School Talk 51 - Living the Spiritual Life

(Using descriptive adjectives)
(Aims and Goals)
(everyone is a unique individual)

[brackets for clarification]
(audience participation in parenthesis)

Ok, we’re going to talk today, it says, about living the spiritual life. Whether we ever get there or not, we don’t know; but we can at least start on it, ok?

We’re going to start by first talking about what’s going on in the world a little bit. We’ll talk about the bad news first. I think that’s the way you do it—the bad news and then the good news, so we’ll take the bad news first.

Most of the people in the world seem to be operating on the idea that

“People know what’s right, but they go on and do wrong anyway”.

Therefore these “bad” people need to be shot or imprisoned or whatever else you want to do to them that would be convenient to be expressing the idea that they know what’s “right” and going on and doing wrong anyway.

Now probably that’s about as far from the spiritual life as you can get; and if you want to read the newspapers, which I seldom do. Every now and then I indulge in a newspaper or I listen to the news on television and there is nothing but chaos going on all over the world according to the media.

I think the Sunday paper had eight or nine in a row of all the catastrophes around the world including bombings and shootings and natural disasters. So you might say all there was bad news.

But being in touch with a number of people around the world and also paying a little attention, there are a lot of people who are doing something altogether different. They are living an entirely different kind of life, but some way or other, they never get written up in the newspaper that’s not new, I don’t believe--that somebody is doing well--that somebody is happy—that somebody is peaceful. Also, there are people who have been very ill that the next day are feeling real good, or that there’s people with strange ailments that some way or other wake up and they are healed from their disorder.

These are going on, but have you ever noticed any news articles about those. Has anyone around noticed any news articles that are of that kind. I haven’t. But nevertheless, we would like to say that those are going on also and that there is a wee bit more interest all the time in living an entirely different kind of life.

Now recently there has been much material about what’s called the “Yuppies.” I don’t know whether anybody here can fit being a “yuppie” or not. Ken, no doubt, is on his way up. He sure can’t go any lower. That’s for sure. So if there’s any direction—a “yuppie” means young, upward, and professional; and he couldn’t go down, I know that. So maybe of necessity, he can be the only “yuppie” going on around here. But the “yuppies” now are having a terrible state that I hear about them being “burned out.”

Now a “burn out” is another name for boredom; but you know nobody wants to use that because we don’t use the simple old fashion terms any more and being “bored” is one of them. So we use “burn out.”

If you ever noticed, they always take everything into initials real soon. So “burn out” will be B.O., and that is an “oldie” one meaning “body odor” that is still around in spite of all the wonderful antiperspirant deodorants there is in the world. Why BO is still a fact of life. So possibly they will recognize that one day and a new term will come out.

But boredom is the thing that bothers most people. Now what happened in this was that people pursued the four dual basic urges, which everybody here I am sure is familiar with, but that means all the pleasure and comfort you can get and escape all the pain; and that you can have lots of attention and no being ignored, and that you can have approval and no disapproval, and that you can feel very worthwhile and have a wonderful self image and no business of being inferior in any way.

Now basically you can buy that. If you make enough money, and young upward bound professionals have been making considerable amount of money, you can buy it. So the “yuppies” have been able to buy a considerable amount of the four dual basic urges. You can flat just go buy it if you got enough money. But after you bought it, then what? Now that’s where the “burnout” and boredom comes in. What am I gonna do now. I’ve bought it and it didn’t mean so much anyway. So what’s pleasure? You can have pleasure today and so what. It doesn’t stick around very long, and so what’s so great about that. You can have attention, that’s easy—all you have to do is wear a weird tee shirt or a weird watch, and you can get attention somewhere along the way. And what good does it do you after you’ve got it. It’s all very temporary. But buying it was wonderful if you hadn’t had much, but once you’ve got it; who cares. So what.

Or you could get a lot of approval if you spend enough money on people and buy them the appropriate things like a good snort of cocaine every evening. They’ll approve of you as long as your money holds out. But what does it amount to after a little bit. But you can feel important. Any of us can convince ourselves that we’re very important. However, after you check on it a while, you notice the world was getting along fine before you were born; and if you depart, I bet you the world gets along fine anyway. I have noticed through the years that it does continue to get along all right no matter who’s around or who’s not around.

So, so much for the manmade world and the manmade value of the four dual basic urges and that the people do get them. I’m very thankful they do because until you get them, you’re apt to feel very strongly that if you just had the four dual basic urges, you’d be very happy.

Everybody, of course, wants to be happy. So if they just had it, they would be happy--if they had the four dual basic urges, that is. If they never had them, it is useless to talk to them about the spiritual life or anything else.

Now I know a lot of people who have never succeeded in very much of anything and they maintain that they are interested in the spiritual life, but their interest is in order to use spiritual means to gain the four dual basic urges. They feel if they had the right spirituality going on, they would then get rich, and if they get rich, they could win it. They could have the four dual basic urges with the greatest of ease.

Now most every one here knows if we could just win that big lottery last Saturday at 2 ½ million dollars, everything would be all right; but we have observed some of those people who did win, and it didn’t work out quite like they thought it would.

But nevertheless, the only real candidate for spiritual living is the person who has succeeded in attaining a certain degree of the four dual basic urges. If they haven’t gotten them, that’s all they’re looking for. They say they’re interested in spiritual things, only because they feel that in some way, that would get the four dual basic urges. But it turns out its quite different. So we hope everybody here has gained a considerable degree of the four dual basic urges. If any of you have, you can probably hear what we will continue talking about.

If you haven’t gained it yet, assume that you better use the magic word to get it—not spiritual teaching. Now there is a magic word that we used to sell for $600. as to which all things have been accomplished. That word is W-O-R-K. So everybody got $600. worth here right now. So if you haven’t gotten the four dual basic urges; and you’re still interested, don’t try spiritual teaching and understanding to get it, try work. It will eventually get you where you can buy the four dual basic urges. Now not all work will do that, it takes a little luck along with it.

So we’ll start off with the spiritual life and we’ll try to see what some of it is about, ok? Now there is certain attributes that one comes up with and the first one would be a loving attitude. Now we’ll talk about that for just a few minutes please—a loving attitude. Now when loving, we’re not talking about sentimentality or any of that. We’re talking about really caring for people no matter where they are, what they’re doing, what they’re like, or anything else. That here is an attitude—I will use a similar term maybe rather than loving—that I really like this individual, or I understand that what they’re doing, they feel is right, proper, and justifiable with what light they have. It is not expecting that people do differently than what they are doing. You know it’s very easy to think that everybody knows to do things “my way”; and if they don’t do it that way, they are in some way pretty bad; and I should get ticked off at them. Is that right, Rudy—just get mad at them. That will straighten them out, won’t it? All I got to do is get angry with somebody. Did you ever notice how nice they get as soon as you get angry with them—I haven’t?

So a loving attitude is an attitude that life is pretty wonderful, and that all forms of life are pretty nice. Some of them don’t have much light; so obviously they do things that probably isn’t pleasing to everybody. Probably they weren’t blessed as little kids with a pleasing personality. They were grown up with others.

Lots of the folks call me when they have new babies. So I issue a little blessing for each one of the babies. One part of what I usually put in is that they will have a pleasing personality or a pleasant personality all their lives.

But, you know, there’s people that have been treated many different ways--kids that have been scolded every time they turn around, kids that are threatened and all sorts of other things. So obviously, they grow up deciding to tell big fibs to get out of being punished or being threatened. They have been put down every time they started to do something. Somebody said you can’t do that or you’re no good at it. There have been systems of schools which give comparative grades, and you’re not as good as the other guy over there because he made an A and you only got a Charlie. So what? I tell kids they get the same diploma for a Charlie as they do for Annies; and don’t knock yourself out, it won’t make any difference anyway.

So a loving attitude is a start of the spiritual life. Living the spiritual life is having a loving attitude towards all people including the ones with pleasant personalities and the ones that are kind of crude, and the ones that are handicapped and the ones that are unkind, the ones that are uncouth and what-have-you

But you see, they’re doing the best they can with what light they have. And what light we have is all we got. Some people may have to carry a candle to find what light they do have, right Ken? But nevertheless it’s a fitting thing to work on.

Now another thing of the spiritual life is the tendency to serve Life. We know that that’s not when you’re on the way up to gain the four dual basic urges—the usual thing is to have life serve us.

I listen to a lot of people that are saying prayers, and what are they praying for? They tell me about it, or they ask me to get It for them, I see people each day, and all of those people who have called are wanting something--I don’t think I’ve had more than one or two in all the years I’ve been doing this, which is more than I like to talk about, has asked me how they might serve. They all ask me, “Can I have this?”, “Can I have that?”

I was on the phone just a few minutes ago. A person called and asked for about three particular things they wanted to have done for them—now nothing about serving. It was for themselves. We agreed that they would have those things. I hung up the phone and the same person called back in two minutes and had remembered something else they had forgotten to ask about.

So it’s all about putting some more goodies on for me—that made the four dual basic urges even better today. So we agreed to do that also.

But nobody has asked, “How can I be of service?” The calls are all about, “How can I gain?” Yes. “How can I get?” Yes. “How can I escape?” Yes. We got gobs of those, and we know that people must have those before they could live the spiritual life, so we do our dead level best to see that they get them, but we also know that it won’t do what they thought it would, or hoped it would, even though we try our very best to see that they get it. We have a different purpose in working.

We’re hoping that they get the four dual basic urges to the fullest extent and then they will discover that it wasn’t so valuable. “Why did I waste all these years doing that?”--and then, maybe, they can ask what else is there; and we, maybe, could tell them that there is a different kind of life to live and a way of living that is totally different from shooting for the four dual basic urges. The more they work at that, the less they will have. But we know they’ve got to gain the four dual basic urges first.

So a lot of people ask me, why do you work with people who are asking for a better job, a new mate, a new house, a new automobile, a trip to Timbuktu or whatever it may be?--As though why work with them because they’re not really dealing in spiritual things? But I know that before the person could be interested in spiritual things, they have to achieve what the world calls happiness, success and all this. In other words, they get the four dual basic urges. So we do our very best to see that everybody who asks gets the four dual basic urges. But I also know what’s going to happen after they get it. It’s not going to produce very much of any particular value for the individual; except that it tells them there is something else, and that you missed the mark. Perhaps they will question the purpose of living when they see that the four dual basic urges don’t work.

Now there is a phrase used in many spiritual writings called sin; and, of course, sin has been interpreted as doing about 1001 things that various and sundry organizations decided that you shouldn’t do. Now it was always something somebody wanted to do. It’s like we read all these articles about what’s so terrible for your health—to eat salt, to smoke cigarettes, do this and do that—it’s bad for your health, ok? But I determined quite a while ago that eating gravel is probably more detrimental to your health than about any of those things. But have you ever seen a sign anywhere that says, “Don’t eat the rocks.” Have you ever seen one? Now if people were really interested in you’re well-being, they would certainly tell you that much. That right? Don’t eat the rocks. It will give you a horrible belly ache, it’s rough on your teeth, and it can hang up somewhere in the body and you’re in a royal mess—they’re also hard to get rid of. So if you just look, you would obviously not be very interested in well-being if you eat rocks.

So another thing that comes along in the person who is living the spiritual life is “forgiving”. Now you know the world carries grudges. We have been taught to carry grudges. We have been taught to “stick up for our rights” which then means I’ve got a grudge against somebody. We’ve also been taught to see what was to blame, and so we go through all of these and we carry little—we write those grudges down in some of the talks as being “accounts receivable”. That’s a funny word I dreamed up one day to use instead of saying that I got a grudge against……….. Grudge is an old word, and we got to have new ones, you know, to keep us articulated properly. So we use accounts receivable; and it’s very easy if you went through checking up how many accounts receivable we’re all carrying around against this jerk, that jerk, and the other jerk, that joker with whatever they did or didn’t do. It’s easy to find we probably have a whole bunch of them.

Well, if we are interested in the four dual basic urges, obviously all the people who are to blame for my discomforts and problems and losses should be blamed. Is that pretty close to right? They should be blamed. So we recognize that is going on within. But if one is living the spiritual life then one discovers one can begin to look at a different way of living—a whole different set of values--a different purpose in life. Then there could be forgiveness because there’s understanding.

Now if you understand that everything that people do, they feel it’s right or proper or justifiable with what light they have—then you would be forgiving. It’s kind of spontaneous—there’s no other way you could go about it. So this joker over here did so and so to me, but he felt it was very justifiable--more than likely he felt it was right—maybe it was.

But at any rate, I have no reason to carry a grudge because all a grudge will do is to give me gall stones, ulcers and kidney stones as well as a few other miserable things like sleepless nights, bad dreams and you could probably name a few more. So what’s the use of having a grudge or an account receivable against them?

But again, until a person has achieved a high degree of the four dual basic urges, we’ll all probably have accounts. But if you’ve achieved the four dual basic urges, then forgiveness can be a way of being; and there really is only a beginning of expression of forgiveness when we understand other people--like we can understand ourselves if we really looked at everything we do. Did you ever notice that? We feel that what we do is right, or proper, or justifiable—desirable in one way or another no matter how far out it is. So we are feeling or justifying that it was all right. That right Kathy? You feel that no matter how asinine you act, that it was the thing to do for the purpose at hand. It gets you some attention, is that right.

(That’s right.)

Right and it does. Usually a little disapproval comes along with it, but that’s the risk one has to take, ok?

So forgiving comes when you are living with understanding and fully within yourself, you’re beginning to recognize “What’s going on here.” That you can forgive everybody and anybody. You don’t have to work at it, it’s not sacrifice, it’s as spontaneous as breathing because you understand that they did what they felt was right, proper, and justifiable and so why could you hold on to one second of the account.

The other thing that goes into the spiritual life is reverence for all life—and that includes weeds even. A reverence for all life. If we all looked, we’d see that all life emanates all these living beings in the world. I don’t care whether it’s plants or whether it’s animals or humans--all you got to do is to drive out through the desert and see life out there unfolding and growing in the most adverse of circumstances--if you wanted to look at it that way.

If you grew up back in the Midwest or down in the southwest, there is an abundance of everything growing all over. You can see the life out there working to unfold, and it adapts to the particular kind of environment. It grows there and unfolds and lives. So there is a reverence for life. There is a living something which I think, possibly, the most agreed upon term is “Spirit” for whatever Life is.

Now I haven’t found a person yet who can give an adequate definition of Life. We all know when it’s there and when it’s not. We can look at a tree and say it’s alive, and look at another one and say that it is dead, right? No sweat, no bother. There’s Life in a dog, rabbit, mouse or a buck. It’s alive or it’s dead and the living thing has Life and that is Spirit expressing itself.

If you look at it, it is serving a fantastic purpose for all the other life. I think the technical term that’s used is ecology. Everything is involved with everything else—all living things are involved with every other living thing. Of course, man has decided what’s a pest and what isn’t, so he mounts great campaigns to kill off all the pests. But after he’s got them killed, he usually found out that it wasn’t the most appropriate thing to do; and he may have ruined a lot of other things including his drinking water and the plant growth and a lot of other things in that effort to get rid of that one little pest down there that he didn’t like so well. But the pest is there probably for a very good purpose—more than likely to get rid of weaklings.

Human beings, of course, the weaker they get, the more they’re protected. Formerly I don’t think that was the case. So human beings gradually grew stronger, but now there is more protection for the weaklings, and the others have to pay to keep them up. Out in the wild the weaklings disappear pretty easy, but that’s beside the point. So there’s a reverence for life. And reverence is another way of saying being thankful at all times.

I’m thankful all these forms of life exist. We couldn’t eat unless other forms of life existed, and we can appreciate them. Frequently at the house we say this creature or this vegetable went out in a nice way because I’m going to make it taste real good. I’m going to make it look pretty, so at least it didn’t live in vain. It went out looking pretty nice and tasting real good. Something had to give up its life for me to eat. I want to at least treat it nicely, and I go in a lot of places and order food that was a nice living thing, and they not only killed it, they gave it the second death. That’s really the destruction. They really “crumb it up” before you get it. So we’d kind of like to add that in there.

We have on the board, X—which is our symbol for Life and on each end of one of the sides of the X, each one of the four spots--there is four aspects of spiritual living. Without these four, we would say there’s very little going on spirituality. Yes, Spirit has first breathing, but if the four aren’t there then they’re breathing toward destruction. Much is written these day about longevity: so there is nothing I could suggest that would lead towards longevity better than these four aspects of the spiritual life. I think it would be diet, exercise, inner feeling and environment. If you happen to look at these, this is life itself. So this is the way life expresses--not some other way.

Now one could ask how do you get there. Well, first I would recommend that you get the four dual basic urges to an acceptable place for you, and find out they’re not worth very much to you after you got them. They’re temporary to say the least. I didn’t say they’re bad—they’re not. They are a by-product, not a product that one strives for. But when you get it there and find that that doesn’t produce what you would call happiness. then you begin to look at these things in a different way.

Now we talk about the spirit and the spiritual life. But let’s take a little bit of consideration if we may for a minute and see that possibly we don’t really accept that there is Spirit. We say yes, life is this and life is that and talk about it, but when it gets down to it, do we experience that there is something called Life within me?

So a great man tried to get across to me one time that the only way you would really know about Spirit is that you made it real to you. You’ve made Spirit very real. Now otherwise it’s only an academic thought or an academic idea that it does exist, but it’s really not experienced. It’s not part of my being.

You know I can read all sorts of things. I can study many books. I can analyze a lot of things; but until such time as I really come up with something that I’ve really experienced it and it is within me, I believe it isn’t mine, is that right? It just isn’t mine. I know about it. I can believe in it. It’s like I hear people say they believe in various religious ideas. They believe it, but they have never experienced it. They tell you all these things they believe; but obviously they don’t believe it very much, or they wouldn’t be in such “panicsville” all the time.

So let’s see how one would go about making the idea of Spirit within—Life, which is the physical manifestation of all that we see—at least there’s something called Life because we’ve seen bodies and forms of various kinds without, is that right?

(Ok.)

If you would want to experience a certain feeling, first begin to think how would I like to feel. Then how would I act if I already felt that way, and then begin to act that way and you will feel like it.

Incidentally, there has been several articles in the paper recently where people have come up with that discovery in the last few days. The only thing is, they only wanted to use the face. It’s too much trouble to use the rest of the body. We send out little notes that says work on the rest of the body and see how it goes. They said it will work all right on creating anger and fears and guilt’s and etc, but it wouldn’t work on making people happy because most people had a certain front they carried around. They carried a grin that they presented to society, so it didn’t have any meaning.

But if you put the rest of it in there, it will work. So we’ll see how that works. They made a great discovery. We’ve been talking about it for many years now—10, 15 or so. I forgot to write it down anywhere. So now then it’s a great discovery and we’re very thankful for that.

So we can say, if I wanted to be experiencing Spirit. We would begin to think well, I’d like to experience what it feels like. How would I be feeling if I already had experienced it. How would I be acting? So we will start acting that way.

If you knew that you had a wonderful Spirit that went with you everywhere and could take care of about everything that you always wanted—not give you the four dual basic urges, but could bring about these (he’s probably pointing to vital interest and above on a board) on a natural state, then you begin to act that way. Then you would act like you had this Friend, this real Friend that goes with you everywhere, and you wouldn’t experience boredom because you would have a Friend with you. You would have a loving state with you at all times. You wouldn’t know about boredom or “burn out.” So you’d begin to act this part here. You would begin to act these to some degree, at least, on here, and you might talk to It a little bit.

If I have a very wonderful Friend, I talk to Him, is that right Leland? I talk to my Friend quite often here, yonder, and elsewhere. I talk a little bit, not incessantly—you wouldn’t want to be a bore by talking all the time, would you Ken?

(It would still listen.)

But every now and then you give a break, ok? So that would be to act the part. You would talk to it a little bit. You would tell it about things. You would tell your Friend.

So you’d first begin to see that Spirit is the Friend. When you begin to do this, there would begin to be experiencing this friendship; and it would be experiencing or making real Spirit within yourself. Now it doesn’t say it’s not real, but if you haven’t experienced it, it’s not real to you, is that right?

(Right.)

So only by making it real to you does it have any meaning? So one of our most useful exercises is to make Spirit real to me—Life, whatever Life is. It’s a Spirit to me of some sort. It’s to make it real to me. It’s not so hard. It’s not so difficult. You can see it exists, can you not? You see that it does exist, and you see that as long as it inhabits a form that it gives that form all of its properties and actions and everything else you can think of.

It does seem to act upon the information that it receives. Now if you’re giving it an entirely different bunch of information than you formerly did, you get a different attitude and feeling within yourself. You begin to have the loving attitude. You begin to have tendency to serve Life rather than exploit it.

Most everybody is in the business of exploiting Life in whatever way they can. But there would be forgiving and understanding that Life was always doing the appropriate thing for the information it received from all the misconceptions that have been loaded on the people as they went along their way while they’re trying to gain the four dual basic urges.

There would be a reverence for Life. We begin to see it as something very holy and complete and that it is a Friend. I would like to be acquainted with that Friend. I want to be really acquainted with It, so there would be a certain amount of consideration of thinking, exploring, getting to know that Friend that lives in the very depths of this being which gives this being all of it’s properties--all of it’s attributes and everything else it’s doing. It’s the one that takes a sandwich and makes living flesh and blood out of it in a little while. It takes a glass of water and does all sorts of nice things with it.

It’s a marvel to watch if you see a cow eat green grass and it produces red hair, white hair, a full-fledged little calf and also makes white milk—all out of green grass. You know that cow is just dumber than hell if you stop to think about it. They don’t know how to read. They didn’t read any books, but look what all they do. They can do some pretty marvelous things. Can you take green grass and do any of those things with it? You couldn’t do a bit with it, could you? Could you make a calf out of it?

(Absolutely not.)

Can you make white milk out of it? No way! But Life does it. So here is something worthwhile being a friend with. It does all the miracles and the marvels that we can look at. It knows how to take a little tiny infant and grow up to be a big guy or a pretty lady.

It knows how to make arrangements for things that won’t be used for a long time. Here’s a tiny baby born—it has only a potential for reproducing and may be fifteen years before it’s capable of it; but all the effort was made.

The tiny baby is conceived in darkness and develops in darkness, but it has eyes that only see in light. It can only breathe air, but it’s living under water. So there are some pretty marvelous things there. So I want to be acquainted with that. I want to know it. I want to experience it, not just have some theories about it, ok?

So if we begin to act like we are already its friend, pretty shortly you will begin to experience its Friendship. The way It works to communicate with the usual human being is not in voices (like the young man who calls us frequently) but with intuition. You have a sudden knowing of how to do this or what to do about that. Perhaps it’s not to do certain things about other situations. Sometimes it’s better not to do something rather than go like a bull in a china shop. We just be quiet for a little bit. Then this intuitive understanding begins to be a reality in the person’s life--and an intuitive individual is far ahead of the person with all of the logic and reason there is. The one with one bit of intuition is way out front of the person with the most perfect logic and reasoning. There’s nothing wrong with logic and reasoning. It could be used, but it’s not the ultimate. After you know what to do, then you use a little logic and reasoning—sometimes on which step comes first, but it’s not the thing to decide the course. It’s the best you get until one begins to actualize spiritual understanding and spiritual knowledge.

We start that by acting, and we have to be to the point where that begins to look like it is of a great value because as long as I see the four dual basic urges as top value, any effort that I have or talk about spiritual things is still with the idea of gaining or escaping. If you would go to the usual church, all is concerned with gaining or escaping. We’re going to gain a heaven or escape a hell, that right?

Now there’s a prayer amongst the folks that I know that says, “If I serve you O Life to gain a heaven, deny it to me.” “If I serve you to escape a hell, throw me in.” That will kind of get you down to know what you’re working on--that means if you’re still on gaining and escaping. If you’re still into gaining and escaping, you’d better not say this prayer because a man told me one time, He said, “I said it because it sounded good, but I was still trying to be non-disturbed, and it did both of those.” So it’s a prayer that’s probably answered very easily for you. So don’t say it unless you mean it, ok? If you are really working at being a spiritual individual, I think you could say that prayer with the greatest of ease, but if you’re going to use it to do a little sly stunt on it and hope you’re going to get the four dual basic urges as a by-product, I would suggest you don’t say it. I think it’s the one prayer, I could assure you, that’s answered right away. So be sure you mean it or don’t bother with it, ok?

All right, we’d like to have discussion, and comment, from everybody concerned. Mr. David Wise said he got an airplane to come over here today so I would have adequate challenges. He said that he would lay it on me. So I’m ready David, you can start and everybody else will follow. Ok?

(Could you talk a little bit about having reverence for life? When life is barreling down on you at about 90 miles an hour on it’s ass behind the wheel of a Buick, Chevy and just ran you off the road.)

A Buick, Chevy? I never did see one of those. I guess that’s a Buick with a Chevy engine in it.

So what you’re asking is how do you have a reverence for life when there is impending danger, is that right?

(It would appear that life is somehow out to get you.)

Life is not ever out to get you, but “misconceptions” and “not i’s” are out to get us at all times. The person who is indulging in considerable mind-bending chemicals and gets in a car is considered to be dangerous; but so is a tiger--so is a bull that’s after you and especially a mad boar hog. I’ll take all the others before the boar hog--including the drunk, ok?

But to get back to your question, I think that you can have a reverence for Life if you are aware of it and have the facility to do something. If it was left up to you without the ability of Spirit within, you wouldn’t be here asking the question, is that right? Let’s say Spirit said, “Well you handle it David.” Spirit moves the body, you, as awareness, report what is of value, and you valued asking that question.

So I have a very great reverence for Life. I have been around this world for quite a while which is quite obvious by looking at me, and I have run into most of these physical situations you’re talking about; and I’m still here. That is only because Life responded long before I could have ever figured out a course of action. All I would have done is stick my hands up and say AHHHHHHHHH—that would have been all she wrote. Now after it’s over with, then you can have the shakes. Then you can start in on the “what if’s”.

A man told me a lovely story this morning about a great incident he was involved in the other day. He got along all right until the situation was over, and he made a few dollars from it, but then he had the shakes for a while because then you start in with “Well, “what if” so and so happened?” So I would say I can be very reverent toward Life within me and within others—that it keeps us all going and gets us through some very tedious situations.

If you pick up a bunch of bacteria or some virus and they start to chewing on you when you’re down a little bit, Life—X—does some fantastic things to keep you alive. You may not feel fantastically wonderful for a little while or a few hours or even a few days, but you come out of it. If there wasn’t any Life in there, the bacteria would have eaten up all humans ages ago because we’re covered with them, surrounded with them, and loaded inside with them. But look how well we’re all getting along. Does that answer your question about being aware and having reverence for Life?

(I go….)

……….You got another one; he’s got them all written down.

(Only because I forget them.)

I don’t want you to forget them, we want them.

(The idea you were talking about as Spirit as being a friend and a Companion always with you. Isn’t that still creating a separation a little bit?)

No I think that the idea is to recognize Spirit is all there is, and that all this so called “self” which is made up of a bunch of not i’s does not exist. It is the partnership of awareness and X.

So I think we could probably say along with old Martin Buber that “I am not, thou art”. Ok? Did you ever read Martin? He’s a nice old boy, I got his stuff. He’s a good Rabbi like all the rest of the good Jewish boys. He had something on the ball. Ok? Old Martin laid it out that I—after years of study, dedications and meditation and all the other things he did—when he was about 89 or somewhere along there, he said, I don’t exist, that “I” is purely an imaginary thing and that Thou, Life really exists and is all there is; and I think that’s probably what we’re all looking to see one day—so not as a separation of you and me.

Some other great teacher down through the ages said he knocked on the door of Life and Life said, “Who’s there.” And he said “I am.” And It said “Go away.” He went back three years later and knocked on the door and Life inside said “Who’s there?” He said, “I am.” It said “Go away.” The fifth year he came back and knocked on the door and Life said “Who’s there?” He said, “Only you.” It said “Come in, there’s no room for two in this house.”

So maybe that’s the way it is. So let’s just see that possibly if you recognize that the so called “self”, “I”, “personality” is only a “recording” made up here, yonder and elsewhere—a lot of suggestion—a lot of this and a lot of the other thing—conditioning--and there’s nothing real about it and that when that is recognized, that there isn’t anything real at all, you’re beginning to be inside the house and only I, with a line drawn under it or the Soul or spirit is all that really does exist. I suspect that’s where we’re headed, ok? Hopefully we’ll get there real soon—me too.

(Bob, all of this--I just hear about it. I don’t have it, but as I look at it--the possibilities of being there, all I see is the four dual basic urges day after day.)

So you haven’t quite achieved them to your satisfaction yet, is that right?

(I wish to hell, I had, but……)

You haven’t achieved the four dual basic urges to your total satisfaction yet.

(The way I look at it is I am not aware that those things are still functioning.)

The four dual basic urges?

(…….demanding this.)

Well, I would check on it a little bit and see if you can get enough to please you some day, just one day would be all right. If you can get the four dual basic urges adequately enough for you for one day, then you could proceed on.

(Well, I think it’s really ok.)

It’s all right.

(It’s ok the way it is.)

That’s what you said you think.

(That’s what I’m saying.)

You’re saying that because that’s the appropriate thing to say, isn’t it, but…

(No, I know I don’t have that.)

Well, I know you don’t have this. Do you have the four dual basic urges enough for you?

(Evidentially not.)

I would think that’s probably correct. So go ahead and get some more of those four dual basic urges, and then you can do this with the greatest of ease, ok? Then you can begin to deal with saying I am going to act like I’m this. Anybody that said they already have it, unless they’ve been acting like it for a long time, I would probably totally ignore their whole statement and go on about my business as though nothing had happened, ok?

Yes there are people who do live this way. They are almost invisible in the world in which we live. They cast a very low profile, Bonnie, because they’re not “in step”. So they have a low profile. They don’t quite fit here. If you want to be in the world and not of it, you don’t see you very much. If you’re in the world and of it, you’re very noticeable. So that kind of describes it. That help answer your question.

(Through the alley is the best place.)

Oh yes, stick in the alley and you’re invisible, and you can practice this a little bit as though it were true; but don’t assume it’s going to happen to you some lovely Tuesday morning at 7:04 am just because you’re a sweet wonderful person, it won’t do it, I can assure you.

Yes Bill?

(Robert, how do people in this life like this make a living?)

Well, by working like the rest of us. How do you make a living? By working, right?

(Sure.)

That’s the way they make a living. Wasn’t it a great man said one time that before enlightenment he chopped wood and carried water? After enlightenment he carried water and chopped wood. So you still do the same thing. It doesn’t make any difference--we’re still going to work. We’re not going to sit under a little tree here and have the heavens fall on us, you know. It won’t quite do that. We work, whatever we see to do; and we do it with the best of our abilities. Some work, some don’t--sometimes make a bunch of money, sometime you can lose a bunch, but just keep on working. I’m going to chop wood and carry water. That answer your question?

(Thank you.)

(Next one was back to reverence for all Life. I killed a fly in front of Jenny the other day and she said, “Oh Dan, you don’t want that Karma.)

Well, I know.

(And I kill flies and mice and weeds daily, bats too.)

Yes, I will do those things too, but I can be reverent with it. I say that I’m paying the rent in here and you’re not, so you have the choice first to leave, and if they don’t leave, they’ll stay in there at their own jeopardy, ok? That all right? Now I’m going to be reverent. Yes, we all have to kill in order to eat—including Jenny. She can’t eat rocks and dirt and so forth. She has to eat something that’s been alive, whether it’s vegetable or animal, is that right?

(Right.)

Ok. So I don’t think there’s any great Karma from swatting a fly because you told the fly, “You start paying the payment on that house there or it has no business in there. If it wants to leave, you won’t kill it, is that right?

(That’s right.)

You won’t go running up and down the street out there trying to swat flies. I don’t think I’ve encountered any horrible Karma because I swat a fly that has invaded the area which I’m taking care of, and I will not go out and chase them, ok? Would you?

(No.)

(One more question. You mentioned that Rabbi spends a lot of time meditating.)

I said whatever he did.

(Ok, well, anyway, what is meditation.)

You’d have to ask the Rabbi. I’ve run into lots of people who meditate according to them. Some of them it’s totally being quiet. For some meditation is taking some idea and taking it through all of the ramifications they can. One man who probably made the most sense to me said when he meditated he followed something until he knew he couldn’t understand it anymore and then he felt he meditated so he gave up, and when he gave up, something might happen. Ok?

(Bob, so you said you could serve the four dual basic urges and finally you see you’ve had enough of that..)

You see you’ve succeeded and it didn’t do what you hoped it would. It didn’t bring what you expected it would—and if it did it was temporary and you couldn’t hold on to it.

(It doesn’t take care of what you’re………)

……….what your ideal was, right?

(Now when you drop that ideal, well this is what’s left?)

No, it’s not what’s left; it’s “What you can do.” Total frustration could be left if you didn’t know where to start, ok? It could be that you would take off after something more peculiar than the four dual basic urges. For many people, of course, it’s very hard to avoid the four dual basic urges. Some people use drugs to totally annihilate them, but they’re still trying to escape the negative side of the four dual basic urges, right?

(You were talking a while ago about the weaklings and the strong ones, and in nature the weak ones get eliminated, but with people we protect them. In reverence for Life, does that mean that if you saw somebody in some situation that they didn’t think was very good or………..)

………Oh, I’d probably try to do everything I could to help them out.

(You wouldn’t offer them a solution to get them weaker; you’d try to offer them one to get stronger?)

You’d better believe it! I will not agree with anybody that he or she is a victim.

(Even if they didn’t like it?)

Even if they don’t like it. Even if they know they are a victim. I still refuse to agree with them. I say that one thing I try to do all of the time is to refuse to be more harmful than is necessary by just taking up space; and I only know two ways to be harmful--one is to commit physical violence on you like hitting you in the head with a hammer or shooting you, and the other is agreeing with you that you are a victim.

(And everybody else says how can you be so cold.)

They hardly ever say anything like that because they really don’t know what you’re doing. But I will not agree that somebody is a victim. I’ve had a few people say “you’re a bad person” because I wouldn’t agree with them that they’re a victim, ok?

Had a lady come in my place one time and she was going to shoot herself. I said “Go ahead, you’ve never done anything worthwhile—it doesn’t look like you’re ever going to. She bitched up a storm, but she didn’t kill herself. So maybe my way of being considerate or kind was not the way that most people think. If I had gone over and said, “Oh you poor thing, I’m sorry you’ve had so much troubles in all of your life.”, she probably would have killed herself. I won’t agree with anybody that they are a victim, ok?

(…or that they’re helpless.)

Or that they’re helpless, come on. I’m like Brother Dave Gardner. He said when you see a man down, kick him; it gives him a reason to get up.

(Right on, it gives him a reason to get up.)

We’re going to stop for now and they’ll be another talk about a month from now, and we hope you enjoyed this one.