GROWTH AND RECEPTIVITY - Keys to the Ultimate Freedom

星空

Happiness per se is not necessarily' an indication, of one's state of realization. Aborigines and natives are as happy as we are, and sometimes more so. We who are supposed to be at the upper end of civilization, as a whole, might not be as happy as they are. Their enjoying is mostly through the physical senses. Our enjoying is more through the mind and hence we are capable of more joy. However, because this allows more joy it, therefore allows more misery.

Many of us think that the things we do that give us a state of happiness are giving us spiritual growth and therefore are the right things to do. This could be true and it could also be false. The happiness we get from a new realization is definitely growth. We are delighted in the new revelation because we have become a little freer and therefore permanently a little happier. However, the happiness we get from avoiding or escaping unpleasantries is not growth. Rather than furthering our growth, it keeps us bound to the unpleasantries we are avoiding. Until they are faced, looked at, and dropped, they will remain in our subconscious and emerge from time to time until we finally drop them. Therefore, in order to be undone, they must be faced and not avoided. Then no escape is necessary.

However, it's really true that the greater our growth the happier we are. We gain an accumulative total happiness that doesn't vary from day to day. It is freedom from the constant nagging of our compulsive subconscious thoughts; it's a sense of well beingness; it's a sense of security; it's a sense of peace. Even when things are outwardly being expressed against us, when the world seems to turn against us, we still feel a greater peace with in than we did before.

It's that inner state that should be used as a measure of growth. A miserable person can, for the time being, for the moment, be laughing happily. But you cannot use that as an indication of that person's constant state of freedom. How can we tell a person's state of freedom or happiness? By checking when everything is against one. Use this as a method for checking yourself. When things go wrong in the world then check your state of happiness.

Q: Aren't we inclined to be almost irritated when we see someone else who is happier than we? Maybe it's a little jealousy?

Lester: Yes, it is called jealousy and when we see one who's happier than we are. we don't like it. Sometimes we attack that one indirectly. even if that one is our mate.

This goes on between couples as they grow. When one moves ahead, the other unconsciously resents it, does things to try to undermine the first one. It's motivated subconsciously but sometimes it does become conscious and even when its conscious, we sometimes don't understand why we're doing it. The reason is that whenever two people get together, the higher one automatically tries to lift the lower one up a bit and the lower one tries to bring the higher one down a bit; they move toward each other. This is an unconscious behavior that goes on whenever two beings meet.

To come back to what I was saying before, the stability of one's peace is the best measuring stick for one's growth; peace under circumstances not ideal. peace under circumstances in which the individual is being tried. If you maintain your peace while everything out there is going against you, then you really have it. This peace that I'm talking about is the real happiness and can be measured by its imperturbability. If a person cannot be disturbed in his peace, he's got it! He has let go of much ego, because only the ego can be disturbed; the Self of us can never be disturbed. And when we abide as our Self, we allow the whole world to be as it is.

If you want to know your state, check yourself under adverse conditions. Measure your growth by the bottoms, not by the tops. You'll find that your growth goes in cycles, up and down, but that the bottoms keep rising. You should get to the place where the bottom is happiness, and that makes the top even higher, a state of serenity, tranquility, bliss, - all with a deep imperturbable peace.

Q: Where is this bliss, joy, and peace felt?

Lester: People feel it in different places. Actually it's at the very center of your beingness, wherever that center be. This is the first time this series that the group has reached the state of spill-over joy. During each series of the past we had gone from a low point at the start, to a very high point at the end.

Q: Do you know why?

Lester: Yes. This is something I'd like to explain to you. Why go down? We're supposed to be intelligent people; we know the way; why go down? Somewhat stupid when you know how to be high and happy the way you feel now; in fact, it's stupid not to be the way you are now all the time.

The reason why you go down after I leave you is that you have not undone enough of your unconscious thoughts. I direct you toward the infinite being that you are. As you see it, you undo the contrary thoughts and feel freer and higher. After I leave, The remaining unconscious thoughts of limitation re-emerge, take over, run you, and you feel lower.

What is necessary is that you continue to eliminate the unconscious thoughts until there are no more, until you are totally free. Only then will you be satisfied.

I'm pointing up now, what you need to do to further your growth. The intellect is excellent for growing and is necessary at the beginning; it sets you in the right direction; it takes you forward. Then you reach a place where it can take you no further. So, what do you do? Do you stop at the top of the intellect, or do you go on? I'm saying let's go on! This doesn't mean let go of your intellect, forget it, or suppress it. No, I'm saying go beyond it. I'm suggesting another giant step forward.

I'm trying to get you to see what this next step is, by first telling you what it is not. It is not intellectual. Intellectually there's nothing more I can give you. What is it? It is becoming a ware of your Self by actually experiencing your Self. I could lead you much higher than we've ever gone before if you would draw it out of me. This would help you to experience a higher state than you have ever known before. Then the experience would be your knowledge, and after you experience it, it would leave you with a stronger desire for freedom, a stronger incentive to move faster toward the Goal.

Now, I don't want to talk in riddles or intangibles. What is it that will draw out more than the intellect has drawn out so far? It's your state of receptivity. It determines the amount of the Power that flows into you. Stated another way, it is letting go of your reservations. As you become more receptive, more of the power flows through me into you and lifts you to the place where you experience your Self. I, Lester:, do not do it; it flows through me to the degree that you receive it. It can help lift you to a higher state, and by experiencing that state, you definitely know it. You better know that "Thou art That."

Q: How do we do that?

Lester: Greater acceptance of the direction coming through me, and of the fact that happiness really lies within you and not without. The direction up to now has been to quiet the mind by looking at and letting go of subconscious thoughts. As you let go of these thoughts, you become freer, your mind is quieter, your real Self is less obscure and you Ire more able to be the real Self that you are. Also, the more you have this experience, the more you are capable of being drawn into your Self by the Power flowing through me into you. This could go on to the Ultimate.

You have quieted the mind to quite some degree; there is much more to be done. That I s why I asked last time, "Who can sit down and immediately quiet his mind and have no thoughts come in?" If you can do that, you're a Master. To the degree you can quiet your mind, to that degree you are a Master. But everyone is quieter now than they were. Our next step is to get even quieter. And I say we Ire not going to get it through intellectualism any more, through bandying words up and back; we're going to get it through a method that directly helps you experience the quietude of your Self.

Q: When you quiet your mind and no thought comes in, then what happens? Is it a blank?

Lester: No, it's not a blank; you have no mind to go blank! You're in the realm of All-Knowingness; you don't have to think any more; you just know everything and everything falls into line perfectly, -every moment. You operate on a feelingness, called intuition. Everyone in this room has experienced it at times. Mind is nothing but the total bundle of your thoughts; a small part conscious; the major part subconscious and held out of view. Mind is not complicated when you see what it is; it's simply the totality of thoughts.

Q: Isn't it true that subconscious thoughts are thoughts that are not being thought of at the moment?

Lester: No, they're being thought of at the moment, but they're not consciously being thought of; they're subconsciously being thought of at the moment.

Q: So that's the difference between conscious and subconscious thoughts?

Lester: Yes, subconscious thoughts are active right now, but we're not looking at them. Are you consciously pumping your heart? Breathing? Running that chemical digestive factory you have? Are you doing these things consciously? Well, then you're doing them subconsciously.

Q: I didnt have that in mind exactly.

Lester: I know, but I want to show you how all the thoughts on the body, even though you're not conscious of them, are active right now and there are many, many thoughts connected with running a body; there's a lot of action going on there. They're active right now ~ even though we're not conscious of them.

Q: That's automated; that's what I call automation.

Lester: Right. But who is now running the automated action? We are. It was originally useful in that we didnt have to consciously operate the body. Then we lost sight of the fact that we threw this onto automatic; and therefore it is now running us. It's difficult to change it because we have made it unconscious. As we become aware, we see this and then we change it. We become free of it; we reestablish our control over the body.

Our object is to let go of unconscious thoughts, these habitual things of the past that keep us automatically bound. Every habitual thought is a bondage that takes away a certain amount of freedom, happiness. We must let go of all these old habit-thoughts until we are totally free of them. Then we are liberated, fully realized Masters.

Q: That's why some words will trigger us. If we hear a certain word, we fly into a madness, or if we hear something else, we feel good.

Lester: Right! So, our object is to let go of all these subconscious thoughts. We have done a beautiful job so far, through using the thoughts, the mind. Now I'm suggesting that we move on; that we get the mind yet quieter by doing that which does it directly, that is, by experiencing your Self.

It can also be done in meditation. I ought to re-define the word "meditation." When I say meditation, I mean holding one thought to the exclusion of other thoughts and that one thought should be a question. As other thoughts drop away the mind gets quiet and concentrated. When the mind is concentrated, you will experience your Self and It will answer any and every question. It will answer the questions that we need to have answered to show us the way out of the bondages.

Now, in meditation, the moment you sit down to quiet the mind, it seems to get noiser, which is natural; the thoughts come up for us to drop, to let go of. And each time we let go of one, that's one less that we have to let go of. As time goes on and we keep dropping these thoughts, we have less and less to drop. Someday the mind becomes quiet enough so that we fully see this infinite Being that we are; and then in one lump sum. we drop all that is left. And when there are no more thoughts, we are free and there is left only our infinite Self.

Q: My mind keeps getting noisier and noisier.

Lester: No, it is just that you are looking more at your subconscious thoughts . You don't get more thoughts; you just become more aware of them. The unconscious thoughts that control you will come up. Every time you meditate this happens, and through practice, some day you will be able to hold one question, one thought, without other thoughts coming in. When you get that far, you are moving rapidly. When you have dropped all subconscious thoughts, then you know what God is, that your beingness is He.

Q: I'd like to identify the feeling in meditation. Is it similar to a feeling you get while listening to a fine piece of music?

Lester: Yes, it is one of the nicest and quietest feelings you can have.

Q: Then the process of meditation, as I'm seeing it now, has not to do at all with thoughts, but with identifying with this feeling and allowing it to expand.

Lester: Yes! However, this nice feeling is accomplished by quieting the thoughts. Someday the meditative feeling will be far more enjoyable than the music was.

Q: I feel that it would be such a tremendous welling up that you would almost explode!

Lester: Well, you won't explode because you take it on as much as you can accept it. There is such a tremendousness in us, that if it came all at one time, we just couldn't take it.

Q: Is meditation related to receptivity?

Lester: Definitely yes! The better we are able to meditate, the more receptive we are and the more receptive we are, the better we can meditate. I'm stressing meditation with the hope of helping us to become more receptive. We should let go of the queer ideas we have about meditation. You don't have to be a Hindu or a yogi; you can be one hundred per cent American and be a very good meditator.

Meditation is simply holding one question or thought to the exclusion of all other thoughts and when that question or thought is on your beingness, that's right meditation. Before we attain good meditation, we have to work to let go of extraneous thoughts that come in while were trying to hold one question. Then that one question will be answered, whatever that question is. "What am I?" is the final question. When we get the full answer to that, we are in the ultimate state.

Q: Don't you automatically try to answer that when you ask yourself the question?

Lester: Yes you do, but your mind cannot. The mind can never give you the answer to the question "What am I?" Why? Because Realization is elimination of the mind and the mind posing the question is not going to eliminate itself. It's almost like saying, "eliminate yourself." The mind does not want to eliminate itself, therefore, when the mind poses the question "What am I?" the mind will never in all eternity, give the answer.

This is another reason why the intellect can take us only so far. The mind cannot give us the answer because it, itself, is in limitation, in finiteness. The answer is in infinity. The mind can pose the question "What am I?" and when the answer comes, it's from beyond the mind.. It's only by quieting the mind that you will be able to see who and what you are. The mind is the blinding cover over this infinite Self that you are.

Q: But underneath it all, I'm trying to find something to hang onto here, is it this glow, this feeling?

Lester: Yes. If you will examine the glow you'll discover it to be a feeling of I-ness, of beingness.

Q: Assuming this feeling that we all get occasionally is our true being shining through, even though it's a very small part we're experiencing, this is the constant experience we should attain to, right?

Lester: Yes! Make it nothing but that and that is It. Then there's nothing but the experience of "I-I-I-I-I" all the time, and you are There.

Q: Up until now. I've only had an intellectual understanding of these things and this is the first concrete experience I've had.

Lester: Well, that's not really so. There was always a feeling of experiencing when you got a realization.

Q: Well, that's what I'm finding out; I've now identified with this glow, this feeling.

Lester: Yes, the glow is the experiencing and is higher than the intellect. It's simply experiencing.

Q: That's the way I want it because books make it sound awfully complicated. How does that fit in with the Self Realization Fellowship teachings?

Lester: SRF teachings will say the same thing from a different approach. Their approach is for the majority of seekers. Christianity is in the realm of love, devotion and surrender to God. So are the SRF teachings. Instead of working so hard to eliminate the ego, they say, "Just surrender to God." If you really surrender, it's only surrender of the ego. "Thy will, not my will" is simply surrender of the ego.

SRF directs you to quiet the mind, mainly through meditation, so that your infinite Self becomes obvious. Its main teaching is its methodology, called Kriya Yoga, an integral method that can be used by everyone.

If you understand the overall picture, you'll see that there's no disagreement. I'm trying to get you to quiet the mind, to let go of the mind. Their teaching will end up doing the very same thing. And it's a good balance to have our intellectual, wisdom way and their devotional, love and surrender aspect. However, you cant really have one without the other. So approaching it from both sides is beneficial. And we should use every aid possible. We need it; were in an earth period that is extremely low. We're having opposition going on all day as long as we associate with the world, and therefore any aid that is helpful should be used.

When it comes to aids, there is no greater aid than the actual, wonderfully exhilarating experience of being your Self. Be more receptive, - surrender your little self and allow the Power of your real Self to flow until It, the Power, is the only power flowing through you. Glory in that Power! Remain in that Power! Remain and abide as your infinite, glorious Self!

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This Session was recorded in Los Angeles. October 14. 1965.