Welcome to this special occasion where we are going to start with a short ceremony to make sure that we are all aligned.
So let's close our phone and everything that might distract us.
Let's sit comfortably on our seat.
Let's take a deep breath in.
And let's take another deep breath in.
Close our eyes.
The next breath in.
We keep in,
We don't breathe out.
Slowly breathe out.
And let go.
Let go of all your efforts.
Let go of everything that already happened in the past.
And let go of everything that may happen in the future.
And allow your breath to guide you back to the present moment.
To whatever is happening right now around you.
Become aware of your surroundings.
Become aware of your body and its seat.
The posture of your body.
The weight of your body.
You may scan your body internally.
Making sure there is no tension hiding anywhere in your body.
If you found a place that is contracted,
Guide your breath to that area and breathe it out.
There is no need to be stressed or tensed right now.
Another deep breath in.
And let go.
Let go more and more.
Become aware of your thoughts.
What are you thinking right now?
Without getting too entangled.
Just observe as those thoughts pass through your consciousness.
Without identifying with them.
You realize these are just impressions.
Shadows.
They have no power.
Become aware of any emotion you may be experiencing.
Happiness.
Sadness.
Curiosity.
Dullness.
Whatever it is.
Allow it.
Do not resist any emotion,
Sensation or thought.
And as you observe all those phenomena that appear and disappear like clouds in the sky.
Gently shift your focus from the clouds to the sky.
That consciousness that allowed all those momentary happenings to be experienced.
Untouched by any changing event.
Unstained.
Undestructible.
Eternal.
You are pure consciousness.
You are peace.
You are silence.
Deep breath in.
And let go.
Gently allow your attention to come back to your body.
That is seated here upon its seat.
Part of our virtual circle.
Let's unite our individual intentions into one unified intention.
The intention to grow.
To develop.
To evolve.
The smile.
Take another deep breath in.
Slowly when you feel comfortable you may open your eyes.
So how are you?
Any better now?
So welcome to this special occasion where we meet and hold hands to climb the path together.
This time not just as individuals but also as a unified consciousness.
Support each other.
Each other's growth.
And we remember that the force that keeps driving that evolution forward is that longing for the truth.
The tension that lies between the question and the answer.
So this is where we are invited to share our questions.
And not be shy about them.
Share our difficulties.
Share our wonders.
And anything that you feel may hold you back.
So this is what we are doing here.
Calmly we will sound your voice.
The voice of the sincere seeker.
So today we invited ourselves to walk under the light of this question.
How to rid ourselves from emotional baggage.
So I'm just going to give a very quick overview and give the stage to your questions.
Before we address that question we need to understand what emotions are.
What is an emotion?
You know,
Our experience of life can be separated into three segments.
Three types of experience.
We can have sensations and that includes everything our five senses can extract.
All the information our five senses can extract from reality.
Inner and outer reality.
These are the sensations.
And thoughts are the collections of all the ideas we have in general.
And specifically about our sensations.
All the opinions,
All the impressions as they appear as a thought.
An idea about it.
And the last type of experience we can have at a given moment is an emotion.
What is an emotion?
It's not a cognitive idea.
But a wave of feeling somewhere between a thought and a sensation.
Of course these can have mutual effect.
You know,
You may have a sensation in your body and then you have an idea about this sensation.
And that idea creates an emotion.
And that emotion creates a physical expression which you have another idea about.
And that can be an ever-ending loop.
But those three types of experiences combined together create our experience of reality.
This is reality as far as we understand it.
Everything that we can experience.
Emotions,
Sensations and thoughts combined together create a picture.
That picture is our reality.
Or if you prefer it's like a movie.
Because it's never ending.
There is a constant flow,
Constant change of events.
Like we experienced just now before the session started.
There is some kind of an event and we meet it,
We experience it and it goes away.
And there is another thing coming and going and coming and going.
So emotions are there somewhere between a thought and a sensation.
Where do they come from?
Sometimes you can find an excuse for a specific emotion.
Sometimes you don't.
They just come spontaneously.
And it's there.
And you experience it.
Or you try to avoid it because you have a thought about it which convinces you that it's unuseful,
Unpleasant.
You want it to go away.
Then the drama begins.
So this is an experience or an emotion.
So now we know what emotions are.
Emma is asking,
Would you say that emotion and feelings are the same?
I mean they are the same.
Although they might be referring to,
You know,
I feel pain in my leg.
Then that feeling of pain is actually a sensation.
But yeah,
We tend to mix those.
But anyways,
As long as you can identify those three types of experiences,
An emotion can definitely be a feeling.
I feel sad.
I feel happy.
I feel exhilarated.
I feel depressed.
These are emotions.
Do we say we feel those because they are actually a feeling in our body?
I mean,
They definitely influence each other.
How do you call it?
There is like a relationship of.
.
.
How do you call this in English?
Symbiosis?
Symbiosis.
One creates the other that creates the other.
It's like a chain effect that never ends,
You know.
Definitely,
Emotions create sensations.
And also thoughts,
You know.
I have,
For example,
I have a contradicting thought about a certain situation.
Like,
This should never happen.
Yeah,
That's a typical example.
I have this idea.
Something is happening and I have this idea,
This should not happen.
This is unjust,
Immoral,
You know,
It doesn't matter.
I have an idea.
So that idea creates frustration.
And frustration is an emotion or anger.
And that anger,
Of course,
Influences my body.
And I contract and I feel that I'm choked or I want to cry.
It's like a sensation.
And this sensation even puts more gas into that fire.
And now,
Because I'm contracted,
I feel even more angry and frustrated about the situation.
It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy about a drama that is building up.
So this is this endless move,
Flow of events feed each other and feed from each other.
So they're very intertwined.
Very much.
Sometimes it's very difficult to,
You know,
When one stops and the other begins,
They are so intertwined with each other,
It just feels like a huge drama.
And we are overwhelmed with emotions and ideas and pain or whatever.
Do you think it's important to separate them out from each other or see them as separate things in order to process or understand what's happening?
I tell you what's important.
The important thing,
The secret here,
Is not so much telling the difference between those three types of experiences,
But not to identify with each of them,
With any of them.
That's the point.
It doesn't matter if your thought generated an emotion which generated a sensation or was it the sensation that generated the thought.
You know,
You get easily confused trying to figure out what started what.
But once you realize that all those events,
Emotions,
Sensations and thoughts,
All of them together and separately,
Are not real,
They don't have power,
This is when you wake up from the dream.
What is the dream identifying with that endless flow of events?
It's like sitting in a movie theater and the movie there on the screen is so enchanting that you are completely lost in the plot.
And you don't even remember that this is a cinema and you are observing a movie.
You are just so carried away by it.
Then when the movie ends,
You say to your partner,
Wow,
That was an amazing movie,
I didn't even realize that two hours passed.
Because we use it as entertainment.
But when it happens within us and we identify with it,
That never stops.
We are completely lost.
That's why it's a matter of waking up.
Waking up from that dream.
Waking up from the day sleep.
Realizing that what you are watching now,
Emotions,
Sensations and thoughts,
Is just like the movie.
The movie doesn't have any power.
Not really.
It's only 25 frames of light on a silver screen.
That's it.
You stand in front of the projector.
The projector cannot kill you.
Or hurt you.
Or stain you in any way.
It's just a beam of light.
That's it.
So when you realize the movie has no power,
Then you start breaking free from the bondage with the realm of the mind.
Emotions,
Sensations and thoughts.
You realize they have no power.
Not a single shadow of any meaningful,
True power.
The only entity in this meeting that has power is the observer.
Not the object of observation.
The observer has the power.
And the observer can identify and be lost.
Or not identify and be free.
That's it.
So the obvious question would be what purpose do these phenomena serve us?
Are they helpful?
Can they be harmful?
How do we understand them better to become free?
It's not a matter of understanding.
It's a matter of surrendering.
Because understanding goes through the intellect,
Right?
And the intellect is just a bunch of ideas.
And as much as you try to sharpen your ideas and make them accurate,
So you'd understand the mystery of life,
As much as you do that,
The further away you go from the truth.
Because the truth has got nothing to do with your ideas and opinions.
It's all about you surrendering to the present moment,
So you can fully experience it.
Those phenomena are there for you to experience with an open heart and a willing soul.
These phenomena are there because through those phenomena you can grow.
Not just you,
Personally.
You as a part of the universal consciousness.
Or God,
Or whatever you want to call it.
God evolves through your personal experience.
As long as you are available to experience.
But if you try to make sense out of it,
And try to define reality into good and bad,
Useful or redundant,
Do I gain here?
Do I lose here?
That's it.
You're lost.
You're not engaged.
You're not available to experience reality.
There is no evolution happening.
God is silently waiting.
So,
Steve says,
You said bring your attention back to the body.
I feel like my body is the attention.
Have you ever heard of something called the energetic body?
Is that real?
Yeah,
For sure.
Every living object has an energetical aspect to it as well.
Like a prana.
For sure,
Our body has prana in it,
Around it.
But this also belongs to the realm of events.
To the realm of experience.
Your prana can be high,
Your prana can be low.
There are things you can do to increase your prana,
Things you can do to reduce your prana.
Everything that changes,
Everything that has a beginning and an end,
Belongs to the realm of phenomena.
You do not.
You are eternal.
You don't belong to that realm.
That's why you are free from it.
The skies are always there.
It doesn't matter if there are clouds in the skies that come and go,
Or if it's a storm,
Or just a calm day.
The skies are always there,
Behind the changing events.
You are the blue.
You are the blue.
So you don't belong to the realm of changing events.
That's why you are invited to free yourself from that attachment,
That identification.
Alma says,
Okay,
Maybe it depends on how you use the word feeling.
I feel pain is sensation of a physical experience.
I feel sad expressed as an emotion.
I'd be happy with that.
As long as you're happy.
And Shelly says,
I'm glad you said the emotions don't have power.
Working through betrayal,
Grief,
And I can use that to release.
Yeah,
This is very important,
Very important,
You know.
When you realize that you cannot be harmed by any emotion,
Or any kind of event for that matter.
You cannot really be harmed.
Then you don't have to protect yourself against it.
Just like the skies are never stained by the clouds.
It doesn't matter how dramatic the storm is.
You know,
Behind the storm there are skies.
Same,
Your consciousness is there wide enough to allow every situation to be experienced fully.
Pleasant or unpleasant.
Sometimes it's really painful.
Sometimes it's pleasurable.
Pleasure and pain are one and the same.
So instead of being afraid of the pain,
Try to avoid it.
Manipulate reality so you wouldn't feel it,
Or you feel as little as possible.
You just sit there and make yourself available to feel it.
Then you'll realize you're much bigger than the pain.
You're much bigger than the pleasure.
You're much bigger than any event.
Nothing can distract you.
Nothing can destroy you.
Nothing can harm you,
Not really.
You're bigger than that.
It's just a matter of are you aware of it,
Or are you still identified with the small mind that is overwhelmed by the magnitude of the current experience?
This is what happens.
No,
We feel that whatever we experience is bigger than us.
It's too much.
It's overwhelming.
We don't have the capacity or the means to be fully open to it.
So we shut down.
We close.
We hide.
We disappear.
We manipulate.
We fight against it,
And then we are lost in it because we give it that power.
It becomes real.
It's like fighting against the shadow.
If you believe the shadow to be true,
You will definitely lose.
The shadow will definitely be there always.
As long as there is light,
There will be shadow.
Just realize that this is a shadow.
There's nothing to be afraid of.
You're bigger than that.
There's no need to fight.
What do you say?
So if we are not living in the present moment and not experiencing everything as it happens,
Then do we,
Obviously,
In those situations we have these feelings,
Do we then carry them around with us without experiencing them or letting them go?
No.
What happens when,
Like,
The title of this talk is letting go of the emotional baggage.
So there has to be an assumption that we carry those things forward with us without experiencing them in the moment.
The only reason for us carrying our emotions with us is because we don't agree to experience them in the present moment when they occur.
This is when they add as baggage to our load.
This is because we created an identity around it.
You know,
When sadness turns into depression,
When we fight sadness,
Do you see?
We don't allow ourselves to fully be there and experience sadness with an open heart.
We keep on avoiding it,
Fighting against it.
We are not settled in the sorrow.
So it accumulates more and more and more,
Adds,
And it becomes chronic.
Then it becomes depression because we are never there available to experience it.
You know the story about two monks,
An old monk and a young monk,
Walking to the monastery,
And they have to cross a river to get there.
And on the river shore there is this woman with her bags,
And she is asking the monks to help her cross the river.
So the old monk,
Sure,
Why not?
He loads her on his back and they cross the river.
And the other bank,
She says,
Thank you and goes.
And they continue to walk silently until this young monk can't take it anymore and he stops and he says,
Why did you do that?
I mean,
How come you carry that woman on your shoulders?
We are not supposed to touch women.
I mean,
How could you do that?
So the old monk says,
No,
I already let her go back in the river.
You still carry her on your shoulders.
You see?
This is our baggage.
Our baggage is created by all the things that we don't allow ourselves to experience.
And that becomes an identity.
That becomes throughout the years the answer to the question,
Who am I?
I am the one that this happened to him and that happened to him,
And I am the entity that suffers because of that.
An awakened consciousness doesn't have an identity.
Because there is nothing to relate to.
There is no baggage that can identify me.
I am always available,
Completely available to experience the present moment.
As soon as I experience it,
That moment dies and leaves no mark.
So I am completely available to experience the next one.
You see,
There is nothing accumulated here.
An awakened consciousness is always fresh and completely alive.
Can you taste it?
There is always freshness.
Try,
When we finish this session,
Go to the fridge,
Take a piece of fruit or whatever,
Better fruit,
Maybe an apple or something,
And try to eat it as if you have never eaten an apple before.
You have no past impressions about an apple.
You didn't even know that such a thing exists.
And suddenly there is this thing in your refrigerator.
You look at it like it was the first apple,
And you taste it like it is the first apple that you ever tasted.
This is how awakened consciousness experiences life.
It is completely fresh,
With no past impressions.
There is no baggage there.
Steve says,
Prana sounds like something I should know,
Discern,
Hard to interpret and understand.
I am raised in trauma.
I don't know how to let the good in.
So the question to who am I,
In this case,
Is the one that was raised in trauma.
This is who I am.
This is my story.
So who would you be without this story?
Stay with this question.
Who would you be without this story?
Not that it didn't exist,
But it doesn't identify you anymore.
We don't renounce our parents or the path that we've been through.
But we are not identified with it as well.
And that's not a question to who am I anymore.
Not an answer,
Sorry.
Not an answer to the question who am I anymore.
So who are you now,
When that story doesn't identify you anymore?
It's a question to stay with.
I was raised by trauma.
I strongly recommend you go back and listen to this course about trauma on my webpage.
It goes deep into the relationship we have with this traumatic events.
So allow yourself some time going deeper into that understanding,
Realization.
What else?
Barbara says,
Does this hold as well if the story is I am a good person?
Definitely.
As long as there is an I am something,
There is an ego there that tries to identify and generate an answer to this question.
Who am I?
Ah,
Okay,
I am that one that life was cruel to.
I grew in trauma and I was abused and this happened,
That happened.
I am a broken vessel.
Oh,
The story that I tell is that I am a winner.
I am amazing,
You know.
I have everything.
People come to me and I help them.
And I am such an amazing individual.
Seriously,
I must be Jesus reincarnated.
It doesn't matter what story you tell about yourself.
As long as there is an I who tries to identify itself by something,
You are lost.
Whatever story you are telling about yourself,
Drop it.
An awakened consciousness doesn't have any story.
It doesn't have any identification.
That's why it's free.
Because you see,
As soon as you identify with an idea,
Any idea,
And of course about yourself it's even more personal,
But as long as you are identified with this idea,
You are unstable again.
Because life would easily contradict that.
On a daily basis.
So again and again and again you find that your idea is at risk by life.
Because life is always changing.
My fear is stiff.
I am good.
I am good.
I am good.
And it's threatened by changing events all the time.
Let go of this idea.
There is no I who tries to identify with anything.
It's simply there,
Available.
Lynn's asking,
How do I go into a job interview?
Blissfully.
Remember,
Like in any situation like that,
Any relationship that you have,
Remember that this is just a game.
You are now playing the part of the guy who is looking for a job,
And they are playing the part of the people who are trying to find the right candidate.
We are all playing this part in a big show,
A big stage show.
How do you call it?
Musical.
Broadway performance.
And tomorrow you will be the guy sitting on the table trying to find the right candidate,
And there is another guy who is feeling awkward and embarrassed,
Trying to portray the best image of himself to convince them that he is good enough.
Sometimes we are the villain,
Sometimes we are the heroine or the hero.
It doesn't matter.
We change costumes and we change roles,
But it's all part of the same show.
So don't get too identified with your role today.
Just see that as a show,
It's a play,
It's a game.
Don't take life too seriously.
Anyway,
It's going to be over soon,
20,
40,
60 years,
That's it.
Nobody cares.
You know,
This identification with the drama is amazing.
Think how futile it is.
Let me ask you a question.
Do you remember the name of your great-grandfather?
What was his name?
Do you know?
No?
Some people remember because they did a work about the family tree or whatever.
Most of us don't even remember the name of our great-grandfather.
Our own blood.
Not to mention the story that he had and all the difficulties and the drama,
That he was so identified with.
Nobody remembers.
Nobody really cares.
It doesn't matter.
That's not what we're here for.
Our personal drama will be washed away like something that you write on the sand,
On the seashore.
A wave will come and will take it away and that's it.
Not even your name,
Your great-grandchildren will remember,
Not to mention your drama.
You have to go beyond that.
Addiction to the drama.
So,
Amnon says,
So what does matter?
That you keep your heart open.
That you become available to experience life when it happens.
This is really important.
It's not important just for you.
It's important for the universe.
The whole universe will rejoice once your consciousness is available.
Because it can finally grow through the experience that you're having of the present moment.
It's hard to imagine what life is like without being drawn in or addicted to the drama or the story.
And then there's a piece of it that feels a little detached.
You know,
Like if you say not to take life too seriously,
You can kind of understand that.
But then when serious things happen that you really care about or you really feel emotional about or you really have strong thoughts or sensations about,
They feel really meaningful.
So how do we not get pulled into that simultaneously not taking it too seriously but also experiencing it?
The problem is not that you withdraw from the experience through my guidance.
The problem is that usually you don't allow yourself to fully experience life as it happens.
That's the problem.
Because you feel it's too much,
It's too painful.
Or it should be a different way.
It should be a different way.
You have a conflict idea about it.
You don't surrender to it.
And then you don't experience it.
An awakened consciousness can feel pain and can be sad.
There is this beautiful story about Krishnamurti,
Whose brother died.
And they were very,
Very close.
And he became so sad when he heard the news that he stayed in his room and he didn't eat or drink or receive visitors for three days.
He was so sad.
His student had to leave his room because they couldn't bear to see their master so sad.
And then after three days they knocked on his door.
And they said that they saw him sitting on his desk doing his work as if nothing happened.
And they were amazed.
I mean,
Just three days ago you were devastated.
And now you act as if nothing happened.
How can you overcome that sadness so quickly?
So his answer was,
If you stayed,
You'd know.
But you didn't stay,
You left.
So how can you know pain if you don't allow yourself to experience it?
How can you know sadness if you're running away from it?
I didn't run away.
I experienced it fully and it passes.
It doesn't pass when we reject it.
It doesn't pass when we fight against it.
Then it becomes chronic.
Then it becomes our baggage.
Then it becomes our identity.
An answer to the question,
Who am I?
Susan says she can't hear us.
Are you the only one?
Can everybody else still hear us?
Okay.
Amma says,
I am trying to move from controlling life to surrendering to life.
Is there anything that can help her?
Yeah,
Don't try.
Do.
What's the difference between trying and doing?
When you try to do something,
There is always that caution.
You don't do it 100% because you leave 20% aside to deal with the possible failure.
That's when you try to do something.
I'm not sure if I will be successful or not.
Will I achieve the result that I'm looking for or not?
So I'm not there full heartedly.
What we need to do is to redefine success in that case.
Success is not a certain outcome of your effort.
If that happened,
Then I was successful.
And if something else happened,
Then I failed.
No.
Failure can be measured by not giving your 100%.
If you gave your 100% to it,
You are already successful.
That's it.
And the outcome of that is given as a gift to the Divine.
And your 100% is not judged.
Your 100% can be whatever you can give in that moment.
But it's always in perspective.
It is when you give it with your heart open fully.
And there is no fear.
There is no doubt.
You completely surrendered to that decision of doing whatever it is you're doing.
Experiencing whatever it is you're experiencing.
You're completely exposed.
Yeah,
This is the best I can give.
You come to life and you say,
Here I am.
Yes,
Come on.
Give it to me.
Do you think that we don't really conceptualize or know how much energy it actually takes to avoid life and contract and keep our heart closed?
Like,
You know,
Sometimes I can think,
Oh,
That it seems like that would be so much work to get there.
Like I have to do all these things to be able to get to that place where I can completely surrender and open.
But actually it's the other way around.
Yeah.
It's what drains us is our inability to surrender our fear,
Our suffering,
The constant bickering and arguing against life.
This is what's draining us.
Trying to remain in control,
Trying to manipulate reality.
Trying to repeat our story over and over.
I mean,
I think carrying baggage or carrying a load is a really good analogy because you can see in your mind how that weighs you down and how much more effort and energy that takes to carry that around.
And another reason for us to carry that around is because we use it as a shield.
It's not just the baggage that we carry that drains us.
We also use it as a shield against life.
All those things that happen to us are currently being used to make sure that life cannot hurt us again.
But in that process we can't experience anything,
Really.
If you avoid pain,
You also avoid pleasure.
You can't differentiate between the two.
If you avoid sadness,
You can't really be happy.
So you take the sweet with the sour if you want to be free.
Pleasure and pain are one and the same.
An awakened consciousness doesn't have that automatic screening between desired and undesired,
Good and bad.
There is no intellect there to stand between me and experiencing whatever is.
The intellect is not there as a barrier between the experience and the experiencer.
Do you see what I mean?
So there is no judgment about good and bad,
And should or should not,
Just and unjust.
There is only an available,
Wheeling heart.
So if we take that role of the observer,
Then things that come up for me are like curiosity.
It's like,
Oh wow,
That was a real feeling of anger.
This is a real feeling of deep sorrow or grief.
And observing what that feels like in your body,
What that feels like to experience that,
And be able to then say,
Wow,
That was powerful,
That was exceptional,
That was joyful,
That was courageous,
Whatever.
And what's beautiful about it is you don't have to wait for an extreme circumstance to experience that wow.
You can just eat an apple out of the fridge.
You can eat an apple out of the fridge.
I always say that God is waiting in the soap bubble of the dishes that you currently do.
People think that,
You know,
If I go to Tibet and I sit under the mountain for ten years,
Then maybe I will find grace.
No,
No,
No.
In the present moment,
In the mundane,
There is a talk in my website,
In my Inside Timer page you can listen to,
Finding divinity in the mundane.
Yeah,
When your consciousness is not split,
And is completely available to experience what is,
Then you will find grace anywhere,
Anytime.
God is revealed to you as your own direct experience.
So Steve says,
So many people seem not to make it through that pain.
It's scary.
I don't know how to help those people.
You just keep your heart open.
That's the help you can provide.
And your open heart will know exactly what to do,
When to do it.
Don't worry about it.
And if you really want to be a useful tool,
Make it the most important thing for you in life.
You know?
What is most important to me?
To keep my heart open.
In any circumstance,
In any situation,
To any person that I meet,
To keep my heart open.
Then you become that beacon of light,
Of love,
Unconditionally.
You really have an impact in this lifetime.
Steve,
A couple of sessions back,
Asked if you ever get angry.
And I'm not sure if he was on the last session,
When other people also asked that question.
So I wondered if he wanted to hear your answer.
Again?
I recall my answer was,
That sometimes you put that angry face on.
Because you need to convey a message quite firmly.
It needs to be heard.
So you play the part of anger.
But you are not identified with it.
And as soon as the anger is not required anymore,
You are completely available to take that mask off and replace it with a more relevant mask to match the present moment.
And there is no baggage there.
There is no identification.
Let me tell you a story that I love.
They say that Buddha was traveling between cities and villages to teach his Gospel of enlightenment.
And one time he was meeting a big crowd in a city.
And all the rich and famous came to listen to Buddha speak.
And one of them was a very rich businessman.
And he was really pissed off by the idea of this guru and all this.
He didn't like it at all.
So when Buddha was standing at the end of the event and greeting people goodbye,
This man stood in front of him and started yelling and cursing.
How can you mislead those people,
You are a charlatan,
And so on.
He spit in his face and left.
And then throughout the night this person could not sleep,
Could not fall asleep.
He was full of regret and remorse.
And I don't know what happened to me.
I was so upset.
Why did I do that?
It was so disrespectful.
This man didn't do anything to me.
Anyway,
At 6 o'clock in the morning he goes to this place where Buddha sleeps and he knocks on his door.
And Buddha opens the door like,
Yeah,
What?
And this guy is saying,
Look,
I'm really,
Really sorry.
You have to forgive me.
I don't know what happened to me.
And Buddha is like,
Why should I forgive you?
And he says,
Don't you remember last night I was cursing and spitting in your face and all that?
So Buddha smiles and says,
No,
No,
That person is not here now.
You see,
This is how an awakened consciousness experience.
It doesn't take any baggage with it.
So Steve,
That was the reason why this talk got started.
Thanks to Steve.
Nice.
He says,
Yes,
I'm just trying to relate because I get angry at things.
People say you shouldn't be angry at when people hurt people or that someone unfairly.
I get angry.
Is that wrong?
Is that right or wrong?
When people hurt people or treat somebody unfairly.
There are certain types of emotions that are completely useless.
They are self-generated and you can decide that you don't need them anymore.
Unlike sadness,
For example,
Or happiness.
These happen naturally.
But frustration,
Anger,
Violence are self-created,
Self-generated.
These emotions are artificial.
You created them.
Because you're avoiding what's happening or you're saying it should be something different?
Because you argue with reality.
When there is a gap between what is and what you believe should have been,
Then you are frustrated.
And when this frustration is fermenting within you,
It turns into anger.
And when this anger is fermenting within you,
Then it turns into violence.
But it's your generation.
You created it.
Because you preferred an idea over reality.
So if you want to make sure that you only experience what is naturally there and not artificially generated by you.
Then you make sure that you always close the gap and you are not drawn to that drama anymore.
I know what should have happened.
You should speak differently to me.
That I know what should have happened is the cause of your misery.
So would you say there's a difference between that type of anger that you just described,
That you're carrying and self-generating,
And the type of anger that immediately in the moment is like a flash in the pan?
A flash in the.
.
.
Yeah.
.
.
I mean that.
.
.
Like something that you experience in the moment and then it's gone.
It's gone.
And you're never identified with it,
Even when it is experienced.
You're not identified with this anger.
An awakened consciousness has no values to defend.
You know?
So nothing can threaten it.
It doesn't hold on to any idea.
Sometimes anger is required because there needs to be a border.
There needs to be a change of course.
So you need a very firm.
.
.
That's it.
And then anger is not required anymore.
So don't try to confuse yourself between the types of anger that you might be experiencing.
You keep your heart open.
That's it.
And you'll see the rest will just take care of itself.
The rest is just an outcome of an open heart.
A result of it.
A generation of it.
So it says,
Wow,
Yeah,
Makes so much sense.
Good.
Now leave that realization aside and come back to your open heart.
Good,
Good,
Good.
So I would like to use this opportunity to thank you guys for being here,
Sharing your path with us for this past hour or so.
And for your beautiful questions that shed some light on our path.
And next Tuesday,
We'll meet again to continue growing together.
Thank you for your donations.
They really help.
And do check my webpage for those lessons I mentioned earlier.
All kinds of guided meditations there and courses that you can listen to.
There's an English WhatsApp group on the website as well,
If you have questions in between the sessions.
Right.
So find me on Google,
Youarethat.
Org,
Or just Yaron Etzion.
And you can register for that WhatsApp group and get updates.
It's quite a silent group,
So don't be alarmed about being spammed or anything.
Jai Gurudev.
