Workshop - El Paso, TX -1979 - Part 2
Verbatim Transcript: El Paso 9-30-1979
“Who’s in Charge of My Inner State?”
4 CDs (1-A, 1-B, 2 and 3)“
The following is as close a verbatim transcript as is possible.
Dr. Bob’s laid-back “Kentucky-ese” is retained –
we have neither corrected his grammar, dialect, pronunciation
nor taken it upon ourselves to change his words.
Audience (laughter) is noted; he was a master at keeping the mood up!
Audience participation is (parenthesized) and separated from his words.
Emphasized words by the speaker are in italics.
If the words were unintelligible, there’s a blank: “_________.”
[Anything that offers clarity to the reader is italicized inside brackets.]
Audio Link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/8q3dk0v10spku0x/AAAYLpeldktpJMuSt9qqMbeva?dl=0
This workshop was edited and made into a book: Who is in Charge of My Inner State of Being?
Link to Book: https://www.marshasummers.com/innerman/images/WhosInChargeuse.pdf
CD 4: El Paso – 9/79
Now they’ll all tell you what you should do, ought to do, have to do, and must do. And then there’s a few of em out down here that tells you what you want to do – what you want to have and do. So you want to be non-disturbed – you wanna have non-disturbance. So they’re all set up there. So then the two never gets together.
So there’s many stories that circulate around the world about the lover and the beloved that was separated by society and never allowed to get together. I think Romeo and Juliet is one of those, isn’t it? And then there is many, many of em and all kinds of mystical literature where the lover and the beloved were forcibly separated and never got together.
In the books that’s been handed down by the various Teaching material that weren’t totally perverted, one says let no man put asunder what creation has joined together. Well, the thing you were joined together with was to have a purpose and a will and you would never have a conflict then, right? You always do that you wouldn’t have any conflict, would you? Right?
But instead we don’t ever talk about what I want to do or what my purpose is. It’s what I should do and what I ought to do and what I have to do and what I must do – then of course, I’m in conflict because I don’t wanna do it. And instead of will now, we have “will power.” Did you ever hear of that stuff? That’s doin’ something you don’t wanna do, but you force yourself to go on and do it anyway – isn’t that what will power is? Huh? That’s somethin’ you don’t wanna do, but you force yourself to go on and do it. And you have a big conflict and one side wins. So now you pat yourself on the back and says I got will power, which means you got ulcers… (laughter) and headaches and backaches and tummy aches and your teeth hurt, and now, you name it.
Now, how many people are doing every day pretty well something they really don’t wanna do, but you’re doin’ it because you ought to, because you should, because you must, and because you have to? Hmm? That about right, honey? That about right, Tom? Goin’ around, everybody would say, “That’s what’s goin’ on in my life. I don’t ever get to do anything I want to do – I just have to do what they want me to all the time and I hate every minute of it.”
So this is where we find ourselves with purpose and will. Now will is nonexistent – we don’t have any will because we don’t have a purpose. No purpose – it’s been put away on a back burner somewhere and it’s only something we vaguely dream about that when we get old and get our retirement all set up, then I’m gonna do what I wanna do. In the meantime I have to do what I should do, oughta do, have to do, must do, so I die with a heart attack before time to do it. And so it’s all blowed out and there’s no real I.
Now if we could do a little reevaluating, would it be possible that I could look at something in an entirely different light than what I’ve looked all my life and that my purpose is to be what to me is a good guest? Now that seems like that’s not such an effort, that’s not something I should do, or ought to do or have to do or must do – nobody ever even told me about it, is that right?
Neither has anybody ever told me that maybe my purpose could be about whatever the business of mankind is on this alien planet, which means the same thing. So in either case, I could be about my purpose – my business – my nature, even.
Number One: I would be considerate in either case.
Number Two: I would be harmless.
Number Three: I would make some little contribution. Don’t take it all on. You can’t do it, but you can contribute to anything, huh?
Now if I see that as my purpose, nobody else will know what it is and they won’t accuse me of it – they won’t pass a law against it – that’s for sure. So I can go ahead. Now I will to do what my purpose is. Now for the first time, there is only one I – there is real I – that’s only one. We call that being integrated or unified or whatever other word you wanna put on it. But what comes together is not all our conflicting ideas about what should be and what should not be and what oughta be and what ought not to be – not my bunch of not-I’s that says “complain” and the other one says “please em” and the one that says “stick up for your rights” and the other one says “believe and do as you’re told by your authority” – that’s not what you unify – that’s not what becomes one.
What becomes one is purpose and will. Now there’s absolutely no conflict because I know what I wanna do and there’s nobody stoppin’ me from doin’ it.
And so my will is to do what I want to do and there’s no interference, no conflict, no struggle.
Now to say that I like doing every little thing that I do, is foolishness. I don’t. But I do see it that I am doing, I am being considerate or I’m being harmless or I’m makin’ a contribution that I do want to do, so what difference does it make whether I like to sit in a given place all day long and work or whether I do somethin’ else – it really makes no difference as long as I see I’m making a contribution of some sort.
Now, you know nobody may know it but me, but I know it. I’m making a little contribution. I’m not trying to control, just contribute and nobody’s interfering with me being considerate. ____. I think most of my time you’ve known me I’ve been reasonably considerate of you. You ever tried to stop me?
(No.) (laughter)
Nobody else has tried to stop me. (more laughter). I’ve known you probably longer than anybody in here, honey. I think so anyway. Have I always been somewhat considerate to you?
(Oh my, yes.)
Have you ever tried to stop me?
(Huh-uh!)
No way, huh?
(NO WAY!)
Not a bit in the world, have you. Ever tried to slow me down or say stop that foolishness or any of that? And I think I’ve made some little contribution to your well-being – not because of you, but because the party is better then, is that right? Nobody ever tried to stop me from that even, huh?
(Mm-hmm.)
Nobody interferes. Now you have a place where there is only one I. There isn’t six or seven of em over here runnin’ around – one sayin’ “the whole purpose is to be non disturbed” and the other one says “complain”, another one says “blame”, “please em”, “quote the proper authority”, anything. There’s no authority. You’re not harmin’ anyone and nobody tries to stop you from that, huh? Nobody tries to stop you from that, do they? Nobody tries to stop you from makin’ a tiny little contribution to a pleasant mood wherever you may be or being a little more conscious than acting like you know what’s goin’ on or anything of the sort – nobody does that do they, Bill? Don’t interfere with that.
And now you are unified – one, or you might say “integrated” I think is the fancy word. You’re an integrated, conscious being who is objectively conscious of what’s going on. Not trying to get even with anybody. I’m not trying to get you to straighten up and fly right. I don’t need you to. I’m about my own business and I don’t have to worry about you and I don’t have to blame you and I don’t have to try and please you. Cause if me being a good guest and making a little contribution to you or to the party and being harmless isn’t enough to please you, forget it – I won’t try it anyway, you know? So what. I’ll just go talk to another guest. There oughta be one around somewhere.
So then all this conflict and confusion is gone when one has first looked at this and seen what you have to deal with. Second, you remember what you are.
Now, I gave you two stories. You check em out and see if you can find an error in it. Now I didn’t say they were true, but I’d like for you to see if you can disprove either one of em. I will stick that one out. But until you find a way to disprove it, you might as well say it has a reasonable degree of probability. This is science, that when you come up on a proposition you always try to disprove it; and if you can’t disprove it, it has some degree of probability of being correct until I can get more information. Is that right? Is that the appropriate way of approaching it? Jim, you’re in the scientific field and Bill, is that appropriate?
(Yep.)
First we get a theory or story or somebody gives an explanation – the first thing to do is try to disprove it. If you can’t disprove it, you give it some degree of probability of being correct and you live with that hypothesis until you can find more information, is that reasonable?
So this is the scientific approach. So take either story, attempt to disprove it – do your durndest. If you can’t disprove it, you could accept it as a reasonable hypothesis to work on until you find somethin’ better, is that right? That’d be workable, wouldn’t it? Now that would result in an integrated being – one in which there is no conflict, no struggle, no resistance.
Now we’re told that the only thing that disintegrates you – disintegration; that means fallin’ apart at the seams I think, like a lot of people tell me they’re just comin’ unglued – is that they’re in conflict within themselves, with the environment, with their fellow guests at the planet or at the party or the fellow workers at the picnic, whichever one it is. That they’re in conflict, they’re strugglin’ to have things different than it is, tryin’ to make it over so they could control the environment and then, therefore, they would feel good, or is resisting what is – not wishing the whole setup would be different. “I just don’t see WHY it can’t be different,” they say.
So now then conflict, struggle, and resistance is the disintegrating factor in mankind whether it is mentally, physically, financial, you name it – physical, mental, financial, economic, emotional or any other way: conflict, struggle and resistance.
Now, when purpose and will are working together there is an end to conflict, struggle and resistance. And where there is no conflict, struggle or resistance, integration is. And first it’s the biggest survival there is. It is the nicest end to the aging, disintegrating process there is. It is the best peace producer you ever come across. It is the end of being all torn up inside. You know how it feels to be torn up – you’re anxious, you’re angry, you’re jealous, you feel insecure, you feel guilty, you’re wonderin’ what it’s all about and so forth. All of that ends. You know what it’s about – at least until you get more information and I’ve been workin’ at it for a great number of years and I haven’t found more information on the subject yet. That don’t mean there won’t be and I haven’t found any and diligently lookin’ for it – that one or the other or both of these stories or some version very similar to it is the actual state of affairs. It doesn’t matter a whole lot to me which, one way or the other, but at least there’s an end to conflict, struggle, resistance and this stuff. I have an idea of What I am, Where I am, What’s going on here – I can see that pretty plainly – and What can I do.
Now there’s no use of me tryin’ to do something I can’t do. I can’t take charge of all circumstances… period. Can’t do that so there’s no use of me getting all frustrated and getting off in that corner, right? I can’t take charge of em – everybody’s got a finger in em. ___ and besides that just plain nature’s got a lot of things and the way the weather and the planets run and the tides and hurricanes and I can’t take charge of all that. So I don’t have to, don’t need to. I can take charge of my own inner state and at the same time make a decided contribution to Life – whatever that may be or whatever it’s purpose may be. And it looks to me like the purpose is to either have a delightful party or the same sort of thing – make a community where there is conscious beings instead of unconscious ones scrappin’ and bitin’ each other all the time and especially themselves, okay? Now we will go to questions a little bit.
(I don’t understand the difference between the Law of Love and the Law of Consciousness. Seems to me they’re almost the same thing.)
Law of Consciousness says that I would be in charge of my own inner state, etc. The Law of Love says I will just understand and that I will then… may have a lot of conflict, but I will still understand and forgive. It was a step on the way, I think. One is purely being in charge, the other one is only in charge of how you feel at people, which was a big step on the road.
(Look inside yourself….)
Oh yeah, it looks out there and sees about the others cause you know you can go around and feel guilty. Now of course when you tell somebody that, to see that everything they’ve ever done they felt was right, proper and or justifiable when they did it, feels like they’re almost being conceited, doesn’t it? But sure enough it was that way, so it was to be for yourself.
But the conscious being has a purpose other than understanding other people. It has a purpose to be about every day – a conscious purpose and a will – where the other one is still doin’ more or less what he is told to do. The first three were ways you were told to do as a little bit over. The second two were a little bit above the Law of the Jungle, but they were something you should do or ought to do, have to do, or must do. Were you told as a little guy you had to forgive those kids that beat you up on the corner? Huh?
(Mm-hmm.)
Right. And were you also told that you had to stick up for yourself, after all you were big enough to? Right. We’re all sold those things.
Okay any other questions, comments or points to the question you wanna ask? Okay, I will arrange for the next talk. I’ll put it on your back. You write down – everybody has paper; if you don’t have some, somebody else will provide it – that you write down what you would like for the subject to be talked about next time we start again in a few minutes. Whatever it may be. And you’re gonna write it down and I will talk about it whether I know anything about it or not, (laughter) I’ll make some comment on it. And preferably if I don’t know anything about it, I’ll try to get you to clarify it a little bit; but do keep it somewheres in the realm of what we’re workin’ on. So when we meet again, we will take those and if you would come up here and lay em on this little blackboard here, put chalk on top of em, and I will proceed with em to see what I can do for the next discussion here. So you put what you want. See, I’ve talked about what I wanted to all day, now it’s your turn. We’ll talk about what you wanted to. Have a little break and we’ll start again.
[after break]
I’ll only take these up here. Which table?
(Right here.)
Turn on the light so I can read, okay?
Question: (According to Maslow…)
He’s an authority, you know; hierarchy of needs – one is food, shelter and warmth. I can get along quite a while without food, but I have to have air right away. So I believe air would come first on this thing, if brother Maslow checked it over and then come with water and then food and then shelter and then warmth. Warmth is probably… I’ve had days out here in Arizona and West Texas and New Mexico I needed cool instead of warmth. But the question is, “Doesn’t one need to have these fulfilled before you are self-understanding the Teachings?”
Well, I would say that obviously the first thing out and I believe I mentioned that a little while ago that the first thing we have to do if we are these aliens on this planet, that we had to provide for our food, clothing, shelter, processing food, etc. before we could do much of anything else.
So, I would say that the first part of self-understanding is that I am responsible to see that I have food, clothing, shelter, transportation, period. I think that’s my first job out and that is a very definitely a part of self-understanding. It is a part of being aware of self.
Now the little not-I’s frequently tell people, if you will just think positive, that it will fall out of the ceiling for you. In fact I have books that says if you will just sit and think positive, that you will be provided with all kinds of money and glamorous women and all these great things. And I’ve never found it to work that way. So I checked up on it – it don’t work that way.
Has anybody here been able to just think about something and it suddenly materialized? Or did you think about it and then made up your mind to go out and do a little work and then you’d come up with it. Does anybody found it any different? Robin, have you, that you could say plup! and it pours out? Now, I’ve known people get very broke and hungry because they determine that.
A guy came into our place when we were out here at Fabens one day and said that he read where in the Scripture that said that the Lord provided for the sparrows of the air and the birds in the fields and the beasts of the fields and the flowers and they were all better and so he had decided to try that he was gonna live by faith alone. And I said, “That’s wonderful – I think that’s fantastic – go do it.” He said, “You got a place where I can stay the night?” I said “No, the Lord’s gonna provide it.” He said, “Well can I eat dinner here?” I said, “When you pay for it. Now if you’d a come in and said, told me, you’re hungry and you was unfortunate, I’ll feed you. But you said the Lord’s gonna provide it, so as soon as He pays the check, I’ll give you a dinner.” And so we didn’t give him his dinner and we didn’t give him a place to sleep and so he was on the road – he was runnin’ in the ditch down there, right? So we left him there with his positive thinkin’ bit. I don’t know how far it got, but that’s about the end.
So the first thing in consciousness is that I’m gonna provide for my food, clothing, shelter, and transportation and I happen to like real nice parts of all four of em, okay? Don’t you? Now, I don’t know I need em, but I sure want it – so that’s one of those things I want and I think that’s a part of it.
There’s one big word and it says “diet”. Now there’s many words goes with that and I will make an assumption and if I’m incorrect in my assumption, why, somebody correct me. Is it possible that the person is saying, “What should I eat?”
Well, everyone of us is a wee bit different. Every one of us live under different circumstances. Everyone of us, probably exercise and activity is a little different every day. And our basic constitution is a little different. So the best thing I know about what to eat is to eat very sparingly; and I mean extremely sparingly for about three days until you’re really hungry. When you’re hungry, you will be hungry for something. Eat some of that and I think you will be eating about correctly.
In other words, if you’re hungry for dill pickles and sow’s ears, by all means get pickled sow’s ears and dill pickles and eat them. Now I have never been hungry for the ear, but I have been hungry for pig’s feet and I went and got em. And I felt good with it.
Now, I think that anybody who comes along and says you should eat this and this and this and you should not eat this and this is only setting themselves up as an authority because every person in here is quite different and obviously there’s gonna be something different in what we’re eating and what our needs are for today. And the only thing that I would suggest according to diet is that you allow yourself to be hungry so that X, that Life Principle, can tell you what it requires to maintain, enhance, and keep the body in good repair and give it enough energy. I think that’s the only way that anybody can intelligently answer the question is to get yourself hungry first. You see most of us eat because it’s time to eat or because it’s pretty or because it’ll taste so good or because it’s there – that’s the main reason, isn’t it? It’s there so eat it before it runs away. And so consequently we make ourselves ill with stuffin’ a lot of stuff in there that X says, “What do I do with it now?” I’ll either store it up here or shovel it out one way or another and we get upset about that and a lot of times it comes out through the skin in the form of zits and boils and all those sort of things. So see that you get hungry for it before you eat it. You’ll be surprised what you really get hungry for; and you won’t get hungry hardly ever for tollhouse cookies and all these things. But you may even get hungry for those, but it will be infrequently.
But if you just got it around and you get the new edition of Bon Appetit and you have to make all the pretty pictures that’s in there and then have to eat em because you made em, or you read gourmet magazines and you gotta make all those – I doubt if it would very well for what we eat. Is that somewheres close to what the intention of the question was?
(Question: “Life seems to be nothing more than priorities – working with these Teachings seems to open many opportunities. How do, or could I, a conditioned person, know what activity, jobs, etc. would be the best or right jobs or choices?”)
Now as we said this morning, frequently nobody’s in charge except some little not-I. Now a not-I come up and said “Tell me what the right thing to do is and I’ll do it.” I is a conditioned person. Well I thought if I was reasonably correct at what I was attempting to do today was that you could leave today unconditioned.
Now a conditioned person is never gonna know what’s right because conditioning “A” will say you should do this and conditioning “B” will say, “No, it would be better that you did this.” One will say you should make a lot of money and the other side will jump up and say, “But you should do something that would benefit mankind; what’s this doing for anybody?”
So the first question that the priorities is, is to be unconditioned by observing “self-Knowing” and “Self-Remembering” and if you start that, you wouldn’t be conditioned when you walk out the door.
If you’re conditioned, you’re gonna be by definition in a hell of a state of conflict – morning, noon and night; and there isn’t any better, worse or any other thing we should do.
As far as what occupation I earn my living with, it doesn’t matter. One man tried to illustrate this by pointing out that he traveled a bit around the world without money very much and one time he got caught in a place and he had no funds – he’d run out and he couldn’t find a job. So he went out and caught a bunch of sparrows and trimmed em up and painted em yellow and sold em for canaries. (laughter) Well a bunch of people scream and yell about that, but what’s the difference? You’re in the buck, you know. You needed a buck to buy food, clothing, and shelter so what’s the difference? I’m not interested in how you earn your living. And the old guy told this story to try to illustrate that if there is no greater shakes than what kind of job you do.
Now I will ask you a pointed question. If you had a chance today to live in a city with the finest medical clinic, finest hospital, and the finest educated doctors in the world, but no sanitation department and the other choice you had was to live in a town that didn’t have a doctor one in it, nor a hospital, nor an infirmary, but had one wonderful sanitation department – which one would you move to?
(Sanitation department.)
I’ve traveled into cities where the sanitation department is on strike and the garbage was piled everywhere. I’ll take the one that didn’t have the doctor in it if I had to make that choice cause I haven’t used the services of a doctor in more years than I care to mention; but I’ve used the sanitation department every day. (laughter) Every day. So who’s the biggest man around town – the garbage collector or the doctor? Tell me that.
(Garbage collector.)
But you know we look down on the poor garbage collector and the doctor we kowtow.
Question: (Please discuss for us human sexuality. Is it something that happens and should I go with it or try to control it?)
Well, we talked this morning not about controllin’. We talked about being in charge. Now Eros is something that just happens. In other words for any of you not exactly acquainted with the word Eros, it means sex drive. So, the little kids out in California would say you get “horny”. (laughter) So, when you get horny, it’s there.
Now, it doesn’t mean that you have to suddenly be controlled by it or you control it. It says I’m in charge – I’m up here in the head. Now, am I going to? It all depends on time, place and circumstances. You know, if you suddenly felt as the kids say very horny right here, I think you would be well to be in charge and be ___ for a few minutes.
And if the only thing available is somebody with one of the new cases of herpes or something, I don’t think I would control it, but I would be in charge. In other words, hunger may arise. That doesn’t mean I’ve got to immediately run and grab a handful of food and stuff it in my mouth, is that right? Huh? I’m in charge. I will eat when it’s convenient when I find what I want.
If I should get a little tired, it doesn’t mean that, well, the school’s gotta stop, I’m gonna sit down and quit right now. No, I may have a chore on. I may have a fire going and I wanna put it out. I may have your steak on the broiler; I’m gonna wait a minute ‘til I at least get it off before I sit down.
So at no time does a sensation have to be totally responded to. Now sex is a sensation that does arise and I’m sure it’s a form of a hunger that does arise from time to time. But certainly I’m in charge of how and when and where it’s going to be gratified like any other hunger.
And of course, today why anything that you have as a sensation that you are repressing it or doing anything else, it’s saying yes I have this hunger, but right now it’s not convenient or to my advantage to gratify it at the moment.
Question: (Would you describe what is meant by the seventh day of evolution – is an 8th day in the works? And what was the progression in consciousness of one through six? In what way do these days, ages, relate to the four ways you describe?)
I think absolutely none. (laughter) Then the seventh day of evolution is a theosophical conception which I have found they wrote an awful lot of books, and made a lot of money writin’ em that I didn’t read, and again it says what the progression of consciousness is not. Most people are no more progressed in consciousness than they were when they arrived on this planet many ages ago. The progression is a conscious thing – an effort and based upon something to work with and not because so many eons have gone by.
We could have 10,000 offspring one after the other for 10,000 generations and the last one would be no more conscious than the first one was if there wasn’t some effort. Time has nothin’ to do with it.
Question: (Explain…”) That’s a bad word – it means it used to be plain and now we’re gonna make it x-plain – it used to be. (Explain more what you mean by “self-Knowing” and “Self-Remembering.)
Well, shall we start over that line one and come up the whole day again because that’s all we talked about. “Self-Knowing” is knowing what your make-up is and what conditioning has involved into it and how it works. I thought we covered that rather solidly. At least my efforts were and I can’t x-plain it anymore cause I’ll only make it un-plain. And “Self-Remembering” is remembering What I am, Where I am, What’s going on here, and What I can do. And I give you two stories, neither of which I swore was true. I said I had investigated both of em and could not disprove of em and they’re very similar stories to me. And having nothin’ better to disprove it with, I would have to say that it somewhat took – [slight break in tape]
Question: (Talk to us about faith.) [plus Repentance, Confession, and Baptism]
Faith is the ability to make up your mind singly. Period. That’s all the word “faith” means. If I can make up my mind to kick this chair, then I had faith and the chair got kicked. Now if I said, “Well, I wanna kick the chair but it’d look asinine or something to kick the chair,” I can’t make up my mind. I’m going two ways at once and a double minded-person can’t really do anything. They sit and agonize; it’s called the agony of decision. “I wanna buy this chair, but I wanna keep the money in the bank and I don’t wanna go in debt, but I sure would like to have the chair,” and they can go on this way for months. Now that is the absence of faith. But once you make up your mind, that’s it.
Repentance is from a great word, meaning “turn about” – go in the other direction. So if all my life I have allowed not-I’s to run the household and be in charge and I made up my mind today that I’m takin’ charge of my inner state, I have practiced both Faith and Repentance. I have turned about from letting whatever little bit of conditioning that’s runnin’ through here run my affairs and be in charge, to me takin’ charge and I’ve made up my mind to somethin’ – I’m takin’ charge today. I’m gonna be in charge of how my inner state is. I can’t choose what I’m going to sense today, but I can sure determine what my inner state’s gonna be today.
Confession. Confession is only to one’s self and it is an act of awareness that I have not been at home in a long time, we’ll say (laughter) – that the not-I’s have been runnin’ the house and I’m taking it over from them. That is Confession. Now if we say, “Well I’ve just had a lot of bad luck and I’ve had all these misfortunes and I had an unhappy childhood to start with,” – that’s the good favorite one out – why, then of course the person isn’t practicing any Confession. It is only to yourself – it’s no use go tell anybody else about it. But it is an act of self-Knowing, I would say.
And Baptism, Baptism means to be washed. And so what one does is wash one’s addiction to not-I’s. “Identification” is another word for it. So to dis-identify from not-I’s and say they’re really not I – they’re something else goin’ on – is to be washed or intent and is to take over Self Remembering and live by it. What I am, Where I am, What’s goin’ on, and What can I do and start doin’ it is to be washed of all the confusion that goes on being attached to not-I’s.
Question Part 1: (When you describe being harmless as not agreeing with someone that they’re a victim, do you feel that accomplishes much in terms of the consciousness of the victim?)
No.
Question Part 2: (Are you then serving them as their resistance?)
No, I’m just being harmless. I’m not agreeing with em. They’ll probably get plenty of other people to, but I won’t agree with em. And I won’t hit em over the head either. No, I’m not doing anything for em; they didn’t ask me to. I’m on my own as a gentleman not being harmful. I’m not trying to help them. In other words I don’t ever try to help anyone, because to me, to help someone is to first have to look down on em.
If I’m gonna help you, I have to see you as being inferior to me in some way and I’m gonna reach down and pull you part of the way up to my exalted height. And I’m not gonna do that. So I’m not gonna help you. I’ll work with you anytime, any hour of the day or night, but I’m not going to try to help you. And I certainly didn’t try to help someone by just refusing to be harmful – that was my own inside job.
Question Part 3: (Is that your responsibility?)
No, I have no responsibility, I just made myself as my purpose to be harmless. I don’t wanna harm anything. I’m not interested in helping; but I sure don’t want to harm anything. And if you’ve watched a few “do-gooders” who was tryin’ to help everybody, you’ve seen a lot of harm come out of it. About right, Miss ___? You get all kinds of problems goin’. So I don’t wanna help nobody. I’ll work with you.
Question: (It seems I understand when you are around. Then (laughter) I go about my business and seem to end up in conflict. What am I doing?)
Going to sleep. So when I come around, I try to awaken in the person a little bit by makin’ a certain amount of noise and reminding you of certain things.
Now, I cannot go along with anybody the rest of my days and continually remind them, okay? I will remind you whenever I see you, but you see, we have our own thing. If my purpose is to be aware of What I am, Where I am, What’s going on here and What can I do and be about that business, I won’t go to sleep so easy. But you see if ever time I would go to sleep every time somebody wasn’t pokin’ me, I’d sleep most of the time. And I poke, you know, and I poke hard sometimes – gently but firmly, huh? Very firmly. So if I see you, you decide what you’re going to do.
Now we’re talking about that I will accept the responsibility of taking charge of my own inner state – we said today that the basic theme all day would be “I’m taking charge of my inner state.”
Now I can’t take charge of the environment – totally; I can make a little contribution to it. I can’t take charge of circumstances; I can only make a contribution to it. I can’t take charge of what I will sense today; I can only contribute to that and I’m gonna try to contribute. I have as much pleasant ones as I can and as few unpleasant one, to me, as I can. That’s just a little contribution. But I can take total charge of my inner state and there’s nobody else that can. So
I’m gonna take charge of my own inner state ____.
Question: (The difference between “self-Knowing” and “Self-Remembering”?)
Well, self-Knowing is taking a shower and Self-Remembering is putting your “froo-froo” powder on it so your bod’s smellin’ good. (laughter) Self-Knowing is to be aware of the conditioning and etcetera that I have unconsciously been driven by. Self-Knowing is to take charge of What I am, Where I am, What’s going on here and What I can do and Do it.
Question: (How are interest and purpose related?)
Well, if you’re really interested in something, no tellin’ where it will lead. Maybe you’re interested in pleasing everbody and I doubt if that’s your purpose. You may be interested in never being disturbed, but you’ll get disturbed. And we talked about a purpose, which was consciously chosen.
Now, I’m interested in beautiful sunsets. I’m interested in pretty paintings. I’m interested in beautiful people. And I’m interested in boats and I’m interested in automobiles and I’m interested in all sorts of things; but my purpose is to be about the business of What I Can Do. I can be what to me is a good guest or I can be what to me is a contributor to the big colony – comes out the same way. Either way I will be considerate, harmless, and make some contribution. I will probably be interested in a jillion things. I’m interested in you, but you’re not my purpose.
Question: (Is this just about suggestion?)
It may and may not be – you may be interested in somethin’ because it just simply attracted you as you went by. Maybe you woke up some mornin’ and had it. Interest is kind of like that thing the way askin’ about sex a while ago – it just arises every now and then.
Question: (Is energy an inner feeling?)
No, energy is energy and nobody has a definition for it but it’s what gives everything a feeling. Now, you wouldn’t have any inner feeling unless you had energy – that’s true. But life – one way of looking at life is that it is energy and when it has a purpose given to it by its Awareness Function it exhibits tremendous energy. It generates it, uses it moment by moment.
Now, if I had no purpose whatsoever very little energy would be generated, but the capability of generating it is there. You can have a mechanical generator on your car and if the car’s not turnin’ over, it’s not generating much juice or if there’s no demand for it, it quits generating.
(But if the purpose is not to be determining to make a contribution, then it’s degenerative rather than regenerative, is that right?)
It probably leads to it somewheres yeah, if you’re just trying to be non-disturbed – it leads to disintegration which is energy used by the not-I’s to make X destroy its own body. And they have a ball laughin’ about that.
You see X so loves the Awareness Function that it’ll do anything it says is true. The not-I’s have caught on to that so they get the not-I’s to lay all sorts of things out and X will go ahead and do em – even blow your brains out, you know. You know people commit suicide and X pulls the trigger because the Awareness Function has been hypnotized by the not-I’s to tell X that’s the thing to do. So then they sit back and laugh until they find out they don’t have anywheres to live; soon as you got shot there’s no where for them to go. So it comes down – like Jim’s computers there – great capability but very dumb. They don’t know what’s to their advantage.
Question: (If one discards shoulds, oughts, musts, and have to’s is there any guarantee that one will be able to integrate Purpose and Will?)
I won’t offer the guarantee, but I would say try it and find out. Now if you have to have a guarantee before you start, I would suggest you didn’t start. (laughter) If you have a somebody who will guarantee you that you will be alive tomorrow… has anybody been asked the question? You know of anybody that guarantees that you’ll be alive tomorrow? If you don’t, you might as well shoot yourself tonight if you don’t have a guarantee on it. You know, forget it. I don’t see any use in livin’ today if we don’t have a guarantee we’ll be around tomorrow – we’re wastin’ all this energy today. (laughter) Go ahead and die today – looks like it would be more simple.
Question: (How does one know when they’re ready to counsel or help others, to understand themselves in the light of these Teachings?)
Well… (laughter) when you simply wish they had left you alone, then you might be ready; but as long as you’re hopin’ somebody will show up to talk to you, forget it. If you get so you think, “God I wish they’d stay away and let me alone today,” you might be ready.
Question: (How do I take charge of myself?)
By making up your mind to do so and doin’ it. It’s that simple. Make up your mind to do it and then do it. You see you haven’t made up your mind to anything unless you really do it. But you see we don’t want to be responsible. We’re like the person that says, “Do I have a guarantee?” No, and you will be responsible and if it’s all junk, why you will find yourself in a horrible mess.
Question: (If you cannot will yourself to become integrated, how can you accept the new truth or purpose? What is a method of becoming integrated?)
You don’t. When you’re integrated you have an agreement of purpose and will. Now it’s for that moment only and if next moment your purpose and will’s all conflict, you won’t get anywhere. So you have no diploma that says you will be, now you’re integrated, you’ll be that way from now on. It’s only for this moment. If my purpose and will is in agreement this moment, I’m integrated this moment. If this moment I’m flittin’ around, “Well I know I ought to do this, but I don’t want to do it and I don’t see why I have to do it all the time,” then I’m disintegrating and there’s nothing permanent about any of it. So you don’t get a diploma and you don’t get a degree to hang on the wall that says, “Now I’ve integrated. You people all give me due respect.”
Question: (Please describe the not-I’s behind jealousy.)
Aw, that’s the one that says: “See? She don’t care nothin’ about you anymore, she’s just gone off and with other people and you never know what they’re gonna do when they’re out of sight.” That’s a not-I lyin’ to you as if what another person did had any effect on your inner feeling anyway. So they tell you circumstance determines your inner feeling and if this person isn’t right where you want them, when you want them, and the way you want them then you’re in a terrible shape because you’ll never know. You know that’s all there is to it.
You know when somebody says, “I love you” generally the sentence is – that’s a comma there instead of a period. You wanna hear the rest of the sentence? The rest of the sentence is this: “I love you,” – comma – “therefore you’re obligated to me and must do exactly as I want you to when I want you to or else I will be hurt and then I will cry and it’ll all be your fault so there! So now you’re obligated to make me feel good.”
Question: (How can one determine the line between self-centeredness and consideration for others or life?)
Well, sometimes that’s called inner considering and external considering. In other words if I’m considering what you’re doing will affect me, how what you are not doing will affect me, how all these other things will be, then I’m totally concerned with me and I’m not trying to be a good guest. I’m trying to see that you are. I’m not trying to be grown up; I’m trying to see that everybody else is so I won’t have to be bothered with it. You see if everybody were all grown up around me, then I could be an infant and they would all understand nicely and I could go on with my crap. But I much prefer to go on and be – on my own – grown up or integrated or whatever.
Question: (Is positive thinking good?)
I don’t know what good is. Positive thinkin’ is positive thinkin’. I don’t know that it is good or bad, but it’s just simply an exercise in futility. Now whether that’s good or bad, have fun. Now certainly I don’t want to go around sayin’ the world’s gone to… the sky fallin’ in or anything; but I wouldn’t say that negative thinking is either good or bad.
Now I’ve found that some people you can push into doin’ things ___ before we do anything like this. And we do give them a bunch of negative stuff like somebody comes in cryin’ about how sad and terrible they are and how – you know, they got the rejection syndrome goin’ well. And I usually say something like, “Well why don’t you just kill yourself – you’ve never done anything worthwhile and it don’t look like you’re goin’ to – so get it over with.” (laughter) And they suddenly straighten up and tell me they have done something worthwhile and they’re goin’ to again and they get over it right quick. But that’s rather drastic methods and I wouldn’t recommend it to very many people.
Question: (Do you think we’re from outer space?)
No, I don’t know. We’re from, you know, around here because you know where you were born, (laughter) you got a birthday and all that junk. Now where your great, great, great, great, great ancestors came from, I don’t know; probably it was inner space. You see, what do you mean by outer space? Did you ever stop to think of what that means anyway? Space is space. Is it inner or outer, you know? What do you mean by outer space. Huh?
Okay is there another question that didn’t get written? Okay folks, I sure have enjoyed being with you today and I would ask that you leave the place as reasonably clean as you can so Miss Peggy and all her crew will not have to slave over us. And we certainly wish to give Peggy and Jack a very good hand of appreciation for allowing us to use their place. And let’s show that we are good guests by cleanin’ it up, okay?
[End of CD 4; End of El Paso 9/30/79]