Workshop - Fountain Valley Workshop on 3-19-84 - Part 2
Continued from Part 1
why, there was some nice people came in. Same ones more or less exactly. Ok?
Are there any questions on this? Now wealth is something everybody wants to talk about for a while, so let’s have a round table discussion on it.
(I don’t see how wealth is that much separated from health.)
It’s not. One you’re counting money and the other you’re counting pain.
(I remember something about the not I’s--particularly with children, I’m trying to think of an example. Well, somebody was standing by my cart and my little boy wasn’t feeling well—he was kind of under the weather and he looked at me and said, “Mommy, I feel fine.” I go “Ok, he feels ok.” But I felt like a fool because I knew he had some congestion and……………..)
Well, I know, but you can feel fine with congestion. He wasn’t allowing that conditioning process of letting somebody else put him down. So he got it. I’m thankful for that. But if they work at it long enough and hard enough, they’ll probably convince him in a year or two. So you keep telling him that he feels fine will you?
I tell people about two little kids that lived with me for quite a while. Their mother was very ill and for some reason I opened my big mouth at the wrong moment and I wound up with two little kids for three years. So I told them that if they were sick during the week they didn’t get any allowance. If they felt good all week, they got $2 on Saturday morning and could spend it any way they like. In three years neither one of them were ever sick. (Laughter) You see we give kids very little incentive to feel good and we give them lots of incentive to not feel so good, is that right? They’re pampered and they’re cooed over when they don’t feel good and they’re more or less ignored when they’re feeling good and running on about their business. I said more or less—I didn’t say totally; but they’re not given any particular praise for feeling good. And I think that would be very worthwhile.
If any of you have kids, give them praise for feeling good. They have a reason for feeling good then. You might even give them a coin. Give them a dollar for every week they feel good—or every day they feel good according to how much money you got laying around. It’s cheaper than going to the pediatrician every few days? May not be perfect, but it works pretty good, ok?
Next one—we’re talking about wealth.
(Would you comment on or interpret “seek ye first and all these things will be added unto you”.)
We’ll we’re talking about that I think—it’s the only thing I’ve talked about all morning that “seek ye first peace of mind, joy, well-being—whathaveyou, and all this other stuff will be added unto you” like well-being--physical well-being and financial well-being. We got love out there we’re going to talk about that, at length, later and probably not the way everybody expects it to be. Yes, I think that’s what we’re talking about isn’t it? We’re talking about how to find a balanced inner state instead of being controlled by demons. You know not I’s are demons. Darlene has them all—her heads made up horrible looking bunch of characters. You got them with you?
(I think so.)
Ok, you can hang them up here and let everybody look at them. She’s got those demons. She caught them and solidified them, and made them out of gold and silver and precious jewels and the whole bit—but they’re still demons. I don’t care what you made them out of—is that right?
(Right.)
They’re demons aren’t they?
(Yes.)
So you want to live with demons, or do you want that place we’re talking about “seek that place and get there”? In other words, you can’t have both. They don’t get along well together; and so most of the time, the not I’s control everybody--they make them sick--they make them miserable. So even though they got a lot of money, they’re still very poor.
I met a lady one time that was on the verge of being sent to an institution for the destitute. She wasn’t eating. She was gathering stuff out of garbage pails up and down the street or big dumpsters as we have today. She was going through and getting stuff. And she wouldn’t buy any clothes or anything. But she had just under a million dollars in the bank, but she was afraid that the banks would go broke and she wouldn’t have anything; and so she didn’t dare spend any of it because it might be gone. I said, “Well it they’re going to break it, why not spend it all this week.” But no way could you get to her to spend. She was living in utter destitution with just under a million dollars in the bank. She was poor, wasn’t she? Did she have any wealth—Nah. Most of us think if we had a million dollars we would think we were fairly wealthy, but she couldn’t spend a penny of that. And she was doing without food, without clothes, living in a hovel and all with just under a million dollars in the bank.
So wealth doesn’t necessarily mean that you have a lot of money. It means you have a certain state of mind and that you can get along with whatever you got and still feel pretty good. You know some of us can be rich with $2. In our pocket and some feel rich with 2 million—it doesn’t make any difference. I’d prefer the 2 million, wouldn’t you Pearl? Pearl says she has to work these days, but maybe we’ll get over it one day.
Ok any other question, comment.
(Does money have energy of its own—does it really travel in its own cycle or is it all attitudes. There are so many things….)
I don’t see money doing anything on its own. I’ll drop $3 there and let’s see if it does anything on its own. (Laughter) Nobody better reach for it. I don’t think it’s going to do anything. It’s going towards somebody, right? No, when you have money you let it gravitate towards people who have certain kinds of attitudes and moods; and when you want some, it gravitates to you only according to your mood not according to money on itself.
(It is the mood again, right?)
You better get around that the mood is the most valuable thing in it. Now when you’re going to have the mood, you also give them value when they get there. But you can give all the value in the world. Let’s say you were running a restaurant. You could serve the finest food in the world. You could have a top chef; but if he’s grumpy, he’ll give everybody the bellyache. And let’s say that the mood is lousy in the restaurant—everybody’s going “Ugh.” And you stand there waiting for service for five minutes before they even recognize you; and when they do they act like you disturbed them. All the fine food will not keep your restaurant busy. You’ve got to have the mood. If I had to give on either side, I’d give on the food instead of the mood. I’d rather have all the staff “up” and on top. Keep it all up there.
(If you give, then you’ll receive.)
It’s a give and there is a return. I don’t know that you receive—it’s an exchange; and who do you like to exchange with? People who make you feel good?
(Sure.)
Every once in a while I run into somebody I want to buy something from and they make it very difficult to buy. I bite them sometimes for fun. But, you know, they make it very difficult for you to buy from them. There’s other people make it very easy for you to buy. I don’t think anybody sells anybody anything—we just make it easy for them to buy.
(Bob, how is that not cause and effect? To me……….)
Well, it’s only one of four steps isn’t there. Cause and effect is only seeing half the picture. So there are four things involved—initiative—resistance—form and result. We’re talking about removing some of the resistance here and the form taking place—so we don’t go through every one of them every time; but still there’s no such thing as cause/effect. We’re talking about the balance of these things. So balance can be that you have a pretty good income or that you can at least enjoy what you have. But there are all four of those factors involved. That’s the one you’re talking about.
(Are you saying cause and effect is looking at something and removing the resistance?)
No, no. I said it’s not looking at the whole picture.
(So part of it would have cause and effect at what………..)
Well, one precedes another one. So whatever one sees proceeding one other thing, they say that was cause and the next thing is result, is that right—effect.
I was sitting on a circle fence where my Dad trained his little horses to run around in a circle. One day just sitting there in the sunshine enjoying myself and staying out of work and a dog came by—yip, yip, yip. He came running around the track. Well, right behind him there came a rabbit just running like fury. So for all appearances, it looked like the rabbit was chasing the dog, right? But if you’re sitting over there on the other side of the fence, the rabbit went by first and the dog came by second and then it looked like the dog was chasing the rabbit. That’s where you get caught by cause and effect. That wasn’t the whole picture involved.
Now when you see something happened and the next thing happened, you say the second one was effect and the first one was cause. That is not necessarily the proper sequence at all. Now it really has nothing to do with it because there’s four things always involved in every situation. You initiate something; there is a certain resistance or second force to it. Then we build a form and then there’s a result.
We say that I decided to make an iron pot. So I initiate by melting me some iron. The resistance is that the iron is hard to handle and shape; but nevertheless, I need a proper shaped pot for my needs. So I got the iron melting here, but now I need something to make it form. So I get a mold and pour the melted iron into that. Now I have a form. And the result is I have a pot I can cook in, ok? But no one of those is cause and effect. But if you started here, then this one would be the effect. If you start here, this one would be the effect and that one cause and so on down the line. But they’re all involved.
Any other question?
(In looking at a health problem and running it by Dr. Freedman or a healer, is there a cause and effect in that?)
No, no. You start working on inner feeling, environment, activity and nutrition. Check them all out because if you don’t, you’re going to get in trouble. They’re all involved. And don’t come up with a cause/effect—you start talking about the cause, because cause is another way of saying blame, I think. Is that correct? When you something assigned as cause—the “cause” of this person feeling bad is cancer. When you see it that way, there’s nothing you can do about it except to let the poor soul die. The doctors can make a lot of money from him first; you know, you can operate, radiate, do this, do that, do the other thing; but they’re not going to need their money long anyway might as well take it now. Ok?
(I have a worry not “I” that comes up a lot.)
You worry—“What-if” this—“What if” that. That family of not ‘I’s is known as the ‘What-iffers”
(That doesn’t sit too well.)
That not ‘I’ just complains. “What if” this happens? “What if” that happens? “Then you’ll really be into difficulty if this happens.” So tell him to get out and go jump in the ocean. You don’t need that guy sitting around. Run him off. In other words if you had somebody that came in your place and continually made a disturbance, wouldn’t you run him off doctor? Run him off. They make disturbances all the time. Run them off. Now wishing they’d go away won’t make it. Some people say, “Well if I recognize them, maybe they’ll go away.” And some folks try to please them. That’s the really worse one when you sit down and think “if I so live properly, they’ll let me alone.” I got news for you, they can complain no matter what you do. They will find fault with you no matter if you do and if you don’t. It’s like that little Spanish guy I know that they talk in languages to him. He said one of them is a woman. He’s had them so long, they have voices now. The woman says, “Let’s go eat meat.” “Let’s go out with a girl.” “Let’s drink beer.” And the other one is totally silent. So finally that one persuades him to do it; and he eats the meat and drinks the beer and chases the girls. Now as soon as he gets it done, the girl disappears and a man’s voice comes and really gives him hell for doing it. And sometimes the man’s voice sits up there and convinces him to be almost esthetic in his behavior; and then after a while, it goes away. Now the other one gives him a fit for not really living. The girl comes in and gives him static. So you can’t please them no matter what you do. So don’t try—just run them off, ok?
All right next question? Anybody got something?
(If you don’t stick up for your rights, what do you do when you can’t fight?)
Good question. You be quiet. Oh, I have plenty of things to talk about without blaming. I find lots of things to talk about without complaining. I know most people would be at a total loss because they’ve never done anything else; so they have to learn new subjects to talk about.
You can tell people how delightful they are for one thing.
(I can answer that question. I remember when I was pregnant and I used to call Dr. Pearl and I’d go, “Ann, this is going on.” She’d say, “I don’t want to hear it, everything is going to be beautiful, just keep a positive attitude and don’t even let the negative in.” And she’d tell me that every time I attempted to tell her something negative.)
You didn’t have hardly anything to talk about did you? But there are lots of nice things to talk about without finding fault and blaming.
(If you don’t allow it to take place.)
Just don’t allow it, that’s all right. You’ll find something to talk about.
(Find something positive.)
There’s always something to talk about. I can tell people how beautiful they are or something else is. They seem to like that all right. You can tell them how delightful they are and how glad you am to see them. They come to accept that fairly well—it’s conversation. You can always talk about food—how good it is. You can trade recipes—all sorts of things. I trade recipes with lots of ladies. (Laughter) That gives them something to talk about without complaining about anything.
Ok, next question—health and wealth—we got them both. We’re not going to talk about love yet? What do we have on health or wealth? Everybody healthy? Everybody satisfied with their financial health? Good enough? Take a break
I will not allow the not I’s to make me sick. You know you don’t have to give them all this authority. They have none unless you give it to them. So why give them the authority to annoy you, make you sick, make you be grumpy or any of the other things. You want to do that one Miss Claudia? I will not allow them to make me sick. I’m not going to pay any attention—put no value on them.
So as an experiment, let’s say that we’re not going to complain for the next two hours at lunch. Now we only ask for two hours. So let’s see when we come back about 2:00 pm this afternoon, after you’ve had lunch, to see how many things you did not complain about—that’s different isn’t it? How many things you did not complain about because obviously you will see a great number of things—or the not I’s will—to complain about. Let’s see how many of them you don’t complain about. And let’s see how many things you don’t have to stick up for your rights—you don’t have to tell anybody off—or you don’t have to defend yourself. So basically we can put it down in two words.
I have nothing to prove about me or I have nothing to defend about me.
I don’t have to prove to you that I’m a good guy or that I’m entitled to anything or anything else. And I don’t have to defend myself against anybody’s ignoring me or rejecting me or saying unusual things that I don’t like. Now we only have two hours until we meet again and so let’s go try to see how well we can do with two hours of not letting a not-"I" take over and give you a good bumping. Think you can do that all right? (Laughter) Now if you can do it for two hours, you can do it two weeks. If you can do it two weeks, you can do it two years. And that might be of a decided asset. Certainly two hours will give us a little look-see at how much we are prone to do these things without even knowing it; and we just take it for granted that that’s the way things are, ok? So let’s have two hours that we’re not allowing the not I’s to run our lives. Ok?
(In the science of man tapes on tape #1, you speak of Life is the teacher and Life is the school and wherever there’s a group of people which is two or more people gathered together where one person has the teachings, there a school exists.)
That a school exists—that’s correct.
(So even though it might be better that only you have the teaching; and everybody else is going merrily on their way not realizing you have the teaching; but you are doing the observing because you have the teaching. I don’t understand the last part of it, the first part I do.)
Well, I’m saying that as long as one person has the teaching the school exists. If no one has the teaching, obviously there is no school. Ok, so a school exists if he who is working with the teachings is involved with one other person, that’s right. Whether the other person knows it or not is immaterial, there is still a school going on—that’s correct.
(But you also say in Headlines, when this guy realizes that he is a prisoner it may be possible with co-workers to escape.)
You said co-workers there—actually just one other person does it.
(Are you saying that a coworker can be any other person?)
Oh yeah, just so it’s another human being out there.
(I don’t understand the statement.)
I know you don’t. So why don’t you study it until you understand it and then you won’t have to ask the question. Ok?
Anybody is a teacher. Life’s the teacher anyway--not you, and not me or anybody else. Life is the teacher. So if you’re in contact with one other person and you have any of the ideas—even one--then a school is goings on. If you pay attention, you’ll see what’s happening—what’s going on. And if you don’t pay attention and wait for somebody to tell you, you’ll probably never see it. Does that answer it a little bit now?
You start paying attention to “what’s going on here”, and you’ll see it.
This afternoon one of the subjects will be “what’s going on here” so you can pay attention to that.
(All right.)
And no matter where you are you’ll have that—what’s going on here?
(Thank you.)
You don’t have to go any certain place and spend your money--go to Turkey or some foreign place to have a teacher. Life is the teacher—it’s everywhere, its right here, ok?
Wherever you are you have a school--if you will pay attention. So this afternoon we’ll talk about “What’s going on here” and from that, I think you’ll be able to see what’s happening here and there. If you don’t pay attention to what’s going on here, you won’t get anything out of it. Ok?
Everybody go to lunch.
Well, how many had a good time when you were out to lunch and all that good stuff? Didn’t have any not I’s screaming at you and making all sorts of horrible predictions like you’re going to fall apart at the seams—that is anybody except Judy, Judy knows she’s going to fall apart.
So we talked about health and wealth a little bit this morning so this afternoon we will try to talk about love a bit.
Now to try to tell you what I’m not interested in today as far as the subject of “romance” goes, doesn’t mean I’m not interested in it; but what the subject is is love. We’ll put four words out here. So one is Pia. One is Eros. One is Phelia and one is Agape. And we’ll have still another one down here.
Now Pia is the caring that one has for family—parents for their children, children for their parents. A parent may be screaming about their kid and how terrible they are to the kid; but let somebody else do it and the fights on. The parent is going to defend the child.
Eros is, of course, the mating attraction or the attachment between boy/girl.
Phelia merely means I like. So if I say I just love chocolate cake, it means I like chocolate cake; and I love that house means I like that house. It appeals to my taste.
Agape is something entirely different. Now the first three, all the higher animals in the world share with human beings. And for our purpose today, we’re not going to consider those as love. Pia certainly we all have if we have little ones or we have parents and grandparents—we all do in some way or other. We have a decided caring for them which is ordinarily called love, but we’re going to call it simply what it is--that it is the family unit--or the “let’s stick up for ours”, and it’s us against them.
Eros is an attraction and it can be an attachment. It arouses many things like jealousy and so forth; and Eros is usually reversible. If you don’t believe it, check up on it. You can have it very heavy and just couldn’t live without it today; and tomorrow you could chop his head off. So he did something you didn’t like or he looked at another woman or she looked at another man or something to that effect and “love” goes right out the window—the fight’s on. So we will say that that’s very—I won’t use the word “fickle”---I’ll just leave it there and pass on by. We’ll say it’s very flexible. (Laughter)
Phelia is mostly a matter of taste, I like or I don’t like and my likes are just perfect for me; and your likes are just perfect for you even though they may be quite different. I might like rare steak and you like your steak well-done—so what. It’s perfect for both of us. I have no reason to say your taste is lousy because you like well-done steaks; and you have no reason to say mine for rare steak is bad.
I took a lady to dinner one time. She kept turning away while I was eating and I thought well I must have atrocious manners. So I finally said, “Why are you doing that?” She said, “Look I have branded steers that got up and run off that was hurt worse than that thing.” So she didn’t approve of my taste and didn’t think I should like my steak rare.
So we will talk a wee bit about agape. Now agape is love in a different form. Only humans can have agape; and very few of those have; but only humans are capable—the other creatures in the world don’t. The other creatures have these others quite well. If you don’t believe it, go out and squeeze a little baby pig’s tail until he until he squeals and mama will come after you in no uncertain terms. She has Pia; and she obviously had Eros somewhere along the way or the piglet wouldn’t have been there. They have their likes and dislikes. They like one kind of food and don’t like another; and they like one kind of pen and don’t like another. So they all have this; but agape is a word for understanding.
AGAPE
It goes something like I see that whatever you’re doing or whatever I’m doing or whatever anybody else is doing that at the moment of doing, I have to feel that it’s either right or proper or justifiable, to me, or else I couldn’t do it nor neither could you.
In other words, you can’t feel something is wrong, improper and totally unjustified and do it. So that kind of curtails a lot of things. You simply can’t do something if you decide that it is wrong, improper and unjustifiable. Now you may believe that something is wrong and improper--ordinarily; but under this particular case it’s very justifiable. “After all the way you’ve done me, I’m justified in cutting your ears off or your head or whatever’s handy.” But only because I have justified it first. You mistreated me in one form or another; and then I feel justified in getting revenge or getting even or whatever else I may come up with.
But agape understands that the person already feels that it’s right, proper, and/or justifiable; and therefore I would say “that’s the criterion and the only criterion I can use for doing everything I do; so how could I be angry or upset—it is an understanding. So we would like to see if we could come up with a wee bit of first agape. Now do you want to try that out? Ok, you think of something you would feel is totally wrong, totally improper, and not justifiable to you—any one of those three—and then see if you can do it? You know what I might feel is right is one thing; and what you might feel is right is quite another. What I feel is proper is one thing; and what you feel is proper is another. What I can justify may not be what you can justify. I found people that can justify about anything—well, at least for a while. Usually justification breaks down after a while and then the guilt takes over; but, at the time, it is viewed as justifiable.
Now I would like for anybody and everybody here to at one time or another in the following week see if you can do something that you think is wrong, improper and unjustifiable. You might stand on a parking lot and watch a little old lady with crutches come across. You don’t feel it was quite right or proper to trip her, but do it. (Laugher) It’s not right to you, not proper and not justifiable. You might try parking in all the spaces reserved for wheel chairs. Don’t park in the regular spaces—there’s always plenty of those spaces available so you can park in those even if you don’t feel it’s right proper or justifiable—go ahead and do it anyway—it will get you more than one little ticket. And you know there are signs everywhere that say “Thank you for not smoking.” Go in there and smoke in those places. Blow it in their face—who cares? In other words, see if you can do something that you feel is wrong, improper and unjustified. Find out if you can; and then it will give you a firsthand experience that it it’s impossible. You simply can’t do it. X will not put into motion, will not move the body in any way until it has been told that it is right, or proper or justifiable—it won’t do it. Don’t take my word for it, go find out. That’ll give you some beginning of understanding of agape.
Now that leads us to the next step which is the highest state of consciousness known to man. You know people are always talking about getting in a higher state of consciousness; and if you ask them what it is, they usually don’t know or they feel it’s some unusual state that they might get in if they had enough drugs or enough self-hypnosis, or something else. But let’s say that this is quite available—the highest state of consciousness known to man is available to anybody who chooses to find out. So let’s call this one ‘unconditional love.” This goes on past agape—it’s unconditional. “Unconditional love” has nothing to do necessarily with romance even though it could be for or about the person that you have romantic feelings for. It would be wonderful if it was. Unconditional love is the love that doesn’t “set a condition” in order for the unconditional love to be extended--if we want to use that word. I might say I love a person; but pretty soon I set a condition on it, “I’ll love you as long as you do so and so and I won’t love you if you do so and so”--that is not unconditional love is it? That’s conditional. That’s the kind of variety that we’re mostly acquainted with. That kind of love results in about every conceivable kind of problem you can come up with.
Now let’s say that if you had unconditional love--you’d set no conditions, huh?–no conditions of any kind for any person or anything that you have a care for. And we do care for all Life in one form or another, right?
Now can you conceive, possibly, what kind of a state of mind you would be in if you had unconditional love for everything and everybody around you? Could you conceive of that maybe? Never tried that one? All of you have conditions set very tight, is that right? Always had a condition set?
(As far as I can remember.)
That’s as far back as you can go and probably before; but at least since you can recall. How about you Esther? Always been some conditions.
(Yes.)
And unfortunately very few people fit those conditions do they?
(Never.)
In fact none of them do—well, not for very long at a time. Maybe they do for a few days, but rarely for a few months--not for too long, is that about right? Pretty soon the conditions say, “If I’m going to love them then they’d better do it my way.” Is that somewhere close to right?
Ok, so is all wars in the world fought because there’s no unconditional love. So if unconditional love were fairly common in the world, most of the problems in the world would totally disappear. That’d be about right—can you conceive of that Darlene?
(Yes.)
You can see that. But as long as you got conditions there’s going to be contentions, is that right? Now if we take agape as a starting place and see that everybody is doing what they feel is “right”, “proper” and “justifiable” and the only thing they can, (and we find out for ourselves that we can’t do something we feel to be wrong, improper and unjustifiable) you’d have a starting place to discover the unconditional part. Now we didn’t say you could just turn on a little switch in your head like a water faucet to get it. But if you see the potential of it and begin to work at it we do know that it is possible to have unconditional love. We’re not talking about only for romantic. It could be in romance, but it could be everywhere. But if you had unconditional love you couldn’t have too many romantic hassles could you Darlene? There wouldn’t be any hassles because hassles happen from somebody “didn’t fit a condition” that we assume they “ought to know about”. And they didn’t do it so they’re just dirty jerks. So anywhere in the whole human experience, all our difficulties would end if there were a realization and an experiencing of unconditional love.
You wouldn’t have any anxieties anywhere to make yourself sick. You wouldn’t have any big hassles to deal with. You wouldn’t have anything to start contentions with. Your business would work pretty well because you would be nice to everybody that came along for one reason or another—maybe no reason at all—just unconditional love.
Now unconditional love is the state of being that, so far, is the highest state of consciousness that man has come about. It is beyond bliss and all these other things that people try to suggest themselves into with all the hypnosis, meditation, positive thinking or whatever--trying to arrive at these “higher states” which are only temporary states anyway--but unconditional love would be a permanent state. They’re available all the time; and you can still function in the everyday world going on doing whatever you want to do.
Now unconditional love is a concept that’s not usually even thought of because it’s almost impossible for any of us to think about in our ordinary every day activities. It seems inconceivable that you could have that for anybody. You got to have conditions, don’t you?—they don’t do so-and-so so hang it up. I’m gone, or I’m going to shoot them, or I’m going to kick they’re crutches out from under them.
(I don’t think I’d go that far.)
Well, it’s according to how big a condition they didn’t meet.
(Well, yes.)
…And that’s just because you don’t know how to handle a gun, Esther. (Laughter) If we taught you well with guns, you might just handle it that way. So we all have inhibitions about shooting people because we do have A side and B side, thank goodness. That will work until we get somewhere else—this B-side is an inhibitor over here. The A side is quite willing to do it in.
(It would be.)
This one is willing, but the B side inhibits and says, but you’ll get in jail or something like that; and there’s an inhibitor. So thank goodness we have the initiator and the inhibitor until we can come to the point where a human being could have unconditional love. Unconditional love brings along with it a tremendous number of abilities that the ordinary human has but never gets to use because they are in a state of conflict to some degree at all times. All sorts of unusual abilities that people hear about are quite common to anyone who experiences unconditional love. There and no other way it is going to be there for real—it may be a slip here and a slip there. We are aware that there are tremendous potential abilities, but we’ve never actualized them. Would you say that’s correct sir—you know some way or other that you have considerable potential that you haven’t actualized yet, is that right? You have that don’t you? I think everybody does. Don’t you? You do? And every one of us has a realization that we have potential that we have never scratched the surface of. Now we’re talking about where it can be liberated—all it does is remove the obstruction. You don’t really generate it, you just remove the obstructions to it—it’s already there and you would have it.
The obstruction to it is all the turmoil and emotion and conflict and struggle and resistance that go on in the human being that has not or is not experiencing unconditional love. Now we’ve all said that if we could only have this situation or that situation, or I could get this accomplished then I would be quite all right. It doesn’t work that way. It’s the obstruction to be removed; and the obstruction is only removed when unconditional love comes into being and the person is experiencing it, then you’ve removed all obstructions to the actualization of these many potentials that every human knows they have. You’re aware you have a lot of potential you haven’t actualized--all kinds of things, that right? You know you got one or two that hasn’t been there yet? Ok? And this is the way that it comes about.
Now it is not difficult. It’s not a struggle. It’s not something you sit down and do, it’s something you’re aware of: first starting with agape, or understanding that no person, including you or me, could do anything unless we feel it is right or proper or justifiable at this moment.
Now you know because we have something justified now, it doesn’t mean we’ll have it justified 20 minutes from now. Did you ever notice that? The justification is just wonderful until after we get it done; and then the justification breaks down—the justifier runs and he leaves us “holding the bag” so to speak; and then we have guilt feelings. Now you never feel guilty before you do a thing. Did you ever notice that—it’s afterwards? (Laughter) It feels very justifiable until you get it done; and then the guy that justified it—the little not I that told you how entitled you were to do it—he takes a powder on you—he pulls a Hank Snow—he’s movin’ on and he leaves you with it. And now B side jumps up and says, ‘You dirty rat, now you’ve done it; you’re going to pay now.” and this is what guilt is—you know—I’m going to get caught later. If you knew you’d never get caught do you think you’d ever feel guilty? (Laughter) Huh? If you didn’t believe that you were going to get caught, would you ever feel guilty? No way. But you see they come along and told us about that great day that’s coming when each one of us is going to have our whole life shown on the screen without any moment of exception; and everybody’s going to look at it—that’s enough to scare the pants off us. (Laughter) Everybody’s going to feel guilty then because they’re going to get caught in the last anyway. So, you know, there’s not everything we want to show to everyone.
So here’s one where if you have unconditional love, it wouldn’t matter what got shown, you’d still like it, ok? That would ruin the whole show wouldn’t it? Nobody’s going to feel guilty even if they found out. Nobody’s going to condemn me no matter what they saw about me, huh? That would be quite a difference.
Now here is something that can bring about a total transformation of the human existence—the human life. It is the transforming factor; and there is not too much else that’s going to do it. We can learn a lot. We can be in all kinds of states that work real well; but if you’re interested in total transformation of the human being, here it is.
Now how many of you think that you could even remotely entertain the idea that it was possible to have unconditional love? Think you could even entertain the possibility of it? You could, couldn’t you? Ok, now let’s start to work.
One we’ve got to understand other people—after all that’s what we deal with are people all the time. I really don’t have much concourse with the common birds and so forth—I admire them, watch them and so forth—but people are what we deal with. So people are what we’re interested in having unconditional love for.
Now what have I got to change before I could have unconditional love for you, Darlene? What would have to change in me if anything?
(I don’t know, tell me.)
You don’t like my evaluation which means I’m setting myself up as the chief evaluator of the world—that’d be about one thing I’d have to let go of. I can evaluate you, you are a nice person but—and that “but” cancels everything before then—that’s not unconditional love. After the "but", we go into all the faults and misgivings we can find wrong with you, is that right?
So number one, I would have to give up my position as the world evaluator—let’s don’t call it judgment, that’s a dirty word these days, Darlene—real bad word—so we won’t use that. But if I can see what’s wrong with you and what’s wrong with him and he has all this other bad stuff, then I have set myself up as the chief evaluator in the world---is that right?
(Could you have unconditional love towards another person if–inaudible--?)
I don’t imagine so. I don’t have to evaluate me or the other guy. I said in agape I see what I do. I always feel it’s right, proper or justifiable, and I’ve finally learned to not go by justification because the justification I use always breaks down and leaves me with anger, guilt, fear and insecurity after a while whether it’s at you or at myself. So I quit using that method; so it has to feel right or proper.
So if I can’t have agape or understanding for me, I couldn’t have it for you, is that right? So I think we always have to start with number 1. I heard that one great teacher said “you love your neighbor as yourself” and I might add that it isn’t love your neighbor better than yourself which I’ve observed from time to time. So if you don’t love you, I don’t guess you care very much about me. But if I like me, then I can like you. I don’t have to go around feeling guilty and miserable because I did this and failed over here, and I didn’t do all I “should have done” there. I did what seemed right and proper and justifiable with what “light I have today”. Then I can have the same for you, and that’s getting close. That’s at least getting toward agape. Then we can go on a little further and have unconditional love; and that is to be a total transformed person. If you have unconditional love there is nothing to set off “anxiety” in here. There isn’t anything in here to get agitated about because everything we’re agitated about is because somebody did something they weren’t supposed to do or vice versa.
(You mean I can have agape for myself?)
Number 1, you’re people. But are you the chief evaluator in the world. That really is about the only thing we had to give up is our so called exalted idea of ourselves as being the person to evaluate others, saying “you shouldn’t have done that”, “she should have done this”, and “I should have done better last year”, and “I knew better—I knew it was wrong, but I went on and did it anyway”--and all these various lies that we tell ourselves because those are not true. Did you ever say, “I knew better but I did it anyway.” You didn’t know better at the moment because it seemed right or you couldn’t have done it.
It’s like people going around saying they made mistakes by doing so and so. They found out afterwards--not before because they didn’t know how the outcome was going to be before—so if you knew before, you wouldn’t have done it that way.
Now if we can begin to have—shall we say agape and compassion and understanding for ourselves and others we can come to the state of unconditional love very quickly. Now if we tried to generate it, I think you’d have a little bit of difficulty. You’d only kid yourself; but if you get rid of the idea that you are the chief evaluator of all people in the world—have you ever assumed that role for a little while Darlene? Do you suppose everybody here has?—we won’t ask, but I think everybody here has held up to be the one to do the evaluating of all those others? We think, I can do it and it’s all right, but if he or she does it, they did it for the wrong reason.
(Usually.)
Usually—almost always. So if the obstruction to coming to the point of being free to experience unconditional love shall we say is one basic thing—that I have knowingly or unknowingly—usually unknowingly—since childhood set myself up as the chief evaluator of human beings. That’s your job isn’t it Steiner?
(Do you want a notarized statement?)
Yeah—a notarized statement to that effect that he is the official finder of fault in this world—but you know everybody else is trying to get in on his act and he can’t keep it all by himself. The world is still populated by "s.b.’s" you know—that means stupid bastards. And who decided they were—the chief evaluator.
Now if we decide that people need to have a great course in self-improvement, have we not set ourselves up as a chief evaluator? I don’t want to improve anybody; I love you like you are. If you want to have fun doing something else—if you want to discover something to give you a greater state of being that’s your business, but I wouldn’t tell you that you should or you shouldn’t.
Somebody asked me one day if they should come to one of my talks. And I said I wouldn’t tell anybody to do anything. Now if you want to come, I’ll be happy for you to be there---be happy to take your check or your cash; but you don’t need to come. If they want to know if they should read my books, I’d say, “Well, no, but I sure appreciate it when you do.” So that’s all just fine. Really nobody needs anything—everybody’s doing pretty well just like they are if they could ever recognize that they are.
You see, you almost would have to have a little unconditional love for you to really “like yourself”. You know more about you than about anybody else. And while we might go around and project all our things on everybody we meet, we still, in the wee hours, think we’ve come up a little short. So we said, we start with unconditional love for ourselves—number 1. Think you could have that? Just for you? Think so? Give it a go anyway. Try to have it for number 1. If you have it for number 1, you can have it for others; and when you have it for everybody, you are a transformed being with a lot of potentials actualized that you never dreamed of expressing before. Ok we will stop and ask for questions, comments, talks. Yes sir.
(I’ve always seen agape and unconditional love as the same thing.)
You’ve always seen that. They’re not the same. Agape is the ‘opening of the door” to unconditional love. Unconditional love is the “living It”. Agape is the information and knowing and is only the start. Continue with it a little further, and I think you’ll find that you agree with it. I’m not asking for an agreement, but unconditional love is the decided extension of agape, ok? It’s an extension.
Ok next question.
(Just an example recently that I had; and I see it in this moment. A situation came up in the office that she was almost completely devastated by, and it seemed to me that she was not carrying any agape or understanding for herself or the other person.)
It was good to talk about it; but when the happening came along, she wasn’t there, is that what you’re saying?
(The unconditional part of it.)
She had a lot of conditions set up with this situation and she fell apart at the seams when it wasn’t realized, is that correct? That’s about how it works.
(Would you say that Agape is knowing about it and that unconditional love is actualizing it?)
Not quite even that. Agape is living it too, and it’s a far greater extension of something. You can have agape and then some day somebody comes along and does something. You may see that it was seen as right, proper, and justifiable; but you couldn’t have agape at that particular moment because you didn’t feel it right then.
(When we teach our children or when we were learning all through Life right up to today it seems like most of what I could sum up is how to make a good decision with everything I have to work with. How do you make a good decision?)
You’re asking yourself, did you do the right thing?
(Yes, you always got to teach your daughters how to choose, and that’s when they can make a better decision.)
That’s about right? And you were also taught that kids know what’s right or proper, but they go on and do wrong anyway and so they’re entitled to be punished, is that right?
(Yes.)
Right. See if that’s correct, ok? And you were taught by your parents to be good--not to be conscious. (Laughter) Our parents were only interested in us being good, so we wouldn’t embarrass them—not in us being conscious at all. In other words, what “training” is considered to be, is to so condition a child to have a very strong B-side over here that we said was the “inhibitor” a while ago; and a very weak A-a side) Is that what you were talking about?
(Yes.)
You didn’t go around sticking up for your rights and blaming; you were taught to please people. You quoted your proper authorities, and you were always improving yourself; and you didn’t like one minute of it, but you put on the best front. That’s why they say the good die young. They’re in a bigger conflict.
(What I was going to say is in training our children, how can we do it differently so that they can have unconditional love where they are?)
How about pointing out that everybody-----well, you start with agape. Don’t teach them that people know what’s right and go on and do wrong anyway. How often did your mother say to you, “You knew better than that, why did you do it?” Did you ever say that to your children?
(Daily.)
Daily. Ok, then that made quite an impression—your children then got to believing that they knew better but did wrong anyway just like you did, right? Don’t lay that on the little ones. You can say look I knew you felt it was right, Beth, but maybe we could look at it from another standpoint—you can ask, “What’s to your advantage?” ok? But if you’re trying to teach a child to be good, you will probably make a physic mess out of it, ok? That answer your question a little bit?
(That’s what all the parents say.)
Oh yes, it’s taught all over the place—everybody practically. You were probably taught to be good instead of conscious, weren’t you?
(Yes.)
You’re mama wanted you to be good so you wouldn’t embarrass her, is that right? You received a great lot of instructions on being good. Ok, so that’s what we’re talking about. Yeah, you didn’t decide to be good all on your own. (Laughter)
(How do you do that? What are some of the way you can do that?)
Well, why don’t you just let them to kinda be what they want and ask them once in a while what they feel is to their advantage? You know most parents tell the kids that they got to respect them, and they got to love their parents and all this stuff. Kids just get kind of get in a hassle with their folks and then come to me—I just get it through to them that Life would be much easier and good things might come their way if they’d treat their parents real nicely--not because they should or ought to but because it’s to their advantage—and that goes for as long as they are going to live there with them. It works pretty good, doesn’t it honey?
(Yep.)
This was the end of the tape, and there didn’t seem to be another one.