Beyond Belief is Silence

58:19

58:19

Beyond Belief is Silence

by Eli Jaxon-Bear

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talks

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Meditation

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An hour long satsang with Eli Jaxon-Bear, discussing the concept that beyond belief is silence.

Silence Self Transcendence Self Inquiry Beyond Mind Freedom Self Discovery Present Moment Self Love Emotional Pain Trust Addiction Vigilance Unconditional Emotional Pain Acceptance Cultural Reflection Cultures Emotional Transformation Satsang

Meet your Teacher

Ashland, Oregon, United States

Meet your Teacher

Ashland, Oregon, United States

Transcript

You you I was always searching for a teacher that could stop the mind, Because what I saw was that even in the realization, Even in knowing for sure who I am, This empty, Immortal consciousness, The conscious, The egoic story was still running. It would stop if I was teaching, Or if I was meeting with someone, Or if I was doing some work, But then, When I walked out of the teaching room, I'd pick up my shoes and pick up the story. And so I needed a teacher that could cut that mind stream. And that's what I wanted. And searched for eighteen years and had beautiful teachers. I did Zen combat in a monastery in Japan, Ran a Tibetan Buddha center for the Kalu Rinpoche, And was part of helping the Karmapa come for his first trip to San Francisco. So a lot of beautiful teachers, But no one that could stop the mind. Until I found my teacher. The most blessed moment of my life. And he sent us here to let you know the good news that this is the end of the spiritual path. It's the end of the search. When you start out suffering, You start searching quite naturally. And we go through different phases as we develop in our search. At the beginning we search for powers. We search for how to be better, How to be more, How to have a happier life, How to change, How to create our reality, How to create prosperity, How to create abundance, Whatever it is, There's a way of trying to fix it through the egoic mind. And it's part of the stages, One of the stages. Then you find the limitations of that. You find it's better to have positive thoughts than negative thoughts, But it's still not enough. And so then we do yogas and, Why not? If you've been around, You've done prostrations and visualizations and mantras and yantras and practices and sitting and sashins and. . . And you find that there are moments when it all stops. But then it starts again. Because the stopping is conditional. It's based on a certain set of circumstances. When I'm sitting quietly by myself or if I'm working with someone else or if I'm off alone in nature or if I'm. . . And there are all these conditions where we have momentary moments of true bliss, True insight, True stopping. But they don't last because they're conditional. And what we're here for is what is unconditional. What doesn't require any change in the outer world. As long as the outer world is involved, Then that means that freedom depends on the outer world. And that's not. . . That's conditional. And so we have to find what is always here, Irregardless of the outer world. You know, I was just watching a powerful video, Documentary of one of the elders of the aboriginal people. And he was talking about the four pillars of their culture that were destroyed by the white men. And they had their beliefs, They had their family, They had their environment, And they had their religion. And then their belief, The four pillars of their thing, Was that we're all one. The trees, The rocks, The earth, We all come from Mother Earth. We're all one with Mother Earth. We're all the same. And we're all equal in that. We all have our part in maintaining the harmony of that. Beautiful, Beautiful. Except it was conditional. It was taught. It was a belief. And when the conditions were taken away, When the family was destroyed, When the land was taken away, When the religion was placed, Replaced with the foreign religion, The belief in unity disappeared. Because it was conditional. So it was true. Their expression of it, Their living of it was true. We are one. But if you believe it, It becomes a trap. And so we're here for what's beyond belief. You don't have to believe anything at all. All belief is conditioned on what's not here. In order to believe it, It's not your direct experience right now. Forget it. Who needs it? You only need, Beliefs are necessary to help the ignorant. Tell children. You know if a child just lost a parent or a brother or a sister or a loved one, And you want to comfort it, You have to give it a story. Four year old, Five year old kid, You say, Well, They're up in heaven now. And someday we'll all be together up in heaven. And this comforts the child. And becomes a belief. All religion based in beliefs. All beliefs made up. You don't need them anymore. They were maybe useful at a certain stage of development. We don't need them. You can find the truth for ourselves without any intercession of somebody else's ideas or anybody else's beliefs or anybody else's opinions. Regardless of what we've read, Regardless of what we've heard, You can find the truth directly for yourself. In that way, No belief necessary. Because you know without a doubt. You know so deeply, So deeply ingrained in the totality of your being that if God comes down and says, No, You say, Hmm, I am as I am. And so this is for what's beyond belief. Beyond belief is silence. Silence is the most direct way. Just stop talking to yourself and everything's very easy. Because in talking to yourself it's like you are the producer of this radio show. You're the star of the radio show. And you're the audience of the radio show. And you've been in reruns for decades. And so when you know that, Then you realize that's not where wisdom is. You're never going to find any news there. It's not a news channel. It's a repeat. It's not insight. It's not freshness. It's the same old, Same old. And that same old, Same old, That story, Runs on three animal drives. It runs on every animal has a survival drive. Quite naturally, Of course. Every animal, Every unit wants to survive. Every ant, Every locust, Every cockroach, Every fish in the sea wants to survive, Has a survival drive, And that's the impulse that will move you away from danger and towards food. We all have it. We all have a sexual drive in order to reproduce the DNA. That's what we're here for. We are DNA replicating machines. And we all have a social drive. And that's one of the catches in this culture is the social drive, Especially. You have all three, But there's one that catches you more than others. And the social drive is so that the family survives and the clan survives and the country survives. The culture survives, Then my children will survive. And so it's security for me and mine. That's the social drive. We all have all three, And that's what runs the story in your head. And if those three drives, If you're willing to just face them, Meet them, And not be run by them, The story stops. It's that simple. And the only reason we're run by them is because we believe we are identified as this body, As this form, As this name, As this story. This is who I am. These are my parents, This is my name, These are my relationships, This is my work, This is who I am. And it's that false identity is the story in your head. And it has to be recreated over and over again. It's all made up. And it's made up based on certain memories that you string together. And the memories aren't even what they really were at the moment. And every time you remember them, They change. And if anybody else was there at the same time that you remember this pivotal moment when your father did it, Your father wouldn't remember it that way, Your mother wouldn't remember it, Nobody else remembers it that way. It's your particular version that's been changed and molded over time to fit into this continuum of me. It justifies who I am and projects who I will be. And that's the only place the ego lives, Is in the past and the future. And if you're willing to stop that conversation of past and future, You'll be here in this present to find what's real, To find what's true, To find out who you are without a story, Without an identity who are you. If you're not a man, If you're not a woman, Oh, It takes off so much. It means you're not a parent, You're not a child. Whoa. What a relief. Then who are you if you're not that? That's the way in. That's the way to freedom. And that's what we're here for. And really it's the greatest gift that we can give to the world. I come to this from being a political revolutionary and a social activist and how to stop the violence, How to stop the madness, How to stop the wars. And the greatest gift we can give is to be free. We can all see what's wrong, We can all blame whoever it is, We can all see how ignorant and selfish they are. But if you're willing to stop the ignorance and selfishness where you are, Hmm, One less spot of suffering on Mother Earth, One more living possibility of freedom, One more flame of freedom that gets passed on from heart to heart. And this is how it grows, This is how it changes, This is how the consciousness revolution which we've seen its birth just a short time ago is growing and spreading through the world, Everywhere, Every continent, Every people. People are waking up. And that means the willingness to die to the selfishness. You say, Well, No, I'm not selfish, No, I'm a good person, You know, I do the right thing, I'm ecological, I take care of my kids, I do take care of my parents, I do what I'm supposed to do. But if you examine that story, It's really all about me. I'm a good boy or I'm a bad boy or I'm a good mother or I'm a good father or I'm a bad father. It's all about me. I love my kids. Well, Why? Because they're my kids. Why don't you love the kid next door? Because it's mine, You know, It's different. And so that's the identity, Me and mine. So then we say, Well, What will happen to my children if I wake up? Well, Do you think your children would like an enlightened parent or a neurotic one? Which would better serve, You know? You should love being in charge of your doubting mind, You know? And so that's why we're here. It's possible for you. It's the message from my teacher. It's possible. He gave it out to everyone who walked in his door. No practice, No requirements, Didn't have to know your name even, Just what do you want? If you want freedom, It's here. Yeah, Well, Something you said about parenting. I've got a situation. I've got three children. And at the moment, None of them are having anything to do with me. And staying right out of the story with them and just trusting them, You know, When they're ready, If they're ever ready, I might hear from them. Love them as they are. And also at times, It's just, You know, There's a lot of pain there around that as well. Yeah, Naturally. Yeah. And it's interesting just watching other people's take on it and what's going on. Doesn't matter. Forget all opinions. Yeah. They're poisoned. They're viruses. They're mind viruses that pass from mouth to ear. And they work for herd control. If we all have the same opinion about things, We'll move together in a unit. So if we can develop the opinion, You know, The enemy is over there and we've got to go kill them and we all agree on that. Well, That's in a shared opinion that creates cohesiveness. So we are wired to transmit this virus and to take it in and believe it and pass it on to others. Forget opinions. Naturally you'll feel pain when your children have cut you off. And that's your teacher. Yeah. Because the pain isn't the issue. It's the suffering that we create around the pain. So you feel the pain of loss naturally. Yeah, It just comes and goes. It comes and goes. But if you tell yourself a story about it and you develop it, Then it becomes suffering. Yeah. It's felt really free of suffering. Yeah, It's beautiful. Yeah. Yes, And you can love them as they are. Yeah. Love yourself as you are. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Did your best, You can forgive yourself for all the fuck-ups here. Yeah. Yeah, I think I've managed to do that. Yeah. Thank you, Eli. I'm so glad. So then what do you want? What do I want? I don't think I want anything. I've got what I want. Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. What a miracle. Thank you. Hello. Hi. Hi, Everybody. You spoke about how you would have moments of, Or times of being very present, And then the story would pick up once you shifted into a different modality. Yes. And this is something I find, This compulsion that is so lightening quick, And before I know what's what, I'm back in the story, Running past and fantasizing the future. Yes. And I want that to stop. Yes. So then are you willing to die for it once and for all? I think so. I keep asking myself this question because it continues, And so somewhere there must be some unwillingness or it wouldn't be continuing. Not necessarily. Not necessarily. I had a deep, Full desire for it, But I had to find a teacher. Took me a long time. So just because it continues doesn't mean that you don't want it to stop. So right now, What if you cut the future in this moment so that you don't even know what's going to happen when you leave this room? Finished. It'll show up when it shows up. It's not here. Really. Rest of your life. Who knows? Gone. We don't know. We really don't know. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. That's right. So then, Pass the same way in this moment. It doesn't matter. Whatever happened, Happened. We brought you to this moment, So we leave it behind. So then what's left? What's here? Just here. What does here mean? This is an open space. Where is it? It's everywhere. It's around me. Yes, Okay. So around me. Very good. So what's this me? It's my idea of myself. Very good. So are you willing to stop that? Yes. Good. So, Gone. It's too easy. It is. It was only made up. It was an idea. What's an idea made out of? Ideas. Nothing. Nothing, Exactly. If it was made out of nothing, What could they be made out of? What could their substance be? Nothing. Exactly. So this idea of I. It's nothing. Oh, Men. Now what's here? Yearning. There's still this, I can feel its underlying desire to grasp at something, Anything. If you don't touch it. What's under it? It's quiet. Yes. So fold into the quiet. Find out how deep it is. Yes. So this is what was undiscovered in your sense of presence. Running, But under the covers, This desire to grasp. And then the quiet under that. And then what's under the quiet if you go even deeper? It's a vibrancy. Yes. Yes. This is what I means. This is the true I, This vibrancy, Alive love, Actually, If you go deeper and you'll find how deep this love is. And so from here, If you be the vibrancy for a moment, And then up on the surface you can see this grasping, This desire to grasp on, Hold on. Yes. Now vigilance. Okay. Vigilance is staying true to yourself. Because the old habits, The old patterns come back. My teacher would say all the demons of your past come to claim you. It's just the old habits, The old. My momentum? Yes. Don't touch it. When it comes back, If you don't touch it, You drop deeper. You find there's another vastness you hadn't even realized. Just like under the openness there was this quiet, And under the quiet there's this vibrancy. It goes forever. You go forever. You are the source of the universe. If you do touch it, If you hold, Grab it, Which is a possibility, You see then what is it that you're attached to? What is it that you're selling alive vibrancy for? And you examine it. You don't touch it again. You stop. In the mid-thought you stop. In the mid-grasp you stop. The vigilance turns into steadfastness. What? Noticing the wanting arise again, Wanting the steadiness, The steady depth, And then just realizing that there was that wanting there and then getting that form. Yes, And when you did, What happened? What was the result? You just dropped straight down again. Yes, That's it. So beautiful. Thank you for coming to New Zealand. Oh, Thank you, Thank you so much for showing up. I love our meetings. It's a mystery. Really, Love is in charge. Love brought us both here. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hi. Hi. I was inspired by this. Isn't that beautiful? Yes. It's very important. She came up because she was inspired by you. So already that's service. Not because I'm going to be good and serve someone else, I've got to take care of you, It's my duty, It's what the right thing is. Just by being yourself, You're an inspiration. That's it. So beautiful. Sorry, Thank you. Yes, So I have just fearless resonance with perhaps the struggle and yes, And I just, I wonder if I do have the willingness, I wonder kind of what I'm doing here in a way. You know, I feel like I've been kind of around the, I wouldn't say around the traps exactly, But that feeling of ambivalence or. . . It's all called doubt and fear. Yeah. And the attachment to the story, You know. That's what keeps doubt if you're alive. Yeah. So you doubt yourself, You doubt if you're ready, You doubt if you want, You doubt. Yeah, It's like that bubble, You know, Around the, It's almost like I can see it, Like it's just a constant imprint just running. It is. It's running on the terror of survival. Yeah. So what do you want? Not what you wonder, Because what's alive in your heart, What do you really want? So far, Everything hasn't worked. You've tried lots of different things. They brought you relative something, Relative work, Relative didn't work. Ultimately, They didn't stop the fear of doubts, Didn't stop the fears, Didn't give you the truth. So forget it all is useful and it's time, It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean there's anything about you or about it. I had lots of teachers along the way that didn't, That were wonderful, That gave me beautiful things, But not what I wanted, Ultimately. It doesn't mean I was wrong, It doesn't mean they were wrong. It's beautiful, Just they weren't their one yet. So you can stop that doubt. Then you can face the terror of survival. But first, You can't face it unless you know what you want and what you're willing to live for and what you're willing to die for. That's the question. Otherwise your whole life is lived for security. Yeah, A feeling of grasping, A constant feeling of trying to grasp something. Yeah, Because that's what I see, Perhaps reflected as well. It's what I project and what I receive, This kind of like having chips in a casino. Sometimes I've got a few and then sometimes it feels like, Oh no, I haven't got any now. I feel exhausted with it. Good. So are you willing to get out of the casino? Yeah, I'd like to leave the casino. Good. And you have to know what you want. Just knowing that you want to leave isn't enough. Yeah, Yeah, I just think so. Because just knowing that I want to leave, And you start wandering around the casino for the rest of your life, Trying to find the exit, You never find it. You have to know what you want, You have to know the positive. Yeah, I get, I, It's. . . What's alive in your heart? What do you really want? What did you want when you were a little girl, When you never got one desire, If you had one desire? It feels like a trust or, Yeah, A trust in life perhaps, A feeling of, Yeah, Trust is the word that, Or peace perhaps, But. . . Well, Trust would be the antidote to the doubt. So is that just like another grasping? I want trust. It is. Yeah. Yeah, It is. Because trust is still a belief. Certainty is different from trust. That hasn't even given concern that that's a possibility. Certainty, Beyond trust, Beyond belief, Beyond doubt, Beyond fear. Certainty. It's possible for you to have certainty. Trust comes and goes. You trust, Then you feel betrayed by the trust, And then you trust something else, Then you feel betrayed by that, And then you feel like, Well, You know, Trust isn't trustworthy, And then I've got to. . . That's all the same old, Same old. It's actually possible for you to be certain of yourself beyond doubt, To live a life of freedom. Times when I sense it, Or I feel it, Taste it, And then, You know, I make beliefs out of that, You know, Or I go back, You know, I just go back into. . . But if you have a taste, All you need is a taste to be willing to give your life to it. Then you have to know, OK, Am I willing to live for it? Am I willing to die for it? Yeah, I believe that I am. Well, Maybe that's another belief, Though, I don't know, But I. . . When you say it, I feel it. Good. Then that's it. You take the solidity of that, The willingness to live for it and die for it. Those glimpses, Those tastes, Those moments when you know there's something beyond this, Beyond the suffering. What? Yeah, It's a simplicity, I guess, Beyond the mind. That's right. The simplicity is beyond the mind. The answers are beyond the mind. The realization is beyond the mind. And yet the mind participates by surrendering and then realizing. Excuse me. So what do you want? Well, I do want that, That simplicity. Beautiful. So you're willing to be terrified and still stay true to what you want. I feel like saying, I am, My mind isn't. Mind isn't after there is no mind. Good. As long as you are, That's all that counts. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, That's beautiful. So then welcome to Terror, Right now. Terror you've had since you were born. It's all been here. The terror that you've sold out to your whole life for security, For, Yeah, Just invited to feel it. You mean right now? Why not? You have a better time? Maybe later. No. Well, It's not there at the moment. That's right. That's the point. That's right. What is here instead? Happiness. Isn't that amazing? Yeah, It is. When you're willing to invite fear, You have happiness. Right. So in the moment of inviting fear and having happiness, Is there any story? Yeah, There's a story. What is it? It's going to come back later, You know. Okay. So it's going to come back later. That's the next doubt. Are you willing to not touch your doubts? Have I ever served you? Have I ever brought you happiness? No. And yet here you are with happiness, About to sell it for the next doubt. Yeah. Crazy. It's kind of like, You know, Like almost like it feels like. Yes. Yeah. It's a junkie. Yeah, Yeah. It feels like. Yes. Beautiful. So first you have to know that you have the addiction, And then you have to say, Enough. Enough. I'm not going there anymore. Even if it offers itself. Even if it's the best yet. I don't want it. Yeah, It doesn't taste very nice. That's right. It's kind of, I feel a bit sick actually when I think of, You know, How often I offer myself to that. Yes. To that. Yes. It's an addiction. It's run your life. That's true. And yet how simple to invite the terror? Be open for it, Be willing. It feels like there's a grief as well. Sure. When I see that sort of story. Yeah. All the emotions are here to be met. Whatever they are. There's grief, You invite grief. Be one with grief. And what happens? Right there. Be grief and what happens without a star? It dissipates. That's the nature of thoughts and feelings. They're not real. They're real. They're real. My mind goes, You stay out. You know, It's like, Ahhh. That's right. The story doesn't want to die. No. Feed me, Feed me, Feed me. Yeah. But it's an unhappy story. It's an unhappy story. That's right. And for just a moment you meet the fear and you find happiness. Simple. Hmm. Meet the grief, It dissipates. Yeah. It's different to thinking about it, Isn't it? It is. Yeah. Thinking about it's addiction. Thinking about it's not doubting. It's doubting. I can see how my mind's actually like, Almost like a radar, Like looking for it, Or where, You know, To get the bearings, Almost. That's right. Or where's my story, Kind of. Exactly. Because it's fear-based. And if there's fear you've got to always be checking, You know? Always be, Know what's going on, Know where the danger is, Know where the safety is, Know who I am, Know what I needed. I wonder why would we as human beings want to suffer? It's like we want to suffer, But we want to survive. Right. It's not even that we want, It's genetic. We are genetically wired for survival. And some of, And we have different genetic expressions of that. Your genetic expression of it is to doubt. To, Yeah. And that's useful for the tribe, Actually, At a certain stage. If we're a tribe, We don't want everyone to be warriors, Because then they all go out and get killed. You want someone to actually say, Well, Wait a minute, Maybe that's not so good, Maybe that's not such a good idea. It's useful! But now it's gotten dysfunctional, Because what's happening is we're growing out of our egoic shell as a species, We're shedding it. And so we have to meet everything that's been here in order to pass through it. I've had a sense lately that all the kind of personal growth work I've done has not made my life any better. That's true, That's pretty useful. That's kind of right. That's right. Seems like really ridiculous. When I think of, You know, How much time and how much money and how much energy. But it brought you here. It brought you to be willing to finish. Perhaps if you hadn't gone through that, You'd still find some hope there. Right. That's a positive spin on it. I like that. Yeah. Well I have had that wondering, You know, Of whether, Because there's been a real sense lately of struggle and of kind of a victim, You know, A strong sense of like, I'm just never gonna, You know, I'm just never gonna succeed, I'm never gonna. Yeah, And of course it's made me very depressed to think like that, You know. But, Oh well. You know, I kind of feel like, Well it's just another story, Isn't it? It's a story of suffering. It's a story of suffering that brought us together. Because deeper under that is your longing. Somewhere there's a true longing or you wouldn't be here. Yeah, It feels good to trust that, You know, To think that, Yeah, To feel that all. Because I was really sitting there feeling quite, You know, Really in that story and in the cynical, And it's just another, You know, Another thing. But I don't feel like that. Yes. Yeah. Yes. You've tasted the truth of yourself. You see the possibility of living with welcoming fear instead of running from it. And then you can go with cold turkey on your addiction. You don't sell happiness for the next doubt. And doubts show up in so many different disguises, But you've tasted them all. Like it doesn't say, Well I doubt this, It's just, Well I wonder. Or, Yes but, What if, Well maybe, You don't have to finish it. You already know where it's leading. Don't touch it. Okay. And just for a moment try it and see what happens. If you don't touch the next doubt that's coming. You bet. Yeah. What's your experience? Joy. And a sense of vibrancy, Freshness, Aliveness. Isn't that incredible how simple it is? Joy, Vibrancy, Aliveness, Isn't that what you wanted? Simply by not touching the addiction. Yeah, And it, Yeah, Feels like something that I can practice. You know, That, Yeah, That I will need to practice. Well, I don't know, But it's a sense that I have. When it turns into a practice it becomes a mental thing. Okay. Here's the possibility. From here you can now actually find out who you are, Because you don't know yet. When you find out who you are, You won't need to practice who you are. You'll know who you are without a doubt. So to find out who you are, You pass through the terror of death, Back into your Self. And it's an imaginary terror like all the others. Next doubt comes up, You don't touch it. Yeah, But so what? So right now, If you look deep into your Self with a sense of me, What do you find? Like, It feels like I see or I, Like just a vast darkness, You know, Darkness almost. That's it. Yes. So allow yourself to surrender into the vast darkness. Right now, Just fall in. What's your experience? I feel like, I feel that I'm willing, I feel the resistance. The fear? Yeah, The fear. Good. That's good. Welcome it. The fear of falling into darkness, The fear of the unknown. Invited. What's even deeper? It's a kind of nothingness. Beautiful. Be that, Like that. Seek all the way into that. Find out how deep it is. And now look into this and find out where's the I? Who are you? There isn't, Yeah, There isn't an I in the stars, You know, That sort of feels like a feeling of like a galaxy. Yes, A galaxy, That's right. Just a vast, Very vast. That's it. This is your Self. When you, You can be your Self, And when you are, You're happy, You shine, You radiate, You feed us. Isn't that a mystery? This terrified, Neurotic, Doubting little mouse actually feeds the world. So beautiful. So beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hi. Hi. I don't know why I'm here, But I can sense something amazing is going to happen. From what you explained before, My confusion comes with I have always been told to plan the future, Visualize the future. When, When I disagree with something or when I don't like something, I can just go and focus and it changes. Now you are saying to give up the future. Yes. So what does it mean? It means meeting the terror of being in the present moment with no escape. Because all of your visualizing of the future is based on your past. So it's so limited. It's so small. Even if it seems grand and your future is to travel the world and see every country and meet all the people and have incredible experiences and climb the Himalayas and do these wonderful things and meet the perfect lover, Oh whatever it is, It's so limited. Because it's based on your past and your ideas. So. . . But the question is, What do you want? The answer to that is to love myself. Beautiful. And be certain of myself, Not to look for answers outside. Beautiful. The future is a way of looking for answers outside. So if you cut that off, You have to be faced with yourself. The parts of yourself you don't want to see. The parts of yourself that you avoid by going to the future. And if you're willing to meet those parts of yourself that you don't like, That's the way in to actually loving yourself. So. . . And the future is so much beyond what we can imagine. I mean, I could never imagine coming to New Zealand. I mean, That would be, You know, Out of the realm of possibility of my life. Sitting and helping people wake up, Never imagined that. I mean, If I'd stayed in the career track that I was programmed for, You know, I'd be teaching in a university somewhere, Or be in the State Department, Or. . . That's what my career track was. I could imagine a future in that. And I could make it bigger and better, And be the head of the department, Or the head of the school, Or the head of the. . . Your future will be confined by the projections of your past. But that would have been such a limited, Limited future. So you don't know what. . . You have no plans for the next month at all? Oh, I have my schedule booked for the next two years. Oh, So you do? But there's nothing to do with planning the future. Ah, That's where my misunderstanding was. It's not exactly. . . Give up your ideas of the future, Give up your moving to the future, Mentally. I don't. . . That's like. . . That's your escape hatch. So don't take that as a misunderstanding. I don't have any plans. The truth is they change, Who knows, You know? I didn't set them up, And they change at any moment. And when you are talking about dying, How do you die? You have to know what you want. I want to love myself. Then you have to die to your ideas of your Self. Every idea of your Self. If you're willing to die to every idea of your Self, You find the truth of your Self. Because the ideas are just projections of your mind. They're based in fear. Fear of pain, Fear of emotional pain. And yet emotional pain is the way into your Self. But if you're afraid of it, You avoid it. You avoid it by thinking and planning and. . . So if you want to love your Self, You have to know your Self. In order to know your Self, You have to turn away from every idea of your Self, To find the truth of your Self. How do I do that? It's like if you're watching a movie, And you're really involved, And it seems, You know, You cry and you laugh, And it's a wonderful movie, And you say, But you know, While I'm watching the movie, I really want the truth here, I want the truth here. Well, If you turn away from the movie for a moment, You see it's just the light being projected. There's no images, There's no story, There's just the light. But if you want to bring the light into the movie, So it's one of the objects in the movie, It doesn't work. You have to turn away from the movie to find the light. Otherwise it's just another mental concept, Another one of your objects. So it's the willingness to give up all your mental objects, To face the fears, The terror, The emotional pain that's been avoided, The terrors that have been avoided, To find what's deeper. To find who you are. Because you can't love yourself till you know your Self. And you can't know your Self till you turn away from your idea of your Self. So you mean the idea that I am who I am, Like I'm married, I have children, Or these are the images that you mean? That's going back to I'm a woman. Yeah. What if you're not a woman? And I'm married, I'm children, Just are appendages of that. They're just add-ons. So I have to give up the idea that I'm a woman. Yeah. And that you're a human. That I'm a human. That you are this body. See, When we're born we have the identification that I'm this body, I am this emotions, I'm these thoughts, I'm this name. And then you accessorize it with children or career or whatever the accessories are that we add on to that. But then it's not about re-accessorizing or dropping the accessories, It's the core. You can leave them all alone. It doesn't matter. Children, Family, It doesn't matter. It's who I am. If I'm not a mother, If I'm not a wife, If I'm not a partner, Then who am I? If I'm not a woman, Who am I? That goes to the core, The identification of me. And me is not lovable. Because it's based in fears and it's based in desires, It's a mess. It's not lovable. It's lovable, It's who you are. But to know who you are you have to turn away from me. And that's a kind of death, And it's scary. It's reassuring. Reassuring. Yes, At least I've got a starting point. Yes, Yes. The starting point is exactly where you are in every moment. You're always at the starting point. You're at a place of complete silence with no movement at all. That's where you are. And to find this place is to go back in to where it is, To turn your back on all the movements. Yeah, I can feel it. Good. Good. Where are you from? I was born in Romania. How lucky that we get to meet together in New Zealand. What brought you here? How did you find out about this? I saw your picture on the internet from Brandon Bays. She sent us a letter. Oh, She's so sweet. Yeah. Yes. Thank you so much. I'm so glad. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm so glad you're here. You stay true to what you love. If you love your thoughts, You'll stay true to your thoughts. If you love your desires, You stay true to your desires. If you love the phenomena, You stay true to the phenomena. If you love love, That's the good luck. You give yourself to love. It's not what you should do. It's not what anyone tells you to do. It's what you love. You can't force it. You can't make it. But you can love and be what you love. That simple. Thank you so much. It's so beautiful to be here with you. I'm so grateful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.