We will die.

WordImage.

Mental.

Hanuman.

It's natural for people to think their own civilization and their own nation is better than everybody else, but everybody can't be better than everybody else.

A lot of smart people think they’re way smarter than they are, and therefore they do worse than dumb people. And it’s very common to be utterly brilliant and think you’re way the hell smarter than you are.”

If you’re going to invest in stocks for the long term, or real estate, of course, there are going to be periods when there's a lot of agony and other periods when there's a boom. I think you just have to learn to live through them.

I think I'm pretty good at long run expectations, but I don't think I'm good at short-term wobbles. I don't have the faintest idea what's going to happen short term.

The selling price formula is:

Selling Price = Cost Price + Profit Margin

Cost price is the price a retailer paid for the product. The profit margin is a percentage of the cost price.

Agni.

Close your eyes babe.

You should try to have contact with someone who's enlightened not only outwardly, but inwardly. Tap into them whenever you can. Draw light from them. That's what they're there for. They're like tremendous generators. The more you draw, the more you have. Each of us has to draw light in a different way. Someday when you become advanced in your spirituality you won't necessarily draw light through a person, or a persona that we call an enlightened being, you'll draw light directly from the source. Just as an infant has to take— the infant takes nourishment from its mother in the beginning, then eventually it can eat independently—so we draw light from a spiritual teacher to start with. It's easier that way. Then eventually we can just draw light directly from the superconscious, and then we realize that we are nothing but light, and then we realize that we don't even exist, and then there's no realization, it all goes away. The cycle ends. And a new cycle begins.

In the physical world we will always be distracted to a certain extent by our careers, relationships and so on. But you shouldn't spend too much time on the physical. If you do, you'll short-circuit your awareness. So take the time to organize your life, as I've described on previous tapes. Take your time; pick a good career; don't be afraid to go back to school, spend a few years so that for the rest of your life you'll be in a good career, you'll earn the amount of money you need to exist the way you want to. Have some nice friends, take time to develop them, have a good place to live, work out all the basics: a good car, whatever you need. Be conscious of security, all the different things that one has to have living and working in the world. Even out your physical. Do it right. If you have relationships that are destructive and drawing energy from you, eliminate them. Start to meet new people at the meditation centers and so on, or just wherever you meet them.

Most people are aware of only the physical. They're born, they grow up, they marry, they have children, they age, they die, they have experiences. Their subtle physical experiences are mainly limited to their dreams when they dream at night or whenever they're asleep. When you meditate, you're changing your structural awareness of reality. You're becoming conscious of the subtle physical. The following remarks, then, after our brief scan of the subtle physical, are more directly aimed at a person, or directly aimed at a person who meditates and who is seeking enlightenment. If you wish to attain liberation, or you wish to attain a position of service —you're interested in aiding others in their liberation—then you are a spiritual seeker. Then you are going to go through the stages of development that create enlightenment. You're going to move beyond all weather patterns to the light of the superconscious, which is our true self. But you will become conscious of it. It's inevitable. You can do this slowly or quickly. It's entirely up to you. You must, first of all, bring your physical life together. If your physical life is causing you tremendous pain, then it is going to detract from your awareness of the higher realities. In the physical world we will always be distracted to a certain ex

The world we live in is not conducive to the existence of the subtle physical, in a sense. In ages past, in this world, the vibratory energies were more conducive to a healthy subtle physical. Not only were there less people on the planet, with less energy waves, but just the vibratory energies of this universe were very, very different. It was a different time, a different era. This is in past yugas, past cycles of existence. So people lived to be very, very old, thousands of years, because the subtle physical was maintained. You might say the energy of the earth was more healing and more nurturing. But as times change, which times tend to do, and the cycle of history ensued, we've dropped through a succession of ranges of consciousness. The level of consciousness of most people of the earth right now is very low. All those energies affect the subtle physical bodies and damage them, and therefore people don't live for as long a period of time, nor as happily as they used to.

As you meditate more and more you'll become more conscious of the subtle physical awareness. The subtle physical awareness is very important. Without the subtle physical we do not exist in this world. If the subtle physical is weak, we're weak. If the subtle physical is strong, we're strong. If we're not aware of the subtle physical, then we're locked into the physical world of desire, pain, frustration, transitory happiness and pleasure.

The physical world is very limiting. It's like a maze that you're stuck in—and a very small maze. The way out of the maze is the subtle physical. When you become aware that you're not just the pair of shoes you're wearing but you're a whole body, you become conscious that you have an entirely different self, which is light, which is free to travel throughout the universes, beyond time itself, then you're not really trapped by what happens to your physical body or what occurs to you in your physical life. In your physical life you can be working at your job and working at a computer terminal and talking to your boss or your employees, but at the same time while you're doing that you can be in a meditative state and be having experiences in other realities and universes, in and through your subtle physical body. Just as when you work at a factory—whe

Indeed I have always been of the opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing to do.

The heart was made to be broken.

It is what we fear that happens to us.

The well bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. We all have clouds above us but some see their silver linings. We all face difficulties but some of us are grateful that they aren't worse.

Vajrapani

Nirvana.

A highly intelligent man should take a primitive and stupid woman. Imagine if on top of everything else I had a woman who interfered with my work!

So concentration is the most valuable thing there is, the focusing. For the first ten minutes, sit there and focus. Then for the last five minutes of a 15-minute session, let go. Close your eyes and just let go. When thoughts come in and out of your mind, just ignore them. Instead just be still. Try to feel that deeper mind of yours. Don't try and ask it anything. It already knows what you want to know. It is all intelligence. It is your mind. It is the universe. Just let it come through you in its own way.

Rama ~ Dr. Frederick Lenz As I mentioned before, there are two practices. One is formal meditation, which is zazen, the other is mindfulness. Formal meditation is what you do when you're just sitting around once or twice a day, meditating. You're taking the time to sit up straight and focus and gain control of your outer mind and make it still so you can go into the inner mind, and the two can join and become one. That's meditation. This is done through the practice of concentration, which is focusing, and meditation, which is letting go. Control and abandon. Focusing and letting go. Then there's mindfulness, which is what you do the rest of the day and night, when you're not sitting formally and meditating, and this is the practice of learning to be where you are now. When you are in the supermarket, you should be in the supermarket and only look at what's going on in the supermarket, and not have your mind all over the place. You should shop and put your whole mind on shopping. When you're at work, you should just be working and put your whole mind into work. When your mind drifts, you should bring it back to your work. When you're driving on the freeway to work, you shouldn't be thinking about work and what you're going to be doing in the office, you should be experiencing the freeway and the music or tape you're listening to. When you're in bed with someone, you should be in bed with them. Experiencing them. Not thinking about someone else who you'd rather be in bed with, or thinking about your job and so on. When you're out running, you should be involved with running. When you're dancing, you should be involved with dancing. This discipline, which is called mindfulness, comes about through practice, and it's lots of fun. It eliminates a tremendous amount of stress. Stress comes because you're putting yourself in too many places at once. You're thinking about too many things. If you didn't think, there wouldn't be any stress. Now, the answer is not necessarily to avoid all thinking. Sometimes that's done in meditation in order to get into the deeper part of mind, which doesn't think, which has more sophisticated ways of processing knowledge than thoughtword constructs. But during the day, sometimes you need to think. Sometimes that analytical form is useful. So the thing to do is to practice mindfulness. You need to monitor your mind. Whenever you're in a room, you should confine your thoughts to the room, unless for some reason you have to anticipate something coming next. In other words, you shouldn't have your mind drifting all around. So begin practicing after this tape, being where you are. Monitor yourself. Observe when you're in your car, what you're thinking about, and stop thinking and be in your car. When you're in a meeting in your office and someone's speaking, listen to them and don't be thinking five steps ahead. Stay with them and observe. If you need to do some creative planning, which is necessary sometimes, then take your whole mind, sit down, close the door and do your creative planning.

Your deeper mind has everything already. It knows everything already. It has all the answers. And if you can gain control of the surface mind, then the deeper mind will control the surface mind. It will send it the right thoughts and inspirations and feelings. Whereas if only the surface mind is operating, it's like a tractor and the operator has fallen asleep and the tractor is just going all over the place -- it may be destroying the very fields that the farmer wanted to plant. But if the operator is awake, he can control the tractor and grow a lot of food and do his job and be a winner.

There's a deeper mind and a surface mind. The surface mind is the part that's been programmed by everyone else and is filled with ideas and images. Within you there's something deeper that's very still and very intelligent. That is what mind is, as I refer to mind. The thinking mind is a simple machine. But the mind beneath the surface is ancient and is connected with all things and all intelligence. Meditation is the process of stilling the outer surface mind so that you can become aware of the deeper mind within, which has all the answers. There may be something very interesting 20 feet below the surface of the ocean. But if the ocean is filled with waves, we can't see it. As soon as the surface becomes calm, them we can see into the depths. Meditation is a process of learning to still the mind, both in formal meditation -- which in Zen we refer to as zazen, sitting down and meditating for 20 minutes or half an hour or an hour -- and also during the day, as you're in the midst of activities. Learning to be still, to be where you are now -- without having your mind wandering all over, thinking a lot of useless thoughts, and getting you all stirred up and agitated -- this is mindfulness. It is the other part of Zen practice. Where you will bring your mind, specifically, where you are and not have it wander all over the place, so you can bring the full force and power of your mind to bear on whatever it is you're doing.

You are independent. You can do whatever you like inside your own mind. You have the power to say yes and the power to say no, always. And that's what Zen is all about. Saying "yes" and saying "no" and going within to that deeper part of you, and getting in touch with it and making friends with it and learning what it wants. Because when you are in harmony with the Tao, with the deeper part of yourself, that part of you that always changes, and when you follow its inclinations, then, as Henry Thoreau said, "You'll walk to the beat of a different drummer." And that beat will be the right rhythm for you.

The thoughts and ideas and images, the fears we have, the desires we have, are not really our own. They were given to us by people who are not very happy. Look at the condition of our world. Practically no one is happy. The world is poised on self-destruction. We annihilate our own species in vast quantities all the time. Obviously, we're not dealing with a very intelligent race of beings if all they can think to do is destroy each other and gain power over each other and manipulate each other at every opportunity, which is what happens most of the time here.

To overcome stress, you go out to the countryside, you go out to the desert, you go to Hawaii, wherever it might be, or just sit at home. These things will not necessarily overcome stress because your mind goes with you wherever you are. People drink, they drug themselves, they pour alcohol into their bodies, they get involved with lots of kinky sex, they spend time with people they don't like, they do all kinds of things to just break out of the stress pattern. None of which, of course, work. They all just make you feel a little bit worse the next day.