We all know many people who are frequently involved in lawsuits, they frequently have automobile accidents, or they frequently have illnesses, or they frequently have some other difficulty, and they seem to be people who are referred to as having “bad luck.” However, in the ideas of the Teaching it is that a person attracts to themselves events that are in accord with their inner state of being. A person who feels that people are dishonest, who live in somewhat of a state of distrust of everyone, we might say they’re in a state of fear.

Frequently they have things seemingly stolen. Many times, they’re only misplaced or laid aside and forgotten where they were, but immediately there is always the accusation that someone has stolen from them. In their business transactions they frequently see themselves as being cheated. They go to the law for lawsuits, and they are continually in court over one thing or another, and regardless of how the outcome of their court case is, they usually feel they have been mistreated and that they didn’t get what was their just due. 

In the language of the parables, it says that men do not gather figs from thistles, or they do not gather pears from thorn trees, and etc. Now, the type of tree one is refers to the inner state of that individual. Of course, one doesn’t gather desirable states of being from an inner state of very undesirable state of being – one of suspicion, or resentment, or anger, or fear constantly. We have considered the various states of being that are inherent in the level of consciousness known as walking sleep or the waking sleep – the usual conditioned being and we know they were apathy.

Now a person in the inner state of apathy – which means they live in the slums of their inner world, they’re down in a very low area where things are pretty miserable – everything that seems to happen to the person in apathy is something unfortunate. They have one illness after another, which of course is the normal adaptation to their inner state. They frequently feel that they are slighted or mistreated and to them this is what they experience. In other words, they attract to themselves the experience in accord with their inner state. 

The person that is fearful, is fearful of losing, fearful of having someone steal from them, fearful of all manner of “What if this happens?” and “What if that happens?” and already they’re in a very decided miserable set of events from simply nothing more than that they are anxious and upset.

You see, a person is like every living thing. It operates on vibrations, or we might say wave lengths. The universe is a universe of energy, and energy is all on various waves or wave lengths. So, when a person is in a given inner state, they produce these kinds of waves. While most people do not recognize them, they are very real and they surround everything about the person. You may know of certain people that you dislike seeing them come, because you usually feel depressed or unpleasant when they are around. 

You may know of certain people that you may feel some reason for going to see them, but for some reason or another you find something to put it off because you always feel so uncomfortable while you are around them. 

You may know of certain places of business that you do not like to go in, and you’ll notice most other people do not like to go in them. They’re kind of run down by now or they are not busy by any means. If you will be around the people who operate these businesses or you study as a means of discovery what is going on for the people you dislike to see coming or the ones you find reasons not to go see, you will find that it is their inner state which radiates to all directions around them. 

As one becomes aware of these radiations, one begins to be aware of people’s inner states. One knows the states of their inner being. One might say one understands their thoughts, because what the mind is occupied with is merely what the person’s state of being is. If the person is in a state of fear, they are constantly occupied by “What if this catastrophe happens?” or “What if this loss should occur” or “What if this doesn’t happen and I am ruined?” We can see this go on and it brings about a decided change in everything about us. We have seen a business be operated very successfully, going along making lots of money, serving lots of people in whatever field of endeavor it’s involved in, and the business is sold, or a new manager comes in, and the new person has a different attitude. He is constantly surrounded with “What if this happens?” or “What if that happens?” And all of a sudden, the business begins to go down. Not because of a change in the product or a change in the quality, but in a change in the vibrations that emit from the very inner state of that being because of whoever is running it. 

You may find a business that is going very well and all of a sudden, it begins to go down, seemingly with the same merchandise, the same service, the same advertising, the same location, and the same general economic situation. If one cares to pursue, one can find someone there who is a complainer, or who is belligerent, who is constantly finding fault with people, who basically does not like people. And after all, all the states of the walking sleep, except contentment, are basically of not liking people. 

The apathetic person is fearful of people: “They’re going to harm me.” It is useless to expect anything from them. The fearful person sees everybody as a threat. The resentful person sees them as someone who is going to harm him or if they haven’t, they are going to, and he resents their intrusion. He sees them as being to blame for his present situation. The angry person sees everyone as interfering somewhat in his rights. The bored one sees them as of no interest.

So consequently, these radiations go out. Everybody picks them up. If one is belligerent, most everyone that does business with them recognizes some way or other that they feel uneasy, not at ease around this person. Of course, they are on guard, and they make very complicated contracts with them. These usually wind up by having lawsuits and all manner of other difficulties with them. We find this, that these people attract various and sundry types of disorders to themselves. They are usually sick in one way or another. They attract unpleasant situations because their vibrations irritate other conditioned people, and when the two sets of vibrations hit, there is a conflict. When this conflict takes place it, of course, is reacted to by various words, gestures, and actions. This results in each feeling that they have been mistreated, put upon, and so they’re in a state of conflict.

Whenever a great number of people in any country are in a state of conflict within, and of course, unknowingly many times these are promoted because it is easier for rulers to rule people in conflict than the ones that are at ease and peaceful and going on about their business. If you get enough people in conflict, a war erupts somewhere, because of the mass vibrations interfering with others’ mass vibrations. 

Generally speaking, as we see, man is in a struggle to try to change WHAT IS into the world idea of “what ought to be.” That he is in a state of struggle, we may understand why there are wars most of the time through recorded history. It is the natural expression of the inner state of man. We could have all the Leagues of Nations, United Nations, and every other conceivable organization dedicated to peace, but as long as the greatest number of the people are in a state of conflict, wars are going to break out. As long as people feel they are frustrated, feel they’re put upon, we will have crime.

Of course, this is the general inner state of certain people. Now crimes take different versions. Certain crimes of violence, or when there is considerable violence within, and when the conflict is severe, we only see to incarcerate the person convicted of violence to his fellow man by putting him in prison, which possibly only increases his conflict. Nobody thinks of it as being conflict. We all still have the idea that man knows what’s right, proper and justifiable – that’s the ideal – and that he has free agency. That is the ideal.

However, as we have studied the self for the past many months and have observed, we recognize that free agency is almost a myth, except in business affairs and many times not there. That the self, the basic decisions, are in charge, and that free agency is only something one uses to keep oneself asleep. One tells oneself one has free agency or free choice when actually it is the emotions that run it.

As one observes this, one begins to see that much of the things that man does to curb violence possibly actually produces the violence, that while he thinks that control would decrease violence, and that if the controls weren’t there that violence would come to an end [sic increase]. But we see that only by self-Knowing – being aware of the contamination of the suggestions within that are in two opposing camps: “A” with its urge to complain, stick up for its rights, and to blame, and the other side the pleaser, believe and do what one is told by authority and put on a different front, are always going to be in conflict. And as long as this is within man, he will have the outward expression of wars, illnesses, crime and all the other things.

So as each and every one of us work to know self, to be aware of the self, knowing self from moment to moment without coming to a conclusion, without feeling that we have come to an end of any requirement of self-Knowing, we have made a little bit of a better world. We have added one person to one and taken away one bit of conflict and struggle. We have changed the vibratory rate of the nation to that much and to the entire world. If by any chance we should meet with someone else and they see the difference, they begin to see where the problem really is and start to understand the problem, instead of the attempt to solve the problem. 

You see, man has been trying to solve problems for centuries upon centuries. He’s tried to solve the problems of war; he’s tried to solve the problem of dis-ease; he has tried to solve the problem of conflict between people. He has passed laws, he has built various institutions, he has formed great organizations – some cases worldwide – with all with the idea of bringing this to an end, with studying the problem and having a solution to the problem. But as one looks and sees that one must understand the problem and that the self is the problem, the self is in a state of conflict. The self is in a state of automatic mechanical responses to various stimuli according to which stimuli is up front and center at any given moment.

As we begin to observe this, we cease to be bothered with the idea of having solutions to problems, and we study problems, if that’s what they are. They are actually WHAT IS in the state of the conditioned man. We study the conditioned man, bring it to Awareness, and as we can share this with one person, we have done something. Any time we think we could do it on a mass scale, we are obviously working at solving a problem because each problem is individual. 

As long as we think we could stop war while many, many people are full of conflict, we obviously are trying to solve a problem and creating more conflict because every attempt to solve a problem implies some use of force, either force of physical arms, or force of coercion, or force of suggestion, and all of these only fall on that conditioned area of man. Either “A” is increased in power and “B” attempted to decrease, or basically “B” is attempted to decrease and increase “A”. Whenever this does, it steps up a conflict further within the individual. Whenever that conflict is increased it’s going to break out in some manner of violence.

We sometimes see people living in slums in very unpleasant, unsanitary, unsafe situations, housing miserable, falling down, dirty. We think if we could only provide those people that live in that slummy area, if we could provide them with beautiful homes – clean homes at least, and comfortable homes – that it would change their state of being. However, if you have observed and traveled into areas where great slums have been torn down, miles and miles, square miles, and having been rebuilt with adequate housing, with plumbing, with central heating, with air-conditioning, with plenty of light, with carpets on the floors, with all manner of sanitary facilities, and you watch them for a few months, they put the same people, their state of being will bring that new building right in accordance with their state of being.

It will be that the plumbing is broken, the glass is cracked, the carpets are spoiled, and holes are knocked in the doors, walls have holes in them – all because the person’s state of being is in a state of conflict. Being in a state of conflict, there is violence and violent people are “smashers.” They constantly break things. They have no intentions of breaking them – they just do. They break furniture, they break windows, they break the walls in, and pretty soon the new area is just a new slum. It has the same filth, the same unsanitary conditions, and no matter even if there are outsiders who constantly try to keep up with the deterioration and repair it, the deterioration [is] in keeping with the inner state of the people that live there.

Now we certainly are not opposed, obviously, to having decent housing for people, but we know that it will not work unless the inner state of man [is changed]. The inner state of man is the real man and no matter what kind of a state that inner state is, it’s going to be expressed outwardly whether it be in violence, whether it be in drunkenness, whether it be in deterioration of the community, whether it be expressed as accidents, whether it be expressed as illness or some other form of violence or some other form of degradation – whatever it be, it will be there.

So, our work and our effort is extended towards the inner state of man. If we can’t work on the inner state of man, all we can do is give moments of relief to someone who is rendered inoperative, unable to perform at all. 

But there are many ways open to man – not just one, not just some formal means of the TEACHING. There are articles that can be written that are so designed by a person who is aware of the inner state of man. Parables can be written. Stories can be written with a point. Possibly even some can make little movies with a point that may under some means break through some of the barriers. Something may come along that can get one person to challenge the idea of mammon, that the whole purpose of living is to be non-disturbed. If one does, one has made a contribution. One doesn’t save the world. One doesn’t reform the world. One doesn’t change it. One makes a contribution and if one is looking how one can make a contribution to the inner world of man, that it may be conscious, not that it may be good because the conscious person will harm no one. 

The unconscious person, without intention, harms and breaks and smashes everything – people, tempers, glass, automobiles, stores, everything in sight. So, we would work and make our little contributions, whatever they may be, some way aimed and designed to awaken the inner man, to awaken to a question of mammon: Is the whole purpose of living just to be non-disturbed? In the struggle to be non-disturbed man lives in slums, kills each other by the hundreds of thousands in wars, kills each other by the hundreds of thousands on highways, deprives great many of the ability to have the things that they could use – all because of the struggle within.

So, there is not only Teaching by man to a person, one to another from lip to ear, but there is also Teaching by example. There is Teaching by articles, there is Teaching by cartoons. There is Teaching by every conceivable method. As we mentioned last week, there is no orthodoxy in the means of Teaching. Each person can find some way to share with other beings a possibility of the Teachings. You can’t force it on them. You can only make it available. 

It’s as though you saw someone hungry. You may prepare them a beautiful plate of food. You may serve it on a beautiful dining room table in a lovely surrounding, but you can’t eat it for them. And there is not only one way you can serve food. It doesn’t have to be steak and potatoes. It can be many, many different things; all is food.

What we’re concerned with is food – food that will nourish the inner man. Possibly we always start with milk, some very mild something, but something that possibly will entice the possibility of a questioning as to the purpose of living.

When this small event has taken place, it has made the person possible to be a student. And once a student is ready, a Teacher in some form or other will appear to that person. Once you are ready, you will see untold opportunities to teach – possibly never as a formal person-to-person teacher, possibly never to a group of people in one set group, all intent upon the study. But there are all kinds of opportunities for each of us.

We each have a talent. Maybe we only have one, but let’s don’t bury it in the ground and say, “Because I’m not capable as a writer, I’m not capable as a speaker, I’m not capable as a performer, I can’t make movies,” and we leave it all to the others. Remember the parable of the man who was given five talents. He worked and made five others. He doubled the value of what he had. Another person had two, and he made four out of them. He doubled them in value, and he got exactly the same thing that the one who had the five had doubled. But one had only one talent and he buried it in the ground because he couldn’t see it as of being of value, and of course, was cast out because he lost even that which he thought he had. It was taken from him.

So, no matter what our tiny contribution is, it may be in working with people in a restaurant, it may be being an example to other people in a shoe store, it may be working in an office somewhere. Whatever it is, there is some moment that one can be teaching some one or more aspects of the Teachings, at least to the amount that one can get someone else somewhere or other to eat enough of it that he questions the purpose of living – which is seemingly the starting place before one really is a student. Once the person is a student, he has every opportunity to continue; material, instruction from some source or other will be with him. Because now he is a different kind of “tree” and he will attract Teaching to it. 

As long as no one ever questions the purpose of living he will only attract non-Teaching to it. He will attract all manner of difficulties of one form or another. He goes through life and can say with the songwriters of some of the southern churches, that this is a “vale of tears.” And so he will see everything as a vale of tears. But as we see it as a field, ripe for the harvest, we find some way to be able to be some small part of the reaping force. And we can work with whatever means, whether we have one talent, 2 talents, 3 talents, 4, 5, or 20 really makes no difference. Possibly some of the people who have never been recognized as even having remotely been connected with the Teaching have done more for it than many of the formal ones that were recognized as being teaching the material. 

So, we are interested in making a contribution, not in having any position, not in doing any certain thing, not in only Teaching in a certain way, most especially a formal way. 

These discussions have gone out to over 100 people. If each of those 100 people found some way of making some contribution, and sooner or later those that received that contribution from the ones who have been studying, they would make a contribution. 

And if you know about the progression of numbers, it’s like the man who was told that to shoe his horse, all four feet, each shoe having eight nails that the first nail would cost a penny, the second one 2 cents, the next one 4 cents, the next one 8 cents or the blacksmith would shoe his horse for 2 dollars a foot. He took the progression and of course the price is untold millions of dollars. It seems that it is fantastic. 

You see the Teaching spreads only from person to person, but it spreads rapidly when once we do not have some preconceived idea that it must be spread by one method and one method alone. Every avenue, of whatever channel we are capable of expressing through, is open. It is hoped that each will find some means to use their one talent or their 2 talents or their 5 talents or their 10 talents because it is possibly the only thing that makes the earth evolve as a place for man to live because the real evolvement is on the inner state of man. We can have the finest highways, the finest airlines, the finest buildings, hotels, and as long as the inner state of man is in a chaotic condition, in conflict, in struggle – all of that will be as nothing.