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"Truth can only come to the mind that is empty of the known."
The First and Last Freedom, p.153 |
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"When there is complete self-knowledge, then there is the ending of the known, then the mind
is completely empty of the known."
The First and Last Freedom, p.153 |
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"Why is it that the mind clings always to the known? Is it not because the mind is
constantly seeking certainty, security?...The unknown can come into being only when the known
is understood, dissolved, put aside. That is extremely difficult, because the moment you have an
experience of anything, the mind translates it into the terms of the known and reduces it to the
past. I do not know if you have noticed that every experience is immediately translated into the
known, given a name, tabulated and recorded...
Suppose you had never read a book, religious or psychological, and you had to find the meaning, the significance of life. How would you set about it? Suppose there were no Masters, no religious organizations, no Buddha, no Christ, and you had to begin from the beginning. How would you sat about it? First, you would have to understand your process of thinking, would you not? - and not project yourself, your thoughts, into the future and create a God which pleases you; that would be too childish. So first you would have to understand the process of your thinking. That is the only way to discover anything new, is it not?" The First and Last Freedom, p.155 |
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"The unknown cannot be discovered by a mind that is full of the known."
The First and Last Freedom, p.232 |
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"Our problem is not what it is in us that drives us to find the unknown - that is clear enough.
It is our own desire to be more secure, more permanent, more established, more happy, to escape
from turmoil, from pain, confusion. That is our obvious drive. When there is that drive, that urge,
you will find a marvellous escape, a marvellous refuge - in the Buddha, in the Christ or in
political slogans and all the rest of it. That is not reality; that is not the unknowable, the
unknown. Therefore the urge for the unknown must stop; which means there must be understanding
of the cumulative known, which is the mind.
The mind must understand itself as the known...You cannot think about something that you do not know." The First and Last Freedom, p.255-256 |
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"...it is important to find out not if there is something more, something greater than the known,
which is urging us to the unknown, but to see what it is in us that is creating confusion, wars,
class differences, snobbishness, the pursuit of the famous, the accumulation of knowledge, the
escape through music, through art, through so many ways. It is important, surely, to see them as
they are and to come back to ourselves as we are. From there we can proceed."
The First and Last Freedom, p.257 |
