Our topic is what it means to be yourself,
And connected to the idea of being yourself is this idea of freeing yourself.
And in truth,
There is no separation between being oneself and being free.
They are synonymous.
And the reason that we are not free,
As we are not,
At least not as we imagine ourselves to be,
Is because we don't know what it means to be ourself.
That's what I'm going to look at over the next three meetings,
Today,
Wednesday night during our discovery,
Excuse me,
Today,
Tomorrow,
Sunday,
And then Wednesday night again.
Kind of like three views to discover the real you.
So I think what we'll do is get started now.
Nice deep breath,
Bring yourself back into your body,
Here,
Now,
Aware of yourself.
Here's a woman and she's visiting a town,
Her sister,
And she realizes she didn't pack the right clothes for the climate.
And so she runs to the nearest,
Largest department store.
And she walks in and there's always,
As you know,
These signs that say,
Blah,
Blah,
Blah,
First floor,
Second floor,
Third floor,
Fourth floor,
So forth and so on.
And she looks for what she's looking for,
Which is some kind of a,
We'll say,
A winter jacket and it says,
Second floor.
And so she runs up to the second floor and when she gets up there,
She goes from pillar to post,
Literally examining every corner.
And the more she wanders through the second floor,
She doesn't find anything even related to a winter jacket.
There's pots and pans,
There's coffee makers,
There's household goods.
And gradually she begins to lose her temper.
But she thinks to herself,
Well,
I'm going to go back.
And she looks again,
First floor,
It says second floor,
Goes back up there again,
Nothing.
Finally out of desperation and with some irritation,
She goes to one of the supervisors on the second floor and says,
You know what,
What kind of place is this?
And he says,
What are you speaking of,
Ma'am?
The sign below says second floor,
Winter jackets.
And he says,
I'm sorry.
We recently let go of a disgruntled employee and we know that that employee has snuck back in over the last three days and changed the location signs of different things.
And so your frustration is because you are looking in the wrong place.
You won't find what you're looking for on the second floor.
What you are looking for is on the fourth floor.
And if you go there,
You will find it.
Well,
In a strange parallel,
What if I told you that a disgruntled employee,
If you will,
That there is a part of this consciousness that is dedicated to seeing that we spend our lives looking for ourselves in all the wrong places.
And we'll see as we go through this material this morning,
Today,
This evening,
Exactly what I'm talking about.
And it is as we make this discovery that we are delivered into a new order of intelligence,
A new kind of awareness,
That for the fact of it and for the fact of our embracing it,
We find ourselves in the right place at the right time doing the correct thing in order to be part of who and what we are and discover the innate freedom in that creative life.
So with that,
Let's get started.
I've asked Kate to post three key lessons today,
And they will come up in their appropriate time and order.
And each one forwards the entire story of what it is that we need to look at and understand if we are going to actually realize what it means to be ourselves.
So if you will,
When she posts these so that everybody can read along with me and then have the entire key lesson to copy,
Or when they come back to watch or listen to this,
Be able to do the same.
So here we go.
Kate,
May we have the first key lesson,
Please?
Read along with me if you wish.
The path to our inner home is hidden within each revelation we're given to see as being the truth of ourselves in that moment.
Its appearance is inseparable from the will of a ceaseless stream of celestial forces that as they move into and through us,
Integrate us into their living waters.
Now,
What does that mean in simple terms?
It means that who and what we are cannot be separated from all that exists in the moment of our being that is producing the awareness of our being and what comes out of that awareness as a result of it.
Now I'll tell you even simpler.
There's a beautiful old story about a rabbi,
A rabbi,
His name was Ben Asher.
He was a 12th century,
1270 to 1300 something,
An old rabbi.
And on his deathbed,
The story goes,
He's laying there and of course all of the disciples,
All the other young rabbis who have studied with him,
Still waiting to glean,
Still waiting in the proper sense for the new impression that comes from the vine into the branch.
In this instance,
The teacher being the branch.
And in this instance,
Understanding that the teacher and the branch and the vine live within each of us at all times.
They're waiting for him to say something and all of a sudden it said that he,
He sits up on his deathbed and he has this astonished look on his face.
And they eagerly ask him,
Rabbi,
What's going on?
And he says,
I spent my whole life preparing to answer the one question that I thought God was going to ask me.
And lo and behold,
I've come back to tell you,
It didn't turn out the way I thought.
What did you think that God was going to ask you,
Rabbi?
And with his dying breath,
He said,
I thought God was going to ask me,
Why wasn't I more like Moses,
The great leader of our people?
But instead he asked me,
Why were you not more like rabbi Ben Asher?
Why weren't you more like yourself?
Not who and what you imagined you needed to be in order to please whatever the gods are that you believe require you pleasing them.
Try and see this with me.
In fact,
I'll tell you a story.
Take a nice deep breath.
This may help explain it.
Once upon a time,
There was a running man.
And over the years that he was running in the city that he lived,
He began to draw attention to himself because he never walked anywhere.
Literally from his apartment,
Wherever he was going,
He was running.
And from time to time,
He would,
And it became part of his,
What shall I say,
His character,
The story.
From time to time,
He'd throw his arms open like he was crossing a finish line.
I said that a little like Sean Connery,
Didn't I?
My jaw isn't working this morning.
He'd throw his arms open like he was crossing a finish line.
From far and wide,
The story of his life spread out and even kind of like Forrest Gump.
And at a certain point,
People even began to run with him because he always had a certain dedicated look on his face.
And he was known as someone,
He was like a CEO.
He was successful.
So people thought,
Well,
If I just do what he does,
I'll be successful too.
So they were running with him.
And then one day,
He just stops running and no one sees him.
Now we have in some of our stories,
A wise reporter,
Someone who wants to learn from these various phenomena that appear in all over the world,
Where there may be something innate hiding in the story.
Something he can learn from the story,
Much like the young Rabbis wanted to learn from Ben Asher.
And so he goes and he knocks on the door of the runner,
The running man.
And man answers,
He's fine,
Invited in.
And the reporter says,
I don't want to trouble you,
But I have to know what happened.
You had gained popularity.
You were successful,
Not just in your life,
But as a running man.
Why did you stop running?
And the running man said,
It's hard to explain.
But I realized my whole life,
I had been running to find myself,
Not so much running toward things,
But running away from the fear of what would happen if I stopped running toward those things.
If I stopped winning those trophies that the world had to offer.
And I just realized one day that I never stopped long enough to be myself.
You have to plug yourself into these stories.
You have to see what have I spent my whole life trying to be?
What I call myself,
But what I'm trying to be that I call myself is all of the images and the beliefs,
The social and cultural,
The economic and religious values that say,
This is,
If you can just be this,
If you can just get there,
If you can just get through this one more time,
If you could just,
Just,
Just,
Just run.
And we run all the time.
We don't hear the starting gun called thought.
Boom.
What about this?
Bang.
What about that?
Boom.
What if you,
What if you don't make it?
What if you fall down?
Then then people are going to see,
Oh,
My run,
Run,
Run.
And no one who runs will ever know their true nature.
Because when we run,
We are not running towards freedom.
We are listening without knowing it to some conditioned fear,
Not even our own.
They tell us that if we should stop running,
If we should stop preparing to be seen and to do and to get to acquire,
If we stop all of that,
Life will come to an end.
And because we never stop running,
There is no end to the running man,
The running thoughts,
The running fears.
We've never stopped long enough to be ourselves.
Kate,
Let's bring up the second key lesson,
Please.
We are not called to be more than we are,
Let alone to judge ourselves when we see that we have missed the mark.
Rather,
We are here to discover all that we have been given and how,
If we dare accept this unimaginable gift,
We will see it multiplied a hundredfold.
We are not called to be more than we are.
What is it that we,
What is it that we're tortured by?
Is that we have to do one more thing.
We have to get one more thing.
We have to rush through one more to be what,
What I must be.
We're not called to be more than we are in that moment,
Let alone to judge ourselves as we do so mercilessly when we think we missed the mark.
I didn't make it.
People saw me fall down.
People saw me not know the answer.
Oh my God.
Now they know I'm not what I pretend to be.
Rather,
We are here to discover in every moment all that we have been given,
Not all that we're trying to prove.
Can you see the difference?
Running to prove means that I am forever in some strange unconscious process of measuring who I am and should be according to my own past,
Which isn't my past at all.
The things that we believe in and run toward and hope the fears we hope to avoid,
Not one of those is yours.
They all belong to an unconscious nature that has been so thoroughly conditioned and conditions itself continually now into believing that the sense of self derived from this endless race somehow or other is the same as crossing a finish line.
But we have to learn what it means to accept this gift that we are being given.
This gift of being in the moment and what being in the moment means,
What it reveals to us,
If we want,
As is mentioned in all scriptures,
East and West,
To be increased,
To have our life,
Our understanding of life increased a hundredfold.
So take a nice deep breath,
Make a transition.
You don't see it very well from time to time.
It may be inescapable,
But there is an endless invitation that is rolled out,
That is sent out just for you.
Nobody else gets the same invitation that requires that particular path to the kingdom.
But every invitation comes from the kingdom,
So that no one who is invited to become a God realized man or woman,
Using those words carefully,
No one who is invited into that infinite relationship with what is divine,
Is given the same directions,
Even though every direction leads to the same divine kingdom.
And those invitations,
They lay unopened on the floor.
One day you'll see it,
It's stunning.
If we were able to see every moment,
And every moment is an invitation to be who and what we are,
We would see that the floor,
Wherever we are,
Is littered with invitations.
And then we wonder why we don't have this freedom that is inseparable from a divine,
A relationship with the divine.
So let's look at this together.
Can you find anything in the universe,
And I mean you have to use your own mind at that level,
Can you find anything in the universe that isn't created for the specific purpose of fulfilling a task that only it can do?
Anything.
If I could turn my camera around,
I'm looking out at the dark woods,
It's cold and foggy here in Southern Oregon,
The mountains,
Not a lot of color.
The sun that my wife loves so much is hiding out,
Doing what it does.
The trees,
The grasses,
Frankie the turkey who's right here looking at me while I talk,
The deer,
Every last blade of grass has a purpose that is specific to itself.
Because there isn't one blade of grass,
Not one Frankie,
Not one turkey,
Not one tata,
Not one deer,
Not one tree,
Not one leaf,
Not one of these creatures is the same as all others.
I don't know if you've ever marveled at it.
We flew back and forth from Florida to give a talk there.
It's an amazing thing.
You will never see a human being other than twins,
And even that is perceptible,
A difference.
Every human being,
Completely different look,
Completely different voice,
Different fingerprint.
So there's nothing that's created that isn't created uniquely,
And because it's created uniquely and acted on by what creates it,
It is created to respond in a unique way.
From the most distant cluster of stars to a microscopic strand of DNA,
Everything is created to receive what it is being given by the broader life and light that it is manifested in and from,
And in receiving that,
It is created to respond to it in only the way that that particular manifestation,
That convergent of essential forces of matter can respond.
Nothing else can do it.
Now I want to say this is not meant to be motivational,
Far from it,
Because when you realize there is no one like you,
And because there is no one like who you really are,
Then you begin to realize that no one but who you are can give back to the broader world what it is being asked to give back to it when it is acted on.
And that means that when something happens that causes suffering,
And I don't like it when I'm resisting tooth and nail,
What I believe is some negative moment come to take from me what is valuable,
I am looking at and throwing the invitation to belong to another order of being where being myself is the order.
It's inseparable from the fourth floor,
From the new order,
The new kingdom that we are not just created to recognize and enter into as a conscious participant,
But to realize that the invitation is never not being extended to us in every single moment that we're alive.
It's stunning really,
Our life is meant to be an almost,
To be,
Not almost,
To be a ceaseless contribution back to the fulfillment of what is being asked in the moment of us as part of that moment,
So that the whole of that moment,
Including all of creation,
Can be reconciled appropriately,
Made perfect,
Karma handled,
Everything resolved and free in that moment and then to experience that again and to know the endless experience of that transformation that only you and I can go through as a contributor to the celestial life,
So that our life takes on a completely different meaning,
Because we have a completely new understanding of what it means to be who and what we are.
We keep trying to prove that we're different than other people by pursuing or otherwise trying to possess the things that we believe will make us unique,
So that we're always running to get there,
To get it done,
To own it,
To escape it,
And it never dawns on us that every last human being is running around on the first floor,
Hoping to find what can only be found on the fourth floor,
Meaning looking for a way to be at peace with themselves.
And if what I've said is true,
That there can be no one like you,
Because no one has been given what you were given when you came into this world,
And what you were given in this world is inseparable from the world that gave it to you so that it could participate,
Be a continual aspect of what unfolds,
And that unfolding is freedom itself.
And if that's true,
What I've said,
And we can even begin to suspect,
How much time,
How much effort and energy do I give to whatever the starting gun is,
That fear,
That worry,
That anxiety,
How much time do I give running to try to come to a finish line?
And I will speak of this further.
And when fear starts the race,
There is no finish line,
Because it isn't you running,
But it is you paying the toll,
The cost of being involved in being that,
In that identification with what this impossible nature promises will perfect us and free us.
So here's the point to this part.
My life,
Your life,
Has its own teachings.
The lessons that come to me,
I get up this morning at five o'clock,
My mind was interested in working out something,
And it became more interesting to me to go through that process.
My life has its own teachings.
Your life has its own teachings.
And the lessons that are inherent in those teachings,
No one else can receive.
No one else can know in the moment that they are given that epiphany and they see the broader world in which this freedom is part of their very nature.
No one else can know in that moment what you can know in that same moment,
Even though,
And this is what's so beautiful.
All of these lessons belong to a single curriculum,
So that the teachings in my life are not the same as the teachings in your life,
And yet they belong to the same curriculum,
The same celestial curriculum.
Maybe you're always anxious.
Maybe you know somebody that doesn't seem to have that kind of anxiety,
But maybe they have a greed that you don't know about or a compulsion that you can't see.
So that every last human being in the unique way in which we are constituted as we incarnate into these physical forms and the various energies that produce them,
Every incarnated being is in one respect incomplete as it takes on the incarnation.
But part of its incarnation is its capacity to find itself being ceaselessly completed by the Creator,
So that we are incomplete and always being completed if we will accept what it means to be ourselves in that moment,
Which is to see ourselves as we are and to allow that correction,
Allow that transformation to be made.
If what I've described of every creature in the universe is true,
That every last thing is created to consistently be perfected and to participate in an invisible,
Infinite,
Timeless role,
How can that be not true for us?
And if we find out that truth,
Which is what all true teachings are about,
Any teaching that tells you you're this and you're that and you're special and you're this,
All that's trash.
Nobody that wants something from you has anything to give you.
But we can see that life,
That the Divine never stops giving us opportunities to see and discover who we are,
Our true nature.
And everything hinges on that.
If I find myself anxious and rushing,
Isn't that in the moment a teaching?
What am I being taught?
I'm being taught that I'm getting ready to run again.
And what I'm being taught in seeing myself getting ready to run again is that I've been running all my life.
You have to fill in the blanks.
I can't do it for you.
So the lesson is there's something in me that believes that if I just get through it one more time,
If I just manage,
Cope,
If I just do it one more time,
Then I'll be free.
And I'm not,
Because I still answer the same Master,
And it is not the true Master.
When we understand the true Master,
Which is inseparable from the light of awareness that brings to us the awareness of where it is that we have been in the dark and not knowing it,
Where it is that we've been serving false gods,
The God of tomorrow,
The God of the past,
The God of who I will be when,
The God of what I must do,
The power I must acquire to change you,
All of those false gods,
None of them,
I'll say all of them rather,
Are revealed as being false when we are true to ourselves,
Because in being true to ourselves,
We can see the truth of ourselves as it is given to us in that moment to see.
No one can teach you this.
I'm going to be 75 in a few weeks,
And it isn't just until recently that I've realized you can't make a river go faster.
You can't change the waters that come down it,
But you can have a new relationship with it.
And when you have a new relationship with what is timeless with Spirit,
Then you are participant in that Spirit.
You are participant in the movement of those waters,
Not you standing in the middle of them trying to take from them what you want.
So let me bring up the last key lesson for today.
I would urge you to write this down or come back and listen to this again.
Not because,
How shall I say,
I'll say it affirmatively,
Because within it is a tremendous secret.
You'll know you are approaching the true meaning of what it means to be yourself when every moment,
Regardless its nature,
Enhances your love of life and where no moment,
Regardless its nature,
Has the power to diminish the life you've been given to love.
You'll know you're approaching the true meaning of what it means to be yourself when every moment,
Regardless its nature,
Enhances your love of life and where no moment,
Regardless its nature,
Has the power to diminish the life that you have been given to love.
See that's freedom.
I can't add anything to myself.
That's impossible.
What man taking thought can add one cubit to his stature.
But neither can anything be taken from who I am because anything that even appears like it is being taken is being taken as the opportunity to see that I'm being given a new understanding of this part of me that doesn't want to let go,
Wants to cling to it.
Imagine and you'll see it clearly one day and as you do you'll understand with increasing effortlessness what it means to be yourself.
Imagine for a moment that there you are and for a split second you understand that in order to actually be myself in this moment,
Not only am I going to have to receive what this moment is giving me,
Showing me,
Stirring in me,
Not only am I going to have to receive it,
But I'm going to have to give myself to that revelation.
When I try to protect myself,
Which is so much of what this sensation of ourself is,
What we call being ourselves,
And it's so ludicrous.
The world is over the edge in case it's not clear to you.
We believe that somehow or other that life brings to us painful experiences that are painful because of what others have done and because of their ignorance we need to fix and correct them.
So we're going to create laws,
Going to develop and change the meaning of words so that the words will no longer have the meaning they did,
But rather they will be meaningful to who and what we have imagined we must be in order to be free.
And that's a dead system and it's dying.
But you can live.
You can live by learning what it means to be yourself.
And to be yourself cannot be separated from what it means to see yourself unadorned,
To see yourself without adding anything,
To see yourself without fearing something being taken from you,
To watch.
You can't watch when you're running.
The running man realized there was a race that could never be won.
And God help you,
God help all of us to step out of that race and to understand that if I'm ever going to be myself,
I'm going to have to be still long enough to see myself,
To understand myself as I am.
And as I do that,
To close this part of the talk,
Open it up to you,
You find out that everything that you need has already been given to you.
Who and what,
How shall I say,
That everything that is disturbed by the moment is made new by the same moment.
If I allow the relationship between the active and passive forces to carry out what they have been given to do by the fourth floor,
By the kingdom that has arranged that marriage,
Then I'm reborn.
I become a new man and that,
A new woman,
And that is who you really are.
That is your true self.
And it is being reborn.
It is in knowing that you are being given a new understanding,
A new revelation,
Regardless its nature,
You're never not being given that.
And if you're never not being given that,
Then you're never not being set free from who and what you were the moment before.
Consider that,
Contemplate it,
And more importantly,
Do everything that you can,
As we've described,
To recognize,
As that last key lesson said,
Nothing can take anything from you,
Nor can anything give to you more than the revelation that who and what you are is always where it needs to be so that it can participate in the perfection of creation,
And not just your own perfection as a willing soul,
But the entire world that you live in is touched in every moment that you agree to be touched and changed,
Being where you are and giving and doing what you're given to do,
What you're given to be.
Okay,
So over to you.
We have six minutes,
If you want,
Suggestions on how to help children along their unique life path,
Particularly in being with the lessons provided,
Especially where the outer world teaches popular culture,
Be yourself.
We live in a world where it's literally,
Don't be as I am,
Do as I say.
Because when I'm telling you to do what I say you need to do to be free,
I actually imagine in that moment that I'm free.
I'm not free when I'm identified with anything.
Identification is captivity.
So I want to teach children.
How do I teach children?
I must begin myself by being free.
Do you know that when a man or a woman gains some modicum of true freedom,
They can never be coerced into participating in the lie that promises freedom in a time to come.
It's impossible for them.
I'm telling you that you cannot be complicit in the continuation of the past.
You cannot be complicit in the thickening of the conditioning of the minds of the people around you.
You can't.
And when you are actually like that,
The people around you will be attracted or they will run from you and hate you for not being part of what they say freedom requires.
And let them run.
They go nowhere.
And one day,
Because of the great curriculum,
They will have to see they ran nowhere.
Children,
More attention paid to what you do,
Yes.
The fourth floor,
Yes.
Fixed images of ourselves that have no life in them.
No,
They don't.
What I call being myself is forever trying to protect myself or possess something new through which I can know myself anew.
That's not anew.
That's not new.
There is a sacrifice required to be new.
And for the longest time,
It doesn't seem that it's worthwhile to do because better to know who and what I am than to not know who and what I am if I should follow along these lines of agreeing,
You know what,
I'm not going to run right now.
I'm going to realize to be myself,
I have to stop fear for a minute.
And when you stop for a minute,
Even in the smallest way and become still,
And I'm going to go into this on Wednesday,
Next Wednesday,
You feel the momentum of fear that you always took to be your movement.
And it's not.
And the only way that you begin to be yourself and to know that you are,
That God did not make the spirit of fear in you is when at last you understand.
I'm never going to be myself by trying to get somewhere where I'll find myself.
It's impossible.
I've had this mantra,
Everything is up for evaluation.
Is that kind of what you mean?
Not really,
Cheryl.
Evaluation requires comparison.
I'm speaking to you about what it means to be yourself as something beyond compare,
Beyond the past,
Cheryl.
That's the fourth floor.
That's the first floor.
That's the first,
The nature that never can stop looking to the past to know what to do and where to run in the moment.
So we're not looking at a life where we compare what's happening,
Evaluate it,
And then decide because I can intellectually come up with some spiritual icon or some divine ideal and then cling to that ideal as a remedy to the feeling of being run.
No.
If I'm actually aware that when I'm off in thought,
Caught in a fear,
Running with some anxiety,
If I actually am aware of that in the moment,
It ends.
It ends because the observer of that consciousness,
No matter how minutely it takes place,
Changes the nature of that consciousness in the moment.
Just like that.
And you begin to acquire,
To use the word properly,
An understanding of that relationship between the observer and the observed so that you start to see the futility of evaluating a moment.
Look,
If I'm in business and I sell apples and oranges,
I have to evaluate the recent prices.
Did the winter mess up the crop?
I have to decide what's best on a practical level.
But when it comes to spirituality,
Evaluation is a loser's game.
You've lost the moment the mind starts to compare the past to what it calls the present because it doesn't know the present when it's in the past doing that evaluation.
Please speak more about sacrifice.
Every lesson,
Every true lesson received involves a sacrifice.
But because every true lesson is unique to every individual in the truth of themselves,
That means that the experience of sacrifice,
While it produces the outcome of rebirth,
Meaning freedom,
The experience can only be known by the individual who is given to see in that moment that who and what they have been can no longer continue to run the race for them.
How about living from the fourth floor versus pseudo-living from the first?
I'm curious about the practical integration,
Yeah.
There's no one that will ever be able to explain that to you.
The fourth floor holds the first floor,
Meaning higher awareness,
Higher consciousness is inclusive of everything beneath it.
But what is beneath a new understanding,
Beneath a higher consciousness knows nothing at all of what is above it.
And so all it can do is evaluate and then try to organize what is below into something it calls above.
You will know how this integration takes place as you enter into this new understanding that incorporates and integrates all that has been without tying you down into an identification with it and certainly leaving you free to continue the process of discovery.
And I see this long note from Lashondria,
But I've got to go on.
We'll capture that note,
Lashondra,
And I'll address it when I speak either on Sunday or Wednesday.
I hope you'll join me.
I hope all of you will join me as we continue our work of what it means to be ourselves,
Of what it takes to be patient and kind,
To be free.
Bye.
