S7/E06: THEDOG Classes with Russell A. Smith - "Election Impartiality - All Sides Considered"
Published October 24th, 2024
THEDOG Classes with Russell A. Smith - "Election Impartiality - All Sides Considered"
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Podcast Transcript
Welcome to a series of podcasts based upon the teachings of Russell A. Smith, a man who discovered an objective and accelerated way to awaken higher consciousness, the seats of conscience, pure reason and impartiality. Russell’s work expands upon the Fourth Way teachings of George I. Gurdjieff, and deciphers much of what Gurdjieff left behind.
In this episode, we play extracts of Russell teaching his classes, where we specifically focus upon the subject of elections, where students are discussing their innate biases with regard to choosing sides or opposing them, and where Russell is describing how we are affected by the tales of others, and how to stay impartial, and act with Reason, and why that matters.
These recordings were made during the last elections in 2020, and reference information from that time. Real names of politicians are mentioned, as well as fictitious examples. There is no intention to take one side or another, but more importantly to be free to see for ourselves the world as it is, not as we are told it is. A number of comments were made by students against a specific candidate, and Russell responded on how to remain impartial to all subjective views. It was not to take sides, nor to defend, but to find ways to remain impartial and unaffected by opinions.
This podcast emphasizes the meaning of a number of Gurdjieff aphorisms and Russell A. Smith DOG Tales:
Aphorism 1 - Like what “it” does not like.
Aphorism 5 - Remember you come here having already understood the necessity of struggling with yourself – only with yourself. Therefore thank everyone who gives you the opportunity.
Aphorism 17. Don’t judge a man by the tales of others.
DOG Tale 52 - Freedom…is a whole stick.
DOG Tale 80. Sacred cows function best if fed – or slaughtered.
DOG Tale 83. What a man sees when he looks at the world around him says more about the man than it does about the world…
It is worth observing that seeking comfort in your inner world by wishing for certain outcomes in life is not a path to personal freedom. Instead, it makes you dependent on the material outer world. While your wishes and actions might influence this world, they won't fundamentally change you. This Work focuses on personal liberation and growth, not global transformation. We often concern and upset ourselves with grand-scale issues while overlooking what's immediately within our reach to change … our attitudes, beliefs and reactions.
The outer world will naturally shift as we evolve and develop our inner world. Our essence draws in the life we experience. To impact the world, we must first transform our being. This can only be achieved by confronting our internal falsehoods, trivial wants, fears, and inherent prejudices.
We begin with a student talking about how they perceive a particular political candidate in a negative way, without actually knowing them.
Well, we have to start with where we take in our information. I watch a lot of different things on my pages on my computer and things on TV. And I can draw a model of totally different stuff. How do you want it? Black employment is the lowest it's ever been in history. That don't sound too bad. Spanish American unemployment is the lowest it's ever been in history. That sounds pretty good. Women's unemployment is the lowest it's been in 66 years. That don't sound too bad. The jobs of people that are getting unemployment pay is the lowest it's ever been, or since 44 years. That don't sound too bad. That sounds pretty decent. GDP has went from 1% and it will probably hit 5%. Every GDP points were 7 trillion to our economy. That covers our debt. That don't sound too bad. A rogue nation was threatening missiles and shooting off stuff every couple days. All of a sudden it's not shooting off stuff over the many, many months. And they had captives in their country of our people, and they gave them up and we didn't have to pay any money. That don't sound very bad. I could go on and on and you need more?
The student stated that they believe they have a good view of how people see Donald Trump.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that. I didn't say Trump did. I said African-American unemployment was the lowest ever. I didn't say Trump. I'm looking at the level of African-American unemployment. Is it good that it's the lowest it's ever been or not? Yes or no?
The answer was yes
That's pretty good then, right? All the things I mentioned had, I didn't say Trump at all. I talked about a series of results. I didn't try and paint it as that was Trump, but he's the guy in charge and these things are happening. I guess he'd get some credit for cutting regulations, or passing tax law, or people he's appointed, or his policy seemed to be working. But I'm not in support of that. I'm just looking at the facts, the data. I mean, here's the target and there's 27 things in the bullseye. Well, that's pretty good ain’t it? I mean, you just look at, become results oriented and set up somebody that says, well, he didn't clean his gun. Okay.
Everybody else attacks a man and I look at results, and results are, I guess people could attack me. You know, people could say, hey, half his face don't work and therefore it's hard to hear him. We can't believe that guy. I guess you better not study with me either because all that must be true. Because yeah, I'm loud and obnoxious and demanding and trying to get people to do the right thing. And I have exercises and ways of doing things. They get damn results.
Yeah, but you're from Ohio. Okay. You're a Methodist and they don't like Methodists. Okay, there's always going to be people to want to paint the flaw, especially if they don't like the person. And part of the reason people don't like the person is because he won an election from the person that they wanted to win. And had nothing to do with the man himself. He just happens to be the guy that beat somebody. And is he a bully? Of course, he's a bully. He's a contractor, dude. And he's a billionaire. You know, he only works for a dollar a year as the president of the United States. That's what we pay him to be the president, a buck.
The guy says, I'll do it for a buck. Because I know how to deal with people. I have to deal with contractors. I know how to deal with, you know, just people that I need to build a house. I get it done ahead of time. We got skating rinks in New York that have been sitting there under contract for six years trying to get finished and hardly anything's done. And finally, I have to say, okay, I'll take over the job. And within six months, the damn thing started and finished. I know how to do these things. I know how to read people, talk to people. Okay, I'm crass. I'm obnoxious. I speak my mind. But maybe that's not a bad thing. Maybe to have somebody that, you know, tells it like he sees it. Okay, maybe use some different words so that somebody might not have been offended because somebody could take offense to that. Oh, my God, they're putting people in cages. What were they ever doing that for many, many years?
Every president has done that that has enforced the laws. Somebody breaks the law. You got to take away and separate it from their kids. And I guess that some people think that we'd be better to put the adults in a holding facility with their kid with a bunch of other people so the kid could be maybe abused or, you know, messed up by some adults.
But any argument that's used, the reason has got the ability to see the other color associated with that, the total opposite of that. And you go, wait a minute. This one can't influence me because this one will nullify it. So, you know, give me a bad thing that you want to say and I'll give you a good one.
It is important to remember Aphorism 5, The worse the conditions of life the more productive the work, always provided you remember the work, DOG Tale 52, Freedom … is a whole stick, and finally Aphorism 1, Like what “it” does not like, so that with all these in mind we can work against ourselves and ultimately be impartial and free of personal bias and prejudice.
An observation was made by one student that we ought to focus on results and take people’s personality out of it.
That's it. I mean, if I was in a fight, I would want a guy next to me that was strong, that had muscles in the out of box. And if somebody said, I love Trump, I can give them reasons to not. It's not about a side. It's about not being influenced by a side. And so what do I need to focus on? Do I need the big guy, the bully, protecting my country? That's correct. I need a guy that said, wait a minute, we're paying X amount when we have to send you this stuff and you're paying only Y. We're paying more. That shouldn't be the way it is. I want a guy to stand up and do that. I really do. That would be fair. Sounds good to me. I have to do this. Sounds good to me. I can find good in that. I can find good in everything.
Now, if he starts to pull out guns and shoot people in the head, I probably will take offense to that. But bar those kind of manifestations, what a man says, just words, how a man acts, what he does, the results of his actions. I might say, I can look by a look past a crash word because if he's said to somebody, either you get rid of your nuclear weapons or we're going to blow your country to hell, that's the kind of talk it takes to make them get rid of their nuclear weapons. That's a good model and nobody else has been able to do that. Sometimes you need a bully. Sometimes you need a negotiator. And for somebody who built buildings and did all the shh he's done in his empire, had to learn how to manipulate, talk to people, get his way, get things done, get people on his team, get people excited. And I certainly remember back in the day when he was an actor at a show, and boy, there's just people that raved about him and talked how wonderful, he was. Everything was great and dandy. And then of course when he runs for president and gets elected, now those same people because they're of a different party, now he's evil and bad. Oh my God, how could that be?
So, things change because people have their own models. I want to get past the models. I want to either, you know, concentrate on if it was a piece of memory work, whether he got a word for word, or if it was something that said he understood the context of that memory work, whether the way he portrays his actions indicate that he's manifesting from that context, even though he doesn't use the exact same words.
So, freedom is only because I can create in myself a place on which to stand that only looks at the good.
And it was surprising, when the guy went to the other party, he found that, oh my God, they were really good. When I really got involved and looked at it that way and took all that data and didn't insert myself with this other data, I could change myself. And once we change ourselves, then it's okay. We won't be influenced by what people do and what they don't do. It really will be just a result oriented, you know, at the end of the tax season there's more money and there's more people working and there's less unemployment. And I don't care if the guy walks around to a brutal, brutal, brutal deal. If that's the result, good on you.
A student then remarked upon not feeling right about what they see in a particular candidate, thinking that if the person is not working on themselves then they must be doing something wrong, and that their behavior and actions seem wrong.
Yeah, well, anytime you look at something from one place, you always see something wrong in another.
The same argument or the same data could be said for another party that they are after their own aggrandizement, that they really don't care about this. That for San Francisco, a bunch of big conventions have recently canceled because they're afraid to walk down the streets of San Francisco because of all the drug users in ten cities, and unemployed, and their sanctuary city policies. Wow, wow. And then somebody will say, well, they're really good. And so you get people giving you a different data.
But if you actually look at what's going on and find some objective data, you go, I didn't know that about that. And that's not too good. I wish that was different.
Wow. So, here's my model. I am an attorney, and I get selected by the judge to either defend this side or defend that side. And my aim is to be an impartial attorney. I'm there to defend my client. So, if I'm on this side, I'm going to tell you how good the Democrats are, how bad the Republicans are. But if the judge says go over to that table over there and defend them, then I want to be the best damn attorney they ever had, and I want to have all the data that defends that side and condemns this side. And only then will I be maybe able to become the judge because I can really be impartial and am not swayed to think, yeah, but that side's really the bad one, so it's really hard for me to try to take this side because I know deep down in my heart that they're really the evil ones. See, I'm screwed unless I can even remove that bias from myself.
A comment was then made that regardless of how biased one seems to be, that there must be only one truth. There must be something called rightness that exists, that is a part of everything, rather than inhumanity of man to man which is what is being witnessed in the world right now, and seemingly from certain politicians.
Ah indeed. Now, I think the bottom line is the fact that we're just impressionable. We believe in stuff. We believe in any old tale. If I say to you cherry pies are better than apple pie, apple pie is horrible. Cherry pie is better than apple pie. Apple pie is just the scum of the earth. Cherry pie is really good. It's the best and apple pie just really sucks. If I tell you that to you over and over again sooner or later, you're going to believe me. You're going to believe cherry pie because that's what you've always been told was better than this apple. And that sourness that you taste when you eat that apple, that'll just confirm it. But the sourness you might taste if you cherry, that's how cherry is supposed to taste. And you will then take on the model that you've been told. Whatever that model is, you will be, in fact, if I said cherry pie is better than apple pie and you started to believe it, you would believe it without even trying apple pie.
Now, this guy, Donald Trump, I never met him. Most of these guys in Congress, I never met. I haven't sat down with him and watched him in their home, watched how they treat their kid, watched if they pet their dog, watch how they answer the phone, watch how they treat the servants, watch how they do this, to get a real feel of a human being and his normal environment. I just see what everybody else gives me data on. I haven't verified it in this data. I don't know that there's unemployment from blacks, really is the lowest it's ever been, but I know a world that if we live in it and if it wasn't, then there would be everybody else and their brother saying, nope, that's not what the data shows, but nobody argues with that data.
So, there's a good chance this data might be true. And then I got this data, and nobody argues with that, that might be true. And then you have one or two guys that try to turn it into a different model, but it's not argued against like it would be scientifically, if I said, you mix this chemical in that chemical, you get gold, the scientific grow would be quick to jump on and say, nope, nope, that's not the result.
So, all right, I never met him these guys. So where do I get my data from this guy over here? Where does he get this data? Because he likes to make it that way. He wants to make it this way. I don't want to live in a world. I'm sorry, where just the other day, yesterday, actually, a 16-year-old kid went into a water burger to eat. And he was wearing one of them red and Make America Great Again hats. And some guy came over and stole this hat and threw a cup of soda in his face. I don't want to live in a world like that. Where whatever the belief structure you have, it excites you to riot.
Now, I've been around this world 70 some years, and if I look at all those moments, it's pretty much just from my observation, it seems to be that that would be correct, that there's not many people from this party throwing water in people's face. But there's a lot of people from that party throwing water in people. I don't want to be a part of that.
But I understand everybody is skewed by the data they've taken in and the culture they live in. And if they live in the Jabungi tribe, then the Hooba tribe’s the bad guys. And everything is said as a Hooba tribe, bad guy, their fault. It's their fault. It didn't rain. It's a Hooba guy tribe's fault. And everything gets blamed on them. And pretty soon, if you grow up in that Yavani tribe, you start to believe this Hooba tribe. It's the worst thing that ever happened in the world. They should all be killed. And they should, they're all racist. And they're all Nazis. And they're all no good. Because that's the things we're told.
So, I got to stand bigger than that. And say, I never met these people. I don't know. So, I got to really be careful of whatever data or who the person I listen to that gives me my data.
At least in the medical field, if I get some diagnosis from a doctor, I might have good sense to say, I got to get another opinion. And look for somebody that says, hey, that pill won't really help. That'll just make your hair fall out. And you'll just think of something. So, you know, I just have to be wary of that.
So, I know that some people, because of where they live, and the way they grow up, have a propensity to a certain way of receiving the world, based on the, as the twig was bent, the trees inclined. And it's going to be a while, or maybe never, that their tree finally loses its incline and grows straight, and is not, you know, leaning to one side or the other. But the only way to overcome that, I found, is just get different data. Look for real data.
I think of many, many things in my life outside of politics, where I had a belief structure on how they really were. And then I really looked around and got the data and verified it from many sources to where I was sure it was the right data. And then I said, oh, things are really this. It's because of this that's happening. It's not happening because of this, it's happening because of this over here. And then I could become impartial to it, or at least could maneuver.
Then there's no right, there's no, you said something which is true. All conscious men would sense on things right. But a lot of things can't be right. There's no ideal right.
In other words, what temperature do you like it to be in your house? You might say 75. This guy might say 68, which one's right? So, we have a two-party system that says, we have to set the national temperature, and so we'll vote. And a lot of people said they wanted a 68, and a bunch of them said they wanted a 75, and okay, the 75's win. Then the people that liked it at 68 are going to cry and scream, because it's at 75 instead of 68. And if we would have set it at 68, then a bunch of the 75-likers would cry and scream because it wasn't.
So, there's no right and wrong in many things, but it's going to be within these parameters. Probably none of us would have said we like it 32, or we like it 200. So there would be some scale of moderating how it should be.
So, what do we need to do? How do we need to treat the world? How do we need to treat our neighbor? How do we need to handle major policy, within a certain framework? And as long as somebody's getting that done, and I've seen a lot of presidents in my lifetime, and a lot of them didn't get a lot done, and they thought, oh my God, they talked a great soliloquy of stuff, but nothing ever happened. Things got worse and worse.
But God, I'll look back when I was a little kid, the world was different back then. It really was. Oh my God, what happened? Who's responsible for all this happening, all these ideologies coming in the way they are?
Let me find the data. God, I just heard today that Facebook, I don't have them, but I know what they are. Somebody had posted the Declaration of Independence on one of their pages and Facebook had it taken down because it was hate speech.
An observation was made that all of this is really about right data, and where they are sensing the only real data they are getting in a world of subjective bias, is from an objective teaching.
My teaching is always available to the students of the dog, whether it's any good or not, that's up for their reason to determine. They get results with it.
If I say, strap this bomb on your ass and blow those people up and you get rivers of honey and virgins, you know, what makes a reason and what makes sense, what seems to work. Use your own mind to judge things, so don't believe in the tales of others.
Which poem do I write for Trump? Always the bad one, the funny one, the good one, you know, which, what do I do? Am I only seeing one poem? Am I only basing my views of him on the opinions and beliefs of the stations I watch or the people I talk to? Am I talking to other people about other things? Or do I need to? Or do I just have to realize that, come on, I'm not involved in any of these things in truth. I don't know. I don't know. I really don't. I've got to believe in it. I have to hope and believe in that the people are wanting to do the right thing, that somebody in power is trying to be a right guy. I mean, and if he's not and it comes out, then four years later, people can vote somebody else in.
But as long as this person is in the office now, whatever, maybe he's the boss, they're going to replace him in a few years. Because they don't let him be the boss for so many years. Well, all right, we got to do what he says. We got to try and follow his vision for our company. And if it's good, we'll all make a lot of money. And if it's not, we'll find somebody else and try them for a while. And maybe we'll find one that lets us all be a successful tin making outfit.
So, the key is to be free inside. Whatever we got to do, change the data so that we bring that so we don't have niggling feelings of discomfort about what's going on. Because then we want to put the blame on somebody for causing that, you know, for being that way. And we don't have enough data to even make those kind of accusations. So, paint a different poem. Every time you think you've been painted, paint a different poem. And then pretty soon you'll go, ha, I don’t got to paint a poem at all.
As it says, freedom is a whole stick. Truthfully, freedom is no stick at all. I don't even need to put it on there and make it this way or that. I'm free of my stick completely.
A response was given where, even after working on oneself, things keep popping up.
You got to rejoice how many other things pop up. I've got it down just one, one pop up for us. I got one thing left that keeps popping up. Not like this and that. And the fact that I don't like the color of grass, and I wish that whiskey sour wasn't as sour as it really was. I mean, you could have a lot of things pop it up. For you, you've worked on so much of them. I'm now down to that one rock in my yard.
First, the whole thing was a mess. You should have seen the property. And I got in there and I pulled out a bunch of the small weeds. And then I got on to the bigger grasses and then finally some old trees and then some logs that were on the property that had fallen down. I got cleared off and now some stumps. Boy, the stumps I had to put a few efforts in. And now finally I got the whole thing clean, man. I'm free. There's really nothing there. It's really empty. I'm free.
But there's this one goddamn rock that's this big rock that is an eyesore. And every time I walk out and I see that damn rock, you know, I have a reaction. Well, you know, until you remove it or in case you can't remove it, go out there and turn it into a shrine. You know, make it into something that you think of good things. Find some way to rejoice that you have that rock. Well, I'd be able to hide behind it if robbers ever came shooting their guns. There's always a way to turn that rock into something other than an eyesore on your property.
You know, put a ladder on and offer people a little fee to climb the ladder and get a good view of the world from up there.
The student then reflected on how this work can be like landscaping a garden, and if they put rocks in a garden, to make it better, maybe karmically they find rocks inside themselves.
That's it. That's the way the land came, I imagine all those people that moved into the houses or properties that you'd landscaped, I'm sure many of them are going “Goddamn, why did ya put this big rock here?” Instead of saying, woohoo, we got a place to climb, a place to hide, or something. We'll put a little picture of Jesus on it. And every time we want to pray, we'll go out and pray it our little prayer rock. And it'll be a good thing instead of a bad thing. So we can make the world the way we want it.
We certainly don't want to be influenced by religion, or politics, or vegetarianism, or Catholicism, or animal lovers, or, you know, transgendered people, or, you know, the people that live in the Dust Bowl farming company, or those that have to be near an ocean, I don't want to be influenced by any of that. I want to let it all be what it is and recognize everybody's right that some of them like this, and some of them like that, and they'll have a right to that. But I don't have a right to let any of what they are influenced by have an influence on me.
So hey, I understand. Oh man, yeah, I can agree with him. Yeah, he's terrible, terrible. But in my inner world, I'm not influenced. Or they can tell me how wonderful this is. Oh yeah, I can see that. And then he really did this. And the employment's down. And I can feed in the conversation with the other side as well. But inwardly, I'm not influenced. I'm just external considering their influence.
Maybe we’re all be free from anything that pops up every once in a while. But if we only got one thing or two things popping up, we ought to rejoice. That's another opportunity for us to work on ourselves. I wouldn't have had to work today on myself if that hadn’t have popped up. So now I get a chance to try and free myself from that one too, which I wouldn't have known that I had to free myself from it unless it would have popped up. So, thank God. Well, I saw that report to get that part of me to pop up, so I could kill it as well.
We take it as it is and we make it like we want it to be. We deal with it. I don't know why the Cubans have a saying, my wine may be bitter, but it is my wine.
A student then described how they used to get very caught up in elections and daily polls, but have seen that after working on themselves, they have become much more impartial to it all.
We really need to be free and impartial from things. Usually, we're pulled or pushed or conditioned by the things outside of us that tell us to be interested in that or don't do this or do that. And all those things draw our attention. But the more impartial we get and the higher we get, it's just the flat world. You know, nothing enters. There's no hills and there's no valleys and nothing to fall into or be repelled from. We're just dealing with the things that come into our life and we're dealing with them with some set of consciousness and impartiality to where we can get through them. It rains, we won't have our picnic outside. We'll move indoors. We just do the things that happen and deal with them as they happen instead of having all kinds of reactions to them before they happen, which is what things like politics and such often do to people.
They certainly put a lot of people in a frenzied mode, which is sad to see that we have so little control over ourselves that we want to toss and scream about somebody because they're of a different party. We're all human beings. So, what does it matter?
People will make a choice, and everything makes a good one. That's great. If they don't make a good one, that's great too. That's the choice that was made. We certainly can't do anything about it. Except maybe cast our vote, who we would like to see in those positions and the rest of it is up to everybody else casting their vote, and to run around the world trying to persuade everybody on our particular line of thinking is foolish, and to watch and read everybody else's particular line of thinking is foolish because I have to make those decisions myself. It's a great thing that you can become impartial to it and not be driven to follow the polls, and we'll see what happens.
A student then commented on Russell’s lack of reaction to the outcome of Donald Trump winning a presidential election.
How else can you be? What happens to happens? He may be good. He may be bad. I don't know. You know, the process of the election to the, what do you call it? The college that we do, the electoral college said, and I feel the same way whether he got it or Hillary got it or they decided to redo the terms and make three term presidents and Obama got it. I would have been the same.
The comment was made that Russell would then have been faulted for not caring.
That's correct. So, impartiality is much higher than empathy, which is much higher than just compassion.
A student then stated that they thought quite badly of Donald Trump, and tried to find alternative ways of seeing him, to be free from strong inner reactions.
You know, models are funny. For example, how did we think, since we brought Trump up, how did we think about Donald Trump 20 years ago? Did you know who Donald Trump was 20 years ago? How did you know who he was 10 years ago? This guy that had all these buildings in New York and helped build parks and stuff under budget and in time. Did you hear any of that?
They replied that it was only on The Apprentice that they first saw him.
Oh, okay. And you hated him in The Apprentice?
They perceived him as a blustery guy.
All right. And now as your opinion since then, still just have him as a bluster guy or is he now something more?
A statement was then made that if we work on ourselves to see things differently then perhaps some people we first saw as bad are actually here to stand up against others and make a positive change to the world. An example was given in reply about a fictitious person.
Yeah, indeed. All right. Let's do this. How do you feel about “Bob Everling?”
They replied that they do not know who he is.
You don't know him. He never met him, right? So you don't have any opinion, correct? What if I tell you he's a real asshole and a real prick and a dick and he hates women and wants to kill all black people? Now how do you feel about him?
The response was that if this opinion came from someone they respected, then they may be more inclined to believe it, but they could not be sure.
That's right. So, you would feel at least qualified, but you would start to already be taking the opinion of somebody else as your opinion because you never met Bob Everling, so you don't know anything about him. You only know about him what I said. But if I had said, oh, he's really a great guy. He's a wonderful humanitarian. He loves children. He loves animals. He treats his wife right. Now how do you feel about him?
The reply was that he would then appear to be a wonderful guy. They commented that they would not really know for certain what the truth is.
That's correct. How do we know? Because Russell might have heard that he was a good guy because Russell never met him either. So, there's so much in the world that is unverified by my own experience. I can't trust any of it. Because it's just somebody else's opinion, as Gurdjieff said, somebody told him about the Work because he sat next to a guy on the bus one time who met a guy that knew Gurdjieff.
So, we have to be very careful about listening to the tales of others who don't have a first-hand, and even if they do, if they're portraying or following some other agenda, then I hold all that to be suspect.
What a man does is more important than what a man says. Like the one man said, what you are speaks so loudly, I cannot hear what you say.
So, you know, I think he won the Electoral College by more than anybody else's won the Electoral College. So, there might be a lot of people that don't like him, but there's a lot of people that did. So which one do I give credence to? Which one do I give benefit of the doubt to?
He's the guy that got elected. So, whoever he is, we'll just wait and see. You know, like the thing about the guy that had a horse that ran away. I don't know if it's good or bad. I don't know if it's good or bad. But I'm not going to believe my neighbor who comes over and says, oh, it's so terrible that the horse ran off. Because then I'm just a slave to the opinions of others instead of what it actually is. So, you know, I'm certainly, you know, been accused of a lot of things in my life, but I always support everybody. I don't let anybody talk bad about anybody. I mean, who has the right to do that?
I don't want to be caught in a bias or an opinion about anything, because I cannot have reason if I am filled with bias. If I have judgments or opinions or biases on things, believe me, guys, there never will be any Reason in my machine. All there will be and all you will hear is my biases and my opinions. Nobody can incite me with their biases and opinions and make me take them on as my biases and opinions. I'll just smile and nod and listen to their story and sound like I'm interested, but I won't believe or take any of it to truth. And if I meet somebody that says, oh, this guy is a wonderful man and he did this and he did that. I will do it the same way. I won't take that in and make those biases and opinions my bias and opinions, because I know that only in the place where there is no bias will there be Reason.
It was then commented that some actions have been perceived as downright wrong, and that for example, some groups of people should never be banned from entering a country.
Well, you know, I'm not going to argue with you, but there were seven countries that the Obama administration identified as threats. And Trump being a guy that's more than just talking about shh does stuff. He says, okay, we're going to put a temporary 90 day hold on a lot of people come into America from those countries and say we can get a good vetting system just to make sure since they are, you know, failed states and anybody can get on a plane and go anywhere. So, we're just going to make sure that we're getting the right people in. You know, it's not necessarily a ban on Muslims. It's a ban on anybody that's coming from those countries.
I don't see a problem with that. Let me ask you, when you go to bed at night, do you lock your door? Why the hell do you do that? You're keeping people out. That's terrible to you. Shame on you.
They answered that if someone came in that defaced their property, they would not want them to be in their home anymore.
Well, there you go. Then you have a right to do that, don't you?
They replied that they were getting the hang of this now.
Don't believe in the tales of others. So be very suspicious about other people's opinions, you know, and if I go down and keep getting fed, this one opinion about people over six foot tall are evil, and I keep visiting the people that tell me people over six feet tall are evil, sooner or later, I'm going to start believing that if I put this bomb around my waist and get on that bus and blow up these people, I'm going to get rivers of honey and 71 virgins. And if I don't want to live in a world like that where people or me are capable of being led by anybody, especially since I don't know, I never met the guy. I don't know anything about him.
He certainly was a successful business guy. You know, I know how to do that. The little things I already do know, you know, he built some shit that nobody else was able to build and get it done and under budget. Okay, that's cool. But I don't know what kind of prejudice it's going to be. We'll just have to wait and see. But from what he talked about and what he said, enough people voted for him in enough states that he won. So I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he won and I'll support him. Whether he's my candidate or not makes no difference. That's irrelevant. But I think it's just the silly world that we're still in again.
We'll be like, okay, you had a child, but you don't want him. So, you know, throw him back.
A specific comment was made about a president who has said things that caused personal offense when it was heard.
I really don't want to get into a debate about anything that's religious or political because if something came out of somebody's mouth and it doesn't sit well with me, I need to create a scenario in my inner world where it does and hold that up against that thing just to eliminate any bias in me because I'll never obtain Reason if I’ve got the place full with my own bias. Whether it was my own judgment because I heard this guy say we're going to prevent the rally from being down on Elm Street next week, and now I'm in an uproar because I don't think it's right to not have a rally down on Elm Street. The screwy thing is not about the rally on Elm Street. It's about my reaction in my inner world that I don't want to be a slave to and I don't want to be fixed by. And there can't be anything higher than me in me if there's these lower things in me.
So, agree with it or not agree with it. It really is not what was said. It's the reaction in me about what was said. And to be honest in truth, no matter how what comes out of somebody else's mouth and is reacted to you about me, it's not going to change anything. It really isn't. So, the only thing I can change is myself. And that's where I put my focus.
Finally, an observation was made about the need to not be affected by our reactions to events in the world, and that the real goal should be personal freedom.
So I deal with this every September. All these new shows come on TV. And some of them I really like and I think they're really clever. And then the stupid network cancels them. How dare they? And then some are like, God, who put this shit on television? You've got to be the crappiest thing that they were put on and they run for year after year. How could people like this? So, every year there's this, this, this idiocy that takes place in the world. And I have to just make sure that I stay in a place where it doesn't influence me beyond the first moment it enters because I want to stay in that unbiased moment where there can be Reason in me and not just my bias.
This talk touches on a number of potential sensitivities, and also a number of aphorisms. There is particular focus on those aphorisms which emphasize not believing what we are told, and not judging others without verifying it first for ourselves.
If we choose to not listen to what others and the media tell us, we may be uninformed, but if we do believe what others tell us, without checking its veracity, we are at a greater risk of being misinformed. This Work is about Truth, not about bias and opinion and being right. It is better to get it right than to try to be right.
If you are wishing for the outer material world to change so that you may feel more comfortable in your inner world, your feelings and thoughts, then you are not working on freeing yourself, you are making yourself a slave to everything around you. The world may change as a result of what you try to do, but you most certainly will not. This Work is about personal freedom and evolution, not global evolution. We frequently get involved with things operating at far too big a scale and neglect the things most close at hand.
The world around us will begin to change if we change our being. A being attracts its own life. If you want to change the world, change your being. We can only do that by working against falsehoods, petty desires and fears, and innate biases inside ourselves.
Whatever happens in this world, our role is to be free of our reactions to it. Only then can we operate impartially and with Reason. A high place, but one that is available to all of us, if we know how to achieve it. These teachings are here to show you how.
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That concludes today’s podcast. Thank you for listening.
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