The Wisdom of Jokes

by Alejandro Jodorowsky

The Wisdom of Jokes, Part One

 

A Baby on her Back. 

A tenant living in an apartment building in a big city goes to the office of the groundskeeper, who has just had a baby.

            “If I may,” says the surprised tenant, “I’d like to ask you an indiscreet question: you’re single, right?”

            “Yes,” replies the groundskeeper.

            “And who, might I ask, is the lucky father of your charming baby?”

            “As for the father, I have absolutely no idea,” begins the groundskeeper. “You know perfectly well that when I’m cleaning the stairs, I’m too busy to turn around at every little occasion.”

 

This joke reminds me of a story about Mullah Nasrudin, the hero of beautiful initiating Sufi anecdotes:

 

            Mullah Nasrudin, sitting in the shade, looks at the road whereas his wife, seated beside him but with her back to his, looks the other way. She suddenly says to her husband, “how beautiful! There are so many marvelous birds and clouds. What a truly splendid landscape!”

            “I don’t see anything… on my side there are neither clouds nor birds.”

 

Mullah Nasrudin makes no effort whatsoever to look at his wife’s side; he limits himself to seeing his own world.

            Likewise, the groundskeeper pays absolutely no attention to what’s going on behind her back. It forms no part of her world and, therefore, it doesn’t matter to her.

            I worry exclusively about my own little universe and what happens around me doesn’t concern me. Nevertheless, I suffer the consequences.

            When someone says “my reality,” I reply, “what reality? Describe it to me!”

            What are the dimensions of my world, if I’m a groundskeeper who cleans the stairs and I end up pregnant because I don’t turn around?

            In this world where we’ve lost religious tradition and where God represents a sort of infantile object that’s instilled in us during our early years of life, I often ask people about divinity: “How do you see God? What does he represent to you, since you speak of him? Describe him to me! By describing God, you’re doing nothing more than describing your own reality. If God exists somewhere, it’s here. If hell exists, it’s also here. Everything that is exists in the moment. Therefore, if everything is present in the moment, describe that moment as it is for you.”

            When the person is incapable of replying, I propose another game. I ask two questions. “First, let’s begin with the assumption that you’re completely atheist. If God doesn’t exist and you must invent him, how would you invent him?”

            In the event that the person is stubborn and doesn’t want to answer, I ask another question: “If God doesn’t exist for you, on what premise do you base your reality? What force governs your reality and what consequences do you extract from it?”

            What I’m trying to say is, “who is that baby you’re carrying around inside you? One way or another you’re going to find out that you’re carrying a baby inside you, as a result of the fact that you fail to perceive all of reality, that you fail to turn around, that you fail to think what the other might think and you fail to see what humanity sees. You see nothing, not the millions and millions of years of the past, nor the millions and millions of years of the future. You fail to see the infinite extension of matter. Where are you situated? Answer me this: what is your reality?”

            If God didn’t exist, we would have to invent him. We’d have to invent him to be the most magnificent, most incredible, least superficial, most tolerant, most loving, most beautiful, and most powerful being. He would be accessible to all, without religious wars, without exclusion, a sort of total being for the entire world.

            Given that day after day we invent our reality, likewise we can invent our divinity.

The Dragon and the Maiden.

 

The stories of Mullah Nasrudin have always been considered initiating, but what is an initiating story? It’s a story from which we can extract a lesson about life.

            Where do we find them? Anywhere. Everything is initiating. A tarot card is initiating. Why? Not for the truth it transmits, rather for the projections, associations of ideas, and reflections it awakens.

            An initiated person is one who utilizes everything that falls into his hands as a symbol or an object of wisdom.

            In Iran and other Islamic countries, children tell the stories of Mullah Nasrudin as if they were mere jokes; they find them funny. The wise, on the other hand, use those same jokes as paths of knowledge. It’s been known for a long time that jokes are profound in nature.

            Here’s a little joke I found illustrated in a “train station book”:

 

From his castle high above, the king sees a knight arriving. The knight is mounted on a horse and, quite content, carrying a dragon in his arms. The king shouts: “Stupid! Your mission was to kill the dragon and bring back the maiden!”

 

In the Marseille Tarot, Strength is card number eleven. The animal against which the person is fighting could be a dog or a lion, but also a dragon as well. But is the person fighting or dancing? Perhaps he’s collaborating with the beast? Perhaps they have a mutual understanding of one another?

            What do the dragon and the maiden represent? A maiden is a virgin. For Jung, she would be the anima, the sacred part that we all carry within us, our soul. The purest, most virgin part of ourselves. Our spiritual center.

            The dragon is our dark side, our fiery side, our mysterious unconscious that causes us fear. Saint George sank his lance into the animal the same way that the spirit, in order to achieve self-realization, must penetrate into the depths of its own mystery. Enter into its unconscious to liberate the maiden. In other words, it must deeply enter into the coal in order to pluck the diamond from its core.

            We are simultaneously the knight, the king, the maiden, and the dragon. Regardless of the role in question, our will insists that we must work on ourselves.

            If your father is destroying your life by keeping you in his concentration camp, it’s up to you to get out of that camp! How much longer are you going to remain tied to this Oedipus, the incestuous couple in which you’re both victim and executioner, simply because in the past it was he who was the victim and Hitler was the executioner?

            The king commands: “Enough! Let’s kill this dragon!” So your spirit starts up: your intelligence, your being advance on your horse, full of strength and might and confront the dragon.

            But what does it mean to kill the dragon? It means to deeply penetrate it with the lance. To profoundly enter into the mystery of your unconscious and ask: “What do you want?”

            “I fear I may be homosexual. What can I do?” somebody asked me.

            “Live a homosexual experience,” I replied. “It’s the most logical thing to do: if you’re not homosexual, you’ll know; if you are, you’ll enjoy the experience. It always brings us happiness to simply be who we really are. Well then, confront yourself! But don’t choose an ugly guy you don’t like as the subject of your experience, because in that case you’re just setting yourself up for failure. Pick someone you really like! And be careful about AIDS—take the appropriate precautions.

            We enter profoundly into the dragon and ask ourselves: “Who am I?” What are our criminal, cannibalistic, homosexual and incestuous impulses? What are they?

            Once we see the dragon, we direct him toward the light, toward virginity, toward the diamond, toward faith, toward everything. I channel my animal toward my spiritual self-realization.

            But what happens to people all too often? They want to kill their anima and awaken their dragon. They want to sit  back with the dragon. The result: they come back with the monster that’s going to destroy the castle.

            There are individuals who have killed the maiden and full of pride return carrying the beast in their arms. You can see them in the supermarket strolling along with their dragon, feeding him fake meat, fake caviar…

            And so it is that this little joke is converted into a good initiating story. Everything can be converted into an initiating story.

Déjà vu

 

A Frenchman and a Belgian are watching a movie.

“I’ll bet you a hundred francs the cowboy on the white horse is going to fall off his horse,” says the Frenchman.

“You’re on,” accepts the Belgian.

Ten minutes later, the cowboy falls off his horse.

“Ok,” the Belgian concedes, “looks like you win a hundred francs.”

“Actually, I already saw the movie,” confesses the Frenchman.

“Me too, but I never would have imagined that the cowboy was going to fall off his horse the second time I watched the movie.”

 

I was wondering what lesson I could extract from this joke when I realized just how often I run into situations like this one. The truth is, they’re everywhere.

            The typical example is the person who declares: “I married a woman who didn’t love me and now she’s left me.”

            Five years later, the same man states, “I married a second woman. She didn’t love me and now she’s abandoned me.”

            Ten years later, the same guy says, “nobody loves me; my third wife just left.”

            You could say he believes the movie recorded in his brain is going to change; meanwhile, he does nothing but emotionally repeat the exact same act. This is a very common occurrence: repetitive cycles.

            I once met a writer who was in love with a woman. He remained in love with her for seven years, at the end of which she married a famous writer. This depressed him quite a bit. He quit writing and began painting. He soon fell in love with another woman. It was a case of impossible love, just as before, because she never devoted herself to him. This situation also lasted seven years, at the end of which the woman married a famous painter. He developed a complex and quit painting. Shortly thereafter, he began to study the flute. He met a woman. He fell in love with her for seven years, but then the woman left him for an orchestra conductor.

            Twenty-one years of impossible love! All because he was trying to escape from what?

            When an impossible love repeats itself over the course of twenty-one years in a row, that indicates that the man in question hates women. It’s as simple as that! God keep me from people who live impossible love! When you talk about impossible love, you’re really talking about hatred, because love is either possible, or it’s not love.

            Now you might think I’m crazy. I’m not… I’m just demented, that’s all.

            In love, there’s a man, a woman, hormones, aromas… all abounding in the air… The forces that unite a couple are a mystery. Attraction is spontaneous. So when a man doesn’t obey the scent it’s because he doesn’t love. In other words, when the aroma arrives, the man says, “No way! I prefer ideal love.” And he remains with his ideal love; he continues to cling to his mother.

            After a shouting match, this man’s brother went directly to the mother’s house. He took a shotgun, stuffed the barrel into her mouth and blew her brains all over her bed…

            A mother calls me and says, “What can I do for my son? He takes drugs, and it hurts me to see him this way…”

            “Of course it does! And that’s precisely why he takes drugs, to make you suffer. What he wants is to ask you for what you never gave him. He’s destroying himself in front of your very eyes in order to show you how you yourself have destroyed him.”

            “You’re right! I never should have done this or that to him”

            “There you go! But it’s never too late. You have to become aware of what’s going on. You have to go and seek his dragon and look for the death impulses that have fed themselves against your son.”

            This woman could just as easily have said, “I wanted to kill my son. Now he’s killing himself in front of my own eyes to show me just how much.

A Marvelous Doctor

 

Two Jewish mothers are chatting:

“My son is a marvelous doctor,” affirms the first. “You absolutely must go and see him!”

“But there’s nothing wrong with me,” replies the other. “Why must I go?”

“He’s such a good doctor,” the first proudly proclaims, “that even if you don’t have anything wrong, he’ll find something wrong with you.”

 

Sometimes we try to help, but doing so, perhaps we do more harm than good by forcing the other to receive something they didn’t ask for.

            A therapist’s job requires extreme delicacy. It’s not an occupation that permits you to shine your own ego, nor polish your fame and celebrity. If you want to cure someone, you have to do so with all due respect, intervene discreetly and never force them to receive your service. When we try to prove we’re some sort of miracle curer, that’s when we cause the most harm.

            God keep us from those who make it their profession to cure with the goal of reaffirming themselves! “I’m nothing, I’m worthless: I need to do something.” As Gurdjieff would say, “they’re so lazy with themselves that they want to help others.”

            It’s pure laziness: I’m unable to cure myself, so I worry about others. It’s at that very moment that catastrophe strikes: I want to affirm myself and I do so based on the other. How? By creating problems that don’t exist for him.

The Smoker and his Fumes.

 

A man and a woman share a compartment on a train. Along the way, the man begins to get hot. He takes off his tie. A little later, due to the fact that he’s feeling even hotter, he takes off his jacket. Then he takes off his shirt, soon followed by his pants and socks. In a matter of seconds, he’s completely nude and the woman, more than disgusted, is on the verge of an attack. Just then, the man takes a cigarette out of his pants pocket and, before lighting up, he courteously asks his traveling companion, “do you mind if I smoke, ma’am?”

 

I don’t know why, but this story strikes me as profound… It deals with the quality of communication between us… Quite often we conduct ourselves in a totally oblivious manner then suddenly, as an act of reflection, by force of habit, we say something so banal as, “do you mind if I smoke?”

            It’s as if all our clumsiness, our offences, our faux pas, etc., that we committed before suddenly didn’t exist… We’re not conscious of the way we communicate with each other.

Good News

 

This is the story of an old singer who has failed in his career. Always awaiting a contract offer, he lives with his wife in a rundown, barely furnished apartment; nevertheless, he has a table and a telephone just in case someone were to call and offer him contract.

One day, the phone rings:
”Is this the home of singer X?”

“Yes.”

“I’m talent agent Z. Singer Y just suffered a heart attack. It’s likely he won’t be able to sing in the concert at the Olympia tomorrow night. We need you to take his place. Do you have a repertoire ready?”

“Yes, of course I do! I’ve got a whole program put together,” responds the old singer, stupefied by his excellent good luck.

“Good! Show up tomorrow at six p.m. at the Olympia.”

“I’ll be there! You can count on me!”

“One more thing,” adds the agent, “we’re still hoping for the rapid recovery of our star. If you don’t hear from us by way of a telegram to the contrary before tomorrow at noon, consider your contract signed!”

“At noon?”

“Yes, twelve noon precisely. From that moment on, we’ll know exactly where we stand,” the agent concludes and hangs up.

Excited as a bug, the singer tirelessly practices his repertoire. He doesn’t stop looking at himself in the mirror for even a moment, confirming all the while that his suit looks good on him. The whole night is torture, during which he prays for the death of his rival. At dawn, the man is exhausted after staying up the entire night. He begs the telephone not to ring. He neither drinks nor eats.

Ten o’clock goes by. Eleven o’clock… Quarter to twelve… Five minutes to noon… Four… Three… One minute… At exactly midday there’s a knock at the door. The old singer goes to open it with tears in his eyes. It’s a telegram. With trembling hands he reads it before the anxious and catastrophic eye of his wife… When he finishes, he triumphantly exclaims, “Don’t worry! Thank God it’s nothing important! My mom just died, that’s all!”

 

This man doesn’t think about anyone but himself. There’s a gap between the world of the emotions and reality. The latter is displaced by the former, which acquires greater importance.

             Sometimes, the creation of those who work on a masterpiece with a clear spirit is suddenly blocked by an emotional gap. The past interferes and prevents them from imagining a positive future when they see a hint of darkness in the present.

The Little Red Man

 

A man arrives in tears at his therapist’s office.

“What’s wrong?” asks the specialist.

“Every night when I go to sleep I dream that a little man in a little red hat and jacket comes to visit me and proposes, ‘Let’s go pee together!’ And I wet the bed every night! I can’t take it any more!” the patient sobs.

“Your case isn’t too serious,” comments the psychoanalyst. “I’m going to give you a solution that will soon free you. The next time the little red man appears, tell him, ‘I already went!’ and then he’ll leave you alone.”

“That’s all there is to it?”

“Yes. Just repeat all day long, ‘I already went,’ to condition your mind to this response.”

The man repeats the sentence all day, on the train, on the subway, in the office, etc., even as he’s going to bed at night just prior to falling asleep.

The next day, he returns, crying, to the therapist.

“What happened? Did you do as I advised you?” inquires the specialist.

“Yes, I did!” the patient replies, between sobs.

“Let’s see… calmly tell me everything that happened.”

“I fell asleep and in a dream the little man in the little red hat and jacket appeared as usual; he said to me, ‘Let’s go pee together!’ and I replied, ‘I already went.”

“And then?” asks the therapist.

“And then the little red man said: ‘Then let’s go poop together!’”

 

In this story, my unconscious questions me. If I have a problem of incontinence, it’s not the little red man that’s responsible. My incontinence is the manifestation of a real problem inside me. So I go to a “guru” or some other type of healer in order to find a solution. I look for someone who can tell me how to suppress the symptom, but in reality I’m shielding myself behind it. I don’t want to know what’s going on with myself.

            For example, my marriage is going bad. I don’t want to be told why it’s going bad. I just want my wife to come back. I want things to go back to the way they were before. I don’t want to change. I don’t want to do the work of introspection. I don’t want to evolve. Zero change!

            When I agree to follow the methods of the “guru,” the bad that I’m able to suppress in one place comes back to haunt me in another. But the truth remains that I haven’t fundamentally improved my state. I don’t resolve the problem by changing a symptom, rather by working on myself.

            Below is an example of how to work on oneself.

            A young woman gave birth to a baby prematurely, in her seventh month of pregnancy. I advised her to keep the baby attached to her skin for several hours a day. She followed my recommendation.

            “This has done well for my baby, but how long do I have to keep him next to me?” she asked.

            “Two months,” I replied, “the time to complete the cycle that he didn’t live in your womb.”

            Later, the young woman told me that the baby was getting better, but his three-year-old brother was reacting negatively.

            “I suppose his behavior is normal,” she added. “I can’t just reject him or insist that he not be jealous. The boy is only three years old. And he suffers.”

            “Have him participate!” I suggested.

            “First the baby, then the child?”

            “No, not at all. Share. In a family, nothing is  experienced in isolation. Problems are shared. Problems are collective. Therefore, when you give the baby your breast, hold your child close to your left side. That way he too will hear your heart beat and enter in paradise.”

            Another problem presented itself. The older brother was included, but now what about the father? I advised the young woman, “Place the father beside the child!”

            The relationship with the mother’s skin is beneficial, but what about the relationship with the father’s skin? Contemporary psychoanalysis talks about the mother’s skin, without ever referring to the father. Nevertheless, most women know the odor of their father’s armpit. During infancy they curl up in their father’s arms, with their noses in his armpit. Even though it may smell bad, for them it’s a sort of divine perfume. When we have a father, his odor is divine. The father’s skin and his physical presence are just as important as the mother’s. Therefore, in a family with children, we need skin-to-skin contact.

            At first, maybe there were problems with the delivery. Later, the mother didn’t have skin-to-skin contact with her baby and now she doesn’t want it. The job at hand is to overcome the rejection. Rejection of contact is one thing; realization of this rejection is another. And to decide not to give in to this rejection (which, after all, doesn’t correspond to our essence) is yet another. Thus, the woman becomes conscious of her rejection of contact, but she vanquishes it. It’s possible that working in this manner, to combat these impulses, the woman might feel bad. Still, once she’s able to overcome this uneasiness, everything works itself out.

           If this mother adds other members of the family, she would build a great pile… I like to see families like great big naked balls where everybody is arm in arm, immobile, in a big bunch. A complete family, arm in arm. A complete family tree, including grandparents, great grandparents, father, mother, children, aunts and uncles… everyone arm in arm and open!

Energy Spheres

 

Two psychiatrists are having a conversation. One is much older than the other, but he finds himself in great shape. In contrast, his colleague is exhausted to the extreme.

“I don’t understand,” suggests the younger psychiatrist, “how you can listen to all those half-crazy patients all day long and not be affected by it.”

“And who listens to them?” replies the older psychiatrist, as he takes out his Energy Spheres. *

 

The veteran psychiatrist is sharing a lesson with us. In general terms, people don’t normally want anything more than a presence. The person speaking to you is effectively speaking to themselves. They don’t demand that you listen, only that you perform the act of being present and maintain complete calm. While the other person is unloading their problems, think of the people who are important to you and fly! Put yourself in the eternal state of being! From the perspective of eternity, who cares if people tell you whatever it is they’re telling you?

            By the time I was fifty years old, my filmmaking career had arrived at its end. But at sixty it started up again when someone proposed a film to me. Even though I never asked him, he paid me to make the film. As for me, I make myself see these things coming. From the perspective of eternity and at the point in life where I find myself right now, this almost doesn’t affect me at all. Success, failure… I have my Energy Spheres in hand.

            Someone once told me, “Why should I make more money? I can only eat two steaks a day!”

            With or without the film, I already make a decent living.

            Life offers many surprising changes, you shouldn’t turn a deaf ear to all the opportunities that arise unexpectedly… For example, my wife tells me she’s leaving me in December. I accept it. I take out my Energy Spheres; I put a halt to stress and worry. What day is today? October 8. I still have November and December, as well as another three weeks in October. I have almost three months of problem-free living. Three months without problems, that’s great! I have her, she’s still at home.

            I once suffered a terrible anguish related to death. It was crazy. Until the age of forty I couldn’t accept the idea that my life was going to stop. But one day I said to myself, “I’ve had it! This story isn’t for me. What do I love most in the world? Life, and I suffer because one day I’m going to lose all I have. I’m disposed to give everything, absolutely everything, to live, and therefore I have what I love most in the world. Consequently, I choose to live, I’m going to be content every second. From now on, every second will be a gift, a jewel, and I’ll live it as such.” I no longer pay attention to that anguish; it does me absolutely no good. Although we possess a dark side in our interior, I’m not going to give in to mine. I’ll live the best I can and that’s all there is to it. If I triumph or not, Energy Spheres; if this or that happens to me, Energy Spheres… I live with delight the seconds I have at my disposal.

            If I adore a woman, to spend a minute with her is like an eternity, and an hour is a marvel. I’ll cross the ocean to spend 24 hours with her; if I’m a woman, I’m capable of doing the same for a man.

            You can cross the entire planet just to spend 24 hours with the person you love. Now then, you have three months ahead of you! That’s a lot! In the course of those three months, anything can happen, since the being you love is by your side.

 

* Chinese metal spheres, also known as chi, which are rotated and alternated in the palm of the hand for therapeutic purposes or for meditation and relaxation.

City Lights

 

A pair of lovers is in Algiers. The night is perfectly clear and at their feet unfolds the magnificent bay, with its dark waters and a great arc formed by the city lights.

“Look at all those lights, dear!” exclaims the young woman. “So many people living, loving, cooking, watching tv, talking, sleeping…”

“Well,” her companion intervenes, “I thought all those little luminous points were just street lights.”

 

These two people observe exactly the same reality but their readings of it are completely different.

            Jokes are the same for everyone, but each person understands them and interprets them as they like. The same holds true for the sacred books… they’re the same for everybody, but each person interprets them only as they can and want to. In this joke, the man’s perception is less rich than the woman’s.

            Based on my sensitivity, the world is rich or poor. I can see one aspect of reality or I can se another.

            It doesn’t matter if the world is poorer for me. What’s important is that my vision isn’t yours and, instead of arguing over it or trying to convert the matter into a question of arm-twisting, that we share our viewpoints.

            An amorous, friendly, or family relationship does not have as its goal a common viewpoint. Rather it has to do with being able to share our differing points of view.

            “I’m sorry you smoke. That’s my point of view. If you do so, too bad for you.”

            “I’m sorry you don’t smoke. You deprive yourself of a great pleasure. Too bad for you.”

            Each of us has the right to think what we want, but we also have the right to share those thoughts with one another. We need to tell each other what we think, not fight for a common point of view.

            A harmonious couple is one that shares their differences, in which neither member has the hypocrisy to play the part in which they’re similar to the other in all respects.

            Undoubtedly, in general terms, women are the ones who typically play this part, given that men are such egomaniacs.

            “Come on! The world is this way!” affirms the man.

            “Oh dear, you’re absolutely right,” adds the woman.

            But the woman thinks the opposite. For her, he’s like that and no other way. To live with this man, she imitates him and sets a trap for herself. Or vice versa:

            “I want a spiritual man,” sustains the woman.

            “That’s me,” confirms the man.

            “Write me a poem!”

            “Here you have it!”

            I make myself out to be a poet, even though I’m not.

            At first, when a couple hasn’t yet evolved, there’s a great neurosis: both members wear masks to make each other mutually agreeable. But then the moment arrives when they perceive their differences because the masks fall off. Since they can’t tolerate the difference, they’re overcome by catastrophe: “I thought you were this way, but you’re not. I thought you were like me and now, suddenly, I realize you’re different. I can’t deal with that!”

            Before, we pretended to be twins, which was not reality. Now our union has gone bad, the moment has arrived to improve it and see each other unmasked, to recognize my will and your will, and to come to an agreement in which nobody loses. A psychologist once said, “the solution in which somebody loses isn’t a solution at all.”

            When one of the members of a couple talks of sacrifice, it’s not a true couple. When someone in a family talks of sacrifice, it’s not a true family. A true family is complete joy.

One More Banana

 

A woman on a subway is carrying a large package of bananas in her arms. At one of the stops, a ton of people get on board. As she’s jostled about, she tries to hold on to her package. Somehow or other, she manages to do so by placing one arm beneath the package and the other above it. The hand below the package firmly holds on to a banana. After passing several stations in this position, she hears a little man’s voice tell her, “Ma’am, could you please let go of me? I’m getting off at the next station.”

 

Sometimes we find ourselves carrying our package of bananas in one way or another and everything begins to fall. Resisting, we cling to false gimmicks. We believe we’re holding on to God but in reality we’re holding on to sex, to passion. Without realizing it, we reassure ourselves by grabbing on to something that is an approximation of what we want.

            “Here’s your purple sweater!” the salesperson assures you.

            “But no… it’s blue…” you, the buyer, state.

            “It’s the light that gives you that impression. It’s almost purple! The truth is, we don’t have a purple sweater… on the other hand, take a look at this yellow one! It looks great on you. Try it on! For the cold, a yellow sweater is just as good as a purple one!”

The result: you wanted one thing and you ended up with another, an approximation. As for me, I plan to take the thing, never the approximation. Do you look for the approximation or the thing? The work you do, the meditation, the spiritual work, material work, corporeal work, etc., does it truly correspond to what you desire? Do you eat the cake you want or the one that looks like it? Although you’re only a quarter inch from the center, the truth is you’re not in the center and, therefore, you do not find yourself on the path.

Another aspect of the same trap can be found in the act of taking the approximation for the thing itself. The following story exemplifies just such a trap:

A monk used to brag about how his arrows always hit their targets regardless of the prevailing conditions.

“But that’s not possible!” the others incredulously exclaim.

“Sure… behind the back, in the dark, or from whatever position, each time I shoot, the arrow will always hit the bulls eye,” the monk boastfully affirms.

The others demand a demonstration. The monk immediately shoots an arrow. It crashes against a wall. The second hits the ceiling, and the third ends up on the couch.

“But… none of them hit the bulls eye,” state the others.

“Of course they did, look! It’s quite simple,” explains the monk, taking a little paint and drawing a circle around each arrow.

This story is dedicated to those people who believe that, regardless of what they do, they’re always on the money. Either we carry out actions that are truly on the money or we think in the following manner: “given that I do it, this can be nothing but perfect.”

Three Glasses of Champagne

 

A married couple is having a conversation at a cocktail party.

“It’s amazing how three glasses of champagne can transform you!” says the husband tenderly.

“But… I’ve had nothing to drink!” comments the surprised wife.

“But I have.”

 

This joke in which three glasses of champagne are drunk and consequently reality is seen in a different light reminds me of the maxim, In vino veritas. If we perform psychological and spiritual work, our reality and our vision change (the three glasses of champagne symbolize profound intellectual work, emotional work, and sexual work).

            Although the woman was probably perfect before, her husband needed to drink the three glasses of champagne to see the truth.

On one occasion, a therapist came to see me:

“Business is bad. I don’t know what to do.” he said.

“Money does not exist in and of itself,” I suggested, remembering the above joke, “it’s an invention.” We work with “raw materials.” If you try to find diamonds in the horrendous mines of Brazil, you can behave like a scoundrel. If you become a prostitute, you can become cold in human relations. If you’re an unscrupulous shopkeeper, you can engage in shady or vulgar business. If you play the stock market, you can arrange things like a pirate. Your “raw material” will give you the money and the attitude that correspond to you. But if you work in the psychological domain, doing therapy, interpreting the tarot or doing some other type of therapeutic work, and people reveal their human problems to you, you can’t behave like a diamond trader, or a prostitute, or an unscrupulous shopkeeper, or like a stockbroker. The situation changes completely. It’s essential to earn people’s trust and not think in terms of customers or profits. It’s necessary to drink the three glasses, to work on three levels… in a single word, to change!

            I know a therapist who took a marketing class. Now, when he elaborates his ads to promote his psychology classes, he always adds to the margin observations such as, “Great novelty!” “A true gift!” “Last chance!” “Act now to take advantage of our benefits!” etc. I don’t know what type of students he’s going to attract… better yet, he should open up a supermarket therapy chain…

            So, be careful, careful, and careful!

With the foot on the brake

 

A man becomes angry when his wife tells him that her car got stuck one morning because of the cold weather:

“Come on! That mechanic ripped you off charging you a fortune just to tow you a mile down the road! That’s impossible!”

“Yeah, you’re right… but you know, my dear, I didn’t give him anything for free. I had my foot on the brake the whole time!”

 

In the café where I do my tarot reading just prior to my weekly conference, a woman sits down before me and asks me to read her cards. I invite her to shuffle the deck, saying nothing more. So what does she do? She mixes the cards up and turns them around and around, leaving some right side up and others upside down. I immediately ask her to hand me the deck. But instead of doing so in such a way that the cards would be aligned between us, in other words, creating a union between us, she lays them transversally between us. Unconsciously, she’s creating a barrier between us. Then, instead of turning over the cards like you would the pages of a book, she does so by turning them over from the top, causing a totally backwards reading.

“Why do you want me to read the tarot for you?” I ask.

“Someone at the other table read my cards,” she replies, “but I don’t agree with what they told me. I want a different answer.”

Just like the woman in the car, she wants to be towed a mile down the road without taking her foot off the brake because she doesn’t accept the answer, or the error, or the doubt.

“You’re wondering if you’ve got the right position where you work,” I suggest. “In reality, what you’re asking for is an explanation of your relationship with your boss. Actually, you’ve slipped him the figure of your father.”

“My father just died.”

“Of course. And that’s why you find yourself in the midst of so much conflict. Instead of letting your boss crush you, look for an uplifting father figure… When we’re children, one of two things can happen to us: we can be destroyed by adults or we can find adults who help us grow. Look for leaders who help you and not those who crush you like your father did.”

            We want to cure ourselves, but we don’t help our therapist at all.

            In marital disputes, how many times have we been told to improve our relationship, but we just keep our foot on the brake? Nobody makes concessions. We go on for months or years without making them, until one day “the hormone” grabs us… Then, in bed, we think we’ve found each other once again; we’ve overcome our differences. Nevertheless, once the moment’s gone, we go right back to braking without having resolved the conflict at all.

The Traffic Jam.

 

Reclining comfortably in front of their tent, two Bedouins relax alongside an oasis in the middle of the desert. Suddenly, the noise of a car can be heard in the distance and the Bedouins see an automobile pass by.

“If things keep up as they are, we’re going to end up with traffic jams! That’s the second car that’s been through here in three months,” one of them observes.

 

For some people, an event is enormous. For others, accustomed to a much broader way of thinking, the same event is no big deal.

            Before devoting myself to my spiritual development, I had a difficult time understanding this concept. I was so closed in my own little oasis in my own little desert that the immensity of divine or social themes, the broadness of the world, never entered in the narrowness of my being. For lack of experience, I found myself surprisingly limited.

            Without experience, we look at the world with a jaundiced eye and everything seems to be “too much” for us. But when we go from the automobile to the airplane, this “too much” turns out to be “nothing at all.”

            Gurdjieff recalls:

I asked a man to walk fifty miles in the middle of a blizzard. He obeyed and walked that distance in circles. Completely exhausted, having arrived at the limit of his strength, he knocked at my door and said, “I’ve done it.” So I then ordered him to begin all over again. The man reinitiated the walk, convinced that he would die of exhaustion. Nevertheless, when he finished the second round I found him in great shape. He said, “I’ve finished. Shall I start over?”

 

Gurdjieff sustained that there exists a certain level of fatigue that must be surpassed in order to enter in the next higher energy level, which, in other circumstances, we could never allow to circulate.

            We can say that human beings dispose of a very low level of energy and that they never surpass the threshold of their capabilities. When they surpass it they begin to suffer… they get depressed. They feel like they’re dying. Then we say, “Keep going! Push harder! Do it again!”

            I worked with Arno on the script for a comic strip called “The one handed prince.” While in a trance, I recorded the story on tape. He put the tape away and later lost it. Instead of getting upset, I committed myself to starting all over. I recorded the same story a second time and the result was much better.

            The same thing happened with the novel I wrote in two months. I only had that amount of time to get it to the publisher. I bought a word processor and began writing. Since I didn’t know how to use this new machine, the first chapter got erased four times… and I was under the gun! I had to start all over each time completely unnerved. By the fourth time I found myself in pure ecstasy, because that version was the best of all.

            My first marriage failed. So did the second, the third, the fourth and the fifth. In the sixth, instead of entering into it totally worn out, I’ve arrived fresher than ever and everything is working out just fine.

            I suffer, I suffer, I suffer, and, suddenly, I overcome the suffering because I realize that pain is one thing and suffering another totally different. I suffer, I suffer, I suffer, and, suddenly, I realize that this suffering is the result of the pain that I myself amplify.

            One day, in 1960, I was walking down the street with a very timid boy. A parade of students from the school of fine arts advanced toward us. There were about five hundred students partying, complete with a band and everything.

            “Let’s surpass our limits! Let’s stop this parade!” I suggested to the boy.

            “What???” replied my shy companion, amazed.

            “Sure! We’re going to stop it.”

            “No!!!”

            I just sort of went crazy. I stood up in front of the parade, raised my hand energetically, making a signal to stop, and in a categorical voice cried out: “Halt!”

            Immediately the parade stopped… and I didn’t quite know what to do. So I stepped aside and said, “Move along!”

            We stepped aside simply because we didn’t have a valid reason to stop the students. It wasn’t important for the parade to stop. Five hundred people… nothing more than a little experiment.

            If we can immobilize a parade, there’s no doubt that we can demand lots of things of ourselves.

            We should take a look at the domains in which we’re small in order to surpass our limits. In this respect, Luna taught me a great lesson.

            Luna was a Mexican comic. He made all Mexico laugh. We put together an excellent show and got a contract to present it in Paris, in la Comédie des Champs-Elysées.

            Back then (between 1960 and 1962), the Mexican comic was known as a cross between Marceau and Belmondo. Arriving in Paris, Luna immediately rented a huge apartment in Neuilly. He took photos of himself in front of all the monuments in the French capital. He set aside these photos in an album for his great grandchildren. After the first show, it was said that Luna only had Belmondo’s teeth and nothing of Marceau, except the whiteness of his face. The show was a total catastrophe.

            Next, Luna quietly collected his clothes, pretended to unpack his suitcase –to leave unnoticed— and left without paying a cent. He returned to Mexico with complete serenity. The calm with which he swallowed his failure was incredible.

            Without a cent to his name, he bought nothing less than a Cadillac. He went out in his new car to look for work, and he found it, thanks to a poster where it was written: “Luna triumphs in France.”  And we made the show triumph in Mexico, because Luna was in his element there.

            He never let himself get knocked down, but just kept on riding the great train of life. Each time Luna had economic problems, he bought himself a Cadillac.

The Deaf Worker.

 

A worker goes to the hospital to visit his boss. Over the years, the worker has become deaf, but since he’s afraid his deafness might cost him his job, he tries to hide it from his boss. Before meeting him, he prepares his visit, silently rehearsing the following dialogue:

“How are you doing, sir?” I will ask.

“Very well, thank you,” he’ll reply.

“That’s great! And what have you been eating?” I’ll continue.

“Fruit,” he’ll respond, since he’s sick.

“Who is your doctor?” I’ll ask very courteously.

“The best,” he’ll affirm, after which I’ll take my leave with another word or two.

Once he arrives at the hospital, the worker has the following conversation with his boss:

“How are you doing, sir?” asks the worker.

“I’m dying!” replies the boss.

“Ah! Praise God. And what have you been eating?”

“Poison!”

“I hope you’ve been enjoying it! Who’s your doctor?”

“The angel of death!”

“Well that’s great!”

 

Quite often we’re deaf to what people say to us. Without listening to others we anticipate their response and think we’re communicating. It’s important not to attribute a response to someone when it’s not their own, because the reply we’ll receive won’t be the one we expected.

            It’s for this very reason that some people are suddenly abandoned when talking to others. They end up surprised at what’s happened to them and think, “I’ve been abandoned!”

            Actually, we can just as easily tell them: “Not at all. In fact it was you who chased the other person away.”

The Onion and the Weeping Willow.

 

One day an onion bumped into a weeping willow. Frightened, he exclaimed, “My god! I hope it wasn’t my fault!”

 

This joke is pure poetry. How often do we think we’re the ones who produce reality despite the fact that it has nothing to do with us? We tell ourselves, “What happened is my fault,” or, “It’s my fault such and such has committed suicide. I destroyed them.”

            Nevertheless, with or without the onion, the weeping willow will always be the weeping willow.

Everything, Except My Toothbrush!

 

A Jew boards a train for Vienna. A distinguished Englishman shares his compartment. At mealtime, the Englishman takes out a sandwich.

“Sir, would you be so kind as to spare me a piece of your sandwich? I’m hungry and I forgot to pack a lunch,” states the Jew timidly.

“Sure,” replies the Englishman, offering half his sandwich to his companion.

A little later, the travelers prepare for bed.

“Sir, could you please let me use some shaving cream? I seem to have forgotten mine,” solicits the Jew.

The Englishman accepts and loans him his can of shaving cream. The moment he’s about to get under the covers, however, he hears his traveling companion ask with complete self-assurance:

“Sir, could you please loan me a shirt? I forgot to bring my pajamas.”

Irritated, the Englishman hands the insolent traveler a shirt, precipitating yet another petition:

“Could you also lend me your toothbrush? I forgot mine.”

“Everything, except my toothbrush!” thunders the angry Englishman. “You will never use my toothbrush!”

“There’s no need to get angry. I haven’t asked you for the Moon,” the Jew explains, a bit upset.

The night goes by without another word between the two men. The next day they arrive in Vienna. The Jew’s wife meets him at the station.

“How was your trip?” she asks.

“The trip was fine, but I had the misfortune to travel with an anti-Semite.”

 

Sometimes we find ourselves overly demanding. We want the other person to give us everything and the more they give us, the more we ask of them. We make overwhelming demands. When the other person tires and stops giving, we think they’re selfish.

            In my book of panic fables I tell a story that my mother lived through in Chile. In those days, my parents were socialists. They wanted to help people.

            One day, a young alcoholic knocked on the door of my folks’ house. My mother dressed him from head to toe. The young man left and immediately went out and sold his new clothes. Later, completely drunk and dressed like a vagabond, he showed up at my parents’ house again. My mother said, “When we begin something, we have to see it through to the end.” She dressed the boy again, but the next morning he came back inebriated and dressed like a beggar. My mother was not disheartened. For a third time she bought him new clothes, but had no more success than the previous times. The young man came back drunk. She told him, “Enough! Get out of here, you don’t deserve to be helped!” The young man was furious that he didn’t receive a new set of clothes and threw a rock through the window of my parents’ shop to avenge himself.

            When we begin to give, there comes a moment when we need to say, “Enough! I’ve given you enough! I’m not going to give you my toothbrush!”

“Wicked master! You have to see it through. You have to give everything!”

 

Our black cat died. She had a blood disease that caused her to become weaker by the day. Finally, one night she just died in my wife’s arms. Afterwards, we noticed the fleas abandoning the corpse. It turned out to be such a quantity of fleas that we had to bomb the entire house with insecticide to get rid of them.

            It didn’t matter that the fleas had lived on the cat. They ate of her blood and left the body once it was used up. When the master stopped giving, they immediately went someplace else.

            Watching their desertion was a great lesson for me. Instead of sucking her blood without offering any form of compensation, the fleas should have helped the cat maintain her health. They should have taken care of her, given her something to help her overcome the illness in order to be able to live a lot longer on her.

            I’m not against humanity, but I observe that, just like the fleas, we tend to take everything without giving anything in return.

Abraham’s Agony.

 

Abraham is on his deathbed. His entire family is there to accompany him in his final moment. The dying man opens an eye and asks in a trembling voice:

“Is Joseph here?”

“Yes, I’m here father.”

“And my dear wife?”

“I’m right here,” replies his wife.

“And my brother is here too?”

“Right here,” says his brother.

“And my daughter and youngest son?”

“We’re all here,” reply the kids.

“Everyone’s here, right?”

“Yes, we’re all here.”

“Then, in the name of God!” exclaims Abraham summoning all his strength, “if everyone is here, who’s watching the store?”

 

Undoubtedly there must be something sacred about this story, because it’s told on the streets of Jerusalem.

            I interpret it by supposing that the members of Abraham’s family symbolize my different parts, all present at the moment I make the great mutation of my ego toward my indeterminate Self, my undefined Self… at the moment I’m dying to myself. During the lapse that I effect this enormous mutation, if all my parts are worried about the ego that’s being transformed, who’s taking care of the work? Why abandon the work because of emotional, intellectual, economic, or other types of concerns? I insist that the work must go on constantly! That’s what Abraham is saying.

            This same message is found in the legends of Buddha. When Buddha was meditating, he cut off his eyelids to keep his eyes open and threw them to the ground. A plant grew out of the spot where his eyelids fell.

            We also find the idea of the person who never sleeps in the description of the lion kept in the bestiaries of the Middle Ages. In those days, when science was of little importance, one of the great qualities attributed to the lion was that he never closed his eyes. It was said that the lion was eternally present, with his eyes wide open.

            That’s constant attention to the job at hand.

Let It Be Known…

 

One day the plant manager of a factory puts up signs in all the offices that read the following message: “Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today.”

Immediately the secretaries rush to his office to demand a raise, the workers go on strike to protest working conditions, and the cashiers make off with all the money in their registers.

 

This story perfectly shows how things have different meanings for everybody. We confirm things without realizing that our confirmations could have a completely different meaning for those who hear us.

            Let’s begin with the principle that you shouldn’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today. We want there to be a consensus on the matter, but unexpectedly we find that someone else interprets that sentence in a completely different way.

            Likewise, I find people that cling to their principles, thinking that they represent reality. The result: they project them on their surroundings and clash with everyone else, perhaps because others don’t have the same principles, or because they have a different interpretation of those principles.

            There are men who think their wives have left them, although the truth is that it was they who, without realizing it, drove them away.

The Ten-Franc Coin.

 

A mother impatiently awaits her son Abraham. The boy has to leave for school in a half hour. Finally, he comes home.

“Why are you late?” the mother asks. “Did the Rabbi’s Hebrew class run a little longer than usual?”

“No, that’s not it. I was delayed in the street,” Abraham replies.

“Why?”

“Because a woman lost a ten-franc coin.”

“Ah! You were late because you helped her look for her coin? What a good boy you are.”

“No, not at all,” Abraham clarifies. “I couldn’t move for a half hour because I was standing on the coin, so I had to wait for her to tire of looking for it and leave.”

 

Basically, this boy has done exactly the same as the hunchback who hunted cicadas in The true classic of the empty void, by Liu Tseou, a contemporary of Lao-Tse. Here’s the story of the hunchback:

 

“How can you catch so many cicadas?” someone asks him. “Most people can’t even catch a single one of them.”

“I used to be a juggler, and I worked with four or five balls,” he replied. “Then, I kept the balls in equilibrium. Eventually, I abandoned the balls and left for the country, where I remained perfectly still, without even moving a millimeter. One day the cicadas came and thought I was a tree. At that point, I just had to close my hand to catch them.”

 

I have a ten-franc coin under my shoe. Ten is also a figure of unity… which makes me find this story, in spite of everything, religious in nature. Still, at their foundations all Jewish stories are religious.

            This story isn’t about a theft, rather about complete concentration. I put my foot on this unity and I don’t move. Come what may, I am here, present. All my attention and all my being are here. I conceal my position, but I’m conscious, totally centered on myself. Without ceding or getting discouraged, I remain in place. My attention is complete. Then, I quickly take my unity.

            The other day someone told me, “It’s strange, but basically I realized I need to distract myself a lot, because I can’t concentrate on myself.”

            I consider this joke to be the typical example of total concentration on myself, on my internal wealth.

Twin Sisters.

 

In his wife’s absence, a man has her twin sister over to his house. At that very moment, his wife enters unexpectedly and finds them in bed together. Furious, she screams, “Pig! I can’t imagine what you find sexy in such an ugly woman!”

 

Our viewpoint is subjective. We do not perceive reality exactly as it presents itself… Our perception is affected by our emotions leaving us to maneuver about the world by subjective value judgments.

            When I was preparing The Sacred Mountain, I locked myself up in a house 24 hours a day for seven months with the actors from the film. We barely got four hours of sleep each night, since we were constantly working the rest of the time. Fridays were “objective days.” We couldn’t say anything subjective; for example, “Yum. This spinach is good” or “I’m thirsty” or “I’m hot.” Instead, we would say, “water,” “answer the phone.” Obviously, “ok” and “good morning” were out of the question.

            Furthermore, whenever someone would say something subjective, a big bell was rung. On Fridays, the bell never stopped ringing. Finally, we came to realize that ninety-nine percent of our ideas about the world were subjective.

            You can try the experiment at home; but living an “objective day” isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do. You’ll surprise yourself when you corroborate with the fact that we perpetually make all kinds of value judgments about everything.

            We live in these value judgments and in a world that, in general, has nothing objective. The joke at hand is an excellent reminder of this fact.

Smile, please!

 

In a chemical factory, a worker in the tear gas section appears before his boss weeping profusely.

“I can’t go on like this any longer! You have to give me a raise,” suggests the crying employee.

“I can’t give you a raise, but I do want to see you smile… From tomorrow on, you’re changing sections and will be working with laughing gas,” replies the boss.

 

This joke is similar to an ancient Hindu story:

 

The monkeys in a zoo go on strike, considering themselves to be poorly fed. They’re given four nuts in the morning and three in the afternoon. Someone quickly resolves the situation telling them, “from now on, you’ll be given three nuts in the morning and four in the afternoon.”

The monkeys are quite satisfied with the new arrangement.

 

Occasionally, we think we’ve found a miraculous solution to our life’s problems, but the truth is we’re fooling ourselves. The new solution brings us to the exact same situation as before, but under a different appearance. The problem hasn’t been solved at all. The only thing that’s been resolved is a certain form. In other words, we’re happy for no valid reason whatsoever.

            In a book about Lacan, Cent-trente-deux bons mots avec Lacan, I found the story of a man who felt content because he thought he was cured, whereas Lacan considered him to be ill precisely because he thought he was cured:

 

“Doctor, I’m fully aware of my psychosis,” says the patient.

“Ah, evidently you are a happy man,” notes Lacan.

Later, once the patient leaves his office, the psychoanalyst says to himself, “There’s a happy man. He seems cured. In my opinion, that’s the most dangerous part.”

 

I apply this story to the man who works in the tear gas section and is transferred to laughing gas: “I’ve suffered a lot in my life, but now, that’s over! Today, I laugh and am very enthusiastic… But the problem’s still there. I haven’t worked it out at all. The only thing I’ve changed is my attitude, from negative to positive, but what good does that do? The wound is still there.”

            As long as the wounds from childhood don’t learn to laugh at themselves, nothing has been fixed. The wound must convert itself into a laughing mouth. But if it’s you who’s laughing whereas your wound continues to bleed, you’re lying to yourself.

Can you spare me some money, please?

 

Jacob runs into Abraham in the street.

“My friend, do you have a little money you can lend me?” solicits Jacob.

“No, I don’t have any on me,” responds Abraham.

“And in your shop? Do you have any money there?” insists Jacob.

“No. I just closed and deposited the money in the bank.”

“And at your house?” adds Jacob desperately.

“At my house everything is fine, thank you.”

 

This story has a lesson that’s quite Zen. You are not obligated to reply on the same wavelength as the person you’re speaking with.

            By your own effort, you can reach a certain elevated level. When you find yourself running into people from your past, it doesn’t take you long to realize that they have remained at a stage that no longer corresponds to your own, but to which they want you to assimilate. They ask you questions as a function of their own level and you fall into the trap. You reply to them on their own terms, and at that moment, they’ve got you.

            When they interrogate you, you’re under no obligation to reply at all. You can evade the question by asking yourself as a form of answer, or by changing level or meaning.

            “And at your house, do you have any money?” the other asks you.

            “At my house, everything is fine, thank you,” is your reply.

            By this answer, you change the subject and the other doesn’t get you. Why let someone else, anybody else, corral us into the trap of their projection?

            In the end, who catches you in the trap? The others present it to you, they tempt you, but you’re the one who jumps into the trap with both feet… or who doesn’t! You pay dearly for a little bit of human warmth.

            Unless you yourself remain a perpetual trap trying to trap others, to bleed them dry or to crush them…

The Sex of Flies.

 

An elderly woman goes into a pet shop to buy two blackbirds.

“I’d like two blackbirds please, a male and a female,” the woman explains to the salesman. “But before I buy them, I’d like to know how to tell them apart.”

“That’s easy, ma’am,” replies the salesman, “you simply buy two flies, a male and a female. The bird that eats the female is your male and the one that eats the male would be the female.”

“You’re absolutely right, it is easy! I’ll take the two blackbirds. Then I’ll go look for the two flies.”

The elderly woman leaves the pet shop with the pair of blackbirds, but returns ten minutes later.

“I’ve got a little problem!” suggests the dismayed woman to the salesman.

“What’s that?”

“I can’t tell the sex of flies.”

“I see. And what would you like for me to do about it? I can’t tell them apart either. Go ask a fly salesperson.”

 

This woman buys the two blackbirds like a disciple in search of the truth.

            We seek the truth by directing ourselves toward someone. They tell us: “You want to know how to tell the male from the female? I’ve got the answer!”

            But it just so happens that they don’t know the truth at all. They tell us to go ask someone else.

            And so from truth to truth, we relive our infantile experience, when we tried to verify the truth about sexuality. The only masturbation material at hand was a dictionary. There we looked up “sex” and they send us to “ovum.” Then we look up “ovum” and they send us to “sperm.” We look up “sperm” and they send us who knows where. In this manner, we feverishly cover the whole dictionary in one day without ever finding out about what it was we wanted to know.

            In the domain of knowledge, the same holds true. We’re sent to some master or guru, but always left thirsty for realization.

 

The Neighbor’s Wallpaper.

A young married couple moves into a new apartment. Since the couple wants to redo the dining room wallpaper, they go to see a neighbor, who has a dining room the same size as theirs.

“Neighbor, we want to change the wallpaper in our dining room, just as you have. How many rolls of wallpaper did you buy?”

“Seven,” replies the neighbor kindly.

Based on this information, the young newlyweds buy expensive rolls of top quality wallpaper and begin to redress their walls. Upon finishing the fourth roll, the dining room is completely papered. Furious for having uselessly spent a fortune, they go back to see their neighbor.

“We followed your advice about the wallpaper, but we can’t understand why we’re left with three rolls of paper!”

“That happened to you, too?” answers the neighbor, surprised.

We humans are not all identical. Another person’s experience is not our own. His experience has certain virtues and defects for us.

            Prior to giving a conference, I was approached by somebody who wanted to talk to me.

            “I don’t have any time right now,” I said.

            “Ok. But next time I come you can tell me what I need to do.”

            “No, I can’t tell you what you should do,” I explained. “I can’t advise you because the solution to your problem has to come from you yourself. My solution is mine. The trick is to avoid being lazy! If I can take the time necessary to contemplate the solution to a problem, you can do so as well.”

            The young couple should measure their walls before buying paper. Why ask the neighbor? Why ask him about his experience? Obviously they should ask him. His answer can be enriching, but at the same time we need to carry out our own act, to take our own measures. His word isn’t enough. And this is true not because the other wants to or can lie to us, rather because we are the other.

            A pregnant woman asks her mother, “Mom, how will my delivery go?”

            “When you open your legs, be careful not to raise them too much. Also, you don’t want to over-contract, but I did contract my abdomen and everything went ok. Just do exactly the same as I did, and everything will be fine.”

            The daughter makes the same movements and they don’t work for her at all. It’s a catastrophe. What the mother did has absolutely no bearing on what the daughter must do. We need to understand that nobody, except we ourselves, can know how to bring our own child into this world. You can’t ask for advice!

            We can, of course, try to learn about the experience of someone else:

            “How did it go for you?”

            “For me it went a certain way.”

            Still, it’s impossible to say, “since it went that way for me, it will be the same for you.”

            A young woman gave birth to a daughter in the seventh month of her pregnancy. She asked me why. I replied: “Ask your mother.” That’s what she did and her mother answered: “You were born prematurely, in the seventh month.” This mother transmitted her vital experience to her daughter, as though it were dogma. The daughter received the dogma and reproduces her mother’s life. There’s no difference; it’s an attack against life.

            We need to be very careful in order to avoid working as others, especially our parents and, even worse, our friends and anybody else. We need to build our own experiences.

            That’s the lesson I get out of this joke. It’s about a good piece of advice that should not be taken at face value as a result of mere laziness.

            “Given that my brother acts in a certain way, I do the same: I imitate him. You must understand that I imitate him because he’s the preferred child and I want to be loved as much as he.”

            We need to be conscious of why we imitate and why we want to be like the other.

Six Very Long Days.

A company’s personnel manager calls Sanchez’ old boss:

“Can you tell me exactly how long Mr. Sanchez worked for you?”

“Yes, he worked exactly six days.”

“What? Sanchez just now came to see me and told me he was with you for two years!”

“That’s right, but you asked me exactly how long he worked for me.”

I apply this to myself. If I had truly worked the entire time I’ve given myself, I’d be able to levitate by now. I’d be ten feet off the floor, legs crossed, full of joy, emitting luminous rays and saying: “Don’t worry about a thing; don’t be anguished; give me your anguish and I’ll give you happiness. Give me your money and I’ll give you security; possess nothing; when you have nothing, you’re secure. There you have the truth; give me your being, because I am being.

            To arrive at this point, I’d have needed to work on it my entire life.

            In reality, if I had wished to become what I truly wanted, I’d have needed to work on it my entire life. But I was lazy… incredibly lazy. As a result of my laziness I didn’t develop myself as much as I’d have liked.

            I advise young people who wish for something to apply themselves immediately, because we have the unfortunate tendency to waste a lot of time and fool ourselves. We tell ourselves: “I’m working” when the truth is we’re not. “I’m meditating” when the truth is we don’t meditate, but rather think about everything under the sun. “I’m doing this or that” but the truth is we’re not doing anything. We don’t do anything we want!

            Here’s a little piece of advice: think about what you want to do and do it immediately. Right now, put your future in the present!

            “Some day I’ll start saving and investing.”

            “Don’t do it some day; do it immediately!”

            “I’m going to go to the movies…”

            “Do it now!”

            “I’m going to get married…”

            “Do it right away!”

            “I’m going to get my emotional life together…”

            “Right now! Do things right now!”

The Tamer Tamed.

One guinea pig says to another, “I’ve got the doctor tamed. Every time I press this button, he gives me a piece of cheese.”

Sometimes we fool ourselves. We think we’ve got a situ