Franco is Left with Zilch

Q: I was reading your exchange with Andy on your web site. I didn't stop looking when we stopped corresponding before, and I get what you were saying to Andy.

I am aware of being the space for the form that the now is taking... with intervals of falling into the old habits. Or maybe visa versa. My question is, at first did the space ever give you a problem? I will just be putting one foot in front of another and there will be all this space, and then after a period of time, a huge contraction. The contraction will be accompanied by a feeling.

So I say “be the space for the feeling.” Just by saying that I realize duality. Inevitably there will be things to do about the feeling. I don't do them because the feeling is just a thought or the reaction to a thought. Eventually I may smoke a cig or eat a sandwich but that doesn't help, though it keeps the mind occupied. Then eventually one foot goes in front of the other and it all gets let go of somehow, and the process repeats itself. 

As I read this I see that I am still identified with the “I” that is uncomfortable. But I still wonder why the contractions. What am I resisting? What am I missing? Thanks.

A: You aren't missing anything. The contraction is not a problem, is it? Tell me what the problem is with a contraction? The feeling that arises with the contraction is not a problem, is it? What will the bad feeling do? Won't it just be there, and then pass? And so, what was the problem? 

These things are okay. Nothing is harmed, is it? What is harmed? Contraction, what does it harm? A bad feeling, what does it harm? There is no harm done, and then it passes. So, what really happened? Anything? 

You want to replace your bad feeling with a good feeling. What does that do? Does it improve anything? What does it improve? It just is a better feeling, and so what? Bad feeling, good feeling, bad feeling, good feeling, and so what? 

So go ahead and contract. It's not a problem. There is no permanent fix to contraction. It may arise, and when it does, so what? Go ahead and have a bad feeling. It's not a problem. 

Do you see what I'm getting at? 

Q: Got it. Thanks.

Do you (as in you, Annette) make decisions?

A: No.

Q: Is there such thing as right action? 

A: No.

Q: I've noticed that when I wake up there is nothing to do, that doingness does itself, but that same organic process doesn't apply when I decide something for next week or month. 

A: Yes it does. Notice the same thing is happening. 

Q: Do you have preferences?  

A: Yes.

Q: Do you like chocolate more than limburger cheese? 

A: Yes. 

Q: What likes the chocolate more? 

A: I don’t know. The “explanation” is that it’s conditioning, but right now there is only this moment, and in this moment, I reach for the chocolate. Is that a preference? I don’t know. It doesn't matter.  

Q: Do you humor it? 

A: I do things that please me without thought. Right here right now, what I am moved to do, and not being absorbed in thought, I do. And so it is pleasurable, because thought wasn’t part of the process. 

Q: I want to live in Mexico for some reason. When that thought comes up, it hangs around then leaves. Do I humor it? Or is it a resistance to what is? 

A: I don’t know. I noticed that some things happen that have a forced feeling to them – trying to make something happen. And those things ended up making me very uncomfortable. The things I don’t force flow and are enjoyable. It’s probably because the forcing itself is terribly uncomfortable. So go to Mexico or don’t go – just see what happens.

Q: Can the space that holds the form “now” is taking influence the form “now” is taking? Is there such thing as manifesting?

A: You’re talking about making things happen that you think would be desirable? Probably, but how would you identify desirable? The height of perfection for me is: right here, right now, there is no problem. So I don’t have to spend an ounce of effort thinking about what I might like to manifest. I'm always happy. Joy is manifest. 

Q: I'm asking because I could just sit on a bench for years, or not. I wonder if I could be helpful – sure I could, or I could sit on a bench. This sounds like too much thinking but all these things don't happen at once. They come up – ripples – they go away. It's easy to do nothing.

A: It’s easy to do nothing and that’s what I do. Then all the activity of my day comes out of that nothing. And sometimes it’s very busy, other times it’s quiet.

Q: You are being helpful. I could be helpful on a different level in a different way. Just curious.

A: Okay.  

Q: I’ve got to say it is amazing any communication takes place at all on this planet. You and I speak the same language and still only bat about 50%. Nonetheless, the questions that I managed to correctly transfer to writing/language, you answered.

The trippy thing is that I already know the answers – why I ask them anyway, who knows? Thanks.

A: >You and I speak the same language and still only bat about 50%.

I thought I understood your questions and answered them succinctly. Is there something you didn't understand?

Q: The answers were great, it was some of the questions that were flawed.

About twenty years ago I had an experience. An acquaintance of mine had a friend that was in the hospital, had a tumor was scheduled for surgery and chemo, etc. She wanted a healing. I did that sort of thing on occasion. So I went to the hospital reluctantly on the morning of her surgery; I had no intention of doing any kind of healing, just being supportive. Well, she asked me to heal her (oh brother). So I told her I would do it. Figured it would make her feel better. I used my imagination and went through the process. I had no attachment to any outcome, and there was no ego involved.

I moved out of town the next day. Six or seven weeks later I ran into this acquaintance who told me they did surgery and couldn't find the tumor, cancelled chemo, etc. Now twenty years later I wonder about what happened.

While I was in Mexico, I was given a book about quantum physics and healing, etc. The guy that wrote the book lives in my neck of the woods and is teaching the process. Part of me wants to pursue that idea. Then part just wants to let things be as they are. Thus all my questions. Rather than explaining everything to you, I just asked the questions. Your answers were succinct; my questions were vague. Plus I had the answers.

I struggle with this because on the one hand, learning this trick is buying into the reality of all this. If you said you could teach me how to heal people in my nightly dreams, I would say what's the point, I'll wake up and the dream will have just been a dream. But then when I see someone in this life that could suffer less if I worked them over, I wonder what to do.

When I wake up, there is nothing to do. It's so simple, clear, concise, and sharp. This idea, this thought of manipulating form to alleviate someone's physical suffering seems encumbered with mindstuff, it seems to pull me into this idea of control and doing. Don’t want that, but people are suffering – my daughter has scoliosis, not bad, but she suffers sometimes.  But I am the space for life, not life.

Thinking, too much thinking.

I don't have a soul to talk to when it comes to this kind of stuff, so I guess I talked to you, just so covertly that some of the questions didn't come out right. On the one hand this is so much b.s., on the other, people do suffer.

If I could snap my fingers and fix the world would I? Probably not. What's broken? Forms come and go anyway. But then people are suffering. Do you see the conflict?

A: I see no conflict because I have no idea what is going to happen. I show up in the moment, and the suffering of some forms may be reduced by something I do or say, and it may not. I have no ego story about anything that may transpire, because I know of no "doer" that is helping anyone, nor any "others" that are being helped, nor what being "helped" might look like.

Even if I have a goal or a plan to help people stop suffering, when I arrive in the moment I can't control what actually transpires. I know you still think you control something. Take a look at that. You'll go around and around in circles with doubt and pain as long as you believe there is some control. The unadulterated freshness of the brand-new, surprising moment is really exciting. Check it out. It's really fun to be in a moment knowing there is no control.

You might happen to show up when someone is in physical or emotional pain, and something might be done or said that helps them. You don't control any of that. You have no idea what is going to happen.

Knock off this final piece, Franco. You're dragging around useless baggage.

Q: Seems like I am under the illusion that I have control of letting go of control, then grabbing control, then letting go of control, then grabbing it again. If I have no control then this whole cycle I go through is an illusion. If I don't have control I can't grab it or let it go.

I guess there are all kinds of illusionary reasons for wanting control. I'm asking myself what the idea of having control means to me. That doesn't seem the right way to approach it. If there really is nothing that I control, a debate with myself isn't going to bring me around.

It seems like this is very black and white. There are no gray areas. The house is not kinda on fire – either it is or it isn’t. I have learned that suffering comes resisting what is. If “no control” is what is, then I can see that there are going to be doubts and pain, as you said.

I don't want to get into a debate with myself. I don't want to explore the losses or the implications of no control. How would you approach this? One answer I've heard is, Letting go, jumping into the flow/river of life – but that implies that I have control.

Any ideas about how you would approach this if you were me? Thanks.

A: This is great, and I think you're really finding the core, in these last couple of emails to me. You wrote that last one about how you sometimes control, and when you reread what you had written, you realized what a joke it was to think that you sometimes control. That's great because it indicates you are getting a different perspective. From one perspective, it's so completely obvious that there is no one here and no control going on, that it's laughable. You'll flip back and forth, but once you've seen it from the new perspective, you can never take the old one completely seriously again.

You're totally right in your instinct not to analyze the “self's” need to control. All you really don't want to do is anything that reinforces the idea that there is a self. You're wanting to literally break down synaptic pathways in your brain. Every time you think “my self needs...”, you're conditioning stronger belief in the controlling self. And every time you break that pattern, by simply breaking your thought off, mid-stream, you are de-conditioning the “self” image.

So I would recommend a couple of things that worked for me. One is, whenever you are thinking, and I mean, whatever it is, simply try breaking off the thought. I used to use the words "Don't connect the dots," and that was effective for me. What that meant to me was: Having a thought or feeling right now DOES NOT MEAN that such-and-such will now happen. They are not related. Every moment is new. Don't connect the dots. This event is simply this event, or thought, or feeling. Period. Stop. Cut off the thought, and you will be stopping the conditioning of “self” image. And equally importantly, you are also cutting off your emotional involvement with imagining what will befall you next, making it harmless to you.

The second thing I would recommend is noticing if this control you sort of still seem to kind of believe you have (at times) is actual. You have noted accurately that the house is either on fire or it isn't. So notice when you think you are controlling something, and see if you really are. I would talk you through this, but it's really better if you just do it yourself. Am I controlling this? Am I really in control? Break it down frame by frame so you are not fooled by the running motion picture, and analyze what is going on in real time. Once you find that you really are not in control, in your own experience, the question of why you want to keep control will be moot. All questions will be moot.

Don't worry about any implication in the above that "you" can "do" these things I suggested. Just don't bother with that question. It doesn't matter if there is the illusion that you are doing something. The point is getting free, and using whatever tools you have, even if they contradict each other. None of it is real.

I hope this helps. You're doing great. I think you're going to crack through this last chunk of wall. You're well on your way, and you're motivated. Don't get distracted now by anything verbal or mental –  keep your eye on the ball, which is your own experience and what is really going on.

Keep me posted.

Q: Yesterday I was at a funeral. After the funeral, I was in a big gym for a pot luck. I turned around and there was a 2-year-old girl walking toward me, and she was singing to herself. I made a sound; she looked at me. Simultaneously we both pointed at each other, and we leaned slowly toward each other and barely touched index fingertips, and then we instantly separated, and she marched on and I turned back to the table.

In the glance we exchanged while the fingertips touched together, I recognized myself in her, and she recognized herself in me. We were one and we laughed about it. It was absolutely no big deal, it was totally perfect, an even-keeled, unemotional moment with some fresh energizing quality to it, except when I turned back to the table I saw that my wife had been watching and noticed the exchange on some Godly level I guess, and it blew a fuse in her mind. How did you know she was there?… how did you know the finger thing, what just happened… that was amazing… etc., etc. 

Once the thinking started, sure it was a “cool” moment but in an even-keeled way. I was not attached to the form of that moment, and the form that moment took was not identified with. As I write, big emotions come up – not a problem – up it comes, here it is now – it’s fading, somehow I am standing on the totally opposite side of the room from where I was standing the day before yesterday.

Then I started to look.

The first time I noticed that I may not have control was in high school. We were given an aptitude test the first week of algebra class. We had to show our work with each problem. So I would look at the problem, kinda mumble and watch all this stuff going on in my head, then put an answer down and move on. I got them all right, but of course got them all marked wrong because I didn’t show my work.

Lately it’s been like this. I make coffee, or a meal or something. In the middle of making coffee, I slip out of myself (?) and see coffee-making going on. I don’t know what to do next. I don’t even know how to make coffee. What’s next? What's coffee again? Next happens. Next unfolds. I don’t do anything.

In my job I have to make phone calls and communicate a series of numbers and spell names. I can’t keep up with the thing that is spewing out numbers and letters over the phone. So now when it comes time to spew out the numbers and names, I am not there. I am simply aware of control being administered by something else. Not me.

These things happened months and years earlier than the funeral yesterday, but I didn't make the connection I guess. Some shift in perspective has occurred. I am not even writing this letter, so to speak; I am the space for it to take form in, I guess. I'm in the background? I can't exactly put words to it.

I see things differently but the same. I'm not in it anymore but still see it. The feelings come up, I still feel but there is nothing invested. Invested is the wrong word. I am not identified with what's happening around me and I am not identified with the timeless nature that the things around me are happening in either. I am that timeless nature. I used to be the form and see timelessness in the background, and now I am rooted in timelessness and I see the forms. If that makes sense. This is emotional but not a problem because I'm not inside the emotion looking out, if that makes sense, the emotion is just floating by, I guess one could say. More later.

A: Okay, sounds good. Maybe you would say, you still feel but there is nothing needed. Nothing needs to happen. And so it just is.

And it's not important that any feeling about who you are stays with you during the day – whether you are identified with this or that. Your life may just feel like life, you may feel like "you" are remembering the numbers, etc. But once you've uncovered the false beliefs about this that you used to have, nothing will ever be needed, and so there is no pain, no emotional anguish or need, regardless of how you are identifying at the time.

I'm still getting the sense that you put a lot of importance on events. Even though you downplayed your amazement at the incident with the little girl, it still feels to me like you are in love with it. It's okay, but notice that no specialness needs to happen in your life. Nothing is needed, no incident that makes you feel special is needed.

Good job. Let me know when you need more help.

Q: You said, “I'm still getting the sense that you put a lot of importance on events.”

I got that sense also, last night, when I reread the email I sent you. Not just that incident – incidents in general, things that point to “that.” I felt like I exaggerated or brought attention to the things that point at “that.” 

I still feel shifted this morning. That fact is not being validated or verified moment to moment. Nothing needs to happen, that's correct.

What I can say for sure is that I was a human being looking to be timeless. Right now I am timeless playing the part of a human being. That may be right or wrong, up or down, here or there. Ni motta, as my mom would say – “no matter.” I suppose that there are synapses to close down and habits to break. The bottom line is I'll hang with what is and keep you posted. Thanks for your insight.

A: You're welcome.

>I felt like I exaggerated or brought attention to the things that point at “that.”

There is nothing about phenomena that points to “that.” Phenomena are meaningless. Any meaning you assign to a “special” incident where it appears that barriers between people have vanished, or whatever, is just something you glorify in your own mind. It doesn't show anything at all about “that.” It's a nice story that you like (or used to like, I guess).

Let me know how it goes.

Q: >It's a nice story that you like (or used to like, I guess).

At this point I'm guessing as well. I was staring at the stars last night and it was an Important Event. It was significant, or there was significance. The idea has come up once or twice in the last few days; may be another of Franco's mind games.

A: Don't connect the dots. Nothing means anything else. 

Q: Stars are just stars. Got it. Kinda makes past and future disappear. Eliminates the time line. Keeps one present rather than extrapolating into the future and analyzing the past. Cool got it thanks.

A: Yep! No time line.

A week later:

Q: I spent the week looking at “nothing means anything.” It's become obvious that things or events mean something for me. Not many events, not many things, but enough to keep me in the loop. Even the game of nothing means everything eventually will mean something.

There is a feeling/sense at the bottom of all this that keeps coming up. The sense that if I completely let go, that I won't get the few things I want. There is this sense that life could take me somewhere “me” doesn't want to go, or to put it another way, that life will not take me where I want to go.

Then I say, where is the “me”? What is the “me” that wants these things.

My question is, to totally dis-identify with this “me” that wants this or that, was there a sort of “leap of faith” for you? There are two or three things that this “me” lives for. If I drop these things and really just totally let go (because I haven't), is that the process of dis-identifying?

You mentioned a long time ago that the realization that one doesn’t do/control/create anything is brutal at first. I remember the feeling of loss. I wonder if I am afraid of the loss associated with giving up on these last few holdouts. For instance, when I think of living in this house, in this town, in this weather for the rest of my life, I get like short of breath, I panic. If I really could be what I am, then that would be irrelevant, I guess (I'm hoping)?

Hey don't blow me off yet – thanks. 

A: You can't live in that town for the rest of your life. You can only live there right now. This is key. This is the key to all of it. It's not that you need to "be who you are," just be now, which is the only time there is. Where's the panic now? 

I didn't have to take any leap of faith to let go of something because I hated all of it. It was good riddance to bad rubbish. I didn't want anything this “me” could conceive of. I hated all of it. So I don't know. I think if you're just done with it, there is no leap. I had no shred or trace left of thinking I had any good plan for where I wanted to go, or what I wanted to be, so there was nothing to fear losing. 

So now I just live now, and I don't compare now to anything in memory. I just live it fresh. It's much better. 

Q: >I didn't want anything this “me” could conceive of. I hated all of it.

That’s a great way to say it. I can't think of one plan, no matter how “successful” it turned out initially, that hasn't left me flat. 

Seeing that, I also see there has been this blind commitment to the conceiver/planner, a go-down-with-the-ship attitude, an idea that the planner will get it right someday – so just hang in there. It's the same plot over and over. 

So this week I'll notice the planning/conceiving and opt for the now.

A: That sounds like a plan!

Q: Took a second – Chuckle chuckle ha ha!

A: :-)

A couple of weeks later:

Q: This last couple of weeks the future has seemed to fall away. It's fallen away with no consequences noted by its absence. Actually it took me by surprise, as I didn't notice that it had mostly fallen away until I thought about it. 

I have noticed that there is a lot of past, though. My reactions and behavior are programmed, it seems. When I look at that, there are lots of mechanisms that have stored the programming. Brain habits and even DNA I think. They all work together to project/solidify the idea of this "Self Image" where there is none – ??

So when this chunk of behavior expresses itself, I look and see it, and sometimes laugh and say “nonsense behavior – that's programmed.” I replace it with – I guess – space, nothing. But then I noticed by doing that I still was playing the “exerting control” game. Yes, it was programmed behavior, but I replaced it with “better” programming??  

You said, “Notice when you think you are controlling something, and see if you really are. I would talk you through this, but it's really better if you just do it yourself. Am I controlling this?”

I notice I am not controlling this behavior – I am not controlling the “replacing it with space” – then I am not controlling the questioner that says, “Am I controlling this?” Click! – it's all moot, irrelevant.

So by asking Am I controlling this, and seeing that there is controlling of the controlling going on, and then seeing there is no control at all, then analyzing what is happening in real time – I am left with zilch??

The programming doesn't need changing – it's programming – on this planet programming programs ????

This note makes sense to me. There were some cognitions as I wrote. It hopefully makes sense to you?

A: Sounds good to me, Franco. Good job.

Q: You said, “You're wanting to literally break down synaptic pathways in your brain.”

So there are no synaptic pathways to break down, really. So it's over. Try as I may there's nothing to say, I can't think of anything meaningful. Just dumbfounded.

A: There you go.

:-)

A few days later:

Q: Good Morning,

No questions. Just a note. What ever this is, is just cool. I thought in the end that life was this spiritual woo-woo journey thing. But it is just what it is. Right now is what it is and it rocks. That joy you spoke of floods the moment. Shit happens but there is joy there, too. It is almost unexplainable.

There is this authentic something that accompanies each and every event, that permeates the event. It's lighter than air. Things don't become “deeper” and more “spiritual” – it is all light as a feather. I remember thinking that after I solved the secret of life, this and that would be the result – I would kick the dog less, I would be a better man, etc. One thing has nothing to do with the other. I may kick the dog, I am not a better man. Nothing changes but there is this wisp of, I can't tell you what, that saturates everything. And it just is, that's the joyful part. I can't explain, well maybe to you I can, and so I really thank you for your patience your persistence. Jeez, thanks a lot.

Love, Franco

A: Beautifully stated, Franco. Just wonderful. I'm so happy for you. It was a pleasure to work with you.