stop lying

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Try for a moment to accept the idea that you are not what you believe yourself to be, that you overestimate yourself, in fact that you lie to yourself. That you always lie to yourself every moment, all day, all your life. That this lying rules you to such an extent that you cannot control it any more. You are the prey of lying. You lie, everywhere. Your relations with others—lies. The upbringing you give, the conventions—lies. Your teaching—lies. Your theories, your art—lies. Your social life, your family life—lies. And what you think of yourself—lies also.

I catch myself in these lies sometimes, feel terrible shame and swear off them. They come back when I feel too smug about having caught them.

I try not to think of a lot of these leading lights of Out There as teachers, because very, very few of them know about the work, about the seriously difficult payment Jeanne de Salzmann talked about. I think of them at best as motivational speakers, guys who tackle the problem of a planetload of liars with nicer lies, less decimating lies... but they are lies.

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love, 99
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