This morning I would like to review the basic principles that we are trying to get acquainted with. I know at this stage in your process, it's very easy for you to get totally wrapped up in working on your movie. And that is as it should be. But at the same time, remember that it is a movie, remember that it is fantasy. The reason why we are working on it so much, is so that you can see that it is fantasy. We are not working on it because it is so important. We are not working on it because it is going to give you the key to life, or the key to happiness, because it won't do that. You are never going to wake up by looking at your movie. You are never going to discover truth digging around in memory. If you haven't discovered truth during the original experience, going back to it in memory certainly isn't going to be any more illuminating.
So don't make the mistake of thinking that when you are working on the movie that you are working on truth - because you are not. We have to work on the movie so that we can start separating the movie from reality. This is what we are trying to do - to help you separate the movie from reality, so that when you are experiencing something, you can learn to ask yourself, "Am I experiencing this because of something that is real, or am I experiencing this because of the movie?"

The difference between movie and reality

Once you start seeing the difference between the movie and reality, you will start separating them. You will start seeing that the movie is ridiculous. You will also start seeing that reality is nourishing, intelligent, and supportive. When we look at the movie, we are going back and looking at a dream that you had, a dream that you still believe in. And we are looking at the dream so that you can stop believing in it, so that you can recognize that it is a dream, and that now you can let go of it.
When the dream happened, it was real. But as you get older, even those things that you think happened are less and less real, because they are more and more a projection of your memories. As you get older, you are projecting more and more memories onto a given experience, so that after a while, you are not really experiencing anything, you are just experiencing your memories projected onto that experience.
Whatever was real that actually happened, once it has happened, has also disappeared. That occurence, that experience, is gone forever. You can't do anything about any experience except one that is happening right now. The only thing that you can do anything about is now. You cannot change your childhood. You don't even have a childhood. You have memories of a childhood, but the memories of the childhood are not the childhood. If you are allowing these memories, which are just like photographs, to make you miserable, then to be very blunt, you are stupid. You are torturing yourself unecessarily. This may be difficult for you to digest, and I appreciate that. But some of you are at the stage now where you can start making that distinction, and that is why I want to make it clear to you. The only thing to gain by going back into memory is to see that it is not real. If you go back into the memory with the purpose of changing it, with the purpose of becoming a better person, with the purpose of becoming better adjusted, with the purpose of understanding why you have done the things that you have done, or why you are the way you are - if you get caught up in that, then what you are actually doing is believing in the dream, and you are perpetuating it.

Be aware of the fine line

There is a fine line someplace between going into the dream so that you can see that it is not real, and continuing to believe in the dream after a certain point. So don't worry about it, but I want you to be aware of it. You are going into your memories so that you can gradually see that these memories are all fantasy, and that you are leading your life according to fantasy, not reality. The more you can start seeing these memories, and seeing that they are fantasies, and the more you compare them to the here and now, to reality, the more you will start gravitating toward the here and now, and the less juice you are going to put into your memories.
It is literally like having a dream in which you do something strange. You wake up the next day and you want to figure out why you did that strange thing in your dream. The best thing to see is that it was a dream, and that you don't have to do anything about it. Just let it be, and focus on what is real. So your emphasis should gradually start shifting. For some of you it is still too early, but some of you are ready to do that. Your emphasis should start shifting more and more to the question, "What is real right now?" and less and less to, "What did my mother do to me," or "What did my father not do to me," and so forth.

You can’t change the past

You are not going to change that which has already happened. You can't change it, you can't touch it, and you can't even look at it. The only thing you can look at are the photographs that you took at that time. The photographs are not life, your memories are not life. Don't let your memories torture you. Your subconscious believes that these memories are actually happening now.
Let me repeat that. Your subconscious believes that your memories are not memories, but that they are actually happening right now. That means that your subconscious actually believes that you are being born right now, unless you have done some work on this. Your subconscious actually feels that your father is criticizing you because you have broken the rules of toilet training. Your subconscious is actually believing that your mother has totally abandoned you for that new, ugly baby in the other room. Your subconscious actually believes that you still live in a weak and helpless body. Your suconscious still believes that your survival depends on someone else taking care of you.
Your subconscious may still believe in all of these things, but you don't believe them with your conscious mind. With your conscious mind you can see the difference between fantasy and reality. You can see the difference between memory and the here and now. Now you have to help the subconscious see this. It's not going to happen automatically. Somehow the subconscious has to understand this also. But let's be clear about the task. The task is that we are trying to help the subconscious learn the difference between fantasy and reality, the difference between memories and the here and now. Only then can you start coming out of the world of fantasy - sometimes called the ego, sometimes called the mind, sometimes called the past - it is all the same.

Waking up

What the mystics call "waking up," is waking up from this dream created by your memories. Waking up means to stop living in those memories as if they are real, and beginning to be in the present moment. It is only in the present moment that you are going to discover truth. Truth can only be in the present moment, because there is only the present moment, there isn't any other moment. You are not going to discover truth by looking into memories, and you are not going to discover it in the future, because just as there is no past, there is also no future. And as you start doing this, as you start seeing the difference between memories and reality, you are going to gradually stop living in hell, and start getting glimpses of heaven. Right now you are afraid. You live with a constant level of tension. So constant that you don't even notice it. But fear is there always. And the fear is created by the dream, and nothing else. It is not created by reality. The reality of the moment is not frightening you. It's the fact that your subconscious still believes that you are a helpless creature, totally dependent. And this is what is creating fear.

The movie is not relevant

As you start seeing that this whole fear movie is not real, it is not relevant. You don't even have to deal with it. You just have to see that it is not real. Stop giving it juice, stop living in it, stop feeding it. And then you will find that you have energy, that you have time, that you have enthusiasm for the here and now. You can't force yourself to be in the here and now if your subconscious is totally uptight with fear. It doesn't work. So any attempt to be in the here and now, without dealing with the movie, is very seldom successful.
And attempting to deal only with the movie is also very seldom successful, because you are not giving yourself anything positive. You are dealing only with the movie, you are dealing only with horrors, only with tension. You are not giving yourself anything that is nourishing. It feels like you are only taking away, and taking away. But if you can start balancing your efforts between looking at the movie, and looking at reality, you will find that both things get easier. It gets easier for you to look at the movie, and see that it is a movie, and it also gets easier for you to be in the here and now.

Balance

So keep that balance. I know that it is very easy, once you start getting into regression work, to get immersed in the movie, and to think that is life. But it isn't life. Always remember to open your eyes and compare the movie to the here and now. That's where life is - here and now. So again, remember our direction. Remember what we are trying to do. Even though we may not have reached certain levels, our direction and our way of working is to look at the movie, bring the movie up, including the repressed parts of the movie - bringing those parts up to the surface so that we can see them - and comparing those movies with reality, so that we can see that the dream is just a fantasy. When we see that with the conscious mind, and we use the conscious mind to help the subconscious to also see that, we re-educate the computer, we reprogram - or even better, deprogram the computer. The more we do that, the more we are then available to the here and now, because all of our energy is not wrapped up in fear and tension created by these memories.

This moment is all you have

So keep this in mind, regardless of what we are doing. Remember that we are working on the movie so that you can see the movie for what it is, so that you can start becoming clearer and clearer about the fact that the movie is not real, that the memories are just photographs of something that no longer exists. And you will become clearer and clearer about the fact that what you have is this moment. That is all you have. You don't have anything else. If you don't have it right now, you don't have it. So you might as well start living with what you have right now, being open to what you have. And as you become less tense, and less afraid, you will open up to the moment, you will open up to Existence, and you will start expanding. Your consciousness will expand automatically. You will be more connected with Existence. You will be more nourished by the mystery. You will be more one with Existence. And you will start understanding more and more what the mystics have been talking about through the ages.

Stop giving them juice

The main thing is for you to divorce yourself from your memories. Instead of believing in them, divorce yourself from them. They are harmless, and you don't have to be afraid of them. But stop giving them juice. Your memories have power only to the degree that you give them juice. If you will stop believing in them, then they will stop having any kind of power over you. They have no energy of their own, just like a photograph has no energy of its own. It is only your memory, your imagination, that can turn that photograph into something frightening.

Our work has two parts

Remember that what we are doing has two parts. We are working to allow the memories to come to the surface, and that is part one. Then we are comparing these memories to the here and now, so that we can see that the memories are not real, and that we actually don't need to do anything about them. We can do such things as transformation techniques, but this is just a part of the initial process. We do the transformation technique to lighten the load, to see certain movies more clearly, but we are not transforming these old memories because we want to live in memories. That is not the reason why we do that.
Again, try to keep these two points in mind. As you work on yourself, don't get caught up in only working on the movie. This is quite common, and very easy to do, but I am advising you very strongly to always balance your work on the movie with openness to the here and now. It's like shaking yourself loose from a nightmare. Don't get caught up in the nightmare. Look at it, that's fine, but don't let it hook you. Whenever you are feeling miserable, or upset, or confused, or whatever, don't blame it on reality. It's your movie. Look at the movie, but then balance it out by comparing it to the here and now.

It’s your computer

Question: "The four year old, is he a memory? I get confused with the technique, because every time I feel depressed or something, I say, "Okay, how old am I now?" and I am referring to my four year old, and I am aware that I am talking to my memory."

Jeru: That is actually what you are doing. What we call the four year old, are all of the experiences in the form of memories. Not the real experiences, but the memories that are filed away in the computer. This computer has been programmed by an infant, by a child. So the computer seems to have a certain mentality. The two year old put into the computer, "Never do such-and-such." Then the three year old put into the computer, "Always do such-and-such." At three and a half you put in a different program, "Always avoid such-and-such, and pretend to do the opposite." In other words, the programs are there.
Your computer has the mentality of an infant, of a child. Different programs have different mentalities, and they were put there at different ages. But the sum result of it is that your computer acts like a child, and that is what we call the four year old. It's your computer that is afraid to do this, it's your computer that is afraid to that. It's your computer that always does this. Because of programs put there by the child, by the infant that you used to be.

Programs are memories

But now these programs are themselves memories. So what you are dealing with, when you deal with the four year old, is memory. The computer itself is a very real thing. These programs which are in the computer are also very real just like any program in a computer can be real. But the reasons for putting those programs into the computer don't exist any longer.
Let’s say you have a computer that makes your coffee for you in the morning, turns the radio on, turns the heater on, puts your clothes out for you, the whole business. Then you can have a heart attack and be totally dead. And if no one turns that computer off, it goes on making coffee every morning, even though there is no one there to drink it. And that is what has happened with our computers. We are still following programs that don't make any sense. Because there is no baby there any longer. That baby is totally gone, it doesn't exist any more. But you will find the computer full of programs put there by that baby, and those programs are leading your life today. Those programs tell you when to be afraid, and that is the problem.

You can use the mind to clear the mind

Question: "When I'm having a problem with enjoying reality, I refer to the memories to remind myself that I am not actually having a problem, that it is a memory of a problem. But I guess I am having trouble going back to the memory, and using the memory to try to get back to reality."

Jeru: We are using the memory. We are using the mind to clear up the mind. That is the only thing you can do if you are going to work on yourself. You use the mind to clear up the mind. It's the only thing you can do if you are going to try to do it yourself. If you depend on Existence to do it for you, that is a different story - you fall out of an airplane and maybe get a Satori on the way down. But if you are going to do it yourself, the only thing you can do is use the mind. Because you are deciding to do these things, and whatever you decide, your mind is deciding. You can even decide that you will go to a guru, or go to a master. It is still your mind doing this. And it is your mind agreeing to stay with that master, or not to stay with that master. So the only thing that you can do to become clear is to use your mind. And that is what we are doing, including working with memories. The computer is part of the mind. And there is also the conscious mind that is not necessarily part of the computer.

Hardware and software

Question: "Is the computer only those memories and those programs?"

Jeru: No. The computer is a computer. What you put in the computer is something else, that is what we call software. Hardware is not the same as software. If you are going to have a computer, it doesn't matter whether you have memories or don't have memories. Whether you take the memories out, or not, you are still going to have a computer. After you get enlightened, you are still going to have a computer. You will also still have memories. But those memories will be without fear. You will see those memories just as information that you can use, but you won't identify with them, you won't believe in them, and you won't think that they are you.

Question: "What is the sense of having a computer without having the software, because if the computer doesn't make the coffee or put the toast in the toaster, then what is the sense of having a computer that is not functioning?"

Jeru: Well, you will have to ask God about that. I really can't answer why we even have computers. You can have the software in the computer, and there is nothing wrong with that. The only thing that is wrong with that is when you think that you are the software. That is the problem, when you think that you are the memories. You are believing in the memory, and you are encouraging false memories to continue as if they are real. You are continuing to give juice and life to programs that are not useful to you.

The map is not the territory

There is nothing wrong with the computer, and there is nothing wrong with the software - if you are in charge of the software, if you are the boss, and not the other way around. The way it is now, the software tells you what to do. I am not saying that all memories are useless, I am saying that all memories are dead. I already used the example of talking about where to go for a picnic. You can get out the map, and look on the map, and say, "Oh, there is a nice place for a picnic,"and draw a circle around it. You could put the map on the floor of your living room, and have the picnic where the circle is.
But you don't do that, you use the map to go and find the reality. The map is like a memory of reality, it is not really reality, it is like a photograph of reality. So you can use that to go and find the reality of where you have your picnic. But the problem is confusing the map with reality, confusing memories with reality, that is the difference. That is what we want to learn. Memories are okay, as long as you let them be memories, and don't give them life, thinking that this is something real that you have to deal with.

The problem doesn’t exist

Question: "Yesterday I experienced in the intuitive dialogue that my four year old is pretty much with me all the time, and she is much smarter than my adult. Then we had the positive fantasy transformation, and a memory came up of when I was a child. I was playing in the garden and having fun with the other kids. When I came home my mother said, "You are not going to have anything to eat tonight. You can go to bed without dinner." I was very hungry, and I went to my father and I said, "Please daddy, would you give me something to eat." I was very attentive in this moment, and he looked at me and he said, "Yes, sure, I will give you something to eat." And he did not hit me. For me, this experience was very beautiful, and it gave me a lot of strength. So it shocked me this morning when you said that what you get out of your memories is not nourishing, and is not positive. Because I experienced it in the other way. It was very nourishing to me."

Jeru: Yes, but at the time that you did it, it wasn't a memory. And now that you remember it, you are living in dead memories. It was nourishing then, but now it is only nourishing because you are trying to overcome a problem that you don't have now. You are not a little girl now, and your survival does not depend on somebody else giving you food. The problem doesn't exist, therefore the solution to it is irrelevant. And what you probably have done is you created a strategy out of that, and it is only useful as long as you believe that you have a problem. And you can only believe that you have a problem as long as you live in memory.

There are no adults here

Question: "It seems to happen that when I have a strategy, the problem disappears. For example, my problem is that when I go to lunch or dinner, I don't dare to speak. Because when I was a child, if I said something, I got punished. And this appears each time. And what I am doing now, is that I just look at what other people are doing. I think that if I discover a strategy of when I can talk, and how to talk, the problem will disappear. "

Jeru: That's the way the mind works, that is true. And that is the way we do a lot of things. But if you can understand that you learned this attitude because you were helpless and dependent, and you had to obey, and if you can now look and see that you are not helpless, then it all becomes irrelevant. If you are trying to approach it the way you just described, you are still believing that you have to do it right, you have to fit in with what other people are telling you. In other words, you still keep yourself an infant, with that attitude. The best thing to do is to look and see that your computer thinks that you are a helpless infant, surrounded by adults. In the first place, don't worry about it, because there are no adults here. So you don't have to worry about what the other adults are doing. But go to the heart of that. Really go to the heart of it. Why were you afraid of your parents?
Question: "My four year old wants to tell me this. Just listen and watch, and realize that it is all fantasy and memory. But I think when I go a little bit forward, I can see the picture of the fantasy more clearly."

Jeru: Definitely do that. But the process will consist of looking to see where the root of this attitude comes from, and the root of it comes from your fear of your parents. You were afraid of them because your survival depended on them, because you were helpless. It's that simple. And you felt, "They have to like me, or else they won't take care of me, and I will die. So I have to do what they tell me." In addition, at that age you are very impressionable, very vulnerable. And they told you that children should be seen and not heard, and to obey what they tell you. All of this is coming because of the fact that you were born helpless. And you are not helpless now.

Don’t repress memories

Question: "I know this with my conscious mind, but what I want to know is, is it better to experience this helplessness? When I am down there, and I just start seeing things that are very uncomfortable to me, I really experience feeling helpless. Is this better for the process?"

Jeru: Absolutely. Let me say that to all of you. Don't repress these memories. Don't let anything I am saying be turned around in your mind to permit you to repress the memories. I haven't said anything to indicate that you should do that. But I know that the mind, because these things are repressed, doesn't want to get into them. So the moment we start talking about the here and now, part of your mind wants to say, "Oh, that is just a memory, that is just a movie, so I don't want to go into it. I will just focus on the here and now." Don't repress. The best way to get rid of these old memories is to let them come to the surface. They can't stand the light of day. So let them come up. Don't repress them.

Anger is a program

Question: "When I am angry, and I express myself, I have the feeling that I dump shit all over people. And if I do it with my pendulum, for example, if I try to be aware of where it is coming from, sometimes it fluctuates, but I repress. Because still some of it is inside."

Jeru: This is another matter - what you do with your anger. If you can be aware that it is coming from a memory, then you are not so apt to dump it on somebody else. You can always say, "My four year old is very angry right now." That is perfectly acceptable. Or you can say, "Right now I am going to be a four year old," and you can start screaming. That is basically alright. As long as you take responsibility for it. That is the main thing, for you to take responsibility for your feelings. You may have to compromise at certain times. But then the anger is there anyway, it's not going to go away - it's a program. So you can always get in touch with it. You are not going to lose it.
Question: "But I have experienced that I lose it."

Jeru: No, you don't lose it. The program is still there. If somebody the next day does the same thing, you will be angry again all over.

Reprogramming is very useful

Question: "So far, I clearly experience that when I see a program, I can see that it is gone at this moment. And I also see what I can do now that would be in this moment. But it would not be just being fresh and new - it's basically the opposite of the program, that which I can experience as nourishing. Let's say I had the fear of the positive. I would now allow myself to take certain chances, and I would now allow myself to be happy. So it's not so much letting Existence nourish me, it's more like me putting something into Existence. It's more like a reprogramming, and that is fun. And I am really enjoying it. But when I get into this deprogramming, the world looks very gray."

Jeru: That is fine. You are at that stage where the reprogramming is very useful. But if you keep reprogramming, your programs will get shorter and shorter, and you will find that you are in the moment anyway. And if Existence right now looks dull, it's because you are really not experiencing it yet. That's okay, you can't force these things. You can move at a certain pace, and this is probably the way it is with most of you right now. It's fine to reprogram. It's fine if you have this program that you are not allowed to do such-and-such, that you go ahead and do those things.

Deprogramming

Later on in the course we will get into what we call experiential reprogramming or deprogramming. This is where you take certain patterns that you have, and you consciously do the opposite. You work it out with your computer, so that your computer is not afraid of it anymore, and then you actually do the opposite, so that you can feel that it is actually fine, that the world doesn't come to an end just because I have done such-and-such. And that is very useful. We will be getting into that in a more organized way later on in the course.
But ultimately, you will start discovering that the more you relax, and the more you open up to the mystery of life, the bigger the show gets. And then Existence itself is constantly entertaining you, nourishing you, and supporting you. You will see that. That can't happen right away because you are still in the movie. And that is fine. So it is helpful for you to give yourself permission to do the opposite, especially with the fear of the positive. But the time will also come when you won't have to push yourself that way. It will come to you by itself, without forcing anything.

Regression work

Question: "I have a question about regression work. Since yesterday, I was regressed a lot according to the pendulum, and I was slowly feeling more disconnected, like nobody could reach me, and lost. And this morning, somehow I managed to pinpoint it to being in the birth canal. Is it necessary for me to go into regression and re-experience that, or is it enough to just see that's what is happening."

Jeru: Well, as I said before, it's good for you to experience these things, realizing that you are experiencing a memory. Go into that, especially if it's the birth canal. The earlier the memory, the better it is for you to go into it.

Question: "And do you have a reprogramming for jealousy?"

Jeru: Just trace jealousy to its root, and see what jealousy feeds on. It feeds on the fact that you think you are dependent, that you feel that you are helpless. Once you realize that you are an independent human being, then you can't be panic-stricken because somebody walks out the door to go to the bathroom. And you can't be panic-stricken because some woman that you like says hello to somebody else. It isn't going to be relevant, once you realize that you can take care of yourself, once your subconscious realizes that.

Question: "I had an experience where I did a regression, and I really got into feelings, both negative and positive. And since that time, she is having incredible difficulty letting me experience both - like really going into the pain, or else really going into the positive. Is this something I should try to work out with the pendulum, or should I try to talk to her with intuitive dialogue?"

Jeru: Are you saying that she is afraid to go into memories?

Question: "Yes, she doesn't want to experience the really young ones right now."

Jeru: Okay. So she believes that these memories are real, and she doesn't want to deal with them. In a case like that, always go back to the pendulum questions about memories being real (memories as photographs) and help her remember that all these memories are actually harmless, they are just photographs. And it will be easier. Any time that you feel like your computer doesn't want to get into certain memories, then try to help the computer to understand that those memories are just photographs. They are not real life, and they are not really happening now. So it's fine to go into them totally...