Two Misperceptions That Keep You In Conflict GF Live 4-20-24

Whatever may be the moment that we don't complete in life, we will be asked to repeat it...until we realize the reason for its continuous re-appearance. Life isn't a race to win, it's a school for our higher education.

Transcript

We have an important subject,

I would say in some ways,

An absolutely essential bit of study that,

God willing,

Leads to a new understanding of ourselves and our relationship with this life,

With this world of ours.

We're going to look today and tomorrow.

This is kind of part one of part two,

Tomorrow's talk being part two.

The talk will stand alone as I give you this material,

But it will be augmented and brought,

If you will,

To a kind of fruition tomorrow.

So if you don't know about it,

I speak on Wednesdays,

Saturday mornings and Sundays,

Wednesday evening,

Sunday mornings for free,

Nothing to join.

I can't directly promote it,

But I can tell you that you can find out about these talks,

Nothing to join.

And join me tomorrow if you're interested in what we're going to talk about today.

And I would add that the talks that I give on Wednesday and Sunday are recorded and are rebroadcast.

If you go to my website,

Again,

You can find out about that on Insight Timer in the speaker profile,

Or just look up my name online.

So let's get going here.

Most of us,

In one way or another,

Spend a great deal of our time,

If not the entirety of it,

In one of two modes.

One mode is in a form of some kind of aggression,

We could call it ambition.

Where the preeminent thought in our mind,

What moves us is that we need to create some kind of impenetrable security through possession,

Through the pursuit of what will provide us endless pleasure,

A way in which we are no longer disturbed by life.

We actually believe that it's possible for us to create a life without disturbance.

Ambition tries to accomplish that,

On the other hand,

And inseparable from the conditions that this ambition produces,

This pursuit of some solid state of security as we imagine it.

The other side of it is that we are almost always trying to avoid or otherwise escape the moments that come that challenge what it is that we have imagined we need in order to do and to be ourselves as the successful,

Stress-free,

Disturbance-free human being.

And so caught up are we in this strange cycle of opposites,

Of pursuit of pleasure,

Avoidance of pain,

A binary unseen system in this unconscious mind and the matrix of it,

That we never even begin to think to ourselves,

You know,

I've been after this undisturbed state of my life for as long as I've been in a body.

And commensurate to it is the fact that I can't deny that the more I acquire or pursue these things to make me not disturbed,

The more disturbed I am,

So that I,

In essence,

I never get to a point where I think to myself,

I need to start looking in a more direct way into what is the real source of this experience that I have of myself all the time,

That's either anxious and stressed,

Rushing to achieve something or anxious and stressed,

Trying to get away from what threatens what I believe are my achievements.

So if I,

If I've set the stage at all,

Then let me read to you the key lesson I'm going to ask Kate to put on the board,

Please don't post while we go through it.

We'll look at the key lesson,

Then we're going to have a really beautiful study of this idea.

Read along with me.

Any experience we don't want cannot be separated from our negative reaction to it.

What we are actually disturbed by is being caught in the middle of an unseen conflict born of not wanting to experience our own unconscious reaction.

Any experience we don't want can't be separated from our reaction to it.

Because the truth is the unwanted experience is our unwanted reaction.

And we keep believing as a result of the way this mind first imagines a disturbance free life,

What we need to do to escape that disturbance,

Clearly,

We don't know,

Clearly,

Whatever we imagine doesn't work,

And turns out to be the source of the next negative reaction.

So that's setting the stage.

I just hope that you understand that much with me.

Let's get into it.

First,

We are all to whatever degree it's true.

Quite literally possessed by a ceaseless false perception of our relationship with life a ceaseless false perception of our relationship with life.

And here's our false perception of our relationship with life from out of which all of these painful experiences come.

Are you ready?

Try to see it with me.

Whatever my negative reaction is,

It's your fault.

My negative reaction is your fault.

Whatever you is in that moment,

Whether it's this person,

This place,

The loss of something,

My reaction is your fault.

You are not supposed to make me feel this way.

Try to see for a moment what we're saying here.

Isn't the whole of this world presently perched on a stage of God only knows what may come.

Because whatever it is that I'm feeling I don't want,

You made me feel it.

Don't trigger me.

You are supposed to support me.

And by the way,

I will give you a list of what is required to support me so that you don't challenge the image I have and bring up this experience in myself that says this pain is because you are not what you are supposed to do and be in my life.

As long as we live with this idea that negative reactions belong to and are created by someone or something outside of ourself,

We will live as slaves to the consciousness that first creates the image and the identity of what security is.

And then anyone and anything that challenges it,

Boom,

You are my enemy.

Never has the world had so much conflict.

And the conflict is because the world,

Individuals,

Collectively,

Politically,

Socially,

Economically,

Believes that we are meant to get this thing straightened out.

And then whatever it is disturbs it is the problem of the disturber,

Not the nature that's disturbed.

So what are we feeling in these moments?

What's causing this conflict?

And here's the short answer,

Then we're going to look at it deeply.

The actual cause of any unwanted experience in the moment is my reaction to it.

That is the actual cause of the unwanted experience of the moment.

My reaction to it.

My resistance to it.

I am disturbed by my own resistance,

Believing that the fact that I resist you or this or that proves that what I am resisting is out of line,

Doesn't belong where it is,

Doing what it's doing.

And the way I know that's true is by how much pain I'm in when you manifest whatever you is and whatever is manifested.

Let's look at this together.

When all is said and done,

And I alluded to this at the top through the key lesson,

What are we trying to control?

What am I rushing to do?

What am I angry or upset about?

When all is said and done,

What are we trying to control other than what is our own,

In quotes,

Fearful form of some kind of negative reaction that is telling us,

Whether it's whispering or shouting,

And it does both,

A negative reaction that is saying,

Uh-oh,

Uh-oh,

There is a present or a looming threat.

Look what that man did.

Look what they said.

Look what,

Oh my God,

You need to give your attention immediately to what it is that has disturbed you.

So that essentially,

With each and every one of these negative reactions,

Virtually unheard and for sure unseen,

There's an unspoken voice that appears with that reaction saying something like,

Guy,

Your immediate attention is required.

We have a problem that needs to be dealt with as soon as possible or this problem is going to grow into something worse and worse and worse.

That's the,

Try to see it with me,

The reaction is saying,

OMG,

You better get on your horse and start riding off towards whatever it is that will resolve this because if you don't,

You're dead in the water.

This pain is going to grow and I'm saying to you that the only thing that is going on in that moment,

For that matter,

The only thing that is growing in us is we have this negative reaction that we do not understand but that tells us it understands who we are and what we need to do.

Listen to it again.

We have a negative reaction that by its nature is dark and blind that is telling us you don't understand what's happening to you but listen to me because I see all and will save you if you just continue to identify with me.

So there are two grand misperceptions that are intimately connected in these moments of negative reactions.

First,

And look how,

Look how,

Look how deep this runs.

The first misperception in any negative reaction is what?

I'm not supposed to be disturbed.

Apparently you didn't see the sign on my chest or on my front door or by my desk or for that matter over my bed.

I am not to be disturbed.

Do you know,

Do you have any idea how,

What a,

What a horrible painful belief that is that the purpose of your life,

Of my life,

Is to somehow or other acquire or achieve powers,

Possessions,

Whatever it may be,

Authority so that in the acquisition of all these things that I've imagined will isolate me from disturbing moments,

Will actually free me from,

Listen carefully,

The disturbance that is created when I react to anything that challenges that false idea,

That false image of myself.

So I'm not supposed to be disturbed and the misperception that follows that is what?

However,

Since I am disturbed I know how to restore that peace that's under threat,

That needs to be protected or lost.

I'm describing to you a form of insanity.

What is insanity?

Doing the same thing over and over again and believing it'll change the next time you do it.

I'm not supposed to be disturbed but when I am I can see immediately what it is that has disturbed me and by the grace of that incredible perception of mine I can see what I have to do about it.

But what is it that I am experiencing in that moment of the disturbance?

How do I know my life has been disturbed?

It's not a,

It's not a silly question.

Please don't discount it.

How do I know my life has been disturbed?

I'm sitting here having my coffee,

I'm kind of content.

I get a text on my phone,

I hear something on the news.

Automatically,

Instantaneously I'm disturbed.

How do I know my life's disturbed?

Because my negative reaction in that moment has upset all of myself and as that reaction begins to,

How shall I say,

Notify me there's a disturbance,

I believe when the reaction notifies me that what the reaction is pointing to is the source of that disturbance.

Failing to see,

As we all do,

That the reaction that points to the disturbance is the disturbance it's pointing to.

The reaction that points to what is bothering me is what is bothering me in that moment,

But I never see the relationship between the experience of that moment and the consciousness in which it's experiencing it.

The relationship between the experience of the moment and the consciousness that is having that experience.

This is what Buddha was talking about when he said if a tree falls in the woods and no one's there to hear it,

Does it make a sound?

He's trying to relate,

As I'm trying to relate,

This idea that you cannot separate the experience of any moment.

On the high side,

I look out a gorgeous spring day,

Sun is out,

All of the new leaves are shining in their waxiness,

Beautiful shadows,

Temperatures warming up.

The experience of that can't be separated from the consciousness that has,

To whatever extent,

Not only recognizes beauty,

But looks for that beauty ahead of the moment.

So that if the day isn't beautiful,

My experience is blamed on the day.

When the day isn't responsible for the experience,

The reaction to not wanting what the moment should be causes this reaction.

And the next thing I know,

I'm caught up in a negative reaction,

And the negative reaction is telling me,

You know what you need to do?

You need to get out of here.

You need to go someplace else.

You need to do anything other than be where you are in this moment,

Because he,

Her,

This and that,

The weather,

The conditions,

They're the ones that are making you feel this way.

And nothing could be further from the truth,

And until we understand the truth,

That we cannot separate this experience of the moment from what that moment produces in us through some kind of reaction,

We're never going to be free.

So what are we going to do?

Take a deep breath.

We're making a transition here.

I want you to understand this as best you can.

I know I can't.

I can't do anything.

What I can do is see,

And what I can do is share what I see,

Hoping that you're in a place in your life where you have begun to see enough to recognize there is some kind of truth in what this man is saying.

And if you see there's some kind of truth in what this man is saying,

It isn't because just because the man is saying it.

It's because there is something in you that has,

That waits to hear,

That's already present,

And is willing to look at these ideas through a new set of eyes.

So here's what we need to start seeing.

It's not the correct word.

We are governed by our reactions.

St.

Paul said,

We struggle not with flesh and blood,

But with powers and principalities.

These powers and principalities he's referring to are a kind of invisible government,

Meaning the the matrix of whatever our present conditioning,

Our personality,

All that has been formulated from the past,

Trying to make the present line up with what its ideals of it should be,

That we are governed by our reactions to this life.

And we were never created to be governed by our reactions to life.

We were never created to be a human being who looks at our reaction that blames something outside of us and says,

It shouldn't be that way.

Ah,

Here's how it should be.

And then go about trying to acquire the powers to either punish those that we believe have caused this reaction,

Or somehow provide ourselves with some kind of bubble that will forever keep us safe.

Reactions are what we presently call the experience of an impression.

Reactions are what we call the experience of an impression.

What is the impression of any given moment?

The impression of any given moment is that something unseen,

Unknown,

Unrecognized,

Timeless,

In a certain extent,

Something that is active comes and it impresses itself upon what is passive,

So that what is timeless,

Acts upon what is in time,

This condition,

Nature,

This personality,

This unconscious mind.

And as it acts on this passive body,

It produces an impression.

So that in a word or two,

The moment of this impression,

For instance,

You round the bend,

You've gone for a walk.

You've done something where you're in a place where all of a sudden you see something you can't believe.

In truth,

Every moment should be like that.

I look outside.

I don't think to myself,

Gosh,

The morning's like yesterday's morning.

It's not like yesterday's morning.

Did you know that you're never in the same light?

Did you know you never look at the same form?

Because you are part of a living creation.

You are part of a river of light manifested at all levels.

And it is ceaselessly acting on its own forms and ceaselessly changing its forms,

Because each time that form changes,

It does so through a reaction that's taken place in it.

Only in the world around us,

In nature,

Nature allows these reactions to produce the transformation they're intended to.

But in you and me,

When we have a reaction,

If it's not one we want,

We push away the condition,

Blame it for the conflict instead of recognizing there's no moment in which we are not meant to be transformed by the touch of light,

By the touch of life,

By God's life if you want.

So if you're following me,

We can see that no reaction,

How can a reaction be defined?

Please,

I'm trying to go slow enough.

I know I don't.

I just want,

I want,

My wish is that some of these impressions that I am passing along to you might be taken up and then put in its proper place of stirring,

Of getting you to ask a question.

I never have a reaction,

Do you?

That you don't know the name of it immediately?

Oh,

He did this,

That's why I am.

They're like that,

This wouldn't be otherwise.

So that every reaction for us comes attended to by a name maker.

Every reaction becomes,

Comes attended to by a name maker.

And the minute that we know the name,

Do we not know what's to blame?

And when we know what's to blame,

Do we not know what needs to be done to make the reaction go away?

That's the unconscious circle of self.

But what I'm saying to you,

And I'm asking you to see it as a fact,

No reaction can be defined.

How can,

Here,

Here comes,

Did you know while I'm talking to you,

Like some 100 billion,

Trillion particles are passing through your body,

Touching,

Touching you.

The light of the day is touching you.

My tone of voice,

My activity,

My emotional intent,

Everything's touching,

Touching,

Touching,

Touching.

So how can all of these infinite,

Innumerable intersections of what is timeless and invisible,

How can that,

A,

Have a name?

It can't.

And how can what it is acting on have a name when what it is acting on is a consolidation,

A configuration of all that has come before that moment?

So that what is acting,

Which cannot be named,

Is acting on that which cannot be named.

You think when there's a reaction that it's you reacting,

You and I are part of a continuum of an unconscious nature,

God help us,

That has served to create the world that we live in so full of conflict.

So here comes all of this energy,

All of these impressions,

Boom.

And in the arrogance of a mind that loves to separate itself from the suffering it blames on everything around it,

I simply come up with a name.

It's so convenient.

It's so convenient to know what's wrong,

Why you're wrong,

Why they should,

It's so convenient.

Why?

Because the minute I know,

I have the path to becoming.

I know who I am,

I know what I have to do,

And what I will be like when I finally get rid of you as the cause of whatever this reaction may be.

The name we give any reaction is inseparable from the unconscious nature that immediately identifies with whatever that impression is.

And how does it identify with the impression?

Because it says it knows what the impression is.

Oh,

I've been there before.

I've felt like this.

I know what's going on because it's gone on before.

I just haven't properly dealt with it.

So we literally see our life,

Our entire life,

Through what we could call the preconditioned responses that we saw a mom and dad and brother and sister,

The government before ours and the civilizations.

Every last one of these reactions is born out of something conditioned in this unconscious nature that,

Just like our forefathers and those who've come before us,

Tells us,

Oh,

There's the aggressor.

There's what we have to do.

And we go,

Oh,

Thank God you know.

And then we act as if we are the knower of what that conflict is.

And then we sow the seeds of the next conflict by going into battle with not the world we see,

But with a mind that cannot escape its own unconscious reactions because it doesn't understand them.

So let's continue going.

Life,

This living,

This living reactor.

I intend to go into this idea that we are not just a reaction,

But we are part of this atomic,

Nuclear,

Celestial,

Infinite reactor.

We are part of that.

We don't know we're a part of it.

We feel punished by our unconscious relationship to it.

In these moments where we are disturbed,

Life is not asking us the way we believe it is because of our reaction.

Life's not asking us to find a way to resolve that condition.

Now,

I need to back up for just a second.

I don't have much time.

I'm at work.

I'm responsible for the production of something.

And suddenly I see that there is some kind of glitch and error that's going on by someone or through something that we have computed as required to complete the process.

And when I see that problem,

I know the solution to that problem.

And I must step into the role of seeing that whatever it is that's interfering with the natural flow of practicality is resolved so that what is practical can continue to serve what is practical in my life.

But what I'm saying to you is that these negative reactions are not practical.

There's no need for negative reaction when you see a problem at work,

Other than something in you tells you that problem equates to something personal.

You'll be blamed.

Something will happen.

And the next thing you know,

You're not dealing with the practical problem.

You're dealing with a psychological problem that you believe somehow or other you have to resolve instead of failing to see that that problem and that problem maker has come with you all the way through life.

In fact,

Through your life and every life to come and every life that came before it.

Because the only thing that that moment is asking,

The only thing any reaction asks us to do,

I'm using those words,

Is to be aware of the opposites,

What is acting and what it is acting on.

The only thing the reaction is doing is saying,

Will you be aware of all these conditions that have in fact,

Hold on,

That have in fact created your awareness of the reaction.

Here is something happens,

It happens to something,

An impression.

That reaction that takes place in that moment is not asking you to deal with the condition,

Other than again,

If it's something practical,

But there's nothing practical in a negative state.

And it's saying,

Will you use your awareness of this reaction to see the elements that have created instead of letting your reaction tell you what to be aware of.

Can you follow the distinction?

I'm at a restaurant,

I'm not getting the service I want,

The food isn't the way it's supposed to be prepared.

Name the situation.

I have,

I'm disturbed.

I believe the disturbance is the restaurant service or the cook.

Now,

The restaurant service may be terrible.

The cook may be a stand-in dishwasher because no one showed up.

A stand-in dishwasher because no one showed up.

But what has that to do with me becoming the servant of an unconscious reaction that is in conflict with anyone and everything that challenges its assumption of how life is supposed to be.

And that's what we're looking at.

How can I,

As a human being,

Begin to recognize the reaction isn't asking me to resolve the problem it points to.

The reaction is asking me to see the unconscious problem produced by a mind that meets every moment assured of how that moment is supposed to unfold.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

The negative reaction says what?

Something bad has happened.

Something bad has happened to me.

Isn't that what the negative reaction says?

Oh my God,

You better prepare.

Something bad has happened to you or it will if you don't get active.

And I'm saying to you that the negative reaction has not happened to you.

The negative reaction has happened for you.

Every moment of life is happening for you,

Trying to show you what you are and have been up until that moment.

What this unconscious nature has brought forth with it into that moment.

And then along comes by the grace of God,

By the grace of the divine,

Something that is endlessly trying to bring about you could call it karma,

If you want,

A constant state of trying to balance these opposites and not the opposite of who and what I've been,

But the opposite of a consciousness that is created in its unconscious actions.

All of these characters and qualities that sit like sore thumbs outside of the hand of God,

The hand of God,

So that everything is trying as best it can to show me where it is that I'm still,

That where I,

In quotes,

Am still clinging to false ideas,

False beliefs,

Opinions about myself,

About others,

Including the false belief that somehow or other life is not supposed to be a disturbance.

Everything it created is disturbed in order to bring about the transformation of itself.

Imagine if nothing was being transformed,

What this world would be like.

So in order for there to be creation and transformation,

The passive state of any creature,

Including our consciousness,

Has to be acted on by something that brings an awareness to the quality and content of that consciousness.

Otherwise,

I would never know.

I would never know that I came into a moment with a list of demands.

I would never see the insanity and my part in it,

As that may be,

Of a life of an unconscious nature,

Of a character that has been developed over time in human consciousness that actually believes that nothing is supposed to disturb it and that the point of life is to get past all disturbances.

No such point exists save for the way this unconscious nature imagines it.

And with everything,

And with every unflappable condition this mind imagines by which it will live undisturbed,

It creates the condition that will be the source of its next disturbance.

So that in each of these reactions,

If we can understand what I've said,

They are there to awaken us.

Awaken us to through a momentary revelation,

And it is like that,

Like a spark awakened us to a momentary revelation of some aspect of ourselves that believes,

This shouldn't be like this.

I know it ought not be like this.

Why?

Because I know how it should be.

This shouldn't be happening this way.

How do I know?

Because I've already figured out the way it's supposed to be for me to be at peace with myself.

So that life is giving us the revelation of a static order of consciousness that through its resistance creates ever greater static conflict with anything that challenges its assumption.

So here comes a moment,

And if you can see it,

The reaction is actually a momentary form of illumination.

Because I don't know what I brought with me into the moment,

And I don't know what has come to reveal what is still imbalanced,

Incomplete.

And were it not for that impression and the reaction,

I would never know anything about this unconscious nature.

So rather than looking at what disturbs us as a problem,

Which we do,

We need to understand that in the moment of that reaction of that disturbance,

We are literally being,

A door is literally opening through which some light from the divine is literally opening through which some light from the divine can come into this darkness that comprehends the light not,

And illuminate it.

So that in the moment of that illumination,

Lo and behold,

I suddenly understand something about my own consciousness I didn't understand before.

Thank you God,

I didn't know.

I didn't know how petty I could be.

I didn't know how demanding,

I didn't know what a dictator I am.

We don't think to ourselves that we're dictators,

We just see people that don't serve our dictatorship as a problem.

So the key here,

Because I got to bring it to an end,

Is that in these moments,

We are not being asked to figure out what to do with the reaction.

We are in that moment being shown the nature of that reaction.

And the more we see the nature of that reaction,

Which is what tomorrow's talk is going to go into depth about,

The more we see it,

The more we are transformed because we can no longer remain identified with something that we see as a limitation or being incomplete in us.

So that the more we learn to accept the gift of this divine light,

The gift of this intersection between what is timeless and what is in time,

The more we learn to accept that gift,

The more we're given.

I think I'll stop there.

We can take three or four minutes.

If you have any comments or questions,

Anything you want to roll by on the screen here,

We can look at it and address it as best we can.

Yes,

I was blind and now I see.

Absolutely.

Isn't that what happened to Paul on the road to Damascus?

He actually believed that he was serving God when actually what he was a servant of was an unconscious dictatorship that had manifested itself in all of the various ways in which,

In this instance,

The Christians were being persecuted.

So he was not serving God and persecuting his brother.

He was serving something in himself that needed to serve itself so he could feel special,

Which he did.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Amazing.

Glad,

Glad.

Nellie,

What should we do or say to ourselves at the moment of disturbance?

Nellie,

Again,

That's the point.

Here's what to do.

When you feel disturbed,

Become immediately aware of what is talking to you.

If you'll become aware of what is talking to you instead of listening as if it's God,

Which it pretends to be,

Then you'll actually see,

You know,

What's talking to me is actually confirming that the pain I'm feeling is because of this moment.

No,

You'll see.

You won't have to ask yourself at that point,

What do I do?

The mind will go quiet gradually,

Nellie.

You'll start to understand what all of the two teachings profess but cannot bring you to,

Which is in the moment of the reaction,

Another reaction can't resolve a reaction.

Reactions can't resolve themselves.

And the more clearly I see that,

Then instead of a reaction,

I enter into what will feel like me,

A kind of non-action.

But this kind of non-action is for the first time true activity because now I'm no longer being directed by this passive response that wants to push everything away and then provide a way to get to what I need to behold again.

Good,

Good,

Good.

Discernment.

Yeah,

But remember,

Discernment is not in thought.

Discernment cannot be separated from clarity.

Clarity cannot be separated from stillness,

And stillness cannot be separated from the awareness of all that is moving through it.

Of all that is moving through it.

Yes,

Yes,

For sure.

It's difficult,

And I know it's difficult.

Anybody that tells you that your spiritual life and this true inner journey is a cakewalk is lying to you,

And they want something from you.

The hallmark of a human being who begins to awaken is that they no longer look to others to save them or free them from their own painful reactions.

You don't look for consolation through this condition or that set of parameters.

It's not your mind anymore,

Because you understand you are being given in the very moment of that reaction,

That which will liberate you from the consciousness that's created it.

This is the aim.

Now,

We must do the work to gradually shorten the distance between this reaction and this response so that we start to realize in that reaction is that light,

In that light is the understanding,

And in that understanding the truth that sets us free.

Reviews

This was very informative and insightful. Thank you so much teacher

Thank you 🙏