Is meditation not a self-centered exercise ? There is so much to do to help others...

Meditation is not an exercise, that is why it is not self-centered. The idea is to let ourselves be touched by the profound silence in which no me exists. In the meditative space, there is neither “me” nor “other” that can be perceived. If meditation becomes an exercise, something one practises like if it were some Olympic discipline, then yes, it is a self-centered exercise. But is everything in life not already self-centered anyway? As soon as a "me” seems to exists, even helping others is a self-centered exercise. When the “seems” real, there always is an intention at the back of action and that intention necessarily aims at relieving the “me”. Fundamentally, the “others” will always remain others, that is foreigners to the “me”. We don't love others; that is a nonsense. Or it is a defective formulation.

The truth is that when an opening happens, when the profound vision is enlightened, there is no more a center to that vision and therefore no fringe either. The flow of life then goes on without any restriction throughout the nervous system of a human being who is free from the shackles of the mind. To help others then means stopping to see others where there only is the Same. But a “me” helping “others” is pretentious, gross and ignorant. How can we hope to relieve human misery when we are incapable to perceive our own ignorance? To feel ignorant is wonderful. In the perception of ignorance there is a clearing, a relaxation. In that relaxation, all the forms of life are honored. Maybe this is what we want to say by “helping others”.

All what we do for the last few years, astrology, numerology, all the “gies”, is it part of the path or it is completely wasted and it is to no avail continuing in that direction?

The question is to know if numerology, astrology and all those “gies” are wasted. Never; nothing that has happened is wasted, especially if one has come out of it...

— But I am still in those things.

— That is the second question… Everything we have done so far was perfect. Lets keep this clearly in mind. What has happened was perfect simply because it was perfect. It is existence that produced it. It is existence that manifested your body, your senses, your thoughts, your desires, your actions. It was perfect. Now, from that, will it be perfect if we continue in the same direction? That is the practical question.

We should first ask ourselves what it means to be “perfect”. What decides if such and such happening was perfect? How are we to measure this in the end? When we start form a concept, a crystallized idea, and we persist in following a particular direction that doesn't lead us where we want to go and we have checked it many times, we reach a level of intolerance for the suffering that follows; and this is good. For how long are we going to repeat the same stupidities? (This is not a judgement on any particular discipline, I only pinpoint a universal truth). When it hurts enough, we change; not before. In order to engage ourselves in a spiritual path, we only need to attain the point of intolerance toward everything that has not really worked in bringing us perfect peace and total freedom.

— We live in a body. I am starting to get used to the idea that I am not this body, but that I am in a body.

Not even! It is the body which is in you! We are much larger than anything we can imagine. The body is something perceived by you: you grasp it. So, it is in you, you the Consciousness, the Presence. To say and to believe that we are in the body would tantamount to perpetuate duality. We are the body, of course, but not exclusively, like the ocean is the wave but not in an exclusive manner. Is the ocean in the wave or if it is the wave which is in the ocean? The Presence, the Consciousness, is our oceanic nature and nothing is cut off from it: neither the body, nor the thoughts, nor the emotions, nor joy, nor sorrow.

— When we attain that state of consciousness, we no longer suffer? I am trying to get out of suffering: I belong to the generation of the great suffering…

Personally, if I compare my life today with many years ago, I see much less uneasiness, suffering, identification and doubts. For thousands of years we have been trying to eliminate the causes or the occasions of suffering; it has never worked, because there are so many of them. It is much simpler to eliminate the person who suffers. For suffering to occur, there must be an occasion of suffering and mostly a person who can suffer. We already know that it is impossible to get rid of all the occasions of suffering; nobody could do it and nobody will ever be able to do it, because the world is changing and nothing is permanent. But when we stop identifying to the person who suffers, we have solved the whole problem of suffering in one fell swoop. This is the only way.

For the last few years, I can stay still and do nothing. In those moments, I can see faces, sometimes eyes, sometimes colors. It doesn't stay long. Is this the sign that I have attain some state, is this real meditation?

The state then attained is that in which you see faces, eyes and colors… Meditation is not attaining a state. It is the cessation of the process of attaining. It is leaving the world of becoming and dwelling in being. We are always being and in that sense we always are in meditation, including at this very moment. But that state is not always perceived, it is not always clear; we get attached to the forms that manifest. We need to develop our capacity to discriminate the meditative state, to discriminate reality, before we can perceive this reality under all circumstances. That is the practise of meditation. As long as the waves of the lake don't subside, we don't perceive water in its simplicity, in its oneness. We are always the Presence, even when we see eyes, colors, anything, or when we see nothing at all. Deep meditation doesn't consist into following a technique, it is our fundamental state, our pristine way of being which we cover up with mental fragmentation, with the belief in the subject/object duality.

You are always there in your totality of beingness, in the fullness of your being, whatever you do or don't do, whether or not you are dreaming or doing astral travelling. You remain the Presence which knows: the Presence which knows that there is nothing to know.

— When we have started to attain that, should we repeat it often?

— This is why we are holding these talks! It is to repat it; it is for you and for me. It is through repetition that maturity comes.

There is a beautiful atmosphere here, but tomorrow morning it will be the jungle. It is not easy…

It is not easy when we believe in the jungle. Actually, the jungle is only a game, a dream. Do you understand the importance of understanding this? If not, we are certainly going to be swallowed by the dream and then it will indeed be the jungle. We will go back to it and, due to our lack of vigilance, we will again believe that all these people are separate entities and that they are separate from us. We are again going to believe in the movie projected on the screen.

— But try to explain this to the other…

— We have just established that here are no others!

— But the problems are still there anyway…

— Because you are still there as a separate person!

— So tomorrow morning I will not go to work!

— See: you are still there as a separate “I” who doesn't want to go to work. Nothing has changed! You will no longer have problems at work, but you will have them at home. Freedom doesn't lye in action or inaction; it is in the vision. The one who feels uneasiness is the one who should work on himself and not on others. A great portion of our problems comes from the fact that everybody is working on “the others” and does not see that it is their own uneasiness they want to get rid of. When we are at ease, the whole world is at ease. At this time the appropriate or right action is born, and it is not a choice.

What you are expressing is important, because it pinpoints the daily life and the relevance of everything we are talking about. If our philosophy remains theoretical, it is worth strictly nothing. It is in the field of action that we realize where we are at in terms of ease. Because it is through ease or its opposite that we can see the progress accomplished. We become more at ease to the extent that we can stop believing that we are somebody and that “the others” exist as permanent entities separate from us.

Letting go is the recognition of reality as it is. In this recognition, there is the cessation of confusion and the extinction of suffering.