Lesson 22
As one has come along this far for many weeks observing the self, experiencing, being aware, being conscious of certain things, being aware of what goes on in the self, therefore experiencing confession, seeing the fallacy of many of them, experiencing it, which is surrender and turning about from the ideas of the world, from the ideas of the conditioning, one finds that one is in about the place were the children of Israel were when they got across the Red Sea. That part seemed to have been fairly easy for them to do. Beset by certain threats by Pharaoh’s soldiers which are the many Not-I’s that are attempting to control one, to put I back to sleep, back into slavery so that they can reap all the energy that flows from X.
Now one finds that one is beset by many different attempts of the various Not-I’s to regain power to get I sound asleep again. It is not all a bed of roses because things are going along pretty good. First off there will be efforts to want to go back to certain ideals. They may change a bit from what they used to be to just be non-disturbed by having attention and approval. They will be to have power over another person to demonstrate that one is in a certain state of being, wanting other people to know about it, the temptation to tell everyone how wonderful it is. Of course, this brings about many different things that happen.
As the story goes about the people who wandered over the Sinai Desert, which is the autobiography of each of us, that we were in slavery in Egypt which was totally in control of the conditioning. A teacher came by, a Teaching, in the figure of Moses and led the people out. They thought everything was fine but then they began to want to go back to Egypt to get “leeks, garlic and onions.” They only had food called manna, which seemed to have all the food elements and everything necessary. In other words one has the Teaching which is not an authority but merely a light that allows one to see for ones self, to see what is. It doesn’t tell one you must do this or must not do that under threat or anything else, it is a light.
They had a light, a light that guided them, a pillar of fire by night and a bright cloud by day; they had the Teaching with them. Very shortly they wanted leaks and garlic, they wanted to go back to have the gratification of some ideal, some little flavor or something that they had known in Egypt. So all of a sudden it seems that what we have is not quite enough according to some Not-I, that we really ought to have more. Maybe we should have power to perform wonders. Maybe we should have power to control people. Maybe we ought to be able to make everybody understand; that would really be nice, wouldn’t it? I am so delighted with the state that I’ve discovered that I think everybody ought to have it. So all of a sudden I want to be a missionary and tell everybody and I have the great idea that I that I can get it across to them. In other words I’m going to improve them. So that may be the leeks, garlic and onions that have come back from Egypt. But again, they have to ASK and then they can only be given a little light. They have to do the work themselves; no one else can do it for them. They have to do it themselves. We can only be given a light.
We’ll find there is a desire for many strange little things that seem to pop up. They all seem so nice, so reasonable, so logical and so wonderful. Possibly we will find that logic begins to get in the way. The teachings of the world as we have seen are those four basic ideas which everybody has checked out by now: ideals, self-improvement to realize those ideals by various means of conditioning, to have some kind of signs or wonders or demonstrations of one form or another, and to blame something when those don’t come about, that it is due to this or that. There is always someone to tell you what to blame.
There are many long records of what happens when people succumb to a portion of these. They become acquainted with the ideas of the Teaching a little bit but very soon some of the Not-I’s can convince one they mean something different or should be used a little differently. So when the idea of self-knowing comes about it’s very easy to begin to be identified. Maybe I can become identified as some name. The Teaching has no name but nevertheless maybe we can come up with some name or some idea as I am a student, therefore we can be identified. Whenever we say I am anything other than I am the awareness function of X, because X is the only one that really is and I’m only a function of it, but if I can identify with something, some ideology, some movement, some institution of some form or other, we’ll find that it takes the place of self-knowing. You’ll find that there is a Not-I that says, “This should be organized so it can be used by more and more people and that it could have support so that everyone could enjoy it.” You will find that possibly little institutions will be set up about it and that people will identify with these institutions and that identifying then takes the place of self-knowing. Another idea of the Teaching was Faith:
FAITH: Faith can begin to be the acceptance of a given ideology. If I agree that I have accepted this ideology I am said to have the faith.
GRACE: Grace can be defined, and has been, as being the whim of some capricious God, that if everything is good grace is being extended to me. By going good we mean that it’s going according to some ideal to some degree and if it’s not going according to that ideal that’s an indication that grace has been withdrawn from me.
We will find that we are subject to all these temptations because they are widespread and they are very much in the inner state, the vestige of some of these more subtle Not-I’s begin to work upon these areas. They make it sound so logical and reasonable that one really wants to return to the leeks, garlic and onions. The one who is paying attention sees all the tricks of the Not-I’s, is THANKFUL to see them again and to see that they take many forms. It is said that the evil one, the adversary, can clothe itself to appear as an angel of light. So one is aware of all these many manifestations of saying, “This would be good and that would be good,” trying to get one to think in terms of opposites to get things all good, not bad. How wonderful it would be to help everyone, to spread this to everybody in the world. Yes, maybe it would be wonderful, but it’s available if anyone asks, not because I should go promote it. There is always a Not-I who is a promoter who wants to get it out to everybody: “Get it organized because it will make the world a better place.”
The other idea of the Teaching we saw was LOVE/AGAPE: Love can get turned around to being tolerant, and there will be a tolerant Not-I that says, “Well, we can tolerate all these people that don’t have it,” and, of course, we are caught back in it again. But it makes it sound so reasonable to be tolerant rather than truly be understanding. It may not be a great difference but you will hear the tolerance and we want to be tolerant; this is a return to the old.
Then, of course, it said that the people wanted to have something different to eat than manna. They wanted quail meat so covey after covey of quail came up to their camp. All these many little delicacies will be coming along and it is so easy to change what we experience into something we are going to force an experience. Confession, we have a desire to tell everybody about all the times that I was in the states of some Not-I’s and I want everybody to know how well I overcame them. Remember; nobody overcame them, X removed them. How? You and I do not know. They were rendered inoperative. To gain meat is to gain strength in the general idea of the symbology and, of course, we want to gain the strength of “I did it.”
I gets tempted that it has power, that it wants to do something other than what it is which is the greatest thing in the world, the awareness function of X. But it begins to want to take credit, to gain strength for itself. Some Not-I says, “After all you are entitled to it, you did all that work.” I being 100% subject to suggestion 100% of the time, says “Yes, I did do that, didn’t l!” I then has begun to eat quail and it takes credit for having eliminated the Not-I’s. It begins to brag, if we may use that term, as to how wonderful it has accomplished and as to how much it is ahead of the other students. It has caught I and got it to take credit for doing something that X did. That is to steal is it not? It begins to take glory. In some places the word glory replaces the word credit. I being the observing function of X, only X gets all the credit. But it’s very easy for I to get hypnotized by a cunning Not-I that is still lurking around that says, “But you did do it and you are pretty wonderful.” Of course, I being subject to conditioning is liable to fall into that.
It says that the Hebrew children out in the Sinai Desert ate quail every day for a month until they couldn’t stand the sight of it. Sometimes one might find that one is saturated with claiming credit and that many people begin to avoid one because one is constantly coming on strong and telling everybody else what they ought to do and how clear it is to them; but remember, they might be eating quail. So let’s be aware that there is not an end to the road, that there are a continual set of adversaries trying to lead us back into being identified with the Not-I’s and that the Not-I’s undergo transformations too. They recognize that maybe you will listen to a different story now, the old stories won’t work. They are very good chameleons and change their skins and color so they now sound very respectable, very delightful and possibly even spiritual. So instead of confession the Not-I is confessing how wonderful it is, how it has succeeded, how everyone should admire it, follow it and listen to it. That is an odd form of confession isn’t it? It might want everybody else to confess how miserable they are. Another Not-I will come along and want you to confess what a miserable failure you are that I haven’t done anything. But is there any accomplishment or is there only reporting, being aware, paying attention and reporting what is to X?
In other words there are no successes and there are no failures, there is only REPORTING. The world thinks in terms of successes and failures. If you’re feeling pretty good today, it says you are a success, you are a marvel and a wonder now, and it’s easy to get caught back into that. It says, “Maybe you haven’t done so good,” and one begins to feel miserable and confesses what a miserable failure I am. This is not confession, it is bragging or moaning because one hasn’t self improved. Because one has experienced certain things one is still little in the Kingdom of Heaven, and while one is little one is weak. Remember, the Great Teacher cautioned people not to throw stumbling blocks in the front of the ones who are little in the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words it’s fairly easy to knock them out. Let’s be aware that there are powerful adversaries constantly wanting to entice one out even though one has passed through the door a little bit, one has crossed the Red Sea. There is still the constant temptation to go back and cross the Red Sea back into Egypt again. After all they can’t operate without the slaves and I is the perfect slave because it has access to tremendous amounts of energy from X to keep them all going.
Further on in the desert they wanted water; they screamed they were without water. When one begins to want higher truths and more truths one wants greater things than one is getting. So instead of, “I’ve been observing self for quite a while, I want some more, some greater and higher Teachings.”
All the Teaching is in four words: SELF-KNOWING which never ends, FAITH which never completes no matter how much there is always a little more, GRACE which is without end, and LOVE which is boundless. So, there is no more beyond. There are certain things one experiences as one continues to live those. But some will say, “There is bound to be something more. I heard of some guy who could read through the back of a deck of cards. I heard of a man who could have a blindfold on and could still read a book,” and all these little tricks. That’s what they are, tricks! It seems like they must be something great and I should have these.
So they want water and say, “Let’s go back to Egypt, we’re out here starving to death. At least Egypt had all these wonders and marvels so maybe we can go back and find some of those.” So again there is the temptation to return to Egypt, all along the way. And then somewhere along the way they wanted to be given exactly what to do, so a man, a guide, brought them ten rules. He said, “Here they are, let’s live by them.” So they took the ten rules and said they could live by them. But they thought of them only as an outward behavior, and so one will try to see that certain ideas and rules were set up for outward behavior, “You should do this and not do that.” But what those ten rules were set for was to bring to light still more of the Not-l’s. You might pick up those ten rules sometimes and relate them to the inner state, not your outward behavior. They may or may not be fairly easy to live by on the outward behavior, or at least put on the appearance of living them, but let’s take them to the inner state and see what they do. Let’s see if we are still building little accounts against father and mother. Let’s see if we are still envying what somebody else has, if we are envying somebody’s job, position, car or what we consider to be their happiness. Are we comparing self, I, to other I’s over the country, whether nearby or far? Do we see people with power, certain little abilities to perform certain tricks? Do we think we would like to have that particular trick and that if we only had it everything would be fine? In other words the Ten Commandments which were given to the children of Israel were so designed that if they observed them as relating to the inner state they would be great awakeners and would point out vestiges of all these old Not-I’s that were still around trying to gain power. If one only puts them on as an outward mask of behavior they’re, of course, very worthless. But if one relates them to the inward state, vanity, pride, envy, lust, etc., one begins to see that they relate to the talking of the Not-I’s and that they give great value to see if a Not-I is still on the job.
We may be in this Sinai Desert for a long time. It is related that the children of Israel were in the Sinai Desert for forty years wandering backwards and forwards in a little space not over eighty miles long. Maybe we can go very quickly through it or maybe we can take a lot of time. But let’s don’t assume we can go very quickly, let’s assume we might be here for a while. Because the Not-I’s, while we have weakened them enough that we have glimpsed love, agape, understanding, that we have experienced confession of many of them, we are beginning to see things in a different way, that we might have crossed the Red Sea, but it’s not all a bed of rose petals. Every inch of the spiritual life is work. It may have the Land of Canaan at the end, but remember that when they went into the Land of Canaan there was still a great mob of people to be destroyed, which means there were still Not-I’s. So while there are six basic Not-I’s and their master mammon, the four dual basic urges, each of those six Not-I’s has a multitude of children and they seem to be growing too and they are very, very cunning. They have taken advanced courses in hypnosis, propaganda, sabotage, and they are experts at their job. Don’t underrate them and think, “I’ve got it made,” because they will have you under control unless one is continually alert.
Some man said, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” He was not a religious or spiritual teacher. He was a teacher of government. His name was Thomas Jefferson. The most frequently repeated word in the New Testament is WATCH! So may we say, watch the Not-I’s and watch how their cunning tries to tell you that you have done so wonderfully. “You are really something special now, you understand better than anybody. You are probably the best student of self who ever lived. You are certainly entitled to tell everyone else what they ought to do and you certainly are entitled to give advice to anyone you meet who is studying because he doesn’t see it quite as well.” These are the ones, if we don’t watch them, they learn to tell us what I likes to hear. They like to tell what I likes to hear; “You are wonderful” etc. I is still tempted to go back and gain attention and approval and a sense of importance every now and then.
Being in this we may be out in the desert of Sinai for quite some time. But we will continue to remark about the various methods of the Not-I’s in trying to be the enemies of the traveler on the way to the Promised Land.
The Promised Land is a place where there are still challenges. Some of you may choose to read the story called Exodus. Don’t take it as a history; take it as I’s autobiography. See that it is an autobiography of this person told in a very beautiful symbolic story. Whether it’s history or not doesn’t really matter. It is a history of the travels from being totally involved as a slave to the Not-I’s to getting out of it and the possibilities of even fizzling after they got to the place. It might be a most interesting story to read if one considers it as this is the the autobiography of I.
Copyright © 1973 by Rhondell. All rights reserved. This material is for an individual student’s personal use; it is not to be duplicated or loaned to another.
