Unclear Journal: 11

 
Seventy-one.
Everything that is true must dissolve into nature, for truth contains no artifice. Anything genuine is part of nature itself. Even authentic scientists, who speak for nature, fear plastic because plastic can never be destroyed—it knows no dissolution. Similarly, falsehood lacks the power to vanish; it remains brazenly among us somewhere or other. It cannot be reabsorbed. Everything artificial stays with us permanently. Lies persist through ages, for they possess within themselves all the qualities to adapt with time—they are a cunning yet necessary part of time itself. But truth is continuous, endless. Truth manifests itself as a miracle in its own time, revealing itself in the cycle of time. Such a miracle that can work against the laws of necessity, that follows power, that manifests beyond the sweetness of natural behavior. Truth comes as a beam of light and vanishes again after showing us a glimpse. Millions of people who proclaim themselves religious, who visit mosques, temples, churches, pagodas and seek religion cheaply, are merely initiated into ceremonial religion. They are the ones who only go to church on Sundays, who are only Friday congregants.

They are not committed to knowing truth on the path of truth, to attaining truth—they are engaged in games in the name of religion, and in this gambling with their worldly lives, they will have to pay a heavy price for it. There are some people around us who pray regularly, and such individuals easily become objects of others' respect, while some people use this as an opportunity under the pretext of honor, because it's easier to deceive when revered in others' eyes. A person who regularly attends church appears more religious; everyone develops the notion that such a person could never be a fraud or a cheat. Yet such people very easily swindle others in religion's garb! Places of worship are such spaces where one can very easily do business with peace of mind by capitalizing on human emotions. Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, Socrates... perhaps all of them were out of place in their own settings—otherwise why was Jesus crucified? Was any priest ever crucified? Why was Socrates forced to drink poison? Why was Mohammad struck with stones, wounded, battered and bloodied? If every priest, cleric, and holy man remained unharmed, working as tireless warriors to make our lives easier and more livable without any obstruction, then why don't they need to be hurt?
The reason is that they present falsehood to us so elegantly that it doesn't seem out of place to us. Writing about Jesus Christ began almost a hundred years after his death. By then, could his complete way of life, his manner of living, remain entirely unaltered? It's clear that a certain class of priests used Jesus for their own interests. They help us in every way to live a false, disguised life. They assist us in every manner to forget real truth and present before us such a fabricated truth of their making, such a cheap creator before us, that we need take no risk of losing anything. There's no problem being born Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, or being a follower of any of these religions—all our problems are with these preachers of religion.
If we become their followers, if we walk the path they have shown, then that is perilous. For if they are not truly thirsting and hungering for truth, if they are not prepared to sacrifice everything they have, then neither they nor their followers will glimpse the truth.
Painful though it may be to acknowledge, millions of people prefer that plastic flower. Because it requires no care to grow, no tending, no labor invested in it. It is quite hassle-free, a convenient flower. A real flower must struggle to grow, must be given time to flourish, must be provided adequate water and sunlight, must be surrounded by walls so that no one can destroy it. Even after all this, an uncertainty remains, a fear lingers within that we do not know what kind of flower will bloom or whether any flower will bloom at all, whether the plant will even survive. The plastic flower has none of these complications, which is why millions upon millions of people bring it home instead. Because it is ready-made, requires no additional labor or expense, and even if carelessly abandoned here and there, it manages to endure. Its color does not change, and if it can be washed from time to time, it even regains its luster.
The plastic flower only gathers dust, and dust can be shaken off, washed away. Our beliefs are like these plastic flowers. Though we ourselves know that we will be deceived by the priest, we still go to him to buy plastic flowers. A particular operative principle of economics is: where there is demand, there is supply. So where there is demand for falsehood, there are inevitably purveyors of falsehood as well. When someone consciously deceives and when someone willingly allows themselves to be deceived, both are exactly where they belong. If we do not wish to deceive anyone, then what becomes of those who wish to be willingly deceived? Among us there are many who know they are being deceived, yet allow it to happen, and when they are thoroughly deceived, they begin blaming the entire world along with the deceiver's legacy. Why do they do this? Because they themselves live by taking refuge in deception, and when they are deceived by others, they know it is the fruit of their past actions. This is why, though they gather people from across the world to cast blame, deep in their hearts they continue to encourage it. Such duplicitous people surround us in countless numbers.
Seventy-two.
The majority are those who live by blaming others or by placing the entire burden of fault upon others, and live quite peacefully too. By placing the burden of fault on others, by willingly allowing themselves to be deceived by others and permitting deception to occur, they believe that their own burden of fault, their own burden of sin, will be somewhat lessened—this is fundamentally why they act this way. This keeps them mentally at peace, and whatever gives us mental peace, even if we must pay a great price for it, we are willing to accept. In doing so, they can live exactly as they wish to live. They essentially prefer to hide deception in their search for comfort. If we wish to live in such comfort, then there are many such things around us that we could capitalize on to enter into business. There was a truth-seeker who always continued his quest solely to learn new things. As a result, he always lived in some discomfort.
He had an elderly neighbor who knew nothing about any subject, had no interest in learning about anything, but was quite content in his place. Once the truth-seeker was asked, "Would you not prefer to live peacefully without knowing anything, like your neighbor, rather than living with the constant restlessness of seeking knowledge?" He replied, "One can live carefree, untroubled, and at peace in ignorance only as long as we don't encounter any misfortune. When we suddenly face some calamity, that unexpected disaster will harm us far less than the damage caused by our ignorance, and I certainly do not wish to live comfortably in such ignorance."
We are all followers of some religion or another. Therefore, in some way or another, at some time or another, we must be deceived — whether willingly, through ignorance, or unwillingly. Yet despite this, truth will inevitably manifest itself to us, and when it does, it too will inevitably embrace death. Until then, the majority of us remain trapped within religion's confines, merely swimming through an empty life, because at this moment we have nothing more important or meaningful to occupy our time. Like plastic flowers, we have bought ourselves a God requiring no effort — carefree, untroubled — and there our work ends. And if we were to discover truth too soon, what would become of those self-serving merchants who have been conducting business for ages, wrapped in the garb of various religions? They too certainly need something to do. If we were to glimpse truth right now, even the devils would become unemployed, the wicked would become jobless, those evil spirits who constantly perplex us by feeding our minds unwanted false information would suddenly find themselves without work.
All manner of fraudulent, counterfeit businesses operating across the world would cease this very moment. Throughout history, whenever truth-seekers have appeared on earth, no sooner have they departed than wicked people have set about reorganizing the falsehoods, quickly fabricating artificial truths to their liking. With these they have waged religious wars for thousands of years, until some new truth-seeker appears. Until then, these satanic spirits have spread truth everywhere wrapped in garments of their own making, so they can ceaselessly pursue their self-interest. And when truth again appears before us in some other form, showing its flash of light before vanishing once more, immediately afterward those same evil spirits will unite to counterfeit it again and distort it into something capable of entertaining us, and thus they will continue their reign for ages to come. This is how every distorted truth becomes what we call religion.
If we wish to receive truth unaltered, whenever truth manifests itself among us through someone, we must at that very moment absorb as much as possible — the utmost we can grasp. If we fear to leap into the uncertain search for truth, we must understand that we remain logical and hesitant still. To know truth, one must take risks with empty hands, casting aside all doubts from the mind. If we resolve to learn about this path first and then make the leap, we will never be able to walk the path of truth.
For truth can only be known by walking its path, and likewise, to understand the realm of spirituality, one must walk this very path. To leap into something without knowing it means: I love this beyond all rationality, and therefore I am prepared to take every risk for it. To leap into something rationally is not love; risk means jumping into the uncertain and the shadowed, knowing it to be so, and the longer this continues, the clearer it becomes.
Gradually the old clouds drift away, new paths begin; thus this process continues unending. This risk is cruciform like death, and through it comes resurrection. In the spiritual realm we must leap beyond all rationality in this very way. If we seek to know everything about this path before taking the leap, then it cannot be called jumping into uncertainty—it becomes a kind of voluntary abstinence of our mind, and then we seek escape from it. To leap into the spiritual realm means we have grown weary of our mind's games. We have seen through all the foolish games of our minds; now we consciously wish to free ourselves from these games, we want to emerge from this play of the mind. Love brings about the temporary downfall of our minds. We say we have fallen in love. In truth, we have actually been freed from the sordid games of our minds. If we judge from the mind's perspective, this is a kind of fall, but if we judge from the heart's perspective, we see that we have not fallen at all—rather, we have risen higher toward creativity.
Indeed, our rational mind never accepts this. To our logical mind, this is like the foolish act of falling flat on one's face. By rationality's judgment, we are emotional, sentimental. Emotion has no value to logic, for it destroys reason. But spirituality is a kind of love—it is the disciple's love for the guru on the path of truth. It is love for the relationship. Practice is not philosophy; it can only be experienced. We will understand its taste only when we know how to savor it. If we try to test it without entering into the depths of meditation, we will never know its feeling, for its essence lies hidden in the very act of walking through it. This is not something that can be installed in the brain through intellectual means. It has no form. It is like the beauty of a flower. If we ask a scientist about the beauty of a flower, he will immediately laugh, for he knows nothing about the flower's beauty. He can tell us what chemical elements combine to form a flower, what percentage of water and other components it contains, how much solar energy it has absorbed—he can dissect the flower piece by piece and explain all this, for these things can be known through scientific testing, but after examining everything about the flower, he cannot restore it to its original state.
Despite all this research on a single flower, he will find the flower's beauty nowhere, for beauty has no form—it can only be felt. Beauty is sometimes visible and sometimes invisible, but it can never be found in any laboratory test or through the aid of logic.
Spirituality, meditation—these subjects are just the same: they cannot be seen, they cannot be installed anywhere, they cannot be broken apart, there is no way to give someone a taste of their flavor beforehand. They can only be known through participation. Spirituality is such a realm of knowledge where one cannot enter or exit at will. To enter it, one must pass through many stages, and likewise, it is impossible to suddenly emerge from it, for this is not some visible object that can be discarded at whim. A spiritual person never breaks apart spirituality to examine it. A spiritual person enters the depths of spirituality without breaking it, and discovers what never falls within a researcher's gaze.
Just as a poet enters the depths of nature without destroying it and thus touches nature's soul, just as one becomes lost in a flower's beauty without plucking it, becomes enchanted by its fragrance—meditation is exactly such a realm. It is not scientific knowledge; it is a poetic experience. Therefore, if we wish to taste the spiritual world without participating in it, we are never truly meditators or yogis. It is impossible to become spiritual by behaving like researchers or through research-based work. Poetry can never be attained through conditions; to achieve poetry, one must enter nature's heart. While scientific knowledge can be gained through an restless mind, judging everything by logic's measure, through experimentation—for a poetic soul, one must transcend all this and penetrate nature with the heart. Science is conditional, but the spiritual has no conditions. Is it possible to know what love is before entering into love? Much may be said about love without entering it, but only by actually loving someone does one truly know what love is.
Seventy-three.
Do we impose conditions before entering into relationships of love? If we do, then that is never truly love—it is a contract, and only contracts have multiple conditions, not love. To enter love, one must cast aside all contracts, conditions, ego—everything—and enter love's interior, otherwise it is not love. Love has no bargaining, no conditions, no rules. Love creates its own path, and each love's path is completely different from another. Even if we have seen and read all the love songs, poems, novels, films, stories that have ever existed in this world, we still cannot know anything about love unless we involve ourselves in a relationship of love. Knowing love is not an intellectual or cognitive method. It is entirely a matter of realization. Knowing about love and being involved in love are two completely different things. We can become involved in love, can become entangled in love's sensation, simply by loving someone, even without knowing anything about love beforehand. In fact, having too much prior knowledge about love might even lead us down love's opposite path.
Though love is uncertain self-realization, it is not beyond the realm of consciousness. Fundamentally, there are two ways to know any subject: one is observation, the other is participation. Observation is essentially a scientific method and can be known from outside, in the observer's role. The other is participation, which is fundamentally deeply spiritual. The subject has an emotional connection. It requires great mental energy. The best way to know in this world is to leap into the unknown.
And this is possible only for a curious heart. Fundamentally, spirituality is not for those with rigid mentalities; it is for a precious few with tender hearts, who can leap like lions from the known into the complete unknown. If we try to accept spirituality through logic alone, if we seek to make everything merely rational, then our entire life will remain confined to shallow, superficial knowledge. Depth can only be found through love, and love is a relationship that drives us mad. A relationship that does not drive us mad cannot contain love—there exists only logic, and logic never grants depth to anything.
Yes, we can certainly argue against this if we wish. Argument is invariably terrible for joy. If we argue about everything with those we love, it will gradually devour our mental peace. Suppose we live in the realm of spirituality, but our beloved does not want this, because to them it may seem like a form of hypocrisy, a kind of business. It is nothing unusual for them to feel this way, because they exist in an entirely different world from ours, so they cannot possibly know this world from outside it, and this very distance will give birth to all manner of misconceptions within them. If we then engage in argument to prove them wrong or to point out their mistakes, our mental tranquility will gradually diminish, and our energy will be wasted needlessly. Instead, if we simply leave them to themselves, and rather than trying to make them understand our love for them, we help them understand on their own, if we let them be as they are, merely allowing them to comprehend the power within us, then they will return to us of their own accord.
Otherwise, if we engage them in arguments to make them understand us, and if they succeed in destroying our mental peace, if they realize they are achieving what they want—that is, they are successfully destroying our mental tranquility—then gradually we will begin to doubt ourselves. Then somewhere, at some point, we ourselves will feel that we are wrong and they are actually right. If we truly love, then we must shake off any tendency toward doubt, because love knows how to be patient. We must give them the opportunity and time to feel our love. There is no reason to defeat our beloved in argument, because love is not a matter of winning debates. If we argue, we might well win the argument if we choose to, but we will inevitably lose our beloved. Isn't our beloved more precious to us than certain victory in argument?
Instead, whenever they try to draw us into argument, we can love them even more, embrace them closer, or drive them a little mad in that moment with even more love... If we pay less attention to their arguments, they will pay more attention to our love, to the changes in our mental state, and consequently the various doubts that had arisen in their mind about us, about our beliefs and behavior, will gradually fade away.
Whatever he thought of us then, his perceptions about our work, his understanding of our spiritual world—those dark clouds within him will slowly lift and disperse. A beloved person must never be driven away. He must never be told to leave, especially when he doubts our spiritual realm, when he calls this world a business, when he labels this world hypocrisy. Rather, at such times we should let him say exactly that. We must accept all his words in that moment. All the doubts in his mind, all his fears about us, all his assumptions—we must let him voice them completely. If he says this is a business, a manipulation of human emotions, then we must accept exactly that.
Yes, indeed this is a business! But this is no ordinary business—this is a divine business. But how can he understand this now, when he knows nothing about it? Right now he fears that his beloved has gone completely mad! Now he will try to reason with us, argue with us, and if we argue back, that would be terrible. His reason for arguing is that he thinks he's losing us, he thinks he's losing his love. This sudden prospect of losing his beloved is breeding resentment within him. This resentment is against our incomprehensible world. This is why he's trying his utmost to reason with us. We should patiently listen to his arguments, we should joyfully enjoy his quarrels. Rather, when he quarrels, we should let him quarrel even more. Whatever storms rage in his mind, whatever restlessness, whatever unknown fears lie hidden—we must let him express everything in his own way. Then will come a time when nothing remains in him left to quarrel about—after all, what subjects exist in this world that one can argue about for an entire lifetime! If we listen to all his words with patience, with love, then in time we will see a change in him too. Those who write, who paint, who sing—dance—act, who cook, who are involved with any art or creation or practice—all of them must inevitably go through such strange and unavoidable experiences with their companions. Nothing can be done about it.
Seventy-four.
The truth we arrive at in light of all experience—that is valid truth. And meditation is that power we must acquire through the light of experience. When we have surgery on any part of our body, we must accept that pain. We must accept the pain of surgery, because surgery without pain is impossible. This period will sometimes anger us, make us impatient, wound us, amaze us, yet we must remain patient, because it is bound to be painful. On the path to truth we cannot pick and choose what we prefer. We must accept truth exactly as it is. If we accept the sunrise of dawn, then we must also accept the deep night, because this too is part of nature. We cannot accept one part of nature while rejecting another part that we find disagreeable.
We must accept nature as it is, just as we must accept ourselves.
Love too has countless paths that may seem impossible for us to accept on the surface. But if we understand love, then it won't be difficult for us to accept that love sees only two hearts — it recognizes neither gender nor conditions. We always enjoy joking about others. A true human being never sits around finding fault with nature. True humanity never seeks popularity. An authentic human being presents nature exactly as it is. We ordinary people cannot naturally accept this. We are always making fun of others because that person seems exceptional to our eyes! Yet if we thought — this is nature, and nature is not uniform everywhere, it is diverse — then we could accept everything around us just as it is. When someone begins to feel guilt within about their actions, that's when they want to hide those very actions from everyone, the actions for which their surrounding environment ridicules them. Perhaps we prefer to recognize everyone by their peculiar behavior, which results in us laughing less about ourselves and more about others.
In truth, the person who prefers to laugh about themselves, about all their diverse actions, is the one who knows the real secret of laughter. There's nothing new in making fun of others, just as there's nothing in criticizing others. We hide our mistakes, our ugliest aspects from everyone, and then indulge in making fun of others. We must understand that nature has never created anyone perfect, so we must accept ourselves as we are, and we must accept others as they are — even their worst aspects, which deeply disturb our minds. Does hiding everything really keep it concealed? Or can what is true remain buried forever? We may make elaborate arrangements to hide something, but one day everything will surely reveal itself before us, whether it concerns others or ourselves.
Love has various forms. Love for the opposite gender, love for both genders, love for the same gender — all of these are different forms of love. There's no way to distinguish one from another, because love sees only the heart. We accept only love for the opposite gender as natural. All other loves are unacceptable to us, because that is the guidance of our ancestors. If we knew how to leave each person to their own account, such notions would never find place in our minds. In the world of meditation, such distinctions among people are not made. Here, women, men, homosexuals, bisexuals — all have equal place. Through this, the real person behind the mask is brought forth. Meditation is such a garden where all kinds of flowering plants have equal space. Here, from weeds to all kinds of plants are valued equally. There is no place here for anyone's anger, hatred, or disgust toward anyone else.
In the realm of meditation, the human soul is given primacy. In this realm, whatever form a soul exists in, it is accepted exactly that way. People are accepted freely, without any condemnation or judgment toward anyone.
So if someone here happens to be homosexual, it doesn't concern us, because this is a variation of nature—nature has made that person exactly as they are, and therefore we too must accept them as they are. We often hear that many of the world's renowned writers, artists, actors, poets, and painters were homosexual. In truth, a creative person sees the world through a somewhat or vastly different lens than we ordinary people do—this is precisely why this happens. Because they love nature's diversity and merge with nature, they don't accept anything in nature by breaking it apart. Enchanted by nature's boundless love and wanting to become one with it, they enter into everything natural. When wandering in that realm, whatever brings them joy and happiness, they remain there, disregarding what others might say about it.
Seventy-five.
Our inability to accept someone as they are reflects the limitations of our own understanding. This is because we have grown accustomed, over generations, to accepting nature by fragmenting it. Some people feel physical attraction toward others of the same gender—this is their nature. There's nothing to single this out for special attention, nothing to make such a fuss about; they should be allowed to live according to their own way. If we cannot do this, it reflects the limitations of our thinking. Creative people are generally always absorbed in seeking the new; they dissolve themselves into nature's diversity. They accept people less on the basis of gender and more on the basis of soul—meaning, when someone's soul is pure and harmonizes with their own, they feel no mental barrier to accepting that person. This is why they don't view this matter as separate or different. Even a homosexual person sometimes considers themselves guilty in their own mind, because they are behaving outside social convention—though in such cases, their self-condemnation is misplaced, because nature has made them that way. They had no hand in it, and there is no reason for guilt.
The reason for considering oneself guilty in one's own eyes is allowing a wound to form somewhere deep in the mind, and whenever a wound forms within a person about themselves, they want to hide their supposed transgressions behind a mask—because society sees their transgressions as separate from them. That is, society separates a person's so-called or socially unrecognized or unacceptable transgressions from the person themselves, so that whether they are good or great receives little importance in society's eyes. As a result, people keep themselves hidden behind masks for fear of being diminished. We all must learn to accept others exactly as they are. The calculations of right and wrong that we sit making are all our mistaken notions, which maintain divisions between people in our society, and from these divisions spring all wars. However we are, however good or however bad we may be—all of this is natural. If two people of the same gender feel good living together, that is entirely their personal matter.
Interfering in someone's personal affairs is a crime equal to violating their birthright. No religion, no place of worship, no government, no law can interfere in this matter. If two individuals are happy with each other or decide to live with each other, that is their personal decision. We dream of a happy world.
If someone can spread happiness in the world without causing harm to others, we have no business passing judgment on their choices. Rather, if we make them feel guilty, it only harms us, for we are creating a society of masked beings. They will be forced to live wearing masks for our sake alone. This never brings any good to society. Whenever guilt arises within us about any matter, a question emerges from within—perhaps we are doing something seriously wrong, otherwise we could simply laugh at our own follies! But from the moment we begin to see ourselves as criminals, we start systematically concealing those very actions with justification.
If we knew that we are each souls, where external form matters little—at least for some people who are part of our very society—then accepting all these matters naturally would become easier for us. Meditation essentially purifies the human soul by transcending sexual relationships. Homosexuality, bisexuality, or attraction to the opposite sex—all of these are secondary to human attraction toward the soul. Humans are fundamentally drawn to souls. This is the union of one soul with another. Only when we can elevate ourselves completely above such considerations will something different occur within us. Celibacy is a negative term, meaning not being involved with sexual relationships. But this does not mean being above all sexual arousal. Is this even possible? In a way, it means living while holding divine power within oneself, or being divine. This is typically the lifestyle of ascetics. Because they maintain celibacy, it becomes easier for them to remain absorbed in spiritual practice. However, it is better to keep oneself free from sexuality rather than remaining angry with oneself about it. Whether one's self-essence is pure or impure, being terrified about it is undesirable, for there is only one path to overcoming all fears and finding oneself—keeping oneself in happiness and peace.
**Seventy-six.**
Often, to preserve our fame and popularity, we hide certain aspects of ourselves from everyone—things that others would not naturally accept or that lie outside social norms. We perhaps think this will reveal our true face to everyone. In truth, by concealing one's true nature, one can never embody any honest being or honest soul. From the day we hide our true nature and present a fabricated shell to everyone, we actually kill the legendary being within ourselves. For a legend never fears losing followers, nor does any other fear prevent them from revealing their true nature. One must remember that a person of authority actually possesses no authority. Anyone who claims otherwise is a fraud. A person's inner being carries their authority; no external being performs this function. The moment a legend hides something out of fear of losing authority, from that very day they lose their true authority. To become a legend, one must behave like a legend. Those who cannot do so cannot become one. A person who cannot embody the characteristics of a victor cannot become victorious.
If you move and think like the defeated, you will spend your entire life as one who has lost.
However dirty, dull, or strange our inner conflicts may be, we are human beings with all of this, and the work of a healthy, normal person is to help their true self emerge and flourish in every possible way. Meditation helps a person find that self. Whatever we may be, from this very place we can find the light. So when we become anxious about any of our normal or abnormal behaviors, we must cultivate even greater patience. For it is through this very pain that we will find the path to light. Truth can never be expressed. And if truth cannot be expressed, then whatever we say is nothing more than words. When there is no language to express truth, there is no scope for understanding it. Rather, we must comprehend truth through our faculty of understanding. For all unexpressed depths must be grasped by employing our highest consciousness.
A disciple will only assimilate their teacher. One need not always search for the meaning of every word. Rather, one must see what kind of transformation that word brings about within us. Seeking explanations for everything means keeping oneself away from the path of a noble life. Keeping oneself engaged through meditation is the primary source of strength. Living each day, each moment—this is our principal work. We are always busy calculating tomorrow and waste today's time. We say, if we start meditating today and our teacher dies tomorrow, from whom will we learn meditation? Will we then search for another teacher, or will we follow our deceased teacher? And through such unnecessary questions we seek certainty about the future instead of living in the present. We must understand that the future will take care of itself, just as we found our teacher today—tomorrow, in its own way and according to its own need, everything we require will inevitably manifest before us. For when the disciple is ready, the teacher appears.
We will simply follow today's path, fully absorb today's shown way within ourselves. Our work is to live with complete honesty toward ourselves today. And to live that way, we must take ourselves through that experience. There is a vast difference between knowing something by memorization and knowing something through experience. When we learn about a subject through reading, we can recite that knowledge mechanically like a computer. But when we know something through our experience, we can answer all possible questions about it. If we study extensively about what meditation is, we might be able to recite its techniques, because we have memorized them, but if we were asked to speak about its qualitative aspects, we would certainly need to enter the depths of meditation itself to speak about it.
Seventy-seven.
Each of us is unique in our own place—that is, we are each a completely different being. We are each extraordinary. Even then, if we want to make ourselves extraordinary again, we are essentially living in a fool's kingdom, because gold cannot be transformed into gold again.
Therefore, if we remain absorbed in the thought that we will make ourselves extraordinary, then every time we persist in this effort, we will fail precisely that many times. Failing repeatedly, we might think that perhaps we need to focus even more intensely on ourselves, and in such continuous failure our entire life will become filled with despair. There is no one superior to us or inferior to us. We are all excellent in our respective places. Then how can we compare ourselves with others? It is impossible for us to compare ourselves with anyone. The moment we engage in comparing ourselves with others, problems will begin to arise within us. When we compare ourselves with others, two things manifest in us. First, when we compare ourselves with someone we consider beneath us, a kind of self-satisfaction works within us. Second, when we compare ourselves with someone we consider above us, a kind of inferiority complex works within us.
Both these positions are essentially temporary. They have no lasting effect, because these two states actually function like the two sides of a coin. We may be somewhat higher than some people, yet we ourselves are lower than some others in other respects. Therefore, we cannot move forward with just one side of a coin; we must move with both sides simultaneously. A person avoids going where they would feel inferior. And they prefer to frequent places where they can remain somewhat above others. This means people always prefer to compare others with their own position, and they prefer to stay in environments where they feel like kings. This is a wrong path to self-elevation, because someone may appear somewhat uglier than us, but that very person might be far more intelligent than us. Someone may be somewhat dirtier than us, but that very person might be wiser than us—perhaps we are nothing compared to them in wisdom. Even if we reach the pinnacle, some deprivation will remain with us, and if we only keep comparing ourselves with others, we will feel disappointed even from the summit.
Napoleon was only 5 feet 5 inches tall, yet he conquered the world with his short legs, something that a person 6 feet or taller could not do. Still, Napoleon was always in despair when he stood before his army, because all his soldiers were greater than him in height and strength. When he stood before his troops, he looked like a tiny pygmy, which depressed him throughout his life. Once Napoleon was working in his chamber when a calendar fell from his wall. Sitting at his table, he could not reach it with his short arms. Then one of his soldiers said to him, "I'll pick it up, sir. My arms are longer than yours." Napoleon became very angry at that moment.
Napoleon was terrified of cats as a child, so much so that it became a phobia for him. It is believed that he lost his first battle because of cats, since the enemy's front line had 70 cats. Napoleon could easily have won a battle against lions, but cats were his weakness.
That is why I say, comparison itself is fundamentally misguided, for no one stands above another, no one stands below another, and indeed, no one stands as another's equal. Though forgetting the matter of comparison may temporarily shield us from the acquisition of joy or sorrow, it brings us an immense blessing. Blessing is neither happiness nor sadness—it is an acute sensation that brings tears to our eyes, that teaches us to understand the language of silence.