HEALING - Keys to the Ultimate Freedom

星空

I see there are several doctors in our group. A doctor who is already trained in the field of healing becomes a better doctor when he seeks for deeper understanding of life and finds more of the basic causes behind the life in a body. Now, getting into the personal life of a doctor, I'd say, Gosh, you're in a sick business!" And youre seeing this sickness is unhealthy for you unless you, in your mind, reverse all this sickness that you apparently see.

Q: Well, that's the one question I had for you tonight. I don't know how you knew that.

Lester: I wasn't conscious of it. When I let go and let God, the questions in the minds of the listeners usually get answered.

Q: I feel this very strongly and how do I reverse it?

Lester: You see, the mind is only creative and it creates the pictures we hold in mind. Having a picture of sickness we tend to create sickness unless, as we see it, we mentally reverse what we are seeing.

Q: Would you define what you mean by "reverse"? I had a patient today, for example. Id like to reverse the whole incident, or I'd like to see none of the imperfection, see only the perfection of God. But when I looked at the patient today, it was very difficult for me to see any perfection.

Lester: You're in a most difficult situation. It's easy for me because I have been doing it for 16 years. When people say, "Oh, this is bad, and this hurts, and the doctor said that" I hardly hear it. I become aware that they are telling me there is imperfection. I see that they are trying to convince me of an illusion. I look at them and I know the perfect Being that they really are and I immediately reverse the apparent imperfection by seeing their perfection. The Truth of our Beingness is absolute perfection. The more you study the truth of Perfection, the more you will realize and know it, the more you will see what they say is an apparency and the more able you will be to take care of it. But it's going to take a knowingness on your part of the Truth behind this world. That Truth is its beingness, its existence (which is the source of its apparency).

Q: Well, you say exactly what I read but I have not had the realization of it.

Lester: Because you are so much with the apparency as being real. It makes it extremely difficult to see the absolute Perfection that actually is, here and now. If you've read Goldsmith, I guess that what I'm saying is very familiar to you. However, you must discover the real You in order to discover the apparency of the world.

Q: Yes.

Lester: Let's take the snake and the rope idea, have you heard that? We see a rope on the road at dusk; we think it's a snake. The moment we think it's a snake, we're very involved in fear and want protection from this snake. There's quite an involvement so long as we think it's a snake. Now the reality is the rope; the illusion is the snake, and that is compared to the world. The world is the snake; the reality (the rope) is just behind it and

is the basis for it. So long as we keep looking at the illusion of the world we do not see the reality of it. It requires getting quiet enough with oneself to see the Reality, the basic Reality being "I Am That I Am. We are that infinite Beingness of the world. And what is required is quieting the mind enough so that this infinite Beingness that we are is self-obvious.

When you discover that you are a perfect Being, then you will know it. When you see your real Self, then you see that the Perfection that you are is omnipresent. And this Perfection is the rope, wrongly seen as the snake. So what is necessary is to stick to this path, meditate, dive within, dig within until you see the Reality of you. When you see the Reality of you, you'll see the Reality and perfection of the world. And although it now looks like many bodies and much separation, when you see the Truth, you'll see an absolute Oneness wherever you look. You'll see nothing but you wherever you look. You'll see that this whole world is in your mind. You'll see it's your universe. You created it just as you create a world and people in your night dream-world. So, to sum it up, you're in a very difficult situation because of your profession but that doesn't make it impossible. If your wish to discover the Truth is strong enough, you'll see it.

Q: When you see it and that so-called "ill" patient comes to you, you don't see that at all; you just see Perfection?

Lester: Yes. By your knowing he is perfect, you help him drop the image of illness that he holds in his mind. If people come to me and tell me of body ailments, I dont see the ailments; I don't hear the ailments. As they're telling it to me I'm mentally saying, "You are perfect." You can do this as well.

Q: And you're speaking of the perfection of the spirit.

Lester: I'm speaking of the perfection of the person I'm talking to. The sick body is an illusion. The person is real.

Q: You mean the twisted

Lester: The distorted body is an illusion. But until you see it, it doesn't seem that way. Take a mirage on a desert where we see water in the mirage. If we never check it, it always seems to be water to us. If we go over to the spot and discover it is sand, from that point on we know the water is a mirage. The next time we see the mirage, we still see the water, but with this great difference: we know the water to be an illusion. Until we discover the reality of the body and the world, we are looking at an illusion as real. Discover the real you, your Beingness, and only then can you know the reality of the body and world.

Q: In dealing with a patient, if I see the Perfection, that helps me. By seeing the Perfection, am I helping the patient?

Lester: To the degree that we know the Perfection of the other person, we support the other person in knowing his Perfection. To the degree that he accepts it, is the degree of his healing. When these faith healings or instantaneous healings happen, it's because the one who had the sickness within him sees the perfection, and there's an instantaneous healing.

I can't have a sick body without having a mental picture of sickness. It's impossible to hold anything in the body that's not in the mind. The body is composed of carbohydrates, minerals, etc. It is only matter. It has no intelligence. We are the intelligence; we image and hold the life of the body. It's impossible to be sick without holding that sick picture in our minds of course, unconsciously. If it were conscious, we would correct it immediately. Being unconscious, it's difficult, because we are not looking at it.

Have you seen spiritual healings? Have you seen so called "miracles"?

Q: Yes.

Lester: Well, then you know it is possible. It's done simply by the individual, who's running the body, mentally changing things, that's all. The instant we change the mind - picture, the body changes. But again, because the sick picture is unconscious, is the reason it's difficult.

Q: How can we become, first, aware of our unconsciousness and make it conscious, and secondly, how can we help the mind visualize much more perfectly that which we wish if we do not know Perfection ourselves?

Lester: To become aware of our subconscious we must engage ourselves in the practice of honest introspection. The more we turn our attention within, the more we become a ware of our subconscious thoughts. When we become aware of any subconscious thought, we are able to do what we want with it as it is now on the conscious plane. The more we practice this, the more proficient we become.

We get to know the Perfection by looking in the direction of where the Perfection is. The Perfection is in here where we are, where the "I" of us is. So, first, we have to direct our attention inwardly; we have to pose the question, "What am I?" until the answer comes. When the answer comes, you know, and you know you know. And to get the answer to "What am I?" it's necessary to still the thoughts. The thoughts are the noise blanketing the Truth. The thoughts are concepts of limitation and there are many of them constantly bombarding us.

Q: Yes, yes, when I've sat quietly I've had this experience. How can you make the mind quiet?

Lester: Intense and persistent desire to discover what you are. When your interest in knowing what you are becomes stronger than your interest in this world and body, then your thoughts of the world and body are quieted and you discover that you are not the mind I that the mind is an instrument you set up and is other than you. Then you are in control of your mind. Intense and persistent desire is the key.

Q: The reason I asked this is because I've come to a point in my life where I've made it real for me that nothing that happens in my life that is bad or good is outside myself. In other words, I create this If something is wrong. I originated it. I'm responsible for my life; I'm creating my life from moment to moment. Now I've come to this. I accept it. I take full responsibility, but I'm stuck. I've seen this, but now I want to go beyond this. I want to break the barrier you see what I mean?

Lester: Yes, you want to go further. Taking full responsibility is an excellent means of growing, because you will get to see your mastership; you will get to see that whatever is happening to you, you created.

Q: Oh! Yes! Yes! Definitely, I agree.

Lester: All right, you first become master over matter and body is part of matter, then you become master over mind - now this is the part you want.

Q: Right.

Lester: When we are master over mind, then we are a full Master. So you keep on until you gain that mastership. In the Eastern teachings they call this tapas, or discipline. Mastering the mind is consciously changing your likes and your dislikes; walking out into the cold and not minding it; walking into a high temperature and humidity and feeling comfortable; having pain in the body and not being bothered by it.

Q: That's conscious suffering?

Lester: No, you don't have to suffer when you can do this. When you know you're not the body and the body pains, you know the body is in pain but it just doesn't bother you. Just as when someone else's body hurts, you do not feel it because you do not identify with it. If you would identify with that other body, you would feel the pain of it.

Q: Yes, I understand that. I've come to a point where my body might be hurting me and I say, "My body is hurting," but in my mind, I feel good; this is what I mean, I feel good. I had tremendous disorder this past week; I misplaced a few things and I went through such a mess and I was observing myself constantly, but behind the whole thing there was something that was always - you know, O.K.

Lester: Always O.K. All right. There's a well-beingness behind the whole thing.

Q: Right, now how do I get to it and hold it?

Lester: By continuing to do it you develop it more and more until someday it remains permanently. You'll have complete mastery over the mind and then you're a Master. Are you your mind?

Q: Am I my mind? My answer to that is partly intellectual and partly feelings and I think that no. I am not my mind, but I am the life behind it.

Lester: Yes, that is the right attitude to take. The mind is a composite of thoughts. Who thinks the thoughts? You do, see. So you are other than the thoughts if you are thinking the thoughts. Continue what you're doing; continue working to master the mind. The more you do it, the more you will see that you are not the mind; the more you will see what you really are.

You've got a wonderful method. Take full responsibility, then work to master the mind. If you can have pain in the body and not mind it by saying, "I am not the body," and the pain gets to be dull. What you are actually doing is moving out of that body. You're moving your center of consciousness out of the body. Most of us put our center of consciousness right within the body and we are imprisoned by it. But it is possible to operate the body from outside the body and this is what we should do.

We should see the body as other than we. Then, as a puppet, move it around. And this practice will get you to the full knowingness that the body and mind are external to you and are at your command. And when you see this strongly enough you'll throw the mind out; you'll work in the realm of omniscience, which is just behind the mind. You won't need to think any more. Everything will be known and perfectly in tune. Every action will be a right action because you'll be initiating it from omniscience, which is perfect. The mind is imperfect because it takes tiny bits of omniscience and lets them filter through it.

Am I answering your question?

Q: Yes, you are. The thing, I guess, that has stopped me is my desire to experience supposedly some of the psychic phenomena that come with development. In my studying and reading I became interested in astral projection, or the ability to see the aura, because I was a doubting Thomas. But, something in me has grown that needs no proof but still I would love to experience just for the sake of experiencing one of these things.

Lester: Getting interested in these psychic powers is a wrong approach. Being interested in the powers one might develop the powers. Then using the powers without having your understanding up to them, you will misuse them. You will use them too selfishly and they'll boomerang and hurt you, your growth, and the powers, causing you to lose the powers. This happens to all psychic people who develop beyond their level of understanding. So I suggest that you develop your understanding until all the powers naturally open up to you, and then if you choose to use them, you'll use them rightly and you won't be hurt.

Someday we all go back to recognizing that we are all powerful, that all the powers are ours, and they happen with no effort. When you try to develop these powers it's extremely difficult because you need to use effort, right?

Q: Right.

Lester: The state in which all powers exist is the effortless state. And the reason for that is it's the ego concept with its concept of limitation that requires effort. In omniscience, omnipotence we need no effort. If we are the all powerful Self, there is no effort needed. It's also in the idea of letting go and letting God. When we let go of our little ego- self, then we can let any miracle be, and it is instantly effected without effort, by just letting go and letting it be. Does that make sense?

Q: Yes, very much so.

Lester: So developing powers isn't something we should strive for. And when they do come, should we get interested in powers, then we are interested in the external, illusory world. Powers are simply taking the external material world and working it short cut. We work the world miraculously just by eliminating time, effecting things instantaneously.

Q: When you say you picture a perfect body, what do you picture as a perfect body?

Lester: Well. I never suggested that you picture a perfect body. That's picturing the perfect trap and prison. There is no better prison than this physical body. However, if you're going to image yourself as a body, image a perfect body, an ideal body, completely free from pain, distortion, imbalance, etc. Can you picture that? It's hard for you because you've experienced so much imperfection in body, but you can do it.

Q: I have personal problems and if I could be just a little specific I might get past this point. I had a patient yesterday who is a Jehovah's Witness, who would not allow blood to be given him. They did the surgery too supposedly save his life and through out the surgery, which was at least three times longer because of complications, he lost at least half of his blood volume, which is close to the point of no return. I am in surgery taking care of this patient.

Lester: Is it your responsibility?

Q: Yes. I have the problem of thinking. "Well, it's his business; if he wants to die, let him die." But I can't do that. Am I doing a wrong thing by using my desire? All I said was, "God, you take care of him and I'll just be your helper." That's what I did.

Lester: If you did that, it works, doesnt it?

Q: It does work. Am I imposing my will on anyone when I do that?

Lester: Not when you let go and let God, you're not.

Q: I don't want to impose my desires on these people.

Lester: You are not imposing your will when you let go and let God. If you can do that, you're a great, great doctor.

Q: Thank you, now I want to find out if I am doing that?

Lester: You know by experience. That man could survive even if he lost all his blood, if you let God take care of it. Everything is possible to God.

Q: That's what I did. I don't know how to pray. I don't know how to say the prayer for this patient.

Lester: Yes you do, your prayer is "Whatever is best for him should be." The prayer is there all the time; you don't have to voice it.

Q: That's what I've said and I didn't know if it were sufficient.

Lester: It's sufficient. The prayer is there whether you voice it or not. He's alive, isn't he?

Q: Yes.

Lester: When a person decides to die, no one but no one is going to keep him alive. We can't keep anyone here who has really decided to leave. And you've seen the opposite where the body has had very little chance of surviving yet the person lived. See, it's the individual who's running the body who really makes the decision. We can only guide and support them.

Q: Is there a subconscious desire to leave?

Lester: Yes. Also, we all have preset the time when we're going to leave.

Q: Oh, we've already preset it. Can we change that presetting?

Lester: No, but you can transcend it. When you transcend it, you do not die. You consciously and by choice leave the body in a manner that you choose.

You can't change the karma of the body. That's a law we set up and it goes on and on. In trying to work out karma, we are creating karma. The only thing we can do is rise above it. When we get above it, if we want a body, we can make a hundred bodies. But when you get above it, you're not that foolish to limit yourself into a little physical body. The most extreme limitation that you can impose upon yourself is the state we call physical. And when you get above it, there's no need for it. You've had your lesson. If you want a body, you'll use an astral body which moves around instantaneously and if it is damaged, you will instantly straighten it out.

When you get above the physical body, unless there's a reason, and there could be, for you to maintain one, you won't maintain a physical body. So, to answer your question, you can't change a preset course. But you can get above it where the body becomes like a puppet to you.

Everything in the physical is cause and effect, action and reaction, and this is called karma, the law of compensation. When we know this it makes life easy because we do not fight it. Now this can help you in your profession. Everything is going to be exactly as it has been predetermined by us. We can't change anything in this life. We can just change our attitude toward it.

However, there is a free choice. It is to identify with this physical body or to identify with our real Self; that's the free choice. When you identify with your real Self, everything is perfect. When you identify with the body, you necessarily subject yourself to untold body misery. Worldly life necessitates pounds of misery for every ounce of pleasure. But we're so steeped in the misery we don't know really how much misery we're in. We reach a tolerance point at which we can tolerate very much. I guess you know that from your experience.

So the thing to do is to properly identify with the infinite Beingness that you are. Try to accept the physical state as an illusion until you actually see it that way. When you see it that way, you see it as a game, and you play that game knowing that it's only a game.

Now all these things cannot be done intellectually; you have to experience this knowledge. If you accept anything I say just because I say it, you're just harming yourself; you're working on hearsay. You must experience this yourself; you must prove it out yourself. Then it becomes your knowledge and is useable. The only thing I can do is to point out the direction, the way to get this knowledge.

Q: Other than what you've told us tonight, how can you heal yourself except with realization?

Lester: To relate things relatively, if a person can spiritually heal himself, he should; it's instantaneous. If he can't, he should do it mentally; it's from instantaneous to quick. If he can't do it mentally, he must do it physically; he must go to a doctor. So we use that which is available to us. I suggest to people that they see doctor s because that's the level of healing that they need and it will help them. Doctors are necessary, as necessary as they are today. You wouldn't have this large medical field if it weren't necessary to help those whom the field is helping.

Q: I've read in so many writings that the state of celibacy is necessary for realization. Is this true?

Lester: This thing we call happiness is merely the infinite Beingness that we are experiencing to more or less of a degree. The real Self we are is infinite joy. And if we would take it only directly from where it is, that's all we would have. But we miserly take it in tiny amounts through external means by assuming that we need something; we are not whole; we are not complete; we need something out there to make ourselves complete; and we create a want, a lack, which, when we fulfil it, the thoughts for it drop away, and when our thoughts drop away we remain at that moment more in our real Self. And that's what is called happiness, joy.

So, any time we are seeking joy in the world we are fooling ourselves into thinking it's out there, creating a need for it, satisfying it and feeling a bit of pleasure, which is only a relief from the agony of a desire. But we are trapping ourselves into thinking that the thing out there gave it to us.. What we did was to still the thoughts for it, create enough mental quietude to allow the Self to be a little more, and that's what happiness is. Now we have to give up all that seeking for joy externally. So it is not only sex, but it is everything out there that we credit as giving us happiness. Point one.

Point two. Giving it up and intensely wanting it can be as mentally disturbing as having it. What we have to do is let go of the desire for it, which seems impossible for most of us. So the best thing to do is, rather than fight it, be moderate and keep digging for the Truth until someday we get the understanding of what that joy was that we were having in sex. And then we see that we are always in a state of joy that's higher than anything that sex ever gave us and it's no problem to let go of it. Then, if you try to enjoy through sex, instead of it giving you joy, it takes a bit of it a way, because you're limiting it through the sex act. So the main thing is be moderate as much as you can; stay away from it as much as you can, and as you get your realizations you'll get to a place where you'll let the whole thing go because you've got the joy all the time that you were trying to get through sex.

Now the pleasure we get from sex is merely being more aware of our Self by the stilling of the thoughts. There are more suppressed desires and thoughts over the many lifetimes on sex than any other thing in life, so that when we satisfy ourselves sexually, we still the greatest number of subconscious thoughts.

Q: You mean we have brought thoughts into this life from past lives too? And we have to quiet all of them? Mama Mia!

Lester: Eventually you get to the place where you can drop the whole remainder of the mind. To sum it up, celibacy does not give realization. However, you won't get realization without it and also the dropping of all desire. But as you grow it gets easier and you reach a point where it's very easy to let go of sex. It's silly to tell someone to let go of sex who's so involved in it that he can't. A person like that has to be lifted to the point where he is able to let go of it. I guess there's another reason why people are down on sex. Originally we created bodies mentally. In the Garden of Eden we decided to do it the way the animals were doing it. And we got caught up in that. And it's a mess.

We are now on the way up. We'll reach a state where again we'll let go of the animal way of procreation and two physical beings will get together with one astral being and create a third physical body into a family. And when we do it that way we don't lose our memory of the past. And someday we return to that, here on earth.

And so, desire for sex is a thing that has really run us down lower than anything else. And unconsciously the race knows it and makes it evil. It's such a stupid approach we have to sex; "its evil,"-and yet we all come in that way. But people don't see the overall reason why and therefore distort it. Eating food is evil if having sex is evil. The evil thing is creating lack and then a desire for something, and keeping ourselves bogged down in this delusion. So I see food as evil as sex, if either one of them be evil. The thing to do is to attain the desirelessness state. No desire, no needs, and then you are in the happiest state.

Q: When I have nothing to do the rest of the day I ask myself, "Well, what am I going to do? Want to go to a movie? No, I don't want to go to a movie. Want to go visit? No, I don't want to go visit." I don't want to do anything; so I force myself to do something to fill my time because what am I going to do, sit?

Lester: Yes, and dig into yourself to learn more of what you are. The more you learn what you are, the happier you will be and therefore your restlessness will drop away. And this can be a joy beyond anything in the world.

Q: Then it's not necessary to be coming back and coming back? One can do it in one lifetime?

Lester: Anyone can do it in one lifetime. This is a great advantage that we have that we are not aware of. There are a small percentage of the worlds in the universe as difficult and as gross as our world. And because it is so gross and it is so difficult, the incentives to get out of it are the greatest. Therefore we can go all the way back Home from where we came, all the way in to infinity, this lifetime.

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This Session was recorded in Los Angeles. May 22 1968.