Nice deep breath everyone.
No condition in and of itself is ever the cause of psychological stress,
Fear,
Or regret.
Suffering of this kind is inherent in an unseen unconscious level of self that resists changing conditions because it is in because it is incapable of changing with them.
Let me do it again.
No condition in and of itself is ever the cause of psychological stress,
Fear,
Or regret.
Suffering of this kind is inherent in an unseen unconscious level of self that resists changing conditions because it is incapable of changing with them.
If in your work it hasn't become evident yet,
Surely it will be if you will persist with your wish to know any form of liberation at all,
And we're going to discuss what real liberation is.
That the way that you see life,
The way all of us see life now,
Is that we see life through a set of eyes,
If you will,
That has gone before us this entire existence and not just our own individual existence.
Looking at the world around us and our relationships in it in such a way that if life doesn't match our expectation of the moment,
If the meaning we see in the moment doesn't align with the meaning that we hope the moment would bring to us,
Then we we are in conflict with those moments.
And if there's anything that should be apparent at this point,
And there isn't any true teaching that has ever come up in this world that doesn't express some sensibility of this order,
I need new eyes.
Not my physical eyes,
But the word eyes as represented in Scripture in the old languages.
I need a new understanding so that to see life is to realize that my experience of life is through my understanding of it.
My experience of life is through my understanding of it.
And if my understanding of life is conditioned,
Meaning that it is part of the content,
The consummation of all the experiences,
Now again not just mine,
But of our human consciousness,
If I look at life and understand it through those eyes,
Through that understanding,
I see darkly.
I don't see life.
Now there are ways in which we have the experience of this,
But don't recognize it entirely.
Let me give you an example.
First,
Name one of the unseen,
Undeniable features in any moment of experiencing some beauty.
Just to yourself.
You could put it on the board if you want to.
Name one of the undeniable,
Inescapable features in the experience of any moment of beauty.
Anyone want to venture a guess?
Rob says wonder.
Aw,
Terry says.
Doug,
Internal quietness,
Unilateralism,
Kindredness.
Sally,
It's all there in the moment.
All right,
This is all good,
And you can post a couple more,
But let me go on with it.
It's something that never dawns on us.
All of the answers are good.
These are all features,
But we're looking for one feature that,
If we could understand it to some extent,
Might help us have a new relationship,
Allow us to see life through a new set of eyes.
So here is the undeniable feature in any moment of beauty.
Nice deep breath.
That moment is incomparable.
It is incomparable,
Which means that in that moment,
And the moment can't be separated from the observer of it,
That in that moment somehow or other our consciousness,
The way we experience life,
Is literally brought into another order of existence,
Another level of being that is not conditioned by thought,
That has no taint left,
No condition brought in from the past that colors our experience and takes from that moment of beauty the richness of it.
It's so subtle that it's difficult to discuss,
Because our mind,
The way it is,
That's all it is.
That's all it does.
It's this little comparison machine,
And yet we've had these moments,
All of us.
What is the moment of an epiphany?
Yes,
I'm working.
I'm trying to figure something out.
I haven't been able to understand something.
Then the light goes on.
Suddenly I'm flooded with a new understanding that is incomparable,
And that in the light of that new understanding,
All former understanding is washed away,
And I am a new human being because I have a new understanding through a new incomparable experience with the moment that made it possible.
Are you following me?
Now,
Let's put this in contrast to something.
Take a nice deep breath.
I personally find this funny.
I'm guilty of it for sure.
Have you ever been with friends,
Or maybe God help you,
And I hope to God you don't take selfies,
But I know the world is so caught up with this self-love.
Have you ever been with a friend that somebody take a picture of you and your husband,
Your wife,
A group of friends,
And then they show you the picture or they send it to you?
Have you ever looked at a picture of yourself like that and been really disappointed with what you see?
I'll wait for a moment for you to come up on the screen here.
Yeah,
Do you?
You look at it and you go,
Oh my God,
No,
No,
No,
That can't,
That,
That,
Whatever,
Whoever that is,
Uh-uh,
Uh-uh,
That's not me.
Now,
We,
It,
It,
It never even occurs to us that,
Wait a second,
Hold on a second,
How can I be looking at a picture of myself and be absolutely convinced that what I'm looking at isn't me?
Or at least to the point,
It shouldn't be me.
That is not in any shape or form the way I imagine I look.
Ladies and gentlemen of the court,
I present the evidence.
Yeah,
Robert,
Something's wrong with the lens,
Or the idiot tilted the film,
Or they caught me at a bad moment.
You,
You fill in the blank,
But here's the point.
We resist seeing what is because it's not how we've imagined it should be.
We resist seeing what is.
We resist seeing ourselves because something in us is comparing us to how and what we've imagined we should look like.
Pretty important idea.
Here's one world,
Incomparable in its beauty,
In its silence,
In its peace,
In its unity,
And here's another world,
Far more common to us,
I'm afraid,
Where for a moment there's no way in,
On earth or in heaven,
That that can be me.
So that means in that moment,
And we're not aware of it,
This resistance comes up as the result of an unconscious comparison.
And with that resistance,
A stress,
And that stress is always born out of this idea that we came into the moment with this image of ourselves,
That this is how we are supposed to look.
Now,
If you can get that big picture in place,
That's what's going on all the time.
Literally,
When we look out at the picture of the world as it imprints its reflection in this consciousness,
This consciousness compares what is reflected in it to something that was in that consciousness prior to that,
The picture of the moment,
And it finds fault with the moment it sees,
Because it is not matching up to what we have come into that moment looking to see.
That's not how the moment is supposed to look,
Just as we see ourselves and go,
Oh,
No,
No,
No,
That's not right.
So in that moment,
If you're following me now,
Whether it's the picture of myself or the picture of the world,
As the image is imprinted on this consciousness,
The truth is I'm not stressed by what I see,
Rather by the nature of what is seeing in that moment.
I'm stressed by the seer,
Not by what is seen.
This consciousness is stressed because it is forever comparing what it is that without knowing it we want and feel is our due to see in that moment to what life is actually revealing to us in that moment about ourselves.
And so the conclusion comes up,
Just like when you see a picture of yourself,
Oh,
My God,
I need to lose weight.
I didn't know I looked so angry,
Whatever it may be,
Or God,
Did I get that old fill in the blanks.
I am in that moment,
Seeing life as being in conflict with whatever it is I have brought with me in that moment as a source of my contentment.
But here's the point.
We can't separate our experience of the world around us from the way the world within us perceives it.
This is the inner determines the outer.
I'm trying to show you through this idea of a simple picture of how that's true.
If it's true,
When I see a picture of myself,
I don't like it.
Because I recognize something in me just doesn't want to agree that that is the way I look right now.
That is me.
It's exactly when I look at the world,
That world can't be the world.
Because it's not the world,
I need it to be depend upon it to be in order for me to continue with this sense of myself,
Which is by the way,
As phony as the image of myself that is threatened by a picture.
Everybody's still tracking with me to some extent,
Not asking if you like it.
Just can you see this contrast that I'm trying to present to you?
Please,
Yes or no.
Nice deep breath,
We're going to make an important transition here.
And I know,
Just listen,
Okay,
Don't believe me,
Study and see if it's true.
Regardless of how it seems,
Real life never opposes you.
Real life never opposes me.
It is impossible.
It is impossible that real life should oppose me or oppose you.
I'm going to show you.
And yet,
So many times,
Is it not true?
That in that moment where it seems as if life is opposing me,
I'm filled with a stress and an anxiety,
And I've got to get in there struggle and straighten it out.
Now just try to see this for a split second with me.
In nature,
Is there any such thing as a moment of life unfolding in nature,
In creation,
Where whatever it is that's unfolding in that moment,
Can possibly oppose the cultivation and the perfection of all that is involved in that moment,
Even when it would seem as I've often spoken about,
The wind comes and it blows the tree over.
The predator catches the prey.
It seems as if in these moments,
That life seems to be set against itself.
But in the grand scheme,
In the big picture,
We can see life can't be set against itself,
Because life is always giving birth to itself in a new form.
And what seems to oppose life is actually strengthening the entire system,
So that out of the strengthening of that individual creature,
Or the whole of that ecological system,
That out of that strengthening comes something that is entirely new,
And that is born out of what seems to be opposition as opposed to conflicted by it.
Can you see this with me?
And if you can,
Then what in the name of heaven is going on,
That when we look out at life,
We are opposed to life.
This is an important contrast to understand.
With one part of me,
I can see the unity,
I can see the grace,
I can see the celestial reconciliation unendingly taking place and perfecting creation and its revelation,
So that by the way,
You and I as a part of it can begin to recognize our part in that.
But something is clearly going on that gives us this experience that life is opposing us.
So what is it?
Take a nice deep breath.
I have a story.
I have two stories.
I need to get through both of them.
If you've ever studied with me,
You know that I use certain stories,
The outline of them,
To present principles.
In this instance,
I have a character.
Her name is Christine,
And she always goes to see the old family doctor who represents wisdom.
And Christine,
Like yourself,
Like myself,
Is an aspirant,
Wanting to understand what is this constant stress?
Why am I anxious all the time?
And she wants to gather together the insight so that through new understanding,
She might look at the world around her through new eyes,
And through new eyes have a new relationship,
And in the new relationship with life as it is,
Be able to relax as we're intended to going into these moments that cause so much stress,
To receive what's being given instead of fighting with what we believe is being taken from us.
She goes and she tells the doctor,
I'm in a terrible way.
Why?
She says,
Well,
You know,
There's so many different instances.
I'm with friends,
And before the evening is out,
Without question,
Something will set me off.
I get in my car,
And I'm on my way to work,
And even if the traffic is light,
There'll be someone walking down the street,
Or I'll hear something on the news,
And it'll set me off.
I get to my office,
And there's always at least one person there who didn't get the memo they're supposed to treat me with kid gloves all the time,
Or they have some issue with me,
And the next thing I know,
I'm in my mind opposing them and trying to figure out how I'm gonna make them see they're wrong.
All the time,
She says,
This is going on.
I don't know what's the problem.
This endless defensiveness.
He says,
Let's run some tests,
And in the stories,
I go through all this.
He comes back.
I have the solution.
She says,
Well,
What's going on?
And he says,
What you have is a fairly bad case of SBS.
What do you mean it's BS?
Are you telling me it's BS?
He says,
No,
No.
I said,
SBS.
What is SBS?
He said,
It stands for it's supposed to be syndrome.
You're suffering from it's supposed to be syndrome.
In other words,
You're suffering from the fact that you see life through the eyes of something that is already determined how things are supposed to be,
And when they're not,
When the person isn't,
When the moment doesn't,
When the condition brings the time and the pressure,
It's not supposed to be that way.
I'm not supposed to be that way.
That's the moment where suddenly all of this stress comes into you because you're fighting not with the people,
Not with the problems that life seems to bring.
You're fighting with your own estimation and your own expectation of what that moment is supposed to be so that you can be the way you see yourself.
Full circle if you're following me.
The moment isn't taking place as I've imagined and already identified with the way it's supposed to be.
So simply put,
The only reason we struggle with any moment is because in our eyes,
Through this understanding,
It's not right.
I've asked you to see.
I don't have time to go back into it.
How can the moment of creation not be right?
Even with God help us,
The horrors that are unfolding on this planet,
And by the way,
The horrors that are unfolding on this planet is because of all the human beings who,
In their blindness and their ignorance,
Are convinced that the way they see life,
That their religion,
That their environment,
That their culture,
That their powers,
Their possessions,
That that's what's right.
And unless everyone else sees them through the eyes that they see life through,
They are to be obliterated or destroyed.
So that at the root of all of this violence that seems to take place in the world around us it begins because of SBS.
It's supposed to be this way,
Not that way.
You're supposed to be this way,
Not that way.
And for our study,
Which we must do if we're willing,
To see there's no possible negative reaction,
No form of hatred,
No form of fear,
No conflict with any moment that isn't born in that moment out of something that rises up within us and resists that moment.
So that the suffering begins with our resistance,
Not with the condition we blame for that pain.
Our suffering and the suffering of this world,
All of our struggles with it and all the failures that have come out of those struggles,
Begin with a summary denial when we see the picture.
Because the picture that is being presented to us doesn't match the picture that we have of ourselves,
Our relationship to the world,
And how great things would be if everyone looked and acted as we see ourselves.
Yes,
Lots of lessons in this.
And the key here to understand,
And I've got to get going here,
Is there can be no such resistance in the moment unless what?
Unless something in us has first compared what is brought into this consciousness to what awaited in that consciousness to see whether or not it would be comparable.
And if it's not comparable,
Then it's a source of conflict to us.
Remember what we said about beauty,
That it's incomparable?
And yet our life is filled with the ugliness of a ceaseless comparison of how we imagine people and places should be,
As opposed to the way they actually are.
Yes,
I'm gonna run out of time.
We have to put this into context.
When this moment comes up and we see what we don't want to see,
What we don't want to see is not the world as it actually is,
Although God help us,
One wishes that one didn't look out and see a world filled with greed and violence.
But the fact is that what I am seeing in that moment,
That I believe is perceived through my eyes,
Is the experience I have of that moment.
So that what I see is my experience,
And then blame the moment instead of realizing I wouldn't experience it that way unless something in an unconscious nature were comparing it to how it's supposed to be.
And then invariably blaming,
Pointing to what's causing the pain,
Unable to see that I am by all,
In every possible meaning of the word,
I'm blinded.
I'm literally blind by my own unconscious identification with whatever has come up inside of me,
And it goes and says no.
And the minute that it says no,
It can't say no without another part of us saying yes,
This is what we have to do.
This is who we have to bury.
This is what we have to bring to ourselves if we ever want to get free of this pain.
And the question is,
If you're following me,
How will we ever be free as a human being,
Know anything of liberation at all,
If we are always in some form or another in conflict with what we see unfolding around us?
It's so natural to us,
God help us,
To not want,
To refuse,
To reject,
So that our identity is a ceaseless derivative of some form of resistance,
Or when the resistance has manifested itself and then come up with a solution,
Then our identity is connected to the pleasure or the power we'll get when we can finally get past this resistance and what we resist.
We have to understand what is the real source of this conflict,
If we're ever going to learn in any stretch of the imagination how to transcend it.
And that's what these notes are about today,
These ideas.
There is no resistance of a psychological nature without unconsciously comparing the moment that we have entered into with how we've imagined that moment should be.
But here's the thing,
And I know it's difficult to understand,
You and I don't,
Do you think to yourself that I'm going to have dinner with my family,
And that unless my brother or my sister or my mother or my father or my friends,
Whoever I'm with,
Unless they tow the line fairly close to whatever it is that I believe has to happen,
I'm going to get negative?
And yet you and I both know as surely as the sun rises,
There's going to be some kind of suffering take place in those moments,
And that suffering will always be found to be the fault of someone or something else outside of me,
Instead of realizing that as long as this consciousness continues to derive its actions,
All that it struggles with,
From the moment of this resistance,
Believing that the reactions born of that resistance are pointing very clearly to the fact that the problem is out there,
It's you,
It's them,
It's this,
This can't be the way I look.
I have to have an explanation for my suffering,
And the explanation can't possibly be that it's inherent in my own consciousness and its demand that everything remain comparable and pleasantly so to what my demands are.
This is where the spiritual rubber meets the road,
Because there is a constant conflict in this present nature of ours,
That by its nature and without permission and yet that we are complicit with,
Virtually never experiences a moment without that experience being the result of something in this consciousness measuring its reaction to the moment and then determining the moment having missed the mark,
Because it doesn't compare to the consciousness and the content that says it must look like this or there's a problem,
It must be like this,
You must be this way or there's a problem.
If you're seeing this with me,
Let me tell you a story quickly.
I want to leave time for us to have a chat.
Here is a good knight,
K-N-I-G-H-T.
He is,
He,
She is dedicated to saving the realm and goes to do battle with this great beast.
We know these stories,
They are all representations,
Not of an exterior skirmish,
But much as the way of St.
George subduing the dragon of desire,
Much as we see that it is an attempt to explain through imagery and myth,
This idea that there is something seemingly titanic outside of us,
But that when properly understood,
Instead of standing over us and creating the pain that it does,
We are meant to stand over it and use it for the purposes that we have been put in relationship with that lower nature.
So this,
This creature that the good knight is always fighting with one of its capacities,
One of its powers,
If you will,
As with any moment that we feel overpowered by,
When you look out and you don't see the way it's supposed to be,
Are you not pretty sure in that moment,
The fault lies outside or the fault lies with you?
And as we find this fault,
Based on what our reaction points to,
Are we not then kind of filled with all of these things that unless we subdue this creature,
Unless we get past this unwanted condition,
Things are going to go south really fast.
Everything's going to get bad.
So that there's always an implied threat when we see a moment that we don't want,
Just as we see a picture of ourselves that we don't want,
There's an implied threat there,
And we want to distance ourselves from it.
So we are always resisting these moments that are based on our own perception.
And one way or another,
Kind of always either running away from fight or flight,
Binary action.
So here's this knight,
And for millennia,
This is his relationship with this dark creature,
Who's forever showing the good knight,
All the bad things that are going to come to him,
If he,
If he,
If he doesn't run and run quickly from the creature,
Never run from an unwanted moment.
Relax into it.
How?
One day the knight,
He has an epiphany,
And his epiphany in that moment is everything that I have just discussed with you.
That there can be absolutely no negative reaction,
Fears,
Anger,
Stress.
There can be no negative reaction without first something in this consciousness instantaneously resisting whatever the moment's revealing.
And there can be no such resistance to the revelation unless that consciousness and the reason for its resistance to that revelation is because it has compared the experience of that moment to the experience it wants and expects from all similar moments,
So that you have no negative reaction without resistance,
No resistance without comparison,
And comparison is not created by the condition outside of us,
But by a consciousness that compares its expectations to that moment.
So the fault,
The,
The,
The,
The problem is an interior one,
And the knight recognizes this,
And so he stops running,
And now he's just stopped running.
He puts his shield down,
Drops his sword,
And this terrible creature,
This unwanted moment coming at it.
The creature says,
What are you doing?
Basically saying,
This isn't what you're supposed to do.
That's not how this game goes.
I get big.
You see me as scary.
You take off.
I chase you.
You have the experience of yourself as being someone who really wants to be free,
But who keeps meeting things that cause you to be a captive.
So you continue with your identity.
I'm able to continue with mine.
Everything's copacetic.
Don't stop here.
What are you doing?
And the knight says,
I'm done fighting.
Creature says,
What do you mean you're done fighting?
What are you gonna do?
Ha!
And the knight says something that causes the creature to shriek and to disappear,
And you know what the good knight says?
He says,
I think I'm just gonna relax here for a couple of moments.
I'm just gonna relax.
How can you just relax?
Because I understand now everything I experience with you is BS.
Supposed to be syndrome.
Should be syndrome.
Try to see that your suffering isn't with what is,
But rather with what you think should be.
You need new understanding.
You're getting it.
And you need to realize a new relationship with these moments where this stress comes over you,
This fear.
And the new relationship with it can't change until there's a new understanding of it.
And then you must take the new understanding that you have and dare to meet the conditions that you have always thought held you captive or that caused you to run and sit down right there in the midst of that moment and do what I'm doing even as I'm sitting here with you.
Relax.
You cannot see through the eyes that see something to be stressful and fearful over,
But you can see the consciousness that creates that stress and that fear if you just deliberately as best you can in spite of all the voices in your head recognize beyond the shadow of a doubt I'm done running because I have never escaped this unwanted picture of myself,
This experience of myself.
So I'm not going to try to escape the experience of myself anymore.
I'm going to do everything I can to relax into the realization of the cause of it,
And it'll happen.
You'll see it.
Pain never starts out there.
Fear never starts out there.
Anger never starts out there.
The condition that creates the fear,
The anger,
And the stress is a consciousness that doesn't know itself apart from how it compares the condition to the content of itself.
If it matches all is copacetic,
If it doesn't,
There's war.
Yes,
John.
You relax as best you can and in the effort to relax from the stress,
You become incredibly conscious of what that feeling is like to agree with the pain of it because it makes such sense to the consciousness that doesn't want to see what it's looking at.
You cannot run from real life.
You must realize real life is trying to bring you what you need so that you can begin to relax into its flow and realize yourself as inseparable from it.
In the inseparable experience of yourself with life is the incomparable moment that is the same as the beauty we spoke of at the beginning of the talk.
I did go a little bit longer.
I'll welcome a few comments,
But if you need to,
You remember that game?
It was a card game.
Someone would say,
I've got three aces and you'd go bull or BS.
You'd say,
Do you remember that?
That's right.
Life throws that card down.
You need to learn to say SBS.
It should be syndrome.
That's what I'm suffering from.
It should be.
And when you see the problem is that your idea of it should be that way,
You can begin to relax from that consciousness.
Yes,
Angela,
One master.
No,
Farnes,
You can't change the past,
But the past wants to continue to change you into its servant.
It wants to chain you to itself.
There's something that lives obviously in us that,
Have you ever,
Haven't you seen this?
I used to,
Myself,
I'd be with people,
Oh,
That's just like this or that's just like that.
What happens the moment then when our mind says,
This is just like that.
The moment becomes comparable and compared to what?
The experience we're comparing it to.
And then my identity is a derivative of comparison.
And when my identity is a derivative of comparison,
That means that any moment comes along that is incomparably felt,
I reject the moment.
Put it all together.
Do not take in the event that you cannot control.
We can control our body.
Nothing is personal outside our personal world.
That's fair to say.
But listen,
The task isn't to sit and resist things,
Though,
Soap and Berry.
If I resist the experience of myself,
Saying I shouldn't have this experience because I'm spiritual,
It's no different between I shouldn't look like this because that's not the way I'm supposed to look.
We're not interested anymore in deriving an identity out of any form of resistance and the comparison that gives birth to it.
We're interested instead of it's BS.
I want to see.
This should be nature.
This supposed to be self.
I want to see it so that I can begin to connect the way it experiences life with what I'm deriving from its perception of the moment.
And can say acceptance is a good word.
But accepting the situation requires I accept the self that is created by that moment.
I accept the totality of myself,
Not judging it,
Not wishing it were other than it is,
Just seeing relationship,
Just present to relationship.
The whole story is in relationship.
This comparative mind creates relationships according to its own content and preferences.
In comparison is division.
Incomparable moments are undivided.
We are meant to have an incomparable life once we begin to live from a consciousness that knows better than to compare everything it sees to the content of its own past experience.
