Confrontation

August 24, 1986

The issues that make you nervous or uncomfortable have an answer to them...

There is an interesting thing that happens around here when people are confronted with their personal issues. That is what we do here is pull all of those hidden things out into the light so that you have to deal with them, and that allows you to let go of those constraints and move on in evolution. Usually though, when these things are brought to light, people tend to get real pissed off. They get SO mad! People tell me all the time they get so angry around here that they want to just go away and never come back. So you get real pissed off and instead of continuing to confront the issue, you get depressed. We are not talking of any incident in particular, just this topic in general. After the anger there is a depression, it is a kind of giving up. You quit. Does that sound familiar? Does it wear you down and wear you down until finally you are so tired of arguing with it, you submit to it?

Student answering: I do not think that is the best way to put it at all. You describe it like that a lot and I don't think that is the best way to describe it because that pisses you off even more when you think about submitting to something that has been causing you all this pain. The fact is it is just your perception of pain. I don't think the experience is evil by nature, it is not an adversary, it is just a situation or experience. When you see it as an event then there is an acceptance, maybe for the event, but when you see it as an adversary...

Corky: Wait a second, wait a second. So, are you saying that when you submit to something, automatically you make it an adversary? Is that what you are saying?

That is what I think you are saying, but I'm not sure.

Answer: I just have trouble with those words sometimes.


Corky: Yeah. So submitting to this thing, this confrontation, means you are submitting to an adversary?

Al: Yeah — because you think "Why should I submit to this asshole, or that asshole?"


Corky: Oh, it is a person! It's not a conflict? It's a person?

Al: Depends on the situation, it could be.


Corky: So it turns into an adversary, like you say. The situation or the confrontation becomes an adversary and instead of looking at those directly, we take it and put it over here and put it on a person. People do not want to look at themselves as the adversary so they put it on somebody else. They cannot get mad at themselves; they would rather get mad at somebody else. This is a really interesting thing going on right now.

Some people temporarily shelf things when they are too painful. Sometimes it is so depressive that it becomes utterly suicidal. Hold on to that for just a second, have you ever felt that way at all? You walk around it, entertain the idea, but you do not ever get real serious about it. Do these confrontations become that painfully personal? I'm just asking the question for you to look at. Is the confrontation important? It is not fun. It would be easier to say it is not important and make it insignificant, than to admit that it is important even with how painful it is.

Al: It must be important. There is really no choice, or any possibility of winning.


Corky: So you submit to it? When I say that word again, does that bring up the adversary?

Al: A little. Maybe we're having a word problem, but when I am able to see it best is when I just look at it as a small part of a very long movie, or a very long story. To accept that particular situation or limitation and acknowledge that it is temporary.


Corky: Do you have a difficult time just letting the conflict be there? Is it hard to submit? Difficult to surrender? It is like a suicide. You have to put something inside of you to death or away forever, or to sleep, in order to submit. For now, we will call it surrender.

Al: Oh no! That is worse!! The reason I do not like that word is you could submit to anything. Surrender is more...


Corky: We are talking about the confrontation, the conflict. Sometimes you have been pressed so tight by submission or surrender that it becomes suicidal. Let's try to go very close to that, and talk about that. What is happening when that is taking place? Has an issue been raised or something been brought up that is uncomfortable?

Al: Yeah, something that has been avoided. Something that really touches on some of your fundamental beliefs about what you expected from yourself or your life, or the values that you had. When those are false or when you have false ideas, when you are misguided and not seeing things clearly and you experience education that helps you see that you are wrong or have been lead in an inaccurate way, it is very threatening because you do not have anything to replace it with yet. It is a sort of suicide I guess. You dissolve inside of yourself, and god only knows what is going to fill that space. You are becoming less and less. It is like dying.


Corky: Keep on talking, you are doing great! This is beautiful. Sounds good to me. Go ahead.

Al: And this death is terrifying and I feel like "Well geeze, I am 31 and it is a little late to be going through a radical transformation here! I need my strength and personality to be successful in life, to be an accepted member of society. If you are going to destroy me right now in my life..."


Corky: Question - Who is destroying you?

Al: Reality is going to come in here and totally obliterate my beliefs; I do not have anything left. How do I know when that is gone, what is going to be there to see me through, to sustain me? I do not like what I am, but I am more afraid of what I might be, the unknown.


Corky: Yes, and he said something really interesting. He said something is going to a death or a type of suicide, or going to sleep and is going away, but nothing is coming back in to replace it. That is REALLY interesting. There is not anything coming back in is there? Could it be possible that there is just a whole bunch of stuff in there that you are getting rid of and you are leaving yourself just blank? Is that possible?

Al: Yes. That's very possible.


Corky: What does that mean?

Al: That means it is not about doing more or becoming more, or adding more, maybe it is a reducing thing. When I talk in chemistry about reduction or something maybe it is just getting rid of the frills.


Corky: Could it be possible that we are dark energetically because we are full of "stuff," and if we take that out we become very light and clear. We get en-light-ened, because it is pure and there is nothing there to plug it all up or confuse it or distort it. Could that possibly be the process? So, what does it feel like?

Al: It is just the letting go. When you are taught, when it is in your body to find your fulfillment in certain ways it is awfully hard to relax into something else. To just say that all of that does not matter, when your body and your blood says you have to be doing certain things, I find it very difficult to let those things just say they are not important. I could say that, so that metaphysical groups would think I am enlightened or something. But I guess I am afraid of going to enlightenment unfulfilled in the ways that I expect.

Corky: (laughing) That is great! That's good — that's beautiful! I have never heard it put better by anybody. No greater truth has been spoken. If we had to back up, and let's just say you did not have the issues raised and you went on like you were doing, do you think you would confront some of the issues sooner or later in life?

Al: I think I always have.


Corky: Do you think that happens more rapidly by coming here and having those things raised?

Al: It is intensified here, yes, I would say so.


Corky: It's more painful right? Why do you think people go away? To work on the things that have been brought up here right? Doesn't it force you to go away? While you are away you work on those things, and you come back and get a new dose. Then you go away and work on it some more. But while you are away what happens? Do you get mad? Until you get all done being mad and then you come back here to get mad again.

Do you think that madness helped though? That it was a catalyst for change?

Al: Deep down I do not want to admit to it, but yes, deep down that is the case. I have to look at it long after the fact.


Corky: Something went to sleep or something died and you got really clear. It eats at it a little by little. Do you think it is possible that a lot of people come here, participate momentarily, joined or whatever and then got really pissed off and went away for a number of years to work on the piss off and then come back? Sometimes it takes years away to get over it, to get over something that happened here. Have you noticed how everybody sort of comes back though? Isn't that weird?

Al: I was just thinking about what I said before. I said I had these areas I wanted to be fulfilled in. I do not see how I could become enlightened without being fulfilled. Maybe not necessarily participating in those activities, but at least being fulfilled with those things, at the level of my mind. I could not pretend to no longer have those desires anymore.


Corky: You are talking about reality versus illusion. Is it real here?

Al: I think this place is very real.


Corky: Is anybody asking you to tell a lie or are they asking you to tell the truth? Is it hard sometimes to tell the truth? Is that the most difficult thing about this place for most people, to tell the truth, and the level of honesty required here?

Al: It is frightening. Our society teaches you to be an asshole.


Corky: You are blaming it on everybody else. So what if they teach that out there, who is the one buying it?

Al: You are. I am. We all buy it.


Corky: Do you feel uncomfortable with today's conversation? Do you feel nervous about it?

That could possibly be an indicator for an area in your life, where you will find your own answer to the issue being raised. It is your own answer in there. It is within you. It is not out here, the answer is totally in you. It does not make any difference what anyone else out here thinks about it, it only matters what you think about it. So the answer is within you.The issues that make you nervous or uncomfortable have an answer to them and they are inside of you and cannot be found on the outside. You discover that answer by getting close to it. You cannot find the answer far away from it. That is why the confrontation of bringing the seed of the issue to the surface, is important. Even though it makes us nervous, or makes us mad, or makes us angry. It touches on very sensitive issues, and it will always touch on very sensitive issues.

But we look to the manifestation as the problem, and we try to cure the manifestation rather than the cause which created the problem. But it is easier to work on the effect instead of the cause because the cause is so sensitive. It hurts to look at it and it hurts to deal with it. It is suicidal. Let's stop for today.