Qualities of Sincere Searchers

Really, you know what I sometimes say, and it sounds strange to people, I actually say the only one thing that is needed is to take myself seriously. We sometimes use that expression about other people, oh, he's taking himself too seriously. So, you see the difficulty. But if I take myself seriously, then it is inevitable that I would wish to know, what am I? What happens to me when what I usually think I am, namely my body, my emotions, my thinking, the books I have written in my case, some other people have accomplished some other thing, they have gathered some money, they have friends, what happens when the body dies? So, you see what I am saying? Basically, if I take myself seriously, then naturally serious questions arise about myself.

So, this in my judgment is really the fundamental requirement. What actually assists is two or three things. More than anything else, company of fellow searchers. That doesn't have to be a large company. It can even be just one other person. Two or three, four people is in fact better, because even two can begin to just have two different points of view. It's sometimes better to have three or four or five people. Because the flame of search for truth doesn't always burn brightly. It requires periodic rekindling or periodic fuel for it. And therefore, if we agreed, let us say five or six of us, that once a week we are going to meet, even though I may not be really searching anything, but maybe just one other person is searching for something.

And that, so the energy which is brought together is very much helpful. And then, one doesn't need to, necessarily the company doesn't have to be only in terms of five or six human beings coming together. If I agree to have that I am going to study some book, because it has spoken to me. I know many people who have been very touched by the Gospels or by the Bhagavad Gita, or they heard maybe a lecture by Krishna Murthy. They are very touched by it. But then, how to be a little bit consistent about trying to understand or explore what are these texts saying? And my own suggestion is very much, we can read wonderful things, but always to ask oneself, how does it apply to me? Or if it is calling, for example, we can take a very simple example. Christ saying, love your neighbor. And even more difficult, love your enemy.

If I am a serious person wishing to actually follow something that Christ is teaching for some reason, then I would ask myself, do I love my neighbors? What stands in my way? How do I actually understand how to go about it? Or even who is my neighbor? Does the neighbor really simply mean exactly next door? Or is the whole world these days is becoming my neighbor? It's a whole global village in a way. So you see many questions arise. And otherwise it's very nice to quote what Christ said or what Krishna said or what the Buddha said. But how does it apply to me? I always suggest very strongly that this is a helpful thing.

And then one would find sooner or later that some texts, just like some poems, some natural sites, appeal to us more than others do. Even say in the Bhagavad Gita, not every shloka has the same kind of impact on one as some do. Or not all the verses in the Bible would have the same impact. So to actually gradually to come across or to find a text in which something more and more strikes me as carrying some real wisdom or real truth, even though I don't quite understand it. Because in a way I should maybe make a point here which slightly surprises some of my friends.

Whatever I can actually understand cannot transform me. For transformation I need to be brought at the edge of my understanding, at the edge of my ability even. Until I am brought to my own limit, I am conquering everything. I read a text. I can figure it out. I can explain it to the others. But if I can come to an edge where something speaks to me but I don't really understand.

But why does it speak to me? Because this is where one needs to realize that we have actually many levels within ourselves. Maybe you have heard me quote this remark earlier of Pascal. Heart has reasons that reason does not know. Sometimes we are touched very much by some remark of the Buddha or of Lao Tse or Christ. But we don't understand it. But it doesn't matter. We are understanding meaning because the ordinary mind, whatever it understands, it wants to conquer it.

In fact we have made this into now practically a dogma in the scientific world. We understand something when we can predict it and control it. Whereas in the spiritual tradition I am the one who is undergoing transformation. So the truth can't be predicted by me or to be controlled by me. The whole project is different. The project there is changing this instrument, not capturing everything and remaining the same instrument that I am.

So many things can assist one but ultimately naturally it is really from deep within ourselves. Am I in fact satisfied with my usual worldly conquests? Which could, it doesn't have the conquest in any big deal like Alexander, I don't know why they call him Alexander the Great. I think Alexander the Terrible. Similarly all these people conquering this world, that world. So Changi is kind and now we have Trump conquering this and that.

So maybe that is what satisfies them. But at whatever level one is engaged in the world and we all need to be engaged. The animal nature is required. I keep repeating this again and again. My body is required. So it needs to be nourished. But it is a little bit like if I have a horse I need to nourish the horse, discipline the horse to do what I want it to do rather than the horse telling me what I should be doing. So when we use this expression, let me say that again in ordinary English, everybody says my body, therefore by implication I am something other than the body. How can my body or my mind actually serve this other? Not that I necessarily know it but one has intimations of it.

Something that is a little free of fear and ambition, usually it has a tendency towards serving something subtle. Not conquering something, not owning something but actually serving something. And it manifests as general relationship with the others, not only other human beings but even trees, plants, ocean. And also a kind of generalized compassion and an increasing sense of gratitude for the fact that I exist and enhancement of a whole sense of wonder.