Fearlessness

Please take note that the recordings that comprise this course were originally made in the 1970s and while they are certainly better than good enough, the audio quality in places may not meet 21st century studio standards. This is due, of course, to the technological limitations of recording 40 years ago. On occasion, you may encounter some background noise, volume variations, or other imperfections. Substantial effort went into enhancing and restoring these historic recordings to produce the transformational experience the course extends.

Life is a banquet and the tragedy is that most people are starving to death. We spend years and years striving to earn our way to an invitation to the banquet, thinking we need to make ourselves worthy of it. The irony is there's nothing you can do to gain entrance to the banquet. Do you know why? Because you are there already, albeit unsuspectingly. It's a matter of waking up.

Spiritual awakening is the rediscovery of life. Here is what that means. We were born happy. We lost it. We were born free. We lost it. We born with the gift of life.We lost it. We have to rediscover it.

You got a theory that says you got to be upset or you're not human. It has you actively engaged in making yourself miserable. If you weren't actively making yourself miserable, you'd be happy. Happiness is your natural state. The world is shot through with happiness. But you don’t experience it because of a theory.

Happiness cannot be defined. As a matter of fact, you have no idea of what happiness is until you've dropped attachment. Happiness could only be defined as the dropping of illusion, the dropping of attachment. When misery caused by attachment is dropped, happiness is attained.

I’ve not known of one person who would give time to being aware who wouldn't see the difference in just a matter of weeks. The quality of your living changes. You're much more energetic, much more alive. You're losing your tension about succeeding and much more creative in solving problems. You are yourself, relaxed. You’re not driving with your brakes on anymore.

This is how it is: We have to fall from the state of innocence and be thrown out of paradise and develop this “me” based on concepts. But we can return to paradise again. We can be redeemed. How? By putting off the old man, the old woman, the old conditioned self and looking at the world through the eyes of the child.

You really begin to enjoy your life and your work when you're unattached because attachment brings anxiety. When you're anxious because you're holding on to something you could hardly be said to enjoy it. So, detachment is not a withdrawal from enjoyment. It's a withdrawal from stress and anxiety.

A good is never so good as when you have no awareness that you're doing good. You are never so good as when you have no consciousness that you're good. As the great Sufis say, "A saint is a saint until she thinks she is a saint."

You know what it means to be with people and to have no tension. It means you don't give a darn whether they like you or not. It means you don’t give a darn what they think of you. And do you know what that means you will experience? Freedom.

Come home to yourself. Home is found in the silence of your being, which cannot be induced or sought directly. What you must do is seek awareness, and silence will appear of its own accord. In this meditation that concludes the course, you are invited to let all anxieties cease and allow the ego to become quiet, so the peace of your essential self can arise.