Subtitles
is a deeper question altogether which is what do you desire? what makes you itch? 00:00:09
what sort of a situation would you like? let's suppose I do this often in 00:00:16
vocational guidance of students they come to me and say well we're getting 00:00:25
out of college and we have the faintest idea what we want to do so I always ask 00:00:31
the question what would you like to do if money were no object what would how 00:00:36
would you really enjoy spending your life well it's so amazing as a result of 00:00:43
our kind of educational system crowds of students say well we'd like to be 00:00:49
painters we'd like to be poets we'd like to be writers but as everybody knows you 00:00:53
can't earn any money that way or another person says well I'd like to live in out 00:00:57
of doors life and ride horses I said you want to teach in a riding school let's 00:01:01
go through with it what do you want to do when we finally got down to something 00:01:09
which the individual says he really wants to do I will say to him you do 00:01:13
that and forget the money because if you say that getting the money is the most 00:01:17
important thing you will spend your life completely wasting your time you'll be 00:01:26
doing things you don't like doing in order to go on living that is to go on 00:01:33
doing things you don't like doing which is stupid better to have a short life 00:01:37
that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way and 00:01:43
after all if you do really like what you're doing it doesn't matter what it 00:01:50
is you can eventually turn it you could eventually become a master of it it's 00:01:55
the only way to become a master of something to be really with it and then 00:02:00
you'll be able to get a good fee for whatever it is so we don't worry too 00:02:04
much that that's everybody's somebody's interested in everything 00:02:09
and anything you can be interested in you'll find others as well but it's 00:02:13
absolutely stupid to spend your time doing things you don't like in order to 00:02:17
go on spending things you don't like doing things you don't like and to teach 00:02:22
your children to follow in the same track see what we're doing is we're 00:02:25
bringing up children and educating them to live the same sort of lives we under 00:02:31
me in order that they may justify themselves and find satisfaction in life 00:02:35
by bringing up their children to bring up their children to do the same thing 00:02:40
so it's all retching or vomit it never gets there and so therefore it's so 00:02:45
important to consider this question what do I desire well when we answer that 00:02:54
question in a naive way we figure out that we want to desire what we want is 00:03:01
to control everything to create girls that don't grow old apples that don't 00:03:08
rot clothes that never wear out conveyances that get from one place to 00:03:16
another instantly so we don't have to wait power available to do anything that 00:03:22
you could conceive and do it just instantly like that to get this funny 00:03:27
technological omnipotence but if you take time out to think about that and 00:03:31
really go into it with your full strength of imagination and find out 00:03:40
whether that's where you want to be you will soon see that's not what you want 00:03:45
because the moment you have a situation where you are really in control of 00:03:55
things that is to say in which the future is almost completely predictable 00:04:01
you will see as I said last night that a completely predictable future is already 00:04:06
the past you've had it and that's not what you wanted you want a surprise and 00:04:12
you don't know what that's going to be because obviously it wouldn't be a 00:04:21
surprise if you did you want a pleasant surprise but like 00:04:23
you say what sort of a surprise would be pleasant and you can't really answer 00:04:29
that because you know if there are to be such things as pleasant surprises there 00:04:35
must also be unpleasant surprises there must be rude shops so you're like 00:04:40
somebody taking one of those wishing well boxes you know tubs you know will 00:04:45
you fish in and you'll bring out a package and you don't know whether 00:04:51
you've got a dead rat in it or a new camera and that's the way that's that 00:04:54
seems to be the thing that really excites people but quite certainly there 00:05:03
comes out of this inquiry a feeling of real disillusionment with the ideal of 00:05:10
power to be in power to be in control is not something that any sensible person 00:05:18
wants now you may say that shirking responsibility that if you were a really 00:05:26
responsible person you would go out for power and try to use power it to the 00:05:34
best possible advantage for the benefit of all all right what would be the 00:05:39
benefit of all ask them what do you want me to do with this power 00:05:45
I'm dictator what would you like me to do well nobody knows because they 00:05:52
haven't thought it through they think of all sorts of short-range things and they 00:05:57
are largely conflicting and confusing because they're not well thought out but 00:06:01
again when it finally comes down to it nobody wants to be God now I think that 00:06:06
this is the greatest possible lesson for the Western world to learn because we 00:06:13
are so hung up on the idea of power of control of being able to make everything 00:06:19
go the right way and we've never thought it through when you get control of it 00:06:24
what are you going to do with it and so when you think things through 00:06:29
like that you understand you do not want power don't want to control over them 00:06:33
and therefore in the exploration of what you want you get to the point where 00:06:38
having all pleasures at your command and they Paul and you think of new 00:06:46
sources of pleasure and eventually you get like the ancient Romans who had all 00:06:55
these mad crowds of barbarians who had to go every Saturday to the Colosseum 00:07:02
for a show that really had to surpass everything because they had public baths 00:07:09
they had prostitutes they had every kind of luxury but when they went to see one 00:07:18
of the big shows that people like Nero put on they would have for example 00:07:27
floats circling the Colosseum all full of slave girls from distant parts of the 00:07:30
Mediterranean garlanded with flowers and waving at the crowd and going innocently 00:07:37
around in the next minute they would release wild lions into the arena to eat 00:07:42
up all the slave girls they got a big sadistic kick out of that because you 00:07:47
see pursuing pleasure beyond a certain place takes you in to what are the 00:07:53
Buddhists call the Naraka world that is to say the hells when you have explored 00:08:00
pleasure to its ultimate limit the only thing you can get a kick out of is pain 00:08:06
so naturally you descend from the devil world at the top of the wheel to the 00:08:12
naraka world at the bottom where it de shows all these beings in in states of 00:08:17
torture you get to the hell world as a result of not knowing what you want 00:08:23
as a result of thoughtless pursuit of pleasure which ends you eventually in 00:08:32
the pursuit of pain so when you're in the hell well that's where you want to 00:08:38
be so when I ask I go right down to the question should be started with what do 00:08:42
I want the answer is I don't know when Bodhidharma was asked who are you which 00:08:51
is another form of the same question he said I don't know planting flowers to 00:09:00
which the butterflies come Bodhidharma says I know not I don't know 00:09:04
whatever well when you don't know what you want you've really reach the state 00:09:11
of desirelessness when you really don't know 00:09:15
did you see there's a there's a beginning stage of not knowing and 00:09:24
there's an ending stage of not knowing in the beginning stage you don't know 00:09:28
what you want because you haven't thought about it or you've only thought 00:09:31
superficially and then when you somebody forces you to think about it and go 00:09:33
through and say yeah I think I like this I think I like that I think I'd like the 00:09:38
other as the middle stage then you get beyond that say is that what I really 00:09:41
want the end you say no I don't think that's it I might be satisfied with it 00:09:46
for a while and I wouldn't turn my nose up at it but it's not really what I want 00:09:54
why don't you really know what you want 00:09:59
two reasons that you don't really know what you want number one you have it 00:10:03
number two 00:10:12
you don't know yourself because you never can the Godhead is never an object 00:10:17
of its own knowledge just as a knife doesn't cut itself fire doesn't burn 00:10:27
itself light doesn't illumine itself it's always an endless mystery to itself 00:10:32
I don't know and this I don't know uh turd in the infinite interior of the 00:10:38
Spirit this I don't know is the same thing as I love I let go I don't try to 00:10:46
force or control it's the same thing as humility anytime you as it were 00:11:01
voluntarily let up control in other words cease to cling to yourself you 00:11:13
have an access of power because you're wasting energy all the time in 00:11:19
self-defence trying to manage things trying to force things to conform to 00:11:25
your will the moment you stop doing that that wasted energy is available 00:11:31
therefore you are in that sense having that energy available you are one with 00:11:37
the Divine Principle you have the energy when you're trying however to act as if 00:11:42
you were God that is to say you don't trust anybody and you're the dictator 00:11:48
and you have to keep everybody in line you lose the divine energy because what 00:11:51
you're doing is simply defending yourself so then the principle is the 00:11:56