Aloneness and Self-Discovery - Part 1

March 5, 2005

Once you are nothing, you are free.

There were only six people at class Thursday night, which is not bad. It is a slight crowd. If there are just two, class is fine. There is a teacher and a student. That is all that matters right? The student is the teacher and the teacher is the student, so you get both sides.

Can I call some Summum business before we get started? There has been some voting going on in the last couple of years, and in different forms. Some people may have been in on the voting and some may have not have been in on the voting, I don't know who was and who wasn't. The question to vote on was: "When Corky gets old and dies, who would they like to see be the next responsible person to direct Summum?" Everybody was sort of voting. Everybody had their different votes and stuff like that. What the question really was is not who would be necessarily the best teacher, but the question was put out there, who they thought would be the person who would have the greatest consideration for Summum and its movement forward in its evolution. We had a lot of votes.

And you can not avoid reality; everybody gets old and drops dead. Now I don't plan on dying tomorrow. But I did decide to resign because of my health, because I am so stressed out. Summum is a corporation sole. Does everybody know what a corporation sole is? Have you ever heard of the Catholic Church? They are a corporation sole. The LDS Church is a corporation sole. It is an ecclesiastic order where there is a sole of the corporation where that sole decides everything that happens. It is not a democracy. Does that make sense? It is an ecclesiastic organization. Like the LDS Church says the president receives revelation. The Catholic Church says the same thing; that the Pope is in contact with god, that the Pope is the spokesperson for god on the planet. I am not saying that that Summum's corporate sole is the spokesperson for god. Maybe for the netters, maybe for evolution, maybe for the easiest path for everyone.

There was a lot of voting that came down and everything and 99% of the votes went where Ron?

Ron: I didn't see them. Did you see them Donna?

Donna: I just said that none of us are ready.

Corky: Yeah, but what happens if somebody has got to be ready?! Somebody ought to be in the spot to do it. Who did you guys all vote for?

Chris: I sort of rotating through Su, Bernie, Ron and Jill, but towards the end it was Su Bernie and Ron.

Corky: So that is how it sort of ended up. That is how the vote came down. That is what we did. The only reason we did it is there is no reason not to do it now, so that you don't have to make that decision later. It is sort of stupid to wait until the Pope dies, and have a big fucking argument. Right. Now there is no argument to be had. So we did it, and I resigned as having any authority at Summum. I am just going to hang out here and work on phone lines and the yard and stuff like that, and do as much as I can to continue to contribute to the cause of creation. I think I have put a lot into it to be honest with you guys. Anyway, I wanted to cover that issue really quickly so that everyone knows what a corporation sole is and how everything was right now. So, everybody gets old and dies and Shad you are a lot younger than Su and Ron and Bernie. So you may have a problem in the future, or Cami may, or Micky may, or Vern may. Who knows who is going to have the problem in the future? I think that Su saw it as a big problem, like "Oh my god, I have to deal with the monster now!" Isn't that how it felt? It is like that, it is not a fun job honest. It is something that you don't want. But, if you have to take it you are a responsible person. If you get stuck with it, you gotta be responsible with it to the best that you can. I wanted to talk about that for a minute. So we can go to Ron now to teach class.

Ron needs to, I wouldn't say Ron needs to do anything, but it would be an appropriate gesture to Ron's own soul and spirit and essence if you listen to what he was saying. Sometimes we say a lot of stuff and everything and we don't even listen to it, we just say it.

Ron: I know. Every class is always for me. It is always been that way.

Corky: Because there is only one person. Honest! There really is, only one person. And as long as everyone wants to hold themselves away from the consciousness of the One, they are in a fairy tale land; there really is only one person. So, anyway what happened on Thursday Ron, what did Osho say?

Ron: I don't know what he said. So what does that mean, I'm teaching class?

Corky: It means you are both the student and the teacher. Because there is just one person. You are going to speak for everybody and listen for everybody. He talked about the lion and the sheep. We have a picture of one of those; Kent painted one of those pictures. I asked him to paint a painting of a lion and a sheep lying in a valley by the pyramid. It is in the house on the wall, and it is on some of our nectar boxes. What did he say about the lion and the sheep?

Everybody has been here when we have talked about meditation not being a thinking thing. It is not a thinking thing, and it is not a sexual thing, it is a feeling thing, it is an a-sexual thing. It has nothing to do with anybody else it only has something to do with you. Osho talked about it as a mirror. At first you look at the other person as a mirror and then you drop the other person and you are just within yourself and you, as Jesus said, you join your two opposites inside. And the only way you can do that is to just be within your feeling. But the paradox of it is, your feeling is not your feeling, your feeling is the feeling of the One. Because there is only one person and that is the aloneness person. In that feeling of the One, is the feeling of the All. And it has no movement to it. It has no touch to it. It is an inner feeling. And when you let go, and you surrender you drop into it. You are in it. You become it. And they call it everything; they have millions of names for it. But a lot of the names for it are beginning stages for it. But when you are really in it, it is just a feeling. I've said so many times that you need to be able to smell the feeling when you leave this life and are in the Bardo. How can you smell a feeling Cami?

Cami: You have to be completely immersed in it.

Corky: It smells doesn't it? A feeling smells. And it is really not a smell with your nose; it is a smell with your essence. It is your essence getting so used to it, because if you practice for the Bardo or the transference in life, you start to feel it in life, you start to smell it in life. It has a smell. But it is not a nose smell, it is a transcendent smell. And it has an itch to it at the same time. And when you are in it, you are in it and you know that you are in it. But until you are in it and you are in the experience of it, it is a thought, it is a belief, it is a discussion, it is a lot of words. And the only way you can get into it, is to surrender to it. That is the bad word. Then comes the argument. Everybody wants to argue about it, in one way or another. Who is going to be president, who is going to be this, who is going to be that, who is going to do what... Nobody really wants to surrender to their feeling of it. You want to be in control of it. But if you are in control of it, you can't smell it. Like if you pick up Jesse, he has this smell to him. If you smell him, you smell him and to be able to smell him, you have to surrender to smelling him.

Did you smell him? Is he like a rose? Have you ever smelt a cat like that?

Cami: No. Our cats don't smell like that.

Corky: Isn't that an interesting smell? There is a reason he smells like that. Not because anybody else, just because he is here. He surrendered to it. Should we go on?

Su (reading from the Osho book): "Forgetfulness of yourself is the only sin there is, and to remember yourself is the only virtue. Gautama Buddha emphasized one single word continually for 42 years, morning and evening. The word is samatsadi. It means right remembering. You remember many things. You can become an encyclopedia Britannica in the libraries of the world. But that is not the right remembering. There is only one right remembering, the moment you remember yourself."

Corky: Can I stop right there? So from what we were just talking about Ron, what would you want to remember if you were going through a Bardo?

Ron: Well honestly that, I don't have any knowledge of. I have got a lot of knowledge of things I don't want to remember anymore.

Corky: That's a very good beginning, to get rid of those things first.

Ron: First thing to be cognizant of all the things that I remember.

Corky: And cut your way into a silence?

Ron: As much as possible yeah.

Corky: If you were able to cut yourself into silence, if you had while you were in life smelled the smell of meditation, and transcendence... when you smelled Jesse it was a feeling wasn't it, at the same time being a feeling? If you could smell the feeling, this is a very interesting thing to try to express. It is not a smell in your nose, it is a smell in your essence of the feeling, the joining with the Buddha. And it is not a person. Don't worry about some guy, or some Buddha, or anything like that yet. It is a smell, it is a feeling, it is an essence, it is a path of light, is all it is. But it has a smell to it. And the only reason I am saying that is because when you do go through the transference, as it explains in The Tibetan Book of the Dead, certain aspects of your senses are extenuated, or emphasized. That you are able to see in the light, your senses are heightened. But they are not the senses of the body, they are the senses of your essence. And there is one of your senses that is the smeller. But it doesn't smell, it is the smell of feelings. It smells feeling. It is sort of like when you are in an argument, when you are having that argument, you can smell it can't you Shad?

Shad: Well, when you are in that state it sort of encompasses everything.

Corky: Right. And isn't there a smell to it? So if you can take away everything else, like Ron just said... Ron said what we need to do, is get rid of everything else and make a clear path. I agree with that totally. You have to clear a path and drop everything else. Once you have that clear path, you are able to smell the feeling of it. And, Ron, what would you say from there?

Ron: If you got rid of all the things that were tying you to life, needs, wants desires, fears, aspirations, your ego, propensities, then you would float down the river. You don't get hung up on all of the obstacles and the shores of the banks.

Corky: Is that an easy path?

Ron: It would appear to be.

Corky: Once you have begun it, it is easy. But to be able to get to it may be difficult, but once you have arrived on that ride, that floating, the sail in the sekhet boat, it is an easy path. Rather than a path of argument. Has anybody seen anybody in a path of argument?

Shad: Has anybody NOT seen anybody in a path of argument?

Corky: Chris, how about you? Have you seen somebody in a path of argument? It is pretty interesting isn't it? Isn't this an intense point of your life, these classes here, what is going on. It is so vivid isn't it? The difference between the easy path and the path of argument. Have you ever seen anything so clear before?

Chris: No.

Corky: It is pretty amazing, isn't it? Is it scary?

Chris: I don't know if scary is the right word, but I will say that how I feel right now, it puts me up for examination, and my propensities are here and then there is this easy path here, and they keep looking at each other and I haven't made my allegiance yet.

Corky: Wow! After all you have been through you haven't made a decision? Jesus Christ! Would you say he's brain dead Bernie!? Steve, would you say he's brain dead if he bit on it again? If he bites on it again, he deserves what he is biting on, he would just do himself under, and he could turn out to be a salamander or a raccoon. I could see Chris turning up as a raccoon if he bit on it again. Hanging out over at the junk yard in his next incarnation as a raccoon, crawling over the fence saying what happened to me? A raccoon would be the highest level, if he did it twice in a row.

Ron: What are you talking twice in a row, the same exact thing in the same exact situation?

Corky: No. A different situation but the same thing.

Ron: Well, there you go.

Corky: If he does it again, he is going to be a raccoon. He's going to go backwards.

Ron: We all do.

Corky: Not that bad! You've never done anything that bad Ron.

Ron: All I can speak is for me, all the propensities I've had, all the paths that I have sniffed down...

Corky: But you never bit on that one!

Ron: No, at least not that I can remember in this lifetime. All I am saying is I have my own bag of propensities.

Corky: I'm not saying that you don't, all I am saying is that if you do that one twice in a row in one incarnation, then that is a raccoon incarnation. Wouldn't you say Su? Twice in a row? I mean, that is pretty lame. I mean, let's be honest just for a second. Don't you think that is pretty lame, to do something like that twice in a row? But nobody wants to believe they are going to wake up as a raccoon. What do you think Donna, don't you think that was pretty stupid?

Donna: If he did it again yes.

Corky: Do you think he would incarnate as a raccoon? It would be at least like a raccoon.

Ron: If you lived next to Summum that wouldn't be too bad.

Corky: Don't you think it was a good lesson, but if he repeated it, what would you say?

Donna: How could you do that to yourself?

Corky: Unless you wanted to be a raccoon. I'm not talking as a figment of your imagination, I'm talking literally. Those raccoons are smart little guys out there, they have fingers and everything, they take their food and hold it up and eat. They hang out over there in the junkyard and they don't pay rent. They are looking for a lifetime to check back into. Chris thinks we are kidding is the problem.

Steve: knew better than that. He passed it on the first round. But he had that other one trying to do him first right, you let it do you and you got warts and you learned that if you could get warts then you could get something worse on the next one that tries to do you right?

Steve: Yeah.

Corky: (laughing) Warts was enough of a message? It was cute besides. I saw the pictures you sent me. Organs are funny things. I think of boobs as organs. I think I saw a discovery channel show some time ago that says that men like to look at women's boobs because they look like their butts. I sort of got over tits. I always wondered what they were about. Because so many people like them so much, and I always figured that there must be something wrong with me. No honest! I think my mother, because she showed me her tits when my brother was caught with a magazine and she said "I have better tits than that girl in that magazine, see!" And I said "Oh my god!" It cured me really quick. We had a bird named Coco, and he was screaming, he used to sit on Henry's head and he was sitting on his head and my two sisters were there too, and I just said "Oh no! God." After that, they really didn't do much for me at all. It was really weird, because you know when you start going out on dates and stuff like that, how girls really want you to start touching their tits and stuff like that. You know when you go to the show when you are 13 years old, and you are supposed to do stuff like that, I would just think to myself, "Those are just tits, I would much rather just eat the popcorn." I was more interested in the bottom part than the top part. I think Ron became a tit man.

Ron: Yeah! My mom never showed me her tits!

Corky: Do you think there is anything special about tits Donna?

Donna: They feel good to us, I don't know about anybody else, but they are sensual.

Corky: Oh, I guess I missed that. I guess everybody has a different take on this story. It depends on where you came from. I would rub mine every once in awhile and wonder if I was getting cancer. There are these guys in Africa that nurse their children. I must not do the right things and stuff like that. I must have missed out on that part. So, what does Osho say next that we are supposed to worry about?

Su: "Gautama Buddha used to illustrate his point with the ancient story about a lioness who was jumping from one hillock to another hillock, and between the two hillocks a big flock of sheep was moving. The lioness was pregnant and gave birth while she was jumping. Her cub fell into the flock of sheep. And was brought up by the sheep and naturally he believed himself also to be a sheep. It was a little strange because he was so big, so different, but perhaps he was just a freak of nature."

Corky: Oh, he didn't like tits! Oh no, that poor little lion. He didn't like them at all, he wanted to do something else instead!

Su: "He was brought up a vegetarian. He grew up and one day an old lion who was in search of food came close to the flock of sheep. He couldn't believe his eyes. In the midst of the sheep there was a young lion in its full glory and the sheep were not afraid. He forgot about his food, and he ran after the flock of sheep. And it was becoming more and more puzzling because the young lion was also running away with the sheep. Finally he got a hold of the young lion and he was crying and weeping and saying to the old lion, "Please let me go with my people." But the old lion dragged him to a near by lake, a silent lake without any ripples. It was just like a pure mirror. The old lion forced him to see his reflection in the lake, and also the reflection of the old lion. There was a sudden transformation, the moment the lion saw who he was, there was a great roar. The whole valley echoed the roar of the young lion. He had never roared before because he had never thought he was anybody other than a sheep. The old lion said "My work is done. Now it is up to you. Do you want to go back to your old flock?" The young lion laughed and said "Forgive me, I have forgotten completely who I am, and I am immensely grateful to you that you helped me to remember." Gautama Buddha used to say the master's function is to help you to remember who you are. You are not part of this mundane world; your home is the home of the divine. You are lost in forgetfulness. You have forgotten that inside you god is hidden. You never look inside because everybody looks outside, and you also go on looking outside.

To be alone is a great opportunity, a blessing, because in your aloneness you are bound to stumble upon yourself and for the first time, remember who you are. To know you are part of the divine existence is to be free from death, free from misery, free from anxiety, free from all that has been a nightmare to you over many lifetimes."

Corky: Don't you think that you can be free behind your tits Cami?

Cami: Yeah.

Corky: And freedom is only behind your tits, right? Or, anything out there that you would hold out, to be used as something to present yourself. Freedom is behind your eyes, your nose, your arms, your body; freedom is only inside of you. It is behind your sexuality, behind your duality, behind your male and femaleness. Behind all of those things, once you can make yourself just one thing, the No Thing, when you are the nothing, Osho calls it the nobody; I always call it the nothing. Everybody is nothing. Once you are nothing, you are free. Because if you are something you are a prisoner of it. It is so simple right? Once you become something or anything, then that is your prison.

Bernie, you need to change the purpose of Summum web page a little bit and put some of these words in it. The only way you can ever emancipate yourself and liberate yourself, once you discover you are nothing then you are free. But as soon as you believe you are something you are a prisoner of it. You can't be emancipated, you can't be liberated, because you have chosen to hold on to it and become one of your walls, one of your barriers, one of the obstacles that stand between you and being nothing. Osho declared that everybody is nothing. It is true that everybody is nothing. But they haven't discovered it because everybody has their attention on something. They don't pay attention to the nobody.

I can't believe that he says all these things that we have been saying all these years! Where did he come from? Who dug him up? That is plagiarism! But as long as you say it in different words it is okay. I think he did say that you can't say anything new because it is already been said. So there is nothing new on the horizon. Nobody has a special copyright on anything new. So, what would you say about that Ron?

Ron: That's true obviously.

Corky: We were talking about the nothing back in 1980. So you think he said it before 1975?

Ron: Osho was big during the 70's.

Corky: We saw a movie and he sounded like a dork when I heard him. He has this heavy accent and I couldn't understand anything he said, it did not make any sense to me. It was a lot better after the editors got a hold of it, Cami. There are some good pieces in there that make a lot of sense that you can pull out and use the pieces and parts. You can take the organs out of there and make a very good body of a book and sell a billion copies. I think nothing is better than nobody, don't you? Because it is more real because the nothing and all possibility.

So what does Osho say next Su?

Su: "To be alone is a great opportunity, a blessing. Because in your aloneness you are bound to stumble upon yourself and for the first time, remember who you are."

Corky: Wow. That's pretty powerful area. It is a field, the field of aloneness is a dangerous area to traverse don't you think for most people Ron? It is scary?

Ron: Well, yeah there is nothing there.

Corky: You are in the nothing and when you are in the nothing, and you are traversing the nothing don't you think that is a scary place for people who want something? If they want anything it is a scary place, right? I mean, if they want breath, if they want air, if they want light rather than dark, if they want warm rather than cold, if they want tall rather than short, if they want money rather than destitution, if they want anything it is a scary place because they are in the nothing. The thing that is interesting about the nothing is that in the nothing there is no destitution, because if there was destitution in the nothing, it would be something. If you are in the nothing, you can't be cold and you can't be warm. If you are in the nothing you can't be tall or short. You can't be happy or sad. You can't be beautiful or ugly. It is a state of transcendence. It is beyond the opposites, the nothingness. The opposites are all outside of the nothing, they are in possibility. So the nothing is really pure isn't it? It is the only state of perfection. Because if you are in possibility you can't be perfect, you are either part of the way there, or all the way there. But you can't be all the way there in everything or you are back in the nothing, because when you are in the nothing you have everything, you are everything.

Hi. Hello! Welcome.

So then what Ron?

Ron: I saw a movie last night, it is called The Devil's Advocate. It was an interesting movie in the fact that at the very end of it, Al Pacino was the devil and this young attorney kept winning everything and getting everything he wanted and then he found out he was the devil's son. So anyway he went back and changed his whole life because you know, he thought he had a handle on it. But in reality he had just fallen back into the devil's grip. What was interesting, the devil was this big time attorney and he was talking about all the different vices that people have and attorney's are so great because they are involved in all of those vices. And so Keanu Reeves is walking away, he turned down this big situation and was going to be disbarred and everything, and a reporter is asking him, "You are this big hero now, you turned down all of this opportunity. Call me in the morning." So, he calls him in the morning and the reporter turns into the devil and he says "Pride is my best temptation."

It was so interesting because it just struck me when he said that. Pride is connected with every single aspect of your propensities. Because it is the position that you take not to be wrong, it is the position that you take to set yourself apart from anybody.

Corky: Can I interrupt for just a second? What is the difference between the exact true answer, and the exact wrong answer, and the half between answer? You just said it. It is a position. Is it a position of being right? Is there such a thing as being right?

Ron: There is a position of being right, it is the way you look at it.

Corky: It is a dangerous position. It is a position where you always get proven wrong, sooner or later. So it is dangerous to say you are saying it this way, and it was really that way. Don't you think it is dangerous to do that? Everything is always half between, all truths are always half false. Don't you think it is better, or easier to neutralize things, rather than polarize things? It is easier to neutralize things rather than polarize them, and transcend them. What do you think Shad?

Shad: I think what is easier for people, depends on their propensities. Sometimes for most people it is easier to choose one pole or another, to polarize, because that is what they are habituated to do. But in the long run, and for your experience of life I think that it would be easier to neutralize it, like you said.

Corky: What does Osho say next?

Su: "Become more centered in your deep aloneness. That is what meditation is. Becoming centered in ones own aloneness. The aloneness has to be so pure that not even a thought, not even a feeling disturbs it. The moment your aloneness is complete your experience of it will become your enlightenment. Enlightenment is not something that comes from outside it is something that grows within you."