Most people tell you that they want to get out of kindergarten,
But don't believe them.
Don't believe them.
All they want for you to do is to mend their broken toys.
Give me back my wife.
Give me back my job.
Give me back my money.
Give me back my reputation,
My success.
This is what they want.
They want their toys repaired.
That's all.
Now,
Even the best psychologists will tell you that.
They'll tell you people don't really want to be cured.
What they want is relief.
A cure is painful.
Waking up is unpleasant,
You know.
You're nice and comfortable in bed.
And at least as long as you're asleep,
It's irritating to be woken up.
That's the reason why I told you the wise guru will not attempt to wake people up.
I hope I'm going to be wise these days and make no attempt whatsoever to wake you up if you're asleep.
None of my business.
My business is to do my thing,
To dance my dance.
If you profit from it,
Fine.
If you don't,
Too bad.
As the Arabs say,
The nature of the rain is the same,
But it grows thorns in the marshes and flowers in the garden.
You want a sign that you're asleep?
Here it is.
You're suffering.
You're asleep.
Suffering is a sign that you're out of touch with the truth.
Suffering is given to you that you might open your eyes to the truth,
That you might understand that there is some falsehood somewhere,
Just as physical pain is given to you to understand that there's a disease,
There's an illness somewhere.
So suffering points out that there's some falsehood somewhere.
Suffering occurs when you clash with reality,
When your illusion clashes with reality,
When your falsehood clashes with truth,
Then you have suffering.
Otherwise there is no suffering.
What leads to growth is painful experiences.
Suffering points up an area in you where you have not yet grown,
Where you need to grow and be transformed and change.
If you would know how to use that suffering or how you would grow,
Let's limit ourselves for the time being to psychological suffering,
To all those negative emotions.
Don't waste a single one of them,
That disappointment you experience when events don't turn out as you wanted them to.
Watch that.
What does that say about you?
That without condemnation or you're going to get caught up in self-hate now or self-dislike,
Observe it as you would in another person.
Look at that disappointment,
That depression you experience when you are criticized.
What does that say about you?
That anxiety you experience,
That worry,
What does it say about you?
What's happening to you?
So if you would use this negative feeling,
Every negative feeling,
Every psychological suffering for awareness,
For understanding,
For dissociating from the feeling and watching it from outside,
In the beginning the depression will still be there,
But you will have cut your connection with it gradually.
You will understand the depression.
As you understand it,
It will keep coming less frequently and will disappear altogether.
