Seven Important Lessons In Life, Part 2 GF Live 2-15-25

You’ve no doubt fought and won countless battles in life, yet repeatedly -- seemingly inescapably -- you continue to find yourself at war, not just with others but within yourself, as well. And so…I want to share seven of the most important lessons I’ve learned in my life so that you might watch for the moments in your life when you can see the truth in them. To consider even a little of what I’ve come to tell you…will save you years of search and struggle and, hopefully, spare you from all the fears and tears that come with them.

Transcript

If you are just joining me for the first time, I will recapitulate a little bit, Recap a little bit of what we discussed a week before last. The title of the talk was Seven of the Most Important Lessons in Life. And I'm going to pick up where we left off. But as I said, I'm going to I'm going to start by just going over a few of the introductory notes so that again, If you are joining me for the first time, You'll understand that what we're going to look at stands alone in one respect, Each and every one of these lessons. But together, They bring us to an understanding that cannot be reached literally in any other way. So I'm not remembering precisely what I said two weeks ago, Or even close. I know that I started with a quotation from Shakespeare. The Hamlet, If you've never read any of Shakespeare's work, Was talking to Horatio, Who said to him, There are more things in heaven and earth that are dreamt of in your philosophy. And essentially, He was talking to this very confused, Torn, Young person, Hamlet. And he was saying that you may not see it yet, But there are solutions to your suffering that your suffering and all of the philosophy that's built up and around it will never understand. That's what we're going to look at together. A kind of a great mystery. And I don't want to spend too much time setting the stage, But I want everybody to be on the same page as best possible. So these seven most important lessons in life, I said, Were delivered in this instance, By me to myself. Imagine if you could, That you could go back in time and find yourself wherever you are and sit down and have this chat, A conversation, Where you would, As best you could, Even though there's no question that, And if you know yourself at all, You know this is true, Not only would you be doubtful, You would think you were in a dream that you were being visited by a part of yourself that has learned lessons that you haven't, Let alone that a part of you knows lessons that you can't learn yet. And this conversation between who you have been and who you are is so that, As I will exemplify it as best I can, You would have the benefit of learning in your youth, In your earlier life, What you have paid so dearly to learn in your later life. Assuming that you understand what I'm saying, It means that the elder you, How many times have you thought to yourself, Boy, I wish I knew back then what I know now. The elder you, In some respects, Much as your parents, As mistaken or misbegotten their actions may have been, Were trying to save you years of search and struggle, Years of living with fear and tears because in the lessons that were to be delivered, You were able to convey something that that young consciousness of yours had yet to even consider as a possibility. So that's where this second part of the first part picks up. So I'm going to just briefly touch on the first two or three so everyone's on the same page to understand the nature of these lessons that you have come to teach yourself. And I would just add that I'm going to be going into great depth in further talks, Subsequent talks. It's actually part of the novel that I'm writing, Where it is in fact possible for you to go back, Not in time as you understand it, But to revisit parts of your consciousness that have never outgrown you, Whatever fears and boundaries were inadvertently unconsciously picked up and to begin help unconditioning, Deconditioning that consciousness. But let me not get deep into that. Let's get started. Kate, Let's bring up the first of these seven lessons and then we'll go from there. Here's the first of the seven lessons that I have gone back to tell my younger self that you would go back to tell your younger self if you could. And the first of this, Far too many things that you so often feel so sure are important are not. And that's why it's wise to be suspicious of any form of painful, Let alone fearful certainty. Just ever so quickly, How many times as we discussed two weeks ago, Have you realized that what you thought was the most important thing in the world was far from the most important thing and that you would have been far better off if you understood that because you wouldn't have thrown yourself into that chaos, Into that conversation, Into that conflict with that person or with life itself because you would have understood that there are more important things to do than for you to win whatever it is that you imagine can be won in life. The second of the seven most important key lessons if we will, Please. Lesson number two, There is a divine intelligence that knows before you do exactly what you need to realize what you may not yet know you even need. But it's hard to hear that still small part of yourself, Of ourselves, When we are always so busy talking to ourselves. Have you had that? I can't imagine that if you're joining me for these talks that you haven't had some intuition, If not direct experience, Where you didn't listen to that still small voice and you wound up suffering for it, And eventually you learn the lesson that even though it's not understood how that's possible, As Christ said, There is something that goes before us to make the crooked places straight, To keep us from falling into a self-created form of captivity. If we can be present enough when we are remanded off to that unconscious nature that is almost literally forever telling us what we need to do in order to be free, When what we really need to do is to understand there's more important things to do than to live in fear and follow that guidance. So the next of the three lessons, Kate. Moving along, Everybody. Wondering why people are the way they are is not only useless, But until you know the way that you are, It's impossible to understand why people act toward you as they do. Wondering why people are the way they are is not only useless, But until you know why you are the way you are, It's impossible to understand why people treat you, Act toward you as they do. And I thought I would spend just a moment on this particular lesson before I go on to the fourth and then the last three. I suppose we should make this as personal as we can, But perhaps if it's difficult for us, We know others certainly who have a conversation with a brother, A mother, A sister, A daughter, Someone at work, And who right in the middle of that conversation find themselves getting anxious, Stressful. You don't even have to be in a conversation like that. You can just be thinking about a conversation that you want to have with someone else. And before you get into it, There's a fear or there's some kind of depression or an anger that follows the conversation that you just had with that person. And as we know, I hope fairly well, The minute that we are encased in these reactions that take place in the middle of that relationship or following it as it were a moment later, We're thinking to ourselves, Why in the name of God is that man, That woman, Why is that moment like that? I trust we all know what I'm describing here. And it's okay to affirm here in the corner of where your chat box is. How many times have you asked yourself, Why is someone else like they are? Why is that political party so punishing? Why is that religious affiliation so authoritarian? Why, Why, Why? All of these questions. And never once have you come to an answer other than some prescription you give to yourself to momentarily put yourself at ease so that you can explain away these reactions that you're having to what that relationship brings up inside of you. But here's the truth, Because this is part of that lesson of why wondering why people are the way they are is useless. I blame you. You blame him or her for the need that you have coming into that moment from that person. You cannot get negative with another person without entering into that conversation, Or for that matter, The memory of that person without imagining before it takes place, What that outcome of that relationship or conversation should be. And why is that? Because inside of us without knowing it, There is a sense of ourself that depends upon everyone and anything outside of us to confirm that we know how life should be, Including how you should be so that I can feel right about myself. And without that person confirming, And surely you can see this, Have you ever found yourself trying to manipulate? I know people, They call them the de-escalating, De-escalators. Smooth the waters out in a rocky moment. What is that endless need that we have to somehow or other, Not just enter into the conversation, Knowing how it's going to unfold that leaves us feeling confirmed as we've imagined ourselves, But more importantly, Wondering why you are the way you are and never considering for a moment that my experience of you cannot be separated from the need I have that you behave and act as I need you to act so that my suffering isn't because of the way you are. I suffer for the need I have that I don't know I have. I suffer every moment for a need, A desire that I go into that moment, Not knowing that has gone before me to darken everything unless everything lights up the way it's imagined it should be. Now, Those were the first three. Now the last of the ones we covered before, I'll ask Kate to bring it up. You'll see how all of this ties together. Lesson number four, Slow down. The only thing rushing does in order to reach some imagined better place in space and time is to lend you, Is to lend us a powerful but painful sense of importance, The unseen cost of which we never know until it's too late. Now, If you can hold all of this in your mind, The first three and this of the fourth, Before we go to five, Six and seven, Every last one of these lessons that one has come to help oneself learn that I need to strengthen in myself are at once an affirmation of something that can be gained through understanding the lesson, But the understanding of the lesson requires, Doesn't it, A certain negation of who and what I have been up until that moment. For instance, Slow down. How many of you are tired of paying the cost of something that you jumped into, Some critical comment that you made, Something that you acted on, You leapt before you looked, And you don't know that you did it until it's too late? Well, If we see that properly, To realize that that's going on all the time in one respect or another affirms to us that we have a need, A real need to stop rushing so that we might start realizing the nature of the part of us that's always pushing, Pulling, Shoving, Running. What is this need? What was that movie with Tom Cruise? What is this need for speed? Have you ever wondered? The blind shall follow the blind and they will run into a pit. What is this need for speed? The last thing that occurs to us is because we have that need for speed because something in us, And we'll get to this in the next lesson, Has imagined what we have to do or become in order to get rid of something that's bothering us in the moment. So I'm rushing to get someplace. It never dawns on me that while it seems like I'm rushing to this place where there'll be more peace, More profitability for me, I'm actually rushing to get away from a place that I don't want to be in. Otherwise, Why am I rushing? I don't rush someplace to find happiness without trying to leave behind what I blame for my unhappiness. So we never question this need for this speed, The need for a certain kind of fix. And every time that you rush without knowing it, Just like an addict, This unconscious nature is giving itself a fix. And what is the fix that it's giving itself? The fix it's giving itself is that it imagines what it needs in order to be free. And as it imagines what it needs in order to be free, Get there, Go there, Do this, Fix them, Change that. As it does that, There is a very definitive strong sense of self. It seems that the sense of self is connected to where I'm going and who and what I will be when I get there. But you can't separate that identity of who and what I will be when I get there from an aspect of my identity in the moment that doesn't want the experience of myself. So it imagines another experience, Doesn't it? If you can follow me, It imagines another experience of itself. To do what? To get to that experience as fast as it can so that as fast as it can, It can get away from the experience it doesn't want. So it seems when we're rushing that we're about to free ourselves from anxiety. When we're anxious, It feels like we're going to get things resolved so we're no more feeling this ruinous tremor going through us. But the truth is this, It always comes back. The need to rush, That anxiety, It always comes back. No matter how many times we bow to it, Take a knee in front of that dark unconscious nature, It always comes back. Why? Because that disturbance produced by a moment we might not even know it. Sitting at home having my coffee, I look up at the clock as I better do now. Oh my god, I need to do this. I need to get there. In the moment of that disturbance, There is a desire. There is no disturbance that passes through our psychological system or for that matter into life itself that as it comes in doesn't reveal a disparity. I'm here but I need to get there. I don't want this but I want that. So the minute there is this disparity, A conflict in this consciousness, It immediately desires what it needs in order to free itself. So an image is made in this unconscious nature. It sees where it needs to go. It sees who it needs to talk to. And the minute that that mind formulates that image, It begins to feel that the peace it has just lost by this disturbance will be restored. And then, Follow me, The moment that that image is conjured up in that unconscious nature, Obviously there's a distance between myself and that time and place where peace will be restored. So instantaneously, This unconscious nature creates time. The distance between the difference I've imagined in myself that will finally be resolved when I get someplace else, When I get there. But the problem with this imagined place and time is that what? It takes time to get there. And I better hurry up because this pain, This worry, This anxiety is pretty deep. How many times will a man or a woman run that race to nothingness, Believing that they can bring an end to their anxiety or for that matter, The compulsive search for some pleasure by answering the very level of consciousness that creates it. And even as it creates the disturbance that it doesn't want by comparing it to what it does, Then it creates for itself another time and place where it will at last be at peace and it never gets there. This is important to understand as we go into the last of these three lessons. Now we'll pick up where we left off. Kate, Let's bring up the fifth most important lesson in life. Remember, You're talking to yourself. You're talking to a part of you that doesn't know this yet, Or at least doesn't suspect it strongly enough. And you want to strengthen this understanding. Here's the fifth lesson. Lesson. It can be at times your responsibility to be involved with the affairs of this world, But as best you can, Never fill both of your hands with what always proves itself impermanent and empty of meaning. Hold for a moment because there's a second part. How many times in your life, Without judging yourself, Have you filled both of your hands with that wish that you could get this, Or do that, Or that you could change this person? That if you could, You would obliterate whatever it is that stands between you and your peace, Because you know what's perfection. So we find ourselves over and over again, Doing what? Listen, That image, That idea, That belief, It becomes solid, Doesn't it? I want to stand on it. I bank on it because my identity is so inextricably connected to it. And even as that mind begins to crystallize, Not just the image, But the sense of self connected to it, Even as that's taking place, It is dissolving. The conditions that create the conflict that you believe you can change, You were just responsible enough. The conditions begin to change, And as they begin to change, Lo and behold, The sense of permanency that you had derived from prescribing to yourself what your responsibility is and who you should be, Not to mention how insane the world is today, Demanding that you accept what they say you must be responsible for, Or else you're a terrible human being to be canceled or thrown out with the trash because you're no different than anyone else. So to begin to realize, You know what? I do have responsibilities. I have a wife, I have a family, I have a daughter, I have a business, I run a foundation, I want to help my grandchild. I have responsibilities. I have a responsibility not to trash this world that I live in, Not to add to its pain. I do have that responsibility, But how is it best executed? What is it? How do I know, In this instance, The right way to go? Let's bring up the second part, Kate, Of key lesson number five. Remember the first part, It can be at times your responsibility to be involved with the affairs of this world, But never fill both of your hands with what proves itself impermanent and empty of meaning. Here's the second part. So that to that end, Always try to keep one hand empty and one hand open, Palm up, That it might feel the touch of something everlasting. With one hand, With one part of my understanding, To be as attentive, Involved as deeply as it's possible for me to be, With whatever it may be, But never to be so identified with whatever it is that has come along and either captured my attention or that I deliberately gave my attention to that I forget the most important thing of all. And by the way, Key lesson number, This special lesson connects with the first lesson, Doesn't it? Which was what? To reiterate it, Far too many things that you so often feel are so important are not, But how to know that from yourself when you can feel because of the way you're conditioned, All of these things in the world or with other people pulling and pushing you, How do I know the difference? How do I act in the most responsible way possible? It's such an important question. We just respond, But we respond not to the actual moment that may be trying to show us, Give us, Teach us a lesson. We respond from a conditioned nature that only knows one response when somebody is rude, That only knows one way to deal with some depressing thought or feeling that floods into our consciousness so that we're machines. Machines don't know anything about responsibility. Machines crash into each other. Machines break down for the interior friction inherent in being a mechanical thing. How do I understand what it would be as a truly responsible human being? There's an old story of mine. I don't know how long ago I told it, But I'm going to re-imagine it with you. If you've never heard it, It won't matter. If you did, Try to follow the new iteration. There was once a, We'll call him the happiest artist in the world. He didn't make any money, So to speak. He made enough money to live because he made his living on a boardwalk somewhere down by the ocean where he would bring his easel and his paints, And he would sit there and he would paint seascapes. He would paint the creatures, The dolphins. He would paint anybody or anything that he was asked to do. Almost nobody, Except one person, After years, Noticed that Willie, Who went by the name of One-Handed Willie, Always painted with just one hand. He never used ever his right hand while he was painting. It became noticeable to someone else on the boardwalk after some period of time, And they came up to Willie and they said, I'm wondering, Because you seem to be quite content. What is the secret of your happiness, Of your contentment? How are you able to keep this equilibrium that I've seen you have? Lots of times people come by and they'll make disparaging remarks. They'll look at your clothes. You know they're judging you. How are you able to be kind, No matter the kind of people that are around you? Willie said, I tend to my art. I tend to the things that I want to do and need to do. I tend to the things I must do with one hand, Whatever it may be. But I always leave the other hand open to keep me from forgetting my true responsibility. The person said, What's that, Willie? Willie said, My true responsibility is to remember that, Yes, I have been given a gift, But before I am a creator, I am a creation, A creation in and upon which the hands of the creator never stops working. You and I are a living being, Not a being by the name of guy or a being by the name of whatever you call yourself, And by the way that you get so upset if someone mistakenly names you other than you are. We are a being in and upon which that which has brought us into existence never stops making out of what it has created the next purer, Truer version of itself as manifested through that creation called you and I. I know it's subtle, And God, I speak honestly. I wish, Even though it may be sometimes the most intense suffering that a human being can go through as the sculpture chips away everything that's rough and crude. But you can, It is entirely possible for you, Understanding these lessons that we are getting to and through, That there is something that never stops brushing, That never stops sweeping across, That never stops altering, Changing, Adding a little bit of this, Taking away a little bit of that. Now, When a painting is made or a sculpture is made, That which is created in the art on the canvas or out of that marble, It can't protest. It yields by the nature of its relationship to another reality. It yields to what wants to make it into what is imagined. The divine has imagined you and I into existence. In the beginning was the word. And we're so caught up, So convinced that we have to worry about this, Go there, Prove this, Fix them, Change that, That instead of having all that which reveal this self-pity and this sorrow and this anger, Instead of letting all that be brushed, Changed into another form, We sit and beat against the wall, Fight all the time, Trying to prove to ourselves that we know what it is to be responsible. Those who hate know nothing at all about responsibility. Those who judge believe they judge from responsibility when they're the essence of irresponsibility. Better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven. That's the epitome of individuals who with both hands hold on to a world they've created in their own image and then will kill anyone or anything that even threatens to slightly mar it, Let alone make it disappear with some unconscionable action that they call unconscionable. One-handed willy. So that in essence, What he understood is that before he acts, Before he opens his mouth, Before he juts out his jaw or tenses his neck, Before any of that takes place, To realize first inwardly, I am that which meets this moment that is acting on me and what is being acted on. And if I'm present, Attentive, Aware of that, Then I know what my first responsibility is. It is to let what is being revealed to me, Teach me the right way to respond in that moment. And that's the only true response that is real responsibility, Because you are changed in that moment if you do so. And because of you being changed, The world, Whether you see it or not, Is brought into a new set of relationships with the content of itself. Let's go on, Kate. Let's go on to new lesson, The sixth of the most important lessons. You're not the only one who suffers. I could stop there. I remember the first time that lesson was given to me. And funny enough, Funny enough, It was given to me by someone who I couldn't stand in that moment. And you know why I couldn't stand him? Because he was telling me the truth. You're not the only one who suffers. What if you really knew that? What if you really knew that your mother, Your brother, Your uncle, Your sister, Your children, That newscaster sitting there, His face caked with makeup, Looking perfect, That celebrity, The people that you admire because they've achieved position or possession. Every last one is in the same pain that you are. Every last one, No exception. The only difference between them and those who can understand these lessons that they might teach their nature is that you can be among the few who, Instead of serving these useless negative states, You can learn how you can receive the lessons that show you how to transform these dark forces into a living light that illuminates the body, Mind, And soul. One of my favorite topics, And I'm gonna, I do, I will give an entire talk on this, I can't take time now to elaborate, But, Oh, If you only understood, You're not just connected to three of, To the three most powerful forces in the universe. Before there were forms to express these forces, You were there. And that this force that we know nothing at all about is resistance. We don't know anything about resistance. We only know what we resist. We only know who we don't like. Nothing is created. Nothing is born. And if nothing is born, Nothing is revealed and renewed without resistance. For those of you who joined me for the, For talks, I recently gave a talk on don't look away. Don't look away. What's the first thing that our attention does, That our mind does when we run into someone or something that is bringing up some kind of suffering in us? We look away. I look at what my mind tells me is the source of my pain. That's what I look at. So I'm looking away from the consciousness responsible for the conflict that it then blames on everyone and anything outside of me. When you can begin to understand that resistance is actually revelation, And that revelation is the same as the beginning of healing this unconscious nature, Because integration follows revelation, Then you're on to really diving into this lesson. I'll go into it more deeply. I've got to keep going. Kate, Let's bring up the seventh of the most important lessons in life. Here you are, You're talking to yourself. You know that you know things now that you didn't know then. You know how useless it was to blame, To resent, To regret, Like pouring water into the sand and having all of that substance that is vital for your development just disappear into the darkness. So here's the seventh lesson. I'm talking to myself that doesn't know this lesson yet, But that I want it to know. Read along with me. I have seen that of myself, I can do nothing. I have seen that of myself, I can do nothing. This is the greatest paradox in the world, The seventh lesson, And I'm going to ask Kate to put it up again when I finish setting it up a little bit better. What a paradox. Why is receiving the lesson that of myself, I can do nothing, The most important lesson of all? I hope you follow me because when I understand of myself, I keep trying to forgive. I want to, I know it's the right thing to do, But my mind cries and I don't know what to do. I don't want to have this addiction. I know it's destructive, Not just to the people around me that have to deal with whatever this compulsion is. Maybe I can't stop talking about the past. Maybe I'm always repeating the same stories. Why? Because there's this sense of self that I just love that. I love that sense of self. Nobody else likes it, But to me, It's pretty good. Of myself, I can't stop talking. I tell myself I'm not going to lay in bed and let my mind tear at me. I tell myself that because I know that it's useless. I know it with parts of myself completely clear, And yet of myself, I can't do that. I'm visited every day, Given the certain circumstances by regrets, And I run, My mind picks me up and runs me back into the past, Telling me the most important thing for me to do. In fact, I'm not responsible if I don't go back and relive that moment, Hoping that something will change. When I would add, And even though I say I understand this, I'm still tempted to go back and let all of that torment of that moment that went so badly, The humiliation, The embarrassment, The anger. Of myself, I can't stop revisiting the past. Of myself, I can't stop feeling inadequate, And of myself, I see that I do all of these things. I fawn, I try to acquire possessions, I look for ways to make sure my place in life is set. All these things, And in spite of all of that, I'm still a captive of that unconscious reaction that tells me I've got to strengthen whatever it is that I almost have enough of because it's not quite right yet. And that's with everything. That's with everything. You cling. You don't know you do. You cling to relationships. Failing to see that the more you cling, The tighter you try to hold on to whoever or whatever it is, The more destined you are to fall into some kind of darkness. When at last, They must act out what they are given to act out. They can't be any different than you are. And then you fill yourself with blame so that love turns to blame. The feeling of being really connected turns to conflict. And we never, Ever see this because every time that shift takes place, One opposite is the next. What takes place? All I know to do is to do what? Is to listen to the same consciousness that's created the situation, Tell me how to get out of it. Even though it's right in front of me, Of myself, I can do nothing. Even people having gone through programs, AA or CA or D, Whatever the bloody heck it is, These programs that at one level may be necessary, Even they who say, I realized this because I'm powerless, They're still afraid. But myself, I can do nothing. Why? Because I haven't seen the truth. The truth that sets me free is the realization that there's no me that walks around in this misery because of what you did, Because of what was taken from me, Of what seems to be coming down the pike. There's no me by that name. There's a constant series of temporary identities that Christ called Legion, Where each and every one of these individual eyes are a momentary, Temporary appearance born of a reaction, Not of the world to myself, But of a self that looks at what it doesn't want. And then it says, I can't be like that. It's got to be like that. And lo and behold, I'm back as a God in my own life. And the only thing I am in that moment is for all due respect, I'm ungodly because I forgot my responsibility. My responsibility, Like one handed Willie is to realize I have the authority to create by some miracle. I can think something and make it happen by some miracle. I can have an emotional impression pass through me and I can flesh it out until it becomes a poem, Becomes a piece of art, Becomes something eloquent, Something beautiful. And God help me, God help all of us when we think we are the ones who have made that creation. The instrument doesn't make the sound. The instrument allows the sound to be made by that which passes through the heart of that individual. The greatest lesson, The paradox of all of myself, I can do nothing. And that's the most important lesson of all, Because it opens me up to receive every other lesson that is the most important lesson of all. But you and I both know, Even as my talk may be falling on resistant ears, So is the part of myself that I would tell this to and tell it time and time again. It goes, Yeah, I understand that. And then what? So part of these lessons is remembering in the moment what's at the heart of the lesson. Not so that I'm someone who's learned the lesson, But that rather I participate in an endless series of lessons the divine casts into the human soul so that the soul may better reflect the divine. I'm going to be off inside timer for two straight weeks. I will not be here next Saturday or the Saturday following. I will be back March the 8th. So mark a calendar if you wish to. In that time, I don't know what you'll do with it. I know what I'll be doing with it. I won't just be asking for the lessons, Whether they're bitter or not, But I will do my very best to receive those lessons, To strengthen inside of myself the understanding that I may feel like I'm alone in this life, But there is something that is always trying to give me what I need in order to transcend this nature that is so sure of itself. Then you attract into your life the healing that you need, Because now you are a partner with the greatest healing force in the world. Call it what you will. God, Love, The Christ, The divine. But only as and in your partnership, Which requires letting go, Do you receive the liberation that comes right out of the heart of that relationship.

Reviews

Looking forward to going deeper into each of the 7. 🙏🏾

Phenomenal talk, this one and the first part. Very helpful broken down steps...Thank you🙏🏼

Thank you 🙏