(bell dinging) - I have, as you may remember, occasionally mentioned the
symbolism of the cross, or one of them, the cross, the intersection of the vertical
and horizontal dimension. And that's a useful
reminder for your life, so that at any time you don't lose your connectedness with the vertical dimension, which opens up in the present moment, which we could call the being dimension. In that vertical dimension, you
are already whole, complete. There's nothing to add, because that is your essence, the timeless essence of who you are, and that is connected to
the source of all life, connected eternally to the source. It is an emanation of the source, whatever name you want to give to what I now call the source, the origin. So that is your connectedness to source, and that is your oneness with the source, only to be found in
the vertical dimension, which we can also call,
the being dimension. It opens up when you become present. There is a, no matter how long, cessation of the stream of thinking, and a space opens up, an inner spaciousness. And in that, you realize
the depth of who you are, but there is no conceptual realization. There's only a silent knowing, a silent realization of
the being that you are, the presence that you are. Vertical. And the horizontal
dimension is the dimension, we could call it the doing. It includes thinking, because thinking is a kind of doing also. So the moment you move into thinking, you're in the horizontal dimension. And then doing, also thinking, then becomes doing, you do something. In order to do something
immediately, time needs to come in. You need time. Whatever you do, you need time. Even to make a cup of tea,
you need time to make it. Any doing, thinking also requires time. So time comes in. That's part of the horizontal dimension. You need time there. Time has the two polarities, that time, on the one hand, it enables you to grow. It enables you to evolve
here in this dimension, but to acquire new
knowledge, new experiences, to try things out, and as a person, you can become more mature. You can acquire more knowledge. But if there's a continuous
lack of vertical, then the limitations of the
person will increase as you, the older you get, you realize that whatever you achieve on the horizontal dimension
has enormous limitations and are ultimately never fulfilling. But it's not to be denied you here. You need the horizontal also, and you need to give it,
you need to honor it. You can't just say, okay, I'm not going to be bothered
with anything anymore because it's all future. Nothing. Just leave me alone. I just want the vertical. Then the horizontal I mentioned
will make demands upon you. And if you don't challenge
yourself, it will challenge you. And even if you challenge yourself, it will still challenge you. So that's the, these dimensions, the art of living is to
bring the two together so that when you're engaged
in thinking and doing, you don't completely lose yourself in the thinking and doing. And then you give an
importance to the world, an absolute importance to
the things of the world, including your possessions and your achievements, whatever it may be, the economic situation. You give an excessive importance to the things of this world. And then this world will consume you, and you will lose yourself in it. And that's a terrible fate. There's a difference between honoring the things of this world and giving the things of this world an absolute importance
that they don't have. They have a relative importance. So you need to deal with it. But at the same time, know that there is
something more fundamental. It doesn't exclude that, but there's something more fundamental, and that is the being. the being, which is the
consciousness of you, but that you is not the person. So the great thing
about things going wrong on the horizontal dimension, which happens from time to time, you might have noticed
in your personal life or in the collective, things go, no matter how careful you are, no matter how many
insurance policies you have and pension plans, there's
nothing wrong with these things, but no matter what, the
world will challenge you, and you will notice there's something unstable about the world. There's something unstable about people. You trust in this person and that person. And then suddenly, they
turn into somebody else. No matter wherever you go, you find an element,
small and very often big, an element of instability. And then after a while,
when that's all you know, you become distrustful of the world, and of people, too, because you never know what
they're going to do next, because you've trusted
so many men or women. And then say, I don't want to know of men. Whether it's men or women, doesn't matter. I've trusted them and
they always disappoint me. As the Buddha already recognized, every situation and every person, if that's all you know, and if you give absolute importance to it and you demand that it should satisfy you and make you happy, whether
it's a person or situation, will disappoint you. Disillusioned. And then you become,
that's a wonderful word. I'm disillusioned. Well, that must be a good thing because it's the end of an illusion. I'm so disillusioned for
this world and people. And then people formulate weird theories on the basis of that about the world. And they can tell you how bad it all is. So that's important to remember. The horizontal, I mentioned, whatever happens here in
this world will let you down. (chuckles) If you give it an absolute
importance, it'll let you down. And if you don't give it
an absolute importance because you are connected to the vertical, out of which emanates, it's a continuous source of satisfaction, of the beingness of you. Then yes, the world
may still let you down, but it doesn't matter very much anymore. It doesn't make you unhappy. You are quite okay with recognizing the limitations of the
things of this world. If you don't become unhappy and you don't judge people on the basis of behavior they manifest as part of their mental,
emotional conditioning. You don't confuse the mental,
emotional conditioning of a human being with
who they essentially are. You can look beyond that dimension because that is part of the horizontal, and you can look deeper. And that's a wonderful liberation,
but that can only happen if you are connected to the vertical, if you're able to become still and present, it doesn't matter how long, but you find these inner spaces, inner spaces of Buddhist awareness where thinking is replaced
with awareness or presence. And then you look, a totally different way of looking at another human beings, through the veil of thinking. Even if you've accumulated a
lot of psychological knowledge, when you look at another human being, the psychological knowledge, which there's lot of truth in it, but it's very limited. All you're recognizing is the conditioning of that human being that
makes up the person. And so, you're looking at it
through the veil of thinking, and then you let go of that. And then you look at a human being through awareness or presence and there's no conceptualization. There's a deep knowing and
you can kind of penetrate into the essence of who they are, but only if it comes, the ability comes from your essence. And the essence is one. You are the other. And then comes the recognition
of the other as one, which you are in your essence because you emanate from the same source. So you're not one out here,
but you're one down there. (waterfall splashing)
