The Beginning
Where True Spiritual Life Begins
The Way that I Teach is based on a radical rather than a
conventional understanding. It is not based on any problem
or method of solution to a problem. It is based on
seriousness, or the clear observation and profound
acceptance of the Lesson of life.
The movement toward this Way in general depends on getting
the Lesson of life, or discovering that your search in
relationship both to find objects and relations and
experiences and to dissociate from them is futile. No matter
how you turn it around, no matter how you manipulate it, no
matter how you manufacture it, no matter what form it takes,
your seeking is constantly producing the sense of dis-ease
or un-Happiness.
In the beginning I didn’t have to
give them the freedom, in the early years of our community I
constantly brought up the consideration of this teaching to
them or consideration of the ego and reflected it back to
themselves. Over time, individuals would begin to observe
and understand something about this self-generated search,
this ego game and eventually began to freely assume a
variety of disciplines. But all along they were still doing
what they wanted to do but based on some beginnings of
understanding, just the beginnings.
There is no end to the possible suffering in this dimension
and there is absolutely no end to the delusions of human
beings. So spiritual life is not a way of fulfilling this
life in any conventional sense. It rests upon the most
absolute revulsion to the consequences of every moment, of
every breath. This earth is one of the hells, and you, like
all human beings, are possessed by worldliness, by the point
of view of your birth, your experiencing, the illusion of
your separate power and pleasure. My wrestling with people
has come to an end, but I want it to be very clear between
you and me what I have represented to you in my play with
you over the last five or more years. Because some of you, I
think, believe somehow or other that in your self-possession
you represent spiritual life or this Teaching, whereas in
fact you represent a degradation of it and an illusion.
The beginning of Wisdom is when we are made truly serious by
this Lesson of life: The achievement of Happiness is always
minimal, temporary, and ultimately unattainable. You cannot
become Happy. You can only be Happy.
This transformation, this conflict, this crisis has begun in
you. It has become intensified. You are beginning to find
your real question. It is your death. That is the
significant event. There is no distraction from it. There is
no consolation for it. But it is true and real. Evolution
can make no difference.
The beginning of the commitment to Truth is in radical
revulsion to any confinement by the destiny or the limits
that are or could be set before us. But, even so, the
Realization of Truth is not attained by any reaction to the
present conditions of existence. Whatever is the Truth, it
must be True at this moment
One who is beginning to understand first recognizes that he
(she) is suffering, fundamentally unhappy, unsatisfied, and
chronically in double-bind that cannot finally be consoled.
This recognition puts a qualification on the ordinary force
of seeking and life indulgence.