GF Live 9-17-22 Shake Off The Fear Of Making A Mistake

I have a particular topic this morning,

And one that in some ways is going to tie into the talks that I'm going to be giving for the rest of the coming week,

Including over the weekend.

I'm not allowed to promote an event,

But if you go online here,

Check my profile,

You can follow it and learn about some free talks.

But the theme of which,

And that's why I say we're going to look at it a little bit together today is something that is so important to understand.

It's almost impossible to say with the emphasis that I wish the importance of it.

So I thought what I would do is I would tell you a short story.

I like to tell teaching stories,

If you will,

And then I'll make this main point and we'll go into and through the supporting ideas for our topic today.

So nice deep breath.

Here's a reporter and she's covering this first stage Olympic trials for young athletes who in their region want to qualify for the statewide and then eventually the national qualifications.

And he's there and there are a lot of young men and women that are doing the best they can with their various events.

But he's heard that there's one young,

She's heard there's one young woman who excels in the high jump,

Seems to be able to get above the bar with greater ease than others.

And as he's watching her prepare for the first stage of her trial,

Each contestant gets three chances to clear this bar.

He knows that she knows the bar has been set above the rest.

And so here comes this young woman.

If you've ever watched high jumping,

It's phenomenal that a person can get their body in the air like that.

Here she comes and she goes,

Takes and tries to clear the bar and sure enough,

She clips it,

Knocks the bar down.

She's laying on top of those puffy mats that they land on.

She gets up,

She can,

The reporter can see that she's disappointed.

And while the reporter doesn't want to intrude,

Nevertheless,

She wants to ask some questions.

So she goes over to the young athlete and looks at her smiles as best she can in a consulting manner and says,

Well,

That must be quite the disappointing result.

I imagine.

Now what?

And our young athlete looks up at the reporter says,

Well,

Of course,

I would have liked to have done better,

But I don't really look at moments like that as being a mistake.

And the reporter,

Interested,

Of course,

The reporter,

By the way,

Representing the parts of us that want to delve into and discover higher possibilities.

But let's be clear that before we can discover a higher possibility,

We're going to have to encounter that which is limiting the revelation of that possibility.

This is a theme.

We're going to go through.

He says,

Well,

If it wasn't a mistake,

She says,

If it wasn't a mistake,

Then what was it?

And the young athlete looks at her and says,

Well,

I look at these moments more like specific lessons that I don't understand yet and that if I want to continue developing my skill,

I'm going to have to learn all about these limitations.

Reporter's interested,

Please go on.

He says,

Well,

Like yourself,

You know,

You said what now after that mistake,

But you see,

I know something now that I didn't know before what you've called a mistake.

And if I know something now that I didn't know before and that the mistake,

Meaning whatever it is that one goes through and the young athlete says,

I get it.

This world is full of stigma.

You make a mistake and you're seen as something less than whatever it is that people anticipate you to be or that you think you should be.

But the only way that it's possible for me to transcend whatever these present limitations are is for me to meet them.

The reporter says,

Well,

That's a fabulous philosophy,

But now what?

Well,

The young athlete says,

I hope that I'll do a lot better next time.

Why don't you stick around and see and then we can talk about it some more if you like.

I want to try to explain something because I'm assuming that you join me on Saturdays if you do regularly or my regular free online talks.

Because to whatever extent it's true,

You have felt,

Seen,

Otherwise realized.

And to put it as simply as I can,

That latent somewhere in you is something that wants to be free.

That wants to be liberated.

That wants to be brought into this world through you.

You could say,

And most of us,

I think,

Have an innate feeling that we are here on this planet to discover and realize what it is within us that moves us,

That prompts us to want to take chances,

To want to learn,

To want to grow,

In particular to outgrow whatever it is that we continue to run into within ourselves that seems to be a limitation.

But there's a caveat here.

And the caveat is that we have been conditioned and are severely so to hide our limitations.

What do you think any form of defensiveness is?

What do you think it is that when we avoid certain situations,

Maybe opportunities appear?

There's something in us that doesn't want to go into those moments.

Because while on one hand we're being prompted to explore and expand what it is that we understand about ourselves and our capacity to manifest it,

At the same time going on in the depths of ourselves,

There's a part of us that says at no cost should we ever be seen by others,

Let alone run into these moments where our aspirations are met by something that crushes them,

A moment that doesn't affirm who and what it is that we believe ourselves to be.

Now,

I want you,

If you want to,

Write something down,

Or at least put it down in your mind as clearly as you can.

And it is that the revelation of any limitation is a divine invitation to transcend it.

The revelation of any limitation is a divine invitation to transcend it.

We don't know that we live in a world that is so much greater in its invisibility than it is in its physical tangibility.

That it's almost impossible.

And I think that most of us,

If you join me,

Like I say,

We have a certain,

I'll use the word faith,

We have a certain understanding that the development of ourselves isn't something that we're going to do by ourselves.

We must agree to pay the cost of that development,

Which is the discovery of ourselves,

But the discovery of ourselves involves,

Includes,

Must include the limitation in ourselves.

When you look out at nature,

I often use examples like this,

There is not one creature from the smallest blade of grass to a tree,

To the deer,

The turkeys,

The eagles.

There isn't one of them that isn't always,

If you will,

Being tested by nature.

You know the understanding,

That idea,

Tested by nature.

It means that nature,

In order to ensure the continual development of the species,

Will stress the individuals in that group.

And the nature does that,

Brings about conditions that test the existing limitations of that creature.

It isn't done to punish the creature.

It's done so that that creature can call upon a certain bank,

A certain residual possibility in itself,

And then use the limitation and the resistance that that limitation has to the moment to transcend itself.

And we can see this all the time.

I cannot tell you how many times I've seen wild creatures here on this mountain where my wife and I live with injuries that if a human being sustained them,

We'd be done.

And yet these creatures will find a way.

They haven't you ever marveled at how nature finds a way.

It finds a way because the way is inherent,

Not just in the creature,

But in what the creature is brought to meet so that the creature can transcend its present limitations.

Now take that idea as above so below,

That you and I are created,

Brought into this world with a certain essence,

With a certain set of possibilities that are not limitations in and of themselves,

But exist as a way in which we can begin to meet.

And this is key here.

Have you ever wondered why certain lessons keep coming back to you?

Please,

You know,

Indicate in this box here.

Yeah,

It's phenomenal.

Over and over again,

It seems like the same lesson repeats itself.

Now,

Why does the same lesson repeat itself?

Most of us think that there's some kind of cruel plot,

Something going on,

Something set against us.

Why do these lessons repeat themselves?

And the simple answer is the reason the lesson repeats itself is because the consciousness,

Our individual relationship to this broader mind,

The consciousness knows,

If you will,

That within us there are still parts of us that don't understand,

That are incomplete,

That are there to be developed.

And these parts of ourselves,

These aspects of our character,

These qualities,

They actually are like attractors.

This consciousness attracts to itself,

From itself,

What is required for itself to be revealed to itself so that in the revelation of that limitation,

It can finally go about bringing the integration that all of those lessons are intended to produce.

So in the grand scheme of things,

If you can see it,

And Chantal,

I'm talking about more than resilience.

Of course,

There are men and women who have tremendous resilience,

But resilience means that somehow or other I keep,

I go through it,

I sustain,

I've got the strength.

Let us understand that the initial state of running into a limitation is not intended to be met the way it is now with,

You know,

I'm going to buckle up and I'm going to chin up and I'm going to go through it so that what,

So that I can go through it again and again and again and not learn the lesson in that moment.

The last thing that occurs to us when we meet these unwanted moments is that we will never outgrow what we don't understand about ourselves.

That simple,

Because what we are meeting in those moments is what we don't understand about ourselves.

That's what every encounter of the unwanted kind is.

Every encounter of the unwanted kind that we call a crisis is only a crisis to the consciousness that does not want to explore and ultimately transcend the consciousness that has been revealed by that moment acting upon it.

I'm asking you to see this with me.

We see those moments,

Repeated moments,

As a kind of a curse.

Why do I have to keep running into,

Yes or no,

Why do I have to keep running into people like that?

You are not running into people like that,

Although people may be like that.

But the fact of the matter is,

Is that we haven't learned a certain lesson about ourselves,

About this consciousness,

That by its nature,

By divine intervention brings into our life what is needed to illuminate what we have yet to see in ourselves,

In our consciousness that until we finally do,

We're going to keep going through these same experiences over and over again.

So the main point here,

While I move on,

Is that you and I,

Without understanding the gift of it,

Are created with this gift of being able to discover and transcend the limitations that when we now meet them,

We find ways to blame the world or justify ourselves in that moment where we run into whatever it is that we've run into.

And this is an important point.

I want to stress it.

Spiritual development,

Real spiritual development,

Not the development of our intellectual parts,

Not our capacity to have resilience and sit and grit our teeth and bear all of that.

Real development is not evolutionary.

The world wants you to believe that spiritual development is evolutionary.

All you have to do is just be you and you're going to be carried off at some point of the promised land.

And that is not true.

A great teacher I knew many years ago,

He said,

What kind of heaven would it be with you there?

And if you're a little bit honest,

You know the truth of that.

Spiritual development is not evolutionary.

It is voluntary.

It is voluntary.

And yes,

Because I have to expand on that a little bit.

You do your work,

I do my work.

And if we do our work inwardly,

Understanding how to use these moments where suddenly we meet a limitation and to realize the real mistake in that moment is to avoid that moment.

If we go through that and go through the growing pains,

Which I want to stress,

If we go through the growing pains of these kind of revelations,

Then that consciousness that we are a part of changes according to the extent that the individual is willing to pay that price.

And in one respect,

The whole of consciousness evolves as each individual in it does their place.

But the whole evolution of consciousness does not guarantee the individuals in a physical body in a certain period of time does not mean they are evolving.

We are responsible for our brothers and sisters in one respect,

But our first responsibility that fulfills the responsibility to the broader world is to go through this transformation ourselves.

So again,

Why do we avoid any unwanted moment?

Think with me,

Why do I avoid it?

Isn't it true that when we meet an unwanted moment,

It can be anything?

Something simple as somebody saying to me something I don't want to hear.

Simple as being maybe invited someplace and I don't feel adequate,

Whatever it may be.

Why do I avoid any unwanted moment?

Please we avoid unwanted moments because we don't understand their nature.

I'm afraid of doing this.

I don't want to try that.

I would if we avoid unwanted moments because we believe that the unwanted moment is responsible for our experience of it.

We avoid unwanted moments because we believe the unwanted moment is responsible for our experience of it.

No moment is responsible for the experience we have of not wanting it.

Not wanting the moment is what happens when something in us decides that it doesn't want to deal with what that moment is going to reveal about that consciousness.

Pure and simple.

Then ask yourself,

If you will,

What if I actually understood that?

I'm afraid of trying this.

I don't want to do whatever it is that I feel,

By the way,

Moved to do.

Maybe I grew up,

I wanted to be an artist.

I wanted to sing.

Maybe I wanted to delve more deeply into spiritual truth.

It could be anything.

But somewhere along the line,

And it starts at a very early age,

And let's not smooth over that.

We're taught at a very early age,

We watch our parents,

We watch everyone around us.

We see in school.

We're taught to hide.

We're taught to cover up any form of limitation we may have.

Maybe I wasn't good at football on the playground.

Maybe I was afraid of the swings.

I mean,

It could be anything.

And because of the unconscious nature that is particularly,

You know,

The unconscious cruelty in a consciousness that feels itself separate from everything and therefore fears everything,

Cannot wait to point out shortcomings in other human beings.

What do you think judging others is about?

So here we are as children growing up in families.

We're taught we shouldn't be like that.

Don't you be like that.

We don't know what we should be.

We're just told don't be like that.

And so that carries over and eventually we get into places where we want to experiment.

We want to try.

Maybe I want to do something and something tells me you can't.

You don't have what it takes.

And in the very moment that this consciousness tells you that you can't or you shouldn't or you're not up to it,

What is that consciousness doing?

We take it as a form of protection because that's what it feels like.

Feels like anything that protects me from the pain of meeting a limitation must be on my side.

But I'm telling you that anything that protects you from going into a situation and making a mistake of running right into some limitation of yours,

Seeing that where you miss the mark,

Anything that protects you from that is ensuring that you remain under its thumb and that you never discover that you're created by the divine.

To meet these moments and discover through them that you as a man or a woman are brought into this world to constantly,

Ceaselessly meet these limitations for the purpose of realizing that who and what you are is created to transcend them.

Every single last one of these moments,

And listen to me,

Not succeed.

That's why we don't try because something in us,

Our culture,

Our environment,

Our religious training,

The financial circumstances,

Something in us tells us this is what success is.

Success is when others see you as being successful.

Successful is when you have a car that people go,

Oh.

Successful is when you can present yourselves in social settings with a certain air of prominence because you can prove to the world around you that you've achieved certain things.

That is not success.

Success is the moment by moment discovery that you are a man or a woman made in the image of God and that every last thing that you encounter that you are able to discover some deeper truth about yourself through that moment,

That's success.

Because in those moments of discovery that by and large no one is going to know about,

They may begin to see in you a certain comfort,

A certain peace,

A certain willingness to say yes when everyone else is saying no.

They may see that in you,

But they won't understand that you have found the path to self-mastery and that self-mastery is not you mastering yourself,

But you allowing the moment to bring up inside of you that which can master these limitations through the revelation of them and then through the gradual integration of what you have yet to understand about yourself.

That's success.

And if it is,

Sorry,

If it is,

That means you could have a hundred successes every day.

I'm in my car in the traffic.

I know in my heart of hearts,

And then you fill in the blanks,

I shouldn't speed.

I shouldn't hate the person who tailgates me or cuts me off.

I shouldn't be trying to get ahead of the person in front of me.

And the reason we know that for one thing if we do it all is because it's very painful.

But the pressure to succeed at getting where I want to go outweighs the possibility of me seeing that I'm not going anywhere.

And that I've never changed one.

Think about all the people that you've judged on the freeway or in traffic that you've judged in your family.

I've not changed one thing about anybody.

Nothing.

And then I realize that the success is not getting you or the world to be what I want you to be so that I feel good about the image I have of myself.

The success is discovering that anything in me that believes the moment is responsible for my irresponsible action,

For my cruelty,

For my aggressiveness,

For my ambition,

For my pushiness,

For my rushing.

That's a lie.

So then I begin to go into those moments with a completely different idea of what it means to be a successful human being.

And each time I meet the upwelling,

And you know quite well what I mean,

That the upwelling,

The sudden constriction,

The sudden anger,

The sudden fear,

You're looking at a moment coming downstream where you're going to be asked to do something or there's a possibility that if you step up,

You might be able to go into and through something new and you can feel everything in you starting to tense up.

What do you think?

See,

This is our problem.

We just,

We just,

Our lives aren't examined.

I know that all of us are stricken with tension.

Yes or no?

Come on.

Yes or no?

On the board.

I'm tense.

I'm wound up.

I snap.

What do you think all,

What do you think that tension is?

Can I be tense about anything without having in one way or another,

Of course all unconscious to myself,

Decided that something needs to be done or I need to get somewhere or someone needs to be like this.

Can I be tense at all without having been,

Again,

Unseen,

Caught up in a world where things must go the way I see them going?

They cannot go the way I don't want them to go.

That tension is all the byproduct of a mind thinking that if things don't go the way I need them to go,

Then suddenly I'm going to meet something in myself.

I don't want to meet.

I don't want to run into what I am when life doesn't confirm me as I see myself.

It's too painful.

Too painful to who?

It really is.

I keep expanding on it and again,

The upcoming talks really going to hit this hard.

Painful to who?

Why do I avoid unwanted moments other than I don't want the pain of making a mistake in them?

I don't want to suffer meeting a limitation.

So I believe,

Meaning that consciousness that's providing that pain,

It says,

Listen,

Just avoid the situation.

Don't say yes,

Say no.

Then if you can,

Protect yourself.

And it's talking to us from something in us that is saying,

If you just do what I tell you to do,

You can be assured you're never going to change.

You're never going to discover the possibility given to you to go into an unwanted moment and leave that moment that you were afraid of going into.

A man or a woman who never fears in the same way again.

So many impressions are running through my mind.

So much gratitude.

It's,

It's a long road.

Let's not kid ourselves.

We have been brought into a consciousness that itself has been fully conditioned.

And we as instruments of it equally conditioned according to our culture,

Our environment,

Our social situation.

And we're taught to fear fear.

Fear teaches us to fear itself.

But fear never says,

Fear me.

Fear says,

Fear the moment where you might run into something that challenges you as you imagine yourself to be.

And it is,

It isn't courage gained through acquisition.

It isn't confidence slowly developed through convincing others that you are the way you pretend to be and that you have the property and the possessions to validate the image that you live up to.

That's not where confidence lives.

Confidence is a creation of a relationship between a human being and his or her God.

That's what confidence is.

Confidence is knowing that there's not one moment that I can go into that if I'm willing to pay the price,

The cost of meeting the limitation as fully conscious as I can,

Not excusing,

Not justifying,

Not trying to find a way around it.

If I do that,

I will see something I couldn't see in any other way.

And what I see will be the result of a revelation of me entering into that situation,

Eyes wide open,

Heart fully expanded,

Body willing to receive all the sensation,

The whole of myself,

Willing to see the whole of myself.

And in every moment like that,

And you have to do it for yourself,

Otherwise you'll never know the truth of it.

I exit that moment with a new understanding that was given to me,

But that I had to be in the proper place to receive.

There's only one mistake that we make in life,

Really.

And that mistake is to not treat every unwanted moment as an opportunity to see with greater and greater clarity where it is that we have been completely hoodwinked.

And I have no idea what the word hoodwinked,

Maybe it's something old people deceived,

Tricked,

Lied to.

We believe in fear.

You can say you don't,

And I know,

But you do.

You believe that it's wise to avoid people and places and problems that produce negative reactions in you.

And let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I'm not saying walk through some dangerous neighborhood,

Which by the way,

Almost all of them are now.

I'm saying that when you go to work and there's people that trouble you,

You believe judging them is the way in which you stay free from them.

No,

Judging them is what connects you to them.

And the reason that you judge them is because you don't want to experience what they are helping you see about yourself.

Wanting to win.

You know,

Sometimes I just,

Sometimes I don't,

I don't want to,

What are they,

Another old saying,

I don't want to pepper the pot.

I don't want to try and get you to believe in what I'm saying.

That's a nightmare.

I just want you to see the possibility.

I want you to feel the possibility of recognizing,

Realizing through conscious effort that there's no moment that you can't go into that you don't want to,

That if you go into it with a new willingness to understand that the task there,

The success in that moment is what you're given to see about yourself,

No matter how much you don't want to see it.

It's a mystery.

I'm 73 years old.

I literally have been doing this work for 60 years.

And it's still baffling.

It's still such a mystery.

And the deeper the mystery becomes,

Meaning the more that one sees,

As I'm describing to you,

The possibility of seeing into and through your own consciousness,

The more you realize there is always something there with you.

It has been with you all along.

And it wants you to see yourself through a new set of eyes,

Knowing that if you continue to see yourself through the eyes of your present level of consciousness,

You're just going to see what that consciousness wants you to see.

And what it wants you to see is everything that allows it to continue itself,

To reincarnate itself at your cost.

But to see through another set of eyes,

In spite of what it seems to cost you,

Because it runs completely counter to everything you think is true about yourself,

Then you enter into a relationship with the truth that sets you free.

It is a kind of love.

But love that you can imagine,

Love that you feel when you think about love,

That is not,

I should say that is an order of love,

But it is not love.

It is not agape.

It is not the true love.

The true love is an actual constant act that you and I are intended to be actors within.

And it is as we take our place on that divine stage,

As we enter into the role that each and every one of us is given,

Including the reality that comes along to expand our capacity to be better and truer actors on that stage of the divine.

That's what love is.

Love is the ceaseless laying down of identification with any particular role,

Including the one of being afraid of moments where we are afraid of making a mistake.

The moment is a mistake if we don't learn from it.

And learning is not done just with the mind.

Learning is done with the totality of our consciousness made aware of itself and in the awareness of itself,

And in the awareness of itself,

Transcending itself.

You discover that you are created to ceaselessly transcend yourself,

And you have entered into a relationship with another order of being that is the very nature of love,

Confidence,

Strength,

Goodness,

Kindness,

True courage.

40 minutes,

That's about it.

I'm glad that you were here today.

I urge you to do your work,

Find out.

Don't believe anybody,

Don't believe anything.

Test everything for yourself consciously.

An amazing trip.

I hope to see you online.

Again,

Find me.