The talk focuses more on self-deception—not knowing we’re lying to ourselves—than on lying as intentional untrue statements. Little children do not lie to themselves. We learn lying from things society and our parents tell us that aren’t true. We may think our wants are needs. A lot of lying occurs because perception is limited. We selectively perceive things that have survival value for us and tend not to register other things that don’t have payoffs. The Work involves developing diffuse rather than selective attention if we gradually train attention to free itself from being magnetized by phenomena based on conditioning. Lies and self-deception are prevalent in relationships, business, medicine, school, sports, history, the news, politics, etc. Some types of lying include denial, exaggeration, minimization, restructuring, confabulation, paltering, and beliefs—which are ways of coping with mystery and uncertainty. A common belief is that we have free will, but we can consider the Buddhist principle of independent origination: the cause of any one thing is everything else. Comparison is an unconscious form of lying because everything is unique. Evaluative statements apply to a moment in time, but we’re constantly changing. The big lie is that we are separate independent entities. A way of working with kidding ourselves is to work with not drawing conclusions. We can see that our attention is scattered, return it to what we are doing, notice sensations in the body, and develop a witness function. We can have compassion for ourselves and others as we develop the capacity to meet others with greater honesty. Refining our attention will create greater self-honesty. Karl has been a spiritual practitioner for forty years. He lived in India for seven years and has a passion for considering the essential similarities of spiritual traditions.
The Recognition of Our Heart (Karen Sprute-Francovich)
Timing Is Everything: Opening to Windows of Opportunity in Life and on the Path (Vijaya Fedorschak)
Fourth Way Magic: How Hermetic and Indigenous Traditions Interface with the Gurdjieff Work (Rob Schmidt and Stuart Goodnick)
Stop the World, I Want to Get Off (Regina Sara Ryan)
Basic Trust: The Soul’s Key to Being (Peter Cohen)
Kneel and Kiss the Ground: The Poetics of Presence and Purpose (Mary Angelon Young)
Do You Want to Be Right or Do You Want to Be in Relationship? (Matthew Files)
The Benefit of Good Company on the Spiritual Path (Tom Lennon)
War: What Is It Good For? (Bandhu Dunham)
Cultivating Spiritual Maturity: An Honest Look at Our Commitments (Lalitha)
Writing as a Transformational Path (Mary Angelon Young and Regina Sara Ryan)
Living From Paradox (Juanita Violini)
Hospitality: The Practice and the Art (Regina Sara Ryan)
Using Death as an Advisor: What Death Can Teach Us About Living (Vijaya Fedorschak)
Grace and Mercy: Return of the Goddess (Angelon Young)
Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For... Why? (Matthew Files)
Giving Ourselves to Love (Nachama Greenwald)
Nonduality: Speaking the Unspeakable (Peter Cohen)
Know Your Character: Who’s Running the Show? (Elise Erro/e.e.)
Awakening Conscience: The Potential Value of Not Expressing or Suppressing Negative Emotions (Panel Discussion with Red Hawk, Clelia Lewis, and VJ Fedorschak)
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