I can understand the old man's trouble. He is a beautiful man, but thirty years of Gurdjieff work are a heavy load. And now at the age of eighty-two it seems very very difficult to relax. It seems difficult to drop the work and be playful. It's very natural, it can be understood.

Here I am not giving you any structure for development, because I am not concerned with development at all. Now, he says it is opposed to the three-centered harmonious development of man. I am not interested in developing man, I am simply interested in awakening man — and remember the difference: not in developing. There is no need for any harmonious development, there is only a need to be awakened.

You can go on sleeping and you can go on working on yourself. All work is sleep, it is a dream. You are dreaming to develop yourself; you are trying to pull yourself up by your shoelaces. But it is a dream. And people are very very ready to get into new dreams because they are naturally fed-up with the old dreams, repetitive dreams — the wife, the husband, the money, the power. Then somebody comes and says, 'What are you doing? Leave this to ordinary mortals. You are a spiritual being. Come, and I will tell you how to develop spiritually.' And naturally one is fed-up with the old games, finished with the old games — there comes a moment in everybody's life when one can see that it is a vicious circle, one has been in it long enough to know its meaninglessness — then somebody comes and gives hope again.

This hope brings future again; imagination again starts working. You again start fantasizing — now spiritual growth. And you are again back in the same rut.

I am not teaching any development. I am teaching you just to be awake. Just open your eyes! You are in the Garden of Eden — just open your eyes. I am not here to give you any other dream. If you want to dream, old dreams are perfectly good — and you are so much attuned with them, why change? Money will do, why a new dream of meditation? Old games are perfectly good. New games will give you a little trouble — you will have to turn and toss in your bed and then again settle, and again they will become old. Yes, the honeymoon will be there for a few days and then they will become old.

That's why people go on changing from one guru to another guru, from one school to another school, from one religion to another religion. It doesn't help, it is absolutely pointless. What is needed is not a new dream, not a new work, not a new desire, not a new ambition. But an awakening.

He is right that it is difficult to change streams after thirty years of Gurdjieff. It is difficult. But if you see the point, it is so simple. It is a flash. You have been working and working and what has happened? Has anything really happened? It is difficult to realize that too, that nothing has happened, because that goes against the ego. Thirty years working, and if nothing has happened people will think of you as a fool. Then what were you doing for thirty years? One or two years is okay — then you should have got out of it. What were you doing for thirty years wasting your whole life? That looks very difficult to accept. So one goes on thinking, 'Yes, something is happening, something has happened.' Something has to happen — thirty years? And one goes on convincing oneself and defending oneself and one thinks now it is too late to change.

It is never too late! And I am not saying change. I am not saying change masters, I am not saying change schools, I am saying: Change from sleep to awakening. And it cannot be a development from sleep to awakening, remember. Either you are asleep or you are awake. There are no mid-stations between awakening and sleep. Either this or that. They are two gestalts, they can't exist together. So there cannot be degrees — you cannot say, 'This man is ten degrees awake and this man is twenty degrees awake and this man is thirty degrees awake.' One is awake or one is asleep. One knows or one does not know.

So I am not saying to change — I am not interested in changing your schools, because they will be new dreams. That's why I say it is never too late. If you had gone at the age of eighty-two to Gurdjieff, he would have certainly said it is too late — 'Now you go and vegetate and finish yourself, no-thing can be done.' And not only that you have missed this life — because Gurdjieff used to say you don't have any soul. So not only this life, you have missed for ever! 'Now get lost! Vegetate a few years more and be finished. You don't have any soul and it is too late.'

With me it is never too late, because it can happen in a single split moment. It can happen on the deathbed — a man is dying and the last breath, and it can happen and he can be completely transformed. Development cannot happen, development needs time, remember. Evolution needs time. Transformation is possible, because transformation needs no time! And that which happens in time is part of time. And that which happens in no time is part of eternity.

That's what I mean when I say it happens in a flash. Enlightenment is like lightning. It can happen any moment, at the very last breath. The last breath is leaving you and it will not come again, and it can happen. There is no need for time, because you are already that. So what is the point of time? Time is needed if you are not that and you have to become that. Then naturally, great effort, planning, training, search.

And he is right that the emphasis here is much on the heart, as opposed to the three-centered harmonious development of man. Heart simply means harmony. At least that is what I want it to mean, heart simply means harmony. When you are harmonious you are in the heart. When you are not harmonious you are not in the heart, you are somewhere else. The heart is not a center here — we are not talking about centers really. The heart is a state of being harmonious. The heart is a state of maturity.

The head is always full of desires, the head lives in the future. The heart is herenow. Here is the only place and now is the only time for the heart. Whenever you are in the heart you are utterly here, radiantly here. All past has disappeared, all future has disappeared. Only this moment in its crystal purity exists. In its intensity, in its passion.

I am not using the word 'heart' the way Gurdjieff used to use it, as a center. It is not a center. When all your centers have disappeared into one unity, that unity I call the heart. That's how Buddha uses the word 'heart'. When Gurdjieff uses the word 'heart' he uses it in the same way as poets use the word 'heart' — the center of emotion and feeling. When I use the word 'heart' I use it as Buddhas have always used it. It has nothing to do with emotionality and sentiments and feelings — no, nothing at all. The heart is a state of being when you are harmonious, when all your fragments have disappeared.

And remember again, I am not saying that they have become integrated into one. That's what Gurdjieff says, that all your centers have to become integrated into one, they have to become crystallized. That crystallized thing will be a crystallized ego. When I say 'when all your fragments have disappeared' I simply mean when they are no more there and only pure absence is left. It is not a crystallization of the parts, the parts are no more there. They have simply dropped — that furniture has been removed from your being. Now your being is just an emptiness, a nothingness. That nothingness, anatta, no-self — that pure space is what we have been calling 'heart' in the East. It has nothing to do with the poets' use of the word.

But Lewis has been thinking in terms of Gurdjieff his whole life. He did not ever meet Gurdjieff, he missed that opportunity. He can miss this opportunity too.

Gurdjieff was a rare man. But he was working in a very very alien world. He had taken a great message from the East, particularly from the Sufis, to the West. And he was trying to translate it. In that translation many things went wrong — it always happens. The higher the message, the more difficult is the translation of it. Mundane things can be translated very easily. And Gurdjieff was not the right man to translate it, either. He was not a very articulate man. His whole life he searched — from Middle Asia, from Iraq to Mongolia and to Tibet and to India, he was searching. His whole life was in search. And then when he arrived it was too late to develop the right language to be exactly accurate. He has simply stuttered his message, and others had to interpret it.

In fact, whatsoever is known about Gurdjieff is not about Gurdjieff, it is about P D Ouspensky. Gurdjieff became known through P D Ouspensky — if P D Ouspensky had never been a disciple to Gurdjieff, he would not have been known at all. In one way it would have been very very unfortunate, in another way it would have been very very fortunate too. Because Ouspensky betrayed him. Ouspensky was the right man to translate but he had no realization of his own. Gurdjieff had the realization but he had not the language to translate it. It was a meeting of a blind man and a lame man — they helped. It was almost like Ramakrishna and Vivekananda. Vivekananda had no realization, Ramakrishna had the realization. But Ramakrishna had no way to express it. And Vivekananda was very articulate, philosophical, very arrogant in his statements, very logical. He was a philosopher. Ramakrishna was a mystic. Ramakrishna has seen God, or truth. Vivekananda has not seen but he knows the language. So Vivekananda became the introduction of Ramakrishna to the world — a wrong introduction.

But sometimes it happens. It is very rare to find a man like Buddha, who has seen and who can himself help you to see — who is both together. Johnson and Boswell both together. Ramakrishna and Vivekananda both together. Socrates and Plato both together. Gurdjieff and Ouspensky both together. It is a very rare phenomenon. But when it happens, only then things go right.

Gurdjieff knew, and Ouspensky knew how to make it known to the world. Now, it is like a man who has eyes, but is dumb, helping a blind man to express what he knows about light. Using the blind man — who has no eyes, who has never seen the light — using his mouth as a vehicle. He has no mouth.

If you read Gurdjieff's own books they are very tiring and boring. I have never come across a man who has really read any book of his completely. One has to skip, one has to just go on. When for the first time his first book was published, it was a one-thousand-page book, but the pages were not cut — only the introduction pages were cut. And there was a notice on the book that 'If you can go into the introduction and you really want to read the book, then cut the other pages. Otherwise you can give it back to the publisher and take your money back.'

Even to go a hundred pages into that introduction is a very arduous journey. Unless you are a masochist it is difficult to go through — unless you enjoy misery, then it is another thing. It is shocking. To read those one thousand pages is almost as difficult as to reach to the moon. Very few people have ever tried. He was absolutely inarticulate. And the problem was that his whole life went into the schools with masters, in their presence. He was accumulating, accumulating, and then a moment came when he felt that 'Now I know. I have understood. And I should go to the West and introduce this great tradition, this great wisdom.'

Ouspensky became a vehicle — but Ouspensky betrayed him finally, he went against him. That is natural too. Because Ouspensky is a totally different type of man — a philosopher, a mathematician, a scientist, a logician. And by and by when he became articulate and he started saying things and his books became world-famous, he started thinking that he himself has now arrived — now there is no need for Gurdjieff. He betrayed Gurdjieff.

That also happens, always. Judas betrayed Christ because he was the most articulate, the most scholarly, the most educated person. Amongst all Jesus' disciples Judas was the most cultured, most sophisticated. Others were just villagers — farmers, woodcutters, fishermen. Judas betrayed, so did Ouspensky. And it has been a long history — it has always been done that way. Buddha was betrayed by his own cousin-brother, Devadatta, who was as sophisticated and cultured as Buddha himself. They had played together in their childhood, they were brought up in the same palace. He betrayed him. Mahavira was betrayed by his own son-in-law. He was the most important man among Mahavira's disciples; he betrayed.

The man of knowledge, the knowledgeable man, is a dangerous man. Because sooner or later he will get the idea that 'now I myself am the master.'

The world knows Gurdjieff through Ouspensky who betrayed him. Gurdjieff could not deliver the message. And Lewis missed him. Now he is here, and I feel that he is very open. Just the idea that 'What can be done now? If it has not happened in thirty years how can it happen now?'

But I say to you that the happening need not have much time for it, it can happen in a split moment. If you can unburden yourself, if you can put aside all that you have learned, all the knowledge that you have gathered, if you can again look at things with fresh eyes, it is still possible. It is always possible. You are never too late, nobody is.

In India we have a saying: If the man who got lost comes back even in the evening, he should not be thought to be lost. The whole day is gone, the sun is setting, in the morning he went astray and it is evening. Yes, it is Lewis' evening. Gurdjieff you missed. Don't miss this madman here. And Gurdjieff was going to give you a ladder which goes on and on and you have to develop and work....

I am not giving you any ladder, and I am not giving you any staircase, and I am not giving you a long way to be travelled by you. I am simply giving you an insight. If you can receive it, in that very receiving, there will be an explosion.