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So it's nice to live life where you feel like there is an easy flow,
where stress is not the predominant factor,
or where anger is the predominant factor.
You know, we all want to live a life that's easy going, effortless
but making great contribution.
You know, we want to be able to engage in our passions
in such a way that they'll benefit ourselves and then benefit others.
So, we want to feel included, we want to feel needed and loved,
we want to feel creative and experience all the excitement in life.
And that's what we want and that's what we expect.
You know, we really expect to have a good life, and I can see in my own life
all the suffering came in when it felt like those factors weren't being met.
My expectations didn't seem like they were being met.
And then I started to wonder, "Are my expectations too high?"
Are other people just not able to fulfill what I want?
Am I not able to fulfill what other people want?"
You know, just really questioning, “Why is there so much stress?"
Why is there so much disharmony in the world?
You know, all these issues that we see on the news, that we see everywhere, basically.
So you know, we all have this question, “Why is it like the way it is?"
"What can we do as humans to bring about great change?”
For me that, you know, I started seeking,
from spiritual teachings or other cultures,
trying to see the cultures that seemed happier and more peaceful and more co-operative.
What are they doing that works? What is their magic?
So I read lots of books about what people did
two thousand years ago and these amazing teachings.
But I really wanted to see the results.
And I didn't find those results until I met Balanced View.
So firstly the results were in my direct experience.
So in Balanced View the first thing I heard and what I am going to share with you now is
short moments of open intelligence repeated many times
until open intelligence is continuous or automatic at all times.
Open intelligence is synonymous with what's looking.
Open intelligence is simply the word that we're calling this natural intelligence.
We don't have to complicate it more than that.
You might hear other terms like awareness, you might hear clarity or God
whatever people want to call this universal, magical, super intelligence.
You know, how all of this was created, I mean it's magnificent.
When you look at all, everything around you,
everything that's in nature, everything that we've created from our own minds.
You know, all of this technology —it's all so incredible.
And what fuels all of this? What fuels human intelligence?
What fuels nature's intelligence? We call that open intelligence.
One open intelligence, one indivisible open intelligence.
So we can simply rest as that open intelligence,
rest as what's looking, to get to know open intelligence.
If you have other practices or ideas or belief systems,
just take a moment and allow yourself to not have to reference them,
not trying to reference any other philosophies or theologies or religions, just for a moment.
Take a short moment and rest and let everything be as it is.
If you're experiencing anger, if you're experiencing doubt,
if you're experiencing desire, jealousy, whatever it is,
just let that current description be as it is.
Just like you'd let the breeze in the air be just as it is.
Now is there a subtle or maybe a very present sense of relaxation when you do this?
This open intelligence fuels this present moment, it fuels all of the thoughts that we have,
all of the emotions, all of the sensations; and it's inseparable from the thoughts we have.
Open intelligence is inseparable from emotions, sensations, all phenomena.
Like the color blue is inseparable from the sky,
open intelligence is inseparable from what we call data: thoughts, emotions, sensations, experience.
I mean this is the fundamental essence of reality, open intelligence and data, inseparable.
Now it's great to keep it very simple:
resting as open intelligence for short moments many times,
effortlessly letting the data be as they are, for short moments.
You know, rather than contriving trying to let anger be as it is
you just take short moments of letting your anger be as it is
so that you get familiar with this open intelligence that is at the basis of the anger.
You know, this is very, this is totally experiential for you.
So, for me, I tested out short moments of letting everything be as it is.
I wasn't trying to hold a special posture, to do any special breathing techniques,
I wasn't trying to reference all of what I'd learned before.
I simply let everything be as it is,
like being on the best holiday and there was no more work to be done.
Just for a briefest moment.
Short moments can be likened to basking in the sun on the beach here in Goa,
where you're just laying there,
or taking a hot bath and relaxing.
Now that's just to give you a sense of the underlying ease,
because when you're in your daily life and you're working and maybe you're angry
and you're relying on short moments,
it's not to try to cultivate feeling like you're in a warm bath or that you're on the beach,
it's just to identify open intelligence as inseparable from anger
so for short moments when the anger arises
this is your practice, let it be as it is, in a very, in a very uncontrived way.
You know, I can't really explain it more than that.
You'll have lots of ideas about what short moments are, I did!
I thought maybe it was a duration or it had to look a particular way.
But, like I said, what is looking is open intelligence, it is effortlessly present.
You know, you don't have to effort for open intelligence to be there, it's already there.
It's always on, it's always continuous,
but in my case, I was looking for something else.
I didn't realize that what was looking was what I was looking for.
I wanted special states, I wanted special experiences.
I thought it was going to look completely different.
You know, I thought that, I don't know what I thought really,
I was thinking it would be that angels would come out of the sky and
I'd hear interesting new sounds or see weird colors and auras.
I just had lots of ideas about what the nature of reality was.
But when I heard that it's already present, it's who I am,
there was an instinctive understanding that, yes, this is the case.
This training is all about the instinctive recognition that
we are inseparable from open intelligence, in fact we are open intelligence.
Just because we've been trained to think we're a human separate from nature's intelligence,
does not mean that's the way it is.
So it's up to us to disprove this, and we just do that in short moments.
Short moments of letting everything be as it is, to see what is at the basis.
And then, you know, what I started to find was
less and less fear about everything that I was experiencing.
You know, I started to have courage to let everything be as it is, like anger.
Rather, my knee jerk reaction to anger before, was things like,
you know, slamming doors or doing exercise to avoid it, or replace it,
or simply running away from a situation that I knew I would feel anger.
But through relying on the Balanced View Training,
short moments of letting anger be as it is,
and then, I'll mention a bit more about the support of Balanced View here, in a moment,
but by relying on open intelligence and the Training
anger wasn't...the definition of anger started to lose it's importance,
and then it just became like this energy and not necessarily directing at any one person.
And then I was able to choose in the moment whether or not I indulged in it.
You know, I found I had a choice, I didn't have to immediately slam that door.
You know, that took a lot of practice for me. I think I've been slamming things since a young age
so it took a while for the twitches just to go for it, to settle out.
So I relied on the support of Balanced View,
The Four Mainstays, like a sturdy four legged chair, for it to be more and more effortless.
You know, at first it didn't feel effortless to let anger be as it was,
however I did recognize that open intelligence was effortless.
You know, I don't have to do anything to recognize open intelligence. It's already present.
But that searing anger:
I feel tense, I create a story about it or whatever, so it's going to take some practice.
So The Four Mainstays: the first one, short moments of letting it be as it is.
Two: a trainer. Having a trainer to rely on
it's like, if you want to climb Mount Everest you'd want a guide, most of us would.
So, somebody who has gone before us, who has tested out, who knows the route,
who has experience, can share pitfalls that they've experienced
and just share the tips and the pith, the practical instructions, the important instructions.
So I relied on my trainer a lot, you know, with very uncomfortable situations,
so that I didn't have to only just rely on short moments.
And that was very helpful, you know, just to have someone to touch in with,
saying, “I'm so angry, I don't know how to let it be as it is. What would you recommend?”
So a trainer is someone who can empower us to see that open intelligence is effortless,
the anger is inseparable from this purely beneficial open intelligence.
And then, three: the Trainings of Balanced View.
It's good to read about our exalted state, about natural perfection,
so that it becomes more and more our direct experience.
If we don't hear about open intelligence and how data are inseparable from it,
it's hard to get to understand it.
So we have many texts, we have many free videos, free audio
and then the Trainings that we share here at the centre, in person or online.
So that's a tremendous support. And outshining the data.
The term outshining means, you know how there's planets and stars up here right now
but you can't see them, they're outshone by the sun's rays.
In our direct experience things that really used to bug us,
that we go through all the self help methods so we can fix it,
we suddenly find that by relying on short moments, they're not really an issue anymore.
So, in our experience take note of what isn't such a distraction anymore.
For me not slamming doors, that was a huge accomplishment because it related to so many areas.
It related to relationships, work, how I treated myself,
how I treated others and it just kept expanding and opening me up.
And then the fourth Mainstay is the community.
Balanced View is very unique because it is a worldwide movement of people
saying, "I don't want to live in this way where I treat everything as positive and negative
and continue on in the same conventional ways.”
We know that we need a solution and we've tried so many things, and...
for me this is really working, so I like to spend my time with other people
who are committed to letting everything be as it is because it's powerful, it empowers us.
So it's hard to be angry in the Balanced View community
because somebody will just look at you with a loving look,
a reminder your anger doesn't have any power over you, unless you give it that power.
So we'll always be reminded by our friends in the community that open intelligence is primary,
this is our commitment, we're training up together so that we do start to see the beneficial results.
You know, I can talk about how amazing it has been in my life,
but it's really important that we all start to experience this.
I don't try to control the anger any more,
by not giving it a description, by resting as open intelligence it's just another flow of experience
and for me it just becomes this power to find a beneficial solution.
It's not like if I watch the news and I see something that you know is not right,
that I don't feel a surge of energy.
But what do I do with that energy?
Do I start cursing at the TV and cursing the people that are causing the issues
or do I relax for short moments and ask myself, “What can I do?”
I can't necessarily jump on an airplane and go to this place and say, “Take short moments!”
What we do is we come together, for those who are wanting to make a difference, and we train up,
and then we do affect people and we affect our immediate family and friends,
we affect our local surroundings.
When somebody see's another person who is stable and open and friendly
and helpful in an authentic way, I mean that's attractive.
They see that that's possible for them. So it's not like rocket science or anything.
It's like when you see somebody that has something you want, you're like,
“Wow! Look at him, he's amazing. Look at him, he looks so stable in this very hectic situation.
What's his practice?” So practicing letting everything be as it is
to see that open intelligence informs all situations, all moments.