Transcribed Talk – J. Jaye Gold
I’d like for all of us to sing this simple song together. Here are the words:
When I am worried, and I can’t sleep
I count my blessings instead of sheep
And then I fall asleep counting my blessings
(Everyone sings.)
What I was thinking about in relation to this song is that the way life is dealt out to us, everybody gets something. Even if they get very little, they get a simple life. I was making a list up for myself, and maybe we could construct one here with our own contributions and suggestions about the perks that people get in life. There’s good health, there’s talent of some kind, there’s monetary security—wealth, there’s decent appearance, or even better than decent appearance. What else is there? There’s getting to have a relatively sane life partner, or at least a year partner… well you know, that’s something. You could get intelligence, you could have a house, you could have friends, pets, an appreciation of nature, a hobby or interest, leisure time, kids, or no kids, an appreciation for music or a musical talent. Even people who have difficult lives sometimes have a lot of support, have families. In foreign countries where people are very poor, they usually hang together, so they have that. They don’t get lonely. Other people have more independence. Everybody has a list of perks that they’ve gotten from life, things in the “win column.” Everybody has also probably put some effort—and some of you a great deal of effort—into getting some of the things that haven’t come easily to you.
What I want to put forth is that if you’ve made a reasonable effort to add to your win column and it hasn’t happened, it may not happen, and your efforts to do that could be a waste of time. Now, if you haven’t made the effort, if you’ve been unmotivated and lazy and it’s all been in your head, then I’m not saying you probably won’t get it, because you might just have to make the effort. But if you have made the effort, it’s possible you just aren’t going to get that something you were hoping for.
We think that we can have everything all the time, but it may not be the case. When things change, we try to re-institute what we had before. We don’t get the message that it may be time for us to go on to the next thing. Maybe it’s time to take care of some other people instead of taking care only of yourself, or time to take care of yourself after all this time of taking care of other people.
It may be that the energy you put into getting what you haven’t gotten could be better used. If you’re putting the guts of your effort into getting things from the what you didn’t get column into the what you want to get column, then you’re not going to be able to do this other thing that I’m talking about, because this other thing comes after that. It comes when you get a little tired. The energy that it takes to discover your spiritual center is the energy you are using to improve your lot. As much as you can decrease your focus on improving your lot, you can increase your focus on spiritual exploration and discovery. That’s the law. When I turn on the A/C in my trailer, the lights dim. I could want the lights to stay bright when the A/C is on, but there’s a certain amount of energy available in that trailer, and when the A/C goes on, the lights go down. They both share the same energy source.
It’s possible that in your attempts to develop whatever it is you’ve developed, you may have developed it sufficiently. That doesn’t mean you have to stop doing things; it means that your hope and aspiration aren’t in those things. If there were no higher place for those aspirations, then I would say to just keep banging your head. What the hell! But there is a place, a wonderful place, a profound place, an important place. There is such a meaning for life possible for a person who is willing to tone down their outer quest and seek the beauty within, seek the Light within, seek the Sound within, seek the tingle within. It is there, and it gives perks of its own. It gives perks of feeling filled up, of feeling cared for—constantly. It would be like the feeling when you really appreciate something and say, “thank you,” and you really mean it. It would be like that for your breath. Thank you for that one. Thank you for that one, and on and on. That would reflect the attitude of feeling taken care of by something that feeds us breath by breath—not day by day, not year by year—but breath by breath. And with that recognition, comes the great and incredible gift of being able to look outside of us and see what’s out there—see the pain or the beauty or the need or the delight outside of us. Anyone who’s taken a couple of tokes knows that we don’t really see each other, but we could. We don’t really see the creation, but we could.
Maybe one way this can go a little faster is if you learn the words to this song, and it becomes your song. You have considerable attributes that have been given to you. It’s not that you don’t have the bummer list, but you also have this other one. Think of how bold the entries are on your bummer list compared to the entries in light pencil on the other side! It’s not only unsightly for a person who has so much to say, “I want, I want, I want,” but it’s also a personal rip-off because in those attempts to get more, that person is using up the energy they could use to ascend. Period. Now think about that. Think about that as a trade-off, and you might not be so cavalier with your next dream of glory, or whatever it is for you. The energy that you’re putting into that dream of that perfect job or that perfect relationship or that perfect whatever is ripping you off from being a seeker of truth.
People ask me, “How did you come to experience and understand what you understand?” Well, while other people were doing the most important thing to them, I was doing what became the most important thing to me. All it takes is harnessing some of the energy that goes all over the fuckin’ place. There was a natural reassignment of energy that came from decreasing all the other quests and accepting my list of blessings.
Something I like to do in the kitchen is make stuff out of what’s there. I open the cabinet and just look at a can of this, a bag of that. I kind of let them swirl around and combine, and if you’ve done it enough times, something comes to you. You could go to the store for whatever it is you don’t have, but what if you made the best stew you could out of what you have, and used the rest of the energy for the purpose of human life on this earth? Wouldn’t that be interesting?
I’ll say it again. Everything you’ve got, everything that’s been given to you—your hair as curly as it is, as straight as it is, being as tall as you are, whatever it is—I’m talking about in the mid-range; if you’re terribly overweight or if you’re very weak, you may have to do a little work—if you’re in the middle range, take all that equipment, take everything you’ve got, and make the best thing you can out of it. And then… let’s go on. Mind you, that’s not what you’re doing. Your major efforts are to improve your lot. That’s where 90% of your effort goes, and you give your soul, your spirit, what’s left.
If you’re smart, or if you’re interested, you’ll make a list for yourself and stick it up somewhere, and when you find yourself striving to move something from the bummer list to the blessing list, take a look at what you have. You may decide, I guess I do have enough. I can take some time to look for the inner silence. Once the momentum gets rolling, you’ll be amazed by an internal experience that is so filling that your perspective of the importance of those other things comes into harmony. It just does. Once you realize that, you’re set, because then you can play tennis as often as you want, but you’re not grasping, you’re not desperate. If you make a tennis appointment and the person doesn’t show up, it’s not, Oh my God! What am I going to do? I was depending on this! Whether it’s a job or an appointment or the food burnt, it’s okay. Life will be so different for you if you can allow Grace to come into your life through the inner quest, and like it says in one of the scriptures, “All else shall be added unto you.”