If Things Aren’t Working
If you are pursuing a rational goal, such as expanding an RC Community, or whatever your goal is, and you are not succeeding, you can be quite sure that your policy is not quite correct enough. It is just that simple. Just that simple.
If, after some sustained effort, and checking to be sure you are not getting discouraged when things are really working (you have to analyze the situation), and it really isn’t working; if you have been by yourself and you have taught ten people RC and they have all left and you are alone again, then your policy isn’t quite correct enough. That is all there is to it. All you have to do is correct the policy a little bit.
How do you correct your policy? Well, you have a session—and if no one else will listen to you, call me collect and I will listen—and you talk out loud. A good listener is a good place to start.
You have a session. Ask yourself, “What possible modification could I make in what I am doing?” Just ask this question, over and over, about a hundred and fifty times, and your policy will improve. It may not feel like anything has changed, but things will get better.
It is just that simple. If things aren’t working, your policy isn’t quite correct enough. You need to draw back, think about it, and try again. It will work. That is all there is to it. It always has worked. There is no time in the history of the RC Communities when anyone remembered to do that that they didn’t succeed.
Now, when things aren’t working we, of course, tend to say, “I am already doing everything I can.” Try to remember that you are within the clutch of a particular batch of grey, globby glug—the pseudo-reality that envelopes us. Remember that one of the familiar patterns is usually saying desperately, “It should work.” Yet reality is shining through the fog, trying to tell us that it doesn’t work, that it isn’t working. I worked with a joiner [an artisan who builds things by joining pieces of wood] many years ago who turned to me once and said, “I have cut it off six times, and it is still too short!” When we find ourselves doing it over again the twentieth time and it still doesn’t work, we need to remember to improve our policy. Try to remember yourself, and remind each other.
Keep an eye out for [stay aware of] each other. It is part of reality that . . . where the patterns intrude and take over, that word from the outside can be enormously helpful. Alone, individually, there is, in a sense, at least until we know theory well, not much we can do. It is very difficult for a person to individually change, alone, in the middle of distress.
We used to say that one person alone is helpless with their distress, but it turns out that, having assimilated enough theory, that’s no longer true. It is possible to sit down alone with pencil and paper and ask, “What is wrong? What am I doing out of habit or pattern in this situation? What would be the exact opposite of what I have been doing in this situation? Aha! That is ridiculous, but I will try it.” We can then jiggle the situation. It is possible to stand up and look into the mirror and do the complete appreciation of oneself until something shifts. Once we have assimilated a lot of theory, we are no longer completely helpless.
From pages 150 to 151 of “The Uncovering of Reality,” in The Benign Reality
(Present Time 190, January 2018)