WHAT’S GOING ON?
#139 FEBRUARY 2006
ALONG THE WAY
Not one shred of evidence supports the fact that Life is serious.
THIS MONTH’S THOUGHT
Whenever we become defensive about ANYTHING know that we have identified ourselves with an illusion.
PEACE OF MIND
Newport Beach 8/80 by Dr. Bob Gibson
The subject tonight is PEACE OF MIND. I heard a lot of it going on around the place, so I decided we’d talk about it a bit.
I’ve heard by various writers and speakers that said, “Peace of mind was the greatest thing any human could have.” We’re going to talk about that kind of mind wherein there is no hassle going on inside of it. I think those are rather rare. We will see if we could find a means where everybody could leave tonight with peace of mind. Now there’s a requirement or two possibly before that could happen. But we’ll see if that could be accomplished.
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. We could make having the bills paid this month important. We could make making a lot of money this month important. We could make having our checks not bounce important. Of course 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 I don’t think anything I would do about it would make it into an ideal. I can dream up some fancy ideals. Can anybody here dream up how things ought to be real easy? You can dream up how it ought to be, but that doesn’t make it factual.
The fact is that everything we deal with is ‘what is’. That is what is already here. We can choose how we are going to respond or whether we are just going to ignore it. A lot of things I find you might as well ignore. They’ll be gone tomorrow, anyway. What is there that we really need to resist? It’s going to be here, anyway. So I’m free—free to experience or sense what is. If we’re free to do it, there is no anxiety. Now that we can discover about ourselves. If I discover that I am free to experience whatever is at this moment and then I am free to choose any response I want to—any or no response, knowing full well the response won’t make the ideal that I could dream up about.
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.
Now, as long you have anxieties and you’re worried and you’re fretful and you’re sad; you have a great limitation on what you can do. There are all kinds of things you can’t quite make work. But if you’re perfectly free to handle it and you have peace of mind, there isn’t anything comes along you can’t do something about. The sense of accomplishment then comes very real when there is peace of mind. When there is not, there is a sense of frustration most often. One is frustrated in about everything one tries to do because one is anxious, one is wishing things were different than they were, one is making it absolutely necessary that situations be different than they really are.
The fact is that the only thing we can actually deal with is the actual fact of the moment. So whatever this moment is, you can do it. So when we have peace of mind, then comes what people sometimes tell me they want to be creative or they want to have a sense of accomplishment. They want to have various and sundry things that would supposedly give us peace of mind. If you ever stop to think why you want things, basically there is a belief if you had whatever thing it is, it would make you feel good. But if we don’t have peace of mind, that good feeling is going to last a very short length of time.
You’re free to experience whatever is. Now, there is no great willpower or any other conflict that could make ourselves free to experience. That is something you discover—that you are doing it anyway. You are experiencing what is every moment–whatever the weather is, how anyone is treating you, whatever is going on—you are experiencing it. It seems to me we could do it just as freely as we could do it with all the resistance we put up to it.
You’re already experiencing what is, no matter how we resist it, how much we cry about it, how much we object to it, you’re still experiencing it. Why put all the big effort to fight about it in it? You might as well do it totally freely.
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.
A STORY
The house in which I live faces the West Northwest. So, the summer afternoons on the deck are a bit toasty. Well, they’re more than toasty they are almost intolerably suffocating. Last year I bought a 20-inch fan to circulate the air and I could then sit in relative comfort to watch the sunset or the squirrels sneaking up to eat the birdseed or watch a ladybug inch across the tile.
Several weeks ago we had a windstorm that threw the deck furniture around like a tossed salad—the fan was stirred into the mix. When I came home and restored some order, the fan refused to work. I turned the plug over, used a different outlet, and finally kicked the darn thing. Well…the kick did it. It’s been running relentlessly and smoothly ever since.
I fall asleep now and then. A “Not-I” slides in the back door when I’m not watching and quickly takes over this little earthling called Donna. I become critical of myself and others, cranky at any little disturbance and resistant to all life. I want to change ‘what is’ into ‘what I think ought to be’. Inertia pulls me right down on the couch to watch mindless TV.
Because Life loves me so much, this sorry state of affairs won’t last long. Life gives me a kick (usually painful) that connects me to the Source of all Energy. I have to remember to be thankful for the kick and not to complain, whine, or make a story line about it that I seem compelled to tell everyone I meet—a story about how awful Life is treating me.
Life’s only purpose for me is to wake up. It wants the awareness to be clean, accurate, and well-informed. Therefore, every encounter and every experience is especially designed for me. Life is teaching the awareness to be conscious, aware, awake, present, and to be a conscious reporter to X. If this is true, and I’m convinced it is, then I can embrace and laugh at all the kicks I can be grateful for all the pain. In fact, I’m willing for Life to BRING IT ON.
DR. BOB GIBSON 1987 Whitney, TX
The whole thing is that we will choose to say from now on that I am spirit having a human experience and none of these human experiences are important. Can you remember that? Think you can do that? You can play that role from now on. Nobody can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are spirit having a human experience. But if we check it out we see that we are spirit, really, and humans are on this planet to gain experience, to understand humans. One of these days you will be something other than what you are today. And maybe your chore would be to work with people invisibly. And you would understand all human experience so you wouldn’t criticize the guy. You could understand him and work with him.
When you know you are spirit having a human experience I don’t see any reason to get upset. This prevents the upset, not what to do about it. So what? It is just an experience and it really doesn’t matter. It will pass real quickly. Everything comes and goes. We can experience it freely.
POINTS FROM THE TEACHING TO PONDER
- There are rather severe consequences when we forget what’s going on and what I am—a spiritual being having a human experience.
- We report inaccurately when we ask X to work on symptoms. It is more accurate for X to work on the underlying conflict.
- Trust is an illusion. We think we know what ought to be. It is painful because we have bought the illusion when trust is “betrayed.”
- I give nobody the authority to annoy me.
- We don’t own anything. It was all here when we got here.
- Step out of society and do what brings you joy and peace.
- Life tells me what to do moment by moment.
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