ourselves to is what we grow into. And it doesn't matter that you think you're giving yourself to being this selfless person, You know, Who, Who, The deception runs so deep. The only way, As Christ said, By their fruits, You know them. What is the fruit of my life? Am I more patient? Am I, Do I have less self? Is fear? Am I more consistent in my behavior? Do I treat people with a constancy? Because you can say that those are the things that you're pursuing through your ambitions in this world, Whatever they may be. And ambition runs from everything to believing that I have to be a gazillionaire to someone who believes that unless people see me as some kind of authority, I've failed. You fill in the blank. The fact of the matter is that what we give ourselves to is what we grow into. I don't know why it takes so long to understand that. And that you may think you're giving yourself to some higher, Some motive, Something that's good for the world and all the rest of that. But when you feel resentment or regret because you aren't recognized for being that giving person, It's the proof you weren't giving yourself to what was true. You were giving yourself over to an image that shows you by the pain in it. You were betrayed once again by that identification. Do you remember a favorite old pair of shoes? I do. Maybe, Do you remember having a letter jacket from grammar school or high school? How you were, Even after you gained 30 pounds, You still wanted to put that jacket on. You ever seen people who look absolutely stupid because they're wearing clothes that they should have given to the goodwill 10, 000 years ago and they're still putting them on? What do you think that's about? I outgrew it. And if I outgrew it, It doesn't fit. And if it doesn't fit, It needs to be done with. Not try to figure out a way to alter it or make it fit me as I am, But to realize that as I am, It no longer serves the purpose it once did. I outgrew it. Now there's things that I know we all understand. There are a lot of things we're just not outgrowing. What are some of the things that you realize you need to outgrow? We're just going to take a couple minutes here if you want to plug in something. What are some of the things you know that you need to outgrow? Impatience? Ambition? Anxiety? Good. Please, Yes. Judgment? Yeah, Outgrow. Resistance? Outgrow being lazy? Outgrowing those constant questions? What if? This is good. Constantly planning? Trying to control? Pleasing people? Self-loathing? Anger? Yes. Controlling behavior? Look how great this is. Feelings of inadequacy? And can you see from the list, Which is what we do on Wednesday night, We look at a list like, Fury, I'm not trusting my intuition. If only. Yeah. Okay, This is great. Trying to get others to do it. So here we are and here's this list and every one of us can see, Can we not? That these things that everyone is writing down as a need to escape, To outgrow, We all have those same things. Now how do you explain that? Unless we all live from a consciousness, A sleep to itself, That because of what it has, In some respect, Out of desperation, Become identified with. Honest to God, One day you will see that this process of becoming identified, Attached and dependent on, That it was born out of desperation. At a certain point, Kid reaches a certain age and you know, I'm not married yet. I don't have children. I don't know what I'm going to do with my life. And it becomes an act of desperation to figure out who I'm going to be. Because the only pool that I have to choose from is one that pleases everyone and myself, According to the images of the world. So desperation chooses an identity, But we don't see it at the outset. That's why I say there's some things that we grew into, But that we have to outgrow. You can't escape this consciousness. Any more than the flower can outgrow the seed that comes out of it. But you can begin as we are intended to realize that like the deer, I'm living from a model that never gives me peace at all, Because it's always telling me something is missing. I've got to add something. I've got to do something. And it's endless and it never, Ever is satisfied. Other than the moment after it's eaten, Had sex or gone to sleep and had a good night. Other than that, It's done. It's just always on edge, Always searching, Always trying to prove itself. Now that list that we just went through, And I got to get to the end of the talk pretty shortly here. That's all good and true. We know we need to outgrow those things. For instance, When we're growing up, I want to get others to do what I want, Because if I can have control of them, I'll achieve my motives. If I achieve my motives, My ambitions will be done and then I'll be free. And for the longest time, You believe that if you could get people to do what you want them to do, You wouldn't be so irritated and upset. And that was a need that you grew up with. Now, However, It was developed environmentally, Culturally, Religiously, Socially, Or a combination of all those things. Those things that we grow up with, They're inescapable. They grow into us as we feed them. But that pot at some point becomes too small. We need to outgrow it if we're going to flourish. And thank God there is something in this human being, In our consciousness, A light that dwells in the darkness that knows it's not, That is looking to rise, That is looking to flourish. If it weren't doing that, There could be no dissatisfaction with all the things that we've achieved, If we've achieved those things. But when you realize is that all there is, At a certain point you realize you have come to the end of that journey. And you don't need to invent another journey. What you need to do is allow that journey to come to its natural end. And that's what spiritual courage is. But it's not courage like I'm strong. It's a courage based in the understanding that this, That I have been and done can no longer be and do what I am and follow. Because what is this single source from out of which all of these things that we want to outgrow? Well, I've been alluding to it, Haven't I? These all grow out of being attached and identified with some circumstance, Some condition, Some image. All of it is ingrained in this consciousness that gives itself over to a way in which it can know itself and feel good about itself and secure in this world. And at some point we see it a 10, 000 times, The wave comes in and washes the sand castle away. And instead of building another castle, One day it begins to dawn on a man or a woman as I hope it is for you. The source of all of these things that I need to outgrow has a single source and it's a borrowed identity. I didn't know I borrowed it. My father was a great man in this world. I mean, I knew that he was dysfunctional even as a seven year old, But in this world, A great man, Man, Time magazine of the year. Time magazine, Man of the year. Unbelievable. It comes and like any son would, You grow up and you see the success. You see the private tables at these exclusive hotels. You see all these things, People. And you say, Well, That sounds good to me. It looks good. I love special attention because you grew up and you get special attention. Whatever it might be, A borrowed identity. Now, When I was a boy, I didn't know the reason my father drank was because he had a borrowed identity. In spite of all the world gave him, It wasn't enough. He lived in constant fear of what he was going to do. In spite of all the world gave him, It wasn't enough. He lived in constant fear as did my mother. And it says every man or woman I've ever met in my life, Save for a tiny handful. Why? A borrowed identity. You want to know if you have a borrowed identity? Measure the number of times that you feel fear, Anger, Grief, Regret, And you will know if you have a borrowed identity because your true identity is never captured, Let alone carried off by any of the things that we just listed on this board. Instead, Your true self uses every last movement of this unconscious nature to further recognize that the more clearly it can see these things, The freer it will be of them because it knows better than to say I to any of these qualities, Characteristics of any negative state. And if you go far enough, Which I hope you will, You start to understand. And I think his name was Andre Gide. He was a Frenchman. And he wrote something quite concise that connects deeply with what we're saying. Something along the lines is that one does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of shore. Something like that. One cannot cite new lands without losing sight of the old shore. At some point, You're going to discover, As have the masters and the truly enlightened individuals, Recognized or not. And I have to say this, Not this. I'll be very careful with my words. Not this cleverly composed identity assumed by your so-called spiritual teachers. Your so-called spiritual leaders, Political, All of these men and women, Every last one of them, Has borrowed an identity and has cultivated it cleverly enough to deceive the great masses of this world into believing that if I could be like him, If I could do what they do, If I possessed what they possessed, I would possess myself. And you couldn't be further from the truth. At some point, What the true men and women, And may God help us, At some point, What the true men and women, And may God help you and I to become a true man or woman, They realize that what we have to outgrow is thought. What we have to outgrow is this unconscious imagination that gives rise to thought, That in turn gives rise to another identity. Because every identity and every thought and association connected to it brings about a ceaseless process of self-comparison. Endless comparison. Endless comparison. You're not troubled by the moment. It isn't the moment you fear. What's feared is in that moment something compares what's taking place to what you feel prepared to deal with or not. And out of that identity and all that it has brought forward in time with it comes the conflict. And then the conflict gives rise to desire, And desire gives rise to more attachment and identification. One day you'll be a thought catcher. Wherever you are, You won't be waiting for your time to come. You won't be waiting for this problem to pass. You won't be waiting for this pain to go away. You'll be waiting within a light, Within an understanding that watches these thoughts come as they try to give you something to become and do and imitate so that you can escape your own soul. You can't escape your consciousness. It can only be transcended. And it's transcended by recognizing that what it gives you to eat every day, What it shows you you have to do and be, It's not good food. It's not for you. Not for who you truly are. In order to find a new order of meaning, You have to outgrow all of the old meaning. To close this talk, I must. Don't think in terms of what you want to be, Where you want to go, Who you. . . Start noticing these things that come up inside of you. And don't try to get them to be what you want them to be. And don't try to get rid of them or resist them. Let them be what they are so they reveal the consciousness that gives rise to them. So there's less and less separation. So that this tiny little pot, This model that this mind has made, So that it begins to expand because the light is enlarging it as it is with your understanding and strengthening your wish to become who you are here to be in this world, In this life, And to serve the purpose that you were given to be and do in this life. And it wasn't to be like someone else.