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Q. I have always set for myself an Ideal, but sooner or later it has failed me. I desperately seek something that could give sense to my life, but every time I look around me I can see nothing but the ruins of these ideals. Today I have reached the point of asking myself if life really has any purpose. What can you tell me about this?
R. Man wanders in the forest of becoming, riddled with doubt, with conflict and a sense of incompleteness. During this entire process of solitude and ignorance he tries to cling onto supports which we call ideals. But with time he is obliged to surrender because, in fact, the true purpose of existence has escaped him. What might this purpose be?
Q. That of comprehending oneself, I think.
R. What do we mean by comprehension? Please let us try to grasp this concept together, otherwise our dialogue will not be a realizative one, but a simple drawing-room-type conversation. If a person is told that the road he is taking has no outlet, that to reach his destination he must take the opposite direction, and that person states that he has understood and then continues down the same dead-end, it means he has not really comprehended.
To comprehend means to “take a datum within oneself”, to experience its conceptual contents, to penetrate the essence of the thing.
Therefore, if we comprehend our true Essence, we cannot but be that Essence in every place, time and causality.
Q. This act of self-comprehending requires time, withdrawal from the world and solitude. I go to work every day and I find myself in this frantic world, how can I reach such a favourable state?
R. To comprehend ourselves must wereally retire into the jungle or to the top of a mountain. Whether we are in the city, in the country or elsewhere, wherever we go we take our conflict and our incompleteness with us. We could be in the mountains, surrounded by solitude, and have a restless mind and find anything but silence. The opposite could happen to us in the city. Recollection is a state of mind. Self-comprehension does not depend on a place or time. The ego, alas, always tries to escape the basic problem.
Can we comprehend ourselves when we are weighed down by work? What relationship is there between us and our work? What is work? Who is it that is working? Can we work while being elsewhere with our minds? While we are walking, for example, can we think of some other event?
To discover all of this means to comprehend ourselves, and we can realize this process in any psycho-physical condition whatsoever.
Q. I have always thought that man’s ideal must be that of loving his neighbour. Do you think that there can be a higher ideal?
R. It would require far more time to answer this question. However, I will try as far as I can to clarify the problem. First of all I would like to ask you what you mean by love? We must begin from a clear and precise point, otherwise we will never be able to... comprehend each other.
- (After some hesitation) to be useful to others, to serve others, not to fight each other. All this for me means love.
R. Therefore, one must serve and be useful to others. But this requires some knowledge, as well as maturity on the part of the donor, don’t you agree? Can the blind ever lead the blind?
- Certainly not.
R. Who gives must have, who wants to teach must know, who wants to love others must possess love, otherwise what does he give?
You nod, but perhaps you are not following me adequately. Do all of you follow me? The problem is delicate and demanding. Let us create the right kind of attention without opposing subconscious resistance. In this way we can discover unusual things together.
– I see there are many implications in my questions...
R. That is not all that important, the issue has been raised. Let us take it as far as we can. Let us make an example: what must a potential teacher do if he wants to instruct others, and therefore serve and love them?
– First of all have knowledge.
R. That is correct. He must therefore reach true comprehension of things, which, in turn, will cause a qualitative “outpouring “ and an “irradiation” which may take the form of pedagogical gift or something else. Rather we can say that the act of love matures when true comprehension is alive in us. To comprehend means to love, to give, to share, is that not so? Man’s ideal consists in realizing oneself, in living true principial Essence, all the rest is a logical consequence. The flower that has reached maturity cannot but irradiate its perfume so that all those who approach it can experience its fragrance and the beauty of its geometry. An Awakened being is Beauty, he is Perfume, he is Geometry and by his presence alone he imposes a rhythm on space. This condition is non-dual.
