Notice, you’ve got “I” observing “me.” This is an interesting phenomenon that has never ceased to cause wonder to philosophers, mystics, scientists, psychologists, that the “I” can observe “me.” When you’re caught up in labels, you caught up with “me” not “I”. Consider, what value do these labels have, as far as the “I” is concerned? “I” is none of these things. “Me” is all of them. So when you step out of yourself and…
Confucius said, “The one who would be constant in happiness must frequently change.” If you want to live in happiness, you have to flow with life, because life is constantly flowing, life is always changing. Of course, we go through life with preferences, but when we don’t let our happiness depend on any one of them, then we’re awake. We’re moving toward wakefulness. Wakefulness, happiness, flow —call it what you wish— it is the state…
I am sometimes asked, “Is this growing in awareness, this enlightenment a gradual thing, or is it a ‘wham-mo’ type of thing?” There are some lucky people who see this in a flash. They just become aware. There are others who keep growing into it, slowly, gradually, increasingly. They begin to see things. Illusions drop away, fantasies are peeled away, and they start to get in touch with facts. There’s no general rule. There’s a…
To find the kingdom of joy is the easiest thing in the world but also the most difficult. Easy because it is all around you and within you, and all you have to do is reach out and take possession of it. Difficult because if you wish to possess the kingdom you may possess nothing else. That is, you must drop all inward leaning on any person or thing, withdrawing from them forever the power…
I’ve often said to people that the way to really live is to die. The passport to living is to imagine yourself in your grave. Imagine that you’re lying flat in your coffin and you’re dead. See the body decomposing, then the bones, then it all turning to dust. Now look at your problems from that viewpoint. Changes everything, doesn’t it? Do this for a minute or so every day and you’ll come alive. It’s…
Self- observation—watching yourself—is the most important thing of all. What is that? It is not the same as self-absorption. Self- absorption is self-preoccupation, where you’re concerned about yourself, worried about yourself. Self- observation means to watch everything in you and around you as far as possible and watch it as if it were happening to someone else. What does that last sentence mean? It means that you do not personalize what is happening to you….
The great masters tell us that the most important question in the world is: “Who am I?” Or rather: “What is ‘I’?” What is this thing I call “I”? What is this thing I call self? So, let’s try to get at it. Write down on a piece of paper any number of brief ways you would describe yourself—for example, businessman, doctor, parent, spouse, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Muslim, Black, White, anything at all, including intellectual,…
Recall the kind of feeling you have when someone praises you, when you are approved, accepted, applauded. Now contrast that with the kind of feeling that arises within you when you look at the sunset or the sunrise or Nature in general, or when you read a book or watch a movie that you thoroughly enjoy. Get the sense of this feeling and contrast it with the first, namely, the one that was generated within…
Are you listening, as most people do, in order to confirm what you already think? Or are you listening in order to discover something new? That is important. It really doesn’t matter whether you agree with what I’m saying or you don’t. Agreement and disagreement have to do with words and concepts and theories. They don’t have anything to do with truth. Truth is never expressed in words. Truth is sighted suddenly, as a result…
Bring to mind someone towards who you hold negative feelings. Consider that you are, quite conceivably, in the presence of someone who is poor, homeless, crippled, blind or lame, metaphorically if not literally. Open to the possibility that this person is going to reveal yourself to you through a series of revelations that will bring you closer to your true nature, opening your heart wider. The first revelation. As you observe yourself reacting negatively, ask…
