Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!

Why do you stay in prison
When the door is so wide open?

Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. The entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you.

Why do you stay in prison, when the door is so wide open?

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence. Flow down and down in always widening rings of being.

A prisoner never stops thinking about getting out of the prison. Life in the world is like sitting in a prison. One who doesn't realize that doesn't think of getting liberation.

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence.

When you are put into a big city jail, you will probably be frightened, lonely, humiliated, and completely drained of any spirit. This is normal. Talk to the fellow prisoners, write, play cards, read, doodle, do anything to keep your mind occupied, but above all do not verbalize your misfortune to your fellow prisoners. Each one of them has had similar situations, and is sick of thinking about it.

You complain that you cry out, and that God doesn't reply. You feel imprisoned and you're afraid that it is a life sentence... although no one has said anything. Consider then, that you are your own judge and your own gaoler. Prisoner, leave your prison! To your astonishment you will find that no one will stop you. The reality outside prison is indeed terrifying, but never as terrifying as your anguish down in that locked room. Take your first step towards freedom. It is not difficult. The second step is more difficult, but never allow yourself to be defeated by your gaolers who are only your own fear and your own pride.

Sometimes the prison of fear is so powerful there's no need to lock the cell doors. Your fear creates a willingness to self-imprison.

A justly or unjustly ruined reputation, poverty, disastrous circumstances, misfortune, they all turn you into a prisoner. You cannot always tell what keeps you confined, what immures you, what seems to bury you, and yet you can feel those elusive bars, railings, walls. Is all this illusion, imagination? I don't think so. And then one asks: My God! will it be for long, will it be for ever, will it be for eternity?

Do you know what makes the prison disappear? Every deep, genuine affection. Being friends, being brothers, loving, that is what opens the prison, with supreme power, by some magic force. Without these one stays dead. But whenever affection is revived, there life revives.

You are in prison. If you wish to get out of prison, the first thing you must do is realize that you are in prison. If you think you are free, you can't escape.

You should rejoice that you're in prison. Here you have time to think about your soul.

Do you know what makes the prison disappear? Every deep, genuine affection. Being friends, being brothers, loving, that is what opens the prison, with supreme power, by some magic force. Without these one stays dead. But whenever affection is revived, there life revives.

To live in prison is to live without mirrors. To live without mirrors is to live without the self. She is living selflessly, she finds a hole in the stone wall and on the other side of the wall, a voice. The voice comes through darkness and has no face. This voice becomes her mirror.