Welcome to satsang.

Today’s subject is quite powerful and yet it’s not hard to grasp. If you can understand what we are going to cover today, you will feel a tremendous increase in awareness. That I know for sure.

The subject is 100 percent willingness to get to know the truth, to look at the truth. Initially, when we are interested in spiritual growth, there are two things that drive us. One, we want to get rid of our suffering, pain and limitation. And two, we are driven to find peace, love, and happiness. It takes us a long time to realize that those two are impossible to get.

Let me tell you why. The peace, love, and happiness we want are not really qualities. They are truth itself. We have a misconception about what we mean by “truth.” Truth is this moment. Truth is the eternal now. It has nothing to do with what’s going to happen, or has happened. It is who you are this moment, your very being beyond limitation. That is something the mind cannot grasp.

So we think that peace is going to be achieved. Peace is this very moment, here, now! We think that happiness is going to be achieved. “Maybe if I do this, if I do that, I will achieve it.” We don’t realize, of course, that happiness is the truth this moment, now, the totality.

And then there is something else we do in the first few years. Unless we have guidance, we try to get rid of our pain. We try to get rid of our fears. We try to get rid of our depression, our desperation. That, too, cannot be done, because the depression, the suffering is nothing more than our interpretation of truth. Please stay with me here because this is very profound. If you can grasp it, it will turn you around in your awareness.

Suffering is our interpretation of truth. What is truth? This moment. But this moment has nothing to do with the memory of you, with the idea of you. When you are totally silent in the moment, when you are in that space, you know you are. That is your spirit. When you are suffering, it is because you are caught in that which is not your spirit, that which is not this moment. But what causes suffering? The thought of past or future, “Oh no, this or that is going to happen!”

But what is it that initiates the suffering? Why do we want to get rid of the suffering? Because we feel an emptiness inside. It is this emptiness inside that we want to get rid of! And no matter what we do, no matter how much money we accumulate, no matter what we practice, we can’t get rid of it. You cannot get rid of it! Because the emptiness you are trying to get rid of is spirit, is the moment. It is not an idea. It is not a concept. You see?

So the two are impossible to get until we wake up 100 percent willingness to look at the truth. So, when someone asks if you are willing to look at the truth, most people would say, “yes.” Do you know that the hardest thing for the ego to acknowledge is the fact that you are unwilling to look at the truth? But of course, we have concepts of what we think truth is.

So how do you go about awakening willingness? Simple. Look at your own unwillingness. It’s kind of like going through the back door. Then you begin to see that you are unwilling to look at your ego games, even spiritual games. I have people tell me that they meditate an hour every day, and they still have fears and depression! Which means of course that they are playing a game.

There is only one thing we need to keep in mind, only one thing - spirit. What is spirit? Nothingness. It is beyond mental concept. It is beyond anything we can name or label. It IS. It is a silence. It is a knowingness. If you can look at a tree and feel silence, you understand the tree. If you can look at an animal and find silence, if you can hear a piece of music and hear silence within that music, you are looking and feeling yourself. Because that’s the truth. The truth is a nothingness, a silence which is found in everything and IS everything.

But that nothingness is what scares us the most. And so we want to make it into something. You know what suffering is? Making up a story. “Oh, I was taken advantage of. I was abused. As a child my parents did this to me.” It might be true, but we carry on that story and we make it our personality, our ego. We need to hold on to that story because without it we are nothing! But in truth we ARE nothing. You see? But that is something we don’t want to look at. What if we realized we are nothing? Then we would find silence. Nothing can be taken away from us. We are just looking at the truth. You see?

One of the hardest things for the ego is to acknowledge its own unwillingness to grow in consciousness. It will pretend, fake, lie, make a show, and worst of all, believe in the lie it tells. The exposure of unwillingness is the most effective means to awaken authentic willingness. Do you know that every time you say, “I am angry,” every time you are offended, every time you are hurt, every time something is bothering you, it is your unwillingness to look at the truth? Because the truth is nothingness!

Say you are willing to look at a fear - really look at it, not try to run away or escape or indulge in it, because that is how you give it validity; stop and look at where it is. You will find some twinges in your body and you can get in touch with that. If you relax that part of the body, you will find it’s nowhere to be found. That is a permanent healing.

When you look at the truth, you will find only emptiness. Buddha said, “Emptiness is form, form is emptiness.” Einstein said the same. All the great teachings say the same thing. The moment we find emptiness, all that remains is emptiness. Emptiness is love. The only reality we have is love! Because when we are empty in the moment, you and I are one. There is only one being - we are all human, but we are also human beings. And while the human is kept alive, heart beating, blood circulating, and everything else, where is the being? The being is one.

But the “being” is scary to us, because it is nothing you can put your finger on, nothing you can write about, nothing you can see. It’s very scary, a nothing, a spirit. So we try to make something. It’s called a story, you see? By having a story, we are holding on to something.

So spirituality is the reverse of a story. Make all the “somethings” into nothing! And when everything disappears, all that’s left is NOW, which is called peace, love, happiness, and joy. See the beauty and simplicity of it?

Gangaji said, “For one minute, just one minute, forget about your husband, your children, your family. Forget about your body, your country, your reputation, everything. Just forget everything! And what’s left? Nothing. Now be that nothing. And if you allow yourself to be nothing, there is a euphoria, there is a feeling of joy.”

It’s immediate because the joy is not a “something.” It is that eternal essence called “being,” called “God.” But as long as you’re holding on to something, you cannot experience it, you cannot know. Now we are beginning to understand what willingness is.

Willingness is that authentic drive, which is very rare, to want only the truth. When that is alive in you, you are already awakened. Because here is another thing - “100 percent willingness” and “spiritually awakened” are one and the same thing. So initially what we build up is trying to understand, trying to grasp that what you want more than anything is YOU, who you really are. Not your ideas about you, not your memories, not your degrees or education, not your past, not your nationality; these things die! But there is a part of you that never dies. You cannot know its undying substance until you get in touch with it, until you discover it. Until then, you still believe in death. You still believe in deterioration, in change and time. But when you experience it, you’ll know its undying quality. And that is being spiritual, being spirit!

So what is the difference between being spiritually awake and suffering emotional pain? The difference is willingness or lack of it. There are any number of people who say, “I suffer depression and anger, but I’m willing to grow. I am willing to look at the truth.” This is a very common thing. They really believe they are willing to grow while still under the spell of the so-called ego. The ego doesn’t want to grow, and that is why there is depression and anger in the first place.

They do not realize one basic, simple truth. It’s so basic, so simple. If you are truly listening now, which I know you are, you can feel the simplicity of it. What is truth? Truth is the here-now. Truth is true, as the Course says. It is love, it is peace, it is joy, it is freedom. If you are not experiencing these qualities now, it means you are not living in truth. It means your life right now is made up of a lie. Lying is the unwillingness to grow from what you are experiencing. Some people complain, “But I am not aware that I am unwilling.”

That is correct. 100 percent willingness means awareness of unwillingness. Maybe you realize that you are trying to escape, that you get caught in your pain even though you know how to experience it from things you have heard in satsang, and it dawns on you that you don’t want to look at the truth. But if you can be aware of that, that makes you willing. That increases your willingness.

How do we fool ourselves? We fool ourselves the most when we believe we are willing to grow and yet still suffer emotional pain such as depression, anxiety, anger or even doubt. All of these are unwillingness. Remember one basic fact: negative emotions and unwillingness are the same thing, just as emotional pain is resistance to feeling. There was a great master who said, “There is no such thing as emotional pain. There is only resistance to feeling.” As the feeling comes up, “Oh, I want to get rid of it. I want to control it. I want to be in charge.” What is anger? With anger, you don’t feel in control inside so you try to control situations or others. Frustration - “I’m not getting what I want right now. I’m frustrated.” There’s no surrender, there’s no willingness; you want to control the situation. So therefore, we find that all negativity is resistance.

Similarly, unwillingness is resistance to truth. So they’re both the same. But, why is it so hard to see unwillingness? Because it’s covered up as willingness. You see? People wanting to grow spiritually may build a beautiful altar, and have beautiful pictures of their master or Buddha or Jesus; it’s beautiful! But do you know that most of the time it’s a game? They pray and meditate, but it’s simply to cover up their unwillingness. Because in their hearts or in their minds, they don’t want to look at their fear. They want to run away from it.

So the reason it’s so difficult to spot unwillingness is because it’s disguised as willingness. There are a few ways we like to cover up unwillingness. We organize truth by making a place of worship as a substitute for the atonement, in the Course, which means you are willing to look at the truth and see its nothingness. If there is fear, you are willing to see it as nothing, and then there is a shift of perception. All that’s left is love.

So we organize truth, turn it into a religion, and build an altar. But we are not willing to look at the truth. Here’s what the Course says, “The inappropriate emphasis we have put on beautiful church buildings is itself a sign of fear of atonement, and their unwillingness to reach the altar itself. The beauty of the temple cannot be seen with the physical eye. The spiritual eye, on the other hand, cannot see the building at all because it has perfect vision.”

You build an altar because you want to be reminded of truth. But you have to see that altar everywhere, otherwise you’re not looking with spiritual eyes.

Another way we pretend to be willing is by talking to others about our love of truth, sounding off our intellectual knowledge. We become busy with spiritual matters such as meetings, groups, lectures, and so on, to pretend we are willing. We collect spiritual information and do not apply it. We avoid unpleasant experiences and go after light and love as a substitute. We look for compliments for our spiritual efforts. We say we want to forgive and accept, but as long as we say we want to, we cannot! We try to deny, indulge, control, get rid of, or escape emotional pain, rather than experience its nothingness willingly. We do anything in order to believe our emotional pain stories.

The atonement is so simple, especially the way it is covered in the Course and Advaita Vedanta. See “atonement” as “at-one-ment;” if there is fear or any discomfort, don’t run away from it. See it as a lesson that will bring you something that you are not looking at. The moment you look at it and see its nothingness, you are at peace. That’s atonement.

Why do we fear atonement? Atonement is the willingness to be one with what is at the moment, and to see the nothingness of it. As long as you want to be able to accept and forgive, you are unwilling to accept or forgive. True forgiveness is when you realize there is nothing to forgive.

Remember what we said in the beginning, that willingness is looking at the truth of here-now, the moment itself. There is never a time when the moment is not. If right now you were to say, “Now!” or “This,” any time you say it, it’s always now. Say it anytime! It’s always this moment. We never think about it this way, but it’s the truth. There is nothing but this moment, forever. This moment is nothing itself! It just IS.

So when you want to forgive, accept, or grow, unless you see the nothingness of it, it cannot be done, because forgiveness, acceptance, love, peace, joy, and all spiritual qualities come when you arrive at nothingness.

Let me give you an example. I have many clients who say they want to forgive. The Course says that as long as you want to forgive, you think there is something to forgive, and as long as you think there is something to forgive, you cannot forgive. Forgiveness means you realize there is nothing to forgive. People do what they do because that’s where their consciousness is at the time. Acceptance is the same thing. As long as you think you are going to accept, it’s not acceptance. Acceptance is when you realize there’s nothing to accept.

If you happen to be a racist, and you say, “I am going to satsang so I’d better love everybody,” and then you say to yourself that you are accepting the people who are from minority groups and say “Aren’t I wonderful, I am accepting them,” is that acceptance? No. Acceptance is when you realize that there’s nothing to accept; they are just people like you.

Similarly with growth - we think we are going to learn something and grow. When you realize there is nothing to learn, that’s growth. As long as you think there is something to learn, you are creating a story. You are creating seeking. But soon you realize there is nothing to learn, just to be NOW. Just be the pure and the beautiful self that you are, now. And when you allow yourself to be now, that’s it! You are being nothing.

So the secret of true willingness is seeing the nothingness of everything. Everything! Did you ever look in the eyes of an animal or a baby? How pure, how innocent. There you can see what nothingness really means. What makes color so beautiful? What makes a flower beautiful? Because it’s a quality you cannot name. It’s nothing you can put your finger on. You cannot describe it. What is beauty? It’s nothingness. Because nothingness is everything. And that’s the highest love. When everything is nothing, that is love.

True forgiveness is seeing that there is nothing to forgive, true acceptance is seeing that there is nothing to accept, and true learning is seeing that there is nothing to learn. And loving is the same thing. As long as I think I am going to love my wife or my girlfriend, there is co-dependent emotional love. But when I see that she is the same as myself, part of me, then I am loving love in her, which is oneness. Now that’s true love. That’s a true relationship. So there’s nothing to love but love itself. You’re not loving someone, you’re just loving love, nothingness, spirit.

This is the secret of atonement, the willingness to see the nothingness of everything. All emotions are nothing. All thoughts are nothing. All actions are nothing. Here I am acting - my voice is going, my words are coming, my hands are moving. There’s lots of action. What is it? Is something really happening, or is it just a circular motion? Just like when we think there are really days and nights and seasons, when it is just the earth rotating around the sun. What are emotions? Identifying with a thought, making it real. But if you were to look for that thought, that emotion, it is nowhere to be found.

When nothingness is experienced, when you look and see nothing everywhere, you see with a spiritual eye. You see a beauty you never saw before, a stupendous silence, and love, peace and freedom abiding in fullness. Everything is spirit. You cannot see the nothingness of something until you are truly willing to look at the truth. You cannot see the nothingness of something until you are truly willing. It is this willingness alone that awakens our true spiritual nature. Spirit is nothingness, just as nothingness is everything.

Two great scientists that I admire are Albert Einstein and David Bohm. David Bohm, as you know, is a Nobel Prize winner. He says that the universe itself is a holographic image. Einstein said, like Buddha, that form is energy, emptiness, mass.

The objection might arise that no matter how willing I am, I am bound to stumble and get caught. Yes! Stumbling is going to happen all the time. The point is, so what? Eventually you have to realize that willingness to look at the truth is the only thing you’ve got.

So willingness with awareness requires vigilance, which means moment to moment awareness. You are growing all the time, but you’re not growing tomorrow. You are not growing horizontally, you are growing vertically, just like climbing a ladder. You start on the first step and you keep on climbing. Then when you are at the top, wherever the top is, because it’s unlimited, you look down and you see that you’ve always been here. You never went anywhere. So you’ve been here all the time, not going back and forth, like we think time goes. To realize this requires vigilance, being aware moment to moment to moment.

Here is something beautiful that the Course says about vigilance. “Vigilance DOES require effort, but only to teach you that effort ITSELF is unnecessary. You have exerted great effort to preserve what you made BECAUSE it was not true. Therefore, you must now turn your effort AGAINST it. Only this can cancel out the NEED for effort, and call upon the BEING which you both HAVE and ARE. THIS recognition is wholly WITHOUT effort, since it is ALREADY true...” And anything that is true is effortless. It’s just true! “...and NEEDS no protection.” You see, when we are defensive, we are protecting our egos. Why do we protect our egos? Because we know it’s not true. Why do you need to protect something if it’s true? If it’s true, nobody can do anything about it! Right? It cannot run away, it cannot diminish. The Course continues, “It is in the perfect safety of God. Therefore inclusion is total and creation is without limit.”

So, when the Course says that vigilance requires effort, but only to teach you that effort itself is unnecessary, what it is saying is this - that initially you need to make up your mind to be vigilant. And that’s all! Just be aware. You don’t need to practice or do anything, just be aware of who you are, moment to moment, and also be aware of the constant lies and pretenses that keep you from being that who you are. And that awareness is effortless!

Here is the secret of true willingness - it is to be willing to see that everything, positive and negative, is nothing, spirit, pure beingness. As long as we want love, we cannot have it. First, because you think it is outside of you; and second, because you are trying to escape your fears of love at the same time. When you’re in love with somebody, love and fear are together, “Oh, I love you so much!” And the next moment, “Oh my God, if I lose you...” Right? So there is a constant conflict. If I am with you, I don’t feel free, but if I am away from you, I don’t feel secure.

So there is this back and forth, back and forth. That’s called emotional love. It’s never complete; there’s always fear included in it, because you never looked at the fear. The moment you look at the fear and really learn from it, in fact welcome it as a lesson to be learned, then in the very welcoming of that fear, the fear becomes love. In fact, fear never existed, only love. This fear is nothing more than a need for love. So, when everything is taken away, all that remains is love. That is so incredibly beautiful.

When you realize that, you see that silence is everything. Those who are unwilling want to make something out of nothing. Of course, when you do that, you have to pretend, lie, fabricate, need, desire, and fear as part of your unwillingness if you don’t want to acknowledge it.

Ask yourself, “Why do we confront every teaching with a ‘but’ or ‘what-if’? Why are we uncertain, why are we hesitant?” The reason we approach truth in that way is because we are not willing to see the truth. And it’s so simple! All enlightened masters tell you that truth is so simple, closer than your own breath. It is your very own consciousness. That is the truth. Truth is the here-now of you.

Unwillingness is the unconscious fear of nothingness! We don’t want to be nothing. We’re afraid of it because we have suffered from emptiness so much in our lives. So unwillingness is the fear of love, the fear of spirit.

Nothingness is that which is invisible to the naked eye. It is the silence of consciousness, the highest intelligence, the eternal essence from which everything emerged. Only religions have made this into something, called God. That is why we have atheists, because God has been made into something, which can then be denied. God is nothing!

Scientists know that everything comes from energy, and energy is intelligent. We don’t know how energy creates a kidney or a heart or a human being. Look at the stars at night - if you’re not awestruck, there’s something wrong with you! Look at the grandeur of a simple flower, of nature, and you begin to understand the perfection of the nothingness that created it.

Eckhart Tolle, who wrote “The Power of Now,” said the following in an interview: “Humans think that intelligence is associated with thinking. Thinking is just a very tiny aspect of intelligence, but most intelligence, the whole of nature, the trees, grow in complete Silence. The embryo in the womb grows silently. It doesn’t make a noise. The whole of nature, the beauty of the flower, unfolds in complete silence.”

Nothingness is silence, the glory of the highest. All qualities we try to achieve, from peace to total fulfillment, are achieved in silence. The galaxies exist in total silence and stillness, and yet there is incredible activity there. They are all expressions of intelligence that are at work silently.

When you allow yourself to explore the nothingness within thoughts and emotions, you discover your true nature, and find what you have sought for centuries. You thought it existed somewhere outside of yourself, in some religion or philosophy, because you never looked at the truth in yourself. This is why the Course emphasizes the atonement. Once you’re able to do the atonement when fear comes, you’ll never be the same. You have taken a giant leap in your awareness growth.

Do we need 100 percent willingness? The truth is that 100 percent willingness is effortless. It is 90 percent willingness that is full of effort. When it is 100 percent, you are willing to see clearly that all suffering is unwillingness to see the truth. When you are willing to see that everything is truth, and that even your fear is part of the truth you were hiding from, everything becomes one truth, love.

But you cannot do that unless there is 100 percent willingness. When it is less than 100 percent willingness, then there is still the need to cling to pretense of the story, to have some false security, some false meaning. And as long as there is a part of you that wants to hang on to something outside of truth, you cannot know the truth.

Here is a similar question that was asked of Gangaji. “Dearest Gangaji, I do not know who I am, what I am doing, or where I am going. Most of the time I think I know all kinds of things, and that I am capable of doing so many things. But in truth, I know nothing, and I cannot even do the simplest thing like be silent, be still. I sometimes long to lay myself bare, to let go completely all the illusions that I cling to, to be free at last. Is it possible for me to do this when I don’t have one hundred percent willingness?”

Gangaji said in reply, “No, it is not possible. Without one hundred percent willingness, there is no possibility of recognizing one hundred percent of who you are. Of course at ninety percent, you will have explosions of bliss and truth, but there will still be some fragmentation that will be in denial of that explosion. There will still be an attempt to cling to Self-denial.

“I am happy to disillusion you of the idea that you can partially wake up to who you are and be free. The tide of conditioning is very large. Make no mistake about that. It is encoded in the genetic structure of your body. It informs every instinct, every impulse, every thought, and every hundred percent willingness to awaken. It is leveled in that. It cannot continue its momentum, and that is the ease of awakening. One hundred percent is the ease. Anything less and there is difficulty. This may seem to be a rude truth, but in fact, it is a glorious truth. At last you can recognize, ‘If I let go, I let go completely,’ and in that, the mind naturally is still. It is good to see if you are not a hundred percent willing to awaken to the truth of who you are. It is better to perceive it than to deny it. It is crucial to see where you are withholding the willingness to simply be. I am actually happy that you can state that you are possibly not willing. Then you can look and see what it is you are holding onto and what you imagine what you are holding onto has given you, or might give you, or will give you.”

In other words, we have to confront the truth at all costs, even if the truth is your unwillingness to look at the truth. But never, never play games with yourself, because the only one you are kidding is yourself.

We like to hang on to our stories because we fear emptiness. The ego fears silence. That’s why, when you’re a teenager you need to build up your ego, in order eventually to get rid of it. So you get very difficult around the age of thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen, because it’s an ego building time. Ego loves noise. Did you ever hear a teenager playing loud music? This is part of the ego. There’s nothing wrong with it. As a matter of fact, there’s nothing wrong with ego, because it is looking at the ego that brings you back to silence. But if you’re trying to get rid of an ego, you’ve got a difficult battle ahead, because you’ve got to see it for what it is.

So the ego fears silence, revels in stories and turns everything into a story to give substance to its fear of nothingness. I would like to quote Scott Morrison, a beautiful and clear satsang teacher. He said, “It is a mystery the way just about everyone insists on imagining they are their story and fears. Love is neither a religion nor a philosophy nor a hierarchy nor a belief system. Love and peace are not a state of mind. They don’t require special training or preparation. They require only willingness. Total willingness. Willingness to do what? Willingness to surrender everything to absolute unconditional honesty. When you are totally honest, you will see clearly that you cannot be other than absolute love.”

Stories are important to the ego because it is afraid of being nothing, and therefore makes something out of nothing. That’s what a story is, making something out of nothing. Say somebody hurt you, maybe even meant it as a joke. But you make it into a big story and can’t sleep at night. You think about it and you’re bothered the next day and resent the person. We make something out of nothing all the time. That is called “ego.” The slightest thing becomes a mountain.

Spirituality is the opposite, the reverse. Take all the “somethings” you have and make them into “nothings,” until it all melts and becomes one big pot of nothing. And what is that one pot of nothing? Love. When everything is taken away, what’s left is purity.

Did you ever look at a simple, innocent, happy child? Did you see the radiant smile, the bouncy eyes? There’s nothing but love, joy; no whims, no pretense, no tomorrow or yesterday. Only now. Eventually, yes, they will lose it because they haven’t realized it. But we need to return to that innocence. We have to make that circle back to innocence, to pure being.

One of the hardest things for the average person to understand in the beginning is that the personal is nothing but fear. I spent some time studying psychology and I thought about this “personal” thing. I think I am personal, you think you are personal, everybody thinks they are personal. But what is “personal”? Feel it out, please. Don’t take my word for it, because then you won’t have your own realization.

What is personal? Personal means, “I am Burt.” “I am this body.” “I have this pain - oh what’s going to happen to me?” “I’m going to die of cancer.” “I’m growing old.” “I’m going to lose my money.” Or, “What about the future?” “Look what happened to me in the past.” Or if I have a love, I do my best to keep it. And I work hard to maintain my survival. And every moment is spent taking care of this personal being who I think I am. All it is is fear! The personal being is nothing but fear.

But imagine, you come to the moment when you relax. You let it all go. And you can! Because life is love, it will take care of you. I’ve proven it to myself for the last few years. Life will take care of you if you totally trust it. Then you’ll find that all the energy you spent trying to protect an illusion is so heart wrenching, when you look at it, because all it did was to bring you discomfort. It never got you anyplace. That’s what the personal is.

The personal turns everything into a story. This is why the ego avoids the moment, because it is a no-thing. This is dishonesty. You know, people may listen to a talk like this on tape and they say, “Oh, this is wonderful. I want to get there. I want to get to that total willingness. I am going to get there.” They are losing it. Don’t try to get there; you are already there. It is NOW.

We are always putting it in the future, right? And we are always missing it because we think we are going to get it. Someday we are going to get it, right? If you don’t get it now, you don’t get it! We’re getting this, right? [laughs] OK, there’s only this moment; there is no other. And when you get that explosion, when you get that feeling, if it gets transmitted to you now as you listen to these words, if you begin to feel it now, something is happening inside you. And it is that happening that is the awakening.

Egos create stories about the past in order to keep the story alive. It creates dreams for the future for the same reason. Thus it avoids the here and now. There is always identification with whatever happened in the past, and therefore hopes for the future. See? This is now, the only moment. The whole of the existence, therefore, of the personal self, becomes a lie, a facade, a pretense, a put-on. That’s how it keeps building the nothing into something. As long as it is haunted by fear, emptiness, deprivation, loneliness and inner despair, it tries to create something out of nothing. Suffering is an inevitable outcome.

If, on the other hand, you bring this something into its nothing state, which is the real meditation, by “looking with a spiritual eye,” as the Course says, then you literally wake up to the truth. The truth is a no-thing, and therefore it is spirit, love, beauty, joy, meaning, and fulfillment. The greater the allowing of emptiness or nothingness to be, the greater the inner security and safety that is experienced.

You might know a lot of people that are very wealthy, maybe even a billionaire. In the privacy of their homes, of their bathrooms, by themselves, do you think they are secure? They are still afraid of death. They are still afraid of illness. They are still afraid of what might happen tomorrow. You see? The real security is spiritual security, when you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that nothing can happen to you because you were never born, so how can you die? And when you know that beyond a doubt, then you are an immortal being. You have awakened to your immortal nature.

When we can bring all insecurities and doubts from their something state into their true nothing state, the very fears will melt and become the love and truth we yearn for. We cannot achieve love. We can only awaken it through seeing the nothingness of fear. Please understand that, OK? You cannot get love - you already are love. But the only way you can awaken it to live from it, to get rid of all of the blocks. And the only way to get rid of a block is not by trying to get rid of it, but by experiencing it as love itself.

Let me give you an example. “John” suffered from years of nervous exhaustion, tiredness, depression, and deep sadness. The more he struggled to overcome it, the more immersed he became in self-pity, fear, and despair. He visited many psychiatrists, but it only added to his pain, because he was taking many drugs. John felt like a victim, and he succumbed to the belief that he was a hopeless case.

One day, after many years of excruciating suffering, he attended satsang. The teacher emphasized the importance of atonement, that is, not to try to get rid of emotional pain, but to take it to its “nothing” state. This was all new to him. It took him several weeks to digest the full impact of it. As he began to see people around him attaining spiritual awakening, he developed a willingness to meet his darkest fears. His willingness to experience the truth became stronger than his need to keep his story alive.

So he started keeping still with his emotional pain and experiencing it in his body. He allowed his mind to play with doubts and needs to escape and control the situation. His awareness of this mental activity taught him how strategic the ego is in its desire to escape rather than to experience. John was able to remain steady throughout his experience by focusing on his normal breathing in order to keep himself here-now, becoming aware of what was happening in his body and breathing with it.

Finally, through his willingness to get to the truth of his self-created emotions, he began to ask, “Where is the fear?” After relaxing into the emotional feeling in the body, he realized that his fears, worries, and anxieties only existed in his belief system. They were nowhere to be found in the present as he looked for them. He turned his emotions and pain (something) into the nothing state by recognizing that they didn’t exist except in his mind.

As he allowed his emotions to melt into empty space, John experienced the wonderful state of bliss for the first time. He had not attained it. He released it from its dormant state by experiencing the nothingness that he was. He realized that the bliss, peace, love, and meaning he had searched for were the silent state itself, spirit. John was never the same again.

Nothingness speaks to us through its silence. Then the mind, which is necessary, can bring the silence and turn it into words. That’s how these scripts are written. That’s how truth comes to you. That’s how we come to know things.

I’ve had people who are very talented at writing poetry. Their daily life might not be the best. They might suffer emotional pain. But they have moments when poetry is written through them with such beauty that when you read it, you feel silent and beautiful. What is that? They have acquired a talent by listening to that silence.

Silence, like all of nature, speaks to you. Eckhart Tolle stated, “It’s only in humans that intelligence, in its limited expression as the human mind, is very noisy. The far greater intelligence that is at work within yourself operates in silence. That is the state of presence which is inseparable from nothingness and stillness.”

This nothingness, this joyous silence, is your true dwelling place, your home. In the beginning, we run away from the emptiness we feel. But if we were to stay with it, we realize that the emptiness is a fullness. See? That silence is always with us! It scares us because we don’t recognize it, because we live in our heads. But if you’re willing to stay in your emptiness, you’ll find that that emptiness is a fullness. That emptiness itself, turned around, is your home. It is the one answer to all questions about life. The Course in Miracles, incidentally, calls it the Holy Spirit.

This silence often happens during satsang, because through total openness, listening becomes a remembering. If you totally listen, your heart will remember. You don’t have to be told, “This is the truth!” Inside, you know it. You know that silence is the truth. You begin to feel it. And during this remembering comes a feeling of peace, love, and a wonderful abidance in truth.

So how do we become 100 percent willing? There are three steps, which we will talk about in a moment. People awaken spiritually and become totally willing because of one simple thing: they come to the point of realizing that there is nothing else. I know many of you have reached that point. Otherwise you wouldn’t be coming here regularly. You become totally willing to open to the truth rather than maintain your story.

I would like to quote again from Gangaji. I quote her a lot because she is so beautiful and so clear. She says, “People first come to the spiritual search from some egocentric idea of what it will give them. This is the positive aspect of ego: ‘I’m tired of suffering. I want to be happy. I hear there’s happiness over there in the spiritual camp. I’ll go get some.’ That is all right. The thought, ‘I want to be happy’ reflects a developed ego, a functioning, integrated ego. What a surprise when one realizes that true happiness is revealed by letting go of everything! What a surprise to find that to receive true happiness, you stop trying to get anything.

“Of course it is unbelievable at first, so you may still try to get things, and the habit of acquiring takes innumerable forms: ‘I’ll get something by dressing up like the Buddha.’ Or, ‘I’ll get something by wearing all white.’ Or, ‘I’ll get something by smiling, or gazing, or giving,’ but you continually come right into a dead end. You cannot find true happiness by ‘getting’ anything. You can get moments of pleasure, obviously. You can have the illusion of happiness, certainly. But to recognize you are That which is happiness, you have to give up everything one hundred percent.”

To give up everything willingly is to discover you have gained everything effortlessly. When we talk about giving up everything, please understand it is not like the rich man who wanted to follow Jesus. He said, “I want to follow you, master.” And Jesus turned around and said, “If you’re willing to give up your riches, then you can follow me.” Of course, the rich man thought he had to give up his money, but what Jesus meant was not to be attached to them. That’s what it means to give up everything. You don’t literally have to give up things, you relinquish them from your mind. Only know that which is permanent, that which is real. Money is not real. Money is energy; it comes and goes. You lose it, you gain it; you have it, you don’t have it. Truth never fluctuates. Truth is nothing. Truth IS this moment. And that is a richness beyond richness.

So you have to be willing to give up everything before you can find that out. Only by recognizing nothingness can you discover that nothingness is everything. Here are the three steps to willingness.

1. See your unwillingness every time you feel emotional pain - resistance, defensiveness, escape from pain, and so on. The usual reaction upon experiencing this contraction is, “Leave me alone and don’t bother me.” This is the ego’s natural reaction. See it as the unwillingness itself. Just watch it in your mind when you’re angry or irritable. Maybe you don’t want the truth, you really don’t want to know. You’re totally unwilling, OK? But if you’re willing to see that unwillingness, it becomes true, honest willingness. So you have to go through the back door, so to speak.

2. Keep aware of how every single experience is nothing, just a movement that you have identified with. It is a story you have made up from an interpretation in the past that you identified with.

3. Keep constant awareness of the grandeur of nothingness, how it has created all from itself. Nothingness is the highest intelligence, the highest love, the highest sweetness, and the greatest beauty.

Are there any questions?

Q: How do I get my ego to make that giant leap from ninety percent to one hundred percent willingness?

A: You cannot get the ego to do anything because the ego resists. So what you need to do is be aware every time you are caught in trying to achieve anything, seek anything, attain anything. That is unwillingness itself, unwillingness to see that right now you’re OK. We always want to get someplace, to achieve something, and of course, it’s never fulfilling because it’s always there, outside of being.

So see every attempt that you make as an attempt to get away from yourself. It’s so subtle that we’re not aware of it, OK? So see that unwillingness, and by itself, you begin to see that you’re escaping yourself all the time, and you’re always here! The moment you begin to glimpse that, there is that moment of Wow! Yes! See, the beautiful thing about being you, and you, and you, [pointing around the room] is that although you are not a personal being, you are a unique being. You are a unique expression of the totality of life. This means that there’s no one like you. How you express, how you are is the gift that you’ve been given. It’s a gift! I did not ask to be born, but here I am! It’s a gift. And if I realize that gift, I become the fullest expression of That which is. But if I try to get something, I am being hypocritical and I am denying that beauty that I am. Are you getting me here?

Q: Yes.

A: OK. So don’t try to get anything. Don’t try to get rid of anything. Just realize how you’re getting away from that which you already are, and that is the only block. Every time you attempt to do anything, every time you have a question, just see the unwillingness in it. You see? And that becomes willingness. It’s just going through the back door to see the truth.

When you’re willing to look at darkness, you’ll find that darkness never existed, because your eyes get used to darkness eventually. And what is darkness after all? The eye sees so little - cats see more than we do. It’s all relative. Sensual truth is only of our senses. We see very little, hear very little. So you’re totally open to that which is blocking you. And allow it; there’s nothing you can do about it. Just allow it, and as you become aware of that, you will come to a point where you realize you’ve been stepping on your own toes all the time, trying to get to where you’ve always been. And then you stop. And then you begin to see it. You get it in the moment you are totally sincere. Sincerity is something that can spark anytime.

When you’re totally sincere, something takes care of you. You get that spark, you get that grace. It will come to you. You cannot truly want the truth and not awaken to it. It’s not possible. It’s just not possible. And when you come to the point where you want it more than anything, you’ll know it. It will live you. You don’t even live it; you don’t do anything anymore. It will live you. It’s there all the time. You see it in everything. Before, you thought people were ugly, and now you see beauty in even the ugliest face. That’s the truth! And you begin to see all types of things that are going wrong, but now it’s only people who are ignorant of truth. The whole perspective changes.