Transcript of 402-112386-OpeningToAwareness.mp3

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Joy Franklin:
This is November 23rd, 1986, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Good morning, Bartholomew.

Bartholomew / Mary-Margaret Moore:
So then, good morning.

Crowd:
Good morning.

Bartholomew / MMM:
If any of you have been listening for the last two months, there must have been one question entering your mind. At least I hope it did. Which is this: if it be true, as you say, that the cellular structure of the body is that wondrous part of your physical body which holds the power of the light, which holds the enlightenment that you seek. If this be true, and if you also have come to hear that safety is what makes it possible to release into allowing the light to fill your life, I hope that the question arises "how then does this fit in with love? And most important, I think also, how does this fit in with courage?"

Bartholomew / MMM:
I would like to talk to you about courage today. Most of you vastly underrate your ability to be courageous. There are many things that those of us on this side of the light would say to you - should you sit still long enough to hear us - ... that was supposed to be a joke, you're not lightening up today... and one of them... one of those things would very clearly be: please begin to appreciate the quality of your courage! Appreciating the quality of your courage is the one thing that will stand you in good stead when difficulties do arise and you feel yourself in a state of unavailable divine. Now, look, we know that many of you operate most of the moments of your life in hopes that there is a divine, not knowing for sure, t rusting, hoping, praying, believing in some way, but not with that deep inner knowing of the soul song that says it's true, it's true, it's - yes, again - true.

Bartholomew / MMM:
All right. We understand that. We understand that that is what makes the life that you have to live difficult. And we know because we came before you and we went the same road and we had the same obstacles, it looked a little differently, no doubt. But nevertheless, the dilemma has always been the same. In the conquest of man's delight to do the job that you've been asked to do, which is to somehow, day after day, to pull into every situation available, that high quality of divine consciousness. That is the job. Knowing that this is the job you have always had, one of the most difficult paths [to] walk upon. I would like to redefine courage and make it something very, very simple. Courage is getting up in the morning and saying, I will try again. The emotion that you are watching is a human translation through Mary Margaret's system of our deep gratitude. The courage to just, every day, begin anew in some way, to sit there or lay there and say "all right, I don't have any more evidence today than I did yesterday that you really exist, I have no evidence that proves that I am living my life the way you want me to live it. And it even seems to me that I must be making a lot of mistakes because things aren't going the way my heart wants them to, and my mind would delight in it. But nevertheless, I'm willing. Here I am. One more day, to do my best to live my life so that it brings your light into this world." And we would like to say thank you. It is only through you that we can enlighten this planet.

Bartholomew / MMM:
The plants, the animals, all of that, they have a wondrous job and it's different than yours. Those of you who have animals, don't project please your please - excuse this word - your neurotic behavior and beliefs on your animals, because the animals have a different strand of understanding. Their concept of time/space is not your concept of time/space. They do not have the same anxiety about sitting there on Tuesday and thinking "am I going to have to do this for another 15 years?" They don't have any understanding of 15 years. They only know this moment and what is impinging in their cellular structure in this moment, and they delight in it. And that is what they do. And they do it with great grace. The plant kingdom has a different strand, but nevertheless they have no concept of time/space. They do not sit and wait in terror of the hurricane that's going to rip them out of the ground. They only know that when power is in the air, hurricane is present, something happens and there is a change in their form, and that delights them. And it's that simple. But when we come to the human realm, you have both the gift and the curse - I might put it this way - of time, space, consciousness, knowing that there is such a thing. Do you realize that if you only knew today and had no thought about tomorrow at all, your life would be totally different? Do you understand? You would only dwell on what is happening in your consciousness right now. So the difficulty is not only do you have to bring this gossamer, mysterious divine consciousness, whatever that is, down into every moment of your life, but at the same time you have riding with you this... this knowledge of the time/space continuum, and I know that there are times when you say "too much".

Bartholomew / MMM:
But I also know that the gifts that come to you, gifts that you have deserved every day of your life, come through to you in the night. And I would like to talk about that for a moment, because when we go back to our basic diagram, which is that it is the cellular structure that holds the light within you, always available for your use, which is why they can say you have always been enlightened, you always have been, you always will be. They can say that because they know that this light is contained in the cellular structure of you, waiting to be released at your own command.

The cellular structure undergoes some very interesting transformations, both astrologically and in the night. Astrologically I'm sure it's very obvious to you. Each one of the planets has as its great joy and delight the wonder of radiating out its essence of whatever it is in all directions in the created universe. And each body of the universe receives and takes in the gifts from that planet. Now the interesting thing is that the planets act on each other also. You see, it's not as simple as you would think. And the reason that I believe - and for those astrologers in this building, I'd like to say this for those of you who are interested in astrology in these days, would you please begin to ask yourself the question "is it possible that the planets, having interacted on each other for all of these centuries since the old books were written, is it not possible that they are giving forth a different kind of energy that is not quite so recognizable in astrological terms today?" It's just a little thought. I just... I have a few close astrological friends in the audience today. I just wanted to stimulate that part of their consciousness.

Bartholomew / MMM:
But night. Night is always the time where you lay yourself down in total surrender. You do not have the foggiest notion what goes on while you're asleep.

Speaker1:
And yet every night, obedient, you just lay down! And I say to you: "congratulations!" I think that is a wondrous statement of human courage. You know, you don't know, you just really don't know, you... and yet, night after night, there comes this "all right..." You know, and you don't have to be pushed into bed, hit over the head, you know, most of you go "Oh, thank heaven ,it's time". So, given this, let's really ask, how can you, using this wonderful time, use it in order to secure some more safety? Do you remember? We talked about safety being the issue. There without the issue... safety... without safety, you will not become self enlightened. You will keep on, hanging on and hanging on and hanging on. But when safety begins to be the prevalent action of your life, you're going to find yourself becoming more and more enlightened. Now, you sleep a long time. A lot of the day and night is spent in this mysterious state. So those of you who really do wish enlightenment, and there are a lot of you in this room that do wish to be enlightened, I'd ask you to take what I have to say seriously. Now, I don't mean soberly and with boredom, but, you know, with a sense of seriousness about this. There has been so much written about the sleep state that is absolute nonsense that it's very difficult to talk about it because it's going to sound so simple and so ordinary in comparison to all of the wonderful stories that have been woven around this very simple issue.

Bartholomew / MMM:
But nevertheless, it's not difficult. The analogy that I would like to use, which is, of course, a lie and you remember our agreement, I'm allowed to lie. And now here comes the lie. But it's rather like this. It's rather like a flower that just begins and opens and opens and opens and opens and opens for a period of a day. In this case of a night. And then at a certain moment closes and closes and closes until it is back again closed. All right. With this lie as our model. Understand what I'm saying. The reason I use the flower, it's a multi petaled flower because you have multifaceted consciousness. There is an overriding part of you that, as you lay down to sleep, knows which side of you, which part of you needs to be nourished, cherished, embraced, cared for. It knows. Your conscious mind may not be aware because your conscious mind doesn't know about all of these wonderful petals that have been helping you through every moment of your life. You have never walked alone. You could never walk alone. You are surrounded. And if I might use the analogy of the petals, you sitting in the heart of this flower with this incredible unfoldment around you at all times. These petals each have a wonderful speciality.

Bartholomew / MMM:
They are not all the same. The receiving device, as you have on your Earth plane, some elements receive sound signals from one place and another from another. Otherwise all these wonderful machines would not work. They would all be one sound. And wouldn't it be, well, noisy. But out of this wonderful ability, each one of these petals containing within them a different frequency band, let's put it in those terms - and again, another lie - but frequency band that has as its only job the receiving of and the taking in of a certain frequency of consciousness. As you fall into that sleep state, as you relax your control because you have got this on tight control, many of you more than you know, hanging on to the control that says, don't, don't let me go anywhere. Just keep me here. Just, just nothing new, folks. Just nothing new. I'm having enough trouble with what I've got and I don't want any more. You know, this is what your consciousness says. That's enough. Now, because that is not the totally wise part of you talking. And because the totality of you knows that you have a prearranged agreement that says, don't listen, just don't listen. When that... when that part of me is talking, don't listen. Just just shut me up and put me out. And that's what happens. They shut you up and they put you out and you go to sleep, and it is as... in that sinking down into the sleep state that the petals begin their opening and in their sweet opening, and this is the important thing, that part of you which is crying out the loudest is the part that puts out the greatest sound need. And it is that petal which receives that which you need for your night. This is done totally automatically. And this is why sleeping pills are not helpful. It's obvious. Do what you want with that. But any of you who have to take them, please try every other night. Try extending past that because this is the shortening of the connection and it's essential that your being put out the call. You know. You know the words: "seek and you shall find, knock and it will be opened". But you see, this happens not only in your daily life of awakened time, but it very, very much happens in your sleep state, in your receiving time. The receiving mode happens in the still of the night. That is the receiving mode. And then, as the tide pulls in and the tide pulls out during the day, that which you have received, it is your delightful job to give back out and in the night again you receive. And just as the tidal pools go in and out, so then in your own beingness, the tide pools go in and out. Do you see? It's a simple thing, but it makes all the difference in the world. Now, knowing that this be true, how do you help enlighten yourself? Here we go again.

Bartholomew / MMM:
Energy follows thought. Energy follows thought. If, as you find yourself sinking into the sleep state, if you would begin to play with the thought, with the idea, with the picture that we've just talked about and really feel yourself as a consciousness that is beginning to open in those moments, and consciously participate in trying to open. Just attempting to open. What you do is twofold. You hasten the process for that night getting you into deeper states thereby. And also it gives you the thing that you're all really looking for. You are all really looking to be conscious while asleep. You all really would love to know what happens during sleep because you know intuitively that it's a tremendous amount of fun and it's probably a lot more fun than what you're doing during the day! And so, while you want to be filled with some kind of new delight to keep going on and on and on with your life, you finally decide: "now, look, it seems to me that I'm asleep during a lot of my consciousness, so if I'm awake or at least conscious of my dream state, then I can participate more fully in what's going on". All right? The sign of a really good yogi or a really good master is someone who can stay conscious of the sleep state and thereby tremendously explode your view of limitation.

Bartholomew / MMM:
What we're fighting, of course, is this idea of limitation, that you're limited. And if you participate fuller and fuller and fuller with your night state, you realize how tremendously unlimited you really are in a way that is real. Look, I could... I could spin you tales... Oh, I could be a good storyteller. I could spin you tales of what happens to you and you'd sit here and you'd listen and be wonderful, but then so what? So what? Why would you even believe me? Maybe I just am a good storyteller. You know, maybe there's no truth to it. But what I will tell you is my words will not transform your life. My words will not transform any part of your life until you take some action in order to see if they're real. Now, so I really... you know, a lot of you are testers, and I really like that. I like the testers better than the sleepers, but we take what we can get anyway. [Laughter] And the tester says: "All right, all right, you windy blowhard up there, we'll see, we'll see." And if you have that kind of feeling about this, I would ask you to start, and it's not difficult. Number one, every night as you begin, - please don't do this on daytime napping, remind me to talk about that if I forget that, please, that's a whole other session - in the night, in the night state, or when... if you have to sleep in the daytime, if that's your whole total stretch of time.

Bartholomew / MMM:
All right, but when you're laying yourself down for that long period of sleep, if you will just simply begin to practice opening. You say, I know what is that. You will begin to know what that is, not in some abstract way, but in your own body, your own sense of self. There is a way to begin to open. Last time we spoke about letting go, and now I'm asking you to begin the delight of opening. Now, you can do it at night because there's none of those terribly frightening things called humans around to bother you. All right. You are much more into your own specialized space. You have around you your own consciousness, even though you're sleeping with someone, they're doing the same thing. You know, they're entering new roads because this is what happens every night. All that you have to commit to is to begin the process of trying to open. If you're doing this well, one of the first things that you're going to run into is your own discouragement committee, which will be very present and say "Oh, no, we're not we're not going to open. Oh no, Oh, no, Oh, no." And then your question is "why?" Don't allow the fear to paralyze your process. Fear paralyzes your process. Now, that's why you're not all enlightened, because there's fear paralyzing to one degree or another.

Bartholomew / MMM:
But fear can be easily worked with. It is a companion. It is a friend, and it can be used in a very creative way. So, in order to really enlighten your consciousness, just keep asking the obvious questions. What are you afraid of? All right, it's time to open, what's going to happen? And allow all of those pictures to come in. And there will be a lot of them because you've lived many, many lifetimes. And for some of you, this may be the first time that you have asked yourself - which is I'm asking you and you're asking me, it's all one here - asking yourself, how do I overcome the fear and simply open? Now, the thing that you're going to have to trust here is that by simply saying, acknowledging, I am afraid of this, I'm afraid of that, I'm afraid of the other, by simply acknowledging that to your conscious mind, you are already beginning the process of transforming that fear. And that's where you're going to have to trust me. And those of you that don't trust me, fine. Trust yourself, much better. Try it by simply bringing those fears to your conscious part of your wholeness, you are going to begin to integrate them into the wholeness of things. Most of your psyche knows what you're afraid of and isn't afraid at all. Have you ever thought about that? You know, most of your psyche knows exactly what you're afraid of. It says Ho hum, big deal. "What are you so afraid of?" says the wholeness of you. But the little part of you says, What do you mean? I'm terrified this is going to happen. Whatever. All right.

Bartholomew / MMM:
Now, when you simply trust the process enough to allow those fears to join with your conscious mind, you are going to have a unified whole. And when you get things whole, then wholeness comes. So just please bring them up, filter them through, and as best you can, just trust that night after night after night, this process is going to get lesser and lesser and lesser. Now, you also know that as you get deeper and deeper into things, the strata gets thinner and thinner. By that I mean the big fears come first and you think "Oh, I've got this handled now I'm fine." And then lo and behold, one night you're ready to let go. It's all old, familiar, and all of a sudden this incredible fear will rise up. And here we are again. What is it this time? Because you see, the more that you go into your being with allowance, with really allowing it to talk to you, it's going to bring out your whole, you know, file of horror movies. And it's all right. It is simply all right, don't worry. Just bring them up, say all right, and continue trying to let go. Opening up is the challenge, because in opening up, you are saying something very deeply important.

Bartholomew / MMM:
And here we come with courage. Once again. What you are saying is, in the midst of the fact that I have no real proof that there is a divine power that will save me and help me and hold me, in spite of the fact that I do not know that, I'm willing to try. And that is courage. So please bring to your consciousness again and again how courageous you really are, because it is the one thing that will keep you courageous. The acknowledgment of what you have and what you have done. If you have a problem or a fear that presses on you during the day, I ask you not to work with this process during your day nap time because the sleeping state is a process. Now look, you think that you decide when you're going to go to sleep and when you're going to wake up. And that's partly true and it's partly not true. There are incredible parts of this computer called "whoever you are" that you have no idea about, but yet you go to a computer and totally trust, you put in the material and you... out comes the print out and you say "wonderful". And you don't have to understand the process that this computer went through in order to get you this wonderful. You simply are very grateful for it. And it's the same kind of thing that goes on with the totality of who you are.

Bartholomew / MMM:
Those of you who are working with people or if you are yourself subject to depression, I would ask you, encourage you to begin this process at once. Depression is nothing more than this pushing down that says, I don't want to feel it, I don't want to think it, I don't want to know it. And that's what's causes de-pression. It presses down upon you. So when you feel yourself to be depressed, the very thing that your whole being is saying is, let's close down. I'm asking you to say, no, the opposite. Let's open them up and do them, please, as a ritual in the night state, when you wake up, go back into it again. Whatever the reason, please, my friends, you talk and use the words "the unseen world", you use these words often. The fact is there is an incredibly, amazingly, wonderfully empowered, totally compassionate, unseen world which is connected to you, if I might again say, through these petals, through the whole state of your wholeness and who you are. And the sleep state is one small part of that helping device. If you are serious about enlightening your life, please take what I have said to heart. You can change your life. The fears that nag at you nag because they are on the periphery of your consciousness and have not been brought to the center. Anything that is brought to the center can be dealt with. You yourself know, when you are centered, you can deal with your life and if you are not, it takes the slightest thing to throw you off.

Bartholomew / MMM:
I give you my absolute word: anything that you bring into the center of this amazing flower can be dealt with. Do you know what guilt does to your life? Guilt is the love killer. Guilt is the love killer. Mostly because it kills your love for you. You know, most of you are very, very kind to others and forgive them incredible things and simply say, "Oh, all right, that's all right. We'll try again. It's all right." Do you say this to yourself? Or do you have this wonderful gallery of pictures of yourself, all in the negative mode, and they ride you and they ride you and they keep you from loving you. Guilt can be worked with in the night state. Are you ready to just not feel guilty anymore? Do you know why you've been asked to feel guilty? People control you through guilt. Isn't that fun? [Laughter] People control you through guilt. Look at the parents. At the very earliest, the first thing out is let's try guilt. And if guilt doesn't work, we'll try something else. But always, almost always first in line is guilt. Now, because it seems to work, but of course, in the end it doesn't work at all. Guilt is a feeling that you didn't do it right. That's very simple. I didn't do it right. I just didn't do it right. And the joke is half the time you don't know what you should have done that was right. But you just did what you did and it wasn't right. Now, where you lose your power is you go to other people and you say "What did I do wrong?" And they tell you "I'll tell you what you did wrong", [Laughter] thereby giving you two pictures that mesh. You said you did it wrong. They said you did it wrong. You have a conclusion. Now you've proved it to yourself. I did it wrong.

Bartholomew / MMM:
If you begin this practice of night, and some of you are very ready for this, the things that will arise first are not fear of death, fear of losing your lover? No. First, things that are going to come up is I'm scared of God because I didn't do it right and God isn't going to love me because I just didn't do it right. And even worse, I don't know how to do it right, because when I try to do it right, I end up sometimes doing it right and sometimes doing it wrong. And every day I try. But I make a lot of mistakes. And I'm afraid because I've been told that God doesn't love me unless I do it right. How can I do it right? Do you see the bind you've placed yourselves in? You cannot do it perfectly. You cannot. Can you think of a perfect explosion? I mean, let's talk about an explosion. Would you ever say that was a perfect explosion? Oh, look at that. That was a perfect explosion! You never would say that, would you? But what you say is "that was an amazing explosion", encompassing the knowledge that there were multitudinous parts to it all alive and spontaneous and combustible and creative and dynamic and unthinkable. It just happened. And you are in awe of it. But when it comes to events in your life, you don't talk about explosions. You just simply say "was it right or wrong?" That's all. There's no appreciation of the exploding quality of it, of the power within it, of the delight of it, of the light it gave off, of the pattern. Nothing. Limited. Flat. Life is an explosion one moment after another after another after another after another after another. And that's what makes it fun. You would have a lot more fun if you had no guilt. [Laughter] And I mean that in the deepest sense. Not then that you would just strip off all of your goodness and run amok. I don't see many runamokers in here. They do exist. They do exist, but they don't give up Sundays in... [Laughter] So we have to know that they're running amok is not an issue.

Bartholomew / MMM:
Please follow. I want so much for you to just touch on for a moment that you are guiltless. You are guiltless. There is no such thing as guilt except in the human mind. And you play it off against each other. If you just move one increment away from the earth plane, one increment away, what you hear is "We understand. We understand. Try again. Try again. We understand. Try again. Need some help? Here I am. Try again. Try again." Don't play it off against each other, please. For the love of yourselves, and - I mean this - for the love of God. Because you have confused the issue. You have said that it is God who has these feelings. Now, look, I've never pulled rank on you, have I? [Laughter] Have I ever pulled rank on you? I'm about to pull rank on you. I know, with all of the knowing that I have in my being, that there is not one increment of judgment in the heart of God. I know because in my moment of enlightenment, I saw, and it was not there. And I have been to many, many places in the createdness and I have never seen it. Ever. So I beg you to be serious about the letting go, the dropping of guilt. It kills love. But most of all, it keeps you away from God. You cannot allow yourself to feel the presence of something that you fear. So you will not allow yourself to feel the presence of God within you if you feel you are going to be judged.

Bartholomew / MMM:
So how do you resurrect yourself out of this dilemma? You begin, if you will, in this night state of bringing up endless patterns, endless vignettes, pictures, moments, and allowing them as they rise up - please follow this - to simply fall back upon you. Just... that's all you have to do. Don't put them in a box and send them to Jupiter or you know... No, don't, don't, don't. Just feel them rising up out of you. And if this is as if they rise up out of your heart because it is in your heart where you store the pain, when your... when you hurt, where do you hurt? You don't say somebody doesn't love me, my toe aches. You say somebody doesn't love me, my heart is broken, my heart aches. I didn't love you enough. My heart aches. So it's in the heart center that the storing device takes place. So it's a rising up out of a constant rising up and watching. And please, this is very simple. Just allow them to fall... just see them rising up and then they'll fall wherever they may. You say to me, this sounds very simple. It's too simple. I told you at the beginning that what I had to say was so simple it would not meet the new fantasy line in paperbacks. But this is the best I can do because this is the truth that I know. It is the truth that I know because I had to go through the same process I now describe to you. I can tell you nothing that I do not know from my own experience. Otherwise I would be a charlatan. So rising up out of and simply acknowledging, allowing yourself to see that pattern, that moment, those events, and just let them fall where they may. That is your end of the job. This energy that you are now releasing has been waiting for only one thing: someone to recognize it without hatred, someone to say "I see you and it's all right." You have been waiting for other people to say this. You have been waiting for someone else in your life to say "I hear that and it's all right. I love you." You don't have to wait for anyone else because you can do it for you and you must do it for you if you are ever going to love yourself. When you allow this picture to come up in your consciousness and you make no attempt to defend, to deflect, to change, to blame, but simply to see it and feel it, and it plays back, you have taken that energy and said, I accept you. And that is what's been waiting for all of your life. This one thing. In that moment of allowing and feeling and knowing, you are going to begin to accumulate a mysterious thing. It's called a sense of your own integrity. You are filled with integrity. You are all filled with integrity and you don't know it. You don't know it because guilt has thrown your eyesight off.

Bartholomew / MMM:
So I beg you, you know I'm here on God's behalf, too. By that I mean the Divine wants as much as you to blend and be one in consciousness. And the Divine would love for you to just spend a few moments so the Divine could say there is no guilt. There's only love. How could I not love you? How could I not love you when I see so clearly who you are, and how you struggle, and what you have to overcome? How could I not love you? How could I not? So try it. Try it night after night after night. And you will begin to feel integrity. Integrity comes from integration. It's the most wondrous word. Integration. Integration in the wholeness, in the fullness, in the power. Guilt bleeds your power away. I'm sorry for the soberness of this presentation, but you see, it's that which is closest to the heart. Because perhaps you've had this experience with someone in your life. Someone who you know is beautiful and wonderful and loving. And you say to them, you're beautiful, you're wonderful and you're loving. And they say "No, I'm not." And they mean it. So this is our paradox. The qualities of consciousness that we see in you are the qualities that mirror the source from which you came. Another way of saying it, you have within you the qualities of divine awareness. Divine qualities that are ever present, combined with the struggle, the delightful struggle on mankind's behalf put together brings to our sight a beautiful creation called man.

Bartholomew / MMM:
You are approaching that season that you call the Christmas time of the Christ's Mass. Time of the remembrance of a brother who did a good job of it. But I ask you to... as you honor that consciousness, to do something a little different this time. The moment that the Christos came into enlightenment on the Earth plane, he anchored a power on this earth plane for all of you. This is misinterpreted, I think, about Christ dying on the cross for all of you. It's a very difficult concept. I can only understand that from the point of view that not in his dying, but in his living, he anchored this consciousness that is now ready and has been for 2000 years. I will tell you something. There is not one person in this room that does not have that strand of consciousness alive and well within them. And if the Christ stood for anything, he stood for integrity, integration, the wholeness of his being. And so I ask you, please, to give yourselves a gift these next weeks as you prepare to give others gifts. I do not turn my back on Christmas as a terrible thing. I grant you there are presents and packages and packaging and merchandising and all of those words, many of which I cannot remember. But I also tell you something. It works. It works. It truly works.

Bartholomew / MMM:
It brings into your heart the desire to give to someone. Many of you are going to sacrifice a lot in order to give someone you love something. And that's important. Very important. But please, as you're going about this wondrous job, I ask you to just keep one thing in mind: your own integrity. Would you please, in the next weeks, just dwell as a loose concept: your own integrity. Start asking yourself, please, day by day: "Show me my integrity". What does that mean? Integrity is integration. It is one of the most empowered words that you can use on your own behalf. And as you allow yourself to go through it in the next weeks, asking yourself "tell me about my own integrity and what it means moment by moment", you are going to, in spite of yourself, it is my great hope that you will fall in love with yourself. I could give you no greater gift. If I could bestow it, I would have done it a long time ago, that you would find a way to fall in love with you. In your awake moments, finding your integrity, acknowledging it moment after moment after moment after moment. Because all of you spend time recording the liturgy against yourself, where you feel you have lacked integrity. Endless, endless. It's time to make another choice. And if you want to love others, it might be helpful if you could begin a new litany for them in your own mind.

Bartholomew / MMM:
Of all of the places where you observe their integrity, do you want to bestow a gift at Christmas? Show them nothing but their integrity, nothing but their own integrity, their courage, their fearlessness in the face of incredible change. You see, you don't fool me. I know who you are. That's my advantage. So you can't fool me. None of you. And one of the delights will be that maybe you'll stop fooling yourself, too. I'm very glad that you've all come. And I do thank you for coming. Before we stop, I want to explain one very simple reason why I'm glad you come. Not only because it's a delight for me, but, you know, in the old days it was said very well when two or more are gathered together, amazing things can be done. This doesn't mean the wind that comes out of me. That is not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about the words. I am talking about the incredible accumulated power of a roomful of warriors. And this amount of energy can be taken up by that which you would call the higher forces and used. It is for that I thank you because we can take it to places that need it so badly. As bad as your lives might be, my friends, you do acknowledge that there are areas of the world that need it more. And so with your gift, we take it. It is our delight to bestow it. So thank you. Thank. With that end in mind, I would like to do a ten minute meditation. Those of you who have other things to do, please feel free to leave.