June

June 1
Energy creates its own discipline

To seek reality requires immense energy; and, if man is not doing that, he dissipates his energy in ways that create mischief, and therefore society has to control him. Now, is it possible to liberate energy in seeking God or truth and, in the process of discovering what is true, to be a citizen who understands the fundamental issues of life and whom society cannot destroy?

You see, man is energy, and if man does not seek truth, this energy becomes destructive; therefore society controls and shapes the individual, which smothers this energy...And perhaps you have noticed another interesting and very simple fact: that the moment you really want to do something, you have the energy to do it...That very energy becomes the means of controlling itself, so you don’t need outside discipline. In the search for reality, energy creates its own discipline. The man who is seeking reality spontaneously becomes the right kind of citizen, which is not according to the pattern of any particular society or government.

June 2
Duality creates conflict

Conflict of any kind—physically, psychologically, intellectually—is a waste of energy. Please, it is extraordinarily difficult to understand and to be free of this because most of us are brought up to struggle, to make effort. When we are at school, that is the first thing that we are taught—to make an effort. And that struggle, that effort is carried throughout life—that is, to be good you must struggle, you must fight evil, you must resist, control. So, educationally, sociologically, religiously, human beings are taught to struggle. You are told that to find God you must work, discipline, do practice, twist and torture your soul, your mind, your body, deny, suppress; that you must not look; that you must fight, fight, fight at that so-called spiritual level—which is not the spiritual level at all. Then, socially each one is out for himself, for his family.

...So, all around, we are wasting energy. And that waste of energy in essence is conflict: the conflict between “I should” and “I should not,” “I must” and “I must not.” Once having created duality, conflict is inevitable. So one has to understand this whole process of duality—not that there is not man and woman, green and red, light and darkness, tall and short; all those are facts. But in the effort that goes into this division between the fact and the idea, there is the waste of energy.

June 3
The pattern of an idea

If you say, “How am I to save energy?” then you have created a pattern of an idea—how to save it—and then conduct your life according to that pattern; therefore, there begins again a contradiction. Whereas if you perceive for yourself where your energies are being wasted, you will see that the principal force causing the waste is conflict—which is having a problem and never resolving it, living with a deadly memory of something gone, living in tradition. One has to understand the nature of the dissipation of energy, and the understanding of the dissipation of energy is not according to Shankara, Buddha or some saint, but the actual observation of one’s daily conflict in life. So the principal waste of energy is conflict—which doesn’t mean that you sit back and be lazy. Conflict will always exist as long as the idea is more important than the fact.

June 4
Where there is contradiction there is conflict

You see that most of us are in conflict, live a life of contradiction, not only outwardly, but also inwardly. Contradiction implies effort...Where there is effort, there is wastage—there is a waste of energy. Where there is contradiction, there is conflict. Where there is conflict, there is effort to get over that conflict—which is another form of resistance. And where you resist, there is also a certain form of energy engendered—you know that when you resist something, that very resistance creates energy...

All action is based on this friction that I must and I must not. And this form of resistance, this form of conflict, does breed energy; but that energy, if you observe very closely, is very destructive; it is not creative...Most people are in contradiction. And if they have a gift, a talent to write or to paint or to do this or that, the tension of that contradiction gives them the energy to express, to create, to write, to be. The more the tension, the greater the conflict, the greater is the output, and that is what we call creation. But it is not at all creation. It is the result of conflict. To face the fact that you are in conflict, that you are in contradiction, will bring that quality of energy that is not the outcome of resistance.

June 5
Creative energy

Now the question is: Is there an energy which is not within the field of thought, which is not the result of self-contradictory, compulsive energy, of self-fulfillment as frustration? You understand the question? I hope I am making myself clear. Because, unless we find the quality of that energy which is not merely the product of thought that bit by bit creates the energy but also is mechanical, action is destructive, whether we do social reform, write excellent books, be very clever in business, or create nationalistic divisions and take part in other political activities and so on. Now, the question is whether there is such an energy, not theoretically—because when we are confronted with facts, to introduce theories is infantile, immature. It is like the case of a man who has cancer and is to be operated upon; it is no good discussing what kinds of instruments are to be used and all the rest of it; you have to face the fact that he is to be operated upon. So, similarly, a mind has to penetrate or be in such a state when the mind is not a slave to thought. After all, all thought in time is invention; all the gadgets, jets, the refrigerators, the rockets, the exploration into the atom, space, they are all the result of knowledge, thought. All these are not creation; invention is not creation; capacity is not creation; thought can never be creative because thought is always conditioned and can never be free. It is only that energy which is not the product of thought that is creative.

June 6
The highest form of energy

An idea about energy is entirely different from the fact of energy itself. We have formulas or concepts of how to bring about a quality of energy that is of the highest quality. But the formula is entirely different from the renovating, renewing quality of energy itself.

...The highest form of this energy, the apogee, is the state of mind when it has no idea, no thought, no sense of a direction or motive—that is pure energy. And that quality of energy cannot be sought after. You can’t say, “Well, tell me how to get it, the modus operandi, the way.” There is no way to it. To find out for ourselves the nature of this energy, we must begin to understand the daily energy that is wasted—the energy when we talk, when we hear a bird, a voice, when we see the river, the vast sky and the villagers, dirty, ill kept, ill, half-starved, and the tree that withdraws of an evening from all the light of day. The very observation of everything is energy. And this energy we derive through food, through the sun’s rays. This physical, daily energy that one has, obviously can be augmented, increased, by the right kind of food and so on. That is necessary, obviously. But that same energy which becomes the energy of the psyche—that is, thought—the moment that energy has any contradiction in itself, that energy is a waste of energy.

June 7
The act of listening to a fact will free the mind

Somebody is telling you something, you listen. The very act of listening is the act of release. When you see the fact, the very perception of that fact is the release of that fact. The very listening, the very seeing of something as a fact, has an extraordinary effect without the effort of thought.

...Let us take one thing—say ambition. We have gone sufficiently into what it does, what its effects are. A mind that is ambitious can never know what it is to sympathize, to have pity, to love. An ambitious mind is a cruel mind—whether spiritually or outwardly or inwardly. You have heard it. You hear it; when you hear that, you translate it and say, “How can I live in this world which is built on ambition?” Therefore, you have not listened. You have responded, you have reacted to a statement, to a fact; therefore, you are not looking at the fact. You are merely translating the fact or giving an opinion about the fact or responding to the fact; therefore, you are not looking at the fact...If one listens—in the sense without any evaluation, reaction, judgment—surely then, the fact creates that energy which destroys, wipes away, sweeps away ambition which creates conflict.

June 8
Attention without resistance

You know what space is. There is space in this room. The distance between here and your hostel, between the bridge and your home, between this bank of the river and the other—all that is space. Now, is there also space in your mind? Or is it so crowded that there is no space in it at all? If your mind has space, then in that space there is silence—and from that silence everything else comes, for then you can listen, you can pay attention without resistance. That is why it is very important to have space in the mind. If the mind is not overcrowded, not ceaselessly occupied, then it can listen to that dog barking, to the sound of a train crossing the distant bridge, and also be fully aware of what is being said by a person talking here. Then the mind is a living thing, it is not dead.

June 9
Attention free of effort

Is there attention without anything absorbing the mind? Is there attention without concentrating upon an object? Is there attention without any form of motive, influence, compulsion? Can the mind give full attention without any sense of exclusion? Surely it can, and that is the only state of attention; the others are mere indulgence, or tricks of the mind. If you can give full attention without being absorbed in something, and without any sense of exclusion, then you will find out what it is to meditate; because in that attention there is no effort, no division, no struggle, no search for a result. So meditation is a process of freeing the mind from systems, and of giving attention without either being absorbed, or making an effort to concentrate.

June 10
An attention that is not exclusive

I think there is a difference between the attention that is given to an object, and attention without object. We can concentrate on a particular idea, belief, object—which is an exclusive process; and there is also an attention, an awareness, which is not exclusive. Similarly, there is a discontent which has no motive, which is not the outcome of some frustration, which cannot be canalized, which cannot accept any fulfilment. Perhaps I may not be using the right word for it, but I think that that extraordinary discontent is the essential. Without that, every other form of discontent merely becomes a way to satisfaction.

June 11
Attention is limitless, without frontiers

In the cultivation of the mind, our emphasis should not be on concentration, but on attention. Concentration is a process of forcing the mind to narrow down to a point, whereas attention is without frontiers. In that process the mind is always limited by a frontier or boundary, but when our concern is to understand the totality of the mind, mere concentration becomes a hindrance. Attention is limitless, without the frontiers of knowledge. Knowledge comes through concentration, and any extension of knowledge is still within its own frontiers. In the state of attention the mind can and does use knowledge, which of necessity is the result of concentration; but the part is never the whole, and adding together the many parts does not make for the perception of the whole. Knowledge, which is the additive process of concentration does not bring about the understanding of the immeasurable. The total is never within the brackets of a concentrated mind.

So attention is of primary importance, but it does not come through the effort of concentration. Attention is a state in which the mind is ever learning without a center around which knowledge gathers as accumulated experience. A mind that is concentrated upon itself uses knowledge as a means of its own expansion; and such activity becomes self-contradictory and anti-social.

June 12
Complete attention

What do we mean by attention? Is there attention when I am forcing my mind to attend? When I say to myself, “I must pay attention, I must control my mind and push aside all other thoughts,” would you call that attention? Surely that is not attention. What happens when the mind forces itself to pay attention? It creates a resistance to prevent other thoughts from seeping in; it is concerned with resistance, with pushing away; therefore it is incapable of attention. That is true, is it not?

To understand something totally you must give your complete attention to it. But you will soon find out how extraordinarily difficult that is, because your mind is used to being distracted, so you say, “By Jove, it is good to pay attention, but how am I to do it?” That is, you are back again with the desire to get something, so you will never pay complete attention...When you see a tree or a bird, for example, to pay complete attention is not to say, ”That is an oak,” or, “That is a parrot,” and walk by. In giving it a name you have already ceased to pay attention...Whereas, if you are wholly aware, totally attentive when you look at something, then you will find that a complete transformation takes place, and that total attention is the good. There is no other, and you cannot get total attention by practice. With practice you get concentration, that is, you build up walls of resistance, and within those walls of resistance is the concentrator, but that is not attention, it is exclusion.

June 13
Elimination of fear is the beginning of attention

How is the state of attention to be brought about? It cannot be cultivated through persuasion, comparison, reward or punishment, all of which are forms of coercion. The elimination of fear is the beginning of attention. Fear must exist as long as there is an urge to be or to become, which is the pursuit of success, with all its frustrations and tortuous contradictions. You can teach concentration, but attention cannot be taught, just as you cannot possibly teach freedom from fear, and in understanding these causes there is the elimination of fear. So attention arises spontaneously when around the student there is an atmosphere of well-being, when he has the feeling of being secure, of being at ease, and is aware of the disinterested action that comes with love. Love does not compare, and so the envy and torture of “becoming” cease.

June 14
There is no place at which to arrive

Can humility be practiced? Surely, to be conscious that you are humble, is not to be humble. You want to know that you have arrived. This indicates, does it not?, that you are listening in order to achieve a particular state, a place where you will never be disturbed, where you will find everlasting happiness, permanent bliss. But as I said previously, there is no arriving, there is only the movement of learning—and that is the beauty of life. If you have arrived, there is nothing more. And all of you have arrived, or you want to arrive, not only in your business, but in everything you do; so you are dissatisfied, frustrated, miserable. Sirs, there is no place at which to arrive, there is just this movement of learning which becomes painful only when there is accumulation. A mind that listens with complete attention, will never look for a result because it is constantly unfolding; like a river, it is always in movement. Such a mind is totally unconscious of its own activity, in the sense that there is no perpetuation of a self, of a “me,” which is seeking to achieve an end.

June 15
Knowledge is not awareness

Awareness is that state of mind which observes something without any condemnation or acceptance, which merely faces the thing as it is. When you look at a flower nonbotanically, then you see the totality of the flower; but if your mind is completely taken up with the botanical knowledge of what the flower is, you are not totally looking at the flower. Though you may have knowledge of the flower, if that knowledge takes the whole ground of your mind, the whole field of your mind, then you are not looking totally at the flower.

So, to look at a fact is to be aware. In that awareness, there is no choice, no condemnation, no like or dislike. But most of us are incapable of doing this because traditionally, occupationally, in every way, we are not capable of facing the fact without the background. We have to be aware of the background. We have to be aware of our conditioning, and that conditioning shows itself when we observe a fact; and as you are concerned with the observation of the fact and not with the background, the background is pushed aside. When the main interest is to understand the fact only, and when you see that the background prevents you from understanding the fact, then the vital interest in the fact wipes away the background.

June 16
Introspection is incomplete

In awareness there is only the present—that is, being aware, you see the past process of influence which controls the present and modifies the future. Awareness is an integral process, not a process of division. For example, if I ask the question, “Do I believe in God,”—in the very process of asking, I can observe, if I am aware, what it is that is making me ask that question; if I am aware I can perceive what have been and what are the forces at work which are compelling me to ask that question. Then I am aware of various forms of fear—those of my ancestors who have created a certain idea of God and have handed it down to me, and combining their idea with my present reactions, I have modified or changed the concept of God. If I am aware I perceive this entire process of the past, its effect in the present and in the future, integrally, as a whole.

If one is aware, one sees how through fear one’s concept of God arose; or perhaps there was a person who had an original experience of reality or of God and communicated it to another who in his greediness made it his own, and gave impetus to the process of imitation. Awareness is the process of completeness, and introspection is incomplete. The result of introspection is morbid, painful, whereas awareness is enthusiasm and joy.

June 17
Seeing the whole

How do you look at a tree? Do you see the whole of the tree? If you don’t see it as a whole, you don’t see the tree at all. You may pass it by and say, “There is a tree, how nice it is!” or say, “It is a mango tree,” or “I do not know what those trees are; they may be tamarind trees.” But when you stand and look—I am talking actually, factually—you never see the totality of it; and if you don’t see the totality of the tree, you do not see the tree. In the same way is awareness. If you don’t see the operations of your mind totally in that sense—as you see the tree— you are not aware. The tree is made up of the roots, the trunk, the branches, the big ones and the little ones and the very delicate one that goes up there; and the leaf, the dead leaf, the withered leaf and the green leaf, the leaf that is eaten, the leaf that is ugly, the leaf that is dropping, the fruit, the flower—all that you see as a whole when you see the tree. In the same way, in that state of seeing the operations of your mind, in that state of awareness, there is your sense of condemnation, approval, denial, struggle, futility, the despair, the hope, the frustration; awareness covers all that, not just one part. So, are you aware of your mind in that very simple sense, as seeing a whole picture—not one corner of the picture and saying, “Who painted that picture?”

June 18
Awareness cannot be disciplined

If awareness is practiced, made into a habit, then it becomes tedious and painful. Awareness cannot be disciplined. That which is practiced is no longer awareness, for in practice is implied the creation of habit, the exertion of effort and will. Effort is distortion. There is not only the awareness of the outer—of the flight of birds, of shadows, of the restless sea, the trees and the wind, the beggar and the luxurious cars that pass by—but also there is the awareness of the psychological process, the inward tension and conflict. You do not condemn a bird in flight; you observe it, you see the beauty of it. But, when you consider your own inward strife, you condemn it or justify it. You are incapable of observing this inward conflict without choice or justification.

To be aware of your thought and feeling without identification and denial is not tedious and painful, but in search of a result, an end to be gained, conflict is increased and the tedium of strife begins.

June 19
Let a thought flower

Awareness is that state of mind which takes in everything—the crows flying across the sky, the flowers on the trees, the people sitting in front, the colors they are wearing—being extensively aware, which needs watching, observing, taking in the shape of the leaf, the shape of the trunk, the shape of the head of another, what he is doing. To be extensively aware and from there acting—that is to be aware of the totality of one’s own being. To have a mere sectional capacity, a fragmentation of capacity or capacity fragmented, and to pursue that capacity and derive experience through that capacity which is limited—that makes the quality of the mind mediocre, limited, narrow. But an awareness of the totality of one’s own being, understood through the awareness of every thought and every feeling, and never limiting it, letting every thought and every feeling flower, and therefore being aware—that is entirely different from action or concentration which is merely capacity and therefore limited.

To let a thought flower or a feeling flower requires attention—not concentration. I mean by the flowering of a thought giving freedom to it to see what happens, what is taking place in your thought, in your feeling. Anything that flowers must have freedom, must have light; it cannot be restricted. You cannot put any value on it, you cannot say, “That is right, that is wrong; this should be, and that should not be”—thereby, you limit the flowering of thought. And it can only flower in this awareness. Therefore, if you go into it very deeply, you will find that this flowering of thought is the ending of thought.

June 20
Passive awareness

In awareness there is no becoming, there is no end to be gained.

There is silent observation without choice and condemnation, from which there comes understanding. In this process when thought and feeling unfold themselves, which is only possible when there is neither acquisition nor acceptance, then there comes an extensional awareness, all the hidden layers and their significance are revealed. This awareness reveals that creative emptiness which cannot be imagined or formulated. This extensional awareness and the creative emptiness are a total process and are not different stages. When you silently observe a problem without condemnation, justification, there comes passive awareness. In this passive awareness, the problem is understood and dissolved. In awareness there is heightened sensitivity, in which there is the highest form of negative thinking. When the mind is formulating, producing, there can be no creation. It is only when the mind is still and empty, when it is not creating a problem—in that alert passivity there is creation. Creation can only take place in negation, which is not the opposite of the positive. Being nothing is not the antithesis of being something. A problem comes into being only when there is a search for result. When the search for result ceases, then only is there no problem.

June 21
What is thoroughly understood will not repeat itself

In self-awareness there is no need for confession, for self-awareness creates the mirror in which all things are reflected without distortion. Every thought-feeling is thrown, as it were, on the screen of awareness to be observed, studied and understood; but this flow of understanding is blocked when there is condemnation or acceptance, judgment or identification. The more the screen is watched and understood—not as a duty or enforced practice, but because pain and sorrow have created the insatiable interest that brings its own discipline—the greater the intensity of awareness, and this in turn brings heightened understanding.

...You can follow a thing if it moves slowly; a rapid machine must be made to slow down if one is to study its movements. Similarly, thoughts-feelings can be studied and understood only if the mind is capable of proceeding slowly; but once it has awakened this capacity, it can move at a high velocity, which makes it extremely calm. When revolving at high speed the several blades of a fan appear to be a solid sheet of metal. Our difficulty is to make the mind revolve slowly so that each thought-feeling can be followed and understood. What is deeply and thoroughly understood will not repeat itself.

June 22
Violence

What takes place when you give complete attention to the thing that we call violence?—violence being not only what separates human beings, through belief, conditioning, and so on, but also what comes into being when we are seeking personal security, or the security of individuality through a pattern of society. Can you look at that violence with complete attention? And when you look at that violence with complete attention, what takes place? When you give complete attention to anything—your learning of history or mathematics, looking at your wife or your husband—what takes place? I do not know if you have gone into it—probably most of us have never given complete attention to anything—but when you do, what takes place? Sirs, what is attention? Surely when you are giving complete attention there is care, and you cannot care if you have no affection, no love. And when you give attention in which there is love, is there violence? You are following? Formally I have condemned violence, I have escaped from it, I have justified it, I have said it is natural. All these things are inattention. But when I give attention to what I have called violence—and in that attention there is care, affection, love—where is there space for violence?

June 23
Is it possible to end this violence?

When you talk about violence, what do you mean by it? It is really quite an interesting question, if you go into it deeply, to inquire whether a human being, living in this world, can totally cease to be violent. Societies, religious communities, have tried not to kill animals. Some have even said, “If you don’t want to kill animals, what about the vegetables?” You can carry it to such an extent that you would cease to exist. Where do you draw the line? Is there an arbitrary line according to your ideal, to your fancy, to your norm, to your temperament, to your conditioning, and you say, “I’ll go up to there but not beyond?” Is there a difference between individual anger, with violent action on the part of the individual, and the organized hatred of a society which breeds and builds up an army to destroy another society? Where, at what level, and what fragment of violence are you discussing, or do you want to discuss whether man can be free of total violence, not a particular fragment which he calls violence?

We know what violence is without expressing in words, in phrases, in action. As a human being in whom the animal is still very strong, in spite of centuries of so-called civilization, where shall I begin? Shall I begin at the periphery, which is society, or at the center, which is myself? You tell me not to be violent, because it is ugly. You explain to me all the reasons, and I see that violence is a terrible thing in human beings, outwardly and inwardly. Is it possible to end this violence?

June 24
The central cause of conflict

Do not think by merely wishing for peace, you will have peace, when in your daily life of relationship you are aggressive, acquisitive, seeking psychological security here or in the hereafter. You have to understand the central cause of conflict and sorrow and then dissolve it and not merely look to the outside for peace. But you see, most of us are indolent. We are too lazy to take hold of ourselves and understand ourselves, and being lazy, which is really a form of conceit, we think others will solve this problem for us and give us peace, or that we should destroy the apparently few people that are causing wars. When the individual is in conflict within himself he must inevitably create conflict without, and only he can bring about peace within himself and so in the world, for he is the world.

June 25
Realize you are violent

The animal is violent. Human beings who are the result of the animal, are also violent; it is part of their being to be violent, to be angry, to be jealous, to be envious, to seek power, position, prestige and all the rest of it, to dominate, to be aggressive. Man is violent—this is shown by thousands of wars—and he has developed an ideology which he calls “non-violence.”...And when there is actual violence as a war between this country and the next country, everybody is involved in it. They love it. Now, when you are actually violent and you have an ideal of non-violence, you have a conflict. You are always trying to become non-violent—which is a part of the conflict. You discipline yourself in order not to be violent—which, again, is a conflict, friction. So when you are violent and have the ideal of non-violence, you are essentially violent. To realize that you are violent is the first thing to do—not try to become non-violent. To see violence as it is, not try to translate it, not to discipline it, not to overcome it, not to suppress it, but to see it as though you are seeing it for the first time —that is to look at it without any thought. I have explained already what we mean by looking at a tree with innocence—which is to look at it without the image. In the same way, you have to look at violence without the image which is involved in the word itself. To look at it without any movement of thought is to look at it as though you are looking at it for the first time, and therefore looking at it with innocence.

June 26
Freedom from violence

So can you see the fact of violence—the fact not only outside of you but also inside you—and not have any time interval between listening and acting? This means by the very act of listening you are free from violence. You are totally free from violence because you have not admitted time, an ideology through which you can get rid of violence. This requires very deep meditation, not just a verbal agreement or disagreement. We never listen to anything; our minds, our brain cells are so conditioned to an ideology about violence that we never look at the fact of violence. We look at the fact of violence through an ideology, and the looking at violence through an ideology creates a time interval. And when you admit time, there is no end to violence; you go on showing violence, preaching non-violence.

June 27
The major cause of violence

The major cause of violence, I think, is that each one of us is inwardly, psychologically, seeking security. In each one of us the urge for psychological security—that inward sense of being safe—projects the demand, the outward demand, for security. Inwardly each one of us wants to be secure, sure, certain. That is why we have all these marriage laws; in order that we may possess a woman, or a man, and so be secure in our relationship. If that relationship is attacked we become violent, which is the psychological demand, the inward demand, to be certain of our relationship to everything. But there is no such thing as certainty, security, in any relationship. Inwardly, psychologically, we should like to be secure, but there is no such thing as permanent security...

So all these are the contributory causes of the violence that is prevalent, rampaging, throughout the world. I think anybody who has observed, even if only a little, what is going on in the world, and especially in this unfortunate country, can also, without a great deal of intellectual study, observe and find out in himself those things which, projected outwardly, are the causes of this extraordinary brutality, callousness, indifference, violence.

June 28
The fact is we are violent

We all see the importance of the cessation of violence. And how am I, as an individual, to be free of violence—not just superficially, but totally, completely, inwardly? If the ideal of nonviolence will not free the mind from violence, then will the analysis of the cause of violence help to dissolve violence?

After all, this is one of our major problems, is it not? The whole world is caught up in violence, in wars; the very structure of our acquisitive society is essentially violent. And if you and I as individuals are to be free from violence—totally, inwardly free, not merely superficially or verbally—then how is one to set about it without becoming self-centered?

You understand the problem, do you not? If my concern is to free the mind from violence and I practice discipline in order to control violence and change it into nonviolence, surely that brings about self-centered thought and activity, because my mind is focused all the time on getting rid of one thing and acquiring something else. And yet I see the importance of the mind being totally free from violence. So what am I to do? Surely, it is not a question of how one is not to be violent. The fact is that we are violent, and to ask “How am I not to be violent?” merely creates the ideal, which seems to me to be utterly futile. But if one is capable of looking at violence and understanding it, then perhaps there is a possibility of resolving it totally.

June 29
To destroy hate

We see the world of hate taking its harvest at the present. This world of hate has been created by our fathers and their forefathers and by us. Thus ignorance stretches indefinitely into the past. It has not come into being by itself. It is the outcome of human ignorance, a historical process, isn’t it? We as individuals have cooperated with our ancestors, who, with their forefathers, set going this process of hate, fear, greed, and so on. Now, as individuals, we partake of this world of hate so long as we, individually, indulge in it.

The world, then, is an extension of yourself. If you as an individual desire to destroy hate, then you as an individual must cease hating. To destroy hate, you must dissociate yourself from hate in all its gross and subtle forms, and so long as you are caught up in it you are part of that world of ignorance and fear. Then the world is an extension of yourself, yourself duplicated and multiplied. The world does not exist apart from the individual. It may exist as an idea, as a state, as a social organization, but to carry out that idea, to make that social or religious organization function, there must be the individual. His ignorance, his greed, and his fear maintain the structure of ignorance, greed, and hate. If the individual changes, can he affect the world, the world of hate, greed, and so on?...The world is an extension of yourself so long as you are thoughtless, caught up in ignorance, hate, greed, but when you are earnest, thoughtful and aware, there is not only a dissociation from those ugly causes that create pain and sorrow, but also in that understanding there is a completeness, a wholeness.

June 30
That thing which you fight you become

Surely that thing which you fight you become...If I am angry and you meet me with anger what is the result? More anger. You have become that which I am. If I am evil and you fight me with evil means then you also become evil, however righteous you may feel. If I am brutal and you use brutal methods to overcome me, then you become brutal like me. And this we have done thousands of years. Surely there is a different approach than to meet hate by hate? If I use violent methods to quell anger in myself then I am using wrong means for a right end, and thereby the right end ceases to be. In this there is no understanding; there is no transcending anger. Anger is to be studied tolerantly and understood; it is not to be overcome through violent means. Anger may be the result of many causes and without comprehending them there is no escape from anger.

We have created the enemy, the bandit, and becoming ourselves the enemy in no way brings about an end to enmity. We have to understand the cause of enmity and cease to feed it by our thought, feeling and action. This is an arduous task demanding constant self-awareness and intelligent pliability, for what we are the society, the state is. The enemy and the friend are the outcome of our thought and action. We are responsible for creating enmity and so it is more important to be aware of our own thought and action than to be concerned with the foe and the friend, for right thinking puts an end to division. Love transcends the friend and the enemy.