I didn't like being human. I wanted to go back to being an ape. I stood up and shared it. Everybody laughed and applauded. Jason grinned proudly. "You see what happened. You went back into your judgments, your attitudes and opinions-and it automatically separated you from the rest of your family. So, what's more real: the experience of the monkey colony or the judgment about this group of human beings?"

"They're both real," I said. "Aren't they?"

"Inside your head, yes," he said. "But one is experience and one is the story you made up about your experience. Which gave you the most satisfaction?"

"The experience."

"Right. Judgments and beliefs do not produce satisfaction. So, I want you to notice, Jim, that what we are here is a colony of monkeys who have invented language and technology and a whole bunch of other stuff, including judgments and beliefs. Now, we have the choice to stay true to our experience or get lost in the machinery of our inventions. What do you want to do?"

"I think I'll be a monkey." I jumped up and down and scratched my side and made grunty noises through my nose to emphasize the point.

Jason laughed and led the applause. I sat down, satisfied. "That's perfect," he said. "That's a perfect example of the point I want to make here. Experience produces transformation. Look at Jim's face. He's not the same person. See the aliveness there? The self that is home is now more available to us." They cheered and applauded and I felt good.

"That's a transformation, Jim-and you can feel it, can't you?" I nodded enthusiastically.

"So, you see: the experience of yourself playing, creating yourself-that's the experience of yourself as cause. You have each of you now experienced yourself as the source of your own experience. That experience of source is that source of transformation. Is there anyone who doesn't get that? Because we need to talk about transformation, and until you are clear about the source of it, we can't go on.

"So, here's the abstract. Experience of self as source produces transformation. That's how you can create your own transformations all day long. When you are the source of the experiences you create, you are the source of your transformation, and you can create any transformations you want.

"Now. Let's talk about creation for a moment. Is there any way to control creation? In one sense, no. You can't start it. You can't stop it. You are always creating-until you stop. And when you stop, you also stop doing everything else too. We have a technical term for someone who has stopped creating. We call him a corpse.

"But what you do have control over is what you create. You can create joy and enthusiasm every bit as easily as you create misery and despair. But most of you are experts in misery and despair and you've made it up that joy and enthusiasm are beyond your reach. Something has to happen outside you before you can have joy and enthusiasm. You say that, so you can be happy being miserable and depressed.

"Listen," Jason said. He was totally alive and on fire now, "You are creating even when you don't know it-and that's unconscious creation, and that's creation that's separated from source. Get to your source and transformation follows naturally. It is a natural condition. It's the natural function of experience, to transform, transform, transform-and that's how you live at the extraordinary level.

"Look, people: I'm talking about the quality of your lives. You can be like the unawakened-the people out there-or you can be like gods. Gods are responsible. Gods are sources. When you forget who you are, you know what happens? You sink. You stop transforming. You go southward!" He pointed down. "Toward anger, grief, and despair, right?"

"Right!" we cheered back.

"And when you're being responsible for what you create, you will transform yourself upward-toward joy. Right?"

"Right!" we screamed joyously.

"That's all there is," Jason said. "Joy and despair. And all the stations in between. You're either headed toward one or the other. You're either creating your life, or destroying it. So which do you want to do?"

"Create it!" we whooped and hollered.

He held up his hands to stop us. "Great," he said. "I got it!" We applauded and yelled and made monkey noises in appreciation.

"Enough!" Jason screamed. He was laughing too. "I got it, I got it!"

We calmed down.

"All right. Now, we're getting to the punch line." "Yay, punch lines!" someone called.

"We need to have a conversation about creation here. We've all just said that we want to create our lives, right? We want to create joyousness? Well, why?"

I raised my hand. "Because it feels better."

Everybody laughed. Jason said, "Yes, it does, Jim, but that's not all of it. You see, joy and despair are not just feelings. If this was all about our feelings, then we'd be nothing more than the victims of our own feelings. We'd do anything just to feel good. And in fact, a lot of people out there-in what we call the 'real world' . . ." Laughter at this. ". . . function in exactly that way. They do whatever they have to just to feel good. They use their feelings to justify a lot of very selfish and shortsighted actions-like drugs for instance.

"Let me give you the bad news. Your feelings are not really feelings. That's just the way you experience them. Your feelings are really the points on your spiritual compass. Do you know that?

"There's a condition-we'll call it absolute truth. We can experience it as human beings. We can't always comprehend it. In fact, we can't ever comprehend it. But we can experience it. Now: what's the word for absolute truth? Anyone?"

"God," said Frankepstein quietly.

"That's right. God is truth. I'll give you a very simple piece of logic. It doesn't matter if there is a God or not, by the way. If there is a God, then God would be absolute truth, wouldn't she? Right. And if there is an absolute truth anywhere in the universe then it would be congruent with God. We would experience it as God, wouldn't we? So when we have an experience of absolute truth, it's also an experience of God, isn't it?"

I found myself nodding in agreement. It all made perfect sense to me.

Jason went on. "And whether God exists or not doesn't matter, because in that moment, in our own experience, we are creating God, aren't we?"

122DAVID GERROLD

I picked my jaw up and kept on listening. This was important. "Such an experience-the experience of God, of absolute truth-would be the most joyous experience possible, wouldn't it?"

Yes, of course.

"So, you see, your feelings, your emotions, are your barometer of your relationship with God, or with the truth. Whatever word you want to use is fine. This isn't a religion. It's a discovery. You choose how you want to experience it. You're the source of your own experience, aren't you?"

Right.

"So, when you are creating joy, you are moving yourself closer to God-closer to the truth. The more joyous you get, the more truth you are creating."

People were cheering now. I wanted to cheer. I started cheering.

"And that," Jason finished with a flourish, "is why we celebrate the Revelation! Truth is the source of joyousness. Joyousness tells us when we are getting close. Despair tells us when we are moving away. Despair is the result of a lie. It is the acknowledgment of the lie. Find the lie. Acknowledge it. Tell the truth about it. It may be confronting. It may be uncomfortable, but remember: the truth is always uncomfortable. Never mind! Tell it anyway-on the other side of the discomfort is the joy. Most of us are so afraid of being uncomfortable that we pile lie on top of lie and we can't understand why we just get more and more uncomfortable.

"Bite the goddamn bullet and tell the truth! The more truth you tell, the more joy you'll experience. The more joy you have, the closer to truth you are. We move to truth and we create ecstasy! That is the Revelation! That is the Revelation!"