In other words, we do need to be responsible for our realization, we need to be earnest, we need to be committed, we need to have selfless motivation, and we need to apply our capacities. However, at some point, none of that will be effective unless we recognize that it is not due to our motivation and the application of our capacities that realization or enlightenment happens. In fact, we recognize that we, as individual souls, are capacities of Living Being. We are organs of Living Being, organs for Living Being to recognize its enlightenment. The individual needs to recognize that it is Living Being that attains enlightenment and achieves realization. And Living Being attains realization by manifesting all of our life and all of our experience and all of the influences that open us up to realization. This all-accomplishing dynamism realizes its enlightenment also by appearing in our consciousness as the motivation to practice and as the capacity to practice.

In other words, your taking responsibility for your realization is true nature intensifying its practice to reveal its enlightenment. They are not two things. Divine grace and your responsibility are not two things. You taking responsibility for your realization is grace. The fact that you have capacities is also grace. The fact that you practice is grace. There is no dichotomy between your practice and grace. Your practice is grace. Your practice is always already Living Being appearing in your consciousness as the enlightenment drive—as the motivation, as the capacity, as the sincerity, as the commitment, as the clarity, as the emptiness, as the radiance, as the luminosity, and as the enlightenment. So, which one is it? Is it you practicing and attaining realization or is it Living Being practicing and attaining realization? As you see, they are two sides of the same thing or, more precisely, one thing seen from two views. The individual needs to practice and, at some point, also needs to recognize that when he is practicing, it is living reality—Living Being—practicing, it is living reality applying its intelligence. Living reality is actually what manifests the individual soul. Living reality is what develops the individual soul, what ripens the individual soul. And it is what opens the individual soul to recognize its own realization. By opening the individual soul to recognize realization, Living Being lives its enlightenment consciously, with full awareness.

Understanding ego activity brings about (among other things) the personalization of the Intelligence aspect. The Personal Essence becomes present in a precious, brilliant, exquisitely smooth and luminous form. The experience is to be, completely, with no concern or attempt to be anything. This seems to move emotional and instinctual libido towards Being. It is interesting that this state of the Personal Essence is connected to the sense of responsibility; one understands that one’s ultimate responsibility is to be. This also resolves the deep guilt that one experiences when one lets go of all of ego activity. One feels guilty just being, instead of doing things to help others. One feels just to be is selfish, and involves abandoning others, not caring for them. One then realizes that the best that one can do emotionally for another is to be, to be there, to be present for them. This is real responsibility.

You can't take my word for it. I can tell you all these things, but it doesn't mean much. When I tell you, it gets you all excited for a week or two, you might meditate more intensely for awhile, but it doesn't last long. You forget and after two weeks you don't do anything. You fall asleep again and come back here hoping some new approach will work. This continues until eventually it hits you that you have to be responsible, that, ultimately, you are the final arbiter of the truth of your own experience and life. You are the one who needs to determine what is real. How can anyone convince you of the truth if you don't see it for yourself? People get convinced by the teachings but not fully, because usually underneath that conviction there are fears, vulnerabilities, and helplessness. The conviction does not stand on solid reality, but rather covers up ignorance and inner conflicts.

How do you find the true discipline? How do you find your citadel? Essentially, true discipline means using will in the service of truth. It is the merging of will and truth. It means that the will of Essence is in service of the truth of Essence. It means you don’t use your will in the service of personality. This might vary from one person to another. No one can tell you, “You should wake up at five o’clock in the morning, meditate for two hours, drive to work by yourself, read a book about such-and-such during your lunch hour.” You have to find out by yourself what to do. You find your truth and use whatever will you’ve got to live according to that. It’s not just going to happen. You have to take the responsibility to actualize the truth. You need to use your truth, and you need to use your will in harmony with the truth. For that to happen, the will needs to be objective, and the truth needs to be objective. Objective, as I said before, means not influenced by your emotional state or your unconscious. You need to use your objective will in the service of objective truth. Using your will in the service of objective truth means using the objective will of Essence according to the objective truth about how things are—not according to your emotions, not according to your beliefs, not according to your dreams. It has nothing to do with desires or preferences. It has to do with how things are, how they function. That’s what “objective” means: to live according to the facts, the truth. As long as you say, “I want it another way,” you are going to suffer.