If you take a look at the way you function you will find that inside your head there is a whole program, a set of demands about how the world should be, how you should be and what you should want.

Who is responsible for the programming? It was your parents, your society, your culture, your religion, your past experiences who fed the operating instructions into your computer.

Now, however old you are or wherever you go, your computer goes along with you and is active and operating at each conscious moment of the day, imperiously insisting that its demands be met by life, by people and by you.

If the demands are met, the computer allows you to be peaceful and happy. If they are not met, even though it be through no fault of yours, the computer generates negative emotions that cause you to suffer.

when other people don't live up to your computer's expectations, it torments you with frustration or anger or bitterness.

When things are not under your control or the future is uncertain, your computer insists that you experience anxiety, tension, worry.

Then you expend a lot of energy coping with these negative emotions.

And you generally cope by expending more energy trying to rearrange the world around you so that the demands of your computer will be met.

And so you live constantly at the mercy of things and people, trying desperately to make them conform to, your computer's' demands, so that you can enjoy the only peace you can ever know-a temporary respite from negative emotions, courtesy of your computer and your programming.

Is there a way out? Yes.

You are not going to be able to change your programming all that quickly, And you don't even need to.

Imagine you are in a situation or with a person that you find unpleasant and that you would ordinarily avoid.

Now observe how your computer instinctively becomes active, insisting that you avoid this situation or try to change it. And if you refuse to change the situation, observe how the computer insists that you experience irritation or anxiety or guilt or some other negative emotion.

until you realize that it isn't they that are causing the negative emotions. They are just themselves.
It is your computer that, thanks to your programming, insists on your reacting with negative emotions.

someone with a different programming when faced with this same situation or person would react quite calmly. The only reason why you too are not reacting calmly and happily is your computer that is stubbornly insisting that reality be reshaped to conform to its programming.

Once you have understood this truth you may take any action you deem fit. You may avoid the situation or the person; or you may try to change them; or you may insist on your rights or the rights of others being respected; you may even resort to the use of force. But only after you have got rid of your emotional upsets, for then your action will spring from peace and love,

Then you will understand how profound is the wisdom of the words: "If a man wants to sue you for your shirt, let him have your coat as well. If a man in authority makes you go one mile, go with him two."

real oppression comes, not from people who fight you in court or from authority that subjects you to slave labor, but from your programming

People have been known to be happy even in the oppressive atmosphere of a concentration camp! It is from the oppression of your programming that you need to be liberated.

Only then will you experience that inner freedom from which alone all social revolution must arise, will have its origin in reality, not in your programming or your ego.



When you are in love you find yourself looking at everyone with new eyes; you become generous, forgiving, kindhearted, where before you might have been hard and mean.

Inevitably people begin reacting to you in the same way and soon you find yourself living in a loving world that you yourself have created.

the time you were in a bad mood and found yourself becoming irritable, mean, suspicious. The next thing you knew everyone was reacting to you in a negative way and you found yourself living in a hostile world created by your head and your emotions.

How could you go about creating a happy, loving, peaceful world?

Every time you find yourself irritated or angry with someone, the one to be looked at is not that person but yourself. The question to ask is not, "What's wrong with this person?" but "What does this irritation tell me about "¬myself?"

The cause of my irritation is not in this person but in me.

begin the task of finding out how you are causing the irritation.

this person's defects or so-called defects annoy you is that you have them yourself. But you have repressed them; and so are projecting them unconsciously into the other.

search for this person's defects in your own heart and in your unconscious mind, and your annoyance will turn to gratitude that his or her behavior has led you to self-discovery.

- Can it be that you are annoyed at what this person says or does because those words and behavior are pointing out something in your life and in yourself that you are refusing to see?

- Think how irritated people become with the mystic and the prophet who look far from mystical or prophetical when we are challenged by their words or their life.

You become irritated with this person because he/ she is not living up to the expectations that have been programmed into you.

Maybe you have a right to demand that he or she live up to your programming, when he or she is cruel or unjust, but then stop to consider this. If you seek to change this person's behavior, will you not be more effective if you were not irritated? Irritation will only cloud your perception and make your action less effective.

someone else in your place would be exposed to this behavior and would experience no annoyance at all. Just contemplate this truth and your irritation will vanish.

Given the background, the life experience, he cannot help behaving the way he does. to understand all is to forgive all.

If you really understood this person you would see him as crippled and not blameworthy, and your irritation would instantly cease.

And the next thing you know you will be treating him/her with love, and he/she is responding with love and you find your self living in a loving world which you have your¬ self created.