| |
out by becoming quiet. If there is neither peace nor quiet at the first stage there will certainly be none at the last. The final stage is just the culmination of the first.
I see people going to temples and I see them worshipping their gods. I also see them sitting in meditation. But for all of them it is an activity, a sort of tense restlessness, and it is sheer folly for them to expect all this activity to yield the flowers and fruit of serenity. If you want peace, if you wish to be peaceful it is essential that you start out in peace this very moment.
I want to say this to you as well: do not search for truth. There is ego in searching and it is the ego that is the obstacle. Just lose yourself. Lose your identity. Simply stop being yourself. It is only when the ego, the "I", ceases to be that the one who is really you is seen. It is only when the feeling of ego, of "I-ness" disappears that reality is seen. Only by losing oneself does one attain one's self. Just as new life sprouts from a seed only when the seed breaks apart and ceases to be, the shoot of immortality springs up only when the seed, the "I", the sheath of the soul also breaks apart and ceases to be. Please remember this precept: to attain your self you have to cease to be. Immortality can be had at the cost of death. A raindrop becomes the ocean when it loses itself in the ocean.
You are the soul but if you search for it within yourself you will find nothing but desire. Our whole lives are desire -- the desire to become something, to attain something. Everyone wants to become somebody, to attain something. The race goes on every moment of our lives. Nobody wants to stay where he is. Everybody wants to be where he is not. Desire is a vague dissatisfaction with what one is or with what one has, and a blind longing for what one is not or for what one does not have. There is no finish to this mad race because as soon as one gets something it becomes useless and then desire begins encircling what one does not yet have. Desire is always for the unachieved.
Desire is like the horizon. The more you try to approach it the farther it pulls away from you. This happens because the
|
|
|