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We live in a world of turmoil and chaos.
For the first time in the entire history of human existence
people live with the threat of terrorism.
Every single person on earth lives with the threat of terrorism.
This has never happened before
and it is not a harbinger of good things.
So you see if we are trying to put all of our data
into positive, negative or neutral categories
then there’s a lot of it we just have to deny
because it’s much too painful, it’s too big
it’s too huge to even think about or consider.
And so we come to find out about ourselves
at this point in our evolution
we have an evolutionary imperative
and an educational imperative.
Every single step of human evolution
has had an educational imperative
and an evolutionary imperative together.
When we stood up on two paws
instead of being down on four, did we all stand up together?
No, no.
Some stood up and then the others said:
“Well, look at that!
What am I doing down here on all four of these paws? This is weird.
I’m going to try this other thing, but I think I’ll do it behind a rock.
In case I can’t do it, nobody will see me.”
And so you see, it was educational as well
it wasn’t just evolutionary, it was educational.
We’re pack animals and we learn from each other.
We learn from each other.
So we have.... the Four Mainstays are a lifestyle choice
because these are the lifestyle choice
exactly the lifestyle choice that have kept people united forever.
Exactly the same: the Four Mainstays.
People like to have a simple focus of practice in their life
a simple manner of living
a simple way to proceed ahead each day.
Confidently knowing that all is well, that all is in order.
That, with the Balanced View, all of their talents
their strengths, their gifts, whatever they might be, will be fully honored.
And maybe when you first come here you might not even know
what your strengths, gifts and talents are
but that’s okay because there will be many people here who will point them out to you.
Because very often we don’t see the best in ourselves
and so the importance of a teacher is multifaceted
but one of the important aspects of being a teacher is to point that out,
point out the strengths, gifts and talents
point out the great benefit of the mind
the speech, the body, the qualities and activities
point these out and nurture and encourage these in each individual.
Creating situations for each individual
where they'll go one step further then they ever thought they could go.
It might feel like we’re going to fall off the edge of a cliff
but we don’t really
instead there’s something new about us.
New about us that we hadn’t learned until now,
something new about us every single day.
I am sixty-five years old
every single day to me is a total miracle
of joy and fun and love
and it doesn’t matter what is going on, it is not circumstance dependent.
It is not circumstance dependent
my friends, my family, they know that I will show up
and I will show up in a beneficial way when I show up,
I’m not going to show up in any other way.
And so, this capacity that we each have
is what is pointed out in the text today.
Now, for those of you who are new
you may have noticed that repetition is part of,
is one of the literary devices we use in our texts.
And we use repetition as a very important literary device
and it’s to drive the point home.
Drive the point home.
That reset button - drive the point home.
And...
we have a very specific set of metaphors that we use
and almost all of the metaphors we use,
not all of the metaphors, but almost all of the metaphors we use
were not things that were created by human beings
like rainbows in the sky, or a flash of lightening, or a clear cloudless day.
These metaphors are a form of communication
that is very, very important.
In Balanced View we use both symbolic communication
and non-symbolic communication.
Non-symbolic communication sometimes is called transmission.
It's just like when you plug in the toaster, and put in a piece of toast and push the lever down
or maybe it goes down by itself if you're really lucky to have one of those toasters.
Then you don’t think about where the electricity is coming from, usually
or how your toast is getting toasted.
A lot of people are laughing because I have a thing about toasters.
I have a toaster where you can actually see the toast
being toasted in the toaster, while it’s toasting,
it has glass on all sides.
Now why did it take so long to invent something like that?
You know how you are always looking in the toaster:
“What’s going on in there? Is it done yet?
Is eight the right setting or should it be six?”
So this transmission power is very, very important
and in a group of people like this, you might notice
that you don’t feel the same way you do when you are with other groups of people
and that is due to non-symbolic communication.
There is a very strong transmission power in non-symbolic communication
and very specific symbol sets of metaphors.
It’s based on set theory, actual set theory,
everything about Balanced View
the way the entire educational process is structured,
it is structured in this way, so it isn’t a matter of remembering anything
or even comprehending or understanding anything.
In the beginning you may not comprehend
or understand anything at all, when you hear the text.
How many here felt like that when they first heard the text,
that they couldn’t comprehend or understand anything at all?
And then couple of weeks later, looking at the same text
it suddenly all makes perfect sense, just out of nowhere.
And so this is the radical, radical importance
of this move we’re making all together as the human species.
We’re making a revolutionary move,
a move that will change human existence forever,
where we become intelligent agents
interactive with the open intelligence of the universe
intelligent agents
interactive with the open intelligence of the universe.
We learn to draw on the natural resources of open intelligence
to draw on them very powerfully
to inform our mind and speech
our body and qualities and activities.
We don’t just let our speech drift away into chit-chat
and this, that and the other thing.
We really understand, well, we may do that,
but we understand on a deep level that our speech,
it’s a profound gift,
all of these—our mind, our speech, our body, our qualities, activities.
These are profound gifts for us to use
to display this incredible array of our beneficial potency.