A Marsha Summers Blog

[from Marsha.   Only time I’ve ever heard the statement “be of good cheer” was in some Christmas song.   What is it that cheerleaders do?   How could we apply that to our everyday life?]

The dictionary says:

Noun 1. shout of encouragement, praise, or joy.

2. cheerfulness, optimism, or confidence.

From #110 at a workshop our teacher described the ‘dream state’ or ‘sleep state’ as when we just react mechanically to stimuli; and if it’s something we don’t like, we try to get rid of it and if it’s something we do like, we try to hang on to it by methods appropriate for a child but not an adult.   See website and picture of man for the methods……

Here begins the ideas:

And if you wake up out of your “dream state” long enough to consciously be awake enough, you could have your inner feeling rather optimum. The most optimum inner feeling I like best is laughin’.   See the joke.   And the best joke I see is the one I played on myself for a long long time.   And if one sees the joke; one, of course, is not making anything very important – is not dead serious which most everybody is. You know getting someone to smile sometimes is like pullin’ teeth.

So you see that our inner feeling can be optimum when we see the joke in things. How would your nutrition get along?   There has been many tests run that if you’re eating when you’re sad and/or anxious, that all the digestive juices don’t work – the food just lays there and rots. And, of course, no matter how good a food was when you dropped it in there, it lays and decays because you’re sad, angry or anxious and pourin’ something other than digestive juices on it, so it rots. And rotten expensive food is just as rotten as cheap stuff, right?

And there is other indications that when you’re enjoying yourself, havin’ a ball, seeing the joke in things that the digestive juices are rollin’ freely and it digests the food, cleans up the whole deal. So the optimum of nutrition is not only the food but also the inner feeling of the person that eats it, right?   But if you can see a wonderful time, seeing the joke as you look at “what’s goin’ on” or “what you’re doing” and having a ball observing those, then the food digests. We have a little statement around the place that says the food tastes good when it is prepared with TLC – that is the best seasoning there is with it – “tender loving care” because we’re enjoying cooking and eating it.

Missy Diane cooked lunch the other day and she said nobody would eat it because she was all pushed out of shape when she cooked it. It smelled awful. And she finally went and threw it in the garbage pail. She said she would never even offer to serve it again because she was “pushed out of shape” about something when she cooked it; and it obviously wasn’t very appetizing. And she is a wonderful cook — has the technical know how and prepares beautiful meals, but this one particular moment, she had her buttons pushed somewheres – some little thing she wanted to look at; and that meal was no great shakes. But any meal that’s prepared with TLC and served likewise, why you keep things goin’.

I used to pay a “chameleon” (a woman at the front desk) to work in my medical office when I did general practice. She was a tall skinny gal that most people wouldn’t consider very attractive; but she was an expert chameleon at seeing the joke in things (harmless jokes, not like the caustic humor on TV sit coms). And when people walked in, she kept the reception room constantly in laughter; and there was 14 chairs and then some additional chairs startin’ out in the hall; and they were usually full. We were movin’ people pretty rapidly; and there was never anybody that was really feelin’ badly when they got into the private office because they already had a good laugh and were feelin’ pretty good.

There was one guy came in said I thought I was in a doctor’s office – there’s a bunch of people out there that are laughin’ and nobody’s sick here. I said, naturally that’s what it’s here for — a doctor’s office is to get people well. Well, he didn’t see the joke so he didn’t stay.  There was another guy who noticed the wonderful mood in the place and commented when he got into my office.   He said, “Well, everybody’s so happy, do I have to pay?”   I said, “You’d better believe it!”

So when you can really enjoy yourself and laugh, you are feelin’ pretty good. And when you’re stressed you’re pretty well out of shape – you can’t feel real tense and up tight while you’re laughin’. Did you ever try it?

But you see, there is a little order out that you shouldn’t laugh because that way you’re not taking things seriously. I’ve even heard it said that laughter is the work of the devil.

But the great teacher said “be of good cheer – and in nothing be anxious”. Is that in the Holy Scripture? That’s another one of the things about going along with “judge not”. In nothing be anxious; and “be of good cheer”. What is good cheer? Is that sittin’ around with a long face moanin’ and worryin’ and whimperin’ and mumblin’ in your beer when your talkin’?

So break out with joy, be of good cheer and in nothing be anxious – judge not and be awake. All these go all along pretty well together ‘cause if you’re awake, I’ll guarantee you, you’ll be of good cheer ‘cause there’s so many unbelievable jokes going on, and you’re the biggest one. Can you see that sir?

(Maybe.)

So as an exercise, we’re not gonna keep these commandments (that we’ve heard and read about through the years) for this week. We’re gonna go directly opposed to them. We’re going to make everthing serious like we’ve been doing all the time anyway, only we reacted and did them unconsciously.   We’re gonna worry and fret – we’re gonna stay asleep and do everything mechanically.   We’re gonna make everything important and find out the cause of it – what we can blame it on, okay? And we obviously are not gonna be of good cheer.

If you really break out laughin’, you feel kind of guilty about it, don’t you? Especially when everybody is all seriousness around you.

In nothing be anxious, but we’ve been anxious about the kids, the family, the automobile, the finances, the food, the doctor and about this and that. What have you not been anxious about this week? Tell me one thing you weren’t anxious about last week.   So this week we’re gonna deliberately follow it the way we have been all along these many years; and next week you might find it’ll be a little easier to be of good cheer.

I get calls all day long every day. The “stuff” that pours through my telephone wire didn’t sound like good cheer – stopped up the septic tank and run all over the floor and had to tear up the carpet to clean it up.   Is that like bein’ of good cheer? I won’t buy any of it.

How about you Esther?

(I’ve been pretty anxious.)

And when you was anxious, you was lookin to see how to get out of bein’ anxious, so you were judging something.

(I was judging, yes. I was sound asleep.)

Sound asleep or you wouldn’t have been making anything important, is that right? So you haven’t been much of a follower of the teachings in the last few days, is that it? So you’re deliberately not gonna follow the teachings this week, okay?

(Okay.)

Oh good, have fun.

[from Marsha: If we look at that word “cheer”, how could we express it both to ourselves and others.   So if we take the idea of “How do I want to feel, and “think” of the word “cheer”.   Then how would or could I act out the word “cheer”? Then after 30 minutes of acting it out, I will feel it and be able to express it.   When I observe someone who’s cheerful, what do they do? How is their face? What do they say?   What a nice exercise to experiment with through this very day.]

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.]