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We’re very fortunate to be very special creatures within the cosmos.
Our specialness and our uniqueness, our rareness and our preciousness as creatures,
is founded in our holding of the intelligence of the universe in a usable way.
All of the knowledge within the entirety of the universe,
whatever that is, is held within us in a usable way.
We have had many ideas about what the universe is, what the cosmos is;
however if we look at the cosmos very closely and we reduce the cosmos to
the definition that contains all of it, in other words:
it’s all-encompassing and all-inclusive without leaving anything out,
yet at the same time indivisible, meaning nothing within it has a separate nature,
a nature of its own, then we find that what the cosmos is,
is an intelligent system, an indivisible intelligent system.
That indivisible intelligent system is built by nature to be of immediate benefit.
Now, we can say all kinds of things, but unless we can test them in our direct experience,
we do not know whether they are true or not.
So in order to test and see whether or not open intelligence,
the intelligence of the universe, is of immediate benefit to us,
all we have to do is stop thinking for a minute,
less than a minute, just a second.
What opens up is a vastness of mind beyond ideas we’ve had of a mind closed within the body.
The vastness of mind opens up into an inexhaustible intelligence,
and this inexhaustible intelligence is really what we are
when we say we have a mind and a body.
Our body is the cosmos, the intelligent system of the cosmos.
Our mind is the inexhaustible intelligent system of the cosmos.
This is important to us, because we cannot really understand anything about the universe,
all of the data within the open intelligence of the universe,
unless we really connect with it within ourselves.
We have to examine all of our own data, define it for ourselves and come to know what it is.
Come to see whether or not any of the data streams that are coming up within open intelligence,
data streams are anything: thoughts, emotions, sensations, experiences of any kind,
to see whether these really can be of immediate benefit.
We find that if we don’t define a data stream and we just leave it as it is,
without doing anything, we don’t try to surrender or let it go,
we just let it flow on by, as it is,
whatever it might say, until it self-releases.
At that moment of self-release is immediate benefit;
at that moment of self-release is our great exaltation as human beings.
It’s at that instant that we can relate to being these very special, rare, unique creatures
that hold the knowledge of the entire universe in a usable way within us.
Over and over again I would suggest this simple test:
in short moments of open intelligence, repeated many times,
open intelligence becomes automatic.
If we try to deal with everything we’ve come to know about ourselves
by having a dictionary full of names to describe it,
then it is very overwhelming and difficult to deal with.
However, if we look at ourselves as an open intelligence
and everything that arises within that open intelligence as data,
that’s all we need to know.
Again, reducibility: we’ve reduced a very large conceptual framework to something manageable,
to something we can handle, to something that we can use to be of immediate benefit to us
in our daily life.
When I started looking into the whole process of immediate benefit, I was very young.
I was a small child and I noticed that there was immediate benefit available all the time.
I noticed too that in all people there was a beneficial potency intrinsic to them,
no matter who they were or what they were doing.
So, they could be doing something really wonderful for the world,
or they could be desolate, isolated, disenfranchised and marginalized.
Nevertheless, everyone shone from within with
great exaltation
the exaltation of just being these very, very special creatures.
We have assumed probably for the last hundred-plus years that we know who we are
through different systems like medicine, psychology, psychiatry.
However, what I would like to invite you to do,
is just question all the systems that describe who we are and what we are
because what we are is so vast, so ungraspable and so incomprehensible
that it’s only together, one moment at a time,
that we can really come to know who we are as a global human community
that we can come to know who we are as a global human community,
and then make decisions about that.
Each of us, because we are so totally incredible and exalted,
we each have particular strengths, gifts and talents,
and when we begin to settle down into open intelligence, we put on a new pair of glasses.
We’ve been wearing a pair of glasses that has made the world look one way;
we put on a new pair of glasses and the world looks another way.
Then we come to see that in our settledness and our effortless disposition
is tremendous potency, tremendous beneficial potency.
This beneficial potency is an inherent desire we have to be of benefit to all.
So all of the knowledge we hold is for the benefit of all; that’s what it’s for.
Every aspect of us: our mind, speech, body, qualities and activities,
intended and purposed for the benefit of all.
The more that in an uncontrived way we’re able to offer ourselves,
our strengths, gifts and talents in an uncontrived way as I said,
the more flourishing we will feel,
the more life satisfaction we will have.
A lot of focus is placed on the mind, just doing something to the mind
and getting it somewhere. It’s all very self-centered and self-focused,
but actually the most basic aspect of our nature is our desire to be of benefit to all.
That is so inherent in every single one of us, and indeed, in all of the cosmos.
All of the cosmos is intended to be of benefit to everything within the cosmos,
there isn’t anything that can be separated out from the cosmos.
When we grow up, most of us learn to handle our data in a number of ways:
either we indulge our data, we avoid it by trying to find some other data to hold on to,
or we replace it. For example, we become angry,
so we replace it with compassion
or happiness or some other state.
However, in Balanced View, through the Four Mainstays lifestyle,
we do not learn how to be open intelligence:
we live a lifestyle of open intelligence.
So we move beyond learning,
and our lifestyle is naturally one of open intelligence.
We enter into a worldwide community of people living as open intelligence’s beneficial potencies.
We have a simple practice: short moments many times until it becomes obvious at all times,
until open intelligence is obvious at all times. And we have certified trainers
and volumes and volumes of trainings, and all kinds of media, free media on our website.
So that open intelligence is a lifestyle,
open intelligence’s beneficial potencies are a lifestyle.
We learn who we really are through living a lifestyle,
just the same way that we learned who we really aren’t: by living a lifestyle.