Workshop - Going Forward with Life (Lake Whitney 1982 - 8 CDs)- Page 1 of 4

The following is without commentary. It is as close to the original audio as possible. [Brackets are used for clarity.] Bold type is used for emphasis. (Audience participation is in parentheses.)

Audio: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/bjsnni9menko397/AADKgtfgC6AUkN-q-yre2g2Ta/Going%20Forward%20with%20Life?dl=0&subfolder_nav_tracking=1

CD 1

I figure that I can talk about almost anything inasmuch as talking is one of my favorite occupations. So, you came distances. I came quite a way today too. I started out this morning in northern California and with the aid of a few tail burners, why we got here all right – in Miss Donna's car and a few other things. So I will talk about what you want to talk about. But maybe I will start off and talk a few minutes about something that might be interesting. Who knows. And if it's not, why we'll drop that subject and talk about anything you want to talk about.

So, the fact that I talk about something doesn't mean a thing in the world except that I thought I wanted to talk about that. But you came here and taking your time in the weekend and so we will talk about anything that you want to talk about as long as it's somewhere related to the subject of which we generally talk about, which is people… that gives you a wide trip through there, you know.  

We don't have my favorite front man here, Mack Harris, who for some reason or another wouldn't show up today. Some of you that have been to a few talks we've given know that we have to have a straight man and so he's usually been an excellent straight man. But as long as he's not here, why I will use one of my old friends from California, Louis. He works pretty good at it also. (laughter) He's serious enough to take it over. You see, to have a good front man you got to have somebody that's serious; and one thing I don't do well is be serious. I like to have a good time and I feel that all these deep and heavy subjects that we talk about is entitled to a little levity as we go along because if you take it serious, it don't work very well. 

I heard that the reason angels can fly is they took themselves so damn lightly.

(laughter) And I certainly take myself a little lightly because I'm still able to walk around after all these years, so I take it a little lightly too. So we will start off and I will make a few great comments [he chuckles] and then you can take it from there. 

As we look around we see that there is several billion people on earth. I heard the Chinese just recently held a census for the first time in all the ages they've been over there. They decided they could count em now they had enough computers. They couldn't do it with the abacas. So now that they've got computers, they had a census and it turned out there was over 2 billion Chinese livin' in China alone. Now the rest of the world's got a few people in it also, so at least it comes up around 3 billion or more, plus or minus if you have half a million, you know. And all these people are doing something. They're running to and fro. I said I came from California, and I worked in LA most of last week and on the freeways, you wonder where they're all going or where they're coming from. Zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip, zip.

I went to a movie of somebody's impression of people the other day, and they speeded everything up about 20 or 30 times. And you should have seen the traffic on the freeways – it was speeded up 30 times, 20 times, blup blup blup. Sometimes I feel it's going about that fast anyway. So, there's an awful lot of people and they're all running to and fro, here and there, having great problems, huh? All kinds of great difficulties and they're taking it very serious. They've got a death grin on their face – hanging in there. Going. They got to get there! It's VERY IMPORTANT!... whatever it is they're doing.  

So, it has struck me one day many, many, many long years ago as to what's going on here. There must be something running a big experiment, you know? Whenever you got that many flies running around and everything, there must be some sort of an experiment being run. So I begin to wonder, what is Life doing? What kind of an experiment is it running? It's got so many of these people here.

Incidentally, did you know that over half of the people who’ve ever lived on this planet are still alive? Did you know that? Over 50% of all the people that ever been born on this planet are still alive. So there's a lot of us out here and something is running an experiment or it wouldn't make so many of em.

So I've considered the experiment a long, long time and had a lot of fun considering the experiment. And finally it come up to me that after long and diligent effort – not very hard; but you know, I didn't have much else to do so might as well do that – that

Life is running an experiment with human beings to see if it can develop a living being, a conscious being, that can act on its own and has a certain degree of free agency to do as he jolly-well pleases.

You can stand up or sit down. Can't do both at the same time, but you can do one or the other any time you want to, is that about right? You can cook. You can walk. You can knock it off. You can sew. You can do about anything you want to. You can rebuild your house or you can tear it down – pull the wall out, see if the roof caves in. Whatever you want to.

Now, so we have a certain free agency to perform, maybe not 100%. I don't think we can choose circumstances, but we can certainly potentially choose our responses to it. I don't think most people choose their response. They react a great deal. I experiment with that ever once in a while. I get a lot of reactions. And I can usually predict what I'm gonna get off a person if I know em fairly well.  

So this experiment could be that Life is attempting to find out if you can take something with a human body, which has a lot in common with all animal bodies – has an awful lot in common – and see if you could get it to live without emotions. Now in order to clarify, we will put what I mean by emotions. I don't know what anybody else means, I'm just gonna tell you how we use it.

This is emotion. [points to the board] Over here is feeling. Now, they're not the same. In fact to the way we're gonna use em that many things you might read the same. To me,

EMOTIONS are anger, guilt, fear, and insecurity.

Now there is a few jillion synonyms to every one of those words, I would say, is that right? Jealousy is only a great sense of insecurity. Annoyance is just a degree of anger. I become annoyed; you get really ticked off, you know. You know how that goes, don't you? Huh? Some people feel guilty and others have regrets; but I think it all comes down to about the same. (laughter) I have regrets; you go around with a guilt complex.

Now,

FEELING is joy, peace, awe at the beauty of everything and so forth… and love,

whatever that may mean, and on and on and on over here is a lot of feelings. Now the human being is an experiment to see if they can live without these [refers to emotions] and any of their synonyms. 

Now if you wanted to go along with life… I hear a lot of people say they want to serve life and I don't know exactly what that means. It looks like it was getting along pretty good ‘fore I got here, so I don't know what I could add to it as far as serving it. Everybody seems to be getting along all right. Sure, if a guy's hungry, I'm gonna buy his dinner if I have a dollar to get it with, or five, or whatever it takes.

But what we are interested in, would it be possible that I could look at Life as a big experiment going and I'd like to go along with the experiment? Now I could consciously begin to each day see if I could get along without these emotions. I could have all kinds of feelings now; we're all gonna have feelings. There's no way as long as we're alive, we're not gonna have feelings. The body responds to that way. 

But how about the emotions? Those are the things which destroys human beings: anger, guilt, fear and insecurity. I maintain we weren't even equipped to handle them because they're very stressful and they build up tremendous… Of course we're domesticated to a degree and when we get angry we don't go out and kill somebody as a general rule. We suppress it back and hold it in and get ulcers and heart attacks and hardening of the arteries and migraine headaches and a few nice other things… ulcers. And we have guilts; we get a lot of different things going – fear and insecurity. Now basically we are not equipped to have those. But we all indulge in them.

I maintain we simply cannot afford them. I cannot afford emotions. I'm too old and decrepit and weak to stand em. I guess some of you are still young enough and strong enough to have em. Is that all right? Can you have em and get along without paying a price for em? Huh? Louis, can you have em without paying a price? 

(I don't think so.)

I don't either. I can't afford the price anymore, can you? I can't afford the price.  

So, if I were going to say, “Well I wanted to serve life or be a good guest at the party,” or something I would be consciously working to see if each day I could get along without having any of these as a reaction. Or that I certainly wouldn't have them intentionally ‘cause they don't serve any purpose. And I have a lot more fun feeling joy and peace and good will and all the other good feelings that we can all have anytime we want.

We wrote a little book sometime ago called "Who's in Charge of Your Inner State of Being?” Now, in order to study that little state of being we have to look at what interferes and wants us to be angry, guilty, fearful, insecure and all those good things. So, we have a little picture we call the Picture of Man. Now as long as there was several people here who said they hadn't been around – at the extent of possibly boring the others, but I don't think so because I think it's the most valuable picture ever been done – we will make a little picture here. We will name it the Picture of Man. Not being an artist, I will draw it the way I can do it, okay? 

Now the human being has basically four aspects that we can all see. In other words, you don't have to take my word for anything we say, we can see it. We all see that there's (1) Physical Bodies sitting around. We said a few minutes ago there's over three billion of em on earth right now. That's a pretty good crop, three billion physical bodies that are still moving.

And obviously there's an (2) Awareness. You walk up and say hi to somebody, they'll respond. Maybe. (laughter) I tried it to three today that didn't respond; they looked the other way and went on their way. They wondered what was wrong with that guy saying hi to em. Just went on. But most of em will recognize you in some way or other, they'll gripe or do something. You know you got his attention a little bit. So, there is a certain degree of awareness.

Now we also know there is something which is called life. I don't know what life is. I don't think I've found anybody that did know. But we can certainly tell when he's alive or not – he's up, his eyes are open, he sees something shining out in there. And if that life wasn't there, it's on the floor – stiff, worthless, no light, the eyes dead and so forth. So we refer to that as (3) X [Life]. Now the reason I use the letter X is because I know there's something there and I don't know what it is yet. We call it life, but that don't mean because I can use the word, I know what it is. Do you know what life is? Could you define it?

(No.)

I can't either. And neither have I found a book that attempted to define it. Life says “the state of being alive” in the dictionary (laughter) so that put me a great distance down the road, you know. It's the state of being alive. But we don't have to have a definition. We can see it. We can even look at a tree and say that one's dead or its alive. We can look at a cow and say it’s dead or alive.  Dead ones we eat and alive ones we feed. (laughter) So you can tell quite a difference in em, you know.  

Now we also always have some (4) Function. There's always a function. You're eating. You're sleeping, you're dreaming, you’re fussing, you're crying, or you're having a good time or whatever the case may be. There's always some function.  

Now all four of these are in a unit with four aspects – not four parts. They're not separate; they all work together. That's obvious. And we can see the living being.

Now we talk about something a friend back here said his condition to come here on certain times. Usually, I think he got hooked in because he did record all these thoughts and he finally just thought if the bell rings he's supposed to be here whether he records or not. And so we call something conditioned. Now conditioned means simply that something is done mechanically, automatically, it is done without conscious thought or effort. Now conditioning is not bad, it's not good. It is.

We're all conditioned to stop on red lights and go on green ones. Be rather chaotic to go down a busy city street without some of those little lights and the conditioning to go with it, right? I wouldn't want to be out there without them.

We're conditioned basically to – all except very few people – we're conditioned to dress up in some form or other to go out on the street. Now I have some friends who are nudists. They're conditioned to yank em off (laughter) but that's simple and to the point. They're in the minority.

We're conditioned to eat basically our meat and taters and salad first and our desert last. Now I really don't think it makes much difference whether we eat desert first and then eat the other stuff, but we're conditioned to do that. We're conditioned to eat in public and use the bathroom in private. All of this is quite all right and we have no qualms about it; but we are also conditioned to do certain things, which are very detrimental.

Those are sixes – one way or the other wouldn't make any difference. The first thing that we are conditioned with we probably decided on the day we were born – probably in the very process of being born – we decided something like:

“The very purpose and the only purpose of living is to regain the non-disturbed state.”

The unborn infant in the uterus is living in pretty much of a paradise according to most people. He has nothing to disturb him. He never gets hungry, never gets cold particular, never gets very hot. There isn't anybody hollering at him to do something. There isn't anybody putting demands on him. There isn't anybody saying, “What'd you do that for?” He's just sitting there floating around and who'd a thought it and lah-de-dah. And he feels pretty wonderful. Now I think I have a vague memory of it and it was a pretty nice state. 

And then all of a sudden, some process comes along and you're being pushed, you're being pounded, you're being squeezed through a place not near big enough to get through. And you feel suffocated because that little umbilical cord, the lifeline, is being squeezed and the blood’s not going through it right. You're not getting enough oxygen. That's why everybody thinks they're dying when they feel a little out of breath. Cause they remember that vaguely and you were out of breath in no uncertain terms.

So, it was very reasonable that the infant decided with feeling, not with words, the whole purpose of living is to regain that non-disturbed state. The purpose of living, even being around here, is to regain the non-disturbed state. We usually disturb ourselves very hard trying to get that. (laughter) Anybody ever stop to think about it, we work very hard and disturb ourselves intensely trying to regain the non-disturbed state. 

So, but this was a very reasonable assumption. And arriving at a purpose by the little one – so we all have it pretty well universally – every human being is trying to regain the non-disturbed state. We work ourselves into early graves trying to get enough money and property so we won't be disturbed later. But think how hard we get disturbed getting it, you know? That don't mean I'm not interested in money, but I do try not to get too disturbed about it. I look at it as a game and go on about my business and somebody usually let's me have a dollar or two every once in a while. 

So, the whole purpose then is not the purpose to live without emotions, but now we've set ourselves up to have emotions – the whole purpose to be non-disturbed. Now in an everyday living world there is going to be a great variety of stimuli hit us everyday. Some of which we will like and some of which we don't like. Now a sensation I like I call pleasure, is that about right? And a sensation I don't like I call pain. Now it doesn't necessarily mean that we would agree on what's pain.

I like to put Louisiana Hot Sauce on my eggs and somebody else might try to eat that and find that extremely painful. I like hot chili and some people finds that chili very painful, and so on down the road. Some people like salt on their food, some don't. Some find it very painful, disgusting, etcetera. Some like it well and so on. So, we can't even say there's such a thing as pleasure and pain. We can only say it's painful to me or it's painful to [corrects himself] or it's pleasant to me cause there's no such thing we can agree on.  

So, we're going to have sensations as long as we are reasonably conscious and alive unless we're in a deep coma, is that about correct? Always have some sensation. Now we've learned to tune out part of em. You couldn't sit here for an hour if you didn't tune out certain sensations in the gluteus maximum – they would begin to be very painful. But if I keep you listening enough you will turn that one out. But if you just sit down all by yourself on a hard chair and stare at the wall, you'll find you get very uncomfortable in far less than an hour and a half or two hours, is that right? Right. So, we can turn off certain ones of em, but then we have come up, now we know the purpose of living, we immediately begin to find a way to achieve it. 

Well, the first one that the infant finds – so we'll make a [number] one in that as these are ways to achieve the non-disturbed state – the infant feels that it's important to have its way and it doesn't mean a minute later or ten seconds later, it means right now!

(1^st decision) It's important to have my way now and the way to get it is to complain.

The baby cries, which is a very unpleasant sound and people usually jump to stop that unpleasant sound, is that right, Lee? Everybody else says you're spoiling the brat; but to you, you're just keeping away from a lot of painful sound, is that right?

(Yeah.)

And of course, it's loving the baby and taking good care of it. We all know that. But the point is that it complains to have its way and when does it want it? Two minutes from now? And you say "Look, honey, it'll take just a minute to get it for you," and it doesn't put up with that. It screams bloody murder, is that right? Right now! Now this works wonders for the baby and it's absolutely essential I think for a baby to go through that in order to survive. Otherwise, we’d ignore the little creatures until they cried and then by that time, they'd be dead if they didn't cry when they were uncomfortable, huh?

But the point is that after a couple of years we don't need that anymore. But I would like to ask how many people here have not complained within the last 48 hours? Mmm? Anybody want to stand up and say, “Me, me, me!” or has that pretty well got us all?  

Now what do we complain for? To get our way, to be non-disturbed, is that right? Did it work? It was probably the last thing in the world that will work now, when since we got grown up complaining is the last thing that works. Is that correct? 

(You bet.)

It just don't work very good. Selling works a lot better doesn't it? Being pleasant – the old bit you can catch more flies with sugar than you can for certain with vinegar, is that right? Catch more gnats with vinegar though. But the point is do you see that we go around complaining. Now we do that as unconsciously as the day is long. It's because something didn't please us at the moment and we let go with all the complaining. Now complaining usually makes you feel a little angry or fearful or something on that order, does it not? That sets it off, huh? That correct? When you complain are you a little ticked?

(Yep.)

Yep. Even when you complain, are you a little ticked at those crazy stupid jerks out there that don't know from nothing, messing up my world? So, we got that one.

Then pretty soon the child learns another one – don't take em very long – they begin to learn that not only do they want their way right now, they start (2) sticking up for their rights. Now, their rights is anything they want, I think, that correct? Do you ever stick up for your rights, Miss? You.

(Yes.)

Now let's talk about our rights for just a moment if we please. Did you arrive in the world very much in the state I did? Broke, helpless, naked, toothless, and more than likely, unwanted. (laughter) You were an accident in other words. The folks planned it out very nicely. Well, that's all right....

(_____)

Part of it, about 99%, is that all right? I'm right about 99%. Most of us somebody found out we was on the way and before abortion was popular most of us wouldn't be here. You know, it was illegal when I was born or I would ’a probably never gotten here cause my mother told me very frequently that she wished she'd a never had this. (laughter) So what? I'm glad I did. I don't care what she thought about it, I got here. 

So, what are your rights now that when you come in like that? Broke, helpless, naked, helpless, couldn’t do anything for yourself, huh? About right? Found a couple of slaves to look after you for a few years, is that right? Where'd all these rights come from if you got so many of em to stick up for? Seems to me they're all privileges. Is that about right? 

(I should think.)

You should think… I don't know whether you should or not, (laughter) but it's a fact, isn't it, that we have one tremendous lot of privileges? I have the privilege of being here. I have the privilege of coming across the country on a fine jet airplane – biggie. It was big enough for four times the number of people's on it, I'll tell you that. I could wander all over the place all by myself. I looked for somebody to look at. Very few people on that big widget – nine people across and there was nobody on it. So we have all kinds of privileges.

I have the privilege of walking into a restaurant and ordering ham and eggs and getting it, is that right? I have the privilege of walking in a store and buying some clothes. I have the privilege of carrying around a VISA card. Now I could lose that privilege awful easy. All I got to do is not pay the bill one time, is that right? Do I have a right to the VISA card or is that a privilege? Do I have a right to life or can any joker with a rock or a club take it away from me right quick? Huh?  

(Nobody can take it away from you.)

What do you mean? I'm alive. Keith can take a club and get rid of me in about a half a minute, that right?

(Yup.)

All you gotta do is beat me over the head, pick up a __ and go [makes wooshing sound]. You're not alive anymore. Bam, you're dead, hmm? Do you have a right to be alive or is it by the grace of goodness that you're here, huh?

(It's a privilege.)

It’s a privilege. Now if I have privileges and I recognize they're privileges, I have a vested interest in maintaining, enhancing and getting more of em. I found out how to do that – be nice to people and they'll give you more privileges, is that right? Is that correct?

(Correct.)

I can maintain the ones I have, enhance them, get em even nicer, and get more, is that right?

(Right.)

Now if I mistake those privileges for rights and go around sticking up for em, do I probably stand a very large chance of losing many of my privileges?

(Yes.)

Good. Now you think that's a worthwhile piece of information to think about for a minute – that we don't have any rights to stick up for. We've just had a bunch of privileges repeatedly given us so long that we accepted them as rights, huh? 

(Yes, sir.)

But if I know that I don't have one right in this world, do you think my behavior would be a little different than if I believed I had a big gob of rights? Come tell me about that, huh? 

(pause) (I think we have no rights.)

Well, if you don't have any rights then you have a bunch of privileges, that's obvious. Now how do you get privileges? By going around screaming and hollering or by being a sweet lady? Tell me.

(I think from being a sweet lady.)

Yeah, I think it would work a lot better. (laughter) It works a lot better. So, I've found out how to maintain my privileges, enhance them, and get a few more. And I'm very thankful for that little bit of information in my life and I have no rights to stick up for, do you? You have any rights, Phil?

(No.)

But if you mistake all these lovely privileges you have for rights, you can sure lose a bunch of privileges in a hurry, is that right?

(And a lot of friends.)

You better believe. Well, friends are people who gives us privileges. Isn't that what you call a friend – is one who gives you privileges all the time, is that correct? You even call family that sometimes and so forth – people who give you a lot of privileges. You like em, don't you? But if somebody forgets to hand you a privilege right now or you wanted something and didn’t get it, it’d suddenly become your right and oh, do we feel justified in getting angry and ticked off and hollering and screaming to get it, that right?

(Yep.)

You don't have any rights. Now if you discovered that,

 you have done a little bit towards growing up.

You see this infant didn't know it. He has to do all that. He has to go through it; but my sticking up for rights may have worked fairly well for the first two years of my existence. I didn't say good, I said fairly well. But after that they became a decided detriment as long as I continued to use them, is that somewhere about right? Huh? Now so we have two things.  

Now about this time the parents – these two slaves who you found to take care of you when you got here, you know. huh? You found a couple of slaves when you woke up from getting here that took care of you, is that right? Now they got enough of this you complaining and sticking up for your rights, so they decided to domesticate you. (laughter)

That about right? Huh? They decided to domesticate us. So, they begin to use various and sundry persuasions to get us to do what they wanted us to do. They started sticking up for their rights and complaining to get their way. That right? So then you started out that in order to get along you better (3) please them. Is that about right? Cause they were bigger than you were. That’s the main reason. We call it respect, love your parents and all that, but they're bigger than you are so you better do it, is that correct? 

Now that brought about a split right down through the middle of your head – boom! Now then you got conflict – one side wants to stick up for your rights and complain and the other one is… thinks you better please those people or I'll get spanked or I'll get scolded or I'll get sent to my room or whatever the case may be. In other words it won't be what you want. Is that easy enough to see? 

(Yes.)

Now you got to bring into being another part of the head called “The Chooser.” Now you got something that says it has to choose between going one way or the other. Now it's between a rock and a hard place. If it chooses to go ahead and stick up for its rights and complain, then it will be afraid it will get caught and be punished and it will then feel guilty or fearful, one or the other. And if it don't do that, then it’ll feel sorry for itself: “I don't ever get to do anything I want to do, I just have to do what they want to do.” That sounds familiar to almost everybody here, doesn't it? [repeats it in a pitiful voice] “I don't ever get to do anything I want to do, I have to do what they want me to do all the time.” That right? 

(I think so.) (laughter)

[resumes pitiful voice] “I stay at home and work my fingers to the bone over a hot stove and an ironing board and what do I get? Nothin’!”

And then of course they sent us to school and decided school and various and sundry other people all who were going to educate us and bring us up in the way we should go. Now, they weren't interested in us being conscious, they were only interested in us being what they call “good”, is that right? You got kids? I mean you got some grown people that used to be kids?

(Yes.)

And that's what you wanted of them was to be good, wasn't it?

(No.)

What did you want em to do? 

(Just to be grown up.)

And you didn't care whether they were kicking windows in or robbing cars or whatever just so they got out of your hair. It's possible, huh? Be big.

(Be good.) (laughter)

You wanted em to be good and you tried to train em to be good, whatever that may mean, which meant whatever was acceptable to you, is that right? Yeah, that's what good is, isn't it? Good changes all the time, you know.

Some people were brought up as Catholics and as old as I am I remember when it was a mortal sin to eat meat on Friday. Now it's quite all right. So, think of all the people burning in hell (laughter) for eating meat on Friday that now, their younger kids can just eat meat anytime they want to and they won't send anybody. I think that’s, you know, that's really funny if you want to think about it. May be better not to think about it. (laughter) And this goes on and on and on and on. I had a friend a good many years ago who got sent to prison for performing an abortion. He was a physician in his practice, but this was when abortion was illegal. 

I have another friend over in Atlanta, Georgia who got sent to prison for refusing to do an abortion because the woman took him to court as being opposed to women's rights. And that he refused and she was her family doctor and he refused and tried to talk her out of it and so he didn't give her her free choice and he got sent up for the same length of time – both of em got three years, you know. So, what's "in" and what's "out" come along. 

So now they sent us down to get us educated so we begin to (4) believe and do as we're told by our authorities. Now the authorities for each of us may have been a little bit different, hmm? Your authorities came from one area, mine came from another and then so on. But we all had somebody who knew what was right and what was wrong and you jolly-well better do it, is that right?  

(Right.)

But you know, I grew up back in the hills of Kentucky. I didn't say I was raised back there, I said I grew up, okay? And it was a particular area I was in; it was oh so bad to dance. It was very bad to play cards. And it was terrible to go fishing on Sunday or play baseball on Sunday. You can pick up a ball and throw it over at another kid and he caught it, that's – stop it! That’s bad, see? Sinful, horrible.

When I was about 6 years old some kids came by one Sunday afternoon and we all went for a walk. That was all right. But we come to a creek and some kids had a fishing line in their pocket. They got it out and went fishing. Course I wanted to too, so they bent a pin and tied a string on it and put a worm on it and give it to me. Well, I obviously didn't catch any fish; but by the time we got back to the house and everybody'd left and I was all alone, this little guy right here [points to a decision on the board] jumped up and said, “You've done it now, you'll go to hell! You went fishing on Sunday.” And I agonized with horrible, horrible guilt feelings all week. I didn't sleep, just little catnaps here and there; I felt terrible. And this went on for two weeks or more.

And a bunch of kids, same bunch, came by another Sunday and we went off and again we went fishing. Again, me with the pin and the string. I’m about five or six years old. And you know that time I didn't feel quite as guilty as I did the time before. And then we did it the third time and another two or three weeks went by and I hardly felt guilty at all. So I at least learned early in life how to handle guilt. Anything you feel guilty about doing, go do it twice more right quick and it won't bother you at all. (laughter)

I told a minister that one time and he called that searing your conscience with a hot iron. But I highly recommend it. (laughter) This is your conscience here; and I've seen lots of very ill people because they didn't know to do that, you know. 

Now the third one he come up here it says if you would behave yourself properly and be better – [talks to himself when his marker goes dry] We run out of writer…I’ll try that. It says that I could be non-disturbed if I would just (5) improve myself. Now has any of you ever set out on a program of self improvement? (laughter) Have you got two heads now instead of one? You got three arms? What is improvement of a human being? They look all right to me like they are: one head, two arms, two legs, the usual accouterments. That looks all right to me. But how are you gonna improve yourself? Living more according to a given set of authorities? But in this world we live in, we have a jillion authorities everyday, you know. We got television. We get many, many authorities in a day. How would you go about improving yourself, Miss Marce?

(Not reacting with negative emotions.)

Well, that wouldn't improve you. That would just be a person who didn't use anger, guilt, fear and insecurity anymore. No, you'd be the same person. You'd be Marce. You’re just living by a different set of values, that's all. You've seen a different value. Still wouldn't improve you, you're complete – two arms, two legs, the usual things, one head, thank goodness, and so on. So you wouldn't be improved, but you would be a little more conscious, which doesn't mean it improved you at all. It just means you got to use a little more of your potential, okay?

Now after we've gotten that far, we get back on this other side when you felt guilty and miserable and anger and frustrated because you can't improve yourself because you still find yourself doing the same old things that you were doing all the time when you were gonna improve yourself. Then we come up when we really find the answer to the whole situation.

[someone joins the group] Come in and find a chair and make yourself at home. There's a couple over there.

After we've been through this for a reasonable length of time, we decide now we've really found the answer. (6) If he, she, they, it, this, that and the other were all different, then I would be better. I would be non-disturbed, so it's all your fault, so there, hmm? Now we have learned blaming. So now we blame here and that really settles the situation. If the world wasn't populated with stupid so and so's, I'd get along fine, but there's so many of those out there, I can hardly make it, is that right, Bill? Bosses, people who hire me, and all these, they can really get rough can't they, Lloyd?

(They sure can.)

If it wasn't for them, I'd be a very happy man, just get along fine, huh? Bunch of lawyers you work for, they get stupid, you can't do nothing. You can't reason with em, can you? And so on. So we have then all divided up and we could say a fragmented awareness. Does that look like it's kind of fragmented? Cause one time the little complainer’s up, another time the defender of rights is up, another time the blamer’s up, another time the pleaser's up, another time the quoter of authority, and another time the self improver.

So there really is no individual I here. It's according to each one of those says “I” and acts up for a certain length of time as though he were the whole show…. it… whatever it is. So we call those not-I's. And they call themselves “I.” But I maintain they're not you, not the real I, that maybe we could make one after a while that's really us. In the meantime, these things… one of em runs it for an hour in a day and the other one gets up and has his way. 

You know, did you ever feel tempted to go do something like that Mama told you was wrong? Huh? Now as long as you're just being tempted, you don't hear another word against it, is that right? But the minute you get it done, then this one comes up front and center on the stage and says, "Now you've done it."

So you see that there is a continual run of change of “I” here, “I” there; it's all fragmented. And there really is six of em running around hollering every minute as to what you can do – contending for the attention of the chooser. So the chooser will give this one the nod for a little bit and then it'll give this one the nod and then give this one and this one and it runs around all the time and there is constant conflict. And we wonder why we experience chaos in our everyday world.

Now first off there's conflict. Conflict can only be there when there is more than one "I.” If there was only one I, it couldn't get in conflict. It'd just be itself and that's it, hmm? No conflict. Now I didn't say that it would be if there was nothing but the complainer there. You wouldn't be in conflict – that's true – might be hard to live with, but you would not be in conflict. If only the blamer is there, day in, day out, year in, year out, you certainly wouldn't be in conflict within yourself. You may be in conflict with everybody else, but you wouldn't be with yourself, right?

And if only the pleaser was there, you wouldn't be in conflict with yourself. You might be a very good toady to have around – not interesting – but you'd be a good toady. I know a lot of women who would love to have one of those for a husband. I know a lot of men who'd love to have one of those for a wife. I think they wrote a story one time or a movie called The Stepford Wives. They couldn't get it out of the real ones, so they made little robots and they performed. They did just that – they pleased and nothing but pleased. I wouldn't find that interesting, but that's immaterial. So here is the basis of what we start to work with.  

Now if we wanted to go along with life, the first thing: we’d begin to watch these things and not blame em and not find fault with em and not criticize and neither condemn nor justify them, but simply see that since I've been about two years old they're not to my advantage to live with em. Would you kinda be able to see that? 

(Yes.)

Since you were about two years old. Now before then they were absolutely essential for you to survive cause you couldn't talk very much and tell folks what you wanted, so all you could do is complain and then they'd start feeding you, is that right? And so on down the line. Clean you up, whatever. You remember you were hopeless then… [corrects himself] helpless then… almost hopeless. (laughter)  

But nevertheless, as time goes on you had to stick up for your rights. But now to use those, you can see they're detrimental to your wellbeing, is that right? Now if we wanted to go along with this experiment that life seems to be running, to make… see if it's possible to have a reasonable number of people who were conscious enough that they did not use these methods in their everyday world. They didn't indulge in emotions, okay? So now then, say, “Well wait a minute. That person calling me a dirty name, it’s no use going over and knocking him in the head cause he might be faster than I am and knock me down right quick, huh? I better make a joke of it or something. I better think right quick and not use it. Then I'll sell him on maybe tolerating me pretty well.” Is that right?  

Somebody comes along and steals something from me, there's no use in going to kill the guy. You know. Maybe I can say I'm sure glad you took care of that for me, I was afraid somebody would steal it. You know, just go on like… you save his face in other words, huh? You know, I know sometimes people pick up things that belong to me and carry em around. And all you gotta do is say to the guy, “I'm sure glad you took care of that for me. I was afraid somebody'd steal it.” He'll hand it to you with the greatest of ease. Now isn't that easier than going fighting him, putting him in jail with all this?

You know if you put him in jail you gotta help pay the taxes to keep him there. It's very expensive. Costs a lot more to keep a man in jail than it does to rent him a nice apartment down the street. Costs about $26,000 a year to keep a prisoner in jail – prison; and it don't cost near that much to get him a decent little apartment and give him his grocery [chuckling] money every week. Kinda hard to keep up with his cocaine and his heroin and so forth, but you know you can give him the essentials, the necessities he can’t get along without – not that I’m gonna do that either.

But I would rather go say, “I'm sure glad you took my television set over and took care of it, cause I was afraid somebody'd steal it. Thank you so much.” He'll give it back to you and not argue about it.

So there is all kinds of ways that we can get along without using these things. Does that seem to be reasonable enough that you could do that? As long as you know what they are. Now you never knew they existed before, but now that you look at em, have you heard em talking to you everyday of your life? Hmm? They've been there racking away, haven't they – everyday. Complaining, sticking up for rights. We asked the question a little while ago, “Who in here has not complained in the last 48 hours to some degree?” Huh? And I didn't see anybody jump up and wigwag me and say, I dood it, huh? 

Now we could also say, who hasn't stuck up for their rights in the last week? (silence) Give you a little more time on that. (laughter) Who hasn't done any blaming in the last 24 hours, hmm? Who hasn't felt that they were put upon, that they had to please somebody? That, “All I ever get to do is please people, I don't ever get to do what I want to do.” How long has it been since you've had to use one of those? Years, probably? (laughter) No. How long has it been since you've quoted an authority to try to justify something you've done or have not done? You know people quote the authority to… there's enough little bright sayings to quote that you never run outta one, no matter what.  

A man told me the other day that the way to success was to keep your nose to the grindstone. I said well, I thought it was keep your shoulder to the wheel. He said, yeah, that too. And I said I heard the other thing to success was keep your ear to the ground. He said, “That!” – he thought that was right. I said get in that position and see how long it takes to get you out. (laughter) I'd guarantee success if you use all three of em at the same time. Keep your nose to the grindstone, your shoulder to the wheel, and your ear to the ground. You'll need the best manipulator in the country right quick to get your backbone unraveled or something.

Okay, so then we could see that here is what we unconsciously have been doing. Now let's consciously say well fine, I'd like to go along with life and remain relatively conscious that I can choose responses not based on these.

But let's say we all have a reasonable amount of reason. We also are acquainted with enough people we know what ticks em off and what calms em down, is that right? I've heard it was another one of these beautiful sayings: “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Well, you know, blessed are those who look after their own and not the other, so you know you can find all of those. But let's say that I can make peace about anywhere, before it gets too out of hand, is that right? I usually get things going peaceful, can't you?

(Sure.)

It don't take much, it really don't, does it, Bill? Hardly any effort at all. In fact, it's a lot easier than sticking up for your rights or blaming or any of those. And the remarkable part is it works so much better. If you're interested in getting your way, that's a much better way to do it, you know. The point is I'm only interested in… look I'm very thankful to be alive and to be here and be breathing and not hurting too badly and so forth and so on. You know I got a few aches here, a few pains there, so what. 

But I like being alive, do you? I like that. I've had people say oh I wish I could die and I said well I'll get a gun and I'll get you outta here. "Shut up, you durn fool!" You know, that's just the way to get a little attention and so forth and being miserable, you know. Very few people want to die. The people who commit suicide are in a horrible state of depression and insanity. They're not getting along very well. But you know you can feel sorry for yourself pretty easy, is that right? Did you ever feel sorry for yourself?

(Never, God forbid –)

– that such a thought would have ever cross your mind. (laughter) I understand. But you do know people who have. (laughter) You’ve known a few people who at times indulge in a small bit of self-pity, is that correct? Huh?

(Yes.)

So, whenever we would decide that we would like to be alive and that we would go along with this experiment. Let's say that we only manage to get three hundred people out of this something over three billion that were fully conscious and were not reacting with anger, guilt, fear and insecurity to various and sundry little things that happen everyday. Say we only got three hundred. Then I think the experiment would be worthwhile. What kind of a percentage point is that, Mr. Thompson, do you know?

(No idea…)

It's a tiny dot, isn't it? Huh? I think it's one ten-thousandths of one percent. But maybe we could generate that much to go along, don't you think? There's enough of us here to get a good start on it, huh? Think you could add to that experiment a little bit and make it work a little bit? Can you, Miss Sherry? You could do a little on that, couldn't you? How about you? You could work at it anyway.

Now I don't expect that anybody could start out tonight and with all our best intentions, wind up and never come up with anger, guilt, fear, insecurity anymore. I don't think we're that good or that we're that capable even; but at least we could start working on it and with a reasonable amount of practice, you can do almost anything. In other words, if you didn't know how to play the organ, you can learn in a few months to play a few simple little things like chopsticks or something, couldn't you? If you practiced, huh?

(Yes.)

You could learn that?

(Sure.)

If you've never rode a bicycle in your life, you could probably learn to ride a bicycle in a few weeks with a few bumps and bruises. Is that right?

(Yes.)

You could probably learn to – if you've never done more than dip a stick to see if the oil was in the car – you could probably learn mechanics enough to rebuild an engine in a reasonable length of time, is that right? Now if we can do all those things…we could even learn to run a computer. Now if we can do all that, surely we could learn to run this thing that we've lived with all these years, is that right?

(___)

Well, I know because we don't see any reason to. So, I’m trying to put forth a reason. The reason is that it's not necessarily any great shakes to me, but I’m kinda thankful for being alive so I would like to work with the grand experiment that's being run. I could do that, couldn't I? I could work at it. Now I didn't say I was gonna succeed this week, next week, but I'm sure that anything I've ever practiced at over a reasonable length of time, have you been able to do, Miss Marce? 

(Yes, sir.)

How 'bout you? Anything you've really practiced at for a length of time and wanted to do, you learned to do it. Same for you, for you. Same for you, Phil? 

(Yeah.)

So, I say that we could add a certain number to that say 300 people – we can't do it all, but we could add to the number.

And if there was 300 people who were truly conscious, who responded to every stimuli with intelligence and line of reasoning rather than reacting with emotions,

you’d find a different world very quickly.

 

Okay, let's have a question or two or three or four. I said I'd talk a little bit and I've done that. Now then, let's see what you want to talk about. Yes sir?

(Why did you say 300?)

Well, I thought of that number. (laughter) I have read that if there was only 200 fully conscious people on the face of the earth it'd change the whole earth. I don't know, let's find out. Let's try for 300 while we're at it, okay? No, I really don't know why I pulled three. I could have said 500 or I could have said 10, but I think 300 would be better than it is now. So… (laughter) that’s a start, okay? That's a start. Question?

(I’ve got the complainer, the blamer, and the pleaser, and you said six and those three are so phenomenal I can't figure out what the other three are.)

There's complainer, the sticker up for rights, the blamer and on the other side there's a pleaser, the quoter of authority, and the self-improver.)

(Oh.)

You got em all, honey. (laughter) So does everyone of the rest of us here, so don't feel lonely. We all got em and they all bounce up at the most inopportune moment and take over. They live in your house and they totally take it over at times, as everybody here knows if they have only spent a little bit of time looking at em. Okay? Yes ma'am.

(Would you give an example of what is meant by consciously using the not-I’s?)

Well, consciously using em would be only mimicking em. Let's say that I wanted to pretend I was very angry for what reason I couldn't imagine. Hmm? But let's say that I wanted to. Then I would pretend to use it, but I wouldn't let him take over. Cause if I did, I'd be gone in a few minutes, okay? So you could pretend to use em. What I have mostly heard that used as, Miss Sherry, is somebody who blowed off and they said they were consciously using em. It's a great justification, okay?

I don't see any reason to use em. They never pay off. Now if I was an actor and being paid well for performing and I was to put on an angry scene… honey, I could probably put on a beaut. But be sure the price is right. I want to be well paid for it, okay? And if somebody wanted me to put on a crying jag of great guilt, I imagine if the pay was right I could probably put on a good performance. But I wouldn't be using them, I would be mimicking them, okay? That answer your question all right? Okay, next comment, question, point – whoever wants to talk a minute. Good.

(I gotta know, are there any of these –)

End of CD 1 of 8

CD 2

I look diligently for em. I'm like that old guy that went out with a lantern looking for the honest man. Well, I'm not looking for an honest man, I'm looking for one who is not controlled at times at least by emotions, okay? Anger, guilt, fear, insecurity, the complainer, the sticker up for rights, the blamer, the quoter of authority. All those. So far mI haven't found him, but that's all right. They may exist. Yes?

(How did you get rid of them?)

You get rid of em, number one, by recognizing they exist, okay? Number two, that they're not to your advantage. And then begin to practice doing something else rather than allowing them to take you over, okay? I didn't say it was easy; but it's highly possible, okay? Number one you have to recognize they exist. Now that's the first thing and most people never dream they exist, that right? Never dream they even existed or this was what was going on with themselves. So self-Knowing – which is what we're talking about tonight… we have two subjects we talk about – self-Knowing and Self-Remembering

Right now, we're talking about self-Knowing and that's one of em, okay? So you (#1) recognize number one, that they're there. (#2) Number two, that you don't have to have them and (#3) number three I would say they're detrimental to me so I'd start practicing not using ‘em.

And very shortly you do find that they're not there, okay? That there's all kinds of other ways to respond. Now, the first and most valuable part of getting rid of em is to recognize they truly exist and that you didn't even know they existed before, okay? Now this is what's very hard for many people to see is that they can't recognize that they've been unconsciously manipulated by a piece of conditioning most of their life, okay? 

(Okay, once you get that far, then it's just a matter of time?)

Then it's a matter of keeping at it to see that you don't use em, okay? And it shouldn't take you, uh… even a slow learner ought to get it done in less than six months, okay? That's pretty fast as far as I'm concerned because most people live their life out – whatever that may be – with all these things going on and all the suffering it brings em and etcetera and they're totally unconscious of it.

Did you ever have somebody brag about what a wild temper they had? Huh? You've heard that, haven't you? They don't have a temper, it's just that little guy's in there screaming – the sticker up for rights. And they have no more to do with it than they would do with what kind of truck colors goes down the freeway, you know. It's purely mechanical and when you once recognize they're there, that they're not to your advantage, and that you can take charge, pretty soon they're not there, okay? But at first they're going to be acting up cause they don't want to lose their happy home. They've been living there all these years and they'd like to stay there, okay? They've been living in this house all these years – they don't want to lose it. That's a very good question, thank you for asking. Yes?

(I was just going to add to that, that hanging around the chapel, sometimes ___________.)

Something’s liable to happen.

 

(Right. And you know in my experience, the best way ____________________. And becoming the observer of my own life by consciously being able to step out of your body, your personality, and looking down at the situation –)

Playing another role.

(–not just at another person, but at yourself too.)

Right, look at how you're performing. Don't just look at those other folks.  

(___ and then you have to admit you are doing it. And then, you can’t possibly ___ where you are and then you can –)

– turn it off.

(Right, start turning it off and not being such a judgmental person because you're really seeing yourself doing ____.)

It's awful easy to do the blaming bit, which you call judgmental. “The world is populated with stupid pft pft pft pft… and if it wasn't for all those, I'd be all right.” That's the way most people go. But you know if you look at, “Wait a minute. I'm not being very conscious myself. I reacted,” that's why we ask the question: How long has it been since you complained or stuck up for your rights or quoted your authority to justify something and so forth? You say, “Wait a minute; I haven't been being so conscious myself. I've been being pretty mechanical.”

Now that's what people find hard to do, okay? I don't see anything hard. To me it's a very delightful discovery because it means I can take charge here pretty quick and I can start taking charge today – may not get it all the way, but I can start it right now. And starting is the big end of the show. Okay? What’s the next question, lady? You. You got it there.

(Oh! Well, yes, but I didn't know what I was going to ask you... (laughter) self…)

Knowing.

(And self-forgetting.)

I didn't say anything about self-forgetting.

(Well, the second one…)

Self-Remembering which is far different from forgetting. (laughter) You see a little not-I already got in there and twisted that one around when I said forget it. “Forget it, forget it! You’ll make me lose my household!” So, we said self-Knowing and Self-Remembering. The not-I said, “He said forget stuff, forget stuff, forget it, forget it, forget it!” Okay?

(Yes.)

Now I said we was talking about Self-Remembering tonight. Sometime before tomorrow night we'll talk about Self-Remembering, okay? 

(Thank you.)

You're welcome. Now where's the next question? Let's take a few minutes break while you think of a question cause I'm going to quit talking after while if you don't come up with some.

[After break]

We proceed here with the business at hand, whatever that may be. Got the essentials on now.  Okay? Let's talk about what you want to talk about. Who wants to talk about something? Give me a subject. You don't have to ask a question. You don't have to… just something you'd be interested in. Yes, ma'am, we'll start with you.

(Why are you looking younger. How are you doing that?)

Cause I'm getting older.

(That doesn't make sense.) (laughter)

Okay. Age is a matter of not the number of years, I think. I was much older when I was 20 than I am now. And I mean that literally. I maybe didn't look as old, but I felt older, okay? Age is a matter of how much you stress yourself and I only stress myself by overdoing. I don't bother to have emotions and get angry and all that good stuff. I can't afford that. I found out I simply can't afford it. I'm not rich enough. So, I can't afford it, so I don't have em. Anything you can't afford you don't have, is that right? You can't afford a new Rolls Royce maybe, so you don't have one. You can't afford a mansion in England, so you don't have one and so on down the line. So, when you recognize you can't afford something you quit having it, quit using it – don't have it and quit worrying about it.

I cannot afford emotions and so the body managed to get along pretty well, okay? I don't do anything nice to it. I smoke a few cigarettes everyday like five packs, something like that if I'm up a long time. Bout four if it's a short day, and I only drink, you know, a small amount of coffee – 20 cups a day or something like that and I work 15, 18 hours a day – usually 15. I'm getting old, quit working 20. And I have a good time though, all the time. I haven't got time to worry and aggravations and so forth, but I do work hard, okay?

(Do you live alone?) (laughter)

I live anywhere that today might present itself, okay? 

(You’re avoiding my question. You don't have any –)

You better believe I'm avoiding it. (laughter) We don't go into personal questions. We're talking about human beings, not Bob, okay?

(I was really easy on ______ any aggravations.)

Sweetie, I'm in contact with enough people every day that if I wanted to have aggravation, I could have great gobs of it, okay? I work with people who have problems. I work with businesspeople who are worrying up a storm and I work with people who call me at any hour they can find me, which is not often. I've managed to find that when I get through work, I'm… it's awful hard to find me.

(I think I was impudent and I'm sorry.)

What?

(I was impudent, I'm sorry.)

No, that's all right, I just don't talk about my personal existence cause my life is an open book, but most of the pages have been torn out and thrown away. (Laughter) And there's no offense meant by it. That's not our subject here, okay? But my life is a total open book – just not many pages left in it. Okay? Next question? Yes, Ma'am.

Meditation

(Meditation. Would you talk about that?)

You want to talk about meditation? If you'll tell me what the definition of meditation is, I will talk about it. You see I've been around a lot of people who talk about meditation and they're all doing different things and calling it different. They all call it meditation; it's an "in" word these days and I don't know what you mean by the word, but if you'll tell me what you mean, I'll talk about it. 

(Getting the mind quiet enough to listen.)

To listen to what? Not-I's? 

(To listen to X.)

X doesn't talk to you very much in words. It talks to you by telling you that you're goofin' off or not. If you're feeling real good and everything is feeling nice in the bod, you're doing pretty good. It says that's doing all right. And it tells you when you're hungry and when you've burned your finger, to get it off the hot stove and so forth. If you get yourself real quiet and listen to voices in your head, you're hearing not-I's.

I have a young man out in New Mexico who calls me – when he can find me… that's why I quit staying in one place very long – a minimum of five times a day, okay? He went to a meditator or teacher out in California a number of years ago and the man told him if he'd get his mind quiet and listen, there would be a still small voice tell him what to do. So, this young man practiced very diligently to get a quiet mind and listen to what the voice told him. The only thing that was a little straw in the thing, he got two voices – a man's voice and a woman's voice. The woman tempts him to drink booze and to chase girls and eat meat and smoke cigarettes and what-have-you and the man's voice gives him hell for doing it. So he's been in one terrible shape for a number of years. He's been incapacitated and what-have-you. He spends his time listening to his voices talk to him.

Life so loves you that it'll do anything you want to do.

It'll take care of the ‘how’ if you take care of deciding what it is.

 

If you want to build a house, why it knows how to build a house. If you want to get up and walk across the floor, It picks the body up and walks across the floor. You don't know how to walk across the floor, do you? You do it every day, but you didn't know. If I were to say, well, let's stand up right now, would you know the first muscles you would tighten up? Just the first ones, not the whole sequence. But would you know the first one you'd tighten up for you to stand up? Huh? You wouldn't know. Okay. Now all you had to do was decide, “I’m gonna stand up,” and a whole multitude of things went up and – mechanically, engineering, impossible – you're standing up. Because really, with all the wiggles in it you shouldn't be able to stand up. 

So, our job is to figure out “the what.” And this X, Life, Spirit within takes care of the how.

But it refuses to turn the tables. Because you wouldn't know how to do anything so it would be useless if it tells it. But mankind is very busy trying to turn the world upside down and it says, "Oh Lord, you tell me what to do and I'll do it." And you haven't the foggiest idea even how to stand up, you don't know how to swallow, you don't even know how to breathe. You certainly don't know how to take a turkey sandwich and turn it into human flesh and blood. But that happens every day, right? Hmm? So let's use our....  

I will tell you my definition of meditation if you like, okay? Meditation is looking at a given subject clearly, concisely, with no emotion. Just looking at it and seeing it from all sides clearly until you understand it, which might take a lot longer than we generally think it would, you know. We understand everything like (snaps fingers) that, which we don't. But if we looked at it quietly and carefully, we would much more know what to do. And if we did ever come up clearly with the what – X, Spirit, God, whatever word you choose to use… Life within – takes care of the how very quickly.

So I'm very much in favor of meditation if we are meditating on a given subject or thought. Now I see a lot of things as I travel about that's called meditation that is simply autohypnosis. In other words if I get in a certain state, I will go into a trance. And of course, all sorts of lovely things happen in trances. You know, they’re kind of a nice dream state and so forth and so on. But an awful lot of what passes for meditation these days, is referred to as meditation, is techniques of autohypnosis.

I have no objection to autohypnosis; I just want to call it by its right name. I think hypnosis is a wonderful subject. I used to practice it. I haven't in many years, but I used to be an expert at the subject and used it until I found out that I was greatly caught up in the power of it and I didn't want to do that anymore. I don't want power over anybody. So, I quit, and I haven't touched it since and not about to start.

But I have no objections to it. Autohypnosis has great value to many people; but much of what is referred to as meditation is simply the techniques that we learned years and years ago as autohypnosis, okay? That help answer your question to some degree? I'm not knocking anything; I'm just trying to call a spade a spade and a rose a rose and that's it. 

Now I said you don't have to ask a question. You can bring up a subject and let's see if we can talk about it. Yes, Miss Marce.

Past Lives

(I would like you to tell us again about before we came to this earth, and the fight that we had to get here, and how privileged we are.)

Whew! Oh yeah, I told you about them.

(Well, there's a lot of em that haven't heard it.)

They haven't?

(Mm-mm.)

Well, they've all been through it so why should I tell em about it? (laughter)

(They don't remember.)

Okay. People are frequently asking us about past lives and future lives. You know, you can have lots of fun coming up with all those nice things. Of course, you can't demonstrate or prove it and who knows whether I'm hallucinating or remembering or what-have-you. The way most of us handle it, “I have visions and you hallucinate.” (laughter) I always figure I hallucinate, and maybe other people have visions, but I seriously doubt it. I think they can hallucinate too. So what Miss Marce is asking me about, I said well, I did know something about your existence before you got in this world.

First off you started off – and I don't know what went before that – you started off as a submicroscopic little creature, a microscopic, little creature called a sperm cell. And this sperm cell had a great urge to union. So, it went against a sweeping action trying to sweep it out; it went against a flow of fluids trying to run it down. It's like going upstream, uphill against a lot of things pushing this way all the time. And in a number of hours, some like 186,000 of em started on a journey, on a race. And you won. You got the prize. You got the egg cell and all the rest of em were put out and they all died swimming around in circles. 

So, you won the prize. You got a body – a chance to have one – and you wound up with one and in about 9 months you went through many stages. You first looked like a tadpole. You even had gills at one time and so forth along and they healed up after a while. So, you went through many stages of evolving until you wound up being born as a helpless little infant into the world. And you arrived broke, helpless, naked, and all this good stuff. 

So you had these several different worlds. You were in the sperm world. You were in the embryo world. You were in the fetus world and then finally you lived in the uterine world for quite a while and then you came to the earth world, right?

Now all you got to do is read up in any good book on that subject. That tells you we were in all these worlds before we got here. And they were entirely different, but we survived and we were struggling at every one of em. So, let's keep on going, not just quitting and hanging up at two years old as we had back here a while ago – or less – when we're sticking up for our rights, blaming, complaining, trying to please and improve ourselves and quote authorities. We hung up anywhere from one day to two years.

Now, we went through all this other effort to get this body. Let's go ahead and use it, okay? That seems to be a reasonable thing to do. Is that all right, Miss Marce? So, you went through, you won the prize. Here we are. Maybe if I'd a waited until next year, I'd a got a different egg cell and maybe I'd a been a girl. Who knows whatever would have happened to me. I don't know, but anyway I'm glad I got what I got. I’m pleased with it. Glad I won the prize. Glad I've been here and I'm glad to stay just as long as possible. And if I don't keep knocking myself out, maybe I'll be younger next year, honey, okay? 

(When did intelligence start? Or was it always there?)

Oh, there must have been an intelligence to know enough to chase that egg cell down. Cause it sure knew where it was and run like hell. (laughter) I don't know whether it smelled it or heard it or what, but it run. It chased through 186,000 of em and outrun the whole bunch, left 185,999 of em to die and cared less. It didn't even have any sympathy over it, huh?

(The other ones do die.)

Oh yeah, they all died, honey. Unless there happened to be another egg cell around there’s twins. 

(Then they don't ever…)

Goodbye. I don't know what happened to em. Sweet one, I don't know. I’m not a person who will answer a question because it's presented with __ end of it. I don't know. You see I don't know what they were before they got to be sperm cells either. Huh? 

(Very exciting.)

Yeah, it is. So I know that much of your past history, but I don't know anything else about it. Now where you were 100 years ago, do you remember?

(No.)

Must have not been fatal, honey. Being born and undead is the same state of being…[corrects himself]… And being unborn and dead are the same state of being as far as the rest of us out here's concerned. Somebody's never been born or somebody's dead is in the same state – they don't exist as far as we're concerned, is that right? Huh? 

(I don't… I don’t think I have a question about that.)

Well, I said where were you 100 years ago? 

(I don't know.)

Maybe you didn't even exist. I don't know either, okay? Where will you be 100 years from now? I don't know. You know something? I really don't care, do you? Huh?

(I kind of figure it’d be nice if somebody else _________. I think I’d like to look forward to it. Is that not possible?)

Well, you can look forward to it but you don't know whether it'll ever happen or not, do you? (laughter) So have fun. I don't know. You don't know. Nobody else does. [to audience] Yes.

(Durk Pearson recently published a book called Life Extension. He says it’s entirely, technically feasible now to live to live to two or three hundred.)

Oh, I think it's technically feasible to live a thousand years. I don't think there's a thing in the world except our emotions keeps us from it. But we're so in due with our emotion we usually can knock ourselves out in not much over 70 years and sometimes a lot less, is that right?

Now I'm not talking about accidents and plane crashes and all that. I'm talking about just what they call dying of natural causes, you know. I figure they're all unnatural as far as I'm concerned, okay? 

But I don’t think there's any technical reason why you couldn't make Methuselah look like a chump, okay? He made it. You can. But Methuselah had fun for 968 years. Said he beget sons and daughters all over the place – look at the fun he was having. (laughter) For 968 years. (bigger laughter) So all you gotta do is read the book and see that he wasn't any sucker. He was having fun all the time, huh? 

Dis-identifying

(I have a question about dis-identifying.)

Okay.

(I don't know how to ....)

Dis-identifying is dis-identifying from the not-I's. You're not the complainer. You're not the sticker up for rights. You are not the blamer. You are not the pleaser. You're not the quoter of authorities and you're not the self-improver. When you see those are not you, you have dis-identified.

Now that may take a few minutes, Tim – get around to that, because most people say, “I got mad! I was worried! It scared the hell out of me!” And “I just had a sense of inferiority all my life” … you know, that's a sense of insecurity. They say that's them. Dis-identifying is seeing that that is not you but is merely a piece of conditioning. Does that help answer that all right, Tim? 

(A little bit.)

Okay so when you find the complaining going on you say that's the complainer. Tim knows better, okay? 

(It doesn’t seem like there’s enough room _________________ up here.)

Well, it may not be, but you can run, so keep pushing. Maybe you'll blow it out here and there's enough room. Yes, you can dis-identify. Miss Marce?

(Is that reporting to X?)

That is reporting accurately to X that those things are not me.

(All right, so –)

So don't pay any attention to em [chuckling] in other words.

Reporting to X

(Tell us exactly how to report to X.)                                  

Well, all right. I can only demonstrate, Miss Marce. Would you report to X that you'd like to stand up and do it right now?

(No.)

Well, report that – yeah, stand up, it won't hurt you. Now you reported to X that you were going to stand up and look and behold, it happened. That right? 

(Yeah.)

Okay. If you had not reported, you'd still been sitting there.

(Oh.)

Okay? You report I'm going to drive to the post office, wherever that may be around here, huh? 

(You mean it’s just making up your mind?)

Reporting is Making Up Your Mind

It is exactly making up your mind cause X does whatever you make up your mind to. Now if you were in a conflict, you haven't made up your mind, all you'd do is sit and stew, is that right?  Now this is what most people do. They want to be sure they're going to do the right thing.

(Oh.)

Did your mother tell you if you'd always do the right thing, everything would work out pretty well? Huh?

(Yes.)

Did you hear that when you were a kid growing up? Always do the right thing. That's what you told your kids, you said you wanted em to be good… always do the right thing, but you didn't tell em what it was. So, they're still wondering cause nobody knows what the right thing is. And usually, we refuse to make up our mind about most anything. Now simple things like stand up, walk across the room, but when you're gonna do something that you call big deal – which none of em are – you can't decide what the right thing to do is, is that right? Shall I stay here, or shall I leave? How many times have you asked yourself that? Huh? But you want to do the right thing, don't you?

(Yes.)

And you can't decide either one, is that correct? Now you haven't made up your mind, you haven't reported I'm going to leave, I'm going to stay. It doesn't make any difference as far as I'm concerned which way it is, but you can't do that, do you see, because you're in a quandary, huh?

(Right.)

Now X says, “Make up the friggin' mind and I will do it.”

But if you don't ever make it up, It doesn't know what to do.

It can't do two things at one time.

It can't sit down and stand up at the same time.

 

That's an utter impossibility, isn't it? You can't be standing up or sitting down at the same time, can you? Now the reason that people don't get their mind made up and have all sorts of things happen – who says it's all going to work out beautifully? I don't know – but the point is that you can't do anything until you get out of conflict, do you see? So, the first thing you want to make up your mind is that you're not going to be in conflict. You're going to do one thing or the other. Let the chips fall where they may, okay? But if you want to know what the right thing to do is before you do anything, how long will it be before you do it, Phil?

(55 years at least.)

No, it won't get done then either. You'd take two of Methuselah's lifetimes and you still wouldn't do it. Take three thousand years and you’re still wanting to do the right thing cause nobody knows what the right thing is because at this moment we don't know the outcome of us being here two weeks from now, two months from now, two years from now, or 20 years from now. We don't know what would have happened had we not come here tonight, is that right, Miss Mary?

(Right.)

Huh?

(You're right.)

You wouldn't a known what would ‘a happened. You may have been a basket case by now.

(You're right!) (laughter)

You may have run around a corner and got run over by a Mack truck, hmm? You don't know. So, you know, whatever we do is all right. Whatever we've done so far must have been all right. We're all still alive. Got something right didn't you, Tim? You're here. If it'd a been all wrong… You know people tell me, "I made a horrible mistake" and I say what would ‘a happened had you done something else? Can you tell me? Hmm? If you hadn't been through everything you've been, Tim, do you know what would ‘a happened to you?

(No.)

You may have been a basket case or a pile of bones in a cemetery by now. You don't know. So, can anybody here clearly tell me that they've ever made a mistake in their lives? Hmm? You don't know what would a done had you done anything different and at least what you did was well enough you're still alive. All right? Did you ever make a mistake? 

(Probably not.)

You don't know. (laughter) Like the man told me one time, he'd never made but one mistake in his life and that's the time he thought he had and found out later he hadn't. (laughter) But he didn't know that either because he doesn't know what would a happened had he done any other way. You never know whether you're ever going to make a mistake or not.

The point is, let's experiment instead of trying to figure out what’s the proper thing. We see that even life is running an experiment to see if it can create and evolve a truly conscious human being. We said maybe three hundred of em. Life's got to run an experiment; surely, we can. Now, we can always experiment, can't you, Marce? And you don't have to know what the right thing is because when you run an experiment, you always find out something. It worked or it didn't work. Hmm? So, you're never left in a quandary. But you could ask from now on what's the right thing to do and what kind of answer will you get? Like my little friend out in New Mexico that gets two answers – one says eat the meat and the other one says don't.

(Do you think it's fear that keeps us from making up our mind? Fear of making.....)

Fear of not doing the right thing or the fear of making a mistake and being humiliated. So what? I don't know. Did I make a mistake? I don't know. What you don't make up your mind about is wanting to be certain before you run the experiment, is it not? Huh? 

(That's right.)

Having been involved in what's called sales a good many times in my life – in fact all of it – there’s very little people that cannot want to know the outcome before they perform. And it's impossible to tell em that and only con artists tell them. Is that about right? They know the outcome before they did it. But do you know the outcome of anything before you sell it, Miss Mary? I'm talking to Mary behind you. Huh?

(Not a thing.)

You don't know, do you? Maybe you could come tell me, “Look, you run an ad in this magazine and it will bring you great amount of business.” You don't know that. I may not get one single response off of it in a year of running it ever month, that right? I don't know that. So, I got to gamble a little bit or run an experiment. [aside to someone] She's pretty too, isn't she – that other Mary back there, huh? [continuing] You gotta gamble a little bit. So, you know one of my economist friends says today there's no such thing as making an investment; you just gamble. I think he's about right. You used to could make an investment, you had a reasonable assurance that there was going to be a return on it. Today all he can do is gamble. And so why not gamble a little bit? 

But life is a series of experiments and the only way you're ever going to find out anything is do it and then see how it turned out. It'll never be bad. It'll be either that it worked like you wanted it to or it didn't work. No such thing as knowing beforehand. But I know people who go to psychics, fortune-tellers, card readers, palmists, etc. wanting to know the future, right? They want to be reassured before they do it.

I know people when you try to make a business transaction with em they want to go see their accountant, their lawyer, and their banker first. If they go to do all that, you better just go look for another prospect because I'll guarantee the lawyer will tell him not to do it and then he's always safe because nobody never lost money on a deal they didn't take. You know that. Never lose money on a deal you didn't take, right? But you never know whether you would ‘a made a whole lot or not.

But people have a hard time making up their mind. It's called “the agony of decision.” You've heard that word, haven't you? And then after they buy something or go ahead and do it, then they have “buyer's remorse.” You know about that one too. You know, they wonder for six years, should I marry this guy. Then they finally marry him and immediately they have buyer's remorse (laughter) – immediately! Almost immediately! I've had women come in been married 24 hours, “I think I made a mistake.” Well, quit now. "I can't do that!" 

So, the agony of decision. You watch people going to do a little something to their house. They're going to do a little remodeling job. And they go through agonizing about every piece of drapery, every piece of wallpaper, every piece of carpet and it goes on and on and on and on. They go to 20 of their neighbors. One neighbor says I like it, another one says, “Aagh, that's impossible – how could you stand that?!” So they're off on their trip again and it can go and go and go. 

I practiced for many years practicing selling. The hardest sell there is – it is a very intangible sell I'll assure you, but nevertheless, it was the hardest sell and I've sold intangibles and tangibles. 

The hardest sell is selling people on feeling good.

That's the hardest thing there is to sell. Can you tell me why that is? 

(They like their misery.)

Naw, they hate their miseries.

(They got comfortable.)

No, they're not comfortable. They hurt like hell. They have headaches and bellyaches and backaches and all other kind of aches and still they… the hardest sell is to sell somebody on feeling good. ANYBODY. Always in private appointments or when I used to run a practice, I'd charge people for giving em information and showing them how to feel good – and if you can do it for them without any effort on their part. Of course, that's a little rough, you know, unless you change your lifestyle, unless you change doing what's making you feel terrible, you're not going to feel much better. Temporarily I could suggest you into it and a lot of things, but that don't last as long as a June frost. But really selling a person on changing their lifestyle a wee bit – cause your state of being goes along with your lifestyle pretty well, right? – so selling a person on feeling good is the hardest sell there is. You talk about the resistance to buying; the price is right, costs nothing practically...

(Well why doesn’t everyone?)

Not-I's won't let em. The not-I's just say do something else right now and they just won't allow it. We talked tonight about not having emotions, okay? Now that's not difficult to get along without it. All you got to do is go, “I don't have to have all that junk. I can use my conning ability to get my way.” [chuckling] You know, it works easier. I can just con people into doing things I want em to do, okay? But won't very many people do it, Miss Susie. They won’t' do it. It's the not-I's will say we'll do it tomorrow.

You know it's like the old gentleman was on his deathbed – they thought, you know, – and the preacher come out to talk to him about his soul's salvation. And he said preacher, “It's too late, I've sinned too long, I've done everything in the book.” And the preacher said, “It's never too late.” He said, “In a case like that come back tomorrow.” (laughter)

So, you see it's always something that can be put off. It's nobody sees the value of really feeling good because in our particular society and the way we've been grown up, nobody patted you on the head and told you what a good kid you were for feeling good. But you just be sick a day and mama was waiting on you and bringing you chicken noodle soup and keeping your pillow fluffed up and buying you a new toy and everybody come see you and they petted you and made you all sorts of little goodies. So, we have put on a tremendous value on being sick – the whole society has. And who gives you any pats on the back or gives you great attention for feeling good? Susan, has anybody walked up and says what a wonderful child you are. I told several of you I'll.....

(___)

Once in a while. They may tell you how pretty you are, but they got a motive for that, honey.  

(___)

Does she. Well, good for her. I've told several people many years ago I had occasion to take care of two children, a boy and a girl, that were like 11 months difference in the age – brother and sister. Their mother was very ill and so I in a weak moment I said I'll take care of em. So, I had em about three, almost four years 'fore mama got so she wanted em back again. And I told these kids – they were like five and six – and I said I will give you a two-dollar allowance every Saturday morning if you felt good all week. But if you've been sick through the week, you don't get any allowance. No allowance if you've been sick. But if you've felt good all week, you get two bucks. Spend it any way you like, do whatever you want to. You can buy candy, you can buy toys, you can buy anything. You can keep it; it's yours. I won't say anything about what you do with it. 

Both of these kids had had a history of being sick, in bed at least one week out of four. They were never sick another day in three and a half years. Now maybe they were fed better. Their nutrition no doubt was better when I looked after em. Maybe their hours were more regular. But the point was, I think the big motivator was they were going to get two bucks apiece on Saturday morning. And they felt good. They were lined up to get it every Saturday morning – they was waiting for their two dollars. “I felt good all week, Bob. I've felt good all week.” And they obviously had not been sick. They had felt good. They went to school, or they went out to play or whatever the time of year was. And this went on for as long as they were with me – they got their two dollars.

Now, I gave em a motivation for feeling good. But I would make a good guess that none of us here has really given the kids a great big motivation for being well, but we have sure given a lot of motivations for being sick. Sickness has a great value. You get flowers. You get get-well cards. You get gifties when you're sick. But who gives you all that stuff for feeling good, you know? Do you? I think our society is kind of upside down on that score just a little bit. 

So, if any of you've got kids that's in the age bracket of getting allowances, you might try my stunt and see how it works, okay? Two dollars if they felt good or five dollars or whatever the little folks get. I guess in these days of inflation, they'd have to get $20 for what they were then. I give em two dollars and I know it would buy what $20 will now – or close to it anyway – $18… something on that order. The point is it works.

(That's one of the reasons that the conditioning is set when you're young and so we produce the illnesses ...)

Well, we produce em from the time we're little on. We just keep on doing the same thing.

(Right.)

If you feel neglected, unloved then it's awful easy to have a whole mess of very unpleasant symptoms. I've told a lot of guys that if they’d send their wives flowers and take em out to dinner every now and then and tell em how pretty they were and treat em real lovely, they'd save an awful lot on doctor bills. You think that'd be right?

(I do.)

I'm looking at Mary this time. Work pretty good, wouldn't it? I've tried that too. Works real well.

(Dr. Bob, is it possible to experience the sensation of the not-I’s without identifying with them, by dis-identifying?)

Oh, you would experience them either way. You would know what they're doing. They're tormenting at you. It's just like hearing a soap opera on the television. You don't get all involved in the soap opera should you turn one on, do you? Huh? You don't identify. Now, you know there's certain people who identify with one or more characters in any kind of a play or movie or soap opera or anything they see. You know that, don’t you?

(Right.)

Huh? Or a story they read. I found a woman out in New Mexico one time was identified with Guinevere in King Author. That was a long time ago, but she had it down 100%. Everything in her life went like Guinevere, okay? She had identified with it.

Now, otherwise you don't identify. You know it's a movie or just looking at it and that's the way it goes, is that right? All right, the not-I's are like listening to the radio. You don't have to accept everything it says as being true, is that correct? In fact I don't accept anything that it says being true. After you ignore em long enough, they decide to go away. They don't want to be treated like that anymore.

But you know, people tell me, “Well, the not-I's made me do it.” (laughter) You know that's like saying the devil made me do it. Bull crap. You got free agency; you don't have to do what they say. If they say you're a bum, so what? I don't have to agree with it. If I did, I would agree with it by saying, “Yeah, I've prided myself on being the highest-grade bum around.” Now what are they going to say? But you cannot so live as to get em off your back. You have to tell em to go to hell. Tell them how you got rid of em, Alissa.

(Okay. I was telling about the ____ one day and I’d had kind of a weepy week, you know. I knew I was being attacked by all these not-I's. They were so cunning; they would try one side and then they'd come around and whisper in my other ear and they were just driving me crazy. If someone looked at me I felt like crying. Finally, I got sick and tired of it. And I was at the railroad track in ___, and I screamed at the top of my voice, "Stop it! Stop it, quit bothering me! I'm sick and tired of it!" And I screamed for about three months; and I haven't heard em since.)

In other words, tell em to go to hell and mean it, okay? 

(I really had the power, I –)

You meant it. In other words, you meant it; you wasn't just whimpering along, saying [in a pathetic voice] “Let me alone.” You meant it, is that right?

(Yes.)

And when you mean it and say it, yeah, that's how you're going to get rid of em. Tell em to go to hell and mean it. Just like if you had somebody bugging you and you said, “Get the hell out of my house and get gone!” Okay, they'll go.

Okay we went about 30 minutes overtime tonight. So, we'll start 30 minutes late tomorrow (laughter) – at 10:30. At 10:30 am we will be here yakkin’ away.

Please bring what you want to talk about as well as what I want to talk about cause I'll talk about anything. But it doesn't have to be a question what this is. Say I want to talk about… like the lady asked about meditation a while ago. Somebody wants to talk about anything you want to, except my personal life and taxes, okay? That covered all right? And certainly, we get more out of it when it begins to be a discussion rather than a lecture. You know, a lecture you sit and listen. In discussion you get involved in and certainly this is something to be involved in. Living is what we're all involved in so let's get in it. And let's get involved as much as we can. And any time it drags and you can't think of something to talk about, I will, okay?

Good night and I hope everybody has a wonderful night and that the sun’s shining bright in the morning and it's nice– [recording cuts off]

End of CD 2 of 8

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