look in!

Look in!


When we hear someone shouting, ‘Look out!’, we are immediately alert, adrenaline is pumping, we are ready to jump out of the way of some great danger. Unfortunately we don’t often look inwards with the same urgency as we look out. Inwardly is where the greatest dangers lie. Our own psychology, our own way of responding to existence, to life, this is where our troubles come from. By looking inwards, we can begin to see the whole complex mess of our own psychology, our own energy. And this work is urgent. For until we have looked inwards, until we have done our homework, until we have found the treasure that is hidden within us, then our life will be full of suffering and anguish. So there’s not a moment to lose, and in any case, life is short. Perhaps you think seventy, eighty years is a long time, but as we lie on our death bed, it will feel like our whole life has been but the blink of the eye, a moment in time. It is not such a long time. So let us look in with the same sense of urgency, the same sense of life or death with which we would look out.

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