Whose Life do you live ?
The paradoxical path from the I to the Whole.
German with German subtitles.
If everyone does whatever they want, we can’t live together – and yet I say: Be true to yourself. Hardly any advice sounds more harmless, and hardly any is more thoroughly misunderstood. Because this “self” to which you want to be true is not what you think you are.
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About this Video:
I often say, “Be true to yourself” – but you can’t be true to yourself as long as you don’t even know what this “self” is that you want to be true to. Because what you’ve taken to be that self so far – your thoughts, your desires, your will, what seems important to you today – is not something stable. Today you think one thing, tomorrow another; today you want one thing, tomorrow the opposite. Anyone who wants to be true to that is like a leaf in the wind.
In this video, I talk about what I really mean when I say, “Be true to yourself.” It has nothing to do with getting your own way – everyone tries to do that anyway, and that’s exactly why living together always fails. It’s about something entirely different: about that within the awareness moves that perceives all change, yet neither comes nor goes itself. Ramana Maharshi called it the Self, Swamiji speaks of the Soul, and Jesus spoke of the rock upon which one can build the house of one’s life.
And every person, every individual, can discover and experience this. Yet it is something no one else can give you: You must set out on the path yourself, ignore your thoughts, and turn inward. It feels uncertain, exposed, almost without support. You let go of the illusion of control and enter a realm where you know nothing. This is the desert that everyone must cross. This is the dark night of the soul that some mystics speak of.
But beyond it lies a sense of security that depends on nothing in this world, and a guidance that knows no words and yet is present in every moment. Our life is like a river that knows nothing of its path or its destination, and yet is safely guided by the banks and the earth. A river doesn’t ask itself where it’s going or how it will recognize the right path. It simply flows – and it arrives. In the same way, we are guided, yet we are usually unaware of it.
I want to encourage you on this journey of discovery. I am a pragmatist. What I’m talking about is something practical, something you can do, something that works. Thoughts are esoteric, without substance. But what the Gurus speak of – a Jesus, a Buddha, a Ramana Maharshi, a Swamiji – is practical advice for real life. And if you want to discover this for yourself, it’s quite simple. Learn to turn inward. Learn to meditate. Learn to be here. The rest will happen on its own.
