The Light Of Awareness

Do you want to change the world? How about beginning with yourself? How about being transformed yourself first? But how do you achieve that? Through observation. Through understanding. With no interference or judgment on your part. Because what you judge you cannot understand.

Transcript

You want to change the world?

How about beginning with yourself?

How about changing yourself?

How about being transformed yourself first?

How do you achieve that?

Through observation,

Through understanding.

With no interference,

With no judgment,

Because what you judge,

You cannot understand.

That's a tall order,

Isn't it?

You slapped a label on him.

Understanding has stopped at that minute.

Understanding has stopped as of that minute.

And if the label carries undertones of approval or disapproval,

Even worse.

How are you going to understand what you disapprove of or what you approve of for that matter?

No judgment,

No comment,

No attitude.

One observes,

One studies,

One watches,

Not even with the desire to change what is.

Because if you desire to change what is into what you think should be,

You're no longer understanding what is.

Example,

The scientist who observes the behavior of ants with no further end in view,

He just wants to study ants and to learn as much as possible about them.

And he has no further aim.

He's not attempting to train them or to get anything out of them.

He's interested in ants.

He wants to learn as much as he can about them.

That's the attitude.

The day you attain that,

You will experience a miracle.

You will change effortlessly,

Correctly.

Change will happen.

You will not bring it about.

As the light of awareness settles upon your darkness,

Whatever is good will be fostered.

You will have to experience that for yourself.

But this calls for a disciplined mind.

And when I say disciplined,

I'm not talking about effort.

I'm talking about something else.

Look at that river as it moves towards the sea.

It creates its own banks,

Does it not,

To contain it.

And when there's something within you that moves in this direction,

It creates its own discipline.

And the moment you get bitten by the bug of awareness,

Oh,

That's so delightful.

The most delightful thing in the world,

The most important and the most delightful.

Because there's nothing so important in the world as coming awake,

Nothing.

And there's nothing so delightful as being aware.

Would you rather live in darkness?

Would you rather act and not be aware of your actions?

Walk and not be aware of your words?

Would you rather listen to people and not be aware of what you're hearing?

Or see things and not be aware of what you're looking at?

The great Socrates who said,

The unaware life is not worth living.

A self-evident truth.

But most people don't live aware lives.

They're living mechanical lives.

Mechanical thoughts,

Generally somebody else's.

Mechanical emotions.

Mechanical reactions.

Want to see how mechanical you are?

My,

That's a lovely shirt you're wearing,

I feel up.

Feel proud of yourself when you observe that?

People come over to my center there in India and they say,

What a lovely place your center is situated in.

These lovely trees for which I'm not responsible at all.

And already I'm feeling good till I catch myself feeling good.

Could you imagine anything more stupid than that?

I'm not responsible for those trees.

I wasn't even responsible for choosing the location.

I didn't order the weather,

But it's mine.

Me got in there and I'm feeling good.

And I'm feeling good about my culture and my nation.

How stupid can you get?

I mean that.

And they're saying,

You know,

Your great Indian culture that has produced all these mystics.

I'm not responsible for it.

And you know,

A country of yours,

Disgusting.

Look at the poverty.

I'm feeling ashamed.

I didn't create it.

What's going on?

Ever stop to think?

You know something?

I think you're very charming.

Oh,

I feel wonderful.

I got a positive stroke.

That's what they call it.

I'm okay.

You're okay.

I'm going to write a book someday which will be entitled,

I'm an ass,

You're an ass.

When you're openly ready to admit you're an ass,

It's wonderful.

They say you're wrong.

I say,

What did you expect of an ass?

The final liberation,

I'm an ass,

You're an ass.

Everybody disarmed.

I press a button,

You're up.

I press another button,

You're down.

You like that?

How many people you know who are unaffected by praise or blame,

Totally and completely unaffected?

That isn't human.

Human means you've got to be a little monkey so everybody can twist your tail and you do whatever they think you ought to be doing.

That human?

You mean you find me charming?

You know what that means?

It means right now you're in a good mood.

It also means that I fit your shopping list.

Every one of us carries a shopping list around,

You know?

And it's like you've got to measure up to this tall,

Dark,

Handsome.

I like the sound of his voice.

I'm in love,

Silly ass.

Any time you're in love,

You're being particularly asinine.

Sit down and watch it.

What's happening to you?

You're running away from yourself?

You want a nice,

Good escape?

Somebody said,

Thank God for reality and for giving us the means to escape from it.

So that's what's going on.

We're so mechanical.

We're so controlled.

And we write books about being controlled and how wonderful it is to be controlled and how necessary to be controlled and how necessary that people would tell you that you're okay so that then you'll have a good,

Okay feeling about yourself,

Et cetera,

Et cetera,

Et cetera.

How wonderful it is to be in prison,

To be in your cage.

You like being in prison?

You like being controlled?

Because I'll tell you something.

If you ever let yourself feel good when they tell you that you're okay,

You're preparing yourself to feel bad when they tell you you're not.

And secondly,

You're going to be a monkey for the rest of your life because you're the whole time going to live up to their expectations.

You better watch out what you wear and how you comb your hair and whether your shoes are polished and whether you live up to every expectation of theirs,

Every one of them.

You call it human?

This is what you'll discover when you observe yourself.

You'll be horrified because the fact of the matter is you're neither okay nor not okay.

You really are not.

What's okay?

What's not okay?

You mean you fit the current mood or trend of fashion so you become okay?

Does your okayness depend on that?

Does your okayness depend on what people think of you?

Jesus Christ must have been pretty not okay,

You know,

By those standards.

So you're not okay.

You're not not okay.

You're you.

And that I hope is going to be the big discovery.

If you make this discovery,

My,

What a wonderful thing,

Extraordinary,

Unprecedented,

You're you.

Cut out all the okay stuff and the not okay stuff.

Cut out all the judgments and observe.

You'll make great discoveries.

Those discoveries will change you.

You won't have to make the slightest effort,

Believe me.

Here's another bombshell.

Talking about a bombshell reminds me about this guy in London after the war.

He's sitting with a large parcel on his lap wrapped in brown paper,

Big heavy object.

And the bus conductor says to him,

He says,

What have you got in your lap there?

And the man says,

This is an unexploded bomb.

We dug it out of the garden and taking it to the police station.

He says,

Is that an unexploded bomb?

And he's the guy says,

Yes,

You don't want to carry that on your lap.

Put it under the seat.

That's my story for telling what psychology and spirituality as we generally understand it does for you.

You know,

It transfers the bomb from your lap to under your seat.

It doesn't really solve your problem.

It doesn't.

It exchanges your problems for other problems.

Has that ever struck you?

You had a problem.

Now we exchange it for another one.

And it's always going to be that way till we solve the problem called you.

Reviews

I love Anthony. Yea, it’s an attachment! 😇🙏😂

Profound and clear as usual! ❤️

🥁🙏

Taylor Swift would approve

Simple straight to the point. He is one of my favorites

Me hace falta más amar y menos juzgar, gracias por hacérmelo ver 🙏

Thank you 🙏🏾

No, we are not monkeys, since we have awareness.