Welcome everyone.
Let's just take our usual moment or two when we start these insight timer periods together to gather ourselves inwardly,
Relax as best we know how to,
Which by the way is always good.
Of course a deep breath is always good,
But if you can become aware of any tension in your face,
That's always a dead giveaway of unsuspected tension.
We don't want tension in our lives.
We want to be awake and present.
I was just thinking for a moment before I start how important it is that we develop a certain kind of sensitivity,
Not the kind of sensitivity we see prevalent in the world today,
Which is so full of this super self-concern,
But sensitivity relative to the ability,
For instance,
Just to be aware of how when we are caught up thinking about ourselves and all that rest of that,
How that creates tension in the body.
And if we could be sensitive to the tension in our body,
It would be a kind of a tell.
We would know that we are essentially in the wrong place in the moment,
Dealing,
Resisting the wrong thing.
So let's get ourselves started here.
The topic is,
I hope is interesting to you.
It's how do we start making every moment of our life meaningful?
Start making every moment of our life meaningful.
I want to start by telling you that it is in fact not just a possibility that every moment of our life can be meaningful,
But that until every moment of our life becomes meaningful,
In some ways we're missing the meaning of life.
Our attention,
Which is really our connection,
Not just to the world around us,
But to the intelligence that lives within us that knows better than to harm itself or anyone else.
Our attention is like a weather vane.
It's all over the place.
And so we don't have the God-given right to be present to everything that the moment is bringing to us.
Because in order to be present to everything the moment is bringing to us,
We have to be in a place inwardly where we are not just registering the impression of what life is revealing to us.
But in the revelation of that impression,
A relationship to it and the meaning of that moment itself that is revealed from the inside out.
The meaning of every moment is revealed from the inside out.
Just the opposite of how we take it now,
Where we look out and the moment something in us tells us what the moment means.
And then when something,
The meaning is coming to us from outside in.
We're dead in the water like that.
And it's fortunate that as human beings we are sewn into this world,
Our soul with a certain spark in it.
That it is forever looking to be as would be the branch to the vine connected to a level of consciousness that is unending in its capacity to produce in the consciousness,
Not just the awareness of its environment,
But the awareness of the content of that consciousness in relationship to the world it's in.
Now sometimes I say things and I can hear what I'm saying and I'm aware of myself.
I don't want to be confusing,
I want to be clear.
All of us know what it is like.
We have a longing for meaning in this life,
That this life as it presently is for us,
By and large can't answer.
I can't speak for you,
I can only tell you something of myself as I might do from time to time.
I was born thirsty for understanding.
I think all of us are to tell you the truth.
And I did my duty,
I went out of the world,
I did all the things that one does looking for something that could answer this thirst.
And there was no way I could find it.
But from time to time,
I would realize,
Just as I'm sure you have or you wouldn't be joining me today,
That certain moments come along and in that split second something happens inside of ourselves,
It's inexplicable.
But that for a moment our consciousness is aligned with a new possibility in itself that we experience as that consciousness suddenly opens up.
And then we realize,
You know,
How much more can there be of something like this?
In that moment,
One isn't thirsty,
One is drinking.
And the substance being taken into the soul is satisfying it so that the longing disappears,
And instead of longing there is a realization that whatever it is that's taking place is the act of completion for me in that moment.
The meaning of the moment comes along and we suddenly understand,
I'll try to bring you in this,
An experience of a completely different order.
The realization of some kind of new meaning that one wasn't even thinking about,
It's all too seldom these sudden epiphanies,
These aha moments.
But the fact of the matter is when those instances come along,
It can be as simple as,
And God make it so,
That you just look out the window one day or you take a walk in nature or you're someplace and suddenly the way the light is hitting the tree and the shadow and the wind moving the branches,
And all of a sudden you're transported,
You're standing in the same place you were ten seconds before.
But suddenly you're transported into a world that's full of meaning.
And when that happens,
Those moments,
They dwarf everything else that's come along prior to that.
And those moments awaken in a man or a woman a longing.
Because there is a sudden distinction between being a sleeping human being who we don't think ourselves to be,
But that's what we are,
We're asleep and suddenly something comes and it rings the bell.
Our eyes open,
Thought stops.
There's an integration between ourselves,
The observer and the observed,
Unified and boom,
There I am,
I'm in a world that I was in without knowing it all along.
And then a person begins to wonder,
How deep does this possibility run?
What else is latent in this consciousness that in the moment we can be transported as we can be into literally a new life full of meaning?
Not necessarily defined,
When life really has a meaning in it,
Nothing's talking to you.
You're just experiencing the full-blown content of yourself as you are in that moment and being given that illumination.
And doesn't that moment like that point to the fact that this possibility of this sudden new meaning that we are integrated into and that's integrated into us,
Doesn't that mean that that meaning is there all the time and it is as endless as is our willingness,
Our capability of entering into it?
And if that's true,
And it is,
And we know as we should in those moments that we're not the creator of that meaning.
You're doing something,
Working at something,
Maybe you're an aspirant of some kind,
You're contemplating,
Meditating,
You want to know how to drink more fully from this cup of life.
And then out of the clear blue sky,
Suddenly the cup is full,
You drink and you realize this is,
Wouldn't it be nice if this cup was always full?
I would literally be alive.
Not as I am presently,
As most of us are,
Kind of stumbling along,
Giving some time as it is to dedicate to answering this longing to be in this deeper meaning of life.
But suddenly it's just,
It's obvious.
And the problem with this,
And I hope that you follow me here,
Is that sometimes this meaning comes along,
Something takes place and there we are.
And then we realize that what happened before,
Where was I?
Here,
It's evident life was trying to give me something,
Show me something,
Teach me something.
And no one,
As Don La Casa,
No one was there.
Where was I?
What was going on?
That's what I want to look at with you,
Because we can't possibly understand how to have,
How life can be meaningful every moment.
And I want to promise you that it can.
We're going to look at something fascinating.
Even the most unwanted moments in life.
I shouldn't say even.
In many ways,
Have you not seen,
And I trust that you have.
For me,
I know it's a fact.
Some of the most unwanted moments in my life,
Back in the day,
That I rejected summarily and that I thought had been a punishment for whatever reason.
You know,
I did something terrible in Atlantis 5000 years ago,
You know,
Whatever the mind imagines in its silliness,
You know.
And then those things turn out to be blessings.
What if we could find meaning in even unwanted moments that mean that there could be a string of revelation,
A string of new meaning that could not be it by what we thought was doing to us to take something from us.
Real life never takes anything from you.
Real life is always offering an exchange where if you will agree to accept what is being given to you,
You will be given more.
So let's examine this.
For most of us,
The idea of a meaningful life.
And I hope that you'll see with this,
There's no judgment.
For most of us,
The idea of a meaningful life is something down the road.
When I get enough money,
When I have my health back.
When somebody finally says I will,
I love you.
When I win the recognition,
Whatever it may be.
For us,
Meaning has to do with this idea of becoming something that we hope to become in time.
But there is no meaning in the future.
Meaning is now or it is now.
And we begin to recognize that this is true.
We start realizing that what good is looking for meaning down the road.
Because basically what I'm doing,
All of us are doing,
We're kicking the can down the same road that we don't want to be in that moment.
You know the expression kick the can down the road?
Why?
Because I don't want to deal with what the moment is doing right now,
With what I'm feeling,
Experiencing with you.
I don't want to deal with it.
I kick the can down the road.
And it turns out that the same road I'm kicking the can down,
Meaning when everything will get better or when I can get away from this problem.
For me,
The meaning isn't in the moment where the can appears,
The problem.
For me,
The meaning is down the road.
But it's not.
Just,
If you will,
What makes life meaningful is not getting a check,
A raise.
What makes life meaningful is not winning the approval of other people.
A better plan does not make life meaningful.
Shopping,
Eating does not like make life meaningful.
What these things do is stimulate the senses for the moment.
But we can see they're void of meaning.
Skyrockets are exciting,
But their light doesn't last.
I don't know.
I can't speak for you.
But this flash here and that flash there,
Because suddenly something that I'd hoped for,
Is realized,
Soon becomes,
As all skyrockets do,
This empty shell laying in the ground somewhere and now the need for another kind of skyrocket.
The real meaning of any given moment,
As great as that individual lesson may be,
Is not just in that one relation.
The fact that there are as many people as I am willing to realize,
What the moment has come to reveal to me that has been concealed within me about my possibilities.
High and low.
Light and dark.
And if I can understand that much,
That the potential meaning of any moment can't be separated from my willingness to enter into that moment as consciously as I can,
Then I begin to realize that the real meaning here is that you and I,
We are enrolled in a kind of a celestial curriculum,
As endless as our willingness to enter into it.
When the student is ready,
The teacher appears.
And what if,
And I'm telling you it's true,
Every single moment of life is the bearer of a certain kind of impression.
And when the impression is received,
The integration takes place in the consciousness that understands itself a little bit more fully.
And the meaning of that then becomes the fact that,
Look,
I am living in a world that is open-ended when it comes to the possibility of new meaning.
And if it's an open-ended experience that's possible,
Which it is,
Why isn't it like that for us now?
Why isn't this moment of my life in one respect as rich as every other moment?
I know it's hard to grasp.
I know it.
But just see it a little bit.
If one moment becomes more meaningful than another,
Then in that split second,
We become identified with the content,
The condition of that moment,
And then we want more of that kind of moment.
And the very movement of wanting more from the moment shuts us out of the moment because we're looking in that moment for what we already know exists.
We're looking to double down on the same meaning.
Meaning never repeats itself any more than the sun repeats itself.
It is always changing because the consciousness,
You and I,
Our consciousness is forever receiving these new impressions.
So we can't separate the realization of this new meaning that we're being given all the time by these impressions from the fact that we have to be in the right place inwardly,
Attentive to experience and understand that there is,
In fact,
This beautiful current,
This movement taking place,
That we're intended to be part of it.
Have you ever watched a river,
A stream?
Last night,
My wife and I were watching this particular program,
And it was showing these incredible waterfalls somewhere in Brazil,
In the Amazon Biome.
Even on television,
You could feel the power,
The majesty of that movement as a million gallons of water go over this cliff and fall a thousandth of this.
There's no one part of that that produces the meaning of the moment.
The meaning can't be separate from the fact that within our consciousness is some corresponding part to that flow,
To that flood,
To that power,
To that white mist.
We have in us a corresponding part,
Or we couldn't resonate with the reality the consciousness is taking in.
And it is in that resonation that is the realization of the content of our consciousness as already containing what we see,
What we hear,
What we're actually experiencing in that moment is our own consciousness discovering the meaning that is inherent in it,
Given to us by the Creator there.
But we're not.
That's the problem.
What is the limitation in our consciousness that is basically locking us out of this experience of a ceaseless renewal of this meaning,
Of what would answer this longing we have?
This is the question that we have to look at if we want to understand about anything at all,
About why we want to give ourselves a meaningful life every moment.
So what do you think it is?
I'll ask you,
I'll enjoin you here.
When are you likely,
Most likely to feel and enjoy the meaning of something in nature?
When you're outside walking down the road and your mind is full of what happened to you 20 years ago,
Or what you need to do tomorrow to get rid of the pain that you fear may be coming?
Or in those moments,
Are you most susceptible to experiencing the stream of impression when you are present to yourself and not caught up in the stream of thought,
But more or less being carried along by that river of impressions that are producing in your consciousness,
A virtually endless experience of the existence of something that is there all the time within you so that it is always being,
I don't want to say brought to life because it's sort of,
You are always being brought into its life and realize it as your own.
So what is this that keeps us from that?
Simply put.
There is something in us that the minute a moment happens that we don't want,
You and I both know what happens,
Just like that,
Resistance.
It's just,
We don't call it up and you can't escape it.
You mustn't try not to have that resistance.
But the fact of the matter is what makes an unwanted moment isn't the content of the moment itself.
What makes a moment unwanted is that there is content in the consciousness that sees that moment as a threat.
No moment is a threat in itself.
The threat exists as a relationship between something in us that looks out and sees that moment the way it does,
And it sees the moment the way it does because of what that consciousness is identified with coming into that moment.
And we all know we walk around loaded with these demands and expectations.
What do you think the pain in the moment is?
It's not producing what we've expected or demand the moment be so that we can confirm ourselves.
So there is the summary resistance to these moments.
And where you have summary resistance,
You also have instantaneous shutting down.
Everything shuts down when that negative reaction comes up because the way we are now,
This instant reaction has defined the moment for us.
The negative reaction defines the meaning of the moment for us.
Say it again.
The negative reaction defines the meaning of the moment for us,
But what we can see is that what is actually defining the meaning of that moment is a part of our consciousness that wants nothing to do with that moment because it's not confirming ourselves as we've imagined to be.
So here's something in us that only will accept the meaning of a moment as long as it agrees with what we imagine ourselves to be.
Outside of that,
I don't want anything to do with it.
And of course,
I hope that you can see that when that reaction defines the moment,
Then by the definition of the moment,
We're confined to all of the choices that definition brings.
How many choices does fear have?
How many choices does anxiety produce?
You and I both know it's binary.
Fight,
Flight.
We can and must learn to see these negative reactions as kind of inhibitors,
As something that,
Along with the false sense of self that's identified with them,
These negative reactions are kind of like guardians at the gate,
The door of new meaning that don't want us to have new meaning.
This old nature wants us to relive the old meaning so it can have the experience of continuing itself,
Literally reincarnating itself.
And it doesn't want us to be joined to a moment where everything is made new because we are renewed.
This consciousness simply wants to protect itself.
And we don't recognize the moment where that reaction comes up,
Really protecting us.
But really,
It is a form of punishment because it's locking us outside of that door,
Where if we could enter into that moment consciously,
We'd realize that we've come into a world where new meaning,
Literally new meaning,
Dawns every day as surely as the sun rises.
So our task,
If you can understand,
Is that if we can begin to realize that these negative reactions begin as they do with a form of unseen resistance,
And that no resistance can exist without some kind of unseen insistence,
Then we start realizing,
Well,
See,
That's why we must begin to understand the meaning of these negative reactions instead of letting them tell us what we need to understand to be free.
This is what I'm leading to with regards to how to start letting life have and bring new meaning every moment.
When a negative reaction comes up,
Is it not telling us as it goes through us the meaning of the moment?
Yes,
It is.
The negative reaction points to a condition outside of us,
And then it blames the stress,
The anxiety,
It blames the experience of itself on the circumstances outside of itself.
But we understand now that you cannot separate what the consciousness experiences from what is acting on it.
They are in all,
For all intents and purposes,
A singularity.
A mirror catches the object in front of it.
They're not.
How do I say this?
It doesn't deny what appears in it.
When a moment comes that we don't want,
There's something in us that denies its appearance because it doesn't confirm whatever it is that we believe we must have confirmed so that we can feel good about ourselves.
So let me get to this.
What if you could use even unwanted moments?
What if you could find new meaning in them?
Stay with me.
When you consider,
As I would ask you to do,
What's the bulk of your day like?
Is it full of,
Oh,
I love this,
This is great,
Ain't life grand?
Or is it at least half your day and I'm being very generous,
Filled with thoughts and feelings like,
Why is there this traffic?
Why did she say this?
Why did that happen 20 years ago?
What's going to happen tomorrow if this keeps going like that?
What's going to happen to me if I know this,
That it is not our life at least,
At least,
Tilted towards resisting what we experience as opposed to assisting the birth in us of a new meaning that those moments are tempted to bring about.
So if my life is filled primarily with a lot of resistance,
And that resistance is always the father of this negativity,
This negative reaction,
What if we could use that resistance?
What if we could understand it so clearly?
So let me get into a few points that I'm going to make now.
God willing that you're following me so you can start to understand that if we can begin to use these negative reactions instead of letting them abuse us by defining us the way they do and then confining us to their choices,
We could literally enter into a new world within ourselves where those negative reactions would have what?
New meaning.
Come on.
Every negative reaction we have doesn't have new meaning,
It's the same ugly old meaning repeated,
Dressed in some other package.
If unwanted moments could and they are the opportunity to discover new meaning about ourselves and our possibility as a human being,
If negative sudden reactions are filled with the promise of being released from a prison instead of being further captive of it,
What would that mean to you?
This is what I'm describing.
Christ said,
Love thine enemies.
How in the name of God do I love an unwanted moment?
Unless there is new meaning in that unwanted moment that I have been unable to mine up to date,
But now because my mind is being made new,
Reborn,
New understanding,
I can begin to take from that unwanted moment.
I can begin,
Again,
He prepares a feast in the presence of my enemy.
You can go through East and West and you'll continue to discover that there is this theme that runs through it.
So I don't want to go,
I have to go on,
So let me keep going here.
So first,
What do we need to know first when it comes to negative reactions?
Every negative reaction is blind on the spot.
If I am captured by a negative reaction,
I am blind to everything other than what that negative reaction is pointing to as being the cause of the pain that I'm in.
And as long as I let that negative reaction become my eyes and ears and the content of my heart,
I will be a captive of its perception.
But you and I can be aware of our own negative reactions.
And if we can begin to become aware of our negative reaction,
For instance,
Let's say I have a negative reaction that formerly I would say you triggered.
That's the big deal today.
You triggered it.
Nobody triggers in you a negative reaction.
How can someone trigger in you a negative reaction unless you got the gun with the,
What do they call that,
The hammer already cocked,
Already there?
You can't be triggered without a trigger inside of you,
And they don't create the trigger inside of you.
The fact of the matter is that in that moment when that gun gets ready to go off,
That moment that you don't want is showing you that there's something that has come into that moment with you that you don't know about.
And that it wants to shoot the messenger instead of receive what the messenger has brought with it.
And the person,
By the way,
Is not the messenger.
Every aspect,
Every element,
Every character,
Every,
Everything acts in this great movement of bringing about this ceaseless upwelling of understanding of consciousness by which in this instance,
What happens?
That negative reaction becomes meaningful.
The former negative reaction that would make an enemy of you that would set me against them,
This or the other,
It actually becomes full of meaning.
Why is it full of meaning?
Because now I see for the first time that there is something in me that is just waiting to be set off that I didn't know because I was always blaming you.
Because my negative reaction said the meaning of the moment has been made up by what you did and didn't do.
That's not the meaning of the moment.
That is a mean spirit that wants to keep us from entering into this flow of new meaning that we're intended to have.
Let's keep going.
No negative reaction understands anything,
Especially the fact,
Listen,
That it is impossible to resist an unwanted moment and learn anything from it at the same time.
Resistance is the lesson killer.
See it.
If I'm resisting something,
Am I not pushing it away?
I'm resisting what you said because I look at you and my mind tells me,
Yeah,
You're like this.
I know I am pushing away in that moment something that has come along if I was willing to see it where,
Ah,
If I resist this moment,
I'll never receive the revelation that has come with it.
And the revelation is always something about my own consciousness.
If I resist any moment,
I am rejecting the revelation that it has brought with it.
When the student's ready,
The teacher appears.
When the teacher appears and has things that we like,
Ah,
It's beautiful,
I'm a spiritual giant,
I love everything.
All is light,
All is love.
And then the minute one raindrop falls,
Run for shelter and blame the skies for the fact that you don't understand the necessity of the movement of life and what it brings and everything brings.
For instance,
Me not wanting a moment proves that I've become identified with what I imagine life and its meaning is about.
But what if I actually understood I can't,
I cannot know the meaning of life apart from the moment when life opens it up and brings me into it.
That's the cornucopia of consciousness.
This outwelling,
This ceaseless pouring in,
Entering into and pouring out that we as men and women,
Human beings,
Aspirants,
Are intended to be a part of.
So you can't resist an unwanted moment and learn the meaning of it,
Let alone your relationship to that meaning,
Any more than you can,
Ah,
Pull the blinds down in your house and hope the sunlight's going to come in.
They're antithetical.
So the second part here is if we can get it,
All right,
Something in me resists unwanted moments and I'm beginning to realize if I want to drink from this cup,
If I want to have a life where,
And words fail,
Where meaning is my blood.
Yeah.
Where meaning is nourishment for the soul because the impressions produce in us the sudden revelation of a relationship between above and below.
That's meaning.
And if we want that,
Then we have to understand the last one,
I got to go on to it.
No negative reaction has a life of its own.
Negative reactions have no life of their own,
But in contrast,
When we get negative,
Suddenly,
Oh my God,
Anxious,
Angry,
We feel like we're really alive,
Don't we?
But if we can use that negative reaction,
Learn the meaning of that moment,
We'll understand these negative reactions are essentially the homeless shadows of moments past.
They are shadows of a meaning that was not received.
And when it wasn't received,
It became buried in this consciousness because it never went through the conception it was intended to so that out of that negative reaction would be this meaning that we're describing where we can see and understand.
I'm not going to pretend that what I'm describing to you isn't hard work.
It's so much easier just to,
It's so easy to accept what our mind is telling us is true,
Especially when our mind is telling us that there's trouble in the moment and we have to be careful.
We must protect ourselves.
We must avoid moments.
You cannot avoid a moment.
You cannot avoid a character.
You cannot avoid a relationship and hope in any way at all to realize the meaning of yourself as it is being given to you in that moment.
It's impossible.
So to put these things together,
As Anne writes,
So how do we see the meaning?
I have to realize in the moment,
Anne,
And everyone else that's asking this question,
That my awareness of this resistance,
That it is there,
That it is mechanical,
That it wants to tell me the meaning of the moment,
My understanding of the truth that no negative reaction knows the meaning of a moment.
My understanding of it,
I must bring that understanding into that actual moment itself so that there's this reaction,
We all have them,
You can't avoid them.
Life is going to touch parts of ourselves that have been tucked away forever,
Not just ours but part of this consciousness,
And they're going to stir that consciousness.
And we must allow that consciousness to be stirred so that everything that is latent in it is brought up into the light of our awareness.
Because in that moment where we are suddenly aware of what is latent in us,
For instance,
The latent insistence I have that you talk to me in tones only that I like,
The latent demand that life bring me on demand what I want when I want it,
And if it doesn't,
I'm going to have a tantrum.
This latent tendency in the consciousness that these moments bring about and stir up make those moments meaningful because in the moment where I see I have been identified with this latent content,
These old energies,
These old bodies,
This weary soul stuff that's stuffed down there,
In that moment it is liberated.
I am liberated,
I am free from what I didn't know was concealed.
And then the moment takes on the meaning it's intended to,
Which is what?
The revelation of what has been concealed,
Which leads to the healing of that consciousness.
That's what an aha moment is.
It is the instantaneous integration of a consciousness suddenly shown the meaning of the moment was already inherent in itself.
Unity,
Love,
By any other word.
And I'm at 41 minutes.
Listen,
I'm not allowed to promote events,
But I talk three times a week.
Go to my profile,
Google me.
I'm getting ready tomorrow to talk about some of this in depth.
It's free,
It's online,
Nothing to join,
No cost,
Yada yada yada.
Find your own examples.
Just start with the simplest thing.
Start with one thing,
Ann.
If I know that no negative reaction does anything but see what justifies it.
No negative reaction sees anything but what justifies it.
And I know in my heart of hearts there is no justification for hurting myself or anyone else.
Then suddenly I am in a crucible of a kind,
Am I not?
I know the truth that I mustn't agree,
Identify with this reaction.
And yet here it is coming up to take me away.
If I stay in that crucible,
In the awareness of that consciousness,
Then suddenly that moment takes on new meaning because it has brought me into the awareness of that consciousness for the first time.
I gotta go.
Be safe.
Do find me.
Join me.
Let's continue this process.
Let's become different human beings who,
As I've described,
Are able to use every moment of life to find new meaning in it that renews us as human beings.
It is there.
You will be too if you do your work.
Bye.
