A Marsha Summers Blog

Do you judge? Do you see value in judging?

Do you think judging changes things?

What do you judge?

Is there different forms of judging

The dictionary says:

Verb: To form an opinion or conclusion about.

And where do those opinions and conclusions come from?

(It could be enlightening and fun to check out other discriptions of judging from the dictionary.)

I have heard that when we judge, we curse ourselves? What might that mean? (One person interpreted it as wishing bad things for someone who had hurt them.

Here is an excerpt on “judge not” from a workshop.

Now the great teacher that lived many years ago said if we loved Him, we would keep His commandments, but we haven’t paid much attention to that.   And along with ‘judge not” was the second most frequently repeated statement, to “watch” which is a word that would possibly be more accurately translated as “to awaken” – awake or watch.

When we find ourselves disturbed or, shall we say, getting emotional, the first thing we do is look for blame.  Prior to blame, we “made something important” which really says I judge this as being more important than something else. I react in a millisecond and so begins the process of judging.   I’ve got “to do something about it” and “this must be changed right now!“ All this is done mechanically in a “sleep state”.   Somewhere in the mind is a long established “belief” or an “ideal” of “what ought to be.”

We react with a complaint or blaming or judging because we think “they or it will change”. That reaction began mechanically to be a habit when we were little babies.   It worked then, but is about the last way to get “our way” today in our grown up bodies. We are still judging and trying to change things — “I’ve got to have this thing or this sensation sensation; and this one I don’t want.

So are we judging constantly?   Is our judging just mechanical efforts, totally unknown, totally unconscious, — are we, then, just a machine? We left the brain and intelligence somewhere while we were reacting to stimuli we judge as “bad”. The machine is like a car going somewhere without a driver. There is no understanding whatsoever.

So first we are judgers. We judge; and therefore, set up the state of opposites – what does it start from? — the first belief established at birth that the whole purpose of living was to regain the nondisturbed state – the state we had just before left the comfort of the womb where everything was provided with no effort on our part.

Now we’ve never reevaluated that decision made at birth – never really knew it existed, and so we judge. It’s a constant struggle to be totally nondisturbed. Every challenge is seen as a threat – “how can I get it away, it’s bad” – the judging goes on morning, noon and night in our sound sleep state.

Now obviously, as long as this judging is in there, that’s pretty prime information to know about going on within. We can possibly awaken to ask “what am I’m doing”? We observed a person the other day who received a letter on pink ruled tablet paper and got all pushed out of shape.

Most of us think we’re not making things important. Do you realize you make things important all day long? Are you conscious of doing it while you’re doing it? No, but in restrospect you see, “Oh yes, I made that important.”   But you’re unaware of it until later, is that right?

Right. So there is a very few, He said, who would find “the way” which is to be conscious of what we’re doing: but we want to do it mechanically. What is the constant cry? “Tell me what’s the right thing to do; and I’ll do it?” “Give me some teaching so I can establish a new belief; and then I can do it mechanically. But what difference does it make if a machine does it? The greatest computer in the world is still just a machine; and about the same value as a dollar watch when it comes to consciousness except the computer does different works – both are mechanical. So when it’s mechanical, there is no human being there – he’s gone to a “sleep state” and and lets the machine operate.

Now an awakened individual obviously wouldn’t make important “what you do or say or don’t do or say” because it really doesn’t matter. One wouldn’t make it important what somebody in one’s household says or does – what difference does it make, it goes away in a very short time. If you don’t like it, just wait a minute, it’ll be different. You can develop ways of directing the potential difficulty to another subject or just leaving it without comment.   In other words, letting go – it just isn’t that important.   We only argue about opinions, beliefs and conclusions, not facts.

So “what’s going on” is what we could call a “transient stream flowing through the mind. When one is awake and watching, one has no desire to make anything in that “stream” important. But if you have that first belief that we all established ,that the whole purpose of living is to be nondisturbed, then anything that’s in the “stream” could potentially be a disturber sooner rather than later. So then I’ve already judged it as “bad”, as a “threat”; and I begin to struggle with it right now.

Some say “Oh I judged then, I was so bad, and that was only in my younger days”.  Consequently, we kid ourselves when we say, “Now I don’t judge anymore.”   Now is the time we are in – the present moment – there is only now.   If I’m unaware of judging now, am I conscious? Do we judge “in the now” and only be conscious of it at some future time if I just happen to look back at it. Is that about the way it works?   But have we paid any attention to our judging in the now. Are we awake at this moment to see what I’m doing now? How about that?

Was your last week full of a lot of important things to do at that moment? And were you anxious a great deal of the time as you looked back on it?

(Yes.)

Now what was it about – important things wasn’t it? You never get anxious about things that aren’t important, do you? Is it important what people say to me — what people do? Is it important how much money I had to spend for groceries? And I hear one of those potatoes was rotten too, huh? You got all torn up about a rotten potato I’ve noticed?

(Yeah. They’re pretty stinkin’.)

Yeah, terrible isn’t it? Bad, bad, bad. So we go around constantly in our “sound sleep” judging mechanically – click, click, click, click, click; and then the next moment we say how much we love all the great teachings and the teacher too, huh? But we demonstrate that we haven’t even paid the slightest attention to the teachings.   Somebody told us if we say these words — you know, make an affirmation and then we’ll be happy and it’ll all just happen, so I say the words how? – mechanically.

One time I worked in a lab where we had a brainwave machine – you know, one of these things you hook around on here; and it makes little waves on a chart. It shows how your brain’s working. We had this thing working in a grounded shielded booth so there would be no external radio waves or anything to interfere with it.

We had an Archbishop in the Roman Catholic church was one of the patients we were working with one day, so we had him to multiply some numbers like 393 by 16 and it made some pretty good jiggles on the chart.   And then the man that was operating it – (it wasn’t me, I was just the technician in there holding wires), said to the Archbishop, “Would you say the Our Father and two Hail Mary’s please?   So he rattled them off.   When he got through the technician of the machine walked over to him and said, “Bishop, I hate to tell you this, but your prayers didn’t even get out of this booth.” “They didn’t make a squiggle on the machine.   So the mechanical way of rattling off the words did not register on the brainwave machine.

(Did he laugh?)

Who, the archbishop? No. I did, but you know I’m always seeing something as funny. He didn’t laugh at all – he didn’t think that was appropriate – it was very undignified.

But judging is our prime business, is that about right? Now suppose that I give a little exercise. Everbody says they wanna be awake. They have even asked me, “Bob, wake us up.” So I’ll give the shake now. That is that this week, you will judge consciously everything that you come in contact with at that moment – you will judge it. Now you’ve apparently been doing it pretty consistently and unconsciously as you look back in retrospect, but you didn’t do it consciously at the moment because you don’t judge consciously. If you judged it as bad then you have first made it important — very important; and you try to figure a way to change it or some person into something “good” –something that fits your ideal — something you approve of, is that right? Then you discover that you’re in a state of struggle and you resist what is – you stay in conflict as long as it’s not the way you want it. – is that correct?

So let’s say that number one, we will consciously judge everything. In other words we will consciously sin for a change. You’re gonna sin, do it consciously, man, get all the mileage you can out of it. Don’t just go around in your sleep doin’ it – sleep walkers don’t get no mileage out of their sinnin’. So consciously judge. Consciously make everything very important “which is to judge it” i had to judge it from something I made important. So I have to judge whether it’s good or bad; and then I can consciously be caught up in the opposites.   That makes me double minded okay? How can you expect anything if you’re trying to go in two directions at once.   So you keep on doing it deliberately and on purpose or, shall we say, consciously because, you see, you can’t keep on doing it when you discover that it isn’t justified that there really is no understanding of the total picture.   When you’ve awakened, you can’t keep doing it. Try it as much as you like.   So we’re really not conscious except in retrospect that I made something important.

So for this week in order to be awake, I’m gonna judge everything as very important first, huh? That’ll set it up. I wanna make it important; and then I’m gonna see whether it’s good or bad; and if I judge it as “good”, I’m gonna work desperately to hang onto it; and if I judge it as “bad”, I’m gonna work desperately to make it go away, okay?   Now that would be beginning to look at this first idea of the teachings a little bit; and would that be waking up just a little bit? In retrospect, we look back and say we’ve judged and made everything important, and we wind up full of anxieties, chewin’ our fingernails off to taking gobs of tranquilizers and other good remedies. And then we wonder why our stomachs are upset. Why we have headaches. Why we have backaches and why we’re falling apart at the seams — my skin’s saggin’ and all this because after all I’m very “good” you know. We even judge that as a belief. We’ve been influenced with that saying that “only good people get sick — those old reprobates don’t ever get sick”. Did you ever hear that? So we will make things important, we’ll be anxious, but we will be consciously anxious; and we will consciously judge everything; and we will consciously be in a state of opposites; and we will consciously know we need expect nothing because we are in conflict, struggle and resisting “what is”.

[From Marsha…

When working with this exercise, the question came up as to whether he was talking about expressing it outwardly or not. I can express it outwardly with no one around similar to when I did the exercise of working off anger by beating a towel against the sofa when I was alone and going through all the anger statements.

But if we judge others openly, I think we would not only experience lots of arguments and defenses; but also a lot of disapproval and rejection which probably isn’t to my advantage in the long run – either at home or at work.  People don’t want to do things for me when I constantly judge them.

When I questioned how judging someone is a curse for me, I observed others and myself.   In the first place I don’t feel so good inside when I judge and that makes it hard to keep my mood up – I begin to make it important to not be around them and that’s all I see of them – I don’t see the whole person and all the valued aspects of them. Therefore I am tempted to cut myself off.   If, instead, I have looked at the complete person as they are each time I see them, (be knowing them moment to moment) often the judgement melts away.   And from working with that idea, I have developed some wonderful relationships that were to my advantage in many ways – skills, recommendations, rides (because I can’t drive), financial help, new relatonships both in friends and work and on and on.

I’ve have heard an idea that helps me to discern who I want to be with and who I don’t want to be with – is that judging?   Maybe.   But there are many people invited to this earth party. Some I will want to be around a lot and some I won’t. It doesn’t make those that I don’t want to be around bad or wrong – it just means that either we see things differently or we just don’t have anything in common, so I let them pass on through my life.

I also have noticed that when somebody judges me, first off I feel compelled to defend myself which goes nowhere. They just bring up better arguments to either put me down or try to change me.   I also find that I feel a need to please them and either do or not do whatever they judged me for.   But when they’re gone, what do I do then?   Can you guess?

And we can also see whether it’s of value to judge myself. Do I change or do I only become double minded trying to go in two directions at once. I describe the opposites as “do what I want to do” verses “do what I think I should do or ought to do”.   Seems like the result of that conflict is to “feel bad about myself” which goes into guilt and/or self pity. Does that have any value?   Do I change or do I just create a vicious cycle that continues on and on.

Do I make it important and judge others who are judging?   Do I kid myself that only I can judge because I do it “justly.”   Does that leave me in a peaceful state with an ability to keep the mood up?

And another judgement I observe is when it is made important that everyone have the same personal taste that I have.   I happen to like jazz and others like rap.   They just have a different personal taste from mine; and if I see that, then I can just “let it be” without getting all emotional about it. If they don’t like jazz, so what – what difference does it make?

So this is certainly a worthwhile exercise to use and discover what it has to offer for each of us.]

[From Marsha: Two aspects of the gain side of the four dual basic urges (see website) which began at the time of birth is that of “I want to gain attention.” and “I want to gain approval”   I have heard the statement that we need attention to survive and approval to thrive.   In observing myself after a few days of being housebound, I would say that there is a certain amount of it that is necessary; but I’ve never measured how much I get or whether it’s really necessary or not.. And so here is a little excerpt from a workshop on that subject……]

A question from the audience……….

(So how much attention or approval – – I mean how much of that do we need. How little……)

How much attention and approval do you need? Well, why don’t you give it to yourself for what you require. You know, I figure nobody knows how wonderful I am as much as I do. I know that those people who disapprove of me just got poor taste; and so I’m going on about my business. Do you know how much you would need to give yourself? You see in the ultimate end, it’s your own approval you desire, not mine. I can come along and tell you how beautiful you are and how wonderful you are; and you’ll say, “He was just doin’ that to try to make me feel good.” Or the mind says, “He was makin’ fun of me.”

So it’s your approval and your image of yourself that counts. So can you give yourself enough approval or do you want the rest of us to give it to you – and that usually means everybody I come in contact with – any disapproval can set me off internally. But you’ll never really believe the rest of us anyway..  You see, we’ve been taught that we should always put ourselves down. We’ve been taught that we should be “humble” and/or at least act that way, otherwise we’re vain.   And being vain is “bad”. But if you put yourself down, who’s gonna put you up again, is that right?

You’ve been told how beautiful and capable you were ever since you was this high, is that right? You’ve been told that all of your life, haven’t you?

(Well, about……….)

Well, most of your life, is that right? That you’re a beautiful lady. Do you buy it or do you think you’re ……

(I think they’re just making it up and they don’t really know..)

Right. So the only approval and attention that really matters is what you give yourself. Now let’s all get that straight. Now that don’t mean you’re conceited or anything of the sort. The point is, if you can’t approve of yourself, you won’t buy it from somebody else. I’ve watched you dismiss any compliments or approval for a long time.   So even if they do give you all the attention and all the approval you want, you then give yourself the “put down”. Is that right?

(Yes.)

Yeah. And so does about everybody else here. Now we all give ourselves a “put down”, is that right?   The only attention and approval in the ultimate end that matters is what you give yourself, ok? And that doesn’t mean that you have to run and tell everybody how wonderful you are, but just so you know it, ok? You don’t have to tell anybody about it, just so you know it. Then you got plenty of attention. If you need a little more today, give yourself a little more,   Okay?

[from Marsha   And for a little futher comment, I was recently given an exercise to do and that is: Daily write 60 things I’m thankful for with no repeats; and at the end of a day, give myself 3 pats on the back for something I’ve done through the day.    60 things seems like a lot so I started with 10 – check it out, it gets easier as you go along.]

[from Marsha:   For many years now I’ve heard that statement and never considered what it might mean.   And so here’s a wonderful description that adds understanding.]

The type of work that we are involved with has been referred to for hundreds and hundreds of years as “the way”. Now “the way” to some people means they’re looking for a particular method to an end or a goal, but “the way” is a way of looking at things, a way of seeing and a way of being.   It is not a means of behavior because one’s behavior is not very much to one’s own discretion of whatever is to their advantage.

The very ancient origin mentions that there was two ways — a broad wide way that leads to destruction and a narrow straight way that leads to life.   That narrow straight one doesn’t mean you’ve got to get on the ball and do all the certain little things and not a bunch of other things. In other words self improve to some stated ideals.

It is a “way of being objective or consciously aware of things as they are” and not as they “appear to be” through a group of conditioning.

Way back down the road was a statement attributed to Moses that says “I set before you this day two ways – choose what you will – one is life and one is death.” And these two ways are always around; and all the work that we consider is always about “the way”. “The way” is first off knowing the self.

Now we didn’t say to “know the self” but to be “knowing the self”. When something has “ing” on it, it’s in present tense, right?   Right now!   Now this knowing is not to sit down and go through a bunch of things and say, “Well now I’ve learned all about me, I can rest in peace.”   By that time there’s already a different thing happening; and “knowing” is to be conscious – conscious of the self at this moment.

Now the “self” is usually designated with a little ‘s’ and is, of course, the subconscious mind; and it’s always telling us little stories – talking all the time – in other words we experience it as thought.

Now are you going to get involved with the lies it tells and try to straighten it out. Are you going to try to find an “ideal” way for it to function. Are you going to identify with one part of it [B side] and resist the other part [A side] – this is the broad wide way that leads to destruction.   It is the way of conflict. It’s a very broad way – it gives you thousands of ways to have conflict, right? You’ve tried several from every direction. There’s a million more that you haven’t tried.

So here’s all these ways that we can go. We can go the way of “self improvement”. We can go the way of “being good”. We can go the way with “fighting with all society”. We’re gonna straighten everything out. We can have a revolution – destroy this and create something else that will be better. We can have the way of building us a utopia. We can have the way of designing “ideals to live up to”; and we can have the way of chasing fantasies into never never land. All of these are ways that most of us have attempted to use at one time or another. We’ve tried all of ‘em. And these all lead to conflict of one sort or another; and conflict is the disintegration factor.   And so it all leads to disintegration. What is disintegration? — deterioration physically, mentally, emotionally and finally total death – expiration, out of awareness et all.

The other way is to be conscious of “what is going on” and to be conscious is to be objective. If you’re subjective, you’re dreaming; and you’re subject to thoughts, to ideas and to ideals. You dreamed there’s a state called happiness; and if I could just have the right set of circumstances, they would bring about the right sensations; and that right sensation would result in me being happy then, wouldn’t it?  As though happy was a permanent state.

And so there is a consciousness that we are objective about all the things that’s within man.   Being objective we have ceased to make idols; and we’re living in conscious objective ways at all times.   That is a narrow straight way — being conscious.  It doesn’t allow for all the dream states that we can indulge in.  And that is “the way” that leads to life; and as the man said, it leads to life everlasting.

[From Marsha: Once in a workshop I expressed stress about the thoughts always running in my mind with complaints, judging self and others, blaming, figuring how to lose weight, worried about this and that. So I asked Dr. Bob how I could stop the constant chatter.   He asked me just to listen; and the room became quiet for a few moments Then he asked me what I heard.   Here is that idea of a “listening exercise and experiment” embellished from an older workshop. He called it:]

Degrees of awareness

This time we’ll talk about degrees of awareness. – degrees of perception.

When we look at things, we have a big impression and immediately begin to want to know “why this happened and how it happened”; and, of course, we get concerned with the results of the pictures we’ve created in our minds. Then we conjure up all sorts of explanations, of “how I can make it go away” and “how I can keep it from happening again” — and truly speaking, very seldom does anything happen over and over again in just the same way.

Most minds are constantly going over situations, events and people’s motives and then conjuring up pictures which we then almost instantly accept as fact just because we thought it up. When you are aware this is happening, there is a very lovely beautiful thing to do.   If you will listen closely with no explanations, the mind becomes quiet. So one can listen and observe to see — not trying to solve something but merely seeing the essential fact as you see it in the present moment.

Very few have time for the mind to be totally quiet so immediately we start inventing answers until we’re totally lost in them; and then we attempt to find some technique to change it .   So sometimes it’s kind of interesting to let the mind go quiet. Now you don’t “make it quiet” because that’s conflict – you “allow it to be quiet” by listening or observing.

When you do this, you see relationships you have never seen before; and you can see the direction something is going. If our mind is quiet — “absent from any reasoning” — then there is perception beyond all the things that the busy mind prevented. We have lived with the busy mind for years which prevents ever understanding.

It’s a simple practice. So let’s try that for a few moments and listen real close as an experiment – [there is silence in the room while everyone listened] And your mind went what? Was it noisy or was it in a real peaceful state?   If you do that for a little while, you’re aware of all sorts of things you’ve never seen before — you’re more perceptive. You can’t see too many things at one time. In other words you can’t listen and think at the same time.

Now when the mind is quiet, it is an empty vessel. When it is full, you can’t get anything else in there, I don’t’ care how much is sittin’ here available for you to be aware of. And how many avenues of awareness do we have for all of those possible perceptions.

Now at first when you start listenin’ you’ll see it as result. But if you just practice listening, pretty soon you can listen a lot. It’s like living in an entirely different world because there is so many wonderful things going on that we never knew existed. In this, you won’t see the future, you only see the probability of something; and so it doesn’t necessarily go that way.   Then you can experience a great value to it.

So you can pursue the idea of “what’s going on”.   In this way, you are in an attitude of listening and you’ll find a quiet mind which is natural. In that natural state you perceive a whole new world that you’ve never seen before.

Next time you want to experiment with listening, instead of asking “why”, ask “what’s going on” and just let it remain quiet if you wanna ask a question. “Why” questions are not valid because it begins an endless loop in the brain that is unanswerable.   Asking “what’s going on here” or “what am I doing” will work much better.   But one can just leave it alone, okay?   Just stay in the quiet.

[from Marsha…Following up on my question in the workshop at the beginning of this excerpt, when Dr. Bob asked me to listen — he then asked what I heard; and I said the birds outside and an air conditioner running. Then he asked what I was thinking, but the thoughts had quit. It switches the attention; and I’ve discovered that I can certainly get hypnotized by the thoughts that ramble around in the head. I’ve also discovered that when I pay attention to “what I am doing” physically such as practicing piano, it brings me back into the now rather than hearing the mind chatter about some past event, even if it was an hour ago, or planning or predicting some future event. And how many things have I planned that rarely, if at all, turned out the way I pictured them.

Sometimes, when I can remember, I like to take another step in the listening exercise.   If I can drop thinking about what I want to say in conversations, I can more clearly hear what the other person is saying. It is then even more difficult for me to listen to “what I say”. I think my conversations would be less confusing to others which I have noticed on occasions that I do – especially if I’m excited.  I’ve even had people mirror back what I said; and it’s completely different from what I meant to say. One day I had just played “Moonglow” and the next song was “Moon River”. I announced the name of the song as the former – “Moonglow”.   The audience called me on it and said “No, that was Moon River”. I, then, saw what happens when I’m not paying attention to what I say. Just a little demonstration of the direction things go when I’m not paying attention and the mind is trying to encompass too much at the same time whether it’s following a conversation, trying to “fix” something or whatever.

Comments from a friend who shared a similar story of a conversation with Dr. Bob.

“Thank you for sharing your observations and the experiment. He told me that one while we were having coffee at his apartment one day. “Listen!” he said. “What do you hear?” I told him the sounds inside and outside the house I heard. “Now do it again and listen to what’s being said inside.” I immediately identified with the thoughts. He must have known that and said, “Listen CAREFULLY, don’t just watch.” I did it again and listened for the not-I’s talk and they went mute. I’ve used that tool ever since. Plus I’ve offered it to a few people who somehow recognize even in some small way that they are NOT their thoughts.

And somewhere along the way I heard this little idea.

Listening phrase – Be like water

Water is fluid allowing people or situations to be as they are without judging or trying to change them — yet still listening untroubled — it is reflective.

[From Marsha – below is an idea that appealed to me. Long ago when my father used words I was unfamiliar with, I’d ask him the meaning and he’d just say, “I don’t know but it sounds right.” He was usually correct, but how often there is more than one meaning to a word; and so what are we communicating to another.   Once in college I was given a list of words to discover what they meant to different people.   After many conversations, I wondered how we ever understand each other at all. Since I transcribed this little excerpt, I have been looking up the meaning of words which is so easy now with our computers and iphones.   So having said that, here is the delightful idea from a long ago workshop.]

Someone in the audience must have said.   “Well, I find that the ideas I get are very valuable…..   (the question was inaudible)

Well an idea is a picture in the mind and a picture in the mind is an idea if you want to use that particular definition. Did you look idea up in the dictionary?    It’s most interesting if you’d care to look up a series of words. Start off with the word “idea”.   Then look up the word “Ideal” – it might lead you to the word “fantasy”. It might lead you to a lot of things because there’s a word in there that describes that you only think you know the meaning of. So start off with the dictionary and see where it leads you.

Last week we were down in Albuquerque and some lady got up and said, “Would you recommend the best book for us to read because I’m just so tired of reading book after book – what’s the best book?”  I said, “the dictionary – it’s got all the words in it you could ever want.”   She thought I was being a “smarty”; but I still think it’s the best, if you’re gonna read a book.

If you really understood all the meanings of words, you’d be a lot less confused because we have only conceived the meaning of the words we use; and we misuse words all the time.

[from Marsha – Now when someone uses a word I’m not familiar with or a word that could have more than one meaning, I ask – “What does that word mean to you.”   Some examples of words that I have asked of people is faith, happiness, authority, and sometimes even god refraining from my opinion. I just want to hear what their’s is.   So you can experiment with it during your conversations with others.   It is really fun and quite enlightening – not to judge their definition, but to have a clearer understanding between you.]

[from Marsha…..I can remember as a teenager interested in going to Cassada, the spiritualst camp in Lake Helen, Florida and visiting the medium about the future.   It was a lark, but there certainly was some curiosity thinking it might be adviseable and worthwhile to know the future. Below are some thoughts that you might find interesting.] Dr. Bob responds to an participant in audience who wants to have the power to foretell the future.

He says:If the future is already known, then we were predetermined by some unknown power to be here this morning. Everbody that held up their hand to contribute to the conversation was already predetermined to do so; and so we’re all puppets on a string. So it’s a big play and we’re not alive anyway, so let’s forget it. Okay? Everything that’s ever happened to us was preordained – it’s already shot in the movie film; and we just happen to be watching a certain place in it this morning, is that right? There isn’t anything you can do any different other than what you’re doing this morning.   But do you see that if the future is able to be foretold then it must be all cut and dried.

(unintelligible statement.)

Well it’s not foretold then. You only said it’s a possibility that a certain thing’ll happen if you think you can change it. Now obviously if it’s foretold, it’ll have to work out just like it was. You only told me a probability, and I can give you any probability you want for the future – it’ll work out anyway – maybe not the way you want, but it’ll work out.

(I was told ___ )

…then he only told you probability, is that right? Okay now we’re into the probability. Anybody can give you a probability – some are a little more intelligent and can give you a better probability — and then there’s some tell you another probability based on a bunch of conditioning of what they’ve been told and believe rather than looking at the facts.   So you can’t tell the future, you can only tell probability.  Maybe you could send it to the “I don’t know” department in your mind?

(Uh huh.)

So you can begin to look at things objectively instead of makin’ all these pictures in the mind and scarin’ yourself. You can, then, kind of see the real probability, because you see how things are headed.

If I see a boat comin’ down the river at 60 mniles an hour; and the driver is sittin’ there flirtin’ with a girl instead of lookin’ where the boat is headed, I got a good degree of probability he’s goin’ to the point of no return real quick.   I cannot fortell the future because the boat might explode before he gets there, okay?

When I observe a conditioned person. I can predict what he’s gonna do with a reasonable degree of accuracy.   Every prediction has an “if” in it. If you “don’t do so and so” then “so and so” is gonna come about, is that right? So nobody can predict the future. You can only predict with a reasonable degree of probability.

The weather bureau is a task master at it; they have finally fixed it so they’re 100% correct. They put everything in percentages – there’s a 30% chance of rain and 70% of sun. If it rains, the 30% was there — if it doesn’t, the 70% was right, and the forecaster is always 100% right and that’s the way it goes.

So if one is more aware, one sees more facts; and, therefore, sees the relationship of those facts; and thereby the direction of which things are traveling; and then one has a high degree of probability.

Now this is what science is about – they study the degrees of probability of a given thing occurring, and they run experiments — not in trying to figure out “hows and whys”: however science is somewhat deteriorating – it has deteriorated during the last few years and gone into the “hows and whys” a lot instead of “what’s going on”.

Now you can run an experiment many times that when you put water in a pan on the stove with the heat up, that it boils in a given length of time. If you tried that experiment at 700 ft. altitude, you’re gonna come up with a conclusion. But if you, then, tried the same experiment at sea level, you’d find your conclusion is all haywire because it don’t boil in the same length of time at the lower altitude. So you couldn’t come to that particular conclusion. But if you kept accumulating data through experimentation, pretty soon you begin to have a considerable amount of data to work with.

[From Marsha…..My voice teacher once gave an exercise to the drummer of his former band who was afraid of the possibility of everything terrible happening in the future. He believed the scary pictures he had created in his mind. My teacher told this drummer to write down every prediction of fear he heard in his head for a month and see how many came true.   At the end of the month, the drummer came back and slammed his journal on the table.   The voice teacher said, “Well, what happened?”   The drummer shouted, “None of them happened!”