This subject of relations, which is your question: your question is whether we have to look at the other or look at ourselves, if we have to become aware of what goes on within us or if we have to look also at the other, at what they do or at what they represent. First, before everything, why does this happen? At what level are our relations? When you relate to someone, who is the person with whom you relate? Who is the person that is you in this relationship?
This is what we have to study, this is what we have to comprehend. It may seem reasonable to want not to suffer in relations, but human relations are overloaded with suffering. And why does this occur? So, despite not wanting suffering, it is present. And why is it present?
It is the comprehension of this that frees us from suffering, and not the desire to be free from suffering in the relationship. What you will observe within the relationship is that we do not have a real encounter with the other. And why do we not have this encounter? Because we do not know who we are in this contact, in this relation. You cannot have a real encounter with him or with her starting from the idea you have about who he or she is.
And we are doing this all the time, because we do not only have ideas about others: we have ideas about who we are, about what we deserve, about what we do not deserve, about how the other must treat us, receive us, accept us. So, our relation is always a confused, problematic relation. It is the relation of confusion. This is not real, Real Relation. There is something here that escapes us all the time: it is the fact that people, in fact, do not meet.
They do not meet. They are like opinions: each one has their own; perhaps there is an agreement of opinions. In that moment, apparently, an encounter happened; other than that, it is a total mismatch. So, first, before everything, we have to investigate the truth about who we are. We have no way to have the truth about the other.
Moreover, the vision of the truth about oneself will show you, yes, that which you are. The comprehension of that which you are will make you see the other. But the point is not to see how the other treats you; the point is to see how you feel in this treatment. There is something that we do not perceive. We are not different from one another: psychologically speaking, internally, from the point of view inside us, we are like all other people.
You do not realize that you are envious - this would be very painful for you to realize - but you are envious. You do not realize that you are violent - this would be too painful for you to realize this. You see yourself as you desire to be, and not as you in fact are. So, you see yourself as a peaceful, loving, understanding, intelligent, true, loyal, kind person. You see yourself as you desire to be, as you idealize being; you do not see yourself as you are.
Do you know what the result of this is? When the other does not recognize this ideal that you have about yourself, this hurts you, offends you, saddens you, bothers you or makes you angry, or leaves you too furious. And you call this a relation, a relationship. Yes, let's call this a relationship, but we are unaware of the presence of the true Relation. So, our model of being someone is this: it is the model of the person.
When are we hurt? When are we wounded? When do we become like this, angry? It is when the belief we have about who we are is not recognized by him or by her. And we live in this search, in this longing, in this need for appreciation, because we are, in truth, very poor; internally we are very poor little creatures, poor, yes.
Poor in Intelligence, poor in Freedom, poor in discernment, poor in perception of reality. Poor. We live as very needy little creatures and we appreciate this. So, what do we lack? To comprehend, to comprehend, to comprehend oneself, to comprehend the truth of life, how it happens.
But we are living in ideas, we are living in thoughts; this is the life that we know. What may seem to us here very strange, but fundamental, is the importance of comprehending ourselves. It may seem strange, because the idea that you have is that you know yourself, that you comprehend yourself. Look at yourself. We do not let go, we do not disentangle ourselves from pain; we haven't let go, haven't disentangled ourselves from suffering.
And we have this as a very natural thing, that is, that which is common around us we have, for ourselves as something natural. So, living anxious, living worried, living with anger, living with fear, living suffering - this is very natural. And here come the specialists and they tell us: "Look, it is just like that; no one will ever have the possibility of going beyond this condition, because it is so. " Notice: they are right, they are reasonable within that which is their particular experience. So they tell us: "Look, no one can get rid of this 'I', of this ego, of this element in you, which is the person, which is the person who suffers, because this is natural.
" So, they speak from where they find themselves. What is it that we need here? It is to comprehend ourselves, and it is comprehension that frees. It is comprehension that makes us see that we are dealing with a model of existence common to all, but within the illusion of all. These all are not different from one another, nor do they differ from us.
We are like everyone. Unless we have a clear vision of the Truth about ourselves, unless there is a rupture with this condition of mental life, of psychic life, of psychological condition, we will continue looking at the world from this "I", from this ego, and living what everyone is living. The way I see it, the real sense of a relation is complicity, it is companionship, mutual cooperation; this requires the presence of Intelligence, and there is no Intelligence in the ego, there is no Intelligence in the "I", there is no Intelligence in the person. We transform this - which would be a real purpose in relations - into another thing. Our relations are to obtain pleasure, to extract from him or from her something that gives us a compensation and that fills us.
Look at yourself. We want to do things to be someone; we get married to be happy. Notice: the most absurd thing. How is an action of searching for something in someone who is also searching for something that I am searching for? Will I be capable of giving to the other what I do not have, and he gives me what he also does not have?
But we believe that every movement in life must have a purpose for this "me", for this "I". And this purpose will be found when, in this relationship, this happens. So, we live always in this pattern of psychological need for the world, for the other, for things and for people. So, this real purpose of encounter was lost. So, what do we have?
A lie, a lie of a life from this false center that is this "I", which we are unaware of, which we do not comprehend, which we do not have any clarity about. So, what are we together doing here? We are approaching the important question: who am I? This is the importance of knowing oneself, this is the importance of self-revealing, this is the importance of getting rid of the illusion, of the suffering in you. It is when you will no longer project the end of this suffering being given by another person, but we live in this lie.
We want the other to free us from suffering by marrying us. But he also, or she also, is waiting for the same thing. So, the idea that the world will make us happy, the other will give us what we don't have, is completely ridiculous. So, is it challenging? Yes, it is challenging to know that life is not that which we expect or desire or wait for it to be; it is something different.
What we wait from it or expect from it is false. Here, we are inviting you to become aware of what you are, and not of who the other is. Here, we are inviting you to investigate the nature of your pain, abandoning the illusion that the world is causing you pain, the other is causing you pain, the other is making you suffer, or the other has the possibility of making you happy, or fulfilled, or full. This is false, completely false. But it is what we have, it is what we received from human history, from the culture in which we live.
They taught us that the world can and needs to contribute to us, in some way. But who are you? Who am I? It is this that needs to be revealed; no one will do this in your place. I want to call your attention to something here that I have as the key, I see as the key to this clarity, to this perception, to this lucidity.
This is the presence of a look at ourselves, of a perceiving that which goes on with us, without reacting to it. This is the presence of an Attention upon oneself, something - listen calmly - because it is something entirely different from what we know. Our idea, always constant, is to react and never to just stay aware. We want to stay aware to do something. Here, I am inviting you only to look, to look at that which goes on with you, within you.
If someone bothers you, the annoyance is yours, it is not theirs. Notice what a strange thing what you are going to hear, very strange. When you are bothered, this has a cause; we cannot deny the cause of this annoyance. It's just that the cause of this annoyance is not the answer to the end of this pain of being bothered. So, when you are bothered, in general what we do is find the cause to explain to ourselves, to justify to our own selves why this state of pain is here.
And what do we do when we are bothered? Taken by this emotion, we react; this gives a relief, when we express it by cursing, fighting, hitting the other, blaming the other. But this does not solve it, because we are going through this now, in this instant. You are thirty years old, you have already been bothered at least some three times. evident that not: you have already been bothered many times.
If you are thirty years old, it wasn't only three times. So, what occurs with us? We live constantly, for example, becoming bothered, and we never realized what annoyance is. This is like having a problem that is never solved, and we having to deal with it time after time, after time. So, it is no use for you to run away from the annoyance, to run away by fighting, cursing, doing something, because you will continue being a person who gets bothered, a person who gets annoyed, who gets hurt, who gets offended, who gets sad - because it is not only annoyance.
Anyway, the state in us, of internal condition, of psychological condition, is of continuity, and this does not end until we have real comprehension of it. And we do not know how to comprehend this, because we were not even. at no moment did they call our attention to the possibility of this comprehension. That is why it is said that no one can live free from the "I", free from the ego, because this is the common. Our references are of people around us, yes or no?
Are they not the people who are around us? Do we not live with people? Do we know any extraterrestrial living with us? No. They are people, and people are like that.
But will there be something beyond that? This is the challenge of a talk like this, of a quality of encounter like this. Do you know how I consider this encounter? I consider this encounter as a profoundly religious encounter. But religious in the sense of a pointing to Something beyond.
beyond the known, beyond the common. But also beyond spiritualist practices or doctrines, or what we understand out there as religion. Here, it is about an encounter with the Truth about you. So see: we have the truth about me, and there is a reality about you. This reality about "you" is not this truth about this "me"; this "me" is this one who gets bothered, who gets hurt, who gets sad, suffers, loaded with problems.
So, how can we have a real approach to this? By becoming aware of how we function. This requires the presence of a look at our reactions in attention. When you are bothered, you are inattentive. Listen to this: you are inattentive.
And why are you inattentive? Because you are explaining, justifying, looking for the cause, looking for who did this to you; you are absorbed in the pain, but separating yourself from it, by doing this. So, you are inattentive. Try, the next time you get bothered, to embrace this. It is a great challenge not to find the reason, not to find the cause, not to find the why.
Just stay with the pain, with the sensation, feeling, or emotion. You know that when you feel something, and when it has the freedom, for some reason, to express itself, this feeling becomes an emotion; it involves the body, it involves something physical. So, the next time you feel something of the sort, such as sadness, do not find the reason. I know it is a very great temptation not to find the why of being sad. Try, when you are sad, to stay without the reason for the sadness; try that and see if it sustains itself.
Observe: when you are sad, is there not a story? Is there not a story? Can anyone stay sad without the story of that someone? When is it that you are sad? You are sad when something you did not expect happened, something you did not wait for for yourself arose.
You are sad when you are rejected, when you are not accepted, when you do not have what you desire; that is when you become sad. But is it just sadness, or does it transform into annoyance and also into anger, and it begins. And why does all this occur? Because there is no Mindfulness toward this image that is you, that you have about yourself, which was hurt, which was despised, which was rejected. We defend this image, we defend this person that we are; to justify, we explain.
So, this is the game. This is how we are giving continuity in this inattention toward ourselves, to this "I". So, how can we approach this? Looking. This is the presence of Awareness upon our reactions.
See: upon our reactions. It has nothing to do with the other, nothing to do with what happened on the outside; it has nothing to do with the cause, with the reason; it has to do with our reactions. What we are communicating here to you is the key to the approach to Meditation. Which requires the base for it: the base is to know oneself, Self-awareness. The importance of Self-awareness shows you what it is to learn about yourself, and you learn about yourself when you stop having ideas, thoughts, conclusions about what is out there, the reason, the cause.
Notice that we do exactly the opposite: we live all the time waiting for the other to never offend us, never hurt us, always treat us the way we expect. We live in this dependence; this internal poverty of awareness of self, of oneself, places us in this condition. So, we lack Awareness upon ourselves, a Mindfulness, complete, a vision of that which processes itself here, within us, in this instant. Your question in the morning was: what is staying with what is? See: the first approach is to become aware of what is.
Wait: are you telling me that I have to continue with the anger, with the fear, or with this pain? What we are saying here to you is: stay aware of it. It is not you staying with it. It is the awareness that this state and you are not separate. This is the point.
See: our conditioning was different. We have the idea of someone sad, someone hurt, someone bothered. There is no such thing. I will say it again: there is no such thing. In the annoyance, that is everything, that is you; there is no "you" bothered.
In sadness, you only stay sad when you think; then you see yourself as someone. But, when there is sadness, it is a pain, it is a sensation, it is an emotion, it is a state, it is a condition. Become aware of it, just look, perceive, observe. This is how we approach that which is present here. And, when we approach like this, there is no someone in this approach; it is an approach without someone.
This is Meditation. The presence of Meditation is the comprehension of the illusion of someone; otherwise, there is no Meditation. When someone uses the expression "meditation" as a practice for someone, the idea is of someone in the exercise of that. Whereas, in Meditation, what we have is the comprehension of the nonexistence of the meditator; this is Meditation. When there is Meditation, the "I" is not.
When there is Self-awareness, which is the comprehension of that which is present here, there does not remain someone. This expression "self-awareness" is an expression much used in psychoanalysis, in psychology, in psychiatry, in this area of study of human thought. But do people know there what self-awareness is? Because the comprehension of the Truth about this "I" is the clear vision that no "I" exists. So, when you approach to investigate the nature of this "I", in the question "who am I?
", if this deepens, no "I" is found. The question "who am I? " has no answer. There is no answer to the question "who am I? ".
Because it is not a question like a problem that brings a solution; it is a question like an insoluble problem. Because it is insoluble, we are before a Mystery: the Mystery of Life, when this "I" is not found. So, you ask the question, but it is not to have an answer; it is to enter the Mystery that there is no one there. Someone there to stay bothered, someone there to stay sad, someone there to stay hurt, someone there to have fear, someone there to get rid of fear. This requires the presence of a look, this requires the presence of a new perception.
When you look at something, either there is the look or there is someone in the look. The look is impossible in another way: either the look is present without someone, or the look is present having an observer. When is this observer present? When your look is to define, is to explain, is to speak about, is to give importance or value to what is being seen. Such as, for example: when you see something like a flower, and you say the name or you speak of the color, this quality of look has in it the presence of the one who observes.
But to be before the flower in this look, without the color, without the importance of the color, without the importance of the category of the flower, of the history of the flower, of the quality of the flower - it is just the look. So, one thing is looking; another thing is someone seeing. In general, our contact with the present moment is someone seeing. Here, we are inviting you to look. Look at these reactions in you without giving a name, without classifying, without the idea of who did, of who did not do that to you; just look, become aware.
What is it to have an approach to life without this "I"? This is the presence of Meditation. What is that? It is looking without the observer, it is perceiving without someone who perceives, it is staying aware without someone with any interest in what to do with that. We are unaware of this, people; we are unaware.
Because everything they taught us was to stick our nose in all the time, to be meddlesome. We are the whole time involving ourselves, involving ourselves, being someone, being a person all the time. It is an addiction: being a person is an addiction. When you approach a girl or a boy or an object, it is: "What is this going to give me? What is this going to bring me?
" This is there, it is within this psychological structure of human conditioning that we bring. Everything is to give us pleasure or bring sensation. So, we live always as persons, all the time. When someone comes to speak something with you, as a person you wait for what they are going to say. If they say what you like, you like them; if they say what you do not like, you do not like them.
So, we live all the time being persons. When you arrived here in the morning and said: "I said something there, and when I finished saying it she came with five stones in her hand. " This is how we approach the other: it is from the person we believe ourselves to be, in the illusion of a person we just met. Result: confusion for sure, all the time. Such are our human relations.
The secret of this internal richness, which is this vision of life without the conclusions of the thinker, of the observer, of this "I", is to look at this moment without expecting, without waiting, without seeking anything from it. And this moment can be an encounter with him or with her. So, there is a difference between you dealing with him or with her, or with them, and dealing from the person with persons. If you look from the person, you see persons; if you look from this place, there is no person. There is no person to frustrate you, disappoint you, deceive you, make you suffer or give you something.
This encounter is something completely different, this is something completely different. This approach to this instant is something entirely new, when the "I" is not. Then you say: "How to realize this? " You are not going to realize this; you are going to become aware of what is here, of how your mind functions, how you react, how you respond, how you speak, how you listen, how you gesticulate. Listen to this: it is this Awareness upon our reactions, the presence of a look free from the need for a consideration, of a person there, because you are no longer caring about the illusion of someone there; you are attentive to these reactions.
This is Meditation. So, what is Meditation? I used to think it was to sit down, cross the legs, repeat "om". It is not that, it is not that. Meditation is the awareness of Life as it happens, and it happens when there is no longer the idea of how it should be.
The idea of how it should be is a psychological aspect of the illusion of an identity that sees itself present being the person. This is alienated from Life, this is distant from Reality, this is distant from the other. So, couples live together for ten years, fifteen years, twenty years, forty years, but they never met, because they are persons. Persons with their beliefs, opinions, ideas, desires, fears, expectations, hope, despair. They are persons who are keeping within them the unhappy and miserable moments they lived together more than the happy and pleasant moments they had, because it is typical of the ego: it loves to remember, especially that which gives it identity, and nothing gives it more identity than being a sufferer, than having gone through lies, problems in the relationship.
Result: we look at the world and say: "Where is Happiness? " Illusion tells us that we are going to find Happiness in the relationship. But persons in relation are like trains coming on the same line, in opposite directions. Persons do not meet; they clash, they clash. The trains are coming, each in its own direction, but no one is occupying themselves with the other; it's just that the line is the same.
The sense of the "I", the sense of the ego, the sense of someone present is that. What is Freedom? What is Happiness? What is Love? What is Peace?
It is the presence of the Relation free from the "I", free from the ego. Life is relation. You are breathing: your relation with oxygen is very intimate, very deep; you do not even realize that you are breathing and that there is a relation between this body and the oxygen of the environment. This is life; Life is relation. But, in the sense of the "I", there is no Life, because it lives in isolationism; it never relates; it has what interests it, what it seeks, what it looks for there, in him or in her, in the other.
So, the quality of relation that we know is very grotesque, not to say problematic, not to appeal and call it deeply miserable, because it is full of problems. But how would it be different, if "I" am the problem? It is not another the problem; "I" am the problem. So, I am this train that comes. How can we look at this?
There is only one way: looking. If you look in any other way, you are going to look from the thinker, you are going to look from thought, from conclusions, from personal ideals and purposes; you are going to be a person, and that is your addiction: being someone in this relation. And, in this relation, there is no Truth, there is no Truth. Thus, this encounter with Life cannot be an encounter between two trains; it cannot be an encounter with the person; it must be an encounter with the Truth. This is what is You, when there is no more illusion.
So, before taking the flight of fancy, before being a train in some direction, find the sense of it, find the sense of it. What society taught us was something else. They said that we had to study, grow, then get married; they were giving us directions, and we are exactly in the direction they gave us, and it seems that it is not working out. It is not working out. Let's look at this, ok?