The Secret Of Awakening

A businessman,

Small-time businessman kind of,

55 years old,

He's sipping beer somewhere at a bar and he thinks,

Well,

Look at my classmates,

They've really made it.

The idiot,

They've made it.

What do you mean they've made it?

They got their names in the newspapers,

You call that made it?

They got their names in the news,

In the prison journal,

Which all the prisoners are reading?

And he thinks they've made it.

Successful president of a corporation,

The other guy has become the chief justice and somebody else has become this and the other person has become that.

Monkeys,

All of them.

Who determines what it means to be a success?

Societies,

Societies.

The main preoccupation of society is to keep society sick.

The sooner you realize that,

The better.

The next few minutes could be the most important minutes in the lives of some of you.

If you could grasp this,

You've hit upon the secret for awakening.

You would be happy forever.

You would never be unhappy again.

Nothing but nothing would have the power to hurt you.

And I mean that nothing.

It's like,

You know,

You take black paint and throw it up in the air and keep throwing black paint in the air.

The air is uncontaminated.

You don't color the air black.

And no matter what happens to you,

You remain uncontaminated.

You remain at peace.

There are human beings and you know it,

Who have attained to this.

That is what I call human,

Not what people are generally living.

That's what I call being a human being.

Not this nonsense of being a puppet,

Jerked about this way and that.

Letting any event or any person tell you how to feel and then you proceed to feel it.

If you do not identify with any of those labels,

Most of your worries cease.

But ordinarily you're worried about what's going to happen to your career.

You became the president of the lunatic asylum and you're proud of it.

It means nothing.

It really means nothing.

Being the president of a corporation has absolutely nothing to do with being awake or being happy or being a success in life.

Nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Having a lot of money has nothing to do with being a success in life.

You're a success in life when you wake up.

When you don't have to apologize to anyone.

When you don't have to explain anything to anyone.

You don't feel the need to explain anything to anyone.

You don't give a damn what anybody thinks of you or what anybody says about you.

You have no worry.

You're happy.

Now that's what I call being a success.

I don't know about you.

So this poor guy is thinking sadly that he isn't a success like his classmates.

Nobody has ever told him that having a good job and being famous and having a great reputation has absolutely nothing to do with happiness or success.

Nothing.

It's totally irrelevant.

And so he's worried about what his children will think about him.

What will the neighbors think about him?

What will his wife think?

He should have become famous.

That's what your society and your culture is drilling into your head day and night and so is mine.

People who made it made what?

Made asses of themselves because they drained all their energy in getting something that was worthless.

And they're frightened and they're confused and they're puppets like the rest.

Look at them strutting across the stage.

Look how upset they'd get if they had a stain on their shirt.

You call that a success?

Look how frightened they are at the prospect that they may not be re-elected.

You call that a success?

So controlled,

So manipulated.

These are not happy people.

These are miserable people.

They don't enjoy life.

They're constantly tense and anxious.

You call that human?

And do you know why that happened?

There's only one reason.

They identified with some label.

They identified the I with their money,

With their job,

With their profession.

That was their error.

So you could be a plumber or a lawyer or a businessman or a priest that does not affect essential I.

It doesn't affect you.

I change my profession tomorrow.

That's like changing my clothes.

I is untouched.

Are you your clothes?

Are you your name?

Are you your profession?

Stop identifying with that because that will come and go.

You know what happens when you really understand this?

No criticism can affect you.

No flattery or praise can affect you either.

When someone says you're a great guy,

What's he talking about?

He's talking about me.

He's not talking about I.

I is neither great nor small.

I is neither successful nor a failure.

It is none of these labels.

These things come and go.

These things depend on the criteria that your society establishes.

These things depend on your conditioning.

These things depend on the mood of the person who happens to be talking to you right now.

They have nothing to do with I.

I is none of these labels.

Me is generally selfish,

Foolish,

Childish and a great big ass.

So when you say you're an ass,

You're telling me,

Haha,

I've known it for years.

That guy there,

The conditioned self,

The conditioned self,

What did you expect?

I've known it for years.

Why did you identify with him?

Silly.

That isn't I.

That's me.

Now here are those important minutes I was telling you about.

You want to be happy uninterruptedly.

Happiness is un-caused.

Try to understand that.

Happiness,

True happiness is un-caused.

You cannot make me happy.

You are not my happiness.

You say to the awakened person,

Why are you happy?

And the awakened person replies,

Why not?

Happiness is our natural state.

Happiness is the natural state of little children to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidities of our societies and our cultures.

To acquire happiness,

You don't have to do anything because happiness cannot be acquired.

Does anybody know why?

Because you have it already.

How can you acquire what you already have?

Then why don't you experience it?

Because you've got to drop something.

You've got to drop an illusion.

You don't have to add anything on to be happy.

You've got to drop something.

Life is easy.

Life is delightful.

It's only rough on your illusion.

You've got illusion.

You've got ambitions.

You've got greed.

You've got cravings.

You know where they come from?

From your having identified with all kinds of labels.

If you could grasp this,

You've hit upon the secret for awakening.