“I’m Sorry”
In this devastating exchange from The Counselor, Jefe embodies the stern voice of cosmic consequence — not as a moral judge, but as a mirror of reality. He tells the Counselor, essentially, what all great spiritual teaching reveals: “You are not in control. You never were.”
COUNSELOR Hiatus.
JEFE I’m sorry.
COUNSELOR Hiatus. I believe the word is hiatus.
JEFE Hiatus. Thank you, Counselor.
COUNSELOR Will you help me?
JEFE I would urge you to see the truth in your situation, Counselor. That is my advice. It is not for me to say what you should have done. Or not done. I only know that the world in which they are are made. You are at a cross in the road and here you think to choose. But there is no choosing. There is only accepting. The choosing was done long ago. Silence. JEFE Are you there, Counselor?
COUNSELOR Yes.
JEFE I don’t mean to upset you, but reflective men often find themselves at a certain remove from realities of life. In any case, to prepare a place in our lives for the tragedies to come is an economy few wish to practice. Do you know the works of Machado?
COUNSELOR No. I know his name.
JEFE A lovely poet. I think his work does not translate well. But the Spanish is very beautiful. He was a schoolteacher and he married a very beautiful young girl whom he loved very much. And she died. And so he became a great poet.
COUNSELOR I’m not going to become a great poet.
JEFE Perhaps not. But even were you to do so, it would be of little help to you. Machado would have given every line he wrote for one more hour with his beloved. There is no rule of exchange here, you see. Grief transcends every value. A man would give whole nations to lift it from his heart. And het with it you can buy nothing. Silence. The counselor holds his wrist to his forehead, his eyes closed. JEFE When my son was lost I would not pray for that which I should most fervently have desired. I could not.
COUNSELOR A speedy death.
JEFE I’m sorry.
COUNSELOR Why are you telling me this?
JEFE Because you stand at the crossing of which we spoke. You may dedicate your life to grief or not. The choice is yours. The assassin would claim you as well, but he will require your compliance. And of course he puts nothing of himself at hazard. He seeks to know what the warrior knows, but he has no stomach for the warrior’s way. He is a usurper and a pimp. And as he is without courage he is greatly to be feared. He would explore that realm to which we are all consigned, but his way is to send an emissary. To bring his victim to the edge of the precipice with the greatest care and then learn to inquire if there be any news. Some word amid the sobbing. Amid the bleeding and the cries. Not even in the act of love will one be the object of such solicitation and such care.
COUNSELOR Why are you telling me this?
JEFE Because you cannot accept the reality of your life.
COUNSELOR Why do you care?
JEFE Do you love your wife so completely that you would take her place upon the wheel? Not die for her. That is easy. But that your nerve would not fail you as they bend to buckle the straps?
COUNSELOR Yes. Yes, damn you. Silence.
JEFE That is good to hear, Counselor.
COUNSELOR What are you saying? Are you saying that this is possible?
JEFE No. It is not possible. Si. Un cafecito. Por favor. Negro. Negro, si. Gracias. I’m sorry, Counselor.
COUNSELOR You said I was that man. At the crossing.
JEFE Yes. At the understanding that life will not take you back. I have no wish to paint the world in colors more somber than those it wears but as the world gives way to darkness it becomes more and more difficult to dismiss the understanding that the world is in fact oneself. It is a thing which you have created, no more, no less. And when you cease to be so will the world. There will be other world. Of course. But they are the worlds of other men and your understanding of them was never more than an illusion anyway. Your world – the only one that matters – will be gone. And it will never come again. And now I must go. I have calls to make, and then, if there is time, I will take a little nap. The phone rings off.
Commentary
🕳️ “I’m Sorry” and the Spiritual Ordeal of Irrevocability
In this devastating exchange from The Counselor, Jefe embodies the stern voice of cosmic consequence — not as a moral judge, but as a mirror of reality. He tells the Counselor, essentially, what all great spiritual teaching reveals: “You are not in control. You never were.”
🧩 Karma: The Inescapable Logic
“Life will not take you back.”
This is karma, not merely as reward and punishment, but as the unfolding of choice into event. What has been put into motion cannot be withdrawn by apology or regret. Adi Da would describe this as the play of conditional existence, in which actions are not abstract, but woven into the entire pattern of appearance. No thought, act, or intention exists in a vacuum.
“You are the world you have created. And when you cease to exist, the world you have created will also cease to exist.”
This is the non-separation of self and world. The self-contraction doesn’t just distort the individual — it creates the world in which the ego suffers. The Counselor is now face-to-face with his own mind-made world. He cannot step outside of it to escape.
🕯️ The Deepest Love and the Great Regret
Jefe’s lament about Machado — “He would give every word if he could have her back” — touches on the tragedy of human love and attachment. The deeper the love, the greater the grief. But spiritually, this line also exposes the illusion of possession.
Adi Da taught that true love is sacrifice — a giving up of self-possessiveness, not a clinging. In this moment, the Counselor’s “love” is shown to be entangled with his own desperate need. He is not grieving purely for her — but for what her loss means to him. That is the self-knot tightening.
🪞 The Usurper: Ego in Spiritual Clothing
“He is not a true priest. He is an observer. He does not believe… He does not suffer.”
This is one of the most spiritually indicting lines in the scene. It cuts to the heart of spiritual bypassing — the ego that takes on the mask of the warrior or the priest but refuses the real cost.
In Beezone and Adi Da’s framework, this is the pseudo-adept, the seeker who emulates “being spiritual” but avoids actual surrender. Jefe warns that this is not harmless: it is the most dangerous deception. Such “usurpers” create mimicry of realization without transformation — and become agents of despair.
🧘 Final Reflection: The Ordeal is Grace
What this scene reveals, and what Beezone often emphasizes, is that the confrontation with despair can be the beginning of transformation. The “no” that life offers here is not a rejection, but a purification.
If the Counselor endures this truth, if he does not flee into numbness or ideology, he may discover what Adi Da calls the wound of love — not as a sentimental ache, but as a piercing of the ego’s illusion. Only then can remorse become a portal to real responsibility, not merely sorrow.
Beezone Commentary | Inspired by Adi Da Samraj and Sacred Cinema