>Yesterday, a woman at the meeting was talking about her inability
>to appreciate her partner's constant joking...When you asked her:
>"What do you want?", she answered <something>???? and you told her that
>it wasn't something she could ask for...You then went on to compare
>it to a puzzle with a piece missing and seen in a mirror...What I want to
>know is WHAT was the thing that she couldn't ask for...Do you, by any >chance remember? I think it would be important to know when I am
>trying to use the steps to finding my own inner joy.

Yes, I remember, and she wanted to simply not be bothered by it, and I thank-you or bringing this up because I want to clarify this with everyone.

Yes, it is important. Here it is...

First it is important to clarify that in this practice we are not asking "someone" and we are not asking "for" anything. We are seeking what it is we need to heal the pain, stress, or suffering. It is a specific thing we are denying ourselves, so it is a specific thing we want, and a specific thing that will heal it. To deny that, and simply want to feel better (when we are still attached to the outside in order to feel good) will not work, and worse will cause additional frustration, bad thoughts, painful beliefs, and even anger... more suffering. (Of course these are not bad things, and can be consciously used to point you toward joy, not as "proof" to warrant more suffering and unconsciousness.)

Yes, ULTIMATELY we want to be free from all attachment to the outside, but until you consciously experience that, you will not KNOW it.

(If you have never tasted honey, you could study it, research it, become an "expert" on it, but you would still not KNOW honey. To experientially KNOW you are free from the outside, to experientially KNOW cause of feeling, you need to experience it as yourself, which is the opposite from what you have done and believed. One way is to practice giving yourself everything and anything you want, ie anything and everything you were specifically denying yourself --in the face of the perceived adversity. Each specific suffering situation gives you a shot at experiencing the truth of your freedom as you experience reality through a new way of being.)

Once you know your freedom from all things, people, and outside events THEN you are free, and this won't get as far as suffering. However, if you are feeling any degree of suffering, it has already arisen. It is a sign you are attached, that you are not being freedom, AND, it's a sign that you are awake in the moment because you know the suffering and don't want that to be your experience of yourself. You have separated yourself from the suffering and have an opportunity. You must face the perceived "bad" thing, use the "poison" as medicine, to create the experience you really want, get additional learnings, and one moment the final learning of who you really are. Freedom, love.

There may be tens, or hundreds or thousands of beliefs and thoughts that have kept you from knowing freedom. Like when it feels "this" bad, I must suffer, or if it involves money, I must suffer, or it is inhuman to not suffer, and if I don't suffer or get angry things won't change, and on and on....for me, it was the incongruity of so much joy in the face of what I used to believe meant I had to suffer that destroyed any belief of anything having any power over me. So even if you still notice old beliefs, face them head-on with the truth that you can create joy in spite of circumstances--in spite of the belief. Yes, this is the situation AND I feel good. Seek that experience and knowing. Seek joy!

You need to experience knowing feeling good in the midst of so-called "adversity" in enough contexts, or enough intensity, or enough presence and clarity, or gotten all the learnings enough times, and experienced the shift from pain to joy enough times until you have convinced yourself, until you KNOW without a doubt that you cause feeling (ALL feeling), and only then will you be free to choose your state, detached from the outside.

With practice, you will notice "old mind" and suffering thoughts as they begin to arise (even before or as a "bad" state begins to fill the body) and you will know the presence also of the option to feel good, and suffering will not arise because 1) you have choice, and 2) you will no longer have a "reason" to suffer.

For example, you believe someone's joking apparently bothers you... we don't ask "why" it does because that would put the blame and power outside of you (and on someone else), and by asking what you specifically want, you come to know the "why" anyway, but not as a reason/excuse; instead, you know it as the feeling you want which you are denying yourself (this can only be done using it's mirror, the specific, opposite "bad" feeling.). The outside is only a mirror for what is missing inside. To know what is missing, we need to look at the mirror, not look away from it. If you want to just "feel better" in spite of a situation, you either are highly motivated for ultimate freedom, and/or you could also be avoiding looking into the truth, the egoic habits, which will be seen and known as how small and petty they are. And that's a good thing, because this practice does not stop there, it then allows you to step into your bigger self, your higher self, and to feel good doing it, which only makes sense. Moving away from the grandeur of who you really are is painful.

You may be highly motivated for ultimate freedom, but if you are suffering then you are still feeling and experiencing attachment. Go inside and give yourself what is missing so you can detach, and erode the old belief that has kept you tethered to the ever-changing, unreliable outside.

Once you put yourself into the state you want, the supporting "evidence" for what that is true will become apparent and acceptable to you.

So in her case, she wants to feel the joke is appropriate, and also that she "gets it." There is a particular bad feeling that needs to be quenched, that will persist until it is. The only thing that will quench it is it's mirror. The first question "What do you want?" uses the outside you think you need. For her, it was getting the joke, and the joke being appropriate.

The second question, "How does getting the joke, and it being appropriate feel?" gets to what you really need: the feeling, the state. Her answer included feeling connected. A mental thought is not answer enough, the next part is to feel into the body for the feeling, to create, CAUSE the feeling inside, independent of the outside. In this state, she can get learnings inside (that a stranger witnessing on the outside would not know or get).
In this connected state she KNOWS connection, so does not need it from the person's joke. Now she has detached from outside need. Only in this state can she see, know, ways in which the joke is appropriate.

(Even if it means it is appropriate because it simply is, which would be knowing the peace of accepting what is, of non-separation, which is taking this to another level, "higher" spiritual level, an addition to this practice which is coming in the next book. Detaching yourself first and getting into a receptive state before accepting what is, is useful).

And there may be other "outside" material ways it is appropriate. But she would get none of this trying to skip it.

Had she just wanted to not be affected by it, what would that give her? First of all, it is a "negative" and you can't give yourself a negative. If she tried to state it in the positive, what would that be? Could be many things for her. I can mind-read "peace," perhaps. So as you are already feeling disconnected, trying giving yourself peace. You can see how it won't work.

A square puzzle piece will not fit into a round hole. (That is the analogy that is developing even as I spoke today, and as I write now. A diagram in the next book will assist with clarity.)

(The irony is that when she gives herself what she wants, she will not be affected by it.)

What she was missing was connection, and until you have that, there is no peace. (And even if you could miss/skip knowing (having) connection, she will miss the deeper, personal learnings around it that have to do with non-separation).

When we suffer, we feel bad, and our vision becomes obscured, and the only thing we can see/know/hear/feel are things that appear to support the narrow stance we have taken.

Consciously choose the state you want, and through the same mechanism, the opposite will happen, the only things you will see are positive. You will see the proof you are looking for, the proof that matches your state. It will seem to "appear" or be "attracted." In this way we create our reality. Remember that it is ALL always there, the good and bad "proof" are both always out there and available SIMULTANEOUSLY.


We create what we see and know in your outer experience with, because of, and through our inner experience.

Yes, this is self-fulfilling prophecy through Being. You create what you become, moment-to-moment. (Thus "BE the change you want to see in the world" was a very real ACTION direction given by Gandhi.)


(One of my favourite sayings is that "We come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing with perfect eyes." Perfect eyes are Being what you want to see.)


We have been living outside-in, and the free, peaceful, joyful, loving, TRUE-to-your-BEING the creative-FREE BEING-you-are .....way to live, is inside-out.

How often you will use suffering to point you toward joy until you breakthrough and have this realization is up to you.

Remember to use Attention (what you are focused on, good or bad feeling) and Intention (to only feel better and better).

Committing to not blaming the outside, committing to going inside and powerfully using these two, Attention and Intention, will take you far, fast.

Seek joy!
Peace, and love,
Cindy

PS-- We used to believe that once a "bad" state fills the body, that that is your "reality," your truth, and off we go looking for additional reasons to support it mentally (instead of changing the state). But it is only a feeling, an experience that is always changing. You will not always feel bad, even though the outside circumstances may persist. (That lover does not come back, but the "bad" feeling changes anyway). Right there is proof that it has nothing to do with the outside. Instead of believing, accepting that bad feeling as your reality, choose the reality you want by choosing the state you want.

Your present state will dictate the next moment. If you take this to heart, it is *very* powerful.

This is a very recent new "learning" of mine.

Say someone tells you that you wrecked the evening. How might "old mind" react? Get defensive, give opposite proof, reasons, maybe get angry? In the next moment, this could blow-up and become really ugly.
All of this means you have accepted the other's reality, the other's experience as your truth; you are feeling like you wrecked the trip. That was their created reality. It does not have to become yours.

What if you sat there with absolutely no resonance, no connection with this thought, what if you gave it no substance, no reality? What you created and how someone else feels are entirely separate. What if instead you felt you created a good evening? How would you be? What would you do? Sitting there, feeling good about the evening yourself, you might notice the suffering of the other person (every "attack" is a call for help), and as separate. You might feel compassion for their experience. Stay in that state, even in silence, as long as you need to until you know what to say. Access to intelligence, to wisdom, will come.

I wonder, from that state, how different that will be from "old mind" reactivity. Wonder, from that state, how different the next moment will be....for you both....

And..

What if, every day, you knew you were creating the next moment with your state this moment....

So, how important is your state?


PSS-- Oh the mirror! When you accuse someone of wrecking the evening, whatever you have done to feel this way is what has wrecked your evening.
Now, in blind suffering, you may be about to do something to (consciously or unconsciously) to try to wreck theirs--good thing only they can do that.