When some desire comes, consider it. Then, suddenly, quit it.
- Hinge: two phases of one act, but the FIRST (genuine consideration) is the entire work; the second (quitting) is its consequence, not a separate forced act. They fail or succeed together — if you cannot quit, you have not truly considered.
- Consider it — look at the raw fact of the desire without any borrowed interpretation: no ‘this is sin,’ no ‘this is healthy,’ no scripture, no tradition, no parental conditioning. Those are social overlays. The desire itself (e.g., sex) is biologically built in, deeper than any ideology. True consideration means encountering the bare fact from inside, as if for the first time: what is actually happening in my body, my energy, my being, right now?
- The 7-day smoking example illustrates the method: the man was told not to be against smoking — to smoke deeply and lovingly for a week. Only when he stopped fighting it could he actually see it. Enmity prevents encounter — you can look deeply only into the eyes of one you love; with an enemy your face turns away.
- Then, suddenly, quit it — this is not suppression. Suppression means fighting: the energy goes sideways, perverts, waits, and returns distorted. Quitting is a clean separation, like dropping paper from a hand. After genuine consideration, the entire being has become the desire — a flame, not a flicker. Quitting at that charged moment creates a sudden split: the body still trembles with passion, the center is abruptly silent and observing. In fighting you are one with the object; in quitting you stand separate from it.
- From Q&A (Q2): If quitting leaves you sick or uneasy, the consideration was incomplete — you were using ‘consideration’ as a tool toward renunciation, not as genuine seeing. The real instruction: do not aim to quit; aim only to understand fully. Quitting (or not quitting) is a consequence of total understanding, never a goal. When understanding is total, the transformation happens on its own and leaves no residue and no guilt.
- From Q&A (Q2): There is no prescribed outcome — you may not reach the same conclusion as another awakened person. Full awareness can lead you to accept the desire OR to renounce it (D.H. Lawrence’s aware acceptance of sex and Mahavir’s aware renunciation are both beautiful), because the beauty belongs to the awareness, not to the choice made. Whatever flows from full awareness is transformation; whatever flows from social pressure is suppression.
- From Q&A (Q1): The practice of consideration extends to self-knowledge broadly. Notice how your eyes look at your servant versus your boss — any difference reveals violence. Notice whether anger at your child is genuinely for his good or because your ego was wounded by disobedience. ‘Consider’ means: always sort the raw fact from your interpretation of it. Only facts can be changed; fictions cannot.