SOM English - Harmony Workshop

We have been observing how X functions, how I functions, how the body functions. Today we are going to start taking up the task that we will be with for a long time, one of the most interesting tasks anyone ever undertook: That of I disidentifying from the self, from the Not-I’s, from John or Mary as the case may be. The word used for disidentifying in olden times was to renounce or to dispose of, in other words, cease owning it. If one renounces the self, one ceases to claim it. To disidentify is to cease to claim, cease to treat the same as I, to renounce it, it is no longer. Another word that was used was to deny. So I deny that John is I. John is a piece of conditioning, a whole group of conditioned things that makes up a personality.  Now all personality, all the many I’s or the aspect of self or the conditioning that makes up personality is serving the four dual basic urges which are called, in some literature, “mammon” — the urge to gain pleasure and comfort, to escape all pain, to gain attention, to avoid being ignored or rejected, to gain approval and to escape disapproval, to gain a sense of importance and control over other people, and to escape the sense of inferiority or the inability to control others.The personality is referred to, in some material, as the Scribes and the Pharisees. That they are intent upon having the favorable attention of men, of gaining their approval for their pious behavior, and believing and doing as they were told by authority the law. Of course, the A side of that situation, the one that wants to complain to get its way, stick up for its rights and blame, was called Gentiles. But all of it makes up the personality and there are two aspects of it and they are at war with each other. There is an enemy within to the enemy within.Now I neither identifies with the Scribes and Pharisees or the Gentiles; it renounces them both. It disidentifies from them and reports merely what is going on in that thing called personality. It is now serving X, which is its nature. It is the awareness function of X and it is being obedient to its nature to be supplying accurate information to X as to what’s going on. Now the house has been taken over by usurpers and the first chore of I is to observe the usurpers, report them to X, and X will take care of rendering them inoperative or removing them or whatever it does. However, one will notice that when once or twice when something is really observed and reported to X then one doesn’t see that particular Not-I again. Another one will take over and be quite as effective in its effort to serve mammon, but they will be diminishing, everyone one observes.Before one takes up this disidentifying, which seems like something strange, it’s something different from anything that we have ever done, the first thing one does, of course, is question the purpose of living.  As long as we accept, take for granted that the purpose of living is to gain pleasure and escape pain on all levels, to have attention and approval, to have a sense of importance, to be able to control and manipulate other people by whatever means we use, to avoid being ignored or rejected or at least find an excellent justification that says they were pretty stupid if they did that, always avoid disapproval or justify that the person who did the disapproving was picking on me, not seeing clearly etc., and the sense of inferiority, as long as these are identified with, I is hypnotized, is serving mammon because all of them are an effort to keep them. No matter what goes on, it is serving mammon.So disidentifying is to renounce, deny as being I, the Self. It is to dispose of it and see it as an object. Now as long as we have as the purpose of living to be non-disturbed, that of mammon, we are dependent upon everything that offers it regardless of whether it be communism, whether it be some other ideology, whether it be a person that I gain some pleasure from. If I am dependent upon that pleasure then I am dependent upon that person, then I must guard and watch and “I” will feel jealous if they give attention to anyone else. “I” will be fearful lest “I” lose that source of pleasant attention and there is very apt to be violence. The inner man is in a state of violence as long as I is hypnotized by the Not-I’s and it is asleep. As I stands aside and is the observer, disidentifies, denies the self, renounces the self, and begins to report to X what’s going on in that self, what is happening in that house that was really rightfully his but now is pushed out because they have taken over, then one is reporting to X and is obedient to one’s nature. That is the greatest obedience there is. Without obedience to one’s nature one is identified and being disobedient to one’s nature because one is serving mammon and one is dependent upon every suggestion that offers pleasure and comfort or threatens pain.Now the things that one renounces, of course, are called riches, possessions. Now let’s talk about, not the house, not the car, not the property and the bank account which all the self does possess and we will leave it possessing those things, but let’s observe that it possesses opinions which it prizes highly and considers that “my opinions are always correct, other people’s are always wrong,” and that “I” must defend these opinions. You have probably observed a considerable amount of violence reported to X, a great emergency and X prepared tremendous amounts of energy to defend a mere opinion that may or may not have any validity whatsoever and no way of checking it out. One’s ideas that one has accumulated here and there are great possessions, great riches to the conditioned self. So I observes John defending opinions, claiming opinions, claiming ideas as “his.” He frequently says somebody stole his idea because somebody else was doing something similar. He feels very mistreated and sticks up for his rights to have sole possession or at least the credit or honor for that idea.He also claims thoughts, so John says, “My thoughts.” I observe John claiming thoughts and I can observe John’s thoughts. I may not be able to observe anyone else’s but I can observe John’s thoughts because I am assigned to observe this earthling, this self, and I observe those thoughts. I see that A puts up a thought, then B puts up a counter-thought and this is called “thinking.” Basically they are set off by associations — that is pushing a button. John had his face pushed in the Bermuda grass and beat up by a neighbor kid when he was five years old. Today he is allergic to Bermuda grass because every time he goes by the Bermuda he is about to be reminded of that kid who pushed him in the grass. He has a big account against the kid so he begins to cry and sneeze and feel mistreated and it’s said that he is allergic to Bermuda grass.To observe thoughts is most interesting because they are set off by association, and when it sets off one in an A association, B gets one that counteracts it. The person says, “I’m going to do this,” from A. Then B says, “Yes, but, this might happen if you do that.” And then A begins setting up another idea as it would have another thought and then B says, “Yes, but.” Or B originates an idea that we will do a lot of good and gain a lot of attention by giving a thousand dollars to the Boy Scouts. A says, “Yes, but if you do that we can’t get the boat and we do want the boat.” B says, “Yes, but if we get the boat we won’t be able to give the thousand dollars and somebody might say that we were just showing off.” A says, “But it won’t be showing off, it will be providing something for the family to enjoy and I’m getting it all for the family.” We can listen to the justifications, so I will observe thoughts. The thoughts of A, the thoughts of B, and the resultant contention going on between them until one can overpower the other and talk in the name of I to report to X.When I is observing this going on their story is intercepted by I. I is now the mediator between self and X. Before, I was hypnotized and the self was speaking in the name of I directly to X. Now I is on the job and is the mediator who screens all the material that the self is rambling around with. So there begins to be an entirely different state of affairs. No longer can the self report directly to X because I has awakened from its hypnotic sleep and arose from among the dead ideas and is now reporting what is going on in the self. It reports what “I” has as a treasure and where “I’s” attention continually is, the false “I.” The false “I,” the self’s attention is all on the treasure of the four dual basic urges. It holds this out as the great treasure and it continually attempts to gain it. It uses every contention to both A and B to get it. The self is ever involved in war and it never gains the non-disturbed state. It’s always a little bit held out in the future.But as I, the real observer, begins to observe this one realizes that the four dual basic urges are a fallacy, it is an illusion — that the struggle towards that illusion is the disintegrating factor that has brought man to a disintegrated state of fighting jungle wars with each other, to hating each other, to contending constantly and that within there is the battle going on between A and B. His outward world is merely an outward expression, in society, of each individual’s inner state. One sees that while one is identified with the Not-l’s one is bringing about all the things that the Not I’s say they don’t want. They want pleasure and comfort but they’re doing everything possible to bring about dissension. The want attention and they do everything possible to have one ignored. As one observes this one has a complete change in values. We will not start to work on the values yet. I is merely observing the action of the self, all the many Not-I’s, all the bits of conditioning. One is observing personality. As one observes this, this personality becomes rather passive. It is

We have been considering, for the past several weeks, becoming acquainted with the self, with the mechanical conditioning. Recently we have been disidentifying from the self, to be aware of the self as an “object,” and I is an observer reporting to X that which is going on in the self so that the self does not report in the name of I directly to X and set off all manner of unnecessary, unpleasant situations that are destructive or disintegrating to the state of being. To further aid our observation we will consider some levels of consciousness and some levels of being, and as we observe these it may be possible to make an aim. Now an aim is not a goal. A goal is to arrive at a certain place, to achieve a certain result. An aim is a direction to go. So possibly, we will consider that an aim might be, to be able to see differently than we have heretofore seen in our conditioned state, and that as we are observing we will see differently.Now the greatest obstruction to man using the Teaching and possibly evolving into a different state of being, or having the ending of disintegration which means exactly the same thing, is that the self-improvement concept, the self-improvement suggestions since the earliest days of one’s existence is very, very strong — the urge to be different. As we observe the self and begin to be acquainted with it and we see some of the things in the self, a self-improving I attempts very strongly to get I, the observer, to identify with it and then start on a program of self-improvement. This is to fall back into the world. If one should discover that one has done so it is not anything to be ashamed of, to regret. It is to say, “I’m awake and back on the job” and to be aware of that particular bit of conditioning.The Teaching says that there are four basic levels of consciousness and many levels of being. We will consider first the four general levels of consciousness:1.  The first is SLEEP. When one is asleep in the bed, under the influence of an anesthetic, under the influence of toxicity in the body from adaptation or in a state of coma, in this state of sleep, obviously, one is not responsible. One doesn’t do very much and only dreams go on, if anything. Some of the dreams are not recalled, some are recalled. They are merely the Not-I’s playing and are totally in sleep. I is asleep and I must sleep now and then. One finds that I uses tremendous amounts of energy in observing and must go to sleep now and then. However it does not have to sleep for years and it’s been in a hypnotic sleep for many years.2.  The second level of consciousness is called WAKING SLEEP. In other words the person appears to be awake, walks about, does all the daily chores, writes books, teaches college courses, performs surgery, repairs automobiles, cooks meals, builds buildings and all sorts of things. But this is a walking sleep or waking sleep because one is in a conditioned state and responds to the same mechanical responses; buttons can be pushed.3.  The third state of consciousness if called SELF-AWARENESS or AWARENESS OF THE SELF. It is paying attention to the self as an “object.” It is the one we have recently started on and it is a new state of consciousness. It is seeing the self, John or Mary, as an “object.” It is not condemning or justifying. It is an observer simply to be aware of the self. This is a new state of consciousness, a new state of looking at things, a new way of being, actually, from anything that we have ever known. We have always said I to everything.4.  The fourth level of consciousness is called OBJECTIVE AWARENESS or OBJECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS. One sees everything freely without identifying with anything, without having any ideal to compare it to or to look to. It is seeing everything objectively, reporting to X, and X does all the work. This, of course, is a state of consciousness that we may not experience for some time. These states of consciousness are not something one “can do.” They are something one experiences as the various Not-I’s, the bits of conditioning are rendered inoperative by X from the conscious paying attention to the self as an “object.” This is really the only thing one can do; the other states occur.In the states of being which are existent in each of these states of consciousness, there is more the one state of being under each level of consciousness. Under the level of SLEEP there is coma which can be brought about by toxicity or injury. There is bed sleep without dreams. There is bed sleep with dreams and possibly the state of consciously being aware of being asleep, however still physically asleep. There are three basic states of being, coma, sleep without dreams and sleep with dreams in the sleeping state of consciousness.In the WALKING SLEEP there are several levels of being. The first one is apathy. When one is totally under the control of suggestion and the particular type of suggestion that says, “What’s the use, everything will be miserable anyway.” If any of you have ever seen a demonstration of the hypnotic technique you will somewhat know a little more about this. A person can be hypnotized and brought into a certain level of sleep called somnambulistic which is not real easy and usually isn’t accomplished in the first many attempts of an operator to hypnotize a given subject. But it can be accomplished and the person looks for all appearances like everyone you see walking around. However, they are totally under the control of one operator. Whatever the operator suggests to the person, this is their state of being. If he suggest that they are paralyzed, they can’t move. If he suggested that they are a very strong athlete, they can do unusual feats that are not possible to him in their usual waking state when there is a conflict of interest. There are several hypnotists; all the Not-I’s working on him. As one could tell someone that they were in a very pitiful shape, they would sit down and be in a state of apathy, or one could say, “Your being terribly mistreated and you must defend himself,” and you would be very angry. The Not-I’s are hypnotists and they have hypnotized I, kept it sound asleep, and it reports to X whatever the hypnotists has to say.As there are many there are ever changing states. The first state of being in the walking sleep, the lowest one, is called APATHY. You may have seen people in apathy; you couldn’t get a smile out of them no matter how hard you try. You cannot get them to be enthused about anything or interested in anything, they just moan. Even their flesh hangs. If they raise up an arm the skin and the soft tissue hangs below the bone. Their whole face has dropped, their eyes look sad and they are in a woebegone situation. Of course, the physical body is functioning at that level, very erratically, and nothing seems to be functioning, usually, in itThe next level of being in the walking sleep state is FEAR. In fear the person has come under the control of a Not-I that is suggesting every conceivable dreaded thing is going to happen to him. This person believes that all sorts of catastrophes are going to occur. Earthquakes are going to destroy us. Inflation is going to destroy us. Illness is going to strike me. I will probably come down with cancer or diabetes or a brain tumor or some other dread disorder. I am afraid we’ll be without a job and we won’t have enough food to eat. I am afraid the house will burn down. A Not-I gets one frightened and can put one in a state of panic. You may have experienced it. You more than likely have. It tells you that something terrible is going to happen and all of a sudden you seem to believe it. The heart races, the palms perspire; the person is in a state of anxiety from every direction. This is fear. The person who has been under the control of a fear-producing Not-I over a period of time is usually considerably overweight. This is very simple because it is being reported to X that a great catastrophe is going to happen very shortly, soon, so the appropriate thing to do is store up food and water so every particle of nourishment that goes into the body is stored by X in response. It is the appropriate thing to do if one is going to be attacked, in a very severe situation, and unable to have food. It is stored inside the body. Generally these people are quite overweight and they’re quite sick because all the many things are occurring in the adaptation because these terrible states do not occur very frequently. As our entire society becomes more under the control of the suggestion of fear we have more and more people decidedly overweight.The next level of being in the walking sleep is HELD RESENTMENT. It really means HATE. It is a combination of fear and anger. The person is angry, feels they have been mistreated but afraid to do anything about it. This is a state of being where in one is continually seething inside, that one is constantly fighting “in imagination.” Sometimes there are violent killings in this imagination or producing all-manner of difficulties — it is “getting even with them.” In this state tremendous energy, of course, is being burned up in imaginary fights. But X does what from the information received from I that is hypnotized by the ideas of revenge and hate? This is continually drying up the body so it is burning all the excess. This person is usually rather skinny, somewhat wrinkled up. The face shows the signs of the attitudes that are working within. And, of course, they have all the symptoms that require adaptation from the continual state of preparing energy from the various hormones to prepare to fight or run, and it really isn’t being done except in imagination, so they have their share. These two states of being, fear and held resentment, make up most of the practice of any general practitioner physician. There is fat man and skinny man, whether it’s man or woman that fill up the doctor’s offices because they have the greatest number of ailments. Becaus

As we continue our effort of I observing the self, we are beginning to find that the self is a very complicated, complex and extensive organism. That it has been made from bits and pieces, that it is in a decided state of conflict. That it is at war, one side with the other, A with B, and that it has tremendous ability to hypnotize I. It is very cunning, it has been in charge of the house for a long time and it doesn’t want to lose it. It recognizes that it has to work in the dark and it makes every effort to keep I from observing it. So we will begin another practical effort of observing I, observing the self, John or Mary. First we will observe that thoughts are mechanical, that an association sets them off.Our first sheet today will be headed: What does this remind “me” of? As one observes the self continually being set into motion by similar situations in the environment, something that comes along the self identifies it as “being the same as,” because it’s “somewhat similar.” One person is served a given food. Sometime or other in the past one had a similar food and it was tainted and one felt nauseated or was forced to eat it as a child. One says, “I can’t stand it, I don’t like it.” Now I observes this association, and as we keep track of “What does this remind “me” of,” one will see much that has been a limitation to the organism, that has been experienced as limitation. It is no longer a limitation when one sees that it is a simple association and that associations are saying “now” is “then.” Obviously one sees that the self equates “now and then” and has a tendency to report to X that what went on “then” is the same as what’s happening “now.” It never is.Another one that I will observe the self-doing is that it continually replays records. In other words, it replays old events, and one can see it start by similar little associations that are set off; “This was like the time “I,” the self, was embarrassed.” “This reminds self of the time “I” was injured or hurt.” This is a powerful suggestion to get I, the observer, to identify with the self, replaying records. Let’s observe how often records are replayed. At the top of the page write, Replaying Records. Observe how many times in a week that the same incident is related, the same story told. The same set of thoughts leads down to where one is identified with the self and begins to feel sorry for self or to be angry or be resentful and one usually does not know how these states came about. As we are observing “What does this remind me of” we will see that telling a story will lead one into this unpleasant emotional state and that one will begin to feel and act as though now were then. This is a reminder for I to wake up and observe the self.Now another thing that is very interesting to observe is beliefs. Beliefs are something that one has been conditioned with that one has not observed, checked out for validity through the years. They have been accepted because they were told by authorities, taught in school, read in a book and this all went into the self and makes up the personality. Beliefs act automatically. One might say one thinks by association, the self thinks by association and lives or acts upon what it reports to X as based upon beliefs. We’re usually unaware of the many beliefs that the basic decisions or the six means of self-improvement the self has accepted as being true. So suppose we begin to check out these beliefs. Here are some beliefs that self believes that may not be true. Check them all as you have time during the week.“I” BELIEVE THAT “I” KNOW WHAT OUGHT TO BE. In other words the self knows what ought to be. It has known it all these years and everyone believes, without having checked it, that one knows what ought to be. We don’t like “what is” but we know that we would just be so happy if things were like they ought to be, and I know what ought to be, of course.Along with this, of course, is a concurrent belief: “I” BELIEVE THAT “I” KNOW THE FUTURE. If things were like they ought to be now, I know what the outcome would be. But do you know the outcome of anything a week from now, two weeks from now, a year from now, or any other time? “I know what the outcome would be if things, people and situations were like I know they should be now.” So we all believe we know the future. Let’s check it out and see if we really do. If we do not know the future then we don’t know what ought to be now and we’ve gone a long way towards eliminating that basic idea of the world that there are ideals of “what ought to be.”“I” BELIEVE THERE IS A LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. We’ve heard this all our lives that some things are causes and some things are effects. Of course, “I” usually feel that “I” am an effect and that you and everybody else are cause. “I” believing that every effect has a cause and every cause has an effect. This, of course, is a subdivision of that great idea of self-improvement, “That if others that are to blame would change everything would be all right.” So cause really is another word for blame, isn’t it? We might say, “I believe that every effect has everything that is to blame, and that everything that is to blame has an effect and it’s usually on me.”“I” BELIEVE “I” KNOW WHAT IS CAUSE AND WHAT IS EFFECT. We think we know what is to blame.“I” BELIEVE “I” KNOW WHAT IS GOOD AND WHAT IS BAD. Don’t we and do we really, or is there such a thing as opposites; or are there only states of being, “what is?”“I” BELIEVE “I” KNOW WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG. After all one is considered to be insane if one doesn’t know right from wrong. But do we? Do we only know what we have been taught was right according to the ideals of the world?“I” BELIEVE THAT ALL OTHERS ALL KNOW WHAT IS GOOD AND WHAT IS BAD, WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG, BUT THEY BEING PERVERSE, OTHERS GO RIGHT ON AND DO WHAT IS BAD AND WHAT IS WRONG. This is the only way I can feel disappointed, that I can get angry, that I can have my feelings hurt. It’s because I know that others all know what is good and bad, what is right and wrong, but they, being real evil people, go on and do wrong anyway, most especially those of one’s family.“I” BELIEVE “I” KNOW WHAT “I” NEED IN ORDER TO BE HAPPY. Of course, I believe I know what I need to be happy and I should be working for it. You see when a Not-I throws this at the I that is beginning to observe, it is awfully easy for it to catch it with suggestion and have it identify with that Not-I that is giving such a logical old-line set of reasoning.“I” BELIEVE “I” KNOW WHAT IS TRUE AND WHAT IS FALSE IN THE FIELD OF LIVING THAT RELATES TO ME. We all think we know what is true and we have never really checked it out. We are going to look and see if we really know what we believe. If I believe something I haven’t checked it out. If I really check it out, I’m aware of it, but that awareness is only good for this moment because things are altogether different and situations are different in another moment.“I” BELIEVE THAT “I” KNOW HOW TO GET WHAT “I” NEED TO BE HAPPY. “I know how to get it if there only weren’t so many people in the way interfering with it.” So the only thing I don’t know is “how to make all others see things like I do so that they will do what is right and good so I could then be happy.” This is what we don’t know and this is what most people who attempt to attend classes, who try to read books, who go to various kinds of mental helpers, are all trying to find out is “How can I make others do what I know they ought to do so I could be happy.” Of course, you put two people together with this same fundamental belief it is easy to see there’s going to be a fight. Not only is this between two people, it’s between A and B. A knows what ought to be in order to gain the four dual basic urges and B does. So there is conflict within. Then, of course, this is carried on beyond two people; it’s carried into two or more great ideologies, two great nations, religious groups, or what have you. Each knows that if they could just “make” everybody see what ought to be and what is really right and good, the world would be an utter utopia. But maybe that belief is entirely false.“I” BELIEVE THAT “I” AM ONE AND THE SAME PERSON ALL THE TIME. As we’re begin- ning to observe self, we see that all manner of different personalities arise and run the household for a little while; they go to sleep and another one runs it. We’ve believed this all our lives and it’s constantly being suggested. So it is one that I observes and reports to X; that there are many running in here and they are all talking in the name of I. It takes considerable awareness, maybe several weeks or months on the part of I not to get identified with these very logical sounding Not-I’s that carry these beliefs.“I” BELIEVE THAT “I” HAVE FREE WILL OR FREE AGENCY, BUT “I” ALSO BELIEVE WHAT YOU DO DETERMINES MY FEELINGS AND BEHAVIOR. Now there is a contradiction if we’ve ever seen one. I have free agency but I can’t exercise my free agency because of what you’re doing. “You are making me mad!” So we’re saying a contradiction and are unaware of it. To be aware of contra- dictions in the self is beginning to see the self. A says one thing, B says another. Ordinarily we only accept and take it for granted and we never notice the contradiction. Here is one of the great values of I observing the self as an “object,” it begins to see the contradictions. It begins to see A’s argument and it sees B’s argument which are definitely in contradiction, but they have only been up one at a time, or one thought it as though trying to arrive at a decision and one felt one was one trying to make a decision. But as one observes one sees first one and then another of a false personality takes over and attempting to get I to identify with it.“I” BELIEVE THAT “I” AM AWAKE AND FULLY CONSCIOUS OF ALL MY MOTIVES AND MY BEHAVIOR. But as we are beginning to observe we see that we have been asleep and that vari

We have all heard the expression, “The pure in heart and the clean in heart,” and, of course, generally have been taught to regard that as meaning we didn’t think about sex very often. However, the Teaching says that it is due to “Accounts Receivable,” that we have made accounts against people and that they owe us and that this makes the heart impure or unclean. It would be interesting if we obtain a small ledger book, possible not to small. In the ledger, write down the person name on the top of the page that we have an account against and then put all the different things they owe us.Now in many people this can start with parents or people who looked after one when the self was small. It can include schoolteachers and children who were the peers with the child when growing up. It can include various brushes with people in authority. Whatever the case, we will make a ledger putting the person’s name at the top and then the incident in which they owe us, in other words they mistreated us in one form or another. Then we’ll put, over on the other side, what they owe us. We will discover that what they owe us is impossible for them to ever pay. If we say they owe an apology, they owe an apology. So they apologize and what do we put down then? Have we fully forgiven the whole thing, forgotten about it, or did we say they didn’t really mean it? They were just saying that so I would feel better and we still have the account marked unpaid.This is called a burden and most people are weighed down with great burdens because they observe everything and everyone they are in relation with as being somewhat of a slur, somewhat of a damage, somewhat of a mistreatment of the self. There is an old song that the speaker heard in the hills of Kentucky in little wooden churches that said, “Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.” So I is going to observe each of these things that the self has an accounts receivable against someone, everyone that seems to owe the self, John or Mary. We’re going to record these. They are reported to X and then we will leave them there. It is very interesting to observe a person that has done this. They begin to stand up straighter; they begin to be less nervous, less agitated, less aggravated. They have removed a tremendous burden; a great limitation has been removed. A great load has been taken off the back and the chest because all of these are things that are accounts receivable. They are forms of self-pity, justifying anger, justifying held resentment, and they can even be the form of justifying apathy, and, of course, one is forever fearful lest they make other things that we will have to add to the accounts receivable against them. So we will have our ledger.Now to start with, let’s take some things that we put in the account receivable so that we will have some rough sketchy road map to observe. They have been there so long, have been so taken for granted that one sometimes has to be slightly reminded as to what is really meant by an accounts receivable, and what happens.“I” BELIEVE THAT ALL THOSE IN CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH ME MISTREAT ME FROM TIME TO TIME. Now the self if talking, I is observing the self and the accounts receivable and what they would have to do in order to have that account canceled.“I” BELIEVE THAT “I” MERIT MORE APPRECIATION THAN “I” GET. How many accounts receivable do we have against people who didn’t appreciate what I did for them? You know that little Not-I and his family that says, “It’s important to please them and I did so much to please then but they didn’t appreciate it.” After all, one didn’t please them because one was inclined to but because one expected to receive something from them, and if one doesn’t receive it “They owe me.” How will they ever pay it? How much appreciation would I have to get before I would cancel that for that person I did so much for and they didn’t appreciate it? That could be a son, daughter, parent, associate, stranger, or what have you.“I” BELIEVE THAT DUE TO CIRCUMSTANCES “I” HAVE NEVER HAD A CHANCE TO DEMONSTRATE MY REAL GREATNESS. People makeup circumstances so there might be several under this, or we might just put circumstances at the top of the page. And “circumstances owe me a great deal because they have denied me so much happiness, pleasure, attention, approval and so much sense of importance, but due to circumstances, which are made up of people, I’ve never had a chance to demonstrate my real greatness of inner being.”“I” BELIEVE THAT I AM ENTITLED TO HAVE MY WAY NOW AND IF “I” DO NOT GET MY WAY NOW, SOMEBODY OWES ME. It was always due to somebody being at fault, to blame the cause of my not getting my way and they owe me now. How much do they owe? What do they owe? And could it ever really be paid and marked canceled?“I” BELIEVE THAT IF YOU WERE DECENT AND GOOD THAT YOU WOULD HELP ME HAVE MY WAY RIGHT NOW. I have an account because you didn’t even help me. You may not have been the one who stood in the way, but you didn’t go knock those people in thy way out so I could have my way. So you have something you owe me also because you didn’t do what you should have done so I could have my way now. Let’s see how you could pay it.“I” BELIEVE THAT “I” AM ENTITLED TO HAVE ALL MY RIGHTS AND THAT WHATEVER “I” THINK ARE MY RIGHTS ARE MY RIGHTS AND THAT IF YOU WERE DECENT AND FAIR YOU WOULD SEE TO IT THAT “I” HAVE MY RIGHTS. Somebody has stood in the way of what I considered my rights and I have accounts against them. It probably includes many, many people so there will be several different pages in the ledger having different people’s names because I didn’t have my rights. What do they owe me now and how could it be paid or could it ever be paid?“I” BELIEVE THAT YOU ARE DESERVING OF BLAME AND THAT IT IS “MY” DUTY TO POINT IT OUT TO YOU AND DEMAND THAT YOU CEASE BEING TO BLAME, ADMIT YOUR PAST BEHAVIOR AND PAY DAMAGES. I think that we’ll find there are many different people’s names having the same account receivable against them as we make up our ledger and we see how much they owe me. What are the damages they owe? What could they do to cancel that debt I have charged against them? That’s mother, father, brother, sister, children, mates, business associates, people on the street, sometimes a sales clerk in a store or the manager of a store, sometimes a doctor, a lawyer, a relative of some kind, someone I have had any relationship with.“I” BELIEVE THAT “I” AM VICTIMIZED BY YOU AND OTHERS INTO BEING MADE TO FEEL ANGER, GUILTY, FEARFUL, INSECURE, ENVIOUS, JEALOUSY ETC. AND “I” BELIEVE THAT IT IS YOUR FAULT THAT I AM IN THIS MISERABLE STATE. How much will that person have to pay before I would cancel the debt and say, “I feel wonderful, all is forgotten?” You see we have the idea of the word “forgiving” and we use it quite freely. But if one will observe the self when a given incident is brought up one will find that the self wants to kick and scream and make turmoil because the account has not been canceled. We use the word “forgiveness” and we say “I forgive,” but actually only X can cancel that. So I can observe the self, report it to X, and we can experience forgiveness, but I don’t believe one of us can truly forgive. You see the nature of I is to report, accurately, as to “what is” to X, not what it seems to be when seen through the ideal of the world which is what makes the debt. When one reports that this was an illusion, that nobody really owes the self anything, then X forgives, and one may experience that forgiveness, that lightness, that entirely new state of being. But one can not forgive; one can only use the words.“I” BELIEVE THAT “I” HAVE ALL VIRTUES IN JUST ABOUT THE PROPER DEGREE INCLUDING HUMILITY BY INSISTING THAT “I” AM INADEQUATE. HOWEVER, “I” BELIEVE IF ANYONE AGREES THAT “I” AM INADEQUATE, THAT THEY ARE BEING UNKIND AND THEY OWE ME A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT. To illustrate this point: Very recently a person came and told the speaker all the ways that they were inadequate. This was only listened to, was not agreed to or disagreed. However, three days later the speaker met the person and in the proper time, place and circumstance told the person in their exact words, without referring to the former incident, as to how inadequate they were. The person was so upset at being told they were inadequate that they went home and was sick in bed for three days. And later, from this, was reminded that “You told this and I replayed it back to you and then you were very upset by it. But you weren’t upset when you were rattling it off as to how very inadequate you were.” This was quite an awakening event to the person. The person has continued to observe the self. Heretofore they had not observed; they had only talking about it. Sometimes maybe the methods were a little drastic. In the case where were doing it this way through recorded tapes, one does the going back and writing it down and one begins to see that really one has tremendous accounts against people. That when one puts on a show of being very humble or very greatly humiliated and is telling the story themselves, it is only another way of trying to gain attention for the self and to get everybody to tell you that it is not true. How many times has one told a sad story to other people and they didn’t agree and they didn’t try to get you to not agree and convince you that you were not all the things you were saying you were? There’s an account against them. “They should all tell me, of course, you are not this, you are not inadequate. You are very adequate, you are one of the most adequate persons I’ve ever seen.” As this continues one sees all these many accounts. This is not a one-day job, it is not a one-week job; it is a job to start today. It is a job to work at very diligently this week and to continue to add to it as I observe some cunning Not-I that seldom allows the Not-I to be caught in the act, but to write it down. One then will begin to experience what

There is a Teaching idea that would be very worthwhile to make a note of and to observe for a while. This idea is: That only as I the observer sees some idea of the self, of John or Mary, as an illusion, is it free of the tendency to identify with that idea. One may see a given idea now and then or something that a Not-I is doing and not agree with it at that moment but really doesn’t see that the idea is an illusion. And as we have said, to see an illusion for what it is, is to see the truth and that X operates upon that truth. Once I recognize that a given idea in the self, a conditioned idea, is an illusion, there is no longer any tendency to identify with that idea.Now to start today, let’s look at some of the ideas that we have of unpleasant emotions. We have an idea that one cannot prevent having an unpleasant emotion, that one must have these ideas, that people cause us to have these ideas of anger, fear, guilt, resentment, boredom, apathy of what’s the use it’s all in vain, jealousy, envy and a number of others. All of these are very unpleasant emotions. Now the Teaching says that one has a right NOT to identify with unpleasant emotions. As we’ve said, a right was something no one can take away from you, and no one can take away from any of us the right not to identify with unpleasant emotions. The self may have them but I, the observer, does not need to identify with them and nobody can make us. So that is one thing that no one can take away from us.As we observe this we see that unpleasant emotions do arise in the self and that unpleasant emotions bring about, of course, when they are identified with, a terrific change in the body chemistry. One does become addicted to these various charges that give one a feeling of energy or strength or other things. Self- pity is one of the more common unpleasant emotions. Self-pity gives the person a sense of self-love — “I am so wonderful, so nice and no one is treating me right.” So one cuddles the self when one identifies with the idea of self-pity. Now as we begin to see by observing the self, I, the observer, observing the self, sees all of this is an illusion. That it does not bring about more consciousness, that it does not put one in a higher state of being but actually takes one to a much lower state of being, down to apathy, fear, self-pity, to the lowest levels of being, down to a hypnotic state. They offer, of course, from early infancy, that all of these are wonderful things and that one cannot prevent them. The infant controls grownups with unpleasant emotions. The baby cries “pitiful,” someone picks it up. It cries “angry,” someone pays attention to it. It cries “hurt” and everybody runs. So the self started very early to value unpleasant emotions.Now as I observe the unpleasant emotions we will observe what the self is tying to gain with this unpleasant emotion. Let’s start with anger. When I, the observer, observes the self being angry, let’s see the motive with the anger, what it intends to accomplish. It is not something that can’t be helped; it is that this is the way to get people to get in line. It is an effort to control and one gains that sense of importance, a sense of being able to control people.Now let’s observe self-pity, being pitiful. Does it not also control people? Being a martyr, “I’ve pleased everybody and nobody has appreciated it. I’ve worked my fingers to the bone and nobody pays any attention to me,” is a cry for attention is it not, and does it usually work? At least the self is paying attention for self. One Not-I is feeling sorry for the whole state of the other Not-l’s and a whole crowd is all involved and one is in a very unpleasant state; one might say one is in the slums of one’s inner world, and all in an attempt to control.Now much of this starts with greed. One has a certain amount of pleasure, comfort, attention, approval and ability to control others, especially if they are smaller or younger or one is the boss. Then that’s not enough. Greed says there should be more. It begins to put up pictures. It begins to offer suggestions: “Well after all, at that time they didn’t appreciate it, here I gave all the employees a Christmas bonus and not one of them has come around and really said thank you for it. I bought the family a new station wagon and all they want is more money to drive it. I fixed his dinner every night when he came in, but he really has never appreciated what I do for him.” So greed with its basis of the four dual basic urges and always wanting more, better and different for any amount that it gets begins to be the great suggestor. So one of the more unpleasant emotions that is seldom observed until it is brought very definitely to one’s attention is to observe the urge for more, better and different.So our first practical thing to records on this week, we’re going to write down when self wants more, better and different. We’re going to observe the self offering suggestions that one should have more, better and different. We will write down, self says it should have more attention, it should have more appreciation, it should have more approval. We’ll hear things coming up out of the self trying to suggest to I that “All he is interested in is his business or profession and he really hasn’t given me any attention, hardly at all, so little that we may as well forget it.” So the next statement is, “He has given none at all, he’s totally interested in his business or profession. That’s what he really loves. He doesn’t care a thing about me.” Visa-versa, “She doesn’t care anything about me. All she wants is the money I bring home. As long as I bring her lots of money she’s all right, but she’s always hollering for more.” So one observes greed. We will write down all the times that we see the self, John or Mary, wanting more, better and different. We will write down how it wants more. We will see then, possibly, that this is an illusion. When one sees an idea of the self as an illusion it no longer has the power to suggest identity or to suggest that one identify with it. One is freed of the urge to identify with this Not-I because one sees it as an illusion. Now as we observe greed and its many ways of functioning, of course, vanity says, “I don’t have greed, I only try to have what is essential and I look after everybody else.” We will observe carefully to see greed. Then we will see vanity. We’re going to write all three of these down, vanity, pride, and starting with greed, which is the parent of vanity and pride.Now vanity paints a very composite picture that’s only allowed to the surface of, “What a wonderful person I am. I’m better than other people; I can see where they go wrong. I can see where they have faults. Of course I can recognize that I have a fault or two but they are all caused by circumstances. Other people make me angry. Sure I get angry but it’s due to other people’s misbehavior.” In other words, “My anger is really righteous indignation but other people are just plain short-tempered, they have short fuses.” So we paint a very beautiful composite picture of self which is called vanity, of “the ability to judge others, the ability to see how I am better than others, the ability to see where others have shortcomings that I wouldn’t stoop to, to see how I’ve always tried to do the right thing against great odds, of course.” So we will paint this picture. This is enough to give you a start. Each of us must discover for self what one’s false picture of self really is.Then pride is the defense of that false picture. We will write down all the times that we feel on the defensive. Now there is really only one thing to defend unless one has a gun or a knife after you and I am quite sure that is very infrequent, if at all. In order to expand this picture a bit, let’s go back and think of all the times that can be recalled that one has been on the defensive for the past several months. Now we are eliminating the times one was threatened with a gun, a knife, or a madman or physical violence of any sort. We’re talking about when we were on the defense of psychological motives, of our opinion of self. Someone comes in and says, “You’re forgetful.” Of course, here comes the defense. Someone says, “You’re always late.” Here comes the defense of all the things I had to do, “and the car wouldn’t start” or a hundred and one things to defend the fact of being late. “It’s not really I that was late, it was other things that forced me. Circumstances made me late if I was really late, but I was only late once or twice this whole year and they said I was late every time,” and many more of the same general idea.We are going to keep records of greed, vanity and pride. We’re not trying to change them; we’re not having some self-improving Not-I say we’ve got to get over this. We are looking at the propositions produced by greed, by vanity and by pride. This is all the work of the four dual basic urges, the master called mammon, the one which the self serves, the one which when I was identified with the self because it did not see it as an illusion, was identified in serving. Now I, the observer, sees something as an illusion, reports that to X and henceforth I is no longer tempted to identify with that idea of the self that it has seen as an illusion. So we hope that by making very complete observations and recording them so they can be read and reviewed, by writing them down, that we begin to see the ramifications of the four dual basic urges as expressed in greed, vanity and pride. If one should see clearly the illusion of the four dual basic urges one would cease to identify with it and all the others associated on and based upon the four dual basic urges and its work of greed, vanity and pride. So if one should see it one has produced information for X that greatly enhances the possibility of the awareness being cleansed, of being made pure.Now to observe some of the ways that the Not-I’s, the self, justifie

Two frequent ideas used in the Teaching are that of “what is,” what is, is whatever one sees as fact; and the other idea that is frequently used is “what ought to be,” or the ideal; this is what one sees as good. Now frequently one sees some fact and decides that it is not good, that it has no value and, of course, there begins the struggle to change what is into something that one would see as good or Ideal or what ought to be. Of course, this is conflict, struggle and resistance.Now the Teaching says that what is has a value. Now to be able to see that value one might see that the self has many ideals or many ideas of what ought to be or many ideas of what is good or valuable. Unless these two, what is and value are seen in the same light, one has not seen Truth. Now a fact is not what is referred to as Truth. It is a true state of affairs, it may be true what one sees but is not considered truth with a capital T. Truth with a capital T means that one sees what is and sees the value of what is. And that, of course, is the ending of conflict, struggle and resistance because when one sees what is and then sees the value of it, X acts upon that. But as long as one sees what is, something as being a fact, and the self suggests that that is not good, that what is ought to be something else, then comes the struggle, the conflict and the resistance.Suppose that we begin today to write down on two sheets of paper, one is headed, “What Is,” and the other one is headed, “What Ought To Be. Now we will see many things today that are “what is,” facts, but we do not see that fact as having any value. We might see it as having a very negative value, a minus; it is something as being bad. Then we will see that the self begins to work as to what that “what is” ought to be. Write down under the “What Ought To Be,” what we would consider to be good. In other words what-ought-to-be are considered to be illusions of what was good. We haven’t seen the good of what is.A child in school is given an assignment and he doesn’t want to do the assignment. Now he knows WHAT IS but he doesn’t see it as good so he will procrastinate, he will fret, he will complain; he will make all manner of noise, say it is impossible, that teacher is an old meany for having given him the assignment. Another child may see the assignment as being very worthwhile, of having value in becoming proficient in whatever the subject the assignment concerned. He will find interest in doing the assignment and very quickly the assignment is done. He has a great sense of satisfaction. X operated upon the assignment because it was seen, of course, as WHAT IS, which both agree on, and it is very difficult to argue with a fact. But it is very easy to contend as to the value of that fact and thereby come to Truth.Now under the “What Ought To Be” and “What Should Be,” we are going to write many of the things that we feel would be good. The first thing we probably feel would be good would be that I should always be comfortable. The fact is, the “what is” possibly is that one is not comfortable. Now that has a value because that being uncomfortable is a signal that one is struggling toward an illusion, that one is in some form of stress. There’re four possible ways of being in stress:1. From the environment. There are sudden changes in temperature. There are jolts, jars and falls, there is toxicity in the air or what have you or various substances are toxic when taken into the body. If one is in a state of discomfort it is telling one that it is in one form of stress and one can then look for which form it is.2. From the inner feeling which accounts for about 97% of the stress.3. Improper nutrition. One isn’t eating and providing the fuel or seeing as good the fuel that is required for the body.4. Unusual activity. Seeing as desirable some sudden stressful activity such as skiing or mountain climbing after as sitting at a desk for many months. One would find that this would bring about some sort of ache, pain or misery.However, we have been conditioned. The self sees all discomfort as something bad and does not see it as a value and begins to look for some way to achieve the ideal of what ought to be. So one uses drugs or many other methods to make one insensible so that one no longer receives the signal. One is only interested in what one sees as good. Now in beginning to observe the self, I observe the self, one of the more valuable areas is to see what the self has considered to be good. We have seen that it considers to be good, to be totally non-disturbed physically. That it is seen to be good to have attention. Now one can gain attention by driving down the street at an excessive rate of speed or by doing unusual things such as standing on the corner and eating a piece of coal, one will gain attention. One can gain approval from certain people by agreeing with them, which may or may not be to one’s advantage. One can gain approval by doing acts of daring, by performing very unusual feats or by attempting to do them to show that one is not chicken, that one is brave, and sometimes we see people do very foolhardy actions by trying to gain attention and approval.One may feel important by lording it over other people, by gaining some means of control over others either by suggestion or by force or by threats or by withholding or giving of certain values that the one receiving sees. As one observes this one sees there are many unusual values placed. And that in order to be conscious and to live on a different state of being, that what one has held out as being good, what one has accepted as being valuable or good is possibly one of the greatest areas of confusion. When one sees something as true but some other state as being of value, there is conflict, there’s struggle and there is resistance, which is the disintegrating factor. The struggle toward an illusion, an illusion that what is can be changed into fitting what the self has agreed is valuable or good.Now very little effort is spent on seeing if what is, is good, on an entirely different viewpoint, if one looks at it differently. We have suggested that there are four possible forces in the world.1. INITIATIVE: Something I do, something one wants to originate. And then there is:2. RESISTANCE always against that, whether it be gravity, distance or weather, whether it be someone or whether it is a given event. So second force comes along to obstruct, in some way, resist what the origination was. But without this second force there would be no strength, no power. It is the same as if you tried to mold a ceramic dish without a mold of resistance to pour the liquid ceramic in so it could harden into the shape one wanted. Then one would have a:3. FORM: So with initiative and resistance comes about a form and then the form provides a use, the:4. RESULT. So we have four forces: INITIATIVE - RESISTANCE - FORM - RESULTNow most of us see all second forces as something frustrating, something that interfered with the ideal of things being like I wanted them to be, like they ought to be, like they should be. And, of course, second force is seen as misfortune, as evil, as something bad, bad luck, and, of course, the person resists that second force and thinks they ought to be without it. This, of course, is one of the things that brings about the idea of what ought to be, the ideal.Another ideal one would probably have is that one should know the future, and then one could make all manors of preparations and could avoid every unpleasant situation. But if you know the future, the future is complete and includes oneself. You see, if one could know the future, that a given accident was going to occur, one would have to go ahead and do it, otherwise one only knows probabilities and don’t we already know probabilities? There is a probability that if I take up thieving as a means of livelihood there’s a very high degree of probability that I will be apprehended in the thieving and thrown in prison. Would one say that one knows the future? No, but one has a high degree of probability. If I new the future, that I would thieve, that I would get caught and throw in prison, then I would have to go ahead, I couldn’t stop it because otherwise I would not know the future, I would only know the probability.Frequently we hear someone in a given situation. They’ve been tied up in a snowstorm on the highway or something and they say, “If I’d known this I wouldn’t have left home.” But if they would have known it, they would have had to leave home and they would have gone on. So one of the ideals of what is good would be to know the future. But possibly if we reevaluate that “good” and looked at it, we would see that to know the future would be the most painful hell anyone could ever experience. From the day you were born you knew exactly every event that would happen and you knew exactly when it would happen and all the circumstances about it. You could do nothing to stop it or nothing to speed it up or nothing to slow it down. It would be a movie that you had already seen in advance and the movie was going to be run again. Could you imagine any more horrifying existence?So we have seen that what is, is we do not know the future, but we have seen that as bad, that we ought to be able to know the future. Then, of course, only giving it a casual look we felt we could change the future. But if one could foresee a given event and then change it, one was not knowing the future. 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 o

In our discussion last week and the one you have been working on this week was discovering that I has two basic things to do. One is to see what is and the other is to see the value of what is — this is reporting to X. Only to report what is does not bring about a very decided action. When one begins to question the value of the four dual basic urges as the purpose of living one really becomes a student of the Teaching. Now at first when one takes up the study, one is only studying self, I observes the self to see how it works, what it does, how it operates and how it has had I totally under a hypnotic spell, that everything it said was true. In other words, one accepts the thoughts as being true and acts upon them, tells the value that the thoughts had, or the thoughts said this should not be and I have been accepting those as fact. So the first step of the study of evolving and transforming and being a new person is to study the old man, the self.Then it is a student of the Teaching after it has considered the self for some weeks and looked at it and sees. Then one becomes a student of the Teaching and it checks out the values of the Teaching. It does not accept that it is true, it does not accept that it is dogma or that it is revealed. It may be but no one is to accept it for that purpose. It is to be checked out and to determine what values it has and this value is to be determined by experimentation, with seeing the self, events, other people in relationships, in various what is situations in the light of the Teaching.Now the Teaching is not an authoritative system. It is based on scientific principles that one takes an aspect of the Teaching as a hypothesis only and then experiments with it, and possibly the best way to experiment with it is to try to disprove it, not prove it. Experiment with it in any way that one can see to experiment with it and find out for self if the Teaching is a light. Doing this one becomes a student of living, a student of man, and he begins to have a true knowledge, a true knowing. He has experimented for himself. One of the great Teachings says, “A man who heard the words and did not act upon them was likened unto a foolish man who built his house on sand.” He said, “Oh, those are wonderful,” and he built his house on sand. He heard the words, did not act upon them, did not experiment with them, and when the first challenge came along his house fell down. But that the man who heard these words of the Teaching and acted upon them, experimented with them, found out for himself, built his house on a firm foundation, on rock, and that no matter what happened the house would stand because it had a firm foundation.So our start today is to EXPERIMENT to see what the Teaching has to say and to begin to value it. In other words, I is beginning to build a body. Now the body is a spiritual body and that body is a frame of reference where it sees things. Now if the frame of reference is from what one has heard, what one has been taught to believe, what one has accepted as fact from the ideas of the self, then one has a rather poor spiritual body. So we’re starting to build a new man and the man, of course, is not the body, the physical body, but is the spiritual body, the real inner state. So to give something to start looking for we will try three questions. Now this relates to I, the observer. I has been observing the self, now it will begin to try on some propositions. WHAT AM I? WHERE AM I? AND WHAT’S GOING ON HERE? These are very basic questions that I will start to consider.WHAT AM I? WHERE AM I? WHAT’S GOING ON HERE? Now the Teaching says that what I is, is the awareness function of X, of Spirit. No one is expected to accept that but to take it as a working hypothesis and to begin to experiment with it and see if such is the case. If one has then one has found something worthwhile. If one finds that such is not the case, one, of course, will discard it. So the Teaching says that WHAT AM I is answered by, “I AM THE AWARENESS FUNCTION OF X.”WHERE AM I? I’M AT A BEAUTIFUL ESTATE CALLED THE EARTH. The earth is also considered in the Teaching to be the physical body as well as the planet earth because the physical body is made of earth and energy. That’s where we are and the body is a function of X for expression also, and that it always expresses through that instrument based on the information received from the awareness function as the WHAT is and what is VALUABLE.The third thing, WHAT IS GONG ON HERE? The Teaching says there are a great many games going on here that allows one to exercise what one is and to further discover where one is and to be more conscious. That the games which are a form of Teaching, the Teaching of life, the Teaching that is never away from us, the one that is constantly in contact, that is Teaching the awareness function of X everything that it needs to know. Now X wants the awareness function, obviously, if such is its case that it is the awareness function of X, it wants it to be accurate and it wants it to be well informed and to be clean. In other words, not be contaminated with false ideas. So X is teaching the awareness function that one is a privileged invited guest to this beautiful Teaching that one always has available to it. But we have never seen it as a Teaching; we saw it as something bad when the self was deciding what was going on.So let’s kind of consider what’s going on at the party. One arrived at the party practically asleep and was quickly met by some of the other guests who suggested that the whole purpose of this party was to be non-disturbed. That one should gain lots of attention and lots of approval and lots of pleasures and comforts and that one should control all the other guests one could. So one began to do that. One quickly learned to complain to control some of the guests and then quickly learned to stick up for rights. Now as privileged invited guests at a big party one doesn’t have any rights, one has only privileges by being invited. But nevertheless one decided that to stick up for rights was necessary because maybe this wasn’t a party, maybe it was a dog-eat-dog trip. Then one decided later and split oneself into more than one piece, that there was something that should be done to please the other guests because they were larger and more powerful than self and so they should be pleased. Then there were a lot of people who said, “If you will believe and do what we tell you to do you will be non-disturbed at this party, and that there is another party beyond this one. And if you don’t do what we tell you, you will be in a horrible shape there and if you do what we tell you, oh, you will be something very, very wonderful.” Now they acted as though they knew all about it, but what little they know is about this party and they may be in many illusions there.No doubt there are other worlds, we came from the uterine world to this world. We died to the uterine world and found ourselves born into the earth world at this big party. If we ever leave this party, no doubt we’ll find another world. But we didn’t have any preparation for this one except to report to X, and X always did the thing we reported and we’ve survived so far; so possibly it’s quite all right. And then we thought that it was necessary to put on a different front and to put on a show for the other guests and thereby impress them. We never thought about the host, we only thought about the other guest. And then, of course, we began to blame the other guests because of the many difficulties we might have experienced. We also began to see that there were many activities going on. We never thought of these as games, like the games of traffic and the games of business, the games of association, the games of relationship. We saw them as something that we had to succeed in, which we had rights in. We didn’t see them as games, as a Teaching method that would give us awareness.Now as we’re looking at them let’s begin to see that they are Teaching methods. Traffic: One is learning to be aware and report to X that this is the situation, that everything has a value, even someone who’s driving rather erratically has a value. It keeps I aware that it is to be awake and not asleep, and it reports to X and X maneuvers the car and everything seems to be all right. One saw it as what ought to be that other person ought not to be driving erratically. He should stay totally out of the way and I have all this traffic by myself, I have the whole roadway to me and everybody is obeying what I think. They are even capable of reading my thoughts and doing just exactly what I know they ought to be doing, that which would be good. But one finds self very frustrated in this because they are not doing what I think they ought to do, but they’re doing what is and what is has a value. One is in a relationship called marriage and one thinks that the mate ought to always do what I know they ought to do. There is no opportunity if they did, for one to evolve, to have understanding, to have truly love. It would only be that they were a convenience, a means of providing pleasure and comfort to me. So the fact that they have their own ways of doing things, they have their own tastes, they go to sleep and are totally inconsiderate, is an excellent device, a Teaching device, provided by an Intelligence of untold quality to provide the awareness an opportunity to be really a capable reporter to X. For the awareness to develop a state of being wherein it is aware and is not asleep, is not caught by all the suggestions. In this big game there are constantly people who give advice, suggestions, suggest that they know all about the future, they know what will happen when one does this and does not do that. This give awareness, I, an opportunity to discover and to consider for self that they know no more about the future than it does. That really there is no need to know the future and that one would not wa

In this discussion we will discuss WHAT IS A SPIRITUAL BODY. In our last week’s discussion we talked about and referred to a spiritual body. A spiritual body is the frame of reference through which one experiences.  Now the awareness has a frame of reference; sometimes this could be called memory or it could be called experiencing. It's probably much better, if the spiritual body is sound, that it's based on experiencing. If it is unsound it is based on concepts.  What ones sees as true, as we have said, is what is.So let’s take a sheet of paper and we will draw a horizontal line that says, What is or, What is true as I see it.  Then let’s draw a vertical line on the same sheet of paper, but not intersecting, which says, What I see as valuable, good, worthwhile. Now if these two lines do not intersect there is no action because X brings about all action. If one’s frame of reference, one’s spiritual body, is concerned with “what ought to be,” these two lines do not intersect in many, many areas. In certain areas, obviously, one sees what is; the temperature in the room is cold, it would be good for it to be warm, or valuable, so one turns up the thermostat. So the two lines intersected, what is and what is valuable, good, worthwhile, has now intersected and at the point of intersection is the word Action.So suppose on another sheet of paper we put two lines intersecting in the form of a cross: What is true and What I see as worthwhile, valuable or as we would ordinarily say, Good. These two lines intersect and where they intersect Action by X takes place. Now a spiritual body, which is one’s frame of reference, wears clothes. If the spiritual body is only concerned with what is then it is considered to be clothed in leather or in animal skins or in some other coarse material. So suppose we draw an oblong figure, something like an egg shape, and we put over it What is, and around the outside of it we put some kind of clothing; some wavy lines will represent its clothing. It’s clothed in the actual literal fact of what is but it does not have a department in it that has valuing. This is only the factual, the intellectual level of seeing what is. It sees some things as true and some things as false. If someone comes up and tells you there’s a lion outside your door you would probably say it is false. If some one told you there was a dog outside the door, you might accept that is true. But in either case there is only what is.In another similar shaped figure we will put, What ought to be or Values. In this one come all the what-ought-to-be and the other one is What is true and they are separate. Nothing really begins to take place because X does not operate on it. The awareness is clothed in facts and the other egg-shaped circle is clothed in ideas or concepts of what ought to be, and much of the clothing of what is, is clothed in the idea of what is. We have many ideas that so-and-so exists without being aware of it, without having experienced it, without having really experimented with it. We accept many concepts as being fact. To build a healthy spiritual body we will take the cross we made where it has Action, the two intersections, and we will draw an egg-shaped form around it. This is to be a new spiritual body. Some of the things within this have already been experienced. As we said, we see the room is chilly to the temperature for the comfort of the body, for the well being, and we see it as what is and we would see that it would be well to turn up the heat; so this is accepted.In all the ordinary everyday affairs of the workaday world, the business world, the earning of a living, there are many what is and many things seen as good. So we can function fairly well in these areas. It is in the areas of interpersonal relationships that this begins to breakdown. This is where one has all one’s difficulties, in the world of inter and intra-personal relationships. Let’s begin to put into this one, with the cross inside of it, the things that we see as both What is and as Good or valuable, worthwhile. We’ll just use the term “good.” I see what is and see what’s good about it. These are all the things that one has learned and have become an aspect of the personality which has to do with earning a living, keeping the house, keeping things clean, keeping things decorated, keeping the lawn mowed, keeping the surroundings neat and clean. We’ll find that all of these are worthwhile. It knows how to drive a car carefully. It knows how to type, we’ll say. It knows how to play a musical instrument. All of these things that the personality has learned which will be worthwhile, so obviously they will be added into the new spiritual body. If we wanted too we could see these two elements that were not together, the two egg-shaped parts that had no cross in them. One of what is, as we see it and which is fine and it’s the only way we can see it, and on the other one as what we see as good which is mostly concerned with ideals of “what ought to be” in interpersonal relationships. So we have possibly one fragmented spiritual body and one that is workable in the everyday world but not in the spiritual world of the interpersonal relationships and intra-relationships which are the things that go on within one.When the spiritual body is in these two separate elements, it is referred to in the material that is written on The Science of Man, on the long, long years of study, it is referred to as a blind person. In other words it doesn’t see clearly. It may see what is, it may feel what is, sense what is, but it cannot see that it is good regardless of what happens, that it has value. So it is considered to be blind. It obviously produces inadequate function or reports inadequate things to X or nothing at all so it is considered to be crippled. It is paralyzed; it can’t function. It can see what is but never gets up to do anything about it because it doesn’t see the value of it. It only sits and complains because things are not what they ought to be. This works in interpersonal relationships and in many people it works in their everyday workday world. They’ll talk about wanting to do something but they never get around to it. They are going to do it tomorrow, some other time, but tomorrow it doesn’t look any more worthwhile than it did today and so nothing is done. It is referred to as being naked; it doesn’t have sufficient ideas with which to work with. It has no real concepts. It only has rags and tatters of various and sundry secondhand, passed-down ideas as to what is and what is of value and it doesn’t have anything of its own. It has not experimented, has not discovered for I what really is workable, what is valuable, it hasn’t seen what is good, so it is considered to be naked. If it is beginning to really want to have something to work with, it is considered to be hungry and, of course, the idea is to feed the hunger.Now this is what we are working at, is it not, to feed a hungry spiritual body so that it may have strength and it may grow. We are trying to clothe it, are we not, and we’re not clothing it with secondhand things, something the speaker says. We’re clothing it with experimentation, something we can see for I. I’ve looked, I’ve experimented with it and I see for self. We’re healing a crippled spiritual body. How are we healing it? By giving it truth and light. We are restoring the blind because one is beginning to possibly work at seeing what is and what is the value of what is, then one is no longer blind, one is no longer crippled or paralyzed or naked. It is beginning to have ideas to experiment with which makes wonderful clothing. It is beginning to have understanding, so then it has shoes. Shoes, meaning in the various symbology, that which one understands. You know the feet seem to be the foundation of the earth, the earth being the human body. So there is beginning to be an establishment of a firm foundation, a clothing, and something to experiment and work with. Every time one experiments one has made oneself an article of clothing. We read of one article of clothing that was woven in one piece without seams. In other words it wasn’t patched together with bits and pieces, it was all from experimentation and discovery for self.There are many that are satisfied with their split-apart physical body. They’re satisfied with it because they have managed to paint themselves a very lovely picture that really doesn’t exist, an imaginary one. So they gaze upon this imaginary picture and say, “That is I,” when nothing in reality is anywhere near that imagination. It is as though a very unbalanced-featured person found a beautiful portrait and hung it up and said, “That is I,” and that would not quite be. So one with vanity is quite pleased with the present state; obviously one will not look to develop a spiritual body. One doesn’t even experience the physical body; they’re so carried away observing the physical body and the imaginary picture that is painted up of the self. So vanity interferes in one building a spiritual body because before one sets out to heal the blindness, heal the crippled or distorted or paralyzed, to get clothing for a naked body or to get shoes for the barefoot condition or to feed the hungry, one must realize that these conditions do exist. Vanity always says they really do not exist. “I already am in pretty good shape. I’m a pretty wonderful person. I know what’s good and I know what’s bad. I know what’s right and I know what’s wrong and I know what ought to be and I can see what really is and I know what ought to be done. If everybody would just straighten out and see things my way then everything would be wonderful in this world.” That is vanity. Vanity is the great obstruction to one building a spiritual body because one is entranced or enthralled with the imaginary spiritual body, the imaginary qualities, the imaginary truth that one is aware of. One imagines that truth is any number of t

One of the great tragedies of vanity in mankind is that it makes him believe he knows much he does not know. When many of us come in contact with a technical word in a subject that we are not really acquainted with, we at least look it up in the dictionary. But if we are studying a very technical subject about The Science of Man, and there are several textbooks about The Science of Man, there are things that are written down that are a challenge to man if he should find them. They are highly technical, highly scientific, but they use ordinary words in a very technical sense. We read these books that we know are loaded with many kinds of information, but vanity says we already know it because we know one meaning for the words that are there and we assume that we, of course, know all the meanings of the words. One of those common words is the “world.” One man said, “Fear not I have overcome the world.” Really, a better translation of it is, “I have risen above the world.” In another place it says, “Keep oneself unspotted from the world.” Most of the time we think of the world as the Earth or at best the society all over the earth. We never possible stop to find out how it’s used in this very technical sense in the way of The Science of Man.  So suppose we inquire into it a bit, and as it has been said before, take nothing for granted, take nothing because it is said, but investigate, experiment with it and find out for self.The conditioned self is a picture of the world. There are four basic ideas that make up what is called the “world” in the technical sense of The Science of Man.1. The first of these ideas is that there are IDEALS, there are what ought to be, that man is capable of knowing what ought to be, that he knows what is good, what is bad, and he thinks in opposites. He knows what is right and what is wrong. He thinks in opposites. He judges constantly. There is an old, old story that says they ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They were told that if they ate of it they would die. Of course, man doesn’t believe that today because everybody thinks he knows the opposites, is capable of judging, and he believes he is not dead. But I, the awareness function of X is dead. The conditioning operates in the name of I and tells X false information. And it is death to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and every one of us ate of it and we did die. And we are in this effort of slowly, carefully studying the self, attempting to arise from among the dead and be alive by being aware of the self. So the first idea of the world is that there are ideals of what ought to be and they are, of course, opposite to those things that ought not to be, and that man thinks he is capable of judging.  Many places he reads, JUDGE NOT, and he thinks of it as a moral code and then he justifies it by saying, “Well, I will judge justly,” and he still judges compared to the ideal, and he is still dead.2. The next idea of the world is that it’s possible to SELF-IMPROVE the self as it is, only just improve it and thereby actualize the ideals to have everything like it ought to be. Of course, the basic decision, the basic motive, the basic purpose of living is the four dual basic urges to be non-disturbed. That is what one has set as the ideal. Then the next six decisions, three in A and three in B on your picture of man, are attempts at self-improvement. If you go through all the ideas of self-improvement that you may have ever been in contact with, you will find they’re all there. You can behave differently, which is number 5. You can believe different things because someone told you to believe it, number 4. You can do certain ritualistic performances or you can do all sorts of things that are commanded in one form or other, behave in a certain way, believe and do as you’re told by your authorities. You can blame all manner of things, number 6. You can blame negative thinking and you can try to think positive and, of course, thinking positive is trying to believe something you believe to be a lie or you wouldn’t be thinking positive, you’d just agree with it and go on. So all the efforts at self-improvement, and the libraries are full of books on self-improvement, there are institutions from one end of the earth to the other bent upon self improvement of the man and of other selves. We are always trying self-improve, whether it’s to improve this self or to improve that other self so I won’t be disturbed.3. The third idea of the world is that one will have SIGNS AND DEMONSTRATIONS as to how well one is self-improving. If one is reasonably comfortable and has a reasonable amount of wealth, one takes that as a sign that one has improved considerably.4. If one should suddenly lose their wealth they will find something to BLAME, which is fourth idea of the world. So one has a sign that one is either succeeding in self-improvement when things are going reasonably well or has a sign that something is interfering if one is not doing so well. If one loses one’s health one finds something to blame, a diagnostic term. One says, “I am a victim of arthritis.” So arthritis, some sort of entity which is flying around in the air and says, “There is John, I will bite him or there is Mary, I will attack her.” Another one is a victim of multiple sclerosis. There is something called multiple sclerosis that floats around in the air and periodically it sees someone and says, “I am going to attack them.” So we have something to blame when things are not going well, and we have self-esteem that we have succeeded in our efforts to self improve when things are going fairly well to our liking. In other words, we’re having a certain amount of pleasure and comfort and not very much pain. We’re having a considerable amount of attention and very little being ignored and rejected. We’re having quite a bit of approval and not too much disapproval right now, or none. We have a certain number of people that we can control, we feel important. If we can’t control them we feel inferior. For every time we have a pain we look for something to blame. We never accept that maybe I am doing something. That is only reserved for, when things are going well. When things go like we want them we say our self-improvement techniques have worked. When things don’t go like we want them to, according to the four dual basic urges, we find something to blame.In this, of course, man is blind, but these are the ideas of the world and we would like for you to write down the four ideals of the world. We would like for you to observe if the self lives by these four ideas: That there are IDEALS of what ought to be and, of course, what ought not to be which are good and bad, right and wrong, should and should not. The land of opposites, what are used for a basis for judging self and others, conflicts, struggle, resistance, all the way up to wars. That one looks at all the efforts that one puts in to improve the self and improve other selves. That one also keeps somewhat of a record of all the time things go fairly well and one takes the credit.  One never gives any credit to X.  I can walk, I can type, I can eat, I can digest my food, and all these many things of which one hasn’t the faintest idea of how it even takes place; I can see, I can do all these things. You see no credit or glory or honor is ever given to X; it all is taken. And then when things don’t go well, according to the four dual basic urges, one doesn’t take credit for that. One finds something to blame which we have looked at as building accounts against people, which is to load a grievous burden again on self to carry around, and one which we have looked at, somewhat.Man has built many philosophies on how to self-improve, how to achieve the ideal, how to achieve that which he lists as being good. The Science of Man is not a philosophy. It is a series of experiments and observations that are given to us that we may experiment with them and observe with them. We could say that it might be a light with which we could look in dark places, places we have never looked before, and then we are using it. If we accept it as a philosophy or as an ideology, something to be quoted, argued about, organized, build an institution about, of course, we have not understood it, we have not valued it; it is only some interesting words to use. It is a series of instructions as to experiments. It is a series of possibilities of something existing that we have not looked at. It throws a light on many things, but it is always left for each one of us to experiment with, to use it, to verify, to find out for self. Without doing this we, of course, only heard the Teaching and did not use it.There have been many people who have heard the Teaching and they have attempted to make a philosophy or an institution or an ideology out of it. We will look and see what some of these efforts have resulted in. We are not condemning them or justifying them. We can only turn a light on what happens when one attempts to use the Teaching other than for experimentation and for self-discovery, when one tries to use the ideas it presents as an ideology or to build an institution about.1. The first thing in using the Teaching as an ideology and as a method of self-improvement, if you please, which is an ideology, is that we will be TOLERANT of people. Tolerant means, when we verify it and use it for a minute and experiment with it, is that “I see that you are very inferior to me, you are very much less intelligent than I am and you are not as good a person as I am. But I will tolerate you because this is a technique of self-improvement and it will help me achieve the ideal of being non-disturbed. So I will tolerate you and you possibly will give me some attention and you might even give me some approval.” Now tolerance is, of course, to look down on another person and to put oneself in an exalted position. One has a picture of oneself as much be

Last week we discussed the ideas of the world and what happens when those ideas are tempted to be used as a philosophy or as a means of self-improvement. This week we will attempt to study the world and what happens when one uses the ideas of the Teaching. THE IDEAS OF THE WORLD as we saw, which you have been experimenting and checking to find out for yourself if this is what makes up the world, are four ideas:1. The idea that there are IDEALS of what ought to be and what should be which are different from what is.2. That there is the idea of SELF-IMPROVEMENT to bring about the ideal.3. There is the belief in SIGNS, WONDERS and DEMONSTRATIONS. Signs that one has achieved some self-improvement, that one has come closer to realizing the ideal. It may just happen some week when one feels pretty good and, of course, that is accepted as positive thinking or whatever other means or that one has been tolerant of other people, so things were better.4. Then the fourth one was BLAMING which is to find something to blame when the ideal isn’t realized and, of course, the signs and wonders are to take credit for it when something like the ideal happens in one’s existence.Now the Teaching starts off with four ideas. These ideas are very precise.1. The first one is SELF-KNOWING. We have been working at self-knowing since we started several weeks ago. Knowing the self, without condemning or justifying, without trying to improve it, just to be aware of the self. To be aware of the conditioning, to be aware of the automatic mechanical behavior of the self and of the split in the self, the contradiction in the self. A going one way to gain the ideal and B going another way to gain the ideal and the war experienced between these two, the constant conflict much of which is called “thinking.” Now it says SELF KNOWING, not self-knowledge. Self-knowing never ends. It is always observing everything and reporting accurately to X.2. The next idea of the School is FAITH. Faith does not mean agreeing to some ideology or some belief and it does not mean strong belief. It means the ability to make up the mind. Sometime ago we saw that there is seeing what is and seeing the value of it. That is to make up the mind and then X always operates upon that. Whatever one sees as true or the fact and sees the value of whatever one saw as true or fact then there is an action that is known as Truth. Somewhere it says: “Where two or more are gathered together, there I am in the midst.” And, of course, these two are value and what-is are joined together in the form of a cross. Then whatever one sees as being true and sees the good in that, or the value in it, the worthwhileness of it, then there is action upon it and that is faith on one level. We will discuss another level of faith another time. But that is the first level of faith. One cannot force faith. It is something one experience’s and that experiencing depends upon having self-knowing from moment to moment.3. The next idea of the Teaching is GRACE. Grace is somewhat defined as the recipient of undeserved good or gifts and, of course, all things that are seen as worthwhile are recognized as a gift of X; that X does all the work. That it is something one experiences. It’s not something one can do or say I’m experiencing or I am gaining grace unless one is giving undeserved good. But you’ll find that that is very difficult if not almost impossible. So the recipient is seeing that one has tremendous gifts. You know we’re all very, very rich if we stop to think of it.Now we won’t experience it from this but let’s take a look. What would you take for the gift of sight? You can see things. You don’t know how it works. You have no idea how two little pieces of human flesh pick up and record impressions. Those little ones don’t see; they are only the cameras. Something sees within and throws a picture up for awareness to experience. What would you take for that? Would you take $100,000 and let somebody have both eyes or cut the nerves to the eyes? Would you take a million? Would you take 20 million? What would you take to have someone destroy your hearing, the ability to hear, that great gift of picking up sound waves and transmitting them into intelligent sounds, thoughts, conceptions, and viewpoints? What would you take for the ability to sense touch, what would you take for it? And above all, what would you take now and let someone take your life, destroy your existence and have the body for experimental purposes five years and three days from now? Would you take a million, 20 million dollars, would you take a billion? You have all you want for five years and four days and then it ends. Have we done anything to receive these great gifts or are they simply undeserved goods of various sorts that we have? That is something of the conception of grace. You will experience being the recipient of grace someday, but now we can only intelligently see what it might be.4. The fourth idea of the School and of the Teaching is AGAPE, which means and translated into the English word, LOVE.However, there are four ancient words translated into the one English word love.1. One word is PIA, which means children. One has a feeling toward children, towards family. One has that love but so does a dog and so do many other mammal creatures. We don’t know about the others but we can observe that mammals have this love for their offspring. So they have pia along with the human being. It is something that just happens. It doesn’t come from effort or anything else. It is just that a child is born and you have an urge to protect it, defend it, and care for it.2. The next sort of love word that has been translated into the English word love is EROS. It is the mating attraction and it, too, just happens. We also see it in other mammals and possibly all sorts of other creatures, sub-mammal. It just happens, it is the mating instinct, the mating desire. It is shared among many living creatures.3. Then there is simply approval. It was from the word PHILO. It means, I approve of you or I approve of a piece of furniture. One says, “I just simply love that piece of furniture,” meaning, they very decidedly approve of it, or “I simply love that house,” they approve of it. Now, apparently all sorts of living creatures have things they approve of and things that do not appeal to their taste. So they have philo also and that is definitely with their associates.4. Then there is that fourth word, the one that is used in all esoteric literature. It is called love in the English translation but it is referred to as AGAPE. It has also been translated into English as CHARITY and it has nothing to do with caring for the poor even though that may be one small aspect of it. Agape means, to see that what everyone is doing, including self, ever has done, or ever will do, that at the moment of doing, it seems either right or proper or justified. Now as long as one is conditioned much of the behavior is because one sees it as justified. “He did thus and so, therefore, I can do so and so.” To the enlightened person, the one who has practiced SELF KNOWING, who has experienced being, never justifies any behavior or any attitude. One simply sees what is at the moment seems right or proper because of the situation of what is and what is of value in it. Agape is understanding the other person; it is understanding the person that one has been, all the conditioned states. One has love, AGAPE. It has also been called, “one has charity.” I think it was the writer Paul, one great teacher, in addressing some communications to his students, said: Even though he did all the wonderful things in the world and had all manners of gifts, he had the gift of healing, he had the gift of prophecy, could foretell and speak out great truths, and that even though he practiced all manner of giving such as even giving his body to be used for research or for being burned up as a sacrifice, that if he had all these things and he could speak in the tongues of men and angels and he could speak every known language in the world, that if he had all of that and did not experience AGAPE, he was as tinkling brass, worthless little tinkling bell, some little ornament that hangs in the wind to chime just for amusement. Because without this AGAPE, without experiencing it and really having all the ways of living it, experiencing it and being it, one is as nothing.SELF-KNOWING is the one thing a person can do. The other three ideas are something that one experiences as an outcome of self-knowing over a long period of time and over a period of valuing. However, they are the very fundamentals of the Teaching. SELF-KNOWING, FAITH, GRACE and LOVE. And that love is not the love of the world, which is tolerance. That grace is not having something to say when things didn’t go well such as, “It is the will of God.” It does not say that God is a capricious being. And faith is the ability to make up ones mind, the ability to see the fact and the value of the fact without any clutter of what ought to be or what should have been or what should be or what is the right thing. It sees what is with what light one has and sees the value of it with what light one has. As one continues self-knowing, one is having more and more light. The self was completely dark, was an unexamined, unexplored area. Using self-knowing, self-observation, one has thrown a light on that self that is constantly trying to be non-disturbed and is in conflict as how to gain that with the various methods of complaining, pleasing, putting on a front, blaming or what have you. This is beginning to throw a light into the self. So the more light one has the more one experiences various things. Now the first thing that one experiences, and this is called the spiritual experiences, the first spiritual experience, the one that really starts one on the way to being a new person, being a new man, is from self-awareness.1. The first one is called c

To those of us who have practiced the work this far of self-observation, we have done it slowly week by week, we have not tried to run ahead, we have not tried to improve upon it, we have been using it and we have experienced certain things. We may have experienced a certain serenity that one never knew before. One may experience that there is an absence of the resentment, an absence of the load and the burden that one has carried about of the accounts receivable. One may be aware that anger and guilt are gone. One may be aware that the expectation is based more on what is and one may be seeing value in what is.But powerful adversaries are still active in the world and one is little in the New World. So one is subject, yet, to suggestion. Sometimes it is called temptation. So temptation begins to be very active at this stage of existence and one can be tempted into falling away from their state of being that the have just entered. They’re little ones in the Kingdom; they’re little ones in peace. It is said that there are great stumbling blocks. It says woe to the one who is the stumbling block but they don’t seem to notice that. So the world around one is powerful suggestion at this state. So there is the beginning of a new phase of SELF-KNOWING. It is still self-knowing and it leads to still further experiencing, not only in experiencing a new man, but if one continues in the work of self-observation and its other phases one will experience FAITH, and one will experience GRACE, and one may experience a much richer, richer degree of AGAPE. It is little and it is new at this stage. While one is considerate there is constantly the suggestion from without that one should be very proud of this state. One will find that there is constantly someone saying how wonderful it is and there is a powerful temptation to accept this idea.This stage of self-observation is that of REEVALUATION. Now reevaluation is to put a new value, to see it consciously and to look at what is and to always look for its value. You see there are certain habitual values that the world uses and they’re constantly being suggested to one. So one reevaluates every suggestion. Now there are two fundamentals we will use for reevaluation:1. THAT WHENEVER ANYTHING IS MADE IMPORTANT THE SELF BECOMES ANXIOUS.Now the only thing it can make important are ideals and one may be tempted by suggestion from the environment to consider that their state of being is ideal and, of course, that would be a stumbling block in one’s way. It would cause a little one to get caught away and might have to start all over again. Now this is not given as any warning or is any threat. It is given as an aim to continue self-observation, self-awareness, to observe all selves now, to observe what other selves are suggesting to one. Remember that because one is out of certain clutches that it does not mean one is not subject to suggestion. There are constant suggestions still being made to one to make something important and the only thing that can be made important is an ideal.We will reevaluate every ideal as they are suggested to one. Now there will be suggestions to one that everyone should have this work explained to them and, of course, one experiences a certain feeling of peace or joy. One wants to share it with the world, with everyone. That seems like an ideal to suddenly begin to try to teach everyone. If one does one has succumbed to the ideal. It is quite a jolt if one does and I hope you do not experience it, that instead you experience reevaluation of all suggestions. Vanity says that one can do things so it is an idea that one can teach all loved ones, all people one sees requesting information, all the people that are troubled. Vanity says it can do it but it cannot be done. No one can teach another. One can only put out ideas to people who are already questioning the ideal that the purpose of living is to be non-disturbed. This requires considerable effort. It is the place in agape that says, “In the New World one is harmless because one trying to give information, trying to clarify something for a person who is only trying to find a new means of self-improvement, is to give them ideas which they cannot use.” It is like the parable of the sower who went out to sow. Some of the seeds he sowed, cast about, fell on rock and the birds ate it up forthwith. This is the person who is looking for self improvement; that’s a rock. Some of it fell on very shallow soil and it sprang up and on the first hot day it wilted. Again, it is a person looking for self-improvement and they think the ideas will give them self-improvement, but the first day a  second force interferes in their pleasure or their fun or their non-disturbance they will forget all about it and go for another type of self improvement. Some falls among the brambles and the brambles choke it out; this is the one who wants to both self-improve and learn new material. He wants to have his cake and eat it too. And, of course, as long as he serves mammon, mammon being very strong will choke out the weak new growth, and so that one is lost. It says some of the seed falls on good soil and it brings forth thirty-fold, sixty-fold or a hundred-fold. So the good soil is that which uses it, practices it, experiments with it, and finds out its value. To give it to others is sometimes to be harmful to them. It is better that we possibly wait for a while and that we really want something because we tend to value something that we really want. Something that is too easily obtained by somebody coming along and offering it to me when I’m really not looking for that is to put no value on it. Once a person comes to a conclusion that something is worthless, “It didn’t do what I wanted it to do,” that person has blocked the future possibility of seeing because there is a very fundamental idea that once a decision is made, it is the rule of attitude action until such time that that decision is discovered and reevaluated.2. WHEN ONCE A DECISION IS MADE IT IS THE RULE OF ATTITUDE ACTION UNTIL SUCH TIME AS THAT DECISION IS DISCOVERED AND REEVALUATED.If we give the Teaching to a person who is trying for self-improvement, and that is what he really wants, the Teaching will not give him something for self-improvement. It will only be a fallacy to him and he, of course, will come to a conclusion that it is worthless. Some very drastic things may have to happen to that person before he may consider reevaluating or possibly he will never consider it. So possibly we have blocked, by trying to do good, by sharing our state with everyone who comes along. So we will reevaluate what it means to be helpful.Now that constant suggestion comes to us that we should help all people. It is really that we will work with anyone on the level on which they want to work. If they want self-improvement give them whatever tidbits of it that are around, or we might ask them questions over a period of time so that they might be given a little crumb that falls from the table that will get them to question the whole purpose of living. Without having questioned that the purpose of living is to be non disturbed, that person isn’t even a student of self. Furthermore, we generally want to give the great things to those we want to help and we give it out of line.Remember a few weeks ago when you started, that observing self was not a pleasant situation. We began to see things that some of us were horrified to discover that was in self. We were quite horrified to discover vanity when we thought we were so humble, that we had a very beautiful picture made up of everything we had heard through the years, being complemented and put into that false picture and that is vanity and we had defended it. We not only see this in the individual but whole nations form an illusion of themselves as being so wonderful. They’re going to do “good” for the whole world and so they practice “saving the world.” They’re going to be helpful, they’re going to be condescending to all other nations, and, of course, this usually leads to wars because that don’t want to be condescended to and they don’t want to be helped. Possibly they would not mind if someone worked with them. We see that what’s on the inside of man expressed in his outward affairs, his nations and his organizations. You see various institutions that feel they are the only true institution, that they have the only truth, and, of course, they try to convert everybody to see it their way. They promise rewards and threaten punishments if one does not.So let’s reevaluate every suggestion we hear. Now, if one is observing self, one notices the impact of a suggestion. It is really like a physical blow. One hears it coming; it makes a sound like a bullet going through the air. It is suggested that one should be helpful. It is suggested that one should share everything. There is a great statement some place that sounds very crude. A great Teacher said, “Do not throw that which is holy before dogs,” and “Do not cast your pearls before swine,” because if you do the swine will trample them under their feet; it means they will defile them, misuse them and “then they will turn and rend you.” In other words you’re still little in the Kingdom of Heaven. You still, possibly, have not experienced faith to any degree and therefore do not have power. There is much to survive in the New World, much as a baby on arriving to the earth world from the uterine world is in a very precarious position for survival and must be protected and somewhat defended. It is frightened by loud noises, by sudden bright lights and all such other sudden stimuli. When one feels a suggestion coming, it’s like a noise to a little infant because one is little in the New World. So one observes these suggestions and immediately reevaluates. We have an aim to be aware of suggestion and to reevaluate it. One says, “If you do not do so-and-so you will suffer great consequences of

The most difficult thing for a child to realize is that he is a child and cannot do certain things yet. He feels this state will always be in existence. He becomes very frustrated that he is not allowed to drive the family car, not allowed to take the boat out into the lake by himself, that he cannot ride the motorcycle, that he can’t go away on a weekend camping trip all by himself and he can’t fly an airplane. He feels that he is mistreated and that he is unfortunate in some way because he cannot do things that he sees other people doing. This is always one of the temptations of a little one, a child in the New World. He possibly sees other people do things or has heard or read about it and he becomes very discouraged and disheartened that he can’t do these things. He doesn’t realize he is still a child in the New World.Being in the new spiritual world is much like being a child in the physical world; it takes time for one to grow. As the child learns certain things such as how to get across the street, how to observe traffic signals and so forth, he feels he should be allowed everything, that he has everything, that he is very, very capable. However, those that are entrusted with his care know that he is not capable of added responsibility at this time. A person that may have experienced seeing things differently, experienced a new attitude, experienced a new set of behavior, experienced a New World, a whole new state of being based on love, and hasn’t possibly yet experienced FAITH and GRACE, and has only experienced a certain degree of AGAPE or understanding, might feel that one has experienced everything, that one has “arrived,” and is disappointed to find that possibly he can’t make up his mind yet about certain things; that he can’t see the good in certain things. And instead of seeing that he is a child in a New World he may become discouraged, despondent, and, of course, then the suggestion has caught him and he has to do much work to get back again.Now as one evolves slowly and certainly, much like walking on a trip from the hog pen to the Father’s house, he is met on the way and given gifts. That doesn’t mean that he has received everything that he will receive. In the story of the Prodigal Son, the son returning home from Egypt who had seen a new value, a new purpose, and a new aim, he was on his way and his Father saw him while he was yet a long way off. He was still a child in his returning; he was walking. The Father ran to meet him and gave him gifts. He put a new robe on him, which means he had a new set of ideas for understanding, a new way of seeing. He put a chain about his neck. A chain in the symbolism represents that he has been given power over certain things, that he could do certain things now. Kings put a chain with an emblem on some of their officers and that showed they served the King and that all the people further down the line, whatever his office showed, obeyed him. All things less than where one is do obey, which is when one makes up one’s mind they all obey. Now we are not talking about people. Man has never been given dominion over man. He’s been given dominion over other things. One of the temptations that comes along when one is small in the Kingdom, in the New World, in the Spiritual world, the same as in the physical world, is that one is disappointed because one doesn’t have everything obey him, but only that which is lower. Now when anyone blames anything, when one is rather despondent because one is a child and doesn’t have all the capabilities of an adult, one becomes despondent and is apt to begin go blame.One might recall that when one was a child and they wouldn’t let him drive the car, take the boat, or whatever it may be, that he became indignant and began to blame. Anything that one blames one has placed higher than self, I. So if I blame illness for striking me down then illness will not obey me because I am subject to it; it has a chain with a symbol on it representing higher than I will accept. If I blame circumstances then circumstances are higher in the scale of being than I will accept. If I blame some situation for causing me difficulty instead of seeing it as a gift then, of course, I have placed that situation higher in the scale of being than I, and, of course, it will not obey me. I have no way to make up my mind until I see what is and I see the good of the situation and then it is below me. I am observing it instead of it controlling me.So man does not experience FAITH for a considerable length of time as he grows in the Kingdom, in the New World, as his spiritual body matures. Faith is the greatest power known to man and if he could experience it while he was still little he might misuse it. Few of us would trust a loaded thirty-ought-six rifle to a little child because he doesn’t know how to handle it. He is still subject to indiscretions; he is still subject to many things that happen that he is not fully aware; he is growing in awareness. We might trust him with a little air rifle or a popgun. As he learns to be careful with it, observes and respects the power of that popgun or air rifle, we might trust him with a twenty-two, under supervision. As he proves himself heedful of all situations and as he observes the necessity of controlling the rifle, rather than blaming it if it fires and shoots him in the leg, he will be given, maybe, a larger caliber rifle. Sooner or later he will be given the thirty ought-six and maybe even more powerful guns or other tools of ability. We seldom would trust a little child to take a powerful automobile off the premises by himself. We will let him ride; we will take him where he wants to go. When he shows that he can observe the rules of traffic by walking, we might trust him with a bicycle. When he shows that he can handle it well we might trust him with a more powerful vehicle and finally he can drive the car. Many are driving cars that apparently didn’t take those precautions. They still do not seem to realize the strength and the destructiveness of the possible use of that powerful weapon. Even though it is not usually considered a weapon it can become a very dangerous instrument when one isn’t heedful of its power.So faith is more powerful than all these things. Man usually doesn’t experience faith right off. He finds that he can see what is and he can see the good of it but he can’t quite make up his mind. He may take this as a limitation that he has failed, but it is not that he has failed. He can begin to see the good of not having faith until he is more mature in the spiritual world. As he understands and sees that he is thankful for not having been given another gift beyond the ones he’s already been given he might be entrusted with faith because he sees the power of faith. He sees the value of it and he knows that very valuable things, valuable abilities, valuable positions or offices are not indiscriminately handed out, that the person must have the maturity before they are given them. One can slowly mature in the spiritual world much as one matured physically in the physical world where one didn’t have certain privileges or certain powers or abilities.Some of us may be many, many years old and haven’t been given all powers and abilities yet in the physical world, then obviously not in the spiritual world where faith is the most powerful force known to man. The story is told that the Christ said to a fig tree, “Thou shalt henceforth bear no more fruit,” and it was dead that evening. It forthwith withered up. That is a very powerful force. He said, “If a person had the faith of a mustard seed,” a very small amount of faith, just barely beginning to experience faith, that he could say to a tree, “Be thou rooted up and planted in the ocean,” and that it would obey. These are very powerful things. So obviously faith would not be entrusted to a child in the spiritual world. We can be very thankful that it’s not because we might use it in a moment of indiscretion in our youngness in the spiritual world for something that would be very harmful, and we are aiming to be harmless. So GRACE is seeing things as gifts that one never did see as gifts before. And possibly being denied the experiencing of faith for a while is a very great gift. You see, a child never sees that because his parents won’t let him have the automobile when he is not quite capable of recognizing its power or his father won’t let him use the thirty-ought-six rifle or take the power boat out into the lake by himself, he doesn’t see that his father is interested in his well-being. He sees his father as a mean old man who just won’t let him do things. He feels he is very, very capable. And, of course, that is a little trace of vanity that is still trying to entice one back. You know that vanity was a very powerful force and stayed in existence for a long time. While it may be cast out now it’s still rambling around outside trying to get one back. It tells one that one is capable, but self-awareness is constantly observing and seeing that one is still a child in the spiritual world, that one’s spiritual body, frame of reference, is not fully developed. Then one sees the fact that one has not experienced faith is Grace, a great gift, an undeserved good, because we would have grabbed it, right quick. Of course, “We would only have used it only for good,” like the child would have not misused the rifle, the boat or the automobile. But his judgment is not sufficient yet. He has to take things in steps as he can use them and to begin to recognize as Grace many of the things that one has considered to be evil, bad.So one of the things we begin to reevaluate about now is seeing things differently. We started seeing differently and now we will enhance that ability; we will practice seeing things different. So suppose we head a sheet of paper GRACE, the undeserved gifts extended to me, to I, to the awareness function of X. One of them would be that

Adolescence and childhood are times of great temptation. There are so many things that seem desirable and one does not have the ability to obtain them so one has the temptation to obtain them by devious quick methods. That is in the physical world of growing up in the physical body while the self, the personality, is developing.As one enters into the spiritual life one begins to grow in the spiritual life and form a spiritual body, nourishing it with self-observation, with observing other selves, with observing what is, with seeing relationships, with seeing how things work, seeing what is and seeing the value of what is. Along about this time comes some rather unusual temptations. One has a certain serenity and peace, one has certain functions, one is behaving in a different way, one is experiencing a different state of being. One may even be experiencing small indications of faith and can use faith in a small way, may even be experiencing faith in a very, very small way, may even experience grace a bit.Temptation comes along and this temptation is quite different than it formerly was. The old temptation that one was acquainted with was the temptation to identify with the Not-I’s, with mammon. Now the temptation comes in another way. This temptations is the effort of the Not-I’s that have been cast out, of mammon to identify with I. I has become more powerful, is growing and the Not-I’s begin to be very jealous of it and mammon is very jealous in all directions.There is a great story told of the temptations of the Christ; that he went through many things and he was in the wilderness fasting for forty days and forty nights. Fasting means that he had experienced something but he was fasting from faith, from grace and possibly from agape to any degree. Fasting means one is without food. He was without food that seemed to make the inner being, the spiritual body, grow. As he returned from the desert, he was met by mammon who tempted him.Now mammon is experienced as thoughts, experienced as suggestions from without. The first thing mammon said to him was, “If thou be the Son of God, if thou art the servant of the most high.” In other words if thou sees that thou art a function of X and that thou art serving X instead of mammon “command that these stones be made into bread.” In other words, see the truth of something. Stone is a literal truth and to make it into something good, usable, valuable, bread.There are many parts to this little question. “If” is the first place. First off mammon is trying to start doubt in the person. Are you really serving mammon or are you deceiving yourself? If you be this then you could do so-and-so and he set up a condition of proof. The only thing that mammon was saying, “If you are the Son of God, if you are serving mammon.” He didn’t say that you might experience peace, that you might see things differently, that you might behave differently, that you might have a new state of being. No, he said, “If you are trying to cast doubt you will perform a wonder.” You know the world, mammon, the ideal, always looks for a sign, for some credentials that one is at a certain place. This credential is not outward, it is what you are experiencing, is it not? There’s no way you could make a sign or a demonstration to another person. It is what you are experiencing. But here comes the temptation to perform a wonder, to have a sign that one is serving X. “If you are serving X you should have a sign.” That is a trick of mammon, of the ideals. It says, “If you are doing something so wonderful you should have a sign.” Here is the world trying to get the adolescent back into its power.The Christ did not respond to that temptation. He didn’t try to show his credentials. He didn’t have any proof to offer that he was serving X. He only said, “It is written that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God.” In other words, I’ll live by the Teaching. I have been experimenting with it. I find it to be true. I find it to be valuable and I don’t need to demonstrate to anyone, to any man of the world who is talking about ideals. I don’t need to demonstrate that I am serving X. I don’t need any signs and demonstrations because I’ve experimented for self. I have discovered the Teaching to be true and it is very valuable. He is talking about the Teaching which no man claims credit for. Everyone says it came from a higher mind, it came from another realm. No matter who carries it, who transmits the Teaching or by what method, no one claims “This is mine.” The Christ himself said, “The Teaching is not mine but is from Him who sent me.” So he had found the Teaching valuable and he said this proceedeth from the mouth of God, from a higher mind, from a different realm than the education of the manmade world. So he didn’t succumb to that temptation. But mammon wasn’t through yet. He said, “If you really are the Son of God, it is written that you shall stand on the spire of the temple and jump off and you will not bruise your heel,” because it is written that X will not allow his servant to bruise his heel. In other words, again try for a demonstration to show off, to demonstrate and to gain attention and approval, which all seems rather nice, doesn’t it? That we could have attention and approval that we could demonstrate and then, of course, people would “believe” and more would come to the Teaching.You see one can only come to the Teaching by one’s own experiments, not by having some grand demonstration because then they would only believe because of the demonstration and they would hope to find a way to improve themselves that they could perform the demonstration or gain the benefits of the demonstration. But man comes to it because he’s questioned the purpose of living and he pursues it to try it out for himself. He is not convinced by anyone or by any sign or demonstration.You see this is always the hope of everyone, that they can perform a demonstration. Somebody performed a healing somewhere, somebody got well and somebody said, “Obviously that is the truth, we must follow that.” Some man produced something else. The Christ told some of his students that they didn’t believe because they hadn’t experimented with the Teaching themselves. That they hadn’t any inner strength in themselves because they hadn’t experimented. That they only believed and followed him because of the signs they had seen when he healed the sick, raised the dead, made many loaves and fishes out of a few loaves and fishes. In other words when he practiced faith they believed in it because of the benefits to the physical man, not because they had experimented with it and found any aspects of the Teaching to be correct.This great temptation that the Christ underwent is the same that every one of us undergoes. First the temptation to perform a wonder and get a sign so that I can prove to myself that I am serving X, that I am doing something real. The first is an attempt to doubt the Self without a demonstration; I is even tempted to want a sign. The next is the sign that other people will recognize something. That is to jump off the spire of the temple, a very high point, jump to the ground and not get a bruise on the heel, not to be injured in any way which would certainly be a sign and a wonder. Again, the Christ said, “It is also written that thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” In other words one doesn’t show off with the idea that X will protect him from his showing off, trying to gain attention and approval. He knows that X does what one sees as truth and what one sees as good. He couldn’t see any value in jumping off the temple because all it would be doing was serving mammon, gaining attention and approval, possibly have a great number of followers who were not interested in challenging the idea of “What is the purpose of living?” and beginning to know for themselves. But seeing something, they say that is a wonder and they want to follow it hoping they will find some technique whereby they can achieve the ideal and gain great attention and approval for themselves and power over other people. The Christ said, “It is written, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.” In other words, I won’t put on a performance that I really know is not worthwhile, but it will only be worthwhile to serve mammon.Mammon wasn’t through yet. He took the Christ to a very high spot, way up somewhere, and said, “Look, here are all the kingdoms of the world and they have all been delivered into my hands and I will give them all if you will fall down and worship me.” Now we’re all conditioned and we’re all tempted to worship mammon, the ideal, to have the four dual basic urges, the greatest one, of course, is power over others. So mammon offered power over all the people in the world if one would worship him. He was saying, “You are something great, you have great powers, you have accomplished great things.” Mammon was trying to identify with the enlightened man, but the enlightened Being had nothing to do with him. He would not accept the power over the others. He said, “Get thee behind me.” In other words, personality, you go behind me. You may be a tool for use in some of the practical affairs of building a house but you will be under control. So nothing tempted him.Now we will all be subject and are subjected to these temptations, temptations to have power over others. This is one of the reasons that faith is not experienced very early because it could be a power over others. It is why it is withheld for a while to see if we have the patience, understanding, compassion, and if we can see others lines of thought in their conditioned states. That even though they may produce very horrible things, one understands that but by the grace of being there goes I; that one could have done any of the things that any other human has done or ever will do while one was in the conditioned state.One can understand that that

As frequent reference to a Teaching, a Teaching is generally carried on in a School. Sometimes the Schools are put on where groups of people are together and others who are not there think unusual things must go on. At the particular moment we would like to describe what a School is and what goes on in a School. First there is a group of people that have their own ideas of what-out-to-be brought from various areas and put together.Wherever there are two or more people together in any form of a relationship, whether it’s working together, living in the same house, living in the same apartment, or whether there are two people that have some intimate relationship such as marriage or family etc. we have that portion of a School; two or more people in one place with different sets of conditioning, different sets of ideas of what-ought-to-be in relationship. The other things that goes in a school are the ideas of the School, what makes up Teaching; the Ideas of self-observation and this self-observation of course, is in relationship with other people. What does one do when one thinks one has what one ought to have and somebody else comes along with a different what-ought-to-be at that particular moment and they “bump” a little bit. This determines what one sees. Then if I see that the conditioning is doing this then one is separated. If one identifies with the what-ought-to-be, with the conditioning, there is then conflict between two people. Of course, this is used as a Teaching example.Anywhere in the world where there are two or more people there are the physical requirements for a School. Where ever the words of the Teaching, the ideas of the Teaching are available, whether one receives them from tape or some person in person, then that is the other aspect of the School. Then is the person doing the self-observing. These three factors make up a School.When you put three factors together, the initiative, resistance, form, then there is a result. When a person has this there is a result of building a new spiritual body. A body is a frame of reference; it is a body of ideas, a body of observations. It has nothing to do with beliefs etc. but is really something that one has experienced and seen for self. Each and every person that is listening to these discussions is in a School. One, you have certain ideas with which to work with, to observe, are practicing self-observation, you are in relationship with one or more people whether it be at work, at home or whatever, there is a relationship. And one can only be in School in relationship. If one went out to be a hermit and took these ideas there would really be very little to observe because only in relationship with the other person is there resistance to the ideal. No one has to think of being resistance to another, just the very fact of our existence we are resistance to other people, we are second force.So first we have two or more people together. Second we have the ideas of the School, of the Teaching, self-observation. What does one observe? One observes building accounts, one observes the many I’s jumping around having each one their say. We observe the many efforts at conflict, the efforts to self-improve, the efforts to convince the other, the efforts to blame, the efforts to make everything fit the ideal and be disappointed. We have all the ideas and we can observe them. So life really is the teacher, the everyday existence we find self in is the teacher because there is always relationship. It continually reminds us whether we are using the Teaching or have gone to sleep and identified with the world again. The basic ideas of ideals, self-improvement, signs and wonders, demonstrations and blaming, anti-agape, which come up with all the unpleasant emotions of anger, guilt, fear, insecurity, frustration, aggravations, annoyances etc. One is always in a School wherever one may be. If one recalls this and is aware that everyone there is also a student, maybe consciously or unconsciously, but at least I am a student if I am observing, and everyone who “bumps me,” so to speak, reminds me to use the material. As long as we do this we will have plenty to do.We will review the kind of Not-I’s that one sees in self, what kinds of personalities are in the self. As we have observed, some of them get to be rather well educated as one is observing them and they get more cunning. They don’t want to be caught. They are like foxes that have been trapped, they get very aware of being observed and they become more cunning. The ones that have never seen men trapping them are quite bold, they go on about their affairs. So we might say we are “fox hunting” or “fox trapping” because foxes are, in all fables and Teaching stories, considered to be very cunning. So here are some Not-I's, some foxes that one may observe:1. There are Not-I’s that continually tries to entice I to identify with it.2. Then there is a condemning Not-I’s that will pretend to be I. It says “After all, all these other I’s are doing wrong,” and it makes every effort to ally with I, the observer. I the observer has a lonely job and sometimes it is quite easy when something is trying to be its ally for it to agree with it.3. Then there is a self-improving Not-I’s that attempts to identify itself as being I the observer. It pretends to observe and says, “Now they will get better,” and it starts one into identifying with it and starts one into self-improving.4. Then there is the self-righteous Not-I’s that tries to reason with I to see that everything should be made righteous. These are very cunning. They are pretending to be angels of light and want more and more righteousness. Their real intent is to get I to identify with them. Once one agrees with, identifies with one of these Not-I’s then they begin to change their tactics.5. Then there’s justifying that makes almost anything sound good. They are wonderful attorneys-at-law. They can argue fine points about anything to make it sound like “This really should be justifiable, this is right, this is really X talking, maybe.” They’re experts at changing the meaning of words.These Not-I’s love to take the Teaching that I is free to experience whatever may arise in the house of the self and not identify with the happening. They try to twist that idea into license to do anything and everything they can justify.We will observe that there are two basic parties of Not-I’s, both are very cunning, the party of A and the party of B and that they’re in conflict. That each party is attempting to get I to identify with it to overcome the other party which is being held out as being very evil. In other words, it would be all right to overcome evil, wouldn’t it? A holds out that B is evil because it produces guilt, because it puts on a false front and because it believes whatever it is told to believe by an authorities. A is saying that that is evil and that one should join forces with A and overcome it. But B says you should overcome A because A is a complainer and it is the violent one, it sticks up for its rights and it judges and blames other people. Both of these can be made to sound very enticing. As I observes this I it is beginning to build a body, a spiritual body, a spiritual frame of reference. The old frame of reference was somewhat of a monster; it had two heads, A and B and anything with two heads is rather a monster. It has complete disorganization in its self and it has all kinds of blind areas. In some place it’s said it has a beam in its eye and still trying to get the speck out of its brother’s eye. A had a big beam in its eye and trying to get a speck out of B’s eye, and B had a big beam trying to get the speck out of A’s eye. So they contend and moan quite a bit but they get more and more subtle as we go along. So it is well to be aware of these parties.Keep the picture of man where one can observe it and listen to their various ideas. They try to get one to agree with thoughts. Thoughts are mere associations. As associations come along one sounds pretty reasonable. We read something in the paper or someone says something and we associate something else with it and feel we have made a great stride in understanding but it is still only one of the old associations. It is to be seen and reported, not to be identified with, not to be judged.As long as one is seeing and reporting one is building a clean and pure spiritual body. The old man that is distorted, has two heads, is blind and possibly is a leper is being destroyed — it’s being eliminated by X. Another way of saying it is the old house is being cleansed, the house of the awareness, so that I with its new body can move in. Its like any baby, it starts with a small body just observing. As it observes it begins by observing Not-I’s to build a spiritual body. It has a spiritual frame of reference. It has discernment. One might say it discerns demons, the Not-I’s, and it discerns Spirit, the Truth and the Value of the Teaching that reminds it what to do. It does not tell it, “It must do this or not do that.” It is a guide, a light, and it begins to be a body full of light. As more and more light is in the less and less the dark creatures of the conditioned world are in.One might also observe these very cunning Not-I’s. There is a considering Not-I that always says, “How does this affect me, how does this do this, now that wasn’t fair the way they did that.” I is easily enticed in this because I is always doing what seems right, proper and justifiable, and really leaves off the justifying. The Not-I’s use justifying to make every sort of thing seem right and proper. After all that is the whole purpose of justifying is it not, that it makes something that is questionable seem to be right or proper. Now I only does that which is right or proper but the Not-I’s use the technique of justifying to make most anything appear to be right or proper. One will also notice that each Not-I or many of

Fellow students frequently ask why there is not more written material on the Teaching of self-knowing and self-observation around the world as long as it’s supposed to have been in existence for ages upon ages. Possibly it is and only due to being conditioned we have never noticed it. For the time being we’re going to discuss a few points of reference works which do indicate that self-knowing has been taught for ages upon ages. Were going to read from a very commonly known book. It starts off; “Then He called the crowd to him again and said to them: Hear me all of you and understand.” Not just hear but understand also. “There is nothing outside of man that entering into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a man, these are what defile a man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” In other words, did you hear or did you merely hear some words. By hearing means inner comprehension. I without the conditioning hears. If it goes through the conditioning one doesn’t hear. It continues, “And when He had entered the house away from the crowd his disciples began to ask him about the parable and he said to them: Are you also then without understanding? Do you not realize that nothing from outside by entering a man can defile him for it does not enter his heart,” his awareness, “but his belly and passes out into the drain. Thus he declared all foods clean.” And he said, “The things that come out of a man are what defile a man; for from within out of the heart of man” the conditioned area of men, the awareness that has been conditioned and taken over by the basic idea that the whole purpose of living is to gain pleasure and escape pain on all levels and the way to get it is to complain, stick up for rights, please, do as one is told by authorities, put on a different front, and to blame, is all trying to what, gratify the four dual basic urges. All of this makes up the heart of man. He said, “The things that come out of a man are what defile a man for from within, out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, adulteries, immorality, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, shamelessness, jealousies, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All of these evil things come from within and defile a man.” Why do they defile a man, because X operates upon them as being true if I is identified with all these bits of conditioning. Now how could one know that they were within a person unless he was observing self? It is implied by HEAR AND UNDERSTAND that one would inspect what is within self, what the self is made up of. Let’s look at all the things that he said come out of the self: evil thoughts, thoughts of revenge, thoughts of having accounts due one, thoughts of vanity, thoughts of defense of that false picture of self, thoughts of all sorts of things. After all thoughts of revenge would lead to murder if carried to its ultimate, it’s getting even.ADULTERIES: Adulteries, which is to gain a pleasure, is to adulterate things instead of seeing them in their purity not only from the standpoint of interpersonal relationships between people but to adulterate ideas, to adulterate the Teaching. To convert it, twist it around and to say it has nothing to do with the inner state of man but only has to do with his outward behavior would be to adulterate the Teaching. To change agape into being tolerant, to change being washed of all these things that man would be washed of if he observes them into merely being dipped through some water would be to adulterate. IMMORALITY: Immorality possibly has nothing to do with one’s particular behavior with others. Let us see what immorality might mean. If I do not know how to control another person, and, of course, I don’t, would that be because I was moral or simply because I do not know how to control him? That couldn’t be considered moral. If I know how to control a person and do control him could that be considered moral or would it merely be cunning? But if I know how to control another person and don’t because I don’t feel that I have dominion over another man but only over the self and things lower than man, that might be considered to be moral. JEALOUSY: Wanting the attention that someone else is getting or feeling or the approval that someone else is getting. It is feeling entitled to, stick up for one’s rights. It is the four dual basic urges in action with A running the show. Complain to get my way, being pitiful, making the person feel bad, come wait on me, stick up for my rights and blame somebody for having run off with the objects that so aided my comforts and pleasures and gave me attention and approval. Now they’re given to someone else. BLASPHEMY: Using that which is holy for an unholy purpose. If one takes the Teaching and uses it to control people, to put threats on them to make them obey it could be called blasphemy. PRIDE: Defending the false picture of self, the self as being so fully conscious when it is not, when it is going along in a state of sleep, I identifying with all the Not-l’s, and there is purely reaction. Then when someone calls it to account then there is the defense, “I did it for a certain purpose. I did it because of certain reason. I wanted to see how you would react, to see what was going on while I was free to do it etc.” Pride defends the false idea that one was conscious when one was not. One was in a dream state of knowing what ought to be and reacting accordingly from these things that arise from within the heart or the awareness of man that is conditioned. FOOLISHNESS: Is anything that isn’t paying attention. Whenever one is not paying attention is considered foolishness in the Teaching of all things. Foolishness is taking a false idea and accepting it as true. Living by beliefs without checking out the beliefs because someone said, “This belief, if you follow it, will give pleasure and comfort in the future or if you don’t follow it will bring about pain.” So is there any doubt that 2000 years ago self-knowing was being taught, that the picture of man was laid out, out of the heart of man? Instead of calling it the awareness it was called the heart. It’s still the heart, the vital area of man. Is there any doubt that it was there being taught at that time and has it been adulterated down through the ages, left out and said this only has to do with outward foods — you can eat anything you want to now and don’t have to leave off all the prohibited foods. You see the things were called foods and prohibited were because they represented conditioning or unconsciousness. They weren’t fully aware, and on the using as the symbol, they had perverted the symbol. Somebody said you had to see within, what is really within man, what arises from within the person so that they can see what is going on within. When we begin to be aware that the heart or the awareness factor of man is fully conditioned and that I has been lying there asleep, and even though I has awakened and now and then and is able to observe that self, that from it comes all manner of things that defile the human being. DEFILE: The word defile comes from an old word meaning trampled underfoot. Therefore it was the idea that was defiled; it was trampled under foot. Most of us feel we are trampled down, that we are controlled by all kinds of forces that we attributed to come from without. We indulge in great amounts of self-pity, we come up with hate, with revenge, we feel that we are victimized, and, of course, there are plenty of forces that attempt to tell us that we are the victims of all manner of circumstances. Man is told to look to his political ideology or to his other various organizations to be protected from being victimized. He is told there are enemies in the open that they are outside, that they are controlling him, and that these must be overcome by force and by power.How many times have you ever been told look within and you will find that which defiles you? It comes out of the conditioned area of man, everything that’s in conditioning tramples man, the real living being, underfoot. It defiles him, tramples him, renders him incapable of performing and lets the conditioning mechanically operate and destroy the human being, and in the meantime he suffers many agonies. This has been taught for thousands of years, if it was taught, but very few heard it. The Great Teacher said, “Hear and understand.” We don’t understand unless we apply something. We could hear something over and over but until I begin to apply it, in no way could it be said to be understood because only by experiencing it, by discovering it for self and seeing can one say that one understands. So hear that all things that tramples one under, defiles him, causes him difficulty, comes from within. If that is the case we will have to look and see where it is within, is that correct? We would not find it in the muscles or bloodstream, saliva, the heart pumping away the physical organ; we would find it in the mind, in the area of beliefs, in the awareness function of man. If we begin to look there by self-observation, by separating I the observer, the awareness function, by awakening it, by beginning to observe this we will see without any doubt where that which causes all the trouble in an individual’s existence comes from. We will see what defiles him or tramples him under, makes him sick, makes him in conflict with his fellow man, in conflict within. We’ll see that all of that is on the basic ideas of the four dual basic urges, that the whole purpose of living, which is a false idea but it’s there, solid and one can observe it. That the whole purpose of living is to gain pleasure and escape pain, to gain attention, avoid being ignored or rejected, to gain approval and escape all disapproval, to feel important by being able to control others and by feeling inferior when one cannot. That one then tries to gain these methods, these ideas, these purposes, by complaining. Of course, complaining includes je