[meditation bell]
Happiness will find you if you're available.
Available means
the willingness to surrender
to give up the fight.
The willingness to be uncomfortable.
The willingness to be vulnerable.
The willingness to be agitated,
irritated, frustrated.
The willingness to face what you don't want.
And tell the truth:
"I don't want this! I don't want to feel this."
"I don't want this going on, I'm tired of it."
"I'm sick of it." Whatever.
That's fine. I don't mean you like it.
But it's important
to tell it like it is.
That's a '60's phrase for those of us who were there. [laughter]
Some of us were there.
[sighs] ... yeah ...
So you allow the dark side,
the darkest of the dark side and
the brightest of the bright side.
Okay? That your human condition is,
it's just a program, it's a conditioning program, it's a conditioned program,
on a lot of levels. Infinite levels.
That's why I love Hew Len, you know--I was talking to Steve last night about Hew Len--
because he says, "You know what? Basically we don't know anything."
"Basically it's impossible to understand, really, anything."
"So I just do the cleaning." I love that!
He's really funny.
"I just do the cleaning, you know. I just clear it--clear the whole thing, whatever it is."
And this awareness that you are,
that you are opening to,
that may be agitating you now,
or you may be feeling it and groovin' in it...
nice, if you are, lovely...
that's naturally freeing you from the conditioned self.
From the separate, disconnected identity
as what you are,
to the connected, beautiful, radiant, loving being that you really are.
But notice if you're blaming yourself:
"I should be meditating more."
"I can't stay present during my sitting."
"I am so distracted."
Anybody have that?
Bad meditators! [laughter]
You'll never awaken! [laughter]
As I recently shared in Santa Cruz, there are no sacred cows in this pasture.
[laughter]
Because, everything is sacred. See?
So even the dark side, even what you don't want to look at,
what you don't want to feel, is actually
going to transform you.
It will contribute to the light,
when it's allowed to release,
when it's allowed to be expressed, when it's allowed to be felt.
Then it opens up and it's not there anymore.
That's freedom.
That's the process, that's the description of how freedom works.
It's not just being high on shakti.
A lot of people want to just get high, and
they use spirituality like another...you know... heroin.
And that, you know, will keep you anesthetized for awhile, until
the you-know-what hits the fan.
And it will. Eventually.
Might take thirty years.
And then you find out that that actually--
that which hit the fan actually--if used properly, is fertilizer [laughter]
and nourishes the soil, and is part of the ecosystem.
So you don't trash anything.
Here everything,
EVERYTHING is recycled.
I think one of the greatest gifts of
tasting the truth and discovering your true nature
and really beginning to get it--not intellectually, deeply--
is that what emerges is a profound trust
in how you are being guided.
And I've seen people, I've been working at this for a long time,
and I've been working with people a long time,
and it's so beautiful to see when someone shifts
into that place where they trust the process.
They may still be having stuff coming up,
clearing out.
They get to a place usually where they don't even care anymore.
"Oh yeah, that's just what happens;
it's just this oven needs to do a lot of self-cleaning. Whatever."
You know, some of us had more trauma.
Some of us are carrying God-knows-what from our ancestral past.
We don't understand this. You know?
But whatever it is that you have to face,
whatever it means, wherever it's coming from,
doesn't matter.
All that matters is that you are here for it.
Period.
[meditation bell]