August 18, 2026
There is a lovely picture by a famous painter depicting a sage who had fallen in love with a nymph and produced a baby. Suddenly he realizes that he is fallen from his asceticism and in great anger he turns from the nymph and baby, and not even wanting to look at them, he covers his eyes. But from between his fingers one eye is still peeping through. Just a corner of him still wants to look.
So I want to turn away from selfishness, I want to go away from this world and be free, but through one corner of my eye I am still looking — "I have renounced selfishness, what am I going to get in return for having given up selfishness?" This is the most difficult thing to do in life because we have got into the habit of thinking in terms of logic — when I give up something I get something else. We have been told that if we suffer in this world we will go to heaven and enjoy there. We have been conditioned to think that in order to enjoy afterwards we must suffer now. The suffering is therefore directly related to some pleasure later on. We cannot abandon the idea of pleasure altogether.
Let it go, I don't want it either here or hereafter, neither physical nor spiritual. I don't want this at all; it is a nuisance.