The Real Source Of Unseen Spiritual Slavery GF Live 5-03-25

It’s a great mistake to believe that negative imagination needs our involvement to trap us in fearful, conflicted, or otherwise angry states of self. The truth is just the opposite: our most familiar—and often dominant—sense of ‘I’ is shaped by the recurrence of these negative states, where our unconscious identification with this dark inner machinery is, in fact, the real source of our sense of captivity.

Much like the tragic creature in Mary Shelley’s classic book, “Frankenstein,” who turned against and ultimately destroyed his creator, so too do the unconscious forces behind psychological denial, once formed, turn on and destroy their maker.

Transcript

The talk title,

The material we're going to look at today,

Was deliberately provocative.

The title is Revealed,

The Unimaginable Source of Unseen Spiritual Slavery.

You know,

There are words,

And increasingly so,

I might add,

In the ever-deepening psychosis of this culture that we live in,

That in some respect,

Not without warranting it,

Bring up a deep and immediate resistance to the word itself,

So that people today fight over words because the word creates in the individual this pain of resistance,

And the pain of this resistance is summarily blamed on whoever spoke that word or said those words,

And so you have enmity that exists between people because each and all are deeply conditioned according to their culture by the very words they use.

I might add,

There's no end to this,

And to expect that there might be would be a grave error on our part.

It would mean that we don't understand our consciousness,

Let alone our culture.

So I want to start with a couple different ideas to help you grasp some of what we want to examine.

First and foremost,

Because everything that we look at is what has to happen so that I'm not triggered by your facial expression,

By a set of words,

By an ideology?

What is it that has to take place?

Through the ages,

What is true,

Another order of humanity,

Has sown into this world certain ideas that when an individual begins to want to solve the mystery of their misery,

Of this repetitive sense of self,

That regardless where they go seems to follow them and make not crooked places straight,

But turn places that should be beautiful into something beastly.

We get these ideas as above so below.

What in the name of God does that mean?

Is it something I just spout or do I understand something of it?

I will look at this idea briefly with you to bring you into the material I intend to cover today.

As above so below.

It means that nothing that is manifested in this world doesn't have a corresponding feature in our consciousness.

What we see in the world is an expression of consciousness.

You cannot see something,

Experience something that is not already a part of our human consciousness.

Not your consciousness,

Not my consciousness,

That like a coloring book where you fill in between the lines the color,

But the capacity,

The character.

All of that belongs to a nature within us that we were born into and that we,

Without knowing it,

Take on the confine of whatever the content is that has been gathered to that date,

To that point,

By human beings.

I hope you're following this.

Now,

As staggering as that is,

If you can understand it,

That means that there would be no slavery.

It couldn't come into existence at any level at any point in time and it's still going on.

It's just gone mostly underground or hidden conveniently.

And I'm not talking about the travesty of what human beings do to one another.

How about the slavery that you and I have to our own negative states?

Where a certain experience will come along and something cracks a whip and the next thing we know we're doing what we must do.

We are serving a master,

But it's a master that we don't we know nothing about.

Doing what it wills,

Even when we know in our heart of hearts that would not be what we would do.

And what is the nature of this unconscious slavery,

This state,

This unseen state of self in which,

And please listen to this,

It sets the tone,

In which gradually we begin to justify and find reasons for why it is that we must yield to our anger,

Our fears,

Our doubts,

Or our hatred of others,

Or our wish that life weren't the way it is.

So that round and round we go,

Believing somehow or other that the explanations we give ourselves for this resistance that we feel is in fact the reason for why we do,

And we turn to ourselves to escape ourselves when it is this unconscious self that must be transcended in its totality.

We've talked about this in some extent already.

I can't go into it deeply.

Let's bring up the first key lesson,

Kate.

Read along with me.

It's a great mistake to believe that negative imagination needs our involvement to trap us in fearful,

Conflicted,

Or otherwise angry states of self.

The truth is just the opposite.

Our most familiar and often dominant sense of I is shaped by the recurrence of these negative states,

Where our identification,

Our unconscious identification with this dark inner machinery is in fact the real source of our sense of captivity.

Take the whole of that idea in.

Isn't it true?

And I ask you,

I'm not asserting anything.

I'm saying,

Can you see this with me?

How I will respond to a moment often takes place before I know that response has happened.

I don't know that I'm going to lose my temper when I drop a glass of water.

We don't know that in some moment where something challenges us,

That we're going to be suddenly filled with all kinds of conflict and want to punish whatever it is.

We don't know that sense of ourself is going to come up until the condition triggers that nature.

But we don't see that the condition is responsible for the level of consciousness that appears,

Because the level of consciousness that is brought up in that moment by that unwanted moment explains the moment to us as if we were there and in charge of what's taken place.

Which means,

Staggering as it is,

That in every unwanted moment,

That unwanted moment begins with some form of resistance that is there within our nature prior to the moment it resists.

Can you see this?

Can you see that not only does that resistance come into the moment before it's triggered,

But that we walk around breeding whatever that sense of self is when we revisit these moments that we don't want.

So this resistance proves that something in our nature has already decided not just who I am,

Because suddenly I am angry,

I am afraid,

I am negative.

So it hasn't just decided who I am in that split second that the conditions trigger that character,

But it's also decided who I will continue being unless there is an intervention of some kind.

Unless something takes place in that consciousness that that consciousness as it is cannot bring about for itself,

Yet it can realize the need for that intervention.

It can realize,

Sweet god,

How long am I going to go around snapping at people?

How long am I going to keep waking up in the morning thinking about what he or she did 30 years ago and then the whole of my day colored by that character?

So to see that this nature that I know nothing about because it always explains away every moment where I might have an insight into it,

This nature has already decided that who and what I am is before me and that the only choices I have in these moments are handed to me by the nature that's reacted to the moment.

So I'm literally looking to a conditioned nature,

A familiar reaction,

To guide me out of the consciousness responsible for its appearance.

This is what is meant in the Old,

In the New Testament,

In all scripture,

The blind shall lead the blind and both shall fall in a pit.

What we have to understand is something about the nature of this resistance.

The unimaginable source of this unseen slavery where we are commanded by an unconscious nature,

A lower order of self into which literally we have fallen and become identified with its life,

Is to begin to understand the nature,

The source of it,

Which is denial.

Have you ever wondered how it is that you know and often with so much,

How should I say,

The strength of that clarity,

How do I know when something's wrong with a moment?

And something's kind of almost always wrong with the moment,

Isn't it?

Sometimes you open your eyes and you don't want to be in the moment in the morning.

You're drinking your coffee,

You're thinking about the commute,

You're thinking about the conversation you have to have downstream,

Whether it's that afternoon or 10 days from now when you go see family.

And instantaneously,

As the mind entertains,

What it does comes with it a commensurate sense of resistance.

And in the strength of that knowing that something's wrong with the moment comes all of the rest of the consideration.

What's wrong with the moment?

What's wrong with someone else?

What's wrong with where I have to go?

Including,

And this is critical,

Knowing that in those moments something is wrong with me.

Please,

How persistent,

How pernicious is this form of constant resistance?

Our mind,

The way it is,

Looks at an event,

Something that triggers the resistance as being other than the consciousness triggered by that event.

So that the resistance itself is never questioned.

The sense of myself that doesn't want the moment to be the way it is,

It never questions itself.

Instead,

The reaction points a finger to what it says is a reality that somehow or other is uncaring about me.

And my life is filled with running into moments where I don't want the moment.

And the experience of the moment I don't want is me not wanting the moment,

Blaming how I feel on what my mind points to.

And here's the thing that I'm getting to.

So let's be clear about this.

The depth,

The breadth of this identification with any strong,

And will you agree that when you are resisting something,

It's painful?

That painful sense of self only comes into existence in the same moment as did the feeling of not wanting what our reaction points to as having caused it.

I'm getting to something very clear if this isn't yet for you.

One day there will be what in some older teachings we would call it a conscious shock.

Instead of being me,

As I always am,

Driving in my car,

Taking a walk downtown to go shop someplace,

And in a constant tension that I'm not aware of,

Something suddenly opens up and you can see beyond the shout of a doubt that there is this sense about you all the time,

That wherever I am,

Whoever I'm with,

Whatever it is going on,

There is this I,

This watchful sense of self that knows somehow or other it's not quite right.

That you shouldn't be this way,

That they shouldn't be like that,

That in this moment I ought not be involved in what I'm doing.

And no,

Amelia,

Not that you're not calm.

The whole idea of being calm is what creates this constant conflict with any moment that triggers the image of oneself as being calm.

And up comes this conflict and then the conflict has to be something born outside of myself because the image I have of myself is a spiritual,

Peaceful,

Christ-loving,

God-loving human being who's calm.

No,

It doesn't exist that way.

What's going on is that there's a mind,

A level of consciousness that is literally,

Quite literally,

Again,

As above so below this,

A kind of negative or otherwise dark narcissist.

It was held in rapture,

Looking at itself,

Stunned by the extraordinary qualities.

There is a negative side of that,

Not that that isn't negative,

Incidentally,

All self-love of that order is negative.

But the flip side of that narcissist nature is our sense of self without our knowing it is more or less locked on to a kind of constant negative sense of self.

And this negative sense of self,

This ever-denying self has to have something to deny in order for it to look in the mirror of itself and see what it says it doesn't want when what it doesn't want is itself.

What it doesn't want is the experience of itself,

But it can't have that obvious to itself.

My God,

What if you really knew that when you don't want a moment,

What you don't want is the level of self having that moment.

It would all come crashing down.

No,

There has to be a you,

A them,

A this or a that to blame for this negativity,

To blame for this thrust of this tormenting denial that comes up every time something seems to threaten who and what we've imagined ourselves to be.

Are you tracking with me,

People?

Are you following this?

So that our sense of I,

Though we don't see it,

But can,

And that's the conscious shock,

Is a lingering,

How do I say?

It's a lingering absence of commitment to the moment because there's always something the mind is looking at in the moment that isn't quite how that nature has imagined the moment should be.

So that whatever we see,

Whoever it is that we're dealing with in one way or another,

Pretty much all this nature sees by a process of comparing what it expects and needs to see to confirm itself,

It always sees something that challenges it.

And there's tension in that conflict.

There's an unending resistance so that whatever the moment is,

Whatever it's doing,

Whatever it's going on,

The reason we know it shouldn't be like it is,

Is because in one way or another,

Something,

And you,

You name it,

Something,

A certain feeling rushes in a certain set of thoughts that were quite familiar.

They,

They come to talking to us,

A certain physical set of sensations,

How easily anxiety is triggered so that the,

The,

The thoughts,

The emotions,

The,

The physical stress,

It begins to communicate,

Meaning that we take the onset of these familiar mechanical sensations as being the proof that what that reaction is pointing to is the source of what we need to blame.

So that I don't need to be with you to blame you for my anger,

My regrets.

All I have to have is the thought.

I don't need to be in a certain place in order to experience this,

This sudden sense,

Gosh,

You know,

This,

This place isn't quite right.

I mean,

Look at the people,

Your actions,

One day,

Your actions are the most wonderful thing in the world.

The next day,

Principally the same actions,

Although always changing as our actions do.

And you shouldn't have that be,

You shouldn't be like that.

And so without understanding why there is this resistance all the time to our experience,

Because the resistance to our experience proves that what we blame for the experience is the source of our pain.

When what I'm trying to point to you is the fact that the pain of our experience in any given moment cannot be separate from the consciousness experiencing it that way.

So that ultimately we're always looking for familiar and by the way,

Fully conditioned explanations for this unwanted sense of self.

And that when we have the explanations for this unwanted sense of self,

Inseparable from the conditioned explanation are the conditioned choices that we will make.

Choices that as that unconscious nature examines the circumstances,

The person,

The problem it blames,

Believes that it actually understands why it's experiencing what it's experiencing.

So that now we know what we have to do to escape being somewhere we don't want to be having to do what we don't want to do.

And this is so common.

We never even try to see,

Let alone question why in spite of the fact that I ask you,

True or not,

How many times 10,

000,

100,

000 times have I been with someone in a car at my breakfast table watching the news?

You fill in the blank 10,

000 times the mind is summarily sucked into experiencing a reaction that it didn't know it was going to have.

And that commensurate with that reaction,

A very familiar,

Well-consolidated sense of I something that has been there a hundred thousand times equal to that reaction.

And that then that I,

That nature begins to lay down all the plans,

The things we have to do,

Who we have to change,

Where we're going to go,

All of that.

And the proof of it is that we might and often do change our conditions.

This is one of the big follies of human,

Of the conscious slavery,

Spiritual slavery.

If I change my condition,

It will change my consciousness.

No,

Your conditions will change when your consciousness that meets them gives you something else to see and understand about that unwanted moment.

Because now an awareness in that consciousness realizes that you are always going through pretty much the same thing.

And here's what underlies all of this denial.

Take a nice deep breath.

I want you to see this.

If we're in agreement with three points,

One,

Often before I even know it,

There's going to be this resistance to something that someone said,

Did,

Or otherwise carried out.

That in the moment of that resistance,

It is attended to a certain familiar sense of myself that always knows why it feels the way it does.

Even if it can't change what it blames,

It still is entirely a captive of whatever that character that the cloth of that moment wraps it in.

And that that character,

That sense of I belongs to who and what I've been,

Not who I am,

Not what I can be,

But to all that has been conditioned and collected in the name of myself that I instantaneously adapt in that unwanted moment so that it is decided by that nature,

Who I am and what I will be.

And I seem to have no choice in it as long as I'm unaware of that activity.

Now,

Please,

It sounds so simple,

But I tell you,

Your first awareness of this will set you on a path to changing everything about how you experience these unwanted moments.

Once again,

The unwanted moment,

The situations we deny,

We have absolute proof of why that person,

That situation,

That circumstance shouldn't be that way.

And so our attention goes onto the condition believing we can change it and change ourselves.

Here's the source of this spiritual slavery that we don't see,

But that we can.

This isn't the way I'm supposed to feel.

I'm not supposed to feel like this.

Something's wrong with the moment.

This isn't the way I'm supposed to feel.

Do you know how deep and prevalent that runs?

How that dark coloration sits there waiting for any moment that in the smallest way suggests that where you are,

Who you're with,

What you're doing,

That there's something not quite right with it,

That you shouldn't have to be in that car going somewhere,

That you shouldn't have to be dealing with these people,

That these circumstances that keep coming back are something that should have been dealt with a long time ago.

So you must be an inadequate person.

And in that inadequacy to feel,

This isn't how I'm supposed to feel about myself.

How am I supposed to feel about myself?

I'm supposed to feel that everything is good about myself.

I'm supposed to feel that everything is complacent with how I've imagined condition should be.

So any moment that any condition comes along and that by a form of unconscious comparison rubs against whatever it is that I believe I am and how things should happen for me,

Instantaneously resistance,

Instantaneous denial.

Denial of the moment as it is,

As if the moment that you're denying could be any other way than it is.

That's the slavery,

The servitude to an unconscious nature,

That without our knowing,

We live immersed in the dark waters of it,

Forever lapping up against us,

Moving us,

And convincing us because of our familiarity with its movement,

That this is not how I should feel.

I shouldn't feel reluctant.

I shouldn't feel even angry,

Although anger will always find a reason why you have to feel that way.

This is an almost,

I've called this,

Referred to this,

A kaleidoscope of this unconscious nature where,

Try and see this with me,

Please,

You and I know that we're forever moving through life.

It seems like we've got to go do,

Get,

Fix,

Control,

Change,

Resolve,

Just this endless series of demands,

Demands that in our estimation have to be met,

Otherwise we will lose what precious little we have.

Failing to see that what we have in any given moment is a measurement born out of a sense of self,

Comparing whatever it is the conditions are that triggered its appearance according to what it expects,

And then not even suspecting that the conditions as they change by the fact that they're bringing up different reactions,

Conditioned reactions,

Change the sense of self,

So that I'm never aware that this self is not the same as that self,

And that who I am in this moment wishing that I weren't in this car,

Wishing that I didn't have to deal with whatever it is I've got to deal with,

I never suspect that 10 minutes later I wish that I wasn't in this coffee shop with all these people talking so loudly,

I wish that they had made the coffee better,

I wish I didn't have to leave the coffee shop to go deal with that nincompoop at work,

So condition trigger the consciousness,

The consciousness replete with all of these conditioned eyes,

And each and every one of these eyes complete in itself with all of the ways in which it's given to deal with what it doesn't want,

So this is a loop,

A dark circle,

Recurrence,

Each and every one of these eyes complaining about what it doesn't want,

Or controlling what it does so that it can get past what a kind of constant denial,

I don't know if you can see it or feel it,

What would it be like to be a human being who's in his or her life without wishing that he or she had to do something about their life to have a life,

Without this urge to change where you are and who they are,

Without this intractable sense that something's not quite right with where you are and who you're talking to,

That tension produces choices as if the choices made by that nature in conflict with itself can remove the self that creates the conflict from the conditions it blames for itself,

Regrets,

Wishing I didn't have to go to work,

Wondering when I'm finally going to be able to escape this pain that I can't escape,

Things changed,

Why did they do that,

Oh no,

Imagine a human being so unconscious,

And we're talking about ourselves,

About not you,

Not me,

This nature that can't see itself,

That is so used to rolling in the mud of a self-generated misery that it can't understand why in spite of all the times it's delivered itself into the next salvation,

Whatever that source may be,

It finds itself caked in all of the unconscious reactions and the conditions it blames those reactions on,

This denial doesn't exist without the unconscious nature responsible for its appearance,

This denial does not exist without the unconscious nature responsible for its constant reappearance,

And every time we meet a moment,

We don't know the root of it,

For us the root of unwanted moments is rude people,

For us the root of situations we shouldn't be stuck in is the condition that we blame for it,

I'm saying to you that the conditions we see are a creation of a nature that's by comparison has decided I shouldn't feel this way and because I feel this way,

It must be the circumstance I'm in that's responsible for what I'm going through,

And I'm telling you by God and by God one day you'll see it,

The conditions you blame for the way you don't want to feel is an action of an unconscious nature that's comparing that condition to what it anticipated it should be,

How you should feel what you are owed,

Do you ever think do you ever think you say you know what I'm I'm very impatient,

I'm snappy,

I'm sharp,

I'm cruel,

Do you ever think to yourself that you you couldn't have any of those reactions to anyone or anything,

You couldn't sit there in that slow simmering dark resistance to having to go somewhere,

Being in traffic,

Carrying the weight of your plans,

Oh my God,

We know not what we do to ourselves let alone to others,

Imagine carrying the weight of a plan when the reason you have a plan is to escape the weight of the moment before,

But we can't see that the anxiety is born out of what we have denied the moment which is what to reveal to us the consciousness responsible for the experience of it,

Oh it's subtle and I understand it,

But nothing can pass through awareness that that awareness isn't made of that that we we wouldn't be present to its appearance,

Who is it that tells us you shouldn't feel that way,

Isn't the fact that something in me is saying I'm not supposed to feel like this,

Doesn't it prove that I know how I'm supposed to feel,

Absolutely,

So there I am,

I'm not supposed to feel this way,

And I take the sensation of that negativity as the proof that something positive is happening,

It's just out of hand because the condition's denying it to me,

This isn't the way I'm supposed to feel,

So I'm sitting there filled with painful resistance,

In this in a slave to a nature that denies the moment,

Believing that the moment it denies proves it knows how the moment should be,

When if anything proves that we don't know how the moment should be,

It's the fact that we're in constant pain trying to compare it to what it should be and then giving our choices to to change it,

This unconscious nature,

It is,

And I know it doesn't sound good to you,

I can't help it,

One day it's not that you're going to want to be aware of this constant struggle,

But you realize you have a choice for the first time,

I can either struggle with the moment that I blame for how I feel,

Or I can struggle to be aware of that consciousness that has already determined how I should feel,

How you should be,

And in that struggle to become aware of the machinery,

To be aware of these forces that lay dormant in this nature until a certain set of circumstances or even a conditioned thought will trigger it,

And to be there,

Like Saint Paul,

I don't do the good I would,

I do the evil I would not,

Instead of me sitting there and doing what I believe proves that I shouldn't feel this way,

Studying,

Attentive,

Present to the pain of a nature that came with me into that moment,

Having already decided who I am and how things should be,

And then me serving it,

A slave to it,

Every time I yield to the pain it gives me when it says this conflict could be otherwise if you just changed him,

Her,

This or that,

It never says if you could just change the way you see me.

Why do we have to deny anything?

Why did Christ say to Peter,

Get thee behind me,

Satan?

Don't you think it queer that here's Christ,

The embodiment of light,

Of love,

And here's Peter upon whom he intends to build his church,

And forget what happened as a result of religion being turned into the monstrosity that it is.

Where the idea of love created wars and hatred and violence,

Forget all that,

Here is this living light,

And here's Peter saying,

You know what,

I'm not going to let what you've just said,

Because Christ is telling Peter and the disciples,

I've come into Jerusalem,

And it's not going to go that good,

I'm going to be picked up,

I'm going to be crucified,

I'm going to die,

And Peter,

Peter goes,

No,

No,

You're not,

I will not allow that to happen.

Christ says,

Get behind me.

Why?

Because Peter was in denial.

Peter was in denial.

He was saying,

No,

That's not God's will.

No,

This isn't how you should be,

Because the way you're telling me things will go is not how I want to feel.

I'm not supposed to feel afraid.

I'm not supposed to be worried about you.

Everything's supposed to be beautiful and calm,

And suddenly you've brought this conflict into my consciousness.

Christ did not bring that conflict into anyone's consciousness.

That living light reveals the conflict is already there,

And that's why Christ said,

Get behind me.

Meaning,

You are not living in the order of understanding by which you realize these things will happen for the sake of revealing something that cannot be revealed otherwise,

And in whatever that ensuing revelation will be your realization.

He even told Peter,

You'll deny me three times.

Peter said,

No,

No way.

He denied that,

But then he did deny,

Didn't he?

Bring up the second key lesson,

Kate,

And we'll bring this talk to a close.

Much like the tragic creature in Mary Shelley's classic book,

Frankenstein,

Who turned against and ultimately destroyed his creator,

So too the unconscious forces behind psychological denial once formed turn on and destroy their maker.

Just like Frankenstein destroyed the one who created him,

So do these unconscious forces that are responsible for this constant state of denial turn on and destroy their maker.

That consciousness destroys its possibilities,

And as long as we are not present to what it is doing to itself to extract that syrup,

That surreptitious,

That false sense of self,

We will be forever trapped in service to that consciousness.

So is there an exercise inherent in what I'm talking about?

You could write this down if you want.

Any denying or otherwise negative I is a lying I.

Any denying or otherwise negative I is a lying I.

It hides itself behind what it says is the truth that it sees,

When what it sees is the reason for why it should be in pain and have hatred and enmity towards others.

We can do much better than this if we understand it.

Catch that sense of self.

Any denying or otherwise negative I is a lying I.

It is a part of ourself,

Part of a legion of conditioned thoughts and experiences that surface in unwanted moments because the moment itself has challenged whatever that particular I came into the moment believing it should experience as itself.

Try to see how many times in any given day you see that you feel that this isn't how I'm supposed to feel.

Don't get negative about it.

I'm not supposed to feel this way.

Who's not supposed to feel this way?

And then you'll start seeing that your mother,

Your father,

Your brother,

Your religious leaders,

Your political people,

Oh,

Just bit by bit brainwash,

Brainwash,

Brainwash.

This is how you should be.

This is what you need to do in these circumstances and you will follow my authority because of yourself.

All you have is to fall back into a sense of self that you think you're not supposed to do.

So do as I say.

And when you start realizing that something is always telling you that you shouldn't feel the way you do,

Then you're going to want to know something about whatever it is that's denying that moment.

And please,

Denying you the real opportunity to discover a real I,

The real indwelling Christ,

The real truth of yourself that just waits there as a light for you to bring that darkness into it so that you can understand the truth that sets you free.

Remember,

Catch that.

This isn't the way I'm supposed to feel.

Oh,

My God.

Endless conflict with how we've imagined we're supposed to feel.

And there's no such thing as how we're supposed to feel.

If every moment is new,

That means so can you be new.