comfort zone is not conducive to any kind of [Music] deepening through resistance you you suffer or your presence deepens because it has to many of these things are regarded as negative but they're actually exactly what you need my question is how how does one remain centered in Stillness when we might be surrounded by and asked to engage uh mentally and emotionally with others who are not I assume that this situation happens to you quite often because course you're asking the [Music] question and of course it's a very common thing for people to find themselves in such situations uh let's assume then it's uh these are uh human beings that you you cannot easily or you don't want to to uh separate yourself from like could be family members or it could be people you work with those two situations are situations where you feel you you want to continue to interact with these people or you have to interact with these people but it's getting difficult because you can there is to toxicity or there's a lot of unconsciousness egos figh against other Egos and so on um let's just for a moment put aside the more extreme manifestation ations of such situations there are situations um whether it's family members or at work there there are some extreme situation that are so destructive and toxic uh that you the only um healthy and sane CA of action would be to remove yourself so if it's an extreme situation let's say you're in a relationship the relationship is sometimes VI there's physical violence or there's repeated emotional violence that such an extreme situation or you are at work and the company that you work for is the environment the energy is so toxic and negative that just going in into that office you feel the weight of it and the pull of that negativity in this it's full of ego battling each other so in certain extreme situations I would recommend to REM that you remove yourself from this the way because I mentioned that at first because I want to put that aside we need to know extreme situations involving emotional violence physical violence whatever it may be uh it would you have to take responsibility and remove yourself from that situation but many situations in assume in your case perhaps it it's not that extreme so what remains is normal human unconsciousness not the extreme forms of unconsciousness so to deal with normal human unconsciousness again uh Beware when you are interacting with people uh realize that you may not always succeed in doing this but the most important thing your see if you can bring about a shift in um the way in which you approach the situation and these people uh the most important thing in such situations is your state of consciousness rather than whatever it is that they are talking about they may be talking about this or that whether it's at work or they may be gossiping or maybe whatever they're engaged in emotional ego stuff uh use it as an opportunity to stay present and uh it's not easy and you can only uh you need to intensify your presence when you are with unconscious people by that I mean when you are sitting alone in a room or you're walking out in nature it's being present is not that difficult you can it's especially nature is conducive to to presence uh or being alone in a room if you discover that you actually like sitting alone in a room that's a great thing because that means you you become comfortable with yourself uh there are still the majority of humans still become very uncomfortable with sitting alone in a room and you may discover that you actually like being alone not continuously you still love people but you also love being alone alone because when you're alone you can sense the the presence that you are the very simple but powerful presence of and youve sense there's a Stillness there it's lovely and then of course then you leave your room and then you meet other people you lose yourself you because the the there's a gra gravitational pull that the mind has and so and people know that they so other people Minds will try to draw you in uh I don't is it may I ask you before I carry on is it predominantly is it more a family situation in your case or is it a a work situation or uh which one is it predominantly um I would say thank you for asking um it is both and um both family and work occasionally uh are our issues or not issues but present themselves as as a challenge um what is an ongoing daily challenge is the unconsciousness of the city I'm surrounded in so you know by Wednesday uh that starts to Peak and and becomes much more difficult for me to stay out of my head becomes very noisy oh you can sense the you can sense the energy field of the city yes ah right yes yes Sunday is very pleasant Wednesday Thursday Friday or not right right so but it's it's really you know that plus the more intense situations of work and family which occasionally come in yes yes I need to ask one more question do you find yourself drawn into how when other people are ego uh controlled do you find yourself that emotionally mentally you be you you become just like them or do you feel you're a little bit of an outsider now that's observing what's going on what are you a full participant temporar really in the unconscious interactions that are taking place the drama whatever it may be are you a full participant or are you a reluct sometimes a reluctant participant or you remain there as an almost an outsider observing what's going on how is it for you I it oscillates um most of the time I am an outsider uh who enjoys engaging um I I suspect that my sensitivity to to presence and Stillness is becoming is increasing or the sensitivity to that lack of in myself is increasing um does that answer your question yes yes that's thank you that's good yeah yeah um let's talk a moment about this the energy field of the city before we go into your personal the um I don't know if you whether you meditate or not whether you do some formal meditation and often uh you say yes the often people and people meditate and um then some something disturbing things happen while they meditate suddenly this disturbing noise this morning I was sitting I was sitting in in uh my living room and uh it's Wednesday so they do the gardening on Wednesday with extremely noisy leaf blowers this is the time of year where leaf blowers and so the the noise came and I was just so it was so peaceful as I was sitting there and um suddenly there was this and often I immediately knew how to completely transcend it because I've been it's second nature to me now but often I have to tell people how to deal deal with disturbing things like that especially when they're trying to meditate and then that happens I always say incorporate whatever arises during this time when you're trying to meditate everything that arises make it part of your meditation in other words resist nothing that arises don't demand that anything that arises should not arise in that case even a disturbing noise such as a leaf blower is incorporated into your meditation by Deep acceptance of what is the you don't resist you could you may be able to practice the same in the city uh when you to feel the energy field let's I mean you you may be walking there or driving or just being in an apartment or office uh practice surrender to this energy that you feel then you may be able to transcend that particular energy if you don't if you react to it it still you have it has you in its grip in a way one could say when you react to toxic energy you become part of the toxic energy without knowing it so the only the only way you can become free other than remove yourself and live in the countryside uh the the only way you can get Beyond it is through deep surrender uh so completely and this can be a spiritual practice um as I said except in the most extreme cases when there's violence of some kind or extraordinary toxicity then obviously you remove yourself otherwise surrender to something that seems unacceptable and yet in yet you surrender uh you're totally okay with it suddenly the the toxic energy of the city but you no longer even call it toxic you just you can sense it and allow yourself to sense that and say oh that's what it is and uh you might also then recognize it as an expression of human unconsciousness to some extent but also yes the it's still a manifestation of Life at a particular stage evolutionary stage uh and that's what it is you can then um I I had that realization many many years ago when I went through a shift in Consciousness that time I lived in London and I had to travel every morning to uh work uh on the subway which is called tube or underground like call it it has different lines and one is called at that time it was decades ago I don't know how it is now one was the one the line that I had to catch is called the northern line the northern line was always considered the worst of all tube lines because had the longest delays and the most totally crammed uh carriages that always you can never find a seat uh you had to push yourself in and then there were long gaps no trains people called it the misery line and I had to catch that line every morning after my shifting Consciousness I still was the same I went in there and I felt completely at peace on the Northern line which before was a source of great unhappiness uh felt completely at peace I couldn't quite understand why for a long time and later I realized uh I'm actually not complaining about anything anymore I'm not complaining about it it's just is my mind wasn't saying anything about it anymore I could still feel feel that energy but it it was I allowed myself to feel that and by allowing myself to feel it there was Transcendence of it so that is something to practice and then also often in the middle of sometimes in London I would catch a bus too so I always s sit on the upper level on the double decker buses would sit on the upper level and I cont contemplated the city I the most peaceful meditations contemplating the B hustle and bustle of the city sitting on the on the upper deck of the bus wow everything was so peaceful why was it so peaceful everybody see everybody is stressed most people in big city like that is stressed most people are stressed and yet I felt peace so peaceful I was completely okay with everything uh that was seems was the reason so it's a it's a practice of surrender and through surrender you transcend now going on to people dealing with people individual people or small groups of people family members um in any situation as much as possible remember that the most important in gradient of that situation is the state of conscience that you bring to it rather than whatever is being discussed and see that uh it's a little bit like without uh accepting the way people behave and but and recognize by you can only accept it if you realize that they behave in this way because they cannot do they can't can't help it they cannot they they behave the way they behave because they're still in the grip of that unconsciousness now you have to be careful that the ego When You observe people's unconsciousness and recognize its unconsciousness and you recognize that's just their conditioned Behavior it's the ego that makes them that's a true recognition when you have that true recognition you need to be careful though that your ego doesn't come back through come return through the back door as I put it U and suddenly you feel very Superior to them uh because any sense of superiority is a conceptual identity again yes you it's important to recognize that they are still in the grip of that unconsciousness so it's a little bit like observing uh children uh you wouldn't come children do the wrong things or break something they can't help it a three-year-old can't if the three-year-old spills something or breaks something they can't help it that's just how that it it corresponds to this The evolutionary stage as a human being and so you wouldn't complain about it but some parents do if they're very unconscious they get angry with a two or threey old when they break something that means you're really unconscious uh but so able to accept people's behavior and see when they be be very careful though with uh your reactions so stay as present as you can through breath awareness or re listen when you listen to Somebody uh be really there listen to them be there as subconscious presence don't let especially when it's a family surroundings the pain body can often come in the pain body wants a reaction an emotional reaction from you other person's pain body wants you to react emotionally and when that happens you can recognize it and you may not need to react emotionally if you stay present staying present is the most important part a accepting the way person behaves for the time being is fine uh unless if it's in your family surroundings it some it may be helpful to talk about certain patterns of behavior that you're not okay with when you when you shout at me when you're tired and you get irritated and you shout at me uh that's not day catch the person when he or she is relatively conscious to point out moments of unconsciousness uh but when it does happen you just have to they're like children people who are still unconscious are like children in evolutionary terms uh so it's not it's challenging but if you you need that in order to deepen your presence if your surroundings were ideal for sustaining presence your presence would never go very deep if you lived if you had unlimited money and you lived in the most wonderful surroundings and you're being looked after you can meditate every day because you're no nobody's making any demands on you you get the best possible food that is uh every day and clean air and wonderful surroundings now you might think then I could really grow spiritually and awaken unfortunately that's not the case for a little while you'll feel peaceful and but it wouldn't go very deep your presence wouldn't go very deep because it doesn't have to go very deep it doesn't go nothing happens unless it has to it's only when when you're confronted with a demand a challenge an obstacle then you are forced to go deeper otherwise you're like a little flower that grows in a greenhouse uh very protected conditions let let's say a seed that sprouts in a prot protected environment of a greenhouse and then it grows very quickly if you take it outside it wouldn't even survive because it was confronted with the adverse conditions it didn't generate enough energy to to deal with the adverse conditions in the applies to presence uh com your comfort zone is not not conducive to Spiritual Awakening and deepening in presence the Mind might tell you comfort there's nothing wrong with Comfort zones enjoy it when it's there but don't believe that the Comfort F finding comfort zone is the ultimate purpose of your life in a way the opposite is true you don't necessarily need to need to seek discomfort although that has been done and is still being done by certain types of spiritual practice uh seeking out discomfort in in India still many people who practice that H in the west there used to be many people not anymore the West is is more about seeking Comfort zones but uh comfort zone is not conducive to any kind of deepening and so you're when you're not in your comfort zone either you suffer or you de your presence deepens through resistance you you suffer through judgment resistance and on you suffer all your presence deepens because it has to and so the the the you're taken out of your comfort zone sometimes because because of the people that you need to deal with or you could be taken out of your comfort zone what where you live or what you have to do or whatever it may be but all these are good things or you lose things that were important to you so you taken out of your comfort zone in that way many of these things are regarded as negative but they're actually exactly what you need to deepen your presence um I had a relative many years ago who uh uh suffered from a mental illness I would only visit this person once a year for brief time because anyway the and when I'm was with this this person was very deeply in the grip of a condition called paranoid schizophrenia and sometimes this person was in a mental home sometimes at home and so when I visit it once a year I could see I first I had to listen to the narratives which were complete fake fantasies about all the enemies that are surrounding us and and so on T paranoid schizophrenia misinterpretations of reality and I I just I first I had to sit there and listened I knew already every time I arrived I would hear the stories of the Dreadful things that been happen happening I will just sit there and um normally everybody sooner or later would become incorporated into this person's fantasy world if you questioned anything she said you would become one of the ene her enemies so I never questioned anything and uh whenever I arrived there I could sense my in the presence of a very unconscious person I could sense my presence deepening becoming much more intense just automatically because there is a the way in which you experience presence is varies there can be intense presence or they can be just pre background presence in certain situations I experience intense presence like dimmer switch turning on the light on the dimmer switch but I'm not doing it it just happens so whenever sat with her I would become very very present and just listen and many times uh while I was there she would become virtually normal and not talk about it anymore and uh uh her condition subsided and you could talk Converse like with a normal person uh and the moment I left to go to go back home I was told by somebody else who lived with her she would immediately revert back into her fantasies but while I was there she was initially I had to listen to the stories but as I stay presence some the some of that presence uh transmitted itself to her it seemed didn't have a permanent effect but it had a temporary effect of bringing some light into to the the the unconsciousness so but this is a practice that is very important difficult people are very important on your spiritual path and difficult people means obviously ego people unconscious people in other words most people are difficult one way or another some are much more difficult than others some are close to insane and those then you have to remove yourself if I said if you can if you can't that's fine too uh but um we deepen through interacting with other humans and to some extent you you find also that your State of Consciousness gets reflected in other humans and the humans that you attract after while if you remain present as much possible you attract other humans into your life that are also relatively present and sometimes there's a healing effect that you can have without wanting to change a situation but by remaining present in a situation nonreactive you can sometimes change the environment without feeling that you are doing it because one present one present person can make a difference to the entire energy field of a group of people or sometimes the group energy is so deeply unconscious that even that doesn't help at least you don't become part of it then and you remain on the periphery you don't become become part of it so in the same way however if you have a group of people let's say you have a meeting you have a you have a committee meeting sometimes one very unconscious person can draw everybody else into deep unconsciousness so that's the reverse of what I just talking about present if one person is is very unconscious sometimes happens that everybody else gets drawn in and their level of Consciousness also uh diminishes that's not uncommon either so um but you need you need difficult people to evolve that's the truth of it so and ultimately even your childhood when I many people when they look back on their childhood and their parents you can see parents were unconscious behaved in unconscious ways in my case for example and I they couldn't help it I there's no I don't blame they're just in the grip of their B this conditioned behavior my life was not pleasant as a child uh but even that retrospectively it all made sense retrospectively I needed to go through that and I I remember talking to Oprah it was actually I I can mention it now because it was a public conversation she grew up as a with a single mother never never saw her father and her mother her mother did not have the ability to love she was not given any love whatsoever it was just very bad very bad situation and uh and I said when she explained the situation the details of which I forgotten but it was awful um I said you would not be who you are now if you if you had had a loving mother because this forced you to go deeper to something that you did not find outside it forced you to go deeper into yourself uh so that's that is help may help you to remember thank you for difficult people that is uh uh your prayer of gratitude