I trust that.
.
.
You will put down whatever it is that might be distracting you so that we can.
Proceed with the kind of discovery that we gather here to make.
That we might through those discoveries make.
A real and lasting change in our nature.
Without which doing so.
We have basically forfeited the purpose of our existence on this planet.
The title of the talk for today is The Secret of Being the Best You Can Be.
The secret of being the best that you can be.
You know,
It's a bit of a tease,
That title,
Isn't it?
I mean,
Honestly,
Who doesn't want to be the best they can be?
And yet we all know to some extent that we are not the best we can be.
But we don't know why.
And we always have someone or something.
Some cause outside as this.
Blockage that we believe is in our way.
So I want to make sure that you understand what I'm going to look at with you today is not intended to be motivational.
In fact,
The truth is,
If what motivates you doesn't start from within you based on what you have seen is true about yourself,
Than what you call motivation is simply imitation,
A form of ambition.
That will ultimately lead you to where it began within you,
Which honestly is nowhere and leads to nothing.
Anybody in this world can want to be like everybody else,
And most of us do.
So let me get into this material with us.
Is it true or not that something.
.
.
Asks us to use those words.
Specifically in moments where it seems like we've missed the mark,
To be more than we are.
I mean,
I know the world is never-endingly showing you commercials about how to be more than you are.
Put this on your face,
Put this in your body,
Go to this,
Get that.
Kind of endless pressure actually what amounts to eventually a compulsion that most of us feel.
That somehow to be the best that we are means that we're going to gain the admiration of the world around us.
And we can't separate that idea of admiration from being the best that we are,
Because what's the point of being the best that we are if we're not admired for it?
Do you follow me?
And I would add,
If you do,
That you should at some point be able to see what a nightmare that is.
Always trying to live up to the estimation of what we believe will gain the esteem of the people around us at the cost of our own life.
No,
That can't possibly be what it means to be the best that you can be.
There is something far more deeper within us.
That is.
Woven into the very fabric of our existence that sits,
If you will,
And I ask you to see whether it's too or not a kind of a quiet urge.
That appears whenever we reach what might be the edge of our present ability.
If you play sports or you do exercises,
Whatever it may be,
You know when you reach a certain point,
You're trying to write,
You're trying to paint,
You reach the edge of your ability.
And in that moment,
There is this,
Oh no,
But there's also evidence.
Of something that has called us there.
Because why else would I be given something that I love if I can come to the end of the love that has put it in there in me?
So in these moments,
It feels like the end of the road for us.
And I must tell you something,
If you're ever going to reach any level of enlightenment of a relationship with the divine.
You have to understand that the end that you meet is not the end of the conditions.
It is the end of the consciousness that cannot see past itself.
So the end appears when life.
.
.
For us seems like it goes,
Well,
You know what?
You're just not sufficient for what's being asked in the present moment.
Because what's being asked is that you were able to do this and to be that,
But I can't get there.
Do you see this with me,
This crux in the road we're talking about?
And if you can,
Can you see that most of us If the shoe fits,
Wear it.
Most of us spend our lives trying to avoid these moments.
For some of us,
It's as simple as laying on the couch and we know there's something more important,
Healthier,
Better,
Wiser for us to do,
But oh no,
No,
No,
I'll do it later.
Or I just don't feel like it now.
So we avoid those moments,
Which is why we distract ourselves.
Distractions are the avoidance of moments that we are given to transcend ourselves.
So we don't transcend ourselves through distractions.
Rather,
We are brought to one dead end after another,
For which then we blame and judge ourselves.
Because we don't like running into what we'll call limitations.
Do you like running into limitation?
Like discovering that some skill of yours is not going to take you past a certain point.
Like discovering that your understanding the way that it is has boundaries?
And the way you know your understanding has boundaries is by how impatient you get when someone challenges them.
Or how about moments when plans,
Whatever they may be,
Don't carry us where we have imagined they're supposed to.
And so in that moment,
Here I am,
Oh no.
And the conviction that brought me to that point suddenly abandons me and I'm left there convinced,
Well,
You're just not as lucky as others may be,
Or you're not as fortunate.
You don't have the same abilities they do.
I'm making a major transition here.
Tell me that you have followed me so far.
Because if you have,
Then I ask you to remember last Sunday,
Or whatever it was,
We spoke about this idea.
Of remembering to take a step back.
From these moments,
From these reactions,
Which are inseparable from the moments that they define,
To take a step back from these reactions so that we might see a bigger picture.
We might,
In stepping back,
See another whole dimension that reveals that there's already a larger world in place within us that we can step back into.
That's what awareness is.
So in the moment of that higher awareness,
We realize that whatever it is that's taking place isn't the end of what's possible.
It isn't the end of our abilities.
It's a moment where we've been asked to take a step back and discover another order of ourselves in which another order of ability awaits.
Are you following me?
So what I want to look at with you now is a kind of a complimentary what shall we call it,
A complementary counterpart to this idea of taking a step back.
And that complementary counterpart is to take a step forward.
Like two wings on the same dove.
But take a step forward into what?
And this is where we have to start working a little bit.
Please.
Give as much attention as you can.
When we think of taking a step forward,
Please see this with me,
We never think of taking a step forward into something that we haven't already imagined we can step into.
Take a step forward.
Yeah.
This image of myself.
Yeah.
This position that I intend,
This idea that I'm going to,
We always step into the known.
That's all we know to step into as we are.
So I'm not talking about taking a step into what we think we already know.
For instance,
Don't you already know when that big dead end sign comes up,
You know,
No,
Sorry,
No,
Get no further to go here.
And your resistance affirms it.
It says you're that's right.
But I'm talking about taking a step.
Into discovering what's on the other side of this resistance.
A step into the revelation of something greater than ourselves,
But that cannot be found in the known only by stepping into a moment that is unknown so that it can reveal to us what it has brought to us as the gift that it is.
Everybody's still on board.
When you think about it.
And we must think about this from ourselves,
Not from anybody else's thoughts.
As a seeker of a higher life.
We want to know,
I'm asked all the time,
Well,
What's the next step?
What do I have to do?
But we have to understand that the next step in our interior journey.
Is never going to be found in time.
In a time to come.
There is no next step in a time to come other than the self on an imaginary journey,
Stepping into the time they've imagined when they'll be free.
So the next step isn't in a time to come,
But it is always concealed in the revelation of any limitation that we summarily resist.
I'm going to say it again.
The next step in your journey,
In my journey,
At whatever level that may be,
Is always concealed within the revelation of that moment,
Of that condition,
The sense of limitation that we always summarily resist.
Because why?
Because in that same moment,
And I'm asking you whether it's true or not,
Does not something in you say,
Oh boy,
This is too much?
I can't.
This is beyond me.
There's no way through this moment.
And when we have that thought born of that reaction of resistance come up,
We essentially,
By identifying with it,
Confine ourselves to the consciousness that cannot see past the content of itself that's been brought up in that moment.
So without knowing it,
When we think to ourselves,
I can't,
There's no way through,
We are standing at the threshold of a new ability that we can't imagine.
In other words,
Our abilities brought us to that point.
But beyond that point,
Our abilities no longer play out.
They have been fulfilled according to their highest possibility.
And only by coming to the end of that ability,
Do we discover yet another ability waiting within that very threshold of that moment that seems to have brought us to an end.
If you're following me,
I'm going to ask Kate to bring up the first key lesson.
Because it summarizes this.
Go ahead,
Kate.
Don't just read,
Feel.
We shall find life's unending opening.
Only when and as we agree to enter into and explore what seems closed and at an end.
We shall find life's unending opening only when and as we agree to enter into and explore what seems closed and at an end.
Now isn't that where most of us make an about face?
I did my best.
I just don't have what it takes.
Poor me.
And even the type A's out there,
They will not me,
I keep pounding and pounding.
And you keep pounding at a door that without knowing it remains closed because it is the content of a consciousness not interested in transcending itself,
Only interested in keeping you traveling down the same road it gives you so that it can have the continuity it seeks.
The ordinary mind which all of us have.
At least occasionally,
Protest this idea.
Of why would I want to enter into,
Let alone explore,
What I've proven to myself is impossible.
Just as an example,
I can't tell you.
I'm 77 years old.
I've been swinging a golf club for approximately 25 years.
And every once in a while,
It's so discouraging because no matter what you do,
You can't seem to change whatever it is that's going into that swing to produce a higher ability,
A better outcome.
And when you run into that same thing over and over again,
And by the way,
You meet it with the same resistance,
All that happens is that you meet your insistence in the form of a condition that won't get out of the way.
So you blame the condition instead of the insistence that blinds you to what you're actually doing to yourself.
So the mind says,
I've proven I can't go past this.
And how is it proven?
Pain in that moment outweighs the interior promise.
The prospect that actually brought you to that point.
And says,
Let's see what possibilities there are.
You go,
Well,
There aren't any.
And you stop dead.
And most of us do.
And by the way,
That's when we die.
But we can see if we're willing to.
How history itself,
I suppose,
Reveals that the real breakthroughs in this life for an individual,
Whether a man or a woman transcends some simple addiction,
A limitation.
Someone transcends a set of difficult situations,
Like Franco,
Or some character goes all the way through and changes the world because of the transcending experience they have.
We can see that hidden in those moments is what seems to be the end of a well-traveled path.
What seems to be a shut door is actually a threshold.
And if we've ever gone through it,
Even once where an epiphany released us from the perception that that's the end,
Then we know that that moment holds within it.
An entrance into a world that is free of the former limitations we faced.
Are you still tracking with me this,
And I can't tell you how strongly I,
This is not meant to motivate.
One of our biggest misunderstandings in life.
Concerns the idea,
The meaning of the word ability.
God help us.
In this world,
We are taught.
By generation after generation after generation to think of ability as some kind of talent,
Something achieved,
Some recognition.
That by that brings success.
And the success it brings is for those who,
Mostly unlike us,
It would seem,
Possess some extraordinary gift that the world honors and then throws flowers and money at the feet of people with these extraordinary abilities.
And so we mistake the idea of ability as being some kind of means to an end.
Where the end is what we imagine we will be given and receive as a result of struggling to achieve what we've seen others do.
I don't want to go too fast.
I definitely want you to see this with me.
Spiritually speaking,
Ability has a completely different meaning.
True ability.
Is the capacity to transcend yourself.
And every human being is given by the divine that ability to transcend themselves.
True ability is the capacity to meet a limitation.
Without becoming identified with it.
To ability is the willingness to work with what seems to be in our way.
Until we are shown what is hiding within it that allows us to get through it.
So whatever that wall that seems to be there defining our reality,
If we work to develop this God-given ability,
We realize that this limitation,
This end of things is nothing more or less than the level of our present understanding.
And that's all you meet.
That's all we ever meet.
Nothing else.
Whatever you run into that you run into and run into again.
Whatever laziness that occupies your body.
Whatever judgment you experienced for it.
Every last part of that is you and I meeting this present level of understanding that first sets us up by saying,
Oh no,
Can't do,
I've been there,
Look at that,
And then judges us for this for this presentation.
For what?
For being someone who can't or won't.
Transition.
Consider what happens when we encounter resistance to doing anything.
We don't have to go far,
Does it?
Dewey,
What happens when I encounter something and immediately resistance comes up in me.
Have you seen it enough?
This resistance always appears with a negative message.
You've never felt resistance that did not appear.
As a negative message saying no and with a negative message saying yes.
There's nowhere else to go.
There's no way to get past.
Whatever this is.
And whatever this is,
Is being pointed to by our reaction,
And it says,
This is fixed.
This,
This is in your bones guy.
You're never going to be someone to break through.
This is permanent.
Look at the conditions you had to grow up with.
No wonder you're in this kind of pain.
So the message within the resistance is that you have come as far as you can go,
Because that's what this resistance is telling you.
And it only points to go back.
Resistance never speaks.
To what is possible.
Resistance never speaks to what can be understood and transcended.
It only speaks for the nature that has reached the end of its ability.
That's all resistance is,
The voice of something,
A nature that has reached the end of its ability.
And if you can see that with me,
And I'm not even going to ask if you can't,
Cause I'm going to run out of time.
Then that.
That revelation,
That realization changes everything.
Because suddenly we realize that whatever this limitation is,
It's revealing something not just about the level of consciousness that's encountered that moment,
But a consciousness that doesn't know what else to do except resist what that moment came to reveal about it.
Imagine,
By the grace of God,
The whole universe brings about a split second in which a revelation takes place about some feature or character in our consciousness and we throw away the gift of eternity for the sake of a moment of feeling either we'll go eat something,
We'll do something,
We'll do anything other than deal with what is being shown to us.
So in that moment,
We see what feels like the end of the leg of that journey.
But what feels like the end of the leg of that journey is really the revelation of a lower nature that can go no farther.
And a nature that doesn't want you to know that it isn't interested in transcending itself.
And so it traps you in this resistance and you believe that pain is your pain and it is not.
So this revelation of coming to the end of things is not a defeat.
It is an invitation.
To do what?
Kate,
Let's bring up the second key lesson,
Please.
Read along with me.
Follow.
Not me.
These ideas.
The best we are able to do.
In any given moment is inseparable from the best we are able to be in that moment.
The best we are able to do in any given moment cannot be separated from the best we are able to be in that moment.
And that's what this talk is,
How to be the best that you can be so that you can start doing something you've never been able to do before,
Which is essentially leave who and what you've been behind you step into what it is possible for you to become.
So what does that mean?
That the best we're able to do in any given moment is inseparable from the best we're able to be in that moment.
I'm trusting some of you remember this idea.
We've talked about it.
Dozens of times over years.
Rumi said,
As seemingly confusing as it is,
The antidote is in the venom.
They go,
What does that mean?
The antidote is in the venom.
I'm bringing you a new way to look at it.
What that means,
Kate,
Let's bring up the third key lesson,
Which is a translation in a way of Rumi's quote.
The revelation of limitation.
And the ability to transcend it always arrive together.
The revelation of limitation and our ability to transcend it always appear,
Always arrive at the exact same moment.
This is why so many.
Of these moments where it's possible for us to transcend ourselves.
Feel so unwanted.
And what a trick,
The very moment that we need to transcend this nature that can only resist anything that doesn't match what it expects.
Brings up in that nature a summary resistance that feels so uncomfortable,
So painful,
We don't want anything to do with the condition it points to as being responsible for that conflict.
Yet moments of genuine transcendence.
Often begin with,
And you have to see this,
Some form of uncertainty.
Here I am,
Here's an addict.
I've been at this threshold point a thousand times.
I think I'm gonna die if I don't take that drug.
Here's this woman,
I think I'm gonna die if I don't look at my Facebook or whatever nonsense a human being spends their time looking at online.
Why?
Because I don't know who I am without this distraction.
So the moment comes where something is meant to end,
Which is this unconscious attachment and identification with whatever that substance may be.
And instead of coming to the end of that,
Because it's so uncomfortable,
I just exceed and I go backwards again.
But when I meet that moment,
That uncertainty,
If I stay there.
What allows me to stay there includes,
If you will,
The appearance of a certain natural humility.
A humility heralds the beginning of transcendence.
Because we can begin to see these old ways are not going to carry us into the new world that we seek.
So the humility is the recognition that of myself,
I can't do this.
But in the very recognition that I can't do it,
And yet something is calling me to move through something,
There at that crucible,
At that true crucifix,
I stand.
And I'm either willing to go into or not what is unfolding.
Nice deep breath.
To be clear,
Because I know this comes up.
And let me assure you that you are not alone in this.
If you don't know about it,
I'm not going to explain it now,
But you are not the only one who lives in pain because of physical limitations.
There may be,
And there often are,
Especially as we get older,
Specific limitations that we may not be able to overcome.
Circumstances that quite literally,
Go beyond our ability to change.
Can't make my body go back in time.
Can't make this disease disappear simply because it's an inconvenient.
And yet.
Even the most difficult conditions hide in themselves remarkable new and higher possibilities.
Even the most difficult conditions,
Which is what?
Ah,
The end,
I can't,
Oh no.
In that very moment hides a new possibility.
Like what?
I don't have time to go through this list.
But here's one of the new and higher possibilities that exist in every moment where it seems like there's no further to go.
How about this?
For this new ability.
To be able to step back from our knee-jerk resistance to the condition we blame for that pain.
We want to fight.
Want to take flight?
The last thing that occurs to us,
Because of the inherent identification with what seems to be standing in our way from being happy and complete,
Right there at that moment,
We could and are invited by that moment to take a step back.
From a resistance to that moment that we're not the one creating,
But that who and what we should have been and might have been,
If that didn't happen,
That's responsible.
So by daring to enter into this new vantage point of taking a step back,
Of enlarging the picture so that our pain becomes revealed as something connected to our insistence,
By entering that,
We catch a glimpse of what?
We have the ability to observe that painful reaction instead of blindly serve it and let its purpose be our own.
Whoa,
That's different,
Isn't it?
So I have the ability.
To actually be in charge of my own consciousness.
An ability that is given to me because I'm willing to let a new kind of understanding illuminate that conscious for me.
And then I can begin to experience a completely different world that is part of that broader picture.
So that rather than observing,
Serving the reaction,
We observe it.
And what happens then?
We realize a relationship with life that is no longer determined by exterior conditions.
Talk about a God-given ability.
A life that is no longer determined by exterior conditions.
You mean I don't have to get negative?
No,
You might get negative,
But you don't have to serve it.
You have the right to live without identifying with that negative reaction.
And this is where,
If you're following me,
A completely new understanding of ability begins to emerge,
Which is the point of this talk.
Kate,
Let's bring up the fourth key lesson,
Please.
Don't miss this,
People.
Ability is not fixed.
It is not a possession.
It's not something we either have or do not have.
Ability is a living relationship with the possibilities hidden within consciousness itself.
Ability is not fixed.
It is not a possession.
It is not something we either have or don't.
Ability is a living relationship with possibilities hidden within a consciousness within our consciousness itself.
Can you see how that might change these moments where you think,
Oh,
I don't have the ability,
I can't,
I'm not?
Because now we're realizing that the problem is,
Is that you are identified with whatever that ability has been.
And now it meets the moment that's threshold.
It's not going to go past it.
It can't.
But there is something within us that can be integrated and bring forth a completely new order of ability that by inviting,
Being invited into it,
Allows us to leave behind our former understanding.
So let's explore this together.
Some of us like gardening.
Planting things.
Vegetables,
Flowers,
Whatever.
And much as we might work to cultivate a flower garden or the environment in which we want to produce this beauty,
Same way we're cultivated,
We're created to cultivate our ability to see,
To learn,
And to understand.
We are created to be able to cultivate our abilities.
I don't have time to put this in and I wish I did.
But for those of you interested in Christ's teachings,
There's a beautiful parable he tells about a homeowner who gives some people a different number of talents,
Of coins.
And he sends them out into the world.
In order to see what they can cultivate and create,
What their ability will bring forth from what they have been given.
This is what I'm describing to you.
That we are given what we are given.
Whatever form of that ability may be,
To double it,
To triple it a hundredfold.
And not because we ourselves are creating this new ability,
But we're entering into a creative relationship with the source of our own life that ensures that it will be tripled and doubled hundredfold if we just give it what it asks for us to give in the moment when it appears.
Yet the seed of these new and higher possibilities that I'm describing Not one of them is anything without its source.
Ultimately,
All ability is a God-given gift.
What we do with the ability is our responsibility accordingly.
And when we understand that ability is in fact a God-given gift.
Then we realize if it is such,
Then it is inexhaustible.
And if the ability to develop is inexhaustible,
That means there can be no end point at which I run into where I can't transcend this present ability called my consciousness,
My understanding.
So think what it means,
What I'm describing to you.
If the source of our being.
Is spirit.
And spirit is infinite.
Than any moment we fear.
Because it pretends an end of some kind.
That same moment must conceal within it a new place to begin.
It has to be that way.
So by definition,
And please listen.
By definition,
Any moment in our life.
Where we come to an end of what we think we can do,
What we want.
Any moment we come to that end,
That's part of a familiar circle.
And that circle is at best.
The extension of a mediocre nature that seeks nothing more than its own continuity.
I know this is strong.
But I don't know if it can be felt strongly enough.
We should find these moments where a mediocre nature says,
No,
I can't,
I won't,
Me first.
And spit it from our mouth.
And one day when you see it clearly as I'm describing it,
You will,
It won't be a question of whether or not this is something you want to identify with.
You'll see that the very act of identifying with this mediocre,
Lazy self,
This nature that doesn't want to take the step.
That only wants to take the step it's sure it can succeed with.
This nature that never wants to do more than it's asked of.
This nature that sees to its own comfort,
Even as it resists and denies the fact that it's not happy with all that it gives itself.
That nature has to be seen.
And the only way it can be seen is what I'm describing,
Because that's how it's transcended.
So this brings us to an immense paradox.
And the ability if you want to go beyond this.
Moment.
Do you know why people.
.
.
Don't really change.
And I'm talking about even those of us who maybe,
I'm working,
I am,
I'm struggling.
I go and I want to learn,
I want to know.
Because at a certain point,
When we come to the end of the extent of our present abilities,
Something in us summarily resisting that revelation.
Then says,
If you do something other than what I give you to do,
You're going to make a mistake.
It's a mistake!
To challenge this fear.
Because look at what will happen to you if you do.
Look what happens if you try to change the way you interact with people because you understand what a dead end it is to be someone who judges everyone.
And then it shows you the consequence.
But what I'm saying to you is that if we are not daring to make mistakes,
It's likely we will never realize the best that we can be.
Because in the moment when it's possible to enter into that world,
Where this nature is saying,
Oh,
See what a mistake you made.
We're not exploring that consciousness.
We're obeying it.
And we're confining ourselves to live within those well-established boundaries that nature has made so that we might feel secure even as we resent ourselves for being weak.
Can you see nothing can be discovered there that's new?
Can you see that?
Kate,
Let's bring up the fifth key lesson,
Please.
Read along with me.
Mistakes reveal the edge of the unknown.
They show us where growth is possible as they reveal nothing more.
Than some temporary boundary of our present abilities.
A life predicated on avoiding mistakes.
Because it's a life dedicated to preserving limitations.
Mistakes reveal the edge of the unknown.
They show us where growth is possible as they reveal nothing more than some temporary boundary of our present ability.
A life predicated on making mistakes.
Excuse me.
The boundary of our present abilities.
If you will,
A boundary established by a nature predicated on avoiding mistakes.
And that becomes a life dedicated to preserving its limitation.
If our intention is to explore.
Much as we are called to do so.
The truth of our God-given abilities,
Then there is no wrong direction to be entered into and explored.
We cannot know beforehand what new understanding awaits us,
Let alone whatever new abilities may emerge as a result of our entering into that world.
That foreign distant country.
And so perhaps the real question is not whether we can transcend.
These moments where we reach the end of our abilities,
The sudden recognition that this limitation seems to be saying,
No further go.
The question is whether or not we're willing to meet these moments consciously.
Everything depends upon that.
Are we willing to stand?
If you will,
Before what seems closed and at an end,
Without immediately turning away.
And if I'm turned away,
What is it that I am toward?
What is it that I am turned toward?
And you'll see that what we are turned toward when we turn away from these moments where something says,
Do what you don't want to do,
Take a step past what you think is possible for yourself,
Explore this limitation,
And regardless the suffering,
Inherit in it.
When we're turned towards something,
We are turned by a nature that is turning us away from realizing our relationship with the divine.
Because it is there,
Right there in that moment,
That the real journey begins and ends and begins and ends over and over endlessly.
It is a stream.
Let's bring up the last summary key lesson,
Kate,
Please.
The end of who and what we may have been is not the end of our possibilities.
It is only the beginning of seeing that there is no state of consciousness that cannot be transcended,
No limitation that doesn't reveal a greater possibility,
And no ending that cannot and is not the doorway to a new beginning.
But you have to be there.
And to be there is to be in the midst of that resistance that this nature is summoning in order to ensure that you don't discover that it has kept you in its Egypt,
That it has kept you in this darkness,
That it has kept you in this land of diminishing returns,
Where its continuity is so important to it that it doesn't matter what it does to you in terms of you discovering what God has given you to discover that he has given you.
You.
Stop settling.
Start seeing.
Start exploring,
Regardless the cost.
And for those who will do that.
The sudden realization of another country within their own consciousness.
That is not bound by the conditions the former consciousness was bound by.
That's called liberation.
It's not a one-all end-all,
It is a constant state of discovery,
And we're invited to enter into that.
That strange land as a strange man or a strange woman.
