Workshop - Magic Talk 2 - Part 1 of 3
by
Dr. Bob Gibson
Verbatim Transcript
In creating a companion to the audio files found in the “Links” section,
we provide as close a verbatim transcript as possible.
Dr. Bob’s laid-back “Kentucky-ese” and vernacular is retained.
We’ve chosen to not correct his grammar.
He also used specific words, pronunciation, and dialect
on purpose as tools to get our attention.
Honoring his choices, we’ve made sure to not “clean it up” for him.
Audience (laughter) is noted; he was a master at keeping the mood up!
(Audience participation is parenthesized and separated from his words.)
[Anything emphasized or offering clarity is italicized inside brackets.]
Magic Talk 2 – CD 1 of 3
Okay. I have on the board to start with this mornin' a person with two heads. Now, I said I was gonna ask you why you came. Does anybody choose to tell me why you came here today? John Creatch, what'd you come here for?
(Uhhh...)
The tapes are runnin' out fast, come on “divvy.” He don't know. Bill Brazil, why did you come? All the way over from Roswell. Haven't the foggiest idea…okay. Tom, why'd you come?
(To have an instruction.)
Okay. We'll have an instruction then. So basically, I think I will have to give the purpose you're here for. Inasmuch as John don't know, or anybody, I will lay it out. We hope that you came so that when you leave this afternoon that you will not be in a state of conflict.
The only human problem is conflict.
You can name it two other ways – conflict, or struggle or resistance to what is goin' on.
Other than that, there is no problem.
If you're perfectly free to experience what's happenin' to you at any given moment, you don't have a problem. You may have a little challenge to gettin' the alligators out or something, but there's no problem – you know what you're doin'. But the average human being having started out in this world to be domesticated. You know there's two ways you could raise children. One is you could domesticate em, or the other one you could educate ‘em. Basically, it's much easier to domesticate cause all you have to do is be larger. And if you're bigger than the kid, why then you can domesticate him. But if you are trying to educate him, it takes a little time, and tedious, and sit down and have some conversations now and then as to what's to your advantage. And to let the child know that he or she is absolutely free to do whatever they want to cause you can't keep ‘em from doin' it; you can only scare ‘em into not doin' it if you're big enough.
So, all of us were domesticated by somebody around – basically, everybody that got a shot at us. Startin’ off with the parents, and baby sitters, and then to the schools, and then to the police, and everything – we were domesticated. Domesticated means very much like you would domesticate a horse, Howard. You prove to him you're stronger or smarter than he is by layin' him down a few times and then he listens, is that right?
(That's right.)
But you didn't educate him. You just domesticated him.
So, basically we all started off as an infant
with having us a purpose that we wanted very much.
And there isn't a thing in the world wrong with that purpose;
the only thing that causes us difficulty with it
is that we try in two different ways to get it,
and both of ‘em, totally unconscious.
So if we tried to have that same purpose and use the conscious intention to get it,
we could probably have it
without any conflict whatsoever.
So the first purpose, which is in here between the two heads – the purpose which you were domesticated to say was not what you wanted, but it's still what you want – is to be totally non-disturbed. Now, you're not gonna gain it, but you can work for it. So the purpose that we had, [he corrects his spelling on the board: I got a “d” on there. Somebody told me last night I never put em in, so I had that on my mind.] the purpose was to be non-disturbed. Now to be non-disturbed, there is several ways we can be disturbed, is there not? One is to have pain. So, we wanted to escape all pain – physical pain.
Now, pain is not something different or anything – it is a sensation I don't like. Now, what one of us may call a pain another may call a pleasure. I'm around a lot of people that have pain at watchin' me have eggs once in a while because I sprinkle Louisiana Hot Sauce on ‘em, and they all wince just to see it. Now to me, that's very pleasant, very nice – but to them it is painful.
So there is no such thing as pain or pleasure.
There's only sensations I like and sensations I don't like.
About right, Brother John? Hmm? There isn't such a thing as pleasure/pain as being two different things. They are only a sensation – and if I don't like it, I call it pain, and if I do like it, I call it pleasure. And we don't all agree as to what pleasure and pain is.
So we wanted to escape pain. We wanted to gain pleasure. Now, that would be I wanted to gain sensations I like and I wanted to escape sensations I did not like. Now that's no conflict; if anything, it's quite all right. Only thing is that as an infant we didn't know to go about gettin' it. And very rapidly we learned to communicate when we had pain, we cried. And when we had pleasure, we chuckled a little bit or “cooed,” I believe is the word you would say a child does – he coos a little bit. You don't have to ask him, “Is this comfortable to you or not?” They gave the appropriate sound, is that right, Nancy? They give the appropriate sound and you quickly learn it.
So first off we begin to feel because everybody around us dislikes crying sounds – they all tried to make us comfortable. It wasn't because they thought so much of us; it was just that they were irritated by that crying' sound, is that right, Joann?
(Yes.)
So then we begin to do ‘em; but quickly we were conditioned to say that was love, you know –whatever that may mean. So, we tried to please ‘em so they'd be quiet and make cooing sounds and we tried to stop.
So very quickly we all decided, “I'm entitled to have all the sensations that I like and to escape all the ones I don't like.” Now, that's where the problem arose – I'm entitled to it. So when we feel that we are entitled to something, there is nothing you need do about it, only demand it. Is that about correct? If you are entitled to it. Now the horse feels he's entitled to have his trough filled up once a day, right? And he makes an awful lot of fuss if he don't get it. The dog feels he's entitled to be fed at a certain time of the day, and the cats feel they're entitled to be fed, and all these domesticated creatures are entitled. So we domesticated [corrects himself] we were domesticated. And of course, we continue it on the next generation by attempting to domesticate them. We produced pain so they will be afraid to do it, and we forget about givin' ‘em much pleasure about it – but if they should happen to get some, that's wonderful.
So, here comes the break; the purpose was being twisted a little bit. So we felt entitled to have it, instead of that I can get it by my own efforts a little bit.
Now, the next pain that comes along is the pain of beingignored or rejected. And of course, gaining attention is a great pleasure sometimes to a lot of people – now it's according to who gives you the attention. If the guy with the red lights on top his car pays attention to you when you're drivin' 75, that's not so nice; you'd rather he would ignore you. But if somebody else ignores you that you know and supposed to be ___ with you, you know. And meets you on the street and say hello and all the good things, why then, you are all torn up if they don't do it. Because that was a pleasurable thing, and we are ignored or rejected.
Now to be totally ignored was discovered by the Chinese many ages ago – that the best method of punishment which did not entail having' to build prisons and hire guards and all this – they practiced the system called ostracism. So if you lived in a village and you did some crime that the community decided that was not to their advantage, they ignored you totally. You walked in a store and nobody saw you. You walked in a restaurant, nobody saw you. You said hello to somebody on the street, and they totally ignored you – because you were now a “no person.” And this, they found out, was equivalent to a death sentence, but it did not cost them one penny. They didn't have to build prisons, [have] guards, hire psychiatrists to work on these souls or anything; they just ostracized them. They became an absolute no person.
So being ignored is sometimes rather fatal. But certainly we can all get attention. If nothin’ else, we can scream. It's not the most appropriate way but it will get attention sometimes. So we could find out how to get attention if we used it instead of feeling' entitled to it, that I want to have it. Now it seems that everybody has to have some attention, you know. If you go in a coffee shop and everybody ignores you, you'd starve after so long a time, right? You go in a grocery store, they ignored you, huh? They wouldn't sell you anything. You'd just come up with your little check outs, then they just shove it back in the cart and go away – you're not there. See, it would be very fatal very rapidly.
So, this is something that you could easily use if anybody wanted to use it; but you know, most of us have used it. Do you ever give the rest of the family the silent treatment for a few days? They say hello and you [he turns his back to them]. (laughter) They say, “What's the matter?” [he does it again] (laughter). Did you ever use that one, Joann?
(Yes.)
[chuckles] So we use this ignoring of people – and everybody seems to know how to do it. And you know, if the kid’s a little ticked off at you, you come up and say, "You wanna come to dinner?"
"Yeah"
"You wanna go with us for a ride?"
"No,” and pretty soon everybody caves in.
So, the next thing that we get is that we want to escape disapproval – and oh, that's so terrible because everybody has to defend themselves and we want approval. Now we don't feel that I should earn it; there's no reason for me to earn it. I'm entitled to it. So here comes everybody up and somebody disapproves of you. Well, immediately comes up every kind of justification and defensiveness there is in the book. Boy, they can defend themselves in no uncertain terms – how hard it is. And they go into all kinds of justification, defensive: “Cause I'm entitled to it, and you shouldn't be comin' up here, disapproving' of me. And so I'm gonna defend myself against your disapproval cause I was really right; it was you that was stupid and didn't understand it, see what I did.”
And of course, the next thing that we all have to have is that we want to escape the feeling of inferiority. And it seems that most of us can generate up a little feeling of inferiority, and we'd like to feel superior – or at least appreciated by everybody. And if I'm not, it's terrible!
So here has gobs of effort goes into gettin' over an assumed sense of inferiority because “nobody gave me what I'm entitled to, so there must be something wrong with me.” Now if you're entitled to it and you don't get it, hmm? “There must be something wrong with me and I'm going to head into the pit’.” Now, the pit is a place you go when you want to feel sorry for yourself, pathetic, tell yourself that you're not normal and that you have all these terrible things goin' on. We call that the pit. Now and recently, it has not been air-conditioned. Furthermore, I leased it entirely and I have it leased out, and there's no room for you in there. And if you go, you're trespassing. So, stay out of it – it's mine – I got it locked up.
So now, here comes these two-headed beings. Here is the purpose, and everybody come along and told you that you should not cry, and you shouldn't fuss, and you should not do this. And so they begin to tell you all the things you should not do. And then they told you what you should do, they told you what you ought to do, ought not to do, and then they told you what you ought to do. Then they told you a whole bunch of things that you have to do. Now that's when you really bow your back, you know. And then, they tell you things you have not to do; you must not do a whole bunch of things – must not. Now that took away the purpose.
Your purpose then was eliminated even though you still wanted it, you must never say so. It's not polite to say, “I want to have my way right now.” It's not polite to say, “I want to have pleasure.” It's just not polite. Now you can say, “I have this terrible pain, won't you feel sorry for me?” But nobody can stand up and say, “What I want to do is to feel joyful all the time.” That sounds very selfish. And if there's anything you must not do is be selfish, which means that you're interested in your own purposes, and your own likes and dislikes. Now, tell me somebody that don't have it. But you mustn't say that because that's naughty or selfish – you know, it's terrible. You just shouldn't be selfish, huh?
And if you find something you really like and enjoy, you must not get to caring about it. If you like to smoke cigarettes, you must say, "I'm trying to quit, my very best." You know, why quit? You enjoy it and somebody says it'll shorten your life – but nobody knows that because they don't know long you'll live if you didn't have it, is that right? And any actuary man in the country can’t tell any one of us how long we'll live. He might say a thousand of us at a given age today, so many will die next year and the next year and the next year – but he can't tell which one it is. And if you happen to like a little coffee – and somebody says that'll kill you or send you to hell or somethin' – why you mustn't do that one. But you still want to try it because all the big kids are doin' it, hmm?
Corita and I got up this mornin' and we went to work at getting our toxicity level up. How many cigarettes did you have, Corita?
(About five.) (Laughter)
Five before you could even get to the coffee pot. (laughter) And then once she got the coffee goin', ten cups of coffee and two packs of cigarettes, you begin to feel normal then – you know, you feel all right, ready to go. (laughter) I get up of a mornin', the first thing I gotta do is have a few cigarettes to get to the coffee pot, right? Then from there on, you build the coffee and you start drinkin' it. But you see that says [points to board] that “it's important to have my way.” So I don't feel entitled to it, but I'm gonna get it. Now, I just be real nice to everybody and they let me alone, you know, I don't have to argue with ‘em on anything – it's quite all right. And then I get my coffee and everything's goin' pretty good.
But this guy here says that's what you got to have. Then he says, “You gotta stick up for your rights to have it.” Now, that's when we begin to get belligerent, when things are not goin' exactly my way at the moment we get [makes fussing sounds]. You know… that’s highly defensive and ready to tell ‘em off because they know better, but they aren't doin' it.
Well, now while we were being domesticated we started with this method to achieve our purpose – and both of ‘em are noisy. One’s complain', cryin'; the other one's holdin’ their breath and kickin' their heels against the floor and turnin' blue. And there is other forms of showin' that I disapprove of you very badly, huh?
So then the folks in an effort to domesticate us built this other head over here. And that says, “You gotta please everybody. You have to please them because if you don't, you're gonna get a sensation you don't like – you're gonna be scolded, you're gonna be stood in the corner, you're gonna be spanked, you're gonna to be… all sorts of terrible things gonna happen to you if you don't do just what I want to and please me.” Now, this is the domesticator then talkin', huh? So now we start on the kid domesticating.
Now comes up the human problem.
It starts before you're two-years old; that's the latest.
Most of ‘em starts a lot sooner than that. But the latest is two-years old.
Now you have a conflict:
Shall I stick up for my rights and complain?
Or shall I please them in order to get a little pleasure somewhere,
or at least to escape pain?
Now this head says, “I'm not gonna do it!”
And this head says, “You're gonna get in trouble if you don't!”
Now, that is the origin of not-I’s.
They begin to be manufactured, built, and now they've become internalized to follow you the longest day you will live to torment you. One says, “Let's go do it, let's have the cigarette, let's have the booze, let's go play!” and we've been told it was naughty to play, especially certain games – so you mustn't do that. And this one says that, “You better not, or you will get in all manner of difficulty.” Now, if you can imagine how you would feel, how either one of you would feel if you had two heads and one body. Now, unfortunately it doesn't show like my cartoon here does – but everybody's got it. So you get up and you say, “I'm goin' to take the day off and goof off today.” The other one says, “You'll get fired.” Mm-hmm. Now then, which you gonna do? You can argue all day long which one you're gonna do, hmm? That's these two heads.
Now would you ever do anything when you were in a state of conflict – or do you hang up? You just hang up. Now I have been places where people were so totally hung up, they couldn't move. They have a fancy name for that, t's called catatonic. You can't go either way. You can't sit down nor stand up. If you happen to be stood up, you can't move to sit down. No matter how tired you get, you gotta keep standin' there cause you can't make up your mind to sit down. And if you're sittin' down you can never make up your mind to get up. So that is called catatonic. [he stops to great a late arriver] Come in the house Ben, you're a little late – but anytime, Harvey will make it all right. So… [aside to late arriver] You can set right there.
So, all the time this conflict goes on. Now then the person has a problem, and they begin to try to find ways to get out of the problem. So, we were told if we'd make this one bigger, we get it up even, then if we'd stick in there, “Do as you're told by your authorities.” [writes it on board] Believe and do as you're told by your authorities and everything will just be fine. So we begin to gather us up a bunch of authorities. Some of ‘em we got from parents – however, they're very poor people to listen to. It's better to listen to your peers, the other kids. Or it may be that we could get us a bunch of self-improvement books. Or we can find us a guru – whatever that is. He'll give you lots of shoulds and ought to’s and have to’s and musts. So you can live by the guru then. Or you can get you a bunch of books to read and if you read one book, then the next week the other one tells you somethin' else.
I have a very interesting situation to observe. Most institutions are interested in these – we're gonna call this guy Andy [“A” side] and this one Bobby over here – that's “B.”
So one group of professions are very interested in makin' Bobby strong. They tell you to be very good, and always do as you’re told by your authorities and everything will work out fine. Mama said always do the right thing and everything will be fine – but she forgot to tell you what the right thing was, so you're hung up to look for that. And the other one over here is sayin', “Well, goodness! You have a right to do what you want to, when you want to, and you don’t have to listen to all these jerks tellin' us I can't do this ‘cause I can do it.”
Somebody was laughin' about a story I told em one time about a kid that I met in Dayton, Ohio. He was comin' into the office and he had been gettin' in various and sundry small difficulties with the law. They disapproved of some of his behavior, and especially of his peers – the kids he run around with. So they told him if he went across the river, they was gonna put him in jail. And he looked up the law books and he said, “There is no way they can put me in jail for goin' across the river. There's no law against it.” So, he called me about three o'clock in the morning, about three days later and said, "Hey Bob will you come get me?"
I said, "Well, where are you?"
He said, "I'm in jail."
I said, "How'd you get in there?"
He said, "Oh well, I went over the river and they picked me up and took me."
And I said, "No, that couldn't be right cause you told me they couldn't do that to you – that they couldn't put you in jail for goin' across the river; so you're obviously not in jail, goodnight!" (laughter) And I hung up. And let him be. But you see, he had found out he could do this one. So now this head says go this way, and the other head over here says go the other way.
Now you are in a conflict – that's called a problem. And then of course there have arisen all manner of professions to solve the problem. One says, “Do the good one.” One says, “Do this other thing,” which was stick up for your rights and do as you please. So, the person then begins to go to the place that says, "You oughta stick up for your rights." Well he gets in all manner of difficulties doin' that. So then sometime later he decides he better go to this place. So he goes over here. So the churches give you this, and the psychiatrist gives you this one. And I see the funny joke of people go to church on Sunday and to the psychiatrist three days in the week. It costs a lot more to go to the psychiatrist three days a week than it does to go to church on Sunday. Cause you know, they just pass the plate – like we're gonna do here in a while.
Howard and I felt that we are in church so we got big baskets back here, and as long as Howard and I have good training, we're gonna pass the basket. Now, it's like usually in church – you paid your first amount when you came in. But, this is for the mission we're gonna run the thing. You know, you gotta have a mission collection. And who knows, later in the day we might have a collection for some other program that I can think of between now and then. (laughter) So it'll be down to par, you know, so you feel at home. You go to church and you gotta get three collections is good on Sunday, isn’t it, Howard. Right? Howard used to pass the basket; that's where they caught him cuttin’, skimmin’ a little bit.
And then of course, we're taught that we should be different. Now we then start on our self-improvement program. Now our purpose has been destroyed, and with a purpose you have a will. In other words, you want to do whatever your purpose is. If your purpose is to go get a glass of water, you wanna go get a glass of water. You will to get up and initiate goin' and gettin' it, is that right? But you see, your purpose got wiped off, so when you start improvin' all these things, the will gets wiped off and it's replaced with “will power.”
Now do you know what will power is? I think all of us have been praised for havin' a certain amount of will power and told that if we just had enough of it, everything would be fine, is that right?
But did you ever notice that will power is another discussion,
another name for conflict?
If you just will to do something there's no conflict.
But if you're using will power,
you're trying to make yourself do something you don't want to do.
Is that right, Joann?
(Yes.)
You wanna quit smokin' cigarettes. You wanna smoke the cigarette. But somebody has told you you'd be better off if you didn't smoke it. So this guy [“A” side”] wants to smoke it, and this one [“B” side] wants to quit. Now the fight is on between ‘em. So will power is the fight between these two. Now if this one should finally win, everybody pats you on the back and says, “You have great will power.” Of course you're growin' ulcers and cancers and lumbago and migraine headaches and sinusitis and sometimes 28 pounds extra added on to various sections of the body, here and there. But nevertheless, you are wonderful – you have will power now. Isn't that nice? That's another word for conflict.
So, if you have a lot of will power, you have a lot of conflict.
Everybody will tell you how wonderful it is and you're a great and wonderful person; and when you start dyin' off with your ulcers and your migraine headaches and cancers, they will send you flowers and they will send get well cards and they will come visit you. "You used to look so good." (laughter) You know, then they walk over to the family and say, “Have you decided where you're gonna bury him?” (laughter) and a few little things like that, you know – that keeps you really up, you know, while you're doin' it.
So they have a statement that the country folks have observed, which they do a lot more observing than most people give them credit for: they decided that a long time ago that the good die young. The old reprobates go on, but the good die young. Because they have great will power – and therefore considerable conflict and conflict being the problem, they disintegrate and die – very quickly. And so the folks got that. And you know, the country folks got more knowledge of psychiatry and psychology than all the academia in the world. They really know a lot more about it. They've observed – the good die young. But, of course, then the churches said, “The Lord called him home sooner cause he was so good.” That way he won't fall into temptation a little later – you know, if he'd a lived another two years, no tellin' what he woulda done!
So then we finally got it all figured out. This is the self-improver over here. Now we found out that if all these other people would just straighten up and do what they oughta do, and circumstances were like they oughta do, and kids would do like what they oughta do, and parents would do like they ought to do, then everything would be fine; but they didn't work that way. So everybody finds somethin' to blame – and once you have found somethin' to blame for your conflict, that's the end of the road. Because there is absolutely nothing you can do about it as long as you're blaming. All you gotta do is wait till what you're blaming disappears, and I got news for you, it won't. So, the first thing if you're going to live without conflict–––
[pause while new tape is put in recorder]
First thing you're gonna do when you want to live without conflict is to get yourself a real nice state of being where you can blame something. Now if you're blaming, nothin' can happen. So the first thing you do is decide that nothing's to blame. Now we have a fundamental, which as long as you're making notes and so forth, you might as well make – that
There really is nothing nor no one to blame for anything.
Period.
Not even me.
There is absolutely nothing nor nobody to blame.
And as long as I'm looking for blame, I'm gonna be in the problem.
But if once I see that nothing's to blame,
now I can begin to do something about it.
Now most people don't use the word blame, they say cause – that's a very holy word, you know. “That caused it.” And so then we're hung up with it.
Now, nothing nor nobody's to blame. My unhappy childhood is not to blame. The people I met along the way are not to blame. The churches that I was drug to as a kid are not to blame. My parents are not to blame. I am not to blame. The thing just got here because of the system. That's all it is. And the system isn't to blame cause nobody intentionally made it.
So now then, if I see that nothing nor nobody is to blame, I can begin to do something about conflict, hmm? I can begin to do something about it. I can quit. But as long as I'm blaming everybody, I got it goin' – now that's all there is. But if I don't wanna be in conflict, I say, “Well I'm neither going to listen to that I gotta stick up for my rights and I don't have to complain in order to get my way.” I'd sell it. And you know, you might turn into a salesman instead of a complainer.
Now I could sell most anybody on treatin' me halfway decent anyway. You know, I go into restaurants and they have grumpy waitresses. Well, instead of goin' over to the guy and saying, “I'm not gonna put up with that damn girl in here, I'm not ever comin' in here anymore!” Naw, I just start treatin' her real nice, tell her how cute she is, and how nice I like for her to wait on me, and I always want to be in her section. And next time I go in, I say, “Where's your section? I wanna sit there.” Heck, she gives me everything in the store, (laughter) forget about given me the ticket.
So now I want to have my way – yes. And I'm just about gonna get it – cause I'm gonna sell to get it, rather than demand it, or feel entitled to it, or think that somebody is to blame because of the way I feel today. I have people call me up from all over the country tell me about their problems, and they have usually decided at that moment what's to blame. Now I'm supposed to do somethin' about what's to blame. You know, “I met somebody 20 years ago and if I'd hadn't met them, I'd a been all right.” BS! “And if I hadn't done this, and if I hadn't gotten married to that man, I would have been happy; but he's all to fault.” Hell with that noise. As long as something is to blame to you, there isn't any way you can feel except in a mess of conflict. And there isn't anything that you can will to do or anything else. But if you see that all you have to do, is first drop the blame.
Now we sometimes refer to that as building accounts against people. We got “accounts receivable” against somebody – which merely means I blame them for long ago, for my state today, hmm? They haven't got a thing to do with it. They haven't thought of you in months or years (laughter). So they had absolutely nothin' to do with it – they forgot you ever existed. And here you are saying, "If I hadn't a met old Joe, I'd a been all right." Crap. But if that's the way, you're gonna stay there.
Now, those are all easy to dispose of. They're junk, they're trash, they're not even worth puttin' in a garage sale – nobody will buy them even, you know. I won't even buy all these things that people try to sell me. They sell me that so-and-so is a cause of their difficulty. They fell in with evil companions a year ago and they went out and did this and all these troubles started from that, you know.
Well, blame it and you'll be that way all your life.
So you dump that in the trash barrel – It's easy. Is merely seeing that something is not true, is usually enough to get rid of it. If you had been fiddlin' around for years tryin' to add things, saying two plus two equals four, and you found out one day that's not the way it works. [he corrects himself] “Or, two plus two equals five,” and you found out it was really four, it never bothered you anymore, does it? You're through with it right then. You just dump it.
People say, "Well how can I do it?" You know, they need a “how to.” Well a how to do anything is I do it, as far as I know. [Bob tosses a piece of chalk] How did you ever do that, John? (laughter) See, that was a very tricky thing and he just reached out there and caught it out of mid air. Now how do you do anything? You do it, damn it, and that's it. You don't fiddledick around with it, you just do it! So, if I see that I'm in a state of conflict and I can see that the conflict comes because I'm blaming somebody way back down the road and I'm sayin,' [in a forlorn voice] “This caused me all this trouble and I've never been normal since. I just haven't been right.” And when you look at it and you see that they're blamin' somebody and that's all it is, what do you do? You do it and that's it!
So why bother around with sayin' the not-I’s are drivin' me nuts?
If I listen to ‘em, believe ‘em, they will do a jolly-good job of it.
Not figuratively, but literally – you'll wind up in the booby hatch.
But so what? I don't have to listen to ‘em.
They're around, yeah. They talk to me – a lot.
They come up and tell me all sorts of things.
But I know lots of people come up and tell me things
and I don't pay any attention to them either.
(laughter) Don’t you know a lot of people you don't pay any attention to, Howard?
(Sure.)
Don't you, Joann? Lord, Joe Bankhead calls me up very frequently and gives me some long dissertation nobody can make heads or tails out of. I don't pay any attention to it, so forget it. There's always somebody coming along that says, “I made a great discovery in the Teaching.” (laughter) Rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle. I don't pay any attention to it, let it go. I listen and see if they really have or if they’re just imagining things and most of ‘em's imagining things. So forget it!
So, you don't have to continue doing anything if you decide that, “I will take charge of this,” and dump the whole show. I don't have to blame somebody. I don't have to stick up for my rights. I don't have to blame. I don't have to say the kids are makin' me miserable – they're just doin' their thing. If you don't like what they're doin', fine. Let them do it; they'll find out. You know, we try to domesticate ‘em and a lot of things that's been overly domesticated, do jump the fence.
Did you ever notice that? You know, if you were to abuse your horse, he's liable to run away from home, is that right? And you know, kids get so conditioned in that people's tryin' to lay it on ‘em and so domesticate ‘em that they do nothin' except sit and purr. Now if you want that kind of kid, just go take a course in hypnosis and put ‘em down and say, “You're gonna sit and purr all day and I'll wake you up in time to go to bed.” But don't try to force ‘em into the thing because they're gonna rebel finally, and so they will do strange things. I don't blame ‘em. I tell ‘em to ever' once in a while. (laughter) A lot of kids come to me and they say they're in so and so shape. I say, “What are you sittin' there listenin' to it for? You can pull a Hank Snow, you can be movin' on, can't you? You don't have to stand there and be boxed into a four by four box, you know.” That gets tedious after a while.
So now when one decides that I don't want two heads anymore, you can have one head.
You can decide what it is that you want to do this moment. I didn't say what you wanted to have – please don't interpret it as such. I want to have everything. Now I got that all settled (laughter) and I can just go from there. I want everything. There's no conflict. I don't want it all at once anyway, just a piece at a time – you know, a little today, a little tomorrow, a little here – but I want everything. You know of anything you don't want? You know, that they got to sell – I want it all. How about you, Rodney? Want it all – so now we got that settled.
Now then, I want to know what I want to do. You see, doing is what screws everything up a little bit. So what I want to do is to say… let's say we took this one back and went back to the very first one we ever had.. It's a good one to start with: I want to be as non-disturbed as I can possibly earn. I'm not entitled to it, but I want to be as non-disturbed as I can earn – by my own efforts. Now I have no right to be non-disturbed, but I have a privilege of working at it. So how would I work at it? I would begin to see what methods work best. You know, it's like going into the grumpy waitress – It works better to go in and be real nice to her and ask her if she will please wait on you when you get in. “Where's your section? I want to sit in your section.” Man, she purrs up a storm.
Now that is the way that you can begin to be non-disturbed a little bit, huh? You sell it. You earn it. You do little things to get other people to do things. Now you know, people might do something if you stick a gun in his back and say do it; but I guarantee it won't be willingly. (laughter) And as quick as he can get away, he's gonna clobber you, hmm? But don't you like to be treated nicely, Joann? So if somebody treats you nice, don't you usually reciprocate?
(Oh, yes.)
Then couldn't you, by no more knowledge than that – you don't need any great courses in human behavior or anything – with no more knowledge than that, couldn't you be relatively non-disturbed all your life?
(Yes.)
With no more knowledge than that. When people treat me nice, I purr. And when they don't, I pull a Hank Snow. I don't fight back – I’m afraid it'll tear my clothes up, and I'm about out after a few good folks ripped my trunks out a few times, so I want to take care of these I got. So I'll sell my way out of it, okay? But you don't have to go and say, “I'm miserable, I had an unhappy childhood,” and “I fell in with strange people along my way and here I am miserable, year in and year out. I'll never be normal,” – don't know what normal means, but, “I'll never be like I wanna be.” Okay? Now there is no earthly reason for anybody to go around with two heads any longer.
Let's say that we take the simplest of purposes – I want to be as non-disturbed as I can earn. Hmm? I can earn it now. Now with privileges, you're givin you a whole slew of ‘em; but then it's up to you to maintain ‘em, enhance ‘em and get more, is that right? Now, I'm not entitled to any privileges; but thank goodness we were al given privileges. We've had food, clothing, shelter, transportation all of our lives – we were born helpless, naked, toothless, unwanted mostly. So what? I'm glad I got here. And so when I arrived, we have been cared for pretty well, you know. Had an unhappy childhood – it's crappy to be a kid anyway. (laughter) Somebody's in the office the other day and said, “What do you think about reincarnation?” I said, “I don't ever think about it.” And they said, “Well, really what do you believe? Do you believe there is such a thing?” I said I don't know, but I hope not. Because if there is, that means I gotta be a damn kid again and I don't wanna go through that. I don't wanna do that.
So, as long as we're just gonna make up our own deals as to about what happens, I don't see any reason to have any reincarnation in the bit. You don't know anything about it more than I do, which is absolute zilch. So what do we have any more grounds to believe in reincarnation than you do if you don't? You don't know. So I put that in the “I Don't Know Department” and I don't think about things I don't know about. Why bother with ‘em, you know? It's totally immaterial.
And somebody comes and says, “Well, it really is an important thing.”
I say, “Well I wouldn't be doin' anything different if by some way I knew that reincarnation was a fact. I'd be doin' what I'm doin' right now anyway. And I wouldn't be doin' anything that I don't do because of it, so I don't even see that it makes any difference. I can't see anything of bother. If there's a hell out there and you're gonna burn for all eternity, I’m gonna be doin' what I'm doin' now anyway – what difference does it make to me?
And if there's a heaven where you wander around on gold streets, and thump harps, and listen to singing hymns all day, I'm not gonna live any different – I'm doin' what I'm doin' right now. So you know, I don't see any reason to bother with it. And then somebody about 40 comes along and says, “Well something has to be out there!”
I said, “Well, tell me what was goin' on 50 years ago with you?” They don't know. I said, “Well the best I have discerned, bein' dead and unborn is the same state – you're not here. (laughter) So it wasn't so fatal for you 40 years ago, you're here – so why bother with it.
You know, we do annoy ourselves with an awful lot of unnecessary questions. That's in the “I Don't Know Department” and I like to put things in there and leave it. You know, that's perfectly all right. So I see no reason to be concerned with something that is no concern of mine. I want to be relatively non-disturbed, huh? Now, I'm not gonna go around and ask a bunch of questions that's unanswerable – that'll make your brain spin all night long and all day long and you have bad dreams.
So now, we could get over here and say, “I know what my purpose is.” [he writes on the black board] “My purpose is to be as non-disturbed as possible.” Now I got a purpose for me, okay? That's very simple. Nobody tells me, “Well that's hard.” You know, it's one you've been fiddlin' with all your life. I sometimes tell somebody there could be another purpose, like contributing to a pleasant harmonious mood –––
[End of CD 1 of 3]
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