6 Simplicity
Until you see your own complexity you will see no need for simplicity.
Life is complex and confusing when you are committed to a multitude of things, is it not?
When you see that the only things that matter are love and truth, you will simplify your life.
Love is simple, truth is simple – but we, we are so very complicated, are we not?
Understanding is the prerequisite for coming to a state of simplicity.
Simplicity is the falling away of the desire for more.
More things, more knowledge, more experience – whatever it is, the self always wants more.
He who desires most is the most poor however rich he maybe; he who desires little is the most rich however poor he may be.
What you want is irrelevant because the wanting mind itself is a mind in conflict.
Sometime the self seeks its riches in a display of outward poverty, but that is desire also.
Those who are never satisfied, are they not already dead in their poverty?
Asceticism follows a pattern, simplicity is just itself.
Asceticism is desire at work in the realm of spirituality.
You cannot become simple, you are simple when you stop becoming.
Spirituality has been turned into a process of accumulation, but true spirituality starts with de-accumulation.
Do you think it is spirituality because the goods you acquire are intangible?
Life naturally tends towards accumulation, to maintain simplicity is arduous.
Introduce one complication, and invariably five more come along too – and they have progeny too.
Complexity becomes ever more complex, while simplicity becomes ever more simple.
The easiest place to put a stop to proliferation is at the beginning.
To remain simple one must be constantly aware of the process of accumulation and of its cure: which is to let go of what is past and no longer needed.
When you possess nothing then everything is a joy.
To hold to nothing means that life can be.
Simplicity is the sure foundation for recollection and without recollection there can be no understanding.
To hope to be able to understand when you are not present to the moment is the wisdom of a fool.
If you simplify the outer life that will certainly help to simplify your inner life, and that inner simplicity is called recollection.
Recollection is nothing more than being here and now.
To be recollected you must bring yourself into a state of unity.
To be recollected means only this – that you have stopped creating disorder.
Busyness in any form precludes the possibility of recollection.
If you are busy inwardly you will be busy outwardly; and if you are at peace inwardly you will be at peace outwardly.
Busyness is the occupation of the self with the superficial.
Busyness destroys sensitivity, silence restores it.
An insensitive mind can neither see deeply nor clearly.
When you are busy, you are busy with yourself, are you not? Which means you will be insensitive to others.
An insensitive mind is only occupied with the most gross things.
The more sensitivity there is, the more interest, and therefore the more understanding.
There cannot be depth when you have no time.
When you realise you must be somewhere then you know that here is as good as there.