GF Live 7-15-23 A Simple Practice to Strengthen the Soul

I'm intending in our time today to talk to you about what I'm calling an unimaginable strength of your true self.

You mustn't get carried away with that idea,

Because the unimaginable strength of your true self really has nothing to do with what we imagine strength to be.

That's our biggest problem in one respect,

Where we wander so far off the path,

Is that we're always imagining some time or place or condition that we can enter into in time,

Where for being in relationship with that power,

That possession,

That authority,

Somehow will be protected or insulated from the things that are painful and problematic to us in our lives.

But that has nothing to do with what real strength is.

We need new self-knowledge.

I don't know if it's ever occurred to you,

But I can't look out at a moment and have any relationship to it as I presently am,

Other than what I see and then what those things that come into my mind trigger in my mind that I then in quotes think about.

So I am always more or less thinking about what I see unfolding around me,

Unaware of the fact that my consciousness has selected what it sees so that it can react according to the content of itself,

So that I'm always basically looking out without understanding it,

And not just seeing the content of my own consciousness,

But then being told by that consciousness what to do with what I see.

It's a loop.

We find strength not in what we've imagined,

But in what we actually are.

We are not the creators of this strength that we all want to have.

The strength not to be cruel.

The strength to be kind when appropriate.

The strength not to rush.

The strength not to be afraid.

Not strength because I find something that's going to protect me from my fear,

But the strength to investigate my own fears.

The strength to investigate my weaknesses.

Because as long as I live under the mistaken notion that these things that I fear in myself or in the world,

I must meet with protection from it.

I will forever seek protection outside of myself,

And the more I try to produce protection outside of myself to get me past these painful moments,

These weaknesses,

The more I am in the grip of a consciousness responsible for creating the very thing I'm trying to escape.

We find strength by entering into another level of ourselves where that strength awaits us,

And this is across the board.

Maybe you've heard it,

If not,

And Christ said,

And of course,

If you've ever traveled or done any real studying,

You know every true religion,

Every religion,

As errant as it's become through corruption,

Has essential truths at the root of it.

And one of them is most stated simply for Western minds is in my father's kingdom,

There are many mansions.

You've heard this before,

But we don't know what that means,

Many mansions.

God help us,

We think of the difference between the valley in Southern California and Bel-Air on the mountains.

That is not what it's referring to,

Although it does describe levels of being.

These mansions are levels of being,

And these levels of being,

They are what give rise to the creatures that live within them.

The fish don't create the ocean,

The ocean creates the conditions under which the animals,

The creatures that live in it exist.

So levels give rise to the creatures that were in it.

Creatures do not give rise to levels,

Levels give rise to creatures.

And this is true of us.

Levels of consciousness exist.

And these levels of consciousness in this grand scheme of the divine being,

Levels of consciousness are determined by the level of awareness of the creature in that consciousness.

So that if you want,

Just to be quick about this,

If I can,

That means that we are created,

You and I,

With the capacity,

Unlike every other creature,

At least mostly that we know,

We alone can be aware of our own consciousness.

The creatures that live at the level of simple consciousness have no awareness of themselves.

Their awareness is determined by the nature that places them in that level.

So our capacity to be aware of our own consciousness gives us a way in which we can begin to understand and see into the levels of this consciousness.

St.

Paul said,

We struggle not with flesh and blood,

But with powers and principalities.

Again,

He was referring to these mansions,

To these levels of being,

These levels of consciousness and what is created in those levels.

So when he says not flesh and blood,

But powers and principalities,

He was saying that we are governed by these levels of forces.

These levels of forces govern us.

And until we understand these forces,

Which we can only understand by entering into them,

Which we are given the capacity to do,

It is the rarest of all gifts to be aware of all that constitutes our consciousness,

Then we can begin to have a world in which day by day we understand where it is that we get drawn down and how it is in the awareness of something that wants to pull us into that anger,

Pull us into that fear,

Pull us into that doubt,

Pull us into that self-loathing,

Into that cruelty,

That the very awareness of being pulled down,

Which we can feel,

Allows us to separate the wheat from the chaff and to experience in that moment another order of our own consciousness that is aware of what we were about to become had we given into that temptation to identify with whatever it was that was calling to us.

I hope this is somewhat clear.

Let me get started with this.

Katie,

Let's bring up the first key lesson.

Kate is going to post now the key lesson that will set the stage from this point on for our material.

So let her post that,

Please,

Without posting in between.

Then we can resume our dialogue on the board.

Here we go.

Sometimes the touch of grace is sweet.

Sometimes it seems bitter,

Hard to bear.

Yet whatever its measure,

This much is true.

It always strengthens those who will agree to stand in its living light and those who will stand in its living light,

Allowing it to reveal and release them from what they've yet to realize is true about themselves.

Finds that strength to release them from what they have yet to realize is true about themselves.

We don't know what is true about ourselves because something is always telling us this is what is true about you.

Try to see this with me.

We have been so thoroughly conditioned.

This level of consciousness,

This lower level that we are all brought into like an ocean of conditioned thoughts,

Suppositions,

Ideals,

Beliefs,

That level we are inculcated to fear what we don't understand.

It's part of our present consciousness to fear what we don't understand.

What do you think racism is?

What do you think all of the war is about?

Anything we don't understand,

Meaning that it doesn't match what our consciousness calls real and good and true,

Is seen as an enemy.

So that this inculcation to fear what we don't understand goes before us across the board and nowhere is that conditioning more true than when it comes to seeing things about ourselves that we don't understand.

And rather than realize in the moment that we don't understand something about ourselves and bear what it would take to enter into that momentary light that reveals that,

We just instantaneously identify with these thoughts and feelings that go on and tell us what it is that we're seeing and how we need to avoid it.

So as astounding as it is,

And I hope it's astounding to you,

We tend to look at fear as proof that we understand the reasons why we have it.

Think about it.

We believe that fear proves that we understand why we have to live in that fear and why there must be excuses for living in that fear.

So fear basically,

As part of an unconscious nature that has no understanding of itself but believes that it understands itself,

Tells it,

Tells me,

You know,

Guy,

You really need to be afraid of this moment.

And the reason you need to be afraid of this moment is because if it doesn't go the way you want it to go,

Then all of these bad things are going to happen.

So it's excusable,

Guy,

For you to live in fear.

It's excusable,

Guy,

For you to blame people because you fear that they may have some authority over you.

So all of these weaknesses that we are not intended to be the instruments of are turned into what we believe are strengths.

Where however it goes down,

We believe that a good excuse for a fear or a worry or being anxious is the same as having power over it.

Try to see this immense contradiction with me.

And it started early.

I don't know if you remember this.

I do.

Do you remember mom or dad turning to you when you got into trouble at school or something?

And they would say to you,

You know,

You have no one to blame for this but yourself.

Remember that?

You have no one to blame for this but yourself.

In spite of the fact that they would speak the thing but then act entirely different because when we were present to what they were talking about with their friends or on the phone or in meetings,

What we would hear all the time was them making excuses for why they were angry or frightened or why they were drinking or whatever it was that was causing the dysfunction in them.

They always had good excuses.

We grew up excusing ourselves.

Try to see this.

We literally grew up believing that an excuse was a form of defense.

That's how I defend myself is by excusing myself.

Now you ask yourself,

When I have to defend myself,

Am I defending a strength?

If I have to think through and rationalize why I said or did something and then come up with a justification,

Is the justification a strength?

Or are these excuses and justifications,

These explanations,

Are they not an act of weakness hiding itself through some kind of seemingly valid reason why I had to give up my life in that moment to something that was giving me over to a level of consciousness that could never change and never does,

I might add.

So that things like blame,

All of our excuses for worries,

Fears,

Anxieties,

You fill in the blank.

We learned all of that as we were growing up to basically say,

It's not my fault.

He or she did it.

I'm not responsible because I wouldn't have done that if they weren't this way.

This is the mindset of humanity today.

So basically,

We grew into that level,

We came into it,

Become absorbed in it,

It becomes the monocum,

It becomes the basis,

The matrix of how we see life.

So that all we did as we grew up,

And again,

I hope,

I pray you'll see it,

Basically the only thing that grew individually and collectively was the sophistication of our excuses.

I've become incredibly sophisticated at finding reasons why I'm angry.

Incredibly clever to explain the conflict that I feel based on something that's not happening the way I want it to.

So that I'm never,

Ever,

Truly with the consciousness that were it not for its constant comparison to what it wants or expects,

We would not be caught up in these excuses for the pain and the fear,

The anxiety that visits us all the time.

And it's strange.

If you've studied at all with me,

You know the idea,

When the student is ready,

The teacher appears.

But what for us we are now,

When the student is ready,

The teacher is this part of us,

In quotes,

That defends our weaknesses,

That defends my violence,

My conflict.

When the student is ready,

The teacher appears.

And by the grace of God,

The teacher keeps appearing.

Whether the student is ready or not,

Until at last,

Something starts to take place,

Where I hope you've reached in your spiritual life,

Is it becomes stunning.

If you've ever really watched yourself,

How effortless it is for us to find excuses for our pain.

It's just,

It's like that.

There's always something that's talking to us and justifying our character.

Sweet God,

Why would I listen to anything in me justify a character that when it acted,

Hurts someone that I love?

If I'm impatient and I lash out,

If you've done something that disturbs me and I drop the bomb on you,

You trigger and suddenly I'm throwing grenades at you.

How in the name of God did humanity get to the place where we believe it is justified to hurt another human being?

That isn't human.

So what we have,

If we're seeing this clearly,

And it should be clear,

Is that we are forever listening to something excuse our way out of being aware of the consciousness that is acting in our stead.

Because if you're a human being at all,

You know we do this all the time.

We hurt each other,

We say cruel things,

We're impatient,

We're brooding.

But at least a human being starts to understand that that is not the way that I am meant to be.

I'm not meant to be someone who walks around with his face all twisted up and angry or depressed and sullen and falling down.

You look at the people on the street,

You go into the places where people are shopping high end,

You'll see tension all over their faces.

We cannot excuse our way into peace of mind.

It is impossible to excuse our way into having peace.

Excuses are antithetical to the discovery that the strength that reveals these weakness to us awaits within us.

And if we let an excuse,

A justification,

An explanation become our guide in the moment of something that we do that is unkind,

Then we will never enter into this new level of being where the strength that we seek and long to participate in awaits us because that strength is part of another order of awareness of consciousness that in its intelligence will not let that consciousness bring us into its conflict,

Let alone how to release it and God help us excuse it once we've dropped the bomb on another human being.

It's really we've been conditioned from birth to be apologists.

Now,

Maybe you don't know what that word means properly,

But basically an apologist is someone who speaks or works or writes in the defense of something that is typically controversial or unpopular,

Like C.

S.

Lewis was a Christian apologist.

He took the side of Christianity,

Not from the popular side of it,

But to explain what it was that the Christians themselves didn't understand about Christ's life,

About the possibilities inherent.

Well,

We become apologists for excuses,

For weakness.

I mean,

Imagine a chicken sits on eggs and broods the eggs.

We have turkeys here on our property.

A hen broods eggs.

We've gotten to the place where we think it's OK to brood anger,

To brood depression.

We brood these states.

If you knew you were going to sit down,

If you knew you were about to hatch hatred towards someone,

Would you do that?

If I knew I was going to hatch fear,

Would I sit and sit on an egg called one day I won't have enough and it won't be bad,

I'll be all right?

Would I hatch fear?

I'm telling you with God as my witness,

This consciousness creates the eggs out of images and desires,

Sits on them,

Broods them,

And hatches them.

And then when they hatch,

Then included in the hatchlings are the excuses for all of the things that are harming us.

Are you able to see this with me,

If anybody's still here?

Yes,

Do you know exactly?

Blame is a form of an excuse,

Isn't it?

Again,

You have to see it with me.

Don't you have a thousand excuses that lead into a thousand tomorrows?

And in those thousand tomorrows,

A thousand hopes and things seen that when you get there and do this and get that and that when all of that is finally in place,

Then you become rational,

You won't be lashing out anymore.

You won't be caught up in this tension.

My God,

It is extraordinary,

This tension.

It is extraordinary.

Part of your awakening where you will think something bad is happening to you is that you will begin to become aware of a consciousness that is so in conflict with itself that it is in constant tension.

Constant tension.

This is probably what kills human beings first and foremost,

What causes premature aging,

The destruction of their adrenal system,

The breakdown of the body because the body follows the mind and if the mind is in constant tension,

Which it is because it's forever trying to figure out how to avoid what it doesn't want to meet because it doesn't think it can deal with it,

Then that tension is there all the time and you will start to awaken to this tension in you.

There's a pitch going on.

And you'll think,

This can't be right,

What's happened to me?

Oh no,

You are exactly in the place you need to be because for the first time,

The light that dwells in that darkness understands how that darkness creates shadow upon shadow upon shadow and how they're all locked into this mortal combat and that you,

Without knowing it,

Have been tempted into identifying with these things because you don't know any other level of consciousness yet other than to identify with all that moves through that consciousness,

Not just to try to figure out how to protect itself,

But then when it can't,

The excuses it has for why it's back in the pain it's back in.

Not one of our answers,

Not one excuse that I have ever made in my life.

You ever notice how easy it is to fudge?

I don't know why fudge got a bad rap,

But how easy it is to fudge?

You know,

You know,

There are certain things that aren't good for you that you shouldn't do that you really ought not lend your attention to at all because they,

They,

They,

They inculcate further dependency or attachments.

You know that.

You know that.

And then there's always this little,

This little fudge maker in the background there in the darkness.

Yeah.

See fudging excuses,

Excuses.

This time it's okay.

This is,

This,

This is,

This,

This is special.

This moment,

There is never an appropriate moment to identify with a weakness or a fear or a doubt.

It doesn't mean that we won't do it,

But it means that when we stop unconsciously identifying with these things that we make excuses for,

Then the excuses that follow them will start to become evident to us.

So that instead of getting me through that point,

I mean,

When you look at it,

Do you see this with me?

I hope you do.

We,

We actually believe that excuses prove innocence.

Don't we?

If he wasn't that way,

I wouldn't be bitter.

If,

If,

If they hadn't done those things,

They're so in,

And by the way,

I'm not saying people aren't,

In fact,

I'm quite the opposite.

Any human being who has found a way and all of us have to find consolation in justification and excuses is by nature living under the thrall and the force,

The torment of a level of consciousness that doesn't know what to do with its pain other than to lash out at others and blame them for their pain.

This is the very topic of tomorrow's talk,

By the way,

I urge you to join me tomorrow.

It's free on Sunday.

Find me every Wednesday and Sunday.

I speak.

So we,

We,

We,

We're caught in this loop where we don't see it.

That if I think to myself,

Gosh,

You know,

I don't want to feel like this,

But this is so important.

I actually am listening to something.

Tell me why my excuse for being an unpleasant,

Angry,

Or frightened human being,

Why that excuse is necessary for me.

I'm innocent.

I remember I was the past master when I was a boy growing up.

I had more.

I could,

I could get,

I found ways of getting around my parents,

You know,

Punishing me.

I had more excuses than there are stars in the skies.

And I thought I was so clever.

I'd actually sit at when I got into trouble,

I'd actually sit and I would not go through all of these various levels of excuses.

Until I found one that I knew would match my dad or my mom,

And that would elicit something from them that would allow me to get through.

And do you think that goes away?

Do you think that consciousness went away?

That's what it does.

It just,

It just works to excuse or justify itself for why it is harming others and itself.

Until it all makes perfect sense.

And what this time together that we're looking at is for us to realize there's only one reason that all of these excuses keep going on.

And that is because there is something in me that I just don't understand.

I don't understand my own pain.

I don't understand my own addictions.

I don't understand my own addictions.

And I'll never understand them as long as I excuse them.

It's impossible.

Because the excuse lives at the same level of the weakness that it hides.

Excuses live at the same level of the weaknesses that it hides.

Excuses seem to prove that we're above and beyond this that we hide from ourselves or others.

When we can see that any weakness that I find a way to excuse must be weakness itself coming up with that excuse so it can remain in control of that consciousness and keep me a captive.

You still following?

Out there?

Yes?

And I want to tell you something.

You want to know the most difficult thing you'll ever do?

Because before the talk is out,

And I've got another eight or nine minutes,

I'm going to give you an exercise.

And in one respect,

It is an exercise that if you were to work with it,

Listen to me,

Not succeed with it,

According to what you think success is.

To work with an exercise,

To have an interior practice,

Is not to try to prove that you are capable of that practice.

The real purpose of any spiritual practice is to reveal to you the level of consciousness that is presently incapable of actually instrumenting that level of attention.

That's what it does.

You get to see something about yourself through your practices,

Not prove something to yourself.

God help the aspirant who is trying to prove to himself or herself that they're special or that they understand something.

So back to what we're talking about.

So it's evident,

At least it should be,

If you're following me,

That this pain,

This fear,

My loneliness,

My anxiety,

My sense of inadequacy,

My addiction,

It has to be clear that whatever that pain is that I'm in,

That I'm never going to understand it ever until I do something that that consciousness responsible for that pain can't imagine.

And what that consciousness that is the creator of this conflict,

This divided nature,

Can't imagine doing is discovering the truth of itself.

Why?

Because it thinks it already knows the truth of itself.

When you're excusing yourself,

When you're making a rationale and justifying,

You know,

I really love God.

I want the divine in my life.

Christ is my master.

I'm Buddha.

I really want this more than anything else.

And then you spend all day doing anything and everything other than giving your attention,

Not necessarily to spiritual studies.

Most human beings,

It takes lifetimes.

Don't ask me about that.

It takes an immense period of time to get to the point where that individual is capable of remaining in a contemplative state for the whole of the day.

And the only reason that is reached is because that man or woman has realized that if I'm not attentive to my consciousness 24 seven,

Then my consciousness is going to attend to what it has been conditioned to do.

And I will find myself once again,

A captive of some action that I take that then I have to excuse.

Oh,

My God.

Can you imagine for a moment talking about what real strength is?

That I never again have to take thought for an action I just took.

That strength.

I never have to consider the ramifications of the way I spoke or how I handled that.

I never have to go through that because the action was pure and clean in that moment.

Because it wasn't contaminated by that conscious that's forever trying to save itself through what it imagines is strength and then must come back and excuse the action that is seen as being what it is,

Which isn't strength.

But a form of misunderstanding,

A form of incomplete understanding.

How can we possibly believe that it's possible to transcend this consciousness,

This pain?

It is synonymous.

This pain,

This weakness,

This fear,

It is synonymous with the level of consciousness that gives rise to it.

It is not your weakness.

It is not your weakness.

It is not your weakness.

It is not your fear,

But it becomes your weakness and your fear when you identify with the excuses that that consciousness makes for it.

Then through that attention and identification,

I'm brought into that level and become just one of the many leaves being blown around by the wind of whatever it is that is moving that me in that moment.

So the task is that if we want to enter into another level of consciousness where awareness will prohibit us from excusing this self,

Then we have to become fully aware of the consciousness that is responsible for that weakness.

And I'll tell you what,

Steve,

If you ever get to the point where you really understand this,

And I'm not saying that in any form other than may it be so,

God will help you.

This is what it means that God helps those who help themselves.

How do I help myself?

I stop helping myself to another portion of excuses.

I stop having more reasons why it is that I'm so angry and irritated.

How much I hate the world and I'd never be like this kind of tension if it weren't for this,

How this anxiety has a gazillion reasons.

And every last one of them,

By the way,

Is flattering to the self that wamps the anxiety up.

I'm a special person.

I want things to go well.

I love people.

All of that's a lie.

Every last way in which we explain a weakness or an anxiety or a fear is the consciousness that's created it,

Bringing us into that world so that it can keep us there.

I'm going to have to go into that awareness.

I'm going to have to grow in my awareness of that level of consciousness.

I'm going to have to grow in my awareness of that level of consciousness.

Now,

The question is,

If you're following me,

Let me bring up the second key lesson that I intend for today.

Don't write because I'm going to give you something to work with.

It'll be there when you replay this.

If you do,

Kate's going to put up the second key lesson.

Here it is.

When all is said and done,

There is only one freedom.

And that is in the unconditional acceptance of the experience of myself as I am.

When all is said and done,

There is only one freedom.

And that is in the unconditional acceptance of the experience of myself as I am.

And the only way there's can be this unconditional acceptance of myself as I am is through my awareness of myself in that moment.

Not in my resistance to what I'm aware of.

Not in my fear of what I see in myself.

But in the unconditional acceptance of the revelation of that consciousness in the moment.

Because until that consciousness is revealed,

You should be able to see with me,

It's going to continue to run what it runs,

Its operating system,

That in its divided state will forever find ways in which it has excuses and justifications for the things that it tells me to do.

I mean,

Just the simplest point.

Our mind will tell us,

Go do this,

Go say that,

Go be like this.

And God forbid you should be angry or in a state of some kind.

You'll be sitting there and you will be like some angry little red-faced puppet.

And you will be fed all of the things that you're saying in that moment.

And you won't even know that it's not you talking,

That fear is talking for you.

Anytime we defend a negative state,

The defense is an excuse for it.

And when we excuse negative states,

We give rise to the further identification with that consciousness until finally there's not even a thought in our mind that we could possibly be mistaken.

I'm never wrong.

I got to keep going here.

So let me get on with this now.

So what are we going to do?

I'm going to give you the exercise now.

And keep in mind,

If you've listened to me at all,

Regardless how one may feel in the moment,

There is no moment that real life can bring to us in which we are inadequate to be changed through it.

Not inadequate to change the moment.

You mustn't try to change the moment.

You can't change the moment.

Your consciousness is the moment you experience.

But we are never inadequate to be changed by that moment,

By the light that shows that to us.

That is our true strength.

And in that true strength,

If we get it,

I'm not,

Look,

I'm angry,

I'm worried,

I'm anxious,

I'm explaining.

And then suddenly I catch it.

I'm filled with all of these reasons for why I feel the way I do,

Because otherwise I'm not going to be able to change the moment.

I'm filled with all of these reasons for why I feel the way I do,

Because otherwise,

If I don't have those reasons,

I must be a fully inadequate human being.

Something's terribly wrong with me.

So my excuse gives me time.

Oh,

God,

That you should hear me.

My excuses give me time.

There is no time to come.

This is it.

As I am,

Is it,

But as I am,

Is created to constantly be reborn,

But not reborn in a time to come.

But reborn through the awareness of the consciousness that is in one respect at each level beneath myself,

Death,

A captive,

A prisoner.

So the forever realizing that awareness and bringing it into play in that moment,

I can begin to do the one thing that will reveal to me that consciousness that is the very source of the weakness and the excuses for it.

And here it is.

Are you ready?

The single greatest spiritual practice in the world for awakening unimaginable spiritual strength.

Write it down.

Katie,

Maybe you'll put it up there for me.

Here it is.

No more ifs,

Ands,

Or buts.

No more ifs,

Ands,

Or buts.

That's the exercise.

What would happen if I actually said to myself today only?

Don't think to yourself,

Just just take a moment of time.

No more ifs,

Ands,

Or buts.

If only this.

And only that.

But what about this?

No ifs,

Ands,

Or buts.

No more ifs,

Ands,

Or buts.

And what will happen if you do that?

The last key lesson and then we'll close the talk.

Sorry,

I went a little bit longer.

Katie,

If you're ready.

This is a summary.

Or lean on weary excuses why we must be filled with fear or worry.

We will never be free of fear,

Anger,

Or worry.

Work with the exercise.

See what happens.

A part of you will love it.

And the part of you that doesn't want the exercise that still wants to find excuses,

You'll begin to have an awareness of that consciousness like you've never had before.

And then you are headed in the right direction.