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,