The mind is conditioned to function in this way: identifying with the body and what it does, seeing itself responsible, to receive boos or applause, praise or criticism. This has to do with the mind's conditioning.
Just see that thought "talks" from a self-image. Look at your experience clearly, simply, naturally, without thought's intervention, and you will not have imagination, there will not be any action of this image. Be simple about this. See what thought says about you and notice it is based on imagination, on the action of an image, not on the experience.
The concern about doing things and pleasing or displeasing others is related to self-image. You all have it! You can work in an office, in front of a computer, talking half a dozen words with someone there, spend most of your time dealing only with documents or accessing the internet, however, your self-image will be there.
It is not the world that causes you pain. It is your mental conditioning, your mental interpretation of the experience. So, I will say it again: see what thought says about you and see it is not true. It is a picture that, in an imaginary way, thought creates about the experience. The problem is not the experience, and others are part of the experience.
Liberation is a very beautiful thing because it is the nameless "Thing." It is not a freedom where nothing goes wrong or nothing bad happens. It is not the freedom to fail, to make mistakes either. It is not that! Freedom is the very Freedom "thing"! This is the Freedom of not caring about experiences, about being nobody! Nobody doing or being this and that.
Do not do things for people! Here is the whole thing! If you do things for people, your self-image is involved in it. That is conditioning! Culture, society, the world we were raised in has educated us to do things for people. Actually, they are teaching us that we need to do things to feel good about ourselves, but that does not always work. Most of the time, this requirement makes us neurotic and then we make mistakes. We make mistakes just because we want to get it right, and we want to get it right to please people.
It is always your self-image having that investment. This holds both for public performance and for your relationship with your husband, wife, children and grandchildren. You are stuck to the same game! Everything you are doing is to please them. Do not do things for the other person, since the ego is investing in this self-image when this happens. You will say, "so, do I do things for me?" Not either! In fact, that is what you have already been doing! You have done things to yourself, to your self-image. You always see yourself as someone in need of something. So, if you do things to yourself, you are investing in your self-image, you are doing things to gain something.
The egoic conditioning is of such a quality that you never do anything without expecting something back. You always do things to gain or to get rid of something. You always do things either for desire or fear, as that is the conditioning; and others are always involved in that, once they are the ones who can give you the reward or the punishment. The reward is applause; the punishment is the jeers, the booing. The reward is praise; the punishment is criticism.
So, stop doing things for others or yourself, which is the same thing. Do what needs to be done, but do not get your ego involved in it, for the ego will get in your way. You can be an egoless husband, an egoless mother, a singer, a dancer, a girlfriend without ego. You can be anything without ego! Without ego, you are none of that internally. With ego, you internally enthrone the father, husband, painter, actor, artist, singer, musician's attitude… and when you do that, you cultivate egoic conditioning.
Bring clarity to this habitual movement, to this habit. You have to observe how much this habit fulfills you, how much this imagination fulfills you, how fulfilled you feel when you see others applauding you, praising you, acknowledging you... Relationships between couples are hell since both are in the same game. They are some kind of vampire, in need of blood. They are seeing each other based on their self-image. So, they are kind of vampires in need of appreciation, praise, recognition, and they are constantly scaring each other, trying to frighten each other, trying to generate punishments and also subjected to punishments. It is mutual exploration! They are two vampires in a relationship.
What am I saying? Do everything you have always done, but now pay attention to everything you do. You do not have to leave the relationship, but you need to leave aside the "person" who is investing in this relationship. You need to abandon that image you have. But, for the ego it is easier to keep to the routine, the habit – actually, the word is not "habit," but "addiction" – of being someone, since this does not require any internal work, no Attention, no Presence, no Consciousness, so you keep yourself that way.
The result of anything you do is not yours when there is no self-image; but when the self-image is there, the result is for you and everything has to work out. This creates the fear that it might not pan out, that it might go wrong. See you are always in this self-interest.
Ego is the center of this action. How can you have truth in that, if the ego is the center of this action? How is a relationship between two people, like friends, or boyfriends, or husband and wife going to work out, if the ego is at the center of this relation?
Life has no ego, and ego has no life. Unhappiness without the ego is impossible. Happiness with the ego is impossible since the ego is this movement of fear and desire.
So, you will sometimes be proud of what you do, since your ego is investing in this. It is your self-image finding itself important on this. So, if you sing, if you dance, if you make the best burger in town, you feel you are the best. Or else you feel you are the best wife, the best husband, the perfect husband, so perfect that you demand your wife to do nothing wrong. Notice what a contradiction, what an absurdity: you are so perfect that you do not accept anyone doing anything wrong around you, anyone making any mistake, any sin, since you are such a holy person. Self-image!
Do not do anything to someone – here, that "someone" is you – just do it. Do not embrace the fulfillment the ego seeks. You may even receive it, but with the reward, you also receive the punishment, and that reward does not represent Real Happiness.
In the ego, you are in a prison that has no door. Interestingly, you have never been in this prison, but you cannot get out of it. Paradoxically, you are not in the prison, but the prison is there, internally – it is a prison.
Be simple about that and see what thought says about you and see that this is not true: it is based on imagination. Live with the implications of this, assuming the truth of what comes. Did it work? Okay, so what? Did it go wrong? Okay, so what? Did the audience like it? Okay, so what? Did the audience did not like it? Okay, so what? Is anyone buying my product? Okay, so what? Doesn't the majority of people want to know about my product? Okay, so what? Did I have support, help, and a lot of cooperation? Okay, so what? Nobody supported it, everything went wrong, didn't it work? Okay, so what?
Assume the implications of what is going on, but do not put yourself as someone in this experience. Otherwise, you will have to go back to the first part of the speech, to the reward and the punishment. You will come back to find that it is not worth living in the ego. Do you see how I paint the picture with my words, but who needs to see the picture is you, with your experience? It is always you with your own experience.
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