Lesson 30
We so frequently look far and wide for something that is directly with us at all times because we don’t know how to recognize THAT WHICH IS. One of the things that you and all the rest of us want is to come in contact with a School; a School that teaches man to be awake, to know God, to be aware of his inner being, and to realize a different state of being. He realizes somewhat that a School is necessary. He may go to Turkey, India, the Near East, South America, or he may go to almost any point on the globe looking for a School.
However, let’s somewhat describe what a School is. A School is a place where conditioned people in various stages of challenge to what they are looking for, are brought together. It is everywhere you work, every home, and it is in every group of people who get together. There are people who are all intent upon gaining pleasure and escaping pain, unknown to themselves, that that is what their whole purpose is, that they are just working at it because this conclusion was made very early in life. They are all trying to get it in their personal relationships by complaining, sticking up for their rights, blaming, pleasing, by believing and doing as told by their authorities, and quoting to others what their authorities said, trying to get others to agree with them, and getting very upset when someone doesn’t agree with them, especially if someone has formerly agreed with them and no longer agrees. Everybody is trying to put on a front and behave like they think other people want them to behave so they will gain approval and attention, etc.
When a School is set up, really no structuring is done. It is only bringing the people together in a given area. They are already together some place, so life is the School. Everyday living is the School. The Teaching is not a person. The teacher is all these people doing whatever they are doing when referring to certain ideas which we have considered. So a School is where a group of people are or where there is one person, at least, who is conscious of the Teaching and is able to see what is going on in the various relationships between the people involved in light of the Teaching. Each of us has the Teaching. Each of us can see every relationship we are in. Seeing in light of the Teaching, we see that one person is contending with another or that one group is contending with another because of their different ways of attempting to gain pleasure and escape pain. They blame when there is no pleasure. We see that there are ideals. One group has one ideal; another has a different ideal. Each thinks the other ought to have the same ideal. Therefore, each thinks that the other knows what is right, proper and/or justifiable, but they go on doing wrong anyway, which when seen in light of the Teaching is impossible. So as one observes, LIFE IS THE TEACHER.
All the many different experiments we have run and the different observations we have made that include other people, is to make it possible that each of us recognizes that life is the Teacher and that the Teaching comes from somewhere and we have it. We can apply it and value it, and it becomes ever doubling in value. It is like the people who received the talents: A man received five talents and he made five more — he valued it. Now do you suppose that if he had ten, he could manage to make 20? And if he had 20, he would probably make 40? This is when one has the Teaching. One begins to see that it applies to every facet of interpersonal relationships between people, and that people are all doing what they feel is right, proper and justifiable; that they do not have to be coaxed into being a part of a School, they already are, and that the School is present wherever man is.
Now a group of people together without the Teaching is called “darkness” because there is nobody about to understand, but if the Teaching is present with a group of people (two or more), then a School does exist and life with all of its many challenges everyday is the Teaching. As one observes this, one begins to experience a great joy regardless of whatever one sees because one knows that here are demonstrations of every point of the Teaching. Once can see a person building accounts.
Someone, no doubt, by now has come to tell you their problems. They seem to recognize that everyone who is a student over a period of time has a certain serenity that attracts people who are disturbed, and they want some of that serenity. So they come and tell you their story. They may not want to get rid of the problem, and they may not as yet have questioned the purpose of living, but they will appear. As you hear their story, it is that we have looked at the picture of man over and over two of them in relationship, each with a different ideal, each one wanting to gain pleasure and comfort, attention and approval, and to feel important. Each wants to control the other.
We see frequently a husband and wife who, no doubt, think a great deal of each other (as far as a conditioned person is capable of doing), but they have a great “dependency” on each other which is generally called “love.” They had some feeling of dependency and they heard the word love, so they put it on it. Certainly they have been attracted by eros, being attracted to the other as a sexual mate. However, they have many interpersonal relationships other than sex. So, of course, it comes about that each wants the other to be controlled. “I want to control you.” “You want to control me.” So then the fight is on! The man accuses his wife of always trying to control him by nagging or by being overly dependent. She in turn blames him because he wants to be too independent, because he doesn’t care anything about her and that he only uses her.
Of course, this is a School, but there is one factor lacking. We have the physical setup of the School but neither of them understands the Teaching. If one does, then there is a School. In order for the Teaching to be present, there must be one who is a student of the Teaching, one who is aware of the Teaching, and uses it as a light to observe the everyday affairs that go on in all relationships. As one enters into every interpersonal relationship through the day, one realizes one has been in a School all day long, and that one need not move out of one’s house to find a School.
People have traveled far and wide but the Christ said, “Do not listen to people who tell you that the Christ is in the desert, or in the mountains, or in the inner chamber. Know you not that the Christ is within you?” So always if we have the Teaching, then all the rest of the necessities for the School are provided by everyday life all around us.
Now, if we have the ideas of the School and forget to use them, then we have been to School all day and we were asleep and didn’t know what went on. The whole idea of mankind being asleep means that he forgets or never did know the Teaching, so he has no way of interpreting or understanding the outward manifestations of the interrelationship between people as it relates to the inner man. The inner man is asleep and without having the Teaching, there is no way the inner man can awaken. So we have a very great gift, a gift that we use everyday with the constant knowledge that we are in a School. We begin to see relationships we never saw before.
We also see that in the School there is the constant effort of everybody to set up ideals for everybody else, unknowingly. Once in a while somebody who is very conscious as an observer is not setting ideals, but ideals are being suggested and that one frequently (if one should cease to observe for a few minutes) may find one has been captured by an ideal. Once one has an ideal, one has made something important. And when one has made something important, one is an idolater for a few moments. And of course, all the stories of the great beings who have been Teachers through the ages have, on their way, been tempted by every conceivable thing. It doesn’t mean all is lost; it merely means one took a side road where there are all sorts of things to get one off that straight road that started at the narrow gate, but thank goodness, there is always a reminder so one can get back on the road. Some of us have studied and read the Book of Ecclesiastes on his many side trips.
There is a rather interesting book that, while not accurate in all its manifestations of describing the Teachings, does have a certain amount of this trip. It is called Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyon. You might find it interesting to read. The writer had some of the Teachings and some he didn’t quite understand; however, it is worthwhile if you care to read it. You probably read it as a child in an English Literature class somewhere and found it very boring and very far out. However, it is a rather interesting parable.
It is very interesting to see “what ought to be” being suggested constantly in the School. Now, when the School is brought together in a given spot and not using the one of everyday life as we are using now, you will notice that almost everyone has a “what ought to be” for all the rest: “They ought to be doing more than they are doing, they ought to be more awake, they ought to understand better what the Teaching said in the discussions,” which usually goes on almost everyday and everyday their repetition of the day before as we are doing and assignments are made. It is interesting to see how few seem to find the time to carry out the assignments. Why? Because they haven’t seen the value in it. They haven’t questioned the purpose of living yet. So the people in a formal School are exactly like the ones in everyday life. Many cannot see it has any value to them. It is very interesting to see how much bragging and blaming goes on. Many brag that they have seen more than others. They brag of every insight they have. They brag of the outcome of what they have discovered in every experiment that they ran. And they blame when things don’t go to suit them. Again, it is still ignoring what? X. Spirit is left out because Spirit is not sensed by the senses. It is sensed by the inner mind. It is sensed by being aware and by seeing relationships.
It is very interesting to see in everyday existence, that a person can be given a privilege and after they have had the privilege a little while, they mistake it for a right and feel very indignant if it has been taken away. Most of us have seen someone in everyday existence in a business or somewhere else that has been given a privilege. And in a little while maybe the circumstances have changed, the business has been sold, or whatever, and they no longer have that privilege which was just given as a free gift, by grace, you might say. All of a sudden they are very indignant that they are not having it. They feel they are very unjustly treated and that everything is unfair because they don’t have this privilege any longer. But you see, privileges come and go. Seldom do we do anything to maintain them, enhance them, or gain any more. We take a privilege for granted and in a little while consider it a right and start sticking up for it and that, of course, is the best way in the world to lose a privilege.
Now what do you see when you see all things and all people in relationship as a School? It is very much as if you were looking at a circus clown. Most of the time a great number of people are making very trivial things very important. This is a very worthwhile place for everyone to pay attention. You know, the whole act of a clown is to take a very insignificant event or situation and make it very important. Of course, that is considered humor because it somewhat reminds us of what we do, and we don’t have to think of it at the moment because the clowns have on clown suits. Suppose we begin to observe all the trivia we make important. Every once in a while we all go to sleep, and when we go to sleep everyone of us has the greatest tendency to make a very insignificant something very important. Now, everything basically that we experience is an event and all events are what? They are here and they are gone. An event comes to pass and it passes for sure, but we are quite prone to make it very important.
Suppose someone bumps into you in a moment when you are a little asleep. We are quite prone to make something important out of that: the person was a blundering idiot, or what have you. It also is interesting to see when some driver in another automobile on the highway or freeway suddenly makes a maneuver that forces some change in direction. We have to wake up a moment and make a correction in the way the car is going to avoid a collision or some other accident of some sort. Do we see him as being asleep, or do we see him as being very negligent and someone worthy of blame? That’s when we forget that we are in a School because the School teaches us that we are to see all these people as asleep, and sleeping people do what? They do all sorts of funny things, don’t they? But you see, we can begin to act like the clown, we can make a very important event of an insignificant thing, because the man swerved in the road and you swerved out of his way, and X responded beautifully, no accident, no scratches, no cuts. Then how long do we sometimes stay indignant about it? How long do we blame the man? How many times do we repeat the story of that weirdo we saw on the highway on the way home from work?
We begin to see relationships in every group as a picture of man. So whether we have an organization that we might work with, or whether we attend some organization or other that we are around, or whether we stand off and as an observer we see the picture of man. If we read news events of the various conflicts between nations and various powers, we will observe that there are two pictures of man, regardless of the size of the conglomerate, and that each feels that the other is mistreating them. Each is making insignificant events very important.
Another thing we may notice in observing situations that the events are not all closely related together, but still are really related. If things go one speed, we see the relationship. If they go much slower than that, we don’t visually see it. So we don’t usually comprehend it because we have become totally dependent upon the visual stimuli. For instance, if a rabbit runs down the road and 45 minutes later a dog comes by, one seldom sees relationship between dogs and rabbits. However, if a rabbit comes scurrying by, and a few seconds later a dog comes scurrying by, we see a relationship, the pursued and the pursuer. If there is too much time lag, we have already been distracted by something else, and we don’t see that. This we have referred to somewhere as seeing a group of symptoms and the stress that precipitated it. This goes a little slower than the dog chasing the rabbit. This is usually spread apart 72 hours. If you were to see a fox go down the road on Tuesday and on Thursday afternoon you saw a hound coming down the road, you would probably not think of the hound as pursuing the fox; however, such may be the case. At least, there are many fox hunters in the hills of Kentucky who can tell you that a hound can pick up a fox trail three days old. You will have to check that one out for yourself.
We can begin to see there is a time lag between things that are in relationship. A person may eat tainted food and several hours later become ill. There was a time lag. Our assignment for our practice this time is to see relationships between things that move slower or faster than man usually sees. If some things move at a very high velocity, one doesn’t see them at all. A bullet, for instance, one doesn’t see. One can only see the effects of it, but there is still a relationship between the man who aimed the gun, and the deer who fell many feet away. Even though we did not see the bullet between, we can comprehend that such is the case because of our experience with guns and missiles of various kinds.
We are going to use the same methods of seeing various interpersonal relationships which break into dissensions, and various things as not related on the immediate stimuli, because obviously, sometimes the immediate stimuli is not there, but is due to a more remote stimuli, one of which moved at a higher velocity or slower velocity that the visual apparatus usually can observe.
For instance, you may be in a restaurant and see a man come in. Somebody greets him and lays a menu in front of him. Soon he’s giving the waitress a hard way to go. You cannot see any relationship between what the waitress is doing and the man’s anger, but if you will observe that individual a little more, you may see that there is a more remote stimuli. Maybe he had a run-in with someone down the street two hours ago and he is still seething. So anyone who gets in front of him is going to hear his wrath.
Now, what we particularly want to OBSERVE in this is THE DELAY BETWEEN THE STIMULI AND THE REACTION IN SELF. This is to give us more comprehension of others. We possibly cannot observe all the others, maybe a few who are in fairly close relationship, but certainly you can observe self on delayed stimuli or anticipated stimuli. One may be expecting some unpleasant events to arise and one gets worked up inside as though it has already happened.
Here is a little parable: A man had a flat tire on a lonely country road late at night. He went to change the tire and found that he had left the jack at home in the garage. So he had no jack to change the tire. He looked around and saw a light in a house about a half mile away. So he thought about it and stomped the ground quite upset, thinking, “Whatever made me leave the jack out of the car?” Then he remembered it was because his wife had asked him to get it out to fix her car. So he blamed her for a little bit. Then he started trudging down the road towards the light. As he was going, he began to anticipate something like this: “These farmers won’t understand a man coming up here in a suit, they don’t trust city-slickers. He’ll think I’m a city-slicker, that I’m wanting his old jack and going to run off with it.”
By the time he got a few feet further, he anticipated in his “dream” that the man would want a $10 deposit for the jack, that he would have to pay it to borrow the jack, and be humiliated that he was thought of as some kind of crook before he could go fix it, and then he would have to take the jack back and get his $10 back and he would be delayed much longer. As he got a few more hundred feet, he decided that the farmer would probably want a $20 deposit for the jack, and he was pretty much disturbed with himself.
You see the man was sound asleep. He had been hit by second force and forgotten everything (and maybe he never did know the difference; we don’t know that part). But at least, he was touched by second force and by imagination. A little further on his way, he decided that the farmer would want a $50 deposit on his jack, and this was just getting him worked up into a lather of temper. Just before he got to the house, all the lights went out. So then he was sure that the man had gone to bed and would be very angry when he got there and asked for the jack. But he went on anyway, the necessity had been increased until he had to go. He got to the door, tapped on the door, and somebody stuck a head out of a window and said: “Yes, what do you want?” And the man said, “Oh, you and your blankety blank jack, take it and go to hell!”
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.
