Be Honest with Yourself
and Uproot Persistent Habits

You may think that you’re already very clean and pure, but I tell you, be careful. Don't think that because we’re vegetarian, because we keep the precepts, we’re clean and pure. Not yet; it’s not so easy. Watch yourself next time. Watch every moment for just one day. Spend one day watching yourself and see how you react in different situations. Watch carefully and then you'll know what I mean.

There are many things that we ourselves don’t notice, very trivial matters, very deep rooted, subtle habits that we don't know we have. And many other things like love, compassion and sensitivity to the suffering of others we don't have either.

These are the very subtle habits and subtle hardness that we’ve accumulated over many lifetimes and we don't even realize it. So make sure that you check out any undesired, deep rooted habits that you don't want to carry around with you. If we’re truly honest with ourselves and want to improve and train our sensitivity to the suffering and happiness of others as well as to our own purity and well being, we must always be vigilant. Always, always pay attention. Otherwise, it’s easy to just pass the day, pass two days, pass three days, pass your whole life in self indulgence, bad habits, and not get into a higher level of consciousness, not be able to understand the deeper meaning of spiritual life. And then we blame others, blame God, blame the Method and blame the Master, blame everything but that doesn't help us at all. It doesn't help us to get better. The best approach is to be honest with ourselves and always be watchful of our deep rooted habits and the very undesirable affects that they have on us. Always be careful.