Truth Definitions 4

CONSCIOUSNESS
     Many people are puzzled when told they must become conscious and aware human beings. What does it mean to be conscious? Nothing mysterious. It means to see things as they really are, and not according to personal preference, imagination or borrowed ideas. Man’s chief barrier to consciousness is his delusion that he is already conscious. The crumbling of this delusion is the first task of whoever wants out of the trap.

SLEEP
     What do the great teachers mean by saying man is asleep? It is very simple. To be asleep means to suffer, to be burdened by hidden fears and conflicts, to not live from one’s own pure nature, but to slavishly imitate foolish public customs. To be awake means to have a free and spontaneous spirit, to be one with universal laws and therefore opposed by nothing, to see life as it truly is, and to know that all is well.

INTELLIGENCE
     Many people feel they lack intelligence to find the higher way, but this is merely a misunderstanding. Intelligence has nothing to do with college degrees or public fame or even the reading of many books. Authentic intelligence is the willingness to exchange fancy for fact, to exchange imaginary self-pictures for healthy self-insight. Think of true intelligence as being an individual wish for rightness, after which you need never give it another thought.

SELF-OBSERVATION
     Self-observation is a classical technique which leads to self-liberty. You should observe your thoughts and words and acts impartially, reacting with neither praise nor condemnation to whatever is observed. You must not identify with anything, that is you must not think that your thoughts and acts represent your true self. Self-observation enables you to separate yourself from mechanical thoughts to become more conscious and happy.

SLOW DOWN
     In order to see what must be seen, we must slow down. Rushing through life is like being in such a hurry to finish reading a book that we skip every other sentence. Neither a book nor life can be understood like this. We must not merely be aware of each successive moment, but must be in each moment, which makes life make sense.

FREEDOM
     You are free when you have the power to hurt another without getting hurt in return and you do not hurt them.

POWER
     We must see how we unknowingly give other people power over us. If we resent another person’s behavior toward us, we carelessly give him power to make us negative. If we react with gloom to a neighbor’s gloomy remark, we permit him to tell us how to feel. Nothing prevents us from having total self-command, and nothing prevents us from having it right now.

PRESSURE
     You can keep pressure out. Suppose someone is actually putting pressure on you. To whom does the pressure belong originally? To him, not you. Let it remain his pressure; do not unconsciously take it as your own. It does not become yours unless you permit it. If someone sets an unwanted sandwich on the table, you need not pick it up. This is an astonishing experience. The other man’s pressure finds no one who wants it.

PROBLEM SOLUTION
     A problem is solved by seeing that there is no problem outside of yourself. Investigate that idea.