One moment is the freedom.

In the reading

Before, you used to react. Now you begin to see. Before, someone abused you and you answered at once. Now perhaps a gap of one moment appears. The abuse reached the ears, shook something within; you saw it, and before the reaction, awareness arrived. That one moment is your freedom. In that one moment you can step outside the old conditioning. If that moment is not there, you live like a machine. Someone pressed a button and you became angry. Someone pressed another button and you became pleased. Someone pressed a third button and you became unhappy. You become less a human being and more a machine run by buttons.

Meditation creates a place in that machinery where there is distance between reaction and consciousness. And in that distance, freedom is born. Therefore meditation is not a religious ritual. Meditation is the art of seeing life.

You are eating — eat consciously. You are drinking water — feel the water. You are walking — feel your steps. You are speaking with someone — do not merely prepare what you will say. Listen to the person in front of you. Because most people do not listen. They only prepare their reply. Someone is speaking, and within you are thinking, What will I say after this? Then you did not hear him at all.

The whole reading