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This is not an ordinary book. Either it will resonate with you profoundly or not at all. You will have to be honest to read this book and just reading it won’t be enough. This book will make you uncomfortable. You will read things that your mind doesn’t want to hear. Not that I agree with the author on everything, nevertheless, it’s a jolting experience!
My highlights
He is imprisoned by desires, cravings, preferences, prejudices, hopes, wishes, vices, ideals, philosophies, and on and on. He does not recognize that these are his imprisonment. In fact, he considers them to be a part of his true nature and thus he holds them tight. The path to Atmamun begins with the recognition that all of these things do not belong to him. They belong squarely to his mind. And man is Not his mind! It will perhaps, then, become clear to you that Atmamun is not to improve the mind, but to Transcend it.
Nature lives in a state of equilibrium. It does not consider a storm as bad and sunshine as good. It does not categorize. Or judge. Or take sides. Nature exists fully and unabashedly according to its fundamental nature.
Q: How does all of this happen? KG: We become enslaved by our minds because we believe that we are the mind. Q: And this is a problem? KG: It’s the greatest problem in the world. Because as long as you believe that you are the mind, you will become subject to all of the turmoil that the mind is. And the mind is lost in turmoil. The incessant thoughts. The crazy emotions. The wild swings of mood. Jealousy. Anger. Frustration. Envy. Hope. Desire. Fear. Loneliness. Depression. Anxiety. All of it. For as long as you believe you are the mind, then your life will be filled with these turmoils.
Q: So you are saying that we can break free of our minds? KG: Yes. Q: How? KG: By understanding it.
Q: What’s the leash that ties me to the mind?
KG: The belief that you are your mind!
KG: You asked me earlier that if you surrender yourself to the kingdom of God, who will be left to experience the joy. Q: I did. KG: My dear friend, if you surrender yourself to the kingdom of God, who will be left to feel the misery?
Insights are achieved in silence. When they are spoken of, they are poisoned. Feelings are feelings. And, in many ways, to speak is to lie. For language cannot do justice to the subtleties and nuances of feeling.
The Ego is Not that which says that you are great. It is that which says that you Exist at all!
Q: Why is confusion a wonderful thing? KG: When you don’t have the answers, a new possibility is on the horizon. When the mind thinks that it knows, it creates a story. And it makes the person believe the fairy tale. But when it is confused, it has no story to tell you. So you are, for a brief moment, free to learn the truth. Independent of the mind.
Treatments and solutions are simply a balm that temporarily soothes the pain. They cure nothing. The only thing that cures is Understanding. The only thing that cures is Clarity. The thing that cures is Not the solution. It is a clear and unflinching examination of the Problem.
The greatest freedom that we have is the freedom to walk away from ourselves. The day that you walk away from yourself, you no longer feel the need for happiness. For bliss has become yours.
If you are happy, don’t get too excited, for misery is just around the corner. And if you are unhappy, fear not, for happiness is on its way. This is the purgatory of man. To live vacillating between opposite poles of emotion. Living in This whilst hoping for That. Loving This whilst hating That. Striving for This whilst receiving That.
Leave everything as you found it. For none of it belongs to you. Let the events happen around you, knowing that none of them are happening TO You. And you will live an equanimous life. You will live a life without the burden of hope. Or the weight of despair. In doing this you will have known life for what it is. And what it is not. And wisdom and equanimity will finally be yours.
One of the most useful qualities of human beings is also their poison. And this is the quality of Adaptability. As history has shown time and again, a human being can adapt to any circumstance and any condition. And while this may afford him a mode of survival, it rarely affords him a mode of Life. If a man suffers, he becomes accustomed to the suffering. Suffering becomes his companion. And thus he spends the whole of his life looking for minor nuggets of joy within this ocean of suffering.
If there is one truth that I have learned, it is that unless you find it inside of Today, you will never find it inside of Tomorrow.
once you seek inside, you no longer have the need to find. The search will be over. A man who pursues his passions and experiences his life with complete boldness has no need to search. He simply lives. He walks toward no horizon. For he has already seen beyond it. This, my friend, is the benediction. To abandon the world. And gain the universe.
The child who twirls in the rain has no purpose for doing it. The child who runs through the field does not run to get somewhere. The running and the jumping and the playing is not done for meaning or purpose. It is an expression of the elation within. It is not done For joy. It is done Out Of joy.
You can create anything you wish In your life. But you will never make anything Out Of life. For life will always be life. Meaningless. Innocent. And Indefinable.
Climb the greatest mountain. Achieve all the accolades in the world. Become the greatest in your field. Achieve fame. Earn millions. And you will enjoy every bit of the journey, if and only if you understand that none of it means anything.
When something has meaning, it becomes work. When something is meaningless, it becomes play.
life’s nectar lies in experience, rather than reward. Rewards fade from memory. Experiences remain forever.
Life has never had any meaning. The meaning that one finds in life is the meaning he ascribes to it.
By all means, build your house. But understand that it will be a house of cards. By all means, make your mark. But understand that someone will one day erase it. By all means, change the world. But understand that after you die, it will change back. I am not a pessimist. Nor am I an optimist. I am a seeker. My way is the way of truth. In any form in which I can find it. I will tell you firmly that that which I know pales in comparison to that which I do not.
My friend, there was a day that you were not here. And there will soon be a day when you are no longer here. And once you realize this, you will understand that all there is left to do is play.
If you attempt to Make A Life, you will miss it. If you attempt to Create Significance, you will lose your freedom. And if you lose your freedom, what life is there left to live?
My dear friend, this life can offer you nothing but pain. You have lived in pain and misery for all your life. Most people do not even realize this. And thus they live imprisoned forever. But this is your only chance at freedom. For when you see that life is inherently and fundamentally full of strife, pain, disappointment, anxiety, and misery, you will stop looking for bliss within the events of your life. You will stop attempting to “replace” negative thoughts with “positive” ones. You will stop attempting to “reframe” the pain into something more psychologically palatable. And when this understanding seeps into your bones, you will see “your life” for what it is.
Peace is not known Eventually. It must be had Now! No prescriptions. No tricks. No potions. No techniques. Simply Understanding. Simply seeing the game you’ve been playing for your entire life. This and this alone will lead you where you have always wanted to go.
The unbiased honest truth is this: Wealth, success, and luxury do not harm a man. What harms a man is the Attachment to these things.
Attachment is the antithesis of life. Attachment is the great death. A death greater than death itself.
Human beings tend to become the norm that they are exposed to.
This is the astonishing power of environment. You become your surroundings!
When the mind has a desire for one thing, it has an aversion for its opposite. In the case of winning and losing, the desire for winning is so great that it creates an anxiety about losing. An anxiety which often turns into outright fear.
victory is something one experiences everyday, if he immerses himself in the joy of his craft, and in his sincere quest for learning it. Blood, sweat, and tears are fine. But rather than bleeding from wounds, is it not better to bleed from passion? Rather than sweating from a maniacal adherence to “hard work,” is it not better to sweat from an innocent immersion in one’s craft? Rather than tears of pain, is it not better to have tears of joy?
If our aim remains fixed upon cultivating Atmamun, we will become observers of our feelings rather than “fixers” of them. We will be constantly vigilant of our observation and documentation of what feelings are arising within us, rather than allowing ourselves to react. Thus neither controlling the reaction nor refining it. For reactions arise from a particular substrate. If that substrate is desire, then our reactions will be unruly. If it is observation of desire, then they will become wiser as time goes on.
The inside always trumps the outside. Knowing trumps belief. Innocence and sincerity are king. The one who knows just knows. The one who doesn’t know looks at “the odds.”
You see, society is against the creation of legends. This society is not meant for legends. It does not breed legends. It breeds clones. It breeds sheep. It values conformity. And hails mediocrity. If you seek to be a legend in your field, it will help you to understand that you will have to be comfortable being an outcast. For you will not fit into this society. And if you do fit neatly into this society, there is no way that you will be a legend.
For nature makes one-of-a-kind creations. Society makes clones.
Technique training is like a bullock cart. Perception training is like a Ferrari.
Rather than finding the thing that you can imagine yourself becoming, find the thing that you simply cannot imagine yourself Not Becoming.
Thought stands as a barrier between You and The Experience. When one Experiences, there is no thought. When there is no thought, there is no mind. When there is no mind, there is Atmamun.
Become aware of the mind’s patterns and you will awaken.
There is simply no greater enslavement in the history of man than man’s enslavement to his own mind.
We are so enslaved by the mind that we don’t even recognize that we are enslaved. The mind plays a magic trick upon us. And the trick is so fantastic, so brilliant, so ingenious, that it enslaves a man whilst giving him the impression that he is free.
When we begin to viscerally understand that we are not the mind, we begin to look at the mind face to face. And for those moments that we look at the mind face to face, we have transcended the mind. For in order for you to look at something, you can only look at it if you understand that you are not it. Where there was one, there is now two. And this is the beginning of Atmamun.
The Mind Cannot Be Calmed Or Tamed. It Can Only Be Transcended!
And it is transcended Not through activities. It is transcended through Understanding.
Meditation is about killing the meditator. For the moment the meditator dies, there is only the meditation. And when there is only the meditation there is complete peace.
For as long as there is a “meditator” who is “meditating” nothing will happen. Once the meditator disappears, all things suddenly become possible.
The greatest thing that you can give to the world is peace in your very own life.
The way to help the world is to help yourself. Not in the form of indulgence, but in the form of self-examination. Not in the form of gluttony, but in the form of self-reflection.
Who is the most joyful person in any family? The small child? Or the grown adult? In the family unit, there is the adult who is miserable and disappointed and stressed and confused. And there is a child who is energetic, full of life, joyful, and playful. Let me ask you something: Who should learn from whom? Should the parent teach the child to be miserable? Or should he learn from the child how to be joyful?
But behavior is never the way to address an issue. To address an issue from the standpoint of behavior is like addressing the problems of a tree at the level of the branch, rather than at the level of the root. Behavior, whether in the child or the adult, is the natural byproduct of the person’s outlook, perception, and level of understanding. If you address these more fundamental elements within the human being, the behavior will change by itself. If you wish to raise wise children, stop being a parent. Abandon the idea of ownership. For whatever a man owns, he destroys.
The truth of truths is what every parent will deny to their dying day. But perhaps in their old age they will finally allow themselves to admit the most painful truth of their parenting lives. The one that they forever refused to allow themselves to entertain. Because the fear was too profound. And the pain was too great. What is that truth? Whatever a parent does in the name of his or her child, he is really doing for himself.
And understand this: A child does not need a parent’s teaching. He needs a parent to create for him a certain environment. And this environment will do all of the teaching necessary.
The parent’s ultimate duty is to not make the child dependent upon him. The parent’s ultimate duty is to allow the child to never lose sight of himself.
The fundamental tenet of love is Freedom.
The child’s mind is far superior to that of the parent. This is because it is not well developed. A well developed mind is simply a trash bin that is more full. The more empty the trash bin, the less the trash.
The greatest thing you can do for your child is to not interfere. It is the most difficult thing in the world for a parent to do. But it is also the most important.
For those who believe that they know, for those who believe that they are in control, suffering is the order of the day. And endless conflict the staple of their lives. And it all begins with understanding that one is not their mind.
The child lives. The parent dreams.
The child is spontaneous. The parent is rehearsed. The child lives. The parent makes a life. If there is someone to be inspired by, who should it be? The one who is conditioned? Or the one who is free? If there is someone to learn from, who should it be? The one who searches for answers? Or the one who has no need for them?
Catch yourself in this sleepy state. See with wide open eyes how asleep you truly are. Notice that everything you do is completely reflexive. And then you will be primed to Awaken. And there is nothing that can transform the life of a sleepy man more than Awakening to Atmamun.
Peace is not an eventuality. For it is only available NOW.
Man will complain to the heavens about the details of his miseries. But if you attempt to remove them from him, he will fight to the death in order to preserve them. Why? Because he is unsure of who he might be without them.
We have a problem with the way our kids treat us. The way the waitress speaks to us. The way our spouse scolds us. The way our job makes us feel. The way our boss makes us work. The way the cold makes us tremble. The way the heat makes us sweat. The way the car delays to start. The way our hair fails to part. This is the way it goes for us. And the most tragic part of this is that we fail to realize it. We are given ridiculous adages such as “That’s life.”
The question is NOT “How do I solve my problems?’ The question is “Why do I have problems in the first place?” But who asks such a question? The only person who would ask such a question is the person who rejects the stories that he has been told. The silly little tales about life being difficult and stressful and that in order to make our way through it we must deal with its wrath.
Wallowing in guilt is a delicacy. Playing the victim is a luxury.
The reason that you have problems is because you gain something from them. And unless the perceived gain from Peace exceeds the perceived gain from Misery, you will forever live in misery. Man gets what he wants. The reason that he is where he is, is because it is okay for him to be there.
The search for happiness is nothing more than a reaction to unhappiness. As always, the truth is a function of subtraction rather than addition. Happiness and misery are different segments of the same wave. Neither of them will benefit you.
The knowing of the head is for cocktail parties. The knowing in the heart is for transformation.
Nature should be more kind to man. It should subject man to a near-death experience at least once every six months. Just to remind him that His Time Is Running Out. To remind him that this paper existence that he lives is about to Whither. To remind him not to get too comfortable. To remind him not to take his life seriously, for it is only on Lease. To remind him that every “grand achievement” and every bit of respectability and every drop of his so-called reputation is Going To Fall As Common Dust.
Dying is common. Living is an outright scarcity. He who believes in death, will soon begin to revere life. He who believes in tomorrow, will have no value for today.
Anger is not a form of self-defense. It is a manifestation of inner conflict.
You see, the poor man has no time to fill his soul. For his first priority is to fill his stomach.
Do not pay heed to those who ask you to give it all away and live in poverty. For attachment to poverty is just as imprisoning as an attachment to wealth.
For the person who wonders if something is possible remains tied to impossibility. The reason that you are the way you are is because, on some level, it is okay with you to be the way you are. To give yourself the permission to be the way you are, and also the freedom to lament about it is a great luxury. And it is a luxury that will never allow you to know life. Change is cosmetic. For he who changes, changes back. Transformation is permanent. And it begins with a decision.
