My Story

Chapter 9: Shining The Light

One summer day in 1993 I was walking through the Boulder, Colorado downtown open air mall. At the end of the mall were a coffee shop and a couple of taverns with outside seating. There was also some steps were people could just sit under the trees. Out on the grass in front of the steps within range of the outside seating was a guy just standing there talking out loud to whatever audience would listen.

He was short and squat, kind of thick in some ways. He seemed like a manual labor type person. Yet, when he spoke there was sometimes a sophistication that indicated education and the ability to use the language. Other times he would use crass words that seems designed to shock his audience; words or phrases like "techno-penis" or "bourgeois vagina" to indicate the materialistic people that he did not seem to like. Sometimes he seems to just trying to shock people, sometimes he was just rambling on about whatever political or social topic interested him today.

At first I thought he was mostly just venting but later I realized that he was also stimulating and encouraging people to challenge him. He seemed to be learning how to express himself without caring about what people thought of him. He was getting free to be perfectly honest with people.

Some people would ignore him, others would stop and listen for a while and then move on. Still others would stop and maybe sit down and listen or even question or challenge him. Sometimes a crowd would build and watch as he was engaged by some of the member in the crowd. Some people would avert their eyes and run away from his crass and confrontation style. Others would sit there with smiles on their faces and enjoy the drama that was unfolding. Some seemed to be enjoying that somebody had the courage to say these things.

Interestingly enough, they all heard the same words, but their reactions to those words were sometimes totally different.

What interested me the most was when people would challenge him or call him names and he still would be able to keep talking. He did not run from the challenge. He did not seem to fear people's judgements. He was not afraid to stand up and speak in a public place. He was not afraid of what people had to say.

But I was.

I found out later that he was my age. He used to be a lawyer but he got fed up with the dishonesty of that profession. So he became a carpenter and lived in his vehicle as I did. He implied that his father was oppressive and his culture had encouraged him to keep quiet and not question anything. His family and his culture had taught him well that words can hurt you and that you can hurt others with your words. But he was breaking through that lie. He started out just screaming in the wildness but had progressed to public venting of his frustrations.

I admired his courage. I was not impressed with he had to say for it seemed shallow. It was not WHAT he said but THAT he had the courage to be honest.

Sitting there watching him speak I would think of Jesus and how he stood any place he could find people and he would stand up and would talk about what he saw or his truth. Jesus had to have the courage to be honest. Jesus had the courage to bear witness to the truth of the people's own conditioned emotional self-abusive behavior. For when Jesus spoke sometimes he would talk about things that was beyond what they had heard before and it would upset them. At times they would even pick up stones and threaten to him for what they thought were blasphemous things that he said.

When Jesus said that we should take cheer for he has overcome the world (John 16:33), to me, that means that he had overcome his fear of the people's judgements of him. He overcame their words. Jesus had overcome the worlds influence on him; he had overcome his own fear of what people said about him. He did not care what they said to him or about him anymore. Their opinions where not important. Jesus no longer reacted to the words of people in such a was as to abuse himself emotionally. He took responsibility for his reactions and therefore took back his power from the world. His Kingdom was within him in his inner world. He was King over his true world, which was his reactions to what life offered.

For me Jesus was about finding the courage to speak his truth and inspiring others to do the same. He wanted to see more honesty and openness in society. He could see that the truth set people free but if they did not have the courage to be honest then they could not find the truth.

Jesus came and was motivated out of his love for humanity. He could see that their greatest enemy was themselves. So he tried to confront that enemy, which was their belief systems that caused them to abuse themselves emotionally. He saw that their belief systems caused them to limit the quality of their life experience.

I wanted to be like this speaker. I wanted to be like Jesus. I wanted to be able to speak my truth without fear of people's judgements, criticisms or even their rejection. I want to have that courage to be honest. I wanted to overcome the worlds influence on me so that I could stand up and from the depths of my heart and not to be afraid.

Later I realized that I, too, wanted to bear witness to the truth of how people were conditioned to abuse themselves emotionally just stimulated by words. I wanted to wake them up to how they were be controlled and manipulated and how that limited the quality of their life experience.

I recognized that I did not have the courage to stand up there and be honest with a group of people. But I wanted to learn how to do that.

That is why I sat down and listened to the Jewish carpenter who used to be a lawyer. I kept coming back until I got inspired enough, or angry enough, to question him in front of the whole audience. Eventually I had the courage to stand up there and speak my truth. I was finding the courage to be honest with the world.

Since I found the public forum stimulating I would hang around a lot. I like to get into deep discussions, even political discussion are interesting. Craig (did I mention that the Jewish carpenter's name was Craig) mostly talked about current events and politics I would engage him with questions. I have always prided myself with my ability to ask tough questions.

One day, after a series of pretty tough questions that were more spiritual than political, he got angry at me and challenged me to get up and give my perspective on the topic. The gauntlet had been thrown down and my ego was on the line. Also, I had told him that I wanted to have the courage to stand up there and start talking too so I knew that he was really on my side.

My passion was there and he drove me through my fear. I stood up and probably made a fool of myself but I was happy. I stood up and talked for the first time. I had been baptized and I knew this is where I wanted to go. There was no turning back.

Reacting to what Craig had said was one thing, but starting from scratch myself with my own topics was another. Intellectually I knew that there was nothing to be afraid of, but try telling my stomach that. I wish there had been a market for butterflies, I would have been rich. My mouth would get so dry that talking was almost impossible. And that was before I started talking.

I noticed that once I started talking and got into my topic that I settled down and got comfortable. I usually carried a water bottle with me in case I got thirsty or dry mouthed.

At first I would talk about current events and their consequences, politically and spiritually. I found that I would start with the current event and then talk about it from a spiritual or emotional perspective.

One of my favorite topics was the lack of free speech in America or how we were systematically silencing people who did not represent the main stream thought. I could feel the community of people who where enjoying the public forum grow and our sense of community or connectedness also grew. Something was working here.

I got into this public forum several days a week. After doing this for two summers on Friday and Saturday nights we would have maybe a couple of thousand people out there either listening or engaging in small group discussions stimulated by our talks.

As people would watch me speaking I would also watch them as they listened, walked by, or as in some cases, they would scurry or even run by the speaking area.

Some people would appreciate what I had to say or at least appreciate that fact that I was out there stimulating conversation. They may not have been interested in the particular topic so they would smile and continue on with their way.

Some people found what I was saying exciting and would find a seat and sit down. They might even engage me with a question. Many of these would later come up to me and tell me how much they appreciate my talking. In fact, many of these would return week after week and either just listen or as would happen almost every night, they would break off into smaller groups and get into various discussion based on what I was talking about.

Some people would be indifferent and just blankly walk on by as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. (They seemed to have a dull look on their faces.) Those that scurried or even ran by I could sometimes see the look on their faces of utter terror as is I was holding a bomb in my hand and about to detonate it. Still others would listen for a while and then they might take offense at something I would say and they would scream an obscenity or something unintelligent and would run way.

I always had this pain in my heart when people would get so upset at some of the things that were said out there. I hurt when I saw people run away and I hurt when they got angry.

For each of these groups of people I spoke the same words but their reactions were different. I could see that they came with their particular biases, beliefs and ways of thinking. If my words did not fit the boxes in their minds they would react. If those boxes were very solid then they would react very harshly. Each member of the audience had been previously conditioned to respond to words differently.

It hurt a lot to see people afraid of me and my words. The pain did not leave me easily. I wanted to understand why they hurt so much.

The people who did enjoy our forum really enjoyed it. After many months of this people would come from all over the state of Colorado every weekend just to be a part of this forum. We were creating community.

Craig and I would get the forum going around four or five in the afternoon and by nine o'clock we could have a couple of thousand people milling about. On weekend days there were usually a lot of people in the mall anyway, but they would hang out at our end of the mall and just watch. After a while people would break into little groups discussion and that would go on until early in the morning. There definitely was a sense of community being built.

Still, what I remember the most was the pain I felt when some people would scurry away in fear of our conversation. People would ask, "What right do I have to stand out here and pushing my opinions on other people?" I did not think I was pushing anything, I was just talking.

I started to see that some people were seeing what I said as ugly and they were having an ugly experience. Others where seeing what I said as beautiful and they were having a beautiful experience. Still, others would not have any opinion at all and they were neutral. I realized that it was not the words that caused the different reactions in people. It was their preconceived notions, beliefs or ways of thinking that caused their reactions.

When I would get engaged by somebody in the audience I and I noticed that I was getting excited or upset by that interruption I would use my Four Skills to remind me to relax and enjoy the process. I remember a time a drunk got up and hugged me and started mumbling to the audience with a slurring language. It was actually pretty funny but at first I was upset with the disruption until I reminded myself that what I wanted was to appreciate what life was offering. So I relaxed and enjoyed the show. This allowed me to have clarity which enabled me to use the situation to make my point.

I realized that words do not hurt me, it is my reactions to the words that cause me injury and suffering.

So I came to the conclusion that words do not hurt people, people's reactions to words cause injury.

I could also see that I still had a problem with their words. I hurt a lot when they judged or rejected me. I would get defensive or uptight when people judged or rejected me. I had to confront my reactions to words before I could truly go on. It took a real commitment to not responding to words to get free from the conditioning. I kept saying to myself, This is just words and I do not need to respond to them. But the conditioning was very strong. And when I get lazy I still go back to responding to words in such a way as to experience negativity.

I had to overcome my reactions to people's words. I had to practice loving myself in the presents of their words, even if those words were intended to cause me injury.

I realized that the people who were running away from the forum were not running away from me, they were running away from themselves. They were afraid of themselves, or should I say, they were afraid of their reactions to our words.

Not only must we understand this but we have to develop the ability to not react to what people say. As long as we believe that what people say can hurt us or that what we say can hurt them we ill fear honesty and the truth.

Children, mentally or emotionally handicapped people or just people who do not know that words can not hurt you, are vulnerable to verbal manipulation and abuse. The conscious and caring person, there fore, recognizes this and realizes that the priority is to wake this person up or to educate them about the options they have (i.e. not reacting to words.)

Jesus said, "In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." and "If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed ... nothing will be impossible to you." (John 16:33,Mat 17:20)

Words are not truth. Our reaction to words is the truth. If we have perfect peace with all that is said or written them we have found a perfect peace with the world.

It still hurts to see people afraid of words. But now I WANT to hurt with them. I want to feel their pain. It is this pain that motivates me to seek understanding and a way out of the pain.

I started to see that a great lie and been perpetrated upon humanity. I started to feel the desire to speak against this lie.

When people would get angry at what I said they would blame me for their anger.

The greatest lie is that things outside of ourselves, including words, are responsible for the quality of our life experience.

Part of this greatest lie is that words hurt people: that we are responsible for other people's reactions to our words. This lie is one of the greatest travesties ever perpetuated upon humanity. It causes physical and mental diseases as well as creates an environment of mistrust, social conflicts and even war. This greatest lie limits the quality of life that is available to all of us.

Believers of the GREAT LIE abuse themselves emotionally because of what other people say or do. They also enable other believers to remain in the great lie by limiting their expressions or honesty and "holding it in". This holding it in starts to "eat them up" inside and eventually causes diseases like cancer. Believing in the great lie is therefore detrimental to you health and wellbeing.

Ok, so if this is true then how about talking to people who do not have the self-love skills that enable then to listen to you. If your expressions are not censored then you will drive them away, will you not? And, if you are very strong in your expressions then will you not drive away everybody.

Yes, you will drive away those weak in love but you will also be showing them where their darkness is so that they can address it and you will be stimulating and motivating them to overcome their fears. If they are forced to constantly run from you then they will get tired of being afraid and sooner or later will have to confront themselves. It is your honesty that enables them to see who they really are instead of covering it up.

Jesus came to bear witness to the truth of people's conditioned, emotional self-abusive behavior in their reactiveness to words. The only problem people ever had with Jesus was with his words. He demonstrated how fearful they were just of words, concepts and ideas. That is what primitive or religious people do, they are programmed to respond to words in such as way as to abuse themselves and eventually that abuse leads to the abuse of others.

The belief that words are hurting us (or others) perpetuates the illusion that we are just victims the others abuse. It discourages us and makes us weaker. With less power we are less likely to be able to satisfy our needs and therefore will always feel a sense of lack. Because of this sense of lack we may try to satisfy with other means, such as consumerism or excessive consumption, which many people who display signs victim consciousness seem to practice. This attitude keeps people down.

The greatest lie is that words hurt people: that we are responsible for other people's reactions to our words. This greatest lie is the greatest travesty ever perpetuated upon humanity. This greatest lie also causes physical and mental diseases as well as creates an environment of mistrust, social conflicts and even war. The greatest lie limits the quality of life that is available to all of us.

The children chant "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me." What the children know intrinsically, many adults have forgotten.

We have been programmed to abuse themselves emotionally just stimulated by words and their associated ideas. This enables the manipulative people to stimulate the unaware person in such a way as to motivate them to serve the will of the user.

As children we learn to be aware of what the adults say, for it is a clue to how they will treat us. If they call us bad then we learn to be aware that they will probably beat us. We become programmed to react to their words. Later, as adults we carry this fear. For instance, if somebody does not want people to wear their hair long they could say that long hair is evil or bad. The unaware person would then not want to experience their programmed response of guilt to the idea of being evil or bad so they would limit their behavior by not growing their hair long. Or, if somebody does not want to look at their own limiting behavior then they would try to intimidate others into not questioning their behavior by saying they will withdraw their love or attention if you start to question them.

Believing in the great lie is therefore detrimental to you health and wellbeing. When the unaware person feels the pain of their self-abusive behavior they begin limiting their expressions or honesty and "holding it in" causing stress. This holding it in starts to "eat them up" inside and eventually causes diseases like cancer.

Community only happens when there is honest, open communication. When we withhold our honesty we are also cutting ourselves off from those we love and otherwise communicate with. When this communication breaks down because people are afraid to hurt other people with their honesty then the sense of connectedness and community breaks down. Conflict and eventually violence are the result.

Some people want to control others because they are too lazy or cowardly to control themselves. It is so much easier to intimidate others then it is to develop emotional self-mastery and control our own reactions to what others say.

Some people reinforce the lie that words hurt by telling unaware people that they will modify their expressions to enable the unaware person to not abuse him or herself. These people are enablers and are needy for attention so they will conform to what others expectations is so as to be 'popular' and accepted.

How about talking to people who do not have the self-love skills that enable then to listen to you. If your expressions are not censored then you will drive them away, will you not? And, if you are very strong in your expressions then will you not drive away everybody?

Yes, you will drive away those weak in their self-love skills but you will also be showing them where their darkness is so that they can address it. You will also be stimulating or motivating them to develop their self-love skills. If they are constantly being forced to run from people who are honest then they will eventually get tired of being afraid and sooner or later will have to look at why they are reacting to the words. It is your honesty that enables them to see how they really treat themselves instead of enabling them to continue ignoring their self-abusive behavior.

If you want to talk to someone then have the courage to accept how they express themselves, not as you want him or her to express.

The solution to the Great Lie is developing the skills of self-love. Self-love is the root of all love, the beginning, of love. If we know how to love ourselves then we never need fear honest (or even dishonest) expressions from anybody. This skill simply consists of learn how to relax enabling you to not react to the words, or even to our own thoughts (reactions). The best method of doing this is to see the Big Picture, so see how unimportant the current situation really is in that Big Picture. Seeing the Big Picture, seeing how unimportant the current situations is, frees you from expectation of 'doing' anything and allows you to relaxes both the body and the mind.

What if somebody is purposely trying to hurt you with words? Then, from you place of peace you will be able to see that they only try to hurt you because they are hurting, and you can have compassion for them.

Words do not hurt people; people's reactions to words cause injury. Anything less than complete honesty, any self-censorship, is to be lying. It is time that people grow up, take responsibility for their own actions and allow others to take responsibility for their actions.

It hurts me to see people afraid of themselves. It hurts to see people so fearful of intimacy that they avoid anything but the most superficial conversation.

So I asked myself why we react to words so violently. We do it because it is our habit, a habit we probably picked up from childhood. There are people and institutions in our society that get their advantage (economical or political) by us being fearful or easily controlled by their words.

What really hurts is that I see people being taught that words can hurt them or others. We are taught to fear and use words as weapons. This attitudes is limiting our communication ability. And that hurts our relationships, community and humanity at large.

The goal of communication is to convey information and to provide for an emotional connection between the speaker and their audience.

Words are just artificial stimulates designed to invoke a response. We can be programmed just like Pavlov's dog. Pavlov would feed his dog everyday and at the same time would ring a bell. So the dog associated the bell with food. When the dog saw the food he would start salivating. Eventually the dog would salivate just with the ringing of the bell without the food. The ringing of the bell was an artificial stimuli for the salivating process.

Words are an artificial stimuli for our emotional reactions. We have been programmed to respond to words the same way Pavlov programmed his dog to salivate to a bell.

Words can be used as mental massage. When we get a physical massage if the massager finds a 'hot spot' in your body they massage around that spot until you relax the muscles that make up that hot spot. In mental massage we learn to relax around the words that that get us 'hot' with anger or that upset us. I was doing this when I would go to the meetings of the John Birch Society, the communist block or the fundamentalist Christian church meetings. I was learning to relax around their words, concepts and ideas. These organizations talked about 'hot button' issues that offended me or pissed me off. I did not like being offended or pissed off so I went to these institutions for some mental massage.

It worked. I got free from my habitual self abusive behavior. I can now go into such a meeting and actually enjoy the topics discussed. I still may not agree with them but they do not illicit strong emotional responses. I am more relaxed and mellow because I my effort. And the quality of my life experience is much better.

I also have more clarity when listening to their words. With this clarity I am better able to see through the delusions that these organizations propagate. With this clarity and insight I am in a better position to discuss intelligently with the people of these organizations.

Now I can say to people, take cheer, for I have overcome the world, just as Jesus said. If I can do it then anybody can.

I feel that my people, humanity, are being held hostage by the Greatest Lie that words hurt people. That those who perpetuate this myth do so to maintain their dominance over my people. I want to see my people free to communicate and connect with one another, free to listen and free to speak to one another. People should be free to speak what is in their heart and free to listen to others speak what is in their heart. When people take responsibility for their reactions, when they learn how to relax and not react to words, then people will be free to both listen and speak with and from the heart.

I am very much motivated by the sadness I feel when I see people so afraid of words, language, communication or just listening.

Communication is central to community and our connection to humanity. If we are social animals, what kind of social life can we have without communication. The failure to communicate leads to conflicts, strife, war and most forms of suffering. The primary cause of our failure to communicate is our inability to listen or lack of listening skills.

Communication is absolutely essential for peace and prosperity. Without open lines of communications war and poverty become inevitable.

The failure to communicate is ENTIRELY the product of our failure to listen. It has nothing to do with what or how we speak. We could speak in tongues or a foreign language and if the audiences was listening with and open mind and heart they would understand our intent.

The book is about communication, the attitudes and behaviors that cause the failure to communicate and the way I see to solve this problem.

I see this failure of communication as a product of our belief that words can hurt us so we have learned to reject, resist and fear words. Since we feel we can be hurt by words we feel we can hurt others with words. So we sensor our language with the result being we fail to be completely honest. This fear of hurting others creates a fear of being honest and our communication suffers because of it.

This fear of words, judgements, labels or rejection is really just a product of our fear of ourselves and our reactions to what people say. So I will talk a lot about how to take our power back from the programmed hurtful reaction we learned to words. When we can learn to relax and not react to words then we can truly connect and communication with others.

Then we can move beyond words to greater forms of communication. The open mind is what makes us open to a more direct communication; telepathic communication or communion.

The evidence demonstrates that words do not hurt people, it is people's reactions to words that cause injury.

The biggest problem that humanity has is the failure to communicate. We could solve most of our problems if we were open to communicate with one .

The biggest hurdle we have in communication is our lack of ability to listen to one another, for we have been taught to fear and use words as weapons. We have also been taught that ideas or thoughts can corrupt us so we put of the guard on any idea that is not OK'd or that does not fit into our carefully crafted boxes in our minds.

From early childhood we are taught to react to words, both mentally and physically. As children we have not developed the ability to discern between what is real and what is not real, what we need to react to and what we do not need to react to. Because we are taught to believe and obey the authorities and react to what they say. If the teacher says to stand up the whole classes stands. But as adults most people have not reprogrammed themselves to not automatically react to what we are told.

We have been taught to fear words or ideas that can destroy us or destroy our inner peace. We have been taught to believe that words, thoughts and ideas can destroy our soul.

Communication is how we find our commonness and community. If we are afraid to communicate then we can't find that commonness and we don't find that community. We then create strife and conflict. So any hindrances to communication only lead to conflict, strife, violence and war.

Words and language are such a primitive form of communication. We will not be able to evolve beyond this primitive form of communication until we can the form of the words and language so important. Structure, political correctness, grammar are all limits on real communication that happens beyond the form of the language.

Why would we want to react to words in such a way as to abuse ourselves? What personal advantage is there in this behavior? Don't we just do it out of habit? Why continue? Yes, it took years of programming to get us to a place where we could be controlled by others, and it will take some time and effort for use to retrain ourselves to not react in such a way as to limit or abuse ourselves. But is it not worth it?

Let's be honest, we are selfish beings. We can not help but be selfish beings. Even altruistic people and behavior is really selfish in nature, for the individual who acts altruistic is doing it because they want to, because they will feel better about themselves if they do. So what advantage is there in abusing ourselves or being manipulated by others? Will we really feel better about ourselves if we are manipulated or allow ourselves to be conned into abusing ourselves?

Communication is the essence of relationships and society. In the big picture, humanity has been evolving in its ability to communicate. Since the beginning of time when primitive man grunted to communicate then written language, removable type, the pony express, telegraph, telephones, television, and the Internet. All that progress has been a product of our natural desire to become more aware of what life has to offer; to expand our awareness. This means that one of the intentions of humanity is to expand it awareness or consciousness.

There is a time to bring division and a time to bring union. There is a time to see ourselves as separate and a time to see our oneness. There is a time to be unique and a time to be one of the group.

I was usually divisive and wanted to stir up things, to get people thinking. But one time while I was in Boulder there was and event that could have turned very ugly and possibly ended up as a riot. The Boulder Downtown Mall attracts a lot of panhandlers who would get very aggressive at times. They would spread there belonging out and make it difficult for people to pass. There was a bunch of them in one part of the mall one day when a cop asked them to move their stuff so that people could walk but. Apparently this kid got belligerent and resisted the cops request. I know the cop and he is not a hard guy so it was probably the kids fault. So the cop had to arrest this kid. This caused quite a stir among the rest of the street kids there who surrounded the cop and were threatening him.

This is when I came alone. I saw that the cop had the kid handcuffed and he was laying on the ground. The cop was standing on the kid trying to fend off the crowd. Backup had not showed up yet. I got between the cop and the crowd and shouted that the kid was being crushed so give him room to breathe.

The crowd knew me as the free speech guy and seemed to respect me so that backed up allowing the cop to get the kid off the ground and into the arriving squad car. Then all the cops quickly disappeared because the crowd had grown and was getting very ugly.

The riot police showed up but stayed out of sight. I talked to a plain clothes cop with a radio who said that the riot police would come in any time if things did not mellow out. So I started to talk to the crowd in such a way as to bring peace to them. I talked about our commonness that created our sense of community. This seemed to calm the crowd down and the riot police never had to come in.

I do like action but not violence. When things get too out of hand or look like they are moving toward violence then it is time to bring union, time to see our commonness and rebuild our sense of community.

All things have their time.

While talking in Boulder I noticed that America has become a society isolated from itself.

It is all just words. We have a conditioned response to words and the ideas that they bring up. Sin, soul, Satan, salvation, good, evil, wrong, death, failure, success, slut, nigger, and so on are all just sounds (and their associated concepts) that we have been programmed to respond to with contraction, which is experienced as negativity or pain.

I wonder why I was able to see this profound truth and others are not. I can see that because of our more advanced memory we remember the past better than other animals. And with the memory of the past we can not help but look into the future. So time is more relevant to humans then other beings. But, it seems, we are not smart enough to recognize that time is not important. We are not smart enough to recognize that now is all that is real.

Once we awaken we can intellectually recognize this we can begin to reprogram ourselves to NOT react to these words or the thoughts they bring up. When we have been able to let go of our reaction and just relax then these concepts will no longer have power over us and we are free.

But this simple truth, that it is just our reaction to these words or ideas that is causing us so much problems, is too profound for most people to grasp. I still occasionally have problems with remembering that I do not need to be reacting to what people say.

It is so simple and so profound that unless we make a concentrated effort to remember we will forget. It is all so easy to start thinking about the past or future and then start to react to those thoughts by getting uptight or stressed. It is all to easy to get stressed and uptight when thinking about what others think of us, or what we think of ourselves. It is all to easy to react or get upset when people say things to us.

But if we can remain conscious of our body's reactions and vigilantly relax the tension then we can become masters over ourselves and the world.

In my pessimism I perceive that very few people will be able to grasp the significance of what I have written in these paragraphs. The sharpest members of our society will be able to grasp this, take responsibility for their reactions to live, learn to relax and take their power back. They will overcome the world.

This is what Jesus was trying to teach but people could not grasp it then and I suspect few will grasp it now. If I had heard this years ago before I was ready for it I would not have understood it. I had to get ready to hear it. This is just so simple and obvious that we can not see. It is like seeing the nose on our own face. We do not see it because it is so obvious that we are in the practice of ignoring it.

When I talk to people about the simplicity of such things as breathing and relaxing I constantly wonder if what I am saying is falling on deaf ears. It this too profound or too deep for people to understand? I realize that I can not remember that all the time then why should other people be able to remember it. It is too simple.

After being arrested I thought a lot about why that government would outlaw public speaking. I saw also that people seemed to be afraid of me whenever I would speak out most of the people would run away from the area. I wondered why they ran away. I was not hurting them or anybody.

People would accuse me of wanting to anger people, as a means of controlling them and pushing them away. But that was not what I wanted. I am like everybody else; I want to be appreciated and loved too. I want friends. But I want to be honest with my friends. I want to be myself and not be always trying to live up to what I believe others want of me.

I recognized that I wanted to try and come from a place of pure consciousness of joy and love when I speak. I wanted to care about the people I was speaking to, not just to vent my frustrations, lecture or preach at them.

But I did recognize that the waking up process can be and usually is challenging. It is like a child going to school, studying and taking tests is not always easy but it is part of the process of education. We can not take the challenge out of education or the student will not 'get it'. The struggle and the discomfort of that struggle are necessary to stimulate the student.

People are stuck in their lives. They are dead in the water, so to speak. I am there to open people up to new options, ideas and ways of thinking. I am there to wake them up.

Therefore, when I was speaking I would sometimes "get in people's face" or challenge and stimulate them so much that they would get angry. This anger is upsetting, upsetting of their slumber or waking them up. The passion, vitality or life is within them. Passion is like fire, it heats people up and illuminates.

When the people get passionate then I move back up to pure consciousness of appreciation, joy and love. I would encourage them to express, vent and be vital and alive. I recognize that the passion itself will awaken and illuminate. I do not have to do any more but shine my light of appreciation. From here I am demonstrating pure consciousness of appreciation, joy and love. The contrast between their passion and my peace will eventually become obvious to them. they will recognize that appreciation is what they want. They will see that I was able to move them from their comfortable and dead existence with words alone. they will realize that I had more control or power over them then they had. They will realize that they gave their power away to the words. If they are smart enough the will ask my how to take their power back.

People would say to me that I am responsible for what I say. They would say that I can think anything I want and it does not make a bit of difference, but once I open my mouth and speak it to people, then I incur responsibility for whatever the reaction is to what I say.

I say, BULLSHIT! That is false. That is totally false. I do not buy that at all. I go completely against that way of thinking. I say it does not make a bit of difference what you say.

There ARE effects of what you say. For instance, if people get angry at what I say and abuse themselves emotionally because they need to wake themselves up, that is their choice (unconscious or not). If they are really stupid they will probably blame me for their reactions and reject me. Either way, they will avoid me and I will not have any friends. But these people can not appreciate the real me anyway so I would not want them to be too close.

Of course, I might also find people who actually appreciate what I say. They are my real friends anyway. They appreciate the real me.

Then there are the really unconscious or really stupid and they might even get violent. They will abuse themselves so much that they will get violent toward me. I do not want to get beat up or, like Jesus, get myself killed. So it makes sense that when I see these really stupid people getting angry that I cease and desist.

Since the task is to wake people up to a higher level of consciousness I want to demonstrate love. You can not love another if you can not love yourself. Getting yourself beat up or killed is not loving of yourself so it is not demonstrating love. AND, it does not feel good to get beat up.

Talking in front of people it became really apparent that I had a problem with judgement and rejection. I decided to challenged myself to overcome this fear too. I started with the Bible.

I have always felt the pain of rejection my whole life. I feel that it is the lot of human existence to always be judged and rejected. I can feel the pain in the hearts of those who, motivated out of fear, judge and reject others.

I want to do unto others as I would like to be done unto me. I do not want to judge. And as Jesus said, "Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get." (Matthew 7:1)

And Jesus said, "For judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not might see; and that they which see might be made blind." (John 9:39)

Jesus was judgmental and so am I.

Intellectually I could see that I want to be judged. I want to be examined, questioned and challenged. I want to hear what people have to say about me. I want people to judge me with the same measurement that I judge them. I want to be held to a higher and higher standard. I want to be the best person I can be. I want to manifest perfection in this world. I can not do that alone. I need everybody help. I need judgement.

I do not want to be rejected, for we reject people out of fear. I do not want to see anybody trapped in their fear. Since I can see that people reject me out of fear I allow myself to feel compassion for them in their suffering. That compassion softens my heart and the pain of the rejection lessens. But it never goes away. Deep in my heart I long to find a way to help people see through the delusion that cause their fear so they will not need to reject.

I know that I do not hurt people. I know that I have purified myself of behaviors enough that I do not hurt others. I do realize that people blame me for their self abusive behavior, but that I actually do not hurt them.

At this time I still reacted to what people said to me. I was afraid of their judgement in practice.

I realized that my fear was not of what people say to me or about me. My fear was of MY REACTION to what people say to me. I had to take responsibility for my reactions if I was ever go get free among people. I could go out to the mountains and speak until my throat was sore and never have to deal with judgement. Or I could start practicing dealing with my reaction to what people said.

I started this process by examining what people said and finding ways to look at it that would not cause me to abuse myself emotionally. The became a quagmire of questions without answers. This was not the way to get free of the pain of my reaction to people's words.

After hearing the story of a smarter guy in school who writes a paper on logic that is so good that when it is read by lesser students they are discouraged as they compare it to their work. So this guy throws the paper away so as to not discourage others.

That is not humbleness but ignorance. All of us have something to share with the whole. That something is unique and great. If we are going to share we can not let the truly arrogant person who is discouraged by the work of others let us limit our gift to humanity.

Was Siddhartha or Jesus arrogant when they claimed to have something of value to offer humanity. NO. But the insecure around them sure thought so.

A person who appears to be arrogant is sometimes one who has the confidence of their truth and they are obstinately holding to that truth. This is good if they are with THE truth but bad if they are not. If you have the truth and the rest of the world does not see it then it is good that you hold to the truth in the face of their darkness.

I have wondered a lot about whether I had some relative truths (relative about how to reach out to people) or not. I would ask myself, "How do I know if I have THE truth and everybody else is still in the darkness?"

That is why I have made it a foundation of my life to be open to challenge for anyone. I want to be challenged. I want to see if the way I am saying things is working or not. The fundament truths are solid with me but I want to be open to questioning of EVERYTHING.

That is how I judge if people are being arrogant or if they just have a high degree of confidence. If they are willing to be challenged then they can be tested. Those who do the challenging must be open to being challenged back so the greater truth can be found.

You could say that Jesus was being arrogant when he said that they very rocks will sing out. (Luke 19:40)

Confidence and arrogance are sometimes seen as the same thing.

My ideas of the service of humanity seem grandiose to some people. I can not help but see those people as the mediocre minds that Einstein talked about. I will not allow myself to be held back by those who shrink away from the service of something greater than themselves. This is who I am. I will not and can not deny that I do think as I do. If people can not handle it then they should not hang around me.

When people live their lives in fear they contract down and can see very little in the future. They then tend to see people with great visions as grandiose. This inferiority complex makes them tend to want to get negative about the great visions.

I do not want to push myself up on a pedestal so that I distances myself from common people. I have tried to be a simple, open and honest as I can here to show that I am as human and normal (in some way) as anybody. My only difference is my intent and anybody can copy that. So I am not special or unique in essence, only my intent is different than most people's.

I do realize that my visions will always get resistance from lessor minds. Resistance is necessary for their to be light. A light bulb illuminates by the resistance of the filament to the electricity that runs through it. The light bulb also produces heat. So too people will resist the energy of my ideas and that resistance will produce the illumination they are looking for. Their resistance will also produce the heat of anger and that is to be expected.

After all, my ideas are only words and words do not hurt people, it is people's reactions to words that cause injury. As people become aware of their resistance and the pain that that resistance causes them they will cease and desist.

Arrogance is a sense of superiority which can not happen unless there is a sense of inferiority. For there to be both superiority and inferiority there must be a sense of separation. My sorrow today is for those who are trapped in this sense of separation. They are the ones that judge someone as being arrogant.

As long as there is this sense of separation there will always be the sense of superiority and inferiority. The only way to truly eradicate that is to eradicate the sense of separation.

Public speaking confronts you with yourself allot. Sometime I would say some very stupid things. I had to come to grips with the fact that I am stupid sometimes. I had been afraid of being stupid until I saw that it was alright to be stupid. We are all stupid sometimes.

I started to realize that my biggest fear here was not judgement or rejection. My biggest fear was of MY REACTION to judgement and rejection. I realized that I was afraid of myself and my reactions to what life was offering.

When people would judge or reject me I would go through what I did to cause this for days sometimes. This was time and energy consuming. It would leave me drained and exhausted and sometimes with physical pain in the form of a headache or digestive problems. This reacting stuff was getting old.

I found that if I would go into their judgement and my resistance to them until I could come to a place of acceptance of them then they no longer caused me pain or discomfort. Going into them meant that I looked at them until I could find something about them that I could say yes to.

I want to purify myself of my false or limited ways of thinking as much as possible. To do this I open myself up to criticism. Criticism is like running electricity through a wire. If the material the wire is made out of is impure then the electricity will find resistance, heat up and break at the impurity. It is the resistance that causes the heat in the wire. The same is true of me. If I am impure in my ways of thinking then the criticism will cause me to want to resist the criticism and that will cause me either to heat up (get angry) or defend myself.

I get angry if I have resistance to words, ideas and concepts because of my unconsciousness (not remembering that words do not hurt people, it is the resistance to words that causes injury).

Jesus called himself one with God just as a lot of New Age people today say the same thing. But the difference is that Jesus had the courage to say that in front of people who he knew would not be able to accept or appreciate it. Jesus knew that the conservative people of the Jewish tradition would hate him for what he said.

The courage comes from his open heart. The root of the word courage is cor, which is Latin for heart. The dictionary defines courage as the mental or moral strength to venture, persevere or withstand danger, fear or difficulty.

When your heart is open and you care about people then you motivated out of that caring to serve them. This motivation drives you through your fears. Caring helps us transcend our fears.

Many traditions do not encourage this caring or heart. But Jesus was one who was exposed to other traditions because of his apparent travels so he became aware that caring about other people adds a lot of richness to ones life. So Jesus had the courage to confront those most needing of the light, the conservatives or those who conserve their love. Jesus shined his light by demonstrating his courage to be honest. He said that he was an equal to God. He was trying to say that God is here for us, not we for Him. He was also demonstrating how those in the dark were so conditioned to abuse themselves emotionally with anger that was just stimulated by words.

I have made it my personal goal in life to develop the courage to be honest. I want to be fully honest with not just my perceptions, concepts or ideas but also with my feelings. I want to be honest with my hurt and vulnerabilities.

Many times people would call me crazy, angry or mad. Yet, I did not feel angry. I remembered that they called Jesus mad too (John 10:20).

They would say that the things I said did not make sense compared to their experiences, and I would agree. I have to admit that what I talk about, that like can be perfect if we are open to it, does sound crazy particularly to people who see the whole world as ugly, bad, or evil.

History has shown that enlightened people have always been called crazy. The Siddhartha was called crazy by the conservatives of his time. We are able to enjoy (lighten up) when others can not.

But this is all rational explanations for what I am. The greater truth is that I do not hurt people. I just speak my truth.

People are going to judge me no matter what I do. I might as well get used to it. What I do not want to do is abuse myself when they do. So I took my power back and decided to not take offense at whatever they say.

Ok, to be honest, I DO take offense at what people say. What I want to do is have a way of looking at this that will empower me over the situation. So I realized that I take offense to awaken myself.

What is the value of taking offense. When I choose to take offense at something somebody says I are choosing to abuse myself. That may seem silly but it is not. Have you ever had your arm or leg go to sleep when you were watching TV or just reading? The first thing you do when you realize that your arm has gone asleep is to start slapping it around until you get some feeling in it again. Well we do the same emotionally when we have fallen asleep. So taking offense is our attempt to wake ourselves us.

If somebody says we are being stupid then we may 'slap' ourselves around emotionally (by being angry) until we can see where we were being stupid or where we were not being stupid but the person judging us was projecting their unconsciousness on us. Either way, we usually will take offense to wake ourselves us until we can see what the reality is.

I also want to feel appreciation so I choose to appreciate the person who offered me the words that I took offense with. I want to be grateful for them for waking me up or at least for caring enough to offer me the insight they did.

When confronted by someone I first look to see if they are trying to point out something that I am doing that is not healthy for me or working against what I am trying to do. Are they caring about me when they are confronting my behavior or are they just upset because who I am is outside the bounds of what is acceptable to them. If it is the latter then it is their own self abusive behavior that they are defending.

Wow, this feels so much better than feeling like a victim. I am now feeling confident enough with my ability to put myself in front of an audience that I want to expand my audience outside of the protected confines of Boulder, Colorado. AND, winter is coming and I do not want to be stuck here.