A Marsha Summers Blog

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.

From Albion workshop 1972

Always somebody is going to give me some attention, and somebody is going to ignore or reject me; and why is that so, people have tastes.  I like one wig and I don’t like the other.  I like Donna’s little hat—she doesn’t, but she wore it so that she didn’t have to launder her hair, roll it up and get it all pretty; you see, I told her she could just cover it up with a hat and nobody’d see it.

Somebody going to approve of me?  Yeah!

Is somebody going to disapprove of me?

You better believe it because there’s going to be different behavior on my part from time to time; and the other person has maybe different taste at different times also.  The same person is going to approve of me one day and disapprove of me another—you’ve all experienced that haven’t you?  Who cares, it’s just their opinion.  So I will never escape disapprove while I live and have a state of being.

Now we could postulate some great state where everybody had the same taste, but I wouldn’t want to be there, would you?

So I like being in a place where there are different tastes, and if there is different tastes, there’s bound to be what?–Some approval and some disapproval from time to time.

(It would be a funny world if all the guys in the world liked just one woman.)

It’s bad enough when only two like the same woman.  If they all did, it would be unbearable, no doubt.  Maybe all the rest of them will die honey and you can find out.

But do you see that we can set up any kind of “ideal” which is only an illusion—an illusion we struggle for?  Is there such a state as being without sensation and still be conscious.

(No.)

Then, obviously you’re going to have sensation—approval is when I sense somebody says, “I like you” or “that’s a pretty suit” or “I like your weird tie” or “I like your hair” or “I like your behavior”.  It is a matter of people expressing their taste.  It expresses absolutely nothing about you or me.  Did you ever realize that?  Somebody says, “I like you.”  They’re only telling you something about their taste; they are not describing one iota about you.  Don’t get the big head over it because all they’re telling you is about their taste, not a thing about you.

They walk up and say, “I can’t stand you.”  They’re not saying one derogatory thing about you; they’re only expressing their taste.  They haven’t said a thing about you, and we take it as though it was something serious—something “right”—something that’s “true”.   I feel everybody has perfect freedom to express their taste.

So if somebody walked up to you and said.  “I love you.”  All they’re doing is telling you they have a taste that they approve of you at the moment.  It’s a statement of their state, not a thing about you.

And if I say, “You are the loveliest creature in the world.”  I haven’t told you a thing about you, I’ve only told you about me.  You see, we’re always talking about ourselves when we make statements; and other people are only talking about themselves.

We have a form of insanity called “ideas of reference”.  Did you ever hear that everything that is said is thought to be about me; and then I get all pushed out of shape over it—it is my particular brand of insanity?

She says, “I can’t stand him.”  She’s just expressing her taste; she’s not talking about him at all.  She’s only talking about her taste.  And if I have “ideas of reference” which is a very severe form of insanity, I assume she’s talking about him.  She hasn’t said one thing about him, she’s only told me about her taste at that particular moment—tomorrow she may like him, I don’t know.

Like a while ago I challenged her a little bit and she didn’t approve, and in a little while I told her she knew everything and she said, “Now you’re seeing it like it is—I feel wonderful”  So she only told me something about herself—not a thing in the world about him or me.

Is there anybody can tell you anything about Jean Jones—I can tell you my taste around you, Jean—she can tell you her taste around you—he can tell you his taste around you.  Nobody can tell you a thing about you.  But if you’re insane, you have “ideas of reference”; and you immediately jump to the conclusion because somebody else has a taste, that it somehow relates to you.  Nobody can tell you one thing in the world about you because there’s nobody in that skin but you.  The rest of them can only talk about their taste regarding the subject.  Everybody’s got different taste.

Any questions?

(A neighbor said Donna has this problem about her.)

They’re expressing their opinion.  Donna may not see it as a problem at all—she just likes men.  (laughter)

(So you mean nobody really knows Donna.)

No, not even her physician.  You can only express your viewpoint, your opinion, your taste—you cannot say one thing for or against Donna because you don’t know one thing about her.

And if I am all upset with the idea that your opinion and your taste are derogatory or, maybe, even approval of me; I, of course, have “ideas of reference”.   I’m thinking that I’m the whole center of the world.

(But actually you can at least be aware, look and listen to see what’s being said about you, Donna or someone else and then you can tell __________)

I’m really not interested.  I would only be jumping to a conclusion.  I can only hear what they’re saying—and that’s all I need to know.  I have no urge to doubt or to analyze because I’m in a condition of “not knowing”.

But you see we have an urge to say we know “what’s going on” in the other person—you only know “what’s going on” in you—maybe—and you may not even know that.  But you’ll never know about the others.  You can only know that it was said that Donna was a slob.

I heard a word—that’s all I know.  I heard a person expressing words that reportedly was their opinion—only their opinion.  Ten minutes later they said something entirely different—like she was a living doll.  And, of course, I agree with them, then, because that just happens to be my taste.

It’s just taste and nobody can express a thing in the world about you.  They can only express their taste—the taste they are experiencing at the moment.   So could anybody say anything derogatory about you?  No, because they don’t know anything about you.

If somebody says, “You’re a terrible person”, does that make it “so’ or is that only expressing their viewpoint.  If Darrell says you’re a terrible wife, does that make it “so” or is that just expressing his taste.

So is there anybody can say anything that is really about you?  No they can only express their taste, and often that is just at that moment.  If I approve of you Bill, it is the feeling within me, it’s not you Bill.  You had nothing to do it.

When I asked a fellow student of the teachings about somebody who I saw as “odd” in their behavior or ability, he said, “Aw, they just showed up that way.”  It seems that I “showed up” with an obsession to being a “pleaser”

See #3 in the picture of man. 

With the introduction to the teachings, I observed the “pleaser” running much of the day’s activities.  It seemed the only way I knew to function with people.  I felt even though I was “asleep, it was better to be B sided than A sided.

As the observing “self” went along, I realized that unconsciously, I was being controlled by the four dual basic urges.

See Four Dual Basic Urges.

I could certainly see that one motivation to please was to escape disapproval; and that only led to jumping around in the picture of man.  I would flip to #5, wanting to “self-improve”, or “act differently”, and if that didn’t work I was tempted to A-side #2 and to “stick up for my rights”

Pleasing (whether I wanted to or not) also lead to a desire to be appreciated (which if wasn’t expressed back to me) led to disappointment and an urge to #5 “blame and judge”.

But the one that I was very glad to finally observe is that when I pleased some people, all it engendered was their asking for more, better or different.

Someone mentioned to me about “setting boundaries”, and I found that a very good idea to work with.  So, I began to look at what I wanted to “do” as opposed to what I thought I “had to do” for others.  If I felt overwhelmed, I began to remember to decline graciously.

There is another idea that knowing my weaknesses could be my greatest strength, and I learned that when I overextend myself, I drop into a state of “held resentment”.  I now see that “holding accounts” makes for a tenuous relationship which, to me, has no value for either of us in the relationship.

See states of consciousness.

Recently when I was asked to play a job, I accepted.  When the music arrived, I discovered that there was too much, and two of them were too difficult to accomplish within the time limit and my limited sight.  I got that dreaded emotional turmoil in my belly and decided that I must do something about it.

I wrote an email explaining that I understand that it is impossible for a sighted person to relate to the challenges of a partially-sighted person reading complicated pieces of music.  Thankfully, with the communication, it was changed to only one difficult piece and 6 hymns that were pretty easily executed.  I felt I “could do” that” and also have a small enough challenge that would make life interesting.

The challenge of the overall picture was to see “what I could or could not do”, “what she would do without” and “what was possible for the job”—in other words I was able to see “What was going on” and changing the “form” for a more positive “result” for all involved.

See the four forces.

This experience turned out far better than if I had succumbed to reaction by “blowing off steam” “quitting” or “holding resentment” which thereby  creates imbalance in the body that must be adapted to.

This experience and the observation thereof has helped to tie in many of the illustrations of the teachings and shown me how beautifully they can aid me in seeing “what’s Going On”.

In the teachings, it has been brought out that most of us arise in the morning and ask (internally) “how do I feel?”  If we come up with a certain picture of miserable, sad, tired, anxious, and many other lower states, then we proceed to act that way.  The result comes down to drawing a conclusion that the day as been ruined and will  continue that way for who knows how long—perhaps until somebody else comes along and changes it for us.  When we do this, we tend to actualize that attitude in everything we do that day.  So in viewing the larger picture we woke up “feeling” and then began to “act” and the “feeling” then became our unconscious motivation for the day.

If you take the first letter of each word of “feel”, “act” and “think”, it spells “fat”.

It was suggested that when we find ourselves in a less advantageous state, we can reverse that acronym to “TAF”.  That means:  1. think how I would like to feel, 2. begin to act that way (for at least 30 minutes) and then see what happens.

Check this link “Think – Act – Feel – An Idea to Work On”.

In using this exercise I discovered it works.

After practicing piano intensely for hours and days, I realized on the day of the concert that I was overwhelmed.  I had practiced so much that the tunes were running together, and I couldn’t remember all the designated intros and endings.  I decided that I didn’t want to take those trepidations with me to the job, so I proceeded to use the “TAF” exercise.  When previously trying the exercise, I’ve always had trouble coming up with enough feeling words and consequently dropped the experiment.

So I began with:

“Think”- how would I like to feel?

Accomplished came to mind and a picture began to form.

–I could see that even though it was new and different, I still have had a lot of experience.

Adventurous then came to mind – since it was jazz, I wanted to risk improvising on the melodies even if they weren’t to my ideal.

Confidence – Well, I wasn’t feeling confident, but how had I acted when I had felt confident in the past.  A picture of a walk and attitude came to mind and I sure could fake that for a bit.

Next came “Free”  Ah, I thought, I could be free to experience being ignored, rejected, disapproved of and feelings of inferiority for just one night.

I decided that I would also be free to not use disclaimers as to why I might not do well—after all, if I did that, I was only setting myself up for failure.  People don’t’ want to hear all that “drivel” anyway.

Next came “light hearted”   I have watched people be light hearted when things seemed important and serious; and they always made those situations easier to handle and sometimes they even turned into funny—I wanted to see the  see the fun and humor in the game.

I then remembered that I was “privileged” to get to play with a wonderful horn player and an exciting drummer.

I also saw the I was listening to the “ideal makers” I was trying to fit an imaginary picture in the mind of playing everything perfect without a miss—impossible—why not just let it be—let happen what would happen.  Every gig I ever played had always turned out fine up to this one, why should it be any different?  Listening to the “ideal makers” or those that make every little detail “important” can be like a disease—I get “ill at ease” if I buy into the suggestion of “importance” and the anxiety it creates in me has no value as I never play well when I’m anxious.

By the time I was through the trepidations disappeared.  I walked through the house as I was getting ready with a walk of confidence and acted like the picture I had been thinking of.  What was the result?  It was a delightful and memorable experience with freedom to play, an enthusiastic audience, an impressed employer and a potential for future gigs.  I expressed joy and an appreciation for all Life.

Yes, I now remember that it isn’t the “thinking” of the teachings that transforms—it also needs the “action” which creates the form and the result has a lot better chance of being to my advantage.

In studying the “self”, the teaching says that we unconsciously seek non-disturbance or gratification of all the senses; and thereby are mechanical—not awake—not aware.  One purpose was given to us as an experiment—that is to be what, to me, is being a good guest or making a little contribution to a pleasant mood.  This seemed pretty easy and a worthwhile activity; but I discovered can sure get twisted.  I have worked with this idea for years.  To begin with, I didn’t recognize the “little” and tried to “make” the pleasant mood for everyone whom I eventually found was quite egotistical and not possible.  I also began to see that I twisted it into “pleasing people”, “doing whatever they asked” or “helping people”.  I thought that’s what “making a little contribution” meant—it doesn’t.  I just ran across an excerpt in the vintage tapes that puts a little more light on the experiment.

Someone in the audience says:

(I established my purpose to be a good guest and contribute to a pleasant mood, but does that always mean to somebody else’s pleasant mood instead of mine?)

Now there’s no such thing as another person’s pleasant mood and my pleasant mood–there’s only a pleasant mood. I think we have repeatedly said–If you were in a car going down the road all by yourself, you’d want a pleasant mood in the car. So the pleasant mood is being made for you. If you’re somewhere else and you’re contributing to a pleasant mood, it is for you and it is for everybody around you. I can hardly conceive that you would be in a foul mood and be contributing to somebody else’s pleasant mood–it flat doesn’t make sense. There’s no way you could do that.

So when I contribute to a pleasant mood, the mood covers everybody around including me. In other words, if I’m in a room with eight people, and I have a pleasant mood, it covers nine people. If I’m in a room with only one person in it, that’s #1, then that pleasant mood only covers one. Mood is something we live in like a fish lives in water–it is not something I’m doing for another person or doing for myself. It is a state I’m setting up all around me. You might say the only light you will ever live in is that which you generate for yourself. So if I generate a pleasant harmonious mood, I’m in that mood as well as everybody else around because the mood is the environment; and we’re all in the environment– so it is not  just for me or for another person.

[From Marsha…..long ago when the children were infants and toddlers, it took a lot to keep up with their needs and safety and also take care of cooking, cleaning, laundry and grocery shopping.  I just took care of what I could and learned to leave some things undone—sometimes for a long time.

Then a few years ago when I was job hunting, I saw the phrase ‘must be able to multitask’.  That sounded like a good thing at the time and something to develop to be more employable; although I later suspected that the employer wanted to be able to get more work from an employee to reduce the number of people who needed to be paid.

And I have begun to re-evaluate this multi-tasking idea with the teaching ideas of being in the present moment.  And so here is an excerpt that explains that a lot better than I can.]

Question from the audience:

(What’s the purpose if you’re only going to understand this moment—there’s no place to go and what would be the purpose?)

Because you’re thinking that without a future there is no purpose, right?

(What’s the purpose of getting into an automobile if you’re going somewhere if your only purpose is to see the present moment….and he goes on and on…………..)

My teacher says:

Suppose you got in the automobile; and you were only interested in getting to Provo.  So you had your attention strictly on what you were going to do when you got there?    Are you paying attention to your driving and the cars around you if you are thinking about what you are going to do there; or are you paying only a very small attention to the driving and a lot of attention to what you’re going to do in Provo.

(Either way.)

You’re attention is divided up—I’d rather not drive with you if you don’t mind because your attention is all split up; and you’re not paying very good attention to the highway.  What’s happening on the highway requires 100% of attention—changes can occur very quickly and the road become instantaneously dangerous.

(I doubt that would ever happen though.)

Is it possible that we want to look at things into the future, and we’re not willing to look at n0w?

When is it that you do something?

(Now.)

It’s always now.  If we do something now–this now is a fluid thing.  It’s not a disconnected spot.  And it’s possible, that if you live in present time that you would be far more efficient in each new direction rather than trying to live in many different places at the same time.  You mentioned a while ago about a limited attention span, and it, truly, is rather limited.  So, if you have your attention on Provo, on the highway, on something that went on yesterday and something that might happen next week, your attention is scattered until there is very little of it anywhere.

Now if it is all in the present moment without any struggle, this moment may be much fuller.  Every moment leads to another moment, right?  And if a person lived in present time, which is always now, they would find that their efficiency and memory steps up many hundreds of percentage points at once.

Of course most people’s minds is scattered in many places; and that’s why that statement you made that the attention span is limited is correct.

So consequently the attention is always bouncing from one of these things to another, isn’t it?  But it can be all one and in the present time.  The present moment is ever changing, so the attention would be very expanded over what it generally is—could that be possible?

So is it possible that living in the present moment might take care of all the other moments quite well?  When one is not living in the present moment at all, precious little attention is on the present moment–it’s on what will happen, what did happen, what he said, what she did, what I must or should do until there is very little attention paid to this moment.  So the sequence is in chaos.

This is a little story I told some time or other, and it’s a true one.  I went into a lady’s house one time and the kitchen was in a literal chaos–including her—she was perspiring and quite rattled.  The oven had black smoke billowing out of it—there was obviously something burning.  She had just dropped a head of lettuce on the floor and was chasing it, and the place was quite cluttered.  I asked my favorite question.

“What are you doing?”

She implied that I was a blankity-blank idiot for asking, but she said, “I’m trying to get dinner on the table.”  Her attention was getting dinner on the table—the end result.

A few days later I was in another home and the contrast was quite visible to me.  The lady was all dressed up and she had on a pretty little apron.  She was making salad—the oven was lighted and everything looked under control.  The little pots were sitting on burners bubbling away.  And so I asked my little question again.

“What are you doing?”

She said, “I’m cooking dinner.”

Now she was in present time, the other woman was out of time.  The other lady was trying to get to the conclusion without taking the logical step by step process as it comes along in daily living.

Now I’m sure that dinner got on the table in a much more enjoyable fashion in the second home and also much more efficiently because it was the logical outcome of what she was doing—she was living in the moment.  Each moment led to dinner on the table–and it looked like it would be a much more peaceful and joyful dinner in that house.

FYI, I have also put this Blog Entry on the EXCERPTS page.