MISCONCEPTIONS

NEWPORT BEACH 7/80

            Each of us can every day write the script, direct the part and play the role. We have the whole show.  We can do it all.  We can act anyway we want to.  We can write the script we want to act today.  We can direct the part.  If we don’t do that we leave it to the tender mercies of whom we meet to start directing us.  Who is going to write your script for today?  Who’s going to direct it?  Who’s going to act out the role?  Now, you’re always going to act out the role.  But are you going to let somebody else write the script and somebody else direct it?  I won’t play that game.  So there’s a little second force.  Who pays any attention to that?  Second force just helps to get it done.  If you’re free to have a little second force it doesn’t bother you.  If you’re all upset by a little resistance, you can fall apart at the seams. But I fully expect it and don’t feel any qualms about it.  In fact, I usually find it is the most valuable thing that comes along.  It gets the direction going.

PEACE OF MIND

NEWPORT BEACH 8/80

            The first requirement would be that the person didn’t make anything important.  Now that isn’t a great thing because there really isn’t anything important.  There’s a lot of interesting things in this world, a lot of delightful things, but I haven’t seen that there are very many important things floating around.  Now you can make almost anything important. But if we make anything important, they really aren’t unless we make them, then we’re anxious.  Now anxious is not peace of mind. Another way of saying it is when I say, “I’m free to experience whatever is going on here today and I’m free to choose how I will act upon it.  I don’t have to make it fit any ideal.  But the situation is here, whatever it may be. Whether I like it or don’t like it I’m going to experience it.  I might as well do it gracefully, therefore freely.  I’m going to experience it anyway.  No use getting all upset about it.  So if we’re free to experience it, we could also be free to see what I want to do about it.  Now if we had those two things you would find that you have peace of mind:  You’re free to experience whatever may arise in your way today and you’re free to choose your response. We can totally have peace of mind, which supposedly is the greatest thing the human can ever have.  When you have that you can accomplish almost anything, do almost anything that comes along. You’re free to really function.

Could you have peace of mind right now?  I maintain that you can.  I have been experimenting with it and I have found that it can always be there.  That you can be totally peaceful regardless of what circumstances may be going on.  Peace of mind can be permanent.  You can have it every day of the week, year in and year out.  It is a much more reasonable way of functioning than it is with all these tremendous havocs, anxieties, turmoils and struggles that most people go through with practically daily. Most people have a lot of worries.

Peace of mind, which is considered the greatest boon of mankind, is totally easily available right now.

Misery can be a habit.  You can start a new habit.  You can start a new one of being peaceful all the time.

ATTENTION

SCHOOL TALK #11

Attention is the first beginning of truly being conscious.  So attention is the deliberate effort to pay particular attention to anything and everything around.  And ordinarily is 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.

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.  And sometimes the traffic is high speed..

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.  I got an itch on my left elbow and I’m thinking about killing so-and-so because he ignored me yesterday.  It’s all the same difference because it’s something merely going on and one can pay attention to it.  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 on inside or usually outside the body and the mind and the emotions, and etc.  You’re fully in charge.  So to be in charge one starts simply today with being a point of awareness.  And as that point of awareness is exercized it grows.  And as it grows it takes over.

So if wanted to be somewhat accurate of describing ourselves we’re each a point of awareness in a big pool of Life somewheres. There’s Life always around us and we have one particular viewpoint and we are a center of awareness or a center of Life function in a great big pool of Life somewheres.

…. if our interest is in being a fully integrated, conscious being, a whole person instead of a bunch of fragments in this skin, it’s probably is the easiest and most direct way to go about it.  It’s not the only way, but it’s the easiest and the most direct.  Some people like to do everything the hard way.  If you want to do everything the hard way, there’s other ways to do it,  but the most direct and the easiest way is to take charge and be the attention.

PLAYING THE VICTIM ROLE

ABLUQUERQUE WORKSHOP 1993

…we’ve found that if you observe and repeat the phrase (I am playing the victim role), you will be surprised how many times a day there is to repeat it.  Now, you’re not trying to stop trying being a victim; not trying to change a thing.  You’re merely reporting to the awareness. Simply state: “I’m playing the victim role”  There is nothing mystical or obvious about it.  You’re just saying to the awareness, “I’m playing the victim role.  You’ll find you do it many, many times a day once you begin to pay a little attention to it.  It’s not just something that happens here and there.  You’re playing the victim role and you play it a lot.  So, every time you find yourself playing the victim role, you merely state, “I’m playing the victim role.”  In about a week, it may be five days.  It may be twelve days, but somewheres in about a week, you will have had enough of it….so you quit.  It just automatically comes to a stop.

A STORY

        We’ve all heard the phrase, “I buy things I don’t need with money I don’t have to impress people I don’t like.”  Hmmmm.

I’ve been watching how much of my behavior is controlled by “what will people think”.  So I came up with a list of questions I ask myself:

1. Do I pretend to agree with someone, even though I don’t?
2. Do I worry about what I wear to avoid being disapproved of?
3. Do I say “yes” when I mean “no”?
4. Do I leave a bigger tip when someone may be watching?
5. What am I doing?
6. Do I stretch the story to put myself in a good light?
7. Do I drop impressive names for effect?
8. Do I shift my position in a conversation to gain approval?
9. Am I thoroughly honest or am I kidding myself and others?
10. Is my behavior based on what I ‘should’ do or ‘ought to do’?
11. Do I walk up in the night reliving painful, disapproving conversations?
12. Do I listen to “Not-I” voices explaining how I can justify my behavior?

I want to be free of the Not-I “what will people think”.  The reality is that other people are thinking about what I’m thinking about them!  What a joke!  It is all illusion.

These are only a few questions. There are many, many more. All I can do is to be consciously aware of what I am doing.  X will do the work on them.

I will continue to add to the list as I walk through the days.

REMEMBER:

YOU ARE HERE IN DISGUISE.

YOU HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY TO FULFILL YOUR PURPOSE.

PLAY IT AND HAVE FUN.

THERE IS NOTHING HOLY ABOUT YOUR SADNESS; IT FEEDS THE LOWER ELEMENTS.

KEEP THE TONE HIGH.

DON’T MAKE IT IMPORTANT.

(Dr. Bob Gibson)

MIND TICS

Where will it all end?  Probably somewhere near where it all began.

I have abandoned my search for truth and am now looking for a good fantasy.

Notice: For those of you who are familiar with Mushkil Gusha please join a group of us (hopefully at least a hundred) who will read that story every Thursday night for three months. This is a way we can lift the consciousness of the Planet and contribute to the critical mass.