Every child is born with tremendous love for himself. It is the society that destroys that love, it is the religion that destroys that love - because if a child goes on growing in loving himself, who is going to love Jesus Christ? Who is going to love the president, Ronald Reagan? Who is going to love the parents?

Misery nourishes your ego - that's why you see so many miserable people in the world. The basic, central point is the ego.

Remember, Jesus says: Those who are the last here will be the first in my kingdom of God.

Your absence is the presence of godliness.

With your ego you cannot know. Only in an egolessness, in a deep abyss, in the absence of the ego, does the perception happen - then you become a mirror. With the ego you will always interpret, you cannot know the truth. With the ego you will always be there interpreting in subtle ways, and your interpretation is not the truth. You are the medium of all falsification. Through you everything becomes false. When you are not there, the true reflects.

So the first thing: become aware of death. Think about it, look at it, contemplate it. Do not be afraid, do not escape the fact. It is there and you cannot escape it! It has come into existence with you.

Don't swim against the current. Stay in the river, become the river; and the river is already going to the sea. This is the great teaching.