Amazing Clarity Of Reason: Levels Of Consciousness Series

Beyond Neutrality, Willingness and Acceptance is the clarity of Reason. What does this look like? How can we bring this into our lives right now? How is this different from logic, argument, and debate? Why is it so powerful in our life? More Levels of Consciousness can be found here on my profile.

Transcript

Today we are continuing our discussion about David Hawkins' levels of consciousness, All based in his book called Power versus Force. And in that book he has a chart called The Map of Consciousness. And this is really interesting if you're new to it because it's all about how we see the world very differently, Which is really important with our discussion of reason today. Today we're talking about the amazing clarity of reason. And the reason is way up on the chart. It's super hot. I'm going to put my glasses on. So when you look at this chart, For example, If you are resonating in shame or guilt or apathy or grief or anything like that, We interpret the world through these emotional filters. Everything we see we experience grief in. Everything we see we experience fear about. It isn't just that I have fears about my job or I have fears about my relationship. I'm actually resonating in fear. So everything is seen through this fear filter. Similarly, As we keep going up, We go to desire, Anger, Pride, All of these things. If we are seeing the world through it, It's okay. It's just where we are. It's not about passing them or judging them. But for example, If I am resonating in a place of desire, Then every single thing I'm going to encounter, I'm going to have the question, Do I want that? Don't I want that? Do I want to move towards that? Is that stupid? Why would they want that? Everything is going to be about desire. What am I accumulating? What am I bringing into my life? What am I not bringing in? Everything will be about desire. Or if it's about pride, Pride, It's going to all be like, Wow, That would be embarrassing. Or, Well, Yes, That's what I want. It's very kind of third chakra, Sense of self, Got to strengthen the ego, To feel good about myself, Which is really important. We've done a lot of talks about this, About all of these individual levels, And why each one is really important. But if we keep going up the chart, We hit courage, Which is the beginning of real power, Real internal power. Then we come up to neutrality, Willingness, Acceptance. Now we're at reason. If you look at the number beside there, The number beside reason is 400. Four hundred, If you look down to shame, Shame is 20. And even courage is only 200. Now 400 is not double courage. Four hundred, This is a logarithmic scale, It's not a linear scale. So 400 isn't double 200. A logarithmic scale is like 10 to the exponent. So if you imagine shame is 10 to the 20, So 10 with 20 zeros. These numbers are so monstrous it's impossible to even look at them. But this is now 10 to the 400 zeros. This is like so much greater, So much. It's not just 20 times shame. I'm not even going to say it, But it's going to be like 20 gazillion times bigger than shame. And what that means is this is the frequency that we are resonating at. That means we are perceiving the world through an entirely different channel, Through an entirely different mindset. For example, If we're at courage, And courage is 200. So 10 to the 200 is 10 with 200 zeros behind it as opposed to shame that is 10 to the 20. This is almost, As far as we're concerned, Like again even just saying 10 to the 20 doesn't mean anything. But this is such, We don't even have words for how big a number this is. So if we walk through the world and we're resonating in a state of courage. Everything is an opportunity, Even the hardest things, Even the greatest what we would consider bad luck. It's just an opportunity. It's an obstacle to grow. Well, I guess this is what's in front of me, So I'm going to step into it. And this is a state of power. This is a place where we really start living in a place of personal power. The reason I just, I'm giving this background, Because I know a lot of you guys have attended the other levels. But to even fathom reason, To even fathom what it is to double the number of zeros and get to reason. We actually need to understand what it would be like to look at the world through the previous levels. Because, You know, David Hawkins would say the number of people who ever achieve the level of reason, And he wrote this book like 30 years ago. He figured at that time it was about 4% of the population. I believe this has grown a lot. I believe our consciousness has risen a lot in the last 30 years, Like exponentially, Especially since 2012. I do believe amazing things are now possible that never were before. And so this is actually how we're going to have this conversation today. We're actually going to interpret what we imagine reason to be at each of these levels. Because we're all resonating at some of them at some point. And even the way we use language will change depending on where we're resonating. And again, In no way am I judging. If we happen to be living in a state of apathy, Then that's where we are. And we need to slowly move up. And again, We've done lots of talks about those. So I'm not judging them. But we are going to use these emotional levels to almost climb the ladder to actually begin to be able to smell what 400 reason feels like. What does that feel like to resonate at that level? Because these are very, Very high levels. Like I'm actually really intrigued to talk about them. Because it's not a place that we live very often. This is truly an exploration for all of us. And when I sat down to ponder, How are we going to talk about this? I realize, You know, At these levels, We're not necessarily sharing experience as much as we're just trying to fathom it. We're trying to taste it. We're trying to feel the times in our life where maybe we've touched it. And then we can then expand. So the first thing I did when I was pondering how to have this talk was I started asking myself, So what do we even consider reason to be? If I was to say, I resonate in a place of reason, What does that mean? And the first words that came to me, What it really felt, Was it was sort of a sense of intelligence, A way of using the mind in a very healthy way. We use our mind in many unhealthy ways, Right, Which we're going to talk about. But this is like the healthy use of this brain. This is when we actually use this brain and all of its power in its strengths and our brain isn't being used to beat us down or criticize or judge or anything like that. It's being used for what it was made for, For reason. Because sometimes when we think of reason, We think of, You know, It sort of becomes in the negative. It can become kind of intellectualism. It can become judgment. It can become debate. It can be argument, You know. So, I decided, Okay, Well, How do you define it if you look this up in the dictionary? How do they define reason? And all the dictionary meanings I found were all about, Well, This is the reason that happened. This is the purpose for that action. This is the reason that, You know, This happened or that happened. And I thought, Really? That's what reason is? Reason is explaining why something happened? Which was really weird to me. It was almost like how we live in a state of reaction to the world and how today, Because true reason is so uncommon, We don't even know what it is. We think the word reason means this is why that happened. That's all we've got, Like in the lower channels. That's the only time we use reason is to try to explain when something happens. Isn't that weird? So, When I looked up where this word came from before the modern world kind of bastardized it and turned it into just, Well, I know why that happened. You know, It's like, Isn't that curious that our modern world has really adapted to this very fear-based, Anger-based, Shame-based society? I mean, It's Hollywood. It's everything. It's everywhere. That's the pool we're swimming in. So, We've lost the actual meaning of the word reason. So, I'm going to read a couple of things to you guys. So, Around the time, Around the year 1400, I don't even know what language this is in, But it's raisonné. I don't think it's Latin. But anyway, It means to question someone. It also means to challenge. From the old French raisonné, It means to speak, To discuss, To argue, To address. From the late Latin rationare, Which is not how you pronounce it in Latin. I was going like weird Italian or something. It means to discourse, To discuss. There's one sense that you say to think in a logical manner, To exercise the faculty of reason. Right? Like, It's very different. This is a very different meaning than how we use this word in today's society. So, Then they also go back to 1200 and they have a word raisonné. The intellectual faculty that adopts actions to ends. So, This is where they're starting to bring into this current modern day use of the word reason, Where it's all about how do the ends connect with the actions? What's the reason for that, Right? Opinion, Reckoning, Understanding, Motive. One is called sanity, A degree of intelligence that distinguishes the men from roots. And then the last thing I want to mention, The enlightenment gave reason its focused sense of intelligence considered as having universal validity. So that it is not something that belongs to any person, But is something partaken of, A sort of light in which every mind must perceive. Imagine that we partake in reason. We partake in the light of reason. This to me speaks more to what the level of reason at 400 really means. We're not just making excuses for something, Causing judgment or anything like that. We are partaking in the light of true intelligence. Really, Our brain wasn't just here. We always in yoga, Spiritual practice, We always talk about we have to set the mind aside. We have to put the brain aside. We can't go there because in the lower levels it's used against us. But as we raise our frequency, As we heal, As we move through all these things, And we come into these beautiful states, We're partaking in the light of reason. So this is our goal of our talk today, Is to expand on that and to really bring us through the states that I know that all of us have felt. All of us. You know? And how reason has been experienced in each one of the levels of David Hawkins' work here. And we will end in this lovely idea of the Enlightenment. So let's ponder. We're going to start with shame, The level of 20. So here are the questions we want to ask ourselves. We want to imagine ourselves in a state of shame and to realize we have this in all of us. It's not like it just disappears. We are the whole universe. So we can go into any experience we want. So we have to ask ourselves at each one of these levels, Why do we learn? Why do we use our brain? Like imagine in each one of these levels, When does the brain come in? When does this potential for reason come in, But maybe we only get a shadow of what's possible. So why do we bring our brain in? We want to learn something. We want to challenge something. We want to argue about something. We want to rationalize something. So if we think about all the reasons we use this brain, Obviously beyond our third eye and stuff, We're using our brain here. So at the level of shame, What does our brain say? And to ponder this in your own mind, For me if I'm in a place of shame, My brain says, How could you do that? It goes into a place of massive judgment. It goes into a place of, Wow, You really did it this time. Like it's almost like this weird, The brain is used almost as this weird corkscrew that just chews you down into this horrible place. You know, There's a lot of sexual shame. You know, How could you have all these lovers? How could you have multiple partners? How could you do this? How could you enjoy that kind of thing? You know, The world shames us by calling what we love about sex a fetish. So what does our brain do? It labels things. Look at you. You're sick. You've got these fetishes. You did these things. You know, Our brain, This is what our brain is doing. And we consider it reason. Like it feels kind of strong, Right? Like it feels like, Well, It is the truth, Right? So you can feel like, Oh, It's giving me a bit of a headache to be honest. We're going to move out of shame pretty soon. It's like right there. It's a weird headache right in my brain, Right? But our brain is being used against us in shame, Which is why it's so important to release it. When that's what we're experiencing and move into the heart, You know. So let's move up a notch and go into guilt. So guilt, The brain can come in, Reason can come in, In a healthy place here and say, That was really not okay. That really was not a good idea. I really hurt somebody there. Okay, What are we going to do? How are we going to get out of this? How are we going to get out of this? Wow, That came out quickly. How are we going to make amends? How are we going to make this better? You know, These are healthy uses of the brain in guilt. In guilt, The unhealthy use of the brain is, I did it again. You know, And think of Catholic guilt. Think of the kind of systemic guilt or family guilt that gets stored in our brain and it sounds like reason. Well, Only a horrible person would do that. What kind of person would do that kind of thing? This sounds like reason. Here comes the judgment. Here comes the, It even can sound like an intellectual thing that, You know, I've studied a lot of religion in my life. I've really, I was raised in a family of preachers and teachers, You know. So the intellectual thing, You know, I dig, I dig that kind of train of inquiry, I guess. My grandfather was a minister, My uncle was a minister, So I kind of had it all over. And I personally always had a real spiritual bent, But I couldn't quite reconcile it with what was going on in the church. And what was really interesting is I really studied a lot of religion. I love the mystics, Right. I love that divine connection. That's my true, If I have a religion, It's that mystic connection, No matter what the religion is. But it was really interesting. And one of the things that really went sideways, In my opinion, In the church, Was that way back when, You know, There's the Bible, Like I'm only talking within the Christian faith right now. But within that time, There were a lot of intellectuals who, Whatever, Whoever, It was St. Augustine or many monks, Many intellectual religious people. And they created a lot of ideas that sound like reason, But they're actually just pure judgment. And a lot of that became part of the church's dogma. But it sounded so intellectual. It had to be right. It's almost like some part of our soul knows that reason, The light of reason is such a saving grace. If I can tap into that, I'm doing well. But of course, What was brought in, It only just simply made people feel guilty. It only made them feel powerless. It only gave almost an intellectual construct for guilt and shame. Very dangerous. So when we have internalized a lot of guilt, Especially from religious sources, From any religion, Or from family, Or from the state, From the government, It's very important to watch what's masquerading as reason. When it's actually just intellectualism, Kind of, I don't know, And we're not supposed to swear, But it's kind of that baffling with bull something, You know. So just to watch. We have to watch. We have to be careful if we're in guilt. Then there's the next level up is apathy. Apathy. What does reason feel like in apathy? In apathy, Reason almost feels super intelligent, Right? It feels like, You think I'm playing with any of that? Uh-uh. Nope. The world is nuts. Not playing. Intellectualism is used as a protective shield against the guilt, The shame, And all that stuff, Right? So when we are in a very apathetic state, It's like, You know what? Whatever. No hope anyway. This will all be justified with an intellectual argument about why the world is so messed up. Again, Smells like reason, But it's just an adaptation to survive. And I'm not saying if anyone's feeling in a state of apathy, Then it's important to stay there for a time. But we have to be very careful that when we have justifications and argument and protectiveness here, It's not reason. It's protectiveness. Kind of feels like it though. Feels very powerful. Wow. I'm getting such a headache talking about this. I don't know about you guys, But I'm like, Wow. We're going to have to like jump up and dance or something. This is so heavy. So brainy. Okay, Let's take a deep breath and kind of shake those three layers off. Wow. Okay. Oh, But don't worry. The top of the ladder feels better. But we have to get rid of all the, Not the masqueraders, The imposters. We have to get rid of all the imposters first. So I don't know, We've got to surround ourselves with white light and get all of our wits about us here. So the next level up is grief. So in the level of grief, We're now risking feeling, We're risking connecting, We're out of apathy. And unfortunately, One of the challenges of life is that when we love, We often lose. When we risk, It doesn't always work out. And so that's a bit, It's really, Really hard. We did a big talk this week all about grief. And it's a heavy, Tough, Tough topic that I'm not going to explain away in any way here. So when we ask ourselves when we're living in grief, When we're suffering in grief, What is our brain doing? What's our brain doing? What's it thinking about? Why? It's asking questions like why? How could this happen? And when we think back to those original meanings of the word reason, You know, We're challenging someone, We're challenging God, We're challenging the world, We're saying, Why could this happen? This isn't okay. You know, So there's a taste of reason here. You know, When we imagine grief, And we lose someone or we lose something, There is that higher self that comes in and says, I want to understand this, I want to understand how this fits into the big picture. I don't understand why does it hurt so much? These are great questions. These are very, These are actually questions of very, I don't want to say high frequency, But these are very important big picture questions. And it's only when we've actually had great loss that we even can begin to ask them. Right? Because we have to encompass the entire human experience. We can't just speak from a pedestal about how grief fits into the big picture. We have to, We have to have experienced it. So there's flavors of reason in those questions. But then of course, As we get higher and higher through the levels, We start to understand that we can't ask these questions. These questions are actually just meant to be questions. They're not meant to have answers. There's a great teacher whose name is escaping me. And he used to say that sometimes the best thing to do is just live in the question. Like when we live in an infinite universe, When we live in this vast quantum field that we can't begin to fathom, A question like why is just a question. It's almost like an opening, Like we've opened up a satellite to ponder for the rest of our life. But we don't necessarily get one answer. Maybe we perpetually get new answers through our entire life. But it began with this moment in time where we asked why. So then beyond grief, We move into fear. We move into a place of, Okay, I want to try this thing, But I'm afraid. I'm afraid of success. I'm afraid of failure. I'm afraid of what people might think. I'm afraid of getting in trouble. I'm afraid that I'm off my path. I'm afraid of what I think. I'm afraid of judgment. You know, Whatever those fears are. So we can imagine what do we learn when we're in a state of fear. You know, What's the imposter? We might ask ourselves, You know, Our brain actually in a real negative state, Our brain just lines up all the things to be afraid of. Right? It starts to play it out. Like, Well, If you do this, Can you imagine what so-and-so is going to think? And can you imagine what might happen? Can you imagine what would happen if we lost this, If we lost that? Can you imagine? You know, Our brain is, Again, But what's it doing? It's challenging our own hope. It's actually going against us and saying, You don't want to do that. You don't want to do that. And on the one hand, It's interesting, In the yoga world, We look at three different minds. There's a positive mind, A negative mind, And a neutral mind. And the positive mind is that mind that says, Oh, We could do this, We could do this. The negative mind says, Maybe we should check the math on that. Or, We already did that. It didn't really work out well. So, The positive and negative minds work well together. One's not better than the other. They actually work in beautiful balance, Kind of as checkpoints and stuff. The challenge is when the negative mind is overpowering the positive mind, And it just rules, Right? And when we live in a state of fear, The negative mind is more developed. And, Again, Sounds like reason, Right? It sounds like it. Imagine if we're afraid to go out of the house or afraid to meet new people. We have a very solid rationale in our mind that says, You have no idea what could happen. And then this is going to happen, And then that's going to happen, And then this is going to happen, And bam. Right? We've got the whole thing laid out. It sounds reasonable when we're in a state of fear. It's not true. But it sounds reasonable, And it feels so right. It just sort of owns us. And there's at some point where it's always interesting that certain things start to come into our life, And maybe we're oscillating up and down, And maybe we're sort of experiencing different things. We start to realize those fears aren't true. Those thoughts in my mind, That's not actually true. And we start to question them. And then the fear doesn't own us the same. The third mind in yoga is the neutral mind. And of course that's what we develop in meditation, So that when we have this sort of neutral zone, And we can observe the positive and the negative mind going back and forth, And we can sit in this neutral space going, Hmm, That's interesting. Why are my fears greater than my hopes? Or maybe my hopes are greater than my fears, And I just keep going too far, And I don't have enough checks. Above fear is desire. What do we think about in desire? What feels like reason in desire? Well, This is like the heavy intellectualism. Whenever you see the whole, Here's the way to lose weight. Here's the way to lose those pounds. Here's how to get fit. Here's how to make six figures only working four hours a week. Here's how you can have your first car. This is like the epitome of every advertising pitch you've ever heard. You know, It sounds so intelligent. It sounds so reasonable. But it's all about feeding your desire. It's all about, It's all the get rich quick schemes. It's all the lose weight quick. It's all those things that don't actually work. You know, Is there little, Are there little part truths in there? Sure. There's maybe little bits of inspiration that they picked up along the way. But the majority, And we do it to ourselves. We think to ourselves, Well, You know what? As soon as I can have enough money to buy that car, Then I'll be happy. You know, As soon as I get that relationship, Then I'll be happy. Because the reason, The reason, The reason I'm unhappy now is because I don't have a partner. Or, You know, That's why. So, Now we're really feeling stronger, Right? Desire is way stronger than these previous ones we've talked about. So, Now we're like, We're really thinking we've got it, Right? Like, We've just like, We've got this figured out. And so, We just put everything we can into finding a partner, Getting the money, Doing the thing, All that. Again, Way more powerful than the previous levels. But we aren't really in reason yet. Because what happens is, We will believe anything that gets us what we want. And if that frame of thought, If that train of thought fits in with my desire consciousness, And promises me something that I'm sure will bring me happiness, I will believe it and I will argue with you till the end of time. Because I'm right. This is the truth. Smells like reason. But it's desire. You know, Masquerading as reason. We have to shake a lot of stuff off here. We're going to get into the happier places soon, I promise. The next one is anger. Here we really get into reason. Because now we're in punishment, Judgment, Huge part of our society, Right? So, If you imagine the majority of people in the world are resonating, Shame, Guilt, Apathy, Fear. Like these are, This isn't like a, And like, Oh, Look at those people. That's not what I mean. It's just huge part of our global consciousness. So, If we can keep going up here, And if we can resonate in a state of anger, Like just even think of angry parents, Government, School, Church, They are in a place of judgment and punishment. And you are going to punish for anyone who doesn't line up. How are they going to do it? It's going to sound reasonable, Right? Here are the rules. We're, You know, This is what we're doing. This is why we're doing it. Da da da da da da da. And we're going to keep telling you until you get it through your brain. And if you don't get it, You're going to be punished. This is anger. Whether it's in a relationship and you're punished with anger. I'm not talking about healthy anger. There's healthy anger when people have stepped over our boundaries and all that. That's healthy anger. I'm talking about when we get caught and we're living in anger and everything makes us angry, Right? This is a state of punishment and judgment. And wow, Does it sound intelligent. I mean, I don't think I have to extrapolate too much there. I don't think I have to expand on that too much. I don't know why I'm using such weird words. Maybe I'm giving examples of false intellectualism. I love when my brain plays with us. I say extrapolate when I mean expand. Anyway, You know, So when we're in a state of anger, Wow, If someone's really manipulative, They will use something that sounds like reason against someone who is maybe living in shame or apathy or guilt or fear. And they'll overpower them. It's not reason. It just supports the anger. And this is maybe and maybe that's a huge part of this is to ask ourselves, Are we using the intellectual thought to support anger or judgment or punishment or grief or fear? Because if that's what we're doing, Then we need to step back into that neutral mind and watch a little bit more closely. Be a bit more aware. Above anger is pride. And pride is probably the ultimate in our society before we hit reason, Before we actually step into the really positive edifying space that we can live in. Because pride says, Well, If I do all these things, Then I'll have a svelte body and I will have the perfect partner and I will always feel loved and I will never be alone. And then I will be fine. Or if I am successful and I have a good job, I can always tell someone that I could. And you can hear the rationale in my mind, You know, Because then I can I've proven to myself and my parents that I am a success and I'm not a loser and I'm OK. And I look OK to society and I am part of the upper crust or I am part of the whatever crust. And I have social credit and I am respected in my community. So you can you can feel almost the rationale that sounds like reason. But it's not. It's just the rationale for feeling good about myself, Which, Again, Compared to all the lower levels is awesome. But it's not reason yet. So next we step into courage. Courage. Courage is where we're beyond the pride now. We're beyond anger. We're beyond all that. And no matter what happens, You know what, Whatever it is, We're going to step into it. Doesn't matter what people think. Doesn't matter if people think I'm a loser. Doesn't matter. Then that's what's going to happen. So whatever comes in the front door. All right. We're going to take a deep breath and we're going to step into it. This in his in David Hawkins world is the beginning of actual power. This is the beginning of inner power. We're not living from force. We're not we're not reacting to external forces. We're not using force to get what we want. Courage is now an inner power that I am accessing. To learn. To overcome this obstacle, To learn, To grow, To expand. Very different. Reason is starting to float around in the ethers now. Right. It's up there. You know, When we're in a place of courage, We can sit in meditation. We can use this beautiful Gyan Mudra of wisdom. And we can ask a question. We can say, What's the truth here? And we sort of start to listen. And we get little bits and we start to use that information to make choices. It's our intuition. It's all these things. We listen and we start to make choices. We start to access a different kind of our brain. Like we we still have all the things we've learned. Positive, Negative books, Courses, Teachers, Life experiences. It's all in there. But it's starting to resort itself because we're starting to take everything in our brain and say. How can this all be used to step forward on my dream in my dream? How can this all be used where we're reorganizing everything where we're getting the ducks in a row? We're getting things together because I want to build this thing. I want to try something new. It's different. So the next step up is neutrality. So now we're heading into a whole nother world. Neutrality isn't apathy. Neutrality is we've now we've now realized we have the power of courage. We realize that we can actually do anything we want. We can make any choice we want. We can step into any experience and we have the courage. Some strength will rise up and it will serve us. So we are in a place of courage completely. So then we start to look at the world around us. And we start to realize that there's really no benefit in being against anything. We don't really. People. Everyone just has a different perspective. There's no reason to say that you're right and I'm wrong or I'm right and you're wrong. And this is when we step into neutrality. And again a massive topic that we've done other talks on. Huge way of looking at the world. Total neutrality. Imagine looking at every experience we've ever had in our life. Through the lens of neutrality. That I'm not hurt by what that person said. That's just what they said. At the time I was hurt by that. I'm not bypassing it. It's just not loaded anymore. It's wow. That was an interesting experience. All of a sudden if something happens and let's say I want to get a new job and I apply for this job. I'm actually neutral about whether I get it. Because something else is also happening here. We're starting to connect into the universe. We're starting to trust. Maybe there's purpose. Maybe there is a bigger plan. Maybe there's something I don't understand. We're starting to connect into that big picture. That quantum field. And if I don't get the job then I wasn't meant to get the job. No shame. No guilt. It wasn't about me. I didn't do something wrong. It's not because my resume sucked or I'm not educated enough. I'm just not meant to have that job. And then lo and behold another opportunity comes up. And one day you think, Wow, Am I ever glad I never got that job. Because this other opportunity came up. And by the time we're in neutrality we've had enough of those experiences to say, Nah, If it didn't happen it's not meant to happen. It's like if you've ever gone on dates with someone and been hurt that it didn't go further. And then later you realize, Wow, Kind of dodged a bullet there. Kind of glad that didn't happen. You have that happen enough. When things don't work out the way you planned it's easier to be neutral. Genuinely neutral. Not apathetic. Genuinely neutral. And if something does happen, If you do get the job or you do get the partner. You don't have the windfall or whatever. You kind of go, Hmm, That's awesome. You know, It's like that story of the farmer. You know, The farmer's son goes out into the woods one day and finds a wild horse. Brings the wild horse back to the farm and the neighbours all come over and they say to the farmer, Wow, That's good luck. And the farmer, Of course, Being the epitome of neutrality, Says, Good luck, Bad luck, I don't know. Then the son tries to ride the horse and make it so that he can, I don't want to say break the horse because I hate that idea. But he tried to train the horse, Gets on his back, Falls and breaks his leg. And of course the neighbours come over and they go, Oh wow, What bad luck that is. And the farmer says, Good luck, Bad luck, I don't know. And of course the army comes in to bring him to war and the son can't go because he has a broken leg. And the neighbours say, Well, That's good luck. And it goes on. So this is neutrality. So we have to, In order to understand reason, We have to be able to imagine neutrality. Let's imagine that. Let's go there. Let's imagine you in a beautiful neutral space that we walk through life, Fully allowing whatever to happen to happen. And we fully trust that it's just the path. It's just the experiences we're going to have. No right, No wrong, Just what is. So the next level up is willingness. Now willingness is 100% grounded in neutrality. Willingness says, Not only am I neutral, But whatever comes along that I feel called to do, The answer is yes. Yeah, Sure, I'll do that. People in a state of willingness are never unemployed because they're willing to do anything. They're not driven from pride. It's like they could have three PhDs and someone says, Hey, Could you watch my kids for a few weeks, You know, While we go on holidays? We'll pay you X amount. 100%. Sure. You know, Do you want to dig this ditch for the next two years? You know, This is a sure, I'll do that. Right, It's just willingness. It's like, Is that what's needed in the village? And I will do that. It's no anger like as if can you believe they asked me and I am this educated. This kind of sounds like nonsense when we're in this space, Right? So willingness is amazing. Willingness is in a relationship and your partner says, I'm really struggling with about this. Can we talk about this? For sure. Let's talk about it. It's not loaded. It's not anything. Full neutrality, Full willingness. The next level is acceptance. Acceptance. Truly looking at our life, Looking at our birth, Looking at our family of origin, Looking at the relationships we've had, Looking at every experience we've ever had and looking at it all going. Awesome. Full acceptance. No, It could have been better. It should have been this way. How come this? No why's, No anything. Just acceptance. Looking at the world around us, Looking at our current situation privately, In the world of socially whatever and we kind of look at it and go. It's not about not having opinions or anything like that. We may have perceptions, We may have gathered all kinds of interesting information. But again, Imagine how we have reordered our mind, How we have gotten our ducks in a row to be able to fully accept everything in our life, In our life. It's best to stay personal, To be real. It's too abstract if we go too far afield out in the world. If we stay in our own world, Our own circle of influence, Imagine the way you would have to organize your mind to truly live in a state of acceptance. The amazing thing about that is when we live in a state of acceptance, We can take different action. It's not a passive thing. It's not about being a doormat or letting the world steamroll you. But you do accept what is. You're not arguing with what is. You accept what is. It's like it's raining out. Well, I accept that it's raining. I'm not angry that it's raining. I'm not going to pretend it's not raining. But it's raining. And I accept it as part of the normal cycle of nature. Now what are we going to do? Very peaceful space. Acceptance. Acceptance in a relationship. Maybe you're in a difficult relationship. And when you sit in prayer and you ask the question, Do I stay or do I go? And the answer is stay. And I accept that. And I look at it and I think, OK, There must be something interesting to learn here. I'm not fighting with it. I'm not fighting with my situation. I'm not fighting with the choice. I accept it. Maybe the answer is to leave. And I also accept that. And then I look around and I say, All right, What's the kindest, Most effective way to work through this? But it's in full acceptance. There's no battle underneath. It's just acceptance. So in this space, What does reason feel like? What does your mind feel like in reason? We accept the world. We accept our life. We accept our experiences. And then we start to learn. We learn about the world. We learn about life. We ponder things and we apply it to this big picture. And we look around and we understand there's great understanding here. Do we meet and we even understand the things that aren't meant to be understood. We understand the questions that are never meant to be asked or at least never meant to be answered. We understand this. And I'd love to know what reason would feel like. Like really go within and ask yourself, What does reason feel like in this time? Why do we learn in this state? I can tell you what comes to me, But I am really intrigued to know what you think. Why would I learn? Reason feels like the wisdom of intuition. Yes, The wisdom of intuition. Because we accept everything. Everything gets blended together. We blend our shadow with our light. We don't have filters marring our outlook exactly. We see clearly with the light of reason. How different. When we think of what the word intelligence means. Intel. Gleaning information from the world around us. This is emotional intelligence. Learning from what we feel. Learning from our experiences. Learning from books. Learning from friends. But it all fits together. True intelligence. Suddenly at this level, Our brain is an amazing tool of perception. Now let's imagine the idea of challenge or discussion. What would we discuss in this level? What would we challenge? We would have great conversations. You know, And even beyond a philosophical conversation. A conversation that integrates all of who we are. Not disconnected from the world, But a part of the world. When I wrote my book, Tondric Intimacy, I really felt called to move to Toronto. I was living here actually in this little town of Godridge. There was like 8, 000 people in it. And for whatever reason I felt very called to move to Toronto. And I ended up getting a condo right downtown, Like Yonge and Wellesley, If you know Toronto. It's like right, You can't even get more downtown than I was. And my daughter was working in the Starbucks just near the corner. And I ended up sort of living in the Starbucks. I was a Starbucks mom. And I would sit there writing this book. Because I realized that, And this, It was really in a, It's kind of not a dangerous part of town, But there was a lot of violence and a lot of drug use, A lot of mental illness, A lot of homelessness. It was really, Really a weird, Hard part of town. But I knew that if I stayed up in my condo or if I sat in a library writing, I would be too philosophical. Whether I knew this or I didn't know it, But I did it. And so I ended up just sitting in the Starbucks and writing in this flow of humanity all around me. I would have earphones and having classical music playing while I wrote, While the flow of humanity went around me. You know, To always, That reason must apply to life. And it's interesting even this idea of reason that, You know, We began this talk talking about how the world defined reason. Well, What's the reason for that? But once we actually come into this state, You would never ask that question. There's no such thing. There's a reason perhaps that they have changed the meaning of the word. Because you don't ask why. You're in full acceptance. You're in full neutrality. You're in full willingness. You're in full courage. The world is your oyster. And so you look and you wonder and you look around and you have interesting conversations with people. You also have interesting conversations with yourself. Imagine instead you sit in meditation and you just ponder things. You can sit in silence if you want. You can do that. But you can also just sit by a lake and ponder things. Einstein would, You know, Have thought experiments. This is like a beautiful application of reason. You know, It's an amazing thing. Like he would sit and have thought experiments about, You know, Riding a beam of light and he would ponder. These are incredible uses of reason. Acceptance also doesn't mean that we have to condone what's happening. No. Because we see it. We see it clearly. That's the difference. We actually can see through the eyes of reason. And when we look out into the world or we look into our own life or we look into our own reactions and we see what's happening, Like say in a relationship. If someone's doing something that's painful or hurtful, Anger, Guilt, Fear, That makes us fight back. Right. It makes us argue and you're not right and you shouldn't be doing this and we're battling. Once we come to a place of acceptance or reason, We see this person for who they are. We see our community for what it is. Not in judgment. In the same way that I look at that chair and I know it's blue. That's all. And we say, Aha. So I have a sense that perhaps you want something different out of this relationship than I do. Because you look, It seems you're looking for a lot of fire. You're looking for a lot of fight. Am I right? Is that what's happening here? Because that's not really what I'm looking for in a relationship. It's not loaded. It's just kind of thinking we're on different tracks here. What would you like to do? And in that space of peace, We can say, OK, What are some choices I can make then? What's amazing is sometimes to choose acceptance or to choose reason feels like we're giving in. But we're not. When we actually are in that space, More solutions come. Greater solutions come. Solutions that involve the big picture come. It's a very, Very different reality. It's a very different perspective. It's a different consciousness. It's a, Is it just a matter of fact versus opinionated? Yes. It's always important to be sure of what the facts are that we see. Right? That if we are actually in a state of pride and we observe a situation, We may see a different reality. You know what I mean? We may actually perceive a different set of facts than someone else's. Or someone who's angry or someone who's in a place of guilt or shame or fear. You know, Someone living in a state of fear. The facts might be that the world is a dangerous place and I'm not leaving my house. You know, That is a fact to them. Whether it is an actual fact is unsure. That's why it's always important just to be able to step back and ask ourselves, Is this a fact? Is there evidence on the ground that I've seen in my life? It's always interesting to have people around you you trust that you can ask and say, This is how I see this. Are these actually facts? Or is it through these filters? Where can you read about this? How do I know about this? These are great questions. This chart comes out of David Hawkins' book, Power versus Force. And I read this book, It had to be almost 30 years ago. Because I first heard about David Hawkins at a Wayne Dyer seminar, Shortly after my mom died. Because Wayne Dyer was a huge part of our journey into that mind-body experience. And that would have been, I was 25. So maybe 27 years ago that I first found David Hawkins and actually saw him speak in Toronto. And all of these ideas, You know it's amazing how things become seeds inside our consciousness. And you don't unknow them. And then you live. And you have a million experiences. And they start to slot themselves in little places. And maybe you experience a pile of grief and a pile of fear and a bunch of difficulties and disappointments and marriage and divorce and success and failures. And you go through all that grind, All that emotional struggle and a million dark nights of the soul. And I don't know, Things start to fit together and they start to make sense. And truthfully, For me, As a teacher, It has a lot to do with who I'm talking to. And I'm not just blowing smoke or anything. I really mean this, That the room makes a huge difference. And then all of a sudden things glue together that weren't previously glued together. And then I walk away much more inspired as well. So what would spiritual bypassing be when one feels really good but still gets hooked into judgment? Pride. There's two parts of that. Spiritual bypassing is when, You know, Let's say we have a talk like this or we read a book or we learn something about yoga or something. And we say, I want to just experience that. I am just going to only, It's sort of that difference between positivity and optimism. That I am only going to focus, I'm going to be neutral, I'm not going to have a say, I'm just going to, But we're misinterpreting it. We're not understanding this. We're not saying be a doormat and just do what you're told and completely ignore everybody. That's not what we're saying. We're saying to be in the world with all your wisdom, With all your knowledge, With all your neutrality, With all your acceptance. And that's very different. So there's one part where we're really just trying to jump the queue because we just don't want to deal with the obstacles in front of us. We don't want to deal with what lurks in the shadow that we are judging so harshly. And the other part of it is it's just being human. Maybe we reach for this great thing. It's that saying, You know, If we reach for the stars, If we shoot for the stars, Maybe even if we fall we land on the moon or something like that. And so we have this great expansive idea and we say, Yes, Yes. And we are truly feeling this genuinely inside of us. And then something happens and suddenly we're like. But it's cyclical. It's not. It may feel like the last time you fell into judgment, But you're not the same. We're always changing. We're always growing. So even though it feels like the same judgment you fell into before, You've tasted reason. You've tasted acceptance. You're a little bit different and will make a slightly different choice. You know, It reminds me of that epic Titus quote, You know, That, You know, You never step into the same river twice. Just doesn't matter. Chaos and order out of chaos. Exactly. You know, The most amazing thing is to just dive into something and just allow it to just overwhelm us. And then suddenly we find a new order and then we come into order and we feel strong and we're like, OK, Let's jump again. And we find a new order and we just keep getting stronger and stronger. It's very cool. Very cool. And what about people who experience systemic injustices, Generational? How does acceptance apply to them? So, Again, We have to come out of anger, Pride, Fear, Grief, Like we have to come out of those if we know what we know what you're saying. We know what that feels like in fear, Grief. Right. We know we know exactly what that feels like. So we come up to acceptance. We start to really understand the nature of humans. We understand, We accept that for whatever reason, This is where I was born. I don't know why. I don't know why this experience, This happened to me or my people or those people or whoever. But humans, For some reason, Are quite susceptible to certain things. And here's what happens. Again, It doesn't it's sort of like when you look at even the systemic injustices in the world. We can swirl in the wise and the pain and the grief. But does it help? But when we look at it from a greater higher consciousness that really absorbs all of it. We see the whole picture. And we're able to find true solutions. On a global level, Not just with a magnifying glass. I think that's also one of the beautiful things that acceptance brings us. Is it allows us to really sit in this place of wonder. Because we're not fighting anymore. We're not arguing. We're not battling our own existence. We look around us and say, Look at this place. Wow. And then we close our eyes and we go, Look at this place. You know. Thank you guys so much for being here. This was amazing. We'll see you guys later.

Reviews

Absolutely one of best talks I have heard. This could change your life. Thank you.

Thank you, Katrina.
For helping me come back to myself and see reason. I