Candice O’Denver – Belief systems and assumptions

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Good morning. Shoshana will read a teaching, a very brief teaching from the great freedom teaching and if anyone would like a copy of this, we have copies available on the table by the door.

“Rest vividly awake. Greatly beneficial awakened awareness of all exalted beings of the past, present and future is precisely your own awareness which perceives of this and that. Simply allow this unique awareness to rest vividly awake and present in its natural way.

You don’t need to worry or think. Is this really it? Could this be awakened awareness? Don’t bother yourself with these doubts and questions. Don’t hope for improvement or be afraid of the generation.

By resting in this extraordinary simple way again and again, you will definitely recognize the groundless, rootless, open …

When that happens realization blooms naturally. All attachments, all habitual patterns, all conditioning is naturally liberated and released in this blossoming of realization. I swear, there is not a more profound and ultimate instruction. Nothing deeper or more vital than this single word of my heart advice. Please don’t waste this.

Don’t squander it. Remember this teaching always. There is no mistake in it. Rely on the blessings of such a teaching. Thank you, sister.

What a relief. What a relief there’s nothing to do. After all, after this entire lifetime spent doing doing doing doing doing, finally, someone says there’s nothing to do. So we all know this, you know, we all know this from the beginningless beginning. We we as awakened awareness come into human form, and we don’t have to do anything to do that.

Now what could be more arduous than getting into a human birth? We can’t even figure that out. How does that happen? Awakened awareness becomes a human being. Well, we can’t you know, there’s no way through any kind of intellectual speculation or representational thought we can reach a definitive conclusion about that, but we can reach a definitive conclusion about that through this simple this very, very simple and direct instruction, an instruction that is so key and so pivotal.

The instruction that has awakened more human beings throughout human history than any other single instruction, just this single instruction, rest naturally without seeking anything. Rest Rest naturally without seeking anything. There’s nothing to describe. There’s no reason, impulse, or impetus, or anything else that launches us off into a world of description in every moment. Today, our retreat topic is the examination of belief systems and assumptions, and we’ve heard that before.

If we’ve been exposed to non dual teachings, one of the things we’ve heard is all of your belief systems and assumptions must go. Well, have you ever wondered what those are? The belief systems and assumptions that go are the points of view of awakened awareness so to speak, and the points of view of awakened awareness don’t go anywhere. They resolve in the basic space of awareness. So rather than being something other than awareness, they are known to be the dynamic energy of awareness and nothing else.

So if we wanna look at our belief systems and assumptions, we have to look at two things. First, what are are we really? And second, what have we taken ourselves to be? So from the perspective of the non dual perspective, what we are is all inclusive awakened awareness. And this awareness, rather than being limited to the skin line of the body is vast as infinite space.

So if anyone here has ever taken themselves to be limited to the skin line of the body, locked in some little prison of flesh, know that the glorious flesh that you are depends on awareness. Awareness doesn’t depend on the flesh. So the moment we realize that we can mingle, blend our awareness with vast infinite space, rest naturally as that aware basic space that includes and contains everything. This is the nondual perspective. And that nondual single blissful expanse entirely beneficial in nature that includes and contains everything has no thing in it that is nondual.

So there’s no thing whatever in the dynamic energy of awareness. All the points of view, the peer view of awareness that has ever existed elsewhere than awareness. And when we rest naturally, naturally, we rest conclusively, we realize more and more in each point of view and each perception that the entire fullness, the boundlessness, the basic spacious spaciousness of that perception is aware basic space and nothing else. In the great freedom teaching, we use the word awareness and aware basic space to describe who we are, but we don’t do that in a way that excludes anything or anyone. So the many names are synonymous with awakened awareness.

God, divine mother, great spirit, someone yesterday mentioned in their their tradition, it’s called intuition. Awakened awareness is called intuition. Whatever we call it, it matters not. In the great freedom teaching, we say awareness because there isn’t one of the 7,000,000,000 or so human beings on the face of the Earth who can say, I am not aware. So this is something we all have a direct experience of.

And in our direct experience of awareness, we realize the essence of our being. We just realize that everything has always been complete in itself. There has never been any split or division. There’s nothing that’s ever been divided into two, and we can’t contrive an understanding of any of that in any way. We can’t do ourselves into an understanding of that in any way.

All we can do is rest in an entirely uncontrived way as the essence of each perception, each point of view, and allow ourselves to become familiar with the great totality of what we are. Awareness, pure space, infinite space, beyond any reach and range, without limit or restriction, never confined or contained by anything. All of its dynamic energy is the luster of that basic space. It’s never separate from it. Just like the color blue isn’t separate from the sky, so too all the points of view that are included and contained within the peer view of awareness are not separate or apart from it.

Rest naturally. Know yourself as that awareness no matter what you’ve learned, no matter what you’ve learned. When we take ourselves to be something other than awakened awareness, totally at ease, completely warm with compassion, love, wisdom, and bliss in every single moment, in every every single situation without impediment, when we take ourselves to be anything other than that, then we’re just simply not recognizing who we are. That’s all that’s going on. If we take ourselves to be anything other than that, we don’t recognize who we are.

We don’t recognize what we are. When we recognize what we are, that isn’t something that can be described. We can never say, oh, yes, this is it. We don’t need any objective to support to describe what we are. We can only know that vivid wakefulness that is our true nature without description.

Once we try to describe it, we’re wandering off into a lot of descriptions what it might be. When we rest naturally, we introduce ourselves to the essence of our being in a very direct way. Now who knew it could be so simple? Who knew it could be so simple? Who knew that there was never an intermediate layer like awareness, a human being, and then all their points of view.

Many, many approaches to enlightenment suggest that there is a someone, a personal identity that needs to be fixed. It needs to be purified, it needs to be analyzed, it needs to be transformed, it needs to be looked into, it needs to be examined, it needs to suffer for a lot doing all this examining, torture itself looking into all of its negative character traits and that sort of thing, deciding which character traits are positive, which are neutral and which are negative. Any life time spent like that, the entire life will be spent doing that. That’s all there is to it. As long as we take ourselves to be this compilation of positive, negative, neutral points of view, we will take ourselves to be that our entire life.

And if we get spiritual and decide that now finally we have the handle on the positive points of view and we’re really gonna be good now, all we’ll have is another point of view about that. Constantly trying to cultivate and develop positive thoughts, constantly trying to develop and cultivate positive emotional states, and not really caring about the neutral. But it is guaranteed that no matter how much doing is done to cultivate these positive traits and diminish the negative ones, we will never feel like a good person. We we never will. We’ll always feel there’s more doing to be done.

So when we rest naturally as awareness, we get to know the underlying ground of all points of view, of all perceptions. We get to know that essence that is the origin, source, cause, and condition of each point of view. Awareness which is uncaused and on and on condition is the cause and condition for all all points of view. And all those points of view, the wonderful dynamic energy of awareness, the wonderful magnificent display our awareness are complete in and of themselves. No matter how how we’ve taken them to be something this or that, we’ve taken them to be a positive thing or a neutral thing or a negative thing.

All are a single expanse of evenness. All are a single expanse of of equalness with no point of view left out. And only in coming to the definitive conclusion about ourselves as we really are through natural rest, can we then tap into the immense power and force that is really at our disposal? Inherent in each of us, inherent is the magnificent blessing force, is the immense power and blessing force of awakened awareness is the compassion that is unrivaled. It cannot be cultivated.

It cannot be developed. It cannot be organized. It cannot be studied. It cannot be done. It’s a rip tide.

Do you know what a rip tide is? A rip tide goes this way in the ocean when everything else is going the other way. It’s a rip tide. Nothing can contain it. If you’re ever caught in a rip tide, don’t swim against it.

Don’t swim against it. Swim parallel to the shore. Otherwise, you’ll be a goner. So you see, when this riptide of compassion is unleashed through natural rest, we also find that we have the pinnacle. We have the epitome of wisdom, of sublime knowing at our disposal.

In no other way can this be tapped into or known. It’s impossible to tap into it or know it in any other way. If we don’t accept everything as nondual through natural rest and getting to know all of our own points of view is absolutely equal and even, a single blissful reality that is entirely beneficial in nature and non dual in perspective. If we don’t know ourselves as that, how can we possibly know anything else as that? If we can’t solve our own problems from that perspective, our own simple problems of our simple human life in a straightforward and simple human way, how can we possibly solve any the other problems in the world?

Today, at this point in human history, more so than ever before, we as a global human culture must come to this definitive conclusion about what we are. No matter what tradition we practice, no matter what perspective we’re looking out from, we need to come to this definitive conclusion about who we are because this definitive conclusion about who we are is beyond causality. It’s beyond causality. Now, who who to thunk it, you know? Who to thunk it that we’re beyond causality?

Aren’t we all subject to cause and effect? We’re born, we live, we die. While we’re running around, we’re totally at the whim of these three states, waking, dreaming, and sleeping. Who’d have thunk it that we’re beyond causality? We’re beyond causality.

Causality. When our whole life has been lived within this realm of cause and effect and we hear that, well, you know, what while we can cause and effect certain things to a certain degree like cultivate like, compassion or being a good person, we can only do that to a certain degree within the realm of cause and effect, and that compassion, wisdom, love, and bliss are inherent through the heartbeat of every single one of our perceptions with no perception left out, no point of view left out. What’s beating is the heart of that is the non dual perspective, awakened awareness. Now who’d have thought it would be so easy that just in the rest, the entire rest that is the essence of each one of those perceptions, we get to know ourselves as we are. We get to know ourselves as we are, and not only that, in a very practical, again, direct way as a human being, we all have dreams.

We all have dreams about how we can contribute to life with our innate strengths, gifts, and talents. And when we rest naturally in an unimaginable way, something we never could have dreamt up or imagined, we find a wonderful way to contribute those. So I’m not talking about something that’s disembodied, split off from life, leaving family, friends, everything and everyone you’ve ever known and going off and doing something else. You can do that that if you want to. In in awareness, everything’s included, but it isn’t necessary.

It really isn’t necessary. So now let’s look at some of these things that we’ve taken ourselves to be since, we now have a clear idea about who we are. When we are born into human life, in each single moment, all we are is awakened awareness. And as awakened awareness, the direct appearance of awakened awareness in a human form, we are self knowing awareness. We, as a human being, have a choice to know ourselves as we are awakened awareness or to take ourselves to be all these points of view.

Well, all the points of view are fine. They’re glorious. They’re wonderful. But unless we know that they’re not only a description and have no origin other than an awareness, then we’ll be lost just in the descriptions all of our lives. We’ll be totally lost in the description.

So we’re born into human life. We have this choice to rest naturally as awareness, which is the ultimate prayer, by the way. The ultimate meditation, the ultimate yoga, the ultimate practice, the ultimate pranam, whatever whatever forms you wanna take on. This is the ultimate. When in each moment, each perception, each point of view, no matter what it is, is seen as it is.

We see it exactly as it is. We see it as ourselves, selves, not separate from us. There’s no split or division. There’s not a subject look awareness looking at a point of view, which is an object over here. It’s inseparable.

No perceiver perceived. No experiencer or experienced, no seer or seen. This is the non dual perspective. So when we’re born into human life, we’re offered a full menu of choices. You know all those menus and all the software programs?

We’re offered such a menu of choices. Wow, it’s an endless menu. It’s an infinite menu. There are countless points of view. There are ceaseless points of view.

There are predictable points of view and we’re exposed to them constantly. There’s no way we can get away from them. Everywhere we turn, there only is this dynamic energy of our own awareness and nothing else. So what are the points of view we’re introduced to that we take on? Well, first of all, we’re introduced to the idea that we’re somebody.

We’re somebody. We have a personal identity. And the way that we’re introduced to that is that we have someone standing over our crib going coo coo, Mary, Scott, you know, whatever your name is. And so then we and we’re just there. We don’t even know who’s what all this dynamic energy is.

All these sounds, they’re inseparable from us. You know, we don’t see a bunch of separate somebody’s out there cooing at us or our crib or our little mobile spinning around or, you know, if if we live in the West or whatever little toys we’re lucky enough to have. We, all of this, it is us. You know? There’s and the reason we can’t remember anything about that time is, you know, we’re on differentiated awareness.

We’re kicked back. You know, we’re we’re not interested in running around, walking, crawling, standing up, none of this stuff. We could care less. We’re just there in our crib. When we have a wet diaper or we want something to eat, we wail.

But, you know, it’s all spontaneous. We live as a spontaneous expanse of equalness and we live as this all our lives totally kicked back and at ease, but we don’t realize it unless we rest. We don’t we don’t realize it unless we rest and we realize that the essence of every moment is this complete ease. So somebody standing over as they’re saying, Chris, Chris, hi Chris, hi Chris. And then, you know, pretty soon, Chris isn’t the first thing Chris knows about Chris, by the way.

That’s not the first thing Chris knows. The first thing Chris knows is that there might be a somebody else out there, you know, and that somebody else is the one who’s feeding and the one who’s changing diapers. And that person has a name too. It’s usually mommy or daddy or both or something like that. So then, there’s somebody else out there, you know, maybe there’s this appearance on the horizon.

We don’t really know what it is yet or what to call it. It’s only through repetition. Mommy mommy mommy daddy daddy daddy Chris Chris Chris. And then pretty soon before you know it, Chris starts to use his hands. You know, he looks at his hands.

What’s that thing? You know? I mean, so we gradually become acquainted with this idea of being a personal identity. And then, you know, one of the first place is Chris’ hands go. Well, then here come here comes another belief system.

Chris is exploring his body, you know, so Chris has lots of parts of his body. He’s looking at his hand and doing some things with his hand and then before you know, the foot’s up there and he’s playing with his toes. And then the next thing you know, he finds something else. And then a whole other belief system starts. Oh, Chris, little boys don’t do that.

Or, you know, if you have a a more aware or progressive mommy and daddy, they might just ignore it. Oh, we’re gonna ignore that because we read it in a book, you know. So we all the you see from the very beginning, all these points of view come into play whether we’re a girl or a boy and we gradually you’re here. I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so glad you’re here and I’m gonna do everything I can to support you every moment of the day and knowing that you are awareness and nothing else.

I’ll never let you waiver from that perspective. I’ll only give you the best life you can possibly have as Chris love awareness. Well, you know, not many of us have that parent now, do we? Did anyone in the room have that parent? No.

Okay. No. We’re usually told many other things, you know, we are, this, we’re a boy and, this is the mommy and daddy and these are Chris’s toys, and if Chris has brothers and sisters, these are Chris’s brothers and sisters. So the whole world becomes ordered in points of view, and there are six overriding points of view that override Chris. One is that Chris was born, two, that he will live, three, that he will die.

And while he’s being born, living, and dying, he will be subject every single day of his life to three states, waking, dreaming, and sleeping. This is the life of Chris, and it all happens within the realm of cause and effect. It all happens within the realm of cause and effect. Then we learn too about our parents’ religion, whatever that may or may not be. Maybe their religion is atheism, or maybe their religion is something else.

So we learn then from not only our parents, but a growing retinue of advice givers about cause and effect and point of view, a growing number of authority figures, what all the belief systems and assumptions of Chris Love awareness are. Well, all the while we know he’s only Chris Love awareness. No matter how many points of view are included and contained in Chris Love awareness, he’ll always be Chris Love awareness, whether the points of view were shared by mommy and daddy, his other family members, or his community or world, whatever they are. So when we start to learn these religious and spiritual points of view, then those are the points of view that usually give our life meaning. So we have all these other points of view that are kind of about the nitty gritty details of everyday living.

And then we have the points of view that really give life meaning like religion and spirituality. And of course, all the points of view that we learn about religion and spirituality, those are only points of view of the people who have them. So unless we meet someone at that point who knows who they are, they can’t possibly tell us who we are, right? So that’s up to us, you see. That’s up to us.

So at some point when we’re facing all these belief systems and assumptions, we need to start to rest because there’s no way to order all this. We’ll we’ll never make sense or any kind of order out of a world of cause and effect. All we can do is rest as the essence that is beyond cause and effect. And from that essence that is beyond cause and effect, we know everything there is to know about who we are. Here are a couple of, belief systems and assumptions that rule every single person in this room that are so simple and straightforward that they’re often ignored even though these days they’re talked about in great detail.

And those are the points of view about our gender identity, female and male. And all of the points of view that go along with those. Now, you know, depending on what culture we live in, we learn too about being a boy and a girl or a man and a woman from our family, our community, and world. And whatever ever we learn about that gender identity is what most of us take ourselves to be. So too when it comes to resting naturally, we need to move beyond that gender identity.

Awareness has no gender. It has no gender. It doesn’t mean we’re negating our gender, cutting it off, turning it into something else that we’ll start to dress differently or anything like that. It just means that we’re getting to know ourselves as as who we are. Our gender identity is not primary in who we are.

Awareness is primary. And if we spend our whole lives like a puppet living out some kind of gender identity, how our thoughts must be because of our gender, what our emotional states and expressions must be according to our gender, what our actions must be according to our gender, then we’ll never wake up. We’ll be completely lost. So we have to move beyond this gender identity. And for most of us, that’s very entrenched.

You know, it’s very very entrenched especially for people in the West. It’s very entrenched. Not only do we never hear about the non dual perspective of Chris Love awareness, but also, we have very, very fixed ideas about gender identity. Boys do this, girls do that. Men do this, women do that.

And as long as we stay confined within those things, we’ll never be able to see ourselves as all inclusive awakened awareness. So we just simply have to give ourselves a break, relax, allow ourselves to know ourselves as all as all inclusive awakened awareness, then we will see in a penetrating way through all these concepts, through every single point of view that has been introduced. We don’t need to get in there and examine them, read philosophy books, religion books, spiritual books, all of this, and psychology books, other self help books to figure out who we are. We just rest naturally, then we know everything about this gender identity that’s been imposed. Because you see, we when we rest naturally as awareness, we have total freedom of expression.

Total freedom of expression. No matter what the points of view are that that have been introduced to us, points of view of gender identity, points of view of taking ourselves to be somebody in general, all the points of view of our religious and spiritual teachings. This especially is so important because see, people giving spiritual and religious teachings can only share their own experience. They can’t share anything else, their own experience. And if they’re relying on something that’s been taught to them, then that’s all that can be shared.

So we just need to, no matter what tradition we’re practicing, rest naturally and know the bottom line of every human being. The bottom line of every human being is that we are all inclusive awakened awareness and when we rest as that and live our lives as that, we’re not constantly collapsing ourselves into all these points of view as what informs every single one of our actions. A man, for example, maybe maybe a man has never cried in his whole life. You know, maybe he’s never cried in his whole life. I meet men who have never cried, not once in their entire life, and they’re proud of it.

You know, they’re really proud of it. I’ve never cried. And, you know, what happened was that Chris’ love awareness was just at some points, it was said to him, you know, boys don’t cry. And boys don’t hang on their mommy skirts. We know you love your mommy, but you have to stop loving her now.

You can’t show her any more physical affection. You’re strong. You’re tough. You know? You’re the provider.

You take care of everything. And so Chris stops having emotions. No more emotions for Chris. You know, we can’t have any emotions now. He’s just gonna not be alive in that realm, you know.

He’ll just be living his life unable to express us express emotions because Chris has been told that that is a belief or assumption of his culture, that this is the way that boys are, that this is the way men are. Or for girls that may be, oh, here’s your dolly, you know, little girls take care of everybody. This is what little girls do. Okay. Here’s your dolly and here’s some more dollies, lots of dollies.

And if if you can’t afford a dolly, here’s a stick and you can pretend it’s a dolly. Start taking care of that dolly, you know. So then girls learn that this is their expression, you know, they take care of everybody and they have all the emotions also. They have all the emotions. There’s not one emotion that’s cut off from a girl.

Not only are they having all their own emotions, but they’re having the emotions for everybody. So you see, now what happens when the couple gets together? Then we grow up and there’s a couple of this man and this woman. Well, you know, I don’t need to go into that. It’s it’s really difficult to ever straighten any of this stuff out in a couple.

You know, you can never do enough couple counseling to, reach any kind of calm in that situation because it’ll all be in the realm of cause and effect. Nothing will ever happen. It’ll just be more and more the hamster wheel. You’ve seen hamsters on a wheel. They run around and around and around and around and around and around and around, and they never grow discontent with that.

Well, you see, as long as we live our life from point of view, we’re running around on the hamster wheel continually, and we’re saying gotta do, gotta do, gotta do, gotta do some more, gotta make myself a better man, gotta make myself a better woman, gotta make myself a better spiritual practitioner. There’s someone in here who needs to be fixed, and I’m gonna fix them, by golly. You know? So we spend our whole life doing that. And when we get into a couple, we do the same thing.

Not only are we doing that to ourselves, now we’re doing it as a couple, whether it’s a same gender couple or a mixed gender couple. We’re trying not only now to fix ourselves, but we’re trying to fix the other person too too and make them into a good person. And this there’s an infinite regress of the way these belief systems and assumptions play out, not only within us and in our families, but in our community and world. We all see this. This is exactly what’s going on all over the world, isn’t it?

With rare exception. So when we stop and rest, we bring all that to an end. Just like that, we bring it to an end. Then we can come to a conclusion about who we are as human beings. We can really come to a conclusion about who we are.

We can grow gradually naturally familiar with this immense power and force that we are in all areas of our lives. We we don’t have all the restrictions that are in place on ourselves any longer. We can learn to express everything about us, our thinking, our speaking, our emotional life, our actions from the exalted body speech and mind that is beyond causality rather than from the body speech and mind that has collapsed into points of view and all of its skill sets of belief systems and assumptions. So this is all all there is, natural rest, the yoga of natural rest. It’s the oldest yoga in the world.

More people have awakened through the yoga of natural rest than any other yoga, many more people. In the last century, a 100,000 people, over a 100,000 people woke up with just one person, not only to freedom from mental concepts, but to omniscience. How unfamiliar is that word, omniscience, to most of us? All knowing. All knowing in every single situation.

All knowing in every single interaction. This is our birthright. You know, this is our birthright, the reality of what we are, immense joy and bliss that can’t be contained in any way. Well, we we’re the only ones who can realize the celebration of what we are just through resting. When we’re we’re doing doing doing doing doing, it’s really difficult to enjoy the celebration that life is.

But when we just rest and let it all fall away, rest and let all those belief systems and assumptions fall away, we can familiarize ourselves with what we are. It’s not some big scary thing where all of a sudden we’re changed into somebody totally different. We look in the mirror and we don’t even know who it is. It isn’t like that. Awake awareness is good.

God, if we wanna call it that, God is all good. Whatever we call it, it’s wholly positive. It’s wholly positive. So we can gradually familiarize ourselves with what we are. We can familiarize ourselves with this exalted expression of the totality of our body, speech, and mind that isn’t limited by belief all these belief systems and assumptions.

And as we do so, wow, is it fun. It’s just so it’s so enjoyable. This is why in in Buddhism, it’s called the complete enjoyment body. Buddhahood is called the complete enjoyment body because when we are who we are, it is joy. We are in joy.

We are in joy every every single moment, only through rest. And this joy, it just bubbles out all over the place. It can’t stop, you know, it’s like the infinite bottle of champagne, the champagne that just keeps on bubbling forever. Or Martinelli sparkling cider, whatever you like if you don’t get champagne. I don’t think there are a lot of big drinkers in this room of alcohol.

We all drink something now, so we’re all drinkers to one degree or another. But anyway, there’s just this joy. It’s relaxed. It’s uncontained and and it’s it’s it’s full of connection, full of connection. No one is a stranger in awakened awareness.

In awakened awareness, since everything and everyone is us, there’s no stranger no matter where we go. We may go to a country where we’ve never been or like there are people in this room today I’ve never seen before. I’m so glad to see you again, you know. No one is a stranger. No one is a stranger anywhere.

Now when no one is a stranger anywhere through this realization that everyone is us, then the world’s a different place. It’s a much different place. It isn’t divided up with little lines around countries, where the this is and there the that’s and the this is are better than the that’s and because the this is are better than the that’s, they both better aim nuclear missiles at each other. You know, we don’t have to do that anymore. But, you know, it’s up to us.

It’s really up to us, especially now especially now. We really don’t have any time to be lost in a life time of endless practices that need lead nowhere. Even if we are enjoying our tradition, our practice, whatever it is, within that tradition, natural rest is included. I can guarantee you. I’ve never talked to any cleric from any tradition anywhere who did not agree with this.

Yes, it sounds right. You know, there’s something essential and right about it. There’s something essential and right about global human culture realizing who it is in such a way that everyone has a similar perspective of compassionate intent. That sounds good, doesn’t it? Well, first, each of us must realize that.

We must realize that not just as some kind of a theory, philosophical theory. Oh, we’ve all gotta be more compassionate with each other. We’ve been trying to do that for millennia, you know. So now we need to get down to the living compassion. The living compassion that’s totally inherent.

Compassion means with passion. With passion, that means each moment through living our lives as awakened awareness, it’s filled with a passion. It sees no belief systems or assumptions anywhere, not about anything. It only is that reality of the heartbeat of everything, the heartbeat of everything that cares about about everything. So when we address ourselves as we are, we turn around and face ourselves, maybe for the first time, we face ourselves, everything about ourselves, you know, all the points of view.

The The whole practice is just as the points of view come up, we rest naturally without seeking anything. We don’t look for an antidote for the point of view. We don’t try to undo the point of view, make it go away or pull it towards us, we rest. And in doing so, here we are. Here we are, just natural rest, vivid wakefulness.

The point of view comes whatever it is and it vanishes naturally without a trace. It it vanishes without a trace. But if we don’t ever give ourselves the direct experience of that, then we’ll continue to think that all the points of view are connected to each other, but one point of view inevitably leads to another one. When we rest as that vivid wakefulness that sees through, that cuts through every point of view, that knows every point of view as it is, then we see that that point of view vanishes naturally like the flight path of the bird in the sky. There’s nothing we need to do about it.

We don’t need to meditate it away, pray it away, hope it away, fear it or anything else. We just rest as the essence of it. And then low and behold, what we see is, wow, this next point of view, it really does appear in, of, as, and through awareness. And the gap in between the points of view, it’s awareness too. The gap and the points of view are awareness.

See, the gap’s just another point of view. It’s the point of view of a gap bet of there being a gap between two points of view. So we just rest as awareness, all inclusive awareness. You see, awareness is it’s entirely pervasive of everything. It is everything.

Awareness is everything. It’s inseparable, but but we only know that. We can understand it intellectually, but when it gets down to the direct experience, that’s a direct experience. We have to experience it ourselves, really experience it, really experience what that totally free flowing awareness is, that awareness that is the essence of every perception. When we do that one time, that’s all the evidence we need.

That’s all the evidence we need. Why is it the all the evidence we need? We feel so much relief and the relief is so compelling. It’s so truly real. It’s so unerring and it’s completeness.

Completeness that we know. We just know. We know that’s who we are. And we’re willing to then allow the other points of view to be as they are. Awakened awareness and nothing else.

To not get so lost lost in the world of belief systems and assumptions. Chris Love Awareness sitting right over here. I’d like to introduce you to Chris Love Awareness. And his his mother and father awareness. All awareness.

I’d like to share a minor insight that I had this morning when meditating, that connects my tradition to to what you’ve been saying. Mhmm. As I was going up and down the spine, I was recognizing the feelings, and awareness as points of view. And it dawned on me that, one of the intermediate stages of of our tradition and a lot of other yoga traditions is is to reach the state of, where the mind ceases, the heart beat ceases, the pulse ceases, and the breath ceases. Totally in other words, totally a state of rest.

It’s like getting rid of all the points of view so that you can realize yourself as pure awareness. They’re just another way of doing it. And so just to sort of see that that that the same thing, it strengthens my own sense of my own tradition, but also helps me validate what you’re saying. Mhmm. It it makes your own tradition more easily understood by you.

This, this is the beauty of natural rest. Have you been working on that quote from Jesus? Just keep resting and we wanna hear all about what the you know, Jesus spoke in parables. Well, why did he speak in parables? Has anyone ever wondered that?

Why did everything Jesus say sound so obscure? Why Why did it take a religious genius to figure out what Jesus said? Well, you know, the Romans were out to get Jesus. They did not want Jesus around. Jesus upset the apple cart.

He Jesus was a rabbi, you know, and He stepped out of that and He said, well, you know, everything is one, everything is non dual. And so He had his belief systems fell away, and then that’s the way he saw things. And he didn’t say, this is Christianity. I’m a Christian. We’re naming it after me.

And, that’s that’s my thing. This is what I’ll be known for for thousands of years. He didn’t say any of that. He set up meetings of people to gather together and when the people came in, they drew straws. And and whoever got the longest straw was the one who would lead the meeting and that’s the way it was.

And they’d all talk about the non dual perspective. And then of course, all these other things, well, none of these were written down until three hundred years later, so we don’t really know what Jesus said. But a very important thing about the life of Jesus, and this plays into our own belief systems and assumptions as Westerners about enlightenment, too, is that Jesus was an enlightened being who provided great benefit to many people and He had many followers. It wouldn’t be considered many followers today, but considering the context in which He lived, He had many followers. He had the full expression of enlightened body speech and mind.

He he demonstrated magnificent blessing wherever he went. He demonstrated the ability to introduce people to the direct experience of awareness or, you know, whatever he called it. He demonstrated the ability to bring that into full evidence. In other words, to instruct people so that it would become fully evident. And he demonstrated exalted activities, teaching, speaking.

He didn’t write things down, but he had an oral tradition, so it was it was passed orally at the time. And all of these magnificent benefits, he He demonstrated. And He demonstrated the full range of powers of exalted body, speech, and mind, all the things that we, read about walking on water, miracle of the loaves and fishes, and thousands of people could come to see Jesus and there was always plenty to eat, you know, plenty to eat and plenty to drink. So all of the and Jesus could do other things, you know, fly through space, and you know, all of these things, these are all inherent to every human being, not just to Jesus. All beings that have ever been are present as one’s own awareness.

And when we rest naturally, we realize that to be the case. But back to Jesus, you know, He’s demonstrating all of these things. The Romans are in power, and they don’t like it because what Jesus is teaching is self authority. He’s teaching self authority, the the authority of the true self, and he’s teaching people not to go along with the belief systems and assumptions of the day, not to go along with the belief systems and assumptions of Judaism, not to to go along with the belief systems and assumptions of the Romans. Well, the Romans especially didn’t like that, and they got tired of it and they persecuted Jesus and that ended in in the crucifixion of Jesus.

So here we are in Western culture, and whether we’re conscious of this or not, one of our belief systems and assumptions is it’s dangerous to be enlightened. It’s dangerous to be enlightened, and if we are enlightened, don’t talk about it. So you see, these belief systems and assumptions are ingrained in us. They really are ingrained. And when we rest naturally, a lot of these things come up.

You know, we start to think about these things. We’re afraid and we don’t really know why to be enlightened, or we have doubts about it and we don’t really know why. Well, you see, we’ve talked about belief systems and assumptions. These are all just points of view. You see, a belief system or an assumption is only a point of view.

It has no origin independent of awareness. It’s not like some kind of goblin that can get awareness and eat it all up or affect it in any way. It’s just a point of view, just the dynamic energy of awareness and nothing else. So, Chris, about Jesus or Glenn about Jesus. We’re we’re talking to Glenn of love awareness now.

The only thing I can come up with is that it’s something to do with emptiness illuminating itself, but the process of illumination never ends. And so you can’t actually see what’s coming until the illumination occurs later or something I understand what you’re saying, and it it is very simple. It’s the illumination already is. So this is a key. This is a key point.

The illumination already is. And that as we you know what those dimmer switches are where you can turn the light up and up and up or down and down and down? But with this, the dimmer switch has no end up, you know. It just goes brighter and brighter and brighter. So this is what you’re pointing to, I think.

Now when it comes to practices, whatever they are, when you rest naturally, you realize your heartbeat already is stopped. I’m sorry. I thought it was Not a question. No. Your pulse already is stopped, you know.

Who who is there to stop what? All these things are just points of view. You see, awakened awareness that has no birth, life, or death has no pulse. It has no pulse. It it doesn’t have any signs of life that it needs to have in order to prove that it is.

It just simply is. It is and it’s ineffable, which means it’s beyond description. It can’t be described in any way. So when you’re meditating, take that instruction with you, and then come back and tell us about Jesus. What is the quote puzzling you again so we can all hear it?

Jesus says, there are things that my father knows that I know of. Mhmm. Thank you. Bob. I have a question based on something you were saying.

I’ve often heard about, what knows and seeing everyone else’s drone. So all that. And, I think I don’t get that. And yet, it’s always been my experience often when I’m somewhere like an airport. I’ll see people coming by, and I’ll and I’ll recognize everyone.

It’ll be like, there you are again. There you are again. There you are again. There you are again. But still there’s confusion about it.

When we when we point of view about it. Oh. Get it, you know? Yes. Uh-huh.

When that point of view comes up to stress, everyone’s already gotten it, and there’s no one to get it. So it’s already gotten. It just is. It is. It is everything that is.

And when we hear something there’s only oneness. Everyone is you. Well, you see, when we first hear about that, we’re usually passing it through the filters of dualistic perception, that there’s a someone seeing everyone else as being that there’s a someone seeing everyone else as being them. Well, oh, that’s a real brain teaser, isn’t it? Yeah.

We can never figure out that one. We we’ll never be able to think our way into a conclusion about that. It it’ll never come because the the totality of it is already complete. It’s not a state to achieve. It’s already present, naturally present and naturally occurring, but unless we just rest and allow ourselves the ease of the direct experience of that, we won’t know what that really means.

When we are awakened awareness, everything no matter what it is, a person, a place, or a thing, or any other name you might give something, everything is that awareness and nothing else. And this just becomes more and more obvious. You could live for trillions of years and it’d be more and more obvious like the endless dimmer switch that keeps getting brighter and brighter. There’s no destination nor is there anyone going there, yet in the delicious experience of a human being, the complete enjoyment experience of a human being, in each moment that we are living as the full There’s more. There’s more.

There’s more. There’s more. Endlessly more. It’s it’s the infinite miracle, we could call it. The endless miracle.

The miracle that keeps on giving that has no shutoff valve. Thank you. Yeah. I have a question I hesitate to ask. Somewhere I know the answer, but I still want to sort of want to ask it to get limited attention of it or so.

And that is, all we hear about the world can be, destroyed in the end of the Mayan calendar, for example, 2012. Oh, the end of the Mayan calendar. Yes. When there’s another numbers, 2007 and further in the future. Because that I feel kind of a hurry.

And, well, sometimes when I think about it is I want to rest naturally and completely. Mhmm. It nibbles a little bit like that. World catastrophe is nibbling at your natural rest. Is that what you’re rest.

Is that what you’re saying? Yeah. Well, you know, that’s a very good way to put it, you know. It’s really a good way to put it because there isn’t a person in this room who doesn’t feel that and, you know, some of us either live in war torn zones or we’re very close to them. So there isn’t anyone in this room or anywhere on the face of the earth for that matter, except maybe the most remote people who never hear about anything that, doesn’t have a keen sense of this.

Everyone, young, in the middle, and old. We all know about this. We all know about this no matter what stage of life we’re in, and the tension is increasing. It’s not decreasing. We’ve been hoping, some of us are older, during our lifetime, we’ve seen time after time of hope for peace, hope for world peace, disarmaments, or the end of the cold war, whatever it is, but no matter how many endings there are to all of these really hot situations, there’s there are five more that pop up, and they’re even more venomous than the one that went away, you know, they’re even more threatening.

So we all feel this very much today. As for the Mayan calendar and these other things, they’re points of view. You know, we don’t really know what any of that is, but we do know that awareness is beyond causality. That’s what we do know. We do know that when we’re all wrapped up in points of view, we can’t fly through the air.

When we’re all wrapped up in points of view, we can’t live as the reality of no more learning. As an example of this, I’ll tell you something from my own experience, which I often like to do. Twenty five years ago, when I realized who I have always been and who everyone has always been, I had never really studied any sacred tradition, because I was told not to, so I just didn’t. I was a good Catholic, and I followed orders, you know. I was in that belief system and assumption, and even though I had a lot of questions about it, there was so much that I enjoyed that I just enjoyed that and ignored the rest.

And so, when it came to understanding anything about the other great traditions of the world, I really didn’t know much of anything. But here I was, all of a sudden I realized, wow, you know, I’ve never been any of these things. I’ve conclusively never been any of these things. I’ve always been who I am, and and who I am isn’t separate from this god I’ve learned about. Everything I always wanted to learn about in god or in wanting to be close to God, I realized that to be myself.

You know, wow, we all are this. What all the scriptures say and the gospels say in their ultimate sense is true. It really is true. Everything is God, there’s nothing that’s separate. And, then I I wondered how many people throughout human history had written about this that I’d realized, so about myself and about everyone else, so I went on a little search and find mission.

Went all over the world to see what was going on, who was writing about enlightenment, what they were writing about it, how it was being taught, who was teaching it. And everywhere I went, no matter what sacred text I picked up, it could be Sanskrit, it could be Pali, it could be Hebrew, it could be anything. I’d read that. I’d the first time I read it, I’d understand it completely, and I could give a talk on it for a couple hours, and I could write about it endlessly. So, you know, this is what I mean, no more learning.

Totally beyond cause and effect. Completely beyond cause and effect. Nothing I had ever drummed up through cause and effect, already present and easily known, easily understood, and pierce through to its core. So you see, when it comes to something like this, when we’re relying on all these points of view, Aquarian conspiracy, Mayan calendar, all these other points of view, natural rest is beyond all points of view. It’s beyond all points of view, but it includes all points of view.

In all points of view, awareness is primary. So when we know ourselves as that, we see solutions to all these problems that we can’t find within the realm of cause and effect. Just like the great freedom teaching came about as a solution that didn’t exist in any form. It didn’t need to have any form to to say to it, oh, you’re on the right track or or yeah, go there, do this, or anything like that. It just simply is a direct communication to every human being of the reality of what we are.

So just like in the reading we had today, may I see that reading? When we’re introduced to this idea of natural rest as the essence of our being, it’s important for us to check it out for ourselves. So, you know, we don’t wanna squander it in other words. We don’t wanna squander the opportunity for such a direct message to have its effect. And how do we not squander it?

We check it out. We try it for ourselves. We rest naturally and and we come to a definitive conclusion about being awareness inclusive of all points of view. And then we don’t have to change anything else in our life. Everything else goes on.

Nothing changes, but everything changes. We just go on about our business. Don’t have to make any dramatic changes. In fact, I’d suggest not. Get to know yourself as awareness for a year or two.

See what it’s like. But you see, it has to start with each person. It has to start with each person. Everyone in this room, you already know who you are to one degree or another. So it’s more and more familiarity with that, more and more familiarity with that.

And then we can be the leaders and inform leadership from the non dual perspective. Perspective. It doesn’t mean that everyone will have the non dual perspective, but at least there will be people in leadership who do. We already have two very powerful world leaders who have the non dual perspective. His holiness, the Dalai Lama and, the leader of India.

So we have those two people, the prime minister of India. Very powerful leaders with the non dual perspective. People having a great influence on addressing world problems from the embrace of compassion. And I’m I’m speak there, of course, there there are other leaders as well who have the non dual perspective, but these two are very important because they’re widely heard and listened to. So this is how it comes about, naturally occurring.

Doomsday is a a it’s a product of duality, you know, each point of view is a doomsday. We could look at it as that. Each point of view is doomsday. If we take it up and make it into something then we’ll live our lives lost in a puzzle, a maze of point of view. It’s like a 10,000,000,000 piece jigsaw puzzle.

We could never put it together. We can never make sense out of it. But when we rest naturally, we find there’s an the the essence of being that is the nature of every point of view. We have to learn about who we are as that, but and affect our own simple human life through that and as that before we can possibly affect anything else, before we can possibly know ourselves as we are. And then if we’re in a relationship, well, there’s no way to really have a relationship a relationship unless you know who you are.

No way whatsoever. You can’t possibly have a true relationship. A true relationship is based on this meeting where there is no other. So, you know, whether it’s a meeting with your partner or it’s a meeting with or it’s a meeting with everyone in the world, it’s this meeting that is more important than any other meeting going on anywhere today. It’s this meeting of ourselves as ourselves that allows us to meet everyone else as ourselves, all through natural rest, can everyone else as ourselves, all through natural rest, can never be cooked up with a bunch of doing.

So as you know, I talk about this every day. I talk about the world situation every single day, and I will never stop talking about it. I know about what we’re doing here is just all the dynamic energy and, it’s beautiful and it is positive and it’s full of love. But what if the whole world blows up? Then we go back to awareness.

So and if it happens so it’s still not necessary to worry about anything or, yeah and then everything is awareness again. Mhmm. Is it that simple? Yep. That’s what it boils down to.

If if the whole world blows up, if the whole cosmos implodes, if some kind of enormous disaster happens that sends everything we’ve ever known everything to be through a black hole and out into nowhere that can be described, awareness will still be as all of that, you see. So are you saying what? Well well, that’s the the the real part I noticed why I hesitate to ask it, because it’s it’s it’s so it’s kind of obvious, but still somewhere present or somewhere I’m feel afraid. And, and then, I I I feel myself nearly on a mission to to, to go and and spread the spread the message or news. Mhmm.

Actually, that’s I just want to be resting naturally and and, so that’s that’s sometimes conflict. Oh, uh-huh. Well, rest naturally and whether or not you spread the news, so to speak, you’ll know everything there is to know about that. You’ll know everything there is to know about that. It’s, this is my urgency, you know, the urgency of awareness.

Awareness loves knowing itself. When when we’re born into human form then, it’s awareness choosing to know itself. That’s what it is. That’s all that is. So you know, it’s just like the point of view of fear.

Most of us live an entire lifetime ruled by self centered fear. And every single thing we do is an attempt to get rid of that self centered fear. And so when a fear when fear arises in us, sometimes we we carry it around with us all the time. There’s just like a tension right here somewhere in the torso, an anxiety, a sense of panic, a sense of fear that’s just present. Well, you know, we have to rest naturally then and get to know that fear as it is, that this fear that we’ve been we’ve taken to be something that can control us or get us, that the essence of that fear is awareness.

We have to know awareness completely as it is, not just the description. So rather than just knowing fear is the description and getting lost in that, we rest naturally. We we realize the fearlessness that is at the heart of that perception of awareness. Awareness has no fear. You know, there’s no, but fear is included and contained within it.

Living is the full evidence of awareness. There’s no fear. You know, a fear about whether the world will blow up, fear about whether someone won’t like what is going on or anything else, or one person won’t like you, or another person will like you. These become non concerns. They’re total non concerns.

The what I described earlier is the riptide of benefit, just this relentless benefit that is the nature of all inclusive awakened awareness that has an aliveness of its own. It’s what’s doing the living. You see, when self centered fear is no longer doing the living, it’s this aliveness of compassion that’s doing the living. Yeah. I know what you’re saying.

Yeah. That’s what’s living. So and there isn’t anyone can say to you that can take that away. Nothing can take it away. It won’t budge.

Where would it go and who go there? So this fear is seen to be just a point of view, you know. It’s empty, but not empty as an inert void, compassionate emptiness. So this is an emptiness that in every every aspect of its being is entirely compassionate, entirely compassionate and wise. Glenn?

This picture, it reminds me of the stars in the universe and the images that I see in the Hubble telescope. I just wonder, it’s it’s a cosmic question. Is there any relationship between these points of view and the stars, like a direct connection? Yes. The stars are points of view.

See, anything that be can be perceived or conceived, as well as the the things that can’t be perceived or conceived, it’s they’re all included and contained within awareness. So everything, essentially, that you can think about, it’s within you. The universe is within you. The stars, the cosmos, the galaxies, it’s all. Does a star come into being whenever a point of view comes into being?

Oh, dear. I would really be in a tailspin if I went into that one. The other the other night I saw a little puppy chasing its tail, but you know, it could never get its tail. And that’s what I’d be like if I tried to draw connections between things like that. You see, this is the whole world of cause and effect.

We try to make something out of everything. No matter what it is, we try to make something out of everything. And not only that, we accumulate all the everythings that have occurred and put them right here and say they’re part of everything. Just like ourselves, we take ourselves to be somebody who is an accumulation of their points of view. So we take ourselves to be these endless points of view that we’ve had throughout our lives.

So now the stars are a point of view, it’s all a point of view. There’s no cause and effect relationship between other points of view and the point of view star. But, you know, we can go on believing only in a world of cause and effect if we’d like to, but I think everyone in this room pretty much has come to a conclusion that that isn’t how they wanna be spending their life. The endless search for meaning. Can I ask a question?

Yes. Uh-huh. I’m there are the tea the things you say, I I’ve heard it before. Mhmm. I’ve been with the teacher for maybe four years.

And, but in the beginning in the text, I think you you mentioned about, there’s no more profound teaching than this one. Mhmm. And it triggered something, and I thought, isn’t so I thought, well, if that’s so, why is not everybody here? And so I’m just thinking, isn’t isn’t this different for every unique human being? Can you say something about that?

Just keep the focus on yourself and find out whether or not it has meaning for you. What I’d suggest to you is that you rest naturally, that you try this for yourself and see what the evidence is. What I said is that there is no more profound teaching than this because it is the teaching through which more people have awakened than any other. So, you know, when we as human beings, when we want something for ourselves, say we want enlightenment, then it stands to reason that we put ourselves in the circumstance where we know that that’s occurring for many people already. So this is not only true now at this point in time, but it’s been true true throughout time, that millions of people have awakened through the yoga of natural rest.

It’s, the pinnacle teaching of both Hinduism and Buddhism. And as to isn’t it an individual choice or aren’t there matches for certain human beings? Well, you know, it really doesn’t matter what tradition a person follows. The yoga of natural rest will give everything that tradition has to offer, absolutely everything. So the the great freedom teaching doesn’t say, you can’t go to this other place you’ve been going.

If you come here, you gotta stop going everywhere else. It doesn’t make any pronouncements like that. It just says that this is an offering we’re making and if you’d like to take it up, it’s completely available to you. That’s all. You don’t have to change a thing, not a thing.

If you’re Jewish, if you’re Catholic, if you’re Hindu, if you’re Buddhist, if you’re what else is there? Islam, if you’re a Muslim a Muslim, you don’t have to change anything. Just dress naturally. Every tradition, no matter what it is, has the hard essence of complete union as its pinnacle teaching. So the direct route has always been the direct perception of whatever that is.

The direct we call it awareness because everyone in the world can understand they are awareness. Everyone can understand they are awareness. Not everyone can understand other terms that are used. The heart, that’s a term that’s used. Well, there are many people who can’t really understand that they are that, or love, perfect love.

Many people can’t understand that they are that because there are other there are other things that are associated with love. Maybe they’ve been in love and were terribly hurt so they don’t wanna have anything to do with love or the heart or anything else. So you see, when we use the direct communication of awareness, then it becomes easily accept accessible to anyone. I’ve never told anyone not to go to what or be involved in whatever tradition they’re involved in. This is, a communication about humankind.

That’s what I’m communicating about here. I’m communicating about humankind without any other categories. No national boundaries, no gurus. I call myself the ultimate friend, by the way. I don’t call myself a guru.

Just a friend, that’s all. You know, when you have a good friend, you want your friend to shoot straight with you. You want them to tell you what’s really going on with no other words. As my mother says, don’t mince words. You you just wanna hear the straight communication and nothing else, the direct communication and nothing else.

So this is a communication about humankind, who we are as human beings, what we have at our disposal, how we can realize that. But it’s not any thing that sees itself hold up in any kind of category. Like enlightenment belongs to Hinduism, or enlightenment belongs to Buddhism, or enlightenment belongs to man, or enlightenment belongs to women, or enlightenment belongs in this country, or enlightenment belongs in that country. Humankind, we’re talking about the human expression and what the most profound teaching is to bring the pinnacle or peak experience of human being into full evidence. That’s what we’re talking about here with no bells and whistles.

But if you want to use the bells and whistles, go right ahead. They’re included too. They’re included too. Just know what’s, what the real truth is about him. In the Hindu witnessing state, is awareness beyond witnessing or is it the same as witnessing?

There is no witness in awareness. There’s only awareness as all points of view, but I can’t really comment on the Hindu witnessing state. There’s some other would anyone else here like to comment on the Hindu witnessing state? Oh, who is Hindu? Alright.

We don’t have anyone who’d like to comment on that. But I’m sure that you could have a conversate. Awareness is the constant in every perception. So if there’s a witness, there’s awareness as that witness. But also, you see, if there’s there’s usually something it’s witnessing.

So you see that this is this has been the state of science, scientific materialism for some years now, the Heisenberg principle, which stated, you know, that everything everything is only because the witness or observer is. But now science is saying theoretical physics, well, there really isn’t an observer either. So we there’s this wonderful description of what’s going on that everything is unified, a unified field theory, but it’s all like pointing to the moon. Everyone’s pointing to the moon, but no one’s really living as the moon, you know, there very few are. Are.

So more and more people are now and more and more people will be because, you see, as all these things occur in the world and there’s increasing tension, human beings can’t bear it. We can’t bear the anxiety of that. We just we that’s not our natural state. We weren’t made to suffer endlessly throughout our entire lives from anxiety. So when that anxiety cooks up and it gets so hot and unbearable, then we seek relief.

You know, we wanna find, well, what’s at the essence of all this? What is the meaning of life if we’ve really placed ourselves in this dilemma? We wanna see clearly into that and we wanna see into it in an unerring way, a totally unerring way, a way that brings us complete relief, not only for ourselves as individuals but for everyone. You know, maybe some of you don’t care about anybody else and you only wanna rest for yourself. Well, at least do that.

At least rest for yourself if you’re thinking, oh, I’ve worked enough. I don’t wanna go out and do service or be compassionate or anything else. Just rest rest naturally. Because you see this compassion and wisdom, they’re inseparable. They all naturally arise, but you you don’t have to do anything you don’t wanna do.

I’m not suggesting that everyone join some kind of missionary force. I’m just saying, as a human being, find out what you’re really made of. You know, find out what you’re really made of. What is the heartbeat of everything going on with you? That’s all.

Everything’s included. So you see, each of these points of view, no matter what they are, like what Glenn held up there, the illustration of all inclusive awakened awareness, inclusive all of all points of view. Each one of those points of view is perfect and complete in itself. So when we rest naturally, we’re not resting as the witness awareness observing a point of view. Maybe we will be at first.

It may seem like that. But the more we rest naturally, the more we realize that it it’s an indivisible reality. It really is an indivisible reality, and we are that indivisible reality. This is what in science is called the unified field or in religion or spirituality, it’s called the non dual perspective. But, you know, there the non dual perspective and what is the opposite of that dualistic or dualism, seeing things as two rather than one.

But, you know, a lot of times, religion religions and spiritual practices are described as these are non dual and these are dualistic. But you know what? I’ve never found, the in those that are described as dualistic, every single one of them I found that their the heart essence is union. You know, it’s complete union. So this nondual perspective, it’s really at the So this non dual perspective, it’s really at the heart of everything no matter what it is.

And, of course, in the non dual, there’s duality too. We can never we can never realize our non dual nature through doing. Can’t be done. Just cannot be done. That which is beyond cause and effect doesn’t involve doing.

So this is when we’re at ease, when we’re completely at ease as the essence of being. We could have never imagined it would be this easy, but yet you see this teaching has been handed down for thousands and thousands of years. Seventeen thousand years in just one lineage, the lineage of Bonpo and Bon in Tibetan Buddhism. Seventeen thousand years. And the Rinpoche’s I’ve talked to there who see the Great Freedom Teaching, we’ve given the Great Freedom Teaching to the Dalai Lama, to Wang Dur Rinpoche, and we presented it to the sleeping lama and Daridan too.

He gets up once in a while every four months or so and performs some miracles and then goes back into a state of utter lucidity. So, they all say, oh, yes, you know, we’re so glad to see this because this says just what we’re saying, but people can understand it. Whereas what we’re saying, only the Tibetans can understand it. And maybe a few other people. The great reality of what we are as human beings is alive and well, it’s never gone anywhere, it’s not a destination, and most importantly, there’s no one going there.

So, you know, we can hear about all these things and we can hear about them for years, but until we get the direct experience of them, we don’t really know what they mean. We can only think about them. So you see the the great freedom teaching from the beginning, it introduces the direct introduction to awareness. So that is the that’s the essence of the practice, then we rest as that awareness. We rest as that awareness we’ve been directly introduced to.

Many times, we expect to be enlightened sometime in the future and we might think we have a little taste of awareness or whatever we call it now and then, but in the great freedom teaching from the beginning there’s the introduction to awareness and it never falters after that. There are just more and more points of view that collapse, that resolve in the basic space of awareness. And, I don’t know if Adrian’s here today. Oh, he isn’t. He told me he wouldn’t be here.

He, when he came, he’d been to many many Satsangs and read many books on awakening, and he said, I’m so cynical. He said, you have here in your Satsang the most cynical person in the world. He said, I don’t believe in anything. And he said, I don’t believe this Satsang can do anything at all for me. But he said, you know, last night before I even met you, I had a dream about you, and you pointed your finger at me and said, you’re awake.

And I woke up. He said, I literally woke up from the dream, and I thought, I’m gonna go see her. So he came and he said, but my dream means nothing. I what you’re saying, I don’t I don’t know what to think about it, but I don’t think anything. I’m just filled with doubt and cynicism.

I said, that’s okay, Adrienne. Just keep coming back. Just keep coming back because see, who we are, it’s so naturally evident that it is completely obvious right here. We don’t need to have anybody tell us we are it, we already are it. So many people come into the this room and they feel it from then on from then on, you know, with no interruption, just more and more of it all the time.

So you see, that’s completely beyond causality. I don’t even have to say anything. Some people come here and they just feel for who they are from then on and their life becomes different though nothing changes. But see, we have to allow that as our own direct experience. We have to allow that and not put it off or try to think about it or anything else.

Just as we putter around life on our motor scooter, going to the grocery store, whatever it is, the awareness is obvious, and it just becomes more and more obvious. So if you don’t even wanna rest, that’s fine too. Maybe you like to lounge, like Adrian said to me, I’m lazy. I don’t like to do anything. I like to sleep.

And he said, that isn’t spiritual, so I told him about the sleeping lama over in Dehradun. He’s he’s he this is Trishin Rinpoche who is is head of the Nyingma Order of Tibetan Buddhism, one of the most powerful lineages in Tibetan Buddhism. And he sleeps all the time. So Westerners go to see him and say, oh, he sleeps all the time. He’s sick.

He’s in a coma. There’s something wrong with that guy, you know, how do they feed him? Don’t want his blessing, he’s asleep. And, but, you know, this isn’t what the Tibetan Buddhists say. The Tibetan Buddhists say he’s in a state of utter lucidity.

I had a dream about him, by the way, and here he was in this dream. I’ve never seen him do anything other than sleep, Trishin Rinpoche. And I said, oh, Trishin Rinpoche, wow, you look great. You know, you look so forceful and fiery and just like your pictures. And, I said, why are you laying around over there in Derridawn?

Why are you sleeping all the time? And he said, he said, all they want is stupas. He said, they want me to build stupas. He said, I can do that in my sleep. So he said, he said, well, I’m building stupas over in my sleepover in Derivedum, then I’m also locating other places too.

People who really want the secret teaching, I hold you see, he he holds a secret teaching on the yoga of dreams and sleep. He said, I know they want it and so I go to visit them. I go to visit them in their dreams. You’ve gone from stupor to stupor. I was waiting for you to come up with a joke.

I could just tell it was on its way. I see my husband sitting in that chair, that’s why. I hope you’re still alive. My husband or Patricia and Bache. All alive and well.

Very well. So now that’s what I really wanna take. Please. Uh-huh. I’ve just been to the South to Ramana Maharsha’s place.

And, story goes he was illuminated at 16. Mhmm. And common wisdom has it that he came back as a high soul and therefore didn’t need to do a lot of work and therefore have this easy realization or awakening at at at the age of 16. So, traditionally, the notion is it’s hard. Hard to work.

Mhmm. We may have accumulated things in past lifetimes that allow us to reap the fruits of it at this point in time. Mhmm. By the same token, it’s imaginable that whatever realization or elimination you’ve attained is also the consequence of much hard work that took place at early points in in your being’s evolution. We can also reasonably assume that just as many people have been to other teachers and they’ve tried and it hasn’t worked, there’ll be a certain percentage of people who will try your your your method of rest and won’t work for them.

Mhmm. Which means for some it will, for some it won’t. This leads you then to think that causality should not be thrown out the window. Mhmm. But it’s not as simple as let’s just rest and we’ll get it because some will, some won’t.

Mhmm. Some will to some degree, some will to another degree. And there may be other factors having to do with the degree of evolution of the individual spiritual unit that permitted to attain whatever degree Mhmm. It does or doesn’t. Mhmm.

And hence, it may not be as easy as all that. And what is your question? What do you think about what I said? I think I think it’s what you said is beautiful reasoning and logic. Oh, it’s so it’s so refined, you know, it’s so analytical, it’s so familiar.

It really is, and and, it’s based on cause and effect relationships. I’m not throwing causality out the window. You see, from causality, it’s impossible to imagine, even for most people, anything that is beyond causality. But beyond causality includes and contains causality. All inclusive awakened awareness includes causality.

It includes all points of view. The the point of view of evolution, the point of view of devolution, the point of view of karma, the point of view of reincarnation, the point of view of there being a someone who is marked by any of those things. All these are points of view that are included and contained within already awakened awareness. And I have never met anyone who has committed to the practice of natural rest who did not realize more and more about that as the reality of who they are. So I don’t propose any point of view as a point of view that upholds another point of view called a personal identity.

The personal identity is a construct or point of view arising in awareness. If we really if we look into a personal identity and we say what is really there? We, can look at it in many ways. You know, we can look at it at many ways. What is a personal identity?

But if we wanna know ourselves as we are, we have to rest while we’re doing that. We have to rest and we have to ask our questions ourself questions. Well, where if there is a personal identity, then where is it? You know, where is it located in the body? Where is there a personal identity definitively concluded to have be at the effect of all these other points of view?

So then we’d have to look at ourselves and for you, for example, we’d have to take you apart. If we looked at your skin, would we find what is your name? Alom. Alom? Rabbi Alom?

She answers. Rabbi. Well, I don’t wanna be disrespectful in any way. Are we gonna find the good rabbi anywhere in his skin? Well, we will find the ultimate rabbi there, awakened awareness.

But if we looked for you, the essence of you, anywhere in your skin, we wouldn’t find it. And if we looked in your skeletal structure, we wouldn’t find it or in your blood, muscle, bone, sinew, we wouldn’t find it anywhere there. If we looked in your brain, we wouldn’t find the essence of you anywhere there. If we put you under an electron microscope or in a linear accelerator, you just look like a bunch of electrons. We could bring your mother in, your good mother and father, and say, is this your sun?

They’d say, well, we don’t know. We just see a bunch of electrons there. So, you know, we have to really know who we are. Then we have to ask, well, what is it that’s aware of all of these regresses of how we can look at ourselves or take ourselves to be? But, then to the other part of your question, well, does this work for some people or and not work for others?

Well, it it works for anyone who’s committed to it. There’s no human being anywhere on earth who won’t find relief through the yoga of natural rest. There’s no human being anywhere. But when it comes to all of these other points of view like the the evolution of a soul or anything like that, all of these are are points of view that are included and contained within awareness. In this teaching, it is simplified but not oversimplified.

Oversimplified will would be a teaching that says something like, everything happens spontaneously. Everything is a spontaneous occurrence of consciousness. No one has a choice about anything. If you’re supposed to be enlightened, you will be enlightened. If you’re not supposed to be enlightened, you won’t be.

So that’s one type of awakening teaching that’s very prevalent today. Overcomplicated would be gotta work forever to get enlightened, gotta work sometimes for eons to get enlightened, gotta dress up in a certain way, gotta renounce your family if you really wanna get enlightened. So these are overcomplicated methods of enlightenment. There are contemporary overcomplicated methods of enlightenment too. Anything that relies relies on a bunch of points of view as its thesis for upholding some kind of a personal identity is an overcomplicated teaching.

So if it’s suggested that there’s some kind of an evolution of a personal identity that has never known existence as anything other than awareness, what would be evolving or what would be devolving? So, you know, this kind of intellectual speculation that engages endlessly in, all kinds of thinking that attributes meaning to a personal identity is not the non dual perspective. It just simply isn’t the nondual perspective. If we say, yes, this is a teaching of nonduality, but then we say there’s a personal identity that needs to be rectified, immediately it’s a teaching of dualism, it’s not a teaching of non duality. From the starting point of the great freedom teaching is not a bunch of words, it’s the direct introduction to awareness.

And for some people that comes from through natural rest and for other people it’s through doing nothing. Just doing nothing. Just coming here, coming here, receiving the teachings and then it flowers naturally. So, these ways of speaking about what we are in such a direct and simple way have been thoroughly considered and include absolutely everything that could be considered. I understand your question, yet we as human beings have an opportunity now to see ourselves as we really are, to just step out of all the confines of everything we’ve taken ourselves to be, all the confines, the prisons of intellectual speculation about this and that and just relax.

Relax for a change rather than try to take a personal identity and make it into a better personal identity, which is what most of us spend our entire lifetime doing. So, you know, I I respect what you’re saying, I honor what you’re saying, and I deeply understand what you’re saying. And at the same time, it’s really important to keep the focus entirely on yourself, you know. Let let me let me say that I respect what you’re saying. Mhmm.

I genuinely so. But as as I listen to you, I think of I mean, everybody here brings their own story. And I’m I’m reminded that in the mid seventies, which by now would be about thirty years ago. I spent several years following a teaching that was fairly similar that of Marishi Mahesh Yogi and maybe some XTMers in the hall as well. And with the exception of this beautiful Indian accent, probably everything that you said.

Mhmm. Teaching wise. You know, goes back. Same non dual perspective notion with ease, rest, natural naturalness, spontaneity, etcetera, etcetera. And finally enough, at the time, you know, the name Shivananda was was sounding in, you know, in the background.

There’s something to poo poo and to make light of. Oh, they worked so hard. We’ve got it so easy. And I’ve watched I watched that particular movement more or less disintegrate into insignificance, at present point of view, doesn’t appear like great spiritual accomplishment of its practitioners. And I suppose, you know, you you quoted one of the people here in this, saying he was skeptical.

I’m not I’m not chronically skeptical or cynical. But, I mean, you know, just going back to this other concept of, oh, I’ve been here before. So I’ve got, you know, I said and listened. I said, well, I’ve heard this before somewhere and it didn’t work then. And I’ve actually come to appreciate much more the other view symbolized with the name that that Alan has here on his t shirt.

Mhmm. So so therefore, there’s there’s probably more informing my question of ease and difficulty. And I I I can understand that. In fact, I mean, it’s it’s it’s it’s all true to the teaching. And yet, I think the religious traditions teach a much harder path than just the natural, spontaneous rest into who you are.

Mhmm. And certainly, the one effort that I’ve seen to or that I’ve been involved in to do something analogous, maybe less successful. Maybe you will do it better. Maybe your people get further than than the people of the TMers and, you know, various hoppers that I’ve seen, at the time. But, I have that little experience to to go on.

I’m laughing because you called the, Transcendental TM movement the Hoppers, because they levitate, right, and hop around. Bravo, that’s wonderful. Uh-huh, yeah. Well, you know, I could compare this teaching to that teaching, but I really hesitate to go there. What I will say very simply is the transcendental movement, the transcendental meditation movement is based on a mantra practice, and it’s very involved.

It really isn’t the teaching is not the yoga of natural rest. It’s offered through the teaching that what the teaching does through mantra repetition and other practices can bring greater ease, but it is a deeply involved practice, a very deeply involved practice. In the great freedom teaching, this yoga of natural rest is incredibly supported by a great body of formal teachings. Three series of teachings, one the 12 inquiries teaching, which is an introduction to, not only the yoga of natural rest or resting naturally, but also into seeing deeply, profoundly, and completely how living a life based on points of view has not only affected our own lives, but our relationships with all people and becoming complete in all those relationships. So it’s not just some superficial thing of resting naturally.

It deeply examines every single aspect of life with nothing left out including all the belief systems and assumptions and one comes to a resolute completeness about those in every aspect of one’s life. Then the further teachings, the power of wisdom includes three very profound teachings, the way of rest, the basic space of rest, and pure space. We could call these a liturgy of profound importance. It’s a liturgy of profound importance because it speaks only who we are. It doesn’t divide who we are into a bunch of concepts.

In these teachings, in the speaking and the reading of them and the listening to them, all that is is ever heard is a totally beautiful expression of the reality of what we are. The third series of teaching, the principles of unity and service, whereby we establish establish an organization of unity and service within great freedom and also in our relationships in the in the greater world, in our family, in our community and world. Three very, very formal series of teachings that are informed by all of the best teachings that have ever been about all of the sacraments, all of the practices of great religions, all included within this. So it’s not something casual or incidental or incomplete in any way. And, some of the things that have been become popular, they suggest something that is incomplete.

It doesn’t really include the whole package. It doesn’t include the heartbeat of having to live life in every moment, not only with ourselves but also in our family, community and world. They’re things that usually are addressed only vaguely. Sometimes even in the greatest traditions, they’re only addressed vaguely. There’s never a way to really look at our belief systems and assumptions in a pinpointed way.

There’s never a way suggested, a brass tacks, rubber hit the road way suggested of being complete in all our relationships. It’s just suggested that we be complete, but we’re never told how to do that. We’re never really told how to view, how to be in our relationships. No one has ever suggested to us that, just simple ways of being that are easeful and complete and that bring about unity, service, compassion, and peace. So the great freedom teaching, it includes all of these things, and for that reason, it has a profound effect on many, many people, many, many people and not in an ordinary way, but in a very profound way.

You know, I’ve seen it happen time after time from all kinds of people, people who have never heard anything about awakening and maybe they were a speed addict or an alcoholic and a waitress at a bar and, you know, through natural rest come into a complete realization of their their purpose in life. So, and and also this particular person I’m referring to who at this time is contributing immense benefit, immense benefit in every area of life after eight years of this practice, but you know, throughout the eight years from the very beginning. So you know, I really hear and completely deeply understand what you’re talking about. And it’s so important that we not either over simplify or over complicate this matter. I too agree that practices that over simplify in ways that can’t really bring a human being into a complete expression of what they are, that that practices like that have not had practices like that have not had good results.

They haven’t had good results. But, you know, twenty five years, this has been my lifestyle. And I’ve never had one single person unhappy about the results brought about through the practice. Not a single person. So you know the the purpose our overall purposes in Great Freedom is to serve our participants in every way possible.

And so you know we do that. We do that through an incredible structure that’s like the structure of a major corporation. We have an immense technology infrastructure worldwide where anyone who is a participant you don’t even need to be a participant. You can ask a question and get it responded to either by email or telephone within twenty four hours. So you see, this is a teaching that is having a profound effect on many people and in a complete way.

Nothing is overlooked and if we ever find anything that has been overlooked, well, then we include that. So if you see anything that’s been overlooked, we’d like to know about that. Thank you. We’ll sit quietly for a moment before we end.