You see we go through our life in this container which we call our body and we can go through our life and feel bad about it, or we can go through our life and feel good about it and create a fabulous life. We can make it wonderful or terrible.

Being In Control

It’s kind of like being in a bus. We are going through our life in this bus and one day we start looking around and think, I’m kind of tired I’ve been driving for a long time! Then you notice the seat at the back of the bus and it starts looking more and more like a bed. So you start talking to yourself, maybe I should take a little break. I could use a nap. Then you leave go of the controls of the bus and you go take a nap.

Now, the thing with life is that no matter what you do, life continues and you cannot put it on hold—and it is the same with your bus, your life. Even though you are not driving and not in charge, it is still moving! Have you ever seen a bus with nobody driving it? It is very scary because it crashes into buildings, cars and people. It’s a big problem.

And in a way that is what happens to us. The moment we stop taking charge of our life, we begin to create a lot of problems. So there you are at the back of the bus hanging on for dear life while your bus is crashing into buses, walls and creating a lot of damage. And you are at the back of the bus wondering, what’s wrong with my life? Why am I creating so much suffering? Why am I always in the middle of so much chaos? Why are you picking on me God?

When you wake up you make this amazing journey from the back of the bus to your controls. Because the moment you take charge of your life, you begin to have an amazing life, a magical life. A big problem is coming towards you and when you are in charge of you life you swerve out of the way. You see a big wall and you stop. What is the hard part? Doing it and nobody can do it for you.

Have you noticed that it doesn’t matter how many pushups I do it doesn’t do you any good. And here’s the worst part—it doesn’t matter how many pushups you do—it doesn’t do me any good! So you want to have your body in shape you have to do your own push ups. And unless you’re willing to do the pushups, you’re never going to get anywhere.

Let it Go

What about if this is true? Ninety nine percent of your problems are not real. Ninety nine percent of your fears are not real. They feel real they look real, they taste real—and they’re not. They’re not real!

Have noticed that you spend a lot of your life worrying about things? About what other people think about you? Imagine if this was true: everybody is so worried about what you think of them, they are not worrying about you, so you can stop worrying and let it go!

I don’t worry about what other people think about me anymore. I used to worry all the time, even when I was walking down the street; I thought everybody was looking at me having all kinds of opinions about me. It was so amazing and freeing when I finally realized, nobody is looking at me.

Whatever program I have becomes my reality. If I think people are watching me that becomes my truth, even though it’s not true. If I think people don’t like me that becomes my reality. I used to think that people didn’t like me because I was a foreigner and that was my experience. Now that I don’t have that program, I never experience people not liking me because I am a foreigner.

When I did the Experience I thought, I was the only one that worried all the time. I thought there was something wrong with me. Then I saw that everybody is the same. People worry all the time. And it doesn’t matter how much you have worried or suffered in the past—what is true, is that you have always made it! Did you notice that? And, how can you tell that you have always made it? You are here! You made it! You are alive! You could right now instantly become enlightened.

You could get it! All right I get it. I have wasted so much of my past worrying and the truth is that I’ve always made it. I get it! I’m never going to worry any more. Do you think you could stop worrying? Not really, because worry fuels the program. Even when things are working and you finally get the job that you want—you cannot enjoy it because the fear is what if they fire me? Oh my God!

Most people have a few little things they always like to worry about? Like, what if I get cancer? Or, what if my hair falls out? Do you have things that you like to worry about? I mean, what if my spouse is having an affair? So here is your poor spouse working late; they come home and you’ve been running this tape the whole day, what if they’re having an affair?

So they come home, “Hi honey!” Then they see your face and say, “What’s wrong?”

And you say, “Where’ve you been?”

“I was working!”

“I don’t believe you!”

And then you create a big fight. So we create all these problems in our head. And it is very difficult to change. If it were easy, we would have a lot of awakened, conscious, happy human beings on the planet.

So you have an opportunity to stop being a worrier and become a warrior. You see the program is very mechanical. Mechanically we are very good at doing things. Have you noticed the cell phones we have these days? We have the technology to make them so small we wouldn’t even see them, except its kind of hard to dial. We can send a spacecraft to mars or make it land on an asteroid. Can you imagine? So mechanically, we can create amazing things.

Can we create people who are happy? Can we create people that are having a good time at their job? Can we create families that are communicating and being together? Spiritually we haven’t grown one bit since two thousand years ago.

Have you noticed cars nowadays don’t get flat tires very often? You don’t even have to change the oil that much. Then you see people driving these cars, totally unhappy, going nowhere fast. Being afraid of what? Have you ever thought about that? What are you so afraid of?

The Human Animal

That’s the program, the human animal and its hiding. The human animal is petrified about everything. Have you noticed when you walk in the few forests we have left, you don’t see too many animals? Is that because there are no animals in the forest? No, there are lots of animals. How come you don’t see any animals in the forest?

It’s because they hide and blend in with their surroundings. They freeze, which they are very good at doing—and they’re very hard to see. Well the reason animals freeze and hide is to survive. Because the program is so mechanical here’s what happens: a deer crosses the road in the middle of the night, hears a noise, sees a light and freezes. It doesn’t even run when the articulated lorry comes by at sixty miles an hour!

So for example when I ask people in the Experience to raise their hand and they don’t raise their hand it’s their deer program. Because if they raise their hand, they might say the wrong thing, be noticed and get eaten!

The human animal is just like a chameleon: a chameleon climbs on a tree stops on the green part looking for a fly, and turns green. It waits there for a while, and because there are no flies it decides to get on the trunk, which is light brown. What color does it become when it stops on the bark? Light brown. So what determines the color of the chameleon?

The surroundings! What would happen to the chameleon if it is not paying attention and turns purple instead of light brown—it gets eaten. And that’s the same with us—if we make a mistake from our animal program, it’s as if we are going to die. The animal part of us reacts to the events in our life like a chameleon. A chameleon turns colors based on the environment, so in a way the chameleon is a victim to the environment.

Have noticed that you are the way you are based on your surroundings? You behave differently at the office if your boss is standing next to you, than if you are by yourself and no one is watching you? You are a little bit different with your parents than you are with your friends? A little bit different if you invite the neighbors over for dinner than if you eat by yourself? You put on the tablecloth with candles and the best china and then you lie, and pretend this is the way you eat every day.

The thing that determines how you behave, how you are, and how you react is your environment—just like the chameleon. That’s the animal part of you, and it keeps you in hiding so that you can survive and fit in.

What are we hiding from? Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever seen star trek and the federation of planets? Remember the Star Ship Enterprise, when they get attacked they defend themselves with shields. Do you ever put a wall around yourself—a shield to protect yourself from the evil empire and all the people who are going to come and hurt you or take advantage of you at any moment?

What if there is no one out to get you? It’s like the way we create countries in our own image—we create where we are at. Not too long ago there was this thing between the United States and Russia. The Russians were going to take over the world and they couldn’t wait to come and take over the United States.

Well the Russians got the same program. They thought the Americans wanted to take over Russia. Do you know, I’ve asked many people in the United States, “How many of you at any time were ready to take over Russia?” Not one person has ever answered, “Yes”.

The Russians went bankrupt defending themselves from the United States and that’s what happens to us also. We destroy our life hiding and defending ourselves from everybody and we end up being very uptight and locked in our shell afraid and nervous. Why are we so nervous? Why do we worry so much? It’s our survival program—our survival mechanism.

Survival

So for example, if the way you learned to survive is by not participating, by being shy, because if you are shy nobody notices you, then you will keep being shy for the rest of your life—even though that’s not how you really want to be. If you ask a shy person, “what is your preference, to be shy or outgoing?” They want to be outgoing. If you ask anybody, “what is your preference to have a great relationship or a mediocre relationship?” They want a great relationship.

Most people don’t have a really great relationship because IT is not interested in having a great relationship. IT is interested in survival. So for example, if the way people learn to survive is by being alone, they will stay alone.

It is scary to get into a relationship, because what if I get hurt again. You know the process. I meet a sweet person, get into a relationship and fall in love? The first month or so it feels wonderful. Then a few months later, we break up and I am devastated. I am so hurt I go into my cave and suffer for a long time and feel very bad. Then after a few months or a year I risk it again.

I get into a relationship with somebody else that I really love and then, after a few months they hurt me by leaving me. Every time I get hurt it’s a threat to my survival. And what I’ve noticed happens to a lot of people is that they get hurt three or four times and all of a sudden they stop looking. Because the program says, to be in a relationship is a threat to survival. You might get hurt, so stay alone, stay home, get a cat, or a cactus, and play safe! So a lot of people stay alone, not because that’s what they want—it is because they are so afraid of being hurt again.

The consequence of being run by the program is that we don’t get to have the kind of life we want—which is exactly what I saw. I wasn’t having the kind of life I really wanted to have.

I was having a normal life and I wasn’t really happy. I wasn’t doing what I wanted to do. I wasn’t very excited about my life. I was hoping that something down the road was going to make me happy. I was hoping to get into a relationship because I thought this person was going to make me happy. I wanted to make money because I thought money was going to make me happy. I wanted to have a house because I thought having a big house was going to give me security. You know what I mean—a normal life.

Before I did isa I thought, when I stop being scared of talking to people I will talk to people. When I did the Experience I began to wake up, and see, aha! The game is this: If I am scared of doing something, then I need to do it anyhow. And I’ve noticed that when I’m scared of doing something and I do it anyhow, I feel good, like I won a little battle. And to me that is the process of feeling good: when I begin to do the things that I am afraid of doing.

So if I’m afraid of talking to a stranger, I go talk to them. Or I’m afraid to apply for a job and even though I’m really scared I apply for the job. Every time I do something that I am scared to do, I get empowered. I feel better about myself and it gives me a little more personal power.

When people are not in charge of themselves, the fear is so powerful it keeps them paralyzed. The same way animals survive by freezing in the woods so they are not seen. Well, in a way we are like that. Whenever we get scared we freeze and that’s the purpose of the program: to make us survive. The program will not put a person in any environment that is threatening. So people do less and less and less until after a while, they are even afraid to go out. Many people have told me, “I would not go into a restaurant to eat by myself because that’s too scary!”

In fact there was a woman who came to the Experience and for the first time in her life, went down town by herself to a museum on her own! And she is forty-five years old. That’s what happens to us. Our world becomes smaller and smaller until we end up feeling bad, sitting home and eating cookies.