Table of Contents
Raj: Now, I want to take this a step further.
It is necessary for you not to argue against the possibility and accessibility of Guidance by assuming that certain conditions are not conducive to Listening and Hearing. One of these, of course, relates to your body, as though if you have been engaged in activity or movement, you will need to necessarily sit down and become unconscious of it. Indeed, you must rely heavily upon your experience of being centered and carrying on the activities of the Workshops. You will realize that movement of the body occurs during a Workshop—not just the movement of your lips, as is occurring at this moment—and that movement of the body is not inconsistent with being centered.
Movement of the body is not, in itself, distracting to centeredness. The necessity is to give permission unconditionally. I will tell you that you can be jogging and still Hear. To be physically active does not constitute a block to Hearing. Physical activity can become part of the whole experience of centeredness and of Guidance, while not giving your focused attention to the movements, because in and of themselves they do not constitute appropriate “subject-matter,” if I can put it that way. The body, and the movements of the body, exist for the sole purpose of giving visibility and tangibility—expression—to what you find yourself Knowing as a result of Listening.
Absolutely everything, all form, is simply the expression of the movement of Knowing, the movement of Self. Abide with the Knowing, and be from the Knowing, and all form will identify Being, because there will be no misidentification of Self to cause a preoccupation with form.
I mention this because you must be very clear that in shifting from thinking to Knowing, you will not become unconscious of Self, and you will not become unconscious of body. It is just that Self and Body will not be identified with body!
Again, it is just that Self and Body will not be identified with body.
The simple fact is that self-consciousness and body-consciousness become secondary, and ultimately nonexistent in the Act of Knowing. And yet, consciousness, with full identity and identification will be experienced—another key point!
Now, it is important for you and I to speak regularly, as we are doing, because just as meditating reminds you of the experience of centeredness, our conversing reminds you of the nature of the experience of Knowing, which provides you with the clear perspective of the pleasure of It, the Integrity of It, the naturalness of It, and the fact that in the experience of It there is no loss of any experience of Self, including, as I said, identity and identification—what might be called mind and body. The experience of It does not convey or substantiate the sidekick, the sidekick’s judgments, or the sidekick’s sense of separation. You must be reminded of this because it helps to substantiate to you the desirability of not being fragmented, the desirability of not experiencing fear, the desirability of not being “bumbling,” the desirability of not experiencing incompetence, the desirability of releasing the sidekick.
It is only the experience of Integrity, which you have when you are Knowing, that will promote the willing release of any desire to shift back to ignorance, to shift back to fear. You see, just because something is familiar does not mean it is actually desirable. It may feel comfortable, but it does not feel fulfilling, because it does not embrace fulfillment. It is not an experience of congruence or unity. That which is familiar does not provide peace—the Peace of your Being. And when you are feeling the Peace of your Being, as you are right now, it is obvious to you that the familiar does not include this experience.
Now, I encourage you to pay more attention when you are doing the private conversations, because when you are doing them, you are also experiencing this fulfillment, this congruence. But you have not gleaned from it its full benefit because you have not been aware of the fact that it has been you standing as the Door, and as the Door, being the presence of the Voice for Truth which constitutes your real conscious experience of Being. You have seen it as a pleasant side-effect, you might say, of something else1 which is Real that is going on, rather than the realness of You.
If you will pay attention, and if you will accept the fact that the experience of fulfillment you are having is an experience of congruence with your Self, you will realize that the integrity of it hasn’t been derived from me and not from you. And because it constitutes a real experience of You, there is even less reason for you to release it at the end of the last conversation [of the day] as though now all there is left is you—meaning the sidekick.
[Chris entered the room to ask a question.]
Now, you have just had “an interruption” by Chris, but you chose not to interpret it as something at odds with our conversation. You found that you were able to be present for him from your Center with relative ease, and as a result, the “interference” was very brief. If, however, it had been treated as an interference, and if you had chosen to shift your attention from Centered attentiveness to external attentiveness, with a certain degree of botheration associated with it, the event would have been prolonged and Christopher would not have felt you had been present with and for him. To be from your Center inevitably causes experience to be simple and clear and full.
It is absolutely correct that you are going to have to learn to be out from your Center with your eyes open. At this point, I wish to make it very clear that in spite of your experience with the bio-feedback equipment—which seemed to make it obvious that visual experience is of such a stimulating nature that it interferes with one’s being able to come out from a theta or delta frequency—the key is where you are placing your attention. The key is whether you are placing your attention at the threshold of Centeredness or at what I will call the “threshold of stimulation.” Mind you, that “threshold of stimulation” only seems to have meaning relative to a body which, in itself, has the capacity to be sensitive, the capacity to be aware—something which the body does not have, simply because it is the visibility and the tangibility of the expression of Meaning which is being experienced as a result of Knowing.
So, do not open your eyes with trepidation because of your so-called experiential and electronic knowledge that visual stimuli constitute a real threat or distraction to Centeredness. It is not true, any more than activity in the world such as happened when Chris came into the room—and even is happening at this very moment 2—is distracting to and interferes with your ability to stand at and as the Door. It only seems to when you think and come to the conclusion that it does, and then refrain from expressing the desire to Know which constitutes the giving of permission for the Knowing to occur.
Again, as I said, all of the essential elements are already under your belt as actual experience, with which you are completely at ease. We are simply bringing these elements forward for you to see, so that this shift of emphasis from thinking to Knowing can occur without your being hooked by preconditioning and old ego habits.
You drink coffee all day long, and you smoke cigarettes right through your conversations. That is movement. It is activity—internal and external. You do not interpret it as something which could interfere with your being Centered and Listening. And yet those are activities which are not apart of the communication. You scratch your head, you shift your position for comfort, and not as part of the communication. I bring this up because you assume that the mundane movements which are not directly associated with the expression of Knowing are somehow not susceptible to Centeredness.
You are comfortable when a conversation or a Workshop is occurring, because it conveys what I will call a process of education, a very specific, focused expression of love. But, you are not able to identify Centeredness with relating to Chris, or to eating dinner, or to being with friends. You do not have much basis—outside of the scope of a Workshop or of a private conversation—for being in the world from your Center. And so I point out to you that being Centered has not inhibited you from scratching your head or removing a piece of food from your tongue just a moment ago which had become lodged in your tooth, nor of drinking coffee, nor, in the case of Christopher’s coming in the room, relating to him without “teaching.”
These are a handful of examples which you will have to rely upon heavily, because they are the only ones you have at an experiential level of being in the world Awake, of being in the world from your Center, in just being in a context other than a private conversation or a Workshop.
The simple point is that you must dare to be present in these other worldly contexts from the vantage point of Knowing, rather than assuming that you must fall back upon the conditionings of your sidekick and your sidekick’s traditional responses. It is only in this way that you can begin to explore and become comfortable with being out from your Knowing. Not all “being out from Knowing” is constituted of problem solving, even though fully 99% of your experience of it has involved problem solving.
How do you eat dinner from your Center? How do you play Pictionary from your Center? How do you hug someone from your Center? How do you observe the scenery from your Center? I am not going to answer that. I am going to say, explore doing it! And explore doing it on purpose, just as much as you engage in Workshops and private conversations from your Center on purpose. And remember, because this is the key point for you at this time, that in doing it, you will experience the integrity, the congruence, the Peace of your Being which is fulfilling, and will constitute an experience of Self—minus fear, minus the sense of incompetence, minus all the characteristics of the sidekick.
I am going to encourage Susan to help you, as she has been, by pointing out when you are getting into “thinking.” And you, Paul, are going to have to learn to recognize that when your sidekick becomes defensive, self-righteously defensive, that action, if taken as yours and energized, only succeeds in covering up and withholding from you, your experience of your Self, your experience of your Integrity, your experience of your Peace, your experience of your fulfillment.
Now, this is good. Throughout the conversation, you have at times, experienced doubts, a certain quizzicalness, but you have not energized them, and have set them aside because, indeed, if you energize your doubts, you cannot be present to experience your Knowing. Remember that.
You do not have to understand analytically, logically. It isn’t the understanding which is important. It is the experience of your Peace. It is the experience of your congruence. It is the experience of your Integrity—which is a feeling. And in the presence of that feeling, which is uncluttered by conflict, you are the transparency for Truth. You are “the understanding” expressed and expressing. But the understanding is not a possession. So, if you want to understand, don’t try to understand. Invite the Knowing.
[Period of silence.]
Paul: Are you through?
Raj: No, I am not. I am just letting this sink in.
Good. Just let yourself be where you are. Don’t grasp for what is coming next and don’t grasp for what has been.
As I let what was said sink in, you continued to give your attention to what I would say next. You did not try to grasp what I had said and purposely embody it. You also let it sink in. Then when a sense of urgency arose regarding other issues, and what would come next, you did not energize it. You did not become full of active expressions of questions. You remained present with me, Listening for the next words, the next “Knowing’s,” whenever they might occur. This is where your Peace lies, Paul—in that willingness to be present in the now with your calm attention where the Knowing is experienced. You literally have no other place to be, nor is there any need to be anywhere else, truly.
Now, this evening, I want you to explore being from your Knowing, not from your thinking. You will not be tested, nor judged. Just explore it, and the exploration of it will provide us with grist for the mill, as it were—further elucidation which will be relevant to you and will have meaning. And ask me questions. Don’t assume that somehow the process of Listening and Hearing is going to be different.
You and I are not in the process of “breaking up.” You are not in a process of becoming independent from me, where you never inquire again. It is just that now it is necessary for you to understand that when you are inquiring, and when I am answering, You are answering. And that when You are answering, I am answering. And therefore all of this is absolutely relevant to you as an actual experience of your divinity, not just a means of getting information to help you experience your divinity.
You have circumstances going on in your experience which are unprecedented, and therefore you have no ready understanding, no ready responses, no ready ability to be mechanically at peace or mechanically “appropriate.” I want to remind you that you will not arrive finally at an understanding. Arriving at an understanding is not the goal! This is because Life isn’t an unfolding of movement within concepts. It is a movement which reflects the absolutely original movement of Being.
Again, the goal is to be goal-less, present in the now, so as to always be standing in support of the movement of Being and Its Intent, which is never confined to concepts, but is always absolutely expressive of original fulfillment. So, be willing to stay at the threshold, the crest of the wave—as Susan brought out this morning—that point of instability where unpredictable originality is what is happening.
Now, there is concern about finances. I will tell you, that concern is arising out of thinking. At this time, you are letting yourself be open to Knowing. Knowing, identified as You/Me speaking, is not addressing money, is It? Therefore, that is not the issue. That is not where congruence is needed. That is not what congruence is needed about. What we are talking about is specifically relevant to your finances, among other things. It is only the ego, the sidekick, which would demand that Knowing address what it sees to be a problem. Knowing doesn’t address problems. Knowing specifically uncovers resolution, solutions.
I will look forward to speaking with you tomorrow.
