MOD Jack II

Ego = I. When I am talking to myself there must be a person in second place I am talking to. And if I am trying to fix that self that is pretty good evidence I think of it as broken while real enough to fix. Imposter syndrome is not an accident.

Ego as a false self is a narrative created to blame for thoughtless shameful choices. This semi-clever ruse of twisted language has been developed to have insanity appear sane, normal and moral. The fact that it has no basis or substance is of little consequence to the maker believing in it. Illusions as reality is induced insanity. All matter and things that matter have substance  - lies do not.  

We have developed a story around all we are is who and what we think we are. If we think how and what we think is reality, then we think there is no other reality. To face an illusions as reality can have us think we can turn our back on Reality while Reality does not flinch. Thinking insanely about reality does not change Reality it dysfunctionally changes our mentality. The fact that we can think we have nothing to do with anything precedes the thought that we have no place, value or benefit to offer anyone. 

Lies foster lies so trying to fix a lie while lying is to continue to maintain baseless, worthless ideas about everything. We cannot be what we have so think we become liars makes the idea of not lying seem preposterous since it would involve killing the self we identify as our self. That which has no life cannot be killed - though while we think it is real, just like a nighmare, it feels real till we wake up. Thinking is not the problem. What and how we think, once we think it is reality and truth, becomes a highly suspect fight for a life that never existed.  Obsessvive thinking is an unnatural attempt to turn our thoughts into reality by using pain to claim the effort must be true.  If insanity were sane it wouldn't be hard to admit. Insane thoughts are easy to fix once we see they are something we are choosing rather than who, what and how we are. 

We Know We Know.
We Are Aware We Are Aware.
We Are as We Are.

Reality is unlimited and never changes. The idea that how and what we think creates reality suggests otherwise. Acting on backward thoughts leads to behaviors that are out of order reflecting a reversal of our natural fortune that are accurately called disorders. Anxious, nervous and systemic disorders reflect this impossible attempt to reverse Nature’s Law and Order and our Universe's Essence. Dis-ease is the lack of ease created and maintained by such twisted mental acrobatics. Stress and Anxiety inhibit healing and compound and degrade health.

Mentality is a bodily function. Mental disease is a physcial ailment. For as long as it is misdiagnosed - any cure or treatment will perpetuate its contagion.

Principles affirm Our Indivisible nature. Sharing Principles confirms our natural indivisibility. Inspiration is natural while desperation, depression, degradation and acting oblivious to what is obvious is an unnatural choice to oppose reality which is impossible to accomplish though we are free to try.

Ignoring what is happening, acting as though it shouldn't be or isn't happening, produces the unintelligible gibberish of ignorance - not reality.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:04

Good day, everyone, everywhere. I am uh going to talk today a little about the ego and the concept of the ego. And I am doing this as a prelude, precursor per se, to the discussion about this first step. And the reason I want to do this is because it shows or begins to show the flexibility that words have in terms of their use. And so to think of things as though they're static, meaning still, like the word ego, is to make believe that how we think of it today is the way it's always been and the way it always is. And the point of that is to show that the transition that AA followed came out of a new thought movement starting in the 1800s. And I'm going to do a talk on that, a little more elaborate talk on that, because all of those periods of time, there were new understanding of how things actually were, that were really an undoing of ideas that had been held to be true that were not true. And historically, and normally in the present, not referring to the past, but the present, ideas that aren't true utilized create dysfunctional effects. That means they're not worthy. They're not worthwhile, they're not valuable, they're not useful, they're not beneficial. They're none of the things that we are capable of doing, except that by doing those things, we are capable of noticing something must be wrong to be creating those effects. So when it comes to mentally obsessive thinking, what's important is to notice it is something we are doing with our thinking that is untrue, that we are thinking is true, and as a result, have to keep thinking about it because its only basis is in thought about it's in thinking about thinking. It's not thinking that's the problem here. The basis of our thinking, the basis of our body, the basis of the world, the basis of the universe is based in reality and truth. All of us in the same way. Everyone and everything, all that are and all that is, are based in an essence of reality and truth. These aren't optional. They're not things that we can hang on to or get to, they're things that we already are. And we can confuse our thinking for reality and for truth, especially when we start thinking about things. We have this contemplative advantage that allows us to do that, to think about things, to consider things. But it's inconsiderate to make believe those things we consider become what we think of them and only what we think of them. Because to any degree we think of something as being less than it actually is, we're not thinking of it at all. We're thinking only what we're thinking of it. And this is the beginning of self-centered thinking, as the book describes it. So the first step is very much about self-centered thinking, the idea that what we think is true is true rather than truth is true, and it is the platform and the basis for our thinking. So another point that's worth noting the psychic shift that seems to be critical to an experience sufficient to begin to operate on a basis that is completely thought to be impossible to the person within the context of obsessive thinking or about acting in compulsive ways, is simply coming to terms. A moment of clarity is actually starting to see things clearly. The psychic change is changing our psychology, meaning our mentality, starting to function on a basis of being willing to look at things as they are rather than as we thought them to be. So I'm going to talk about that in relation to the ego. And you can see the transition in this same word being used in very, very different ways. And today it's still used that way, which is a major failing in our ability to actually reckon with it because we've turned it into something it was not and is not, and act as though it is. And as a result, we're operating on a basis that isn't true. So it becomes very difficult to undo something that doesn't exist that we make believe is true and real. So the basic root of the idea, the word ego in Latin means I. So you and I are eyes. We're I am. Basis of our thinking. I am the thinker, I have a body, I have a brain in that body, that that brain thinks. Doesn't mean that's all that I am, it means it's something I have. So I have a body, I have a brain, I have thoughts. And for 2,000 years, since Greek and Latin were the dominant languages, that's what that word meant. There was no implication of a false self whatsoever, a delusion, distortion, none of it. So I am the source of the thinking I'm doing. I am the source of the feelings I'm having. I am responsible for the behaviors and the actions I take based on those thoughts and feelings. I am, I am, I am. In the Bible, they talk about the great I am being God. Well, we're rooted in that divinity. That natural reality and truth is rooted in the reality and truth of an absolute infinite source, whatever that might mean or whatever that might be. So come the 1890s, and this is after the New Thought Movement started, by the way, where preachers, pastors, whatever they were called, began to come to terms with the idea that we each had a sense of divinity in us, that we each shared that, that it was natural for us. David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson all wrote about it in the early 1800s. They started writing more about it in the mid-1800s, etc. But in terms of the transition of the ego becoming something we think is real, started to formalize with Freud dividing it into the id and the ego and the superego, meaning that he was beginning to break apart the parts of this context that we were thinking about. So he called it the part of the mind that mediates between instinct, morality, and reality. And it was not originally a false self, it was simply the psychological manager of experience. That's how he saw it. Yet he began to describe it as defensive, deceptive, and prone to distortion. And that opened the door to the false self concept or interpretation. So now you're talking 1900 to he started it in the 1890s, but this went on from 1900 to 1940, where the ego became a psychological structure, not the I am. That's the key element here. So early spiritual spiritual psychology, 1930 to 1970, writers of New Thought, Jungian Circles, A.A. and early spiritual writers like Emmett Fox, Carl Jung, Thomas Merton, Aldous Huxley began describing ego as the self you think you are, not the self you are. The illusion of separateness, the imagined identity, the mass consciousness constructs. So alongside Freud talking about it as being this thing that we have and that we are until we start seeing it at that point with Freud, it was seen as our identity, who we are. These gentlemen are beginning to look at it. It's the false self. So now all of a sudden it's looked at as false identity, delusion, misperception, self-will, mental obsession. Totally lines up with AA, the book being written between 1935 and 1940. Bill calls it selfishness, self-centeredness. That we think is the root of our problem. This was an ego description without using the word. And yet, Bill used egotistical, egocentric, egoism, selfish, dishonest, etc. Eastern influence in this regard hit mainstream Western psychology and began to become assimilated from the sixties on. Alan Watts came from Britain, PhD, understood Eastern philosophy, Buddhism, and all that, started talking about it openly.

SPEAKER_00: 9:01

So in the Vendadas, we are the eye maker.

SPEAKER_01: 9:12

Which is if we're the maker of the eye, that's the false self. In Buddhism, there's no fixed self. In Zen, Ego's illusion, Krishna Burdy, Ram Das, Course in Miracles, how cartol, all talking about this. So the Rego's now ego is now recast from the 60s and into the 70s. Course of Miracles was written in the 70s. Ram Das spoke till probably 15 years ago or 20 years ago. The imagined self that obscures awareness. Now egos become the constructed identity, the story of me, the psychological mask, the thinker who believes in thoughts. Its thoughts are reality, the subjective prison, the hallucinated sense of separateness. It's not the literal meaning, it's just a conceptual repurposing in the in the use of the word. So it's slowly transitioning. Psychology uses the words ego as Freud did, structure. There's something there. Spirituality uses it as a says it as a false false self, the illusion. Meaning there's nothing there. It's just an image. And the image is there, but it isn't real. It's just based in a thought. Common speech uses ego as arrogance and inflation and so forth. So ideas like ego got the best of me. All my grandiose ideas are my my ego. Think of it as something separate from me. It's mine, but it isn't me. It's my ego. My ego's out of control, we say. To think this is to think it has a life of its own, just like we think our thoughts have a life of their own when we think they can attack us and subject us to them rather than see that we are the subject creating them. We are the one imagining them. The internal, the mental obsession is the internal debate over creating an idea and making believe it's true, so we become the cause of the effect that feels disconnected, alone, separate from, apart from, etc. It's all induced by the thinking we're doing and choosing freely. If we're choosing freely to feel condemned, there's obviously a bit of a break there that does not align with instinct that would act in our favor of health and nature and function and honesty. And honesty does not require we be right. It does not require that we think we're telling the truth. It's simply an honest appraisal of what's happening as it's happening. What I'm thinking is what I'm thinking, right or wrong. If I can begin to address that, even in my own internal experience, it becomes a lot easier to talk about as something I'm simply doing rather than something I think I am. When I think my thoughts are reality, I think I become my thoughts, I think I'm in my thoughts, I think I'm stuck in my head. All of those concepts start to develop because they're narrative stories, trying to give form to the illusion that we're creating. So the I is the nature of the being nature that we share. The I am thinking to myself. Well, who am I thinking to? I'm really thinking about my thinking. And because I can think about my thinking itself, I've determined that is myself. It isn't. That is what I am doing. To think about it that way is irresponsible. To think about it as something I am doing is responsible. Because that's what I'm doing is thinking about my thinking itself. So to think about thinking, I am talking to myself means I'm talking to my thoughts. I am thinking to myself means I'm thinking about my thoughts. I am only thinking of myself means I'm in an obsessive thought process that just goes round and round and round and round. And the nature of a lie is that it only happens in the brain. And the nature of a lie requires that I think that a wrong thought or some thought is reality, is true, is something that it isn't. It's the whole basis of a lie: that false is true and true is false. So it only lives or seemed to live in my thinking. But it really has no life of its own. It has no life whatsoever, except for the thinking I do about it that continues to give me the impression that it is going on rather than I am continuing to maintain it, period. So what do we say? I need more self-confidence, I need more self-awareness, I am self-absorbed, I am selfish, I am self-reliant, I am self-abusive, I need more self-help. We're trying to fix the self from the thinking about it as though it's real and wondering why we can't seem to get that job done. This is the ultimate powerlessness of the first step, powerlessness of the first step. It's about mentality, not the drink, not the compulsion. Those are all byproducts that are giving us perspective on something we're doing. So the reason I wanted to do this today, and I'm going to do some of these in shorter forms so that you can sit with some of these thoughts and maybe re-listen to them because they won't be as lengthy as some of the hour and hour and a half conversations we've had. And early on in this whole episodic venture of talking about the mental obsession openly, when we originally had our discussions, uh, one of them lasted almost five hours before anybody even realized that we had been talking for five hours. Because time begins to evaporate when you begin to consider things in absolute terms, because there isn't any time or space in absolute terms. They're absolute. That's the nature of our nature. There's freedom, absolute freedom. So having the absolute freedom to think whatever we want, if we think things that seem to condemn us, obviously, again, that is probably not the best utilization of our thinking. And there may be some mistaken thinking within that context. And I would say there always is. But it's not my words that are going to make any difference to you. It's you beginning to notice that you have an experience and it is yours, and you have thoughts and they are yours, and you have feelings and they are yours, and you use words and they are yours, and you do behave and they are your behaviors, they are your choices, and nobody can impact you more than you can be impacted by the choices you make. Because if you think anybody else is close enough to you to hurt you, short of violence, because obviously if somebody's violent towards you, there's an impact. But when it comes to thinking, when I think I'm in my thinking, and everyone, anyone else has a contrary thought, I feel my life is threatened by their contrary thought. That has nothing to do with them. I'm using them to excuse what I'm doing in my own thinking. And the struggle I'm having is not with them, it's with the thought I have about them. So the problem is not thought, it's believing the thinker is the self. We can absolutely freely think about our thinking. It's one of the contemplative advantages that humans have. We were given that for good purpose. The book even says on page 53 while there's a very there's a huge conversation about the fact that we have no control, we have no power. Let me read this. Logic is great stuff, we liked it, we still like it. It is not by chance we were given the power to reason, to examine the evidence of our senses and to draw conclusions. That is one of man's magnificent attributes. In the big books. So we have power. We just don't have power when we're thinking insane thoughts. There is no power. So that's a little bit of a window into the first step. But this idea about ego to show that words can be words that mean one thing, it still means I in Latin, it still means I in Greek. Sum is the word. That's the word, S-U-M. I believe, I think that's right. Cogito ergo sum is I think, therefore I am. And the fact is, I am, therefore I think. Descartes was looking at that context to begin to notice that we had calculable ways to begin to understand whether our understanding was right or wrong, scientific ways. And what's science mean? Knowledge. That ways we could know, ways we could develop knowing, our human experience is profoundly able to deal with the issues at hand, that is profoundly disabled by thinking about things that aren't true as though they're true. It isn't an accident, it is not a coincidence, is a it is a coincidence because of the immediacy of consequence and effect to any cause. If we are at the center of that cause, we are at the center of the problem. And the effect, if you don't think you're doing this, look at the effects of your life. I have many, many people say to me, I know I'm not my thoughts, and then from that point on start to describe experiences they're having that would be identical to someone who thinks they are their thoughts. So we can make believe as humans that we aren't doing what we're doing while we're doing that thing we say we're not doing. That's how deceptive we are capable of being. And Boyd sort of nailed it. He began to describe this thing that he had isolated as an ego as just a structure of defensive, deceptive, and prone to distortion. What's the Distortion, not an accurate assessment of things. Bill says in the big book, we suffer from a lack of proportion. What does that mean? We turn nothing into everything and everything into nothing. What does that mean? At the core of our thinking, we think we're God to make believe that we're the creators of reality. And as a result, we become offended by anybody who doesn't think like us. And then we try to manage that problem by becoming desensitized to it, numb to it, denying it. So the point of today's talk, again, is to show that this transition is wholly happening within the mentality of justification and rationalization of who we think we are, that we aren't. If I live on that basis, if the most fundamental thinking I'm doing about life, reality, and truth is wrong, then I am thinking insanely, and all the subsequent thoughts I think I'm going to use to fix it are based on that same sick thought. We say that our secrets kill us. We're only as sick as our secrets. Well, this is the big secret, because this is the source of the disease of addiction. The idea that we can maintain lies and turn them into truth. If they could be turned into truth, they wouldn't be lies. They would just be something that hasn't happened yet because we haven't figured out what the steps are, like Orville and Wilbur developing the wing for a plane. They knew it could happen because they saw it in nature. They saw wings being used. They knew a wing could be developed. So their failure wasn't failure, it was a step in the direction of success. Their failure gave them a clear indication: don't do this again, but try this, try that, try the other thing. Exactly what Descartes was talking about in terms of his scientific method, beginning to use the process of elimination and logic. That I'm going to suggest to you sitting there. The book talks about we will no longer be baffled, we'll intuitively know how to handle situations that used to baffle us. Intuition is the nature of inspiration and wisdom. Because it's defined as knowledge beyond reason, meaning there's no thinking involved at all. There's no understanding involved as a result. There's no reason for it, literally no reason for it. There's no logic in it. And why do we know we know? We just know we know. And if you listen to people and listen to your own experience, you all often say that. Why do you know? I just know I know. You have that intense, that that intuition and the intensity of that awareness. You already have it now. Always have, always will. It isn't somewhere else. So the steps in each case until the 12th step are giving us ideas. Actually, 10, 11, and 12 are giving us ideas that begin to undo the idea the only thing we can do is redo the thing we've always been doing that has chronically been causing a disturbance that is very, very uncomfortable and very impossible to live with on a long-term basis, which is why suicide and addiction. Addiction is suicide in a slower form. Suicide is a more intentional elimination of the body that thinks, rather than simply looking at the thinking that's causing the problem that gives us the impression the only thing we can do is kill ourselves, by the way. We're not killing the eye, we're killing ourselves, this idea we have about ourselves. So there's an old adage that if you're thinking about suicide, you're killing the wrong self, the wrong person, because it's the idea we're having about it. There is no the real self, the capital self, is the eye that we all share. If it's a source of nature and nature is natural, it's our nature. It isn't an exception, it isn't an option, it isn't a negotiation, it isn't a choice. It's just the state of our being. Now, always. If I'm thinking in honest terms about what's happening, I'm starting to think about things disturbing as disturbing rather than things I should feel better about and get over. Starting to notice that my body language is giving me very explicit instructions as to how to grow, how to develop, how to be more beneficial, how to be more generous, because that's the nature of that infinite source, love. That means generosity, abundance, unlimited support. If I think I'm looking for love all the time and don't admit I have it, I'm not, I'm denying I have it. If I think I'm looking for God, I don't deny God exists. How could God be missing when so much of my own thinking is screwed up and I'm sure that it's God missing and I need to see God? So that little few more things on my list here. I'll mention ego is never meant to represent a false self, it's developed in that direction so we could justify an excuse for it not being us. I don't have anything to do with it. It's my ego. Oh, my ego got the best of me. Think about that. It's another way of trying to be irresponsible for what we're doing. If there are any absolute states, and reality is an absolute state of reality, and truth is an absolute state of truth, and they're probably the same thing because there's no division in an unseparable, indivisible, immutable, inviolable, absolute state of being, then I can't be a false self, but I can think I am because I have the absolute freedom to do that. And if that absolute source is responsible for everything, then responsibility is an absolute nature of our existence. So I can think irresponsibly, but responsibility I can't shake because I am responsible by nature. We are responsible as nature. Nature is responsible for nature, period. What is responsibility? It's ability to respond. What's an allergy? Abnormal reaction. What do we do? More and more and more of the thing to try to stop it. But not in all respects, with all allergies. People with peanut allergies do not eat peanuts addictively. Difference is we get a hit of satisfaction by taking a drink, by using a drug, by making believe that our thoughts are true and real, we get an internal hit of dopamine and serotonin, whatever the feel-good drugs are in our chemical body. We are actually manipulating, even in sobriety, to feel better for a minute, to think I can get over it and leave it behind. And by denying it and pretending it's not there, I'm going to get better and I'm going to think positively. The whole structure of matter, including our bodies and the planets and the universe, is based on positive and negative energy. If the negative energy is removed from an atom, there is no matter in an atom at all. So not only would there be no matter in the universe, there would be no bodies in the universe, and nothing would matter to us whatsoever. The fact that it matters suggests that balance, positive and negative, is an inherent part of reality. And if we are a byproduct of reality, a product of reality, then that is our reality. And to think in terms that defy that, or to think in terms that don't have any basis other than our own thinking. And we're each free to do that. Each one of us. And to think someone else shouldn't be doing what they're doing or thinking what they're thinking is to not really understand that they're absolutely free to do it. Right or wrong, they're absolutely free to do it. And the only chance, just like for any of us, getting sober is to come to terms with the fact that we identify with the problem as being a problem that we are having. And when it comes to mental issues, if I'm having it and I'm free to choose what I'm thinking, I am the responsible party for the thinking I'm doing and the impacts and the effects. If you don't think you're doing this, look at the effects you're having. Look at the way you think of other people. Look at the way you've thought of other people who you eventually have a shift with in your thinking and don't think of them the way you did when you thought they were despicable and hateful and spiteful. And all of a sudden you find out there's actually more than that. Within any limited realm, there's always more to consider. There's always more to know. There's always room to grow. Always. So to begin to exercise that flexibility is to begin to be yogic mentally, start to actually notice we are flexible. We are not stiff, we are not stuck, we are not absolutely failures in any respect. Our thinking can fail, and we can consistently have it fail if we consistently use a failed approach to our thinking that is mistaken. So those thoughts we're having, we thought became our identity. So if we're starting to identify with the disease, we're starting to admit that we're not the thinking, that we're creating that imagery. And that imagery is disturbing for us when we witness it because we know that it's killing us. We know that it is causing anxiety and stress and pressure in our body, that it's undermined. We don't have to know all those facts to have that feeling of doom. And what we're feeling is a thought that's doomed, not reality, not truth. We're feeling the possibility thought gives us to recognize disturbances as evidence of our greater awareness. The problem is not thought. The problem is making believe all we are is what we think. So it's thinking about, it's it's the what and how we think, what we think about, how we think about our thinking, what we think about our thinking. That's where the problem is. It's not in the thinking. Which is evidenced by anybody who has a psychic change and starts thinking honestly about what they're doing and starts noticing the freedom that comes with it and the wisdom that comes with it, and the ability to make choices that previously seemed impossible, exactly as the book says. We start doing and feeling things that we didn't think were possible prior. Well, sir, sure, we're operating on an impossible basis. What are we going to try to do? Everything impossible. Because we're trying to prove the lie is true. Never can be done. Impossible. It's really the defeat, the failure of this first step. And we'll get there eventually. I wanted to talk about this because I want you to begin to consider if you're willing and interested. This whole concept of ego is something that has taken an illusion, something you could see through if you looked at it, and turned it into a bunch of words that give it a narrative that makes it seem real because we've created a story around it that has all of these opinions about it as though it's operating against us. It's exactly what happens when I think I don't, when I think I have nothing to do with what's happening, I immediately think that what's happening is happening to me rather than something caused by me. And each of us, each of us, every one of us interprets what's happening in our own thoughts. So my words will never be sufficient without your words, ever. And to give you that respect is to start to dignify the state of our human experience in ways that allow us to begin to actually look at what we're doing and notice that our body is giving us perfect answers in how we feel. If I feel depressed, I'm thinking something that is weighty because there's a conflict. If I feel bad, I'm thinking something bad about something. I don't even need to know anything, I don't need to know the thought to understand the effect. And one of the ways to get lost in all this is to start thinking you're going to start digging into a past and uncover. There is no past that isn't present. The present is the accumulation of everything that's ever happened and it's happening right now. All the effects that have ever been created are the sum total of the moment. So if the if the sum total of everything that's ever happened in our experience is here now, this is where it's resolved. It's resolved by reckoning with the feelings you're having about the thoughts you're creating and maintaining. And the other element to this that we'll get into later is that most of what we're suffering from are the thoughts that we don't think we're having. Now go back to Freud. What has he said? Deceptive, prone to distortion. We can be deceptive, we can make believe we're not thinking what we're thinking and doing what we're doing, and end up thinking there's nothing we can do about it. That's the arc of addiction. I have nothing to do with it, there's nothing I can do about it, I can only continue to do what I'm doing and feel justified. The Trinity of mental health is responsibility, freedom, and choice, meaning we are absolutely responsible, which means we have the ability to respond to what's happening. And that means, like nature, in line with what's happening rather than what we think is happening and how we think it's happening. And absolute freedom always comes with responsibility because if you act responsibly, there's freedom. If you act irresponsibly, you feel condemned. So, choice as a principle in this regard, as a principle of mental health for humans, we're always making choices. We always have wants, we always have desires. If I think my thoughts are real, I think those become desires all of a sudden become my needs. So now instead of instinctively relying on my body to guide my needs, to guide my need to need, air, good food, warmth, all those things that I would do to maintain my survival, I've created my own instinctive need around this idea that my wants have become my needs. And all of a sudden I'm in conflict all over again because now I have to have things. So when I don't have what I have, I think I have to have things. That's textbook addiction. I have to have it, I have to have it, I have to have it, I have to have it, I can't do without it. Well, I've been doing without it long enough not to have it. Certainly that's some evidence, but yet I've always had the thing I have, which is an absolute nature grounded in reality, founded in reality, sourced in reality, sourced in truth, sourced in love. So I can't not have that, but I can think I can because I can be thinking, my thinking can be defensive and deceptive. And any lie that I'm maintaining is a defensive form of thought. So it's highly reactive, highly defensive, hyper-defensive, and hyper-reactive. And that's the precursor to impulsivity and compulsivity. So I'm going to leave you on that basis. If you notice any of this and start to ponder any of this and want to talk about any of this, I am always available, as are other people within my immediate sphere, who have dealt with this for a while. But you also, I know love and care for other people and may not be having conversations with them. My experience is that if I'm thinking obsessive thoughts, I'm only thinking I'm hearing what I think is being said, and I'm only thinking I'm seeing what I think is being seen. So I'm not hearing and seeing what's happening. And if you ever notice in conversations, it's very often you presume that you've made a point, you presume that you've made yourself clear, and then the interpretation of what people turn it into is completely something else. And seems baffling that they could do that. But it's exactly what I do when I'm thinking about things in these seeming self-centered ways. It's worth noting if what we're doing is a delusion, it really doesn't exist except for the thinking I'm doing about it. So I'm always restarting it to be suffering from it. It isn't there without my involvement, my choice. If you have a friend and want to discuss this, you can always have them listen to this so that you have a basis for the discussion and start to expand it. My experience in sobriety is that when I begin to apply the principles, which is exactly what the 12th step asks me to do, in all my affairs, I start seeing that all my affairs, principles have always applied to all of my affairs. It's not something new. It's always been that way, and I've been delusionally thinking I was separate and apart from that, which is why I felt alone and disowned and not belonging and all those other kinds of byproducts that come out of that thinking. I was feeling my thoughts, not reality. But when I thought they were reality, I thought that's who I was, what I am, all I am, worthless, useless, unable, etc. Unlovable, unwantable. So what do I need? People to want me. What do I do? Appear in every way I can to appease them. People please. I'm not honest, I'm completely deceptive, manipulative. So that's a breath. If you want to talk about it, people are available. If you do talk about it, you'll see how things apply and also see that it's not always easy to talk about because we have naturally, as far as I can tell, on a human basis, been developing narratives just like this narrative about the ego, that seemed to become how it is when it's a completely contrived, constructed, manufactured effect that we've created as a result of a complete change of a word's meaning to serve the interest of making it look normal when in fact it's abnormal and sick. What's real right now is reality. What's always real right now is truth. What's always here is love. What's always here is complete and whole without any, any, any interference. Perfectly still, perfectly quiet because it does not change. It's my thoughts that change, my mentality that changes. That's where the struggle comes from. And it's not my changing thinking, it's how I think about my thinking. It's how I think about that becoming myself. It's how I think about others, how I think about my relations, how I think about life, how I think about truth, all those things. That's where the problem becomes. It's not an inherent problem, it's a mistaken problem by the choices we make to make believe that those conclusions we have about things are the way things are, rather than simply how we think of them. To think of them honestly is to feel no attachment to them whatsoever. To think about them dishonestly is to feel as though we are had by them, which is the whole concept of they're happening to us, not by us. Anyway, I give you my love because you have it. And it's already intact. And it isn't mine, it's ours. And I don't share these things because I want to tell you anything. I simply want to share my experience and give you a chance to notice that you can also apply it in whatever way seems sensible to you. And if conflict comes back in condemnation, it isn't making the kind of sense I know you know you can make. But it's a chance to notice that those things are absolutely. Guideposts and signs and alarms and bells and whistles telling us whether or not we're doing the right thing in the moment. Because the right thing is actually the truthful thing, the honest thing about reality, about truth, and the abundance we have, and the abundance we share, and the absolute state of being that we already are.

SPEAKER_00: 40:21

With love, see you next time, invisibly.