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The best opportunity to set yourself free,
is when you are deeply disturbed.
Transcript:
More on being aware in each moment.
As you are hearing or reading this, it might seem like a good idea. You say to yourself: Right, next time I get upset, I am gonna be present. The thing is, when you get upset, you usually forget to be present. And the more upset you get, the more you forget to be present.
But you see, the more upset you are, the more it is a gift. When you’re really, really, really upset, and you remember – that’s when you are likely to have an awakening.
And it’s so easy to get lost in every day because you forget who you are, you drop into your pattern. And as I say, when you get really upset, then you really forget. And that’s your gift, that’s your opportunity.
But it’s no good saying to yourself now, as you are sitting there: Oh yes, when I get really upset, I remember. No, you got to start remembering now; you got to practice when it’s not so intense, on the little things, the tiny things.
It’s not just when you are upset. You see, if you become more sensitive and aware, you will find that all the time not only is your mind chattering away, but your emotions are moving as well – often in tiny, tiny little ways.
You might just think about a particular food, and you’ll have an emotion with that, a little pleasant feeling, or an unpleasant feeling if you think you can’t have that food. Or you hear about somebody having an accident, and something happens in you. First of all an empathy, and another part is you don’t want that to happen to you.
Little things are moving in there, like little waves, all the time. And you need to start practicing, catching those little things. They are happening all the time, all the time. When you are asleep as well, all the time. Not just the mind, but the emotions, which are attached to the mind, part of the mind.
Gurdjieff used to give an exercise. He used to train people for lucid dreaming: being awake in their dream. And this is the method he gave to them: he said, all day, be aware of your left hand. Wherever it is and whatever it’s doing, all the time, all day. And eventually in a dream, when you see your left hand, you wake up in your dream, you become aware.
It’s a practice, you see. So you need to practice on the subtle things, so that when the big things come you don’t go unconscious. And it’s when the big thing comes, and you are conscious, that’s when a pop can happen because it takes a lot of energy to wake up.
You see, they call a quantum shift. A quantum shift is not moving from here to there. It’s what Jesus said: You die to here and you are reborn there. There is no connection between the two. You die to now, and you are born to there. It takes a lot of energy.
They’ve got these huge accelerator, they’ve got several around the world, but it generates huge amount of energies to get a quantum shift.
We’ve got that energy inside us. It’s how we harness it, how we bring it together.
So what I’m suggesting is: practice under comparative easy things, moment to moment – so when the big thing comes, you are ready, you are there.
Just to be with it, just as it is.