The most difficult thing in the world is to listen, to see. We don’t want to see.  We don’t want to look, because if we do, we may change. We don’t want to change. If you look, you lose control of the life that you are so precariously holding together. In order to wake up, the one thing you need the most is not energy, or strength, or youthfulness, or even great intelligence. The one thing you need most of all is the readiness to learn something new. The chances that you will wake up are in direct proportion to the amount of truth you can take without running away. How much of everything you’ve held dear are you ready to have shattered, without running away? How ready are you to embrace something unfamiliar?

What I am about to convey in the coming 4 minutes could be the most important minutes in your life. If you could grasp this, you’d hit upon the secret of awakening. You would never be unhappy again. Nothing would have the power to hurt you again. I mean that, nothing. It’s like throwing black paint in the air; the air remains uncontaminated. You never color the air black. No matter what happens to you, you remain uncontaminated. You remain at peace. There are human beings who have attained this.  Become one of them!

We love to hear that people have arrived. It gives us hope, doesn’t it?  You want to hope for something better than what you have right now, don’t you? Otherwise you wouldn’t be hoping. But then, you forget that you have it all right now anyway, and you don’t know it. Why not concentrate on the now instead of hoping for better times in the future? Why not understand the now instead of forgetting it and hoping for the future? The future is just another trap?

Until we solve the problem called you, we’re going to get nowhere. The great mystics and masters in the East will say, “Who are you?” Many think the most important question in the world is: “Who is Jesus Christ?” Wrong! Many think it is: “Does God exist?” Wrong! Many think it is: “Is there a life after death?” Wrong! Nobody seems to be grappling with the problem of: Is there a life before death?

What your society did to you when you were born was NOT to allow you to enjoy the solid, nutritious food of life—namely, work, play, fun, laughter, the company of people, the pleasures of the senses and the mind. You were given a taste for the drug called approval, appreciation, attention, success, making it to the top, prestige, accolades, power, being the boss.  You lost your freedom to be yourself and now others have the power to make you happy or miserable.

What does self-change entail? I’m going to break it down into two segments for you. First, we'll address insight. Not effort, not cultivating habits, not positive affirmations, not having an ideal state to change into, not focusing on what should be instead of what is. Second, we'll address understanding; by which De Mello means understanding the source of the suffering you are experiencing over and over.

Transformation is effortless. It's like a sailboat. When a sailboat has a mighty wind in its sail, it glides along so effortlessly that the boatman has nothing to do but steer. He makes no effort; he doesn’t push the boat.  That’s an image of what happens when drop false beliefs and come home to yourself.

To live like a king or queen spiritually means you know no anxiety at all, no inner conflict, no tensions, no pressures, no upset, no heartache. Until you can transcend these reactions, your life remains a mess.

Some people make awakening a goal. They're determined to get there. They say, “I refuse to be happy until I’m awakened.”  DeMello tells a story of a disciple who leaves his guru for the hills to attain enlightenment. Years pass, but he remains unenlightened; not until he gives it up.

When there’s something within you that moves in the direction of greater inner awareness, that very awareness creates its own discipline. It is the discipline of waking up! Through awareness you wake up, and there’s nothing so important in the world as awakening. Nothing!