Speaker 1: Now you see, it's true. We mustn't give the show away.
Speaker 1: That's why there are esoteric teachings. But on the other hand,
Speaker 1: there is another opposite extreme, which is not realizing that
Speaker 1: the show is a show, and that's as bad as
Speaker 1: giving the show away. Say you go to the movies
Speaker 1: and you go to see some great horror movie, you
Speaker 1: know awful thing. Well, why does one do it? Do
Speaker 1: you want a thrill? And the whole of the universe
Speaker 1: wants a thrill. That's what it's all about.
Speaker 2: Otherwise it would bit boring. But when you go to
Speaker 2: the movie, you know in your heart of hearts that
Speaker 2: it's only a movie, and.
Speaker 1: Yet you contrive to some degree to forget this while
Speaker 1: you're there, and therefore gets scared and feel real creeps.
Speaker 1: But that's great. Some people like to go and cry.
Speaker 1: They go and see some tragedy and just love to
Speaker 1: weep because it's a Catharsis.
Speaker 2: It gets all the solt aalary or something.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 2: So you do this thing and it is say it's vicarious.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 1: But that is the spirit of showmanship of play. So
Speaker 1: one might say then that it is possible in this
Speaker 1: life to attain a sort of metaphysical courage, in which
Speaker 1: you know, really know deep within that the most harrowing
Speaker 1: experiences that physical existence can offer are a show. Now,
Speaker 1: this is the what you might call ultimate nerve. And
Speaker 1: for example, when the samurai in Japan studied Zen, that's
Speaker 1: what they wanted to get.
Speaker 2: They wanted to get ultimate.
Speaker 1: Nerve so that absolutely nothing would phase them. So there
Speaker 1: is a poem which says, under the sword lifted high,
Speaker 1: there is hell making you tremble, but go ahead, and
Speaker 1: there is the land of bliss. Don't hesitate, don't be blocked,
Speaker 1: don't be phased, nonplussed by the illusion. Now you would say, well,
Speaker 1: that's all very.
Speaker 2: Well, but I can't bring myself to that. I start
Speaker 2: to shake and I can't stop.
Speaker 1: It is not to do with my will, and no
Speaker 1: amount of gritting my teeth, clenching my muscles, exercising my will.
Speaker 2: Power can get rid of the shakes when I am
Speaker 2: really scared.
Speaker 1: That's true, But you must remember that the secret to
Speaker 1: all this is not to be afraid of fear. When
Speaker 1: you can really allow.
Speaker 4: Yourself to be afraid and you don't resist the experience
Speaker 4: of fear, you are truly beginning to master fear. But
Speaker 4: when you refuse to be afraid, you are resisting fear,
Speaker 4: and that simply sets up a vicious circle of being
Speaker 4: afraid of fear and being afraid of being afraid of fear,
Speaker 4: and so on.
Speaker 1: And that's what we call worry. Worry is simply a
Speaker 1: chronic condition. And people who worry are going to worry
Speaker 1: no matter what happens, because when one possible threat is exterminated,
Speaker 1: they will immediately discover another, because worry is an infinitely
Speaker 1: skinned onion, And you can go on and on and on,
Speaker 1: because the moment you see you reduce the size of
Speaker 1: the onion and you get your worried out about this,
Speaker 1: suddenly your whole sense of distance and size changes, and
Speaker 1: because you're looking so intently at this little onion, it
Speaker 1: fills your whole field of vision and is once again
Speaker 1: a big onion. See, you start peeling that down. But
Speaker 1: as you get another one about this size, then it
Speaker 1: enlarges itself in your judgment and your sense of values,
Speaker 1: and once more it's colossal.
Speaker 2: Now that's always going on.
Speaker 1: So if you are disposed to worry, there is always
Speaker 1: plenty to worry about it.
Speaker 2: You make plenty of money and you have no troubles
Speaker 2: about that. Then you start.
Speaker 1: Wondering if you're going to get a disease, and the
Speaker 1: doctor says, no, it's all right.
Speaker 2: You' nothing wrong with you. Then you wonder if you're
Speaker 2: going to get.
Speaker 1: Into an accident, and then you take precautions, and then
Speaker 1: you wonder if there's going to be a political revolution,
Speaker 1: whether your house is going to be rob There's always something,
Speaker 1: so it is really this kind of worrying is a
Speaker 1: completely useless pursuit, and yet we feel a feel guilty
Speaker 1: if we don't do it, because it's somehow put into
Speaker 1: us that a proper amount of worrying is showing a
Speaker 1: good sense of responsibility. You're concerned, and all people, you
Speaker 1: might say, who are socially conscious.
Speaker 2: Are concerned.
Speaker 1: So when we say I am concerned, it means I
Speaker 1: have a frown on my face, and I'm worried about you,
Speaker 1: about the nation, about the war.
Speaker 2: It's on concerned.
Speaker 1: Untilick said religion is ultimate concern. I am concerned about
Speaker 1: the universe. But what I call concern in the way
Speaker 1: I would want to interpret it instead of this sort
Speaker 1: of frown, is something more like amazement. In other words,
Speaker 1: that existence is extremely peculiar.
Speaker 3: I can't get my I can't explain this feeling because
Speaker 3: I don't know quite how to ask a question about existence,
Speaker 3: so that I could be said to be wondering about
Speaker 3: it in some sort of clear thinking way.
Speaker 1: What is It's a very nice thing to consider to
Speaker 1: yourself that if you were going to have.
Speaker 2: An interview with the Lord God.
Speaker 1: And you would have only five minutes, and you might
Speaker 1: ask one question, what would you ask?
Speaker 2: And you've got plenty of time to think this over
Speaker 2: in ad moment?
Speaker 1: And do you realize question out of question and say, now,
Speaker 1: that's not really the thing I want to get at.
Speaker 2: Uh, it's not that like do you exist?
Speaker 5: We can't but say, of course yes, here I am
Speaker 5: am I having a hallucination? No, well, ah, how can
Speaker 5: I be sure that this isn't a hallucination?
Speaker 1: You see? Well, then you reject all that sort of question,
Speaker 1: and when you finally come down to which you don't
Speaker 1: know what to ask, there is a sort of question
Speaker 1: in your mind, not so much a question as a
Speaker 1: questioning a feeling of it's all unbelievable. It's amazing. I
Speaker 1: wonder at it, I marvel at it.
Speaker 2: It is a miracle that there is anything.
Speaker 1: But that feeling you see of the the marvelousness of
Speaker 1: being is what I call or would want to mean
Speaker 1: by to X phrase ultimate concern. It's also love is
Speaker 1: involved in it. See, that's the part of the problem
Speaker 1: of them an abstractionist cultures such as ours. As I indicated,
Speaker 1: we are not materialists, we are abstractions. A materialist is
Speaker 1: a lover, and therefore is somebody related to the present,
Speaker 1: because you see, you can't love except in the present.
Speaker 1: So if then you try to obliterate fear, the fear
Speaker 1: that black may win, you're working in the wrong way.
Speaker 6: To attack ef fierce is to strengthen, because immediately you
Speaker 6: feel guilty if you don't succeed, or you feel inadequate.
Speaker 6: But fear is something that arises naturally and spontaneously under
Speaker 6: certain circumstances.
Speaker 1: Just as you will feel warm if you get near
Speaker 1: a fire, and you can't go up to a fire
Speaker 1: without some sort of self hypnosis and then say, well,
Speaker 1: I refuse to be warm.
Speaker 2: There's something a bit weird about that.
Speaker 1: On the contrary, it is very natural to be afraid,
Speaker 1: and so if you don't try to knock it down,
Speaker 1: you don't try to make yourself over into some sort
Speaker 1: of preconceived.
Speaker 2: Idea of what you ought to be. Then you're on
Speaker 2: the track.