Obscure Journal: 1

One. We rarely get the chance to understand how much of the world we see is dream and how much is reality. The ideas we form—or believe we form—about ourselves and the world around us are often mistaken and contrary to the true state of things. Perhaps we spend our entire lives drifting through a dream-like trance, which we mistake for reality and find ourselves quite content with, or at least pretend to be content with. Nothing really changes in the world; we ourselves change, sometimes our mindset or desires shift. Everything we need to move forward or fall back lies right before our eyes, only a heavy gray veil keeps it all concealed. Instead of caring for what we already possess within ourselves, we keep searching for something, endlessly searching. We must awaken, we must awaken—but what does this actually mean? We are currently in some state that displeases us, that we genuinely wish to escape. If we don’t want what lies before us, what keeps us awake, then we must put that very thing to sleep, or hide it from our sight. We don’t necessarily have to wake up; rather, if we can simply move away from our eyes what we don’t want to live with, then those powers within us that we desperately need at that moment will awaken on their own. Suppose you have to attend a function tomorrow. You want to wear your most expensive shirt to that event. You have two expensive shirts and five cheap ones. If you can’t keep those five cheap shirts out of your sight, then who knows—perhaps just before leaving for the function, your subconscious mind will make you put on a cheap shirt and walk out! Just as garbage blocks the road, unnecessary thoughts or attitudes block the path to right thinking. If the garbage isn’t cleared, you might start believing that the garbage itself is the road. Similarly, if the old clutter of the present isn’t cleared from the mind, the mind will believe that living in that clutter is what life means. One day when the death of the soul comes knocking at the door of conscience, that day we laugh at our own foolishness and think, what a painful delivery room I mistook for a palace of happiness and spent all these days! This often happens—I don’t like my life as it is; I don’t like anything about the person I’m with; I don’t like the work I’m doing; I don’t like the city where I live; I don’t like the food I eat to survive. What do I do then? Life exists somewhere else, in some other place—living in dreams of that imaginary kingdom, I move half-alive, gradually toward death. And if I die while doing this, then nothing remains. Then this whole time I was alive becomes meaningless. After arriving in this world, enchanted by dreams of another life, we count our days and one day simply die. This is how we go on pretending to live while searching for another life. Neither reality nor dream falls to our lot. Actually, sometimes it’s better to somehow survive in harsh reality than to live and die in suffering through soft dreams.

If someone lives dreaming of pilaf and korma while dismissing simple rice and greens as beneath them, yet never again tastes pilaf or korma in their lifetime, what meaning is there in living such a false dream? The moment we are awake, looking at us, one would think we have fallen asleep. When we do fall asleep, our faces clearly bear the expression of wakefulness. How much longer must we walk this path of disguised living? The revelry that eyes and lips indulge in together—the mind never truly knew the essence of that revelry. Must we accept this too as living? Until the consciousness within us awakens, all our intelligence and practical wisdom combined cannot truly awaken us.

Two. Our days pass amid endless tasks, anxieties, and fears. When time is scarce and work boundless, we must sacrifice some sleep to keep going. If we fall asleep, the mountain of work will only grow higher. Before drifting off, we sleep with this hope—that upon waking, we’ll find by some magic all our tasks have vanished! But does that ever happen? Giving all this the finger, suppose you fall asleep one day. Then in dreams you journey to heaven. From that celestial Amaravati you take a wondrous flower in your hand and think, “Yes, this is exactly the beautiful flower I was longing for.” You wake up. You realize everything you saw was an illusion. In an instant you’ve returned from heaven to earth. But was it all deception? No, no—that heavenly flower remains right there in your hand. Then you begin to see another dream. What if the dream-flower is lost? What if you become empty-handed again? The dream-journey begins—how to keep this flower with you for life. The struggle to remake yourself through another waking dream, to save the flower found in one night’s sleep. The flower constantly reminds you: “The Amaravati you visited in sleep might have been false, but this miraculous dream-flower is not false. To wander joyfully in that flower garden, you must change life’s path and lead it to Amaravati’s road. If you truly wish to reach the heaven seen in sleep, you cannot get there by sleeping. The beauty of sleep must be sought sleeplessly.” In life, it’s not enough to keep moving relentlessly; sometimes we must stop. “Whatever is in my fate, whatever will be, will be—let me rest a little and see what happens!”—such thoughts shouldn’t be dismissed entirely. Sometimes the most beautiful thought comes precisely when we keep nothing in our minds. A burdened head cannot bear the weight of dreams. When we can make our minds completely carefree, fearless, and unburdened, the most beautiful dream somehow gets woven into the most secret chamber of our mysterious brain. Later, through the continuous work of paying this dream’s debt, we eventually encounter the dream itself. If we only keep moving, keep going, never stopping, then obstinate life hides our mistakes behind exhaustion’s veil. To recognize our mistakes, to correct them, we must pause on life’s journey, rest awhile in the cool shade of the dream-garden. To strengthen faith in ourselves and throw down challenges to our own capabilities, we must know when to stop. We know how to begin but don’t know how to stop at the right place—that’s why we lose. We want to bring the whole world under our control, yet remain ourselves beyond control. If, intoxicated by dreams of victory, we keep moving without setting the right path to touch our dreams, we might enjoy the dream-journey, but we’ll never touch the dream itself. If we cannot tend with life’s inexhaustible river-water the sacred rose bush we’ve planted in our hearts, then why should its fragrance intoxicate the world around us?

Three. When do we become acceptable to ourselves? When do we learn to walk relying on our own intellect and strength? When does our self-respect intensify to the point where we can take on even the most rigorous responsibilities with a smile? Such blessed days come to life only when nothing anyone says in this world can affect us anymore. The day we can move forward with sufficient reason, capability, and courage, disregarding others’ opinions—that is our day of voluntary freedom, our day of glory. The day we can live according to our dreams without depending on anyone even slightly—that is the day we can walk with our heads held high. By what path do we reach that day? Some paths are visible to the eye, others can only be felt. Whether the path is external or internal, the destination remains the same. Happiness, peace, and contentment—there is nothing greater than these three in this world. Sometimes these three are even greater than love itself. Whether it be material prosperity or spiritual wealth, gaining mastery over these three supreme treasures through either is life’s primary pursuit. This world is a madhouse; there is no greater falsehood than accepting everything we see here as truth. Can the postman from whom I open the door to receive my letter ever know where my real address is? The address where my letter arrives actually belongs to someone else. How much do I myself know about this confused affair? When everyone looks at us and weeps after our death, does it ever occur to anyone that the one they’re all crying for hasn’t actually died? What they’re looking at is nothing but a lump of flesh. After death, what value does the body hold for anyone except medical students? After death, no one calls us by name anymore; the dead have one universally accepted name: corpse. Every human being is essentially nothing but an immortal, indestructible soul. After death, a shroud of dust becomes the covering for the entire body. The dead body is like an oyster shell, and the soul is the pearl that eventually emerges from the shell. As long as the pearl remains inside, the oyster has value. An oyster without a pearl finds no place around anyone’s neck; it lies underfoot in utter neglect and oblivion. The body is like a prison where we live, passing our days during the time of being alive. What value remains in the cage once the bird has flown away? A bird’s life finds fulfillment not in captivity but in freedom. The more enchantment a bird spreads, the more people cry looking at its empty cage after it has flown away. This depth of attachment increases or decreases through constant actions and deeds. My house will crumble. My cage will merge with dust. This body of mine is nothing but a token. How transient this body is—it cannot be held onto. Only memory remains to make us weep. In this world, whatever is meant to happen ultimately happens. Amid all this lies our skillful performance of living. All our pride, all our grandeur, all our external possessions—everything will merge with the earth. Our creations, our good deeds will remain. Our consciousness will spread among others for ages upon ages. We will depart just like this; those who remain, we will wait for them on the other shore—this is the way of the world.

Death is not merely death, but a summons to another life. A death that spreads no consciousness is meaningless. What is death? A long sleep? The kind of sleep that keeps all awareness numb and senseless for eternity? How thick is the wall between sleep and waking? Is the distance between the living and the dead greater than the thickness of that wall? Everything we claim exists in this world—is it not all part of one vast non-existence? This fierce presence of a mother’s love for her child—does it end with the mother’s death? When another love grows larger than the mother’s love in the child’s life at some stage of living, does the mother’s love still endure as before? When that child bears a child of their own, does the mother’s love not fade, even a little? My mother’s mother died on one of my younger brother’s birthdays. The memory of her own mother may haunt my mother for life, yet on my brother’s birthday, my mother does not observe her mother’s death anniversary—rather, she prays to God for her child’s well-being, cuts birthday cake with others, smiling. Which appeal grows larger in my mother’s life that day? The pain of her mother’s death anniversary? Or the joy of her child’s birthday? Creation stands utterly helpless before this game of the Creator.

Four. Whatever relationships or interactions we claim to perceive among objects in any given place, or among the various events occurring at any given time, are fundamentally influenced—sometimes even created—by our own thoughts and preconceptions. This claim may or may not correspond to the actual relationships among those objects or events. When clouds gather and the sky darkens, some see omens of misfortune while others see the promise of harvest. When we think about something or engage in any action, we consciously construct within ourselves a conception of that object or activity. When we discover that nearly everything we have pondered for so long is wrong, we regain our senses and begin to think about everything in an entirely different way. For as long as we live, we pass our time through various dreams in various states. While living within any particular dream, we accept it as reality. It never occurs to us that our current dream is merely pointing the way to the next dream, nothing more. Reality can be perceived before our eyes through the continuous questioning of dreams. The question of whether what we consider good or bad for our well-being is truly as good or as bad as we believe rarely occurs to ordinary people. Those for whom it does occur gain a sense of the next dream while still living in the present one, and they try at that very moment to contemplate and understand what the subsequent dream might be like. We live in dreams of peace, arranging our lives according to patterns of personal happiness and self-interest. How many possess either the foresight or simply the will to consider what others might be thinking, or whether today’s dream might summon tomorrow’s nightmare? This world itself is a dream—those who make genuine effort can touch this dream. The world is a paradise; only those who can truly love themselves can feel the existence of this paradise. This world is a long journey; only those who can prepare themselves for this journey can enjoy the pleasure of walking the path. The world is a difficult examination—victory in this test is reserved only for the finest. The world is fleeting; only the wise understand this and live accordingly. The greatest condition for living in this world is learning to walk through it by renouncing. How can one carry such burdens in body and mind? Only true warriors can walk in such a discipline of sacrifice. This world is a terrible illusion; only the desireless can truly live here. The greatest foundation for living beautifully in this world is humanity. Those whose hearts lack compassion can never live under the secure shelter of this foundation. The sweetest lie of this world is the world itself; only those who discover the beauty within themselves learn to separately embrace truth amid the crowd of falsehoods.

Five. One who does not love oneself can never love another. One who has no self-respect can never respect another. Not all dust and ash is worthless, just as those who do not catch our eye separately, those who are countless and ordinary in the crowd of people completely blended into the street—they are not all useless and relegated to the list of the discarded. To walk the true and rightful path of love in this world, what is first needed is this: just as dust and ash scatter themselves completely and lie scattered on the road, in the same way, to sacrifice all ego and prepare oneself to receive and spread love. If, in the brief time we exist in this world, we can purify our inner selves and bind ourselves in such a web of dreams whose joy is not merely momentary, then we will find the right path. A child truly believes the nightmares it sees in sleep to be real. Is it possible for any of us to enter its nightmare and add beautiful elements to transform the nightmare into a pleasant dream? At most, what we can do is this: very carefully and gently wake the child and free it from the grip of the nightmare. The Creator does the same work with us. The conscience within us, which inspires us toward good deeds and awakens remorse when we do wrong—that is our God. Conscience works constantly to awaken us to the true righteous path. Those who follow the verdict of conscience cannot be led astray by anything in this world to any great extent. Spend a long time thinking deeply about something. Then you will see how that very thing or thought has somehow returned in your dreams! If you accept what conscience tells you to do and spend time keeping that in mind, you will find it becomes much harder to do anything harmful to yourself or others. The dream called life in which we live—awakening from that dream means death. After this awakening, we understand that everything we had clung to and been absorbed in, thinking it to be a dream, had very little value. If we could return to the world after death, we would be amazed to see that to those who remain alive after our death, both our existence and non-existence create the same atmosphere or appeal. Our wealth, relationships, friendships, honor—all the dreams we live by—what is the true value of these things that keeps us alive in everyone’s memory even after our death? What achievements or works do we have that would cause our absence to pain people or make them feel emptiness? Rather than living in a dream where the pattern of our love and all our externalities are essentially portraits of hypocrisy and deception, peaceful sleep is better. Sometimes the most and the most beautiful things can be done by doing nothing at all. Sleep is nothing but momentary death, and death is such a sleep that never breaks. On the day we fall asleep forever, before that sleep we need such a sleep that will render all our present existence meaningless, that will return us to the void from which our current position at this distance of having crossed the void, that will keep us enchanted in that new dream in which one can live and embrace death with a smiling face.

For ordinary people, days are like life, and nights are like death. For extraordinary people, days are like life, and nights are… like the Great Life! For everyone, the world spins in exactly the same way, the alternation of day and night follows the same rhythm. It is the different ways of living in that same world and seeing life that keep each person alive in their own unique way of being.

Six. Not all that is beautiful may always be good, but all that is good is always beautiful. There exists beauty so irresistibly alluring that avoiding its attraction becomes extraordinarily difficult, yet approaching it ensures certain death. Thus, the degree of beauty we attribute to things depends upon how truly good they are. Those who appear outwardly beautiful but lack goodness as human beings, who cause harm at every opportunity and live with hearts full of deceit, do not long remain beautiful in our eyes and hearts. We neither offer the most beautiful yet poisonous flower to the deity of life, nor do we keep it adorning our own vase. We shall behold beauty, touch it, remain immersed in something beautiful for endless moments, carry it in our hearts—but let not that beautiful thing possess us instead. Let beautiful things become our treasure, and let us become the treasure of good things. Let all that is good hold us in the pure bonds of love. When something beautiful once binds us in love’s embrace, even its ugly aspects no longer repel us. Whatever once binds us in love’s bond, regardless of what it may be, appears beautiful to our eyes; even its ugliness no longer seems ugly, and when that ugliness becomes starkly visible, we learn to console ourselves: “It’s a mistake in my perception!” Herein lies humanity’s greatest defeat. The two greatest powers in this world are: the vigor of youth and the beauty of women. When these two forces are not employed in the right way, at the right time, in the right hands, even great catastrophes can befall the world. While the world lacks beautiful hearts, it does not lack beautiful forms to the same degree. Beautiful faces move through life with deceit and dishonesty, living with dirty souls yet harboring desires for heaven. But refuse never reaches heaven. Alas, who has ever heeded this truth? You will rarely find true love in this world, and if you trust love submerged in an ocean of self-interest or ulterior motives to be pure, you will be deceived. The conflict between external beauty and the contradiction between beautiful and ugly makes the world unbearable. When we love someone or something, sometimes while dwelling in that very love, we feel love toward someone or something else. This happens even in the most sincere and devoted love. Why does this occur? Why do two entities move us in the same way? Why do different expressions of love stir us with the same emotion? Does love truly have any color? If not, why does love present itself before us in thousands of hues? What is the way to freedom from this eternal helplessness? Is there any liberation at all? Well, what need is there for liberation anyway? When two entities awaken the heart with pure emotion and innocent love, what harm comes to the world? Rather, with the awakening of true love, pettiness departs from the human heart. The invocation of the greater brings only good. If one chooses the longest path among many on love’s road, death comes knocking at the heart’s door before love arrives. Is not such death more beneficial than keeping the heart locked away? It is better to swim little by little in love’s vast ocean. If one drains the chalice of love’s nectar in a single gulp, all of love’s appeal is bound to vanish in that gulp. When something becomes too abundantly available, its importance diminishes. When received little by little, the significance of each particle can be understood.

One who can glimpse the ocean of feeling in even a particle of love—that is the true lover.

Seven. Around us move so many talented people, their bags brimming with countless achievements. They inspire reverence in our hearts, yet none of them can truly find a place within us. We see so many beautiful faces that remain only in our eyes—their journey never quite reaches the heart. There are so many wealthy people who, despite all their overflowing riches, cannot even approach the vicinity of our hearts. And yet, some entirely ordinary people, without means or resources, scatter the wealth of their hearts and remain within us forever. To live in this world, we need compassion, empathy, humanity, and fellow-feeling more than cleverness, knowledge, intelligence, or logic. People live well not through limitless displays of power, but through the touch of love. On life’s stage, the power of forgiveness far exceeds that of victory. The inability to forgive causes far more suffering and discomfort to the one who punishes than it does to the punished. When we must forgive someone who seeks no forgiveness, whose own power far exceeds our power to forgive, yet whom we cannot leave unforgiven without becoming guilty of an unforgivable crime ourselves—then we truly understand how brilliant is the radiance of forgiveness! Those whose inner selves are beautiful, at whose faces we can gaze and watch a thousand stories unfold in our minds, from whose eyes fall tears of tenderness, whose luminous personalities spread light, whose work makes others happy—they are good people. Such good people are truly beautiful human beings. Even while bearing all the world’s cruelty, such people preserve their own beauty. When someone sees the entire world working against them, when the triumph of ugliness repeatedly tramples humanity underfoot, when they are exhausted and battered by ceaseless blows, when the meaning of living becomes an embrace of death—if even then they do not stray from the path of truth and beauty, only then are they truly beautiful people. Beauty is a difficult test; not everyone can pass it. Just as the sun never tells the moon, “That light of yours is actually mine,” so too does a truly beautiful person never boast about spreading their own wealth. When tremendous righteous pride comes to overwhelm someone, yet finds no expression, but instead the head bows in contemplation of how to conquer one’s various pettinesses and move further forward—such a test of humility is an exceedingly difficult test. What we can see with naked eyes, however much we can see, however far we can see—in that seeing there is nothing we truly need. What keeps us and everyone around us alive and well requires the heart to see, not the eyes. What we truly need, the eyes cannot see; instead, some unnecessary things come before our eyes and deceive both eye and mind, so that walking the right path becomes impossible—we never even find that path. Whatever our hearts make room for becomes precious to us. What value does a rose have if we do not spend our thoughts and time on it? There is no greater investment than thought and time. Therefore, we must take full responsibility for the beauty of that thought-rose of ours. Our spiritual death occurs before the death of the dreams we keep alive in our hearts. Before such death, may we be blessed with unencumbered immersion in the pure stream of truth and beauty.

One. We rarely get the chance to understand how much of the world we see is dream and how much is reality. The ideas we form—or believe we form—about ourselves and the world around us are often mistaken and contrary to the true state of things. Perhaps we spend our entire lives drifting through a dream-like trance, which we mistake for reality and find ourselves quite content with, or at least pretend to be content with. Nothing really changes in the world; we ourselves change, sometimes our mindset or desires shift. Everything we need to move forward or fall back lies right before our eyes, only a heavy gray veil keeps it all concealed. Instead of caring for what we already possess within ourselves, we keep searching for something, endlessly searching. We must awaken, we must awaken—but what does this actually mean? We are currently in some state that displeases us, that we genuinely wish to escape. If we don’t want what lies before us, what keeps us awake, then we must put that very thing to sleep, or hide it from our sight. We don’t necessarily have to wake up; rather, if we can simply move away from our eyes what we don’t want to live with, then those powers within us that we desperately need at that moment will awaken on their own. Suppose you have to attend a function tomorrow. You want to wear your most expensive shirt to that event. You have two expensive shirts and five cheap ones. If you can’t keep those five cheap shirts out of your sight, then who knows—perhaps just before leaving for the function, your subconscious mind will make you put on a cheap shirt and walk out! Just as garbage blocks the road, unnecessary thoughts or attitudes block the path to right thinking. If the garbage isn’t cleared, you might start believing that the garbage itself is the road. Similarly, if the old clutter of the present isn’t cleared from the mind, the mind will believe that living in that clutter is what life means. One day when the death of the soul comes knocking at the door of conscience, that day we laugh at our own foolishness and think, what a painful delivery room I mistook for a palace of happiness and spent all these days! This often happens—I don’t like my life as it is; I don’t like anything about the person I’m with; I don’t like the work I’m doing; I don’t like the city where I live; I don’t like the food I eat to survive. What do I do then? Life exists somewhere else, in some other place—living in dreams of that imaginary kingdom, I move half-alive, gradually toward death. And if I die while doing this, then nothing remains. Then this whole time I was alive becomes meaningless. After arriving in this world, enchanted by dreams of another life, we count our days and one day simply die. This is how we go on pretending to live while searching for another life. Neither reality nor dream falls to our lot. Actually, sometimes it’s better to somehow survive in harsh reality than to live and die in suffering through soft dreams.

If someone lives dreaming of pilaf and korma while dismissing simple rice and greens as beneath them, yet never again tastes pilaf or korma in their lifetime, what meaning is there in living such a false dream? The moment we are awake, looking at us, one would think we have fallen asleep. When we do fall asleep, our faces clearly bear the expression of wakefulness. How much longer must we walk this path of disguised living? The revelry that eyes and lips indulge in together—the mind never truly knew the essence of that revelry. Must we accept this too as living? Until the consciousness within us awakens, all our intelligence and practical wisdom combined cannot truly awaken us.

Two. Our days pass amid endless tasks, anxieties, and fears. When time is scarce and work boundless, we must sacrifice some sleep to keep going. If we fall asleep, the mountain of work will only grow higher. Before drifting off, we sleep with this hope—that upon waking, we’ll find by some magic all our tasks have vanished! But does that ever happen? Giving all this the finger, suppose you fall asleep one day. Then in dreams you journey to heaven. From that celestial Amaravati you take a wondrous flower in your hand and think, “Yes, this is exactly the beautiful flower I was longing for.” You wake up. You realize everything you saw was an illusion. In an instant you’ve returned from heaven to earth. But was it all deception? No, no—that heavenly flower remains right there in your hand. Then you begin to see another dream. What if the dream-flower is lost? What if you become empty-handed again? The dream-journey begins—how to keep this flower with you for life. The struggle to remake yourself through another waking dream, to save the flower found in one night’s sleep. The flower constantly reminds you: “The Amaravati you visited in sleep might have been false, but this miraculous dream-flower is not false. To wander joyfully in that flower garden, you must change life’s path and lead it to Amaravati’s road. If you truly wish to reach the heaven seen in sleep, you cannot get there by sleeping. The beauty of sleep must be sought sleeplessly.” In life, it’s not enough to keep moving relentlessly; sometimes we must stop. “Whatever is in my fate, whatever will be, will be—let me rest a little and see what happens!”—such thoughts shouldn’t be dismissed entirely. Sometimes the most beautiful thought comes precisely when we keep nothing in our minds. A burdened head cannot bear the weight of dreams. When we can make our minds completely carefree, fearless, and unburdened, the most beautiful dream somehow gets woven into the most secret chamber of our mysterious brain. Later, through the continuous work of paying this dream’s debt, we eventually encounter the dream itself. If we only keep moving, keep going, never stopping, then obstinate life hides our mistakes behind exhaustion’s veil. To recognize our mistakes, to correct them, we must pause on life’s journey, rest awhile in the cool shade of the dream-garden. To strengthen faith in ourselves and throw down challenges to our own capabilities, we must know when to stop. We know how to begin but don’t know how to stop at the right place—that’s why we lose. We want to bring the whole world under our control, yet remain ourselves beyond control. If, intoxicated by dreams of victory, we keep moving without setting the right path to touch our dreams, we might enjoy the dream-journey, but we’ll never touch the dream itself. If we cannot tend with life’s inexhaustible river-water the sacred rose bush we’ve planted in our hearts, then why should its fragrance intoxicate the world around us?

Three. When do we become acceptable to ourselves? When do we learn to walk relying on our own intellect and strength? When does our self-respect intensify to the point where we can take on even the most rigorous responsibilities with a smile? Such blessed days come to life only when nothing anyone says in this world can affect us anymore. The day we can move forward with sufficient reason, capability, and courage, disregarding others’ opinions—that is our day of voluntary freedom, our day of glory. The day we can live according to our dreams without depending on anyone even slightly—that is the day we can walk with our heads held high. By what path do we reach that day? Some paths are visible to the eye, others can only be felt. Whether the path is external or internal, the destination remains the same. Happiness, peace, and contentment—there is nothing greater than these three in this world. Sometimes these three are even greater than love itself. Whether it be material prosperity or spiritual wealth, gaining mastery over these three supreme treasures through either is life’s primary pursuit. This world is a madhouse; there is no greater falsehood than accepting everything we see here as truth. Can the postman from whom I open the door to receive my letter ever know where my real address is? The address where my letter arrives actually belongs to someone else. How much do I myself know about this confused affair? When everyone looks at us and weeps after our death, does it ever occur to anyone that the one they’re all crying for hasn’t actually died? What they’re looking at is nothing but a lump of flesh. After death, what value does the body hold for anyone except medical students? After death, no one calls us by name anymore; the dead have one universally accepted name: corpse. Every human being is essentially nothing but an immortal, indestructible soul. After death, a shroud of dust becomes the covering for the entire body. The dead body is like an oyster shell, and the soul is the pearl that eventually emerges from the shell. As long as the pearl remains inside, the oyster has value. An oyster without a pearl finds no place around anyone’s neck; it lies underfoot in utter neglect and oblivion. The body is like a prison where we live, passing our days during the time of being alive. What value remains in the cage once the bird has flown away? A bird’s life finds fulfillment not in captivity but in freedom. The more enchantment a bird spreads, the more people cry looking at its empty cage after it has flown away. This depth of attachment increases or decreases through constant actions and deeds. My house will crumble. My cage will merge with dust. This body of mine is nothing but a token. How transient this body is—it cannot be held onto. Only memory remains to make us weep. In this world, whatever is meant to happen ultimately happens. Amid all this lies our skillful performance of living. All our pride, all our grandeur, all our external possessions—everything will merge with the earth. Our creations, our good deeds will remain. Our consciousness will spread among others for ages upon ages. We will depart just like this; those who remain, we will wait for them on the other shore—this is the way of the world.

Death is not merely death, but a summons to another life. A death that spreads no consciousness is meaningless. What is death? A long sleep? The kind of sleep that keeps all awareness numb and senseless for eternity? How thick is the wall between sleep and waking? Is the distance between the living and the dead greater than the thickness of that wall? Everything we claim exists in this world—is it not all part of one vast non-existence? This fierce presence of a mother’s love for her child—does it end with the mother’s death? When another love grows larger than the mother’s love in the child’s life at some stage of living, does the mother’s love still endure as before? When that child bears a child of their own, does the mother’s love not fade, even a little? My mother’s mother died on one of my younger brother’s birthdays. The memory of her own mother may haunt my mother for life, yet on my brother’s birthday, my mother does not observe her mother’s death anniversary—rather, she prays to God for her child’s well-being, cuts birthday cake with others, smiling. Which appeal grows larger in my mother’s life that day? The pain of her mother’s death anniversary? Or the joy of her child’s birthday? Creation stands utterly helpless before this game of the Creator.

Four. Whatever relationships or interactions we claim to perceive among objects in any given place, or among the various events occurring at any given time, are fundamentally influenced—sometimes even created—by our own thoughts and preconceptions. This claim may or may not correspond to the actual relationships among those objects or events. When clouds gather and the sky darkens, some see omens of misfortune while others see the promise of harvest. When we think about something or engage in any action, we consciously construct within ourselves a conception of that object or activity. When we discover that nearly everything we have pondered for so long is wrong, we regain our senses and begin to think about everything in an entirely different way. For as long as we live, we pass our time through various dreams in various states. While living within any particular dream, we accept it as reality. It never occurs to us that our current dream is merely pointing the way to the next dream, nothing more. Reality can be perceived before our eyes through the continuous questioning of dreams. The question of whether what we consider good or bad for our well-being is truly as good or as bad as we believe rarely occurs to ordinary people. Those for whom it does occur gain a sense of the next dream while still living in the present one, and they try at that very moment to contemplate and understand what the subsequent dream might be like. We live in dreams of peace, arranging our lives according to patterns of personal happiness and self-interest. How many possess either the foresight or simply the will to consider what others might be thinking, or whether today’s dream might summon tomorrow’s nightmare? This world itself is a dream—those who make genuine effort can touch this dream. The world is a paradise; only those who can truly love themselves can feel the existence of this paradise. This world is a long journey; only those who can prepare themselves for this journey can enjoy the pleasure of walking the path. The world is a difficult examination—victory in this test is reserved only for the finest. The world is fleeting; only the wise understand this and live accordingly. The greatest condition for living in this world is learning to walk through it by renouncing. How can one carry such burdens in body and mind? Only true warriors can walk in such a discipline of sacrifice. This world is a terrible illusion; only the desireless can truly live here. The greatest foundation for living beautifully in this world is humanity. Those whose hearts lack compassion can never live under the secure shelter of this foundation. The sweetest lie of this world is the world itself; only those who discover the beauty within themselves learn to separately embrace truth amid the crowd of falsehoods.

Five. One who does not love oneself can never love another. One who has no self-respect can never respect another. Not all dust and ash is worthless, just as those who do not catch our eye separately, those who are countless and ordinary in the crowd of people completely blended into the street—they are not all useless and relegated to the list of the discarded. To walk the true and rightful path of love in this world, what is first needed is this: just as dust and ash scatter themselves completely and lie scattered on the road, in the same way, to sacrifice all ego and prepare oneself to receive and spread love. If, in the brief time we exist in this world, we can purify our inner selves and bind ourselves in such a web of dreams whose joy is not merely momentary, then we will find the right path. A child truly believes the nightmares it sees in sleep to be real. Is it possible for any of us to enter its nightmare and add beautiful elements to transform the nightmare into a pleasant dream? At most, what we can do is this: very carefully and gently wake the child and free it from the grip of the nightmare. The Creator does the same work with us. The conscience within us, which inspires us toward good deeds and awakens remorse when we do wrong—that is our God. Conscience works constantly to awaken us to the true righteous path. Those who follow the verdict of conscience cannot be led astray by anything in this world to any great extent. Spend a long time thinking deeply about something. Then you will see how that very thing or thought has somehow returned in your dreams! If you accept what conscience tells you to do and spend time keeping that in mind, you will find it becomes much harder to do anything harmful to yourself or others. The dream called life in which we live—awakening from that dream means death. After this awakening, we understand that everything we had clung to and been absorbed in, thinking it to be a dream, had very little value. If we could return to the world after death, we would be amazed to see that to those who remain alive after our death, both our existence and non-existence create the same atmosphere or appeal. Our wealth, relationships, friendships, honor—all the dreams we live by—what is the true value of these things that keeps us alive in everyone’s memory even after our death? What achievements or works do we have that would cause our absence to pain people or make them feel emptiness? Rather than living in a dream where the pattern of our love and all our externalities are essentially portraits of hypocrisy and deception, peaceful sleep is better. Sometimes the most and the most beautiful things can be done by doing nothing at all. Sleep is nothing but momentary death, and death is such a sleep that never breaks. On the day we fall asleep forever, before that sleep we need such a sleep that will render all our present existence meaningless, that will return us to the void from which our current position at this distance of having crossed the void, that will keep us enchanted in that new dream in which one can live and embrace death with a smiling face.

For ordinary people, days are like life, and nights are like death. For extraordinary people, days are like life, and nights are… like the Great Life! For everyone, the world spins in exactly the same way, the alternation of day and night follows the same rhythm. It is the different ways of living in that same world and seeing life that keep each person alive in their own unique way of being.

Six. Not all that is beautiful may always be good, but all that is good is always beautiful. There exists beauty so irresistibly alluring that avoiding its attraction becomes extraordinarily difficult, yet approaching it ensures certain death. Thus, the degree of beauty we attribute to things depends upon how truly good they are. Those who appear outwardly beautiful but lack goodness as human beings, who cause harm at every opportunity and live with hearts full of deceit, do not long remain beautiful in our eyes and hearts. We neither offer the most beautiful yet poisonous flower to the deity of life, nor do we keep it adorning our own vase. We shall behold beauty, touch it, remain immersed in something beautiful for endless moments, carry it in our hearts—but let not that beautiful thing possess us instead. Let beautiful things become our treasure, and let us become the treasure of good things. Let all that is good hold us in the pure bonds of love. When something beautiful once binds us in love’s embrace, even its ugly aspects no longer repel us. Whatever once binds us in love’s bond, regardless of what it may be, appears beautiful to our eyes; even its ugliness no longer seems ugly, and when that ugliness becomes starkly visible, we learn to console ourselves: “It’s a mistake in my perception!” Herein lies humanity’s greatest defeat. The two greatest powers in this world are: the vigor of youth and the beauty of women. When these two forces are not employed in the right way, at the right time, in the right hands, even great catastrophes can befall the world. While the world lacks beautiful hearts, it does not lack beautiful forms to the same degree. Beautiful faces move through life with deceit and dishonesty, living with dirty souls yet harboring desires for heaven. But refuse never reaches heaven. Alas, who has ever heeded this truth? You will rarely find true love in this world, and if you trust love submerged in an ocean of self-interest or ulterior motives to be pure, you will be deceived. The conflict between external beauty and the contradiction between beautiful and ugly makes the world unbearable. When we love someone or something, sometimes while dwelling in that very love, we feel love toward someone or something else. This happens even in the most sincere and devoted love. Why does this occur? Why do two entities move us in the same way? Why do different expressions of love stir us with the same emotion? Does love truly have any color? If not, why does love present itself before us in thousands of hues? What is the way to freedom from this eternal helplessness? Is there any liberation at all? Well, what need is there for liberation anyway? When two entities awaken the heart with pure emotion and innocent love, what harm comes to the world? Rather, with the awakening of true love, pettiness departs from the human heart. The invocation of the greater brings only good. If one chooses the longest path among many on love’s road, death comes knocking at the heart’s door before love arrives. Is not such death more beneficial than keeping the heart locked away? It is better to swim little by little in love’s vast ocean. If one drains the chalice of love’s nectar in a single gulp, all of love’s appeal is bound to vanish in that gulp. When something becomes too abundantly available, its importance diminishes. When received little by little, the significance of each particle can be understood.

One who can glimpse the ocean of feeling in even a particle of love—that is the true lover.

Seven. Around us move so many talented people, their bags brimming with countless achievements. They inspire reverence in our hearts, yet none of them can truly find a place within us. We see so many beautiful faces that remain only in our eyes—their journey never quite reaches the heart. There are so many wealthy people who, despite all their overflowing riches, cannot even approach the vicinity of our hearts. And yet, some entirely ordinary people, without means or resources, scatter the wealth of their hearts and remain within us forever. To live in this world, we need compassion, empathy, humanity, and fellow-feeling more than cleverness, knowledge, intelligence, or logic. People live well not through limitless displays of power, but through the touch of love. On life’s stage, the power of forgiveness far exceeds that of victory. The inability to forgive causes far more suffering and discomfort to the one who punishes than it does to the punished. When we must forgive someone who seeks no forgiveness, whose own power far exceeds our power to forgive, yet whom we cannot leave unforgiven without becoming guilty of an unforgivable crime ourselves—then we truly understand how brilliant is the radiance of forgiveness! Those whose inner selves are beautiful, at whose faces we can gaze and watch a thousand stories unfold in our minds, from whose eyes fall tears of tenderness, whose luminous personalities spread light, whose work makes others happy—they are good people. Such good people are truly beautiful human beings. Even while bearing all the world’s cruelty, such people preserve their own beauty. When someone sees the entire world working against them, when the triumph of ugliness repeatedly tramples humanity underfoot, when they are exhausted and battered by ceaseless blows, when the meaning of living becomes an embrace of death—if even then they do not stray from the path of truth and beauty, only then are they truly beautiful people. Beauty is a difficult test; not everyone can pass it. Just as the sun never tells the moon, “That light of yours is actually mine,” so too does a truly beautiful person never boast about spreading their own wealth. When tremendous righteous pride comes to overwhelm someone, yet finds no expression, but instead the head bows in contemplation of how to conquer one’s various pettinesses and move further forward—such a test of humility is an exceedingly difficult test. What we can see with naked eyes, however much we can see, however far we can see—in that seeing there is nothing we truly need. What keeps us and everyone around us alive and well requires the heart to see, not the eyes. What we truly need, the eyes cannot see; instead, some unnecessary things come before our eyes and deceive both eye and mind, so that walking the right path becomes impossible—we never even find that path. Whatever our hearts make room for becomes precious to us. What value does a rose have if we do not spend our thoughts and time on it? There is no greater investment than thought and time. Therefore, we must take full responsibility for the beauty of that thought-rose of ours. Our spiritual death occurs before the death of the dreams we keep alive in our hearts. Before such death, may we be blessed with unencumbered immersion in the pure stream of truth and beauty.