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 - RESULT

Now 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