Some of us get woken up by the harsh realities of life,
Suffer so much,
We wake up,
Most people keep bumping again and again into life,
But they still go on sleepwalking,
They never wake up.
Tragically.
It never occurs to them that there may be another way.
Never occurs to them that there may be a better way.
Now,
If you haven't been bumped sufficiently by life,
One woman saying to her husband,
What good is a bumper for if you don't bump something occasionally with it?
He says,
Bumped,
You've got to get bumped.
So if you don't get bumped sufficiently by life and you don't suffer enough,
Then there is another way,
A,
To listen.
If you are ready to listen,
Not to agree with what I'm saying,
That wouldn't be listening.
And believe me,
It really doesn't matter,
You're going to find this hard to understand,
But it really doesn't matter whether you agree with what I'm saying or you don't.
Because as I shall explain to you later,
Agreement and disagreement has to do with words and concepts and theories.
It doesn't have anything to do with truth.
Truth is never expressed in words.
Truth is cited suddenly as a result of a certain attitude.
And you could be disagreeing with me and you might cite the truth,
But it has to be an attitude of openness,
Of willingness to discover something new.
That's important.
Not you're agreeing with me or disagreeing with me.
After all,
Most of what I'm giving you is really theories.
No theory adequately covers reality.
Now,
All I can tell you is not the truth,
But the obstacles to the truth.
Those I can describe.
I cannot describe the truth.
No one can.
All I can give you is a description of your falsehoods so that you can drop them.
All I can do for you is to challenge your beliefs and your belief system that makes you unhappy.
To point out your errors.
All I can do for you is help you to unlearn.
That's what learning is all about,
Where spirituality is concerned.
Unlearning.
Unlearning almost everything you've been taught.
A willingness to unlearn.
Are you listening as most people do in order to find something that would confirm what they already think?
Have your reactions as I talk.
Frequently you'll be startled or shocked or scandalized or irritated or annoyed or frustrated or you'll be saying,
Yay,
Great.
Are you listening for what will confirm what you already think or are you listening in order to discover something new?
That's important.
That's difficult.
For sleeping people,
Jesus proclaimed the good news.
He was rejected not because it was good.
He was rejected because it was new.
We hate the new.
And the sooner we face up to that fact,
The better.
We don't want new things,
Particularly when they're disturbing,
Particularly if they involve change,
Particularly if it involves saying,
I was wrong.
I remember meeting an 87-year-old Jesuit in Spain.
He had been my professor and rector in India 30 years ago.
He said to me,
I should have heard you about 60 years ago.
You know something?
I've been wrong all my life.
That is faith and openness to the truth,
No matter what the consequences,
No matter where it comes from,
No matter where it leads you.
You don't even know where it's leading you.
That's faith.
Not belief.
Faith.
Your beliefs give you a lot of security,
Don't they?
Faith is insecurity.
You don't know.
You're ready to follow.
And you're open.
You're wide open.
You're ready to listen.
And mind you,
Being open does not mean being gullible.
It doesn't mean swallowing whatever the speaker is saying.
Oh,
No,
No,
No.
You've got to challenge everything I'm saying.
But challenge it from an attitude of openness.
Openness and challenge it all.
Buddha said,
Monks and scholars must listen to my words,
Not out of respect,
But they must analyze them.
The way the goldsmith analyzes gold,
By cutting,
Rubbing,
Melting,
Testing,
Challenging.
Then you're listening.
Then you've taken another major step towards awakening.
The first step I said was a readiness to admit that you don't want to wake up.
You don't want to be happy.
There are all kinds of resistances within you to that.
The second step,
A readiness to understand,
To listen,
To challenge your whole belief system.
Not just your religious belief,
Your political beliefs,
Your social beliefs,
Your psychological beliefs.
All of them,
A readiness to reappraise them all.
