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Through wrong means can right be established? Can there be peace in the world by murdering those who are murderers? As long as we divide ourselves into groups, nationals, different religions and ideologies there will be the aggressor and the defender.
To be without virtue is to be without freedom, which is evil. This evil cannot be overcome by another evil, by another opposing desire. Experiencing is not necessarily a becoming is it?
Additive process prevents the experiencing of the Real. Where there is accumulation there is a becoming of the self which is the cause of conflict and pain. The accumulative desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain is a becoming.
Awareness is non-accumulative for it is ever discovering truth and truth can only be when there is no accumulation, when there is no imitation. Effort of the self can never bring about freedom for effort implies resistance and resistance can be dissolved only through choiceless awareness, effortless discernment. It is truth alone that frees, not the activity of will.
The awareness of truth is liberating; the awareness of greed and of the truth about it brings liberation from greed. Meditation is the purgation from the mind of all its accumulations; the purgation of the power to gather, to identify, to become; the purgation of self-growth of self-fulfilment; meditation is the freeing of the mind from memory, from time. Thought is the product of the past, it is rooted in the past; thought is the continuation of accumulative becoming, and that which is a result cannot understand or experience that which is without a cause.
What can be formulated is not the Real and the word is not the experience. Memory, the maker of time, is an impediment to the Timeless. Why is memory an impediment?
Memory, as the identifying process, gives continuity to the self. Memory then is an enclosing, hindering activity. On it the whole structure of the ego, the I, is built.
We are considering psychological memory not the memory for speech, facts, for the development of technique and so on. Any activity of the self is an impediment to truth; any activity or education that conditions the mind through nationalism, through identification with a group, an ideology, a dogma, is an impediment to Truth. Conditioned knowledge is a hindrance to Reality.
Understanding comes with the cessation of all activity of the mind - when the mind is utterly free, silent, tranquil. Craving is ever accumulative and time-binding; desire for a goal, knowledge, experience, growth, fulfillment and even the desire for God or Truth is an impediment. The mind must purge itself of all its self-created impediments for supreme wisdom to be.
Meditation as it is generally understood and practised is a process of the expansion of the self; often meditation is a form of self-hypnosis. In so-called meditation effort very often is directed towards becoming like a Master, which is imitation. All such meditation leads to illusion.
The craving for achievement demands a technique, a method, practice of which is considered meditation. Through compulsion imitation and through the formation of new habits and disciplines, there will be no freedom, no understanding; through the means of time the Timeless is not experienced. The change of the objects of desire does not bring release from conflict and sorrow.
Will is self-expansive intelligence and the activity of will to be or not to be, to gather or renounce, is still of the self. To be aware of the process of craving with its accumulative memory is to experience Truth which is the only liberator. Awareness flows into meditation; in meditation, Being, the Eternal, is experienced.
Becoming can never transform itself into Being. Becoming, the expansive and enclosing activity of the self, must cease; then there is Being. This Being cannot be thought about, cannot be imagined; the very thought about it is a hindrance; all that thought can do is to be aware of its own complex and subtle becoming, its own cunning intelligence and will.
Through self-knowledge there comes right thinking which is the foundation for right meditation. Meditation should not be confused with prayer. Supplicatory prayer does not lead to supreme wisdom for it ever maintains the division between self and the Other.
In silence, in supreme tranquillity when the restless activity of memory has ceased, there is the Immeasurable, the Eternal. th October, . Before we begin to discuss, I would like to say something about the discussion and its purpose.
First of all, it is not a club for disputation and argumentation. In Europe and in America, we had groups of different types of people and we went into things that we thought were very important; we continued such clubs for a couple of months or even sometimes longer. At the end of it, some did understand.
Similarly, I hope that during these months or weeks of discussion we will get somewhere. I feel that each one of us must discover or prepare the field so that Reality comes into being; because, Reality is the only solution of our problems whether economic, social, religious, or of relationship between ourselves. Without the realisation of that, I do not see how any problem in the world can be solved.
My intention in holding these discussions is to help each other to realize it. It is going to be very arduous because it requires real revolution in thinking, in all the phases of our life. I feel that it is a matter of life and death.
Therefore, before we begin to discuss, we must know our various intentions, that is, the relationship between yourself and myself, I may want to go north and you may want to go south; we may eventually meet because south and north do meet as the earth is round. We are going to discover what our intentions are during these discussions. So, please bear in mind the importance of relationship between ourselves so that we may both go to the same direction not compulsorily but naturally, spontaneously.
Before we begin to discuss anything, we ought to know our intention, what it is that we want, or what it is that we are unconsciously, deeply, seeking. If we can find that, our problems become comparatively simple. Another point in discussion is that I will use words which have meaning to me but not to you.
I am using words very carefully because they have a meaning to me, and I use very simple and straight language which I am willing to explain carefully. I do not know if you have ever thought about this. Words have the verbal meaning as well as the nervous response.
Take, for example, the word God. It has a verbal as well as a nervous response. These discussions should not deteriorate into mere argumentation, nor should we indulge in verbal expression.
We want to discuss together so that we can see something which is beyond words, beyond emotional, sentimental or intellectual froth. And that can only be done if each one of us is willing to expose himself. These discussions should give an opportunity to understand ourselves.
As it is not questioning and answering, do not put questions and wait for my answer. We travel together on a journey. I may perhaps know a little more than you do.
You are also travelling on that road. You do not have to sit on the roadside and know little of the journey. We are making the same journey and discovering together.
It is like unfolding a map and seeing the various places and proceeding on the right path. Then, this is a mutual discovery. If we are willing to undertake the journey together, it will be a process of self-discovery and self-understanding, from which we begin to think rightly and, therefore, act rightly.
.. There are in the world as it exists today, two categories of people, each category with its own way of thinking based on study and experimentation. Both have formed systems of their own, upon which they are working.
Ideologically, tremendous efforts are being made to bring you under one or the other of these i) Matter is in movement and therefore creates the idea. Man is only the product of environment and can therefore be compelled or shaped to any form of action. Therefore, any means is justified if it achieves the end in view, and ii) It is the idea which moves upon matter and controls it.
The means and the end will both be of the same kind, i.e., wrong means will mean wrong end and right means right end. Both these are conclusions and they are therefore bound to retard thinking. Any conclusion or hypothesis - Individualism or Collectivism, Capitalism or Socialism or Communism, Reincarnation, etc.
- is a belief. By accepting a belief, you exclude all other forms of thinking. Belief in God does not mean understanding God.
A mind tethered to a belief, hypothesis or conclusion - whether based on its own experience or the experience of others - cannot go far; it is not free but conditioned. Therefore, belief is a hindrance to understanding. When the mind seeks safety, security - i.e.
something concrete on which it can anchor - it has recourse to a conclusion or to a hypothesis. Experimentation does not lead to conclusion; the experimenter keeps on watching, looking and observing. To understand what is taking place in the experiment, he is in a receptive mood, quiet and sensitive like a photographic plate, without criticising or condemning.
So also should be our attitude if we would understand the full significance of a marvellous scene, a picture, or a poem. Relationship is a living thing and as a living thing it is self-revealing. Yet, as we base it on our beliefs and conclusions, it ceases to be 'living' and becomes a problem.
You cannot have vested interests - economic, psychological or spiritual - and at the same time freedom. Awareness of our 'conditioning' or 'blockages' will lead to a sea of troubles. "My son, if you come to serve God, come prepared for temptation".
Those who are pursuing Truth will have to meet troubles; it is they who are going to change the world. -- We discovered that any form of conclusion, right or wrong, immediate or ultimate, now or final, or any form of working hypothesis consciously or unconsciously held, is detrimental to full comprehension or understanding of the whole process of existence. Hindrances are not overcome or broken; but when the mind becomes aware of the hindrances, those hindrances cease to be.
What is awareness? There is objective awareness. Then, there is the emotional response to each other or to truth.
Then, there is awareness of ideas, of thinking, conscious or unconscious. It is a widening and deepening grasp of both the conscious and unconscious. It is a clear recognition of what is, not what should be or what, ideologically, should take place.
To be aware implies to recognize and to know fully and clearly how the "I" is moving, living and functioning - physically, psychologically, consciously or unconsciously. Experience and experiencer, thinker and his thoughts, are the same. For example, at the moment of anger, the person who feels angry and his quality of anger are the same.
Just afterwards the thinker separates himself from the quality and condemns the quality if unpleasant or identifies himself with the quality if pleasant. This is because the thinker seeks stability or permanency. When this is understood by the mind, this duality is dissolved.
.. It is a realisable fact that one can change radically, fundamentally and immediately. Mere postponement or lengthening of time is not going to bring about a change.
It is possible to bring about almost instantaneous perception of what is Truth and Truth is the liberating factor. To start with, we should be aware of our words, our gestures and our thoughts. The sense of struggle and of not being able to do something creates frustration because there is in your mind an idea of achievement.
This means you did not pursue awareness but just stopped there. When there is an idea, let not the mind just stop there, but let it pursue it till the full implications of that idea are understood. For instance, consider nationalism; when you are entrenched in a conclusion called Nationalism, you cannot understand the German or the English.
Though we agree with this verbally, we yet continue as before, because our mind is conditioned, i.e., put in a mould socially, economically, and religiously, and it says that we are different from somebody else. Again, we have the desire to identify ourselves with something greater and which is gratifying. On account of a feeling of emptiness, which we dislike, we identify ourselves with a caste or a class, nation, creed or idea which affords security - prestige and position - to us.
To dissolve this nationalism in us, we must be aware of the fact that we are national and also that nationalism is detrimental to us. In daily life, most of us do not act up to our intellectual convictions because of our fear to please others, to lose a position, etc. ; they are therefore hypocrites to their relatives and later on to the people at large also.
Most of us merely follow an old routine of habitual action and thinking. .. A mind which is trained in a pattern, i.e., specially moulded, conditioned, controlled, either in a creed or in a formula or in an idea, can never know itself. Any suppression or control whether right or wrong, is based on a pattern of behaviour; the mind, being thus controlled, is not free.
The mind can discover itself only when it is free of control and when there is a certain spontaneity. Discovery of truth liberates us; we then transform ourselves with joy, clarity and quickness. For example, to find the truth about the need for discipline or otherwise, we must investigate the matter.
Some say that if you do not discipline yourself, there will be confusion. Is there not confusion even though you are disciplined? When you have only directed your attention on a particular thing excluding everything else, you still continue to be confused all round.
Discipline means education in a certain pattern, i.e., training the mind positively or negatively to a desired pattern, in order to produce a certain result. A disciplined mind is conditioned and therefore static, and a static mind cannot understand the living problem of life. Similarly, practice cannot lead to understanding.
The implications of practice are to repeat over and over again, something like discipline. You cannot concentrate your faculties through any method or through any practice. When you practise, you become automatic and thoughtless; an automatic habit cannot lead to awareness.
Life's problems are dynamic and living; therefore, to understand them, you must have a mind which is also dynamic and not disciplined. Again, Truth can only come to you, you cannot go to it. It is only when you can go to it that you can discipline yourself to reach it; you can only move from the known to the known and not to the unknown.
If the means is 'discipline', the end is bound to be 'disciplined'. Therefore, discipline cannot lead you to freedom. No effort or practice can lead you to understanding.
Similarly, freedom is not a gradual process. Understanding cannot be through any process or through gradation which means the employment of time. Time can only produce time, not the timeless.
Discipline is mere time and so it cannot lead to the Unknown, the Timeless. When conditioned by a discipline, the mind is insensitive to its problems. .. To recognise exactly, to become aware of 'what is' is terribly difficult for most of us.
There can be understanding only when there is effortless awareness which happens to every one of us at moments of real thinking. Environment is the past in conflict, in modification, or in conjunction with the present. To understand the present, some psychologists have asserted that we must go to the past; but to understand the past, you must begin with the present and observe the same without condemnation.
Understanding a problem undoes the problem directly and resolves it instantaneously without any postponement. For instance, if I feel that I am responsible for the marriage of my daughter, I can resolve that problem of marriage only when I understand all the implications in it. Understanding is a total responsibility of your entire being, a perception which comes to you of the entire picture and not of a part only.
Understanding cannot come through 'Will'. Will involves desire to achieve a result. In this is implied a practice, a continuity - i.e.
a continued exercise, practice or discipline - to strengthen your will to become something. It is an accumulated memory which says that I must discipline myself to achieve or gain something; and accumulated memory is the multiplication of desires. Understanding is spontaneous.
The grandeur of a marvellous scene impinges on your mind, and there is an immediate response without any exertion of desire on your part to look at it and enjoy it. When a mind is used in compulsory attitudes and actions, it gets worn out at the end of few years; it is made dull. When the mind is dull, it is unwilling to look at 'what is' but wants to change itself into something else, thus bringing another element into the problem.
We do not see things as they are either through fear of through a desire for security, or through expectation; because, if we see, we have to break them up; because immediate action implies danger to us, disturbs us and troubles us. When we are without love, we do not say "We are without love." - which is a fact and may perhaps lead us far when realised - but we say "We must be more kind" or "We must love," which is only a hope.
When you feel sorrow you try to explain it away, to comfort yourself by going to the guru or by reading some scriptures. Similarly, joy comes to us unexpectedly; at the moment of joy we have done nothing; immediately when you have felt joy or when the joy is past, you wish to recapture it and it soon goes away. To recognise that you are without love, without sensitivity, demands extreme alertness.
The recognition of 'what is' - i.e. to accept and see what you actually are - is in itself a transformation. -- Understanding comes with freedom.
It is not the result of any desire or will or exertion or accumulated memory, practice or discipline. Therefore, it involves change of will altogether and not merely change in will. Thought which seeks security cannot be transformed by compulsion, and understanding comes voluntarily.
There is chaos and moral degradation in the world, in society, in our Environment because, without understanding, we have directed our will and our activities in a certain direction, seeking, though without success, security in things made either by the hand or by the mind. The world i.e. ourselves - being in chaos, our values are all broken up and destroyed.
How is this chaos to be resolved? The present-day world's tendency is to bring about order, if possible, by reorganising the two values, property and division of peoples - i.e. ownership, capitalism, socialism, communism, nationality, religious divisions and caste distinctions between man and man - without reference to the deeper significance of life.
We cling to these two values and give them disproportionate value because, for us, there is not a greater value. Throughout the world, these two values have created extraordinary misery; you are not aware that these have caused misery and conflict, because you are thinking of yourself as somebody else. You do not look at the intrinsic significance of these values, and yet attempt to reorganise them.
Through greed, through fear, through desire for security, you create the society, the state which organises these two values. Property and the divisions between man and man are based on the desire to be secure. Therefore, the difficulty is not in the property but in the desire to be secure.
We are thinking of security always and have been moving from one to another which is considered to give us greater security. Thus, the whole process of our thinking is based on security. You want security because you do not know what you are.
You are not willing to face what you are. Fundamentally, you are uncertain, insecure; therefore, you seek security. Seeking security is an indication that you do not know what you are.
If you see and know what you are, perhaps you can bring order. If you are confused, you will only act in a confused manner. ..
Awareness is not of anything abstract or being aware of Reality, God or Truth; we must be aware of what we are doing, what we are thinking and feeling. Have you ever watched you mind? One thought precipitates on another before the original one is complete.
All these thoughts relate either to the past memories or to the hopes of the future. The mind wanders, ceaselessly and restlessly, back to the past or forward to the future. In longing to find out what it is which we are thinking, we find that most of us are merely accepting, not thinking, and automatically responding according to our particular profession or reacting to a particular conditioning.
The world problem is your problem. To understand the world, you must understand yourself. To transform the world, you must regenerate yourself.
You cannot change yourself until there is self-knowledge. The mind finds it difficult to know itself because it is full of conclusions and suppositions and because it is disciplined; without understanding the ways of itself, the mind cannot proceed further. The mind has to be aware of its own activities and its own conditioning before it can be free, and understanding can come only when the mind is free.
How can the mind which is restless and going swiftly backwards and forwards, be aware of its activities? Finding itself restless, the mind, without becoming aware of the causes of this restlessness, quickly directs itself along certain channels, chosen patterns, based on gratification; for a split second it remains so, but moves off again. The mind is very active and extraordinarily there are the conscious layers and the innumerable unconscious layers.
To understand anything, there must be observation. An object in swift movement can be watched only when the movement is slowed down. The problem therefore is how to slow down the movement of the mind.
Without understanding the problem in all its implications, the mind jumps to meet the problem with ready-made answers like the following - i) Stopping the activity of the mind by force. Then, the mind is 'dead' and not living. Our observation of the 'dead' mind will not help us to understand the mind in movement.
ii) Disciplining, controlling the mind - then, all your energy is taken up with controlling or disciplining, and you do not understand the mind in movement. Discipline implies conformity, practice, habit, which deadens the mind. iii) Inviting a higher entity or an outside interference - Paramatman, some entity beyond the mind - to come and study the mind.
This does not work because it is still the product of the mind and therefore the result of the known. It is only a trick of the mind. iv) Repetition of particular activities of the mind to enable the mind to watch and understand such activities.
Repetition makes the mind automatic, thoughtless and therefore not alert but dull. This does not therefore lead to the understanding of the mind in movement. v) Various points of view - Each point of view is a preconceived path and is conditioned.
The problem will then be translated in terms of that particular point of view only. Therefore, it does not lead to the understanding of the whole. When any one of the above methods of approach to this problem is taken up by the mind and pursued to its completion, it is found that it does not lead to the solution of the problem and that each such approach is false.
Therefore, the method of approach is more important. Without understanding the problem, the mind rushed off with a prepared answer and, after following it through, realised that it was no answer to the problem. The mind must pursue each thought that arises in it, right through till it is complete - just like following up a stream along its course right up to its source; in that very process, the restless mind is slowed down, it becomes extraordinarily quiet and receptive, and understanding comes.
For example, you are listening attentively to me when I describe something which is true because I have experienced it. While listening, your mind has slowed down and remained quiet and receptive. .. To bring about order in this confused world, there must be right thinking which will lead to right action.
There can be right thinking only when we are aware of the process of our thinking, i.e. when we know what we are thinking, the way we are feeling, etc. We all know how our mind is constantly vagrant and restless and how it is difficult for it to complete any particular thought and follow it out fully, because another thought precipitates itself upon the one which we want to think out.
The mind can be understood only when it is slowed down so that each thought, as it arises, can be followed out with care and deep understanding, without effort, without compulsion, without interference and with a sense of freedom; the mind has to dedicate itself to that understanding. When discussing this problem of slowing down the mind, one suggestion or response after another was made by the mind as to how the mind can be slowed down - i.e. (i) Stopping the mind; (ii) Controlling or disciplining the mind; (iii) Invoking a higher self or an entity beyond the mind; (iv) Repeating a thought to understand it; (v) Considering it each in his own way, ie from his own point of view.
By analysing each one of these suggestions carefully step by step to its completion, we found these do not lead to the slowing down of the mind in movement, but to the dulling of the mind. In order to slow down the mind to understand it, the approach is not how to slow it down, but to become aware of its restlessness. We see that, in the very process of following carefully each suggestion or response up to its completion, the mind has already slowed down.
The approach is therefore much more important than the problem. It must not be through a particular spoke, form a particular point of view, from a combination of a few points of view, or through any particular channel. Through a part, the whole cannot be understood; and organised society and organised religion are only parts.
Understanding leads to right action. Being afraid to act, most of us say that, eventually, we shall find Truth. But, we will never see, if we do not see it now.
If we do not love now, will we love tomorrow? .. Without self-knowledge, order and peace cannot be brought about within oneself and so outside, ie in the world.
We considered some of the hindrances to that understanding. When we are up against a hindrance, we immediately think of ways and means to overcome or conquer that hindrance; but overcoming leads us nowhere as we shall have to keep on overcoming or conquering an enemy - politically, economically or religiously, because the hindrance repeats itself. You cannot overcome a hindrance; the hindrance has to be understood by approaching it without condemnation, without judging, without a desire to alter it.
Unfortunately, most of us either condemn or pursue it. So long as there is this condemnatory and identifying attitude, the hindrance is not understood. We saw that the mind has to slow itself down if its restlessness and vagrancy are to be understood.
The quietening of the mind was regarded as a problem outside; in following it out, we saw that, in becoming aware of the problem and following each of its responses completely, the mind had become quiet and alert, as the mind had to be quiet to think out each response fully. Thus, the problem is 'you' and not outside you. It is a trick of the mind to pose the problem as though it was taken from outside.
Therefore, the approach is very important. To understand Truth, the mind has first to free itself from the framework of organised society or religion. Most of us agree to this verbally; but, we do not abandon such framework because of the fear that, by freeing ourselves, we are going to create extraordinary disturbances in our daily life.
Understanding leads to right action and to an urge to speak of that understanding. A truth, probably heard by you, ceases to be a truth when you merely repeat it; it will be a truth to you only when you, for yourself, have discovered it to be true. Propaganda is mere repetition of another's truth; it ceases to be propaganda when you yourself have discovered the truth.
As fear is one of the chief impediments to right action it has to be understood. In trying to understand fear - whether physical or psychological - we shall be making a wrong approach if we discuss fear as a problem outside us. Physical - Physical body is alert and the instinct of self-preservation makes the body act even without any conscious effort of the person who experiences fear - e.g., nearness to a snake.
Psychological - Fear of losing (i) things, (ii) relationship, i.e., people connected to us and (iii) ideas - i.e., beliefs etc. At the moment of fear, the person who experiences fear and the quality of fear are one, i.e. a joint phenomenon.
Immediately afterwards, there is a separation and you say that you do not like it and that you must do something about it. The moment of fear is unexpected and you meet it unprepared; and at that moment, there is only a state which contains no quality, a state of most heightened sensitivity. As it is physically impossible to continue in that state without collapse or without getting mad, the instinct of self-protection leads to the separation of the thinker and the quality; if pleasant, the thinker identifies himself with it; if unpleasant the thinker condemns the quality and sets about to do something about it.
In the case of fear, the thinker wants to get rid of it by developing courage, going to a temple, or guru, etc, etc, thus developing a whole philosophy; yet, the fear continues to lurk inside all the time. Therefore, the correct approach to the problem is not how to get rid of fear but to realise that there will be fear as long as we are protecting ourselves with property, relationship, name, ideas, beliefs, etc. If we let go any of these, we are nothing; therefore, we are the property, the idea, etc.
Thus, frightened of being nothing, we hold on to property, etc, and thereby create a lot of misery in the world. If we tackle our desire for self-protection, then, there will be a transformation, and property etc. will have altogether a different significance.
-- Life is a continuous challenge and response. Whenever there is a challenge there is a direct response which almost immediately becomes a conditioned response which almost immediately becomes a conditioned response - fear, love, jealousy or something else. At the moment of direct response which is unconditioned, there is only an unprepared state of heightened sensitivity, a state of extreme and intense alertness, without any qualification whatsoever; in that state, there is no dissociation between the person who experiences and the quality which is experienced.
As it is extremely difficult to live for any length of time in that state of heightened sensitivity, the conditioned mind which is seeking self-protection, gives it a qualification according to whether pleasure or pain is apprehended; and instantaneously there is a separation of the experiencer from the quality. This leads to a conditioned response. For instance, when pain is apprehended, the mind gives that state the qualification of fear and, instantaneously, the person who is in a state of fear has separated himself from the quality of fear.