Evolutionary Satsang with Andrew Cohen, 21st May 2023

second [Music] [Music] welcome we will uh do something a little bit different today than many of you are used to this is the first online evolutionary sad song directly from kiromanamalai and uh I just want to give a quick introduction uh how this new format will unfold and what you can expect so at the beginning end we will say a few words about the significance and meaning of satsang and then we will open up for your questions and you will be able to raise your hand either your Zoom hand or your physical hand and us can do your question directly and that is already everything I had to say and I'm very happy to hand over to you Andrew very good nice to see you nice to see everybody so the meaning of that thing is association with truth and it's a very unique context in which to delve and delve deeper into the experience of Consciousness the experience of reality so so specifically satsang means association with truth and practically it means the associating with the consciousness or the realization of the realizing so traditionally people have come together gathered around someone who is presumed to have realized awakened awareness enlightened consciousness and Focus their attention on his or her nature his or her being and when we focus our attention on the being of the awakened consciousness of the realizer it can help to awaken us directly to the nature of our own potential for enlightened awareness when I was speaking to Ken Wilbur about the significance of satsang he said it gives people an opportunity to experience the nature of enlightened awareness directly and that's one of its unique gifts so the idea here is not to identify or focus on the nature of the realizer him or herself but it's on the nature of their own awakened Consciousness if indeed it is context and in my context would be in The evolutionary sets in context we are focusing primarily in this situation on awakening to the absolute the non-relative dimension of reality it's commonly understood that Reality by metaphysically it's commonly understood that reality the nature of reality as a whole is both relative and absolute and relative reality is considered to be the mundane everyday consciousness and the absolute Consciousness is our direct cognition and cognizance of ultimacy the ultimate nature of reality the Oneness behind all things so the goal in this context is to be to be able to directly into it or God cognized recognize realize feel no directly the ultimate nature a being of existence of reality itself that's the whole point of this Gathering that's the whole point of satsang is to wake up is to wake up to reality to wake up to the ultimate nature of reality that which is highest which is the source of Liberation the source of Enlightenment a source of enlightened awareness the source of inner freedom and the source of the discovery of ultimate meaning and ultimate purpose and now more than ever of course we're all desperately in need of that it was the world we're living in these times are very challenging and confusing so what can help us more than anything else to come to terms with our fear and our confusion and our doubt and our anxiety and our Terror is the perennial experience of Awakening to the ultimate nature of reality the Oneness of all things the ultimate recognition of non-duality or Oneness the essence of vedanta which is where the side where this kind of teaching comes from is the realization that the ultimate nature of reality is that there's only one and not two and that that realization is the ultimate source of liberation and in a freedom so I hope but by coming together in this way we can experience that one is directly as a result of Simply being together in this way so it's important to remember in this context that this is not about anything personal so for this this Gathering remember in a meeting we're having together now let's try and avoid questions that are about the personal dimension of life I'm not saying the personal dimension of life is unreal or are unimportant but in this particular context which we were interested primarily in Awakening to Transcendence or going Beyond relative existence as as completely as possible because from the point of view of Enlightenment or ultimate Liberation it is through transcending all things relatives that we find ultimacy which is the source of the absolute absolute reality absolute consciousness absolute cognition absolute liberation so that's what I want to focus on with all of you when you ask me your questions so if some of the questions are I feel a little bit too personal I will try and I might refuse to I might respectfully refuse to answer it if it's too personal not because it's done because it's necessarily anything wrong with the question it just says this isn't the right context for issues that are too personal so it's a sad thing it's a very specific and very unique context it's only about Awakening the non-relative reality and not really by coming to terms with personal issues and we can find and I continue to find in my own life that um that miraculously and remarkably the more my capacity to awaken to and to realize and directly experience the non-relative or absolute nature of reality of Ultimate Reality my personal issues I think it's going to disappear in the Blazing light of enlightened awareness but that can happen it really can't happen that's the whole point it's so much of what seems so important to us in a relative playing on a personal plane can be rendered empty and meaninglessness meaningless and ultimately harmless but the I the per the idea here is to is to be willing to let go of a of the mind and the personal egos obsessive and compulsive addiction to its own story so in this context for the next hour or so let's try and try and send our story all together and be solely focused on the Awakening to the ultimate nature of what's real alone and let everything else Fade Into the background for a short time like taking a vacation from sorrow or that which is often to be unreal or relative or impermanent oh yeah so we want to seek for that which is unchanging infinite birthless and deathless indestructible time was informers and inherently liberate itself the breaded always and then everything else disappear for a little bit if we can that's the idea that the truth we're seeking for is an eternal truth and Discovery now which is eternal is the source of liberation that's the idea that's the goal so before we begin let's spend a few minutes sitting quietly together [Music] um it doesn't matter if your eyes are open or you're closed but to spend a few minutes you just a minute or two uh contemplating the nature of consciousness contemplating the nature of our unconsciousness kind of Right Here and Now because if we contemplate the nature of our own Consciousness here and now we'll find that Consciousness is the ground of itself is the ground of reality Consciousness is the source of the self and the source of reality show our subconsciousness is always the ground of everything we experience knowingly run knowingly in every single moment so just to begin we want to focus on the Timeless informants and infinite nature of Consciousness itself as a starting point because Consciousness and your own consciousness right now has no boundaries so allow yourself simply to become more sensitive and more aware of your own experience of Consciousness in the present moment can Wilbur like to call it the feeling the feeling of being you can find your own Consciousness by simply dwelling on the feeling of being the feeling or the vibration of being itself is what Consciousness is in this context we want to be aware of the nature of consciousness what is the nature of Consciousness what is the nature of my own consciousness for now we're not interested in the content of consciousness we're not interested in the objects that arise in consciousness are more interested in delving into the nature of Consciousness itself as it always already is consciousness is like an ocean an ocean being and its boundarylessness is its source of liberation to try to feel into the boundaries of this nature of your own Consciousness is the feeling of being the place where there's no fear there's no desire and there's no nothing missing the place where nothing needs to change and everything's always already perfect so sad thing will be association with truth means allowing consciousness the experience of Consciousness the presence of Consciousness the recognition of the nature of consciousness to become Primary in our experience allow the infinite nature of your unconsciousness to become primary and your own experience birthless and deathless I'm this informed this Source the freedom itself Consciousness itself is always already free I was already liberating just needs to be recognized the feeling of being The Awakening to enlightened awareness is the direct Awakening to the inherently liberated nature of consciousness as it always already is doesn't take time foreign spontaneous because it's always already there Freedom doesn't need to be attained it needs to be realized recognized seeing the totality of realities ever existent omnipresent obvious we don't need to struggle we just need to let go so if anybody has any questions which is part of this part of this process works I'll be happy to do my best to answer them but I'm going to try to remain as far beyond the personal as possible and we speak together so if you have a question you can please raise your hand either by pressing on the reaction in the race hand on your Zoom window or you raise your physical hand to leave it there for a few seconds and soon we'll recognize the sign and if nobody has any questions that's fine because we can just sit quietly together we can just sit quietly together also that's awesome sometimes even more powerful so I'm I'm easy either way sometimes we find our answers for being quiet and sometimes we find our answers through sincere inquiry and it's important to understand that in the in the process and the practice of inquiry in a spiritual context like this in the context Where We Are aspiring to awaken to enlightened awareness it's important to make a distinction in within ourselves of where the questions are coming from so are the questions coming from the deepest the most authentic part of our own selves are the questions really just come from the mind so the questions that come from only come from our minds are not coming from a very deep place it can they can come from a place of complex intellectual abstraction but they they're not coming from a place of the kind of place that's going to help to liberate our liberate ourselves this is where I like the phrase authentic self because when we speak from the most authentic part of our own self we express the kind of sincerity authenticity gravitas truthfulness Integrity soul level integrity it changes everything it means that we are very sense very serious we're deadly serious about the bad potential for a way to awaken and we really mean it we're not just entertaining ourselves we're taking very seriously and it takes courage to be authentic and it takes something to be sincere and to be to speak with gravitas and uh deep authenticity that's what it takes though to really do this for real so I'm just saying that as a word of encouragement Joseph did you have your handle you have a question wait I will unmute you yes I did yeah we can hear you now oh okay great uh if you can hear me well um Andrew Since you're speaking of the Mind uh that's that's our stumbling block it's my stumbling block because I continued to identify there rather than with the Consciousness in which the Mind arises as Arjuna says truly the wind is no Wilder very very true so how do we how do we understand even though we do understand that the consciousness underlies of the Mind how do we identify with the openness rather than the particularities of our mental activity well it has to do with uh sincerity it has to has to do with being ruthlessly sincere in public and in private so the first time I discovered my own authentic self is when I was sitting with my Guru hwl punch in his in his bedroom and I'd known him for a few weeks that we were alone and um we weren't speaking we were just sitting quietly together and uh I suddenly heard somebody asked a question that said somebody spoke to him and they said I'm ready to die but I don't know how and then I realized it was me but I had not been aware my ego had not been aware of asking the question a very or have you been intending to ask the question and when I realized that I'd asked the question without being aware of it I kind of Drew back I said I was shocked by the expression of such as such sincerity such deadly sincere deadly sincerity coming through me to reaching out to him and it happened in spite of my ego and having her and my ego was completely uninvolved in the reaching out to him and then I realized that there was a part of myself that was much deeper than my small self through the ego that was acting Through Me In Spite of the ego so therefore sometimes when our mind is particularly Troublesome and of course it's never the mind that Troublesome it's the ego that's attached to it it's gets worried or upset or frightened or feels insecure lacking in kind of confidence we have to we have to have spiritual faith and spiritual faith and conviction that our authentic self is Alive and Well in spite of how we mind and ego are behaving even within the privacy of Our Own interiority so it means we have to be able to sometimes bear the unpleasant and draining fluctuations of our own mind and ego without believing in their veracity or their reality or their authenticity because there's a lot of people think that just because the the mind gets agitated and the ego gets reacted that it means something about uh assuming it means something about Andrew I mean something about Joseph but when we when we get good at this we realize that this fluctuations of the Mind and fluctuations of our emotions don't necessarily mean anything about us because we as we awaken and as we've all heard so many times some of the mind is deeply conditioned we are all deeply conditioned on so many different levels at the same time it's almost impossible to come to terms with how complex are the are the levels of conditioning and dementiative conditioning that make up a human being so so many of the storms don't use the psychological and emotional storms that get ignited within us more often than not they don't mean anything and the unenlightened ego feels an overwhelming temptation to draw conclusions about these fluctuations meaning we're trying to we're drawing the conclusion that this means something about me this is how lost I am to so ignorant I am so unenlightened I am this is how foolish I am and so stupid or whatever else it is but the point is if you're if you're sincere and you're serious we have to have the the spiritual self-discipline to assume no relationships with the content of Consciousness in a moment like that to realize that it's simply the mind if it's the fluctuation of the Mind the fluctuations of our emotions which if we have if we're practicing deep and sincere mental discipline spiritual discipline we won't allow ourselves to draw any conclusions about what any of it means about us which means in a simple practical way that we have to learn to bear a certain degree of suffering without drawing any conclusions about what it might mean about us and if we have the spiritual strength and tenacity and discipline they refuse to draw any conclusions about what our minds are mental fluctuations mean about us we'll often find to our surprise that the fluctuations begin to die down in the storm begins to calm itself and then if we if we haven't let go of our believe in ourselves and our belief in our own potential for Liberation we'll find that nothing bad happened we didn't do anything stupid because when we get frightened and feel insecure and anxious let me get them to get to doubt our spiritual capacity spiritual strength we can often do things that are self-destructive and can and can wreak havoc with our belief in our own spiritual potential so the important thing is that we don't do anything at times like that we don't don't catalyze kind of self-destructive consequences so the reason why we all want to learn how to practice be master meditators we all want to become Masters and a master to be a master meditator in this context means I know how to assume no relationship to the content of consciousness I know how to assume no relationship to the content of Consciousness which is mind I know how to assume the relationship with the content of Consciousness which means practically I can be in the middle of a storm Mind Storm emotional storm and choose and choose to assume a relationship to any that remain inwardly unmoved it doesn't mean I don't suffer I might suffer but I'm not going to draw any conclusions even about that what is it all what does it mean nothing about who I really am we've got to do it for real we have to be very spirited I'm going to be very spirited very inspired very diligent very uh stoic because to repeat the weak mind and the weak ego is to always drawing conclusions about itself this means I'm good this means I'm bad this is right this is wrong we're always judging ourselves as being better than or worse than the other the others better than or worse than our own ideals instead of letting go of all of it and Having the courage to be free I sometime around now because uh my my Guru were made very apparent to me something that's really very obvious but most people don't see which is a freedom freedom spiritual freedom the way getting to Enlighten awareness never exists in the future so most spiritual Seekers are planning to get enlightened sometime in the future to awaken the enlightened awareness sometime in the future so so locating an unconditional relationship to Liberation always has to be located in the present moment even if the present moment doesn't feel good I'm not saying that suffering if there's something inherently dignified or uh or a lot about suffering I'm not saying that in any way shape or form I'm just saying that we have to learn how to to keep your understanding this one major point you have to learn how to draw no conclusions about ourselves from from the fluctuations from the where mind may be fluctuating and from the May where emotions may be fluctuating the none of it has to mean anything about who I am and not just as an absolute self not just as an absolute cell but also as a personal self as an Andrew Joseph doesn't need to mean anything about me or does need to be and mean anything about Chelsea even if the mind is going crazy and our emotions are feeling out of control we can choose to have no relationship with that whole storm and and the degree to which we can helps us to understand who I have how spiritual freedom is is always imminent is always right here it's never far away and it's difficult it's an ultimate challenge sometimes it's easy sometimes it's difficult but we have to be not be concerned with whether it's easier whether it's difficult we have to be concerned with our own musician of Freedom always no matter what appears to be happening because a lot of people will draw the conclusion that when it's easy you can say oh now I'm now I've got it now I'm doing it this is it [Music] um and I think it's much more of a test of our freedoms how well we're doing when it's not easy how well are we doing when it's when it's ultimately challenging emotionally psychologically and substantially metaphysically when it's when It ultimately challenging for us how well we're doing that that sets us more about where we're really at because it's easy to be enlightened when we feel great it's easy it's easy to be free when it's easy anybody can do that just it doesn't take a spiritual giftedness gift we don't have to be spiritually gifted or talented to be to be free when it's easy to be free but when it's ultimately challenging to be free that's that's that's the real test so what I suggest you do is um is a couple of things the the fourth tenet of evolutionary Enlightenment my teaching speaks about the ultimate impersonal nature of all experience so when you see the Mind fluctuating in a way that causes agitation or suffering realize that it's not your mind Joseph that's a particular problem but that's the nature of the Mind when it's agitated and therefore we learn how to take the that kind of experience of frustration less personally so really it's not it's not Joseph's problem but it's a human it's a human problem it's it's the nature of the Mind so we want to learn how to take it less personally and yeah and to really look into this unless you have been bringing up which is that the nature of Freedom has to do with how well we do with difficulty more than well we do with bliss thank you sure but you but you can do it anybody the thing is anybody can do this you don't have to be it doesn't have to be spiritually gifted to be able to do this spiritually gifted people simply have more faith and people who don't foreign how much Faith does any of us have and the ultimate nature of reality in the absolute it's a matter at certain point it's a matter of having a big heart with big faith and choosing to not be moved by anything that's relative Constitution because we're speaking about Enlightenment as I was speaking about at the beginning of our time together today for those who are lucky enough to realize it and it's an experience that there's an ultimate transcendental source of existence of reality itself that's interested in and indestructible it's our and it's our faith in that that will set us free and will keep us free it will keep us steady and strong and uh become the source of our power and self-confidence so Billy we have to learn how to believe in our you have to believe in yourself and believe in God in the end that's what it takes it's not it's not practically complicated but we have to we have to do we have to do it and finally it's it's not not putting all this off into the future never putting it off into the future never putting it off into the future never putting it off into the future now we're doing now we're putting it off to the Future sometime around now sometimes exactly that sounds familiar [Music] all right thank you Joseph thank you in terms of Enlightenment the the mind which color Rises with time and this is when when time disappears The Mind disappears of who we all find those of you who have experience in these Tomatoes you'll find that when the when the Mind begins to fade into the background our awareness and time and the passing of time trades into the background so what we begin to notice when we have some experience of metaphysical depth in the United States we can really have these experiences again and again when we suddenly realize that the mind created this powerful illusion that the very things we're looking for absolute spirit god of the internet somehow is existing beyond the present moment in the mysterious and some mysterious future time that's what keeps us all in ignorance Keeps Us online waiting Keeps Us online suffering and in hell so those moments when we wake up and realize that the absolute freedom never existed in the future never that's really the metaphysical issue we need to wrestle with with all of our hearts that's the metaphysical Liberation Enlightenment never exists in the future and it always only exists in the Here and Now just do we want to stop pushing it away and then the mind will say well but eyes feel like this and I don't feel like that and my mind is doing this my mind is doing that doesn't matter it doesn't matter what the mind is doing doesn't really matter what their emotions are doing it's irrelevant the absolute reality absolute realities completely unaffected by your mind and fluctuations of your mind or my mind or your emotions and my emotions it's absolutely untouched and utterly transcendentally free from all things them all change so a lot of a lot of intelligent people sophisticated people have a um can grasp I would find reasonable the notion that there that there may be an absolute principle a god principle an absolute principle called the god principle that is transcendental that exists everywhere simultaneously it doesn't exist that exists in all places at all times for all circumstances is omnipresent so if that's the case it doesn't exist in the future if I know we don't need to wait to realize you need to wait to realize it which is the good news a lot of people feel I'm not ready yet I'm not prepared there's too much Karma whatever it is from an absolute point of view it's not relatively speaking it might be relatively true but from an absolute point of view it's not true at all it couldn't be true so which means from an absolute perspective there's really nothing in the way except our own mind as human as Joseph mentioned and it's not the Mind as a it's not mind in the form of thoughts has to do with our belief mind is saying so who are you listening to the god principle is always free from mind chatter maybe if any if it's always free from the Mind Shadow then with MSR spiritual obligation a big part of our spiritual practices if we're pursuing the awake Interline awareness is to be free from the Mind chatter also but to be really free from it which is to dare to dare to be enlightened in an underlying world in spite of the madness and the insanity and the confusion and in doubt I have the courage to be to do it anyway hi Igor yes I oh okay thought on the face after you lost it and how to believe against that life is good can you please say that again just how to believe again that life was good or how to return face well this has to do with the ultimate nature of manifest reality as you heard me speak about before we have to ask the question when something came from nothing when the universe was created when something came from nothing was it a big yes was it a big no or was it a big neutral speak yes therefore therefore no matter how bad things may seem which seems to be bad which may or may not be bad is all happening in a context that's ultimately good yes yes on uh on the level of mind when you lost face it it likes change the context and blocks the authentic self true that that's true that's the called humiliation Barrett we have to then we have to you have to bear the humiliation with dignity and self-compassion and self-respect and if you can bear it with dignity and self-compassion and self-respect it will it will pass it will survive is it possible to have the self-respect from the other side uh if human is like uh the result of regulations to other people so if you lost respect from them how how you can domain with self-respect yes the first part of the question again I'm sorry yes I uh I'm talking about the concept if the human is result of Revelations with other people and he lost respect how to get away from this station what is the self-respect it is respect from that perspective is believing in your own in your own decency as an essential being believing in your own inherent worthiness and decency is Ascension being and what is the essence uh our same successful close self to having a healthy ego positive ego having having a healthy ego positive ego means you are worthy of respect you're worthy of love very important in order to be free in a way in which there's no escapism are are there's a difference between you've heard me Igor make a distinction between what I call positive ego and negative ego so it's the negative ego which has to be transcended and let go of consciously and the positive ego which needs to be cultivated you might have heard me say you go in the past that the the true self which is which is which is being and the authentic self which is the evolutionary impulse force of evolution in order to become manifest in and through this world needs a vehicle and that vehicle in my understanding is a healthy ego so it's very important that the the healthy ego the happy ego is in good shape strong clear for the foundation of self-respect is it possible to create create awkwardly positive ego if you're totally alone for example like uh monk in mountains is it possible sure you can do anything when you're alone might be sure of course that means in order to do that when you're alone or when you tell the people you have to practice spiritual self-discipline spiritual self-discipline is the secret so in the teaching of evolutionary Enlightenment there's three positions who may or may not have heard me speak about this the first one is we realize when the first the first is the realization that I'm lost I am lost which is that's the wrong relationship the thought I am lost I realize I am lost I realize I am ignorant I realize I am a fool that means I have a wrong relationship to to God to the content of consciousness so the solution to medicine is to is to assume no relationship to the Mind into the content of consciousness which is the position of meditation for example or the meditative's position the position of the Buddha or Lord Shiva there's no relationship to the content of consciousness for long periods of time I'm assuming no relationship to the content of Consciousness which is the mind into the Mind stories into the Mind positions into the ego stories leave their positions no relationship to the Mind stories no relationship to the legal stories no relationship for long periods of time no relationship which is zero practice of emptiness to practice of Enlightenment is no relationship which is zero which is going back to nothing whatsoever and then as we as we learn how to spend long periods of time and no relationship with the content of consciousness we will begin to experience moments of euphoria boundless Joy happiness for no reason when we get to begin to experience the spiritually euphoria and boundless happiness that emerges for no reason at the same time we will we will get a glimpse of a potential for a different way to a different way to relate to the mind different way they were to relate to time different way to relate to Incarnation a different way to relate to life that's inherently positive and then and then usually usually there are realizers who fall through the same or took these same steps before us in earlier times and they came up with teachings like the Buddha came up with the teachings they had fallen path there's a way to do it others have others have been through through this process and taken these steps and I already have that have a solution for us they can tell us what to do so it's uh so it's going from wrong relationship in my teaching account going from wrong relationship to no relationship to right relationship that's the process of a wrong relationship to no relationship to right relationship now that's either we can do something we can either do that once and for all or we can do it every day so you could wake up in the morning and be in a terrible state you know of of the mind can be in chaos and our emotions can be chaotic and then we realize oh I'm a mess so you say well that's I'm obviously in a wrong relationship situation so I'm going to choose to practice no relationship to this chaos and then I would assume a meditation posture for as long as I need to do it and then when my and then I'm assuming this posture of no relationship when my mind and emotions begin to calm down I get glimpses of a potential for sanity and for positivity I begin to I begin to see it becomes comes into view comes into sight again and then I from that perspective of no relationship then I can choose the right relationship and so going from learning how to go from wrong relationship to no relationship to right relationship is the capital you know kick Capital th e way w-a-y that's what the way is wrong relationship no relationship right relationship and uh if you catch yourself unconsciously lost in wrong relationship stop yourself and don't try and fix that it's it's it doesn't work to go from usually doesn't work to go from wrong relationship to right relationship I'm not saying it can't work but it usually doesn't work to go from wrong relationship to my relationship so we want to learn how to go from wrong relationship but what we recognize is wrong relationship to in our relationship and no relationship has to become the end they are are in a reference point for enlightened awareness we're in a freedom there's no relationship from no relationships and we want to reach the right relationship and if we can if we can go from wrong relationship to no relationship as a practice before we reach the right relationship we can cultivate our own sanity our potential to be sane we can also cultivate our capacity to have a happy and healthy awesome ego also we have to put in the hard metaphysical work which is going from wrong relationship but no relationship stop no relationship and then only once we've established in our relationship to consciously choose the right relationship carefully mindfully again and again and again but I've noticed that a lot of people think we ever think they got it they arrogantly think they can go from wrong relationship to right relationship and it's usually night doesn't work that way in the business if we find ourselves swimming unconsciously in wrong relationship it's going to be almost impossible to jump into right relationship because you don't have power of will or what is the reason it's because we're already in a religions because we're it's because we're already in the wrong place so we want we want to make sure we we take make the effort to get out of the wrong place completely which is not which is not by getting to the safety of the right relationship but to diving into the insecurity of no relationship it takes it takes it takes a lot of self-discipline so please if you're if you're smart and then a year ago you're a smart guy that it's easy to understand these distinctions but we have to put them into practice kind of continuously so it's a wrong relationship to no relationship the right relationship and therefore it doesn't matter what's happened you can always begin again going from the wrong relationship to no relationship the right relationship right relationship to my intent a very interesting in real power but I can't understand my question I can't understand what you're saying but I think I'm being pretty clear now you just have to do it what would you say if the man lost his willpower what is the way to restock it how to get it back it is a matter of cultivating guide relationships nobody loses their willpower they start making effort if you if you stop making effort and you suffer the consequences when you realize you want to make you want you don't want to do that anymore then you start making the right effort very simple it's very much about self-empowerment spiritual Liberation is about ultimate ultimately about self-empowerment from a certain point of view so we have to have the courage to become powerful we have to empower and give that power to ourselves and make those choices so you take responsibility for your own wrong choices and then you change to change you might start making the right choices it's very simple it's very easy you start making the right choices you start feeling better the right choices Unlimited or not of course it is so we have to start from a small smaller choices small steps is it clear if you need to be sure we'll do whatever you need to do okay thank you for that experience yes everybody remember your wrong relationship no relationship right relationship so this is why we want to learn how to steal the position of no relationship there's no light from no relationship we get the right relationship thank you thank you bill has a question and Bill I'm unmuting you and you can ask your question directly yeah thanks Daniela so I have a question about fear and as you know Andrew you know so many people are riddled with fear and anxiety and Terror lives governed by Terror now I asked the question before you started talking about this wrong relationship but no relationship and right relationship so I'd love some specifics or uh some some details that let's say well it could be me it could be you could be anyone who is um speak about yourself okay so well let's say driving a car but speaking to speak speak in the third please speak in the first person yeah I'm I'm uh well I've been working a lot on this myself I'm I'm curious about um your experience as well but you know I know but I just for this particular for the the context in which we're doing this uh this time we could put ourselves in the picture yeah let's say I had a meeting with a client and on reflection after the meeting I think oh maybe I said something um wrong maybe I said it the wrong way and it might have might have bad consequences I don't know yet but I'm worrying worrying that it might have bad consequences and um so that's the fear yeah it could happen yes yes it yeah but please speak about not please speak not in the abstract but in the first person yeah yeah that's that's happened yes that has happened so then I start thinking through consequences and thinking of the future oh no what if it has this this consequence then if that person speaks to another person then it might come back and might it might turn into a mess sounds like a bad day yeah you know and this happens you know I mean well you know or or the car the car uh the car doesn't start I'm gonna be late for a meeting or something so a variety of fears and anxieties that can overtake I mean they used to overtake me a lot I mean I'm not I'm not saying I'm more well I'm older so I'm less I'm less prone to the fears I had when I was younger that's good um but as you know many people don't grow out of their fears some do some don't know that's very very true very few people change deeply yeah so this idea of not paying attention to the content the content of the mind your use this phrase and these emotions this storm stormy content of the ego you know in this case it's the unhappy ego so what does the authentic self how does the authentic self relate to those fears what is the practice of moving from wrong relationship to no relationship he's just doing that the aesthetic self was not Untouched by any of these things yeah but it's not yeah so how do you do it you have to you can't just do it you have to say how do you practice how do you actually practice it you have to get your Healthy go in good shape well how do yes so how do you do that let's let's talk specifically about that step by step you know you know [Music] your work you're going in the right direction because what we have to do is we have to seek the company of people that we feel are wiser than we are we we need we we need to associate with people who we we feel our why certain can share their wisdom with us so they can help us to guide us and we need uh to practice spiritual discipline spiritual self-discipline and spiritual teachings so for example learning how to practice no relationship is the practice of meditation and we have to put a lot of time into learning how to assume no relationship to our own mind which takes practice every day you want to learn how to okay now I'm going to I'm going to spend 20 minutes 30 minutes an hour two hours three hours however long we're gonna I'm gonna spend some time contemplating the nature of my own Consciousness and my main goal is to have no relationship with any of the content of consciousness anybody any smart person can do so you sit down and you do and you pay attention and you watch what happens and then as you see yourself compulsively grabbing onto the content of your unconsciousness the mint you see yourself grabbing onto it you let it go you say oh I see and then next minute you know you'll grab my toes some some other content and then you see it and you say oh let it go and you start seeing what happens when you don't let go you start being pulled into a hall Universe the whole universe comes into comes into existence that that seems to self-generate in seconds and you can get lost in the whole story of how the universe was created what your role in it is and all this and in an infinite amount of things that happened in this lifetime or in the last hundred lifetimes and then you then you're totally and then you're going about to have a nervous break because it's so overwhelming and then you realize oh my God what am I doing I'm grabbing on then you just let go and it all disappears and you go wow it's that simple why haven't I figured this out before why don't I haven't done this more often and then you let go and you're feeling a relief and you release and the freedom and the exhilaration of having nothing knowing nothing and being no one and the primordial nature of your unconsciousness and how so much freedom is always present there and then you suddenly find it you find yourself getting caught up and get some more content which has its own story and it goes on and on until you realize what you've done again and you let go yet again and say oh my God look at me how many times do I have to have to learn this lesson before I really got it and you realize you start then you start judging yourself in the same way of speaking to Joseph about earlier condemning yourself putting yourself down make yourself feel bad about yourself the same I want to give up and just go have a drink and then and you start then you then you then you then you go through all cycle of self-destructive thinking and self-destructive Behavior and then you say screw enlightenment Etc and then you can start falling down a whole Rabbit Hole of darkness and despair and then then you might wake up again a few days later Weeks Later months then years later and lifetimes later you realize oh I forgot what this is all about waking up when you start all over again this thing to learn how to start making better choices because you don't want that you don't want to just want to suffer the consequences of giving into the to the negative Egos and negative thinking you know it's all the self-destruction the karma self-destruction that is it's always its result and um the thing is that uh life is is an inherent compassionate in the Life Energy because we realize that whenever we do the simple Act of letting go of everything yet again we're all always given another chance so if if if God is a female deity just for the sake of mythical Mythic conversation she's so kind to always give us yet another chance in the next moment out through allowing us like to giving us the opportunity to let go of everything yet again and everything means everything so no matter what's happened no matter what you have done or no matter what's happened to you you and I or every one of us always gets another chance to let go unconditionally and that's letting on unconditionally it's how we as I reach beyond the shore it's that simple but we keep forgetting we can't we lose touch with the simple truth over and over and over and over and over again but it is that simple so spirit as an absolute principle never gives up on us because she's always available and present if we're ready to let go and at the the whatever the karmic situation is it doesn't matter it doesn't need to matter we have to have enormous faith in spirit and we have to have enormous faith in ourselves in order to be able to do this in such a way that's going to lead to a powerful result and it's a matter of doing it it's a certain person we could think about it for days weeks months and years and read about what we have to do the simple Act of paying attention and letting go again and again and again and really paying attention and really letting go and wrestling with our own unwillingness to do so because the ego never wants to let go the evolves wants to be in control and always knows better even if we're killing myself through not letting go where you don't stop so there's there's an inherent craziness to the small cell that will work that's sensitive thoughtful spiritually inspired people come to terms with it there's a demon inside all of us and the demon will destroy if we're not careful we'll destroy our own spiritual potential if we're not careful so we have to be very careful and treat ourselves with a lot let's treat our own spiritual potential with a lot of uh you need to protect it this is demon that you're mentioning can you speak more about this demon the demon is the negative ego it's a part of ourself that's been hard-wounded traumatized victimized over anger and resentment self-righteousness fear and rage and and from the small self's perspective all of those feelings are utterly justifiable and Justified they're all reasonable that we have to get to the point from from when we when our positive e gets strong enough we begin to awaken to the to the true self through our positive ego that we begin to recognize you know it doesn't matter none of that really matters if I Want to Be Free if I want to be right it all matters what's more important to us to be writer to be free that's the big challenge for a smart sensitive person do I want to be right or do I want to be free being trees more important than being right and that's the way the ego dies but I'm not saying it's not a struggle but but it's what it is I've got an image in my mind of an example driving a car down a Motorway let's say it's a small car and it's at night and in traffic and it's starting to rain and it rains heavily and of course it's a bit scary when it's starting to rain heavily and everyone's driving at 70 miles or 80 miles an hour and then so my fears are coming up okay this is actually quite dangerous I have to now pay attention driving under those conditions is a lot more demanding and other people get very anxious and I've got maybe a passenger who's anxious about their own safety and the safety of everyone in the car so now I've got a whole load of content going on of fear fear fear danger it could be extremely um you know some terrible accident could occur sometimes they do yes so how do we so what's the discipline you know taking that as an example to get in well is that a wrong relationship then move to no relationship and how to how to get to a right relationship you have to start paying a lot closer attention in a time like that yeah see I'm paying attention I am driving and I'm really paying attention because you realize if you don't pay more attention you may be gonna kill everybody oh yeah so I am paying attention now the things there are cars driving past me going faster and no guarantee there's no guarantees in life yeah so so what's the right relationship or what's what's a really enlightened way of being in that situation he can't carrying for everybody's love feel more than you care about your own and and let's say my body's tense and I've got lots of you know adrenaline adrenaline and whatever other fear hormones going through me it doesn't matter they have responsibility for that too well I'm asking I think this is a really good scenario to practice okay what do I say to myself what do I say to myself I'm trying to practice now practice under those conditions are quite tricky it's called do the right thing so I'm driving along do the right thing I'm trying I'm I'm trying to steer I'm looking I'm looking everywhere rear view mirror you know door mirrors everything but the thing is uh girl there's no guarantees in this you know things happen all you can do Jill and all I can do is the best I can so if if you've done the best you can and you know you've done the best you can you're free whatever happens even you get into an accident but if you haven't if you have if you're not doing the best you can if you were drinking before you got in the car and you knew you shouldn't have been driving you did it anyway it's a very different story but if if you know and I know that I did everything I possibly could and you did everything you possibly could that's enough we can't control the outcome it's just too many context is too complicated but we but we all do have the the ability in the capacitor to utterly to be utterly responsible for ourselves in any given situation and that's that and spiritually that's what our responsibility is okay agreed I've done all that I'm sober the car has petrol it's just been serviced it's in good working condition I can't tell about all these other cars or if there's drunk drivers driving past me but I you know of course I'm highly alert and of course there's going to be some anxiety there I mean I'm going to have content going on inside well my answer I answered this just answered I said we can't control all outcomes but all we can do is be responsible for ourselves that's what's important so if you do if you if you do everything you possibly can and you know you have and you're free whatever happens well I'm still feeling anxious and my passenger is feeling anxious yeah but that's sometimes that happens in life sometimes no way to avoid it so what so that happens sometimes there's no way to avoid so there's no way to avoid it right sometimes sometimes some sometimes I'm wondering what would be an Enlighten a really enlightened right relationship at that point with what I'm doing and the people in the car and there's no tough evidence no no that's I'd like to spell it out in detail here but but I I think I am as I'm saying to be to take complete responsibility for yourself the responsibility having that moment to the best of your ability you can't do any more than that as long as you do that you're in good shape well I I am taking the things there are things to say there's things you know what do you say in your mind what might you say to your passengers and I honestly don't know what you're asking me I think um well there's no I can't stop the car it's too dangerous to stop the car I can't sit and meditate but the thing is to carry on driving I feel like I've answered you completely I'm saying we cannot control all outcomes nobody can all we can do is the best we possibly can so your responsibility being a spiritually awakened person is that you literally are doing the best you can that's all God wants from any one of us that's enough the outcome's not always dependent upon our own choices I guess maybe the question I'm getting underneath that if I'm in right relationship will I still feel fear Maybe maybe sure if it's raining and there's drunk drivers all around you and you can't see five feet in front of your car of course that would be the natural thing to do okay that's maybe so it would be natural to feel fear even absolutely right relationship I think that's sure part of Being Human but the true self if I was connected to the true self I wouldn't have any fear no your true self might not feel any fear but your body and your ego would be terrified yeah yeah and my authentic self yeah untouched but sometimes it's healthier to feel fear this is this is not a matter of not feeling certain things or feeling certain things it's a matter of doing how do we do the right thing how do we how do we make the best possible choice the best possible conscious choice it's not about it's not about how we feel what does it mean what does it mean in any in the computer within the given complexity within the inherent complexity of any given situation what's the right thing to do what's the right response and that's a moving Target because there are many situations are very complicated and they're always dependent upon other circumstances and other circumstances and everything that exists is related to everything else that exists everything that existed depending upon everything else that exists so in in the midst of all this complexity and interrelatedness what's the right thing for Gill or Andrew to do at any given moment it's a very complex question which requires that which requires complex cognition and a very awakened mind and heart to be able to determine whatever the right thing might be in under in any given circumstance I think there's um an image that we've all been exposed to of the enlightened Guru who's always Serene Serene and I don't believe everything you read so is that not is that a false image of the of the Supreme it's the idea of utterly transcending The Human Condition yes that doesn't make any sense I think the idea is to be more deeply human not less human okay I this is very important because at a certain point if you're completely removed from from your Humanity that's not Freedom that's just uh being thought of cut off I think a lot of people and look we've all been exposed to this image of the of the happy smiling Buddha you know well I've got I've got we've all got pictures of the Buddha who's always Serene yeah but you're always saying when he's meditating so we don't see the Buddha getting really anxious and really scared while he's driving in the rain no we don't but yeah but obviously being the Buddha he obviously made the right choices in any of this given circumstances otherwise he would have heard about it now there's this incredible story you may know it of the Buddhist monk who set fire to himself in 1963 in in Vietnam yeah I saw the picture yeah and he was just the first it was followed by several other monks apparently that's what I read and he didn't Flinch he knew exactly what he was doing um There's a western photographer there there was a western journalist there now this seemed to be you know there's some sort of superpower being demonstrated by that well if they were able to transcend body Consciousness energy transcend body Consciousness and you're not going to feel it well transcending this is a different whatever discipline transcending body Consciousness we haven't talked about that very much that's not a big theme in my work but um [Music] retreat in south of France you know because you should come it'll help you to spend some time in a situation like that we can really talk thank you yeah great thank you thank you was there anything else before we finish any other questions I don't see any hints so I feel the presence of the question the state and as I'm found is saying the question of state is when our questions disappear so when our questions disappear it means our true self has coming into the foreground and the ego's falling into the background so the intensity of the mind that wants to know gets supplanted by the feeling of being and as the feeling of being gets louder and more intense being yourself becomes more interesting than wanting to know anything in particular and in terms of the spiritual practice and process to work into enlightened awareness it can bring us to a stable place we need to get to the with the experience of the feeling of being needs to become the experience at a level that's deep enough profound enough to convince us that the mind is not the cell which is a big leap as long as we believe knowing we are unknowingly consciously or unconsciously the mind is the self we're going to be caught we're going to be trapped in with the Buddha called samsara or in the west we call hell so the simple and profound recognition of the mind is not the self which at an intellectual level sounds easy but it is levels of of existential death and spiritual death to really realize this absolutely and completely becomes a source of liberation that the mind is not the self which means it's not who you are because when the mind is being possessed by the unlined ego they can be the source of creating all kinds of problems for ourselves and other people all kinds of suffering for ourselves and other people when you see through it in a way that is deep and penetrating and profound you can find a way out you'll find a way of liberated yourself from your own mind and if you liberate yourself from your own mind you liberate yourself from every everybody else's it's the beginning of a completely different life so thank you very much everybody thank you [Music] sucking kids God