WHAT’S GOING ON?  #94 

Written by Donna in May 2002

ALONG THE WAY:

I live at peace with all life.

THIS MONTH’S THOUGHT:

It is not circumstances or events that cause our discomfort.  It is our resistance to what is that causes the pain.

LIVING THE SPIRITUAL LIFE: 

School talk #51. (Excerpts of a talk given by Dr. Bob Gibson.  This talk was an hour long.  In order to not miss any of the good stuff, it will be in three newsletters.)

We are going to talk today about living the spiritual life. Whether we ever get there or not, we don’t know.  But we’ll start on it.

We’re going to start by first talking about what’s going on in the world.  Most of the people in the world seem to be operating on the idea that people know what’s right but they go on and do wrong anyway.  Therefore they need to be shot, imprisoned, or what have you.  Now that is probably as far from the spiritual life as you can get.  If you want to read newspapers or listen to the news on television there is nothing but chaos going on all over the world.

But being in touch with a number of people around the world and also paying a little attention, there are a lot of people doing something altogether different.  They are a living an entirely different kind of life.  But they never get written up in the newspaper. That’s not news—that’s somebody’s doing well; that somebody is happy; that somebody is peaceful.  There are people who have been very ill that are the next day feeling good.  There are people with strange ailments that some way or other wake up and they are healed from their disorder.  These are going on.  But have you ever noticed any news articles about them.  I haven’t.  But there is a wee bit more interest in living an entirely different kind of life.  The yuppies now are having a terrible state that I hear of that they are ‘burned out’.  Burn out is another name for boredom.  But nobody wants to use that because we don’t use simple old-fashioned terms that you’re ‘bored’ anymore, so we don’t use that.  Boredom is the thing that bothers most people.  Now what happened in this is that the people pursued the 4 dual basic urges—all the pleasure and comfort you can get; escape all the pain; lots of attention and not be ignored; and that you can have approval and no disapproval; that you can feel very worthwhile and have a wonderful self image and not feel of inferior.  Basically you can buy that if you have enough money.  Most of the yuppies have been making considerable amount of money.  So most of them  have been able to buy a considerable amount of the four dual basic urges. But after you  have bought it, then what?  That’s where the burn out comes.  What am I going to do now?  I’ve bought it and it didn’t mean so much, anyway. You can have pleasure today. It doesn’t stick around long.  So what’s so great about that?  You can have attention.  That’s easy. What good does it do after you’re got it?  Or you could get a lot of approval if you spend enough money on people. They’ll approve of you as long as the money holds out. But what does it amount to in a bit?  And you can feel important.  Any of us can convince ourselves that we’re very important.  However after you check on it for awhile you notice the world was getting along fine before you were born.  And if you depart, I bet the world would get along fine, anyway.  I’ve noticed it continues to get along alright, no matter who’s around or who’s not around.

So much for the man made world and the man-made values of the four dual basic urges.  People do get them.  And we’re very thankful they do.  Because until you get them, you’re apt to feel very strongly that if you just had the four dual basic urges, you’d be very happy. And everybody, of course, wants to be happy. If they’ve never had them, it is useless to talk to them about the spiritual life or anything else.  Now, I know people who have not succeeded in very much of anything maintain they’re interested in the spiritual life, but their interest is in order to use spiritual means to gain the four dual basic urges.  They feel if they had the right spirituality going on they would then get rich and if they got rich they could have the four dual basic urges with the greatest of ease.

The only real candidate for spiritual living is the person who has succeeded in attaining a certain degree of the four dual basic urges.  If they haven’t gotten them, that’s all their looking for and they say they’re interested in spiritual things only because they feel in some way that would get the four dual basic urges.  But it turns out quite different.  So we hope everybody here has gained a considerable degree of the four dual basic urges.  If so, you can probably hear what we will continue talking about.  If you haven’t received it yet, assume you had better use the magic word to get it, not spiritual teaching.  Now, there’s a magic word we used to sell for $600.00 as to which all things have been accomplished.  That word is w-o-r-k.  So if you haven’t gotten the four dual basic urges, and you’re still interested, don’t try spiritual teaching and understanding to get it, try work.  And it will eventually get you to where you can buy the four dual basic urges.

So, we’ll start off with the spiritual life and we’ll try to see what some of it is about.  Now there are certain attributes one comes up with.  The first one would be a loving attitude.  We’re not talking about sentimentality, we’re talking about caring for people no matter where they are, what they’re doing, what they’re like.  Here is an attitude that I like this individual or I understand that what they’re doing they feel is right, proper and justifiable with what light they have.  It is not expecting that people could do different than what they are doing.  It is very easy to think that everybody knows to do things my way.  And if they don’t do it that way they’re in some way pretty bad and I should get ticked off at them. That’ll straighten them out.  All I got to do is get angry with somebody.  A loving attitude is an attitude that life is pretty wonderful and all forms of life are pretty nice.  Some of them don’t have much light so obviously they do things that are probably not pleasing to everybody.

So a loving attitude is the start of the spiritual life, living the spiritual life is having a loving attitude towards all people, including the ones with pleasant personalities, and the ones that are crude, and the ones that are handicapped, ones that are unkind, ones that are uncouth.  They are doing the best they can with what light they have.  And what light we have is all we’re got. (to be continued next month)

A STORY: 

The Teachings say that a conscious person has reverence for all life.  Well, I must not be very conscious.

I sort of live in the country.  Although I have neighbors, the area is somewhat rugged with many trees, rocks and varmints –especially raccoons.  These crafty animals are more intelligent than I am and outwit me at every turn.  They can tear open any box or container, regardless of how secure I make it.  They hang by their back feet and rip apart the humming bird feeders and carry them away.  Their latest trick is to use my upper deck for their private bathroom.  I resent cleaning up their messes.  I have built a huge account against them. And to carry this a step further, I have started feeling like a victim.

Whoa!  What an opportunity to observe self.  The coons are only doing what is natural for them.  They are not deliberately trying to antagonize or aggravate me.  They don’t even know I exist. They don’t know they are my teachers.

I know my resentment has nothing to do with coons. One more time I want to be non-disturbed.  It is so easy for me to forget that complaining about the coons is not going to change the coons.  The only thing that can be changed is my perception of coons.

I’m going to try an experiment.  I’m going to see them as beautiful expressions of Life.  I will work at seeing beyond their little, beady, black eyes and appreciate their uniqueness and intelligence.  I will talk to them and explain that the upper deck was not designed for them as their bathroom.  They may be more willing that I can imagine to form a congenial relationship with me.  We might even become friends.

At least this approach will remove the Not-I’s, which are destructive to the environment and me.

I will live at peace with all life.

SCIENCE OF MAN

–  An Except from Lesson Eleven

So, what is, is living by reporting ‘what is’ to X and seeing ‘what is’ as good, or valuable or worthwhile.  And X operates upon it. In this way, man recognizes his oneness with X, with Spirit.  If he could foresee and could change the future and change all the events in it he would have no comprehension of X.  He would never realize his oneness with X, that he was a function of X. So, ‘what is’ is so designed by an almighty loving creator that one would be given every opportunity to discover one’s oneness with X.  Because one never knows the future.  But regardless of what happens, if one sees ‘what is’ and sees it’s value, X operates upon it, and one sees that one does not need to know the future.  That everything is an ever-changing, ever-loving panoramic of change.  And one could be comfortable with change, comfortable with the unknown and recognize the oneness with X, the union with X.  If one could do what the ideal says, the what ought to be, what one has valued, one would be in a horrible state of existence.  The most boring, the most tedious, the most fretful form anyone could be in. One would see the whole panoramic future and see everything and know that it was coming.  You know on a given day you’re going to get burned.  You know on a given day you’re going to receive news that a loved one has passed away.  There’s nothing you can do.  You know the future.  Wouldn’t that be horrible?