Workshop - Point of Awareness – Scottsdale, AZ 1970 - Part 2
Verbatim Transcript: 4 CDs
The following is as close a verbatim transcript as is possible.
Dr. Bob’s laid-back “Kentucky-ese” is retained –
we have neither corrected his grammar, dialect, pronunciation
nor taken it upon ourselves to change his words.
Audience (laughter) is noted; he was a master at keeping the mood up!
(Audience participation is parenthesized and separated from his words.)
When Dr. Bob emphasized a word, it’s in italics.
[Anything that offers clarity is italicized inside brackets.]
NOTE: Though there are 6 CDs in DropBox, Nos. 5 and 6 are repeats of 1 through 4. The repeats are omitted in this transcript.
CD 3 of 4
[repeating the end of CD 2] .... so that Spirit can come in and sup with us enough with that we have opened the door to freely be aware. Now possibly the best way I have seen it expressed – and they're not my words – are
Passive, Alert, Extensive Awareness.
[he writes it on the board] Now, if we do like my dear friend, Glen, why he'd say, “Well what should I do?” And of course there was two little things. One of em said, “Call the authorities,” you know. And I’ve had that occasion to call the authorities, too, and they do come most often times. But one time I did and a young guy came out, a young police officer, and he was very kind to the old gentleman. He was as careful with him as if it'd been his father. He called him Dad, got him up out of the wino daze and took him away and so forth. There's different things that happen to different things. Anyway, we're free to do whatever we can do: free to experience some of these unpleasant situations.
Are we free to experience unpleasant emotions within ourselves? Huh? Now we can't do that, can we, Frank? Just not free to experience these unpleasant emotions. You know, they're probably layin' out there, too, you know. Are we free to experience em or do we try to find some way to make em go away right quick and get one of these fun, fun, fun emotions, huh? When we are free to look at it and only say, “This is what it's called,” and go on about our business – whatever it may be – do what's in front of us.
Now the first thing possibly you would feel if you come up on one of these passed out drunks or something is to say, “I shouldn't get involved.” “This is called trying to be safe,” you know, says the Point of Awareness. It doesn't say what you should do about it. “This is called being safe,” huh?
(Dr. Bob, when somebody calls you on long distance to say, “I need help. Would you let me come and live with you?” and you know it's a big problem, it's a big situation that you feel like – well, you know, you’re gonna have to make a decision.)
You don’t have to make a decision.
(Well, they ask...)
You have to do the right thing...
(Yeah… So you have to either say no or yes...)
Okay. So, what do you wanna do?
(I don't know.)
Okay. That’s your starting point.
(I'm aware of the fact –)
Are you looking then, seeing that yourself that you have two feelings about it? “This is called being in conflict.” I want to do the right thing and take in anybody, but I don't wanna get all this load on myself. Could you say that? We're talking about how what to do. You see how quick you can watch the questions, you can see how minds work. Immediately we want to see what to do, that right? What should I do?
(What's the solution.)
What should I do to do the right thing, etcetera? We never ask ourselves what am I doing– here is where we get. [writes on the chalk board]
This is where the equation goes: “What am I doing” is Passive, Alert, Awareness.
“What should I do?” is to set off the Vicious Cycle and try to be safe.
Now, here is where we begin to get down to the need to separate for purpose – it’s the questions we approach. Now, “What am I doing?” you might find out something about yourself. You might find out a lot of things in this, you know. That’s work. And some of you probably wouldn't like it, you know? Is that right?
(Absolutely...)
Right. That's where we don’t want to ask that question – we're liable to find the answer to it. But we always wanna know, “What should I do?” What's the purpose of wantin' to know what should you do, Miss Genevieve?
(Be comfortable.)
So you'll be safe, won't you? You wanna be secure, you’ll do the right thing. You’ll not take any chances, right? You want an authority, huh?
(Well, yeah.)
Yep, so you'll be safe, secure, somebody you can depend on and give you assurance, give you guarantees, give you proof and even more proof. Yes, George?
.
(This, as I became aware of what I was doing with this _____ right here and now, we're dreaming up hypothetical cases for which there are no answers.)
Right.
(So that when something like this comes up, we'll have something to base our actions on.)
So we'll be good and safe, right. [all talk]
(...our authorities are gonna tell us on a prototype that we dreamed up so we can act safely in the future.)
Right. That's what we'll do. We’ll get these prototypes goin'. We don't want an open door. We want a closed door, a good prison that's safe and sound and closed in, in a compound. Yes, dear.
(We want all God's answers in a little book instead of really trusting.)
Yeah, we said we want it not only in a little book – we want the recipe and then we wanna be sure to have somebody come along and mix it up and cook it and be sure so it won't get burned and stick to the pan. And then when it gets it out and gets it all decorated, I'll eat it. That's what you want, isn't it? Yeah. (all talk)
(I want the whole thing ... more and more.)
More and more and more, right. Now then, now let's don't find any fault. Now you're gettin' somewheres. Now let's don't take the next step and say “I gotta change this”– just be aware that this is what I'm doin’. What am I doing, okay? Now you're gettin' somewheres if you don't jump and ruin it by sayin’, “Now how am I gonna stop doin' that,” huh?
(Are we playin' a game so that people, so that other animals __________ play?)
Yeah. You know about The Little Red Hen? The earth's fallin' in, the sky's fallin’ in.
(That’s Chicken Little. Isn’t it the red hen that wanted somebody to help her get her grain and…)
Oh, yeah, you got the cake made and said I’m gonna eat it. Right. But you see we want the recipe. God said…[pause] “Well, he should a given us instructions.” Oh, we read through the book and we find little references to things. [imitates turning pages of a book.] “Oh, that's the part of the recipe, that's part of the recipe, that’s part of it. Oh, I'm gonna do all of those; but now I don't want to do them because I might not do them right, so would you do this? Now here it says do this. You do this and you do this and you do this and now then when you get it all cooked up – let me have it,” huh?
We don't want much. (laughter) You know, just give me heaven without earnin' it – that's all… and my idea of Heaven – nice, warm, full of pineapples, the whole bit. You know? That's all we want, hmm?
(What am I doing? Is that looking at what emotions are coming on to this?)
Emotions and what’s my purposes, motivations, right. Now when we see that, most often we don't like it because it doesn't fit our Vanity and Pride picture that I'm a good, good man and I've been livin' a holy life all these days. We find our motives are about as base as they can be if you're gonna judge it – cause we only wanna be safe. We want to have attention, have approval, and the whole bit down there. Of course, we have been taught to call that _____.
But when we look at that and see this is what I'm doin', don't try to change it because if you do, all you're doin' is tryin' to get it in another way, isn’t it? You just jumped over here to one of the others. That's when the snake swallows his own tail and he finally gets so far, he can’t go no further, and he's still hung up, right?
Don't try to do anything about it because only X can do anything about it.
Only Christ – if you wanna use that word – the light of Christ
can do anything about it. Only X, Spirit within man can change this.
How does he change it?
When you report it like it is.
That's what the Point of Awareness is: It is open door.
You can see it, say, “This is what it is.” I don't judge it because it's good or bad.
(The thing I’m trying to see clearly is... Some of these experiences come along and they don't just involve me, they involve Mary Jo –)
[break in the tape and some statements are repeated]
…right because only X can do anything about it. Only Christ, if you wanna use that word – the light of Christ – can do anything about it – only X, Spirit within man can change this. How does he change it? When you report it like it is. That's what the Point of Awareness is. It is open door. You can see it – say, “This is what it is.” I don't judge it because it's good or bad, hmm?
(The thing I'm trying to see clearly is… Some of these experiences come along and they don't just involve me, they involve Mary Jo, perhaps a lot of other people and then – what I'm doing is not what she's doing…)
Right. Sure.
(Yet, something that’s thrown, that comes our way....comes to both of us in the house.)
Well, it comes only to you for your motive about it. I don't know what happens to the house. The house is just a building.
(Yeah. Anyway, the experience is in front of us.)
For you, just “me.” You can't do any experiencing for Mary Jo. I’m sorry, Dr. Lem. You can only experience for Dr. Lem. You can’t experience for Mary Jo.
(Well, I can experience what my feelings and my motives…)
Right. You experience what your motives and what you're doing, because you can't experience hers, okay?
(Well, I understand that, but I also I get into the thing because of her motives. In other words –)
Well, then maybe then that’s for you to experience freely because you’re ____ the way it got there. Just experience it freely – whatever comes along that you did, go out and plant yourself. I don't care whether it was Mary Jo or me or somebody you never heard of before. It doesn't make any difference; Mary Jo's another person.
(There’s the big –)
Yeah, because you know it's awful easy to put Mary Jo as part of you and she's not. Just because the state of Arizona or California or somewhere shows you these papers, don’t make her a part you. You see? And she may be used many times as a little thing to bring things into your orbit you had nothing to do with, but that's free to experience it. Okay?
(I asked for it.)
Right. Well, I don't know if you asked for it or…. That's the way–…
(all talk) (laughter)
The way of the Almighty being said here’s something he can experience – I'm gonna lay it out for him. That's what he needs. And you're not capable and neither is Mary Jo to say what you need, nor her, okay?
(Okay.)
Mary Jo brings home a sick cat and Dr. Lem says he don't like sick cats in the house. Now that’s… you're free to experience a sick cat. You didn’t invite the sick cat or go pick it up and bring it in or anything, okay? But you are free to experience it and you can say, “What's my motive, what am I doing?“
(I have a very wide crack at the door.)
Right, right, right. So then, when we want that, really we're more interested in what should I do and what should she do. What should we do? That is…
(Yeah! That “we”.)
And that, that’s really important. That's another way of saying “I.”
(I really can go on about “we”…)
Yeah. “We” should do this because you're trying to make two people be one and it don't quite work that way. We're trying to get these two in here in place.
So when we are aware of this, we begin to ask a different set of questions. Now that's not a formula or a recipe, it's merely an insight. But, as long as you say, “What should I do?” you’re asking these kids [the not-I’s] and you're reviving all your conditioning every day. You're living in constant conflict with it and you increase the conflict over and over. You ask only because you wanna know safety down here, “How can I get attention and how can I have pleasure and comfort and no disturbance of any kind,” hmm?
But when we say. “What am I doing,” then as Miss Esther said, you begin to look, see where you’re turnin' faucets off sometimes before the tub runs over, you know?
You’re more considerate.
At least you're thinking of what you're doing and what it's doing to life;
and you're also seeing what is going on within the person.
This is being aware.
This is being conscious.
This is being awake.
And this begins to bring into being
some Awareness of what's going on.
[people enter] Good morning, Meryle, good morning Dr. Bennet. How are you?
So as this goes about, we can be awake.
We can be conscious
and we don't know what to do and are not trying to find out.
We are letting X do the work.
And He said that if we would be faithful to do this little thing, He would come in and do the much that needs to be done and get all this gone. There is nothing you nor I can do to make this go away. We can only be conscious of it and all your efforts in the world would only increase it, huh?
But you sure can be conscious of it and as you're conscious of it, it disappears. And it just disappears. Then this [the Point of Awareness] has grown and expanded, became a great tree that builds the whole area. Things can live in it, under it, so forth. Life can be generated in it. You have realized the treasure and it only starts as a tiny little thing as the Point of Awareness, the engrafted Spirit that begins to be aware of what's going on here – then what am I doing, not what “should” I do.
And as long as we fiddle with the “what should I do”, we're going to keep on pounding ourselves around and around and around on this Vicious Cycle. We could study it for twenty years and it would still be the same way.
We can see it in one day or we can put it off indefinitely. It's kinda up to the choice. The open door is at the top, which says that also the way to do something. The way to the bathroom is through that way, through that door. You know, it's the way and a door. And again to do that, you are using The Way, which says… does not mean necessarily a long road. It's just the proper direction.
And sometime Rosemary and I are going to open a place, have a place – I should say– rather than open it. The name of it will be “The Open Door.” It will have two meanings. One is the door is always open – whoever comes by can come in and whatever they ask for – to the best of our ability– will be given. The other is the symbology that you gotta have the open door, and open to living and to life and to whatever comes along or else we have nothing. Let's take a break for about 15 minutes.
[After the break]
Start again for a little bit… Every now and then we find it rather useful to return to a little point that we made long ago and review it just a moment. We're talking about motivation, of course, as to what puts us into action – our motives.
So let's return for a moment to the idea of the “Man-Made World” and “The Real World.”
Now the Man-Made World, of course, is where we live and do our work and go about our daily affairs. Now, in the Man-Made world we generally use a little Awareness and a lot of emotion as to what we do every day, but we do use some Awareness in the Man-Made world.
We make arrangements. “Well, I'm gonna be at some place at 9 o'clock. I'm going to fix the car. I'm gonna take the car to the garage to be serviced.” “I'm going to work out this situation in the business.” “I'm going to buy some paper.” I'm going to do whatever it may be. We use a little Awareness based upon a reason.
In the Real World, usually the conditioned person uses no Awareness – everything to do is based on emotion. Now, man–
(Say that again?)
That’s right – emotion. Everything in the Real World that we do is generally based on emotion. The Real World is our inner state, which is what we're always talking about. We don't spend too much time over here in the Man-Made world in these classes. We are talking about the inner states of man, right?
Now, in the Man-Made world, you're gonna make some tentative arrangements. You're going to – Dr. Lem buys the appropriate equipment for his work. He has appointments made and all these things, which is necessary, useful. Bob buys the equipment or the merchandise he's gonna sell. Glen buys his merchandise and he sets the price on it because of what it costs and what is overhead.
So we use a little Awareness – “a little,” I said – in our Man-Made world affairs. We go into a lot of things with emotion, you know, we’re flat off with it. You know, we get angry and we get all important that this works out and we make plans and it's gotta be there and very important.
In the Real World, which is our interpersonal relationships and our own inner state, we usually use absolutely no Awareness – we depend entirely upon all these emotional emotions, motivators in the subconscious mind. Trying to gain comfort, escape pain, all these things so we wind up with jealousies and angers and hates, worries, anxieties, and the whole bit in the Real World.
Now, man is a creature designed to use intelligence, Awareness. He is a thinking, sentient being, and is therefore to be conscious. That is his whole idea is to be conscious or to be life – that's what his whole symbol of man is – a thinking, rational being, not an emotional, reacting, mechanical device. However, when he is responding purely on these emotional motivations from his set of early infant decisions, he is purely mechanical.
Now, we read somewheres that the way of the transgressor is hard. The transgressor is someone who is using other means or methods – you're going around about; you're trespassing, so to speak – on somethin' else, huh? Doesn't mean that you're evil and think bad thoughts and that you deliberately go out to do things incorrect. But the way of the transgressor is hard. The man who lives by his emotions in his business has a hard way of makin’ a living. He is a sittin’ duck for the bankrupt court. Would you agree to that, Mel?
(I believe so.)
I believe so. Mel is a businessman of many years standing. Glen, what you got? Friend Glen's been along this route of runnin' a business by emotions and bein’ involved with a lot of people who run business by emotions, and he can tell you how it works. It's the best way in the world to blow about 60–70 thousand dollars in four days and it’s just destroyed like that.
Even in the Real World, in the manmade work where we do use a little Awareness, we also throw in an awful lot of emotion. We begin to worry, "Should I do this?" “Now what will this person think of me when I get there to talk to him?” “Will I say the right thing?” and the salesman considers so long the proper approach that he never does even make the presentation, you know. Glen had been along that route, too.
Now in the Real World, our usual approach is just to try to be non-disturbed and to be comfortable and to escape pain in the emotional level. So, we try to have our way with the people around us. We stick up for our rights with our interpersonal relationships. We try to please our interpersonal relationships, hopin’ they will then be nice to me and won't step on me and I won't be disapproved of. We try to live by every conceivable little idea that we come along that says you should do this and that's the right thing to do and you do that and that's the right thing to do and then she will like you and etc. So it's all just trying to be comfortable in our interpersonal and this inner life in our interpersonal relationships. Then we do a lot of blaming here.
The most common question we hear when we talk about beginning to use Awareness motivation – using the Point of Awareness to see what's going on, without all of this emotional content – is that everybody says, “That's hard.” But it isn't hard at all – it's the easiest thing in the world because it takes all the conflict and struggle out of life. There's a forward movement and evolving of the inner life – a spiritualizing of the inner state of being. But the way of the transgressor is hard.
Now if anybody wants to challenge this, let's have someone who can say, “I live by my emotions,” huh? “I respond purely by emotions as to everything in my interpersonal life. I stick up for my rights. I complain to get my way. I try to please everybody. I listen to all the little things that I hear, ‘Well, do this, do this, and everything will work out fine.’ I try to be changing myself into some ideal all the time, and I blame.”
And tell me if it works out real fine – who is the one who wants to say that's an easy way to live? Who wants to tell me that's easy, huh? Who wants to say it's easy that this is the way to get along? This is the way to have a joyful home life. This is the way to feel at peace within yourself. Who wants to tell me that, huh?
Now let's see what is hard.
It's hard to allow the emotions to rule the life.
It's hard to allow the subconscious mind to direct our affairs.
That's what's hard.
But the only thing that we find hard
is that we don't want to wake up.
This way we can sleep. You know, just sleep on.
And then we can have bad dreams and complain
because we're havin' bad dreams and all this stuff… we can sleep on.
But the Way is hard and that doesn't last too long.
But if we will take the responsibility to be what we are, our nature – if we'll choose to look at one of us and set somebody out here and take a look – you're an experiencing organism. That's really about as far as we can get here. You got eyes that look out this way. You got ears that are tuned out that way – you don't hear what's goin' on in there, thank goodness cause that noise will drive you nuts cause it really is noisy in there. Your taster doesn't taste your mouth, it tastes what's on the outside, thank goodness – what you put in there from the outside. Your senses of touch, of touching, is all directed outwardly, aren't they? You don't feel your muscles move under your skin, do you? You feel what’s on the outside.
So we are experiencing or aware sentient organisms – sensing beings, to pick up and report. That's all. But we have decided to be a judger due to all of this, huh? And so we quit being sentient beings and became emotional, reacting, mechanical beings.
And the only thing it requires to be different is to wake up and say, “I'm gonna use this greatest of all gifts – the ability to be aware and see relationships, which is what this engrafted Spirit or Awareness or Point of Awareness then motivates from an altogether different situation.
But is it so hard to wake up? Do you ever have a nightmare? [Repetition on the tape] Do you ever have a nightmare? Wasn’t it awful wonderful to wake up? Right?
(And all the time I thought I was awake.)
Yeah, you thought you were. You think it all day long every day, don't you? Huh? You think you're awake all day long every day, don't you?
But you know what?
You’re dreamin'.
You're dreaming that people are picking on you.
You're dreaming that ways are different.
You're dreaming that something is about to make you unsafe.
You're dreamin' all day long.
You got a nightmare
and it's a joy to wake up out of it, hmm?
You got a what “if-er” in there that’ll ____________, haven't you? Hmm? You got a “what if-er”? What if this, what if that, what if this? You got one of those, Norma?
(Oh, yeah.)
Does it make nightmares, huh? Does it take all manner of troubles and problems, hmm? And we believe them and we act upon them as though they were true, is that right?
So the way of the transgressor, the person who transgresses and stays asleep and allows himself or herself to be a mechanical being is transgressing and not using the greatest gift of all time – the human Soul, the Point of Awareness, the area in the mind that we have never used that sees relationships in all things. So we can stand still and look a minute and we can come awake and then we don't have the nightmares goin' on, which we call troubles, and problems, and stuff. They're all just nightmares. Isn’t that right?
(Uh-huh.)
Can you think of any big troubles you ever had, Miss Norma? Real big episodes, huh? You just had to file suit on em when you had em.
(Not aware.)
Not aware. And you thought it was so terrible, but as you look at it now, was there anything to it or was it a dream?
(Yes, it seemed like a big dream.)
That's all it does and that's all it was to begin with. So the way of the transgressor, which is the way of living by emotions when you're sound asleep, not seeing the meaning behind anything, not seeing relationships at all, just react, huh?
To react is to do the wrong things with motion. You remember? It is to return or hold motion, which is deadly. That way is very hard. In fact, it is deadly if I may say so – don't take very long – it's deadly.
To stay awake is kinda wonderful. And you know you can see what's going on. You see relationships, you see what you wanna respond to, huh? You report it and you tell what all of this emotional part of conditioning is down here. You just report that to X. X is quick to remove it if you report it.
But if you judge it, you're saying you know what it ought to do. And it seems that X says, “Well, if you know so much about it, let's see you do it.” That right, George? That's what X has been sayin' ever since you have been talked to about it. It says, “Well, George, if you know so much what oughta be and how to do it, why don't you do it? Let me see.” You know, it's not gonna interfere in your prerogative if you want to do it, that's fine. But it just prolongs the nightmare, do you see? For longer and longer and longer we have a more of a nightmare, huh? And we say that's reality, don't we?
(I’m still confused, doctor, on why Awareness is all emotions under the Real World.)
Well, how do you approach your children, your husband – this is your interpersonal relationships – and in your own inner state of affairs, how do you respond to it? With things you have investigated or with your preconceived opinions, if I may ask – with your reaction?
(This is a conditioned person you're talking about.)
That’s what I’m talking about – I said. I’m talking about the usual, conditioned person, ______.
(Thank you.)
If you were an integrated being, I will draw that. [he draws on the board] “Man-Made World” and “Real World,” okay? Intelligence and Intelligent. (laughter) So let's talk about the one we are, not the one we can be for the moment, will we please, okay? To be all intelligent, understanding, and behavior. That is opening the door, okay? Having the door open to seeing that X, which is intellect, which is Intelligence, which is Life – choose the action. Then we have it as the Initiative and the Awareness as Passive to see what's goin' on, report it without judging it.
The minute we judge it, we try to take the initiative and say, “I know what ought to be,” and we’ve got the world turned upside down, right? Now that is havin' a quarrelsome “wife”; and that could be the same for you and you as it would be for a man. That is the Awareness; it’s used as the wife in some parables or similes trying to explain. And if the wife is trying to initiate and say, “What should be done?” it is hell. That is the marriage you have been involved in is when you get married like this. [starts drawing] Here is the Awareness being Initiative and makin' X Passive and those two are together whether you like it or not – and when the Initiative… [corrects himself] and when the Awareness is being the Initiative, it is literally hell.
(I don't know why you would address those remarks.)
I wouldn't either, honey. I couldn't conceive, but it just seemed to flow – psychic phenomena. (laughter) I probably have ESP or something, you know. (more laughter) But you see, I could also say the same thing to everybody else because the Awareness in everybody has tried to be the Initiative and when it does, it's initiating from emotions, is that right? And when it does, it creates an awful lot of chaos.
Somewheres I read that – I think it was in Ecclesiastes or Proverbs or somewheres back there - that it was better to live in a leaky house and sit in a cold corner with no heat than it was to live in a house with a contentious woman; [Proverbs 27:15] and we all live in a house with a contentious woman as long as the Awareness is [recording ends]
[End of CD 3]
CD 4 of 4
[repeats the end of CD 3; “that it was better to live in a leaky house and sit in a cold corner with”] … no heat than it was to live in a house with a contentious woman; and we all live in a house with a contentious woman as long as the Awareness is trying to be the Initiative from all this mess of conditioning, hmm? That's what we live in – this house. And she's real contentious because she wants to have her way now, she wants to stick up for her rights. But the other side says, “But she's got to please everybody and you gotta do what this one says. Now, we read in this book that you were always to do so-and-so and we heard Bob say it, ‘You shouldn't make anything important,’ and you're making that important on the outset.” But, how can you keep from making it important? And we’re livin’ with a contentious woman.
But as long as we can merely see this noise and say,
“This is called conflict, confusion,” etcetera,
then you will see that X is quick to remove that conditioning.
And then you are an intelligent or an integrated or a complete being;
or if you wanna say, a “perfect, perfected being.”
You then are perfected in love.
You would see all things and you would have no big old emotion runnin' the lot. Man is capable of existing by his emotions for a while, yes; but not very long, and the way is hard while he's doin' it.
(Dr. Bob, when we … You mean, all our emotions are conditioned to the point where ...?)
Why don't you find out, dear?
(Well, I'm interested in finding out!)
Okay, to ask what it’s gonna be like is like seeing the end of the movie before you went to see it.
(Right now I would.) (laughter)
You see, you wanna be safe, be sure you don't waste any time, want to be sure how many emotions can we keep, huh? What, Penny?
(Is that a take on morality, as we know it?)
It's out of place right now, but we will.
(We’ll catch on, okay…)
We'll talk about morality as who knows it? Me or you? (laughter) They’re probably a lot different, I don't know. But morality could not be even comprehended by an emotional being – you may use the word, but you have no comprehension of its meaning. I'll elucidate right now, huh? Because you could not conceive of a dog being moral, could you? Huh? Could you imagine an automobile being moral? No. You couldn't conceive of a horse being moral, could you? But a man, you can, huh?
But a man can only be moral if he is conscious; and he's not conscious as long as he's reacting by emotions from his conditioning. And you can talk morality to him all day long until he’s conscious – you might as well be talking to him about the sex life of the sea whale or somethin' like that, you know. What was the man down in, uh…in… some kind of snail, wasn't it?
(Sea lion.)
Somethin' like that – it's a snail down it San Diego. He was down there. The guy had a big grant from the government to study the sex life of some kind of a snail that lives at 400 ft. below sea level. You might as well talk to that snail about morality as you would talk to a fully conditioned man about morality. If he does something because he is conditioned to do it, is that moral, any more than a dog is moral because you taught him to scratch the door because you'll bop him on the head with newspapers for a number of times, huh? Don't call him moral. Really not; but, of course he's easier to live with, huh? In other words, domesticated humans are easier to herd than non-domesticated.
(Ahh…ah-ha!) (laughter)
Well, that's right, isn't it? Isn’t that what all your whole idea of morality is about – that you've been well domesticated?
We have no morality
because we're not conscious of what we're doing.
There can be no morality without consciousness.
There can be well-domesticated behavior, aren't we exact? But it’s just that animal bein’ domesticated.
(With those terms, can there be immorality?)
Same difference, wouldn't it?
(If you are aware, can there be immorality?)
Well, it would be easier to find out, wouldn't it? Would you like to be fully conscious and see if you could practice what you would call immorality, or is that the very antithesis term? If you're conscious, you obviously would not. You could – you say – but you know, you wouldn't because there would be no need to, huh? That's pretty obvious.
But when I experiment with… it’s a lot more fun to experiment with it than make a concept about it, you know. It’s easy to make concepts and then we can say, “Well, it sounds like this,” and we can reason upon that. But the point is, let’s see, huh?
What do we do? We wake up. It's the easiest thing in the world to do – only we say, “That's hard! That's hard!”
You know it's hard to get up every mornin' and I have grown for quite a while, but you know, we get up. That kind of wakin' up is not near as painful probably as wakin' up and being responsible. We don't wanna be responsible because this little thing keeps hollerin', says, “Get somebody else to do it for you and then you won't be responsible. You just do what you were told and carry that out, then you won't ever get in trouble. You'll be safe. And if anything goes haywire you can blame the one that told you.” Can't you? Hmm? That'd be nice. That’d be like if somebody said, “Well, you pull the trigger on this gun. It’s empty.” And you don't look, and pull it and blow your brains out, then you can blame him, is that right? Try it and see if you can.
(He’s dead right.)
Huh?
(He’s dead right.) (laughter)
He's dead right – he died doing what he was told to do and therefore he can't be held accountable, is that right? That's what we all want to do is not be held accountable. We did it because somebody told us to and therefore you can't blame me cause I just did what you told me to, Edna Mae. You told me to do it, now don't blame me, you know. But there is no concept of morality without consciousness – no concept of immorality without consciousness. But we don't want to bother to be conscious, do we, Jeannie? It's an awful lot easier just to react, huh? It’s so much more–
(It’s easier…)
No, the way of the transgressor's hard, but I don't have to wake up first. I can just react and then I can blame somebody because it's hard, can’t you? You know we never say, “Well, I have transgressed and produced a very difficult situation for myself.” We see what is to blame in our dream and then we can blame you for makin' it hard for me, huh? That right? That right, Joyce?
(Oh, right. Something to blame. Sure.)
But it's easy to find, too, aren't they? __________. So then we live by this, huh? No awareness at all – just emotional reactions in the real world and therefore, we have no real world at all. We only have a dream and we're purely over here [pointing out to the man-made world] – we're not of the real world at all, mostly, but we have, we are still mechanical.
(I know the ___ before that. How can we tell when you are really aware? Now, I tell Bob [her boyfriend] that I am aware of what I'm doing. He says, “No, you aren’t.”)
You know, who’s your authority?
(Well, I think I am. But those guys out there don’t think I am.)
Yeah, well, it’s really only concerned with him. Are you aware that you're doin' what you say you're doin' from consciousness and not reaction, and is Bob your authority or your husband?
(He’s my boyfriend.)
Oh, good, keep him as a boyfriend, don't let him be your authority. He's a sweet guy and I love him, but he's not a very good authority. (laughter)
(That oughta hold him!) (raucous laughter) (talk over each other)
That's all right, Jeanie. You see about Jeannie, but he's not a good authority. But he is a sweet, wonderful boyfriend, isn’t' he? Good. Keep him that way. Don't choose him for an authority because he really probably wouldn't know anything. Besides that, you wouldn't be responsible and accept him as an authority anyway, would you?
(No.)
No. So, you stick up for number one. Keep yourself conscious. Don't worry about who else is. You know the business we usually spend is we spend most of our day lookin' around to see if anybody else is conscious; and you know – this would be a pretty good world to live in, wouldn't it? Then you wouldn't have to be, you could stay asleep.
Everybody's ___ one time. All right, don't talk all at once.
(If somebody was conscious and I'm not, then I gotta catch up.)
You have? (laughter) What about you, Jeannie?
(Well, let me elaborate again. I say that I'm consciously doing what I'm doing and I just hear people say, “Jeannie, you're not really conscious because you're not supposed to get to that kind of perfection. You are supposed to stay down.”)
I don't know what they're doin'. You worry about other people. Just worry–
(Well, I’m not.)
I don't care what they say. It isn’t what they say; then, of course, I would have to check up every day to see if I was conscious or, as Donna said, in the dream I was awake ____ you know, to see how it was goin' or whether it’s difficult.
No one else can say whether you're conscious. That’s something on the inside of you, okay? Unless the body is un-activated, there's nobody can say whether you're conscious because you can look at em – they all look pretty conscious. But most often, they’re not. But you're the only one that can determine and it's only between you and X and not between anybody else, okay?
I notice most people say, “I'm doin' this because I want to and I'm consciously doin' it,” just like they say, “I'm doin' this cause I'm free to do it.” So we only say, check up on ourselves, you know, not on other people. That’s to be judges and to be accepting authorities and all these kind of things.
But you know, it's so easy to say, “Well, I'm just intentionally throwin' this tizzy,” you know. But if it raises your blood pressure a little bit, it probably isn't that way. But if you throw a tizzy and puttin' on an act, it doesn't raise your blood pressure. It doesn't bloodshot your eyes and you don’t get a bellyache from it after while or any of those good things. It’s just kind of a show you put on.
But, it's so easy to jump into that little thing to say, “I'm conscious, I'm free…” and all these
things when it has no meaning to it. So, we're not contending whether anybody is conscious or not. We're talking about the possibility of it. We're talking about what we look at, not judging. And judging is,
Am I doing this from Awareness?
Or is it trying to get me safe, comfortable, avoid pain,
to gain attention, to escape disapproval, etc.?”
In other words, the only way
we can determine whether we're conscious or not
is look at motivation.
And as we look to a motivation,
we begin to see that we do have one great talent:
we are excellent kidders of ourselves.
(Oh, boy!)
In other words, a nicer way of saying it is that we are the blessedest liars to ourselves we ever met, you know. What other people tell us, that doesn't matter about their lives. But we lie to ourselves incessantly and because it agrees with our Vanity and our Pride of our goodness and our superiority over the rest of em. So the only thing if we would probably look at is to take a few minutes – ever few minutes, you know, about 60 minutes out of ever hour; that's a pretty small amount – to see how much we're lyin' to ourselves. That would probably be a fair little approach to see what am I doing? Now you wouldn't want to tell yourself that if you said what am I doing and all of a sudden you said, “Well, I'm lying to myself,” huh? Wooo, that wouldn’t be so nice. But it pays very well to be the truth for a change and then the truth is what frees one, not one's struggles and efforts to be good or different or any of the other things.
A person who has experimented with it has found to discover that I am a liar; that I lie to myself is the greatest step out of it that there is. To attempt to say, “Well, I'm gonna quit lyin' to myself,” you just added one more big lie onto it right there because you're just… that was a lie and you're gonna keep on addin' some more.
So the great first step is to see what am I doing without judging or any other thing and is not going to be hard to do it. Only the idea of starting is hard; and the hardness is living by emotions – that is where the real difficulty in things come. It is missing the mark. It is winding up with the wishes of missing the mark, which is called sin, is death – death while we're walking around and _________.
(I got [pauses, starts to say something again, pauses] Umm… you know what I think?
Hm-mm.
(Then tell me!) (laughter)
Because you're tryin' to find a way you can say it that I won't criticize the question.
(No..) (laughter)
That's what you're thinking. How you can get it out without saying should or ought to or things like that, honey.
(Okay, would it be okay to lie?)
Do you see what you're doin'? You’re huntin' for why you're gonna say it to avoid any possibility of being disapproved of.
(Okay. Right. Take the picture of that.)
Right, I got one.
(Instead of just writing down “it is important to please my authorities” and “the purpose of life, of living is to be non-disturbed” – instead of writin' that down and in order to help you really understand what it's all about – would it be easier, better for me or for anyone to write down, “It is… the purpose of life is not to be non-disturbed.”)
Try and see if it fits you better. I have no objections. You said exactly the same thing, it wouldn't change a thing.
(Why? It is not important to please my authorities. It's turning the.......)
Well, it’s not the way it's in there, though. The Picture of Man says it is that and I'm not telling you that it's not that.
(I know, but when … it would help us)
Well, you go ahead and use it that way. Help yourself all your life, honey.
(I played that game.)
Right, you tried it, didn't you, George? Ask George how it worked. He experimented with it. In case you wanna know ahead of time, so you won't have to wait …
(all talk - unintelligible)
Okay, folks, we're going to have a break until 1:30 for…
[End of CD 4 of 4; End of “Point of Awareness” Workshop
Scottsdale, Arizona 1970]
NOTE:
In our DropBox (found at “Links”), this workshop has 6 CDs.
However, CDs 5 and 6 are repeats of CDs 1 through 4.
We obviously omitted them here.
Because this is how Jim Wilson shared them originally,
they remain in DropBox so people know nothing of value was removed.