In the name of the Almighty God,
The 9th session of the 85th series of Congress 60 educational workshops, dedicated to travellers and companions, started at 10:05 AM on Wednesday, 29 Mordad 1404, with Mr. Hossein Dezhakam serving as the instructor and guardian, and Ms. Nilsa as the secretary. The session’s agenda was: “Cognizance, Effective Cognizance, and Literacy.”
Hello friends, I’m Hossein, a traveller.
I hope you are all well, and I’m doing well too. Today is Wednesday, 29 Mordad. The month of Mordad is ending, and soon we’ll enter Shahrivar, then Mehr, Aban, and Farvardin. The time is 10:15 AM, and we are at the Academy in Tehran. As I said, today is Wednesday.
I want to mention a few points before we get to the session agenda. First, about holidays: Friday is off because Saturday has been declared a holiday. A while ago, I opened the center on a Friday for a release ceremony, and I noticed that three or four people didn’t show up, and the park was empty. So I decided to close on Fridays. Saturday is already a holiday, and Sunday is officially a holiday in Tehran. On Saturday, the Simorgh branch is closed, the Academy is closed, and all groups are off.
The next point is about envelopes. We read this in the session agenda too. The envelopes you give to your guide or for the services provided to you—sometimes, it’s not about the money, but the ignorance of some people can be a little disheartening, for their own sake. This morning, two or three people wanted to become “Pahlevan” (honorary achievers), and I didn’t accept them. Two people becoming Pahlevan means 1.2 billion tomans; three people, 1.8 billion tomans; sometimes, someone wants to become completely unknown, which could exceed a billion. I didn’t accept any of it. We are not chasing money.
I say this: you are in a position where you need to strengthen your own financial situation. Right now, you may want to pay this money, but first, you should build a strong life for yourself. When your life is strong, then you can make the payments.
So, when someone does something for you, your understanding, awareness, and consciousness should recognize the value of that service. It’s not about the money at all. I’ve seen this many times: someone who had cancer, nearing death, is treated and survives. They’ve been through a year or two of effort, and they give just a hundred tomans in an envelope to their guide. Honestly, that’s shameful. I say this without any exaggeration. Your life couldn’t have been saved even with hundreds of billions of tomans!
The point is that the services done for you are far more valuable than the money you give. The important thing is that we should recognize the value of these services and also contribute to the system ourselves. If we fail to appreciate these services, it will cause serious harm to us. I want all of you to learn this lesson well.
Even a small gesture, like someone giving you a cup of tea, deserves thanks and appreciation. You are not entitled to demand it. When you take a taxi and get off, say, “Thank you, sir, I appreciate it.” When you make a purchase, say, “Thank you.” Always do this.
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Another point I want to mention: For a while, we didn’t have D.SAP, and now it’s available again. Some people get overly eager and end up taking too much. You only need two or three caps per day—two caps is about 10 cc, maybe 15, 20, or 30 cc.
Please, do not hoard it. Don’t take more than you need. A five-liter container of D.SAP costs at least 5–6 million tomans, and I am providing it to you at a very low price—only a third or a quarter of its real cost—because it is a medicine. And like any medicine, it shouldn’t be overused. You can’t just pour it into a cup and drink it.
D.SAP isn’t primarily for weight loss, and even if it has some effect, it’s not the main point—the Jones program itself is what matters. Sometimes when you open it, you may notice it has no additives. It’s normal if you see a few insects, similar to how there might be a bee in natural honey. The most important active component in D.SAP is what they call the “vinegar fly,” which works on the mixture for three to four months. So, if you see that, it’s harmless, just like bees in honey. Occasionally, it may reproduce inside the bottle—like a fungus—and that’s completely edible and safe.
Once you open the bottle, make sure not to let it sit for a year. Pour it into another jar, seal it tightly, and store it carefully. Because it has no preservatives, it may reproduce inside, so handle it properly. Please also avoid taking extra for family members or advertising it. Right now, D.SAP is only for the children of Congress 60—it’s for health, and we are providing it for that purpose.
So, use it sparingly. Don’t panic, don’t hoard, and don’t secretly stash a few bottles thinking “we’ll need them later.” Don’t do that—you’ll run into problems. Pay close attention to this.
Another issue: We once wanted to open a branch near Hidaj. Some people thought, “If we open a branch near Hidaj, our current clients will decrease,” or, “It will affect our business.” But that didn’t happen. From the Hidaj branch, we ended up opening eight, nine, ten branches. Even branches in Tabriz, Qeydar, Khorramdarreh, Abhar, Takestan, and Qazvin came out of that initiative, and many more.
Now, we have a similar issue in Yazd. We have branches around Yazd, and we want to open a branch within the city itself. Some locals who are near these branches are reluctant. They say, “If you open a branch in Yazd, our clients will decrease. We already have enough clients.” But you shouldn’t worry about clients. The reality is, we have a large population to serve, and there’s plenty of demand, both seen and unseen.
So don’t worry about clients. Focus on serving the people, and be mindful.
One thing the branch agent mentioned to me, and no matter how many times we say it, it keeps happening, the neighbors complain. People open the trunk of their cars and start changing clothes right there. I’ve said it before: don’t do that. Don’t change in the street. Don’t do it behind the street either. It doesn’t look good. The neighbors don’t like it, and they’re right. Inside Congress 60, we already have places for this. For the men, there’s a space downstairs. For the women, there’s a space upstairs. So, if you need to change, do it there, not outside where everyone is watching.
This morning, before six o’clock, I came here and what did I see? Three, four, even five buses already lined up in front. The whole street full of buses. Our guys everywhere, the bakery full, behind the street full, all over. It looked as if the whole area was taken over by Congress 60. That’s not good. We must be careful not to cause problems for the neighbors.
So please, pay attention to this. Make it part of the agenda. Announce it clearly. I ask all the branch agents: remind the members, in every branch. And also, put it on the website so everyone knows. Let it be clear: when you go to Tehran, if you need to change your clothes, you do it inside the designated areas, not outside, not in the street.
And another thing: don’t park your cars right in front of people’s homes. Don’t block their doors or their driveways. If we keep doing these things, the complaints will pile up. The neighbors will write petitions against us. And then what happens? We’ll be the ones who have to face the municipality, the police, the authorities. And they’ll tell us: you can’t stay here; you have to leave.
So please, keep this in mind.
Well, since this morning when I arrived, thank God, we had so many liberations that I didn’t even have a chance to scratch my head.
Now, about this matter of cognizance and effective cognizance. This subject has always been around, and whenever it came up, I would usually say: let Amin come and speak, because he’s the one who designed it and came up with it. It would be better that way. But now I’ll say a few words myself, and then I’ll leave the rest of the session for your sharing.
In the past, people would always tell us, and we ourselves believed, that the level of cognizance or awareness depended on literacy. The more someone studied, the more educated they were, the more we thought they knew. That’s how we all thought. Of course, literacy does bring a degree of awareness, yes, it does. But it doesn’t necessarily bring cognizance. A person may gain knowledge, information, fill themselves with what we call data, and yes, that gives them some awareness. But does it give them true cognizance? Not necessarily.
If I want to put it very simply: what is cognizance? Amin said it consists of three parts, knowledge, contemplation, and experience. Cognizance is really the art of living. How to live. That’s what it all comes down to: the art of living.
How do we live? Do we even know how to live, or don’t we? What does it include? Look, someone may have a doctorate or even a post-doctorate degree, but in their apartment building they can’t get along with their neighbors. They’re fighting over the parking spot, fighting over everything. At their workplace, everybody dislikes them, they’re always a source of trouble, always a source of problems. That means they don’t know the art of living.
So, again, it comes down to those three parts: reflection, experience, and learning. We need to learn them. Why? So that we can live. The most important knowledge, the most important science, is the science of living. If we know how to live, then we can enjoy life. If we don’t, then life becomes suffering, and suffering, and torment.
So, we must take knowledge and put it into practice, put it into experience. Because knowledge by itself is like a CD full of information. Or like a flash drive, you can store all the languages of the world on one flash drive. But what good is it? It’s just a collection, a pile of stored knowledge.
Of course, now artificial intelligence has come along and made things even broader. It can do a lot of tasks very well. It’s almost like the intellect: you feed it data, it gathers it, and it can act based on it. Hopefully, we too can reach that level one day.
So, cognizance in general… yes, there’s general cognizance and there’s effective cognizance. But overall, from what I understand, all of it depends on the art of living. If we know the art of living, we move closer to happiness. If we don’t know the art of living, we won’t be happy.
Gratitude for a blessing increases it; ingratitude takes the blessing away. Yesterday, I was in class, and someone said: ‘I can’t succeed in many things, and I feel upset about it.’ I said: ‘It’s because you have so many things and you don’t appreciate them. You think you don’t have some things, but in reality, you have a lot that you don’t even think about.’
For example, you came here with your own two feet. You have thousands and thousands of issues, and suddenly, one problem comes along, you can’t walk; you have to sit in a wheelchair. All other desires disappear; the main issue is just this, your ability to walk. They say, ‘A certain artery in your brain is blocked, and half of your face is paralyzed.’ One artery blocked, and all other problems fade away.
So, we have so many things, but we don’t value them. If we understand this, then we realize whether life is valuable or not. But often, we’re always looking at darkness, always stuck in negative matters, always seeing the black. If someone shows us a blank white canvas, and there’s just one black spot in the corner, we ignore all the white and focus only on that little black spot, saying, ‘See? There’s darkness.’ That is a negative mindset.
And who does this negativity harm? It harms the person themselves. The person suffers, experiences pain, and may even develop all kinds of illnesses. We have about two hundred diseases that are considered psychosomatic, where your thoughts and mindset affect your body and make you sick.
Blessed is the one who can stay positive, who can see things positively. Looking at things negatively brings nothing but pain and suffering.
When can we reach that point? When can we master the art of living? And learning the art of living depends on cognizance.
Who can say who is truly happier? A street sweeper, who works very hard? Every job in society is respected, of course, but I mention this because of the low income. They have to wake up at three in the morning, when it’s still dark, to clean the streets. May God bless them all. If you see a street sweeper at four or three in the morning, give them fifty or a hundred tomans, it makes a big difference. Their salary is very low, and a small gesture counts a lot.
So, who can truly say who is happier? This street sweeper or a surgeon? A street sweeper or an Oscar-winning actor? The Oscar winner or this worker? A street sweeper, or a doctor of atomic physics? Or a medical doctor? Which life is happier? An eighty-year-old person, or a twenty-year-old? Who is happier?”
How can you recognize who is truly happy? So, the standards, money, cars, houses, positions, comforts, those are not the real standards. The standards are something else. What is that standard? It’s what you think, what you truly think. We are one thing, but we think another. What we think, that’s what matters.
Someone may take a simple loaf of Barbari bread, eat it plain, enjoy it fully, and consider themselves a hardworking, industrious person, and they feel happy. But someone with high positions, wealth, status, how are they? A street sweeper goes to bed at night, lays their head down, and within ten minutes, they’re asleep. But someone who’s a member of parliament, when do they sleep? How hard is it for them? The responsibility they carry, the pressure, they can’t rest easily.
So, cognizance means understanding what we truly think. We are what we think. We are what we think we are. Therefore, we need to use our thoughts and understanding to benefit from our lives. Because, as I said, either we live in the past, which always brings depression, or we live in the future, which always brings anxiety. Living in the present? We don’t know how. We slaughter the present, we destroy the present, we chop it up, we make it bitter, with what? With the poison of the future and the poison of the past.
When we look at the past and the future, we only see all the negative things coming. But if we looked at the positive aspects of the future, it wouldn’t turn into poison, it would turn into an antidote, a syrup, a refreshing drink.
So, what’s important for us? Why do we need to reach cognizance? To learn the art of living. And worldview, what is that? It’s the teaching of the art of life. That’s what all divine religions have done. The purpose of divine religions is to teach humans the art of living. It’s not just about worshipping God, of course, that has its place, but primarily, divine religions teach you how to live.
Now, if religion is misused in the name of God, in the name of Allah, that’s another matter. For example, in medieval Europe, hundreds of thousands of people were burned for witchcraft. Who said to burn the witches? Where does the Bible say that? No one. People just used it as an excuse. Even if it was politically motivated, they burned anyone who opposed them, accusing them of witchcraft. That’s not about Jesus or the teachings themselves.
All of this, religions, philosophies, political systems like communism, socialism, democracy, liberalism, they all aim to teach humans the art of living. Great writers and thinkers too, Saadi, Hafez, Rumi, Shakespeare, and many others, even texts like the Upanishads, Zoroastrian scriptures, and all kinds of religious and philosophical works, they all try to teach us how to live, how to enjoy life, how to benefit from life.
So, how do we live so that life is pleasant for us? We drink a cup of tea, let’s enjoy it. We walk outside, let’s enjoy it. Today, the weather is nice, let’s enjoy it. This is all part of the art of living. And everything we do in Congress 60, in worldview sessions, the CDs, the teachings, even in addiction treatment, quitting smoking, or losing weight, they are all teaching you the art of living. That’s what it’s all about, learning to live life fully, to enjoy it, to make life pleasant.
When you have sixty kilos of extra weight, can you really enjoy life? When you have thirty kilos extra, can you fully use life? Can you benefit from life? With thirty extra kilos, can you even move comfortably? Even ten, fifteen kilos? Ten, twelve kilos, extra weight. You get used to it, but then, simple things become difficult. You can’t put on your socks properly. You can’t fully wash yourself. You can’t complete a proper shower.
This is the art of living. The art of living tells us: your weight should be balanced. The art of living says: don’t smoke, or tomorrow your lungs will be ruined, your life will shorten, you might have a stroke, it will lodge in your veins and bother you.
The art of living tells you: eat eggs in the morning, for breakfast. The only thing that really helps prevent strokes is vitamin K2. Vitamin K2 removes calcium deposits from the arteries and moves them to the bone marrow. Vitamin K2. Go and study it. Where is vitamin K2? How do we get it? Vitamin K2 is in egg yolks and in hard cheeses. In these two. Egg yolks, hard cheeses like Tabriz cheese, Lighvan cheese—I mean these types, hard cheeses, not pasteurized cheeses. That’s where K2 is. It ensures that all the calcium trying to deposit in your arteries is removed.
So, this is the art of living. And this is what cognizance is.
Now, effective cognizance, which is much better. Effective cognizance says: all three sides must move forward together. That means your knowledge must advance, your thinking must be active, and, so to speak, your experience must grow. When these three are coordinated together, you reach effective cognizance, thinking, knowledge, and experience. And all of this learning, all of this cognizance, is just so we can learn the art of living, how to live, how to benefit from life, and how to make the most of the time and space we’ve been given, because it will be taken from us.
Where are they now? Darius, where is he? Cyrus, where is he? The Prophet Muhammad, where is he? Ali ibn Abi Talib, where is he? Abu Sufyan, where is he? Hitler, where is he? Mussolini, where is he? Stalin, where is he? Where are they? Saadi, where is he? Rumi, where is he? We only come for a short period, and we must make the most of it. None of them remain.
A fool is someone very old, still hoarding wealth, not knowing the art of living, not passing it to their children, not giving it to anyone, just hoarding. That’s what the art of living looks like.
So, all our work, our effort, our activity, is to learn the art of living so that we can truly benefit from life. And who gives us the art of living? Cognizance does. The closer we get to cognizance, the better we learn the art of living, what to do, how to plan, how to act.
I hope God elevates the cognizance of all of us through our own effort. Thank you for listening to me.
So, the people of Yazd, around the county of Yazd, we have branches, but we don’t have a branch in the city center. So, they should cooperate so that we can have a branch in the city and help it grow. Don’t think just about yourselves, think about the people, there are so many who need treatment. Don’t think only about your own branch. I’m speaking generally here. If another branch or location becomes strong, we also become stronger.
Some of our provinces are really active; you can’t just say the south or the east; it’s like this everywhere. For example, Isfahan, it has expanded a lot. Mashhad, it has expanded a lot. Kerman, it’s growing. Shahrekord too. Around Mashhad, like Quchan, Nishapur, and so on, it’s the same. But I don’t know what it is, why in the northern regions it’s not like that. The branches we have in the north aren’t really that strong. Maybe it’s because it’s a tourist area, or maybe they’re living in comfort, maybe they eat a lot of goose and fish, that’s the reason. Goose stuffed and white fish, and their minds are busy with these things. For example, we have Rasht in Gilan, and it hasn’t really multiplied into many branches. Karaj, on the other hand, has several branches. Just this morning, they went and leased a place somewhere; the lease money was three billion tomans. I signed it, said go get it, because they had the money themselves. But in the north, Gilan, Mazandaran, the Chalus branch hasn’t changed for years. Rasht hasn’t really developed. The same is true for Tabriz, Urmia, and Ardabil. I don’t know why. Actually, they have very loving, kind-hearted members. Today, some came from Gilan, brought me lots of souvenirs, all of them. All of them, very loving, very affectionate, really full of love. But now I need to ask them to move a little, to want to expand, to want their branch to grow, to want their own space, their own land, their own building.
Now Kerman, they had one, two, three branches, they’re multiplying quickly. From Kerman, they went to Rafsanjan. From Kerman, to Sirjan. From Kerman, to Bandar Abbas. They’re constantly expanding and helping others. Now, I hope the cities in the north region will also get stronger. The cities in West and East Azerbaijan, doesn’t matter whether West or East, they haven’t really expanded much. Maybe especially in Azerbaijan, because people keep things hidden. They want to be consumers but don’t want anyone to know. Unlike Kerman, if someone is a consumer there, they tell everyone they are a consumer and the movement grows, it spreads, it increases. But there, they hide it. Maybe that’s the reason. But whatever the reason, I hope those cities, to help their fellow citizens, to help their own people, will have their own spaces.
We have something called ‘drive,’ an inner drive, a national drive. Maybe because they’re tourist cities, maybe. But they need to move, to strengthen their branches, at least to have their own land, their own money. Financially, these cities aren’t poor, but regarding Congress 60, they are in a state of poverty because they couldn’t get their own building, their own place, get support. I hope they succeed.
Well, let’s go to Mashhad and Quchan, Mashhad and Dargaz and Khaf… just like this, rapidly, all the cities are being established, and they’ve set up several very large branches. For example, the Shafa branch exists, the Razavi branch exists, the Bonyan Mashhad branch exists, and so on.
Typed by: Companion Zahra Q, Sheikh Bahaei Branch, Isfahan
Translated by: Companion Marjan
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