FREEDOM
DR. BOB GIBSON
So, you can feel any way you like if you start with freedom. Freedom is only a state of consciousness that you truly are already a free individual. You may not have discovered it yet, but you really are. You are free to sense anything that comes along without making a production over of it. And you’re free to experience any inner feeling you may have. If you will experience freely those that we call unpleasant, you will see them transformed very quickly.
Are you free to experience any inner feeling you have? Are you free to sense anything you may sense? If you do, you’re a free individual. If you’re free, there is no conflict, no struggle, no resistance. That is called being integrated. When disintegration goes, integration is what’s left. You don’t have to work to be ONE. You were born that way. We got it all screwed up and separated and now we have to stop the other stuff. Integration is what remains when all conflict, struggle and resistance ends. You might as well end it now as tomorrow.
Most people are not in charge of their own inner state so they are very susceptible to any mood. If you’re in charge you don’t catch all those unpleasant moods. It’s nice to be in charge. If you have a good mood, everything works well.
When you feel sorry for yourself there is a hormone formed called DOCA and it is very addictive. That is why people hardly ever get over self-pity because they are addicted to the hormone. So when their hormone starts wearing off, they get their fix.
NOW
DR.BOB GIBSON
Question: When your mind is thinking about tomorrow and yesterday, how do I stay in the now?
Answer: Well, try to eat breakfast tomorrow now. You see, when you think, if you are aware that you are thinking, then it is always in the present. If you remember and you are aware you are remembering, you’re in the present, remembering now. Remembering is something you can do. You can’t remember some other time. You can only remember now. There is nothing wrong with remembering, with making a plan, if you wanted to (it won’t work). You can call it a tentative arrangement. But be sure you know what you’re doing. So, I’m imagining something. So if I want to sit down and imagine something, I can paint me all kinds of pretty pictures. But I’m doing it when? Right now. Present time. So, I’ve found people who were afraid because they’d listened to these people talk about being in the present. They were afraid to remember something, even. I remember quite often. But I do it right now. I want to keep that memory bank going. I’ve got a lot of things in there I want to be able to fish out at any moment. The only time you can remember anything is now. The whole bit about being in the present is: I’m doing this. I am recalling. I am remembering. I am imagining. I am tentatively arranging. I’m doing it now. The only time I can do anything is right now. So, if someone is telling you to be in the present, it doesn’t mean that you can only be aware of what is going on right here and you’re got to watch real carefully to not let something else come in. Because, if you do you sure get frustrated trying that little game. Something is always about to remind you of something that did happen. I want to be able to say: This reminds me of that right now. I don’t want to think I’m back there. I’m here. But I certainly have a memory bank and I’m going to use it. I’m aware that I’m doing it now. I’m doing it intentionally is basically what is meant by being conscious. I’m doing it intentionally. I’m responsible for doing it, not somebody else.
WHAT OUGHT TO BE
DR. BOB GIBSON
We don’t know what ought to be. And if we looked at most of our anxieties, our struggles, our conflicts, and our resistance to everything is because we have not looked at the fact that we do not know what ought to be because we don’t know the outcome of it two weeks from now, two hours from now, two months from now, two years from now. Something that looks so utterly wonderful in your imagination as the way it ought to be has sometimes turned out to be not exactly like you wanted it. So we can only deal with what is. Now if our attention is on what is, there is always something that can be done about it.
Now when things are not like they ought to be, what is usually your first approach? To find something to blame for it, is that right? You can blame luck. You can blame another person. You could blame your own self. You could go on and on and on. But you blame. If you can’t find what to blame, you’re trying to get somebody to tell you what’s to
blame. Why did this ever happen? And so on. But all of this is only struggle, conflict and resistance. So this struggle to climb this stairway is what makes struggle. Is what makes conflict. And is what makes resistance. Resistance is resisting always what is. We’re in conflict
between what is and what we think ought to be. And we’re struggling to get from what is to what we think ought to be. Almost daily there is something not like it ought
to be. So we stay in a conflict and a struggle and a resistance within. ..we have set
ourselves up for considerable amount of difficulty.
What is, of course, is the situation at hand and you can always do something about it. If nothing else, you can ignore it. But you can always do something about what is. But there is nothing you can do about ‘what ought to be’ except get upset. That’s the only thing you can do is get upset. So, basically, everybody is struggling to get from what is up to what they think would make them happy is what ought to be… if they could just get there everything would
be alright, wouldn’t it?
But the point is: We don’t know what ought to be. And if we looked at most of our anxieties, our struggles, our conflicts, and our resistance to everything is because we think we know what ought to be.
ATTENTION
SCHOOL TALK #11
Attention is the first beginning of truly being conscious. Attention is when one decides to make a little point of awareness in self. It is the beginning of building what some people have called a soul or fully integrating all parts of one’s self into one unit. So attention is the deliberate effort to pay particular attention to anything and everything around. And ordinarily it must start with being free to pay attention without any condemnation or justification. In other words without finding fault or without approving or anything else.
There it is. There was no judgment of it. It is a statement. Then the attention begins to be able to pay attention as to what’s going on inside of one’s self.
Now at first there is something you would say the point of awareness or the attention center is the observer. And the rest of us would be the observed. One might observe how the body’s behaving. You might observe how you walk. You might observe how you’re breathing. You might observe what kind of thoughts are going on in the head, without saying you’re doing them. You’re just watching them. It’s traffic running through the brain. Because you know there’s always something going on in there. So at first there is the observer and the observed. So the observer is the point of awareness and it begins to pay attention to everything else that’s going on in the self, which could be physical, it could be mental, it could be emotional. Or whatever is going on one can pay attention to it. And again without condemning it or justifying it, without approving or disapproving. It’s simply “this is what’s going on.” And when we get so we can pay attention to it gradually all that which we’re paying attention to becomes more a part of the center of awareness or the point of awareness in the self and it grows. So eventually the observer and the observed become one. And at that time you are fully in charge of whatever’s going.
So to be in charge one starts simply today with being a point of awareness. And as that point of awareness is exercised it grows. And as it grows it takes over.
A STORY
Three years ago I had heart surgery to replace an aortic value. After spending 12 days in intensive care dealing with unbelievable complications (including a 6-1/2 minute cardiac arrest.) I was transferred to physical therapy where I realized that I couldn’t walk, stand up, hold a pencil, write my name or wipe my butt. I had been severely traumatized
The nights were endless and the Not-I’s were enjoying a delicious banquet at my expense and they were committed to destroying this living being! They convinced me that the mountain was too high to climb and the only way out was to die.
However, buried somewhere in the awareness, I was given the clarity to see that I could ask for the willingness to live, which seemed to be the first step. So I did ask, with great feeling. That’s when the magic started to happen. The Not-I’s had to GO! Period!
So, during the long nights, to keep the mind out of the ditch, I took the 23rd Psalm and re-wrote it in the Light of the Teaching ideas. This exercise took several nights and gave me information necessary for my recovery.
Here it is:
TWENTY-THIRD PSALM
Life is my Teacher. I shall not want anything.
Because Life loves me so much, It increases my necessity to question the purpose of living so I can be led to green pastures filled with the Teaching material.
I am led to still waters, so, like the sheep, I can survive.
Life leads me in the path of right thinking for its name sake…I AM.
I am restored to wholeness.
Even though I walk through the valley of the illusion of death, I will not be afraid, for Life is with me. I am protected and comforted.
Life prepares a feast for me of Teaching ideas in the presence of the “Not-I’s”.
Life anoints my awareness with wisdom.
My cup runs over.
Thank You, X
MIND TICS
Somehow I have to believe that I’m worth all the aggravation I cause myself.
Beware! Freedom of speech also includes the freedom to be misunderstood.
