Workshop - DeLand Workshop (1977

(babies-children-teaching-not i's)

[brackets for clarification]
(Audience participation has parenthesis so you'll be able to distinguish who's talking.)

What's covered in this workshop:

1. Definition of Truth
2. Babies - being born--first purpose--survival and not I's--babies and parents
3. Reporting
4. Ancient inner and outer schools
5. Not I's
6. Expectations and Ideals
7. Giving teaching to others
8. Necessity increasing
9. Helping others
10. Motives
11. Selfishness and greed - definition
12. Self Remembering
13. Partnership with X
14. Healing
15. Controlling Circumstances

[When I had been in the Work for a short time, I thought I'd be real smart and give the Work to my children so they'd be less disturbed through their lives. Of course, I missed the point. I didn't understand that the process of this Life is to be born, become conditioned, and then at the proper time and circumstance (with the increasing of necessity), hopefully my children would question the purpose of living and ask--then-and only then-would it be appropriate to introduce them to some ideas to work with in order to see what's going on in their lives. This workshop is the only one I have ever heard where my teacher went into depth about babies with relation to the six methods of seeking non-disturbance (not I's) and that they are appropriate for babies, but not appropriate to us as adults………Marsha]

[Since the tape is very old, I was not able to discern many of the questions asked by the audience since the people were too far away from the mike……Marsha.
And so we begin the workshop with the teacher saying………….]

What I hold to be true is what I live by--very few people have considered that when they're looking for truth, they really already have it. Everybody you come in contact with is living by something, and that something is what they hold to be true. Now it may be more than "one something", frequently it is; and it leaves them in a state of conflict. So we will try to discuss a little bit how we might work with other people and ourselves, so that we would not get in a state of conflict. We could then determine what's true for me.

First we will make a picture of how a human being is designed. Now don't accept this because I said so.

Number 1, we can see that everybody around us has a body. We don't see those that don't. Man is not "that body"; but that's a very necessary aspect of it--as long as we refer to him as man.

Now also everybody we see has something that we refer to as an awareness. Even if one is sound asleep, you tickle them with a feather and they sneeze. You poke them a bit, and they wake up. So they're aware of what someone else says--we're aware of temperature---a thousand things.

Now there is something there that we will refer to as X. We don't know what that is, but we know when it's present and when it's not. If it's not, we have a little service and say "here lies the remains"--and there is nothing happening. So whatever that is, I will refer to it as Life. I don't know what Life is except that I can tell it's around. I can see what it does; but I don't believe there is a definition of Life. Have you ever heard a definition of what Life is? You don't have to have a definition because you can see a tree without it and you know it's a dead tree. You could say that energy is Life--with a little intelligence possibly. You're chasing a rainbow. They say God is love. You say, "What is love?" Love is Life, and so forth. We know It exists, but we can't put a definition on it. Even electricity, which is an energy, cannot exactly be defined. A book starts out "In the beginning God". It could just as easily have said "In the beginning Energy," or "In the beginning Life." Since we can't define It, we use the algebraic term X.

Each of these living things always has some Function going on-you're eating, you're sleeping, you're resting, you're talking. You ask someone what they're doing and they say, "Nothing.", but that's not an accurate statement because they're doing something--they're breathing. There's so much activity going on inside of us each moment that it would be impossible to stop it.

There are four aspects

The physical body,
An awareness,
Life, and a
Function-and………..
We each exist in an environment.

From the environment we receive certain impressions. From the physical body we receive certain sensations. From those impressions and sensations, we form an idea of the way things are--we have a feeling about it--even to "I like" or "I don't like."

Visual Reporting To X

If the awareness goes with "I like", that is reported to X and X generates a certain amount of energy, the amount required in the physical body, to carry out the appropriate Function in that respect. I can climb up on this stool here and jump off onto the floor. I don't know how much I weigh, and I don't know how far it is to the floor; but I can look down there--that's all that's needed. When I jump. X generates the exact amount of energy to hit the floor.

Now supposed you wanted to pull a trick on me, and you cut a hole in the floor and put a carpet over it. I look and see the carpet. I then jump to the carpet and go two inches further. You'd have to take me to the emergency ward to get the bones fixed because I wasn't prepared for those other two inches. By the same token if you put the floor two inches higher when I jump, I would have enough energy mobilized to go to the floor. I wouldn't use it all and there would be an explosion and you'd still have to take me to the emergency ward to get something done for me.

So we could say that this Life principle, which we will refer to as X, always does the appropriate thing for the information It receives; and the information it receives carries a feeling about the sensations and impressions I have. Sometimes they are in combinations, and sometimes they're alone. Now if all these were without "conditioning", we would probably be able to handle every situation no matter how unexpected it may be.

Being Born

Now the most unexpected event that ever happened to any of us was the day we were born. We had been floating around in a totally non-disturbed environment; and we suddenly found ourselves in the earth world where we had to breathe and do all sorts of things. Now I'm sure the day before, the last thing the infant could have conceived of was to be alive in the earth world.

The baby is alive, but in the uterine world. Now suddenly it's the earth world. Now the baby could be no less prepared for any event to come along. He had no education, no preparation; but he still had a combination of these two aspects we mentioned without any conditioning-much-so the little one reported something--a feeling to X--and X did the appropriate thing. So we all got born. So It can handle any unexpected situation.

Of course, we all spend a lot of time anticipating what tomorrow or next year's going to bring. We make all kinds of "elaborate plans". Did it work out most of the time?--or did something else happen and you got along fine anyway. It's a wonderful indoor activity or pass-time making all these "elaborate plans".

What we're looking at is the Picture of Man as he is. [Illustrations of the picture of man can be found on this web site or at www.pictureofman.com]

Each of us lives by what to me is true. Now what we came up with is based on one fundamental decision.

Once a decision-conclusion-- is made, that conclusion is the rule of attitude/action for that individual from then on.

Even though that decision was made when we were six minutes old-you are now whatever age you want to make it--28, 32, 50--it doesn't make any difference--that conclusion is still there.

Truth

So you might say one establishes one's truth by a conclusion. The conclusion equals my truth, not the truth, but my truth. We'll try to go slow and see what decisions we've made, and therefore, the truth we live by.

Now we're not doing this with the idea that anything we say is " right or wrong", "good or bad", but simply that it is.

We can make it conscious over a little while and observe it in action. Then, if it suits our purposes, we can change it. We can make us a new truth, which we might say is a new purpose of living.

The awareness function has the capability of making the conclusions or forming decisions or deciding what is true.

How the baby developed his first truth

The first truth that any of us established was in the process of being born--don't take my word for anything, check it out. If you got any kids around, or you know any, check with them--I don't care if they're only a day old or if they are 100 years old. I think you could check up and see it's still there. The first truth was a very logical one. We were floating around in a totally non-disturbed state. You never got short of breath because enough oxygen comes through a little tube. You never got hungry because of that tube. You never felt any strain to get rid of waste material--if you ever traveled 700 miles across country you know about that. So you never have any of this stress or strain. There was no loud noise to startle you--every sound is muffled. You never needed to turn the air conditioner up or turn the heat on--everything's taken care of. You could say you lived in a literal Garden of Eden. You had everything you could ever "want for" provided for you without you even wanting for it.

Everything was provided for me without me even knowing what it was I wanted. In the uterine world, something read it and gave me everything I could have wanted; but I never did get to want it because I already had it. But then one fine morning about 6:00 a.m. back in the mountains of Appalachia, my whole system got changed--I got born. Suddenly, I was suffocated. I was under intense pressure. I felt sensations that, to me, were totally unexpected and unknown--those were very difficult. Now I happen to remember that day--believe it or not. And I don't care whether you do; but I remember it, and it's the most God-awful thing I ever went through then or since. I do remember that, and it was difficult. It was a sense of suffocation--feeling like you're going to pass out--there was tremendous pressure, pain, and sensations which I didn't like--which is what pain is. Pain is only sensations--some I like, some I don't like. I didn't like any of these.

And so with feeling--without any words--I didn't know any language--I formed a feeling that the whole purpose of living was to regain that non-disturbed state which was so elegant just a few minutes ago, huh? Seems a reasonable thing to do.

This is our truth--formed by a conclusion. The purpose of living is to regain the non-disturbed state. We said earlier that once a conclusion is made, it is the rule of attitude/action from that moment on; unless the person somehow or other re-evaluates the whole thing by making that conclusion conscious and sees that the conclusion no longer fits my purpose. Everybody that you run into is trying to be non-disturbed and is very upset because they have been. Everyone is making a big noise that they should not be disturbed in any way. In other words, there should never be a challenge.

The uterine world is a world of non-disturbance. The earth plain which we got incarnated into is a place where we're under constant challenge--more or less-there's always some sort of challenge going on. Now we've been trying to live with this original unconscious purpose for many years.

Now we will see that we found methods for dealing with the disturbance.

The first method I used in attempting to be non-disturbed was to "complain". I cried a lot. Now I found that crying worked reasonably well because every time I made a lot a noise, some big something came along and picked me up and tried to make me comfortable. Did that happen to you? It worked for two years, and then it didn't work so well.

Now one thing we all want to gain is physical comfort and pleasure. And of course we want to escape the sensations we don't like which we refer to as pain.

It would be interesting to observe that sensations are the way that X reports to awareness that something needs to be done, or that we are doing something that's detrimental to our well being. X gets impressions from the environment as well as the body. It tells you when you need a drink of water. Would you know when it's time to have a glass of water; or do you receive a very definite message that you call thirst. If you don't respond and get the glass of water, then It gets more intense. X gets more insistent that you get it.

If you were to pick up an object in the kitchen like a hot skillet handle, you receive a direct message from X to set it down, quick--drop it, because it's going in injure. Now there's no way that you could know what temperatures you can handle unless you receive this information from X. The awareness is only a Function of X, and only X has the intelligence and the Life to know what is detrimental and what is not. In other words, you can eat something which tastes very good--you might eat a whole lot of it because it tastes good. Then in a little while X says there's way too much of this and begins to shovel it out. So X is the intelligence--it reports to awareness what's going on--there is the perfect partnership going on--and you get these reports.

Basically we don't like to have this discomfort. So we receive impressions from X that we're doing something that is not to the well-being of the whole unit. What do you call that?-pain!

So what we usually do is get us some nice little something that numbs out our ability--the awareness's ability to hear X. I hear people say, "Oh I would love to be able to have God talk to me, or have Spirit tell me something." Spirit does it every day; but the minute one hears it, one grabs a sedative or a good alcoholic drink, or something like that; and then one gets enough of it so one won't hear Spirit anymore. So Spirit tells us something we didn't want to hear. It says "You're goofing up." But we didn't want to hear that--that's the last thing we wanted to hear. One can't shut Spirit up; but one can make oneself incapable of hearing the information received from X. Then I can go out and do things that are destructive.

Another thing that we would like to gain is attention. And we want to escape being ignored or rejected. Have you ever been rejected? If a woman or a man gets rejected by a romantic partner or maybe a good friend-suddenly there's an intense love. Watch it and see.

Then we also want to gain approval and escape all disapproval. Now you must have some attention and you must have some approval. You need attention to survive and approval in order to thrive; but you don't get it by demanding it or hollering about it. You got it the first few years of your life that way; but those methods don't work anymore.

We also want to feel important-we generally substitute words like "useful", or shall we say "worthy". We also want to get over the feeling of inferiority.

The methods to gain non-disturbance - The Not "I" families

The first method we said was to "complain". That one worked pretty well for a while, but very shortly we discovered we needed another method; and so we began to "stick up for our rights". That's when you get a little belligerent-unknowingly--nobody's finding any fault with it. We're simply being aware of what we live by. We stuck up for our rights.

Now have we ever considered what our rights are? I arrived at this world, I assume pretty much like everybody else did, with the slaves we got when we arrived. I arrived without a shirt one, without understanding the language, and totally helpless; and I found a world well equipped to care for me--food, clothing, house, roads, transportation systems and on and on. I looks to me like I had a privilege and not a right. But when someone has a privilege handed to them three days in a row, they begin to mistake it for a "right."

If some guy comes to your back door, and you give him a sandwich every day, then the fourth day he comes and wants that sandwich; and you say you don't have anything in the house to make a sandwich, he is very angry and says you just don't like him any more, you're stingy, you're rude and many other things.

So we start sticking up for our non-existent rights. If we should happen to recognize that I have no rights, I might see that I have privileges. Now you don't stick up for privileges. By a little effort on your own, you maintain, enhance and gain more privileges. But when we think of them as rights, all we do is stick up for them.

So all the institutions like to tell us that we have rights and that they're going to get them for us. That way we can remain dependent upon them. If you have a "right" to be treated kindly every day, and you're not; what do you do? Now if I recognize being treated kindly is truly a privilege, I will begin to see, maybe, I wasn't quite taking care of my privileges. I don't want to lose any of my privileges. I want to maintain them, enhance them and gain more.

One of our truths is to" stick up for our rights"; and another one of our truths is to "complain" and the big truth is that the whole "purpose of living" is to "be non-disturbed. So long about now the infant is two years old and the parents have had enough of this sticking up for rights and complaining, and they begin to housebreak the baby so to speak--train it. So they begin to make "pleasers" out of us.

They teach us that "It is important to please them"--and I mean very important. If we don't, then we're going to have all sorts of difficulties--they may even throw us out. So we'll feel guilty. So we become "pleasers". "It's important to please them"--and this sets up a conflict.

Conflict begins

Now there are two opposing poles within the inner state because "pleasing" is not in accordance with complaining and sticking up for our rights. Now we got two diametrically opposed truths. Now we have two truths to try to get the same thing we want. This way one will be made to feel "guilty" because one didn't please them; but these two other methods will make one "feel sorry for oneself" and we hear thoughts such as: "We don't ever get to do what we want to do," and "We always have to do what they want to do."

Now then this sets up something called conflict. It sets up duality. Now we become a disintegrated or fragmented being. You might say now we have brain one or "A" side which wants to stick up for it's rights and complain, and brain two or "B" side that wants to please everybody. Now that's conflict. That's being between a rock and a hard place.

We also get caught in the conflict a little more after this. Now our parents or teachers take us down to see the policeman at the sheriff's office and the jail. They take us to church and show us pictures of hell and many other awful things; and tell us that, it is "important to believe and do as we're told by our authorities". Is that about right? You have certain authorities you better live by or something terrible is going to happen to you. You're going to go to jail or hell or get in some other trouble; and nobody will like you--and "what will people think"? My mother said that with an intensity that sounded like it was a fate worse than death.

Now do all your "authorities" agree? Did you ever stop to think of that for a moment? You had authorities, but one told you to do one thing and the other authority told you to do something else. Now we got another conflict added into the being. That really makes it difficult.

The child, now, is in such a conflict and tries to find another method to get out of it because you see childhood is not all a bed of rose petals. So the child comes up with another decision "it is important to be different." Now if you've ever tried to be different than what you are at this moment; and you checked up on it, then you found that "trying to be different" was a very frustrating thing because you are what you are at this moment. You may be all together different than what you were six years ago; but you are not different than what you are now. But nevertheless you think "it's important that you be different" different than what you are now. There is always something that needs to be different. So this sets up a big "set of truth" over here trying to go this way of being different; and over here we have this truth which is going in an opposite direction. [So we have five different methods of trying to get comfort, pleasure, attention, approval and feeling important.]

And so we then add one more method on here in a desperate attempt to have a little comfort--we think we have really found out how it all works out after a while. We come up with the conclusion that if he, she, they, it, this, that, and you was all different, then wouldn't I have it wonderful. Everything would be fine, wouldn't it? Wouldn't I have it nice? And that is the "blamer"--that's very simple. We constantly think something is to blame, and that makes me a victim.

Now as long as I'm a victim, there's nothing I can do about anything. That's a total bar against doing anything about anything.

So this locks everything up, and a person goes through life feeling somewhat of a victim. A victim of childhood, a victim of economy, a victim of this, a victim of the weather, a victim of disease--you name it, and we're a victim of it. And of course, there's nothing we can do about it--I'm totally helpless. As long as I'm blaming, there's nothing I can do.

If once I could see that I'm responsible, something might happen; but there's no way to see one is responsible while all this other stuff is going on in the inner being. So now there's two different impressions going to X about almost anything that comes along. Maybe the A side is 60 per cent and the B side is 40 per cent. I'll tell you what you'll do. You'll go with the side that is convincing you 60 per cent; but then you'll feel badly because you did it. Maybe the next day or an hour from now the A and B sides are reversed. You will go with the 60 per cent in the reverse of the sides; and then you'll feel sorry for yourself for having done the other one.

This is the routine most people go through for minutes, hours, days, months and years; but one is so distracted, one isn't aware of it--but it's there.

I know one sweet little lady who works with us. She had a trying day--she got fired. She said, "I handled it real well all day". "I looked and saw how it was; but as I was just dropping off to sleep about 11:00 at night, I heard a little voice (one or two of those inner "personalities" referred to as not i's) say to another little voice, "She's going to sleep now, we can go to work on her." And she said, "They did." She had a wild horrible night in every direction.

These things are not entities, but they act like an entity. The more we identify with them, the more powerful they become.

We refer to them as "not I's". That means you do not have control over them. Now a not "i", I don't have control over. I can't keep them from waiting around until I'm about to go to sleep and then they take over. However, I do not have to put any VALUE on what they say.

The whole bit is we have changed a value system somewhere along the way. So, I wouldn't value "complaining" anymore. You're slowly seeing that it doesn't work like it did when you were very small. You don't "stick up for your rights" quite as wild as you used to, but you still use it. Neither do you "blame" or feel you are a total victim as much as you used to; but it's still there. You don't feel the total compulsion to "please" everybody, but those not I's are still there. If you don't do it, you get a certain little guilty feeling now and then. By the same token, you don't have to "believe and do as you're told by authorities", you can check up for yourself. But there's an awful lot of "authorities" sit in the inner state. So if you try to stop, they still keep on working. And you're not trying to be so "different"; but nevertheless, they're still there. Some are trying to lose weight, some are trying to gain weight. Some are trying to get more tan, and others are trying to avoid the sun like the plague because it will give them skin cancer or wrinkles. So you see we're always working on being a bit "different."

Now then, this is our truth. So there's no use going out and looking for THE truth as long as I already have it. I may wish to change this truth; not because this one is right or wrong, but because it keeps me torn up all the time. This is the truth everybody lives with. If you tell somebody that this is the truth they're living by, it would be like you making a New Year's Resolution--it lasts until the first challenge.

Frequently I meet people that work with other people--they give good advice--they point out things that are true to the advice giver; but not to this other person. Now you cannot add a new truth on top of the old one. This old one has to be looked at; and maybe the person says, "I will re-evaluate this." Then we can make a new truth.

But as long as this old truth is still in there, unknowing to the person, then it is basically an unknown. Consequently, there is no way to make a new truth, and just put it on top of the old one which is already there. The old truth is well established and running on it's own.

Some man talked about the fact that you cannot put new wine in old bottles. If you do, it will blow the bottle. You can't patch an old garment with a new piece of cloth. The old bottle of wine is our truth; and you can't start trying to put other ideas in there. Consequently, the whole thing explodes and nothing is accomplished. The person is still going to live by the old ideas of not "I's", but has more ideas added into this old one down here which says "believe and do as my authorities says".

Maybe he accepts me as an authority, God forbid; and will try to do what I told him. But he has got all of this old stuff in here, and this is his purpose. This is what he is going to go back and do--in spite of all our efforts--in spite of his best intentions, and his efforts to stay away from it. So we only increase his misery in many cases, rather than do something for him. His conflict only got more intense.

This is where we would work with his truth first. We know what the person's truth is; and if he gets to recognize it, he is then in a position to re-evaluate his old truth and say that doesn't fit my purpose anymore.

Now I don't find a fault one with this because a baby would never survive unless he made this as his purpose while he is in babyhood.

He would never get through babyhood unless he "complained" because he has no language; and we'd never know when he needed a drink, or needed some food. We'd probably figure out when he needed his pants changed, sooner or later; but nevertheless we wouldn't be able to check up on all of his needs.

We wouldn't know if he had a bellyache or headache or something else going on. We wouldn't know he had gas on his tummy and was having the colic unless he complained and cried. So, this is perfect truth for an infant--for childhood. I think it was Peanuts that said of all the "hoods", he thought childhood was the most dangerous "hood".

The first shot out is to be aware of what I hold to be true now. Then maybe I could re-evaluate the present circumstance with the truth and see if it fits. Now I'm no longer a child; and I have experimented with it a bit and found out that "complaining" is the last method I can find that will get me what I want. Is that about right? Does it ever work? anymore?

(Once in a while.)

Yes, it works once in a while, but there is so much effort to get it. I have been in places where I made a lot of noise, and they gave me what I wanted to get me out of there. But along with it, I got an awful lot of disapproval; and I don't like that very well. Most people get your attention by complaining..

(Yes.)

You don't like to feel guilty, do you? But then you want to "stick up for your rights" because they are "complaining". Is that correct? You certainly have "rights" not to be treated that way. But they still do it, so you must not have a "right". You can have a privilege if you work at it; but you don't have a right, or they wouldn't do it.

You see a "right" is something that cannot be taken away from you. You tell me what it is that cannot be taken away from you-I'd like to hear it. Can you tell me anything that can't be taken away from you? Even Life can be taken away with a club in a matter of seconds.

(You can't take away my inner feelings.)

You just said that these people call up on the telephone and ruined your inner feeling. They are in charge of your inner feelings-you're not.

(Well, that is true.)

Not I's are appropriate for a baby in order to survive.

(Aren't the not "I's" OK for infants?)

Oh yes, if a child didn't "stick up for his rights"--especially if he has brothers and sisters--he'd never make it.

The baby has to "stick up for it's rights" once in a while or the parents would totally make it into a doll, I think. From the best I have observed, they'd have it behaving like it was wound up and programmed to perform, so it's getting back to what? Usually the baby has two parents and they didn't agree--that correct? If you please one parent, you'd probably be displeasing the other, that correct? So then you had to stick up for your rights to be yourself a little bit--very appropriate for a child.

'It's important to please them" is very nice for a child to do because if the child never pleased the parents, he'd probably have a whole lot more noise than he already does.

If the child didn't "believe and do as he was told by his authorities", he's uneducable. He couldn't learn a profession. He has to accept them as authorities; and then he can check it out later when he goes into practice. It's using what he learned--he can check out whether they gave him straight stuff. Now you've had a lot of stuff that when you check it out in practice, it didn't work--and there's part of it that did work out.

So if you never accepted authorities as a child, you would be uneducable - a problem child--minimal or maximum brain damage. I've seen a few kids that wouldn't take authorities, and they were called brain damaged. I wouldn't accept authorities; but I kept it to myself so they didn't catch on. I didn't let them know that I wasn't buying what they were laying out on me. I said, "Uh huh", and went on nicely. I spoke up a couple of times and found that didn't work; and of course, I think the child pays more attention to self if he or she thinks "they ought to be different."

And probably the only way a child can grow up and still be sane is to have something to "blame"--because we got to have time to get all that conditioning absorbed on us. If the child did not come up with the ability to blame somewhere along the way--and couldn't find what to put it on, he would probably would be insane before he was 11 years old.

All the seven decisions are there before the age of seven. Many of us are precocious, and maybe had all of them by the age of five; but I would say seven would probably be the latest that all seven of the decisions of the not I's were in the child--all made without words basically. They're all made with intense feelings, in many cases. They're very intense and they operate as the person.

So this is the foundation of many stories like Cinderella and what-have-you. There's the wicked old stepmother, an ugly daughter and the other ugly daughter and they kept poor Cinderella out in the kitchen scrubbing pots and pans until the fairy godmother came by one night and gave her simple things that made a great Life..................................

(other side of cassette tape, so some previous words are missing; but it is describing the fact that the not I's at that age are very necessary and are the only way a baby could survive.)

It was the only way I could have survived. The baby had to have them. The difference is that some of us made them very intense and have never re-evaluated. The conflict was intense. Now the ones that didn't make it so intense feel that they are very normal. We can take care of those other people that made it intense.

I worked in a mental hospital for quite a while. I was an intern. The patients in there were doing the same thing everybody else was--the only difference was the intensity.

Without being aware of the fundamental truth that person is living by, the person is not going to change it. The child may be able to change it--sometime--if he or she first recognizes what their present truth is. The child also has to recognize that it doesn't work now. You can see it doesn't work. You can't put new wine in old bottles. I have seen someone that left all this old truth in tact and tried to put a new "ideal" in there from someone else. That truth may be OK for that somebody else--but may not be truth for everybody. I hear an awful lot of people refer to a truth that nobody lives by--so it must not be truth because nobody's living by it.

The whole definition of truth is--that which one lives by.

You can't keep from living by it very long at a time--you're gonna do it. So this is the most valuable thing a person can do is to first recognize what they're present truth is--that which their living by. Then they can decide what they want to do about it.

Never would I allow anyone I was "working with" to find fault with these; they simply are--they do exist. Their truth was made with the only light the person had; and I would say totally necessary when made--but they're used too long.

It would be like I came walking in here today with a suit of armor--I'd be out of place, wouldn't I? Now at one time it was appropriate to go out on Sunday morning with a hat--but not today. I could come in with a top hat and ruffles around my neck, but that would be out of place, wouldn't it?

So these truths are used long after their purpose has been served; and when we do that, we obviously are going to have a tremendous amount of conflict--non-survival in living. They're dying then because they're trying to live by truth which no longer fits our time, place, and circumstance. It did fit perfectly some time in the past.

So whole bit is #1, we check up to see what truth we are living by and whether it fits my purpose today or not. See if it fits my time place and circumstance. Then we're in a position to establish a new purpose--or a new truth which could possibly be befitting to the present time, place, and circumstance. And I want it so that I can check up any day in the future and change it again--because my time, place and circumstance may change dramatically-quickly!

You know our lifestyle can change suddenly sometimes. It changes drastically the first day you got married and then again the first day you had a child. It changes even more when you get the second one. So you see that you need a flexibility of establishing a new truth whenever your circumstances change.

Now the old truths worked perfectly in childhood; but we continued with those truths on beyond childhood. We are using the same childhood truth whenever we're grown people. We're still living by these truths and trying desperately to find truth where we'd be comfortable, huh? You're not going to find it because we still got the old one established; and it's necessary to re-evaluate and see that this one doesn't fit my time place and circumstance.

(Do you have an opportunity to observe the children that are being brought in without cutting the umbilical chord and laying the child on the Mother's......)

That's pretty new at this time, but the only thing different is the intensity. The child still has the urge to be non-disturbed; but it's not the intensity of the disturbance of the old way of grabbing the child up by the feet and slapping them on the bottom. It's more sensible to not create the intensity of the old way; but you still can't say that this will prevent the urge for non-disturbance because kids are very individualistic and they all make different things quite important.

I've Worked With Little Kids That Had All Together Different Circumstances And Each Of Them Told Me That Their Folks Didn't Like Them.

The Young Child Who Got Everything-Money

I knew one little kid who's parents said, "Our son is never going to want for anything like we did." The parents grew up in the depression days and didn't have money; so they wanted this kid to never have to go through what they did. So they set a basket next to the telephone and kept it was full of money--dollar bills--so he could just go get money whenever he wanted it. Everything he ever said he wanted, they got it for him including a ___(couldn't hear item) ________,

One day he called and said he wanted to talk to me, so I took him out by the countryside and said, "What's the trouble?"

He said, "Well, my folks don't like me." I knew the circumstances--the mother worked for me, and I also knew the father real well. I said, "Well, how do you figure that?" He said, "They will do anything to keep me out of their hair." He said, "I'll show you." So we go back to the house and he says, "I want to go to the show." Both parents jump up and say, "Do you want us to take you?" He said, "No, I won't go to the show, I'll go to the party." They said "Do you want to ride your bike over there or do you want us to take you."

He said "They'll do anything to keep me out of their hair." If I want a corvette, they'll buy it. He did want one, and they did buy it. Now that proves that they didn't like him because they would do anything to keep him out of their hair. So with regard to this little baby that was born here naked and is laid on the Mama's belly without the umbilical cord cut-we don't know what the kid will do.

The Kid Who Had To Pay His Way

There was another kid that lived across town about the same age. He called me within the week. Now he also said his folks didn't like him. I said "How come?" He said everything I want, they make me pay half the money out of my stupid $2.00 a week allowance.

So I can't figure out what you're going to decide about anything--[with regard to raising children]. Now I know that every child is going to go through this urge for non-disturbance, but I'd like to make it of the lowest intensity possible. But I'm still going to work for them.

One of these days the child is going to have to be aware of what his or her truth is and see that they could possibly re-evaluate that truth in the light of their present time, place, and circumstance.

I would say it's far more sensible to use that form of birth than it is the violent mode; and possibly it would be less intense. But he's going to get a pain here or a pain there and he's going to decide for non-disturbance anyway, so what's the difference.

I wouldn't assume that everybody had these [not I's]; however I've had the occasion to work with a few thousand people and observed a half a million more; and I've never seen anybody that didn't have not I's within them that are seeking non-disturbance.

Observe around you and watch people, and I bet you'll see they all have it. There will be varying intensities--all the way from extremely intense (which makes the person wildly psychotic), to moderately intense (which makes them neurotic), down to just moderately (which makes them normal). And if you ever find one that doesn't have them then you'll have something else to look at, OK?

(Question: unintelligible)

The way you see things determines the way that you're going to feel about them. You could say X do this, X do that, and it won't pay a bit of attention in the world to you; but if you Feel you want to stand up, what happens?

Do you know how to stand up?

(Yes)

What are the first set of muscles you would move if you were in the present position you are right now? What would be the first set of muscles you would move if you were going to stand up?

(My legs.)

Let's try it and see?

The first ones you use are in the back of your neck. Try it again and see?

You see you don't move your legs before you use your neck muscles. We don't stand from the feet up. You see there's no way you can prop any of these jointed bodies up. That's why dead bodies can't be propped up. So none of us know how to stand up.

Thank goodness you don't have to be concerned with it. You only feel that you wish to stand, and X takes care of it. You don't know how to swallow food-- you're only aware of what you want to do, and X does the work.

Have you thought about breathing lately?

It goes on all the time without you doing anything about it. If that was left up to you, you'd never get anything else done except take care of your breathing all day. You'd only have a minute to do anything else. You'd have to be busy thinking about breathing all the time. You see, we assume we know how to do all sorts of things, and we don't know a thing in the world about them. You don't know how to write, you're only aware of what you want to write and it's down there. Watch it and see.

(Who invented astrology?)

The not "i's" invented that. I don't think humans invented that stuff. I'm talking today about what we hold to be true.

Now if one were to hold to be true that "believing that It's important to believe and do as I am told by my authorities" and my "authority told me I was a capricorn, and that Capricorns have thus and so and thus and so." Say that I accepted that as being true. Now, I would probably live by those astrological ideas a portion of the time--even though I'd only accepted it as being the attributes of Capricorns.

Now people often ask me "What sign are you?" And I have told them I was every one of the twelve and even included a few of the Chinese ones just to make it interesting for me. Every one of them said, "I knew it from the moment I saw you." I told someone the other day that I was Aquarius, and they knew it from the moment they saw me.

Sometimes I say, "Well, if you're 'hep' on this stuff, you should be able to tell me." Not one of those people have taken me on.

I've had people say "Well, I'm a Taurus, so I have to be like a bull." They use it as a justification, which is another word for blame. I am neither "for" or "opposed" to astrology. It began many years ago-it was a form of a school to teach what we're talking about.

There Were Four Ancient Brands Of Schools.

There was the Kabala, Alchemy, magic, and Astrology. Each one was used to teach what we talk about. I've only started to scratch the surface. They took people into the school and used it two ways.

There was an "inner school" and an "outer school."

In the school of Astrology, they used the "outer school" to read characters and define the future, and to prognosticate with--something everybody liked. That way the teachers kept their heads on their shoulders [were not beheaded] while they were teaching something their heads would have been cut off for had those in rule of that time knew that the ideas were being taught.

So the teachers let all the people be there. Certain students were studied by the teachers who then decided who could be invited into the inner school to find out what the school was really all about. So what we see today as astrology is left over from the "outer school" of a legitimate school; and it was what was used to "bum-fuzzle" the authorities--the "outer" version of it. It was merely used to keep the authorities from assuming that these were subversive people. The rulers would think they'd better cut the teachers heads off before the teachers took over everything.

Now in magic they were going to control spirit. The magician is going to subject spirit and make it do his will. Incidentally, these work two ways. You can complain for yourself and you can complain for another. You can blame for yourself or you can blame for another. You can stick up for your rights or tell another person how to start sticking up for his. You can try to please other people for yourself or you can try to please them for somebody else. You can quote authorities for yourself or you can have authorities quoted for other people. You can quote their authorities. I can find out who your authorities are and I'll start quoting them and you'll think I'm real good. And then, of course, I can tell you how different you are, or I can try to be different. Now there's 12 families of these not i's--and incidentally, there are twelve signs of the zodiac.

(12 ways?)

No, two ways to blame--one to blame for you, one to blame for me. We put six decisions on there. There are really twelve because they can each be used two ways. This makes the twelve signs of the zodiac. Now the real master of astrology is to be able to control all signs of the zodiac, you see--to freely live in all signs of the zodiac.

Now on the outside of the school, they used it to keep everybody ..........(doing all these great things). If they didn't find we're the......... like the story of the Emperor and his new clothes. Did you ever hear that story? [This paragraph didn't make much sense with the stops, but I left it in because I thought The Emperor's New Clothes might give a clue to the meaning…….Marsha]

OK, so if I knew all about this, I could really keep you in a "fuzzle". If I were the king, I could come by and tell you all I knew--all this great "lore". I could then convince you that I had an ability that you didn't have. So if you want to study astrology, please study the inner school and don't bother with the "outer school"--you'll waste so much valuable time. The "outer school" is used to "fuzzle" people with.

(What is the last eight up there?)

That's alchemy--the Kabala, the alchemy magic and astrology. The four great branches of a school. Back in the dark ages it was not conducive-well, you were unable to say what you really wanted to do. The teachers devised all kinds of different ways to communicate the ideas and try to teach them. There was the troubadours-- you may have heard of them. Troubadours were teachers that used a method of telling stories and singing songs to communicate the ideas. That way they were seen only as entertainers and managed to survive and keep their heads connected. A mason started out as being able to do buildings that could be used to communicate the teaching in beginner material. The outer material would be building a big building. Somebody might come along and say, "What are you doing?" The Mason would say, "I'm building a cathedral". The statement was correct in two ways--one, physically on the outside they were building a cathedral. If all he did was haul brick up--that was fine. What he was really doing was building a cathedral--one man out of three. See this [conditioned man] is a three-brained creature. After working with the teaching ideas, the three heads disappear and it gets to be one head after a while. That's what all these ancient studies were--and many of those are still around. I know people today that are practicing alchemy by boiling up all kinds of goodies and finding these ___couldn't hear-old tape_________; and they're trying to build gold out of base metal. The real idea was to use the ideas and create integration (or a completed man) out of the fragments left over after he got through being "conditioned". So he was going to make gold out of base metal--the alchemy.

The magician was to control the spirit--the elementals they called it. And the Kabala was to find the name of God in everything--which really means that there are the four forces in everything in the world. That is initiative, resistance, form and result. So in everything that comes along those four aspects are involved.

Now we talk in the everyday world of cause/effect. There isn't any such thing. There is another system which does work. That system is that in everything there are four forces--initiative, resistance, form and result--resistance may be either active or passive.

(The Kabala and the Bible are very mystical, too.....)

The Kabala and the Bible are textbooks on the Teaching, but they are written in code.

(How do you break the code?)

Well, I don't know that you can break the code, but you might find somebody who understands the code and would let you in on it.

(Is that you?)

I don't know, you'll have to check up and find out. But the code is only passed from one person to another--I don't think the code would be broken by any person. They are very simple when undone; but they are not to be accepted at face value; because if you do, you're going to buy a lot of things that don't make sense.

There used to be a symbol of the Bible and the Kabala--both that there were always pictures laying on an altar with a big band around it and a lock and chained down-meaning a sealed book. If a person who had all the "conditioning" could open the sealed book, they would be more dangerous than anyone you could conceive of, OK.

(What's an Inner School?)

An inner school is only interested in showing what is. We only put this up here to show what is, not "what ought to be" or "what should be"--we're only saying what is, OK? The inner school is where you could see what is and determine what your state was, and what you wanted to do. Nobody in the school would tell you what "you should do". But before you got bothered then by knowing this, it was observed by whoever was in charge of that particular branch of school to see how well you had evaluated--and then your purpose could change.

Most of us recall a few years ago there was a man in Europe named Hitler. Hitler was exposed to teaching by a man who had a lot of the teaching material. Hitler someway or other didn't get rid of all the conditioning; and consequently, used it for power and control which is a very common thing.

Today the teaching material is being made readily available to anybody who wants it. Every now and then somebody uses it to control somebody. What did Hitler do? He complained for his people--stuck up for their rights--he blamed for them and told them how different they were. They would walk into anything for him. They'd do any atrocity for him. He complained for them by saying that they were being mistreated. They were pushed out of the fatherland. He told them that they had the right to be the rulers of the whole European nation because they were the superior race. He blamed the Jewish population for having interfered and destroying the economy. He told them how different they were--they were pure--aaron?--whatever that means--but it sounded good. So they were pure-- the master race. He told them that they could take over the world, and they would walk into cannons for him. That's turning the Teaching upside down and using it for an improper purpose; and I do know of people in this country that are doing that this very day. Everything we talked about today can be used for an improper purpose. However, you can use it for liberation. Anything can be used for two purposes. An automobile can be used for transportation or as a lethal weapon.

(So the inner school is the one that opens you up to finding what is and what is valuable?)

It is for you to choose for yourself what is valuable--nobody will tell you what's valuable because that's only for you. You're going to have to choose your own value and your own purpose. You can, at least, see what the old one is and see that it's no longer fitting your purpose; and then you'd be free to make you a new one.

(Could you say a little bit more on the not i's)

A not "i" is anything that one has concluded is true at one time or another in the past. One is not consciously in charge of it anymore because we decided it's true. Remember the fundamental says, Once a decision is made, it is the rule of attitude/action. So that old truth is a recording in the brain that is set off by an association-something in the present moment. You have no control of when it will or will not be present. [It is experienced as a reaction to something in the present. The reaction is mechanical and happens in a millisecond set off by an association of some experience in the past and the conclusion about that past event.]. It gets a considerable amount of leeway of running the affairs when it is "ticked" off. It has a certain amount of tolerance. It acts like an entity even though it's not.

(When you recognize it, can you get it under control?)

You'll never be able to control "them". What you do is to see that they are of no value; Any effort to control them results in their gaining control. They will start running over you even more so. If you're going to fight with them (which is trying to control them), they'll win--I'll guarantee you. But you can see that what they say has no value. In other words you could determine (by a little looking) that complaining is about the last way in the world for you to get what's really to your advantage--as well as all the other not I's that try to get you to, stick up for your rights, blame, please people, etc. So the point is they make their sound and try to get you to verbalize. In other words, certain not I's--thoughts in the head--say they're you--they act the part of being you. They do try to destroy everything that makes things work really well-they try to tear up all your desirable states of affairs.

Have you ever bought something you really wanted and a day later wish you hadn't bought it? Have you ever formed a relationship (which was the most delightful thing you could do), and then three weeks later have a lot of doubts about it. This is "their" game. You know about buyer's remorse. These not i's are the ones that no matter what you do, they make you feel guilty, or sorry for yourself, and they identify themselves as being you-they are experienced as thoughts. Now if "they" start talking and "they're" too intense, we say, "That's psychotic." But when "they're experienced as thinking", that's normal. "They" do set up all sorts of things to keep turmoil going. "They" are not to be fought with. "They" are not to be condemned. "They" are not to be justified-just merely to be recognized for what "they" are-"they" have no value to me in the present time, place, and circumstance. I don't need those not I's to give me advice or do my thinking for me today. The only way you can win is for you put no value on "them"--not that you are trying to make "them" go away. The only way "they" go away, I think, is if you have brain surgery. And I don't think any of us want to start in on that. Besides, I think "they'd" find another place to settle in the body if you left enough to breathe with.

(So if you are feeling anger, guilt and fear, and insecurity, those are all the not i's controlling you.)

That's the not i's telling you that you're being mistreated, and so the way to fix whatever's going on is for you to "stick up for your rights"; and the other side not I's are telling you what you "ought to do"--you "ought to be different". Now you get that "big knot" right there in your stomach, and sometimes it's even up to here. If "they" really get with it "they" get your head spinning so fast that you don't even know where you are.

You don't get rid of "them!" You cease to put value on their comments--that doesn't mean that you're going to go to the opposite side and say, "I want to have pain"--that's not true. You won't have any anyway. You are in a different time, place, and circumstance than when you were a kid.

What was perfect for the little kid, just doesn't fit for you today. You don't wear the same kind of shoes, you don't have the same interests, wants or anything else--but we are still working with the same truth we had back then. So we're an entirely different person than we were in childhood, right?

There is a little book you can buy called the "The Screwtape Letters" by C.S.Lewis. Now "they" will try one thing; and if you don't take up with that one, "they" will come up with a new one. "They" go take a night course and come back in a day or two with a new one. I would not say there is any particular pattern because I've watched them do all sorts of things. "They" will usually try to make you be "good" and tell you you're being a………--that's one of "their" more favorite ones. "They'll" say that you should be an "ideal" person; and then if you don't, the one on the other side says "You're not makin' it." And then "they" start to pick on you with "their" little picks and knives. I can see why, over the ages, the devil has been depicted as having a pitchfork and standing in fire because that's the way it feels. And that's why "they're" called devils and demons and so forth. So if you know about those, you know about not i's.

(after lunch)

Expectation

Before we can do anything, whatever it may be, we must have something called "expectation". Before you put the key in the car, you expect it to start, right? You flip the switch on the wall--you expect the light to turn on. Before you plant seeds in the ground, you expect at least some of them to come up and raise something or other. Before you put your clothes in the washing machine, you expect them to come out clean. So before we do anything we have an "expectation".

If this "expectation" is based on an "ideal"--now you know what an "ideal" is? That's the way things "ought to be". The "ideal" is something we dreamed up and is not the actual situation. Now most of us don't know what to base our "expectation" on, so we base it on that thing that we said is our "truth." That I will have nothing but pleasure and comfort, attention and approval, and everybody will make me feel very worthy, and I'm very important and everybody should see how important I am, and that the world couldn't get along without me. And that is basically what our "expectation" is--not because we ever considered it, but that's the way it is. We expect that everybody will treat us nice, and sometimes they don't, because they're expecting us to do the same for them.

So when our "expectation" is based on an "ideal"; frequently if not more often, we are disappointed because the "ideal" just flat doesn't exist in the world. Reality, which is far superior to the "ideal" does exist, but they have made the "ideal" superior to reality--what is.

Side three (continuing expectations)

Now when you have your expectation based on fact you'll never be disappointed-- you'll never feel hurt--you'll never look for blame--you'll never have a feeling of guilt or insecurity--you'll have no mobilized and unrealized energy--you wouldn't require any adaptation--and of course you wouldn't have any adaptation [experienced as illness] going on down here in the physical body--that is called the living cycle.

Let's take for a moment what things we're most disappointed about is what people do, isn't it? Now you may be disappointed when the lights didn't come on when you turn the switch, but you can kick the wall--they'll work all right in a bit.

Our big disappointment is with people including number one [you]. You get disappointed in you, don't you? Now, we could, perhaps have some means of seeing how we could expect what we could legitimately expect of ourselves and others a little bit. This morning we looked at these basic decisions which is a person's "truth"--what they live by. Could you expect anybody to live by anything other than their truth? Could you?

(I could expect them to live by mine?)

Yes, but how would they ever know what yours was--I said legitimately expect. I added that little qualification. Now if I knew this, would I ever be disappointed? I know that you are prone to have as your "truth" without having had any other opportunity to get over it, the one that you formed as a child. I know that the chances are 99% that that's the "truth" you're living by--even though I never saw you before in my life. It's a fair game that I can play-that's 99 to 1--that you will be living by those basic decisions. That you will be wanting to be non-disturbed and that you will complain to get it, stick up for your rights, please people and feel guilty; and I will watch you going through altering it from guilt feelings to self pity from time to time. I'll make a bet on it.

Now I'm going to expect that you are going to live by those without criticizing or justifying it, OK? Now should you be that 1% that's not living by it, and all grown up and using a new set of truth, I'd have a very pleasant surprise. And I've never known a pleasant surprise to stress anybody. Have you? So by the very fact of us being aware of what people live by, what their "truth" is, I can never anymore be disappointed--I'm subject to a few surprises, thank goodness.

(What's the effects of the living cycle?)

You don't have any of this stress down here, you just have creative action.

Now the vicious cycle which starts with a misconception--the misconception is that "I know what ought to be." That's our big misconception. Now you never thought of that as a misconception. You knew that people "ought to be healthy, and never get sick", and they "shouldn't have wars", and we "shouldn't have this" and we "shouldn't have that" and people "ought to know better"--the people "did know better but went on and did wrong anyway". That's our big misconception. We can't accept that the creator made a very wonderful set up. We find fault with it. So the big misconception is "I know what ought to be and the creator goofed up." That will result in me frequently--if not all the time-- having some false feeling of emergency. We can list that under anxiety a sub-heading of the four major stressful emotions--those being anger, guilt, fear and insecurity. Basically, none of us have been frightened severely lately like being chased by a tiger.

(Somebody ran a red light and I was very fortunate that I didn't get....)

Well, that's a startle--I mean you haven't been in any severe danger more than a split second. Of course, when somebody else is driving, you're in some degree of anxiety. I haven't had an accident in a great number of years, but Diane is extremely threatened by my driving down the street--all kinds of terrible things coming at her from all directions. After she rode around yesterday with Charles, she decided I was a good driver.

We know what a false feeling of emergency is--I'm in great danger when none exists. That always produces a state of stress--stress being mobilized and unreleased energy. That's when you've mobilized a bunch of energy and not used it up and you're sitting there holding it. Now energy is like money, it's supposed to be circulating all the time. You mobilize it on demand and use it--but if you mobilize it and don't use it, you feel what's generally known as nervous or anxious. Like what I heard as a kid that "You're all dressed up and no place to go." You've got energy mobilized to cut the guy's head off, but you're not supposed to do that--that is stressful and requires adaptation in order to get this energy used up, it goes to physical discomfort. Using up that mobilized and unreleased energy requires unusual cellular activity, unusual sensation, tissue cell alteration or break-down which is uncomfortable; therefore, one has the misconception "I know what ought to be--I shouldn't be having this discomfort, this adaptation". You see, I've already forgotten about building it up before with the misconception of "what people ought to be doing". Now we have an additional misconception that I shouldn't be feeling this; so now I have an additional anxious feeling about my health (I got this pain, no doubt I'm having a heart attack or cancer). That builds up more mobilized and unreleased energy, requires more adaptation and finally it does kill you.

The other side of it is true perception. One sees what's going on. Then one has a true feeling. Now it may be that you're in an emergency sometime, but it's really something that you can fight or run from. There's nothing to fight or run from when you're doing this anxiety bit. In a real emergency, you can use it. Basically, all is well about 99% of the time, isn't it?

So, in true perception, one has neuromuscular tone. In anxiety over here one has neuromuscular tension--you're all tense and anxious. Over here is neuromuscular tone--you're prepared for anything that can happen--in case something happens. With neuromuscular tone, you feel wonderful, you're not falling apart.

Neuromuscular tone requires no adaptation--that is creative action. When you create an action, you do whatever it may be, you get it finished with it, perceive it's done, you're at ease, you see something else to do. That's the living cycle. The other is the vicious cycle and you can do either one. Having tried both, I much prefer the living cycle.

(Explain creative action?)

Creative action is anything you feel good about doing. You cooked a cake, rinsed out a few things. If you're a southern lady you never do a laundry, you rinse out a few things. You mobilized the energy and used it up with no hangovers.

(Can you get out of the vicious cycle.)

Only by seeing the fallacy of "ideals"--(what ought to be's). You recognize you don't know "what ought to be". Had it been left up to you to create a world, I don't think we'd all be here, do you? You wouldn't know how to convert one ham sandwich into human flesh and blood, is that right? And if you couldn't do that, obviously nothing would last very long. So you see, you could discover the misconception that you don't know what "ought to be". You've believed all your life that you know what "ought to be" and you "ought to be non-disturbed all the time"--you've always thought you've known what "ought to be". I don't know "what ought to be"; but I've found I can survive very nicely with what is, and the more I have looked at it, the more I stand in total awe of what is. Just to study a human body and see how it takes a little old ham sandwich and a cup of coffee or a glass of milk and makes human flesh and blood out of it and throws away the part it doesn't want--that is utterly fantastic.

I'm also fascinated with the fact that you can break a bone and watch all those little cells go in there and make a new one and make it stronger than it was before--that is wonderful!

Wonder Of Baby's Physical Body Growing To Adulthood

I'm also fascinated with the fact that you can watch a little baby with a little leg bone about that long which can grow to a long leg bone and nothing had to stop. One man that I knew said it was the equivalent of if you called in an architect and engineer and said "We have this house here." "Our facilities need to be enlarged." "We want this house to be four times as big." "Now we want to use it every day and every night, we don't want to be disturbed one iota while you're doing it; but we want it to be made four times bigger." Do you think anyone would take the job? But didn't that happen to you? So here are a bunch of invisible workers running around inside the baby's body, they scrape off a bit of bone on the inside and put it on the outside. In three years you have a building four times as big as it is now. That's a pretty good stunt, you know? You weren't disturbed a bit, were you?

If you can't stand in awe of that you're in bad shape.

You can preach all day to me in church and I won't get a religious feeling; I'll probably think you don't know what you're talking about. You let me watch that a few minutes and I'll have a very deep religious feeling. I can see that there is an intelligence beyond our comprehension working every minute. That is all creative action. Anything you see I want to do. and you go do it.

Let's have a question.

(We see what (unpleasant) emotions do to the adult body in disintegration; but what about the child.)

Well, it's probably essential that you get the child toughened up a little bit. You don't want him/her to be something you keep in a hothouse. We had some green houses out in New Mexico where we had some plants. After knowing only the hot house, if we took them out in the hot New Mexico sun a few minutes, they'd die. So I like for children to have a little stress. You see a certain amount of stress you can handle and you get stronger. You go beyond that you start tearing everything up.

Now nature provides us enough in ordinary challenges without going and making some more. So I'm not going to be concerned about the child having more. I'm going to try my best when I'm working with them to see that they have the shortest time possible. They have all those decisions [not I's] well made and hooked up and well established by the time their seven years old.

If at about that time we could begin to demonstrate to children--I'm not talking about lecturing to them--but demonstrate to them [by setting an example] that there is another way of living, that possibly could be advantageous--it's a new stage of life--they're no longer a baby. You hear folks say, "Be a big man--you're grown up now--you don't need to cry--you're not a baby any longer". They're only telling them some "ideal" to live by, they're not going out to do it another way. If the child watches the parent who's giving him all this beautiful advise, but behaves differently, the child will find he is doing the same thing as the parents. I have watched kids enough to know that they do mimic the parents. Do they mimic you? They do the same screaming at each other that you do at them.

(The child gets what he's complaining for.)

That's frustration. So as long as it works, it's fine. As long as a given method works, that's fine.

He'll persist, but somebody could point out that there's another way to get it. I've run these experiments so I know that children will do it. We can show them that another method will get them what they want--and that one they want to use all the time won't. They will start using it and after a half a minute. They'll decide why do this, it's a wasted effort.

(Are we, in fact, implanting the methods for non-disturbance that we want to observe and re-evaluate later?)

I don't teach them to respect authority, I tell them they have to do what "officialdom" says. But I'm going to make a very specific difference between officials and authority. Authority is one that tells me what I must "believe" and what I must "think" and officials tell me what I must do.

If we're driving down the highway, the official could care less what I'm thinking; but he will give me a ticket for speeding. I got one the other day. He wrote me a ticket. He was very nice. He didn't care what I was thinking--whether I thought that law was stupid or not. He just gave me a ticket because he is referee over the rules of the game. The umpire doesn't have to get upset with the player because he did something, he just calls it an "out"--that's it. He's just looking at the rules of the game. That's why we call it a civilized society because there are published rules of the games we play in groups--and we do have officials to see that the game is played by the rules. They don't care what we think. Now an "authority" is one who tells you what you must "think and believe". I would not teach any child that there was any such thing as an authority--not even me-- because I'm not either. But I will tell them there are officials. I would keep that difference specific.

(I have a problem that's not really my problem, but I thought it was my problem.
I work at being happy, but this friend of mine is unhappy all the time and she gets into my being happy. I've gotten to where I avoid her. Before I was showing her a way to be happy.)

She's very happy being unhappy.

(I think she is.)

I know people who wouldn't enjoy the day unless they were miserable. But you see the poor little lady, no doubt, would like some attention and approval. The only way most people got attention and approval when they were kids is when they were very unhappy and sick. Nobody went and picked them up and patted them on the "popo" and all this. If they were running around acting like they felt good as a kid, everybody ignored them. They got attention only when they were fighting or got hurt, scraped their knees and the like.

This poor little lady used the method of being miserable when she was little; and she's totally unaware of what she's doing. She's going on using the only method that ever worked, unknowingly; and she figures if she complains loud and long enough, maybe somebody's going to pick her up and pet her. Now there's a lot of other ways to use to be picked up and petted, but she has never thought of those; so she's mechanically using the old one of being miserable.

(Is there a way to make her aware that there is another way?)

She didn't ask.

(You mean if they don't ask, don't give it to them?-don't tell them there is another way?)

No I would give them nothin'. It's none of my business.

(I see, now, that I'm doing what you said, I don't know the way to stop trying to make her happy.)

I don't care whether she's miserable or not.

(She's making everybody else miserable.)

No---------Is she in charge of your inner feeling?

(No, not lately.)

Is it to my advantage to sit here and let you have charge of my inner feeling? My inner feeling is the ONLY thing I really have capability of being fully in charge of. If I turn that over to you, there's no telling what you'll do with it! I don't want to trust you with it.

(Somebody ought to worry about her--I've given up!)

You hear that "ought to and should"? We just got through saying that is the big misconception. Somebody "ought to do it", or somebody "should do it" which sets up the "ideal" which sets up the thing for you to help this poor soul.

(It's OK to ignore her?)

Once in a while you might say:
"You poor thing, you've really had it rough."
"I've never seen anybody that's had it as rough as you."
"You've done your duty to everybody that's come along; and when it's your turn, they don't do anything for you."
"You're the most wonderful person that ever lived."
Now, she'll follow you home every night.

So if you like, you could start your conversation off with those statements--carry it on as to how pathetic she is--how important she is and on and on. But you carry it on further and further, and even she'll see the joke. There's one or two chances there--she'll either pick something up and hit you over the head, or she'll see it.

(I think I'll just keep on ignoring her.)

We have one little thing that I'd like to remind you of. Nobody asked you about helping her. Really, don't ever help anybody unless you want to get hated. You see when I go out to help someone; I have to assume that I am superior, and I look down on them.

(I've heard of that theory.)

It's not a theory--it's a fact. I have to look down on you in order to help you to pull you part of the way up to my exalted height--and you'll hate my insides for it. Now if someday it should occur that you want for us to build a fence, so you'll put the blocks together and I'll haul them up to you-so for that day we're just working together. You might like me all right for that, but I'm not going to help-period!--now or ever. But I will work with you--if you ask. And I might ask you to work with we me sometimes; but if you didn't want to, I wouldn't pursue it. I will not try to help you or anybody else. I'm sure not going to say you "need" something or other. If you're enjoying being unhappy, that's fine with me.

(I take her the mail everyday, you know I don't......)

Aren't you nice?

(No, no, I do feel sorry for this girl.)

You know what "should" be. Did you ever hear the theory that a person's necessity has to be increased before they do anything? You see there's a theory that, I think is a very fundamental theory of physics--that a body at rest remains at rest until acted upon by some outside force. So you see misery is a force that is acting upon her. And when and if she gets miserable enough, she might ask somebody to do something about it. But as all you people go along feeling sorry for her, I would say she has exactly what she wants.

(OK.)

You see for most of us, our idea of "being loved" is when somebody's feeling sorry for us. That started when we were babies, about the only "love" we got was expressed as somebody felt sorry for us.

(Oh. but that's not natural.)

Well, I know; but a lot of people got hung up at certain stages. If you feel sorry for her, she gets a nice warm feeling for a few minutes--and so she's going to do it some more. Probably what you could do is get her a boyfriend that would really like her, if you can find one? One that's available there.

(That would cure all things for her.)

What she's doing is only gettin' her some attention, and if you didn't give her any attention for it, she might hunt up a new method. So she's going to get some attention. If the only way she can get some attention is being miserable, she's going to get it that way.

(We all have people we want to help.)

We're all helpers. If I can help somebody else, it makes me feel better.

(Oh, it does!)

Oh yes! A lady came to me a while ago and said she was a "people helper." She was one of the more "mixed up" little souls. I'm sure she helped a lot of people to be "mixed up."

(She was a "do-gooder"--I'm not a "do-gooder.")

Oh no, not you, it's those other people out there are the "do-gooders". These other jokers are going around poking their nose into things that don't concern them. There is a game we play which says I, you and me. or I, you and them. Now "they" are always out trying to save the world. "You're a do-gooder", and I just try to do what "should be done".

(In other words are you saying that even if you see a "need", you ignore it until the someone asks .......)

Now how do you know it's a "need" unless somebody has told you so.

(But a lot of people don't ask.)

Maybe they won't ever, I don't know. I noticed that trees produce tremendous amount of seeds and very few of them grow. Maybe all these people you see walking around are just seeds.

(My husband and I were in a situation last summer where we saw all these kids getting in trouble, so my reaction as a "do-gooder" was to do something about it. I decided to organize the kids and give them something to do during the summer to keep them occupied so they wouldn't get into trouble. It did, in effect, work, but nobody asked me to.)

I would see it possibly not that you did or didn't. I think what you did was nice. The only thing I'd consider was the motive. Was it strictly for you--the kids would get along fine regardless.

(It was personal, I wanted to keep my kid out of trouble.)

OK, so then it wasn't that you were being a "do gooder", you were attempting to survive; and do something so your kid did not get in trouble. If you see it that way, it's totally different.

(Both aspects are there.)

The real reason of motivation to get with it was that your kid would probably get involved with the other kids and get in trouble, is that right? I'll listen to you and help you all day long. It's kind of nice once in a while to be honest with ourselves and see what we're doing to us. One way to do that is to look at our motive.

I know a guy who just loves to sit out on the bay in a boat and watch the birds and watch the other boats bob up and down; but he says he can't do that unless he takes a fishing pole with him--he thinks everybody will laugh at him. So he takes a fishing pole out with him and throws it out into the water--then he can sit there all morning.

(I do a lot of things like that too.)

When you say, "Look, I see that if I don't do something here, my kid is apt to get in trouble." Then I definitely see it as to my advantage to do so and so. Now, who are you doing it for?

(For myself.)

Good--now I'm pleased. Don't tell me you were doing it for the children. You didn't want your kid to get in trouble. It doesn't matter how many kids received benefit from it, you were doing it for you. The only reason you did it was so that your kid wouldn't get in trouble, and that would be embarrassing to you.

(What about the Human Resource Center that sets up programs. As long as they're just established, are they serving.......)

Oh, they're serving a tremendous amount as long as people come in the door. But now when they start running out there and grabbing people off the street, I think that's silly. Do you run out and get people off the street, or do you wait until they come through the door? When they come through the door, they're asking--fine, let's make it available. If she runs up and down the street and says "You need some, and you need some, and you weigh too much, and you're too this and you're too that.......(too much laughter to hear statement.)

(I'm doing a lot more for myself, but isn't that selfish?)

I hope it is. There's a difference between two words--selfish and greed. Now selfish is you're doing something because it seems to you it's to your advantage, OK--like it's to your advantage to have your kid not get in trouble.

Now greed is to do something to keep somebody else from gettin' it. OK? I hope you're not greedy; I do hope that you're selfish. I would dearly love to live in a world where everybody was selfish because a selfish person says what's to my advantage at the moment. Isn't that what you were doing? I find it to my advantage to treat everybody with simple good manners. I've found it to my advantage to never harm anyone. If you live in a world of selfishly conscious people; what kind of world do you think it would be? If I saw someplace where I could make a little contribution and aid my survival--like you did with the kids, it would be to your advantage to do so.

Being Consciously Selfish

1. So it's to my advantage to use simple good manners and common courtesy.
2. The second one is I would be harmless which is far harder than doing good, and the
3. third one is I would probably make a little contribution to Life because I would see that it was to my advantage to do so.
Now would you like to live in a world of consciously, selfish people?

(Is it all right to be selfish, or is that an ideal that is popping it's head up.)

We've taken the two words greedy and selfish and used them as synonyms. They refer to entirely different phenomena. Greed is when you're out trying to keep anybody else from having it.

Short Parable Of Greed

I think there was a story in the fables that told of a dog that was walking across a log in the river and he looked down into the water and saw a dog carrying a bone. He wanted to get that bone so he dropped his bone to go after the dog in the water and all he ended up with is a mouthful of water. That's greed.

Now if you really want to get down to considering what's to your advantage--assume that today that the big bomb went off and you and one other person were left on earth. Now how would you treat that person. Would you try to keep them from surviving or would you do everything under the sun so that they survive. If you and I were the only ones left on this earth, man, you don't know what it is to be treated nice-I'd certainly show you--not because I wanted to please you, but because it's to my advantage to keep you alive.

(Sometimes we have to say "No" to people because it's better for me.)

Do you know that, or is it considered from what's to your advantage. Now if somebody asks me to help them hold up a gas station, I'll say no.

(Somebody called and asked if I'd collect for a charity on my block. I thought I'd better do it so I will be considered a nice person.)

Now that's getting greedy. You can say "Well, look, Susie Q hasn't had a chance to serve on any program this year." 'Why don't you let her have it?" "I've already been on two, and I gotten my attention and approval--let's let her get it."
You don't have to go through all those.

They used to come to me with all those tasks. They were wanting to know if I would contribute to these various programs or contribute to the research of diseases--MS, MD, etc. I always said, "Yes, I want to contribute at least $2000. worth, but I want to give it as a service." "All you do is let me know a person that is in need, and I will take care of it" You see, I had all the professional services. So I will give $2000. worth of services. Do you know that not once did I get taken up on it. So I found out they weren't really interested in the poor people. It was the cash they wanted because the administration charges are about 90%. They couldn't get the administration charges out of me because I was going to donate service.

(Are there 12 not i's?)

Basically, there is the 4 dual basic urges--it's what "should be" and "ought to be". You say, "Well it should be, but everybody does so and so." That, we assume, would work out to the result that I would be non-disturbed or that I would be having my way all the time.

(Which family of not I's is it if I say I want to be considered a nice person.)

"I ought to be different". And it also is not "i" (number 4 in the picture of man), because "authority told me I should be nice". My dear mother told me if I would always do the right thing, everything would work out wonderful. The dear lady forgot to tell me what the "right" thing was. I stayed in a quandary over that for a number of years. She said if you just do the right thing and be a nice person everything will work out wonderful for you dear. Of course you may be miserable and miss living, but it will work out nice in the end and you'll go to heaven.

(In other words, don't embarrass your mother.)

(Is there a way to categorize the not i's.)

Well, just be aware of them.

(I end up agreeing with them anyway.)

Well, that's where it all comes down--everything comes out as a "should" or "ought to". Let's make it real easy. Any time you hear a "should or ought to" come out of your mouth here, you know that you are setting up an "ideal". I listen to what I say as well as to what other people say; and I hear it come flying out of here-"You should do this!", or "You otta do that!" Then I'm setting up the "ideal" and I know I'm in a tangle right then and there. If everybody here wanted to spend a few minutes time listening to both sides of the conversation from this vantage point, they might make some discoveries. We usually don't do that--we're not aware of what either I or they are saying, and there's a tremendous number of "shoulds and ought-tos" come out. And that's setting up an "ideal".

(Would you talk about the concept of good and bad.)

"Good" is if I like it and "bad" is if I don't like it, and that's the end of it.

(end of tape four and going to tape side five)

Very frequently we put the questions improperly. So frequently we hear people say "Who am I?" or "Where should I go?"

Valid Questions

So we maintain that the best thing we can do is ask the proper questions. So let's ask some other questions. I'm going to put some questions up here. The first is
What am I? What you are is something entirely different.
Where am I?
What's going on here? and
What can I do?--not "what should I do?"

Now these are a decided different set of questions. I'm going to try to answer these questions which is the way I see them--not the way you should see them; but at least it's a way that you could investigate.

I'm going to tell a little story that answers how I see them.

What Am I? When I check that out I see that I'm here and that Life invited me, not my parents--they could care less. Life invited me and I'm a privileged invited guest--I say privileged because this is a beautiful estate where everything was provided for me including a couple of slaves to look after me until I didn't need 'em. So I'm a privileged invited guest--where?

At a beautiful estate called Earth. I've been over a goodly portion of the estate and it's all beautiful--at least some time of year.

What's going on here? Obviously a big party because there are an awful lot of other guests invited, and they're all playing many kinds of games. A lot of people don't know they're at a party; but they got invited--and they've never caught on that it's a party. When they don't know what's going on, they're playing a game called "pin the tail on the donkey". Remember the kids game? In Life's party everybody's running around trying to get the prize--the prize called happiness. The ones that get poked "blame the ones that poked them", and the ones that poke "blame the others for gettin' in their way". One thing you can do to get out of that game, take the blindfold off, and sit in the observation balcony and laugh your head off.

If we look at it, we can see that we are a privileged invited guest at the beautiful estate called Earth; and Life is the Host and there's a big party going on. I don't have to play with any of the other guests or any of the games with the other guests if I don't want to. If I do choose to play the game, I'll play it according to the rules; and have a pretty good time. I don't like all the guests that came to the party--I don't dislike them, but there's just some of them I won't play with. I can see that there's nothing at the party I need be concerned with 'cause I've been provided with food, clothing, shelter, transportation, interesting things to do, interesting other guests and one or more delightful companions; and I think that's pretty nice. What else could you want?

That leads us to the last question "What can I do?" Now if I see I'm a privileged invited guest at a beautiful estate called Earth and I have all these delightful things to do; then there's only one thing I can do--that is to be what to me is a good guest. Could you do anything else? You've been a guest in somebody's home, haven't you? What did you do there?--what TO YOU was a good guest. I wouldn't do anything to be destructive at your house.

I happen to have certain little "giftie's" that were given me somewhere along the way. I can relieve headaches, bellyaches and backaches. So when someone says. "Can you do something for me?" I'd be happy to--not for them, but for the Host. I've learned how to cook pretty well, so I can make a meal which is another kind of contribution to the party. That's what to me is a good guest. To be a good guest is to be considerate of the other guests and the Host and the estate, be harmless and make some little contribution to the party. Would that be pretty well what being a good guest is? Would anybody ever interfere with you doing that? No way!

So that's about what I can do--not what "should I do"; I didn't do it because I "should or ought to", I'm doing it simply because I've thankful that I was invited to the party along with the rest of you.

I would like to say thank you and the only way I know to say thank you is to be what, to me, is being a good guest. So I don't feel obligated to do it. I don't think I should do it. I don't feel I'm a servant; but I'm merely making a little contribution to the party. I may not be able to make a pleasant harmonious mood, but I can make a contribution to it.

(I don't know what I "should do" to make a contribution)

That's exactly what I said! You're asking the question "What should I do?" Nobody can answer that question including you. So you say, "What should I do?" You've never asked the question "What can I do?" That's another version of what my mama said, "If you only do the right thing, everything will work out just fine." Ask, "What can I do?" You can answer that question right now, can't you? You can at least contribute to a pleasant harmonious mood, is that right? That's the biggest contribution I know of, isn't it?

Now what you "should do", I haven't the foggiest--and neither do you or anybody else. You can ask that question for the next twenty seven years and you still won't be able to answer it. You'll still be sittin' and twiddling your thumbs wondering "What should I do." That correct? No matter what we do, it wasn't the right thing.

Could you contribute to a pleasant harmonious mood wherever you are? That you can do! I don't know what you "should do"--that's an improper question. You always have answers to what you can do.

We put four questions. If you'll go through those four questions once a day--those four I just laid out. Try to rattle my little story off and find holes in it. Try to disprove it, and you will be so full of confidence at the end of the week, you'll be able to whip your weight in wildcats!

If you ask "Where should I work?" "Where should I go?" "What should I do?" "Should I do that?" You won't have the confidence to get in out of the rain. There's no way you can have confidence because you can't get an answer to your question, right? That's why people don't have confidence--you can't do anything unless you have confidence. That's what's taken away from us by improper questions.

(What about dreams?)

Well, dreams are an interesting pass-time. So if you don't have anything to do, you can run down your own dreams instead of having one off the television. I would rather create my own 'cause their much more interesting than anything I've seen on TV. I don't expect them to happen. In fact, I know they won't; but something pretty nice will.

The Perfect Partnership

The next thing we'll talk about is a perfect partnership which we all have.

We'll draw this little drawing we started with today--there's X, and there's Awareness, and there's the physical body and there's the function.

Now this awareness ordinarily calls itself I. It is the awareness function of X. Now a function is not something different, it is a function of something. So awareness is a function of X; and the body is a motor function of X. A function is not a thing. Then there are the actions that the whole unit does which is function.

So we can see what is the nature of a person. The job of awareness is to see what do I want. The job of X is to do the how. Now, I don't know how to stand up. We talked about that this morning. Did you decide whether you knew how to stand up?

(No, I don't know how to stand up.)

Do you know how to play a piece of music or do you hear what you want to come out and it comes out that way. So now there's no how to do anything; but we're always telling ourselves we can't do it because we don't know how and we're trying to come up with it.

Now if I can figure out what I want-clearly--then that goes to X. X so loves me that it carries whatever it is out through the body and we have that something right away. But a big limitation is that we're always trying to figure out how to do something--instead of seeing what it is I want. Now the situation is here, within. I have a perfect partnership. I have a partner who knows how to do anything. The only requirement of me as the partner is to state what it is I want. Simple, huh? But what have we done all our life? We have said "If I just knew what to do and how to do it, I could make out." We'll never know how to do anything. We don't know how to digest a ham sandwich. We don't know how to walk. We don't know how to keep the heart beating. We don't know how to breathe. Everything's happening.

So you state what you want singly. You can't want two things at the same time. If you want to stand up and sit down at the same time, I'd say that's not working, huh? But you could stand up one time and sit down at another time. Now you can have this and that both--but not at the same time. All your partner says is that you say, What you want now. And you'll get that. And then you can say what you want for the next now--and the next now--and you can have it all. And if you get something you don't like you can say "vamoose", and in a little while, you'll get rid of it. You're not stuck with it, OK? But you will never know how.

Now the biggest limitation we put on ourselves is when we say, "I want to do that, but I don't know how." Ever limit yourself with that one? I don't know where I'll get the money? With all my exalted knowledge, it simply cannot be done by something like this. If I don't know how to do it with all my exalted knowledge; obviously X couldn't do it, so there's no sense talking about it until I can figure out how to do it; and then I can tell X how to do it, and maybe he'll do it.

If you waited until you could figure out how to stand up, you'd never do it. Believe it or not, I've known people who have had some sort of shock happen in their life. This happens once in a while, a person gets a hard blow and is shocked for a few minutes and can't move. I've seen people that were still sitting in a wheel chair unable to move because they couldn't figure out how to get up anymore. Now all they've been really paralyzed for was 20 minutes. If you can get them to see that they don't know how to stand up, but they can see what they want to do, they can stand up and walk off. I've seen this happen over and over.

I've seen people sitting around in wheel chairs--have been sitting there a long time. They had a jolt at some time which paralyzed them--temporarily, like 20 or 30 minutes (it's call spinal shock). Then if they will leave it up to X, they will get up. But from there on, you see, they always figured they knew how to get up; so they're sitting there trying to figure how to get up with their feet sticking out in front of them--now they're paralyzed for years.

The biggest limitation any of us has is that of: "I can't do so and so because I don't know how." I know by experience that I don't know how to do anything, so I can do almost anything. Because I truly don't know how to do anything.

(Are you saying that if she tells X what she wants that X........)

Well, probably not for her to tell X because she'd make it all important and get anxious about it; but in all probability somebody else could do that for her. You see the hardest person to work on for you being healed is you. Call someone you think a whole lot of (outside you) and ask them.

(I know a lady that's sick.)

Would she like to get out of it?

(Yes.)

She'll have to ask. But she can get all right. You see when you're trying to do something for yourself, you make it important; and you're liable to start blaming yourself and trying to make all sorts of little points for using proper technique. And if you do it for somebody you think an awful lot of, you'll probably also make that important.

You see, in the healing art world, the doctor can't work on his own son. Did you know that?

If the lady who is sick asks you, you can ask me; and I'll do something about it. But some people don't want to be well. I had a lady come in not too long ago that had lost her eyesight. She told me she wasn't real anxious to get over it because she had too many benefits--pity, a car and a driver, special education, and more attention than she'd ever had in her life. So she didn't want to get over it for several months. Finally she called up and said, "I've had all of this I want, now I'd like to get over it. She made no bones about it. She didn't want to get over it yet. Now I think she was a little more free with that because she was reasonably sure in her mind that when she said she wanted out of it, it would happen.

I tell people the most appropriate thing to do is not to try to heal themselves, but do it for other people--don't do it for yourself. If you need a healing ask somebody else.

It is not very difficult to discover the simple fact that I, and only I, am responsible for my inner state. That particular responsibility is one you discover. There is one thing I'm responsible for--that is my inner state. I can't blame it on you or somebody else--legitimately. People all the time are blaming somebody else for their inner state. You made me laugh. You made me very unhappy. You upset me. I cried all night over what you said.

(...when you make something important, you become anxious...)

Right, you're only reporting anxiety, not what it is you wanted to report. If you're reporting that all is well with you, why that's fine; but most people can't quite do that because they want to be sure it's going to work and they get all anxious. So, it's easier not to attempt to heal yourself, ask a friend to do it for you.

(........couldn't understand question on the old tape......)

Well, that's a discovery. You discover that without any anxiety. It's just something a person finally sees. We went along for years feeling that circumstances determine my inner state--circumstances are responsible for my inner state. That's a misconception; and therefore, circumstances "ought to be different". One day I discovered that circumstances really have nothing to do with my inner state. When they see that, it is probably the most serene moment of most people's life up to that point.

I'm Responsible For My Inner State, Not You--You Don't Have Any Effect On It.

You can say anything you want to. You don't have any effect on my inner state. You can't say anything about me anyway. Only thing you can do is state how you feel when I'm the subject of your attention. That doesn't bother me one way or the other. OK?

(The simplicity of it is asking for what you want...)

That's true--making up your mind singly. Now reporting won't work if you say, "Well, I want to have a business, but I don't want to be tied down." The second statement cancels out the first before you even get started. I would like to make a lot of money, but I don't want to have to be involved in working. I want to have a companion, but I don't want to make any commitment. That's the way a lot of people do things. That's why they cancel it before they got going. You just simply say, "I'm going to do so and so."

(So you're talking about the economic state of being.....)

I'm going to go out and have enough money, I don't have to count my cash.

(So you say "I want to be able to go out and not count my cash?)

No--not want to be able--I'm going to do it. That's what I'm gonna do! You don't say, "I want to be able to stand up." You say, "I'm going to stand up and go to the kitchen and get a drink of water." Is that right? That's how you do all the simple things. You do that every day. How do you report that? Now you can't do anything without first deciding to do it--which is reporting to X. So watch what you report on the simple ones like:
"I'm going to put on my pink tank top."
"I'm going to put on my Levi's."
"I'm going to wash the dishes."
"I'm gonna cook a meal."
"I'm going to town to buy groceries."

Watch how you report all these things which you consider just natural, and then you can do all the unusual things. We've always made a category of important things and a category of everyday things. They're no different-actually--none whatsoever. Watch how you do things spontaneously. You report on that--then you will report exactly the same way on the things that you've always felt limited on that were too big for you.

(About a week or so ago I felt a cold coming on. The next day I had a lot of things to do and I said to myself, "I don't have time for a cold." ...............)

And so the next day you had plenty of time, and you went right on. We said X so loves you, it will do exactly as you said. There are no qualms about it, it will do exactly what you said. X figures that's it--X knows the how. You say the what. You're responsible for the what--never concerned with the how. You could report it on the following day, "I don't have time for a cold today either." One day, maybe, you'll have time.

(How long does it take X to work?)

A split second. How long does it take you to stand up?

(I said that night, I don't have time for a this cold.)

You had plenty of time to have it Thursday night, but not through the day on Friday. She's just too busy.

(Do you have to do that in some kind of a prayerful way?)

Well, suppose you just take an experiment right now. Stand up.

(She stands up.)

Now did you have to do that in a prayerful way? That's what I'm talking about. Report it just like you did that. You see that's what gets people all snarled up to do anything unusual that they don't do every day--they think they got to do some fancy technique--they got to get prayerful--they got to get in the proper mood. You did that very nonchalant, is that right?

(........couldn't understand question......)

They had to get the what across to you. X did the work. It took a while to get the what.

(What about the degree of seeing what is. How much do you have to be seeing the what. How much what do you have to see before you can write a song. Maybe you're not accounting for all the what.)

[I had experience with this one. When my first granddaughter was born, I was there at the birth. I was so moved by the experience that I wanted to write a lullaby song for her. I had a three-hour drive home. I left it quiet in the car and figured out what kind of a time signature I wanted and generally what I wanted to say. I wanted to use her mother and father's name and give her reassurance that everything would be taken care of by them. After the first line came to me, I knew more of what I wanted to say to her. What I felt for her at that time could be communicated to her throughout her whole life with that song. It was the first song I ever wrote and I've written five since. I only do it, though, when a touching moment compels me to do so; however, I require quiet time to hear the song being written from X……Marsha]

Once you can see what, then it gets written; but before then you have to have some preliminary before you can see something going through your head.

(The amount of preliminary.....)

I wouldn't know what you're talking about because my head isn't where the music is. I was out behind the barn when they passed out the musical talent. I don't know what you're talking about; but I know some other related things. I can visualize something inside on a feeling level, then you can determine what it is you want, and X will write the whole thing.

(Can you report, "I want to do great things.")

No, I wouldn't even want that. I cannot want to do a great thing. There's nothing in there to do it with.

(Those that do have……..)

All they say is, "I'm gonna do it!"

I'm gonna sing! Don't try to figure out how. You can go back there in the office and say, "Well, I'm gonna type so and so." Then you look over here and your fingers will just go sailing through the paper.

(I think about all kinds of other things when I'm typing.)

Well sure. But if you sit there and try to figure out how to make those fingers do that little bit, you'll just screw that typewriter up and frustrate yourself. You're hands won't work for nothin'--even the great Victor Borge who was a master concert pianist, one Sunday was watching the little finger do a trill. He broke up--hasn't played a complete piece since. So he turned into a comedian--it cracked him up when he sat there and ..................

(End of tape 5)

(……another question which is unintelligible………..)

I don't know one piece from another, but I don't feel I am inferior to you because you can play music. I can do things you can't do.

(Some people asked me to play piano one time; and then when I started playing, they all started talking.)

Well, didn't you want them to have a good time. So you can provide the background noise.

(Since I don't know what "ought to be", I'll feel a lot more comfortable…) (.........couldn't hear rest of statement....)

No, X is not going to do that. Your responsibility is to see the what part of the partnership. It so loves you that it will do anything you say when it is put as a first value. Whatever you say is true and of first value to you, X will do. So if you want to pick something up and hit him on the head, X will do that.

(.....and I was wondering if there was something beyond that.)

I'm not going to try to answer something that I don't know. I have all I can do to keep up with my affairs. In all probability most things do have feedback, whether it would be called awareness or not, I don't know. I'm only dealing in living things. I just want to be conscious moment by moment of what I want to do without going back to that first decision "I want nothing but comfort and pleasure." Then a person runs around trying to control the environment. Now I'm totally disinterested in controlling the environment. I would like very much to be in charge of my inner feeling and my responses; but I have no desire to control circumstances.

You see when a person gets off on controlling circumstances, X says, OK you do it--but X is not going to control circumstances around you, it controls the response to actual things that you're involved in.

If you set out to control circumstances, X quickly decides that you're gettin' the big head. Most people in the world feel that if they wanted to be happy, they must first control circumstances. They attribute circumstances to controlling their inner state, and this is a very big misconception. If all I aimed to do was to box well, then I could be perfectly happy winning the boxing match, or not winning it,. I played the game well--that's what's of value when the person is awake. Then there's no ideal of "I can only be happy if I win."

We're talking about being conscious of our own inner state. I'm responsible for my inner feelings about whatever circumstance may arise. Certainly I am free to experience whatever may arise today. Now if you're having to control circumstances, you're trying to control what MAY arise today, not being free to experience, OK?

That's why we put up earlier today that we ask "What should I do?" rather than "What can I do?" or we ask, "Where should I go?", "Why did this happen to me?" instead of "What's going on here?"

I respond to circumstances rather than try to control circumstances. You see people "plan" in order to control circumstances. They want magic power--not spiritual power. Spirit means to respond to whatever does arise; because it makes no difference. People who want to "control" feel that circumstances determine how their inner state will be--so they feel that it's necessary to control circumstances, and what that means is they want magic power. There are things one can do and then there are things that you don't interfere with. There's a song "Fools Rush In Where Angels a Fear to Tread". So I'd rather not be one of those persons. I may never get to be the second but I don't want to be the first.

(What about your X and my X? Would your X......)

You don't have one. One has you.

X will do whatever that little I decides is of first value. It will not control circumstances for you which would mean that you'd have to control all of the rest of us. You're saying the rest of us are to blame for your inner feeling. "You made me laugh." "You made me cry." The point is that we're working to be an independent being--that I am responsible for my inner state regardless of circumstances; and I'm not going to try to control circumstances which means I'd have to control you, and you and you. I'm not going to do that. That's saying, "I'm the only one worthwhile in this world, and so all the rest of you got to get straightened out." I believe that goes back to that little thing we said a while ago, "Why don't all the rest of you grow up and get fully integrated, so I don't have to bother with it". In other words, all the circumstances would be just fine and I wouldn't have to be bothered. That's the way we calculate with our conditioning, and that is not what we're talking about. We're talking about being able to respond to any circumstance that may arise without trying to blame the circumstances. I don't care which horse comes in first or last--that's why I couldn't be much of an athlete--I could never get enthused over where the ball is. It doesn't matter whether it went this way or that way. It's fine with me wherever it is and so I couldn't get all concerned and excited as to where it went.

(....couldn't hear question....)

The answer is both yes and no, because the question is improperly put. But I don't want to be a smarty. Sometimes, you can control circumstances, but it's for a very limited time until it's demanded to pay for it. So I don't want to be paying for it. And it won't be very long until I will be paying for it, so I'd rather not control circumstances--they are none of my business. I feel wonderful with the present circumstance. Is there anybody in here that can't feel fine with things the way they are now? I like you just like you are, and you and you. So I don't have to have any circumstances controlled and changed. I don't want to change any circumstances--it's none of my business. But I can enjoy them just like they are, because I'm responsible for my own inner state.

(We were talking a lot about reporting accurately. How did you learn to report accurately--by trial and error or.....)

Somebody kept trying to point out to me that it was done just like I do the little things like get a drink of water. He had me check up on all the things I could do easily. I could put my shoes on and put my socks on and brush my teeth; and before I knew it, I had this reporting done. So then I applied that to the things I wasn't used to doing. It was exactly the same method, OK? First check up on all the things you do easily. Remember?

First thing to do is get the head clear enough that I'm not trying to gain the four dual basic urges with whatever I'm making up my mind to. That's number one. So I won't put any value on the four dual basic urges and non-disturbance. I now have more of the results of what I was seeking while using the four dual basic urges than I ever had when I was trying to use those methods to get what I wanted. Results are a by-product. I put no effort out to get it--it's just there--pleasure, comfort, attention, approval, the whole bit--gobs of it. But I don't work for it. I don't have to do any effort of making up my mind to have that--that's already taken care of, OK?

(Sometimes I try to do something but something or someone is upsetting me.)

Well, I'd merely report, "Who am I that I shouldn't be upset once in a while." I can remember to freely be upset. Did you ever freely be upset?

(No)

I didn't think so. Everybody else is, why can't I be. When you're free to be upset, you won't be upset very long.

(I ought to be perfect.)

Perfect means completed. And completed means one who is free to experience anything that may arise. You're going to experience it anyway--might as well experience it freely. Just go on, OK?

Questions, point. OK we'll call it a day people. I have enjoyed immensely being here. We'll be happy to be around whenever we can be.