{"id":10546,"date":"2014-01-22T15:25:20","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T23:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/?p=10546"},"modified":"2016-06-07T14:57:27","modified_gmt":"2016-06-07T21:57:27","slug":"teach-me-to-understand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/archives\/10546-teach-me-to-understand","title":{"rendered":"Teach Me To Understand"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally published in Movement Newspaper May 1980 Vol.\u00a0 V Iss 5<\/em><\/p>\n

People say to me, “Teach me to understand.\u201d\u00a0 And I tell them, “Understand the teachings.”\u00a0 They ask, “How do I do that?\u201d\u00a0 The answer is: understand the teachings the best way you can, at anytime, wherever you find yourself.\u00a0 The way you understand the teachings is to apply yourself to that understanding.\u00a0 To do this, you may find that you have to wake up from your sleep.\u00a0 You see, even though you may be walking around physically, you may be sleeping.\u00a0 So, wake up from that sleep, that trance, your self-hypnosis, and your unconsciousness.<\/p>\n

Often when you are with people, and the focus of the group is to awaken spiritually to the greater reality, you will hear something said that will spark something inside of you.\u00a0 At this time you may feel the pressure of your heart inside of you, moving, opening, stretching …\u00a0 and you feel the energy of Spirit moving inside of you.\u00a0 That energy often feels unfamiliar and sometimes uncomfortable in its quality of bursting free of previous limitations.\u00a0 And so, out of nervousness, you may seek to disperse that energy, to dissipate it so that you can return to the more familiar sensations.\u00a0 You can dissipate the energy by talking, moving, shouting, sex, eating, drinking, and drugs.\u00a0 Know that when you involve yourself in these distractions, you are choosing that rather than sitting with the energy of Spirit and experiencing it as it is.<\/p>\n

Far too often, I see people who are right on the apex of insight talk themselves right out of it, out of nervousness.\u00a0 When you are experiencing that energy that is the Spirit moving inside of you, experience that to its fullest extent.\u00a0 Don’t talk about it.\u00a0 Don’t distract yourself from it, even if it’s uncomfortable for you.\u00a0 When you feel that awakening inside, go for it.\u00a0 You don’t have to have words for it.\u00a0 You don’t have to identify it.\u00a0 You don’t have to know what it is.\u00a0 You don’t have to know what you are feeling about it.\u00a0 Just let it reveal itself to you, without any preconceived notions about whether it is good or bad or anything.<\/p>\n

Far too often, you want to KNOW way ahead of time what your experience will be.\u00a0 You don’t have to KNOW; you can just be present with your reality and let it occur in its own timing.\u00a0 Sometimes when people are going to hear me speak, they will say to a friend, “I’m going to hear John-Roger talk.”<\/p>\n

The friend says, “What’s he going to talk about?”<\/p>\n

“I don’t know.”<\/p>\n

“Then why are you going to go?”<\/p>\n

“I’m going to go and find out what he’s going to talk about.”<\/p>\n

“If you don’t know what he’s going to talk about, I don’t see why you go.”<\/p>\n

If you look at that conversation from another point of view, you might wonder why anyone would listen to me talk if they did know what I was going to talk about.\u00a0 If you already KNOW something, you don’t need to hear it again.\u00a0 Often in seminars, I will talk about things that you already know but have forgotten or pushed aside in some way so that they are no longer present for you in your life.\u00a0 But the moment those things are explained to you, you say, “I knew that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Often I explain what is presently happening at the time the seminar is given.\u00a0 And since you are experiencing the same moment of reality that I am, when I explain what is happening, you recognize that reality within yourself, and you catch the truth of my words.\u00a0 Now you can go out later and with your mind doubt what I said.\u00a0 Through this you may attempt to validate it by doubting it — and that’s a backwards approach.\u00a0 You don’t validate very many things by doubting them.\u00a0 You destroy them by doubting them.\u00a0 You may say, “But I want to test it.\u201d\u00a0 Who are you to test?\u00a0 You may not have passed a test in a long time.\u00a0 You say, “Well, I want to evaluate it.\u201d\u00a0 With what?\u00a0 What tools do you have for evaluation?\u00a0 Do you know?\u00a0 Maybe you just want to judge it.\u00a0 That’s easy.\u00a0 It doesn’t require any tools.\u00a0 You can just say, \u201cTHAT’S NO GOOD!”<\/p>\n

If something is no good, how can it be present?\u00a0 If it is present, how can it not be good?\u00a0 In the Scriptures it says that there was darkness, and then God created heaven and earth, and when He was through, He looked down and said that it was good.\u00a0 If God says that it is good – all creation is good – how are you able to look at any part of that and say that it’s bad?<\/p>\n

Perhaps you say that you never heard it was good.\u00a0 And perhaps you are always so busy in your mind, with your opinions, and your judgments, that you never give yourself a chance to listen to God’s voice.\u00a0 Yet you say, “When God tells me, I’ll listen.”<\/p>\n

Try quieting and attuning yourself to the place inside where God is speaking.<\/p>\n

“Where is that?”<\/p>\n

Inside of you.<\/p>\n

“It’s my mind; it won’t leave me alone.”<\/p>\n

Why don’t you leave it alone?<\/p>\n

“You mean, I can leave my mind alone?”<\/p>\n

It’s yours; you can leave it alone.<\/p>\n

“It’s mine!?”<\/p>\n

Yeah.<\/p>\n

“It’s my anxiety.\u00a0 I just can’t get past my anxieties.”<\/p>\n

It’s your mind that creates your anxieties.<\/p>\n

“Well, that\u2019 just the way I feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

You choose those feelings.<\/p>\n

You can feel anything you want to.\u00a0 Why feel that?<\/p>\n

“You mean I’m choosing all this?”<\/p>\n

Right!<\/p>\n

”I’m doing this?”<\/p>\n

Right!<\/p>\n

“By myself?”<\/p>\n

No.<\/p>\n

“Thank God! Who can I blame?”<\/p>\n

Why blame anyone?\u00a0 Why make it wrong?\u00a0 Why not say you don’t know what’s going on?<\/p>\n

“I have to KNOW.\u00a0 How can I say I don’t know?\u00a0 What will people think?”<\/p>\n

Try it and see.<\/p>\n

“Okay, I don’t know …\u00a0 Nothing happened.”<\/p>\n

Right.<\/p>\n

“You mean, it’s okay not to know?”<\/p>\n

Often it’s healthy not to know.<\/p>\n

“What if I feel like I have to know.”<\/p>\n

It’s called PARANOID.<\/p>\n

Paranoid is caring too much, far too much.\u00a0 Those who are expressing paranoid are caring too much what other people are thinking, what they are doing, what feelings they are having, caring that they may “get me”, caring that they are wondering what is going on, etc.\u00a0 Eventually if you are expressing paranoia, you may start thinking that people are out to get you, and that’s bad news.\u00a0 Or maybe the bad news is that they aren’t out to get you; they don’t even know you exist.<\/p>\n

Part of the paranoid pattern that you create in your life is “editing\u201d what you tell people, in an attempt to control and manipulate their thoughts toward you.\u00a0 Instead of just living in the present moment and loving your life, you attempt to \u201corchestrate\u201d\u00a0 your life.\u00a0 You deceive people, consciously and purposely.\u00a0 You don’t tell them all of the truth.\u00a0 And then you want them to function as if it were all of the truth.\u00a0 You tell them just so much, but not the whole picture.\u00a0 And you justify that by thinking that you are saving yourself the “hassle\u201d of having to deal with their reactions to the whole truth.\u00a0 That’s judgment, my friends.\u00a0 However you look at it, it’s judgment.<\/p>\n

If you tell them the whole truth and they \u201chassle\u201d you, guess what?\u00a0 You’ll build strength.\u00a0 And you’ll build trust.\u00a0 You will trust yourself more and they will trust you more.\u00a0 Sometimes you may turn away from the truth or the full truth because you are not sure that you can handle the end result.\u00a0 But the end result will be the end result, and you will be able to handle that the same way you handle your life today.\u00a0 Sometimes you handle things okay and sometimes not so okay.\u00a0 And you’re here.\u00a0 Sometimes, in my various lives, I’ve handled situations by crawling on my knees through dirt and garbage.\u00a0 And sometimes I’ve handled my lives magnificently.\u00a0 And I’m here.\u00a0 Sure, I could look back and make it all wrong, and I’m here.\u00a0 Or I can look back on it and make it all magnificent, and I’m here.\u00a0 And it was neither wrong, nor magnificent.\u00a0 There may be things that I wouldn’t want to do again, and I would be willing to repeat any of it, if that was the thing to do.<\/p>\n

As soon as you can just do the things that are present with you, the things that are there for you to do – and not do anything as a thought or a feeling, or with any consideration or concern of what you might get out of it, or what you deserve or what the neighbors might think – then you are beginning to live in the freedom of your own consciousness.<\/p>\n

When you can live your life in the moment that it happens, not looking for anything in particular to take place, just being open to the present, you are living in Spirit; and you will find yourself experiencing so much joy and so much freedom.<\/p>\n

In that moment of NOW, you begin to know yourself and that is the beginning of your knowledge of God.<\/p>\n

John-Roger, DSS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published in Movement Newspaper May 1980 Vol.\u00a0 V Iss 5 People say to me, “Teach me to understand.\u201d\u00a0 And I tell them, “Understand the teachings.”\u00a0 They ask, “How do I do that?\u201d\u00a0 The answer is: understand the teachings the best way you can, at anytime, wherever you find yourself.\u00a0 The way you understand the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[260,257,159],"tags":[84,89],"class_list":["post-10546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-john-rogers-current-story","category-ndh-archives","category-soul-transcendence","tag-dr-john-roger","tag-msia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10546\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.msia.org\/newdayherald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}