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How to Go on Retreat Anytime · Council of Kings

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what would it be like my friends to just become no one for a
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little while peace and
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love from Italy what would it be like to just become no one for
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a little while just
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just become no thing and no one for just a little while just a
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smidgen just a
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SPEAKER_00: smidgen just a pinch of
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Timeless Time what if you just relinquished relinquished what
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do you what if you
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just dropped all identities all identifications all attachments
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you dropped the
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idea of your body and your name and the world of form all your
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attachments all the
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stories you tell yourself about what's going on out there and
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what's on the news
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SPEAKER_00: and
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Your laundry list of grievances and complaints and to-dos and
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problems and challenges.
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SPEAKER_00: What if you just let all of that go?
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SPEAKER_00: Pop it like a bubble.
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SPEAKER_00: Drop it like it's hot.
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SPEAKER_00: Let it blow away on the wind for even just a minute or two.
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SPEAKER_00: The crucial thing is that
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I'm not suggesting to actually like burn down your life and end
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your relationships
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or anything like that no no I relationship is profound my dad
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always said family
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and friends are life's greatest treasures and he was speaking
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the truth you know
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SPEAKER_00: these relationships shine like
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Jewels in the tapestry of our lives so your life can stay
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exactly as it is as it is
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and yet if you can find these moments to empty your cup to
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become no one and no
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thing for even just a teensy little bit of time just a teensy
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little bit of time
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SPEAKER_00: you just
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SPEAKER_00: Go somewhere out in nature perhaps.
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SPEAKER_00: Nature can be very conducive to this.
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SPEAKER_00: You just go in nature.
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SPEAKER_00: You just sit still.
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SPEAKER_00: You just sit down.
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SPEAKER_00: You don't do anything for a chunk of time.
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SPEAKER_00: You just go out in nature.
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SPEAKER_00: You just sit still and you just look at the trees.
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SPEAKER_00: You look at the rocks.
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SPEAKER_00: You look at the dirt.
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SPEAKER_00: You look at the sky, the clouds, the sun.
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you listen to the sound of the birds the sound of the wind and
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you let yourself
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start to feel like a hollow bone like the wind is just
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traveling through you like
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you're kind of you're kind of forgetting everything you're just
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you're forgetting
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the world William Wordsworth said late and soon getting and
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spending we lay waste
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SPEAKER_00: our powers little we see in nature
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SPEAKER_00: That is ours.
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SPEAKER_00: We have given our hearts away a sordid boon.
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SPEAKER_00: The world is too much with us, he said.
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SPEAKER_00: That was from his poem, The World is Too Much With Us.
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SPEAKER_00: And that's the thing,
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SPEAKER_00: when we become overly embedded,
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SPEAKER_00: overly attached,
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SPEAKER_00: overly rigidly crystallized within the domain of
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SPEAKER_00: Formfulness within the domain of our gorgeous,
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SPEAKER_00: wondrous human lives that are very real in a profound sense.
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Totally real and here and part of God's immaculate creation or
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nameless immaculate
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SPEAKER_00: creation,
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SPEAKER_00: however you want to language that.
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SPEAKER_00: When we become too
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SPEAKER_00: If we're too much with the formfulness and we've forgotten formlessness,
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then it can be unbelievably rejuvenating and replenishing and
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immensely restorative
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SPEAKER_00: to simply be known.
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SPEAKER_00: Become no one.
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SPEAKER_00: Become nothing.
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SPEAKER_00: No thing.
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SPEAKER_00: Become nothing and no thing.
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SPEAKER_00: Again,
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SPEAKER_00: even for just five minutes,
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SPEAKER_00: five hours,
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SPEAKER_00: five days,
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SPEAKER_00: you know,
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depending on what kind of retreat you happen to be in need of
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on a soul and heart
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SPEAKER_00: level at any given time.
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SPEAKER_00: You just find these pockets, these pockets, even five seconds.
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SPEAKER_00: You find these pockets of
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Timeless Time To Be No One To Be No Thing And Oh How
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Rejuvenating It Can Be To Even
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Release The Grips On Your Most Cherished Spiritual Identities
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Where You're No
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Longer A Christian You're No Longer A Buddhist You Even Release
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The Names Of Of
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SPEAKER_00: Buddha And Christ And Lao Tzu And God And Mary And The Mother And Father
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SPEAKER_00: and consciousness and infinity and awareness and emptiness.
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SPEAKER_00: Whatever your most cherished spiritual identities,
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SPEAKER_00: concepts and signifiers happen to be,
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SPEAKER_00: you let those go as well.
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SPEAKER_00: You just really let it all go and you just simply be.
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SPEAKER_00: You just simply exist.
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SPEAKER_00: You do nothing at all.
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SPEAKER_00: And not only do you do no thing, you be no thing and no one.
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SPEAKER_00: And we all have such a yearning for this on a deep level.
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SPEAKER_00: It's been forgotten as an immensely rejuvenating soul technology.
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SPEAKER_00: This is probably why many people take their own lives because they've
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they're yearning for the void they're yearning for no thingness
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and no oneness and
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being no one and they've completely forgotten how to access
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that while alive and so
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they they actually attempt to end their human life to try to
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return to that no
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thingness because it can become so painful when we forget that
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that is available
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SPEAKER_00: when we forget that
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it's available to just to empty yourself to be no one and no
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thing and to then let
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that be filled by freshness by newness it's a it's a
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misconception that that no
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thingness or the void is is a total absence or like a like an
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empty abyss like no
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SPEAKER_00: you you go to that space and
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of emptiness being no one and being no thing so that you can
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receive a more subtle
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fullness so that the cup can then be filled with a subtlety and
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a richness that you
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were not able to grok in your in your prior clamping down your
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over identified mode
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SPEAKER_00: your excessively
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SPEAKER_00: crystallized and frozen formfulness.
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SPEAKER_00: You let that go.
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SPEAKER_00: You empty.
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SPEAKER_00: You become no one and no thing so that suddenly the fullness,
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SPEAKER_00: the fullness and the juiciness and the weightless,
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SPEAKER_00: clear,
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SPEAKER_00: invisible fire of love,
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SPEAKER_00: of all-embracing,
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all-pervading love can reveal itself so that pure spirit can
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reveal itself and
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SPEAKER_00: breathe through you
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SPEAKER_00: Pure Spirit is a very subtle dynamism to apprehend.
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SPEAKER_00: It's a continuous creative breath of life flowing through all things.
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SPEAKER_00: And we are not able to apprehend that fathomless freedom of pure spirit.
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SPEAKER_00: We're not able to apprehend that in our overly fixturized,
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SPEAKER_00: fixated consensus reality condition and identities.
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SPEAKER_00: And so when we develop that approach,
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SPEAKER_00: which is very much akin to apophatic theology in Christianity,
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SPEAKER_00: many Christians are not aware of this deep and ancient
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Monastic and mystical practice of apophatic theology in
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Christianity where it is
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SPEAKER_00: essentially what I'm speaking to.
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SPEAKER_00: It is the emptying of your cup.
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It is the relinquishment of all concepts of God and world and
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life and yourself.
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It's the letting go of everything you think you know so that
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God beyond all
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SPEAKER_00: concepts of God can come in and can meet you there.
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can meet you there in that space of being the empty cup the
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empty vessel the hollow
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bone so that God can come in so that pure spirit can come in
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and you can be
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illumined illuminated enlightened in a sense by the true light
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the true and subtle
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light that is all pervading and always with us and and it's not
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a final event it's
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SPEAKER_00: not like oh poof a
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Now i'm enlightened and uh yeah i'm now just some kind of
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rarefied perfected buddha
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to be put on a pedestal and worshiped oh it's not like that
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it's it's an ever
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deepening journey it's an ever deepening journey where you
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discover these moments
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and really every moment of life is an ever fresh revelation and
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deepening so
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if we are if we are truly if we are truly paying attention to
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life life can be this
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ongoing ongoing revelation this ever deepening revelation but
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there can be moments
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SPEAKER_00: where thresholds are crossed or quantum leaps occur where
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SPEAKER_00: Bountiful Vistas of of newness and freshness and spirit that had not been
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apprehended before can suddenly come rushing in and there can
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be a whole fresh and
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new wave of understanding and knowing and seeing and feeling
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and directly being of
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SPEAKER_00: I'm getting it now I'm feeling it I'm being it
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I am pure spirit this is pure spirit pure spirit is with me
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pure spirit is with us
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all is pervaded by pure spirit all is an emanation a creation
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of pure spirit and
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the signature of pure spirit abides within all things all
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around us we are in
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SPEAKER_00: spirit and spirit is in us and so that is the
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SPEAKER_00: That is the treasure that can be uncovered through emptying your cup,
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SPEAKER_00: through apophatic theology,
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SPEAKER_00: if you want to call it that,
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SPEAKER_00: or apophatic contemplative practice.
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SPEAKER_00: You can call it whatever you like.
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SPEAKER_00: It's essentially just finding those moments,
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SPEAKER_00: finding those pockets of time,
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SPEAKER_00: making space for retreat,
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SPEAKER_00: realizing that retreat
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is not simply a luxury in life that's only for you know wealthy
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people who can fly
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to Bali and go on some kind of expensive retreat and no shade
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on those people you
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know it's gorgeous to go to Bali and go on retreat if that's on
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your path but you
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don't need to do that to be able to go on retreat you can go on
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retreat in any
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SPEAKER_00: moment of life by opening to now
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Emptying your cup and opening to spaciousness opening to
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freshness and it can be
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very helpful to design intentional containers for this to set
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aside even a half day
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or a full day and go to go to a local sauna go to a local
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bathhouse go to a local
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SPEAKER_00: forest go to a local church or temple and just exist just be
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SPEAKER_00: Turn off the devices.
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SPEAKER_00: Turn off your usual everyday consciousness or see through it.
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SPEAKER_00: Ignore it for a few hours.
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SPEAKER_00: Let it go.
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SPEAKER_00: Be no one and make room for make room for the freshness.
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SPEAKER_00: Make room for the light.
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SPEAKER_00: Make room for revelation.
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SPEAKER_00: This is not
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this is not optional this is not a luxury this is something
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that our human spirit
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and soul deeply deeply needs deeply deeply needs and a huge
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part of the reason why
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so many people are utterly depressed and despairing and anxious
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and and feeling all
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SPEAKER_00: types of negative affect is because we as a culture
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have become overly in the grips of a program of busyness and
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worldliness busy busy
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busy worldly worldly worldly more to do is more to do's Christ
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Jesus said my
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kingdom is not of this world my kingdom is not of this world so
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he was pointing us
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SPEAKER_00: beyond the world
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as we take it to be the material world of the ordinary senses
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which that ordinary
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world too is utterly pervaded by spirit and can be revealed as
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an unimaginable
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tapestry and artistry created and recreated continuously by
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pure spirit and yet
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SPEAKER_00: we're not able to see it that way when we are
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totally identified with it and we've forgotten the other world
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of pure spirit and
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so Jesus was instructing us to rediscover the kingdom that
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abides as the vastness
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here and now that is discovered and can come in to the heart
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when we are empty when
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SPEAKER_00: we empty ourselves when we
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Let all of our ordinary Concepts and ideas and our Belief that
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we already know
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That's one of the biggest blockages The sense that I already
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know what the world is
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I already know what life is And it's this shitty Stubborn thing
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where I Just gotta
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do all this bullshit And this sucks And I complain about it all
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the time Those
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SPEAKER_00: attitudes Deeply prevent
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SPEAKER_00: An emptying of the cup and an opening to pure spirit.
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And so Jesus was instructing us to to empty ourselves to empty
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ourselves of this
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world at least temporarily so as to open to another world that
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is here and is all
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SPEAKER_00: around us but often appears to be
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SPEAKER_00: Invisible or unseeable and we can only come into subtle contact with that
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all-pervading world of pure spirit when we discover how to
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empty our cup when we
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when we make those moments for emptying the cup and we discover
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that those are not
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SPEAKER_00: optional for a good life they're absolutely
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essential and indispensable retreat is not optional and I say
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that coming off of a
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about a four-day retreat here in Italy called Gondor that I
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created and experienced
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with a group of beautiful brothers here who who came to Italy
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from six different
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SPEAKER_00: countries we all
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we all came here and heard the call and we all remembered
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together the essential
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vital integral importance of retreat yet again I tell you tell
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you my friend you
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don't have to travel anywhere to go on retreat you know it it
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can be helpful it can
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be helpful to go to a structured container and discover what
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that what that's like
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But you can create spaces of retreat in your day to day life
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and I would deeply
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invite you to do that would deeply invite you to discover what
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it means to create a
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space to become no one become no thing let it all go so that
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something new can come
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in and you know this process can be confronting it can be
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destabilizing at times so
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SPEAKER_00: if it becomes too much then take a step back go back into
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normal life just be a normal dude or dudette for a while just
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chill and then give
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it a try again when you're feeling more grounded and more
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stabilized or consider
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consider asking for support if you feel that would be useful
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for you but the crux
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SPEAKER_00: of the message here is that retreat is always available retreat
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is not optional make space for retreat make space for emptying
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your cup becoming no
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one no thing and discovering the immense rejuvenation available
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there the immense
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possibility of letting something new come in something truly
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transformational and
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alchemical a new set of eyes in a sense a new way of seeing
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everything that occurs
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SPEAKER_00: in your life this is essential for discovering
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True Freedom and True Happiness and Wholeness here and now I
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would I would propose
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to you and the wisest and happiest people whether they're
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consciously doing it or
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not they make that space for themselves they find that space to
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go for long walks
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in nature or to get really good rest and really good sleep or
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to you know just
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SPEAKER_00: completely unplug and disconnect from everything and take
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SPEAKER_00: Time Away to just sit and just be.
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Whether they're consciously aware that that is a form of
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retreat or emptying their
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SPEAKER_00: cup and receiving something fresh,
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SPEAKER_00: something new,
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SPEAKER_00: it doesn't matter because that's how it functions.
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SPEAKER_00: So give that gift to yourself.
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SPEAKER_00: If this resonates, give yourself that gift.
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SPEAKER_00: Make that space and let's enjoy life.
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Let's be love radiate love be the mighty sequoias rooted deep
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to the earth branches
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to the heavens centered in the heart ending all wars within and
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without setting the
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kids free setting all beings free and bringing the kingdom to
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earth bringing the
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love to earth what else is there to do baby what else is there
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to do spread the
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SPEAKER_00: love let's go let's go
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SPEAKER_00: Peace, joy, grace to you.
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SPEAKER_00: One love, much love, familia, family.
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SPEAKER_00: Gracias.
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SPEAKER_00: Gracias.