Transcription
It's that dream again. The purpose of these lessons is no other than to incite each of you to take care of your life. For you have only one, and that one is composed of a given number, a very limited number of instants. To use that number badly is to destroy it, to kill a bit of your life.
Life is what we do and what happens to us. Life is always a now, and it consists of what now is: feeling oneself live, knowing oneself to be existing. Existing, living consists in knowing and understanding ourselves, in noticing ourselves and what surrounds us, in being transparent to ourselves. Life is what we do. Why do I feel like this?
Coming to grips with growing up in the world we've created tends to take most of the wonder, the joy, and easy laughter out of life. If we recognize that human problems can only be lived with on a day-to-day basis, perhaps we can keep our sense of humor intact. Perhaps we can keep our creativity and wonder alive, and perhaps we can keep the lines of despair from etching themselves on our faces. If we're wise, we shall preserve intact these qualities of the human species: toughness, courage, unselfishness, foresight, common sense, and good humor, and they will see us safely through the many crises of destiny that surely await us.
The individual often lacks the resources to cope with the difficulties and pitfalls of this kind of existence. His resistance may crumble in the face of the demands that confusions and the enticements impose. The ensuing disturbance leads to increasing discouragement and frustration, even to desperation. The remedy for these evils, the narrowing and eventual closing of the fatal gap between man's external and his inner powers, has been, should be sought in two directions: the simplification of his outer life and the development of his inner powers. He struggles to stay up. That's all the more reason I can't.
Fundamental among these inner powers, and the one to which priority should be given, is the tremendous unrealized potency of man's own will. Its training and use constitute the foundation of all endeavors. The right procedure is to postpone all intellectual discussions and theories on the subject and begin by discovering the reality and the nature of the will, to its direct existential experience. How to experience the power, the joy, the satisfaction that come from the proper use of the will. It comes about in three phases.
The first is the recognition that the will exists. The second concerns the realization of having a will. The third phase of the discovery is that of being a will. Now, this is different from having a will. As is true of any experience, it cannot be fully communicated by words, but the conditions favoring it can be indicated. A revelation occurs, an awakening, which may come when one looks at the delicate hue of the sky at sunset, at a majestic range of snow-capped mountains, or into the clear eyes of a child. No amount of intellectual consideration and study can of itself take the place of the initial revelation.
The awakening can be facilitated and often brought about by creating favorable circumstances for this purpose, by the quiet and repeated contemplation of natural scenery, in works of art, or by opening oneself to the charm of music. Well, the same is true of the will. At a given moment, perhaps during a crisis, one has a vivid and unmistakable inner experience of its reality, before the threatening attitude of an unfair superior, or when facing an excited mob. When personal reasons would induce us to yield, the will gives us the power to say resolutely, "No, at all costs. I stand by my convictions."
The experience of willing may come also in other, more quiet and subtle ways, during periods of silence and meditation, in moments of thoughtful deliberation and decision. A voice, small but distinct, will sometimes make itself heard, urging us to a specific course of action. We feel that it comes from the central core of our being. The simplest and most frequent way in which we discover our will is through determined action and struggle. When we are actively wrestling with some obstacle or coping with opposing forces, we feel a specific power rising up within us, and this inner energy gives us the experience of willing.
You're young enough to have the courage to let go of your fear when you have to. Don't back off, no matter what. You got to believe in yourself. Just keep doing what you're doing. All right? Don't worry. I'll have all the energy I need.
The discovery of the will in oneself, and even more, the realization that the self and the will are intimately connected, may come as a real revelation, which can change, often radically, a person's self-awareness and his whole attitude toward himself, other people, and the world. This enhanced awareness, this awakening and vision of new unlimited potentialities for inner expansion and outer action, gives a new feeling of confidence, security, joy, a sense of wholeness. It helps us discover who we are by becoming conscious of more of our true powers. It helps us grow toward transcendence, of connecting up with that power, that ultimate mystery that flows through everything. Nothing can resist a will that will stake even existence for its fulfillment.
It's difficult for a child raised in a ghetto who has spent 15 years or more living with hardship on every side of him to really believe that he can have anything he can qualify for. It's hard for him to understand that even though his father and mother and aunts and uncles and neighbors have all failed, he can succeed.