From Santa Ana – March 31, 1979
[From Marsha: Four women I know when asked what makes them happy said shopping. The income from being a local musician never afforded me that luxury, so I had to look elsewhere to define what happy was to me. In transcribing the above tape, my teacher talked about how we are conditioned from birth to want nondisturbance and the way to get it is the six methods from the ”picture of man” he created to help us to see “self”. So if you’re not familiar with those, please go to the ‘basic’ section of the website and check it out.”]
[From the tape of 3/31/79 Dr. Bob]
Now all of these families of not I’s in the picture of man come along as ideal methods to obtain what I want. (those being complainer, sticker up for rights, pleaser, quoter of authorities, self improver and blamer). I want this; but of course, we aren’t recognizing it consciously, we didn’t say we wanted a certain amount – we want it all, huh, all of it. (he’s talking about the four dual basic urges)
And we didn’t wanna pay anything for it – I’m entitled to it. You’re just supposed to always approve of me with no effort on my part. And you’re supposed to always give me attention; and I’m supposed to always be comfortable and if I’m not, where’s the pill, right quick, because I shouldn’t have to adapt. (Adapt is talking about illness.)
Now when humans begen to see that they are –what they have heard the word “happy”. Most of you have heard that word haven’t you? Do you know what it means? You haven’t the foggiest except that you don’t have it all the time. When is the time you think about you don’t have it?
But if you ever think about the word “happy”, you don’t quite have it. You would be happy if you had thus and so, is that right? Or if you could do such and such.
[From Marsha…I have observed that most people think happiness lies “out there” somewhere. So I want to “get” happiness from “it” or “them”. So I’m proposing an experiment or exercise, perhaps one could take this day and observe and make a list of how many times I felt happy and “what I was doing at the time”. I have discovered , for me, that the happiness is in the ‘doing’ not necessarily in the ‘getting’.