Power & Peace Of Acceptance: Levels Of Consciousness

What is the difference between acceptance and passivity? How is this a powerful state? How does this allow us to find solutions? Why does this bring balance to our lives? How is this the path to truly taking back one's own power? Part of our "Levels of Consciousness" series from a live class on Insight Timer.

Transcript

So today we're continuing our discussion of the levels of consciousness from David Hawkins' book,

Power versus Force.

So today's talk is all about the power and peace of acceptance.

So this comes from,

For anyone who's new,

This comes from a chart in David Hawkins' book,

Power versus Force,

Called The Map of Consciousness,

Or Levels of Consciousness.

And you can Google that and say Map of Consciousness,

David Hawkins,

Or something like that,

And you'll find this chart.

So here's the chart.

And from the bottom,

So this is all the levels of consciousness that we can perceive the world through.

And at any time we may be resonating in many of them,

But we tend to have,

What David Hawkins used to do is he used to use dowsing to actually determine what your baseline was.

So maybe you tend to respond in anger,

Maybe you tend to respond in apathy,

Maybe you tend to respond in courage,

Or perhaps acceptance,

Like we're going to talk about today.

And then we sort of oscillate like a sine wave up and down around that baseline.

So what's really interesting is as we learn,

As we grow,

As we,

I don't know,

Expand into our truth,

That line moves up,

And it moves up through these levels of consciousness.

So we can see at the bottom,

We start with shame,

Up to guilt,

Apathy,

Grief,

Fear,

Desire,

Anger,

Pride,

Courage.

Now everything below courage,

And lots of us are there,

Like this isn't like,

Oh those guys over there are below courage.

This is a really common space to exist in on the planet.

All of these places,

All of these levels of consciousness,

They're ways of living where other people determine our happiness,

Other people determine our sadness.

And we really do feel like victims in the world.

You know,

If we resonate at shame or guilt,

This comes from outside of us.

That some kind of teaching in society or something or maybe our parents or friends,

Anger,

That person made me angry,

You know,

That kind of thing.

And in the other talks we talk about the positive and negative aspects of all of these things too.

This isn't a,

It's not a rule.

Nothing's a hundred percent.

There are times and places for all things.

But in general,

That's how it goes.

Above courage,

We now come into neutrality,

Willingness,

Acceptance,

Reason,

Love,

Joy,

Peace,

And enlightenment.

Courage is,

Courage is the turning point.

You know,

If we're really wrestling with anger,

We're wrestling with pride,

We're wrestling with apathy,

Those are places where we kind of just chew on ourselves almost.

We kind of get in these negative,

Vicious cycles.

And we end up really not stepping forward on our path because we're stuck.

We're stuck in this thing.

Maybe it's karmic.

Maybe it's something we have to sort out.

Like,

So in no way am I saying if you're in a place of anger,

Get out of that and jump to acceptance.

That's not,

That's not the point of this talk at all.

That's,

That's bypassing our life.

That's bypassing the reason we're here.

We're meant to walk through our challenges.

We're meant to walk through,

You know,

The situations that appear in our life.

You know,

There's no helicopter out.

It's almost like that's what makes us interesting.

That's what fulfills our purpose.

That's what helps us to really,

Really find out who we are.

And if we skip steps,

We just become,

We try to become some idea we have in our head.

You know,

Some ideal as opposed to actually stepping through our life exactly as it's been put before us.

And that's why courage is so powerful.

Because as soon as we start feeling courage in our life,

Courage is that place where we say,

Okay,

You know what,

I see where I am right now.

I'm stuck in apathy.

Okay,

Then what do I,

And this is why we meditate.

We sit in this beautiful silence and we ask the question,

All right,

What's my next step?

And the next step won't be an apathy,

But it might be something above it.

Maybe it is anger.

And maybe you need to choose anger to pop out of the apathy.

You know,

So it's all of these levels are very,

Very interesting and powerful because each subsequent level helps us get out of the one below it.

So,

Our talk about apathy today,

Our talk about apathy,

Our talk about acceptance today isn't,

The intention here isn't,

Okay,

We need to all live in acceptance.

That's not the point.

We need to live wherever we are.

And we need to use the level that's above us to help us grow.

But to simply know that acceptance also is a part of us.

So,

Maybe there's a small aspect of your life,

Some small bit where acceptance is exactly the medicine we need.

But maybe we don't really know anyone who lives in acceptance.

Maybe we haven't really seen a lot of that in our life.

Most of the world,

Most movies,

Trainings,

Teachings are all about dealing with all of those other levels,

The shame,

Guilt,

Apathy,

Grief,

Fear,

Desire,

Anger,

Pride.

That's the majority of,

It's certainly the majority of what you're going to see on social media.

It's the majority of what you're going to see in Hollywood.

It's the majority of what you'll see in politics in the world around us.

It's a real common,

You know there's a word zeitgeist.

Zeitgeist is sort of a perception that we live within at this time.

You know,

Sometimes if we look back 50 years ago,

And we say,

How could they have thought those things?

It's like,

Well the zeitgeist at the time,

That was just the consciousness,

The idea,

Right?

The zeitgeist of this time is very focused in the drama of anger,

Pride,

Shame,

You know,

This is like literally all of Hollywood.

So the intention to talk about these higher levels,

Neutrality,

Willingness,

Acceptance,

Love,

Is to simply bring new possibilities in.

That we really don't experience much in the world.

In our day,

If you imagine the conversations we have with people,

How often are they about anger,

Grief,

Pride?

You know,

There's a lot of that conversation,

Even today we might have this great conversation about acceptance.

And then 10 minutes later,

You know,

You go on Facebook and you're like,

Ah,

Anger,

Pride.

And it's so fast that bam,

We're back there again.

So to me to talk about these higher levels of consciousness,

It's not about grabbing a helicopter and going there and ignoring our life.

It's about broadening what's possible.

So when I was thinking about talking about acceptance,

I realized what a difficult topic.

And it actually normally when I sit and I sort of prepare for our class,

It just sort of flows out of me.

It's super easy to figure out how where I want to go with it.

But this one was really tough.

Like I really had to meditate on this one.

Because acceptance isn't apathy.

Acceptance isn't passivity.

It isn't doing nothing.

It isn't,

Again,

In the current belief systems of the world,

Acceptance means you're just throwing up your hands and going,

Yeah,

Whatever.

I'm just going to accept my fate.

I'm just going to accept my situation.

Right?

That is using the word.

But what you're really saying is apathy.

Or you're really saying I'm giving up,

Which is not at all where we are.

Right?

Acceptance as we move through this,

We have we've gone beyond anger,

We've gone beyond pride.

We are now in a space of courage where we say,

OK,

No matter what,

There are choices I can make now to step forward in life.

So if you imagine that the concept of acceptance begins with the foundation of courage.

That there is a possible choice I can make to step forward on my soul's path,

Regardless of my circumstance.

So this whole conversation has to at least begin with courage.

From there,

We have to step into neutrality.

Right?

We have to experience neutrality because that's above courage.

Neutrality says I'm not looking for what's right or wrong.

I'm not polarizing here.

I'm looking at the world through the eyes of neutrality.

Hmm.

This is a big deal because,

Again,

Neutrality is founded on courage,

Knowing that no matter what comes my way,

I can make a choice.

I can do something.

Right?

So I'm not caught.

I'm not a victim.

No one tells me what to do.

No one,

Nothing that anyone does can make me happy or sad.

Right?

I'm in a space of courage.

Neutrality says I'm not judging you as right or wrong either.

I'm not judging anything as right or wrong.

I am observing the world through my witness mind.

I'm just observing.

Willingness takes us one step forward further and says,

All right,

Within that neutrality,

When I feel a call,

I'm willing to step forward.

I'm not stepping forward in because you're wrong or you're right or anything like that.

I'm stepping forward in willingness because I've heard a call to action.

Whatever that is,

Whether it's small and in my own world or it's big in the big world.

Right?

Acceptance is above that.

So you embrace neutrality in the world.

You are willing to step forward however you're called.

And you accept the world as it is.

You accept your situation as it is.

And then you move within it.

Again,

This has nothing to do with actions taken or not taken or anything.

Acceptance.

So first,

So we're going to talk about first,

We're going to talk about how what this looks like in our own life personally,

And then what this looks like in relationship to other people in the big,

Big wide world out there.

But it's really important first to be able to practice acceptance in our life.

If we can't do it in our life,

There's no way we're able to do it out there.

So imagine what acceptance is in our own life.

And again,

We have to look at it.

It's interesting to look at it in contrast with all of those interesting lower levels of consciousness.

I don't like saying lower,

But I don't know how else to say it.

So when I say lower,

We all know that I don't mean lower.

So for example,

A lot of us have huge body image issues,

Right?

So maybe we wish that we were born that we effortlessly had a thin and fit body.

Or maybe we wish we were taller,

Or maybe we wish we were shorter,

Or we wish we had bigger boobs or a bigger penis,

Or we wish that we,

I don't know,

We were a different race or we had different hair or we had a different station in life.

I wish I wasn't born to a poor family.

I wish I wasn't born to a rich family.

I wish I wasn't born in Canada.

I wish I wasn't born in wherever,

You know,

Whatever those things are that we think,

My life would be so much better if.

So if we perceive our own self through the eyes of shame,

Okay,

If we go through this,

We go with shame,

And we go,

God,

I'm just embarrassed.

I'm just embarrassed to even,

You know,

Wear a bathing suit.

You know,

What if someone sees my cellulite or I'm embarrassed to make love with someone because what if they see my,

My body parts that I don't like that I judge.

Right.

Imagine living like that.

And I mean,

This is huge.

This is not like,

Wow,

I can't believe people live like that.

This is like a huge part of our society,

Huge part of my existence for sure.

Right.

Shame is a big deal.

But how we can never move forward.

If we live in shame,

If we perceive ourselves with any kind of shame,

We're done.

Like we don't we don't move forward.

Imagine guilt.

Right.

If I if you know,

But if I actually exercised,

I'd be fitter.

This is my fault.

Totally my fault.

This doesn't instigate movement.

This doesn't get us actually going for the walk,

Going for the bike ride,

Leaving the car at home.

It doesn't do that.

It just it's sort of this vicious cycle of guilt.

You know,

What if it's anger?

You know,

I hate that person.

Oh,

They're so pretty.

Oh,

Don't they just think they're all that?

Oh,

Look at that rich guy.

Hate rich people.

Rich people are just they're just like we just and does this help?

Does this perception help?

No.

Just it's just this vicious cycle.

And we can stay in our own mind and then bitch with our friends about it forever and ever and ever.

Right.

Or what if it's apathy?

And we're like,

You know what,

Whatever.

I was born into a body that likes to gain weight.

I was born into this body.

I'm five feet tall.

I hate it.

But whatever.

Right.

I mean,

What can you do?

Just the way it is.

It's apathy with a whole pile of bitterness on the side.

You know,

And then again,

We don't do anything.

We don't change anything.

We don't live a happy life.

And we keep going up the ladder.

And then eventually,

Maybe we come to courage.

And we say,

Well,

I don't like it.

But this is my lot.

Okay,

I'm going to make some changes.

Or I'm going to do this regardless or I'm going to.

Here I go.

Right.

That's courage.

We haven't really accepted it.

But we have courage to still go out in public or date or wear,

You know,

Screw it.

I'm wearing a bikini to the beach.

I don't care what my own judgment says.

We want to say it's other people's judgment.

It's our own judgment.

But I'm going to do it anyway.

That's courage.

Way more powerful than guilt or shame or anger.

Right.

And then we come to neutrality.

And we ask ourselves,

Does it even matter?

Does it even matter whether I'm five feet tall or six feet tall or muscly or skinny or overweight or super fit or does any of this even matter?

Maybe not.

Maybe it's all irrelevant.

Right.

This is neutrality.

Then willingness is like,

Okay,

From that space.

Yeah,

Maybe I'll try this new kind of dance routine.

I like dancing.

That's fun.

Right.

It's sort of a willingness and acceptance.

Acceptance is a whole different level.

Acceptance on the on the numerical scale of this chart is 350.

Now this the numbers on this chart.

Shame is 20.

Courage is 200.

Acceptance is 350.

And this is a logarithmic scale.

And all that means is it's not linear.

It's not just 1234.

It's 10 to the 350.

That's 10 with 350 zeros,

As opposed to 10 courage with only 200 zeros or shame with only 20.

Acceptance is this whole different level where we actually say,

So this is the life I created.

Interesting.

I wonder why my soul chose to come in to the life like this.

I wonder why I was given these challenges.

I wonder why I was born to these parents.

I wonder why I had to live through abuse.

I wonder why I was born super tall or super low.

You know,

It's a it's a it's an acceptance.

And as soon as we accept that,

Oh,

This is this is this is what I was given this time.

Interesting.

You know,

Last time I had a Ferrari.

I wonder why I got a Honda this time.

But it's there's no judgment to it.

It's not like gee,

I wish I still had the Ferrari.

It's a interesting.

Got a Honda.

All right,

Let's see what this puppy can do.

But there's no judgment.

There's like this beautiful acceptance that says,

Okay,

It's that beautiful mantra.

You know what's right about this that I'm not seeing.

And we really look at this and we say,

So if this is a whole like you can feel imagine living in this consciousness.

This is a bit there isn't there's no anger,

There's no frustration,

There's no nothing because you literally are looking at yourself going.

What a curious place that I landed this time.

All right,

Let's give it a go.

Very,

Very different perception.

So then suddenly,

You kind of get this inner smile inside.

Imagine someone.

Like I talked about.

In my book,

Tontric Intimacy and Self Love,

I talked about when that when I was writing that chapter I found this very difficult because I think it was actually this concept of acceptance and self love that I was wrestling with how to how to describe properly for the book.

And as I was writing it,

I was sitting in the window in the Starbucks at Young and Wellesley in Toronto.

And this man went by in a wheelchair,

And he was,

He was at least paraplegic,

And he had some movement in his upper body that he could move the controls of this of this wheelchair.

And he was such a blessing in that moment of trying to write the book because I thought,

Wow.

What if he didn't love himself?

Imagine that man's life,

Interpreting his lot,

His lack of luck,

His unfortunate circumstances,

Like,

You know,

All this language that we use.

That's all about down downstairs.

It's all the,

It's the anger,

It's apathy,

It's guilt,

It's pride,

It's all these things that society says no,

No,

No,

You don't want to be incapable or unable.

You must have an,

You not only have to have an able body,

You have to be,

You have to be muscly,

And you have to have perfect breasts,

And you have to have a penis that looks like a dildo,

You have to,

This is what you must look like,

Or else there's something wrong with you.

Like this is endemic in our society,

This perception.

You know,

So now you take someone who was,

Who's been struck with being a paraplegic or something like that.

And I just watched him.

So now imagine what we're talking about here.

Imagine this person living in the consciousness of acceptance.

And he looks at himself and he says,

Well,

This is interesting.

I wonder why I was given this incarnation this time.

Well,

I guess I'm going to find out.

And you go out into the world and you experience life.

And you spend zero time thinking about how unfair it is,

And angry at all the people who can walk.

You know,

You spend zero time on that.

Because why would you?

What benefit is it looking at other people and wanting what they have?

It's just,

It just holds you still and maybe even digs a hole that you fall into and stay there for a while.

So now you imagine this person,

You know,

This is his lot,

This is his life,

And he's in full acceptance.

So he writes great books,

Makes love with wonderful people,

Visits great places,

And his soul experiences great things within the incarnation he was given.

This is the piece of acceptance.

It's a,

Imagine beginning with that piece and then going out and living your life.

It's a whole different world to get an entirely different experience.

And I think this is also,

So the book is called Power versus Force.

And one of the reasons is,

Is that as we experience these other levels of consciousness,

The power lies within ourselves to dictate our life.

So my birth,

My circumstances of birth do not dictate my life.

The voices of other people do not dictate my life.

My circumstances of my life right now don't dictate my happiness or my sadness.

I choose that.

I choose how I respond.

This is acceptance.

And this is this really interesting powerful space in my own life.

It's kind of like,

You know,

People might try to throw anger at you or shame or guilt or whatever.

But in acceptance,

You just sort of look at them and go,

Awesome.

You know,

I see you.

I hope you have a great day.

And you're not being a jerk and you're not ignoring it.

But whatever they're angry about has nothing to do with you.

You know,

I'm not,

And this isn't about being cold or anything like that.

This is just simply living in a neutral space.

You know,

It'd be like,

You know,

You might watch movies or we might see videos of people going to see gurus.

And the guru is sitting there and people are all,

Well,

Then what about this?

And the guru just looks at them and says,

You'll make the right choice.

Does the guru not care?

Of course they care.

But they also know it's not their journey.

You know,

It's a beautiful,

Peaceful place to live.

So that's us inside,

Which alone is a huge journey.

This is no small thing to achieve.

So now imagine we go into our intimate circles,

Our partners,

Our relationships,

Our children,

Our parents,

Our friends,

Our workplace.

How can you possibly live in acceptance,

Interacting with all these people?

And that person is resonating in anger and that person is resonating in fear and that person is resonating in,

You know,

Apathy.

And that person,

You know,

Like how can you possibly interact with the world in a state of consciousness of acceptance and not live in a cave in the Himalayas?

And this is no small thing.

And this is why it's so important to do our own stuff first,

Because applying it out into the world with other people,

It's like now here's the test.

You know,

We can study on our own,

Do what we can.

But now we really have to,

The rubber hits the road now.

So here's the thing about acceptance.

When we fully accept ourselves and fully accept ourselves,

That means no judgment,

No judgment.

If we tend to think this way or we made that crappy choice 20 years ago or I said this thing and I shouldn't have,

All that stuff.

We don't judge ourselves.

We naturally also accept others.

This is how we know we've actually done our own stuff,

Because we also accept others.

And we look at them and we see them and we say,

I get it.

And that's you just the same way that for some reason I was born into this crazy incarnation,

You were born into that crazy incarnation.

Awesome.

Understand this does not mean passivity,

Apathy or choosing to put up with bad behavior or living with people who are mean to us or anything like that.

Because the difference is imagine,

Let's say you have a partner and they're actually really mean or you actually don't like being around them.

That's kind of the truth.

Well,

If you live,

If you interpret this in those lower places and you say anger.

Well,

I'm just angry that they're like that.

They shouldn't be like that.

I'm just angry.

What are they doing?

You know,

Or guilt.

We try to guilt them.

It's like,

How could you do that?

Why would you shouldn't do that to me?

You should.

You can't treat me like this.

Right?

And we're just we're just like,

Or pride,

You know,

Like maybe you're embarrassed because you don't want to divorce and look bad in front of other people.

And so,

You know,

Or or maybe they hit your pride where you don't like it and all this kind of thing.

It is just vicious cycles,

Vicious cycles.

Nothing changes.

Instead,

Imagine we pop to acceptance and we look at this person with love,

With compassion,

With the realization that they too have created this incarnation just like we've created ours.

Interesting.

And there's a calm inside.

And you just observe them.

You don't try to change them.

You're not angry about who they are.

You're just doing you.

And then you look at them and say,

Huh,

And I accept who you are.

And from that place,

I can make a choice.

Is this what I want to do?

Is this how I want to spend my days?

Yes or no?

It's just it's just like,

Do I feel like chocolate?

Of course,

Obviously,

Always.

But,

You know,

Do I feel like going for a walk right now?

Yes or no?

It's not this big,

Loaded thing.

Because you accept the other person for who they are.

That person has a journey to take.

And maybe exactly where they are,

Maybe they're supposed to be in anger right now because they're overcoming apathy or guilt.

And maybe they need to really muscle up and be who they are.

The question you have to ask is,

Are you still on a journey together?

It isn't making them wrong.

It's just does this line up with my soul's journey right now?

You know,

It's not a thing.

It's like even looking at children,

If you're raising children.

And maybe so,

I mean,

All kids are different.

And you think,

Oh,

But if you have it in your head that,

No,

I want my kids to act this way and this way and this way and they don't,

Then you're going to be angry or you're going to be ashamed or you're going to just just give up.

I'm just apathy.

I'm apathetic about it.

But if you just accept them and go,

Wow,

This child is really troubled.

Interesting.

I wonder what that's all about.

And you can still make choices and you can find and realize we're heading towards the love consciousness,

Right?

We're not up to the whole pure love consciousness,

But we're heading towards it.

That we really look at someone and say,

Hmm.

But again,

It's neutrality.

There's no right or wrong.

Whether that child goes to school,

Doesn't go to school,

Does this,

Does that,

That's not the point.

Right?

The point in this world,

In this part of consciousness,

It's not about,

You know,

Physical successes in the world.

Right?

It's about a spiritual journey of consciousness.

So,

If you're around someone who's struggling,

It isn't about changing them.

Maybe it's about connecting with them.

Well,

Acceptance is the first step of connection.

If you really want to connect with a friend,

If you really want to feel heard or seen,

You have to know in your heart that they accept you.

That they're not trying to change you.

Otherwise,

How do we possibly connect with each other?

Acceptance is a huge deal in true connection with anyone.

You might even have a job where your boss is a tyrant.

And again,

When you look at this in acceptance and you watch it and you say,

Interesting.

I wonder why I'm working here.

Isn't it interesting in acceptance how many questions?

It's like every time I talk about acceptance,

I keep coming up with questions.

Not a lot of rigidity in acceptance because you're not polarizing,

You're not making anybody wrong.

So,

You kind of look at the situation,

You go,

Wow,

This is a very oppressive workplace.

And you go home and you have weird conversations with your friends like,

I wonder why I'm choosing to work in such an oppressive workplace.

I wonder if this boss,

I wonder if he's supposed to be teaching me something.

I wonder if he reminds me of someone from a past life that I'm supposed to be resolving something with.

Interesting.

I wonder why that person who sits beside me,

Sits beside me.

That's kind of weird,

Right?

Like if you and the thing is the question,

You're only asking these questions because at this point you're realizing for some reason I feel called to be here.

Interesting.

Well,

Let's look at it then.

Like you're not going to get all wrapped up in anger and fury and all that kind of thing.

Sometimes you have to,

Sometimes you have to get really angry to feel the contrast to learn the lesson.

So,

That's why I'm not saying never get angry.

I'm not saying that.

I'm just saying when we begin with a level of acceptance,

We get to experience what's really happening without all the emotional drama and actually move forward in our life.

So,

Then if we were to jump to the big wide world and we were to look at social justice issues,

Because this is always a big question when it comes to acceptance.

And it's very,

Very interesting because again,

It's not about being passive and it's not about doing nothing.

It's not about,

You know,

Not standing for what's right or anything like that.

It's your perception.

It's your consciousness.

And what's really interesting about the level of acceptance is acceptance isn't about polarizing.

It isn't about an us versus them mentality.

It's about observing a situation with acceptance saying,

Interesting,

This is a challenge.

How do we find a solution here?

Like you don't have to polarize to observe a problem.

So,

For example,

Like let's say kids were fighting in a school yard and let's say some kid was sitting there and a boy came up,

And he was a bully and he stole the kid's backpack and then started yelling at him.

Well,

If we weren't beginning with neutrality,

Our first question would be,

Well,

That guy's the bad guy.

He did this to that child.

So,

We need to punish him so that he doesn't do that to that child.

We need to protect that kid,

You know,

That kind of thing.

Right.

But that's polarizing.

And again,

In all of those lower levels below courage in all the Hollywood movies and everything we've ever been taught,

That is the right way to go.

Right.

But if we jump up to neutrality,

Into willingness,

Into acceptance,

They're very different levels of consciousness.

So instead,

From a place of acceptance,

We look at the situation and we say,

Interesting.

So we have one child who's picked on.

And we have another child who feels the need to pick on the other child.

This is a problem.

So what's the solution?

Not making one child bad,

Because I mean,

Chances are the child who's bullying the other,

Maybe they're getting bullied at home.

Maybe they're getting abused or yelled at at home.

Maybe they feel alone in life.

Maybe they've had 14 bad karmic experiences and now they're,

Who knows what's going on.

And maybe that child who's getting picked on,

Maybe he's also got a journey.

So what's a solution that really heals the whole?

What's this?

What's a different solution that doesn't involve polarizing and making one person wrong and one person right?

It's a very solution oriented space as opposed to a punishment and judgment space.

I remember years ago,

I attended a lecture and I wish I could remember what the name of this was,

But I can't think of it.

But it was all about changing our justice system to be more about healing communities as opposed to just punishment and judgment.

And they told a story about a Mennonite community where a couple of boys had gone on a rampage.

I don't know whether they'd gotten drunk and they'd kind of gone down the main street and wrecked this guy's wagon and smash these windows and stolen this person something.

And,

You know,

They'd done all these really bad things,

Right?

Or done all this,

A lot of damage.

Like even if we get out of the good and bad,

These young boys went out and did a lot of damage in the community.

Well,

In the current zeitgeist,

In the current perception that we have of the world,

Well,

They were obviously in the wrong.

That's all we have to ask ourselves.

So we need to make sure they don't do it again.

Right?

Like that's isn't that obvious?

But we know and the reason they were having this talk and the reason there is a whole movement around this.

And again,

I can't find the words,

The label of it,

But the spirit is what we're meant to talk about today,

I guess,

Without labels.

And what was really interesting is the elders in the community sat around and they said,

What is a solution that will heal the situation?

The boys obviously are troubled.

They obviously are not feeling,

So they were looking for what's really wrong here.

Perhaps they don't feel like they belong to the community.

Maybe they feel alone.

They must feel detached or they wouldn't have ruined people's property.

Right?

They wouldn't have ruined property of their friends.

So I wonder why they ruin the property of these people.

Do they not feel connected in the community?

So instead of them going to jail,

They got special permission to do it their way.

And what they did is they talked to the boys and they said,

Hey,

Here's what I propose.

Instead of you going to jail or being fined or whatever,

Because none of these things fix it.

They just make it worse.

They just increase the they just increase the distance between them and the community.

They label them.

There's no solution there.

So they asked the boys,

They said,

OK,

What I want you to do is I want you to go to each place that you went and I want you to talk to the person whose stuff you damaged.

And I think there might have been some counseling in here,

Too.

And so what was really great is the people whose stuff was damaged.

They got to actually get angry at the person who did the damage instead of just talking to all their friends and all their family and just making this huge monster energetically,

This monster against these boys.

And they actually got to speak to the kids.

And some people were like,

You know,

Sometimes some people would kind of lecture them.

Some people would say,

Oh,

It's OK.

You know,

I'm glad you're here.

I'm glad I got to talk to you.

Some people screamed and yelled at them.

But then the kids would say,

What can I do to make it up to you?

And this was all part of what they had to do.

And they might have said,

Hey,

Well,

Why don't you come over on Thursday and we'll fix the wagon together?

Well,

Why don't you just do this thing and we can,

You know,

If you drive me grocery shopping three times a week or something.

But the beautiful thing about the solution is it reconnected them into the community.

They now had some new friends,

Some new connections,

And slowly they moved back in to the community.

This is a very,

Very different perception.

Right.

It's a it's a whole different consciousness.

And so no matter what we're looking at in the world,

Whether it's,

You know,

Political,

Whether it's issues like with homophobia,

Whether it's issues with racism,

Whether it's issues with all these really loaded,

Difficult situations.

It's a very interesting perception to go.

OK,

Here's where we are.

What are some solutions that actually bring everybody together?

Because if we get stuck in anger,

Pride,

Apathy,

Guilt,

Shame,

All those,

There are no solutions.

The distance just gets wider.

And so acceptance is a very fascinating thing that even if we don't live there all the time,

Wherever.

It's a very interesting thing to add into our pot as a possibility at any moment,

Like even to sit in meditation and to sit and say,

All right,

In this meditation.

I'm just going to ponder what acceptance feels like.

And maybe we even ask,

Maybe you sit and you ask,

I would like to experience acceptance.

Right now.

And you have an experience.

And maybe you have an insight.

Maybe you have a thought.

It's a very,

Very fascinating way of living.

And again,

It really begins with us.

Like if we can't accept our own lot in life,

If we start jumping into relationships,

Social justice,

Anything like that,

There's no way we'll be clear.

Because we'll bring all of our own stuff out because in the end,

Our soul is here to learn.

So if our soul needs to jump out of apathy and experience anger,

Then we're going to experience anger in our relationships,

Anger in the world.

If our journey is experiencing courage and coming out of pride,

We're going to experience courage in our relationships and courage in the world.

You know,

We're not separate.

We're not in acceptance in one place and not in the other.

It's our state of consciousness,

Our state of being.

All right.

If you have any questions,

I would be happy to answer them.

Restorative justice.

Thank you.

So beautiful.

But again,

You can't even perceive restorative justice in those other perceptions.

Like you can imagine if someone's stuck in anger,

You can't perceive restorative justice.

Define restorative justice.

I think that's maybe why I wasn't saying it.

OK,

So this is my this is what I took away from the talk I heard about restorative justice.

The intention is to heal the community as opposed to punish.

The wrongdoer.

It's all about healing and finding balance and healing the village as opposed to judgment.

I've been ill for three years,

Something out of the house confined to a chair.

So much fear and anxiety.

When we've been sick,

If we've been in the house or we're really struggling with anxiety,

That's where acceptance is somewhere out there.

It's a very different concept.

You may instead want to embrace courage.

First,

To start with courage,

To say to sit with yourself and pray and ask or meditate,

However you say that,

And ask for guidance and say,

All right,

My intention is I want to change my situation.

What's my first step?

And we begin with courage.

And then we step forward from there.

Rehabilitation means to reclose with dignity.

That's amazing.

Are we mostly in just one level or is it possible to sort of jump around in the levels?

We tend to stay at one and then we oscillate up and around it.

Right.

So if we're in anger,

For example,

We may oscillate between apathy,

But we may come up to pride or we may go down to guilt.

We may come up to courage,

You know,

That kind of thing.

If we're up in pride,

We may go up to courage and maybe sometimes we even taste neutrality.

You know,

We kind of we oscillate through them.

I've lost something very important to me and cannot get out of the sadness.

It's interesting grief when we get stuck in grief,

Again,

To consider the stages above grief,

You don't get to jump to acceptance.

We need to actually do the work.

Like maybe that's why they talk about the stages of grief.

Right.

That we have anger,

We have apathy and we have,

You know,

It's important that maybe you need to get angry.

Maybe you need to scream at the heavens for a while.

Right.

It's not about demonizing the lower levels,

You know,

Air quote.

You know,

It's about using these levels that no matter where we find ourselves,

Use the level above to pop ourselves out as we climb.

How would you know what our consciousness is for this lifetime?

It's whatever place you go to in stress.

If you if you want to know what your baseline is,

You know,

Just think of the last time you felt unhappy.

Where did you go?

Did you go to anger?

Did you go to neutrality?

Did you go to you know what?

I'm just going to choose to love them.

Did you go to apathy?

Like,

You know what?

Screw it.

I don't even care.

Where did you go?

That's the question.

You know,

Maybe journal about it or meditate about it.

And if you're not sure,

Then ask your friends.

Ask your friends where they think you go.

Show them the chart and say,

Where do you think,

Like,

Even there,

If you ask yourself,

What do you normally talk to your friends about?

What state are you in when you talk to your friends?

And don't get me wrong.

I mean,

Just yesterday I got mad about something and I called my friend.

I'm like,

Hey,

I got a rant for a while.

It's not like we never go there.

But when push comes to shove,

Where do you go?

Where do you want to go?

Right?

See,

Because that's interesting like,

BD,

We fall to our highest level of practice.

Because I actually thank you for saying that because,

So for me,

I have different states.

It's almost like when life gets black and white,

When life gets really serious,

I will default to my highest state.

Because that's the only place I'm going to find peace.

You know,

Maybe I will aim for acceptance and say,

Okay,

Wait a minute,

What would acceptance say?

If it's really serious,

What would acceptance say?

What would love say?

That's actually my tool to get out of a real life crisis.

But a lot of what we deal with in a day isn't crisis,

It's drama and nonsense in the world.

And then I may jump to,

I may,

Hear me,

I wanted to say anger,

But I was going to actually say fury.

But when push comes to shove,

The best thing we can do is ask what the higher levels of ourselves,

Not of out there or of other people,

But the highest self within us says.

I've been grief over my father's anger.

Dealing with trauma from the past,

Again,

There's lots of different levels.

So when we ask ourselves if we've been through trauma,

What is the effect that that trauma has had on us?

And again,

I'm speaking about this from a neutral space,

Without any emotion.

So don't get me wrong,

It's not that I have no compassion for trauma.

But if you're able to look at the trauma and say,

Okay,

This trauma has placed me in a state of fear.

Okay,

How do I deal with the fear?

How do I move beyond it?

Maybe we move,

Maybe we need to get angry,

Maybe we need to feel apathetic,

Maybe we need to have courage,

Maybe we need to know that I have choices now.

Maybe the trauma has placed me in a place of anger.

And we need to look at that.

And we need to move beyond that.

It's not about bypassing the trauma,

But it's about being able to look at it and honestly be able to say to ourselves,

What is the effect of this trauma?

And let's dive in right there.

When you say oscillate between different levels,

Does that happen in different stages of life?

Or does it happen in shorter timeframes?

So when David Hawkins wrote this book,

I'm not even sure when he wrote it because it was published when my mom was sick 30 years ago.

And what's really interesting is he would have said that most people don't oscillate.

That if you are in a state of anger,

You're always angry about everything.

And if you're in a state of apathy,

You're kind of apathetic about everything.

Right?

And he also said that the chance of people actually raising their consciousness significantly in a lifetime is very low.

He said most people live completely unconsciously.

And again,

This may be very different because we're literally gathering here as a group of people whose intention is raising consciousness.

So I may not be speaking to this group.

I may be speaking about the general masses,

Let's say.

And he just said,

He goes,

The general consciousness isn't aware.

So they actually have a very singular existence.

They are either only living in shame or only living in anger or only living in pride.

You know,

Everything is interpreted that way and that's it.

But I think there's a lot has changed in the last 30 years.

And we've done a lot of self-help and we've meditated and we've done yoga and we've gone to interesting retreats and we've pondered interesting things and read a million books.

Like back when my mom was sick,

There wasn't even a self-help section.

Even to find something like the Bhagavad Gita or the Tao Te Ching,

Was such a massive deal.

There was no such thing as Amazon.

There was no such thing as ordering online.

It was a real challenge.

You had to find some ancient bookstore or library to find any of these old texts to learn from.

So today I feel like our consciousness has expanded and we actually are a part of the world.

And we actually are tasting other consciousnesses.

You know what I mean?

And we are oscillating which I think in my experience,

Certainly of people I know,

People I talk to,

People I work with,

My friends,

Family.

Maybe it's because of that oscillation,

Because of that shifting,

We're actually growing.

And that maybe within a lifetime,

We actually can significantly shift and change and grow out of where we were born.

You know?

I feel it's very,

Very different.

I feel it's very,

Very different since 30 years ago.

It's very different since 2012.

I genuinely believe incredible things are happening in the universe on a consciousness level.

And we are capable of shifts that our ancestors couldn't have fathomed.

And yeah,

I think a lot is possible now.

Paradigm shifts,

Exactly.

David Hawkins would say that most people die in the paradigm they were born in.

That it will be their next generation that will increase the consciousness.

And I don't think that anymore.

I think he was accurate at the time.

But I think today,

We really shift.

What if the need to raise our consciousness is our zeitgeist?

Right?

Isn't that true?

That is our perception.

It's like that shifting is possible.

That there's new heights that are possible.

New experiences that are possible.

New ways of looking at the world which are possible.

What a beautiful zeitgeist to live within.

Yeah,

Ever since 2012,

What I've really felt the most since 2012 was the speed of learning.

That's what I really experienced.

I taught a lot of yoga teacher trainings then.

And I would have a curriculum set.

And I taught one in 2011.

And the next one was in 2012.

The next one is like 2014.

And it was amazing the shifts in consciousness.

Because I was presenting the same curriculum.

But I had to present them completely differently.

From year to year,

The consciousness was so palpably different.

It was amazing.

Just amazing.

And I think the beautiful thing is that's why we even feel called to do this series that this talk is a part of.

Because the reason I'm doing this talk is because people,

We talked about it.

I think in my earlier classes I would reference David Hawkins' work.

And then a number of people said,

Hey,

Could we do a series of talks about each level and really explore it?

Right?

And there is a real desire.

And here,

According to the number here,

There's 319 people who are interested in expanding our consciousness from all over the world.

That's a huge deal.

Like this is in the land of what an amazing zeitgeist.

And for anyone who's new,

We were talking about the use of the word zeitgeist as a perception of the world at any particular time.

So I think it says a lot about our world,

About what we're seeking as souls right now.

That we want to know.

The dials have turned in the universe that we can really embrace it.

Thank you guys so much for joining me today.

And I'll see you later.

Reviews

This was utterly wonderful. I always love your thoughts and your way of explaining things. Somehow this ESPECIALLY drove home what I most needed.