Excerpt from a portion of a Maryland Workshop 12/78*
(*Audience participation is in parentheses–notations in brackets have been added for clarification)
As we join the discussion, Dr Bob says:
When you begin to see what you really are, that you are an “essence” or a “reality” which is desire and will, which is spirit, (no real mechanical or material thing) but it’s the most real thing in the world. That’s the nature of what we call Life. Life desires to grow. You put a seed in the ground under proper circumstances and it starts growing–it expands–it sticks out–it wants to build itself a motor function and an awareness function of some sort.
Anything that exhibits Life has these two essentials, the “essence”, the “reality”–the real I is there. Then it builds these things which has a tendency to get lost when we identify ourselves with all sorts of things over here [the not I’s].
But when you see that what you really are, you also see that everybody else is that. They have desires and will–they are the reality. You look at a person in the eyes and see something back there looking out at you. If that person is not alive, there’s nothing looking at you. We don’t care very much about gazing at that body very long. See I like to look at you a long time, but those others, forget it.
Now this begins to see that there is a oneness with me. It begins that maybe the human body would be a fair symbol of it. Now the heart cell is pumping away 24 hours a day to pump blood all over the whole body to the last little toe, right? Now is it doing it all for itself, or is it doing it because this is its unit. The heart is well aware that it would be meaningless if it didn’t have the rest of the body. The heart just pumping away out here by itself is worthless.
The liver has its entire chemical factory, and it doesn’t need to do it all for itself; but it’s its nature to do that. It’s its nature to contribute. So the heart contributes to the whole body, is that right? The liver contributes to the whole body, [as] the lungs do. And you could go on through the whole body.
Now if one part went on a strike because it said “Well, I’m not going to take care of all this and do all this useless work for all these others; they probably wouldn’t appreciate it anyway.” You know what would happen to the form in a little bit.
So when one gets to the point of seeing what one really is, one has an intense awareness of all beings as being the same as I. They are similar situations, and I wouldn’t get along well without other people in the world. Could you imagine if there was a big explosion went on today; and you were the only person left alive on the face of the earth–YOU. You’d be intensely wealthy, wouldn’t you? You’d have gobs of gold and diamonds, jewels of every kind, all kinds of cars and everything, wouldn’t you. Have it all. Would you have any meaning to you??
Nothing, huh? Now let’s take it that there were only two people left when this big explosion went off–just any one of us and any one of the others, it wouldn’t matter. I would sure take care of you. I would find out what is meant by the word love. I wouldn’t be thinking of you as a sex object. I’d be thinking of you as the biggest necessity to me in the world. And I wouldn’t try to exploit you, use you, abuse you, or steal anything from you or anything of the sort; because you are absolutely essential to me. That right? And I would take so good care of you. I’d see that you were sheltered. I’d see that you were warm. I’d do everything I possibly could. You’d do likewise, wouldn’t you? And wouldn’t anybody have to tell us [to do so].
It wouldn’t be because I should or ought to, or that it’s a must, or I was worried that you wouldn’t like me. It wouldn’t be anything of the sort. I’d be doing it because I really want to in no uncertain terms.
Now if you stop to look a moment, we’re always in that shape. At any one moment there’s only one other person beside me, that’s you. Now if I should ever get down to seeing that is what it’s all about–as though there was not another person on the earth except you–I’d sure want to take good care of you. It would be what I wanted to do in no uncertain terms, right?
And then I would know what the meaning of love means as we’re using it now–it’s beyond agape, it’s beyond eros, it’s beyond pia, it includes all those. And it’s beyond phelia. Now it is an absolute essential, huh?
Now if I could have in all my desiring and willing, that view of every other human being; would you ever have any reason to be afraid of me? Would you ever have any reason to be jealous of me? Would you ever have any reason to hate me? Would you have any reason to have a fight with me on any occasion? We’ve gotten rid of all the little insignificant things now and got it down to the brass tacks. There are only two of us left on the face of the earth. And I sure am going to know what the word love means. I don’t know a word for that one–I know words for the other four. Don’t have a word for that one, how about you?
(Not any word with meaning)
No word has any meaning, but we’d sure know what it was, is that right? Now that is the kind of love that the great teacher tried to get across to us. If we could see that, we could then feel ourselves extremely lucky. Now we’ll say when the big explosion went off, one was quite a long distance from the other. When you finally found the other one alive, you’d sure consider yourself extremely lucky at that moment.
So there is another round and we do experience that amount of luck, you might say. Now when we could express that in a thousand ways, would you ever have any consideration that I would be picking on you, that I would steal your food–I’d do without to feed you. Because you would then know the meaning of love the other guy as you do yourself–huh? That would get right down to it.
(If I had the same motivation of the 4 dual basic urges, [explained later in this excerpt and also on a page on this web site] I’d probably try to control you.)
I think you’d find the 4 dbu’s went out the door. They only go out when our necessity is increased–and right there [the big explosion] we’re talking about the necessity being increased, or we can see that they “don’t fit” in any way. If you tried to control me, you wouldn’t be doing what was to your survival. I think you’d find that that [control] would hang you up there. The 4 dbu’s are gone.
I’ve had occasions to be in a few catastrophes around the world. I haven’t been in any sky wars or any of those; but I’ve been in severe floods where everybody’s house was gone. Now I see every once in a while in imagination, somebody wrote a story. There was one on TV the other day about Phoenix, Arizona getting wiped off. It showed all this looting and everything going on because they were having trouble. Well, in this big flood I was in where everybody’s house was covered, there was NO looting. There was only that everybody was out trying to get everybody else out of there. The flood came rather suddenly–it came up like three foot a night. Nobody had time to go steal, or anything–they were getting each other out of there.
After the flood went down, they went back to their usual picking on each other. Now frequently, there is something given that says “Your necessity is increased.” In all probability, this great drama that we’ve all heard about many times (especially around Easter) of the crucifixion of the Christ was to increase the necessity of the other people.
As you read about them, they were contending about who was going to be the new prime minister, the new king, and who was going to have this and who was going to do that. All of a sudden, that didn’t matter. They were put in an entirely different situation. Now they began to work together a little bit. They didn’t go with all this contention and so forth because they all felt they were in the same danger of being executed as their teacher. So they got a little on the ball and [worked] together.
So when one sees what it would be like if there was only one person on earth, other than you; you begin to find out the meaning of the word love. Then you’d get to be workin’ like a heart or a liver or a kidney or something, because yours depends on those other things workin’, doesn’t’ it.
So that is really where we first experience the epitome of love, when I could conceive that there’s only me and one other person left on the face of this earth–all the rest of mankind is gone. And we’d be a very much endangered species at that moment–and we’d better do a little watchin’ or things would go off.
Is there any reason, just because there happens to be a few billion [people] walking around, that it’s really any different. Is it really any different? I couldn’t get along without other people–whether it’s one or a whole bunch of them, I couldn’t do it–are that right?
So they become very precious, and something [special] to you. A human being suddenly has the appearance of being something extremely precious when you can consider that you and one other person are the only ones there–that person would be beyond all preciousness to you at that time–would they not.
Now when we begin to see that, we can have an experience, directly this moment by what is meant by love. Now would my desire have any desire to do anything that would be detrimental to you? Could I in any way dream up something that would be detrimental to you? No way.
Now we begin to see what love is. It says man is perfected in love, huh? In no way could this desire ever come up when there was this love that one experiences when you would see that there’s only one other person on earth than you–that person is beyond all comprehension of being precious to you. And that’s the way you can see everybody around us, because they are precious to us–really.
Then that desire is only for creativeness and concession, consideration, harmlessness, and making contributions to the person–whatever they may be, wherever they may be. You are then in a state of love. You might say you are love personified.
So when there is desire which is based on love instead of the 4 dbu’s–based on love because I see how precious this other [person] is, then there is will. Then we have something that has been called the kingdom of heaven. It is where there is an absence of all contention, all struggles, all hate, all resentment, all anger, and all these guilt feelings and etc, that human beings………..
In other words, our necessity is increased to the point where there is no conflict.
I wouldn’t wonder whether I should keep you alive, or whether I should bring you some food, or whether I should build some shelter, huh? There is no conflict now. You see the conflict is all gone, so it says that love removes all these things. All this aggravation, contention, self pity, anger, guilt, fears, and insecurity–it’s all gone when you see this kind of love. The kind of love that you would have and that you would immediately begin to experience when you see there is only one other person besides me left alive, you would then experience love of the kind we’re talking about which we don’t even have the terminology for, but we would recognize what it is. So it’s beyond definition and words, then the human being would be a creature of a heaven. And that society between those two people would be heavenly, and there is no reason why it is not that way between any two persons, because at any moment, I’m only talking to one person. I’m only with one person.
I could be in a room full of twenty people and I turn around and talk to Charles. As far as it is, only Charles and I exist at that moment. I can turn and be talking to someone else, and that’s the only one that exists. I can turn towards you and you are the only one that I’m talking to. So at any given moment, is there not only one other person in the world for any one of us at any given moment. Try it and see. We’ve always seen so many more that we think we can dispose of these–or we can straighten them out. We can give them a lot of argument. We can give them a lot of static. We can cheat ’em a little bit every once in a while. We can take a little advantage of them now and then because there’s many more out there. If you look, there really isn’t any more because there’s only one just at that moment.
Now could you get yourself worked into all these states that mankind is quite subject to–anger, depression, frustration, etc.; or would you have no time for all of those. Try them on for size a few minutes and see?
Let’s have questions, comments.
(What are the four dbu’s)
It means that basically when we start out as a little one [baby] that you are only interested in gaining pleasure and escaping pain for yourself. Then pleasure goes into having attention and pain goes into being ignored. Later you have to have approval and escape disapproval because that’s painful. A little later you got to be appreciated just because you exist: and if you’re not appreciated, you’re liable to feel inferior. So … all of these [4 dbu’s] drive people most of the time.
One’s inner feeling would undergo a decided transformation if you can really look and see that there’s only one other person in this world at this moment, that’s you. I’m looking at you, and you’re the only one there, ok? You’re desires undergo a transformation. Then you can always act out what that desire has — will. The will would carry it out. It is rather flexible anyway. It will carry out anything you want to do.
Now if the desire was based on this love we’re talking about, I sure wouldn’t harm you. And I would probably treat you about as well as you’ve ever been treated in this world–not because I thought I should or ought to, but simply because I really wanted to. This is what is meant by love that goes beyond the four words of pia, eros, phelia and agape. That goes even further out there. It’s a complete one. Once you see it, it’s hard to forget anymore.
(This the same thing you meant when you talked about selfishness)
It probably could be seen that way, but this goes way beyond that. You experience the inner state where there is no desire to do anything to anybody else only keep them going. Give them the greatest support you could without picking on them.
(If you feel gratitude that you have someone else’s company, does that elevate the tendency…?)
Of who.
(If there is only one person in the world and they run across someone else, isn’t there a lot of dependency involved.)
I don’t think I’d depend on you; I think I’d take awful good care of you. Certainly everything in this world has a dependency on something else. I’m dependant upon having food and water to keep the body going.
The whole point is I know I’m dependant upon everybody in the world, but I would like to make a contribution. I’m not going to struggle over being dependent. I would like to see where I can make a contribution.
The only time I would think that dependency would be a problem is when I didn’t feel like making any contribution. I’d be depending on you, and didn’t feel any rhyme or reason to me to make a contribution. Then I would say it is a sick dependency, is that right?
I’m dependant on you, you, and on you. I’m dependent on someone having a gas pump down the road. I’m dependant on someone flying an airplane. I’m dependent on someone having a hotel here. I’m dependent on someone making clothes. Mine would look terrible if I made them. I’m dependent on all these people, but I want to make a contribution.
Now there’s nothing wrong with being dependent if you saw that, yes, that person is dependent on me, and I want to make some contribution. Now I’ve heard various talks and read various books where they condemn dependence; but honey, we’re all dependent. Maybe when we recognize that; and then have our own desire to make some contribution to it, to somebody else then we have made it into a word that has been called “love” that goes beyond the usual versions of it.
But aren’t you dependant on all sorts of people–known and unknown? If you took a simple little piece of furniture here and tried to account for every person who was involved in that gettin’ here, either directly or indirectly, you’d probably find everybody in the world would have a piece of it. Some guy over in India picked tea where the ironworker drank the tea while he was gettin’ along with it. So everybody has had a finger in it, you see.
So we are dependant–every one of us dear one. And I’m not going to try to get over it, because I couldn’t survive that way. I do want to make a contribution so I won’t just be sittin’ there being dependant without making a contribution. We’re all also capable of being contributors. That’s like every cell in the body. Is your left foot dependant upon your heart beating? But the left foot makes a little contribution also, doesn’t it. And your liver makes a contribution, huh?
But, nevertheless, it contributes greatly. Your eyes are dependent on all this other stuff. So let’s look at it like that. Probably the whole universe is like one body.