1. U S 80 - 28 DOUG: Randy, you want to read the first question? RANDY: Dearest Guruji, in the Dhammapada it is written, "Never neglect your work for another's, however great his need. Your work is to discover your work an d then with all your heart to give yourself to it." My question is, how can we know our own work? GURURAJ: Go and see a career advisor. [Laughter] How can we know our work? Now by that I am sure you are referring to the physical work one has to do an d it is just such a simple matter to find out one's aptitude for what one is suitable or for what one has taken training. It is a very material thing, a common thing. Today psychologists have made so much about a person finding his own particular type of work. And psychologists have also devised tests to see what kind of work a person is eminently suited for because if you are, according to them, if you are doing the proper kind of work which is conducive to your personality, you'd be doing a better job. You'd be doing a better job and by doing a better job, you will find a greater fulfillment. Now this is very good for the ordinary mind that is seeking self satisfaction through the work he does. Now, is that the rea l goal in man's life? Why do people h ave to work? They work primarily to feed their stomachs and to have shelter. There is no work which is noble or ignoble as long as it provides you a decent living. Mental satisfaction this is a total fall acy mental satisfaction is not dependent up on the kind of work you do. It is not dependent upon the kind of work you do, but the attitude you have toward your work. Ninety nine percent of the world's people are not satisfied with their work. They will find a job very attractive and in a short wh ile they will start getting bored with the work. It becomes so routine and humdrum that why should I be doing this, and every person is always trying to look for some better kind of work because he feels no satisfaction any more. Perhaps not of the work i tself alone, but to earn more money, perhaps. So, behind this dissatisfaction there are so many factors, and those factors are all very mundane factors. I would be just as happy and satisfied sweeping the streets than doing the work I am doing now. Wor k is work. Now, when a person tries to seek for self satisfaction which is synonymous with self gratification, then he will never ever be satisfied because the element of expectation is there. So, whatever work one feels fit enough or trained to do, by a ll means, do that. Now, the secret of work lies in the fact that you do not regard work as work. You regard it as one of the cogs in the wheel of life, that without doing what you are doing, the wheel of life cannot turn. It is not unnatural for a perso n to desire to find something better, and the tragedy is this, that people always tend to over estimate themselves. People mostly always have an image of themselves: instead of being at the machine in the factory, they imagine themselves to be behind the

2. U S 80 - 28 executive desk. Every worker does that. Many people think that I can do better than what my boss is doing. Now if you can do better, why are you not the boss? Now, as far as the Dhammapada of the Buddhists are concerned, it talks about working to fulfil l your need first before your brother's need. Now this must not be taken literally. The work, or the duty that is mentioned there, is based upon personal self development or coming closer to that which is really you. So if you can become really you, the n very spontaneously you will see your brother's needs. Now this does not imply selfishness. If you want to help someone else, by all means it's easy to help someone else if you are able to help yourself. And if you are unable to help yourself, how are you going to help others. This is what is meant. So, the choice of work, although people have given it so much importance, the greater importance should be given to duty rather than work. For everyone, whatever kind of work he does, is essential to make this world run, to make this go, to keep this world in motion. So the street sweeper or the university professor are doing their own dharmas. And who says one's occupation is better than the other? Perhaps the street sweeper's occupation is better than the doctor's. The doctor only tries to cure you while the street sweeper, because of the hygiene that is involved, prevents the disease. A doctor tries to cure a disease. So the street sweeper here is more important than the doctor. What I'm trying to po int out is the attitude; and people are forever trying to find flaws in their work, in their relationships, in their love affairs, whatever. They are always trying to find flaws because their own minds are flawed. Therefore they see flaws in the object. F asladin started becoming very fond of a girl and he wanted to propose engagement. He wanted to be engaged to this girl, and of course he proposed and she accepted. So he brought her a diamond ring. So this young lady looked at the ring and she says, "Oh , it is very very beautiful. It is very beautiful but I see a flaw in the diamond." So Fasladin says, "But how can that be, love is supposed to be blind?" So the girl says, "Yes, love is blind, but not stone blind." [Laughter ] You see how the point i s missed? It is not the ring or the flawless stone or the stone with flaw that is important. What is important is the relationship, the communication, the communion of two hearts. What was important was the recognition of the love where two people want to be together and not the flaw in the stone. So the whole point was missed. The same thing applies to teachers. I just read a line in a book now where it says, "I point at the moon." But do not get hold of the finger look at the moon. Forget the f inger, but look at what it is pointing at. Likewise, likewise, in our work if we regard it all to be just a means of letting the world go round, why not? Whatever kind of work it is one must have the attitude that it is good, it is serving a certain purpo se according to the times. Today we have a computerized age. Everything is worked and programed on computers. Two hundred years ago there were no computers and yet the world was still functioning and the world is still functioning today and who can say t hat today's world is a better world than the world of 200 years ago? Who can say that? And yet 200 years ago was a period

3. U S 80 - 28 in time when the greatest art was produced; the greatest philosophers were produced in that time. And what have we produced today? Computers and computerized minds. So the minds, too, have become mechanical as the computers have become mechanical. We have a few computer experts here, but they are spiritual people so it doesn't apply to them. [Laughter] So, we have to get away from the idea of what work I should do. One has to be very practical. If you find a job that is 200 miles away and by taking on that job which you like and which in turn would make your wife and children at home suffer by you bein g away and only being able to come home weekends, what's the use of that job? But rather have a job nearby which you don't like so much and keep your family happy. You see. So, there are many factors to be considered and the kind of work is not important at all apart from the various aptitude tests of the psychologists. Real satisfaction comes from within. Real satisfaction comes from the sense of acceptance of the circumstances, and there, there lies joy and happiness. So what are you searching for work satisfaction? Or that personal satisfaction? Because work satisfaction will never come. You are in practice, say in law, working for a small firm and you think, "If I should work in a much bigger firm I would be happy." Yes, you will be slightly m ore happy, but then you get bored again. You think, "Oh, why can't I work for an international firm of lawyers and do international work and travel round the world?" Good. You'll be happy for a little while, and then you'll start getting bored. Many time s when I meet friends and then we sit chit chatting and they say, "Oh, how wonderful for you, you go skipping round the world." I says, "Yeah, for the first and second time it's quite exciting. After that it is just one of those things. It's like you ju mping on the bus and going to town from the suburb. The same thing for me to jump on the plane and fly to London or to New York. Same thing." You see? So we are not to be governed by the exterior circumstances of life. Here we have to examine ourselves subjectively and not objectively, for the real satisfaction comes from within. I get many letters from young people thinking I'm a fortune teller. They ask me, "Dearest Guruji, what kind of work do you think I should do?" I always feel like writing to t hem, "Go and jump in the lake." But I don't. You decide for yourself what you want to do. And if you are unhappy with your work it is your damn fault not mine. Because my teachings are those that find stability within yourself and whatever work you do does not matter. So, I have sometimes young people coming to me who get offered jobs. Meanwhile they're unemployed for months and months and months. They get offered jobs which they don't want to accept because, "Oh, this is not good enough for me." Y ou know, "This is not according to my standard." And they go unemployed. Now here you are much more fortunate in having national security or whatever you call it. There where I come from it's not so easy, where you are virtually starving if you do not h ave employment. And yet, what comes between accepting the job? I remember one

4. U S 80 - 28 person very distinctly Mr. [Pelle?] Now this Mr. Pelle, this young man he trained as a accounts clerk a bookkeeper. But he could not get a job as a bookkeeper. But he c ould get a job as a waiter in a hotel. He came to me, "I'm unemployed and don't you know of anything where I could get a job in a firm of accountants as a bookkeeper, and this that. So I say, "Have you tried?" He says, "Yes, I've tried very very much, b ut unfortunately you know, because of my whatever you know they won't accept me although I've got the qualifications." I says, "What alternative is there?" He says, "I can get a job as a waiter." I said, "Why don't you take that job? Why just don 't you take that job as a waiter?" And I had to explain to him that what is standing between you and a job. Your ego. Your personal pride which is worth nothing at all. You are imagining yourself behind a desk instead of carrying a tray. Now, what is wrong with carrying a tray? You serve those people lovingly with the food that's dished out. Isn't that better than pushing a pen, especially in the present circumstances when there's so much unemployment in the country? Why don't you do that? And I ha d a long talk and I convinced him that he should. So here you find that it is the ego that is coming in the way of what kind of work a person should do because as I said, the ego always imagines itself to be far greater than what really is. You see? We have economic inflation that's not too bad, but ego inflation is terrible. [Laughter] So here we are falling down in one of the fundamental factors of self satisfaction and happiness. That is the sense of acceptance. According to circumstances you accep t. If you are today eating just a sandwich, enjoy the sandwich, that's today. Enjoy today. Time comes when you sit down to a big feast every day. Enjoy that also then. But do not go against the circumstances which are presently conducive to your welfar e. Do plan ahead, by all means nothing wrong. But "accept today for what today brings" is what it should be. Whatever you deserve you will get. Now, the ego that stands between the job and you has to be tamed. How does one tame that? Say you have a B.A. LL.B. degree and you cannot get the legal position that you want to get, but you can start off tomorrow as a salesman. Why not? What's wrong with it? Start off as a salesman and keep watching out. Don't forget your B.A. LL.B. legal training, you do not need to forget that. Start off as a salesman, for that is the practicality of life. And practicality of life starts with acceptance of today and not the dream of tomorrow. In India you'll find that because of job scarcity and poverty you'll fi nd B.A.'s and M.A's working as bus drivers. I've seen them myself. I know some of them. There they just can't get a job. So they become bus drivers and on one tour I went on a bus this bus driver told me, he says, "Although I've got an M.A. and I've be en looking for a lectureship for such a long time but I can't get it. It is always connections that get you the position that you want in certain economies and not your ability." But he says, "I'm enjoying myself so much being a bus driver." I say, "W hy?" He says, "I meet so many people and I take them on these tours. What a great study it is for me speaking to these people! I learn so much. They come from various countries. I learn about those countries. I gain a deeper insight into the minds of people and how interesting it is. I'm sure I would not be so so happy teaching at a college than what I am now."

5. U S 80 - 28 So, everything can be turned to its fullest advantage if one has the right attitude, and of course no one likes to go to wor k. A person is forced to go to work to earn his piece of bread. There are very few people that like to go to work. Every Monday morning there is always Monday morning is a morning of the worst vibrations. "Oh, I've got to go to the office. I've got to go to the fac tory. I've got to go to the work." Everyone is moaning. Everyone is moaning. If I had my way I would not step out of the house until 11:00 Monday morning. Everyone is moaning everywhere, everywhere. The air is filled with moans and groans. [Laugh ter] You see? You see? So nobody likes to go to work, but they are forced to go to work. So why not in the same way. Even if you like the job you still groan, "Oh, after this weekend Monday morning again." And that is why Monday morning Monday is the day of least productivity. They call it blue Monday. Monday is always the day of least productivity everywhere and this has been proven by statisticians. So even if you are satisfied in your job you still have your moans and groans. So why not an y job? The moans and groans are still going to be there, huh? You see the attitude one develops and how one looks at things which is so important. So, when it comes to work, work is work. And when it comes to earning a livelihood which is necessary everyone needs his piece of bread, and sometimes a bit of butter and sometimes a bit of jam also as an extra bonus on it. So, therefore people work. But the real work now to offset the dissatisfaction in the present kind of employment, one has to find an alternative to make up for the dissatisfaction and find satisfaction. Apart from the routine bread earning work, why not do some other work as well which is not meant to earn bread? There comes the greatest joy; there comes where you work for the sake o f work and not for the fruits thereof. And that could very easily be done spending a few hours in the evening, perhaps, joining organizations and societies and offering one's services. Remember, when you work for a boss you are not working for his benefit . That is a fallacy. People always say that. They are working for their own benefit. They are working for their sanities, their own benefit, not for the benefit of the boss. For if they had to work for the benefit of the boss, they would tell the boss , "Don't pay me a salary." Those employers that have employed people know these things. That is why you have your time schedules and production schedules and all those things because if you give them just a free hand there would be no production whatsoev er. So you have to stand on their heads all the time keep them alive and awake. Otherwise, they go to sleep. You have to do that. So, in order to offset that so called dissatisfaction in one's work, one does something spending a few hours a day in some other kind of activity which is financially non productive but so satisfying to oneself. And that kind of work can be found everywhere. Organizations that do good work are forever looking for people to devote some little time. Now, by doing this an d gaining that satisfaction for those few hours in the evening, it becomes so ingrained in us, you get into the habit of

6. U S 80 - 28 working for the sake of work and not for any fruit or any result or any expectation. Now that gives you the impetus. That gives you t he energy the force, the spiritual force to become satisfied in whatever you are doing for a living. So, if you can't get in by the front door, get in by the back door. Ya. So like that the mind becomes habituated for performing service. So, even if the B.A. LL.B. has to drive a bus, he will find satisfaction in driving the bus. And that is how satisfaction is gained in whatever kind of work one does. Now it is quite natural in human nature that if he has taken training in a particular professional field, to work in some other field which is not professional, but circumstances, the country's economy and various factors might force you to do work for which you are not trained to do but which you can still do reasonably well and that idea has to be acc epted. Not that you do not that you miss the goal in life. I know people that walk about streets for months and months and months because they can't find the kind of work that they really want to find. And that brings upon us a greater dissatisfactio n. One, by taking on a particular job might be, you know, dissatisfying, but not having the job or any job at all becomes even more dissatisfying, and unfortunately this is the attitude of our young people in the world today. There are many people who are drop outs because of this factor: that I want a certain kind of job, but if they just can't find that kind of job then they are disillusioned and then they become drop outs to their own personal detriment. If every person can find the job that they re ally want to do then this world would be a totally different place. It would be so so much more productive and constructively productive instead of all this atmosphere of dissatisfaction and discontent that is around us everywhere we go. You walk into a b ig cosmopolitan city and to me the atmosphere is so thick because of all the discontent in this rat race of life. I find it heavy. Your very New York I would not like to stay there for two days. I'd rather come out here to New Windsor. It's much nicer . Do you see. So, all people are contributing to that thickness in the atmosphere. So, the whole thing is so simple. Take whatever can be had. Be accepting and yet set your sights high for if you are keen enough, not seeking for self satisfaction, but seek ye for the job you want to do, then it will come to you. I was telling some of our friends a little story of a man I knew that I still know very well, he is a good friend. He had a little printing works and he wanted to make money. He wanted to do well. He was thinking of the future. People always live in the future, as we say he wanted financial security which is misnomer actually, there's no such thing as financial security. You might build up a whole empire and with one bang your whole empi re can crash. We have seen that in depression times where millionaires became paupers. So when we talk of financial security, there is no such thing. Good. But we imagine that if we got some thousands or a few hundred thousands or a million in the bank , we are financially secure. It is not so. The very institution that you've invested money in can go bankrupt. Today it might seem very sound. So there is no such thing as financial security. It can collapse any moment; and that which can collapse any

7. U S 80 - 28 moment is not secure. So real security lies within oneself, one's attitude to be able to accept. That is security and that is what we aim at and what we drive at. Now to come back to this friend. He had a little printing business and he used to he w anted financial security. And his mind was always running after the goddess, Lakshmi the goddess of wealth. He was running after her all the time. And she, the more he ran after her, the more she ran away. So one day he decided, he says, "I'm not go ing to run after Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, any more. I am just going to do my work to the best of my ability and I will work and work and work." Fine. And when he developed this attitude, then that woman, Lakshmi, goddess of wealth, started runnin g after him. So here what has happened was this, that he did away with expectation and just concentrated on the work on hand, and like that more and more work came because he created around himself a particular magnetic field that attracted more and more b usiness and the money started rolling in, so much so that he is a very very wealthy man today. And this is a good friend of mine which Roopa has met. [END SIDE ONE] [REWIND TO FIND SIDE 2] That's right. So, the younger people that have become so choosy about work, good. But if circumstances are such that any kind of decent, honest occupation is offered, then by all means accept it instead of becoming drop outs. For then you are not helping society and neither are you helping yourself. Dhammapad a was not speaking on the ordinary terms of work. It was speaking on the spiritual level of things where one thinks of one's spiritual development first, and by doing that automatically you would be helping your brother. In other words, charity starts at home. That's what is meant. Good. GURURAJ: Do I have another question? Because this did not give me much [????] DOUG: I have a short question of my own. Is that permissible? GURURAJ: Yes, why not? DOUG: There's a little book called THE PROPHET that you probably have heard of....

8. U S 80 - 28 GURURAJ: Khalil Gibran.... DOUG: Right. GURURAJ: Gibran, yes. DOUG: There's a passage in there on love and a quote in there that goes like this: "Think not that you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, will direct your course." That's always kind of stuck in my mind and at tim es I've wondered, you know, why is it that we cannot direct it? It seems almost as if we have to just sit back and let "love" in quotes because [that's meaning?? that seems??] a lot to direct us. GURURAJ: Which is very very true because you cannot direct the course of love. By directing the course of love the mind is involved. Who directs the course? The mind dir ects the course. It is always the mind directing and when the mind directs, then it cannot direct love. It cannot direct love. The mind can make things conducive for love to come; for love t o descend upon one. It is like grace. Love and grace are the sa me things. If one makes oneself receptive enough by bringing the mind to a state of receptivity where automatically love is attracted.... So love is never a creation of the mind . As soon as the mind comes in between two people trying to direct it, then l ove ceases. It becomes a business. So, love is a quality or a form of existence that one is drawn into spontaneously. I've said this many times before, that if a person asks if a boy asks the girl, "Why do you love me?" and she gives a mental analys is or answer, "Because you are this and you are that and therefore I love you," then that is definitely not love. For as soon as direction or analysis comes into play, love ceases. It is a spontaneous occurrence. It is a happening where things just happ en. Love is a happening. Love is not a creation. Love is a flowering. It is like finding God. You can never find God. Never. You could never find God. There is no route map. There are no road signs to God. But if you make yourself receptive enough , then God finds you. It descends upon you. That force we are speaking earlier this evening about it that force, that grace just descends upon you. And the same thing with love. If anybody says that they cannot find someone to love or someone to love them, then the fault is of that person; for that person has not created the conditions the receptive conditions to attract love. For everyone is seeking to love an d be loved, and if conditions are such where you repel love, then you cannot expe ct it to come to you. When you try and direct love you can only end up in failure, for you can never create a happening. A happening must just happen. Only

9. U S 80 - 28 thing what we can do is create the magnetic field around us by certain mental attitudes. The min d cannot direct, but the mind can be made receptive by cultivating certain mental attitudes where automatically attraction begins and people are attracted to you because you have made yourself receptive for the attraction. You have created this magnetic f ield around you in which people just feel comfortable. They want to be in that energy field. They want to near you. And that is the secret. If a girl says, "I can't find a man to love me. They're only interested in me for other things than love." Why? Because your mind is revolving around that. If a boy says, "I can't find a girl." Because you have yourself created a barrier. But what would be fun to watch would be this, where two people having created barriers on their own account to repel love, f or them to come together. I would love to see that: how two walls can clash against each other and break them down to pieces. So, here two forms of repulsions, or repulsion can it be converted into attraction? That is the question. I say it can b e d one, for the very collision of two repulsive forces can make it an attractive force. That could be a wonderful experiment. It would be nice to get two such people together. It would be a wonderful experiment. But normally, normally the usual way is the attraction is created by ourselves. The magnetic field, as I said, we create and automatically that love is drawn. So, to be loved, one becomes lovable. One becomes receptive for the seed to flourish. So love could never be directed. It could never b e directed, but one could make oneself conducive and receptive so there is an indirect direction of love towards you. DOUG: Is that the worthy part then that says, you know, if love is to find you worthy it will direct your course? And so if one is wo rthy by being receptive, lovable.... GURURAJ: Yeah. To become worthy is to become receptive and lovable, then it finds you. And what a great finding, what a great discovery. That discovery knows no barriers of any convention. It knows no barriers of man made conventions. It goes beyond them all, for where there is the right quantity created between two people of that quality of love, then unfailingly as iron filings are drawn to the magnet, they get drawn an irresistible force in spite of any man made convention; in spite of any man made laws of morality and ethics, for there is purity in the attraction and not an attraction for the mind or body. It's an inner quality that brings this purity and this purity attracts; and when body or mi nd attracts it is temporary, transient. But when the spirit attracts which is purity itself, it becomes a bond not only of one lifetime but many lifetimes to come. And when someone is fortunate enough by his own karma to create those conditions for himself, blessed is he or she. Blessed is he or she for that very purity that is beyond all convention is like Shiva and

10. U S 80 - 28 Shakti coming together: Divine forces the two aspects of the Divine force coming together. You see? Very very beautiful. Very beautiful. Another question? Short one. SUJAY: I don't know how short it is, but we're told by scriptures to discriminate between truths and untruths. What is the process of discrimination? How can discrimination... GURURAJ: Ah, hah, that's a very long question, leave it for tomorrow morning. It's a very beautiful question. QUESTIONER: This relates to what you were talking about [Inaudible]. Sometimes, I don't know if it's my own mind or what but I always see cond itions. For instance, certain kinds of jobs where people are unhappy with only because they are not making money and when they work in mines and such and they contract diseases and the employers that they are working for are making intense amounts of mone y and they are not being responsible for the safety of the people and all. How can someone in this position find... GURURAJ: Satisfaction. QUESTIONER: Yes. It seems to me that there's something that is wrong in that situation. GURURAJ: Yes. Yes. It's definitely wrong when employers are unfair to their employees and it is happening all over the world. Oh, yes. For example, in India things are a bit changed now, but you'd have these rich black marketeers withholding grain in their big warehouses while thousands of people are dying of hunger. Why do they hold this grain back? They are waiting to create a market so that they could get a better and bigger price. So and they could sell their goods on the black market. This is this wicked world w e are living in. SAME QUESTIONER: Is there anything that we should do to address that or can do to address that? GURURAJ: You cannot because it's been happening since the time of Christ and even before. It's been happening all along and it is a tragedy . It is a tragedy to observe these things. The only thing one can do in a personal capacity is just to be accepting. Just to be accepting. And I have seen this poverty. I have seen so much such great riches alongside with such such poverty. Where h ere right next to a [godaun?] that means warehouse filled with grain and around it little

11. U S 80 - 28 huts, shanties, as we call them people suffering, going hungry and yet half of the grain eventually rots away in those warehouses. Even the rats in the warehou se have more to eat than those poor people that are living around in the area of the warehouse. What a great tragedy it is. It is so. And people placed in such circumstances can only but accept it. There's no sense creating a revolution because that wo uld be violence. And yet, and yet, all these wars that are created internally or externally within a country civil strife, or wars on an international basis, are created by the negative vibrations, by the moans and groans of the people that are taking place all the time where hearts are crying out, where the mother has no milk for the little child; and yet around them is so much riches which is not equally distributed. We don't say that the rich must give away their wealth. No, that would be wrong. I t's a free society, and every man makes and earns according to his ability and capacity. But we are talking of the wicked ones that illegally, unlawfully, mercilessly accumulate without thinking of their brother man. This is one of the great tragedies of our present socio economic system. It is so. We'd rather spend two thousand billion dollars building a rocket while there are so many people around the world going hungry. What's the sense of reaching the moon? What have you really achieved? You reac h your heart that's a greater achievement. And in reaching the heart, help those that are in need. And, religions, too, have contributed a lot to these tragedies. I know a Mohammedan friend. He was telling me this. I have not gone to Mecca because on ly Muhammadans, I believe, are allowed entry there during their time of festivities. They call it [Haj?], the pilgrimage time. Now this day of sacrifice which they call [Bhagriid?] that's Arabic. Good. No w, on this day it is their duty to donate two sheep or four sheep or ten sheep, goats, whatever, animals to be slaughtered as sacrifice. And in that heat of Arabia Saudia Arabia millions and millions upon millions of these sheep are slaughtered , and the whole purpose is for the rich to give to the poor. So the population there is not so big so just a very small fraction of that meat is given away and the rest in the heat of that desert just rots away rots away. So much so that it could fee d at least one small meat eating community for a f ew months. So I told this man, "You have all these rich oil sheiks can it, can that meat." Although I am not a propagator of meat eating, but here is a practical thing. Can that meat and export i t to those poor countries where thousands and thousands of people are dying of hunger. But it is not done. Sacred food. So religions too play a great part in this tragedy. Politics play a great part in this tragedy. Politics play a great part in this tragedy. Economics play a great part in this tragedy t o bring about this great imbalance. Why do you think all these things happen such as famine and floods and great fires? Why? The entire atmosphere of this world, the thoughts of people, the cries of people's hearts are bringing all this down upon us. Ind ia is supposed to be a land of spirituality. It was. No more. So much corruption. And yet there you have the greatest amount of famines and floods and catastrophes

12. U S 80 - 28 and riots religious riots between Hindu and Moslem and things like that. Where is the spirituality? So like this. It's not only in the West but also so much in the East. Wherever humans are they are so much a like. What bothers me so much is that after these thousands of years, after all this technological progress that man has made, th ese barbaric conditions still exist. It is very painful and it is not waving of a magic wand to change it all. It cannot be done. But one thing ca n be done only, is for man himself, in his individual capacity, to find greater and greater clarity of the mind by spiritual practices to reach deeper and deeper within himself. And that could be a great help not only for himself in accepting life as it is, bu t also emanating thought forces that could make the environment a better one. Because rebellions have come and gone and they have not contributed to anything. There have been countries in the third world where so many coups have taken place, where governments have been overthrown by force, but the other government that comes in is just as bad as the previ ous one if not worse. So these social conditions will persist all the time. There will never be collective progress or peace, but there can always be individual progress and individual peace which man must find for himself. And that is what is meant in t he Dhammapada. ****END****