SEPTEMBER 1983
· PRIME MOTIVATION – THIS IS THE SITUATION – BRIDGING THE GAP – CLEARING THE STRUCTURE – MOTIVATION –LEARNING A NEW LANGUAGE – WORKING PROTOCOL
Today I want to cover a few very important points, and the first is something. I call "prime motivation." By prime motivation I mean that motivation which is at the very base of a given action. There is a technical reason why I stress this point, the prime motivation is a definite A action, meaning it it is highly directive. It is what gives your action its goal and quality.
But be careful : prime motivation is not.in the mind. Most of the time it is picked up and formulated by the mind, but it is not in the mind. It can be from deep heart, soul, or it can be simply emotional, but it is not mental. Now some people might say that it is mental, but if they were to go behind they would come to the affect, the emotional side. Unless you are trained, nearly all the roots of motivation are in the emotional, and behind the emotional you might possibly find soul. For instance, if you start looking into why you come here again and again, even though it's so hard, possibly, if you really look for the prime motivation, you will find a soul action behind.
What I'm trying to say is: Don't be satisfied with the reasoning your mind can have about your motivation, look at what you really live. Now you already know from experience on the emotional side that if you have an emotion it pops up by its own movement, without asking the mind for permission, and the mind adjusts and possibly expresses it in certain ways. But the language of the emotional side is somewhat different from the language of the mind, so when you are asked to look for a motivation, don't look only along the line of the language of the mind, go into feelings, go into intuitions, go into deep, deep longings. Then go behind all that.
As you know, theoretically, but as you might have a very hard time practicing, in the work we do you have to give out. This entire action is a gift. And this reminds me to refresh your memory that the monthly gift, the financial,help you give, has to be a gift. I do this because of the training of gift awareness it provides. Please consider: This entire action is a gift, and if your concrete consciousness doesn't learn somewhere what a true gift is, you won't be able to work. It's amazing how few realize this. You are here on earth to do something, if you pay because you want to get something then you miss the point. A gift is an expression of caring, an expression of loving.
Now the quality of the gift depends on your motivation. What is the motivation that.makes you give? That is a kind of delicate question. Is your motivation so that you can stay in the group in order to acquire some higher condition? This is a very common motivation. or is it a soul action? A real gift is a-soul action. Or another example might be: "Martin has decided that we have to give a monthly gift, so I'll give a monthly gift". The.motivation in this example is to follow or conform to a rule. There is no caring. There is no love. There is no life. We mean a gift to be something real, and we hope you mean this as well.
When you practice loving God and you come to the point where you give yourself to God, this is a major gift. It's not an emotional or mental concoction, we use the word 'gift" In a deeper way. It involves more genuine values. It is more spontaneous, more real -- not just one part of you wanting to give a gift and the other not wanting to.
Somehow you have to train until you realize what a true gift is. Some of you write checks. How many times do you have the feeling of a true, caring, outgoing gift when you write your check? It's something that goes into your writing and fills the paper. If your gift is a true one, you can't help but live it again when you write the check, or when you give in other ways.
We can also approach it from a different angle : our civilization today is geared toward getting the most you can from life, and if you are not getting enough, you automatically have the tendency to hold what you have for fear of losing it, until, by holding back, you crystallize your natural movement. Your natural movement is radiating, and radiation is a gift. if giving that monthly gift were your sole opportunity to give, and you gave only once a month and only in that way, the fact that you dared to give would have a tendency to break the dams you build around yourself that cause you to withhold your real, deep movement. Few people realize how these. Things work.
An example that comes to my mind is of a lady who had a motel somewhere, I think in Arizona. Business was at an all-time low. She had practically no guests and sixty dollars in cash. The situation was pretty desperate. Then she started thinking that she had never done anything for God, so she decided to give forty of her sixty dollars to the local church -- she was left with twenty dollars. That same evening, guests began to arrive and from that point on business began steadily to improve. Now people have a chronic tendency to blame setbacks on outside circumstances possibly there was a new road somewhere that avoided the motel, perhaps there was a new motel twenty miles further that was much nicer -- whatever. But she dared to break that dam and things started moving again.
It's not the form but the essence of gift that dares to come out, and this must be applied to everything in your life. You work to earn a living, is there a gift in that work? There are people at all levels of life who naturally give all the time, but in the hectic life we have now, this breed is nearly gone.
So, I have to insist that the practice of giving, really giving a felt gift, one which you stand behind, is very important. Unless you learn this, don't expect much from so-called spiritual development. If you do not learn this, then your prime motivation will not be to give something to mankind, but rather to acquire a certain degree of evolution for yourself.
Now in the Statement of Purpose I'm quite honest with you. It says that if you come here for your own benefit you can forget it. I say it in better words, but essentially it's the same. I'm always amazed at how few people realize what is meant. If you work for your own benefit in our surrounding, it just won't work. I know some of you have this bitter experience. You try, and try hard, but it still doesn't work. There's a very simple reason : you are doing it for your own benefit and not for the benefit of mankind. I tell you this every year, hopefully this year you are better prepared to hear me. I would like to see every one of you be able to give, really and wholeheartedly. Now to give wholeheartedly is a soul gift, meaning the prime motivation is a soul movement, it is not ego-centered grabbing, giving in order to get.
I have-in mind someone I have known pretty well who has spent her whole lifetime giving -- in order to be someone. The outer appearance was one of gift, but the psychological appearance was one of needing to be someone and giving was the means that was used. If you help people you become an important person for those people -- see how your ego inflates?
Clearing out the gift action in your life depends on your realizing the prime motivation behind. Psychologically you would say: "Why do I do it?" As average goes, the prime motivation is practically always emotional, very often with a beautiful cover-up by the mind. By cover-up I mean that the mind makes a beautiful story about what the motivation is in order to hide the true motivation. Many people are experts at hiding their true motivation, but remember that if you hide it from others, you also hide it from yourself.
Then there are others who hide their motivation from themselves because it does not correspond to their ideal. Now motivation is a practical aspect, and the ideal is a theoretical aspect, meaning the motivation is stronger than the ideal. The motivation is actually at work and the ideal is only a potential situation. So look at the quality of the feelings in your motivation. Go deep. Don't be satisfied when you find that your motivation wants to grab the whole world for your own benefit, and if possible more than that. When you come to that point and you are able to face it and realize that you do it, don't stop there. Go behind. The desperate wanting is a reflection of what? Because what you have found on the level of awareness is in reality a reflection of something else. For instance, you come here in order to reach a higher condition. What is.that a reflection of? Look on the other side. Something wants to come through and out.
We speak of a soul action behind. To be more technical it's not always soul, but-let's say on the emotional level there is a good chance that it is a soul action coming through. Soul action always has a giving movement. You give out, all the time.
I remember when I was nine or ten years old in Switzerland in the mountains, and I had just come down from a big fir I had climbed to swing in the wind -- it was fantastic! There I met a girl, of perhaps twenty, who explained to me that when people want to get affection from others, it never solves their problem, they solve it only when, instead of wanting to receive it, they give it to others. I was not a philosopher at the time, but I realized it was a serious proposition that must be very true, and so it proved to be later on. The deeper action, which is what you are looking for, is what changes your life, solves your "problems" and brings out the deeper values.
Take another aspect. Lots of people want to get rich because they believe that it will solve all their problems. Did you ever find one rich person who had no problems? The problems are usually worse. So much for myths. It's not how much you get, it's how much you give.
The monthly financial gift is an opportunity to make a concrete gesture, with means you use in everyday life. It's an opportunity to bring out a deep, deep motivation and express it. Then you start unblocking that dam people build around themselves. Take it seriously and practice. It is a caring. It is a loving movement. Soul and love go together.
Participant: The material that goes to make up the human being comes from the earth. It's been in circulation for thousands of years. When the soul comes in contact with the human being, the body that it lives with, and then faces the experiences that these cells have in them, it comes up against resistances to outgoing givingness. Granted there is a training involved, but it doesn't seem like it's "bad". It's something one shouldn't get down on oneself for. I'm wondering how you would see that?
…. As you know evolution takes a long time, so if you go 2,000 years back it was still the same with some connotations that were different (more feelings at that time etc.), but still everything interpreted according to that mind, and you've learned to act accordingly. So, we could say, as I say in the book in the symbolism of the square, that spirit has to gain strength. And, as you know, strength is developed by resistance. The greater the resistance, the greater the strength developed. I think you have realized that over the years you have known me you have seen me coming out with more and more strength. So I have to thank you for your resistance. It's not bad, perhaps uncomfortable, but it's not bad. If you know how to use it there are some advantages. I call this a human mind concoction.
….. Let's say you have that spontaneous movement to give and your mind overrides it. It's because of possessiveness. "I" do right. "I" do wrong. The proposition is not that at all. You have a human situation in which you have an instrument called "personality". The personality is adjusted to a given situation. What you handle is the whole of it: personality/situation. okay, what can we do with this situation? Let's say you have, as you suggested, the mind overriding your natural movement. Don't judge, look at the features of the situation. This is how this personality works in this given situation. Look closer at how it works. Look at the hidden motivation. Look at everything. It's fascinating. Then you begin to see how, by modifying a group of aspects, you can bring out a value. As I told you, I have to do something with your resistance, so I come out stronger. Actually it's not that way at all, but in the usual understanding it would be a way to interpret it (because people want to get higher qualities). So I get my higher qualities by developing muscles against your resistance.
The proposition is:
This is the situation.
You recognize the situation, and that's the first phase.
Phase two is:
What can we do in this situation ?
What good, what creativeness, what gift can we bring out that may be useful to the people on earth? You modify the situation purposefully.
If you want to modify the situation, logically, you first have to see the situation. How many times in your conscious life have you tried to apply much higher principles just so you wouldn't have to face a situation -- so you could escape? Unfortunately, spirituality, in all it's forms, has it's greatest number of adherents in the form of escapists.
And, in a way, this is where we have trouble in our groups. You know we don't go along with escaping. If you want to be able to perform there are requirements that have to be met. If you sound a note you must sound it, and it has to show. There is no place for dreams.
Believe it or not we have in the groups people who still cannot tell the difference between the dream of what they would like to live and what actually works. The dreamer would sound in the dream, so the observer would say they sense something way behind. No, sounding is positive, it changes things in the room. In the protocol we speak of Loving God. Whatever pops up in your mind, you continue. If it's difficult, you just continue. If it's impossible, you still continue. That's the quickest way. Then your resistance is forgotten, because it's not real.
….You believe your personality is you, but it ceases to exist at death. So it's simply something you have borrowed, so we call that an "instrument" -- the mask you use for public appearance. It's a human sample that has, among other things, that silly tendency to make resistance. Look at how that personality functions. Very often I have tried to make you aware that mankind has a past, and that past is alive in what is present. So you have old tendencies, and you have to cope with them. There are old patterns, and you have to create new patterns.
There's another point I want to make in this respect. When you have a block, a barrier that keeps you from going further, the block is a one-way valve, it works from the outside in, not from the inside out. So there is an alternate route, you go from the inside out and there is no block whatsoever.
You will notice that as soon as you start hinting at blocks, resistances, and so on, as soon as you go into that you have the movement of reaching up (symbolically, toward the sun). Automatically. Try for yourself. observe in the group. Every time one of those questions arises, you have all the awareness in the group reaching toward -- the movement of coming out, giving, is gone. You don't even notice it because it is the average movement in mankind. It's a pattern well established from long, long past. But you are not obliged to stay with a well-established pattern, it's simply that if you are not on guard, it may pop up. As soon as you are aware of it you simply change position.
The ability to change position is important. With the ability to change position, there are some very important points I have to remind you of: You have to shift in terms of identity. Whatever you do, if you are still your little ego, then it doesn't work. If you really train, as you train,your sense of identity changes. If you do not change, then it means that your prime motivation, which is giving the direction, is some sort of egoic position. And when you have an egoic position, don't condemn it, try to look behind.
This is why I tell you all that time that you may hear me criticizing you, but I don't. I'm used to looking behind. Those aspects reflect another action, but the reflection is reversed, as is any reflection -- so you want to reach up, when the other wants to come out. it is quite symmetrical, but it's reversed, and this has to be adjusted.
The Bridging of the gap
We come into a period in which there is what we call"the bridging of the gap". This implies that what is on the other side of the gap is going to assimilate the person -- meaning the person begins to be integrated in the whole, instead of living as a separate entity. And believe me it makes a big, big difference. Your sense of identity will be gone completely, utterly and completely.
And another point: When you work you have to create the surrounding in which what you do is possible -- actually it's rather an unveiling. The mind is used to itemizing. So you work on one item and then another, and you forget about the surrounding in which the item exists. It you give an item of a higher value, you have to give a surrounding of a higher value -- that means a corresponding surrounding -- otherwise it won't work.
Clearing the Structure
Sometimes, if you are very honest with yourself, you realize that when you do something it doesn't work because the structure is much too coarse. So you have to refine it. And in this respect the first you have to refine is what people call the "astral body".
For those who are not familiar with the word "astral", it can be translated: emotional condition, with an extension to the sub- and supraconscious emotions. It's a much bigger realm than the usual emotions.
We have just seen that resistance is what helps spirit grow strong (strong in small letters). Seen from the mind, the reverse is also true, that is, the instrumentality has to respond in a higher and higher way, from the most physical, the most coarse, to the finest. Now to apply the word "coarse" to the physical is not right. The physical is not coarse by itself, coarseness is mainly in the astral condition. When that is cleared out, then you look in the etheric condition, and last of all in the physical. If you clear up the physical and the astral condition is not cleared up, then you are still coarse.
Now I realize that you don't know the implications of refining the structures, so I will give you one means that works beautifully but is not foolproof, so you have to be very honest with yourself. There is one center that reflects the astral condition pretty nicely and that is what is called the "solar plexus".Now suppose you allow the solar plexus to radiate spontaneously -- that very fine radiation that is nearly light. Like a sun, but not as heavy as the sun. Light, light, light.
Now there is one major trap: the ego cannot do it. You can decide in your head to ask the plexus to come out, and if the soft way doesn't work you can start threatening the plexus: "Come out or else". But you'll find that this won't work either. Finally you'll realize that the culprit is not the plexus, it's the head. When the plexus comes out it comes out on it's own. You have to realize that the centers of awareness are working on a more "abstract" or "higher" level than the consciousness. True plexus awareness, positive plexus, is not what you know of as emotions. What you know of as emotions is mainly on the nature side.
When you begin to be aware of these differences of quality, you might, by intuition, sense the real plexus -- not yet here, but somewhere. Okay, persist. Live with it. You will begin to realize that there is a coarseness in the usual plexus that has to be limbered, refined. Little by little you won't allow yourself to behave in just any usual way, you will want a deeper quality in what you do.
So let's say the time comes when the positive plexus starts acting. You will, at that moment, notice how drastic the difference is, and you will begin to be aware of what we mean by transparent. When the plexus begins to come out cleaner, not fully clean, but cleaner, you will notice that a lot of psychological hangups will go, quite naturally and without pain.
But I said it's not foolproof. One of the main difficulties is that we have people in the groups who, precisely because of an emotional condition, do not make the difference between what they wish and what is actually going on. You can have a plexus that is just stirring in the usual way and decide that it's a beautiful sun. If you bring out the sun that way, you will have the kind of heaviness our physical sun has sometimes -- like muggy tropical air. And if you are very enthusiastic in projecting your desire you might not realize what you are actually doing. This is one of the reasons why I encourage you to work in groups, so that you may at least have the feedback of others. If you don't, you have no proof that what you do is really done.
If we sound a note you will notice that everything in the room reacts -- just plain everything -- so the sounding is real. Again, if you work alone, you can sound a note and decide that the flowers react, but you have no proof that this is right. If you know a little about your own psychology you will notice that if you project the desire of sounding, you oblige yourself to see a change in the flowers. So this is why you need others to tell you if they did actually change. But be careful: your motivation isn't to change the flowers. It's a sounding that awakens Life. if your motivation is to change the flowers, then you address an item rather than the principle of sounding. When you hear me speak of sounding you sense something going on, I don't speak of an item. Also, within the sounding, you can be specific (A, U, M or other aspects), but first there is the principle, meaning the motivation has to start from there. It's not a concoction of your mind, but a wholehearted gift.
Do you have questions?
Participant: Could you say something more specific about training to radiate plexus, because I didn't follow very clearly what you meant.
Martin: When you train I would prefer that you don't say "radiate" but rather "clarify". All centers radiate anyway, but they are usually covered. So actually there is a kind of uncovering, but it requires a considerable clarification, which leads to a kind of transparency.
Participant: Basically though, how is it that you are suggesting we train?
Martin: I come back to the particle as a manifestation of the dynamics of the whole. The center is a manifestation of the dynamics of the whole. So be whole-in-the-first place. of course the quickest way to be whole-in-the-first-place is the proposition: Loving God.
Participant: The kind of development that is necessary to follow here seems different from what is offered around in the world -- two different trainings about how to be a human being, and there doesn't seem to be much of a road map. Also, many of the functions of the human being in the world have a self-reflexive kind of action, and reconciling that with this training is mind boggling.
Martin: I would advise you not to reconcile. If you were to try to reconcile, it would mean you would have to use a new awareness and reconcile it with the old awareness. Now the new awareness encompasses all of the old field, but the old field in no longer seen in the same way -- so you have nothing to reconcile. All you might have to do, because you work in this world, is to find a way to convey another view to others -- perhaps to only one other.
Participant: What do you mean?
Martin: I have in mind a story. Two initiates met somewhere and were speaking together. The younger one said to the older and more experienced one: "oh, you must have led so many people to enlightenment". The older one answered: "I have succeeded in leading one person".of all the thousands he had met. Well, that's the story, and it might very well be real.
It is said that once Yogananda made a speech in New York to two thousand people. After the speech someone said to him: "There were so many people here, you will have a lot of followers". He answered: "I will have two". Out of two-thousand. And it proved to be true.
It's not that easy. Those who have been here a long time have seen many leave. They still continue to leave, in spite of what they live here. You cannot force someone to realize what is going on here.
You said we don't have a map. There are an abundance of maps, but, as the saying goes, "the map is not the territory". Actually, there is a very precise map that is completely forgotten: the book. You can read it, comeback to it again and again, as much as you want. If you do what is in the book, it leads to a fitness: the ability to face something utterly different.
As an example: I have often spoken of the exercise of Unfolding of Desires. When you come to the point where you face that void which is a matrix, something happens. I don't remember anyone ever providing feedback or having questions on this proposition. It is the very beginning of facing something different, but you have to experience that void and go through it. It's there, and it's a lot more precise than you imagine.
Motivation
Now we have been speaking of motivation. If your motivation is just to make a fantasy in order to fulfill a desire and you do that, then once you have fulfilled the desire the exercise is gone. If your motivation is to go to the need behind, then when you have gone through your desire you will realize that there is something underlying and you become captivated by the fact that there is actually something there. You will notice in your everyday life that it happens all the time. Whatever kind of desire you fulfill, you always find an underlying something. We call that vital need. If your motivation is to go further, then don't stop there. If your motivation is to come face to face with what is called "soul", then continue until soul appears, in and through the void.
There are psychological aspects in the human condition that you ought to be familiar with by now. one is that whenever you set a goal, the habit is to immediately put something in between yourself and the goal: "if I want to reach that point, first I have to..." You postpone. You do everything you can so you don't have to face reality. If I want to pick up that rose over there, I don't need any processing, I just go over and pick it up. But when we speak of something that is a bit finer, a bit more noble, we make problems:
- First I have to lift myself off the chair...
- Then there is that step I have to go down...
- So I have to be careful when I go down ...
- How many steps are there from here to there?
- Now I'll have to walk on the carpet ...
- What about the tracks I leave?
- Do I have to erase them or just leave them?
Now believe me this is what most of you do. Then you complain that things are hard.
There is another psychological point that can be translated into the term "mother or father figure". The child expects the parent or parents to do things for him, so you come here and you expect us to do everything for you. Now there are those in the groups who have discovered that they ought to take a hand and help so that the burden on our shoulders will not be so big. Some have decided to make a move and create a small group. What do we have? They still expect us to do everything.
Then those who are not in the group hear of it and would like to be part of it. For me the proposition is very simple Let's all be part of it. Then that group will be this group. Start taking responsibility and training. It's just that simple. Of course, in the past, all the smaller groups have always degenerated and the bigger group has caught up with the movement, so you don't need to be frustrated because you don't belong to the smaller group.
And, there is a responsibility that I don't see applied consistently. When one member of the group speaks with another member and asks for help, what is needed ought to be given. It's an opportunity to act. But what is the reaction? "Let's ask Martin." I don't go along with this. You are no longer children, even if I am very tempted to call you that. Assume responsibility. There is only one way to assume responsibility -- give out. When someone asks, give. We see people wanting to take responsibility while still relying on me. No. You have to work, because we want to work in a different way -- this ought to be clear by now. You have to bring out. You have to gear toward giving.
Let's look at it another way. How many people leave the groups, how many join? Actually in Los Angeles the group gets bigger and in Rancho Santa Fe the group gets smaller. Who among you cares? Who is acting? Who is outgoing? Who is bringing a gift to this world? You cannot be an adult without assuming responsibility.
Then sometimes you feel yourself as an adult and want to make your own life. Within the group we still see this tendency to want to do your own thing. This is not the proposition. We are involved in an action for mankind. It's a Christ action. You still don't realize it. If you don't assume yourself and you haven't cleared out, then you cannot face Christ, not as we mean facing. You can face symbolically, you can face in your imagination, but not practically. So something has to be done. When you are involved in a service you don't do your own thing. You're given a responsibility for a certain action and you do it -- the way you do it is your decision, but the action has to be done. And you definitely do not decide this on the conscious level. But this relates to another language and we'll come to that now.
Learning A New Language
When we play music, something happens and you respond. What you live is a kind of language that instantaneously encompasses everything you live at that moment. I would like you to accept this way of being aware of your experience as a language in itself.
Now if you want to learn a new language very fast, you have to really go into it and become aware according to it, instead of translating it into your present language.
As an example, when I came to the states for the first time having to listen and speak in English gave me headaches -- all those new sounds. The brain was not used to them so it had to get adjusted. The answer was practice. It's the same for the new language. Practice. Listen in the new language. Speak in the new language. Think in the new language, but be careful, the thinking is not the usual one.
I'm going to ask you to do an exercise we've done already to hammer home a very important principle that we have spoken of again and again, but that is still not understood. Will you stand up please. Take one foot, hold it with your hand, and balance yourself on the other foot. You can wobble as much as you want. You are not asked to keep perfect balance. This is just to experience how you balance.
Now, put your attention on your ankle. Maybe you also need to put some attention on the knee that holds the ankle. Now the hips that hold the knee, and your upper body might need some help too. This is the usual way of doing it -- putting your attention on everything that helps you to keep your balance.
Now let's do it differently. Again, you can wobble, it's not the point. Now lock your whole consciousness (sensory/emotional/mental) on the principle of balance -- not the balance of your body but the principle of balance. Allow yourself to be limber, even move, you can massage your foot, and, of course, you can look around too.
Now you may sit down. Did you observe that, when you lock on the principle of balance something happens in you. The atmosphere is different -- we still have some of it showing. Do you follow? The atmosphere is different and you do what you do within that atmosphere and the result is somewhat better than the first time your tried. Sometimes it's drastically better, sometimes a little less, but with very few exceptions it's better.
We just did something very concrete that is contrary to the whole processing of your mind. You started with the whole-in-the-first-place and the expression of balance is simply an expression of that whole -- this was not the case with the first experience.
Participant: When you lock on the principle it's irrespective of any definition or labeling of balance. It's putting the principle first, the labeling or definition come later.
Martin: You don't need any definition as long as you lock on the principle, because you will notice that when you do that something else happens -- a kind of whole that cannot be itemized.
Participant: So the mind is useless in it because the mind is what locks on definitions and labels.
Martin: You will notice that when you lock on the principle of balance, of course you would say that your mind locks on it, but the sensory, the feelings do too, and then it generates a kind of new atmosphere in the room and it is within that you do what you have to do.
Now what I say here is true for all of the training. You might remember when we talked about the particle being a manifestation of the dynamics of the whole ! rather than the reverse. What I'm saying is that it's time to realize that you do it. You just did it. You did something within the dynamics of the whole.
You will notice that you don't even need to know mentally what balance is, an approximate definition of balance for the consciousness is all that is needed. Some people may understand what a principle is, but honestly do any of you understand the principle of balance? You don't. You don't know what it is and you still have a change in the atmosphere in the room, and your performance was better.
Now when we play music the same thing happens. We are going to play a piece of Beethoven. Listen to it in whatever way you want to listen at the moment. Then we'll start again and this time we'll play with you and something will happen -- in the room, in each of you. It will happen on the level of your physical body, etheric body, astral body. That means senses, mind, and emotions. It will happen in your very identity. It happens, as with the principle of balance, as a whole, a kind of all-encompassing whole, and this is your experience. Now that awareness of experience is a whole in itself. Whatever you itemize you draw out of the whole, and what I propose is that you respect that awareness whole, as a new language. It actually is. We use it constantly.
One of the difficulties we have is that when we notice things about what you do, how you react, how you hear, how you interpret whatever goes on, we are aware of it according to that other language, which encompasses all items simultaneously -- that means as one. Why I want you to focus this way is to cut off the tendency you have had up to now to always translate what you live in your usual language and reduce it to your understanding. So acknowledge the experience as a whole, and the fullness of it as such, without trying to translate it, until you learn the language. If you translate you won't learn it. You will experience it, yes, but you will reduce it to some aspect that you abstract. There are things that pop up in your mind, fine, but what pops up in your mind is not your experience, it's an abstraction of your experience. So stay with the actual experience, as if it were a new language. Stay with it. If you want to learn, you have to listen.
When you live that way you will realize that there is an awareness in it, there is an ability to act in it, that in this respect it is very close to language. With language you can express something, in this new language you can too. Most of what we do is done this way.
(music)
Stay with the change, there's a language in it. You will notice it touches your very identity. You live yourself differently, in the instrument as well as in your own sense of identity. Please notice. But please be aware that when I say "notice" I don't mean analyze, I mean live. This language is something you live, not something you abstract.
You will also notice that it awakens in you something a lot finer. By contrast you might sense that the response in the instrumentality of your human condition is not very limber, coarse in places, you don't have the freedom to move. We need to go further into the language so that you feel you live a condition that is more refined -- mask-wise as well as identity-wise -- both. one of the stumbling blocks we have is that you believe a lot in me, but you don't believe me when I tell you we see you differently. We actually do and we act accordingly, and you respond. The stumbling block arises when you insist on using the same sense of identity in all situations, even when you, as a being, feel being different. So the proposition is that you be honest with yourself. You know perfectly well that you are not just a mask. Act accordingly.
Now we are going to play a Chopin etude. First you will respond to it, and then we will play together. The difference in the experience is what we call the new language, because with this new language you live yourself differently. The old language is your old self and the new language implies the new self, but also a new relation with what is called "instrumentality". Okay let's go.
(Music)
You just did something that I see for the first time in this group. If you look around you will see that you are all in a kind of unity, there is a type of life that flows through everyone. It's the first time I see this happen without our help. It's not yet fully established, but it's a lot better than it has been in the past.
Participant: I thought you were helping.
Martin: No, I was sort of agreeably surprised. Your remark is a sort of tricky one because I have to ask you what you mean by "you". You received some help, yes, it's practically always here, I agree with this, but there was not the more concrete help I have to generate. So, just for your own reference, you can do it, you just did it.
Okay let's play together.
(music)
Please notice in a way that is different from your mind. You feel being something other than what the mind usually accepts as being you. You feel a relation with your instrumentality that is different. You feel the condition of the body that is different. But also notice that you have no faith in yourselves. You hold that position as stiffly as possible -- you don't dare to move for fear of losing it. And if you start moving you actually do lose it. Now what do we do?
Now we will play again, but with movement. There was movement with the last piece, but we'll live another piece that you will understand as movement. You will notice that we have the same quality but with more limberness. Same language, more limberness. What you live is a natural condition, you cannot lose it. But your consciousness is not used to it, so it has a tendency to put a veil on it, cover it up, relegate it to someplace higher. No, it's right here, right in this room. Find the quality you feel in the roses, for instance, it's not "somewhere" in your consciousness, it's the situation of the moment.
So let's play the other Chopin. We'll play together just once.
(music)
Working Protocol
Just some last words about the protocol. When you work with the protocol the prime motivation does not stop with you loving God, which is not part of the protocol anyway, it involves all three aspects:
Loving God:
You are in a Condition of Loving. There is a Loving or Lovingness going on, it's not you loving. It is a condition in which you happen to be loving God, or we could say there is a lovingness in it so you can't help yourself. It is not directed by the head, because when you decide to love God your starting point is a condition in which love does not exist so you have to introduce it. Whereas the proposition is the reverse: you join into a condition where it is working all the time. So you start from a point where it is a normal condition.
And something else: I have proposed that you use that protocol, so you tell yourself: "Martin has said it's beneficial so let's do it". That's a very bad motivation, because you start from a movement that tries to conform to a theory and you just hope that the theory is real, that it will prove to be right. Whereas, the proposition is to start in a Condition of Loving. You don't go toward it, you just, let's say, take away the curtain and you are right in the midst of it.
Sharing the Temple:
Literally:contemplation. I would be tempted to say it's the next step (although it's not a step). It's an obvious situation again, natural and obvious. It's not something you reach. It's like with the dynamics of the whole, you don't reach it because whatever you do is within these dynamics.
Just a word of caution. Contemplation or sharing the temple is a reality, a reality that the mind does not understand. This means that when you start loving God and offering him your whole structure as a temple so that he can use it, it's not it.
But, as I said, sharing is real, and once you approach the reality of sharing, you wouldn't dare to be less than transparent. At that time you are aware of it -- and if something has to be cleaned you do it.
"O" :
And the "O" -- it's the symbol used at the end of the poem in the book -- we don't speak of it because for this you need another language. You really do. When you work with the protocol, you must live with the "O" present, even if you cannot connect.
Participant: I was eating a vegetable the other day and I noticed that the vegetable doesn't have anything to say about what happens, it's just helpless as to what happens to it. So, when in facing God the question of that kind of helplessness comes in, about it's being okay to go into that kind of helplessness, or just how to face that kind of vulnerability.
Martin: I'd like you to see with other eyes, more mature eyes. You spoke about the vegetable and you took the liberty of applying human awareness to it -- with no awareness whatsoever of vegetable awareness. Were you ever able to observe what happens when you reap wheat, what happens to the field? Don't project your awareness into other realms. Propose what you said to that crystal, it would laugh at you.
Not long ago it was believed that plants and minerals had no awareness, and now it has been shown, even through laboratory experimentation, that this is not so. You might not have been here long enough to remember when we worked with the crystal and saw how it changes with each person, and how we can ask the crystal to transmit or convey something. It is a living being, it's just that the type of awareness is different.
What I am trying to say is simply this: When you learn the new language, your awareness of everything will change. You take for granted, for instance, that your body is the way you feel it now. We are here to tell you that we don't experience it that way, for us this is gone. There is another awareness of even the body, something as familiar at that.
Your awareness of the so-called physical world is mainly due to sensory awareness. Now ordinary sensory awareness has a given range, it works on wavelengths, from here to there and that's it. When you have another awareness, the same sensory awareness has a range that is stupendous. It's not limited to earth, not at all. This is ignored by the usual mind. You have completely forgotten the time when your awareness was able to commune with the life of the stars. Look in your awareness, you have forgotten. It was there long ago in the first eternity.
You relate to your body as having the awareness in the brain. No, the brain is just a kind of computer, centralizing all the data from all over the body. There is an awareness in all the parts of the body, however small -- systems of awareness. The situation is a lot richer than the mind believes. You have to watch how the instrumentality works, you are definitely not limited to this range of action. Definitely not.
We use another language, and with that language there are things we can do. I didn't use my consciousness for what we just did now. It might follow, it might help with some aspects, but the main action is not that at all. I know what I do, but not in the ways of the mind, not in the ways of the senses, not in the ways of emotions. And as you notice, it does something, and you do respond, so there is bound to be another type of awareness.
Don't continue to try to solve situations by projecting your present awareness into the new one. The functioning of the new one is very different. The habit of man to anthropomorphize everything is just terrible.
So how about contemplating a little?
(music)