Find A Life Free Of Stress And Sorrow GF Live 8-31-25

My intention for our time on Insight Timer today is to actually we can bring up the talk title it will call it out and then I'll briefly discuss it if Kate you can throw that up please.

The talk title is A Single Realization to Help You Transcend Fear Sorrow and Old Regrets.

A Single Realization.

One day with and by the grace of what is divine you'll understand certain truths that are elusive now because of the way our mind works or I should say doesn't work.

How many times do you have to wake up from a nightmare in the middle of the night to realize that you were having a dream and that whatever or whoever that nature was that felt like you running from that monster or living in fear of a condition as it impends upon that wow haha I was asleep I didn't know I was asleep crazy how could something be so real in one world and now in this world where I'm laying in bed with my eyes open grateful for the fact that I awoke that it could be so different a single realization in what a single realization that there are different worlds and that it's capable meaning it's possible for us as human beings to awaken from this life much as we awaken from the life that we were living in fear of in that dream so it's not just awakening from a dream life it's actually a form of awakening from this dream that we call life and I know it's familiar it's we get it but we don't and I'm going to do everything I can in my power to help you understand the nature of this dream and how we awaken from it and our responsibility to that revelation once we have that new realization that indeed allows us to transcend these fears these sorrows and regrets so a quick story to set the stage here's a good father he has a brother who is visiting him from out of state and the brother and the father take the son of the father whose name is Joshua a young man young boy will make him seven six seven years old and Joshua has this favorite amusement park that he likes to go to oh and no sooner do they park the car than Joshua's running or across the parking lot to the main gate and brother says to Joshua well that boy is on a mission isn't he yes he is he said you won't believe it so the brother and the father run around following Joshua as he runs literally from let's say three different rides and he runs from one two three he goes back to one and each ride that he exits the brother of the father can't help but notice that when Joshua comes out of that ride he's either white with terror shaking in excitement or maybe even tearful for whatever it takes place inside of that ride but he still runs to the next ride and after about an hour of this strange circulation that Joshua is going through the brother asks the father he the brother asked his brother his brother say what you know what's going on I mean it's not in my business but what's taking place and the father says Josh doesn't really care whether the ride he's on is fearful or exciting and most of these rides that he goes on they're a little bit of both he's but the brother said well I kind of understand that and I not meddling but I mean it's almost like he's addicted to whatever it is that's scaring him on these rides because he can't wait to get back on the ride and the father nods in agreement he says yeah and I hope he'll outgrow it but right now Josh loves any form of stimulation that makes him feel alive and apparently he doesn't care about the nature of those feelings so hopefully when he grows up he will out grow he'll get over this strange addiction that you have pointed out as being a fact now hold that story that metaphor in mind when I say to you what about you and I we know that Josh is going to go through a set of iterations he's going to gradually mature and grow into this mature body he's going to age and we also know that like ourselves he will eventually become whatever is socially mandated or beyond that he be sophisticated that he be cool and collected outwardly and that under no circumstances as is true for us is he to show this kind of fear or this excitement or this suffering so the point is that he outgrows the body by which his father can explain away this strange addiction to stimulation but the truth is and we know it's true Josh never outgrows the need for that stimulation he never outgrows that that attraction to whatever it is that takes place in his psychology where instead of letting a ride where there's monsters or dragons or demons instead of letting a ride frighten him now he frightens himself with images that his own mind makes of something that may or may not happen in the future or by revisiting something that took place in the past so outwardly he changes inwardly he we still live with self-induced stress we still live compromised by tormenting thoughts and feelings I'm asking you to look at this with me if not in a dream that when you awaken and you're laying in that half state between dream and getting ready for your day have you not noticed how your mind is talking to you about what isn't resolved and what needs to get done or what might happen if this goes that way if things go south how you're going to need to make these changes the mind is just wrestling and wrestling with something that it is holding in it as an image that isn't the fact but it is imagining a condition and as it imagines a condition created by its own content it does what it has a subsequent reaction to the image that it is holding up as something outside of the mind that's holding it there are you able to understand me so far you able to follow me what I'm saying I mean we use the word addict for a boy a good little girl who can't wait to go do get have this because of the excitement that it causes this is natural at that level it's inescapable but if we look at this as a kind of as the onset of a kind of addiction meaning something that is that one is drawn to in spite of what that moment the addict meets delivers him into the addict believes that it is he or she who loves the temp this the experience of the substance whatever it might be but hates the experience of it after it's ingested or thought through so that the addict has a love-hate relationship with what that addictive nature is attracted to it can't help itself any more than Josh could stop running as it were from pillar to post to get on those rides so here's the point and I've spoken about this before Christ said you cannot serve two masters you'll love one and deserve and and despise the other an addict loves the consolation the pleasure the comfort of what he or she is addicted to but shortly thereafter hates the fact of their own weakness so they love one and they despise the other but what despises itself is the same nature that's attracted to the stimulation in whatever that substance may be including our own thoughts and feelings including our own reactions can you follow me we're getting ready to make an important transition so Josh you and I in scale have no idea whatsoever that my mind like Josh's mind wants the thrill we don't know that our mind wants the thrill of reliving a tormented experience it seems incomprehensible that my mind would actually project some fearful outcome so that as I experience the reaction to the image the mind has made I then think to myself oh my god what am I gonna do my mind brings up a regret you don't bring up the regret sweet God if you could just see that the regret appears on its own when it's triggered by some condition thought just pulls it out of that dark closet of skeletons and says look at this and you go oh god oh now what am I gonna do because what's happening is that consciousness is re-experiencing that which took place in the past and as it does it doesn't want the experience it's giving itself and the solution to that consciousness is what it is understood when we see the fact of how it works because clearly if I was aware of the fact that my mind is bringing up something to come or that has been and that what it brings up to come or that has been doesn't exist outside of whatever the mind is with its condition content calling it that I wouldn't be challenged by the moment there'd be no challenge at all there'd be no dragons for me to slay no demons to overcome no shadows to fight with because the mind that's creating them is recognized as being a mind that's creating them we just don't think that's true we all have reasons and good excuses for why we suffer failing to see that every reason we have for what's took place that we don't want or what may happen has never changed the fact that this nature continues to create these pictures these positions psychological that we then fight with so just as it's true with Josh and that nature so is it true with us this is a transition we are presently unaware that it is not I that first creates this stimulating sense of self born out of reacting to what the mind has pictured and once that nature looks at the image it has made it goes oh no not that and then what happens it's stimulated that it has this reaction oh no not that and then that same nature without any understanding at all that it has created what it is reacting to does what if it's pleasurable I want more of that I love that sensation how do I have more of that sensation eat more of that food go more places to be distracted I hate that sensation why is she like that she isn't like that though her character may have those qualities you are experiencing a reaction to that character with a corresponding sensation that is painful and negative because we're summarily trying to get rid of or change what we blame for the stimulation when the stimulation is connected to a level of being that has no idea whatsoever that it is addicted to reliving those stimulating sensations so that it can continue as someone who knows who they are what to do and what has to happen next so I want to make a transition I'm asking you to dig a bit with me today and if you join me tomorrow where you know you can we'll go we'll examine this even more thoroughly but this is mandatory I know none of us like that word some of us just believe that saying I love Jesus or that I love Buddha or that I'm I'm a passive way that the thought that I am something is the same as being that if if that was true do you think there would be all of this hostility these sudden the sudden appearance of this violence inside of us if just saying that I'm something or that I love someone actually means that I am that life proves it all the time that we're nothing like what we say we love because in the moment the condition triggers the conflict this consciousness that knows only one thing to do which is to describe to itself what just happened react to its own description react to its own description and in the reaction to its own description have the familiar sensations that validate and prove that that reaction is reasonable and that the problem lies outside of us so I'm asking you can you see our present nature the way it is can any of the sensations that it has exist without a play of the opposites can there be any sensation any form of stimulation without a play of the opposites now what does that mean let's go slow don't don't think oh no then you're gone why you have a reaction the reaction is negative you're filled with that sensation all you know to do is follow that those dark steps right down into the basement we cannot have a sensation without the play of the opposites where something active meets something passive this is one of the great laws of existence the will of heaven on the will of earth something active passive all sensation is born out of the meeting of these opposing forces there is no sensation without the meeting of these opposing forces for instance how do you know when something's cold it's cold relative to the skin that it touches because the temperature of the skin of the blood as opposed to the temperature of what is showering you instantaneously gives you the sensation that you recognize as God that's cold water you wouldn't know it was cold water if there wasn't something passive responding to what acts on it you put something in your mouth my god what is that that's so sour how do I know it's sour because whatever is active in terms of the chemicals in what went into my mouth touches the appropriate parts of my mouth taste buds that in their passive state now register what that tastes like and go oh that's our oh I I love that that's so sweet can I have another bite and regardless of whether it's a positive or negative reaction it's still the same we are defined by the relationship we have to that sensation because it tells us I want none of that or I want more of that and we believe that we're the ones choosing that love or despise moment of that condition that we're in I'll slow down I have to ask again are you able to follow me so far I'm weaving something incredibly important good so a little bit further explanation to see this our present nature is asleep to itself we don't know what that means we have moments where we realize it I didn't do the good I would I did the evil I would not how did that happen I was asleep and then I excused the sleep instead of understanding the nature itself that met that moment is sleep so what we're getting at here is that this nature divides every experience into a me that's having this sensation and into another me that recognizes what it calls the cause of that sensation a me that's having this experience this sensation this reaction and a me that says oh I know what's causing that as if the cause of the sensation is separate from the sensation that we experience in that condition and it's not but let me keep going once that sensation is there if I like it I simply want more if I don't I want to avoid that so again suddenly I find myself loving one and despising the other it's built into this divided nature that says it knows the cause of the reaction of the sensations that produces but it doesn't know it at all because if it really knew the cause it would be able to not just resolve that problem it would reconcile that unconscious nature and it would outgrow it so our difficulty I must keep going is not with sensation itself our difficulty is not with the stimulation itself st.

Paul we struggle not with flesh and blood ie sensations but with powers and principalities meaning with an interior government that we have no idea has authority over us and that we're always without knowing it doing its bidding because every time it brings up through this unconscious nature some form of reaction in the sensation we blame the condition and we fight with the condition we fight with others we fight with our own past because we are given the the illusion we're subject to the illusion that whatever it is that my mind is looking at as the source of my suffering is in fact the source of my suffering no the source of my suffering is inherent in that nature itself and so we become caught up in this terribly restless cycle where confusion follows anxiety anxiety gives rise to a new plan a new plan produces a new image and all we do is find ourselves constantly running around and around and around which is like imagine I had this image a lion have you ever seen a lion laying there or even a cat and and its tail is constantly flickering you know imagine a cat or a lion that doesn't know its own tail is doing this flipping action and and it gets irritated every time it looks at the movement of its own tail not knowing that its body is actually moving the tail and it's not separate from the nature that is now upset because it's moving so here we come to an incredibly important point and much to the topic of our title which is a single realization to help you outgrow transcend fear sorrow and old regrets and here's the transition please don't throw this away it never it never really dawns on us until much later in our spiritual work that just because a we say we love something doesn't mean that we understand the love responsible for its existence for that lesson that inside or just because we have a mechanical reaction of throwing away that insight or that lesson because it doesn't fit or more accurately because we were conditioned in such a way that we can't stand anything that brings that up that feeling up again there's this idea that I want to examine with you something that Christ said and I haven't looked it up but I guarantee you there are corresponding teachings in all true scripture he said the light dwells in the darkness and the darkness comprehends it not the light dwells in the darkness and the darkness comprehends it not what does that mean it means exactly what I've been describing to you over the last 24 minutes there is a lower nature the darkness and this lower nature is a fallen level of self to use words and that fallen nature this lower nature that lives in the dark in which this light dwells but this darkness does not know that this lower level of self knows nothing about itself I mean it knows nothing about itself it says it knows everything do you not do you not know everything when you make a mistake only you don't know you've made a mistake until something begins to tell you here's why you did that as if the explanation for why I hurt you or hurt myself is the same as understanding the nature that caused it and it's not so it says it knows everything about itself that's this dark nature this unconscious nature as opposed to the aim of our true spiritual work which is what it is to use the constant suffering and pain inherent in being identified with this lower nature and its love of stimulation that proves it's alive to find through self-realization the work of it to awaken ourselves to a relationship with a higher nature not a nature that lives in the dark but a nature that is light itself call it what you will the Christ itself because it is through that light and in that light that instead of being asleep in a nature that says it knows what it's doing we're aware of a nature that says it knows what it's doing and we know that it doesn't so we're there and we're passive we're quiet we're awake we're no longer the slave of something that is created this its own addiction so that we're so identified with whatever that sensation is got to get more of that got to get away from that that's our life that's what thought struggles with incessantly how to control or change the condition that will give us the pleasure we desire while escaping the pain that we don't want unable to see that we love one and despise the other because that's the nature that we live from and this higher nature this Christ did nature this enlightened nature it is superior to all that it sees operating that it is within it is within the light dwelleth in the darkness and in within it can see the whole of that nature and because it sees the whole of that nature it is in command of that nature because why because it doesn't believe in the illusions in the addictions in the in the draw and drive that that self has to continue itself through some form of identification with whatever it's it imagines and stimulates itself into believing it must have or get away from again I ask are you following me are you seeing the big picture I'm trying so hard to present to you so if we get this a little bit it creates it raises an incredibly important question which is what what turns a sensation that is natural in life into a negative resistance filled experience what turns a natural sensation into a negative experience or what turns a natural sensation into a desire to have more of that sensation what what's going on that we don't see and in essence is because we believe the sensation is an effect of the condition that this mind points to when the unwanted sensation or the pleasurable one appears that's what our mind does oh that I don't want that I don't want to be around him I want more of that let's go there again let's have some more of that and so we find ourselves without knowing it choiceless because we're attracted or we are resisting a condition that our mind once identified with the sensation says I got to have more of that or I don't want any more of that but how do we know how many times a day do you have a certain set of sensations always stimulating where that sensation is telling you what's wrong how did I spend 76 years or whatever number of years you've spent somehow other just believing haphazardly that my sensation of a given moment is being caused by that moment so that when I hate the experience it's because the condition is hateful when the sensation that we're having and and we are always having them good bad or in between the sensation the sense of self is not the sensation itself just listen it isn't the sensation that defines the moment for us it is can you agree with me can you see that my sensation of the moment defines the nature of the moment and what I'm trying to get to is that it is not the sensation defining the moment but our reaction to a sensation not the sensation but our reaction to it and they're two totally different things listen to this I have to go through it quickly you come back and hear it sensations like I'm warm right now are raw sensory data that's what a sensation is it's a form of data it is engaging and giving me a direct experience of what I am in around and moving through me sensation is simple reactions on the other hand are a way in which this nature interprets and acts on that data that's what a reaction is it is something in us that has us and that looks at a sensation and that wants to know it brings out of its condition past what it knows about that sensation which it's already lived a hundred thousand times and it says ah I know what that is for example this is for me personal a toothache or maybe the onset of a cold sore oh god what oh no not again oh no now why would I here I'm being given a sensation by my own body and my own body is saying guy there's a problem and you should attend to it now you have to agree that when a sensation of a pain is pointing to this the pain in the body it's saying were you I need you involved in this I can handle a lot of it but you have a part in this too so we can understand that a toothache is a helpful indication of an infection of some kind now if you can agree with that which it is true how does that helpful indication that my body is saying a guy pay attention how does that turn into a pain psychologically negative experience because it does it goes from the awareness the sensation of a toothache into the hatred of the dentist the fear of the cost a hundred thousand different ways in which now I'm I'm on the ride that Josh was on I'm being stimulated by what not the sensation I'm being stimulated by my own reaction to it and every reaction is already conflicted so now I'm filled with all kinds of subsequent thoughts and feelings trying to tell me how to change the condition blamed for the sensation instead of simply recognizing that this moment the difference between how should I say here's the difference between sensation and reaction here's the difference between sensation and reaction I hope this is interesting to you I tell you one day it'll have to be if you ever want to be free sensation is the as I said the initial automatic detection of stimulus by the body's sensory organs I see I hear I smell I taste while a reaction is a subsequent emotional mental or behavioral response to that sensation say it again sensation is the initial detection the relationship between myself and the environment and the sensation in and of itself has no quality other than to point out that there is something transpiring between myself and my environment whereas the reaction is what follows the registration of that sensation and now there's some obvious emotional mental or behavioral response and it's only as we begin to realize you know I need to look a little more deeply into this subject or do I want to spend my life going to bed arguing with someone because I was something stimulated that event earlier and now I'm reliving it and the sensation of reliving the negative experience fills me with more negativity and I blame the sensation I'm having on the memory on the condition when the condition is not producing that only as we learn to look deeply into this difference between our sensations and the mind's reaction to them where what all sensations don't have want and not want in them please if I put my hand accidentally in hot water the body isn't negative that I did that the body is aware of a sensation that's saying this is hurting you withdraw your hand but no more do I do naturally what the sensation is indicating which is completing a cycle then I'm calling myself stupid then I'm hating the pot or someone else who didn't tell me they did this or the other all the time so sensations don't have want and not want in them no sensation has want or not want want and not want belong to an identity a structured sense of self that's always measuring the event depending on how it falls into its conditioned memories so only as we recognize this reaction as the source of and validation of some negative sensation do we realize the possibility of a new kind of freedom a new kind of peace if you could be aware in the moment where your mind is revisiting some painful regret that you didn't call up the regret that the reaction you're having to the revisitation of the regret is mechanical and built into something so familiar to you as as your own name then you would realize you know what this torment is not my torment and if it's not my torment neither is any thought or feeling I have about it going to do anything to change the consciousness that keeps recreating it so the task becomes one where I have to wake up to the nature creating the negative experience instead of trying to change the condition to align with what I believe it must be so that I can have a pleasant experience of it a nice sensation so when this happens rather than slipping into this inevitable realm of habitual reactions which is what we do where we try to escape our identification with whatever that negative sensation may be instead the truth is so simple that we miss it so Kate I hope that I haven't caught you off guard can we bring up the key lesson for today's talk because I want to read it and then explain it good there it is read along with me everyone sensation is but an echo a shadow cast by the real it belongs to life yet it is not life itself sensation is but an echo a shadow cast by the real it belongs to life yet it is not life itself mistaking sensation for life is like mistaking a shadow for the Sun whose light lens it form and from which it has been cast this is very much for those of you that know anything about Plato's allegory of the caves a pretty good explanation of it I see the shadow I see the shape I see the form the mind lens meaning substance experience to it and then it begins to reject or resist its own recollection and that sensation produces the wish to get away from or to have more of whatever that shadow created in its appearance and my life is spent asleep in a dream the truth is simple once we see it and once we see it we have to dare to live in and by the light that reveals it I'm making a big transition here I know it's going to be a stretch but if you listen carefully open yourself you'll understand the truth of it our senses are completed in the moment by what they behold our senses are completed in the moment by what they behold the sense of sight is completed by what it sees the sense of hearing is completed by the vibrations that it picks up taste touch each of these senses finds its fulfillment in the very act of perception it doesn't seek anything more than that but for us sensations are like the taste of a drug because this nature that first creates the the sensation born out of the reaction of want or not want if it doesn't want it then that sensation is telling it get away from that hate yourself you're weak if it wants more of that sensation it says go buy more of that change this and that so it better reflect the reality that you think is the kingdom of heaven so if sensation which is true when when you're out in nature why is it peaceful if it if you do experience peace in nature do you know why because all of the sensations produced by your senses are completed in the moment of that sensation the whole body is at rest because it's not separate from the environment it's in it's participating in that environment through its senses reactions ruin the reality of moments like that you look out and you see something and suddenly you're looking and enjoying this beautiful broad sight in front of you and one little thing and it catches your attention in that moment a negative sensation a reaction gives rise to a negative sensation and now you know what's wrong with the moment each sense finds its fulfillment in the moment of perception which means freedom is not something we win enlightenment is not a condition you achieve it is an ongoing reconciliation it is a an eternal meeting of what is above and what is below and in that reconciliation as ceaseless as it is the rebirth of that awareness the renewal of a relationship with that living light and in the renewal of that relationship with that light the certainty if you will that no condition is going to capture you let alone cause you torment to see what I'm describing is the beginning of another kind of freedom not the freedom this lower nature imagines where it imagines due to a reaction that if it could just have a little more of this a little more of that I'd be free or if I could just get rid of this or change that I'd be free that's been going on for millennia just as this fallen nature has had humanity in its grip for all of that time but within that darkness dwells a light that recognizes the futility the frustration Ecclesiastes called it out who struggles in the field of opposites struggles in vain all is vanity so in recognizing this cycle of unconscious identification with whatever the sensations are produced by that reaction that in that recognizing that cycle is released from it the awareness of that cycle is freedom from it because no one is going to agree to punish themselves or anyone else for the sake of a freedom that never comes let alone a pleasure that can't be kept as that becomes clear we step literally moment to moment into a higher possibility which is what a life that is renewed moment to moment listen a life that is renewed moment to moment but not through some form of identification with stimulation a life that is renewed made new reborn moment to moment but not through identification with some form of stimulation you have to see this what is it makes my life exciting makes me knew I've got tomorrow to look for what is that it's all an image that produces a reaction favorable or not and then that sensation is in fact what I call the fulfillment of life in that moment failing to see that every last one of those sensations is as illusory as the nature that creates it and as temporary I might add but through the awareness of that nature which is the whole of all true teachings I am the light in the life said Christ that awareness is a timeless ground and in that timeless ground sensations rise and they pass away and you are the witness of the appearance of these sensations and the temptation to identify with them and instead of identifying with the temptation you see you understand this must pass and in letting it pass by which it will because it can only remain in place if you give your attention to it then you enter into an awareness that is itself a field of light a field of life and a place where love never stops truly reconciling the individual to the greater life that gave that individual his or her life I hope that we were able to reach an understanding at least something that you can see maybe work with just if nothing else just try what why is my mind talking to me about this why in the name of God does my mind talk to me about something it has no control over what is my mind talking about what you said and I'm explaining to you why my mind your mind talks to you about what happened because it stimulates itself and that familiar stimulation seems to be the stuff of life the staff of life it is not it is the suffering of life because once we're identified with that stimulation and the reaction that produced it then our master a false master is in place we must replace the masters not through some imagery not through icons not through anything but by entering into the life of the true inner master this true light that will show you everything that you need to know to outgrow this sorrow this suffering and these old regrets