TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY - Keys to the Ultimate Freedom

星空

Would you want one practical key for quickly reaching the Goal, I would recommend that you take full responsibility for everything that happens to you. We have lost sight of our mastership and have ~eluded ourselves into thinking we are victims in a world that controls us, that pushes us around. It isn't so! We are causing what is happening to us by giving power lour power, to the external world. If you want to regain your control, you must take full responsibility.

How to regain your control? By examining your thinking and correcting it. Develop the habit of honest introspection by asking yourself, Wherein did I cause this to happen to me? and holding it until the thought that caused the happening comes out of the subconscious into the conscious plane. Then you recognize your mastership I that you caused that pleasant or unpleasant experience to happen to you. The more you will do this, the easier it becomes and the more able you become, until finally, -you recognize that you were always the master.

Q: Then I, myself, am my own block, and other people do not influence me.

Lester: Yes. It's not what other people say; if you follow their thinking it's because you want to.

Q: Yes, because I think they know more than I do.

Lester: I say you know everything. You've got to accept this as a premise at least, if you want to grow.

Q: Well, I can accept that a part of me knows everything, but that part of me does not appear to be operating, because my world out there is not in good shape.

Lester: It does not appear to be operating? You don't operate that part of you? That is the way you're talking! No, you operate it. You choose not to use your omniscience, your basic nature. You choose to be ignorant of your omniscience by saying, I am a limited mind-body. That's your choice. When you choose to identify with your real Self, then you'll see that you always were omniscient, are right now, and always will be; and you'll stop foolishly saying you're not.

Q: You mean I can actually make that choice?

Lester::-Yes, not only you can, someday you will. When you get tired enough of all this limitation you have set up for yourself, then you'll make that choice. Who thinks all your thoughts? You do! It's all your doing. What we accept is what we choose to accept. It's always our choice. It is now our choice to be extremely limited bodies. And when you don't accept your responsibility for that, you have no possibility of getting out of that extreme limitation.

Q: I say I want to get out of that limitation and think I want to get out of that limitation and then when certain things happen I just don't get out; I'm right there in that limitation.

Lester: What you need to do is not to say it, but want it so strongly that you override the contrary unconscious habits and do it!

Q: Overriding the unconscious habits is hard to do because they keep sneaking up on you and you don't realize sometimes you've got them.

Lester: It depends on how strong your desire is for the thing that you want as to whether the unconscious habits override it. We have infinite power, infinite will, and when man so wills he's immediately set free.

Q: Gee, that sounds so easy.

Lester: That's the easiest way to do it. Just will it! And it's possible for everyone of us, because we are infinite and therefore have infinite will power. And the reason why we don't do it is that we don't have that much desire for it. We still have more desire to be limited bodies.

Q: I believe that anyone would take the other choice, if he really had a choice.

Lester: Oh, if you had a choice, pardon me! (Laughter) You see what's happened? You're convinced we don't have the choice.

Q: No. speaking from experience, sometimes when you really want something, it seems like the opposite happens.

Lester: Everything you really wanted strongly in your life you got, because mind is only creative. These are things you have got to dig out and recognize for yourself. You're getting exactly what you want, as is everyone. Because you don't look at your thoughts and you call them unconscious does not mean you don't have them.

Q: I'm afraid of my unconscious, did you know that?

Lester: How does that help you see your unconscious thoughts?

Q: Consciously I tell them to go a way.

Lester: So they stay operative all the time. Thoughts have no will of their own. You have the will. Unless you pull them up into consciousness and look at them, you can't let go of them. When you see them consciously, you'll automatically let go of them, the ones you don't like, because you don't like them.

Q: How can you become conscious of your unconscious thoughts?

Lester: By practice. Just the way you're doing it now; anything you want to think of comes to your mind. What you are going to say to me five minutes from now is not conscious right now, it is unconscious. Five minutes from now you'll pull up what you want. Now if we make it a habit of pulling up thoughts, we can do it easily. The more we practice it, the easier it is to do. It's a good habit; saves a lot of unnecessarily living out karma. Honest introspection works quickly and beautifully like a surgeon with a knife.

We control the unconscious; we keep back there all that we want to keep back there, and then when we want it up in the conscious, we pull it up.

Q: You really believe that we control it?

Lester: Do I control your unconscious?

Q: No, I don't think you do it.

Lester: Then who does?

Q: Well, I don't know. I think it is unconscious control.

Lester: It's your unconscious. Can you remember right now things that happened yesterday that you're not conscious of? What did you have for breakfast yesterday!

Q: Oh, ham and eggs!

Lester: All right, a minute ago that was unconscious, and now it is up in your consciousness, right? Do you have control of your unconscious? Can you pull things up from it? You did just then!

Q: But, you see that does not have any emotional impact, what I had for breakfast.

Lester: It had a good emotional impact. You showed you liked it. However, it does not matter whether there is emotional impact. What matters is the desire to pull up something from your unconscious.

Q: But you triggered her bringing it up. She wouldn't have brought that up otherwise.

Lester: Yes, but so can she. She wanted to. If she had not wanted to she just wouldn't have remembered. Pleasant things are easy to bring up and unpleasant things are difficult because we have little desire to bring up the unpleasant.

Q: Do you have to go through this phase of clearing up the unconscious before you can accept the theory that you are unlimited?

Lester: It is necessary in the beginning and it also makes for rapid progress. Later, after much progress, you can will it out. There are basically two ways of growing: one is eliminating the mind, the subconscious; the other is putting in the positive, seeing who and what you are.

Q: When you put in the positive doesn't the opposite seem to take effect?

Lester: Sometimes. However, when you see your real Beingness you'll scorch the opposite. You'll say, That's ridiculous to remain miserable, sick, unhappy, etc. and you'll begin to scorch it. There is a tendency in the direction you're asking. If I say hot you think of cold, right? If I say up it implies down. That is in the nature of thought itself. But I wouldn't use that to imply that we can't wipe out the negative by seeing the positive that we are, because we can.

Q: Well, I don't know. You see, at the hospital I went around trying to use light, love and peace because I thought that these were the 'things that were essential. And it seemed like the more I tried to dwell on light, love and peace the worse things got.

Lester: Love is something that can't be turned on and off. Either you've got it or you haven't. If you have love you may say horrible things to people and they don't mind it. So this thing called love isn't something we can turn on and off like a faucet. We can only express it to the degree that we have it. Now, if you have love for these people you would want them to have what they want.

Q: So what I'm doing is playing an ego game?

Lester: Yes. Can you see it? When you see it, that's good. Then you will, I hope, let go of it.

Q: By the way, you mentioned before that by bringing up the subconscious you could eliminate karma. How?

Lester: Karma is in the thought, not in the act. When you do something, it's the thought that's carried over in the subconscious that instigates the act next time. Eliminate subconscious thought and you eliminate future karma. It's the thought that carries over from lifetime to lifetime. So if you bring the thought up and you reverse it, karmically it's gone.

Q: I want to know how to control what you think. I do not feel I can control how I think.

Lester: You do it by first accepting the idea that you can. Then you try it and you succeed once; when you succeed once then you know you can try it again. When you succeed twice, the second time is easier. The third time is yet easier than the first two, etc. The more you do it the easier it gets. This leads to complete control and freedom.

Q: By control you mean changing your thinking?

Lester: Yes. We control all our thinking. If I do something wrong it's because I decide to carry out something wrong, that's all. And if I make it unconscious, I do it. Did I hear you say, Take full responsibility? that's it! If you want to grow you must take full responsibility for everything you do, for everything that happens to you. Trace all happenings to their originating thought in your mind.

Q: I still feel I can hurt people.

Lester: You can't. People hurt themselves; you don't hurt them.

Q: I wish I could finally see that.

Lester: I call you stupid. You've got a certain reaction there, right? It wasn't good, was it? Who made you feel sad? You thought, Well, he called me stupid, well, I'm going to feel sad. All right, now I say, You're brilliant. You thought, He called me brilliant. I'm going to feel happy. But you do the up and down in your feeling; I don't do it. I come out with a sound stupid brilliant and you choose the way you feel about it. It's just a little tiny bit of sound energy that went from me to you, to your ears, and you felt first sad, then happy. You did all the doing there. Can you see that?

Q: Well, if I can't hurt anyone. I can't help anyone either!

Lester: Yes, that's true.

Q: This business of when you try to put in the positive thought and oftentimes the negative seems to be strengthened, is it because while you're putting in the positive, you're holding onto what you're fighting? So that all you need to do is just do it?

Lester: Yes. When you want to do it enough, you'll just do it.

Q: When you do that, you just let go of it. You don't hold it in mind and it isn't.

Lester: Right! When the conscious wish to let go is stronger than the unconscious wish to hold on, then you let go. These habits are very strong; the unconscious wish for them is very strong. The conscious wish has to be stronger to override it.

Q: Then if you have a conscious wish and you're trying to accomplish something and you can't do it, it's because you have a subconscious habit that is blocking you. Well, how do you get rid of that subconscious wish that I s blocking you?

Lester: By making the conscious wish stronger. Or, by pulling up the unconscious wish to the contrary and looking at it. When you see it, you automatically let go of it; you won't hold it down there any more.

Q: I want to meditate well and I can It seem to.

Lester: How many hours a day do you practice meditation?

Q: Three-quarters of an hour in the morning because when Im working I cant do any more.

Lester: How many hours a day do you do the opposite?

Q: An awful lot of hours.

Lester: That's why it's difficult. Now, out of a sixteen-hour day if you spent eight hours trying to meditate and eight hours in the world, you'd have an even push for and against it in your daily doing. Meditating is quieting the mind. Activity in the world is doing the opposite.

Q: But even when during the day you try to think of God you can't.

Lester: Because youre mental habit is so strongly on things of the world and every day you develop that habit further. So when you take some short time off and try to do the opposite, you don't find it easy. You've got to take more and more time off for meditating until you succeed.

Q: You mean by increasing the desire for meditation, the opportunity will present itself?

Lester: Yes, and therefore you will succeed. If your desire for meditation were intense, you I d be meditating rather than doing other things. Then you would become able to keep your mind on God while in the world.

Q: When you once reach Oneness in meditation, do you regress back into your separateness?

Lester: Yes, when you first see it, it's a tremendous experience that you'll never forget. But the mind has not been undone and therefore reemerges. But seeing it scorches a good part of the mind each time you see it.

Q: The more you see it then

Lester: The more you scorch the mind, until the mind is totally undone. Then you're in the steady state. You regress no more. It's possible to see all the way, see the Oneness, by momentarily submerging the mind. But as long as that mind is not undone it will re-emerge. But you'll never let go once you drop into that state of Oneness. You'll go into it again and again until it becomes permanent.

Q: You can't will that?

Lester: Oh yes! Oh yes, by wanting it that much. The reason why it's so difficult to want it that much is that we have been wanting the illusory world for so long that we don't let go of the illusion very easily. Even though intellectually we know the illusion causes the misery, through long-time habit of thinking that the joy is in the external world, we just don't let go of it easily.

Q: That's why I say traveling is a fool's paradise.

Lester: Yes, it is chasing rainbows. The ultimate joy is closer than flesh. How far do you have to go to get It, that which is closer than flesh?

Q: Right here; wherever you are, that's where It is.

Lester: Yes, that's where It is. It's the I of you. Find that I and you've got It. So the place to go is to go within.

Q: Is isolating running away?

Lester: It could be. If one is isolating just to get away from the world, that's escape. If one is isolating to dive into one's Self, that is not escape.

Q: How do you know which one you are doing?

Lester: By being honest with yourself.

Q: There's something about being next to nature.

Lester: The nice thing about nature is it gets one away from worldly re-stimulation.

Q: That's escaping though, isn't it?

Lester: Right. You go out into nature to enjoy nature; what you're really enjoying is the freedom obtained by the dropping away of all the unhappy thoughts and pulls of society. And that's escape.

Q: You mean you can't enjoy nature and at the same time be going within and trying to go Home?

Lester: No, I don't mean that. All joys should be being what you are. We should never enjoy anything. In order to enjoy something we have to go into the illusion of separateness. The joy should be independent of things, independent of people. However,

then one sees the Truth, one can choose to enjoy, and the closer one gets to Truth the more one is capable of enjoying. One becomes sensitized and everything becomes far more intense. But theres no need to go out and enjoy nature because your basic nature is joy.

You are the ultimate joy. Looking for joy would be like me going around looking for Lester:. I am Lester:. I don't have to go out there and look for him. If I am joy I don't have to look for it out there. There's no need to go out for joy when it's inside you.

Q: It's simpler to get it in an isolated spot.

Lester: Yes. Even if you're escaping you'll reach a point where your thoughts will get unbearable; then you'll be forced to go within.

Q: You're helping us today through throwing back some of the things we're saying, and giving other things to us, one needs that, doesn't one, in one's search?

Lester: Yes, it is an aid. The only thing anyone else can do for us is to point and support us in the direction. And when we are pointed in the wrong direction, it's very good to have someone re-point us in the right direction. Mirroring your thoughts back to you helps you see your wrong direction, so that you may change it.

Q: How do you know if you're pointed in the right direction?

Lester: Intuitively, or by the results achieved. Unconsciously, everyone is seeking his infinite Self. We call it happiness. When we beat ourselves long enough and hard enough, we begin to open ourselves to the right direction. Then a Christ, a Yogananda, a Ramakrishna, a Buddha comes into our experience. Becoming acquainted with these Great Ones is no accident. They point the right direction.

Let me conclude with the following: You are responsible for everything that you feel. It's your feelings; it's your thoughts. You turn them on; you think them, and no one else but you doe s it, and you act as though you have no control! You turn a faucet on your head and you say. Oh, someone is getting me all wet. It's you who's turning on the faucet and getting yourself wet. So your direction has been, remains, and will be, take full responsibility for what's happening to you. Then you'll see by looking in the direction of I am doing this, that you are! Then when you see that you're torturing yourself, you'll say, My gosh, how stupid can I be? And you'll stop, and instead of torturing yourself, you'll make yourself happy.

Now no one is an effect of the unconscious mind, the unconscious habits and tendencies, unless he chooses to be. You are cause over the unconscious mind; you set it up; you're choosing to follow it. The day you decide not to, that day you're through with it!

It's simple. When you don It look at what you are doing, it's a forever process of being miserable. You think miserable thoughts and you feel miserable, and you don't take responsibility for thinking these thoughts. So what chance have you got for getting out of it? Once you take responsibility for your thoughts, you've got control. You can turn them off, change them, put in good thoughts, until you overcome the bad thoughts. Then you'll drop thoughts. You'll see how stupid it is to think. All thoughts are things of limitation and you're happiest when there are absolutely no thoughts. And when there are absolutely no thoughts you are in the top state. So whats difficult about that?

Q: The unconscious mind.

Lester: No. It is you! It's not the unconscious mind. This is the point I've been trying to get across. It's not the unconscious mind. You would like to make it the unconscious mind. You would like to make it other than you. Thats why you want the Masters, or you want Lester: to pass a wand over you and do it for you, but you don't want to do that which makes you happy. You're choosing to do that which makes you unhappy. Can you see this? It's so simple. Whose thoughts do you think? Why all these unhappy thoughts? The moment you choose not to have them. you won't have them.

Q: Well look to you and us.

Lester: Look to you, look to you. Look to find out who and what you are. Only when you know who you are will you know who I am. Only by discovering what you are will you understand what this universe is. Until you understand what you are, you can not see this universe clearly. It's a hazy mist. When you discover who you are, you'll see that this whole universe is right within you. Like the universe in a night dream is within you.

You must take full responsibility. Otherwise you have no chance of ever getting out of the mess. If you attribute the cause to it as something other than you, that not being true, you can never get out of the mess.

So the day you decide to do it, that is it! Because! Take full responsibility and have your Mastership!

***

This Session was recorded in Sedona. February 10, 1967.