If you are alert, in a sudden illumination the mind falls. Suddenly you are one with the mirror-like consciousness; you have fallen to your base, to your root. And when you have fallen deep within to the root, the whole existence falls to the root.

Existence appears to you as you are. This is one of the fundamental laws. Whatsoever you see depends on from where you see. If you are a mind, divided, then the whole of life is divided. Existence reaches your being. If you have a mind, split, then the whole world will be seen as split, then day is against night. They are not, because the day turns into night, the night turns into day: they make a complete circle. They are not against, they are complementaries. Without the night there cannot be any day, and without the day there cannot exist any night. So they cannot be opposites; deep down they are one.

Life and death appear as opposites because you are divided. Otherwise life becomes death, death becomes life: you are born, and that very day you have started to die, and the moment you die a new life has come into being. It is a circle, the yin and yang circle of the Chinese.

That circle has to be remembered again and again. It is one of the most basic symbols ever discovered. No other symbol can be compared to it – the cross, the swastika, the om – no, no comparison with the Chinese yin and yang, because yin and yang comprehends the whole oppositeness of existence: the dark night and the bright day, life and death, love and hate.

All opposites are together in existence. Inside, you are divided; outside, they are divided. When you fall to your source and you become one, the whole existence suddenly falls into line and becomes one. When you are one, the brahman appears, the ultimate appears –because to the one only one can appear; to the two, the two; to the many, the many. And you are many, you are a crowd – not even two. You have many, many selves within you.

Gurdjieff used to say that you are a house where nobody knows who the host is. Many people are there, everybody is a guest – but because nobody knows who the host is, everybody thinks he is the host. So whosoever becomes powerful in any moment plays the role of the host.

When anger becomes powerful, anger becomes the host. When love becomes powerful, love becomes the host. When jealousy becomes powerful, jealousy becomes the host. But it is a constant fight, because many are the guests and everybody would like to be the host, the owner of the house. And nobody knows who the owner is. Either the owner has gone for a long journey and has not come back, or the owner is fast asleep.

Your self is fast asleep. Hence the insistence of all Jesuses, Krishnas, Buddhas: “Awake!” Jesus goes on using the word awake many, many times: “Awake, watch, be alert.” Buddha goes on saying, “Become more conscious.”