Just think of a blind man. He has never seen a roseflower bloom. What has he missed? Do you know? Can’t you feel any compassion for him? That he has missed something, something divine? He has not seen a rainbow. He has not seen the sunrise or the sunset. He has not seen the green foliage of the trees. He has not seen color. How dull his consciousness is! And you have eyes and you say, “What is there to celebrate?” There is the rainbow, there is the sunset, there are the green trees – such a colorful existence.

And yet I understand. Your question is relevant. I understand that this question has some meaning. The rainbow is there, the sunset is there, the ocean, the clouds are all there, but you are asleep. Although you have eyes you have never looked at the roseflower. You have passed by, you have seen the roseflower. I am not saying you have not seen it, you have eyes so you see, but you have not looked at it, you have not meditated upon it. You have not given a single moment of your meditation to it, you have never been in tune with it, you have never been by the side of it, sitting close by, in communion. You have never said hello to it, you have never participated with it. Life passes by, you are just there, not participating. You are not in rapport with life, that’s why your question is meaningful. You have eyes and yet you don’t see, you have ears yet you don’t hear, you have a heart yet you don’t love. You are fast asleep.

This has to be understood, that’s why I go on repeating it again and again. If you understand that you are asleep, the first ray of awakening has entered you. If you can feel that you are asleep then you are no longer, then you are just on the verge of where the day breaks – the morning, the dawn.

But the first essential is to understand that “I am asleep.” If you think you are not asleep then you will never be awake. If you think that this life which you have been living up to now is a life of an awakened being, then why should you seek and search ways to awaken yourself? When a man dreams, and dreams that he is awake, why should he try to be awake? He already believes that he is awake. This is the greatest trick of the mind and everybody is befooled by this trick. The greatest trick of the mind is to give you the idea of that which you are not, and to help you feel that you are already that.

Gurdjieff used to tell a parable….

There was a magician, who was also a shepherd. He had thousands of sheep to look after. He was a very miserly man so he didn’t want many servants and he didn’t want many watchmen. He did not want to pay anybody and he did not want his sheep to be lost or taken by the wolves. But it was very difficult for him to take care of all the sheep alone. He was very rich and he had many sheep.

So he played a trick on the sheep. He hypnotized them – he was a magician. He hypnotized them and told every sheep, “You are not a sheep. Don’t be afraid.” To some he said, “You are a lion.” To some he said, “You are tigers.” To some he even said, “You are men. Nobody is going to kill you. Don’t be afraid and don’t try to escape from here.”