That's gonna be one of our themes as we go through to learn how to be gentle with yourself.
Not so hard on yourself.
And this morning I was talking a little bit with Lisa.
And it was kind of fun cause she was coming back here to the Monastery with, almost like it was a movie set.
It's like, you know, you're going to film something and you show up on the set
with no sense of knowing anything about anything, about how it's operating or
what's going on and you know, that's really where we're training our minds to be able to do that with ALL situations.
So, you show up with all of this love and this great attitude to share.
But you're really clueless about everything else.
You know, like what's really going on.
I don't know, like you're just showing up like you're an extra on a movie set.
And they just kind of pulled you in and scooped you into this scene , the scenario.
Think how wonderful that feels.
There's no sense of duty, obligation, responsibility trying to get it right.
Thinking you know something.
You're just like an extra that's been pulled in on the set and you can just show up and go, wow this is fun.
But, to be an extra I think it takes a lot of mind training and letting go of everything you think you know about yourself to be an extra.
You know, to just show up.
That was the thing I got right before I came out here
like ten minutes before I walked out here it was
DING, I got a new email, it was from my friend, Gary Renard
and he's been working for the last couple of years to develop a television show based on his book, Disappearance of the Universe.
And he was calling for extras.
He said he needed like thirty extras, you're not going to get paid.
But, we're shooting the trailer, we need thirty extras to show up.
And, imagine if you could just feel that feeling with your whole life.
And your relationships.
And, your spirituality, that you're just an extra showing up on the scene, you don't really have a history.
The spiritual practice it's so much we think we know what we've all done before.
What was successful, what wasn't successful.
What our spiritual ambitions are for the future.
How we hope it will look, how we hope our practice goes.
And it's all part of a movie that's trying to keep us unaware of the NOW.
Where we are just perfect and innocent right now.
End of story.
No need to make up more stories, no need to add to things.
And so, frequently in my talks, I talk about that.
That, you have to be willing to let go of everything, including ambition.
You know, that's just, especially in the industrialized, in the so called civilized world, you know that's debatable.
The Aborigines seemed to have it going on and they're not considered civilized.
And, then the civilized world, I don't know if you call that progress and advancement.
You know, there's the old Chinese curse; may you live in exciting times.
That was the Chinese curse.
Ha, ha. You see how flipped this world is.
Oh, oh it's exciting.
And you think you want more excitement in your life and then it comes with all this other baggage.
And you find yourself wound into something, like where did this all start?
How did I, I thought it sounded exciting and then all of a sudden I feel trapped.
I feel burdened.
I feel over worked, I feel overwhelmed.
And, that's part of the lure of the ego.
It wants you to get excited about it's world.
And get stuck, like on fly paper, you know and then wondering how do I get off the fly paper.
And, it's just beautiful to realize that you can actually lead a life and have a life that has no ambition.
And, we're redefining success in terms of lack of ambition instead of having ambition.
Because it ties into what we talked about, what Lisa talked about with the volunteers yesterday in the inspirational talk.
Letting go of the attachment to the doer.
As long as you're invested to the doer, then you're invested in the personality self.
And the doer's actions, getting things done, productivity.
It's very, very sneaky, it's like the wheel that just keeps spinning.
And then, occasionally there's a wise saint or sage that comes along and says,
what if the highest productivity is absolute, pristine silence?
It's just a definition that's so opposite of how the world defines productivity, that it's almost striking.
What if absolute pristine silence is the highest productivity.
Is being as we were created to be and not trying to pretend to be something that we're not.
So, a big thing that we're into is giving yourself more and more and more permission to be done through first.
That's a phase that you go through.
Where you just, you know it's like my friend Westin used to say like if this is a puppet,
the body's a puppet, I want to get back ON the strings and let the Holy Spirit move the crossbow.
I want to you know, like Saint Frances, make me an instrument.
That's the same beautiful presence of let me done through.
Let me be laughed through and smiled through and hugged through.
Let me have words that inspire and bless pour through me
as a communication device that I may see that I am more than the device.
That I am the Light that is behind the device that is shining.
And that I am entitled to miracles and I am entitled to know who I am.
So, it goes counter to the teachings of he world.
At one point Jesus says, you may begin to see how the goal of this course is opposite of the goals of the world.
Because all the goals of the world are for the making and improving and keeping of a self concept
of an image that God did not create and really knows nothing about.
So, that's why Shakespeare called it Much Ado About Nothing.
It's like spinning your wheels seemingly for years and years and years
and at some point reaching a surrender point and just going, ooops!
Ha ha, I don't need to spin.
You know, I can relax.
We're kind of encouraging everyone to take early retirement.
It's good, it feels good.
It's not that you have to work hard and you have to all these savings to take early retirement, which is the ego's version of it.
It's more, you just have to relax and sink back into your Divine purpose and your Divine Calling.
And then retire from the THINKING of the world.
Which is always push, push, push.
There is a pressure with trying to be pushed to achieve something,
and to accumulate something.
Somebody was talking to me the other day saying the mind is like a parachute,
it only works when it's open.
We have to allow ourselves to open up to an experience that's beyond this world.
In A Course in Miracles, there's ten characteristics
of a teacher of God, and the final one,
and, He puts it in the end for a reason.
Because it takes a lot of, you could say mind training to experience it.
But, the final characteristic of a teacher of God is openmindedness.
You see how that dovetails with nonjudgement?
If you are completely open, COMPLETELY open
That would mean you would be closed to nothing.
It wouldn't matter what your brother or sister was talking about.
You would just have this beautiful fragrance as presence coming from your heart
as your brother is speaking REGARDLESS of what your brother or sister is speaking about.
You're just thinking, I adore you, adore you.
"Well, the final score on," I adore you, it doesn't really matter what the puppets are talking about.
Because, we're here to extend this loving adoration.
We practice with our brothers, with our sisters here
adore, you know it could be talking about the stock market or
what's going on in Miramar or whatever.
And, it's just like; adore, adore.
You don't really put attention into the words that are being spoken.
And, you don't actually have to follow the words.
The more intuitive you get, the more you get into rest in the Holy Spirit.
It's great, you don't even have to pay attention to what anybody's saying.
You know, you're just sitting there, adore, adore, adore, adore
and then five minutes later you may get to smile or say something,
but you don't have to follow.
You're just sitting there, adore, adore, adore, adore.
And then five minutes later you may get to smile or say something but you don't have to follow.
I remember one time I had some students that were with me in Denver back in the nineteen nineties
and, we went to Idaho for a trip and we got there and
a friend of mine from Canada had come down and
he seemed to, every time I'd start to talk about special relationships or that topic
he would seem to have a lot to say.
So, I would get a few words in and he would kinda go on to something and
I would say a few more words and he would go on to another thing
And this went on for about an hour and a half or two hours.
We actually recorded the session.
And I had, as usual just a wonderful time.
And just was like when we finally took the break, I went back to my room to just sit quiet for a bit.
And this group of students just followed me like a bucket of hornets nests.
They were all angry and stirred up and, I was just sitting there and they came into the room and they go;
I said, what's going on?
And they were like, this is TERRIBLE.
We've traveled hundreds of miles to come and hear you speak
and this man is interrupting you every five seconds, you can't get in two words edgewise.
You're trying to talk about these profound topics
And we have to listen to all this other gyrations.
This guy seems to be in mega resistance.
We should lock him out.
We should not let him back into the session room it's a waste of our time and everything.
And I said, oh, I thought it was a delightful session.
And they said, how could you possibly perceive that as a delightful session?
And I said, well I was just like the Holy Spirit is just inspiring me and
like playing me my favorite songs in my mind and I'm just in this state of adoration.
And whether the body speaks or not is not really my concern.
I'm not identified with being the speaker or speaking anything.
And I said, what is this interrupt word?
I said I can't possibly be interrupted.
You can't really be interrupted unless you're identified with being the doer or the speaker.
That's where the interruption comes in if you think that there's something outside of you that's breaking something.
Or stopping something.
But the flow is in our heart, the flow just flows.
They were like, weren't you like listening to what he was talking about?
OH, heavens, no I didn't.
I said, surely you didn't try to follow some of those gyrations.
And they were like, YEAH.
We're taught to be good listeners, to look people in the eye, to follow what their words are,
false empathy and all this crazy stuff.
It's just about being relaxed and being in the flow
and not trying to follow the thoughts of the world.
It's about tuning in just like you tune an FM radio.
You tune and tune into the frequency,
into that smooth crystal clear station and turn away from the static into the crystal clear music.
And, that's how it is with listening to the Holy Spirit.
You practice tuning, tuning; AHHH, yeah I got the vibe, uuh, uuh that's good.
Found the sweet spot, uuh, yeah
And then, in this point when you're in the sweet spot with God
then the rest of the material world is immaterial.
It's absolutely irrelevant.
It wouldn't matter whether the body seemed to be overlooking a beautiful canyon
or in a concentration camp or off in the ocean somewhere
or on a mountain or in wall street or whatever.
The location of the body has nothing to do with peace of mind.
It's just tuning in to that AHHH, that alignment with Spirit.
That alignment with Spirit is not circumstance dependent.
Isn't that wonderful?
Doesn't matter what the circumstances are, you're just tuning, tuning
AHHH yeah, uuuh right there.
Crisp, clear in line, in tune.