You don't change yourself.
It's not me changing me.
Change takes place through you in you.
You see change take place in you,
Through you,
In your awareness.
It happens.
You don't do it.
When you're doing it,
Bad sign won't last.
And if it does,
God have mercy on the people you're living with because you're going to be very rigid,
You know.
These people who are converted on the basis of self-hatred and self-dissatisfaction,
Boy,
They're impossible to live with.
So God have mercy on all of us if the change lasts because you're so rigid on yourself,
You're going to be rigid on everyone else.
But in awareness,
You keep your softness,
Your suppleness,
Your gentleness,
Your openness,
Your flexibility,
And you don't push.
Change occurs.
Remember an alcoholic priest telling us in Chicago when I was studying my psychology there,
He said,
You know,
I had all the information and I knew that the alcohol was killing me.
And believe me,
Nothing changes an alcoholic,
Not the love of his wife or the love of his kids.
And he does love them,
But it doesn't change them.
But he said,
I discovered one thing that changed me.
I was lying in a gutter one day.
There was a slight grizzle.
I was in the bad books of the archbishop again.
But he said,
In that moment,
I opened my eyes and I saw that this was killing me.
And I saw it.
I've never had the desire to touch a drop after that.
I've been aware.
That's what I'm talking about,
Awareness.
Not information,
Awareness.
A friend of mine who was given to excessive smoking said,
You know,
He had all kinds of little jokes.
He'd say,
Oh,
Come on,
They tell us that tobacco kills people.
Look at the ancient Egyptians.
They're all dead and none of them smoked.
Well,
One day he was having trouble with his lungs.
He went to our cancer research institute in Bombay,
Which is pretty well equipped.
He went there and the doctor said,
Father,
You've got two patches on your lungs.
It could be cancer.
You'll have to come back next month.
You know,
He never touched a cigarette after that.
He knew it could kill him before.
Now he was aware that it could kill him.
That's the difference.
The founder of my religious order,
St.
Ignatius,
Has a nice expression for that.
He says,
He calls it tasting and feeling the truth.
Not knowing it,
But tasting and feeling it.
Getting a feel for it.
Ah,
When you get a feel for it,
You change.
When you know it in your head,
You don't.
