0:00 I'm going to start with a little prayer, I think, from something from Teresa of Avila. Because I'm madly in love with her, and because saints are real, and because their grace is real, and the older I get and the more that I live on this earth, and the more I understand, the more I know, we don't... Walk anywhere outside of grace. It's just not possible. It's not possible. So I'm
0:46 just going to start with her thoughts, remembering that she wrote 500 years ago, which, if you really thought about it, was just yesterday. Just yesterday. It's not that long ago. My grandmother was born in the 1800s, and I knew her until I was 39. That was two centuries ago now. So her grandparents would have been in the late 17. I mean, let's just do the math. So one of
1:31 the thoughts Teresa has, and this to me, is when someone says, "What is prayer?" Prayer is withdrawing from ordinary thought and falling into extraordinary thought that elevates your senses. It shuts down reason. Because you're always searching for reason. What's the reason for this? What's the reason for that? What's the reason? And when you look in the world and always search for reason, your thoughts are like vacuum cleaners on the ground. And that's all you're doing is you're vacuuming the ground. What's the reason? What's the reason my life is
2:17 not? What's the reason? What's the reason? You're like a vacuum cleaner. And what a prayer actually is, is the like sucking. You manage to detach yourself and breathe in and have a thought a perception a truth a truth that takes you out of the illusion buddha the illusion that life is about finding reason that the journey of life is actually finding reason which it is not that the journey of the lot of life is to let go of finding reason and making yourself the center of your universe and that the real journey is about
3:03 finding truth And the truth is you're not the center of the universe, which is why all saints and teachers emphasize the first great lesson, which is humility. You are not and never have been nor ever will you be the center of the universe because once you die, would the universe collapse? Much to our surprise, no. It simply will continue going as it goes. And it won't even miss us. Much to our surprise, The trees, the birds, the water will not even miss
3:50 us. Will they even know we've been here? Only if we've been destructive. She writes, and hear this here, a whole lifetime is short and sometimes very short. How do we know that ours may not be so short as to end in an hour or even a minute? After we've determined to give ourselves wholly to God, it's quite possible. For we cannot depend on anything that passes away, much less on life, on which we must not reckon for even a single day. Who may
4:36 be among those, we may be among those who, worldly as we still are, have some deep desire to do what is right. At times, rare as they may be, we commend ourselves to God's care. We think about our souls every now and then, but busy as we are, we pray only a few times a month, even though our minds are filled with a thousand other matters. But know this, where your treasure is, there also is your heart, Teresa. Even 500 years ago or a thousand years ago, nothing has changed with human beings.
5:22 Nothing has changed. We live a distracted life. One of the, well you know that I'm obsessed with Teresa. I'm obsessed. And it's a pleasant obsession I have to say, but, and I was so, I'm a bit of a political creature, which will remain, that's all I'll say. But in the height of one of my political madness attacks, which I fear coming on again, But that's all we'll say. But in the height of it, I grabbed one of her
6:12 books and I had to laugh because she wrote all of this war, all of this madness. And she said, "Either solve this or destroy us, but be done with it." And I sat back and I started laughing hysterically in my office. in the days of swords and sabers. And I just put, and I thought, nothing will ever change, except some things do change. And we're going to begin our journey together through that door with what is changing, because everything changes constantly.
6:59 It's one of the mystical laws of the universe. It is one of the mystical laws. So how we're going to enter this is through an archetype. metaphor rather an analogy and how I want you to picture yourselves is existing in a was a cute little thing in a condominium building because it's actually the perfect it's the perfect analogy with penthouse because you your life are in one building and the
7:44 building doesn't change but whatever floor you want you are on changes everything and Whatever floor you live on the whole world looks different to you and in fact you feel different The truth is the truth is that if you lived on the first floor Your ego feels very different than if I moved you to the penthouse same building and you know it You know it the big pH address same building But everything about you would suddenly change your worldview your sense of
8:29 power same building same address So even in that tiny ego exercise, I could change your world. In the real world, I could change your world by moving you from the first floor to the penthouse, just like that. And you would not even realize I am now spellcasting. I'm going to cast a spell on you. I'm going to control you completely. I'm going to move. I'm simply going to put you on a different floor, and I control you. That's how controllable and vulnerable an object the human being is. Just like that. Same building. So with that in
9:17 mind, let's say that this building also represented, just so you have a working notion that in fact, moving around in a building is power. First floor to penthouse. So now let's say that every floor of the building represents the journey from illusion to truth illusion to truth and that's the journey we are on from what is illusion to what is truth and that there's a mechanism in us that will say this is as far as I can go I can't afford the mortgage
10:03 on the next floor I can't afford to see the world that way I can't afford it and I won't do it I will not do it now in all mystical literature all mystical literature what is what is recorded our stories that when the angels appear as messengers of messengers of what they are messengers of truth and that when the angels appear the human being is temporarily blinded blinded because the journey the experience of being an
10:49 illusion to truth is needs adjustment. You're taking away what I thought was true and you are replacing it. And I am blinded by the light. I am blinded, Lord. Saul knocked off the horse till he became Paul. Muhammad, blinded, chased into a cave. Get away from me and the angels, they're high, been waiting for you. The story of how these saints and mystics aged in front of people when they returned from their illumination to the first floor where people were dancing
11:40 around calves of illusion. So great is the burden between seeing what's truth and stepping into people's saturated and adoring fear. When mystics write about, I am so madly in love with you, and it's so painful, this love. What mystics fall in love with is truth as an expression of God. They know that truth is one of the personas of the divine. Truth, not personal truth. That's your
12:26 job, is to excavate yourself. Like, what's true about me? And as you handle your personal truth, as that, like Teresa would say, the journey of self-knowledge prepares you to become a receptacle for the journey of cosmic knowledge. One carries this. You scaffold yourself in order to contain cosmic knowledge. Let me give you an example. One of the cosmic truths, a mystical truth, what is
13:13 in one is in the whole. "Okay, let's go to lunch." "I said to you, 'What is in one is in the whole.'" "Yeah, I heard you." "No, no, no, no, no. I said to you, 'What is in one is in the whole.'" If you really got that, if that were illuminated and some angel hit the button and actually illuminated you with what is in one is in the whole and you actually viscerally
14:00 tasted it heard it felt it felt everything that was one in you vibrating if you actually got out of your body and ceased to be earth centric so that everything you saw was positioned from the earth and suddenly you were out of this horrible little earth centric viewpoint and you saw the galaxy from Andromedan. Whoo! There's the Milky Way! Where the hell am I? And you realize how vast vastness is. All that was shifted was your relationship with space. For one second, one
14:47 moment, suddenly the whole map in you of being Earth-centric was shattered, never to be replaced. Suddenly when the shattering of that map You could no longer have one Earth-centric theology. Oops. You mean God wasn't, oops, born here on this, oops. And so December 25th. Oops. There goes the Kabbalah. Oops. There goes this. Oops, oops, oops, oops. You're damn right. All oops. Now we're going to squeeze you back into this little blue dot in one of 200 billion galaxies that they know of. One of 200 billion stars
15:33 within each of the 200 billion galaxies. Now go make up your theology. Now go make up and realize these are all stories. They are bedtime stories. The truth are laws. What is in one is in the whole. Now we squeeze you back into your little body. Your tiny little speck of a body. vibrating so big you can hardly breathe, you can hardly breathe, you can't even breathe, you will never even breathe the same again because you fear shattering your own chest because all the oneness you can't turn off anymore. You can actually
16:19 breathe with a galaxy for one second that you'll never even see, but it's in you. Oh my God, I am on fire with you. Turn the fire off. I can't, I can't hold it. I cannot, I am, and the seizure stops. No wonder they seize. No wonder they seize. They have been seized. And you come back down here and you walk in this world where people hate anything that is not their own kind. And you grab onto something and you think,
17:04 "Oh boy, what are my options here? Addiction? Drugs? Staying home? How am I going to handle this world ever again?" The pain of this folly is too great to bear. Either you teach truth or you kill yourself. Okay, the truth, what is in one is in the whole, is so great that even starting out on the small level of truth Not being able to animate it. The animation of it is given. What Teresa says in the fourth mansion, you get what she meant in the fourth mansion, which is,
17:54 oh, no, you don't. You don't come in here on your own. God comes for you. That's what she meant. You can't get here on your own. You can read. You can work, work it, work it, work it, work it, work it, work it. But when you are strong enough, God will come for you. Because one such experience will destroy you. Because what you will do is you will try to reason with it. Because you're still worshiping at the altar of reason. And you cannot reason with an experience like that. There is no reason. You can't reason with God. You can't reason with the
18:44 mystical. You can't reason with that cosmic wonderment. it's you can only allow it to reach and you can allow a thing it takes you it reshapes you it shatters you and puts you back and the only thing you can do is manage cosmic the cosmic life after that and the only way you can do that is to recognize you must stay in grace and prayer because if you step out if you step out of that and you try to make others reason and understand that world, you
19:29 will enter into hatred because you will hate them. You will hate them for not understanding you, for not appreciating you. And I will smack you for your arrogance because this is where you do not understand why all the great teachers have said, where's your humility? You have failed and failed and failed. recognizing why you must be humble because in your lack of it you are seeking recognition that will destroy you it will destroy you you're asking people
20:15 to understand a great grace that's been given to you what are you doing now you get back here until you are humble enough to never mention where you go are you with me on this The penthouse is a secret place. And when you get to that penthouse, if you get to that penthouse, you recognize that truth is so blinding and it is experiential. And this is what Buddha would say was enlightenment, to
21:01 be filled with light, to be filled with light, to take away illusions, to take away the illusions of one's life. Now you think, "Boy, does that sound like fun." Right? I don't think so. Right? I don't think so. Because this is also what my experience has been. And that's that we all start out here in the basement. And in the basement, there aren't any windows. So when we're in the basement, all the rules of life are as we call them.
21:47 We live only full of illusions in our basement. and nobody questions their illusions until they have to. And you don't see anybody else from your basement. You absolutely don't see anybody else. Who else is down there? So you can make your world as you want it. And then let's just say that the basement gets flooded and you have to get out. And you get to the first floor and you see a window and you look out the window and you see only one building next to you. You don't even realize you're on a block. So you realize there's a building next to you and you
22:35 think your first thought is to conquer that building. You see a person in the building and you realize your first thought is fear, curiosity, and conquering. Do they know you're in charge? Do they know it's all about you? How are you going to let them know that? Maybe your first floor should be better than their first floor. more flowers more this more that but the point is you will let them know you're in charge you have no idea you yet live on a block so you set up this first floor as if
23:21 this is now your world according the world according to garp on the first floor thinking that this is all there is content with truth on that level the one day somehow they find the staircase and find out oh my god you live on a block the politics of power more people you have to adjust how did this happen do they know you are in charge this can take a little more handling you rise to the level love neighborhood community little more adjusting here you find out other people have other truths in mind they may want to conquer you you gonna pull down blinds at this point maybe
24:11 get social decisions are up to you but you'll set up this floor somebody even suggests that You live in a country and not just a hood. Is that even possible? There's a staircase. You go up here, you find country. You see other countries. You could put the brakes on here. A lot of people put the brakes on there. A lot of people decide this is as far as I'm going. I am not going any further. I need everybody to speak my language. I am lingo-centric. I will not be multilingual. I need everybody within my religion
24:58 Because mine is, of course, the religion. And anybody who doesn't have my religion is a less than. And I am someone who must have people less than me somewhere. There's got to be someone less than me somewhere. Because I must sit in the front of the boat. There's got to be someone. Islam, Hindu, somebody's less than me. So I have to live on a floor where there are less thans. Because the idea that what is in one is in the whole. No way. I still need it to be a biological principle. I am not yet ready for it to ascend to the world of grace and
25:44 energy. I can't handle it at that level. That's too much truth. I have to keep it at the level of what is true. What is true is temporary. It is true that what is in one is in the whole. We're in this room. If I dropped a bottle of my favorite cologne or perfume, all of us would smell it. What is in one is in the whole. And that is true, but there's no truth to it. How it affects us, we're on our own. How it affects us is we're on our own.
26:30 That it will affect us all is the truth. You see the difference there? Okay, but... It's just, it's true, but there's no truth to what is in one is in the whole, past the biological influence of it. Then we go to expanding to the wholeness that my thoughts, what is in one is in the whole. So if I... Grace don't grace you regardless of whether you're short tall live in this country on this floor I can see the Middle East and I can see the South America
27:19 and I can see the whole of the whole of the whole which means what is in one is in the whole? Hmm. Hmm. So if I don't grace the Middle East and I don't grace the Inuit in Alaska and the South America what's in one is in the whole means that I'm actually hurting myself because you are as much in me as I am in you. Oh, I have to sit down and have a coffee over this one. Because up until now, I can handle this as a biological principle, which means if I like you and let you in my house and have screened you and you're hygienic to me and I approve of your
28:05 religion, let me go through the chakras as we go. your religion your tribe your occupation your hygiene habits I don't see you as a threat I think somewhere can control you then maybe I'll let out I'll abide by what I know is in fact a cosmic mystical church otherwise I'll turn myself of to it and never mind that what is in one is in the whole never mind that if I hurt you in fact I'm hurting me that's the truth of it that if I do not grace you In fact, I'm stealing. I am in fact poisoning me at the highest level. I'm beginning. I
28:51 don't want to get that I'm stopping right here. I can't bear to look at someone I loathe and force myself to do the only thing as John of the Cross God I have to actually force myself to find a way to love you because what is in one is in the whole it is not you I am loving I I am not forcing myself to love you. I am under orders. What is in one is in the whole. It is the truth that I am reaching for. I am not reaching for you, but through you. That is such a high truth that
29:36 you cannot get there other than through prayer because your mind will pull you into your hatred. and tell you this is where you belong. To know the mystical truths is so difficult, so difficult, because you have to abide by them. And that is the most difficult. But if you stretch your soul to get there, you stretch it, then you know that these are the truths that govern healing. And when you say within you to that soul of yours, put that grace through me and heal this person, you do not have to say, please, will you? You know, boom, that grace runs
30:25 and it's there. And you keep your mouth shut and you leave. You touch that little infant and you're gone. And you know that infant's cancer is gone. And you never see the mother again, because you don't have to. You know those laws are God. And your job, your job is to become, to have so much stamina that you become steel. And you, and nothing, those illusions that Buddha speaks of, the illusions on the lower levels will always be there. Our dragons will never not be there.
31:16 There's no such thing as one dragon. Every day there's a dragon. Every day. You don't heal the dragons once. I have to heal myself. And for how long? That's today's effort. What did you heal today? That's why every day we must go into reflection. Can we turn off phones, please? Please. Every day we are required to go into reflection. Every day we're required to go into contemplation. you cannot you absolutely cannot get through this by thinking I just heal things once and then that's it for the rest of my life and I'm so shocked
32:01 to have something again how did this happen to me it's gonna happen because it's gonna happen again and again and again and finally you understand that you're given things to heal that have nothing to do with you like the disciple who said to his guru How can you have cancer? How can you have all this cancer? Because you're so holy and the guru left and he said, oh, this isn't mine. And boom, he was perfectly healthy right in front of him. He said, this is all yours. And this belongs to everybody else. Like Mother Teresa, who said to all of her nuns constantly, pray for me, pray for me. Not because she was greedy, because the real poverty
32:51 she carried was was the spiritual poverty of people. The physical poverty was the effortless effort. She knew how to manipulate the wealthy because she knew how superstitious they were. She knew all she had to do was get them to look at her, and she whammled them. And they gave her everything, jewelry off of them. Here, sister. Here, mother. Here, mother. Here, mother. Here, mother. They were so afraid that her poverty would become theirs. She knew it. She just whammled them. But what she really carried and could pray through was their shattered soul poverty. And she took that so that the people who were shattered, that grief
33:38 went into her heart so that while it did not change their physical circumstances, somebody would lift their head one day and say, "I'll make it." Because the belief that they could not make it went into her heart. And she prayed that through. "Give me your burden. Give me your tire." That sort of grace. And understanding that, again, is a mystical perspective, a truth, that the heart eventually becomes a cosmic instrument, that the training, the rigor that you go through
34:26 is not even for yourself. What is in one is in the whole. Soon your wholeness serves each one. Soon your wholeness becomes what the service to each person is about. but again as Teresa would say this is why I put all of these things together because that's how I got it as Teresa would say you do not declare when you're ready to go into service that's what it means to be chosen you're ready and ready by the way does not necessarily mean ready it could be ready for the job of getting the garbage knocked out of
35:17 you which is when they start their wiring and that could take five years five minutes five years And the idea of, you know, is it over yet? The caterpillar doesn't cry on its journey to being a butterfly. If it does, it dies. That's why I love that beautiful analogy. The journey of becoming a butterfly. Who knows how long it takes to get your wings? But then where you fly has no map. You just go. So you have any questions so far on what we're doing here? Any
36:02 time? And I love what Muktananda said because he said, you know, this is better that you never go in this place. It's really better. But if you do, it's better you never, ever stop. Because you can never be semi-enlightened. I mean, you can be semi-enlightened, but what are you going to do with that? I mean, how are you going to tell somebody I'm semi-enlightened? How are you? Isn't that hilarious? How are you semi-enlightened? How are you doing? Okay, I mean, it's just so preposterous. Isn't it preposterous? You know, I'm half enlightened and I'm going to stay here, you know. So, people are so...
