Hi,
This is Guy,
And in our third prayer for self-transformation,
In our new way of looking at how we can be actively involved in another kind of communion,
Not just with the world around us but with our own consciousness,
We're going to look at a very interesting kind of idea that at first won't sound like being active at all,
But I assure you,
Once you understand what we're going to talk about,
You'll see a beautiful new kind of special activity.
The third prayer is called,
Do What You Don't Want to Do.
Let's look at it.
About the only time that you and I really,
If you will,
Want to handle the things that we must are those moments when pretty much everything in us agrees that it's time to do it.
Restating,
It means that we're only really happy doing what we have to do when we feel like we're the most comfortable doing it.
We all know that.
If I'm not comfortable doing something,
I don't want to do it at all.
But that moment of being uncomfortable,
That resistance that we run into within ourselves whenever we have to face some unwanted task,
Is created by two sets of unconscious conditioned notions we have within ourselves as to the real nature of comfort.
Let me explain.
First,
Real comfort,
The way we see it now,
Is determined by a set of exterior conditions that can be manipulated.
And secondly,
As a kind of unconscious belief hidden in the first that we can manipulate our conditions,
By the way,
As well we can.
But if these conditions can't be made to match our preconceived notion,
Then we can see real comfort's impossible.
Let me say that as simply as I can.
If we can't change the moment so that we begin to feel comfortable with what's going on within or around us,
Then we think the moment itself is the source of our discomfort.
And to the point of this third prayer in action,
The real discomfort has nothing whatsoever to do with the condition,
But rather with the part of our consciousness meeting it.
I mean,
It's nice to have pleasant things around us.
All of us want that.
But everything that we need to learn about ourselves in order to change the kind of human being we are,
Teaches us that finding our sense of self in anything exterior to us is the same as agreeing to lose ourselves any time those circumstances change,
Which by the way,
They always do.
So how does doing what we don't want to do when we don't want to do it become what we're calling a prayer in action?
Take a nice deep breath.
Each time we deliberately,
Consciously take ourselves through what feels like our own resistance to doing something,
Here's what we're going to find.
And this is one of my favorite sayings.
You might want to write it down.
On the other side of the resistance is the flow.
On the other side of the resistance is the flow.
I can't tell you the power that lives in understanding that the things that we don't want have the authority over us they do because of something in us that is sure it shouldn't be like that.
This prayer helps us understand that everything can be used to change the consciousness that ordinarily would try to get away from the moments we don't want.
This is so practical.
Physically speaking,
We all know this,
To some extent anyway,
Runners experience this new and deeper sense of self each time they challenge what their body tells them is the end of their endurance.
Spiritually speaking,
The self resisting any moment is a psychological body that knows itself through past experiences that literally have conditioned it to believe that only certain sets of circumstances will provide it with the necessary ingredients,
If you will,
To be happy.
This false self is actually threatened by anything outside of what it knows or wants,
Which is why it then resists any condition that seems to threaten it.
Meaning what we don't want to do is asking to unmask this false sense of self and in return revealing that this often self-defeating sense of self is not really who we are at all.
In this inner discovery made possible through this third prayer in action,
We learn that real comfort,
Real pleasure is in being free of that belief-loaded self whose very existence is resistance.
This new freedom that we seek is an inside job and this prayer in action will help us go to work.
