Transcription
Jagrative J masters evolution is a very, very interesting topic. When I say evolution, you think of Darwin. That's physical evolution. That's evolution of species. There's much more evolution going on. It's one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard. Spiritually, I heard back in the 70s, and it said, "Earth is a place the souls of sent to evolve." That says so much.
First, it centers you on the fact that you're sitting on a planet spinning little nowhere. Where'd you come from? Who knows? Where you going to go? Who knows? But you're sitting on a planet spinning in the middle of nowhere. Absolute black empty space. Period. All over. What are you doing here? That's the second thing it says. One, Earth is a place. Well, here you are. Where souls are sent to evolve. We'll get to the souls part in a minute. What does it mean to evolve? To change, to grow. That's what evolution is. It's not deevolution. That's to go backwards. There is such a word. But basically, evolution means to change in a positive, upward, expanding direction.
Well, what does soul mean? Doesn't mean your body. Your body's quite evolved. People say, "What does that mean?" Well, it used to be a flower that was rooted in the ground and it couldn't go many places. I guess if you're a Venus fly trap, you could do some stuff, but most flowers don't do anything. They just kind of sit there and look nice, but they can't go anywhere. They can't do much. They can physiologically express themselves through blossoming. You've come a long way from that. A real long way. You evolved to the point where you're not stuck in the ground. Animals can move around: fish, amphibians, land creatures. And then you grew from being, you know, a muskrat to a human walking on two legs and having dexterity of your hands. And my God, you've evolved tremendously. You don't need more evolution that way. Yes, it's nice. Somebody's got more muscle than somebody. Somebody's got this or that. Doesn't make that much of a difference. Why? Because at some point your mind took over. What do you mean? You don't have to go out there and hunt. You go to Publix and look for what you're looking for. You complain, "I didn't find exactly what I wanted. I wanted short grain rice." And you. That's just funny. So your mind has evolved to the point where it is more important than your body. Now, obviously, you need a body to stay here on this planet. It's your robot. But your mind is doing everything. It started doing everything. Developing efficiencies and flying rocket ships and discovering how the earth was made and physics and chemistry and all kinds of things. That's all your mind, which gives you a clue to what evolution means. It means it starts out physical. When it's on Earth, it evolves to the highest evolutionary state, which is the human body. That is the highest evolutionary state. And now what? Evolution goes beyond the human body.
Now I said, "What is the soul?" Now we get ready to talk about what's evolving. Why is it evolving? Your consciousness is everything. It wouldn't matter what was going on. If you were not conscious of it, it would make no difference. The most important part of your being is your consciousness. There's all kinds of objects of consciousness. You can see them. They come, they go, they change. It is the same awareness of being that sees them all. Period. Consciousness. To know how important consciousness is. I gave that talk in "Untouched Soul." I said, "Be in a room where there's a bunch of things, people, it's a party, everything's going on. Now take the people out. Are you still there? Can you see that the people are gone? Are you aware that now they're not people in the room? Yeah. So, you're not the people. You're the awareness that was aware of the people. Now, take the furniture out and have an empty room. Are you aware there's an empty room? Okay, then you're still there, right? You were aware of the people. You were aware of the furniture. Now take every single thing out of the room. And so I said there was a piano left. Now take the piano out. Are you aware the piano went? Yes. Now take the room away. The entire room, all four walls and everything, until there's just empty space. Are you aware that the room is gone? You know it's gone. It was there and it's not there anymore. Right? Okay. You are what's left when everything else is taken away. And what's left is consciousness. If I put all the people back in the room and put all the furniture back in the room and even the piano and I left them there, but took your consciousness away. Now what? Now there's nothing. There's nothing. You are the consciousness. That's what you are. That is the essence of your being. They don't know it, but that's what they mean by soul. That's what's meant by Atman. That is the innermost, most central part of your being, your consciousness. Everything else is something you're conscious of. Do you get that? Everything else is something you're conscious of. You can say it's good. You can say it's bad. It doesn't matter. Good, bad. Still, you're conscious of it. Are you conscious of good? Are you conscious of bad? You're conscious of a heart that hurts. You're conscious of a heart that's blowing open with love. Same consciousness is aware of all of that. Are you aware that you can be open and talking to somebody, then all of a sudden you're closed? Okay. You are the awareness of being. That's the essence of your being. That's what evolution means. When it's said and done, and we'll talk about how people question that too, right? When it's said and done, your consciousness is there interacting and experiencing objects of consciousness. Certainly, the outside world comes and goes, and you're aware of that. But so do your thoughts, don't they? Do you have thoughts? Do you have thoughts? How do you know? Because you're conscious. You do know there are thoughts. Do you have bad thought days and good thought days? Do you have emotions? You're so concerned about your emotions. Yoga couldn't care one bit about your emotions. It wants to know who is aware of the emotions. Someone's in there aware of them, aren't they? "Oh my God, my heart's killing me. Ever since she said that, what's happened? I can't. It hurts so bad." How do you know? I told you, no one wants to come to me for therapy. Believe me, you do not. They ask for one-on-one. I, I don't do one-on-one. Why? To help you, to save you. Why? Because you come to see me and you tell me, "Well, my husband left, and this happened, and my child's sick, and this, and has always been the problem." Right? If I were a therapist, which I'm not, and I won't be, I would sit there and listen for about 30 seconds and listen, and then ask you the real question. "How do you know?" "How do I know what?" "How do you know your heart hurts? How do you know your mind's giving you trouble? How do you know you're depressed? Are people depressed? Can people get depressed? How do they know? How do you know you're depressed?" Eventually, you're going to yell at me because I'm in here and I see it. Okay? I want to know who's in there. You want to play around with what you're aware of. I want to know who's aware of it all the time. That's all spirituality. There's really no other spirituality. It's not your clothes, your food, your beliefs. What are beliefs? Thoughts. What are your clothes? Things you put on your body. What is the awareness that is in there, aware of the thoughts, aware of the emotions, aware of the body, and aware of what's coming through your senses? There's one consciousness. It picks up all the senses. Same consciousness. That is what evolution is about. That being, that essence of your being is capable of knowing itself. You're going to call it self-realization. It's capable of knowing itself as what it is, as itself. Now, to let the cat out of the bag for a moment, although we'll get there later, right? When you get back there to where you are aware that you're aware that you're aware, and that you're aware that there are thoughts, you're aware there are emotions, but you are still aware. That's called your center. That's called being centered. You're centered in the seat of consciousness. Thoughts are passing before you. They're not not passing before you. You're just aware that they're passing before you. Here come the thoughts. Da da da da da da. Seen once, seen them all. They're thoughts. They come and go. Here's the emotions. Or all right. They just come and go, don't they? All your life they've been coming and going, haven't they? They're different, but they're still emotions. And they just come and go. And the same you is aware of them. It's a new thing. I've tried to go slowly with you guys lately, right? Were you conscious yesterday? Were you aware yesterday that things were coming through your eyes, in through your ears, thoughts were passing before you? Yes or no? Was it the same you that's here today? Were you here last week? Of course you were. Were you here last year? Were you in there last year? Eventually, it'll work back. Say, you've always been in there. You were in there. When you looked in the mirror when you're five years old, it didn't look like it looks now, but you were looking. There's only one consciousness. It's always been there. It has no age. It has no gender. It watches a mind that does. It watches a body that does. It watches all kinds of things. But the self that's watching. Just like a light. A light has no quality except for light. If it shines on a broken object, it's not broken. If it shines on those beautiful woman that ever lived or handsome men, it's not handsome or beautiful or ugly, is it? It's a light. The light of consciousness is aware of what it's shining on. But it has nothing to do with it. Just like a light has nothing to do with what it's shining on. Consciousness has absolutely nothing to do with what it's looking at. It's just there. It's being. It's just being. You've heard that. Very zen. Okay.
So now that's you and it has always been you. But what has evolution got to do with it? If it's always been there and it's pure and clean, what's this thing about evolution? You can't stay there. I'm cursing you. I'm making a statement of fact. You can't stay back there in the seat of consciousness. Why? Because you're too attached to your thoughts. You care what they're saying. And you're sure as heck attached to your emotions. Every little thing it does, you go right down there. They pull you out of the seat of self down into the thoughts, down into the emotions. So I said you theoretically can stay there. There's no reason you can't stay there. Okay? But you can't. What's going to happen is something's going to go on in your mind. Something's going to go on in your heart, and it's going to create enough disturbance that you get pulled down into it. And then maybe you come back a year from now, five years from now, an hour from now, a year from now. I've known people that never came back. Really? I've known people that were very seated there and then got all involved in all this stuff, and that was that. Ever got lost? Have you ever gotten lost? Okay. But I said the mind pulls you in, your thoughts pull you in. They certainly do. Okay. And your emotions pull you in. I didn't say anything about the world yet. That's because your relationship to the world is very different than you think it is. Right? The only reason anything, anything what anyone says, does, acts, believes, anything in the outside world, the only reason you care about it is because it affects your thoughts and emotions. There's a whole universe out there, planets, stars, black holes. You don't care. You make believe you. You don't care. You don't ever think about it. Has no effect on your life. It's everything. It's hilarious. But you don't care. Why? It doesn't affect your emotions. Doesn't affect your thoughts. Now, if you happen to write your PhD in astrophysics on black holes and it's being read for accuracy, and you see an article in the paper that you missed that says you're wrong. Now you care about black holes. Seriously, the very word, you start shaking. Am I right or wrong? The only reason you care about it is because it affects your thoughts and emotions. Well, well, I care about people if they affect your thoughts and emotions. There's 8 point something billion people on the planet Earth. How many do you care about or even care to know or anything? The ones that affect your thoughts and emotions. Okay? So, the outside world is in truth just something that's happening by itself. And if your thoughts and emotions are not affected by that, you don't try to manipulate. You don't try to control. You leave everybody alone. There's three people in your life that you manipulate: the husband, your wife, and the kids. And you try the boss, but don't do so good. You hear what I'm saying? Otherwise, everything else is fine to do whatever it wants. Do you care about the rings on Saturn? I heard Saturn lost one of its inner rings. How you doing? Okay. And I could name 900 trillion zillion things that that's your reaction. Or I can say something that your kids said, and all of a sudden you're not there anymore, are you? But is anybody with me? Is it true what I said? Okay, now we're talking about spirituality. And now we're talking about evolution. Well, what do you mean? You are the self. You're the consciousness. And we'll talk later about where did that come from? Everything comes from somewhere, doesn't it? Everything comes from somewhere. Where did your consciousness come from? What's the source of your consciousness? Not what are you conscious of? And not are you seated in the seat of consciousness. Where did it come from? That's spirituality. But we'll go there later. Now, as far as I've taken you now is you are centered, but you can't stay there. It gets pulled down into the thoughts and emotions, which, by the way, you don't need the outside world to screw you up. You can screw yourself up just fine. >> Yes or no? >> Just have a thought. Have an emotion that you stimulated. Think about something that bothered you in the past. It'll bother you again, and now you're all messed up, and nothing happened. It is your thoughts and emotions that you can't handle. And I know you can't handle the outside world. That's because it affects your thoughts and emotions. If it did not affect your thoughts and emotions, you'd be fine. I, I don't know how strong I can. It doesn't. I don't have to sound cold. Okay, I told it again. I tell the story in the entire soul. You're driving down the street. There's all kinds of cars driving by. You're still doing what you're doing. All of a sudden, a car drives by that looks like your girlfriend's car, and there's somebody hugging the person that looks like your girlfriend in that car. How you doing? That car is all of a sudden very different than every other car that drove by. No, it's not. I don't see any difference. How about you? That's what's called personal because it affected your thoughts and emotions. You take it seriously, don't you? And you can't stay centered. You stayed centered when all the other cars drove by. That's so funny. There's thousands of them, right? But not that one. Why? It affected your thoughts and emotions. So again, I'm reiterating. It's terrible. It's hard to digest. You don't care about the outside world. It affects your thoughts and emotions. And you care about your thoughts and emotions. Nothing wrong with that. It's just reality. It's a truth. We talk about why it does that maybe a little later, but the point is you're in there, the center, the seat of consciousness, the awareness of being, the self, Atman, and it can't stay seated. Some people have never done what I'm talking about. They have never been centered enough to know they're not their thoughts, to know that they're watching their thoughts. Okay? But they say things like, "Oh my God, my thoughts are driving me crazy." Who's the me? Come on. Words mean something. There's a subject-object there. The you, the verb is driving crazy, and this thing called thoughts. Who's the subject? But they don't separate it because the thought is driving them crazy, they're in the thought. They're not centered in the one that's noticing the thought. That's evolution. The more you are capable of maintaining your center of consciousness while your thoughts and emotions are doing whatever they do, you are evolving. Otherwise, you are reacting. You're reacting just like an animal, like a lower creature. They did it physiologically. You're doing it mentally and emotionally. And you just react. And I'm telling you, and you should know by now, that reaction is so meaningless. It's meaningless. It comes from the fact that you're disturbed. Why can't you stay in the seat of consciousness? Because this disturbed me. By definition, that thought disturbed me. And you said something that made the thought come up. So, you disturbed me. That emotion disturbed me. You didn't behave the way I expected you to. You didn't support me. You did this. You did that. So, that emotion bothered me. So, I'm disturbed. It was disturbing. And I can't handle being disturbed. How about you? I can't handle being disturbed. So, what do you do? I try to stop it, don't I? Stop what? I don't care. Stop you from talking. Stop you from doing what you did that made me get disturbed. Have you ever tried to stop someone from doing what made you get disturbed? You better laugh. If something disturbs you, you can't handle it. So, you come down to try to manipulate either your thoughts, right? "I can't think like this. I have to stop thinking like this." Okay. Well, that's nicer than hitting somebody. But more likely, you try to manipulate the outside world, people, places, things, finances, every single thing so that it be a way that doesn't disturb you. Who wants to deny that? Okay, that's not being centered. That's the opposite of being centered. That is, I can't handle it while I'm centered. I can't just sit here and be centered. I got thoughts bothering me. I got emotions bothering me. I got to do something about it. So, I got to go out there and manipulate the world so it doesn't behave in a way that disturbs me. Okay? That's how a normal person. You don't want to be normal. That's how a normal person goes through their entire life. Everything they say, everything they do, everything they wear, everything is all about, "How do I win friends and influence people? How do I control the situation in front of me so that it doesn't bother me?" Whether it be the wife, the kids, the boss, the driver in front of you, anything. I need to change it, manipulate it, control it, or keep it if I like it. All right. By the way, I know you think when I say bother you, it means something negative. No, no, no, no. You're bothered by things that you like. You want them to happen again. You want them to stay. You don't want someone you love talking to somebody else. And so it doesn't really matter whether you can't stay centered because you didn't like it or you can't stay centered because you did like it. If you really, really like something, you need to do something about it, don't you? You don't sit there and assume it'll stay there. You manipulate it and control it just like you do when you don't like it. It's the truth. All right. The point is there's this state called center of consciousness. You're seated in the seat of consciousness. The world is passing by. Your emotions are passing by. Your thoughts are passing by. And you're not going anywhere. You're at peace. Christ calls it the peace that passes all understanding. It's understandable if everything's the way you want that you feel peaceful. But to literally be centered and clear and at peace no matter what's going on, that's the peace that passes all understanding. It is your natural state. It is when you're seated in the seat of self. That's what it's like. Okay. But we're not. So what you do is you try to manipulate the outside world so it doesn't disturb your thoughts and emotions. When you start to grow spiritually, you realize that's unbelievable. I'm sitting there, can't handle people, so I manipulate them. Why don't I learn to handle them? There's a whole bunch of them. If I get you to be the way I want you to be, what about the next person? What about tomorrow? What about anything? I'm so busy. I have to manipulate everything. Why don't I learn how to handle things? That's starting your inner journey. Other words, I have to change myself instead of changing everybody else and blaming everybody else for how I feel. Okay? So, you start to work with your emotions and work with your thoughts. In most cases, that means depression. When you start, you try to push them away. "I don't want to be like that. I don't want to feel like that. I don't want to think like that." Next thing you know, you're in there pushing. You were manipulating the outside. Now, you're manipulating the inside. I'm not telling you not to do it. It's part of your path. I'm just treating you like mature spiritual people. Okay? You will try to do that, won't you? Now it's not a matter of manipulating everybody else so they don't bother me. Now it's a matter of manipulating my thoughts and emotions so they don't bother me. You're getting back to the root of what's going on. This is all evolution. This is evolution. You evolved to the point that you can't handle your emotions and thoughts. So you can't stay centered. And so you try to manipulate the world with a gun, with good perfume, with good looks, with a better car, with a bigger house. I don't care how it is. You understand that? Anything you can do to get it the way you need it to be so it doesn't bother you. How's that? Okay, that's that's all. Well, that's a stage of evolution. Not really high because you can't handle yourself and you can't handle anybody else. So, you have to manipulate and control everything. All right. When you evolve, you come back inside and you realize, "Wait a minute, it's my thoughts and emotions that are bothering me. Not what that person said, not what that person did, not how that person believes, not what religion they are, not what color their skin is. That's not what's bothering me. What's bothering me is me. What's bothering me is it offended my thoughts and emotions, the way somebody else was." I don't want to be like that. Good. You've evolved. Used to be a flower stuck in the ground. Now you can walk. Right? Now you can start to handle your inner state. So how do you do that? Basically, you realize it's not about getting what you want. It's not about avoiding what you don't want. It's about evolving enough to where you can handle reality. That survival of the fittest, guys. People are not always so fit inside, are they? They do all kinds of weird things. They do all kinds of stuff. It proves they have not evolved enough to handle reality. Isn't that what Darwin said? Survival of the fittest is the one who's most fit to be able to handle the reality they're interacting with is going to survive and then pass on their genetics, and the whole species will evolve. Well, what about this? You can't handle the joy life. You can't handle this. You can't. The boss. You can't handle somebody that's got the corner off. Some people can't. I talk with the driver in front of you. There are people that cannot handle the driver in front of them enough to where they ram in their basement and get out with a shotgun and do road rage. They're not very evolved. All right. There's an example of not being evolved. I can't handle reality. That's what not evolution is from a Darwinian point of view and from an inner point of view of spirituality. If you can't handle reality, you got some work to do. So now you bring it inside, which is very beautiful. You evolved. That is evolution. You evolved into thinking, "If I'm rich, or I'm this, I'm handsome, and everybody, I'm on the front page of the paper, everybody's clapping when I get all that garbage." Well, I forgot. Nowadays, it's not that. Now it's, "If I don't have 7 million likes on Facebook, okay?" Or if I had 7 million, now I have 6,900,000. The five of them went away. It ruined your day. All right. Now, we've evolved past that, which very few people do. And you brought it inside and you said, "I can't control the whole world and everything. And I don't want to do that." That's a, that's a non-starter to have to get every single person and every single thing, every single moment the way I need it to be to be okay. I don't want to do that. Good. Very good. Nobody said you had to. Yes, it did. Your emotions and your thoughts said you had to because they react in a way that you can't handle. That's why you have to do it. Now, you come inside, and that is an evolution. You come inside and you start doing what we call your inner work. But I'm telling you, when it starts, your inner work is very much like your outer work. Outside, you were manipulating people, place, and things so you didn't disturb your emotions and thoughts. Now you try to manipulate your thoughts and emotions. What happens then? You will at some point, as you work with that, realize that's just hard, maybe even harder. "I'm tired. It will wear me out." Okay. I, this is a lot to try to control. I think I have it together, and somebody says something, and then it's not together anymore. Or this happens, right? I build at least I have a reasonable inner state because this I have love, and then they leave me, and it all falls apart. Right? You're trying to hold it together in there, aren't you? Don't we build in there and try to hold it all together? Okay. So, next stage of evolution, since evolution is always about, can you sit in the seat of consciousness, in the seat of self, in the seat of your core of your being, while reality passes through you? Because reality is reality. It happens. I'm not saying you don't do anything about it. Not saying you don't interact with it. I didn't say that. I said, can you handle that it happened? And in most people's cases, of course not. No, I can't handle it at all. Evolution is the ability to handle it. So now I'm inside and I'm struggling with my thoughts and my emotions, as opposed to struggling, blaming everybody else for what my thoughts and emotions are doing. That's a really good step. When you stop blaming anybody, anybody ever, for what's going on inside of you, you're ready to grow spiritually. Why? Because you're the only one in there. There are a lot of things out there, but you're the only one who lives in there. And it's up to you what the house is like in there, not somebody else. If somebody else is bothering your state of emotions and thoughts, that's you. That's you. You want to know why they're bothering you? Because they can be bothered. If your thoughts and emotions still can happen in a way that you can't stay seated and let things come and go, you got some work to do, which is normal. And don't be embarrassed. That's what you're here for. Earth is a place that souls are sent to evolve. Now we're there, right? Now you understand. Now I'm going to do it. Earth, this little ball in the middle of nowhere. That's quite different than Mars, which is all dirt, and Venus, which is all gas. Pretty amazing ball. Okay. And it's all, it's decorated really nicely. There's a garden everywhere. Trees, animals, a zoo. It's an amazing place compared to anything else, isn't it? Okay. And you're sent down here to what? Evolve. The soul is sent down. Earth is a place that souls are sent to evolve. The consciousness evolves when it's able to handle reality. That's what Darwin said, and that's what spirituality says. Consciousness evolves when it's able to handle reality. Well, why is Earth a place where souls are sent to evolve? Because there's always changes in it. You will never manipulate. No one has ever manipulated life on this planet to be the way they want. It's always changing. Everything keeps changing. If you're out there trying to control this world and everything, have the weather and people and place and things and events. And so basically, you get to the point where you realize life is a challenge, and it's supposed to be a challenge, and it is not supposed to be the way you want, and it will never be. Has never been for anybody else. I don't care how rich they are. Go to Hollywood, see how much trouble they all have, right? Okay. No one has ever gotten it the way that they wanted. They're not supposed to. You're not supposed to. That's not what it's about. It's not about you coming down here with these issues and where you're not centered enough and clear enough, and so you're reacting, manipulating. It is not about you succeeding at that. That is not what success is. Success is, I can remain seated in the seat of self effortlessly. We'll talk about that in a minute. Effortlessly. I've evolved enough. Look, how hard do you have to do to keep your heart beating, your breath going in and out, your feet working, your eyelids blinking? Effortless. The inner state can be like that. You can evolve to the point where your center is just there and it doesn't leave naturally. No struggle. But in the meantime, it is a struggle. It is survival of the fittest inside. And so you are evolving how? Every minute of every day of every second on this planet, you are evolving. You cannot. It's just the nature of how things are. You can try and run away from it. You can try and run into it. You can move to New York. You can move out to the woods. Anything you want to do. I moved out to the woods. I'm gonna be alone. I'm gonna get out of this place, right? And I'm gonna meditate. I'm gonna freaking get it together. Right? I swear to God, and I had 10 acres and no one was in those days, 1971, there was no one anywhere around here, right? But a dog would bark while I'm meditating, and it bothered me just as much as if I was living in the center of New York City. You can't get away from it except for accepting for learning true spiritual growth. Okay? So basically, you start working inside and you find out the world's not helping you. Yes, it is. You think that the things that are disturbing you are not helping you. Right? May one who brought us the Durga statue, this beautiful, beautiful soul, she once sat up here was giving a talk and said, "Problems are the nectar of life." That's what I'm teaching you, isn't it? They challenge you to grow. If that bird in the Galápagos Islands that Darwin visited that ended up with a long beak had not had to go down and try to get into the crevice to get the seeds, that beak would not have grown. It's the challenges that make you evolve, that make you change. So, if you're in a relationship and it's not exactly what you want, and you don't think it's supposed to be the way it's supposed to be, you got a choice: get rid of the relationship or get rid of yourself. You have a job. "I used to be passionate about it, but that's because my boss was a woman. Now they put a stupid man in here. I don't want to have a man for a boss." Well, leave or evolve. You better use it. I can remember the exact positions in my growth back in the 70s when I realized, "Wait a minute, I don't like what's happening. But if I don't get rid of the part of me that doesn't like it, I'm going to have to keep dealing with it. And who knows when the next situation will be just right to challenge that part of my being? I better not waste this." That's how a spiritual person looks at evolution. I am evolving. Earth is helping me evolve. Life is helping me evolve. Everything is helping me evolve. The things that most disturb me are the things that help me evolve the most. Aren't they? Why? Otherwise, they wouldn't disturb you. You were done with them. That which disturbs him to disturb you. You hear me? You are here to grow. Earth is a place that souls are sent to evolve. You have a growth experience every minute of your life, whether it's your inner mind, your emotions, or the outside world. Wow. You must be in graduate school. But if you're out there avoiding it, trying to make sure nothing happens that I don't want. You're basically saying, "I don't want to go. I want to stay the same. I'm not happy, but I want to stay the same." You have to be willing to say that problems are the nectar of life. So now we're starting to help our evolution instead of fight our evolution, resist our evolution. That's the next stage. So instead of getting in there, you struggled outside. Now you're struggling inside. This is where surrender comes in. You sit there and say, "Wait a minute. Why am I struggling? It's in me. They're my thoughts. They're my emotions." And the answer is because I can't handle them. I can't handle them. You know darn well there's emotions you can have that you can't handle. There's thoughts you can have, sure, I can't handle. Okay. Well, it's time to evolve. Well, how do I do that? You start by taking the attitude that Earth is a place where souls are sent to evolve. And this is where I end up. So, I'm supposed to be evolving. Not manipulating, controlling, and fighting, complaining, evolving. How do I help with that? And you know, I learned a long time ago, and that's what I teach, that the easiest and highest way to learn to be okay is to learn to be okay. Not to be okay because you did something that made you be okay. You learn how to handle the moments that are unfolding in front of you. But somebody said, "But, but, but I can't." I know you can't. That's why you learn. All right? If you never played the piano before, I sit you down, say, "Play Beethoven." You said, "I can't." I know you can't. So, start with the scales. You want to play tennis? Get yourself a coach or the ball thrower, you know, the little ball thrower throws over there and practice. Well, why don't you take that attitude with your growth? Why do you sit there and say, "Oh, but someday somebody might leave me that I can't handle." Don't think like that. That's crazy. Start handling little things that right now you can't stay centered about. And I always use the example of the driver in front of you or the weather or whatever. There are things that happen in your life that are not a big deal, but you make a big deal out of them. You complain about them. You resist them. You do everything you can to not have them happen. Start with those. That's equivalent to practicing the scales and so on. And you will find out that you are perfectly capable of changing, of evolving. If you can't lift 100 pounds barbell and you go out there and work at it until you get to the point that you can pick up 100 pounds, can you pick up more? You say, "No, I try as hard as I can. Here's the most I can do." What about 100 lb and 1 ounce? No. Okay. 100 lb and a tenth of an ounce. You wouldn't even know it's there. You'll be able to do it, won't you? Okay. Now do a half. Now do 101 pounds. There is some level that you can practice. I don't care how little it is. I'm not calling you a baby. I don't care. I want you to take a level of stuff that you now can't handle. A thought, the red light, you know, driver in front of you, then use blinkers. Just some stupid thing that you're in there bothering yourself about. Okay? Which proves you're not evolved enough to handle. You're not evolved enough to handle the fact that two lights turned red in a row and you had to stop. All right? You're not evolved enough that the driver in front of you doesn't use their blinker and they turn. You have to comment on it. "Nice blinker, buddy." You better laugh. Okay, this is where you evolve. You just Louis said, "I couldn't handle the person didn't put the blinker on." Yes, of course I can. Of course, I can handle that. I just not bother. I didn't bother picking up the 101 pounds. You hear me? This is how you evolve. You bother. You bother saying, "I want to practice handling reality." That's spirituality. That's for your inner work. That's everything. I want to practice handling reality. Somebody said something. It hits you the wrong way. I want to practice handling reality. And little by little, you'll find out you can do it with the small things, not with the big things. That's fine. It's fine. I don't care about the big things right now. I don't care that you can't play Beethoven. I wonder if you can do your scales. Then we'll do "Twinkle, Twinkle." Then we'll do "Twinkle, Twinkle, Acid Rock Style." Right? But you just keep evolving. You see, you're evolving. You're getting better at staying centered. If you will do that, you will find out it works. I People write me from all over the world. The vast majority of everything we get is, "Thank you for what?" "I didn't know I could do this. I didn't know I could handle the thing. I never tried." As you try to handle it, you'll find out the next thing looks as easy as the thing you just did because you practiced. It's so funny. We know we can't play a sport without practicing, don't we? No, we can't play an instrument without practicing. We know everything without practicing. But in terms of our inner growth, no, we don't understand that things have to change the way I want. No, practice. Practice letting that's now what I call letting go. So, what is letting go? It means something inside of you is going to resist anything. Can you let that go? Can you let it pass? Can you welcome? "Okay, I'm going to handle this. I'm going to handle the fact that I'm disturbed by this. I can handle it. I can breathe. I don't care what you do." People say, "You don't give techniques." I did. My technique is, "Learn to handle it." I didn't give the specifics. Everybody's giving specifics. "Breathe through your nose and then alternate out the other side." It's all fine. It's fine. I do some. All right. You, you can do something. All right. "How do I meditate?" That's not my business to teach you how to meditate. It's not. Why? There's 7 million meditation teachers teaching 8 million types of meditation. Pick one. Okay. Does it matter? No. It only matters if you do it. It matters if you use it to let go of yourself. They all can be phenomenally good and so on. And why would I add just another one to the thing? I want to teach you why you would meditate, not how to meditate. Well, why would I meditate? Because you can't stay centered, because you can't handle the reality of what's going on inside of you or outside of you. So, meditation helps with that, doesn't it? It helps you center. Yoga helps. All this stuff helps. So, that's why you do it. You don't do it to be the best yoga doer, right? You don't do it to be, "I can meditate an hour." You don't do it to have spiritual experiences. Oh my God, he said it. You don't do it to have spiritual experiences. You don't do it to have, see lights and things and have a nice experience. Right? Why? Because it comes and goes just like everything else. You do it to change the state of your being. The permanent state of your being. Can things help with that? Yes. But keep in mind, clear your pole star. I gave it to you. Can you sit in the seat of self and not get pulled out by your own thoughts, your own emotions, or the world unfolding in front of you? And be honest? No. Can you learn? Yes. All right. So now what happens if I learn? You stop being bothered. But, but, but, but what if I should be bothered? I don't understand that. That's a "not compute," right? If you eat healthy, you stop getting sick. But what if I should get sick? I, I just don't understand. You basically have the right to not be bothered. Well, then why would I get up in the morning? Because it's fun. Because you're on a planet where there's all these things going on, and you get to go to work. You get to take care of the kids. You get to watch them grow. You get to do all kinds of things. What if it's not what I want? Then you haven't grown enough. Hear me? You're given a job to do. It's in front of you. Enjoy doing it. But it's not my. I did the dishes yesterday. It should be, "Can I do them again?" You should have passion about every single thing you do on the planet. But you can't. Why? Because there's other things you'd rather have happen that make you feel better. Well, there shouldn't be. How's that? If you're clear and open. Now, we're going to start to talk about what it's like back there. Back where? In the seat of your being without getting pulled out. It's beautiful back there. What do you mean? Consciousness has a nature. Everything has a nature. The nature of consciousness is such anandanda. That's what they in deep scriptures they call it Sat-Chit-Ananda. What is that? Eternal conscious ecstasy. I'll repeat: eternal conscious ecstasy. You want some? It means no matter what's happening, you're in a state of ecstasy. You're in a state of total well-being, a state of total joy, light, beauty, health. Not health of body, health of being. Okay? Which does help the body a lot too. Okay? You know that when you're messed up mentally, you mess your body up. But that is what's back there. You're going to understand there's a river of joy that flows inside of you always. I added to that: "Find it. Get in and drown." Okay. This is who you are. Can you imagine that? You think you're depressed, but the one who's looking at the depression is the highest thing ever walked the face of the earth. It's filled with ecstasy. If you stare down at darkness, that's what you're going to see. Then you identify with it. So basically, that's what's back there is beauty. As you let go of being distracted from it by all this garbage personal stuff, what you like and dislike, and who you like and who you dislike, and what you want and what you don't want, and what happened in the past you really didn't like, and "I'm never going to let it go." Wow. Why don't you give up ecstasy for that garbage? Because you did. You gave up the seed of self, which Buddha called Nirvana, and Christ called "kingdom is within you." You gave that up to be distracted by the garbage of your personal self. What I like, what I don't like, and how come I can never be the way that I want. Everybody else gets what they want. Why did he get the corner office? I should have got it. You hear me? This constant personal noise, distracting consciousness to pay attention to that instead of paying attention to the seat of your being. Now, you know what evolution is? You've evolved enough to be able to remain seated in the seat of self. How? By letting go. By little by little letting go of these things that you think you can't handle, especially the little ones, because you can handle them. You just didn't bother. And you'll find out that if you do handle them, the next thing is little, then the next thing is little, and all of a sudden, you're going through major things that everybody else will be freaking out about, and you're fine. Now, does that mean you don't deal with them? No. Of course, you deal with things, but you don't deal with them because you're not okay, and you're dealing to make you be okay. You don't deal with them because you're not okay. You're trying to manipulate them so they be the way you want so you can feel good. That's personal. That's taking your personal garbage, your "not okay-ness," and dumping onto the world. It's polluting. It's the same as these factories that just pour everything down into the rivers. All right? You are polluting the world because you're not okay. And so, you're out there manipulating, controlling based on your reactions to not being okay. When you are okay, that doesn't happen at all. You have to try it all. You're okay. I'm okay. Now, how do I interpret what's in front of me? With love, with compassion, with clarity, with understanding, with wisdom, not with reactive energy that I'm not okay and I need.
To carry on because I'm not okay. You see the difference? But you do interact. Okay? But you interact to help. Not you. You interact to help the situation. You don't go to work to prove yourself, to prove you're better than everybody else, to make money, to be this, to be that. No, no, no. You know why you go to work? To get the work done. You actually go there to do the work that was put in front of you.
I told you when you really evolved enough and on Friday, they give you paycheck. You have no idea what it's for. You were not working for that paycheck. You were working to do the job that got put in front of you. You sit in a little plant spin in the middle of nowhere. The whole universe exists and they gave you this job. You serve with all your heart and soul. Whatever is in front of you, you just do your best to raise it, to help it, to give to it. You're never taking. You're never needing. You're never wanting. There's no fears and no desires. You're whole and complete in the seat of self.
All right. Now, that sounds like a high state. It's not. That's the beginning of your true spiritual journey. What do you mean? You've been pulled down. Now you've managed to maintain a stable seat within the core of your being and you're feeling love. You're feeling well-being. You're feeling all this energy coming up inside of you. You live there for a while and then all of a sudden it dawns on you. Yeah, but where did I come from? Not the ego, the conscious just this. And then you start to feel so much shakti, so much upward flow of energy, the rush of holy water as the Bible calls it. You feel it. Somebody asked me all the time. All the time. It's always rushing up inside of you. Okay?
And then you realize you're no longer being pulled down. You're being pulled up. And it's just as dangerous cuz you're not ready to let go. Just like you couldn't let go was down there because it was pulling you out of the seat of self. Now something from behind is pulling you up out of your seat of self. It's literally challenging. That's what Christ meant by die to be reborn. It's challenging your individuality, your separateness as a you are consciousness, but you're this little drop of consciousness looking at you. Is that really who you are? And it starts pulling you away from that concept of separation, of separateness, of individuality. And you know it and you you say you have to die. I have to let go. It's not easy. Great beings have fought it. Okay.
To come back is a story of Vivikanandanda one of the great great souls of great was he was the first enlightened master to come to America back in the late 1800s he was the disciple of Ramach Krishna and early in his growth Ramach Krishna took his foot he's a great master and touched it on Vivakan's heart and all of a sudden shi went pouring up he started losing his consciousness it's just and the master couldn't do that and it's just going up and he started screaming right help no I have a mother to take care of. I'm not ready to go. Stop it. And the master pulled his foot away from me. He said, "It's okay. It doesn't have to happen all at once." Okay? This is who you are, not who they were. It's who you are. So, it starts to pull you up. That's called the ascent. It's not something you do. It's something you surrender to. How'd you learn to surrender? By surrendering all this stuff down here. By little by little learning how to let go. Then when that time comes and it can be gradual. When it's pulling you up, you practice letting go. Notice the difference. Before it was pulling you down and you let go. Now it's pulling you up and you're letting go. The great ones let go. Very rare. Very rare. They completely let go. When Mayor Baba let go, he said, "My conscience was like a drop of water staring at myself. When it I let go, it pulled up and it dropped into the ocean. Find it. Go and find it. You can't find that water ever again, can you? Emerged. That's what Christ meant. We said, "My father and I are one." What a beautiful statement. That's the great state. Don't ever say you're enlightened. That's enlightenment. Not that you had some nice experience and saw light. Okay?
And great masters have merged in that state. Great ones stay in that state and literally interact on earth such as Christ and Buddha and the avatars. Guess what? That's a nice thing to talk about. It's who you are. That is what's back there right now. God looking down at your messed up mind. Here, Dad, have fun. Okay. It is literally divine universal consciousness. The creator of all of thing that which always was and always will be is that conscious. The only consciousness there is is looking down at your thoughts, your emotions, your thing, what's going through your eyes. People say to me, if what's back there is God, then why is there evolution? Because you stared at it so hard that you lost your sense of self. That's called the lost soul. It just it's still God, but it's focused so much that it identified what it was looking at. And evolution is to break that ident. It's just like getting off of drugs. In order to get off the drug, you got to go through withdrawal. We have to go through withdrawal of the ego. You have to go through withdrawal. Christ had died to be reborn. Christ's teachings are exactly every single thing that the deep masters taught. It's the essence of all spirituality. So basically I hope you understand evolution now. Now you understand all the evolution is all back to God. That's back to the highest state. All right. Work on these things. Jagrative.