because they cannot exist with total passivity:

they are forms of an activity-addicted mind,

and with them dissolves the ego –

because it cannot exist without thought-forms.

The ego is nothing but a whirlpool center

of constantly revolving thought-forms.

Remain in passivity,

that is, in the state of absolute doing-nothingness,

and meditation deepens to the depths where there is no meditator.

And remember that only when there is no meditator

has meditation really come into being.

If you are then there is no meditation,

and when there is meditation you are not.

201. Love.

It is tragic but true that few people ever

possess their souls.

They possess everything except themselves,

and then naturally they just become a thing

among their other things.

The possessor becomes the possessed.

Nothing is more rare in any man, says Emerson,

than an act of his own.

But this is just what can be expected

because no one is their own,

no one is themselves.

Most people are other people.

They are not living

but only acting roles given to them by others.

Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions

and their faces are just masks.

They are faceless.

They have no authentic being at all.

Their lives, a mimicry –

and their passions, a quotation.

Break this vicious circle otherwise you will never be.

Break this through meditation –

and it cannot be broken by anything else

because through mind it cannot be broken,

and except for meditation, all else is mind.

Mind is the prison,

meditation, the door.

And the only door.

202. Love.

Only God is –

that is why it is so difficult to find him.

And God is everywhere –

that is why he seems to be nowhere.

And the seeker is the sought –

that is why all seeking is so futile.

Stop and see.

But the mind is running constantly.

Do not be, and see.

But the mind is trying to be continuously.

Says Auden:

For the garden is the only place there is, but you will not find it,

until you have looked for it everywhere

and found nowhere that is not a desert.

The miracle is the only thing that happens,

but to you it will not be apparent,

until all events have been studied

and nothing happens that you cannot explain.

And life is the destiny you are bound to refuse

until you have consented to die.

Stop and see.

Do not be, and see.

203. Love.

Live in the body intimately and deeply.

Feel the body more and let the body feel more.

It is astonishing how many people

are almost completely unaware of themselves physically.

The body is suppressed and denied life too much,

that is why it is just a dead weight and not a living joy.

That is why I insist: go back into the body

and regain the wonderful joy in its movements,

sheer movements.

Make it a meditation and you will be enriched

beyond comprehension.

204. Love.

John Burroughs remembers:

One day my boy killed what an old hunter told him

was a mock duck.

It looked like a duck,

it acted like a duck,

but when it was placed on the table –

it mocked us!

Remember to make a clear-cut distinction

between your self and your mock-selves – the masks,

otherwise in the end they will all mock you!

205. Love.

Man is strange, very strange,

because he begins by deceiving others

and ends with deceiving himself.

A fakir was walking down the village street

deep in thought

when some urchins began to throw stones at him.

He was taken by surprise,

and besides he was not a big man.