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19 - HOW HAPPINESS HAPPENS  -  Part II
Reply #30 - 24.10.2002 at 20:09:10
 
There's a lovely saying of Tranxu, a great Chinese sage, that I took the
trouble to learn by heart.  It goes: "When the archer shoots for no
particular prize, he has all his skills; when he shoots to win a brass
buckle, he is already nervous; when he shoots for a gold prize, he goes
blind, sees two targets, and is out of his mind.  His skill has not
changed, but the prize divides him.  He cares!  He thinks more of winning
than of shooting, and the need to win drains him of power."  Isn't that an
image of what most people are?  When you're living for nothing, you've got
all your skills, you've got all your energy, you're relaxed, you don't
care, it doesn't matter whether you win or lose.

Now there's HUMAN living for you.  That's what life is all about.  That can
only come from awareness.  And in awareness you will understand that honor
doesn't mean a thing.  It's a social convention, that's all.  That's why
the mystics and the prophets didn't bother one bit about it.  Honor or
disgrace meant nothing to them.  They were living in another world, in the
world of the awakened.  Success or failure meant nothing to them.  They had
the attitude: "I'm an ass, you're an ass, so where's the problem?"

Someone once said, "The three most difficult things for a human being are
not physical feats or intellectual achievements.  They are, first,
returning love for hate; second, including the excluded; third, admitting
that you are wrong."  But these are the easiest things in the world if you
haven't identified with the "me."  You can say things like "I'm wrong!  If
you knew me better, you'd see how often I'm wrong.  What would you expect
from an ass?"  But if I haven't identified with these aspects of "me," you
can't hurt me.  Initially, the old conditioning will kick in and you'll be
depressed and anxious.  You'll grieve, cry, and so on.  "Before
enlightenment, I used to be depressed: after enlightenment, 1 continue to
be depressed."  But there's a difference: I don't identify with it
anymore.  Do you know what a big difference that is?

You step outside of yourself and look at that depression, and don't
identify with it.  You don't do a thing to make it go away; you are
perfectly willing to go on with your life while it passes through you and
disappears.  If you don't know what that means, you really have something
to look forward to.  And anxiety?  There it comes and you're not
troubled.  How strange!  You're anxious but you're not troubled.

Isn't that a paradox?  And you're willing to let this cloud come in,
because the more you fight it, the more power you give it.  You're willing
to observe it as it passes by.  You can be happy in your anxiety.  Isn't
that crazy?  You can be happy in your depression.  But you can't have the
wrong notion of happiness.  Did you think happiness was excitement or
thrills?  That's what causes the depression.  Didn't anyone tell you
that?  You're thrilled, all right, but you're just preparing the way for
your next depression.  You're thrilled but you pick up the anxiety behind
that: How can I make it last?  That's not happiness, that's addiction.

I wonder how many non-addicts there are reading this book?  If you're
anything like the average group, there are few, very few.  Don't look down
your nose at the alcoholics and the drug addicts: maybe you're just as
addicted as they are.  The first time I got a glimpse of this new world, it
was terrifying.  I understood what it meant to be alone, with nowhere to
rest your head, to leave everyone free and be free yourself, to be special
to no one and love everyone- because love does that.  It shines on good and
bad alike; it makes rain fall on saints and sinners alike.

Is it possible for the rose to say, "I will give my fragrance to the good
people who smell me, but I will withhold it from the bad"?  Or is it
possible for the lamp to say, "I will give my light to the good people in
this room, but I will withhold it from the evil people"?  Or can a tree
say, "I'll give my shade to the good people who rest under me, but I will
withhold it from the bad"?  These are images of what love is about.
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Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right. (neznan(a)
 
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19 - HOW HAPPINESS HAPPENS  -  Part III
Reply #31 - 24.10.2002 at 20:10:21
 
It's been there all along, staring us in the face in the scriptures, though
we never cared to see it because we were so drowned in what our culture
calls love with its love songs and poems -- that isn't love at all, that's
the opposite of love.  That's desire and control and
possessiveness.  That's manipulation, and fear, and anxiety -- that's not
love.  We were told that happiness is a smooth complexion, a holiday
resort.  It isn't these things, but we have subtle ways of making our
happiness depend on other things, both within us and outside us.  We say,
"I refuse to be happy until my neurosis goes."  I have good news for you:
You can be happy right now, WITH the neurosis, You want even better
news?  There's only one reason why you're not experiencing what in India we
call ANAND -- bliss, bliss.  There's only one reason why you're not
experiencing bliss at this present moment, and it's because you're thinking
or focusing on what you don't have.  Otherwise you would be experiencing
bliss.  You're focusing on what you don't have.  But, right now you have
everything you need to be in bliss.

Jesus was talking horse sense to lay people, to starving people, to poor
people.  He was telling them good news: It's yours for the taking.  But who
listens?  No one's interested, they'd rather be asleep.
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Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right. (neznan(a)
 
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20 - FEAR - THE ROOT OF VIOLENCE
Reply #32 - 24.10.2002 at 20:11:07
 
Some say that there are only two things in the world: God and fear; love
and fear are the only two things.  There's only one evil in the world,
fear.  There's only one good in the world, love.  It's sometimes called by
other names.  It's sometimes called happiness or freedom or peace or joy or
God or whatever.  But the label doesn't really matter.  And there's not a
single evil in the world that you cannot trace to fear.  Not one.

Ignorance and fear, ignorance caused by fear, that's where all the evil
comes from, that's where your violence comes from.  The person who is truly
nonviolent, who is incapable of violence, is the person who is
fearless.  It's only when you're afraid that you become angry.  Think of
the last time you were angry.  Go ahead.  Think of the last time you were
angry and search for the fear behind it.  What were you afraid of
losing?  What were you afraid would be taken from you?  That's where the
anger comes from.  Think of an angry person, maybe someone you're afraid
of.  Can you see how frightened he or she is?  He's really frightened, he
really is.  She's really frightened or she wouldn't be angry.  Ultimately,
there are only two things, love and fear.

In this retreat I'd rather leave it like this, unstructured and moving from
one thing to another and returning to themes again and again, because
that's the way to really grasp what I'm saying.  If it doesn't hit you the
first time, it might the second time, and what doesn't hit one person might
hit another.  I've got different themes, but they are all about the same
thing.  Call it awareness, call it love, call it spirituality or freedom or
awakening or whatever.  It really is the same thing.
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Knowing what's right doesn't mean much unless you do what's right. (neznan(a)
 
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21 - AWARENESS AND CONTACT WITH REALITY
Reply #33 - 24.10.2002 at 20:11:47
 
To watch everything inside of you and outside, and when there is something
happening to you, to see it as if it were happening to someone else, with
no comment, no judgment, no attitude, no interference, no attempt to
change, only to understand.  As you do this, you'll begin to realize that
increasingly you are disidentifying from "me."  St.  Teresa of Avila says
that toward the end of her life God gave her an extraordinary grace.  She
doesn't use this modern expression, of course, but what it really boils
down to is disidentifying from her self.  If someone else has cancer and I
don't know the person, I'm not all that affected.  If I had love and
sensitivity, maybe I'd help, but I'm not emotionally affected.  If YOU have
an examination to take, I'm not all that affected.  I can be quite
philosophical about it and say, "Well, the more you worry about it, the
worse it'll get.  Why not just take a good break instead of studying?"  But
when it's my turn to have an examination, well, that's something else,
isn't it?  The reason is that I've identified with "me"-with my family, my
country, my possessions, my body, me.  How would it be if God gave me grace
not to call these things mine?  I'd be detached; I'd be
disidentified.  That's what it means to lose the self, to deny the self, to
die to self.
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22 - GOOD RELIGION - THE ANTITHESIS ...  -  Part I
Reply #34 - 24.10.2002 at 20:16:25
 
22 - GOOD RELIGION -- THE ANTITHESIS OF UNAWARENESS

Somebody came up to me once during a conference and asked, "What about 'Our
Lady of Fatima'?"  What do you think of her?  When I am asked questions
like that, I am reminded of the story of the time they were taking the
statue of Our Lady of Fatima on an airplane to a pilgrimage for worship,
and as they were flying over the South of France the plane began to wobble
and to shake and it looked like it was going to come apart.  And the
miraculous statue cried out, "Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us!"  And all
was well.  Wasn't it wonderful, one "Our Lady" helping another "Our Lady"?

There was also a group of a thousand people who went on a pilgrimage to
Mexico City to venerate the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe and sat down
before the statue in protest because the Bishop of the Diocese had declared
"Our Lady of Lourdes" patroness of the diocese!  They were sure that Our
Lady of Guadalupe felt this very much, so they were doing the protest in
REPARATION for the offense.  That's the trouble with religion, if you don't
watch out.

When I speak to Hindus, I tell them, "Your priests are not going to be
happy to hear this" (notice how prudent I am this morning), "but God would
be much happier, according to Jesus Christ, if you were transformed than if
you worshipped.  He would be much more pleased by your loving than by your
adoration."  And when I talk to Moslems, I say, "Your Ayatollah and your
mullahs are not going to be happy to hear this, but God is going to be much
more pleased by your being transformed into a loving person than by saying,
"Lord, Lord."  It's infinitely more important that you be waking
up.  That's spirituality, that's everything.  If you have that, you have
God.  Then you worship "in spirit and in truth."  When you become love,
when you are transformed into love.  The danger of what religion can do is
very nicely brought out in a story told by Cardinal Martini, the Archbishop
of Milan.  The story has to do with an Italian couple that's getting
married.  They have an arrangement with the parish priest to have a little
reception in the parish courtyard outside the church.  But it rained, and
they couldn't have the reception, so they said to the priest, "Would it be
all right if we had the celebration in the church?"

Now Father wasn't one bit happy about having a reception in the church, but
they said, "We will eat a little cake, sing a little song, drink a little
wine, and then go home."  So Father was persuaded.  But being good
life-loving Italians they drank a little wine, sang a little song, then
drank a little more wine, and sang some more songs, and within a half hour
there was a great celebration going on in the church.  And everybody was
having a great time, lots of fun and frolic.  But Father was all tense,
pacing up and down in the sacristy, all upset about the noise they were
making.  The assistant pastor comes in and says, "I see you are quite tense."

"Of course, I'm tense.  Listen to all the noise they are making, and in the
House of God!, for heaven's sake!"

"Well, Father, they really had no place to go."

"I know that!  But do they have to make all that racket?"

"Well, we mustn't forget, must we, Father, that Jesus himself was once
present at a wedding!"

Father says, "I know Jesus Christ was present at a wedding banquet, YOU
don't have to tell me Jesus Christ was present at a wedding banquet!  But
they didn't have the Blessed Sacrament there!!!"

You know there are times like that when the Blessed Sacrament becomes more
important than Jesus Christ.  When worship becomes more important than
love, when the Church becomes more important than life.  When God becomes
more important than the neighbor.  And so it goes on.  That's the
danger.  To my mind this is what Jesus was evidently calling us to -- first
things first!  The human being is much more important than the
Sabbath..  Doing what I tell you, namely, becoming what I am indicating to
you, is much more important than Lord, Lord.  But your mullah is not going
to be happy to hear that, I assure you.  Your priests are not going to be
happy to hear that.  Not generally.  So that's what we have been talking
about.  Spirituality.  Waking up.  And as I told you, it is extremely
important if you want to wake up to go in for what I call "self
observation."  Be aware of what you're saying, be aware of what you're
doing, be aware of what you're thinking, be aware of how you're acting.  Be
aware of where you're coming from, what your motives are.  The unaware life
is not worth living.
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22 - GOOD RELIGION - THE ANTITHESIS ... - Part II
Reply #35 - 24.10.2002 at 20:17:45
 
The unaware life is a mechanical life.  It's not human, it's programmed,
conditioned.  We might as well be a stone, a block of wood.  In the country
where I come from, you have hundreds of thousands of people living in
little hovels, in extreme poverty, who just manage to survive, working all
day long, hard manual work, sleep and then wake up in the morning, eat
something, and start all over again.  And you sit back and think, "What a
life."  "Is that all that life holds in store for them?"  And then you're
suddenly jolted into the realization that 99.999% of people here are not
much better.  You can go to the movies, drive around in a car, you can go
for a cruise.  Do you think you are much better off than they are?  You are
just as dead as they are.  Just as much a machine as they are -- a slightly
bigger one, but a machine nevertheless.  That's sad.  It's sad to think
that people go through life like this.

People go through life with fixed ideas; they never change.  They're just
not aware of what's going on.  They might as well be a block of wood, or a
rock, a talking, walking, thinking machine.  That's not human.  They are
puppets, jerked around by all kinds of things.  Press a button and you get
a reaction.  You can almost predict how this person is going to react.  If
I study a person, I can tell you just how he or she is going to
react.  With my therapy group, sometimes I write on a piece of paper that
so-and-so is going to start the session and so-and-so will reply.  Do you
think that's bad?  Well, don't listen to people who say to you, "Forget
yourself!  Go out in love to others."  Don't listen to them!  They're all
wrong.  The worst thing you can do is forget yourself when you go out to
others in the so called helping attitude.

This was brought home to me very forcibly many years ago when I did my
studies in psychology in Chicago.  We had a course in counseling for
priests.  It was open only to priests who were actually engaged in
counseling and who agreed to bring a taped session to class.  There must
have been about twenty of us.  When it was my turn, I brought a cassette
with an interview I had had with a young woman.  The instructor put it in a
recorder and we all began to listen to it.  After five minutes, as was his
custom, the instructor stopped the tape and asked, "Any comments?" Someone
said to me, "Why did you ask her that question?"  I said, "I'm not aware
that I asked her a question.  As a matter of fact, I'm quite sure I did not
ask any questions."  He said, "You did."  I was quite sure because at that
time I was consciously following the method of Carl Rogers, which is
person-oriented and non directive.  You don't ask questions and you don't
interrupt or give advice.  So I was very aware that I mustn't ask
questions.  Anyway, there was a dispute between us, so the instructor said,
"Why don't we play the tape again?"  So we played it again and there, to my
horror, was a whopping big question, as tall as the Empire State Building,
a huge question.  The interesting thing to me was that I had heard that
question three times, the first time, presumably, when I asked it, the
second time when I listened to the tape in my room (because I wanted to
take a good tape to class), and the third time when I heard it in the
classroom.  But it hadn't registered!  I wasn't aware.

That happens frequently in my therapy sessions or in my spiritual
direction.  We tape-record the interview, and when the client listens to
it, he or she says, "You know, I didn't really hear what you said during
the interview.  I only heard what you said when I listened to the
tape."  More interestingly, I didn't hear what I said during the
interview.  It's shocking to discover that I'm saying things in a therapy
session that I'm not aware of.  The full import of them only dawns on me
later.  Do you call that human?  "Forget yourself and go out to others,"
you say!  Anyhow, after we listened to the whole tape there in Chicago, the
instructor said, "Are there any comments?"  One of the priests, a fifty
year old man to whom I had taken a liking, said to me, "Tony, I'd like to
ask you a personal question.  Would that be all right?" I said, "Yes, go
ahead.  If I don't want to answer it, I won't."  He said, "Is this woman in
the interview pretty?"

You know, honest to goodness, I was at a stage of my development (or
undevelopment) where I didn't notice if someone was good-looking or
not.  It didn't matter to me.  She was a sheep of Christ's flock; I was a
pastor.  I dispensed help.  Isn't that great!  It was the way we were
trained.  So I said to him, "What's that got to do with it?"  He said,
"Because you don't like her, do you?" I said, "What?!"
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22 - GOOD RELIGION - THE ANTITHESIS ... - Part III
Reply #36 - 24.10.2002 at 20:24:56
 
It hadn't ever struck me that I liked or disliked individuals.  Like most
people, I had an occasional dislike that would register in consciousness,
but my attitude was mostly neutral.  I asked, "What makes you say
that?"  He said, "The tape."  We went through the tape again, and he said,
"Listen to your voice.  Notice how sweet it has become.  You're irritated,
aren't you?"  I was, and I was only becoming aware of it right there.  And
what was I saying to her non-directively?  I was saying, "Don't come
back."  But I wasn't aware of that.  My priest friend said, "She's a
woman.  She will have picked this up.  When are you supposed to meet her
next?"  I said, "Next Wednesday."  He said, "My guess is she won't come
back."  She didn't.  I waited one week but she didn't come.  I waited
another week and she didn't come.  Then I called her.  I broke one of my
rules: Don't be the rescuer.

I called her and said to her, "Remember that tape you allowed me to make
for the class?  It was a great help because the class pointed out all kinds
of things to me" (I didn't tell her what!) "that would make the session
somewhat more effective.  So if you care to come back, that would make it
more effective."  She said, "All right, I'll come back."  She did.  The
dislike was still there.  It hadn't gone away, but it wasn't getting in the
way.  What you are aware of you are in control of; what you are not aware
of is in control of you.  You are always a slave to what you're not aware
of.  When you're aware of it, you're free from it.  It's there, but you're
not affected by it.  You're not controlled by it; you're not enslaved by
it.  That's the difference.

Awareness, awareness, awareness, awareness.  What they trained us to do in
that course was to become participant observers.  To put it somewhat
graphically, I'd be talking to you and at the same time I'd be out there
watching you and watching me.  When I'm listening to you, it's infinitely
more important for me to listen to me than to listen to you.  Of course,
it's important to listen to you, but it's more important that I listen to
me.  Otherwise I won't be hearing you.  Or I'll be distorting everything
you say.  I'll be coming at you from my own conditioning.  I'll be reacting
to you in all kinds of ways from my insecurities, from my need to
manipulate you, from my desire to succeed, from irritations and feelings
that I might not be aware of.  So it's frightfully important that I listen
to me when I'm listening to you.  That's what they were training us to do,
obtaining awareness.

You don't always have to imagine yourself hovering somewhere in the
air.  Just to get a rough idea of what I'm talking about, imagine a good
driver, driving a car, who's concentrating on what you're saying.  In fact,
he may even be having an argument with you, but he's perfectly aware of the
road signals.  The moment anything untoward happens, the moment there's any
sound, or noise, or bump, he'll hear it at once.  He'll say, "Are you sure
you closed that door back there?"  How did he do that?  He was aware, he
was alert.  The focus of his attention was on the conversation, or
argument, but his awareness was more diffused.  He was taking in all kinds
of things.

What I'm advocating here is not concentration.  That's not important.  Many
meditative techniques inculcate concentration, but I'm leery of that.  They
involve violence and frequently they involve further programming and
conditioning.  What I would advocate is awareness, which is not the same as
concentration at all.  Concentration is a spotlight.  You can be distracted
from that, but when you're practicing awareness, you're never distracted.
Awareness is a floodlight.  You're open to anything that comes within the
scope of your consciousness.  When awareness is turned on, there's never
any distraction, because you're always aware of whatever happens to be.
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22 - GOOD RELIGION - THE ANTITHESIS ... - Part IV
Reply #37 - 24.10.2002 at 20:26:18
 
Say I'm looking at those trees and I'm worrying.  Am I distracted?  I am
distracted only if I mean to concentrate on the trees.  But if I'm aware
that I'm worried, too, that isn't a distraction at all.  Just be aware of
where your attention goes.  When anything goes awry or anything untoward
happens, you'll be alerted at once.  Something's going wrong!  The moment
any negative feeling comes into consciousness, you'll be alerted.  You're
like the driver of the car.

I told you that St.  Teresa of Avila said God gave her the grace of
disidentifying herself with herself.  You hear children talk that way.  A
two-year-old says, "Tommy had his breakfast this morning."  He doesn't say
"I," although he is Tommy.  He says "Tommy" -- in the third
person.  Mystics feel that way.  They have disidentified from themselves
and they are at peace.

This was the grace St. Teresa was talking about.  This is the "I" that the
mystic masters of the East are constantly urging people to discover.  And
those of the West, too!  And you can count Meister Eckhart among
them.  They are urging people to discover the "I."
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23 - LABELS
Reply #38 - 24.10.2002 at 20:27:28
 
The important thing is not to know who "I" is or what "I" is.  You'll never
succeed.  There are no words for it.  The important thing is to drop the
labels.  As the Japanese Zen masters say, "Don't seek the truth; just drop
your opinions."  Drop your theories; don't seek the truth.  Truth isn't
something you search for.  If you stop being opinionated, you would
know.  Something similar happens here.  If you dropped your labels, you
would know.  What do I mean by labels?  Every label you can conceive of
except perhaps that of human being.  I am a human being.  Fair enough;
doesn't say very much.  But when you say, "I am successful," that's
crazy.  Success is not part of the "I."  Success is something that comes
and goes; it could be here today and gone tomorrow.  That's not "I."  When
you said, "I was a success," you were in error; you were plunged into
darkness.  You identified yourself with success.  The same thing when you
said, "I am a failure, a lawyer, a businessman."  You know what's going to
happen to you if you identify yourself with these things.  You're going to
cling to them, you're going to be worried that they may fall apart, and
that's where your suffering comes in.  That is what I meant earlier when I
said to you, "If you're suffering, you're asleep."  Do you want a sign that
you're asleep?  Here it is: You're suffering.  Suffering is a sign that
you're out of touch with the truth.  Suffering is given to you that you
might open your eyes to the truth, that you might understand that there's
falsehood somewhere, just as physical pain is given to you so you will
understand that there is disease or illness somewhere.  Suffering points
out that there is falsehood somewhere.  Suffering occurs when you clash
with reality.  When your illusions clash with reality, when your falsehoods
clash with truth, then you have suffering.  Otherwise there is no suffering.
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24 - OBSTACLES TO HAPPINESS  -  Part I
Reply #39 - 24.10.2002 at 20:30:15
 
What I'm about to say will sound a bit pompous, but it's true.  What is
coming could be the most important minutes in your lives.  If you could
grasp this, you'd hit upon the secret of awakening.  You would be happy
forever.  You would never be unhappy again.  Nothing would have the power
to hurt you again.  I mean that, nothing.  It's like when you throw black
paint in the air, the air remains uncontaminated.  You never color the air
black.  No matter what happens to you, you remain uncontaminated.  You
remain at peace.  There are human beings who have attained this, what I
call being human.  Not this nonsense of being a puppet, jerked about this
way and that way, letting events or other people tell you how to feel.  So
you proceed to feel it and you call it being vulnerable.  Ha!  I call it
being a puppet.  So you want to be a puppet?  Press a button and you're
down; do you like that?  But if you refuse to identify with any of those
labels, most of your worries cease.

Later we'll talk about fear of disease and death, but ordinarily you're
worried about what's going to happen to your career.  A small-time
businessman, fifty-five years old, is sipping beer at a bar somewhere and
he's saying, "Well, look at my classmates, they've really made it."  The
idiot!  What does he mean, "They made it"?  They've got their names in the
newspaper.  Do you call that making it?  One is president of the
corporation; the other has become the Chief Justice; somebody else has
become this or that.  Monkeys, all of them.

Who determines what it means to be a success?  This stupid society!  The
main preoccupation of society is to keep society sick!  And the sooner you
realize that, the better.  Sick, every one of them.  They are loony,
they're crazy.  You became president of the lunatic asylum and you're proud
of it even though it means nothing.  Being president of a corporation has
nothing to do with being a success in life.  Having a lot of money has
nothing to do with being a success in life.  You're a success in life when
you wake up!  Then you don't have to apologize to anyone, you don't have to
explain anything to anyone, you don't give a damn what anybody thinks about
you or what anybody says about you.  You have no worries; you're
happy.  That's what I call being a success.  Having a good job or being
famous or having a great reputation has absolutely nothing to do with
happiness or success.  Nothing!  It is totally irrelevant.  All he's really
worried about is what his children will think about him, what the neighbors
will think about him, what his wife will think about him.  He should have
become famous.  Our society and culture drill that into our heads day and
night.  People who made it!  Made what?!  Made asses of
themselves.  Because they drained all their energy getting something that
was worthless.  They're frightened and confused, they are puppets like the
rest.  Look at them strutting across the stage.  Look how upset they get if
they have a stain on their shirt.  Do you call that a success?  Look at how
frightened they are at the prospect they might not be reelected.  Do you
call that a success?  They are controlled, so manipulated.  They are
unhappy people, they are miserable people.  They don't enjoy life.  They
are constantly tense and anxious.  Do you call that human?  And do you know
why that happens?  Only one reason: They identified with some label.  They
identified the "I" with their money or their job or their profession.  That
was their error.

Did you hear about the lawyer who was presented with a plumber's bill?  He
said to the plumber, "Hey, you're charging me two hundred dollars an
hour.  I don't make that kind of money as a lawyer."  The plumber said, "I
didn't make that kind of money when I was a lawyer either!"  You could be a
plumber or a lawyer or a business man or a priest, but that does not affect
the essential "I."  It doesn't affect you.  If I change my profession
tomorrow, it's just like changing my clothes.  I am untouched.  Are you
your clothes?  Are you your name?  Are you your profession?  Stop
identifying with them.  They come and go.
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24 - OBSTACLES TO HAPPINESS  -  Part II
Reply #40 - 24.10.2002 at 20:31:37
 
When you really understand this, no criticism can affect you.  No flattery
or praise can affect you either.  When someone says, "You're a great guy,"
what is he talking about?  He's talking about "me," he's not talking about
"I."  "I" is neither great nor small.  "I" is neither successful nor a
failure.  It is none of these labels.  These things come and go.  These
things depend on the criteria society establishes.  These things depend on
your conditioning.  These things depend on the mood of the person who
happens to be talking to you right now.  It has nothing to do with
"I."  "I" is none of these labels.  "Me" is generally selfish, foolish,
childish -- a great big ass.  So when you say, "You're an ass," I've known
it for years!  The conditioned self -- what did you expect?  I've known it
for years.  Why do you identify with him?  Silly!  That isn't "I," that's "me."

Do you want to be happy?  Uninterrupted happiness is uncaused.  True
happiness is uncaused.  You cannot make me happy.  You are not my
happiness.  You say to the awakened person, "Why are you happy?" and the
awakened person replies, "Why not?"

Happiness is our natural state.  Happiness is the natural state of little
children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and
contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture.  To acquire happiness
you don't have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired.  Does
anybody know why?  Because we have it already.  How can you acquire what
you already have?  Then why don't you experience it?  Because you've got to
drop something.  You've got to drop illusions.  You don't have to add
anything in order to be happy; you've got to drop something.  Life is easy,
life is delightful.  It's only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your
greed, your cravings.  Do you know where these things come from?  From
having identified with all kinds of labels!
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25 - FOUR STEPS TO WISDOM  -  Part I
Reply #41 - 24.10.2002 at 20:34:37
 
The first thing you need to do is get in touch with negative feelings that
you're not even aware of.  Lots of people have negative feelings they're
not aware of.  Lots of people are depressed and they're not aware they are
depressed.  It's only when they make contact with joy that they understand
how depressed they were.  You can't deal with a cancer that you haven't
detected.  You can't get rid of boll weevils on your farm if you're not
aware of their existence.  The first thing you need is awareness of your
negative feelings.  What negative feelings?  Gloominess, for
instance.  You're feeling gloomy and moody.  You feel self-hatred or
guilt.  You feel that life is pointless, that it makes no sense; you've got
hurt feelings, you're feeling nervous and tense.  Get in touch with those
feelings first.

The second step (this is a four-step program) is to understand that the
feeling is in you, not in reality.  That's such a self-evident thing, but
do you think people know it?  They don't, believe me.  They've got Ph.D.s
and are presidents of universities, but they haven't understood this.  They
didn't teach me how to live at school.  They taught me everything else.  As
one man said, "I got a pretty good education.  It took me years to get over
it."  That's what spirituality is all about, you know:
unlearning.  Unlearning all the rubbish they taught you.

Negative feelings are in you, not in reality.  So stop trying to change
reality.  That's crazy!  Stop trying to change the other person.  We spend
all our time and energy trying to change external circumstances, trying to
change our spouses, our bosses, our friends, our enemies, and everybody
else.  We don't have to change anything.  Negative feelings are in you.  No
person on earth has the power to make you unhappy.  There is no event on
earth that has the power to disturb you or hurt you.  No event, condition,
situation, or person.  Nobody told you this; they told you the
opposite.  That's why you're in the mess that you're in right now.  That is
why you're asleep.  They never told you this.  But it's self-evident.

Let's suppose that rain washes out a picnic.  Who is feeling negative?  The
rain?  Or YOU?  What's causing the negative feeling?  The rain or your
reaction?  When you bump your knee against a table, the table's fine.  It's
busy being what it was made to Be -- a table.  The pain is in your knee,
not in the table.  The mystics keep trying to tell us that reality is all
right.  Reality is not problematic.  Problems exist only in the human
mind.  We might add: in the stupid, sleeping human mind.  Reality is not
problematic.  Take away human beings from this planet and life would go on,
nature would go on in all its loveliness and violence.  Where would the
problem be?  No problem.  You created the problem.  You are the
problem.  You identified with "me" and that is the problem.  The feeling is
in you, not in reality.

The third step: Never identify with that feeling.  It has nothing to do
with the "I."  Don't define your essential self in terms of that
feeling.  Don't say, "I am depressed."  If you want to say, "It is
depressed," that's all right.  If you want to say depression is there,
that's fine; if you want to say gloominess is there, that's fine.  But not:
I am gloomy.  You're defining yourself in terms of the feeling.  That's
your illusion; that's your mistake.  There is a depression there right now,
there are hurt feelings there right now, but let it be, leave it alone.  It
will pass.  Everything passes, everything.  Your depressions and your
thrills have nothing to do with happiness.  Those are the swings of the
pendulum.  If you seek kicks or thrills, get ready for depression.  Do you
want your drug?  Get ready for the hangover.  One end of the pendulum
swings to the other.

This has nothing to do with "I"; it has nothing to do with happiness.  It
is the "me."  If you remember this, if you say it to yourself a thousand
times, if you try these three steps a thousand times, you will get it.  You
might not need to do it even three times.  I don't know; there's no rule
for it.  But do it a thousand times and you'll make the biggest discovery
in your life.  To hell with those gold mines in Alaska.  What are you going
to do with that gold?  If you're not happy, you can't live.  So you found
gold.  What does that matter?  You're a king; you're a princess.  You're
free; you don't care anymore about being accepted or rejected, that makes
no difference.  Psychologists tell us how important it is to get a sense of
belonging.  Baloney!  Why do you want to belong to anybody?  It doesn't
matter anymore.
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25 - FOUR STEPS TO WISDOM  -  Part II
Reply #42 - 24.10.2002 at 20:37:24
 
A friend of mine told me that there's an African tribe where capital
punishment consists of being ostracized.  If you were kicked out of New
York, or wherever you're residing, you wouldn't die.  How is it that the
African tribesman died?  Because he partakes of the common stupidity of
humanity.  He thinks he will not be able to live if he does not
belong.  It's very different from most people, or is it?  He's convinced he
needs to belong.  But you don't need to belong to anybody or anything or
any group.  You don't even need to be in love.  Who told you you do?  What
you need is to be free.  What you need is to love.  That's it; that's your
nature.  But what you're really telling me is that you want to be
desired.  You want to be applauded, to be attractive, to have all the
little monkeys running after you.  You're wasting your life.  WAKE UP!  You
don't need this.  You can be blissfully happy without it.

Your society is not going to be happy to hear this, because you become
terrifying when you open your eyes and understand this.  How do you control
a person like this?  He doesn't need you; he's not threatened by your
criticism; he doesn't care what you think of him or what you say about
him.  He's cut all those strings; he's not a puppet any longer.  It's
terrifying.  "So we've got to get rid of him.  He tells the truth; he has
become fearless; he has stopped being human.'' HUMAN!  Behold!  A human
being at last!  He broke out of his slavery, broke out of their prison.

No event justifies a negative feeling.  There is no situation in the world
that justifies a negative feeling.  That's what all our mystics have been
crying themselves hoarse to tell us.  But nobody listens.  The negative
feeling is in you.  In the Bhagavad-Gita, the sacred book of the Hindus,
Lord Krishna says to Arjuna, "Plunge into the heat of battle and keep your
heart at the lotus feet of the Lord."  A marvelous sentence.

You don't have to do anything to acquire happiness.  The great Meister
Eckhart said very beautifully, "God is not attained by a process of
addition to anything in the soul, but by a process of subtraction."  You
don't do anything to be free, you drop something.  Then you're free.

It reminds me of the Irish prisoner who dug a tunnel under the prison wall
and managed to escape.  He comes out right in the middle of a school
playground where little children are playing.  Of course, when he emerges
from the tunnel he can't restrain himself anymore and begins to jump up and
down, crying, "I'm free, I'm free, I'm free!  A little girl there looks at
him scornfully and says, "That's nothing.  I'm four."

The fourth step: How do you change things?  How do you change
yourselves?  There are many things you must understand here, or rather,
just one thing that can be expressed in many ways.  Imagine a patient who
goes to a doctor and tells him what he is suffering from.  The doctor says,
"Very well, I've understood your symptoms.  Do you know what I will do?  I
will prescribe a medicine for your neighbor!"  The patient replies, "Thank
you very much, Doctor, that makes me feel much better."  Isn't that
absurd?  But that's what we all do.  The person who is asleep always thinks
he'll feel better if somebody else changes.  You're suffering because you
are asleep, but you're thinking, "How wonderful life would be if somebody
else would change; how wonderful life would be if my neighbor changed, my
wife changed, my boss changed."

We always want someone else to change so that we will feel good.  But has
it ever struck you that even if your wife changes or your husband changes,
what does that do to you?  You're just as vulnerable as before; you're just
as idiotic as before; you're just as asleep as before.  You are the one who
needs to change, who needs to take medicine.  You keep insisting, "I feel
good because the world is right."  Wrong!  The world is right because I
feel good.  That's what all the mystics are saying.
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26 - ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD
Reply #43 - 24.10.2002 at 20:38:54
 
When you awaken, when you understand, when you see, the world becomes
right.  We're always bothered by the problem of evil.  There's a powerful
story about a little boy walking along the bank of a river.  He sees a
crocodile who is trapped in a net.  The crocodile says, "Would you have
pity on me and release me?  I may look ugly, but it isn't my fault, you
know.  I was made this way.  But whatever my external appearance, I have a
mother's heart.  I came this morning in search of food for my young ones
and got caught in this trap!"  So the boy says, "Ah, if I were to help you
out of that trap, you'd grab me and kill me."  The crocodile asks, "Do you
think I would do that to my benefactor and liberator?"  So the boy is
persuaded to take the net off and the crocodile grabs him.  As he is being
forced between the jaws of the crocodile, he says, "So this is what I get
for my good actions."  And the crocodile says, "Well, don't take it
personally, son, this is the way the world is, this is the law of
life."  The boy disputes this, so the crocodile says, "Do you want to ask
someone if it isn't so?"  The boy sees a bird sitting on a branch and says,
"Bird, is what the crocodile says right?"  The bird says, "The crocodile is
right.  Look at me.  I was coming home one day with food for my
fledglings.  Imagine my horror to see a snake crawling up the tree, making
straight for my nest.  I was totally helpless.  It kept devouring my young
ones, one after the other.  I kept screaming and shouting, but it was
useless.  The crocodile is right, this is the law of life, this is the way
the world is."  "See," says the crocodile.  But the boy says, "Let me ask
someone else."  So the crocodile says, "Well, all right, go ahead."  There
was an old donkey passing by on the bank of the river.  "Donkey," says the
boy, "this is what the crocodile says.  Is the crocodile right?"  The
donkey says, "The crocodile is quite right.  Look at me.  I've worked and
slaved for my master all my life and he barely gave me enough to eat.  Now
that I'm old and useless, he has turned me loose, and here I am wandering
in the jungle, waiting for some wild beast to pounce on me and put an end
to my life.  The crocodile is right, this is the law of life, this is the
way the world is."  "See," says the crocodile.  "Let's go!"  The boy says,
"Give me one more chance, one last chance.  Let me ask one other
being.  Remember how good I was to you?"  So the crocodile says, "All
right, your last chance."  The boy sees a rabbit passing by, and he says,
"Rabbit, is the crocodile right?"  The rabbit sits on his haunches and says
to the crocodile, "Did you say that to that boy?  The crocodile says, "Yes,
I did."  "Wait a minute," says the rabbit.  "We've got to discuss
this."  "Yes," says the crocodile.  But the rabbit says, "How can we
discuss it when you've got that boy in your mouth?  Release him; he's got
to take part in the discussion, too."  The crocodile says, "You're a clever
one, you are.  The moment I release him, he'll run away."  The rabbit says,
"I thought you had more sense than that.  If he attempted to run away, one
slash of your tail would kill him."  "Fair enough," says the crocodile, and
he released the boy.  The moment the boy is released, the rabbit says,
"Run!"  And the boy runs and escapes.  Then the rabbit says to the boy,
"Don't you enjoy crocodile flesh?  Wouldn't the people in your village like
a good meal?  You didn't really release that crocodile; most of his body is
still caught in that net.  Why don't you go to the village and bring
everybody and have a banquet."  That's exactly what the boy does.  He goes
to the village and calls all the men folk.  They come with their axes and
staves and spears and kill the crocodile.  The boy's dog comes, too, and
when the dog sees the rabbit, he gives chase, catches hold of the rabbit,
and throttles him.  The boy comes on the scene too late, and as he watches
the rabbit die, he says, "The crocodile was right, this is the way the
world is, this is the law of life."

There is no explanation you can give that would explain away all the
sufferings and evil and torture and destruction and hunger in the
world!  You'll never explain it.  You can try gamely with your formulas,
religious and otherwise, but you'll never explain it.  Because life is a
mystery, which means your thinking mind cannot make sense out of it.  For
that you've got to wake up and then you'll suddenly realize that reality is
not problematic, you are the problem.
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27 - SLEEPWALKING
Reply #44 - 24.10.2002 at 20:39:54
 
The scriptures are always hinting of that, but you'll never understand a
word of what the scriptures are saying until you wake up.  Sleeping people
read the scriptures and crucify the Messiah on the basis of them.  You've
got to wake up to make sense out of the scriptures.  When you do wake up,
they make sense.  So does reality.  But you'll never be able to put it into
words.  You'd rather do something?  But even there we've got to make sure
that you're not swinging into action simply to get rid of your negative
feelings.  Many people swing into action only to make things
worse.  They're not coming from love, they're coming from negative
feelings.  They're coming from guilt, anger, hate; from a sense of
injustice or whatever.  You've got to make sure of your "being" before you
swing into action.  You have to make sure of who you are before you
act.  Unfortunately, when sleeping people swing into action, they simply
substitute one cruelty for another, one injustice for another.  And so it
goes.  Meister Eckhart says, "It is not by your actions that you will be
saved" (or awakened; call it by any word you want), "but by your being.  It
is not by what you do, but by what you are that you will be judged."   What
good is it to you to feed the hungry, give the thirsty to drink, or visit
prisoners in jail?

Remember that sentence from Paul: "If I give my body to be burned and all
my goods to feed the poor and have not love .  .  ."   It's not your
actions, it's your being that counts.  Then you might swing into
action.  You might or might not.  You can't decide that until you're
awake.  Unfortunately, all the emphasis is concentrated on changing the
world and very little emphasis is given to waking up.  When you wake up,
you will know what to do or what not to do.  Some mystics are very strange,
you know.  Like Jesus, who said something like "I wasn't sent to those
people; I limit myself to what I am supposed to do right now.  Later,
maybe."  Some mystics go silent.  Mysteriously, some of them sing
songs.  Some of them are into service.  We're never sure.  They're a law
unto themselves; they know exactly what is to be done.  "Plunge into the
heat of battle and keep your heart at the lotus feet of the Lord," as I
said to you earlier.

Imagine that you're unwell and in a foul mood, and they're taking you
through some lovely countryside.  The landscape is beautiful but you're not
in the mood to see anything.  A few days later you pass the same place and
you say, "Good heavens, where was I that I didn't notice all of
this?"  Everything becomes beautiful when you change.  Or you look at the
trees and the mountains through windows that are wet with rain from a
storm, and everything looks blurred and shapeless.  You want to go right
out there and change those trees, change those mountains.  Wait a minute,
let's examine your window.  When the storm ceases and the rain stops, and
you look out the window, you say, "Well, how different everything
looks."   We see people and things not as they are, but as we are.  That is
why when two people look at something or someone, you get two different
reactions.  We see things and people not as they are, but as we are.

Remember that sentence from scripture about everything turning into good
for those who love God?  When you finally awake, you don't try to make good
things happen; they just happen.  You understand suddenly that everything
that happens to you is good.  Think of some people you're living with whom
you want to change.  You find them moody, inconsiderate, unreliable,
treacherous, or whatever.  But when you are different, they'll be
different.  That's an infallible and miraculous cure.  The day you are
different, they will become different.  And you will see them differently,
too.  Someone who seemed terrifying will now seem frightened.  Someone who
seemed rude will seem frightened.  All of a sudden, no one has the power to
hurt you anymore.  No one has the power to put pressure on you.  It's
something like this: You leave a book on the table and I pick it up and
say, "You're pressing this book on me.  I have to pick it up or not pick it
up."   People are so busy accusing everyone else, blaming everyone else,
blaming life, blaming society, blaming their neighbor.  You'll never change
that way; you'll continue in your nightmare, you'll never wake up.

Put this program into action, a thousand times: (a) identify the negative
feelings in you; (b) understand that they are in you, not in the world, not
in external reality; (c) do not see them as an essential part of "I"; these
things come and go; (d) understand that when you change, everything changes.
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