MOD Jack I

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 MOD concepts have no shelf-life or expiration date.  Since our focus is principled and always happening now - each episode will reflect the moving fluid nature of current events. 

Before discussing the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and how they can be applied to all compulsive behaviors and obsessive thoughts consider this: Identifying the mental problem of addiction, like diagnosing any disease, includes the individual identifying with the problem as the only one who can diagnose their problem and act effectively to dissolve that problem. If we are free to choose what and how we think - then we are each solely able to determine how and what we do with the mental problems and suffering we create. Even without fully understating all of the mental defective traits that induce obsessive thinking it is easy to notice the effects of inner conflict, emotional turmoil and mental anguish. Since we share an Absolute Common Bond - common suffering is a gateway to help us collectively see that if there is a way into any nightmarish disturbance there is a way out. Since nightmares occur when we sleep it is worth noting that we are able to sleep walk while we think we’re awake. By identifying the disturbing effects the obvious can easily replace the chronic attempt to maintain oblivion and the mistaken opinion nothing can be done and so there is nothing we can do  

Focal points: The steps are based on principles. Principles do not change. There is nothing simpler than that which does not change and nothing is easier to complicate than thinking otherwise. Principles are natural and fundamental to our existence. Principles like our Absolute State of Being is not a choice - “They” Have Us - we cannot let go of them since they are the basis for all Existence.

 Unprincipled, immoral, irresponsible, unstable thoughts are unnatural choices to make believe how we think about Reality, Truth, Life, Light and Love - determines our life rather than concede We Are determined by Absolute Awareness and We Are so Free to choose how and what we think of them we can even choose to believe we can be and thus are condemned by them - when it is the contempt we have for that sort of disordered thinking that we feel. 

Responsibility, Choice and Freedom are Absolute Natural States that our well being and ability to achieve our functional capacity rely on. Consideration is not a conviction but an awakened - eyes wide open deliberation as a meditative contemplation. 

We Know We Know. 
We Are Aware We Are Aware. 
We Are as We Are. 

Reality is unlimited and never changes. The idea that how and what we think creates reality suggests otherwise. Acting on backward thoughts leads to behaviors that are out of order reflecting a reversal of our natural fortune that are accurately called disorders. Anxious, nervous and systemic disorders reflect this impossible attempt to reverse Nature’s Law and Order and our Universe's Essence. Dis-ease is the lack of ease created and maintained by such twisted mental acrobatics. Stress and Anxiety inhibit healing and compound and degrade health.  

Mentality is a bodily function.  Mental disease is a physcial ailment. For as long as it is misdiagnosed - any cure or treatment will perpetuate its contagion.  

Principles affirm Our Indivisible nature. Sharing Principles confirms our natural indivisibility. Inspiration is natural while desperation, depression, degradation and acting oblivious to what is obvious is an unnatural choice to oppose reality which is impossible to accomplish though we are free to try.   

Ignoring what is happening, acting as though it shouldn't be or isn't happening, produces the unintelligible gibberish of ignorance - not reality. 

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:04):
Today I want to talk about I want to start talking
about the twelve steps ofalcoholics anonymous.
And I'm not gonna do that today,I'm gonna do that after a
succession of conversationsabout things like the principles
of relativity, absolute nature,history of alcoholism, for

(00:27):
instance.
Before the 12 steps weredeveloped, there were only a
couple of instances historicallywhere groups had gotten
together.
A couple of them were theWashingtonians who were an
abstinence group or a uh what dothey call it?
Sufferance or one of those wordsthat suggested the temperance

(00:48):
movement, where they didn'tdrink.
It was one of their things.
And they got involved inpolitics and all that and fell
apart because of the division ofwhat happens when people start
to take political positions.
And the Oxford group came along.
And this, by the way, was on theheels of a movement within the
Christian churches, Lutheran andEpiscopal, and all the various

(01:10):
Calvinists and all the variousdifferent versions of a couple
of pastors saying, you know,Jesus didn't talk about, Jesus
talked about love andforgiveness.
And we are not operating inloving ways and forgiveness,
especially when it comes to oneanother in terms of
denominations, in terms of thearguments they had about who was
right and who was better and whowas wrong, all that stuff.

(01:34):
And this new thought movementbegan with and led to Emmett Fox
and Norman Vincent Peale and uha guy named Ralph Waldo Trine,
who wrote a book called In Tunewith the Infinite, which sold
two million copies at the endof, you know, or it has sold two

(01:55):
million copies.
It's still in print, it'savailable online.
It's a beautiful expose on thewhole concept of the infinite
nature of existence.
And uh this was done in the late1800s.
So in the mid or so mid or so1800s, there were thought
movements, and what it wascalled the New Thought period,

(02:19):
because religion hadhistorically early on, people
thought you had to kill people,sacrifice them to get God's
favor.
And then that sort of went outof fashion, and then eventually
led to thinking you had to havea certain kind of faith to get
God's favor.
And then that slowly failedbecause that largely led to
royal families thinking they haddivine rights over people who

(02:43):
were not royal and not divineand ended up subjecting them to
horrors, etc.
And those people began to think,wait a minute, they're talking
about an infant God, that mustbe our God, that must be
something that we have.
So that transition in the late1800s, that many, many, many,
many transitions through historyhave been identified and
recognized.
But the most current shift wasthis new thought transition of

(03:07):
the pastor's saying, why don'twe just love?
Why don't we just forgive andlove and do things for people
and help?
And what came out of that thatstill exists today is the
salvation army and the RedCross.
The Red Cross said if you're ona battlefield and you need
blood, you need medicalattention, we're going to be
there to help you.
We don't care which side you'reon.

(03:27):
We're not taking sides.
We simply want to be there forthe human value of saving lives
if we can.
The Salvation Army said, if wewant, if you need help, we want
to be able to give it to you.
So they started collecting likethey do today, clothing and
other things like that.
The Salvation Army today is oneof the most successful recovery

(03:51):
operations in existence.
And they do not take anygovernment money, they rely
solely on their own ability tofunction productively.
And the people who enter thatprogram are vetted, so they're
not just simply allowed in thereimmediately if they don't go
through a process that showsthat they're absolutely
interested and ready to act onthat interest, to behave in

(04:14):
accordance with that interest.
And those people are put to workseparating the clothing and
separating the things that comein that are donated so that they
can sell them through theirstores and fund their
operations, which includes thehousing of these people and the
feeding of those people, andbeginning to introduce them to

(04:36):
their spiritual nature.
That's what their job is.
And they're they're asfunctional as any today because
they do not take people in whoare uninterested.
One thing that is certain, in myexperience, is that if somebody
isn't interested in gettingbetter, they are not going to
hear what's being said.
They're only going to hearthings that support the interest

(04:58):
they're maintaining.
And if they see a problem andhave a problem, like a mental
disease or a physical disease,and the two are the same because
the brain and our body is in thebody, it's the dashboard of the
body and the operator of thebody, the thinker for the body.

(05:20):
And even that, beyond the body,beyond the brain, the body has
knowing a knowing nature that'swell beyond that.
And people are talking aboutthat more today.
But during this time when thiswas originally, with the
inception of this, one of thegroups of people that had never
really been taken care of werealcoholics.

(05:43):
Historically, they were peoplethat were thought to be, they
were either institutionalized,imprisoned either in mental
institutions or just isolated,exiled, like lepers who were
never able to heal.
So they would let them live inleper colonies where other
people couldn't contract thedisease, but they wouldn't be at
risk because they already hadthe problem.

(06:05):
And alcoholics had been treatedlike that, put aside, pushed
aside, pushed out, beaten up,killed, excluded from society
because nobody knew how to helpthem.
Nobody knew what to do.
And it's not different today toa degree.
To the degree that we havepolicies that allow people to

(06:25):
get bonuses for using drugs andalcohol without holding them to
account for the things they'redoing to cause the
vulnerabilities and the weaknessand the scarcity in their own
ability to function at a levelwhere they're able to provide
for their own interests.
We're actually helping thosepeople get worse socially.
Still going on.
It's a different brand than itwas back then when they would

(06:48):
kill them and isolate them andthrow them in jail.
But it's the same basicthinking.
So during that period, multiplereligions began to realize that
everybody was divine.
Everybody had a sense of, notonly a sense of God, but the
essence of life in every form,and the essence of rocks and

(07:08):
minerals, and all of that isbased on and in an absolute
essence that we all share.
You and I have that sameelements of a rock we share, ore
and different variations of theelements themselves, gold, and
all of that stuff is part ofthis material experience that

(07:29):
we're having.
Or the seeming materialexperience, because it's really
forms perpetuated that we see.
Eyes are designed to see forms,brains are designed to
understand, which means thatit's understanding is
substantive because under if youthink of understanding as
something beneath our feet, wedon't see the earth beneath the

(07:53):
surface, but we know it's therebecause it's always stable for
us, it's always there andavailable to stand on.
Understanding and substance aretwo words that reckon with that.
And so in this process ofhelping alcoholics, it led to

(08:14):
Alcoholics Anonymous.
The Oxford group had fourabsolutes: love, purity,
unselfishness, and um honesty.
Those were their four basicprinciples.
And they had steps, and thesteps were a short version of
the steps today, the 12 steps.
And they were basically aboutreconciliation, accountability,

(08:37):
uh being active, helping others,serving others, etc., and
confession, starting to actuallyrelease this stories of woe and
the history that we've had.
And that all led to the divisionof 12 steps.
Bill Wilson thought that peopleneeded more discipline, that
alcoholics needed more frameworkto kind of get their bearings

(08:59):
before they could have the,before they would be accountable
and responsible enough to beginto function on a level that
would be able to help others,which is the goal of sobriety,
is to get well enough to be ableto have something to offer
that's valuable.
We all have something to offer.
But as I've learned, you cancarry the disease and you can
carry the solution.

(09:20):
Both of them are options.
And one doesn't become exclusiveto the other.
One doesn't stop happeningbecause you're doing the other.
They're both always available.
It's a choice that we make thatdetermines the basis on which we
are offering our seeming serviceor help when we're really, you
know, there there are levels ofhelp that aren't helping people,

(09:42):
like the idea that we givepeople condos and give them
benefits for being worse on thestreet, or that we have now
created drugs to help peoplethat would otherwise overdose
survive so they can continue todo more drugs, and then we give
them more of the drug that helpsthem survive rather than really
confront this mental issue.
So during this time in the1800s, several religions came

(10:03):
out of it, which were Church ofScience, Church of Religious, or
I think it was religious,Christian science was one of
them.
Science of mind was another,church of religious science was
another.
And they were all, this was sortof the beginning of Emmett Fox
and Norman Vincent Peel, and alot of the other writers that
started to talk about andembrace things from a very

(10:25):
different perspective than theyhad historically been looked at,
which was very inclusive, verymuch recognizing the human
spirit and the potential and thecapacity to function at a level
well beyond the decrepit,deficient, dysfunctional basis
that had been considered theplight of the average person or

(10:48):
the normal person that wasn'tdivine and wasn't part of the
royal bloodline in some way.
It was a transition away fromthat.
And it was largely started inthe United States.
We were a breakaway country interms of what was consistently
happening throughout the worldwith authoritarian dictators and
royal families and other peoplebasically being the seeming

(11:09):
God's directorate on the planet,directors on the planet.
And everybody else was abystander, so it didn't matter.
There was no moral compass interms of what could be done to
somebody who was in thatcategory because they just wipe
them out and kill them.
And it still happens today.
It's the same basis of the sameauthoritarian idea that the

(11:30):
person in charge, if he feelshe's at risk because of anybody
doing anything that doesn'talign with his thinking, he he
has a justification to kill themin prison and they somehow limit
what they're doing and underminewhat they're doing.
That's not part of thatinclusive process or that
thought process.
But these religions all began tosee that physical ailments were

(11:51):
very much a byproduct of aspiritual ailment and a mental
ailment.
And that's very much the basisof what the steps were designed
to work on.
So we're going to get to thesteps a little bit later, but I
wanted to talk about a fewthings that I know the guys that

(12:11):
I work with and women throughthe years have struggled with.
And some of that comes from, Iwould say, a misunderstanding of
what principles mean and whatabsolute means.
And since that's what they werelooking at in the mid-1800s,
late 1800s, and it's what the 12steps was based on, Bill Wilson

(12:36):
saw clearly that this was amental problem.
He said that the alcohol is asymptom, the bottle is a symbol
of an underlying problem in themind, he called it.
And I will suggestdistinguishing between the brain
and the mind is worth thinkingabout because trees and nature

(12:58):
seem to have a knowingness thatallows them to do exactly what
they're designed to do, exactlywhat the seed of that tree holds
becomes the entirety of thattree as it grows.
It would suggest that there'ssome elementary, essential root
in life that has a very knowingnature.

(13:23):
Not thinking, a knowing nature.
And one of the things in RalphWaldo Trine's focus on the
infinite was really beginning todescribe words cannot describe
something that has no beginningand has no end, because words
are about definitions.

(13:45):
And for our purposes, in ourdiscussion, we're not going to
try to fine-tune the definitionof the words because we're all
going to see them in somedifference, just like we see
everything in our own thinking,in some unique way.
It doesn't mean that thing we'rethinking about changes because
we're thinking about itdifferently.
It means that we change inrelation to that thing and the

(14:07):
way we're thinking about it.
So when you're consideringthings like the infinite, there
really aren't a lot of wordsthat can define it because it's
not a realm that's based indefinition or limits at all.
So things that are definitivetend to be limited.

(14:30):
The one thing that defines theabsolute andor principles,
because they're really the samething, principles are
fundamental to how things workin the universe.
They don't change becausethey're principles.
Just like things that areabsolute.

(14:51):
There's no change in thatwhatsoever.
There's no limits as a result,there's no dimension and there's
no space.
We're starting to talk about anessence that's completely
unseen, indivisible, immutable,inviolable.
That if it's the essence ofanything, it's essential to
everything.
It isn't something we canexclude because we don't think

(15:12):
it's there, but we can causeissues within our own inner
conflict.
We can cause inner conflict andother issues by simply thinking
about it as though it isn't asit is.
And if we're capable of doingthat, that's precisely the kind
of friction and frustration thatends up creating the misery that

(15:34):
has addicts and others thinkthat solving the problem means
getting better at means feelingbetter than getting better at
feeling.
There's a big distinction there.
We're constantly trying to feelbetter.
We're not getting better atfeeling because the feelings
we're having are giving us anthey are telling us about the
thinking we're doing, whether itbe right or wrong.

(16:00):
That's what our design is basedin.
If if, and I'm saying if becauseyou get to decide, you are a
listener, you're part of thecommunication between you and I,
and with everyone else, whoeverlistens, because everything you
think and decide has an impacton everything that's happening.

(16:24):
It's your responses and yourreactions to what you're hearing
that determine the value youwill get, and your interest in
this will determine yourparticipation and your interest
in listening to things thatdon't make any sense to you
initially.
Because if the sense we've beenmaking is only the understanding

(16:45):
we've been having, and theunderstanding we've been having
has included misunderstanding,we haven't been understanding
things well.
And I would say this is aglaringly obvious historic human
problem because we are the onlyspecies that kills itself and
each other in the name of whatthings people think or don't

(17:05):
think.
And if you look at politicalconflict, it always comes down
to how people think.
It doesn't matter their color.
We think discrimination is aboutcolor and size and shape and all
that kind of stuff.
That's secondary.
The primary conflict is howpeople think.

(17:25):
And if we have been usingself-righteous indignation to
justify what is unjustifiable,was inhumane and uncivilized,
there's clearly a thread ofevidence, if you look at
history, that you'll find us.
Hundreds and hundreds andhundreds of wars, millions and
millions and millions andmillions of people killed in the

(17:46):
name of righteousness that'snever right.
The only reason it goes to thatextreme is to try to prove the
rightness of it, and there is noproof in what's right because if
nature is nature, it's alreadynatural, it's already already
right, it already has its ownawareness.
And it is awareness, it issimple awareness.

(18:07):
So the steps that led to, Iliterally mean the human
footsteps that led to thisawakening, per se, just like
when we realized the earth wasnot flat, and so when ships
sailed off to the horizon andwent over it, they weren't
falling off the earth.
They were traveling to placesthat had been unseen by people

(18:29):
on the shore watching the ships,or were unseen by them.
And people who thought that thehorizon was the end of doom, in
fact, you can't reach thehorizon because the closer you
travel toward it, the further itgets on a sphere, which proves

(18:49):
that the in one way proves thatthe earth is round.
You're looking at it accurately,you're realizing you can't get
to it.
And I will suggest to you thatyou've never seen two halves of
a ball at the same time, or twohalves of a bottle or a cup,
unless it's glass and you'reseeing through it.
We see the facade, we see thesuperficial aspect of it, the

(19:13):
form of it.
We're not seeing even the wholething and the simplest things we
see, which is an indication thatwe can easily make believe that
all that there is is what wesee, and then think that all
that there is and understand allthat all that there is is only
how we see it visibly.
But the invisibility,understanding, the nature of

(19:34):
understanding is seeing thingsthat are invisible.
Science has played a huge partin this by beginning to say if
we can't predict it, it may notbe only predictable, it may just
be a superstitious mythologicaluh idea that isn't doesn't have

(19:55):
any basis.
So science looks science as aword is knowledge.
The science is looking for whatactually works.
How can I do something and youdo that same thing and have the
same result occur?
That's what principles are.
That's what the absolute natureof nature is.
If it exists, I'm not tellingyou it does.

(20:15):
Because one thing we each haveis the freedom to think.
And if I use that freedom freelyand feel condemned, I would say
that would be a pretty goodindication of misusing the
thinking and the freedom thatwe've been given.
If I can make choices anddetermine that wrong is right,

(20:37):
and then live with the conflictand make believe I need to get
over it all the time rather thansee that I'm the cause of the
conflict I'm trying to get over,then the perpetuation of it is
going to seem to me like it'shappening to me rather than
being caused by me.
And so when I talk about theabsolute, I can't determine for
you what you think about it, butI can tell you this if it does

(21:01):
exist, it's the basis of yourexistence, and it's the basis of
all existence.
And it doesn't matter what youthink about it to it, reality
doesn't change, truth doesn'tchange, your mentality is what
suffers.
And if you've been feeling thatsuffering, if you've been

(21:23):
feeling if you're listening tothis, there's some indication.
Not a lot of people listen tothis that are having fun.
My experience is people nevercome to me and say, please help
me understand how to think morenegative thoughts and feel
worse.
And that's kind of laughable inone respect because it's so
obvious.

(21:44):
But why is it so often thoughtof obliviously as something that
would make more sense thanmaking believe feeling better
all the time is the only thingwe can make sense of?
Think about the self-helpmovement.
We've got billions of dollarsspent on trying to feel better.
Trying to get to our true self,trying to find our true self.

(22:07):
If something is true, it isn'tlost.
It can't be lost.
What's lost is the thinkingwe're doing about it.
And when we feel like a lostcause, it's because we're paying
attention to the symptom and theeffect as being the cause.
And we've reversed the wholeorder of nature, which is what
disorders speak to.
And there's a growing number ofanxious disorders and growing

(22:29):
number of people qualifying forthose anxious disorders on this
planet.
And what we largely do is treatthe symptoms to help people get
feel better.
If a doctor, medical doctor,misdiagnosed a disease and
continued to prescribe peoplethe same medication over and
over and over again for thewrong diagnosis, he would

(22:51):
typically be accused ofmalpractice, sued, maybe lose
his license.
It doesn't seem to happen in thepolitical field and the mental
field.
Over-prescription,over-prescribing people has been
held to account in the last 10or 15 years.
But think of what most peopledie from in terms of

(23:13):
pharmaceutical drugs orpainkillers.
We're killing the bodies thathave the pain, and pain is a
notice to us that something'swrong, and we're not paying
attention to it.
We're not thinking about itaccurately.
The fact that it's possible forus means that we have a guidance

(23:36):
system that uses pain to let usknow when something's wrong, and
we do not need to be buried sodeeply in the pain before we do
anything about it.
That, in my experience, is it isa form of the denial, the
distance we go, to pretend thatit's not there, to think that
it's not there, to think thatovercoming it and feeling better
about it is the only solution.
That's just aggravated denialover and over and over again,

(23:59):
making believe somehow I'll getbetter if I deny what's worse.
And so we have a whole series ofthoughts of don't think negative
thoughts.
Well, I'm going to tell you anegative thought is connected to
every positive thought.
Just like a proton and a neutronare absolutely connected in the
makeup of the physiology and theanatomy and the basic workings

(24:23):
of all that we know about theatomic structure, the subatomic
structure, that which is soinvisible that it takes, we
can't even see it.
We can only see collisions ofit.
These huge colliders that theymake are just a chance to begin
to see how things are workingthat we can't even see, but we
can see the collision.
So you and I can see thecollision too.

(24:45):
Those colliders and all thatinformation that's coming out of
it is the information that we'regetting in our body that's
telling us something is wrong.
So that would not be the case ifprinciples weren't principled.
If there wasn't an absolutesense of knowing, and I mean an
absolute sense of knowing, wecall it all-knowing,

(25:06):
all-powerful, omniscient,omnipotent, omnipresent, all
all, all.
That's what all those wordsmean.
It doesn't mean some, it doesn'tmean you have to be over six
feet tall or under six feettall.
It doesn't mean you have to bewhite or black or brown or
yellow or green or pink.
It means all.
All everybody completely.

(25:29):
When I think in terms about theabsolute in any limited way, I
set my mentality off inconflicted ways.
And I am ashamed and guilty forthat.
So I have feel felt feel ashame.
I feel shame and guilt.

(25:50):
And if you've ever felt shameand guilt, begin to notice it
may be what you're thinking thatyou're feeling.
Our bodies are highly attuned,highly able.
Our functional capacity isenormous compared to the levels.
Einstein said we use five to tenpercent of our thought, our

(26:10):
brain.
And I think he wasdistinguishing or characterizing
the fact that the depreciatedvalue of our mental capacity has
been depreciated by an addictionto mentality and to this idea of
ego.
For successive generations, asfar back as people thought they

(26:32):
were in charge and thought theyhad the right to kill other
people because they didn't likewhat they think.
If you look at history and goback, you're gonna find that
consistently.

(27:06):
So this transition mentally inthe late 1800s, 1900s, led to a
couple of organizations that wecan see are functioning on that
basis still today.
And Alcoholics Anonymous cameout of that in the mid-1930s.
The big book was written around1939, the 12 and 12 was written
sometime in the mid-50s.

(27:26):
Bill had then 17 years ofsobriety to write another book
where he expanded on the stepsand talked about them in greater
depth.
And there's a lot ofconversation within sober
circles about it's not what wethink, it's what we do.
And I'm going to suggest to yousomething that may sound
heretical, but thinking is aprimary action.

(27:49):
What and how we choose to thinkis an action we're choosing.
We're acting on behalf of ourthinking because no voluntary
action has ever occurred withouta thought preceding it in terms
of human endeavor.
We have trillions of chemicalinteractions going on in our
body every second, and we don'tthink about it at all until

(28:12):
something hurts.
Anxiety and stress is one of themain elements that undermines
our physical capacity tocontinue to heal versus break
down and start to fall apartinto disease of all various
forms.

(28:33):
There isn't a disease that'sdiagnosed out there that's made
better by adding stress andadding anxiety to one's life and
exhaustion.
Anything unhealthy is unhealthy.
It does not support the system.
And we are keenly aware of thedifference between those

(28:54):
choices.
And to become numbed to thatawareness and think that we need
to be desensitized is exactlywhat addiction is about.
Trying to dumb down and stupefyour own experience in the name
of making believe that if we'renot paying attention to it, it's
not happening.
Which is a lot of where that,you know, focus on your power

(29:15):
and focus on manifesting thingsthat you want.
I will assure you that we arealready manifesting everything
that we're seeing, and we'reashamed of so much of it, we
don't want to admit that we'rethe manifestors of it.
And if you're interested inmanifesting, become interested
in the present and what you'redoing and how it's feeling.

(29:36):
Your feelings will give you,people say in sobriety, feelings
are not facts.
That's right.
In one respect, because what wethink about largely are not
facts.
But I will assure you of onething: the one aspect of
feelings that are accurate isthe aspect of the feelings we're
having about the thinking we'redoing.

(29:59):
If I feel wrong and I feel bad,and I feel sick and tired, and I
feel aggravated and frustrated,that isn't coming.
I could say the feelings wrong,but it's an accurate assessment
of frustrated, aggravated,wrong, bad thoughts I'm having.
It's an immediate response tothat.

(30:20):
That may not be the totality offeelings, because that includes
feeling things that aren'temotional.
If I'm feeling ashamed, I'mfeeling shame.
Why would that be?
That's not an emotion.
If I'm feeling bad, why wouldthat be?
That is not an emotion.

(30:41):
If I'm feeling guilty, that isnot an emotion.
We've turned it into one.
We think about it that way, wetalk about it that way.
But it's actually an indictment.
It's actually a conviction.
It's actually the state of thethinking we're doing.
If I'm guilty for the thinking,I will feel guilty about the
thinking I'm doing.

(31:02):
But the only time that seems tomatter is when I violated the
basic premise of my existence.
Just like in court, nobody walksinto court and feels that
they're going to be, they're notcharged with any crime if
they're watching the courtproceedings.

(31:22):
We know when we're guiltybecause we're doing things that
are wrong.
We know it and we feel it.
Think otherwise is to makebelieve that it's something
again to get over.
And that's that twisted kernelof thought that all comes from
the idea that a lie can somedaybe true.
So this transition, this thoughttransition, Bill said we will we

(31:46):
will there he's telling usthere's always more to know.
And he's really saying there'salways more to think we know,
because thinking we know is verydifferent than what we know.
If there's an absolute source,that's our knowing nature, yours
and mine and everyone else's.
If we all share that, thatdoesn't mean we have to think
alike.
It means that we can acknowledgethat we are all designed to

(32:08):
think whatever we want.
And if what I want to think is acombination of everything that's
ever happened in my ownexperience, and some of those
things that have happened havebeen much closer to my
experience than your experience,then that impact is having a
more dramatic effect on thethinking I do about it than it
would in your life.
Doesn't mean you weren'tassociated with it or affected

(32:30):
by it, but your proximity to itwasn't as close as mine.
Our thinking is where pain andpleasure occurs.
Pain doesn't occur in the toethat's stubbed, the toe sends
the message to the brain thatsomething's wrong.
And if you ever notice that yourtoe, if you stub your toe, it
takes longer to get to the brainthan if you burn your hand.

(32:54):
Because the distance of thenerves, we have 38 miles of
nerves in our body, roughly,which means we have a lot of
nerve.
And that means we have a lot ofpotential to be excitable and
sensory in our capacity,enormous.
We can feel a lot more, we cansense a lot more than we often

(33:18):
want to, because we think itcondemns us, we think we are
those feelings rather thansimply having those feelings.
So today, as a bit of a trinity,think about responsibility as
being the ability to respond,and choice as being the

(33:43):
conclusions we make, whichbecome our will.
Choice is always our will, andour will always includes a want.
We always want something when wemake a choice.
Even if we think we don't wantanything, that's what we want.
So the sort of wholeness of thethinking becomes more obvious
when you start thinking of it asintegrated and holistic and

(34:04):
organic rather than in the bitsand pieces and the parts and
senses we have or thedetermination we have to make
believe that it's all separateand alone and et cetera.
We may have the freedom to thinkexactly what we want the way we
choose to think of it.
But the principle of that isthat everybody else has that
same freedom too.
So for me to think theyshouldn't be thinking what

(34:27):
they're thinking is for me tothink that I don't have the
right to be thinking what I'mthinking.
And to see it from thatperspective begins to remind me
that it's what I'm thinking thatcauses the greatest impact on my
experience.
And when I'm thinking thingsthat aren't right, I am feeling
wrong.
I am feeling wounded.
I am feeling like I am, I'm preyinstead of having the capacity

(34:50):
to benefit and offer and standup and have a capacity that's so
abundant that everyone benefitsrather than everyone suffers to
some degree.
To any degree, I suffer, justlike being on a boat.
If the tide rises, the boatmoves up.
If it drops, it goes down.
Everybody on it is equallyaffected.

(35:11):
So responsibility, choice, andfreedom are the basis of mental
health, in my experience.
And principles are the basis ofhow things function in our
universe.
And it's because they know whatto do.
You know, if you think aboutengineering and what we have

(35:33):
done as humans to try to buildbuildings and try to maintain
the structure of those buildingsduring catastrophic events like
earthquakes and tornadoes andtyphoons and hurricanes and all
the other natural phenomena thatoccur.
We always learn how to do itbetter by the destruction that
occurs and studying what it wasthat was done wrong or

(35:54):
insufficiently.
But the basic idea ofengineering is inherent.
It's always existed.
It's always the structure of theuniverse has always had the same
structure.
It's been morphing and changing,but those are just transforming
in the exact same way they'redesigned to, just like a tree
transforms when it grows.
And it roots, can its rootscontinue to feed, continues to

(36:17):
grow, it continues to grow, itcontinues, knows exactly what to
do.
The principles are already inplace.
And if you think of yourstability in your thinking as
unstable, begin to notice thatit can't be unstable if it
weren't stable.
It's impossible.

(36:38):
If the basis of the principlesdoesn't change, like the
absolute doesn't change, it'sinfinite.
We cannot be exceptions to thatbecause they are essential.
That essence is essential to alllife forms and all matter, and
the space in between that matterand the things we think don't

(37:00):
matter, and the people we thinkdon't matter.
Those decisions we can make setus on collision courses.
And if those accelerators thatthey create spend billions of
dollars making, the particleaccelerators are trying to see
what's the result of thecollision of those things.
The result of the collision ofour thoughts that we don't see,

(37:22):
we never see our thoughts, butwe feel their effects, are those
effects.
And to start noticing thoseeffects is something you're
doing in thought, is to begin togive credit to your thought,
regardless of whether it's goodor bad or right or wrong, and
begin to notice the flexibilitywe have to make choices that can
put us in conflict with reality.

(37:42):
It doesn't change reality, itchanges our mentality, it
changes how we think aboutreality, how we think about
life, how we think about truth,how we think about morality.

(38:15):
To just consider that if realityis real, it's never gonna be
unreal.
The Course in Miracles goes overthis in six hundred and some
pages of very, very clearlywritten documentation.
I would say it's documentationbecause it's as clear as any
book I've ever read in terms ofthe order of it.

(38:35):
It's like the big book, the bigbook of Alcoholics Anonymous has
largely never been rewrittensince 1939.
It's got a lot of things thatwouldn't be appropriate today in
terms of using he instead of sheand they and all that stuff.
But the fact is that theabsolute majority of it has
never been changed because theprinciples were looked at and

(38:55):
hundreds of people influencedthe writing of.
Matter of fact, the originalhundred people that got sober
were very actively involved inhelping craft that book, as were
many, many, many other peoplewho were well versed in writing
and literature and how to createa book.
So responsibility, freedom, andchoice.

(39:22):
Sort of the trinity and theuniverse is built on a
triangular hexagonal.
I think the tetrahedron is oneof the most elementary building
blocks.
Maybe something else has beendiscovered since I originally
learned that.
But that's made up ofBuckminster Fuller was a man who

(39:43):
was self taught and determinedthat the tetrahedron was one of
the fundamental building blocks,and out of that came the
geodesic dome, which is a rounddome made out of triangles,
which doesn't seem right to havetriangles, which are basically
three sided squares, make some.
round.
And yet they do.
So there is a lot within naturethat seems to be hard to

(40:07):
understand, but it isn't the itisn't nature that's hard to
understand.
It's the lack of understandingthat we make believe is all the
understanding there is.
It's the commitment we have tothe limitations of the thoughts
we have.
And you and I, you're alistener.
We're communicating right now.
We are communing.

(40:28):
We're part of a community.
You and I have a relationship.
And my intent and interest is tobe as open about this
relationship as I can be,regardless of how it is thought
of.
What you think about it, I wantit to be your business because
it is your business.

(40:48):
How you think about it, what youthink about it, I want you to
savor those thoughts, have thosethoughts.
As you can begin to have them,let me suggest to you that you
may notice that you can't bethem, that you're observing
them, that you're actuallywatching them, that you are a
knowing presence that's awarethat is observing what's

(41:11):
happening.
What's interesting about thewords we use to define things
like immutable inviolable, whichare all definitions of what's
absolute is that let me readsome of them right here right
now.

(41:39):
I'm going to go to my dictionaryand I want to I want to share
this goes back to the words.
If we're using words and thinkabout the spirit of what is
being said rather than the orderof the words it may help you
begin to notice the commonnature that we share rather than

(42:03):
the seeming divisive thinkingthat we can do.
And I know that I am capable ofthinking anything about
anything.
And I also know that doesn'tmake what I conclude right.
And it doesn't either make itwrong.
It just makes it what I thinkand what I decide.
That's it.
Something I'm doing.

(42:25):
I have a body.
If I have a body I can't be thatbody but I can have that body
and I can have responsibilityfor that body because apparently
this whole concept of free willis what allows me to make the
choices that can either lead ina productive beneficial abundant
level or can lead in adestructive dysfunctional scarce
level.
Those are the choices I have Ican choose desperation but I

(42:49):
don't choose inspiration becausethat's the nature of nature.
That's the nature of theabsolute state.
So let's look at a wordimmutable.
Here's some of the ideas fixed.
Well that would suggest it can'tbe broken because it's fixed.
But yet the words used in fixedmeaning it doesn't move.
Well not moving within thecontext of other things that can

(43:13):
move is not what this isreferring to.
It's saying it doesn't movebecause there is no change
happening whatsoever in it.
It's absolute in every respect.
Not some respects absolute inevery respect.
What does that mean?
No exceptions, no negotiations,no options, no choice.
It isn't up to me, I am up toit, literally I am a product of

(43:38):
it and if I'm not a product I'msimply of it period.
And if that's the case and it'sprincipled, since principles
aren't divided amongst people,they aren't separate, they
aren't divisible, then it's thecase for you too.
And if we can speak on thatbasis, we can talk what's

(43:59):
perspective and start to seethat what I might trigger in you
or you feel heard or you feelantagonized or you feel damaged
or you feel somehow or anotherunheard or unlistened to while
I'm not even hearing what yousay.
I know those feelings can comeup as a result of listening to
anything anybody ever says ifyou can have that experience and

(44:23):
feel separate, it is actuallyevidence that you have a greater
sense of you wouldn't see that,you wouldn't feel that if you
didn't have a greater sense ofknowing that that isn't true,
that that isn't right.
It's just simply a collision ofideas that you've got that are
creating effects that you may ormay not like and in that

(44:45):
infinite realm if it's perfectlyquiet here's some of the other
words inflexible think of yogaimmutable would be flexible but
here it's inflexible.
What it's saying is it doesn'tchange it's not saying that it's
stiff and rigid.

(45:06):
But even using those words wouldimmediately assign to bodily
tension rigidity inflexibility.
That's not what it's referringto.
It's talking about somethingthat does not change period
never ever nothing can besimpler than something that does
not change because for all thechange we do in our thinking

(45:29):
about it it remains the sameabsolutely in every way that may
seem reassuring so let me tellyou the responsible part about
this there is nothing that canbe more complicated than
thinking about something thatdoesn't change as something that
changes in any way.

(45:51):
That is the ultimate dilemmait's a misunderstanding of what
this absolute nature means.
Because if the absolute natureis nature and natural that is
our nature that is our knowingnature that is our present
awareness.
That is the essence of ourthinking.
So it isn't our thinking we'restruggling with it's what we're

(46:11):
thinking about our thinking thatwe struggle with.
That's where this whole conceptof ego is derived because since
this thinking is flexible and upto us if we can make believe
wrong is right, we can makebelieve who we are is all we
think and that's it.
Not true.
We're living on the basis of nottrue.
Why would people if if if that'sthe basis that's true in all we

(46:34):
are why would people why wouldimposter syndrome exist?
Why would people constantlysearch for their true self?
They're admitting that they'rethinking from a false
perspective of self.
And all they've done is mistakentheir thinking about things for
themselves.
They're thinking about thinkingitself becomes themselves.
Not true in any way so some ofthe other words in immutable

(47:00):
unvaried again doesn't changeundeviating doesn't change
static meaning perfectly stilland yet static can also mean
complete chaos but what'sinteresting about things that
change is that the in theabsolute is revealed in the fact

(47:20):
that one thing that doesn'tchange about things that change
is that they they always change.
And that was Aristotle orSocrates somebody came up with
that thousands of years agobeginning to see that if we
think all there is is finite,how would it be finite if it
weren't limited by something?
Or at least we weren't thinkingit was limited by something this

(47:44):
idea that we can be apart fromthat and need to get to it comes
out of that thinking.
It comes out of this idea thatthe true self is lost that God
needs to be found.
That means God can be lost.
Well that isn't a very powerfulall-knowing God that's a
self-made idea about God.
That's my thinking about God asbeing God just like thinking

(48:09):
about my thoughts as beingmyself.
That's where it's deriving fromthat's the cataclysmic failure
where self-righteous indignationhas been used to kill to kill
the person thinking it becausethey become so miserable.
And ironically the people thatprobably would be better off
dead sooner like Hitler was agood example.
He waited until he destroyedeverything before he killed

(48:30):
himself.
Millions of people had to diewhile he thought he was in
charge, thought he could provehis totality and all of those
ideas he had about what hethought was right.
And ends up killing himself atthe last minute but we're doing
that I had a sponsor who saidthat the biggest problem in the

(48:52):
world is that the wrong peoplekill themselves.
We're all wearing the weight ofthe entire experience that
everyone else is experiencing.
We all feel it we all sense itwe are all part of it.
We are not distinct and separatefrom it at all ever never have
been, never will be to begin tocome to terms with this is to
begin to transcend and transformour capacity our functional

(49:16):
capacity our functional literarycapacity to read the body's
language as a guidance system toaim us in the direction of being
more productive more beneficialas a result and the ultimate
goal is to serve others so theseprinciples the principle of the

(49:38):
absolute is the basis of theprinciples of the 12 steps of
alcoholics anonymous and I wantto introduce this I also want to
introduce the I I I've writtenabout this in a thousand
different ways and I can come atit from any any direction and
come up with something that canassign responsibility to the

(49:59):
basic nature of nature.
And I would say that ability torespond is very different than
this dumbing down andstupefication and numbing of our
experience because it's verymuch aware.
If you are highly sensitive letme assure you that that is an
actual function of awareness andintelligence.
That sensitivity means that youare lit up you are alive you are

(50:22):
able to respond.
You are knowing your yourawareness is keenly aware of
what's happening.
And when you look at itaccurately you're going to find
a lot of things out there thatare not right.
But the original looking at itaccurately comes from starting
to see the wrong you're doing inyour own thinking.
None of us suffer more than thethinking we do.
Nobody can hurt us.

(50:43):
It's what we think about whatthey're doing that hurts.
Because if they're touchingsomething that already hurts
that we're trying to ignorewe're going to blame them for it
rather than take not only takeresponsibility but notice it
wouldn't be happening if weweren't responsible.
To start noticing the absoluteis to start seeing that we
choose desperation, we chooseillness we choose dysfunction we

(51:05):
choose disability we chooseinstability but productivity and
survival and thriving andabundance aren't choices.
They're the nature of ourexistence and we've been
mistaking them as long as wehave been thinking others are
responsible for our experience.

(51:28):
And in terms of step one, theidentification of the disease if
you have a mental problem andhave inner conflict and
emotional turmoil and mentalanguish it might be worth
looking at how you're utilizingyour brain and maybe misusing
your brain by entertaining ideasthat all that all that conflict
is telling you that there'ssomething you're thinking that's

(51:51):
wrong.
Just like if your toe getsstubbed, there's something you
just hit with your toe and youmight want to watch for it.
You ever notice people look backat what they did when they stub
their toe or trip?
They want to see that thing.
They want to know it's therenext time because they missed it
this time.
This is about starting to noticethat we know and pay attention
to what's happening in a waythat actually allows us to

(52:13):
attend to the accountability wehave and the responsibility we
have naturally accounting isalways balanced if it's done
right.
Mentality is always balanced.
It's how we think about it thatis imbalanced and unstable.
We have a nature that's naturalyou and I and everything else.

(52:34):
It's unified exactly as thetraditions in AA gave us an
opportunity to do as anorganization because most
organizations at some time fallapart, splinter and start new
organizations.
AA was one of them.
They came out of the Oxfordgroup thought there was a better
way to do it.
He did it.
He did it well enough to be here95 years later 85 years later.

(52:56):
That was his interest and hestruggled emotionally through
his life he struggled withmental problems.
He tried NiaSon and LST andother things to try to fix it
and figure out what was wrong.
He was on it but hispreoccupation was really looking
at the organization and how hecould create something that
would survive the typical perilsof any organization and end up
expiring and it has not yet.

(53:19):
But I think there are somekernels about what he left
behind that we don't pay muchattention to anymore even within
the confines of AlcoholicsAnonymous and any of the other
12 step programs.
And one of it one of them iswhat Alanine is based on and
that's enabling if I think I'mhelping somebody but I'm helping
them get worse I am helpingmyself to the idea that I'm a

(53:41):
big help and nothing else.
That is not the goal of serviceand help.
Identification if you identifythe disease as we're talking
about and if you simply look atthe effects mentally feeling
stuck in thought feelingthoughts are intrusive feeling
like you're at odds withyourself constantly you can't
stop the thoughts all that kindof stuff it's all telling you

(54:03):
something you're doing with howyou're utilizing your thinking
is wrong.
It's like trying to hammer anail into a piece of steel if
you keep trying you're probablygoing to be frustrated it's not
going to happen that easily ifthe steel's thick enough.
But there are choices we havefree to make and we are also
free to face the consequenceshonestly when we're willing and
interested so that's the firstpart of the 12 steps the

(54:29):
identification with the diseaseit's fairly well known anxiety
stress pressure inner conflictemotional turmoil mental anguish
fairly well recognized todaythere's all kinds of diagnosis
all called disorders because thethinking we're doing about it is
out of order.
They're all aptly namedcorrectly as disorders it's just

(54:51):
the the thinking the thinking isthe primary source of our
existence rather than nature asan absolute source is the
primary source of our existencesomething that doesn't change
that is perfectly still andsilent.
Something that's perfectly stilland silent doesn't change.
It gives us a chance to noticethe ripples to notice the waves

(55:11):
to notice the conflicts tonotice the disturbances those
aren't cast on us they're givenas opportunities to begin to
read the road signs just like a15 mile an hour turn might be
worth noticing when you're doing80 miles an hour before you fly
off the road we've denied it forso long that the culmination of

(55:32):
these things has built up andfractured into so many different
variations that it seems like weneed to be lost in those to
figure them out rather than getnotice that the the source of
that essence has never left usand never can leave.
It's not something that goesanywhere it doesn't come it
isn't more or less it isn'tsomething we can do anything
about to have any impact on it.

(55:52):
But it's there to be utilizedand expressed that's what our
thinking is designed to do.
That's what our bodies aredesigned to do is to express
reality not create it and makebelieve that I have my own and
you have your own and thenwonder why we're constantly
reactive and fighting oneanother.
So identifying the disease inthis case is beginning to see

(56:17):
that to any degree I'mentertaining thoughts that
aren't true is true, I'm insane.
And if you've ever admitted youwere an alcoholic that's not an
easy thing to come to terms tobecause it doesn't seem like a
high point in something youprobably thought someday you'd
achieve same with drug addictionor gambling addiction or food
addiction or sex and loveaddiction or any of the other

(56:41):
programs 100 plus programs outthere for different compulsions.
We're talking not about acompulsion we're talking about
the reactive nature of theobsession the obsessive mind.
So number one is identifying theproblem number two is
identifying you have theproblem.

(57:02):
And coming to terms with thatwhen I came to terms with my
alcohol and drug problem I didnot say I am absolutely an
alcoholic and there's nothing Icould do.
I simply thought that if whatthey're saying in the rooms that
I've been in for six yearslistening and never came to
terms with, never got soberother than for short periods, if

(57:23):
what they're saying is true, ifwhat they're saying is right,
and I have that problem, if Ihave that problem, the next
thought was maybe I should talkto somebody about that.
I'd never broken out of thatbubble of thinking I shouldn't
mention it, shouldn't associateto it shouldn't act in
accordance with that problem.
So I thought of it as a problemthat was insurmountable and one

(57:45):
I was stuck with and one I wasjust hellaciously at odds with
trying to avoid admitting Billsays in the big book the idea
again showing the mental statethat somehow someday he will
control and enjoy his drinkingand we can insert thinking there
is the great obsessionobsessions are always mental of

(58:09):
every abnormal drinker.
And let's just say abnormalthinker for the purposes of this
discussion.
If it's abnormal thinking we'vebeen doing that's been causing
the debilitating instableunstable deficient experiences

(58:30):
we're having destructiveinability to think of the
bewilderment the bedevilments inrelation to this they all add up
to an inability to functionevery one of the devilments prey
to misery and depressioninability to be self-supporting

(58:53):
inability to have intimaterelationships meaningful
relationships all of those aredescribing the basis of that
thinking and the actions we takeon it.
Our behaviors are consequentialto the thinking we do.
As I mentioned earlier thevoluntary actions we take are
based on thoughts we have theyalways precede a thought people

(59:17):
in comas don't tend to besuffering from emotional
problems or disability.
They don't seem to they're notthere saying oh wow I'm disabled
what a bummer I can't doanything.
We are aware of this and we'renot talking about it accurately
because we're not thinking aboutit accurately and to start

(59:38):
looking at this I guarantee youis going to cause some
reactivity in your system and tothink of that as being negative
is to miss the value of thatreactivity as giving you an
indication of something thatyou've caused.
It's like nuclear reaction.
When those guys who are incharge of the nuclear power
plant start to notice that thatcritical mass is getting out of
hand they've got to act quicklyAnd carefully to avoid a

(01:00:01):
meltdown.
And it hasn't always happened.
We've had meltdowns.
We have emotional meltdowns,nervous breakdowns, exact same
structure we're functioning offof.
So the big points todayresponsibility, choice, and
freedom are the that's thetriangle of mental health.
And these aren't things that areoptional, these are absolute

(01:00:22):
states of being.
Responsibility is the nature ofa body to respond.
If we didn't, we wouldn't bealive very long.
Adjusting to circumstances,adapting to conditions.
Charles Darwin said it isn'tstrength and dominance that
helps a species survive.
It's the ability of them toadapt.

(01:00:45):
Einstein said very, very similarthings.
So it's identifying the problem,it's noticing that there's an
absolute state and beginning tonotice that that absolute state
is not a negotiation, it's notan option, and it's not a
choice.
It's just the state of yourbeing.
If you didn't have that state,you couldn't question.

(01:01:05):
You couldn't feel distressed.
You couldn't feel damned.
You couldn't feel doomed.
You couldn't feel any of thosethings.
Wouldn't be possible.
You wouldn't exist.
An addiction is a prayer fornon-existence.
It's a prayer for suicidaltendencies to finally take you
out rather than simply concedethe thinking you're doing about
life, about reality, about truthis wrong.

(01:01:28):
Think about that.
Think of how far we're willingto go to avoid simply conceding
that we could be wrong, that wemay be wrong.
And what I've learned is that insome degree, in some way, I'm
wrong about everything.
Because if I'm thinking all itis is what I think, I know those
limits define the beginning ofwrong because we're talking

(01:01:49):
about something ultimatelythat's completely indefinable,
completely indivisible, notsomething that's optional, not
something that's limited, notsomething that's a form, not
something that's an appearance,but the substance of reality,
the essence of reality, thatpresence that we know we know,
but don't always think we know.

(01:02:11):
So responsibility, choice,freedom are all absolute states.
They're the nature of ourability to function as humans
and achieve our capacity, ourfunctional capacity.
And our functional literacyliterally means how well we're
eating the signs of our body.
Body's giving us signs all thetime.

(01:02:32):
That's what our sensoryorganisms are designed to do,
our touch and feel and smell andall that.
And there are sensory organs orawarenesses way beyond the five
senses that we think of.
Our body is a knowing entity.
All of the cells in it have theknowledge.
The brain just is an analyticalprocessor.

(01:02:52):
That's one of the things.
That's why we talk about ourheart knowledge, and we can feel
it in our gut.
We know that gut has feelingsbecause those feelings are
coming from a knowing andawareness, that nausea, that
seeming seasickness that comesfrom feeling upset and feeling
disjointed in all of thosethings is knowing.
That's an awareness.
Give it credit for credit, duewhen you will start appreciating

(01:03:14):
the value of the lessons it'sattempting to teach.
And it's up to us to decidewhether we're going to learn.
We have that freedom because wecan deny as quickly as we can
concede.
And the difference is when wedeny, it takes more and more and
more denial, it will never beenough.
And when we concede, we begin torealize that there is an
awe-inspired nature that isalready enough and already here
and already possible.

(01:03:35):
It is the possibility of allpossibilities.
And the beginning of thinkingfrom that basis changes the
thinking we do dramatically inrelation to all things and all
others.
So the first part of that isidentifying the disease.
And it's pretty easy because youprobably felt tense and
irritable and restless, evenwithin sobriety, and depressed,

(01:03:59):
and sad, and lonely, and apartfrom and disconnected.
And all those are indications ofthought, not reality, because
you can't be disconnected froman absolute state.
They're just thoughts.
And we're feeling our thoughts.
Our body is designed to reckonwith the body.
Doesn't make it separate becausewe're all on the same platform.

(01:04:19):
We're all sharing the samething.
If I'm doing it better, otherpeople have a chance of doing it
better too, just by watching andlistening.
So the first thing in that afterthe holy trinity, I call it, for
functional capacity,responsibility, choice, and
freedom is the idea ofidentification, identifying the
disease as something that'shappening.

(01:04:42):
Doesn't mean it's right and realand isn't illusional.
It just means it's happening.
It's happening in some form,just like a dream.
If we feel we're in a dream, wethink what's happening is real
because we think we're in it.
When we think our thoughts arereal, we think we're in our
thoughts, and all of a suddenthat's real.
It isn't.
They're both imagined, they'reboth dreamscapes, but when we do

(01:05:02):
it with our eyes open, we thinkwe can't possibly be sleeping.
And the spiritual awakening isaddressing exactly that.
We are sleeping by makingbelieve those thoughts are true
and real.
So identifying you and me as Iidentify with this, I have those
thoughts, I do those things, Ihave that turmoil, I have that
conflict.

(01:05:26):
What's happened is as I began toadmit it in the present, which
is the only place I ever am, allof a sudden the delusion about
it being something that happenedin the past began to be obvious
it was something I was doing inthe present.
And the disillusion was thedissolving of those ideas that
the past had anything to do withit.
Now, I can't tell you thatthey've all been dissolved

(01:05:47):
because I still have thoughtsabout things I could have done,
should have done, might havedone.
Doesn't mean I can't have thosethoughts.
But to see them as fantasy, tosee them as illusions, to see
them as imagine is verydifferent than thinking of them
as real enough to go back and dosomething about and then suffer
the trauma that I can't getthere because there is no place
to go to get there.

(01:06:08):
The place I am is the only placethere is.
The place you are is the placewe share.
That is true for all things andall things, all things, all that
are and all that is, everythingis operating on that same basis.
We share that intimately andcompletely.
So if you can identify theproblem, you are probably

(01:06:28):
identifying with the problem.
And to begin to think in thoseterms, to see that you were the
problem maker, is the beginningof being open enough to start to
do something about the problemsyou might have thought were
insurmountable and impossible toresolve.
A dog chasing its tail, evenwhen it catches its tail, which
I've watched happen, lets it goand starts chasing it again.

(01:06:51):
It's exactly what we do in thespinning cycle of thinking, that
thinking more thinking is goingto solve it.
And I have found many times thatI've had some level of awareness
and think I'm done, think thatI'm better enough to be done,
rather than see that it's justlike rising above the clouds and
realizing the sun isn't alwaysout.
Just because the clouds are updoes not mean the sun is out.

(01:07:13):
Yet we talk about it that way.
The sun's not out today.
That's not ever true.
We talked about the sun risingand sun setting.
It doesn't.
We go around, we move toward ordo we move away from it in our
own rotation?
Think about that.
We talk about things that are soobvious in ways that are not
true.
They're not accurate.
We still do it because we stillthink in these archaic ways.

(01:07:37):
If you have the problem andbegin to admit you have the
problem, you'll begin to admitto see that you may be the
chooser of that problem, but youcannot be that problem.
You can have it because you canhave thoughts, and you can have
any thoughts you want.
And those conditions aresomething you have.
That does not make your naturebad, wrong, or otherwise,

(01:08:01):
because you're not thosethoughts.
You're just having thosethoughts.
It's like you're driving yourcar and you don't know how to
drive your car on ice as well assomebody else does, and you end
up in the ditch.
You might think you're a baddriver, but the decisions you
make, the choices you made, arewhat was bad.
You might be an excellentdriver, but in that case, you

(01:08:22):
showed that your thinking failedyou.
Your presumption that you'd beokay, the presumption that you'd
be fine, the presumption that itwould all go right.
Those are just thoughts.
That does not interfere with thebasis of our reality, of our
absolute shared state of being,ever.
So if you're here with thatinterest, you may learn.

(01:08:43):
And I would suggest that if youtalk to others about it, you'll
begin to reinforce yourawareness of the conflicts
because you'll see in themthings they're doing that used
to annoy you, and you'll beginthanking them for giving you the
perspective to see the thingsyou're doing that you weren't
paying attention to.
Our own eyeball does not seeitself, and yet we know when we
open our eyes in the morning wecan see.

(01:09:06):
But what we often miss is thateven when our eyes are closed,
they're still seeing thebackside of our eyelid.
And we think we're not seeing.
We're actually seeing, but it'sobstructive.
We do the exact same thing, thethoughts we don't think we're
having, by making believe if wedon't think we're thinking them,
they're not happening.
It's not true.

(01:09:27):
Honesty is not about beingtruthful in terms of telling the
truth, because the truth isalready everything that exists
and need not be told anything byus for sure.
Honesty isn't about being right.
It's about starting to reckonwith what's wrong and right as a
result.
Our instinctive nature is tomake decisions based on what's

(01:09:50):
right, because those decisionscan be productive and useful,
not just for me, but foreverybody.
When somebody saw somebody lighta fire with a stick, that person
knew they could do that samething.
Before that happened, peopleshook their head and said, we
got to wait for a wildfire.
We've got to keep the fire goingto be able to keep the fire.
We can't start it because wedon't know how to start it.

(01:10:14):
We've been the ones startingthis while we've been focusing
on how to stop it.
And what our discussion about isstarting to notice that if we're
the cause, then we have theresponsibility and have always
had the responsibility for theeffects we create.
And if we're free to do that,I'm free to continue just as you
are.
You have no obligation to stopwhatsoever.

(01:10:36):
But if you begin to notice thatif you weren't starting it,
there would be nothing to stop.
That's what we're aiming forbecause we're starting to talk
about things just like when theyrealized the earth was round and
realized the earth was not atthe center of the universe.
All of a sudden the naturalphenomenon started to make more
sense.
People circumnavigated the globeand discovered cultures and all
the tea in China that theywouldn't have found otherwise.

(01:10:59):
We started understanding why theorbits and the why the sky does
what it does and why we do whatwe do in the sky.
But only recently have we begunto actually look at the bottom
of the ocean and realize howlittle we know about the earth.
And I would say that's a perfectmetaphor for how little we've
been talking about our ownthinking and the impact it's
been having on the socialstructure that we all share.

(01:11:23):
I'm happy to have you here.
If you talk about this withother people, you will see that
you probably don't have muchlanguage to go with this.
Because I have done this a longtime and I'm still struggling to
put it in words that I thinkmake more, either more sense or
or come in an order that seem tobe more uh digestible.
But when you're talking aboutfood for thought that's

(01:11:44):
nutritious, for all we've doneto try to make believe all the
ideas we've had are true, it'sprobably going to take a minute
to begin to develop thevocabulary.
So if you're listening to this,that's one opportunity.
To talk about it or share it isanother.
To begin to communicate with meor us, any of the people you
hear here are available for youat some point or another.

(01:12:06):
I'm more readily availablebecause I do this.
This is one of my preoccupationsin life.
Talking about it and beginningto interact over it begins to
reaffirm your not only interest,but your healthy ability to act
in your favor instinctively andknowingly and fulfillingly.

(01:12:27):
Fulfillment is doing what'sactually letting what's
happening happen, no matter whatit is, is fulfilling rather than
making believe it shouldn't behappening.
So this is a conversation.
You are welcome to askquestions.
I would encourage you toparticipate beyond the
listening.
I appreciate that you'relistening, and I don't want to
diminish that in any way.

(01:12:48):
That's all you want to do,you're free to do just that.
But reaching out, sharing my jobin my life, my life form, this
experience I'm having, is to dowhat I can with as many people
as I can do it with.
Because there's a confirmationin it, and the shared essence of
it becomes so much more obviouswhen I participate at that level

(01:13:09):
with other people, whether theywant to hear it or not, isn't my
business.
But if I get better at speakingabout it, which I'm not always
very good at doing, that's thegoal of the learning process and
what happened when thingsthrough history were discovered.
And it took a hundred years forpeople to begin to assimilate
it.
But the assimilation of thosesimple things, like the number

(01:13:32):
zero, zero is a as a componentof mathematics, was a revolution
in mathematics.
It didn't exist at one point.
That's a story of its own.
Took over a hundred years to getassimilated because people
thought within Western cultureespecially that making numbers
disappear meant black magic andit was voodoo and some kind of
superstition and some kind ofdark force.

(01:13:55):
Today it's the fundamentalnature of the whole entire
computing system and our abilityto create modes of operating
that help us function better.
And I would say even that hassome corruption in it.
Because the thinking thatmotivates it is often strictly
commercial and not seen as forthe benefit of all, but for the
benefit of a few.
So that kind of thinking is whatwe're here to discuss: the

(01:14:18):
inclusive, all-powerful,all-knowing, absolute state of
being as our source rather thansomething we need to go find,
and then start looking at whatwe're doing to cripple our
ability to express it.
If you're interested, Iappreciate it.
I know that you wouldn't be hereif you weren't.
You may not think you are, butto be here and participate and
listen is an indication that youhave some interest and

(01:14:43):
commitment and understandingthat you have a drive, that you
want to survive, that you wantto thrive.
And it's not just for your ownsake or your own seeming sake,
but for everyone else's too.
That's the ultimate goal,because that's the ultimate
benefit, just like the ultimatedeficit is to do anything wrong,

(01:15:03):
affecting everyone else tocontinue to help reinforce their
wrong.
Love to all.
Deep breathing.
Carry on.
Let's continue.
Contact as you may, I'd be happyto talk to anybody directly if
you're interested.

(01:15:23):
If you find a lack of words, youcan always share an episode and
talk to your friends about itand see if that brings any kind
of discussion to light thatyou've never had with them.
Because the ideas in certaincases are going to be somewhat
new to people.
So best be well in all respects.