Chapter 13 Chapter Thirteen

"Passively respect all life around you." "... respect the ever-changing and moving life around you, as it is formed by the human mind; and as you learn to understand their structure and meaning, you will gradually become able to read life's more vast world." "Respect life, respect life." In general, so-called religious people are life-denying.They are against life.Look at their faces, their eyes.They condemn everything.This negative attitude has created a denial of life all over the world.Religion looks like an ally of death rather than a friend of life.It seems to be against life because it keeps telling you, "Leave life. Go beyond it. Go find another life beyond this life."

God seems to be against you being a part of life.As if life was a punishment. "You're here because you've sinned. You wouldn't be here if you didn't have sin in your life." But this whole attitude is sick, sick.In fact, divinity and life are not two different things.Instead, they are extensions of the same phenomenon. The life here is not different from the life beyond, this life and the life beyond.This life here is a step toward transcendence.If you deny the one life you will not reach the other; you cannot go beyond.To transcend this life, there is no need for negation.

To go beyond requires deep insight into life.How to create deep insights into life?It's impossible unless you respect life.Honor life wherever you find it and help it grow.Be creative with life; don't be destructive. But we are destructive in many ways.look around you.Everything that is deeply connected to life is condemned.Sex is condemned, love is condemned, because they are the source of life. A religious person must be a monk, an ascetic.Why?Why should those who seek divinity become ascetics?What is this need?Why is there so much propaganda against sex, love, and life?Because sex seems to be the source of life; it seems to be the primordial energy that moves the world.Those who are against the world are destined to be against sex. "Cut sex out of your life completely!" That's what they teach.But if you cut off sex, you cut off all life.If you are against sex, you cannot honor life.You have turned against life itself.

These verses are very meaningful.They say honor life in all its forms, because the more you honor life the deeper you go.In fact, God is not transcending, but in this life.God is the center, the center itself, and life is only the periphery.Go deep into life and you will reach the center, life itself. God is not the creator; he is creativity itself.The Christian and Muslim concept of "God as Creator" has created a lot of confusion.There is something childish about these attitudes.It's fine if you say this to a child, but it's meaningless if you say it to someone who knows.

Emerging in the teachings of Christianity and Islam is the idea that God created the world somewhere in the past.He created the world in six days, then on the seventh day he rested.Since then, he hasn't done anything.The world just started working on its own. This notion creates a divisive attitude: that is, God and the world are two different things.That is not true.God did not create the world and then separate the world from himself.That's not like a painter drawing a picture.A painter is one thing; a picture is another.Hinduism goes deeper.It says that God is not like a painter but like a dancer: Shiva the dancer.

God is like a dancer, because the dance and the dancer are not two different things.You cannot separate them.A painter can be separated from his painting, but a dancer cannot be separated from his dance.The dancer and the dance are one. God is not a creator, not a separate entity.God is creativity itself, life itself.So if you are against life, you are against God.Gurdjieff is said to have said something very contradictory but very true.He said that so-called religions are all against God because they are all against life.But true religion has always been for life, it has never been against life.

If you go deeper into dance, you get in touch with the dancers.Dance is just form.If you go deeper into the dance, you touch the heart of the dancer.And if you go deep into life, you get in touch with the original principle of life: God. God is creativity.Or, if you will allow me, I would say that God is existence itself.God is life.Jesus said, "God is love." That's why he was crucified, because he called God "love."Love is condemned, it is sin, and he calls God "love".He must have looked very rebellious, he seemed too fond of life on Earth.The old Jewish mind, the old religious mind, cannot tolerate that.This is blasphemy!Did Jesus talk about God from God's point of view?God is beyond life and love!You have to leave everything: life, love, everything.Only then will you be able to find God.And the man Jesus, who brought God to earth and spoke of God from the point of view of love.

In fact, God is life, and God is love.God is the world.Don't create divisions, don't create dualism.Only then can you honor life.Whenever and wherever you see life—a seed sprouting, a tree blooming, the stars moving, a river flowing, a child laughing—remember that God is with you.When a child is laughing, observe his laughter.get into it.You have entered the temple.Watch lovingly as the river flows.Be one with its flow; feel a deep reverence. Hindus call all rivers goddesses; they call all hills gods.They have made the whole earth holy.That is one of the most beautiful things that has ever occurred to human consciousness.Hindus call the Ganges the mother.This is the reverence for life.They called the hill a god.This is the reverence for life.They worship trees.Those who become intellectually sophisticated think they are stupid, superstitious people, but they are not.A tree is not an item.When they worship a tree or a river, they are worshiping life.

Trees are more alive than any temple, church; river is more alive than any mosque.A stone idol in your temple is dead; a tree is more alive.You may be superstitious, but the tree worshiper is not superstitious.He may not be aware of what he is doing, but there is respect for all forms of life, and it is a deep respect. And celebrate.When you feel that life is growing, celebrate it, love it, welcome it, then a great transformation will happen to you.If all forms of life are revered, you will become more alive.You become more accepting of life, and life begins to flow into you fully; it floods you.That is what is called joy: the flood of life.

But you are more interested in death than in life.You are more interested in destruction, in hate; in war than in love and life.That makes you dead.You are dead before you actually die.You are dead before death actually happens to you.Whatever you worship you become.If you honor life, you become life and become more alive.If you honor death, you become death and become deader. Remember this: "Respect the ever-changing and moving life around you, for it is formed by the human mind; and as you learn to understand their structure and meaning, you will gradually become able to read the wider world of life."

"Learn to be wise to observe people's hearts." "...study the human mind, and you may learn about the world you live in, and the world of which you are a part." We never look directly into anyone's heart.That is dangerous, unsafe, because then you may get involved; you may have to do something.So we never touch anyone.We just stay distant, distant, distant. We don't touch anyone.When I say this, I don't mean just physical touch.I also mean the psychological touch.We do not touch others physically.We are afraid of touching others, and we are afraid of others touching us.We also live in shells psychologically: we are closed, hermetically sealed. There are many reasons for that.If you penetrate someone's heart, you have to do something.You will be filled with love, you will be filled with higher, better values.Then you cannot remain mean, you cannot remain unkind, you cannot remain self-centered.If you watch another's heart, you have to dissolve.The very act of looking into another's heart becomes the dissolution of your ego. So, no one is going to look at other people.We don't even look into the hearts of our friends.We take them for granted.We never look into the hearts of wives and husbands, the hearts of lovers.We create an imagination and live by that imagination.We never talk directly to each other because if you do you don't feel safe; you become vulnerable.Remember this, if you penetrate someone's heart, yours will also be vulnerable.Otherwise it is impossible.If I look deeply at you, I also become open to you.You can also look deeply at me. But that would feel dangerous.I don't want anyone looking at me deeply because on the surface I am a different person, I am a false person.Deep down, I am another person.On the surface I go on smiling, I am very kind, very loving, but deep down there is a lot of hate, a lot of ugliness.So I don't want anyone to penetrate me. But if I penetrate you, the very very very effort to penetrate opens me up to you.We are all scared.We don't want anyone to come in and look inside of us.It is dangerous to watch another's mind and to be watched by another.We become hermetic, dead.We continue to carry the prison with us. So how can you understand life?If even a human heart is so foreign to you, and you have never observed it, how can you penetrate into the greater divine heart, the center of being?Learn to see.From observing the minds of others you can learn how to look deeply.That's the depth of the man.The depth of this man is his heart. We talk through our minds.The mind is not deep.The mind is on the surface, on the periphery.We only use words to talk, discuss, communicate.We never even stayed silent for a few minutes.Even those who are in love talk all the time, because if you are silent your heart can be penetrated.So we've been talking. The husband came home.He started talking.He talks about meaningless, irrelevant things.What's going on in the market, what's going on in the store, what's on the TV news, what's on the radio.He keeps talking.And the wives talk all the time: what other wives talk about in their homes, and so on.They talk all the time until they go to bed.Why do you have to talk so much?what purpose?Are they really that interested in communicating with each other?No!They are afraid to communicate.If they are quiet, then their hearts communicate, so they keep talking.Speech creates a barrier.They meet in mind so that they don't meet heart to heart.The meeting of hearts to hearts is possible only in silence. This is how we live.Then we say we live in misery.Could something else be happening?Your fate will be dire.But that is not your destiny.That is your own misery; you have created it.You are closed and you are in misery.Be open and vulnerable and you can become joyful.This openness is learned by observing the mind. This verse says: "Learn to be wise to observe people's hearts." "...intelligence is impartial: no one is your enemy and no one is your friend.They are all like your teachers.Your enemy becomes a kind of mystery that you must unravel, even if it takes many years: because man must be known.Your friend becomes a part of yourself, an extension of yourself, a kind of enigma. 』 This verse says: "Learn to be wise to observe...." This "wise" means: to be impartial.If you are partial, you cannot touch the heart.All partiality keeps you focused on the head; only unbiased awareness reaches the heart. The heart is impartial; the mind is always partial.The mind is always inclined towards parties, factions, for this and against that.The heart is neither for nor against.The heart is just an opening, an acceptance, a welcome.The heart has neither enemies nor friends; only the mind has enemies and friends.This "wise" refers to impartiality.Only then are you wise. If you are partial, you are not intelligent.You may look sophisticated, educated, logical, but you have no intelligence, you are not really smart.To have no prejudice, no partiality, no feeling for and against is the nature of intelligence, because only then can you see the whole. For example, if I say you are my friend, it is impossible for me to get into your heart.Or if I say you are my enemy, then it is impossible for me to touch your heart.When I say you are my friend, or my enemy, I already take you for granted.I feel like I know you.I understand that I already understand you.Otherwise, how could there be friendship?When I say you're my friend, I'm showing that I like you; I'm saying I like you.And when I say I like you, I have become eccentric.Then I can't touch your heart.My liking becomes an obstacle. When I say I like you, I'm actually putting my own thoughts on you.My liking, I say you are very good, because you are based on my liking.Now that I enter you, I add my own thoughts to you.Because of my liking, I can't touch your heart, I can't know you as you are. When I say you are my enemy, I mean I don't like you, I hate you.This dislike becomes an obstacle.When I say I like you, I try to find out what I like.When I say I hate you, I try to find out what I hate.Then I'm just trying to make my point instead of trying to recognize you for who you are.Like = friendship, dislike = hostility, this is my interpretation, my fantasy.Your naked truth, your naked truth, has been forgotten. Smart means you are neither my friend nor my enemy.You are you; I am me.I won't put my thoughts on you.Now I'm going to try to understand you for who you are.Not by my likes or dislikes, but by who you are.Everyone is a mystery, everyone is a mystery.If you try to solve the mystery of one of them, if you have the ability to solve one of the mysteries, you will become able to solve more mysteries, because even if there is only one person, he has to solve it. The heart comes to be understood.You know the art: the art of how to penetrate the heart. And the same technique, the same method, will help you penetrate the divine heart.The divine mind is vast, infinite, but the human mind is a glimpse of the divine mind.The human heart is a living fragment of the divine heart.So don't be dead on the humans around you.Learn to love and respect human beings.Then, "learn to observe people's heart wisely." This learning makes you more mature; this learning makes you more sensitive to higher learning, which is divinity.The divine heart can only be penetrated by those who have the ability to understand what the human heart is.