Leave The Past Behind You GF Live 9-30-23

In REAL life there are no "tracks" to follow, but thought runs along the tracks of memory, and memory always departs from and returns to the same station: the PAST. This explains why it seems we never arrive at the higher station in life called “True Freedom”...because real freedom is not in time.

Transcript

Our topic today is turn your life around and leave the past behind you.

What if that's possible,

To leave our past behind us?

I don't know if we realize the extent to which what we imagine as our past,

The pain of it,

The incompleteness of it,

How much it haunts us,

Because we don't know any other way to respond to the conditions that trigger these reactions and in these reactions all the content of these things that never got resolved or that are still waiting to be resolved.

And how we,

Without knowing it,

Become unwittingly thrown into and onto a certain path that appears in the moments when this pain resurfaces.

So the key lesson is going to set the stage,

So just hold on while I have Kate post it,

If you will,

To this idea of turn your life around and leave the past behind you.

We're going to talk about how that can be done through our inner work.

Here's the key lesson.

In real life,

There are no tracks to follow,

But thought runs along the tracks of memory and memory always departs from and then returns to the same station,

The past.

This explains why we never seem to arrive at the higher station in life called true freedom,

Because real freedom is not in time.

This explains why we never arrive at that higher station in life called true freedom,

Because real freedom is not in time.

Now,

I understand that some of that idea may be a little complex.

I know we get lost a little bit when we talk about the idea of the fact that we have two natures,

That we are in a body,

We are in this world,

We are in the appearance of creation in passing time,

But that at the same time that all of that's unfolding seemingly outside of us,

Within us,

There is another nature.

And this other nature that lives within us is the nature within which all that is being unfolding outside of us is revealed inside of us.

It is the capacity we have as human beings to make this interior journey,

As Christ said,

To awaken a new mind,

This idea of turning around,

And in our ability to turn around,

To come face to face with what we have yet to recognize is within us in all of its possibilities.

So here is a very critical key lesson that Kate is going to put up right now.

Please,

We're going to study it for a moment.

Here it is.

Whatever remains unexplored and unknown in ourselves is stronger than we are.

Kate,

Do it again.

Whatever remains unexplored and unknown in ourselves is stronger than we are.

What does that mean?

It means that until we can see and understand the truth in that,

We're never going to recognize that whatever it is that is our weakness in any given moment,

Including this sense of being a victim of the past and the parts of us that validate that,

Is to understand that if we are capable of exploring what is unknown in ourselves,

It means that we are capable of understanding what is unexplored and unknown in ourselves.

And in the exploration and understanding of what is unknown in ourselves,

To rise above what dominates us in ourselves,

Because what is it that I'm dominated by other than what I don't know is true about myself?

Once I know it's true,

I'm not dominated by it anymore.

Can you think of an example of this?

Person's dominated by an addiction.

Person's dominated by anger or impatience.

Dominated by some sudden negative reaction that until the person recognizes the source of that addiction,

The reason for that anger,

Meaning the conditions in that consciousness that are triggered to bring that up,

Until that happens,

I believe that's who I am.

I believe the best course in this moment is to turn myself over to this course nature.

But once I understand there are other possibilities,

Because I understand the impossibility of that useless action,

Then suddenly there is a new field,

A new possibility in myself where I start to recognize the only weakness that I have,

The only weakness that any of us has is a negative byproduct of an unsuspected form of self-ignorance.

In other words,

What I've yet to understand about myself in these unwanted moments is the only struggle I have with that moment,

None of which,

I might add,

These moments exist without our resistance to them.

We don't understand the real nature of these moments where we feel challenged by conditions.

We don't understand the real nature of these moments,

These unwanted moments that challenge us.

That's what this talk is about.

Because if I can understand the real nature of that moment that seems to be challenging me,

Then I will have transcended this consciousness that looks at that moment and automatically,

Mechanically assumes the source of this challenge is this person,

Is this place,

Is this time,

Is this condition that I don't want.

That is not what challenges us,

And that is not the nature of the real challenge,

Which is why through all of these years we have yet to understand and transcend them.

The real challenge in any unwanted moment is to awaken and transform this unconscious nature that has come into that moment,

Imagining that life is some kind of race to win,

That it is a battlefield,

That it is a place where I either stake my claim or someone stakes my life out and serves them.

And so we cannot know how to use the challenge properly until we understand with great clarity what it is in that moment that we are actually being given to face.

Please,

I'll slow it down.

Yes or no,

When someone does this,

The moment comes along I don't want,

In those moments am I not literally picked up by the resistance and the reaction,

I'm picked up and my face,

My mind,

My thoughts are literally turned in the direction of the condition that that consciousness perceives as being responsible for that pain.

And so I am,

Again,

Without knowing it,

Directed,

Actually misdirected to face what I believe is stealing my freedom from me.

What is stealing our freedom in this moment is what we don't yet know about ourselves.

That's it.

No condition can steal from you your freedom.

And the only way in which a condition can be imagined to take from you your freedom is if you have become identified with some condition you've imagined as the source of your freedom.

So that the challenge in this first moment where we're first looking at this is this idea.

Somehow or other,

I must recognize that I am turned to look at what my reaction tells me is the torment.

But what I'm really looking at in these moments when my attention is turned to look at the source,

What it calls the source of my pain,

What I'm really looking at,

Please,

Is what I don't want and what I don't want in that moment does not exist without some part of me stuck in the past,

Insisting that what I do want and need remains in place.

This is a key idea.

We look at the moment that we do as unwanted because something in our consciousness resists its appearance summarily.

So the condition is not alone responsible for the suffering without the consciousness that resists it.

You can't separate the unwanted experience from the consciousness responsible for it.

This is a key idea.

The inner determines the outer.

Our problem,

If you're following me,

Is that I only know one place in that moment and I'm placed in it.

Something summarily places me in a position where my perception is the pain is something sourced outside of myself and that perception that is born by resistance summarizes the idea that I,

Who I am in this moment,

The me I know in that moment can't possibly have anything to do with the pain in it.

And in that moment we're dead because it is without understanding,

Again,

That there is in every single moment a right place and a right time and a right action that when it is met and understood reduces what is seen as the challenge into something that is complementary to the consciousness experiencing it instead of seeing it a combatant in conflict with us.

Let me make a transition here.

Every last one of us,

To one extent or another,

Or we wouldn't be here together,

Feels in some way that there is a specific purpose to our existence,

That we are intended to find our place,

And that so much of our search in life has to do with seeking this place and this purpose,

That we know somehow and to it without ever having to take thought,

That we are meant to be a participant in.

The nature around us confirms the intuition.

We know that within the caterpillar,

For instance,

Is that old metaphor.

There's a place in that caterpillar where a butterfly already lives.

And there will be a time under heaven when that place in that caterpillar will be taken through the transformation that produces a creature of a completely different order than the caterpillar,

That lives in a different world and that experiences itself in a way the caterpillar can never understand.

The rose opened is in the bud.

The bud can never know the rose that lives within it.

But yet we can see that within that bud,

The purpose of it is that it unfolds into this rose and that that place and time that cannot be seen when you see the caterpillar or the bud that already exists within these creatures.

As above,

So below.

If we can see and feel something of that,

That there is a place and it is a timeless place to fulfill a timeless purpose within these creatures as simple as they are.

How much more true would that be when it comes to you and I?

And there is evidence of this fact.

How many times have you had,

And I must suspect it's true,

A moment where life brought along a certain set of conditions and maybe it was an instantaneous epiphany.

In any instantaneous aha,

There is a realization and a very sweet one,

I might add,

That whatever it is that has suddenly blossomed,

Whatever it is that is suddenly flowered in me,

Whatever it is that has suddenly taken wing,

Was already waiting within me for the proper time so that that place and purpose could be entered into and out of it would unfold something that was a completely new understanding of myself.

In other words,

As the Native Americans used to famously say,

That we are the ones we are waiting for.

We are waiting for what already lives within us that is already within us in a place prepared for us.

Christ spoke of this.

Every true teacher does.

That these moments that seem to unfold in time are really the revelation of a timeless place within us that when entered into allows us to recognize that place and that understanding was prepared for us and more importantly,

That in the moment of that understanding,

We transcend all of the former misunderstanding of our life including the purpose of our past,

What we call our past,

And what we are and how we are to deal with it when it keeps reappearing as it does in the form of every unwanted moment.

Unwanted moments are not new.

They are the reincarnation of our past in a new form.

Unwanted moments are not new.

They are the reincarnation of this consciousness that is the past in some new disguise,

In some new form that because the conditions have changed,

We believe somehow or other the consciousness that meets them have changed and it hasn't.

That's the purpose of all that we're talking about in this moment together.

Is it true or not?

Forget the sudden aha,

The flowering of some new understanding for which you did your own preparatory work,

But how about those moments where we repeat this pain,

Repeat this resistance.

Resistance is futile.

Constantly re-experiencing,

Going through,

Revisiting the past,

The regrets,

And then one day to realize that all of that mistaken relationship to those moments was unnecessary,

Meaning that there was nothing that we were going to take from the self that was drawn to re-evaluate itself,

But that all of that had been futile and unnecessary suddenly proves itself to be vital when we recognize that we were in the hands of some order of ourselves,

That we didn't know,

That kept doing the same thing to us in the same moments over and over again,

Which was to do what?

Again,

To have us meet that moment,

Here's what you did,

Here's what they didn't do,

I'm full of resistance to it,

I don't want to go through this.

I don't want to be with you,

I don't want to be with myself.

What is it that I don't want to do and be in that moment?

It is not the moment that I don't want to be.

It is not that moment that I don't want to go through.

What I don't want to go through is being me again in that moment,

Reliving the past that by my very unconscious relationship to the conditions that trigger that consciousness,

I am destined to reincarnate it.

So,

Transition in the remaining 10 minutes before we open it up for a dialogue.

Something I've been talking about leads to this,

And you must see it for yourself.

Where do you look in moments when you are suddenly challenged by any unwanted condition?

Where do you look?

You and I look,

The first place our attention goes is to be turned in the direction of the person,

The condition,

The circumstance,

We turn and we think we're facing it,

And we're facing what we see as a challenge,

Failing to recognize that in that moment where we have been misdirected to look ensures the consciousness responsible for the experience of being challenged continues itself.

This is why Christ spoke of this idea of metanoia,

Of a new mind,

Of turning around,

Which is the real meaning of the word to repent,

Didn't mean to suddenly go,

Oh,

I'm a terrible person.

It meant to recognize this terrible condition that I'm looking at in this moment doesn't exist without something in me identifying with it.

I must,

In this moment,

As the prodigal son did,

Again,

Turn around,

Turn around and what?

To realize that we don't know what that moment holds in store for us,

Because our mind is telling us what it has brought to us.

Our task in these moments is to understand that there is more to who you are than what you are being given to see.

I'm going to say it again.

There is more to who you are in that moment than what you are being given to see,

Because what we are being given to see is where our attention and our perception is directed as the problem outside of us.

This is why the whole idea,

If we want to meet the challenge and be transformed as we're intended to,

We have to enter into the place prepared for us in that moment of challenge.

We have to enter into that place within us,

Prepared for us in that moment of challenge.

And how do we do that?

Where is that right direction to turn,

That right place?

How do we achieve it?

We have to practice in these moments,

Making a U-turn,

Y-O-U dash turn,

Put that in the box Kate,

It would be great.

Practice making a U-turn.

What does that mean,

Making a U-turn?

It means in this moment,

I'm going to understand,

I must reclaim my attention and replace it in the place prepared for it.

The place prepared for that moment is within me.

Everything about my life has brought me to that time and place.

Every bit of my misunderstanding or whatever I've been prepared to learn has brought me to that time and to that place.

And I throw the gift away,

Because I'm told that something is taking from me the gift of my freedom,

The gift of my security,

All the rest of that.

My attention is not a U-turn.

My attention is,

I am turned to look at what I don't want to see,

Instead of understanding that I must make this U-turn so that I can see this consciousness that believes somehow or other life is set against it.

Simple idea,

Isn't it?

But before we can begin to practice making this U-turn,

I've got to understand that I must turn toward a new me.

And the difficulty with turning towards a new me is that I can't know this new me until I've turned,

Entered into the place prepared for the revelation,

And then realized,

My God,

There actually is another order of understanding.

And that's actually what I want.

I don't want to—you should be so exhausted trying to control your life.

Trying to control people.

Change these circumstances so that they better fit who and what you've imagined yourself to be,

And then run into moments that challenge your imagined identity,

And then go through the same iteration over and over and over again.

You know what,

This is what Christ said,

Repent.

He said,

Make a U-turn.

Look in a new direction.

And what's the new direction?

The only one I almost summarily fail to look in,

Which is into myself.

Into the whole of myself in that moment.

So where instead of going to sleep in an unconscious reaction that tells me that what I need to be aware of is this problem,

And how I must find powers and possessions to deal with it,

Instead I must recognize the task is to bring myself into this place of higher awareness within which all of the elements that I do not yet understand about myself are right there spread out on a table like a feast.

The mind turns towards the thought nature that creates the torment by division.

To make a U-turn is to understand that what I must do now is recognize that yes,

There are these thoughts,

But now I see them as partners,

As participants in this process of delivering me into the hands of something that validates the pain because everything about me recognizes this moment shouldn't be this way.

You ought not have done that.

And I don't see it.

I can't see it.

How can I recognize this moment as being set against me unless I've lived that moment before?

So when I'm turned the way I am now by that resistance and reaction,

I'm literally looking into the past.

I mean,

Quite literally.

You don't know it yet,

But you will.

Quite literally,

I'm looking into the past.

And imagine this.

I'm looking into the past to free me in the present moment from a pain that doesn't exist without looking into the past and resisting what I see there.

The place is prepared.

All of my experience that is wasted when it is seized by something that compares the new moment to the old experience.

So the old experience becomes crystallized instead of the old experience transformed into new understanding through a new awareness of it.

That's right,

Isabel,

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

But here's the rub.

If I understood,

Make a U-turn,

That would mean in that moment I have to turn away from you.

I have to turn away from myself.

To make a real U-turn,

I have to turn away from myself,

Don't I?

Because I've been turned in this direction.

It's the familiar one.

It's the one that's telling me,

Promising,

Tempting me that future holds this freedom if I just do and go in that direction.

And I've done that my whole existence,

As have you.

So to make a U-turn is to turn away from Guy,

Who I've been,

And to turn away and to turn in the direction of who and what it is possible for me to be in the light of that revelation of who and what I've been.

This is what dying to oneself is,

Being reborn moment to moment.

Because the place is prepared for us,

And the purpose is in the place.

So that I started this talk by saying that what we don't know within ourselves has power over us.

Now we can turn around and say that the only reason what we don't know in ourselves has power over us is because we've never understood the place of power,

The place of true transformation,

Where we are intended to turn in the moment of a challenge.

Because at last we understand every real challenge in life isn't God,

Isn't the divine throwing down a gauntlet in front of us the way our mind sees it now.

The real challenge in that moment is that if we would turn around as did the prodigal son,

We would realize there's already a place prepared for us where everything that we will ever want,

I shall not want,

Is laid out there.

And our mind problematically is always imagining what that place is.

Here's the point,

When you make the U-turn,

You can't imagine what you're looking for.

You're just agreeing to look at this nature that has imagined itself into existence and is creating the conflict through that identification.

So I'm just looking to see,

I'm making a U-turn,

And I'm bringing my attention back into the only place,

Literally,

Where new clarification will release me from old captivity.

Because the more clearly I'm able to see the moment of a challenge,

The more clearly I recognize the components in this unconscious nature responsible for creating it.

And then life takes on just an altogether different meaning.

It isn't that unwanted moments go away,

But it's that now they are in their right place serving to help you awaken and realize the place within you prepared for that moment because that moment is revealing an unconscious nature that we are here to serve as the instrument of its transformation.

Make the U-turn.

I can't describe it any more thoroughly than I've done.

Instead of looking outward for direction as we always do,

To realize that if we will make the U-turn,

We will be inwardly directed.

Catch yourself being directed outward for direction,

Where do I do,

Where do I go,

Catch all the thoughts,

You make a U-turn and wait for the inward direction.

It is there in the revelation,

In the realization,

And in that the integration,

The transformation,

Of that consciousness,

Then you'll understand you are in the right place at the right time doing the one thing that can help you bring an end to this painful past,

And at the same time produce a future of new possibilities beyond imagination.

So I open it up,

Comments,

Questions,

Anything you want.

Hi Fiona,

It's our only hope of truth being revealed.

Turn away from who we think we are.

And you can't even begin to think,

I'm going to turn away from who I think I am,

Until you see I've been turning towards myself to save myself all these years,

And I've never done anything except go in circles,

Exactly.

I have been reading so much stuff about the three principles from,

Is this,

I don't know,

I don't know who the person is Juliet,

Sorry.

If you sense the world would change if more people found Guy's work,

Oh that's Barbara,

Babs,

Yeah,

Donations do help.

We are meant to participate in God's time,

Yeah.

Look,

Is there any creature in nature that isn't always in exactly the same,

That isn't always exactly in the right place it needs to be,

For instance that rosebud,

The right place to be when that light hits it,

And in the moment that that light hits that rosebud,

The place prepared for that light,

Please I'm not trying to be poetic,

A place is prepared for the advent and entrance of that light,

Because the place prepared for it will take that light and use it to release what the possibility is that sits there waiting for that light.

It's exactly the same thing with us,

Maria,

How do we finally heal the inner conflict?

Everything unfolds,

Maria,

From the inside out,

We grow from the inside out,

Healing is from the inside out,

Maria.

If you understand that,

Then what has happened that when I'm in pain,

That the first thing I do is I'm not inside out,

I'm outside in,

I look outside to deal with what is inside.

Nothing outside can help heal the inside,

The inside has to be awakened sufficiently enough to realize that the problem is it keeps looking to the outside,

The outside validates the pain inside,

And you've got that vicious circle.

Here's a way to make a U-turn,

Maria,

Suddenly I remember something from my past,

A regret,

A pain,

What happens,

Where does my mind go?

My mind looks at the thoughts,

Thought is outside of you,

It is not inside of you,

Thought is outside of you,

It is an image prepared by a mind dedicated to making sure it has a way to know what it thinks happened to it,

Thoughts outside of you,

My attention goes outside,

Let my attention be in that moment,

Maria,

On everything that it's like in that moment to realize I must at all costs not be turned outwardly,

Use the compulsion to go into thought to be aware of the compulsion,

Use the compulsion to go into thought to have someone to blame,

To have something to hate,

Use the compulsion to become aware of the consciousness compelled to do that.

If you got that far,

If you just caught that something is compelling me,

Then you would at last be aware of the possibility of,

Well,

Why,

If this is good for me,

Why am I being compelled to do it?

How do I hear the guiding voice instead of the consciousness yelling louder and louder?

Again,

What is true is not in thought,

What is true never talks to you,

Certainly doesn't yell at you,

Certainly doesn't compel you,

Your true nature is ceaselessly being reborn through the action of your relationship to the moment,

You are that relationship.

This is pretty important,

How do I know what's true?

If something's hammering you,

It's a lie.

If something's pushing you,

It's a lie.

If something's telling you to hate,

It's a lie.

Because if there is indeed a place where something true and timeless and loving and compassionate is prepared for you,

Then how in the name of heaven could that moment have anything to do with this compulsion,

This conflict that's forever telling us,

Do this,

Go there.

Real insight is never an instruction to do or work at anything,

Real insight is always an integration and in the integration,

The revelation that that understanding was waiting there for me and in the understanding is the new action,

In the light that stirs the flower in the middle of the bud is the flowering of that creature.

You and I are meant to flower like that all the time through allowing this light to touch the place prepared for it and then move us as it's intended to do.

Juliet,

I've been reading so much,

Where did it go?

I've been reading so much stuff about three principles,

Which is about the inside out concept and that thought is all a self-created illusion.

Is this similar?

Yes,

It's similar.

Real self-understanding,

Juliet,

Isn't in thought.

The intellect can wrestle and grasp and fight with these things and it can even resolve some of these things through intellect.

But the real resolution,

The real reconciliation,

Juliet,

Is without thought.

The real reconciliation is the release of this dependency upon thought because then I am in that moment not just remanded back into,

Through this U-turn,

A place that was prepared for me,

But I find in that place a light that reveals the futility of trying to sort this out with my mind.

Thought is not meant to sort out the source of suffering.

Suffering is born out of attending to thoughts about suffering.

To see that is the beginning of this separation of the wheat from the chaff.

I know I must turn away from you.

I must turn away from Guy.

Guy is his past.

I that knows it must turn away from Guy is a new understanding.

If I allow that new understanding to go before me,

I will make a U-turn and I will find a new me waiting there as it's been all along.

And it's always new and it's always waiting.

That's the beauty of making a U-turn.

You're entering into a living celestial circulation system that never stops giving birth to itself and when you enter into that place prepared for you,

You are a participant in that rebirth always.

Even if you aren't aware of thoughts,

But your body is reactive due to past trauma,

Use your body.

I can't tell you how important it is to be sensitive to your body,

But if you look carefully,

Jacqueline,

When your body is reactive due to past trauma,

It can't be reactive to past trauma without some body of thought,

Images,

Ideals sitting down there and resisting that condition.

It's impossible.

So the reactive nature and the body that suddenly tenses up or can't stand this or has to get away from that,

That body is telling you,

Jacqueline,

Make a U-turn right now.

Look and see what in the name of God wants to validate this trauma because there is something validating of being a victim.

So what in the name of God can I turn around and see?

Well,

What are these constituent elements?

Don't name them.

Just be present.

You'll see the energies.

You'll experience that consciousness.

And in the experience of that consciousness,

Jacqueline,

You'll begin to recognize that it is not separate from the trauma of the body reacting as it does.

They're a unity.

So by bringing the observation into the source of that continuing trauma,

You will begin to separate yourself from the reiteration of it through your resistance to it.

Hope you understood that.

That was important.

44 minutes.

I guess I got to go.

Simple exercise.

Make a U-turn.

Make a U-turn.

Why?

Because I want to understand who and what I am in this moment and to what end.

And thought will never do it.

I must enter into what I am and my purpose in that moment.

And when I do that,

There will be clarity.

And that clarity is as endless as we are given to enter into it.