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AWARENESS. The Key to Living in Balance

OSHO
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http://www.librodot.com
Foreword

One of the most important things to understand about man is that man is asleep. Even when
you think you are awake, you are not. Your waking state is very fragile; his waking state is so insignificant
as to be completely unimportant. His vigil is just a nice word, but totally empty.

One sleeps at night, one sleeps during the day... from birth to death, one changes one's sleeping
patterns; but he never really wakes up. Just because you have opened your eyes, don't fool yourself into
thinking you are awake. Unless your inner eyes are opened, unless your insides are filled with light,
unless you can see yourself, see who you are... do not believe that you are awake. That is the greatest
illusion in which man lives. And if one convinces oneself that one is truly awakened, then there is no
point in making any effort to awaken.

The first thing you should impress upon your heart is that you are asleep, completely asleep.
You are dreaming, one day after another. Sometimes you dream with your eyes open and other times
with your eyes closed, but you are dreaming... you yourself are a dream.
You are not a reality yet.
Of course, anything you do in a dream is meaningless. Whatever you think is insubstantial;
Whatever you project will remain part of your dreams and will never allow you to see reality. That is why
all the Buddhas have insisted on one thing: Wake up! Continuously, throughout the centuries, all his
teachings can be summarized in a single phrase: you must wake up. And to do this they have devised
methods, strategies, they have created contexts and spaces and energy fields in which a shock can
make you wake up.

Yes, unless you have a shock that shakes you up and down, you won't wake up. The dream
has lasted so long that it has reached the very center of your being; You are soaked in it. Every cell in
your body and every fiber in your mind has been filled with sleep. It is not a small phenomenon. That is
why it takes a great effort to remain alert, attentive, vigilant.
To become a witness.
If there is one point on which all the Buddhas of the world agree, it is this: That man, as he is, is
asleep and should awaken. Awakening is the goal and awakening is the essence of all his teachings.
Zarathustra, Lao Tzu, Jesus, Buddha, Bahauddin, Kabir, Nanak... all the awakened ones have taught a
single lesson. In different languages, with different metaphors, but their song is the same. Just as the
sea has a salty taste, whether it is tasted from the north or from the south, from the east or from the
west, the taste of the Buddhahood is the state of wakefulness.

But if you continue to believe that you are already awake, you will not make any effort. Tea
It will seem that there is no point in making any effort. Why bother?
And you have created religions, gods, prayers, rituals, taken from dreams. Your gods are part
of your dreams, like everything else. Your politics are part of your dreams, your religions are part of your
dreams, your poetry, your painting, your art... everything you do. Since you are asleep, you do things
according to your mental state.

Your gods cannot be different from you. Who is going to create them? Who will give them body,
shape and color? You create them, you sculpt them; They have eyes like yours, noses like yours... and
minds like yours! The God of the Old Testament says: "I am a very jealous God." Let's see: who created
this very jealous God? God cannot be jealous, and if God is jealous, then what is wrong with being
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jealous? If even God is jealous, why would you think you are doing something wrong when you feel
jealous? Jealousy is something divine!
The God of the Old Testament says: “I am a very angry God. If you do not keep my
commandments, I will destroy you. I will throw you into the fires of hell for all eternity. And since I am
jealous, God continues to say, you should not worship anyone else. I can't tolerate it. Who created such
a God? This image had to be created from our own jealousy, our own anger. It is a projection, a shadow
of ours. An echo of the man and no one else. And the same can be said of all the gods of all religions.

That's why Buddha never talked about God. «What is the point of talking about God to people
who are asleep? They will listen in dreams. They will dream about what they are told and create their
own gods that will be completely false, completely absurd. It is better to do without such gods.

That is why Buddha is not interested in talking about gods. The only thing he's interested in is
waking you up.
It is said that an enlightened Buddhist master was sitting one afternoon on the bank of a river,
enjoying the sound of the water, the sound of the wind passing through the leaves.
A man approached him and asked: -Can
you tell me in a single word the essence of your religion? The teacher
remained silent, in absolute silence, as if he had not heard the question. The man insisted: -Are
you deaf or what?

The teacher said:

-I have heard your question and I have answered it. Silence is the answer. I have remained
silent. That pause, that interval, was my response:
The man said: -I
can't understand such a mysterious answer. Can't you be a little clearer?
Then the teacher wrote the word “Meditation” in small letters in the
sand with his finger.
"I can read that," said the man. This is something better than the beginning. At least I have a
word to think about. But can't you say it a little more clearly?

The teacher wrote “MEDITATION” again, but this time in larger letters.
The man felt a little uncomfortable, bewildered, offended, irritated.
-Are you writing "meditation" again? Can't you tell me more clearly?

And the teacher wrote “MEDITATION” in very large capital letters.

"I think you're crazy," said the man.
"I have already descended a lot," said the teacher. The first answer was the correct answer, the
second was not so correct, the third was even more wrong, the fourth was already very wrong... because
when you write "MEDITATION" in capital letters, you create a god.

That is why the word God is written with a capital letter D. Every time you want something to be
supreme, definitive, you write it with a capital letter.
"I have already committed a sin," said the teacher. He erased all the words he had written and
said, "Please listen to my first answer." I have told you the truth only with her.
Silence is the space in which one wakes up, and the noisy mind is the space in which one
remains asleep. If your mind continues to chatter, you are asleep. If you sit in silence, if the mind
disappears and you can hear the birds singing and there is no mind inside you, a silence... this bird
whistle, this chirping, and no mind working inside your head, total silence ...then consciousness emerges
in you. It doesn't come from outside, it arises within you, it grows in you. For the rest, remember: you
are asleep.
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THE UNDERSTANDING

I never ever use the word resignation. What I'm saying is: enjoy life, love, meditation, the
beauties of the world, the ecstasy of existence... enjoy everything!
Transform the mundane into sacred. Transform this shore into the other shore, transform the earth
into paradise.
And yet, indirectly, a certain renunciation begins to occur. But it's something that happens,
you don't do it. It's not something you do, it's something that happens. You start to give up your
nonsense, you start to give up the rubbish. You begin to give up foolish relationships. You begin to
quit jobs that do not satisfy your being. You start giving up on places where growth was not
possible. But I don't call that resignation. I call it understanding, consciousness.

If you carry stones in your hand believing they are diamonds, I will not tell you to give up:
Those stones. I'll just tell you: "Stay alert and take another look." If you yourself see that they are
not diamonds, what need is there to give them up? They will fall from your hands by themselves.
In fact, if you want to continue wearing them you will have to make a great effort, you will have to
apply a lot of will to continue wearing them. But you won't be able to wear them for long; As soon
as you have seen that they are useless, that they are worthless, you will want to throw them away.
And when your hands are empty, you can search for real treasures. and the treasures
authentic ones are not in the future. The real treasures are right here, now.

Of Men and Rats

Vigilance is the path of life.

The fool sleeps as if he were already dead, But
the master is awake and lives eternally.
He is vigilant. It has clarity.
How happy is he? Because he sees that to be awake is to live.
How happy he is following the path of the awakened.
With great perseverance he meditates, seeking freedom and happiness.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA, Dhammapada

We live without paying any attention to what is happening around us. Yes, we have become
very efficient when it comes to doing things. What we do, we already do so efficiently that we do not
need any consciousness to do it. It has become something mechanical, automatic. We function like
robots. We are not yet men, we are machines.

That was what George Gurdjieff said over and over again, that man, as he exists, is a
machine. It offended a lot of people, because no one likes to be called a machine. Machines like
to be called gods; then they feel very happy, they swell with satisfaction. Gurdjieff said that people
were machines and he was right. If you look at yourself you will see how mechanical your behavior
is.
The Russian psychologist Pavlov and the American psychologist Skinner are 99.9 percent
correct when they say that man is a wonderful machine and nothing more. There is no soul in him.
I have said that they are 99.9 percent correct; They only fail by a very small margin. In that small
margin are the Buddhas, the awakened ones. But they can be forgiven because Pavlov never met
a Buddha; just met millions of people like you.

Skinner has studied men and rats and has found no difference. Rats are simpler beings,
that's all; The man is a little more complicated. Man is an extremely sophisticated machine, rats
are simple machines. It is easier,
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study rats; That's why psychologists continue to study rats. They study rats and come to
conclusions about men... and their conclusions are almost correct. I say "almost", pay close
attention, because that tenth of one percent is the most important phenomenon that has
happened. A Buddha, a Jesus, a Muhammad... those few awakened people are the real men.

But where can BF Skinner find a Buddha? Certainly not in the United States.

I have heard that a man asked a rabbi: -Why didn't Jesus

decide to be born in the United States and in the 20th century?
The rabbi shrugged his shoulders and replied:
-In the United States? It would have been impossible. First of all, where were you going
find a virgin? And secondly, where were you going to find three wise men?

WHERE WILL YOU FIND A BF SKINNER BUDDHA? And even if he found a Buddha,
his prejudices, his preconceived ideas, would not allow him to see him. He would still see his
rats. He is unable to understand anything that rats cannot do. Now, rats do not meditate, rats
do not attain enlightenment. And their concept of man is nothing more than a magnified image
of a rat. And yet I still say that he is right about the vast majority of people; His conclusions are
not wrong, and the Buddhas will agree with him regarding so-called normal humanity. Normal
humanity is completely asleep. Not even the animals are so asleep.

Have you seen a deer in the forest? How alert he seems, how cautiously he moves.
Have you seen a bird perched on a tree? How intelligently he monitors everything that happens
around him. If you approach the bird, and it will allow it up to a certain distance.
Beyond that, just one more step and he will fly away. He has a clear awareness of his territory.
If someone enters that territory, it is dangerous.
If you look around you, you will be surprised: Man seems to be the most
asleep of the earth.
A woman buys a parrot at the auction of the belongings of a luxury brothel, and keeps
the parrot's cage covered for two weeks, hoping that it will forget its obscene vocabulary. When
he finally uncovers the cage, the parrot looks around and says: “Aorrk! New house, new
madame .» When the woman's daughters enter, the parrot adds: «Aurrk! "New girls." When the
husband arrives at night, the parrot says: "Aurrk!" "The same customers as always."

The man is in a very depressed state. In fact, that is the meaning of the Christian
parable of Adam's fall and expulsion from Eden. Why were Adam and Eve expelled from
paradise? They were expelled because they had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. They
were expelled because they had become minds and had lost their consciousness.

So, what you have to do is regain consciousness and lose your mind. You have to
expel from your system everything that you have been gathering in the form of knowledge. It is
knowledge that keeps you asleep. Therefore, the more knowledge a person has, the more
asleep he is.
That is also what I have observed. The innocent villagers are much more alert and
awake than the professors in the universities and the pundits or sages in the temples. Pundits
are nothing more than parrots ; University academics are full of sacred cow poop, full of noise
completely devoid of meaning... they are just minds without any conscience.

People who work with nature - farmers, gardeners, lumberjacks, carpenters, painters -
are much more alert than people who work in universities as deans and vice-chancellors and
rectors. Because when you work with nature, nature is alert. The trees are alert; Of course,
their way of being alert is different, but they are very alert.
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There is now scientific evidence of their alertness. If the woodcutter arrives with an ax in his
hand and with the deliberate intention of cutting down the tree, all the trees that see him coming begin
to tremble. There is now scientific evidence of this; What I say is not poetry, when I say this I am
talking about science. Now there are instruments to measure whether the tree is happy or unhappy, if
it is afraid or not, if it is sad or ecstatic. When the woodcutter arrives, all the trees that see him begin
to tremble. They are aware that death is close by. And the woodcutter hasn't cut down any trees yet,
he's just getting closer...
One more, much stranger thing: if the woodcutter is simply passing by, without the deliberate
idea of cutting down a tree, no tree is afraid. It's the same woodcutter, with the same axe. It seems
that your intention to cut down a tree affects the trees. This means that your intention has been
understood; It means that their vibrations are being deciphered by the trees.

There is another significant fact that has been scientifically observed. If you enter the forest
and kill an animal, the surrounding animal kingdom is not shaken; also the trees. If you kill a deer, all
the deer in the vicinity feel the vibration of death and become sad; a great tremor takes over them.
They suddenly feel afraid for no particular reason. They may not have seen you kill the deer, but
somehow, in a subtle way, they are affected... instinctively, intuitively. But this doesn't just affect deer...
it affects trees, it affects parrots, it affects tigers, it affects eagles, it affects blades of grass. A crime
has occurred, an act of destruction, a death... and everything nearby is affected. The man seems to
be the most asleep...

Buddha's sutras are to be meditated upon deeply, to be absorbed, to

follow them. He
says: Vigilance is the way to life.
You are alive only to the extent that you are awake. Consciousness is the difference between
life and death. You are not alive just because you are breathing, you are not alive just because your
heart beats. Physiologically, you can be kept alive in a hospital, without any consciousness. Your heart
will continue beating and you will be able to breathe. This way you can be kept in a mechanical state
so that you stay alive for many years... in the sense that you breathe and the heart beats and the
blood circulates. In the advanced countries of the world there are currently many people who simply
vegetate in hospitals, because advanced technology makes it possible for your death to be postponed
indefinitely. It can keep you alive for years. If that is life, then you can be kept alive. But that is not life,
far from it. Limiting yourself to vegetating is not living.

Buddhas have a different definition. Its definition is based on consciousness. They don't say
you are alive because you can breathe, they don't say you are alive because your blood circulates;
They say you're alive if you're awake. So, with the exception of the awakened, no one is truly alive.
You are corpses that walk, talk and do things, you are robots.

Wakefulness is the path to life, says Buddha. Wake up and you will be more alive. And life is
God. There is no other God. That is why Buddha talks about life and consciousness. Life is the goal
and consciousness is the methodology, the technique to achieve it.
The fool sleeps...
You're all asleep, so you're all stupid. Don't feel offended. Things must be said as they are.
You function in dreams; That's why you stumble, you keep doing things you don't want to do. You
continue doing things that you have decided not to do.
You continue to do things that you know are not right and you do not do things that you know are right.

How is that possible? Why can't you walk straight? Why do you continue
Stuck on roads that lead nowhere? Why do you keep getting lost?
A young man with a pretty voice is asked to participate in a theater performance, but he tries
to get out of it by saying that he is always embarrassed on these types of occasions. They assure him
that it will be very easy, and that he only has to say one sentence: "I come to steal a kiss and run to the
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combat. Ah! I hear a gunshot...", and then leave the stage.

During the performance, the young man comes on stage, already very embarrassed by
the short and tight colonial pants that they have made him put on at the last moment, and is
completely upset when he sees the beautiful heroine waiting for him lying in a garden hammock,
with a white dress. He clears his throat and declares: «I come to rub a watercress... no, to steal
a kiss and combo the reel, I mean, I run to combat. Ah! I hear a gun firing... no, a spore of a
pistil, a sound of a kettle... Shit, I shit on all of you! "I already told you that I didn't want to act in
this damn show!"
That's what's happening. Examine your life. Everything you keep doing is so confusing
and confusing... You don't have any clarity, you don't have any perception. You are not alert.
You don't see, you don't hear... Of course, you have ears to hear, but there is no one inside
who understands it. Of course, you have eyes to see, but there is no one inside. Your eyes
continue to see and your ears continue to hear, but nothing is understood. And with every step
you stumble, with every step you make some mistake. And you still believe that you are conscious.
Completely discard that idea. Discarding it is a big leap, a big step forward, because as
soon as you abandon the idea of "I am conscious" you begin to search and search for ways
and means to be conscious. So, the first thing you have to get into your head is that you are
asleep, completely asleep.
Modern psychology has discovered a few important things; Although they have only
been discovered at an intellectual level, it is a good start. If they have been discovered
intellectually, sooner or later they will also be experienced existentially.
Freud was a great pioneer; Of course, he was not a Buddha, but he was a man of great
transcendence, because he was the first to get the majority of humanity to accept the idea that
man has a great subconscious hidden within him. The conscious mind is only one-tenth as
large, and the subconscious mind is nine times larger than the conscious mind.

Later, his disciple Jung went a little further, a little deeper, and discovered the collective
subconscious. Behind the subconscious of the individual there is a collective subconscious.
Now it is necessary for someone to discover one more thing that is there, and I have the hope
that, sooner or later, the psychological research underway will discover it: the cosmic
subconscious. The Buddhas have spoken of him.
So, we can talk about the conscious mind: a very fragile thing, a very small part of our
being. Behind the conscious mind is the subconscious: unclear, you can hear its whispers but
you don't know how to interpret them. It is always there, behind the conscious mind, pulling its
strings. Third is the unconscious mind, which we only come into contact with during sleep or
when taking drugs. And behind, the collective subconscious mind. We only come into contact
with it when we undertake a deep investigation of our subconscious mind; then one encounters
the collective subconscious. And if we continue to go even deeper, we reach the cosmic
subconscious. The cosmic subconscious is nature. The collective subconscious is all humanity
that has lived until now; It is part of one. The unconscious is an individual unconscious that
society has repressed, without allowing it to express itself. That's why it comes at night through
the back door, in dreams.

And the conscious mind... I'll call it the supposedly conscious mind, because it's just
that. It's so tiny... just a blink, but even if it's just a blink it's important because it contains the
seed; the seeds are always small. It has great potential.
Now a totally new dimension is opening up. Just as Freud opened the dimension below
consciousness, Sri Aurobindo opened the dimension above it.
Freud and Sri Aurobindo are the two most important people of this era. They are both
intellectuals, neither of them is an awakened person, but both have done a great service to
humanity. They have made us intellectually aware that we are not as small as we appear from
the surface, that the surface hides great depths and heights.

Freud descended into the depths; Sri Aurobindo attempted to penetrate the heights.
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Above what we call our conscious mind is the true conscious mind; It is only achieved through
meditation. When meditation is added to our normal conscious mind, when meditation is added
to the normal conscious mind it becomes the true conscious mind.

Beyond the true conscious mind is the superconscious mind. When you meditate you
see nothing but momentary glimpses. Meditation is groping in the dark. Yes, a few windows
open, but it falls again and again. The superconscious mind means that you have reached
shamadi: you have reached crystal perception, you have reached integrated consciousness.
Now you can't fall down anymore; it's yours. Even when you sleep it will continue to be with you.

Beyond the superconscious mind is the collective superconscious. The collective

superconscious is what religions call "god." And beyond the collective superconscious is the
cosmic superconscious, which surpasses even the gods. Buddha calls it nirvana, Mahavira calls
it kaivalya, Hindu mystics have called it moksha; you can call it the truth.

These are the nine states of existence. And you are living only in a small corner of your
being: the tiny conscious mind. It's like someone had a palace and had completely forgotten
about the palace and was living on the porch... and thought that's all there is.

Freud and Sri Aurobindo are two great intellectual giants, pioneers, philosophers, but
they are both making great conjectures. Instead of teaching students the philosophy of Bertrand
Russell, Alfred North Whitehead, Martin Heidegger or Jean-Paul Sartre, it would be much better
if they were taught more about Sri Aurobindo, because he is the greatest philosopher of this era.
But it is totally relegated, rejected by the academic world. The reason is that just by reading Sri
Aurobindo, you realize that you are unconscious. And he is not a Buddha yet, but he is still
capable of creating a very embarrassing situation for you. If he's right, what are you doing? Why
aren't you exploring the heights of your being?

Freud was accepted with great resistance, but in the end he was accepted. Sri Aurobindo
has not yet been accepted. In fact, it does not even meet opposition; It is simply ignored. And
the reason is clear. Freud talks about something that is beneath us, and that is not so
embarrassing; one can feel good knowing that one is conscious and that beneath consciousness
there is a subconscious and an unconscious and a collective subconscious. But all those states
are below you, you are on top, you can feel very good. On the other hand, if you study Sri
Aurobindo you will feel ashamed, offended, because there are states above you, and the human
ego never wants to accept that something exists above it. Man wants to believe that he is the
highest pinnacle, the culmination, Gourishankar, Everest... that nothing exists above him.

And one feels very comfortable. Denying your own kingdom, denying your own heights,
you feel very good. Look what nonsense.
Buddha is right when he says:
The fool sleeps as if he were already dead, but the master is
awake and lives eternally.
Consciousness is eternal, it does not know death. Only unconsciousness dies. So, if you
remain unconscious, asleep, you will have to die again. If you want to get rid of all this suffering
of being born and dying again and again, if you want to get rid of the wheel of birth and death,
you have to become absolutely alert. You have to climb higher and higher to the heights of
consciousness.
And these things cannot be accepted on the intellectual level; These things have to be
experienced, these things have to be existential. I am not telling you to be philosophically
convinced, because philosophical conviction brings nothing, no harvest. The true harvest is only
obtained when you make a great effort to wake up.

But these intellectual maps can generate in you a desire, a longing. They can
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make you aware of the potential, of the possible; they can make you aware that you are not what you
seem to be; That you are much more. "'.
The fool sleeps as if he were already dead, but the master is awake and alive
eternally. He is vigilant. It has clarity.
Simple and beautiful affirmations. The truth is always simple and always beautiful. You just
have to look at how simple these two statements are... but how much they contain.
Worlds within worlds, infinite worlds. He is vigilant. It is clear:
The only thing you have to learn is to be vigilant. Watch out! Monitor all your actions. Watch
all the thoughts that pass through your mind. Watch all the desires that take over you. Watch even
small gestures: walking, talking, eating, taking a bath.
Keep watching everything. Let everything become an opportunity to watch.
Don't eat mechanically, don't just gobble down. Stay very alert. Chew well and stay alert...
and you will be surprised how much you have missed until now, because each bite will give you
enormous satisfaction. If you eat vigilantly, the food will be tastier. Even vulgar food tastes good if you
are alert; and if you are not, you can now eat the most delicious food, which will have no taste because
there is no one to notice it. You'll just keep gobbling. Eat slowly, with attention; Each bite must be
chewed and savored.

Smell, touch, feel the breeze and the sun's rays. Watch the moon become a pond
quiet and vigilant, and the moon will reflect on you with enormous beauty.
Move through life staying constantly vigilant. You will forget it again and again. Don't torment
yourself about it; it's natural. For millions of lives, you have never tried to be alert, so it is logical and
natural that you forget again and again. But as soon as you remember, keep an eye on it again.

Remember one thing: when you remember that you have forgotten to watch, don't be sad, don't
regret it; If you do, you will be wasting your time again. Don't feel miserable: "I've gotten lost again." Don't
start feeling "I'm a sinner." Don't start condemning yourself, because that is a pure waste of time. Never
regret the past! Live in the moment. If you've forgotten, what difference does it make? It was natural. It
has become a habit and habits are difficult to break. And these are not habits acquired in a single life;
They are habits assimilated over millions of lives. So, if you are able to stay alert even for just a few
minutes, you can be grateful. Even those few minutes are more than could be expected.

He is vigilant. It has clarity.

And when you watch, clarity arises.
Why does clarity emerge from surveillance? Because the more alert you are, the more all your
rushing diminishes. You move with more grace. When you are alert, your chattering mind chatters less,
because the energy that was spent chattering is dedicated to alertness and becomes vigilance. It's the
same energy! From there, more and more energy is transformed into vigilance, and the mind does not
receive its ration. The thoughts begin to lose weight, they begin to lose weight. Little by little they will
begin to die. And when thoughts begin to die, clarity arises. Now your mind becomes a mirror.

How happy he is! And when one has clarity, one is blessed. Confusion is the cause of all
suffering; Clarity is the basis of happiness. How happy he is! Because he sees that to be awake is to
live.
And now he knows that there is no such thing as death, because his awakened state cannot
be destroyed. When death comes, you will also watch over it. You will die watching; surveillance will
not die. Your body will disappear, dust to dust, but your vigilance will remain. It will become part of the
cosmic whole. It will become cosmic consciousness.
At these times, the prophets of the Upanishads declare <<Aham brahmasmi", "I am the cosmic
consciousness." It is in these spaces where al-Hillaj Mansoor proclaimed
<<Ana'l haq», «I am the truth». These are the heights, to which you have the right
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birth. If you don't reach them, the only one responsible is you, and no one else.

How happy he is! Because he sees that to be awake is to live.

How happy he is, following the path of the awakened.
With great perseverance he meditates, seeking freedom and happiness.

Listen very carefully to these words: With great perseverance... Unless you put all your effort into
waking up, it will not happen. Partial efforts are useless. You can't be a half-hearted thing, you can't be
lukewarm, that won't do any good. Warm water cannot evaporate, and half-hearted efforts at alertness are
doomed to failure.
Transformation only happens when you put all your energy into it. When you boil at a hundred
degrees, then you evaporate, then the alchemical change occurs.
Then you start to ascend. Have you not observed it? The water flows downwards, but the water flows
upwards. Exactly the same thing happens here: unconsciousness goes down, consciousness goes up.

And one more thing: up is synonymous with inward, and down is synonymous with outward.
Consciousness goes inward, unconsciousness goes outward. Unconsciousness makes you interested in
something else: other things, other people, but always others. Unconsciousness keeps you in complete
darkness, your eyes continue to focus on other things. It creates a kind of exteriority, it makes you extraverted.
Consciousness creates interiority, makes you introverted, takes you inward, ever deeper.

And more depth also means more height; They both grow at the same time, like trees grow. You only see
them growing upwards, you don't see the roots growing downwards. But first the roots have to grow downward,
only then can the tree grow upward. If a tree wants to reach the sky, it will have to send roots to the very
bottom, as deep as possible. The tree grows simultaneously in both directions. In exactly the same way
consciousness grows. Up... down, sinking its roots

in your being.

The roots of suffering

Suffering is a state of unconsciousness. We are unfortunate because we are not aware of what we
are doing, what we are thinking, what we are feeling... and that is why we continually contradict ourselves, at
every moment. The action goes in one direction, the thought in another, the feeling is somewhere else. We
are falling apart, we are increasingly fragmented. That is suffering: we lose integration, we lose unity. We lose
completely.

the center, we are a simple periphery.

And naturally, a life that is not harmonious is condemned to be miserable, tragic, a burden that must
be carried as suffering as possible. The most one can do is make this suffering less painful. And there are a
thousand and one kinds of pain relievers.

There are not only drugs and alcohol: religion has also been used as an opium. It leaves people
high. And naturally, all religions are against drugs, because they themselves are dedicated to the same
business; They are against competitors. If people take opium, they may stop being religious; I may no longer
have the need to be religious. If they've already found opium, why should they bother with religion? And
opium is cheaper, it requires less commitment. If people take marijuana, LSD and other more sophisticated
drugs, it is natural that they are not religious, because religion is a very primitive drug. That is why all religions
are against drugs.

The reason is not that they are truly against drugs. The reason is that drugs are competitors and of
course if you can stop people from using drugs
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It will be easier for them to fall into the traps of the priests, because that is the only way out left
for them. It is a kind of monopoly: only its opium remains on the market and everything else is
declared illegal.
People live in suffering. There are only two ways to get out of it: the first is to become a
meditator: alert, awake, conscious... and that is a very difficult thing. It takes courage. The
cheapest way is to find something that can make you even more unconscious than you already
are, so that you can't feel the suffering. Find something that leaves you totally insensitive,
something that intoxicates you, some anesthetic that leaves you so unconscious that you can
escape that unconsciousness and forget all your anxieties, anguish and senselessness.

The second way is not the true one. The second way only makes your suffering a little
more comfortable, a little more bearable, a little more comfortable.
But it doesn't help, it doesn't transform you. The only transformation comes through meditation,
because meditation is the only method that makes you conscious. For me, meditation is the
only true religion. Everything else is a fool's errand. And there are different brands of opium:
Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Buddhism... but they are just different brands. The
container is different, but the content is the same: they all help you in some way to adapt to
your suffering.
What I propose is to take you beyond suffering. There is no need to adapt to suffering:
there is the possibility of getting rid of it completely. But the road is a bit difficult; The road is a
challenge.
You have to become aware of your body and what you do with it...
One day, Buddha was giving his morning discourse and the king had come to listen to
him. He was sitting in front of Buddha and he kept moving his big toe.
Buddha stopped talking and looked at the king's toe. Naturally, when Buddha looked at his
finger, the king stopped moving it. Buddha began to speak again, and the king began to move
his big toe again. Then Buddha asked him: -Why do you
do that?
The king
responded: -Only when you stopped talking and looked at
my finger did I realize what I was doing. He wasn't aware of what he was doing at all.
"It is your finger and you are not aware," said Buddha. So, you could kill a person
without being aware of it. And in exactly that way people have been killed and the murderer
has not been aware. Many murderers have denied in court that they killed anyone. At first it
was thought that they were simply lying, but recently it has been discovered that they were not
lying, that they did so in a state of unconsciousness. At that moment they were so angry, so
enraged, that they were possessed by their fury. And when you are angry, your body secretes
certain toxins and your blood becomes intoxicated. To be enraged is to be in a state of
temporary madness. And the person will completely forget what he did, because he was not
aware of what he was doing. And that's how people fall in love, kill others, commit suicide, do
all those things.
The first step towards awareness is to pay close attention to your body. Little by little,
one becomes alert to every gesture and every movement. And as you become conscious, a
miracle begins to occur: you stop doing many things that you used to do. Your body is more
relaxed, your body is more in tune, a deep peace begins to prevail even in your body, a subtle
music vibrates in your body.
Afterwards, you begin to become aware of your thoughts; You have to do the same
with your thoughts. They are more subtle than the body and of course, also more dangerous.
And when you become aware of your thoughts, you will be surprised by what happens inside
you. If you write down what is happening at any moment, you will be in for a big surprise. You
won't believe, "Is this what's happening inside me?"
Keep writing for just ten minutes. Lock the doors and also close the windows so that no one
can enter, so that you can be completely sincere and light the fire so that you can throw what
you write into the fire; so no one will know apart from you. AND
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then be absolutely sincere; start writing what is happening inside your mind.
Don't interpret it, don't alter it, don't edit it. Just put it on the paper without embellishments, as
it is, exactly as it is.
And after 10 minutes, read it. You will see a crazy mind inside! We are not aware that
this madness constantly flows like an undercurrent. It affects everything that is important in
your life. It affects anything you do; It affects everything you do, it affects everything. And the
sum of all this is going to be your life!
So, this madman must change. And the miracle of awareness is that you don't need
to do anything except become aware. The very phenomenon of observing it makes it change.
Little by little, the madman disappears. Little by little, thoughts begin to conform to a certain
pattern. Their chaos disappears, they become something more like a cosmos. And once
again, a deep peace dominates everything.
And when your body and your mind are at peace, you will see that they are in harmony
with each other, that there is a bridge. Now they no longer run in different directions, they no
longer ride on different horses. For the first time there is agreement, and that agreement
constitutes an immense help to work on the third step: becoming aware of your feelings,
emotions, moods. This is the subtlest and most difficult layer, but if you can be aware of the
thoughts you just have to take it one step further. A slightly more intense awareness is needed
to start meditating on your moods, your emotions, your feelings.

As soon as you are aware of these three things, they all come together into a single phenomenon.
And when these three things are one, working perfectly in unison, humming together, when
you can feel the music of all three - they have become an orchestra - the fourth happens.
What you cannot do happens on its own, it is a gift from the whole. It is a reward for those
who have done these three things.
And the fourth thing is the definitive consciousness that awakens one. One becomes
aware of one's own consciousness, that is the fourth thing.- That makes you a buddha, an
awakened being. And only in that awakening does one come to know what bliss is. The body
knows pleasure, the mind knows happiness, the heart knows joy, the fourth thing knows bliss.
Bliss is the goal, and consciousness is the path that leads to it.

Private Worlds

"Heraclitus said:

Men are as forgetful and careless of what is

happening around them in their
waking moments as when
they are asleep.
Fools, although they
hear, they are like the deaf.
The adage applies to them
that when they are present
they are absent.
One should not act or speak as if one
were asleep.
The awake have a world in common, the
sleepers each have a private world. What we see when we are awake is death; When
we are asleep, we see dreams.

Heraclitus addresses man's most serious problem: that even when he is awake,
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He is completely asleep.
You are asleep when you sleep, but you are also asleep when you are awake.
What does this mean? Because this is what Buddha says, what Jesus says, what Heraclitus
says. You seem wide awake, but it's just appearance; In the depths of your being, the dream
continues.
Even right now you are dreaming inside. A thousand and one thoughts run their course,
and you are not aware of what is happening, you are not aware of what you are doing, you are
not aware of who you are. You move like people move in dreams.
You've probably met someone who moves around, does this or that thing, and then
falls asleep again. It is a disease called sleepwalking. Many people get out of bed at night;
Their eyes are open, they can move. They go to the kitchen, eat something and go back to
bed. And if you ask them the next morning, they don't know anything about it. At most, if you
try to remember, you will see that you had a dream that night, that you dreamed that you woke
up and went to the kitchen. But it was a dream, at most; Even that is difficult to remember.

Many people have committed crimes; Many murderers testify in court. that they don't
know anything, that they don't remember having done such a thing. It's not that they are lying
to the court, no. Psychoanalysts have finally discovered that they are not lying, they are not
trying to deceive; They are absolutely sincere. They committed the murder - they committed it
when they were fast asleep as in a dream. This sleep is deeper than normal sleep. This dream
is like being drunk: you can move a little, you can do a few things, you can also be a little
conscious... but you are drunk. You don't know what is happening exactly. What have you done
in the past?
Can you remember exactly why you did what you did? What happened to you? Were you alert
when it happened? You fall in love without knowing why; You get in a bad mood without
knowing why. Of course, you find excuses; You rationalize everything you do... but not
rationalization, it is consciousness.
Awareness means that you are completely aware of whatever is happening at that
moment. You are present. If you are present when anger arises, anger cannot arise. It can only
occur when you are completely asleep. When you are present, a transformation immediately
begins in your being, because when you are present, conscious, many things are simply not
possible. So, in fact there is only one sin, which is unconsciousness.

The original meaning of the word sin is to fail. It does not mean doing something that is
wrong, it simply means missing, being absent. The Hebrew root of the word sin
It means missing. It also occurs in some English words built on the particle miss: misconduct,
misbehavior.] to miss means not to be there, to do something without being present: this is the
only sin. And the only virtue? Be completely alert when you do something.
What Gurdjieff calls remembering oneself, what Buddha calls being rightly attentive, what
Krishna-murti calls consciousness, what Kabir has called surau: Being there!
That is all that is needed, and nothing more.
You don't need to change anything, and even if you tried to change something you
couldn't. You have already tried to change many things in yourself. You've got it? How many
times have you decided not to get angry again? What happened to your goals? When the time
comes, you fall into the same trap again; You get angry, and when the anger has passed, you
repent. It has become a vicious circle: you incur anger, you repent, and you are ready to incur
it again.
Remember that even if you repent you are not there: that repentance is also part of sin.
That's why nothing happens. You keep trying again and again, and you make many decisions
and you make many resolutions, but nothing happens. You stay the same. You are exactly the
same as when you were born, without even the slightest change having occurred in you. It's
not that you haven't tried, it's not that you haven't tried, you have tried again and again. And
you fail because it is not a matter of effort. Trying harder will do you no good. It's a matter of
alertness, not effort.
Machine Translated by Google

If you are alert, many things simply disappear; you don't need to get rid of them. In the
conscious state, certain things are not possible; And this is my definition, there is no other criterion. If
you are conscious you cannot fall in love; Therefore, falling in love is a sin. You can love, but that is not
like a fall, it is like an ascension. Why is the expression “falling in love” used [in English]? It is a fall; You
are falling, you are not rising. When you are conscious, it is not possible to fall... not even in love.

It's not possible, it just isn't. With consciousness it is not possible; you ascend in love.
And ascending in love is a totally different phenomenon from falling in love. Being in love is a dream
state. That's why people who are in love can see it in their eyes; It's as if they were more asleep than
the others, intoxicated, dreaming. You can see it in their eyes because their eyes are dreamy. People
who ascend in love are totally different. It shows that they are no longer dreaming, that they are facing
reality and that makes them grow.

When you fall in love you are still a child; As you ascend in love, you mature and in a short
time, love stops being a relationship; It becomes a state of your being. So it can no longer be said that
you love this one and not love that one, no; simply, you love. It's something you share with anyone who
comes close to you. Whatever happens, you give your love. You touch a stone and you touch it as if
you were touching the body of your loved one. You look at a tree and look at it as if you were looking at
the face of your loved one. It becomes a state of being. It's not that you're in love, it's that you are love.
This is rising, not falling.
Love is beautiful when you go up it, and it becomes dirty and ugly when you go down it. And
sooner or later you will discover that it turns out to be poisonous, that it becomes a captivity. You have
been trapped, your freedom has been crushed; They have cut your wings, you are no longer free.
When you fall in love you become a possession; you possess and allow someone to possess you. You
become an object, and you try to turn the person you have fallen in love with into an object.

Look at a husband and wife couple. The two have become objects, they are no longer people.
They both try to possess the other. Only things can be owned, not people.
How can you possess a person? How can you dominate a person? How can you turn a person into a
possession? Impossible! But the husband is trying to possess the wife; The wife tries the same. A clash
ensues, and the two end up basically becoming enemies. They are destructive to each other.

It happened that Mullah Nasruddin entered the office of a

cemetery and complained to the manager:
-I know that my wife is buried in this cemetery, but I can't find her
grave.
The manager consulted his record and asked:
-What is your name?
"Madam of Mullah Nasruddin," said the Mullah.
The manager looked again and said:
-There is no lady of Mullah Nasruddin, but there is a Mullah
Nasruddin. Sorry, there seems to have been an error in the registry.
"There is no mistake," said Nasruddin. Where is the grave
ba of Mullah Nasruddin? Because everything is in my name.
Even his wife's grave!

Possession... everyone insists on possessing the loved one, the lover. There is no more love. In
fact, when you possess a person, you hate, you destroy, you kill; you are a murderer Love should give
freedom; love is freedom. Love makes the loved one more and more free, love gives wings, love opens
the immensity of the sky. It cannot become a prison, a confinement. But you don't know that love, because
it only happens when you are awake; That quality of love only appears when there is awareness. The
love that you know is a sin, because it is generated in sleep.

And the same goes for everything you do. Even if you try to do something good, you do
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damage. Look at visionary reformers: they always do harm and are the most harmful people in
the world. Social reformers, the so-called revolutionaries, are the most harmful people. But it is
difficult to see the evil they do because they are very good people, they are always doing good
to others... that is their way of creating a prison for others. If you let them do some good to you,
they will come to possess you. They will start by giving you a foot massage, and sooner or later
you will find that they have put their hands on your neck. They start at the feet and end at the
neck, because they are unconscious; They don't know what they're doing. They have learned
a trick: if you want to possess someone, do good. They are not even aware that they have
learned that trick. But they do harm, because anything—anything—that attempts to possess
another person, whatever its name or form, is irreligious, it is a sin.

Your churches, your temples, your mosques, they have all committed sins against you,
because they have all become possessors, they have all become dominators.

All churches are against religion, because religion is freedom. So why is this happening?
Jesus intends to give you freedom, to give you wings. What happens then, how does this church
appear? It happens because Jesus lives on a totally different plane of existence, the plane of
consciousness. And those who listen to him, those who follow him, live on the plane of the dream.
Whatever they hear, they interpret it through their own dreams. And everything they build has to
be a sin. Christ gives you religion, and then some people who are fast asleep turn it into a church.

It is said that on one occasion, Satan, the demon, was sitting under a tree, very sad. A
saint passed by, looked at Satan and said: -We
have heard that you never rest, that you are always doing something evil somewhere.
What are you doing there, sitting under that tree?
Satan was absolutely depressed.
"It seems that the priests are taking care of my work now, and I have nothing to do," he
said. I have lost my job. Sometimes I feel like committing suicide, because the priests are doing
it very well.

Priests do it so well because they have turned freedom into imprisonment, they have
turned truth into dogmas... they have turned everything that originates on the plane of
consciousness to the plane of dream.
Try to understand what exactly this dream is, because if you are able to feel what it is,
you have already started to be alert, you are already on the way out. What is this dream? How
is it produced? What is its mechanism? What is your modus operandi?
The mind is always in the past or the future. It cannot be in the present, it is absolutely
impossible for the mind to be in the present. When you are in the present, the mind is no longer
there, because mind is equivalent to thinking. How can you think about the present?
You can think about the past; It has already become part of the memory and the mind can work
with it. You can think about the future; It is not here yet and the mind can dream about it. The
mind can do two things: it can move into the past, where there is plenty of room to move, the vast
space of the past, into which you can go on and on; or it can move into the future, where there is
also infinite space, in which you can imagine and dream without limits. But how is the mind going
to work in the present? In the present there is no space for the mind to make any movement.

The present is just a dividing line, nothing more. It separates the past from the future, it
is nothing more than a dividing line. You can be in the present, but you cannot think about it;
To think you need space. Thoughts need space, they are like objects.
Remember: thoughts are material things, very subtle, but they are material.
You can't think about the present. The moment you start thinking, it is already past. You
see the sun rise and you say: "What a beautiful sunrise." When you say it, it's already the past.
When the sun is rising there is not even enough space to say "How beautiful", because when
you say those two words, "how beautiful", the experience has already been
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become past. The mind has already filed it in memory; But at the exact moment the sun rises, the exact
moment the sun appears over the line, how can you think? What can you think? You can be with the rising
sun, but you can't think. There is enough space for you, but not for thoughts.

You see a beautiful flower in the garden and you say: "What a pretty rose." At that moment you are
no longer with the rose; It's already a memory. When the flower is there and you are there, both of you present
before each other, how could you think? What could you think? How is thought going to be possible? There
is no room for him. Space is so narrow - in fact, there is no space at all - that you and the flower cannot even
exist as two beings, because there is not enough space for two; there can only be one.

Therefore, in a deep presence, you are the flower and the flower becomes you. When there is no
thought, who is the flower and who is the observer? The observer becomes the observed. Suddenly, borders
disappear. Suddenly you find that you have penetrated the flower and the flower has penetrated you.
Suddenly: you are no longer two; there is only one.
If you start thinking, you become two again. If you don't think, where is the duality? When you
exist with the flower, without thinking, it is a dialogue. Not a dulogue, but a dialogue.

When you exist with your lover, it is a dialogue, not a dulogue, because there are no two there.
Sitting next to your lover, holding his hand, you simply exist. You don't think about the days already gone;
You don't think about the future that will come. You are here and now, it is so beautiful to be here and now,
and so intense, that no thought can penetrate that intensity.
And the door is narrow. The door of the present is narrow. No two can enter through it together, only
one. In the present it is not possible to think, it is not possible to dream, because dreaming is nothing more
than thinking with images. Both things are materials.
When you are in the present without thinking, you are spiritual for the first time. A new dimension
opens, the dimension of consciousness. Since you have not known that dimension, Heraclitus says that you are
asleep, that you are not conscious. Consciousness means being in the moment so completely that there is no
movement into the past or into the future.
All movement stops.
That doesn't mean you stay static. A new movement begins, a movement with depth. There are two
types of movement, and that is the meaning of the cross of Jesus: it shows two movements, a crossing of
paths. One of the movements is linear: you move following a line, from one thing to another, from one thought
to another, from one dream to another dream. From A you go to B, from B to C, from C to D. That way you
move in a horizontal line. This is the movement of time; It is the movement of those who are completely
asleep. You can go like a shuttle, back and forth; the line is there.

You can go from B to A or you can go from A to B; the line is there.

There is another movement, which takes place in a totally different dimension. This movement is not
horizontal, it is vertical. You don't go from A to B and from B to C; you go from A to a deeper A, from Al to A2,
A3, A4, lower and lower... or higher. .
When the thought stops, the new movement begins. Now you fall into the depths, as if you fell into
an abyss. People who meditate deeply reach that point sooner or later; then they become afraid, because it
seems to them that a bottomless abyss has opened... you feel vertigo, you are afraid. You would like to hold
on to the old movement because it was something known; This looks like death.

That is the meaning of the cross of Jesus: it is a death. Pass from

The horizontal to the vertical is death, it is true death. But it is only death seen from one side; Seen from the
other side it is resurrection. It is dying to be born; It is dying in one dimension to be born in another dimension.
Horizontally you are Jesus; vertically you have become Christ.

If you move from one thought to another, you are still in the world of time. If you
you move into the moment, not the thought, you move into eternity. No
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you are static; There is nothing static in this world, nothing can be static. A new movement arises,
a movement without motivation. Remember these words. On the horizontal line, you move by
motivations. You have to achieve something: money, prestige, power or God, but you have to
achieve something. There is a motivation. Yo

Motivated movement equals sleep. Unmotivated movement means awareness. You move
because moving is a pure pleasure, you move because movement is life, you move because life is
energy and energy is movement. You move because energy is pleasure, and for nothing else.
There is no goal, you are not trying to achieve anything. In fact, you are not going anywhere, you
are not "going", you are simply enjoying the energy.
There is no goal outside of the movement itself. Movement has its own intrinsic value, it has no
extrinsic value.
A Buddha also lives. A Heraclitus lives. I am here, living, breathing, but with a different type
of movement, not motivated.
A few days ago, someone asked me:
-Why do you help people with meditation?
"It's my pleasure," I told him. There is no why. I simply enjoy it.
It's like when a person enjoys planting seeds in the garden, waiting for the flowers to come
out. When you bloom, I rejoice. It's gardening; When someone blossoms, it is a pure pleasure. And
I share it. There is no objective. If you fail, I'm not going to feel frustrated. If you don't bloom, then
very good, because flowering cannot be forced. You cannot force open a cocoon; you can do it, but
then you kill it. It may look like a flourish, but it is not a flourish.

The whole world moves, existence moves within eternity. The mind moves in time. Existence
moves towards depths and heights, and the mind moves back and forth. The mind moves
horizontally; that's the dream. If you can move vertically, that is consciousness.

Live in the moment. Incorporate your entire being into the moment. Don't let the past
interfere and don't let the future get in the way. The past no longer exists, it is dead. And, as Jesus
says, "let the dead bury their dead." The past no longer exists.
Why are you worried? Why do you keep ruminating over and over again? Are you crazy? No longer
exists; It's just in your mind, it's just a memory. The future does not exist yet. What are you doing
thinking about the future? If it doesn't exist yet, how can you think about it? What can you plan?
Whatever you do, it is not going to happen, and then you will feel frustrated, because the whole has
its own plan. Why do you insist on making your own plans against his?

Existence has its own plans, it is wiser than you. The whole has to be wiser than the part.
Why do you pretend to be everything? The whole has its own destiny, its own fulfillment. Why do
you bother with that? Whatever you do, it will be a sin, because you will miss the moment, this
moment. And if that becomes a habit - which it becomes -, if you start to lose yourself, it becomes
a habitual way; and then, when the future comes, you will miss it too, because when it comes it will
no longer be a future, it will be a present Yesterday you were thinking about today, because then
today was tomorrow; Now is today and you are thinking about tomorrow, and when tomorrow
comes it will have become today, because everything that exists, exists here and now; It cannot
exist in any other way and if you have a fixed way of functioning, so that your mind always looks to
tomorrow, when do you live? Tomorrow never comes. You will continue to lose yourself, and that is
a sin. That is the meaning of the Hebrew root of "sin."

The moment the future enters, time enters. You have sinned against existence, you have
lost yourself. And this has become a fixed pattern; Like a robot, you're still lost.

People from very distant countries have come to me. When they are there, they think about
me and they get very excited thinking about me, and they read and think and dream. When they
get here, they start thinking about their homes; By the time you arrive, they are already returning!
They begin to think about their children, their wives, their jobs, this and that, a thousand and one things.
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And I see all that nonsense. Then they'll go back there and start thinking about me. They
have failed, and that is a sin.
While you are here with me, you must be here with me. Totally here with me, so that
you can learn a new mode of movement, so that you can move in eternity, not in time.

Time is the world and eternity is God. The horizontal is the world and the vertical is
God. The two meet at one point: that is where Jesus is crucified. The horizontal and the
vertical meet at a point, and that point is here and now. From here and now you can undertake
two journeys: a journey through the world, towards the future, and another journey towards
God, towards the depths.
Become more and more aware, become more and more alert and sensitive to the
present.
What are you going to do? How can it be made possible? Because you are so
asleep that you can also turn that into a dream. You can make it an object of thought, a
thought process. The issue can make you so tense that you can no longer be in the present
just because of it. If you think too much about how to be in the present, all that thinking won't
help you. If you feel too much guilt... if you sometimes move to the past... you will go to
the past. It is a routine that has lasted a long time. And sometimes you'll start thinking
about the future... and immediately feel guilty that you've committed another sin.
Don't feel guilty. Understand the sin, but don't feel guilty. This is very, very delicate. If
you feel guilty, you've missed everything. The old pattern begins again in a new way. Now
you feel guilty because you have missed the present.
Now you are thinking about the past, because that present is no longer present; It's the past,
and you feel guilty about it. You are still lost.
So, remember one thing: whenever you realize that you have gone to the past or the
future, do not create problems for yourself for it. Simply return to the present, without creating
problems for yourself. No problem! Simply regain your consciousness. You will lose it millions
of times; It's not going to come out right now, immediately. It can happen, but it cannot happen
because of you. It is a fixed mode of behavior for so, so long, that you cannot change it right
away. But don't worry, existence is in no hurry. Eternity can wait forever. Don't create tension
because of it.
Every time you feel like you've lost yourself, come back; that's all. Don't feel guilty;
That's a trick of the mind, which is playing its games again. Don't regret it: "I forgot again!"
Simply, when you think, go back to what you were doing. If you are taking a bath, come back;
If you are eating the food, come back; If you're taking a walk, come back. The moment you
feel that you are not here and now, come back... simply, innocently, You do not believe guilt.
If you feel guilty, you haven't understood anything.
There is sin, but there is no guilt... but that is difficult for you. If you feel something is
wrong, you immediately feel guilty. The mind is very clever. If you feel guilty, the game has
started, again... on a new field, but the game is very old. People come to me and say, "We
keep forgetting." They get very sad when they say: “We keep forgetting. We tried, but we only
remembered for a few seconds. We stay alert, remembering each other, but we quickly lose
ourselves. To do?" I don't know. can do anything! It is not a matter of doing. What could you
do? The only thing you can do is not create guilt. Just come back.

No matter how many times you have to come back... just remember. Not with a very
serious face, not with a lot of effort... simply, innocently, without creating a problem for it.
Because eternity has no problems; all problems exist on the horizontal plane; This problem
also exists in the horizontal plane. The vertical plane knows no problems. It is pure joy,
without any anxiety, without any anguish, without any worry, without any guilt, without
anything. Be simple and come back.
You will get lost many times, rest assured. But don't worry about it. So are the things.
You will get lost many times, but that doesn't matter. Don't pay attention to the fact that you
have gotten lost many times, pay close attention to the fact that you have reinstated yourself.
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incorporated many times. Remember this: you don't have to give importance to the fact that you have
been lost many times, what matters is that you have remembered many times. Be happy about it.
Getting lost is natural. You are human, you have lived on the horizontal plane for many, many lives, so
it is natural. The great thing is that you have returned many times. You have done the impossible; be
happy about it.
In twenty-four hours you will get lost twenty-four thousand times, but you will rejoin another
twenty-four thousand times. And now a new mode begins to work. You've been back a bunch of times;
Now a new dimension is beginning to open, little by little. You will become more and more able to stay
conscious, the comings and goings will become less and less. The round trip will get shorter and
shorter. You will forget less and less, you will remember more and more; you are entering the vertical.
Suddenly, one day, the horizontal disappears. Consciousness gains intensity and the horizontal
disappears.

This is what Shankara, Vedanta and the Hindus mean when they say that this world is illusory.
Because when consciousness becomes perfect, this world, this world that you have created from your
mind, simply disappears. And another world is revealed to you. The Maya disappears, the illusion
disappears... the illusion is there because of your dream, your unconsciousness.
It's like a dream. At night you move in dreams, and when the dream is there, it is very real.
Have you ever thought in your dreams “this is not possible”? The impossible happens in dreams, but it
doesn't occur to you to doubt it. In dreams you have that kind of faith; In dreams no one is a skeptic,
not even a Bertrand Russell. No, in a dream everyone is like a child, who believes everything that
happens. In a dream you see your wife approach and suddenly she turns into a horse. It doesn't even
occur to you to think: "How can this be possible?"
The dream is trust, it is faith. In a dream you cannot doubt. As soon as you start to doubt in a
dream, the rules are broken. As soon as you doubt, the dream begins to disappear.
If you can remember, even just once, that this is a dream, it causes a crash And the dream shatters
And you wake up.
This world you see around you is not the real world. It's not that it doesn't exist: it does exist,
but you are seeing it through a veil of dream. Between you and him is unconsciousness; You look at it,
you interpret it in your own way, you are like a drunk.
It happened that Mullah Nasruddin came running. He was completely drunk and the elevator
operator was about to close the door, but he managed to sneak in. The elevator was packed. Everyone
realized that Nasruddin was very drunk. His breath smelled. He tried to hide it, looking towards the
door, but he saw nothing; His eyes were also drunk and sleepy. He tried to stay upright, but he couldn't.
And then he felt very embarrassed, because everyone was looking at him and everyone thought he
was completely drunk. I noticed it. Not knowing what to do, he suddenly said: "You might be wondering
why I called this meeting."

In the morning it will be fine. He will laugh, like you are laughing...
All the Buddhas laughed when they woke up. His laughter is like the roar of a lion. They're not
laughing at you, they're laughing at the whole cosmic joke. They had lived in a dream, asleep,
completely intoxicated by desire, and contemplated existence through desire. And therefore, that was
not the true existence; They projected their own dream onto her.
You take your entire existence as a screen, and then you project your own mind onto it. You
see things that aren't there, and you don't see things that are there. And the mind has explanations for
everything. If you raise a doubt, the mind explains. She creates theories, philosophies, systems, with
the sole purpose of feeling comfortable, of feeling that nothing is wrong. All philosophies exist to make
life comfortable, so that everything seems to go well and nothing goes wrong... but everything goes
wrong when you are asleep.
A man came to me. I was worried; He is the father of a beautiful daughter. He was very worried
and told me: -Every morning
she feels a little dizzy, but I have consulted all the doctors and they say there is nothing
wrong with her. What I can do?
"Go to Mullah Nasruddin," I said. He is the wise man of this region and knows everything,
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because I have never heard him say: "I don't know." See the.
So he did. I followed him to see what Nasruddin had to say. Nasruddin closed his eyes,
examined the problem, opened his eyes again and asked: -Do you
give her milk at night, before putting her to bed?
The man said yes, and Nasruddin said:
-I have already solved the problem. If you give milk to a child, the child turns in bed all night, from
right to left, from left to right, and from churning it so much, the milk turns into curds. Then the curd turns into
cheese, and the cheese turns into butter, the butter turns into fat, and the fat turns into sugar, and finally the
sugar turns into alcohol... and of course, in the morning you have hangover.

This is what all philosophies are: explanations of things, explanations of things that cannot be
explained, pretending to know something that one does not know. But they make life comfortable. You can
sleep better, they are like tranquilizers.
Remember: this is the difference between religiosity and philosophy. Philosophy is a tranquilizer,
religiosity is a shock; Philosophy helps you sleep well, religiosity brings you out of sleep. Religiosity is not a
philosophy, it is a technique to get you out of your unconsciousness. And all philosophies are techniques to
help you sleep well; They give you dreams, utopias.

Religiosity takes away all your dreams, all your utopias. Religiosity gives you the truth, and the truth is
only possible when you are not dreaming. A dreaming mind cannot see the true. A mind that dreams will also
turn the truth into a dream.

Have you noticed? You set the alarm clock; You want to get up at four in the morning, because you
have to catch a train. In the morning the alarm clock rings and your mind creates a dream: you are sitting in a
temple and the temple bells are ringing. Then everything is explained. The alarm clock is no longer a problem,
it can no longer wake you up. By explaining it, you have gotten rid of it. Immediately!

The mind is subtle. And now psychoanalysts are very intrigued by how this happens, how the mind
creates explanations immediately, so immediately. As difficult as it is! The mind must project it beforehand.
How come you suddenly find yourself in a church or temple where bells are ringing? The alarm clock rings and
you instantly have an explanation within the dream. You're trying to get rid of the alarm clock. You don't want
to get up, you don't want to get up on such a cold winter night. The mind says, "This is not the alarm clock, it is
a temple you are visiting." Everything is explained and you continue sleeping.

This is what philosophies always do, and that is why there are so many philosophies, because each
one needs a different explanation. The explanation that helps someone else fall asleep will not help you. That
is what Heraclitus says in this passage.
Try to understand it. This is what it says:

Men are as forgetful and careless of what is happening around them in their waking moments as when
they are asleep.

When you are asleep you are not aware of what is happening around you, but in your waking hours,
are you aware of what is happening around you?
There has been a lot of research on this. Ninety-eight percent of the messages that come to you, your
mind doesn't let them in. Ninety-eight percent! Only two percent are allowed in, and that two percent is also
interpreted by the mind. I say one thing and you hear another. I say something different, and you interpret it in
a way that does not disturb your sleep. Your mind immediately gives you an interpretation. You find a place in
your mind to fit it, and the mind absorbs it; it becomes part of the mind.

That's why you miss the Buddhas, Christs; Heraclitus and others. They keep talking to you; They keep telling
you that they have found something, that they have experienced something, but when they tell you it you
interpret it immediately. You have your own tricks.
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Aristotle was very disturbed by Heraclitus. He came to the conclusion that the man had to have
some personality defect. Matter concluded! You have disqualified him because he does not agree with
you, because he disturbed you. Heraclitus must have given Aristotle a lot of headaches, because Aristotle
moves in the horizontal line, he is the master of that movement, and this Heraclitus guy is trying to push
him into the abyss. Aristotle moves on the flat terrain of logic, and this Heraclitus is trying to push him into
the mystery. Some explanation is necessary. So Aristotle says: «This man has some defect: biological,
physiological, "personality", but some defect. Otherwise, why insist so much on the paradox?

Why insist so much on the mystery? Why insist so much that there is harmony between opposites?
Contraries are opposites; there is no harmony. Life is life and death is death, we must say things clearly,
not confuse them. This man seems like a mess."
Lao Tzu was the same. Lao Tzu said:
“Everyone seems to be wise, except
me. Everyone seems very smart, except me.
"I'm stupid."
Lao Tzu is one of the greatest and wisest people who ever lived, but among you he feels foolish.
Lao Tzu says: “Everyone seems to think so clearly, and I'm all confused!” What Aristotle says about
Heraclitus, Lao Tzu says about himself.
Lao Tzu says: “When someone listens to my teachings without the mind, they become
enlightened. If someone listens to my teachings through the mind, all they find are their own explanations,
which have nothing to do with me. And when someone listens without listening - there are people who
listen without listening -, when someone listens as if they were listening but without listening, they laugh at
my nonsense. And the third type of mind is the majority. Lao Tzu says: If the majority does not laugh at
you, be careful, because you may be saying the wrong thing. If the majority laughs, then you are saying
something that is true. When most people think you are stupid, there is some possibility that you are wise;
Otherwise, there is no chance.

Heraclitus seems confusing to Aristotle. It will seem that way to you too, because Aristotle has
made himself the master of all the universities and all the colleges in the entire world. Now everywhere they
teach you logic, not mystery. Everywhere you are taught to be rational, not mystical. Everyone is trained to
make clear definitions. If you want clear definitions, you have to move horizontally. There, A is A, B is B, and
A is never B.
But in the mysterious abyss of the vertical, borders are erased and merge with each other.
The man is a woman, the woman is a man; good is bad, bad is good; darkness is light, light is darkness; life
is death, death is life. All borders are erased and merged.

That is why God is a mystery, not a syllogism. Those who provide proof of the existence of God
are doing something impossible. Proof of God cannot be presented.
The evidence exists horizontally.
That is the meaning of trust: you fall into the abyss, you experience the abyss;
you disappear into it... and you know. You only come to know when the mind is not there, never before.

Fools, although they hear, they are like the deaf.

The adage applies to them that
when they are present they are absent.

When you are present somewhere, that is exactly the place from which you are absent. You can
be somewhere else, but not where you are. Wherever you are, there you are not.

It is said in ancient Tibetan scriptures that God comes to you many times, but He never finds you
where you are. Knock at your door, but the inhabitant is not there; It's always somewhere else. Are you at
home, at home, or somewhere else? How is God going to find you? You don't need to go to him, you just
need to be home and he will find you.
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He's looking for you the same way you're looking for him. It is enough that you are at home, so that when he
arrives he will find you. He has come and knocked millions of times, he has waited at your door, but you are
never there.
Heraclitus says:

Fools, although they hear, they are like the deaf.

The adage applies to them that
when they are present they are absent.

That is being asleep: being absent, not being present in the present moment, being
somewhere else.
It happened that Mullah Nasruddin was sitting in a cafe, talking about how generous he was. And
when he spoke he exaggerated a lot, like everyone does, because he forgets what he is saying. Then someone
asked him: -Nasruddin, if you are so generous, why do you
never invite us to your
home? You haven't invited us to lunch even once. What do you say to that?
Nasruddin was so excited that he completely forgot about his wife and said:
-Come now.
.
As he approached the house, his drunkenness began to fade. So
He remembered his wife and was scared. Thirty guests! At the door of the house, he said:
-Wait. You already know that I have a wife. You too have wives and know what this is like. So
wait. Let me go in first and convince her, and then I'll call you.
He entered and disappeared. The guests waited and waited and waited, and he
He didn't show up, so they knocked on the door. Nasruddin had told his wife exactly what had
happened: that he had talked too much about generosity and had been caught. His wife said:

-But I don't have food for thirty people and there is nothing to do at this time of night.
'

"Do one thing," Nasruddin told him. When they knock, go to the door and simply tell them that
Nasruddin is not at home.
So when they knocked, the woman answered and said: -Nasruddin is not at home.
"It can't be," they said, "because we came with him, he entered and we didn't give him
seen him leave, and here the thirty of us are, waiting at the door. It has to be. Come in and look for
it. It has to be hidden somewhere.
The woman entered and asked:
-What do we do?
Nasruddin became very excited and said,
"Wait!" He went out into the street and said
to the guests: -
Why not? He could have left through
the back door!
This is possible, this is happening to you every day. He completely forgot about himself. That's what
happened to him: with so much logic he forgot himself. The logic is correct, the argument is correct, but...
«Why not? You are waiting at the front door; "He was able to get out through the back door." The logic is
correct, but Nasruddin has completely forgotten that it is he himself who is saying it. You are not present. You
are not in the present neither for the world nor for yourself. This is being asleep.

How can you hear like that? How can you see like this? How can you feel like this? If you are not present
here and now, all doors are closed. You are a dead person, you are not alive.
That is why Jesus repeats over and over again to those who hear and listen to him: “He who has ears, let
him hear me; "Whoever has eyes, let him see me."
Heraclitus must have found many people who listened but did not hear, who looked but could not see
because their houses were completely empty. The owner of the house does not
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this. The eyes look, the ears hear, but the owner of the house is not present within. The
eyes are nothing more than windows; They cannot see unless you see through them.
How are you going to see a window? You have to stand at the window, and only then can
you see. As? It's just a window, it can't feel. If you are there, then the thing is completely
different.

The whole body is like a house and the mind is on a journey; The owner is always
traveling somewhere else, and the house is always empty. And life knocks at your door...
you can call it God or whatever you prefer to call it, the name doesn't matter; Call it
existence... it knocks on the door, it is knocking continuously, but it doesn't find you at home.
That's being asleep.

One should not act or speak as if one were asleep.

Act, speak, with full awareness, and you will discover a tremendous change in
yourself. The very fact that you are aware changes your actions. Then you cannot commit
sins. It's not that you have to control yourself, no. Control is a bad substitute for conscience,
a very bad substitute; It's not much help. If you are aware, you do not need to control anger;
Being conscious, anger never arises. They cannot exist at the same time, there is no
coexistence for the two things. Being aware, jealousy never arises. By being aware, many
things simply disappear: all the things that are negative.

It's like a light. When there is light in your house, how can darkness exist in it? The
darkness simply escapes. When your house is illuminated, how can you stumble? How can
you hit the wall? The light is on, and you know where the door is; You just go to the door
and enter or exit. When it's dark, you stumble, you grope, you fall. When you are unconscious
you grope, you stumble, you fall. Anger is nothing but stumbling; Jealousy is nothing more
than groping in the dark. Everything that is wrong is not wrong in itself, but because you live
in darkness.
If Jesus wants to get angry, he can; you can use it. You cannot use it, you are used
by anger. If Jesus feels it will be good and helpful, he can use anything. Is a teacher. Jesus
can be angry without being angry. Many people worked with Gurdjieff, and he was a terrible
man. When he got angry, he became terribly angry, he looked like a murderer. But that was
nothing more than a game, it was just a situation to help someone. And immediately, without
a single moment's interval, he looked at someone else and was smiling. And he looked
again at the same person with whom he had been irritated, and again he looked furious and
terrible.
It's possible. When you are conscious you can use anything. Even poison becomes
an elixir when you are awake. And when you are asleep, even the elixir becomes poison,
because everything depends on whether you are alert or not. Actions mean nothing. The
actions don't matter. What matters is you, your consciousness, that you are conscious.
What you do doesn't matter.
The following thing
happened: There was a great teacher, a Buddhist teacher named Nagarjuna. A
thief came to him. The thief had been captivated by the teacher because he had never
seen a person so beautiful, with such infinite grace.
He asked Nagarjuna: -Is there any chance that I too will grow? But one thing must
be clear to you: I am a thief. And another thing: I can't leave him, so please don't make that
condition for me. I'll do anything you say, but I can't stop being a thief. I've tried it many
times, but it never works, so I've given up. I have accepted my destiny, that I will always be
a thief and will continue to be one, so don't talk to me about that. Let it be clear from the
beginning.
Nagarjuna said:
-Why are you afraid? Who is going to tell you that you are a
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thief?
-The thing is that every time I go to a monk, a priest or a religious saint,
They always tell me: "The first thing is that you stop stealing" -said the thief.
Nagarjuna laughed and said, "Then
you must have gone to thieves." If not, why should they care? I do not care.

The thief was very happy and said: -Well

then, okay. It seems that now I can be a student, Rulo. You are the right
teacher.
Nagarjuna accepted him and said:
-Now you can go and do whatever you want. You only have to fulfill one condition: be
aware. Go and rob houses, break in and take things, steal. Do whatever you want, I don't care because
I'm not a thief. But do it with full awareness.
The thief did not realize that he was falling into the trap and said: -Then

everything is very good. I'll try.

After three weeks, he came back and said:
-You're a cheater. Because if I become conscious I cannot steal. If I steal, consciousness
disappears. I'm in quite a mess.
Nagarjuna told him:
-Enough talking about stealing and that you are a thief. That doesn't matter
to me, I'm not a thief. Now you decide. If you want awareness, you decide. If you don't want it, you also decide.

"But now it's difficult," said the man. "I've tried it a little, and it's so beautiful... I'll leave everything, I'll
do what you say." -and he continued saying- The other night, for the first time, I managed to enter the king's
palace. I opened the treasure. I could have become the richest man in the world, but you were following me
and I had to be aware.
When I became aware, I suddenly lost all motivation, all desire. When I became aware, diamonds seemed to
me to be simple stones, vulgar stones. When I lost consciousness, the treasure was there. I waited and did it
again many times. I became conscious and I was like a Buddha, and I couldn't even touch the treasure
because the whole thing seemed like nonsense, stupidity... just stones. What am I doing? Get lost for some
stones? But then I lost consciousness and they seemed beautiful to me again, all the illusion returned. But in
the end I decided they weren't worth it.

When you have known consciousness, nothing is worth losing it. You have known the greatest
blessing in life. Suddenly, many things simply disappear; They become stupid, they become nonsense. The
motivation has disappeared, the desire has disappeared, the dreams have ceased.

One should not act or speak as if one were asleep.

That's the only key.

The awakened have a world in common; The

sleeping ones each have a private world.

Dreams are private, absolutely private. No one can enter your dreams.
You can't share a dream with your loved one. Husband and wife sleep in the same bed, but they dream
separately. It is impossible to share a dream, because it is nothing.

How can you share a nothing? It's like a bubble, it's absolutely non-existential; You can't share it, you
have to dream alone.
That is why, because of the sleepers, the very numerous sleepers, there are so many worlds. You
have your own world; If you are asleep, you live locked in your own
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thoughts, concepts, dreams, desires. When you meet another person, two worlds collide. Worlds
colliding... that's the situation. Watch out! Watch how a husband and his wife talk. They are not conversing
at all. The husband is thinking about his office, about his salary; The woman is thinking about her dresses
for Christmas. Inside they have their own private worlds, but their private worlds meet - rather collide -
somewhere, because the woman's clothes depend on the husband's salary, and the husband's salary
has to finance the "wife's" clothes! The woman says "darling," but behind the word darling there are
dresses; that's what she's thinking about. That "darling" doesn't mean what it says in the dictionary,
because every time this woman says "darling" it's just It's a façade, and the husband immediately gets
scared. He doesn't show it, of course, because when someone says "honey," you don't act scared. He
says, "What, darling?" but he's scared because he's thinking about his wife. salary and knows that
Christmas is approaching and that there is danger.

Mullah Nasruddin's wife said to him: -What

happened? Lately I've been crying and sobbing and tears are streaming down my face, and you
You don't even ask: "Why are you crying?"
-Stop! said Nasruddin - Asking is too expensive and in the past I have made that mistake too many
times, because those tears are not simple tears. They are dresses, a new house, new furniture, a new car.
There are many things hidden behind those tears. Those tears are just the beginning.

There is no possible dialogue because inside there are two private worlds. Only conflict is
possible.
Dreams are private, the truth is not private. The truth cannot be private; the truth cannot be mine
or yours, the truth cannot be Christian or Hindu, the truth cannot be Indian or Greek. The truth cannot be
private. Dreams are private. Remember that anything that is private has to belong to the world of
dreams. The truth is an open sky; It is for everyone, it is only one.

Therefore, when Lao Tzu speaks, the language may be different; when Suda speaks, the
language is different; When Heraclitus speaks, the language is different... but everyone says the same
thing, everyone is indicating the same thing. They do not live in private worlds. The private world has
disappeared with its dreams and its desires... with the mind. The mind has a private world, but
consciousness has no private worlds. The awakened have a world in common... All those who are awake
have a world in common, which is existence. And all those who are asleep and dreaming have their own
worlds.
You have to give up your world; It is the only resignation I ask of you. I'm not telling you to leave
your wife, I'm not telling you to leave your job, I'm not telling you to give up your money or any of your
things, no. I'm simply telling you to leave your world of private dreams.
That is sannyas for me . The old sannyas consisted of leaving this world, the visible one.
One was going to the Himalayas, leaving his wife and children... but that's not what it's about. That is not
the world to abandon. How could you abandon it? Even the Himalayas belong to this world. The real
world that must be renounced is the mind, the private dream world. If you give it up, even if you are sitting
in the market you will be in the Himalayas. If you do not give it up, even in the Himalayas you will create
a private world around you.
How can you escape from yourself? Wherever you go you will be with you. Wherever you go,
you will behave the same way. The situations may be different, but how can you be different? You will
still sleep in the Himalayas. What is the difference between sleeping in Pune or in Boston, between
sleeping in London or in the Himalayas? Wherever you are, you will be dreaming. Stop dreaming!
Become more alert, suddenly, dreams disappear, and with dreams all suffering disappears.

What we see when we are awake is death, when we are asleep, dreams.

This is truly beautiful. When you are asleep you see dreams, illusions,
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mirages... your own creations, your own private world. When you are awake, what do you see?
Heraclitus says that "when you are awake you see death all around you."
That may be why you don't want to see. Maybe that's why you dream and create a cloud of
dreams around you, so you don't have to face the fact of death. But remember: a man becomes
religious only when he faces death, not before.

When you meet death, when you see it face to face, when you don't avoid it, when you
don't dodge it, when you don't run away, when you don't create a cloud around you... when you
meet and face the fact of death ...suddenly you become aware that death is life. The deeper you go
into death, the deeper you will go into life, because, as Heraclitus says, opposites touch and mix;
They are one thing.
If you are trying to escape death, remember that you are also escaping life. That's why you
look so dead. This is the paradox: flee from death and you will remain dead; face it, confront it and
you will come to life. The moment you face death so thoroughly, so intensely that you begin to feel
like you are dying - when you feel and touch death not only around you, but also inside you - the
crisis comes. This is the cross of Jesus, the crisis of death. At that moment, you die to one world -
the world of the horizontal, the world of the mind - and you are resurrected in another world.

The resurrection of Jesus is not a physical phenomenon. Christians have unnecessarily

created a lot of hypotheses about it. It is not a resurrection of this body, it is a resurrection in another
dimension of this body; It is a resurrection in another dimension of another body that never dies.
This body is temporary, the other body is eternal. Jesus is resurrected in another world, the world
of truth. The private world has disappeared.

At the last moment, Jesus says that he is worried, distressed. Even a man like Jesus
is worried about dying; so it has to be. He cries and says to God, “What are you doing to
me?” He would like to hold on to the horizontal, he would like to hold on to life... even a man like
Jesus.
So don't feel guilty if it happens to you. You would also like to hold on. This is the human
side of Jesus, who is more human than Buddha or Mahavira. This is the human Jesus: the man
comes face to face with death and is frightened, and cries, but does not retreat, does not fall
immediately becomes aware of what he is asking, and then says: "Thy will be done!" , he relaxes,
he lets himself go. Instantly; the wheel turns: Jesus is no longer horizontal; It has penetrated
vertically, into depth. And so he is resurrected for eternity.

Die for time and you will be resurrected in eternity. Die to the mind and you will live in
consciousness. Die to thought and you will be born in consciousness.
Heraclitus says: "What we see when we are awake is death..." That is why we live asleep,
in dreams, with tranquilizers, narcotics, intoxicants... so as not to face the fact. But it is a fact that
must be faced. If you face it, the fact becomes the truth; If you flee from him you live in lies. If you
face the fact, it becomes the door to truth. The fact is death; That has to be faced. And the truth will
be life, eternal life, life in abundance, life that never ends.

Awareness and centering

The first thing you need to understand is what consciousness means. You are walking. Are
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aware of many things: the stores, the people passing by you, the traffic, everything. You are aware of
many things, you are only unconscious of one thing... and that thing is you. You are walking down the
street, you are aware of many things, and you are only unaware of yourself! Gurdjieff calls this self-
awareness “remembering oneself.”
Gurdjieff says: "Constantly, wherever you are, remember yourself."
Whatever you do, inside you must continually continue doing one thing: be aware that you are
doing it. If you are eating, be aware of yourself. If you are walking, be aware of yourself. If you are
listening, if you are speaking, be aware of yourself. When you are irritated, be aware that you are
irritated. At the very moment anger appears, be aware that you are irritated. This constant remembering
of oneself creates a subtle energy in you, a very subtle energy. You begin to be a crystallized being.

Normally, you're just a loose bag. There is no crystallization, no true center... just something
liquid, just a loose combination of many things without any center. A changing crowd moves constantly,
without any leader. Awareness is what makes you a boss... and when I say boss I don't mean controlling.
When I say boss I mean a presence... a continuous presence. Whatever you do, and even if you do
nothing, one thing must be constantly in your consciousness: that you are.

This simple sense of being oneself, that one is, creates a center, a center of stillness, a center
of silence, a center of inner mastery. It is an inner power. And when I say “an inner power” I mean that
literally. That is why the Buddhas speak of the "fire of consciousness." It's a fire. If you begin to become
conscious, you begin to feel a new energy in you, a new fire, a new life. And thanks to this new life, new
power, new energy, many things that were dominating you dissolve. You don't have to fight with them
anymore.

You have to fight with your anger, with your greed, with your sex, because you are weak. In
reality, greed, anger and sex are not the problems; The problem is weakness. As soon as you begin to
become stronger inside, with a sense of inner presence - when you feel that you are - your energies
become concentrated, crystallize into a single point and a self is born. Remember, not an ego, but a
self. The ego is a false sense of the. I. Without having any self, you continue to believe that you have
one... that is the ego. The ego is a false self... you are not a self, but you still believe you are a self.

Malungputra, a seeker of truth, came to Buddha. Buddha asked him: -What are
you looking for?
"I am looking for my self: Help me," said Malungputra.
Buddha asked him to promise to do whatever he was told.
. Malungputra began to cry and said:
-How can I promise anything? I am not. I'm not yet, so how can I
promise? I don't know what I'll be tomorrow. I have no self that can promise, so don't ask me
for impossible things. I'll try. That's the most I can say, I'll try. But I can't say that I will do what you tell
me, because who is going to do it? What I look for is that which can promise and keep a promise. I'm
not yet.

"Malungputra," said Buddha, "I have asked you that to hear this." If you had promised, I would
have rejected you. If you had said, "I promise you I will," I would have known that you are not a true
seeker of truth, because a seeker must know that he is not yet. Otherwise, what's the point of searching?
If you already are, there is no need; You're not! And if one can feel that, the ego evaporates.

The ego is a false concept of something that is not there. "ME" means a center that can
promise.
This center is created by being continually aware, constantly aware.
Be aware that you are doing something... that you are sitting, that you are going to sleep, that you are
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that the dream is coming to you, that you are falling. Try to be aware at all times,
and then you will begin to feel that a center is born within you. Things have begun to
crystallize, they are coming into focus. Now everything is related to a center.
We are not focused. Sometimes we feel centered, but these are moments when a
situation makes us aware. If suddenly a very dangerous situation occurs, you will begin to feel
a center within you, because when you are in danger you become aware. If someone is going
to kill you, at that moment you cannot think; At that moment you cannot remain unconscious,
All your energy is focused, and that moment becomes solid. You can't move into the past, you
can't move into the future... this particular moment becomes everything. And then you are not
only aware of the murderer, but you become aware of yourself, the one who is going to be
murdered. In that subtle moment you begin to feel a center within you.

That's why dangerous sports have their appeal. Ask someone who has climbed to the
top of Gourishankar, Mount Everest. When Hillary first got there, she must have suddenly felt
a center. And when someone first landed on the moon, they must have experienced a sudden
sense of centering. That's why danger has appeal.
You are driving a car, faster and faster, until the speed becomes dangerous. Then you can't
think; thoughts cease. So you can't dream.
So you can't imagine. Then the present becomes solid. In that dangerous moment, when
death is possible at every moment, you suddenly become aware of a center within you. Danger
is attractive only because in some dangerous situations you feel centered.

Nietzsche said somewhere that war must continue because only in war does one
sometimes feel the self - one feels a center - because war is danger. And when death
becomes a reality, life becomes intense. When death is near, life becomes intense and you
are centered. At any moment when you become self-aware there is a centering; But if it is a
situation that caused it, it will disappear when the situation ceases.

It shouldn't be something situational, it should be internal. Therefore, try to be conscious

in all normal activities. Try it when you are sitting in your chair: be aware of who is sitting. Not
just the seat, not just the room, the atmosphere that surrounds you... be aware of who is
sitting. Close your eyes and feel; Go deeper and feel.
Eugen Herrigel was learning with a Zen master. He spent three years learning archery,
and the teacher always told him: “Good. What you do is well done, but it is not enough.
Herrigel became a master archer. His aim became one hundred percent perfect, and the
teacher kept telling him, "You're doing well, but it's not enough."

-With one hundred percent perfect aim! -Herrigel said-. But what do you expect from me?
How can I improve more? With 100% perfect aim, how can you expect more?

It is said that the Zen master replied: -I

am not interested in your skill with the bow or your aim. I'm interested in you. You have
become a perfect technician. But when your arrow leaves the bow you are not aware of
yourself, so it is of no use. I don't care if the arrow hits the target. I'm interested in you! When
the arrow shoots from the bow, your conscience must also shoot inside. Even if you didn't hit
the target, it wouldn't matter, but where you shouldn't miss is the inner target, and that's where
you're missing. You have become a perfect technician, but you are an imitator.

But for a Western mind or, rather, for a modern mind - and the Western mind is the
modern mind - it is very difficult to conceive this. It seems absurd. In archery what is important
is the individual's aiming efficiency.
Over time, Herrigel became discouraged and one day he
said: -I'm quitting. It seems impossible to me. It is impossible! When you aim at a target, your
consciousness goes to the target, to the object, and if you want to be a good archer, you have to forget about yourself.
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yourself, remember only the objective, the target, and forget everything. Only white should exist.
But the Zen master continually forced him to create another target within himself. The arrow
must be a double arrow: pointing towards the outer target and continuously pointing at the inner
target... the self.
Herrigel said:
-I'm leaving. It seems impossible to me. I can't meet your conditions.
And on the day of his departure, Herrigel was sitting. He had gone to say goodbye to the
teacher, and the teacher was aiming at another target. There was another apprentice, and for the first
time Herrigel was not involved; He had only gone to say goodbye and was sitting waiting. As soon as
the teacher finished his lesson, he would say goodbye and leave. For the first time he was not involved.
But then, suddenly, he became aware of the master and the master's double arrow consciousness.
The teacher was pointing. For three years Herrigel had been continually with the same teacher, but he
was more interested in his own efforts.
I had never seen this man, what he was doing. For the first time he saw and understood... and suddenly,
spontaneously, without effort, he approached the teacher, took the bow from his hands, aimed at the
target and shot the arrow. And the teacher said:
-Very good! For the first time you have done it. I am happy. What had he done? For the first
time he had focused on himself. The target was there, but he was also there, present. So, whatever
you do - anything, you need to shoot with a bow - whatever you do, even if it is sitting, be two
arrows. Remember what is happening outside and also remember who is inside.

One morning, Lin-chi was giving a lecture and suddenly someone asked: -Answer me just
one question: Who am I?
Lin-chi stepped down from the stand and approached the man. The entire room was silent. I
was going to do? It was a very simple question. I could have answered it from the stand. Lin chi
reached the man. The entire room was silent. Lin-chi stood before the man, looking into his eyes. It
was a very penetrating moment. Everything stopped. The man began to sweat. Lin-chi kept looking
into his eyes. And then, Lin-chi said:
-Do not ask me. Come in and find out who's asking. Close your eyes. Don't ask, "Who am I?"
Go inside and find out who has asked who that inner questioner is. Forget about me. Find the source
of the question. Penetrate to the bottom!
And it is said that the man closed his eyes, remained silent and suddenly became enlightened.
He opened his eyes, laughed, touched Lin chi's feet and said, "You
answered me." I have asked this question to many and they have given me many
answers, but none of them were real answers. But you have answered me.
"Who I am?" How can you answer that question? But in this particular situation - a thousand
people silent, a silence in which one could have heard the drop of a pin - Lin-chi came down with piercing
eyes and simply ordered the man: "Close your eyes, come in and find out who is asking. Don't expect
me to answer you. Find out who asked." And the man closed his eyes. What happened in that situation?
He focused. Suddenly he was centered, suddenly he became aware of the innermost core.

This must be discovered, and becoming aware is the method to discover this inner core. The
more unconscious you are, the further away you are from yourself. The more aware you are, the closer
you become. If awareness is total, you are in the center. If there is less awareness, you are close to
the periphery. When you are unconscious, you are on the periphery, where the center is completely
forgotten. So, these are the two possible ways to move.

You can move towards the periphery, and then you move towards unconsciousness. You
sit down to watch a movie, you sit down somewhere to listen to music, and you forget about
yourself. Then you are on the periphery. Reading the Bhagavad Gita or the Bible or the Quran, you
can forget yourself... then you are on the periphery.
Whatever you do, if you can remember yourself, you are closer to the center. And one day,
suddenly, you find yourself centered. Then you have energy. That energy is fire. All life, all existence,
is energy, is fire. Fire is the old name;
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Now they call it electricity. Man has called it many, many names, but "fire" is fine. The
electricity seems a little dead; the fire seems more alive.
Act very carefully. It is a long and difficult journey, and

makes it difficult to remain conscious even for a moment; the mind is constantly blinking.
But it's not impossible. It is difficult, but it is not impossible. It's possible... it's possible for
everyone. It just takes effort, and it has to be sincere effort. There is no need to make
exceptions; Nothing inside should be left untouched. Everything must be sacrificed to the.
Awareness only then will you discover the inner flame. Is there.
If you start looking for the essential unity among all the religions that have existed
or may come to exist, you will find this one word: consciousness.
Jesus tells a parable. The owner of a large mansion leaves and tells his servants
to be constantly alert, because he may return at any moment. In other words, they have
to be alert twenty-four hours a day. The Lord can arrive at any time... at any time! There
is no fixed moment, no fixed day, no fixed date. If there was a fixed date, you could go to
sleep; Then you could do whatever you wanted, and be alert only on that certain date,
because the Lord is going to arrive. But the Lord said: «I will return at any time. You have
to be alert day and night to receive me. "

It is a parable of life. You can't put it off; The Lord can arrive at any time. You have
to be constantly alert. There is no fixed date; nothing is known about when the time will
come. There is only one thing to do: be alert and wait.
Acquiring awareness is the technique to center, to reach the inner fire. It is there,
hidden; can be found. And once it is found, only then, are we able to enter the temple. Not
before, never before.
But we can fool ourselves with symbols. Symbols serve to indicate deeper realities,
but we can also use them as deceptions.
We can burn incense, we can worship with external things, and afterwards we feel
satisfied for having done something. We feel religious without having become religious in
any way. This is what is happening; That's what the world has become. Everyone thinks
they are religious just because they are following external symbols, without internal fire.

Try hard no matter how much you fail. You are starting. You will fail again and
again, but even failures will help you. When you stop being conscious, even for a
moment, you feel for the first time how unconscious you are.
You're walking down the street and you can't take more than a few steps without coming back to the street.
unconsciousness. Again and again you forget yourself. You start reading a poster and you forget about
yourself. Someone passes by, you look at them and forget about yourself.
Your failures will help you. They can show you how unconscious you are.
And by the mere act of becoming aware that you are unconscious, you have gained a
certain consciousness. If a madman realizes that he is mad, he is on the road to sanity.

Many sicknesses:
One Recipe

You've tried not to get angry, you've decided to be so many times, but it keeps
happening. You have tried not to be greedy, but time after time you fall into the trap.
You've tried all kinds of things to change, but nothing seems to work. You are still the
same.
And here I am telling you that there is a simple key: consciousness. You can't
believe it. How is conscience, simple conscience, going to help you when nothing else
has been of help? The keys are always very small; the keys are not
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big things. A small key can open a very big door.

When people asked Buddha, "What should we do to not get angry, or what should we
do to not be greedy, or what should we do to not be so obsessed with sex or food?" His response
was always the same: “Become aware. Put awareness in your life."

His disciple Ananda, who listened to the questions of all kinds of people, with very
different problems, and saw that the doctor's prescription was always the same, was confused.
And he asked: «What's wrong with you? They come with different types of diseases -
some with greed, others with sex, others with food and others with other things- but your recipe
is always the same.»
And Buddha said: "Their illnesses are different... because people can dream different
dreams. If two people fall asleep, they can have two thousand dreams. But if you come to me
and ask me how to get rid of this dream, the medicine will always be the same: Wake up! It's not
going to change; The recipe will always be the same. You can call it consciousness, you can
call it witnessing, you can call it remembering, you can call it meditation... they are different
names for the same medicine.

The Analyst and the Witness

The Western method is to think about a problem, find the causes of the problem,
penetrate into the history of the problem, into the past of the problem, get to the roots of the
problem, to the very beginning. Decondition the mind, or recondition the mind, recondition the
body, bring to light all the traces that have been left in the brain... that is the Western method.
Psychoanalysis penetrates memory; work on it. It goes back to your childhood, to your past;
moves backwards. Find where a problem arose. Maybe it was fifty years ago, when you were a
child, and the problem arose in your relationship with your mother; psychoanalysis will go back
there.
Fifty years of history It is a very long and very slow task and not even that is of much
help, because there are millions of problems; It is not a question of a single problem. You can
reconstruct the history of a problem; you can consult your autobiography and find the causes.
Maybe you can eliminate one problem, but there are millions of problems.
If you start going deeper into each problem, to solve the problems of one life you will need
millions of lives. Let me repeat it to you: to solve the problems of a life you will have to be born
again and again, millions of times. This is almost impractical. It can not be done. And all those
millions of lives that you will dedicate to solving the problems of this life, all those lives will
generate their own problems... and so on and on and on. You will get more and more stuck in
problems. That's absurd!
Now the same psychoanalytic approach is applied to the body: there are methods such
as rolfing, bioenergetics and others, which try to eliminate traces in the body, in the muscles.
Once again, we must penetrate into the history of the body. But one thing is certain about both
methods, which work according to the same logical pattern: that the problem comes from the
past, so the past must be manipulated somehow.
The human mind has always tried to do two impossible things. One is to alter the past,
which is something that cannot be done. The past has already happened. You can't go back to
the past. When you think about going back to the past, the most you can do is penetrate the
memory; It is not the real past, it is just a memory. The past no longer exists, so it cannot be
modified. This is one of the impossible goals of humanity, and man has suffered a lot because
of it. You want to remake the past. How are you going to remake it?
The past is absolute. The past means that all the potential of a thing has been exhausted;
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It has become current, there is no possibility of modifying it, undoing it, redoing it. You can't do anything with
the past.
And the second impossible idea that has always dominated the human mind is determining the
future, which is something that cannot be done either. The future means what is not yet; cannot be established.
The future is always indeterminate, the future remains open.
The future is pure potentiality; Until it happens, you can't be sure of it. The past is pure present; It
has already happened. Nothing can be done about it now. Between these two things, man finds himself in the
present, always thinking of the impossible.
He wants to make sure of everything related to the future, to tomorrow... and that cannot be done.
Get it into your head as deeply as possible: it can't be done. Don't waste your present moment trying to secure
the future. The future is uncertainty; that is the basic quality of the future. And don't waste time looking back
either. The past has already happened, it is a dead phenomenon. You can't do anything with it. At most, it can
be reinterpreted, and that's it. That's what psychoanalysis does: reinterpret it. It can be reinterpreted, but the
past remains the same.

Psychoanalysis and astrology... astrology tries in some way to give you assurances
about the future and psychoanalysis tries to remake the past. Neither of those things is a science. Both
things are impossible, but both have millions of followers... because man likes those things. You want
to be sure about the future, so you go to the astrologer, consult the I Ching, go to a Tarot reader, and there
are a thousand and one ways to fool yourself, to deceive yourself. And furthermore, there are people who
say that they can change the past... and also the consultations.

When these two things are discarded, one is free from all kinds of nonsense.
You stop going to the psychoanalyst and you stop going to the astrologer. You already know that
the past is finished... and that you are done with it. And the future has not yet happened. When it happens,
we'll see. At the moment, nothing can be done about it. With that you would only destroy the present
moment, which is the only available, real moment.
The West has continued to continually examine the problems, to see how to solve them. The West
takes the problems very seriously. And when you follow a certain logic, given the premises, that logic seems
perfect.
I recently read an anecdote:
A great world-famous philosopher and mathematician travels on a plane. You are sitting in your seat,
thinking about big math problems, when suddenly you hear a call from the captain: “Sorry, there's going to be
a slight delay. Engine number one has stopped and we are flying with only three engines.

About ten minutes later, another warning is heard: “I'm afraid the delay is going to increase. Engines
two and three have stopped, and we only have engine number four left.
The philosopher turns to the traveler sitting next to him and says: God help me! If the remaining
engine stops, we're going to be up here all night.
When you think along a certain line, the very direction of that line makes certain things possible...
even absurd things. When you take human problems very seriously, when you start thinking of man as a
problem, when you have accepted certain premises, you have taken the first step in the wrong direction. Now
you can continue in that direction, and you can go on and on indefinitely. A large amount of literature has
been written about mental phenomena, psychoanalysis; Millions of articles, treatises and books have been
written. As soon as Freud opened the doors of a certain logic, he dominated the entire century.

The East has a totally different attitude. First of all, he says that no problem is serious. By the time
you say no problem is serious, the problem is almost ninety-nine percent dead. Change your entire vision of
the problem. The second thing the East says is that the problem is there because you have identified with it.
It has nothing to do with the past, nothing to do with its history. You are identified with it, that's what matters.
And that is the key to solving all problems.

For example, you are an irascible person. If you go to the psychoanalyst, he will tell you: "Step back."
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the past... how did this anger originate? In what situations did it become increasingly conditioned
and imprinted on your mind? We are going to have to erase all those traces; we will have to
eliminate them. We're going to have to change your past completely.
If you go to an Eastern mystic, he will tell you: “You think you are irritated, you identify
with anger, that is what is wrong. The next time anger arises, you limit yourself to being an
observer, to being a witness. Don't identify with anger. Don't say "I'm angry." Don't say "I am
anger." Just watch what happens, as if it were happening on a television screen. Look at
yourself as if you were looking at another.
You are pure consciousness. When the cloud of anger forms around you, simply look
at it, and be alert so as not to identify with it. It's all about not identifying with the problem. As
soon as you have learned this... and don't talk to me about having "too many problems,"
because the key, the same key, opens all the locks. The same goes for anger, greed, and sex.
It goes for anything the mind is capable of.

The East tells you to limit yourself to not identifying yourself. Remember... that's what
Gurdjieff meant when he talked about "remembering yourself." Remember you are a witness,
be careful, that's what Buddha says. Stay alert as the cloud passes. The cloud may come from
the past, but that is not important. It has to have some past, it's not going to come out of
nowhere. It has to have originated in a certain sequence of events, but that's irrelevant. Why
bother with it? Right now, in this moment, you can distance yourself from it. You can break
away from it, you can break the bridge right now... and it can only be broken in the now.

Going back to the past is of no use. Thirty years ago, anger arose and
you identified with it that day. Now you can't disidentify from that past.
It's not here anymore! But you can disidentify yourself right now, at this very moment... and if
you do, the whole series of angers from the past will no longer be a part of you. You will no
longer have to go back and undo something that your parents and society and priests and the
church did. That would be a pure waste of precious present time. First it destroyed many years
and now it destroys your present moments. You had better just get rid of it, like a snake gets
rid of its old skin.
The past and its conditioning exist... but they exist only in the body or the brain. They
do not exist in your consciousness, because consciousness cannot be conditioned.
Consciousness always remains free... freedom is its most essential quality, freedom is its very
nature. You can look: so many years of repression, so many years of a certain education. At
this moment when you are looking at it, this consciousness is no longer identified.
If not, who would be aware? If you had truly been repressed, who would be aware? There
would be no possibility of becoming conscious.
If you can say, “twenty-one years in a crazy education system,” one thing is for sure:
you are not crazy yet. The system has failed; it didn't work. Jayananda, you are not crazy, that's
why you can see that the entire system is crazy. A madman cannot realize that he is mad.
Only a sane person can see that this is crazy. To see that madness is madness, you need
sanity. Those twenty-one years of crazy system have failed; all that repressive conditioning;
has failed. In reality, it cannot work. It only works to the extent that you identify with it. At any
moment you can distance yourself... it is there, I am not telling you that it is not there; but it is
no longer part of your consciousness.
This is the beauty of awareness. Consciousness can free itself from anything.
It has no barriers, no limits. One moment before you were English and you understood all the
stupidity of nationalism, and one moment later you are no longer English. I'm not saying that
your skin will change and stop being white; it will still be white, but you no longer identify with
whiteness; you are no longer against the black. You see that it is stupid. I am not saying that
just because you see that you are no longer English you will forget the English language; no, it
will still be in your memory, but your conscience has escaped from that, your conscience He is
on top of a hill looking down on the valley. Now the Englishman is dead in the valley and you
are on top of the hill, far away, distanced, untouched.
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The entire Eastern methodology can be reduced to two words: witness. And the entire Western
methodology can be reduced to one thing: analyze. When you analyze, you go around and around. When
you just get out of the circle.
Analysis is a vicious circle. If you really get into the analysis, you will find yourself baffled. How is it
possible? If, for example, you try to go back in time, where will you end up? Where exactly? If you go back
in time, where did your sexuality begin?
When were you fourteen? And then it just came out of nowhere? He must have been preparing in the body,
right? So when? When you were born? But wasn't it being prepared before, when you were in your mother's
womb? -So, when? At the time you were conceived? But before that, half of your sexuality was maturing in
your mother's egg and the other half of your sexuality was maturing in your father's sperm. If we keep going
like this, where will you end up? You'll have to go back to Adam and Eve! And it doesn't even end there.
You will have to go back to God the Father.

Why else did he create Adam?

Analysis is always left halfway, and that is why analysis never really helps anyone. Can't help. It
leaves you a little more adapted to reality, that's all. It's kind of an adjustment; It helps you gain a little
understanding of your problems, their genesis, how they arose. And that little intellectual understanding
helps you adapt better to society, but you are still the same person. By that path there is no transformation,
by that path there is no radical change.

Being a witness is a revolution. It is a radical change from the very roots. It brings into existence a
totally new human being, because it leaves your consciousness free of all conditioning.

The conditioning is there, in the body and in the mind, but the consciousness remains unconditioned.
It is pure, always pure. She is a virgin; Her virginity cannot be violated.

The Eastern approach is to make yourself aware of this virgin consciousness, this purity, this
innocence. The East emphasizes the sky and the West emphasizes the clouds. Clouds have a genesis; If
you want to find out where they come from, you'll have to go to the ocean, then to the sun rays and the
evaporation of water, and the formation of clouds... and so on, but you'll be moving in a circle. The clouds
form, they gather, they fall in love with the trees, they begin to discharge water to the earth, they become
rivers, they reach the sea, they begin to evaporate, they rise again with the sun's rays, they become clouds,
They fall back to earth... and the process continues, round and round. It's a wheel. Where can you go out?
One thing leads to another and you continue on the wheel.

Heaven has no genesis. Heaven has not been created; It has not been produced by anything.
In fact, for something to exist there must first be a heaven, it is an a priori necessity.
It has to exist before anything else exists. If you ask a Christian theologian, he will tell you: "God created
the world." Ask him whether or not there was a heaven before God created the world. If there was no
heaven, where was God? I had to need some space. Space is essential, even for God to exist. You cannot
say: "God created space." That would be absurd, because there would have been no space in which to exist.

Space must precede God.

Heaven has always been there. The eastern approach is to pay attention to the sky. The Western
approach makes you pay more and more attention to the clouds, and it helps you a little, but it does not
make you aware of your inner core. Of the circumference, yes, you become a little more aware of the
circumference, but you are not aware of the center. And the circumference is a cyclone.

You have to find the center of the cyclone. And that can only be achieved by being a witness.
Being a witness will not change your conditioning. Being a witness will not change the muscles of
your body. But witnessing will give you an experience, that you are beyond all musculature, beyond all
conditioning. In that moment of distancing, in that moment of transcendence, there are no problems... not
for you.
And now everything depends on you. The body will continue to carry the muscles and
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mind will continue to load, with the conditioning... now everything depends on you. If at any time you miss
the problem, you can enter the body-mind
and enjoy the problem. If you don't want to have it, you can stay out. The problem will still be there, like a
trace printed on the body-mind phenomenon, but you are apart, distanced from it.

That's how Buddha works. You use memory and Buddha also uses memory... but he does not
identify with it. He uses memory as a simple mechanism. For example, now I am using language. When I
have to use language, I use the mind with everything that is printed on it, but as a continuum. I am not
the mind; consciousness is present. I am still the one in charge, the mind is still a servant. When the mind
is called, it comes; It is used for what it serves, but it is not allowed to dominate.

That is, problems still exist, but they exist only in the form of seeds in the body and mind. How could
you change your past? In the past you have been Catholic; If you have been Catholic for forty years, how
are you going to change those forty years and stop being Catholic? No, those forty years will still be the
period in which you were Catholic, but now you can get out of there. Now you know that that was simple
identification. Those forty years cannot be destroyed, and there is no need to destroy. If you are the lord of
the house, there is no need. You can even use those forty years in some way, in a creative way.

Even that absurd education can be used in a creative way.

All the impressions recorded in the brain, in the muscles of the body, will remain where they are, but
in seed form, in potential. If you feel too lonely and want problems, you can have them. If you feel really
bad about not suffering, you can have them. They will always be at your disposal, but there is no need to
have them, no need. It's your choice.

Witnessing is the technique to center. We have already talked about centering: a man can live in
two ways: he can live from his periphery or from his center. The periphery belongs to something and the
center belongs to being. If you live from the ego, you will always be related to the other. The periphery is
related to the other.
Whatever you do, it will not be an action; It will always be a reaction. You do it in response to
something done to you. From the periphery there is no action, everything is a reaction, nothing comes
from your center. In a way, you are a slave to circumstances. You are not doing anything; rather they are
forcing you.
From the center, the situation changes diametrically. From the center you start to act
for the first time you begin to exist in your own right, not as something related.
Buddha passes through a town. Some of its inhabitants are outraged, they are completely
contrary to its teachings. They rebuke him, they insult him. Buddha listens in silence and says: -If you
have already
finished, allow me to continue on my path. I have to get to the next village, where they are waiting
for me. If there is still something left in your mind, you can finish saying it when I pass this way back.

"We have insulted you," say the villagers. We have rebuked you. You're not going to answer?

-I never react. -says Buddha-.

What you do is your business. I never react anymore and you can't force me to do anything.
You can insult me; It's your business. I am not a slave.
I have become a free man. I act from my center, not from my periphery, and your insults can only touch
my periphery, not my center. My center remains intact.

You feel affected, not because your center has been touched, but because you have no center.
You are only your periphery, you are identified with the periphery. The periphery is affected by everything,
everything that happens. It is just your border with the outside, so everything that happens affects it, and
you have no center. As soon as you have a center, you distance yourself from yourself, you distance
yourself from your periphery. They can insult the periphery, but not you. You stay apart, distanced... it exists
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a distance between you and your self. There is a distance between you as a periphery and you as a center.
And no one else can jump that distance, because no one can penetrate to the center.
The outside world can only touch you on the periphery.
That is why Buddha says: “Now I am centered. Ten years ago, it would have been different. If I
If you had insulted me, I would have reacted. But now, I just act."
You must clearly understand the difference between reaction and action. You love someone
because that someone loves you. Buddha also loves you, but not because you love him; that is unimportant.
Whether you love him or not is irrelevant; He loves you because it is an act, not a reaction. The act comes
out of you, and the reaction is something you are forced to do. Being centered means that you have started
to act.
Another thing to remember is that when you act, the act is always total.
When you react, it can never be total. It is always partial, fragmentary, because when I act from my
periphery - that is, when I react - it cannot be total because I am not truly involved. Only my periphery is
involved so it cannot be total.
So, if you love from your periphery, your love can never be total, it will always be partial. And that is very
important, because if love is partial, the leftover space will be filled with hate.
If your kindness is partial, the leftover space will be filled with cruelty. If your goodness is partial, with what
will the excess space be filled? If your God is partial, you will need a Devil to fill the remaining space.

This means that a partial act must necessarily be contradictory, in conflict with itself. Your mind is
amphibious, contradictory... before the same object you react with love and hate. And if love and hate are
present at the same time, there must be confusion... a poisonous confusion. Your kindness is mixed with
cruelty and your charity is theft and your prayers become acts of violence. Even if you try to be a saint in
your periphery, your holiness will be stained with sin. On the periphery, everything is contradictory.

Only when you act from the center are your actions total. And when an act is total, it has its own
beauty. When the act is total, it is lived moment by moment.
When the act is total, you do not carry the memory; there's no need. When the act is partial, it is an
unfinished thing.
Suppose you eat something. If you eat in a partial way, when you have finished the real meal you will
continue eating in your mind. The act has remained unfinished. Only a total thing can have a beginning and
an end. A partial thing is just a continuous series without beginning or end. You are at home, And you have
brought home your tent and the market. You are in your tent and you have taken your house and your
domestic affairs there. You are never, you cannot be, totally in a single moment; You are carrying a lot of
things continuously.
This is the weight; the tense weight of the mind on the heart.
A total act has a beginning and an end. It is atomic; It's not a series. , It is there
and then it stops being there. From there, you are completely free to move into the unknown. Otherwise,
you follow the grooves, the mind follows the traced grooves, you always move in the same circular way, in
a vicious circle.
Since the past is never finished, it enters the present, moves forward and
penetrates into the future.
So, in reality, a partial mind, a peripheral mind, carries the weight of the past... and the past is a
very big thing. Even if you don't take into account previous lives, still the past is a very big thing. Fifty years
of experiences, beautiful and ugly, but unfinished, all unfinished, and you continue carrying a past of fifty
years that is dead. That dead past falls on a single moment of the present... it must necessarily kill it!

..
You can't live like this, it's impossible. You can't live with that past on your back. Every single
moment is so fresh and so delicate that all that dead weight will kill you. It's killing him! Your past is killing
your present, and when the present is dead it becomes part of the burden. When it is alive, it is not part of
you... when it is dead, when the weight of the dead past kills it, then it is yours, it is part of you. This is the
situation.
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The moment you start acting from the center, each act is total, atomic.
It is there and then it is no longer there. You are completely free of it. And then you can move without
burdens, without carrying weight. And only then can you live in the new moment that is always there,
arriving at it in full form. But you can only arrive in top form if you are not carrying a past.

And if the past is unfinished, you will have to carry it. The mind has a tendency to conclude
everything. If something is unfinished, it will have to be carried. If something has been left unfinished during
the day, you will dream about it during the night, because the mind has a tendency to conclude everything.
The moment it is finished, the mind is freed from the burden. If it is not finished, the mind will return to it
again and again.
Whatever you do - love, sex, friendship - everything remains unfinished. And you can't make it
total if you stay on the periphery. How can you focus on yourself? How does one manage to focus so as
not to continue: on the periphery? The technique consists of being a witness.
The word witness is a very important word. There are hundreds of techniques to center, but
become a witness; It is a necessary part, a basic part, of all techniques. Whatever the technique, the
essential part is to become a witness. So it could well be called the technique of all techniques. It is not a
simple technique; The process of becoming a witness is the essential part of all techniques.

One can also speak of testimony as a pure technique. J. Krishnamurti, for example, speaks of
testimony as a pure technique. But saying that is like talking about the spirit without the body. You can't
feel it, you can't see it. Wherever the spirit is incarnated, you feel the spirit through the body. Of course the
spirit is not the body, but you feel it through the body. Every technique is nothing more than a body, and
the testimony is the soul. We can speak of the independent testimony of every body, of every matter; then
it becomes abstract, totally abstract. This is how Krishnamurti has been talking continuously for half a
century, but everything he says is so pure, so disembodied, that you think you are understanding it, but
that understanding is nothing more than a concept.

- In this world nothing exists in the form of pure spirit. Everything is embodied.
Becoming a witness is the spirit of all spiritual techniques, and all techniques are bodies, different bodies.

So first we must understand what it is to be a witness, and then we can

understand how to be a witness through some bodies, some techniques.
We know how to think, and we have to start by thinking to know what it means to be a witness,
because we have to start with something that we know. We know how to think... thinking means having
judgment, you see something and judge it. You see a flower and you say it's pretty or it's not.
You hear a song and you like it or you don't like it. You like or dislike things. To think is to judge; As soon
as you start thinking, you have started judging.
To think is to evaluate. You cannot think without evaluating. How can you think about a flower
without evaluating it? As soon as you start thinking, you decide if it's pretty or not. You will have to use
some classification, because thinking is classifying. As soon as you have classified something -
When you have labeled it, you have given it a name, you have thought about it.
It is impossible to think if you are not going to judge. If you won't judge, you can stay
conscious... but you can't think.
Here is a flower, and I tell you: «Look at it, but don't think. See the flower, but don't think. What
can you do? If you are not allowed to think, what can you do? You can only be a witness; you can only be
aware. You can only become aware of the flower. You can face the fact: the flower is there. Now you can
meet her. If you are not allowed to think, you cannot say: "She is pretty, she is not pretty, I know her...", or
"She is very strange, I have never seen her before." You can't say anything. You cannot use words because
each word has a value. Every word is a judgment. Language is loaded with judgments; language can never
be impartial. As soon as you use a word, you have judged.

So you can't use language, you can't verbalize. If I say "This is a flower, look at it, but don't think,"
verbalization is not allowed. So what can you do? You can only be a witness. If you are there without
thinking, alone in front of something, that is being
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witness. Being a witness, then, is a passive consciousness. Remember passive. The thought is active, you are
doing something. Whatever you see you are doing something with it. You are not just passive, you are not like a
mirror; you are doing something. And as soon as you do something, you have changed the thing. .

I see a flower and I say: How pretty! I have already changed it. I have imposed something on the flower.
Now, whatever the flower is, for me it is a flower plus my feeling that it is pretty. Now the flower is very far away;
Between me and the flower stands my sense of judgment, my evaluation that it is pretty. Now the flower is no
longer the same for me, its quality has changed. I have penetrated into it, my judgment has penetrated into the
fact. Now it's more fiction and less fact.

This feeling that the flower is pretty does not belong to the flower, it belongs to me. I have penetrated
into the fact. Now the fact is no longer 'virgin. I have corrupted it. My mind has become part of it. In fact, saying
that my mind has become part of it is equivalent to saying that my past has become part of it, because when I
say "this flower is pretty," it means that I have judged it through my past knowledge.

How can you say this flower is pretty? Your experiences from the past, your concepts from the past, tell you that
such a thing is beautiful... you have judged it according to your past.
The mind is equivalent to your past, your memories. The past has imposed itself on the present.
You have destroyed a virgin fact; now it is distorted. Now there is no flower; the flower as reality in itself is no
longer there. - You have corrupted it, you have destroyed it. Your past has gotten in the way. You have interpreted
it... that is thinking. Thinking means imposing the past on a present fact.

That's why thinking can never lead you to the truth... because the truth is virgin and you have to face it
in all its virginity. As soon as you put your past into it, you are destroying it. It becomes an interpretation, not an
assimilation of the fact. You have disturbed her; purity has been lost.

Thinking means imposing your past on the present. Being a witness means that there is no past, only
present; nothing to impose the past.
Being a witness is something passive. You're not doing anything... you're just being. You are simply
there. Only you are present. The flower is present, you are present... then there is a relationship of witness.
When the flower is present and all your past is present, and not you, then there is a thought relationship.

Lets start by the beginning. What is thinking? It is bringing the mind to the present. And then, you miss
the present... you've missed it completely! As soon as the past enters the present, you've missed it! When you
say: “this flower is pretty,” the flower has become the past tense. When you say, “the flower is pretty,” it is a past
experience. You have known and you have judged.

When the flower is there and you are there, it is not even possible to say that the flower is pretty. You
can't make any judgments about the present. Every judgment, every statement, belongs to the past. If I say, “I
love you,” it has become a thing of the past. If I say: "this flower is pretty", I have felt, I have judged... it has
become the past.
Being a witness is always present, never past. Thinking is always past. Thinking is something dead,
witnessing is something alive. Let's look at the following difference: first of all, thinking is active, it is doing
something. Being a witness is passive, it is doing nothing, just being. Thinking is always what is past, what is
dead, what has already happened, what no longer exists. Being a witness is always the present, what it is.

So if you keep thinking, you will never know what it is to be a witness. stop,
Stop thinking is the first step to becoming a witness. To stop thinking is to be a witness. .
And what is there to do? Because thinking is a habit deeply ingrained in us. It has become a mechanical,
robot thing. It's no longer that you think; It is no longer your decision, it is a mechanical habit... you can't do
anything else. As soon as the flower appears, the thinking begins. We do not have non-verbal experiences; only
small children have them. The non-verbal experience is the true experience. Verbalization is fleeing from
experience.
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When I say “the flower is pretty,” the flower disappears for me. Now what interests me is my
mind, not the flower. Now I have the image of the flower in my mind, not the flower itself.
Now the flower is an image in the mind, a thought in the mind, and now I can compare it with my past
experiences and judge. But the flower is no longer there.
When you verbalize, you close yourself off to the experience. When you are non-verbally
aware, you are open, vulnerable. Being a witness means constantly opening yourself to the experience,
not closing yourself off.
To do? We must somehow break this mechanical habit we call thinking. Whatever you do, try
to do it non-verbally. It is difficult, it is hard, and at first it seems absolutely impossible, but it is not. It's
not impossible, it's just difficult. If walking down the street...walk non-verbally. Just walk around, even
if just for a few seconds, and you will have a glimpse of a different world, a non-verbal world, the real
world, not the world of mind that man has created within himself.

If you are eating... eat non-verbally. Someone asked Bokuju, a great Zen master: "What is
your path, what is your method?" and Bokuju said: “My method is very simple: when I am hungry, I
eat; When I'm sleepy, I sleep... and that's it."
The man was taken aback and said: -What
are you saying? I also eat and I also sleep, and everyone else does the same.
What is it about that that makes you call it a path?
and Bokuju
said: -When you eat, you are doing many things, not just eating. And when you sleep, you're
doing everything but sleeping. But when I eat, I just eat; When I sleep, I just sleep. All my actions are
total.
All acts become total when you stop being verbal. So try to eat without any verbalization in
the mind, without any thought in the mind. Just eat... and then eating becomes meditation, because
when you stop being verbal you become a witness.

If you are verbal, you become a thinker. If you are non-verbal, there is nothing you can do
about it: you automatically become a witness. So try to do everything non-verbally: walk, eat, take a
bath or sit quietly. Then just sit down; and then I know "one sitting." Do not think. So even sitting can
become meditation; simple walking can become meditation.

Another person asked Bokuju: “Give me some meditation technique. »

Bokuju said: "I can give you a technique, but you will not be able to meditate... because you
can practice a technique with a verbalizing mind." You can run your fingers through a rosary and still
think at the same time. If your fingers just move around the rosary without thinking, it becomes
meditation. So, no technique is actually needed.
Everything in life is a technique. That's why Bokuju said: "It would be better if you stayed by my side
and looked at me. Don't ask for a method, just look at me and you will come to know. »
The poor man watched him for seven days. He became more and more perplexed. At the end
of the seven days, he said:
-When I arrived, I was less confused. Now I'm more confused. I have looked at you constantly
for seven days. What do I have to look at? and Bokuju said: -Then you
haven't looked.
When I walk... have you seen?
I just walk. When you bring me tea in the morning, have you looked carefully?
I just pick up the tea and drink it. It's just drinking. There is no Bokuju, only drinking. There is no,
Bokuju, just drinking tea. Have you looked carefully? If you've looked, you must have noticed that
Bokuju no longer exists.
This is a very subtle look. Because if the thinker is there, the ego is there. And then you are
Bokuju or someone else. But if there is only action without any verbalization, without thought there is
no ego. That's why Bokuju says, "Have you really looked?" Then there was no Bokuju: Just drinking
tea, walking in the garden, digging a hole in the ground.»
That is why Buddha has said that there is no soul. Since you haven't looked carefully, you keep thinking
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constantly that you have a soul. You do not exist! If you are a witness, you do not exist. The "I" is
formed through thoughts.
One more thing: the accumulated thoughts, the accumulated memories, create the sensation
of ego, that you are. Try this experiment: detach yourself from your entire past. You don't have any
memories. You don't know who your parents are, you don't know who you belong to: what country,
what religion, what race. You don't know where you were educated, or if you were educated or not.
Cut off all your past.....and remember who you are. You can't remember who you are!
Evidently; are you. You are, but who? At that moment you cannot feel an "I."
The ego is nothing more than accumulated past. The ego is your condensed thought,
crystallized.

That's why Bokuju says: «If you looked closely, I wasn't there. There was tea drinking, but no
drinker. There was walking in the garden, but not strolling. There was action, but no actor.
When you witness, there is no sense of "I." When you think, yes there is. It is no mere
coincidence that so-called thinkers are so deeply rooted in their egos.
Artists, philosophical thinkers, enlightened people... it is no coincidence that they are so selfish. The
more thoughts you have, the bigger ego you will have.
When you are a witness, there is no ego. But this only happens if language is transcended.
Language is the barrier. Language is necessary to communicate with others; It is not necessary to
communicate with oneself. It is a useful instrument.....arguably the most useful instrument. Man has
been able to create a society, a world, only thanks to language. But because of language, man has
forgotten himself.
Language is our world. If man forgets his language, even for a moment, what is left? Culture,
society, Hinduism, Christianity.....What's left?

Nothing remains. By simply suppressing language, all humanity with its culture, its civilization,
its science disappears; His religion his philosophy.
Language is communication with others; It is the only communication. It is useful, but
dangerous. Whenever an instrument is useful it is also dangerous in the same proportion.
The danger is that the more the mind immerses itself in language, the further it moves away from
the center. That is why a subtle balance and a subtle mastery are needed to be able to penetrate
the language and also be able to: abandon the language, leave the language.
Being a witness means leaving language, verbalization, and mind.
Being a witness means a state without mind, without thought.
Try it! It will be a long effort, and nothing is guaranteed... but try it, and with the effort you
will achieve some moments where the language suddenly disappears. And then a new dimension
opens. You become aware of a different world: the world of simultaneity, the world of here and now,
the world without mind, the world of reality.

Language must evaporate. Try to do ordinary actions, body movements, without language.
Buddha used this technique to observe breathing. He told his disciples: "Keep observing your
breathing, do nothing more than observe the breath that enters, the breath that goes out, the breath
that enters, the breath that goes out..." But it is not about saying it like that, there is You have to feel
it: the breath that enters, without words. Feel the breath coming in, move with the breath, let your
awareness dip in with the breath, And then move out, keep moving with your breath. Keep alert!

Buddha is reported to have said, “Don't miss a single breath. If physiologically you lost a
single breath, you would die, and if your consciousness loses a single breath, you will move away
from the center, you will be dead inside. That is why Buddha said: "Breathing is essential for the
life of the body, and the awareness of breathing is essential for the life of the inner center."

Breathe, be aware. And if you are trying to be aware of your breathing, you cannot think,
because the mind cannot do two things at the same time: think and witness. The phenomenon of
witnessing, in itself, is absolutely and diametrically committed to
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thought', so you can't do both at the same time. So in bed you cannot be alive and dead at the same
time, nor asleep and awake at the same time, you cannot think and be a witness at the same time.
If you witness something, the thought stops. If the thought appears, the witness disappears.

Being a witness is a passive consciousness, without action within it. Consciousness itself
It is not an action.
One day, Mullah Nasruddin was very worried, immersed in deep reflections. Anyone who
looked at his face could tell that he was lost in thought, very tense, distressed. His wife began to get
alarmed and asked him:
-What are you doing, Nasruddin? What are you thinking? What problem do you have, why
are you so worried?
The Mule opened his eyes and said: -This is the definitive problem. I'm thinking about how
you know you're dead. How does one know that one is dead? If I die, how will I recognize that I am
dead? Because I don't know death. Recognize means that you have known something before.

» I see you and I recognize that you are A, or B, or C, because I have known you before.
We have not known death - the mullah continued - and when it comes, how will I recognize it? That
is the problem and it has me very worried. And when I'm dead I won't be able to ask anyone, so that
door is closed too. I cannot consult any scripture, no teacher can help me. The woman laughed and
said:
-You worry unnecessarily. When death comes, one knows it instantly.
When death comes to you, you will know it because you will become cold, cold as ice.
The mullah was relieved. I already had a sign, a key.
Two or three months later, Nasruddin was chopping firewood in the forest. It was a winter
morning and everything was very cold. Suddenly he remembered and felt that his hands were cold.
He said to himself: “Wow. Death is approaching and I am so far from home that I won't be able to
warn anyone. What do I do now? I forgot to ask my wife that. He told me how I was going to feel,
but what should one do when death approaches? There is no one here, and everything is just as
cold.
Then he remembered that he had seen many dead people and thought: "The best thing
would be to throw me out." It was the only thing he had seen the dead do, so he lay down on the
ground. Naturally, he was getting colder and colder... he felt death on top of him.
His donkey was resting to one side, under a tree. Two wolves arrived and, believing that the mullah
was dead, attacked the donkey. The mullah opened his eyes, saw him and thought: 'The dead can't
do anything. If I were alive, wolves, you wouldn't have been able to take such liberties with my
donkey. But now I can't do anything. No dead person is known to have done anything. I can only be
a witness.
If you die to your past, if you become totally dead to it, then you can only be a witness. What
else could you do? Being a witness means dying to your past: your memories, your thoughts,
everything. So, in the present moment, what can you do?
You can only be a witness. No judgment can be made...you can only judge with respect to past
experiences. No evaluation is possible: evaluation can only be done with reference to past
evaluations. It is not possible to think, you can only think if the past is there and you bring it to the
present. So what can you do? You can be a witness.
In ancient Sanskrit literature, the teacher is defined as death: acharya mrityuh. In the Katha
Upanishad, Nachiketa is sent to Yama, the god of death, to learn from him. And when Yama, the god
of death, offers Nachiketa a multitude of temptations - "Take this, take the kingdom, take all this
wealth, all these horses, all these elephants, this and that", a long list of things-, Nachiketa says: "I
have come to learn what death is, because if I do not know what death is, I will not be able to know
what life is."
In ancient times, a teacher was considered to be a person capable of becoming death for
the disciple: a person who can help you die so that you can be reborn. Nicodemus asked Jesus,
"How can I reach the Kingdom of God?"
Jesus replied: «Nothing can be achieved if you do not die first. Nothing can be achieved if not
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you are reborn."

And this rebirth is not an isolated event, it is a continuous process. One has to be reborn
in every moment. It is not that you are reborn at once and that's it, matter concluded. Life is a
continuous birth, and death is also continuous. You have to die once because you haven't lived at
all. If you are alive, you have to die every moment. Dying at every moment to the past, whatever
it may have been, a paradise or a hell. Be that as it may, he dies to all of this, and is reborn new
and young for the present moment. And now be a witness... and you can only be a witness if you
are new.

Tension and relaxation

One thing MUST be clear. Hypnotists have discovered a fundamental law, which they call
the Law of Reverse Effect. If you try to do something without understanding the fundamentals, the
result will be just the opposite.
It's like when you're learning to ride a bike. You're driving down a quiet road, with no
traffic, early in the morning, and you see a red cairn planted on the side of the road. A road twenty
meters wide and only one small milestone, and you're scared: You could go straight towards the
milestone and crash into it. Then you forget about the twenty meter wide road. In fact, even if you
were blindfolded, there would be very little chance of you tripping over the cairn; but now, with
your eyes open, you forget about the whole road; your attention has been focused. To begin with,
red attracts a lot of attention. And how scary it makes you! You want to avoid it. You have forgotten
that you are riding a bicycle, you have forgotten everything. Now, for you the only problem is how
to avoid that stone; If you don't succeed, you can hurt yourself, you can collide with her.

Under these conditions, a crash is absolutely inevitable. You're going to hit the stone. And
then you'll be surprised: "How hard I tried to avoid her." The truth is that you collided with the
stone for having tried so hard. The closer you got, the harder you tried to avoid her; but the harder
you tried, the more your attention focused on her.
This becomes a hypnotic force, it hypnotizes you. It becomes like a magnet.
It is a very fundamental law of life. Many people try hard to avoid many things, and fall
into those same things. Try to avoid something with great effort, and you will end up falling into
the same trap. You can not avoid it; That's not the way to avoid it.
Just relax. Don't try so hard, because you can only become conscious through relaxation,
not through effort. Stay calm, quiet, calm.
What is tension? It is your identification with all kinds of thoughts and fears: death, ruin,
the devaluation of the dollar, all kinds of fears. Those are your tensions, and they also affect your
body. Your body also becomes tense, because the body and mind are not two separate entities.
The body-mind is a single system, so when the mind becomes tense, the body also becomes
tense. You can start with awareness.
Then consciousness takes you away from the mind and identifications with the mind. Naturally,
the body begins to relax. You are no longer bound, and in the light of consciousness there can be
no tensions.
You can also start at the other end. Simply relax, release all tensions... and as you relax you
will notice with surprise that a certain awareness emerges in you. They are inseparable: But it is
easier to start with consciousness; Starting with relaxation is a bit difficult, because even the effort
to relax creates a certain tension.
There is an American book (if you want to find all kinds of stupid
books, the United States is the right place). As soon as I saw the title of the book, I had a hard time
believing it. The title is You Must Relax. But if there is a "must", how can you relax? The "you must";
it will make you tense; the word itself creates tension
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immediately. The "you must" comes as a commandment from God. The person who wrote the
book may not know anything about relaxation and may not know anything about the intricacies
of relaxation.
In the East we have never started meditation from relaxation; We have started
meditation from consciousness. Then relaxation comes by itself, you don't have to bring it. If
you have to bring her, there will be some tension. It must come by itself; only then will it be
pure relaxation. And comes.
If you want, you can try it through relaxation, but not as American counselors say. In
terms of experience of the inner world, the United States is the most childish place on Earth.
Europe is a little older... but the East has lived for thousands of years in search of its inner
being.
The United States is only three hundred years old. In the life of a nation, three hundred
years are nothing. That is why the United States is the greatest danger to the world.
Nuclear weapons in the hands of children... Russia would behave in a more rational way; It is
an ancient country and has all the experiences of a long history. In North America there is no
history. Everyone knows their father's name, their ancestors' surname and nothing else. That's
where your family tree ends.
The United States is nothing more than a baby: not even a baby, it is still in the womb.
Compared to societies like India and China, it has only just been conceived. It is dangerous to
give nuclear weapons to those people.
There are political, religious, social, economic problems, and they all torture you.
Starting with relaxation is difficult; That's why in the East we have never started with relaxation.
But if you want to do it, I have some idea of how to start. I have worked with Western people
and have become aware of the fact that they do not belong to the East and do not know the
Eastern stream of consciousness; They come from a different tradition, which has never known
any consciousness.
Especially for Westerners, I have created meditation systems such as Dynamic
Meditation(*). When leading meditation camps, he used gibberish (meditative chatter) and
Kundalini Meditation. If you want to start with relaxation, you must do these meditations first.
They will remove all the tensions from your mind and body, and then relaxation is very easy.
You don't know how many things you are repressing, and that is the cause of tension.

When gibberish was allowed in the mountain camps... it's hard to do it in the cities
because the neighbors start going crazy. They start calling the police and saying: They are
destroying our whole life! They don't know that if they participated in their own homes, their
lives would come out of the madness in which they are living. But they don't even realize their
madness.
Gibberish is about allowing everyone to say out loud whatever is on their mind. It was
so joyful to hear what people said: irrelevant, absurd... because I was the only witness. People
did all kinds of things, and the only condition was not to touch others. One would stand on his
head, another would take off his clothes and stay naked, and spend the entire hour running...

A man sat in front of me every day - he must have been a stockbroker or something -
and as soon as I started the meditation he would smile, just thinking about what he was going
to do. Then he would take out his phone: "Hey, hey"... and he kept looking at me out of the
corner of his eye. I avoided looking at him so as not to disturb his meditation. He sold his
shares and bought others... he spent the entire hour on the phone.

(*) Meditation First & Last Freedom.

Everyone was doing the weird things they had been repressing. When the meditation
ended, there were ten minutes of relaxation and you could see that in those ten minutes people
collapsed... without making any effort, because they were totally exhausted. He had been
throwing out all the rubbish, so now he had a certain cleanliness and relaxed. Thousands of
people... and you couldn't even think that there were a thousand people there.
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People came to me to tell me: “Extend those ten minutes, because never in our lives had we
felt such relaxation, such joy. "We had never thought we could understand what consciousness is, but
here we have felt it coming."
So, if you want to start with relaxation, you first have to go through a
cathartic period: Dynamic Meditation, Kundalini or gibberish Meditation.
Maybe you don't know where this gibberish technique comes from; It is due to a Sufi mystic
called Jabbar, and this was his only form of meditation. When someone came to him, he would say,
"Sit down and start," and people knew what he meant. He never spoke, he never made speeches; He
simply taught people to chatter.
For example, from time to time he would give a demonstration. For half an hour he said all
kinds of nonsense in who knows what language. It was not a language; He dedicated himself to telling
people anything that came into his head. This was his only teaching. And to those who understood her
she simply said: “Sit down and begin. »
But Jabbar helped many people to remain completely silent. How long can you last? The mind
remains empty. Little by little, little by little, a deep nothingness... and in that nothingness a flame of
conscience. It is always present, surrounded by your chatter. That chatter must be thrown out; It's your
poison.
The same thing happens with the body: your body has tensions. Start doing whatever
movement your body wants to do. Without manipulating them. If the body wants to dance, if it wants
to walk, if it wants to run, if it wants to roll on the floor... you shouldn't do it, you just have to allow it.
Tell your body: “You are free, do whatever you want”… and you will be surprised. "My God! "The
things that the body wanted to do and I repressed, and that was the tension."

So, there are two types of tension, bodily tensions and mental tensions. The
Both have to be released before beginning the relaxation that will bring you to consciousness.
But starting with consciousness is much easier, especially for those who can understand the
process of consciousness, which is very simple. You are using it all day with things: In the car, in
traffic, even in urban traffic! And it's absolute madness.

A few days ago, I read a news story from Athens. The authorities had organized a seven-day
competition for taxi drivers, with gold trophies for the three drivers who best followed traffic rules. But
in all of Athens they had not found a single person who fulfilled them! The police were starting to get
worried; The seven days had almost ended, and on the last day they wanted to find three drivers...
Even if they weren't perfect, the prizes had to be awarded.

They found a man who followed traffic rules exactly and they were very happy. They ran
towards him with the trophy; But upon seeing the police coming, the man ran a red light. He didn't
want to get into trouble unnecessarily. The police yelled at him "Wait!", but he didn't listen, ran the
traffic light and disappeared in a hurry. They tried with two other people, but no one stopped when
they saw the police. And so, after trying for seven days, the three prizes are still at police headquarters,
and Athens moves on, as cheerfully as usual.

You are using consciousness without being aware of it, but only with external things.

It is the same awareness that you have to use for internal traffic. When it closes
the eyes, there is a traffic of thoughts, emotions, dreams, imaginations.
All kinds of things happening at full speed. Do with the inner world exactly what you have been
doing in the outer world and you will become a witness. And when you have tasted it, the joy of
witnessing it is so great, so supernatural, you want to delve deeper and deeper into it. You will want to
experience it every time you have time for it.

It's not a matter of taking a stand; It is not a question of going to a temple, a church or a
synagogue. When you are sitting on a bus or a train, when you have nothing to do, just close your
eyes.
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You will prevent your eyes from getting tired from looking outside so much, and it will give you enough time
to look at yourself. Those moments will become the most beautiful experiences.
And little by little, little by little, as consciousness grows, your whole... your personality begins to
change. The greatest quantum leap is the one that goes from unconsciousness to consciousness.

Mind and Meditation

When the mind has no thoughts, that is meditation. The mind remains thoughtless in two states:
deep sleep and meditation. If you become aware and your thoughts disappear, it is meditation; If the thoughts
disappear and you become unconscious, it is deep sleep.

Deep sleep and meditation have something in common and something different. One thing is similar:
In both states, thought disappears. One thing is different: In deep sleep, consciousness also disappears,
while in meditation it remains. Thus, meditation is the same as deep sleep, but with awareness. You are
relaxed, as in deep sleep, but you are conscious, completely awake... and that takes you to the door of the
mysteries.

In deep sleep you go into a state of no-mind, but without consciousness. You don't know where they
are taking you, although in the morning you will feel the impact and the effect. If it really has been a deep and
beautiful sleep, without daydreams to disturb you, in the morning you will feel fresh, renewed, alive,
rejuvenated, once again full of enthusiasm and energy. But you don't know how it happened, where you
went. You entered a kind of deep coma, as if you had been administered an anesthetic, and you were
transported to another plane, from which you returned fresh, young, rejuvenated.

In meditation, that happens without anesthesia.

So meditation means staying as relaxed as when you are fast asleep, but staying alert. Maintain
awareness...let the thoughts disappear, but awareness must remain. And this is not difficult; The thing is,
you've never tried it, that's all.

It's like swimming; If you haven't tried it, it seems very difficult.
It even seems dangerous, and it seems incredible to you that people can swim, because you would drown.
But when you try a little, it becomes easy; It's very natural.
Recently, a Japanese scientist has experimentally demonstrated that a six-month-old baby is capable
of swimming; You just have to give it the opportunity. He has taught many six-month-old children to swim. He
has done a miracle! And he says he's going to try it with even younger children. It is as if the art of swimming
were innate; All you have to do is give it a chance and it starts working. That's why, when you've learned to
swim, you never forget it. You can go forty or fifty years without swimming, but you don't forget it. It is not an
accidental thing, it is something natural; That's why you can't forget it.

Meditation is something similar: it is something innate. You just have to create a space for
make it work: you just have to give it a try.

WHAT IS THE MIND? The mind is not a thing, but an event. A thing has substance, an event is just
a process. A thing is like a rock, an event is like a wave. It exists, but it has no substance. It's just something
that happens between the wind and the sea, a process, a phenomenon.

This is the first thing to understand, that the mind is a process like a wave or a river, but it has no
substance. If it had substance, it could not be dissolved. Since it has no substance, it can disappear without
leaving the slightest trace.
When a wave disappears into the ocean, what is left? Nothing, not even a footprint. By
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Those who know say that the mind is like a bird that flies towards the sky: it leaves no footprints, it
leaves no trace; The bird flies, but leaves no trace or footprints.
The mind is just a process. In fact, the mind does not exist: there are only thoughts,
thoughts that move so quickly that it seems to you and you feel that something exists there with
continuity. One thought comes, and then another, and another, and many more... there is so little
separation between them that you cannot perceive the interval between one thought and another.
And so, two thoughts come together, they form a continuity, and because of that continuity you
believe that there is a mind.
There are thoughts... but not “mind”. Just as there are electrons, but not "matter." Thought
is the electron of the mind. It's like a crowd. A crowd exists in one sense, but does not exist in
another. There are only individuals, but many individuals together give the impression of being one
thing.
A nation exists, but it does not exist... only individuals exist there. Individuals are the electrons
of a nation, of a community, of a crowd.
Thoughts exist; the mind does not exist. The mind is only appearance. And when you look
into the depths of the mind, it disappears. Thoughts remain, but when the “mind” has disappeared
and only individual thoughts exist, many things are resolved instantly. The first thing you realize is
that thoughts are like clouds: they come and go, and you are the sky. When there is no mind, the
perception immediately comes to you that you are no longer participating in thoughts. The thoughts
are there, passing through you like the clouds pass through the sky, or the wind passes through the
trees. Thoughts pass through you, and they can pass because you are an immense void. There is
no impediment, there are no obstacles. There is no wall that limits their passage; You are not a
walled phenomenon. Your sky is open to infinity; Thoughts come and go.

And when you begin to feel that thoughts come and go and that you are an observer, a witness, you
gain mastery over the mind.
The mind cannot be controlled in the ordinary sense. First of all, since it doesn't exist, how
are you going to be able to control it? Secondly, who is going to control the mind?
Because beyond the mind no one exists... and when I say that no one exists, I mean that beyond
the mind no one exists, there is only nothingness. Who is going to control the mind? If someone
was controlling the mind, it would be just a part, a fragment of the mind controlling another fragment
of the mind. That is the ego.
The mind cannot be controlled in that way. It doesn't exist, and there is no one to control it.
The emptiness within can see, but cannot control. You can look, but you can't control... but the
simple look is the control; The very phenomenon of observation, of witnessing, becomes mastery
because the mind disappears.
It's like when you're walking on a dark night and you start running because you're afraid of
someone following you. And that someone is nothing more than your own shadow, and the more
you run, the closer your shadow will be. It doesn't matter what speed you run at; the shadow will
still be there. Every time you look back, the shadow is still behind you. That is no way to escape
from it, nor is it the way to control it. You will have to stop and look closely at the shadow. Stay still
and look into the depths of the shadow, and the shadow disappears, because the shadow does not
exist; It's just an absence of light.
The mind is nothing more than the absence of your presence. When you sit in silence,
when you look into the depths of the mind, the mind simply disappears.
Thoughts remain, which are existential, but the mind is nowhere to be seen.
But when the mind disappears, a second perception becomes
possible: you can see that the thoughts are not yours. Of course they come to you and sometimes
they stay with you for a while, and then they leave. You are a stop on their path, but they do not
originate from you. Have you ever noticed that not a single thought has arisen from you?
Not a single thought has been formed through your being; They always come from outside. They do
not belong to you: they plan over you without roots, without a home. Sometimes they settle on you,
that's all, like a cloud that settles on the top of a mountain. And then they continue moving on their
own; you do not have to do anything. If you just observe, you gain control.
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The word control is not very appropriate, because words can never be very appropriate. Words
are a thing of the mind, they belong to the world of thoughts.
Words cannot be very penetrating; They are shallow. The word control is not good because there is no
one to control and there is no one to be controlled. But for lack of something better, it helps to understand
something that happens: when you look deep , the mind is controlled; Suddenly, you become the master.
The thoughts are there, but they no longer dominate you . They can't do anything to you, they just come
and go; you remain intact, like a lotus flower in the rain. The water drops fall on the petals, but they slide
off without even touching the flower. The lotus remains intact.

That is why in the East the lotus has acquired so much importance, so much symbolism. The
main symbol that emerged from the East is the lotus. It contains all the meaning of Eastern consciousness.
He says, "Be a lotus, that's all. Stay intact and you will be in control.
Stay intact and you will be the master.
From a certain point of view, the mind is like waves: a disturbance. When the sea is calm, calm,
undisturbed, there are no waves. When the ocean is disturbed by tides or by a strong wind, when huge
waves are formed and the entire surface is in chaos, then, from a certain point of view, mind exists. These
are all metaphors to help you understand a certain inner quality that cannot be explained with words. These
metaphors are poetic. If you try to understand them sympathetically, you will gain knowledge, but if you try
to understand them logically, you will understand nothing. They are metaphors.

The mind is a disturbance of consciousness, as the waves are a disturbance of the sea.
Something foreign has intervened: the wind. Something from outside has happened to the sea, or to
consciousness - thoughts or wind - and chaos ensues. But chaos is always on the surface. The waves
are always on the surface. In the depths there is no wave; There cannot be, because the wind cannot
penetrate to the depths.
So, everything happens on the surface. If you move inward, you gain control. If you move from the
surface inward, you reach the center. Suddenly, although the surface is disturbed, you are no longer
disturbed.
The whole science of meditation is simply to focus, to move towards the center, to put down
roots there, to stay and live there. And from there, the whole perspective changes. Now, even if there
are waves, they can't reach you. And now you can realize that they do not belong to you, that there is
only a conflict on the surface with something foreign.
And when you look from the center, the conflict eventually disappears. Little by little you relax.
Little by little you accept that, of course, a very strong wind is blowing and waves are going to form, but
that does not worry you, and when you are not worried you can even enjoy the waves. There's nothing
wrong with them.
The problem arises when you are also on the surface. You're in a little boat on the surface, and
a strong wind starts to blow and the tide is high and the whole sea goes crazy. Naturally, you worry, you
are scared to death. You are in danger; At any moment, the waves can capsize your little boat; Death
can occur at any time. What can you do, with your little boat? How are you going to be able to control
anything? If you start fighting with the waves, you will be defeated. Fighting is of no use; you have to
accept the waves. In fact, if you are able to accept the waves and let your little boat, no matter how
small, move with them and not against them, then there is no danger. The waves are there; you just let
yourself go. You simply move with them, not against them. You become part of them. Then enormous
happiness arises.

That's what the whole art of surfing consists of: moving with the waves and not against them.
With them... until you reach a point where you are no different from them. Surfing can become a great
meditation . It can give you glimpses of the inside, because it is not a struggle, it is a letting go. And then
you know that even the waves can be enjoyed... and that can be known when you observe the entire
phenomenon from the center.
It is as if you are going through a forest and the clouds gather and a lot of lightning strikes and
you get lost and want to get home as soon as possible. That is what is happening on the surface: a lost
traveler, many clouds, many lightning bolts; soon it will strike. torrential rain
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cial You want to get home, to the safety of home... and finally, you get there. So you sit inside your house and
wait for the rain to fall. Now you can enjoy it. Now lightning has a beauty of its own. It wasn't like that when you
were outside, lost in the woods; but now, sitting inside your house, the whole phenomenon takes on enormous
beauty. Now the rain falls and you enjoy it. Now you see the rays and you like them; great thunder sounds in the
clouds and you enjoy it, because now you are safe inside.

As soon as you get to the center, you start to enjoy everything that happens on the surface. So it's all
about not fighting on the surface, but sliding towards the center. Then mastery is acquired, and not forced
control, but mastery that occurs spontaneously when you are centered.

Focusing on awareness is mastery of the mind.

So don't try to "control the mind." The language can disorient you. No one can control, and those who
try to control Go crazy. They become neurotic, because trying to control the mind is nothing more than one part
of the mind trying to control another part of the mind.

Who are you, who are you trying to control? You are also a wave - a religious wave, of course - trying
to control the mind. There are irreligious waves: there are sex and anger and jealousy and possessiveness and
hatred, and millions of irreligious waves. And on the other hand, there are waves. religious: meditation, love,
compassion. But they are all on the surface, belong to the surface and act on the surface. It doesn't matter if
they are religious or irreligious.

Authentic religion is in the center, and in the perspective that is acquired from the center. Sitting inside
your house, you contemplate your own surface: everything changes, because your perspective is new. Suddenly
you have become the master. In fact, you acquire so much control, so much roots, that you stop worrying about
the surface and you can enjoy the waves and the tides and the storm. It's beautiful, it gives you energy, it gives
you strength... there is no reason to worry.

Only the weak care about thoughts. Only the weak care about the mind. Strong people simply absorb
the whole thing and become richer as a result. Strong people never reject anything.

Rejection is born from weakness, from your fear. Strong people like to absorb everything that life offers.
Religious, irreligious, moral, immoral, divine, diabolical... it doesn't matter to them; The strong person absorbs
everything. And with this he is enriched.
It has a completely different depth, which normal religious people cannot have, because they are poor and
superficial.
Observe the normal religious people who go to the temple or the mosque or the church. You will always
find very superficial people, without any depth. Because they have rejected parts of themselves and have
become crippled. In a way, they are paralyzed.
There is nothing wrong with the mind, there is nothing wrong with thoughts. What is bad is to stay on
the surface, because then you do not know the whole and you suffer unnecessarily because of the part and
partial perception. A perception of the whole is needed, and that is only possible from the center; because from
the center you can look around you in all dimensions, in all directions, see the entire periphery of your being.
Which is immense. In fact, it is just like the periphery of existence. As soon as you are centered, little by little
you widen and enlarge, and you end up being the totality, nothing

less.

From another point of view, the mind is like the dust that accumulates on a traveler's clothes. And you
have been traveling and traveling and traveling for millions of lifetimes, without bathing even once. Naturally, a
lot of dust has accumulated. There's nothing wrong with that, it's natural that it happens. Layers and layers of
dust, and you think those layers are your personality. You have come to identify with them so much, you have
lived for so long with those layers of dust, that you confuse them with your skin. You have identified with them.

The mind is the past, the memory is the dust. It falls on everyone... if you travel, you will collect dust.
But there is no need to identify with it, there is no need to
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unify with him, because if you become one with him you will have problems, because you are
not the dust, you are consciousness. “Dust to dust,” said Omar Khayyam. When one dies, what
happens? Dust returns to dust. If you are nothing but dust, everything will return to dust; there
will be nothing more left. But are you just dust, layers of dust, or is there something else inside
that is not dust, that does not belong to the earth at all?
That is your conscience. Consciousness is your being, and the dust that consciousness
accumulates is your mind. This dust can be treated in two ways. The current "religious" way is
to wash the clothes, and rub the body well. But these methods are not of much help. No matter
how much you wash the clothes, the clothes have become so dirty that it is beyond repair. You
can't clean it; On the contrary: everything you do will only make it dirtier.

It happened once that Mullah Nasruddin came to see me and he came drunk. His
hands were shaking. When eating, when drinking tea, everything fell on his clothes, so he had
clothes. full of tea and food stains and many other things. So I said to Nasruddin: -Why don't
you go to
the drugstore to buy something? There are products that can clean these stains.

So he did. After seven days, he returned. His clothes were worse than last time, much
worse. I asked him: What
happened? Didn't you go to the drugstore?
Yes, I went, he answered. And they sold me a wonderful product. It gives very good
results. All tea and food stains have disappeared. Now I need another product, because that
solution has left its own stains.
Religious people provide you with soaps and detergents, instructions for washing away
dirt, but these products leave their own stains. Therefore, an immoral person can become
moral, but he will still be dirty... now he is morally dirty, but he is still dirty. Sometimes the
situation is even worse than before.
In many ways, an immoral man is innocent, less selfish. A moral man has all the
immorality inside his mind, and has added new things to it: moralistic, puritanical, selfish
attitudes. He feels superior; he feels the chosen one. All others are condemned to hell; only he
will go to heaven. And all the immorality is still inside, because you cannot control the mind
from the surface; there is no way to do it.
Things just don't work that way. There is only one kind of control, which is perception from the
center.
The mind is like the dust accumulated over millions of trips. The authentic religious
attitude, the radical religious attitude, as opposed to the vulgar one, consists simply of throwing
away one's clothes. Don't bother washing it, because it can't be washed. Just let go of it as it
comes. a snake of its old skin, and don't look back.
And from another point of view, the mind is the past, the memory, all the accumulated
experiences, in a certain sense. Everything you have done, everything you have thought;
everything you have desired, everything you have dreamed of... everything, your total past, your
memory... memory is the mind. And unless you let go of memory, you will not be able to master the mind.
.
How to get rid of memory? It is always there, following you. In fact, you are the memory,
so how do you get rid of it? Who are you, if not your memories? When I ask you: "Who are
you?", you tell me your name. That's your memory. Your parents gave you that name a long
time ago. I ask you: "Who are you?" and you tell me about your family, your father, your
mother... That's a memory. I ask you: "Who are you?", and you tell me about your studies and
your degrees, that you have a degree in art or a doctor in medicine, or an engineer, or an
architect. That's a memory.
When I ask you: "Who are you?", if you really looked inside yourself, your only possible
answer would be: "I don't know." Whatever you say, it will be a memory, not you. The only true,
authentic answer has to be "I don't know," because knowing yourself is the ultimate. I can say
who I am, but I'm not going to say it. You can't say who you are, but
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you are willing to respond. On this question, those who know remain silent. Because if you throw away
all memory and throw away all language, then you can't say who I am.
I can look inside you, I can make a gesture to you, I can be with you with all my being... that is my
answer.
But the answer cannot be given in words, because whatever is said in words will be part of the memory,
part of the mind, not of consciousness.
How to get rid of memories?
Observe them, witness them. And always remember that "this has happened to me, but I am
not this." Sure you were born into a certain family, but that's not you; It has happened to you, it is an
event outside of you. Of course, someone gave you a name, that has its uses, but the name is not
you. Of course you have a form, but you are not the form; the shape is just the house you live in. The
form is just the body you live in. And the body was given to you by your parents. It's a gift, but not
you.
Observe and discriminate. This is what in the East is called vivek, discrimination.
Discriminates non-stop. Keep discriminating... there will come a time when you will have eliminated
everything that is not you. Suddenly, in that state, you face yourself for the first time, you meet your
own being. Keep suppressing all identities that are not you: the family, the body, the mind. In that
void, when everything that is not you has been eliminated, your being suddenly emerges. For the
first time you meet yourself, and that meeting becomes mastery.

You can't stop thinking. It's not that it doesn't stop, but it can't be stopped. It stops on its own.
This distinction must be understood well; Otherwise, you will go crazy chasing your mind.

No-mind does not arise by stopping. the thought. When there is no longer thought, there is no-
mind. But the effort to stop it will create more anxiety, it will create conflict, it will make you divided. You
will live in a constant inner whirlwind. That's not going to help you at all.
And even if you managed to stop him by force for a few moments that does not represent any
achievement... because those few moments they will be almost, dead, they will not be alive. You can
feel a kind of stillness... but not silence. Because forced stillness is not silence. Below, in the depths of
the subconscious, the repressed mind continues to function.
So there is no way to stop the mind. But the mind stops... there is no doubt about that. It
stops on its own.
What to do? It's an important question. Observe. Don't try to stop her. There is no need to
perform any act against the mind. First of all, who was going to do it? It would be the mind fighting
against itself. You will divide your mind in two: one part that tries to take control, become the master,
kill the other part of itself... which is absurd. It's an idiotic game that can drive you crazy. Don't try to
stop the mind or the thought...just observe it, let it flow. Leave him completely free. Let him run as
fast as he wants. Don't try to control it in any way. Just be a witness.

It's lovely! The mind is one of the most beautiful mechanisms. Science has not yet managed
to create something similar to the mind. The mind remains the masterpiece. So complicated, so
tremendously powerful, with so many possibilities. Watch her!
Enjoy it! and do not look at it as an enemy, because if you look at the mind as an enemy you cannot
observe. You already look at it with prejudice, you are already against it. You have already decided
that there is something wrong with the mind, you have already reached conclusions. And when you
look at someone as an enemy, you can never look deeply, you can never look deep into the eyes;
you avoid it.
Observing the mind means looking at it with deep love, with deep respect, with reverence. It
is a gift from God.- The mind in itself has nothing wrong. There is nothing wrong with thinking in itself.
It is a very beautiful process, like other processes. The clouds moving across the sky are beautiful.
Why shouldn't the thoughts that move in the inner sky be? The flowers that bloom on the trees are
beautiful. Why shouldn't the ideas that arise in your being be? The river that runs towards the sea is
beautiful. Why shouldn't this stream of thoughts flowing towards an unknown destination be? Perhaps
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It's not beautiful? Look upon him with deep reverence. Don't be a fighter, be a lover.
Observe the subtle nuances of the mind, the sudden turns, the beautiful turns.
The rough ones,
jumpsgames played by the mindthe use it or not. Now itmind
that
are still there, but you can is you who decides,
as with your legs: if you want to run, you use them; If you don't want to run, you let them rest. The legs are
still there.

Likewise, the mind is always there.

When I talk to you I am using my mind. There is no other way to speak; When I answer your
questions, I am using my mind. There is no other way. I have to respond and relate, and the mind is a
wonderful mechanism. When I am not talking to you and I am alone, there is no mind... because it is a means
of relating.
When I'm sitting alone, I don't need it.
You have not given him rest; That's why the mind becomes mediocre. It is used continuously, it is
tired, and that goes on and on. Work during the day, work at night... during the day you think, at night you
dream. Day after day, keep working until you live seventy or eighty years, you will have been working all that
time.
Notice the delicacy and resistance of the mind. It's so delicate! All the libraries in the world can fit in
a small head; In a single mind you can contain everything that has been written. The capacity of the mind is
tremendous....and in such a small space! And without making too much noise! If scientists could one day build
a mind-like computer... There are computers, but they are not minds yet. They are still mechanisms, they lack
organic unity; They still have no center. If one day it becomes possible - and it is possible that one day
scientists will be able to create minds - then you will see how much space that computer takes up and how
much noise it makes.

The mind hardly makes any noise; works silently. And what a service it does! For seventy, eighty
years. Even when you are dying, your body may be old, but your mind is still young. Its capacity remains the
same. Sometimes; If you have used it well, it can even improve with age, because the more you know, the
more you understand.
The more you have experienced and lived, the more capable your mind becomes. When you die, everything
is ready to die in your body... except the mind.
That is why in the East we say that the mind leaves the body and enters another embryo, because it
is not yet ready to die. Rebirth is of the mind. And when you have reached the state of no-mind, then there is
no rebirth. Then you simply die. And with your death, everything dissolves: your body, your mind... only your
witness soul remains. That is beyond time and space. Then you become one with existence; you are no longer
separated from it. The separation is caused by the mind.

But there is no way to stop her by force. Don't be violent. Move with love, with deep reverence, and it
will begin to happen on its own. You just observe and don't be in a hurry.
The modern mind is in a hurry. Want instant methods
to stop the mind. Hence the appeal of drugs. You can force the mind to stop using drugs, chemicals, but then
you are being violent with the mechanism. That is not good, it
is destructive. In that way, you will not acquire mastery. You can stop the mind through drugs, but then the drugs
will dominate you, you will not be the master. Simply, you have changed your boss, and you have changed for
the worse. Now the drugs will have power over you, they will possess you; Without them, you will be nobody.

Meditation is not an effort against the mind, it is a way of understanding the mind. It is a very loving
way of contemplating the mind... but, of course, you have to be very patient. That mind you carry in your head
has been forming for centuries, millennia. Your little mind carries all the experience of humanity. And not only
of humanity: also of animals, birds, plants, rocks... You have gone through all those experiences. Everything
that has happened until now has also happened in you.

In a very small nutshell, you carry the entire experience of existence. That's what your mind is.
Actually, saying it's yours is not correct. It's something collective, we
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belongs to everyone. Modern psychology has been looking for it, especially Jungian analysis, and
they have begun to sense something that seems like a collective subconscious. Your mind is not
your own; belongs to all of us. Our bodies are very separated; our minds are not so separate. Our
bodies are clearly separate, but our minds overlap... and our souls are one.

Bodies are separate, minds overlap and souls are one. I do not have a different soul from
yours, and you do not have a different soul. At the very center of existence, we come together and
are one. That is "God", the meeting point of all. Between God and the world - by "world" I mean the
bodies - is the mind.
The mind is a bridge, a bridge between the body and the soul, between the world and God.
Don't try to destroy it!
Many have tried to destroy it through Yoga. That is a wrong use of Yoga. Many have tried
to destroy it through body postures, breathing... which also cause subtle chemical changes inside
the body. For example, if you stand on your head in shirshsan, upside down, you can destroy the
mind very easily. Because when
the blood flows too much to the head, like a flood... when you stand on your head, that's what you
intend to do. The brain mechanism is very delicate. If you flood it with blood, the delicate tissues
die. That's why you never meet a very intelligent yogi. No... yogis are rather stupid. Their bodies
are healthy, that is true; They are strong, but their minds are dead. You will not see in them the
brilliance of intelligence. You will see a very robust body, like that of an animal, but somehow the
human being has disappeared.

By standing on your head, you are forcing blood towards the head, due to gravity. The
head needs blood, but in a very small amount. And very slowly, not in a flood. When it flows against
gravity, very little blood reaches the head, and what does arrive does so silently. If too much blood
enters the head, the effect is destructive.
Yoga has been used to kill the mind. Breathing techniques can be used to kill the mind.
There are rhythms of breathing, subtle vibrations of breathing, that they can have. very drastic
effects on the delicate mind. The mind can be destroyed in that way. These tricks are old. Now it is
science that provides the latest tricks: LSD, marijuana and other substances; Sooner or later they
will look like increasingly sophisticated drugs.

I am not in favor of stopping the mind. I am in favor of observing it. It stops on its own, and then
it's beautiful. When something happens without any violence, it has a beauty of its own. It has a
natural development. You can pick a flower and force it open, you can pull the petals of a bud and
force it open, but you will have destroyed the beauty of the flower.
Now she's almost dead. He cannot resist your violence. The petals will fall limp, inert, dying. When
the bud opens by its own energy, when it opens on its own, those petals are alive.

The mind is your flowering. Don't force it in any way. I am against everything
force and all violence, and in particular violence directed towards oneself.
Just observe - in deep prayer, with love, with reverence - and see what
occurs. Miracles happen on their own. There is no need to pull and push.
How to stop thinking? I say that it is enough to observe, to be alert. And give up that idea
of stopping the mind, because that would have its natural transformation. Give up that idea of
stopping it! Who are you to stop anything?
At most, enjoy. And there is nothing bad. Even if immoral thoughts pass through your mind,
what are often called immoral thoughts, you let them pass.
There is nothing wrong. As long as you keep your distance, it doesn't do any harm. It's just fiction,
you're watching an inner movie. Let it have its way and little by little it will take you to the state of
no-mind. Observation ends up culminating in no-mind
No-mind is not against mind; no-mind is beyond mind. No mind is not achieved by killing
and destroying the mind; no-mind is achieved when you have
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You have understood the mind so completely that thought is no longer necessary... your
understanding has replaced it.

The roll and the wheel

The man appears to be in the present, but that is just appearance. Man lives in the past.
It passes through the present, but remains rooted in the past. The present is not a time of truth
for ordinary consciousness. For ordinary consciousness, real time is the past, the present is just
a connection between the past and the future, just a momentary step. The past is real and so is
the future , but the present has no reality for ordinary consciousness.

The future is nothing more than an extension of the past. The future is nothing more than
the past projected over and over again. The present seems not to exist. If you think about the
present, you won't find it... because by the time you find it, it will have already passed. And a
moment before, when you hadn't found it yet, it was in the future.
For a Buddha consciousness, for an awakened being, only the present exists. For the
ordinary, unconscious consciousness, asleep like a somnambulist, the past and the future are
real, but the present is unreal. Only when one awakens does the present become real, and the
past and the future become unreal.
Why is it like this? Why do you live in the past? Because the mind is nothing more than
an accumulation of the past. The mind is memory... everything you have done, everything you
have dreamed of, everything you wanted to do and couldn't do, everything you have imagined in
the past, that is your mind. The mind is a dead entity. If you look through the mind, you will never
find the present, because the present is life, and life can never be approached through a dead
medium. The mind is dead.
The mind is like dust that accumulates on a mirror. The more dust accumulates, the less
mirror the mirror is. And if the layer of dust is very thick, as it is on you, the mirror does not reflect
anything.
Everyone collects dust. You don't just accumulate it, you hold on to it. You consider it a
treasure. The past is gone. Why do you hold on to him? You can't do anything with it, you can't
go back, you can't undo it... why do you hold on to it? It is not a treasure. And if you hold on to
the past and believe it is a treasure, it is logical that your mind will want to relive it again and
again in the future. Your future cannot be anything other than your modified past... a little
retouched, a little more decorated, but it will be the same because the mind cannot think about
the unknown. The mind can only project what is known, what you already know.
You fall in love with a woman and the woman dies. How are you going to find another
woman now? The other woman is going to be a modified form of your deceased wife; It's the only
way you know. Whatever you do in the future, it will be nothing more than a continuation of the past.
You can change it a little...a fix here, another there...but the main part will remain the same.

Mullah Nasruddin was on his deathbed and someone asked him: "If you were granted
another life, how would you live it, Nasruddin?" Would you make any changes? Nasruddin
considered the question with his eyes closed, thought about it, meditated on it, and then opened
his eyes and said: 'Yes, if I were granted another life, I would part my hair in the middle. I always
wanted to do it, but my father always insisted that I not do my hair like that. And when my father
died, my hair had become so conditioned that I could no longer part my hair in the middle.

Do not laugh! If they ask you what you would do if you lived again, you would make small
changes like that. A husband with a slightly different nose, a wife with a slightly different type, a
bigger or smaller house... but all of that is like parting your hair in the middle: trivialities, non-
essentials. Your essential life would remain the same. You've done it many, many times. You have
been granted many lives. You have
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lived many times; You are very, very old. You are not new to this world, you are older than the world, because
you have lived in other worlds, on other planets. You are as old as existence; and so it should be because
you are part of it; You are very old, but you have repeated the same patterns over and over again. That's
why Hindus call it the wheel of life and death: a “wheel” because it keeps repeating itself; It's a repetition: the
same spokes go up and down, down and up.

The mind projects itself, and the mind is the past, so your future is not going to be different from
the past. And what is the past? What have you done in the past? Whatever you have done, good, bad,
this, that; whatever it is it creates its own repetition.
That is the theory of karma. If you were. Angry the day before yesterday you created a certain potential to
become angry again yesterday. And when you repeated it, you gave more energy to the anger. You made
the irascible state take root more, you watered it; so today you will repeat it again with more strength, with
more energy. And tomorrow you will once again be a victim of today.
Every action you perform, even every thing you think, has its way of persisting and repeating itself
over and over again, because it creates a channel in your being. Start absorbing energy from you.
You are irritated, your bad mood passes and you think you are no longer irritated. Well, you are wrong.
Although the bad mood has passed, nothing has happened. The anger was on the surface a few minutes
ago; now it has passed into the subconscious, into the depths of your being. There he will wait for his time
to come again. If you have acted that way, you have reinforced it.
You have allowed him to continue living. You have given him power and energy again. It is pulsating like a
seed underground, waiting for the right opportunity and season, and then it will sprout.

Every act is self-perpetuating, every thought is self-perpetuating. As soon as you cooperate with
him, you are giving him energy. Sooner or later, it becomes habitual. You will do it and it will not be you
who acts; you will do it only by force of habit. People say that custom is second nature and it is not an
exaggeration. On the contrary, it is an understatement. In fact, custom ends up becoming first nature, and
nature becomes secondary. Nature becomes something similar to a book's appendix, or footnotes, and
custom becomes the main text of the book.

You have lived based on habits... that means that habits basically live through you. The habit
persists, it has its own energy. Of course, that energy is taken away from you, but you cooperated in the
past and continue to cooperate in the present. Little by little, habit will become the master, and you will be
only a servant, a shadow. Custom will give the orders, it will be the one who commands, and you will be
just an obedient servant. 'You will have to obey.
It once happened that a Hindu mystic named Eknath set out on a pilgrimage. The pilgrimage was
going to last at least a year, because I had to visit all the sacred places in the country. Of course, it was a
privilege to accompany Eknath, so a thousand people went on a trip with him. The town thief also arrived
and said: -I know that I am a thief and that I am not worthy of being a
member of your religious group, but give me a chance too. I would like to go on the pilgrimage.

"It will be difficult," said Eknath, "because a year is a long time and you can start to
steal things from people. You can cause problems. Please give up that idea.
But the thief was insistent.
-I'll stop stealing for a year, but I have to go. I promise you that for a whole year I will not steal
anything from anyone.
Eknath agreed. But before a week the problems began, because things began to disappear from
people's luggage. But the most disconcerting thing was that no one was stealing them. Things were
missing from one traveler's bag, but after a few days of searching they were found in someone else's bag.
And the man whose bag they were in said: “I haven't done anything. I really don't know how these things
got into my bag.

Eknath was suspicious, so one night he pretended to sleep but stayed awake and vigilant. The
thief appeared around midnight, in the middle of the darkness, and. He began to change things from one
person's luggage to another's luggage. Eknath caught him with his
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hands in the dough and

said: What are you doing? You promised me!
"And I keep my promise," said the thief. I haven't stolen a single thing. But I have that
old habit... in the middle of the night, if I haven't committed some misdeed, I find it impossible
to sleep. Am I going to go a whole year without sleeping? You are a compassionate man.
You should have compassion on me. And I'm not stealing! Things are always found. They
don't go anywhere, they just pass from one person to another. And besides, in a year I'll have
to start stealing again, so it's good for me to practice.
Habits force you to do certain things; Are you a victim. Hindus call this the theory of
karma. Each action you repeat, or each thought - because thought is also a subtle act of the
mind - acquires more and more power each time. And then you are in their clutches. You are
a prisoner of habit. Then you live like a prisoner, like a slave. And the prison is very subtle;
The prison is made up of your habits and conditioning and the acts you have performed. It
surrounds your entire body and you are trapped in it, but you continue to think that it is you
who acts, and deceive yourself.
When you get angry, you think you are doing it. You rationalize it and say that the
situation demanded it: “I had to get angry, otherwise the child would have run away.” If I
didn't get angry, things would go wrong, and the office would be chaos. The servants pay no
attention; I had to tell them off to get things done. I had to get angry to put my wife in her
place. These are rationalizations. This is how your ego continues to think that you are still
the one in charge. But it's not you.
Anger arises from old patterns that come from the past. And when anger arises, you
try to find an excuse. Psychologists have experimented with this and have reached the same
conclusion as Eastern esoteric psychology: man is a victim, he is not the one in charge.
Psychologists have placed people in total isolation, with all possible comforts. They were
provided with anything they needed, but they were not allowed to make any contact with
other human beings. They lived in isolation in an air-conditioned cell. No work, no worries,
no problems... but the old habits persisted. One morning, for no apparent reason - because
all the comforts were provided, there were no worries, there were no excuses to get irritated
- the subject suffered a sudden attack of anger.

It is within you. Sometimes you suddenly feel sad for no apparent reason. Other
times, you feel happy, or you feel euphoric, ecstatic. A man deprived of social relations,
isolated from all comfort, with all needs satisfied, goes through all the states of mind that he
would go through if he interacted. That means something comes from within, and you blame
it on someone else. That is nothing more than a rationalization.
You feel good, you feel bad, and those sensations bubble up from your own
subconscious, from your own past. No one is responsible except you. No one can make you
angry and no one can make you happy. You get happy on your own, you get angry on your
own and you get sad on your own. If you do not realize this, you will always remain a slave.

Self-control is acquired when one realizes: “I am absolutely responsible for everything

that happens to me. Whatever happens, without conditions, I am the one who is completely
responsible."
At first, this will make you very sad and depressed, because if you can put the
responsibility on someone else, you will feel good because you have not done wrong. What
can you do when your wife behaves in such an unpleasant way? You have to get angry. But
remember well: your wife behaves unpleasantly due to her own internal mechanisms. He's
not being nasty to you. If you weren't there, he would be unpleasant to the children. If the
children weren't there, it would be unpleasant with the dishes; I would throw the plates on
the floor. I would have broken the radio. He would have to do something, because he was in
a bad mood. It was pure chance that he found you reading the newspaper and got nasty
with you. It was pure coincidence that you were around at a bad time.
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You are angry, but not because your wife was unpleasant; she provided the situation,
that's all. She gave you a chance to get angry, an excuse to get angry, but the anger was already
bubbling. If your wife hadn't been there, you would have been angry anyway... with someone
else, with some idea, but the anger had to be present: It was something that came from your own
subconscious.
Everyone is responsible, totally responsible for their own being and their behavior. At first,
you will find it depressing to be the one responsible, because you have always thought that you
wanted to be happy... how are you going to be responsible for your unhappiness? You've always
wanted to be at peace... how can you get angry on your own? And that's why you blame someone
else. Yo

If you continue to blame others, remember that you will always remain a slave, because
no one can change others. How are you going to change to another? Has anyone ever changed
someone else? One of the most unfulfilled wishes in the world is to change someone else.
Nobody has ever achieved it. It is impossible, because the other has his own existence and you
cannot change him. You can blame the other, but you can't change them. And since you have
blamed someone else, you will never realize that the basic responsibility is yours. The basic
change that is needed must be done within you.
This is how you get trapped: if you start thinking that you are responsible for all your
actions; Of all your moods, at first you will feel very depressed. But if you are able to overcome
that depression, you will soon feel lighter, because you have freed yourself from others. Now you
can act on your own.
You can be free; you can be happy. Even if everyone is unhappy and not free, it will be
the same for you. And the first freedom consists of stopping blaming others; The first freedom
consists of knowing that you are responsible. Then many things become possible immediately.

If you continue to burden others with the responsibility, remember that you will always
remain a slave, because no one can change others. How are you going to change to another?
Has anyone ever changed someone else? Whatever happens to you... If you feel sad, close your
eyes and contemplate your sadness. Follow the path it indicates, go deeper into it.
You will soon get to the cause. You may have to take a long journey, because your whole life has
influenced; and not only this life, but many other lives. You will find many wounds inside you,
wounds that hurt, and because of those wounds you feel sad... they are sad; those wounds have
not healed; they are alive. The method of going back to the origin, from the effect to the cause,
will cure them. How do you cure them? Why do you cure them? What phenomenon intervenes in this?
When you go back, the first thing you have to do is stop blaming others, because if you
blame others you will go out. And then the whole process will go wrong; You will be trying to find
the cause in another. “Why is my wife being unpleasant?” And the "why" continues to penetrate
your wife's behavior. You've taken the first step wrong, and the whole process will go wrong.

«Why am I unhappy? Why am I angry? Close your eyes and sink into deep meditation.
Lie on the floor, close your eyes, relax your body and feel why you are angry. Forget your wife;
that's an excuse. And from A, B, C, D... stop making excuses. Keep going deeper into yourself,
go deeper into the anger. Use anger itself as if it were a river; Flow with anger and anger will take
you inside. You will find subtle wounds within you. Your wife seemed unpleasant to you because
she touched one of those subtle wounds, something that hurts. You have always thought that you
are not handsome, that your face is ugly, and that leaves an internal wound. When your woman
gets nasty, it makes you aware of your face. He tells you: "Go and look in the mirror!" Things that
hurt. You've been unfaithful to your wife, and when she wants to get nasty, she brings it up: "Why
were you laughing with that woman? Why were you sitting so comfortably with that woman? He
has touched a wound. You have been unfaithful, you feel guilty; the wound is alive.

Close your eyes, feel the anger, let it come out in its entirety so you can see it all, see
what it is. And then let that energy help you move into the past, because anger comes from the
past. It can't come from the future, that's clear. The future is not yet
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has come into existence. It's not coming from the present. This is the theory of karma. It cannot
come from the future, because the future does not yet exist; It cannot come from the present,
because you know nothing about the present. The present is only known to those who are awake.
You live only in the past, so it has to come from somewhere in your past. The wound has to be
somewhere in your memory. Back away. There may not be just one wound, but many, large and
small. Dig deeper and find the first wound, the original source of all anger. You will be able to find
it if you try, because it is there. Is there; all your past is still there. It's like a movie, rolled up and
waiting inside you. Unroll it and start searching the film. This is the process of going back to the
original cause. And here is the beauty of the process: if you can consciously step back, if you can
consciously feel a wound, the wound heals instantly.

Why is it cured? Because the wound is created by unconsciousness, by not being

conscious. The wound is part of the ignorance, of the dream. When you consciously step back
and contemplate the wound, awareness is a healing force. In the past, when the injury occurred,
it occurred in unconsciousness. You became furious, you were possessed by anger, you did
something. You killed a man and you've been hiding it from the world.
You can hide it from the police, you can hide it from the courts and judges, but how are you going
to hide it from yourself? You know it, and it hurts. And every time someone gives you a chance
to get angry, you get scared because it could happen again, you could kill your wife. Go back,
because at that moment when you killed a man or acted crazy because you were so angry, you
were unconscious. Those wounds have been preserved in the subconscious. Now you have to
go there consciously.
Going back means consciously going back to things you did unconsciously.
Back away. Only the light of consciousness can heal you; It is a healing force. Everything you can
make conscious will be healed, and it will no longer hurt. A person who goes back is freed from the
past. And then the past no longer works, then the past no longer has power over her and the past
is finished. The past no longer has a place in your being. And when the past has no place in your
being, you remain accessible to the present, but not before.
You need space. The past takes up a lot of space inside you, it is a garbage can full of
dead things, there is no space for the present to enter. That dumpster doesn't stop dreaming
about the future, so half of the space is full of things that no longer exist and the other half is full
of things that don't exist yet. And the present? He's just waiting at the door. That is why the
present is nothing more than a step, a step that goes from the past to the future, just a momentary
step.
End with the past; If you don't end the past, you will live a ghost life. Your life is not
authentic, it is not existential. The past lives through you, the dead continues to haunt you. Step
back... Whenever you have the chance, every time something happens in you, happiness,
unhappiness, sadness, anger, jealousy... close your eyes and step back. You will soon gain
efficiency in traveling backwards. Soon you will be able to go back in time and then many wounds
will open. When those wounds open inside you, don't start doing anything. There is no need to
do. Just look, observe, contemplate. The wound is there... you just look at it, give the wound your
energy of observation, look at it. Look at it without making any judgment... because if you judge,
if you say: "This is bad, it shouldn't be like this", the wound will close again. And then he will have
to hide. Every time you condemn, the mind tries to hide things. This is how the conscious and
subconscious are created. For the rest, the mind is one; there is no need for any division. But if
you condemn, then the mind has to divide and put some things in the dark part, in the basement,
so that you do not see them and there is no need to condemn.

Do not condemn, do not appreciate. Limit yourself to being a witness, a distanced

observer. Do not deny. Don't say, "This is not right," because that is a denial and you will have
begun to suppress.
Distance yourself. Just look and observe. Look with compassion and healing will occur.

Don't ask me why it happens, because it is a natural phenomenon. It's like when the
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Water is heated to one hundred degrees and evaporated. You never ask, "Why doesn't it happen
at ninety-nine degrees?" No one can answer that question. It simply happens that at one hundred
degrees the water evaporates. There is no need to ask, the question is irrelevant. If it evaporated
at ninety-nine degrees, you would also ask why. If it evaporated at ninety-eight, you'd ask why. It is
simply natural for water to evaporate at 100 degrees.

The same thing happens with inner nature. When a distanced and compassionate awareness
reaches a wound, the wound disappears, it evaporates. There is no why.
It's just natural, that's how things are, that's how it happens. When I say this, I say it from experience.
Try it, the experience is also possible for you. This is the way.

Consciousness In Action

A sleeping man cannot be total in anything. You are eating and you are not doing it
completely; You are thinking a thousand and one things, you are dreaming a thousand and one
dreams, and you are just mechanically stuffing yourself with food. You can be making love with
your woman or with your man, and you are not totally there. You can be thinking about other
women, making love with your wife and thinking about some other woman, or you can be thinking
about the market, about the prices of things you want to buy, about a car, about a house, about a
thousand and one things. ...and you are making love mechanically.
Be total in your actions, and if you are total you have to be conscious; No one can be total
without being conscious. Being total means not thinking about anything else. If you are eating, you
are simply eating; now you are totally there. Eating is everything; You are not filling yourself, you
are enjoying it. Body, mind, soul, are all in tune while you eat, and there is a harmony, a deep
rhythm, in the three layers of your being. Eating becomes meditation, walking becomes meditation,
chopping wood becomes meditation, fetching water from the well becomes meditation, making food
becomes meditation. Small things are transformed; They become luminous acts.

Start From The Center

One thing to understand is that silence is not part of the mind. So every time we say, "So-
and-so has a silent mind," we are saying nonsense. A mind can never be silent. The very essence
of the mind is anti-silence. The mind is sound, not silence. If a person is truly silent, we must say
that he has no mind.

A "silent mind" is a contradiction. If the mind is there, it cannot be silent; and if it is silent, it
is no longer there. That is why Zen monks use the expression "no mind", never "silent mind" no-
mind is silence, and the moment you reach no-mind you stop feeling your body, because the mind
is the passage to through which the body feels. If there is no-mind, you cannot feel that you are a
body; the body disappears from consciousness. There is no mind or body... only pure existence.
And silence is the sign of that pure existence.

How to achieve that silence? How to be in that silence? Whatever you do, it will be useless;
That is the biggest problem. For those who seek silence, that is the biggest problem, because no
matter what you do you will not get anywhere... because doing is not relevant.
You can sit in a specific posture... that is doing. Surely, you have seen Buddha's posture; you can
sit in the Buddha posture... that is doing. For the Buddha himself, that posture occurred. It was not
the cause of his silence; It was more of a byproduct.
When the mind is not there, when the being is in complete silence, the body follows
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like a shadow The body adopts a particular posture: as relaxed as possible, as passive as
possible. But you can't do it the other way around. You cannot take a stance first and thus achieve
silence. Just because we see a Buddha sitting in a certain posture, we think that adopting that
posture will lead to inner silence. Things don't happen in that order. For Buddha, the inner
phenomenon occurred first, and then that posture followed.

Consider it in the light of your own experience. When you get angry, the body adopts a
particular posture. Your eyes turn red, your face takes on a specific expression. The anger is
inside and the body follows it... not only outward, but also inward; The entire body chemistry
changes. Your blood circulates faster, you breathe differently, you are more ready to fight or
flee. But anger happens first and then the body follows.
Start at the other extreme: turn your eyes red, breathe faster, do everything you feel your
body does when the anger is there. You can act, but you cannot create anger within yourself.
Actors do that same thing all the time. When you play a role of love, you do what the body does
when there is love inside; but there is no love. The actor can do it better than you, but love won't
come. The actor will seem angrier than you when you are truly angry, but it is false. Nothing
happens inside.
When you start from the outside, you create a false state. The real always happens first
in the center, and then the waves reach the periphery.
The innermost center is silent. Start there.

Only from silence does action emerge. If you are not silent, if you do not know how to sit
silently or stand silently, in deep meditation, whatever you do will be a reaction, not an action.
You react. Someone insults you, as if they pressed a button, and you react. You get furious, you
jump on him... do you call that action? It's not action, mind you, it's reaction... HE is the manipulator
and you are the manipulated. He has pressed a button and you have functioned like a machine.
Like when you press a button and the light turns on, and you press it again and the light goes off.
That's what people do to you. They turn you on and off.

Someone comes and praises you, and your ego swells and you feel great. Then someone
comes and pokes you; and you fall to the ground deflated. You are not master of yourself.
Anyone can insult you and make you sad, angry, irritated, upset, violent, crazy. And anyone can
praise you and make you feel on high, can make you feel that you are the greatest, that Alexander
the Great was nobody compared to you. You act according to the manipulations of others. That's
not real action.
Buddha was passing through a town and people came out to insult him. They threw every
insult they knew at him, every curse word they knew how to say. Buddha stood there, listened in
silence, very attentively, and then said:
-Thank you for coming to me, but I'm in a hurry. I have to get to the next town, where they
are waiting for me. Today I can't dedicate more time to you, but tomorrow, when I come back, I
will have more time. You can meet again, and if there is anything you want to say that you haven't
been able to tell me today, you can tell me tomorrow. But today you have to excuse me.

Those people could not believe their ears and eyes: this man has not been affected by
what we say, it has not even distracted him. One of them asked: .
-Haven't you heard us? We have insulted you outright and you have not even responded.
"If you wanted me to answer," said Buddha, "you have arrived too late." You should have
come ten years ago, and then I would have answered them. But in these ten years I have stopped
being manipulated by others. I am no longer a slave. I am master of myself.
I act on my own behalf, not on behalf of anyone else. I act according to my inner needs. You can't
force me to do anything. Everything is very good: you wanted to insult me and you have insulted
me. You feel satisfied; You have done your job perfectly. But as far as I'm concerned, I don't get
your insults, and if I don't get them they don't mean anything.
When someone insults you, you have to become a recipient; you have to accept it
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what he says, only then can you react. But if you don't accept, if you just stay distant, if you keep your
distance, if you stay calm, what can he do?
Buddha said: “It is as if someone throws a burning torch into the river. It will stay on until it
reaches the river. The moment it falls into the river, the fire goes out. The river cools him. I have become
a river. You can direct insults at me... they are fire when you throw them, but the moment they reach me,
my calm extinguishes their fire. They don't hurt anymore. You throw thorns... but when you fall into my
silence they transform into flowers. "I act according to my intrinsic nature."

This is spontaneity.
The man of conscience, of knowledge, acts; The man who is not conscious, the
unconscious, the mechanic the robot, reacts.
And it is not that the man of conscience limits himself to observing. Observing is only one aspect
of your being. He does not act without observing. But don't be confused. Entire India, for example, has
been misunderstanding people like Buddha; That's why the entire country has become inactive. Thinking
that all the great teachers have said, "Sit quietly," the whole country became lazy; dirty, inactive. The
country lost energy, vitality and life. It became something totally obtuse, without intelligence, because
intelligence only sharpens when you act.

And when you act moment by moment, based on your awareness and your Vigilance, great
intelligence arises. You begin to shine, to shine, you become luminous. But for that two things are
needed: vigilance and the action arising from that vigilance. If vigilance turns into inactivity, you are
committing suicide.
Observation should lead you to action, a new type of action. The action takes on a new quality.
You watch, being completely still and silent. You see what the situation is and, based on what you see,
you respond. The man of conscience answers: he is responsible... in the strict sense of the word! He
responds, he doesn't react. His actions are born from his conscience, not from your manipulation. That
is the difference. Thus, observation and spontaneity are not incompatible. Observing is the beginning of
spontaneity; spontaneity is the fulfillment of observation.

The true man of knowledge acts... he acts very much, he acts totally, but he acts in the moment,
based on his consciousness. It's like a mirror. The ordinary man, the unconscious man, is not like a
mirror, he is like a photographic plate.
What is the difference between a mirror and a photographic plate? A photographic plate, after being
exposed, is no longer useful. It receives the impression, it remains printed, it retains the image.
But remember: the image is not reality. Reality continues to grow. You can go out into the garden and
take a photo of a rose bush. Tomorrow, the photograph will be the same, the day after tomorrow the
photograph will remain the same. He goes out again to look at the rose bush, it is no longer the same.
The roses have disappeared, or new ones have sprouted. A thousand and one things have happened.
Life is never static, it is constantly changing. Your mind works like a camera: it keeps collecting
images... it's a photo album. And then, you react according to those images. Therefore, your life is never
authentic, because whatever you do, it is poorly done. Whatever you do, I insist, it will be poorly done. It
will never be adequate.
A woman was showing her son the family album and they came to a photo of a very attractive man:
thick hair, beard, very young, very vital. The boy asked, "Mom, who is this man?"

And the woman answered him: «Don't you recognize him? He is your father." The boy was puzzled
and said, "If this is my father, who is that bald man who lives with us?"

The unconscious mind works like a camera, it works like a photographic plate. The watchful
mind, the meditative mind, works like a mirror. Does not retain any impression; It remains totally empty,
always empty. Therefore, anything that is placed in front of the mirror is reflected in it. If you stand in
front of the mirror, it will reflect you. If you leave, don't say that the mirror betrays you. The mirror is
nothing more than a mirror. When you leave, it stops reflecting you; has no obligation to continue
reflecting you. If now there is
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someone else before the mirror, the mirror will reflect that other. If there is no one, it does not reflect anyone.
It is always true to life.
The photographic plate is never true to life. Even if they take your photo right now, by the time the
photographer has taken it from the camera you will no longer be the same, a lot of water will have already
passed through the Ganges. You have grown, changed, you have become older. It may only have been a
minute, but a minute can be a long time. Within a minute you could have died! A minute before, you were
alive; a minute later, you may have died. Photography will never die.

But in the mirror, if you are alive, you are alive; and if you are dead; you are dead.
Learn to sit in silence, become a mirror. Silence turns your consciousness into a mirror and then you
will function moment by moment and reflect life. You won't carry a photo album inside your head. Then your
eyes will be clear and innocent, you will have clarity, you will have vision, and you will never be unfaithful to
life; That's the real life.

Be Spontaneous

When, you are always acting through the past. You act based on the experience you have
accumulated, you act based on conclusions you reached in the past... How can you be spontaneous?

The past dominates, and because of the past you can't even see the present. Your eyes are so full
of the past, the smoke of the past is so abundant that it is impossible to see anything. You can not see! You
are almost completely blind. Blind because of the smoke, blind because of the conclusions of the past, blind
because of what you know.
The man with knowledge is the blindest in the world. Since he works based on his knowledge, he
does not see what the situation is. It just keeps working mechanically. He has learned something; that
something has become a built-in mechanism; and he acts based on it.

There is a famous story:

There were two temples in Japan, one enemy of the other; as has always happened with temples
in all ages. The priests were so enmity that they no longer even looked at each other. If they met on the
street, they looked away. If they met on the street, they stopped talking. For centuries, these two temples
and their priests had not spoken to each other.

But the two priests had two boys who served them and did their errands. The
Two priests feared that the two boys, children after all, might become friends.
One of the priests told his boy: -Remember,
the other temple is our enemy. Never talk to the boy from the other temple. They are dangerous people.
Avoid them like you avoid diseases. Avoid them like the plague!

The boy was interested... because he was bored listening to great sermons. I didn't understand
them. Strange writings were read and he was not even able to understand the language; big and definitive
problems were discussed. There was no one to play with, no one to even talk to. And when they told him:
"Don't talk to the boy from the other temple," the great temptation arose. This is how temptation arises. That
day he couldn't help but talk to the other boy.
When he met him on the road, he asked him: Where are
you going?
The other boy was a bit of a philosopher; By listening to high philosophy, he had become a
philosopher. So he answered:
Go? Nobody goes and nobody comes. It's something that happens. I go where the wind takes me.
He had heard his teacher say many times that this is how a Buddha lives, like
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a dead leaf that goes wherever the wind takes it, So he continued: -I do not
exist... If there is no one to go, how can I go? What nonsense are you talking about? I am a dead leaf.
Wherever the wind takes me...
The other boy was stunned. He couldn't even respond. He couldn't think of what to say.
He felt really embarrassed, ashamed, and thought: “My teacher is right not to talk to these people. Yes, they
are dangerous people. What way of speaking is that? I have asked him a simple question, "Where are you
going?" In fact, I already knew where I was going, because we are both going to buy vegetables at the market.
A simple answer would have sufficed.
Upon returning, he said to his teacher:
-I'm sorry, forgive me. You had forbidden me, but I didn't listen to you. In fact, I was tempted because
of your prohibition. It's the first time I've talked to such dangerous people. I asked him a very simple question,
“Where are you going?”, and he started saying strange things: “There is no going, there is no coming. Who is
coming? Who's going? I am a total void... a dead leaf in the wind. And wherever the wind takes me..."

-I warned you! -said the teacher-. Tomorrow, wait for him in the same place, and when he passes by,
ask him again: "Where are you going?", and when he starts saying those things, you simply say: "It's true. You
are a dead leaf, and so am I. But when the wind doesn't blow, where do you go? Where can you go then? Tell
him that and you will embarrass him... he has to be ashamed, he has to be defeated. We have been arguing
forever, and these people have never been able to defeat us in any debate. Tomorrow, do as I tell you.

The boy got up early, prepared his answer, repeated it many times before leaving. Then he stationed
himself at the place where the other boy was crossing the road and kept repeating it over and over again,
preparing himself: And when he saw the boy coming, he said to himself, "Now he's going to
see".

The other boy came, and he asked, "Where are you going?" and waited for his chance...
But the other boy answered:
-Wherever my legs take me.
Not a word about the wind, nor about nothingness, nor about whether it existed or not... What to do
now? The whole answer he had prepared seemed absurd to him. Now it seemed silly to talk about the wind.
Once again he was dejected, truly ashamed of his stupidity, thinking: «Of course, this boy knows some very
strange things. Now he tells me that wherever his legs take him...

He returned to his teacher, and the teacher said:

-I told you not to talk to those people! They are dangerous, we have known it for centuries. But now
something has to be done. Tomorrow, ask him again where he is going, and when he says, “Wherever my legs
take me,” you say, “What if you didn't have legs?” One way or another, we have to shut his mouth.

And so, the next day; The boy asked the other: "Where are you going?" and waited for the response.

And the other boy said:

-I'm going to the market, to buy vegetables.
Normally, humanity functions based on it. past...and life continues to change. Life has no obligation to
conform to your conclusions. That's why life is so disconcerting...disconcerting, for the knowledgeable person.
That person has all the answers ready, he knows the Bhagavad Gita, the Koran, the Bible, the Vedas. He has
learned everything, he knows all the answers. But life never asks the same questions again; Therefore, the
knowledgeable person falls short.

Be Determined

The mind is never decided. It doesn't matter if it is the mind of one person or another; the mind is
indecision. The functioning of the mind consists of wandering between two
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opposite options and try to figure out which is the right path. It's like trying to find the door with
your eyes closed. You will most certainly find yourself stuck between the two options: go this way
or go that way. You will always be in an “either/or” condition. That is the nature of the mind.

Soren Kierkegaard was a great Danish philosopher. He wrote a book titled “Either This Or
That.” It was the experience of his own life: he had never been able to decide anything!
Everything was always presented to him in such a way that if he decided on this path, then that
one seemed the right one. And if he decided on that, then this path seemed the right one. He
never married, although there was a woman who loved him and had asked him to. But he said,
"I'll have to think about it. "Marriage is a very important thing and I can't say yes or no right away."
and he died doubting, without getting married.
He lived for many years, perhaps seventy, and he was always arguing and arguing, but
he could not find any answer that could be considered definitive and did not have a contrary one
of equal weight. He never became a teacher. He had filled out the application, he had the best
possible grades, he had written many books of such immense importance that after a century they
are still valid, they are not old, they have not become outdated...
He filled out the application, but he wasn't able to sign it, because... or this or that... did he want to
be a university professor or not? They found the application when he died, in the small room
where he lived.
At crossroads he would stop to decide whether to go this way or that... for hours! All of
Copenhagen knew about this man's oddities, and the children called him "This or that." The
urchins followed him everywhere, shouting: "This or that?"
In view of the situation, his father, before dying, liquidated all his businesses, gathered all
the money, deposited it in a bank account and arranged for Kierkegaard to receive a certain
amount of money on the first day of each month. That way, at least, he could survive for quite
some time. And this is going to surprise you: one day on the first of the month, when he was
returning home after having collected the last payment - the money had run out - he fell in the
street and died. With the last payment! It was the most appropriate. What else could I do?
Because after that month, what was I going to do?
He wrote books, but he couldn't decide whether to publish them or not. All his works
remained unpublished. And they are enormously valuable works. All his books show great insight
into things. When he wrote about a subject, he went to the very roots, to the smallest detail... He
was a genius, but a genius of the mind.
That's the problem with the mind... and the better mind you have, the bigger the problem.
Lesser minds do not face that problem so often. It is the mind of the genius that gets stuck between
two polarities and does not know how to choose. And then you feel in limbo.

What I am telling you is that the characteristic of the mind is to be in a limbo. The
characteristic of the mind is to be in the middle of two opposite polarities. Unless you get away
from the mind and become a witness to all the games of the mind, you will never be able to decide.
Even if you decide once in a while - despite your mind - you will regret it, because the other half,
the one you have not chosen, will torment you. Maybe that was the right one and you made the wrong choice.
And now there is no way to know. Maybe the option you ruled out was the best one. But even if
you had chosen her, the situation would not be different. Then it will be this option, the one that
has been ruled out, that will torment you.
The mind is basically the beginning of madness. And if you're too into it, it will drive you
crazy.
In my town I lived opposite a goldsmith. I used to sit in front of his house and I noticed that
he had a very curious habit: when he closed his shop, he would pull the bolt two or three times to
check if it was securely closed or not. One day, I was coming from the river and he had just closed
his store and was going home. I told him: -You haven't
checked it!
-That? -He said.
-You haven't checked the lock
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-I said.
Yes, I had checked it. I had seen him shoot three times, but now he had created a doubt,
and the mind is always ready... So he told me: -I must have forgotten. I have
to return.
He came back and checked the lock again. That became fun. Every time I met him, for
example, in the market, buying vegetables, I would approach him and say: "What are you doing here?
You left the lock unchecked.
He would put down the vegetables and say, “I'll be right back. I have to go check my lock
first.” Even at the train station. He was buying a ticket to go somewhere and I walked up to him and
said, “What are you doing? The bolt!"
-My God! -He said-. I haven't checked it?
-No! -I said.
-Now it is impossible for me to leave.
He returned the bill, went to his shop and checked the lock. But it was too late to return to
the station. The train had already left. And he trusted me, because I was always sitting in front of his
house.
Little by little, everyone found out about it, and wherever he went, people
He said: "Where are you going? Have you checked your lock?
Finally...he got angry with me.
"You had to be the one who spread the word," he said, "because wherever I go, everyone
is talking about my lock."
"Well, don't pay attention to them," I told him. Let them say whatever they want.
-How can I ignore them? If they tell the truth, I am lost forever. I can't take that risk. So,
even though I know perfectly well that they may be lying, I have to compulsively come and check
the lock. I know more or less that I have already verified it, but who can be sure?

The mind is not sure of anything.

If you are between the two polarities of the mind, in a limbo, always doing or not doing, you
will go crazy. You're crazy! Before it happens, jump outside and take a look from the outside of your
mind.
Be aware of the mind: its light side, its dark side, its good part, its bad part. Whatever the
polarity, be aware of it. Two things will come out of that awareness; The first, that you are not the
mind; and the second, that conscience has a power of decision that the mind lacks.

The mind is basically indecisive, and the conscience is basically decisive.

Any act that comes from consciousness is total, complete, without regret.
I have never in my life thought twice about whether something would have been better
otherwise. I have never regretted it. I have never thought that I had made a mistake, because there
was no one else left to say those things. I have acted according to my conscience, which is my
entire being. Now, whatever happens is the only one possible. The world can say it's right or wrong,
but that's their business, it's not my problem.

So, awareness will take you out of limbo. Instead of hanging between those two polarities of the
mind, jump away from both and you can see that those polarities are only polarities if you are in the
mind. If you are outside of it, you will be surprised to see that they are two sides of the same coin.
There was no choice.
With consciousness you acquire clarity, totality, ease... existence decides within you. You
don't have to think about what is right and what is wrong. Existence takes you by the hand and you
move in a relaxed manner. It's the only way, the right way. And it's the only way for you to stay sane;
otherwise you will always be confused.
The fact is that Soren Kierkegaard had a great mind, but since he was a Christian he did
not know the concept of conscience. He could think, and think very deep things, but he couldn't stay
silent and watch. That poor man had never heard of things like observing, witnessing, gaining
awareness. I had only heard of thinking, and
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He applied all his genius to thinking. He produced great books, but was unable to make a great life for himself.
He lived in complete misery.

Complete every moment

Why is it necessary to think? You wanted to kill someone and you haven't killed them... you kill them
in your dreams. That will relax your mind. In the morning you will feel fresh: you have killed it. I'm not saying
go and kill him, and then you won't need to dream. But remember this: if you want to kill someone, close your
room and meditate on the murder and kill him consciously. When I say “kill it,” I mean kill a pillow; make an
effigy and kill it. That conscious effort, that conscious meditation will give you a lot of insight into your inner
being.

Remember one thing: make every moment complete. Live every moment as if there would never be
another. Only then will you complete it. Be aware that death can come at any time. This may be the last. He
feels that "if I have to do something, I must do it here and now, completely!"

- They told me a story about a Greek general. For some reason, the king was at enmity with him.
There was a conspiracy at court and it was the general's birthday.
He was celebrating with his friends. Suddenly, in the early afternoon, an emissary of the king arrived and said
to the general: "Forgive me, it is difficult for me to tell you, but the king has decided that this afternoon, at six
o'clock, you will be hanged. So try to be ready for six.”

The general's friends were there; the music played; there was drinking, eating and dancing.
It was his birthday. The message completely changed the atmosphere. Everyone became sad.
But the general said: «Don't be sad, because this is going to be the last party of my life.
So let's complete the dance we were dancing and complete the party we were celebrating. I won't have any
more chances, we won't be able to complete it in the future. And don't say goodbye to me in this sad
atmosphere; If you do, my mind will sigh for life again and again, and the interrupted music and suspended
party will become a burden on my mind. There's no time to interrupt her now.

Out of consideration for him, they continued dancing, but it was difficult for them. He was the only one
that he danced with more and more energy; Only he
lived the party... but the others were not up to the task. His wife was crying but he kept dancing, kept chatting
with his friends. and he was so happy that the messenger returned to the king and said to him: “What a strange
man. He has heard the message, but he has not been saddened. He has taken it in a very different way...
absolutely inconceivable. He is laughing and dancing, he is partying and he says that since these moments are
his last and he has no future, he cannot waste them... he has to live them.»

The king himself went to see what was happening. Everyone was sad, crying. Only the
general continued dancing, drinking, singing. The king asked him: "What are you doing?"
The general responded: «This has been the principle that has governed my life: to be aware at all times
that death can come at any moment. Thanks to this principle, I have lived every moment as intensely as possible.
But, naturally, today you have made it so clear... I am grateful to you because until now I only thought that death
can come at any moment. It was just a thought. Somewhere, lurking, was the thought that it wasn't going to
happen in the next moment. The future was there. But you have completely deprived me of my future. This
afternoon is the last. "Life is so short that I cannot postpone it."

The king was so impressed that he became that man's disciple. "Teach me! -He told him, This is alchemy.
This is how life should be lived; This is art. I'm not going to hang you, but be my teacher. Teach me how to live
in the moment.
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We are always procrastinating. This postponement becomes an internal dialogue, an internal

monologue. Don't procrastinate. Live here and now. The more you live in the present, the less you will
need that constant mental activity, that constant thinking. You will need it less and less! It is there because
of the postponements and we continue to postpone everything. We always live in tomorrow, which never
comes and cannot come; it is impossible. What arrives is always today, and we continue to sacrifice
today for tomorrow, which does not exist. Then the mind continues thinking about the past, which you
have already destroyed, which you have sacrificed for the sake of something that has not yet arrived. And
then you keep putting things off for other tomorrows.
You keep thinking that what you have missed you will get at some point in the future.
You won't get it! That constant tension between past and future, that constant losing of the present, is the
internal noise. If you don't stop it, you can't fall into silence. So the first thing is to try to be total at all times.

And another thing: your mind is so noisy because you are always thinking that others are
responsible, that you are not responsible. And so, you continue to think that in a better world - with a
better wife, with a better husband, with better children, with a better house in a better place everything
will be fine and you can remain silent. You think you are not silent because everything is going wrong
around you, and how can you.
If you think this way, if this is your logic, then that better world will never come into existence.
Everywhere this will be the world, everywhere these will be your neighbors, and everywhere these will be
the wives and these will be the husbands and these will be the children. You can create the illusion that
heaven exists somewhere, but everywhere you find hell. With this kind of mind, everything is hell. That
mind is hell.
One day, Mullah Nasruddin and his wife were returning home late at night. In
Thieves had entered the house, and the woman began to scream. Then he said to the
mullah: -It's your fault! Why didn't you close it properly when we left?
By then, the entire neighborhood had gathered. It was sensational news.
Mullah's house has been robbed! Everyone repeated it in chorus. One of the neighbors said:
-I already expected it. How come you don't? How careless you are.
Another neighbor
said: -You left the windows open. Why didn't you close them before leaving the house? .
A third said: -This
lock looks broken. Why didn't you change it? And everyone blamed Mullah Nasruddin.

Then he said:
-One moment, please. It is not my fault. and the
entire neighborhood asked him in chorus:
-And whose fault do you think it is, if it's not yours?
-What do you say about the thief? - said the mullah.
The mind always blames someone else. The woman blames Mullah Nasruddin, the whole
neighborhood blames Mullah Nasruddin, and the poor man can't blame anyone present, so he says,
"What about the thief?"
We always blame others. This gives you the illusory feeling that you have done no wrong. The
person who has done wrong is someone else: X, Y, Z... X this attitude is one of the basic attitudes of our
mind. The blame for everything always lies with someone else, and if we can find a scapegoat, we stay
calm; We have gotten rid of a burden.
For the seeker, this mind is of no use; It is an impediment. This mind is the impediment. We
must realize that, in any situation, in any circumstance, the person responsible is you and no one else. If
you are responsible, then something can be done. If someone else is responsible, nothing can be done.

This is a basic conflict between the religious mind and the irreligious mind. The irreligious mind
always thinks that someone else is responsible. Let society change, let circumstances change, let
economic conditions change, let the political situation change, let something change, and everything will
be fine. But we've changed everything a lot of times,
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and nothing goes well. The religious mind says that whatever the situation, if your mind is like that you will
always be in hell, your life will be suffering. You will never be able to achieve silence.
You carry the responsibility. Be responsible, because then something can be done. You can only
do something with yourself. You can't change any other person in the world, you can only change yourself.
This is the only possible revolution. The only possible transformation is your own. But this is only considered
when we feel responsible

Stop Trying to Be Good

"The only sin is unconsciousness and the only virtue is conscience. What cannot be done without
unconsciousness is sin.
What can only be done through conscience is virtue. It is impossible to commit murder if you are
conscious; It is impossible to be violent in any way... if you are aware.
It is impossible to rape, steal, torture... all of that is impossible if there is conscience. Only when
unconsciousness predominates, in the darkness of unconsciousness, do all kinds of enemies penetrate you.

Buddha said: “If there is light in a house, thieves avoid it; and if the watchman is awake, the
thieves don't even try. and if there are people walking and talking inside, and the inhabitants have not yet
fallen asleep, it is not possible for thieves to enter, they do not even think about it.

Exactly the same thing happens with you. You are a house without any light. The ordinary state of
the human being is mechanical functioning: Homo mechanicus. Only your name is human; Otherwise, you
are just a trained and skilled machine, and anything you do will be wrong. and remember, I say that whatever
you do; Not even your virtues will be virtues if you are unconscious. How can you be virtuous when you are
unconscious? Behind your virtue will come a great, enormous ego. Must be like this.

Even holiness, practiced, cultivated with great work and effort, is futile. Because it will not bring
simplicity and it will not bring humility, and it will not bring that great experience of the divine, which only
occurs when the ego has disappeared. You will live a respectable life as a saint, but as poor as anyone
else's: rotten inside, a meaningless existence inside. That's not life, it's just vegetating. Your sins will be
sins, your virtues will also be sins. Your immorality will be immorality, your morality will also be immorality.

I do not teach morality, nor do I teach virtue... because I know that without -conscience- they are
just pretensions, hypocrisies. They make you fake. They don't set you free, they can't set you free. On the
contrary, they imprison you.
Only one thing is enough: awareness is a master key. Open all the locks of existence. Awareness
means living moment to moment, being alert, aware of yourself, and aware of everything happening around
you in a moment to moment response. You are like a mirror, you reflect. And you reflect in such a total way
that everything that is done based on that reflection is well done because it fits, it is in harmony with
existence. It doesn't actually arise in you, you are not the doer. It arises in the total context: the situation, you
and everything else participate in it. From that totality the act is born. It is not your act, you have not decided
to do it that way. It is not your decision, it is not your idea, it is not your character. You're not doing it, you're
just letting it happen.

It's like you go for a walk first thing in the morning, when the sun hasn't risen yet, and you find a
snake on the way. There's no time to think. You can only reflect, there is no time to decide what to do and
what not to do. You jump immediately! Notice the word immediately: not a single moment is wasted; You
immediately jump out of the way. Later, you can sit under a tree and think about it: what happened, how you
did it, and you can pat yourself on the back for doing it right. But in reality, you
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you did not do it; It's something that happened. It happened in a total context. You, the snake, the
danger of death, the effort of life to protect itself... and a thousand and one other things, it's all part
of it. The total situation caused the act. You were just a medium.
Now this act fits. You are not the doer. In religious terms, we could say that God has done it
through you. That is just a religious way of speaking, nothing more. The whole has acted through
the part.
This is virtue. You will never regret it. And it is a truly liberating act.
As soon as it happens, it's over. You are once again free to act; You will not carry that action in your
head. It will not become part of your psychological memory. It won't leave any wound inside you. It
was so spontaneous that it will not leave any trace. This act will never become karma. This act will
not leave any mark on you. The act that becomes karma is the one that is not a true act but a
reaction: something that comes from the past of memory, of thought. It is you who decides, who
chooses. It does not arise from consciousness, but from unconsciousness. So everything is sin.

My whole message is that you need a conscience, not a character. Consciousness is authentic,
character is a false entity. Character is necessary for those who have no conscience. If you have
eyes, you don't need a cane to feel your way, to feel your way.
If you can see, you don't have to ask others where the door is.
Character is necessary because people are unconscious. Character is just a lubricant; It
helps you live your life more smoothly. George Gurdjieff said that character is like a shock absorber,
like the bumpers on train cars. Between every two cars there are stops; If something happens,
those shock absorbers prevent the compartments from colliding. Or like car shock absorbers: they
are springs to roll smoothly. The springs absorb shocks, cushion shocks. That's what character is:
a shock absorber.

People are told to be humble. If you learn to be humble, that serves as a shock absorber. If
you learn to be humble, you can protect yourself from other people's egos. They won't hurt you that
much, because you are a humble person. If you are selfish, you will be hurt again and again - the
ego is very sensitive - so you protect your ego by covering it with a blanket of humility. It's a help, it
gives you a certain softness. But it doesn't transform you.
My job is about transformation. This is an alchemical school. I want you to transform, from
unconsciousness to consciousness, from darkness to light. I can't give you a character; I can only
give you penetration, awareness. I would like you to live moment by moment, not following a
guideline that I give you or that society, the church, the state gives you.
I would like you to live following your own little light of consciousness, according to your own
conscience. You must respond at every moment. Character means that you have prepared answers
to all of life's questions, so when a situation arises you respond according to the predetermined
pattern. Since you respond with a prepared response, that's not a real response, it's just a reaction.
The man of character reacts, the man of conscience responds: he assimilates the situation, reflects
reality as it is, and acts based on that reflection. The man of character reacts, the man of conscience
acts. The man of character is mechanical, he works like a robot. You have a computer in your mind,
full of information; Ask him anything and a ready-made answer will come out of his computer.

A man of conscience simply acts in the moment, without being guided by the past or
memory. His response has a beauty, a naturalness, and is a faithful response to the situation. The
man of character always falls short, because life is constantly changing; It is never the same. And
your answers are always the same, they never grow.
They can't grow, they are dead.
When you were a child you were told certain things; Still there. You have grown up, life
has changed, but the answer that your parents or your teachers or your priests gave you is still
there. And if something happens, you will function according to that answer they gave you fifty years
ago. And in fifty years a lot of water has flowed down the Ganges. Life is totally
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different.
Heraclitus said that you cannot bathe in the same river twice. And I tell you that
you cannot bathe in the same river even once; The river flows too fast.
The character is stagnant; It is a pool of dirty water. Consciousness is a river.
That's why I don't give my people any code of conduct. I give you eyes to see, a
conscience to reflect, a being like a mirror to respond to any situation that arises. I don't give
them detailed information about what to do and what not to do. I don't give you ten
commandments. And if you start giving them commandments, you can't stop at ten, because
life is much more complex.
In the Buddhist scriptures there are thirty-three thousand rules for the Buddhist monk.
Thirty-three thousand rules! For every possible situation that may arise, they have a prepared
response. But how are you going to remember thirty-three thousand rules of conduct? And a
man who is clever enough to remember thirty-three thousand rules of conduct will always be
clever enough to find a way out of them; If you don't want to do a thing, you will find a way
out; If you want to do one thing, you will find a way out.
I have heard that a Christian saint was scolded in the face by a man because that
day, in his morning sermon, he had said: "Jesus says that if someone hits you on one cheek,
offer him the other." And the man wanted to test him, so he hit him, hit him hard on the cheek.
And the saint was truly faithful to his word: he turned the other cheek. But that man was a
case: he hit him even harder on the other cheek. Then he got a surprise: the saint jumped on
him and started hitting him so hard that the man said: "But what are you doing? You are a
saint, and just this morning you said that if someone hits you on one cheek, you should offer
them the other."
"Yes," said the saint. But I don't have a third cheek, and Jesus stopped there. Now I am
free. Now go do what I want. Jesus has no more information on the subject.
Exactly the same thing happened in the life of Jesus. On one occasion he said to a
disciple: "Forgive seven times." And the disciple said: "Okay." The way he said “okay” made
Jesus suspicious, who then said, “I mean forgive seventy-seven times.”
The disciple was a little taken aback, but said, “Okay... because the numbers don't end
with seventy-seven. What about seventy-eight? Then I will be free, I will be able to do
whatever I want.
How many rules can you impose on people? It's stupid, absurd. That's the way people
are religious, and yet they're not religious. They always find a way to get away from the rules
of conduct and commandments. They can always find a way out through the back door. And
character can give you, at most, a pseudo mask as thin as skin; not even like skin: just scratch
your healthy ones a little and you will find the beast hidden behind. On the surface they seem
beautiful, but only on the surface.
I don't want you to be superficial; I want you to really change. But true change only
occurs in the center of your being, not the circumference. Character is like painting the
circumference; Consciousness is the transformation of the center.

The moment you start to see your flaws, they begin to fall like dry leaves. And then,
there is nothing more to do. Just seeing them is enough. The only thing you need is to be
aware of your flaws. With that awareness, they begin to disappear, they evaporate.

One can only continue making the same mistakes if one is unconscious of them.
When one is unconscious, one continues to make the same mistakes, and even if one tries
to change, one will continue to make the same mistake in some other form, in some other
variant. They come in all sizes and shapes! You can exchange them, replace one with
another, but you cannot get rid of them because deep down you do not see that this is a
defect. Others may tell you, because they see it...
That's why everyone considers themselves so beautiful, so intelligent, so virtuous,
so holy... and no one else agrees. The reason is very simple: you look at others
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and you see its reality, but regarding yourself you maintain fictions, beautiful fictions.
Everything you know about yourself is more or less a myth; It has nothing to do with reality.

As soon as one sees one's own flaws, a radical change occurs. That is why all the Buddhas of all
ages have taught one thing: consciousness. They don't teach you character; character is taught by priests,
politicians, but not by Buddhas. The Buddhas teach you conscience, but not moral conscience.

This moral conscience is a trick that others play on you; Others tell you what is right and what is wrong.
They force ideas into you, and they force them into you from when you are very little.
When you are so innocent, so vulnerable, so delicate that there is the possibility of leaving a mark on you, of
leaving an impression. You have been conditioned from the very beginning. They call this conditioning
“consciousness” and that consciousness always dominates your entire life. Moral conscience is a strategy of
society to enslave you.
Buddhas teach consciousness. This awareness means that you do not have to learn from others what
is right and what is wrong. There is no need to learn from anyone, you just have to go within. The journey within
is enough: the deeper you go, the more awareness is released. When you reach the center you are so full of
light that the darkness disappears.
When you turn on the light in your room you don't have to push the darkness out. The presence of
light is enough, because darkness is only the absence of light. The same is all your madness and nonsense.

A man dressed as Adolf HitIer goes to the psychiatrist.

"As you can see, I have no problems," he says. I have the most powerful army in the world
world, all the money I want and all the luxuries one can imagine.
-So, what are you worried about? -asks the psychiatrist.
"She's my wife," says the man.
"She thinks she's Mrs. Martínez."
Don't laugh at the poor man. It is none other than you. .
A man goes to the tailor shop and sees a guy hanging by one arm in the center of the ceiling.

-What is he doing there? -ask.

"Bah, don't pay attention to him," says the tailor. A light bulb is created.
- And why don't you tell him that he isn't? -asks the amazed customer.
-As? -replies the tailor-. and work in the dark?
As soon as you know you are crazy, you stop being crazy. This is the only criterion of sanity. As soon as you
know that you are ignorant, you become wise.
The oracle of Delphi declared that Socrates was the wisest man in the world. Some
how many ran to tell Socrates.
-Rejoice, you can now be satisfied! The oracle of Delphi has said that you are the wisest man in the
world.
-What nonsense! -said Socrates-. I only know one thing: that I know nothing.
The people were bewildered. They returned to the temple and told the oracle:
-You say that Socrates is the wisest man in the world, but he denies it. He says that, on the contrary,
he is completely ignorant. He says he only knows one thing: that he knows nothing.

The oracle laughed and said: -That

is why I have declared that he is the wisest man in the world.
Precisely because he knows he is ignorant.
Ignorant people think they are wise. Crazy people think they are the sanest of all.

It is part of human nature to always be looking outside. We look at everyone except ourselves; That's
why we know more about others than about ourselves. We know nothing about ourselves. We are not
witnesses of the functioning of our own mind, we do not monitor our interior.

It is necessary to make a one hundred and eighty degree turn. That's what meditation is all about.
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You have to close your eyes and start looking at the beginning you will only see darkness and
more. And many people get scared and rush out, because there is light outside.
Yes, there is light outside, but that light is not going to illuminate you, that light is not going to help you at all.
You need inner light, a light that has its origin in your own being, a light that cannot be extinguished
even by death, a light that is eternal. And you have it, the potential is there.
You are born with it, but you are keeping it hidden in the back; You never look at her.
And as you have looked out for centuries, for many lifetimes, it has become a mechanical
habit. Even when you sleep, you look at your dreams... dreams that are reflections of the outside.
When you close your eyes, you start to have daydreams or think; That means you are still
interested in others. This has become such a chronic habit that there are not even small intervals,
small windows that look into the interior of your being, where you can have a glimpse of what you
are.
At first it is a great effort, it is arduous, it is difficult... but it is not impossible. If you are
determined, if you have committed yourself to inner exploration, sooner or later it will happen. You
just have to keep digging, you have to keep fighting with the darkness, soon you will pass to the
other side of the darkness and enter the kingdom of light. And that light is authentic light, much more
authentic than the light of the moon alone, because all the lights that are outside are temporary;
They only last a certain time. Even the sun will die one day. Not only small lamps use up their
resources and turn off in the morning; Even the sun, with its immense resources, is dying day by
day. Sooner or later it will become a black hole. He will die and no light will come from him. No
matter how long your life lasts, it is not eternal. The inner light is eternal; It has no beginning or end.

I'm not interested in telling you to get rid of your defects, to be good, to improve your
character... no, not at all. I'm not interested in your character at all. The only thing that interests me
is your conscience.
Become more alert, more aware. Go deeper and deeper into yourself until you find the center
of your being. You are living on the periphery, and on the periphery there is always turbulence. The
deeper you go, the greater the silence that predominates and in these experiences of silence, light,
joy, your life begins to move towards a different dimension.
The errors, the mistakes, begin to disappear.
So don't worry about mistakes, mistakes and defects. Worry about one thing, one
phenomenon. Focus all your energy on a single goal: how to become more aware, how to wake up
more. If you put all your energy into it, it has to happen, it's inevitable. It is a right that you have by
birth.

Morality deals with good qualities and bad qualities. a man is

good -according to morality- when it is honest, sincere, authentic, trustworthy.
The man of conscience is not only good, he is much more. For the good man, goodness
is everything; For the man of conscience, goodness is only a by-product. As soon as you become
aware of your own being, goodness follows you like a shadow. It is no longer necessary to make
any effort to be good; Kindness becomes your way of being.
You are good, as the trees are green.
But the "good man" is not necessarily conscious. His goodness is the result of great effort,
he is struggling with his bad qualities: the tendency to steal, disloyalty, insincerity, violence. In the
good man they continue to exist, only repressed; They can erupt at any time.

The good man can transform into a bad man very easily, without any effort... because all
those bad qualities are there, just dormant, repressed based on the effort. If you stop trying, they
will immediately erupt into your life. And good qualities are only cultivated, not natural. He has made
a lot of effort to be honest and sincere, to not lie... but it has been a great effort and that is tiring.

The good man is always serious, because he is afraid of all the bad qualities that he has
repressed. And he is serious because deep down he wants to be honored for his
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kindness, let him be rewarded. What he longs for is to be respectable.

Most of those you call saints are just "good men."
There is only one way to transcend the “good man,” and that is to bring more awareness
to your being. Consciousness is not something that can be cultivated; It's already there, you just
have to wake it up. When you are fully awake, everything you do will be good, and whatever
you do is bad.
The good man has to make immense efforts to do good and avoid evil. Evil is a constant
temptation for him. It is a choice: at all times he must choose good and not choose evil. For
example, a man like Mahatma Gandhi... was a good man: all his life he strove to be on the side
of good. But at seventy years of age he still had sexual dreams, which caused him a lot of
distress. «In my waking hours, I can remain completely free of sex. But what can I do when I'm
asleep? Everything I repress during the day comes out again at night.

This shows one thing: that it hasn't gone anywhere, that it's still inside you, waiting. As
soon as you relax, as soon as you stop making effort - and when you sleep you have to at least
relax and stop trying to be good - all the bad qualities that you have been repressing will begin
to fill your dreams. Your dreams are your repressed desires.

The good man is in constant conflict. His life is not a happy life; He cannot laugh
heartily, he cannot sing, he cannot dance. He is constantly judging everything. His mind is full
of condemnations and judgments. And because he tries so hard to be good, he judges others
by the same criteria. He cannot accept you as you are; He can only accept you if you meet his
demands for kindness. And since he cannot accept people as they are, he condemns them.
All your saints swelled to condemn the whole world; According to them, you are all sinners.

These are not the qualities of the authentically religious man. The authentically religious
man has no judgments or condemnations. He only knows one thing: that no act is good and
none is bad... consciousness is good and unconsciousness is bad. The unconscious can even
do something that seems good to everyone, but to the religious man it is not good. And you can
do something wrong, and everyone will condemn you except the religious man. He cannot
condemn you, because you are not aware; you need compassion, not judgment, not condemnation.
You don't deserve hell, no one deserves hell.
When you reach a point of absolute awareness, it is no longer a matter of choice... you
simply do anything and it is good. You do it innocently, like your shadow when it follows you,
without effort. If you run, the shadow runs; If you stop, the shadow stops... but there is no effort
on the part of the shadow.
The man of conscience should not be considered synonymous with the good man. It's
good... but in a very different way, from a very different angle. He's not good because he's
trying to be good; It is good because it is conscious. And in the conscience, the evil, the evil,
all those condemning words, disappear as the darkness disappears when the light arrives.

Religions have decided to be reduced to simple moral systems. They are ethical codes;
They are useful for society, but they are not useful for you, they are not useful for the individual.
They are conveniences created by society. Naturally, if everyone started stealing, life would
become impossible; If everyone started lying, life would become impossible; If everyone was
dishonest, you couldn't exist.
Thus, at the lowest level, morality is necessary for society; It is a social utility, but
it is not a religious revolution.
Don't be satisfied with just being good. Remember: you have to get to a point where
you don't even have to think about what is good and what is bad. Your very conscience leads
you towards what is good. There is no repression. I would not say that Mahatma Gandhi was
a man of conscience; He was just a good man... and he tried very hard to be good. I don't
doubt his intentions, but he was obsessed with kindness.
A man of conscience is not obsessed by anything, he has no obsessions. This
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relaxed, calm, tranquil, silent and serene. Everything that flourishes in its silence is good. It's always
good. Live in a consciousness without choices.
So you must go beyond the common concept of a good man. You will not be good nor will you
be bad. You will simply be alert, aware, awake, and everything that comes after will be good. Put
differently: in total consciousness you attain the quality of divinity, and good is only a small by-product of
divinity.
Religions have been teaching you to be good so that one day you can find God. That is not
possible. No good man has found divinity. I teach just the opposite: find divinity, and good will follow. And
when good comes by itself, it has a beauty, a grace, a simplicity, a humility. He does not ask for any
reward either here or in the afterlife. He himself is his own reward.

OBSERVATION EXPERIMENTS

People only notice others; They never bother to observe themselves. Everyone is observing -
that is the most superficial way of observing - what the other is doing, what the other is wearing, what the
other looks like... Everyone is observing; Observing is nothing new that you have to introduce into your
life. You just have to go deeper, take your gaze away from others and direct it towards your own interior:
your feelings, your thoughts, your moods and finally towards the observer himself. A Jew is sitting on a
train, in front of a priest. -Tell me, reverend -

asks the Jew. Why do you wear your shirt collar backwards?
-Because I am a father -answers the priest.
"I'm a father too, and I don't wear my collar like that," says the Jew. "Ah, but I am the
father of thousands," says the priest. "Then," replies the Jew, "perhaps I should wear my pants inside
out."
People pay a lot of attention to everyone else.
Two friends go for a walk. Suddenly it starts to rain.
"Quickly," says one. Open your umbrella.
"It won't do any good," says his friend. My umbrella is full of holes.
-Then why did you bring him?
-I didn't think it was going to rain.
It's easy to talk about the ridiculous acts of others, but have you ever talked
about yourself? Have you never found yourself doing something ridiculous?
No, you don't pay attention to yourself. You only focus on the others, and
that is of no use.

Place yourself in timelessness

If you put a watch with a second hand in front of you and stare at the second hand, you will be
surprised: you cannot remember it completely for even a minute. You may last fifteen seconds, twenty
seconds, and you forget. You get lost in some other idea... and suddenly you remember what you were
trying to remember. Continuously maintaining awareness for a minute is difficult, so keep in mind that it is
not child's play. When you try to be aware of the little things in life, you have to remember that you will
forget many times. You will get distracted by something else and go away. When you remember again,
don't feel guilty; That's one of the traps.
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If you start to feel guilty, you will not be able to return to the awareness you were
practicing. There is no need to feel guilty. It's natural. Don't feel remorse; It's natural, and it
happens to all search engines. Accept it, as natural. Otherwise, you will be trapped in
remorse, in feeling guilty for not being able to remember even for a few minutes, and you
will continue to forget.
The Jain master Mahavira was the first man in history who calculated that if a man can
remember, remain conscious continuously for forty-eight minutes continuously, that is enough...
he will be enlightened, no one can stop him. Only forty-eight minutes... but it's so hard to keep
up for just forty-eight seconds!
There are so many distractions......

No guilt, no regret. As soon as you remember that you have

forgotten what you were doing, just go back to it. Just come back and start working again.
Don't start crying over spilled milk, that's stupid.

It will take time, but little by little you will find that you are staying alert for longer
periods, maybe for a full minute, maybe two minutes. And such is the joy of having been
conscious for two minutes... But don't get caught up in the joy, don't think you've gotten
somewhere. That would become a barrier. It's the typical pattern when you're lost: you move
forward a little and you think you've arrived home.
Keep working little by little, with patience. No hurry; you have all eternity at your
disposal. Don't try to gain speed. Impatience will do you no good. Consciousness is not like
seasonal flowers; They grow in six weeks and then disappear. Consciousness is like the
cedars of Lebanon, which take centuries to grow but last for thousands of years and reach
into the sky to heights of fifty, sixty meters.
Consciousness grows very slowly, but it grows. You just have to be patient.
As you grow, you will begin to feel many things you have never felt before.
For example, you will begin to feel that you carry too many tensions in your body that you had
never realized, because they are subtle tensions. Now that your awareness is there, you can
feel those tensions that are so subtle, so delicate. So, every time you feel tension in your body,
relax that part. If your whole body is relaxed, your consciousness will grow faster, because
those tensions are impediments.
As your awareness grows even more, you will be surprised to discover that you don't
just dream when you are asleep; there is an undercurrent of dreams even when you are
awake. It runs below your waking state. Close your eyes for a moment and you will see a
dream pass by, like a cloud in the sky. But only when you become a little more aware is it
possible to see that when you are awake you are not truly awake. The dream is floating there...
people call it "daydreaming." If you relax for a moment in your armchair and close your eyes,
sleep immediately sets in. They begin to think that they have been elected president of the
country, or that they are doing great works... or anything else that at the very moment of
dreaming it they know is absurd. You are not president of the country, but still the dream has
something that makes it continue despite you. Awareness will make you aware of the layers
of dreams in your waking state. Those dreams will begin to disperse, like when you shine a
light into a dark room and the darkness begins to disperse.

The Invisible Touch

Whatever you do - walking, sitting, eating, or, if you are not doing anything, simply
breathing, resting, relaxing on the grass - never forget that you are an observer.
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You will forget it again and again. You will get lost in some thought, in some sensation, in some
emotion, in some feeling... anything can distract you and make you stop observing. Remember, and run
back to your observation center.
Make it an internal, continuous process. It will surprise you
how it changes the entire quality of your life. I can move a hand without observing anything, and I can
also move my hand observing absolutely the entire movement from within.
The movements
are completely different. The first movement is a mechanical, robot movement.
The second movement is a conscious movement. And when you are conscious you feel your hand from
within; when you are not conscious, you only know the hand from outside.
You know your face just by looking in the mirror, from the outside, because you are not an observer.
If you start observing, you will feel your face from within... and that is quite an experience, to look at
yourself from within. Then, little by little, strange things begin to happen. Thoughts disappear, feelings
disappear, emotions disappear, and there is a silence that surrounds you. You are like an island in the
middle of an ocean of silence. You are an observer, as if a flame illuminates from the center of your
being, radiating your entire being.

At first it will be just an internal experience. Little by little, you will see that this radiation extends
out of your body, that those rays reach other people. You will be surprised and startled when other
people, if they are even a little sensitive, immediately realize that something has touched them, something
that was not visible. For example, if you are observing yourself... just walk behind another person,
observing yourself, and that person will almost certainly turn around suddenly, for no apparent reason.
When you are observing yourself, your alertness begins to radiate and ends up touching the person in
front of you. And when she notices that something invisible has touched her, she will turn to look: "What's
happening?"
And you're so far back that you couldn't even touch her with your hand.
You can try an experiment: someone is sleeping and you sit next to them, observing yourself,
and the person will suddenly wake up, open their eyes and look around as if someone had touched
them.
Little by little, you too will be able to feel the contact through the rays. It is what I know called
"the vibration." It is not a non-existent thing. The other person feels it; you will also feel that you have
touched the other person.
The word "touch" is used in a very significant way. You can use it without understanding what
it means to say "I have been touched" by the other person. This one may not say a word to you. It can
just walk past you. Maybe he looks you in the eyes just once and you feel "touched" by that person. It's
not just a word... it really happens. And then those rays will continue to spread towards people, animals,
trees, rocks... and one day you will see that you are touching the entire universe from within.

Vipassana

Buddha's system was vipassana. Vipassana means witnessing. and he discovered one of the
best methods, the method of observing your breathing... simply, observing your breathing.

Breathing is such a simple and natural phenomenon, and it is done twenty-four hours a day. You
don't have to make any effort. If you repeat a mantra, you will have to make some effort, you will have to
force yourself. If you say, "Rama, Rama, Rama," you will have to continually make efforts. And many
times you will forget. Furthermore, the word "Rama" also belongs to the mind, and nothing that is of the
mind can take you beyond the mind.
Buddha discovered a completely different method. Just watch your breathing...the breath
coming in, the breath going out.
There are four things to observe. Sit quietly and start by seeing the breath, by feeling the
breath. The first thing is the breath that comes in. After,
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when the breath has come in, it stops for a moment... it's a very brief moment, but it stops for a fraction
of a second; That's the second thing to look at. Then the breath turns around and goes out; That is the
third thing to observe. And once again, when the breath has completely come out, it stops for a fraction
of a second; That is the fourth thing to observe. Then the breath begins to come in again... that is the
circle of breathing. If you can observe these four aspects, you will be surprised, amazed at the miracle
of such a simple process... because the mind does not intervene.

Observing is not a quality of the mind. Observing is the quality of the soul, of consciousness.
Observing is not a mental process at all. When you observe, the mind stops, it ceases to exist. Yes, at first
you will be distracted many times and the mind will enter and start playing its usual games. But when you
remember that you have been distracted, there is no need to feel guilty or regretful... simply resume your
observation, observe your breathing again and again. Little by little, little by little, the mind will interfere
every time
less.

And when you are able to observe your breathing for forty-eight minutes continuously, you will be
enlightened. This is going to surprise you. Only forty-eight minutes?
Because you think it's not very difficult... only forty-eight minutes! Well, it's very difficult.
In just forty-eight seconds, you will fall victim to the mind many times. Try it with a watch in front of
you; At first you won't be able to stay alert for even sixty seconds. In just sixty seconds, in one minute, you
will fall asleep many times. You will forget to observe... observation and surveillance will be forgotten.
Some idea will take you far, very far. And suddenly you will realize... you will look at the clock and see that
ten seconds have passed. For ten seconds you weren't watching.

But little by little, little by little... it's a matter of wisdom; It's not a matter of practice, but of skill...
little by little you will absorb it. Because those few moments in which you are vigilant are of such exquisite
beauty, such tremendous joy, that once you have savored those few moments you will want to return
again and again... for no other reason than the joy of being there. , present before the breath.

Remember, it is not the same process that is done in yoga. In yoga, the process is called
pranayam; It is a completely different process, in fact it is the opposite of what Buddha calls vipassana. In
pranayam you take deep breaths, you fill your chest with as much air as possible, absorbing more and
more oxygen; Then you empty your lungs as much as possible, expelling all the carbon dioxide. It is a
physical exercise... it is good for the body, but it has nothing to do with vipassana.

In vipassana you don't have to change the rhythm of your breathing

natural. You don't have to do. long, deep inhalations; you don't have to exhale differently than normal. Let
it be absolutely normal and natural. All your consciousness has to be at one point, observing.

And if you can observe your breathing, you can begin to observe other things as well.
When you walk you can observe that you are walking, when you eat you can observe that you are eating.
And finally there comes a moment when you can observe that you are asleep. The day you can observe
that you are asleep you will find yourself transported to another world. The body continues sleeping, and a
bright light continues to burn inside. Your vigilance remains undisturbed. Twenty-four hours a day there will
be an undercurrent of surveillance. You keep doing things... to the outside world, nothing has changed, but
to you everything has changed.

A Zen master was drawing water from the well, and a devotee who. had heard about
He and he came from very far to see him asked him:
-Where can I find So-and-So, the master of this monastery?
He thought that that man had to be a servant, who drew water from the well.
How is Buddha going to bring water from the well? How is Buddha going to clean the ground?
- The teacher started to laugh and
said: -I am the person you are looking for.
The devotee could not believe it, and said:
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-I have heard a lot about you, but I never imagined you drawing water from the well.
"Well, that's what I did before I became enlightened," said the teacher. Drawing water from the
well, chopping firewood... That's what I did before and that's what I still do. I am very efficient at those
two things: drawing water from the well and chopping firewood. Come with me. The next thing I'm going
to do is chop firewood. Watch me.
-But then, what difference does it make? -asked the man-.
Before you became enlightened you did those two things, after enlightenment you continue doing the
same two things. What difference there are? The teacher laughed.
-The difference is internal. Before I did everything while asleep; now
I do everything consciously, that's the difference. The activities are the same, but I am no longer the
same. The world is the same, but I am not the same. And since I am no longer the same, the world is not
the same for me either.
The transformation has to be internal: That is the authentic renunciation: the world
from before disappears because the being from before has disappeared.

The Night Shift

The phenomena of dream and observation are totally different things.

Try to do one thing: Every night, when you go to sleep, when you are already half asleep and half awake,
sinking deeper and deeper into sleep, repeat: “I will be able to remember that this is a dream.”

Keep repeating it until you fall asleep. It will take a few days, but you will be surprised: once this
idea penetrates the subconscious, you will be able to observe the dream as a dream. Then he no longer
has power over you. Little by little, as your vigilance becomes more intense, the dreams disappear. They
are very shy; They don't like to be watched. They only exist in the darkness of the subconscious. As
surveillance brings light they begin to disappear.

Keep doing the same exercise and you will be able to get rid of dreams. And you will be
surprised: getting rid of dreams has many implications. If dreams disappear, the chatter of your mind
during the day will be less than it was before. Secondly, you will be more in the moment...not in the future
or the past. Thirdly, your actions will be more total.

Dreaming is a disease. It is necessary because the man is sick. But if you can completely
dispense with dreams, you will acquire a new type of health, a new vision from your subconscious mind
will become conscious, so you will have a stronger individuality. Whatever you do, you will never regret
it, because you will have done it with such awareness that regret is irrelevant.

Vigilance is the greatest magic you can learn, because it can begin the transformation of your
entire being.

When you start observing your dreams, you will discover that there are five types of dreams.
The first type of dreams is pure garbage... and thousands of psychoanalysts work only with this garbage.
It's completely useless. These dreams occur because a lot of garbage accumulates throughout an entire
work day. Just as the body accumulates dust and you need to take a bath to cleanse yourself, the mind
also accumulates dust in the same way. And there is no way to give the mind a bath, so the mind has an
automatic mechanism to get rid of all the dust and rubbish. These dreams are nothing more than the
raised dust, which the mind is shedding, and this first type of dreams constitutes the majority of dreams,
almost ninety percent. Almost ninety percent of dreams are simply dust that the mind throws out. Don't
pay much attention to them. And little by little, as your consciousness grows, you will be able to see that
it is just dust.

The second type of dreams is a kind of wish fulfillment. There are many
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needs, natural needs, but the priests and the so-called religious teachers have poisoned your mind.
They do not allow you to satisfy even your basic needs. They have condemned them completely,
and the condemnation has penetrated you. That is why you are hungry for many needs... those
needs have to be satisfied, and the second type of dreams is nothing other than the fulfillment of
those desires. Everything that you have denied to your being because of priests and poisoners, the
mind tries to satisfy in dreams, in one way or another.

But we must attend to the need, not the meaning. The meaning corresponds to the conscious
mind, the need is from the subconscious... and this is how the second type of dreams appears. You
keep repressing your needs, so the mind satisfies them in dreams.
You have read great books and have been poisoned by thinkers, who have molded your mind into
certain patterns. You are no longer open to existence itself; Philosophies have blinded you, and you
have begun to repress your needs. Then these needs come to the surface, they come to the surface in
dreams, because the subconscious does not know about philosophies. The subconscious knows
nothing about meanings or intentions. The subconscious only knows one thing: what it takes for your
being to be satisfied. Then the subconscious imposes its own dream. This is the second type of
dreams; They have a lot of meaning, which must be understood and meditated on. Because the
subconscious is trying to communicate to you: “Don't be stupid, you will suffer for it. And don't starve
your being. Don't be suicidal, and don't continue committing slow suicide by killing your needs.

Remember: desires are from the conscious mind; the needs of the subconscious.
And the distinction is very important, it has a lot of meaning that must be understood.
Desires are from the conscious mind. The subconscious knows nothing about desires, the
subconscious is not concerned with desires. What is a wish? A desire is something that comes from
your thinking, your training, your conditioning. You would like to be president of the country... the
subconscious doesn't care about that. The subconscious has no interest in being president of the
country, the subconscious is only interested in how to become an organic and satisfied unit but the
conscious mind says: "You have to be president, and if to become president you have to sacrifice your
love, then you sacrifice it. If you have to sacrifice your body, you sacrifice it. If you have to sacrifice
rest, you sacrifice it. The first thing is to become president." Or gather a great fortune, that is also from
the conscious mind. The subconscious does not understand fortunes, the subconscious only knows
what is natural. He is not affected by society; It is like animals, like birds, like trees. The subconscious
has not been conditioned by society, by politicians. It remains in its pure state: Listen to the dreams of
the second type and meditate on them. They will communicate your needs
to you. Meet needs and don't worry about wants. If you really want to be happy, satisfy your
needs and don't worry about your desires. If you want misery

repress needs and follow desires.

This is how you have become miserable. It is a very simple phenomenon;

Whether you are happy or unhappy, the phenomenon is very simple. A man that

He attends to his needs and follows them is like a river flowing towards the sea. The river does not say

«you have to flow towards the east or towards the west»; just find the way. Go towards him

east or west it doesn't matter. The river that flows to the sea has no desires; only

know your needs. That's why the animals seem so happy. They have nothing and are

happy? And you, who have so many things, are you so unhappy? Even the animals

They surpass in beauty and happiness. What's going on? Animals do not have a
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conscious mind that controls and manipulates the subconscious; They are not divided.
The second type of dreams can reveal many things to you. With the second type you start to change your
consciousness, you start to change your behavior, you start to change your life patterns. Listen to your needs, to
everything the subconscious says.
Always remember this: the subconscious is right, because it has the wisdom of the times. You have lived
millions of lives; the conscious mind belongs to this life. It has been shaped by schools and universities, and by the
family and society into which you have been born... into which you have been born by chance. But the subconscious
has all the experiences of all your lives. He has the experience of when you were a rock, he has the experience of
when you were a tree, he has the experience of when you were an animal... he carries everything, with all the past.
The subconscious is enormously wise, and the conscious mind is enormously foolish. It has to be, because the
conscious mind is only of this life, very small, inexperienced. It's very childish. The subconscious is eternal wisdom.

Listen to him.
All Western psychoanalysis is doing this and only this: listening to the second type of dreams and
changing your life patterns accordingly. And psychoanalysis has helped many people. It has its limitations, but it
has helped because at least this part, listening to the second type of dreams, makes your life more relaxed, less

tense.
Then there is a third type of dreams. The third type of dreams is a communication from the super
conscious. The second type of dreams is a communication from the subconscious. It is very rare to have dreams
of the third type, because we have lost all contact with the super conscious. But they still keep coming, because
the super conscious is yours. It may have become a cloud and ascended to the sky, it may have evaporated, it
may be far away, but it is still anchored to you.

Communication from the super conscious is something very rare. Only when you become very, very alert,
only then will you start to feel it. In other cases, it will be lost among the dust that the mind expels in dreams and
among the fulfilled desires that the mind continues to dream about... incomplete, repressed things. But when you
become aware, it is like a diamond that shines: Absolutely different from the stones around it.

When you can feel and find a dream that comes from the super conscious, observe it. Meditate on it,
because it will become your guide, it will guide you to your teacher. It will guide you to the most suitable way of life
for you, it will guide you to the correct discipline. That dream will become an inner guide. With the conscious mind
you can find a teacher, but the teacher will be nothing more than a teacher. With the subconscious you can find a
teacher, but the teacher will be nothing more than a lover... you will fall in love with a certain personality, a certain
type.
But only the super conscious can guide you to the right teacher. Then he is no longer a teacher; You are no longer
dazzled by what he says, you are no longer dazzled by what he is.
On the contrary, your super conscious guides you and this man is the right one for you, this man will provide you with
the possibility of growth, this man can become the land in which
you grow

There is also a fourth type of dream, which comes from past lives. It's not very strange; it occurs many
times. But inside you everything is a hubbub; you can't make distinctions.
You are not there to make distinctions.
In the East we have worked a lot with this fourth type of dream. Thanks to this type of dream we found the
phenomenon of reincarnation. Thanks to this type of dream you gradually become aware of your past lives, you move
back in time.
Then many things begin to change in you, because if you can remember, even in a dream, who you were in your
previous life, many things will lose their meaning and many other things will acquire meaning. The whole pattern will
change, your gestalt will change.
Because you accumulated too much wealth in a past life, you died the richest man in the country and
were reborn as a beggar... and now you are doing the same thing again in this life. Suddenly, the gestalt changes. If
you can remember what you did and how
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everything came to nothing... if you can remember many lives, the many times you have done the
same thing over and over again... You are like a scratched gramophone record, a vicious circle: you
start again the same and end the same... If you can remember a few lifetimes, you may be surprised
to discover that you have never done anything new. Time and time again you accumulated wealth;
time and time again you tried to acquire political power; time and time again you acquired too much
knowledge. Again and again you fell in love, and again and again you suffered the same sufferings
that love brings. When you see this replay, how are you going to remain the same? This life is suddenly
transfigured. You can't keep rolling on the same track.
That is why in the East people have been asking themselves for millennia "How to get out of
this wheel of life and death?" It seems to be the same wheel, it seems to be the same story over and
over again... a repetition. If you don't know, you think you are doing new things and you get excited.
But I see that you've been doing the same things over and over again.
Nothing is new in life. It is a wheel; It moves on the same track. Since you forget about the
past, you find it exciting. But as soon as you remember, all the excitement disappears. And when this
memory comes, sannyas comes .
Sannyas is an effort to get off the wheel, it is an effort to jump off the wheel . It is saying to
yourself: “Enough is enough. I am no longer going to participate in the same old absurdity. I get out."
Sannyas is a perfect rejection of the wheel... it is not leaving society, but leaving your own inner wheel
of life and death .
This is the fourth type of dreams.
And finally there is a fifth and final type of dream. The fourth type takes you back, to your past;
the fifth type takes you forward, to the future. It's strange, very strange; It only happens very
occasionally, when you are extremely vulnerable, open, flexible. The past casts a shadow and the
future also casts a shadow, it is reflected in you. If you can become aware of your dreams, one day
you will also become aware of this possibility... that the future is watching you.
Suddenly a door opens and the future establishes communication with you.
These are the five types of dreams. Modern psychology only understands the second type,
and often confuses it with the first type. The other three types are almost unknown.

If you meditate and become aware of your inner being in dreams, many more things will
happen. The first: little by little, the more aware you are of your dreams, the less convinced you will be
of the reality of your waking hours. That is why Hindus say that the world is like a dream.

But right now, what is happening is the opposite. Because you are so convinced of the reality
of the world in your waking hours, when you dream it seems to you that those dreams are also real.
No one feels when they dream that the dream is unreal... when you dream, everything seems perfect,
it seems absolutely real. Naturally, in the morning you will say that it was just a dream... but that doesn't
matter, because now another mind is working. This mind has not witnessed; This mind has only heard
the rumor. This conscious mind that wakes up in the morning says that everything has been a dream,
this mind has not witnessed anything, so how can this mind say anything? He's only heard a rumor.

It is as if you were asleep and there are two people talking nearby, and since they speak
very loudly you hear in your dreams some words from here and others from there, which leave a
confusing impression. This is what happens. While the subconscious creates dreams and carries
out tremendous activity, the conscious mind is asleep and only hears the rumor, and in the morning
it says. "Everything is false. "It was just a dream."

Right now, whenever you dream you feel that it is absolutely real. Even absurd things seem
real, illogical things seem real, because the subconscious does not know logic. In a dream you are
walking along a path, you see a horse coming, and suddenly the horse is no longer a horse, the horse
has become your wife. Nothing happens to your mind anymore, it doesn't ask "How is it possible?"
The horse has suddenly become my wife! No problem is created, no doubts arise. The subconscious
knows no doubt. Even a phenomenon this absurd is believed; you are convinced of its reality.
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Just the opposite happens when you become aware of dreams and feel that they are true
dreams: nothing is real, it is just mental theater, a psychodrama. You are the setting, you are the actors
and you are the author. You are the director and you are the producer and you are the viewer... there is
no one else, it is just a creation of the mind. When you become aware of that, the entire world that exists
when you are awake changes quality. Then you see that the same thing happens here too. On a bigger
stage, but the dream is the same.
The Hindus call this world Mayan. They say it is illusory, dreamlike, a creation of the mind. What
do they mean by that? Do you mean it's unreal? No, it is not unreal; but when your mind blends into it,
you create an unreal world of your own. We don't live in the same world; everyone lives in their own
world. There are as many worlds as there are minds. When Hindus say that these worlds are maya, they
mean that reality plus the mind is maya. The reality, what it is, we do not know. Reality plus the mind is
illusion, maya.

When someone becomes fully awakened, becomes a Buddha, then he knows reality without mind.
Then it is the truth, the brahman, the definitive. Add the mind, and everything becomes a dream, because
the mind is what creates dreams. Without the mind, nothing can be a dream; only reality remains, in its
crystalline purity.
The mind is like a mirror. The world is reflected in the mirror. That reflection cannot be real, that
reflection is just a reflection. When the mirror is no longer there, the reflection disappears; now you can
see the real thing. A night with a full moon, and the lake is silent, and the moon is reflected in the lake,
and you try to catch the moon. That's what everyone has been doing for many lives: trying to catch the
moon in the lake mirror. And of course, you have never achieved it; You can't do it, it's impossible. You
have to forget about the lake and look in exactly the opposite direction. There is the moon. The mind is
the lake into which the world becomes, Illusory.
It doesn't matter whether you dream with your eyes closed or with your eyes open: if the mind is there,
everything that happens is a dream.
This is the first thing you realize if you meditate on dreams.
And the second thing you realize is that you are a witness: the dream is there, but you are not
part of it. You are not part of your mind, you are a transcendence. You are in the mind but you are not
the mind. You look through the mind, but you are not the mind. You use the mind, but you are not the
mind. Suddenly, you are a witness, and you are not a mind.

And this witnessing is the last, definitive understanding. So it doesn't matter whether the
dream occurs when you are asleep or whether it occurs when you are awake: you are still a witness.
You are still in the world, but the world can no longer penetrate you. The things are there, but the mind
is not in the things and the things are not in the mind. Suddenly the witness appears and everything
changes.
It's very simple once you know the trick. Otherwise, it seems very difficult, almost impossible.
How to stay awake while you dream? It seems impossible, but it is not. It will take you three to nine
months if every night, when you go to sleep, as you fall asleep, you try to stay alert and observe.

But remember: don't try to be alert in an active sense; That way you wouldn't be able to fall
asleep. It should be a passive alert: natural release, relaxed, looking only out of the corner of the eye.
You don't have to be very active; just a passive alert, not very focused. As if you are sitting on the
bank of the river and the river is flowing and you just look at it. This takes from three to nine months.
Suddenly, one day, sleep falls on you like a dark curtain, like a dark curtain, as if the sun had set and
night was falling. It settles all around you, but deep down a flame continues to burn.

You are observing silently, passively. Then the world of dreams begins. Many dramas unfold, many
psychodramas, and you continue to watch. Little by little, the distinction becomes manifest: now you
can see what kind of dream it is. And suddenly, one day you realize that it's the same when you're
awake. There is no qualitative difference. The whole world has become delusional. And when the
world is illusory, only the witness is real.
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Epilogue

Hanging by a Thread

In India an ancient story is told: A great sage

sent his main disciple to the court of King Janak so that the young man could learn something he lacked.

The young man said:

-If you can't teach me, how is that Janak going to be able to teach me? You are
a great wise man; he is just a king. What does he know about meditation and consciousness?
"You follow my instructions," the great wise man told him. Go to him, bow down to him; Do not be
selfish, thinking that you are a sannyasin , that he is a common family man, that he lives in the world, that he is
worldly and you are spiritual. Forget all that. I send you to him to learn something, so for now he is your teacher.
And I know, I've tried to teach it to you, but you can't understand it because to understand it you need a different
context. Janak's court and palace will give you the right context. You go there, bow down to him. During these
few days, he will represent me. .
.
Very reluctantly, the young man went to court. He was a Brahmin, of the highest caste! And what was
that Janak? He was rich, he had a great kingdom, but what could he teach a Brahmin?
Brahmins always think that they can teach people. And Janak was not a Brahmin, he was a Kshatriya, the
warrior caste of India. They are considered inferior to the Brahmins; Brahmins are the first, the main , the highest
caste. Bow down to that man?
Such a thing had never been done! A Brahmin bowing down to a Kshatriya is something that goes against the
Indian mentality.
But the teacher had said it, so it had to be done. He went reluctantly, and reluctantly bowed. And when
he bowed he felt very irritated with his teacher because the situation of having to bow before Janak was
unpleasant to him. A beautiful woman was dancing in the court, and the people were drinking wine, and Janak
was sitting with that group.
To the young man that seemed reprehensible... but he still bowed.
Janak laughed and said, "You
don't need to bow down to me if you think it's so damnable." And don't be so prejudiced before you've
experienced me. Your master knows me well, and that is why he sent you here. He has sent you to learn something,
but this is no way to learn.

The young man

responded: -I don't care. He has sent me and I have come, but tomorrow morning I will leave because I
don't think I can learn anything here. In fact, if I learn anything from you, I will have wasted my entire life. I have
not come to learn to drink wine and watch beautiful women dance, and all this debauchery...

Janak smiled and said,

"You can leave in the morning." But since you have come and are so tired, at least rest tonight and in
the morning you can go. And who knows... the night could be the context for the learning your teacher has sent
you to me for.
That seemed very mysterious to him. How was the night going to teach him anything? But anyway, I
had to spend the night there, so it was better not to make too much of a fuss. He stayed.
The king ordered that the most beautiful room in the palace, the most luxurious, be prepared for him.
He accompanied the young man, took care of everything regarding his dinner and his bed, and when the young
man went to bed, Janak retired.
But the young man. He could not sleep all night, because when he looked up he saw a drawn sword
hanging by a very thin thread just above his head. That
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It was very dangerous: at any moment, the sword could fall and kill the young man; so he stayed awake all
night, keeping watch so that he could avoid the catastrophe in case it occurred. In the morning, the king
asked him:
-Was the bed comfortable? Was the room comfortable? -Comfortable? -exclaimed the young man-.
Everything was comfortable... but what about the sword? Why did you play that trick on me? It was very
cruel!
I was tired, I had come on foot from my teacher's distant ashram , in the forest, and you play such
a cruel joke on me. What is it about hanging a sword on such a fine thread? I was afraid that a light breeze
would blow and finish me off. I didn't come here to commit suicide.

The king said:

-I want to ask you something. You were so tired that you could have easily fallen asleep, but you
couldn't sleep. What happened? The danger was great, it was a matter of life or death. That's why you
stayed awake, alert. That is my teaching. You can go now. But if you want.! You can stay a few days and
watch me. ..
“Even though I was sitting here at court, while a beautiful woman danced, I was alert to the sword
hanging above my head. It is invisible. His name is death. I wasn't looking at the woman.

Just as you couldn't enjoy the luxury of your room, I didn't drink wine. He was aware of death, which
can come at any moment. I am aware of death at all times. That's why I live in a palace and yet I'm a hermit.
Your teacher knows me and understands me. And he also understands what I understand.

That's why he sent you here. If you live here for a few days, you can observe on your own.

Do you want to know how to become more aware? Become more aware of the precariousness of
life. Death can come at any time. It may knock on your door in the next moment. You can remain unconscious
if you believe you are going to live forever, but how can you live unconscious if death is always around? It is
impossible! If life is momentary, a soap bubble that disappears forever with a prick, how can you remain
unconscious?

Apply awareness to all your actions.

In you there are two planes: the plane of the mind and the plane of the nomind. Or in other words:
the plane in which you live on the periphery of your being and the plane in which you are in the center of
your being. Every circle has a center; you may know it or not. You may not even suspect that there is a
center, but there must be. You are a periphery, you are a circle... there is a center. Without the center, you
cannot exist; There is a core of your being.
In that center you are already a Buddha, not one who has arrived home. On the periphery, you are
in the world: in the mind, in dreams, in anxieties, in a thousand and one games. and you are both things.

There must be moments when you see that for a few brief moments you have been a Buddha: the
same grace, the same awareness, the same silence; the same world of beatitudes, of blessing, of
blessedness. There will be moments, glimpses of your center. They cannot be permanent; again and again,
you will be thrown back to the periphery. And you will feel stupid, sad, frustrated, you will feel that you are
missing the meaning of life... because you exist on two planes: the plane of the periphery and the plane of
the center.
But little by little you will become able to move from the periphery to the center and from the center
to the periphery with complete ease, as you do when entering and leaving your house. Don't create any
dichotomy. You don't say, "I am outside the house, so how am I going to get into the house?" You don't say,
"I'm inside the house, so how am I going to get out of the house?" Outside it is sunny, the weather is
pleasant; you sit in the garden. It starts to get hotter and hotter and you start to sweat. It is no longer
pleasant, it begins to be uncomfortable; You just get up and walk into the house. It's cool there, it's not
uncomfortable. Now the nice thing is
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be inside the house. And you keep going in and out.

Similarly, a man of consciousness and knowledge moves from the periphery to the center
and from the center to the periphery. It never stays fixed in any place. From the market to the
monastery, from being an extrovert to being an introvert; It moves continuously because those are
its two wings. They are not opposed to each other. Of course they are balanced in opposite directions;
must be like this. If the two wings were on the same side, the bird would not be able to fly into the
sky. They have to be balanced, they have to be in opposite directions, but they still belong to the
same bird and serve the same bird. Your exterior and your interior are your wings.

This must be remembered perfectly, because there is a possibility: the mind tends to remain
fixed. There are people who are fixed in the materialistic world; they cannot get out of it; They say
they don't have time for meditation; They say that even if they had time, they would not know how to
meditate and they do not believe they could meditate. They say they are worldly.
How are they going to meditate? They are materialists. How are they going to meditate? They say:
“Unfortunately, we are extroverts. How could we go inside? They have chosen only one wing. And of
course, if that causes frustration, that's natural. With only one wing, there has to be frustration.

And there are also people who get fed up with the world and escape from it, they go to
monasteries and the Himalayas, they become sannyasins, monks, they live in solitude, they impose
a life of introversion on themselves. They close their eyes, they close all their doors and windows,
they become Leibnitz cuties, without windows... and then they get bored.
In the materialistic world they were fed up, they were tired, they were frustrated. That was
like a madhouse, they couldn't find rest. They had too many relationships and too few vacations,
they had no space to be themselves. They were falling into traps, losing their being, becoming more
and more materialistic and less spiritual. They were losing direction. They were losing the very
consciousness of their being. They escaped.
They escaped because they were fed up, frustrated. Now they try to live alone, a life of introversion...
and sooner or later they get bored. Again they have chosen another wing, but again it is only one
wing. This is an asymmetrical, disproportionate life. They have fallen into the same fallacy again, but
at the opposite pole. ...,
I am not a supporter of one or the other. I would like you to acquire the ability to be in the
materialistic world and still meditate. I would like you to relate to people, to love, to move in millions
of relationships, because relationships enrich you... and still be able to close the doors and take a
vacation from all relationships... to to also be able to relate to your own being.

Relate to others, but also relate to yourself. Love others, but love yourself too. Go out! The
world is beautiful, it is full of adventures, it is a challenge, it enriches you. Don't miss that opportunity.
Every time the world knocks on your door and calls for you, go outside. Go out without fear. There is
nothing to lose and you can gain everything. But don't get lost. Don't go out and get lost. Come home
from time to time. Sometimes forget about the world; There are times for meditation.

Every day, if you want to be balanced, you must balance the exterior and the interior. They
must weigh the same, so that you never become unbalanced inside.
This is what the Zen masters mean when they say: "Walk along the river, but don't let the
water touch your feet." Live in the world, but do not be of the world. You can be in the world, but do
not allow the world to be in you. When you enter the house, you are home... as if the whole world
had disappeared.
Hotei, a Zen master, was passing through a village. He was one of the most beautiful people
to ever walk the earth. People knew him as The Laughing Buddha, because he was laughing all the
time. But sometimes he would sit under a tree in this village, he would sit under a tree with his eyes
closed and he would not laugh, he would not even smile, he would be completely calm and collected.
Someone asked him: -How come you don't laugh, Hotei?
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He opened his eyes and

responded: -I'm getting ready.
The one who had asked him did not understand the answer.
-What do you mean by saying that you are preparing?
-I have to prepare myself for laughter. I have to give myself a break. I have to go in and forget
about the world so I can come back rejuvenated and laugh again.
If you really want to laugh, you will have to learn to cry. If you cannot cry, if you are not able to shed
tears, you will be unable to laugh. A man of laughter is also a man of tears... that's how he is balanced. A
blessed man is also a man of silence. An ecstatic man is also a centered man. The two things go together.
And from this unity of polarities a balanced being is born. And that is the goal.

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