I’ve just started your 3rd course; lesson 2; so doing some goal setting; etc.. but this comment is not related to the course, it’s about your post and Andrew Cohen. I remember from course 2; and now from this post how you talk about there is ‘no doer’ and ‘everything is interconnected’; how would this relate to Andrew’s teaching’s.. or does it?

Because it seems to me; you go alot more in depth; in the sense of teaching personal power, then beyond the mind and then back to reliving the passion…. and Andrew’s teachings are similar; he just does it very straight forward and to the point.

Are there similarities? I strongly desire to be living 51% or more in the authentic self… or as you say it; to live in the unconcscious mind 95% of the time.

A part of me sees and feels a sense of urgency; but another part or is it the same part, doesn’t feel ‘ready’.. double bind? same things?

No idea. Thanks.

- Julius

FROM BILL: There’s no way to NOT live in the “authentic self.” Awake or asleep, you’re IT. If you’re tall and you don’t know you’re tall, you’re still tall. At any rate, “authentic” and “inauthentic” are just ideas. In reality, there is no such thing.

I am not familiar enough with the finer points of Andrew Cohen’s teaching to answer your question.

FROM BILL: Of course life has joys. No one, though, sees that as a problem. People DO see the other side of the coin as a problem. I’m pointing out that 1) there’s really no separate self there to suffer, 2) people strive to get rid of one side of the coin (the suffering side) when that is impossible, and that this creates a double-bind, an insoluble “problem”, 3) the real problem isn’t the suffering, it’s resistance to it.

And, impermanence is a fact of this universe. everything ultimately falls apart. Again, though, it is only in resisting this that we suffer. Death goes with life, and there’s no escape from that fact. And, ultimately, it’s a great arrangement (I’ll explain that in another post sometime). And, if you are the entire going on of it all, which you are, then the fact that things come into being and ultimately pass away is just the play of the universe. As things pass away, more come into being, and it’s all you, so why worry. Only when people are attached to the idea that “they”–the illusory separate self–MUST go on, do they suffer. In clinging to life, you miss it–just as, when swimming, if you grab onto the water, you drown.

But I would not attach intrinsic value to human beings
who are wealthy -or not wealthy for that matter- because
of this. Some of the greatest thinkers, artists, and visionaries
in history have lived lives of poverty and suffering. Some
of these geniuses were not appreciated until after they
had died. Some social revolutionaries lived impoverished
lives, endured unhappiness, poor health and lack of
resources, and yet brought about huge and profound
changes generations after they were gone.

I bet there are many countless beautiful, profound, brilliant
and wise souls out there who will be known by very few. I
believe there is a great untapped resource and power in
most (all ?) of us that may never be brought into full fruition.

That’s the value in all these wholistic health courses that
are flowering, including yours, Bill.

There are many who are materialistically wealthy who
have not earned it. There are many who are wealthy
and powerful who did not achieve this state because
they are enlightened, personally powerful, compassionate
or spiritual. There are many who are wealthy who posess
all those attributes, but not because they earned their
wealth but perhaps because they were able to benefit
from the access to comforts and security that arise from
their wealthy circumstances. There is more to the flow
of wealth than science and Darwinian principles.

It wold be a better world if more individuals had the
personal/mental skills to bring material wealth to
themselves. It would be a healthier world, a place
of greater balance and wholsomeness if more could
access and share the resources; if more understood
how. It would also be a more balanced and peaceful
place if people could learn to be happy and peaceful
in a way not connected to the acquisition of wealth.
But it would be best if people could have all of the
above.

Thanks for trying to balance this equation.

FROM BILL: All resources are not monetary.

A couple of weeks ago I was in the ER with a sugar reading of 640 which is very close to a diabetic coma, and as I was in the reanimation room barely able to talk I had a strong feeling that I was going to die, my reaction was thinking: “…waaaooo I’m diyng, I wonder was that’s like….let’s see…..”

I finally made it and spent 3 nights in the hospital and left with a type 1 diabetes diagnose. Now I have to use 3 to 4 insulin shots daily probably for the rest of my life….. well, oddly enough my level of anxiety is close to 0…. it was natural for me to see it as a change, an experience, that’s it, there’s no label in my mind saying “this is bad” … to me everything is the same now, I have almost no expectations at all…..soetimes I feel like leting go until I can actually die, but not out of desperation since I love life, but just to see what it would be like…… it may sound harsh but I basically don’t feel like caring.

I was wandering if you ever went to a period of disowning your separate self, I really like the state I’m at, but I remember you and Genpo saying that Karma keeps building anyway and there’s no escape from it.

I know there’s nothing “I” can do, and that “you” don’t have anything to say. But if the whole feels like expressing something through your separate self… it would make itself very happy through my separate self …..or whatever that means…

All the love,

Santiago

FROM BILL: This is the Third Rank, as I described it in another post. And, yes, I’ve been there.

enlightened people can always be more enlightend , happy people can always be more happy. smart people can get more smart .
unhappy people already have some level of happiness , stupid people already have some inteligence . Everybody is somewhere in the spectrum nobody reaches 100% ,everybody already have some percentage.

Using holocync have help me a lot to reduce my resistance to what is black(in my book) . The things that I considered to be small or not that important (in my book of black and white) I am almost not resisting at all. The things that I consider big or important I am resisting way less than I used to and it is very libarating.

Carlos

FROM BILL: And, being attached and having desires and pretending to be a separate self (the Godhead playing hide and seek from itself) is a fun game. The difference is that the asleep person plays unconsciously, while the awakened person plays by choice.

FROM BILL: A question for our support department.

Thank you for this post.
It is the most helpful piece I’ve read in a long while.

I’ve noticed that people who seem to ‘fit’ well into the world and the universe seem to have in common that they are at peace with their particular role. In a way, it seems that they have neatly jumped over the paradoxical knot and have ‘chosen’ what seems to have been chosen for them in the first place.

Trying to work out the principles of this ‘role’ and the secret of figuring out which role is ‘mine’ to play out out of the myriad possible roles seems to be one of my main spiritual preoccupations. I’ve tried out - and been rejected - from so many ontological positions that I have to wonder what exactly I’m resisting, and it seems that a large part of it must be fear of losing the sense of a separate self. Or in other words, by being swallowed up by the process of life.

Do you have any recommendations for ‘relaxing the self’s resistance to impermanence and change’?

FROM BILL: How about not having any ontological positions?