Workshop - The Way

Verbatim Transcript of a talk given by Rhondell  (also found, in edited version, in Headlines, pages 22-30)

For as many ages as we have any recorded history of (and apparently from beyond recorded history in the handed down of myths), man has been in a struggle to realize a different kind of existence for himself.

He has seen good and evil and he has tried to overcome evil and tried to actualize the good.  By doing this he’s usually turned into many violences.

The ages of history shows mostly wars, bloodshed, competition between groups, division into nations, division into ideologies, division into classes, and each trying to overcome the other because they blamed the other.  So, then that the… much of the history of man is the history of blame and the attempt to revenge for that aim.

Also through the ages, there is a few men appeared on the scene amongst men and brought a different message.  These have left indelible marks on mankind.  There has been many writings and many groups formed around their teachings. And their teachings over the ages, of course, have fallen into the hands of lesser intelligence than the men who brought the various messages or ideas.  And of course, then the ideas have been perverted.

But always there has been some small group of people who were trying to work with man, using a set of ideas, which no human claims credit for.  Each claims he received the ideas from a higher realm than mankind.  He does not say he invented the ideas.  Now, these ideas are rather interesting to see what they contribute to.

Now, first, we will look at what the general ideas that the educated, logical human being is.  Number one, he thinks that everything has a cause—he states it in saying, “Every effect has a cause, and every cause has an effect.”  In other words, he thinks in opposites.  The great Teachers that have appeared on the scene have each in one form or another attempted to describe that there is no such thing as cause/effect - there is relationship, and that the universal law is BALANCE.

FOUR FORCES

Now they attribute four forces—(admittedly we are simplifying, putting into modern-day language things that have been written in myths and stories and various and sundry forms of attempted communication to the ages).  Now, these Four Forces we could say are:  Initiative, Passive, Form, and Result or Completion.  We could further say that they are Initiative, Resistance, Form and Result. Whatever names we apply to them, there seems to be four forces.

Number One, Initiative:  you or “I” or another person initiates a given set of actions with a given aim in mind.  Possibly it’s to plant a garden, possibly it’s to cook a dinner, possibly it is to take a trip from one town to another.  Whatever the case, we initiate.  And then there is always a Resistance, or sometimes actually, just something being passive.  Before we can plant the garden the ground which is unbroken, uncultivated, not a seedbed, but a grass sod, is passive - it just sits there.  And effort has to be made to break up the soil and it resists being broken up.  It first turns into clods and we have to put more and more effort to it to turn it into a seedbed where the seed can be surrounded by the soil to take up the moisture and sprout and grow.

Now if it was not for the resistance of the soil against the seed, there would not be a plant.  It would only be a sprout.  Possibly some of you have seen a potato sprout, sprout in a bag or in a cellar and it just grows off a long weaklin’, wet, limp sprout.  But if it is in the soil it comes through and against the resistance of the soil it makes a plant.

Now if you tried to take a piece of iron and shape it, you heat it and you hammer it.  But if you hammered it in mid-air you would never shape the iron.  You have to have the passive resistance of an anvil and then you can begin to shape the iron.  If you wanted to mold a pot, you have to have a resistance against the force of the initiative or there will be no pot.  If you wanted to mold an iron kettle, you have to have the resistance, the passive resistance, of the mold in which you pour the molten iron.  If you just pour the molten iron out in mid-air without the resistance there would be, of course, no pot.  There would only be a blob of iron.

Now, man has never understood this resistance force in relation to his desires and his wishes, basically because he started off with an ideal.  He started in being born into a world of which he was unfamiliar, from a world of the uterine world of total non-disturbance.  External forces began to come upon him as soon as he was born into the earth world, which resisted his every direction if he initiated the start of being comfortable and non-disturbed like he was in the uterine world.  He immediately decided that the whole purpose of living was to be non-disturbed—to gain pleasure and escape pain.  Everything then became evil to him that produced any pain.  He began to think in terms of good and evil, not realizing that this force that he called evil (which was the Passive or the Resistance) was the only thing that would allow him to develop to the state of which he is designed to be.

SO HE DECIDES THAT THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF LIVING
IS TO BE NON-DISBURBED—TO GAIN PLEASURE AND ESCAPE PAIN.

Then he begins to form ways and means to gain the pleasure and escape the pain.  The first one, of course, is that “it’s important to have my way now and the way to get it is to complain” so that you and all the universe will do exactly as “I” want you to.  Now this works rather well for the young infant for a little while—he cries and somebody tries to make him comfortable because he’s makin’ them uncomfortable with his crying, not because there is any much reason sometimes; but at any rate it works for him.

A little while later he begins to feel entitled to have everybody do exactly as he wants ‘em to, when he wants ‘em to, and the way he wants ‘em to, and he begins to “stick up for his rights.” Stickin’ up for his rights is when we become belligerent and angry.  Every mother knows when her baby is crying hurt and when it’s crying angry. 

Now in a little while after he begins to use the anger tone for his crying, (stickin’ up for his rights) his mother begins to condition the child.  She begins to insist upon having her rights, and she insists that the child please her.  She usually does this by givin’ him pain when he doesn’t and allowing pleasure (or at least lettin’ him alone) when he does.  So he forms a contradictory conclusion now, a new idea, a new method.  It is called, “it’s important to please them” in order to gain pleasure and escape pain.  See, he’s ever trying to avoid that being disturbed.  He wants to get away from this force, which will develop him, which we called a little while ago the either Passive or Resistance. For the sake of convenience we will call it Second Force from here on.

So he wants to avoid this Second Force and always gets what he wants, right now, to be non-disturbed.  So now he’s gonna please people.  But most of us know what it’s like to try to please people.  We never quite succeed regardless of our best efforts. So then we are disappointed in that and it becomes internalized now.  Instead of outside, it’s internalized and there is a conscience that bothers us when we don’t please or when people aren’t pleased by our behavior.  Or we begin to feel sorry for ourselves because we didn’t please them.

Long about this time of course, we begin to be exposed to other people who want us to do what they want us to do.  And they offer us great rewards for believing and doing as we are told by them.  And they threaten us with horrible pains and punishments; and after all, that’s what we’re interested in is avoiding pain and punishment and gainin’ pleasure and rewards.  So we begin to “believe and do what we are told by authority” which is in direct contradiction to havin’ “my” way right now.  But we never seem to notice that contradiction; we just keep on trying to go along.

When that doesn’t work, because Second Force is going to be there regardless of whether we obey the authorities of our day or not.  It’s going to be there whether we try to please people or not.  It’s going to be there whether we stick up for our rights or not.  It’s going to be there whether we are trying to be pleased and have everybody to do what we want them to when we complain or not.  It’s still gonna be there because it is absolutely essential for creation.  In as much as we saw it was necessary to create a shape in an iron or a pot or what have you, resistance is necessary to create the completed man.  But as long as he sees it as evil…as bad luck…as misfortune…as troubles…as problems, he will resist it and fight it and never understand it and never accept it and work with it.

So then, of course, the person decides still further that now “it’s important that he be different,” so he struggles to behave himself differently—to put on a different front.  He begins to build lies within himself; he tells everybody he thinks one thing when he’s really doing another.  He is trying to be different, appear to be different, to other people.

This, of course, doesn’t stop Second Force and so he then begins to “blame.” He blames the weather.  He blames the government.  He blames his wife.  He blames his children.  He blames his parents.  He blames circumstances. He blames fate.  He blames about everything because he is still having to come in contact with this Second Force of Resistance or the Passive, goin’ against his desired initiative of everything he wants.  Not seeing that this is necessary for his development, he hates it.  When he begins to blame, of course, he begins to want to fight, to cure whatever is causing all this that he has assigned as cause of this resistance to his wishes and to his way and to his comfort and his pleasure.

Then he becomes into battles with individuals, then with larger groups and finally we have world wars and it’s promised that eventually there will be an Armageddon, which is half of the world against the other half of the world, because half blames the other half for all their problems.  Each will feel very holy and righteous in doing it.

Now everytime a man initiates, he has an expectation that everything will work out just like he initiated the action.  And he sees the fulfillment of his action as coming about and the fruit of it exactly as he wants it with no interference.  This is called livin’ by the ideals.  And, of course, Second Force still shows up and his ideal isn’t realized, so he becomes disappointed and when he’s disappointed he feels hurt.  When he feels hurt he looks for blame.  When he looks for blame he always finds either you (and then he will be angry) or he’ll find himself (and feel guilty) or he can’t find exactly what to blame it on and he’s fearful of the unknown.  And after he’s been through this many times he has a great feeling of insecurity.  When a person has a sense of insecurity he becomes very greedy to get some way that he can feel secure.

Now then, he has made himself 100% subject to suggestion 100% of the time - cause he’s greedy.  And he hopes to find the magic way that he will become invulnerable to Second Force—that he will be able to throw it off and he will no longer be vulnerable to creating him into the possibility of a completed man…but he won’t.

So then he has these four basic emotions which man was never designed to have…anger, guilt, fear, insecurity…which sets off all the other struggling emotions known to man…hate, greed, lust, revenge, struggle for power, jealousy…everything.

We call these “stress”.  In other words he is mobilized to fight or run, but he really sees nothing to fight or run from because if he does, he’s afraid to - because of the conditioning that says you gotta please everybody, you’ve got to believe and do what you’re told by authorities, and you ought to be different.  So he puts on his front, holds his anger, guilt, fear, insecurity or the other things that arise from that within himself - but he’s all mobilized to fight or run.

Not fighting or running, some adaptation must take place within him to use up this tremendous charge of energy that he has developed.  This is used up by, one way, of unusual cellular activity in the body which is a change in his function, which always produces a change in sensation which is pain, soreness, stiffness, fullness, etc., which he feels is necessary to get rid of.  And then he becomes panicked over that and builds up more struggle to be free.  Or within his struggle he finally begins to break down tissues because the tissue cells are doing something they were never designed to do. And now he has a lesion and he’s well on his way to total disintegration or death.

The other way he may adapt and use up this mobilized and unreleased energy from his violent emotions (that he was never designed to have) is by unusual behavior.  This unusual behavior, of course, is referred to as crime, is referred to as neurotic, psychotic, eccentric, etc.  If it is done in a mass it’s called patriotism… if it’s done individually it’s maybe called murder.

And then, of course, becomes the ideal that he shouldn’t do that and struggles begin to do that and he’s back again to another expectation that if he could only build the ideal fears into the man, or only motivate him properly, that he would cease to be violent.

But yet the history of the world is the history of violence…the history of the individual is the history of violence. Even though on the outside he is a Mr. Milk and Toast, inside he’s a seething pot of violence, which demonstrates itself by distorted bodies, distorted minds, distorted environments, slums, filth, pollution, if you please, and etc.  This seems to be the history of man.

THE WAY

Now, we spoke a little while ago that there had been certain individuals appeared upon the scene who had brought some new ideas or different ideas which seemingly hadn’t held together very long because the average violent man got ahold of the idea and of course, twisted it to fit his experience, thinking in terms of cause/effect.

SELF-KNOWING

Now the first one of these ideas said was self-knowing.  Self-knowing meant to be aware of the ideas one’s lived by, being aware of the ideals that have been set up, and the impossibility of fulfillment.

GRACE

Another idea that these few individuals have come and they have all brought the same message (with different words), was the idea of grace.  That man had all kinds of undeserved goods, things that was available to him that he didn’t even recognize he’d done nothin’ to deserve.  Possibly the greatest one of which he totally doesn’t recognize is this Second Force we spoke of—the passive resistance that gives him the strength to grow.  Did you ever conceive that if there was no resistance to a plant growing that it wouldn’t have any fibers in it strong enough to hold its own weight up?  That if you as an individual didn’t have any resistance your muscles would be as weak as wet jello - warm jello, I should say.  Just quivering nothing.  But by resistance they grow strong. 

Now man’s psychology can only grow strong by resistance and this he has not seen.  So he has not seen Second Force as a gift of which he’d done nothing to earn, nothing to give; he has only fought it, struggled against it, tried to escape from it, build barriers against it, create societies in which he hoped were utopias of one form or another that there would be no second force in.

FAITH

The next idea was faith.  Faith was the ability to see something that is not evident. One of ‘em is to see that Second Force is the greatest value; to see that there is a higher mind than the intelligence of man and the ability of man to make up his mind to go ahead and use Second Force and to like it, enjoy it, be prepared for it, and know that it will exist and see it is of great value.

AGAPE

The next one that the great Teachers brought was the idea of agape, which means love; which means again to understand everything and to build no accounts against it; to not feel that anybody or anything owes you anything; that you have been mistreated; that you do not own.  In others words, an understanding. And what is it really understanding? It’s understanding this Second Force again.  The people around you sometimes seem to interfere in what you want to do.  Then you have to use ingenuity or intelligence or you can give up, feel sorry for yourself, sit down, cry, moan, and get away from it all, huh?  That’s what it would about amount to.  But when one sees that all Second Forces are to be thankful for, to enjoy them, to like them, then one has agape.

Now, these great men said that if one understood self-knowing (which was to analyze what one had valued, you might say), that really the only thing that’s really “you” is what you put a value on… what you value and how you value.

What is not you is what other people, other situations and things have put values on.  We say ”I” to the whole mess, but most of it is conditioning.  So, if you stop to see - what would I put a value on?  What would I value if all the conditioning of what I’ve been taught to value (which I never took the trouble to look into; I’ve been taught to value) what would I really value?  You’d find it’s little if anything other than comfort and pleasure and escaping pain.  Be that as it may, this undeveloped area of ourself, the valuing system, can learn from everything about us and especially from these ideas that these great beings brought.

CONFESSION

Now one of the things they said would be the outcome of recognizing self-knowing and faith and grace and agape would be one, that one would confess.  Confession….they used the idea.  Now the confession was to confess what is “not-I”—to confess that I really have no values other than to be comfortable and escape pain, which is no different than any other lower creature on the face of the earth.  But with the ideas that these great Teachers brought from some higher realm, man begins to see other values.  They said he would confess that he didn’t have these.

SURRENDER

From confession would be surrender.  Surrender would be to surrender his will to try to exist without Second Force coming into his existence.  That he would surrender and be glad, thankful for Second Force because he could see that it was a gift of grace to give him the possibility of evolving into, developing into a full man, not a child.

REPENTANCE

And then another word was repentance, which is the way it was translated.  It is from a word that means ‘complete about-face’.  About-face means to go in entirely another direction.  Instead of going by the way of all the conditioning, instead of going by the old decision made by the infant that the whole purpose of living was to gain pleasure and escape pain on all levels (including having attention, having approval, and feeling important, and escaping being ignored or rejected or disapproved of, or feeling inferior), he would turn about and begin to be thankful for Second Force, to see its value to him.  He would begin to like that which he had heretofore hated, which is changing about quite a bit, is it not?  That’s really about-face.

BAPTISM

And the other thing they said he would have would be baptism, which was from a word of ‘being washed’.  It has very little to do with being physically washed.  If it did, most of us take a bath now and then, we would be washed pretty well and get along better.  But that doesn’t do anything, only get the perspiration and the dirt and the dust off of us.  Being washed was to be washed of ideas; the ideas, the misconceptions of the false values that man had put together.  By looking at these ideas, realizing them within himself, he would be washed of hate, be washed of anger, be washed of guilt, be washed of fear, be washed of insecurity.  He would be thankful.

After his washings for the Second Force that keeps comin’ along, he would be recognizing that it was the love of an Almighty Creator that was intent upon him being developed into a full nature, instead of an incomplete—just a human form and an animal mind of only wanting to gain pleasure and escape pain, and fighting tooth and fang and claw in order to try to have it.  So when the man was washed of his misconception into the evilness of Second Force and he begins to see the value, he’s baptized.

THE NEW MAN

Now they said this would bring about a new man.  Now a new man sees differently.  He sees that Second Force is always gonna be there.  He sees that it is for his wellbeing, his development, his evolving into a new type of creature that’s ever been on the face of the earth.  He would see different.  When he sees different, he has a different attitude and when he has a different attitude his behavior is different and when his behavior is different his state of being is different.  He still has Second Force though.  It still comes to resistance and there still is the passive form, which he recognizes as absolutely necessary and without which there would be no way he could evolve, grow or even remain alive.

This brings about a state (accordin’ to the Teachers and you can demonstrate for yourself), a new state where your inner feeling is always that of agape - love for all those that seem to stand in your way, all those things that interfere because they create developments. Somewheres you heard that “necessity was the mother of invention.”  So you might say these things of Second Force increases one’s necessity to be awake, to be alert, to use the inner state; to begin to value from an entirely different direction than just whether it will make me comfortable or not.

You know, comfort and pleasure may be fine as along as they are by-products.  Once you have ever worked for them as a product you will have nothin’ but agony.  To be free of pain may be a very wonderful state.  But if you work to be free of pain you will produce more pain.  These things are by-products.

The infant saw them as the purpose, when they are a by-product of something else entirely.  And certainly you are not going to be free of disapproval, because no matter what you do, someone will disapprove.  Wonderful, it’s Second Force.
If you spend a lot of money, some of ‘em will disapprove of you as being a spend thrift.
If you don’t spend any money, somebody will disapprove of you for being a skinflint.
If you work real hard and mind your own business and take care of things, somebody       says you don’t ever do nothin’ but work…probably your wife will even complain   because “you don’t ever think a thing of me.  All you ever do, is think about is work.”
If you don’t work a lot somebody says you’re a lazy bum, you haven’t got a sense of        responsibility in the world. 
And this could go on and on and on.  But all these are very wonderful.  They keep us awake so that we may look…they’re Second Force…and there is ten thousand other ways of disapprovin’.

When one sees this, one has thankfulness, appreciation and understanding for all sources of Second Force in this world.  And we might say that one’s inner state (the way one sees, one’s whole attitude) is love, agape, understanding of the nature of it, and no attempt to escape or get away from it - being thankful for Second Force in every direction in which it comes.

When a person does this (has this as their very basic viewpoint) they will of necessity be considerate of every person they come across and every bit of life in every form…the earth, the environment and everything.  If every person were considerate of the environment, would there be pollution?  If every person were considerate of another, and all others, would there be wars and fights, contentions between men, lawsuits, etc.?  Being considerate, one would also be non-harmful…harm-less.  And this would consist in working with individuals when you could be of value; and NOT helping; and not trying to convince another person that they were not responsible.  There is nothing that is more damaging or harmful to a person than to convince him that he has not within him the ability to look after himself, but that he needs help.  And of course, I’d get a good feeling from helping him, wouldn’t I?  Then I’d be a parasite.

But let’s forget this helping and just be non-harmful or harm-less, which means I may work with an individual but I will not interfere in his possibility of evolving.  And I will not try to convince him that if he turns his life over to me I’ll keep all Second Force from him, which is really what being helpful is.  This brings about things like welfare states and welfare states are followed by police states and police states are followed by slavery.  We’re not interested in that.       

And then the person would always make a contribution to life.  Some way, somehow or other, each of us can make a contribution, if nothing else but to a pleasant harmonious mood.  No doubt, unknowing to ourselves, we make a contribution of Second Force to most of the people around us.  They find us troublesome, bothersome; we are resistance to them, we are in their way.  Whether passive or active resistance, we generally are Second Force to other people.
If we recognize that, we of course can say, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us,” because we are all gonna be Second Forces.  I don’t know whether it’s trespassing, but that’s the way it’s seen so it is the way I would have to look at it.  And we would kinda begin to understand that.  This has been called “livin’ in the Kingdom of Heaven.”

COUNTERFEIT IDEAS

Now, all of these ideas have been counterfeited.  Most of us are somewhat familiar with ‘em.  So let’s take off on the one on self-knowing.  Who are you?  That’s very easy.  By various institutional means we begin to identify ourselves,  “I’m a Methodist…I’m a Baptist…I’m a Democrat…I’m an American…I’m a Russian…I’m a Gringo, or I am a Mexican…or what have you.”  There are thousands of terms.  This is not self-knowing.  This is only identification.  But this has served the purpose of self-knowing.  One is identified with some ideology or some cause.

With it then, comes of course, what does Grace mean?  And Grace has been perverted to mean the whim of a capricious god.  You got along today without Second Force; tomorrow he’s gonna throw it at you.  But you see, either way we only think it’s a whim and one thing we think is good and another is bad.  One day we have good luck (we get along with very little Second Force) and we think that was good luck…maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t.  Next day we have quite a bit of Second Force come our way.  We call it bad luck….everything went bad.
I think there’s even a book out.  It’s called Murphy’s Law – “If anything can possibly go wrong it will” which is somewhat of a comic book.  But really it’s a statement that most people believe that things go wrong, things happen bad and interfere with them.  Actually they are the expression of Universal Intelligence in its work of creation, creating you as a complete being, creating I as a complete being and without it there would be no completion.

They take Faith as believing, without any evidence whatsoever, because one was told so.  In fact it might be said that the word faith (as used in most of the world) is a synonym for gullibility.  Believe anything because it says.  Somewheres in the scriptures it says that people get in this state (which we said a little while ago, was because they were greedy to get in some place where there would be no Second Force) and are therefore totally subject to suggestion 100% of the time.  So, one could say that this was nothing but gullibility, but it’s been called faith.  It actually turns out to be quite nothing but suggestion from greed.

And the last one on this list was Agape. And so they have called it love and love really means tolerance as it’s generally used by minds that took it, tried it on in their realm of experiencing, and said, “After all, I understand the word.”  They found one meaning for the word, but not the meaning for the word, so they made tolerance out of it.   Tolerance means, “I know I am a lot better than you are and you know you’re wrong and I can see that you’re wrong, but I am so great I will tolerate you.  So, I can pat myself on the back that I’m better than you.  And, of course, I don’t see it as Second Force and necessary and valuable to me, but that I will long suffer and put up with it.”

When they went over to the next set of ideas, which was, as you recall a moment ago, we said that they were:  Confession, Surrender, Repentance and Baptism, which are called the Spiritual Man.

They took confession and said, “You come tell me all your sins where you didn’t fit the ideals that I have set up for you…where you didn’t believe exactly and do especially as I told you to; and we’re gonna call these sins.  And so you come confess ‘em to me and you’ll feel better.”

And, surrender meant:  turn your life over to someone to run it because they know more how to run it than you will ever know.  And they promise you that if you completely obey and do exactly as you’re told, you will finally get so that there is no resistance to your wishes.  And we will see that you get everything you wish and everything you need…and pretty soon you will be a nice slave.  And then you will have everything, won’t you?  You won’t have to work…Oh yes, you will work, but you won’t have to worry about keepin’ your job cause we’ll see that you keep on workin’ all the time.  And you’ll get your food - what we think you oughta have.  And you will have the entertainment we think you oughta have, and you will have everything else we think you oughta have… and when you get so you’re no longer useful we will have to eliminate you…send you to the glue factory (if carried to the ultimate.)  You might read the little book called Animal Farm sometime if you like.  It’s an excellent little fable about such things.

And, in repentance, you’re to sit down and feel guilty.  How long? Nobody has determined yet.  But if you repent, feel guilty long enough, then everything will be all right.  But have you ever tried feeling guilty long enough to get over feeling guilty?  Did you?

And the next one I said, of course, is baptism.   They said, “Fine. We’ll make it simple and easy.  You just come over and we’ll dip you into water and we’ll lift you up and that will make a whole new man out of you.”

Now we know and you know thousands of people who have, hundreds of thousands of people who have gone through this with ever sincere wish in their heart that this is what would happen.  But they got up and they found they still get angry.  They still feel guilty.  They get fearful and they still feel insecure because they still haven’t understood that Second Force, which they have called evil, which they experienced as evil, and feel as evil and bad luck and misfortune - all these still come along to them, because they have never seen that this is really what has to be there and that it is the work of creation.  And they don’t wanna be created.  They think they’re already created….it just ought to be better.

And then of course that is supposed to make a new man.  And a new man, they try to sell you, is going to come about by having a utopian society where there is no poverty, there is no classes, there is no nations, there is no anything except subjects and a ruler or two, which is of course only intent upon having you live without Second Force.  This won’t happen, but then you will be blamed because you didn’t quite live up to the utopian idea.  So they start with having a new environment, which is gonna create a new behavior, which is gonna create a new attitude.
And, nobody says anything about how you see things because you might catch on, who knows?

And then they say:  this is going to have a utopian earth where everybody is going to have just everything right and everybody is going to be tolerant.  You see, they interpret and see the word Agape or love as meaning tolerance…I will put up with you.  So this is going to be a tolerant world.

Now how would you like for everybody to tolerate you?  Not very pleasant, is it?  Now, it’s fine when I’m tolerating you.  That feels fine to me.  But how do you feel with me tolerating you?  You wanna cut my throat, don’t you?  Because I’m really disapprovin’ of you by tolerating you.  Or I’m saying, “You’re an insignificant slob and you know better.”  Or, “You’re stupid and couldn’t  know better and I’m going to be so wonderful and so exalted that I’ll put up with you.”  You might say tolerance is pride and vanity in its nth degree and NOT LOVE WHATSOEVER.

And, instead of Consideration, they’re going to have condescending.  You know…”I put up with you, I will tolerate you.  (You’re a bore, but I will still put up with you.)  You don’t tend your affairs, but I’ll feed you.  You don’t work like you should, but I will try to make enough machines and allowances for you and put enough other people on the job.  And above all, I’ll have to help you - I will not consider being harmless.  I will consider being helpful and I will really pat myself on the back about how helpful I am to you.  I’ll give you advice.  I will give you a house like you should have.  And I will tell you how to dress like you should and I’ll see that you work what I think you ought to work and I will be very helpful and get my good feelings out of helping you.  So, I’m a parasite at your expense.”       

And then the last one we remarked about was makin’ a contribution.  “A contribution?  Man, what we’re going to do is to make a profit and we’re going to build the ideal place!”  And are we makin’ a contribution?  Or do we demand that others contribute to our ideas when we are caught in this pseudo teaching?  Which comes down to:  what the man that is still looking to find the way out of Second Force always thinks he knows what ought to be.

PROFIT BY THE TEACHINGS

Now, if one would profit by the teachings of these few great Teachers who’ve appeared on the scene, one would recognize, first:  that there is Four Forces involved in every completed phenomenon in the world.  Number one, Initiative - I must initiate.  I can’t wait for it to just happen.  When I initiate, I know that there will be a great gift…that there will be some Resistance or something passive holdin’ back against this, and thank goodness for it.  And I will see that that gives me ever opportunity to develop, to be awake, instead of being caught into a trap of hoping to find an ideal where there is no Second Force.  The infant world of back to the womb, huh? 

And being recognizing and conscious of this, I will see it and take it into all my expectations that will come about.  Recognizing this will appeal to the Higher Intelligence that is Life that created and built this body and now is intent upon developing it into finding a ways to adapt those Second Forces - to use them like we use the anvil; like we use the soil to hold the roots of the plant and to give it something to push against; like we use a sawhorse to lay the board on so we can saw it (did you ever try to saw a floating board?)  You must have the resistance there.

One begins to recognize this.  All of one’s false ideas and false beliefs about “what ought to be”, and one’s utopian ideas begin to disappear.  The conditioning falls away because it has nothing to base on.  One begins to like or love that which one formerly hated and disliked.

ONE HAS BECOME A NEW MAN

This doesn’t take a long time.  It is very quick.  It requires what?  Just attention.  Now attention is like having a flashlight that throws on dark spots.  Now we’ve been totally in the dark as to the value and the nature of all resistance and all passiveness (things that set against our wishes.)  Now we throw a light on it and we see it as the gift of an almighty creator to his loving children, his creations, that they may develop and be complete and be what they were designed to be - to be a connecting link between the higher mind and earth, between heaven and earth, if you please.  This he would begin to fulfill his destiny.

This living, this experiencing of this state is beyond comprehension.  It is beyond description…. it can be experienced!  You’re challenged and invited to experience it.  Where do you start? By seeing that there is always a resistance.  There is always the passive setting against…. something… that seems to be against what you want.  When you were an infant you couldn’t understand it and you formed a conclusion.

Now you are somewhat grown up.  Can you begin to see the value of it?  If you do there is a new life…a Way.  If you don’t see it, FIGHT ON.  Thank you.  [end of tape]

THE WAY - SOME PRACTICAL WORK
From Headlines, pages 31-32

Now for a little recap.  First, it stated that the esoteric teachers recognized four forces:  Initiative, Resistance, Form and Result.  These have been listed in many ways, in many forms of symbols.  The great Sphinx in the Egyptian desert has all these symbols:  the Initiative was man; Resistance, the bull (Second Force may be either active or passive); Form, the eagle (self-knowing).  The eagle that could fly high and look down at everything, that point of awareness in man that is the “observing I” that begins to be the form of the spiritual man.  And Result - the lion, the strength, love or regeneration, the only real strength there is.

And that one could see that there was really no such thing as cause and effect; that it was only a portion or seeing a limited aspect (two of the forces, one preceding the other, not seeing the whole, or four forces interrelated.)  First force – Initiative.  Second, that which makes it possible for Form to appear.   Without the Resistance no Form can appear.  Without the interaction of Initiative, Resistance, and Form there can be no Result.

Then one would begin to study self-knowing.  This may be a slow process.  It may be a difficult one.  One may forget it much of the time, but nevertheless, if one continues, one comes upon self-knowing, begins to see self as having been put together, not given; a self that has been accumulated many “I’s” that have rules of their own and they go in all directions.  Seeing this he begins to have confession to really see what he is like.  He is now a doer of the word as well as a hearer of the word or teachings.

One of the great teachers said that a person who only heard his words and did not act upon them was likened unto a foolish man who built his house on sand.  When the first resistance came in the form of winds, rains, floods, that house was unable to stand.  It fell.  It was utterly destroyed.  And that the person who heard the words and acted upon them, worked on them, was likened unto a wise man who built his house on a rock of actual experience of self, actually seeing the self by self observation.  He now has strength within himself and that his spiritual house was built on a rock, something very firm within himself and that when resistance of any kind came, such as winds, rains, floods, that their house will stand.

To one who doesn’t observe one’s reaction, one’s responses, one’s feeling about Second Force, of resistance, one knows little of self.  After all, as long as everything goes the way one wants, one feels fine.  It is only when this divine resistance, a force from a high realm obstructs one’s initiative, that one begins to be conscious of how one responds, how one reacts, how one feels inside.  One is driving a nail and strikes a knot within the wood and the nail bends.  How does one feel?  Does one become annoyed, aggravated? Or does one pull the nail out and start over again?  One then begins to see how one is responding to Second Force, resistance.

Does someone seem to be obstructing your way to having exactly what you want?  Maybe a parent; maybe a child; maybe a mate; maybe a business associate.  How does one respond?  As a child does - by complaining, sticking up for one’s rights, becoming a person trying to please much against one’s will?  Or as a self-knowing adult by seeing that person or that situation as an opportunity to develop spiritual strength; to have understanding, love and to find ways and means to deal with that Second Force, to adapt resistance to one’s purposes?  After all, if one’s purpose is to be a student of esoteric teachings, is to evolve, complete, perfect oneself within, to be regenerated into a man of love, all the mundane affairs of everyday life are merely means of teaching that will bring one to that state of being—love, itself.

One of the greatest understandings that one can have is understanding the nature of Second Force because on meeting a Second Force where one ordinarily goes into a mechanical state of existence; where one behaves according to what happens to one, not according to what one has as an aim or purpose.  Did you ever think that a human being might possibly be just a machine?  That he is entirely subject to what happens to him as long as he doesn’t know self and is not aware of the forces of life, especially Second Force.  Something comes along that pleases him, that he enjoys, that he likes.  He feels fine.  Something comes along that resists what he likes or wants to do, his aims or purposes, and he goes all to pieces.  He is bent out of shape like a car that has been hit broadside.

Seeing this he begins to be thankful for the greatest grace of God—Second Force, resistance that gives him strength to grow and aids so much in his self-knowing as he observes the self and sees all the “not-I’s” that want to make war with the Second Force - blame it, resent it, hate it, whatever channel it comes though.  Seeing this he then sees that the love of an almighty creator, a universal intelligence, has given him resistance so that he can rise above it, use it, adapt it to his  purposes and have strength and power; and that he has love because he understands the source of this Second Force of resistance, whether it be active or passive.

As man proceeds in this self-knowing he recognizes that he really has no aim, that he has no purpose, that he is just struggling to be different - to have pleasure and comfort and to escape pain moment by moment.  He has no aim for his existence, for his whole purpose on earth.  As he sees this and begins to recognize some of the truth taught in the esoteric teachings, develops an aim to be a man, a man of love.

Then he has something to work with.  Not as an ideal, but as an aim - something to shoot at, some direction.  Now then, the truth has taken a place within him and he is now working from the truth rather than from the error that the whole purpose of living was to be non-disturbed.  When one has this aim, then one sees when one misses the mark.  This is called “sin” in some writings.  He has missed the mark and immediately corrects.  He doesn’t overcorrect; he just makes a correction. He is like a pilot flying an airplane.  He sees from his central aim that he is off the beam and he immediately begins to make corrections to get back on the beam.  He wastes no time in feeling guilty and regretting.  He just proceeds with his aim.  He gets back on that central aim, begins to go in that direction.  If one sees this, and sees that one has an aim and what that aim is, the realization of that aim is not far away. It has nothing to do with what he performs on the outside or the way he earns his living or whatever.  It is his inner state that he is concerned with.  And when that inner state is made new then it, of course, expresses on the outside.

Man through the ages has cried to his god to give him instruction. “Tell me what to do, Lord, and I will do it.”  This prayer has always been answered by a wise Father, not an indulgent Father.  The commandments were given many, many, many years ago.  Man looked at them and went out and tried to do them.  When he didn’t, he merely felt guilty.  He didn’t look to see why he couldn’t live up to them, what there was within himself that couldn’t do all the work.  So he struggled on, put on an outward front, never seeing that these commandments gave him reasons that would make him look within if he was but awake.  It is like a parent, that when a child asks for a gift, he gives him a way to earn the gift and more.  When man sees that he doesn’t love either his neighbor or his creator he begins to find out why he doesn’t - if he is a wise man.  If he is not a wise man, is a literalist, he is tolerant of his neighbor, expresses words about God and his inner state, goes on in darkness.

When one sees that when a man is given the idea of self-knowing he isn’t told exactly how to do. He is only given a few pointers.  He has to pick self up and do the work.  If someone should walk up and tell another that his or her inner state was such and such, he or she wouldn’t believe it because he or she is totally blind as to the inner state.

It reminds one of a story of a man who had a beam in his eye who wished to remove a speck from another man’s eye.  A great teacher said to him, “Remove the beam from thine own eye first and thou shalt see clearly.”  Of course, he didn’t appreciate it because he didn’t know that he had a beam in his eye, his inner state, his inner comprehension. This inner comprehension is what must be made clean.  It can only be done by observing the self in relationships of various kinds without condemnation or justification, without judging it; just observing it so one knows.

Having the esoteric ideas is enough.  Having the ideas of self-knowing explained in detail to one is useless.  To work on them is very, very valuable.