Read an Excerpt
From
Chapter
7: Change and Truth
This work is for you to learn to know yourself, to pay attention to yourself, to be watchful of your feelings, attitudes, and thoughts. Observe what your attitude is toward what's happening inside and outside, to yourself and to others and to the situation. What are you doing with yourself? What is the movement, the action happening within you? What is the commentary? What is the reaction to what is happening inside you and outside you? Be watchful of that, be aware of it now. What are you saying to yourself, what are you wanting to do about what's happening? Are you saying, "Oh, this is good" or are you saying, "Well, I don't know about this, I'd like it to be different."
What is your attitude toward yourself, toward your feeling, your thinking? Is it okay to have the experience that you are having? Is it completely okay? Or is part of it okay and part of it not okay? Is it okay for it to be the way it is, or should it be different? And if it's not okay for it to be this way, how do you want it to be? If you're looking at what's happening inside you and you see a part of you that wants things to be different, a part of you that has an idea of how things should be different, in what way do you want them to be different? Ask yourself where you learned that it should be different in that way? Who said things should go the way you say they should? Let's have some feedback about your experience. What did you observe as I was inquiring? What did you experience?
Student:
I noticed that I was worried that people would reject the new people in the room. I feel real responsible for everybody in here.
A.
H. Almaas:
Responsible for people here?
S:
Yes. Responsible for people's attitudes. I was afraid someone would say something to hurt the new people's feelings. I don't want them to feel rejected.
AH:
What else?
S:
I was going through the same thing; I was sizing up the new people wondering who I could get to know well.
S:
I was doing the same thing, but under that was a desire not to listen to you. I
didn't want to listen. I didn't want to admit that I could learn anything by listening to you.
AH:
That's true. You can't learn anything by merely listening to me. Very true.
S:
I was just feeling good about myself and where I am. In a way I was hoping the new people would feel as uncomfortable as I did the first time I came here,
because I know how much I learned from that in the beginning. But they should enjoy themselves too.
S:
I found myself being irritated by your talk somewhat because it seemed like one of those lowest common denominator talks, and feeling sort of superior. I've been doing this for three years, so I don't have to listen too hard or pay attention now. I noticed I didn't feel like throwing everybody new out of the room the way I did the last time three new people appeared. I was also trying to recognize their type on the enneagram. I was mainly interested that I don't feel threatened by the new people the way I have before. I also feel somehow I
have to set an example, and get everything right and act right because they'll be watching me for clues as to how to be.
S:
Basically I was feeling good and sort of excited about new people being here,
about new faces. I was expecting to feel threatened by the new people coming in and I wasn't at all. That really felt good.
S:
I was feeling so threatened about being here—like I wasn't good enough. I
wasn't sure how I would fit in. And I thought about how many times in my life I
invest strangers with powers that they in fact don't have.
S:
I'm feeling resistant to being here. It's a beautiful day. There's a million things I'd rather be doing. I felt very judgmental about feeling that way. I
made the choice to be here, so why can't I just experience my choice?
S:
I used to see you as a pecan pie and the more people there were the smaller the slice I would get. I don't think I see you that way any more.
S:
I feel awkward about being here, very strange. And I'm also feeling how much I
need to be perfect, to do everything perfectly, just right.
AH:
Now I'll try to point out the common elements in all your comments which are very important for us to understand if we are going to do this work seriously.
The most common element, if you notice, is the commentary about what is happening. We do not allow what is happening to just be what is happening, to take its course. The most common thing we do is feel that things should be a certain way. We wish to change things, to have things be a certain way. This attitude prevails in your comments and also in the thoughts and feelings of those of you who didn't make comments. Something in our minds is looking at what is there, saying, "Should it be that way or not?" You look at your feelings and what do you do? Do you just feel your feelings, or are you asking whether you should feel a certain way? Is it good or bad? "I like this, I don't like this." The commentary is always going on about your feelings or about someone else's feelings or presence or actions. Some of the things you spoke about sounded nice. "I want other people to feel comfortable, welcomed. I want to feel good and happy." The comments can go one way or the other, but the general tendency is to want things a particular way. That particular way may change from one person to the other, but each one of us thinks things ideally should be a certain way. "Ideally, I should be here and feel good and feel welcoming toward everybody." Or,
"Ideally, I should get as much as I want." Or, "Ideally, I
should not be nervous at all." Or, "Ideally, I should not need this work at all. Ideally, I should be somewhere else water-skiing. Ideally, the chair I'm sitting on should be a sofa." Right?
What is implied in these thoughts? Whether you think something positive or negative,
isn't it implied that you know how things should be? Isn't it implied that you feel qualified to judge reality? Isn't it implied that you are qualified to say what you and other people should feel and what should happen or should not happen? In Christian theology this function is reserved for God. He's the One who's supposed to know and decide what happens. But you're always trying to take that role. If you look at it really closely, you will see that every minute you're saying that you know better than God! "Things should be this way, not that way. I should feel this way not that way. There shouldn't be clouds today—I don't like clouds—there should be sun." So, there is always a movement of judgment. There is always a desire for things to be different and that desire for things to be different is dependent on your ideas about how things should be different.
These ideas about how things should be different—about how you and other people should feel and experience things, about what is good and what is bad—are what some people call our "ton of cabbage." If you remember the story,
"The Islanders," you're told that you can't learn to swim as long as you're carrying your ton of cabbage. What is swimming? To swim is to live, to live freely. I'm not saying this so that you make more commentaries on your experience, and judge it even more. If you do, you're just adding another ton of cabbage. The point is not to judge yourself but to just look at the situation, to see how you always make judgments. Do you see that you are always making a judgment?
It's a simple, logical inference that if you really knew how you should feel, how others should feel, and how things should go, by now you would have achieved everything you wanted in your life and be happy, contented, fulfilled and free.
When people come here to work on themselves, to understand and develop themselves,
they usually say they want to be different, they want to change. They want to change their lives and they want to change themselves. However, if you really want to change yourself, if you want yourself and your life to be different,
could that change occur according to your already existing conceptions about how things should go? Would that be a change or would that just be a continuation of what has been?
What we find here is that we're trying to change things but we're always trying to change them according to our old ideas about how things should go. But your ideas about how things should go are the product of your present condition. How else could it be? The way you go about wanting things to change will only keep them the same. You can't do anything else.
You're always trying to change yourself, right? "I'm a miserable person. I want to be happy. So this is what I'm going to do about it." Well, your ideas of how things should go are simply the product of how you are now. So how are you going to feel happy if you are acting according to the understanding of someone who is miserable? You can only continue the misery! If you're a jealous person and you say you want to be a loving person so you should do this and this, you're just going to continue being jealous, because your idea of how things should go come from how you think of yourself as a jealous person. Your ideas of how love develops will have rules coming out of jealousy. How can such ideas produce love? How can beliefs brought out of suffering produce happiness?
An idea can only perpetuate its own nature. If you're a frightened person, fear will be a thread running through all your ideas. And such ideas can only produce more fear.
It's an interesting dilemma that we find ourselves in. The general tendency of the personality is to try to change things according to our own preconceptions. How else can we do it? We can only act according to what we already know. And we don't know freedom and fulfillment.
Where does that leave us? If you really listen and absorb what I have said, you'll notice some fear, or anxiety. If you begin to understand what I am saying, you will realize that you have to let go of your preconceptions and start fresh. We need to approach this work with an unknowing mind, a mind that is open to what is new, rather than a mind that is like a wheel running according to what is old.
