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October |
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October 1 |
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All
religions have maintained that time is necessary, the psychological time we
are talking about. Heaven is very far away, and one can only come to it
through the gradual process of evolution, through suppression, through
growth, or through identification with an object, with something superior.
Our question is whether it is possible to be free of fear immediately.
Otherwise fear breeds disorder; psychological time invariably does breed
extraordinary disorder within one. |
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October 2 |
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When
we are talking about time, we do not mean chronological time, time by the
watch. That time exists, must exist. If you want to catch a bus, if you want
to get to a train or meet an appointment tomorrow, you must have
chronological time. But is there a tomorrow, psychologically, which is the
time of the mind? Is there psychologically tomorrow, actually? Or is the
tomorrow created by thought because thought sees the impossibility of change,
directly, immediately, and invents this process of gradualness? I see for
myself, as a human being, that it is terribly important to bring about a
radical revolution in my way of life, thinking, feeling, and in my actions,
and I say to myself, “I’ll take time over it; I’ll be different tomorrow, or
in a month’s time.” That is the time we are talking about: the psychological
structure of time, of tomorrow, or the future, and in that time we live. Time
is the past, the present, and the future, not by the watch. I was, yesterday;
yesterday operates through today and creates the future. That’s a fairly
simple thing. I had an experience a year ago that left an imprint on my mind,
and the present I translate according to that experience, knowledge,
tradition, conditioning, and I create the tomorrow. I’m caught in this
circle. This is what we call living; this is what we call time. |
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October 3 |
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Time
is thought, and thought is the process of memory that creates time as
yesterday, today and tomorrow, as a thing that we use as a means of
achievement, as a way of life. Time to us is extraordinarily important, life
after life, one life leading to another life that is modified, that
continues. Surely, time is the very nature of thought, thought is time. And
as long as time exists as a means to something, the mind cannot go beyond
itself—the quality of going beyond itself belongs to the new mind which is
free of time. Time is a factor in fear. By time, I don’t mean the
chronological time, by the watch—second, minute, hour, day, year, but time as
a psychological, inward process. It is that fact that brings about fear. Time
is fear; as time is thought, it does breed fear; it is time that creates
frustration, conflicts, because the immediate perception of the fact, the
seeing of the fact is timeless... |
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October 4 |
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So
time means moving from what is to “what should be.” I am afraid, but one day
I shall be free of fear; therefore, time is necessary to be free of fear—at
least, that is what we think. To change from what is to “what should be”
involves time. Now, time implies effort in that interval between what is and
“what should be.” I don’t like fear, and I am going to make an effort to
understand, to analyze, to dissect it, or I am going to discover the cause of
it, or I am going to escape totally from it. All this implies effort—and
effort is what we are used to. We are always in conflict between what is and
“what should be.” The “what I should be” is an idea, and the idea is fictitious,
it is not “what I am”, which is the fact; and the “what I am;” can be changed
only when I understand the disorder that time creates. |
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October 5 |
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In
your bathroom you have a bottle marked “poison,” and you know it is poison;
you are very careful of that bottle, even in the dark. You are always
watching out for it. You don’t say, “How am I to keep away, how am I to be
watchful of that bottle?” You know it is poison, so you are tremendously
attentive to it. Time is a poison; it creates disorder. If this is a fact to
you, then you can proceed into the understanding of how to be free of fear
immediately. But if you are still holding time as a means of freeing
yourself, there is no communication between you and me. |
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October 6 |
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Truth
or understanding comes in a flash, and that flash has no continuity; it is
not within the field of time. Do see this for yourself. Understanding is
fresh, instantaneous; it is not the continuity of something that has been.
What has been cannot bring you understanding. As long as one is seeking a
continuity—wanting permanency in relationship, in love, longing to find peace
everlasting, and all the rest of it—one is pursuing something which is within
the field of time and therefore does not belong to the timeless. |
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October 7 |
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As
long as we think in terms of time, there must be fear of death. I have
learned, but I have not found the ultimate, and before I die I must find it;
or if I do not find it before I die, at least I hope I shall find it in the
next life, and so on. All our thinking is based on time. Our thinking is the
known, it is the outcome of the known, and the known is the process of time;
and with that mind we are trying to find out what it is to be immortal,
beyond time, which is a vain pursuit. It has no meaning except to
philosophers, theorists and speculators. If I want to find the truth, not
tomorrow, but actually, directly, must not I—the “me”, the self that is
always gathering, striving and giving itself a continuity through
memory—cease to continue? Is it not possible to die while living—not
artificially to lose one’s memory, which is amnesia, but actually to cease to
accumulate through memory, and thereby cease to give continuance to the “me”?
Living in this world, which is of time, is it not possible for the mind to
bring about, without any form of compulsion, a state in which the experiencer
and the experience have no basis? As long as there is the experiencer, the
observer, the thinker, there must be the fear of ending, and therefore of
death... |
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October 8 |
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You
see and I do not see—why does this happen? I think it happens because one is
involved in time; you do not see things in time, I see it in time. Your
seeing is an action of your whole being, and your whole being is not caught
in time; you do not think of gradual arrival; you see something immediately,
and that very perception acts. I do not see; I want to find out why I do not
see. What is the thing that will make me see something totally so that I have
understood the whole thing immediately? You see the whole structure of life:
the beauty, the ugliness, the sorrow, the joy, the extraordinary sensitivity,
the beauty; you see the whole thing, and I cannot. I see a part of it, but I
do not see the whole of it...The man who sees something totally, who sees life
totally, must obviously be out of time. Sirs, do listen to this, because this
has something actually to do with our daily existence; it is not something
spiritual, philosophical, out of daily existence. If we understand this, then
we will understand our daily routine, boredom, and sorrows, the nauseating
anxieties and fears. So do not brush it away by saying, “What has it to do
with our daily existence?” It has. One can see—at least for me, it is very
clear—that you can cut, like a surgeon, the whole cord of misery immediately.
That is why I want to go into it with you. |
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October 9 |
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Has
it ever happened to you—I am sure it has—that you suddenly perceive
something, and in that moment of perception you have no problems at all? The
very moment you have perceived the problem, the problem has completely
ceased. Do you understand, sirs? You have a problem, and you think about it,
argue with it, worry over it; you exercise every means within the limits of
your thought to understand it. Finally you say, “I can do no more.” There is
nobody to help you to understand, no guru, no book. You are left with the
problem, and there is no way out. Having inquired into the problem to the
full extent of your capacity, you leave it alone. Your mind is no longer
worried, no longer tearing at the problem, no longer saying, “I must find an
answer”; so it becomes quiet, does it not? And in that quietness you find the
answer. Hasn’t that sometimes happened to you? It is not an enormous thing.
It happens to great mathematicians, scientists, and people experience it
occasionally in everyday life. Which means what? The mind has exercised fully
its capacity to think, and has come to the edge of all thought without having
found an answer; therefore it becomes quiet—not through weariness, not
through fatigue, not by saying, “I will be quiet and thereby find the
answer.” Having already done everything possible to find the answer, the mind
becomes spontaneously quiet. There is an awareness without choice, without
any demand, an awareness in which there is no anxiety; and in that state of
mind there is perception. It is this perception alone that will resolve all
our problems. |
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October 10 |
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Great
seers have always told us to acquire experience. They have said that
experience gives us understanding. But it is only the innocent mind, the mind
unclouded by experience, totally free from the past—it is only such a mind
that can perceive what is reality. If you see the truth of that, if you
perceive it for a split second, you will know the extraordinary clarity of a
mind that is innocent. This means the falling away of all the encrustations
of memory, which is the discarding of the past. But to perceive it, there can
be no question of “how.” Your mind must not be distracted by the “how,” by
the desire for an answer. Such a mind is not an attentive mind. As I said earlier
in this talk, in the beginning is the end. In the beginning is the seed of
the ending of that which we call sorrow. The ending of sorrow is realized in
sorrow itself, not away from sorrow. To move away from sorrow is merely to
find an answer, a conclusion, an escape; but sorrow continues. Whereas, if
you give it your complete attention, which is to be attentive with your whole
being, then you will see that there is an immediate perception in which no
time is involved, in which there is no effort, no conflict; and it is this
immediate perception, this choiceless awareness that puts an end to sorrow. |
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October 11 |
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The
mind that is really still is astonishingly active, alive, potent—not towards
anything in particular. It is only such a mind which is verbally free—free
from experience, from knowledge. Such a mind can perceive what is true, such
a mind has direct perception which is beyond time. |
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October 12 |
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The
problem is, surely, to free the mind totally so that it is in a state of
awareness which has no border, no frontier. And how is the mind to discover
that state? How is it to come to that freedom? |
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October 13 |
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You
know, to perceive something is an astonishing experience. I don’t know if you
have ever really perceived anything; if you have ever perceived a flower or a
face or the sky, or the sea. Of course, you see these things as you pass by
in a bus or a car; but I wonder whether you have ever taken the trouble
actually to look at a flower? And when you do look at a flower, what happens?
You immediately name the flower, you are concerned with what species it
belongs to, or you say, “What lovely colors it has. I would like to grow it
in my garden; I would like to give it to my wife, or put it in my
buttonhole,” and so on. In other words, the moment you look at a flower, your
mind begins chattering about it; therefore you never perceive the flower. You
perceive something only when your mind is silent, when there is no chattering
of any kind. If you can look at the evening star over the sea without a
movement of the mind, then you really perceive the extraordinary beauty of
it; and when you perceive beauty, do you not also experience the state of
love? Surely, beauty and love are the same. Without love there is no beauty,
and without beauty there is no love. Beauty is in form, beauty is in speech,
beauty is in conduct. If there is no love, conduct is empty; it is merely the
product of society, of a particular culture, and what is produced is
mechanical, lifeless. But when the mind perceives without the slightest
flutter, then it is capable of looking into the total depth of itself; and
such perception is really timeless. You don’t have to do something to bring
it about; there is no discipline, no practice, no method by which you can
learn to perceive. |
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October 14 |
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You
have only one instrument, which is the mind; and the mind is the brain also.
Therefore, to find out the truth of this matter, you must understand the ways
of the mind, must you not? If the mind is crooked you will never see
straight; if the mind is very limited you cannot perceive the illimitable.
The mind is the instrument of perception and, to perceive truly, the mind
must be made straight, it must be cleansed of all conditioning, of all fear.
The mind must also be free of knowledge, because knowledge diverts the mind
and makes things twisted. The enormous capacity of the mind to invent, to
imagine, to speculate, to think—must not this capacity be put aside so that
the mind is very clear and very simple? Because it is only the innocent mind,
the mind that has experienced vastly and yet is free of knowledge and
experience; it is only such a mind that can discover that which is more than
brain and mind. Otherwise what you discover will be colored by what you have
already experienced, and your experience is the result of your conditioning. |
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October 15 |
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Why
does the mind grow old? It is old, is it not, in the sense of getting
decrepit, deteriorating, repeating itself, caught in habits, sexual habits,
religious habits, job habits, or various habits of ambition. The mind is so
burdened with innumerable experiences and memories, so marred and scarred
with sorrow that it cannot see anything freshly but is always translating
what it sees in terms of its own memories, conclusions, formulas, always
quoting; it is authority-bound; it is an old mind. You can see why it
happens. All our education is merely the cultivation of memory; and there is
this mass communication through journals, the radio, the television; there
are the professors who read lectures and repeat the same thing over and over
again until your brain soaks in what they have repeated, and you vomit it up
in an examination and get your degree and go on with the process—the job, the
routine, the incessant repetition. Not only that, but there is also our own
inward struggle of ambition with its frustrations, the competition not only
for jobs but for God, wanting to be near Him, asking the quick road to him. |
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October 16 |
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I
think it is important to understand the operation, the functioning, the activity
of the old brain. When the new brain operates, the old brain cannot possibly
understand the new brain. It is only when the old brain, which is our
conditioned brain, our animalistic brain, the brain that has been cultivated
through centuries of time, which is everlastingly seeking its own security,
its own comfort—it is only when that old brain is quiet that you will see
that there is a different kind of movement altogether, and it is this
movement which is going to bring clarity. It is this movement which is
clarity itself. To understand, you must understand the old brain, be aware of
it, know all its movements, its activities, its demands, its pursuits, and
that is why meditation is very important. I do not mean the absurd,
systematized cultivation of a certain habit of thought, and the rest of it;
that’s all too immature and childish. By meditation I mean to understand the
operations of the old brain, to watch it, to know how it reacts, what its
responses are, its tendencies, its demands, its aggressive pursuits—to know
the whole of that, the unconscious as well as the conscious part of it. When
you know it, when there is an awareness of it, without controlling it,
without directing it, without saying, “This is good; this is bad; I’ll keep
this; I won’t keep that,”—when you see the total movement of the old mind,
when you see it totally, then it becomes quiet. |
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October 17 |
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I
think constant endeavor to be something, to become something, is the real
cause of the destructiveness and the aging of the mind. Look how quickly we
are aging, not only the people who are over 60, but also the young people.
How old they are already, mentally! Very few sustain or maintain the quality
of a mind that is young. I mean by young not the mind that merely wants to
enjoy itself, to have a good time, but the mind that is uncontaminated, that
is not scratched, warped, twisted by the accidents and incidents of life, a
mind that is not worn out by struggle, by grief, by constant strivings.
Surely it is necessary to have a young mind because the old mind is so full
of the scars of memories that it cannot live, it cannot be earnest; it is a
dead mind, a decided mind. A mind that has decided and lives according to its
decisions is dead. But a young mind is always deciding anew, and a fresh mind
does not burden itself with innumerable memories. A mind that carries no
shadow of suffering, though it may pass through the valley of sorrow, remains
unscratched. |
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October 18 |
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How
is the religious mind or the new mind to come into being? Will you have a
system, a method? Through a method—a method being a system, a practice, a
repetitive thing day after day? Will a method produce a new mind?...Surely, a
method implies, a continuity of a practice, directed along a certain line
towards a certain result—which is, to acquire a mechanical habit, and through
that mechanical habit to realize a mind which is not mechanical... |
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October 19 |
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You
need a new mind, a mind that is free of time, a mind which no longer thinks
in terms of distance or space, a mind that has no horizon, a mind that has no
anchorage or haven. You need such a mind to deal not only with the
everlasting but also with the immediate problems of existence. |
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October 20 |
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To
discover the new mind, not only is it necessary for us to understand the
responses of the old brain, but also is it necessary for the old brain to be quiet.
The old brain must be active but quiet. You are following what I am saying?
Look, sir! If you would discover for yourself firsthand—not what somebody
else says—if there is a reality, if there is such a thing as God—the word God
is not the fact—your old brain, which has been nurtured in a tradition,
either anti-God or pro-God, in a culture, in an environmental influence and
propaganda, through centuries of social assertion, must be quiet. Because,
otherwise, it will only project its own images, its own concepts, its own
values. But those values, those concepts, those beliefs are the result of
what you have been told, or are the result of your reactions to what you have
been told; so, unconsciously, you say, “This is my experience!” |
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October 21 |
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I
hope that you will listen, but not with the memory of what you already know;
and this is very difficult to do. You listen to something, and your mind
immediately reacts with its knowledge, its conclusions, its opinions, its
past memories. It listens, inquiring for a future understanding. Just observe
yourself, how you are listening, and you will see that this is what is taking
place. Either you are listening with a conclusion, with knowledge, with
certain memories, experiences, or you want an answer, and you are impatient.
You want to know what it is all about, what life is all about, the
extraordinary complexity of life. You are not actually listening at all. You
can only listen when the mind is quiet, when the mind doesn’t react
immediately, when there is an interval between your reaction and what is
being said. Then in that interval there is a quietness, there is a silence in
which alone there is a comprehension which is not intellectual understanding.
If there is a gap between what is said and your own reaction to what is said,
in that interval, whether you prolong it indefinitely, for a long period or
for a few seconds—in that interval, if you observe, there comes clarity. It
is the interval that is the new brain. The immediate reaction is the old
brain, and the old brain functions in its own traditional, accepted, reactionary,
animalistic sense. When there is an abeyance of that, when the reaction is
suspended, when there is an interval, then you will find that the new brain
acts, and it is only the new brain that can understand, not the old brain. |
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October 22 |
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To
transform the world, we must begin with ourselves; and what is important in
beginning with ourselves is the intention. The intention must be to
understand ourselves and not to leave it to others to transform themselves or
to bring about a modified change through revolution, either of the left or of
the right. It is important to understand that this is our responsibility,
yours and mine; because, however small may be the world we live in, if we can
transform ourselves, bring about a radically different point of view in our
daily existence, then perhaps we shall affect the world at large, the
extended relationship with others. |
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October 23 |
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Whether
change is brought about consciously or unconsciously it is still the same.
Conscious change implies effort; and unconscious endeavor to bring about a
change also implies an effort, a struggle. So long as there is a struggle,
conflict, the change is merely enforced, and there is no understanding; and
therefore it is no longer a change at all. So, is the mind capable of meeting
the problem of change—of acquisitiveness, for example—without making an
effort, just seeing the whole implication of acquisitiveness? Because you
cannot see the whole content of acquisitiveness totally so long as there is
any endeavor to change it. Real change can only take place when the mind
comes to the problem afresh, not with all the jaded memories of a thousand
yesterdays. Obviously you cannot have a fresh, eager mind if the mind is
occupied. And the mind ceases to be occupied only when it sees the truth
about its own occupation. You cannot see the truth if you are not giving your
whole attention, if you are translating what is being said into something
which will suit you, or translating it into your own terms. You must come to
something new with a fresh mind, and a mind is not fresh when it is occupied,
consciously or unconsciously. |
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October 24 |
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This
requires a great deal of insight, inquiry. Don’t agree with me, but go into
it, meditate, tear your mind apart to find out the truth or the falseness of
all this. Does knowledge, which is the known, bring about change? I must have
knowledge to build a bridge; but must my mind know towards what it is
changing? Surely, if I know what the state of the mind will be when it is
changed, it is no longer change. Such knowledge is a detriment to change
because it becomes a means of satisfaction, and as long as there is a center
seeking satisfaction, reward, or security, there is no change at all. And all
our efforts are based on that center of reward, punishment, success, gain,
are they not? That is all most of us are concerned with, and if it will help
us get what we want, we will change; but such change is no change at all. So
the mind that wishes to be fundamentally, deeply in a state of change, in a
state of revolution, must be free from the known. Then the mind becomes
astonishingly still, and only such a mind will experience the radical
transformation which is so necessary. |
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October 25 |
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For
the complete mutation in consciousness to take place you must deny analysis
and search, and no longer be under any influence—which is immensely
difficult. The mind, seeing what is false, has put the false aside
completely, not knowing what is true. If you already know what is true, then
you are merely exchanging what you consider is false for what you imagine is
true. There is no renunciation if you know what you are going to get in
return. There is only renunciation when you drop something not knowing what
is going to happen. That state of negation is completely necessary. Please
follow this carefully, because if you have gone so far you will see that in
that state of negation you discover what is true; because, negation is the
emptying of consciousness of the known. After all, consciousness is based on
knowledge, on experience, on racial inheritance, on memory, on the things one
has experienced. Experiences are always of the past, operating on the
present, being modified by the present and continuing into the future. All
that is consciousness, the vast storehouse of centuries. It has its
usefulness in mechanical living only. It would be absurd to deny all the
scientific knowledge acquired through the long past. But to bring about a mutation
in consciousness, a revolution in this whole structure, there must be
complete emptiness. And that emptiness is possible only when there is the
discovery, the actual seeing of what is false. Then you will see, if you have
gone so far, that emptiness itself brings about a complete revolution in
consciousness: it has taken place. |
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October 26 |
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In
the very action of the individual changing, surely, the collective will also
change. They are not two separate things opposed to each other, the
individual and the collective, though certain political groups try to
separate the two and to force the individual to conform to the so-called
collective. |
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October 27 |
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You
have changed your ideas, you have changed your thought, but thought is always
conditioned. Whether it is the thought of Jesus, Buddha, X, Y, or Z, it is
still thought, and therefore one thought can be in opposition to another
thought; and when there is opposition, a conflict between two thoughts, the
result is a modified continuity of thought. In other words, the change is
still within the field of thought, and change within the field of thought is
no change at all. One idea or set of ideas has merely been substituted for
another. |
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October 28 |
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A
change is possible only from the known to the unknown, not from the known to
the known. Do please think this over with me. In the change from the known to
the known, there is authority, there is hierarchical outlook of life —“You
know, I do not know. Therefore, I worship you, I create a system, I go after
a guru, I follow you because you are giving me what I want to know, you are
giving me a certainty of conduct that will produce the result, the success
and the result.” Success is the known. I know what it is to be successful.
That is what I want. So we proceed from the known to the known in which
authority must exist—the authority of sanction, the authority of the leader, the
guru, the hierarchy, the one who knows and the other who does not know—and
the one who knows must guarantee me the success, the success in my endeavor,
in change, so that I will be happy, I will have what I want. Is that not the
motive for most of us to change? Do please observe your own thinking, and you
will see the ways of your own life and conduct...When you look at it, is that
change? Change, revolution, is something from the known to the unknown in
which there is no authority, in which there may be total failure. But if you
are assured that you will achieve, you will succeed, you will be happy, you
will have everlasting life, then there is no problem. Then you pursue the
well-known course of action, which is, yourself being always at the center of
things. |
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October 29 |
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One
must have asked oneself, I’m quite sure, whether one changes at all. I know
that outward circumstances change; we marry, divorce, have children; there is
death, a better job, the pressure of new inventions, and so on. Outwardly
there is a tremendous revolution going on in cybernetics and automation. One
must have asked oneself whether it is at all possible for one to change at
all, not in relation to outward events, not a change that is a mere
repetition or a modified continuity, but a radical revolution, a total
mutation of the mind. When one realizes, as one must have noticed within
oneself, that actually one doesn’t change, one gets terribly depressed, or
one escapes from oneself. So the inevitable question arises, can there be
change at all? We go back to a period when we were young, and that comes back
to us again. Is there change at all in human beings? Have you changed at all?
Perhaps there has been a modification on the periphery. but deeply,
radically, have you changed? Perhaps we do not want to change, because we are
fairly comfortable... |
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October 30 |
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How
am I to transform? I see the truth—at least, I see something in it—that a
change, a transformation, must begin at a level that the mind, as the
conscious or the unconscious, cannot reach, because my consciousness as a
whole is conditioned. So, what am I to do? I hope I am making the problem
clear. If I may put it differently; can my mind, the conscious as well as the
unconscious, be free of society?—society being all the education, the culture,
the norm, the values, the standards. Because if it is not free, then whatever
change it tries to bring about within that conditioned state is still
limited, and therefore no change at all. |
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October 31 |
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Is
it possible for the thinker and the thought, for the observer and the
observed, to be one? You will never find out if you merely glance at this
problem and superficially ask me to explain what I mean by this or that.
Surely, this is your problem, it is not my problem only; you are not here to
find out how I look at this problem or the problems of the world. This
constant battle within, which is so destructive, so deteriorating—it is your
problem, is it not? And it is also your problem how to bring about a radical
change in yourself and not be satisfied with superficial revolutions in
politics, in economics, in different bureaucracies. You are not trying to
understand me or the way I look at life. You are trying to understand
yourself, and these are your problems which you have to face; and by
considering them together, which is what we are doing in these talks, we can
perhaps help each other to look at them more clearly, see them more
distinctly. But to see clearly merely at the verbal level is not enough. That
does not bring about a creative psychological change. We must go beyond the
words, beyond all symbols and their sensations... |
