Дебаты дьявола с ангелом, часть 3: Вечеринка на выходных, чтобы остановить войну (2011, Феникс), занятие 2

[Говорящий 2]
...being multi-dimensional. And then we have our honoured guest, Charif Mahdi. He was born in the Netherlands, in Muizen, the one who calls for the prayer.

In many places, including the mosque of Dorval in Montreal, where he lives with his wife and two children. And he'll be doing this prayer with us tonight after their talk. He has been learning the teachings of Islam for more than 32 years.

Mr. Mahdi earned his Master's in Banking Techniques from the Institute of Banking Techniques in Paris, France. And has a PhD in Economics. He's done a thesis in consumerism, how to enhance protection of consumers.

He's regarded as a specialist in this field, and he has published many times in newspapers and magazines regarding the subject of his doctorate thesis. And since 1997, he has been an executive in banks, currently works in a commercial banking manager in the National Bank of Canada. I think what I want to say is, just in the brief time that I've met these lovely people...

He's also here with his wife, Hasna. Just in speaking with them yesterday, I think what blew me away most, and just touched my heart most, is the gentleness and kindness. And the generosity of taking some time out of their schedule to be here with us.

And we're really, really happy for you to be here. And I'd like to turn the microphone over and welcome our guest. First speaking is Aisha.

Hi everyone. I just wanted to say thank you so much for allowing me to speak and inviting me to this beautiful event. I'm deeply touched by this, and deeply honored by this, and to celebrate this.

So, the question that Geshe Michael asked me to answer for everybody here today was, How can Americans reach out to the Muslim community to build bridges and to become friends? So I'd like to just modify that question just a little bit. Because I'd like to instead answer a question that, How can Americans and Muslim Americans work together with each other to build bridges and become friends?

And I don't think the onus is on one community specifically. I think the onus should be on both communities. Because we build bridges that go two ways.

So I just wanted to talk a little bit about that. And how do we do that? So three things that came to mind for me, I think the first thing that's key and most important is to know that we're all the same.

If you strip away religion, you strip away culture, you strip away ethnicity, at the end of the day, we all want water, we all want health, we all want happiness, we all want to be loved, we all want to be safe and secure. So that is something that is unified by all of us. We all have the same organs, we all are built the same, we have the same personalities.

You can find a similar personality in myself out in the middle of the jungle, or in Africa, because we are built the same. So I think the most important thing to remember to build bridges and to build communities is to remember that we are similar people. And the story that comes to mind for me when I think about that is why, because as I mentioned, I traveled a little bit, I was in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and I went up into the jungle, and I climbed 2200 meters.

And we were in between, we had to stop and move into the hill tribe. And they didn't speak English, I didn't speak their language. They'd never been to the city.

I'm an urban girl, through, through, and through. And they, we were able to connect, we were able to talk to each other without having language. I was sitting having dinner, they fed us this beautiful Thai food, it was spicy, it was delicious.

And this little girl came, she tugged on my shirt, and she came and she sat up on me. And there was a woman, she was pregnant, and she had a baby wrapped in one of those beautiful Thai wraps. And I had a camera, and I just pointed my camera, and she said yes.

She knew I wanted to take her picture. She knew that I respected her for who she was and the fact that she was there. And the connection without language was instantaneous.

So I think things like that, if we can remember with each other, when we meet people from different cultures, different religions, know that we're the same, there's no difference between us in terms of who we are and what we want in life. And I think that's one of the key pieces to, I think that's one of the key pieces to help us to build bridges between each other. So the other second piece that comes to mind when I think of this is, I'm building bridges for each other, I think of the notion to think.

And I say that with the most respect. I feel like thinking is a lost art, it's become a dinosaur that's gone extinct. Because we see the media, we watch the media, and we believe the media.

And we don't stop and think about what's happening and what the truth is. And we just arbitrarily follow. And I think that's unfortunate.

Thinking is the single most beautiful gift that God has given to us, second to life. Because we have the ability to grow, we have the ability to learn. So I think that's a really key component.

And again, I'm just going to share stories because that's what I do and that's what I know how to do. But I remember a friend of mine who I love dearly had said to me, well, you know, Palestinian people, they don't care about their kids. They use their kids as shelter, as not shelter, as, you know, look with them in front so that they can be saved.

And I thought to myself, I said, actually, that's not true. If you're a parent, I'm not even a parent, if I saw a child, I would grab a child and run for safety. And I think that we forget that people do that and people say that because we just believe, we don't think about it.

And I think any parent, if you talk to them, if they saw their child in danger, they would grab their children and they would run. So a similar story just to offset that. Another friend of mine, again, who I love, she's a beautiful person.

She's Jewish and we're very good friends. She's one of the longest friends I've had since I've been living in Toronto. And we're very close friends.

And we traveled to New York twice. We were there earlier this year. And we went to a bodega, a famous, you know, little shop in New York City.

I love the city. And the owner was Muslim. And so he automatically connected with me because, you know, Muslims are Muslims.

This is home, you know, and my name is Aisha, which is biblical, so it was even bigger. So right away we became friends. And so through the conversation, my friend Elisa said, well, I'm Jewish.

And right away he changed his whole being. And he looked at her and he said, oh, you're not going to make it to heaven. You're going to go straight to hell.

And I looked at him and I said, no, she's not. This is one of the most beautiful people, the most kindest people I've ever met. I've learned so much from her.

I've grown so much from her as an individual. So I think the idea of thinking is lost. We've somehow lost it as a society.

So I think if we could just remember to think about, well, if we're the same and somebody's saying something to me, then I don't think that's actually very true. So I think those are some of the components that will help us, again, to build bridges and create unity amongst each other because we, you know, as human beings, we're connected. As human beings, we love each other.

As human beings, we learn and grow from each other. As human beings, we learn about each other's cultures. And it just makes us better human beings.

So I think the third thing that is key in building relationships amongst each other is to engage with each other and go out with each other and don't isolate ourselves from each other and don't go live in a community where there's just people like you. One of the things in going back to school, the biggest mistake people make is groupthink. You know, in a business situation, everybody wants to get along, so they all say the same thing.

They go, okay, but there's no learning and growing when you have groupthink. There's learning and growing when you learn from each other and you understand each other. I remember when I was in university, I was working part-time in a branch.

And I think the branch experience was one of my favorite work experiences because it was like a community and it was a family. And I'm originally from Montreal. And so one of the branches I worked in was always Anglophone.

We're called Anglophones and Francophones and Allophones in Quebec. And I'm not even any of those because an Anglophone is somebody whose first language is English and their parents' first language is English. My first language is English, but my parents' first language is not.

So I'm not an Anglophone and I'm not even an Allophone because your first language is not English and your parents' first language is not English. My first language is English. So I don't have a definition in Quebec.

But we had, so we had, and I'm just going to put it for the sake of argument because it's how I know how to say it, is we had a lot of Anglophones in the branch. And then slowly we had some Francophones come in. And we had one Francophone.

He didn't speak a lot of English. He's lived in a farm, grew up with a lot of French people, never really met anyone outside of his community. I'm an urbanite.

I have friends from all over the place. And we sat down one time and I was fasting. It was our fast period and I was observing fast.

And so at lunchtime I just went in the back and I was sitting and he asked, he said, what are you doing? I said, well, I'm actually fasting. He'd never heard of that.

So I explained it to him and I said, oh, you know, what it's for, why I'm doing it, and I'm going to be eating it this time when the sun goes down. And his face went, what? And he said, I've never heard of anything like that.

That's crazy, it's wrong, it's not healthy, it's not good for you, it's just, it's just. And he had all these things that he'd never even seen it. And I said, no, and his name is Michel Marchal.

And I love the guy even to this day. And I said, no, Michel, it's not like that at all. And slowly I taught him about it.

And he, you know, we became friends. My French improved because of him. His English improved because of me.

When I spoke to him in English, he'd be like, what? Because he'd be forced me to speak French with him. So, you know, he became my quarterback.

And then the following year when it was time to fast, he was looking at his watch. He was going, hey, look at the back. You've got to go break your fast.

So I think, I think it's stories like that that warms my heart. And those are pieces of proof that show that it's possible. We just have to open up our hearts to each other.

And I think we just have to accept each other and know that it's okay. It's okay if you're Jewish. Or it's okay if you drink.

Or it's okay if you, you know, you don't fast. It's okay. It's your choice.

It's who we are. And I think if we can just remember those components, then I think we can build more bridges. And I think, I think I'm excited.

I think there's possibility. I think there's a lot of change that I've been seeing in the world with a lot of the different, this type of teachings that's everywhere with the Eckhart Tolles in the world, the Marianne Williamson. There's just a lot of really good things happening in the world.

And I believe that it's going to happen. So I think those are the components that will help us. And I just want to, and very quickly, Shurik is going to talk about prayer, and prayer is another form that unites us.

Because it's, we're all doing the same thing. We're all wanting to be closer to God. We're all wanting to be at peace with ourselves and find some type of a connection.

So again, if you strip away religion, you strip away our cultures, there's a lot of components in our world that connects us and that helps us to build bridges, create unity. And it's possible. So thank you.

I'm going to pass it on to my friend over here, Shurik, who's going to talk some more about some stuff. And thank you very much.

[Говорящий 1]
As-salamu alaykum, which means peace be upon you. I'm really happy to be here. And a big thank to Geshe Michael Roach for inviting us, giving us this opportunity to meet you people.

Thank you for all the team who worked hard to have us here and also to make it easy for us. We appreciate it. It's my first time in Arizona and I like my place.

I missed the first time to Geshe Michael back in June 19, if I'm not wrong. It was Sunday. And I received an invitation by email.

I didn't read a lot about him. I said, OK, the subject looks good. I'm going to go.

I'm going to listen to him. And usually what I do, as many of us may do, we will go check the biography who is the person talking and what he's talking about. So I went there.

And I was really impressed first by the topic itself. And how open he was. Being in a mosque, talking to Muslims, and also the stuff he teaches us that day.

So, yesterday I was listening to him again. And I will not say it's the same speech because it's the same teachings. And it has to be the same teachings.

Otherwise there is something wrong. So, I was glad to be here again and to listen to you again. And thank you again.

Now, to answer the questions, to answer the questions he asked us to talk about, I will make it a little bit different than Aisha to make it more broad so I will cover another part of the subject. To me, I will, I think I can do it through three points. Communication, perception, and then action.

Communication, I think, is what Aisha Michael did when he came to us. So we communicate to us what he thinks. And also, he was really open-minded to learn from us.

And he teaches us to be open-minded like him. And I appreciate that. This is something I learned from you.

Now, communication has to go both ways. As Aisha said, I have to communicate who I am. And I have not to wait for the other to communicate to me who he is.

I have to ask questions. And by asking questions, we learn who the other is. And maybe we may ask the wrong person.

If I would like to know who a Muslim is, I have to ask many Muslims maybe. There are billions on earth. And I may ask one Muslim who may give me a wrong definition of a Muslim.

Or who may misbehave and give me a bad image of Muslims. So, do I have a duty as a learner to ask more than one? I think it's yes, not no.

The second point, I think it's related to the first one, perception. How do we perceive Muslims? Is it through media?

Is it through what we heard? I'm not going to start at this point. If you allow me, I'm taking your time.

I will recite some verses of our holy book, the Quran. And it will be the English translations of its meanings. Unfortunately, I cannot do it in Arabic.

Otherwise, I will lose you. The good why I am doing this, this is a verse to give you a definition. What a Muslim has to be and what has he to do.

So, I will recite. This is the second chapter in the holy book, the Quran. It's verse 177.

It's not piety that you turn your face toward east and or west. It means prayer when you pray. But, piety is one who believes in Allah, God, the last day, the angels, the books, the prophets, and gives his wealth in spite of love for it.

To whom? To the kids folk, to the orphans, to the poor, to the wafer, to those who ask for it, for charity, and to set slaves free. Performs a salah, which is prayer, and gives zakah.

This is the official, the obligatory charity. And who fulfill their covenant where they make it. Something we miss nowadays.

And are patient in extreme poverty and disease. Such are the people of the truth and they are the pious. So, as we see, this is not my words.

This is the Quran, and I think it goes right away to your ears, but maybe also to your hearts. We can feel it. If we have money, what can we do with this money?

Most people will give up money only if they would like to receive taxes. We know lots of them. But giving money to see others happy, I think it brings peace.

Less hunger in the world, less war, and more peace. And I think this is why all of us, we are here today for peace. Peace be upon you.

I have another teaching that I took from our Prophet, peace be upon him. He says, what means? The only difference between humans, not even Muslims, the only difference between humans is piety.

And we just defined what piety is according to Islam teachings. It's all what I recited. So, this part, the perception.

Today, I just recited some verses. If you read it yourself, it may take a few seconds. But it gives a definition of Muslim.

Today, I tell you, if you see someone doing other than this, is he a Muslim? You may question. Because this is the book in which he believes.

He believes that these are the words of Allah, God. So, what has he to do? He has to behave, to be obedient to these teachings.

To give money to the poor. And this is something we can do. And giving is not only money.

We can give our time, our patience, we can give love, we can give peace. There are many things to give. So, it takes me back to the third part of my speech.

As I said, Geshe Michael asked us to talk about three actions or ways to shrink or to narrow the gaps between Muslims and the rest of the world. And this one is prayer. So, what's prayer for us?

And before I start speaking about prayer for us, which we will also do with your permission, Geshe Michael asked us to perform Salat, which is prayer, here in front of you. I will just speak a little bit about prayer. Prayer for us, it takes many forms.

And as a way to answer the questions we set up, this is the third answer, we can pray to have a peaceful world. And this is all of you guys we can do. All of us.

In our own way. We don't need to be Muslim or non-Muslim or other religion. We can do it any way.

Pray. And the secret law, you may have heard about it, the secret law of attraction. You get whatever you want.

So if you get peace, think peace, you get peace. And let us today think about peace. So, I will go to the second part.

I don't know if you have questions, we can maybe devote a few minutes before going to the second part, because it's not time to do the prayer yet. Yeah? Okay.

So if you have questions, I will answer the questions before I go through details. How do we make our prayer? When?

How? Where? What is your suggestion on when someone feels like they found the way for them, that they go deeply into it but still keep an open mind so their practice is deep and strong and in one way that their heart is open to all things.

Because this is to me one of the biggest stumbling blocks between Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus. It breaks my heart. If you have any thoughts on that, how you be deep in your way but not think it's the only way.

Thank you for the question and I have been asking this question today. I'm sorry. So I have been asking this question today and I didn't really thought about it when I answered and I will give you the same answer.

Islam is the extension of all the religions before Islam. So as a Muslim we cannot believe in Muhammad if we don't believe in Jesus, if we don't believe in Abraham, if we don't believe in all the prophets before. So this is a must.

There is no way to believe in one prophet and reject the others. Now the second message and this is why I recite the verses is what we look for is peace and peace we find it in piety. When we are pious people when we are we make the world around us happy being through the teachings of Islam of another religion we make a better living for us.

I think someone who chooses to be a closed mind I don't know if this is the right word it's a choice and he will pay for it. He will not live in peace with himself and with the people with whom he behaves like this. So we all may have books we all may have teachers but we have a brain and we have to read carefully and take the knowledge of its source and we find if we have doubt I cannot just take knowledge from one teacher I take from one teacher and I compare with another teacher.

So if one teacher tells you look your way is the only right way and all the rest of the world is wrong then there is something wrong. It cannot be. We are more than 6 billions on earth we are not only 1 billion of Muslims or 2 billions of Christians I don't know if I have the right number but this is what it was like a few years ago.

So we cannot just because we outnumber the others it's our way that is right. And if we would like to outnumber the others it's not by the numbers it's not what we do. Do we save earth?

Do we help poor people? We are all teachers do we do these teachings? How many among the 1 billion do these teachings?

This is the question.

[Говорящий 2]
I think what he is saying is beautiful but I think it's also openness I think we are missing that openness I think it's wonderful to go deep into our practices deep into Judaism deep into Christianity have that connection with God but you are allowed to have your connection with God and your Christian connection with God just as much as my friend is allowed to have her Jewish connection with God and I'm allowed to have my Muslim connection and I think that's the piece that sometimes gets lost and I think these teachings that we are getting from Geshe Michael helps us to realize that and I just I think I can't agree more with what he is saying and I think for me personally speaking when I met Geshe Michael I found I became a better Muslim just by listening to his teachings so I think to bring these teachings to the Muslim world we become better Muslims and I've heard it from Christian people they've become better Christians and so I just think if we keep doing that snowball effect that it will get better and it will grow but I think the key component is openness and acceptance I think those are the two and that's not a religious statement it's a neutral statement and I think if we make more neutral statements like that that we're allowed to and then it's okay and it will happen just build more bridges, more bridges, more bridges thank you did you answer the question?

anyone else?

[Говорящий 1]
I was on the airplane and it came time for prayer and one Muslim man he went to the open place in the aisle and he started doing his prayer then I saw him bowing and I admired him very much because I'm scared of doing my prayer in front of other people and he just did his prayer and he didn't care what people were thinking but when you bow and when you pray in your mind what do you think? what is a Muslim person supposed to think when you're doing your prayer in your mind what do you think? thank you for the question when we pray and I will take some of the rest of the speech we have two kinds of prayer we have one which is prescribed and this one is five times a day we have to do it once we claim to be Muslim and we believe on all what Islam is we have to do five prayers a day now do we have a choice to do it our way or are there the rules to be followed?

and this is a question and the answer is there are rules to be followed when it is prescribed for the five prayers

[Говорящий 2]
we have rules

[Говорящий 1]
to follow as we have rules when we leave our cars we have rules to follow even if there is no one in the street we don't go across a red light it is the same so someone who takes the ownership of prayer he does it because he believes in it he will do it because he is not doing it only for himself because he is obeying his lord he is obeying the one who gives him life and all what he has on earth so is he going to care whether to do it this is how a Muslim may think it's time to do prayer should I do it am I making trouble to others if yes don't do it this is important if he is not doing trouble by doing it he takes the place away he is not making it too loud because we have not to make it too loud that is fine unless someone comes and says you have no right to do it here because it's written over there don't do it so

[Говорящий 2]
he will not do it

[Говорящий 1]
because there is another rule we have to follow the authority and this is important it brings peace to society we are here for peace the ruler of the land it comes through constitution comes comes through many laws they decide something we will not go alone as an individual and do other things we have to follow if we are not happy what do we do we go through constitution we have to change it change the laws it's the same thing we cannot change the laws and as a good Muslim we first will try to do prayer everywhere when it's time is due and I will talk about times if you allow me and we have to be not disturbed it's a very important point and I thank you for that any questions?

so when you are praying what is the Muslim thinking in his mind when he is praying to Allah thank you I see that the last two questions went about prayer so I start my second part right away and if we have questions then after we will okay so there are two kinds of prayer in Islam the one that everybody can do everywhere no rules you can meditate you can do whatever you do and you still pray in your mind loudly silently it doesn't matter you can do it like supplication you do it everywhere the second type of prayer this is a mandatory and we have five times to do it a day different times and it's not like the one we are going to perform today is at sunset and it finished when the dark is there it's very dark so it's around 8.30 it means that we have from sunset which is 7, 6, 42 or 43 till 8.30 so we have enough time and this is the shortest time we have to perform a prayer yeah it laps we don't have much time so we cannot offer us to delay it much but the other ones we have more time I'll give you an example the one we have started and done early in the morning laps like 8 hours from 5 to 1pm so we have enough time we can do it anytime between those two times so this is the first rule a prayer has to be done on time what we do in the prayer we recite Quran which is our holy book and we have also some remembrance what we do like praising Allah saying Alhamdulillah which means praise be to Allah Subhan Allah great is Allah so we have many remembrance that we do and it's not out of the will there is a way to do it so we memorize how to do it we learn how to pray why do we have this method of doing a prayer if we don't have a mandatory official a prescribed prayer someone will say ok today I'm busy I have business I have clients busy with something else I will do this my prayer later on and he may have a good intention to do it late in the day or maybe in the night but then

[Говорящий 2]
he is again busy then it goes

[Говорящий 1]
to tomorrow and maybe next week and this may happen to everybody people are busy today and they were busy sometimes we believe that we are busy human are busy so being on time it gives us a kind of discipline we discipline ourselves to take two minutes it's not long you can make it long but it's not basically long because you can extend it as long as you want the verses of the Quran you can recite them in two minutes but you can recite them all night and there are people who do so the second big I would say the importance of doing prayer five times a day it's five connections with Allah for us Allah God the Creator our Lord five times we connect we forget all what we have doing business ok just close your laptop and go do your prayer if you think that you are still thinking about what you were doing before then renew your prayer because you have to disconnect it's an important requirement for performing prayer disconnect two minutes and when we learn to disconnect it's like you plug a battery when you finish your prayer you get a brick sometimes we don't have brick and this is a nice brick a time that you take in total it's not more than twenty minutes a day the five prayers including the ablution because we perform ablution we have a kind of washing that we do to perform the prayer including that it's not more than twenty minutes so to whom are we giving these twenty minutes this is the first question one has to ask himself am I in am I doing good to myself because it starts all with belief if I believe that I'm taking this time to pray because I believe even what I believe that it's good time we spend and you enjoy it and what we do also we pray that we acquire as Aisha said I will take again her word peace peace with ourself when you don't think about whatever is around you it's not only about one thing you and your God you are in a nice connection there is no one interrupting this connection no money no business no kids two minutes you disconnect from life you connect with thereafter and you can meditate you can meditate how long you want and the best time in our prayer to meditate is when we are prostrating as we will show you with your permission we will perform Salah of Al-Maharik the prayer of Al-Maharik which is the next few minutes we stand up then we bow then we stand up again then we prostrate then we this set of the sequence of of actions is what we call a Raka'a so it's a set and there are prayers with three sets like the one we are going to perform there are others with four and there is one with only three so I will not go through details unless you you have questions later on so when we do this it takes us few minutes we recite Quran we have as I said when we are prostrating this is the best moment to make supplication supplication meaning to ask for what you want to meditate and to think about yourself after after we finish prayer we call it Salat so if I forget to say Salat because we distinguish between the prescribed prayer and when you just pray so we call the prescribed one Salat so if you hear Salat this is what it means so when we finish the Salat it's your day with Lord is not finished it's not end you can do more you can do optional prayer and many people many Muslims will go a part of the night pray and if you ask them why they will tell you they get more peace and the most beautiful time to pray is late in the in the night or early in the morning which is a part of the night the last part before dawn and whatever your religion is try it just wake up in the morning where you would like not to get up and try it in your way and you will see there is a beautiful connection at that time and as we are all for peace as we are all for peace here this is a good way to get peace with ourselves so it's almost time to go for the prayer what I suggest if you don't mind we can perform the prayer here and if there is any questions then after watching the prayer then you are welcome and if there is someone who would like to pray with us you are welcome I will make a call for Adam but without the microphone because I will do it loudly I will yeah I forgot one detail when we pray among the rules also we have to face our body our chest to Mecca which is the holy city and I just checked it with my compass

[Говорящий 2]
so

[Говорящий 1]
it's this

[Говорящий 2]
direction

[Говорящий 1]
so it's not I'm not choosing it because I like this direction because I have

[Говорящий 2]
to go this

[Говорящий 1]
direction so I hope I have your permission to take your time and to do the prayer in front of you thank you so if you are

[Говорящий 2]
going to join us let us know you are welcome to come up on stage so if anyone wants to join us you are welcome to come up on stage with us everyone are you ready can we

[Говорящий 1]
all move the chairs back we are all going to move the

[Говорящий 2]
chairs back I love that thank you so much

[Говорящий 1]
so I will talk for Adam in Arabic I'm sorry because this is also one of the rules and I will just tell you what I will be saying I will be saying loudly like singing Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar which means Allah is great which means I testify there is only one God I testify that Muhammad is his messenger it's time to do the prayer it's time to win because and then I say again Allahu Akbar Allahu Akbar it's the same once you start so this is what I will be saying I will give you my China

[Говорящий 2]
so we have a lot of people

[Говорящий 1]
so I'm going to

[Говорящий 2]
ask everybody to let's try and organize this so everyone who's standing come this way

[Говорящий 1]
there's all this space over here

[Говорящий 2]
you're going

[Говорящий 1]
to have to so the

[Говорящий 2]
performance is going to be just a quick one you're going to put your head to the floor so that's why there's some sheets so we'd love to have everybody have some sheets and yoga mats are more than welcome my goodness it's fantastic and so the direction that we're going to face everybody is going to be this way so we're going to face this way so let's create some lines so we can get some ideas so yes Michael this is perfect Mercedes come up right here that's perfect just a little bit behind that's great that's perfect Tim why don't you come this way Rebecca that's fantastic okay so all of you that's fantastic and we'll have more people come this is fantastic this is great you're facing the right way oh my god you guys are like giving me goosebumps this is the most

[Говорящий 1]
amazing thing I've ever I'm so touched

[Говорящий 2]
by all of you just take off your shoes and then we're asking you to go on a mat because it's just cleaner you're going to be putting your head down to the floor so are we all is everybody ready just form some lines this is great and if somebody wants to go right here in the corner you just want to leave enough space between you and the front and back so that you can put your head down to the ground that's all you need to do and if anyone wants to come up on the stage would you like to come up on the stage that's okay so if there's anyone there's room anyone who wants to come up here that's great so we're just going to his lead so he's going to do it the first time and we're just going to simply follow his lead so as he goes

[Говорящий 1]
we'll wait

[Говорящий 2]
and we'll go second we just want to pick it up on another corner okay and show him the platform you don't have to hold it no you don't have to hold it

[Говорящий 1]
just hold it okay so they're coming to the two three and go two three and go I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah Come to Prayer Come to success Come to success

[Говорящий 2]
Allah is the greatest, Allah is the greatest

[Говорящий 1]
There is no god but Allah I will make a second short call and we start praying Allah is the greatest, Allah is the greatest I bear witness that there is no god but Allah I bear witness that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah Come to Prayer Come to success Prayer has been performed Allah is the greatest, Allah is the greatest There is no god but Allah We pray in Salatul Fahri Allah is the greatest In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds The most gracious, the most merciful Master of the Day of Judgment It is You we worship and You we ask for help Guide us to the straight path The path of those You have blessed Not of those who have incurred Your wrath Nor of those who have gone astray Ameen In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful Say, He is Allah, the Most Beloved Allah, the Ever-Living He has neither begotten nor is He begotten And there is none like unto Him Allah is the greatest Allah is the greatest Allah listens to those He loves In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds The most gracious, the most merciful Master of the Day of Judgment Iyyaka na'budu wa iyyaka nasta'een, ehdina al-sirata al-mustaqeen, sirata al-ladheena an'amta alayhim, wa ghayri maghdubi alayhim wa raddallim.

Ameen. Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem. Inna a'taynaka al-kawthar, wa salli li rabbika wal-haqq.

Inna shami'aka huwa al-abtar. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah. As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullah.

May Allah accept our prayers. Thank you.

[Говорящий 2]
I just want to thank everyone again, from the bottom of my heart, for participating in that. To me, that was the most beautiful prayer I have ever prayed in my life. I've prayed many times Jumu'ah and Adhan, where I felt close to God, and I've prayed many times just in general.

But today was probably the most special prayer that I've ever had in my entire life. And I cannot thank all of you enough. My God, you've warmed my heart like no tomorrow.

So thank you so much for this.

[Говорящий 1]
Are there more questions? Yeah. Thank you.

Can everyone please quickly take your seats? Everyone, please be quiet. Everyone, please be quiet now.

Yeah, let's go. So, I have a question about the way we do the prayer. Is it always in congregation, or can it be done individually?

And the answer is, it's mandatory to do the prayer. If you do it individually, it's fine. But if you do it in a group, in congregation, then it's more rewarding.

And someone may ask, why? I don't know if you felt the energy we had praying together at the same time. And the more people, the more energy.

And this is one of the benefits. It's not the only one. Now the second one, when we pray in a group, we are careful.

As everything we do in a group, we are more careful than doing it individually. It's the same with the prayer. We watch out what we do, we watch out how we behave in the prayer.

So we have another benefit that we perform the prayer in a better way. And another commitment is that if you commit yourself to do it in congregation because you like it, for the two first reasons, then you have a third benefit that comes from itself, which is doing it on time. Because what we did now, we did this at the beginning of the time of the prayer.

And we may do it later on, like before 8.30, it will be still good. But it's like, if someone gives you something, and you would like to thank him, you may not wait a year to thank him. He will accept it.

It's fine. But if you do it soon, it's better. It's the same thing with prayer.

The sooner we pray, the better it is. So the answer is yes, you can do it individually, but it's better to do it in congregation. And then the other half of the question is, is what you were reciting, is that clear?

Exactly. So, as I said, the prayer has some rules. And the set sequence of actions we did, from being standing till we prostrate, this one will be done the same way by every other imam.

Every Muslim, he will pray the same way. He will recite the Fatiha, which we have on the paper. And this is a mandatory recitation.

We have to recite it mandatory. We cannot escape it. But the second part that I recite after Fatiha, I have to say Amin, then I recite something else.

Some verses of the Quran. This you may choose whatever you want. And this is what makes a difference between a long prayer and a short and sweet prayer.

Like the one we did, I took the shortest verses. By the way, they are short, so the shortest chapters in the Quran.

[Говорящий 2]
Did I answer your question, sir? Yeah. Thank you.

I had a question. It says 17 times, and you mentioned sometimes you prostrate four times, and sometimes twice, and sometimes once. Could you explain why you do that?

[Говорящий 1]
Thank you for asking. So, as I said, we have the optional prayer. In the optional prayer, we will go as we like.

We can do two sets of sequence, four. It's always a pyramid. It has to be a multiple of two.

Like two, four, six, eight, ten, and so on. You can do whatever you want. But when we come to the prescribed prayer, as I said earlier, there are rules, and we have to follow them.

Sometimes we have an explanation to what we do, but not always we have an explanation. So, if you ask me why we don't drink alcohol, I can give you a scientific explanation, but it's not the reason. The scientific is that you have more alcohol in your blood.

You pass a level, it will do bad to you in many ways. But this is not the reason why we don't drink alcohol. We don't drink alcohol because in the set of teachings we learn is to not drink alcohol.

And in the set of teachings is to do it that way. And we do it that way. Thank you.

[Говорящий 2]
In one point of the prayer, you said a prayer to the right, like you whispered something to the right and then to the left, and I wondered if you could tell us the significance of that.

[Говорящий 1]
Thank you. In our belief, every human is accompanied by two angels. One is right and one is left.

One, on the right, is writing down all your good deeds. And I guess you know what the other one is. So this is why we greet them.

Because what I said is, Peace be upon you. Peace and mercy of Allah be upon you. Peace and mercy.

We are trying to do that.

[Говорящий 2]
The way in which you spoke the words in the beginning was like a song, and I was wondering if that is also, that melody is the same across the Muslim faith, and if not, where that comes from and how it's created and what role that plays on the impact it has on the prayer.

[Говорящий 1]
Thank you. So, the question is important because sometimes, I didn't explain all what we did, and I think it's the best way we do it now, like answering questions, because I can spend hours explaining all details. So we go with this detail, which is an important one.

Did I have to sing it? Maybe not. I can't just say, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Ashadu an la ilaha illallah.

And it's fine, it's accepted. No, but as a human, we need to do it in a nice way. And we do it in that nice way.

And for the Adhan, it's not the same. Not everybody will do it the same way. There are many ways.

If you go to Google, put Adhan, you can make some audio, and you can listen, it's different. But we have to say the same words. Now, coming to the Quran, which I recited when I was doing the prayer, this is a teaching of our Prophet.

Quran to us, it's a very important book, and the words we recite are very important to our heart. So we try to say them in a beautiful way. Is it valid, your prayer with all this?

Yes. Is it more beautiful? I will let you answer this question.

[Говорящий 2]
Thank you. Were you taught that? I think it's absolutely beautiful.

I'm wondering, were you taught to sing it that way, in particular, or have you created that through your own practice, for example?

[Говорящий 1]
Yeah, the question is, what I did, is it my way, or is it something I learned from someone else? Islam came 1400 years before. And there were many improvements in the way this azan, what we call azan, has been done.

And we record only the most beautiful ones. So this is my way because it fits my voice. You will find a beautiful way.

I'm not saying mine is the best, no. There are many, many ways of calling for the prayer. It depends on the voice.

It depends on which one you like. But we don't go outside a tradition. We can.

No one will blame you. But we go, we learned it this way, we do it. When we start as muazzin, we are young.

So we are happy if the scholar is happy with us. So which way are we going to do it? The way of our scholar, and so on.

But can we do it another way? Yeah, why not? Why not?

The singing, the way we said Quran, this is something that has to be taught. You cannot just do it because when you pronounce Arabic, many spellings, if they are misspelled, they give wrong meaning. And this is something we as Muslims have to be careful with.

And this is why to read Quran, which is the holy book, has to be done properly. And the best way to do it is to learn it from someone who does it well. So we read properly, and if we would like to do it in congregation, we ask for ways, like someone to watch us, if we do it good.

And then we start doing it otherwise. Did I answer your question? Thank you.

Any questions? So I thank all of you, and really appreciate your time. I felt very good when we did the prayer together.

It gave me more energy. And this is something I will bring with me back to Montreal, a good experience. And I hope to meet you again, peacefully and for peace.

Thank you. Okay, so... Before any time passes, we want to ask you to come again.

We've asked permission to sing the Al-Fatiha, the beginning of the Quran. And we'd like you to sing along. So please sit down, relax, and we'll do it together.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay, hi! Hi! So I just want to tell you a brief story, so we all are on the same page, and teach you one of your parts for the kirtan.

Okay, so about a year ago, Geshe-Ma took some of us to Morocco, to the Fez Festival. And it was a really beautiful, incredible experience, and we saw all these very prepared performances in the daytime. And then, late at night, we all, there was a group of about five of us, went for a walk.

And we heard this incredible, kind of wild, beautiful music playing. And we kind of turned the corner from where all the... We turned the corner from where all the set-up-like professional performances were.

And we found just kind of like a natural group of people chanting. And there was a stage kind of set-up, and there was this beautiful Muslim community who had gathered to chant that night. It was late at night, and there was a big kind of wild lady, you know, sitting in the front with a couple of missing teeth.

She was just fantastic. She had this big harmonium, and she had this huge band with her.

[Говорящий 1]
And she was chanting, you know, verses from the Quran. And I didn't know that you chanted the Quran.

[Говорящий 2]
I thought that it was just too sacred, and you just, you never chanted it. And then out in the audience were all these families, and they had like, you know, picnic baskets and like tablecloths, and they were just totally partying. And they were partying, they were just calling back to her, you know, the chants of the Quran.

[Говорящий 1]
And then in the, and that was all the families were right up front.

[Говорящий 2]
And then in the back, back row, which is where I was standing, were all these young, gorgeous, like teenage boys, like Muslim teenage boys.

[Говорящий 1]
And they were holding on to each other like they were in a soccer match that was winning.

[Говорящий 2]
And they were just jumping up and down, like chanting, Allah, Allah. And we like turned the corner, and we were like, this is the Fez Festival. Like this is the real thing that's going on.

So we hung out there for like about an hour. And we're, you know, doing a small attempt to try and replicate the beauty that we saw that night. And there's one part of the chant where the, you know, the big lady would call out, Muhammadanul Azul, and then all the boys would yell back to her, Allah!

Right? So that's one of your parts, okay?

[Говорящий 1]
So when I, when I, the song is suddenly gonna change tempo, like it'll be going along like a nice cure time like you're all used to. And then the song is gonna change tempo, and I'm gonna say, Muhammadanul Azul, and you're all gonna yell out, Allah. Okay?

So let's just practice. So I'll say, Muhammadanul Azul, Allah.

[Говорящий 2]
Muhammadanul Azul, Allah. Okay, great. That's Azul, okay, that's Azul.

Please forgive my pronunciation. I promise I'm gonna be better next time I work on it. So, for those of you who don't know what a cure time is, Geshe said, I will call out a phrase, I'll sing a phrase, like, you know, Bismillahirrahmanirrahim.

Okay? And you will then sing that back to me. So mainly for the whole of the chant, you're gonna be repeating back what I say, except when we get to Muhammadanul Azul.

And if everyone can just grab their sheet that was passed out to you, and the words, most of the words that we're gonna be chanting should be there in case you get lost.

[Говорящий 1]
But just listen and learn it, and it's a beautiful, this mic is coming down, it's a beautiful prayer to learn.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay, is everyone clear? Yeah, one last thing, Geshe-la.

[Говорящий 1]
Sing it for peace in the world, and the reconciliation of the Islamic and other communities of the world, okay? It's time to change, and it's time to become good, close, dear friends. Okay?

So sing it for that.

[Говорящий 2]
And sing with joy. Call out Allah's beautiful name with joy. Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
How do you feel from Turkey? I'm welcome. You're welcome?

Okay. Okay, I'm gonna do Fatiha. I'm gonna try.

And then at the end when I go, you just go, Ameen. And pardon my nerves and emotions. I heard of blind man from Turkey.

I had his tape, he was the big blind man from Turkey. And I listened to him when I was younger, and I fell in love with this man. I hope this is not too loud.

[Говорящий 2]
Recitation of Holy Qur'an Ameen He lived about 400 years ago.

[Говорящий 1]
And just an extraordinary person. One of the greatest poets of Tibet. Certainly, maybe one of the top three or four philosophers of Tibet.

And it's interesting about war. Is that in Tibet there was a civil war started during his time. He was in retreat in a cave.

And the two armies approached each other nearby. And he felt them. That a war was about to break out.

So he got up. And he walked out. And he stood between the two armies.

And he said, If you're going to fight, you have to kill me first. So he was a very respected lama of Tibet at that time. It's like the Dalai Lama nowadays.

So then he said, If you want to fight, you have to kill me first. And then no one wanted to kill him. So they called off the war.

You know. So that was the kind of person he was. An extraordinary man.

Certainly. So only a person like that could write a text like this. This text that you have, It's a poem.

It's a long poem. You only have a small part. I was thinking it would take like one weekend.

But it seems it's going to take a while. But it's a poem about an argument in one person's mind. Between the Dalai Lama and the angels.

So I was thinking about when Thay used the two angels. It's sort of like that. There's two people fighting over the territory of this person's soul.

And it's very beautiful. Because only a great person I think would admit that they had the fight going on. You know.

It's like Mother Teresa wrote about her dogs. So he's writing about the war that's going on inside of his own heart. Between forces of dark and forces of light.

I think it's important to understand sometimes the devil in this text is called the tendency to think that things are themselves. Sometimes the devil is called in this text the tendency to think that things are themselves. So why would that get to be the devil?

Why do you get to be the devil because of that? And we talked about the pen last night. I always talk about the pen.

I should pre-record it in this. Many of you heard this. I won't go through the whole thing.

But I can say, what is this thing? And then you'll say it's a pen. And then I'll say, if a dog came into the room and I waved this thing in front of the dog then what would the dog do?

Would the dog see a pen? And you say, no. And then I say, what would the dog do?

And you say, the dog would chew it. Then I would ask, which one is right? The dog or the human?

And you would say... You could say both of them are right. Animal rights.

Both of them are correct. Then I would say, if I left this object on this chair and all the people left the room and all the dogs left the room then which one would it be at that time? And you'd say, neither.

And that's the Buddhist idea of emptiness. So it doesn't mean anything else. It doesn't mean nothing matters.

It doesn't mean you should stare at the wall. It doesn't mean you don't have to be nice to people. It doesn't mean any of those things.

It means, when you put this object on the chair and there's nobody in the room at that time, you can't say it's a pen or something to chew. Because there's no one seeing it. There's no one thinking of it as one or the other.

At that time it's just waiting to be either one. It's available to be either one. And that's...

You could say... Maybe emptiness is a bad word. I think available might be nice.

It's just available to be either one. So then I asked you last night to hold up your right hand. Ready?

You can do this fast if you do it right. And I want you to show me is the pen coming from the pen or is the pen coming from me? Especially the kids have to show me.

This way or this way? Yeah. Okay, great.

It's coming... Therefore it must be coming from me. The dog...

The dog sees something completely different. The dog wants to chew on it. The dog doesn't want to write a poem or something.

They don't see it as a pen. So it must be coming from me and the chew toy must be coming from the dog. Then we asked an important question last night.

We said, if you close your eyes and you wish this was something else, would it become something else if it's coming from you? So we can try. You can say, I want a diamond and give this gift to Michael Spinelli.

He'll split the money with us. If you try real hard and you close your eyes and you wish, wish, wish, wish, wish, okay? And you know, you know very well you can wish all you want and it's not going to become a diamond.

It is coming from you but you can't make it become anything you want. So it must be coming from you in some other way. It must be coming from you in some other way.

How? We say there's a seed in your mind that opens in your mind when I pull this thing out. You ready?

Try to see if you can catch the seed, okay? I'm going to pull it out of my hand, okay? You can't see it yet, right?

I'm going to pull it out of my hand. Try to imagine in the moment that I pull it out of my hand a seed cracks open inside your mind and a tiny little picture of a pen flies from your mind to this thing. Ready?

See if you can catch it, okay? You got to be fast. You ready?

Kids can probably do it. You ready? Go.

Too slow. Okay? Okay, I'll try again.

Try to feel it, okay? By the way, who decides the timing? That's karma, okay?

You might look away at the moment I pull it out, okay? Ready? I'm going to pull out an object.

I want you to tell me what it is. See? And in that second a seed cracks open in your mind.

Karmic seed. And a picture of a pen flies out to the thing, okay? It's not that you're seeing things towards you.

It's that things are flying out of your mind. And, you know, a nice pen picture goes and then it's a pen. You see what I mean?

And it's not a pen until it does, okay? It's not a pen until that flies out, okay? Which got us to the question last night, is a pen all the parts of a pen?

You can say no. Why? Because the same parts when looked at by a dog are something to chew.

And the same parts when looked at by a human are something to write with. Therefore, the pen cannot be in the pen. Okay?

You gotta get comfortable with that. You're not comfortable at all, but it's okay. You can take all the parts of a pen and there still won't be a pen.

Okay? Until you think of it as a pen. There's no pen in the parts of a pen.

Okay? Then you've got, if you're teaching this, okay, everybody here should become a teacher. Everybody here should teach this in some way.

Okay? And many people here are teaching many hundreds of people. But when you teach it, in the next moment, you must ask the question, what has this got to do with my life?

Okay? Okay, that's cute, Geshe Michael. You know, the pen's coming from me.

You know? Then what? And I think a lot of teachings that I've ever gone to, Buddhist teachings, they never answered this question.

They just stopped there, they said, okay, have refreshments. The parts of the pen are not the pen. You know, your parts are not you.

Good night.

[Говорящий 2]
You know?

[Говорящий 1]
And then you're like, you know, what do I do with that? I felt very uncomfortable. I was taught in India this thing.

And they left me like that. And I'm like, what? Is there no pen?

Is there no, am I not here? You know? Like, no, like, no, very uncomfortable.

It felt very, it felt like giving somebody half of a meal.

[Говорящий 2]
You know?

[Говорящий 1]
And I'm like, what's the other half? You know? And that's the big thing.

Last night we talked about, we had an example. Who was it? Your husband.

Okay? You cooked from Julia Chow, page 265, I play sometimes. You cooked beef bourguignon for your husband.

You spent like four hours. Not counting the shopping time, which is a good four hours. No, where I live, because I have to drive for ten minutes.

So, you spent a lot of time cooking beef bourguignon. You came home and you offered it to your, you know, your husband came home from work and you said, you know, here you go, honey. You know, you present it with a flourish, you know, and he says, well, me and the guys were thinking of having Domino's pizza and watching the game tonight.

[Говорящий 2]
You know?

[Говорящий 1]
And it just blows off without any consideration for your feelings. No clue about your feelings. He just says, oh, I was thinking of having a Domino's pizza tonight and watch the game with the guys, you know?

And then he invites his friends over and they eat the pizza, right? Then we were asking the question. So, I mean, that's a stupid husband, okay?

We can agree. That's a stupid husband. Is there stupid husband in the parts of the husband?

No. Okay. His minds, his legs, his mind, his intentions, his feelings, all of him together, his name, his identity, lump all that together.

Is that your stupid husband? We have to say no, okay? In this teaching, the devil says, that's your husband.

Okay? The arms, the legs, the nose, the words, the stupidness, all together, that's your husband. The devil is trying to convince you that that's your husband.

Okay? And the angel's like, no, no. That's not your husband yet.

Because there's one thing missing. You have to think of him as the stupid husband. Then he's a real stupid husband.

Okay? Just like the pen, okay? The parts of the pen without someone to think of them in a certain way are not a pen.

Because they could have been a chitoy, because we heard it's available. Right? By itself.

Husband also, he's just available. He could have been anything. Okay?

He could be smart, he could be stupid. Okay? Who's filling in the last part?

From your mind. Okay? From your mind.

Why? There's a seed in your mind. Who put the seed there?

How do you put the seed for a pen? You ready? You gotta hold your hand up.

Higher, higher. Like this. So, we're gonna demonstrate.

Chi and me. Okay? Okay, we gotta get this.

You know. Okay. I'm gonna show you how to plant a seed for the pen.

Ready? He needs a pen. He's gonna write a novel.

And then, I, with a good heart, with love for him, and want to help him, I, I let go. Within a second, in the millisecond that I let go, that seed is planted in my subconscious. That's karma.

You can call it karma. I don't like the word karma. It's too weird.

You know. You can call it a seed. The moment I let go, a seed is planted in my mind.

Okay? Then, a week later, I go to some talk at Monte Lucia and this guy goes... And then that seed goes Whee!

Boop! Boom! Okay?

I can't do that again. Okay? It comes...

It grows and it comes out of you. Okay? So, if you want a pen, how do you get a pen?

Yeah, you don't buy. Okay? The devil wants you to think that the way you get a pen is to pay money.

Okay? And that's just... Think about it for two seconds.

Okay? Have you ever gone to the store with money and not able to buy a thing? Yeah, they're out of pens.

This is a weird pen. This is hard to get, these pens. This is from Japan or something.

They're hard. I love them. Sometimes you go and they say, we don't have any.

I say, I have money, but money is the cause of a pen. We don't have any. Ah!

Money is not how you get a pen. Sometimes you don't have any money and someone gives you, look, a Japanese pen. You see what I mean?

Money isn't... Money isn't how you get a pen. You get a pen by...

You must give a pen. There's no other way to give a pen. No pen ever came without giving a pen first.

There's no such thing. No dollar of the 60 trillion dollars of the planet's economy ever came unless someone gave money to someone before. It cannot.

Okay? The value of the world's money, the combined value of all the currencies of the world, 60 trillion dollars, not one dollar exists unless someone gave a dollar to someone else. Okay?

You gotta grasp that. I'm not saying some of the money comes from your seeds. All of the money, all the world's economy comes from your seeds.

Okay? Did that number of dollars in the world suddenly drop 18 months ago? No, I mean the piece of the paper or whatever.

It didn't drop like 20% in one day. I mean, it doesn't do that. The papers are there.

People are not gonna like drop them and, you know, where's my money, you know? The value of the world's economy dropped like that. Not the number of pieces of paper.

The value, the wealth of the planet dropped suddenly. Within a few weeks, okay? How could it do that?

The papers didn't get less. You see, the notes didn't get less. It's a seed.

The seed changed. And all of the people who used that money, their seeds changed. And that's why money can radically change in a few weeks.

The total value of the world's economy can change in a few weeks. That's how. It's perceptual.

It's not the number of pieces of paper. It didn't change. The amount of property, the number of cars, nothing changed.

It was just the perception. And then suddenly there's less money in the world. So if you want money, what do you have to do?

You must give money. There's no choice. If you want money, you must give money.

In a controlled way. Kon Tekhnika. We were in Guadalajara last week.

Kon Tekhnika. We were in Ukraine a week before. So Tekhniki come.

[Говорящий 2]
You know?

[Говорящий 1]
And you must know the... Technique. Technique.

You must have the technique. There's a technique. Maybe we'll talk about it tonight.

But probably I have to. Now, question. If you want to see the parts of your husband as being completely insensitive to you, how would you get that to happen?

What kind of seed do you plant for that?

[Говорящий 2]
What?

[Говорящий 1]
What do you have to do to get an insensitive husband? You must be insensitive. You must be insensitive.

It's interesting. It goes both ways. Good things and bad things.

If you want to have a husband who would rather order Domino's than eat Julia Child's beautiful vignole without even tasting it, you know, then you've got to be insensitive before that. Because it's the cost. You have to plant the seed before that.

If you want a big watermelon, do you have to plant a big watermelon? No. In Guadalajara they say sandia.

In China we say shigua. Every country has a watermelon. We gave this talk in, where were we?

Hamburg. And then a guy came up to me afterwards. He said, I'm the watermelon king of Europe.

How did you know?

[Говорящий 2]
I didn't know.

[Говорящий 1]
He says, I can send you 18 trucks. You know what I mean? The seed for a watermelon is tiny.

The seed for a watermelon is tiny. The watermelon is fat and big. And inside the watermelon there's hundreds more seeds.

So, big question for you. To get an incredibly insensitive husband, do you have to be incredibly insensitive? No.

You just have to be sort of insensitive. I'm just training you now. In case you want to change your husband into an insensitive husband.

I'm just giving you clues. You just have to be a little insensitive on a regular basis. By the way, it doesn't have to be to your husband.

You can plant the seed at work and the watermelon will come out at home in front of Monday night football. Alright? Got it?

That's interesting. For good things and bad things, the seed is small. You just need to plant a small seed.

Okay, so we did that last night. We talked about that last night. Your husband's body is not an irritating husband until you're irritating to someone else last week.

And that seed will cause him to say to you, I was thinking about having roasted dominoes with the guys. You see? Where does that put the feeling of being upset at him?

What does that do to the feeling of being angry or upset with him? If you realize he's flowing from you, then what would happen to the feeling of upset at him? Okay, I've got to tell you a story.

Quick, because we don't have much time tonight. So, this woman goes into the shower. I always think of New Jersey.

I lived in New Jersey for a while. The armpit of the nation. And they call it that.

And it's true. It's cold. It's always cold.

I hated it there. I grew up here. Everything was cold all the time.

And then, you put socks on. Usually you have one good pair of wool socks, right? And then, you go to take a shower.

And it's sad that you feel cold water seeping out through your only pair of wool socks. And somebody took a shower and left the shower curtain open. And there's cold water all over the floor.

And then you can't dry those socks in New Jersey. Nothing ever dries in New Jersey. And then you're like that.

Then you go to your friends. You go to the other... In my case, maybe you go to the monks.

You go to the other monks and you say, they're having breakfast. And you confront them. Because that's what you're supposed to do, right?

That's what we are... The devil trained you to confront people who cause you trouble, right? So, you go to the other monks.

You sit down at the table. They're drinking their salt butter tea. And then you're like, alright, who took a shower this morning?

And everybody's like, I didn't take a shower this morning. Did you take a shower this morning? No, I didn't take a shower this morning.

And then they're like... Then somebody... And you start to get angry.

You're like, somebody tell me who took a shower this morning. And then somebody says, you know, didn't you get up early for praying before dawn? We do it sometimes.

But not enough. I'm going to try it. Didn't you get up before dawn to pray?

Oh, yeah. Did you take a shower? Then you're like, oh, yeah, I took a shower.

So, you didn't close the shower curtain. I guess not. So, you got your own socks wet.

And you're blaming us, right? Then how do you feel at that moment? They call sheepish in English, right?

Sheepish in English. Start to sound like Anton Snow. Anyway...

I don't know how you do... What do you call that? Rap.

While you're teaching automatically. How it comes out as rap. It's a miracle.

I don't know. But it's really beautiful. Okay.

So, like you're... How do you feel at the moment that you figured out it was you who got your socks wet? You see?

That's how you feel about your husband when you study this stuff. Then life changes. Life drastically changes.

You can't blame anybody. Nobody. For anything.

Big stuff too, like wars and all that stuff. Politicians. It's all coming from you.

It's very profound. But that's good news because then you can change things. They're coming from you and you can change them.

They are not in their parts. A war is not in the two armies. It's in the minds of the people.

And your husband's not in his arms and legs. He's flowing. He's flowing from you.

Okay? So, that's a summary about last night. Okay?

We're going deeper. And I learned something when I started teaching. I was afraid.

Oh, there's a lot of new people here. Maybe I shouldn't get too complicated. I shouldn't go very deep because they'll get lost and they won't come back again.

But what I've learned is that if you challenge people and you tell them the truth, the hard truth, the deeper things, they really appreciate it. Like you've been dying to hear something deeper because all you got was television and movies and you know, you're dying to hear something a little bit more deep. So, I'm just going to jump.

Okay? We're just jumping. Alright?

We're on verse 60. Page 6. Okay?

I'll read that tonight for good luck. It's uncomfortable. sem kye kye je ma ching mi mi kye mi kye kyang de na mi de tar kye Anybody that doesn't have it, raise your hand.

They'll come get you up. And keep your hand out because they don't know who you are. Okay.

sem kye kye je ma ching mi kye mi kye kyang de na mi de tar kye je ma ching dan de kye je ma ching dan tar ma de tar kye je mi kye je ma ching tan kye kyang kye mi kye kyang de na mi Okay, it's poetry. Keep your hand out if you need more. He covered your husband's body.

Now he's gonna question your husband's mind such as it is. Okay? He's gonna...

Is your husband his mind? He's not in his body. Does he have a body?

Does your husband have a body? Yeah. Is your husband standing there holding a pizza box?

Yes. Okay, I'm not saying he's not there. Okay, don't get me wrong.

[Говорящий 2]
Okay?

[Говорящий 1]
Is he in his body? Is he in the parts of his body without you thinking of him a certain way? No, there's nothing there, okay?

Put this thing on the chair. Everybody walks out. There's no pen there.

It's just waiting to be something. Your husband, before you got home, sitting with his pizza box, he wasn't insensitive yet. Okay?

It takes you to walk in and your seat opens and you see this guy and then suddenly you label him insensitive. Then he becomes insensitive and he really is insensitive, okay? I'm not saying he's make-believe.

He's coming from your mind, therefore he's real. In this system, he's coming from your mind and therefore he's real. You are naming his parts insensitive and he is insensitive because you named him.

Did you have a choice? No, the seat opens, that's it. You don't have a choice.

Okay, I could do this 50 times. You're gonna see a pen each time. You don't have a choice.

You have seats in your mind. You have a choice about what you see next week. Okay?

You have a choice about what you see next week. Give away a few diamonds maybe next week it'll be a diamond.

[Говорящий 2]
Got it?

[Говорящий 1]
Because it's nothing by itself. Okay? Got it?

So we covered all that. I'm trying to get to the cool part. What about his mind?

What about his mind? His body I can handle, you know? The appearance of him.

I call him something. I think of him as something. But what about his mind?

The body parts are in one moment of time. The mind parts are in a flow the whole day. The mind, if you want to say what are the parts of the mind, the mind consists of a whole series.

Sharif was talking about the sequence of the prayer and I liked it. It's a sequence of the prayer, parts of the prayer. Over time, over the 20 minutes that we did the prayer, there was a sequence from beginning to end.

Your husband's mind is a sequence of moments of perception from the morning to the evening. And that's his mind. And those are the parts of his mind.

Okay, got it? The moments. And then don't think of them as you know, some mental stuff.

Think of it as he saw the mirror. He saw the razor. He saw the shaving cream.

He saw his hand go to the shaving cream. He saw the shaving cream come out of the can. See, he's shaving.

You see? Don't think of his mind as some clear ineffable thing. It's made up of movie, parts of a movie.

He's seeing the can. He's seeing the razor. He's picking up the razor.

And those are all moments of his mind. He's watching his body move. And he's watching the world around him.

And each thought is filled with something. Got it? Each thought has contact.

Each moment of his mind has contact. There's some kind of picture in the mirror. His mind is like a mirror.

And there's content in the mind at each moment. Got it? Your mind is made up of moments.

So when you discuss whether the mind is the mind, you gotta look at its parts. And the parts of the mind go from morning to night. Unlike your body.

The body you could say, you know, Anton at 9.05 and 38 seconds. What are his parts? You can discuss the body that way.

But the mind is a series of santana. They call... You know, Carlos Santana didn't make up the word.

In Sanskrit, santana means the flow of instant. Okay? And he's a...

Your husband's mind is a santana. It's a... It's made of parts.

Okay? Now... Now we can go back to what we learned yesterday.

Can you find your husband in any one of those moments of his life? Is he... Is your husband the perception of the shaving cream at 7.43 and 28 seconds?

Is he in any one moment of his life? He's not. I mean, he's got all the other stuff.

There's the pizza incident. Right? No, I mean, that's also your husband.

So he's not in... It's like saying you are your arm, or something like that. You're not your arm.

You're all your parts together. Right? Is your husband any one moment in his day?

No. He's all the moments in his day. Got it?

His mind, your husband's mind, is all the moments of his mind in that day, together. Right? Just the way the pen is all the parts of the pen, together.

Am I right? Yeah, I tricked you. Come on.

Is the pen all the parts of the pen, together? No, put the same parts together, show it to your dog, he'll chew on it. Okay?

The pen is not all the parts of the pen, together. Right? Is your husband's mind, all the moments of his mind, from morning to night, together?

No. Not until you think of it a certain way. Okay?

Not until you think of it a certain way. Okay? How are we thinking of his mind?

What are we thinking about his state of mind during the pizza incident? What are we saying about his state of mind? It's insensitive.

It's incredibly insensitive. Okay? It's extraordinarily insensitive.

You know? You spend three hours shopping, then bourguignon takes time. Right?

You've got to sit in there. And, he's blowing off five hours of your work in a single sentence. And then he just turns around and goes to watch the game.

You see what I mean? Who created his mind? Who created his state of mind?

Okay? Who created his state of mind? You see, his emotions, his feelings, the way he thinks, where is it coming from?

Me. It's also coming from me. The body is easy to think about.

You know, his manner with the pizza box. You know? But then, his thinking.

You're also blaming me for his thinking? Yes. All right.

The way he thinks is also coming from me. You've got to... If you can break a thing into parts, then the thing you broke into parts must be coming from you.

That's all. If the thing has parts, if the thing is made of parts, somebody's got to be tying those parts together. Okay?

They didn't jump together. Okay? And the only one doing it is you.

All right? How about... I'll push a little harder.

Okay? I lost half of you. It seems I can please the other half.

I'll push a little harder. For him, where is his mind coming from? He, from him.

Okay? From his seeds. Right?

How does he... How does your husband see his state of mind? Reasonable.

Okay?

[Говорящий 2]
Reasonable.

[Говорящий 1]
He works hard. He only sees his friend once a week. You know?

He ordered the pizza before you got home. You didn't tell him you were making the beef bourguignon. You know?

You did this 18 times before. You know? He was being polite before.

You know? And he ate the beef bourguignon. I didn't get to see the game.

And today he's putting his foot down. Be reasonable, honey. You know?

At least call me at work and tell me you're working on beef bourguignon. If you don't call me, and I order a Domino's, and my friends are already coming over. I mean, we've been through this before.

Okay? He's perceiving that same object. He's perceiving the same parts in a totally different way.

He sees them as reasonable. He sees his own mind as... He's experiencing his own mind as reasonable.

Got it? And you're experiencing his mind as incredibly insensitive. Alright?

Who's right? The dog or the human? Okay?

Whose fault is it if a dog sees something to chew on? It's the dog's fault. By the way, you want to go deeper?

You want to jump a little bit? I'll take you for a 10 second deeper. Okay?

To look at this and want to chew is what makes you a dog. Okay? Seed opening in your mind.

And you look at... I pull out this thing and use it to elevate. You is a dog.

[Говорящий 2]
No, I'm not kidding.

[Говорящий 1]
No, I'm trying to tell you something very serious. The seed in your mind to see this as a pen lasts 1 65th of a second. A discreet act of giving a pen does seed creating.

It ends in 1 65th of a second. Okay? And the next perception of this could be anything.

Then you're doing down dog because you're a dog. Okay? I'm not kidding.

I'm not kidding. I mean, people ask me about rebirth. Did you think they were making dog bodies out in Kansas and somebody catches your spirit and shoves it into a dog body and closes the top real fast?

You know? I mean, you think like that, right? It's not that.

You could be in a different realm in 10 minutes. You get in your car. You have an accident.

The seeds have changed. Then you perceive your... You perceive a whole different world.

You don't see this world anymore. You might... You might want to choose it.

Then you is a dog. Okay? Now, it's very serious.

I mean, I'm telling you what happens if you get in a car accident tonight. It stinks. You're in a different...

The world is coming from you and it can change in a 65th of a second. You can be in a different world. You can be a dog.

In this room, you can be a dog. It's very... I wasn't talking about that tonight.

You want to go deeper? You ready? Or anyone like to just...

Like, it's like his class, you know? He's like, you guys want to really... I'm like, let me see.

You guys want to do... He's like, let me see, yes. Let me see.

Then somebody always says, yes. The first Tantra Lama, he doesn't even give you a whole verse to freak you out. He does it in the same verse.

You are not the end of any one moment and you are not the start of that time either. Okay? Now he gets into something different.

Okay? You ready? You really want to do it?

Handstand? One-armed handstand? At least in my imagination, okay?

What about time? What about the passage of time? Is that also coming from you?

Yeah, okay. By the way, you're always safe to say 100%. If I ask you a question and you're sleeping, and you didn't hear what I was talking about, you can just...

[Говорящий 2]
Time.

[Говорящий 1]
He says... You see, why does he get into time? He was talking about moments of your husband's day.

Right? He was talking about moments of your husband's day. We said your husband got up, blurry eyed, walked into the bathroom, opened his eyes slowly, and saw his gillette razor on the sink.

Right? Then that picture of a gillette razor on the sink fills his mind. It fills the mirror of his mind.

You see? There's content to the mind. Okay?

There's a picture of a razor and a sink in his mind. Okay? How long does that picture last?

It moves, right? It moves at the speed of light. Okay?

Somebody told me... Correct me if I'm wrong. Somebody told me that a good, high quality film moves at 32 frames?

Or something like that. 40 frames? Probably 40 frames a second.

Okay? And then... 70?

24. Okay, 24. Then when you're on the internet and it's going like this, it means it's less frames per second.

It's like down to 10 or something. And it looks jerky. It looks, you know, it looks not quite right.

Life goes at 65 frames a second. 65 seeds ripen in your mind a second. You ready?

Watch. Okay? 65 seeds ripen in your mind.

Okay? That's 65 still images. Okay?

So we can't catch it, right? But there must be one here. A karmic seed in your mind opened at the speed of 1 65th of a second.

That's how it works, okay? So your husband's mind... Okay, I promise you refreshments after this.

Okay?

[Говорящий 2]
I promise.

[Говорящий 1]
Just hang in there. Because I can just skip it. And I can go to the easy parts.

But that's not our tradition. We're the Dalai Lama's tradition. And the first Dalai Lama's teacher was Tsongkhapa.

And he's my hero. And he never skipped anything. He went to the hard parts and skipped the easy parts.

So here we go. Your husband's day consisted of however many seconds his day consisted of times 65, right? Am I right?

Just suppose. Okay? Times 65.

Discrete pictures in his mind. So let's say he... Like me, I don't know about your husband, but I'm like...

I walk into the bathroom, my eyes closed, you know? And then I feel the sink. And then I'm like, okay, ready?

Geshe Michael? Yeah, okay. You know, I open my eyes.

I get out of bed, I don't open my eyes. But he's like, oh, yeah, there's the river. You know?

How long did the first moment of seeing the razor last? One? Sixty-fifth of a second.

One frame. Mental frame. I'm talking, your mind is filled with images, okay?

There was a frame, the first double, and then boom. And there was one frame, and there was a razor, and there was a sink. Got it?

Let's talk about that sixty-fifth of a second. Got it? Let's call it microsecond or something, just for convenience, okay?

The human mind cannot perceive a shorter amount of time. Okay? It's not possible.

The human mind cannot register a sixty-sixth of a second, okay? That's the limits of human perception. In Buddhism, okay?

I think it's probably correct anyway. You cannot perceive a change in less than a sixty-fifth of a second. You can't register it.

The human mind and the human eye cannot detect the difference. Okay? If it goes faster than that, okay, you cannot detect the difference.

Alright? Now I'm going to ask you a different question, okay? You still get refreshments, don't worry.

Even if you answer wrong. Could you build a wall out of bricks that were too small to touch? With your hands.

I mean, you can. You see, if the brick was too small to pick up, you couldn't accumulate those bricks. I'm trying to give you that feeling, okay?

When you build a wall, you need many bricks. And you put them down one by one. And it's not like you have a wall in five minutes.

You keep laying down bricks and then finally there's an eight-foot wall. Right? They are accumulations of digestible blocks.

They're big enough to handle and to put the cement. They're not like 12 feet long and they're not like 2 inches long because that would take you like a zillion years to finish a wall. They're a convenient size for the human hand.

And you build a wall by putting them up. Okay? How do you build a day in your mind?

Sixty-fifths of a second. You accumulate them. You pile them up.

Okay? Otherwise, you wouldn't have a day. Okay?

You add up moments of your day in your mind and we say that's your mind over Wednesday. From Wednesday morning to Wednesday night, that's your mind. Got it?

Don't leave me yet, okay? I promise you'll have your first month. But if the moments were too small to perceive, could you build days out of that?

You can't. You cannot. Okay?

Because you wouldn't know where they were and, you know, could you go give me a handful of those bricks that are too small to pick up? And you're like, where are they? You know, they're over here and you're like, I can't see them.

You know? Okay? If it were too short, you couldn't accumulate it.

Got it? You couldn't make big days out of moments that were too small because you can't perceive them. Got it?

Okay. Next question for you. Are you ready?

In the time that Deji Michael opened his eyes, the 65th of a second, and saw his razor for the first time, that moment, was there a front end of that moment and a back end of that moment? Careful. Is there a start of that moment and is there an end of that moment?

And is the start of the moment at the same moment at the end of the moment? Cannot be. Okay?

Cannot be. The start of that moment can't be happening at the same time as the end of that moment. Or there wouldn't be any time between them.

You know? Like, start to brush your teeth and finish brushing your teeth. If they happened at the same millisecond, you didn't brush your teeth.

Am I okay? You alright with me? Okay?

There must be a front end of the smallest moment and there must be a back end of the smallest moment. Am I... Are we okay?

Just nod your head if you're not sure because otherwise we never get refreshments. There must be a earlier part of that moment and there must be a later part of that moment. Otherwise the moment wouldn't have any duration.

It wouldn't be... If my right side was the same place as my left side, I wouldn't... You couldn't see me.

This is the beginning of the moment. This is the ending of the moment. It's gotta have width.

Okay? It's got to. Okay?

Can you perceive it? You cannot because that's a piece of the smallest moment and you can't see less than the smallest moment. Got it?

How can you see Geshe Michael's tummy if you can't see the left side of his tummy and the right side of his tummy? You answer me that and you got refreshments. That's all.

He got it. He's your Savior. Okay?

He just did this. He didn't know what I said. He wasn't sure what I said but he just put me there.

He thought he was able to give me the refreshments. You can't see my tummy unless you see the left and the right. It's not possible.

You cannot perceive a moment in time unless you see the beginning of it and the end of it but that's too small a time for you to see. You... Okay.

The bottom line, you cannot be seeing what you see Time cannot be passive. Time itself does not exist in the parts of time. Time itself does not exist in the parts of time.

If you perceive time passive it's got to be a picture in your head. It's not passive. Out there, it's not passive.

What's the proof of that statement? The dentist and the high school girlfriend. So, I was at a drive-in.

I don't know where the drive-ins are. I moved back to Phoenix looking for drive-ins and they're not here anymore. You've got to give me the address, okay?

But I don't know. When I was in high school we took girls out to the drive-ins. They start the movie and then you duck.

And then you do your thing, you know? It was just kissing, okay? And then and then the then you hear this banging on the window and you're like and then everybody's like you know and there's this big security guard, you know and he's he's got a flashlight in his hand and you look around and there's no other cars.

Hundreds of cars have left. And you're like he's like kids, you know it's like 2am the place has been closed for two hours you know everybody drove 100 cars drove past here we didn't get anything. And then you're like ding, you know my parents are going to kill me.

Your dad's waiting up at the door. He's waiting her dad is waiting at the window. You drive up and he's looking through the window.

And then you go to the dentist, right? I was at the dentist the other day. He said gee, you travel a lot.

I said yeah. And he said well, maybe I ought to do all your teeth at once. And I'm like yeah, just go for it, man.

You know. And he's like phoo, phoo, phoo, phoo phoo, phoo, phoo, phoo You know. And he did 6 cavities in one day, you know.

And it was only an hour according to him. And I got up and I went to the receptionist and I said you know you know what are you going to hit me for? And she said it's just, you know an hour.

And I said no, no, I was in for like three hours. And she said, no, no, you were in for an hour. And I said, no, no, he did all, you know, and she said, look at the car, you know.

So time, time itself is, time itself is, is coming from you. Why is that important? Aging, okay.

You can, kon teknika, se teknikon, you can, you can affect the aging of your body, you see. We, we believe, I like Islam. When I studied in Fez, I actually studied in a zoo, okay.

You know, near Marrakech, in the Al-Azmah. So I, I studied their Quran. And I really liked it because they're always talking about angels, you know.

So much talk about angels. They, they love angels. They're always talking about angels.

And in our belief, it's the same. You know, Buddhists also have angels, you know. But, but we have an interesting belief.

We believe that all people will become an angel. All, all people's bodies will stop aging. If, when they get to enough study and enough prayer and, you know, enough clean your heart, then, then your body must change to light.

And yoga is supposed to speed it up. The purpose of yoga is to speed up that process, to change the channels, you know, of the body turning into light itself. And that's cool because you can, then you can help millions of people at the same time, okay.

When your body changes, you have the ability to help millions of people at the same time. The goal of all this talk, the goal of all yoga, the goal of all meditation and prayer is to change the body into light and end the aging process. And at the same time, at the same time you learn to manipulate time itself.

And you don't have to die. And you can serve people forever, okay. Why?

Tell me that and I'll promise you refreshments. All right. Time itself is coming from you.

It's adjustable. All things are adjustable. You can be a stupid monk with no business experience and make a quarter billion dollars and sell the company to Warren Buffet in your free time.

You just make seeds and you just adjust them. You can change time. You can change the passage of time and you can change your body.

And that's the goal. Then you serve people. You use that body, you get a light body and you serve people.

And that's all we have to do. Okay. All right.

Have some nice off day here if you have questions. And then, what's the time? 8.41. 8.41? 8.45. Okay. So let's start again at nine, okay. Let's start in 15 minutes.

There's lots of refreshments. And hang on one sec. Don't get yeti on me.

You don't have to stay in the airplane. Please sit down. I have to make...

Do I have to do it? Will you do it?

[Говорящий 2]
I can't even read this.

[Говорящий 1]
We're having a retreat January... Okay. We're going to cruise through.

The rest of the stuff is not very difficult. You got the hardest stuff already. Do you have a homework homework?

Yeah. Homework? Yeah.

Otherwise I can't. If you weren't here last night, if you feel like it, you can do homework. You can get certified to teach these weird things.

We have online courses. I don't know what... 20,000 pages of Tibetan translations online for free.

And you can learn to take those courses. So we'll put up some... Did they get a schedule on this thing?

Yeah. Yeah. There's a schedule in your notebook.

It has the websites on it. Now a part comes... I'll read it to you.

Now everyone... The angel is talking to the devil. Now everyone can see the game that you've been playing.

Could you close the door? Thank you. The illusion now is torn.

The root of the mind is ripped. The poison tree is felled. The king of every negativity that exists within a person is laid to rest now in his grave.

The root of every evil has finally been severed. Okay? What's he talking about?

The root of every evil has finally been severed. Then there's the root of evil and there's evil itself. What is evil?

In this system evil is... You can say aging and death, right? I mean, there's wars and there's hunger and there's poverty.

But however much money you have and however much food you have, you die. You leave it all. You lose everything.

People spend their lives to... Working to have a house and to build a family and to own things, right? And then they die.

And in the monastery they have a joke. They come and they say, oh, such and such a monk died last night and now his stuff is looking for a new owner. You know what I mean?

They're like, you want anything? Go to his room. They're giving you stuff away.

In the monastery you just give the monk stuff away so that your stuff will be looking for a new owner. And it's sad, you know? It's sad that all of the effort of a human life, even a successful human life, which is rare, is just blown away in the wind, right?

There's nothing. You don't keep any of it. People start to justify it.

They say, I'm working for my kids. I want my kids to have stuff. The house is for the kids, you know?

Don't kid yourself, all right? They will sell it in two years. And they will squander the money.

If you can work for 20 years, 25 years, they will blow the money in two to three years, really. And that's the end of the story. You're kidding yourself if you think they're going to...

You know, if you say I'm not working for myself because I know that's hopeless, I'm just working for my kids, but that's also hopeless. They're also going to get old. We have to work on the bigger problem.

Can you stop that fact on this planet? You see? Is it necessarily the case that people have to get old and die and lose all their things?

You see what I mean? And do families have to be torn apart? By time.

Forget the divorce rate and all that. Just time will tear you from the people you love. That's how it goes.

Is it possible to change those greater things? And the angel says, the root of evil is torn. We caught your game.

We understand your game now. And it's over. They say Sharpa.

Sharpa means this sound. In Tibetan, Shar means you can tear reality. You can tear things.

You don't have to live like this. The way this particular world is operating right now is a mistake. And it doesn't have to be that way.

And you just have to fix it. And then there's no problems. How would you do that?

You see, how can the angel claim that they've ripped out the root of every evil? Let's take an example of your husband with the pizza. Because this is evil.

Evil means you cook a nice meal and the guy doesn't want to eat it. That's bad. That's wrong.

That's a wrong mess. Can you fix it? So I'll give you a question.

Should you get tough with your husband? Should you demand that he eats the beef bourguignon and complements you on it? Or should you just sit down and freeze it for next week?

Which one should you do? What's the action you should take when your husband's on a meal? Which is better?

I'm giving you two options. Number one, fight with him. Insist that he eat it and enjoy himself.

And then secondly, just roll over and freeze it. And you might as well go to bed because he's going to be at a party in the game. And you hate football.

Which one? It's true. It does taste better the next day.

Here's the thing. You see, in this system, you don't have to talk to your husband and neither action is correct. Neither action is correct.

It's too bad choice. We had it in Mexico. Dos malas opciones.

It's two wrong choices. They're both wrong. They're both bad.

What, are you going to force him to enjoy it? And he's just going to get angry at you. Or are you going to roll over and he'll do it again next week?

When you unfreeze it and have it ready, he's going to, I don't know, hotdog you. So, in this system, the game is over. The dos malas opciones game is finished.

No more bad choices. Both courses of action are wrong. You see?

All courses of action open to you are wrong. They're all bad. Because they don't work.

Because they might not work. Did you get that? I'll say it again.

They don't work because they might not work. If something doesn't work all the time, stop trying it. Don't buy a car that works on Tuesday and breaks on Thursday.

Don't buy a car that only works two days a week. It's stupid. But you continue to do things that only work sometimes.

You insist on doing things that only work sometimes. No, no, I'm going to talk to my husband. Stop insisting to do things that don't work.

Just do something that does work and let it go. What would work in the case of the pizza husband? No, then he would come up and say he changed his mind.

You see? What costs your husband to be insensitive? If you were insensitive to somebody else.

In Buddhism, there's this big thing about turning off the faucet. Just turn off the faucet. Don't stand there going, oh, look, water.

Just turn off the faucet. How do you turn off the faucet? Stop being insensitive to other people.

That's all. And that shuts him down. He will change within a week or two.

It's very weird. People struggle all day. People struggle and hurt themselves and they're unhappy and they suffer and they have bad marriages.

They've lived through years and years of a bad marriage. They're unhappy. I had a woman, she came to me recently.

I said, she was all peppy and bright. And she had a bad marriage. And I was like, what happened?

What's going on? You look 10 years younger and you're all peppy. She says, he died.

And I'm like, I felt so horrible. And she's a good person. And I felt so bad.

People live for decades in a situation they don't like. And they don't want to be there. And the person's doing something, for the kids they stay or something like that.

And they hate. They hate the whole situation and they don't want to be there. And they just stay there.

Because they can't think of anything else to do. In this system, there's nothing you can't fix. Just stop doing that thing yourself.

It's very interesting. It's very cool. There's always bad choices.

And then there's always one thing that works all the time. So, just stop being insensitive to other people. And then that turns off the faucet.

And then suddenly, he's asking for big pominones. Then you've got to teach him to do dishes and stuff like that. That's also a seed.

So then you rip out the root of evil. What is evil? Evil is being unhappy, right?

Evil is sitting there unhappy year after year with somebody. That's evil. That's bad.

Just turn it off. Turn it off. What you don't like about the situation, stop doing it yourself.

And it will change. Because it's flowing from you. Okay?

Got it? That's why the angel can say, now we've cut the root of all evil. Just realize things are coming from you.

You can change anything. You can change anything. Any situation you can change.

It's very cool. Can you imagine how frustrating it must be for the angel? Can you imagine how frustrating it must be for the angel to be surrounded by people who are unhappy?

And the angel's like, just do the opposite. If your husband is insensitive, try to be more sensitive. If your husband criticizes you, stop criticizing other people.

If your husband won't be affectionate to you, just smile at some people during the day. Because that plants a small seed that makes him more affectionate. Okay?

Then it gets too frisky and you have to plant the opposite seed. No, but you can adjust. What I mean is all the unhappiness of life is unnecessary.

It's a mistake. The tragedy of human existence is that all the unhappiness in our lives was unnecessary. It was just a boo-boo.

If you understood what the angel is saying about where things are coming from, everything could be changed. Your finances, your health, your relationships. It's all flowing from you.

You just learned how to change it. Can you imagine what it would be like to be a person in a world of unhappy people knowing they could have been happy if they just knew a few things? You see what I mean?

Because then they can have whatever they want. It's great. It's a tragedy.

It's a tragedy. And what makes it a tragedy is it's not necessary. You can have everything.

You can have everything you want. You don't have to suffer. You don't have to have a husband who wants a pizza.

I don't have anything else to say anyway. I guess we can do questions if you want. Do you have any questions?

Yesterday you covered the verse that said the opposite is also true. Then I worked it out at home. It seems to say then that you could get an Anatole without having Anatole's parts, all of his parts, and you could have an Anatole without having any one particular one of his parts.

Is there a way you could have an Anatole without having all of his parts? No. Okay, let's talk about the plan.

There are parts. There is a black cylinder that has two ties. Those parts are there.

And then your mind puts them together into a thing. You see what I mean? There is data there.

There is data. There is stuff out there. And then there is a guy with a box.

Okay? He's there. The parts are there.

Then your mind names it, but involuntarily. You don't have control. A seed opens in your mind and you see a selfish person.

And you can't say, oh, that was just a seed in my mind. He's not selfish. He's selfish because you saw him as selfish.

But before you name him selfish, before the picture came up in your mind of a pen, there were parts there. There was a black cylinder there. And you need all his parts.

And then your mind declares what it is going to be, influenced by how you treated others. Okay? Questioner 2 First part.

The opposite over the opposite. David Yeah, what's the opposite? When you're talking about the opposite and you say it goes both ways, the Anatole, or sorry, the Michael or the Anatole who's not just those parts, that one is a thought.

That one is a mental image. Just a mental image. You can say that.

That one doesn't have the parts. Yeah. And that's extremely difficult.

And that's, yeah, that's only a picture in your mind. What we're talking about is something that we talked about last night, and it's cruel to talk about it in line 15. But it's that, I looked at my parts, right?

And then I think, somebody asked me, are you all your parts together? And I say, no. Not until I think of me as me.

Okay? Because these are all the parts, but the dog thinks of it differently. All the parts are there.

But until the dog thinks of it as something to chew on, it's not something to chew on, right? So I look down at these parts, they're not Michael, and I think of that as Michael. How do I, I'm checking to see if my parts are me.

That means I must be looking at my parts, and I must be thinking about me. Then I compare me to my parts, and I say, is me my parts? Okay?

What he's talking about is more subtle. Is my parts me? Is my parts me?

And to answer that question, you have to be able to make an image of me in your mind. And you're comparing that image to your parts. That image doesn't have parts in it.

That's correct. That's just a picture in your head, which is about that big of an animal. And it popped out of a seed in your mind.

[Говорящий 2]
So the part that never existed is the part he's talking about, right?

[Говорящий 1]
Not really. You have the part that existed, and the part that never existed. So you have the physical part of the pen, but could the part that never existed still exist in your own space, without the parts?

Benito asked me about an image of Michael in my mind. That exists. Okay.

What is the thing that doesn't exist? Okay, we talked about a Michael who doesn't exist. Ready?

Here's the Michael that doesn't exist. Why is it important to talk about the Michael who was never there? Because that gives you all your trouble.

It's a source of all your trouble. He hurt me. He refused to take the big bourbon.

He hurt me. Then there's this big me. You see what I mean?

That me who was wronged by the husband, that me doesn't exist and never did. It never did. Why?

That's a me who isn't to blame for the husband's behavior. Ready? Got that?

The me who is not to blame for the behavior of the people around me, never existed, couldn't exist, was never there. And that's the me you're protecting all the time. Okay?

That's the me you're sticking up for. Sorry, we got a message from God here. We think I'm kidding.

We got approval. Okay? So we were talking yesterday about a me who's there and about a me who's not there.

The me who got hurt by my husband was never there because the me who got hurt by my husband wasn't to blame for the husband wanting pizza. Okay? That me was never there.

Why? Because you're always to blame. By the way, don't get all low self-esteem-y on me.

Okay? Don't get all low self-esteem-y on me. Don't get this whip and start beating yourself up.

Oh, you know, it's bad enough that I'm ten pounds overweight. Now I'm to blame for my husband. I mean, cut me some slack already.

Don't make me responsible for everything. Don't think like that. Okay?

Don't go there. Don't say I'm a bad person. I made my husband insensitive.

Don't go there. Just fix it. Just get a sense that you now have power to do anything you want.

You can make him, like, wear a tutu now. Okay? Just put the right seats.

You're in control, man. You know, be a little happy. Be a little empowered, you know?

Like, yeah, the pizza guy is your fault. But now you can fix him. And you can make him do anything, you know?

You can change him into affectionate, thoughtful, dish-washing, garbage-taking out husband, you know? And you have power now. So don't dwell on the, oh, I, you know, I created this guy who brought out pizza.

Don't dwell on that. Just clean up the mess. Now you have power.

Feel empowered rather than beating yourself up. Okay? Because you have power now.

You can make anything happen, okay? You can make a 250 million dollars in your freezer. A couple of days a week.

If you understand this stuff, you can do weird stuff. You can make weird things happen, okay? You can have anything, okay?

Just plant it and relax. Just plant watermelon and people don't stand there and, like, grunt over a watermelon seed, you know? Like, they don't, they don't, like, oh, you know, come back every day and, you know.

Just learn how to plant it and then go sit in your house. I have a drip system with a tap on it, you know? I go to Bulgaria and then I go to Ukraine and then I go to Paris and I come home and there's watermelon everywhere.

And I didn't do anything. I just stuck the stick in the ground. So your life I was in a zoo near Marrakech and I was staying in a riyal and I did a retreat.

I cannot go out of the riyal. And then I said, my friend, my teacher came to me, Quran teacher. But then I said, how do I get food, you know?

And he said, we took care of it. And I said, what do you mean you took care of it, you know? And he said, come here, you know?

And he took me outside. A riyal is like a hacienda and there's a courtyard in the middle. And you grow a garden there in the middle of the courtyard, right?

And he said, come here, look, you know? And he said, look, what's that? And I said, God, that's corn.

And he said, what's that? He said, that's a watermelon. Looks like it's going to be ready tomorrow.

And he said, what's over there? He said, that's tomato, you know? You're going to have tomatoes in three days, you're going to have tomatoes.

Then I said, what's this little plant? He said, that's Moroccan whiskey, you know? And I said, I thought Muslim, you can't drink alcohol, you know?

He said, no, no, you don't understand. Then he picked it and it was mint. And they make, they put a cup of sugar and then they put a cup of water.

And it's like, you drink one cup and you're like, oh. So we had a whiskey party. But the thing is, it's such a cool idea.

They plant the seeds in order that they will come up each week. So they planted it before I came. They were so thoughtful.

They were so kind. So weeks before I came, months before I came, they started to plant the things that would grow in the order that I needed to be fed in the Riyadh and not leave. I didn't have to leave.

It all came, it all, what do you call it? It popped up at the right time, each day. And they planted that way, you know?

So your life has to be like that. You just plant stuff and then it will pop up in the order that you want. And you don't have to work so hard.

You don't have to like go crazy and do all those things. The worry is all, it's a tragedy. It's unnecessary.

All the worries you ever had are wrong. They're not necessary. It's like throwing rocks at the moon or something, you know?

It's all stupid, you know? It's all meaningless. Throw rocks at the moon.

Throw oranges at the moon, you know? It doesn't do anything. And you don't have to worry.

Just plant the seeds in you and relax. And they come up. And you go pick them.

And your life is like, I don't know, I wish I could get you to feel it. I wish I could get you to feel it. You just plant seeds and relax.

And then you just, you don't worry about things. Because you don't need to. You know something's going to pop up next week.

You know? Like that. Yeah.

And what time do we have? Where are we? Okay, one last question.

You, it better be good news. You're representing the whole world.

[Говорящий 2]
But bad things happen to you as a part of soul development in this reality?

[Говорящий 1]
What do you mean? Soul development. Okay, I'll answer.

When you first learn, by the way, you need training. Okay? I said con técnica, right?

You gotta have, you have to know, if I give you a bag of watermelon seeds and say, Go home. You're set. Then you throw them on your kitchen floor and you say, You said I could relax now.

You know? And nothing will happen. Okay?

So, you have to know how to plant seeds. And that takes some, you need to learn it from somewhere. Okay?

We have, we have like, I don't know, there's 20,000 free pages online. There's 36 free courses online. Someone will check all your work.

Someone will Skype with you if you want. These guys have been doing prisoners for the last 15, 20 years. All over the world.

They write their homework, they send them in, they pass courses. We have one of our prisoners is teaching meditation in Scottsdale now. And very successful businessman.

And you can learn. We also have a free place, we have classes going on here sometimes. Just, where's, where are those guys?

Stand, stand up. They call it Daka, Jingmei. Where's your Daka?

Jingmei. Stand up. If you can.

Or, I don't know, Jeff Alexander, Jamie Alexander, where are you? Where's Jeff Alexander? Don't sit down.

Jeff Alexander. Where's Christine Wong? Where are you?

Stand up. So these guys, people are standing. You want to know technique?

Just talk to them. Okay? Just go to their class.

And then you're done. Learn it, take it, and never come back. You know, you don't have to join any club, or any group, or you don't have to put my picture on the wall.

You know. Just forget it. Learn what they know, and go away.

And use it, you know. And you have everything you want, okay? Really, okay?

It's just there, it's free. Why?

[Говорящий 2]
Somebody has a question from Bulgaria. It's too late.

[Говорящий 1]
Okay. Wait, I'm getting there. I go like this.

When you plant powerful good seeds, you also have to destroy all bad seeds. We have all bad seeds. Which were mostly planted when you were 16 years old.

Okay? After writing. Then, you have to learn how to take those seeds out.

Because otherwise they're going to block your new seeds. You see what I mean? So that's something you can learn from these guys.

It's a long story. In the process of cleaning out bad seeds, if you're not skillful, you can have small explosions. So to answer your question, in the process of spiritual development, the spiritual development itself can cause some small disasters, if you don't know what you're doing.

So that's why you need training. It's like doing yoga. Like if you try to do some complicated pose and you're not ready yet, then you'll pull something.

And it's the same. So you need a teacher. You need a human being to help you.

And there's lots of them in this room. That's another story. Okay.

I think we got it. Okay, I'd like to do one more song. I'm going to make you stay for one more song.

You just have to relax. This is like Shavasana. You can zone out.

You don't have to do anything. I'm going to do one. I'd like to do Billy Gurudev.

And he's going to do another song. But that's another story. Can we do Gurudev?

I need a mic. She needs a mic. Can we do that?

Can we do it in chair? This is a song about finding your teacher. Okay?

This is a song about finding your teacher. And I know you're anxious to go dance. And I know you're tired.

And you probably have something else to do. But it's meant to plant a seed in your mind to find your heart teacher. Okay?

So everybody finds their own heart teacher in their life. If you don't have one, you have to find one. Okay?

So this song is meant to plant the seed. And then we'll stop. Okay?

Okay.

[Говорящий 2]
Helpers. So many helpers at this stand up, isn't it? There's so many people to thank.