EN - Our illusion about others.
Anyone can be expected to be selfish and to seek their own self-interest whether in coarse or in refined ways. So there's nothing to be disappointed about and there's nothing to be disillusioned about. If you had been in touch with reality all along, you would never have been disappointed. But you chose to paint people in glowing colors; you chose not to see through human beings because you chose not to see through yourself. And so you're paying the price now. Before you discuss this, let me tell you a story which I remember just now. Somebody said, "What is enlightenment like? What is awakening like?" It's like the tramp in London who was settling in for the night. He'd barely been able to eat a crust of bread. Then he gets onto this embankment on the river Thames. And there's a slight drizzle, so he huddles in his old tattered cloak. And as he's about to sleep when you know, a Rolls-Royce rolls up chauffeur-driven, and out of that car steps a gorgeously beautiful young lady who says, "My poor man, are you planning to spend the night here on this embankment?" And the poor man says, "Yes." She says, "I won't have it. You're coming to my house and you're going to spend a comfortable night and you're going to get a good dinner." So she insists on his getting into the car, they ride out of London, get into a place where she has a sprawling mansion, large grounds. They get in, they are ushered in by the butler, and she hands this man over to the butler and says, "James, make sure he's put in the servants' quarters and treated well." Which is what James does. And when the young lady is about to go to bed, she's undressed and was going to bed she suddenly remembered her guest for the night. So she slips something on and goes over to the servants' quarters. And (…) along the corridor and sees a little chink of light where the man was apparently put up. So he hadn't gone to sleep. She taps lightly at the door, and opens it, and finds the man awake. And she says, "What's the trouble, my good man, did you not get a good meal?" He said, "Never had a better meal in my life, lady." "Are you warm enough?" He says, "Yes, lovely warm bed." she says, "Maybe you need a little company. Why don't you move over a bit." And she comes close to him, he moves over and falls right into the Thames. Ha! You didn't expect that one! Ahahahaha! Enlightenment! Enlightenment! Wake up. You really didn't expect that one, ah? Ahahahah! See how good you are! Wake up! When you're ready to exchange your illusions for reality, when you're ready to exchange your dreams for facts, call the wakening. But that's the way you find it all. That's where life finally becomes meaningful. Life becomes beautiful. The famous story, I don't remember where I read it, of Ramirez. Ramirez who's old and is living up there in his castle on top of a hill. And He looks out the window (he's in bed and paralyzed) looking out the window and he sees his enemy. Old as he himself is, leaning on a cane, climbing up the hill-slowly, painfully. It takes him about two and a half hours to get up. And there's nothing Ramirez can do because the servants have the day off. And his enemy walks in, opens the door, comes straight to the bedroom, puts his hand inside his cloak pocket, and pulls out a gun. And he says, "At last, Ramirez, we're going to settle scores!" And Ramirez tries his level best to talk him out of it. He says, "Come on, Borgias, you can't do that. You know I am no longer the man who ill-treated that youngster years ago, and you're no longer that youngster. Come off it!" "Oh no, your sweet words aren't going to get me off this divine mission of mine. It's revenge I want, says Borgias, and there's nothing you can do about it." And Ramirez says, "there is!" "Oh, is there"? What?" "I can wake up", and he did; he woke up! That's what enlightenment is like. "There is nothing you can do about it, isn't there? Of course there is. What? I can wake up!" All of a sudden, life is no longer the nightmare that it has seemed. Wake up! Somebody came to me with a question. What do you think the question was? "Are you enlightened?" ahahahahah! What do you think the answer was? "What does it matter!" You want a better answer? "How would I know? How would you know? But what does it matter?" You know something? If you want it too badly, you're in big trouble. You know something else? If I were enlightened and you listened to me because I was enlightened, you're in big trouble. You're ready to be brainwashed by someone who's enlightened? You can be brainwashed by anybody, you know. So does it really matter, no it doesn't When you're concerned, what does it matter whether someone's enlightened or not? But see, we want to lean on someone, don't we? We want to lean on somebody who we think or we judge has arrived. We love to hear that people have arrived. It gives us hope, doesn't it? What do you want hope for? Isn't that another form of desire? You want to hope for something better than what you have right now, don't you? Or else you wouldn't be hoping. But then, you forgot that you have got it all right now and you don't know it. Why not concentrate on now instead of hoping for better times in the future? Why not understand the now instead of forgetting it and hoping for the future? Isn't that another trap?
