Welcome to the ‘twilight zone – sleep well.
More from Chapter eight…
“For most people, even for educated and thinking people, the chief obstacle in the way of acquiring self-consciousness consists in the fact that they think they possess it, that is, that they possess self-consciousness and everything connected with it; individuality in the sense of permanent and unchanging I, will, ability to do, and so on. It is evident that a man will not be interested if you tell him that he can acquire by long and difficult work something, which in his opinion, he already has. On the contrary he will think either that you are mad or that you want to deceive him with a view to personal gain.
“How many times have I been asked here whether wars can be stopped? Certainly they can. For this it is only necessary that people should awaken. It seems a small thing. It is, however, the most difficult thing there can be because this sleep is induced and maintained by the whole of surrounding life, by all surrounding conditions.(my emphasis)
“How can one awaken? How can one escape this sleep? These questions are the most important; the most vital that can ever confront a man. But before this it is necessary to be convinced of the very fact of sleep. But it is possible to be convinced of this only by trying to awaken. When a man understands that he does not remember himself and to remember himself means to awaken to some extent, and when at the same time he sees by experience how difficult it is to remember himself, he will understand that he cannot awaken simply by having the desire to do so.
“It is possible to think for a thousand years, it is possible to write whole libraries of books, to create theories by the million, and all this in sleep; without any possibility of awakening. On the contrary, these books and these theories, written and created in sleep, will merely send other people to sleep, and so on.
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