- Reality itself, as you perceive it, goes through the filter of your mental and emotional
conditioning from the past. (bell chimes) There are the non-conceptual
dimension of consciousness, as we could call it, is already emerging in most of you. And that is about the most important thing that could happen in a person's life, which is the emergence of a deeper dimension of consciousness. I would say that this is
what Jesus referred to when he was talking to Mary in the parable of Mary and Martha. And just to quote one brief
sentence of just a few words he said to Martha only
one thing is needed. Only one thing is needed. My translation of that is
there's only one thing in life that is of absolute importance and everything else may also be important, but it is of relative importance. So all the things that happen
in your life and in the world may all be important, some
more important than others, your entire life situation,
everybody has one and everybody's life situation is somewhat if not very problematic. You know, you're not the only one. So there's that. There is all the things that happen; your financial situation,
your health situation, your relationship situation,
your work situation, your living situation. Yes, these things matter
relatively speaking, but there's one thing
that is more important that matters absolutely and that is your state of consciousness and whether or not you have
awakened to what we could call, it sounds a little abstract,
but it's not, we could call the transcendent dimension
of consciousness in you. The transcendent dimension
of consciousness. Now, I'm not going to immediately
define what that means because actually it cannot be defined. It can be pointed to, this
is what these words are for, but these words are not
a substitute for it. The words point, famous
phrase in buddhism, it's the finger pointing to the moon, but the finger is not the moon. So there's nothing that I say tonight that you need to believe
on a conceptual level. I'm not asking you to
believe anything whatsoever. There is what I sometimes call the two levels of consciousness the conceptual, I sometimes
call that object consciousness. These are all the things that happen in your perceptual field
and in your mental field; thinking, emotions, sense perceptions, things arise, things pass away. Things come and go. Sense perceptions, ideas,
thoughts, opinions, feelings, emotions. All along to object consciousness. One object after another happens. You perceive things,
ah, oh, there, and then thought objects arise
continuously a stream of thoughts. Oh, ah, oh. You know, for most people,
the stream of thoughts is such the gravitational
pull that they get completely dragged along by this continuously proliferating
stream of mental activity. I sometimes call it the voice in the head that never stops speaking. It continuously comments on where you are, what you're doing, or takes you somewhere
completely different in the so called past
or the so called future. One thing after another. One damn thing after another
to paraphrase Churchill. Churchill was talking about history. History isn't so much one
damn thing after another, and that's true, but for many people, their condition mind, the experience of their conditioned mind is just one damn thing after because it never leaves you alone. So most humans who are not
awakened or even awakening are completely trapped in
their object consciousness. They are confined by it. And not only that, they
are completely identified with all the arising thoughts and emotions that continuously go through their mind. And there's no separation
between the thoughts and the emotions that accompany the thoughts. And you, you don't, you're not even there when you're totally identified
with a voice in the head, you are, spiritually speaking, asleep. Or another word for it is unconscious. So an unconscious person, in ordinary usage
unconscious means, of course, you've completely lost, you
don't know what's going on and this is unconscious. In conventional usage unconscious means.. In spiritual usage, unconscious means completely and continuously identified with a stream of thinking and the emotions that go with
a stream of thinking. What does it mean to be identified? It means you derive your
sense of who you are from every, from the stream of thinking. Every thought is imbued
with a sense of self. So you identified, it gets
it, it has you in its grasp. And therefore, if you say
people conventionally say I think, I think, what do you think? As if thinking most people
were a voluntary activity, whereas for most, not you but those who
are not awakening yet, which is the majority of the
population still on the planet. For most it is they're
completely identified with a stream of thinking they are, spiritually speaking, unconscious. And that is a terrible thing because then everything that you
perceive reality itself as you perceive it, goes
through the filter of your mental emotional
conditioning from the past. So you never see anything as it is, perceive anything clearly
and, most importantly, there is never a sense of
inner, true inner peace, spaciousness, joy, sense of aliveness, sense of connectedness with something that is deeper than
your historical person. You are always at the mercy
of what goes on there and the reactive patterns of mind. So you completely unaware
of the possibility of realizing the other
dimension of consciousness, which is not object consciousness
but space consciousness, I call it sometimes, space consciousness. Now, what is space consciousness? You cannot define it because
it's beyond concepts. You can know what space
consciousness is in this very moment by becoming aware of the gaps
between words when I speak, I'm just slowing down a little bit. So instead of being totally
interested in the words, you're also interested, although that's probably
not the right word, you're also giving attention to the empty spaces between the words because they're needed. Without the spaces there
could be no sounds, sound needs the space to exist. Oh, that's interesting
to be aware of the gaps between words or in
this room, in this hall, to be aware not only of
the objects in this room, the objects that make up this room, what's in it, the bodies, the objects that which
confines and defines the room, the ceiling, the walls, the
floor, this is the room. You're not only aware of that, that would be in this
analogy, object consciousness, you're also aware of
the space in this room. Now, the space, isn't
something that you say, oh it's there or it's there, but it is the most important
part of this room is the space. And it's a wonderful space,
but you cannot define it. It has no actual, you can't
even say that space exists because exist means to
manifest, to stand out. Exist, ex means out in Latin. Exist means to be manifested. But space does, is not, doesn't manifest. It enables everything
manifest in a physical level. Without space these
things could not be here. So space is prior to existence. Space is prior to manifestation. That's very interesting. So there is something in you which I sometimes call
space consciousness, that is prior to who you are as a person, your personality, and you
can it not conceptually, but immediately and experientially by becoming aware either of
the spaciousness outside of you or becoming aware of
spaces between sounds, spaces between words. Now, how do you that? How do you become of a
space between two words? There is no how, because
it's too simple for how. Quite simply there's a,
there's an attention in you, a field of alert attention, and this field of alert attention is aware of the space between words. And you notice that silence space. What does it mean to
notice that silence space? It means in this brief moment of noticing, or noticing the space in this room, in this brief moment you are
not thinking you're just aware. Thinking you, so thinking
you cannot be aware of those spaces between words because thinking is object consciousness. The space between words takes
you to space consciousness. So the entire secret of
our gathering here of all spirituality is just one thing. Now, amazingly, I'm going to talk about this one thing for hours. (laughing) (waterfall crashing)
