SERENITY “Are there ways for gauging one’s spiritual strength?” “Many.” “Give us one.” “Find out how often you become disturbed in the course of a single day.
So spend some time seeing each of the things you cling to for what it really is, a nightmare that causes you excitement and pleasure on the one hand but also worry, insecurity, tension, anxiety, fear, unhappiness on the other.
Your life as it is now: nightmare. Every single thing you cling to and have convinced yourself you cannot be happy without: nightmare.
All revelations, however divine, are never any more than a finger pointing to the moon. As we say in the East, “When the sage points to the moon, all the idiot sees is the finger.
Has it ever struck you that you have been programmed by society to be unhappy, and so, no matter what you do to become happy, you are bound to fail? Most people are so brainwashed that they do not even realize how unhappy they are. It’s only when they make contact with joy that they understand how depressed they have been.
Most people don’t live aware lives. They live mechanical lives, mechanical thoughts – generally somebody else’s – mechanical emotions, mechanical actions, mechanical reactions. As you begin to understand this, you stop making demands on yourself, you stop having expectations of yourself, you stop pushing yourself, and you begin to understand yourself.
The moment you choose to become like someone else however great or holy, you have prostituted your being.
For in the death of the ego is freedom, peace, serenity, joy.
The moment you say so-and-so is wise or is cruel or defensive or loving or whatever, you have hardened your perception and become prejudiced and ceased to perceive this person moment by moment, somewhat like a pilot who operates today with last week’s weather report.
Take a look at the society we live in. It is rotten to the core, infected with attachments. What is an attachment? An attachment is an emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy.
When your illusions clash with reality, when your falsehoods clash with truth, then you have suffering. Otherwise there is no suffering.
If you aren’t consciously aware, you’re vulnerable to either being brainwashed or being influenced by forces within you that you have no awareness of at all.
To acquire happiness you don’t have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired. Does anybody know why? Because we have it already.
An attachment, by its very nature, makes you vulnerable to emotional turmoil and is always threatening to shatter your peace.
To come to the land of love, you must pass through the pains of death, for to love persons means to die to the need for persons and to be utterly alone.
An attachment is not a fact. It is a belief, a fantasy, in your head, acquired through programming. If that fantasy did not exist inside your head, you would not be attached. You would love things and people, and you would enjoy them thoroughly, but on a nonattachment basis. As a matter of fact, is there any other way to really enjoy something?
You falsely think that your fears protect you, your beliefs have made you what you are and your attachments make your life exciting and secure. You fail to see that they are actually a screen between you and life’s symphony.
Is it possible for the rose to say, “I will give my fragrance to the good people who smell me, but I will withhold it from the bad”? Or is it possible for the lamp to say, “I will give my light to the good people in this room, but I will withhold it from the evil people”? Or can a tree say, “I’ll give my shade to the good people who rest under me, but I will withhold it from the bad”? These are images of what love is about.
But are you listening for what will confirm what you already think? Or are you listening in order to discover something new?
It is something that I discovered, a kind of symphony, a kind of orchestra that plays one melody in your presence, but when you depart, the orchestra doesn’t stop. When I meet someone else, it plays another melody, which is also very delightful. And when I’m alone, it continues to play. There’s a great repertoire, and it never ceases to play. That’s what awakening is all about.
You will never live until you stop clinging to life. Let go. When you cling, happiness dies. If your happiness depends on anyone or anything, that’s not happiness.