GF Live 6-4-22 "The 4 Cornerstones Of Higher Consciousness"

A sure sign that one is beginning to awaken, clearing away the veils that mask the entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven, is that – increasingly - one longs for the taste of Real Life...more than one hungers for still more individual life experiences.

Transcript

Good morning, Everyone. Let's all, As best we understand it, Collect ourselves. Take a designated moment to come back into our body and to our mind. We'll wait for the rest of the people to join us for just a moment or two, And we'll get started. I can make a couple comments while we're waiting though. And it does connect with our topic today, Which is how to cultivate the four cornerstones of higher consciousness. You know, Why are we here this morning, You and I, Or wherever you are in the world, Whatever time it is, If you're looking at me and listening to me, You've made a choice to be here. Why? It's rhetorical. What are we doing here? And in essence, Although it can be said in a number of different ways, We are gathered to connect, Not just to each other, But to connect ourselves to a wish that runs through all of us, That we might through our spiritual work, Our discoveries, Be connected ourselves, Our consciousness, To something that, First, Put that wish in us to awaken and to find out who and what we are and what is our real purpose on this planet. I was thinking just before I pushed the question I was thinking just before I pushed the start live button, I hope that you have in your life found, At least to some extent, If not some purpose in life that pleases you, Meaning that you do what you do because you love to do it. You're ahead of the game if you've been able to find that or make the sacrifice necessary to put what you love first, But so as to not create any problems before I even begin to lay out what I want to speak with you about. Our world has changed in such a way that for most of us today, The whole idea of purpose is related to utility. Things have a purpose for me in this life relative to what I think I can extract from the purpose I have. My purpose is to make a lot of money, My purpose is to become socially prominent, My purpose is to be respected, Whatever it may be in terms of character or pursuit of what we think is profitable because that purpose has a utilitarian side to it. It's going to basically make me into something grand, Superior, Great. But I want you to understand that that puts the idea of purpose beneath us. So that in serving that purpose, I'm actually serving myself. And I want to look at something with you today where we can start to realize that if, In fact, And I've been speaking about this quite a bit lately, I hope you're able to join me online. I speak three times a week for five days a week. I'm not going to be able to speak for five days a week. I speak three times a week for free all over the world online. Go to my profile or just search me out. You can find out where that is. Nothing to join. I've been speaking recently about this idea. I call it the bridge of being. And how without much effort on our part, We can look around in the world recognizing as we should to be able to at this point, As above, So below. We look out and there's nothing that you can see in nature. I'm lucky I live up in a mountain here. Every last creature is connected to every last creature. From the sun, From the majesty of the sun itself, The light that it sends streaming down, It streams down into itself, I might add, Because matter is congealed light. And so here's light streaming into form, Each form connected to serve the purpose of transforming that energy, Transfiguring it so that the form beneath it can receive that energy. And we can see without much effort, If we're willing to do it, We don't need to be a Einstein to see it, There's a bridge of being. There's a bridge to all of these energies and a purpose unto heaven to every last one of the creatures that are part of this bridge. And just like the creatures out there, We are part of this bridge, But we have an extra role, An extra possibility in that we are created with the capacity to be aware of the fact that we are a part of this bridge. No other creature knows that. The deer doesn't know that it's a bridge between the grass that it graces on and the predators that take its life. The tree doesn't know it's a bridge between the sunlight and the fruits that grow on its branches. But we can know that we're a part of the bridge and that's part of our purpose. It's spelled out in every scripture, East and West, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, That we worked in a form of service to a purpose greater than anything we can certainly imagine. In the end, It is certainly a purpose that serves our greatest possibility, But for a long time, It doesn't seem that way where we can see the truth of something and we try to understand how do we become an integrated part of this bridge? That's the purpose of our meeting today. I call it the cornerstones of higher consciousness. And before I get into them, By the way, Let me just give them to you quickly. You want to write them down. They are the cornerstones. Then I'm going to describe them in terms of our work, How we cultivate equality, Awareness, Wisdom, Strength, Faith, Awareness, Wisdom, Strength, Faith. And each of these four cornerstones builds on each other. And I don't know if you know this, Most of us don't. For a period of time after I left the music business a thousand years ago seeking a simpler life, I was a Mason. I became a Mason. A cornerstone is the part, It's actually the center of a foundation that joins two walls together. It's foundational, Cornerstone. And usually it has a certain value attributed to it because of its role there. And so marking the beginning of something and also that which everything will be built upon, You and I need to discover if we want to understand this, We want to fulfill the purpose of our life, We have to understand something about this bridge. So the talk that I want to give today, The material I want to share is how do we formulate, How do we help produce, Take our part in the manifestation of these cornerstones and the work involved. So nine minutes gone by. Let's get started. First, I've outlined this part. Our life is part of a much greater story. But it's a story that most of us don't know at all because we were brought into a world where we were not just told, Look, You get out there and create, You get out there and make something of yourself. Your purpose is to become someone special. Your purpose is to acquire things so that you can be safe and secure. And then like mom and dad would say, And their mom and dad said to them, And you will do better at this than I did. Never admitting, Never admitting that for all of their work, They weren't happy. The purpose of their existence eluded them, Which is why, By the way, Did you know, Do you know that one in 10 human beings on this planet today take psychotropic drugs? 10% of humanity has to take a drug to get through the day. And there's probably a lot more than that because a lot of people are smoking the weed and other ways in which to mollify this interior state of being at odds with our true purpose because we are in fact capable of creating, But before we are creators, We are creation ourselves. That should be evident. And if we are in fact a creation before we are a creator, Then we have a first obligation and that is to serve the purpose of our creation, Not to go out and try to build a kingdom in our own image, But to purpose our creation. Not to go out and try to build a kingdom in our own image, But to participate in the broader kingdom that we are a part of and that this bridge of being represents you and I as an element, An essential, Potentially essential element in it. So the task here, When we can start to understand this, Is that we have a special place, You and I do, In the celestial scheme of things. But we can never really know our own highest possibilities until we understand our place in that scheme. And as that understanding of our place in the greater scheme of things, So comes the clarity of our purpose on this planet. It doesn't mean we can't go out and become a rock and roll star or a rock and a star doctor or a great plumber or a mathematician. That doesn't mean that we can't pursue the things that we're drawn to because if we're actually drawn to something, It's part of the way in which we are developed by that which draws us to it, Which is the wish for this further integration. But the question for us has to be, What is it that's going to take to help us begin setting these cornerstones? I see a couple of notes here. Is there a problem with the sound, Everything okay? Katie, Still okay? Okay. Just a few people. Okay. It wouldn't be the first time that I sat and talked and nobody was there. So let me go through these cornerstones with you. A description and then a willingness to begin to work at fulfilling them and understanding them. The first cornerstone I said was what? Awareness. And how do we develop this awareness? I have three words. You can write them down connected to awareness and the words are learn to discern. Learn to discern. You and I, We don't need to think about whether or not, For instance, My wife loves to, My wife loves the sun. Loves the sun. Me, I'm more like a mushroom. More like a mushroom. So she likes to eat outside and often will eat outside but I don't like to sit in the direct light for a host of reasons but the bottom line is that I don't have to have my eyes open to tell whether I'm in the sun or in the shade. I have the capacity as a human being to know with even with my eyes closed the difference between being in the light and not being in the light. It's a simple awareness that we have. My friend is we don't have to think to ourselves what's the difference between up and down. We are oriented in a vertical fashion to the planet as are most creatures by the way to be most intimately connected with what's above us. We know higher and lower without having to think about it. Now we must, You and I, In the cultivating of this first cornerstone that will eventually lay in with the others, We must learn to discern the difference which doesn't require, In fact it can't require the difference between thoughts and feelings that are right and bright for us versus the ones that are dark and demeaning. And frankly we don't know that now. You and I can be easily picked up by a fearful worried thought or feeling and because it has the capacity to produce in us a certain promise of delivering us from the pain of it, It seems like a light. But those negative states, Those thoughts and feelings are not the light. They are in fact something that is keeping us from recognizing because of the way we're related to them which is what? I give my attention to the light. Which is what? I give my attention to a worried thought. A fearful feeling comes up and I'm habituated to give my attention to it because the fearful feeling is always associated with something threatening me outside and so this nature then gloms on to what it blames for the fear and I have no capacity to discern in that moment that what I am aligned with, What I've actually made my guide, It's stunning if you just see it and not be afraid of it which we'll get to in one of the cornerstones. When I let fear or worry tell me who I am and what I need to do, That fear and worry is not just my guide, It is my God in that moment because I am fully reliant on this connection that has been made unconsciously between a part of me that is made to feel fear through misinterpretation of the moment and that then tells me what I must do in order to escape or change that moment and I'm lost in that moment without having a clue because in that moment the darkness has presented itself as the light and I don't yet have the awareness to tell the difference between them and the difference between them isn't something that we come by through thinking about these things, It comes through a certain kind of awareness and ever so quickly because I can see my time is going to fly here, How do we do that? Now cornerstones are an old idea, Most of the beautiful old ideas that were connected to spiritual principles have been thrown away but long ago there was something called candling an egg and it was a way in which a farmer or a rancher could hold an egg up to a candle and that light from that candle would tell the farmer or the rancher whether that egg had been fertilized or not, Whether it was fertile or not, That's what the person could see by holding it up to the light, They could see into the nature, The substance of the egg. Well think of thoughts and feelings as eggs because they actually are. And if I could just remember in a moment, Especially if I'm starting to notice certain things about feeling uncomfortable, To hold that thought or feeling up to that awareness for that moment, I would be able to tell in that split second whether or not that thought or feeling was fertile or futile. In a heartbeat, Awareness is able to discern the difference between what is right and bright, What is dark and has no light in it. And our awareness then goes before us, As Christ said, To make those crooked places straight, To turn what has no possibility of being fertile in terms of developing the soul and by actually discovering that that thought or feeling has no natural fertility, Now it's fertile in terms of fulfilling the possibility of me recognizing and discerning the difference between what is good for me and what isn't good for me. The next step, The next cornerstone, Remember? Awareness, The next one was wisdom. Here's the simplest recipe for wisdom. Keep it simple. God, Does our mind love to get involved in every possible manifestation of ways in which, By identifying with all of that confusion, We become miserable? This mind actually creates problems so that it can be the hero that solves them, Only the only problem is that the mind never actually solves, It may solve the exterior condition, But it doesn't solve the fact that it keeps producing in itself these shadows. Thoughts are not what they represent. You're thinking about your life, You are not looking at your life. You are looking at an egg, A certain element, A character, A quality that was formulated over time, Mostly through negative experience, But coupled with the outcome of an expectation to escape itself, So that most of the time what we're looking at is something that could just be called shadows. They seem to have substance, There's no question about it, As when they gather together in bunches of bitterness, Cluttered in conflict, When they assemble like that they turn into clouds, Clouds of confusion, And in those moments what happens, If you're following me, What happens when I'm suddenly overshadowed by confusion or fear or worry? What happens? Of course the first thing is that the resistance grows. Now resistance is a euphemism, Spiritually speaking, For now I'm going to get in there and I'm going to fight with these thoughts. Look, They're fighting with each other. I want you to understand that. That this state of consciousness, This divided mind, You can't serve two masters, You'll love one and despise the other. If that which loves and despises is present at the same time in consciousness, They are in a war. And we not knowing that this consciousness creates this conflict by a ceaseless state of separating us from the possibility of being in the light that shows all is unified, By being in that constant state there's just this dogfight. Have you not been in a dogfight in your own mind? I remember years ago I tried to separate, I had a beloved animal, His name was McKeever, But McKeever, And I think in part because of how undeveloped, How crazy I was when I was a boy, McKeever, He walked around, He'd strut his stuff, Macho, Macho, And he'd get into dogfights. And occasionally I made the mistake of trying to separate two dogs. Of course I had paid bitterly for that, First for creating, Helping create in this creature this mistaken attitude towards other males, But so here's the point, Don't get into the thought fight. When thoughts are fighting, Stay out of the fight, Watch them, Because they are expending amounts of energy produced by a mind trying to resolve itself, It'll run out of stuff. No fight goes on forever, I watch turkeys here, Or sometimes the bucks on the property. They're combative and it can be pretty vicious, But at a certain point, Oh god I'm just exhausted, I can't do this anymore. Well this consciousness eventually runs out of steam to produce the suffering that's involved in this thought fight. Think of a dogfight, Next time that you get confused or worried or anxious, I want you to have a kind of a quick glimpse of a recognition that your mind is in a dogfight and don't get into it. You watch it, If you watch it, What'll happen is the fight will subside and then you'll see, Thank god, I didn't get into that fight. I mean if suddenly I'm in this whirlwind of confusion, If confusion, Doesn't confusion come from having no direction at all? Isn't that what confusion is? What direction do I go in? Well if confusion, If those quarreling thoughts and feelings, Should I do this, Should I do that, What about this, If it's doing that all the time and confusion comes from having no direction, Then how can those thoughts provide one? And in case you haven't noticed at any time that you sit and then finally choose what you're going to do when you're in the middle of a negative state, The minute that you even get close to that selection, Another dogfight, Another thought fight will appear because it'll start questioning whether or not you made the right decision. The right decision in that moment is to keep it simple. That's where the wisdom comes in. Because wisdom isn't knowledge about how to change things, Wisdom is the understanding that you're part of change itself. And then if you let things unfold the way they're intended to, You'll realize your purpose all along was to stay out of the dogfight and to recognize that you're not a dog. You're a human being. I know this runs counter to everything we're shown and taught, I tell you real human beings don't get involved in dogfights. Because wisdom knows better than to walk into a war that can't be won. And the reason the war can't be won is because it's between two sides of a consciousness that don't recognize they are opposites of each other and in ceaseless conflict with one another. So by awakening to this, We begin to step out of the conflict and into another order of consciousness. The third cornerstone of cultivating this higher consciousness, Of finding our place in this bridge of being is the third cornerstone I told you was strength. So we have awareness, You can see, Doesn't awareness lead to wisdom? And doesn't wisdom give form rise to a new kind of strength? So here's the strength in words relative to the third cornerstone. Refuse to excuse what the awareness, What the light reveals. Refuse to excuse what the light reveals. Now we have become, Without knowing it, Masters of excuse. We are almost never without some thought or feeling telling us why it is that we feel the way we do, Why it is we must do what we know we ought not to do, Although it's buried, And then when we do the thing that we know we ought not have done, What did Saint Paul say? I don't do the good, I would I do the evil, I would not. He's describing this idea that I'm always in this place where suddenly I have a small awareness of something. Like for instance, You can't tell me that before you launch out, Send out some sarcastic remark. And I have to tell you something, You know, Humanity has fallen into such a state, Not of grace but of disgrace. Disgrace meaning the opposite of being in this stage of being willing to be aware and to watch and to see ourselves as we are, And then in seeing ourselves as we are, As shocking as it is, To not excuse what we see in ourselves. Everybody has a reason for why they're negative. Everybody validates their complaints, Unable to see that in the moment when that thought appears to excuse or to justify, To validate the unjust action that one took, And by the way, It is wrong for us to hurt any other human being in word or deed, Period. We are not here to hurt one another because we blame one another as a convenient way to escape the pain that has come up in this consciousness as a result of its demands on one another, Of the unconscious quality that sees men and women and the world itself as utilitarian to us. I mean, When you really see it, It's incredible. I look at you as something that can serve me. And when you fall that far into this consciousness that sees everything as something owed to it, Then there is no question that when that fails to operate the way we expect it, That we're going to turn into somebody that's angry because we have the right to be upset and to blame and to complain, Because after all, I'm not getting from this bridge what I'm supposed to get from it. See, It's all backwards. We're supposed to give ourselves to this bridge so that these qualities that are still latent in us can be brought into this light and let the light do what we are unable to do. The light will fight for us instead of us trying to fight to excuse ourselves when we see these things in us that we know ought not be. You can write this down. I often say it. There is no such thing as a bad fact about yourself. We almost can't hear it enough because part of the misfunctioning, The breakdown of this consciousness of ours is that it is so instantaneously identified that it cannot see in the moment of identifying with a fear, A worry, A sense of inadequacy. In the split second when it identifies with one of those futile eggs, The split second it identifies with it, That's all I see. And in the weirdest thing of all, It's a form of narcissism. Because when I look at something I don't want to be, I'm so fascinated with the me that doesn't want to be that, I can't see I'm not that other than for a being identified with it. I've just fallen asleep. Refuse to excuse what the light reveals. Use what happens when you allow this awareness to reveal to you that you have been living in a consciousness dedicated to concealing the content of itself. All of the energetic formulations over time, Bad experiences, People hurting us, Things that didn't go right, Disappointments. Just because the log goes by on the river and seems to go around the bend doesn't mean the log is out of the river. In case you haven't noticed, What goes around comes around so that we have the repeated experience of this disappointment with ourselves and meet at the same time every way, Which is I should have done better, I could have been better, They should have been another way. Instead of recognizing in the moment when that log comes floating down, The reason it's still in the river is because we have yet to understand that its appearance is an invitation to produce a natural form of separation born out of realizing the problem with the log isn't that it's there, Sure that happened, But something in me wants to derive an identity from it. And in a very weird paradox, We are strengthened spiritually the less and less we are identified with the things that give us strong thoughts and feelings about ourselves. I don't know if you can see how backwards that is, The more certain I am, The stronger I feel. Well real strength isn't certainty about conflict or how to get out of it or who caused it, That's weakness. Why? Because I am drawn into a consciousness asleep to itself and I'm in that dog fight, A thought fight. Do I, The new strength is the recognition I don't need strength at all. I just have to realize where I am because if I actually am present, If I've actually worked with this awareness, I've worked to develop the wisdom it brings and then I'm willing to be strengthened by this new understanding, What do I need to fight with? I'm fulfilling the purpose of my own existence. And so that peace becomes my strength, A quiet mind becomes the fortitude. I hope you can see it with me. So the last of the four parts of cultivating this bridge of higher consciousness. So what did we have? We had awareness, We had wisdom, We had strength. The last is faith. If I have this awareness and it develops this wisdom and I can see that in this wisdom while it might be momentarily painful, It's so much superior to consciously suffer the appearance of the things that want me to unconsciously suffer. Because if I consciously suffer them, Lo and behold I see that they're not me and their life has depended on me not wanting them, Not wanting to be me. Imagine my pain depending on continuing because I don't want it, Because I don't understand it. If I go through these iterations, If I work as I'm describing them, The last of these stages, And these are just words, Meaning that I'm describing to you possibilities, Not guarantees. But the possibility becomes a guarantee if we are willing to do the fourth step. I call it faith. Remember the light never leaves you. Remember the light never leaves you. I talk to men and women all over the world all the time, Three times a week. And one of the things that I hear quite often from them is that, You know, They're in this dark place, Everybody's talking to me, Everybody's talking, All these thoughts and feelings are talking. Do you know why thoughts talk to you? And by the way, They're not your thoughts. They are talking. They are actually talking to themselves. They're not talking to you, But we don't know any better than to get into the middle of a fight. Imagine you're walking down the street and here's a man and a woman and they're going at her like that. Do you walk into the middle of that fight? I mean, God willing, The man isn't abusive, Obviously. Not walk into a fight. Why do I walk into a fight going on in my head? It's exactly the same thing. And when I'm in enough of these fights and then I start to believe all there is is this fight, And if all there is is this fight, What's the purpose of fighting for myself in the right way? Because that's what we're describing. Remember, The light never leaves you. There is a part of this consciousness that wants you to dwell on how dark things are. Now think with me. Something in me starts to paint pictures, Produce emotions, Create structured experiences, Go back over, Well, I did so much, I tried so hard. Why does God abandon me? You know? And so what happens is, How do I say this to you? If you're familiar with any of the terminology, I'm a little reluctant to use it, But a person enters into the dark night of the soul, Which is not just one night. In some respects, We are intended to live in an almost constant dark night of the soul, So that in entering into it with the understanding that in this darkness is the light. That's right out of scripture, Now that I've said it. The light dwells in the darkness and the darkness comprehends it not. And if in the absence of comprehending the purpose of each moment, When the student is ready and the teacher appears, In being ignorant of the reason that things seem dark, Then I trust what my mind is telling me is causing the darkness. Like asking the proverbial fox to guard the chicken coop. It's ludicrous, But I don't know it because I'm so used to what? Here is that dark thought, That dark feeling, This is useless. My spiritual life has done nothing. Look at me, I'm still the same. The litany of lashing thoughts and feelings goes on forever. And if you study long enough and if you're fortunate enough to find a real school, You'll find men and women who have finally begun to see through that line. And then you can participate, Be nourished by what they have gained in the cultivating of these stones of higher consciousness, And your own foundation gets stronger through the fraternity of a working group of people. Anyway, Let me go on, I'm going to run out of time. Something wants me to dwell on the darkness. Now when I'm looking at what is dark, Is there any light in me if I believe that's all there is is darkness? Or in that moment have I been convinced, It's quite habitual at this point, We're conditioned to it, I need to recognize, I need to remember that the light never leaves me. What kind of God would it be who leads a human being through the human being's wish and love, No matter how immature, No matter how undeveloped it is? I tell you if you have one ounce, If you have a thousandth of an ounce of love for God, Not the icon, Not the ludicrous sentimentality connected to religion left and right, Up and down today, No, That innate sense of on one hand recognizing something is missing from my life and I realize it has to belong to something within me but I know not where to look or how to proceed. If you keep that wish in the light instead of letting the darkness overwhelm it as it wants to do, Then that little spark will become an ember and the ember will become inflamed and the material that has been collected through your experience of loss will become the kindling of a new order of consciousness because you'll understand through the fourth step, Light never leaves you, I have to go through these things. But I'm going to go through them now understanding that they are all part of this bridge, They're all part of the way in which I am intended to be connected to a consciousness that was there before I took this body. What lives in the dark of us is literally blind. It cannot see itself. That means that when I am negative, I am blind. And when I am blind, It is easy to become discouraged because I keep walking into things. I keep hearing thoughts and feelings tell me I'm not going anywhere, My eyes are closed because inwardly I'm turned around and I'm attending to this darkness that wants to convince me that it has my best interest in mind. And my best interest according to the darkness, Which is really its best interest, Is to abandon all hope, To give up the idea that I'll ever have any relationship with the divine because after all, Look at all that hasn't happened. And in that moment, What is it showing you? It's showing you what it needs you to see so that it can dominate you and get you to drop the actual purpose of your existence on this planet. We are created with the capacity to be able to bring into any moment, Regardless how dark it may seem, No matter how prevalent the fear, Powerful the pain from the past, We are created to bring into the midst of that darkness the remembrance of the light. And when we do that, We will see as we candle that egg, As we see the futility of that thought, As we walk out of that thought fight, We'll see in that moment that something was there, It went before us, It was waiting for us to give our attention to it so that it could attend to our consciousness in our stead. Then you begin this, You've got the four cornerstones, You actually understand faith is not something that you hope for. Faith is an activity, It is a piece of fruit, It is wine, It is something substantial. And the more substantial it becomes, The more that cornerstone is put into place and then you'll see that you do not build the higher consciousness, You enter into a building that was constructed for you before you knew what life is. Forty-one minutes, I guess that's it. Do your work. Join me, Find me, Let's work together. We can change ourselves by understanding the real order of what change is. Bye.

Reviews

Thank you 🙏

The best of the best! Thanks Guy! Keep the wisdom coming! Yours in faith, Michelle D