The title of the talk,
I'll ask Kate to put it up there for me,
Is as follows.
There is only one fear and only one way to be free of it.
There is only one fear and only one way to be free of it.
What if that's true?
We could sit and make a list of our different fears,
Couldn't we?
But we're going to see that at the root of all of these fears,
There is one particular unknown dread that dogs us everywhere we go,
Literally in every moment.
And I want to say that before I get into this material,
That this talk isn't for those who fear death,
But rather for those who want to live without the constant fear of it.
And I know from long experience,
Really almost 50 years now of teaching,
That most humans will say,
No,
I'm not afraid,
No,
It's not a problem,
Or some will say,
Yeah,
I am,
But I just try to forget about it.
This talk isn't for you,
It's for people who want to understand what it is that comes in and steals their life,
Almost on an hourly basis,
With no real recognition of what's going on.
Sorry,
I had to mute the phone.
Let's get into it.
I have five key lessons today.
They are intended to tell a single story,
So even if they don't seem together right away,
You'll understand as I give you the exposition,
Because they all lead up to what I'm going to call for now the idea of a letting go breath,
Of a letting go breath.
And I beg you,
Don't get ahead of me under any circumstances.
There's so much to see here.
And one particular point that if you will be open to receive it may actually change the way in which you meet every moment where there is anxiety,
Fear,
Doubt,
Or worry.
Let's go.
First,
An introductory idea.
The cornerstone of what I guess you would call Christian mysticism is called kenosis.
K-E-N-O-S-I-S,
Kenosis.
And it essentially,
The meaning of it is self-emptying.
And rooted to this idea of self-emptying,
Of this idea of freeing oneself from oneself,
We can see in Scripture several passages.
Truly I say to you that unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
It remains alone,
But if it dies,
It bears much fruit.
Then again,
Another passage,
For whoever wants to save their life will lose it,
But whoever loses their life for me will find it.
So here's some ideas about this idea of what the Sufis would say,
Die before you die,
Which is the cornerstone actually of all true religions is this notion that it's possible for us to transcend who and what not just we've been,
But who and what we bring with us into the moment that we call ourself so that we might gain an understanding that allows us to transcend,
Much as the caterpillar transcends its earthbound body to become a new creature in relationship with the new world.
So with that idea in mind,
And I trust we're all tracking so far,
I'll ask you a question.
How many of you still believe in the Easter Bunny?
I'm not being facetious,
Or the Tooth Fairy.
I don't know if you had Easter hunts or the Tooth Fairy.
I personally love the Tooth Fairy,
Even after I found out that the Tooth Fairy was my mom or dad.
In those days,
Slipping a quarter under my pillow when you'd lose a tooth,
The Tooth Fairy would come,
Take the tooth,
And you'd get some money,
And it made the trauma of losing a tooth much more tolerable.
But I would tell you that,
Even though you'll say,
I don't believe in these things,
We still believe in childish things.
St.
Paul said,
When I was a child,
I spake as a child,
I understood as a child,
I thought as a child,
But when I became a man,
He says,
I put away childish things.
And this talk is about putting away childish things that we don't know are childish,
Let alone the conflict we're in,
Because of our belief in them.
And you'll see what I'm talking about.
The one main thing at the root of this talk that we must die to in this life,
Before we leave this life,
Are these deeply conditioned,
What St.
Paul would call,
Hopes in things seen.
These deeply conditioned hopes in things seen.
And what are these deeply conditioned hopes in things seen?
They are these pain-filled dreams that come with our presently childish belief that one day we will become free.
That one day we will be loved,
We'll be socially revelant,
That somehow or other we will be secure in a time to come.
In hope in things seen,
In a situation,
A circumstance that I'll gain or achieve that will relieve me from this constant anxiety,
And then the disturbance will be over and I will have a life that I've been waiting for in a time to come.
This is a childish idea.
The time to come is a childish idea,
Sown into the consciousness,
This unconscious nature of this world,
By a race of beings that don't know anything other than to put their hopes in things seen,
In things imagined,
Because that consciousness derives a sense of self from those things seen,
From that time to come.
Are you tracking with me,
Everybody?
Are you following me?
Because I'm about to go to this first key lesson that I'll ask Kate to put up,
And you'll see how it marries into what I've just said,
And then we will go deeper into it.
Here's the first key lesson.
Most people,
Most of us,
Are so afraid of dying that they are unable to see that agreeing to identify with any imagined state of self is a form of death unfolding in slow motion.
Most of us are so afraid of this idea of death that we cannot see that our agreement with any imagined state of self is itself a form of death unfolding in slow motion.
Who would ever agree to live in that kind of world?
Would you,
If I asked you,
If I said,
Would you like to have this strange death unfolding in slow motion that as it's taking place,
It's giving you this sense of being alive,
And you would say,
Of course not.
And here comes an important insight,
And it's useless unless you are willing to see whether or not it is true for you.
Not the specific,
But whether or not what I'm about to describe takes place as it does,
As I will describe,
It happens.
On a daily if not hourly basis,
Again I ask you to see this,
Are we not visited by some familiar form of anxiety,
Some kind of fear that we don't actually recognize in that moment as being distinctly that,
Because it always appears with certain kinds of thoughts that are telling us,
Well,
This is what this is,
And since you know what it is,
Here's what you have to do.
You have to jump through this hoop.
You have to fix that relationship.
You have to do this to make sure it goes the way you want so that we have this kind of constant sense of disturbance in our psychic system,
Something conflicted,
Something dreaded on the horizon,
And as it comes,
We are told conveniently what it is and what we must do.
First,
Can you see this?
It can be the smallest thing.
You could be sitting and waiting for your food in a restaurant and they're not bringing it soon enough.
You're in traffic and you're supposed to be someplace.
You're not going to get there.
Oh,
Just like that.
But now the question comes,
Well,
Something's telling me I have to do something.
What is it that I must do?
Or more important,
Who is it that is being told I must do what?
Now listen,
In those moments,
From the smallest irritating thought to this compilation of conflict,
Conflicted feelings,
We feel compelled to serve and to protect.
Serve and protect what?
Here I am.
So this isn't going right.
I'll tell you a quick true story because it's kind of funny how it happens,
Especially this morning.
I was a little behind,
If you will,
The curve that I like to have for contemplating what I want to talk to you about.
And I'm sitting here and my wife had come in,
As she does in the morning,
And we have a few moments.
And as she's here,
She goes,
Oh,
Look,
A dog outside on the – there,
I don't see a dog.
I'm wondering whose dog that is.
And I get up and I walk over to the window and I look outside there and lo and behold,
It's a dog.
Her name,
We always called her – I just forgot.
Anyway,
Her name is Luna.
She belongs to the next-door neighbor.
And Luna used to hang out here for a while because it was thought that she was going to be raised here,
But it became too difficult,
Long story short,
And my neighbor kind of pitched in.
So Luna,
When she gets loose,
Runs over here.
I go,
That's Luna.
In fact,
That can't be Luna.
And I said,
Come here.
And Luna had been running through the grass.
She was absolutely a dirty mess.
I open the sliding glass door and what do you think?
She bolts in.
Now there's mud and water flying everywhere.
And keep in mind now,
I'm trying to work on what I need to work on,
Which is essentially how to use moments like this where,
Whether we see it or not,
One of the things that we're after,
Without knowing it,
Takes place the minute that you have any task in mind.
And there's a practical level to this.
The minute you have any task in mind,
Now somehow or other my identity is connected to completing that task.
So I am attached in some respect to getting through and to the completion of what I've imagined.
I trust you can see this.
So now here's this dog throwing crud everywhere,
And wondering how are we going to get her back into her owner's hands.
And underneath all of this is going on,
I can feel a kind of anxiety coming up.
You can't avoid that because this mind,
The way it works deeply underground,
Is to constantly connect the object that it has in mind to the completion of that task,
And then it's done.
So we're always working to get something done.
In this instance,
It is to get done through these notes so I can discuss them with you.
But what we're looking at is that something in us doesn't want to get things done,
Just get things done.
It wants to get things done so it can be the one who has become finished,
Completed,
Rich,
Prideful,
Whatever it might be.
Do you understand the transition I'm making here with you?
So this nature is always looking for a sense of peace,
Of having things settled,
And that that settlement is derived from this equivalent image which we've become identified with.
Because if I can't get it settled the way this mind has imagined it should be,
Then I'm unsettled.
Because I'm identified with something that isn't getting done the way I've imagined it needs to get done,
And when that happens,
Up comes what?
The impatience,
The anxiety,
And yes or no.
It can often feel like do or die.
Imagine something as small as that.
Do or die.
And do it or die in the time given to do it.
And what's the time given to do it?
The time I need to become free.
The time I need to be relaxed.
Whatever it is that's imagined that's now suddenly run into some conflict with reality.
Can you see this with me,
I hope,
Before I go on with you?
So important to understand.
We are always trying to protect something that can't be protected because it is always,
In one respect,
In a world where nothing we can do will ever possess the imagined nature,
The imagined sense of self that we're trying to protect.
Imagine trying to protect an imagined sense of self.
That's what anxiety is.
That's what fear is,
Is trying to protect an imagined sense of self so that it can get to its imagined time when it won't feel threatened.
If you can see the loop,
Then we can go on.
So while I was working on these notes,
Which I was actually,
And one day you will be too,
I was grateful that out of the blue,
And all unwanted moments come out of the blue,
Don't they?
They should say come out of the storm.
Come out of the blue.
That suddenly here's a chance to see in real time that there is something,
Even as it's working on trying to bring forth an explanation of deep spiritual principles,
That underneath that constantly in some kind of embroiled state is an unconscious nature that never stops comparing how things should be to what it imagines they need to be so it can reach a time and place where it can finally rest,
And rest that never comes,
I might add.
So when I was going through this,
I thought,
Well,
Some people,
And I know it will come up,
Well,
What about a second chance?
I mean,
Look,
This happened.
Don't I deserve a second chance?
Okay,
I messed up.
What about a second chance?
Of course we deserve a second chance.
But a second chance is not to reimagine and then become free because we imagined this moment to come.
Because,
See,
I'm not free now,
So I failed,
And I'm going to judge myself,
But I'll imagine tomorrow or an hour from now when I'll be finally past this.
Then I'll be free.
That is not what a second chance is.
This world is filled with second chances.
All of them lies perpetrated by a world that wants you to believe in what it can sell you,
In what it can take from you,
As you try to reach once again the second chance it has told you you deserve,
When the real second chance isn't to achieve what you imagined,
But to die in that moment to that fearful sense of self that doesn't exist apart from what it imagines it has to get to to be free.
Can you see that?
I want a second chance.
Second chance to do what?
Second chance to do what?
Create another world in which somehow or other this imagination can take place where you will become free in this second chance?
There's no freedom coming.
Freedom isn't in a time to come.
Freedom is recognizing that in the time you are exists another order of being that doesn't derive its identity from what may come,
But is the coming itself of the kingdom,
Is the coming itself of what is divine.
That's we are meant to live in and,
As I stated at the beginning,
To die to this false life so that we may recognize and realize the presence of a life that sits behind us,
Showing us all the time the need to do this.
So to die to death while still in the body.
To die to death while still in the body.
What does that mean?
What is it to lose my life to find it?
What does it mean?
It means that we can begin understanding that when we're anxious or angry or regretful,
And I'm going to go through some specific situations here,
That those negative states are born of a sudden resistance that we have to any moment that does what?
That threatens who and what I imagine I am or must become in order to be secure and free.
So the very thing that's coming up in that moment that seems to be promising me this isn't bringing about the change that I need.
It's saying to me,
Here's what you need to change in the time to come so that you can acquire what you've imagined.
Are you following me?
Do you see this?
So when we do this,
When we don't die to death,
What is death?
Death is when we reincarnate fear.
That's what death is.
Death is reincarnating that nature that only knows how to meet unwanted moments as a threat that it then turns into the promise of a time when it won't be struggling like that,
Which brings me to the second key lesson.
Let's bring it up,
Kate.
I'm going to run out of time here for sure.
The further apart we see life and death as separate movements in time,
The greater grows the imagined distance between ourselves and the kingdom of heaven.
We see life and death as separate movements in time.
I'm alive.
Here comes that moment.
Oh,
No,
It feels like I'm going to die.
And now so that I don't want to die,
I imagine a life to come.
And we see this movement of what we call I'm alive.
Oh,
No,
I'm going to lose my life.
We see that as being separate moments in time,
And they're not,
And you'll see why they're not as we go into this,
Where the more we imagine a time to come,
The further away we are from the kingdom of heaven we hope to enter.
So now with this basis down,
I want to share with you some things.
I'm a.
.
.
How do you say?
At some point,
An aspirant must become interested,
Not morosely in the idea of death,
Not avoid it.
What is it?
And then don't think,
I know what it is,
But how can I know something about this thing that tracks me,
That follows me,
That torments me,
That I don't even know is tormenting me.
I'm telling you that when you are filled with anger,
Fear,
Anxiety,
Regret,
It's because you have been.
.
.
You are being hounded by death.
Because it is death that says,
If you don't get rid of this condition,
You won't live.
And you won't live surely as you want to,
You will live as you don't want to,
Because look at what you're going to have to go through.
And so death promises freedom.
And death knows nothing about freedom other than what it gives you to imagine,
That as you do,
Then you participate in its life,
In the life of fear.
So with this in mind,
I can't tell you how many times.
.
.
I never got to it.
The last words of 50 known human beings,
Celebrities,
Politicians,
So forth,
I never got to it.
But here is what I have found over time.
And we're going to look at three common situations where a person is on the deathbed,
Three common occurrences,
And then,
Once I outline those,
We're going to look at the solution to what we'll see is a terrible situation.
So here's situation one.
All the time this comes up,
And if you've ever sat with someone that you love,
And they were able to speak at all,
One of the things you hear,
Whether spoken or not,
Is I should have challenged more of my fears.
I feel badly that I didn't take more risks,
Because here I am,
And my life isn't complete.
It's not finished.
I should have challenged more of these things that told me I couldn't do it.
And now it's too late,
Because that's always the specter behind any fear,
Isn't it?
When you're there,
And life seems to be coming to a close.
I should have taken more risks.
I should have challenged my fears.
Now,
Have you ever had a moment like that while you're still in this body,
Where you know you avoided something?
A circumstance came along,
And you wouldn't tread there,
You wouldn't go into it,
Because something was telling you,
Oh,
No,
If you do that,
You don't know what's going to happen to you.
And so instead of stepping into the unknown,
You back up into the known,
Which is imagined,
And then in imagination,
Deliver yourself from your own trepidation.
So with that in mind,
Let me bring up the third key lesson,
Please.
I hope you're still following me.
The key lesson,
The third key lesson reads as follows,
And you'll see how it pertains to what we've just described.
Postponing meeting any fear we have is one and the same as making a date with the next unwanted moment that comes to reveal it.
Postponing meeting any fear we have is one and the same as making a date with the next unwanted moment that has come to reveal it.
Can you see that?
It's called karma.
I won't go into this,
So instead of going through it,
I go around it.
But when I go around it,
What do I come back to?
A condition that brings up the same anxiety,
The same fear.
And when it comes up again,
It actually strengthens the illusion that I made the right choice the first time,
Because when we meet a fear the second time,
It gets bigger.
And the third time,
It's bigger still.
Why?
Because we have more resistance to it.
So the notion somehow or other that I can postpone an unwanted moment is a complete illusion grounded in this idea that,
A,
Why do I fear something?
I imagine what it means.
And so rather than going into and seeing this fear is imagined,
I take the side of this imagined nature that will always avoid anything that,
In quotes,
Threatens what it intends one day to become or hopes one day to achieve.
So behind this idea of postponing is what?
After I get things squared away,
See it in yourself.
This is useless.
Don't think about others.
After I get squared away,
Then I'll get busy.
After I get everything,
You know,
Where it's supposed to be and everything is right,
I'll move on to the next so-called milestone in my life,
To the next thing that I need to become.
Real life does not honor timelines.
Real life doesn't have a timeline in it.
Real life is your line of time in which everything has been prepared for you to transcend these punishing states born out of idea of someday is coming.
Someday I'll become free.
Someday I'll know Christ.
Someday I'll know God.
This is tough stuff,
And the evidence is right in front of us all the time.
Let me go on.
Let me bring up the second situation that is quite common to people who are about to give up the ghost.
I should have had different priorities.
Here I am,
And I'm about to drop this body.
I'm terrified.
I have so much unfinished business,
And I can see to whatever extent it's true.
I wish I had different priorities.
What did I do?
What a fool I was.
You may not hear the words,
But laced into their sentiment is this idea that somehow or other,
Now,
God,
It's too late.
It's too late.
I shouldn't have been running all the time toward what I thought I had to give myself to what I thought I needed in order to become free.
I should have,
In quotes,
Slowed down and been more present to what?
To what life was trying to give me,
But I mistook busy for being alive.
I mistook busy for being alive,
And now it's too late.
Let me repeat something to you here,
Because we're going to get to this.
It is never too late,
And I'll show you why before this talk is over.
It is never too late.
No matter what it is that the mind is struggling with,
I should have taken more risks.
It's not too late to take risks on your deathbed.
I should have had different priorities.
I wish to God I recognized all I am is this mass,
This ball of confusion rolling along constantly trying to get people in places and problems put in the right place so then I can rest.
When I get there,
I will,
And you never get there,
And you refuse to see it.
This isn't a judgment.
This is the evidence of our life.
Even with that dog,
With Luna,
That came in here today,
If I had been asleep to myself,
I would have believed that the sudden surge of impatience,
Why is this happening?
What do I do?
I would have taken that pain to be the proof of the importance of myself and what I was doing.
What a crock.
No,
What is important is to see in that moment that we live from a nature that is forever producing goals,
Forever producing finish lines that we're not even aware of that it painted,
And that we don't know we're running to until something interferes with whatever pace we're at,
And then the pain comes and says,
See,
It's real,
And it's not.
So even at death for these people and why we're having this talk,
This great illusion remains in place.
Regrets replace the ambitions that created them.
Write it down.
Regrets replace the ambitions that create them.
What do I regret?
I didn't get there.
I didn't do this.
I wasn't like that.
Well,
Why do you regret it?
Because my sense of self was derived in this ambition from this ambition that I should be this.
But these ambitions,
They do nothing to change the nature that's always on the way to the next promise of freedom,
Nothing that we judge ourselves for or fear that we might lose.
None of that changes anything,
Let alone brings us closer to this promise of the freedom that we will know when we get there,
When we become,
And that's the great illusion.
We must die to regret-filled moments,
Not identify with them,
And not just on our deathbed,
But every day,
Every moment,
Where we'll go back to Luna in the room,
The dog.
What if I had been taken over and lost my temper or yelled at the animal,
Whatever it might be?
What if that happened?
As you can see,
It happens all the time to most of us.
Oh,
I regret that I'm a terrible person.
No.
That regret does nothing other than prove to that nature that it really didn't want to be like that because one day it will become as it imagined itself being.
So if we don't die to this idea of this regret-filled moment,
Of this regret we have over being what we've been or just did,
Then we are participating in a kind of torturous relationship with something that keeps telling us,
You know what,
The reason you're like that is the devil made you do it,
But now you won't be because now you understand.
No,
We don't understand because if we understand the truth of these moments,
We will begin to practice what it means to die to death on the spot.
I know I'm going fast.
I have so much material I want to present.
Are you able to go with me?
Are you still tracking with me?
Please.
I'll try to slow down a little bit.
It's just that I don't want to keep you here too long.
The third situation.
Reports from deathbeds.
I should have been more forgiving.
I should have been more forgiving.
I'm lying here and I'm still angry.
I'm laying here,
And I can still feel a certain kind of resentment.
And my God,
If ever anger or resentment was useless,
What for now?
I regret not having lived and loved more openly.
I should have made amends.
I don't want to take this anger to my grave and now it's too late.
No,
It's not too late.
Yes,
Did many moments in time that could have produced a transcending relationship to yourself take place?
Yes,
But it's not too late and I'll get to this.
Surely you know what that's like.
Not just on your deathbed.
I wish I could be stronger with you.
I know that I can't.
What I'm describing to you,
If you can see it in scale,
And Christ's life was the expression of this.
All true teachings allude to this.
What does St.
Paul say?
I die daily.
And when he said I die daily,
He didn't mean I die daily.
He means that every moment in one respect is a kind of divine deathbed.
A moment in which I am given to see who and what I have been,
What it clings to,
What it must become,
How it derives that identity.
And in that moment,
In the revelation of that light that shows that darkness and its activity,
The possibility of dying to it,
Of giving it up.
Not because it's desirable to do that,
But because one can see that if they don't die to the nature that is death itself,
This unconscious,
Constant sense of becoming,
That they have no life.
We all know that feeling.
What am I alive for?
God,
This seems so meaningless.
What's going on?
And we never ask those questions when we're all pumped up and jacked up by something that's taken place we like.
No,
Those questions always come when something threatens what it is that we hope to become.
Our hope in things seen becomes a torment after we've derived the pleasure from the identity derived in that image.
And this is the pattern beneath all patterns.
All painful regrets are based in some form of imagined,
Some stressful speculation that I could have been or done differently than I did,
Or that you,
By the way,
Should have been other than you are.
And hidden in that,
The hoop,
Jump through it.
Next time,
I'll be more caring.
I'll be kind.
I'll be selective in how I make you into what you're supposed to be so I don't suffer.
Here again,
Die to death.
Die to self-judgment.
Self-judgment is death.
It feels like life because it's got promise in it.
I'm not that,
But I will be this.
Judgment of others feels like it's alive.
No,
It's death because I judge through comparison,
Through the past.
And the past becomes the punisher and I'm the one wielding the whip,
Makes me feel alive in the moment.
So it's all hidden in a false sense of self that believes,
Whether we see it or not,
In that moment,
That it's not what it does.
But that's exactly what it is.
That's why these ideas of I should have been more loving,
Forgiving,
All that business,
We don't see it because we're not there to see it.
Let's bring up the fourth key lesson,
Please,
Kate.
The grudges we carry poison us long before it acts to punish others.
The grudges we carry poison us long before it acts to punish others.
And that includes whether we can understand it or not.
I have a grudge with myself.
How could you do that?
You idiot.
Are you kidding?
You missed the mark again.
Look at you.
I hope others don't see me this way.
So we're always looking around,
Not to see if others see us missing the mark,
Instead of looking at the nature that misses the mark because it's imagined one.
So those are the situations.
You see them with me.
Can you find some comparable experience in your own life?
Because now I'm going to get into the solution to that and why it's never too late.
At the onset of a fear,
The press of any anxiety,
A pain,
The jab of some regret,
Whatever that familiar resentment that washes through when you hear of someone or see someone or you're with someone and they seem to reenact what you're sure is some form of idiocy.
We must learn to see the onset of these sudden contractions,
These painful states as ghosts of a time to come.
In a Christmas carol,
Bob Marley Scrooge was visited by the ghosts of Christmas past,
Present,
And future.
They came to warn him of something.
The awareness of these states is a kind of warning system telling us in that moment,
Look,
It's time in the here and now not to protect this sense of self,
But to die to it.
And why die to it?
Because you can see it's come again to collect and carry you off into its dark dream.
Because that's exactly what takes place.
Every time we find a reason to be negative,
That reason is protecting the sense of self attached to what it is attached to.
So it must have a reason to explain the pain.
It can't be that that nature is dependent on something that doesn't exist.
So I confirm my existence,
That sense of my existence is confirmed by a negative state,
Imagine that.
So here's the practice that you can use and understand that will always help you see that it's never too late.
Even in the midst,
Even in the throes of an angry outburst,
Even in the anxiety that comes over you or the regret or resentment,
The minute that you feel that kind of contraction,
And do you understand what that means?
Some of you don't breathe,
Your chest is always so tight.
The minute that chest tightens up,
That face gets stiff,
It's evidence of the pain of some kind of resistance or insistence.
And resistance and insistence are one and the same thing,
I might add.
At any rate,
The first physical expression of some unseen psychological fear,
And that's what it is.
Oh my God.
That is the physical expression of an unseen psychological fear.
You don't know the fear yet.
First the body responds to something the mind has been seized by and then tries to seize.
And then following that seizure comes what?
The thoughts that explain why suddenly your body is stressed.
And those thoughts follow up to tell you why you feel that way and what you now must do in order to protect what it is that has been threatened.
And what's been threatened?
An image.
What's been threatened?
Who you think you need to become to be relevant and safe and secure.
So in that moment,
Are you following me that moment?
Do you know these moments in your life?
Because we're going to change the way we meet them forever,
If we will.
That moment where we are seized is not a dream.
It is an actual expression of a revelation of this nature we don't know is there.
That seizure is real,
Meaning that reaction is definite.
What isn't real is the dream that follows it.
Where a dream nature,
This false sense of self,
Forever trying to fix itself,
Starts to imagine what that means and what you have to do relative to its conditioned beliefs.
So we must,
In that moment,
Use the onset of that dream.
Oh,
Wow.
Stop on the spot.
What does that mean,
Stop on the spot?
It means immediately be aware of this resistance.
Recognize it for what it is.
The resistance that you're feeling is not the problem.
The resistance exists because it's pointing to a problem it says is real.
So I must stop and become aware of this resistance and drop it.
And how do I drop the resistance?
This is the key part.
I deliberately die to any part of that sense of self that is telling me,
Tempting me,
To go into and through that resistance and come up with some new insistence about what I have to do and what I have to be.
Because if I do that and I relive that fearful sense of self,
I have reincarnated the fear,
The anxiety,
And the worry responsible for it,
That unconscious nature that creates it.
We must bring our full attention into the whole of that experience as consciously as possible.
Here I am.
What do I do?
I don't stop.
I don't become aware of the resistance.
The resistance becomes the fire that drives me to try to save myself.
No,
Not anymore.
I come to a complete stop.
And in that moment,
As consciously as I can,
I'll exemplify it for you.
Don't get ahead of me.
I draw the deepest breath that I can,
As if it is my final breath.
I'm fully present.
I take a full breath as if it's the last breath I'm going to take because there will be a last breath.
Only now,
Instead of waiting for that moment,
I'm doing and delivering myself into that now.
And I slowly,
Deliberately exhale.
And that breath is synonymous with the awareness that if I don't die to that sense of self that's clinging to this remaining anxious,
Angry,
Fearful,
Regretful sense of self,
If I don't die in the moment to it,
Then nothing can change because nothing will change until we change our relationship to that unconscious nature.
Do you understand that?
And let me explain something.
You can do this anytime.
Anytime.
You can get an email and you can feel an anxiety so that before you answer it,
You answer the moment that is being given to you to die to yourself.
And that's always the first thing you do.
Instead of unconsciously identifying with that negative state,
You hand it over,
That false sense of self.
And you hand it over because you start to understand if I don't hand this over,
If I don't pick up the cross,
So to speak,
Then what I'm doing isn't bringing an end to this nature so that something new and alive can be born in it.
Rather,
I'm reincarnating a form of death that requires me giving myself over to it through identifying with it.
There's no moment that you can't use this.
Sometimes you might find it helpful in bed.
You lay there in bed.
You know what it's like.
God,
You know what a mess today was.
I was the worst.
It was the worst.
She was this.
He was that.
What does it mean?
What's going to happen?
Draw a final breath and let it be a final breath.
What does it mean,
A final breath?
I'm laying this nature down.
Not an imagination.
I'm not trying to escape it.
That's becoming.
Escape is becoming.
No,
I'm dying.
I'm letting it go.
It is the letting go breath.
And if you're not fully present in that moment,
Then you haven't understood the exercise.
This idea where we finally recognize and let's bring up the fifth key lesson.
I've got to end this talk.
Read along with me.
It is a law that we,
You and I,
Are going to die the same way we lived.
Afraid.
Unless we learn to meet the fear of death in a new,
In a conscious new way.
It is a law that we are going to die the same way we lived.
Afraid.
Everything telling you,
Including mechanical religion.
Oh no,
Don't worry.
There's a kingdom of heaven.
You'll be met by this,
That and the other.
What do you think the lives are of anyone who believes that there is some time to come and when that time is pushed off and pushed off,
Do you think that someday it's going to come when it's not pushed off?
Do you want to be in a world where you're constantly afraid?
Or do you want to die to death the way that Christ and all two teachers have told you it's possible to do?
I'm giving you a practice you can work at to help you understand it.
It's a law.
We're going to die in the same way we lived.
Afraid.
Unless we learn to meet the fear of death in a new and conscious way.
This is how we begin.
You can become a student of death instead of its stooge.
This is about being conscious,
Not about becoming free.
It's about being aware of any form of stressful sense of self and in the awareness of it,
Die to death instead of identifying with it.
Then you'll know,
Bit by bit,
All at once,
What it means to have a new beginning and a new life.
