About the Innermost

Self knowledge begins with the first step, with listening and looking, with listening and looking within, with moment to moment attentiveness and perception.

At the same time it involves breaking open once again the wall of conformity, the pseudo-harmony and conditioning behind which the true spirit of mankind has usually been barricaded, and making once again the inner reality accessible. It is unavoidable that each of us will tread this path and, in order for this wall to gradually collapse, understand very exactly the inner construction of falsehood, pseudo-security and habit.

The first challenge to be overcome are the guardians of the entrance gateway, fear of truth and resistance, the defiance of truth. Overcoming these guardians reveals to the earnest seeker the first layer of the true personality beneath the distorting crust of socialisation: the layer of defensive feelings. Envy, hate, jealousy, meanness, greed, the love of power, and many other feelings and states that shut out the innermost secret from us, must first be appreciated and integrated. A chaotic world reveals itself to the willing learner, one that is frightening and yet best known. After all, it is the external world in which we live with each other, which results from our strategies of avoidance. It is more real than the being-nice of the layer of conformity, but still far removed from the unquestionable single reality of the innermost, which the seeker at this point can hardly foresee.

If he persists in his yearning to penetrate all the confusion and refuses to be intimidated by the barriers which have to be overcome, the seeker will finally, behind all his defensive behaviour, encounter its essence as his own self-will. This he further uncovers as being responsible for the defensive behaviour, which he then learns to let die.

This dying finally conquers the guardian at the entrance to the next, already more real, layer of defended feeling that now needs to be conscientiously examined. Here await the true feelings: pain, abandonment, loneliness, powerlessness, helplessness, being at the mercy of something else. These states accompany us long after we have realised that it is both better and necessary for a happy life to synchronize one’s own will with the will of the whole. They are the friction effect that arises during this learning process as long as we are unskilful and stumble around. They remind us that we are as yet not quite open for the one heart, that we have not yet surrendered completely and impeccably to the leadership of the inner power. We have not yet emptied ourselves of our own conceit and our reactions to all that life brings us. The emptiness of the innermost has not yet been completely accepted.

Only a choiceless, honest, and exact observation of all these inner movements will finally permit us to arrive at the innermost, which continues to be veiled by the curtain formed by feelings which have been rejected.

One can also refer to the rejected feelings as the major feelings. They are already very close to the ultimate truth about ourselves, although they too are still artefacts born out of our lack of understanding and inability to minutely scrutinise what is within us. Only when we have learned to completely give ourselves, to take everything the way it is and also to observe things as they are, only when the last grain of resistance against the truth and the last fear of the truth has disappeared from us, is the curtain raised and the innermost begin to shine through.

Within the Innermost there are no more actual feelings, at least no minor or major feelings, no feelings which have been rejected nor any feelings which themselves reject other feelings. The states or facets of the innermost, with which we intend to concern ourselves in this book, can best be designated as the sublime feelings. However, they are not actually feelings, they lie beyond all that thought and feeling can reach and touch.

At the end of the journey of self-knowledge, it is above all, thought, that needs to be understood, right down to its finest, most filigreed expression, until it dissolves or becomes still through the understanding of itself. At this point the thinker realises that he has tried to attain the goal of his yearning with this instrument of thinking, but that it can never succeed, because no thought and no feeling will ever enter this longed-for space. On the contrary, in order for us to arrive, all searching must come to an end. In recognising this fact, thought learns to be silent, along with all the feelings it has produced, such as desire. And thus the door, which was closed precisely because of thought’s constant activity, can open.

We have written and spoken enough over the years about the path of self-knowledge with all its difficulties to be overcome. This book is dedicated completely to the innermost secret, to the innermost in us, to that which reveals itself to the true seeker. It thus deals with that about which one cannot actually speak, with that which one cannot put into words.

And yet to attempt it is pure joy!

Listening and looking form the first step on the path of self-knowledge, and also the last. The only step, to be done again and over again: Look honestly, persistently and conscientiously. The way of self-knowledge comes to an end in the dissolving of the self, the unmasking of the self as an illusion. It uncovers our real being, the innermost, and in doing this, it leads us over onto the path of meditation.

Meditation is the discovery and the experience of this innermost space that we can never quite comprehend, a floating in stillness from sublime to sublime. Even in the state of meditation, the only step to be taken is looking and listening time and again. Looking and listening stand at the beginning of everything and at the same time they are what finally remain from all that which has been experienced during this cleansing process. Listening and looking are already aspects, qualities of the innermost. That we are ready from the start and thereafter to follow them, leads us eventually into the core of our being.

At times, in the midst of our entanglement in all the conflicts which human beings have to resolve with each other, in the midst of all the wonders revealed in the process of uncovering what is wholesome in the strands of our shared lives, it is almost forgotten:

Yet it is there, the deepest, the highest, the Innermost, that which one finds only in solitude, in the deep meditative opening up of one’s inner self, that is, the possibility of expanding our being, expanding beyond all boundaries. Here is the possibility of our awakening to the whole, the possibility of not only our heart but also our head opening up and embracing everything in a single great feeling of compassion, of our consciousness opening up and encircling the entire cosmos, encircling all, encircling the Oneness, to become love and stillness, within or beyond all things.

What is needed for us to be admitted into this state is to be able to hold all energies when they arise – especially the sexual energies – and not to direct them into thought and pictures but rather, to let them remain as they are, without compulsion or pressure, to let them be, so that their energy can rise. All feelings which they bring with them, must also be acknowledged in stillness until finally the whole reveals itself. If we want to delve into these deeper layers of meditation, we have to – as we did earlier, in the process of self-knowledge – further embrace all feelings. Now, it is no longer about feelings which repress and which are themselves suppressed but to a certain extent has to do with feelings which are sublime, the ones which are gathered around the one feeling, the feeling of all encompassing oneness. Embracing the first sort has led to our becoming whole, to having a healthy, powerful centre, an awakened personality with heart, which can include all human feelings. Now, at least partly, it concerns our advancing into a godly state, if one wants to call it that, in which one learns to encompass the whole. Even this, again, causes “feelings”, something that one feels. One goes through many states, till everything finds place in oneself, and only the one feeling remains. By and by one will comprehend all these states.

My personal feelings, my thoughts, my physical sensations, these are not really me. They are only surface movements in me, just objects resting in my attention. The sounds around me, what I see, what invades me from outside is not the final reality. They are only happenings which surround my perception. My entire consciousness, everything that my consciousness contains, is only a limited part of me, it is not my deepest truth. Above all, what I am is perception, that in myself, which is aware of all this, that which looks, which listens, which feels.

Who is this person who sees? This dumb witness? What is perception?

I will recognise it when I begin to direct my attention to it, when I turn it back towards itself.

Am I, in the depths, this wide, still, endless expanse, this emptiness, this extension, which is perception? Am I this all embracing freedom?

The identification of the observer with the observed creates the bondage which takes away my freedom. Things, appearances, objects come and go. Not so the silent witness. It cannot be seen, cannot be pin-pointed, it doesn’t appear in the room, doesn’t prove itself in time. It is already there, always, unchanging, beyond death and birth, beyond everything, the great spirit, the quiet knowledge. It never steps into the current of time and of space, the current of birth and death. All that comes and goes. But not so my innermost reality. However, because the innermost part of me is empty, I can go beyond it and find myself in every form, in every you, in an inner oneness. Thus duality is again overcome at the very root.

First comes the ascent into oneness, that is the path of wisdom. And then comes the descent into the form, that is the path of compassion. Both belong together. Wisdom sees, that the many is one, and the other way round, compassion sees that oneness is identical to the many. The one heart, the one mind, that is the unification of both.

The baby which has not yet differentiated itself from its environment, is not yet awake, is dissolved in the whole. The process of meditation and self-knowledge does not lead back to it; that would be regression, a backward step. The process of awakening, of growth, leads to a new constellation. The whole dissolves in me. I myself, consciously and willingly, dissolve the whole in myself. This has something violent, even something frightening about it but also something most sublime, something beautiful and something very simple. I, or as the case may be my energy, expands until it can encompass the whole. One can also say, I dissolve until only the whole remains, but this happens in a process which is consciously attempted, for which I am responsible. I take responsibility for the whole. I go where there is nothing left but me.

This is not the primary narcissism of the baby, which cannot differentiate between itself and the world. It is also not a form of megalomania. It is a trans-narcissism, a crossing of all boundaries, until the deepest of all truths about me becomes visible. There is nothing, but me. I am the universe, the cosmos, god, the whole, the great emptiness and all forms, which are born out of it again and again. That’s Christmas.

Perhaps everyone can be catapulted into this state during special moments, as a peak experience, as a climax. But to find a definitive awakening one has to climb up the steps which go before that and that means self-knowledge and therefore the overcoming of the self, the overcoming of the “I-reference point” in favour of the “You-reference point”. This means resolving the triangle-problem, the human problem in general, in one’s own heart. Therefore it is essential, to enter all confrontations and conflicts in relationship over and over again, to accept the restrictions imposed by them; although, as mentioned in the beginning, we are easily caught in this and are lost; forgetting what it is all about. Over and over, we identify ourselves with the content of our consciousness, with the quarrel between us human beings, with thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations in us and have to again overcome these in the process of self-knowledge.

This deepest state of all, reaching the fundament of all being in itself, the highest possible step in consciousness for us which always only a few people are able to touch, this unity with everything, the primeval basis, of which the mystics have time and again sung, is identical with what Castaneda’s Don Juan calls the warrior’s attitude, and so, finally, identical with something quite simple and useful in everyday life, the same attitude which a warrior has to establish within himself in the course of his life, which places him beyond everything, outside of everything, above everything, which allows him to put up with it and to withstand everything with dignity and calmness and which he knows how to establish within himself over and over again. To create this feeling in oneself, is the most difficult thing of all, says Don Juan. But this is also the state about which we constantly talk, which together with Krishnamurti, we describe as being “without reaction”, the state which can hold all feeling still in it, and therefore, touches the essence of all. Although there have always been individuals who have been able to realise this, it is also the state to which people will aspire in the second half of evolution. In the first half, the ego was developed and half of the awakened heart personality; in the second it will be about finding this great, inner oneness, which will pour itself in an overpowering flow of compassion into all forms. That, then, would be the new history. The task it entails is to overcome the “triangle problem”, the solution of the incest taboo.

One becomes increasingly still on the path of self-knowledge. Observing one’s own thoughts and feelings gradually calms them down. Self knowledge is the process in which one learns to keep a rein on one’s horse. One learns not to be at the mercy of one’s own energies any more but rather, to keep them quiet, to command them instead of being subject to them, until one finally attains a feeling of inner emptiness. This is however not yet real stillness. It is the grounding for it, the preparation, the receptivity which one creates so that true stillness can touch us. Finally one has a still mind, one can more or less switch thoughts on or off at will. The mind no longer thinks in a wild and chaotic manner, but rather one thinks when one wants to and when there is something to think about. Also the emotions, the inner reactions to everything, the aggression, the desire, the ambition, the greed, the demands for power, all these energies have been brought together under a certain degree of self control using inner discipline, though this has nothing to do with repression.

In this state of inner emptiness one is also often drawn to nature, with which one feels connected, from out of which one derives stillness. Time and again it helps to satisfy the unfulfilled mind, to unite the contradictory energies within oneself into a single energy, oriented towards the power of intention. Nature gifts us stillness, because all being, all of nature is stillness, rests in stillness.

All this is preparation. All this belongs to the process of self-knowledge, which is the grounding for meditation. For meditation is something one cannot do, something one cannot look for. In a way it comes from outside; just as love surges from out of oneself to radiate into the world, Stillness, as another facet of the shining diamond, flows into oneself. It is the immeasurable that one senses in it, which almost slays one, when one is completely open and still, when one learns to stop the inner dialogue. Sometimes it sinks into oneself as a blessing. One cannot call out for it, cannot invite it. It comes when it feels like.

To be still, to be still with oneself, to hold one’s feelings in stillness, does not, at first, have to be a pleasant state at all. In the first place, existence does not care whether something is pleasant or unpleasant. Unfortunately it is our ego that finds it so important. With this it probably creates the biggest problem, which we human beings have to struggle with. To be still with oneself can at first be quite unbearable. Most of all, if we have consistently avoided ourselves and our truth, for a long time. The confrontation which then takes place with oneself can be most painful. To a certain extent one feels the withdrawal symptoms brought about through years of avoidance.

To be still is not isolation either. One is not preoccupied with oneself and because of this one is still. Being still is always, being still together, being open for the whole, being in relationship with everything and everyone. Without compulsion and of one’s own free will, one offers one’s stillness to the whole. With this, every authority problem to do with “having to be still” is dissolved.

When during the process of self-knowledge, everything that one is really not, finally peels off oneself, when the identification with the self is broken, when one no longer identifies with the body and its needs, but perceives them in the same way that one perceives thoughts, feelings, and moods, and when one also perceives worldly objects as hazy forms which arise from the innermost – which is the only everlasting thing, which means that they appear from the depths of truth – then one has found stillness, this smooth ocean in the depth of all things, which is always the same, immovable, incapable of being influenced. One looks out from this elemental ground and recognises the essence in all things, and the heart is full of love and compassion for everything which rises out of this One, as a form, only to fall back into it again. In this state, the brain and the whole being is flooded with this stillness, with this one fragrance.

Stillness is the immeasurable out there, which a still mind can receive, and into which it can enter. This is a necessary condition, in order to be able to dream or to fly. Dreaming is the art of flying out to each other through space and time, through the connection of the heart.

Stillness is perception, is love, is compassion, is the innermost, is silent awareness, the holy, the still witness to everything, the elemental ground, that which cannot be further questioned, the immeasurable, ecstasy, sobriety, it is wakefulness, that which has no beginning and no end, the deathless, the one heart, the one mind, it is emptiness, is the great nothingness, that from which everything comes, the place and the power of creation, the intelligence of the whole, the Tao, it is that which does not explain, does not understand, cannot be understood, it is simplicity itself. Stillness cannot be achieved. It is. Whoever awakens to it, knows grace. Stillness is peace, is eternity, is wisdom, is the deepest point there is, it is happiness, it is meditation. Stillness is there, when everything that is not stillness peels off, everything which blocks it from itself. Stillness is there when clinging to what is limited ends, when attachment to the part disappears. Stillness is That. Stillness is eternity. Stillness is the one fragrance. Stillness is stillness.

The process of self-knowledge leads to the discovery of love in one’s own heart. This is perhaps the most important thing of all. From the Innermost of one’s heart, there begins to gush an inexhaustible stream, one which appears to emerge from the void. The innermost core in us, in everything, is above all, love as well.

Time and again it is amazing to find, that what love is not, is not yet common knowledge. Because love is hard to grasp, it is much easier to define it in negative terms, through striking out everything that it is not.

In having had to confront the attacks on our work, to which we were often exposed, we were time and again forced to see that people had misunderstood us, because they thought that when we spoke of love, we meant the usual things which people understand in the context of love, that is sex, dependency, possessiveness, jealousy. But all this has nothing to do with love. Love is what remains when all of this has been understood in the process of self-knowledge and has fallen off from oneself.

Love is the innermost core within us. The sanctum, that which we really are, in the depths.

What else is one supposed to say about love? Everything has been said about it, and yet it doesn’t dwell among human beings. I thought that in the meantime everyone had realised this. But one has to keep pointing out what love is not. It is not dependency, not jealousy, not possessive thought. But what is it then? And how can one attain it?

At first, it is self-knowledge, the concern with oneself, which opens us to the flow of love. But from a certain point onwards, it is the contrary: our preoccupation with ourselves closes us. What then opens us is to touch the You, to be concerned about others, to gift ourselves, to allow ourselves to be permeated by the You. Then, this turns into the daily practice of conquering the self over an entire lifetime.

In a somewhat bold and simple way one could say: love is the capacity to love in a threesome, to love in a many sided relationship. That which one normally describes as love, love between two, is more the kind of love which actually has to do with jealousy and possessive thought, the kind of love which is against the other two persons in a triangle also loving each other, instead of loving one’s own self.

Earlier, I had always believed that if human beings were not capable of being in a triangle, it was because it was forbidden, that they had to be accordingly freed. Actually, this is also part of the problem. But in reality, there is, more than anything else, the other fact, that people don’t want to love within a threesome, they don’t want to share and to be considerate, they don’t want to be disturbed. They want the others only for themselves, they want to have each person they meet for themselves alone. Love, one could say, is the readiness to share, to be considerate, to make allowances for the fact that the other person, that other people, have the same needs as oneself.

What stands in the way of love’s flow, is the resistance posed by the self. This is not something that one can just let go of. Nobody does it willingly. That doesn’t last. What happens more often, is that because one sees it and confronts it, one despairs over one’s own not-wanting. It happens because rather than suppressing it, one stays persistently with this fact, until at last it leads to a breakdown within oneself. The ground, to a certain extent, gives way. At its peak, the resistance breaks down, it is not that I have given it up. That is why finally, its energy, our entire energy are held in the state of love.

A further aspect of love for example is, that it doesn’t owe anybody a good turn. That means, where necessary, it is capable of causing pain. It holds the other in this pain, it suffers with him in compassion, but it doesn’t avoid entrusting the other person in a relationship with difficult feelings which result from the false images which he has, which must be corrected. This means to entrust the other with feelings through which he can grow.

Love is compassion, or at least, it is a step before it. Compassion is not a nice feeling towards someone else but to feel oneness with him; the capacity, to feel his whole being in terms of energy, feeling, his pain, his suffering, his fear. Compassion is love which has joined with pain over our tragedy, a passion which goes for truth and reality and doesn’t let go until everything is all right again. Love which is ready to carry and to transform until only what is good remains.

To love means to live from out of one’s heart, to look from one’s heart, to be in relationship from one’s heart. The spring in the heart is nourished from below, from the energy of the earth, which rises through the pelvis and the stomach into the heart, and then further into the head and beyond it. That is the one flow which strengthens the heart. The other comes from above, from the sky, from that which is immeasurable. It flows into a still brain and sinks down into the heart, into the belly and the pelvis, and finally connects with the earth again. From these two streams arise two cycles; the flow from below divides itself over the head like a fountain, flows around the body to build a protective cover and collects in the ground under the feet, in order to rise anew, amplified through the power of the earth. In exactly the same way, the flow from above opens below the feet like a fountain and surrounds the body, rising up from below until it collects again over the head and united with the power of heaven, flows back into the brain and into the heart. Perception can extend this capsule of energy, extend it into the infinite, and in this way build a protection for others, for an event, for a place, and finally it can consciously surround the entire earth, the entire cosmos.

The most important thing however, is the flow from one’s heart to the others. The current of earth and the current of the sky meet each other in the heart and make it overflow. The energy of the heart flows into the circle, which all being, all human beings and spirits create, the circle in which we are held and in which we hold each other. However it also flows directly to each “you”, creates a reinforcement in the circle with every “you. “ in which we can travel to each other through space and time, feel each other without being in physical contact. To love means to be awake to this flow, not only to enjoy it when it is present, but also to concern oneself with it, to see to it that it is not blocked through images, through fear and resistance, through denial. To love means to see the river which links everything and everyone and to feel responsible for it.

Reality has no opposite. It is. It simply is. It knows no duality, the way we constantly experience in our alienation from reality. All that is not real must end, so that reality can appear. All that veils reality must burn in the flame of awareness. The unreal will never become real, hate never become love, greed never become generosity. In being seen, lies an end to hatred. In recognising greed something new is born, which stands for itself alone.

But if one wants to see reality as being the opposite of something, because that is what we tend to do, then I would see it as the opposite of pleasure, this inherent tendency in us which is almost impossible to overcome, of wanting to pursue what gives us pleasure. At first this sounds like a paradox perhaps, and seems unexpected. But when one observes it more precisely in the process of self-knowledge, the connections become apparent.

To give primary importance to pleasure makes for stress. One feels driven. One is constantly after something, trying to accomplish what is not appropriate at a particular moment. This already prevents one from observing what is real, in peace. Reality is lost because of it. One is blinded. One creates illusions. The inclination for pleasure however, goes together unavoidably, with fear and frustration, as one never gets what one would actually like. Thus, a new reality arises, one which is sad and gloomy. The original reality is hidden and lost to us. Depth is lost, one creates a superficial, shallow and illusionary reality in which thought, stress, ambition, competition, envy and jealousy and everything that comes out of it, plays an important role. One is soon lost in confusion, chaos, conflict and illusion. Beneath all this, now as before, lies naturally, the actual reality. But one doesn’t see any more, one doesn’t hear any more, one doesn’t feel any more. And the pleasure which one had sought, is of course no longer something that gives pleasure. Instead, it has turned into dependency, addiction, suffering, and clinging, an endless struggle over something that is not going to succeed.

Pleasure, or perhaps better still, enjoyment, happiness, beautiful things, all of this is part of life. Excluding it would not solve the problem. This is what many religions, many religious paths which have engaged in asceticism have attempted to do. As a result their followers have only lost the beauty and become entangled in insoluble contradictions. An important question which emerges from this, is: What place do enjoyment and happiness have in life and where and when do they become dangerous and destructive?

Desire, sexual appetite, all our physical needs and the joy in satisfying them are a part of our reality, a beautiful part of our reality. That’s why we want to always have these things, over and over again. There is nothing wrong with desire itself. In reality it surfaces entirely of its own accord on specific occasions when the hunger is great and when destiny with its own unavoidable nature wants it there. When the right things or people come together. There is nothing one can do about it, one doesn’t have to do anything about it. It happens of its own accord. And it brings beauty into our life. To follow it would not be a problem. It is an innocent process which leads only to enrichment. But we are clever, at least we believe we are clever. Soon we lose our innocence and we think that we can do something about it, that we have to do something about it, to guarantee the repetition of pleasure, to force it as often as possible. Of course, that doesn’t work. On the contrary. One distances oneself from reality, from that which is, from that which wants to blossom out of every moment of its own accord. Cleverness is a thought process. Thinking takes hold of desire, wants to organise and forcefully mould it according to the egoistic wishes of the self. It wants to reproduce the desire it remembers, to conjure up joy which it recalls, to repeat yesterday. As soon as thinking interferes, innocence is lost. But cleverness, our wanting, the individual will, our thinking, are not really intelligent. They don’t see at all, that what increases through their interference, is not enjoyment and happiness but rather fear, the fear of not getting it, of not getting enough, the stress of having to try and force it, and so on. This is how our conflict with reality enters through the backdoor.

Intelligence and insight time and again return to what is real. They see that it is reality which offers the most enjoyment and happiness, that these things cannot be increased through tricks of any sort. They also see, that enjoyment and happiness belong to the side of life which cannot be controlled, cannot be made, that they come and go the way they want to, that one has to wait patiently for them, and has to willingly accept the times in which they don’t visit us, as times of abstinence, of renunciation, which also have their place, their time and meaning in reality.

Desire, joy, happiness, all that we most love to possess, belong to the innermost, they are not subject to our will. Because of this, they have to stay combined with other qualities of the innermost, with patience, innocence, insight, intelligence, and love. Otherwise they are spoiled, they lose their shine, they degenerate into pleasure, into a mere reflection of joy and happiness, which is produced by thinking, without our realizing that the actual perfume has long since been lost.

Reality is. It cannot be made. In its own way it brings what it considers good. It is the authority, the intelligence of the whole in action. It brings us desire and happiness when they are good for us, and it brings us renouncement and withdrawal when we need to be confronted with these aspects of the innermost core and its reality. To obey it, to submit to it, is proof of maturity.

Reality is the Innermost part for which we gradually open up in the process of self-knowledge. Reality is the sum of all the aspects of the innermost, and of the way they manifest themselves in time and space. Reality is given. It is absolute. We cannot really change it. We can only submit to it, follow it wherever it wants to lead us, or we can cover it up with our will and thinking.

The mediocre bent of mind follows pleasure, the serious follows reality. The one is a process of beauty and dignity, the other a process of suffering.

As long as one keeps to the path of self-knowledge honestly and seriously, there comes a point when one encounters the innermost, “the One”. This “One” is like a polished diamond, with innumerable facets. Each facet reflects a different aspect, a different characteristic or quality of the never-changing One. Wisdom for example is such an aspect. Every facet is directly connected to each of the others and is finally linked inseparably with all of them. For example one cannot speak about wisdom without simultaneously thinking about sobriety, about honesty and truth. But then, humility, stillness and farsightedness also stand close to it, as do humour, composure and serenity.

Wisdom has to do with an overall perspective. It recognises the major connections, it sees the expanse. Not because it is apt to miss the small things, all that is near at hand, the daily stuff, but because it has completely honoured it, been mindful about it, and can now go beyond it.

Wisdom goes with age, just as farsightedness goes with aging eyes. Not that age can produce wisdom of its own accord. On the contrary, old people are often obtuse and caught in a deadlock, but it surely takes eyes that have seen a lot, a mind that has examined everything thoroughly, to find wisdom. And at the same time it is not on experience that wisdom is based. On the contrary, it has overcome all knowledge, all accumulated information and has opened up to a totally primordial innocence. It creates from out of the moment which stands outside of time and because of this, it belongs to that which is eternal. One probably ought to refer to it as maturity rather than age.

If I were not to wear glasses or lenses, I would have long since been unable to read and write. I would have had only a vague overall view of everything, would have been able to see roughly only to an extent what was in the distance. It would perhaps be natural for an ageing person to live this way. Everything would slow down, all that I needed to know would have to be read out to me, and others would have to write for me, what I needed to record. I would not be able to look after the small details myself. There would be no place for hectic activity, much patience would be needed, characteristics which are closely related to wisdom. It is similar to the ageing mind which becomes wise without lapsing into dull habits. Its function is no more to look after details, to fight over little things, it leaves behind all that is quick paced. It already sees death in the distance. This makes it relaxed, and it turns towards the greater movements of life. It withdraws from the details, leaving all that to the young. It recognises and aligns its will with the lines of fate.

Wisdom goes with the intelligence of the whole. Not with cleverness – that is something quite different. Recently, a person had given me some advice about a situation. His advice was quite clever but it was not wise. Cleverness complies with and adjusts to every shift in the wind, it thinks in terms of advantage and disadvantage. Wisdom is not clever at all. It does not conform. It does not compromise, it does not calculate. It is simply true, regardless of whether it is to its advantage or disadvantage. It can afford to do that, because it is independent. Whoever encompasses death and all possibilities, is independent and needs to fear nothing. Intelligence is another facet of the one diamond which one can find in one’s innermost, in the innermost of everything. This intelligence is impersonal in nature. It goes with recognising the basic order of the universe. Wisdom recognises this order and remains with it. Wisdom no longer wants to break out of that which is. It surrenders to reality, to that which is given. It takes all points of view into consideration and therefore time and again, finds surprising and paradoxical solutions to situations in which one is stuck.

Wisdom is not too compatible with stubbornness. When forced to, it deals with it, but on its own, it sticks to the order and to the will of the whole. It cheerfully follows the energy of fate according to which it attempts to direct everything in its purview. In this way it brings about harmony and justice and has a balancing effect.

Wisdom has an overall view, not only of all that occurs in space, but also of what is to happen in the future. It perceives the history behind a current happening and can infer the way it might develop in the future. That makes it feel relaxed and not very involved in the heat of the moment. Just as actual events seem blurred and vague to far-sighted, aged eyes, the way these events are laid out in the slow movement of the whole, becomes that much clearer. Like the mature leader of an organisation, wisdom does not need to keep a sharp eye on particular events any more, on individual details of the company which he is responsible for. Earlier in life, he has taken care of these things with such attentiveness, that now he can forget them again. It has become a part of his being. Others under his command have been taking care of it for a long time, people whom he can depend on. A youthful eye would only get him too involved and he would be finally consumed by insignificant things. He can afford to live without spectacles. He can lean back relaxed, he doesn’t need to be informed about the details any more. His energies are directed towards the greater connections. Actually he does not know and cannot do anything any more. He has become like the old tree in the beautiful story which is told about Lao Tse, which in terms of its individual parts is not useable any more, but precisely because of that it gives plenty of shade and is in a position to protect the whole, to guard it, to hold it together and to carry it.

Lao Tse was on his way with his students. They came across a group of lumberjacks who had just cut down a forest. They had left just one huge single tree standing. Lao Tse asked them why they had felled all the trees and the answer he received was that the wood was needed for various purposes: to build, to produce furniture and other things. Lao Tse went on to further ask why they had not felled the old tree and the answer was, that the tree was of no use.

“Be like this tree,” Lao Tse advised his students, “not useful for anything.” Then you will be able to give plenty of shade”.

Wisdom knows that it is life which finally carries us. It trusts in the strength of life, and in turn, surrenders to it full of trust. It does not know fear any more nor any disquiet, resistance or impatience either. Nimbly, and with an easy and cheerful heart it follows the Inevitable as it unfolds, while supporting its inscrutable intention. Wisdom has to do with maturity. It is the crown of dignity in a life which has ripened into a full and awakened roundedness. This is why one comes across it where age is not just age but has led to maturity.

An important step in self awareness consists in seeing one’s own responsibility, in my discovering that my way of life has been determined not only and not so much by the behaviour of others, for example by those who educated me, but to a much larger extent by my own decisions. And definitely by the early, more or less unconscious decisions which I made, between the ages of one and five. Each person decides in this phase of life, how he wants to essentially behave in relation to the whole – whether he prefers to stand obstinately against it or to be at its service, whether he wants to be an egotist or to live for others, whether he wants to make others suffer or to be a coward, or be indecisive, or be always in opposition – or whether he prefers to engage in matters of compassion independently and with courage. As far as most people go, the decision is absolute. They never go back on it. They are fixated in patterns of resistance which are clear cut and which they never question. They have decided to be stupid idiots, to be unpleasant people.

On the way to self-knowledge, one becomes aware of these decisions and therefore, becomes open to a revision. There are only very few who change their lives at a later stage, change that is, in the sense that they really permit themselves to make better decisions and to the extent that they see the wrong decisions made during the first years of their lives, discard the old ones. Neither in childhood nor in the later revision, is the behaviour of people in one’s environment (that of educators, psychotherapists, the people one lives with) really categorical. It can help, encourage and so on, on the other hand also break, suppress and so on. But in essence, each one has to make his decision alone and take total responsibility for it. Nobody knows why one person decides “right” as a child and many others wrong. There seems to be a basic wisdom which one brings along. In addition, favourable conditions can help him. The contact with the innermost core, the facet of wisdom in this innermost, is already visible quite early in some while in others it is not.

While exploring the innermost on the path of self-knowledge, one is time and again fascinated by the hologramatic character of the absolutely polished and shining diamond. One enters it through some facet or other, through love or stillness perhaps, and then, inevitably one comes across all the other facets, like truth, happiness or insight, which always light up alongside. Sometimes a certain facet stands out as the most important, most fundamental one, which contains or gives rise to the others, then again, another. The wonder of it is, that this is so for each one. From wherever one looks, one sees at once the deepest foundation on which everything else seems to be laid.

So too it is with humility, a “particularly important” characteristic of the innermost, of the expansive sky which at last opens itself to the persistent seeker. But it is precisely the phrase “particularly important” which is misleading. It is not really true. All the aspects of the innermost One, be it reverence, depth or devotion or even strength, healing and effortlessness or whatever, stand next to each other on equal terms. One realises that in the innermost, one can more than anything else, also learn about being together as equals. Something with which human beings keep struggling in vain, something which they try to force into being and yet never find. Because, as long as the innermost is not able to shine through the one heart or mind, as long as it is trapped in conditioning, in half measures, in the more base layers of feelings which are suppressed or in turn repress, there can be no equality. Above all, equality requires that the quality representing the one mind and one heart, encompass all the other qualities along with it, that it be founded on them and at the same time, serve as the reason for their existence. One can learn about this in the innermost. Here one finds the great emptiness, the great Nothingness which at the same time is stillness and compassion. Here one discovers dignity or honesty and they seem to bring up all the other aspects, such as composure or beauty, for example.

Or as in this case, humility. At times one could see it perhaps as an additional by-product of wisdom and happiness, and then again one sees it actually, as the foundation for these.

In a loving community, each one represents a certain aspect of the innermost for which he has a special calling, with which he is specially gifted. The one stands for stillness perhaps, the other, most of all for happiness, a third one for example, for sobriety and the fourth one above all lives a life that is wakeful. And so on… And to each and every one it will seem as if the other had the most important gift, a gift which provides the basis for his own. And each and every one will also realise that at times his talent is the most important one, which holds together all the others and leads them to oneness. And in this respect, everyone will feel equal in all the diversity, and because of it there will be no conflict between them. Ambition and conflict will not rule them, but rather each will be able to respect and treasure the others and feel himself treasured as well.

In this respect, Humility plays a “special” role (naturally, in quotes). Joy and wisdom can be revealed in a person only when he knows them. Humility is not false modesty behind which is hidden one’s own importance which is not openly acknowledged. And it is also not the kind of egalitarianism which seeks to avoid attracting difficult but necessary confrontations with power and authority. Humility is a regal attitude, which like everything in the innermost is founded on a devotion to reality, which has stopped wanting to use limited self-will to impose its own restricted view of reality on the facts of life, which is absolutely prepared to submit to the authority of what is real and to help establish it in its rightful place whilst needing to defend nothing of its own. It is humility which sees the equality of all that comes from the innermost. But it is also humility, which with dignity and without false pride, can confront what is not equal, which is not afraid to expose every authority problem which is behind the non-acceptance of reality. Because everything that comes from the innermost is aware of its nothingness and because of this, it has a part in the sublime nature of the great Nothingness. However, what does not come from the innermost is inferior, and also rightly, feels itself to be inferior. For example, whoever does not love, experiences himself as being important, tends to overestimate himself and does not see his own meaninglessness.

Humility sees the real connections, it foresees the greater connections. It has completely left behind the arrogance and megalomania of narrow-minded attitude and experiences itself as dust before the great One. Willingly and without choice it bows before its order and its laws, which it begins to recognise with increasing clarity.

Isn’t joy also one of the countless protrusions of the innermost great One, which we uncover within us on the way to self-knowledge?

In the deepest part of us, in the deepest part of everything, in all form, we find nothing, a great emptiness. And this powerful nothingness knows all these sublime qualities like love, stillness, wisdom and peace which from time to time light up. Nothingness shimmers like the smooth surface of a body of water in which all the colours of the rainbow shimmer, when light falls on it. And one of the colours in the nothingness is joy, happiness, a quiet ecstasy. All these characteristics of the innermost, of the great One, of unfathomable nothingness are impersonal characteristics. They don’t belong to me. I am not in charge of them. At times, when I am completely open, when I don’t look for them, I am overwhelmed by them. And I always share them with the whole.

Joy goes together with beauty. Joy comes with discovering beauty. To see beauty is joy. Beauty comes with being with what is. To have absolutely perceived and honoured that which is, without any defence, without contradiction, without judgement, without detraction, is always beautiful. It is beautiful in its truth. To see what is, what really is, contains quietness and simplicity. To simply look at things and happenings, allows their beauty to light up. Everything which exists is full of beauty. Death just as much as misery. Nature just as much as the work of human beings. And it shows itself to the eye which can see, to the ear which can hear. To look directly, without anything being pushed in between; to hear what is heard without any objection. To look with love, to look from the state of love, allows one to recognise beauty. To look from a state of love, is joy. To love, that is being joyful. One cannot create happiness. One cannot want it. Like everything that we find in the innermost, it is only lent to us. It is like everything that has no further justification, it is indeed our deepest nature, but at the same time we share it with all living beings. It is not our personal possession. Paradoxically, what belongs to us much more, is what we are superficially, not that which we are in the depths – our small and great feelings, which normally veil the sublime nature of our inner sanctum. The innermost retreats from our grasp. We cannot have it, we can only be it.

One cannot invite joy, one can invite it as little as one can invite, stillness and love. They obey their own rules which come from a universal order, not from our will. They come and go as they wish, depending on the quality of the time at that moment, which belongs to the mystery of life. What we can do however, is to be ready for love, for stillness, and all the other facets of the innermost diamond. We can take care of our capacity to be happy. On one hand, like everything else in the field of self realisation, it is most easy and on the other hand, perhaps the most difficult thing there is. To have the capacity for joy, I must keep myself empty of all entanglements, so that happiness can touch me, can flow in me, when it comes.

Who am I, when, I am without resistance, when I am not approving or rejecting, but when I can simply be with whatever is? When I never withdraw from reality, never escape into dreams and thoughts, but rather live absolutely with all the energies, which form the particular moment? In this state I am open without a choice. All small and great feelings, all defence has been overcome, so when joy comes by like a unique fragrance, I can perceive it, am ready for it. That is quite a simple task. But more often than not I need an entire lifetime to work it out. That is, to the extent that I face it at all.

Joy comes from surrendering to the fact of not having a choice any more. Paradoxically, a life in which there is no longer a way out, in the sense that one no longer has the choice to resign, is not a life filled with a sense of being cornered and of inevitability. It is only in the beginning that it feels like that, for as long as one struggles against being enfolded in, in such a way. As soon as one is able to resign oneself to this, able to surrender to it, there arises joy, precisely out of the greatest hopelessness. Only when life recognises death as the final outcome and is lived in total surrender, does it become a joyful and rich life. And the extent to which one accepts the limitations and inescapability of the situation, determines the expanse of the sky in which the spirit at last, flies free. Devotion and surrender accompany joy. Where they are found, joy surfaces willingly.

A person who is prepared for joy, lives with all of his being, and with all of his life, as with a mystery, a wonder which is finally, not comprehensible. For him, everything is always new, everything he observes is full of beauty, in him all patterns of habit have collapsed. He only knows the immediate, a state which is always new-to-comprehend, new-to-grasp, new-to-discover. Joy is the sensation of beauty, which love brings with it.

Within the Innermost, in the great One, one also finds the feeling of Composure. A state, a feeling which goes very much together with patience and balance. Composure comes about when one can be with everything the way it is, when one can let everything be, the way it is. All facets of the innermost depend on this simple ability, which is so hard to achieve: to be with what is; without reaction to the facts and phenomena of the world and also to be able to look at the inner mystery; to be able to really listen, to be able to really look, directly without any bias, any judgement, any prejudice getting in between.

This attitude of being without reaction, is not created by the innermost. It is always there, independent of anything. And the way it breaks forth feels like a blessing, an undeserved gift. But the attitude of being without reaction creates the condition, the transparency, which makes it possible for this gift to come at all.

Seen from the perspective of composure, everything is equal, it has the same value, which means, that nothing matters, it’s all the same exactly the way it is at the moment, or to put it another way, everything is equally important, everything is equal, equally meaningful. Composure is a state without fear. In it, fear has ended completely. Nothing can disturb you any more. One has found the innermost, the essential, and one knows and trusts, that nothing and nobody can take it away from oneself, or that one can find it over and over again. One has found stillness and rests within it. Nothing else has any great significance in comparison. Fear has been overcome, because it has been forestalled.

Composure comes about when one is able to encompass the possibility of anything happening, and to see and accept all possible developments in the future eventually as one’s fate. The worst that can happen has already happened and one has been able to handle it, this is why one doesn’t need to be afraid any more. One has already died, has died into the innermost into the nothingness, has accepted death and destruction as the final destiny, nothing can frighten one any more. One knows that life can place one wherever it wants to, one is able to extend a warm welcome to any fate with joy, to create something beautiful out of every life. It doesn’t matter any more whether I am I, or I am you. Everything is equally valid. Everything is life itself, is wonderful, worthy of being lived with passion and intensity. In the state of composure, one has decided to totally affirm life, there is an appreciation of the mystery, in which one feels at home. The integration of all that is negative has led to a fundamental positivity.

“Patience is the essence of love”, Krishnamurti claims. Patience, that is, to be still with everything the way it is, with the facts, with the phenomena, without wanting or having to change them. It is not that one sanctions everything, that one does not want to see all the injustice and evil in the world. Not that one would not work persistently, towards a fundamental transformation, a deep inner revolution which would take over mankind. But composure knows, that this important change will not come about through revolution, resistance and insurrection, but from acceptance, from becoming still with what is given, from the acceptance of feelings which are in it, from seeing the facts. This is why composure surrenders without really giving in, this is why it bends without really bending.

This leads to an inner balance which has a harmonising effect on all situations in life, calming and leading to peace. All irritability which comes from wanting things to be different, all aggression, all rage linked with an unwillingness to take things the way they are, soon come to rest again in this. All fear and paranoia arising from the fact that certain possibilities, certain developments to do with a specific situation have been shut out, collapse. All stress which is based on the notion that a particular result should be achieved at any cost, a particular goal should be reached, falls away because everything is allowed to develop the way life obviously wants it to. A person who radiates composure, has a calming effect on his environment, on his fellow human beings wherever he is. And in this lies real change, which is so necessary among us human beings.

Composure can withstand everything. This does not mean that it is always easy, that there is never a problem. The lightness of it comes more from the certainty that one can carry everything, put up with everything, that there is nothing, no feeling that is too much or which one has not already experienced. Composure is lightness. A willingness which readily follows the signs of life. Composure comes from knowing everything. One is no longer interested in experience, because one has left all experience behind. Composure sees the boredom of the eternal sameness in all patterns, habits and neuroses. Because of this it turns to the unknown, the only thing that is always new. It lives with death, which brings love, with the constant destruction of all that is customary, because out of this emerges the only thing that is always fresh, always alive, always unused – love. Composure opens the door to love, paves the way for it, lays out a carpet of flowers for it. It is the gardener in the garden of love. In its care grow the most beautiful flowers, the most incredible buds blossom. In composure lies the perfection of mankind, its maturity, something that leads to beyond what is human.

The eye alone cannot see it. The ear alone cannot hear it. It must look from out of stillness, listen in stillness, from the centre of things, from the heart of things. It must look from the centre of everything, look from the eye of god. It only sees beauty. Then, everything that it sees and listens to, is important, meaningful, holy. The eye alone cannot see it. The ear alone cannot hear it. Listening and looking must come out of stillness. And stillness is found, where these two energies meet, the one which cannot be satisfied unless it is rooted in what is essential, at home in what is vital, pervaded with deep meaning, and the other which arises from the reality that insight lies in the fact that there is nothing I can do.

Beauty is the flooding in of the present, the flooding of reality through heart, eye and brain.

Beauty for beauty’s sake is not beautiful, but actually, artificial. Everything which has heart, which is born in the world out of love, has beauty. Beautiful music, for example, where one is out to create something especially beautiful, is not beautiful. It feels artificial, exaggerated. A song sung for the sake of love, to express love, is naturally accompanied by beauty. Beauty is the by product of everything which comes from the heart, which comes from love.

One also says that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. This is only partly true. It depends on the way one understands it The eye must be cleansed of all conditioning, of the entire past. It must not look with the attitude that “we already know”, it must not recognise, rather it needs to understand the art of encountering everything and everyone always anew, as if for the first time. Then, it sees beauty, because beauty lies in everything, in death as much as in being born, in spring as much as in autumn. All nature, all being is beautiful, when it is received completely in the present moment.

All noise, all sounds, all loudness when heard without prejudice, is music. To be able to perceive in this way means to be empty, to have become an empty presence. It means, to have gone so far in the process of self-knowledge, that the brain has become still. So that it is no longer a mechanical thought producing machine, but a highly sensitive, wakeful, receptive, organ of perception. The real ear is the purified brain, the real ear has to be a brain which has been swept clean. A great pulsating sense organ, which extends in every direction of the Here, which is flooded with the present moment without filters.

In the earnest seeker, the process of self-knowledge wipes out every impulse to react from out of the mechanical, computer-like part of the brain. All feelings, those which reject other feelings and those which are themselves rejected, have been accepted, accepted at such a deep level that they have been transcended, transcended into the space of the sublime.

Beauty is one facet of the sublime, of the innermost, which is eventually unveiled in the process of self-knowledge. Beauty is a feeling, a sublime feeling, like the feelings that rule the innermost. The eye feels beauty, the ear feels the beauty of sound, the heart is seized with the feeling of beauty, the brain is permeated with one feeling. This is why an eye which cannot feel, a ear that is closed and therefore cannot feel, a heart or brain which has become hard, and therefore cannot dissolve itself in feeling, cannot see beauty. It sees only its own boredom, the dullness of habit, in which it has been trapped.

Beauty is something extraordinarily important. To be able to live with beauty is essential. Beauty goes together with meaning, another quality of the innermost. To receive beauty means to feel it, to feel in everything the meaning which doesn’t need to be further questioned because it is obviously, without question there, in beauty. Nothing makes sense without beauty. That is why a person is constantly after beauty, that is why he glorifies beauty, equates it with profit and fortune. All the beautiful works of mankind, art, jewellery etc. may radiate beauty, but what is the use if they are to gather dust in museums, when they need to be hidden in a safe, when there is no wakeful, innocent spirit who knows how to appreciate them? Beautiful music may sound wonderful, but what is the point of beauty, if it cannot reach the heart? And often, the beauty which is created by the hand of man, is not beautiful at all, it is exaggerated, artificial, styled, because an “I” stands behind it, which wants to show off, a self which itself wants to shine. Beauty however is, only where the self is absent. When they are free from the self, not spoilt by the games of the ego, when the eye, the ear, the heart and the brain are innocent and empty, so that beauty can reach them. This is why an eye, which can see beauty has no need for art, for wealth, for jewellery, even when it can see the beauty in what human beings have created. But above all it surrenders to the beauty in the common things, in what is simple, in everyday things. It sees it everywhere, without interruption. It sees it, because it sees. Beauty lies in the eye which can really observe, in the ear, which understands the art of listening. Beauty is everywhere. There is nothing but beauty. To an innocent mind, everything is an unbelievable mystery and is therefore beauty itself. This state is what Castaneda’s Don Juan mysteriously describes as the seeing of the sorcerer. Something quite simple, something most easy. But at the same time, extraordinarily difficult to achieve, a great art. To see beauty in everything from moment to moment is the art of life. To see is the same as to feel. To see in the sense which Don Juan means, is to be able to perceive the world as feeling, to be able to feel with the eyes, the ears, the heart, the brain. To be able to see beauty is a great joy. It is a loving heart which can see, which can see beauty. Beauty goes with the other qualities of the innermost like love, joy, wakefulness, and meaning.

Beauty lies in a raindrop which glitters on a flower, lies in the dancing shadow on the wall, lies in the ray of light, which penetrates through dense leaves. Beauty appears in the rotting apple on the roadside, in the yellowing cloth stretched over the sofa, on the stained wood of the table, which is marked by the signs of time. Beauty is the nature of being. It is the innermost and at the same time the obvious. Obvious to the eye, which looks from out of the innermost. To feel the essence, to see the Innermost in everything, that is beauty.