That little niggling of a thought coming up,
about the familiar,
that, that really is a good summary of the
human condition.
You know, even if there's this feeling
that there's something vast, and enormous,
and spectacular,
the only thing that the ego has to offer
is the familiar.
'Cause the ego will say that
the vast and, and spectacular is the "unknown,"
and the familiar is the known,
and that's exactly what we explored this afternoon.
The "I know mind" that thinks it knows something,
anything about this world,
is also the mind, the same mind that holds opinions,
is the same mind that has judgments,
is the same mind that makes comparisons.
So you know, it seems to the ego like
that's a leap that it doesn't want you to make.
It doesn't want you to open up
to something that's totally brand new;
it's unlike anything of this world
that it calls the unknown,
that's the scary thing.
There's some kind of safety in familiarity.
And yet, I think for most of us
we've also found a sense of, of boredom,
in the familiarity.
We found a sense of lethargy,
a sense of laziness,
a sense of somehow there's
something keeping us down
from our full potential.
Something that's holding us back from this
bursting love,
'cause we've had glimmers of it,
but we have also the sense like,
wow, I like that glimpse.
Why can't this always be the way that life is?
Why can't life be actually fun?
You know, why is it just bits and pieces of fun?
Why can't life always be fun?
And the answer from the Spirit is
it is, it can.
It is the reality,
but we do have to let go of the past associations,
the familiar.
And we have to do it to open up,
open our hearts up to something that's much greater
than anything that we've ever experienced on Earth.
And we know that it's there;
there's something inside our hearts that
actually knows it's there, we can feel it.
But, it's almost like we're under glass or something,
you know, it's like we are kept from it,
but we've known, we've had enough of an experience
to know that there's something more.
Almost everybody has said it one time in their life,
"There's got to be something more," in talking about in terms of awareness.
And we've even seen shifts in our awareness,
that get more expansive, that have wider vistas,
bigger horizons.
So we, we know that we are onto something big.
So, Armelle was talking about trust, and
I would say that trust as we really learn to
really choose to trust,
that gives us the strength to start to let go of
some of the, the old familiar patterns,
and to open up to something that's
much much higher, much much broader than that.
And we've all gone through that,
I remember the parable of David,
I was very quiet and shy,
and was voted most quiet in my senior class;
and really stayed away from relationships,
stayed away from social interactions,
just, kind of, uh, it was a bit of an aloofness.
That was part of that shyness, you know,
like a protectionism,
like, don't get too close, don't get too close to me.
I, I wanted to feel safe,
and I, I really clung to that.
And then when I started to get into
spirituality, the Course and so forth,
I felt my heart opening up
really in a, in a deeply passionate way.
And something inside went,
this feels really good. I want to go with this.
I like how it feels when my heart opens.
So I think it's very subtle question.
You felt a peace come over you;
you had those things going on today,
and all of a sudden, that dissipated and was gone.
And then that, is there anything
stopping me from staying in this state?
And then that little niggling thought
was, well it's, there's somethings that are familiar.
Will that disappear? You know,
will what will my safe world disappear,
if I fully open my heart up?
And, and I, I'm aware that the way that I
once saw the world, you know, has disappeared;
now I don't, I can't even relate.