Harvesting The Inner Light

August 2, 1992

Samuel: Well, greetings, dears.

Martin, why don’t you come up. You’ll need your chair. You might look a bit silly in that one up here. I thought it might be good to keep you on your toes and start you out up here.

‘Tis Martin’s natal day this day.

[Martin:] Twenty-eight. [Laughter] Pretty smart for a young guy, huh?

S: In fact, not only since you’re lying, besides, you weren’t even particularly trying to make it true.

Sometimes those are the best lies.

S: All right. Let’s have three gifts. Who’s first? Lillibeth.

Since last Saturday, when we were talking about the portal of recognition opening, I’ve noticed that this week has been a real opportunity for me to see all the to see all the meanings of recognition. And last Saturday night it seemed as though recognition effective, but during the week it seemed to be more than that. It seemed to be a recognition of where I fit, where I don’t fit, and to be happier where I don’t fit. And also recognition of more layers of self, recognition of places of growth, recognition of opportunities, of tools. And that’s been a gift.

S: ‘Tis very easy—do not fool yourself—’tis very easy to train yourself to see where you fit, the good things, to turn your mind around. ‘Tis—I should be getting a bit of resistance from your mind here—are you truly just in listening mode? You’re not in fight-me-back mode yet? That’s a bit later, is it? ‘Tis fairly simple to have your life in such a place that you are capable of seeing the good things, isn’t it? Aye. All right. As you allow yourself to become more connected with the big picture, you tend to find that it’s not quite so easy; you have to make a conscious effort to do it. But as a whole, it’s fairly simple to blissfully float along in life, hardly noticing a thing, just fancifully living. It’s the reason that you have a tendency to say, “Wasn’t it easier back then?”—because you’ve probably forgotten a few things about it. Nonetheless, you get my point. You’re with me thus far, eh?

‘Tis the master that is able to reach the place in which what you have is non-resistance with the awareness of “this isn’t for me.” What I’m saying is, discernment is one of the highest gifts there is. Discernment, the knowing that this is mine, this is not. The ability to say, “I like this and I like that, but this is better for me.” The old “between good and better.” Discernment: being willing to say, “This isn’t for me,” without having to say, “Because it’s no good, they’re no good.” To reach the point where you can clearly look at what you are about and not resist is discernment in action.

The hardest thing you deal with is not what all you are; it’s what all you are and what all you aren’t and how the both of those fit into this world. It’s a gift to be able to say no, just as it is to be able to say yes.

Good for you.

Another. Good.

On the day of the portal I had a good think with myself, but coming up to that time I knew the energy something was going on, because everything was intensified that I was experiencing at that time, so a couple of days beforehand, I got to the point where I said, “I’ve had enough. No more of this.” And what I’d had enough of was giving myself a hard time and beating myself up. I’d had it. And I decided that morning when I woke up that I was going to be reborn that day, and every day be reborn. And so I started the ascended techniques you’ve been teaching us, and I thought that would be a great way to start the day, this new day that I was born in. And I was merging with my cat, and I asked what do I need. And I’d been talking to the Universe, “Please help me to find the tools to help with this. Give me all of the help I can possibly use here.” And what I got when I asked what do I need, I saw this barren landscape on a planet that can’t support life. You couldn’t breathe the air; the mountains were . . .

S: Wait. Maybe I’m not keeping up here. This is while you’re merging with a cat.

Yeah.

S: All right.

The Universe was probably just taking the opportunity to slip something in there for me.

S: You think the Universe does that?

Yeah.

S: It does. Continue.

Really, I’m sure Willy wasn’t aware of what I was doing.

S: The cat. Willy the cat.

Anyway, I got this barren landscape that can’t support life, it was very bleak. And I knew immediately—it was such a perfect image that I know that the energies that were working with me gave it to me, because it was perfect. It communicated everything to me—which was, the landscape of my mind was not supporting life.

S: It was knocking it down. It was judging it harshly. It was not supporting life. And?

So I had a talk with the Universe, and I said, yes, I accept that my thinking toward myself is critical, judgmental, harsh, and I need to re-landscape my mind. And this image came to mind of this beautiful garden, and filled with all these flowers and rainbows and babbling brooks, and it was just full of goddess energy and life and god energy. It was just beautiful, and I knew that that’s what I needed to landscape my mind with, that garden. And so, since that time, I’ve been so aware that, when I have a thought that’s critical of myself or when I’m beating myself up and not giving myself a break, it’s so clear and obvious. And I say, no, that’s not the truth anymore, and I see my garden in my mind. And it’s just wonderful; it’s so much easier. I was having such a hard time, because I was making it so difficult for myself by setting up these impossible expectations that I just could not meet, expecting myself to be perfect all the time.

S: Aye. Beautiful work. And Willy, how’s he doing?

He’s enjoying the garden, too.

S: Little plot of catnip over there for the cat eh? Good.

Sweet soul, powerful, powerful, beautiful message there. Not only because of what you said, but the delicious way you said it.

However, I imagine it’s one of those things that most people just cannot relate to. Surely you’ve never judged yourself harshly, have you? You don’t do that, do you? You do? Aye? Anyone else?

Why do you think that is? Why is it so easy not to know the good things you do and the bad things you do? That’s not a judgment; that is simply a—and by bad there, what I was speaking of was the things you do well and the things you do not so well, and therefore you avoid them, because you don’t want to scrape yourself, or you don’t want to irritate yourself. I’m talking about, why is it so easy not to be satisfied there, but instead to start kicking yourself. Not only can you not do it, but you’ll never do it, and you’ll never do it right. Why is it so easy?

Preconditioned, lots of practice.

You don’t trust yourself and the Universe.

S: You don’t trust yourself and—as in yourself married to, joined with, in partnership with—the Universe. It’s because you’re doing it all yourself.

Fear of the power of the other side.

S: Fear of how powerful the person that you’re going to be dealing with is, the situation—is that what you mean?

Yes, I think if we had any idea of what the reward was, but our ego keeps us afraid of that, because it’s what we’ve always known.

S: Because what if you forge right ahead, and it works? What if you give it your best shot, and it happens?

The very first thing that happens is your very firm foundation of your disbelief in yourself, based upon all of those whom you’ve learned to trust throughout your life—trust because they say things to you that you already know, such as, “You’re not good enough; you’ll never make it; girls don’t do this; boys don’t do that.” And onward and onward. You would have to stop believing, maybe, the good things they told you, too. You realize that? You want to believe the parent who said, “You’re never going to amount to anything,” because you were also told from that source, “I love you; I’ll always take care of you.” You want to believe the source that said to you, “I will love you forever. Let’s get married. Let’s live together and be happily ever after,” even when what you also hear is, “God, you can be an idiot.” So you have to trust that you’re an idiot if you’re going to live happily ever after, you see.

You laugh; you are getting my point.

You’re so willing to judge yourself harshly, because you have within your beautiful head a tiny spark of light that says, “You can do it all. You’re everything there is. You are magnificent.”

And because you have this very odd and stilted belief that, if you are All That Is and if you are perfect and if you are magnificent, then it would mean you should never be broken, you should never skin your knee when you walk forward, and you should always have everything absolutely at ease. If that is what you believe being the paragon of spiritual example here is all about, then that still, small voice whispering your magnificence becomes not a push toward your power, but instead a shove, a kick, off the edge.

What if you stop judging yourself for a week or so, that’s all. Now mind, judgment isn’t a bad thing. You’ve got to judge that Martin will sit down up here when he’s asked to. You’ve got to make a judgment call on that one. And he did. You’ve got to judge that it’s safe to cross the street. And you walk forward.

Judgment isn’t a bad thing. It’s when judgment is an excuse for not figuring out what you can do.

And Mary absolutely was right when she said, what happens is you create an interior landscape that cannot support life any longer. It gets desolate and lonely, but at least you get to still surround yourself with those whom you do trust. Prince Charming. Happily ever after, you idiot.

Create a garden filled with the colors of your love. Plant the seeds of “why not,” water them, fertilize them. Don’t expect them to be absolutely in bloom tomorrow. Allow them to grow themselves up and then bloom. Allow yourself to get used to the new you. Become a gardener.

One more, eh.

I just got back from a vacation in Los Angeles. I had gifts all week long, and the first one was an old friend I hadn’t seen in seventeen years bought me the ticket. And one of the other ones was in seeing how she lived her life, because she lives some of your principles that I find hard to live. And I was given the insight of raising my expectations of what’s possible from seeing what she has done. She’s there doing what she loves to do, and she is herself very aware, and she’s even more oddball than I am, and people love her anyway. And she’s amazing […] and she was an inspiration.

S: Just when you start to think it can’t be done, the Universe has the audacity to shove someone into your path who’s doing it. Good. Good. Did you have fun, sweet soul? Aye. Do you feel relaxed? Did you catch up on your sleep?

No.

S: She answered that carefully, didn’t she?

All right. This is a holiday. What is it? Nobody’s pagan enough. You’re all so updated on this one. Lammas. Lughnassadh. Whatever is Lammas, first harvest, Lughnassadh? Anybody. What year is this?

Ninety-two.

S: In 92 they knew what Lughnassadh was. 1992. That makes a difference, doesn’t it.

I think that it’s very fitting that this be Martin’s day, because what Lughnassadh is is a celebration of light, the sun—Lu. That’s not like Louis, by the way. Lu. Don’t some of you circle folk recognize any of this? Nothing connecting? A few, all right, a few.

It is the recognition of the first harvest. It is the day of transfiguration. The first seed is coming up. You’re gaining already. It’s not the final harvest, by any means. It’s not the major harvest, unless you live in Florida. However, traditionally, it is the time in which the seed that has been nurtured, the growth that it has been experiencing is open and full, and the beginning of its reproduction is here.

Specifically on a spiritual note, it is the internal harvest—for the external soon to come.

What is the nature of the transformation that you have been experiencing? What is the inner work you’ve been doing? And are you seeing how to begin harvesting its reward, or are you still fighting Japanese beetles and fungus and rot?

As you have been taking care of your garden, so it is time to harvest. I encourage you to harvest specifically by saying, “Show it to me.” I do not teach an impractical lifestyle. I do not teach—although it is a major part of any sort of learning experience—I do not teach that you are going to have to function on trust. I’m telling you, ask for it; yell for it. Be worthy of it. Allow a place for miracles in your life. Allow room for harvest.

The ancients revered the sun, your star. With it they were warm, the crops fed them. Without it . . . you get the point. And so, as a representation of the Source, the sun became the focus. Every major religion, in one way or another, makes reference to light. This is the harvest of the light within you, so I need to ask you, sweet soul, is there light in you? And why do I have to ask?

Of course there is light in you.

Anybody have matches or those blinky things that make flame? I need two. There’s one; there’s another. All right, Martin, light one, light the other, hold them up. I want to show you something absolutely remarkable. You’ll have to do this twice so everybody can see. I want you to see something that is going to explain absolutely how it is you make a difference. You ready for this? [To Martin, holding two lit lighters] You think I could do that?

[Martin:] I wouldn’t hold them real long, because they get hot. [Laughter]

S: You can turn it off then.

You just flip the wheel and hold down on the little flat thing. Don’t break her nail.

S: Show me.

It gets hot quick.

S: You do it. [He lights the lighters again, and holds them close together.] Can you see that. What’s happening?

They’re drawing together.

S: The light you are seeks the light in others. Drawn to it. The light in others is seeking the light in you. And when it finds it, it nurtures it. It nurtures it. It nurtures it. Light will feed you. The way to celebrate first harvest is to turn the sun up in you, to turn up the light in you and seek it out in those around you. To turn up that light and feed from the light of others and allow yourself to give, that your light might feed others. ‘Tis the only work there is.

When last we were together, we did a bit of playing. Aye? What were we doing? Looking at energy. And some of you have been practicing, and some of you have been judging yourselves. Very quickly, what is the process. Not to judge yourself, but to see energy?

Feel your heartbeat.

S: Feel your heartbeat.

Bring it up to your eyes. Feel the heartbeat in your eyes.

S: Come to the place where you can feel that heartbeat up in your head.

And then you stare at a spot on the face in the forehead area, and when you begin to notice some change, you look a little above their head and to the side.

S: While you are looking at somebody in the eyes, while you are looking at them, you pay attention to your heartbeat—because it gives you a place of focus. You pay attention to your heartbeat and you allow yourself to sensitize to the point where you feel the pulse of it—in your neck, on up to your head. Simply doing that creates a situation where your mind is having to do several things at once. Because it’s doing several things at once while you are intently staring, it causes—very natural process—it causes you to just soft-focus a bit. It puts you in a daydream sort of state. It’s not so scary. It’s not unfamiliar. It’s just that daydreamy state. Some of you are so good at daydreaming that you are capable of doing it that way, by putting yourself in a daydream state rather than staring at somebody. While you’re staring at them, move your heartbeat up to your neck, up to your head. Now, look directly above their head. You do it a lot easier if you just think, “Daydream, boom. All right, I’ve got it.”

Once you feel yourself going to soft focus—that’s all it is, soft focus—I’m not asking you to do outrageous, odd things, right? Just to be aware of something you naturally do anyway. Once you feel your focus soften, you look up right to the very top of the head.

Now, there are different sorts of things you’re going to see here, but it’s all simply energy, your body’s heat. That’s all it is. Nothing metaphysical, airy-fairy, no matter how much you want to make it so. It’s your heat. And some of you may see it as a bit of a shadow. Some of you may see it as a wavering, like a hot road. Some of you may see it as a bit of light—shadowy, misty sort of lightness. You’re just seeing energy.

The reason that you can see it is that it’s a natural part of you—and the person you’re looking at, too. But because it’s not vital information, your incredible mind has taught you how to turn off your awareness of that seeing—not the seeing, the awareness of that seeing—in order that you can focus instead on the really important things, like what they look like, and what they’re saying to you, and what you’re thinking at the same time, [while you’re] making those judgments about them like you make about yourself. You know the routine. All the important stuff; the rest of it’s just stored in the background.

It is only the beginning, though. Not only do you have the ability to see it, but you have been, all along, also getting information from it.

And we played just a small amount with sending a thought. One side of the room sent a thought of love. The other side of the room picked it up. And doing it individually, and picking up on that, too. What you think, is out there—being heard, as it pertains to what this other person needs, most of the time.

But it goes farther than this. It is only a small beginning to do that. There is another step to it, and that step is merging with that energy. Merger, as Mary did with her cat, because it is a lot easier to do it with your animals and your house plants and your children, is not a strange, hard thing to do.

It also is not New Age sexuality. “Hi, baby, you want to merge?” The new line, eh?

It is simply allowing yourself to let your light touch their light. Although it makes sense that we would practice that this night, it’s not my intention. There is a group of people here who practice the merger techniques with regularity. Monday nights there are those who would be delighted to, before or after [the meeting], take some time to show you the process. In fact, anybody here, raise your hands up. If you know the technique and can teach it to somebody else. Look for an upraised hand.

I want to tell you why you might want to do it. What merger allows is your opportunity to experience yourself. It’s not going to tell you this other person’s secrets. It’s going to tell you yours. Merger allows you to experience a very bonding example of your connection with the Source. And I want to tell you—simplifying disgustingly though I will be—that these primary reasons your life is not absolutely everything you could possibly desire—if in fact it is not, if there is just a small place that could use a bit more change, just a little tiny place in that corner over there, [end of tape, side one] The reason that your life is not absolutely complete is that you don’t trust your Source connection. And why should you? How can you? When all of your life you have been taught that God is some judgmental, angry being of power you can never connect to, or a multitude of non-personal connections that you can never touch in to. You are taught that Goddess is Mother Nature—huuff!

When your connection with God, your connection with Goddess is based upon a childhood in which Daddy was how you related to God and Mommy was how you related to Goddess and you learned very early on you could not trust them. They had tremendous amounts of love, perhaps, but absolute, off Mt. Olympus feet of clay. And with some of you, sweet souls, some of the things you experienced, I’m surprised you can begin to consider trusting Source at all. How can you trust what you do not know? Except that within you that you cannot ignore, that constantly—no matter what, no matter how far you go, no matter how fast you run, no matter how much you try to avoid, no matter how much you judge—there is within you a glowing flame of light that loves to love, delights in pleasure, that the Creative Force absolutely fires, even brighter, because there is within you something that constantly says, “There’s more, there’s more.” And therefore you have hope. You in whom the light shines have hope. You’ve not given it up, you’ve not blown it out. Hope that there’s more, that’s […]. You can do it. That there is no such thing as failure, only a new way to invent a light bulb.

It is the light in you that pulls you back up and says, “one more time. One more time. One more time.”

Do you remember when you were fourteen years old? Can you go back that far? Do you remember when you were fourteen years old, and you were absolutely so deeply in love—or lust, or something that fourteen-year-olds be. And perhaps it wasn’t fourteen; for you it might have been eight; for you it might have been twenty. For you it might be thirty-seven. Whatever it happened to be for you. And it was so wonderful, wasn’t it? Remember back to it. Remember your first love. Wasn’t it nice? [To a child] Have you had that, yet, dear? Soon.

And it feels so nice, and you can’t get enough of one another. Isn’t that fun?

Was your first love your last love? Not quite, eh? Thank goodness, not quite. And not quite, sweet soul, because you had hope. And I promise you, for some of you, that was your first miracle, that you were willing to try again.

[To Martin:] The first time you took a hammer and a nail and you ran it through a board, do you remember that? [He shakes his head.] The second?

[Martin:] No, my dad started us early.

S: I guess so. Point the same. Are you better at it now than you were then?

[Martin:] We’ve got an air nailer now.

S: It’s like air […]?

[Martin:] No, you just pull the trigger and it shoots them for you. It’s a lot faster.

S: Is faster better?

[Martin:] Oh, much better.

S: I imagine that’s true for everything. Even with new technology, which you are wise enough to try out, are there those who don’t use these things.

[Martin:] Yes.

S: Are you better than the first time you tried this? Why?

[Martin:] A geometric progression. The more you learn about all things, then you’re much better at hammering and nailing. I can be creative with hammering and nailing now.

S: Aye. You’re making a good point. Be a bit more clear about it.

[Martin:] Because I can do things now—it’s not just hammering and nailing. You’re drawing upon all aspects. I built a cabinet last week at Calumet Farm, and it was supposed to be in the garage, but the woman now wants it to be in the kitchen, because the cabinet looks so nice, because I was able to look and create something with a hammer and nails that I wasn’t able to do a while back.

S: Is it possible that success that you have experienced in other arenas has given you the courage to do something here?

[Martin:] Oh, yeah.

S: Aye? And in that sense, your geometric progression works, aye?

[Martin:] Sure, because I can go in a Board meeting and do that constant . . . hammering. My confidence has gotten so much better that I’m willing to jump in and take a risk and build something I might not ever have done before.

S: Aye. Good. So you get my point.

So, back to the point, the point being that that first experience of love and delight not only was your last one—you’ve tried it again—but you’re better at it than you used to be. Maybe you’ve even incorporated some new technology.

What I’m saying is, the light you are is hope. It is a representation of your connection with the Source, and it is by allowing yourself to recognize the connection and then to grow with it, to move with it, to practice it, to play with it, to move from hammering on yourself—and even then not doing a particularly good job of it—to getting creative. And with that creativity allowing yourself to grow and change and have hope for more.

Your vacation starts here. It is meant to be fun—pleasure.

There is another thing floating around up here, so let me know what the source is—and if it’s also a slight misquote: So many people spend their lives doing what they don’t enjoy in order to have the money to get some things they do enjoy. So why not start out doing what you enjoy? Life’s too short not to laugh until you fall on the floor and beat on it a while. Life is too short to forget what makes you happy. Your life is too short to waste on the things that don’t grow your hope, your love.

Your incredible philosopher who was a teacher—[Joseph] Campbell—talked about finding your bliss. Do you remember? Some of you do. What’s your bliss?

Bliss isn’t that which makes you happy, by the way. Bliss is that thing that, when you are doing it you are so involved that time changes. It’s that arena in which you just find yourself effusively bubbling to the point that the people around you are going “uh-huh.”

Bliss is not found in having; it’s found in doing. It’s the process in which you feel fully there, not scattered in what’s going to happen tomorrow or listening to the rabble of what might happen if you don’t do something exactly right. Bliss, sweet soul, is God in action, and goddess is the activity that brought you to that knowing.

Lughnassadh is the celebration of the sun, the harvest, the energy of doing, of hope beyond hope, following your bliss for a change.

And maybe your bliss won’t support you in this world, in which case you will either simplify your standards—move to Calcutta, maybe—really bad joke; I am deeply sorry—or you will put up with whatever it takes to support you, while afterwards you do your bliss. Otherwise, my darling, you’re not living, and I’m here to tell you, you’ve been dead long enough. I really am the only legal ghost in this room, even though some of you are giving me a good run.

It’s the time of harvest. That which you have been doing within, it’s time for it to move without. Merger is the opportunity to become confident in your bond with the Source, because—I will tell you—it is only through that bond that you will have the guts to seek your bliss.

Happy, happy holidays, dear ones. Make use of this time.

Happy trails. Glochanumora. How I love you. How you delight me! And how deeply honored I am that you are willing to share your time with me. Thank you.

Dear one, may the wizard you are shine. May the wisdom of your totem and its ability to see through the dark and make the most use of every bit of light fill you this year. And may you all know how loved you are.

Happy, happy trails.