Calisthenics December 1983

Calisthenics December 1983 CHRISTMAS -- THE SNAKE AND THE BIRD ACTIVATION OF THE BRAIN THE NEW WAY GOES THE OTHER WAY AROUND FINER AND FINER PAIN RELAXING BEAUTY LOVR PRESENCE NOW TRANSPARENCY NO-THING THE RESULT IS ALWAYS DIFFERENT THAN WHAT YOU EXPECT IT - As always we begin with: Loving God Next week we have Christmas, and, as you know, Christmas is a celebration in honor of the Christ. It is also symbolic of the birth of Christ and of the birth of Christ in you. of course you want it to be real, so we will continue to practice today along the line of what we have already done. If you want to face Christ, and more than face, there are requirements. As we have seen, when you try to express your awareness of an experience, your consciousness is systematically inadequate, because experience is always whole and consciousness is only part of what is functioning. So you need another language. You need another awareness. The Symbol of the Snake and the Bird We can represent part of the symptomatic aspect of what is going on with a very old symbol. In Mexico there is the legend of the Aztec god, Quetzalcoatl, represented by means of the feathered or winged snake. The symbolism implies that the snake, who crawls on the ground in the shadows, must climb all the way to the top of the tree to where the bird has it's nest in the fullness of the sunshine. In the nest there is a transformation: the snake acquires feathers, becomes birdlike and can fly. You will notice, incidentally, that we use a symbol that is very close to this -- the spaceship (Þ ) and the greenhorn ( ) The symbol itself did not originate in Mexico. You also find it in Egypt and in China, some even think it came from Atlantis. You find it in the Bible in the story of Moses and the plague of snakes. You find it also in the story of the garden of paradise in which the snake offers a taste of the fruit of the tree of knowledge to Adam and Eve. Christian religion calls this the "temptation." Some interpret the snake as being symbolic of the fall of mankind, probably because of this story of paradise lost. You also find the symbol in the caduceus that the medical profession uses: twin climbing snakes with two wings at the top. The serpent stands for wisdom or knowledge, and also for the Lords of Mercury. If you have studied Theosophy, you know that the Lords of Venus helped mankind get started on earth, and at some point the Lords of Mercury began to take over. In a way the drama of paradise lost can be seen simply as the beginning of the influence of the Lords of Mercury on mankind. You can

understand it psychologically quite easily if you just imagine that with the first awareness, which was an emotional awareness, you came to a cerrtain fullness, then along came a new influence developing the mental awareness, and, as it is realized nowadays, the new tool allowed you to go a lot further than you could have with the emotional awareness only. But at that time, that action, that "temptation," could be seen as being a threat to the first condition which was called "paradise." In Christianity it is seen as a fall, in Eastern philosophy a new step. For the minds of today there is a simpler way of looking at things, that is, to see that there is the side of you that is the bird and the side that is the snake, and most of the difficulties you have is in the struggle between these two awarenesses. In the end, the snake must come to the top of the tree into the very birds nest in the full sunshine. As you know, the sun has always been a symbol of God. As long as the snake crawls on the earth, the bird is in another world. You can easily imagine this in your own experience. Let us say you are walking in a dense forest. You have the fullness of life in the shadow of the trees, the ground-level life. Now suppose you are young enough and you climb a high tree, just for the fun of it, and you emerge on top of the forest. You are no longer in it. Those who have experienced something like this will agree that the feeling is utterly different, and this is only a pale image of what really happens. There is another point I want to make: The mind as you know it, and I have to say "as you know it," is the mind of the snake crawling on the ground. It has to be lifted. Now that's a bold proposition, but it has to be done. As we have seen many times, you have a choice to make. In the present period of time in society, there is a very strong surge to keep you down. If you want to climb, everything possible is done to keep you down -- or you are told to go up and get the bird and bring it down. This is how most people understand it, but this is not the teaching. That aspect of you which has not fallen is the bird on the the top of the tree, and the snake must join the bird, become one with it and fly. The snake climbs toward it's very base, which is the bird, that part which has not fallen, that part which has not been separated from the sun or God. obviously, if you want to climb the tree, you have to have your attention higher, not on the ground. Unfortunately this is constantly forgotten. Then there are those who try to make analogies between the work that we do and other teachings. The climbing of the tree, for instance, can be seen as the climbing of the spine and the awakening of the chakras. This is an accepted symbol, but we do not go fully along with it, because we happen to be working the other way around. But we do not say that chakras are "wrong," rather, it is our experience that you have centers of awareness that are activated from the top of the head, all the way down. Now you might say this is the reverse of the tree. No, the chakras are the reverse. If you take the spine as symbolic of the tree, the spine originates in the head and branches off going down, and not the other way around. Some authors relate different phases of consciousness to the climbing. In occultism it is generally known that when you start awakening, along the usual way, you have the activation

of the oldest brain aspect in man, meaning that part of the brain that is related to the snake, which is related to instinct or what I call "sub-conscious" aspects. This is related with some of the powers acquired through the marshal arts, for instance, where you use the awareness that centers on the level of the abdomen to perform very astonishing things. Recently I read an article about this in which the author spoke of three different brains. The first he related to the snake, the second to lower mammals, and the third to higher mammals. He wrote that when higher influences touch the lowest brain, the snake's brain, there is a new energy brought to it, and this energy is related to sub-consciousness. In many people it awakens nature energies, and among others, the sex energies (and I am not speaking of natural sex urges, I mean more than that, an increase). And the rule is:you want the energy expressing on that level to raise (or climb the tree), so you don't follow the urges, you refrain. If you indulge, the instinctive side stays purely instinctive and doesn't make the step. Along that line this is one of the reasons that the rule of celibacy developed. This first step is one of the reasons we could give for why in pre-christ times, and even up to the present, teachers who accepted pupils put them to the test to see if they really wanted to work. Because if you activate these energies prematurely there is danger for some people, danger of falling lower instead of going higher. You have the story of the blacksmith who was a master and of the young man who wanted to work with him. The smith said, yes, you may work with me, but we will not speak for seven years. When they needed to communicate they wrote on a piece of paper and never spoke. So that poor guy had to endure the situation, and only after seven years did the smith start educating him. Meaning you have to have the stamina, the courage, to hold on and continue. And I try to show you that there are deep, deep implications. When the activation reaches the lower mammalian brain, your emotionality gets boosted, you become passionate in whatever you do, or the emotions of your childhood can come back. Another symptom that arises is that sometimes, when you live a kind of higher condition, you want to cry and you want to laugh, and, if you could, you would do it at the same time. Sometimes you do succeed in crying and laughing at the same time, not knowing why. This happens because that level of awareness becomes activated by something higher (the bird). The activation of the upper mammalian brain is usually associated with the mind. Here you can become trapped in your mind, indulging it and forgetting to raise it still higher to where all three merge and there is but one. I tell you these things to show you that stages of development along the usual way, at least as they have been up to now, have been quite well documented. It is simply that we have nearly no one in the groups who has been educated in this way and thus nearly no one can tell when a symptom pertains to a kind of classical processing or event. But, as I hinted, the new way is different -- it goes the other way around, and what I want to get more deeply into today is something that does not require words. Do you have questions?

Participant: I have a question. Why are we here on this planet? Martin: Well, some would say to have a good time. Participant: Well, I'm not having a very good time. Martin: If we take your question a little more seriously, we have seen lately that whatever you express is not your experience, a symptom of your experience, yes, but not the experience. Now when you ask, "why?" it is from the mind or for the mind. But the mind is not fit, so you receive, let us say, a psychological "why" or a theoretical "why," not what is. There are libraries full of books, and if you read them you might learn that you came to earth because you are supposed to evolve from a certain previous condition into a new one. Is it so? That is what is said, but your experience is different. So if we want to be very honest we cannot answer to a "why?" Second Participant: I remember a long time ago, when I first got acquainted with you, that was the first question I asked, and you said, at that time, that when I would understand why I asked the question I would have the answer. First Participant: Well I sort of do understand why I'm asking, I think. Martin: Do you have the answer? First Participant: No Martin: He said "understand" not "sort of understand," and that's the difference you know. I will give you some of the answer today, but not in the way of a "why." Third Participant: Is there any connection between the saying, "When two or more are gathered in my name, there I am also," and the components of mind, emotion, and sensory? For example, just wanting mentally to live the Christ isn't enough, you have to have at least the emotions or the sensory wanting that too? Martin: I would say that would be a very minor aspect, not a major one. I mean if you are consistent in your personal awareness, that consistency gives you a lot more power to act, but it does not mean Christ is present. Further questions? Living Finer and Finer Now, let's be a little more serious than the mind is usually. As you know, we are involved in an action headed by the Christ, and in this is an unstated implication. When you work with us as you do, you become prepared, in a way your consciousness does not fully understand, for the service of the Christ. Most of this preparation is done by what I call structuring. You cannot face Christ with your awareness in the condition it is in. Your awareness of Christ is an image to which you give life and feeling, meaning you make it alive through your own feelings and thoughts. But do you face Christ, honestly, do you? From

what I see, you don't. But this does not mean you cannot. The bird is able to face Christ. However, there are conditions,, and there is one on which I want to insist today. Your whole personal structure (physical, emotional, mental), all of it, has to learn to respond to a finer and finer and finer condition. The most ethereal condition. That very, very, very fine "whatever" that you somehow feel. As you live it you will begin to experience yourself more and more transparent. The finest condition is fully transparent. When you are fully transparent you can see Christ, and we can see Christ in you. This cannot be done by a trick of the mind, you have to live it. Now the theory is beautiful and your mind say, "Well, let's do it!" I have a warning. There are lots of implications, and some affect your style of life. If you, just for a moment, try to live the very finest and watch your brain activity, you will suddenly realize how tremendously coarse that activity is in relation to what you can really live. You are used to judging everything from that brain and just disregarding the finer aspects. Now we have seen in the groups that some if not many of you feel pain. When I am confronted with this problem I can always trace the pain to the presence of something beautiful, and the pain results simply because personality, and its consciousness, has not acknowledged it. Then you start living a terrible unease, an unease that can be expressed in terms of pain. So you try to shut out the pain by drinking, smoking, taking drugs -- you invent lots of devices -- but if the bird is not taken into account, you are going to continue to be in pain as long as you live, and possibly further than that. Pain is a reverse image. Your lack of awareness of the brain's reflecting action makes you miss an important point. Pain is a signal, a signal that has a meaning. If you believe it's just pain and you try to escape from it, you continue to crawl on the ground and you miss the signal. And the stronger the pain, the greater the urgency to understand the signal. Jesus said: "If you want to follow me, you have to give up everything and carry your own cross." So the first rule is to carry your cross. Be consistent with this. The less you try to escape, the more precisely you will come to the point -- meaning you won't have to begin again and again to put yourself in these situations. If they repeat constantly it simply means you haven't faced the reality of yourself -- you are putting images, or pretenses, or dreams in between. I know a few of you who have this situation precisely -- following an idealistic image instead of the actual situation. You have to learn to face the actual situation. Listen to the signal. What does it mean? What does it want from you? There is this signal you generate in the form of pain -- you do it. Not everyone in the same situation feels pain, so pain is a psychophysiological or psychosomatic signal you use to tell yourself something. It is because you are aware of the other condition, in our current symbol, the bird, that you feel pain. It's an alarm bell saying: "bird" "bird" "go toward the bird". If you drink, or smoke, or whatever you do to diminish the pain you forget the bird, and the pain becomes unconscious but it continues. It definitely does not stop, contrary to what you believe, it is something that nags you inside constantly. There is a constant unease until you listen to the message and you comply. The training is a very serious matter, and you can't take it too lightly.

So you learn to live finer, finer, finer, as fine as you can at the moment. In the next moment it will be still finer, until the other reality begins to show. You don't need to imagine it, it shows itself. You live it. You experience it. It's not a concept. If you do it steadily, then you will find that actually it is fairly easy. Of course, you cannot live the maximum of transparency right now, but you can definitely and easily begin. Then there will be Christ Presence and you will begin to understand what we do. You will then realize that it is perfectly real, according to your bird condition, not according to the condition of the crawling snake. You will begin to understand something else. I told you it affects your life very deeply and very concretely, I forgot to tell you that it implies relaxing more and more and more. Not just physical relaxation, all the known functions relax. If you live a finer and finer condition, you will notice that as soon as a known function starts moving, there is a tension. Immediately. So you relax completely. All doingness is gone. Transparent. Transparent. Transparent. Until you are fully relaxed and that other condition is just plain obvious and you begin to sense Christ. I don't even want to say Christ Presence because that's already an image. Even the word "Christ" is too much. But it's there. Where is there? All over the place. You begin to realize the meaning of contemplation. It's there in that temple which happens to be you. Then you realize that practices like smoking or drinking, or whatever you do to dull the pain, are the contrary of contemplation -- you damage the temple, and the temple has to be able to "vibrate" as fine as possible and then beyond that. Any practice that cuts this off stands in the way. It's very serious. When you really live that finer condition you can no longer allow yourself to do just any foolish thing in life. You're not alone. Christ is here. And maybe for the first time in your life you begin doing things for the sake of Christ instead of for your own sake. So let's practice. What we will do is play a piece of Chopin. During the play you live finer and finer and finer and finer, meaning you experience the condition more and more and more. You stay with it, in spite of your mind, in spite of your feelings, in spite of your sensations. These are not interesting. They generate tensions. So you relax, and you live that finer condition. Facing Christ. You do it for Him. If you face Christ you are not alone in this room. You happen to be a group, and not the only group. And Christ is not "somewhere," it's simply that you do not see. You are blind because you don't allow yourself to live finer and finer. Climbing the tree involves living finer and finer and finer -- or stronger and stronger and stronger in that fineness. Let's do it. (music) As you practice this you have to have the courage to let the most exquisite sensitiveness bloom. of course, it makes you vulnerable to everything, but that's not the point. And as you allow the most exquisite sensitiveness to bloom in that condition which some people call ethereal very,, very, very fine -- you will begin to realize why the teaching of the hologram says: "When the Pilot dwells in the All-Encompassing Beauty..." You will experience it. It's really Beauty. Do you have questions from your experience just now?

Participant: As I look around this room now, and as I was watching up there where you are speaking, I experienced that Beauty you were speaking of. I was also aware of a level of coarseness I can't get through, yet as I would scan my body, mind, emotions, I couldn't find anything that I have an awareness of to let go of. Yet I still have that feeling of coarseness. Martin: Now we have, let us say, a classical situation. He has that feeling of coarseness. I am sure he is not the only one. So there is that awareness of coarseness. Now listen to the signal. The awareness of coarseness is possible only because there is the other awareness which is not the coarseness. I am always struck by how you inflict an awfully hard time on yourselves simply because you don't hear me when I say that the consciousness reflects. if you had heard you would realize that in this reflection there is implicit the living of another condition. So what to do with the coarseness? Nothing. it's not what is of interest to you. It's not the coarse material that is going to refine "you." Having just proven to yourself that you live the other condition, face it, be consistent with it, assume it. There is another point: Loving God. I wonder if you have an inkling of what is happening when you allow that finest of fine quality to live? You begin to experience a condition that is so basic, so natural, so spontaneous, that there is no movement of you loving God -- everything is Loving. And as I say everything, you suddenly realize that as "You," whatever that means, Love God, you sense all the cells of all the bodies doing the same. It's a huge choir of Love. In the time of Jesus, it was very customary for children to love their parents. So God was called the Father, Jesus was called the Son, and there was that closeness of relationship. God created man in His image and likeness. There is that same relation now and you find it again. That loving, very close relationship, that spontaneous Love that you discover already functioning -- provided you can relax and allow that exquisite sensitiveness to bloom. If we take that expression of coarseness, there is a sensitiveness implied when he lives another condition. So you stay with living that condition, and you continue and continue. And when it looks as if it's impossible to continue you still go on with Loving God -- because "the impossible" is on the level of that coarseness he spoke of, it does not exist on the implied level. You might also realize that when you begin to get into that close relationship it implies huge responsibilities, and, as I said before, you can no longer fool around with your life -- you are too closely related. And that Presence has to be there all the time. When you relate to other people you see Christ in them. Not the Christ of your imagination -- like some people say they see God everywhere, in the flowers, in the room, in the people... No. We are dealing with reality here, you actually experience it. When D speaks to me you hear D-- I see the other one, and I relate to the other one. Seeing the other one is just plain evident. He lives the other condition, and because of that he sees the coarseness. It's quite natural, there's nothing special to it. Of course, I had to train my consciousness to stay quiet and live something else. The other day someone asked me if I had lived all the experiences that are quoted in the book. Honestly, yes. I never give an exercise I have not tested myself. Never. I say this just to give you an idea that you are not the only ones who have to work. It took me years to make a keen

difference between the reflective and direct awareness and to awaken the direct one that was dormant. There is an awareness that acknowledges the bird aspect that I see in all of you. It's not that it is potentially there, it is there. Forget about potential. When you live that ~finer and finer condition in front of Christ, something begins to show. The so-called "other" reality begins to be just plain here. And slowly the dichotomy fades and the gap disappears. Relative to that exquisite sensitiveness, or that exquisite transparency which goes with it: You all can live it, but the range of response of it is so much bigger than what you know as awareness that you experience awareness as being very small. D said "coarse," yes, we could nearly say primitive. It's a very small thing, terribly off the tract relative to reality. In that exquisiteness you begin to live in the now. All the images you have of what you imagined the teachings were, what the symbols were, what the abstractions were, what your mind concocted, what your desires concocted, all of these are so small. There is that other reality that is not really "other," right here within your own structure. When you allow Loving God to really live, you discover that the movement of it becomes tangible, and I do mean tangible. It's sensory, not just a mind image. The transparency is so great that the sense of body you have now is gone, completely gone, and still that reality is tangible. You begin to realize that all of consciousness, as you know it, is what the Hindu's called maya (illusion). All of it. It's hard to swallow. As long as you are content with those usual senses, the world is really as seen, but when you allow another range of awareness that implies that exquisiteness to live, you begin to realize why some others choose words like "dynamics of the whole." It is All-Encompassing, something your mind cannot grasp. You actually do live the teaching of the hologram: When the Pilot dwells in the All-Encompassingness He is said to be the Seer. When the Pilot dwells in the All-Encompassing Love He is said to be the Knower. When the Pilot dwells in the All-Encompassing Beauty He is said to be the Doer, or the Creator. It's real, but the snake has to listen to the bird if it wants to climb the tree. So we'll play another piece of music. Allow yourself to live that same exquisiteness, in spite of the coarseness you are used to. It doesn't matter, it won't prevent you from living, because there is a bird aspect in you that knows the other condition. It's not a condition you create, simply allow yourself to live. This is why I tell you to relax, it keeps the coarseness down. Do this facing the Christ in that Loving condition, that natural closeness. If you have the slightest movement in you to love God, forget it. If you do it because Martin says so, it's even worse,

forget it. We are speaking of a most natural and spontaneous condition -- so spontaneous that your awareness registers the natural movement all around, from all the structure involved in what is you as a being. There is that Love. Not a love toward. There is that Love, and you allow it to live. In front of Christ. Christ. No image. Nothing. Those who have a bit more training, be aware of the presence of Christ. It's just plain evident. Don't look as you would at someone, it's not a someone. It's not a product of your imagination. But you do not face Christ unless you allow the most exquisite transparency to be and live in that condition. Less than that and you will always have a Christ that is a product of your imagination. Even if Christ is here, your image will make a veil. okay, let's go. (music) I have a recommendation for two of you. When you face Christ the tendency of consciousness is to address something in front of you. That's the image of the consciousness. The experience is not that. The experience is something that is kind of distorting for consciousness because you don't know where to focus. The closeness is so great that when you say "in front" it's not that. when you say "in me" it's not that either. It's none of these modes. Live it blank. Just face. Which implies in and out, yes, but not under the terms "in" and "out." It's closer than that. It's not "me" either. It's not that awareness. It doesn't work that way. What you really live is different from these modes. Learn to live it without the usual references. When there is that Loving condition all over, you don't need specific words. The Loving condition is what you live, not the discrimination or abstractions of the mind. You have to remember that the frequencies of Life are much higher than consciousness -- so consciousness is definitely not an adequate tool. In the Bible it says: "Go into the secret chamber of your heart." There are many interpretations of this, but for right now, understand that it is secret, something that the consciousness does not know. If you really do this, you will be faced with another situation. Christ said: "I will make all things new." When the gap is bridged, there are no tools, no snake, no bird. The symbol is good only as long as the gap is not bridged. But as you allow yourself to live that exquisite transparency you will very quickly realize you are not the ego you believed you were, and you will be amazed at how smoothly the transition comes, how natural it is. There is one point I want to make for your peace of mind. Contrary to many trainings where you know what you obtain, when you practice here, the result is always different from what you expect -- usually, as far as average goes$, it is less concrete, more abstract than you expect. But then it is also a lot richer than you expect. You get used to it, until finally it makes perfect sense and is perfectly logical. If you ask the mind of today to anticipate what will be in ten days, it can

anticipate to some extent, but not fully. There is a life in ten days that isn't here today, but the consciousness has a tendency to project the now (and the theory) into the future. When the time comes, you face reality, not theory, and reality is very different. Also, it could be said that the way we go is one of the most difficult. (Actually, "difficult" is only a point of view. It only seems difficult because you are surrounded by people who are looking for goodies). It's the middle way. We don't look for goodies either on the spirit side or the material side. We are linked to the Christ, and whatever we do we do for the Christ. The point is not to gain abilities or powers. If your function requires an ability, it will come naturally, but if it does not, you can skip it. Christ is doing something for mankind on earth, and not only for the earth. If you are in the service of the Christ you ought to know what is going on and act accordingly. This you cannot do unless you relate to the Christ. You are not the center of the action, as you are in the egoic consciousness. When you do relate to Christ, the sense of "you" undergoes a big change. When you begin to live that exquisite transparency and the Beauty involved, you will no longer proceed in the usual way. You will change and change deeply. If you do not come out as what you are, what you do will not be valid. It might be encouraging, it might be better, it might be this, or it might be that, but it will not be it. If you come here to get something, you have the snake/bird dichotomy. The snake aspect comes here expecting something, but the bird is here as well. We work with the bird, or, if you want, we work with you as a whole, not separated. The fact that you keep coming means the bird is getting fit to fly for Christ. Suppose you begin to realize that this is precisely why you are here, do you have an inkling of the power of the Christ Presence that would be here? Instead of just two here consciously in the name of Christ, there would be a whole group. You would discover your reason to be here -- and not only here, but your reason for being on earth. You know it's funny to see that you do begin to realize that why we are here is for real. But be careful. The snake sometimes has a tendency to say: "I'll never live like the bird." You cannot discard the bird. If you are terribly ill at ease with yourself, allow yourself to live that exquisite transparency, the finest sensitiveness you can live, until you really begin to realize what transparency means. It's tangible, very tangible, in it's own way. Finally, I would like to encourage you to realize that you can work the other way around -- in spite of your consciousness. When you truly Love and you center on Christ you will spontaneously experience a condition that is finer and finer and finer. Then you come into that condition where the whole of you, including the entire body aspect lives so transparent that the true Love within the body comes forth -- the true Love that pertains to Life itself. But for that you have to have the courage to really Love -- 41 whatever it costs. The longer you stay in that Love the more transparent you will be. And it's not an "item," it's an experience. You experience utter transparency, until it dawns in you that there is a structure that is directly related to Christ and this becomes more and more obvious. So we are going to play a last piece of music, the flute of Zamfir, which will allow you to soar to your hearts' content. Just face Christ in that exquisite transparency. Allow the exquisiteness to live, to bloom. Let the coarser aspects just relax.

As you practice this you will notice that when your attention acknowledges that you have relaxed, you are not relaxed -- better than usual possibly, but not yet fully relaxed. You will notice that as you allow the fuller sensitiveness to live, to bloom, you will be aware of modes of tensions you were not aware of before. And, I repeat, it's physical, it's emotional, it's mental, it's sensory, even intuitive. You will find tension in all these places, and you just relax. Now, let's let that whole Life move with the music. You are not in a static position. It's extremely dynamic and extremely beautiful. (music)