Awareness: The Key to Living in Balance

Man wants to make certain about the future,about tommorow--which cannot be done. Let it sink as deeply in your heart as possible, it cannot be done. Don't waste your present moment trying to make the future certain. The future is uncertainity that is the very quality of the future. One can do only one thing: Be alert and wait.

You go on trying and trying, and you make many decisions and you take many vows,but nothing happens -- you remain the same. Not that you have not tried,not that you have not tried enough, you have tried and tried and tried. And you fail because it is not a question of effort. More effort won't help. It is a question of being alert, not of effort.

Act,speak with full awareness and then you will find a tremendous change in you. The very fact that you are aware changes your acts.

Acts don't mean anything. Acts do not matter--you,your awareness, your being conscious,mindful, is what matters. What you do is not the concern.

He watches,he is clear." The only thing that he has to learn is to be watchful. Watch! Watch every act you do. Watch every thought that passes in your mind. Watch every desire that takes possession of you. Watch even small gestures--walking,talking,eating,taking a bath. Go on watching everything. Let everything become an opportunity to watch. And when you watch,a clarity arises. Why does clarity arise out of watchfulness? Because the more watchful you become the more all your hastiness slows down. You become more graceful. As you watch, your chattering mind chatters less, because the energy that was becoming chattering is truning and becoming watchfulness -- it is the same energy! Now more and more energy will be transformed into watchfulness, and the mind will not get its noursihment. Thoughts will start becoming thinner, they will start losing weight. Slowly,slowly they will start dying. And as thoughts start dying, clarity arises. Now your mind becomes a mirror. And when one is clear,one is blissful. Confusion is the root cause of misery; it is clarity that is the foundation of blissfulness.

Once you have known awareness, nothing is worth it-- you have known the greatest bliss of life. Then, suddenly, many things simply drop; they become stupid,become foolish. The motivation is not there,the desire is not there, the dreams have fallen.

Mind is basically the beginning of madness. And if you are too much in it, it will drive you mad. Mind has no certainity about anything. If you are betweeen two polarities of the mind,in a limbo--always to do or not to do,you will go crazy. You are crazy! Before it happens,jump out and have a look from outside at the mind. Mind is basically indecisive and awareness is basically decisive.So any act of awareness is total,full without repentance.

Misery is a state of unconciousness. We are miserable because we are not aware of what we are doing, of what we are thinking, of what we are feeling -- so we are continuously contradicting ourselves each moment. Action goes in one direction,thinking goes in another,feeling is somewhere else. We go on falling apart, we become more and more fragmented. There are only two ways out of it. They can become meditators - alert,aware,conscious... that's an arduous thing. It needs guts. Or the cheaper way is to find something that can make you even more unconcious thank you are, so you cannot feel the misery,like drugs and alcohol,sometimes even religion...

The first step in awareness is to be watchful of your body. Slowly,slowly one becomes alert about each gesture,each movement. And as you become aware, a miracle starts happening: many things that you used to do before simply disappear. Your body becomes more relaxed,your body becomes more attuned, a deep peace starts prevailing even in your body, a subtle music pulsates in your body.

And whenever you look at somebody as an enemy,you never look deep,you never look into the eye, you avoid. Don't be a fighter, be a lover.

They happen only when you are distant,aloof. They happen, they cannot be brought. They happen you cannot force them to happen. They are spontaneous happenings.

We always live in the tommorow,which never comes and which cannot come; it is impossible. That which comes always is today, and we go on sacrificing today for tommorow,which is nowhere. The mind goes on thinking of the past,which you have destroyed,which you have sacrificed for something that has not come. And then it goes on postponing for further tommorows.

Awareness means that whatsoever is happening in the moment is happening with complete consciousness; you are present there. If you are present when anger is happening, anger cannot happen. It can happen only when you are fast asleep. When you are present, immediate transformation starts in your being, because when you are present, aware, many things are simply not possible. All that is called sin is not possible if you are aware. So, in fact, there is only one sin, and that is unawareness.

Transformation happens only when you put your total energy into it.

Unconcious makes you interested in other--things, people, but it is always the others. Unconciousness keeps you you completely in the darknesss; your eyes go on being focused on others. It creates a kind of exteriority, it makes you extroverts. Conciousness creates interiority. It makes you introverts; it takes you inward, deeper and deeper.

Awareness means to be in the moment so totally that there is no movement toward the past, no movement toward the future—all movement stops.

If you move from one thought to another, you remain in the world of time. If you move into the moment—not into thought—you move into eternity.

And you have created religiions,gods,prayers,rituals,out of your dreams - your gods are as much part of your dreams as anything else. Your politics is part of your dreams, your religions are part of your dreams, your poetry, your painting, your art-- whatsover you do,because you are sleep, you do things according to your own state of mind.

I never use the word renunciation at all. I say: "Rejoice in life,in love,in meditation,in the beauties of the world, in the ecstasy of existence--rejoice in everything!" Transform the mundane into the sacred. Transform this shore ino the other shore, transform the earth into paradise. And then indirectly a certain renunciation starts happening. But that happens,you don't do it. It is not a doing, it is a happening.

You have to fight with your anger, your greed, your sex, because you are weak. So really, anger, greed, and sex are not the problems, weakness is the problem. Once you begin to be stronger inside, with a feeling of inner presence—that you are—your energies become concentrated, crystallized on a single point, and a self is born. Remember, not an ego but a self is born. Ego is a false sense of self. Without having any self you go on believing that you have a self—that is ego. Ego means a false self—you are not a self, still you believe that you are a self.

And all are asleep,so all are foolish. Don't feel offended. Thefacts have to be stated as they are.You function in sleep; that's why you go on stumbling,you go on doing things you don't want to do, you go on doing things you have decided not to do. You go on doing things you know are not right to do, and you don't do things that you know are right. How is this possible? Why can't you walk straight? Why do you go on getting trapped into bypaths? Why do you go on going astray? This is what is happening. Watch your life--everything that you go on demanding is so confused and so confusiing. You are not alert. You can't see, you can't heart-- certainly you have ears so you can hear, but there is nobody inside to understand it. Certainly you have eyes so you can see,but there is nobody present inside. So your eyes go on seeing and your ears go on listening, but nothing is understood. And on each step you stumble, on each step you commit something wrong. And still you go on believing that you are aware.

And all are asleep, so all are foolish. Don’t feel offended. The facts have to be stated as they are. You function in sleep; that’s why you go on stumbling, you go on doing things you don’t want to do. You go on doing things you have decided not to do. You go on doing things you know are not right to do, and you don’t do things that you know are right. How is this possible?

The conscious mind is only one-tenth, and the unconscious mind is nine times bigger than the conscious.

The only thing that has to be learned is watchfulness. Watch! Watch every act that you do. Watch every thought that passes in your mind. Watch every desire that takes possession of you. Watch even small gestures—walking, talking, eating, taking a bath. Go on watching everything. Let everything become an opportunity to watch.

If you eat watchfully, food will become more tasty. Even ordinary food tastes good if you are watchful; and if you are not watchful, you can eat the most tasty food but there will be no taste in it because there is nobody to watch. You simply go on stuffing yourself. Eat slowly, watchfully; each bite has to be chewed, tasted.

Vive en el momento. Incorpora todo tu ser al momento. No dejes que el pasado interfiera y no dejes que el futuro se entrometa.