Let's take a nice deep breath,
And if you remember what that deep breath represents,
We can all let go of what we brought into the moment with us,
Whatever the past irritations,
Problems,
Pains may have been.
And you'll see how last Saturday's Insight Timer connects intimately with what we're going to look at today.
The lesson in one respect is very simple.
Let's bring up the talk title,
Kate,
And then we'll get going.
It is basically,
As Kate has posted for us,
Realize the harbor of heaven within you and rise above unwanted moments.
Realize the harbor of heaven within you and rise above unwanted moments.
Is there really a harbor of heaven?
Is there really a place where peace abides regardless of the storms that take place,
Like the sky through which the rain and lightning flashes,
But isn't affected by it?
The depths of the ocean that are constantly still in one respect,
Even though the surface may be agitated.
I want to tell you there is.
We're going to look at it.
And again,
We're going to work at some ideas that ultimately bring us to a very simple point.
So stay with me.
Kate,
Let's bring up the first of the two key lessons that we're going to look at together.
They go together.
First one,
Looking to any troubled or otherwise anxious thought for shelter is like being caught in a rainstorm and running into a house that has no roof.
Think about that.
I'm outside some place hiking and a big storm comes,
Pouring rain.
I see off in the corner a house,
Some kind of shelter.
I dash in there believing I'm going to be free from the ravages of that storm.
And I find out that long ago the roof disappeared.
So even though I'm within a shelter,
There's no shelter there.
Let's bring up the second key lesson that ties into the first one,
Please,
Kate.
It's impossible to separate our search for shelter from the storm that drives us to go looking for one.
As unimaginable as it may seem,
Looking for shelter from any form of psychological disturbance is the storm.
I think I might have left out that word disturbance.
It's impossible to separate our search for shelter from the storm that drives us to go looking for one.
When do I go looking for shelter?
Shelter,
Whatever that may be in my mind,
When do I go looking for that?
It's always in the midst of a storm.
And I never connect the fact that the sense of myself being compelled to go look for or otherwise create some sheltering harbor for myself,
That that's inseparable from the storm itself.
It never dawns on me.
It doesn't dawn on us.
That's what we're going to look at together because it's as difficult as it may be to grasp and I hope to be able to help you understand it.
It's right in front of us,
But we don't see it.
I'll ask you,
And you can always post,
I do like to see when we're in agreement.
How many tempests in a teapot,
To quote Shakespeare,
How many tempests in a teapot a day do we go through?
You really can't count them if you understand the question.
The simplest thing can cause a tempest.
And of course,
I think the tempest is some global storm because I left my wallet someplace and didn't know I did that.
Or because somebody said something I didn't like.
Could be as simple as a tempest of thought because I'm revisiting something from my past again and again and again,
And suddenly there's this great tumult.
So I'm asking you,
Do you go through a lot of tempests in a teapot?
And if so,
How come?
Most of us don't even notice these storms that come over us because we're so used to identifying as it were with whatever that familiar set of thoughts and feelings is that come up that we're so captured by what we have to do to reconcile it,
Find the shelter to get rid of the suffering,
Or just temporarily justifying that we want this or we don't want that because whatever it is we want or don't want in that moment is a requirement of whatever it is that's coming to wreck the moment of our life.
Can you see that,
How that goes on?
Where without recognizing it,
We run,
If you will,
Uselessly.
Imagine a person running from a thunderstorm,
But not knowing they're running in the direction of the hurricane that's created it.
That's exactly what happens to us over and over again.
Every time we look for shelter in some thought or some feeling,
Some plan that is orchestrated by these thoughts and feelings with their familiar ways in which they distract us from the storm,
That we run from a thunderstorm into the nature that is creating it.
Do you see that much with me?
Because I have a question to ask you.
And this is very important.
Are there really 10,
000 different storms in our life over a lifetime?
Or have we grown enough,
Have we outgrown the usual habitual reaction enough to realize that really there aren't 10,
000 different storms,
But really just one fairly predictable reaction to 10,
000 passing conditions?
10,
000 storms or one predictable reaction to anything we don't want that turns what we don't want into a storm defined,
By the way,
By a mind that tells us the meaning of that moment.
Because as it defines and outlines the meaning of the moment,
Lo and behold,
Now I know the shelter that's required to help me escape what I see as a condition.
But that is in truth,
A reaction that I have over and over again,
Where without knowing it,
Where we are habitually identified with that reaction,
Always based on some past experience.
And because we're identified with it,
We are drawn into the darkness of that nature from out of which the reaction has come.
Are you able to see that with me?
To some extent,
I always think it's you,
It's this,
It's them,
It's that,
It's my health,
It's what might take place tomorrow.
But in truth,
All of these so-called events don't exist without what?
Without something in me being triggered by some thought that's telling me here's what it means.
And suddenly I'm filled with a reaction full of resistance that's now saying,
Look,
Here's what you have to do.
So in that nature that imagines into existence the storm,
Then says,
Here's what you have to do.
And it starts to imagine some way in which I can control or otherwise rise above what?
What is it that I'm always trying to escape control or rise above if you're following me?
What is it?
I'm trying to escape a storm that this consciousness itself has created.
And then because I don't know my relationship to it,
That nature starts telling me,
Here's what you have to do.
Here's where you have to go.
Here's who you have to fix.
Here's the future you require.
So this is the introduction to the talk before I get into the next key lesson.
Are you able to see it with me?
I'm trying to describe a certain cycle that's taking place that we don't know we are caught up in.
In quotes,
Big transition.
Because now we're going to move from this idea where without knowing it,
We are quite literally a victim in quotes,
Not of a set of conditions,
But of a consciousness whose experience is determined by its own reaction to whatever that unwanted condition may be.
So it really does turn into in that moment,
These storms are all an interior circumstance that we never see as interior because that consciousness already has us running towards what it has named as the solution to that suffering.
Let's bring up key lesson number three and then number four separately.
Read along with me.
This is a transition.
Don't get ahead of me,
Please.
The love we have for anything holy,
Beautiful,
Or true is present in our heart before we can think of any reason for the love that we have for it.
This means it isn't we who find things to love,
But rather that love finds us through us a way to reach us and teach us that it lives in all things.
Don't complicate this.
I'm sitting on the dock by the bay and it's balanced,
It's quiet,
Even in all of its movement.
There's a love for the nature of it.
I hear a beautiful passage of music.
There's a love for the harmony,
For the dissonance,
For the movement that is not just in the sound,
But that moves within me.
I hear something beautiful,
Something that takes my breath away.
It's so true,
I know it.
I have that love for that condition before the condition reveals that love.
That means something in me awaits what will bring me into that world where that love is literally sitting,
Living,
Breathing,
So that as I enter into that relationship I'm describing,
I find out,
Gosh,
That's always been there.
The kingdom of heaven is within.
Oh,
Is that what it means?
That there's already something that is perfectly balanced and harmonious,
That is never troubled by conditions because it already holds all conditions in its perfect web that is forever and always working itself out without pain.
Do you follow this third key lesson,
Everybody?
This understanding that love is there,
Heaven is there before we know it?
Perfect.
Now the next key lesson,
It ties to it.
Kate,
Please.
Transformation is not a destination.
It is not a journey in time any more than a rosebud in spring sets out to become a summer flower.
Transformation is not a destination.
The time and place where we will get to when we are finally at peace that we think is a destination because when the disturbance comes,
Our mind creates a distance between us and it and says,
Here's what you have to do.
Here's where you have to go.
Here's what's required.
And so the very action of thought creates the illusion of time and distance.
So I think to myself,
I've got to do,
Go get in order to become at peace.
But what I'm saying here is that transformation is not a destination.
It is not a journey in time any more than a rosebud in the spring sets out to become a summer flower.
Does a rosebud set out to open?
Or is the opening and the revelation of its fragrance inherent in the very bud itself so that what we see as the blossoming of that flower isn't because it's set out to do that,
But because it is created to express that nature,
The order of itself in the moment where the sun brings it out and reveals what has been waiting within that bud.
Can you see this with me?
Because I'm saying two things at once with these two key lessons.
Just as the rosebud doesn't set out to become a flower,
Neither do we have to set out to be at peace.
Neither do we have to set out to rise above all the things that we think are ruining our life,
All of the people and conditions,
By the way,
As horrible as they are in the world and we can see it as such.
We are forever imagining a time to come when it won't be that way.
And the imagination is inseparable from the suffering in the storm of becoming,
Of wanting and waiting for something to take place where it lasts forever.
In the past,
I have shelter.
Now if you're following me,
I trust you are,
Let me state it otherwise.
The shelter we seek already exists and it's not outside of us.
The shelter we seek already exists and it's not outside of us.
So many students,
Yes,
I know that's true.
The kingdom of heaven is within.
The four noble truths,
All that psychological nonsense keeps us from understanding what?
Well,
Geez,
I'm in this storm.
Well,
So the kingdom of heaven's within.
And then I go into thoughts about how I shouldn't be in a storm or what I need to do to change my spiritual techniques so that I can escape the torment.
The shelter we seek already exists.
It's not outside of us,
But it is a sacred part of us that we must learn to actualize through a new kind of understanding.
Without actualizing what we say we understand,
We do not understand what we say we do.
We say,
Yes,
I understand this.
But if I find myself in a storm,
A lingering one,
The reincarnation of a conflict from 20 years ago,
Or the restatement of something that happened 10 seconds ago that I'm living through again,
That in that moment,
I say I understand and I don't.
I'm being lied to by a nature that thinks about something that it needs to do or be and then derives an identity in that time to come when our task is to realize all at once that there is a level of understanding that God has put right within us,
Right before us at all times,
But that we're so busy,
If you will,
Looking for the forest,
Looking for that place of peace that we cannot see that within us is this tree of life.
Looking for a forest and can't see the tree of life.
And what is the tree of life?
It is understanding in scale.
Stay with me.
Certain things are impossible for us until we see through what we call our present understanding.
All I know to do when I'm unhappy is let my present understanding perceive the cause of that pain.
And as that present understanding says,
Yes,
I know,
I see.
Then it tells me,
Which is crazy.
Here's what you need to do.
When it is my level of understanding I'm suffering from,
Not the world that blames,
But that that level of understanding doesn't know what else to do,
Except think through and find the reason for its torment.
You said this,
They didn't do that.
And then once that's clear,
I know where to get shelter,
Change you,
Hate you,
Run from this,
Run to that.
So that for instance,
Behind every question that we ask,
Why is that like that?
And please hear this.
Every question we ask,
Why,
When,
All that,
Behind it is an unquestioned relationship with the experience of the reaction that brings the question out.
So it's like a bad joke.
Did you ever see,
I was thinking when I was kind of going through these notes,
It's an old time vaudeville trick.
Maybe some of you are too young to even know what vaudeville was.
But there'd be this gag where someone would walk along,
Maybe a cafe,
Someone seated at the table,
And they'd see a wallet on the ground.
And they'd reach down and they'd pick up the wallet,
They'd put it in their pocket,
Start to walk away.
But the wallet was attached to a rubber band sitting,
Belonging to the man sitting at the table.
So you start to walk away,
The wallet would come flying out of your pocket.
That's exactly what happens.
Our mind asks questions like how,
When,
Or why,
Because it has already assumed that it knows that it ought not be like that.
Now it wants to find an answer.
And so it puts the answer in its pocket,
Walks away,
And it does nothing to change the condition,
Which is just drawn right back to the original owner,
Which is this unconscious nature forever asking questions,
Giving itself answers so as to delay and belay the fact that it doesn't have a clue what's going on.
Can you see that old gag in what I'm describing?
It means simply that we keep asking,
How do I bring an end to this pain?
Without seeing that we wouldn't have the question unless some reaction was telling us it's caused by something outside of us and we need to change reality in order to bring an end to the pain and what we blame for it.
So here's why.
We have to actually see and understand something that is not too much for you to understand.
You have evidence of it.
I'm going to go into it more deeply,
Possibly this weekend with the next talks I'm going to give,
But certainly at some point,
Maybe even over Easter.
Every true teaching,
Christ,
The kingdom of heaven is within,
In that kingdom are many mansions.
You go into any Buddhist temple,
Read any Hindu scripture.
Every true teacher describes the existence of multiple levels of being within one being so that creation comes from the creator,
From creation,
Sub-creation,
Sub-creation,
Sub-creation,
The ray of creation.
It's ubiquitous in true teachings,
As above,
So below.
I can't spend more time on it.
Here's what it means that we don't see at the simplest level.
One day you'll see it much more deeply,
God willing.
We are creatures of two different levels of being,
More than that,
But for now.
Two completely different worlds.
And by the way,
Certainly not purely of heaven,
Because if we were purely of heaven,
Then we wouldn't have to regret the moments where we punish ourselves or others,
Because what is love cannot hurt,
Cannot punish.
So we pray on one respect that I'm not purely of this world,
Because I can see from time to time when I have a little bit of a vision that when I'm purely of this world,
I'm all on board with believing you should be punished.
They should be destroyed for daring to be anything other than what?
My view of heaven says they should be.
So within us,
Though we don't see it,
Is a kingdom in which we have one foot in one world and one foot in another.
One part of our nature,
If you will,
As St.
Paul would have called it,
The flesh.
One world is a creation of an unconscious world of desire and its opposites,
Where Christ said,
You can't serve two masters,
You'll love one and despise the other.
He wasn't talking about two separate masters.
He was talking about an unconscious mammon,
An unconscious nature that divides the world into what it wants and doesn't,
And then derives an identity from wishing it wasn't like that,
And then imagining how it should be when everything gets straightened out.
So we live in one world of conflict,
Of tempest in teapots,
An endless struggle with anything that runs counter to what we've imagined it should be.
Because what is the world we imagine other than the heaven we hope to enter into when we finally get everything straightened out?
Can you see this with me?
I want to keep it simple.
I have to keep moving here.
This is why Christ said,
The light dwells in the darkness and the darkness knows it not,
Because within this unconscious dark nature dwells,
However you want to say it,
The light of the divine.
And this light of the divine,
This living intelligence,
The darkness doesn't know anything about it.
It doesn't even know anything about itself,
Let alone what dwells within it that is intended,
As we are discovering,
To reveal this entire level of being,
This unconscious nature with its pernicious,
Unconscious sense of self,
Driven as it always is to do what?
What am I driven to do?
I'm sitting here,
What's going to happen?
What am I compelled to do?
I'm compelled to find a way to treat the condition so that I never have to face the consequence.
So I'm a,
I'm a man or a woman who always looking at consequences and believing that the consequence I've imagined is actually a storm.
When the storm of consequence of what happens and what about this and with all,
All that,
Cause the whole storm is a figment of my imagination that I don't know because when I react to whatever it says is happening,
I identify it.
And suddenly I am drawn down into that world where the storm is real.
And by the way,
At that level,
It is real because that's all that nature knows is to be constantly opposing itself.
And if it weren't for the divine,
For instance,
Reconciling these opposites,
When they meet in nature,
We'd have no creation.
And if you study yourself at all,
You realize there's really nothing new created in me other than new ways in which to be irritable when I constantly trying to figure out what to do with moments that seem to oppose me,
Following me,
Everybody.
So this nature of flesh,
This mammon,
This unconscious nature is always identifying with one side or another of what it sees as the problem.
You're the problem I identify with fixing you.
I don't see that I couldn't want to fix you if I weren't identified with a part of myself saying you shouldn't be like that.
Vacillation,
Endless,
Victimized by vacillation in an unconscious nature.
So I've got to go on.
I trust everybody's following me.
Here's the truth about the nature of freedom that can't be understood given how we see our lives in the present moment.
We have to see this nature if we want to be free of it.
Not see and do what this nature tells us,
But see that everything this nature is telling us to do to bring the storm to an end that it created is the continuation of that storm because we remain identified with that nature.
To see and understand our actual place,
If you will,
In the scheme of God's creation means that we realize that we can't really end the suffering that belongs to this lower level of creation.
Let it sink in.
This is what Buddha said.
This is why we keep thinking,
I'm going to bring an end to this suffering that exists because I live in a level of consciousness in a kingdom where conflict rules.
And as long as I live in that kingdom where something is always in conflict with whatever the moment itself is bringing,
I myself am always going to be in a storm of conflict that I blame on the condition instead of recognizing,
You know what?
This level of being,
Its consciousness is suffering.
Desire by itself isn't suffering.
But when desire is born as an escape to a disturbance,
Then whatever we imagine we will escape into foments,
Strengthens the illusion that somehow I'm other than this level of consciousness.
And that's how it hides itself.
By learning all the time that we are always in this world,
Something happens.
What?
We learn to change,
Not the moment itself.
Do you know what a low pressure system is?
Whenever there's a storm,
Usually it's a movement of a high pressure system,
Moving a low pressure system out,
Vice versa,
This constant circulation.
So we,
Being made in the image of God,
Whether we understand it or not,
Are a reflection of this world,
Its seasons,
The way storms come in,
The way they leave.
Everything that is unfolding is unfolding in us at that level in that kingdom.
How many of you have a volcano type nature?
How many of you have old faithful in that you're always afraid of certain circumstances?
All of these conditions represent levels of consciousness that belong to a certain level of world,
Of being.
I hope you see this with me.
So you can't escape that.
And we're always trying to end it because something in this nature says,
Oh,
Look at that storm.
Failing to see that the storm it's looking at is a reflection of its present existence.
We can't escape it.
And here's the point.
We're not meant to escape it because that's what goes on.
You say,
Wait a minute.
When this unwanted moment comes and it's running contrary to my wish,
How do I end?
I've got to bring an end to that storm.
And if I can't bring an end to that storm,
What hope do I have?
This is where the rubber meets the road,
Spiritually speaking,
Because if you're following me,
And perhaps I will clarify this,
We've hinted at the answer to this.
Oh no.
How do I stop suffering?
Not just my own,
Maybe the world itself.
How do I bring an end to it?
Listen to this.
And this is what so few understand.
First,
You can't change anything that you are involved in unless and first you change yourself,
But you of yourself cannot transform yourself.
Peace down the line is a pipe dream.
I understand the nature of what this perturbation is,
Or I don't,
And I don't now,
But we're going to learn a little bit more about it now.
Try to see this with me.
I've been hinting at this answer.
Do I have to bring a stop to what I don't start?
Do I have to bring a start,
A stop to something that I don't start?
I'm asking you.
If I don't start it,
Do I need to stop it?
No,
Obviously I don't.
Then make the transition.
If,
How do I say this?
I don't have to escape what I don't enter into.
I don't have to escape what I don't enter into.
No,
Joan,
It isn't that we think we do.
We identify with the thoughts of a nature that says you have to enter into this.
If you want to be free of it,
Look at the contradiction.
Here's a storm of regret,
Of fear.
And it's saying you better get into this and sort it out.
And because I'm so used to the familiar sense of self born of identifying with it,
I go,
You're right.
Let me get in and straighten it out.
Like using a fan to straighten out a stack of papers.
We don't have to escape what we don't enter into.
I know I'm leading to this.
Then what?
What does that mean?
I don't have to escape what I don't enter into.
We exit that moment.
Don't get ahead of me.
We exit that moment.
We exit that kingdom,
That level of being.
I have a story to help you understand this.
Take a nice deep breath,
Please.
Mother calls her father.
He lives on a ranch in a valley.
He says,
Your granddaughter,
I don't know what to do with her.
She's always upset about this,
That and the other.
Nothing I say to her,
Telling her she shouldn't,
La la.
Nothing I do.
She's just,
She's crazy.
I'm worried about her.
He says,
You know what?
Send her over here.
I think I can show her something.
Granddaughter gets there.
I've got to go through this story quickly.
She's an unhappy teenager.
And not only is she unhappy,
But when she gets to her father's ranch during that time of the year,
The valley that he lives in is almost constantly shrouded by low-hanging clouds and fog.
So it's pretty much stormy and dark.
She gets there and she falls into a deeper funk.
And he's waiting for her to do that so she can start complaining,
Adding misery to misery.
When you complain about something,
You are adding misery to a misery-making nature that loves it,
Which is why it complains.
Finally,
At a certain point,
He says to her,
Come on,
Sweetheart.
Come with me.
I want to show you something.
Of course,
She doesn't want to go,
But he insists and she does.
And it's quite a long hike up that mountain where that valley sits.
And at a certain point,
She's too tired.
And this is important to understand.
And he helps her,
Takes her hand and helps carry her up a certain amount of that distance until they finally come around a bend and reach a certain place on that mountain.
And he's sitting there as she finally crests.
And what do you think he's looking at?
And he says,
Come sit down,
Sweetheart.
And she sits down next to him.
And all around them,
As far as the eye can see,
Clear skies.
Mountains with snow on them.
Glittering,
Gleaming,
Pristine.
Beauty everywhere.
While just below where they're sitting,
That same light that's revealing everything around them is shining down on a multicolored ocean of clouds and fog that's all undulating.
So it's a breathtaking place.
And she's kind of stunned.
And he uses that moment,
He says,
Sweetheart,
Look.
You know how it was down,
Look here,
It's all clear.
And she's still looking around.
And he says,
Let me tell you something.
Maybe I was a little older than you were.
But one day I was sitting there and I was so tired of my parents and I was so tired of the storms in this valley,
That just like you had told your mom,
You were going to,
I was going to run away.
I was going to do it too.
But when I ran away,
I went up this mountain.
And when I got here,
I found this place.
And I don't know why it fell on me the way it did,
But I fell into an understanding that even when everything is dark and stormy and cloudy in the valley,
There's always a place like this.
That's always,
And already above the storm,
He said,
It's so when things got like that,
All I did was I didn't sit and wish everything down there would go away.
I came up here where it was already clear and clean and pure.
And I could sit in the light.
I want you to understand that represents what I'm telling you about living in two worlds at once.
But you have to see it.
We don't have to think about how do I get there?
How do I do that?
What I have to become,
Where we have to go,
If we're ever going to get above this storm period in our life.
Why don't we have to do that?
I repeat,
Because we don't have to struggle to escape what we never enter into in the first place.
We exit these storms by not entering into them.
And the amazing thing is not entering into this thought,
This reaction,
This nature,
That's not an act of will.
It's an act of will not.
It's not an act of will,
Because I can see that I'm suffering due to the act of will of an unconscious reaction.
That's already decided that how things should be and what it needs to do to find some place that already exists within me,
Within you.
Are you able to follow this?
Not will.
This is why they say that there's nothing to do,
Only something to see.
Will not what?
Now,
Listen,
I've been leading to this.
Will not what?
Don't go down.
Don't go down.
There's no how here.
Only seeing,
As I'm asking you to do,
If you can at all look on yourself,
What happens?
God,
Look what's going on.
Suddenly,
I'm anxious.
Look at the way they're treating me.
Suddenly,
I feel like nothing.
I'm not relevant.
Can you see,
In a moment like that,
That there is a split second wherein you,
If you were willing and wishing and able to actually be present enough,
Something is inviting me to move into that dark river of thoughts and feelings about being rejected,
About reality,
A terrible place.
Something saying,
Come on,
Jump in guy.
Because if you jump into this river of dark thoughts and feelings,
It's telling you,
I'll carry you up to the top of the mountain where everything will be good.
Rivers don't run up.
They run down.
The river of thought runs downhill.
So there's no how,
Just see,
You know what,
Look at,
I can feel something wants me to jump into that river of thoughts and feelings.
It wants me to jump into the reasons for that regret.
It wants me to leap into whatever's lashing me about what you said and did.
So I don't have to worry about how to rise.
I'm in it if I don't go down.
And the proof of that is that simply by recognizing that and being even present for a moment,
I can see the river.
And if I see the river of thoughts and feelings cascading down into that chasm,
I'm not going to go along with it.
Why?
Because I can see where it leads.
I know where it leads.
I've been on a raft over those falls a million times.
So to recap,
We are in a world of storms,
Of wars within and without here in this kingdom.
In this realm.
But the realm itself is not responsible for the painful reactions we have to it.
Because what drives the war between myself or within myself,
Other than me having a negative reacting and blaming you for the pain that belongs to this world filled with conflict as it is.
So that when we step into that river of thoughts and feelings,
Like it or not,
We're a part of that realm and a participant and a perpetuator of the conflict that dwells there.
Are you able to see that with me?
And so as above,
So below,
As within,
So without,
It's equally true within me,
Within you.
That even as I'm talking,
There is a realm where there is a living light that is already free of falling.
It is already free of feeling downcast,
Dread.
I don't imagine it.
I've seen it.
Maybe you haven't had certain levels of epiphany,
But you've certainly seen a moment in nature where you realize,
You know,
There's something beautiful here.
I didn't create it,
But my presence to it makes me a participant within it.
So imagine two people looking at something beautiful and one gets a message on their iPhone.
And the next thing you know,
They're involved in enabling another person in their life,
Trying to plan a way to escape or distract themselves from a darkness that didn't exist outside of the reaction they had,
That maybe they won't be relevant if they don't enable.
Maybe they won't be significant if they don't suffer whatever they have to do to keep in place what that nature told them is shelter.
So it's as simple as this.
I was trying to think,
Have you ever,
I have,
Ever get in an elevator,
Door opens,
You know,
You've been pushing the up button,
You get in because it appeared,
The thought appears,
You step into the elevator and the next thing you know,
It's going down.
Cause you didn't see you weren't there when the door is open to show you the arrow on the little dooly bob there.
But answer me this,
When the elevator starts going down,
Do you think yourself,
Oh,
I'm going up?
Of course not.
Why?
Cause I know the difference between up and down.
I know the feeling of up and going down isn't that feeling.
Going down,
Falling has a very distinct sensation to it.
So I don't need to be a spiritual genius to be able to tell the difference between up and down.
Do I?
I'm asking you now,
Do you need to be a genius,
Some spiritually enlightened human being,
Or do you simply need to be present enough in the light of the moment to see,
You know what?
This thought isn't taking me up.
Revisiting the past has nothing to do with rising above the pain.
It's the revisitation of it.
You fill in the blank.
You know,
I see a note come up from time to look.
Yes,
The simple answer is be present,
But you don't know what it means to be present.
Cause if you were present,
You couldn't be punished by a nature telling you,
Here's how to protect yourself.
Answer me.
If I think I've got to protect myself from what you did or what they said,
If I think I've got to protect myself,
Am I going up or down?
And you know the answer,
I'm going down.
Why?
I'm afraid.
I don't think I have to protect myself from your opinion unless I'm afraid that without it,
I'm nothing.
I know the difference in the feeling between up and down.
That's all you need to know.
And then you need to see whether or not,
When you sense that you're going down,
What in the name of God is encouraged me to get on that elevator.
How in the world,
How in the world can I mistake going down for going up?
And please let me repeat.
You don't need to go up.
You don't go down.
Because if you don't go down,
You're already up.
You wouldn't know you were going down if you weren't in the upright position,
Spiritually speaking.
Feel the direction of these storm created thoughts and feelings that want to take you when unwanted moments come along,
These rivers,
These dark rivers.
And don't be foolish enough to think that you can jump into a river headed towards a waterfall and that you'll be free when you get to the bottom of it.
Remember this,
I got to stop.
It is never too late to let go of some thought or some feeling that you've picked up by accident.
Something you said,
Well,
I'm already in the momentum.
I always hear this,
You know,
I'm already caught,
I'm stuck.
No,
You're not.
You're identified with a nature that first produced that pain and then doesn't know itself without trying to find something to escape it through.
So feel the difference between up and down,
Between falling into and staying above.
And you won't have to do one other thing other than stand there in the light that's already there that makes the sun to shine on storms and clear views alike.
Don't try to escape the storm,
Sit above it inwardly,
Which you do when you don't step into it.
You
