Know Thy Self- I Am Not My Intellect (Suffering)

So,

We're going to start with a short ceremony,

Just to make sure that we are all aligned.

So let's sit comfortably on our seat and make sure that nothing will disturb our peace in the next hour or so.

Let's take a deep breath in and let go.

Let's close our eyes and take another deep breath in and let go.

And the next breath in we keep in,

We don't breathe out.

And slowly breathe out and let go.

Let go of all your efforts.

Let go of everything that already happened in the past.

Let go of everything that may happen in the future.

And allow your breath to guide you back to the present moment where life happens.

You just observe and be aware of everything that is happening around you.

It may be noisy or silent.

Just observe.

Be aware of the posture of your body on your seat.

Become aware of the breath as it flows in and out of your nostrils.

Every breath in fills your body with oxygen,

With life.

And every breath out cleanses the body and relaxes more and more.

Become aware of any thought that you may be thinking about now without getting too entangled with any specific idea or thought.

Just observe as they pass through your consciousness.

Emotions,

Sensations and thoughts appear and disappear.

You just observe.

And as those phenomenas keep rising and subsiding,

Allow your attention to turn from the realm of phenomena back toward itself,

To the position of the ultimate observer that exists before and beyond any temporary phenomena,

That space within where there is no movement,

There is only silence.

In the following moment,

Become that silence.

Another deep breath in.

Slowly your attention comes back to the body that is seated here on its seat,

A part of our virtual circle.

Let's unite our individual intentions into one unified intention.

The intention to grow,

To develop,

To evolve.

Let's take another deep breath in.

When you feel comfortable,

You may open your eyes.

So how are you doing?

Is it better now?

I need to start with an apology for all those people who are waiting this Tuesday for a meeting.

This is my responsibility.

So I hope I can make it up to you this day by making this extra interesting.

So we are gathered here in the middle of our journey,

Guided by the eternal question,

Who am I?

And realizing that this question cannot be answered directly.

We have to go through the elimination process by answering the question,

Who am I not?

So far we've shed three layers on the path to unveil the truth.

The first layer that we shed was,

I am not the body.

The body is just a temple in which I am hosted.

And we learned how to improve the communication skills between me and my body.

The second layer we shed was,

I am not my breath.

The breath is just a bridge that stands between the body and the inner world of mind.

And we learned how to use the breath to clean our body from toxins and to bring back our attention to the present moment where life actually happens.

Third level that we shed was,

I am not the mind.

The mind is just a screen on which phenomena are being projected.

And when I watch that compilation of thoughts,

Emotions and sensations,

I relate to that as my reality.

This is what's happening now.

Emotions,

Sensations and thoughts.

Endless movement.

And we learned that the miracle happens when we stop identifying with that movie.

We realize that movie has no power at all.

This is the great freedom that is being revealed to the sincere seeker through meditation.

The idea of meditation is to help us realize that phenomena happen externally.

It's not who I am.

These are just an opportunity to experience whatever is happening.

Emotions,

Sensations and thoughts.

So these are the first three layers,

The first more basic layers of life that I'm used to be identified with.

And as we grow,

We shed those false identifications.

I am not my body.

I am not my breath.

And I am not my mind.

When I do that,

I'm ready to face the fourth level of existence.

I am not my intellect.

And we're going to discuss this today.

First questions.

Some people have some questions.

Yeah.

Tommy,

I guess he has a comment.

Tommy says,

I try to visualize the space between my emotions and how I choose to deal with them.

I think this is the only choice we have.

The choice we have is to experience whatever is in front of us with an open heart and a willing soul.

That's the choice.

That's the only choice we have.

Either we accept and love that sincerely or we reject that and we suffer.

We're going to discuss this today.

And Steve has a question about the breath.

The breath one confuses me.

How could we not be a part of it or without it?

It just confuses me.

I wouldn't be here without my breath.

You were here without the breath and you will be here without the breath.

Maybe you're lucky enough to have a body and the body comes with a breath.

It's a package deal.

Yes,

It's not that the body doesn't exist or the breath doesn't exist.

Of course they do.

But they are not who you are.

You are eternal.

The body is temporary.

So is the breath.

The body is here to decline and die.

You receive the breath and you will let it go eventually.

But you will exist because you exist beyond the realm of time.

So expand that identification of I beyond the limited time frame where your physical existence is being experienced.

Richard is asking if it's possible to access the previous classes.

Yes,

All of them are recorded.

You can go to my Insight Timer page and listen to them.

I strongly recommend that you do that because it's a part of the journey that we are all engaging in.

So if you missed one or a couple of the meetings,

I encourage you to go back after this meeting and listen to the first layers of existence.

They are posted on my webpage.

And of course you will be guided at the end of each session to practice the meditation.

Me and my body,

Me and my breath,

Me and my mind.

These were the three first meditations.

And these are a part of our journey.

It's not only about talking and understanding what we are talking about.

It's about allowing yourself to experience it through meditation.

So go back to the webpage and practice those three levels of existence.

Don't be lazy about it.

Another question.

Tommy's getting philosophical.

He said his question about consciousness.

Do you think light is consciousness turned inside out?

Consciousness being experienced externally and consciousness is light turned inside.

It's light being experienced internally.

That's beyond me.

Consciousness is that space that allows everything to be experienced.

Like the theater hall.

There is a show that is being played on the stage.

Consciousness is the theater hall that allows that play to be experienced.

That's the easiest way to explain consciousness.

Okay.

Another question.

Dee is asking if the meditations are in English.

Yes they are.

Of course there are also Hebrew versions,

But if you don't know Hebrew you should practice English.

They are there.

John says,

Interesting as humans we have knowledge of our existence,

Body and breath.

If existence extends beyond our bodies,

Does this apply to all animals?

Yeah.

The only difference is that animal consciousness is not aware of itself.

It doesn't have an identity that is aware of its existence like humans do.

That's the difference.

So you are aware of the fact that you are experiencing.

You are aware of the fact that things are happening to you and you can fill those experiences with meaning.

This is something an animal is not able to do as far as we know.

So that blessing slash curse of self-awareness is what makes us unique.

And that's what it means when in the Old Testament it says that God created in his own image.

This is what it means.

That ability to be self-aware.

Another one.

I mean we are not going to get to intellect today.

Tommy says,

Do you think we are in the process of a deep ancient remembering as a humanity?

Everything that we discuss you already know.

Maybe not intellectually,

But you know that,

You know?

Somewhere in the back of your brain.

You know that because it describes the truth about you.

A truth that you were once directly a part of.

And everything we do here is just brushing the dust off.

Shedding false ideas and notifications,

False identifications that were added through your life story and currently obscure the truth from you.

So as we shed those off,

You will remember.

You will be reminded.

It's like being awakened from a dream.

A dream that took your awareness somewhere else,

You know,

To a fictional reality.

And now when you're awake,

You know,

No,

No,

This is the truth.

Yeah,

Of course.

I remember.

I was once blind,

But now I see.

So yes,

Remembering.

It's not about learning new things.

We are here to be reminded who we are.

Okay,

Let's stop with the questions for a minute and concentrate on the subject of this meeting in which we are going to discuss intellect.

Intellect is a very tricky realm of existence.

Are you ready?

So what is intellect?

Fourth level of existence.

Is intellect.

.

.

If we said that the mind is like the movie that is being projected in the screen of our mind,

Then intellect is the movie critic that sits in that theater hall,

Looks at the movie and has an opinion about it.

This is intellect.

The sum of your ideas and opinions.

How do you create an opinion about something?

Usually it's not a genuine idea.

Usually those ideas are pre-programmed in you.

They are a result of the culture that you grew in,

A result of the education that you received,

The result of past impressions of you or somebody else,

What is considered to be right versus wrong,

Beneficial versus harmful,

And ultimately good versus bad.

This is decided at this realm,

In the intellect.

Good versus bad.

And everything else is derived from that initial separation that is created in the intellect.

So the first thing we need to understand is when we judge reality to determine if it's good or bad,

Useful or harmful,

Desirable or undesirable,

We understand that this judgment is not free,

It's not genuine,

It's pre-programmed.

If we were to be born in a different culture,

This whole set of ideas about reality would be completely different.

They say pornography is a matter of geography.

You know,

What's considered to be improper in one spot on this planet is completely normal in another.

So the way we observe and judge reality is dependent,

It's not free.

So this is the first thing to know about the intellect.

When it's judging reality,

It's not free.

And then even deeper,

Even more fundamentally,

We need to realize that that idea about good and bad that the intellect is so busy to determine for us,

That idea is artificial.

Good and bad.

This doesn't exist in reality.

Reality is not good and reality is not bad.

Reality is just happening,

Neutral.

One thing can be interpreted as good by one man and as bad by another man,

Right?

There is no ultimate good or bad.

It's a matter of your interpretation of a given situation.

Do you see that?

Things are never good or bad.

And when you try to determine artificially if something is good and bad or bad,

You trap yourself.

And this is the core reason for human suffering.

And this is when I keep coming back to the first commandment.

You know,

It was the first commandment in the Old Testament.

What was the first sentence that men heard from God?

The first time they met and discussed.

You remember?

Way way before,

You know,

The whole story about Moses and the Ten Commandments.

Many many many many ages before that.

When Adam met God and God told him,

This is heaven,

I created heaven for you.

Go and enjoy.

Just refrain from one thing.

Don't do just one thing if you may.

So what was it?

Don't eat from the fruit of the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil.

That's what God said.

The first sentence that God told men,

Don't eat from the forbidden fruit of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Somehow we know that and we keep forgetting it.

We forget it so we try to understand,

To determine if something is good or bad.

And then we find ourselves outside of heaven.

This is the most important commandment that we keep forgetting again and again.

Reality is not good.

Reality is not bad.

Reality is happening.

And when we try to determine if it's good or bad,

We trap ourselves in this cage where we cannot be free.

And this is important to realize.

If it's bad,

If it's bad,

Then of course we suffer because we want it to be good and we manipulate or try to escape or do something so the bad will turn into good.

And if it's good,

Again we are trapped because we know from experience that it's temporary and it's fragile.

We try to protect it to make sure that it will not change and we fail because reality is bound to change.

So again we suffer.

So we suffer when it's good and we suffer when it's bad.

And that is created in the intellect.

Everything is created in the intellect.

Do you see what I'm saying?

Questions?

Yes,

Many.

So the big question is there must obviously be some things that are bad.

No.

And some things that are good.

No.

There is only reality.

This is the only thing that exists is reality,

The present moment.

Present moment is inevitable.

It's already happening.

You can't do anything about the present moment.

It's too late.

It's happening.

Do you see that?

It's not good,

It's not bad,

It's happening.

When you try to figure out if it's good or bad,

This is when you sentence yourself to frustration and suffering.

Yes.

So Slavona says,

How is hurting innocent people or children not bad or how can it be neutral?

We think we know if people deserve to be treated good or bad.

And this is based on human sight,

On what we can figure from the limited perspective of reality that we humans have.

You know a terrorist loves its cause.

He's completely sure that he knows the truth.

And it's a divine action to sacrifice your own life for the sake of the Lord.

So he's willing to make this ultimate sacrifice to please the Lord.

He's absolutely certain that he's doing the right thing,

The conscious thing,

The moral thing.

And he creates a lot of suffering for many people.

But he's doing that out of love for the Divine,

According to his perspective of it.

Do you see that?

You might have a different perspective,

But it's only a very narrow perspective that is shaped by ideas and concepts that were brought onto you as you grew up to determine for you a set of values and ideas about what's right and wrong and good and bad.

These are all artificial.

You have to realize that.

The present moment is not good or bad.

Leonard Cohen writes in his song,

Sometimes I need you to carry a child and sometimes I need you to kill my children because you know who I am.

We don't know.

We don't know who's supposed to live.

And who's supposed to die.

We don't know when it's supposed to happen and how.

That is the truth.

We don't know.

Even though we try to figure it out,

But we don't know.

And we never will.

It's a part of the mystery of who we are,

The mystery of life.

So an awakened consciousness is not there to try to break that mystery and make it clear and obvious.

No,

No.

An awakened consciousness is mature enough to surrender to that mystery.

So to go back to your analogy of being in the Garden of Eden,

It's not up to us to decide what is right and wrong,

Good and bad,

Good and evil.

That's the only thing that God asked us to do.

Don't decide for me.

Don't try to make this differentiation between good and bad.

And you are in heaven.

Heaven is there for you.

I created heaven for you.

The one thing you need to do in order to stay in heaven is to refrain from that you should know better than God if something is good or bad.

You will never know that.

And you sentence yourself to life outside of heaven.

So just to carry on from what Slavon is trying to understand,

They say,

Sorry,

I don't get it.

It's not that the victims deserve to be hurt.

It's the perpetrator who is evil.

There is no evil.

It's an artificial invention.

There is no evil.

There is only people doing the best they can at a given moment.

And sometimes the best they can is cruel.

And sometimes the best they can is harmful.

But it is the best they can at any given moment.

Evil doesn't exist.

There is only goodness.

So that leads to Tommy S.

Saying that there has to be polarity.

That's how we experience life.

If there was no polarity,

There would be no growth.

Agreed.

What's the problem?

Yes,

There is polarity.

Polarity between the masculine and the feminine.

Polarity between low energy and high energy.

Polarity between cold and warm.

Polarity between ignorance and knowledge.

But not polarity between good and bad.

This is artificial.

You have to understand that.

Polarity exists in nature.

There is night and day.

There is high tide and low tide.

Yes,

Of course,

There is polarity.

Polarity between positive and negative magnetic fields.

A very interesting one is between masculine and feminine.

Maybe we can learn about that in the future.

But good and bad are not polar.

They are artificial inventions.

And then Lynn asks,

Which part does the ego play in this?

We'll reach ego at six levels of existence.

So be patient with that.

Now we are at the fourth level.

And Tommy asks,

Do we not experience suffering in proportion to how far we step off the path of truth?

The path of truth is opening your heart to the present moment.

So when your heart is closing,

It's closing because you suffer or because you are afraid.

We will learn it's almost the same thing.

And then definitely you will step away from the path.

And that's the only choice you have.

Remaining with your heart open to experience everything,

Regardless if you think it's good or bad.

So Steve has a mind question.

He says,

Not to be weird,

But telepathy,

Telepathy,

They say,

Is communication through or with the thoughts of others.

I'm trying not to ask if it's real or not,

But I find it distracting.

How do I shut that off?

Telepathy,

You know,

Is just one of the aspects of reality that is revealed to us as our mind expands.

This is regarding the lesson of last week.

Okay.

When we discussed about the mind.

When the mind expands and matures,

It's able to experience more and more of what actually happens here.

What usually is being blocked away from our vision,

From our sight,

From our awareness,

From our consciousness.

We're not conscious about most of what's happening because our mind filters away things that we are not prepared or ready to experience.

But as we grow and mature,

We are available to experience more and more and more and more.

And telepathy is one of those aspects.

No reason to go into details,

But the invitation here is to help your mind grow and expand by learning additional features about the mind and experiencing the freedom of this experience and the experiencer through meditation.

Okay.

So the practice and the learning together is a balanced way to mature your mind.

And for details,

You'd go back and listen to the recording about the lesson about the mind.

So eight minutes ago,

John was stuck back on this good and bad thing.

Maybe he's changed his mind,

But he said,

But our intellect,

Our ability to learn has enabled us to communicate such as today's internet.

Isn't that good?

Fantastic.

And then he says,

Also,

Can't we manage this growth in context of loving and appreciation of life?

So I think there's some confusion about these polarities and the good and bad being a fallacy.

As you said,

We contrive that in our minds versus using words like love and joy and peace because they're associated with goodness.

So is there a difference between goodness and good and bad in terms of making a judgment?

Yeah.

Goodness is the nature of reality.

It's got nothing to do with your ideas about reality.

Goodness can be experienced when you are free from judgment.

Divinity is another word to describe the same thing.

Divinity can be experienced when you have no concepts and ideas about it.

You see,

The intellect doesn't allow you to experience directly whatever is happening because it puts an idea on that.

Now what you see is not what's happening,

But the idea you have about it.

And that's already a kind of a screen.

Intellect creates screen between you and the present moment.

You cannot really ever directly experience a tree to the core of your being.

Become that tree.

Unite with that tree.

Have a tantic experience with that tree when you have an idea about that tree because that idea is between you and the tree.

This is what intellect does.

It generates ideas and those ideas stand between you and direct experience.

And I want to focus on one specific tool that would help you to understand how the intellect interferes and doesn't allow you to directly experience something.

So the intellect likes to analyze,

To understand,

To get the point of the experience.

So I'm going to give you a formula that your intellect can use to understand how it generates suffering for you.

And if you use that formula every time you suffer,

I guarantee your life will change dramatically.

Or your money back guaranteed.

But you need to use it.

You need to apply it every time you feel that you are suffering.

But we need to explain what suffering is.

Suffering is a brand name for all those negative emotions that we experience during life.

Frustration,

Anger,

Violence,

Disappointment,

Misery,

Rejection,

All this negative fear we'll discuss next week.

But focus on suffering.

Or sometimes in the modern world we call it stress.

We are so stressed with those negative emotions.

So these emotions are artificially generated in you by the intellect.

Unlike joy,

Sadness,

Happiness,

Whatever emotion is being experienced,

Those specific negative emotions that are under this title suffering,

You generate.

You generate for yourself.

And I'm going to give you the formula.

So listen carefully.

You write it down if you need it.

It goes like that.

Suffering is born and raised in the gap between what is and what you believe it should have been.

Again suffering is born and raised in the gap between what is and what you believe it should have been.

This is the definition of suffering.

Something is happening,

You speak to me in a certain way.

But your intellect has the idea that you should never speak to me like that.

So there is a gap,

You see,

There is a gap between the present moment,

How you spoke to me,

And the idea that I have about how you should have spoken to me.

When there is a gap between those two,

I suffer.

I'm frustrated,

I'm angry,

I'm resentful,

I'm hurtful,

I'm retaliating violently.

All this happens when there is a gap.

This is the definition of suffering.

Suffering is never the cause of reality.

You can never suffer because of reality.

This is a huge realization.

It is so embedded in us to victimize ourselves on situations.

When will I stop suffering?

When you learn how to speak to me.

When you speak to me with honor,

With respect or whatever.

So I put myself in a victim position waiting for you to change,

For you to realize,

For you to grow up.

When will I be free?

When will I be happy?

When you make a change.

This is a victimized position,

You see.

And I tell you,

This is completely wrong.

This was never the truth.

Ever.

Look back in your life.

All those opportunities life gave you that you rejected and had argued with,

You generated that suffering for you.

It was always about you and your ideas.

Am I clear?

Suffering is never the cause of situations and events.

Never.

Ever.

Never was,

Never will be.

Suffering is only created when you prefer conflicting ideas generated in your intellect about reality.

These are just ideas,

Opinions,

Concepts,

Artificially generated in your intellect that you prefer over reality.

Then you suffer.

So before I explain how to cease suffering,

Now is the time for questions.

So I think,

Again,

Back to this idea that good and bad or right and wrong is artificial.

There has to be some situations where the suffering is caused by another person.

No.

You have to let go of that idea.

Suffering cannot be happening because of other people or other situations.

Even extreme,

Most extreme.

But a lot of situations aren't just the intellect saying this is wrong or this shouldn't be happening or it goes deeper than that.

It affects our neurological system.

Because we reject,

Because we suffer.

But it's not just a rejection.

It's like a deep reflex.

Like if you're,

I'm trying to think of an example that I can even say out loud,

If you're in the middle of being raped,

It's like your intellect doesn't go,

Oh,

I don't need to suffer because I'm just accepting this situation as it's happening.

You go into fight or flight mode.

It's a reflex.

OK,

So we'll discuss it more next week when we discuss fear.

This is about the way our system protects itself against clear and immediate danger.

But we will discuss this next week.

Currently,

Let's stay in this discussion,

In the realm of intellect,

Where suffering is being generated for us.

Can an enlightened consciousness experience rape with an open heart and a willing soul?

The answer is yes.

But this is not our discussion now.

We will reach there next week when we discuss fear.

And frankly,

99.

99% of the time that we suffer or we are afraid,

It's not because of clear and immediate danger.

It's not because the situation doesn't give us any alternative but to be afraid and to reject.

Most of the time,

It's just an idea and concept that we have in our head that argues with reality.

This generates suffering for us.

Frustration,

Anger,

Retaliation,

You know,

Violence.

All this is generated in us,

By us,

Because we prefer conflicting ideas generated in the intellect over accepting and loving reality as it is.

This is the point.

Okay,

More questions?

John says,

Thank you,

My filtering gets in the way of direct experience.

Kathleen says,

So do you not experience suffering if someone punches you in the face?

No,

You feel pain.

You feel pain.

If somebody punches you in the face,

You feel pain.

Okay,

So that's a good example.

What's the difference between pain and suffering?

Yeah.

What's the difference?

Is it the same?

Or is there a difference?

Of course,

There is a difference.

Pain is the phenomena that you are experiencing in a given moment.

Suffering is not because of the pain.

It's because the idea you have in your head.

Is that person shouldn't have punched me.

Why?

What gave him the right?

Pain is bad.

When will I be happy?

When the pain will go away.

You see,

This is an artificial idea,

Opinion that you have.

Once you believe that,

Pain shouldn't be here right now,

Then you suffer.

You experience both pain and suffering.

Can you experience pain without suffering?

Of course you can.

You just give it a different context.

Let me give you an example.

Somebody went through a car accident and he's waking up in the ER.

The doctor is standing above him and asks him,

How do you feel?

Do you feel okay?

And he says,

Doctor,

My body hurts everywhere,

But I don't feel my legs.

There is no pain in my legs.

So the doctor takes a pin and pricks him in the toe.

Can you feel that?

And he says,

No,

I can't feel anything.

No pain.

Is it good or bad?

There is no pain.

Everything else is painful,

But the legs.

So he goes through physiotherapy and all that.

And a year later,

He is well again.

And he's mowing the lawn.

And he steps on a thorn.

And now he feels pain in his leg.

Is it good or bad?

It's the same prick in the same toe.

You see,

Pain is not good or bad.

It's the context that you give it.

Can you experience pain without suffering?

Definitely.

When do you stop suffering about pain?

When you stop believing that pain is bad and it shouldn't be there.

Do you see that?

John referenced Viktor Frankl,

Meaning of life perspective.

The meaning of life is to experience everything,

Pleasure and pain,

With an open heart and a willing soul.

This is the meaning of life.

And Allison says,

So does the intellect consist of our thoughts and beliefs of what we know or think to be true?

This is what we've been talking about.

And then she used the example of childbirth,

Painful but not suffering.

Exactly.

So,

Slavena is back on the children.

She says,

Don't see it the same for children,

Though.

If a child is abused,

It's out of their control and they can't do anything to protect themselves.

Telling the child that nothing bad has happened to them is the reality they are creating and all the intellectual suffering that they are experiencing is just what they are making it up in their intellect.

Sorry,

But all this will only traumatize that child even more to be denied to their reality.

There is a long discussion about trauma.

You're welcome to go back to my Insight Timer page and look for that discussion about trauma,

How to deal with trauma.

So arguably,

Children don't have this intellect.

They're not conditioned in the same way that we have now experienced that conditioning as children.

So they are very free to be experiencing everything as it happens in the moment.

And it's only often the adult or the parents' reaction to that experience that then conditions them to think and build that intellect.

How many times,

You know,

You see a baby fall and hurt his knee or whatever,

And then comes up and then the mother comes,

What happened?

What happened?

And then he starts crying.

You know,

That's just an example of trauma.

Yeah,

We are here to experience life.

Sometimes life can be pleasurable.

And sometimes life can be painful.

Both are there for us to experience.

If you believe that whatever is happening is beyond your capacity to experience with a full heart and a willing soul,

And that belief is generated in the intellect,

Lack of self-awareness.

If you believe that whatever is happening is too much beyond your capacity,

Then you're traumatized.

And the whole drama of trauma is generated within you.

But I'm not going to go into details about trauma today,

Because there is a long speak about trauma.

Go back to my Einstein timer and listen to that.

What I would want to tell you before we break this meeting is how to close this gap.

Okay?

This is important for us to learn today.

Realizing that suffering is generated because there is a gap between reality and the ideas that I have about reality.

This is how you spoke to me.

This is how I believe you should have spoken to me.

There is a gap.

They don't match.

So I am frustrated.

I am hurtful.

I am resentful.

I am angry,

Etc.

,

Etc.

So what to do to stop suffering?

You need to close this gap.

So I'm going to teach you how to close this gap.

Okay?

Usually what happens,

We try to close this gap by persuading the world to come closer to the idea that we have about it.

You know,

We keep preaching and trying to re-educate that person that this is not right and you shouldn't speak to people like that.

This is harmful.

You know,

This is unsocial behavior.

You should change so I will be happy.

No,

No,

No.

So now we're going to learn how to close this gap the right way.

Okay?

So instead of trying to re-educate the world so it will behave closer to our ideas about it,

Now we are going to close the gap the right way.

This is going to change your life.

One hundred percent.

Do I have your attention?

Send me a few hearts so I know that you're there.

The hearts have been streaming,

I've been watching them.

Good.

They're waiting on bated breath.

Three steps to enlightenment.

The first step is add modesty,

Humbleness.

You need to keep reminding yourself that you don't really know and that is the truth.

You know,

The intellect has this tendency to be so determined.

This is what should happen.

What do you mean?

I know.

No,

You don't know.

You don't know how other people should behave,

How other people should talk,

What other people should believe.

You don't know if a situation should end up like that or otherwise.

You don't know if people should live or die.

You don't know.

That's the truth.

You don't know.

Even if it sounds really persuasive,

The idea that you have in your head,

The bottom line is that you don't know.

So add this humbleness to your interaction with life.

Keep reminding yourself,

I don't know.

You should never speak to me like that.

You know what?

I don't know how you should have spoken to me or how you should speak in general.

I don't know.

This is not within my realm of responsibility.

I don't know.

It's important that you are humble about it.

Otherwise,

You know,

Humbleness is like the oil in the machine.

It allows the wheels to rotate smoothly.

Otherwise you're very rigid.

It won't be able to really rotate.

So this is the first.

Add humility to that.

Now the second step.

Once you are humble,

You choose an opposite paradigm to the one that created suffering for you.

And you believe that opposite paradigm.

So instead of believing you should never speak to me like that again,

Now you believe that's exactly how you should have spoken to me.

180 degrees.

Why is that?

Because I prefer to keep my heart open.

That's why.

I prefer that over everything else,

Over being right and being righteous and winning an argument.

I prefer an open heart.

Can I just intersect here for a second?

We are not taking that opposite paradigm because we believe that that's what we deserve.

No,

Because we believe that the truth is the present moment.

Right.

So that's an important distinction.

It's nothing to do with deserve.

It's nothing to do.

It's not about karma or anything else.

Present moment happens unconditionally and it's inevitable.

And this is a trick in order to close this gap,

Like a tool to be able to do it,

But we don't attach any meaning to what we're saying in that's exactly how you should have spoken to me.

It's just your ability to surrender to the present moment.

As it happens.

I understand.

What it does,

It takes away that power that you give to an opposite idea that you have about reality.

Because now the idea that you have about reality actually describes reality.

You should have spoken to me exactly the way you did.

So now my idea about reality describes reality as opposed to opposing it and rejecting it.

You see,

It's still an idea,

An opinion,

But now that opinion doesn't create a gap because what I believe and what happened are exactly the same.

Do you see that?

And now I know you're asking yourself,

But why should I believe that?

That's not the truth.

I don't believe that you should speak to me like that.

And the answer is because you prefer an open heart.

That's why you prefer life without suffering.

That's why.

And that's the way to reach life without suffering.

There is no other way.

If you dedicate your life to argue with reality,

I tell you,

You will lose 100% of the time because present moment is inevitable.

You cannot do anything about it.

It's already happening.

That's it.

You can either accept it and love it and be free of suffering,

Or you can reject it and fight it and you suffer.

That's it.

That's the only two options to live your life.

That's the only choice you have.

So first step is add humility.

Second step is to choose an opposite paradigm to the one that caused you suffering.

One that describes reality.

One that actually describes reality as opposed to opposing it.

And now you see your idea and reality match.

There is no gap.

So there is no suffering.

Without the gap,

There is no suffering.

The third step to enlightenment is let go of all those ideas altogether.

No good,

No bad,

No pro and no against.

You are free from ideas and opinions to experience life directly.

This is a level for the advanced seeker.

I know it's going to be more complicated.

So now you focus on the first two stages.

First you remind yourself again and again,

No,

I don't really know.

And then you prefer an idea that is describing the present moment as opposed to rejecting it.

And then you see there is no gap.

If there is no gap,

You don't suffer.

Practice that again and again and again.

I guarantee life will give you endless opportunities to be angry,

Frustrated.

And every time it happens,

Look for the gap.

What is happening?

What I believe should have happened.

Okay,

There is a gap.

I give it a name.

And now what do I do?

I remind myself,

Maybe I don't know what should have happened.

And then you prefer an idea that is actually describing life.

And you close the gap.

And you keep your heart open.

Do that again and again and again.

If you need,

Write a diary about it.

Again and again and again.

Close those gaps.

Close those gaps.

And experience life free of suffering.

This would be a huge change.

Huge.

Life transforming practice.

Give that yourself as a present.

And we can meet on Tuesday to discuss your results.

Questions?

Nicole Lambert says,

You are the space in the room,

Not the furniture or situations that happen there.

Yes.

The thing that came to mind for me was the trickiness,

Like the ego trickiness,

The trickiness of the intellect to attach all kinds of meanings and what if this happens and all of that.

And so the simplicity,

Like paring down the intellect to the simplicity of just taking in everything as it's happening in this moment and accepting it as it is.

Yes.

That's your life purpose.

Come back to the present moment.

Accept the present moment as it is.

Love it with an open heart and a willing soul as it is,

Pleasant or unpleasant.

Whether you prepared for it or it's a complete surprise,

Whatever.

Keep your heart open.

So Lee's asking,

Does this mean denying personal identity or wants or just changing the way you intellectually deal with or engage with it?

Denying your wants.

Your personal identity.

Because we're identifying with whatever meaning that thing has.

Like I use the example of if you say,

Of course that's how you should have spoken to me.

The identity and meaning that gets attached to that is that I deserve to be spoken that way.

So am I changing my identity and my wants?

100%.

I am not my intellect.

The intellect is just a pile of ideas that I have about life.

And usually these are put upon me from outside society,

Tradition,

Culture.

This is not who I am.

I am much bigger than the ideas I have about life.

So Lee,

If you.

.

.

And I can tell you even more.

I can tell you that the ultimate understanding of a fully mature intellect is that understanding that the intellect is not here to understand.

It's ironic.

That is the most mature understanding the intellect can ever generate for you.

It's not here to understand.

Life is not here to be understood.

You will never figure it out.

You will not ever get the point and say,

Okay,

I got it.

This is what life is all about.

This is God.

This is who I am.

Okay,

I have it now,

An idea.

I have an idea about it,

An opinion,

A concept.

No,

No,

It will never,

Ever be reduced to that.

Contrary,

Your intellect will come to realize life is much bigger and more mysterious than I will ever understand.

I am much bigger than my intellect.

This bunch of ideas.

So Peggy uses another example.

So something happens in the present moment that I don't like.

I'm insulted,

But I should accept and remain friends.

You should keep your heart open and let that guide you through the relationship.

So again,

When something happens that insults you,

The insult is because you've attached some sort of intellectual idea about what that means.

Nobody can insult you if you know yourself.

People can say many things.

These are just vibrations in the air.

No?

Vibrations.

You attach a meaning to that vibration.