Rediscovering Life: Awaken to Reality

“Don’t teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and irritates the pig.”

The biggest enemy of love is attachments. Desire, in the sense of attachment. You know why? Because if I desire you, I want to possess you. I can’t leave you free. I’ve got to get you. I’ve got to manipulate you so that I can get you, if I desire you in this way. I’m going to manipulate myself, so that I can hoodwink you into allowing me to get you

Nothing in this entire world has the power to upset you. Nothing. As a matter of fact, nothing has ever upset you. Nobody has ever hurt you. You stupidly hurt yourself.

So, what I’m offering you is not a withdrawal from enjoyment; it’s a withdrawal from possessiveness, from anxiety, from tension, from depression at the loss of something.

Your life is in a mess because you have wrong ideas. It’s not because there’s anything wrong with you. You’re okay, and I’m okay. You’re okay, we’re all okay. We’re great. There’s nothing wrong with us. But, they put wrong ideas into our heads. Somebody did. We needn’t spend too much time trying to catch the culprit. But anyway, you have wrong idea

You’ve got the clouds and you’ve got the sky. Many of the Oriental masters will say that enlightenment, before they saw, meant they would identify themselves with the clouds. After enlightenment, they would identify themselves with the sky.

So, second major step: Recognize that you don’t want to get out of it. You want comfort. You want your little possessions. You want the little things that society has falsely taught you are essential for happiness. You want that. You don’t want to get out of the mess. Those are the things that are creating the mess.

The world is full of sorrow. The root of sorrow is desire. The uprooting of sorrow is desirelessness.

Where do you think all conflicts come from? Attachments. Where do you think greed comes from? Attachments. Where do you think loneliness comes from? Attachments. Where do you think emptiness comes from? You got it, same cause. Where do you think fears come from? Attachments. No attachment, no fear. Ever thought of that? No attachment, no fear.

When misery caused by attachment is dropped, happiness is attained.