Our Good Fortune

Nondual Wisdom in Today's World. Almaas addresses the present difficult world situation from the perspective of how spiritual goodness appears within such discord.

He discusses how nondual perfection is relevant to our present time with its difficulties, discord and violence. And how spiritual selfless goodness relates to the difficulties while acknowledging their reality.

This presentation is from a recent retreat teaching Almaas has given at an all school retreat in the Netherlands, June 2017

Transcript

The Diamond Approach offers an immense and precise body of knowledge about the nature of reality and the process of spiritual realization.

And now a talk from Hamid Ali,

A.

H.

Almas,

The founder of The Diamond Approach.

It is obvious that the presentation,

The teaching,

Is becoming steadily more challenging and will be a stretch for some of us,

Stretching our consciousness,

Our knowledge,

Our mind,

Our capacity and of course,

As usual,

When there is a stretch like that,

Expansion,

There will be forces within us against it,

Contraction and difficult feelings,

Reactivity and also cynicism.

As you know,

Cynicism is arising in different places because what we were discussing about the miraculousness of our true nature challenges cynicism because cynicism means we are not convinced that true nature is real and it is fundamental and it is really as good as it seems.

And for me that basically means,

Which is fine,

Normal,

That's what happens to everybody because we are not completely aware of all the factors,

All the situations.

Some of us were like yesterday,

Not everybody had enough experience of essential qualities to understand why it is miraculous,

There are such qualities and you can't really appreciate the miraculous and essential qualities if you don't have a good appreciation of the boundlessness,

The transcendent vastness through nature because if you don't know that and its contrast with the qualities,

You wouldn't see what I was referring to which is that the transcendent boundlessness doesn't need those qualities.

So why does it have them?

So my point was to see the amazing interconnectedness between true natures and the individuals,

Beings and their life and their needs and that makes more sense the qualities,

That the qualities have a function,

We all know as we experience them.

So true nature manifests qualities that have a useful function and a healing function for us and it happens in a very,

Also as you notice,

We don't just get qualities like that,

We have to inquire,

We have to open,

We have to be aware of the need and know that we don't know how to satisfy it and be open to what's possible,

Not try to fill the need for something else and that will help us understand the next topic of today which is our good fortune.

And cynicism or the resistance or the limitation we experience can manifest as not understanding sometimes or what I'm saying,

Although yesterday what I'm saying is really simple,

I wasn't claiming anything unusual and that you don't know from your experience,

I was trying to sort of point to something already in your experience,

To recognize it if you haven't recognized it yet.

And the point was that true nature is primordial and so its qualities,

So of course 13 billion or whatever is relevant,

The question is timeless but if we have reaction we have to pick up something that sounds not to fit,

That's true,

Things like sometimes I say it's an attempt at communication,

It's not exactly the teaching,

It's a way of trying to use humor and stories to help with the communication but it makes me see that many of us can't help but take what we're here to be,

All of it is tenets of truth,

Well not all of it,

A lot of it is just means.

And the next topic which is our good fortune,

Again some of us will think of it politically,

We have a good fortune so we are different from others,

Actually the title doesn't mean our,

Doesn't mean this group's good fortune,

It means humanity's good fortune,

Our good fortune as human beings,

As living beings,

So I want to say that in advance so that the political activists don't start thinking we are being,

I'm trying to preempt doubt and cynicism because we're going to look at something very important and actually will be very important for humanity at the present time because humanity as we know at the present time,

The human situation is a very difficult situation at the present time,

We are at a difficult juncture in our history,

You know we thought after the end of World War I,

World War II maybe humanity learned its lesson from now on will be more humane,

More humanistic and more peaceful,

That didn't happen,

Maybe it happened some part of Europe but the rest of the world,

You know,

There were ethnic cleansing in many parts of the world,

Even Europe later.

And we have at the present time violence,

Its origin seems to be religious so people really wonder well if you're trying to be spiritual,

Look what happens,

So people can easily dismiss the good fortune by saying well look at the trouble and that is true,

We should not dismiss the trouble,

The trouble has always existed,

That's part of,

In some sense part of life and part of human condition and sometimes it gets worse for a while.

I know that some people tell me sometimes in California feeling well,

Seeing the world is becoming more spiritual,

More people interested in spirituality is always really in a new age,

I always tell them I don't think so,

That's true there are more people interested in spirituality but also there are more people interested into extreme fundamentalism,

More actually,

A lot more than people interested in spirituality,

Which is something predicted by some sociologists actually in the beginning of the 20th century,

Max Weber,

A philosophy read sociologist,

He said because one century because of the rise of secular culture and scientific development there will be reactions to it and he predicted there will be two reactions,

One of them is movement back to fundamental religion which is trying to go to religion back to the world and the other reaction will be some people will move towards some kind of what he called secular spirituality,

I mean spirituality that is not based on religion or one part of religion and both we see are happening but actually the fundamentalist part he referred to is much more powerful and much more widespread than he expected it to be.

I think it will continue,

Will increase the way it looks.

The fundamentalism is not an Islamic fundamentalism,

There is Jewish fundamentalism,

Christian fundamentalism,

Israel,

For instance,

Become more fundamentalist than ever been,

If you know about Israeli politics.

And American politics is much more controlled and influenced by fundamentalism than some parts of Europe.

So where is the miracle?

That's why it makes people be somewhat cynical because how can it be?

So the next topic,

Our good fortune,

Not only miraculous,

Is we're fortunate to be human beings.

Some people say well maybe fortunate to be a human being but not in this century,

Maybe in the 24th century when Star Trek started happening.

That's why in our school the orientation of the teaching is not like we're trying to spread the teaching everywhere,

We're not trying to make as many people do it on approach as possible.

I mean that is happening naturally for people interested which is good.

The intention is if there are some people who emerge from the teaching who truly know the spiritual nature and embody it in some deep profound way,

Unshakable way,

Know it in its totality.

If that happens that is enough because that is how spiritual teaching safeguards humanity.

Spiritual teaching don't try to save humanity from destruction,

Physical destruction,

They try to save humanity from its animal side,

From its cruel side.

So if there are human exemplars,

Only few,

The human race can continue to be human,

Not just continue.

Human race will continue anyway regardless of what happens because the forces of life is much bigger than all the difficulties that human race goes through.

But it might not survive as human,

Humanistic values with values of humility and compassion and friendliness and with heart,

Without true spiritual connection,

Spiritual development.

And that's what we know,

What we see that the indication of somebody being awakened and realized is not that the fact that they are brilliant or they're happy but they are human,

They are more loving,

More compassionate,

More humble and more understanding and that they become a force of good,

Of goodness even in a limited way.

They can't help but be good and do good even though other people might not notice it.

And it seems,

Sufis and other teachings knew that specifically that the enlightened ones are the reason the human race continues to be human because they are sort of what keeps the flame of true humanness alive.

Because it's easy for humans to become cruel,

To become heartless,

To just care for their own survival and their survival of their tribe.

That's the general tendency of humanity for millions of years.

Only the last few hundred years people start thinking about human values or caring for their environment.

That's very recent.

So my sense of it is that the difficulties that the world is facing will continue and increase.

The terrorism,

Like it's not only the UK,

They've had a few instances of people getting killed by some fanatical people.

And it happened in France,

It happened in Germany.

It will happen everywhere,

Including Russia,

China,

India,

All of that will spread.

Because the ideology behind it is very compelling for some kind of young people.

Just like communism,

When it started was very compelling for many people.

And many people thought it is a new order.

And in fact,

If you remember,

If you're old enough to remember,

Communist ideology was picked up by very deep thinkers,

Some of the intellectuals in the Western civilization.

But till now,

Communism developed totalitarian regimes more than anything else.

It wasn't really for the good of the people.

But it lasted for a long time,

For a generation.

Same thing in the present time,

Will last for a generation.

So we are possibly coming into some kind of dark age.

So some side there is violent terrorism,

And the other side,

The reaction to it is partly not understanding it.

I don't think the US or Europe really understand fully how come it is that way.

Even people in the region don't understand it very much.

It has deep roots.

They're old,

Old time from colonialism and the Ottoman Empire,

And all kind of dynamics,

And the rise and fall of Arab nationalism,

Which then the banner taken over by Islamic fundamentalism because Arab nationalism failed to unite the Arab world.

So it became more an Islamic thing,

And then the Islamic thing,

The extreme part of it became more extreme and became more political and violent.

And that is going to spread,

And then will be the reaction to it,

Lack of understanding it so you don't deal with it correctly.

So how you deal with it is not easy.

It's not going to be easy.

And of course,

It is so successful in some sense because it generates fear,

And fear makes us go back to our more basic instincts of being protectivist.

And become fundamentalist in our own way without knowing it.

I'm optimistic even though there might be difficult times ahead because I'm not concerned about the human race as a whole.

I'm optimistic humanity goes through difficult cycles.

And saying all of this just so that you know,

In the teaching we are not ignorant of all what's happening.

We're not ignorant of the difficulties that humanity and difficulty that human beings have,

Not to mention all the illnesses and diseases and suffering and all of that that happens which actually claims more life,

More suffering than all the terrorists in the world.

And resources are not going to fight those as much as they should.

So I'm trying to show you that we do have a balanced picture,

But we want to emphasize in our teaching we're not a political organization,

We're not activists,

We're spiritual teaching.

So we want to learn how to be spiritual which means how to be a complete human being which is with the symbol,

The hu refers to.

Human being means a complete human being which is a symbol that's derived from Nalp Shebandis,

The designers whose place used to be,

They originated in an area where Afghanistan,

Pakistan and other Bajan,

That area where they called the Khajagan,

Masters of Wisdom.

They were called the designers so they made many designs,

But that design basically puts into kind of a picture a teaching that originated with Sufi Ibn Anabi who had the idea,

Who developed the idea that became popular in Sufi teaching which is that the complete human being is the one who is in this world but not of it,

But who integrates the two worlds,

Who integrates this life on earth with the divine dimension that is present together so we can both live in this world in a complete way and contribute to it while at the same time is fully present in the visible world.

What we're trying to learn this morning which is that our true nature is not only miraculous but also wonderful.

It is a good thing,

It's a goodness which means human beings at the depth are fundamentally good if a human being reaches to their spiritual nature they find goodness.

So that's why when I see all the trouble and the hatred and the violence it is more on the surface,

Not at the depth of humanity.

The depth is our true nature and the depth when you experience it is only good.

So the different teachings have taken that goodness in different ways and that's what I want to talk about this morning that it's a miraculous world.

Part of that miracle is that true nature is good in some kind of fundamental complete total way and that is difficult for most human beings to appreciate because we see so much trouble in the world and so much difficulty in our personal life.

Ibn Arabi is one of the people who saw that goodness and the way he did it and the way he saw it is that the fundamental goodness he called it general grace.

The grace that everybody has is the fact that we exist,

That we are,

That we live and his idea is that that existence comes from the divine.

The divine presence extends its presence to the presence of all beings.

So all beings and the whole world have existence,

It comes to being.

Well the Bible calls it creation.

He says this existence,

He calls it,

It is an expression of the breath of the merciful.

So he is putting it in the religious words of his times because so many people always do that just like as mystic and all traditions do that,

Try to use their traditions and their holy books to sort of express their ideas because they are not explicitly written in the books.

Sometimes they are not in the books but they try to make it sound like they are in the books.

So he called it breath of the merciful because merciful is one of the names of God in the Quran and so that way he connected Sufi teaching to the fundamental thing in the Quran so that he will not be seen as outside religion because at that time he would be an apostate.

In fact he was criticized and attacked by many people at that time and at the present time he is under extreme attack by the fundamentalist forces in the Islamic world.

Because of his idea,

Because the fundamentalists don't believe that we are all the breath of the merciful and our existence as all human beings are good in the fundamental nature.

You cannot kill somebody else if you know that they are fundamentally good.

They fundamentally have the perfection of spirit.

But Abu al-Arabi said no,

We are all,

Our existence is the breath of the merciful and he brought in his idea,

Wahtat lujjud,

Which means unity of existence.

That boundless presence we talked about which is the beingness unifies everything.

It is the nature of everything and the unity of everything.

And we experience the ground which is a stretch for some of us here because maybe we have not experienced that way of true nature which is that true nature is not only infinite and boundless but it is the nature of everything and everything is an expression of this fundamental truth.

So it is all one,

Unified.

There is no true separation.

So regardless of how we are a nation and ethnic groups and tribes and all of that which are all good differences,

Fundamentally we are all not just human,

We are all true nature which true nature even includes the non-human,

All animals and all existence.

Because that is what true nature means,

True nature of everything,

Not just the true nature of our consciousness.

But the breath of the merciful already indicates mercy,

He called it general grace,

General mercy.

Specific grace is when some person in particular experiences grace,

Experiences blessing,

He called it specific grace.

Of course in the Sufi tradition,

Rumi took it further amplifying something that many Sufis took which is that this true nature is pure love.

So Rumi looked at true nature always as love,

He talked about as love regardless whether it is awareness or consciousness or truth,

It is always love for him.

So that is why the Sufi tradition,

Love is the primary thing that is part of that teaching.

Which means that love constitutes whether it is mercy or is it love,

It constitutes the fundamental ground of all of existence,

Of all being and of our consciousness.

But obviously not everybody is in touch with that,

Knows that.

Many people,

Difficult for them to experience the fundamental ground that is all good,

Especially when you see it also expresses everything,

Manifests everything,

So it manifests also what is bad,

What we consider is violent and hateful or limited or ignorant.

The unity of being is similar to what is in the Eastern tradition,

What they call non-dual reality,

Non-dual realization,

Which is that as the Vedanta says,

The pure consciousness that is also bliss is inseparable from what we are,

Inseparable from our everyday life,

It is the nature of everything,

Everything is reality,

It is non-dual.

And when we see the world as separate,

Separate groups,

Separate individuals,

Separate objects,

Separation and it has to do with ego and all of it is really not true,

It is an illusion,

It is a delusion.

And because from the non-dual perspective,

You see everything as one unified beauty,

Everything is luminous,

Transparent and good and inherently blissful.

So from that place when you see discord or see separateness,

It is easy to say that is a wrong belief because of a wrong belief,

Wrong ideas and concepts in the mind.

And not Vedanta,

Buddhism too,

Similarly,

Non-dual teaching means that the world is of,

They don't say that the world of discord is an illusion but they say that from the non-dual the world is illusion like,

Is like a dream,

It is always changing and what is important is emptiness or the empty clear light that underlies it and that is what we need to realize to be free and liberated.

And the Western traditions I think gives more possibility for us to understand the differences that we see,

That even though the underlying nature is good and wonderful,

There is a lot of difficulties,

A lot of pain because the Western tradition takes it similar,

Like the Kabbalah,

The Sufis and some of the Christian mysticism,

They talk about planes of being,

That reality has different planes or different levels.

The Kabbalah talks about worlds,

Sufis talk about planes and the plane that most people live in which is considered,

It is a hierarchy perspective,

It is called the great chain of being,

If you read some of the philosophers.

And so the last expression of it is the physical world,

The dualistic world and they don't say it is an illusion,

They say it is just one dimension and the other dimension and the deepest dimension is that of the unity of being and where everything is,

Goodness is like heaven,

So the idea is how to live in both worlds and that's what the symbol means,

Which I think gives more understanding,

Easier to accept,

Understand than the world that the world that people live in is just all ignorance and all delusion,

The real world is that everything is good.

It is difficult to accept that because it is hard to imagine that 99% of the human race are deluded,

Only a small number of people know the truth and so many people think of that as elitist and in some sense it is elitist.

So it is easier to accept the more western perspective,

There are different planes and you can be aware of the different planes and the solution that Sufis propose is that you are aware of both planes and you integrate them instead of taking the view that reality is only non-dual and duality is an error in the mind of some people.

But the important thing in this teaching this morning is about the goodness of being.

The Hindu when Vedanta takes it that the being is the fundamental nature of everything,

Fundamental nature is just like the elementary particles are the nature of all matter,

Right?

Same thing,

The fundamental nature of everything is not just physical,

It is spiritual and that fundamental nature is inherently good and of course the Brahman or the Hindu is also called Satchitananda which means it is both being and consciousness and blissfulness and happiness,

The goodness of it.

And of course in the Buddhist tradition especially if you go on to some of the teachings like the Mahamudra or Sokshin they talk about the fundamental truth,

They call it Samantabhadra or Kuntuzangpo in Tibetan.

But Kuntuzangpo means all good always good,

The blue Buddha if you have seen the primordial Buddha which is the tank is always naked and dark blue and it is considered the fundamental nature of reality but the meaning of it,

Literal meaning is all and always good.

So everywhere you go on spiritual teachings the idea of goodness is present and all the way if you go to the west all the way not in the Bible for instance but if you go to the Greek Plato for instance and his idea of Platonic archetypes the primary,

The most important archetype is that of the good.

He called it the good,

He had the archetypes of courage,

Archetypes of humility but then he said the most fundamental archetype is the archetype of the good which is the basis of all other archetypes.

So the good for him was an important way of understanding the nature of reality that mystics aspire to,

That want to be open to what the mystic schools were trying to learn.

So anyway but the all good of Plato arises again and the pure goodness that the Kabbalah has,

The Christian mystics talk about divine,

It is a pure,

The unit of experience is that of meeting Christ,

Is that of liberation of goodness,

Of not only freedom of oneself but goodness that wants to give goodness to others.

Now so far I'm talking in general about spiritual work in general how it relates to the whole world but you already know from your experience this,

The goodness of true nature because when you experience any spiritual experience,

When you have experience of any spiritual aspect or dimension,

Have you found one that was bad?

Have you found one that was violent?

Have you found one that was irritating?

Have you found one that has fear in it?

All essential qualities are good.

If you feel strength,

It feels strong but the strength is not damaging.

If you feel will,

Solidity,

It not only feels good because I am solid but it is good in the sense it's a good feeling and it is a good feeling that does not make you want to do bad things to others.

So you already know from your experience that true nature has a kind of goodness regardless of which quality you're experiencing,

Regardless of which dimension.

You can experience it as a pure awareness,

Like experience spaciousness.

Some people say well I don't know about that quality,

I only feel emptiness and spaciousness.

Well emptiness,

Spaciousness,

Is there anything bad in it?

Is there anything violence in it?

Can spaciousness be jealous?

Right?

No,

It's spacious,

It's open.

If you're really spacious,

You're open not to yourself but to others.

You're open in an accepting,

Non-judgmental way.

So all essential qualities show the goodness of true nature.

That they're good in the sense they're helpful,

They're very helpful,

They resolve our issues but they also feel good.

And that's what the satyananda thing,

The bliss part of it comes in.

There is always bliss in any essential quality,

In any spiritual experience.

In fact when people talk about spiritual experience they mostly think of ecstasy and bliss.

Remember in the 50s and 60s that's what people thought of spiritual experience,

Means being blissed out.

That's how they called it at that time,

Blissed out.

But the point here I'm trying to make is not to be blissed out,

That can't happen.

In meditation you'd be so blissed,

Feeling such bliss,

You're drunk with bliss and you're completely bliss and pleasure and delight that you forget all your troubles,

The trouble of the whole world and the bliss pervades the whole universe.

So we get into some kind of philosophical difficulty when we think well if bliss is the nature of everything how come there are difficulties?

Well,

Difficult to understand that unless you understand that reality is more complex than that.

True nature is all good and all blissful but that doesn't mean everybody is aware of true nature,

It doesn't mean true nature is always manifesting itself in all places and all times.

If it is,

In some sense if true nature was manifesting itself in all places and all times then there won't be a need for compassion and love and all of that.

So it's part of the intricacy and the nature of all of existence.

The fact that there's compassion in true nature means there is suffering.

Suffering is an inherent part of reality.

If it wasn't inherent there won't be compassion in true nature,

Won't be needed.

Same thing if there isn't enmity in the world there will be no need for true nature to have friendliness as a quality.

If there are no difficulties in the world there will be no reason for strength and will and power.

But those exist because the whole world is interconnected.

True nature and the fact of the world and its difficulties they go hand in hand,

They are inseparable.

So when people think when finally heaven and earth means no trouble it probably won't last very long because there's no reason for it to exist.

Because it will be just bliss and nothing else and if it's all bliss and nothing else in some sense there's no reason not to be just in deep sleep.

It's the same thing.

So it is part of the laws,

I mean the spiritual life is governed by laws just like the physical world is governed by laws.

The laws of the physical world,

Laws of gravity,

Electromagnetism,

These are not good or bad they're just laws.

That's how the world functions.

The same thing with the spiritual reality they have their laws.

Now today we're talking about the goodness of it and as I said we all know about the goodness of it.

What some of us know and maybe some of us don't know that that goodness is more fundamental than just in the qualities.

We know it in the qualities are they're all good in many ways,

The usefulness and the way they feel,

The way they impact or the way they make us express ourselves.

But the goodness reveals itself more in what we call the boundless dimensions which is part of our teaching.

We call the teaching of the second turning,

You know we have fourth turning,

First turning,

Third turning,

Fourth turning,

First turning is about the qualities and the soul,

Second turning we get to the boundless dimensions which means the infinity and the boundlessness of true nature.

Just like you experience boundless space,

You experience boundless presence and also boundless love and boundless compassion.

It doesn't mean like your compassion is endlessly arising,

It means it is everywhere,

Pervades everything is the nature of everything.

Which means you are connecting with the plane of being where it is purely spiritual.

From the perspective of a Western tradition you're not only perceiving things on the physical plane,

You're also perceiving the spiritual plane.

If you go to the Eastern tradition you'll say now you're awakened to the way things are,

The way things are and that everything is non-dual and beautiful.

But for us because we have critical thinking in the West,

We said well it doesn't make sense how about all the trouble,

Everything is good.

It's not explained by the non-dual teaching really,

The fact that there is trouble.

But when we see that no there are planes of being but the planes are not separate from each other,

They're connected.

Even though they're connected we have to be open,

The being needs to be open and receptive and humble and allow oneself to say I don't know,

To be open to the spiritual plane,

The spiritual dimension of reality.

It is the nature of everything but just as physical world as you know for instance,

Maybe the nature of everything is quarks or strings or whatever elementary part you believe in and they're all perfect,

There's nothing wrong always with quarks or the electrons,

There's no sick electron.

Electron is always electron,

Perfectly electron,

So is proton,

Neutron.

However as you know electron,

Proton,

Neutron become particles,

Become elements,

Become molecules,

Become cells and become beings,

Become bodies and those bodies can be sick,

Can have cancer,

Can have distortions.

Now the fact that the body has cancer,

Has discomfort,

Pain doesn't mean there's something wrong with the electrons.

The electrons continue to be perfectly electrons.

Same thing with when you think of spiritual reality,

The fact that there is trouble does not mean that the fundamental part has changed from being good to being bad,

The goodness still remains.

So as you listen to this,

Some of us might not have the experience of this deeper or boundless dimension.

If you don't have it,

If you don't know it,

Don't try to understand it in your mind as I'm saying it.

Just let yourself be open,

Let yourself be receptive and don't take what I'm saying to be true,

Just be open to the experience.

If you experience it,

Good.

If you're open,

You might experience and know for yourself.

If you just take my words and believe them,

You'll become a fundamentalist.

And we don't want diamond approach fundamentalism.

That's why in our teaching we have what we call a non-hierarchical view,

Which means we take all teachings to be true and valid and each one has its contribution and no teaching is complete but they're still good.

You learn that in some part of the teaching.

We call it the fourth turning teaching because it's very important for our teaching that the teaching doesn't become fundamentalist.

Well that is our attempt.

I'm sure some people become fundamentalist anyway because that's the nature of human beings.

When you're not in touch with the truth directly,

You take the words and believe the words and you believe the text and you apply them literally and you apply them literally and then you have applied them according to how you interpret the literal meaning and that's how fundamentalism can happen.

That's why I say don't just take my words,

Take them as a hypothesis,

As a possibility for you to find out.

And also if you don't understand what I'm saying,

Don't fret over it,

Don't get frustrated,

There's no reason to be reactive.

You can feel your reaction and include them but stay open to your reaction and what is being presented and find out for yourself.

So here I am presenting and maybe you'll find out for yourself that the fundamental nature is goodness.

That the goodness,

Because true nature is the nature of everything,

It's a dimension where we see it as the nature of everything just as electron proton,

As the nature of all matter.

True nature is the nature of consciousness everywhere.

But we have to be open to it to experience it.

So inquiry is our way of being open,

You can do it in meditation and other ways,

To be open and to be receptive and in that way experience directly for yourself the truth of your being and you realize then your being is of its nature not separate from the being of others,

It is one being and that being is not as pure presence,

Pure consciousness,

Pure self-knowing awareness,

But also it's pure love,

Pure goodness.

The pure goodness that many teachings talk about is expressed in our teaching and the dimension we call divine love because that's one of the boundless dimensions.

When you experience that the presence is not only good in the sense it doesn't have negativity but the goodness is explicit as pure wonderful not only blissful but loving and generous and not self-centered,

Not ethnic-centered,

Not national-centered,

Not religious-centered,

Not even human-centered,

Not earth-centered,

It's just universally giving.

So we care about ourselves,

Our body,

Our friends,

Our family,

Our race,

Our human beings,

All beings,

The earth,

Planet,

Universe as a whole.

If we're in touch with our nature we can't help but not only be good in the sense you're not bad in the sense that you're generous and you're accepting and you're understanding and you're merciful and you're compassionate.

So all the qualities are present in the inherent goodness.

You might not be feeling it now,

You might be feeling fear or emptiness or you're feeling frustration and you might be getting sleepy because this is different from what you believe.

If it's different from what you believe you might get heavy or thick or contracted and sleepy because your views are in contrast to what I'm saying.

But our good fortune,

Which is the fortune of humanity,

Is that our nature is pure goodness.

Pure goodness that is the source of beauty and the source of the aesthetic sense and the source of compassion and love and generosity and generosity that is not self-centered.

Giving not because you want to give but you can't help but you're giving.

You're just like the sun radiating light.

The sun doesn't radiate warmth to earth because it wants earth to thrive.

Its nature does that.

Same thing with spiritual nature.

If you are centered,

If you're realized,

It's not like you want to serve.

Service is natural,

Is part of the natural laws of spirit.

Like spirit is inherently effulgent but effulgent in bringing out more benefit,

More goodness,

More compassion,

More beauty.

And we can see if our sense of being is on that dimension then we see that dimension pervading the whole world.

We see the world from the perspective of that dimension and then we see the whole world as luminous and shiny and beautiful and radiant.

In fact,

One way I thought of it,

You see the whole universe as a candy factory.

Well in Holland you probably want it to be licorice factory.

And can be,

Sometimes it's very black.

And the interesting thing,

The black essence,

The taste of it is licorice.

Haven't you know it?

If you really tasted the black essence,

It's licorice.

So Dutch are very happy now.

But the tastes are.

.

.

But here in Holland everybody is happy because the absolute nature is licorice.

So imagine,

Well some people don't like licorice,

You know.

But I know that.

That's fine.

You can experience rosy,

Pink love.

Usually actually the love dimension appear more golden.

More like merging gold,

You know,

Merging gold,

Sweet,

Melty and nourishing.

It's more you feel something like that but it's slightly different in the sense it's like liquid light that is soft and caressing and comforting.

That's what makes us feel held.

Sometimes we have the experience of holding,

That the environment is holding us.

Many of us have this experience of feeling,

Well I feel the environment,

I feel the atmosphere and feels holding.

Well you begin to feel that dimension that make us feel held.

It is actually not just in this environment,

It's in the whole universe.

Here maybe more of us are open to it so it's manifesting more explicitly here.

But our good fortune,

We recognize our good fortune when we see that true nature is not just good in the sense it is liberating but it is good in the sense of love.

Because human being understand love as goodness more than anything else.

Most human being if you tell them emptiness,

I don't know if that's good or not.

Awareness,

Well we need it but I don't know if that's good or not.

But love,

We say love,

You know,

Love and tenderness,

Everybody needs that.

So that's why when the dimension of love manifests to us,

When we experience it and it's not easy to experience it because we have to let go of our sense of separateness and of our hatred and our fear and all of those.

You feel trusting and you feel,

You're afraid,

Well how can I be trusting?

There are dangers in the world.

Well you don't have to tell the world you're feeling trusting.

You can just feel trusting and you trust in true nature.

Nobody is saying when you feel trusting you should trust Baghdadi,

The leader of ISIS.

That's not the point.

The point trusting is true nature and you're trusting people,

You can see who to trust,

Who not to trust.

You are more objective about trust.

Our good fortune is our true nature and that our true nature turns out not only something that arises as qualities but it is the very ground,

The very nature,

The very elementary particles of our consciousness.

And we can be open to that and that can pervades our life and we feel that way.

It is natural we want to pervade other people's life because it's a goodness we want to share with others because it can't help but be loving and generous.

Because it can't help but share the beauty,

The bounty,

The good fortune.

Because the good fortune is not just for us,

The good fortune is a treasure for all and a treasure of all.

So let's do an exercise to explore how much we recognize our good fortune.

Because the more of us we recognize our good fortune the better humanity will be.

And there are very few of us even who feel the good fortune fully under all circumstances.

That will help the whole human race continue to be human because there are very few who know what human is.

That inherent knowledge won't be lost regardless of what happens.

Reviews

Very nice talk.
I'm very interested in this teaching

I lovely synopsis & explanation pointing the way to realizing our true nature.