Bartholomew / Mary-Margaret Moore: [00:00:03]
You want to be happy. The question I'm most ... "do I enjoy my life?" What people usually mean is how can I change my external environment so that it pleases me? And there are many ways to do that. You know them all. There are hundreds of books written on the subject. Instead, I would like to suggest something else. I would like to suggest that just for a period of time, you allow your life to be as it is, and cultivate the art of inner stillness. The ability to hear deeply within yourself. That is really all that the journey is. You cannot read your way within. You cannot talk your way within. Many people come to me and say "I have been on the path for years, but I do not feel any difference in me. I do not feel closer to that which I seek. What is wrong?" And in almost every instance it is the same answer: you have not cultivated the art of inner silence, of inner stillness, of the tremendous joy and delight of simply sitting and being. To simply sit and be, allowing everything to continue to manifest as it will around you, making no judgment, making no change, just simply being that point of observation that looks out and rejoices in simply being.
Bartholomew / Mary-Margaret Moore: [00:01:49]
[It] results in a stillness of mind and a stillness of heart. Then you're able to perceive the true self. Until that time, you will spend your life filling it... filled with other information that you hope will somehow take you home. You already abide in your home. You are simply not aware of it. So I ask you, those of you who truly seek to go home, to remember one simple thing. Cultivate the art of inner stillness, of inner silence, of the true delight that comes from that. Not allowing the world outside of you to be the only point of delight in your life. I say this with all love because I feel that some of you within us are going through anguish that you need not go through, if you would simply begin to cultivate the art of inner stillness. It does not mean that you turn away from your life. It does not mean that you become unproductive in the world. It simply means that you learn how to be still within. An enlightened one always has the feeling of calmness, of openness. Rarely in a hurry. Just moving along the road, doing what has to be done. Feeling the sun. Smelling the flowers. Enjoying the walk. Never in a hurry to accumulate. Simply enjoying the journey.