Something Greater – Lola Wright

Lola Wright explains how resistance keeps us stuck in a loop of littleness and encourages us to step into “Something Greater” as she continues our July Series “Disrupting the Unconscious”.

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This “talk” is electronically transcribed. Please excuse any errors or omissions.

Lola: It’s actually an interesting question. What is this thing, the world, change the world? This thing, the world, is a collection of thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that get projected. They’re your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that get projected. The world is nothing more than a projection of that which we’re unwilling to expand, let go off, relax, allow. One of the words that’s been coming up a lot recently is this word resistance. Change the world, but get stuck in resistance. How does that work?

Lola: Change the world. You all want us to change the world?

Audience: Yes.

Lola: Okay. But that would actually have to mean we let go of resistance. But actually, we’re deeply attached to resistance because, guess what, then your ego gets to survive, and you don’t know who you are beyond your ego, unless you have a devotional practice to witnessing the self and witnessing the ego.

Lola: But there is a great hit to resistance. There is an addictive quality to resistance. You get to be right. Human beings never will create a set of circumstances by which they are not right unless they are in a profound and deep practice of awakening because your egoic survival requires you to be right.

Lola: Resistance is not a spiritual practice. Outing resistance is also not a spiritual practice. It’s actually a deepening of the egoic construct. I just ask you in a time of transition whether it be what we’re experiencing on the planet or whether it’s what we’re experiencing at Bodhi or whether it’s what you are experiencing in your own life if you are in a devotional relationship with resistance, you are expanding the capacity of the ego construct. That’s it.

Lola: I was so intrigued by a Facebook thread that I observed this past week and, perhaps, some of you saw it too because I had hundreds of comments. The dialogue went something like this, “Trump is a racist, and please read this New York Times article to support that position.” Wow, some folks got deeply triggered by the word racist. The word got changed in the post to xenophobia because that’s more palatable.

Lola: Resistance is what there is to look at if you have an interest in awakening. If you’re not interested in awakening, keep perpetuating your resistance. If you are actually interested in awakening, look at the resistance and bring it forward and release it. For the environment to adapt to your resistance is not of service to you.

Lola: For the Facebook post to change to xenophobia, for you to be comfortable is actually not part of awakening. Does that make sense?

Audience: Yes.

Lola: For Bodhi to adapt to accommodate your resistance actually supports your smallness. That’s not the big idea. Let’s just talk here for a moment. See, there was this guy named Ernest Holmes. I study him deeply, whether I speak about him every week, I be with him daily. He was this guy and he wrote a book that became his most well-known book. It was released in 1926. It’s called the science of mind. There’s so much I could say about this man.

Lola: But, essentially, he came into this dimension of reality to be a truth portal to not vibrate with the limited sense of self that the human experience is deeply attached to, but to actually agitate the limited sense of self such that a greater version of self could come forward. He wasn’t particularly interested in doing that inside of a religious construct. The challenge was it was 1926. By 1954, I think he was sort of like fatigued and he was like, “These people just want church. I’m just going to give them church.”

Lola: But he really was calling for something greater. His last large scale talk is something that’s been known as the sermon by the sea. It happened at a place called Sylmar in California on the water. You can look it up. It’s really a powerful, beautiful piece, but one of the lines in there is he says, “Find me one person who can get his own littleness out of the way and he shall reveal to me the immeasurable magnitude of the universe in which I live. Find me one person who can get their littleness out of the way.”

Lola: What could be possible then? One person. Let me just check. Just check. How much does your littleness run the game, the show? How much does your personal agenda influence your sight? Find me one person who can get their littleness out of the way. See, your little self is your egoic self. For anybody who’s familiar with spiral dynamics, one of the challenges that has been documented among people that tend to be attracted to the kind of work that we do here is a high level of attachment to individualism.

Lola: There’s actually a correlation documented among people like us who are interested in what we think is freedom being highly attached to your small sense of self, sort of ironic. Sort of ironic. Find me one person who can get their littleness out of the way. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Please get your bloated nothingness out of the way, way such that you may be available to the divine circuitry of life.”

Lola: See, if all you are attached to is your humanness, you’re attached to your littleness, and then you talk lots about your resistance, which is so very boring. It really is because, actually, you’re here for something more than your resistance. To be on a loop of resistance is to be nothing more than in a loop of survival. We are not here to merely survive, so let us look at this word resist or resistance.

Lola: Now, of course we understand that words have many meanings. I happen to have 36 mugs in my house that have the word resist on them and a fist, that one of my best friends from high school made as a potter, as a kind of spiritual practice in the wake of the last presidential election. That is not the kind of resistance I speak of.

Lola: This is a different kind of resistance. The resistance that I speak of today may be defined as… To obstruct, to hinder, to check, to thwart, to counteract, to oppose, the act of striving against. I’m asking you to consider how you participate in resistance from your littleness. See, I just saw the Lion King on Thursday night with my family and there is this brilliant scene where I do not remember their names, but there’s the-

Audience: Timon and Pumbaa.

Lola: Thank you, son. Timon and Pumbaa. We’re like a devotional Lion King family and they’re confronted at this one point because Simba wakes up and realizes hanging out in a consciousness of avoidance, otherwise called Hakuna Matata, no worries, is actually not the greatest, biggest version of himself.

Lola: He actually starts to wake up. I just like to put in parentheses by way of Nala, by way of a woman. Never mind. Simba wakes up because Nala is like “For real? You can’t see who you are? All right, bye.” And then, he’s like, “Hmm, Hakuna Matata, no worries.” And… Timon … What are their names?

Audience: Timon and Pumbaa.

Lola: Timon and Pumbaa. Thank you. They have sort of a moment where they have to decide one symbol determines he must go back and claim his divine inheritance, his divine right action, the truth of who he is. This idea of “no worries” is sort of confronted for those two creatures. I think it’s such a… just that scene is brilliant because an adolescent relationship to these teachings will have you think that it really is just about, no worries.

Lola: But the call is to stand for something. Stand for something and then move forward and trust that the high idea of who you are will pull you forward. If you stay in a pattern of your littleness, see, that’s what Simba was doing in a pattern of his littleness. He scared himself. He thought he killed his dad.

Lola: He got stuck in a loop of littleness, and he was resistant. My question is, where are you stuck in a loop of resistance? Where are you stuck in a loop of littleness? I asked my husband. I like to ask my husband all these kinds of questions like what women do you think are hot, like really awkward, very weird questions that there’s really sort of like a no-win answer. You know and he’s like, “Oh God, here we go.”

Lola: This was sort of one of those. I said to him… If you’ve taken a class with me, you know the depth of that story. If you haven’t taken a class with me, that story is reason enough to take a class with me. You should check it out. I said to him last night. I said, “Where do you experience me as resistant?” He was like, “Hmm.” He’s like, “I don’t experience you walking in resistance.” That’s actually not how I experience you, but the one place I experience you as resistance is in your relationship to the state of humanity. Well, that’s sort of a big one.

Lola: It’s not like the milk in the position of the refrigerator. It was like the state of humanity. I thought, “You’re absolutely right.” He said, “Your resistance is in the loop of unconsciousness, and you have an impatience with it.” I said, “I really do. I really do.” Now, anything can be done from an open and curious state, and anything can be done from a closed and defensive state.

Lola: You can be in resistance around the state of humanity in a place that’s deeply open and curious and provocative and life-giving, or you can be in resistance to the state of humanity in a closed and defensive state. I’m intimately familiar with both of those experiences. So my question for you is, in what area of your life are you obstructing? Are you hindering? Are you thwarting? Are you opposing? And how is it that you think it’s real… that you want people to join you in colluding around your littleness?

Lola: See, here’s what I know. The next chapter of my life and the next chapter of my relationship with Bodhi will be in a vibration that transcends the perpetual addiction to resistance because I am not committed to remaining a match for resistance. So, the hundred people that make this community available for the thousands of people, I’m interested in 100 people that want to transcend resistance.

Lola: If you want to play in the realm of resistance, I say, “Please don’t give your money here.” Please, don’t, because then we are in a collusion around your littleness. It’s a funny thing. In the 13 years that I have given generously financially to this place, it has never occurred as a transaction. Never. It has occurred as a spiritual practice.

Lola: If you notice yourself creating an experience of resistance around a next expression, that’s between you and the god of your being. It’s actually not between you and Bodhi. No one is making anybody do anything on the planet. We all have agency. There’s some kind of scripture that says something like, “God loves a joyful giver.” What do you think that means?

Lola: The universe responds to an experience of ease. That’s the translation. Now, the universe also responds to an experience of dis-ease. Guess what it will give you? More dis-ease. If you are experiencing resistance and it is a loop upon which you would like to put a flag in the sand, expect more resistance. This guy Ernest Holmes said to me this morning, “For God is not met through confusion, but only when the mind is tranquil and like an unruffled body of water reflects the divine images of peace and perfection.”

Lola: This word, God, put in presence there, put in life for life is not met through confusion. When I sat with that this morning, it was like, “Whoa. God, peace, life, joy, freedom, abundance, wholeness, harmony will never be experienced through a consciousness of resistance.” That’s what confusion is. It’s resistance. If you have a desire for greater peace, greater power, greater freedom, greater love, greater joy, greater abundance, greater wholeness, you’re establishing consciousness, the mental equivalent of the thing you desire, is very simply stated what you resist persists. We know this. Yes?

Audience: Yes.

Lola: Yet, it is so damn seductive. If you do not have people in your life that are willing to be as honest with you as my friends and family are, I suggest you don’t actually have very good friends. If what you most enjoy are those that only ever tell you what you can tolerate, you’re committed to have movement a very little If you have surrounded yourself by friends and family, (that are actually demonstrating these principles in all of their affairs), I always say do not recommend getting advice or feedback from people who haven’t demonstrated a quality of life that you desire or something greater.

Lola: When you look at the people in your world that you want to listen to, have they demonstrated a quality of living that you desire or something greater? If not, I’m not open for business. That is a real pro tip there for you. Who is in your ear? You will always get validation that proves you as right in an unconscious state.

Lola: But if you actually are committed to a practice of awakening, you seek practice partners that can lovingly and kindly tell you the thing about yourself that you cannot see. This guy, Ernest Holmes, goes on to say, “There is a power transcendent beyond our needs, our little wants.” I’m gonna stop there for a second. How much of the demand that you place on the universe is a little want like what’s really the big game that you’re playing? A little want. Demonstrating a dime is good if one needs it.

Lola: Healing oneself of a pain is certainly good if one has it. But beyond that, at the real feast, at the Tabernacle of the Almighty, in the temple of the living God and the Banquet Hall of Heaven, there is something beyond anything that you and I have touched. What is the tabernacle? What is the temple? What is the banquet hall? For thousands of years, people have thought that was a destination, a geography, the temple, the tabernacle.

Lola: The banquet hall is a state of consciousness. How do you access that through practice? Now, remember, he said this morning to me, “For God is not met through confusion, but only when the mind is tranquil.” Well, how do I get a tranquil mind? Yeah. Just do. You just do it. You sit your butt down and you get quiet and you get still, and you say to the spirit of life that is at the center of your being, “Peace be still.”

Lola: When you do that practice, you transcend the pattern of resistance. See, the addiction to resistance is the egoic construct. Do you remember when you would rewind a cassette tape growing up and it wouldn’t stop? It would just keep rewinding and it’d be like …(whirring sound)… that’s your resistance. It’s like that perpetual rewind at irritating pitch for humanity, and we’re all asking you, would you be willing to stop the flipping cassette tape? Find me one person who can get his own littleness out of the way.