Workshop - Point of Awareness – Scottsdale, AZ 1970 - Part 1
Verbatim Transcript: 4 CDs
The following is as close a verbatim transcript as is possible.
Dr. Bob’s laid-back “Kentucky-ese” is retained –
we have neither corrected his grammar, dialect, pronunciation
nor taken it upon ourselves to change his words.
Audience (laughter) is noted; he was a master at keeping the mood up!
(Audience participation is parenthesized and separated from his words.)
When Dr. Bob emphasized a word, it’s in italics.
[Anything that offers clarity is italicized inside brackets.]
NOTE: Though there are 6 CDs in DropBox, Nos. 5 and 6 are repeats of 1 through 4. The repeats are omitted in this transcript.
CD 1 of 4
Good mornin’!
(Good morning!)
How are you, pretty one?
(Great!)
Oh, man, you look bright this morning! How are you, Darlene? You look alive, too. You know everybody looks a lot more alive on a workday than they do on a holiday. (laughter)
(It’s like a good ballgame is on!)
Well, whatever it may be, some way holidays must be different. Everybody looks different on a holiday, you know. They’re barely able to move and your eyelids droop...
(It was good – school day was especially trying on a holiday.)
There's a study that comes from somewheres, probably Japan or China or Korea or somewheres over there – that's got a little thing that says if your lower eyelids hang down and you can see the white of the eye below the iris, why, you're fallin' apart at the seams. And there sure was a bunch of people fallin' apart at the seams yesterday, but this mornin' the lower eyelids have arisen, so it looks pretty good. Yes, dear?
(What happened is we had too much homework.)
Homework? I wasn’t aware of it. (laughter) It’s experimentation.
So, being as everybody looks kind of enlightened this morning and bright and shiny, why, will we go back to some fundamentals that will cover what we talked about yesterday; but we will use entirely different terminology. Sometimes it's very interesting to become acquainted with various terminologies that's saying the same thing. We are quite prone to get bogged down in words. So, in order to talk about the same ideas – the principle behind the things or the meaning of things – we'll use different words this mornin'.
At the top of the board we have the word “open”. Now to be open is probably the greatest thing we can do. To be open is to be vulnerable, isn't it? You know, you got the door open, why you're vulnerable to whatever walks in. But basically we are very interested in being safe. As we walk about and indulge in our favorite occupation of people-watching – and the best people to watch is number one, you know; you always got at least one people to watch, this one [points out to himself] – it's very interesting to see how they operate.
The people-watchin' business brings out that the person is interested in one thing – bein' safe. And it's really not much use in workin' away with that being safe. A man told me one time that was kind of bothered to be safe, because you never get out of this earth alive anyway. So you know, what's the bother? But in not being open to whatever comes along, we become very busy making something important. [starts writing on the board]
When we make something important,
we have closed off the possibility of the Point of Awareness.
Now, the mind is very interesting to people to watch because it constantly tries to make things important and get itself in the act. Rather than to be the subject, it wants to be the object. It's gonna do the lookin', you know. So, in order to be purely objective we find that we have to raise our consciousness, our Point of Awareness, up upon above this thing that says, “The whole purpose of living is to be comfortable and that the way to get it is to have my way now, to stick up for my rights, to please everybody else, to listen to my authorities, to be different, and to blame somethin'.”
So we put in a Point of Awareness right here that kinda goes into a little bit of X and into the Awareness. Now, that Point of Awareness has been called in some language
“The Engrafted Spirit.”
You know, “engrafted” is somethin’ you bring in and hook on, and it starts to grow there. It’s not engrafted until it starts to grow. So, when it begins to be a part of the being.
Now, the first thing that it does, as we recall, is to observe everything without any idea of changing it. It looks at things and sees them for what they are and it describes it only. It does not evaluate. It does not take it as “something I should do.”
Now, most START HERE Teaching’s been given through the ages by Teachers – of which it’s all the same down through the years, on many different sets of words for it – always talks about the Teaching.
Now, a man that wants to be safe
listens to the Teaching
and changes it into a commandment.
He says, “This you told me would work pretty good and this is something to observe.” And now he says, ‘’Well, I'll do that and that'll make me more comfortable’’ and that's where he misses the whole point.
So when we notice that missing the mark – missing the point – missing the meaning... The point of anything means its meaning, doesn't it? Missing the meaning has been called, and is until this day called, “sin.” And the wages of sin, we're told, is death. And on the way through there – and it doesn't mean that somebody is a dirty, intentionally mean old man or girl or anything else. It means that they do not have sufficient understanding – not because somebody intentionally is bad, because we all know that what anybody does, at the moment they’re doing, they feel it is right or proper or justifiable. But regardless of that, if we do not have a Point of Awareness, are not open and we do certain things, we will destroy ourselves. And, of course, that doesn't only mean the physical destruction of the body after a while. We're already dead according to spiritual understanding, to the integrated ideas. Man is dead when he is missing the mark.
Now, when we say, ‘’Well, let's see that nothing is important,’’ the Point of Awareness looks out here and says, “All right, this one is makin' it important.” And we see that this importance leads in [corrects himself] making things important leads into rather destructive things happening. So, immediately we make it important not to make anything important. Now we have really compounded the issue and it becomes completely entangled and is lost in the situation.
To be open is to be vulnerable or “unsafe” – if we could, please. Now the reason, of course, that we immediately want to change is we feel that now if I make it important not to make this important, I will get to feel better or I will be more comfortable. We're back on the sensory level.
Now, if the Point of Awareness discovers this and sees that the mind is making something important, it merely reports, “Those kids down there are makin' something important,” and just lets it go. And it doesn't start hollerin', “What should we do about it? What we are going to do? What's the right thing to do?” or anything else. And that is to let it disappear in a little while. The anxiety, which is the result of these, is not there.
Now, when we are not anxious about anything and not trying to change anything, it really doesn't matter too much what's goin' on down in that bunch of little kids – the Gentiles, or the devils, or whatever you wanna call em. The conditioning has then had its power taken away from it because its only power is that it sets up an anxiety, which as we recall over here on the Vicious Cycle, is the way it comes about.
Now, if we can be open to say, “Yes, there is conditioning in this being here. It is making almost everything important,” I'm just reporting that. I am not judging it. You know one of the Teachings we looked over yesterday was “judge not.” [writes it on the board] And don't condemn anything.
Now we are quite prone to condemn almost immediately. Now, there is a story that has a little connection with it that a great teacher said he did not judge nor condemn anyone and he described off to this a little bit. He said, “You judge accordin' to the flesh and you condemn accordin' to the flesh, accordin' to the senses.” The very few minutes after this, some people wanted to find out, apparently – brought in a woman that they had found having illegal co-habitation with somebody down the street. So they said, “What are you gonna do about this?’’ Moses said, “Slaughter her, stone her to death.” And it seemed to be so important to him [refers to thee great teacher] that he played tic-tack-toe on the ground with his stick. And finally they pursued the question a bit and he looked up from his tic-tack-toe game and said, ‘’Well, the one of you that's never missed the mark in your life and the things you've intended to do in the flesh, throw the first stone at the girl, kill her.” [Talking to somebody on the side – “That’s all right with me, I don’t care.”] So he went back to his tic-tack-toe game and in a little while he looked up and only the woman was there. And he said, ‘’Where are they, all your accusers?’’ And she said, “They took off one by one, startin' with the oldest and come on down.” Hmm?
Now, of course you take this on the next level where we are talking about things to see the meaning behind it. The meaning, when we have set up as something very important and we have got in conflict and stuff over here, this is called “adultery” from scriptural language. And really not very concerned about the other one frankly, even though it was kind of unnecessary. So then this became the thing that was involved. And he said he did not condemn it. Now, all these people were very anxious, “What should we do? We've got a conflict goin' here, what should we do?” And he said, “Throw a rock at her and just be done with it. If you never did any of this stuff.”
So the anxiety is taken out. Now, what power does anything have if you don't make it important, if you don't become anxious? The anxiety is the power of the thing, is it not? So we look down and we find that our conditioning is throwin' a tizzy over, we'll say, jealousy for a good start. It’s really kickin'. It's hollerin', “I'm not safe, somebody's gonna get something that I hold very dear.” So the Point of Awareness says, “This is called jealousy,” and it doesn't try to change it. Now ordinarily, of course, the first thing we do we got to stop something. We gotta get of out here – either we gotta stop the threat that we, the conditioning, saw, or we gotta quit makin' the person important to us, or we gotta do somethin' big, is that right? That correct?
And there isn't a thing in the world needs to be done except just report it to X that these kids are kickin’ around down here and callin’ this jealousy. Well, in a little while you may look around and you’ll see that one of em is very greedy to get something – oh, it just couldn't live without that new Eldorado, you know. But there's no way to get the Eldorado and so it's very anxious to get it and so then this little thing says, “This is called greed.”
This Point of Awareness is an Engrafted Spirit of compassion.
It’s a love that sees things as they are without making a judgment.
In other words, it is the Christ Spirit that we have set in to use
to see the meaning of things.
It recognizes all things as just being what they are without making them important.
Now, when we cease to make something important where is your conditioning? Huh? Where is it?
(Here.)
We let it die.
In other words, you neglect something long enough, it will die.
You take its total importance away from it and it dies.
So, there is a little part of us that can die. Now, we sometimes jump all to pieces at the very thought of something in us dying. But you know we have the symbol again, if we want to look at it, of the human body. There is thousands and thousands of cells die every day and not a one of us is concerned about it. In fact, sometimes some of us go through great efforts to get some of those cells to die, you know. Don’t you, Meryle?
(Yes, I do.)
Stupid little things just won't die because we've made it important they die and there they set. But you see we never think that something in me can die, so that something else can rise up in its place. Now this [Point of Awareness] can only grow and expand. This is that little seed that can be planted. It's “the lump of leaven.” It is the treasure that's buried in a field somewheres and then it can grow. It can be achieved, it can be realized when we let something die. And the way you let something die can also be used by the term “dispose of it.” How do you dispose of things? Just let it lay around; soon it’ll get gone. You don't take care of it, it goes, is that right? Do you ever have a house that you didn't live in and had nobody else livin' in and just left it sittin' somewhere? Do you ever have that? You pretty soon find you have disposed of it. There's not much left, you know, it just falls down.
So, anything not in a state of use begins to fall apart – it dissipates and it dies and goes away. So that every time this dies or dwindles down, this increases in size – the Engrafted Spirit, which is the Spirit of non-judgment. The Christ said He judged nothing, condemned nothing. Now, before we get tangled on that, there's the word [judge] is used two ways. One is to evaluate many things that he hadn't studied yet, which he said he had many things to judge of the world yet, because he hadn't got around to evaluatin' em all. But he did not condemn.
The word “judge” is also used as to condemn somebody, you know. You take you down to the judge and he says, “Thirty days and $100,” you know? Thirty and a hundred. And so most often our thinking in terms of “judge” is always that it means condemn in some way or another. And it doesn't necessarily mean that. It can mean to evaluate things. In other words, investigate and evaluate and see it and see what its meaning is behind it.
Now, when we begin to see this, we have started this “pearl of great price,” we have started the fig seed to grow to make a big tree, or the mustard seed, whichever term you want to use. We have started with the lump of leaven that can go through all three measures of meal and leaven the whole bit. Or we can just ignore it. But now, when we start off that we're gonna change something, we first have to see that this business down here, the fragmented Awareness – which is split into the Chooser, “A”, and “B” – is purely mechanical. It works just like a machine. As George said to us yesterday, he gets up in the mornin' and says, “Well, it's time to go to work,” and it goes to sayin’, “Well, should I go to work? Should I stay at home? Should I do this?” Blup, blup, blup, blup. It's just like you got up and pushed a button on a record player and it starts playin'. It's mechanical.
Now, these mechanical things you cannot completely obliterate and by effort one part of the machine kickin' at the other part, it just gets a knock in it, you know. All it does – maybe hisses a little bit, but it just goes on with its mechanical behavior.
So there is nothing that the machine can do about the machine.
It has to come in – the Point of Awareness, the Engrafted Spirit, the spirit of Awareness, the Spirit of seeing, the Spirit of non-judgment. And we say, “Fine, now I can begin to observe this thing,” huh? You can do that, can't you? And your little girl can do that, huh?
No problem at all for the little child to do it. Begins to see that well, there's nothing important over here; but she begins to watch all these little kids hollerin'. She sets at the table and tells em all the little games they wanna play, is that right? Miss Norma has a little girl, three years-old, that very well listened to two or three little points from Norma. And she probably understands it better than any of the rest of us, right?
(Right.)
Because it's not complicated. She's not educated. She hasn't got a thousand theories to work on. And somewhere it said unless you become as that little child and leave all your theories and stuff and say, “Well, that was a buncha’ things that the machine learned down here,” it's recorded in the machine. But what difference does it make? You see, the machine says, “You got to evaluate, square, and make certain every point of the machine.”
[someone enters the room] Who are you looking for, Ma'am? [side talk and laughter]
So without having this Engrafted Spirit, the Spirit of pure open Awareness – not trying to prove anything, not trying to change anything, just being aware, just reporting, “This is called jealousy, this is called anger, this is called confusion, this is called wantin' to be safe, this is called makin' things important,” – and when that is just simply reported, then X can remove these things. Man cannot do it, no way under the sun.
There is no way you can undo that machine – you made it.
Yes, George.
(Without the Point of Awareness, can you simply report anything?)
No.
(Because you always _____) [break in tape]
Right. So, without putting the Point of Awareness, the Engrafted Spirit, on this thing out here, there is no way we can simply report because it's an automatic judging. Every thing on here is set to judge. First this judges what's good and bad, what's safe and unsafe. This judges it's the way to get it. This judges the way to get it. This judges good–bad, good–bad, good–bad. It is a set of opposites, isn’t it? “What if.”
(I feel like a dog chasin' my tail.)
Right. When you get in there, you is a dog chasin' his tail. It's the snake swallowin' his own tail and he can't ever quite get it all swallowed, you know, it starts running out again. (laughter)
(I don’t quite see how this Point of Awareness comes into being?)
Comes into being by being announced and taking a new place of Awareness. Some people tell me when you can sing that you can “place your voice” – being unable to sing I don't know what's meant by that, but I've heard the phrase. Does anybody know how to sing?
(all talk)
Yeah. How about that, Cookie? Can you place your voice at different levels?
(Yeah, you’re asking the wrong person.)
(It is Kaye Lynn.) (all talk)
Kaye Lynn. How about that, Kaye Lynn? Can you place your voice at different levels, different places – singing different keys or whatever the thing may be, huh?
(I think I found out one day it all depended that instead of thinking of places down here, that this relaxes me to get different tones.)
Right, okay. So instead of placing the attention here, you place your attention on observing. How does it come there? You just make it, right now. It comes because you see a point. It is the discovery that there is a way to look at things without judging them – discovering that you can't look with this apparatus and come up with anything, only just going around and around and around and around. So now let's run a little experiment, George. You can take a new point of where I exists. Instead of “I” jumpin' all over the place in here, each one of these at one moment or the other calls itself “I” and that's when the dog's chasin' its tail, okay?
Let's say we take a new point. We frequently read in literature that somebody went up a mountain, okay? Somebody went up into a higher place. Somebody took a new point – in other words, you got a new Point of Awareness, a new way of looking at things. And we can do this. Without trying to change anything we can take on a new point. So without trying to do this, we set up here and we say, “All right, I'll look at old Bob and that’s confusion – that's called confusion. I'll look down in here and I see that he is all torn up about whether or not he's gonna do a good job today or not. Okay? That's called anxiety. Don't try to change it. Don't try to do anything. Don't look at it as a commandment or anything of the sort. It's just something you see.
So you look down here and you see the belly brain is in a big loop just really carrying up a storm and makin' it all important: what if this happens, what if that happens, it's trying to anticipate the future. And you say, “That's called anticipation anxiety.” And you just let it be – you don't try to change that anticipation anxiety.
You see, where our difficulty arises is that we have found only one purpose in living: that is to be safe, be comfortable, be secure.
Be comfortable, what-have-you.
All right, now we have set up, ran up in a mountain a little ways – we have taken a new view. If you're downtown in Phoenix, you can only see a few blocks at the most. But if you go up on top of Camelback and take a little look, you can see that whole town down there. It's all the way down – you can see Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, and Chandler, and mostly clear-free on a clear day. Sometimes you can see forever on a clear day. When you look and look and look, you see. Then you begin to see relationships instead of being involved in something. So it is merely taking a point. How to make that point? Just do it.
(Bob, would the what and the how fit in here at all, taking the what and leave the how alone?)
Well, it could… but somebody still wants to know how to do something, you know, and of course how to do something is still from here, which says, “Well, I want to make it important that I get it done right,” and so I got anxiety as to “how.”
You see, the “how” to do something is possibly
the greatest block on everything that we ever do.
We want to know “how” to do it.
We really don't even know how to stand up.
You know how to stand up, George?
(No. We played that game.)
You can but you don't, so then you can't. All right, but you don't know how. You can put the Point of Awareness, which is to raise oneself in consciousness, you can do it by beginning to observe and say what it’s called [blank in tape] And I only say that's what it is. But then you know, you judge it. That's what it's called. “That's called greed.” “That's called anxiety.” “That's called conflict,” okay?
(I think the thing that’s been bothering me is the fact that the way you talk about these different types as if they were separate people. I don't see it as separate people. I just see it as different sides of me.)
Okay, that's all right. Call it the same thing. That's out of George’s doin' so and so, okay – it's immaterial. That's… terminology is so immaterial. The point is whether you are judging it or not, you see?
(I think I've been judging myself because I can't see them as individuals.)
In other words, if somebody else said it that way, that must be the right way and therefore it's important that I see it like they see it?
(Yeah.)
Yeah. And then I'll be doin' it right and I'll be safe and secure and play right.
(And not wasting my time.)
And not wasting any of my time. Because my time is very important, and I got to make it very important that I don't waste any of my time. Right! So suppose that it doesn't matter how you do it as long as you can put the Point of Awareness there. It doesn't matter what you call this. You can call it the subconscious mind. You can call it “A” and “B” and “C”. You can call it a devil. You can call it George 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 – whatever, you know. What's in a name? It still smells the same way, George. (laughter) It's still a dead dog. (more laughter) It's still there. It's still what it is, okay?
All that matters is can I observe it without judging it and without trying to change it. That I sure can do. There's no trouble, no effort.
(My little boy said something on the way when I went to drop him off and that was a good lesson. There was some crumpled paper and it was kinda dark and ıt was on the road, and he said, “Oh, mother, there's a cat with its head off.” I said, “No, Robby, that’s just some paper.” And then his whole attitude changed.)
Sure, the cat was important. Paper isn’t, you see. So it all depends on what you look at, okay? He responded as to what he saw, not what was really out there.
(Well, now you said that you could certainly look at things without judging or trying to change them....)
Mm-hmm...
(But as long as we have not yet permitted the Point of Awareness to occur, I don't see how....)
Well, as long as we will not arise in consciousness a little bit, as long as you refuse, there's no one in this world can make you, sir. I'm the only guy in the world that can wiggle this finger. You can easily bend it, but I'm the only one who can wiggle it. You're the only one that can set the Point of Awareness there. I cannot do it. I cannot force you and have no desire to. If you don't want to set it up there, nobody says you should. I'm only saying you can – if you want to.
And I'm not saying you even should, George. It's totally immaterial. But if you want to put it there, there's nothing in the world to keep you from it. Because…
That spot of Point of Awareness has been in all of us all of our life
and we have never used it.
That the fact that you have a great treasure
and you don't want to use it…
leave it to your grandchildren.
You know. [chuckles] It's all right. It's immaterial. And if you wanna live in the basement and say, “Oh, they tell me there's a big house upstairs there, but I'm not goin' up there cause I don't see how it can ever be mine. I've never seen it. I was born in this basement, I have lived in this basement, and I can't believe there's a house up there. So I'm not gonna look. I'm not gonna even peek to see.” So that's entirely up to you.
(That reminds me of the woman who always saved everything for another day. She got something nice for Christmas and she put it away for later.)
Sure, don't hack it out for usin’ it ever day.
(And she died and the second wife really enjoyed it.)
Good. So save it for the second husband. (laughter) He'll enjoy it.
So the Point of Awareness is a great treasure.
It's likened to a pearl of great price.
It's likened to a treasure.
It's been likened to many things we had it on here yesterday. If you wanna use it, it's available. But if you insist that “No, I live in the sub-basement, I was born in this sub-basement, and you can tell me there's a big old house upstairs there and a big mansion with lovely oriental carpets and beautiful, fantastic furniture and all the decorator’s art in the world that even Bruce would have trouble gettin' there.” And you say “Well, I don't believe it. I’m not… that's not mine, I'm not gonna have it.“
So unless we accept these things… And what do we have to give away? Our desire for certainty – that's the things we “own”, you know. We said, “Well, I don't know what it's like, I'll find out.” This is when we open our mind a little bit and we begin to look. We cease to make it important.
[End of CD 1]
CD 2 of 4
[repeats end of CD 1]..... these things and
What do we have to give away? Our desire for certainty.
That's the things we own, you know. We said, “Well I don't know what it's like, I'll find out.” This is when we open our mind a little bit and we begin to look. We cease to make it important. You know, we have been told so many times not to waste any time. We've only wasted ever how many years old we are now; it wouldn't seem that it would matter so much more to take a little detour about two minutes around the corner, you know. But nobody can make anybody else do it.
It's only as something the person can see that, as a purpose of living I’d like to evolve. Here is something that is supposed to be in me I have never used. It's supposed to be very valuable. It has been defined as “a pearl of great price.” It's been defined as a treasure in a field. It's been defined as about anything – or likened unto, rather than defined – it's been likened unto all the things that we can conceive of practically that we want, which means it's already there. But it is totally dormant.
It is a matter of moving upstairs instead of living in the basement.
That's about as easy a way as I know how to say it.
(You call it an engrafted Spirit. Now –)
That's one word for it.
(Okay, X is in everything...)
Right.
(..but that's how… Human beings are the only ones that then have an engrafted Spirit? I mean, a Point of Awareness?)
I haven't asked my pup and don't have one so I can't talk to em very well. I really am totally unconcerned as to whether the dog has it or not. If you do, that's fine. I have no concern with dogs and cats. I love em, but I really don't work with em.
(You said it’s been there all our lives.)
Oh, it's always been there.
(But again, it's engrafted?)
Right. When we start usin' it.
(Oh, I see.)
It's engrafted, it's there and it's not usable until you turn it on, is that right? It's just there. It's like you had a cutting from some place and you didn't engraft it onto a tree so it could be used, would that ever do you any good?
(Well, if I was a tree and there was a cutting somewhere, it’s really not my cutting, is it?)
Well, let's go the other way around. Suppose you're the cutting.
(Okay.)
Okay.
(Could the growth come from X at this point? And then –)
If it begins to be used, X will develop it.
But X will develop nothing for you unless you do your part.
You want X to develop big muscles for you?
(So would that be the engrafted part?)
It’s the intention. Start to use it. So you wanna use, have big muscles? You know what you have to do to get it? You gotta start exercisin'. X… who builds the muscles? X does. But you gotta ask for it. You gotta make a request.
You have to ask and you have to ask correctly
and how do you ask correctly?
You start using it.
Isn't that correct? Isn’t that the only way you get anything? You start using it?
(Readin’ a little bit about the Hawaiian healers…)
Kahunas?
(Kahunas...)
You've been readin' Max Freedom Long?
(The author that referred to them says _____. Anyway, he said that the Hawaiians have this notion that they can form in their mind a mold for the body and then the Spirit will melt the cells, so to speak, and re-pour it in the mold and then you got your human body. How ... That isn't a proper way to request it, is it? I mean, is that a –)
Well, that's one way of doing it.
(Did that work? That sounds like mind power…. or not?)
Well, it don't mean it won't work – it'll kill you in the process, but it works. Don’t ever underrate that hypnotic trances and etc. works a certain way. Do you want to produce a suggestion in something, it'll work; but that's called approaching the Kingdom of Heaven by violence. I've read the Kahuna work, too. And it was talked about that people came in by the wrong door and tried to take the Kingdom of Heaven by violence. You've read that, have you not, sir?
(I’ve heard it on Matthew 11.)
Well, I know numbers, certain numbers… but the idea. So you can get all these things by suggestion for very temporary states, okay? We're talking about approachin' it through the front door. Raise the consciousness to a level where you look – you have the ability, whether you've ever used it or not – every one of us has the ability at least in its stages there.
Now, can we use it? We can report. Now, several people here have used it and they're not any brighter than any of the rest of us. They're not any more brilliant or anything else and your little girl is no extrasensory genius, huh? But nevertheless, when we begin to do that, it begins to evolve. How can we do it? I don't know the “how,” but we can start using it. Do we see it work? We sure do. It begins to work as soon as we do. Start to use it and you begin to report what's going on in the subconscious mind.
Now then, X takes care of that just like you report when you eat that... How do you swallow, George? When you report, though, what you eat by the sensory taste, which you sent in and X prepares the proper juice to digest it and digests that food quite nicely – quite prepared without any concern on your part. But the one thing you must do is eat it. You know, you can't say, “Well, put it in there. I don't need to bother. My time's too valuable to stop somewheres and eat a few bites,“ huh? (laughter) “All right, my time's too valuable – I don't know whether this would nourish me or not. I’m not going to eat it until it’s proved to me that it's gonna work. No, don't bother me with it! Prove it to me!” No, nobody can prove it to you but you eat every day. And it works every day.
You also go out and play tennis and when you go out and play tennis, pretty soon you're a better tennis player than you were before. How do you get that way? X does it – you keep gettin' the idea through to it by what you're doing. Do you start off as a tournament tennis player? No, you start off as an amateur.
Do we start off as a highly evolved spiritual being? No, we start as an amateur; but we all wanna be experts the first day, is that right, brother Allan?
(Yes.)
Yeah, we wanna be an expert the first day. Man, if I'm not any surer than... If I can't do what the Christ did today, well there must not be nothin' to it cause there's bound to be some magic formula. Okay, George?
(Would this be similar to my little girl? She’s trying to learn the bike and she can’t balance herself on the bike.)
As of yet.
(As of yet.)
She's still trying to figure out how to do it. One day she sees what she wants to do and then she can ride that bike. But she's “trying” to do it now, George, and gettin' very frustrated. But one day if she'll see, “Well, I want to get to that door on this bike here,” and she's on the bike and says, “I wanna get to that door,” she’ll get there when she quits tryin' to figure out “how.”
Now, her block is figuring out “how” and wantin’ to be assured of how it's all gonna work before I do it. And I wanna be assured that it'll work at least as good as the best one I ever read about, is that right, Allan? Because if it’s just a little bit, it don’t mean a thing. You know? “I'm not an expert, I'm not fully evolved so it must be nothing to this. Because really only thing I'm interested in it is because if I can do it, I'll get a lot of applause.”
You know, we're really not interested in evolving,
we just want attention
so we can show off and show people what all powers we have and can do.
If we really wanted to grow, we'd be growing, right today.
But you see we want to experiment every day and, “Well, let’s see if I can do this. I'll read this book – here's the Kahunas. Man, those guys really did things – they could build a broken leg overnight. So boy, they got the magic formula.” Well, if you read it and understand it finally, you know how it'll come out? Same old thing. [chuckles] The man didn't become a Kahuna because he read Max Freedom Long’s book and said “Man, there's the formula.“
You see, what we would love is a formula.
Just tell me what it is and I will do it.
And that's what the Pharisee has: Give me a formula. And give me a cookbook and bring me the ingredients and get the mixin' bowl out. Get the spoon out and pour it in there. Now stir it up. I’ll help eat the cake, okay? [chuckles] That's why we cook, isn't it, honey? Yeah.
(Then Dr. Bob, if you make up your mind that you want to do anything, no matter what it is, and you just –)
And don’t be fiddlin’ with the how and just let it be and go on and start doin' what you can do…
(...then any art or anything that you want to take up, if you make up your mind I wanna do this...)
Say I’m going to.
(Not I want, but I’m going to.)
And don’t expect to be a Da Vinci the first day, huh? Don’t expect to be Da Vinci the first day. But that's what you want, isn’t it? To be a Da Vinci the first day. Huh? Yes. And if it is not a Da Vinci the first day, I say, “Well, I’d be shocked if it really worked. And it didn't work, so I'll throw it away. There wasn't nothin to this business to start with, this makin’ up my mind or anything, I’ll throw it away.”
How long do you think it takes a person to evolve into a spiritual being with abilities, with power, hmm? One day? To do the simplest thing. You think that's about the way it is or do you think it might take a day or two before we get our heads cleared around and placed in that way? What do you think?
(What I’m wondering about is whether it's gonna take longer than they’re gonna allow me!) (laughter)
If they’re not gonna allow me that much time, there's no use for me doin' part of it, is there? (laughter) Huh? I’ll go fishing. Okay? Kenny, go!
(Aren’t you gonna give them some assurance, damn it!?) (more laughter)
Thing about Kenny, he’d run after somebody else.
(Is there any way that God… the Teaching of a School like this, I mean, can a person just on their own arrive at some of these conclusıons?)
Ask somebody to find that out. Have to ask them.
(What I mean is, it seems to me like God's just playin' games with you then. You just come down here....)
Well, ask Him if that's what he’s doin’. Ask Him if that’s what he’s doin’.
(Well, I don't know Him! I don’t know Him now, I never have!)
Before you judge Him, you ought to at least get acquainted with Him. Before you started playin’ games, you ought to at least get acquainted with Him.
(But, you wouldn’t have known the reason to be born, and just come down here, flopping around makin’ messes all over the place.)
Well, He did do that but it does fertilizes the soil. (laughter)
(I'm wondering if Lem sat with you as long as he has and you’ve been saying this idea, calling this … this Point of Awareness saying this is what’s calling… this is going on. In other words, this is jealousy, this is anger, anxiety. You've been telling us that and my –)
Since the first day I met you, doctor…
(My ears have been plugged up?)
I don’t know whether it’s plugged up...
(Sort of a sense of reevaluating what’s going on.)
No, it’s a statement. It’s just a statement – what it's called. I didn't say, “It is that.” That would be judging. And that's called judgment. I don’t know what it is.
(I missed... –)
This' been goin' on all the time, Dr. Lem. Now, Cookie.
(If we’re willing to, okay, take time – say you want to paint and you’re willing to wait for the future, haven’t we still in the back of our mind made it important? Okay, I'm willing to give it 35 years to become Da Vinci, but I hope I become that. How do we know that– ?)
You probably can’t. (both talk)
(If you are willing to do it, whether you get that end result or not.)
Yeah. Are you interested in painting or are you interested in gettin' the applause? You know, ask yourself the purpose for what you want. You see the purpose is far more different than what you want. What do you want? You wanna paint? Is that your bit or do you want to get the applause that somebody says, “Here is a second da Vinci.” Is that answer your question, sweetie? Okay?
(Do you think you could really be aware of your purpose? It might be so deep that you can't …. you can’t be aware of it... You know you might think it’s a good purpose, and while I think it’s a good purpose, but way, way down there….)
If you think anything's good, then you're also thinkin' somethin' on the opposite side, so it's bad.
If you have a purpose, you have no good or bad concerned with it.
So if it does, you're already got a conflict going. Yes?
(This kind of reminds me in the short period of time when I thought I was catching onto this (laughter) and I sat down and wrote down all these great things that I was aware of. And the next day, I read Elbert Hubbard and he was saying some of the same things. He also said – I thought, gee, I thought that was original” (laughter) – and he said, “But I am telling you things that you already know, but you have to find out by trying them out.”)
Yeah, you have to sit down and look at it. In other words, you have to go up here. You already know about this, but if you never use it, you're not aware of it. So
What you know and what you're aware of
are two different things.
Like your memory and recall. You got a 100% perfect memory, but we sometimes have a very limited recall, okay? Darrol.
(I’ve said that those of us who have an LDS background are hung up with the concept of God being a man: you have to know the man in order to experience God.)
Well, if you have to know a man to experience God, I would say that is a reasonable approach. I believe that’d be correct. Would you like to get to know the man named Darrol? And if you begin to know him, I got news for you.
When you get to really know Darrol, you'll get to know God.
But there is one way – you gotta go first.
You gotta know Darrol.
You can't say “Well, without knowing myself, I'm gonna run over and know God and that's gonna take care of everything.” Okay? So if you know Darrol, then you will know the man, God, okay? I'll buy that. I’m 100% with you. Is that all right?
(I think if I understood this I would be...)
It’s always around. There’s a woman back there’s asking. So, she knows Penny and understands all Penny’s doin.’
(Oh, boy!)
She says, “Oh, my, I don’t want to be bothered! Why can't I have a formula?” You see,
The desire for a formula is the desire to be safe.
And that way we say we turn ourselves into Pharisees. Right? We want a little formula. We will take a break for 15 minutes.
[after the break] [Everyone talks a while after returning: 14:46 to 15:40 on the CD]
Okay, we’re ready to start again for a few minutes. Are we ready?
We talked about a door a moment ago of being open. So we'll put the “open door.” Now, the saying for the door is sometimes called “The Way.” And without having this door open… and we are the only people in the world that can open it. How do you open it is by being passive, that you are free to experience whatever may arise. Now this “free to” disturbs quite many people and possibly comes into being a point of misunderstanding at times because it is quite different. So we will try to elucidate a bit.
If I am free to experience whatever may arise in my way today, I'm taking that point… Mr. Ridge and I flipped backwards and forwards on yesterday about the book that said that
there was one thing that no man was given –
to know what he needed for his evolvement.
So whatever comes along in our way… if we're free to experience it. Now, that's an awful lot different than saying I'm going to experiment with drinking carbolic acid or various and sundry other little items like that. Or that I am free to jump off the top of the Getty Bank Building downtown, which we are. But you know the evidence is what's gonna happen pretty quick.
A man long ago was called onto this by Spirit down within him – one of these down here [referring to the not-I’s] said, “Yeah, man – we've discovered this, let's really show off now. Now let's jump off the spire of the temple and we won't even get our heel bruised.” And this man had a little understanding. He said, "Yeah, I know I could do that, but it's also written that “Thou shall not tempt the Lord, thy God,” – by showin' off. And you know it's awful easy to tempt and when we tempt, He usually shows us He knows how to handle it. He can produce headaches, bellyaches, and various and sundry other little arrangements like that.
But then we are free to experience what really arises. We're free to originate all sorts of strange things if we want to.
But I'm free to experience what's comin’ along. I'm free to experience this day without having a conflict that this shouldn’t have happened. Our usual approach to experiencing is wishing it wouldn't a been there and I’d had somethin' else to experience, you know. I don't like this… or as George said, “I sorta like doin’ it... I'm free to experience it.” (laughter)
(I'm sure you're gonna say you experienced this before.)
Okay, let's do.
(What we really have been doing – is not being free to experience what comes along by drumming up all sorts of things that we would have liked to experience.)
Now you're catchin' on, man. In other words, we try to originate what I want to experience rather than being free, passive, open to experience what is, is that right?
(Because I don't like what comes along, so ....)
Right. Right. Right. So
“I know what I need.”
So I am not an open door – I'm a closed door.
So I close the door.
I believe it was Darleen’s question yesterday – and she didn't stay here long enough to get the answer to it; freedom acted upon it or somethin'. (laughter) – what is meant by, “I am the door,” or “I am the Way,” or something. Was that the question yesterday – somethin' about that? I left it unanswered, huh? Come in, yeah, “Come in, sup with me.” And he said, “I stand without and knock. And if youwill open the door, I will come in and sup with you and you with me and our joy may be complete,” right?
But we close the door to experiencing what is put here for us to learn,
the thing we really need to experience,
and then we originate somethin’ we want to experience.
We said, “Boy, I'm free to do that – man, yes, yeah I can get more attention this way and I can get lots of notoriety and I can show that I am really somethin’,” huh? No. But we want to be free to experience what life sets in front of us today, you know?
So, Life sets up in front of me that somebody's runnin' off with Rosemary, you know. So I get all torn up, want to clobber him on the head and all this stuff. Who cares, you know? I think the world of her, but if she wants to go, goodbye, you know. Let’s take off. I'd like for her to stay around, but I'm not gonna make it important because if I did, I wouldn't enjoy her. And I enjoy her very, very much. And sometimes, you know there’s been days that something happens that I didn’t like, but I'm free to experience it. Now what's our usual approach when something happens? We're not free to experience that. We raise holy hades to get it back the way we wanted things how I wanna experience it.
Have we got an open door or have we got a very closed door, huh? What have we got? We got it closed, shut, barred, locked, then two padlocks on it, and then we push the furniture against it. (laughter) “Now, I'm not gonna experience that – I don't need to experience that, I don't like it,” hmm? “And I'm gonna experience what I want to experience!” and that usually backfires, too. Yes, Cookie.
(Okay. To further clarify... if we're free to experience what arrives on our path today…well, what if somebody else originated something they want to arise in your path? Are you free to not… I mean… you are the originator of that. Are you being free to go and experience what’s in your way?)
Are you askin' me or are you’re askin' if you are?
(No, I don't know. If that makes me ...)
(What should I do?) (laughter)
I have to refer you to your authorities. (laughter)
(No!) (all talk)
Are you free to experience what's in front of you? Whether you like it or not, are you free to experience it? Or can you just ask Miss Laprell last night about the dog? You go down the street and see a lovely home and a lovely garden and you just, “Ooh and ahhh,” and around the next corner you go there’s a dead dog with his insides smashed out, huh? Are you free to experience that or do you … [mimics disgust], huh?
You see, are you free to experience? I don't care how it got there, who originated it, how it came into being – are you free to experience it after you got it goin' or whether it came along down your way? Nor am I going out and say, “Well, I'm free to rob gas stations.” Sure, you can do it, but there's… anybody knows you can do that. But the point is, are you free to experience what comes along today?
Maybe you need a little lesson on something or other
and only X knows about that lesson.
And so it happens to you.
Hmm? Are you free to experience it or do you resist experiencing it with a purple passion? Which do you do, sweetie?
Suppose that you, being a very attractive young lady and so forth, that you found it quite fun to flirt just enough to get the boys all lookin', you know? Just a little bit, huh? But one day you saw your husband doin' that. Would you come unglued at the seams? (laughter) Huh? It's different then, isn't it, huh? How would it be if you was free to experience him flirtin' a little bit – you want him to understand that if you do it, after all, it's just cause you're a girl, It doesn't mean a thing. Are you free to experience it or do you try to change that experience with ever bit of your ability, huh? What you do, sweetie? How 'bout you? You’re one of those cuties just like that.
(You better believe it.) (laughter)
You better believe it. (laughter) Free to experience it?
(I'm free to experience, but he isn’t.) (laughter)
That’s the way… Now you understand it. I am free to do this, but he is not. That's the way it works, isn't it? I'm gonna do it, huh?
(What about one of those flirtations with somebody and they got turned on and they can't turn off?)
Well, that's a possibility, isn’t it? (laughter)
(Well, are they free to go all the way?)
Well, you started it, didn’t you? (laughter) Mr. Allan Ridge came in this morning and asked about the Law of Karma, the Karmic Law. It's another way of saying balance. So if you plant something, what do you reap, dear?
(I don't know.)
(Can you be free to reap that, without this? I mean, if you decide… )
I didn't say what anybody should do.
(No, but ...)
You see, you're asking for that butter, fry with the butter and the eggs and everything, put em in a bowl and beat it up for you. We say that if you were conscious, you’d start seeing what you want to turn on. And then, but as far as that, then that's where your responsibility is. Now, there's some other things come along that you didn't have a thing in the world to do with, you know. Right? Experience it freely. There's some things you definitely had somethin' to do with – that's what you plant; you're gonna reap things. Okay?
(I think maybe – the thought comes to me at least that maybe some people are getting hung up on this “free to experience” bit and forgetting....)
That's the understatement of 1969! (hilarious laughter for a long time)
(They're talking about turning somebody on, and then are they free to experience goin' all the way on that. But they're not looking all the way... )
Right.
(To what happens beyond that. That's where we turn on the faucet in the bathroom and in the bathroom there is a lovely carpet in that bathroom….)
Then the drain is stopped up.
(And they go out and leave that faucet on and it ruins the rug. I mean, look all the way.)
Well, what? They’re free to do it, you know, but then you just buy a new carpet, you know; but –.
(But then that brings you to bankruptcy__)
..right, you start being free to bankrupt. (all talk) There's a tremendous difference between goin' out and planting something and having it happen than to have it come along, you know. We've all had things that just come into our environment, hmm?
Now let's change it around and instead of a good lookin' man you wanna go out and flirt with, let's say that you're walkin' down the street and a dirty bum comes along. And he's bleary-eyed and he looks like a wino from ten years back and he falls over and faints right in front of you and he’s practically passed out, huh? And he did pass out there, and you're the only person in sight. Now let's see that… You didn’t have anything to do with him comin' along there, right? And he's a dirty old bum, not an attractive, good-lookin' man who might flatter your vanity by seein' how pretty you look and so forth and so on. What would you do about that?
Now you've had something that you see whether you’re gonna be free to experience this situation or not, okay? Huh? Now we're talkin about a little different thing. The other one you plant it, man, you reap it. If you go off and leave the bathroom faucet running, you pay for the carpet. Who cares, you know? That's your business. You planted it. That you reap. Now, “Whatsoever a man plants, that also shall he reap.”
But let's take one – now we got a different one – an old bum, he's an old wino, an old timer. He hasn't been sober in years and mostly his brain’s kind of squished in. If you opened his head and looked in there, the brain’s even purple. What would you do, then? Now are you free to experience that or do you say, “Oh well, he's an old drunk – he just passed out.” And then I go on down the street lookin' for somethin' I'd like to experience, you know (laughter) – like a good-looking man to flirt with or one of those little things, huh? That's where we settle that.
Now are we free to experience it? No, we haven't been free to experience that because that's not somethin' I want to experience, huh?
(I talked with a man not too long ago who did that and somebody wouldn’t give him a bath, so the next day he bought the establishment and fired the man.)
Right, I know that man. The old drunk walked in and they, you know, didn't want no old drunks around. He come back the next day and said, “How much you want for this place? I'll buy it.” And he bought it. Incidentally he could’a bought six more of em while he was at it and never bothered with it.
(Dr. Bob…now, my background has taught me that we should always help somebody. So if I help that drunkard maybe it wouldn’t be because I was free to do it, but because I'm basically responsible to help my fellow man. Now–)
So you're still livin' by your authorities, is that what you’re doin’?
(No, I'm not living cause I was free, I live there and somebody needs help, I must help them.)
I don't know whether he needs help or not.
(Well, obviously… )
The point is would you have any compassion for an old drunken bum or would you do it out of duty?
(Well, this is it. Now if I do it for duty, I'm not free.)
Oh, no, you're just doin' what you have to and you're just as conditioned as you were if you was conditioned to run from him.
(Well, now what am I gonna do about it? I'm conditioned to that. I don't wanna be conditioned, but I would like to help him.)
So you look and say, “I’m conditioned to help, cause this one here is workin' and this is called helping and I'm gonna be a Good Samaritan,” and go on and do it, whatever difference. What difference does it make what you do?
It [X] is far more interested that you're aware of yourself
than It is what you do.
Anybody have any questions?
(Dr. Bob, I had tried to do exactly as it happened.)
Yeah, I know.
(Bob, I had that exactly happen.)
Yeah, I know.
(_____ and I saw him in an apartment, he was at the door and layin’ with his head down, so I thought, “Should I leave or shouldn't I?” So I thought, “No, I’ll talk to someone else.” So I went up and called at the first door up there and he didn't know anything. So he called the gendarmes and they came along and they thought if nobody knew him, they took him. And I remember, a long, long time ago…They just threw him right in the back end of a police car and wacked his head up on there and they disappeared. So there's a thing that ___ I think I helped him.)
Well, I don't know if you helped him. You passed him off on somebody else. (laughter)
So when we are open. we have opened that door so that Spirit can come in and sup with us enough with that we have opened the door to freely be aware.
Now possibly the best way I've seen it expressed and they're not my words are – passive, ......
[End of CD 2]