Besides being a great privilege to be a speaker here
and to open up this event,
it is also a great responsibility for me, I feel a great responsibility
we have come from very many different places
we speak many different languages, not only linguistically but otherwise,
and it is important that while we are here, when we will be talking a great deal
we will be talking in the same language
we will be able to talk and understand one another
so a very simple but somewhat difficult task is to start from the beginning
to find agreement on what we really mean when we say pilgrimage
what we really mean when we say love
what we really mean when we say compassion
and I'm not going to suggest to you my definitions of these terms,
but I invite you now to use our time to reflect in your own hearts on these terms
and we will do this together, what really do we mean by them?
and then we have a starting point from which in these days together
we go in every direction but at least we have some common ground, some common starting point
so our questions will be very simple, what do we mean by pilgrimage?
what do we really mean by love and what do we really mean by forgiveness?
a pilgrimage is something very different from a journey
What is the difference between a journey and a pilgrimage?
In a journey you reach a goal, that is the essence of the journey
In a pilgrimage, every step is the goal: now, now, now; every step is the goal
and the essence of pilgrimage is love
and that's what the story tells us and brings home in a much better way
than we could come to understand by complicated thought
the essence of pilgrimage is love, because in love
with every step you reach the goal
but now I have used the word love, and again we have to ask ourselves
What do we mean by love?
Love has such a vast spectrum
just think of your own use of the term love
You love your friend, you love your parents, your country, the world
you love your dog, you love nature, you love Assissi I hope
What do all these loves have in common?
Is it really one thing that underlies all these expressions "I love"?
I suggest to you, check it out for your own experience
that whenever we say "I love", we mean I belong
in the sense of mutual belonging, I belong in a certain way to my dog even
I certainly belong to my parents, my children, my friend, my country
but even to wherever we say I Love, is an expression of belonging
So just as a working definition that love is a "yes" to belonging
When we fall in love, that is wonderful, because we say "yes" to belonging
with great enthusiasm and we feel a great deal
but the feeling is not the important thing, and
the superficial enthusiasm is not the important thing, what really counts is a "yes" to belonging
and a "yes" that is not only spoken with your lips, but
that is lived, a lived existential "yes" to belonging
and to mutual belonging, otherwise it would just be enslavement
it's a "yes" to mutual belonging.
and how do we express this mutual belonging? By sharing
it expresses it self, it expresses by giving, by giving ourselves
whenever you say "yes" to belonging, you have implicitly committed yourself to give yourself
and forgiving, is also a kind of giving. So you ask yourself:
What kind of giving is forgiving?
And my answer is, it's the most difficult form of giving
Giving starts with sharing, giving away, giving up
and giving up is something very different from letting down
so there is a taking that goes with the giving, unless its a give and take,
it isn't really alive, it isn't really spiritual, because spirit means life breath
and spirituality means aliveness, on every level, so
there has to be a give and take, your breath
that's your life breath, that's your spirit,
if you only give a breath and stop there, you are dead
if you only take it you are dead, it's a give and take, so with this giving must always go a taking
and what giving goes with, what taking goes with giving up?
You give up and you take care
That's the great difference between letting down and giving up
It's a giving that doesn't let down, it takes care of what it gives up
That is the first level, the next level of giving is giving thanks
What kind of taking goes with giving thanks?
I will say more about giving thanks later,
but we all know from experience that with giving thanks
also goes a taking, namely taking to heart
and unless you take something to heart, you cannot be grateful for it
You are always grateful wholeheartedly, not partly, you have to take it to heart
and that is already a much more difficult taking than taking care
It's whatever you take to heart, eventually breaks your heart
and it breaks it open, that's the idea, if it just breaks it that will be dead
but when you really gratefully take something to heart, it breaks your heart open
and that openness leads to the third, and there we come to forgiveness
to the third most difficult form of giving
and that is forgiving, this "for" in forgiving is an intensive
It's a little syllable that means an intensive form of giving,
in the Latin languages, in Italian "perdonare", it is "per", that is the intensive of giving
and with this most intensive giving, goes the most difficult form of taking.
Namely, when you forgive an offense, you take this offense upon yourself
Tollive is the Latin word for a tollis pecata mundi, it takes away the sins of world,
the same word, tollive, means taking upon one's self and taking away
and when we take away, the offenses, by taking upon ourselves
forgiveness takes place, unless we take them upon ourselves, it isn't really forgiveness
it is only pardon, so presidential pardon where you sit up here
and with a stroke of the pen you pardon someone
In order to really forgive, you have to take the offense upon yourself, why?
Because you and whoever it is that has committed the offense and the most terrible crime
you are really one, and there is now, where we have to ask the much more difficult question
than what is pilgrimage and what do we mean by forgiveness
and what do we mean by love, and the question is:
who is asking the question? And only when we can answer that question
will we understand what we really mean by love and forgiveness and pilgrimage
so if I ask you: who is asking the question? What will be your answer?
But me, I, I myself. We have three terms.
Does that mean there are three of you?
Are there three of me, I, me, myself?
There are not three, there is only one, but one of my language teachers used to insist
when you have a different word, it means something different, don't fool yourself
If it is a different word, it means something different.
So since we say, "I" on certain occasions, or "I myself" or "me",
What is the difference? And when when we say "I, myself"
We mean our deepest truths, we mean that reality, where we are all one
and we can come to that, we often forget it, we all often not look it
we can come to it right now, we can make a little experiment
you step back interiorly, step back and you observe yourself
Yes, observe your "I", I can step back and see my "I"
standing here talking, you can see me, observe youself watching
that observer is also you, and the further you go back,
the more you come to the real observer who nobody else observes anymore
when you reach that point where you are the observer, obviously
and there is no one else who can observe it, there is no one else
that's the one great self, and that is the only self from which forgiveness can come
that is the only self through which love flows, because through this opening
through this self, that we all experience, we have access to the transforming power
to the creative power, that fills the whole universe,
this self is so inexhaustible, that it has to express itself
in ever new "I", "I", and all of us, each one of us is unique
There are not two identical twins who are the same, so there is the "I"
the "I" is a person, there are many different persons, and only one "self"
the "self" expresses itself again and again and we all know that "persona" means
originally mask, it is a mask that the self puts on
in order to express itself, it's the serving "I"
that serves the "self" to express itself and serves the world, that is the "I"
but there is a great problem now and all the great spiritual traditions
have discovered that problem, that this "I" out there
suddenly thinks it is the center of everything, it becomes self important
as if it were the "self" and at that moment,
it is no longer the serving "I" but it is the deserving "I", I deserve this, me, me
so it has suddenly become the "me", so when the "I" becomes the "me"
its something very negative and we call it the ego
The "ego" usually has a bad press, but the "I" is wonderful, we need the "I"
so, how then do we get from the "ego" to the "self"?
Where we are all one, where we are love, it simply flows simply true
you can even say that the "self" makes an effort to love, the "self" is love
your innermost "self" is love, because if love is the yes to belonging,
that is what your innermost "self" is, it loves
that is why, in the Hebrew Bible it says, love your neighbor as yourself
it does not say love your neighbor like yourself, that is a mistranslation
and unfortunately a very often you used mistranslation, you don't say like yourself
love your neighbor as yourself, and you can love your neighbor only as yourself
because you are oneself and love means belonging, yes to belonging
Like yourself, is very difficult, even the "I" finds it very difficult
let alone the "me", the "me" is characterized by being caught up in time
the "me" is always either hanging on to the past or stretching out impatiently to the future
or afraid of the future, or feeling itself the victim of the past
the "me" is completely caught up in time, and it is fearful
if you want to know am I now in my "I" or in my "me" am I in my serving "I" or am I in my "deserving me" in my ego
just ask yourself, am I afraid? Fearful? Anxious?
The reason why the little "I" when it thinks it is the center of everything,
it becomes fearful is that there are so many other centers maybe doing something to me
and it becomes greedy, fearful, greedy and caught up in time
Greedy because, we are so many and maybe not enough to go around
so let's me, me, me, let's get a little more
This is how you discover to what extent you are in the "me", caught up in time, fearful and greedy
the opposite is the self, the self does not have to be afraid
there is nothing to be afraid of, if we are all one, what should we be afraid of?
It has the courage of love, another aspect of the "self" is that the "self" is always in the now.
Ego is in time, it's caught up in time. The "I" is in time too, but not caught up in it
but the "self" is in the now, eternal now, the now that does not pass away
and when time passes away, it does not affect the "self" at all
The question is now, how do we go from this "me" to the "self"
because then we will go from greed, to sharing, to giving to forgiving
we will be going to love, quite spontaneously
we will be on pilgrimage, step by step by step
now, and now, you can ask yourself: why is there time at all?
Because this now is so full and so inexhaustible just like the "self" and the now are one
you are in the now and now in the "self", you are in the "self" you are in the now, so inexhaustible
that it has to give you one moment after the other ever new opportunities
that's why time is around, because if you miss one opportunity
you get another one, and if you take one opportunity you still get another one
until your time is up, and that is the opportunity to do good
the opportunity to love, the opportunity to forgive,
and if we ask ourselves now, how do I go now from my "me" into which I slip every so often
from my little ego, how do I go to this life out of "self", the answer is any spiritual practice
and I hope that all of you have some spiritual practice or other,
because every spiritual practice has one goal:
They all have one goal, they are very different from one another,
in the way they reach this goal, in the way they speak about the goal
in the ease with which they help you to reach the goal,
but the goal is always the same: it is to be in the now
There is no spiritual tradition that doesn't aim at making you now
at making you live now, consciously, because you can't help living in the now
but consciously living in the now, being aware of being in the now
so any spiritual tradition can help you get there, but for those of you who
don't have any spiritual tradition and for those who do,
but want to get a little easier, quicker access to it,
the answer is gratitude, gratefulness, grateful living
because grateful living consists in recognizing the preciousness
of the given moment as an opportunity,
Recognizing the preciousness of the given moment
it is given, it is freely given, we say that in our language,
the given day, a given moment, a given circumstance, everything is given
well if it's given, it's a gift, and the only appropriate response to a gift
is gratitude, so you recognize consciously the present moment
as a gift because it offers to you an opportunity,
and for this opportunity you show yourself grateful by taking the opportunity
doing something with it, giving yourself to this opportunity
and most of the times its the opportunity to enjoy, but once in a while
it is the opportunity to do something very difficult
there are many things for which you cannot be grateful,
war, oppression, violence, infidelity, many things
But there is no moment in which you cannot be grateful,
because even you are confronted with all these difficult things
you have the opportunity to do something, to stand up
and protest, or if not at least you can learn something from it
and grow by it, every moment offers us opportunity
and if we allow that, if we get into this habit of waking up,
noticing that this is now an opportunity to do something
then we are grateful, that is what grateful living is
and it can be expressed in very simple terms
in the terms that you tell children when they have to cross the street
"stop, look, go"
and that is all we need to do for our spiritual life:
"stop" that means realize that you are in this present moment
don't just rush along "stop"
and if you build little moments of stop into your daily life
that is a great thing, "stop, look, appreciate"
Most of the time we are overwhelmed by the joy that this gives us
appreciate, and then go, do something with it, enjoy it
or do something more difficult,
and that is what I would like to suggest to you as a sort of basic pattern
for our time to get here at Assissi, always "stop, look, go"
we will work at every moment, if you stop long enough
to be in the present moment, we will appreciate, we will see what there is
we will appreciate the opportunity that is given to us
this incredible opportunity that is given to us during this week
and we will go in forgiveness, in a shared pilgrimage towards love and forgiveness
Thank you.