One of the things that happens continually, not only in the sense of spiritual work but in life is really this thing of communication, that we really don't hear and we really don't pay attention, and as we go along doing whatever we think we should do, we keep changing it because it suits our purpose, or our unconscious purpose. And this thing is necessary, I mean, that basically you have to understand in the simplest possible way what your responsibility is to yourself spiritually. And then that moves every outside condition to keep you stupid and keep you dead.
You have to go over and over and over and over again to keep the channels clear between yourself and your spiritual life, between yourself and your job, between yourself and the people that you deal with. And this only occurs, because we really don't question, we do what we want to do and we walk aimlessly over everybody and everything. And then it always becomes a thing of, did you say this and did I see this, and did this one mean that and did somebody else mean something else? And it doesn't mean anything, because if you don't understand your exercise, if you don't understand what your relationship is to another person, if you don't understand anything about your relationship to people and your job, then you absolutely do not understand anything of a higher nature.
Because firstly this communication has to take place on this level, and it's an endless thing of people changing within themselves what their commitments are and where their depth is. And, I had this with Dean today and I asked him about whether people contribute here, how much they contribute living in the country and whether they contribute here. And we have one thing understood, and it's really unfortunate for you who were here before, but we are having a change of policy. And one of the reasons is that we're having more people, and we have a lot of people coming in the fall, and so we really have to be more and more selective, and part of that is that either you give a stipulated amount -- what is it, $40 a month? Which is a minimum, or you work one day a week. Now, in the future, we're going to take a list, and we'll start tonight, of names that either do one or the other or you don't come. And this kind of stupidity that goes on all the time of wanting to walk by, whatever your reason, if you have a reason, you can come and see me, and I'm more than willing to make exceptions. There are people who have responsibilities and also don't have money, I understand that: There are people who give a lot at one point, but that doesn't stop today from also being the day I have to work and I have to grow and I have to take care of a lot of responsibilities too. Because if you don't do what is asked for now, and it doesn't have to do with history, it doesn't have to do with what you think is right or what you think is wrong, it has to do with the way the energy is moving at a particular point, and at this point, it's necessary to do this. And we asked for help, and six people showed up, we asked for help again, and the same four people show up. It isn't right, and it takes a tremendous amount of effort, it takes a tremendous amount of money, and it takes a tremendous amount of sacrifice for some people to live here, and take care of the needs that make it possible for you to come to this place. It is not an easy cooperative, it is an essential cooperative, and I had to go through the last couple of months in myself 'a tremendous working up because of the change that I wish to go through. But you either want a great, great deal or you shouldn't really be here doing this work. And I don't want, ever again, anyone who is in charge of anything to assume by themselves. If you're told something, you do exactly as you're told, and I don't want these kinds of mistakes to be made, and anyone who doesn't state their need, who doesn't state if it's a protest or a difference, or whatever it is, then it's your problem, because it's not a stiff and unyielding situation.
It really has to do with our ability to put in a foundation this year for the ashram in the country, which can really serve many more people and us simultaneously to a tremendous degree. If you don't want to take advantage of that, then fine, nobody forces you to go up to Big Indian. But we really have most of the people here who do go from time to time, and some people go a great deal. And the growth that takes place, whether you go there or not, is manifested in this room, because the people who use it a great deal will grow a great deal, and you will be here drinking that in. So whether you go to the country, or you don't go to the country, does not stop you from benefiting directly from that which takes place.
And you have to understand that. I don't have it there for my charm or for my reason or for anything else. I've finally got a place to sleep and a bathroom, which wasn't only three years in coming. But that's secondary to the fact that it serves a purpose in raising the level of the energy here. It is not a place that we have for prestige. It is not a place that we have for anything, but it's to raise the level of consciousness, and it needs support because we are growing. And you're being asked as part of your being here to contribute in a very real way. And $40 is not what your dues are being here, that is the basic minimum. We have people who have given thousands of dollars every couple of months, and we have people who give $150 or $200 a month. And this thing of having to give the minimum isn't really a hard and fast, some of you can't give, I understand that. And some of you can't give time, but there are a lot of you who can give both time and money, and you don't do either one of them, and I don't care for it, because if you don't do it, you really will not be able to take within yourself and grow within yourself in the way that you really should grow. And it's another kind of communication, it really is. I don't check with Dean and I don't look at the books, and this is my responsibility. But he better have your name tonight, and when you leave you give him your name and you really have an account here, and if you don't take care of your account, then you really have to speak to me. Because I have to know that you're either giving time or you're giving money, and if it's impossible for you to do those things, I'd be very happy to make an exception, but you have to really express it, because I know there are blocks in every one of you, and I certainly don't want to have a block in the room, I don't want to have that exist here. There's no reason for it. But by, talking to Dean, and people walk past him like he has leprosy. He's only doing what he's being told to do, and if you feel that with him, and you're projecting something on him, then there is something very wrong in you.
We're having a very intense weekend July 4th weekend, and whether you come for one day or two days or four days, it will cost exactly the same and that is $25, because the commitment for room and space is really a commitment, and it doesn't matter for us whether you stay the whole time or part of the time, that's really your wish and your need that you express. But if you stay four days or if you stay one day, you're still using the same room because we can only accommodate so many people.
Is there anyone who has a question about that? If you have it you certainly can express it now or you can express it as an individual. I don't like certain things in my life, and I don't like having to work as much as I do, and I don't like having to work under the pressure as much as I do, and so if this puts a pressure on me which is slightly bearable, it's fine, if it's unbearable, then we can talk about it, but there are certain things in life which are essential, and if you believe enough to come here, then you must believe that part of life is this change which is necessary.
I want to really have that quantity in existence for all of us. I don't like to play games, and I really want our list here to be as much up front as possible, so that when you go by Dean, you give him or you don't give him, but you should at least have your relationship straight, and it should be one that I know if you don't want to confide in him, you can confide it in me. But you go away for six weeks from the middle of July to the middle of August, you're responsible for July and August because you also are connected and you are getting your energy every time you sit and work, and even when you don't sit and don't work.
There is a psychic commitment, and you're part of the group, and they serve as a psychic commitment between me and anyone who studies here. I don't take people for stupid reasons and I don't take people for reasons that I find are necessary to fill a room, or in a given situation, it is for me an essential quantity, and I try to work from that depth. So if you have a problem with it, please don't keep it in yourself for weeks and months, you can bring it out as soon as you wish.
I want to get back into the work that we're trying to work for, and that's really to try to get the full cycle of energy running, where you really open very, very deeply. And when we had the last class, I told you that I'd been through one difficult, extremely difficult week, and the thing that helps me very much in my working and in my growing is the ability to see patterns. And there are very definite patterns in spiritual work for everyone at the particular level that they work. And if you go through a week or two weeks or three weeks where you feel wonderful and very relaxed, you can almost make a chart, and in fact if you wish to, you can make a chart. You can really plot the pattern of your particular work. And in my particular work, it really works in a monthly cycle. I find I have a high which keeps building, and if it builds beyond a certain point, I can be very certain that I will feel within myself a tremendous pressure, because the energy is increasing and something will begin opening in depth. And there are a lot of signs that build up before this change and the breaking up, and the crystallization of a pattern shows itself. And if you become conscious, then you can focus and see the changes, you can see the buildup of your pattern, you can really save yourself tremendously, that you're not going into an emotional decline because somebody doesn't love you or because of the full moon or because of anything else, but you really can see how the pattern works for you. And there are a lot of silly things that go along with it, too, and for me one of the things that always come about is that I eat much more. I find there's a thickening on one level, which has to do with a breaking through on another level. I always do a lot more business. It's strange because my energy is breaking open inside, and that attracts much more to me. And I always get kidded about it, that I'm always paying before I'm being operated on. But these cycles and these pattern and these small and big things show up all the time, and particularly when you do make a breakthrough, then there always is an intensity afterwards which tries to take away from you, if you are foolish, the energy quantity that you have within yourself.
In the statue, and we had it out for last night, too, all of these little snails, or what are characteristically called snails on a Buddha head, are nothing more than vortices, they are cosmic spores and all energy of a higher nature that comes into the atmosphere comes in this kind of cosmic spore.
We really find, tornadoes and hurricanes, all of these things which have to do with two forces meeting, and because they come together, they really create an opening, or a pulling together of hot and cold six of different kinds, and they really cause this spore of energy to come into the atmosphere. So when we have a condition within ourselves where we can really open and surrender, the opening, really brings a new energy into us. And that energy comes into us like a cosmic spore, and it's the meaning of what we are and this condition of change that we bring about with our conscious effort that really creates this intake of additional energy. And if you could become aware of it. If you really can feel these blowings, these changes in currents of energy that work into you, you will have the capacity to attract them in a much more conscious way.
So when you feel pain in your head, in other words, you might feel a drilling in your head, there really is this kind of cosmic spore coming in, and it feels like a dentist's drill going through bone. Raise your hand, any of you who have had that experience. Well, if you at least understand the reason that it's happening, it's not a migraine headache; it is really an energy trying to connect within something inside you. That thing is nourishing in your brain, and the thing is trying to connect and make a permanent opening. So that your consciousness level, your ability to surrender the pain allows this to attach itself in a deeper way. And we always feel put upon when we have this kind of condition, it's a terribly painful condition, and it really isn't understandable in an ordinary way, but it's for a conscious reason, and you have to become aware and expect it so that you won't build a tension which blocks it from happening. And this should go on year in and year out, and it will go on until the day you die, because you allow it, or it stops because you reject it.
And the whole reason for saving energy inside is to accumulate it so that its growing can attract and open something inside your brain and allow the energy to come down through the chakra of the navel and really open something in your depth. And it's the depth inside you, the surrender inside you that makes you and draws in this additional outside force. It's a simultaneous surrender and attracting of the higher energy. When all of our instincts stay the same, all-of our instincts to not feel pain really comes into play, and this is the psychodrama that goes on in our lives. There's one thing that wants to surrender and grow, and the other thing, which is attracting an outside situation, and always we want to fight during those times, we really want to brutalize the conditions around us, because this energy is painful.
Staying open only allows us to feel the pain more, and fighting allows us to close, and we have this conflict between our conscious and unconscious mind, and I certainly can never blame anybody for wasting their energy and closing because I must say, I've found myself ducking many, many times, not wanting to go along with it. So if you've failed a little bit, or you've failed even a lot, it certainly doesn't mean it will stop, it means you have to consciously inside yourself accept the condition that allows you to grow. And if it's the pain that allows you to grow, then it's the pain that you surrender to. It isn't always that way, but it certainly is the sign that you remember the most, because it's very difficult to work in a situation where you feel pain, and it works differently for different people.
Sometimes during an emotional strain or some kind of an outer pressure, the capacity to save and hold your energy is really that which can open you in depth.
Is there anyone who has a question?
Yes? I can't hear you. (A question is asked)
Yeah, because you stop fighting, all the inner tensions stop, right? And you have your opening or your enlightenment. Well, this thing lays there, this energy lays there -- if you don't assimilate it by growing more, do you understand, you then have to make another effort to encompass it so that it really in a sense becomes part of your inner being. So when you lie back and you say wow, I have something, well, if you lie there playing with it, somebody's going to come and take it away from you. It's like when you have money you put it in the bank or somebody might steal it. Energy is the same way, you either recommit it in a new depth, right, or what happens? It gets lost, it gets stolen or it gets spent badly. And so the minute you have an experience where you have learned something, you really open to what happened, it's like something cracks and this thing dumps inside again, and it starts the process all over again And the length of time between one enlightenment and a new commitment determines the acceleration of your growth. Do you understand?
(Student asks another question)
No, that's an easy way of doing it -- you do something tangible about it, too.
(Are there any situations that hinder . . . let me rephrase it. Are there any situations that you shouldn't, that you should, say, surrender by walking away from them?)
Yes, Paul. No, if you really look at something and you really feel without question that you can't transcend the situation, that it's much, much too strong, then you really look and you feel your condition, like you have a two-pound weight that's a 5,000-pound situation, it's impossible. And if you have a President and a Vice-President over you and they're talking, and they're fighting between themselves, so you walk out, you walk down a little stepladder if you have to on a fire escape cause you don't walk out in the hall at that time. Do you understand? That there are certain things to avoid and certain conditions to avoid. I had yesterday a very, very, very, very strange day. And I talked to Greg about the thing of being in a hospital and it looks like it's going one way, and then another way, and then a man came in and he had a lot of money and a situation and a group to start a cancer research thing here which parallels something which is being done in Mexico. And by coincidence, I bought a hospital bed and a wheelchair yesterday, and I thought it was a very good buy and very beautiful and very clean. I thought we could put it out in the country so that if we ever need it it's available. Well, here I have a lot of symbols all pointing in a direction, and if we couldn't do this one project, then suddenly we can't take on a phone booth operation, and then we take on Bellevue.
This guy laid this thing on me, and it sounded wonderful, and of course you can always feel very sympathetic for people who are very ill, and particularly with cancer, where it always strikes something very deep in them. And I had to sit very quietly and in myself feel, and be a little more detached from it and think, well, what is the ashram for, what are we here for, what are you working at, and what are you building on, who are you building on? And in all building it was very obvious to that when we talked about something as simple as the backhoe, which is the thing that digs ditches and hauls lumber, and if you can't get that organized, how the hell can, you get a hospital organized?
It really is that that you have to undertake projects, which are proportional to what can support them. And we haven't approached that capacity to handle those situations yet. And secondly, the energy of the ashram has to come first for spiritual reasons, and if we pour our energy into something which has a tremendous emotional capacity to take it in increasing effort, it will just take more and more and more energy. It will encompass that. And you have to look at all these things and see what your condition is. And it really is something that's attractive, because everyone would like to get the Nobel Prize for discovering the cure for cancer and serving humanity and all these other things. But the rational quantity is what can you support today, And if somebody promised you a $100 a week increase, you don't go out and buy a new car, You get your increase, you save for a couple of months, and then you have a little bit to show for it. And this is really very much how you have to think of your energy, as it comes in, is it coming in enough to make a new commitment, or is it just the beginning? Is something new starting, a new pattern starting, and you have to think rationally, this is what your mind is for, to determine the depth of your commitment, the extent to which you can do and perform.
It's perfectly wonderful, we had one man when we started collecting for Big Indian who gave $500 the first week and he gave $500 a month later, and we haven't seen him since, It really has to do with an erratic quantity and an emotional quantity, anyone who starts emotionally will pledge their life, but six months later you can't get them to walk across the street and buy you a can of beer or a bottle of soda or anything else. And I have that with many, many students all my life, where they would die for you one minute, but God help you if you ask them to do something very simple, two days later.
And this is your situation, and you have to within yourself understand that. It is not an emotional need that should bring out in you the wish to give and the wish to serve, it should be consciousness, and it should be the consistent pattern of doing. And everyone loves the idea of a reward, but nobody loves the idea of work, and I remember when Sandy started his project around the corner, he really felt he would need people from the ashram, and I committed a lot of people. Did anyone show up on this other thing? How many people? So for how long? And this is a token thing that you can't live from those things, you can't live from a token commitment, you need every single month, or every single day, to do your exercise every day. If you were going to help in Big Indian, I'd rather have a little bit of help consistently than a big push from everybody. And all of you who ever work and do, you must understand, you can get everything from anybody in the first week, it's like a honeymoon. But consciousness is working every single day the rest of your life. I mean, I'm not giving a particularly great class because there is somebody new here. I'm giving a great class because I want to grow within myself. And I've heard of thousands of times where people say, I'm going to work like hell because I love you. Well, loving me is fine, but you have to work until you love yourself. And you have to be connected, really to God and your creative energy and your creative potential. Anything less than that is using me badly and using the opportunity badly. I don't want to be misused by someone in a great quantity at one point and not be available six months or six years later. And you never will do that here. The people who will get the most are the people who are here the longest. And so your responsibility for being here the longest is also that you work the hardest and you work the deepest, and you have more consciousness than anyone else.
Longevity is the only secret to spirituality, because it assumes that you're working a little deeper every single day. And if you grow a little bit every day you're growing very, very strongly. There is no such thing as a great leap spiritually. I have never heard of it in my whole life. I wouldn't believe it if anyone told me about it. You can only grow by the accumulated effort that you make every single day. The body can only assimilate a certain amount of energy every single day. I've succeeded because I've held back a lot in my life. Because if I work to the nth degree of my capacity, I would've blown up ten years ago. And energy worth that much, actually, then there's no trouble about really blowing up. But if I really worked for four hours, I'd have enough energy coming down my skull into my brain to blow me to pieces. Well, if I can do that now, and there is nobody here who was as defective as I was, I guarantee you that, then there's no excuse for you, it means you're just much lazier and less disciplined than I was.
I really learned, and I came from every level where every one of you are, and got where I am. There is no reason for you to have less, and I'm not bragging about it, I am saying that it is not a difficult thing, it is not a mysterious thing, it is not anything else but working and feeling inside and increasing just by a little turn every single day that you work. And you have to in yourself look in the mirror and honestly find out whether you have worked all week, whether you worked yesterday, whether you worked the day before, and all I can say is that I don't believe most of you work every single day. You could not do that and stay the way you are. Some of you, I know, have grown tremendously, and some of you have managed in a remarkable way to stay close to the place you were when you came here, as it is possible for a human being to not move. And it's because you feel sorry for yourself, you have all of these blocks inside and you don't do your exercise by surrendering and breaking through those levels. You can't hold on to all of these hurts inside, you can't hold on to all of these limitations inside, because they don't do anything but keep you in this miserable, suffering place endlessly. And if you don't do a good job this time, you're coming back next time, and again and again and again and again and again and again.
I don't like a lot of the situations I find myself in; I don't like having to try to work.
I worked on my book this afternoon for the first time in a long while, and I had to interrupt myself 14 times because I had to go to the store, I had to go down, I had to go up, and I had to go around, and still I had to do, and I did do well. You have the same problem in your life. You don't have, any of you, vast amounts of time to do it, but you also can go back and pick up and do your effort again and again and again and again. And you can do it in your effort while you're washing your face, while you're taking a shower, while you're cooking, while you're putting away your linen, you can really make a conscious effort, you can open and take a deep breath and try to break down these tensions. And it's really the depth to which you work, and the small minutes that you take in between the hours that really keep you alive. I don't honestly believe anyone sits down and works 14 hours a day. I don't believe it, because I don't think that the human body really can support a really great effort for that length of time. Only when you're closed and dead can you work to remove the debris, it's like a tunnel that collapses, and then you can work 14 hours a day, taking out dead material. But digging into live material and getting a creative force flowing, I don't believe the human body is capable of absorbing that much energy. So if you're not getting energy, it means that you haven't grown into a deeper level, you're working on surface tensions. Rufus, what do you -- do you think it's true? I know that when I dig inside and touch a place that's deep and fresh, it spurts, it's like blood, and it goes all over the place. I can't do it very long, I really can't. And it just, I feel that people never work in depth, they keep sifting the same, it's like taking the garbage can from this side and moving it there, and moving it from here to there, it's shifting dead material. And if you don't understand what I'm talking about, then you have to really open and surrender until you rid of all the surface tension, all of these emotions, the self-pity, the hurts that you felt about being wrongly accused, about the world, about everything else and really open and start to feel that you're touching some flesh and blood inside yourself and digging a little bit. It doesn't take much digging to give you enough to work with for your day.