because the horizon simply does not exist. It is just an appearance, an illusion. It is not real. If it were real it would come closer to you as you neared it; if it were unreal it would cease to be at your approach. But if it is neither real nor unreal, if it is an appearance, a dream, an illusion, a figment of the imagination, it will remain as far away as before, no matter how hard you try to get close to it.
Unreal is the opposite of real. Illusion, maya, is not the opposite of real but it is its veil, its cover. Desire is not the opposite of the soul but it is its veil, its cover. It is a fog, a smoke that hides our being, our soul. We keep running after what we are not and as a consequence we cannot see what we are. Desire is a veil on the soul and because of that it becomes impossible for us to know our souls. Because we constantly want to become something else, we never look at that which we are.
If this race, this desire to become something else ceases even for a moment, that which is manifests just as the sun manifests the moment the sky is cloudless. I call the absence of this race to become dhyana, meditation. And what a sense of wonder one experiences in the moment one knows that which really is, because in that moment everything one ever desired is attained. Seeing the soul is the total fulfillment of desire, because there is nothing lacking there.
Thought is a sign of ignorance. In knowing, there is no thought, there is only seeing. Hence the path of thinking never takes one to knowing. Consciousness – being free of thought – is the door to knowing. Knowing is not an achievement, it is a discovery. We don’t have to achieve it, we have to uncover it. It is ever-present within us. We just have to dig it out as we dig out a well.
Fresh water springs, natural sources of water, lie buried under layers of rock deep beneath the earth. As soon as these rocks are removed, the stream of water rushes out. I see layers of thought burying the sources of knowing. As soon as these thoughts are removed, we have a limitless stream of consciousness. Dig a well within yourselves. Remove the layers of thought with the tool of meditation. Make thoughts lifeless, make them rootless through right-mindfulness and alert awareness. What you will know then is knowing. In that pure flame of consciousness where there are no thoughts, is knowing.
I do not ask you to go into solitude. I ask you to create solitude within yourself. A change of place won’t help, a change of your inner state is necessary. It is not the situation but the state of your mind that is the central and important point. You may go to a solitary place, but if there is no solitude within you, you will be surrounded by the crowd even there, for the crowd will be there inside you.
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