Workshop - Life and Living(Lake Whitney 1982)- Page 4 of 4

Beginning CD 7

Ok, are we all ready to start off here?  Or is everybody's brain worked into a jelly from all the good food and heavy and everything and nappy and what is it?

Or has everybody got a good subject to go on?

(It's very important.) 

What's important? 

(A question.) 

(I got a question; I just can't remember it.)

We'll, I'll tell you, we'll sit and be quiet and let your brain cells work it out then, ok?  Somebody had a very important question or a subject to discuss, ok? 

Yes, Miss Donna.

(Talk about X and Awareness and the Physical Body.)

You want me to kind of draw a little picture.  Oh man, I have that to do.  (laughter)

(You want the book?  I got a book now.) 

You got a picture so I can look it up?  Ok, maybe I can remember it without it, who knows.   So man is a unit and he has certain aspects.  So first off we'll say there is X – that’s Life, whatever Life may be.  I don't know what it is.  I can tell when it's present and when it's not.  He points to people in the audience.)  It's there and it's there, it's there, and it's there, and there and there and there and there.  So life is, but we don't know what it is and I don't know of a real good definition for it.  Does anybody know the definition of life.  Mmm?  You don't, I don't either.  But we can tell when it's present and when it's not.  Now life has two very basic functions that we can observe.  One of 'em is a Motor Function and we call that the physical body.  Now it's really a function of X.  And while it has certain attributes of being a thing, it deteriorates very rapidly when X departs from it unless you preserve it very good with something called embalming fluid.  A lot of us tried to use embalming fluid for years but it deteriorated anyway – in the living being, ok? 

So the Motor Function is there which has all kinds of little receptors in it to pick up senses, which is interpreted by the Awareness Function and there you have an Awareness Function.  Now these are both functions, not things particularly.  The body has certain things and it's a Motor Function.  And they're all essential and they are functions of whatever X is, ok?  And that works together to do all the phenomena that we see as the living being does.  That all right, Miss Donna?  That brings about all the things we see and experience in our day.  Awareness experiences and it gets carried away and calls itself “I”.  And then it says, “I” have a spirit,” or, “I” have a soul that “I” must save; and “I” have a body that “I” have to take care of and “I” have a body that hurts me,” and all that.  But really when it's all said and done this is what's supposed to say I; and this is its functions.  And sometimes we can relocate the sense of I in ourselves and actually have it here.  And then you would know that you had an Awareness Function.  You don't have something called “an Awareness” – it's just a function like digestion. You know you can't lay digestion out here and look at it because it's only a function, is that right?  Awareness is a function and the motion and everything is a function, so we say it's the Motor Function even though you can look at it and say there's a body.  It won't be around very long if X departs from it.  That help the discussion you're interested in, Miss Donna? 

(I don’t understand where Awareness reports.)

Simply here.  I'm aware that there is a big rock in front of me when I'm drivin’ on the road; one just fell off the side of the hill.  That's one nice thing down around Baytown – there is no hills for rocks to fall off of on the road, but I usually live where there is such things, you know.  So it reports to X that there is danger.  It doesn't necessarily say “rock”; it says “danger's out there.”  And X does the appropriate thing here to…sends a neuroendocrine impulse to the motor function to do the appropriate thing for the information received from here.  Now one time several years ago, a man came to visit me from Washington, D.C. and we were drivin’ from Roswell, New Mexico to El Paso.  And somewheres down around Alamogordo there was an enormous big tumbleweed laying in the road.  And of course, I saw it as a tumbleweed and just keep barrelin’ on down the road.  He saw it as a rock, a big gray rock layin' in the middle of the road, and he practically panicked and was screamin’ at me and all these things about all the danger.  Now he did the appropriate thing – X did the appropriate thing for what he reported, and I did the appropriate thing for what I reported.  Is that all right?  X doesn't try to second guess you and say, "Well, you’re wrong, Carl, that's not a rock, that's just an old tumbleweed."  And if you saw a simulated snake layin’ in your dresser drawer when you went to get a pair of pantyhose out and you had never seen that thing there before, you'd probably report it was a snake layin' there and X would do the appropriate thing.  You can tell me what that might be.  And it's not gonna second guess you at any time, ok? 

X so loves us, this Awareness Function, that it always does the appropriate thing for what the Awareness reports as being true.  Ok?  So we're pretty important people.  It so loves us, this Awareness (it usually calls itself I), that it'll do anything it reports as being true.  That's why it doesn't do much for affirmations 'cause you may be reporting it all words, but you know inside it ain't true. (laughs) So it don't do much about it, ok?  Is that adequate enough, Miss Donna, or do you want some more? Covered the ground all right? Ok, next point you wanna talk about? 

(Are we individual expressions of X?)

It seems that that is correct.  That's the best information I can discover by studyin’ and lookin’ at it that you are an individualized expression of Universal Intelligence or X.  Right.  And it doesn't seem there's a whole bunch of those little expressions, there's only individualized expressions of it, ok?  And life seems to be unitary but it expresses through a googol of ways.  You know what a googol is?  That's the largest number the human mind has been able to conceive of. 

(Can you spell that please?)

Yeah, G-O-G-A-L, gogal. [actually G-O-O-G-O-L, googol].  And that is the largest number that the human mind has been able to conceive of.  It has so many zeros on it that you forget how many was before you get back to where the first one was.  And there's somebody went through a swamp down in Florida (not the Everglades but one of the others – Okabeecie [means Okeechobee] or somethin’ else) and classified or tried to attempt to list all the different kinds of living creatures that could be found in there – not how many creatures, but just the different species.  And they had to use googol to list the number.  That's how many different species was just in that one swamp and there wasn't any people in there.  So there is so many ways that life expresses itself.  And of course you go in a desert, there's all kinds of specialized creatures there, and you go in a swamp there's kinds of specialized creatures there.  And you go in prairie lands and there's another kind, woodlands another.  So there is untold numbers of types of expressions not counting the individualized of those.  So life is very prolific.  And each living thing is, best anybody can discern, is an individualized expression of Universal Intelligence.  Apparently human beings have the potential of being the highest form of that existence at the moment.  You don't know; there may be some other kind I haven't run into.  And they also can be pretty low on the totem pole – same bunch, ok?  Next point you want to discuss?  Question?  Comment?  Whatever you'd like to make?  Yes, Miss Linda?

(Reporting to X.)

Ok, reporting to X is like reporting to anyone else.  Say that I wanted to report something to you, Linda.  We'll say that it was about some patient.  And I reported to you that this patient had a temperature of 104 and was expressing rather incoherent mental activity.  Have I reported?  I told you the situation, is that right?  That is what I'd tell X because I consider that X, Life is at least as intelligent as you are, Linda.  Maybe not more but at least as much, ok?  So I would report the same way.  Does that make sense?  Now you as a nurse walk in and write a report to the physician informing him of the condition of the patient and you don't attempt to tell him what to do or anything.  You report the situation as it is.  Do exactly the same thing – that's reporting, ok? Is that easy and clear?  You and I could probably, you could certainly probably use it easier to understand what I'm talking about as anybody here.  Cause you write your report.  You don't attempt to tell the doctor what to do about it.  You report the situation: the temperature, the pulse rate, the blood pressure, etc. without comment, is that right?

(Right.  X responds to my reporting or to the feeling?)

Well, I think they go together.  Your reporting implies a feeling, does it not?  I think you would always have some sort of a feeling.  In other words, if I reported that given person had a temperature of 104 and was expressing incoherent thoughts and words, my feeling was that you better get with it and somethin’ better be done about this before long or we won't have him to account about.  We won't have him to report on much longer, is that right?  But I don't have to tell X that.  It seems to know the appropriate thing to do.  Just like when you report to the physician he seems to know what to do at least within his scope of expertise, is that right?  And X I think has a much wider scope of expertise than any of us do, ok?  Having reported to it a great number of times, I've always seen it do the appropriate thing for what I reported without me having to go in and say, "Hey Doc, you do this and you do that.  Lord, get with it and take care of this thing here, get this income up for this person and get these symptoms gone,” and so forth.  You see I consider that sacrilegious; in other words it's an insult to a supreme intelligence tryin’ to tell it how to carry out its job.  That I report about, ok?  Just like the doctor would be a little bit insulted if you put on there, “You better get him some penicillin right quick and you better put a pack under his arms,” and so forth.  He'd say, “Where'd you come from, little girl?  I don't care how well you’re trained,” is that right?  Yes love?

(Doesn't X know before we report?)

Yeah, but he don't give a durn.

(Ok.)

It's happy either way.  So you report about it, it'll go to work on it.  You see X is just as happy with you dead as alive; but we're not.  So it will do the appropriate thing.  In other words we put the value judgments; X does not seem to care whether it does or it doesn't.  It's simply all right with it either way.  Ok?  It seems to always do that.  So somebody reports.  You've read in the Scripture about the man in Galilee showin’ up at Mary and Martha's house where Lazarus had been dead for four days?  Mmm?  I'm sure X knew old Lazarus was kicked out four days ago but it was all right with him that way.  And when the man talked about it, Lazarus got up and truckled off, is that right?  Ok.  Certainly X knew about Lazarus being conked out and out there in the tomb, ok?  But so what?  It's just as fine that way as another.  But to the family it was a little different.  So when the man hollered for Lazarus to come forth, here come Lazarus bouncin' out of there even with his feet tied together, bound hand and foot, wrapped up like a mummy but he got out of there just the same, ok?  That right?

(Uh-huh.)

So you have to do the reporting 'cause X is in eternal bliss anyway without doin’ it or not doin' it, ok?  Yes sir?

(This afternoon you were alluding to a situation where a person, say, in the course of their daily work with their activities, that they were in enlightenment or what I think is referred to as a Tone Scale.)

I didn't refer to that, somebody else told you that today.  I have knowledge of the Tone Scale inasmuch as I wrote it, but I didn't refer to it this afternoon. 

(Well, refer to it now.) (laughter)

Somebody else laid that one, somebody dripped that one on you there cause I do have a big memory of what I do and I didn't talk about that today.

(Would you?)

Well, now then you bring it up in that question, yeah.  (laughter)  Don't tell me I talked about something I don't know about.  I'm reasonably aware of what's going on and I wasn't drinkin’ this afternoon or any other day.  So the Tone Scale.  Now what do you want to know about the Tone Scale now that we got the subject out and I'm willin’ to talk on it?  What do you want to know about it?

(Can it be used as a means of, if you're interrelating to someone, as a means of taking them from one –)

The Tone Scale wouldn't do it, but you could see the person go through the steps on the Tone Scale.  The Tone Scale in itself is only information – just information.  It as a tool is relatively useless.  It gives you the ability to see what's going on sometime if you were workin’ with a person and we say you started out and the person was very apathetic, ok?  And if you worked with them and in a few minutes they were fearful of you and was lookin' how to get out of here; and another few minutes they were very resentful and hating you; and in another few minutes they were openly aggressive toward you; and another few minutes they got bored and yawned all over the place; and another few minutes they was bored with the whole show and then they got very contented and nice and then became vitally interested in what was going on; and then all of a sudden very enthusiastic – you could be watching the Tone Scale.  And it might give you an inkling of how well you were working and relating with the person to see where they were goin’.

The Tone Scale was the result of a lot of study of watchin' a lotta people.  And we put on one side of it "attitude/action" and as you act you will feel and as you feel you will have a tendency to act.  So “attitude/action” was on one side and the other side was “condition”, ok?  Now I'm not goin’ into all the things that goes in here but I will name the various attitudes and I think you could recognize the action.  So we put down here “Death” and all that and “Coma” but let's start with “Apathy.”  Now in Apathy is a person who just don't think that anything will ever be any better than it is today and you know, they're fallin’ apart and the world's gone to hell in a hand basket and they're worse off, ok?  You've seen a few apathetic people have you not?  The condition is they have everything in the book.  So we won't bother with that one, ok?

The next thing after Apathy is “Fear” – goin’ up the Tone Scale.  And, of course, people that are fearful act fearful and they look fearful.  And we could even draw a picture of it and you would recognize that that's a person in deep fears, huh?  And then the next one is “Held Resentment.”  Now that's halfway between Fear and Anger.  They're angry but they're afraid to express it.  That really burns ‘em up, you know, and you can see people – they say they're all burned up every once in a while and they literally do in a while.  The next one is “Anger.”  That's openly aggressive.  The one above that one is “Boredom” and the person looks bored, acts bored, and sometimes are very boring.  And the next one after that is “Contentment.”  Now Contentment is on a dividing line between being totally other controlled and being in charge of one's own inner state.  

The next one above that is “Vital Interest.”  A person is really vitally interested in something and everything that's going on around ‘em – not everything but many things.  They're not sick.  They feel fine.  They show few signs of aging.  They're getting along doin’ pretty good.  And all of these are fallin’ apart down here.  And the next one after that is “Enthusiasm.”  Now, you know, sometimes people get excited and mistake that for enthusiasm but enthusiasm is when you are totally involved and delightfully interested in something and [unclear] be to doin’ it. 

Now there is other tones that goes on beyond that but we won't talk about those tonight, ok?  Does that help a little bit?  Now you can only see what's goin’ on.  That in itself is not a tool to work with.  But it does give the person who is relating or workin’ with another person, kinda can check up on yourself to see how well you're doin’.  If you can get the person to go up the Tone Scale, fine.  Now if I could get an apathetic person very angry, they're greatly improved.  I don't know whether you people that work in the professions have used it or not, but I have.  Somebody's layin' in the sack and not too really bad off but they're apathetic and, "It’s no use, I'll never get any better and I don't want to get any better, and I just wish the good Lord would let me die.”  And I'd say, "I think that's a damn good thing!  I'm gonna help you pray for that.  You've never done anything worth a damn and don't look like you're goin’ to."  And they get real ticked off and go home in about 24 hours – they're fine.  (laughter)  So you can take 'em from this tone to that one, greatly improved in a matter of minutes.  I've had people come in and said, "I'm gonna kill myself."  I say, "I think that's the best thing you ever decided to do in your life.  Get out of everybody's hair.  All you're doin’ is aggravatin’ people and sittin' around feelin’ sorry for yourself, so get it over with – just don't make a damn mess somewheres.  Go out and do it where it won't mess up things."  And they say, "You don't have any feeling at all!"  And I say, "You're damn right – I have gobs of feeling for bums like you.  Get out!"  Great therapeutic value sometimes.  Now, not somethin’ to be used everyday but under certain various specific incidents.  You see, so many people in therapy want a set routine – be sure it will fit every time and I have not found that one, have you, Don?  Every one's a challenge in its own state, in its own right.  And use some insight and some awareness to work with it.  But some of those little tricks are pretty useful sometimes. 

(You said that Contentment is borderline.)

Either way...you're just there.

(I'll change?)

Yeah, you can go above it or below it with either way, but it's the dividing line between a person who's other-determined and self-determined. 
(When I think about that in my own life, then contentment isn't necessarily what I would really want...)

It's a very dangerous place to stop.  You know, you get contented and you don't want to do anything and you'll fall apart at the seams.  Contentment is very poor in my book. 

(Unclear)

Yeah it gets to be about that.  You know, “Everything's all right and I might as well sit here and get fat and enjoy it and that's all right,” huh?

(That's neat.)

So I don't wanna be too....I'm always discontented.  And I hope I always am.  I am very contented to be dissatisfied at all times.  I'm a little bit dissatisfied. 

(But vitally interested.)

Oh yes; but I'm a little bit dissatisfied ‘cause that gives me somethin’ to do everyday.  If I was totally satisfied I'd never move.  So I’m very contented to be dissatisfied, ok?  I like being dissatisfied.  Then there's somethin’ to do, somethin’ to go, somethin’ to get, somethin’ to try, somethin’ to work on.

(Why won't you talk about what's the rest of the way up?)

Let's try this one out first.  When you get so you can be enthusiastic all the time then I'll give you the next step, ok?  (laughter)  That's all I ask is when you use this one to its fullest extent, I'll give you the rest of them.  They go on up and they really would mean very little to us because we haven't even gotten up to that one all the time yet.  But I'm not being coy and I'm happy to give them out but they would be meaningless at this moment – take my word for it.  And when you get so you can stay up there.  Now the next one above enthusiasm is exhilaration or sometimes called bliss.  It's a real high and you wouldn't do a durn thing if you was there; so who wants it?  It's nice for Sunday afternoons.

(So the trick is to stay above contentment and below bliss.)

Well, you don't have to work too hard to stay below, but I said it's nice for Sunday afternoons but not much use for everyday workweek ‘cause you wouldn't do anything.  You feel so durn [unclear], why bother, you know.  Don't do it.  So I try not to put that out.  It's the real high that everybody's been tryin’ to get chemically. 

(You're talking about observing this in others.  How does one observe this in himself?)

Well, if you're not at least up to Vital Interest, you can't observe yourself anyway.

(That's what I'm asking – if you're in Boredom and you're stuck in there.)

Oh, you don't see anything but how pathetic you are.  So the only time that we can even start doing any self-observation is when we are at least to the level of, to the tone of being (which you might call an attitude) of Vital Interest, ok?  Before then all we do is worry and rattle and stew around.  That's why sometimes it's very difficult to do things in a group way.  But you may and may not have noticed that as we start to work, the first effort is to get everybody in a pretty good mood, is that about right?  If we don't have a good mood, I'm talkin’ to the wall.  I don't care how brilliant and how many PhD's and every other thing we got, and if we had IQ's of 198 – if we're not in a very desirable state of mood you can talk all day long and you might as well be talkin’ to that wall, ok?  So the first step is to get a mood up.  Now in any kind of business that we may operate (and we do always be involved in some business to make a livin’ – you can't make a living doing this, not my style anyway) and so in that, the first thing we put value on is the mood in that business, the mood or the attitude that's there. 

Now I can walk into a store or a business or an office and you immediately sense the mood that's there; and if that mood is down, the business is down, right?  You don’t wanna go in there anymore, anything else.  So we run an experiment one time which some of you have heard of, of running a restaurant far off the beaten track, far in an unexpected place without a sign on it, without any advertising, without ever makin’ an announcement it was open – ever!  Ok?  And the only thing we used to generate business was of course, good food, good product, good service and a delightful mood.  And it was so busy, it's unbelievable – it's still talked about.  It's quite a phenomenon in that part of the world.  But the mood was the only thing used to draw customers in the first place and after they got there, we give 'em good food, good service and a good mood to keep 'em comin’ back.   And it worked fantastic, ok?  You might try it sometime.  Sure does save a lot of overhead.  I want to start with Tim and be back to you in just a minute Marge.  He was up there first; you couldn't see him.

(On the Tone Scale, what I'm seeing is that none of this is consistent.  It's all relative to what's going on.)
Well most people let circumstance determine where they're gonna be on the Tone Scale.  You come tell 'em great news and give 'em a big check and they bounce up a minute; and then you come along and say, "Your old granny just died and that big check you got just bounced."  And pluppp, they go down.  Now we wrote a whole book about and give many talks about how to be in charge of your own inner state, Tim.  Now I will grant you that very few people are and they bounce up and down on the Tone Scale like a chip on the ocean accordin’ to what news they heard today or what happened, right?  The girlfriend walks off and he's in the dumps and he's depressed.  That used to be Mack Harris's beautiful thing – he was so depressed, it was unbelievable how depressed he was.  And one time I got him off.  He was gracious enough to gonna drive me to the airport in Dallas.  He didn't know what he was in for.  And he started in on this depression bit.  So somewheres between here and Dallas we threw it out; and he hasn't been depressed since.  Is that right, Mack?

(That's right.)

Ok.

(I miss it.)  (huge laughter)

You really miss it.  I think it is about just before you went onto the freeway with me is where we threw it out.  You can probably pick it up there tomorrow when you go back.  I bet Lucy'll raise hell if you bring that bum home with you, right?  So you can have any state of being you want to, but if you depend on circumstances, you will bounce up and down that like a chip on the ocean.  And it is so written in the Scriptures somewheres that the unconscious man, is basically the way they said it, is like a chip on the ocean tossed to and fro by every wind and breeze.  And unfortunately most of us allow our inner state to be that way – just pitched and tossed here and there.  But it's totally unnecessary.  Miss Marge?

(You talked about helping somebody go from Apathy to...)

Working with ‘em to get them from one place to another, yeah, ok.

(Apathy to Anger.) 

Yeah.

(When you're working with someone in Anger...)

And you want ‘em in Apathy......

(No, no!).............(laughter)

(I'd be easier, wouldn't it?  Easier to get 'em mad.  I'd really like to get 'em at least to Contentment.)

Well, I don't know how much better off contentment is than if they was angry; but not near as energetic.

(I like to have people interested – it's so much fun.)

Well, that's right, so an angry person is usually pretty easy to get goin’ somewhat.  They're full of vim, vigor and vitality – they're ready to break your neck.  And so if you treat 'em pretty nicely for a minute or two – you know, let 'em be angry.  In the first place you're not tryin’ to get ‘em over it; you're lettin' ‘em be angry – freely with all your content.  It's fine with you for them to be angry.  You'll find they start up the Tone Scale too and they of course are easier to get there than an apathetic was to get to Anger sometimes.  Cause you know sometimes you really have to work to get that apathetic one angry.  I mean you really got to put out the energy and scream and yell and stomp your feet and put on a good show.  And I'm pretty good at puttin' on a good show if I felt it’s necessary.  So even then it's pretty hard and I'm fairly experienced at it, ok?  I can get 'em over their apathy in a little bit – sometimes.  Up!  Now like Mack said, they miss it and they run back to it very easily.  You know in the Scripture it says a dog returns to his own vomit real easy and he was talking about people gettin' all attached to these icky kind of moods, attitudes.  And they are addicted to them; they like to go back to ‘em.  They feel so good and homely to go back to bein’ angry or apathetic or resentful and hating people and all that.  They like to return to it.  Don't ask me why.  I don't know. 

(I wouldn't dare ask you “why!”) (laughter)

I would tell you quickly, I don't know.  That's all, that's the answer to it.  But they do like to do it I have observed.  Now after being weaned from it a while it seems that the addiction lessens up a little bit and they don't run to it as much.  There is a theory in biochemistry books that the body generates a chemical called DACA, a hormone, when you're all down in the dumpies.  And that it is an addictive hormone and when you go up the Tone Scale you don't have the DACA, but you have the craving and so you go back to it to get that again.  Now that's only an explanation in the biochemistry books.  I haven't tried it out and don't intend to but it sounds good.  It's as good an explanation is that they’re allergic to alcohol, you know; it works just as good, but a very effective effort at times, ok?  Ok, next question, point, subject, comment.

(Bob, if we are individualized expressions of X…)

No, not if we are.  We are.

(I know that.)

Don't put no ifs, ands and buts about it, ok?  You are an individualized expression.

(As individualized expressions of X, at what point did we decided that there was anything other than X?)

Oh, that's when Awareness begin to play around and think it could do things on its own a little bit and it begin to separate it.  It's the story of Pinocchio.  Did you read about that?  Did you read Pinocchio?   What happened?  A man, a master whittler, whittled out Pinocchio, is that right?  And he whittled him out so good he could run on his own.  And he got in all kinds of mischief, is that right?  So does the Awareness when it thinks it can run on its own instead of do its job of reporting.  It starts out trying to act like it's X itself, ok?  That's pretty easy to look at; you can see that.  Instead of reporting, it decided it knew what ought to be.

(At one time all I knew was X.)

 

(And if that was told with....)

Why did you get off?  Because it is very great.  I think the story is told in the teaching story about Adam and Eve that Eve was told that if she would eat of this apple or whatever it was, it was the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, she would know right from wrong and good from bad.  She'd be as the gods and really have a kickin' time.  Now she'd been in bliss before but you know you can always hold out bait.  And so the bait is that you are so great that you know what ought to be.  And that I think is very addictive also.  I know what ought to be.  Man, that makes me feel pretty high and mighty, doesn’t it.  I know what you ought to be doin', I know what you ought’a be doin', and I know what Marcy oughta be doin'.  I know what Doug ought to be doin' and I know what you ought to be doin', Bobbie.  I'm really a wheel then, you know.  I don't have any “I Don't Know Department” after that.  And a lot of people feel very inadequate with a big “I Don't Know Department”.  I kind of enjoy it myself.  It's not a very heavy load to carry.  I don't know and now I'm off the hook.  A lot of people can't quite do that.  So I think when we decided we knew what ought to be is when we give up bliss, ok?  And we can get the bliss back when we find out again that I don't know what ought to be.  And that what is, is pretty wonderful and it's all right with me.  There's a lot of stories to that effect and I found that those stories are generally tryin’ to tell me somethin’.  Ok?  They're trying to tell me somethin’.

(I have heard you say, and it was a very meaningful thing to me and I'd like to go over it again, that you could not afford an emotion.)
I cannot afford emotion.  Now I only recognize as emotions: anger, guilt, fear, and insecurity and all their synonyms.  The rest of the things we have are feelings.  Joy to me is not an emotion; it's a feeling.  Peace is not an emotion; it's a feeling.  Love is not an emotion; it's a feeling.  But anger, guilt, fear, and insecurity I recognize as emotions and I cannot afford to have them because they kill old men.  (laughter)   It's that simple.

(It also makes you look old.)

(Makes you old before your time.)

It'll make you old before your time and old men can't afford 'em 'cause it kills the old men.  So it makes you old in a hurry and kills you quick when you get there.  So I can't afford it, ok?  Simply cannot afford emotions.  And you know once you see that you simply can't have something or other, you have no great trouble leavin’ it off.  It's like many people here have discovered that you cannot afford to drink the first drink out of a bottle of alcohol, is that right?  You've discovered that and you let the damn stuff alone.  I've discovered that you can't be careless while you're playin’ with a meat saw; if you do you will end up without a hand or a head and I can't afford to be careless.  I've had a lotta people say, “Tell me how to be conscious – just once.”  And I say, “Come back here.”  I take 'em back in the back of the restaurant where we have big meat saws that cut up bone – "brum-brum-brum-brum" – and I give 'em a piece of bone and say, “Make one-inch slices out of this and let's see you go to sleep while you're doin’ it with that 40 horse band saw comin' at you.”  You know they stay awake – no sweat at all.  Nobody goes to sleep while they're playin’ with the meat saw.  (laughter)  So when you see that you cannot afford to go to sleep while you're playin’ and talk to somebody over your shoulder while you're runnin’ a meat saw, you can also see that you cannot afford emotions and you don't have to have ‘em.  You don't have to get ticked off about anything, you don't have to feel guilty, you don't have to be fearful, and you don't have to have any regrets.  You don't have to do it – you can't afford it.  You simply can't afford it.  Just like Tim, you can't afford to take the first drink.  Third and fourth no problem, but that first one you can't handle, is that right sir?  

(That's right.)

Ok.  Mack? 

(Same way.)

Same way.  A whole bunch of the rest of you here – same way, huh?  And we don't do it because we know we can't afford the first one.  All the rest of 'em you can afford with the greatest of ease but the first one you can't afford, is that right.  Mmm?  First one you can't afford.  So I can't afford to have emotions: anger, guilt, fear and insecurity and there is no reason to have them, ok? 

(How do you avoid having them?)

I just don't have them.  How do you keep your attention on the band saw when you're cuttin' that slicer up, man – when you're takin’ that big piece of bone and making little piece of bones out of it?

(You watch it.)

You watch it, that's right.  Now you got it.  You know none of these things just slip up on us.  We kinda enjoy them, but we don't pay attention very much.  And you know, when your necessity is increased, you pay attention.  And I said old men can't afford emotions because they die real quick.  So when you know it's a matter of life and death, you let it alone.  When you think, “Why, I can stand it another 20 years,” you'll go on and do it ‘cause you do kind of like to have big kicks of emotions, ok?

(Bob, when you say emotions can come instantaneously even though it may be just as very expensive for us younger folks, how do you avoid their –)

Well, if they come very instantaneously, they can go very instantaneous, my friend.  If they can come that way, they can go that way.  So I cannot entertain them.  They may knock on the door but I can't entertain ‘em.  I cannot afford the entertainment they require.  Instantaneously, if they come instantaneously, they can go likewise.  If I'm on the ball and watchin' and my necessity is increased and says I simply can't afford it, you'll find that it may bounce. I said they may knock on the door but I can't entertain them, ok?  I simply cannot afford to entertain them.

(Then you report these emotions to X.)

Mmmmmm, no, I wouldn't even bother with that, I'd just quit havin’ it.  I don't want it, I can't afford it.  No, I can't say anything to it.  I quit having it.  You see there's no such thing as emotion catches me.  I indulge in ‘em.  And I don't choose to indulge in emotions, ok?  Period.  I got one behind you Marge and I'll be right back.  Yes?

(I think of love as an attitude.)

It's a feeling… sensation maybe… an attitude, yes. 

(Ok.)

But it's not an emotion.

(No.  Is there a distinction or is it just not important if it's an attitude or a feeling?)
Doesn't matter.  Attitude and a feeling means exactly the same thing.

(All right.)
They're synonyms.  They’re nyms that syn.  (laughter)  Now, yours?

(You talked about fear this morning....)

Sometime or other...

(You said that you allow yourself the freedom to experience...)

Experience the feeling if it come along, yep.

(Now the process is for us is to do that first and then...)

...and then decide you can't afford it and don't even bother with it, right?

(Ok.)

First if you, as our friend just said back here, it bounces at you instantaneously.  Now you know we begin to think of anger as somethin’ that jumps out of the ceiling and lands on us.  It's not.  It's somethin’ I indulge in from that second decision that says, "It's important to have my way now and the way to get it is to stick up for my rights."  And so we don't stick up for rights.  But I've already discovered I don't have any rights so I don't have any to stick up for so I don't even bother to get angry, ok? 

(Oh.  The first time I heard about this business of no rights, I heard it in kind of a modified form.)

Somebody else did it.

(Well, it was Bill Donovan who said, “I believe I have one right and that is the right to not be negative.”)

Well, he has the privilege of not bein’ negative, but I don't know as he has the right because about anybody with a rock can take all your privileges away from you.  Or a 2 x 4, or a little old pistoli, or a kitchen knife, or about anything – they can take ‘em all away from you.  They can prove to you you don't have any rights.  You don't even have the right to breathe 'cause any joker on the street can take it away from you. 

(Even at that point, I still have a privilege right there.  I still can choose to not be negative about what's happening.)

You can choose to do any response you want to.  You're a responsible being.  That is privilege you have.  You can call it a right if you want to, but I can take it away from you.  So a right is somethin’ nobody can take away from you and I can take away your right to choose anything or be responsible.  I can knock you unconscious and you're just a vegetable then.

(Ok.)

Any joker with a stick can take all your rights away from you.  Ok?  If you’re unconscious, you're no longer able to respond.  (end of CD 7)

Beginning CD 8

(A man sings, "You Light up my Life".  Then Marcy says a prayer of thanks and Bob begins.)

Thank you Marcy.  So we will have a Scripture reading this morning and I will make some comments on it.  You don't have to take that what I say are the only comments because the Scripture is a very rich, rich book and it has many, many levels of meaning.  And so I will only attempt to cover one level of meaning of the passage that I go by this morning.  So don't think that I said some other level of meaning or some other ideas that you have, I have contradicted. Because they have so many levels of meaning that we could have 20 talks on the same passages and never nearly exhaust all the levels of meaning in it.  So I will only take one level of meaning.  And I didn't say it was a bottom one, or a top one, or a middle – it's just one; and they're all equal as far as I'm concerned.  Before I read this little excerpt here from the teaching of this material, I would like for everybody to take about a few seconds to be calm and quietly within themselves and then I will start reading, ok?

Ok, we will start with reading and we're going to read from the 6th Chapter of Matthew starting at the 22nd verse and we will read for a while.
“The light of the body is the eye.”  Now it's a singular word there.  So let's don't assume that it is referring to the literal little things stuck in the front of our head 'cause we got two of those and it would be “eyes” if it said that.  “The light of the body is the eye,” and that was translated from a word meaning the Awareness.  So we do have an Awareness Function and it is designed to be singular; however, in the usual way we usually find it's three or four of 'em – usually three at least.  So this one says if the Awareness is single and it isn't fragmented and split up that we might find there would be quite a difference.  It says if that be the case, the whole body will be full of light.  Now light is not a visible light like we hear of, but of understanding – comprehension and clarity.  Now if you have two ways of looking at something or three ways, you have three different ideas and it's going to be cluttered and not very singly comprehending or understanding.  So many of the times we talk about the various conditionings, we use a little device called the Picture of Man which indicates how the Awareness is fragmented into little parties – “A” for one thing wants to complain, stick up for the rights and so on and “B” tells you what you ought to do. 

Somebody was tellin’ me this mornin’ they woke up a mornin’ or so ago and the little not-I's was tellin’ 'em what a terrible mistake they were doin’ for goin’ into business and all these messy things and how the economy was in a terrible shape now and this was no time to do anything because people were unemployed and etc.  So then another side said, "Well, we're gonna go do it!"  So that body was obviously in a state of conflict at that moment and conflict is considered to be darkness.  So the light of the body is the Awareness.  If, therefore, the Awareness be single, the whole body will be full of light.  But if the eye be evil or conditioned, the whole body shall be full of darkness, confusion, and struggle and a thousand things sayin' you should do this, should do that… maybe if you just have one more drink, you can handle this situation a lot better.

“Therefore the light or the Awareness that is within thee be darkness, how great is that darkness.”  And most of us can attest to that by our own actual experiences.  Would you say so?  Ok?  “No man can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and mammon.”  Now mammon is not money and it is not wealth.  It is not parties on the street or what-have-you.  Mammon is the conditioned Awareness.  You know you got a whole bunch of things.  I have a young friend in New Mexico who calls me when he knows where I am as many as 10 and 12 times a day tellin’ me what voices are sayin’ to him.  Now, the voices are mammon; and one of 'em will tell him to do all sorts of things and the other one will tell him how severely he's got to tow a line.  So he's in a constant state of conflict.  Now he's been tryin’ to so live that he can make these voices quit talkin’ to him.  Now the only difference between this young man and the rest of us is that he's a little more intense into bein’ good.  And the rest of us aren't workin’ at it so hard so it's not quite as severe on us.  But he really is intent on bein’ good so he wants to so live that these voices will quit tormenting him.  Of course he will never succeed.  So he's tryin’ to serve mammon.

Now mammon, you know, has been twisted around a lot of times to refer to if you have money, if you have wealth or if you have a home or etc, you're servin’ mammon.  Mammon is trying to serve these conditioned impulses that act like entities within us that are always tellin’ us what we should do.  And of course they never agree.  This young man got into this position by goin’ to some oriental master of some sort or other he run into and this person told him if he would listen carefully, that a voice inside would guide him.  So he listened carefully and he got the voice who's guidin’ him.  The only thing, he got two and they don't agree.  So you can imagine that he's kind of a mess.  I think we can be responsible enough to just kinda decide what I'm gonna do without having an internal voice.  ‘Cause when you get one, I usually notice you get two and they sure do not agree.  So enough for mammon.

“Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life what you shall eat or what you shall drink nor yet for your body what you shall put on.  Is not the life more than meat and the body more than raiment?”  Clothing.  So certainly we are not going to sit around and think, "Oh my god I'm going to starve to death," and all these things.  We all know that if we exercise a little activity, that we make some contribution to life in some way or other, that we express a little work, that sufficient is going to come in for us to have food, clothing, shelter, transportation and all these good things.  Now if we sit and worry and constantly that, “My business is gonna fail or my job's gonna go or what-have-you and then I will starve and I will have no clothes and I'll be on the street.”  Having lived in this world for a number of years and having traveled a bit over it, I have yet to see very many people starve to death on the streets of Ft. Worth or Dallas or Los Angeles or any of these places, have you?  Have you seen any of 'em just fallin' around?  Furthermore, I have seen very few nude on the street because they didn't have any clothes since the days of streakin' went out.  Now while streakin' was in, you saw quite a few; but now you have to go to hot tubs or somethin’ else to find people without clothes and if you chase around there you will find they left some somewheres nearby.  So we don't have any reason to be totally anything. 

Now I talked to a number of people who read this little passage and said take no thought for your life or what you shall eat or what you shall drink nor for your body and they said, "Well phooey, I don't have to work; I'm just goin’ out here and play."  So one of 'em came into our place one night when we had a big restaurant down near El Paso and he came in and he said, "I'm hungry!" I said, “Fine, what would you like to order?  We have a menu.”  I showed him a menu and he said, "But no, I want you to give it to me."  And I said, "How come? You look as able to work as I do."  And he recited this bit of Scripture off to me.  And I said, "Well, fine – you go out there and sit outside and as soon as the lord brings you your dinner, why you eat it.  But if you're gonna get one of our waitresses to get it I'm gonna give you a check and I expect you to pay it.”  Well, he was very disturbed.  He also went to one of the girls in the house in the place that worked there and said, "Could I stay at your house tonight?"  She come asked me what I thought.  I said, "Tell him that there's a motel down the street." 

In other words, you know some people take words very super literally without understanding that everything in the Scripture concerns the inner man, not the outer man.  The outer man is, still operates on the general economy system of the world and whatever part of it you live in.  The Scripture is not concerned with the outer, but the inner man.  Now the inner man has no reason to be worryin’ and concerned because he's quite capable of doing something or other.  Right? Any of us can make a contribution to life some way or other and if you make one, they'll be one coming your way.  And the whole idea of this passage of Scripture is that you are contributing something to Life.  Now in order to contribute to life, one has to discover what one is and where one is and what's goin’ on here and what you can do.  We talked a bit about that on the weekend so we wont' bother with that again. 

“Behold the fowls of the air for they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.  Are you not better than they?”  Now we all know that the birds eat and that the doves in the field get theirs and that the possums get theirs and the skunks get theirs – they eat grasshoppers and so forth.  Human beings are on a different level or existence.  We don’t eat things just as it is found out in the field.  We are a different kind of creature and most of our food has to be processed a wee bit, is that about right?  Do you process most of the food in your house?  Huh?  About right?  Do you?  And neither do we grow fur to sleep out tonight in the cold and we get along just fine too.  But we are more valuable than all those creatures says the Scriptures.  So then if we do what we do and are capable of doing as well as a bird does what its capable of doing, we will be jolly well – well fed, very prosperous and have all the good things.  But now the bird doesn't sit on his perch or a tree limb somewheres and say, "Lord bring me the food."  He gets out there and chirps early in the mornin’ and gets with it.  Did you ever notice?  He gets out and does the thing that birds do.  Now we're not birds to do the things that birds do.  If we tried, we'll starve – period.  About right?  Can you go floatin' around over the hill like a buzzard and hope to find a dead carrion somewheres?  You're not quite up to that yet.  But now the buzzard gets out there and does his thing every day.  And we have as our activity a great spiritual ability to see, to do, to create, to do all sorts of things.  And if we do our bit, what we are designed to do, as well as the bird does what it does, or the skunk does what it does, or the possum does what it does, you'll find that you have very little economic problems to be concerned about.  You'll have plenty of food, clothing, shelter, and transportation.  You might even get like brother Harris and get a Datsun 380 or one of those things.  Who knows? 

“Which of you by taking thought” or affirming “can add one cubit unto his height?”  Anybody here that thinks they can grow an inch taller or three inches taller?  A cubit, incidentally, is about 14 inches.  I wouldn't want to be 14 inches taller; I'd bump my head too often.  But even an inch, you know, or two inches – do you think that you could do that by affirming, thinking, rattling, or doing any of these good things about it?  Mmm?  You see, we are designed to be what we are and there's not two of us alike.  So we're unique works of art and we have no reason to try to improve ourselves accordin’ to some preconceived opinion.  Now this verse very carefully says which of you by taking thought or deciding how you want to improve yourselves can do so.  You see an example; can you be an inch or three, four, five inches taller?  How about any other thing? You know, do you need to be improved or are you pretty much all right like you are?  Or if you use what you are and not try to be a bird somewheres, ok?  Or some other good creature. 

You know a man is inferior to most of the animals if you only take one attribute.  Very few of us can run as fast as a horse or a deer.   Very few of us can smell near as good as a dog can.  Very few of us can see near as well as an eagle or most other birds that fly around and look down for things.  Right?  And very few of us can swim near as well as a duck can or a seal.  But you see they are all very specialized creatures and man is really a totally unspecialized creature – he can do a jillion things.  He's not specialized.  But if he has a specialty it is he has a tremendous brainpower – intelligence that works through a tremendous brain.  And of course we usually clutter it up and consider it of very little value.  “If we just had enough money, who wants to bother about how we're using the head?”  You know if you just had enough money you wouldn't bother with it.  So we think in that term a lot so we're thinking in terms of conditioning or in mammon. 

“And why you take you thought for raiment?  Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”  Now we can all see a rose or gladiola or orchid or any other flower you choose to see and it is wonderful and glamorous and so forth; but that's all it does.  Now it is clothed and puts forth beauty and radiates all kinds of beauty and joy all around itself and everybody goes out of their way to look at it.  Could we radiate just as well or do we radiate [he acts sad and down-at-the-mouth]?  So it is interesting to look at expressions on faces sometimes as you go about because faces are essentially the flower of the human being.  And it is interesting to see all the expressions that gets on 'em.  That's what one is flowering out and showin' and that is really what you're dressed by is your attitude.  Now there's a little piece of wool here and this little piece of cotton here and so forth.  There's really not a raiment; that's just a portable shelter we carry around with us a little bit.  But what you're really clothed with is what mood you radiate to all the world around you.  Mirrors are very useful tools.  You can go by and check up on one once in a while and see what kind of a flower you're puttin' out.  Does it look like a rose or does it look like something out of the barbed wire fence somewheres you know?  It's very interesting to observe these little things and surprising how different it makes you feel is accordin’ to how you are acting.  And our face is our major portion of acting.  Now the whole body goes along with it, but it is very interesting to see how the face sits around and flowers to the world.  So did you ever think of your face as being the flower?  It is.  Did you, Miss Parker?

(No, I didn't.)

It is.  Do you stop to look at it now that we've reminded you that that's what you're looking at all the time is flowers, huh?  Huh?  Now do you want to see somebody [again, he slumps and looks “down”]?  Or do you want to see a lovely smile that makes you glow a little bit?  Now tell me about that, would you for a minute?  Tell me about it.  You see we are all flowering at all times.  But sometimes the flower sure looks wilted.  Most of the petals have fell off and it looks pretty sad; but that's the flower you got out there.  Now if you're runnin’ a business of some kind and you have a mood in your place of business that is one of these down, down, down, down, people avoid that place of business. You can feel it a way long ways away from it.  If it is a joyful place to go, people come without you spendin’ a fortune on signs or advertising or any of that stuff – they'll be there.  Ok?  Now that's the flowers.  Now people go out of their way to go see beautiful flowers.  We think of people that we care a lot about sometimes and for special occasions we buy them beautiful flowers and send to ‘em.  Well, you're the most elegant flower they will ever receive, ok?  What are you gonna dish out?  What flower are you gonna show around, huh?  Now here is where you can be very well dressed or you can be very shabbily dressed and it has nothin’ to do with the elegance of the things you buy down at the department store or the clothing store or that you go to the tailor and get.  Those are very lovely; but you can put the most beautiful suit on a man and he looks all blah, you know; and that suit looks like hell anyway.  And you can buy the most beautiful dress or suit and put it on a lady and if she goes “ugh”, you know, you sure did waste that beautiful thing.  Now, let's be dressed at least as good as the flowers of the field is, ok? 

“Wherefore if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven,” which means you use it for fuel.  I may go out there and the flower blooms up.  Well you go out there and clean it off and cut off all the debris up and you burn it, huh?  Bonfire; clean up the garbage somewhere.  It says if it does all that for that, it lets the flower smile and glow and shine and express beauty in every direction.  And we go along with all that we have – far more than the flowers of the field.  They only last a few days at the most, you know.  If you go to the florist and order two-dozen American Red rosebuds, in less than a week they're all pfft.   Sure are beautiful in the meantime, right?  And we do generally last longer than a week, you know; but very seldom do we remember to glow for a week.  About right? 

“Therefore take no thought saying what shall we eat or what shall we drink or wherewith shall we be clothed.”  Now obviously that is not what one does all one's concern about.  One says, “What's my mood showin'?”  You know it would be a lot easier if you worked that way.  What mood am I demonstrating to all the people I come in contact with?  Do I look like a flower or a poisonous mushroom, which is a flower too, you know.  We can have either one.  Now here's a man says don’t take no thought about what you're gonna buy to put on.  You can always get that stuff, you know.  I know a lady that's extremely well dressed and she’s never been in a new store in her life I don't think.  She hits all the thrift stores and she comes out lookin' like a million.  But it's because of the mood she has, not because of the clothes; the clothes are all nice enough anyway.  I hear that one of the greatest men’s stores in Dallas is called Hideaway or something.  It's hidden away somewhere.  The “Clothes Cupboard”?  And it's all used clothes.  But doctors, lawyers, dentists, everybody's out there trying to get there first to get all the things that that lady sells.  I'm gonna check it out one of these days.  I like that, too, pretty good you know. 

“For after all these things do the Gentiles seek.”  Now Gentiles are, somebody told me the other day, the reason there was Gentiles made so somebody had to pay retail.  (laughter)  But I think the main reason was they called Gentiles people who are uninformed.  Now the teaching material has been around for thousands of years but most people have ignored it or tried to take it too literally and did not see that it related to their inner state of being.  And so they tried to take it very literally and of course wound up havin’ lots of difficulties.  So they said that these were Gentiles.  “For after all these things do the Gentiles seek.”  The uninformed seek for the literal outward show and don't realize that the real flower is from within. 

“For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things.”  You see the Father says, "Yeah, you're made without hair on you – you're gonna have to wear clothes in cold weather.  You don't sleep in holes in the ground, so you'll need houses.  You can't run like a horse or a deer, so you'll need transportation to get down to Dallas today, or you'll need an airplane to get to Europe this afternoon for dinner.”  So all these things come along that they're all here and provided if we ever stop to look at the marvels of what is made available to us.  You know we read about Solomon and all his stuff and the Pharaohs of Egypt and so forth that built the, supposedly built the pyramids. They didn't, but that's all right.  And we think about how they lived – such fantastically rich people.  But you know that any one of us that has some little clunker automobile out here would be the envy of Solomon or the Pharaohs or anybody else.  Anybody that has a little television set that can see what's goin’ at far distance has done all the marvels.  You know we have magic all over our place or miracles or whatever word you prefer to use.  We have food comin’ from the far corners of the earth that's available to us down here at the supermarket at a pretty reasonable price.  People do all sorts of things.  We can buy fabrics that wasn't even known a few years ago that do pretty good.  We can still use sheep hair if we like, but you know, they have a lot of other stuff around.  So all of this magic is around us – all these miraculous things are here and we take them for granted and think if we just had more of ‘em everything would be all right.  But no matter how much more wouldn't change a thing. 

So the men said here and the teacher said, "But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

 Now the Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of Oneness.  We refer to a universe.  It has no confusion in it.  We go around with all kinds of confusions in thehead and assume we ought to have all these things and say, “Well why am I not havin’ these things?” 

It says down at the bottom of it, “Seek you first the Kingdom of Heaven,” or the Kingdom of God, which is a totally integrated mind:

– one without conflict, one without confusion, struggle and resistance in it 

– one which has established itself a purpose

– one which then of course has will and can carry out what its purpose is

– a mind which does not have conditioning factors runnin’ it all the time

– and you've come upon to where there is Life, Spirit, whatever word you choose to use.  We even put just an X up there, you know; it refers to something we can see is there.

– and an Awareness Function that isn't conditioned to report erroneously

– and a body which carries out all the activity that X says is the appropriate thing for what is reported as being true at any given moment. 

Now if I should pick up this book and throw it at someone, even though you've never had a book thrown at you before you will see it comin’ and Life, X, Spirit, whatever within you will do the appropriate thing to keep you from gettin' hurt.  It'll knock it down some way or other even though you never had it before.  So it isn't that you learned how – it's there immediately.  So the “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven,” another way of saying it is where you are one within that there is no conflict, no struggle, no resistance – no fightin' for ideals.  You're one; you see clearly and you know what you are, where you are, what's going on here and what you can do.  Then you have become a citizen of the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven, is used both terms interchangeably.  And when you get there then you can have all the food, clothing, shelter.  It says that will be added unto you – all these things that other people break their necks tryin’ to find.  Do you want me to read on further Miss Marcy or have I earned my pay today?

(No you got to go on.)  (laughter)

Miss Marcy believes that quantity is better than quality.  (laughter)  So I, of course, think that quality has more value than quantity.  I have listened to people that talk for two hours and got very bored and sleepy and tired.  I listened to other people talk 15 minutes and I got something pretty worthwhile.  So I will proceed – under duress, ok?  (laughter)  I will proceed.  I'm awful close to time.  (laughter) I'm not going into overtime I will assure you. 

“Take, therefore, no thought for the morrow for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.”  That is worry, you know.  When you're thinking about tomorrow that's a fancy word for worry.  And most everybody's worried about what's gonna happen tomorrow.  An old gentlemen told me one time (I had been talkin’ to him a long for quite a while gettin' him over some of his terrible anxieties and so forth), he looked at me one day and he said, "Well, what you’re saying is that I've lived a long, long time and I've had a terrible lot of problems, a lot of troubles and damn little of it ever happened."  Now isn't that about what all your worries and anxieties are about?  That you worried and worried and worried about something that might happen manana, huh?  And if it did happen, you wouldn't do any better about it, you know.  You couldn't do any more about it 'cause you can't dodge a book until I throw it at you.  You can't eat breakfast tomorrow morning – now.  I don't care how hard you try.  And you don't know what's going to happen one second from now, much less tomorrow mornin’ or next week and you wouldn't know whether it was worthwhile to you or detrimental.  Something you didn't like at the moment, maybe if you look back to six months you see that was a very worthwhile thing happened that day.  Mmm?  

A man told me that he bought a yacht and he said, "You know I felt I was very lucky to get into buying this big boat for the price before somebody else got it; but after I had it six months, I realized it was most unfortunate that somebody else didn't get it."  So they have a statement around the people that drive powerboats and sailboats say: “The second happiest day of your life is the day you buy it; the happiest day of the life is when you get rid of it.”  So that comes with a lot of things here that we're gonna worry about tomorrow.  Now, worry in one form or another is one of the greatest scourges of the modern race of people.  I don't know about the others – I wasn't there that I recall of.  But everybody I know worries.  Now I was talkin' to a young man about worrying the other day and he said, "Bob, I don't ever worry.  I just overthink everything."  (laughter)  So now of course I can't talk to him about worry but I can talk to him about overthinking through everything.  So let's talk about overthinking for a few minutes here.  Something comes up and we begin to try to anticipate every possible thing that might happen.  We draw great plans and all this. 

I went to see a man in Sacramento, California one time and when I went into his house, he had a desk in his front room and on it was a roll of butcher paper – you know the kind the butcher uses to wrap up your meat.  And he had great swirls of it covered, rolls and piles of it out there and it all had writing on it and had a line drawn through the middle.  And I said, "What's all that?"  And he said, "Well, I've been trying to figure out whether to sell the house or not; and I put down all the reasons for sellin’ it on one side and all the reasons for not sellin’ it on the other side."  And I said, "Well, how did you come out?"  He said, "Well, I've been at it for six months.  I've used practically this whole roll of paper and I'm only one up on the 'for sale' side and probably before night it'll be even."  (laughter)  So he was at the same place after six months of overthinking through it.  His state of being where he was before…  And can you imagine the wear and tear on his body?  He was about 42 and looked every day of 70.  Now he did everything that come along this way – everything.  If he was gonna take a vacation, he got this big roll of paper.  He read in a book somewheres by Napoleon Hill or somebody to put down all the reasons for doin’ something and all the reasons for not doin’ it and you'd come out with one ahead.  But every time he got just one ahead, when he started to tear the paper off he thought of one on the other side.  Now that's what overthinking through… and you can call that worry or you can call it anything you want to.  But if you ever stop to realize that all your worrying is about something you don't know anything about – it's the future.

Now I know a lot of psychics and clairvoyants and etc., and they have excellent business because people wanna know the future.  Well, I said it wouldn't do any good to know the future because if you could know it, you couldn't change it.  Now I know probabilities all day long, don't you?  You know probabilities: probably if anything can possibly go wrong, it will and at the worse possible moment.  (laughter)  So what?  We'll go do it and take care of it when it happens.  But you see, the person that wants to know the future thinks if he knows the future then he could change it.  Well, obviously, that wouldn't be knowin’ the future.  Certain groups I've talked to up in Utah claim that (the people who run the groups) claim Bob is the devil.  And I've said, “All right, I'm the devil and I'm gonna build me a hell and it's gonna be the most wonderful place you ever went in all your life; everything is gonna be utterly fantastic.”  The only thing that's gonna be a catch in it is that you're always gonna know everything that's gonna happen far ahead.  You know when somebody's gonna come by and say "Hi."  You know when somebody's gonna go somewheres else.  You're gonna know everything that’s gonna happen.  You're gonna know when the rain's gonna fall and you'll know when it's not gonna fall.  And would you like to live in my hell?  Or would it be the most horrifying, boring situation you could ever get into, is that right?  Just simply wonderful but you'll know everything that's gonna happen.  Would you like that?

(I don't think so.)

No.  So do you see that all worry is because we assume we don't know the future and we ought to know it and it's an attempt to know the future, is that correct?  Everything that you fret and stew about is ‘cause you think you'd be better off if you knew the outcome in the future of everything concerned.  But wouldn't it be horrible to know that next week you're gonna burn your finger?  At 9:03 next Tuesday mornin’, a week, you're gonna burn your finger.  Here you got all this time to dread it and fret about it.  If you burn your finger two weeks from now, so what?  But if you know it's going to, you can anticipate.  And this is the agony we mostly do is anticipating all these things that could possibly go wrong, is that right?  “Wrong”… who knows whether they're wrong or not but are things I wouldn't like.  If you had known for the last seven weeks, Mr. Harris, that your little car was gonna blow up and get very hot and it would take a whole weekend to get a part for it, you'd a had some fancy worryin’ done by now, wouldn't you?  Some frustration.  But wasn't it wonderful that you didn't know anything about it until the steam went "Pquooo"? 

(Right.)

I was drivin’ up the road the other day and a fan came off and went right on through the radiator; and at the worse possible place to get a part for it.  So had I known that for several years that on a certain day (laughter) in February 1982, I would be drivin’ up the highway and the fan was gonna come off and I would be sittin', "She's goin', she's goin!"  But think of all the years I would a had to struggle with that thing, mmm?  Can you imagine that?  Can you imagine how horrible that would have been for all these years to know that fan was gonna come off and go right through the radiator and there would be nothing to do but stand by the side of the road until some kind soul come in and went up to the next town, village, and called a wrecker?  And then we had to call all over the country and get a part shipped from Denver, a radiator core, cause this thing went right on "pduuu" and cut a perfect circle through it.  Now I'm sure glad I didn't know about that until it happened.  I didn't have anything to worry about up 'til then.  Didn't have anything to worry about then – we just had a challenge to get it movin’ again, ok? 

Now would you like to know the future?  Bob told me he had figured out how everybody could have total financial security; that's something most of us would like to have for a while.  Would you?  He's got it figured out how for the last five years of your life (which is the ones most people worry about, you know, that they will be old and decrepit and sittin' in a nursing home and nobody care about ‘em) he's figured out a method that you can have total perfect financial security the last five years of your life, ok?  Would you like that?  When do you want to start?  (laughter)  Want to start today?  For the next five years.  So you're not near as interested in total financial security as you are being alive, is that right?  Thank goodness.  Is that correct?  So I think Bob should be given a medal for that one and it might help a tremendous amount of financial worries, mmm?  I think you should have a very good one and I hope you make – (end of CD 8 and a couple minutes from the end of the workshop)

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