In the I Ching, the venerable Chinese Book of Wisdom, we are told that for every ending there is a new beginning. And if there is a watchword—a mantram—for a person who seeks eternity, it’s that phrase.

Throughout the ages, human beings have sought enlightenment. We have been all of those beings throughout the ages who have sought enlightenment. Today, a few people seek enlightenment. We are those persons who seek enlightenment. In the future there will be innumerable, countless beings who seek enlightenment. We are all of those beings who have already had their so-called enlightenment.

The idea that there’s a past and a future is illusory. Which does not mean that there is not a past and a future. There is a past and a future in this world, in relative time. Then, of course, there’s timeless time. That realm of existence that’s not defined in the Superconscious.

True awareness. When we experience the ultimate reality, without words, without hidden meanings.

But between the Superconscious and the conscious, there’s a space—a gap—which each one of us experiences on the way towards the transcendental reality. It’s the journey that we make called self-discovery.

Self-discovery comes in so many different forms and formats. The form varies according to the individual. The format is the path that you walk upon.

But for every ending there’s a new beginning.

The world is filled with frustration, doubt, ignorance, hatred, fear, oppression and repression. The world is also made of pure beauty and light.

We could say that this world, this grand stage that we walk upon, that we call Earth, life—this life—is a field of action. A screen, a place to dream, many many different dreams.

All of our successive lifetimes are dreams, and yet they’re real dreams.

The pathway to enlightenment is not necessarily very long, in retrospect. [Audience laughs.]

For one who is seeking enlightenment it seems endless, something that will never happen, it only happens to a chosen few. And it’s true! enlightenment only occurs to a chosen few. So I suppose if we could find out who’s choosing and have a serious talk [laughter] with the one who’s doing the choosing, it might be possible for us to become part of the chosen few.

However, I have to speak out for the unenlightened. And I think its necessary to be the defense counsel this evening, or any evening, for those who avoid enlightenment. Because I think of all actions which are noble and fruitful, this is perhaps the most ridiculous. [Laughter.]

But if we have a broad based understanding of life, and if we have a heart that’s big enough to accept the diversity of existence beyond the knowable—within and without reason—then some of the following may make sense. Why you shouldn’t attain enlightenment.

There’s really no reason to attain enlightenment, since we all know—philosophically—that we all are enlightened. At least that’s what enlightened people say.

Yet you know that that’s not true, which means all enlightened people lie! [Laughter.] Why would you want to become a liar? Therefore, you can be truthful and avoid enlightenment.

Being enlightened doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re happy all the time. This is one of the illusions of enlightenment. Therefore, if you want to be happy all the time you should not be enlightened. Enlightenment leads to intense frustration. It gives the word new character. [Laughter.]

Therefore, if you want to avoid frustration, you should definitely avoid enlightenment. Enlightenment, or liberation or self-realization—whatever we choose to call it—can’t be very good, otherwise more people would seriously endeavor to experience it or become it.

Clearly the world is filled with persons who are wise.

We know that the more years you live in this world, the more you know. The smarter you are. We learn from our experiences, [laughter] and judging from the learned world and the knowledge that the elderly possess, we know that enlightenment can be of little value because very few elderly people are enlightened.

And even fewer young people are enlightened. So if youth has anything to teach us, it’s to avoid enlightenment at all costs. [Laughter.] If old age has anything to teach us, it’s to avoid enlightenment (in most cases) and there’s nothing good about middle age, we all know that. That’s the time when people raise families. As opposed to raising their kundalini.

The world has never cared much for enlightenment. If we use history as an example, and since we know that history repeats itself, we can assume that the world probably will never care for enlightenment. The people of the world.

The dominant themes that seem to repeat again and again historically are oppression, violence, hatred. And a tremendous, tremendous appreciation on the part of almost all—even those who oppress and hate and are violent—of beauty. Strange dichotomy.

If we consider those who are successful in the world, we will find that very often they are unenlightened. As a matter of fact—judging by worldly standards—most persons who have attained enlightenment have missed worldly success.

Therefore, if you wish to be very, very successful in life, you should not waste your time on pursuing enlightenment.

What few misfits seek enlightenment, seriously seek enlightenment? There are many who dabble. But what few really are interested in enlightenment?

If we can do a profile, is there something that they have in common? Did they have a bad childhood? [Laughter.] Is there a certain socio-economic structure that they grew out of? Why should they be so dissatisfied with all the world has to offer that they seek something else?

We know their reasons. They say that the world is filled with suffering, frustration, that all human beings are bound by desires. That these desires lead them to experience craving. Some fleeting satisfaction followed by pain. That to live in the desiring physical consciousness is to not experience the ultimate bliss.

Crackpots if you ask me. Most of them probably couldn’t even hold a job.

It might be better for the human race to eradicate these few individuals. To round them all up, and take them to the top of a mountain, and just let them sit there and meditate their little hearts out. [Laughter.]

And the rest of the world could just go on with life. With earning a living, procreation, the things that count! [Laughter.]

Now, it is possible that these few misguided souls—who have attained enlightenment—have had such a massive effect on certain segments of society, because they appear to have miraculous powers.

However, it’s never been exactly substantiated as to whether this is true or not.

We have reports of persons walking on water, flying through the air, doing many, many things which reasonable people know are not possible.

Why should people be so preoccupied with these things? Even if they’re attainable, will they bring happiness? You walk on land now. Will walking on water make you happy? [Laughter.]

How would the fish feel, looking up, seeing all these feet?

In short, if God wanted … [laughter] … human beings to fly through the air, walk on the water, She would have made it possible. But in Her wisdom, She didn’t.

There are some persons who have spent time with these lunatics—the enlightened. And they claim that spending time with them has changed them. [Huge laughter.]

But we—as serious minded people—must ask ourselves, have these changes been for the better? [Laughter.]

Some have given up families, careers, noble occupations, to go and be with these persons, to spend time with them. Because they say that it has brought them a bliss and a knowledge that surpasses understanding.¹⁵

People who take cocaine report similar experiences. [Great laughter.]

As we know, the cults flourish from age to age. Be it the cult of Christianity, the cult of Judaism, whatever it may be—age after age—sometimes they become more popular, sometimes the cults become the establishment itself! And decry the rise of any new cult that threatens their supremacy.

If a cult is established, it appears to be all right. If it’s in the socio-political structure. The new ones are problematic. This is history.

Now, if we really observe the enlightened, and we separate the enlightened from those who claim to be enlightened and who are not, we will see an interesting phenomena.

We will observe that those who claim to be enlightened very often are socially destructive. They do seem to abuse power. They develop large followings of persons who through their association are the poorer for their experience.

These are usually individuals who did not have the power of choice. They were suffering from various problems and were promised instant salvation, and gave everything for it. And their temporary euphoria seems to pass as mind control takes a grip.

You’ll notice, though—historically—interestingly enough, that the persons who are actually enlightened, don’t affect people in this way.

As a matter of fact, during their lifetimes, enlightened persons create practically no social change whatsoever, because they make absolutely no demands upon the individuals who come to them.

As a matter of fact, rather than trying to encourage persons to become examples or replicants of themselves—of those who claim to be or are enlightened—they do just the opposite. They suggest that everyone has to find truth in their own way, and must be themselves.

Many enlightened teachers have actually chased persons away, saying that they should not worry about enlightenment in this stage in their evolution. Rather, they should encourage themselves to live in the world and work in the world, because it is not the time yet.

So, it doesn’t really seem that enlightened people are socially a threat to the world, if they’re truly enlightened. Now, if they’re not truly enlightened, at times they are a great threat to society, and the people who come to them. But the actual enlightened persons seem to be relatively harmless. Initially.

However, very often, after their death, they seem to wield a greater effect.

But we can discount this, perhaps, that it is just the followers of these persons interpret—to their own liking—what the enlightened person or persons said, and use it to promulgate their own ideas for social change.

But the enlightened people seem to be relatively harmless.

If we were to paraphrase what they say, we would say,

• “Be absorbed. Be absorbed in eternal consciousness.

• “This world is as a grain of sand unto a desert.

• “A desert on which many camels pass.

• “If you were to ride such a camel across such a desert and come to a palm tree, you might notice a crow … [laughter] … alighting on a palm tree, and a coconut falling from it.

• “From your vantage point on the camel’s back, the camel’s hoof perhaps might be resting on that very grain of sand, which is existence as we know it, past, present and future. From your vantage point on the camel, which is on existence, you might see the crow alight on the top of a palm tree and watch a coconut fall.

• “And you might assume that because the crow landed on the palm tree, the coconut fell. However, as it may be, the coconut could have just been falling at the time that the crow happened to stop by.”

[Rama laughs, all laugh.] This is the kind of nonsense that enlightened people talk about. [Laughter.]

That’s why they’re absolutely no social threat. [Great laughter.]

Anyone foolish to listen to this sort of nonsense certainly will not be the worse for it, nor will they probably be the better for it. It’s like reading Marvel Comics.

Now, in defense of the enlightened, and in defense of the ideal of becoming enlightened—if we’re going to be reasonable people, and I assume we are, and we want to examine both sides of a one-sided situation—we could say that it is observable that persons who seek enlightenment, do go through major transpositions, in terms of the personality structure and their lifestyle.

And many of them claim to be happier—more euphoric—they have a feeling of well-being which not only endures in times of adversity, but at times actually seems to increase.

While they still suffer the pains and joys of human existence, they say that in their meditation, and in their selfless giving, they come to understandings of the nature of existence.

They appear to be tranquil and relatively harmless … and while we cannot substantiate their claims … we cannot necessarily disagree, since their journeys and their sojourns are inward and cannot be quantified or measured.

But for a moment, let’s enter into the world of “suppose.” Let’s dream along for a moment, and try and understand what the nature—from their point of view, of course—of spiritual evolution is.

Spiritual evolution is a relatively mindless process. In the sense that everything is, always has been, and will never be.

There is no time unless you’re wearing a watch.

Everything is convenient, unless you happen to be frustrated. When you’re feeling wonderful, the world is wonderful, if you’re unhappy, the world is dark.

All heavens and hells appear to be created within the self.

Therefore, if we decide that there’s no hell, and only heaven, we will experience only heaven. Reality itself seems to gain a definition through the definition that we give it. Nothing is unless we make it so.

Which does not suggest that there is not an objective world. There are crows, and there are coconuts. And there may be a causal link.

But what we must consider more deeply is the nature of truth. There are words, and there are words, and then there is silence. The art of meditation is the art of silence.

In spite of all obstacles, in spite of all frustration, one learns with patience and perseverance to quiet the mind. The mind is stimulated by many things. By the world’s vibratory forces, society, past conditioning, desires.

But with patience and practice, one can still the mind.

When the mind becomes absolutely calm and quiet like a lake without ripples, one can see eternity. Eternity is neither here nor there, it’s everywhere. And nowhere. Beyond definition.

Most people in this world are very, very sad. Even in their relative happiness, they’re unhappy. Their happiness is fleeting. They themselves are fleeting.

Nature in its profusion brings bounty to the world. The generations come and the generations go. The worlds come and the worlds go. There seems at times to be no sense to it. And perhaps there isn’t.

Yet in that stillness, in that region of light which lies just beyond the corner of awareness, there is a sense of perfection. There is perfection.

One can choose to pass through this life, going through the various experiences that one must go through, be you enlightened, unenlightened, or somewhere in the middle.

And you can go through this world with joy and belief or you can go through this world with doubt and frustration. At the end, in either case, one might say, cynically that you will die, what was the difference?

But the difference was in the moment. Because there is no death.

Death is just another idea, another dream.

The appearance is an illusion, in the sense that what you see is incomplete.

You see yourself as an objectified being with a separate existence, with a beginning and an ending, who lives in the world. Who works in the world, who plays, who suffers, who experiences joy.

But when you meditate, when you take the time to go within yourself each day to that still point, when the mind becomes completely quiet—when nature dissolves—then we see that what we thought was reality, was partiality.

A dream. Insubstantial. While in the dream, as you know, the dream seems perfectly real. We have no sense that we’re in a dream. When we meditate we gain the sense that life is a dream. When we come to that basic apprehension that life is a dream, we can then set our dreaming up. We can learn to dream different dreams, if we choose to.

Or we can go beyond the dream itself.

There are four levels of consciousness.

• The waking state,

• the dreaming state,

• the deep sleep state,

• and the fourth level of ecstasy—or superconscious awareness—the stateless state. From which there is no return, because no one can go into it. It is existence in its purest form.

One form of reality is not holier than another. These are terminologies that we apply based upon relative understandings of what is and what is not.

But each person chooses in any given lifetime—at any given moment—what they wish. And what they wish is granted.

Not so much in the sense of the physical, but in the sense of consciousness.

You can choose to experience the world and play in its gardens of delight. And when the winter comes, it all goes away, as do you, the winter of our death, followed by the spring of our rebirth. The joyous cycle of existence in which the pure beauty of the cycle is enough to sustain us, to comfort us—there is a wisdom in nature, we are nature.

You can enter into the dream. The endless planes of reality, endless cycles of existence, endless worlds coexisting—simultaneously existing in linear fashion—not existing. Existences that don’t exist, and can’t exist. Beyond the mind’s comprehension.

We can journey. We can experience and become these realities or move through them, in the world of the dream. We can take dreaming—dreaming as in when we’re asleep at night dreaming—and bring it into the daylight.

We can see that there is no difference between being awake and being asleep.

And we can consciously dream.

Or realize that we have been consciously dreaming all along. That our very self, our very nature, this very life, with all of its importances is but another dream.

But in the dream state, we only move from dream to dream. In the waking state, we move from waking to sleeping, and to waking.

The deep sleep state is—in a sense—nonexistence. There is no dream, there is no relative awareness of this world. Yet there are subtle impressions. From the seed will come the sprout, the plant, the fruit—the seed, the sprout, the plant, the fruit.

So, because one is in the deep sleep state, this does not mean that one has attained enlightenment.

Because something will come forward from it. Just as the ocean is calm, then the ocean becomes violent. So the latent impressions and tendencies from all of our past lives are stored within the individual jiva or self.

During the deep sleep state the ocean is calm. But these tendencies have not gone away. They’re just in a state of stasis. They reawaken with wakening.

The Superconscious, on the other hand, is beyond definition or experience in the sense that we must move beyond being an experiencor to know it. The Superconscious is really all that there is. Except that the Superconscious at times dreams itself into the dreaming state, wakes itself into the waking state or sleeps itself into the deep sleep state.

But to one who has knowledge of the Superconscious, who is it—not in theory but in reality—all the worlds, all the grains of sand, all the camels, coconuts and crows combined, are both real and unreal.

And while they appear to be in the dream, they are not. They are dreamless sleepers. They walk through this life, as in a dream, while waking. They live in a perpetual twilight or a perpetual sunrise. Not quite in one world or in the other world.

We call them “jivan muktas”—liberated souls—self-realized beings.

Until the time of death, when the final liberation, for those who are liberated, occurs, and the curtain opens on a new horizon, because for every ending there is a new beginning.

Liberation does not indicate the extinction of the self. Rather, it indicates total consciousness—complete awareness—of all selves. But not in the way that the self can understand or relate to.

So, we seek the sky—that endless sky of becoming—without knowing why. We can assign reasons, but that’s all we’ve done. Even to say it’s the trend of evolution, of reincarnation, the will of God; these are all reasons assigned, seats taken in the homeroom class, waiting for the day to progress.

So, I have to come back to joy. The joy of life.

Having journeyed to the farthest reality and beyond, having seen and lived in the eternal and in the finite—ultimately I can only embrace humanity, which is eternity, and choose to be happy.

And I see pain and frustration, and ignorance or maya, as opportunities to be happier. To proclaim happiness—to fight for it—which gives it meaning and purpose, in what is otherwise a meaningless and purposeless world.

The final condition of humanity is joy.

Humanity will never collectively experience this joy. But yet you as an individual are a collective. You house within you all beings that have ever been or will ever be.

And when you turn your attention to the skies of eternity, whether to watch from the finite their infinite beauty or to merge with them, and go beyond the finite, and become them. Two sides of a coin.

Still, there’ll be joy. Even if you fight against joy and frustrate yourself and disappoint yourself, still joy will always be beckoning you. Always beckoning you. Joy is always there. Because it is the very nature of this transitory life.

Pain, anger, frustration, repression, oppression, hate, fear—these qualities do not in any way taint joy. Joy is joy. They’re different notes in the symphony of life.

If you focus on them, you will certainly experience a great deal of misery. If you focus on joy, you will become joy.

But they can in no way stamp out the flame of joy, or belief that our life on this Earth—in this world—is not purposeless. That in spite of what we see in the world—which is not always pleasant, as we become mature adults and look at the nature of our planet—that this does not take away from joy.

Because these are passing shadows, dreams, phantoms in the night which in the final joy of God Consciousness—of merging with that which we really are—will dissolve.

The rain comes for several weeks and it may seem as if it’s always been, but then the sun comes and the rain goes away. And then only the sun exists. This is the nature of the Earth. We experience the sun and the rain.

The Superconscious is beyond the clouds. Where there is nothing but sun. All the time.

And each one of us has the capability—is the capability—of experiencing that endless light. We are that endless light, except that we forget that sometimes.

For every ending there is a new beginning. And thank God for every beginning there’s an ending.

Because otherwise life would become terribly, terribly boring. We would find ourselves in the same condition, watching the same movie. I’ve seen The Road Warrior seven times. The other night I saw it for the seventh time.

But each time it was different. It was never the same.

Because I was never the same.

Whenever you see someone twice, you’ve lied to yourself. Because there’s never been anything but now.

To change your consciousness—to raise your perceptual awareness—to bliss.

To be willing to experience the agony of the absolute ecstasy. It’s worth trying! You’ll never know until you do, and even then you won’t be sure.

This is meditation and self-discovery. To be willing to experience so much ecstasy that you die.

And to find yourself a new self on another shore, reunited in this life, but not quite. Different yet the same. Again and again, the process. Samadhi, they call it. I call it a good time. [Laughter.]

Samsara is nirvana. Sally is John. [Laughter.]

Or as T.S. Elliott said in Four Quartets, “In my beginning is my end.” All ways of trying to say what can’t be said. But what we are continuing to say—an endless loop tape, from lifetime to lifetime.

So, don’t be discouraged. And if you are, don’t be discouraged that you’re discouraged. You must know that you are always on the threshold of a perpetual waking.

It exists! It’s there. Just as there are craters on the moon. Just as Judge Crater ¹⁶ never returned!

So one day you’ll never return. Judge Crater, he knew something. That’s what Orr was trying to tell Yaserian.¹⁷

There is a way out, and the way out is the way in. It is not by running away from the world, nor is it by running towards it. Rather, it’s by embracing and surrendering to the world.

Nature is the guideline and the way. Observe nature. Everything comes into being, exists, and goes into nonbeing. So simple, so perfect—what software to run the universe!

IBM has a lot to learn. Think of the incredible operating system and high level language. To hold all of the worlds in manifestation. And to dissolve them. To keep track of your karmic records alone! [Laughter.] Endless, countless, beings. Awesome. Totally awesome.

So I can only suggest that you learn to be what my friend Theodore Roethke called “a perpetual beginner.” Because if you feel that you’re knowledgeable, you may be. But to be a perpetual beginner is the happy part.

Being a student is much more fun than being a teacher. So I think it’s good for teachers to always be students. Because otherwise they forget and they become very poor teachers, because they forget the joy of learning.

Enlightenment is not an end product. It’s the end of the product.

And each step is a step in that direction. If you try and run away from it, you get closer to it! If you bury yourself in oblivion, then you’ll find it there too. God exists in hell, in heaven, and at Denny’s. [Laughter.]

So, then the spiritual life—while it has many complexities which I’m not alluding to right now, certainly—is simple. It’s simple in the sense that all you need to do is whatever you like. And if you do that, you’re in terrible trouble.

But you have to go through that part of the cycle.

You’re all willing and eager to give your will away to God, but suppose God doesn’t want it? [Laughter.] There may be a surplus of wills. Perhaps you should wait until the economy in the inner worlds shifts. You may get a better price for your will.

[Silence, about 15 seconds.]

So try and be happy. Because it doesn’t matter.

And if anybody asks you why you should be happy—since nothing really matters—you could say, because I said so. [Laughter.] And they might say, “Well, that doesn’t matter,” and then you can say, “Well yes, but the fact that you said that doesn’t matter either. So what’s the difference?”

In other words, ultimately when you probe eternity, when you meditate and obtain enlightenment and all this stuff, you see that nothing really matters, or, that everything matters.

You can look at it either way. They’re both frames of reference. They are ways of seeing life. Neither of which is exactly correct, although both are definitely correct, depending on which you’re using.

Beyond that is nirvana. Patent pending. For a long time! [Rama and the audience both laugh.]

Now what you can make out of all this is probably whatever you’d like to. And I see nothing wrong with that.

But I will continue to declare that life is joy. Even if you’re not experiencing it, that does not mean that it is not so. Someone may love you, and you may not see that, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t love you.

So while you go through the bardo of transitory experiences, the emotional whirlpools and hysterectomies of existence [laughter] … and while you may get down on yourself and complain and feel crummy—you know all along that you’re good!

That you’re light, and that in spite of yourself … you will succeed. And after you’ve succeeded it won’t matter. But that doesn’t matter. (Jnana Yoga.)

So try and be among the happy. It’s a thriving minority. [Laughter.]

To be happy all you have to do is grin when it hurts. [Laughter.]

And it hurts sometimes. That’s S&M. [Laughter.]

But since we have no control over anything, since we’re not the doer … We’re the done, or done for, as some would say. And is there a difference between being baked and half-baked? I suppose, it’s a matter of temperature and time. [Laughter.]

Try not to worry so much. All the time you worry. You worry about the present, you worry about the past, you worry about the future. All your worrying, what will it do? Give you ulcers.

If you must worry, worry about happy things. [Laughter.]

You might worry that you’ll become really happy and it might last. [Laughter.]

You might worry that you’ll take the energy from meditation and transform it and use it in your life with your career and personal relationships and become very successful. Which is very easy.

You might worry that you might even realize God. These are terrible things to worry about. But they’re happier things to worry about.

You can worry that you’re going to be audited by the IRS. [Laughter.] But your worries won’t bring the audit closer or push it back further.

You can worry that you might attain self-realization sooner than you had expected. [Laughter.] Your worries won’t bring it about. But it’s a nicer field of attention, it’s a nicer dream.

And if you must experience a nightmare, why not enjoy it? Why go to a horror movie and be horrified? Why not see it as a great comedy? You can do the same thing with life.

Humor, in my estimation, is the ultimate liberator.

Therefore, if you are an advanced spiritual seeker, you will see a great many Peter Sellers movies. [Laughter.] And Woody Allen movies. There’s much to be learned from laughing.

Now, as you know, most people laugh at misfortune. Because it makes them feel macho. Superior to others.

And naturally, of course, the wheel of change will revolve and one day they will find themselves in the position of those they laughed at.

Knowing this in advance, it might be wise to laugh not at others but at ourselves.

Spiritual practice is never easy, and it’s never hard. You may interpret it one way or the other. But it’s the laughter and the humor that creates balance in our being. And even without a reason, it just is in itself a nicer dream.

You can’t stop or start yourself. You’re an endless reality. You are the ultimate Brahman, the Self. The one without a second cousin. [Laughter.]

So don’t try so hard. There’s a natural flow of light within each of us. And if you enter into that flow of light you need not try so hard.

Meditation is spontaneous. Spiritual discovery is spontaneous. That’s when it’s best. Like sex, right? [Audience pauses, laughs, then Rama joins in.]

I was asked that recently on a panel show I didn’t attend.

“Are sex and meditation the same?” I said, “Absolutely not! You can meditate by yourself.” [Long laughter.]

Now, I realize there is … But I don’t think that’s what they asked on the panel show that I didn’t attend. [Much laughter.]

So, if I were to sum this all up—I’d be in terrible trouble.

Instead I would just say … Don’t try so hard, don’t be so hard on yourselves. Don’t hate yourselves so much. It doesn’t bring about a quicker realization.

You’re here in this world to learn self-acceptance. The acceptance of your body, even though it’s passing. That it is, yet that it’s not. It’s eternal. Because it’s eternal in the moment. The moments are eternal. They never end.

We will always be, we have always been. In this condition, in this consciousness and in all consciousness. You are all of those who have ever attained enlightenment or ever will.

You are the past, the present and the future—and that which lies beyond.

Try and have more fun with your self-discovery. It doesn’t have to be heavy. Find that subtle flow of light within yourself. Through experimenting. The Year of Living Dangerously.¹⁸ Don’t be afraid to reach and be different. Don’t be afraid to be the same. Find what works. Trust yourself. If you can’t trust yourself, who can you trust?

That which is not the self.

Life can be quite wonderful, and is. More people love you than you realize. You just don’t want to see. Yet.

The self veils itself in countless forms. Only to unveil them at a later date. So don’t be frustrated. Just live. While there’s life. That’s really more than enough.

And if you find yourself walking my way—the way of meditation—then you’ll practice stillness, self-giving. You’ll enjoy humility and purity and beauty.

You’ll go beyond the waking, dreaming and deep sleep states to the Turiyananda Consciousness, the consciousness of the absolute reality, and see that you were always there. That there never was a there, there never was an always, or there always is an always.

But in that stillness is perfection, and in the physical is perfection too. They’re not different. They’re the same.