Allow Everything to Be as It Is — the Assignment Nobody Wants and Everybody Needs – Sandy R.

The CD, okay guys? All right. So I'm going to re-welcome everyone to the far corners.
We chose far corners because we kind of envisioned that we'd come from the far corners of the
earth and assemble here, which we did. We have people from Sweden, Scotland, Alaska,
Massachusetts, California, Washington, D.C. I know I'm leaving Texas. So you can see we
did come from the far corners. But the real far corners is to come in,
from the far corners of our mind, and stop hanging out there and try and get centered
in our true selves. We just are so distracted in so many directions that we miss the show.
We miss the main event that's going on that we were meant to see.
This particular retreat is dedicated to
church.
Chuck Chamberlain. How many here knew Chuck? One, two. You met him, George?
Okay. So if you're not familiar, Chuck was a wonderful spiritual teacher out in California,
AA. The book in the back, the new pair of glasses, is from a retreat that Chuck did,
and it was transcribed after he passed away.
And I got to meet him in 75, and he liked me for some reason. So I kept getting invited
out to the Laguna Beach area to talk and hang out, and I got to go to his house and sit
in his chair overlooking the Pacific. And he was clearly breaking ground for this kind
of a weekend.
And I was in a new pair of glasses. And so a lot of the ideas that I've had over the
years started with him, and then I've just tried to find different ways of talking about
those ideas.
And the first lecture that we have here is all Chuck. And it's entitled, There's Only
One Problem.
And if you listen to any talk he ever does, he's going to tell you a story. He's going
to tell you a story. He's going to tell you a story. He's going to tell you a story.
You're going to deal with this. That's the first thing.
And the second question is, I'm going to deal with this.
That's the first thing.
And if you listen to any talk he ever gave, that's his message.
The problem with that is it's too simple.
We don't like simple things. Like when we came to AA and they said,
okay, just don't drink.
Or what else? Just don't drink. You remember that? Just don't drink.
Look, I'm very complicated. I got a divorce. I got all that.
It can't be just don't drink. That couldn't possibly address all those things that are
going on in my life.
had. And they said, no, just don't drink. And God damn, I can't stand people who just
go, don't drink. So you can see, we don't like
a simple answer. The human
mind likes to complicate it. And here's
Chuck. Okay, everybody.
In all of life, there's only one problem.
One problem that includes all problems.
That's his quote. One problem that includes all problems
and one solution that includes all solutions.
So there it is. And what does he say
this problem is? He calls it
the human ego, but he goes further. He defines it as
conscious separation.
Conscious separation from what? Conscious separation
from God.
Conscious separation from each other. And eventually
conscious separation from ourselves.
And in his book, you'll see that he draws a circle of the
universe. And
God is everything. And here's the whole universe. And then just
outside of it is me.
Just barely outside the circle is
you and I existing separately
from all the rest. That is what is called conscious separation.
And the answer to that in our book is pretty simple.
Conscious contact.
And so the the hard part is that if
the problem is conscious separation, I mean, if the answer
to the problem is conscious
contact. And what is the real problem? The real problem is not being aware
that we are consciously separated. We think
that we're just like everybody else. We think that we are part
of the world. And so this whole weekend is
designed to break through this conscious separation
that each one of us has. I know when I
started studying the big book and it talked about God being everything.
You all know that. God is everything or he's nothing. Remember that's probably back in the beginning around
first 40 pages or so. God is everything or he's
nothing. Either is or he isn't. What's your choice to be? And
there we sat. Wow. God is everything. I remember sitting there going God is
everything.
Well that isn't where I think now. But maybe I'll change my mind
and I'll choose for God to be everything. You follow what I'm
saying? I don't know if you went through the same exercise. And I finally said all right I'm going to
think about it in terms of God being everything. So then I just went okay God
it's all these people in this room. He's the taper. He's this thing. The fans. The
manatee river. The sky. The planets. The stars. Everything
single thing. There isn't anything that isn't God. And God is everything
that there is. And then I took it all in to the best of my ability.
And when I got all finished I went done.
Except I
seem to exist in addition to everything.
There's the whole universe. There's God. There's all of that.
But there's also me. I wasn't
included in everything. Now how could that happen?
How could I be existing in addition
to everything? Well I know you're not going to like
it but this is how we do it. We make up a story that we exist
in addition to everything. And that's called our ego.
It is what we have created
and live in. And that's why in the meetings we talk about well I'm going to tell my story.
And we go up there and we share
everything that happened to us according to our perspective.
And the longer we're in AA the spiritual part of the program
dismantles that story. It simply takes it away.
away. Old ideas availed us nothings.
Those are the ideas that we started with.
And so Chuck just, I'm going to use some notes that I
When we're little, I don't know about
you, but I was told, all right, son, this is your
life. Nobody else can live your life for you.
It belongs to you and it belongs to you alone. And your
job is to go out and see what you can make out of yourself.
See what you can accomplish in this world.
And we all went racing off. I got to be a fighter pilot in the Marine Corps.
I'm accomplishing. Look at me. I'm really getting there. I'm really getting there. Then I was in the
nut ward.
And I'm going, shit, something's happening to the plan.
Something's going wrong. Mayday, mayday. Big emergency.
What is going on? What is happening? Called hitting bottom.
You remember that? Hitting bottom. So
all of us that followed that plan, just full speed ahead,
crashed and burned.
And we thought we failed. God, I didn't
do it right. Now, if we asked Chuck about
that, he'd say, well, the fault isn't yours. You were given
the wrong briefing to start with.
The briefing that you should have gotten as a little
shaver is this. Son, your life
isn't yours. It does not belong
to you. It belongs to God.
You let him see what he can make out of you.
There's what should have been
passed on to us. In other words,
the separation that I experienced
was me racing off all on my own
to create a life for myself.
And from a spiritual point of view,
that was an illusion. I had convinced myself
that it is just me, that I exist, all on my own,
separate from all of you guys, separate from God,
and it's just me against the universe.
And the biggest problem that people have is this loneliness.
People have been writing about it for hundreds of years.
That way down deep, everybody is realizing that they're alone in the universe.
And everybody's had that feeling.
And we go into a bar and we're not alone anymore.
Only took about three drinks and now I have conscious contact with everybody in the bar.
I'm at peace with the universe.
And I'm not existing in that cosmic loneliness.
There was no God there.
Well, why wasn't there a God?
I didn't write him in.
I didn't include him.
I didn't realize this, but we're just talking now from Chuck's perspective, not from anything traditional.
We just never worked that in.
We were creating something that we were the center of.
One thing you can say about us, we were the center of our own lives.
We call it self-centeredness.
Yep, there's me.
And then there's everything in relation to me.
Good, bad, good looking, like her, hate him, can't stand this.
Well, where's all this judging coming from?
Right here at the center.
I'm looking out and you're sitting over there also in the center of the universe.
Separate from me.
Your center is over there.
My center is up here.
And we're all viewing everything.
And things are coming.
We're kind of screwed up.
Our perspective that we developed is not correct.
We're in the same position that the early astronomers were when they thought the Earth was the center of the solar system.
And things just didn't add up.
But they kept trying to force it to add up.
I almost killed the first person who said, maybe the sun is the center.
And I can imagine the human egos back then.
And they went.
And no, it has to be where we live.
Obviously.
I mean, we don't even have to hardly think about that.
It has to be where I live.
That would obviously be the obvious center of the solar system.
So you can see how this is so part of the human nature is to start with us as the center.
And you can see where it got us.
We all had problems with a higher power.
We went to church.
We tried to learn about things.
And we ended up with that same feeling of being alone.
So as Chuck goes along, he talks about the absolute vitality of letting go.
We use letting go in our program all the time.
Let go and let God.
Let go and let God.
Letting go may be.
One of the hardest and difficult things there is to do is to let go.
Matter of fact, I think the whole program could be summarized as let go.
All the steps are designed to slowly pry things away from us that we are not willing to let go of.
The first thing we let go of is drinking.
But the rest of it doesn't go that easy.
Because if we let go of everything, what would we be in charge of?
I would have no say-so in any part of my life.
That's a pretty big order, isn't it?
I would have nothing to say about any aspect of my life.
So I better keep some control in some areas or it'll be out of control.
Know that feeling?
Nobody wants to be out of control.
And so whenever I picture the letting go, I picture that great story about the monkeys and how they hunt monkeys and they put a jar out with food in it.
The monkey reaches in with his hand full of food.
He can't get it out of the neck of the jar.
And they just walk up and catch him.
Just walk right up.
Throw a net over him.
And you wonder, why wouldn't he let go?
Well, I don't want to let go of the food.
I want to let go.
I want to be saved.
But I don't want to let go of the food.
And I think that's the grip that we have on so many things in our life.
Matter of fact, we need to inventory it all to find out what we need to let go of.
And then we have to go through the pain of letting go.
First, we try to get the willingness in step six.
Willingness to let go.
That's the step.
It separates the men from the boys.
So it's an unwillingness to let go.
In other words, all you have to do is let go and everything will be fine.
Well, I don't know about you, but that sounds too simple.
It sounds too theoretical.
I'm going to just let go and everything will be all right?
The answer is yes.
So why are we struggling with all this?
Because we have not really seen our connection with our higher power.
It's a theory.
It's a theory until we have this conscious contact.
Until we have that awakening that is generally described in the ninth step.
We suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we couldn't do for ourselves.
There was something about Chuck that was absolutely contagious.
One of the things that he said, and I want to quote it correctly.
At the time that he gave the talk at the retreat, he said,
I've spent 29 years of living expecting guidance.
Now, do you see?
The difference between that and how we traditionally live.
I don't know about you.
I get out of the bed in the morning and I go, okay, what's the plan?
What am I going to do today?
Okay, I've got to get this.
I've got to get that.
And I'm creating the plan.
I'm going out and I'm doing all that.
And Chuck is sitting over there just waiting for guidance.
Now, you know, does that sound like a plan that would really guarantee success in life?
Set the alarm.
Get up in the morning and wait for guidance.
You all ready for that one?
Well, I've been running my own business by myself.
But from this day forward, I'm just going to get up and wait for guidance.
Well, he did that in his business.
And his business got greater than it ever was.
He transformed his whole perspective on business.
He was a businessman.
He was a businessman that designed and installed the equipment in supermarkets
and had been fired, very good at it, but he got fired and his boss made him leave and all that.
And he had this amazing transformation and came back and decided that his only function was to make people happy.
And that if a customer came in, he just would do whatever it took to make them happy.
And he talks about one incident where the customer came in and said,
well, I want the refrigerator down this side.
And they went through all the work and everything.
And later on, he said, no, actually, I wish I had told you that I wanted them down this side.
Well, geez, you know, when you've already got the construction just about finished, that's quite a major change.
And Chuck said, OK.
OK, for the same price, I'll take them down and redo the whole job and put them over there.
And the guy said, but you're going to lose money on it.
He said, that's all right.
I just want you to be happy.
Now, how many of us would have thought that answer to somebody we're doing business with?
That's all right.
I'll just lose money on it.
I just want you to have the store so when you come in, you're just as thrilled to death.
The guy.
I wouldn't let him do it at his own expense.
He insisted that Chuck make a profit on it.
He didn't ask for the profit.
He didn't ask that.
Come on, it's not fair.
You did this in the middle of it.
In other words, he just wanted to make this person happy.
Strange way to run a business, isn't it?
But it's what we're trying to get out of all of this.
Is that is the way to live a spiritual life.
The message was, it really wasn't your life to start with.
It was God's life through you.
He created us.
He has a plan.
And we're supposed to just watch it.
We're supposed to just allow it to happen.
That would seem to indicate that everything is predetermined.
You know what I'm talking about?
Well, if that's it, God's already got it planned.
So you're saying that everything is predetermined.
I said, well, there's total free will and it's predetermined.
That's what I would say.
So you would say, well, that's impossible.
Couldn't possibly be that.
Well, this is what I mean.
But the plan was that I was born in Connecticut.
And as I got to be six years old and saw pictures of palm trees and beaches,
I decided that being born in Connecticut was a shitty plan.
You follow what I'm saying?
So the plan was that I was born in Connecticut.
I said, I'm going to be born in Connecticut.
But I decided it was a shitty plan to be born in Connecticut.
So I created my own version of the plan.
In other words, our ego reacts to the unfolding of our life by editorializing on it.
And we're free to editorialize in any way that we want.
And it's in that commenting on everything that's happening by thinking about it.
Well, I don't know why the hell this is happening.
Why should this happen?
God damn, now I've got to wait here for another hour.
I can't believe the shit's going on.
In other words, life is happening exactly as it should.
And I am making up a story about this is unfair.
Well, it's about time.
That happened.
This is good.
Okay, all right.
So I literally have created a separate world from the one that was unfolding.
I just made comments about everything.
I'm like a newspaper.
I'm an editorial guy.
A great tragedy occurred this morning when my alarm didn't go off.
I was late for three appointments, greatly embarrassing me and causing a great deal of whatever.
See, here's the story.
All that happened, the alarm didn't go off.
There's nothing happened beyond that.
So everything that happened beyond that is what you and I made up.
And we're going to find out that.
In our book, it talks about all our problems are of our own making.
Is everybody familiar with that?
It's there at least three times.
Well, after all, our problems are of our own making.
And as you can see, Chuck is talking about the fact that there's only one problem,
and that's being separated from a higher power and not being aware that we're separated.
So we come up with lots of other problems other than being separated.
I don't ever.
I don't ever remember saying my problem is I'm separated.
What's going on?
Oh, I got the girlfriend left me.
Oh, I don't have enough money.
Well, it looks like they're laying off a lot of us.
Is that your problem?
Yeah, they're laying off a lot of us.
That's my problem.
And Chuck would go, no, it's not.
Your problem is you're separated from your higher power.
If you were totally connected, it wouldn't matter to you that they're laying off people.
Because all.
All of your needs would be met by your higher power.
You would just be going, well, I wonder what he has in store for me.
I wonder how he's going to resolve me being laid off.
Not how I'm going to resolve being laid off.
How is he going to resolve me being laid off?
You see the difference?
It is very difficult to reduce all the problems that we have to being separated.
So I'll try to come up with a parallel.
Back in our drinking days, we're in the bar, and a friend of ours comes in,
and he says, you're not going to believe what happened to me.
I just got laid off.
I just got laid off.
It's killing me.
Do you remember what we said?
Let me buy you a drink.
Is that what we said?
Let me buy you a drink.
So now we know that buying the guy a drink is the proper answer to being laid off.
We can all see that.
Well, about a month later, another guy comes in.
He said, oh, my girlfriend left me.
I'm dying.
What do we say?
Let me buy you a drink.
Let me buy you a drink.
Oh, so now we know that buying a drink,
is the proper solution for being laid off and your girlfriend leaving you.
Then he comes in.
Well, you can already see.
It doesn't matter what his problem is.
Let me buy you a drink.
Well, what do we have there?
One solution for all problems.
So we were already familiar with the concept that one solution fits all problems.
Back in the drinking world, as a matter of fact, I don't ever remember saying to myself,
well, here's the problem.
I won't be drinking over this is I, uh, I'm staying sober through this one.
I'm going to go in the other room and I'm going to figure this all out without a drink.
I couldn't figure anything out without a drink.
Drinking was the first step in all problems.
Problem solving.
I don't know about you all, but it was for me.
I'm going to go, oh, I got this letter.
It's from a judge.
Jesus, what am I going to do?
What do you do when you get a letter?
I don't know, but I will shortly go out in the kitchen.
One, two, just tear it up.
Okay, good.
That's done.
So, so we totally relied on one power source for everything.
So, so we totally relied on one power source for everything.
So, so we totally relied on one power source for everything.
And as the alcohol began to wear off,
And as the alcohol began to wear off,
It didn't matter if it was wearing off while we were driving a car.
It didn't matter if it was wearing off while we were trying to go to sleep.
It didn't matter if it was wearing off while we were trying to go to sleep.
It didn't matter if it was wearing off while we were at work.
It didn't matter if it was wearing off while we were at work.
We had one problem.
We were separated from alcohol.
Do you see the parallel?
Do you see the parallel?
We could describe it in many other ways.
I'm going nuts here at work.
I don't know what the hell to do.
But we knew what would fix it.
If I could just get a drink, this whole work problem would straighten out.
So I'm trying to draw a parallel between Chuck's basic premise of there's only one problem that we have,
and that's conscious separation, to back in the drinking days,
there's only one problem we ever had, and that was not having enough booze.
That's how our whole life was structured around receiving the power to live the life
and to see it correctly and to have a great perspective on things from one source,
and that was alcohol.
So we, alcoholics, are already familiar with this.
On the flip side, how you can become dependent on just,
one thing.
So when we come over here and we say,
we just need to do the same thing.
The problem is, it was very obvious that alcohol would fix it.
But when we get sober, it's not as obvious that God will fix it.
Because it doesn't happen that quick.
So we have to do the same thing.
We have to take somebody else's word.
When we're new, we take somebody else who's been in a long time.
And he says, yeah, I had that problem, and God resolved it.
I prayed, and slowly it changed, and everything came that way.
So for this weekend, as various things pop into your mind,
try to see that that's not the problem.
That is not the problem.
The problem is, I am separated from my creator.
Now that's, I work on it constantly.
I work on it constantly to tell myself, I am diagnosing this wrong.
I'm diagnosing this wrong.
Because as long as I believe what my ego's telling me
about the variety of problems,
that come into my life,
I will be solving them in almost a non-spiritual way.
I'll be going, I'm so worried about money.
Well, then the answer, or the problem is,
as you express it, lack of money.
So the answer is, get money.
What I have to tell myself is, God, I'm real worried about money.
That means I'm too far from God.
You see what I'm saying?
Oh, wait a minute.
How did that get in there?
Well, let's see if you focus on get closer to God,
the worry about money goes away.
I'll never forget when my sponsor told me
that financial insecurity could be taken away
with no money arriving.
Does that sound preposterous?
What's that?
Financial insecurity can be removed with no money arriving.
Oh.
In other words, it isn't the money.
It's thinking about money.
It's worrying about money.
What if we could go inside and turn off the ability to worry about money?
That would be the same as getting money.
You follow what I'm saying?
It would be the exact same result.
When's the last time you worried about money?
I don't know.
It's been a year, I guess.
Well, you barely have any.
I know, but I just don't worry about not having it.
Now, to...
Some of us would look at that and go,
yes, technically, technically.
Technically, what you're saying is correct,
but I'd rather have the money.
I'd rather have the money.
And so we come up with that
because that guarantees that we stay separate from God.
You follow what I'm saying?
As soon as we find an alternative solution,
then we can leave God out.
And that's the nature of the problem
we're trying to solve as human beings,
is to stop looking for alternative solutions other than God.
Just back, if you could imagine us trying to teach a new alcoholic,
as if you have to teach him,
about the essential thing of drinking.
I know you're worried, but did you drink today?
No, I forgot.
Well, God damn it, come on over here.
You see how silly...
Silly that would be.
We wouldn't have to tell him that.
He would already be doing it.
But it doesn't happen automatically over here.
We just don't say to ourselves,
oh, this is a God thing.
We go, this is a rejection thing.
This is a emotional security thing.
She doesn't love me anymore.
So what do you do about,
she doesn't love me anymore?
You've got to get closer to God.
Oh, no, I've got to find a new girlfriend.
Every...
Every problem that we have,
we come up with a solution other than God.
Does anybody here,
does everybody agree with that?
I mean, just, okay.
Because I'm using my brain to solve the problem.
And very often,
sponsors will tell people,
your problem is faulty thinking.
Just the way you think,
it's just so screwed up.
It just keeps coming up with terrible answers.
Do you understand that?
Yeah.
What are you going to do about it?
I don't know.
I have to think about it.
What?
I have to think about it.
That's your problem.
Your problem is you're thinking about it.
And so this,
the whole premise of the weekend is to see
if we can,
as problems pop up in our mind,
and they only come from thinking.
You just...
I think egos just sit back there and go,
I understand you haven't been worried about anything
for 11 minutes.
Yeah, that's right.
Well, we're going to fix that right now.
You haven't thought about your retirement
in quite a while, have you?
Yeah, you're right.
I haven't.
Well, you know you're never going to retire.
It's impossible.
Inflation, the way it's going,
you're screwed.
Well, go ahead and relax.
I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to bother you.
I know you were having a nice retreat.
Just thought I'd throw in retirement
and let you have some fun with it.
And so,
what is that?
So then we go,
oh my God,
I'm all worried about my retirement.
I'm not close enough to God.
Now, there's a little chapel over here.
It's real close to this,
this classroom.
And if it's not raining,
there's wonderful little places.
And so we can just take,
trust me,
if you just said,
I'm going to take that retirement worry
over to the chapel,
sit two minutes and walk back,
it'll be gone.
And there won't be any extra money
in your retirement account.
The worry about retiring
will go away.
That is
what Chuck is trying to show us.
In that there's only one problem.
Now, his exact words,
I want to make sure I just get them all.
There's only one problem in this life.
One problem that includes all problems
and one answer that includes all answers.
I'm totally convinced
the only roadblock between me and you
and God is the human ego.
And the best definition
you'll ever hear
is conscious separation.
The feeling of conscious separation.
In other words,
when you
honestly evaluate
your perspective
on things,
you conclude that you're separate.
I mean, that's what just comes to you.
You just go, yeah,
I'm on this side of the room,
they're on that side of the room.
He's that person
and I'm this person.
We don't see ourselves
as mutually connected
to God.
The same as leaves
are part of a tree.
We did one lecture here
about leaves
and how if we gave leaves
an ego
so that they could be aware
of how wonderful a tree was,
it wouldn't be long
before the leaves on the bottom
would realize they didn't have
as good a view as the leaves
on the top of the tree.
And they could start thinking about that.
How come I got the shitty view?
What do you have to do
to be up on the top?
And besides, bigger leaves
do more work with photosynthesis
than little leaves.
I'm supplying twice as much food
for this tree
as the leaves on the top
and they have the better view.
What the hell's going on
in this tree?
You see what I'm saying?
And you go, hey,
you're just part of the whole tree.
No, I'm not.
I'm a leaf.
I exist.
I exist as something
separate part of the tree.
All of a sudden,
I'm part of the tree.
They're a freaking leaf.
And then one of them looks down
and says, what's that down there?
Dead leaves.
Oh, you mean we die?
Oh, God, now I know I die.
So you can see what happened
by just giving us consciousness.
And here we are.
Back to what Chuck is saying.
So we have a sign
behind us.
Simply allow everything
to be as it is.
It's one of the greatest
simple sentences
that I've run across
in the last 10 years
to produce a state of peace.
It allows me to exist
without having any opinions
on anything.
There's nothing about me
that has to be changed.
There's nothing about
my family,
that has to be changed.
There's nothing about the world
that has to be changed.
Because this is the new game plan.
Just allow everything
to be as it is.
And now I can already feel it.
You go, you know, I like that.
I like that.
But what about the,
isn't that the thought
that comes in?
Yeah, but what about the,
hmm, okay,
I'm going to let that go.
Okay, good.
Yeah, but what about the,
anybody what abouting?
Aren't there a lot of things
that really you ought to get changing?
Can't you see how screwed up
everything is?
How could you just allow it
to be as it is?
That would be irresponsible
to just allow everything
to be as it is.
This is our assignment
is to allow everything
to be as it is.
In the program,
and Chuck talked about,
he spent 29 years
expecting guidance.
Guidance cannot come
when we're disturbed.
And we're generally disturbed
because things aren't the way
they're supposed to be.
I don't know about you all,
but that's the most common form
of disturbance.
And so by simply allowing
everything to be as it is,
and just stay there.
All we're actually doing
is just breathing
and taking in the room
and wow, the fans are going.
We've got wonderful people here.
Doesn't get any better than this.
Look at all these great people.
Just take it all in.
I'm just going to let them all be.
They're all from all over.
Isn't this nice?
Yeah, but what about,
don't do what about.
Okay, so as we stay there,
we may come up with something
that we never dreamed of.
This comes from nowhere.
I ought to get my uncle a book.
Where the hell did that come from?
I haven't thought about my uncle
in a long time.
That would be fun.
He really likes hunting.
I'm going to get him a hunting book.
Holy cow.
When I get out of here,
I'm going to go get my uncle
a hunting book.
I haven't written to him
or talked to him in about five years.
Oh boy, when I get home,
I'm going to get the book.
I'm going to send this little,
where did that come from?
It came from allowing everything
to be just as it is
so that our higher power
can give us guidance.
We thought we should be figuring out
our retirement
when we really
would be much,
much happier
getting our uncle a book.
But we never would have thought
of getting our uncle a book
because we've got to solve the problem
of not having enough money
for retirement.
You see the difference between
a self-oriented life
full of goals
and only having one goal,
which is
to establish contact
with our own creator.
What a difference.
How do we know it will turn out
well without me in charge?
How's it going with you in charge?
Is there any turmoil inside
on a regular basis?
Oh shit, I've got to go here.
Would you like to get rid of that?
Yeah, but I still want to be in charge.
Okay, well I don't think we can get rid of that
and still have you in charge.
How do I know
it'll turn out?
You don't.
That's the fun.
That's the fun.
In other words,
when we say,
how's it going to turn out?
We've already left the now.
We've just left
where God wants us to be.
That's the fun.
That's the fun.
That's the fun.
That's the fun.
That's the fun.
That's the fun.
That's the fun.
That's the fun.
That's the fun.
This is the only place He exists
is in this moment.
It's the only time we can have a connection.
It's the only time we can
get rid of conscious separation.
It's right in this moment.
We can be connected to everybody in this room.
We can stay connected
until we go,
wait a minute,
I forgot to get the car has to be repaired Tuesday.
We're no longer here.
And so what Chuck was trying to teach us
was if we only,
no matter what comes up,
if we automatically categorize that
as being separated from our higher power,
we can get peace of mind immediately
and just allow it,
whatever's going to happen to us,
to happen.
We never were in charge of the story.
We'll probably talk about this a little later.
We missed the point of everything
when we thought we were supposed to
be in charge of our lives.
It was our responsibility.
And as we started out earlier,
it was like, I'm sorry,
we shouldn't have told you that to start with.
It's not your life.
It's not your life.
It's not yours.
It's God's life.
He is going to tell a great story through you.
You're not the author.
Do you see the difference?
Now, what do I get to do
with my own life story?
Read it.
Oh, wow, here's another chapter.
I wonder where this one's going.
I seem to be out of gas in the woods.
How's he going to get me out of this?
Do you see the difference?
I wonder how he's going to get me out of this.
Well, I better take...
No.
You see, we always want to jump back in.
If I don't take care of me, who will?
I remember saying to Chuck,
what about the sentence,
God takes care of those who take care of themselves?
He said, that's wrong.
God takes care of those who take care of themselves.
God takes care of those that ask.
You see the difference?
It is a huge perspective change.
And the other lectures this week
are designed to work on this.
And they're designed to do it through stories.
The chicken and the egg and the wonderful world
and stop projecting.
When we get to those,
you'll find that they're all designed,
to solve the problem of conscious separation.
To give us some ideas,
just as the leaves on a tree.
It's an entirely new way of looking at things,
which is why Chuck's book was called
A New Pair of Glasses.
A new way of looking at things.
You had it happen when the first time
you went to your sponsor
with the world falling down.
You remember the sky's falling, sky's falling.
Can I come over?
Okay, come on.
Come on over.
And then you go over there and you remember,
well, I talked to her.
She said she's probably going to leave.
And then I go over here.
It's absolutely hopeless.
I'm probably going to be dead in a week.
Oh, shit.
And then he said, well, now, wait a minute.
You're getting some new friends.
There's somebody going to pick you up tomorrow.
This is going to happen.
We're going to go over there.
And then when he got all through,
you went, well, if you look at it that way,
it's not so bad.
If you look at it that way, it's not so bad.
So is not every problem we have looking at it wrong.
That's it.
Well, I'm all bent, no shape.
This happened, that happened.
No, that's not.
That's not.
You're looking at it incorrectly.
That's why we need each other.
In other words, this whole premise
is to get us to begin to see
that our assessment of things is always wrong.
Does that make sense?
Your assessment of everything is always wrong.
Well, how could I find out if it's right?
Ask somebody else.
Oh, I don't like to ask other people.
I don't like to involve them.
Well, then you're just going to have yourself
to look at everything.
You see the problem.
We got one narrow perspective.
Our whole program is based on
getting a new perspective.
Sharing with our sponsor.
Somewhere in the 12 and 12,
people of very high spiritual development
always insist on checking with others
the guidance they feel they got from God.
It is
it is
it is
it is
it is
the human ego's survival
depends on creating problems
that separate us from our higher power.
That is the whole magic of the illusion
of being separated.
The
I read somewhere that the
material world is nothing more than the stage
on which the spiritual play
unfolds.
So our whole
journey here is a spiritual journey.
Early on we're told that we are
spiritual entities having a human experience.
We're not human beings having a spiritual experience,
but spiritual entities having a human experience.
So before I got here,
I was a spiritual entity not having a human experience.
And after I leave here,
I'll be a spiritual entity who just had a human experience.
You see, well that changes the whole ballgame, yeah.
It means this little blip of 70 years
is a short story
in in the big picture of things.
We had some um we had a couple memorial services
in the Tampa area recently
and
And one of the thoughts that came to me was
that those are wonderful times to remind ourselves of our own immortality,
which is just the opposite of what we normally do.
Oh, God, when I think about that, it reminds me of my own mortality.
No, that's wrong.
See, in other words, it's just, let's throw that idea out.
It should remind us of our own immortality.
Yes, that's what it looks like.
You have a human experience, and then you go back to being a spiritual being,
not having a human experience,
which is what Chuck is trying to share with us.
We think we're separate from our higher power.
We are creating this story of being separate,
and when we die, the story ends.
And the whole thing was never real to start with.
You know what I'm saying?
It's something that we put together.
I will close with this, because I'll probably not get to it.
I recently, the guys from California, the guys from Tampa already know this.
I was out in Brentwood.
When was I out there?
Huh?
March.
I was out there in California in March,
and Steve got me to go over to the Brentwood group,
and they said, wonderful group,
and you talk to these people, and then they ask questions.
It's really a cool meeting.
And right before the meeting,
a lady who was getting her 30-year medallion said her husband wanted to talk to me outside.
And I went outside, and this guy said, who I'd never seen in my life,
said to me,
you were flying an F-3D radar plane in 1962
on a cross-country in the flight of four.
And you called the flight leader and told them you had an oxygen emergency,
and you had to land.
And the planes landed.
Everybody got drunk that night and came out to the plane the next day,
and you announced that you weren't going to fly it,
and you never flew again.
And I said, how the hell did you know that?
He said, I was in the plane with you.
And he was.
And he filled me in.
I'm the host.
I'm the host.
I'm the host.
I'm the host.
I'm the whole thing.
We were on a hurricane evacuation out of Cherry Point.
We went off, and you drink until the hurricane goes by.
We're coming back.
And instead of a radar guy in the right seat,
there was another pilot because we were all going to drink.
So he was able to fly the plane back.
So he clarified the whole story about what really happened.
But the most important part of the story that he clarified was
my, what?
What I told myself it was like for the next three months
when I no longer was flying,
and I'm in that exclusive squadron,
and they're waiting to see what to do with a screw-up like me,
a piece of crap who can't even stay in an airplane.
I mean, this is a disgrace to this squadron.
It's all these senior pilots and no lieutenants, all captains.
And I said,
I just would come in every day and waiting for my orders
to get out of there and retrained and all that,
and I just felt awful for the entire three months.
And finally I got out of there, and I just went,
oh, gee, that was awful.
And then I went on, drank another year,
and ended up in the nut ward.
And he said to me,
did you know how popular you were in that squadron?
Do you know how much everybody liked you?
My God, the colonel was turning over every stone
to try and keep you flying.
Everybody there was on your side.
They just were doing anything they could to help you.
And I went, wow, that's not even close to my version.
Wow.
Holy cow.
I guess I'm going to have to go back to that period in time
and go erase, erase, erase, erase, erase, erase, erase,
and put that version in.
So what did he give me?
He gave me a whole new truth.
He took my story and shattered it
and put in the truth.
And so that's what we want to do with the story
that we exist separate.
This consciousness, that was my consciousness
about what happened then.
They all hated me.
They wished I was dead.
They wished I was never in the squadron
and they wanted me out of there.
That was my consciousness.
And he came up and went,
and I went, wow, that's amazing.
And so I went back and changed it.
This conscious separation can be destroyed.
Remember the idea that we can drink like other people
has to be smashed, smashed.
Smash the conscious separation.
That's the challenge, is to see through it.
And we're beginning it by embracing the idea
that that's the only problem we have.
And every time all the other come up, go,
ah, it's just that problem in disguise.
I remember a lady speaker one time got up there
and said, our character defects don't go away.
They just go off the stage and put a new costume on.
Hi, I'm your friend.
You look a little like Lust.
No, I'm not.
I'm your friend.
And then they come back in.
So what we're trying to do this weekend
is to smash conscious separation
by taking every problem that comes up and go,
ah, separation from God.
Oh, another separation.
Another separation.
Okay, we're at the end of the time.
What time do we go to dinner?
Seven.
So we've got 15 minutes to hang out,
have coffee and talk a little bit
and get to know one another.
Let's all try to just...
Yes, sir.
We're done.
I need to see the three guys that are living in a hall.