The kingdom of heaven is spread upon the Earth (Christmas Eve Live)

I think we’re live. I’m gonna load up your comments here. It’s Christmas Eve, son.

Oh, it does work. Look at that. So, if I click on that, I can see your comments here, too. Nice. Is there any reason to

actually see them on an iPad as well? Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know.

Probably just purely out of boredom. Come on down. I got the living room going. Um, Kathleen is the first

comment. Merry Christmas Eve. That’s right. So, it’s Christmas Eve, the eve of Christmas. Um,

the whole love thing, right? The the

that Jesus was about it was that total heart-based

amazement. Um, that’s I think what we’re trying to celebrate. Uh, Evan, Sunshine,

Amber, Carara, Moren, Brunes, happy holidays. Love the

tree. Thanks. My wife and kids picked this while I was doing some other errands that day, and they came back

with this thing. And uh, Charlie Brown Christmas treed it into life, so it was

kind of nice. And I think, hang on, let me see if I can Yeah, we got a fire

going. Yay. Nothing like a gas fireplace to make the

spirit real. Uh let me go back to your comments here. You guys talked about love yesterday and

I’ve been thinking about it since then. Um yeah, it’s interesting like love is

one of those things that when we think about it, we think about the human conception of love. Like um it’s a very

mindbased and emotionbased kind of sense. I think the love we are speaking of is

more like the pervasive fabric of reality and it’s also sensed. It’s actually realized. It’s not thought

about. You can reflect on it in thought but it’s not it. It’s like a reflection. It’s like a hallmark card versus

actually being in love, you know. Um

it’s an embodied thing, too. Like if you’re walking on a path and

you’re feeling that and it’s embodying, people will just smile at you. They’ll

say hi. Whereas when you don’t, it’s hit or miss whether they’ll do that. It’s

really odd. It’s something that I’ve just kind of noticed and I may be imagining it because the mind does some

funny things and all of life is just one big placebo. So, there’s that. Hi Kathy.

Happy ho ho and all that. Um, hi Robin. Jennifer says, “Much love to all this

holiday season.” Awesome. And Cindy says, “Hi from New Brunswick, Canada.” Um,

yeah, all kinds of great people here today. Let’s see. So, yeah. So, tell me what you guys want

to talk about. Merry Christmas, Robin. Um, wow, I got so many little screens going.

# blessed. All the um all the cliches just seem

kind of funny. We had a big windstorm here last night and our plants and stuff blew down. That was that was the

excitement uh of the day and sending out all kinds of positive vibes to people

working over the holidays. I found myself, you know, when I was working full-time as a hospital doctor, I often

worked holidays. Uh and it was actually actually really chill, really good to do

that because you saw people in a different state. The whole vibe of the thing was different. Um, you felt like

you were kind of being of service just by showing up even though you complained

and the cafeteria food was dried out turkey and crappy cranberry sauce out of a can. It was still awesome. Um

Kathy says hallmark love is unattainable and ruins it for all of us. It’s um you

know it’s a human conception and it’s very much marketing you know Valentine’s Day and all that like what

love ought to be who says everything is made of this like it can

be it can be realized that way whether I’m not making a claim about the nature of reality I’m saying like in experience

it can be felt that everything is made of that kind of nonhuman non-conceptual

perfect unconditional love and that’s beyond any words and stuff And that can show up as anger. It can show up as

hatred. It can show up as war, that same love.

That’s the real paradox. Um, so we reduce it to these different

platitudes and cliches and things like that. And all that’s fine. That’s all fine, too. That’s how what humans are.

Hi, Corey. Are you a local right in the Bay? Why am I so itchy?

probably because I haven’t um really woken up even though I got up at 4:00 a.m. and it’s now almost 10:00 a.m.

Isn’t that ironic? I still haven’t woken up. Um Corey says, “Happy holidays. May all arise as clear as it actually is.”

Oh, that’s a nice blessing. Yeah, as clear as it actually is.

Evelyn says, “Would you speak to sitting in unknown and uncertainty and adjusting to just being with what is?”

Oh, that’s beautiful. Okay.

Okay. If you actually watch your experience, watch your mind, watch what’s happening in most of your daily experience. For most people, we are

living in a constant churn of thought

that creates a supposed reality. So it creates expectation in every moment like

okay in the next moment it’s going to be like this or later today it’s going to be like that or it’s Christmas Eve we’re

going to have a roasted chicken for dinner and it’s going to show up like this and the older we are the more

experienced we are have the more conditioning we have the more that

engine of fabrication of our reality

the more efficient it is the more habitual it is the more ingrained it is. And so we live in this constant

fabrication where we have expectations and labels and filters on reality all the time. So

we’re also thinking about the past. We’re thinking about our problems. We’re thinking about solutions to problems

that we’re creating in thought. These problems don’t exist in the absolute reality. There’s nothing but appearance

here. But they exist in thought. So the issue of

how do you live in the unknown without that without expectation what

that’s like? So

It’s the wordless. It’s when you allow

attention in some way is just allowed to drop out of that bubble. It’s seen through im instantly in any moment it

can be. And then there’s just the complete absolute

mystery that this is not known at all. that this is just exactly like Corey

said earlier, exactly what it is as an appearance. It’s exactly what it

is, which means you can’t say anything about it. You can’t pin it down. You can’t put a spin or a word on it because

words don’t capture reality. So then in this now, which isn’t even a now because

that’s another label, there’s just absolute

thisness and then thought comes back and it’s like, okay, but in five minutes you’re going to lose the thisness.

In five minutes, you’re going to need to wake your kids up so they can have

breakfast and work on college applications or they’re going to, you know, all that stuff will come back and

that’s fine. But for that timeless instant and these

instants become more frequent and more regular there’s just the unknown

which is reality itself outside of thought

inclusive of thought as an appearance. So thought doesn’t go anywhere. It’s just no longer believed. It’s no longer

you’re no longer lost in the sauce of that. Instead, there’s just the the

waterfall of experience just happening to no one because there isn’t even a

center. Because the center is a thought. The self is a series of thoughts, beliefs, structures. So then without

that, there’s no need to even think about, oh, there’s no self here or I’m in the unknown or this is so

spontaneous. And those thoughts may arise. It’s more just

freedom for freedom’s sake for nobody

and it is it’s radically unknown. So until like some of our trauma, our

emotional repression, some other stuff, conditioning that we’re sitting on, until that’s allowed to express and come

through in what people call shadow work and things like that, nobody’s doing the shadow work. It’s like doing itself

until that is allowed to kind of play itself out continually.

We live on top of that stuff and it becomes something that keeps pulling us like a rubber band energetically back

into thought, back into the trying to solve these problems. So that’s why that stuff is so important. It’s like what

prevents you from being in the unknown every moment? What prevents the spirit

that Jesus said was the kingdom of heaven since we’re talking about Christmas Eve? What prevents us from

being in the kingdom of heaven in any moment? Well, it’s that

it’s all of that conditioning, all that habit, all that thought labyrinth. And as Jesus also said, unless you become

like these children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. Meaning the innocence of the child before it was

conditioned, before it was traumatized, when everything was the unknown, everything was wonder.

So the question was how do you stay in that?

And that’s where the words really fail. Like I could I could give you platitudes like a million spiritual teachers and

non-duality teachers, gurus, but really, you know,

at a deep level, it’s this. It’s it’s what’s happening. And even that is saying too much because

nothing’s really happening. Cuz to say something’s happening, you put a label on it and the labels drop

and then it’s just pure. You could use words like pure presence. You could use

words like God. You could use words like pure love. You could use words like you

could be more um existential and nihilistic and say the void or emptiness

or the unborn. You could be Zen and say the unborn like this thing that doesn’t

was never born and doesn’t die and it’s not a thing and it’s the radiant potential from which everything seems to

vibrate and everything I just said is wrong. because it’s words.

Robert Gonzalez says, “What is all matter was merely energy condensed to a slow vibration and we are all one

consciousness experiencing itself subjectively.” Um, there is no such thing as death.

Life is only a dream and we are an imagination of ourselves. Well, that is one way to say what is unsayable

using terms that mind will understand like consciousness, imagination,

energy, vibration. And it’s fun and it does point at this. But if you take any

of what you said literally, I think it becomes another story that we tell ourselves. That’s another conceptual

realm that then not only do we try to live in, we seek like why can’t I see that everything is condensed energy?

Well, condensed energy is a way to hack the mind and go, “Okay, what if this was all just condensed energy slowed to a

vibration? That’s what matter is.” And it’s coming out of quantum void

and everything we know about ourselves as a story and an imagination that that energy is doing. That’s a fun it’s a fun

way to talk about it. And it can reframe it can actually kind of put the mind on tilt and then what’s left? just this,

you know, couldn’t be anything else. A few minutes ago, you added, you asked,

“Why am I so itchy and seemed very mildly irritated or frustrated?” This

was striking to me because my practice right now is partly about sitting with itches, not scratching them, and feeling

the sensations. I’m autistic, so this is a huge amount of stimulation. This is Marcus uh GDL, by the way.

um huge amount of stimulation from me and it can bring me close to panic though not all the way into panic. What

is it like for you to be itchy? What a great question Marcus. Wow, you you’re very

analytical and precise and I love that. So I have done

years of meditation and and that kind of mindfulness where you’re looking at sensations, right? So an itch like what

is an itch? Like when we call it an itch we’re labeling it. We’re turning it into something that happens to a me and then

anger, frustration, reactivity apply to it. So then you can go. So I’m speaking for

me now. So what I did then was I’d sit in meditation and I would feel an itch and I would oh what is this? And try to

deconstruct it into what its primary sense energy is. So what is it really?

It’s this dancing sense energy that seems to be here. Okay. Is it really there or is that another overlay of

thought putting it in a place? Oh, no. It actually is happening in a placeless place that I can’t nail

down and it’s like an energy, a dancing energy vibration. Okay.

Does it have any good, bad, or neutral qualities only that I apply to it? But in reality, it’s just what it is. And

then then it can just be allowed to play itself out. And usually it dissolves. And if it doesn’t dissolve, it’s no

longer a problem. So that’s the sort of meditative approach to

looking at sensation which I think is what you’re implying you’re doing now which is great. Then what can happen is

like after that starts to integrate and you the shadow starts to come up like all the trauma emotion conditioning

that you haven’t seen pain all the stuff starts to get processed

there’s a maturity I think of insight that seems to happen and again I’m just speaking from my own experience I don’t

know what these words really mean where an itch just becomes an itch

again. So now itching arises.

Zuben expresses what? Where is this coming from? Scratches it. There may be

a sense of a flash of irritation arises

and then it falls away and it’s gone. And none of it is resisted. None of it is turned into a problem. None of it is

analyzed. It’s just allowed to be exactly what it is through the human filter. And and it resolves itself.

and it’s quite free. So itching is no longer a problem, but it’s no longer

needs to be deconstructed, monitored, fiddled with. It’s just allowed to be exactly what it is. So Corey early on

said, I I hope everything is seen as exactly what it I mean, that’s it. So that’s my experience of itching.

Great questions. You guys are on fire today. Christmas Eve magic. Hi Aaron. Love you too. And I don’t know you, but

I love you. Sherry Sheree Anderson says societal constructs prevents our mind

from being there. So society this whole thing that tells us we’re supposed to

behave a certain way. There are expectations of us. We pay our taxes. We pay our bills. We go work. We raise

children or don’t. We have a partner or don’t. We do all that. Those are all

consensus stories that we tell. And it’s all fine. And if you don’t want to play that game, don’t. But do notice it’s

kind of like what we were talking about with Marcus earlier. You can break deconstruct those things

and you can see them for what they are, which is total constructions. They have nothing to do with anything in objective reality.

But once you do that, then you can dance with that. You go, okay,

that’s what it is. So society expects this. Maybe I’ll play this game, but I won’t play that. And it’s natural. What

this body, mind, organism wants to do is what it’s going to do. So maybe it’ll

play the game of being a YouTuber or doing Facebook, but it won’t play the game of pretending to care about

um you know something that it doesn’t or

trying to be have an identity as somebody who is ambitious or successful

what any of those things, right? And so society starts to it deconstructs itself and then it just is allowed to be what

it is. So it affects you whenever that happens and when it doesn’t it doesn’t but there’s a freedom there’s a knowing

of it in its right place that it is just a story and that’s the freedom so you

can take it sincerely but you never have to take it seriously again that’s

freedom um Marcus says if okay let’s scroll

scroll forward an says I love you are talking um how you were talking across

religions It’s all words, different words and versions trying to talk about the same

thing. Uh that like you say aren’t really able to be put into words. Right. So this is what I’ve noticed about

religions. They’re all pointing I mean the fundamental root of the great religions and the less great religions

meaning the smaller um versions are pointing at this.

Jesus was pointing at this. The Sufis pointed at this, the Hindus were

pointing at this thousands of years ago, the Buddhists, um the Confucians, the

Jews, all pointing at this. Big religions often get hijacked by societal

structures, power dynamics, hierarchies, control, um rules, all of that. And that’s all

fine, too. But what I do find is sometimes like if I speak from a Buddhist perspective, the Christians in

my audience get triggered and they’re like, “Zuben, the reason you’re so, you know, you’re talking about the void

and the emptiness of reality and the insubstantial and impermanent and unreliable and no self-netal

soul.” And it’s like, okay, so that’s I understand where you’re coming from because that’s your conditioning around

that religion. But

these are all saying the same thing, right? And uh if I were better at

communicating, I would be more inclusive of the various expressions in any

moment. But sometimes I’m speaking to a more Buddhist flavor. Sometimes I’m speaking to a Christian flavor. Sometimes speaking to a like a vidantic

Hindu advita non-dual flavor like with the different deities representing different aspects of

human expression, different aspects of reality. The dance leela. There’s so many different beautiful

expressions of this in humanity and we call them religion. Religion to link back. That’s religios, I think, is the I

forget the Latin root, but that’s what it means. Um, oh, thanks, Marcus. Glad I’m not going

to try to pronounce it again because I’ll get it wrong. Hi, Vicki. Hi, Doc. Vicki. Across and between religions.

Exactly. And then get rid of all. Uh, let it all go because you don’t need any of it. But

it’s beautiful when it shows up. Like really, it’s this. You trust your own experience. This is like God is staring

at you in the face. If you want to use that language, it’s like right here.

Brian Pasalacqua says, “You helped me get through the difficult COVID times

sharing your knowledge and humor. Thank you.” Yeah, Zuben showed up for that. This character was designed to do that

and now he’s let it go. And now he’s also talking about himself in the third person, which is interesting.

That’s odd. I’ll stop that. I’ll stop that. Roland says, “Merry Christmas. Good luck with my last name.” Okay, let

me see here. I’m going put my glasses on for this last name.

Okay, it’s either La Liberty or Liberty. So, you have to help me now. Or maybe

it’s Yeah. La Liberty. Liberty. La Liberty. Oh boy.

Chris, happy holidays. Get your blue milk eggnog. That’s right. Star Wars baby. Chris um Papon Pafon Pon says,

“Jesus gave unconditional love. I would think he’d welcome all religions.” So if

you read, so Jesus is an absolutely amazing figure. Amazing. enlightened.

I mean, look at the stories and the words in the New

Testament that are read that Jesus spoke. The transfiguration, the trial on

the ship with the apostles where everything’s hitting the fan and Jesus is like sleep. And

like there were so many metaphors there for

the freedom of this of the kingdom of heaven which is right here. And Jesus expressed it all through the lens of

unconditional love. And so you know what happens? The Romans twist it. The, you know,

everybody twists it into the societal matrix, which is fine. You know, it’s all innocent in that sense. We can’t do

it otherwise. But if you look at the core teachings, it’s like, wow.

Wow. Like just gorgeous. Um,

Joe Mitchell says, “It’s good to be part of whatever uh this uh zoo whatever this

is zoo.” Thank you, man. Ah, glad you enjoy it, Joe. I’m glad you’re here. Paige says, “Amen.” Um, Vicki says, “You

can definitely see pointing across and within religion’s doctrine, but words cannot do justice to what is.” There you

go. So, we try though because we have to talk. I I have to uh say

like um you know there’s 50 some odd people right now on this Facebook live on you know Friday Christmas Eve morning

and you guys are like you can feel in the comments you can feel in the energy of this thing that this is like

reality looking at reality through 54 different eyes and ears.

Can you feel that? Crazy.

Um, Cara says, “Was revolutionary reading parts of the Bible in this lens

beautiful?” Yes. If you really want to go deep on that, Adya Shanti has an

audio book called Resurrecting Jesus. Um,

and it’s amazing. It’s the Jesus story because Adya was like a hardcore Christian. Um and then Zen and all this

and he sees it all through the lens of liberation. Um the kingdom of heaven is spread upon

the earth yet men do not see it. That’s from the gospel of Thomas which is one of the Gnostic gospels I think that

isn’t accepted by all Christians right because it’s newer. It was found more recently. Some consider it like

heretical but it was basically the enlightenment angle of Jesus’s

words. Um Chris says he taught us to see a person’s heart, not the external

coverings. Right. And those and that heart is your heart. Love thy neighbor as you love thyself.

Oh, you read it, Cara. Yeah. Yeah. Isn’t it amazing? Yeah. Resurrecting Jesus ashanti on Christmas Eve. It’s a good

one to recommend actually. Moren says, “Feeling all these vibes today. This has been a great conversation.” Oh, I’m glad

you guys are here for it. Um, Chaz says, “Police cut my car. Police cut my car.

Now Mamba Santa from Cuba.”

Ah, man. I like that. I don’t know what it means, but I like it. Maybe that’s why I like it because I have no idea

what it means. Um,

yeah, Anna Anna read that too. Uh, or feeling the vibes. Yeah. Um Vicki says,

“Les and I are walking in nature and pointed out that we are having church right now. Thanks.” Yeah, this is church

for me. That’s why I used to call it Sunday’s end. When I do those Sunday things, it was like, “Oh yeah,

cuz cuz I’ve I’ve never really had that, you know, grew up as a Zoroastrian.

There weren’t really there’s like two churches in the US, temples they call them, and I didn’t really believe in a

single god that controlled my destiny or any of that. Um so it was kind of a

agnostic. Uh so I never had that and now

as I get older it’s like oh it’s nice to have a community where we can feel what

these things are pointing at. It’s funny too my grandfather in India he used to tell me when I was a teenager I went and

visited him in in Pune India called Puna at that time which is the name I will

still know it by and he um I asked him I said you know this place is like very

spiritually feeling like India but like what’s your deal with that like do you

believe in God because I’m an atheist that’s what I told him when I was 14 or whatever and Uh he looked at me and he was like,

“Oh yeah, I was like you. I was an atheist. Like didn’t believe in any of this nonsense.” And I was like, “Okay,

so cool. So we’re we’re the same.” He goes, “No, but now I’m it’s absolutely

all of it true.” He’s like, “God, this is it’s un without

a doubt.” And he used to read me Roomie and Khalil Jabrio or Jabri, I forget I cannot say

his last name. the Persian poets and um he was like, “No, God is absolutely

real.” Like, and I didn’t get it at all. I’m like, “How can this like guy that I admire so much that’s that’s so clear

otherwise and cynical and kind of sarcastic believe in magic?” And now I

totally get it now. Like, yeah, that’s that’s magic. It’s all magic. It’s all

it’s all uh it can be anything. Anything. It can be anything. this

potentiality. It is all like kind of like sheen of God

is a one way to say it. A clunky way. Uh let me grab your comments here.

Tom Ree, this is church for me as well, but wait a minute. This Yeah, this this

this is the church. Vicki says, “Hard to see the monotheistic perspective, but I’m um I’m not even convinced uh that

the Bible points to that.” That’s the thing. It’s all interpretation, right? Um they’ll say things that were

appropriate for the time, like you shall not have false idols before me, and so on, right? Because there were all these multi-pagan

uh type sex at the time, and the religions were competing for each other

um with each other, I should say. Gibron, thank you, Suzanne. That’s right. Khalil

Jibron Chris says, “We were given freedom of will. We are shown different paths and

it’s up to us to choose.” So, we were given the um it seems like there’s a sense of

choice and free will and that’s enough. Is there actually choice and free will? Is there something determining our fate

or is it all just mysteriously beyond that? I’m in the latter camp now that um I

used to argue for free will then I argued against free will. Now I think it’s neither free will or not free will

and it’s both free will and not free will. It can be anything. There’s no way that things are until we fabricate them.

So we fabricate free will. We fabricate determinism like there’s a god that determines our path or fate or

scientific uh nihilistic determinism where it’s just like no it’s the causes and conditions of all the matter in the

universe interacting with an element of chance thrown in from quantum uncertainty. That’s also a kind of

determinism with randomness in it. None of that and all of that can be true

and it doesn’t matter. Moment to moment it feels like I make choices. moment to moment. I take

responsibility for my choices. Even though I know at a deeper level that there’s no responsibility, no choice, and everything’s just happening.

But I don’t need anybody to tell me that I’m held accountable. It just is natural

because it’s very difficult to do something that’s going to hurt

or create suffering these days. But when you’re stuck in

mind all the time and you think things are supposed to be a certain way, it’s easy to create suffering. It’s in fact,

I think the default. We just don’t know it. We call it doing good and we’re doing harm and we don’t know it. Um Jojo

grew up in the Philippines 9 mornings to 500 a.m. Oh, 9s 5:00 a.m. to church.

Just thankful for to that tradition. Yeah, the tradition can be powerful and the community around it. Yeah. Um,

yeah, Vicki, who knows about the free will question? We don’t know anything. Um, nine days before Christmas. I see.

Jojo. Yeah. Tom Ree says, “Jesus himself said, “You are gods.” That would kind of point things away from monotheism. Yeah.

I mean, and I don’t know enough about the um details of that deconstruction,

but whether there’s God or gods or no gods or your god or any of it, it

doesn’t really matter because like the realization is here now, right?

Like of this. If there’s God, he or she or it is here now. If there’s no God,

then there’s only this here now. So, it all comes down to this.

The kingdom of heaven is spread upon the earth, yet men do not see it.

Chaz says, “One in the past, one in the future. Where is the presence?”

The presents are under the tree. Um, sorry, dad joke.

Presence is a thought, too. There’s no presence when you really look. There’s

just what is. You could call that presence. But then now we’re just playing with words, right?

Oh, I’m glad, Paul. I’m glad you’re comfy. Yeah, it is nice.

You guys are going to think the video is frozen, but man, that is that is nice, huh?

Oh, thank you, Anna, for being here. Thank you, Jojo. All right. I think um

maybe we did a thing, huh?

Oh, I will tell them. Yeah. Yesterday was um

my daughter Nah’s 18th birthday, so she’s an adult. Christmas Eve Eve, that’s when she was

born 18 years ago. Isn’t that crazy? So, we went out to dinner yesterday at

this Japanese restaurant we like, and it was really nice.

Yeah.

Oh, thanks, Gloria, for being here. All right, time to bounce. Have a wonderful

holiday, and I hope you’re surrounded by people you love. And if not, then you’re

surrounded by pure love, which is all of the manifestation.

To continue our Christian metaphors, the Holy Spirit everywhere.

All right, gang. Stay in the presence. Until next time. Peace.