361. It was a beautiful morning. The body emerged and was greeted by a blue sky, huge, immense, empty. The intensity and hugeness of the blue forced the body to hold up and stop. The body remained silent for a time quietly watching and listening. It proceeded to walk along the deserted sidewalk and into the upscale town with expensive shops, coffee houses, and restaurants. A group of older men were gathered outside a coffee shop seated around a table under a large umbrella. They were talking, smiling, and laughing at one another. One man was husky with a large frame and stomach. He was loud, overbearing, and possessed a brassy arrogance. He smoked a cigar and spoke with authority and confidence. He was the center of attention as he talked about finance and investment. The others seemed to want to listen to his advice about things. A young, friendly golden retriever lay on the ground next to the table. It was well groomed with a shiny yellow coat. It had its head nestled between its front legs. It's eyes were open but looked listless, and sleepy. The small city park had tall green trees and well manicured lawns. A weathered wooden bench overlooked a garden of white, yellow, pink, and red roses. The brain was alert and the flow of thought had subsided. There was no sense of self. The identification to thoughts did not exist. There was only watchfulness and the learning of things. To learn about the self means to not let a single thought pass by without watching it. It means to observe each thought as it arises, how it arises, and from where it comes. When you do that and take each individual thought one by one, one learns about the self. For example, you tell me that tomorrow the boss at work will fire me, and that thought creates fear. Watch what happens. Watch how the creation of thought gives birth to fear. Watch how thought and fear go hand in hand. See that thought is the root of fear, and when there is fear there is no difference between the self and fear. It is that. Watch how the self seeks security in thought that takes the form of opinion, belief, hope, expectation, or some mental image, and when that image is threatened there is fear, anxiety, and all the conflict that goes with it. When you do that you learn about the self. That is the process of self knowledge, which is not knowledge in the traditional sense, but rather it is insight into the whole movement and nature of what is the self, what it means to live without the self, and therefore how to live life without any sense of fear, stress, anxiety, apprehension, or conflict of any kind. Insight is not a thought or mental image, and therefore it has nothing to do with that which is known. Instead it is a way of living that negates the known. The negation of the known is what brings about learning. Learning has nothing to do with thought. Thought is a fixed and rigid thing. It is imprisoned in memory, which means it is local, controlled, and terribly limited. Learning has no locality. It has nothing to do with control, force, or any type of manipulation. Learning is not limited, which means it comes about when the whole structure of that which is limited, which means the movement of thought with all of its manipulations, desires, fears, sorrows, and all the rest of it, is completely discarded. The end of the limitation within opens the door to learning. Learning is not an end, but it is a movement that does not retain. Therefore it is not an ending but a releasing. It is an internal release that reveals a dimension to life that knows no limitation of any kind.
362. Love brings about a connection to everything and everyone. It makes for a deep and impenetrable sense of oneness that happens when the whole of inner conflict comes to a complete stop. End all inner conflict, and an extraordinary connection, an immense, and invulnerable one and only, unexpectedly comes.
363. To be a whole and complete person means to live without any feeling that there is something missing, of a need to become, or any form of want for something else, something different, or something more. Inner wholeness ends want. It ends all sense of psychological need, loss, and emptiness, which means it brings a completeness, richness, and fullness to daily living. To find out what it means to be psychologically full and complete, and to live it, has no comparison. It is unmatched in every way.
364. Love is unconditional. It is a love that does not pick, single out, or favor one over another. That means it is something that not only reaches out to people, animals, trees, and sky, but it surrounds all the inner conflict that mental attachment creates as jealousy, anger, fear, and struggle. All of that is sustained by attachment, and attachment means an ego. It means a self. This is important to see. Love envelopes the self, but it is separate from the self. Love surrounds human conflict. It exists side by side and next to all the atrocities and horrors of war, but it is completely separate from it. Love surrounds people. It envelopes all mankind, which means it is next to every human being. As a result life has tremendous significance. It gives immeasurable meaning to all life, which necessarily includes the criminal, ignorant, and insane. This is difficult to put into words. It is difficult to convey. Love has an effect on the whole of mankind, even if the effect is unapparent. The effect is only made apparent when the violent becomes peaceful, when the ignorant becomes intelligent, or when the insane becomes sane. The effect that love has on mankind cannot be fathomed by thought. Thought is limited, and that which is limited cannot perceive that which is unlimited. Love is unlimited. It is an inconceivable thing.
365. The body was walking on the sidewalk along a tree lined street. A group of people were hunched around a small square table outside a candy shop. They were happily chatting and watching children play in a nearby yard. A woman at the table stood up and dropped a purse and phone on the ground. Instinctively the body stopped to pick up the things, but the woman quickly turned, stooped, and gathered up the items. The body stopped only a second or two and then continued walking towards the street corner several feet ahead. As it entered the crosswalk a speeding black and white taxi suddenly appeared, and wildly veered through the stop sign and into the crosswalk. There was no time to react or pull away. The metal machine missed the body by inches, sped around the corner, and disappeared down the street. The sun was setting under the horizon and a gentle darkness began to descend upon the sidewalks, homes, and trees. An unusual energy emanated from the smallest of things, a leaf, a small stone, a clump of dirt in the street gutter. Everything vibrated with an extraordinary energy, vitality, and aliveness. The body walked beneath the shadowy trees under the great dark sky. The energy, the aliveness, or whatever it was, remained throughout the evening and late into the night.
366. Sorrow is unnecessary.
367. To face psychological death, one must let go of every aspect of mental attachment. The attachment to mental images, thoughts, and ideas creates identity. It makes an ego. Without attachment to mental imagery the ego cannot exist. It cannot survive at all in any form whatsoever. That means when the mind brings an end to the whole of psychological attachment it comes upon what is death. What happens at death is revealed to the mind. It is a revelation that transforms the mind. That is what happens when the mind faces death. The mind transforms and changes. It changes completely.
368. Intelligence does not obsess about food, sex, or physical security. All forms of obsession involve the movement of thought, which is the ego. The ego makes food, sex, and the search for security more important than anything else. Living a comfortable life with a house, money, car, nice clothes, good food, sex, and all that, is a terribly small and insignificant affair. There is a field of life infinitely greater, vast, with an extraordinary richness and fullness completely unrelated to the movement of thought. It has no connection to thought which means it has no connection to the ego. The ego is a finite, limited thing. Only when the entire structure of the ego vacates the brain does the limitation within cease. It ends. The end of the ego, which is the end of psychological limitation, brings about a great revealing. The end of limitation is the revealing. It reveals that unlimited, immeasurable, and therefore holy other. The mind comes upon what is holy, and there is no separation between it and the mind. They are the same undivided thing. No words can describe the magnificence of what takes place. Nothing comes close to conveying the hugeness of what happens.
369. Try to find that which is sacred outside yourself, and it will forever remain unfound.
370. Succumb to the endless activity of self-gratification, the desire for pleasure, and the obsession with sex, food, work, church, politics, games, ambition, shopping, television, the internet, or whatever the case may be, and one gets caught up in the whole activity of thought, which means struggle, anxiety, stress, frustration, disappointment, loneliness, and all the inner hurt and misery that go with it. The key is to not escape, suppress, or yield to this whole activity. The key is to watch it. If desire enters the brain, then watch it. Watch it carefully with great interest, curiosity, and vitality. Do that and you learn about it, how it arises, how it moves, how it sustains itself. If that is done, then the whole movement of desire cannot only be learned, but the act of observation ends desire. It ends the frustration, disappointment, and every inner hurt that goes with it. It all ends completely and instantly. When the mind comes upon this insight into the whole structure of desire, and what ends it, then one is no longer a slave to it. The end of this inner slavery brings extraordinary freedom. It is freedom. They are the same.
371. Subtract the ego from the brain, and what remains is practical thought and intelligence.
372. If you think you are slowly but surely progressing to learn about what it means to love, then that idea is a fallacy. It is a delusion. Anything that is progressive implies time. Love is not a movement in time. That means there is no progression, path, or period of time needed to come upon what is love. Either love is present, or it is not. There is no in-between.
373. What matters most is what you are inside, and not so much what you do. If inwardly there is goodness, kindness, and deep affection, then that is infinitely more important than the job you have, the clothes you wear, the food you eat, and all such physical things in life. Goodness is not a material or earthy thing. It is immaterial, unearthly. What matters most is not the earthly, but the unearthly.
374. Have the capacity to be alone and entirely at ease with that aloneness. If you suddenly find yourself alone and feel edgy, nervous, lonely, fearful, or any other sense of uneasiness, then stay with it. Observe it. Observe it carefully with every bit of energy and strength within you. Do that and see what happens. See what careful observation does to the uneasiness. Test it. Experiment with it. Only then can you find out what takes place.
375. Your life has a purpose. It has an agenda. The agenda is what you do with your life. When the agenda finishes, then so does life. It stops.
376. The ego is the cause of all human cruelty, savagery, and barbarism. The ego is a field of ignorance. That means there is no difference between the ego in you and the ego in another. They are the same field. They are the same identical movement. That means if an ego lies within you, and an innocent child is murdered, then it is as though you are the murderer. The responsibility that this implies for each individual human being is absolutely enormous. One must figure out what is the ego, what makes it tick, and destroy it. It must be smashed into oblivion. Only when the ego is purged from daily living can one come upon that intelligence that brings a halt to this entire movement of ignorance. Only then is it possible to come upon a way of living that is sane, rational, and peaceful. Peaceful living ends violent living. It ends it instantly. It is the only thing that can.
377. To disengage from the whole mechanics of inner hurt and sorrow, means to have no identity. It means to mentally identify to nothing, which means no belief, no opinion, and therefore no mental image at all. It means to be nobody.
378. Answers to everything are within. Look inside. They are there.
379. The mind that ends attachment to mental images, which includes the images of upbringing, education, culture, tradition, custom, belief, and all that, comes upon a dimension to existence outside the field of time. It not only discovers what it is to be free, but the bondage of time ends. The mind actually comes face to face with that which is timeless. The timeless other is a dimension to life where things happen at once, the same time, and exact same instance. The whole of existence is contained within it. The mind must end the psychological prison of time, which means the past, memory, and all that. Only then can the timeless other show itself.
380. It was mid morning. The room was empty, quiet, and the body was alert, watching, and listening with great attentiveness. Unexpectedly the intimate other opened up and appeared. It appeared not in physical form because it is not a physical thing. It could not be seen by the naked eye but it was there. The nature of it was unfathomable. It was without division, limits, or any conditions whatsoever. The mind felt awestruck. It engulfed the brain and forced the body to listen, watch, and open itself completely so that everything lay bare. The sense of awe, wonder, and deep humility made the knees buckle. It forced the body to fall to the ground. It was an intimacy and benediction. It was a living love that penetrated everything through and through. It was an utterly holy thing.
381. It was a warm, sunny day. A bench in the shade under a white birch tree in the small park offered a pleasant place to rest. The body sat quietly, still, with back straight, comfortable, but not completely so. The senses were alert, active, and highly sensitive. There was keen watchfulness with no sense of comparison. There was a gentle sort of listening without identification, without naming things to interfere in the listening. There was only the hardness of the bench, the softness of the clothes, the colors, shapes, movements, and sounds of the trees, park, and vast blue sky. Nothing else existed. The whole activity of making ideas ceased, and a great vacant emptiness entered the brain and flowed through it. Suddenly a presence appeared. In the shade under the lone sapling there appeared an ecstasy and benediction. It was infinite and therefore sacred. It was separate from everything, and at the same time it was not separate. It was pure intimacy, and infinitely closer than any relation, family member, or choicest friend. It was the source of the earth, stars, and all that is. It was the source of everything, light and dark, love and hate, limited and unlimited. It was the source of all of these divisions. It revealed a wholeness and infinite meaning in the smallest of things, in every encounter, gesture, word, and heart beat. There was unfathomable meaning for the whole of life. Words are wholly incapable and completely fail to come close to describing the depth, wonder, and majesty of the thing. Unexpectedly it disappeared. All at once it was gone. It left the brain utterly cleansed, new, and young. The spine began to ache, and the vast emptiness, the sacredness, or whatever it was, that flowed and surged through the brain vanished. Only an echo of it remained, until soon that too disappeared all together.
382. If you hurt another person, then you hurt yourself. You hurt yourself, because you are not different from any other person. You are the same.
383. It is not enough to not get angry, jealous, or envious. One must not have the capacity for any of that. As the capability for inner conflict persists, the ego is sustained. The ego perpetuates along with all the conflict that has plagued mankind over the millennia. Only when the ego is eradicated is it possible to end the insane cycle of conflict that has existed throughout history. When conflict ends in one person it has an extraordinary effect. It has an effect on the whole of mankind, because there is no difference between you and anyone else. You are the same. Therefore, if you remove the capacity for inner conflict, then a change takes place that touches, effects, and spreads out throughout the entire world. What takes place is extraordinary.
384. Childhood dreams and fairy tales are infinitely more meaningful than any religious belief, political ideal, or form of thought that divides and separates people from each other.
385. The mechanics of thought is the replay of memory. It is the rerun of ideas and mental images stored in memory. Any repetitive activity is mechanical. That means the movement of thought is mechanical. This is critical to understand. To view life through the filter of repetition, which means thought and memory, limits that view. It limits and thereby distorts observation. It means to have a fragmented and therefore distorted perception of life. It means living in a world that is completely unreal. When the brain learns what it means to observe life without the filter of thought to interfere in the observation, then perception changes. Perception is no longer limited or fragmented. It is no longer distorted. To view life without distortion brings clarity. The brain comes upon a field of life that is not fragmented or limited. In other words, it discovers a dimension of life beyond that which is limited, mechanical, or in any way physical. Most people seem to live life in a mechanical manner. Mentally people are caught in the mechanical repetition of thought as religious belief, political ideology, nationalism, the constant seeking of inner security, money, pleasure, contentment, and all that. There is the continual struggle to escape boredom, loneliness, and all the fears of everyday living through physical things like money, sex, possessions, food, drugs, alcohol, and all that. This physical and mechanical way of living distracts from what is real. It distorts reality. True reality is not mechanical. It is not material. What is real is non-material. It is a non-material dimension that thought cannot penetrate or in any way perceive. In order to perceive this other world the brain must learn what it is to discard thought. It must do away with the whole inner attachment to thought. It means thought as attachment to personal belief, opinion, ideology, theory, philosophy, must end. It must totally go. Thought includes the image one has of the husband, wife, children, job, religion, God, and oneself. The attachment to all of that must stop. If the whole of psychological attachment ends, then the brain is free. The brain comes upon freedom. It discovers an inner liberation that results in an entirely new way of perception. A door opens to a perception and dimension to life that is not mechanical, physical, or limited in any way. The brain comes upon a field of existence that is nonphysical and unlimited. That which is unlimited is not an idea. It has nothing to do with any form of thought, mental image, or memory. All of that must end for the wonder and magnificence of this infinite other to reveal itself. Do not believe any of this. Doubt it, and go into it. Just go into it.
386. The self is thought, and therefore it is limited. That means the self has an end. It means the whole idea of an immortal self is a fallacy.
387. There is a river of sorrow, and that river is the self. The self is limited and therefore impermanent. It is something that does not last. What is permanent and lasting does not exist in the river. It has no connection with the self. The self must end for the other to divulge itself. When the self ends, then that which is permanent makes itself clear. It comes out. However, that permanent and lasting other has nothing to do with time. It is permanence without duration. It is a lasting that has no relationship with time. That means what is timeless and permanent are the same.
388. That which is holy and sacred is not restricted to time or space, which means it is here. It is now. However if the brain formulates a theory, conjecture, opinion, or any idea about what it is, or is not, then it has no meaning. The brain must deny all that, because all that is the movement of thought, and thought is limited. The sacred other is not limited. Find out what it means to step out of the world of thought. Only then does it come. Only then can the unlimited and sacred other show itself.
389. Love has no boundary, which means it is not a physical phenomena. Love is discarnate. It is a bodiless thing.
390. Human discontent has existed for millions of years, and for millions of years humans have struggled to find contentment, however there has been no finding. Instead there has been constant struggling, constant seeking, and constant not finding. This insane cycle has gone on for eternities. It goes on now. The destruction of the ego is what brings an end to struggle. It is what ends the whole process and structure of seeking. Here is the thing. Seeking to bring an end to discontentment is still a self-centered activity. It is an activity that sustains the ego. It keeps it alive. Learn what it is to live without an ego, and all self-centeredness stops. All struggle suddenly ceases to play a part in ones daily living. It means the end of seeking. The end of seeking is contentment. They are one and the same thing.
