It seems that Vimal, if he is a really holy ghost, will manage to take back the prayer. The prayer was almost a curse, and Maneesha is suffering with a migraine. This is not good, just to get into her place.

So take away her migraine! It is now your duty: go to her, ask her forgiveness, so that she is back again tomorrow without any trouble. It does not look right for ghosts to harass people, innocent people, with migraines. And now he is sitting here very virtuously….

Jivan Mada, your question is certainly of very extraordinary significance. Only Gurdjieff, a man like Gurdjieff, could have made such a statement. But it is in fact true. He is saying: “Ordinary men never experience true suffering and sorrow, for they live mechanical and routine lives.”

It is not that there is no suffering, but they are accustomed to it. Secondly, their suffering is repressed. They live on a very thin layer of consciousness; underneath is the whole hell. Once in a while it surfaces, but mostly the ordinary man lives his whole life without knowing how much suffering, how much misery he was carrying within himself.

In a way he is fortunate, and in a way the most unfortunate, because if he had become aware of this misery and suffering then there would have been nobody who could have prevented him from getting out of this unconsciousness, this routine mechanical life, and becoming an awakened, conscious being.

But I say on the other hand he is fortunate that he does not know that he is carrying a whole hell within himself. Just a little prick in his bag and you will see how much misery, how much suffering. People don’t even talk about these things, because even these words may provoke their own suffering to surface. People don’t talk about death….

From my very childhood I used to go to every funeral. My father used to say, “People go to somebody’s funeral who is a relative or a friend or in some professional way connected. You are not connected with anybody, but it seems that whoever dies is your relative! You won’t go to school that day, you will go to the funeral – and nobody has invited you, nobody has even informed you! In fact people try to prevent the information from reaching to you, because you are an unnecessary harassment. People think, ‘Why have you come here?’”

But I continued to go to every funeral that I came to know was happening. Whatever work I was involved in, I would drop then and there, and I would join the funeral procession. Even the people would see me and wonder: am I following them?

I said, “I am not following you, I simply want to see what you do there.”

They said, “You have seen – so many times!”