By examination you will see the tree, by investigation you will see the roots. And it is only by seeing the roots that a transformation is possible. Bring the roots to the light and the tree starts dying. If you can find the root of your anger, you will be surprised that the anger starts disappearing. If you can find the root of your sadness you will be again surprised.

First examine what is constantly there in your mind, what is being repeated again and again. You don’t have many thoughts. If you examine minutely you will see that you have only a few thoughts repeated again and again – maybe in new forms, new colors, new garments, new masks, but you have only a very few thoughts.

And if you go into it minutely you will be surprised: you have one basic thought.

Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples, “First find out your main characteristic.” And each person has a main characteristic – it may be greed, it may be anger, it may be sex, jealousy, it may be something else. Find out which is the main characteristic, which is the center around which all your thoughts and moods move. If you can find the center, you have found the root.

And the miracle is that once the root is found you need not cut it, it is cut in the very finding of it. This is the inner secret of transformation.

Watch: again and again you become sad. Suddenly out of nowhere…everything was going well, and something clicks and you become sad. And again it is gone, and by the evening it is back, and so on, so forth. Why does this happen?

First examine, then investigate. By examination and investigation the quality called awareness will be born in you. Once awareness is there you have the sword which can cut all the roots of all the diseases. And once awareness is born, slowly, slowly you will see you are getting out of the past and out of the future and you are entering the present. You are becoming more present to the present. You are attaining to a kind of presence which was never there; you are becoming luminous. And in this presence, when you can feel the moment passing by, all your senses will become so pure, so sensitive, so sensuous, so alert and alive, that the whole life will take a new intensity. You will attain to a great zestfulness. The world will be the same, and yet not the same: the trees will look greener, the roses rosier, the people more alive, more beautiful – the same world, and the pebbles on the shore start looking like diamonds and emeralds.

When awareness is very, very deep-rooted, when you are present to the present, you attain to a psychedelic vision of life. That’s why mystics talk of so much beauty, and you don’t find it. Mystics talk of immense celebration going on, and you don’t see any celebration anywhere. Mystics talk of great music, but you don’t hear any music.

And the mystics are right – great music is passing by, but you are deaf. Great beauty is all around, but you are blind. The whole existence is celebrating this very moment, as much as it was celebrating when Atisha was alive. Existence is celebration.