Turning the Will Over to the Care of Higher Power – Chuck C.

I'm your beloved Chuck. Good morning. My goodness, I didn't believe there were this many people in Redondo Beach. I want to thank you all for coming. I think, you know, that if a guy's going to talk a little while, it's nice if somebody comes. And somebody certainly has come this morning. We've already had a good talk here, so I don't have to do very much. Mainly, I came to tell you I love you. That's the main thing that I have to say to you. I love your... And you don't have to change for me to love you You don't need to change. You don' t have to get any gooder or any badder or any smarter or anything else. I love ya because I know who you are whether you do or not. And so I love you. I'm totally and completely lost in the last few years in converting intellectual knowledge into conscious awareness. Practically everything that I know now that is pertinent to my well-being, I knew 50, 60 years ago. And just about everything I believe now that's pertinent for my well being, I believed 50 or 60 years ago intellectually. And I've been converting it into conscious awareness and it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun. For instance, the little phrase, in him we live and move and have our being. I've known that ever since I can remember. And almost all the time I thought it meant just us, we human beings. It didn't occur to me that — well, it did once in a while, I got an inkling once in awhile — that it meant all life. In him everything lives and moves and has to be. Not just us, but our life. Because there's only one life. There's one life with many faces, one mind common to all men. And that That takes in everything that is. You know, the English translation of the word, the Hebrew word for God is that which is. That which is, and it means everything that is. And I was sort of bound up for a long time thinking it just meant us. But it don't. For instance, I've been swimming with a salmon from the headwaters of the Klamath River to Japan and back trying to find out who is its travel agent. You know something, I get lost in the airport. And that salmon goes from the headwaters of the Klamath to Japanese waters and back to the head waters of the klamath, to spawn and to die. And that's something like nine thousand miles of water, one way. And you say, how does it do it? We have a little phenomenon down our way, San Juan Capistrano. We have bunch of swallows that show up down there on St. Joseph's Day. Every year the world almost on the minute, you know. And they winter in Venezuela. And I've been trying trying to find out who is their travel agent. You know, it's a long ways to Venezuela. But they do that. I have some birds down my way that I feed. I've some blue jays. And I feed feed them, and I feed the hummingbirds. And they're liable to be sitting in the same tree. And the hummingbird will take off and stop in the air, just stop up there and sit there, there, and he's liable to start out forward or backward or sideways. And I never have heard one of those blue jays say to the other one, look, that monkey's flying backwards. I can't fly backwards and he gets out there and tries to fly backwards and he falls breaks his leg you know I got a Bogan video I've had it 25 years and it hasn't yet decided to be a rose. I wouldn't want to be a bougainvillea all that time. I'd want to become a rose, wouldn't you? That bougainvilla never wanted to be a rose It's perfectly satisfied to be what it is and it knows how Now that's the whole story this morning It's perfect It's completely satisfied to be what it it is and it knows how. And I'm convinced that as if and when you and I get simple enough to be ourselves, we'll find that we have everything necessary for our complete fulfillment. Because I do not believe that God's idea of a salmon, including everything necessary for its complete fulfillment, would leave us then without that same sort of thing. But you see, when we get up to our status, we get the idea that we have to improve on God's handiwork. We're not satisfied, we've got to improve on God's Handiwork! And this entire society of ours, this entire civilization, pretty little ruined me because because they said that I had to be this, have that and be known as before I could live. They read to me right out of the Bible that you win your bread by the sweat of your brow, old boy. So get out there in the salt mine and get to work. You've got to out-think, think, outperform and outmaneuver everybody else in order to eke out a miserable levy out of an unfriendly universe. That's what I was taught. And I worked on it very hard, the way I was brought up to believe. And amongst other things, I had to earn, be worthy of and merit God's grace. You know? In my family, we were half of it Methodist Church South and half of us hard-sail Baptists. Then which ain't nothing witcher. So, we were born sinners. That's what they told us. We were born sinners. We didn't have to sin to go to hell. We had to get saved to keep from going to hell, you know? And that is a terrible thing to teach a kid, isn't it? Isn't that awful? I was 60 years old before I ever looked in the dictionary to see what the definition of the word grace was. I thought I knew. I I thought I was born knowing. Never occurred to me that I didn't know what grace meant. But when I was 60 years old, I looked in the dictionary and it said a free gift. That was the first definition. A free gift! How are you going to earn or be worthy of or merit a free gift? You can't hardly do that because it's free. And that's the way it is with us. God's idea of his child, you and me, includes everything necessary for our complete fulfillment. There's a little place outside of Santa Cruz, a little area that's got a fence around it. And in that area they have some very interesting things. They have a couple of trees that grew across each other like this, you know. And the wind would blow and they'd annoy each other. So they created, they built, a natural graft between them to hold them apart about like that. And there it is, about that big. As much of it one tree as the other, you see. Now who told them how to do that? You know, that's quite a thing. They don't know each other now. They don' t... You know? Who told them? That's the truth I'm talking about. Not even a famine now, you know. But there it is. Two years ago, I was up there by myself looking at those things and it was raining. And I stood there in the rain crying my eyes out. I couldn't believe what I was looking at. There it was. And there's a big redwood in that dealy. 150 years ago it burned out. The base of it burned up. And limbs grew out and down and into that burn. And you can stand right there and look at it And I just stood there boiling And getting wet And I got wetter than a I got what? And a lot of it was tears Limbs don't go out and down They go out Go out and up But those didn't and that tree is still standing there. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. So what are we talking about? We're talking about the fact that if God's idea of a salmon includes everything necessary for its complete fulfillment, if Godís idea of a redwood tree includes everything necessary for its complete fulfillment. Do you think his idea of us would include less? You know? How long in my life did I walk alone? How long? Forty-three years, as a matter of fact. I walked alone, trying so hard to be and do the things I was taught that I must be and do. And I walked along for forty-three years. For the last thirty-five years, I haven't walked alone at all. I've never been alone. often by myself, but never alone. Because some 35 years ago I discovered that I had a God of my very own and wherever I am, he is. Now intellectually I had embraced this a long time ago because I met our beloved Ernest, Ernest Holmes in 1923. The Institute of of Religious Science and School of Philosophy was put together in my office at 444 Southwestern Avenue in Los Angeles between 1924 and 1927. It became a thing in 1927, but it was at that time at the Institute of Religious Science and School of Philosophy. Ernest never did want a church movement, but it outgrew him, you know, and became a church movement. He always said that he didn't want a roof over his head. He wanted wanted everything to be open-topped, you know. And I lived with him until he died. That is, we were very, very close friends from 1923 until 1960 when he left. And so I was pretty pretty well steeped in our philosophy, pretty well on my life. And it wasn't all to the bad. There were a lot of good things happening. Lots of things that were necessary to happen to me that did happen, miracles so-called. And yet it took a long time for me to be free enough to see what we're talking about today and to include all things, all things. Life is one, One life with many faces, one mind common to all men. And everything that lives, lives in it. God is that which is. Everything that is. And we're related to the whole thing. Now I should have been easier to... It should have be easier for me to discover that than most people. Because I got a bunch of Indians mixed up in my background. And that's what they've always believed, you know. That we're all one. And I'd get, as I told you, I would get occasions when I would feel this pretty strongly. But I forget it in the world of business and pleasure. And so, I had to have a little catastrophe in my life that made it necessary for me to to find out the truth, or remove me as a roadblock. That's what it did. And then the truth was there. And it's a fantastic thing. I am totally convinced that the little phrases that I have rattled off for years. Fear not, little flock, it's the Father's good pleasure to give us a kingdom. Take no thought of the mire, what you should eat, what you drink, whoever's all you should be clothed. The Heavenly Father knows what you have need of before he asks you. Consider the lilies of the field how they grow. They toil not and neither do they spin. And let I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. I've always known these things, but they didn't include the whole picture. Presently, they include the full picture, the whole thing. So I'm related to my... I called them jaybirds as a kid. kid. I'm related to them. I am related to the Hennelbergs, and I'm related to my bougainvillea. And I'm related to you. You see? Everything. And what a deal it is. What a thing it is! The Jews were pretty close to it, you know. They said, Hear ye, O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one. One, not two, one. And that ain't bad. And that's the way it is. There is no way that you and I could be be separated from God, except in consciousness. That's the only separation there is. The carpenter man said it like this. He said, who by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature? Now, what does that mean? It means that you and I cannot change the reality of our own being. We can only change our experience in reality. We can change our experiences in reality." So, that should be a pretty happy thought for us to take home with us. Because it means that sooner or later every one of us has to come back home to the living God that made us. we have to because it's impossible to be separated from God because God is life that is life God is that which I am and God is what you are it's too close to find because if you're looking for it you can't find it because what you're looking for you're not looking with You see, and as long as it's someplace else. We can't find it. We've got to find it where it is, in the middle of us. And it's a matter of uncover, discover, and discard. Uncover, discover and discard—that's the whole process. Uncover discover and discarded. We uncover the thing we've been looking for all our lives and find it where it is, which is right here. And then we discard the misinformation that this so-called civilization has laid upon us. For instance, I can have my living room full of Ph.D., Ph. D.'s. And when I get a little tired of them, I ask them a question. Does it ever occur to you gentlemen what it would be like never to want anything at any time for yourself? And their chins drop up, and their eyes get a little bit glassy, and they pick up their little papers and silently steal away. Because they know I flip, you know. Because they know that it isn't normal not to want anything, and they know that it's not normal not to be going someplace. You see? They think that's what we ought to be doing, improving ourselves. How are you going to improve on God? This This is not self-improvement, it's self-discovery It's self discovery We uncover and discover the thing we've been looking for all our life And it's right here Now, the wonder of wonders is That I never made a mistake In the first 43 years of my life I never had a mistake I never have made one mistake say. There were some pretty lousy things happened to me, but it was not my fault. It was not my fault, it was your fault. It was the conditions and circumstances. It was a boss. It was my wife, but more particularly it was her mother. I never made one mistake in in the first 43 years. And something happened to me when I was 43, and all my excuses and all my I-wants disappeared. I guess they burned out. You people don't know what I'm talking matter. Some of you do. They burned out and I didn't have any more excuses and I didn't anymore I wants and I started trying to rub out a record 35 years and eight months ago and that's all I wanted to do. Rub out as much of the record as as it could before I died. And that's what I've been doing for 35 years and eight months. And everything that I beat my brains out to get and ended up without came into my life. When I quit trying to get anything, I got rich. rich. When I quit trying to go any place, I've been all over the world. And when I quit trying to run my life and my wife's and my kids', we became a family. We're as close as thieves. So, I have an idea that St. Francis knew what he was talking about when he said, for it's better to love than to be loved. It's better it to understand and to be understood, for it is in giving that we receive, and forgiving that we're forgiven, and in dying that we awaken to eternal life. Now I'd change that that line. I change everything you don't like. I changed the line in the Lord's Prayer, you know, because it says in there someplace, lead us not into temptation. And when I was a little bitty old kid, I knew that God couldn't lead me into temptation, I didn't know how How come that thing was in there? Because God couldn't leave me in temptation. We don't know anything about temptation. God don't know anything that's contrary to his own nature. You see, we've got him messed up. We think he knows a lot about bad stuff and evil stuff. Maybe he's a god of judgment at grants and withholds. You hear that all over the place. It's not true. God couldn't know anything that's contrary to his own nature and be God. Because if there was anything that was contrary to His nature, the Bible couldn't start out in the beginning God. God plus nothing leaves nothing but God. They'd have to say in the beginning, God and something else. If there's a God of judgment, there'd have to be something that God is not, wouldn't there? Or there wouldn't be any way to judge. Well, there isn't. You know when one talks about God in the Bible, it says he's like wind. He comes from someplace and goes someplace, and we don't know where he came from or where he went. Totally free. And we're totally free. Totally free! There is nobody anyplace, or no thing anyplace that's keeping books on you. You can do as you please, as long as you are willing to take the inevitable consequence of your thought and act. The great law of life says, we reap what we sow. You cannot plant radishes and get cucumbers. If you don't like radishes, don't plant them because that's what you're going to get. And if you don' t like what's coming back into your life, change what you're pouring in. If you're pouring in slop, you get back slop. Now I can go right down the middle of the road with that, but I can't go afoot with a God of judgment, you know? So I changed the line in the Lord's Prayer. It says lead us not into temptation. I changed it when when I was quite young, to thou leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from evil. And when I got big, I bought me a direct translation of the Aramaic in the New Testament. The Aramaics was the tongue of Jesus. And I was reading it, and you know what he said? Thou leadeth not into temptations, but deliverest us from evils. That's a direct translation, ma'am. So, what we sow, we reap. What we sow we reap, and that's the great law of justice without judgment. we have a God of love and a great law of justice without judgment and I can go right down the line with that I changed St. Francis' prayer because he said in dying that we awaken to eternal life and I I didn't want to wait that long So I said, what do you mean? He meant in dying to self or surrender. In dying to self or surrendering. That we were awakened to eternal life. And I thought, well, wait a minute, I can't change the Catholic precepts and get out here and talk about them without getting a little authority. So I called Manresa, that's a Jesuit retreat house. The Jebbies are tops, you know, and that other deal. So I told him. And I said, listen to what I did to St. Francis' prayer. For it is in dying to self or surrender that we awaken to eternal life. And you know what that monkey said to me? I had old Father Toner on the line, knew him well. He said, what the hell did you think he meant? And just like it, no one would always like. He never even thought about it till I told him. and dying to sell for a surrender that will awaken to eternal life die and closing and I've got to close, I guess I love to talk you ever notice that? I think the only roadblock between you and me and me and God is the human ego I think it's the only roadblock there is. And I think that it is divinely impossible to satisfy the human ego. Divinely impossible, because everything about it is relative. It's all all relatives. I want or don't want to like, I don't like, yi-yi-yi. That's the human ego, you know? And it's got to go over the boards because it cannot be satisfied. Everything about us is relative. For instance, if you haven't got two coppers to rub together, five five dollars a fortune. If you have five dollars, you're broke. And it goes just like that up to millions. I had a client for many years, Syrian. His headquarters were in Phoenix. And he used to say to me, Charlie, how can I be like you? And I'd say, You can't, Eddie. Eddie. He said, why can't I? I'd say he needs God, Eddie, when he's got $35 million. And that's what he had. He's worth $35 billion. And he was 10 years younger than I was. He said to me, Charlie, how can I be like you? You can't. Who needs God when he has $35 Now, he says, Eddie, you go ahead and make yourself $150 million, and you will if you live because everything you touch turns to money. But when you get to $150,000, you come and ask me how you can be like me, and I'll tell you and you can do it, because by then you will have found out that it can't do for you what you have to have done right here, you see? there's no substitute for that. There's no way to satisfy an obsession for power. All of us went through Watergate, and everybody in this room and all the rest of us were damaged by Watergate. there wasn't anybody that won. No possibility to satisfy an obsession for time. What about... I shouldn't say that here. What What about women? Or men? Suppose my obsession had been for women, as if it weren't. And suppose I'd been the greatest lethario of all time. And every chick-chick that I took out after, I caught. But one. Now at my age, that would be quite an army, wouldn't it, sir? Would that army satisfy? This one killed me. The one I can't get. It's divinely impossible to satisfy the human ego because it's conscious separation. It is me against the world, it's me against God, it is me against you. That's what kicked us out of the Garden Beacon. God didn't kick us out. We ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is duality, duality. Duality is the only problem in life, and unity is the answer. The ancients said it like this, if you would enter the state known as bliss, you must first do away with pairs of opposites. You got to do away with them. You can't believe in two things and live in the garden of the soul. So, you got to do away with the pairs of opposites. And the way we do away with them is to do away with their Creator, which is the human ego. We totally and completely abandon ourselves to the living God that made us in the entire business of living, totally. If God is worth anything at all, he's worth everything and it's not too bad to turn your will in your life over to the care of God. I have a great time with him. I talk with him all the time. I share the the good and the bad, and dump it and never pick it up again. If I do a lousy stunt, I share it. I say, look, Father, isn't this a hell of a thing? I shouldn't say that in church, should I? But I do. I said, isn' t this a hella thing for me to do? I knew better when I did it. But I did and I don't like it and you don't don't like it. And I'm going to do better, and if you're helpful, do a lot better, sure thank you. And it'll go about in my business, and I'll never pick it up again, never even think about it again. And when the good thing happens, I'll do the same thing. I say, look Father, isn't this beautiful? It couldn't happen to a bum like me, but it did. And I know where it came from, sure thank you." And I dump that, and never pick to get up anymore. Everything in life I share with my very own God, and I don't have to go anyplace to do it because he's with me. Now lastly, in the last 35 years there's been no place for me to point a finger. If there's anything wrong with me, I have to come to myself and say to me, wait a minute big boy, what have you allowed to get between you and your program and your God?