GF Live 5-27-23 The Unseen Barrier Between You & The Divine

Here is the principle lesson behind the material we will study today.

It reads as follows,

Just as rain from the heavens starts with a single drop,

So begins the journey to reclaim our right to be fearless with each first step.

And let me repeat the last part of that key lesson,

With each first step.

It is so critical to understand that this is not a work,

An internal process that is intended to bring some finite state as we want to imagine enlightenment or a living relationship with the divine might be.

A living relationship is a living relationship.

It is a ceaseless experience of the arrival,

Fulfillment,

And departure of the moment before,

So that we are participants in the revelation of life as well as being the ground in which that revelation is taking place.

All of that sounds maybe a little bit complex and I'm going to do everything I can to dial it down into something quite discoverable,

Something simple enough in one respect for us to realize what each of these first steps is and what our relationship is to the moments where these steps,

These moments of entrance into the present moment and the presence behind them is possible.

So many of the ancient writings,

The old teachings,

Allude to a fact that I think was first put into,

Maybe it was the Quran but I'm not sure,

Might belong to something older than that.

The idea certainly does.

And that idea is that birds fly,

Fish swim,

Men pray.

Six words but indicating that to every creature there is not just the world it belongs to but the relationship of the nature of that creature to the world that they have been given over to,

To act as agents of that nature's completion.

Birds fly,

Fish swim,

Men pray.

Birds,

Their nature requires open skies.

Without an open sky what is a bird?

So that one could say in one respect,

At least in one level,

That the nature of a bird and the nature of the sky have a similarity.

They seem to be different but they are not different at all.

They require one another to complete the purpose of one another relative to each other.

Fish swim the same.

Fish require the open waters,

The deep seas.

They require all of the currents that give them the strength and develop them as creatures that in turn fulfill the purpose of the ocean and of course our relationship to it.

But what does men pray?

What does women pray?

What does that mean?

It means that our nature requires a relationship with what is holy.

Said in simpler terms,

A relationship with what is open and endlessly deep within us.

And without that relationship,

Much as the birds and the fish don't have a real life,

Their purpose goes unfulfilled.

So is our life and our purpose unfulfilled.

And in some respects,

Because that is mostly true for humanity today,

We are less than the birds.

We are less than the fish.

We have neither the freedom nor the depth of exploration that these creatures have naturally.

When you think about the ancient mariners,

Those men and women who many,

Many years ago and perhaps far earlier than we ever imagined,

Sailed their ships.

In those days,

We know from the maps that have been recovered that those men and women had to had to go beyond the edge of the world.

They used to have these maps,

If you've never seen them,

Where the world was flat and at the edge of the world all the monsters lived and their tentacles would come up from the unknown depths on whatever was the other side of that edge.

Just as they were drawn to do that because they had to fulfill the need to seek new worlds.

You two,

Me too,

We are called,

We're designed to go and explore the purpose of all the relationships that we're in so that through those relationships and what we might call the edge of them,

Which I'm going to describe in this talk,

We are able to realize these divine depths of ourselves because until we are willing to,

How shall I say,

Go beyond what has been,

We'll never know what is.

And what is,

In the simplest terms,

Is our endless capacity to transcend whatever the momentary experience of ourselves may be.

But the only way that happens is when we are willing,

God help us,

To enter into the waters of what we might call some unknown moment.

Can you see these boundaries that we of ourselves didn't create but that are a creation of a consciousness that has so defined itself according to the past,

Its reliance upon social,

Economic,

Political,

Religious values,

That the very values that we depend upon to define ourselves confine us to a world where any moment may come that shows us something is beyond that or we're called to experience and discover what's beyond that.

We wind up sitting in that ship at the edge of that world that's known instead of being willing to explore it.

And in turn,

You cannot explore any world that isn't the same as exploring the content of our own possibilities of our own consciousness.

And because of that,

Because of that unrecognized and yet worshipped fear,

We live in the shallows of life.

You want to know why,

And it's true for everyone to whatever extent it is,

Do you want to know why there's so much dissatisfaction with life?

And why the endless rushing and running and distracting ourselves,

You know why that's so prevalent?

Because we're like some,

Please excuse the analogy,

I don't know if you've ever walked the ocean after the high tide and the tide goes back and leaves these pools,

Some of them are large,

And sometimes the errant fish will get caught in one of those pools.

If you ever watch that little fish,

It darts back and forth,

Darts back and forth,

Because it knows it's not meant to be in those shallows.

You and I are not meant to live in the shallows of this life,

In this shallow life that is so dedicated to the continuation of the content of itself,

Where we wind up serving something that doesn't serve us at all,

But at least it allows us what we would call the protection of the known.

This is our tragedy,

And yet within that tragedy is found the possibility of escaping those shallows.

That's what this whole talk is about.

Maybe it doesn't bother you,

And I can't say whether it should or shouldn't,

I'm not here to judge you.

I just know,

And I'm hoping that you do,

That there are moments where it is so evident that we have been a shallow human being,

Complaining,

Angry,

Impatient,

Pushy,

Controlling,

And we exhibit those negative qualities in a way to distract ourselves from the fact that in the shallows of life,

We're subject to everything and anything that the conditions produce,

And our true nature is not subject to passing conditions.

Our true nature is that which passing conditions moves through,

And that's the depth of ourselves.

To be able to see that no matter what the moment is that seems to be presented to us,

That to live in the fear of anything that moment might reveal to us about ourselves is to live in the shallows.

A fearful life is a shallow life,

And most of us don't know how fearful we are,

How we avoid these moments and these people.

We don't want to go into any place,

Any particular moment that seems to hold some threat to who and what we believe we are,

And we must if we want to be a free human being,

If we want to fulfill the purpose of our existence,

We have to go past the shallows of this life.

Let me tell you a story to exemplify some of this,

And then we're going to go into the material that will help us understand it,

And the end we'll look at some ways in which we can begin deliberately to take our vessel,

This life,

Beyond the edge of the known.

Nice deep breath.

As long as you have even a little bit of love in you for what is true,

You're in the right hands.

We must turn that little bit of love that we sense and long to expand into an expansive love that knows there's nothing to fear.

It's a seed,

That little love.

And Anne,

That's just an excuse.

What if we want to explore the depths but everyone around us is not willing to connect?

Let's go on.

You'll understand.

So here's the story.

A reporter,

I often use certain vehicles,

Ways in which I formulate stories to present new ideas.

And in this instance,

There's a reporter,

And the reporter in us represents that which wants to know,

Always exploring,

Wanting to know,

What have others seen?

What have others understood?

So that in their experience and how they've transcended them,

Not that we would imitate them,

Imitation is death,

But that we might realize through their life that there is always another edge to go over,

Something else to be explored,

And that it is incumbent upon us to be the explorer,

Not to rely upon others and their experiences to tell us what is possible,

As this story will make evident,

I hope.

So this reporter has heard about a very famous oceanologist,

Yeah,

Someone who is the,

Studies the depths and the breadth of the deep seas,

And this particular famous oceanographer is a renowned author as well,

And she has written dozens of books on the mysteries of the Marianas Trench,

The deepest part of the oceans,

All the attending caves and mountains and valleys.

Did you know,

Maybe you've never seen any of the Discovery Channels,

Did you know as above so below is even true on this planet,

That underneath the seas are all of the mountains and the valleys that are taller and deeper than the ones we have on the surface?

Everything a reflection of everything else,

Like the crown of a tree is the reflection of the roots beneath the soil,

As above so below is within so without,

It goes on unending,

All of these ways in which we can see the reflections of life as the way in which we ourselves might see ourselves as a reflection of that which perceives these truths,

But let me not digress.

So there she is and she's attending a lecture and this famous author is up there and she's explaining all the creatures that live at these different levels and how they interact and all the names of the great explorers,

The divers who have entered into these places and she talks about them like she's best friends with them,

But as our reporter is sitting there with the rest of the audience and the famous oceanographer finishes her lecture and there's a great big round of applause,

After everyone leaves our intrepid reporter,

Which you and I have to be by the way,

She remains afterwards because she sent something in the presentation so she walks up to the to the person and she says,

May I ask you a question that no one else did but I and I don't want to be a thorn in anybody's side but I thought it may be best to ask you in private as opposed to publicly.

Well what would that be full of her the the sensation of the arrogance of having people applaud you,

Don't you like to be applauded?

One day God willing you'll understand only one thing deserves the glory.

So the oceanographer says,

Well certainly what's that?

What do you want to know?

I'm happy to tell you.

The reporter says,

Well how often do you go on these dives into these deep waters that you've just described?

I have to imagine they're innumerable,

At which point without missing a beat the oceanographer looks at her kind of scowls and says,

What are you kidding?

Do you know how dangerous those waters are?

Reporters taken back a little bit although she said something like this might be going on.

The reporter says,

Surely you're not saying that you've never picked up any of these dives that you've described,

You've never visited any of these places that you're talking about?

The oceanographer at that point starts to realize she's been caught and she says,

Well you know with a kind of a little nervous laugh she looks at the reporter and she says,

You know what it's a little too risky for me.

What's the good of life?

What's the security?

The depth of some ineffable peace?

What purpose if I don't plumb the depth of it myself?

Not because I go to some spiritual gathering or some church or some synagogue and I get pumped up with all the power of the emotion ruffling through that place and then walk out and then look at a ticket on my car and wonder how I'm gonna pay for it?

Or look at somebody across the street that isn't dressed the way I think a person should be dressed and sit in some kind of terminal judgment of them?

Turn on the radio or listen to the news and look at a world coming apart and it is and then take sides with one group or another and decide that if we had power everything would be perfect?

The whole time unsuspecting that the very pursuit of power always belongs to those who live in fear of being powerless and never understanding that it is the pursuit of that power,

The pursuit of being someone recognized even though I have to keep a life together that supposed to be my freedom but I wind up in service to it out of fear of it.

What good is all of that?

So she says back to the story,

But if you've never actually made these kind of drives,

Dives that you describe,

If you've never made them how do you know what you say you know?

That they're too risky and that it's dangerous,

The waters are too deep,

How do you know that?

And he looks at her and please don't miss this if you will,

How do you know she said and he said she said I just know.

Oh God,

How many times in one's life can one be suddenly taken over by just knowing?

I just know he's wrong,

I just know she shouldn't be that way,

I just know I'm inadequate,

I just know that moment is to be feared,

I just know I have to tell this little lie,

I just know I have to run,

I have to avoid,

I just know I have to control and then find out on the flip side of that so-called knowledge that you were remanded over to something that was protecting itself at the cost of your own possible perfection,

The realization of another order of your own consciousness waiting there if you could have just moved past that moment of knowing.

It is a curse,

It is a curse to be a human being who is caught in the web of knowing that they need to be afraid,

Of knowing that someone or something needs to be hated,

It is a curse but it is one that we have without knowing placed upon ourselves because we participate in its continuation without ever recognizing that it is so.

So I better ask at this point because I don't want to talk to nobody,

Is anybody still with me out there?

Are you still here?

Okay,

The board gets very silent.

Okay,

Good.

Haven't you ever wondered how after all of these years of knowing so much I'm still as susceptible as I am to any moment that comes along that poses a threat because the conditions I was a dependent upon and attached to changed and when the conditions changed,

Poof,

Out went my contentment,

Out went my security,

Out went my relationship with the divine.

Let me sew this into the talk I'm about a little more than halfway through.

When a man or a woman awakens even to a small extent,

They don't have to call on the divine in the moment of conflict because in that moment the divine is there helping them see the real source of that conflict,

Revealing what has been concealed in that consciousness and using that very moment of conflict as a way in which to take that individual into a new order of understanding that transcends the conflicted consciousness responsible for that fear.

That's how you'll know in one respect when you have made some progress.

You don't go looking for God,

But for a long time that's necessary.

We go looking for a higher idea,

I understand it.

That's why we have the talks because in some respect this knowledge,

This understanding that we impart is a way in which we can participate at least at the level of the intellectual center,

If not the emotional center,

We can start to participate in a new order of being and that's our inlet into it,

Is our ladder,

But we must one day leave all of these ladders of thought,

All of these ladders of emotion and move into the integration of that thought,

That emotion and body so that in that integration we are a participant in the whole of that moment as it's being revealed and in every moment that is truly revealed within us we are released from who we were the moment before and exit that moment a new person.

So let me get to where I want to get to.

Wide awake.

How do I know what it is that's to be feared?

Isn't it extraordinary?

Maybe you're not aware of it,

Yet how many moments in the day something comes along and we feel this resistance?

What is that resistance that turns into a reaction other than a moment in which something is telling me,

Uh oh,

No,

Oh wait,

Wait a minute.

No,

No,

Oh,

And my attention,

All of my,

All of my attention goes into what?

The depth and breadth of the possibility of discovering something about the depth and breadth of that consciousness,

Asleep as it is,

Or does it go into the shallows of those thoughts and feelings that are telling me what I have to do in order to protect myself?

And we know the answer to that.

So what we must,

If we're willing to do it,

We must do the necessary exploration.

And I suppose that part of what I want to do as I sit and speak to the men and women I do is to help us.

Can I,

Can I,

Can I,

Can I give a little nudge?

Can I give a little encouragement?

Can I help you see something that maybe you suspect is true,

But have yet to really search out?

Here's what I'm looking at.

In truth,

All psychological fears have a single basis.

I've been speaking about this for the last week or so.

And I hope that if you don't know,

You will join me.

I speak on Wednesdays and Sundays for free,

Nothing to join.

Look at the profile here on Insight Timer,

Search me out on the web.

You are welcome to join me twice a week,

Including Insight Timer three times a week for an absolutely free discussion,

A way in which we can look at these ideas together.

And I've been talking a lot about this one topic,

How the past persecutes the present.

All of our fears have one single basis.

And that basis is,

And do not get ahead of me,

Even if you've been tuning in because I'm going to expand on the idea.

The basis of all of our fear is the past.

Now stop.

When I say the past,

Your mind goes into thought about conditions where certain things went down that you didn't like and they were painful.

And so the past for us is when our mind recollects these moments that had pain in them.

And all of us without knowing it,

God help us are still trying to escape what we call the past,

Our regrets,

Our fears.

You can't escape the past.

You cannot escape the past by trying to avoid it or change it.

You cannot change the past.

The past you're trying to change doesn't exist without your thoughts and the way you react to the appearance of those thoughts when triggered by a moment in the present.

So the past for you and I is actually a form of reaction.

Our relationship to our reactions is our past.

A reaction comes up.

You hear some news,

You see something,

You know what happens to sudden constriction,

The sudden,

Oh no.

And in that sudden,

Oh no,

There is all of this sensory experience.

It begins with the reaction and the reaction can't take place,

Can it?

Without something in this consciousness comparing what it doesn't want to what may be happening,

Comparing what it is interpreted the moment to be to what it is afraid that might mean to it downstream.

So the minute that I am identified with a reaction of any nature,

I am in the past because the reaction belongs to the past and that past to the content of thought and the consciousness that holds it like that thrown into the past.

And the minute that reaction takes place and this is verifiable,

You must do the work.

I can't do it for you.

That's the one thing that troubles me about giving these talks is that instead of taking the understanding and turning it into an actualization through direct willingness to experience that what I'm describing,

It just becomes another body of thought.

Those reactions when they come up,

They're instantly attended to by an association,

A legion of thoughts.

And in turn,

Those legion of thoughts that are inseparable from the reaction,

They are the arms and legs of the heart of the mind of that reaction.

Then they begin to tell us and talk to us and carry us and convince us through the content of themselves that what we are experiencing needs to be avoided because the last experience of that reaction led to disaster.

And so in that moment,

As we identify with those thoughts and feelings in that same moment,

We are defined by them.

And in that same moment we are confined to the shallows of that moment.

The shallows of the moment.

No moment is shallow.

Every moment in passing time is the revelation of a timeless being bringing forth into this consciousness,

Some experience of its own character and quality so that in the reflection of that experience,

We might know ourselves as that reflection so that every moment that we are present to and properly so holds within it the invitation to move past that point where this mind wants to talk to us about what's happening,

Let alone fear it.

And because of that fear of our unconscious relationship with these reactions that are forever telling us what we can and can't do,

Who we are,

What we can and might have,

All that,

As a result,

We live in the shallows of these moments.

And the strange thing is that this nature,

As much,

It's in constant conflict because on one hand,

There is a part of us and I've described it and I know you know it's true.

We long for the depth and breadth of those waters of what is unfathomable,

Of what we couldn't have possibly known the moment before,

Of a realization that was beyond our capacity to grasp until we were brought into the moment of its revelation.

And then boom,

There I am.

And I go,

Oh my God,

This is unbelievable.

And we love those moments of epiphany.

But what you and I have to do is understand that life is not just these moments of epiphany in terms of something that gives us a sense of the interior magnificence.

The epiphanies have to hold as well,

The understanding of the misery of being in fear,

Of living in these waters where we're very comforted by the fact that we think we can see to the bottom of them.

That's our problem.

Don't you understand that?

Here comes the moment that causes me to react and I'm afraid.

And all of a sudden the thoughts are looking out and what are they looking at?

They're looking at the shallow depth of that shore of the soul that we're,

I know what's going on.

I can see it.

I know that rock.

I know that creature.

So that we believe we're looking at the bottom of the moment,

The possibility,

But we're not.

We're just looking at all these familiar images and their reflections as they rifle through us because something in us wants to look at something that comforts us as we see it.

Here's what people don't want to hear.

And I have to say,

The real spiritual life is not comfortable at all.

At least not all the time.

One day,

You will know the comfort of not being afraid of being uncomfortable because you'll understand that that momentary sense of being uncomfortable,

That momentary appearance of a fear,

You'll understand that that's like an inlet into the ocean,

Not something that you need to wall off and then swim in the shallows of that moment.

For us,

The task in those moments is to avoid at all costs,

Whatever,

Whatever the threatening deeper waters might be.

I've got to know,

I've got to straighten this out.

I can't possibly consider entering into that,

Making that change in my life,

Risking it,

Risking it.

I know some of you who have been studying with me for a long time.

I think you know the story.

I was still back in my 29 or 30 years old,

44 years ago.

How crazy is that?

And by good fortune,

I was working with a beautiful,

Awakened man,

Vernon Howard.

And one day I was sitting in this room with about,

There was only 20 of us or so at that point.

And I'm across the room and Vernon,

I hear Vernon yell,

You won't risk it.

And everybody turned to see what he was doing.

And I turned,

Of course,

And I said,

I'm going to risk it.

I'm going to risk it.

And everybody turned to see what he was doing.

And I turned,

Of course.

And who do you think he was looking at?

It had taken over 30 years to understand that.

You won't risk it.

Risk what?

The source of so much of our unseen suffering,

And that continues itself and reincarnates to consciousness responsible for that conflict is because we have yet to realize what I've been describing to you,

That the past,

This consciousness,

This sleeping consciousness,

This consciousness yet awakened to the world of dreams that it fabricates and through which it wanders around,

Believing as it experiences the content of itself,

That it's in control,

That that consciousness is the past and it persecutes the present moment.

It persecutes our possibility to be in the depths of the real moment.

You and I are the moment.

We are the awareness of it.

What moment is there without my awareness of it?

If a tree falls in the woods and no one's there to hear it,

Does it make a sound?

If this beautiful spring day opens before me and there's no awareness of it,

Is there a beautiful spring day?

Or is the awareness of the day,

The awareness of the light and the awareness of the darkness,

Are they not a singularity?

And do they not serve a purpose yet to be understood by the vast majority of humanity,

But that you and I can.

And that is to recognize that within that consciousness that is asleep,

There's a light that that consciousness cannot understand.

And more importantly,

A light that reveals the action,

The content of that consciousness,

So that it may be ceaselessly transcended by the capacity to be aware of it.

We are that awareness.

We are that awareness before we are conscious of what we are aware of.

The true observer,

The true witness.

And when we understand that to some extent,

We realize something that is the very source of free.

You know,

You heard the expression,

Perfect love casts out fear.

I'm actually describing it to you.

You can get to a point in your interior life where you understand there is no fear in any moment itself.

There is no fear in any moment itself.

If there is fear in the moment,

It's because something in us has come into that moment already attached to,

And dependent on some condition that is threatened by that moment.

How can a moment threaten life when life itself is the revelation in every moment of its existence?

So you mustn't,

How should I say,

You must learn to understand that without awareness,

There is no experience and that true experience is awareness itself,

Not the object experience.

That's division.

True experience is awareness itself,

Not the object experience.

That's division.

I must go on,

Sue.

So if we're following all of the psychological fear is the result of a kind of unconscious coloration of the way this life looks out and sees through its eyes what it does.

And when it meets those moments and then seems to recognize the moment as something to be resisted,

Then it,

It,

It pulls the vessel back.

It,

It seals the harbor.

It creates the shallow waters that are the source of its own suffering.

So what is all of this about in the remaining few minutes that I have?

We've been conditioned quite thoroughly to look at these moments through this consciousness that continues to condition itself,

Not to mention the world that is a reflection of its nature.

That if we come to some moment and something in us says,

No,

This is dangerous.

Please don't understand.

I'm not saying jump off a bridge with an elastic cord tied to your leg.

I need to,

I need to say no to someone I keep saying yes to.

I know I'm enabling somebody.

And every time it occurs to me that there is something deeper that needs to come out of this more than just the continuation of that dependency.

I have to,

I have to risk that.

Someone hurt me.

When someone hurts me,

There's a sudden resistance,

A reaction.

And that reaction tells me you can't let them get away with that.

And so I want to say something cruel.

I want to somehow control them.

Swimming around in that shallow moment and the shallowness of a consciousness that continues to recreate itself.

The opportunity occurs to risk it to take that moment.

And instead of what?

Saying that cruel thing,

Not saying it and watching the consciousness that wants to express it.

You know how we're all the time,

Broad thought reaction brings up something triggers a regret in the past.

You want to,

You want to know what's beyond reliving that regret,

Risk not reliving it,

Risk observing the consciousness,

The shallows out of which comes that suffering.

And in the exploration of those shallows,

They lead directly into the depths of another order of awareness,

Wherein you can begin to see for yourself,

Why is that there?

It's there because I don't want it.

Why don't I want it?

Cause I don't want to relive it again.

And you can see the cycle going on.

Risk not judging another human being,

Risk not keeping an account with somebody.

Think of all the teachings,

Love thine enemy,

Risk not having an enemy.

You say,

Well,

How do I do that?

You do that by instead of giving your attention and all that you are over to the justification and the validation of yourself as a victim,

You become the student of that shallow water.

You go into it yourself with the intention of seeing how deep you can go into that consciousness to understand how it keeps playing itself out.

And I tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt,

A truth.

And that truth is,

In fact,

Let's end on this.

Kate,

Let's bring up the last key lesson.

Every moment of life is as wide,

Bright,

Dark,

And deep as is our willingness to explore it,

Acting as a witness to our own yet realized divine possibilities.

Find out if that's true.

Every moment of our life is as wide,

Bright,

Deep,

And dark as is our willingness to explore it,

Acting as a witness to our own yet realized divine possibilities.

Let the moment that is always divine in nature because it is the moment that is the expression of a timeless will upon the properties of the past.

Let it open you up,

But it cannot open you up if you close the door to the moment where fear tells you,

I can't,

I won't,

Something's at risk here and I dare not go into those waters.

Go into those waters.

Risk it.