1 These Things I Have Seen
Understanding brings dispassion,
Spirituality follows laws different from those of economics:
the less you have, the more you can give;
the more you give, the richer you become;
the smaller you are, the greater you are;
when you have emptied yourself, then will you be full.
The heart of spirituality is the birth of love into the world.
Spirituality is nothing more than freeing the heart so that love can find a place in your life.
A heart chained to itself an its pleasures will never know what love is.
Love, of course, cannot be practiced it is the natural outcome of a heart that is unbound.
Love is at the heart of all true spirituality:
the love of truth will free you from the false;
love of the other will free you from self-love;
if you love life you will be free from the fear of death.
Spirituality is not about self-protection, but about self-deliverance.
Self protection is born out of fear, self deliverance is the child of understanding.
In any case being delivered from self is the only abiding protection.
To be expressed truth must be embodied.
The spiritual life is not so much about what you say or think, as about the way you live.
we are not so important, are we? and yet it is through us that love and truth can manifest in the world.
What could you possibly do to earn life?
Who would buy what is given for free?
and if there was a price, do you think you could afford it?
Because we do not see life for what it is, we are always seeking for something more.
Life has no meaning beyond itself, but who you understand you know that is enough.
We seek for more only when we find life itself unsatisfactory.
It is the self that is the creator of dissatisfaction, and the understanding of self is the ending of it.
To be open to life you must let go of all the things that serve to deaden it.
letting go of what has died you come alive.
to carry the dead weight of the past into the present is a heavy burden, isn’t it?
What deadens our response to life most of all is not seeing the newness of life as it unfolds.
To find out how to be truly alive, you must learn the art dying.
Suffering dulls the mind and is the result of not being able to let go when the time comes.
Dying to what is no longer is simply the acceptance of reality – which is itself consequent upon the seeing of reality.
If you possess anything, material or psychological, you must struggle to defend it.
Possession and conflict are born in the same mind at the same time.
What you are attempting to defend is indefensible anyway so why take so much trouble?
The only way to abide in this world without this endless struggle is to possess nothing.
To see your radical poverty is to see the truth.
It is because you are poor that you feel the need to cover yourself with so much falsehood.
Only when you accept your poverty will you be truly rich.
Poverty doesn’t need to be sought out, you do not need to become poor, you have only to recognise its inherent existence.
There are three types in any spirituality:
and those who know themselves.
To look deeply into the nature of reality is to show respect both to yourself and to life.
To live superficially is to despise yourself.
To look for yourself rather than to rely on authority is to acknowledge your own worthiness.
We only give time to those things we consider important – so is life important to you?
Authority must give place to respect.
Authority is the imposition of order by violence.
To re-spect something is to deem it worthy of a second look.
Respect brings about order, and is the natural outcome of understanding.
There should be no fear of self-enquiry.
If what you believe is true, why do you fear to question it?
You cannot he free if you fear to look at the things that bind you.
Being free to enquire is not a form of scepticism, for it is based on faith.
Everybody is looking for answers, but can you learn to ask the right questions first?
If the question is wrong, how can the answer be right?
A right question is one that calls forth greater self-understanding.
If you ask the right question you will be able to find the right answer for yourself.