School Talk 52 - >What’s Going On Here

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

[brackets for clarification]
(audience participation in parenthesis)

We’ve got on the board today that we will talk about “What’s going On Here.”-- what’s going on within each one of us. That is to say that we are trying to be non-disturbed to the very best of our ability. We’re usually not succeeding extremely well most of the time, but nevertheless, we’re still working at it.

Now as long as that basic assumption is there--that the whole purpose of living is to be non-disturbed--and as long as we think the way to get it is to complain, stick up for our rights and blame or to try to please everybody and find the right authority to tell us what to do and improve ourselves according to what the authority said, why we will continue to have a certain amount of, shall we say, turmoil within.

Now before we proceed any further, we want to ask the question as well as what’s going on here, is What am I? We’re on planet earth in case anybody hasn’t noticed; and planet earth has certain rules of things that go on on planet earth. One of them is that it’s ever changing situation around us and all changing situations require a certain amount of adaptation, and adaptation is not always comfortable. So as long as we are trying with the decision to be totally non-disturbed, we’re fighting a losing battle because on planet earth, you’re going to have pain. Now pain is of two sorts, of course, physical and psychological pain or you could call it mental pain. We’ll just call it emotional pain—I guess that’s as good a word for it as any—that we will always have a little bit of that pain or at least we’re subject to having it. It’s not necessarily every day, but sooner or later a little jolt of it s going to come by.

We can look at that as a perfectly natural situation-- it’s a perfectly normal thing to occur on planet earth. Now, I don’t know about the other planets because if I ever visited any of them, I forgot. So I don’t know what their rules are, but I’ve been around this one for quite a spell now, and this is the rule on it--there is going to be a certain amount of discomfort on planet earth. So we don’t have to assume that there is something wrong with me or something wrong with everything else if we have some discomfort.

Many times a day I get a call from somebody that’s telling me about some discomfort they have. Now they’re quite able to go to work and do all their things, but they got a little discomfort of some sort, and they ask, “What am I doing—if it’s bringing this on?”.

Well, the main thing that’s bringing it on is you’re living on planet earth. But there seems to be an assumption among a certain number of people that if I was so living that I didn’t make any problems or little stresses whatsoever, that I would be in total comfort—physical, psychological and emotional--at all times, but that, simply. is not true.

So let’s mark that misconception out—that as long as you live on planet earth, you are going to be subject to some discomfort without anything going haywire on your part. You don’t have to be all tied up in knots for making some “boo boo” because that’s just the nature of the place that we live, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I kind of like it—warts and all.

I don’t know of any place I would rather go today than planet earth. Is anybody here in any mad rush to get off on a trip somewhere, especially if there may not be a way back? It’s like somebody said to me not long ago that they sure hate to think of getting old. I said, “Well, I don’t like getting old, but the alternative is worse as far as I’m concerned.” So I guess I’ll stick around and get old—that’s all right. It’s immaterial to me.

So now that we’ve seen that you can have some discomfort without having a guilt feeling about it. We see that you’ve done nothing wrong to create the discomfort. We can ignore the suggestion from within that you’re not living up to your highest--you’re simply living on planet earth. So there’s nothing to get upset about the fact that you have discomfort from time to time. So “what’s going on”, then, is that we sometimes make unnecessary discomfort (which we will call “misery” for lack of a better word.)

Now you’re going to be subject to pain on planet earth, both physical and psychological. But if you don’t resist this pain, you won’t have the “misery” that goes with it. If you resist having any discomfort and try to find what’s to blame for every physical and psychological discomfort, then you will have misery.

Misery is the one thing that is not necessary on planet earth. You don’t need to have misery, but you will have some pain. Please don’t confuse the two as being the same because they’re not.

Misery is when you’re resisting a discomfort, physical or emotional, and misery is when you imagine “what if” something terrible thing happens to me, and you’re resisting the possibility of it ever happening.

So misery we’re going to talk about for a minute.

Now one thing I’ve learned that I can share with you is that I’ve found that thousands of people back through the ages (back to the middle ages and beyond--well, as far back to the earliest years that you can read about) have found that there is something that could be called love or wisdom and understanding.

So we’re going to share those same words here. The kind of love we’re talking about here is not about the love you have for your kids or your mate. We’re not talking about for all the things you like like cheesecake, chocolate cake, new automobiles, new computers and all these wonders that we have around. Those are all things that we can talk about “we love” but the kind of love we’re talking about is wisdom and understanding.
Another word for that kind of love is called agape. That’s a good Greek word--it means simply:

“I can see and know that whatever I do, whatever you do, or whatever anybody else does, that at the moment of doing (with what light they have) they have to feel that whatever they are doing is right, or proper, or justifiable or they simply cannot do it.”

If you don’t feel it’s right, if you don’t feel it is proper or if you don’t feel it is justifiable, you can’t do it—it doesn’t matter which one. But if you are observing, you can notice that justification may break down three minutes after you do it. But nevertheless, at the moment of doing, it felt justified.

So just recently we had a situation in the news. There was a hijacking over in the East and some hostages were held. So as you listen to everybody talk, they say that we’re the good guys and they’re the bad guys. As you look at it, everybody feels they were justified. Ones here were going to “do those dirty dogs in” feel justified. Ones over there were “doing those dirty dogs in” and feeling justified also. Now everybody’s wondering what can you do about this situation of having hostages and hijackings. You know there are possibly one thing and only one thing that would ever work. If we said “Look man, we recognize that you feel justified in what you’re doing, I can understand your viewpoint.” They might say, “Well, I understand your viewpoint.”

It’s possible that we could begin to work—not only on international scenes, but on the closest personal scenes—perhaps the boy/girl relationship. I listen to those situations quite frequently to say the least. Whichever one’s talking to me is telling me the other one is a dirty dog--that’s all there is to it—they just simply are terrible people; and if they’d just straighten out, we’d be so happy.

But everyone comes up with some statement of anti-love, anti-agape, and anti-understanding—this is the common understanding of most everybody. On the board, I put in quotation marks that everybody knows what’s right, but an awful lot of them go on and do wrong anyway. Now that’s when we get upset, isn’t it? That’s when the misery comes about because now we struggle to straighten those jerks out, but those jerks are thinking that they have got to straighten us out also, don’t they? We’re the jerks from their viewpoint—and then begins the conflict and contention and whatever else we observe.

Now if we want to get out of all these situations that have been going on since the beginning of mankind, what can we do? The best I can see of all the records through time is that there has been anti-agape, anti-love, anti-understanding, and that has been the rule of understanding. The common thinking is “you” know what’s right, but you go on and do wrong anyway; and I therefore, have to get revenge. I have to get justice. I have to put you in jail. I have to beat you up. I have to poke your eyes out—preferably kill you; and then we’ll get you out of the way. Now that is the general understanding that people know what’s right and go on and do wrong anyway.

Now as long as we have that as our basic knowledge of what’s going on within us, (meaning that anti-agape is our rule of attitude-action) we’re going to feel “they know what’s right and go on and do wrong”, we’re going to not like anything or anybody and we’re going to be in a state of misery.

One of the best miseries I know is total frustration, isn’t it? When you’re trying to straighten somebody out, you’re in a very frustrated situation, is that right? It is a very frustrating situation and quite impossible to get those jerks straightened out. Now we don’t say that it is right, proper, or justifiable to force others to straighten out. I don’t say that anything that harms another person, to me, is right, proper, or justifiable. I don’t go around hurting people very often that I know of. I may accidentally kick your toe and hurt your corns under the table, but I didn’t intend to. It wasn’t my intention. And I don’t go around confronting people and saying you didn’t treat me right because there’s really no reason for it.

Someway or other it has slowly sunk into my head over a great number of years that people are doing what they feel is right, and proper, and justifiable. Now if I look at it enough, I can see how they justified it. I can always see that. I also have observed and know that justifications break down frequently after you’ve done the deed and that you can, then, feel guilty.

Has anybody here ever felt guilty? But when you did it, you didn’t feel guilty, it felt proper. But after you got it done, you began to feel a little “raunchy” is that right? You began to worry about it a bit.

While it’s going on, we feel justified. That’s the only time we can do anything is right now—in the present moment. At that time, there is this feeling that it’s justifiable. We think, “Well, this is wrong to do, but under this circumstance--the way that “jerk” has treated me, obviously I can do what I’m doing.”

Now this can be put into the question “What’s going on here”? If all people in the world or even a reasonable percentage of them were to be living by the idea that everything that everybody does, they feel at the moment of doing, that it’s right or proper or justifiable, you would begin to see that there was a decided different type of world going on here. It would be a whole different world. But the most valuable part of it would be is that your world would be entirely different. Now you’d still have pain now and then. You’d still even have a psychological pain now and then. You’re going to have a loved one pass from this world or you’re going to have something else come along—maybe you just see something that’s real pathetic.

I read of a man the other day who his little girl was in an irreversible coma, and he stood it as long as he could and finally went and shot her. That can make you feel pretty “raunchy” for a little while and give you a pain, but it’s not anything that’s going to tear you up, and it’s not something that is misery. It’s just that you have a feeling for the man. You have a feeling for the child, but most especially for the father—that you have a real decided feeling about the situation. It’s not a pleasant feeling, but who are we that everything should be totally, totally, totally pleasant at all times. In fact of business, I think it would be a very boring world if it was.

I saw a movie one time that a robber got shot escaping from the scene of his crime; and he was unconscious for a while. When he came to, he was in a lovely place and everything he could possibly say he wanted, he had money, he had cars, he had girlfriends and beautiful clothes and everything else. Finally he decided he wanted to gamble, so every time he threw the dice, he won. Then he wanted to play cards and every hand he was dealt was a winner. He was just raking in the money. Finally he wanted to commit a crime. He wanted to rob a bank. Well, man, it just all fell in place and finally he said, “I’ve had enough of this heaven, I’d like to go to hell.” A voice said, “Where do you think you are?” But here it was—everything just like he wanted. How disturbed would you get after a while? I don’t care what you call it, heaven or hell, the result is the same.

Basically we like a few challenges whether we know it or not. We like a few things to help us feel we have worked—then we have a sense of accomplishment. If you’ve had a good night’s sleep, it’s nice to wake up. If you’ve had a busy day, it’s nice to go to sleep and there’s no telling how many things you could come up with if you but looked.. Everything needs a little change. If you’ve been ill, it sure feels good to get up and feel good someday. You kind of like that. It’s wonderful. You’ve got a change.

So “what’s going on” is that we never really take the time to look at our “basic assumptions” and what we live by. Now the basic assumption to be non-disturbed is only a feeling somewhere within that anything that is not comfort at this present moment, we mechanically react to with the urge to escape or fight like heck to get it at ease. We are putting this process in words for you, and most everybody has it. Until we really change our purposes, or our basic assumptions about the nature of life and the world in which we live, we’re going to be subject to a lot of misery.

Now I don’t think there’s anybody here so infantile that we can’t tolerate a little pain or tolerate little things not “going our way” right at this minute. We can have a few psychological “bumpies” here and there without being upset. But I think all of us are disturbed when we’re plain miserable, and “misery is a function of having a false impression as to the whole purpose of living”.
We still have that basic assumption about the whole purpose of living is to be non-disturbed.
We still have that basic assumption that people know what’s right and go on and do wrong anyway.

Now please don’t take my word for it—observe around you, observe the “self”—check it out. Look at something you feel is wrong, improper and unjustifiable. Now, let’s see you do it? I’d like to see you do it. I’d like for you to experiment with it to see if you can pull it off. You feel it would be justifiable for you to set the store afire this afternoon Bonnie? Go over and try to set it afire. You can’t pull it off.

(Right.)

You can’t pull it off, that’s the whole idea.

Now we’ll pursue that a little further on “What’s going on here” and some of our basic assumptions.

Most people have a basic assumption that if they’re “goody, good” folks and do something nice, there should be a big reward coming their way right quick. And if somebody else does something not so hot, they should have a big punishment or a misfortune coming their way. I’ve seen people say, “Well you know so and so is going to have to pay for that really heavy” They draw the conclusion that he knew what was right and went on and did wrong anyway; so therefore, he should be punished in some way.

But perhaps we can stop and look the things we do that are ordinarily human and decent behavior--and maybe it’s the “goody good” stuff once in a while. Maybe I give some poor hungry guy a quarter to buy him something to eat. You know how much he can get for that today?

You know I went in the coffee shop at noon today for just an ordinary small coffee shop type deal and the bill was $11. And you’re supposed to leave a dollar tip. So that was $12. for coffee shop stuff you used to get for 39 cents. I didn’t have anything of big shakes—just little coffee shop stuff.

So we could begin to see if we fed a hungry person or that we ease somebody’s pain somehow, that we have only done reasonably what is our duty as a human being. So why would you get any reward for it? It’s like if one of us has a job and we get paid X number of dollars a week. We do our job real well and we get paid--there is nothing else. In the old language that I know about, it says you never get paid twice for the same things anyway. So you’re putting yourself in misery if you expect to get patted on the back and told what a wonderful job you did—you got your paycheck. But I see that people feel that if they do some little something that they should have a reward; and of course, looking for rewards makes one feel kind of put out. Is that right? I was so good and I did this and what did it get me. Maybe that somebody then laid another thing on me to do, who knows? So the whole idea is that we don’t expect anything, and if something does come my way, we are then pleasantly surprised and that certainly doesn’t tear us up inside, does it?

Now there are ancient stories—I like to read stories because they illustrate points pretty well. There was a lady before the days when women were even respected, much less considered equals. She was a pretty holy dame over in some foreign little country somewhere. One day she was going down the street with a torch flaming over her shoulder and a bucket of water. Somebody said, “Where are you going?” She said, “Well, I’m going to set heaven afire and pour the water on hell so people won’t have to be good in order to avoid hell or gain heaven because I’m going to eliminate them both.” So she was through with reward and punishment in the afterlife. If the only reason I’m doing anything is in anticipation of a reward, I might as well forget it and save my energy--I’m not going to get any. There won’t be any because there isn’t anything that I could do that would earn a reward for being good, good, good or being conscious—it has it’s own value. And the same gal dreamed up a prayer that she tried to get people to say that says, “If I serve you O Lord to gain a heaven, deny it to me; and if I serve you O Lord to escape a hell, throw me in.” So it kind of gets it down to what are we doing things for.

Every once in a while I turn on a radio or TV and I listen to some guy propounding that you should be good and do according to as he says. And for that you will gain heaven and you will escape hell. Now if the only reason that anybody is doing whatever they’re doing whether it be religious, spiritual or anything else other than your accepted paycheck, thinking you’re going to be given some great reward for being “goody good” or that your enemies (the people you don’t like) are going to be tormented because they weren’t good (according to your ideal)--there is going to be a lot of nothing out there.

So let’s just say that anything I do is because I want to do it. I really have no other reason for doing it. If I want to experience spiritual realities and be conscious that I am at one with Spirit, I don’t expect any rewards out of it or in addition have anybody to pat me on the back. If I do something, it’s simply because I want to, and I don’t think it will make me any more important than somebody who never gave it a thought.

We also have a lot of people call and come in that are very tired of the people they are associated with—their wives, their husbands, their boyfriends, girlfriends, business associates. They say they’re not spiritual. Well, I may counter that one right quick in saying that they’re breathing, aren’t they? They’re standing up, and if there’s no Spirit there, there’s no standing up in them; --no breathing--there is no wiggling fingers=--there’s no talking. So one person is about as spiritual as another in my book--the only difference is maybe I am somewhat aware of the relation of awareness and Spirit and somebody else isn’t. But I don’t think it makes a lot of difference. I can’t stand up any better than they do, and I can’t breath much better than they do or anything else. Everybody is spiritual or they wouldn’t be here.

You don’t know how to breathe, you don’t know how to covert a ham sandwich into human flesh and blood and energy. You don’t know how to talk—you only know you want to say something. There are a jillion of nice things going on in here—just observe the way the air comes out in the little flippers, and talking is experienced; but I don’t know how to do it. I don’t even know how to swallow. I’ve looked at the mechanism. You’re food pipes are in there. In front of it is a wind pipe, and it flips a little flipper up and gets a breath of air and shuts it before the food goes over it, the water goes over it to go down the back of the flipper. I could never make that work. I’d strangle the first shot. So would you. So would anybody else? I don’t know how to make hair grow on my head, it does. I notice the nails grow out, the skin falls off and all these miracles. I get a little scratch and it heals up—but I don’t know how to do those things. Spirit does that in the living being and so everybody is spiritual. We don’t have to look down our royal noses at somebody else and say because I read certain books or say certain words or attend certain talks that I’m spiritual and they are not. I would only say that some of us are interested or a little more consciously aware of how Spirit works, but it works just as well if you don’t know about it, and you really don’t know anything about it.

I noticed an old cow out in the field—I doubt if she ever does much spiritual thinking, but I notice she can drink water and swallow and walk. She eats green grass and has red hair, white hair, white fat and red muscles and has a calf that has hoofs and toenails and horns and lots of other attributes. I don’t know how all that takes place, but you can see the cow is spiritual too. So it is purely for our own entertainment if we are considered to be spiritual. It’s not that we’re going to be rewarded for it. It’s because I’m like the cat--I’m very inquisitive. I’m very curious. I want to know what’s going on.

I can recognize that Spirit keeps all this going—something called Life. It keeps this whole mechanism going and I’d like to know about it, but it’s not because I’m going to have any rewards for knowing about it, or I’m going to be punished if I don’t know about it. It’s strictly that’s where my interest and curiosity lie. I don’t have much curiosity on digging in the ground to see if I might find a gold mine. I don’t have any curiosity to find out how the engine runs on the inside of a car. If it’s running and doesn’t blow up, I think it’s all right. And this goes on with about everything else. So there’s nothing here that I’m going to make this body function any better or the awareness function any better because I know about it—it’s because that’s where my interest happens to lie and evidentially everybody here seems to have an interest in that direction. But I could tell you that if you’re here because you think you will be rewarded for it by the powers that be in the heavens, forget it—or that you’ll be punished if you didn’t come, forget it. You’re going to get neither one.

So let’s be like the old girl I mentioned who toted that torch down the streets to burn heaven up so that nobody is struggling to get it. Or that we’ll pour a little bucket of water to put out the flames of the hell we’ve all heard about so that nobody has to worry about being good so they don’t go there.

Let’s see what you do? Let’s see if you’re doing it with some sincerity and that you’re really interested in it--not that you’re just interested in the old four dual basic urges to gain pleasure and escape pain. I think if one meets somebody who was talking about spiritual things and implies to another that there is going to be great pleasures in the beyond if they were “good good”, that’s a fraud. And I think if they tell another they are going to get burned and singed if they don’t do what I say to do, I think that’s fraud also. There’s an advantage to this kind of fraud, you can’t check up on it—observe and find out for yourself.

Years ago I was in the land subdivision business and we sold a lot of pieces of land that was sand out in these southwest desert. A lot of them were in Arizona, some of them were in New Mexico, and some were around El Paso. All of it is sand from one end to the other. But they had little stakes in them and we had made very beautiful maps. We’d run around and hunt up a little green spot here and a little green spot over there and took pictures. I had a beautiful movie that I could show people. While I was at it, nobody got in trouble; but later (I decided I had enough of that illusion, and I went on my way) some others began to be called on the carpet in no uncertain terms about misrepresentation. But there’s other groups that go around and tell you what wonders you’re going to get, and you can’t check up on what they are promising you. Now, at least, you could go look at these deserts I was peddling out here. You could go look at them if you took the time and expense. I went out with a few people when they looked at it, and one guy stood out there on a bare piece of ground thirty miles from a building and said, “Mama, this is ours.” He’s happy with it—glory be. Everything was fine. And if one of them wanted to build a house, instead of building out out there, we told them we’d trade them that one for one up there where there was some houses. So you know they were getting along all right. But I always decided that if I ever had a piece of land and I wanted to be totally isolated and nobody build around, I’d subdivide everything around it and sell it to somebody because it’s desolate--there will never be anything done with it from now to whenever they blow the whole thing off. So I can tell you how to have total privacy if you want. Just get in the middle of a subdivision and build your place out there and sell the rest of it off—not a subdivision but a sub divider—there’s quite a difference in case you are interested.

But the point is that there are all kinds of people tell us what wonders we’re going to have, but it’s best to check it out; and if we can’t, it might be we could leave it in the “I don’t know” department. I’ve observed people that were told that if they did so and so, they will escape some horrible horrible torments; and if they did certain other things, they will be granted some great ones.

I worked last week up in Utah and there was one of those very guys there that said if a person does this right, he gets a beautiful estate in a certain kingdom that the person, of course, can’t go see yet. The guy promises the person will have more cattle and wives in that order. So you know which one’s the most valuable. That is the way it’s stated. Don’t take my word for it—read it--you will have more cattle and wives--wives are not quite as valuable as cattle. So that’s the way that one sits.

So we can begin to say that anything we do is because I want to. It’s my curiosity. I want to know what it’s like to be conscious of Spiritual in myself instead of assuming that I’m going to make one or generate one or that I’m going to gain great rewards for doing it—there isn’t any. We wouldn’t offer any. Then if you do it, you know it’s because you are interested, not because you’re greedy or you’re fearful, you’re afraid you’re going to get singed or you’re greedy, afraid somebody is going to get a good state you’re not going to get.

So let’s just be in there and doing it simply because I want to—is that enough reason Richard? That’s the only reason I want to even bother with it is because I want to, not because I think there’s any rewards available; and I don’t think there’s any punishments.

Now let’s start questions and discussion. Leland told me he brought a good supply today.

(Ok, What is conscious suffering, Dr. Bob?)

Well, conscious suffering is a term that dear old Gurdjieff used to lay on people. He said there was very great value in it. Ok? Now he called it conscious suffering. My attitude is “allowing”—that’s the best I know that the meaning is. It has nothing to do with pain and discomfort and everything. It is allowing. Allowing “what is” to be “what is”. So “conscious suffering” is the end of resisting every little thing that comes along that I don’t like, or having the things I do like come to an end. Now that is conscious suffering.

If it applies to pain and what is going on, then a person could do like the ascetic. They deliberately make themselves hurt. They take a nice little cat-o-nine tails and whack themselves over the shoulder, and they walk on their knees over rocky roads and so forth--to do that, of course, has no value, again. It’s supposed to get you some great wonders in the world beyond—rewards because you were miserable now. I can’t see that being miserable now is guaranteeing you won’t be miserable later. Conscious allowing what is, we have an answer. If you consciously want to make yourself hurt—have fun.

(No reward?)

No, no reward in it—I believe that’s called masochist. And if anybody wants a little shot of that they can have it, I’m not into that one. Ok? I’m not into sadism either—most especially masochist. I can stand the other one better, ok? That help all right?

(So you do what you can to alleviate your situation?)

Consciously I’m going to be as comfortable as I can without paying too big a price for it, ok?

(You allow what is to be without resistance?)

Right.

(Now how does this connect to your concept of getting it up--that is getting yourself…..?)

……….in the best possible “state of being” that I can be today. I am interested in being as well off as I can today, and I’m interested in raising the mood of other people. Now I know that most people’s mood is not under their charge, so I might as well take it over and raise the mood for everybody.

If everybody’s in a good mood, things are working nicer in this world and more the way it was designed than if everybody’s down in the dumpies, is that right? And I’m not interested in the “conscious suffering” if you’re going to think of it as pain. Yes, if I’m suffering, I want it to be reasonably conscious. I know I’m doing it. With most people, the minute they have a pain, their first interest is to find something to make them unconscious to that pain. We got lots and lots of pills and potions and so forth that you can take. If you can drink enough alcohol, you can’t feel very much. You get a good whiff of cocaine; you don’t feel very much for a while. You get a good shot of morphine, you don’t feel very much. You can even get enough aspirin and slow little sensations down. So, of course, that is designed to be non-painful. Now, I don’t see pain and suffering as the same thing. But if we want to use it that way, we can. But it has no value other than we be conscious it has a purpose to be there. It’s a normal adaptation, and that the job is not to see how quick you can get it killed with the first pill and potion you can get, but go ahead and have it for a while. It, too, shall pass away in a little while, right?

(The suffering is a psychological result; and that is the thing that you allow.)

Why sure. If I fall down and bruise my knee, there’s no use saying. It may hurt for a day or two. I may get in a car accident, I may be shook up and sore for a little while. It’s no use seeing how quick you can kill the pain, is that right? That is to be unconscious—a desire to escape is unconscious of what’s going on.

Now if something should happen to any of us that I could no longer experience the sensation we call pain, would you think I’d be in a great desirable state? It would be that I was in a very dangerous state?

(Very dangerous?)

I got to hire somebody to go with me to feel of the sun, to feel of the metal, to feel of holes and to check up on the food I eat and every other thing, is that right? If you’re going to call it pain on any level, it would be that it’s very valuable that I experience that pain; it’s the greatest informer. In fact it is Spirit speaking to awareness to say check up on what’s going on out here, right? If you didn’t have any sensations of pain, you could go out there and sit in the sun today for an hour; and I don’t care how tan you are, you’re going to be burned? And since yo can’t have pain, you’d never know it. If you stayed even longer, you wouldn’t make it, right? But you’d never feel it because you didn’t know pain any longer. So, I think all pain, if you want to call it suffering, is that it is essential that we be aware of it--conscious of it.

(Well, the mechanical problem would be that we find we simply resist and struggle with whatever situation is disturbing us.)

That’s the struggle to be non-disturbed, so we said you’re not going to get non-disturbance on planet earth. So we’ll leave it off. You might as well save your energies—be lazy.

Ok Leland.

(I don’t know whether you want to take this, it’s a long one.)

Well, I’ll take long ones, short ones, it doesn’t make any difference.

(Would you discuss the question of death—death is a transition of….)

I don’t know and you don’t know. So how am I going to discuss something I don’t know “what is.” Death is the cessation of Emanation of the body and awareness as best we can see and that’s all we know about it, right?

We say here lies the remains and that’s all we know. Now we got a thousand theories. One, that the spirit within is going out there and float around and one day come flying back and get itself a little embryo and start all over again, huh? And another one is it’s gone directly to the place that the old gal was talking about in going to burn up with her torch or that you’re going to the place she’s going to throw a bucket of water on. And some say we’re just gone. We don’t really know. So that’s in my “I don’t know” department. Is that all right with you? I can tell when something’s dead--whether it’s a human or a blade of grass or a tree or a pig or a puppy or a mouse or a lizard. I can tell when they’re all dead, any of them. But I don’t know what happened to the spirit. All I know is here lies the remains. So I’m saying that’s in my “I don’t know department”.

Now I could theorize as well as anybody else, ok? And you know something else. I really don’t care. I figure I’ll take care of that when I get there. I didn’t know what was coming up when I was born. I’ve made out reasonably so far—and not because I knew anything about it, but Spirit inside knows how to run it. If there’s anything that gets beyond this thing we call death, it’s Spirit, and it seems to be well acquainted how to handle Life, so I guess it can handle any other thing. So I’m not looking for reward or punishment. I think it will turn out all right. What do you think on that Richard?

(I think that’s true. Well, I think people wasted lot of time worrying about that.)

They make an awful lot of noise over it; and if you did know what was going to happen, what would you do? Can you imagine a baby in utero, just freshly conceived last night, wondering what in the world is it going to be like when I get born. If it knew it would probably sit on its ear and spin tales. but anyway Life seems to handle it and the baby knows how to eat the day it’s born. It experiences assimilating food, and it all happens. So I’m quite sure that if we should wake up in another dimension sometime or other that Spirit will know how to start handling that situation. It will probably be so different from this that we couldn’t describe it--if there is one. I don’t know? I know people say they know all about it; but I don’t, so I’ll express my ignorance and proceed in this dimension. But I do know that Spirit will handle it if there is a way for it to function. I do know that. It handles this one without any coaching. It knew where to get its food.

I grew up on a farm and you can see a little colt born. He fumbles around there and tries to get up. In a few minutes he’s on his feet and he knows exactly where to go get dinner. Who taught him all that, huh? You got some little horses? Did you watch them in that stage of their existence? They go up on their wobbly legs and head straight for the dinner plate, don’t they? Nobody has to show them how to do it or what to do. They know exactly--right now. And as soon as the little colt can, he runs with the rest of them; and it doesn’t take very long to do that. He doesn’t have to be taught how to run either. And all the rest of the little critters out there know a whole lot of things that they haven’t been taught how to do—Spirit takes care of all of that, I’ve noticed.

Ok what’s the next one here?

(It said that in the work that only a conscious man can do, but that’s two questions. What is a conscious man and what can he do?)

Well, a conscious man is one that can, at least, have enough consciousness to ask what am I? Where am I? What’s going on here? And what can I do? And have some reasonable assumption about it. Once he is aware of those questions, he can answer what can I do. It all depends on the moment, but there is one thing I can always be doing. I can, at least, contribute to a pleasant harmonious mood wherever I am. If anybody asks me, I can share with him a little bit about the relationship between awareness and Spirit—not that it will do him any good—it’s just that he’s curious maybe.

So if he’s got the curiosity, I’ll be happy to share with him. The main thing is that a conscious person knows what questions to ask. The unconscious one is clapping away with a thousand “why this”, “why that”, and why the other thing. “Why am I disturbed when I didn’t want to be disturbed?” “Why am I here and I didn’t even ask to be born”—flap flap, flap, why, why, why—that’s unconscious, Ok? What am I? Where am I? What’s going on here? And What can I do? Is the minimum of consciousness? If you are entertaining those questions, you’re relatively conscious. If you don’t know what you are, you don’t know where you are, you have no idea what’s going on here and you haven’t the foggiest idea what you can do, obviously you are unconscious. Is that all right? It’s fairly self-evident when you look at it.

Now we put these four questions in every newsletter just to keep them reminded out there. The newsletter is about consciousness and so we put the minimum of consciousness there. Once you have the minimum, the rest of it will take care of itself—What am I? Where am I? What’s going on here? And What can I do?

We took one a while ago as to where are we. We are on planet earth. We then obviously look at the idea of how planet earth functions. “What goes on” within it and as we observe, there’s a reasonable degree of consciousness there. Now many people never give that a thought. They only dream that they should be totally non-disturbed at all times; and consequently, they never look at the rules of the place where they are.

You go in most any place and they got a few signs that says; “Don’t walk on the grass,” “Down this aisle,” “Room #3 will have information in it,” and the “Men’s Room” is over there and the “Ladies” room is over there and the “Telephone” is in that direction, and the “exit” is out here, and “Don’t exit here” unless there’s a fire going on because the alarm will go off. You know we see the rules everywhere we are. A few people have stopped to look at what’s the rules on this planet earth, and it is where we are, so there are four questions we can ask if we entertain those four questions—you have a relative degree of consciousness bound to grow if you need it at any given moment and consciousness will grow like that, Ok?

(If that’s what a conscious person is and there is no reward or punishment, well, hell, there’s not too much to it.)

Well, there’s really not. I try to tell everybody it’s simple, and they want to complicate the “pee” out of it all the time. I don’t know what for.

(Why do we make such a big deal out of it?)

Why do you make such a big deal, because you want a reward and you want to be sure you got it, is that right?

(Yeah.)

And what if you don’t do the last little bit right, you may not get that great reward. Who knows, you might wind up scorching your toenails off. Ok?

(You may get the fire and the bucket.)

Right. So get the bucket and the torch and go down the street and have fun. Burn those things up. Now obviously what the dear lady was talking about, wasn’t intending to go out and burn up some celestial kingdom called heaven, and she wasn’t intending to drown the other region with a bucket of water, but everybody is having hells within, and she was trying to demonstrate something. I think she did a good demonstration—nobody understood it, but at least she put on a good show.

Ok, anybody else got a question? Who else has a comment? How about you Peri?

(Oh, I got a lot of them.)

Well drop one on me.

(I notice this particular “What is going on” is a question.)

It’s a real question—What’s going on here? If you look, it gets you to see that there’s something going on and it’s not always what you think it was. It’s not always what you think it is. A lot of times you think it is somebody annoying you or it is somebody cutting a lane in front of you; and there’s that dirty jerk out there in front of me and he probably got his driver’s license through Sears and Roebuck and this goes on and on. Sometimes you’ll never know what is going on with that driver that cut in front of you, but there may be something going on that created the behavior, and Spirit moved the car and you are ok in that situation.

(You mentioned earlier that it’s what is going on here.)

That’s right, that’s what we’re interested in. That’s what we’re talking about--What’s going on in here, ok?

Leland got another one in there on your piece of paper—you’re not near through yet, are you?

(Well, it appears that in answering this question, if you ask what is heaven, it seems that heaven would be a state of wholeness right now in which you did simply what was spontaneous.)

And that you were interested and you had no struggle and conflict within yourself—no misery, ok? So if you didn’t have a heaven to struggle for and a hell to escape, you’d be reasonably well off--and it didn’t have to straighten out all these jerks in the world. You could see that everybody was doing what they felt was right, proper, and justifiable. Then you wouldn’t have too many great big old problems, would you Leland?

I have been working with what they call human problems for at least 40 years now; and you know, the first one I heard and the last one I heard were very, very similar. The first one I heard 40 some odd years ago and the last one I heard a few minutes ago on the phone was very, very, very similar—almost identical, ok? And all the ones in between have sounded like the same one. I almost know what’s coming when somebody says I want to come in and talk to you. I got a big problem. It’s the same stuff. They got to straighten somebody out or somebody hasn’t understood how wonderful they are, or they’re afraid they’re not going to gain a great reward or blah, blah, blah, blah—it’s all the same old stuff. Now maybe if I manage to hang in there for another 40 years and listen to it, maybe I’ll hear a new one somewhere; but I seriously doubt it.

Richard you’ve listened to a fair share of them, haven’t you over the last number of years—have you heard any new ones lately?

(Not really.)

I didn’t think so. They come out in a very little close category,—that’s all of them.

Ok, Leland, got another one? The door’s open—I’ve opened the doors to everybody. They weren’t prepared. They didn’t do their homework, you did.

(You and I talked one time about intuitive nature.)

Right.

(And I’ve been playing around with that for a year and a half now.)

….and how’s it going?

(It’s pretty accurate.)

Right. In other words as long as you don’t make an issue, why it comes out pretty well all right, is that correct? Good. Ok, so it works. All you do is report what’s going on—that’s all--and pretty soon you know about things.

(What’s the difference between the information you’re getting through intuitive nature. What relationship does that have with free will?)

Well, you’re free to use it or “chuck” it. Isn’t that right? You don’t have to do it.

(The inner state or the outer state?)

Both. You can do it any way you want to. You can get the information—you can use it or you don’t have to. Now if you don’t use it very much, it gets so it doesn’t give you very much.

(Well, intuitive nature sometimes gives you……”)

…………the action straight and direct.

(Before it happens, and then you watch it happen or you experience it happen and you see….)

You see it going on and it usually works out all right. So, you don’t just make an issue out of it, just go on and do it, ok?

(Does intuition have an emotion?)

Does intuition have an emotion?

(Is there a feeling with………..)

There’s a feeling, but not an emotion. There’s a feeling—it’s like the closest friend walked by—you’d know it, wouldn’t you? If you’re friend walks by, you know it, don’t you?

(Yeah.)

It’s just a very friendly feeling—is that all right—that’s the closest word. Where if you’re worried and stuff, there’s everything but a friendly feeling. With intuitive there is a very friendly feeling goes with it. That’s all I can tell you about it. It’s a friendly feeling.

(I think superstition is something….)

Oh that always gives you a certain anxiety. If you go to a fortune teller, they day, “Well, you should have or you should not have or don’t do such and such.”

Intuitive is just a friendly feeling. You don’t have any question about going and doing it.

Ok, any other questions, comments? No? Ok, I surely have enjoyed you being here. You dreamed up another question now?

(Two or three more.)

Ok, let’s rack them up.

(Time is obviously the process of change in life. That is you’re born, you’re a child, you’re an adolescent, you’re an adult and so on, ok? Now it appears that our relationship—the relationship of awareness of ourselves, whatever constitutes this, to this time is one simply of being a watcher or an observer, not a resister.)

That’s about right.

(So as long as that is maintained, then we are clear. There is no struggle, there is no real sorrow.)

Right, but if you hook time in it, then you’re looking at it. I’m getting old. My friends are getting old. I’m falling apart at the seams and all is lost. I don’t have any time to do anything anymore, and so we’re full of sorrow and all. So time is only a clock invention. We got one here. It’s interchangeable with distance. I could tell you, “Well, its 20 minutes to downtown Phoenix, or I could tell you its five miles down there.” What’s the difference? It comes out the same way. So once we see that time is a measurement of distance and not a measurement of life, we’ve done quite well. So you put it into distance. Now I’ve traveled a lot, so it took a lot of what you call time, or we could say miles, is that right? So what difference does it make if I’ve traveled so many miles or so many minutes? Now you’re going to get on an airplane in a little while--how far is it to Winnipeg?

(2,500 miles, I guess.)

………..or how long is it?

(6 hours)

Six hours. So we say six hours or 2,500 miles—so suit yourself. It all comes out the same. It is an interchangeable point. Ok?

Ok, we’ll call it a day.