ALONG THE WAY: 

Our nature is to express joy.  We can do this when we discover that we already have everything we are looking for. 

THIS MONTH’S THOUGHT:

We complain when we don’t like ‘what is’.  Hmmm.

SCIENCE OF MAN:

(Excerpts from lesson 45 by Dr. Bob Gibson)

One of the great temptations to each and every one of us is to come to a conclusion.  We have observed something.  We have made a discovery at a given moment.  To be in a state of knowing at a given moment is to be in the state of discovery where everything is new.  One is seeing new relationships.  One is seeing everything in a new light, which is, of course, the first attribute of the new man, is seeing differently.  But the temptation is that as soon as one has made a discovery, one forms a conclusion.  Now to come to a conclusion, is, of course, from the word ‘conclude’.  So one concludes paying attention.  One is delighted with one’s new found discovery and one goes to sleep.  You see, when one has a conclusion, one is asleep, at least, on that given subject.  One dreams that what one has observed or discovered is permanent.  But everything in the world is in a state of change.  You, I, everyone is in a state of change.  Everything is in a state of change.  So a discovery is valid for this moment.  It gives us a new way of seeing.  What we really discover is a new way of looking at things and nothing to come to a conclusion about.  One of the greatest difficulties that people have is that they come to conclusions about each other.  A person comes to a conclusion I know so-and-so and so-and-so is a liar, because possibly so-and-so told a great big fib one time.  And one was aware that he was fibbing.  But this doesn’t mean that he fibs forever and ever.  Possibly the very next day the person would be incapable of fibbing about anything.  You see, in the process of change, even in the mechanical person is constantly surrounded by various influences.  And so, something that has come about today does not mean that one can come to a conclusion.  When one is know-ing, knowing from moment to moment, one is aware, possibly, that so-and-so is lying at the moment.  But, possibly, the very next moment, he is speaking the fact.  So, one could not say that the person was a liar.  You see we come to conclusions.   And all of a sudden we exist in a dead world because everything we have come to a conclusion about is, from that moment on, never seen in any other way.  We never see the constant change, the constant rhythm of life, the constant ebb and flow of everything that does exist in this earth planet.  Everything is in a process of change.  And every split second is an event.  Man is designed as an experiencing creature, one that experiences what is and sees the value of it, moment by moment.  The perversion of conditioning, the effort to be secure, entices him to come to conclusions.  And he concludes, of course, that what it is now, it will forever be.  He’s mistaken an event for a thing.  And he feels that things are permanent.  Things are dependable.  However, if one observes even one individual, say husband or wife, and observes them without any conclusions from the past as to what that person is like.  In other words, one sets down the accounts one has made against a given person and say,, “I’m going to observe this individual.”  One will see that you have a brand-new person about.  That it is not the same person that one had formed the conclusion about.  This is to awaken, to see that everything is in a state of change.  That there is nothing permanent in the visible world.  That all are events that’s ever undergoing change.  And one can resist the temptation to KNOW.   Now as we go along we make discoveries   And of course, those discoveries are very delightful because one has seen a certain relationship that one had never seen before.  Having experienced this delight, of course, mammon says, “It is true forever and ever.  You have found the truth.”  Now, one comes to a conclusion and one is back asleep.  You see, one is see-ing Truth, moment by moment.  One never discovers the Truth.  One is seeing Truth from moment to moment, which is seeing what is from moment to moment, and seeing the value of it.  It is said in some ways in attempting to define what the Teaching is about, which no definition is adequate, anymore than trying to define what Life is.  We can only define certain attributes.  But one of the attributes that has been given as some description of the Teaching is that it teaches man to see what  is from moment to moment.  In other words, it allows man, or challenges man, to be awake.  And to resist the temptation to be safe and secure by coming to conclusions. .  He begins to see that all conclusions are a way of being asleep. And that really it is what sleep is about.  You see it is the form of suggestion that this is the case and it’s always the case and so the person, then, is a concluded being, has concluded experiencing. And has experienced something in the past and begins to assume that everything will be the same from now on.  And of course the person begins to see it as whatever the conclusion says.  If one has seen a given person as a liar, one always sees them as a liar.  If one has seen a given person as being unfair, one always sees that person as being unfair.  And if you will notice, take the case of a mate.  One has many conclusions about that mate. None of which are possibly true at this moment.  Sometimes a person has come to a conclusion that the mate is sloppy or is a nag or is something because at one given moment, such was observed.  And a conclusion was come to at that moment.  The person may be the most meticulous dresser and the most careful grooming, henceforth and thereafter, but the person still has the idea that there is nothing but the same old conclusion and that with this conclusion nothing can be accomplished.  We’re quite prone to come to conclusions about almost everything. A child going to school, possibly, comes across someone that picks on him a little bit. So he decides that ‘they are always picking on me.’ The child will go through his entire life feeling that he is being picked on.  So we can be experiencing a given situation without coming to a conclusion about it.  Sometimes a person in a moment of anger is judged as always being angry. And possibly most of the time they are not. A person has been known to steal at some time or other but possibly never be capable of stealing again. Would you say that the person was a thief? Or would you say that the person was a person who at one time took something that did not belong to them in a given moment?  You see each person only exists a moment. Everything dies, moment by moment. And man to be awake and be conscious and aware is always aware that the last moment is dead.  Sometimes it said, die to the past day.  But it is die, moment by moment, to the past. The past is only an illusion that it really exists.  All we have is a record of what happened at that moment.  But nothing in the past does anything for this moment.  We cannot evaluate this moment from the past moment.  Now, of course, if I see that I’m always being picked on, if I came to that conclusion when the little boy was, say eight or nine years old, and some kid picked on him one day at school or some other place on the way to or from school and he came to a conclusion, “People are always picking on me”, how do you suppose the little boy, as he grew, would experience, almost every day?  He would experience that somebody is picking on him. So he is firmly convinced that it is always that case that people are continually picking on him. And that there is no way that one could convince him that everything is changing every moment because he has concluded.  And therefore, from now on, experiences this static state.  You see one is only awake when one is experiencing this moment.  You see there is so many conclusions.  So, we will write down all the things that we know or that we have concluded, descriptions about self and descriptions about others.  I’m a sick person.  I’m an old person.  I’m tired.  I am mistreated.  He or she is a liar.  He or she is a bore.  He or she is greedy.  He or she is always interfering in what I want to do.  He or she never understands me.  And as we begin to observe, we see a completely new world.  We are seeing different and we having a new state of being. And being in a new state of being is to be a new person.  So let’s take considerable length of time to check out what we know.  Because most of us know so much and the peculiar thing about it is, that most of what we know simply is not taking place now.  It happened sometime in the dead past; or we imagine that it would happen in some future; or we came to a conclusion in a momentary situation, which all real situations are, only momentary.  And we come to a conclusion that it was permanent, like the little boy who says, ‘everybody’s always picking on me’, because one kid picked on him one afternoon on the way home from school. But find the young man when he’s thirty-five, you find him when he forty, and he still feels that everybody’s picking on him.  His wife’s picking on him.  His children pick on him. The boss picks on him.  The customer’s pick on him.  The traffic policeman picks on him.  Everything he finds evidence for that belief because he is now static.  He is concluded. He is no longer living in that dynamic world of change from moment to moment. Let’s see if we can find that ever-changing, ever-new, ever-fresh world.  And then we can say, “Everything has been made new.”

A STORY:

Years ago I would put 3 teaspoons of sugar in my iced tea.  Since then my taste has changed and I don’t use sugar at all.  However, friends who knew me then still make remarks about my sugar consumption.  No amount of conversation can convince them that that is no longer true about me.  They had come to a conclusion about my behavior  and the subject is closed.  Yet, I have done the same thing.  Paul, a classmate, was at a high school class reunion several years ago.  The first thing I thought of when I saw them again was how ugly he had treated me in the 4^th grade.  After all those years, I was guarded in my conversations with him.  I had concluded that he was a mean little kid and, after forty-some years, I still saw him that way.  In Lesson 45 of the Science of Man the discussion is about how conclusions preclude any chance of us seeing anyone differently.  This is a very subtle idea that clouds how I see others today.  The list of accounts receivable (Lesson 9) is a place to start unloading these limiting conclusion so I can see more clearly.

We were no longer nine year olds at the reunion.  If I could have removed the conclusions I had come to about Paul, I might have discovered what a fine and interesting person he had become.  I CAN determine how I see others and even Life.  The old conclusions have to go.  They are only illusions that keep me separate and isolated.  We are all new and different, moment to moment.  To be able to experience this newness and freshness requires clearing away of all the old conclusions.  It’s very possible that I may have concluded somewhere in the past that Life is a burden, difficult at best.   If I am not experiencing joy in my life today, I had better dig around and discard some old conclusions.

I will look at conclusions.  I will do the Work.   Joy is the gift.