REALIZATION BY DROPPING THE UNCONSCIOUS - Keys to the Ultimate Freedom

星空

Our subject is called many things by many schools. I like to call it happiness. That which gives you the ultimate in happiness is the discovery of the Truth of you. When you get to completely know you, you reach the ultimate joy, the peace of satiation. You discover that you are the All and that your former worldly search was your trying to find your real self in the world; and that there you never could discover the real you, the consequence of which was that you were never satisfied.

You are this thing called happiness. Your basic nature is infinite joy, far beyond anything your mind could comprehend. That's why everyone is seeking happiness. We're all trying to return to that wonderful inherent state that, when discovered, is ours all the time. However, we do not find it because we are looking away from, rather than toward it. We must look within. Basically we are infinite Beings. Vole have no limitation; we have all knowledge; we have all power and we are omnipresent, here and now. There isn't anyone who doesn't possess these three things.

The difficulty in discovering our purpose and goal in life is that because we are infinite, we can make ourselves infinitely small. And this is exactly what we have done. We have achieved the extreme in limitation. We couldn't be much more limited than we are right now. In this universe, which is infinite in size, and in the three worlds, we are at the extreme end of limitation. We have imagined ourselves, and frozen ourselves, into physical bodies, and because of so many millennia of looking at ourselves as bodies, we have become convinced that we are these physical bodies.

Beings are capable of seeing all realms that are denser than their's. In the subtlest realm, the causal world, beings can perceive the denser astral and physical realms. In the astral world, beings can perceive the denser physical world. And because we in the physical realm cannot see a denser realm, we are in the densest, most limited realm possible.

The physical body being the extreme end of limitation possible to us, we feel cramped; we hurt; we reach out. We try to express our freedom in the physical world. We try to eliminate time and space, to go faster and further.

I'm pointing out how far we have gone in accepting limitation since we came into a physical body, and that this is the reason why it is so difficult for most of us to discover the Truth of ourselves, which is: we have no limits.

However, there's an advantage to being in this very limited state. Because we are so cramped we have more of a desire to get out of it than we would if we were living in a harmonious heaven where everything was easy and immediately available; where life does not prod us into trying to get liberation. We have a very distinct advantage in being here. We are forced to seek a way out. We are trying in many ways and with many methods to get free.

No matter what the methods are, they all must end up doing the very same thing: freeing us of our concepts of limitation. The methodology must quiet our mind, must do away with thoughts. Every thought is a concept of limitation. When thoughts are undone, what's left over is the infinite Being that we are. Unfortunately, we set into motion an automatic way of thinking called the subconscious mind. There, we relegate thoughts to the background and let them operate without needing to pay any attention to them, and we have lost sight of them.

In the beginning it was an advantage in operating a physical body, because originally we had to operate every part of the body consciously, -every cell, every organ, -and to eliminate all that attention, we put it on automatic control via the subconscious mind. And the subconscious mind is the real difficulty when we try to let go of thoughts. It's difficult because we are in the habit of not looking at it. Not looking at it, we don It see it. Since we don It see it, it goes on and on, lifetime in and lifetime out. We are so married to our thoughts that we never even think of divorcing them. And until we do we will continue, blindly attached to physical bodies and, in the overall, having a miserable life. For every ounce of pleasure we take, we get pounds of pain; and it must be that way because the pleasure we are trying to get is by seeking our very own Self externally in the world and through the body, and it just isn't there.

The methods, to be effective, must be in a direction of first quieting our thoughts; then actually getting rid of our thoughts. Make a conscious effort to bring up subconscious thoughts and when they are brought to the conscious plane, drop them. When they do come up, because they are very limiting and very negative as a whole, you want to drop them and you do. After you have dropped an appreciable number of them, then you can drop thoughts in large amounts.

To drop thoughts in large amounts requires dropping the tendency or predisposition that has evolved from the accumulated thoughts on that one particular thing. Dropping the tendency or predisposition, one drops all the thoughts that caused that tendency or predisposition. In this way you may, at one time, drop a large accumulation of thoughts.

For instance, if one has a tendency to like sweets, one could bring up from the subconscious one thought at a time and continue letting go of them until there are no more. This takes much time! However, if one drops the tendency itself, then all the subconscious thoughts that made up that tendency are dropped, and one is totally free from desiring sweets.

Later, you reach a point where you can drop all the remaining thoughts at once, because having infinite power, you will have reached the point where you can see that you have this infinite power and you then can use it to wipe out the rest of the mind. That is why it is sometimes said that Realization is instantaneous. When you get that far that you can see that the power is yours, 'you wipe out all the remaining thoughts at once. Then you are totally free; you've gone all the way.

When this happens, you don't become a zombie and you don't disappear or go up in a flash of light. What you do is let the body go through that which you preset for it; and when you reach the end of the line of the action for the body, you will leave it with joy. You will leave it just the way you leave and let go of an old, worn-out overcoat.

You will never die. People around you might say so, but to yourself, you don't die; you consciously drop the body the way you would drop an old, worn-out overcoat. But, again, you won't do this until you run the course that you preset for it. Now, I tell you this so you won't be fearful of dying if you get Realization.

So, attaining the ultimate state is not disappearing into a nothingness; it's a moving out into your omnipresence and letting go of confinement to only a physical body.

Now, to do this you must have a strong desire to do it. The only thing that keeps you from being the infinite Being that you are is your desire to be a limited physical body. When your desire shifts into wanting to get free of the extreme limitation I it's a start; but to go all the way you must have a desire to be totally free that is more intense than your desire to be a physical body.

The reason why so few of us do make it is that most of us have a stronger subconscious desire to be a physical body than we have a conscious desire to be a free unlimited Being. Until you confront this and see what your desire really is, it is impossible to achieve total Freedom, total Realization. You should dig into the subconscious to bring up your desires, because unless you see them, you can't let go of them. The only reason why you are limited to the physical body is that subconsciously, you have a strong desire to be this limited physical body. When your conscious desire to be Free becomes stronger than your subconscious desire to be a physical body, then you'll quickly achieve your Freedom. And therein lies your ultimate happiness. I think that is an overall presentation of the subject. Now, if you have any questions I'd be very happy to do what I can to answer your specific questions.

Q: How do you dig into your subconscious?

Lester: Good question. You do it by first, wanting to do it. It's very difficult when you begin, but as you do it, the more you do it the easier it becomes. You can actually reach a place where it becomes easy. Practice will do it. By practicing bringing up subconscious thoughts, the more you do it, the more you're able to do it.

There are many aids to doing it. In the little booklet, The Eternal Verities, there are ways and aids like: "Get to the place where no one and no thing can disturb you." When someone disturbs you and you don't know why, the thought is subconscious. Bring up the thought. By constant trying you will develop the habit of actually getting it up; you'll see that there's a limiting thought, an ego or selfish motivation behind it and you'll drop it.

Q: Is just seeing the subconscious thought or motivation enough?

Lester: Just looking at it is not enough. You must consciously drop the thought or consciously will out the tendency or motivation. I'm assuming you'll want to let go of these thoughts because they're all limiting and negative.

One reason why we don It like to dig them up is that we dont like to see how awful we are. But there's nothing good or bad; there's just moving in the right direction or the wrong direction. When we move in the wrong direction, we move toward more limitation and that's really so-called bad. But everything is experiencing. And when we don 't judge ourselves, we move much faster.

Q: When we don't judge ourselves?

Lester: Right. When we don't judge ourselves, whatever comes up, -so what? To get this far in your limitations, you have run the gamut of everything bad. It'll come up, but it's from past experiencing. Also, when you wake up you'll discover that you never ever were apart from your real Self, which is whole, perfect, complete, unlimited; that all these experiences were images in your mind just like in a night dream you imagine everything that's going on. But while you're in a night dream, it's real to you. If someone is trying to kill you in a night dream, it's real; you're struggling for your life. But when you wake up from that dream, what do you say? "It was just a dream; it was my imagination." This waking state is exactly as real as a night dream. We're all dreaming we are physical bodies; we're dreaming the whole thing. However, in order to reach this awakened state. it is first necessary to drop a major part of your subconscious thinking.

Q: How do you see it when you come back after realizing it is a dream?

Lester: You see it like you now see a dream you had last night. You see it as a dream and that's how important it remains to you. The before and after picture is simply point of view: before you thought you were limited to a body and all these bodies and action were so real; after, you see it as a dream, like a moving picture. When you see characters on the screen, you can lose your awareness of yourself by identifying with one of the characters on the screen and you'll emote with him and feel unhappy.

Q: But you don't have all the desires that you had before?

Lester: You have no desires because you wake up to the fact that you are infinite, you are the All, -there's nothing to desire. Desire limits you: "I don't have the All. Therefore, I must get it and I create desires to get it. "So desire is only a limitation. When you see the full picture you naturally lose all desire; there's nothing to de sire if you are the All. Now, practically speaking, if you choose to go along with the dream you can act out a desire for the time being. And then act as though it's being satisfied. However, it's just an act and you play-act.

Q: How does the mind distinguish between bad and good?

Lester: By saying. "This is good and that is bad."

Q: Is that an individual thing?

Lester: Of course. What's right in one country is wrong in another; what's right to you is wrong to someone else. It's a very individualistic approach. Of course, there's some general agreement on right and wrong; we generally agree we shouldn't kill each other. So right and wrong is a very individualistic standard. If you need a right and wrong, doing that which helps your growth is right; doing that which hinders your growth is wrong. That should be the right and wrong.

Q: Do we learn the right from experiencing?

Lester: Yes, you learn the right by doing the wrong, (Laughter) right? And also by experiencing the right. Unfortunately, most of us do it by actually doing the wrong thing. We learn to keep our hand out of a fire by burning it. This is what seems to prod us more than anything else, - the hardships of life. We all want to get away from the misery of it, don It we? It should be the other way, that the wonderfulness of the right way should be the attractiveness of it. When you do get that far, then your growth is very fast and you're approaching the end of the line.

Q: What did you mean by "After you're Realized, you live your life out as you preset it?" What does that mean?

Lester: We preset the behavior of this physical body before we enter it to put us through experiences that we hope to learn from.

Q: Knowing that you would attain Realization this time?

Lester: No. Knowing that in past lives you subjected yourself to the law of action and reaction, cause and effect, karma (they're all the same thing), and that you want to continue that game. You did certain things when you were in a physical body before, so next time you want to set up similar things in a hope of undoing some of the things you dont like, and instigating the things you do like. But you cannot change anything that the body was preset to do by you. You're going to do exactly what you preset for that body before you came into it. There is no free will in worldly living. However, there is a free will. The free will we have is to identify with the real Being that we are, or to identify with the body. If you identify with the body, you're in trouble. So the free will is one of identity. Knowing this, it makes life much easier; you don't fight it. You aim for proper identity.

Q: The desire for bliss, would that be enough to start your search for happiness?

Lester: Sure.

Q: If one is sincere and isn't succeeding will a Guru help them?

Lester: A realized Teacher is the greatest of all help; but He can't help you any more than you will help yourself. This is most important: He cannot help you any more than you will help yourself. When you try to help yourself, He joins you and helps you to a realization that you're ready for.

Q: He helps?

Lester: He helps you get a realization that you're ready for. If you're tapped on the chest and you get cosmic consciousness, it's because you're ready for it. Of all help, a Guru's is the greatest because He has gone the direction and He can help you go the same direction.

Q: How is it that when you see the dream structure of maya and you see the real Self, then all of a sudden you're caught in the dream again and you believe it? What happened?

Lester: It is possible to see your real Self and fall back into the world. Why?-because you have not let go of the subconscious thoughts "I am this physical body; this world is real." You must go into your subconscious and make conscious all these thoughts and drop them. Or, see your Self to the degree that you see that your mind is external to you, something that you created, and then you just wipe it out. If you can't wipe it out, and very few of us can, keep picking a way at it; keep bringing up the subconscious thoughts and dropping them. Or, you can make it ineffective in large chunks by willing out tendencies. Take a particular tendency like smoking. If you've been smoking for years and years, you have thousands of little desires to smoke. The tendency is strong. However, you can say to yourself with will power, "This is ridiculous! I am through with this!" and never again have a desire for a cigarette. That's getting rid of all the thoughts of desire to smoke by willing out the tendency. That's one chunk: smoking.

Q: That's one chunk; the whole bit clear back?

Lester: Complete. I've seen many people do this on smoking with no problem. They just made that decision and that was it!

Q: And that's how you get rid of each thing that's bothering you?

Lester: Yes. If you're jealous, look at it. If you're disgusted enough with being jealous you say, "Finished! Done! It is gone! and you can undo the whole thing. That's letting go of a huge piece of mind. That's letting go of many, many thoughts of jealousy that youve had in the subconscious; mind. It takes some maturity to undo that tendency.

Q: And it won't come back if you really do?

Lester: Right. If you, with resolve and determination, really drop it, it is gone. You can try it on smaller things first. and when you succeed then go to something larger. Do it on one thing. Then you can do it on two, then on all. Do that which you can do. Keep doing this every day and it wont take you long. Make this a way of life. Grow every day. Every incident is an opportunity for growth. Everything you're experiencing is an experience of limitation. Every annoyance you have is an excellent opportunity to transcend that. Develop the habit of digging into your subconscious for the causative thought of the annoyance and then dropping it. Daily striving assures quick arriving.

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This Session was recorded in Los Angeles, July 22, 1970.