A Giant Step

I have a radical statement to make regarding my teaching and the truth I am bringing to this world. It is appropriate that I make it here in Sarasota, Florida, just across the peninsula from Cape Canaveral. Because it was twenty – four years ago, a generation ago, that an astronaut – Neil Armstrong – shot off the Earth and became the first man to put his foot upon the Moon. Quite appropriately, he declared, before he stepped down: 'That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind'. What happened to this giant leap for mankind?

What happened in your life? What did it mean to you? What did it mean to the people who are suffering on this planet? What did it mean to your children, to your mother and father? To your aunts and uncles and your friends? What meaning did it have for you? The answer is: it had no meaning. In man's dreamland, where he thinks he's going somewhere, it might have been a gigantic step. But it has made no difference to anyone on Earth. My teaching is a giant step for mankind. And I'm going to demonstrate that to you.

It seems nobody can hear the truth I speak. Everybody in my presence listens to it, then goes away and forgets it. They prefer to think something gigantic has been done in the world, something gigantically helpful to mankind. Yet nothing in the world outside will ever remove your unhappiness. My teaching is this and it is very simple: What's the good of an astronaut landing on the Moon, a new car, a cure for Aids, what is the good of anything, if I, in the body listening to these words, am unhappy?

The imagination of mankind is so active against the truth that you really think, as you pick up the newspapers, that something' s being done. But nothing is being done to remove the unhappiness from the body listening to these words.

Everybody wants to be helpful. But do you really help anybody? Whoever you are, whatever you're doing with your life, do you really think you're helping anybody on Earth? While there is unhappiness in the body listening to these words, do you really think you help? Are you so imaginative that you think you can help? Don't you know that your unhappiness will demand something, from your children, from your job, from your mother, your father, your lover? Don't you know that you will act from the demand of your own unhappiness to get something – to get, and not to give? 

While you have unhappiness in you, you're not helping anybody. You only think you are.

That is the truth I bring to this world. But it is no good saying these things unless I tell the world how to do it, how to rid myself of the dreadful unhappiness that has possessed every man and woman on Earth. And that is what I do. I inform everybody who comes before me, and through my books and tapes, how to rid myself listening to these words, of the unhappiness that has possessed my brain.

The difficulty is that nobody is aware they're unhappy. Nobody knows they are possessed by unhappiness until they get emotional, until they lose their house, their job, their child, or their lover leaves or deceives them. I can't tell you that you are unhappy until you're unhappy. Then you believe me.

But then your unhappiness demands something: 'Do something for me! Save me!' As you always want to take, I can't do anything for you; I can't give you anything. And yet I go around the world, to be with every one of you, small groups and large audiences, and I tell you how to rid yourself of unhappiness.

I'm going to define unhappiness for you. I want you to see if it is the truth. For my teaching is the most practical teaching on earth. There is no master on Earth like I am. I am master of these times. I am master of the West. See if you can hear me. Don't believe me. See if you can hear what I bring to this world.

Unhappiness is this: To be happy today – and unhappy tomorrow, or the next day.

That is a definition of unhappiness, where I come from. And I come from the land of love — from the land of love and truth every moment, inside of me.

If l were happy all the time, that would be great.

If l were unhappy all the time, everything would be alright. I wouldn't know anything else.

But the human condition is: I am happy today, full of life and love, and all sweet accord with everybody. And tomorrow or the next day I am depressed; I am guilty; I am resentful towards someone and I can't stop thinking about them. I'm moody when I wake up. I bring my black mood to this beautiful Earth. And I feel a dreadful shadow upon me, possessing my brain and my glorious body, which was made to enjoy the Earth. And I'm so unhappy I don't even know I'm unhappy. But the people around me know, as my unhappiness seeps through the house.

Everybody knows. 'Treat him gently, or we'll cop it!' Or 'Treat her gently because she's emotional today.'

I come to the world and ask: 'Why are you unhappy, man and woman?' Why do you demand to get? You're unhappy because you're always demanding to get. You want something; you always want something. You say you want to give. But to want to give is to want to get. You want the satisfaction of giving someone something, of helping somebody. You want the feeling of power, of fulfillment, the creativity of giving. You want to get something in return. It is pure selfishness to want to give. Your selfishness makes the people you want to help unhappy, and that's why they'll turn their backs on you when you try to give. You are not pure enough to give. You don't serve. That's what makes you unhappy. Service is to give without any goal, without any object. Just to give. But you can't do that while you've got unhappiness in you. Because the unhappiness wants to get.

So have I defined for you in your experience what it is to be unhappy?

The human brain is so impervious to the truth, so impervious to love, so impervious to giving, that I have to repeat it over and over, year in and year out, all around the world. And still it is not heard. Are you going to hear me, please?

You have unhappiness in you, for which you are responsible. You are trying to get something. And therefore you are selfish. Every emotion you ever have in your body is your selfishness expressing itself.

Whenever I (in the body listening to these words) am angry, resentful frustrated, jealous or guilty, I am afraid to face life as it is and I am avoiding the truth of life.

With that statement I take all your unhappiness from you. For if you really hear the truth of it, you will willingly have no more of it. You will cease putting your unhappiness, your pain, onto your lover, your partner, your mother or your father, your children or your work.

What does that leave you with?

Is it such a radical statement?

Yes, it must be a radical statement. For it seems that nobody on Earth really hears me or is prepared to do something about it.

What am I saying? What does it mean?

If you truly want to love, all you have to do is give up your unhappiness NOW. 

What could you possibly be unhappy about now?

It is impossible to be unhappy now – unless you think. One thought, and you'll be unhappy within five or ten minutes, or five hours. Any thought at all and you will end up being unhappy.

Is that straight enough? Is that clear enough? You cannot be unhappy if you do not chink.

Do you hear me? Am I mad? Or am I an alien to this planet – coming from the land of love and truth.

I am not special. The land of love and truth is inside of 'me', the body speaking these words. And therefore it is in me the body listening to these words. I am man, as you are man or woman. And I will not have unhappiness in this body. I will not have unhappiness in my realm. I am king of this kingdom, my body. I am king of my whole being. And I will not have unhappiness in my kingdom.

Is that fair enough? Do you think somebody else runs your kingdom, the body listening to these words? Do you chink somebody else is responsible for it? How could they be?

Do you want to be a 'channeller'? Do you really want to avoid the truth and channel some silly entity that doesn't know the truth, just pretends to; is too ashamed to be responsible in the body, so wants to possess another? Do you want to believe that rubbish?

I am always responsible for my body. I am the living truth. I am here now in front of the people, always responsible. I am master. You don't hear any channelling from me. I am responsible for this body and I will have no unhappiness in it.

What about you? Do you want your unhappiness? Are you proud of your emotion? Are you proud of your arguments? Are you proud of yelling at each other? Are you proud when your children hear you accusing each other, blaming each other, spitting your emotional poison, whipping each other with your tongues? When your children fall back: 'Please, please don't! Don't do this to each other.' Are you proud of that?

What sort of world is this, where people are proud of their emotion? What sort of madness?

There is only one being who is responsible for any of the unhappiness on this Earth. It is I, in the body listening to these words. And it is I, in the body speaking these words.

Your silly mind makes you think that other people are making you unhappy. You have been taught by your Masters and your teachers, by your beliefs, by your Christianity, Hinduism, Mohammedanism, your Jewish religion, that others are responsible for your pain and suffering. But that is not true.

I am responsible for all the pain and suffering in my life.

I am responsible for all the emotional pain and suffering in my life, if there is any. And if there is any, it is only because I am not true to life. I would rather think about the problems than take action to get my life right.

When you come to me, you get it straight. Which is why people run away from me in droves. Who wants to rake responsibility for the unhappiness?

I love my unhappiness, don't I? I love being able to get moody. I love being able to get frustrated. I love being able to complain to my mother and my father and my friends about my dreadful job. I love to complain about what she did to me, what he did to me. I love to say'I want to get away from it all! Come on. Let's get away'. And you agree, 'Yes. Let's go'.

All you're doing is running, running, running from your self. But you can't get away from your self. Haven't you noticed? It follows you, chases you wherever you go. You go from this relationship to another. And it's not long before the scorpion tail whips up and bites you on the back of the neck again, because you didn't get it right.

So I am here to impart to you how to be free of unhappiness. And that is a gigantic step for mankind.

What is the worth of a man landing on the moon in 1969 if l tell you you're going to die tonight?

You are going to die tomorrow, or next year, or sooner or later. And you're never going to be seen again. This is your time. This is your life here. Are you going to get it right? Or are you going to keep running towards some future heaven?

Are you going to be responsible as an earthling, and give up being a worldling?

A 'worldling' is an unhappy creature. An 'earthling' is a part of the Earth. The world and the worldlings are as unnatural, and as normal, as unhappiness. As an earthling I do not have unhappiness in me. I am as natural as the Earth. I am like the birds and the snakes and all the natural creatures. I shall pass away as all things do. This body will vanish. But I shall not have unhappiness in me.

What do you want? To be unhappy? To infect your children with unhappiness? Do you want the same unhappy life for them? The unhappy world will make sure every child being born today will also be unhappy. Or do you think your children are different? Will it turn out differently for them? How could that be? You're the one that will make them unhappy.

Do you feel me?

What's inside the body listening to these words?

When you say 'I have great love in me', where is 'me'? 

Where do I feel love? 

Where do I feel joy? Or sweetness? 

Where do I feel the wellbeing that is in every body?

Is it not in 'me'?

'Me' is inside the body listening to these words.

Do you feel any sweetness, any peace, any rightness? 

Do you feel me?

Will you put 'me' where me is?

Please don't put 'me' (in the body listening) where I am (in the body speaking). Please don't put your 'me' out here onto the speaker. Please will you keep 'me' where it is, in the place where you always refer to 'me', which is of course inside your own body.

It seems I am the first man on Earth to ever have said this.

Whenever a master has endeavoured to communicate this, the human mind – the unhappy mind in everybody – has twisted it. And whenever he has spoken of 'me', the mind has put me outside the body, out onto the speaker.

One of the main culprits is the Christian religion. The master Jesus, who was a man, just like you and I are man and woman, who had realised God as I have, uttered the words: 'Come unto me, all ye who labour and are heavily laden and I will give you rest'. And they put their 'me' on to the speaker. They thought he was speaking about himself. And so his priests made a God of Him.

Now I, the master of these times, am here to put it right. Are you going to say 'me' is out here with the speaker? Or are you going to face the fact? Are you going to get your mind out of its twisted way of looking at things, and put 'me' where I am? —inside the body listening to these words, where I feel love, well—being, or I feel any sweetness, any peace, any rightness.

Is it right to be here, to hear the master speak to you with honesty and straightness? Is it not good to hear this? Do you not feel the good in me, in that body listening to these words?

Now it's no good trying to tell the speaker that it's not good in there. Because I know it is good in there, in the body listening to these words. I know it is sweet.

I know it is innocent. I know it loves. I know there is a tenderness there. I know there is youth there. There is young nature there, the nature of the birds and the little animals and the big animals. I know that same innocence is inside the body listening to these words. For it is felt in me inside that body. I know it. For I am me. I have realised me.

What I have realised is me in this body here and also in that body there.

The good is in me, in the body listening to these words.

It happens, as you know, that there is also unhappiness there. How do I explain this?

To define unhappiness again: – it is demanding anything of another, and the selfishness of wanting something, of trying to get something.

What's the explanation for this, for the guilt that I feel, that sometimes makes me curl up and shrivel like a dead leaf, so contracted that I can hardly stand myself? What is this? Where is this unhappiness inside my body? Where is this resentment and jealousy, this wanting to be first, this disappointment and bitterness. Where is it?

It's also inside of 'me', isn't it? For it troubles me, doesn't it?

The pain is my self.

Every unhappiness comes from my self. And the sweetness, the reality, the everlastingness, the wonder is 'me'.

In other words: thank God! My self is not me! The greatest revelation apparently on this Earth, made for the first time. Has nobody ever realised it before?

There is myself, my body and me. The conscious body—being on the surface of the Earth, sitting in the chair now, is beautiful, made by God or life. Inside this body is an endless space called the psyche, which reaches into the depths of me. It is represented by the space between the stars, never-ending, wondrous, and pristinely beautiful. When I look at the stars, I'm fascinated, I wonder, mesmerised by the beauty. This is the psyche inside my body. And it gets stiller and more silent as I go into it. As I descend, it is stiller, more silent, more fulfilled, more right, more true. It is a wonderness. And yet it is nothing to speak of. I go deeper and deeper. And even realise what is called God. I have realised God in the psyche, in this body speaking these words. But even that is not an end. There is no end to this. For any master who says he has reached the end, is not the master he thinks he is. For there is no end to the depths of me.

Where then is the pain? It is in a surface area, just inside my body and it is filled with all the pains and hurts I have ever had. It is filled with emotion.

I am the conscious being looking out of these eyes and ears, conscious of my physical body, conscious of awareness. And just inside of me is my subconscious where are all the hurts I've ever suffered, still there from the bully at school, and the disappointments at thirteen or fourteen, and all the emotional torments I've known. A mass of hurts, now compacted into an emotional entity, an emotional spook inside the psyche, waiting to come up and possess my beautiful body and brain. Wanting me to be unhappy.

Now I'm going to ask you a question. See if this is a real question. You'll hear it debated, by scientists, interviewers, radio pundits and television anchor—men: you'll hear it debated by intellectuals and men in the street. I'll ask you the question and I'll answer it: Why am I here on Earth? It's a fair enough question. You hear people asking the question: Why? What's it all about? So they have a big talk-show and a million different opinions come in. Why am I here on Earth? I'm asking you the question, you, the individual: Why am I, in that body listening to these words, on Earth?

I answer it from the body speaking these words. See if it's the same for you. It's very simple. There's no discussion in it. That's why it's never heard on radio or television or in the press. For the media don't want the truth.

The answer is: I am on Earth to enjoy my life.

What are you here for?

Are you going to argue that you are on Earth to not enjoy your life?

Do you see how absurd it is to live with unhappiness? Do you see how absurdly insane you are?

I am here on Earth to enjoy my life. And I enjoy my life because I have no unhappiness in me. I enjoy my life, come what may. And I am as human as you are. But every moment of my life I am free of unhappiness. Therefore I am one with God who is free of unhappiness. The law of God for all earthlings on planet Earth is this: When I am free of unhappiness I receive God's pleasure, which is that I should enjoy my life. I attract what I enjoy. For God gives me what I want.

If you are not free of unhappiness, if you are moody, angry, resentful, then I tell you, man and woman, you love being angry, moody, and resentful. Otherwise why do you have it? You love what you have. Anything you hold on to, you love.

You throw everything else out. You throw the trash out, don't you? You don't love that. You love a clean house, don't you? You love to have clean dishes to eat off, don't you? So you keep clean dishes. You love your car. You don't throw that out. So whatever you love you keep. What's so special about unhappiness then? Are you going to tell me you don't love it?

Am I insane? Am I making this up? Or is it the awful truth?

The law is: As I am true to life, which is true to me, true to the earthling that I am, so the circumstances of my life change and are looked after by the law. I no longer attract those things that would make a body unhappy.

My teaching is the way out of unhappiness. And by grace I am here to impart this teaching to those who've had enough.

There are two ways to get rid of unhappiness. The first is to go into me, to acknowledge the sweetness, the rightness, the stillness, the silence, the reality of me, which is in every body. That must be done.

The other way is to get my life right. For it is the accumulated unhappiness in my subconscious that has made a mess of my life.

In your life with your partner, your unhappiness is making a mess of your love life. If your children give you trouble, it is your unhappiness that's making them unhappy. If your job is unfulfilling or uncreative, it is because of the unhappiness in your subconscious. The pain of the past messes up your life. So you have to start taking responsibility for the circumstances of your life. And that is what I endeavour to teach you in The Course in Being, in my seminars, and books and tapes.

The time to begin is always now. I'm asking you to begin now, by acknowledging me. If me is such an enormous power that I can even realise God in me, it's a pretty powerful place.

I'm going to take you into me.

I ask you to follow what I say and do what I say. 

Please do what I'm asking you to do.

Be easy.

Drop any tension in the body, drop it now. 

Come on! Just drop everything now.

Ah, what a relief! 

Not having to try any more. Not having to be the burden. Just being innocent. 

Like now.

Nothing to prove. Nothing to hold on to. Nothing to think about.

Now I ask you to take a few good, deep breaths.

The idea of this is to steady the subconscious, steady the body. You get tense when you hear what I have to say about self. Self doesn't like to hear that it is a pain in the neck. It doesn't like to hear that there's no hope for it. There's no hope for my self when I discover me.

Breathe out first. Breathe out from the diaphragm or the belly. And then fill the belly with an in-breath.

Don't raise the chest. Just fill the belly.

And breathe out and in again — three or four times please.

The first mode of my intelligence is clarity of attention. I am going to demonstrate that now. I am going to use my attention (in the body listening to these words) to look inside my body, to look into me.

So in a moment, please close your eyes and look straight down into me. You will see immediately that it is black, or dark, in me.

Close your eyes for a few moments. And look straight down. Do it now.

I look down into me I see that it is black or dark in me.

The purpose of this exercise, in the beginning, is to be able to keep the attention on the black. I see only the black, the darkness in the body.

Then the body disappears.

Looking into me, I see there is nobody there.

And then I am looking at nothing.

I see nothing.

And as I see nothing I start to be nothing.

Don't let your mind complain: 'There's nothing there!'. 

The mind is correct.

'You're right, Mind. There is nothing there.

So please will you keep out of it!'

I am looking into nothing. I start to be nothing. Then I disappear. 

There's just being me.

Nothing.

This is the most natural thing in the world. And yet I have been programmed by my parents, teachers and my society to always look for something. But this is another world that I'm looking into —a world of nothing; the world of my psyche.

This blackness, this nothing, has no form. It is life without form.

I am alive. Aren't I?

I am looking into the life in me —before it takes form.

What is this blackness, this nothing?

It is the life in me, the life coming into me.

Please go back into me, but as soon as you start to think, open your eyes and return.

Look straight in and see that there's nothing in me.

Now I ask you to use the second mode of intelligence or perception, which is feeling. In a few moments, when I ask you to do it, shut your eyes, go back into me, and this time please feel what it is to be me. There's nothing in there and yet it feels right. There's a rightness. Just a subtle feeling of rightness. Or it feels good. There is goodness, relief, sweetness. Life is coming into me. And it is a good feeling. But it's so subtle. So intimate. It is me and it has no form.

Do it now, with your eyes closed.

Feel what it is to be me.

I open my eyes, but I don't leave me.

I am in two places at once: in me, and in the world outside. 

I am here. I am there.

Stay with me.

I open my eyes of awareness.Yet my consciousness is still looking into me, just being me, looking into the other world of nothing, which is life without form.

When you open your eyes and enter the world of many objects, stay with me, looking into the world of nothing, the place of no objects.

Here I am in the frontal awareness of my senses, seeing the world of forms, where every form of life is. Every form of life is in this world.

Life is in the form. But a form of life is not life.

Do you feel the life which has no form – inside of me?

What is the first form of life?

I am – the body speaking these words, or the body listening to these words, for this is the closest body to me.

Life comes up and enters my organic human brain. It becomes a form here, creates the first form of life, this body, listening to these words. And because that form is formed, all other forms are perceivable. Take the first form away and every form disappears.

Is that the truth?

This is self-knowledge. You think that when your form disappears, the universe is still there. Not the truth! A trick of the mind, the scientific, rational mind. Take the first form away and the universe disappears, as it certainly will do tonight. For where is your body, your form, when you withdraw from your senses and return to me in the blessed relief of deep dreamless sleep?

My self is always trying to get into me.

Always creating tension. So be easy. Let the tension drop. Go into me. Be still. Look into the black, the nothing. Stillness is the way. Rest in the centre of the blackness, the centre of the stillness, in the centre of no event, just me.

You will feel the self, agitated on the edge of me, trying to get attention, trying to pass comment, trying to put some form into the blackness, trying to think.

'What about me?' But it's not me; it's my self, interfering with me to disturb the stillness and silence.

'Be still and know that I am God'.

Am I not being still, knowing I am stillness or rightness, which leads to God? You feel the self on the edge out there. Don't acknowledge it. Stay with me. And gradually I become more and more emptied of my self.

The self is hollering across the deep space of the universe: 'Hey! Hey! Hey, what about me?' But I've travelled deep into space and I don't hear it hollering any more. I have left the world and I have returned to Earth.

The world is my self. The Earth is me.

You want to be free of the world.

Is not the Earth beautiful? Is not my body a walking piece of Earth? Do I not drink the Earth, eat the Earth, breathe the Earth? Am I not the Earth? Has not the self polluted the Earth?

The Earth begins here. If l want to stop the pollution of the Earth, this is the place to start. I've polluted my Earth with unhappiness, polluted my body with it.

The human race is only unhappy because it has lost its sense of me. So I go into me, I re-discover the sense of me.

Here, in the world of awareness, I am in the world of my senses. In me I have no senses. My body disappears. There is no body. But there is my consciousness. And that is the sense of me. That is the lost sense of the human race.

When you rediscover me, you start to take on the dissolution of the self. You see that you have to get your life right – to get your relationships right and bring more love and truth into everything you do. You start to rid yourself of unhappiness. And being me, you gradually return to Earth.

Do you see that this is the giant step for mankind?

Do you see that this is a cosmic teaching?

I teach cosmic consciousness. I do not fall for the worldly way of unhappiness. I am here to impart a cosmic love to you. Are you hearing me?

I will not have unhappiness in me.

If you hear this truth, you will start to give up your unhappiness. I will help you do it. Come and be with me. Listen while I speak about how to get your life right.

Stay with me.

Then you will make a contribution to freedom from unhappiness on Earth.

'A Giant Step' is edited from a talk given during 'The Course in Being' in Sarasota, Florida, 29 May 1993 and published as a booklet.

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