3 Insights That Guarantee A Successful Life GF Live 6-01-24

Today I want to talk to you about what I'm calling three insights that guarantee you a successful life.

How many books have you read like that?

Seven Habits of a Successful This and all the rest of that.

And everything depends on you as you'll see as this talk unfolds.

Because as far as I'm able to explain it,

We all need to see to whatever extent it's necessary for us that we have no idea at all what it means to have a successful life.

Because if you're anything like me,

I grew up in a successful family.

My father actually was something like Time Magazine Man of the Decade in his area.

I loved my father and my mother dearly,

But he was not a successful man in the eyes of the world he was.

And so were all of the people that I grew up with,

The children of these luminaries,

These celebrities.

But by and large,

The world that I grew up in,

Seemingly at the top of the pile,

Everything was dysfunctional.

I don't think anybody had a clue what a successful life actually was because we are all brought into a world and we relate to it through the ideas that were sown into our young minds.

And when our young minds take on the conditioned ideas,

The beliefs that somehow or other success is connected to the way the world sees you and what you have to dress yourself in to be seen in that way,

We spend our lives in pursuit of something that on one hand in this world perhaps makes us a successful person.

But I ask you into the heart of the talk to start with.

How successful is a frightened human being?

How successful is an impatient,

Constantly irritated man or woman?

How successful is someone who lays in bed at night and can't stop thinking about how they're going to protect their success?

If that's success to you,

Then honestly,

There's nothing here that I'm going to speak about that's for you.

But if you understand that there is some significant disconnection between what it is that you and I have been taught means to be successful and what we have gone out looking for with those ideas in mind and found ourselves time and time again experiencing within us that which by any stretch of the imagination is the furthest thing from being a successful human being.

Because how is it possible that we can measure what we call our success by the extent to which we're stressed over concern with it,

In our concerns of it?

A long time ago,

I wrote a book,

A quick story about this young man who heard there was this precious new gem or metal that was up in the mountains,

And just to have it,

It conveyed a certain strength to you,

It healed you,

And he razzed off into the mountains and spent the next three months,

All his money and camping supplies and digging and looking for this precious metal,

This precious gem.

And after months of coming up empty-handed and running out of supplies,

Some other fellow walks into his camp up in the mountains and says,

What are you doing up here?

And the man says,

I'm looking for this precious metal,

This precious gem that does this,

That,

And the other that heals you,

That makes you free,

All that.

The man says,

Well,

I'd like to know about that,

Too.

What does it look like,

He says to our miner.

And sitting there,

It just hits him like a ton of bricks.

And he says,

Oh my God,

I don't actually know what it looks like.

If you could see that every pain in your life is because you believe that you know what success looks like,

And that anything that doesn't match the image that you have in your mind of what is golden is seen as an adversary or even an enemy to your happiness,

Then you'd start to realize that all of the pain in your life can't be separated from what this mind has produced as the image of success that we've identified with.

And then we go looking for it,

And it's simply not there.

So this,

That we're about to do,

These three insights that guarantee you a successful life means that we are going to look at what you are,

What I am,

And whether or not we have been looking in all the wrong places for what we call a successful life.

So let me get to the first story.

I'm going to bring in three insights as the title promises.

So when Kate posts them,

Please just let them hang there by themselves for a moment.

I don't know how familiar you are with certain esoteric principles.

They're across the board in every true philosophy,

If you want to use those words,

Religion,

Spiritual teaching.

The alchemists,

They knew it.

It was always said,

It takes a little gold to make gold.

In spiritual life,

It takes a lighted candle to light a candle.

And the premise in these ideas that runs through time,

And is true,

By the way,

Which is why there are spiritual schools,

Is because you have to have a little truth with you in order to begin to convert everything that is untrue through the eyes of that awareness of what is true.

So imagine for a moment that there's an apprentice,

And he's studying with a master,

An alchemist,

Who is reputed to be able to turn lead,

Dense metals,

Into gold.

And the apprentice is drawn to this master,

Because he himself wants what everybody wants in their own mind.

They imagine,

If I could just turn this situation into something special,

If I could turn myself into something unique in the eyes of the world,

Then I would get above these feelings of being insecure and full of doubt.

And that's what we see.

We think to ourselves that we escape the interior,

Unwanted experiences of ourselves by substituting them for the experiences that we can seek in the world through what we imagine the world can do for us.

So here he is,

And over the time he's been with this master for a while,

He's got this burning quest,

And he's terrified to ask it,

Because he doesn't want to insult the master.

And finally,

He can't bear it anymore,

And he goes to the master and begs a moment,

Says,

I don't know what to say.

He said,

I don't want to bother you,

But I have to ask this question.

Now,

Break into the talk for a moment.

I have to upset the apple cart as it's been.

I feel this.

This is going through the young man.

Kate,

Bring up the first insight,

Please,

Because this is what sets the tone.

Insight number one that leads you to a successful life.

The need to live an unlimited life is our first real contact with what is limitless.

The need to live an unlimited life is our first real contact with that which is limitless.

What does that mean to live an unlimited life?

It means that within every last one of us,

Unless we've been damaged beyond repair,

Is something that constantly looks out.

It's that moment where suddenly you realize I shouldn't have said this,

But I did.

Now I wish I hadn't.

Why am I so afraid?

Why would I say no to something out of the fear of it?

Something in us is aware that we are living in a grandiose,

Gross limitation,

And it brings it to our attention.

So this is what the young man is there with this master.

And so he goes to the master and he says to him,

Please,

Master,

Tell me,

Is there really such thing as the power to turn lead into gold?

Is there an actual real magic?

Because I want to know,

Because I long to be able to do this.

The master turns to him and heartbeat doesn't even wait.

Of course there is,

Indeed.

Now the apprentice in one respect is relieved to hear the ease with which the master has said this.

But by the grace of the divine within the apprentice,

He understands he's been relieved 10,

000 times by promises,

By what he hopes is true.

But now something stronger in him longs to be able to validate for himself whether or not this is true.

It's no good that the master,

Whatever you might consider someone who says something's possible,

And that includes me,

Don't ever believe a word I say about this kind of alchemical possibility of awakening a new consciousness,

Of being reborn.

You must,

Like this apprentice,

Find out for yourself,

Which is the heart of this material.

So he says,

Well,

When are you going to teach me?

I want hands-on,

I want to know.

But before the words even left his own ears,

The master had already crossed the room and was standing at the door,

Looking directly into his eyes,

The apprentice's eyes,

For something.

And apparently whatever he was looking for,

He found it there.

And he said in tones the apprentice had never heard before,

The master said,

The magic that you seek is not what you think it is,

Nor is it where you go looking for it,

Including with me.

The master said the real magic,

The real lead into gold is when you understand from yourself that there is nothing in this world or any other realm that has the power to diminish you,

That has the power to hurt you,

That has the power to create a fearful nature.

That's when you will know what this real magic is.

And with that,

Somehow or other,

The master was gone.

The door closed itself behind the master by itself.

And through the door,

The last thing the apprentice heard the master say,

Even though he was out of sight,

Heard it in his head.

One last thing,

And perhaps the most important of all,

Real magic isn't something that you possess,

It's who you are.

Now go finish your chores and get back to your studies.

And with that,

The separation was finished.

The apprentice was left standing there,

Marveling at what the master had said to him.

The real magic,

The real alchemy is a part of your true nature.

To look for that kind of gold,

To look for something that can turn any moment,

No matter how unwanted it may be,

Into a revelation that releases you from the dross of this dark nature,

That's the magic.

Key lesson insight number two,

Kate,

Please.

Read along with me.

Who you really are can't be troubled by the world events any more than an eagle on the wing fears getting tangled in a spider's web.

Who you really are can't be troubled by world events any more than an eagle on the wing fears getting tangled in a spider's web.

Think of the difference between an eagle and a spider's web.

The eagle lives in a space,

In an openness,

On wings that give it access to all of the world.

And here's this spider web tied to the branches that hold it.

Can that web entangle the eagle?

The answer is no,

It can't.

Why?

Because they belong to two entirely different natures.

Our journey begins with this longing to understand this limitlessness that understands we're not meant to be captured or confined,

Tied up.

God,

Try to see it with me if you can.

You turn on the news,

Doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on,

What your religious affiliation is,

What political group you belong to.

All of that is the trash of this world.

What matters is whether or not in those moments where you may be involved at some level because you're drawn to it.

But am I tied down,

Am I tangled up in such a way that every move creates a certain tightening and now I'm tormented,

I'm fearful,

I'm angry,

I'm anxious,

I'm hating him,

I'm hating them,

I'm judging myself?

Is that what you call being a successful human being,

Is being set against the world?

Or is a really successful human being the man or woman who understands that they are here not to be set against something,

But to be for the transformation of everything that enters into them and everything that they see in the world around them?

Because that man or woman has begun to understand what they see in the world around them.

What they are a participant in and have helped create.

And maybe not even while they were in this body,

But a part of a consciousness carried forward in time that continues to trap itself,

As Blake said,

The fox blames the trap.

To begin to understand that means that,

How did I get trapped here?

Have you ever found yourself unable to stop thinking about something that made you angry?

Unable to stop thinking about your money or your relationships because something in them is threatening you?

We like the eagle in the scheme of things,

Have a nature that can't get caught.

That can't be dominated by anything.

Because it is,

Its essence is an unwavering intelligence that never drags itself into a world where something can get its claws into it,

Let alone tie it down in all of these tormented thoughts and feelings.

But the key here,

And a transformation before I get to the next story,

Not a transformation,

The key here,

The transition,

Is that this journey that I'm describing that takes us from our present level of being,

At the level of that first story of I'm out looking for something,

I've exhausted myself like the prodigal son,

I've squandered not just what I own,

I've squandered myself.

And I haven't found anything.

And the reason I haven't found anything,

If I begin to understand what we're describing here is because I've been looking for something that didn't exist apart from my imagination,

And that whatever I imagined would be a condition that would complete me,

Was upset by any condition that challenged those temporary times,

So that I was always in a foot race trying to get away from one state of being to achieve another.

And I realized that this journey,

The real journey,

Is one that has to move from one order of being into another order of being,

Not from where I am to a better place in this world,

But from understanding my place in this world is the product of a nature that doesn't know anything other than to build a kingdom in its own image,

Which will always be challenged.

So the inner journey,

If you want to use those words,

Requires a departure,

A departure from one level of consciousness into another level of consciousness.

That's why the opening line,

The opening story,

Who you are is the magic.

Who you are is what it means to have a successful life,

Not to look for success out there.

That's fine.

I'm not saying don't go do what you are drawn to do.

Go be the most successful human being you can be.

I want to be a successful golfer.

I want to be able to play golf successfully.

But I understand that the journey from wanting to be as I imagine a successful player might be requires that I understand the limitations of my life,

My body,

My understanding,

And that only the gradual purification of that understanding can then equate itself into what I do when I'm swinging a club.

Only the purification of my understanding of who and what I am and my real place in this world can turn the constantly heavy leaden experience of fear and worry into a new kind of gold,

A new kind of wealth that can't be taken from me because it was fostered and freed from within myself so that I become the success.

Without I am successful in the world,

A new I that is already success itself,

The divine I,

Real I,

That becomes the measure not only of what it is that is required for a man or a woman to be in relationship with,

But it also purifies every measure of our relationships that comes into it.

So let's look at this now from the other story.

We're talking about a departure from one level to another.

So imagine here's a young woman and she's excited.

She's going on this cruise,

But you know how this goes.

Everything goes wrong.

Can't get an Uber driver.

Luggage falls off the top of the car and opens.

You have to stop.

So by the time she gets to where the ship is about to depart,

The gangplanks almost rolled up.

It's completely dark.

Everyone's just gone.

She's exhausted beyond comparison.

So stressed that she runs up the board there and looking for the steward to take her ticket and show her to her room.

And she can't even find anybody.

Finally,

She finds some guy sitting in a deck chair with a cruise outfit on.

And she says to him,

Please show me to my room and have my luggage taken there.

The man kind of wakes up,

Looks at her ticket in the dim light,

Says,

Follow me.

And he leads her down,

Down,

Down into this cramped little room.

No windows,

Hotter than bejeebies down there.

And so tired that she literally sits down on the bunk and starts hearing these voices coming through the walls,

People arguing,

The sound of pots and pans clattering around.

But she's so tired,

It doesn't even matter.

She just passes out.

Now the next morning when she awakens and she looks around her,

She just knows without having to think about it,

She's not in the right place.

Please find the parallel.

Have you ever awakened in the middle of an argument with someone or shortly thereafter and you're still steaming?

Ever caught yourself in some kind of stream of past pain and realize that there you are actually giving your attention to the very thing that's bringing this pain up in you or you saw it afterwards.

You see without having to think about it,

You know,

God,

How did I get in this place?

I'm in the wrong place.

Well,

That's exactly what happened to her.

So she realizing something has gone wrong,

That when she boarded the ship,

Meaning when she entered into the moment that the steward,

Whoever that was,

Must have misread her ticket and took her by mistake to one of the cabins deep below deck,

Basically for the crew members.

So she takes her ticket.

She goes up to the flights and gets asked to find the real ship steward.

She finds the real steward.

She shows him her ticket and said,

I'm not sure what's happened,

But I think there's a misassignment here because I'm down,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And he says,

Please,

Please.

He said,

It's a terrible series of mistakes.

And at that point,

He led her up to an upper level cabin.

He actually upgraded her and found a place that was full of fresh air,

A beautiful balcony with abundant light streaming in.

And he said,

This is your cabin for the rest of this journey.

Now I know that's a little bit of a seeming like a,

Well,

Yeah,

I'm on board for that.

But there is a parallel and that's what I'm trying to get to.

Can you see just by that little story that often,

If not many times,

We find ourselves in this lower bunk,

In this lower place in ourselves,

A mistaken place,

And that when we finally see some of that,

To whatever extent we're able to see it,

The very awareness of how we have been led into the confinement of that lower bunk on that deck,

We immediately have this experience.

It's not conscious to us,

But in that split second,

Ah!

You know what?

My father's kingdom has many mansions,

One ship,

Many decks,

One life,

Two completely distinct natures.

One nature on this crowded,

Noisy lower deck,

The other on an open,

Spacious deck,

Meaning being able to discover constantly the new impressions that come flooding in because you're in the right place for that to do it.

Everything in this journey depends on A,

Being able to see when it is that in fact,

I don't know how I got here,

But suddenly I'm in this cramped,

Compromised experience that can't be separated from the reaction that my mind had to what he said or did.

In that split second of that reaction,

I'm literally transported into the bowels of that ship,

Into the darkness of this consciousness that only knows how to respond through those reactions.

And it isn't until I begin to see and suspect the truth of that,

I realize,

You know what?

It's starting to dawn.

I mean,

As a real time experience,

That there is another way for us to understand.

And perhaps it's always afterwards that you,

I,

I am not these reactions,

Nor am I any of the legion of associated thoughts and feelings that come with them.

Try to see it with me.

I don't know if it's difficult for you.

I go to a restaurant,

The waiter is disparaging.

I get on the phone,

Somebody is not doing what they're supposed to be.

I'm at work,

My husband,

My wife.

And you see in the moment that suddenly this nature looks out and sees that moment through what it expects or otherwise demands.

And then there is this curse summary reaction,

Boom.

In that moment,

What happened?

I'm in the web.

I'm in the web of thought.

I'm in the web of those negative reactions,

Which is the same as being on that lower cabin.

Because what are my choices in that moment?

Bring up the third insight,

Please,

Kate,

Before I get to the close of this material.

Read with me.

Discovering where you've been choosing against yourself is the same as finding the power you need to choose in favor of yourself.

Discovering where you've been choosing against yourself is the same as finding the power you need to choose against yourself is the same as turning the lead of that old conditioned nature into a consciousness that is awakening to the content of itself.

And in that awakening,

Integrating itself and liberating itself from its former conditioning.

This simple insight is saying that once we begin to suspect at any level that we can,

That up until that moment and probably right in the heart of it,

You see it with me.

When you have a negative reaction,

What are the possibilities?

What are the alternatives that any fearful,

Angry,

Regretful reaction has?

What are the possibilities?

It's amazing that we've never even looked at this.

I have spent my life living from an unconscious nature,

Lower deck,

That essentially knows only one of two ways to deal with anything that disturbs it.

A binary reaction where I fight or I take flight.

That's it.

That's all fear knows.

That's all anger knows.

Change,

Control,

Overcome the condition that you believe is threatening what you've imagined yourself to be,

Only to create some new kingdom for yourself that will be challenged again because it's imagined and it can't stand the test of time.

Or take flight,

Run,

Avoid,

Justify,

Explain,

Do anything other than deal with the fact that once again,

I'm situated in this moment in such a way that a reaction has come over me.

I'm tangled up in those thoughts and feelings.

I'm struggling to escape them.

The more I struggle to escape,

The more it draws in the nature that spun that web to consume me.

And it's possible to realize and see beyond the shadow of a doubt that that level is contained within something that will never be able to transcend itself because all it can do is imagine ways to escape itself,

And it can't.

And yet it is within that understanding that is the seed of this real magic,

That is the seed of this alchemical possibility,

This new metal,

This little bit of gold that can turn everything else that is brought into it into gold,

To make a golden moment out of everything that happens to you.

Now a golden moment isn't people applauding you.

A golden moment isn't getting a check in the mail.

A golden moment,

As lovely as it may be,

And it is,

To hear your husband or your wife look at you and say,

I love you.

We're not throwing out the things that this world can give us.

What we are saying is that the real golden moment is the moment in which we awaken to ourselves and realize that we are struggling with some form of thought or reaction that is summarily resisting the condition it blames for being all stressed out.

And then understand that right in that awakening itself,

Along with the higher awareness in which that web of thought and feelings is revealed,

Right in that is the true magic.

It's hidden right there.

Why?

Because in that moment,

Instead of being captured by this idea of why am I going through this process?

Why am I in this place?

Why is this happening to me?

A completely new possibility is born.

And what's the new possibility?

If you've been listening,

We understand that the magic we seek isn't the magic to turn someone into something that we want them to be.

It isn't the magic to be able to control conditions so as to derive some contrived wealth.

Or idea of it that will rescue me from my insecurity.

The real magic in those moments is understanding that within us already exists a nature and a higher understanding,

A divine light,

That if we can just come to a stop for a moment when we start to struggle and bring ourselves back into the awareness of ourselves,

We are bringing ourselves and that set of thoughts and feelings into this new awareness.

Because we have begun to gain a glimpse of this idea that no matter how dark,

No matter how old these fearful thoughts and feelings may be,

That if instead of serving them by struggling to escape them,

Let me rephrase that.

We actually serve our fears when we struggle to escape them because our fears are produced by an unconscious nature that has created imagined conditions where we'll be free.

So any form of resisting some unwanted reaction or thought is really you being complicit and allowing the continuity of that nature to hold you in that lower room,

Not up above.

Up above meaning what?

Meaning I can see from down here,

I can't see anything.

I'm in a little room surrounded by voices.

I'm in the heat of those reactions.

I'm lost in the labyrinth of all these ideals and opinions all beneath the deck.

But above,

Meaning in the awareness of what is below.

Not only do I realize that it is below,

But I realize that's not where I belong and I will not go there.

I cannot be tempted into dragging myself into another fight.

I can't be drawn into another set of comparative thoughts and feelings that seem to promise that I know the truth and someone else doesn't because there's nothing but conflict in any form of fight.

And I understand that I can't be drawn into it.

And the more a human being begins to work to understand this,

The more they bring all of these leaden,

Heavy,

Old matters of this conditioned mind.

We bring it into the gold of that light,

Into that golden light,

Into that divine awareness.

And under law,

Bringing anything that is old and conditioned into the new awareness of it,

Which includes inseparably the revelation that this indeed is a part of my experience,

But it is not the sum of myself.

And nor should I seek to escape myself by letting this fear,

Doubt,

Or worry tell me how to do it.

Because all it does is drive me deeper and deeper below deck.

No.

The answer is A,

Realize when you're angry or anxious,

Simply put,

You've been led into the wrong place.

You've been taken there so many times that it never even dawns on you that you're about to descend one more time into that same conflicted nature that promises you,

Well,

You'll have your own maitre d' in your little room.

No.

Something altogether happens.

And as it does,

And I'll close the talk with this,

I gave you the three insights.

Here's the summary of this.

Bring up the summary key lesson,

Please.

This is the real gold.

The real magic is you understanding that real life,

Real life never stops starting over.

It is the eternal showcase of the divine.

You will have and understand from yourself without ever having to take thought about it.

Bit by bit as you rise from the lower decks of this dysfunctional conditioned mind into the new air,

The new light,

The new openness of this awareness that by its presence acts upon that which is in the past.

And as it does,

As the gold acts upon the lead,

It purifies it.

It changes your relationship to your own consciousness.

This is the extraordinary thing that's so difficult to describe.

The real spiritual work brings you into a place above deck and there's no end to the decks above where you start to understand what has always been needed is for you to have a new relationship with your own consciousness that isn't a derivation of your old consciousness telling you what it means to be new.

You enter into this light,

This life,

This love,

That is newness itself,

That cannot be contaminated,

That cannot be corrupted,

And that can never be convinced that the solution to the suffering that is inherent in a mind that is still asleep to itself,

It can never be convinced or otherwise dragged into considering anything that that nature brings up as necessary for consideration.

It doesn't have to think about how to be free.

It is freedom itself.

Your relationship with the gold of that light,

With that golden light,

Transforms all that is past and old,

All that is dead into something that is alive and new and never fearful because it always knows that this leaden moment,

This spider web of thoughts and feelings,

It knows it can be dissolved on the spot and that you can begin to take these steps as you're willing to take them away and out of,

If you will,

Who and what you've been into the real magic of who you are,

The real success of who you are.

This is the truth behind every teaching.

We just have to go through hell and high water,

I guess,

Until we start discovering how wasteful,

How useless it is to spend our time trying to figure out how to escape a condition that is a creation of an unconscious nature.

And instead of trying to escape the condition out in the world,

We begin to bring that unconscious nature into this golden light,

Into this new awareness.

And it does the work.

It shows us a new relationship and we enter into that relationship that it reveals and we are released from ourselves and at last know what it means to be a successful human being because we never leave the moment that we were in without having been changed by the moment that we agreed.

That's about it.

Just remember as best you can that the part of you that keeps calling you doesn't call you to try to create a new life.

It calls you to see through the old life and to release as you are able all of the attachments and identification to the conditioned consciousness that has made that kingdom in its own image.

It is as you leave one world that you are brought into the other.

They're not separate events.

There's no sudden appearance of the kingdom of heaven and lo and behold,

I'm saved.

The kingdom of heaven cannot be separated from the light,

The awareness that shows you that you were in a kingdom that was disparate to it so that it's always in concert.

Stop trying to create isolated events by which you find comfort.

Find the real comfort of knowing that who you are in reality cannot be caught up in any dark web of thoughts and feelings.

And as you make that discovery,

You will naturally and necessarily begin to let it go.

You'll begin to no longer want to be who and what you have been and that wish to no longer be who and what you have been is the call of the divine to enter into its life where your being is in fact eternal,

Full of light and can never be corrupted.

Oh,

And one last thing,

And while it may be engaged in this world and do what it feels,

Do what you feel is necessary,

It never ever compromises itself in order to try to control something that it fears.

The attempt to control a fear is fear's effort to hide itself behind the condition that you fear.

The more you see that,

The more fearless you'll become because the light of that gold will begin to separate the dross of those dark thoughts and feelings,

And you will be brought out of it.

Goodbye.