Can I be a light to myself?

We depend on experiences—pleasant or painful—to keep us awake; every form of challenge we want to keep us awake. When one realizes that this dependence on challenges and experiences only makes the mind more dull and that they do not really keep us awake—when one realizes that we have had thousands of wars and haven’t learnt a thing, that we are willing to kill our neighbour tomorrow on the least provocation—then one asks, why do we want them and is it all possible to keep awake without any challenge? That is the real question—you follow? I depend on a challenge, experience, hoping it will give me more excitement, more intensity, make my mind more sharp, but it does not. So I ask myself if it is possible to keep awake totally, not peripherally at a few points of my being, but totally awake, without any challenge, without any experience? That means, can I be a light to myself, not depending on any other light? That doesn’t mean I am vain in not depending on any stimulation. Can I be a light that never goes out? To find that out I must go deeply within myself, I must know myself totally, completely, every corner of myself, there must be no secret corners, everything must be exposed. I must be aware of the total field of my own self, which is the consciousness of the individual and of society. It is only when the mind goes beyond this individual and social consciousness that there is a possibility of being a light to oneself which never goes out.Talks & Dialogues Saanen 1967, pp 111-112