I called today's session the day before.
The day before for two reasons.
Because one it's the day before the book comes out and so it's a really interesting day for me and I've literally been trying to kind of not do so much around Spin Endless but do a lot less around it.
Done quite a bit of radio and podcasts and things in the last few days but aside from that just kind of really trying to keep it down.
So there's the day before and then I was reflecting on the idea of beforeness as it were and it's something that causes me a great deal of pause when I'm teaching and I read people's comments and mails and you know letters and things posted in the classroom and the reviews and what people respond to and one's never at the end but until the day comes until a certain thing comes nothing in your imagination is ever the same as how it actually is.
I'm not talking about the book now I'm talking about awareness coming about the day when you've been practicing your meditation and started getting a sense of presence and one day it looks like the same old pattern is about to happen again and it doesn't.
You see it coming or you feel oh look there's that pattern beginning to emerge again and I always do that well I don't have to do that do I?
And you you feel into your life or you know something of the truth in yourself and then that is never the same again you know that you never have to do that again and yet until the day when it is it was all imagination it doesn't feel like,
Taste like,
Smell like,
Anything like that.
So the same is true of our practice the same is true of awareness gathering the same is true of we talk about this living in the now or being in the present moment but for most of us we are trying to imagine what that is where we really screw up in meditation world and in yoga world is we read about it and this is particularly true of teachers I'm not so sure of inverted comma students but of teachers and it's quite ubiquitous.
There's a way of pretending that you know already.
So it's an adaption of a certain voice you know accruing certain things around you using specific language in a way.
I'll tell you what made me think of this it was a radio thing recently that I was on and the person who I was speaking with had learned to do this kind of smooth tone of voice.
Now no matter what they were saying they used this kind of particular tone of voice that I think they believed was kind of knowing and gave a sense of openness and so on but actually you could just smell the armoring all over it and you know I have a simple trick around oh that's when I come across these things which is to go for the heart of the person and this I guess is a lot of what signpost is about a lot is everything about this work just go for the heart in some way and it doesn't have to be in the obvious way so if anything can you know at all can kind of shift that person's heart into a little bit of openness that's why we use things like gratitude practice and so on because we're almost kind of like jump-starting the deeper heart in a way with those things.
So I always go for a kind of jump-starting of the heart and then the smoothness disappears and it did in that instance it did but it's a kind of constant.
.
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Do I want to say warning?
Warning that I feel like I'm sounding which is to kind of watch out for believing yourself into stuff buying into our own BS in a way because we do want to be better and we do want to be conscious and things but an act of consciousness an act of being better isn't being better a voice of pretend awareness you know usually quite therapy infused or something like that it's not awareness the thing isn't the thing the only the thing is the thing this could be the title of the next book couldn't it only the thing is the thing only the thing is the thing itself and this is not a pipe so that's it that's that's why I was thinking about the day before as it were because there's the day before and then there's the thing itself and you've heard me say enough times really it doesn't really matter spiritual practice it's not important whether somebody does or doesn't you know we can't judge people on what they do and things like that but our ability to kind of get out of our own way I think is very very important and we just don't have time maybe Mrs.
Me getting older or you know having lost having been very ill myself in my life and lost I'm at that age now where I've lost most of my friends they've all died and and kind of you know and there's like a hand you know not even a handful of people around sometimes and it's not like one is thinking oh you know my turn is next or anything like that because you don't know the day before you don't know the minute before but what it what it does make me think about is just in all instances get out of the way get out of the way of your own heart in a way and use any means necessary quite honestly to get back to your heart you know so if you feel ourselves kind of ink I call it incarnating incarnating into things and that's when you feel that bit of resistance somebody says something it's not quite the way you want it to be said or it's not quite your opinion or you know they're doing something a bit whatever that thing that righteousness comes up in us the voice in the head goes you know and then we kind of judge that person we've named them we know what they are and so on and we're probably right that's what's crazy about it but probably right because on the level of conditioning maybe they are being like that you know maybe it does smell like that because it smells like that but it's not going to change if we come at it from the same level back but our dropping to the heart doesn't necessarily mean that we don't say hey you know what so sitting in the middle of the street all night you know shouting that's fine you know you carry on doing that when you're drunk maybe you know the conversation is listen what's going on you know is there something if something we can do we can help us and help you with and you still see them as a person or you see the heart of the person really no matter who they are because you might think well that person is too far over people often I'm gonna talk gonna say it now I don't know didn't say this thing during the time but you know during the last few years I used to actively pray for your former president in the US and the current one and then our Prime Minister now and the one before that I include these people in my practices and prayers not to change them in any way actually and I you know me it's kind of I don't see any difference quite honestly I think the machine that owns that system will always lead to the same outcomes but the shift to consciousness and people are often surprised when I say that Ram Dass always used to have a picture this is how I learned that from Ram Dass would always have a picture of leaders and things on his sort of pooja table as well I just put their names in there in the heart box that we have at home and it's not a case of yeah you carry on everything's okay but actually even when we dedicate our practice may this practice be for the benefit of all beings what we're really saying is is may somehow this contribute to people waking up into the truth of themselves because if they do then those kind of abhorrent behaviors and that projection of degenerate power that we're so in under the thrall of and enthralled with in our world at this time I mean we think we've always been like this that that just is gone so the day before there it is I always think about the Berlin Wall one day the Berlin Wall was there and nobody had any inclination that it wouldn't be there the next day there was eastern West Germany and I got up the next morning some one day in 1989 I can't remember the exact date and there were Berlin Wall wasn't there anymore and nobody knew that it was going to happen it just went it was really quite bizarre and empires think they are forever and machines think they are forever and then then they're not but the shift of consciousness is the key really to all change so we need to bring consciousness into all those spaces that kind of stop stop us and that getting in our way really let's meditate because I don't know how I've got into sort of talking in these sessions my plan was not to talk so much in these sessions and just kind of read bits of Tao Te Ching and then meditate oh no I doubt a Ching so let's have a number please between 1 and 81 we'll start with Stephen Mitchell today if somebody would do us the honor of giving us a number number 13 says Charlotte lucky 13 cool so I think if possible don't put anybody outside your heart which doesn't mean that they're okay but just don't put them out of your heart I can't tell you what to do it's not what I'm doing I can only say you know if we close the door then the door is closed really there's about there's boundaries you know boundaries are absolutely fine but hate and love they're the same same thing really success is as dangerous as failure hope is as hollow as fear what does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure whether you go up the ladder or down it your position is shaky when you stand with your two feet on the ground you will always keep your balance what does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self when we don't see the self as self what do we have to fear see the world as yourself have faith in the way things are love the world as yourself then you can care for all things I find this quite mysterious how this happens that we kind of just have a little chat about something you know that's kind of just sort of passing through and and then there we are it's the same same thing let's have a look at Jia Fu Feng 13 wasn't it number 13 then we'll meditate accept disgrace willingly accept misfortune as the human condition what do you mean by accept disgrace willingly accept being unimportant don't be concerned with loss or gain this is called accepting disgrace willingly what do you mean by accept misfortune as the human condition misfortune comes from having a body without a body how could there be misfortune surrender yourself humbly then you can be trusted to care for all things love the world as your own self then you can truly care for all things so quite different today really really different interpretations of that same sort of piece of text so take bits of both that you like and you've got another poem we've got a third poem there which is the the bits that speak to you out of each of them okay my love so allow yourself to settle for practice and perhaps as you settle just notice the closed doors of your heart with no expectation of forcing them open no expectation of forcing them open but notice if there are any closed doors in your heart and include you can include presidents and other countries and belief systems within those things should you want to but more likely than not there's somebody you're going to be seeing on Thanksgiving a relative somewhere a friend who was a friend who was no longer a friend so don't change anything don't try to fake force anything don't falsify anything just noting if there is any closed doors in your heart as you allow yourself to settle into your body you feel the floor beneath you feel yourself sitting on your meditation cushion quality of the light in the room allow yourself to be part of the quality of the line part of the space of the room without any effort just feeling the vibrancy of life in your own body and not trying to jump to a place of meditation or this is what meditation is supposed to be so then shoehorning your mind and emotions and sensation into a belief or a something but just noting relatively where you are in this moment are you in some future thought projection are you in reaction about something because of the talk around the closed heart is that brought something for you are you aware of closeness in you are you in something from the past that you hung on to just noticing no guilt no shame because the noticing is awareness itself and that is the change the honesty of noticing is the change you don't need to do anything about the thing well you do but not from the place that thinks it needs to do something about it feeling into the body feeling that life in the body and just recognizing the simple feeling of life just allowing yourself to Center into that feeling of life doesn't need to be big or glory light spiritual just the basic feeling of life in the body and then notice you what in you is noticing the feeling of life in you so just notice from the level of the noticing itself what is aware of the feeling of life in you so perhaps this feels like an inner space notice how your five senses as we do this they don't fade away but we kind of unhook from them and we can actually use that as a meditation that's the gathering awareness practice that we sometimes do the sounds that are outside are just there my voice is just there the light is just there you're not hooking on to it reacting to anything so this movement into the center this not just being in reaction to or caught in the sensory world or the thinking and emotive world is in yoga called pratyaha often mistranslated as the withdrawal from the senses but more simple at more really about us shifting to the kind of central awareness and just noticing how the witness the noticing the awareness simply feels like yourself it often feels like ourselves when we really thought of ourselves as a teenager or something when we were full of life and full of energy of a certain kind and we got into a lot of situations in our lives and we feel like we've lost that somehow but then when we simply feel into the life of awareness within us we see that life is an unbroken line in us that came even before our name and will be here even after the body has kind of gone in a way it might feel like something eternally new that is you but it definitely has an I am nous quality it's more than a sense of being which is consciousness it's more like a sense of unfolding that you are congruence and continuousness dynamic and just gently perhaps allowing yourself to feel like your natural breath is just moving at the level of your heart within this just so the heart is kept here perhaps what we could do is is if there are closed doors in you even if we're loving them and letting them be these people if there are doors that you have closed rather than yanking them open trying to be you know overcompensate for something with the other person when they're not bringing their consciousness to the table or their love for their heart or something instead of just going round and round or losing our life energy and holding our inner hands up keeping these doors closed no one's gonna hurt me like that again says the internal voice I'm not gonna let that person in ever again instead of that let's just offer those doors those closed doors that those held up hands into this inner space just give them into that space you can even take the person and offer them into that space one of my great heroes a woman called melody Beatty author of one of the greatest books ever codependent no more says give them back to God and that's kind of what this is in a way you can cut if you call it life whatever you like but give them back to God and then is the secret trick give yourself back to God give yourself back into that space even if it is for now important that you keep the hands up that you keep those doors closed that you can't see a way at this time here you are having 20 minutes of meditation with your friend in his little room the circle of people here so for this 20 minutes you don't need to keep those hands up you don't need to keep those doors barred and bolted you can just let them be in this place in your meditation you're safe not because you're hiding but because you're whole and we take what we can get here a little that's amazing how it joins up you we're not attaching any forced feeling not wishing for change in the other person you giving into this space and you're giving yourself into those loving hands into the loving hands of life within you which is that space inside you you and then let go of any push and pull any attempt or effort of offering and just resting in that space that you're giving yourself into you you can do this at any moment of the day just give yourself back not like the Pollyanna voice in the head but just give yourself back to the wholeness of life some of us use the g-word you use any word you like but let's not separate on what word we're using that would just be ridiculous not giving yourself into belief but into the knowing of that space within yourself not trying to fix ourselves with a thought but allowing ourselves the wholeness that we are the flowering that you are the unfolding beautiful life that you are and it's through your body through your ordinary life through your action that all this is expressed but it's just so humble and beautiful and dynamic and alive and unique that's why the universe wants you needs you specifically at this time it needs you and we need you okay my lovelies let's draw this practice to a close let's just bring this to a close by just just allowing that life feeling that awareness of that from your centre just to just to be with you just like a beautiful like it's like it's almost like stepping out of the shower clean and bright and beautiful the song of your own body and the song of your life in your body just appreciating the song that you are lovely okay you
