Rediscovering Life: Awaken to Reality

“Monks and scholars must accept my words not out of respect, but must analyze them, the way a goldsmith analyzes gold: by cutting, scraping, rubbing, melting.”

You can’t acquire happiness. You know why? Because you have it. You’ve got it right now. But the whole time you’re blocking it with your stupidity. You’re blocking it. Stop blocking it and you’ll have it.

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.

So, no one joins in the human enterprise of human dreams and visions and goals so marvelously and so creatively as the person who is unattached. Unfortunately, we’ve come to associate nonattachment with not caring, with not enjoying, with asceticism. No, I’m not talking about that at all. You’ll see this as we go on.

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 formula’s here; you’ve got it right here. It can be found in Philippians: “For whatever the situation I find myself in, I have learned to be self-sufficient. I am experienced in being brought low, and I have known what it meant to have abundance. I have learned how to cope with every circumstance: how to eat well or to go hungry; to be well pro

So, the first thing: Admit that your life is in a mess. And, second—this is a bit tougher, okay? You ready? Here it is: You don’t want to get out of it. You do not want to get out of the mess. Talk to any psychologist who’s worth his name and he’ll confirm that. The last thing a client wants is a cure. He doesn’t want to get cured, he wants relief.

The world is full of sorrow. The root of sorrow is attachment. The uprooting of sorrow means the uprooting, the dropping of attachments.

My God, how childish can people get? And they don’t know their childishness. They’ve got to blame somebody. But, no. Maturity is understanding that no one is to blame. Or better still, and more accurately put, maturity is not giving yourself the childish emotional outlet of blaming others or yourself but, rather, seeing what went wrong and setting

“For peace of heart, resign as general manager of the universe.” I’m not the general manager; I do what I can. I plunge in, and the result is left to God, to life, to destiny.