Graduate From The School Of Hard Knocks Gf Live 10-14-23

The title for this material today is How to Graduate from the School of Hard Knocks.

How many of you are enrolled in the School of Hard Knocks?

And we can just have some fun.

Put your hand up over here or say,

Yeah,

That's a fact.

I've been put back a class in the School of Hard Knocks.

Isn't it strange how our lives are perceived to be knocked around by events or uncooperative people or even horrific world conditions?

They seem to batter us back and forward.

But I want to help you understand something about that that perhaps you've never seen before and can help you turn these hard knocks into awakenings,

Which is what they're intended to be.

So let's put up the key lesson.

Don't pose for a second.

Here we go.

No real lesson in life becomes our understanding until we realize that each unwanted experience in life serves as a secret reflection,

A reflection of an undetected interior imbalance within us.

These lessons exist and are brought about to help strengthen and temper the character of our soul.

These lessons presently escape us.

And instead of a life-liberating experience,

The possibility of discovering something new and true about ourselves in these moments turns into a hard knock.

And so just to jump to it,

What is it really that knocks us around?

What is it that actually knocks us around in these moments?

Is it what you said that knocks me around?

Is it the news that knocks me around?

Or is what knocks me around in that moment,

And we must go slow here,

Isn't it my reaction to that moment,

A summary resistance that rises up and sets me against whatever it is that's taking place?

And so what's knocking me around is me running into some idea or belief that I have about that moment that is no longer cooperating with the way I see it.

And I run into,

As Claudia said,

Myself.

I run into a reaction that I've had and that I continually try to change the condition the reaction is blaming instead of failing to recognize that the reaction is powerless to change the condition that produces it.

The reaction is powerless to change the condition that produces it.

And this is one of the first major lessons we need to learn in order to graduate from the school of hard knocks.

Because then instead of something knocking on us,

What there will be is a knock at the door,

A knock at the door of our perception,

Of our awareness that will bring our attention to the moment so that we can begin to do what we are intended to do in that moment.

Now transition.

Can you see in nature,

There's a reason for whatever creature reacts the way it does.

I walk out the door and if the girls don't,

If the deer don't know I'm coming out,

They'll jump a little bit.

They have a reaction.

You put your attention on a rabbit or a squirrel and that rabbit or squirrel feels the power of that attention and they react.

Why?

Because the creature responds naturally from its own consciousness.

And in that world of consciousness,

Of nature's consciousness,

Not only does the creature in quotes learn the lesson of that experience,

But the whole of nature is enriched for the imprint of that reaction and how it protects to preserve and perpetuate the species.

So an important to understand,

In nature,

Creatures,

Nature herself learns from each and every reaction.

That's important to understand.

Because why?

In contrast,

It's pretty evident that we don't learn from our reactions,

Isn't it?

If we actually learn from our reactions,

You know how the saying goes,

Never forget?

We think never forget means to never not identify with the old reaction to the condition.

What never forget should really mean is that we must never forget that the inner determines the outer.

And the reason that there is conflict in our personal relationships or wherever it may appear is because in a certain set of conditions,

This consciousness that is identified with and that believes that what it's identified with must never be messed with,

It responds instantaneously to anything that threatens it.

And that negative reaction,

Born of resistance,

Then directs us what we must do,

Who or what we must go to war with in order to protect what we are identified with.

Do you see this with me nine minutes in or seven minutes in whatever it is?

Can you see this much with me?

That our reactions are not intended to rule us,

But are part of a process of revelation where if we were present enough,

We would be able to recognize,

You know,

I've had that same angry,

Violent,

Vengeful,

Fearful reaction a billion times,

And I'm still having them in essentially the same circumstances.

Why haven't I learned the lesson in these reactions?

And that's really how we graduate from the school of hard knocks,

Is we learn these moments where the reactions appear.

We learn something about the consciousness that meets them.

For instance,

Transition.

When you have,

When I have a negative reaction to a husband or wife,

A family member,

Some friend that challenges us or whatever the condition may be,

Does not that reaction tell us that the source of our conflict,

Of our pain in that moment,

Does not that reaction tell us that you,

They,

This and them is the source of it.

But more importantly,

As that reaction points out the reason for our pain,

It begins to tell us the action to take in order to change that relationship.

Is that not also involved in these reactions?

Something that defines the moment and then tells us what we must do in order to change the person,

The place,

The situation,

So that we in some way or another can finally get a grip on this moment and escape the pain of that relationship.

When if you're following me at all,

The pain of the relationship in the moment is not because of that person or particular problem.

The pain is that we don't learn the lesson in that moment and continue to blame our conflict on a condition outside of us.

I hope that you're all following me.

Is seeing learning from reaction?

Yes.

But let's,

Let's not get ahead of this Namita.

Now if we can see that our lives have been spent,

I talked about it.

What's today?

Well,

I don't know,

Was it Wednesday or last Sunday that we believe somehow or other there's a missing piece P I E C E to our peace,

To our peace of mind,

And that we we've yet to solve the puzzle of these painful relationships.

And what I pointed to in the talk is that the mistaken idea is that there's a puzzle to solve at all.

Every moment completes itself.

There is the puzzle in the moment of any relationship other than our inability to attend to it because the reaction that comes up out of it points us in a direction that has nothing to do with the lesson inherent in that moment.

So now big transition.

Stay with me.

Can you name the one thing,

The one relationship in our lives as the case may be the one relationship that we have never tried to change?

We've tried to change people,

Tried to change the way we look,

Tried to change our location,

Try to change husbands,

Wives,

The people at work,

Change the politic.

Can you name the one thing that we have never occurred to us to try to change?

You're close Janice,

But when you say relationship with myself,

Let me spell it out for you.

The one thing we have never tried to change because we don't know it's possible actually is the relationship that we have with our own reactions.

We never think to ourselves,

Do I need a new relationship with this negative reaction?

Because the reaction has our attention pointed out to the source of the problem,

What it calls the source of the problem.

So the last thing that occurs to us is that what we need to change is our relationship with our own reactions.

Because my reaction is what validates me.

My reaction actually is my identity in the moment.

Isn't it?

I mean,

Everything that I think and do,

Everything I'm going to make happen is a derivative of whatever identity comes up with that reaction.

And you can't separate the reaction to a moment from the identity that has been threatened by the condition.

You can't.

They come up simultaneously.

So the one relationship responsible for all of this problems,

The hard knocks in our life,

The disappointment,

The frustration,

Everything that we meet,

The one relationship that we've never thought to ourselves we need to change is the relationship we have with our own reactions.

This is why we come to this very important lesson.

Because what are we saying?

Right now,

Reactions tell us that the outer is determining the inner.

That's what our reactions say.

Oh,

Look at that.

That's why I'm like this.

And that's just not true.

It is not the outer that determines the inner,

But rather the inner that determines the outer.

We see the moment through the lens of whatever that reaction is,

That is a product of resisting the moment because we're identified with something that's been challenged in it.

So if you're following me,

This idea,

And I'm going to get very specific here in a few moments,

That idea that the inner determines the outer is the lesson that sets the stage for our graduation from the school of hard knocks.

Why?

Because if we can even glimpse something of this truth,

It means that there's more than meets the eye in the moment when this reactive eye appears.

It means if we can even suspect the truth of it,

That it is the reaction that is defining the moment and not the moment defining the reaction,

Then I recognize I need new eyes.

I literally need in the moment that always comes when people challenge me or if something happens I don't like,

I always see it through the same eyes and whose eyes do I see the moment through other than a reactive eye,

A reacting eye,

Something from the content of my past,

Some conditioned nature that knows how everything is supposed to be.

And when it's not like that,

Everything shuts down and we go blind.

So what is it if we need new eyes?

What is it that we don't see in these unwanted moments of conflicting relationships?

What is it that we don't see?

It's a trick question in a way.

What do you think it is that we don't see?

Just hang on.

Here's what we don't see.

We don't see anything and everything that's not a part of what we're reacting to in that moment.

What we don't see is anything and everything that's not a part of what we're reacting to in that moment.

In other words,

What we see in these moments is only what that negative reaction points to and blames for the pain that we're in.

And the pain only exists as it does because we are in that moment identified as we are with that reaction.

So here's a key idea.

I didn't ask Kate to write this down,

But maybe one of you can capture it.

I'll read it twice.

If you're following me,

Whenever we identify with any reaction,

We isolate ourselves in a fully conditioned field of all that is unconsciously associated and related with that reaction.

I'm going to repeat it.

Whenever we identify with any reaction,

We isolate ourselves in a fully conditioned field of all that is unconsciously associated and related with that reaction.

So that literally in that moment,

When we become identified with a negative reaction,

And that's why we are identified with them in that moment,

Our minds,

The whole of our consciousness is drawn into this tiny little keyhole of perception that is the product of this unconscious nature,

Not just keying in on what it says is causing the pain it's experiencing,

But then believing that it can change or control that circumstance by calling on the content of its past so that somehow or other it's going to save itself from the frying pan that it is made of itself by jumping into the fire of this conditioned nature that can do nothing but reincarnate itself.

Whenever we identify with any reaction,

We isolate ourselves in a fully conditioned field of self that is unconsciously associated and related with that reaction.

I'm going to talk about this in depth at upcoming talks.

Without knowing it,

There is a kind of a quantum field of consciousness,

Not mine,

Not yours,

A field.

And when we resist a moment,

The resistance collapses all of the possibilities,

All of the potentialities in that moment,

Which are endless and infinite.

It collapses the infinite into the finite.

And the finite is always the feeling of myself as someone who has been challenged by and threatened through a condition that wouldn't exist if I hadn't come into that moment.

If this consciousness hadn't come in incomplete and identified with something that it thought was going to save it,

And the moment it thinks it's not going to be saved,

It tries to save itself by throwing itself into this prison.

Are you able to follow me?

Are you still,

Are you tracking?

I want to,

I'll slow down because I'm getting ready to go into this special writing.

So if what I have said is true,

And it is,

But you have to prove this,

You must never listen to and believe a single word I say,

Please,

God,

That you do not make no man or woman your teacher,

Even though these teachings and the people that present them are essential to our growth.

It is one of those paradoxes in this life that are impossible to explain.

And we get to the right side of it where I'm not going to do this and he's not,

I'm not going to,

And the other side,

I am,

So I,

What am I going to do without this?

Neither one of those sides are right.

There is a place,

A middle place where a person can begin to understand at least to some extent what I'm alluding to here with these ideas,

All of which means if it is true that the moment we identify with a reaction that we're isolated,

It means that in spite,

And that's the proper word,

In spite of the temptation to see these moments as we do,

Where it feels like the reaction is clarification,

Imagine a reaction actually feels like it's clarifying the moment because it's pointing to identifying and delivering us to an action based on the choices that that reaction seems to offer in the moment.

Here's the first key.

We must remember that negative reactions do not offer us choices,

Only captivity when we identify with them.

Doesn't it seem like when you've had a negative reaction that on the heels of it are all of a sudden there's this and that,

The other,

And then that all of these momentary choices that appear out of reactions are not choices at all,

Any more than one would choose to walk into a prison cell and lock the door behind them in order to be free.

I can't tell you how important this idea to at least begin to suspect that the moment of a reaction is not offering you choices.

It is delivering you into the captivity of the consciousness that has had that reaction,

The past,

The conditioned nature.

All right.

Now don't post for a few minutes.

I want to put the special writing up.

I don't want to make it seem more important than it is,

But I can tell you that if you understand or work to understand,

Gather any awareness out of what we're about to post that your life can begin to change in a meaningful way.

And I mean from the inside out so that you begin to graduate from the school of hard knocks instead of continuing to get them because one side of this consciousness clobbers the other with its reaction.

Here's the special writing.

If you're ready,

Katie.

No psychological reaction is a call to action.

Each is a momentary manifestation and therefore part of the revelation of the level of consciousness from out of which it has come.

Each such negative reaction is meant to die.

Having completed the purpose of its temporary existence.

Otherwise,

Our unconscious identification with these dark reactions turns them into seeds that sow our next sorrow.

Let's go over it again.

No psychological reaction is a call to action.

Each is a momentary manifestation and therefore part of the revelation of the level of consciousness from out of which it has come.

Each such negative reaction is meant to die.

Having completed the purpose of its temporary existence.

Otherwise,

Our unconscious identification with these dark reactions turns them into the seeds that sow our next sorrow.

What if I didn't just think,

Oh,

That's cool,

Or I like that.

What if I thought to myself,

Well,

Wait a minute.

When I have a negative reaction,

It's a call to action.

It's saying,

Protect yourself,

Man.

Get into it,

Prepare,

Plan.

So as I am now,

Where the outer determines the inner,

These reactions are suggesting,

Here's the action guy,

Set your jaw,

Get negative,

More negative,

Figure out how to change that moment.

That's the call to actionism,

To change that.

But the truth is that these reactions are a momentary manifestation.

They are something that must and has to naturally appear because they are part of the revelation of the whole of the consciousness involved in that moment.

Here comes the event.

It is an active moment.

The will of the moment comes and it presses in on the content of this conditioned consciousness.

This consciousness,

Conditioned as it is,

Is perfectly passive.

So it reacts to what touches it.

It's necessary.

It can't not do it.

And when that reaction responds the way that it does,

It,

In its response,

Is revealing in that moment,

Not just the whole of that moment,

But the consciousness that is involved in that seeming conflict.

It's revealing it.

That reaction is meant to die.

It's meant to die.

It is meant,

Having completed the purpose of its appearance,

To just disappear because the reaction is part of it.

Strike a match.

The moment you strike a match,

That flame goes,

The conditions that produce the onset of that explosion,

They're gone.

And it's the same thing with a negative reaction,

But not for us.

For us,

The moment the ignition of that negative reaction seems to illuminate the world around us so that we think we see what's caused that burning sensation.

We don't see what's caused the burning sensation.

The burning sensation is illuminating and pointing to what it blames for the pain.

These negative reactions are meant to die on the spot because they've served their purpose.

And if they don't,

Which for most of us they don't,

Our unconscious identification,

Which is automatic at this point,

Turns these reactions into the seeds of what is our next sorrow.

So that instead of the karma being burned up because the consciousness has been integrated and reconciled,

New karma is sown,

And new conflicts are guaranteed because the nature that was identified with whatever it was has not been changed,

Rather it has been reincarnated.

I want it to sink in a little bit.

Reactions for us are,

There's DEFCON 1 through 5,

And the appearance is always that there's an enemy.

Prepare.

Love thine enemies,

Said Christ.

Now LT,

The only way out isn't to not react.

Not reacting in a manner of speaking is a kind of reaction,

Isn't it?

I'm not going to react only deepens the conflict.

And most of us,

By the way,

Try not to react to our own reactions because we don't want to have people see us reacting.

We've been conditioned to believe that to be cool is a cucumber,

But let me go on,

LT,

And everybody else.

The exercise inherent in what that special writing indicates.

If we've understood something new and true about our negative reactions and our relationship to them,

And I trust that we have,

Then when these reactions pop up,

And they do,

Like a flame,

And that proverbial starting gun goes off,

That moment not only is giving us direction but it is effectively telling us what we have to do in order to repair the moment that we're reacting to.

But if we've understood this,

As I trust that we have in that same moment,

Then we must remember what we know is true.

We must do what we remember is true,

And rather than acting out what the reaction says we have to do,

We do this instead.

And you can only do this when you have understood to some extent,

At least are willing to see the truth of what we pointed out.

This is what we must do when that starting gun goes off.

Nice deep breath.

Do it with me.

In that moment,

We must come to an interior stop,

A full stop,

Not plant our feet to get ready to move,

Not engage in that cascading series of thoughts and feelings telling us what we must do to change the moment.

Instead,

We must assume a position within ourselves of allowing everything that is going on within us to be made present to our awareness of the movement of them.

You cannot become aware of a reaction if you are traveling with it.

You become aware of the content of a reaction and the conditions that have produced it when instead of letting the reaction give us the choices to make,

We in our awareness remain choiceless.

That's the intention.

We are deliberately setting ourselves into a place where we recognize that whatever the reaction is telling us,

The choice has to be because we understand no reaction can make an intelligent choice.

We do the intelligent thing instead,

Which is to recognize that this moment,

All of these choices that are being thrown at me,

All of the actions that I have to take,

That not one of them can produce the lesson in the moment that we need in order to transform the consciousness responsible for those reactions.

Not one of them can do a thing.

They are powerless,

But that we are so used to our fear of being in those moments,

We will accept any power that promises to free us.

No reaction can free you from pain because the real pain is the conflict in this consciousness that is giving rise to these reactions.

So we come to a full stop,

Eyes wide open,

Fully attentive to every thought,

Every feeling,

Every movement.

Now,

You may be only able to do that,

And in truth,

I would be surprised if you could do that for longer than three or four seconds because we're so used to being carried with the tide of those thoughts and feelings.

We're so used to looking in the direction that the reaction is telling us it's coming from.

That's where our mind goes.

Our attention is placed on the position the reaction points to.

But we can,

If we're willing to,

We can begin to recognize that that's a misdirection.

It is a false flag.

It is telling us that freedom rests with changing the condition.

Where the real freedom comes with changing our relationship to our own reactions,

Which can only be done by awakening to another aspect of our own consciousness,

A new order of awareness,

New eyes to see that allow us to recognize that if we will gather up the whole of ourselves and make our only choice in that moment to see how something is pulling and stretching us,

Telling us,

Choose this,

Do that,

Make this action.

And then we just sit quietly in the midst of that storm.

And if we sit quietly in the midst of that storm,

We will see that storm rise and we will see it fall.

And then we will have learned the lesson,

The true lesson in the purpose of all of those moments that are,

If you will,

That is the curriculum in the school of hard knocks and that once it's understood,

You're on your way to entering into another order of school,

Another level of your own development.

So we've got about 10 minutes to have our dialogue.

If you wish,

If you want to pose a question or make a comment,

Shoshana,

Seeing myself catching falling stars with my bare hands instead of watching the beauty of its temporary existence.

Yeah,

That's a way you could like that,

You know,

You see a shooting star,

A real shooting star,

And it's almost impossible not to go,

Look at that because it is,

It's,

It's,

It's inspiring.

It's breathtaking.

But if afterwards that you think to yourself,

I want to buy this mountain so I can build a house where all of the shooting stars are going to be,

You've made a terrible mistake,

Denise.

So that then do you just wait to act until you have no interest in any particular?

You know,

Um,

The short answer is yes.

My favorite three words are wait and see.

Most of these moments have no immediacy to them other than the feeling of a threat that we want to put down so we can go back to our so-called peace of mind.

Wait and see.

And even when you make the choice,

Denise,

Watch that and watch how when you do make choices,

There are reactions this consciousness has to its own choices,

Which is extraordinary.

I make a choice and then,

Oh,

I don't know if that's right or I hope that works.

Just watch.

Everything that we need to understand unfolds in this field of awareness that by our relationship to it is our education of the soul.

We learn that we are not these thoughts and feelings.

We are not these reactions.

They are aspects or elements of a consciousness that unfortunately we've not only fallen into the dark of it,

But the belief that the darkness in it that calls itself the light knows what it's doing.

It doesn't.

And if I actually know it doesn't know what it's doing,

Am I going to keep listening to it?

Or will I gradually,

As the weed is separated from the chaff,

Enter into these moments with another order of attention,

Another order of awareness?

Does shouting shut up help?

Oh,

You know,

It's preliminary.

If you recognize,

Obviously,

That something's talking to you that you don't want to.

But if something's talking to you that you don't want to talk to you,

Do you really need to say shut up to it?

Or is that another identity on the side,

A derivative of that reaction giving you a sense of self as someone who's not that?

Resistance is identification.

Resistance is identification.

Remember that.

That's why any time we resist a moment,

The reason we're resisting is we're coming into it identified.

And then resisting it gives us an identity as being someone who isn't what they're resisting.

It's a consciousness.

You are not the content of your consciousness.

You are more than that.

Maji,

I've been noticing in my practice of stopping that either the human present will say something like,

Did I trigger you?

She's saying in relationship,

I come to a stop.

I'm with somebody and they've said something and I want to work on myself.

I want to learn what this moment is about.

So I come to a stop.

I gather myself.

So instead of the habitual reaction that is the byproduct of unconscious human relationships where someone says something and they expect a reaction,

Whether it's,

Oh,

That's brilliant.

You're wonderful.

Or why did you do that?

Why are you punishing me?

When they don't get the usual reaction,

Then they have the reaction of trying to figure out why you're not feeding that identity.

So there's no problem with when people say,

Did I trigger you with people challenging you?

So what?

You can simply say,

Uh,

I'm just,

I'm just paying.

I'm just watching.

I'm paying attention.

You have to sort that out.

I can't tell you how to handle these conversations.

To learn,

Go into it.

How do I ever express the fact that everything that you will ever need to know,

Every lesson that you will ever experience,

Including the education and the graduation from that level of consciousness,

It is already in place.

You just have to be willing to go into that moment.

See,

We're not willing to go into these moments choiceless.

We're not willing to go into these moments of reaction without some idea of what is expected out of them,

Which means that we go into these moments already knowing how we're supposed to come out of them.

And we're not meant to know how we come out of any given moment,

Because if we've actually come out of that moment,

We've been changed by it.

So we can't know who it is that's coming out.

We can only agree to go into it.

That's why Christ said,

Not my will,

But thy will.

He understood,

Look,

I can't stop this.

And I don't know,

Obviously,

Whatever it was was speaking that was resisting,

Couldn't have known with the greatest clarity exactly.

It's divided.

This is another subject.

He knows and he doesn't know.

But in that moment,

I'm going to come out of that different,

New.

Why?

Because I have integrated a consciousness that formerly was divided through my willingness to observe it.

Today,

A girlfriend mentioned the name of someone who was suspicious of in a different innocent contact.

Don't know what it means,

Billy.

Today,

Girlfriend mentioned the name of someone who she is suspicious of.

OK.

You know,

You.

One day you'll understand that when you engage in conversations with people who are in the throes of a negative reaction,

That you are enabling that person and their further identification with that consciousness.

There's always ways,

If we're awake,

To deal with individuals that are asleep in that moment.

And it's always relative.

But the condition is always an invitation for us to come into it wanting to learn the truth of ourselves.

And she said,

I noticed even mentioning her name that gets a reaction from you.

Yeah.

OK.

Still the same thing.

All right.

There's the reaction.

Am I going to pretend I don't have it?

I'm a liar.

If I identify with it,

I'm a captive.

So I have to find somewhere between that,

Don't I,

Billy?

I have to realize,

Obviously,

I'm identified and obviously threatened.

Up comes this threat.

Well,

Do I want to live the whole of my life believing that this one relationship is the only instance in which this is going to occur?

Or am I going to understand I've been like this since the time I put on my knickers or whatever my shoes or whatever it was,

That consciousness hasn't changed.

I've always been a jealous,

Possessive person.

This consciousness possesses and is jealous because it depends on the identity derived from that relationship,

Which,

By the way,

Means you can never really love a person that you are dependent upon in that way.

It's nothing to do with the person you mentioned.

OK.

Namita,

Is the primary reaction a thought?

No,

The primary reaction is not a thought.

The primary reaction is an energetic expression of a relationship between active and passive forces.

That's the primary reaction.

It's born out of resistance.

Then thought comes and dresses all of those reactions in their appropriate clothes so that then they can tell you how to capture or change the condition that's blamed for it.

43 minutes.

I think we did pretty well.

I think we changed,

I hope,

Some of the way we perceive these moments.

Reactions aren't choices.

No reaction can give you an action to escape or free you from the condition that causes it.

See these things.

Go back and read the special writing.

And if you wish,

Join me tomorrow.

I'll be going deeper into this material.

I speak for free several times a week.

Find me.

Otherwise,

Do your work,

And I'll see you next Saturday,

God willing.

Bye.