《The Final Step to Freedom》 by Lester Levenson

星空

The Final Step to Freedom

by Lester Levenson

Lester Speaking to Graduates in California, September 12,1969

Lester: Being purposeful, as I usually am, I told you about my busi ness involvement to show you that you don't disappear when you get your realizations. You don't have to leave the world, and anything you do in the world can be done far better, with no real involvement. You don't have to fear losing anything you have, You don't have to fear losing your body. The only thing you lose is your unfreedom. The only difference before and after is that before, you were compelled by your subconscious thoughts: after, you're free. If you have a thought, you freely choose to put it into your mind. Before, you had to be unhappy about certain things, or the way things were going; after, you are never unhappy, because everything goes the way it should go.

I believe there's a subconscious fear in all of us that, if we go all the way, we go away. If we go all the way, we're not going to enjoy the things we're enjoying now. These fears are unfounded. Anything we have enjoyed before, we can enjoy a thousand time more after. We can enjoy it a thousand times more because we are free to go all the way on anything, being unlimited. There's no limit to joy. There is nothing that we cannot have. There are no heights that we cannot reach, in happiness, in money, in health or in anything.

Last time I threw out a challenge—I presented to you how life could be if you would go all the way. I presented a way of life when we live by creating things just by thought. When we do create things by just thought, everything falls into perfect harmony; nothing goes wrong; everything becomes, immediately, the way we want it to be.

I presented this to you as a challenge, hoping you would take it and do just that. As a group we moved relatively high in a relatively short time. And then we leveled off; the rate of growth dropped off very much and I thought it was really foolish to stop it. I just can't under stand even now why you don't go all the way.

Why not take things for the mere thought of it? Why not have this perfect harmony when everything goes the way you want it to go? Why not live with all joy and no sorrow? Why don't we take this? I really would like to know why we don't take it. If I know why you don't take it, maybe I can help you get it. Because I feel sure everyone would like to live the way I spoke of living, the way I was living back in the early sixties, and prior to 1952. I'm sure everyone would like to live that way; you're in a constant state of joy that's beyond anything you ever experienced before; when everything you think just happens.

So, why don't we do this? I'm really asking: Why don't you do it? Harry, you're almost coming up with something, aren't you?

Q: I missed the last meeting.

Lester: Well, I kinda summed it up. There was a time when I lived and anything I thought would come immediately. Anything. And everything. And I was telling how beautifully harmonious everything is; everything falls perfectly into line for you.

Q: Well I think I'll speak for my own self, things pretty well come this way, for me. The only limit would be myself perhaps not knowing where to put the next knot.

Lester: You can have anything you want now? Just by the thought?

Q: What I mean is,—things do connect that way, yes.

Lester: Much better than they used to. But you have to work for a living, right?

Q: It's getting pretty easy.

Lester: But you have to work for a living.

Q: O.K.

Lester: That's a limitation.

0: I was just reading in the Bhagavad Gita the other day that—even though you're realized, you never want to give up your activity because it deludes the ignorant. So where are you then?

Lester: I don't know about what you're saying, but I say you're not free yet. You have to work for a living: you have to do things, right? Or could you stop everything and do nothing and have everything you want? Could you?

Q: The trend is going that way quite fast. I don't know when I could cut the cord and be that way.

Lester: O.K. Keep up the trend; keep up the trend.

But the question I'm asking is: Why don't we go to the point where

we just think and have things happen?

Q: Well, we're living in ignorance, so to speak.

Lester: We are not. We know the way, right? At least intellectually we know how to go all the way: we accept that we are unlimited beings.

Q: To come right down to it, in Truth, what is there to desire? In other words, you have your peace, you know, what are we talking about?

Lester: I'm talking about freedom,—I'm using the word "freedom" Now, because I think it points up the Goal better as a word than any other word. The top Goal is total Freedom, Liberation.

Q: How do you go about it? Just by meditating?

Lester: No. By seeing what we are. See, that the word "meditation" is a word that has meanings that I'm not sure means the same thing to everyone. But, by discovering what we are, we discover that we have all power, all knowledge, that we are unlimited.

Q: How am I to discover what I am if I don't know what I am?

Lester: Well, how? By turning all your attention on you, with the question "What am I?" and quieting the mind enough so that the real you is obvious. When your mind is quiet enough, your real Being is obvious to you, and when it is, you know and you know, you know, and that's it. So, the way is to keep that question going: What am I? And as disturbing thoughts come up to look at them and drop them, and if we keep that going, we reach a point where they don't come up any more and then the mind is quiet: then we can see what we are: then we can undo the balance of the mind. Finally we can wipe out the entire mind in one stroke. Then we're totally free.

Q: That's what I've been doing.

Lester: What stops you from going all the way?

Q: I don't know. Maybe I'm trying too hard. I want it so very much, but I don't know what's stopping me.

Lester: When you do it, do you get disturbed with your thoughts? Q: No.

Lester: What happens when you get quiet?

Q: When I get quiet I get the scents of food and flowers and I get lost in that. What does it mean?

Lester: It means you're caught up in the sheath of happiness, which is the last one you have to break through. See, the coverings over the infinite Being that we are are first; the physical body, then the mind, then the last one is the happiness; we get into a state where we get too content and we stop there, and we just really rest on our laurels and we enjoy the state that we're in, instead of going on further past that happiness state.

Q: I still keep asking and all these smells around me of flowers and food, and different unknown scents.

Lester: All right, when they come; the thing to do is to disregard them; look at them and let go of them and keep looking at what you are. Have you seen yourself as all power, all knowledge? See, then you have more to go. So the only thing I can say is keep doing it; try to break through that pleasant state and go higher. See, the top state is not enjoying; it's a very deep peace, a total well- beingness, a feeling of eternality.

Q: I get suspended; I'm up here; I can't go further; I don't want to come back; I want to find out really what I am, and so there I am.

Lester: We should reach a state where the real "I" that we are takes over and takes us in all the way. But, I think, Lil, you might be afraid of disappearing.

Q: No.

Lester: No?

Q: No, that never enters my mind.

Lester: What do you think might help you go further?

Q: I really don't know. If I knew I would utilize it.

Lester: See, the first incentive lies in having difficulties in life— pain, mental and physical. But later on, the incentive should be the goodness of it, that should be the incentive to have us keep going, going, going.

Well, then the only thing I can say, Lil, is keep it up. Some day, when you get tired of enjoying, you'll drop the enjoying and go on further.

Q: I keep saying to myself, "There's more than this."

Lester: Good. There's not enough drive to drive you all the way.

Q: I might have to do it and push me up there: I don't know. As I say, maybe I'm trying too hard.

Lester: I don't think so. You can't try too hard. Although the further you go, the less effort is required. You reach a place where you can't use effort any more. The real You takes over and just lifts you all the way to the top. Until that time, you seemingly have to use effort. So, the only thing I can say is just keep going with a little more determi nation, if you can, to get the answer.

Q: I'll tell you what happens, when my eyes are closed, all this gets light.

Lester: Good! See, you're moving into the astral realm which is a higher realm than the physical. It's a realm that's more in tune.

Q: That's when I really ask "Who am I?" "Why am I here?" "What's my relationship to this world?" "Who am I?" Then I wait. The longer I wait, the brighter things get!

Lester: Well, that's a sign that you're moving up. You're moving into the astral realm. See, this is the physical. We also have an astral body and we have a causal body. But you're up in the astral when you're seeing everything as light without your eyes being open. So, again I say just keep going, keep going.

Q: I will do that. This is what I want, more than anything else.

Lester: Anyone else have anything they can add to why we don't go all the way, or what more do we need? What I'm saying is can I be of any help to you?

Q: If I call on you, will you help me?

Lester: Can you answer that? Have I helped you?

Q: Yes, you have.

Lester: When we started, some years ago, I told you I will never leave you so long as you want help. Now the real me sees you as the real you, and it's the real me that's helping you when I'm not here in physical body with you. And anytime you call on that real me, you'll discover the real me is there. And what happens is you get a lift a bit higher so you can get the answer yourself; you've got to get it.

Q: In answer to your question, as for myself, Art, well, all of us, we're involved in a family life which is a limiting factor.

Lester: It's a difficult thing; it's an obstacle.

Q: Specially if you have growing children.

Lester: Yes. Business and family are obstacles, but they can be tran scended if the time you have not at business is used digging in to discovering you. After all, how long does it take an infinite Being to know that he is? He can do it in an instant. When man so wills, he's immediately set free! So If you take the time you have not at busi ness and use it to dig to discover you, you can get the full answer.

Especially now that life is easier and things are coming more your way by your doing, and just dare to quadruple what you're doing, mentally, without any more effort, though. Then you might have four times more time to dwell on the subject.

Q: By dwelling on the subject are you referring always to this passive mediation or—

Lester: "What am I?" I'm referring to "What am I?" I'm keeping you at the ultimate question that has to be answered, and when answered fully, is the ultimate state of Freedom, which is known by your feeling and by the way your life is. Life is the way you make it.

When you get there, you can get all the money you want without working for it.

Q: Course, that's rather misleading. Lester: It is?

Q: Yeah, it's kinda like a sales presentation, a snow-job: Come on boy, you go my way and you think this way and you'll have all the money you want. But, actually, when you get into the program, with that pot of gold, it evaporates because— Lester: Wait a minute, it evaporates?

Q: Because it's not important any more. Like you say, if we truly feel that we get the real message that you're speaking of, then the things that we thought we were going to gain material wealth when we came into this program, then we find out, "Gee whiz, that's not anything.

Lester: That's not true.

Q: That's a limitation. Here's a greater Truth. In other words to have this, I have to give up this.

Lester: That's not true. You haven't done that. Have you?

Q: I haven't come in with that idea in mind, you mean?

Lester: You haven't created everything and then let go of all your wealth, have you?

Q: No.

Lester: Let me tell you why it isn't true: you've got a false idea.

Q: Maybe it's semantics we're talking about here.

Lester: No, it's not semantics. It's a wrong idea. And I'll tell you how; I'll talk about me again. When I wanted to prove to me that I could be a millionaire, I went into the real estate business, started buying apartment houses on a no-cash investment in each building. In six-month's time I accumulated 23 apartment houses, 20 to 40 units each, and I was worth a million dollars. I had that much equity accumulated,—I guess it was in 2 years' time. Everything went up in value and I had it.

All right now, I let it go because I saw that my security was in my ability to produce at will Now, I know from experience already I can produce a million dollars. I already know I can produce at will. And therefore, I have everything that I want. I decided a year ago, I'm going to make money. It's pouring in on me—right now. It's pyra miding, very rapidly.

Q: You're achieving the same thing as you were coming into, or the world to the center and back out again. You are your Self but your intention is with the world.

Lester: The actual materiality is coming in. You can still have more and more and more of materiality: there's no trick in there where you have it and then you don't have it. No, there's no such trick. If you want it, you can have it more and more. It's loaded; it's not a snow- job. Now, some people may choose to—

Q: Some people take it that way is what I was referring to, that this is the golden road and so on and actually when they get into it and begin to see the Truth, there's this thing, what you are, and you've got to give up this almost to enjoy this over here.

Lester: You don't have to give up anything, Harry. You take on more and more and more. You don't give up anything.

I've heard you say the very same thing, that finally you get to the place where you give up the greater pleasure for the lesser pleasure. I've heard you say that.

Lester: You give up a lesser pleasure for a greater pleasure; you got it upside down. You're taking on more all the time, not the reverse. You're carrying through some of your old concepts and applying it to what I'm saying which isn't true; you take on more and more all the time. You're reaching for an infinity and you never stop until you've got an infinity.

That's right. Here's your infinity and then you reach back here for something that's not infinite.

Lester: Ah, no, wait a minute, the infinity includes all; there's nothing excluded. Your concept of infinity as being partial needs to be checked.

Well, relevant to Truth, Truth is what doesn't change and the world changes so it's illusionary, it's a momentary truth. Lester: Do you really think you're going to have less as you go on getting more and more of Truth?

No.

Lester: Well then, why do you call it a snow-job? Do you really think it is? Do you still think it is?

Well, I was saying if you came into this,—if the attraction for this type of thought was that you,—similar to the Charles Simmons approach, you make a million dollars,—I was saying that your value structure at the time the million dollars was the mountain, and that was what you wanted to do, but when you learned more and more of Truth, of who you really are and what this is all about, this becomes the secondary thing, not the primary thing at all, which it was before. This is the primary thing, your very Being, your knowledge of Self.

Lester: That's the Simmons' teachings that you're applying to our teachings and it doesn't fit. You got separations going on, this and that and one versus the other: and this is the main point I'm trying to get across: you don't lose anything; you don't lose your body; you don't lose your wealth, but you can take more of both; you can take more health and more wealth and be non-attached to both of them and be free with them.

Q: Yeah, I believe that.

Lester: And basically I've been asking, so why don't we go all the way and get totally free so we have no more troubles, no more miseries, where we can have anything for the mere thought of it. Some day we're going to do this, everyone of us; why not now?

Q: Is desire limitation? Lester: Yes.

Q: Then, with Harry's thought in mind, if you went all the way, why would you desire anything, such as the million dollars?

Q: Which is back to your early teaching to us,—I think we were all sold on it,—about this thing of desirelessness, limitlessness, freedom; there seems to be a little conflict.

Lester: Here's the conflict: you don't believe it. Now, if you had everything, what could you desire? Nothing, right? But do you have everything?

Q: Sure I do.

Lester: I want to answer Art's question. There's no contradiction. Right now we want things; we want freedom; we want total freedom; we want all happiness and no sorrow. We should have that. We should have all the wealth we want, even if it's a billion dollars. And we go on and on until we have everything we want. I'm not against getting the things we want; I'm for it. When you have everything you want, you're there!

Q: If you had the realization, why would you desire the million? Lester: Get it, and then look see. If you had the realization, why would you have it? See, this is hypothetical—

Q: No, I said why would you desire the million, because a desire is a limitation.

Lester: Do you have everything? Q: No.

Lester: Therefore, you cannot get the answer to it. So I'm saying get everything first, and then you'll see the answer. See, you're looking at up there from down here; you're wanting things here; you're saying, "Well, if I get everything then I won't want anything." I say you'll never know until you go there. But I'm trying to coax you to take everything. Fulfill every desire. That's the way to get to the desireless state.

Q: It used to be we went from the top down, now we're going from the bottom up, aren't we?

Lester: Yes. I'm trying to get the group to move to the place where they just think and get whatever they want.

Q: In other words, you don't want to assume knowledge, you want Knowledge?

Lester: This is knowledge; this is know-how, is it not, to think and get what you want. That's knowledge. That's the real knowledge.

Q: It's still assumed knowledge until it's demonstrated. Lester: Yes, but when you do it, you really know how.

Q: This is what you're saying, isn't it?

Lester: Yes. Are we practicing that, even in business today? Are we thinking and having things happen?

Q: Don't have any trouble with parking places any more. (Laughter.) Lester: No trouble in what?

Q: Parking places.

Lester: Well! That's great! You know why? You can apply that to anything! Just dare! Raise your sights from parking places to bigger and bigger and bigger. It's the exact same principle, Harry, that works for parking places or places to park gold, your gold. If you can apply that same feeling, that same principle, to other things, you'll have them also. And what I'm suggesting is that you do this now. Think and have things happen the way you think yourself into a parking place. Think yourself into everything you want.

Q: I think we're all doing this. Working in that direction. It's the point where you've got to be pretty careful what you think. I'm very happy and very glad that we were exposed to Jewell who taught us, or a least I'm speaking for myself now—how to build a house. Lester: Ken isn't here now; you can say "we."

Q: Our building, our house, they're just our words unless we're conscious of what we're building, what we're saying. Lester: Are you troubled with too many things? Now? Already?

Q: I've got a few in my garage I want to get rid of. (Laughter.)

Lester: You're troubled with too much money?

Q: It's not a problem to me.

Lester: Are you troubled with too much of it?

Q: I'm not in that state. The feeling I have now about money is: so what? I have all I need. Lester: In other words, you're content.

Q: So to speak, perhaps.

Lester: And I'm trying to get you beyond that contented state. I'm trying to get you to go further so that you just think and things happen, immediately. What you don't see is that now you think that

you must think now and later on the thing happens. And I want to get you where you think now and it happens now.

Q: Isn't that hallucination?

Lester: Oh no!

Q: How else would you get it? One method of getting is by being, seeing and feeling in the state that you want to be and this thing follows. My biggest problem is getting other people in this.

Lester: Speak for yourself, Bob, get it for yourself. After you've got it for yourself, then you can help others; you can show them how they can get it for themselves.

Q: I still want to influence other people's lives. It's still the same old question I asked you when I first met you, I still haven't got satisfied within myself.

Lester: The satisfaction for all your questions will come only when you discover the full answers. I have never answered any question for you, Bob. I have tried to help you to get the answers for you.

But I really believe that you're not convinced that you can have anything for the mere thought of it. You don't even believe it, leave alone being convinced. If you were convinced it would be so for you. So, maybe it just boils down to the fact that we don't want anymore; we're satisfied. Are we?

Q: What bothered me a great deal when you used to talk, occasionally you'd bring this up, you'd say you can suffer and yet be beyond it. This to me doesn't make sense; how can you suffer when you can't suffer? Your true Being can't suffer, yet you'd say, "Well, I can be hurting and yet I can think otherwise," this doesn't make sense at all. You can't hurt and know what you truly are. You can't be limited and know what you really are.

Lester: The body can hurt—

Q: I don't believe it!

Lester: And I, if I am not the body, will not hurt.

Q: Then your body doesn't hurt! Because there's nothing there.

Lester: O.K., you're right. Now, to really understand these things, as everything else, you must experience them. You see, I give out different levels of Beingness in trying to get you to move up. There are different concepts of the body. The concept—"I am the body" means I have to suffer every limitation this body has. If I take on the concept—"I can control this body," then I can make it be the way I want it to be. I can make it healthy and I don't feel it. I can move up further and say, "I am not the body," and even though the body hurts, I, being not the body, it doesn't bother me. And then the body is out there and I am here, and the body out there I know has pain in it, but it doesn't bother me. And then I can move up from there, too, see? These are all different levels. When I see that I am not the body, totally, the body can never ever limit me in any way. So, it's a matter of what level you're looking at it from. So I started from the bottom: I am the body; if it hurts, I'm in trouble; I'm in agony and I yell. I move up; it gets better and better. Go all the way to the top, you're not the body, you're just Beingness being all Beingness.

Q: And since I'm the limitation, the body being a limitation, if I refuse limitation then there's no body to be messed with? Frankly, sometimes I'm afraid of going insane. (Laughter.)

Lester: You couldn't even if you tried. You know too much. Insanity comes from deep, deep apathy. No one here is in apathy: no one is near apathy. So, fortunately, we can't go insane, so that's nothing to worry about.

If you want to go out of your mind, that's possible. You can go beyond your mind; you don't have to think if you don't want to. You can move into the realm of knowingness and then you operate on the spur of the moment, like a hunch, a hunch or an intuitive feeling, or it just comes to you; you know without thinking. If you're doing that, you're operating beyond mind. You're operating in the realm of knowingness, where you don't have to think. But that's not insanity. That's the other end of the scale.

Any one else have any questions on Why don't we go all the way? Why don't we just think and have things happen?

Q: You never have explained what you really mean by going all the way.

Lester: I did, right at the beginning. Go to the unlimited state; be totally free; have no more compulsions; have no more subconscious thoughts operating; every thought you have is a choice of the moment.

Q: In other words what you're saying you want us to work out in our own system, in our own way, the thoughts that we have harbored within us, and this to you is our growth.

Lester: Let go of all the subconscious thoughts.

Q: Well then, where's this money complex coming into this thing?

Lester: I'm just baiting you; that's where it comes in. We all want money, so I'm putting it up as an incentive, to make you go further and get a million dollars. You can always drop it if you don't want it.

Q: To each his own. Maybe that isn't my type of demonstration.

Lester: O.K., but get to the place where you can demonstrate anything you want immediately, is what I'm suggesting. And I'm asking Why don't you want to live this nice, beautiful, easy way?

Q: I do.

Lester: I say you don't, Harry.

Q: A few pains, here and there.

Lester: Oh. A few here and a few there. You don't have everything you want, Harry. If you want to see me later, I can tell you a lot of things that you want that you don't have.

Q: Got that mouse in your pocket again? (Laughter.)

Lester: Well, are there any other things that you would like to ask? Is there anything that I can help you with on anything?

Q: Can we help each other? I mean, like Art and I.
Lester: Yes.

Q: Or, if we see that the other one needs help is it just us that needs it?
Lester: You can help the other one to help himself. If you do things for the other one, you cripple the other one. But we can help others to help themselves.

Q: Mainly by our change of attitude?

Lester: That's part of it; just changing your attitude toward the other one helps the other one. The more we see the perfection of the other one, the more we're supporting the other one toward that perfection. You change your attitude and the other one will change; watch it.

Q: To change my attitude, do you mean my basic understanding that he's part of my consciousness and there's nothing but perfect consciousness and not think of him as an individual limited?
Lester: Yes. That's an excellent way to do it. It works, doesn't it?

Q: It works perfectly, yes. It works instantly.

Lester: People will actually fit our consciousness of them.

Q: Then, if Lillian tells me she wants a bigger house, I've got to clear my own consciousness to let her fulfill my desires. Because it's only in my thoughts that I have her considered, isn't that right? I don't have to consider Lillian; it's only me that I have to consider, my own happiness, then she is happy. That is, my own happiness would be to go to the ultimate happiness—
Lester: But you gotta separation: Lil and me.

Q: I always had this problem, you know, since I've known you.

Lester: You didn't have it at times; you would say, "Who is Lillian but my consciousness?"

Q: Yes. I say that. I just said it a few minutes ago: I've only got to deal with my own consciousness.
Lester: O.K. That includes Lillian, right?

Q: Yes, that's right.

Q: That includes a bigger house, too. (Laughter.)

Q: I'll have to get rid of a limitation within my own consciousness. That's all I'm dealing with anyway: I'm not dealing with Lillian or houses or land, I'm dealing with my own consciousness. The blocks are within myself or the unlimitedness is within myself. And, as you said: If I'm an infinite Being now, I can do it now! I won't have to wait until I get home.
Lester: Right.

Q: We're going to the moving quick!

Q: By the time you get home, Lil, you're going to be happy with your house, as is.

Lester: If you accepted it, that same house could be twice the size, when you went home. It would be so natural you wouldn't even notice it. You'd just move into a home twice the size that you left.

Q: Yeah?

Lester: I once took an entire island for myself, Bob. I took an entire island off the China coast. I'm going back now. I owned an entire island all myself. And grew the most delicious fruit trees. Exported the idea to the Mainland. This was in a past life. I was trying to discover why I've always liked fruit so much. When I was a child I always preferred fruit to any other food, and I still do. And it threw me back into a life off the China coast. I had a whole island and I spent most of my time in developing bigger and better fruit trees and then exported the trees to the Mainland.

But I had an entire island. I was king of my domain. You can have as big a home as you want. Take all you want, but take the best, is what I'm saying. Take all you want and take the best.

Well, if we don't have any more questions, I'll call the Session off. Any more questions?

Q: You want to say anything about healing? Maybe that's one of the things you thought of in regard to me.

Lester: Well, that's part of what I've been saying: just for the mere thought we can have anything we want, whether it's health or wealth. And we should have it instantaneously. Anything in the way of health or wealth.

Q: Teddi demonstrated that, didn't she?

Lester: With her father. Yes.—What happened? Her father had a stroke last week and was getting totally paralyzed and when she got to the hospital, he was mostly paralyzed and he looked as though he was finished. She went in and put a question to him, "Do you want to leave, Daddy?" And it shook him up and he looked at her. And she began to cry and he grabbed her,—he had one hand that wasn't para lyzed yet,—and he grabbed her by the hand and he started to cry. And then she called in all the power that she is and she said the whole room, everyone in the room, there were others in the room, everyone got quite: everyone got peaceful. It was like everyone was meditating and all of a sudden he started to get better and better. And he undid most of his paralysis. He didn't leave the hospital because they wanted to keep him there for checking. But she used it for her father. But she got him to go with her by her turning on the power. He responded to it.

Q: He's all right now?

Lester: I was so totally accepting of the fact that he is perfect that when he came to life and sat up and spoke to me I wasn't even aware of the fact that it had happened. This is how much accepting of it you are,—until the Doctor came back into the room, looked at him and then yelled for the oxygen tank and plopped it over his head, which scared him again. But he didn't leave; he stayed. When we turn on the power full, it's there.

Q: Is there a meeting here tonight? (Ken and Vivian came in.)

Lester: Ken Nign has just entered the room, at the tail end. Where you coming from?

Q: From selling the airplane. This group seems too peaceful. Did you just chew them out or something?
Lester: I think so. Not "out" but "up," and upward

Q: You gave them something to think about, I can tell, everyone of them.

Lester: How much can you count? (Talk and laughter.)

Q: Well, she's just taking it from the top, I guess.

Q: No, it was from the tape. (Laughter.)

Lester: There's really no order to them. She's just taking one she happened to hit.

Q: Seemed like a pretty good group there. I almost felt, "Gee, that's a better group than we got out here."

Lester: It's probably different, isn't it? You'll recognize yours when it comes, because we're leaving in first names, now. They'll only be once a month now, because people were complaining that there's too much in there; please don't send so much. So they'll probably average around 12 pages each, once a month. And that way you can better absorb it, I guess.

But you can see the advantage of having it in black and white rather than listening to a tape, because when you hit something that strikes you, you stay with it; whereas if I'm talking I can go on to something else when you're trying to or beginning to, get a realization of some thing. By my talking about something else I pull you off it. And the next time you go to it, it is more difficult to get the realization. Momentum is very important in getting realizations. You stay with something, it becomes clearer and clearer as you stay with it. But if it starts getting clear and you move off, when you come back on to it, it's more difficult to get into it again.

And so, I am anti talks, tapes, because of that. I can see it doing harm in that it doesn't let you stay with something, because the conversa tion goes on and on and you move off one thing onto another—to

another without getting a realization of any one of them. I believe you got much more good out of reading the book The Ultimate Truth than you did out of listening to me. Listening to me you get an impetuous to move, but when you get with the book, you get the real ization. You can stay with those statements and make them,—make that knowledge, your knowledge, and that's when it's usable to you, when you make it your knowledge. (Of course you can listen to the tapes over and over again-that will help you, too.) So, I'm not in favor of talking because of that; it doesn't allow you to stay with anything. And if you are getting a realization, the conversa tion that goes on after that pulls you away from it and makes it more difficult to approach it next time. So, I think—I know the best thing is to use The Ultimate Truth, use the Sessions. Are you getting things out of the Sessions, Harry? Realizations that you didn't have before?

Q: I'm getting things for my brother all the time.

Q: I was surprised when I read that the Truth that came in those

Sessions, you were teaching that clear back in 1961 or whatever the date was. I thought,—it sounded like you in the current era. (Laughter.) It was the same Truth then as it is now.
Lester: And ever will be. It should never change. What I say should never be different, should it?

Q: Well, I was hoping it would get easier.

Lester: It's very easy, actually, unless you make it difficult.

Q: I think I mentioned before my brother is a Jehovah's Witness and you know, they're real keen on this Jehovah-God. I asked him one time, "Why do we have to name our God? Would He be mad if we said, 'Bill?'" (Laughter.) But then you brought out the fact that the root of this, and I haven't seen any verification of this and I'd like to know a little more about it if you can tell me that Jehovah-God means the "I Am" God.

Lester: Jehovah means I am.

Q: Where do you get this from? I'd like to know cause I would like to pass it on.

Lester: It was told to me by a student of the Bible who knew Hebrew.

Q: They're very keen on Hebrew. They're rewriting the whole Bible. Now why haven't they come up with this? Or maybe they've come up with this and suppressed it, I don't know.
Lester: You don't have the right one in me when you're talking about the Bible. I'm not a student of the Bible. Does anyone else know that, or has anyone heard that Jehovah means I am.

Q: Yes. I have.
Lester: Harry?

Q: Any way, that's our common ground. Any time he says "Jehovah" I say "Ahem!" (Laughter.)

Lester: There is one sentence in the entire Bible that is capitalized. Do you know what it is?

Q: I AM.

Lester: "I AM THAT I AM." There's one other sentence that gives the way: "Be still and know that I am God." Those two sentences are the essence—

Q: "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," which is another truth, too.

Lester: Yes, or better: "I and the Father are one." "Know ye not that

ye are gods?"

Q: How do you see all these discourses of this type? Of course, I guess you base it on what your motive is for discoursing.

Lester: Everyone is seeking the exact, same, thing in his every act. Every being is seeking exactly that which we are seeking in every thing he is doing. Can you see it now?

Q: Oh yes.

Lester: I think we all ought to see that: that we're all seeking the exact same thing. The world calls it the ultimate happiness. We call it the "I that I am." But we say that the "I that I am" is the ultimate happiness. Discover your Self and you discover the greatest happi ness and you get the greatest contentment. It's a satiation that is all satisfying.

Lester: We still hold onto the beliefs that we have extreme limita tions. This is the problem. And we don't have enough incentive to let go of them. As I said, there's no reason why anyone here shouldn't have everything he or she wants for the mere thought of it, instanta- neously,—that some day you're going to do this. Why not now? And the reason is, I say, that you don't believe it. You hold onto the oppo site: that you can't do it, and that's the only reason why you can't.

Q: Well maybe it's because things are going easier, things don't matter and then we don't go ahead.

Lester: Yes, the incentive, the drive, is far less now than it was when we were unhappy.

Q: If it's much less then we should be more peaceful.
Lester: Well, aren't we?

Q: Yes.

Lester: But what I'm trying to do is to get you to the total peace. Until you get there, there will always be annoyances in life. Even though it's much better now, it should be best.

Q: Got one more step to go.

Lester: What do we need to go it? This is the big thing: What do we need to go it?

Q: We need to believe that we can.

Lester: I think we need to recognize that we don't believe that we can, first. We're still holding onto tremendous non-acceptance of the idea that we are unlimited. When you see first that you really don't accept it,—if you confront that, you can let go of that better.

Q: If we rushed into that as fast as we rush into things that cause us problems, we wouldn't have any.

Q: This evening when you spoke of Teddi asking you to be with her when we went to see her father,—what kind of thoughts do you think when you think of her father?

Lester: I know he is infinite, all-perfect, and to the degree I know that, to that degree I support him in his perception of his perfection.

Q: In theory we are supposed to do this with everybody we see, isn't this true?
Lester: Yes.

Q: Cause we're only talking about ourself. Lester: Yes.

Q: But if it is a theory, a theory is something that is abstract and is out here by itself. It doesn't necessarily mean a belief.
Lester: A theory is not a law; it is supposition. After it is proven, a theory becomes a law.

Q: This gives us our freedom then, to know that whoever we meet is the same person.

Lester: There's nothing out there but our consciousness.

Q: Why did you use the word "our"?
Lester: Your, is that better?

Q: That makes me feel good. (Laughter.)

Lester: Because we are one, that's why I used the word "our." There's only once consciousness and we are it.

0: What I was trying to get away from is the idea of having to overcome another consciousness. I don't have anything to overcome.

Lester: You're right; you don't overcome. You see what is.

Q: That's right. There's nothing else.

Lester: Right. There's nothing else but what is. And what is is whole, perfect, grand, and glorious, and delightful, and exotic and ecstatic and everything good you can think of.

Q: He's getting to be quite a sale man, isn't he? All those adjectives?
Lester: I don't know. Am I? You see, if you people would do these things: just think and have things happen, then I could do it to. We could all do it together. If you could accept it—

Q: Don't wait for us, Lester.

Lester: I didn't, but I came back to you, and this time I want you to come with me.

Q: Talking about demonstration, isn't it very helpful many times for the Guru to point out things or perhaps, doing some act. Lester: You want an act of magic? If I performed acts of magic it would help you none. I don't think any,—Art, have you seen any acts of magic?

Q: That isn't what I said; those are your words.

Lester: Demonstration, all right? I'll come down to the word demonstration. I think Art has seen some demonstration. Ken, you've seen a demonstration. I don't know whether you still accept it. He saw it, and then he said it wasn't, see, this is what usually happens. How do you feel about it now?

Q: I've seen a year and a half of demonstration, friends.

Lester: But remember the machine, the duplicator that wasn't working? At Caltex.

Q: Oh, yeah.

Lester: Did it happen, or didn't it happen? Now as far as you're concerned?

Q: I'm sure that it did. It couldn't, but it did. And not only I was

convinced, but the lady and the repairman that they called out to fix the cotton-picking machine was convinced. Lester: I went to Caltex with Ken and I wanted to get copies from one of the books in their library. The duplicating machine was out of order; there was a piece of tape over the money part so you couldn't put money in; there was a big sign: OUT OF ORDER, and when I asked the girl for change, for dimes, to put into it to try it, she didn't want to give it to me; she resisted. She said "It's been out of order and they tried to fix it." And I said,—I had to coax her into giving me change,—and I said, "It's only a dime," that's all they charge per copy. I went over to the machine and I took the tape off the money thing and I got, I think it was two or three copies of pages I wanted and I said to Ken, "It would be interesting to see what happens now I don't need it any more." And I put another dime in and it came out black and just then the head of the library came over and said, "Oh, it's been that way for some time. We've been waiting for the repair man to come in and fix it." So it went right back to the way it was. But when I wanted the copies made, the machine worked.

Q: That's magic.

Lester: That's magic. And yet it's just a mere effortless thought that does these things. But it didn't help Ken any, did it?

Q: I said, "Coincidence."

Lester: Yes, coincidence. Then I gave him a demonstration of harmony on a trip we took. I just said, "It is," I let go and I let it be. We got the nicest plane out, what was it,—United Air Lines, much nicer than the commuter's plane. We went up to San Francisco. I went into a telephone booth and in no time flat I had appointments with everyone at different times of the day; we didn't rush; we made every appointment just on time. When we wanted to eat, we had time to eat.

Q: And the restaurant was just right at the corner.

Lester: Yes, just where we wanted it. And one of the prime purposes was to see their methods of doing it and I wanted the best one for last and at the last visit I forgot to ask if we could see their facilities and we got up to leave and the man said to us, "Would you like to see our facilities?" Remember that?

Q: Yes.

Lester: And we accomplished an awful lot of work and we were finished about three or three-thirty in the afternoon. Everything fell perfectly into line. We were back in Los Angeles, about five-thirty or so, and we were in a restaurant downtown in L.A. But it was a harmonious day; everything fell right into line perfectly. And this is the way life should be all the time. But it was a demonstration. I knew it was a demonstration. It just came to me to let it be, for Ken's sake at the machine and...

Q: We hit transformer winding divisions of, like Western Electric, well, there's one key man probably in the whole plant that we could talk with and his schedule was so that it fit just exactly in our schedule and he was the only one in probably the whole plant who could answer all the questions and told us what we needed to know. And this went not only for Westinghouse but three or four other different plants and we got the key man, the only man who was really qualified to answer all the questions we had and yet give us a quotation on it and even to extent of getting a new car on loan then getting it back and stepping out of the car and walking up to the ticket booth and picking up the ticket.

Lester: Everything was just perfect, right?

Q: Yeah.

Lester: All right now, the point I'm trying to make is I don't think it helped Ken in his realizations one bit.

Q: That's just the way it ought to be, see? There's no question about the right or wrong of it; it was just beautiful.

Lester: But that's the way life should be all the time, every day. Everything should fall perfectly into line.

Q: Yeah, but when you get there you reach your plateau and you don't want to go on. Is that the place we're going to be?

Lester: You don't want to go on?

Q: When you get to the top, you're up there.

Q: When you're having all these things fall into line...
Lester: It's delightful! It's perfect! It's marvelous!

Q: You've arrived, then.

Lester: Oh yeah. When you're consciously letting everything be perfect, you're there.

Lester: I knew some men who used to live on Central Park South in New York; they were Christian Scientists, who just sat back, let men come to them, let men make millions of dollars for them and they hardly ever worked; they only put in a few hours a week talking to these men.

Q: What kind of work did they do?
Lester: No work.

Q: Enjoyable type.

Lester: But that doesn't make millions.

Q: That's what I meant; you're giving up something greater for lesser.
Lester: Giving up something greater for lesser? That's the second time you've said that, Harry.

Q: You've said that.

Lester: No! Give up lesser for the greater. You've got it backwards. You don't give up the greater for the lesser.

Q: Sure you do.

Q: Only if you're stupid.

Q: Weren't these men bored to death.
Lester: No. No.

Q: Not when they had an apartment next to his. (Much laughter.)

Lester: That was 40 West 59th Street was the address.

Q: Write that address down, Bob, in case you get to go to New York. (More laughter.)

Q: All the accomplishment goes on, all the work goes on, but it's our change in attitude, isn't it? We can still help people; we can still help orphanages, or we can still help the person next door, or...

Q: Or yourself.

Lester: Sure. As I said, I'm trying in the real estate business; I'm in a big research and development project; and it might be, could be, the greatest project in the world. I'm not up on cloud nine, am I? And as they say, I'm not scratching for money.

Q: We'll take up an offering whenever you reach that state.

Q: There's one thing about higher Truth; it's free. It's worth more than any other truth you can get but the Masters can't charge for it.

Lester: But, they can give you a charge.

与爱合一

等待翻译

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