The Far Corners retreat in Ellenton, FL

Before I get started, I'd mention the question and answer

part of the program tomorrow, which is fascinating. We asked everyone to think up a spiritual question to put them in. Then you've seen the boxes back there

and

the questions have been so interesting

that I look forward to that more than any of of the other parts of the weekend. It's just a wonderful opportunity

and when you're listening to anyone who's doing, I know the Brentwood group does questions. I I love that format. They get an old timer to go up and tell a little bit about his or her story and then pick a topic and talk about it for 1/2 an hour. Then they raised hands in the audience and the answer the questions.

And Steve was telling me sometimes Chuck Chamberlain would be there four weeks in a row

and I would have loved to been in the audience to ask him some questions.

When you hear an answer to a question, you're not hearing the answer. You're hearing what that person sees at that time.

And so

it doesn't mean that if someone else answered the question differently, that one of them was right and one of them was wrong. They're both right. They're both sharing what they see to be the truth at that time. And if you asked him the question five years later, you might get an entirely different answer.

So it's a very relative thing, but it's helpful to hear someone else's truth

and it may help influence your answer to that question, which is why I get a big kick out of one of the books in the back that one of our members from Canada sent me down. It's called I Am that. It's a very heavy book, but the format is what fascinated me. There's

in India, there was this awakened, enlightened little old man

lived in a little village and just stayed there. And people who were spiritual seekers would go by and ask him questions.

And they recorded the questions and the answers over a long period of time and put them in the book. Now, the reason I found it interesting is if you read like some guy from England is there and he goes, well, I'd like to know why

you can't help but form your own answer to the guy's question. You know what I mean? That's just human nature. Well, if I was there, I'd tell that guy from England.

And then you read the answer that's in there and you go, whoa,

I wasn't even close,

you know what I mean? It's like

ha, and I don't know why, but I get a big kick out of being wrong like that where you just get your mind blown away that there's something so much more true than what I had. So it's but it is hard reads, but it's fun.

All right, that's it. We're on the lecture that I mentioned contemplative A, a on new everybody like that. And Oh yes, I'm glad we're going to have a contemplative A, a Plato used to sit around and all the Greeks and Romans and they sat around reflecting on things.

And

in your package there's a thing called pertinent passages from the big book and the 12:00 and 12:00. And I put I put this in in our first weekend here

and it was

my best shot at the most meaty sentences in our literature.

This is just my own opinion, but this stuff

I find

is worth looking at and relooking at and spending time on.

And that's exactly what

reflection and contemplation are.

They're taking something and then sitting with it,

and I'll just pick one.

This on page 25 of the big book, on the first page here. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous.

That's quite a mouthful,

the absolute certainty. And Bill is laying this on on page 25.

You know of the big book. Let me tell you about a a let me tell you, a brand newcomer. Let me tell you something

central fact

of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered our hearts and lives in a way that's indeed miraculous. I would say that that's worth some reflection.

Holy cow, is that really in our book?

I never stopped and thought about it. I know I just read it and as a matter of fact if somebody quoted it, I could say page 25

just like that, page 25. But if I actually sat and went, yo,

that's a pretty big central fact

that's pretty powerful.

That is

the center of AA members lives. Is this fact the great and Bill will write this way sometimes the great fact for us is, and I mean that's probably in here somewhere else. And so this list of things our offer a wonderful collection right out of our literature to just pick one of them

and sit around for 15 minutes and go,

what happens to me when I just reflect on this?

What happens to me when I just sit here and take that all in? Wow,

each word, the central fact.

And then we can look and go, Is that the central fact in my life or is the economy the central fact in my life? Or is the war the central fact in my life or is she the central fact in my life? You follow what I'm saying. If it is, switch central facts

and compare the results

to your conducting a spiritual experiment. We're all scientists and there's only one laboratory for all spiritual experiments. That's you. They all have to be conducted inside of you. And I think in my talks I mentioned my sponsor.

Yeah, he was blunt.

And I think I had about six months. I wasn't buying any of this. I was given Idlib service and I I got the big book and I put, I underlined and I put wow. And I had

a coffee cup and I made coffee stains, a little cigarette burn out. And so if you looked at my big book, you'd get this guy's really getting into this. And I, I wasn't, I wasn't buying any of this. I was looking for the money step

and

having no luck finding it. And so he knew I was just goofing around and he said, look, we got to sit down. I want you to just look me right in the eye and be brutally honest. I want to take a spiritual inventory of you. So he started out with how much do you pray?

And the answer was 0. So I finally owned up to him and said I don't believe in it. I don't pray.

I think it's silly. As a little kid, I learned it's ridiculous. It's just so I don't know. Even in the Lord's Prayer I go

so put me down for no praying. So I was being totally honest about prayer. So then he said, well, how about meditation? This is another big thing. And I said no, I don't even like the word. It's not. I'm not going to sit and think about nothing. I've got a lot of problems. I'm not, I don't. Meditating is

for weird guys and old people or whatever. And I just said no, no meditating. None. None said, well do you go to church or any religious services or any organized spiritual activity? No, I don't even tour cathedrals in Europe.

I don't want to give them the satisfaction of them knowing I might be interested in it. So I I had an attitude, you might say, about all this.

And then he said, well, finally, how about spiritual literature? There's a lot of New Age lives. I mean, there's really something for everybody. I said, now I like sports, mysteries, political stuff, but not New Age Bill. It's a strikeout at 0. So he said OK, no praying, no meditating, no religious things, and no spiritual reading.

How's it going?

What does it feel like to be inside of you?

And it's awful in here. I can't stand it. I'm afraid I'm through that alive, blah blah.

So he said OK, there's a spiritual experiment 00000 rotten results, so that we write that down. We just conducted a laboratory experiment about 0000. Now I want you to try some things and write down the results.

Write down the results. And I started feeling better. I start, you know, first it was a coincidence, but then I realized I had to give this credit,

and I'm the only one that knows

they only happen to me. It's my little laboratory. Is it different now? And that builds up credibility in these things.

And certainly reflecting

and contemplating is something to be considered as part of our daily lives. Reflecting on things.

It's scheduled now with the Internet and everything so fast, you know, I mean, you don't have time to reflect on anything. It's been replaced by something else. And that leaves us without this wonderful tool called reflection. And so that would be one

list of potential things to sit down and reflect on.

Like the one I mentioned earlier. We've entered the world of the Spirit. What is that? Where is the world of the Spirit? What is he talking about? We entered the world of the sphere. I didn't see a sign

world of the Spirit opened the door and I've entered the world. What does that mean? Am I in it? Am I missing it? And suddenly that look at what a small sentence it is out of the 10th step and we allow it to have its impact on us.

And now it has a different meaning. Every time we see that again, it'll affect us differently because we took the time to narrow it down. Not all of Chapter 5, just this, this or that. And

on page 164,

I mean that 164 is such a wonderful page. I love it when they close meetings, reading that, the tail end of that.

And while I'm on that, I'm a great student and I love our literature.

But I'd like to make an observation about the Big Book.

If I had to give you a definition of what I think the Big Book is, I would tell you it's a treasure map.

That's what it is. It's a treasure map that will show you how to find a treasure which is conscious contact with God.

It is not the treasure.

We don't want to be worshipping the map

and missing the treasure. Do you follow what I'm saying

in some of his letters?

Bill was really worried that our big book would become biblical

in nature.

It's a bunch of stuff that some drunks put together

and right there on page 164, what does it say? We realize we know, but a little. That's on page 164.

So the first hundred said, well, we put everything down. We know. How much did we put down? A little.

That means the big book contains a little. Where's the rest of it? If that only contains a little, where am I going to find the rest next sentence? God will constantly disclose more to us

fire houses in order. You can't transmit something you don't have. There's the rest,

there's the treasure. The map LED us to contact. The contact reveals all the rest. So we don't want to get stuck on the map running around going is this a good map or not?

Have you memorized the map?

Can you quote the map,

man, if you, if you got this map, you got it. No, that's not the treasure. Here's the treasure. And so we want to make sure that our relationship is with God. And even in the prayers that he made-up

the third step, in the seventh step prayer, what does he say about those prayers? You may say something like this. You may, of course, choose your own words. Well,

30 years later, they're printed on plastic and revered. You. You follow what I'm saying.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with them. I'm saying it says you may say something like this

and this has become and I'm and that's great that it's powerful, but even the prayers are to help us touch the treasure.

Do you see what I'm saying? We want to use that to go have more revealed. We want to be just stuck there with some words. We want the words to move us closer to God to become a seeker, whatever you want to call it. So I'm just giving you a another way of looking

at the greatest treasure we have, which is God and the greatest map ever designed. It's guaranteed 1 drunk showing another one how to find the treasure. That's what's going on. One drunk shown another one how to awaken and so it's right out of there. And so,

um, see to it that your relationship with him is right and great events will come to pass. Sounds like something out of the

Christmas pageant or something like that. I mean, great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the great fact for us.

What is the great fact that if your relationship with him is right,

great events will come to pass? Because

you're allowing the great events to come to pass. Because your relationship with him is right, you aren't causing any great events to happen. You're an instrument allowing the great events to come through you

out to help others.

So you see how you can just take all kinds of sentences out of our big book and allow them to come alive inside of you. And then five years later, go back and do it again and they'll they'll be they'll be like a hologram. You go, I really see this now. I really see this now. That's the what spirituality is. Chuck called it a new pair of glasses.

He just said you, you keep seeking and you keep going like that. And one day,

I see the hologram. And so that's why he called spirituality a new pair of glasses. It is a new way of seeing what's already there. If we don't, if the world looks uncomfortable to us, we're seeing it wrong.

We're seeing it from a self-centered perspective and we generated that perspective and we are living in the results of that. So his his whole thing was so freeing and so simple that it gets ignored.

Simplicity doesn't go well with Alcoholics. I mean, remember when we first came here and they just said, well, just don't drink?

What?

I'm a complicated person. I've been to three shrinks. I come here in a dummy like you. If you got a college degree, don't drink. Remember how it felt like an insult that somebody would summarize my whole life and say don't drink? Did it work? Yeah, it worked great. Best advice I ever got. 2 words Don't drink.

Well, how about let go

2 words and we go. You know, that's cool, but there's a lot more to life.

We say it and dismiss it. What if we reflected on it? Stay with letting go for a whole day. Watch yourself let go of everything that happens tomorrow. Whatever it is comes up in your mind. Very interesting. I'm, I'm not going to work on that.

Well, what about this? You know how your agenda starts inside. What about this? Oh, yeah, God will take care of that. What about this? God will take care of that.

You let go of everything that comes up. That means at the end of the day, you have nothing you're walking around with. You refuse to get involved in your own life.

I love to. That's one of my favorite sayings. I try not to get too involved in my own life.

Think about that. What a freedom that is. Well, if I don't get involved in it, it could get all screwed up. Wait a minute, you've been involved in it all the time, right?

How's it going?

It's all screwed up.

We'll try letting go and see if it improves

and you can feel the resistance because it's too simple.

I mean to for Chuck to say there's only one problem sounds like a great oversimplification, doesn't it, When you consider how many problems there really are for him to say there's only one. So I give you give Idlib service and then you move back to all the problem.

But what if you reflected on it

and said, what if there is only one problem?

You know what happened. When you reflect, you're getting an open mind.

You're relinquishing your previous conviction

and let me see,

I'm willing to be wrong and allow this to be right.

That's another reason for reflecting. So that's the list. And that's just a handy thing. And if you think of another one, call me up or call Chris up and we'll add it. But I really, I think I found almost everything of what I would call import in there. Amy handed out,

oh, another list, and this is

contemplative A A,

and I put down

the first thing. There is a definition of Alcoholics Anonymous that Bill Wilson

shared in a letter in his later years. He said upon reflecting about a A. It occurs to me that a, A is

an utter simplicity, which in cases

a complete mystery.

So we look at that and we go, well, that's interesting.

Ties in would keep it simple,

but what's this complete mystery? What is that? We have an utter simplicity and the steps really are simple. And we do keep it simple.

Go to me, don't we? Do steps. Follow what your sponsor cells tells you to do.

And it really is simple.

We have people with third grade education's leading someone with a pH D through our 12 steps and getting wonderful results. So somehow we've reduced

in amazing language, spiritual principles that have been around for 2000 years

into these this these 12 steps that took the commandment type language and changed it into a report of action taken by the people that came before you.

We did this and we did that.

You're not in here. You're not even in the steps. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol. We don't know anything. I don't know anything about you. We're just telling you what we did. And if you want what we have, this is how to do it and we'll show you. So just the fact that they shifted the spiritual outline into a report of action taken

is amazing.

The second amazing part of that is

that the instructions are coming on a horizontal plane instead of a vertical plane. Coming from a priest down to the congregation, coming from the professor down to the students. They're coming from 1 drunk on a level playing field with another drunk. Who is the second drunk has totally identified with the first one because he told him his story.

I mean the whole simplicity of a, A Everywhere else you go for help, The person who's giving the help says, tell me about yourself.

You come to a A, the person arrives at your house and says, I'm going to tell you about me.

And then you relate to that.

And what does Bill say? We gain the complete confidence of someone in less than an hour.

Why? Because we said he realizes it's him that's talking to him. First time he ever heard anybody on this level playing field. He grabs his hand and follows him. His own family. He can't. He won't trust. Here comes a stranger, walks in, tells him a little bit about himself, and he says, yeah, I'll follow you to hell.

That is another one of the simplicity of our program.

So it is remarkably simple

and the results defy explanation.

They absolutely defy, and that's what

the complete mystery is.

And I'll cover this in the last lecture, but I want to mention it again now.

God and the universe, whatever you want to call it, all of that

is a mystery.

And it'll be a mystery 1000 years from now.

And 1000 years from now, the scientists will be saying we're this close,

we are this close to understanding the entire universe. And then they're going to discover one more. Like when they found a black hole, you remember that? What the hell is that? Now they got little particles that behave differently when they look at them. And now they got a super Collider that's getting ready. And when that thing comes out, there will be nothing that is unknown

except for this.

And then we dig into that. And then I mean, in our in the big book, Bill said

science is constantly forcing nature to disclose her secrets. You remember that? And that was 194039. And I'm sure back then they said we're this close.

All right. So one of the problems with the mystery and the human mind is we got to figure it out.

And God's a mystery

and it can't be figured out.

It has to be experienced.

So we let the inlet go and reflect on it,

contemplate on it, allow it to happen.

Even then, you won't be able to put into words what happened.

That's it's it's that hard. It's hard to describe a A to your friends. Did you ever try to describe? They look at you and they go, are you in a diet? Are you taking youth pills? Are you guys, you look younger, you look happier. What's your secret? We go, oh, a A really.

What do you do over there? Oh, amazing. Absolutely amazing. Well, what is it specifically? We have meetings. Really. What do you do with the meet? Oh, God, it's great. It's great.

We get a cup of coffee, we all sit around the table, and then we choose one guy to be the leader and he goes up and comes up with a topic like resentment, and then we each get to say something about it. Then we hold hands, say the Lord's Prayer and go home. You want to come

and I go.

That made you look like this

and you could explain a, a forever

and they wouldn't have a clue. Invite him to a speaker meeting with three or 400 people sitting out there and one or two people tell their stories and they'll be walking away going, whoa, I get it now. Why did they get it, 'cause they experienced it. They felt the presence of God

in those stories, and they saw all the drunks laughing.

How you doing here? Come on over here. I'll be going to your place. OK? You're going to play golf tomorrow. Oh, yeah. Jesus. And nobody's drinking. Sounds like a cocktail party.

Then they go home and they have experienced the mystery of AA that cannot be explained. So when Bill says it's an utter simplicity, which in case is a complete mystery.

All of the secrets of the universe are contained in our simplicity.

This will bring us to the experience of our own reality. We will find our true nature.

I mean, you can't be offered a bigger deal in life than to discover your true self.

You think you know what it is? You've got a rough idea that you are pure love,

but until you experience it, it's still a theory. But party already knows this.

I experienced it.

I'll never forget it. I was maybe five months sober, cynical, like all of us are, just a bunch of And I was trying to not pay attention to the meeting, which is what I like to specialize in.

Check the clock, see what time it was. And I go over here and it was smoking meetings then. So light a cigarette, put it up, put in the ashtray, jiggle my feet and you know all the stuff. And about 10 minutes into the meeting, a new guy came in and he reminded me of me because he was shaking so bad. And he made the mistake of going over to get himself a cup of coffee

and he got the cup up about halfway full and he started to go back in. The freaking cup went all over

and I could tell that he could hardly wait to get the hell out of there and I knew that it was so embarrassing. People were looking at him and this and that, and I bet I just said, man, that guy won't be back.

And he wasn't back the next night, and he wasn't back the next night. He wasn't back the next night. And I knew that I had pegged it right. And about the fifth night, 10 minutes into the meeting, he came in and part of me went, yay.

And I remember going, what was that?

What was that? That just went yay. And then he went over and got some coffee and he could hold it. And I saw him go over and put the cup down on the table and just look around and I went yay again

inside. There was something inside of me that was so happy that he made it, and it was the first time I ever remember being happy on behalf of someone else.

And it felt amazing. And it gave me a clue that there was a part of me that I didn't know much about, but I just got a glimpse.

I just felt my true nature, just a little tiny bit of it.

And of course, we've all seen that grow. And the fun of watching, as Bill said, families come together, the lights go on and somebody's eyes listen to them share. I have new guys I sponsor and sometimes when they share, I just want to cry. It's so beautiful to hear what they now see compared to what they used to see

it. And so we have.

This is just taking Bill's sentence.

A is another simplicity which in cases a complete mystery. This is a mouthful. This is something to be. We could just sit and wow, how did he come up with that? Whatever gave him the idea to say those words,

I don't know, but let's think about them and look at them. And so as we go down the rest, I'll just cover a few of them.

The kitchen table has always been something very big to me.

And I've told this story before about

I misread a, a history because I knew that moment at the kitchen table was a big deal

when Ebby and Bill sat there.

And in the history book I read it said that the things got so bad at Clinton Street that they were in Brooklyn that Bill and Lois were evicted and they put the furniture out in the street and they couldn't even afford to have it put in storage. I concluded that they lost it. I I just thought all that furniture was gone. And when I went to Stepping Stones about 10 years ago with my sister,

I still thought it was gone. You know what I mean? Even though I'm there

and the gal who works there takes us in the kitchen and she said this is the actual table that and I said, do you mean the one that was gone? And they said it was never gone. They didn't lose it. So here's this piece of crap for Micah Table

and I sat there like I had found Noah's Ark. I want my picture taken at this piece of crap table. I said this is a freaking table. This is where it happened. What happened?

You go read Bill's story.

Bill was being confronted and had been confronted with religion and God all his life and he had concluded, like many of us, that, oh, religion caused all these wars, World War One. I just was over there. Everybody's killing each other this evening. The God thing, I heard about it, but I just don't see any evidence. I just, I'm not. I am permanently not God.

I am permanently

not going to entertain any of this.

And he didn't entertain any of this until he sat down the kitchen table with Evie.

Now what could Evie have said to completely change his mind in one minute?

He didn't say anything.

He just sat there and Bill couldn't figure out how he could be the way he is.

What could have caused Ebby to turn into this? What was there? A light? A completely transformed person sat there and Bill couldn't figure out how it was possible. And Evie said I got God

and Bill was already had an open mind. He'd already changed his mind because of what he saw.

So that's why when I reflect on that table and what happened like that, where all of his old ideas were pushed aside in favor of a new one in an instant,

by the way someone looked,

that's a mystery. It's a miracle.

And then these are just some

ponder for the sheer joy of it. Just realize how much more fun it is to just reflect on something than to worry.

The hell with worrying I'm going to reflect on

Truth exists in the silence.

The next one right down there where thought doesn't exist.

The silence is something that I'll talk a little bit about right now, since we have that word,

silence

has been described that maybe later on, I don't know, as the space between thoughts.

There is always a space between everything.

Sound is not a steady note is not steady. It's on silent, on silent, on silent, and it's a frequency.

It sounds like it's steady and it feels like we think,

But between every word, between every sentence, there's a pause. There's a space called silence. The place to live is in the space.

It would be like living on the black notes instead of the white notes on the piano.

You know what I mean? It's I'm just going to be in the spaces now. The space is where all spirituality takes place. The silence, the space, whatever you want to call it.

I don't know if this is on there, but I'll pass it on.

I mentioned it out in Brentwood. This is a true fact.

For whatever reason,

our tricky little mind and our mean little ego will allow us to take 4 breaths without pestering us with a thought.

After four it goes. What's going on over there?

What are you up to? You trying to get out from under my spell.

And so

if you experiment with that

where you just go, well, I'm going to check that out and I'm just going to try that

1234. And then as you start, you might even get a 5-6 and then they catch on What's going on? What's going on? What's 6? What?

What are you doing over there? 6/6 breaths we have. You haven't thought in a while. Anyway, the Four is like a free gift,

and for a lot of beginners in meditation, it's our first taste of the space. The silence

and space

is

how we develop comfort

with rapid thinking and with worrying. We suddenly find ourselves cramped with all this stuff going on. But if all that stuff were operating in a twice as big a space, it wouldn't seem so. It would but be like if all of us moved over to this side of the room, it wouldn't be half as comfortable as when we're spread out like this. So 4 breaths of silence

generates a space.

If it's done 100 times a day, it's the same as a 30 minute meditation

in the totality of things. It's just being done in tiny little bites and that much more space has been created to for us to be in and that. And that's why silence. Reflect on the silence. Truth exists in the silence.

Watch yourself watching thoughts. These are all techniques

to find out

what will be revealed to you in the silence,

what will occur to you.

Where did Bill Wright? We've been rocketed into the 4th dimension of existence.

That's down the bottom.

Is that in this? Is that what the silence is? The 4th dimension of existence.

In other words, when you see 4th dimension of existence in the big book, what is that? Did you ever stop and go, what the hell is the 4th dimension of existence? Or do you do what I did and just go, that's cool, and go on to the next paragraph? That's cool, Yeah. 4th dimension, Yeah. Page, whatever.

Or you stop and go. What the hell is the 4th dimension of existence? And I'm offering as a suggestion that it's the silence.

It's the dimension where everything that we can't see on the hologram can appear. And in fact, it's the only place where all of that can appear,

the silence being the now when we have a lecture on the now. So,

so suddenly silence becomes

a great place to hang out because that's where all the action is. Isn't that funny that all the action is in the silence

action meaning revelations and a new pair of glasses? So when Bill says more will be revealed, where is it going to be revealed in the silence? It's not going to be revealed while I'm going blah blah blah. I'm worried about this.

It's only going to be revealed when I can go beyond what the hell I'm thinking about into that area known as the Silent. So suddenly silence is a big deal. And when you try to get some, there's part of you that doesn't want you to get it because that'll set you free of your own little ego world.

So there's some just thoughts on silence that are in here. In other words, these are just here

to go. What?

And then think about it.

There's no meaning in life. It just is. You may make up a meaning, but it does not come from life itself.

Well, I don't know about that.

And then just start, let's take this apart. What is the meaning of life? You know, you see what I'm saying and there is none. Well,

I think there has to be meaning. Well, why does there have to be meaning? So that I could understand it.

But there's nothing to understand. It's a mystery. I don't like mysteries. I think it could be understood. We just haven't thought about it enough. There's got to be meaning. Why does there have to be meaning?

Does there have to be meaning in a

portrait or can you just take it in? Does it have to be meaning and a good AA talk or is it an experience? Does it have to be a meaning in music?

What is the meaning? What's the meaning in this song? Dennis plays a lot of music and go out and 100 people listen to you guys play and we ask him what the meaning. You have 100 meanings. We have 100 different experiences listening to the same song.

So we give up trying to find the meaning and just shut up and be quiet

and experience the silence. So we keep coming back to letting go of our traditional way of relating to things, which is understand. The more I know got to know, got to know. And some of the great spiritual writers go stop trying to know anything

and walk into the unknown and enjoy it.

Wow,

I'm going to be somewhere and not understand it. How about that? Do you ever want to do that? I don't need to understand this. I just need to let it be

and sit in it. So we're coming up with you. See what happens when you reflect, when you take these things. I'm just picking. God is the essence of all life. Stillness is the language that God speaks. Stillness and the divine are one. Silence again,

and then I reflect on things. Be still and know that I am there.

Isn't that funny? Be still and I will appear

you. Be still and I will reveal myself to you.

I think what's being made perfectly clear that everything's going to be revealed in the silence.

So now we got to have a new attitude about silence to go. Holy cow,

I want to exist in the spaces between the notes,

between the colors, between everything. So there's two worlds.

There's the note and the space. We want to just shift over a little bit and be in the space. So the same thing happens for the hologram. We're trying to go beyond what's there and it's done while you're being pretty quiet.

You're sitting waiting for it to come. It's it's a very similar experience to everything that we're talking about.

The starting place for all reflection and contemplation is the fact of your own existence. The question to be asked is who are you?

Did you ever ask yourself that question? Who am I?

You know what then the answer is I am.

That's who I am.

One of the things where you're going to find out is

the spiritual world is unmodified.

Life is. By unmodified I mean no adjectives.

Everything just is.

We put the adjectives on things and that's the world we live in. We actually live in the adjectives.

The fact is, you had a childhood. That's a fact.

Does anybody here speak of their childhood in that simple term? Yes, I had a childhood. Or do you put an adjective on your childhood? I had a shitty childhood,

I had a rotten mother. I had A and you just, you just go right through the whole thing. A terrible event happened and the guy next to me, it's the same event, he said. What a wonderful event just happened. It rained and the golfers are cursing in the farmers celebrating.

They both put an adjective on it.

Rotten rain showed up.

That isn't what happened. The rain showed up.

It got rotten when I got through modifying it.

So if you want to look back at your own life, look at the adjectives. They didn't. They weren't supplied by the universe. You put them there

and that's the world that we live in. So we if we take away all the stuff we put there, there's just the simple fact that you were born and then this happened and then this happened and then that happened. None of it has an adjective with it. It simply is. So when you look at a sentence that starts with I am,

it always is modified.

Well, who would you say you are? I just am. Nobody ever says that. Who am I? Oh, I'm a vice president of a painting company which is expanding into three states. I am the father of three children. I am the husband of this. I am the grandfather of this. I am a northerner. I am A and it just goes on and on and on. And you have a complete resume and a complete summary of who you are. And you never answered the question, who am I