about ourselves is precisely what we do about overcoming it.
 In other words, the activity that we employ in overcoming it is the mess that we object
 to.
 Do you see that?
 And it's very important to realize that.
 And if you do realize it, you raise the question, "Then what can I do?"
 What can I do to transform the quaking mess into the state of mind of the true mystic?
 Well if you are the quaking mess, there's obviously nothing you can do to transform
 yourself into the state of mind which you idealized with that of being the true mystic,
 the Christ, the saint, or whatever.
 So you realize that everything is following, that all your ideals are simply manifestations
 of the quaking mess trying to get away from itself.
 And that you are put in the position of, "It is absolutely necessary for me to be different
 from the way I am, but there's absolutely nothing I can do about it because being the
 way I am, I cannot be different from that."
 Let's say this, but then we can put it in different ways.
 I know that I ought not to be selfish, and I would very much like to be an unselfish
 person, but the reason why I want to be an unselfish person is that I am very selfish
 and would far more love myself and respect myself if I were unselfish.
 I know that I ought to love God, and whatever, and why do you want to love God?
 Well because God is the biggest boss, and it's best to be on the side of the big battalion.
 That's really why I want to be.
 In other words, because I'm looking for the safety of my own spiritual skin.
 So I think I ought to love God.
 Oh, sophisticated saints have known this.
 St. Paul understood it, St. Augustine understood it, Martin Luther understood it.
 They didn't know what the hell to do about it.
 There was nothing to do about it.
 And yet something has to be done.
 Obviously.
 But you realize when you really look into yourself, there's nothing you can do.
 And this, therefore, is our point of departure.
 If we here, perhaps, perhaps not, mutually realize there is nothing we can do to be anything
 else than what we are.
 To feel any other way than what we feel at this moment.
 And to be then this flaking mess which has the capacity for the horrors about what life
 can do to us.
 However this isn't as much of a blind alley or cul-de-sac as it sounds.
 But if you discover a blind alley, it tells you something.
 Watch the flow of water when it crosses over an area of land and you will see that it puts
 out fingers and some of them stop because they come into blind alleys.
 The water doesn't pursue that course.
 It simply rises and then it finds a way it can go.
 But it never uses any effort.
 It only uses weight, gravity.
 It takes the line of least resistance and eventually finds a course.
 Now we will do the same thing, only we are ashamed of it.
 But we are going to do it anyhow.
 We think that when we come to a dead end, a blind alley, "Oh, I've sailed!"
 Supposing the water, at each place where a finger of water stretches out over dry ground
 and doesn't go any further because the land is too high, the water would have said to
 itself, "I've failed."
 We would say it was neurotic water.
 Just wait and it will find a way.
 Now when you find, you see, that this predicament that I've been describing to you, that there's
 no way of transforming yourself to become this fearless, joyous, divine being as we
 think from the quaking now.
 Then you say, "No way, this is not a gloomy announcement."
 It is a very, very important communication.
 It's telling you something, because like the land is telling the water, "This isn't
 the way to go."
 There's another way, "Try over here."
 So in the same way, life is telling you, "That's not the way to go."
 It's telling you, the message underlying this is, "You cannot transform yourself."
 Is giving you the message that the you that you imagine to be capable of transforming
 yourself doesn't exist.
 In other words, an ego, an "I" separate from my emotions, my thoughts, my feelings,
 my experiences, who is supposed to be in control of them, cannot control them because it isn't
 there.
 And as soon as you understand that, things will be vastly improved.
 Now we can go into this, "What do you mean by the word 'I'?"
 We're going to make some experiments on this on a number of different levels, but the ordinary
 way, "What do you mean by the word 'I'?"
 I myself, your personality, your ego, what is it?
 Well first of all, obviously, it's your image of yourself.
 It's composed of what people have told you about yourself, who you are, how they've reacted
 to you and given you an impression that that's the sort of person you are.
 It's all your education goes into this, the style of life you put on and so forth.
 But it's an image, it's an idea, it's your thought about yourself, and I suppose yourself
 is in fact not this, but it's, to begin with, your total physical organism, your psychological
 organism.
 And beyond that, an organism doesn't exist as an isolated thing any more than a flower
 exists without a stalk, without roots, without earth.
 So in the same way, although we are not stalked on the ground, we are nevertheless inseparable
 from a huge social context of, well to begin with, parents.


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