Not in a Day (1987)
Do not rest the rose
directly on earth
But well at the end
of thorny stem
Strong, stately root!
What do those words require?
To have traveled a long way
but now reached port
- - -
Understand that there is no rush, but there is no rush to understand either.
What the stone is to the water, it is the habitual thought to the still fragile thought, but what the water is to the stone, it is also the still fragile thought to the habitual thought.
The peace of mind that comes with a showdown going in one's favor is always deceptive. What in connection with that can be experienced as goodness is not. It's a cat's game with the rat.
5
It is great to possess real knowledge, but to make proper use of it is greater.
Perhaps we imagine that when someone reacts very violently and condemningly to what others do, these reactions show that it is completely foreign to that person to act like that themselves. But that is not always the case. The violent outcome is often an indication of the exact opposite.
Prayer is destined to become a part of all our doing, all our thinking. An obstacle for this to happen, for it to be so completely and fully incorporated into the being of the supplicant, is the form that is often given to it. We like to say our prayers with a tormented, anguished expression, even though this is not our actual experience. It is a disguised humility or fear. The artificiality is an effort that serves no function whatsoever. On the contrary, prayer then becomes separated from our normal thinking. We then rise from our time of prayer, smooth our features and open our soul's window to freshness again. But even the prayer is so far away, so passed.
Often it is our now grief-laden responsibility only to allow this or that to happen, and not quite as often as we feel bound to it, to be the ones to make it happen. Herein rests a great difference.
About people's values: The value that is experienced as growing with success is the illusory value, the imagined added value and when success is delayed - equally unreal - the lesser value.
10
The individual's self-perception or self-evaluation rests as "a shimmer" around her - we usually unconsciously observe and note it, a kind of mind reading - and here what is said in words is not of any significant importance.
Blaming yourself for what you have done in the past is unwise. Without it, you wouldn't be who you are today either. Choices that were once made - and which today you wish were unmade - you might not be able to make again, because you are familiar with the consequences, but others whose consequences you do not yet feel. Alternatives that are perceived to be right today – at least wrong or whose returns are calculated as well worth the effort – are perhaps tried to be avoided another time in the future.
What do all the situations we feel divided or stressed about have in common? Not mainly: "Life puts so many things in front of me at the same time" - but more: "An inability to choose from these things what is most important at the moment and give it my full attention and care."
In this world, only the foolish and the wise find something to laugh at. Yes, and the children who so strangely combine the two.
Anyone who experiences difficult, stressful relationships can also process these completely on their own, because there is no conflict at all - apart from what can be observed on the mental plane. The root is called Ignorance, the stem is called Fear, bark and branch are called Imagination.
15
Is it open that strives? Doesn't openness require collection and immobility? Well, however, you can be in motion and on the move, but on the more essential plane remain still. You are powerful!
The basis of sadness – as well as of all over-enthusiasm or fanaticism – is pettiness. It is the inability to see "the big lines", to glide freely over the Sea of Desolation, over wave valleys and wave crests - but well below the clouds - to see how all movements work together and can be followed from the horizon to the very near, from near and far.
What in the field of search, is completely wrong and pernicious? Of what can it be said: "That is wrong and you should not concern yourself with that, that does not lead you to the Goal?" Don't we see that when we condemn something - or wantonly exalt it as the only real thing - we put ourselves above Life itself and Life's preparation of our fellow travelers? And if in time someone were to abandon what we forbade her or spoke disparagingly of, what reason do we have to feel victory or triumph? God led her into it and God led her out of it, because at first she needed it but now no longer needs it—for the moment perhaps—all are God's works and plays and who is foolish enough to want to glory in them?
The person who is repeatedly asked to confirm his friendly attitude can become noticeably unfriendly as time goes on.
For the crucifixion of pride, the Most High has given us the paradoxes. He who finds reason to boast about his understanding and his knowledge cannot have tried to force these entrance gates of omniscience without reservation enough. The key is called "liberation" - from the private and limited and detached - that which is also the noblest form of love. Pride is a one-sided protection of the personal and therefore it is loveless.
20
The balancing act of self-cultivation: To dismantle sides of oneself, without distancing oneself from them for the sake of it.
Is Eternity finite - so that it has a beginning? Is Infinity bounded - so that thought catches up with it at the brink of expansion? They are then not worthy of the names.
Setting boundaries is a completely natural part of our life and actions. The length of steps on our walks is not allowed to exceed a certain limit; we naturally interrupt our waking hours for needed sleep and return when it has served its purpose. Does it also apply to our being with other people? No, so often we shy away from setting boundaries, when we actually feel a need for privacy – as well as the opposite: overcoming boundaries when togetherness is desired – and every little child serves us here as a healthy example.
To force gold out of lead is no easy matter, to be sure, but to force man out of animals is, if possible, even more difficult. And yet so simple, for the meek, who conforms to the course of life.
The price of fame is exposure - the previously so advised, achieved over time - gift price becomes the price to be paid.
25
Can you stretch further than you can stretch, can you run faster than you can? Can you understand more than you can understand?
He who believes himself to be the sole cause of the triumph, is subsequently also alone with the defeat. Is it necessarily so? Yes, you cannot be united with Life—that on which all abiding joy rests, truly, and remain so—and at the same time separate from It. Nothing could be more impossible.
Countless are those who claim to be able to convey the Truth, and for those who seek, the discovery of this becomes something that confuses or amuses, perhaps frightens. Someone talks about the origin of all religions. Someone despises them all. Someone claims that meditation is the Way. Someone adds that surely meditation is the Way - the way that leads to perdition and corruption. Someone raises man's ability to think, his analytical talent, to heavenly heights. Someone points out that therein lies its limitation: musings lead the individual, at best, "up among the clouds", but at worst she does not get much closer to the Truth with the help of her head. Someone informs that the cosmic is apparent and fundamentally chaotic, that everything has its origin in Chance. Someone talks about the lawfulness of everything, how not a hair on the head is uncounted and that every little sigh is heard. Someone willingly shares their burden, their cross, that everything is darkness - fundamentally - humanity is just going downhill and doom is near. Someone trips merrily about and smilingly bears witness to the Glory whose radiant glory is absorbed by all her senses and to a future with people who are little wonders of prudence and virtue. "But then what is Truth?" shouts the one who has searched for a long time and is still doing it. Yes, how do we answer that? What can be experienced as true by one, the other is apparently faced with complete incomprehension. Thoughts that are only tiresome to some, become life-long inspiration to others. Also: B may have what A is looking for, C can inspire and guide B, but it is not certain that A will find in C what he is looking for, at the moment.
When we think badly of someone or something, and want to defend the thoughts that bubble up inside, then it is as if we sometimes reason: "Well, all this talk about positive thinking and 'karma' - I have to find myself at some point in real life too!” But every such step, which we try to justify with these objections, is a step away from reality. Yes, of course it is. In any case, the "real" would lie in the fact that one exposes one's actual - real - degree of maturity. But that is another matter. We are not so real at the moment.
In the very selection of alternatives—what context and thought provide—is guidance.
30
Maybe we sometimes think: "Loneliness is so difficult, and so is being with others." And yet, in time, we find joy in solitude as well as in community. Has the world then become different?
As long as man regards the world as his enemy, so long will he pay tribute to the aggressive and brash protestors, those who strike, occupy houses, or otherwise lend their energies to acts of terror. They all do what she herself would like to do, when they fight against "the authorities" or "today's technocratic society", demanding their "right" with powerful actions and powerful language. Alone, they fight against all of existence and she lives into their fate, as unappreciated and neglected. As long as man sees the world as his adversary, so long will he not shy away from lying and deceiving this "opponent". She will defend her action by saying that the booty thus captured is really hers, be it money, time or something else.
With limited concepts man tries to capture the unlimited. She makes the multi-bottomed single-bottomed. Maybe she thinks it will be easier that way? But the complex is the simple. The simple—the only apparently simple—is the truly difficult, for it is only a half-truth.
The Nazis sorted out people who were unpleasant in their eyes. We sort out the Nazis, because they are unpleasant in our eyes, or those who sort out Nazis. But what really lies in the big difference? If we claim that all people have the same value and that they are all worthy of our love and understanding, then of course these great words call for correspondingly great actions.
The biggest thing in our lives is what we have in common with the smallest in existence. The mind boggles!
35
Do not apologize for your curiosity - if it has put you in a pressing situation and you come up with more appropriate thoughts - for, this expressed regret then only further shows how piquant and charged the subject in question is for you, what a prominent place in your consciousness given to it: that you find nothing more interesting to think about or converse about. Nay, go on and make your fellow traveler certain of your goodwill in other ways, in case it may be feared that you have made her doubt it.
When with clumsy words and concepts we seek to create order in our intuitive premonitions, these fleeting feelings of happiness, which are so easily dissolved by efforts, like the summer butterfly in the sudden rain, helpless. Perhaps we will then reach the point where we completely deny the importance of thinking. Yet we return to the words and our – growing – understanding. Always so.
Out of consciousness's spawn of memories and flashes of truth, the need—the real—seems to be the tool by which the fragmented, the frustrated, is made to collapse and become the whole and the completely understandable.
The right treatment provides good conditions. Therefore, look for it more often than you look for good conditions for a proper treatment.
The "judge" often has a desire to have his prejudices fulfilled by "the condemned". Such prejudgments are a function of the individual's fear of the world. Seeing one's prejudices shattered is painful – and it applies to prejudices in all areas – so he tries to avoid it. Uncertainty is here: Not daring to leave anything "floating", a compulsion to "slam it into the ground".
40
"About that we don't know anything for sure, it's just imagination and so I'll leave it at that." We often encounter statements like this when thoughts that are out of context are brought up. But such an "elevated" stance, in the face of the completely or partially unknown, would probably be impossible to maintain in all areas. If we tried to understand how we really know nothing with certainty, not in any area - no, not even in the most everyday and supposedly explored - then maybe we would experience how the ground just kind of disappeared from under our feet! But now a selection takes place in the vast majority of people, fortunately, although not in all and always. Many of those who are guests in our mental hospitals, it is probably precisely because they have dissolved these - illusory - foundations of existence. Only after having been made familiar with the Universal Stillness – the basic condition of all creation and experiencing – should we possess the qualifications required to be able to safely release the moorings. Then it also happened.
When Life seeks me and Conscience, my servant, has gone to meet It, then I lock the gate behind him. Soon the faithful can be heard banging and shouting: "It's here now, let it in!" In my house I listen. Get angry.
Only those who harbor misunderstanding themselves can bitterly experience being misunderstood. Were it not for their situation, they happily collected opinions and expressions of other points of view.
The service does not tire, but our constant nagging longing to be somewhere else, to do something else - our brokenness - makes us discouraged and powerless. The way out: Devoting yourself to your work - and understanding it correctly - brings peace. It is more to give oneself to the task, which has to do with affection, than to give up before it and mindlessly submit, which has to do with resignation.
Those who are afraid often show the tendency to want to attach themselves to the imperfect sides of those around them first and foremost. But - she should then be aware that the qualities or flaws that she thinks she sees in them may not be there at all - her gaze is not open observing, but it seeks and wishes to have its assumptions confirmed - and if they really were there there, then a thousand good reasons are given for indulging them. Yes, if nothing else, so that those around her may indulge her fault-finding zeal. The eye sees what the eye wants to see, much passes by.
45
As the parts of the Reality we are, there are things we cannot imagine and not because it is "difficult" or even "very difficult", but because it is unreal and therefore impossible.
When the football has been stopped on the A team's goal line and the referee hesitates for a moment, then all the B team supporters have seen that it was in, while all the A team supporters can testify that the ball never made it further. Regardless of who is at fault, not all of these are liars or willfully dishonest. Many are downright unreal.
How glad I am sometimes, that forgetfulness paralyzes my tongue, makes me confused, sloppy and unaccountable in the eyes of others.
Faced with the idea that adversity would have its deepest source flow in our own miserable state, we defend ourselves. But - what relief do the illusions that we so stubbornly defend offer? Why does the cross rub less with them in mind? Was it not, for an angel, a desirable opportunity to be able to lift the yoke of debt from the shoulders of everyone and anyone?
To make a fellow human being aware that something that she is in the process of creating or has already completed - and will probably do again - can be done in a more appropriate way, it is sometimes enough to go the way of Love. But the one who is very diligent in noting such imperfections, perhaps thereby reveals that the complaint-correction has become a kind of end in itself for her. It no longer pains her to have to point out flaws in the behavior of others, but these occasions are purely desired. Basically, she overestimates her own importance, while at the same time underestimating the importance of her fellow human beings.
50
We think of the finished mental state, where one finds no particular pleasure in flattery and personal success, gray and desolate it may seem to us. But the wise laugh so well! Apparently, they derive their joy from another source, which we shall come to know in time!
To especially remember sometimes: "My ways are not your ways and I know almost nothing about your dreams."
That an unwillingness to reconcile would make change impossible is a misconception. Great changes take place: poisoning and destruction of the body.
The unfinished bus traveler: He experiences a certain amount of discomfort when the vacant seat next to him is occupied: "If only I had been allowed to sit by myself. Why would she necessarily sit right here?” He experiences a certain amount of discomfort when the seat next to him becomes free again and the person goes somewhere else - as he meant to wish: "Why didn't she want to stay? Why is everyone avoiding sitting next to me?”
Forgiveness will not always be and remain only an expression of our goodwill. There is a mathematically fortified basis to be discovered - God's own vantage point - and the judgment of the individual earthling is developed there.
55
Other people's haste does not teach that time is short.
"The sight" is an intense experience of being surrounded by the world, rather than having it only in front of you. Maybe we get to experience a hint of it in our brightest moments. If we then try to make a profit on it, it is gone, like a fleeing wind. But: Doesn't the explorer want to be praised because Africa is Africa, or because the zebra is just as striped as it has always been?
When we observe ourselves, we may find that we like to bind others to us, although we ourselves do not want to be bound. When our longing for independence has grown strong enough, giving - real - freedom becomes our way to experience a greater measure of freedom in our relationships.
For the power-hungry, "greatness" is a distance - to someone or many - while "greatness" is understood by the unassuming to be a condition.
To take responsibility is to know that you can stand before the Great Evaluator with your head held high, not only on "the last day", but every day, in every moment and in every place. Striving is a mindset and not certain actions or placements.
60
We cannot imagine a Worldspace that has walls, for the reason that such a world - unlike us - has no basis in reality, but we cannot capture the Worldspace that has no walls either, for the reason that It is not contained in our thought.
The humor that most people seem to value the most is the one that strikes them as a surplus. A joke is an invitation to those around, to see the comical or paradoxical in a situation, an offer that - at best - is given with full freedom to either decline or join. But where the individual's humor does not exist as a surplus, there is also no freedom for those around them. They feel that their approval is something vital to the other. He has, as it were, taken off his – insufficient – life energy, and now anxiously and insistently waits for their response. They are given no time to think or rest, but just feel that they want to end the situation.
By grace, some words become bearers of reality.
We crave power. Look at the mannequins in the shop windows, cast and fashioned to sell, how their postures and features bear all the marks of the perfection of power! The male dolls are arrogant and powerful, they have looks that make us shy away and the female ones display other, in their fields, at least as effective weapons.
It is a mistake to think that we mature as quickly as we get used to and become blind to what is meant to inspire us to maturity. Tragically, it may seem that we are only so superficially able to take part in what is an expression of maturity stages beyond our own. We surround ourselves with many phrases and statements of the wise of the world. A few times we have read them and then think we have made them our property. We have, as it were, taken all the nourishment they offer, risen above them and no longer hear them, perhaps regard them for nothing. Use them when we speak, but then do not understand the depth of what we say. How much greater will be our joy when we return—and we always do—when we realize that our ears were closed before we had heard all that was to be communicated to us! It has been there, familiar in color and shape, but without a real deeper meaning. And how could it have been otherwise?
65
Seeking and sometimes demanding perfection from those you meet, moral impeccability and consistency, is basically an expression of one's longing for God, one's longing for life, yes, one's longing for home. Like the children who cannot possibly come to terms with the divided world, where warring parties – inside and outside the individual – try to coordinate, but fail. She - and perhaps only she - whose search is complete or close, allows those she meets to be who they wish to be and demands nothing beyond what they are capable of. To such persons, warming and radiant, many frozen and winter-pale hikers turn. They seek and are rarely, on valid grounds, disappointed.
Many of the beliefs that we never question or even consider to be mere beliefs will eventually prove to be partially or completely wrong. New propositions often find it difficult to gain ground, and not because they are fundamentally less probable than those already established, but because they are far too unfamiliar to the mind. We vigorously defend ourselves against the new, that which challenges the long-accepted. Ideas which have a future for them, we reject today, and not because they collide with reality itself, but because they collide with the ideas we have made about what is real. When we are honest with ourselves, we have to admit that there is much that we are faced with questioning. The society's authorities that we rely on are also questioned here. It touches things from the smallest to the most complex. For some of these questions, we construct strange theories, which rightly seem far-fetched, but which can nevertheless - albeit only helpfully - be reconciled with our ingrained beliefs.
Children can be so blatantly cruel to animals and to each other, but to blame it on the influence of the parents and the environment, is to simplify the context significantly - or complicate, because the limited view claims to be the complete one and therefore it goes astray.
An imbalance in the soul life entails a greater or lesser degree of "blindness", because the imbalance makes us unable to see things as they are. Their true or deepest nature remains hidden.
The fact that we should welcome grief - as the wise said - does not mean that you are wise to seek it out. No, but in situations where grief comes your way, you should embrace it like a dear friend. There is no more sorrow there.
70
To spend one's time and energy trying to convert those who do not desire conversion is doubly unloving. On the one hand, you forcefully host hiking friends who do not wish for such a visit (in time, you leave, perhaps ashamed, trying to close the gate behind you that you previously kicked in) and on the other hand, you allow those who are really hungry to remain unsatiated. This mismanagement of resources is a form of extravagance or arrogance, comparable to the callousness of the richer nations towards the poorer ones. They allow these to starve, while their own food stocks rot away or are only meant to be a guarantee against possible future years of need in their own country.
Just as unhappiness or sadness is there, even though our circumstances appear to be so "happy", so true happiness is there - when it is there - in spite of all the "unfortunate" circumstances.
The question is often: "How much do you earn?" and the answer should then be more accurately stated in time - or even better in quality - and not in money, since the question literally reads: "How much are you a servant?"
In moments of despair and despair, we ourselves are unhappily unaware of "it", and when we measure these moods in others, we are often aware of "it", perhaps we are irritated: That there are people for whom our fates would be proof of favor.
The contradictory is experienced as repulsive only by its equal, albeit unconsciously. All children of this world, intended - and with time also disarmed, quite naturally - for something greater.
75
That night's blind clarity the fog shrouds. Dawn comes, the light awakens, but the vision lingers.
It wouldn't occur to us to ask that the laws that ruled in the dreams of the night should also apply to the everyday life that we woke up to - even if they had been experienced as never so real or self-evident while we were still asleep - but in many ways we are yet to resemble sleepwalkers, who stagger about in the moment of transition between dream and reality and despair that reality does not want to submit to the dream.
With love we also set limits. Losing yourself in "the smaller", with the result that you lose your grip on "the bigger", not infrequently has unwanted consequences. Often we then add more discomfort and division to the environment than we add to it with pleasant experiences. These groundings can be avoided if we try to see to the good of the whole. That which may very well lie in particular concern for "the insignificant" and often does.
Crying and despair at not being more than human follows a valiant attempt.
It is not only the violent or directly intrusive that we feel the need to defend ourselves against. No, even the one who is firmly anchored can be perceived as threatening, although no aggressiveness can be traced in her expression and she does not violate or demand anything, except her own justified one.
80
To relive and now experience painful childhood memories is not to have come to an understanding of the entire course of pain or to have found the ultimate cause of the adult problem. There are analysis systems on several levels. The smaller systems become even more valuable when the individual gets to know the larger systems, where the smaller ones are included as parts and therefore of course have their limitations.
The great obstacle to man being able to be fulfilled by real understanding is that he already considers himself to possess it, large parts of it or the conditions which should most immediately reward him. The room in her being, which in time should flow through with true, divine insight, is now filled with conceit and other rubbish. Isn't that crystal clear?
Never is the Coast so dear to us, as when the ideas, our sails, wear badly in the storm!
Some people wear their clothes, so also their gestures, knowledge and peculiarities. Other people - yes, the sad one in everyone - are all of them, they live their lives through them, decay and die with them.
Not infrequently we allow one aspect of reality to swell, while other parts are then relegated to being a kind of peripheral knick-knack or completely denied. But - there is also a form of experiencing where all the sensational and allegedly all-liberating is included, but then has its proper proportions. Freshness is its companion.
85
When we attack people for their trust in life and in the perfection of everything in the moment, we imagine how they seek their foundation in something outside of reality. But that is a misconception. They are the ones who live on the inside of reality, while we are the ones who dwell in the shadows. And it is not the dark parts of reality that are experienced here, but the chilly half-day we sweep around us in the absence of reality.
Being challenged and beaten is suffering, but then also receiving the apology of the stronger person can make the burden of suffering even greater. It is a victory, after all, to have been found worthy of the challenge of the stronger.
As in the traditional family, it is the man and his activities that give the family its external identity - such expressions that a stranger first becomes familiar with: the social reputation, the built-up residence, for example - so it is also the male qualities of the Deity that first and for long periods of time they are the only ones that the Son of God can refer to. In time, the wanderer and the son of god become so close that they begin to be able to distinguish even things that stem from the woman's activities. Already from a distance they can find a more nurturing and silent force, and when they gradually become familiar with the collective manifestation of the family - and see how these distinct forces work together and complement each other - it is then quite natural for them to think of the family as the man and the woman, the woman and the man. When we find, in prayers and conversations, that we fondly title the All-encompassing One as if it were the One of the male gender, it is not only the fault of habit - well rooted in the dark ages when women were considered to lack soul and other spiritual qualifications - but also our immaturity. Accompanied by a burning longing, everyone will gradually come to the understanding that the Godhead contains all the female characteristics as well as all the male characteristics. The idea of the Deity as the great Creator, the One who rules over life and death, then turns out to have even deeper layers: the Deity as the Steward, the Carer, the caretaker of all the small everyday needs. The Deity is not only the One who steps about above our heads, gigantic and with the great happenings before His eyes, but also the One who we find in all "small" and "trivial", to the right of, to the left of, under, between and within U.S.
He who feels compelled to inform those around him of his imperfection, may experience himself in such a way that he may fear they have found reason to believe otherwise.
Thoughts are so easily expressed. It is therefore wise to first taste the truth content of the words and the love content of the action itself. Two dangers that lurk: First, that one says things, regardless of whether they are both true and correct, that no one wants to hear, let alone asked one to say; partly that what one says lacks anchoring in what is true and right, regardless of who asked one for advice. Doubly bad if both unwanted and untrue. To be blinded by one's own wisdom is highly unwise. One easily overestimates one's importance - as well as one's actual capacity - and then thinks one has both the right and the obligation to inform others, also about things one really has no idea about. The lover of the truth watches carefully for this.
90
Has the animal asked to be trained? Has the plant asked us for a pot? No, that's why we only have obligations, no rights.
The development in which the applicant is involved can be described from several points of view as a liberation. She must dissolve her ties to the world, become more free-spirited and airy in mind, creative and mobile. Certainly she will also reach and realize these states of longing. But from another point of view, she must also make herself dependent, dependent on and extremely sensitive to and faithful to the larger context of which she is a part. Yes, in a way, her experience of freedom can be described as that, that she desires and sees herself as inextricably dependent on everything and everyone around her (and perhaps on more life planes than she may be aware of at the moment). In the face of this all-encompassing and all-pervading, she must develop a trembling sensitivity.
Who seeks fame and the reverence of those around them, their admiration? Answer: Who needs it, and who doesn't? When someone achieves fame - and those who long for it always do, over time - we often see a sense of pride emerge. It may take the expression that suddenly the individual is no longer looking for those around them. Because they are looking for her. Perhaps she now openly shows them her contempt, criticizes and dictates demandingly. It follows from these haughty actions that she "falls", sooner or later, and to believe that you can fend off the approaches and praises of those around you is not the same as actually being able to do so. When the banging on the front door has finally stopped - as you said you wanted - you might still go ahead and open it, to see if there aren't at least a handful of admirers left, at least a few who could sing a song of praise.
It is animalistic to unhesitatingly take from others to satisfy one's own needs, and what is truly human is something of the reverse. But the animal takes what it desires and is content with it; inflicting suffering on others is not in itself desirable.
The truly cruel people are not those who do not desire love, but those who want but cannot, those who are hungry but not satisfied.
95
What arouses a Jew persecutor H, is not an excess of what makes the animal an animal, but the dawning human in conflict-filled union with the former. There are several examples that the dreaded torturer in other contexts, in other areas, can be deeply compassionate. It may seem strange and sick - as if it were only a mockery - but for animals she or he not infrequently harbors a tenderness that far surpasses that of ordinary humans.
We all want to be seen - well, except for the thief, maybe - and seen for our own sake. We desire from others and from each other, that which is more than two whites of eyes directed at us and a mouth that bares its teeth. We don't want the self-fulfilling look, the one that is turned towards us only to make room for its own outbursts when we are silent, but also not the anxious look, that looks at us just so that we don't get tired of being together and go somewhere else.
"Me and my soul" becomes over time, when the experience has matured, more like "me and my body".
The larger context is wordless, and in relation to that, no combination of letters is truer or better than any other. The degree of appropriateness must always be seen in relation to the limited context or conceptual system in which the word is to be included, the mutual harmony of the concepts.
Placing the Master in the middle of the room is not necessarily putting Him in the center. To reproduce the Master's words is not necessarily to reproduce His thoughts.
100
When we hear from others or say ourselves that what we experience happens to us that way, because it is something that we ourselves have caused, then there is a misunderstanding that often arises. It is not so much a question of "right" or "wrong" words, but it has more to do with the understanding itself. This, which is often compared to the farmer's sowing and harvesting, is not an "external" event, disconnected from us, but to the highest degree and in every respect an "inner" event. It is the consciousness with its habitual thoughts and action patterns, which is to be compared to the field soil from which the harvest rises. Our thought life is like a garden and in it the fruits ripen and are harvested, the bitter as well as the sweet and tasty. Everyday life can then be better compared to a square market, with cheerful and lush buzz, and people looking for each other, we offer abundance and we want to satisfy our hunger. Thought is freed here from all sterile desolation, a misunderstanding, for we travel through history and always find the insightful with smiling faces.
It is painfully touched that tempts the patience of others, but compared to not being touched at all it seems to be preferable.
Only the simple mind, finds simple people to consider. Only the narrow-minded see the world - through the dim lens of coarseness - like to despise.
The unskillfulness of playing on other people's easily irritated and weak strings, to hear the dissonance scratching at the wallpaper. What poor pleasure!
Anyone who wants to understand "a flower" will find such in the meadow. Anyone who wants to understand "a bear" looks for him in his den. but what does the person who wants to understand "a human being" do? She travels under the skin.
105
Anyone who has read a book may think they have understood its message, but have not. Those who have not yet read the book may think they do not understand, but may in fact be the one who understands.
A growing sincerity puts the unfinished sides of consciousness into the open, and it is not always so easy to look at these discoveries with accepting and sober eyes. The hitherto repressed and stubbornly overlooked meets the light and swells to unreasonable proportions. The discoverer's confessions to those around hurt or frighten, perhaps, arouse displeasure for (or admiration despite) his one-sidedness.
The disdainful statements that the individual makes about others and others' peculiarities are often an excellent guide to her own personality.
In a stressful relationship, we are often inclined to see our own actions as merely a reaction to what the other does, to what the other is. We see that our own behavior leaves much to be desired, but by placing the ultimate cause of all the unpleasantness in the other, we can legitimize our rudeness, irritation, etc.
With a greater knowledge comes a greater responsibility, but not one imposed and regulated by others, but a self-experienced and, to a greater or lesser degree, complied with such.
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Speculation about what may or may not happen belongs to the future, of which we have not yet received any promise - and when we consider what has already happened, we are dealing with an area of existence that we do not have the slightest possibility of change: we cannot add anything to what has already happened, nor free from anything. The only thing that can be added to the past, in addition to what has already happened, is what is currently happening. If we dwell in the world of the past, we run the risk of neglecting in the meantime such choices and opportunities as are offered to us in the "present," and whose consequences will be happiest if given our full attention. Perhaps these actions of the present, which are carried out when we remain with a part of our attention in the past, will become things that we look back on in the future with sadness and regret - while in the meantime we pass a few more vigilance-demanding moments with half-closed eyes...
All that becomes joy in the long run, which you were happy about in the moment, but then forgot or lost. After all, it rests in what is, and this living space has no treacherous holes or cracks, because it completely lacks walls on which these could appear.
He is the Physician of the wounded (because He is the Healing). He is the Guide of the lost, because He is the Goal (also the Way, the Ways). He is the Master of the seeker, the first and the last, because He is the Light of all those whose minds have been enlightened. He is the Shipwrecked Sailmaker, because He is the Sea, the Storm and the Coast, as well as the Harbor and Rest of all aspirations. Even the one who seeks away from unity finds in him what is sought: oneness. He is all about which knowledge can be possessed. Wordlessness is reserved for His being, just as everything spoken and written is dedicated to Him.
- From the book "Not in a day" (1987) Copyright: Stefan Hellsten