|
|
1. P1
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P2
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P3
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P4
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P5
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P6
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P7
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
1. P8
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
1. P9
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P10
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P11
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P12
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
1. P13
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P14
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P15
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P16
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P17
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P18
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P19
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
1. P20
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P21
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P22
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P23
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P24
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P25
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P26
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P27
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
1. P28
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
1. P29
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
1. P30
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
|
Session #136c - February 26, 1994
NETSOK FELLOWSHIP RETREAT -- QUEST FOR THE SACRED SELF
GLORIA: OK guys, you've got 2 minutes to attack me. I'm giving you your
chance.
BETTY: Oh let's wait until after dinner. (laughter) We want a good shot.
GLORIA: Is it really that bad?
JNANA: You wait for other people to call you; you don't call other people.
EDITH: Most of the time you are over our heads, and I love it. (G: Thank you.)
SIDNEY: You don't do this as much as you used to, but for the first few years you
had a tendency to interrupt people. (G: Thank you.)
GLORIA: Come on, guys. I know I'm not perfect.
JNANA: Well, related to the not calling, we would like to have you in our lives
more often. Let us know when you're available. (G: OK. Thank you.)
OWEN: In a way this is a compliment as a teacher -- you've mentioned that a
teacher sometimes needs to be forceful and maybe get people worked up and a little bit
angry in order to get their attention. Sometimes maybe some of us find that irritation
goes a little bit too deep. I know that if we learn to realize that you as the teacher have
the authority, and we made the contract, as you said this morning, this helps.
SIDNEY: This is a perfect situation, because sometimes you tend to be defensive
when criticized. (laughter) (G: I acknowledge that one.)
MAXINE: I am having trouble verbalizing, but there are certain things you don't
want to hear, and if you don't like what you hear, you condemn before you really see
where it's coming from.
GAYLA: You don't love yourself enough. You don't validate yourself enough,
and know, realize yourself enough. You relate to food to give you comfort. (G: Thank
you.)
SIDNEY: A couple of times in the past this has caused problems. Everybody
here respects your opinion. Occasionally you will give an opinion about another member
of the group who is not present. Sometimes when that gets back, if it gets back to the
other member of the group, that has caused problems. (G: I am aware of that.)
GAYLA: You don't irritate me as much anymore.
JNANA: You can go to sleep -- is that right? (laughter)
GAYLA: No. We had personality problems when we first became involved with
each other. I felt very intimidated because I felt like she was this awesome being up here.
I got over that, and I understand that. You have given me extremely valuable things to
put in my life that have made a great deal of difference because I have lived them.
Maybe I wouldn't have lived them if I hadn't been in awe a little bit. But because I
listened and applied it, being so far away, it has saved me a lot of grief with people I have
worked with there. And I just value that. And in the process of that the last few years, I
am no longer intimidated. You do not irritate me, and I just love you.
LEN: I haven't known you all that long, but I think you used to intimidate me
too, just being around Gayla - she raved about you. I came up to see you one time and
didn't think you were all that intimidating. Then we went on the trip -- you get to know
people a whole lot (3 too many talking). And then I found you to be very opinionated
and very stubborn. Then I decided that if I'm going to talk to you, I'm going to be the
same way. So that forced me right there to bring my self esteem up and start talking
about things. Before that I really didn't do that. So that helped me. It's not a criticism.
GLORIA: No, I think that is a wonderful compliment.
JEAN: What I wanted to say was that it irritates me that you don't admire
yourself as much as I admire you.
GLORIA: OK. What you have said helps me grow, because I am as subjective
about myself as you are about yourselves. And I have less of an opportunity to get input
from other people than you do -- I'm not married, I live with my mother who has a very
narrow focus on life. I have a brother with whom I share a single interest, and other than
that our lives are virtually not touching. I see my sister occasionally, and as we get older
we have less and less in common than we had when we were younger, because I was
more her mother and she my daughter. Now she is a full grown woman and totally
responsible for herself. So I do not get that feedback from an environment that most of
you do, especially those of you who are married. So this is really valuable to me and I
treasure it and I thank you for it.
SIDNEY: On the other hand, last night we didn't have the opportunity as we did
in our small groups to give positive feedback to you, and I'd like to take a couple of
minutes to do the reverse of what we just did.
GLORIA: OK, I'll forgo lunch for a few minutes, not that I haven't already been
receiving a lot.
SIDNEY: I find that you are very supportive of all of us.
BETTY: I agree with what Sidney said. I have felt at times that some have been
selected as golden person or favored person.
GLORIA: You're always going to find that in a group. That is a group dynamic.
It may not be a realistic thing. It may be that my relationship with one or more of the
group appears to be what you want your relationship to be. And it may not be possible
because you are not in the same space as that other person. That other person may need
more support from me than you do, more encouragement or more love. You may be
further along your path to self sufficiency than that other person who seems to have that
relationship you would like to have. Do you see those things?
BETTY: Yes, I see that. Personally, it isn't affecting me as much, but it has
affected the group as a whole, and that was a concern because of the balance.
GLORIA: Yes, I understand that. There are some things that came to the fore
before, and I think it merits mention at this time. You have to realize that you are dealing
with two different people -- me as teacher and me as Gloria. As a teacher I love all of
you equally, and I relate to you all at as much at the same level as it is possible for me to
relate. With Sidney, I can talk with him with a broader vocabulary, for instance. That
does not negate any conversation I might have with any of the rest of you. You see, the
relationship has to be unique in a one-on-one situation as a teacher.
Now, when you get down to Gloria with her personal biases, and I have many. When
someone takes advantage of the group, they lose their esteem in my eyes. And I have no
sense of guilt in saying so. But I do not have to point the finger and say, "Naughty,
naughty so-and-so did such and such". But if I say, that I don't like what this person did,
or that I have a negative attitude toward this person, it's because there has been some
personal conflict or relationship. And as a human being, that's going to be part of my life
too. I cannot always be this wonderful teacher.
So you are going to have problems with me as Gloria. Gloria is as fallible as any of you.
I am going to have my likes and my dislikes and my angers, and I fall down and I stub
my toe, I cut my finger. I do all of the same things that you guys do. I just have
managed through my life to make a closer connection to what's available to you that I
picked up sooner or get protected more. And that's no doing of mine. That has to do
with all of the soul that I'm a part. It's no glory in my crown.
JEAN: One thing that does anger me about the group is that some people do not
accept you as a person -- that you have a right to weaknesses. It comes almost that we
expect you to be absolutely perfect and all knowing. And if you make a mistake -- I
think God does too sometimes.
GLORIA: (EMPHATICALLY) She does not! (laughter)
(lunch)
GLORIA: (MEDITATION) Take some deep breaths. Expand your diaphragm;
give your lungs some room to breathe. ....
Begin to think of yourself as you were ten years ago. The limits of your understanding as
compared to now... What was it that was very important to you at that time? What were
your desires?...
Now make a big leap. Go back to your childhood, the very earliest years of school, and
think about what your expectations of life were at that time... Think about how innocent
you were... Now go back even into the room to that moment of your conception when all
possibilities and total potential were as yet unused... View that moment of conception as
the beginning parenthesis, and your life from then until the day you leave this life as a
parenthetical piece of eternal time...
Now, go back to before that moment of conception, when you had a knowingness of the
eternal flow of life. Feel that freedom of access to all knowledge, to all experience...
Now once again come back into the fetus that has been conceived. It's growing. It's
forming that temple of the body which you are occupying. And bring with you that sense
of the eternal flow, endless time, limitless possibility... Feel the cells of your body
responding to that image in your mind of that developing body being occupied by the
mind and spirit of a consciousness aware of timelessness...
And then in whatever way is comfortable for you, bring yourself forward until you are
about age seven... Where is your sense of timelessness now? What boundaries are you
beginning to understand that this life is confined within?... Now go forward three years
until you are 10. How much of that sense of timelessness do you still have within you?
How much of that early innocence do you still retain? How many biases has tradition
overlaid on you?...
Come forward in your life now to the next very major, significant event in your life,
whether painful or joyous. And see that as your being and doing and acting and
responding to the extent that your knowledge and experience permits you... And then
consider the eternal flow, that that is merely one event along the way. That you were long
before this parenthetical period of time, and that eternal flow carries you along in this
life, through those hard times, or through the joyous times... And then bring yourself up
to today... And connect with that eternal flow... And then as you bring this quiet time to
an end, bring into your total waking awareness of this room that sense of timeless love,
that universal power, that connection with all that you are before you were this
personality and will continue after this personality is gone... And when you can bring that
awareness into this room into this moment, bring your palms together, neutralize. And be
fully alert and ready to go.
GLORIA: OK. We talked this morning about how we wear on other people, how
we wear well for ourselves, how we share with other people -- whether we do it well or
not so well. We didn't get very far into the caring aspect of who and what we are. Now
while this will sort of change the schedule of the workshop, to me that's all right, because
we are going to go with the flow. It doesn't matter what your plans may be -- if the
FLOW says "Go!", you don't stop to say, "But I planned to stay here longer". You go
with the flow. So that's what we are going to do now. And we will discuss
enlightenment a little bit later. But what you have just shared in this little meditation was
one of the avenues that you may take to making that special connection of enlightenment,
of tuning in to that eternal timelessness of which you are a part. And you begin to
understand that you are a part of this -- you're not separate from it. You aren't alienated
and everybody else is in the flow, and you're on the outside. It doesn't matter who you
are or what you are, how you are doing, how you're thinking, whether you fit into society
or are a sociopath -- you are all part of the flow. And that also will begin to point the way
for you in learning to trust this UNIVERSAL POWER.
As you become more confident in that connection with the flow, that being part of the
universal whole, you will learn to be supported by that, and not by what appears to be
supporting you.
So let's go back into the groups that we were in before we came back to the big one.
Sidney, you may have your closure of that part now. If you have finished the critical
part, I want you to begin to discuss what CARING means to you. And I want you to
make some notes about what you develop in your group to bring back for our discussion
of caring and what that means. Because we have all grown up with traditions of good
samaritan, generosity, don't hurt anyone's feelings, don't rock the boat -- many of the
things I heard here earlier today is that we don't know where the other guy is because he
is afraid to say something for fear he is going to hurt our feelings. We think we are being
"caring" when we are doing that. But that's just one little clue to what we are going to be
talking about in "caring". So go back to your groups, finish whatever it was you had to
do. If you’re finished with that, get on with discussing caring. Does everybody
understand? OK.
(break into small groups)
KIM: (In response to Gloria's request for definition of CARING) An
investment of my energy in what I value. The investment of energy divides itself in
different ways, like maybe it's taking care of something, maybe it's communication or
acting loving. But behind it all, it's where I'm putting my energy.
GLORIA: So if we are a part of endless time, we are, as Silverthistle put it, a
"particularate of God", meaning that there is purpose there. We're not just a random part.
We are a particularate, we have a purpose in being. And we have a sense of connection
with the timeless flow. Then we should care more about that, about our mission, about
our purpose -- that's where we need to invest our energy. And then our actions will
always be appropriate. It's when we act without that sense of being part of this endless
flow of beingness that we begin to swim cross current.
Who wants to be spokesman for the other group?
KIM: May I say something? I didn't quite grasp what you said regarding what
Silverthistle said regarding choosing your action regarding being part of this world.
GLORIA: All right. Silverthistle told us that as individuals, we are a
particularate. This means that we have purpose. There is not randomness in our being.
We have purpose and order. There is a particular part of the total flow of beingness that's
representing itself in us, and therefore we have purpose in being. So that's where we
need to invest our energy, in that purpose of being. And when we care about that purpose
and invest our energy in that because that's what we value above all else, then all of our
actions will follow appropriately.
BETTY: The scary part of that seems to be -- I didn't come as a blue cracker or
with anything tattooed on me. (overlapping voices) .. a lot of years in a Baptist Church,
because I thought, "OK, if I get this act down, I will return to the Divine, and I will have
spread the Christ love." That wasn't entirely selfish. And then more and more it began to
be obvious that this didn't have an end. And I decided I really didn't want streets of gold.
That was my purpose --to give myself to that, to help my family in a way that was right
for them to also be able to achieve. It was sure a maze.
GLORIA: How does that differ from what I said?
BETTY: You said that we should put our attention where our purpose is. And
I'm saying "Yah but, how do you know what your purpose is?"
GAYLA: Maybe that was your purpose at the time. Your conscious purpose
changed. You still want to do the right thing.
GLORIA: Let's talk about PURPOSE. What we're trying to do here is to find the
guidelines that are going to guide us through this maze to where we clearly identify our
purpose, and then live our lives on that purpose -- thoughtfully, conscientiously,
spiritually. And my concept for the workshop, as I understood what they gave me, was
that they did not believe that any of you knew what your purpose was. (surprise
reactions) So these things, these games that we've been playing last night and today are
like the games you give a child in kindergarten. The child believes that it is real fun to
stack those blocks up, not realizing that he is learning to recognize the letters printed on
the blocks, that ultimately are going to teach him to spell words and make sentences and
communicate.
When a kid builds a pyramid of blocks, he has no concept of what foundation he's placing
in his own consciousness for his future action. We as adults can see where we've come
from that stage of learning. So what the Teachers are saying, "We are in the stage of the
building blocks, playing with the blocks of character."
GAYLA: That's pretty scary.
GLORIA: I think it is wonderfully complimentary that they didn't say that we're
still in the womb. At least they acknowledged that we have the self-respected
intelligence to build our blocks. But we still make some awful messes.
OK. There are four points they wanted me to make about CARING before we go on to
PURPOSE. Some we have already discussed. (Then responded to the group that hadn't
yet reported.)
JNANA: The fine line between CARING and ENABLING was brought up, and
how to know when you're enabling was brought up. If it doesn't feel good, or you feel
like you're being forced, or you feel resentful, then you're probably enabling. My feeling
about caring was being present for someone -- putting your energy where you value
people. Any other points?
PHYLLIS: You had to get away from the fear of rejection so that you could care.
Because if you are afraid of being turned down or rejected, you don't offer your caring
and love.
SIDNEY: There was a point about being honest with yourself and the other
person if you do feel resentful.
GLORIA: It's difficult with our programming to be open and honest with the
other person, especially when it's your spouse, because of the consequences.
GAYLA: There's a difference between just blurting it out and being loving when
you tell it. You don't have to be abrasive. You can be honest and still be loving.
MAXINE: The thing is, if you always get turned down: "Oh that isn't the way it
is. You don't have to think that way." Then we have problems. You might express
yourself, but if you're told, That isn't the way it is. You don't need to feel that way", then
it doesn't do any good to talk. PHYLLIS: Yes. That's a breakdown in
communication if you ask me. That slams the door right in your face. "We're not going
to talk about this."
GAYLA: Feelings are valid no matter what. They don't have to be OK for
somebody else. They're yours.
BETTY: That's where you were asking if we did it in a loving manner. There
were a lot of times I did it in a loving manner again and again and again. You know that
feeling when I want to take somebody by the ears and shake them? Then it doesn't come
out very loving. And "Oh, you shouldn't feel that way." A few screams later. "They are
my feelings. Don't tell me I'm supposed to be open. You deal with them!"
It doesn't affect me in any way. I just have an opinion. Maybe I've expressed my
feelings and it only involves them, then let it be. But if the issue also comes over into my
space and affects me, my liability, my livelihood, my acceptance of myself, my time, my
energy, or whatever, then, as far as I'm concerned, the other person has to deal with me at
a reasonable level. And I've got to decide if it is reasonable and revealing and what I will
do about with the situation. Do I remove myself? Do I fight? Where do we go from
here? Where is enabling, where is caring, where is meeting the contract?
SIDNEY: If you just drop the ball, then there is no compromise and no contract at
all. It's just avoiding the situation and building up resentment.
BETTY: If you drop the ball, that's control.
GAYLA: There is always choice, and you can only choose for you. You can't
choose for the other person. He or she has to make their own choices. But you have the
power to make your choice.
BETTY: You have the power to make your choices if you don't have a marriage
contract.
PHYLLIS: You still have the power to make the choice. Your marriage contract --
when you choose to renegotiate -- you could choose to leave it, you could choose to walk
away. You still have a choice of some kind. And when you stop playing the game, the
other person will stop and take a look, generally, after a bit. You still have a choice; you
don't have to be invaded.
GLORIA: How do you resolve a third-party issue? For example: A married
couple lives under the same roof. There are people who come and go all the time. Each
partner in the marriage has a different relationship with everyone that comes and goes.
One may like the person, and the other partner may not like the person. What if that
person is invasive to the marriage? What if the presence of that individual sets up
vibratory frequency which makes for discomfort and conflict between the married
partners?
GAYLA: Well, the issue is with the marriage partners. If they can't come to a
resolution, then there has to be a resolution somewhere, somehow.
GLORIA: How do you reach that resolution? How do you resolve the problem?
It's got to be resolved. You can't duck the issue. It's not going to go away.
BETTY: You can duck the issue. But if you do, that's control one place or the
other. By ducking it you take control.
GLORIA: Yes. The issue takes control.
BETTY: Even more than that -- the person who ducks it or won't address it takes
control.
GLORIA: Well that's true too.
MAXINE: Then, if you're willing to talk, and you talk, and the other person says,
"Oh, that isn't necessary." And they don't validate any of your feelings about it, because
they don't think those are necessary. Then talking doesn't seem to do any good.
GAYLA: I think it comes down to everyone has to be responsible for their own
choices. If we do that, and we're true to ourselves, there will be some resolution
somewhere. Unless you have a particular issue, it's hard to come to a particular solution
in this kind of a thing. But it all comes down to being true to yourself.
BETTY: Then what is Caring?
LEN: You might be caring enough for yourself to take the responsibility to
make the decision no matter how harsh someone may think it is. You're caring enough
for yourself to take the responsibility to revert to something that is satisfactory to you.
JEAN: I think this is a time when you invoke (Tzaphkiel) -- the illusion.
GLORIA: Now we finally get around to the answer. Every one of you were
trying to solve this problem from the level of the human being living a spiritual life
instead of a spiritual being living a human life.If you will trust the Universe to resolve
the issue, it gets resolved much faster and much more to the satisfaction of all parties,
then no human being is enabling another human being, and the necessary result for the
karma of all people concerned. But if you don't call in the power, if you just drop the ball
and say, "OK, I'm not being listened to. I'm not going to take any more part in this," then
you have to deal with the consequences at that human level. But if you use your
connection with SACRED SELF, if you call in the POWER OF THE UNIVERSE, it's
amazing how things happen. The kid that's living at home who you think needs to get
out, all of a sudden gets a job. You see, the ideal solution -- not that you kick his butt out
on the street, and then he has to find a job.
EDITH: Going on with this situation that you had -- we had three people in this.
How would any or all of those persons do that? GLORIA: It only takes one of
them. That's what we're going to talk about. That's exactly what we're here for. This is
how we're going to get to that stuff that you wanted to get to two hours ago.
BETTY: My experience in life -- maybe not the way it is, but the way I
experienced it. Calling on the guidance from higher power to help me uphold my end of
the contract that I made, it has been like the lesson is, "This is your human life, your
human experience, and it doesn't make any difference how you do it, but do it." That is
quite often what I feel my answer has been. And quite often I have found myself totally
backed into the corner until I feel that I can't take anything more. It's either pull my tent
and get out, or fight and declare my own. But I think from my experience, the
affirmation that I trust the Universe. Maybe that works for other people. But sometimes
I have found that trusting the Universe, the only trust that I have found is that it has given
me the strength to get through it.
SIDNEY: She was saying both can trust the Universe.
MAXINE: Sometimes you can't get both. I can see how it's possible, but
sometimes you can't get both. Maybe only one is going to do it.
GLORIA: That's all it takes is one.
SIDNEY: What I understood you to say was, not just trust the Universe, but take
action and invoke, and then trust the results that occur.
GLORIA: Right. You call on the Power, and then you let the power work for
you.
BETTY: What I'm hearing though is that when we invoke for higher power
realizing that we are spiritual beings, things will work out. But I'm saying that my
experience is that this is what being human is, and sometimes what we have to learn is
not pleasant.
GAYLA: I was raised Mormon, my children were raised Mormon, and my
daughter has raised her children Mormon. They are little yet, but from the beginning of
the whole thing, my family is very ingrained in this religion -- I'm the black sheep, so to
speak. Anyway, my daughter is quite "spiritual" and has been all her life. The difference
between how I raised her and how she is raising hers is that I never invalidated her. I
always validated everything that she said. I was told that it was my imagination, and so I
learned to shut up and I learned not to tell the things that I knew. I encourage her so that
she learned to speak out and to believe in the things that she knew, even though she
continued to go to church. Now she is a grown woman and she has children, and her
whole value system is changing -- she's growing beyond. She's learning new things --
she's always talked to her SOURCE, she's always had open communications. Anyway,
she called me recently, and she's been going back and forth about what to do with this
church affiliation and wondering why it didn't work for her anymore. All of the things
that she had learned all of her life and what they teach in church doesn't work anymore.
And she just called me one day and she said, "I have had the most wonderful experience.
I just can't tell you. My whole life has lit up. Everything is just great. I was working in
the kitchen, and I was talking to Source, and I was asking them, 'Why doesn't this work
anymore?' And as plain as anything, the words that came out were, 'What you believe in
works in your life.' And it was just like turning the lights on." And so, if you don't
believe it's going to work, it's not going to work.Because what you believe, whether it's
Baptist or Jehovah's Witness or whatever it is, Atheism, what you believe in your heart is
what is going to work. Because that's what you manifest with your energy. And it was a
marvelous revelation.
GLORIA: Remember, we talked earlier about the difference between FATE and
DESTINY. It may well be one's KARMA to meet with tough situations. You shape the
Fate by the way you meet them. If you stay connected, if you treat everything in your life
from that perspective -- that you are a very special part of this eternal limitless flow, and
that the power is there for everything to work properly, then things get resolved in
amazing, miraculous ways. This was one of the points that they were very imperative
about in my meditation -- you have to eliminate the idea of ownership.This is not your
life. This is only one little tiny portion of ALL LIFE -- you don't own your life. You are
only here for a short time to shape this little tiny bit of it. We have not brought the
human evolutionary spiral up to the level of SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION, and that's what
we are doing as we work to awaken our awareness, to establish that open, ongoing
connection with SACRED SELF.
For one thing, my experience has taught me -- and I was told this a long time ago, but I
didn't believe it either -- that God really doesn't say, "No". You've heard people say, "I
prayed and prayed and prayed and yes, God answered me." I've heard this from the
pulpit. "God answered my prayers -- he said no." That's not true. SACRED SELF never
says, "No", because Sacred Self has all wisdom, knows all there is to know about this
little tiny portion of this life flow. And so it's going to work it out to the best advantage of
all parts. And pain and suffering are not necessary. They are only necessary as long as
we keep the idea of ownership. As long as we own it, we have it. If you believe that
your KARMA is pain and suffering, then that is what you're going to have. The same
events are going to transpire -- they're just going to hurt worse.
MAXINE: What you're saying is that we're in a learning process.
GLORIA: Yes. We certainly are. I should say we are.
EDITH: What else is ownership, besides something that can cause pain and
suffering? How does it manifest in everyday existence?
GLORIA: One of the old-fashioned traditional descriptions of someone's life used
to be, "Well, that's his portion", "he's a drunk -- that's his portion", or "therefore, that's
their portion", whatever. As long as that individual owns his lack of sobriety or
drunkenness, as long as a criminal owns his criminal behavior, as long as we own these
ideas of lack and need and want and yearning for stuff that we haven't got, we're owning
the lack, we're owning the want, we're owning the need, we're owning the yearning.
When you eliminate the ownership of the idea -- what you think on shall come to you,
literally.
GAYLA: If you believe you are going to be backed into a corner, you will be?
(GLORIA: Yes.)
JNANA: Your belief is your fate.
GLORIA: Do you get out and push the car when you step on the accelerator, to
make it go? That's what we do in our life, you know. We make that teensy, weentsy
little connection once in a while, and that's stepping on the accelerator. The rest of the
time we're pushing the car.
MAXINE: What if the person believes only that they just need to take -- I'll just
take and take and take. I don't care what the other person is ready to give, I'm just going
to take it.
GLORIA: But no one can take anything that belongs to you.
MAXINE: Unless you let them.
GLORIA: If they get it, it doesn't belong to you. That's a very difficult concept,
very difficult. But that's one of the reasons why personal property does not get stolen
from some people, because if it belongs, nothing can reach it, nothing can get to it. It's
either not visible to the person who would take it, or it is not desired by them. In some
way, it's protected from the grasp of the person to whom it should not belong.
JNANA: But your ownership comes from not being attached to it, doesn't it?
GLORIA: Yes. Attachment is not ownership. You can be attached to something
that somebody else has for ever and ever.
BETTY: I don't understand that. I thought you were asking one thing and she
answered another.
JNANA: Yes, that's true. But she brought up the other side of the coin. My
thought was, "If you are attached to something, then you really don't own it."
GLORIA: That's right. That's the meaning of Pluto.
JNANA: So, if you want to own something, release it. I think there is a song that
says, if you want something, let it go.
GLORIA: Imagine holding something fragile in your hand. If you want to keep
it, you can't grasp it, because you would destroy it in that grasping. And the very most
valuable things in life are those things that you cannot crush without destroying. They
are fragile. Our human relationships are very fragile, and they need to be held with an
open hand.
GAYLA: How many people hold on to their physical possessions and let go of
their relationships?
GLORIA: Remember, I asked you last night, "What do you have that you would
die for?" There is no possession in this world that's worth dying for. And as soon as you
can grasp that, you can extend that idea to all kinds of other things, circumstances,
situations, even relationships. And when you divorce yourself from that attachment --
from that need to own, which is what an attachment is -- that's when you have it fully and
whole heartedly. The more you give up, the more you get. And this is the principle in
the Bible of throwing your bread upon the waters, as it speaks in Luke about the return of
investment.
This is why the Teachers have said, "When you give something, give it without strings
attached". Because if you have strings attached, you still have attachment for it. You
still want to own it. You still want the control that that ownership gives you. So
eliminate the idea of ownership, and you will never have to give up something that is a
treasure to you.
OKAY, one other thing they gave me, and it amused me sort of. I'm not even sure I can
explain it to you.It’s OK not to understand. If that touches you, you will understand it.
It's OK not to understand.
PHYLLIS: I was told, "I no longer need an explanation for everything". That was
a little mantra I was supposed to repeat.
GLORIA: The feeling I got when they gave me that -- what they had been
teaching in the moment before that was this "connectedness" that I have been talking
about -- how when you release everything, you have everything, because you are part of
everything, part of the flow. It's not within our grasp to comprehend ETERNITY. We
live in a world of limitation. We live in bodies of limitation. We think with brains of
limitation. So it's not within us to grasp eternity. We can contemplate what eternity
means to us. We can contemplate being part of some unlimited flow, but we can't grasp
that concept because it is unlimited.
It is OK not to understand. And you bring that down into human life. It's OK not to
understand why things are the way they are. It's important to know that the Universal
Power is there to call upon to resolve whatever the situation may be -- to buy something -
-"OK, I'll tell you what". There is a very good example happened to me just last week.
In the midst of this horrendous month, for many, many a year I have been wanting and
wanting and wanting this wonderful printer to go with my computer. And I finally got to
the point that I had decided I would not do the kind of work that required that quality of
printing. And it was OK, and I didn't have to worry about it anymore. And out of the
blue comes a $500 order for quality type setting that allowed me to go down and buy the
very kind of printer that I wanted. You see? I let it go. With all the things that were
happening this month, I thought a printer is just out of it. Forget it. Get on with life and
quit wanting something that you probably won't have.And within three days I had it.So
you don't have to know where it's coming from in order to have it. You do not have to
understand. If you can believe that life is meant to be lived pain free and joyously, then
that is what you will have. But you see, we're all still entertaining the limitations we own
-- our problems, and they manifest in our body. We have not arrived at that evolution in
consciousness, we haven't increased our ratio of Volition to Consciousness sufficiently
yet to reach that level that we can have super health. It's within our grasp. We have the
capacity; we haven't evolved the capability. We're like a machine that can do lots and
lots of work, but the operator doesn't know all the formulas to make the machine do what
it can do. Our bodies have the capability of regeneration, but we only use that in a very
tiny way -- we regenerate the cells of our skin. Some of us are still regenerating the cells
of our liver. Some of us are still growing hair. (snickers) But if that's possible, why isn't
it possible to regrow a finger. Our bodies have that capacity, but the engineer hasn't
developed the skill to consciously evoke that.
JNANA: One of the reasons is that we think we have to understand how it's
going to happen.
GLORIA: And it's a pain not to understand.
BETTY: I haven't understood the idea of ownership. To me to have ownership in
my actions is important. And then what I do brings results one way or the other. To me
that's important to have ownership. I'm wondering -- letting things go -- where is that
fine line between ownership and being in a state of mind? (Like living in a state of
denial, living with an abusive husband.)
GLORIA: OK, but that's a situation in which you are surrendering to the wrong
dominance. If you stay with an abusive husband, then you are surrendering to the
dominance of the abusive husband.
BETTY: OK, now take it a step farther on to other things, because I've been
struggling with this for a long time. If one surrenders, just lets it go?
GLORIA: But you don't surrender -- that's where the church has failed us as
individuals. The church has set itself up as the only entity that can invoke the higher
power, and you are to surrender to the power of someone else. And they have taught us
for several hundred years -- like two thousand -- that we do not have that connection.
And we do. But being taught for that long that we don't, of course we believe that we
don't.
JNANA: There is a fine line between responsibility and ownership. Taking
responsibility and owning what is your responsibility, and owning your life -- what's the
difference?
GLORIA: OK, when you invoke higher power, when you evoke the power of the
universe to bring it to bear on whatever you are struggling with, you surrender, not your
responsibility for it -- you are still responsible for having brought it into being -- but you
surrender the dominance of the situation. You surrender ownership of the situation. It's
like a child is given a bicycle by a parent. The child learns how to ride the bicycle, but he
doesn't know how to fix it. When it breaks he can only bring it to the parents and
surrender it to the parent to fix it for him. He still has ownership of it, and he is still
responsible for it, but he asks dad to fix it.
So we are given a life, and we learn how to live life, and along the way we break it. We
wear out a part, or we absolutely break it -- many of us lead absolutely broken lives
because we don't realize we can go to the Universal Power to get it fixed. Does that help?
BETTY: Absolutely not. Because when I was in grade school I was given the
impression we were very poor. Looking back, we weren't that poor. And so I was given
a new bike, and I was told never to go off curbs. I usually obeyed this, but once I went
off the curb and the bike broke. And I took it home and my folks said, "See you went off
the curb". The bike hung on the garage wall for years and was never fixed.
GLORIA: I used that metaphor because the same thing happened to me. Except I
wore the pedal out. I used the analogy because we are talking about a benevolent
parental force, it you want to regard this Universal Flow as parental. And you were
talking about human parents who were not benevolent -- they were punitive. And when
you are reared in a punitive manner, you own punishment until you relinquish the idea of
it.
BETTY: So really the key idea for me to look at is the difference between
"punitive" parents on the human level and the divine parent.
GLORIA: That's right. Many people do not believe in a benevolent universe.
There are actually people who believe that this Earth is governed, governed, mind you,
by Satan. That this is Hell.
GAYLA: In their lives, it probably is.
GLORIA: Of course it is.
BETTY: Now remember when Sidney said to the Teachers, "God is love". And
the Teachers said, "No".
SIDNEY: What they said was absolutely correct. What they said was, "We have
already given you that". I puzzled over that, and then I remembered, that has to do with
Tzadkiel -- "Divine mercy, love, and compassion", that's where love is. So God is not
love -- it's already been covered as part of the invocations, and it involves or is under the
auspices of one of the archangels.
BETTY: It says here, "It's OK not to understand". But right now, it's really not
OK with me, and I still don't understand.
EDITH: It seems to me there may be a connection between ownership and
control. If you give up the ownership, you probably have to give up the control. And
we're scared to give up control. I have an example. It tells you if it's appropriate to
describe something that happened to me -- a silly little thing in which I did not allow the
Universe to work in its way. I told it how it should work. A month or so ago Jean and
Myra and I were in California at a seminar. I was loaned this car, so I drove it. And I
thought the next morning I would go down from the motel room, go to the car, unlock it
and get it all warmed up and comfortable for the others. So I went down, but the key
wouldn't open it. I tried it again, and it wouldn't open. So I went around the car and tried
it on the passenger side -- it wouldn't open. I couldn't get in through the windows -- they
were tight. So I started invoking -- I invoke quite often and I find things that way, and I
get ideas that way, and I get answers that way. So I started invoking. Then I went back
around the car, put the key in the door again, and it wouldn't work. Then I said, "It's no
use, it's no use." The truth is, the key won't open the door. I don't have the right key. So
I'll go back up stairs and call the owner of the car. In other words, I shut off the Universe
-- "You won't help me".
Back upstairs Myra called the owner. He said that the key she is trying to use is that for
the ignition. The key she is supposed to use to get into the car is the one that opens the
trunk. I opened the palm of my hand, and there were two keys there. Why hadn't I
known there were two keys -- couldn't I feel them? Hadn't it dawned on me there were
two keys to the car, when the one I have at home has two keys in it? Why was I so
dense? I tell you, it was very embarrassing. But quite often we get messages that stay
with us. I know that if I had continued to invoke and not shut it off, that they would have
let me know there was a key there and that I should have used that key. It was a silly
thing that was very embarrassing, but boy, did it give me a lesson -- don't try to tell the
Universe what to do. You can ask for its help, but don't try to tell it how it's going to help
you.
GLORIA: That's ownership. When you begin to tell the Universe how to resolve
the situation, when you want to dictate the way things are worked out. When you have a
preconceived notion of what must happen, you shut off the flow. The Universe does not
help you if you don't allow it to help you. It does not force its way on you. Just like your
SOURCE can do nothing but herd you on your pathway -- it can't push you along, it can't
hold you back. It's there to guide and protect, and that's all. And it can't do any more
than that unless you reach out and say, "Take my hand. Help me up. Lighten my load."
BETTY: This to me puts on a whole different concept with ownership. I was
thinking from my perspective of ownership as responsibility. When you own something
you take care of it. But looking at it this way, a preconceived idea of what it should be,
then the word itself gets totally different from what I originally thought.
GLORIA: Good. That is one of the values in getting together and discussing,
because semantics get in the way. Our training gets in the way, our education gets in the
way. Until we can approach the same thing from numerous perspectives and find the
answer that is appropriate for one individual and another individual or another.
BETTY: If you had said, "Eliminate preconceived ideas." That would have been
easy for me.
GLORIA: But they don't want you to eliminate all preconceived ideas. They only
want you to eliminate the idea of ownership.
JNANA: That you are the only one who can solve the problem. Right?
GLORIA: Or that you have the solution.
BETTY: That seems like a preconceived idea.
GLORIA: Well, it is a preconceived idea. But there are some preconceived ideas
that you need to keep, such as, "I am a spiritual being. I deserve to be joyful." It is not a
concept. There are people who are born with the idea that they have the key to the
Universe. Some people may and some people may not. But there are what we call
preconceived ideas, and what we are talking about are those ideas that were imbedded in
the subtle bodies that we brought with us through conception -- they were preconceived
ideas. Some may be race consciousness, but some of them are your own. The subtle
bodies that are brought in by the incarnating entity that meld with the subtle bodies of the
fetus already have attitudes and habit patterns programmed into that emotional body --
those are preconceived ideas. And those are the hardest to get to. And that's why what
Edie calls "game playing" helps us get to them. It's the way we, as uneducated spiritual
beings play with our blocks until we suddenly form a word and recognize it because we
have seen it someplace else.
BETTY: No, no, no. It's because we're so highly evolved that we choose to learn
to enjoy. I didn't say "Yah, but." Give me some more synonyms for ownership, as used
in this context. Even though it's OK to not understand, I would like to understand.
CLISTA: She wants answers. What's the difference between answers and
understanding?
GLORIA: Oh, if I understood everything I knew, I wouldn't even bother with
Michael. Think about it. If I understood everything I know, would I bother to come into
this incarnation? I wouldn't have to.
EDITH: There are little things that happen in our lives that we know -- you just
know it within yourself and you don't bother to explain why. You just know it.
CLISTA: Maybe she wants answers instead of understanding.
GAYLA: She's not the only one in here that likes to understand. The others just
aren't speaking out.
GLORIA: Remember what they said, that it's OK to not understand. They didn't
say not to seek understanding. It's OK to not understand that you will understand. It's
OK for a kindergartener not to read.
GAYLA: In time, with the accumulation of knowledge and learning and walking
along one step at a time, eventually he will understand.
GLORIA: Remember where you were in your understanding when the teachers
first began to bring them through. Remember what kind of culture shock it was when
Silverthistle started talking about treating ailments through the subtle bodies, never
touching the physical body. Remember that very first retreat out at Kawanis lodge --
some of you were there. That was culture shock -- for some of us it was. We've come a
long, long way since then. We understand so much more now than we did then. And the
more we understand, the more they give us to understand.
GAYLA: So in other words, for those who like to understand, you never will
have it all, because there will always be more.
GLORIA: That's right. There will always be more, because we are limited, and
we cannot grasp the totality of the Eternal Flow. It's not within our power to grasp that.
So when we invoke Gabriel, we say, "I will Divine will", we are saying, "I am the flow".
BETTY: I like that. With your concept I wouldn't bother with Michael. Explain
a little more about Michael, maybe I don't understand it.
GLORIA: Okay. MICHAEL is that essential resistance that the bank of the river
gives to the water flowing through it. When you look at a river and a gorge that we're
looking at, which do you think has dominance, the earth that holds the river in a river
rather than allowing it to be a great lake or great ocean, or the river that has cut away all
the mountains that has made the gorge? Now we're just exercising dominance. Is it the
river?
If the river were dominating, it would be up here. It would be all over everything. There
would be no channel.
JEAN: But it has power to work, to wash the earth away.
GLORIA: But the earth has power to hold it in.
BETTY: If the earth had dominance over it, there wouldn't be these pillars like
Beacon Rock and Rooster Rock where the river has worn a way around them.
GLORIA: But ultimately, something else can wear that away, like wind.
JEAN: It's the Universe because -- the floods -- Earth conditions change and
upset both of them.
GLORIA: What I'm asking you is a riddle here, you see.
BETTY: Yes. That's the way it was coming through me. It's all a hologram. It's
all power. It's like the little game -- the scissors, the rock, and the paper.
GLORIA: All right. That's MICHAEL. ... OK, if we are the flow, then there has
to be something in our concept to hold that flow entrained.
JNANA: Which is destiny?
GLORIA: Uh huh. Alright, now if you incarnate under Tzaphkiel, you live under
the Law of Illusion, there is no -- help me -- resistances are different. They are not
resistances of domination. So why would I want to come into this particular Earth
combination under Michael that challenges everything you do? Why would I not prefer
to incarnate under Haniel holding self mastership, so I could go back to the Divine
Realm, or maybe ultimately into the Absolute? Why would I choose to be a separate part
of all that is, if I understood all that I know?
BETTY: The story keeps coming through that Richard Bach wrote his story in
the book, "Illusions". The little creatures in the river -- they were all hanging on. You
know -- hang on or you'll die. But I'm going to die anyway, so I'm going to let loose. I'm
paraphrasing it.
GLORIA: There's ownership. They own the idea. Hanging on was the only
solution.
We're going to be due at the restaurant soon, and we need to wind up this afternoon's
session. What would you like to do in the next 5 minutes that will bring you mentally,
emotionally, and spiritually into the context of your dinner break?
BETTY: I still want Sidney to explain, "God is not Love". He said that was easily
explained.
SIDNEY: I think what the Teachers were saying is that that's delimiting, because
LOVE is handled by one of the Archangels. And that's Tzadkiel -- that's his
responsibility.
BETTY: In other words, God is not love, because God is more than that.
SIDNEY: That's microscopic, and God is macroscopic.
GLORIA: (in response to request for the other points to be discussed.) OK.
Relinquish the need to be right. And allow space. And those are two of the things that
you discussed in your small group. And then the other two were: eliminate the idea of
ownership, and it's OK not to understand.
BETTY: I found that I had very mixed emotions about that need to be right. I
had a need to be right in my belief system, and understanding it. But I don't have the
need to be right in somebody else's...
GLORIA: OK. They are talking about the need to be right in interaction -- is it
important for you to have the last word? Is it important for you to be the authority on the
topic being discussed? Is it important for you to be at the head of the class? They're
talking about that kind of domination -- one upsmanship.
BETTY: How about having the last word to myself inside of myself?
GLORIA: That's fine. Hopefully that's what you're doing. That's the right thing
for you to do. Except. Here's a matter of ownership though. You have gotten to the
point of recognizing that you need to be right with yourself, and you own that so much
that you've not been able to relinquish that and be right with the FLOW.
BETTY: What I'm hearing is, "It's easier to keep your mouth shut, Betty." If
not, I'm not understanding what I'm hearing.
GLORIA: What they are trying to say in this "need to be right", is need to make
the other individual accede that you are right, even though that they may not agree. It's
the dominance that we all play with each other.
BETTY: Sometimes I ask questions because I need to clarify my own thinking,
and get somebody to weigh it and balance it and see if it is off. I need to bring it back
into level. That's what I feel is my interaction. If you don't put it out there, how do you
know? I didn't begin to define my beliefs until I lived with a Catholic roommate in
college. And we discussed theologies.
GLORIA: That's fine. But in that situation you did not need to be the person who
was right. Your way was not the only way. The Catholic way was her way, and that was
OK.
BETTY: I was glad that she was there and I wasn't.
GLORIA: OK. But there are people who would not be able to tolerate that. I had
a Catholic roommate. One of the very first experiences I had away from home and away
from the college campus where I was out in the world working, and I lived in a woman's
hotel in San Francisco, and I shared a room with a Catholic girl. She couldn't stand it that
I was not a Catholic. She did her best to give me literature and tracts. She evangelized
me like crazy. Her need to be right was so powerful, and she needed that powerful
church behind her, where I didn't need that.
GAYLA: She wanted to save you.
GLORIA: She indeed wanted to save me. Yes.
BETTY: She wanted you to join in her misery.
GLORIA: Yeah. In everyday life. You see, we are a rather elite -- not just rather
elite, we are a very elite group. If you go into the homes of the ordinary working person,
you're not going to find this kind of acceptance of each other, this kind of generosity and
willingness to allow space. You're not going to find it. There's dominance there -- it's
either patriarchal or matriarchal, there is a struggle to make it one or the other. And we
have outgrown that.
This need to be right is very limiting. Boy, that keeps you focused right down here. But
it helps for them to define these things for us, although that might not be where we are, if
we can't tell other people, if we don't have some words to tell other people where we are.
So that's one of the reasons I appreciate the definition -- they give my mind a turn, you
see.
GAYLA: You can apply that need to be right to the government.
GLORIA: Oh, of course. Why else do they (keep) everything from us. If we
knew what the government was doing, they wouldn't get away with it. Why did it take
them so long to catch the CIA double agent?
BETTY: It's not only THE government, it's each little department of government.
GLORIA: Our government is a collection of small dynasties, yes.
OK. Peace unto your stomachs. (Adjourned for dinner at the Charburger.)
(After dinner Saturday)
GLORIA: MEDITATION. Think of yourself as a drop of water in that mighty
Columbia that we can see out the window. And as a drop of water in that mighty river,
you cannot flow against the current. You have to flow with the flow of the river. Now
some time in that flow you strike a rock, you get bumped by some flotsam or jetsam, or a
boat runs over you, or some swimmer plows his hand through you, or someone drops
something off the bridge on you -- there are all kinds of events that can happen to you.
But does that destroy you? Does it destroy your basic identity of being a drop of water
among all the other drops of water that make up the water that flows between the banks
of the river and ultimately into the ocean?
Now, think of yourself by your name -- as I might say, "I Gloria am a particularate, that
is, a droplet in that river of eternal flow. And as I flow with that eternal force, I am
bumped and perhaps bruised. I may be pushed to the bottom. I may rise to the top, but
can't do anything except go with the flow."
Now the more in harmony I am with the other drops of water, the easier the flow is. And
when we hit an obstacle for instance, if there are lots of us, we force that obstacle aside. I
know I'm not alone because I have all my neighbors with me. I'm part and parcel of the
flow.
So, as we get on with our work this evening, we're going to be dealing with that action of
connection -- that recognition of being a part of a greater whole. And if all the parts work
together, they have more power than anything that could intercept them… So, before you
get to the ocean, come back to this room, and bring with you that consciousness of the
flow. .... OK
Now, we know from experience that our lives, as we travel from the cradle to the grave,
is full of obstacles -- challenges, diversions, distractions. It seems like every moment of
every day has something with which we must deal. We have to shape our fate. We are
forced to do it. We can't do otherwise. We can do it passively or we can do it actively.
We can do it by being in harmony with the very force that carries us along, or we can do
it inharmoniously by trying to be different, to be alienated -- to jump out of the water, so
to speak.
Now, if you are like that drop of water in the spray -- when the water hits the rock and the
spray comes up, there is a moment when the drop of water (says), "Oh my God, I'm out
here all by myself. Now what do I do?" All right, this life from the cradle to the grave is
like that droplet of water that is all of a sudden isolated from everything else it has always
known. And we lose sight of the fact that we're going to fall back and become a part of
what we are already a part of.
MICHAEL is the essence of the rocks being there for the water to rush against. This flow
exists in all realms, under all laws, in every form or factor of existence. The FLOW
began at the Omega Point and will go back to the Absolute. So during this time of
flowing we know ourselves in some kind of identity. And under Michael, identity
becomes very important, because how do I know that I am me if I am not different from
you, if there were not something separating us -- skin, bones, opinions, lifestyle?
Problems.
If we all dumped all of our problems in the middle of the floor, which ones would you
take back? (several responding, "My own".) Of course. We want what we own, right?
Problems or not -- we want ours. (intermixed comments re. who wants whose problems -
- apparently no trades)
BETTY: It's familiarity again -- the pain is familiar, therefore it's comfortable.
GAYLA: The uncomfortable is more comfortable than the unknown.
GLORIA: That's right. But remember that your problems are your problems by
the very nature of yourself. There's no way that I could take your problems out of the
pile and make them mine, because they wouldn't fit my character.
BETTY: If you'd been married to somebody else for 10 years beforehand, it
would be much easier to live with him now.
GAYLA: The same situation wouldn't be a problem for another person -- the
interrelationships would be totally different. You have to have your own problems.
GLORIA: OK. Under Michael and the LAW OF DOMINANCE, the principal is
APPROPRIATION. And we are brought up in many instances that appropriateness is a
weapon against us -- it's one of the ways in which we get controlled. And it is one of the
ways we control. "That's not appropriate." And what are we saying? If we use the word
"appropriate" as the adjective, or "appropriation" as a noun, how do you relate those two?
SIDNEY: Let's see. That which we appropriate (verb), I've always thoughten --
thoughten (laughter) It's those big words. (comment: Stop reverting into old English.)
Means to take and to make one's own. And to do that which is appropriate (adjective), in
my mind is to take what another says is proper for you to have or do. (Gloria agreeing.)
JNANA: To take on someone else's judgement as to what is appropriate.
GLORIA: OK. What happens in the case of where you make your own what
someone else has chosen for you -- what happens there?
MAXINE: It's unappropriate because it doesn't fit your ...
GLORIA: But what has happened?
JNANA: You gave up yourself.
GLORIA: That's it. You have disempowered yourself. You have placed the
power in the hands of someone else. Under Michael we must do our own appropriating.
Now I may sit up here and toss ideas and concepts and information at you. You can only
take for yourself what is yours, if you are going to maintain your own empowerment.
PHYLLIS: I don't get it.
GLORIA: OK. If I say to you, "Believe this is stuck to the floor. Believe it."
And you do believe it, I've taken your power, because my foot is not stuck to the floor.
But if you say, "That's only an illusion", then you maintain your power. You don't buy it.
Does everyone understand what I'm talking about?
CLISTA: That reminds me of a long time ago in the church world, especially old
ladies would come and tell you, "The Lord told me to tell you that you are supposed to do
this, and this, and this." And I'd tell them, "When the Lord tells me to do it, I'll do it."
GLORIA: Oh, you rebel you. (laughter)
CLISTA: It just really did something to me, for those people to tell me that. How
dare they come and tell me that.
GLORIA: That's right. But you see you have part of the programming, the
attitudes and habit patterns that you brought into this incarnation with you in your
Emotional Body, in your Desire Body, confirmed to you from the moment that you
entered the fetus and grew into this body. You brought that empowerment with you.
You were not going to be deceived. But how many of your family are deceived? But
without your example, how much less enlightenment they would have than they've
gotten.
CLISTA: That's what it is, it's taking your power away if you do what they tell
you to do.
GLORIA: That's right. GAYLA: Or if you question, it drives them crazy.
GLORIA: Well, that's because you're claiming the power. You're taking the
power away from them.
GAYLA: I could never get an answer from them, but why?
CLISTA: But theirs was, "Because the Lord told me".
GLORIA: "God spoke, it's written in the Bible. Here it is in God's own words.
How can you dispute that."
GAYLA: God didn't write that book. Well, God did, but not the way they're
saying he did.
GLORIA: OK. You understand what I'm talking about "empowerment". When
you're in the flow, you have the power of the whole river behind you. It's only when you
leave the flow that you lose the power -- when you let the rocks throw you into the air,
and all of a sudden you feel like you're hanging out there to dry. And we as human
beings can't see that we're just part of the spray that's going to go back into that flow --
that we're never lost. Nothing is ever lost. No water droplet ever disappears.
BETTY: The thought that keeps coming through to me on this is that the droplet
that catches the sunlight also makes the rainbow. You always forever change and we can
never be the same even when we come back.
GLORIA: Oh, that's true. But what I'm trying to get across is that you never
become totally disconnected. It's only an ILLUSION that you are disconnected, and it's
when you buy the illusion that you lose your power. (Betty comment too faint to pick
up.)
Remember that the droplet doesn't see the rainbow that it creates. You do not see the joy
or the enlightenment or whatever is poured like blessings on other people while you're
hanging out there to dry. All you see is your own fright, your own misery, your own "My
God, what do I do now". But if you're going to live in the flow, in harmony with
Absolute nature, you will always know that you can never be forever lost from the major
body -- you will always go back to the major body. In spite of yourself, you cannot
totally 100% alienate yourself.
So that opens up a whole new concept about this matter of Dominance. We have a
system of jurisprudence -- we call it justice. (Comment: Some of us do.) And it has been
mentioned in this group, but what about the sociopath, what about the murderer. What
about the person whose whole life is a poison to society? That life is as much of the flow
as yours is, and you cannot deny that. It's not in your power to deny that.
GAYLA: Without that we wouldn't have other opportunities. Everything has to
be.
GLORIA: All I'm asking you to do is to become aware of your connectedness.
And this is where the Reike energy comes from, through that whole system of universal
energy it becomes particularized, so that one particular vibration form can channel that
energy and use it, just like we build electrical conduit. To use a universally available
source of power to light a lamp instead of cook our food. That's exactly the way the
different things work that we do -- whether it's Reike or rebirthing or any of innumerable
kinds of what you might say are alternative medicines that are available to us today. All
come from the same source. They are identified differently because that's what is needed
for the development of the person -- using the power and of the power itself. Would
there be a river if there wasn't a drop of water? Would the river be the same river if you
weren't part of it? Would this group be the same group if one of you were not here? No.
The dynamic changes every time someone joins a group or leaves a group. The river
changes every time there is evaporation that takes some of its substance and puts it
someplace else until it gets it back. And there is an eternal cycle for you. One of the
many cycles in nature that we take for granted.
And how about those prophesiers that used this eternal cycle to predict the weather --
how dare they tell us what's going to happen in 3 or 4 days! How in the world. But when
a psychic does that, that's the kind of response they get.
GAYLA: The difference is the weatherman is usually wrong.
GLORIA: That's because he depends on machines.
OWEN: You're using old statistics. (laughter) (Comment: The new weather
man looks out the window.) That's a popular myth.
GLORIA: OK. I think I have badgered you into adopting my attitude. (laughter,
and comment: Is that appropriate?) We're going to find out here in a minute. I have
asked Betty to prepare for us an affirmation using the power of MICHAEL that we can
write down, use here, and take home with us for use later. Are you ready Betty?
BETTY: I'm ready, I've had coffee, I'm revved.
Something keeps coming through. Brook Medicine-eagle has a song that keeps running
around in my mind.
"Oh I take delight in the peace of the river Flowing so gently to the strength of the sea.
And I take delight in the love that is flowing Just like a river between you and me."
GAYLA: That's beautiful.
GLORIA: We sang that at Betty's. Did we go down there for a peace meditation?
It may have been one of our regular Sunday morning sessions. And Betty provided us
with musical instruments, and we sang and we made music. And I think that was one of
most enriching days with the group that I have had the experience of. I loved it. Too bad
we don't do that more often. That song went through my mind forever -- day in and day
out after that until I was forced to sit down at the piano and work out variations in that
melody. I thought Jnana had written it, and so one day at the table at Jean's I was telling
Jnana and Sidney that I had written this variation. That's when I found out that it wasn't
Jnana's. But it was important to me that, had Jnana written it that he have the privilege to
sit in some judgement on what I had done with the melody. And it was almost like, "Oh,
good. I don't have to find out..."
BETTY: I worked on this from my perspective and kept changing it. I would
suggest this is a framework that I came up with from my own perspective for my own
use. And I find that when I do the affirmations, I don't use the editorial "we", because I
feel in my belief system that I am the only place where it can start with changes in me.
So I start with "me". So this is a framework that I'm going to work on, and any part that
works for you, you're welcome. For you, different words will fit in, different feelings
will fit in, different meanings will open up.
As we say MICHAEL, there are several things to consider there. We have said it
differently several times. We say MICH I EL (long I), which is really not the way we
were taught, but the I brings in the joy of God. And if we do the different sound of the A,
it brings in different powers, whether it's individual self mastery power, whether it's the
power of Divine oneness, or whatever it is. It changes. So be aware of what you are
doing there even, and make the decision of what you want to do at this particular time too
-- what you think is appropriate for you. Quite often I say, "Divine Dominance enables
me".
(BETTY'S AFFIRMATION) "I appropriate and gratefully accept the joy, the wisdom,
and support of the Universe as my life flows to the full-fillment of my destiny (which
could also be used as "potential")."
I put "joy" first. But two other words came to me tonight.
JNANA: Anything like trust?
BETTY: I try to avoid that word. JNANA: It seems that if you do this, you are
trusting. BETTY: And accepting.
GLORIA: If everybody's got this and is willing, why don't we say this aloud in
unison, and see how we feel the vibration of it. See how it causes us to resonate to it.
BETTY: Do we want to use "Divine Dominance"?
SIDNEY: Is using "wisdom" here repetitious? If you have used RATZIEL, that
implies wisdom already.
GLORIA: But I think in this instance we are attempting to grasp the concept of
maintaining identity with the "All that is", and the acknowledgement within ourselves
that that wisdom and support is there for us. Whereas, in the earlier affirmations we are
talking about the apposition of our own wisdom. This is the acknowledgement of the
Universal wisdom there for our support -- that we are a part of that.
JNANA: So this isn't appropriating something that's separate from us. It's more
allowing...
GLORIA: No. What we're affirming here is that it's there, and we are
appropriating what we need of it, for whatever time we need it. It is not a matter of
developing our on-going wisdom that we shall take through all the ages with us. We're
acknowledging that the Universe has already supplied this for us, and under the Law of
Dominance, Divine Dominance enables us, Divine Dominance appropriates for us out of
the total supply what we need at any one moment -- its joy, its wisdom, and its support,
which might manifest as money in the bank, or health, or a happy relationship, or comfort
when we are sorrowful, or encouragement when we're down, or strength. So, what this is
saying is that these things are all there for us. All we have to do is appropriate it.
But can you appropriate it if you don't trust that it's there. That's where people fail in
their efforts at manifesting - - they intellectually know it. They give it lip service, but
they don't have that heart-felt knowingness. It's like in a human relationship you may
have some doubt about the other person's general fidelity --I'm not talking about adultery,
I'm talking about loyalty and concern, etc. And so you verbalize, "He loves me. She
loves me. I know she loves me. I know he loves me." In the very verbalization of that,
we're saying to ourselves, "I really don't know it. I've got to keep telling myself and
reassuring myself that that's true."
What this is saying is, "I know that it's there. All I have to do is appropriate it, and Divine
Dominance actually does the appropriation". Because the drop of water is thrown into
the air. It has no control. It cannot, according to the laws under which it exists, it cannot
fail to fall back into the river. The law of gravity takes it back. It is subject to the laws of
its circumstances. But we, because we are self aware and think that we realize limitation,
when we get flung out, we get separated from that whole, we forget that we can't stay
separate. And so we get frightened. So an affirmation like this is a reminder that
everything we need is already there, and all we have to do is appropriate it. Because the
analogy of the drop of water is not precise. The drop of water does not have self
consciousness as we have, does not have free choice as we have. It may in some other
realm, but we are talking about this Realm of Self under the Law of Dominance on this
planet. And that is all we can deal with right now. We're doing a rational job of moving
out of that earth-bonded existence as it is. So, I think this is an excellent affirmation.
You did an excellent job Betty. Let's all try it and see how we resonate.
BETTY: I have another question. I put down "my destiny", and then I thought
about potential. If I used "full potential", is that a larger picture?
GLORIA: Destiny is potential. Destiny and potential in the way that we are
studying self-evolution, are one and the same.
BETTY: And I choose to use the long A -- "inner force becomes mastery".
GLORIA:That's what we are here for is that inner force of us that is inextricably
linked with the force of the Universal Flow, brings us under the Law of Dominance to
self mastery. That's what Mich-AE-L means.
BETTY: And really the only way we can achieve self mastery is to connect with
the Sacred Self.
GLORIA: Exactly. And people resist it with all their might for some reason as
though surrendering to the Sacred Self is giving up control over one's life. It's not; it is
taking charge. It is empowering yourself with all that the Sacred Self can empower you
with. It's there. The Sacred Self has all this knowledge, all this wisdom, all this power. It
knows how to appropriate out of the Universal bank all substance that you need whether
it is substance of knowledge, substance of being, or substance in the bank. And it is
ready and waiting for you to make the connection. It is just like a hungry baby sitting in
the high chair squalling for something to eat and squalling so hard for something to eat
that it can't see the spoon in mama's hand. I don't know if any of you have had kids like
that. I've often thought, "If you'd just shut up a minute".
BETTY: What did you say about surrender?
GLORIA: People regard this, the idea of surrendering their lives to the Sacred
Self, because they feel like they are losing control, they're losing dominance over
themselves.When in actual fact, that is establishing self mastery.Because the Sacred
Self never takes charge. It only gives you all of the tools and substance you need to do it
yourself.
BETTY: I have a lot of trouble with that word "surrender". I understand the
Apache do not have a word for surrender. They have a word for "give over". And that
works with me better.
GLORIA: Alright. But some people fight tooth and nail not to "give over".
BETTY: Surrender to me is rolling over and putting your belly up like a dog
does. There is some advantage to that, like a possum does. But to me, surrender means
abdicating responsibility.
GLORIA: We are so ingrained with that program of personal responsibility to our
own world that we sustain that image that I'm a good person -- I pay my bills, I go work,
I take care of my children, you see. And when we give over or surrender to Sacred Self,
it's as though we are saying, "I'm no longer a good person because I'm not doing that.
Somebody else is doing that. It's not somebody else, it's you.
GAYLA: We're fearful they won't do it the way we think they ought to.
GLORIA: That's right, and you can't dictate how the Universe is going to do
something. But we all want to. We see what we think as the ideal solution to a problem,
whether it is a relationship or a material debt or an achievement goal, or whatever it is,
and we fail to realize that our concept is entirely limited. If we allow Sacred Self to do it
with us, not for us, but with us, then the result is much greater. But in our limited
concept we can't see that in the beginning.
BETTY: Is there anybody else besides me that is bothered by that term
"surrender"? To me "work with, carry my part of the yoke", all that makes total sense.
GLORIA: But see, again you're saying, "I want to take some charge of this. I
want to bear my own burdens. I want to carry some part of the yoke."
BETTY: Isn't that why we're here? Don't we have responsibilities? If we don't
have responsibilities, why are we here?
GLORIA: Our one responsibility is to evolve ourselves toward self mastery --
that's the one responsibility any of us has. We each take a different destiny path to get to
the same "town", if you will. And the events that transpire along the way differ for each
of us. And we shape our fates differently. Some of us are short, and some of us are tall,
and some of us are sad, and some of us are happy.
CLISTA: Maybe she looks at the word "surrender" as giving her power over to
somebody else.
GLORIA: I'm sure that she does, and that's exactly what she’s saying.
BETTY: I see it as abdicating responsibility.
GLORIA: That's what I'm saying. You feel that you're abdicating your
responsibility when you are surrendering authority to the thing that actually has authority
over you.
OWEN: What would be the difference between that and relinquish? I relinquish
rather than I surrender.
GLORIA: We're talking about two different things. When you relinquish
something, you let it go entirely. Can you take the word apart for us, Sidney?
SIDNEY: Well, "sur" is actually another word for "sub", meaning under. I don't
know, to render to Caesar is to give to that which is another's. Surrender is only giving
over, and putting that which you have given over under control of another, in a sense --
under their auspices anyway.
KIM: It seems to me that it involves giving up the part of you that is in your
own way. "It's OK. I'll get out of it some other way -- I'll surrender that part."
GLORIA: OK. Are we ready to try it to see how it resonates? Now we need to
work out that beginning sentence.
(Agreed to "Through Divine Dominance, I appropriate....")
We're just going to see how it resonates for us for our own private use, or whether there is
something here that opens new doors of understanding for us. Let’s see how we resonate
to this.
(Question about fulfillment. Agreed on "full-fillment" as having a stronger connotation.)
(Taking three deep breaths, as suggested by Betty.)
GROUP: Michael, Michael, Michael. Through Divine Dominance, I appropriate
and gratefully accept the joy, the wisdom, and the support of the Universe as my life
flows to the “full-fillment” of my destiny. (repeated twice more) (several favorable
comments)
GLORIA: You can rework this to suit your own needs. I think Betty has brought
in here most of what we have actually talked about through this whole workshop to this
point.
BETTY: (In response to a question: When did she do this?) Since lunch, but this
is the affirmation that I use for myself with Michael. Divine Dominance governs my
very being, which is another way of saying, "I surrender".
GLORIA: OK. We are supposed to be talking about SPIRITUAL PURPOSE, the
real magic -- PURPOSE, LIFE FLOW, and HARMONY. And I think that's exactly what
we've been talking about. OK. Let's break up into three groups of 5. Discuss with each
other how wearing, caring and sharing fit in with flowing, harmony and appropriation.
|