Transcription
Negative one gets to grow at whatever level that they want to grow at. Your growth is like a vector. It can go very shallow or very very steep. Yandi used to call that the jet plane path versus the walking path. Your level of growth and rate of growth is completely dependent upon the depth at which you are willing to deal with truth, with deep truth.
If what you feel is that this is your life and that you're supposed to make something out of it, and then it is for you to choose who you're to be with, why, where you to work, what you're supposed to be doing, how you're supposed to be dressing, how you want to act, how you want to talk, where you want to live. Just basically, it's your life and you're free to do whatever you want, and you have all these options in terms of the realities of the outside world. And what you're supposed to be doing is deciding what you want, choosing what you want, and going about your business of getting as much of what you want as you can, and avoiding and getting rid of as much of what you don't want as you can. This is a level of life. This is a vector. People live life at this level.
Now within that vector of this is my life and I will live it as I see fit. You may be deluded, so we call relative delusion. You may be deluded into thinking it's my life and I'll get whatever I want, or it's my life and I'll do it in the way that I see is most beautiful and most helpful to others. In both cases, you're living within the vector of this is my life and I will live it the way I see fit. And you're just moving from darkness, ignorance, real personal selfish stuff to more open, more giving, a little lighter personality. But this is still on the same vector. It's the vector of what we call the personal. It's the vector of you keep yourself alive, you keep your individuality alive, you keep your personal sense of things alive, and you just develop a nicer one. And then you go out into the world still saying, I want things to be the way I think they should be. It's just that now I'm right. Before I was deluded, but now I understand better how everything should be. I thought that it was all about getting monies, but now I see it's all about having an ecologically solid society and recycling and being nice to everybody and having everybody be nice to everybody else and so on. So now I know I'm right and I go forth on this vector to do that. All of that is what we call nontranscendental. It doesn't transcend anything. It stays right within the realm of personal. You have just changed your personal view of things, but it's still within the mind. It, to the yogi, it's the same. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You're still going into your mind saying this is my life. It is for me to decide within my mind. My concept system, my views, my opinions, my preferences, my values. Where are all of those things? They are made up in your mind. The fact that you happen to make up nice ones and you happen to make up mean ones is good. That's just what it is. Good. All right. Versus bad. It's still in relativity. I would rather hang out with you, if I have to, the one who made up nice ones instead of you who, one who made up mean ones. But it's still a person.
The other mode of growth, which is what we call the jet plane path, is to sit there and realize, wait a minute. This is not my life. Why is it not your life? Cuz I didn't create it. It was here before I got here. And if I die tomorrow, I know it seems inconceivable, but it's still going to be here. And everything's going to keep going on just like it has for thousands and thousands of years. It was before; it will be after. So, how is it that I dropped down here onto this planet and all of a sudden it became my life? Well, if it isn't my life, if it belongs to life itself, then how is it that I have the right to go within my mind and decide how it's supposed to be? And so, first you question, is this my life? And then you realize, of course, it's not your life. Even your body is not your body. Oh, it is. So, all right. Okay. The liver stops secreting bile. What are you gonna do about it? Huh? Your cells stop dividing. What are you gonna do about it? No. What do you mean no? It's not your body. It's the body's body. Okay. It goes about its business of doing its thing. I don't know why that's so hard for us to understand. If something went wrong, if your spinal column stops sending messages through your nerve system, then that's it; you're not going to feel anything and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it because it is the body's body and it belongs to the laws of life and they will unfold. It's so far beyond you, it's incomprehensible.
So if it is not your body and somebody else's body is sure as heck not your body and the sun is not your sun and the moon is not your moon and the tree is not your tree, not my tree. How did it become your tree? Did you plant it even? Did you plant it? No. Did you figure out how to make it grow out of a seed into a tree? No. Then whose tree is it? It's the tree's tree. It didn't become your tree because you bought the land. That's mental stuff that human beings went out there and drew a bunch of lines all over the place and said, "Cut down a tree, turn it into paper, and then give a piece of that paper to somebody else off the other tree, and now you own all the trees." Wow. I wonder who made that one up. Where did that rule come from? That you get to take a piece of paper and then whoever hands the piece of paper gets to own all the trees. It's just something we made up with our minds. Nobody owns the trees. Nobody made the trees. Who owns the earth? The earth owns the earth. I don't understand. How did you get to own the earth? I bought it. Oh, did you? And they said, "How exactly did you buy it?" Well, and I told you you took a piece of a tree and turned into paper and painted little pretty pictures on it. And in other words, everybody just made this up in their mind and agreed that if this happens, then we'll say you own the earth. What happens if everybody decides you don't own the earth after you think you do? You lose. You know, it's called the dictatorship and they take over the right of eminent domain. We have names for that. The right of eminent domain. You think it's yours? No, it's not. Too bad. Sorry. They just come and take it. Anytime anyone decides not to listen to the rules that everybody made up, then it isn't that way, isn't it? Right. That's it. That's the end of it. Stop this. This whole concept of private ownership and all of this ownership and everything only exists as long as everybody agrees it does, doesn't it? And the moment anyone decides that it isn't that way, then it isn't that way. Why? Because it really isn't that way. The tree belongs to the tree. The earth belongs to the earth. And that's the beginning and end of it.
So now your body is not yours is terrible. Your body is not yours. The sun is not yours. The sky is not yours. The tree is not yours. The earth is not yours. What is yours? Nothing. My child is mine. Oh, really? You sat there and ate food and it turned into your baby. You did that. Go on. Make that watermelon turn into a finger. I want to watch this. It would be a good trick. It's happening to you. It's not happening by you. And then it falls out. A baby, right? And there it is, a baby. And you say, "Oh, look what I did." You're proud of yourself. I don't understand. That's the most crazy concept I've ever heard of. You didn't do anything. You live the same life you were living. And all of a sudden, inside of you, this thing grew all by itself. The baby is the baby's baby. Isn't it? Truth is, it all belongs to God. It all belongs to that which created it. It all belongs to that which is beyond our comprehension. That in the middle of nowhere could have all this going on, spinning through the middle of empty space. And it goes on for infinity. I want to know what part is yours and how it became yours. I think my favorite thing in the whole world is when they look out there through their telescope and they see something no one ever saw before and they put their name on it. That one's mine. Haley's comet. It's just unbelievable. So the truth of the matter is truth. As I said, it depends on what level of truth you want to live. Life is not yours. None of life is yours. Life belongs to life.
And so now instead of taking this attitude that this is my life and I'm to decide what's supposed to happen to it and then go out and do it, you go deeper and you realize this is not my life. This is life's life. So what's the next logical step? Therefore, I have no right to decide what's supposed to happen. It's been happening for millions of years. How did I come off dropping down here as this little baby pup drops out starts to eat the earth? The body grows all by itself until a certain stage and then it says, "hm, I wonder how I think everything should be." Go back where you came from. I mean, how did you come down here and start doing that? This is the most unbelievable thing I ever heard of. All right. So, instead, you sit there and you realize this is not my life. It does not belong to me. Therefore, I have no right. This is hard. I have no right to decide what life is supposed to be doing. I am a guest. I am a witness. I am an observer. I have dropped down into a world that was created billions of years ago onto one tiny planet in the middle of nowhere. and you are a witness, a participant in this process of evolution of unfolding of life. Why would it even come across your mind that what you are supposed to be doing with this is deciding how it's supposed to be or how you should change it?
I want to use the example, what if you were the first person that went up in a spaceship. You went up in a spaceship and you landed on Mars and you saw these things moving. They didn't look anything like humans or anything. They were bouncing along. All right, there you were. And you called back and said, "My god, there's life here." And you started to observe it and you saw that it moved this way. You took notes and it moved this way and so on. Right? At what point of the observation of this phenomenal thing that there was life on another planet and you're trying to observe its social structure, how it interacts, you can't even tell which side is up, right? Forget male or female, right? Why limit yourself? Who said there was male or female or only two or you follow me? You have to be like completely open. At what point in this process of taking down this, not those notes, do you decide, oh now I understand I'm going to go in there and tell them what they should be doing, how they should change and how they got it all wrong. Huh? How'd that sound? Which human being would go in there. Oh, now I see. No, you go over there. You shouldn't be doing this. No, no, don't bounce like that. I've watched you for a while. You should bounce like this other person over there and do this. And you too should be living over here and have that. No, the first thing you learn is you're there to observe. You're there to be blown away by the fact that there is this life that evolved different than human life. At what point do you step in and decide that you know what is supposed to happen and then go out there and implement it? That would be pretty dumb, wouldn't it? That is what we're doing here. You drop down here onto the planet. You're a guest. It always existed. It is not yours. Why does the mind come up with the notion that it has the right to decide what's supposed to happen and what is not? Because if you haven't caught on yet, no matter what you decide, it doesn't be very obedient, does it? You can sit in there all day deciding how everyone's supposed to act, who everything's supposed to be, how it all should unfold. How often does it come out that way? Never. Right? You decide what the weather should be. Do you want tomorrow to be sunny? You know, it's going to be what it's going to be. These decisions you're making have very little to do with anything. And so, you finally catch on that that is not what you're supposed to be doing. You are not here to do this to life. You are here to observe life, to experience life. Know the truth is you are not here to change life. You are not here to change life. You are here for life to change you.
In the process of evolution, there were all sorts of interactions between the environment and the state of the species at a particular point in time. If that species got together and decided, h let's change the environment so that we don't have to change, there'd be no evolution. It is the purpose of the species interacting with the environment that causes the species to perfect and change and grow. It is not that the species is supposed to all of a sudden make it. If the fish made it to where everything was water, nothing would have come out of the water and that's the end of it and all evolution would have stopped at that point. What you are trying to do in your daily life is stop evolution. If you had your way, you would take the state of evolution that you're in right now with your current way of seeing things, viewing things, which means all your opinions, preferences, right, wrong, your belief structure, everything. And you would change every single thing in life to match that, wouldn't you? You would have everybody behave the one that matches your beliefs. You would have every situation unfold that matches the way that you feel now. It should be. What would cause you to change? Nothing. You would completely be smart enough to have outsmart yourself and you would stagnate and you would not grow. The worst thing that could ever happen in the history of the world is that you get what you want. That everybody behave the way you think that they should. That every situation turn out the way you think it should. That everything you don't want to happen doesn't happen. Then you will stay exactly the way that you are. And we stupid humans that are supposed to be the highest species on the evolutionary ladder want to use our brilliance to stop our evolution. First of all, do you all see that if you got it exactly like you wanted it right now, it would never change? Okay. How many times have you thought across the course of your life going back to junior high school how things should be? How would you like them to be that way now? Hear me? I mean, it's not even close. The truth is it should continuously change and the truth is it will change. Life is unfolding on its own. It doesn't need you. If you were not there, it would continue happening.
So this new vector of growth, the steep vector of growth is not one of doership. It is not one of taking control and making decisions inside of how things should be and then going outside and making life be that way. That is child's play. Reality is unfolding. There's all kinds of things in reality. Nobody put you in charge. Life is in charge of life. And if you permit it to unfold around you in a state of openness, in a state of surrender, in a state of awe, in a state of experience, instead of doership, then life will change you. Period. And you will find that instead of being neurotic, instead of constantly thinking what do I want to do? Should I stay here? Where should I go? Should I marry this person? Shouldn't I marry this person? Am I happy here? And I mean, am I really, really happy here? Could I be happier somewhere else? Is this really the best relationship I could be in? I don't know. And that junk goes on inside of you all day, all night because you live the life that says it is for me to decide what's supposed to go on. And once I've decided, then I should go out there and implement it. True growth doesn't even talk like that, either about good things or bad things. True growth sits there and says it has nothing to do with me. I am a witness. Krishna Murdy said an objective observer. I am an objective observer of the process of life on this planet. It is unfolding on its own. And what happens when you start to live that way is it starts to invade on you. You used to hold your space and make everybody else respect it. All right? That's your ego. That's your personal self. You don't want to change. You want to make everybody else change. The yogi does not live like this. The yogi says life is reality. I am not reality. Life is reality. So as life unfolds, you with your moods, you with how you behave, the sun when it comes up, the rain when it falls. Just as life unfolds as it is, if it causes a problem inside of me, then that is the evolutionary stimulation. That is life challenging where I'm caught. All right? And so I'm sitting here saying things should be like this and you're not agreeing. You're behaving differently. So either I go out there and fight with you or I let this come in, create a disturbance inside of my model and learn to let go. And this is so deep that all of a sudden the vector goes from 10° to 90 deg 80°. I don't think you go straight ascent. You know, most of us got to deal best we can deal with is 80°. All right, you get an 80° ascent and that's pretty serious. We can't even handle that. You know, the hair goes blowing back. All right, that's when the true ascent takes place. When you take that attitude, I am here to evolve. And if anything is causing disturbance in the current state of evolution that I'm in, which is my way of viewing things, good. That's how a yogi behaves. Good masleaf. It's a good thing. All right. Let it come in and hit me. Let it create confusion and disturbance. I am going to let it go. And whatever happens, you just let go and let go and let go. And you will change. Every day you change. You come into the next day, you're not even the same person. And you will find that faced with the same situations, you don't react the same way. You used to get all uptight. Now you feel love. All right? You used to hear noise and it would disturb you to get all uptight. Now it's neat. Oh, look how loud that was. You just become open. You just become an open, tolerant being who is visiting the planet Earth for a few years and then you're leaving. It's not a big deal. You just spin around a star. I always think it's just comical. At one point, God said to you, "All right, you go down there, you spin around the star 60, 70 times, you come back." Well, that's easy. Ha, that's easy. Well, why are you having so much trouble? Don't worry, you won't have to stay. No one has ever stayed. You'll get to leave soon. Can't you handle spinning around the sun a bunch of times? And the answer is, of course not. Why? Because I think it's my job to figure out what's supposed to happen here. How about you? I'm supposed to figure out everything that's supposed to happen while I'm spinning around the sun. How everyone's supposed to behave, what my career is, what's supposed to happen, when I'm supposed to go, when I'm supposed to get sick, when I'm supposed to get well, how people are supposed to treat me. Everything. Whether anybody's supposed to beep at me when I'm driving my car, every single event in the whole time while I'm here, you're supposed to figure it out, aren't you? You're supposed to decide and make it be that way. And it's going to drive you crazy; you're going to be a neurotic mess. So yoga, it is so simple. The great masters, the Buddha, they just said, "Hey guys, what are you doing? Open your eyes. Open your heart. Open your mind. You are a guest."
On this planet. There have been billions of you. They all just come and go. How many of you have walked on this planet? How many of you have gone through this melodrama of my life? A lot of you. Huh? How many have been here?
And so the Buddha said, "Don't suffer." The cause of suffering is this process. We've been talking about its desires. The cause of suffering is deciding what's supposed to happen and then going out there and trying to make it happen and getting all uptight if it doesn't happen. You have an alternative. What's that? The Beatles sang it. Let it be. Let it be. Sing in words of wisdom. Let the day unfold. Let people treat you as they will treat you. They will be the way they are. Because that's the same reason the weather is the way it is. All because of everything happened before it. The weather becomes this way. All because everything happened before it. Somebody yells at you. Somebody's nice to you. Somebody likes you. Somebody doesn't like you. What do you mean? The first person in the world that somebody didn't like, right? But you can't handle it. You can't handle somebody not liking you. And you can't handle somebody liking you. You got to do something about it. Oh, she likes me. Give me a break. Why can't it just be what it is?
A movie, an experience, a journey that every day is different and it just continuously unfolds. And you have to answer that question and not through your voice because I asked you a question. That's your homework. Why can't it just be like that every day that God creates the heavens and earth and here they unfold and you're just here experiencing, dancing, participating in the life that is unfolding around you and through you. It becomes so beautiful if you do this. There's no more fear. You don't have to be afraid to wake up in the morning. You don't have to be afraid to see people or talk to people. You wouldn't be afraid to stand up before a thousand people that you never met before and talk about a subject that you know nothing about. Why would you? If you have no preconceived notion that you want these people to like you or think that you're smart or invite you back to give another talk about something you know nothing about, right? If you just absolutely have no notion, you're just like, "Hi," and you're just there and you're just there and you just say, "I don't know anything about this." Did anybody want to ask any questions? I was supposed to talk about a subject that I don't know anything about and I could have made up something, but I I'm not going to do that. All right. So, what should we do now? And have fun and just be there.
And then what happens next happens next. And the funny part about it, if you do that, they love you. It's the most refreshing thing that ever happened to anybody. It was like a fresh breeze that blows through their life and everybody gets open and everybody laughs and everybody loves you because nobody cared about the subject anyways. All they care about is touching and being there and and sharing and being real and and and so on. Do you understand? So why are you bringing all this uptightness? Why? And so you start to challenge yourself with these things and you dare to live life and it's such a beautiful experience. And what we've just discussed, believe it or not, that's yoga. And this is the depth of the teachings and they're so simple. Let God create creation. You experience it. Participate in it. Enjoy the experience of the moment. And you will find then that your whole life is beautiful.
And then you say, "But what will be the meaning of life?" How did the meaning become changing it? How did the meaning become making everybody be the way you decided they should be? If you live this life I'm speaking of, the meaning will be the experience of life itself. The meaning will be the joy of interacting with everybody. You will learn to love people who hate you. There are going to be people that love you and there are going to be people that hate your gut even if you never met them. All right. They just hate you. It's good. It's fun. And so you get to know what it's like to be friends with someone who hates you. Is that so hard? Why is it hard? And they talk mean about you and they tell lies and they do all kinds of things. They do that. Is there a problem with that? The truth of the matter is there isn't anything wrong with it. People who hate you are cute as a button. They are just cute. Okay? They're just part of creation. And it's a nice thing. All right? And death is a nice thing. It's your friend. It means you don't have to stay here on this earth forever. All right? Because that would be terrible. It means that we get to have a talk like this and say, "Don't worry, it won't last forever. It's just an experience that's happening to you." And you should befriend death and you should honor its right to exist because it does exist. And birth is a beautiful thing. And health is a beautiful thing. And sickness is a beautiful thing. People grow tremendously from sickness. I know people who have AIDS and they said it changed their entire life that they wasted their entire life until the point that they realized they had AIDS. Now they are living their life no matter what time is left is fine because it was so fulfilling to wake up to that level and to face things at that level. Same thing with cancer people. I mean to have a a illness that you know you're going to die is just a tremendous growth experience. Every single thing is beautiful. Everything is beautiful. It's all the experience of life. You hear me? How will you come here and separate life into pieces and say this part's good and this part's bad and this is the part I want to happen. This is the part I don't want to happen. That's what the Buddha means when he says the cause of suffering is desire. That is what the third Zen patriarch meant when he said the great way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. You understand?
But if you come down here a guest on this planet and you bring your mind, your personal mind with you and you make up how everybody should be and how everything should be. You are going to suffer, aren't you? You will never have a moment's peace on this earth. You will worry about everybody, what they're thinking, what they're saying, what they're doing. You will worry about tomorrow and the day after and the day after. You'll just worry about everything. It's just unbelievable what will go on in your mind. Don't do it. Be different. Dare to let life exist and let go of the part of you that is trying to fight with these things and you will grow so beautifully and the light will open up inside of you and you will just look forward to and be enthusiastic about every single second of your life. You will live fearlessly and open and you have a very very whole and fulfilling life and you become a blessing to everyone around you because you carry so much light and so much enthusiasm and beauty that it spreads to everything and everybody. So live like this. Stop being a stick in the mud.