One of the ways I thought maybe just to say we know it's July 4th and we know that the

word that gets around in these circles is its interdependence day as you might know.

And so tonight's talk is on, it is on the freedom that's possible when we realize our belonging

to what's larger than our habitual notion of self.

And that is a continued exploration from our last class.

And I'm looking around and I think there's some of you that might have been around when

there were answering machines, right?

So one of my friends had an answer machine and you'd call and it would say, what I want

to know is who are you?

And what do you want?

And I got in the habit of when he wasn't there and I got that message of saying, okay,

this is the universe telling me to just actually ponder those questions, who am I?

What do I want?

They're deep questions and we make it cut in some moments that the who am I and immediately

go into a narrative of roles or the qualities that we don't like or habits, fears, wants.

And we might ask that question, I go to a very deep place of who am I?

I don't know, it's a mystery.

But there's something very sacred and universal that's living through this body, mind.

You know, there's a whole, and there's degrees in between.

What do I want?

You know, we might have some pre-packaged formula of our life aspiration.

We might really stop and check in and sense what matters.

...