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The Art of Cleansing 107 dissipate one's energy is to abandon oneself to the wasteland. By listening to inner awareness instead of to outside compulsion, you know what you want and what you don't want.
When you prepare yourself through self-awareness, you take responsibility for each act you do, for each sentence you utter, for each thought you think. You are no longer random. You scrutinize. You know what you are taking in and what you are keeping out. You realize that once something unwanted enters your consciousness, it takes root. So you say to yourself, “Why do I take
it?”
Scrutiny of thought, of speech, of relationships becomes second nature to you. You are aware of the law
—that anything which comes into contact with you creates ripples or waves in your life. Ultimately, they disturb your peace, your calmness. So you take a little time to reflect on your whole life and your real needs. Herein rests the responsibility—to ask yourself, “What do I want? Why do I want? How much do I want?”
Everything is there, but we must learn how to select. As we go on asking those questions, slowly we understand that the world is like a candy store and that sometimes we are like children. Candies are colorful. They are beautifully wrapped. They attract us, and before we know it, we swallow them, not knowing how they will affect our health, our teeth, or our blood-sugar level. When our mind is in a childish, immature state, it likes to grab whatever it is given. At the same time, it has the tendency to want more and more. Once grabbing enters one's life, it works like sugar entering the bloodstream. There is an instant energy, a temporary "high,” but afterwards the person's energy deflates with double speed.
That is why inner disciplines are inevitably necessary.
