Authenticity

Know what is the real, your fact, because only a fact can be changed. If you want to transform yourself, you must know your facticity. You cannot change a fiction. You are violent and you think you are nonviolent-- then there is no possibility of any transformation. That non-violence is nowhere, so you cannot change. And the violence is there, but you are not aware of it, so how can you change it?

First know the facts as they are. How to know the facts? Encounter them without your interpretations.

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If this consideration is there, by and by you will become authentic. And this authenticity will not be like that of an animal. This authenticity will be like that of a saint, because the more you know how ugly you are, the more you know how violent you are, the more you penetrate inside your facts and become aware of the nonsense that you are doing, the more this awareness will help you. And by and by your ugliness will drop away, will wither away, because if you are aware of your ugliness it cannot continue.

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You cannot deceive anyone unless someone is ready to be deceived; that is another thing. By authenticity I mean: remember you facticity. Always sort it out from your interpretations. Throw away your interpretations and look at the fact of what you are. And do not be afraid, then you will never be able to change it. If it is there, accept that it is there; consider it.

This is what consideration means: consider it, look at it in its total nakedness. Move around it, go to its roots, analyze it. See why it is there, how you help it to be there, how you feed it, how you protect it, how it has grown to be such a big tree. See your ugliness, your violence, your hatred, your anger, how you have protected it, how you have helped it to grow up to now. Look at the roots; look at the whole phenomenon.

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It is you who have been helping it to become rooted in you. It is your creation. You can drop it immediately-- just now. You can leave it, and then there is no need to look again toward it. But before you can do this, you will have to know it-- what it is, the whole mechanism, the whole complexity of it, how you help it every moment.

From The Book of Secrets