Trying to act like a Buddha won’t make you a Buddha.
I just finished a webinar… Before the webinar one of my students wrote an email to me wondering why I don’t lie to them before and during a webinar. Why I don’t say that it is going to be easy. That it is going to be piece of cake.
But it had taken me quite a bit of time and effort to learn that trying to act like a Buddha won’t make me a Buddha.
The vulnerability that honesty requires isn’t something everybody can handle. So lying allows people to be comfortable.
One of my students told me. He is a really smart guy, isn’t he?
And I bet you can see that the next step he would take after making this really smart statement is to start… start what?
You see, most of what sounds smart is not that smart. Most of what sounds smart is a smoke screen, to hide something.
Hide what? That you are full of crap… or that the ‘smart person’ is full of crap.
Only integrity will count… said Buckminster Fuller.
or Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
Authenticity is a level of integrity. A high level of integrity.
In a world of pretense having integrity makes you stand out like having two heads.
Do you have the courage to stand out? To be different?
Integrity is being willing. Integrity is having the courage to tell the truth. The uncomfortable, the ugly, and the beautiful truth.
Most of you think that the only truth is the truth you can see: the ugly. And you cover ugly up with some syrupy goodness, the goodness which you know is a lie. So you are split inside, and you can’t have peace, and happiness, and joy, and self-confidence, and you think you need to hide your Self.
What you don’t know, because you quickly went into ‘let’s fix it… because it is wrong, wrong, wrong…‘ you never actually looked beyond.
You see, underneath the ugly there is the timeless, ageless, blameless, and the beautiful.
You have heard that before. And you probably think, and have thought for a long time, that the way to it, the way to the beautiful, is direct. It isn’t.
But you were mistaken, and most likely your so called gurus, your so called teachers were and are mistaken too. How do I know? I have measured their vibration, I have tuned into their emotional state. and their vibration is low, and their emotional state is overwhelmingly miserable.
So what mistake are you all making?
You don’t understand that the light, the Surrounding Light, is BEHIND the ugly.
The Light is BEHIND the terrifying. BEHIND the seemingly impossible.
You can’t get to it directly. You can only get to it through the ugly. Through the terrifying. Through the seemingly impossible.
This is also the reason why my seven boulders technology is so darn effective.
Now, Let me introduce a new distinction… The how of Unflinchingly.
I learned this ‘how’ in one of the tens of Landmark Education Forums I participated in. Tens. You heard that right.
I was more broken than most of you: I had come from below miserable. My vibration, when I first participated in their transformational programs, was 35. I have only met one other person since then with that low vibration. So it took me tens of times going through the base program of Landmark Education to get to ‘normal misery’ level… lol.
In one particular Landmark Forum, there was a participant who had some vague recollection of molestation. She wasn’t even willing to stand up to speak: she sunk into her chair, chin firmly on her chest.
The Forum Leader asked a show of hand of participants who had been molested. Six hands went up, including mine. I suspect that tens more women and men didn’t raise their hand. It was their loss. Because that session was priceless for those who participated in it.
Because the Forum Leader taught us ‘unflinchingly’.
He asked each of us: what did you have for breakfast. And we told him. no problems there.
Then he asked each: what was the molestation experience. Each molested answered, telling their story choked up, wept, sobbed, in halting voice…
Then the leader asked us to combine the two ‘events’ into one sentence. The two parts, the breakfast and the molestation separated by the word ‘and’.
- It sounded like this: ‘I had toasted muffins with butter and jelly and my father had sex with me for five years.‘
- Or ‘I had coffee and a donut at Dunkin’ Donuts and my babysitter put his thing in my mouth when I was five.‘
We repeated the combined sentence. We went, around and around, until we, all six of us, became unflinching.
It happened. It happened like the breakfast happened.
From thereon I was able to bring unflinching to every memory, every screw up, every mistake, every broken word, every action I resisted, every action I was afraid to take… everything… and my life changed. Dramatically. I had access to the Light that was hidden behind the memory, the mistake, the broken word, the action I feared.
This is the whole technique.
Of course it sounds easy, and those students of mine who are masterful at faking, at pretense, at lying are rejoicing now… but not so fast.
Unless you go INTO the Light… you’ll see light, but will not experience it.
And although it takes courage to tell the truth, it only earns you the sight of the light. Taking action that takes you beyond the veil of the ugly, terrifying and seemingly impossible is what earns you BEING in the Light.
Being one with the Light.
The beautiful you.
Just talking won’t get you there. Words… no matter how beautiful won’t. Feelings… won’t. Meditation, imagination won’t… You have to walk through the veil that is ugly, terrifying and seemingly impossible to go beyond.
Don’t want to? I get it. Just please know what you are giving up for a little comfort, for a little ‘I don’t wanna…’
You either live in the Light, or you live in the darkness endorsed by Fear.
And you miss all the higher values you want, Love, Appreciation, Awe, Gratitude… you’ll have the pretense of those… not very satisfying, is it?
The seven boulders technology is an exercise in identifying what holds you back, and then go through it.
We do that in the Bring Purpose to Life challenge.
PS: Whatever happened to you, whatever is the seed level of your existence, your first incident… the effect can be disappeared by that same exercise.
- I had toast and coffee for breakfast and my parents left me in the street corner when I was three.
- I had eggs and potatoes for breakfast and my father said I didn’t run fast enough.
- I had some oatmeal for breakfast and my parents kicked me out of their bed when I sneaked in here.
Unbelievably simple and works. Unbelievably well.
no need for an echo, it is enough that you repeat it until there is no charge… but your statement has real pain, no real drama. Also, do you really eat cereal for breakfast? that is killing you… if nothing else.
Was there anything about having an audience or echo that was important when repeating the combined sentence?
Am I in the ballpark with this?
I had cereal for breakfast, and I wasn’t allowed to go outside and play like the others.