The world is your playground, not your proving ground

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Thank you for being here, for letting go of all preconceived notions, opinions, beliefs, and for finally getting to the root cause of everything, to see that all misery comes from false beliefs, and that all false beliefs behind them have a true being that is believing in them. But that true being, that source, that one has no problems, that one has no confusions, that one has no desires or lacks or wishes. That one is perfectly content and peaceful and whole and beautiful. To finally see the one behind all illusions, to see the one who believes in illusions, but is not the illusion itself. And to abide in that knowledge, in that vision, in that recognition, this well and truly is the purpose and the root and the function of philosophy.

SPEAKER_04 1:01

I just wanted to again talk about real seeking and uh before I before I I thought I had gotten the gist of it before um in our previous conversation, but then I there was one time where I was just listening and you were talking about thrill syncing, and that was when it clicked to me, um or rather I I saw it more clearly, I suppose.

SPEAKER_05 1:46

But yeah, um you were talking about in a practical way that whenever something comes up, an urge comes up, or an action comes up, you ask yourself whether or not you're sided by this.

SPEAKER_04 2:08

Um just don't do it.

SPEAKER_05 2:15

At first sorry, I'm kind of sick, but at first it sounded like I'm trying to practice, I'm trying to dull myself or something like that, like making this restraint a muscle. Like I was thinking of this restraint as muscle, and this practice was to get better at that.

SPEAKER_04 2:42

But no, actually, that wasn't the point that I've come to realize because once I've put that into practice, it feels it puts me in this state that I feel like I've been in most of my life, and I just didn't realize it. It put me in this, I don't know, it was just so at ease.

SPEAKER_05 3:15

Like, let me give let me give like a specific example, right? Um this one time I wanted to call a friend while working, and there were there was no reason I couldn't call him because I was doing a mundane test that you know um doesn't really require much speed or doesn't require much attention. I can do it while listening to a podcast or something like that. And then I asked myself, am I getting excited like this?

SPEAKER_04 3:51

And so I decided to not call him, and I just worked in silence, and I realized that it's this is this is life. This is like this is the bulk of my existence, this experience right here. Me not needing anything, just being me, just being enough, just you know no noise needed, no needed, just simply being in this quiet, quiet room, doing whatever. Once that I was like, huh.

SPEAKER_05 4:41

So it wasn't to practice it, it was to it was through it, you you see something, you're not practicing to get better, you're practicing to see clearer, to like to like know, like know something that's already there. You said this a billion times. You this is the first time that that happened to me, and I was like, this is what he's been talking about.

SPEAKER_04 5:10

This is what he's been talking about the whole time. And man, I I felt so relief. Relieved.

SPEAKER_05 5:19

I felt so relief, like um, that that's all I wanted to talk about.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Yeah, thank you for saying that, and uh I hope everyone is listening. Because you've essentially gone through the entire idea of thrill seeking and and how to recognize it, and also how to stop it by not looking for how to stop it, because there's nothing that needs to stop. Even that is a thrill-seeking idea because oh, this discomfort that I'm experiencing right now, that needs to stop. I need to do something about it. That very doing something about it is thrilling, is thrill seeking. Rather, the recognition, not the doing, not the achieving, but the recognition that we need to have is that there is nothing to fix in the first place. There's nothing wrong in the first place. When we're sitting in the room by ourselves, we have these ideas and beliefs and thoughts that maybe other people gave us, or we observing it, that this is a boring thing, that this is not enough, that this is not, that there's something lacking. And so I want to hear the voice of my friend that would complete this, or that would at least alleviate this lacking situation. And so before you even do it, the idea, the disposition to operate out of this background belief of lack, no matter what you do after that belief, if that belief is already established, that is the very source of all our misery in our daily life. Because you can have a good solution to that perceived problem, but you will always only confirm that problem. And in reality, there isn't one. So if you let go not only of the so-called positive thrill-seeking desire, but also the imaginary negative resilience that is still lacking in order not to thrill-seek, if we let go of both of those, and we just realize there is nothing to do, neither for nor against, that's when you can be in the moment and you can see the one who is lacking is only an imagination of the one who is not lacking. And the one who is not lacking is standing behind the one who is lacking, because the one who is lacking is a projection of the one who is not lacking. Even the idea of lack cannot be produced by a lacking being, only a complete whole being with its continuous memory and its continuous energy that is not coming in and out, can only establish a constant belief such as this. An imperfect being cannot do this. And so, in the very fact of us establishing illusions like this, already it is proven that behind the one who is lacking, who's perceived as lacking, there is the one who is not lacking who has created this other one. And the other one is merely a belief, it's merely uh a few thoughts that are being approved of. But who is the one approving? Who is the one approving? Who is the one approving of the idea? Yes, I should call my friend now. This is boring. Who's the one behind that idea? And is is that one lacking? Is that one so bored and so lonely? Or is that one actually in every state? Because if there wasn't uh a constant observer between states, one would move from state to state without the memory of the prior state. But our very so-called problem is that we are moving from state to state and we cannot come to rest, and nothing is making sense. Now I am happy, now I'm unhappy. Now I'm very excited, but now I'm bored again, and now I'm chasing that happiness that I used to have two states ago. And how do I bring that about? It keeps going on like this. Who is the one observing this whole train of happenings? Who is the one going to the therapist or to the friend and saying, this happened and this, and then I felt like this, and then I felt like that, but somehow after that I felt like this. That one who can see the train of thought, as they say, who can see the collection of states and the archive of states that we've been in and that we hope to be in in the future, the one who is seeing that is that one bored? Because look, that one is in every state, like I just said. That one is in the bored state, that one is also in the excited state. That one is also, oh my God, there's so many beautiful, exciting things going on. I can hardly take them all in. These are all just states of the self. When we say the states of the self, who is the self? If boredom is merely a state of the self, then that means the self is not the state of boredom. It is also not the state of excitement, it is also not the state of uh being burdened, it is also not the state of being relieved of that burden. These are the the mental emotional states of the self. But what we do is we get the idea that this is boring, and we identify with the state itself, and then we say, I am in a bad state. How do I fix this? But there's nothing to fix. It's a state of the being, it does not touch the being. If it was able to touch the being, it would be able to latch on to the being, meaning it would always be there. If boredom could touch the self, it would always be able to be there. So what if we experience boredom as a very real state of the self, but one that has nothing to do with the self, and we experience it for what it is, a full, complete state also. And there's nothing to fight, there's nothing to fix. Because the one who is fixing and the one who is working on something is constantly looking into the future and is postponing completion into the future. He's saying, I'm not complete yet, isn't that what everyone says? I'm certainly not perfect, and I'm I'm so lacking and I have so many faults. But but I'm working on it every day. I'm a little better. Don't we hear this all the time? Don't we say this all the time? And then we also say, uh, this work will go on until the rest of my life. We already know this. Somehow, the one that supposes themselves to be incomplete somehow knows what completion is like. And we say, I'm working towards completion. So we so we know what completion is, and we can see it, and we know all the steps that we need to take it, uh, and then we say, but this work will go on forever. And without seeming to realize, what we are saying is, I will never be complete, I will always be lacking, and so we're always looking to a future that we ourselves say will never come. Now, give me the definition of misery. Would it maybe be that uh working towards salvation that will never come? That sounds uh just about to be the definition of misery to me. And so that's what we're saying. And thrill seeking is something we can do to escape this horrific death wish that we have. This is a death wish, by the way. Because there's so many people who believe in some way or another that there's an afterlife where there is a heaven or there's a rebirth or there's something, that's when we will be perfect. That's when we will be completed. Someone who believes that in this life completion cannot be achieved, only be worked towards as a reward in an afterlife or in heaven has a death wish. Can we deny this? Because if perfection, literally heaven, paradise, completion, is after life, then I want to die. Doesn't mean I want to commit suicide, doesn't mean I want to end it early necessarily, but I'm walking around with this belief that I will be perfect only after death or never. So the one who believes in an afterlife is miserable until they die, and the one who believes in no afterlife, no God, nothing after death, is also miserable until they die. Who is the non-miserable one now? Whom can we find who is very much content, very much in this life? We have been told many times that heaven is on earth and that hell is on earth too, because what we're going through, this belief of we are incomplete beings who have a shot at perfection, at completion, but that they will not achieve that in this life, and we walk around confused, miserable, angry, resentful, lacking, that's hell on earth. But to recognize this death wish is all that is required for it to be taken from you. All we need to recognize is wait a minute, I am secretly wishing to die. Or I'm secretly believing that in this life I will forever be incomplete. What kind of a life is this? One would ask. And that can be the beginning as well as the end of the recognition that heaven is also on earth. If this is hell on earth, heaven is also on earth. And the gates to that heaven, so to speak, is the understanding of anger, is the understanding of emotion, is the understanding of thrill seeking. That's the gate. Because when we let go of thrill seeking, we recognize that which was always there. A complete being that has diluted itself into incompletion, into imperfection. That out of its completeness is creating a complete image of a lacking person, and then going on to identify with that image. This is the power of you to create something out of nothing, an illusion, and then to go on to give it life, to give it reality. This is your power. And if you don't believe in this power, look at everyone around in the world. I've recently I recently saw a video of a man in India who has been standing upright for, I believe, 15 years, something like that. And his legs are all swollen three times the size and all purple. And uh he sleeps. So what they've done is they've they've suspended from a chain a little platform in front of him, like a little table that's um suspended into the air. And at night, he leans his upper body on it and sleeps on that. Why is he standing for the in the first place and then cheating every night? Because he thinks that standing will eventually lead him to see the face of God. Vishnu or whatever. He's expecting if he stands for long enough that he will meet God. Yet every night he is putting all his weight, even though the legs are still technically touching the floor and on the floor, all his weight on this platform and sleeps every night. This is a belief. This is a belief, this is the power of illusion that will make a man stand for 15 years and however long the body will last, probably, because of this belief that they will see God through doing that. Sitting, impossible, walking, impossible, doing anything else, impossible. The face of God can only be seen by standing for years. Same thing. You might have seen this one, another man with his arm in the air. He's had his arm in the air for, I don't know, 20 years or something like that, and the arm has gone all super skinny and the the fingers don't open anymore because he made a fist for some reason. The nails are 10 inches long. Similar practice, similar belief also in India. I'm not saying all this is going on in India. These are just two examples that came into my mind, but this is the power of belief. It will make you hold hold your arm up for five minutes straight and see the pain from that. The power of belief will make you do that for decades. It will make you do it so long that you cannot put your arm down anymore. And so, this power of imagination, this reality, even within imagination, of course, not reality that is an illusion too. But there is a reality behind the illusion, giving the illusion power, giving the illusion existence, giving the illusion its energy? What is that? What is that? And tell me, a power that can make people do such things and many, many, many other things. Is that power lacking? Is that power incomplete? Does that power ever need another human being to? Comfort them or to distract them to exalt them to complete them? To uh heal them? Is this even possible? And so we do the same things. The man who's been standing for so many years, or the one with his arm up, these are thrill seekers. They are seeking this divine event that the clouds will part and God will come down and speak to them directly and hold them in their hands and choose them and take them, whatever they're imagining. It's all imagination, it's all illusion. Is this what I'm saying too intellectual, or is it too um magical, nonsensical? Or can we see that even though these are illusions, delusions, that these illusions and delusions take power from somewhere? Because if an illusion is unreal, why does it not collapse? What is holding it up? Where is its power coming from? Is the power that it has real? Is the entity doing the imagination, believing in the illusion, upholding the illusion? Is that one real? This is what I hope everyone is thinking about. And and if this doesn't make sense to you, please come up here and speak. Let's talk about it. Maybe I'm not seeing something, right? So I want people to participate here a little bit more, at least intellectually, what with what is being said or asked. Is this being seen, or is this an illusion also? Is this too much thinking? Is this too many complicated words? Or can we clearly, without any argument, without any studying, can we recognize this real power behind fake illusion? Because if you don't do it now at your job, at work, at the office, no one's going to ask you these questions. And your friends, when they come and call you, I'm not saying anything bad about your friends, I'm just saying this is human experience. When your friends call you and say, Let's get a pizza, let's go on a walk, let's come, let's go to the bookstore together, whatever you guys do, do they ask you these questions? If they do, wonderful. And pay attention then too. But especially if these questions are not being asked in other areas in life, isn't this why we are here? And so, at the very least, here, let's engage with these ideas fully. Let's not be thinking about what am I doing after 10 chip or something that has happened before. There are real people sharing real things here. Our friend who's a speaker right now is has shared something very real. They've seen an idea establish its very real presence in their experience. And so one human can do this, every human can do this. Human nature is one. Everything that is keeping anyone from doing this, if there is such a phenomenon, is an illusion. I cannot do this, this is not for me, this is not possible, I'm not smart enough, I'm not rich enough, I don't have enough time, I don't have enough capacity. These are all beliefs, these are all thoughts. Who is the one thinking them? Is that one limited by material goods? Is that one limited by a schedule? Because once we see, as our friend who's a speaker now, has seen, is seeing, will see, continue to see, there is a reality between behind illusion. There is a reality behind illusion. So even our own illusion can lead us to reality if you if we look behind it. So just like you have mentioned also with thrill seeking that there is nothing to fight against. These illusions are not your enemies, these illusions are not to be killed or suppressed. You you cannot necessarily do that. By fighting them, you give them even more existence, even more energy. They are merely to be looked behind them. When you see an illusion, or when you see anything, of course, you don't know that it's an illusion yet, most likely. Look behind it. What do all illusions have in common? Not only your illusions, what does every single human being's illusion have in common? Is it not that behind the illusion there is this real entity? Is that not what every person who is delusional who has an illusion has in common? So thrill seeking is a way to continue the belief and illusion without looking behind it, to remain superficial. Here again, the analogy of the ocean, right? The ocean in the depth is 100% steady, calm. Calm. On the ocean floor, there is the finest sand. Not a single piece of sand moves with any kind of turbulence. It's all firmly on the ground. And the slightest uh fish swimming past it will disturb it, but not the ocean itself. Yet on top of the ocean, there are tsunamis going on. There are 30-foot waves. There's also sometimes calmness, but always some rippling, always an activity. The surface is all is never calm. But the surface and the bottom of the ocean is the same entity. It's the same body of water. And so the thrill seeking is on top. It is dealing with the waves. There's a 30-foot wave coming. How can I overcome this? Or it's actually quite very calm right now. This is boring. How can I create some turbulence? How can I create something happening? Oh, there's a boat coming. Maybe I'll tip that over. And have the humans on it be afraid for their life. That'll be exciting. That'll be something to do for me today. This is thrill seeking. But if you remain steady and you don't do anything, even that little turbulence, even on calm seas, you will see the unnecessity and the shallowness of it. You will see that it is merely a thousandth of one percent of the entire ocean. And we can go deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. And first of all, recognize, but then also sit in that, remain in that deep, deep stability. And someone who can sit in an empty room without calling their friend to make the moment complete is diving into that stability. And also calling the friend should not be resist, it should not be a danger to say, oh, if I give in to calling my friend, then I am out of the depth and I'm on the surface again. We will also see that uh, and this you put beautifully, by the way, um, that this is not that there is a test we can do. We can inquire if this is a thrill-seeking activity or not. We don't have to stop all activity. In fact, this would be counter to life to say, in order to stop thrill seeking, I just need to sit in an empty room and not do anything and be afraid of anyone who knocks at the door because it's a disturbance. No, absolutely not. That is yet another illusion, yet another trick to remain in thrill seeking, because by making it an unrealistic, logistically impossible thing to do, the mind can uh persuade us to go back to thrill seeking. But no, all we have to ask ourselves is is this going to excite me, as you said? Is this going to complete what is lacking right now? Is this going to improve my situation? If the answer is yes, do not do it. We talked about this before. There are so many people doing charity, but they're getting a thrill out of it. And they are justifying that to the reasonable part of the mind and to everyone else by saying, but it's charity. What could possibly be wrong with charity? Of course, I'm not gonna not do charity. It's a good thing. But it's only a cover-up to thrill seeking. And so I say, yes, even charity, stop doing if you detect thrill seeking in it, because that's not charity. That's an ego trip. And so if you get the idea to call a friend and you give yourself this examination really quickly, does this excite me? Am I desiring this to complete, to heighten the moment, to make it better, to make it more complete, as if it is not already? If the answer is yes, do not do it because you're under the illusion that something is lacking. And this is not true. But if you can truly, and in your heart of hearts, only you can know this. If you truly can answer that examination by saying, no, no, no incompletion, no lack. This will complete nothing, this will not make anything better or worse. I just I've been meaning to call, and there's actually an issue I would like to discuss. It doesn't have to be now, but I have time now, so I will do it. I want to do it, and there's no excitement whatsoever. There's no drama in this. Uh-huh. I can do it. So simple. Does this make sense to everyone? Or did I say too much? Is this is this examination once again too difficult to follow in the moment? Is this not a is this not practical in the moment? This is the use of a chat where you can say, this is too complicated. This seems like it is not practicable in the moment. I don't think this can be done in the moment. This is an intellectual exercise. If it seems like that, tell me. Um, and if it doesn't, if it seems like, yeah, this can definitely be done. This is a very, very simple thing. This boils down to that. Um if it is like that, then see this right now without distractions, let this come in, let this be recognized so that it can unfold in your life. So this is a very beautiful, very, very important uh pointing that you have delivered to us today. And I can only hope that everyone was listening and that everyone was taking this in because uh one can be a practitioner of this thrill seeking, um, or rather the recognition of it, and to always look for thrills in every moment and to give oneself this examination of am I here for the thrill or not? If you lived like this, you would have a beautiful, complete, stable, constant, and satisfying, fulfilling life. If you just did this one thing, if in every situation you were aware of the thrills, and if you always acted uh in accordance with this knowledge, if there's a thrill, I won't do it. If there's no no thrill, then it's it's right for me to do. If you conducted your life like this, you would have a complete guide, I do believe, uh, in your life. It would guide you through everything in life. Because in everything there is thrill to a thrill seeker, and in nothing there is thrill to someone who has recognized this. The one who has thoroughly examined themselves for thrills and is always doing that has nothing to be afraid of. You can go to the movies, you can go to a party until three in the morning, uh, you can work 16 hours a day, you can uh work out, you can travel, you can just sleep and do nothing, you can have a broken leg and sit in the hospital for weeks. You can do everything without any instability by being deep in the ocean, always knowing what's what, never giving in to the illusion, always staying with the present moment, with reality, just by watching out for thrills. And you don't even need to fight the thrills, kill the thrills, suppress the thrills. Seeing them is enough. It's not only enough, it's the whole thing. Because the one that knows that thrill seeking is a death wish, the one that knows that thrill seeking, the very premise of it, the fundamental belief that makes it possible is an illusion and delusion. The one who knows this, as soon as they see a thrill, they will lose interest in the thrill. And this is what true growth, as they say. There is no such thing as growth because who's the one growing? But when people speak of growth, progress, working on themselves, becoming a better version, the best version of themselves, it is achievable in this way by simply losing interest. This is the most effortless, undramatic, um, simple, easy thing to do, to lose interest in something. If you lost interest in uh unhealthy foods, you would stop eating unhealthy foods. How does one lose interest in unhealthy foods? Mostly you can do it sometimes, but you know what I mean, with knowledge. When you know every time you put this food in your mouth, it is literally poisoning your body in this way, and that the price is way too high for a little bit of something that seems like it tastes good, what happens? We lose interest. It's like when people say, once once you know how sausage is made, right? Maybe people loved sausages until then. And when they see how it's made, some people lose interest. And it's not like they then go and see a sausage and say, that looks delicious. But I need to fight the urge. No, they say, Oh no, I can't I can't. I just don't want to. I have no interest. And it is like that with everything, especially with thrill seeking. So thank you, thank you very much for this pointer. Thank you for sharing this, for being a living example once again, because you are saying, look, this is me, this is how it used to be, this is how it is now. I had this experience, this happened. And we have no reason to believe that you are somehow lying to us to make us feel better. And so I think we believe you. And so if you are real and we believe you, what um excuse is left for us to experience this also, to let this in our life also? What reason is left? So thank you, thank you very much. Was there anything else you wanted to say or share?

SPEAKER_05 38:31

Yeah, I uh I I wanted to talk about the power of illusion that you mentioned earlier. I I when you pointed it out, right? It's so fascinating to me to know to know that this thing does have an influence. I don't know on what on what is it standing on? If it's not real, then why does it you know? Like you pointed out. I don't know. At first I was like, maybe imagination, maybe desperation, maybe um maybe a desire.

SPEAKER_02 39:33

Are you asking what illusion is powered by or why the illusion comes about in the first place?

SPEAKER_05 39:41

I feel like illusions come about because of discontent, right? Because of how people are not satisfied with the reality that they're facing. How something about it is displeasing them, how something about it is frustrating them. That's why they go to illusions, um, that's why they fear something, that's why they desire something. It's it's what I think. Because dedication is it's difficult, right? It's difficult. Dedicating yourself towards the right thing. How is being illusion being in this illusion, how can you be so dedicated to that while you know while you're not dedicating yourself in the same way towards I guess this improvement that every that you you were talking about, but I know there's no such thing as improvement, but you know. Instead of dedicating yourself to the I feel like maybe they're just not they just don't know it, they just they just think that this one is true.

SPEAKER_02 41:13

Yeah, we we have that we have many beliefs, we don't just have one belief, right? One can have two false beliefs, let go of one, and then still have one false belief, and there are certain actions that will still result from that. Right? So we have let go of false beliefs enough to see that there is a truth, that there is a reality behind our illusions, and naturally we are committed to that because once again we have lost interest in thinking that there is only the one choice, that there's only this one miserable life. We now see, aha, there are others that are living very differently. So now I'm I'm undeniably presented with another option. And once I have more than one option, this life, the way I live it, becomes a choice. And so I have seen enough to recognize that this is a choice, but I don't yet know how to always choose reality, how to always choose or recognize my other false beliefs. And so my dedication comes from um the areas in my life that ignorance has burned off of. But I am still filled with false beliefs. There are still multiple, and so from those false beliefs, there are still occurring many misguided actions, and this is why we have philosophy. This is why this is the entire purpose of philosophy. Philosophy is a tool, philosophy is nothing other than that. Philosophy says, here's a suggestion for you, and then that goes somewhere, and maybe uh it results in letting go of one, two, ten false beliefs. There are still more, okay come back tomorrow. Come back next week, come back in ten years, whenever you're ready for the next one, for another one. Here's another suggestion. Here's another suggestion. Have you ever heard the idea that love and care are not the same thing? Have you ever heard that there is the person of you but that you are more than the person of you? Have you ever heard that even right actions can be done with the wrong intention and therefore become wrong actions? Have you heard? To this concept before. These are all suggestions that philosophy gives us. And once we're introduced, just like we were introduced to this other life, we were in a life of misery and agony, and we were always disadvantaged, and we had a hard childhood and we had difficulty growing up, and we're always people always seem to abandon us and leave us, and no one ever helps us. This was our narrative. And then we were offered another option. And now that we're seeing that option, we are freed from that particular narrative. And if we give ourselves to this, this is going to just continue and continue. But it is not an endless thing. Any practice that tells you that this has no end is a practice that is looking to keep you miserable. Knowingly or unknowingly, I'm not saying there are practices, religions, philosophies out there that are purposefully looking to keep people miserable miserable. No, it is the height of them to say you can free yourself from a lot of things. But this you will never be really free. That is the height of the wisdom. That is the very best thing that they're looking to bestow on you. But I'm saying look further. The true religion, the true philosophy will take you beyond itself. There is a point in philosophy that says, I can take you no further. You have reached the end of wisdom, the end of knowledge in that sense. Because philosophy, um, the way that is, at least we can most commonly define it and show it, we can call anything philosophy, but that what is generally referred to as philosophy correctly is a mind tool. It is as big as the mind, and the and the mind is vast, very vast, but it is not endless. And so too, philosophy is confined to that vast, vast, beautiful valley of the mind. But peace is not something that is confined, truth is not something that is confined. Love is not something that is confined to the mind, it is bigger than that. And so if you want to take your rightful place, which you already have, but it's the recognition that this has always been the case that is needs to be attained, then you must go beyond your practice. If you call yourself a philosopher still, you are confined by it. If you call yourself uh a Buddhist, you are confined by it. And this, like I said, this is a vast, vast, these are big things. This one can be confined in these and never see the end of them because they're so vast and so beautiful. And if that's what you want, there's nothing wrong with that. Go ahead. But if you say, I want no confinement, then you must go beyond the practice. And again, the practice itself is telling you that you must go beyond it. I am not saying that Buddhism is um a misguidedness, that philosophy is misguided, that Christianity is misguided. I am not saying this. These things in their core and their spirit, if taught correctly, are exactly saying the same thing. They're saying, you must go beyond me. I am here to take you beyond myself. One of our friends, the philosopher Simone Wei, says, religion is a ladder. A ladder. What's a ladder? A ladder is something you use to get to somewhere where you otherwise could not have gone. That's what a ladder is. Because if you don't need the ladder, then why do we have ladders? If we're trying to get on the roof of the house, if we don't want to be in the basement anymore, we want to go all the way up to the top. We use a ladder because otherwise we cannot get there. That ladder is called philosophy, that ladder is called religion. That ladder is called the practice. Whatever your practice is, it doesn't have to be anything that has ever been named even. And it is only beautiful, it is only proper, it is only right if it itself tells you that you must go beyond it. And it will take you beyond that if you let it. This is how illusion arises. Illusion and the source of all misery is illusion, the source of all illusion are false beliefs. The source of all false beliefs is identity. And the source of identity is the true self. It is the true self, or whatever you want to call it, the but the one behind everything, the one behind the source of everything, that which gives itself to illusion and delusion, as well as the real vision of things, the power of um the power, the one that gives its power to all of these things that can give it to illusion or to the vision of reality. That one that one is pure. That one does not lack. That one is not ignorant, that one is not a saint or a sinner. A victim or a victor. That one is no one in terms of a personality, in terms of an identity. And so religion picks you up and philosophy picks you up, the practice picks you up in your illusion, takes you to your false beliefs, takes you to your identity, and says, Here I cannot go any further. Says, I have made you the truth, the truth seeker to bring you all the way here. I made you the devotee of this or that religion or of God to bring you here all the way to the ground of your reality. The next step you must take. I cannot go any further. Because this is where religion stops, philosophy stops, the practice stops, this is where language stops, this is where the mind stops, this is where knowledge stops. And there's one more big step to take into that. And from there, from there, one realizes that one has always been there. And from where you have always been, you can now look to the entire universe, to the world, to your world, and see what's what, and see the separation between you and that, but at the same time that you are also part of everything. But the practice cannot come come here with you. The practice is only there to take you this far. And so how many false beliefs we have sort of determines, I guess, in a way, or can show us uh where we're at. But this thrill seeking thing, I really it's amazing. It it starts at the very, very beginning. The most delusional person can recognize this thrill seeking in their lives. They can recognize it. And through its recognition, they can move and let go of their illusions and see the false beliefs that are behind the illusions. And even there, it can still, by the help of the recognition of thrill seeking and the letting go of thrills, move all the way down to identity to see that, wow, without personal preferences, without opinions, without beliefs, without ambition, without desire, I can have no thrills. If I don't prefer the one thing to the other, nothing can thrill me. Neither the one nor the other can thrill me because I have no opinion about it. I have no desire. I have no wish for one to win and the other one to suffer. I have no stake in either candidate. No matter who wins, it is neither a victory to me nor a failure to me. And to the thrill-seeking mind, this sounds boring. To the thrill-seeking mind, this sounds, oh, you have become dull. You have no excitement left in your life. Quite the opposite. This is when beauty appears. This is when joy appears, because we are not rooting for the one player anymore. We are enjoying the whole game. Instead of rooting for the one player and for their career and to be devastated by their loss or to merely be relieved and wait for the next fight, we are now sitting back and we're saying, what a wonderful thing, athleticism. Look at it go. Look at it in play, look at it dancing, and look at the spectators too. How they're all together focused on one thing in enjoyment and togetherness. And the field that all of this takes place on, that too is wonderful. And so this is only possible for the person who has let go of thrill seeking, for the person who has let go with uh demanding one result over another. And again, just to leave it in a simple, simple, practiceable way. If you want to know if you are thrill seeking or not, in any given moment, ask yourself Am I looking to do this, what I am, whatever I am about to do, to enhance the present moment? Am I looking to enhance this present moment because it is simply not good enough? Something is off about it, something is lacking. If the answer is yes, do not do it, see what happens. You will see that even though you didn't do it, you didn't die, you haven't been injured, nothing really has changed. Yet uh-huh, reality can continue even without that. It never needed it. And if you can say, no, no, I am not doing this to better my mood, to heal my emotional state, to excite something, or most importantly, to distract myself from thoughts, emotions, things that are going on in front of me. No, I am not doing it for any of that. I am simply doing it because it's the right thing to do. It is effortless to me, it promises no excitement to me, or no drama, no thrill. It's just the right thing to do. If I see a clean piece of trash right next to the trash can and I pick it up and I put it in, what do I feel?

SPEAKER_01 56:18

Nothing.

SPEAKER_02 56:20

The thrill seeker will say, ah, another check mark next to my internal values, next to the one of cleanliness, of supporting society, of making the world a better place. If you feel this inside of you, you have been thrill seeking. If you do it without even much thought, and if someone asks you, why did you just do that? That wasn't your trash, or you didn't have to do that, you said, I don't know. Well, why not? If you can say this deep inside of you, then that was not a thrill seeking action. And if we come to that state, to that disposition of doing things in everything that we do, we are living a life of zero friction, zero dissatisfaction, zero resentment. Although, again, always the disclaimer you do not have to be perfect in this at all. There is just a certain threshold when that is passed. You are living an amazing, amazing life.

SPEAKER_01 57:27

Effortless, simple, uh, in alignment with truth, peaceful, enjoyable, calming, always restful. And so you you are well on your wayslash already there, and I'm I'm glad to see that.

SPEAKER_02 57:52

And um, thank you for sharing that with us because, like I said, seeing people do this right in front of us, the question becomes more and more obvious. Why not me? All these people can do this, I cannot do this, why?

SPEAKER_01 58:08

So thank you very much. And uh, without further ado, right away, I will invite our next speaker.

SPEAKER_00 58:15

I have a question that is very much related to what was being said earlier. Um, actually, you have answered a lot. Um originally, I wanted to ask um, how do you how do you know what um that what is truth? Like how how do you know is it like a feeling, or you just you reason because that's what truth is, or how do you know something is true? And then um I wanted to ask another question, which was um we all know the allegory of the cave. Um and you know, once we realize the truth, we come out of the cave, and I have a question about uh isn't it a reasonable question to ask once we are out of the cave? Isn't it reasonable to ask, aren't we in a larger cave? Like there is something beyond the cave itself, uh, I mean the reality itself. I I think you understand. So that that that is what I'm wanted to ask, and thank you so much.

SPEAKER_02 59:31

Thank you. Well, I'll answer uh try to answer your first question first, see how that goes. Um to me, the word truth, and of course the whole concept and idea of truth is synonymous, identical with the concept of reality. So if you want to know what truth is, simply look what the reality is. What is occurring right now in your life, what is occurring right now, period. That's truth. Truth is not something that we need to intellectually, abstractly imagine. Because truth is reality. So why go into imagination? When we can look at reality, the way things are. When I say reality, I just mean the events that are occurring currently. This is reality, and so if we want to know something about reality, about truth, you just look at the way things currently are. And to accept reality, to accept the events that are occurring in the world, is to accept truth. But to say, no, no, no, no, this is so wrong. This should not be happening, but it is happening. So there are people in the world who think they can reject reality, but reality entirely consists of what is in fact occurring has already occurred. How can we reject this? Reality is not a group of things that should happen, could happen, would happen. Reality is what is, period. That which is is reality. And so to reject, this is again what our good friend Simone Wei says, to reject an event in the world or to decline except reject. I think she says reject to reject an event in the world is to wish that the world did not exist. That's so true. Because essentially, by saying to deny that something is happening, which in fact is happening, is to is the same thing as saying I I wish this world did not exist. Now, is this a reasonable thing or is this even a possible thing to do? It is not possible. So what what are we doing? We're escaping into imagination, into delusion, into illusion by saying, I could reject this. I I live in a different reality. Some people say this. I don't live, I live in a different world. You cannot, and you are not. But once again, this power of mind, the power of imagination, of illusion is so, so powerful. One can in fact uh do this with certainty yet not actually be doing it at all because it's impossible. Uh and on the other hand, someone who accepts reality, and when I say accept, I do not mean approve. I do not mean support. I do not mean love, as in the regular sense of, oh, I welcome it. This is how it should be, even though I believe it shouldn't be. This is not what I mean. To accept means to recognize. I recognize that this is happening. Just like when a new country forms and all other countries recognize the the legitimacy of that country. This is the this is what I mean by accept. It's just a recognition. And when we accept uh reality, everything in this way, we live aligned with truth. Period. Very simple. You can disagree with events, you can say this should not have happened, but you can recognize that it has happened and to accept it in that way. And you can still work to change things that are occurring, laws. Um, this person should apologize to this person. You can go work on that. That's fine. But every step of the way we must recognize reality and thereby recognize truth. Any denial in that is illusion. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:19

Um yes. Um, I guess I if I think I want to like clarify. So when something happens, whatever happens, an event, and people are there to perceive it, like there's different perceptions to that event. So there is are there multiple realities because they're different perceptions, or there is one reality that we perceive in our own way? So which one is is there I think that sort of makes sense to ask? Like, is my perspective more real than someone else's? I mean, obviously not, but in some way it's still different because it's from another point of view. So I guess that's where my confusion comes from as to not to deny something that happened, but to have another perspective on the same thing, and which perspective is real, or is our collective perspective is is the truth, or is it even beyond that? Is that does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:32

Yeah, it makes total sense, but you know, this is the sort of thing now. We're going into speculation because we are thinking about, you know, in some situations uh we cannot know certain things, so we have to ask other people and collect it. This is this is different than when we speak about reality, period. Then we're just speaking about a human event, and and there are different people know different things because they've been in different rooms. Where different things had taken place. And so, yeah, me just observing the reality, I wasn't there. I wasn't there for the event. But reality is bigger than any one event. Truth is bigger than any of that. So, what we're now speaking of is perhaps like in a situation where the police is um gathering witness statements. And one person says, it happened at 10:45. The other one says, No, no, that's so off. It happened two hours before. And then we might ask, well, which one to trust? This is different. Because of course there is a reality. The event occurred at a certain time. We may never know. But that too is reality. You may never know. That's truth as well, then. And so once again, you can try in the in the worldly physical sense, you can go around and try to get the most accurate account of what happened. But that does not change reality. It does not change truth. And some things you can simply not know. But whether you know it or not, reality is not diminished. Nothing changes about truth.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:08

I understand. You know, we we just don't know. When I say that truth is reality, do we know everything that's happening in the universe? We hardly know anything. We can even observe only they say 1% of the visible universe. And then what more is there? Even we don't even know that. And so truth is not necessarily something you can know at all in any sense of completion. Right? But there is, of course, truth. There is, of course, reality. And we are looking from perspectives, as you said. And so our perspective never includes all of reality, all of truth. This is very normal. But in a practical sense, I'm just saying be aware the events that are occurring that are available to you, that you do have insight into. That's the part of reality, the part of truth that you reside in, that is that you take place in. And so pay attention to that. Right? That's that's what I mean by that. And it's also beautiful, it's also part of truth to know that one does not need to know everything. In fact, one can never know most things. Because you're still a complete being. You do not need to know this or that. You don't need to know anything that you cannot know. This is how reality is set up. This is a whole whole species is set up. Every species, every animal operates in this way. There's no single animal that knows everything. Yet it is a complete, full being. How beautiful. So the universe never required you to know anything. It's just uh if you want to live a peaceful, uh, effortless, frictionless life, then you do not you let go of this false belief that you need to know everything or that you need to know certain things and that you're incomplete until then, let go of all of that. And by letting go, you become effortless. Not by knowing more, not by doing more, but sometimes also by knowing less, and certainly by doing less. As to your second question, I'm not quite sure what you mean, so you'd have to clarify that when one comes out of the cave, which is an allegory for uh coming out of illusion and attaining wisdom, um uh you said there might be another cave. What do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:39

Yeah, I just there is this movie called Truman Show. I think a lot of people have seen it, and I don't want to spoil it, but uh basically he's in a in a large cave, but in a modern way. And um if he escapes if he escapes that um cave, isn't he isn't Truman in another larger, a much larger cave? Um I don't I don't know how to ask.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:09

What's the much larger cave?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:12

Like the universe itself, I mean or the planet Earth or or the solar system or whatever um edge you want to want to make of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:24

But tell me this, can can someone be uh in the Truman Show in that small dome in that fake little world within a world and still be out of the cave? If we put you into the Truman Show, into that place, into one of the houses, you being completely aware that you're in this fake little town, and that there's an outside world and maybe even and then universe even outside of that. Even though you're in the cave within the cave, would you actually not be outside of the cave?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:01

Oh, because you know that it is a cave, you're already out of the cave.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:06

Right. So no matter how many caves there are, no matter how many caves there are, all you need to know is um I don't need to escape the cave. Because in in Plato's allegory, the one who escapes the cave, and there are many more other people in the cave in this allegory. Once he goes to the outside and he sees the sun and the trees for the first time, what does he do? He goes back to the cave and he tries to tell others to say, There is a whole world out there. Come with me. I'm going out again. So he's not afraid of the cave anymore. In fact, he's going back to get more people. And of course, no one listens to him because that again signifies that we need to do this on our own. We cannot save other people, right? Um, but he could sit in the cave and he might come back when it's very hot outside or something is going on. The cave is nice and cool and calm. He might come back there. It's not a problem. And so there's nothing to escape, there is no enemy, there's just inside of our head, there is a whole world built up. We need to get out of that cave. And that can be done completely just with you. You don't need anyone else to do it. And once you do it, you don't need to also change anything in your life. Not necessarily if you want to, you go ahead, but not to escape the cave. The cave is already over, you're already out of it. You can go anywhere now, physically. And so this is what we build up inside our own heads. And the cave are false beliefs, by the way, right? And so by simply letting go of false will, which is such a simple, effortless action that we do every kinship and do every time we interact with each other, we let go of some or other false belief. You just do that, and and you you have gone out of the cave. I don't even want to say escape because there's nothing to escape, really, because even the people in the cave, even though they don't know that there's a whole outside world, they're still full, complete human beings. They don't know it. The person who escaped the cave did not all of a sudden form into a human being and complete themselves. No, they were that their whole life. They just did not know. And it's the same way with us. We just do not know that we partake in these false beliefs, that we are delusional in many ways, that we're ignorant, in other words. But again, like we were talking about earlier, the one who is ignorant, is that not too a full and complete human being? And their ignorance simply stems from the idea that they are not, even though they are. Isn't that their ignorance? So the the the only difference between a so-called wise person and a so-called ignorant person is the lack of the recognition that they are both the same. This is what's so beautiful about the universe. This is what's so beautiful. Every single human being is the same in potential, is the same in nature, in their nature. They're full, complete, lacking nothing, needing nothing, desiring nothing, wanting nothing, but believing that they do. And so the only difference is that we realize that we were never lacking. The so-called work to attain wisdom is not to become complete, to become the best version of yourself or a different version in yourself, or to improve yourself. This is not the work. The work is to recognize that you have always been complete. And this hardly is any work. Because what are we doing? We're not doing anything, we're merely opening our eyes. That's hardly an action. Yet it is the dissolution of all misery. What a simple thing. What a beautiful fact to know that even the people you are looking at who are miserable, who are suffering, who think that they're lacking incomplete, almost worthless humans, you can look at them and know, actually, I can see your true self. I can see you the way you actually are, I can see that you're a complete being. You can see others complete that even don't don't even see themselves as complete. Because reality is they are complete. The cave is the false belief of lack. And coming out of the cave is simply coming out of that idea. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:06

And so that's what we all just need to do.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:08

That's the cave. So thank you for that. Um, thank you for that question. Very important because it shows us what the what the real cave actually is.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:20

Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you everyone for listening.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:24

Thank you for coming here. Thank you for your openness and for your uh ideas and insights and questions.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:31

Thank you very much. Thank you for sharing that. That was a great opportunity to talk about these things, and uh, we're very grateful. Thank you. I'll move you uh back to the audience, and I will also invite our next speaker immediately.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:47

Uh I have a question about thrill seeking um because I'm confused now. I good. So I accept the idea of that I am peace and I'm not my thoughts, and I can also I have a willpower, I guess, to stop myself from like thrill seeking. But I also have a dream as a human. And so you previously asked um or you suggested to ask ourselves questions. For example, would my life be better if I pursue my desire? And would I feel better? Would I feel complete? And my answers would be yes, I would. And so it's kind of like I don't want to go for the randomness of my life and to just experience whatever is from to me, but I would rather pursue my desires. And so is there a thing such as such as a genuine desire? Or is it all just like uh thrills created by imaginations?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:06

Well, this is the crucial point. So thank you for pointing that out. This is the this is where we are often by the mind, right? By the thoughts. The thoughts come in and say, well, wait a minute, there are beautiful things in this world to do, like art, beauty, um, I mean, dance and music and and architecture and go to space and and all these beautiful things. Why would I just sit in a forest? Okay, peaceful, very nice, beautiful, but is this it? This is the mind always, always trying to convince us that um there's an emptiness, and that that there's empty this emptiness is a void, a black hole where we will become nothing, dull, boring, empty, useless beings. This is not true. But the moment you came into existence, you already accomplished everything there was ever to accomplish. And your accomplishments have ended there, but this does not mean that the play has ended there. When people say this whole world is your playground, they are not saying party and drink and and just play games all the time. This is not what that means, although many people think of it that way. The play of life, the play of this experience is the bird. To be a bird is to play in a certain way. Nothing can fly like a bird, nothing has that experience. Nothing can know of the existence of the whale that lives for 200 years in the deep sea. You don't know that. I don't know that. We'll never know that. And the experience of being a human being is a whole different play. And when I say play, I don't mean that silly little illusionary game. I mean the dance of experience. Everything dances in this universe as an experience in a different way. Interacting in some places and all that, but but naturally different in its experience. And so you as a human being, you have the privilege and the opportunity to play on this earth. You can become a musician, you can become an investment broker. I don't know if that that's what that's what you like, then that's what it is. You can become a monk, you can sit in the forest. You can um you can fly planes, you can uh work in a mine deep underground, you can help animals that have been burned in a forest fire, whatever. The examples are endless, the things you can do are almost endless. What a beautiful gift. So now when the one who is playing like this, when the dancer goes on stage and in two hours loses a gallon of of fluids of body weight just from dancing so vigorously and and and so beautifully. If they come down from the stage and say, Ah, that was a good performance, um I sure hope that the certain people were in the audience to see that and to write good reviews, and this might be the night where I've advanced my career in a big way, then this person is thrill seeking. Because they're operating from a belief of lack, of needing to prove themselves to someone and to themselves also, and that they will not be rewarded with peace and meaning in life and a purpose in life if they do not try hard enough, if they do not work hard enough, if they do not make a name for themselves, whatever that means. But the person that they were dancing with, performing with, the other dancer, if they come down the stage and say, My gosh, what an experience that was, moving that way. How beautiful we get to do this. Because I know one day I will not be able to, although one does not need to dwell on that, but just how how amazing this was. And still is. I don't live in the past. I got to dance, now I get to uh feel the sensations in my body after the dance. I get to rest, I get to be with my friends, I get to see what maybe what uh people enjoyed in the performance, et cetera, et cetera. And the next day there we practice again. In every moment there is a beauty. In every moment there is something we don't get to do in another moment, and we don't look back at what has passed, and we don't necessarily look forward to and are excited for, and until then we do not see the present moment and we just want this, this, no, not that. In every single moment, as we move from moment to moment, there is something, there is a beauty in that. And so the one that approaches dancing or anything, whatever they're doing in life, in this way, in the second way, that one is not thrill seeking. Yet both of these are dancers on the same exact stage in the same exact dance. Now, the choice is yours. Which of these two dancers would you like to be? This is what you need to think about. This is your choice. This is once again your opportunity, your privilege. You can do even this most beautiful thing for the wrong reason. And you can do some other thing that no one even thinks about, no one's ever considered doing because they it seems too boring or too generic, too random. One can do that too with the right intention and see all of the beauty that even the top performer, the most desirable dancer in their career in their field, does not experience because they're too caught up with ambition. They're too caught up with thrill seeking, because thrill seeking is an explosion. It happens maybe one or two moments. How long can a thrill be sustained? Maybe five minutes, maybe ten minutes? What is what is the greatest thrill? What is the longest thrill? How long does it last? However long it lasts, it comes to an end. But the beauty in life, this stability, this calm stillness, the depth of the ocean, that one is everlasting and sustainable. Everyone who is peaceful is sustainably peaceful. That is the whole nature of peace. It's sustainability, it's constantness. And so the thrill seeker experiences an explosion. It spends all week, all month, all year to accumulate excitement, compressing, compressing, compressing, compressing, waiting for that one special day, the 4th of July, to let go of all the fireworks. And then it goes, wow, and then it's an ecstasy for five minutes, ten minutes, two hours, two days, I don't care how long. And then it comes to an end. And then once again, we're desiring, we're looking forward to next year, next time. And by the way, the thrill, the fireworks weren't as great as I expected them to be either. Because I was I was waiting for this all year, and they're pretty good, pretty great, but not really better than last year. And so I can only hope that this will be better next year. This is still seeking. And if you remember, we also mentioned the example of charity. There are so many people out there doing charity, giving large sums of money, giving their time, giving their efforts, making great donations of many kinds. And every time they hand over the donation, or every time they accept they accept a thank you or even a physical little award for what they have done for a certain cause, they get they experience ecstasy. It's an ego trip. They feel so important, so special, so noteworthy, so distinguished by what they have done. Well, the award ceremony comes to an end, the thank you comes to an end. And by the way, the prize wasn't the award wasn't that great, and it wasn't presented on prime time. Really, for the sum of the donation that I made, I would have expected a bit of a bigger event. I would have expected the director of the nonprofit to be there too, but it was it was only the vice president that was there. Hmm. That stings a bit. Right? But it's charity. Charity is a great thing, right? No, if you do this with this Intention, with the intention of feeling important, with the intention of uh, I've done many bad things in my life, so I'm going to do charity to complete myself, to heal myself, to renew myself, to um renovate myself, then you are thrill seeking and you will never, ever be satisfied. But of course, there are also people who are doing charity as charity. Because, as we also said, this first person who is doing charity as an ego trip, they're not really doing charity. They are merely purchasing something. They're giving something and they're expecting something in return. They expect praise, they expect to heal old wounds or whatever they're imagining this charity, this giving will do for them. But there are so many, sometimes you see on the walls that says this whole wing of this hospital was donated by Anonymous. And I'm not saying that anonymous is not not necessarily not a thrill seeker either, because there are other thrills than just to have one's name on a building. Right? Only they can know that. Only anonymous can know deep in their heart, if even though they have not put their name on the building, if they're still not thrill seeking or not, if they're still not getting something, some excitement out of it, feeding some false belief. So thrill seeking happens on the intention basis, meaning it is a disposition. Meaning uh everything that you do with the wrong disposition is a wrong thing to do no matter what it is. Everything you can do with the right disposition, with the right intention, is the right thing to do no matter what it is. If you set your intention right, nothing bad can happen to you. If you set your intention wrong, nothing good can happen to you. Thrill seeking is on this on the level of intention. The outcomes are after intention. So if our intention is thrill seeking, there is no outcome that can come out of that that will ever satisfy us. But if our intention is not at all something emotional, not at all something to heal me, to make me better, to make a name for myself, to complete myself, to become worthy of peace and love and appreciation, there's nothing I can do to achieve that. But if I am operating not for peace, but from peace, if all my activities are coming out of peace, out of love, then I am already satisfied. I am already complete, I'm already whole, I am not lacking anything, and I'm doing the exact same things. I am dancing, I am giving charity, I am not doing anything because I don't need to. Whatever it is that I think is right for the moment for the thing that I'm doing, it's all good. Does this make some sense to you?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:34

Yes, yes, very helpful. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:38

So anything we do in life, we are we're making a mistake in doing if we're doing it out of the wrong intention. But there is no such thing that we can say, oh, this thing, this activity in itself, um, to become a singer. That's wrong. That's just wrong. We cannot say that. There is no single activity that we can say, no matter how one approaches it, um, it is wrong. It all depends on the intention, right? And so only you can know your intention. And this is why thrill seeking is um can only be practiced by the person. No one can come to you and say, look, you're thrill seeking, and I'm gonna prevent you from doing that to help you, right? No one can do this. The thrill seeker will always find a way to thrill seek. Always, even if it's just internally. No one even knows that I'm a thrill seeker. But inside of my head, I am constantly saying, here, here they go again. The whole world is against me. I'm always disadvantaged, I'm always struggling, never getting anywhere. This is a thrill because this is excitement, this is drama. And so one can live in their own head their whole lives and still thrill seek. So this needs to, this is what we all need to do for ourselves. We need to go deep inside of ourselves. And as we do any and every action, any and every action, we must ask ourselves, am I operating for love, for peace, or from love and from peace? Am I looking to be completed, to be rewarded, to be healed, to fix this lacking present moment, then I am thrill seeking. If I am operating simply because it's the right thing to do, and I am uniquely able to do it, like I have the resources to do it, right? We don't need to select something that we don't need to say, oh, I want to plant a million trees. Well, it it takes $10 million to do that. So how am I supposed to do that? Only ambition will tell you to do something that you have no resources to do because it's looking to do something special, something important, some something no one's ever done before, or none of your friends, none of your family has ever done before. So you're trying to impress them. Ambition will tell you always to pick the thing that seems impossible so that you can work towards it, so you can do something special. But peace has never demanded that. Love, truth, justice has never demanded that. If we are peaceful, loving people, then we're just going to look around. What can I do? What can I do? No matter how small, because the intention is important. There's no one here, I am sure of this, there's no one here listening who would take a billion dollars with strings attached that are unfair, injust, inhumane. Everyone here would rather take $1,000 towards their life, towards their cause, towards whatever they're working on, and have it come from a completely pure intention, no strings attached. I simply want to support you here. Please take this. Ten times out of 10, we would take the thousand dollars over a billion dollars that is asking us to do something inhumane in some other area in life. And so this points to something. This points that no matter what your personality is, no matter who you are personally as an individual, there is something common in all of us behind the personality, behind the preferences and the goals and the opinions and the beliefs and the ideas that will not take a billion dollars if it's if it's not coming from the right intention. At least it does not want to. We can convince ourselves, many people do, that, oh, you know what, I'll just do charity again. With some of that money, I will do charity to make up for this terrible thing that I needed to do to get this money. Some people can convince themselves like that. But why are they even doing charity? Why are they trying to make up for this thing that they did? Who is making them do that? What inside of them is forcing them to calm their conscience. So there's something behind all of this that is disturbed when we do something out of the wrong intention. And there is something that is always aligned with love and peace and justice. And when our actions are aligned with that too, it um we get to be at peace because of that. There's something there, common to all of us. It's proof. This is proof. And so thrill seeking is against that. Thrill seeking is against the peaceful, loving one that already sits behind all of our actions. And that's why we feel uneasy, we feel distressed, we feel confused about some of the things we do. Because society, family, friend, ourselves, our own beliefs tell us you need to make something of yourself. Like you need to achieve something very difficult, no matter what the price, right? Maybe you need to lie and cheat and deceive for a little bit. But once you achieve this thing, you're going to be able to do so much good that it's going to make up for all of that, etc. So we get these ideas from somewhere and we believe them enough to get scared whenever we fall behind in them in those areas. We get scared. But that which is nevertheless disturbed, no matter how much success we can acquire, no matter how much money, wealth, fame, recognition we can acquire, there's still that one who is not pleased with this. And uh that one ultimately is more powerful than any ambitious part of any mind. And so it is time to maybe recognize this and to say, I cannot satisfy both of these people. Who do I pick? This is your choice. Right? So many people believe, oh, I just haven't made enough money, I just don't have enough power yet for me to justify my means, justify my ends, and to finally be peaceful, no amount of money will fix it. If the intention is wrong, no amount of money will soothe the consciousness. Or whatever you want to call that self that is dissatisfied with all of this. And to satisfy the true nature, that peaceful, loving nature that seems to be common in all of us in some way deep down, that one requires nothing. That one says only don't add injury. Abstain from injustice. Excuse yourself from wrongdoing. Do not go out of your way to participate in injustice, in cruelty, in corruption, in deception. Why go out of your way and do all this? Because money, it is not good enough. Because power, it is not good enough. You do not need it. But you go out of your way to do to help someone or something or do to do anything just because it is the right thing to do, and you have the skills to do it, the time to do it, the resources to do it. What is wrong with that? Nothing. So take that to its ultimate, ultimate level. If you like planting trees, it doesn't have to be a million or ten million or anything. If you truly love planting trees, and it is effortless to you, and it is a joy to you, and your reason and your mind and your wisdom tells you, of course, this is a good thing. What could possibly be wrong with it? Go plant a tree next week, if you can, if you want to. Keep doing it for as long as you want to. Maybe you will end up planting a million trees, and maybe you will get many recognitions and many awards, and maybe you will be written down in history somewhere. But it's not going to matter to you. It's not why you did it, and the reward you already received. Every time you planted a tree, you received a reward. Not an external one. The very doing of that was the reward. And so, what do you lack now? If if planting a tree is the reward for planting a tree, what reward can come after that that hasn't already come? What is better than this? What is more beautiful than this? What is more fulfilling than this? What is more rich than this? What is more joyous than this? What is more peaceful than this? This is what I'm saying. You may break all kinds of records doing this, but it will be accidental and it will not matter. And the one who is looking to break records for healing, that one's never gonna be healed like this. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_03 1:41:52

It does, thank you. But I'm also probably I'm more focusing on the physical world where I want to improve my life. So I have this dream and I don't have resources yet, so it's something I have to work towards. But I also see that I have the peace with within me. So if it doesn't happen, I'm still okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:20

You're not only okay. You're not only okay, you are perfect.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:28

Okay, but still the the the this desire is there, and I still want to do that. It's okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:42:33

See the desire, see the desire and examine the desire. If your desire is telling you we must improve your life, meaning your life circumstances physically, right? You want to live in a maybe a nicer city, and then within that in a nice house, and and in that house you want to have certain people, okay, okay. Uh, so far, so good. No problem. Why do we want these things? Do we want them so that we can finally be at peace, so that we can finally be healed, so that we can finally be complete, so that we can finally rest and be a complete human being? Or do we want them because for other reasons, because it's it's just an enjoyable thing? This is the way that I my preferences are leaning. I'd like to live in the city. A lot of people like to live in the countryside, or I like to live in the countryside, even though most people like to live in the city. Whatever it is, these are my preferences. This is the play of life. This can be beautiful, but if I resent my present situation, look what this means. If I resent my present uh the house I live in, or the room within the house I have to live in still, if I resent that, I promise you, this resentful nature is never going to be satisfied. The one who resents the room, if they inherit the house, they willn't they will resent the house. They will move into a bigger house, they will resent that one. They will move into the biggest palace and look back into history and say there was a bigger palace that cannot be built anymore. Those those resources, that kind of wood does not exist anymore. It will resent that. This dissatisfied nature never comes to a point where it says, okay, now I am satisfied. We get so good at pursuing peace that we have no competency, no ability in having peace. The skill set that is required for pursuing peace is a different skill set than the one that is capable of having peace. And so if we are looking to acquire, if we can only acquire one skill set, and it is true, because in every moment you can only do one thing, then why try to acquire the skill set to pursue peace rather than to have peace? Because the one who has peace has it in the small room as well as in the palace. So there's nothing wrong with this is a noisy neighborhood, this is a dirty neighborhood. And uh I am a full, complete being no matter where I am, and this is okay, I can deal with it, this is fine. There's nothing wrong with it, it does not injure me. But it's noisy. Noise is not good for the body over a long period of time, and so I also have a little body to take care of. And so for that one, I will go to work, I will try to make more money, I will try to do these things so that I can afford to uh put this body in a in a more calm, silent environment. That's fine. Nothing wrong with that. Because that one still knows all of beauty, all of life, all of the present moment is still here. And it's a beautiful thing. It is not rotten and resentful and disgusting until we can change our circumstances. Because uh this this situation is telling us look, it is noisy, it is polluted, it is bad in this physical sense. That one is right. But if it ever manages to convince us that there is no peace to be had here, no beauty to be seen here, then we will also continue to see ugliness and lack no matter where we go. I promise you, this is the great trick of the ego, one might say, of the false self, always dissatisfied. But it promises if you ever achieve this, then I will be satisfied. I promise you. I've always been dissatisfied, I don't even know what how to do anything else, but I won't tell you that part. I'll just say, look, as far as I can see, you know, I dream of this, this is my fantasy. Uh go make this fantasy real for me. And uh I believe I'll be satisfied then. This is what the thoughts say. But the one who lives in fantasy, the one who lives for a better future, the one who is always filled with hope, always expecting something from the future, does not know to be content with the present, no matter what that present is. This is the great trap. This is where we need to find balance. It is 100% legitimate and proper for you to logistically, physically have goals and to logistically improve your living conditions, if needed. I'm not saying it's always needed, right? But if you ever cross the logistical dreams with non-logistical ideas, meaning if you ever get the idea that by improving your living standard, your physical bodily standard, you're also improving yourself spiritually. That's when we fall into the trap. Because that's when we focus all our energy on improving things physically, not realizing that the physical cannot touch the non-physical. So just this is all I'm saying. Notice this in your life. Every time you improve your situation logistically, you are not improving yourself non-logistically spiritually. It is never having an impact. And so we tend to think, oh, I just didn't do enough logistically to impact myself non-logistically. This is not true. This is why we hear from so many millionaires, billionaires, that they're still not happy. And we're all sitting here saying, Well, if I had that much money, I would know what to do with it. And I would find meaning and I would find something to do with it that is so beautiful and so joyful that how could you still be unhappy? They thought that too. And they actually achieved all that money and ambition and power and everything, and they're still not happy. Why? Why they will tell you that it's because they met certain people along the way who cheated them, who robbed them, and who stole all their joy in their life, and so even though they have even though they have. So much money now, they still cannot be happy because of that. Or some will say, Well, I thought a billion dollars was a lot of money, but actually, when you look at it, uh, it's not that much. So my next goal is 10 billion. Always next, next, next, always improve, improve, improve. This will never stop. But you can be peaceful, you can be at ease, you can be content, you can be arrived internally while still saying, Oh, okay, uh, the paint is chipping here, I'll fix that. And uh the glass is cracked here, I'll fix that. But always, always operating out of a sense of completeness inside. You see what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 1:50:48

Yes, beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 1:50:51

This balance we can all find. All find. This is not something that uh you can do and I cannot do, or vice versa. It is not. Okay, so this also is philosophy to show this, to operate in this sense and still do whatever you want to do externally, but never with this sense of I need to save my soul or I need to heal my soul. You fixing up your house is not going to fix up your soul. Not because your soul is broken, but because it does not need fixing. The idea that it needs fixing is an illusion, and that illusion will always continue. Because an illusion is delusional. It will not respond to reason, it will not say, Look, I bought you a car, I bought you a house, I bought you clothes, I bought you food. You are still not, why are you still not healed? Saying, because I'm lacking. And you cannot argue with that one. You cannot say, look, I gave you all this. How are you still? Explain to me, how are you still learning? I don't know, I'm still lacking. It will always say like that, I don't know, I'm still lacking. And you'll run around your entire life trying to fix it, but it's it's delusional, it's it's not real, it's an illusion, it's a false belief that you can let go. And only you can let go, only we can let go.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:09

When I say you, I mean everyone.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:15

So thank you very much for bringing that up because again, this is this is the crucial point, actually, right? This is what we this is the balance or the vision that we need to see between the we always talk about this, the logistical and the non-logistical, the physical and the non-physical.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:34

So thank you, thank you for bringing up.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:36

Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_01 1:52:39

Bye.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:41

And um we are over time at this point already, but uh thank you so much for your conversations. And I will have to ask the remaining two speakers to uh put their requests in early next time so that we um can speak with them. Um but thank you so much. Uh I think that was wonderful. We sort of uh ran with the theme of thrill seeking here the whole time, which uh I'm always very, very happy to be reminded of. And thank you so much to all our speakers for not letting go of this and really drilling down and saying, you know, I've heard of thrill seeking before. We talked about this before, and I'm confused about this. I want to know this part. I want to how do I implement this? How do I recognize it when it's happening? What is it? Do I need to fight it? What's going on? Beautiful, beautiful thing. This is exactly how we do it. This is exactly what kinship is. This is exactly how philosophy uh as a way of life is practiced, right? Because philosophy really needs to be discourse, the living word. Books are nice. We love books, right? I'm surrounded by books. But uh it is all just a pointer to finally come and speak and say, what about this? What about and not only speak to another person like we're doing here, but also to uh see and examine the thoughts and to discourse with uh the events that are happening and to be in touch with these things and to make sense of them. And so this is exactly what will gain us that vision. As we always say, uh if we lack anything, we do not lack peace, we do not lack completion. We lack the vision of peace, the vision of completion, the recognition of it. And that recognition is a simple thing. You you are not missing half your organs and you need to go make them and clone them somewhere and put them surgically in your body. No, no, no. They're already there. We just need to essentially flip a switch, one could say. We just need to walk out as a complete being out of the cave, as Plato says. This is all that needs to be done.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:11

And once again, I think that is what has occurred here, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:55:16

We can confidently say. And now a reminder to you once you are out of kinship, please do not be out of these ideas. Do not let the thoughts, the mind, come in and say, yes, yes, this is all beautiful, and we've done our work for today. Now let us relax. Now let us reward ourselves with the very things that we know are keeping us in misery. As a little reward, come do some thrill seeking. You've done so much work in recognizing what thrill seeking is to let go of it and to know how harmful it is to all your activities as a person out in the world. So, as a little reward, come do a little thrill seeking. Let us not allow this. It is a simple taughtness. This is not an effortful thing, this is not a draining thing, certainly. Oh, I need to remain taught and really high strung. No, that's not what I'm saying. It's a simple, simple taughtness. It's the natural condition, not all twisted up or super loose. It's a simple end-to-end taughtness that you can have in your attention to simply observe a thought come in, an emotion come in. I did not say fight it. I did not say turn it around and make it go away. I'm not saying any of this. By simply being aware of it, it has no power. No power. You give it the power. By not recognizing that it is an external, a thought coming into your space, into the room, and by immediately identifying with it, ah, this is me, this is happening. This is how we get into giving power, giving energy, giving existence to thoughts, emotions, ideas, false beliefs. But simply by recognizing, ah, there is the thought, and it's telling me something that is telling me that I am nervous about what I have to do tomorrow morning. It's just a thought. The one who is observing this thought, that one is not nervous about tomorrow. It is the thought. But if we think that the thought is us or it originates from us, or it is an effect of what is true, then how can we not be nervous about tomorrow morning? But observe it, observe it come in, and observe it leaving also, because you've never had a thought for three months or three years or your whole life. It's never happened. Every thought has come and it has left. So why hang on to it and why not let it leave? And if it has something important to say, that too you've observed. You're seeing what it's saying. So if that's important, valuable, logistically really useful information that it's providing, okay, that too is recognized. But why hang on to it? Why identify with it? And so simply remain in this beautiful play, uh, in this dance of uh reality of what happens and partake in it, but always as a witness, and nothing can happen to you. If your intention is right, nothing wrong can happen to you. If your intention is wrong, nothing right can happen to you. So always just keep a watch. Again, this is awareness, this is attention. Keep a watch on your intentions, because if you keep a watch on your intentions, they will be right. And if they will be right, nothing wrong can happen to you. But if you don't keep awareness, attention on your intentions, they can be right, they can be wrong. No, constantly pushed and pulled by random events. And so your life too will be random. Your moods will be random, your thoughts will be random, your actions will be reckless, random, and the outcomes will be random. And you will say, What is this life? What a random mess of a thing. But is it so? Or am I creating this world?