Consciousness has two dimensions: one is that of having and the other is that of being. And there are only two categories of human beings: one who is struggling hard to have more and more, and one who has understood the futility of it and has changed their life into the other direction, the direction of being. These people are trying to know who they are.
In the world of having you only believe that you have something, but really you don't have anything. You come alone empty handed and you go alone empty handed. In all that happens in between is almost like a dream. It appears to be true while it is there, it appears to be real, but once it is gone then you understand that nothing was really happening. The reality has remained untouched by your dreaming. The world of having is nothing but a world of dreaming.
The religious person is one who has become aware of the futility of it all. You cannot have anything except yourself. And all that you have expect yourself is a deception. It is an illusion. And, in fact that which you have possess you more than you possess it. The possessor finally becomes the possessed. You think you have so many things - riches, power, money - but deep down you are being possessed by those same things, you are being encaged, enchained, imprisoned by those same things.
Look at the rich people. They don't possess riches - they are as poor as any other poor man in the World, they are as beggarly as the other beggar. In fact, what so ever they possess them. They are burdened by it.
So the first thing to be understood is that these are the two doors : having, being. If you are still lost in the dream of having, you are in the world. You may be sitting in a cave in the himalayas, that makes no difference - the world is still there because the world is in the very desire to possess. And nobody has ever possessed anything.
