One very vital thing that you have to do in your own working, and it's really one of the constants in life, and there are very few very positive constants - -
Sam, if you want to go to sleep you can go downstairs before we start. That doesn't express attention, please go outside and work and then you come back in, ok? That's no way to sit, go outside and come back in later -- is the weather, and weather is really an expression of nature, and that certainly is an expression of God. And it's very, very important to see the energy flow between yourself and nature, whether you can tune in on nature. Like today, I mean, for me, vital things I've always talked about happened, and I really connected with rain. I've always found that storms are -- I've never had a great spiritual breakthrough where there wasn't a great deal of rain. I don't look for it, it always comes as a surprise afterwards, and we begin to understand that, that there is a definite attunement between man and nature.
You have to begin to look for all of these things as very positive signs; it's the way of the elements, the way of energy expressing itself, in very positive terms if you can tune in. A lot of people are sensitive to a full moon; some people are sensitive to it a few days before, some people one day afterwards. And you really have to begin to see how your energy relates to natural forces. It's a very, very, very important thing because these are one of the things that don't vary -- we vary in relation to it, it is constant. Nature is a very consistent thing, which changes every second of the day. And you have to see the effect that nature has on you, the effect of storms, the effect of heat, the effect of any kind of traumatic change. And it really is a way of tuning in; it's a way of having another kind of barometer.
I've noticed for myself if it's very hot in the summertime, it doesn't affect people, but if it turns very cool, you actually have a complete change of attitude for at least three days. It takes several days for people to relate to any kind of change. If its very cool and it gets very hot, it really stops things. Any dramatic change affects people's it affects their breathing, it affects their energy intake. And we have never really developed in ourselves the consciousness of this kind of sensitivity. That you really try to open, if you find your energy is dropping, you try to look and see if there's been a dramatic change in the atmosphere as far as raining, snowing, very still, very -- any kind of an energy condition in nature, and then try to reach for that change. You really try to transcend this block between you and nature. It means your system hasn't acclimated to the change, which is taking place, and because of that the energy assimilation in your body is off. It's very, very, very pronounced in people. We are so much more sensitive and so much more unconscious of these factors, but it's a very, very valid factor, so that you find you have a certain lull, and you can even mark the calendar if you want to. It isn't just women who have periods, men have periods, you have a certain cyclical thing, and nature is one of the things that affects your cycle. Nature comes in cycles too, and you have to feel that in you, you have to begin to understand the different capacities to retain energy and different capacities to express energy based on the element of nature in our culture.
The winter is a time of holding. People go really crazy towards the end of the winter; they can't draw the winter out. It happens with people who don't have a proper diet or people who don't prepare, but winter really goes on interminably for a lot of people. And the winter really is a test -- it's a test of holding energy and what you can survive with in the winter is really what comes up in the spring. We all have a spiritual resurgence in the spring, and usually the end of the winter will grind away a tremendous amount of that which came up through the summer and through the fall. It's really like a spiritual harvest that takes place, and you have to really live off the winter with consciousness, you have to really learn to pace yourselves, to be quieter, to get used to the darkness, to get used to the shortness of the day -- all of these things are symbolic on one level and they're actual on a spiritual level.
And so what do you do when the nights are short, then you have to bring more life, this way, you also bring more light inside. You have to go inside in these moments of darkness and you really have to find-light inside yourself, it's your thing doing --. You're not going through it one way, you're going through it another way, you -- it's a time of tension, and I used to call that a tunnel. It's a time of building tunnels, you're digging under a mountain, it looks black as anything could be, and you're digging and digging and digging. And you stop halfway through a tunnel; you say well, I'm exhausted, what do you do? Lay down, and you're halfway through a tunnel.
You have wasted your labor unless you persevere, you sit down and say I am tunneling, the reason I see the darkness, the reason I feel this is that I am in the process of digging through a situation. And what you feel is an expression of work. You haven't the expression of satisfaction, you haven't the expression of accomplishment, it's a time to sit down and be aware that you really have put in an effort, and that if you really can be more conscious, you will dig through and the light will come, and then you have this hole under a mountain. You will never have to climb that mountain again.
And it's the inability to, of a person to endure, to sustain, and to persevere that becomes the great limiting factor. And that's why we repeat patterns; we don't stay long enough in certain situations to really understand them because every instinct in us wants to run away. Something happens, instead of sitting and living and digging and digging and digging, and being aware that this darkness, this blackness, this cyclical thing is a real test of our spirituality and of our consciousness.
If you don't know why you hit this dark part, why you hit this thing under the ground, then you're stupid, you are working for nothing. You have to realize it, when you are in a tunnel it means you're hitting something very real that you can tunnel through, and you have to make that energy, you have to really work for that energy by surrendering, by reaching for something light in yourself.
And what is the light in you? It's your ability to open and surrender and be grateful for being in that tunnel. And it's the only way you turn it around this way, instead of being halfway in, you're halfway out. You really have in a sense turned around the situation with your consciousness. There is no affliction, there is no problem, there is no pressure ever that doesn't represent the highest aspect of spirituality, that is not punishment. When God gives you that feeling, he is giving you his blessing because what he's saying is, here, I will sustain you halfway through. You sustain yourself the other way through. You're going through with His grace, and then you have to find your consciousness. Because you're being given the gift, the energy to go through halfway.
The other half has to do with your effort; we always can take half of a situation graciously, lightly, understand it, laugh about it, kid about it and everything else, and the reason is we're being put in the situation through God's grace, He's saying here, I'm giving you a situation, it's like a slow week in business, you can laugh about it from Monday till Thursday, but you want to see something in the cash register on Friday and Saturday. And this is really -- every fool, every unconscious person can take the first four days -- it takes a conscious human being, somebody working with spirituality to go through the last three days. And you have to realize that, these things are always the test. And you can always tell a test because of the lack of consistency. When do you fail inside, because it goes on a little more? You can always take it the first day, the second day, the third day, the fourth day, and that's really when you are no longer being given, when you have to open to receive.
And it really is the difference between someone being nurtured as a parasite and someone taking what is there to take. You're being given it through grace, and the next time you receive it through consciousness. And we always resent having to make the effort of consciousness, we always want to he given. Why don't you give it to me, why don't you give it to me, why don't you give me the answer? And the answer has to do with the simple thing of sustaining that, which is in process. There is no other answer needed, this thing is halfway through, all you have to do is have the common sense to realize that a half-built tunnel doesn't connect anything to anything. It goes from someplace to nothing, so to go to someplace which will really give you an answer, you have to sustain the other fifty percent of the work. We always get the first half easy, and then we stop and we want the miracle to take place. The miracle is your conscious effort, can you really then sit down and take a breath and go beyond the situation, and the minute you go beyond it, you have transcended it, you get your answer, and the tunnel will complete itself very, very fast, because you represent in your unconsciousness, the resistance to finishing,
And you represent the lack of contact for the energy. And the whole test of changing patterns, the whole test of transcending is to realize at the moment when this pressure builds up and the resistance builds up that you have to change your connection. Because you can't go through halfway and finish the other half with the same connections that you had. And this is where people fail tremendously. They keep asking the same way, and even if you have a contact and you have something, which feeds you, you have to raise the level of that contact. It's no different, than an elevator that doesn't always get beyond the fifth floor; it means you need more juice. And to raise more juice you have to put more behind it.
And it's the simplest thing in the world, it's not that the effort should make you close, the effort should make you open because anybody who's working and digging a well, and they suddenly hit rock, they don't use a shovel anymore, you get out a stick of dynamite, you put it in the ground, and you blow that piece away. And it just takes that kind of an effort. The consciousness that what you're struggling against, the nature of the material that you're working against, has changed, and the strata has changed. And a different kind of material is needed; a different level of consciousness is needed,
And we always want the situation to dissolve with the same effort that we went from 1 to 2; we want 2 to 3 to be the same. Why should 2 to 3 be the same as 1 to 2? We always bawl, we always complain, but we never have the sense to go out with a pick and shovel to go from 1 to 2 and have a stick of dynamite ready at 2 to blast through to 3. And that stick of dynamite is really your conscious effort. And you always come against the same thing and you push it and you cry and you scream and you get mad and you abuse it and you curse and everything else, because you stay on the same level trying to finish a piece of work.
Nothing that is ever accomplished spiritually is finished on the level that it begins. True, Hilda? You always have to go higher, you always have to reach, it's the moment of faith, and it's the moment of conscious effort. You have to transcend yourself to complete any situation, it doesn't matter whom you study with or what you study, you go here, to finish you have to go here. You have to make the effort of transcending and that effort of transcending is changing your connection, if you're using 110 here, you have to go to 220. It will never finish, it will never be complete for you, and no effort you ever make in your life will be complete unless you transcend yourself. And it doesn't matter how prepared you are, because all your preparation is on one level trying to go to another, but you always have to have this outside quantity, this resistance between levels, which you can't be prepared for because your consciousness and your energy hasn't been expressed there because it never entered that atmosphere before. Do you understand what I'm saying?
It's the same way, people are always prepared for getting married but they are never prepared for their wedding night. Never. Because the chemical changes are there, and they are extraordinary. There the changing over from one level to another, whether it's having a baby, whether it's going from high school to college, whether it's doing any kind of change-over in relationships, the change-over changes the chemistry. The whole mystery of spirituality is involved in that that the chemistry changes as you go from one level to the other. So all of your work preparing, and then as you go halfway through, the thing you're working with becomes obsolete because the whole chemical change about is taking place.
So you're one person going into the situation and working, and before you come halfway through, you become another person. And this is the miracle of rebirth, because rebirth does not take place on a physical level, it takes place on a spiritual level. And we as people always want things to be consistent. We always deeply resent anybody who changes their attitudes with us, and yet if we have grown, the only thing we should expect is a change. And that is what's necessary; the same thing is going to happen when you have your baby. How can your relationship with John be the same? And you always hear this with couples that get married, why my wife doesn't love me the same. It is physically impossible for two people when a child is born, to love each other the same. It's immature, it's inconceivable, it's against nature and it's against chemistry. Every major change brings about a change of chemistry. And we accept the change, consciously because we know a change is going to take place, but when this chemistry changes, we reject that. And it doesn't hold together for that reason.
Because for a change to take place there has to be a chemical transformation, which brings about this change, and we don't feel it at the beginning of a situation, we feel it almost at the end of the situation. And it's a kind of resistance, it is saying, stupid, it is not on this level, you can't have this thing take place on this level. And we take this resistance as an inability to complete. The resistance is just this force trying to show you to change your patterns, to change your connection. That we are unconsciously meeting it instead of consciously meeting it. And always, working and transcending brings about a complete change of chemistry, and people always want a consistency.
There is nothing consistent about growing. The only thing consistent about it is that changes take place. You have to become aware of those changes. So a simple way of seeing those changes is seeing them in nature, you can smell. I can tell one thing when I'm going through a big change, coffee tastes so good to me, and that becomes a clue, it becomes a clue to me that my chemistry is not accepting something it usually accepts, something is changing, So you have to look for clues, you have to look at the way you breathe, and you're not breathing the same, you're breathing with the same methods, but you're not getting the same depth inside, so why aren't you getting the same depth? Because something is changing over, and you have to breathe differently, deeper, longer to really make this connection. And your breathing is one of the great factors that can warn you about a change-taking place in you. Your taste of food, your anything else, in a relationship, what you require from somebody else, and usually when you are rejecting somebody you ordinarily love, that's also an indication of a change-taking place. Because they're offering some kind of nourishment to you, there's something you don't want from them, why don't you want it? Because you're rejecting the nourishment, which is vital for your change, and you begin to reject people, you begin to reject situations, which are normal for you to be open to, because you are changing. Because you are trying to not be attached to the present when you draw nourishment. Your not wanting to be attached is your unconscious trying to strangle you from the nourishment that can effect the change.
And we continually do this in our relationships. I've seen endlessly students who came to reach a certain point, if they stayed an extra two months it would work, they always choose that time to go away, they know inside what they're doing. It's the inability to be consistent in your nourishment. Consistency in your nourishment, consistency in what you take in your meditation, in your exercise, is your guarantee to your growth.
So when in you things begin to close, they're not closing, they're calling for more effort, because suddenly you've hit a different kind of strata and you have to connect on a higher level. You have to make more effort to get the same amount of energy to keep this process going. So when we hit these things we think, well, this is not a good time to work, obviously with this resistance in me, we lie down. And what happens, you abort the process going on, if you, you've gone halfway through the mountain, and you come out of the mountain and you say, oh, I'm back in the sunshine. You're not back in the sunshine; you have blown your energy on a great effort and gotten absolutely no reward for it whatsoever. Because you've always backed off from the moment of conscious additional effort. And spirituality is based always on the consistent energy flowing in you from a higher place. And your not breaking down, not finding how to make your connection to keep this consistency going has to do with the lack of conscious effort in you.
A child inside a mother is going to draw out of a fingernail if it needs calcium, you don't have to drink milk. Spiritually, it doesn't work that way. Spiritually you have to make the effort, so when you find the pressure on you, like you just now did, then you really sit down and you work your guts out, You're going to be exhausted at the end of the day anyway, with what's on you, right? It's better be exhausted working consciously so you rip out of this tension, you rip out of this insane period, like a man stealing gold out of a mountain, you're really taking a treasure out of a situation that began with nothing but garbage, So you've really taken this thing that will render you, and a certain part of you knows it doesn't matter what you do, you're going to be absolutely rendered, that is a day when absolutely nothing is going to go right, and you fight like a jackass to take out what you reed for your exercise.
It's that kind of an effort that really will consistently give you a spiritual life, and only that kind of an effort. When a reason becomes a reason not to find a nourishment, to not dig for it, then you are not a spiritual person; you are an ordinary person being affected on this level. A spiritual person takes it up and digs out and takes it up. Nothing and no reason in the world could stop you from finding that nourishment which you need to feed yourself inside. It's hard for you, doesn't matter, you need thirty minutes a day of conscious effort to feed yourself. It's harder to work when you work five minutes an hour, and you tear yourself apart. You can certainly get five minutes an hour for six hours, there's no excuse for it. And the harder it is for you to find that energy, the harder it is for you to surrender, the closer you are to the end of a tunnel.
Dramatic things always take place then, I mean, it's attracting it, it's really like putting out seeds in the garden, every crow is going to come. And what you have is an investment of energy, and a greater investment of energy and a greater investment of energy lying out, like birdseed on a balcony. And it doesn't really become yours until you break through and blast through that tunnel, and then it comes back in you. And nature will never let you have that until you fight your guts out and finish it. And you have to realize that if you only get this inside you through your own effort. And that's why when you talk about spirituality, talk about a man climbing a mountain, going through a forest and all of it, it means that somebody has the guts to not accept a wall, they'll go through, they'll crawl, they'll drag, they'll do anything else, and they will not accept a no. And they get their day's energy.
And you have to learn that; you have to fight for this energy inside, for this nourishment inside. It doesn't matter what the situation is, it doesn't matter whether you're getting married or being buried -- if you forget that day to work, you can forget about your life. You have lost your link between yourself and God. And that's the whole reason in the Catholic Church where a man may be a good Catholic his whole life, when he dies he must have a priest there -- the priest represents the conscious link between the physical and the spiritual. You know that? Did you know that, Hilda? (No, I didn't.) Sure, because they never give a man credit for keeping his consciousness between himself and God, and the priest represents the trained conscious link, so you can be a good anything your whole life, unless you have that priest in you, working for you for that half hour a day, you can lose at that moment your complete chance for growing. Because no situation, ever, takes you away from this contact. And that's all situations represent, they all are nothing in themselves, they're just so much drama that you get involved in, or that you use to transcend. It either makes you stronger or it crushes you.
And there's nothing and nobody in this world worth paying that kind of attention to. You keep the connection there, and you see the illusion of this, always. And the more you keep the connection there, the easier it is to get above it, because your muscle system is open, your connection is there, you don't have to fight that hard -- you fight that hard when you haven't fought day by day, day by day. This thing, you don't build up spiritual muscles overnight, this thing is accumulative. You work a little less stronger every day, and then one day when you really need it you really can open up inside. And that's the reason to work every day and be sure you're open, so that when you come to a period like this, you really have a little extra pressure on you but haven't become arthritic, you haven't become crippled, this thing is used to working. This thing of getting tight, it doesn't make for spirituality it really squeezes it out of you. You open and you take it in, you go like this and you squeeze it in it's dramatic as hell, but it really doesn't have value. The earth has to be gently opened to receive the rain. If it's tight, it really rejects it. So you work deeply open, and you take it in this way. When you can't open, then you can go like this, when you really can't open inside, when you can't feel this flow in you, then you sit down and you really can rip if you want to. But you don't ever work that tense. Tension, is a rejection, and tension, when you're open is also a rejection that's drama and it has no effect in spirituality. Spirituality has to do with simply being open and receiving, Drama has to do with stupidities, you get tight, you see, suddenly you open very much and a great saint floats down (breathes), you absorb him. You don't go like this, how can you absorb him if you're tight, like, oh, my God, there he is. Nothing, all you've got is a picture that's gone past you, but you (breathes) like this, you can suck him right through with your breathing, and have him, bones and all. All of him will come inside you and be absorbed, but when you get tight it means you're rejecting him.
Tension is rejection, being open is absorption, and you can really open and in one breath have him in you, he'll be in you forever, but being tight and dramatic is no way of allowing anything to come in you. And who would you want to come into you under those conditions realistically? This tension, this drama, oh my God, there she is: I've been waiting 50 years to see St. Bernadette, and then she goes away and you don't even get a postal card out of it. But if you sit there and you open and you are grateful and you love and you're light, you have in you that which can attract. You have in you that which is necessary to attract. But this tension, is what? This tension is rejection, and you have to learn to control these dramatic things. It's great when you see a movie star; it's not great when you see a spiritual force. The spirituality will disappear when you get tight.
Believe me, the first time I saw Nityananda appear to me, I was scared to hell, but I had the discipline of being open, this is the way you take in and you have a contact. Drama rejects, surrender attracts and takes in. And drama has to do with stupidity, it has to do with ignorance, it has to do with a lack of breeding.
And I can always see this when a collector comes and you open a fantastic painting or a great piece of sculpture and they go, oh my God: who says oh my God? Only a fool, nobody expresses themselves that way -- development has to do with capacity to be gracious, and it exists spiritually as well as anything else, you (breathes) look at it, say it's very beautiful, inside you're filled with the beauty of it, but when you say oh my God, how can you be taking in anything? That's a common, rough, crude expression of love. I never want anyone to come at me like that, like this. You start running away when somebody is chasing you like this saying, I love you, you start running, I've had people come and I go in the bathroom and sit on the pot. Who wants to be chased like that, you want to be held and gently loved, but you don't want to be rendered. Who wants to be rendered? Well, if you don't want to be rendered on a physical level, do you think anything on a spiritual level wants to be rendered? It wants to be received and made welcome and appreciated, and this thing of on earth as it is in heaven is very true.
So if you don't go crazy on a physical level when you see somebody, you certainly shouldn't go crazy on a spiritual level, you should be prepared for it, because that's what you're working for, to begin to live in a world of miracles, What's remarkable about it, that's exactly what you're there for. It's like walking into F.A.0. Schwartz and fainting when you see a toy. A toy store is to see toys; a spiritual world is to see spirits, what's remarkable about it? That's exactly where they exist.
So when you surrender, you get up there and you start squeezing them, then you stop seeing them for years, because you don't belong there, you don't have the manners for that level or for that situation. And that's why it's wonderful to have manners on one level before you go up and tries to live in another atmosphere.
So you have to get rid of neurotic tendencies on an earth level to be able to go into a spiritual level. Don't you have to go tippy-toe Hilda? Always, these things are tender, they're light. You open with love, you open with good vibrations, you really, you really try to be open to let these things come in. They come to you, you don't go to them, you open to them, you're light, you're buoyant, and you receive them. You don't go hooking them? What? (If you make a great deal of hullabaloo about them, then they won't come) They'll run away, you're not chasing butterflies with a net; you are receiving something of a higher nature. And you have to learn that. And these things are gentle and they're quiet, and people who make drama, are people who are chasing them away.
My grandmother had a wonderful expression, she said; if you want an angel to land, don't dust the house. She said clean early in the morning, she said, a house where angels live, you can't be cleaning all the time. She said you clean in the morning, and then you leave the house clean and they'll land. But you can't be going around making nervous gestures all the time, you chase away anything finer.
It's quiet, it's dignity, it's love, and it's being open. Nobody in life and nothing in life wants to be chased. Only a fool, only a person who doesn't have to give, has to grab and pull. In every level, in every situation, dignity and quality don't want to be mulched. Nobody wants that, this rendering.
You have something to give, you open and you give it gently, you give it quietly, you give it with dignity, it's very, very important to learn because until you learn manners on one level, you absolutely don't qualify on a higher level. Did you want to say something, Hilda? You have a lot of experience on those levels. (I have nothing to say, I believe you've said the words.)
Does anyone have a question? Yes?
(You said something about scattering the seeds, there's more and more invested in the seeds)
Excuse me?
(When there's this greater and greater investment, what does this -- it seems to me I do that, I get it, and then I start running around chasing those, and then I don't complete.)
Sure, you get nervous.
(So I didn't understand what, how do I do something else? How do I not chase?) When you start feeling this thing of chasing, then you go inside, take a hammer, hit yourself in the head, and then you sit down and work again. And I mean that, you can do it with a hammer if you want to, or you could do it another way. You really do some other work, which takes your attention from here over here, you do something real, something positive, and use that tension, instead of chasing, you absorb that tension in some kind of positive work, and then you open. Cause it's always doing a task which nourishes you, a task which feeds you, and I always say, it's like any kind of craftsman who ever worked for me, always, and a good craftsman always will take ten items to work on. They'll work on this, they'll get tired of this, they'll go to this, they'll go from this to this, then they'll come back to this. You can't always work on the same thing with the same energy level. If you're carving wood, you'll carve something in wood, then you'll go on to mending something in porcelain, then you'll go on to this, then you feel you want to - it's the moment for the wood again.
Do you understand? You can' can't always work on one thing consistently, we don't have that in our nature. Then you realize that you also have this situation that is real for you spiritually or real for you in any other level, then you come back to that with a new zest, with a new feeling, with a new appetite, then you go back to that and you do a better job. You do a much better job. Because sometimes you drive yourself to the point where you can't see anymore. Then you stop, you do something else which is vital, and then you come back a little more refreshed, a little more objective.
(More specifically, it's like there's too many things, like I start too many things, like I have two or three projects, major ones, that all seem to be crying for water)
No, that's not true, that's your own projection. Nothing, there are never two things that require the same amount of energy at the same time -- never. You want to make them all as vital, and it's not true. Is it true of me? Because everything you do has a different time need, some things got to be done in a week, some things can be done in two weeks, you have to use consciousness to say, look, this really isn't as important as this, and this is not as important as this, and you feed them accordingly. I mean, if that was true, then a man would be trying to milk a cow, the- chickens, leave the horse out and everything else at the same time. It's not true, nothing in nature, a farm wouldn't work that way, and there are people who feel that. They say, well, I can't have chickens and a cow and a horse and ducks and this and that, it's not true, and they all live together because they all have a different frequency. All things don't come out at the same time.
A good cook has to learn that, you can't put up the potatoes at the same time that you put up the green peas, or you'll have raw potatoes and overcooked green peas. It's just a question of discipline; you don't want to see that these things all have a different life span, a different life force, and a different need. You make them competitive only in your own mind, really. Do you understand, it's in your own mind that you make the situation? These things are not real, there is no conflict in nature, and there is no conflict in a human being, only that which you make. These are things that always represent our need; we want to make the conflict because we don't want to make the conscious effort.
Nothing happens to a human being while he lives on the earth that isn't his oven choice. Nothing, absolutely nothing. True? You do healing, what do you do? You bring the person back to where they should've been, that's all you do, right? Right? That's all healing is, you're really righting the situation chemically. It never should've been here, it should've been here, so you're walking the dog back to the house, or you're walking the cow back to the house or you're walking the horse back to the house. That's all we do, you're correcting something, which is wrong. It's just bringing it back to its logical and natural place.
Disease is that, disease is an illogical situation; it's an unreal thing that doesn't belong in a human being that attaches itself to a person. So when you have any kind of a, problem, any kind of emotional problem, all you have to do is want to let out that pressure, that's all. No different than a tire, when you need more breathing you put in a little more air, and when you have too much pressure you let out a little pressure. It's as simple as that, but you have to want to. You sit down and you say, I want to be balanced, and you let your breath come down and open and open and open, it will distribute the energy that's needed in exactly where it belongs You don't have to do anything, you have to consciously ask for that distribution by being easy and letting this thing flow, your life force will flow and it will take care of what's needed. One place will get fifty percent, one place will get two percent, and one place will get three percent.
If you have a lot of pain in the head, you draw the pain in the head down to the heart, and the pain in the head becomes energy, which opens the heart. What is a pain in the head? It's pressure in the head trying to tell you to move it, that's all. It's just saying, move me, I don't belong here, that's why I'm bothering you, saying knock, knock, I don't belong here, I don't belong here, and you're saying, my God, I'm dying with a pain in the head. Take a breath and bring that pain into your heart as energy, that's all.
What is pressure? Pressure is energy under pressure, right? So you take a breath, you release that pressure, consciously by bringing your breathing here and expanding, it will drain the energy down from your head. It's as simple as anything can be. It's in your heart, your heart hurts, take a breath and bring it down into a lower chakra; it's in a lower chakra, you bring it down into your sex organs; it's in your sex organs, you rotate and bring it up your spine. It wants to move; it's saying it wants to move. But because you don't have the intelligence to move it, so you let it sit in there and eat into you. Nothing has to eat into a human being.
Yes?
(Is there ever a time when you feel pain in this spot and you can't move it through the chakras)?
Take an enema, really, don't eat, you fast for a day. There are a million simple and very logical things to do, but what do people do -- they hold it. They make friends with it, and they always make friends, people never make friends with joy, they always make friends with pain, Because they're used to pain, they not used to joy. Nobody ever flirts with joy, you almost never that, nobody's ever flirted with happiness. But pain, boy, they'll always stick their nose out. You never hear, a bus crash into a car that 100 people don't go running towards it, but you never hear anybody running when somebody laughs, an explosion, a fire, people run, thousands and thousands of people run to absorb the tension, the pressure, negativity, always.
I know when I was a kid one of the most shocking things in my life, we lived across from a pool room, a lot of gangsters hung out there, and every once in awhile the police would raid the place and they'd jump out of the windows. And they'd shoot; the police would always shoot at the gangsters. And my older brother always put his head out the window to look -- how can put your head out the window when the bullets are running around, and you find it's irresistible for people, I used to have to drag him in by the ankles, it was irresistible for him. There was on going on outside, and this is how we are as people, and it's still, there was a bus hit the other day in front of the store and he ran out of the back room; if I called him for help because somebody was cutting my throat, he wouldn't hear me. But this irresistible thing of that kind of force has such a tremendous way of magnifying.
Whenever you're on the highway and you're caught in a jam, what is it? Everyone is looking at an accident across the way, causing an accident on this side, and usually the driver is talking about it, well, it must be an accident on that side, that's why everyone is slow, you get to that area and they slow down 20 more miles an hour so they can see it too.
And this is how we are as people, we get magnetized by habit. What?
("Well, can't you just get worse than inertia, more positive?)
You run the other way. When I hear an accident, I immediately turn my back and go the other way, always. There are so many hundreds of people going there, you don't have to worry about calling a cop or doing anything else, there are people who live for that moment, that's the highlight of their life. I don't want to be involved in that. You walk away from it -- why walk toward disaster?
It's the same way; we all have certain people, or certain types of people, who drive us insane. We look at this hind of person, we instinctively dislike them, but what happens? You go to a party and you're irresistibly drawn towards that person, right? Why? It represents your death wish. You walk into a room, you look around and say, oh God, she's bad news, and right away, 15 minutes later you're having a drink with Bad News. We always have that; this is not a person that we should bother with. I'm married and that number walking in the store, well, so right away his old lady is waiting and you're giving that number all the attention. And this is what we do all the time, we feed our illusions and we starve our realities. And when you learn to feed the situations, which nourish you and starve the other ones, then you'll have more nourishment.
Yes? (A question is asked)
Well, you surrender, you really try to draw in more energy, you become aware that you're reaching a place where you can't function anymore, but that's only a functioning on one level. Then you try to surrender and you say I want to transcend the level that I'm on. And you say it, you say it out loud if you have to, then you breathe and you feel your breathing on a higher level, you feel your contact, you talk to your brother, you try to talk about more positive things, you try to be - you cut the grass then without anyone asking you, you don't allow any kind of negative situation to build up. You really watch yourself, that's the day you really watch your connections, and so you're a little nicer to your father you're a little nicer to your mother, you're more courteous to these people, because you really need more energy to grow, and this consciousness will allow you to take in more. You'll draw in more.
I know one thing, when I come back from a trip and I need a lot of money, I manage to sit down and do business. But when I come back and I didn't spend as much, then I have time to read murder mysteries and all these other things come about. Where if I have a big sale, I find I have nothing in me the next day that wants to work, which I'm glad for, because it means that I'm not attached to making and making and making that much. But I really find I have to work consciously, do you understand? And we close off; we are completely unaware that we close off. And you find yourself, I mean, look at yourself one day when you suddenly get in more money than you ordinarily expect, you'll find that your whole attitude towards your responsibilities that draw you your income, you become disdainful, you become critical, you become all these other things. Or if you have a good mark in one subject, you think you can breeze through it, so you stop studying that, well, it's so easy to do it when you have a good mark because you have to work less to sustain that, so what do you do, you stop that and you go on to something else like playing poker or going to the movies, and then you find out the next test you have not read for five weeks and you have to kill yourself to get back to where you were. Why fight to get back where you were? Where you were is where you should be, and every day you should be above that level. But why make the drama, why have to bake bread at the last minute, and people love that, right? Staying up till 2:00 in the morning, right, it has more appeal than anything else, because it's in the nature of human beings to make drama. They cannot make life and go beyond that into something else, and this is the whole reason we get into situations, we don't use our energy properly and we don't transcend our situation, so that energy is really like this thing of the crows. Because you're not using it every day properly, it attracts negative things.
I'm using all of my excessive energy now for one thing, I'm taking it inside me, and I'm feeling it ripen in me and bringing me my ananda. My happiness and joy, that's the reason I don't have an ashram in Boston, it's the reason I refused 20 people in the last couple of weeks, I'm using that energy to ripen in me that which is mine, all my bananas are turning yellow, my tomatoes are turning red, these things which are mine, I don't owe anybody that, that is mine. And I really want that to ripen so I can give God red tomatoes, yellow bananas, and all these other things, I want to give the sweetness, I want to give thanks.
And all of you who come from anybody, I mean those of you who live here, you owe me that, you owe me that sweetness. I will not accept it, I won't accept it in the class, and I'll not accept it in the house. I'll never have any lip from anyone again, I don't want anything else if you can't give me the best of yourself, then I don't want any of you. And you have to realize that in every relationship, because what you don't demand, you don't get. And in me I am demanding every day the ripening of my spirituality, before I go on to anything else. I will not make one move, to make a greater commitment with people or in any way at all until I feel the maturity of that which I have. Why should I do it, it is demeaning God.
I'll take more and more pressure and I will give less and less because I will turn against myself, because unless the ripening takes place, unless this maturity comes into effect, unless I feel more love, unless I feel more gratitude, unless I am much more attached to God in deeper and purer and sweeter ways, and it is not easier for me. That when I see one of you sitting there I can love you much more and give you much more I'd rather give you much more than somebody who walks in from outside I don't owe them anything, I owe them when I take them as a student, but my responsibility is to you, and I'm not going to take 500 more people or 5 more people until I can give all of you much, much, much more. Because otherwise what am I getting? I'm dealing in seconds. I want to deal in firsts. I don't want masses of people who don't reach that kind of happiness and that kind of joy. And those of who don't want will be on the outside, I will not share my life with people who do not have in them the capacity to enjoy, the capacity to share, the capacity to give, and in a sweet way, I really mean this completely in a spiritual way. I do not want that.
People who want to hate themselves can go somewhere else and meditate. People who don't really want to feel a higher level of spirituality can go somewhere else. I am not involved in this, I will not be in this, and I don't want it. There are teachers for that level, I do not want to compete for that level of student, and I don't want to compete for that level of spirituality.
If you don't love yourself, then go and hate yourself somewhere else. I will not have anyone near me who is not open and receiving, because it is not my energy -- is it my energy, Hilda? These are not ours, so then you're giving somebody the chance to bring God down, to demean this force, and it is not my responsibility as a vessel to let you clog my pipes. That's not what it's about.
And you have to within yourself, begin to pick and choose people and situations, this follows the capacity for you to grow. I won't have it, and you can tell that to -- are you going to Boston this weekend? Are you going up there? Are you going to the ashram? When are you going back to Boston? Are you going to go up to Boston? I thought you went up there because of me, But the next time ... comes down here, I'll say ...he never comes down here. (A comment is made) I won't have it. I will not have it; I don't want this from anybody. I absolutely refuse that, I am not. I'm not a garbage can, and I will not be treated that way. I want to be a teacher. I want to be a very happy, very open, completely free person inside to give a force, which can come through that.
But if you use me badly, then this will not allow this thing to come through me. I haven't worked 44 years for that, and I will never allow it again in my life. And you have to make up your mind inside yourself what you want. I'd rather have less people, and have more of an opening.
It's quality, I mean, quantity, my God, the world is filled with quantity There are millions and billions of people today, but quality is what's needed to bring down a higher force. And you have to within yourself that, this has to be what you really want, you want to be completely realized by God, to be completely free and to be really, truly happy. And anyone who gives you less than that, you really have to work and find more; you accept it and you can have change.
So this is for me, I absolutely will not have it. The same way, you know, Ted was sitting in this door, I worked very hard a few days ago and a woman came in and spent $3,000. He was sitting and I was working with him, she called me and cancelled the sale. I tore the check up, and I tell you gratefully, not one iota changed in me. Nothing, because I looked at the check and I looked at him, and I love him, and I don't love a piece of paper. And you really have to make up your mind what you love and what you're attached to in this life. And if I would give fifty thousand dollars, I would give any thing, I would give everything for any person. I expect at least, this thing to be open and a little love and a little quality. And if you've got to pee, you go in the toilet; I am not a public utility. It is my privilege to work with you; it should be your privilege to work with me.
And that level of respect has to be there, and I will never accent less than that. And I'm very serious about it, we've lost a lot of people when Swami Muktananda was here, it was the most wonderful thing that happened to me. It cleaned out all the jokers, all the game players, all of that level. And I will bring people endlessly to talk to you, and you can go on any trip that you want, but I will never ask anyone to stay. Because anyone who wants to walk away is just taking with him so such karma, because before too long I want to be free of any karma, of any kind of karmic situation. I don't want to be covered with multitudes of people.
Spirituality has to do with admitting the spiritual force -- there's nothing in the books that talks about having to teach, does it? It's giving of spiritual energy, that's all. And that's what the Shankaracharya taught me when I was a kid. He said, you can grow like a great tree, a tree doesn't have sitting on its bough people saying I'm giving them breath. He doesn't sit there and display, a tree doesn't display its audience. A teacher doesn't have to display it either. I do not require lots of people to prove that I'm a teacher, but I want to have around me, the sweetness that comes from my own soul and my own growth and I will have nobody take that away from me. I've worded too hard. And if I let anyone of you do it, then I have to come back again - I don't intend to come back again, and none of you are worth my coming back.
I will never, ever, ever, ever do that, because that really is demeaning God, it is not having anything to do with spirituality, it has to do with social service, and I'm not the Salvation Army. I will not work that way. So if you don't want to be happy, that's your responsibility, and you don't belong here. You want to be happy, then you fight every day, and when you find you're closing, you fight to open. You can come to the store, I'11 work for you, I'll work with you, I've never refused that. But to tell me you had a bad month, that has to do with your stupidity, because if you come, you can take five minutes and we can take care of it. I'll be very glad to work it out for you. You don't have to suffer, you choose to suffer, and this is your choice. It's your pleasure, and then you enjoy it, but don't drop it on me. Does anyone have a question?