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When you are aware of the implications of 'becoming' which creates the ideal and which creates the example, it drops away. This means facing 'what is' and living very dangerously, sailing in uncharted seas and being very alert and awake all the time. You say that others will exploit you.
If you are intelligent, you are not exploited by others, nor do you want to exploit others. You cannot be exploited by another unless you both belong to the same club. There is, at present, chaos in most of the countries and a revolution is taking place - economic, social as well as religious.
This revolution is thoughtless and mostly chaotic. Why not acknowledge this? At least those people who are intelligent can really think it all out and deliberately bring about the necessary revolution and thus lay the foundations for a new culture.
A house that is crumbling must be pulled down before you build; in the process of pulling down, it looks rather chaotic and people who look at it from outside may say that it is chaotic; but, the man who is pulling it down is not affected by it, because he knows what he is going to build. If you are concerned with the ideal that humanity must be fed and therefore a system must be found to feed them, the common man will go hungry, and that is the case with the idealists, whether the extreme Leftist or the Rightist, because the system becomes very important. So, there is the obvious creation through false thinking, through ignorance, through wrong thinking, that the opposite, the 'becoming', is going to alter 'what is' and, on that, so many philosophies are founded.
You are not concerned in becoming humble; it is futile, it is only one of the tricks of the mind. After all arrogance is the fact. You are arrogant, what is the cause?
First of all, why do you name it? Why do you term as arrogance the feeling which you have? You give a name to a feeling that arises in you in response to a challenge, in order to bring it within the frame of reference which is memory.
The feeling is new and you absorb that into the old; by giving it a name, you strengthen the old. But if you do not absorb it into the framework of references and do not give it a name, the feeling withers away. Further, the feeling is always the new, though it is out of an old conditioning; if you treat it as new, then you will understand the old.
When you are arrogant, arrogance is the effect, and not the cause; it may be the cause a little later. You feel superior and call yourself a name, because you feel a sense of inferiority and you want to become superior. The superiority is the ideal which you want to become and therefore you create the framework of imitation and therefore thoughtlessness and deny 'what is' which is your being inferior.
You feel inferior in relationship to something. You want to be something because the whole society in which you live is based on 'becoming' something. And as long as you are 'becoming' you must be inferior.
There is always the 'you', a little bigger that 'what is'. If you think you are nobody and if you accept that, you may not strive to 'become' somebody, because that is too silly. So, you don't "become"; you accept that you are nothing.
Do you know what it means? When you accept that you are nothing, it is really wonderful. Then, you know what it means to love; then, you are willing to cry with somebody.
The man who is something and who wants to 'become the ideal' of loving, and does not know 'what is', is merely thinking in terms of 'becoming' something. He has the ideal, the authority, the fear, the example; and he gets lost in that. The fact is that you are nobody.
Why not start from there and face facts directly without trying to become 'somebody'? To face your nothingness means to be humble and to love; it means, you have no resistance to anyone, no barrier between you and the person whom you despise and who has no ideal. A person who is arrogant can never find humility however hard he may try to 'become' humble.
A person who does not recognise his nothingness but pursues ideals is like a man who, without ever knowing how to sow, ploughs and ploughs and never sows. Behind all your knowledge, all your degrees, titles and possessions, there is nothing. When you really acknowledge that you are nothing, you are everything because you know what love is.
You ask me if there is free choice in the opposite. How can there be free choice? You choose only by comparison, when you have two things; and your choice is based on either pleasure or pain.
It means memory which is the accumulation of experience. So, you really are not choosing. There are two things, memory and response; and there is no choice.
You may say that you have listened to the dictates of memory. You want to know, 'how to love'. If love is the opposite of hate, ill-will, it is no longer love; love is the ideal which implies imitation; and the man who imitates, cannot know love.
Man who is seeking how to love, does not know love. He may seek methods as he has the ideal of love; but he is not loving. He does not want to acknowledge his lack of love, and he says that he has the ideal to become loving, thus deceiving himself and cheating others.
"How to love" implies duality, and in the very 'becoming' there is a conflict of the opposites. If he understands the whole significance of the 'becoming' it drops away, and he is faced with 'what is'. 'What is' is the most marvellous thing; it is the only true everything else is not.
When he faces 'what is' - i.e. he is lacking in love - and goes deeper and deeper into it, he finds that he is nothing though he has a mask, though he is talking about God and that behind all verbal things intellectually produced there is absolutely nothing. The feeling of nothingness is not the end; it is only the beginning of liberation; your activity will be immediate and very clarifying.
You ask me how you can feel as 'nothing' when you are constantly reminded by others that you are something. You are known to be something, as a house-agent, as a black marketeer, or as a religious man worshipping God. Psychologically, you are reminded by others that you are something.
You, by yourself, feel and acknowledge that you are nothing; but, society and your friends say that you are something. Either you should be 'nobody' or somebody'. If you acknowledge that you are nothing, no amount of your friends telling you that you are a great man is going to make you believe you are a great man.
But when you play with them in the same market, then they will have to remind you, then you will accept them. That is, if you think that you are somewhat great, then their telling you that you are a great man means a lot to you. You want to know what will happen if you feel you are 'nothing' but you are married and have relationships.
There is your responsibility to the family; it means immediate communion because you are nothing and she want to be something. Because you are open completely and your wife is not, there is a friction between you and her, not on your part but on her part, because she is something and you are not. You love and you don't ask anything.
You really love your wife or your neighbour, or your husband, because you are open. They may be closed and they may create trouble. You become more and more silent, and more and more loving.
They may get more and more irritated; but you are not irritated. In other words, relationship becomes extremely difficult. The moment you are very earnest in acknowledging your nothingness, you are going to have difficulties between you and another, between you and society.
Your problem is to be that which you are. If you are stupid, cunning, black-marketing, be that. Be aware of it.
That is all that matters. If you are a liar be aware that you are a liar; then you will cease to lie. To acknowledge and to live with 'what is' is the most difficult thing.
Out of that, comes real Love, because that sweeps away all hypocrisy. Try it in your daily life; be what you are, whatever it is; and be aware of that. You will see an extraordinary transformation taking place immediately.
And from that, there is freedom because, when you are nothing, you do not demand anything. That is liberation. Because you are nothing and you are free, there is real opening and no barrier between you and another.
Though you are married and though you love one, there is no enclosure. If you love one completely, you love the whole because one is the whole. You want to know what will happen when you feel that you are 'the whole'.
Feeling as 'the whole' comes perhaps later. But first, you are nothing and you are not concerned with what comes after. If you are concerned with what is beyond the nothingness, it means you are frightened of being nothing.
'Be nothing'. Life then becomes extraordinarily simple and beautiful. Being nothing, i.e.
acknowledging 'what is', is one of the most difficult tasks because mind does not like it, because it is afraid of being nothing, i.e. of having no security. But the moment you 'are nothing', you love; till then, you do not know what it means to love; till then, you have the resistance of responsibility, of duty and marrying off.
If you love you wife really, you will love your children. Then you would see how they are to be taught and by whom they are to be taught. Because you love them, you want to see that they are the best human beings, not that you would compel them to any ideal.
You do not realise what a revolution this will produce. You want to know if this revolution would be reciprocated. You are not concerned with others at all.
If you recognise 'what is' and live with it, you will see a revolution produced in you and therefore in the family and in the world. Surely that is the most practical way of living. Out of that comes creativeness, because when you accept 'what is' - i.e.
in accepting what you are - you are free. Then you begin to create. Then there is Reality, God or what you like to call it.
All ideals are foolery and without much significance for a thoughtful man. When you set all ideals aside and face 'what is' then you will find a beautiful and really indescribable love that is not yours and mine but a thing that is self-created and which is its own eternity. Page Page(of ) As these discussions will be for about three weeks, I would like, if I may, to go to the root of the problem direct and not beat about the bush.
To deal with the problem directly, we must take a general view of the world's affairs; then, we can see the deterioration of the world's condition. Obviously, a social revolution, a revolution in the values of society, cannot take place; when we attempt to change society, such a change will only be a modified continuity. So, as long as we are looking to a social structure to be changed, including the leftist revolution in the outward structure of society, such a change will not be a revolution.
Society is always static; only in the individual can there be a radical revolution. Leftists, Marxists, and Socialists regard revolution as an outward transformation; this really is mere change or modified continuity which implies a pattern, adjustment to a pattern, or a preconceived pattern which needs adjustment; therefore, it is not a revolution. Every social change which we all want, is only a modified continuity of 'what is' and not a revolution.
Will you please explain modified continuity? Change implies modified continuity. What do you mean by change?
It is a change from this to that. To bring about a change implies an end in view. I am this and I want to be that.
The society is this and I want it to be changed into that. Therefore, change is preconceived, an action within a pattern; it is only a modification in the same field. When we say we want a change, a social change, does it not imply a change towards the known - intellectual, factual or utopian?
Is that a radical transformation, or a continuation in the same field though in a different direction? Is not a revolution a hop within the same framework? Surely not.
What do we mean by change? When the Communists, Fascists or Socialists demand a change, what do they mean? Any change of pattern of action is still within the known pattern and therefore a modified continuity.
Our problem is therefore entirely different. Transformation is not modified continuity but quite a different process. To understand what complete transformation means, we must understand what change means.
Is change what is intended by a human being or what happens without any intention on the part of man, just like that due to industrialization for instance? Can't we have a change of the outer without a change in the inner? Any change which we desire is a modified continuity of the same thing as now exists.
For instance, when we deliberately set about to change the present system in regard to the outer conditions leading to war, is not all such change the same thing continued in a different form? We want a continuity of what we like and a discontinuity of what we do not like. Is biological growth a change?
The growth of a tree is not a change but a growth of the same tree. Obviously, we are referring only to changes due to human action and not to what occurs in nature. Mere social transformation, i.e., changing the outer into something else is not a revolution; it is merely a change which is modified continuity.
Society is static. The individual only is creative and not society. When the individual thinks in terms of change, change being only modified continuity, whatever the individual creates will be static.
The moment an act is complete, it is static. If the relationship between two individuals be mere static adjustment, it produces a society which is static. If the relationship is revolutionary and based on a different sense of values, then the individual will be creative.
Therefore, continuous revolution is in relationship with people; and one has to start with oneself, the individual, and not with the society. When one thinks of change of the society, such a change will only be a modification, however violent it may appear. This is what is taking place in the world.
The opposite is invariably the continuity of the same in a different form, whether political or otherwise. Therefore, revolution can start only with the individual, with the 'me'. Is the opposite a continuity of 'what is'?
I do not want to go into this now. When we talk about social revolution, we have to understand what is meant by 'change'. For instance, the word 'cap' is called by different names in different countries; but, there is always a cap, as referent.
Change implies that there is a referent. Therefore, whenever there is a referent, there must always be the known. How can the 'known' be changed except into the 'further known'?
So far as the individual is concerned, is not change modified continuity? An individual alone can be in a continuous state of revolution, but not society. Any change in society is only a modified continuity.
Transformation must be always immediate and not left to time, i.e., to tomorrow. There is no transformation in time, but there is only modified continuity. Time cannot produce revolution or regeneration.
Is not transformation the immediate question and cannot you and I immediately transform? If we cannot, what is it that prevents immediate transformation? To be transformed in the future is a contradiction.
What prevents us from immediately transforming ourselves? We understand something now or never. Understanding is always in the Now and not in To-morrow.
Why is that you and I are incapable of immediate transformation? What prevents this? Why do we not see this clearly?
Is there transformation even if we see things clearly? If I see a cobra clearly without any equivocation, do I touch it? I touch it only when I am doubtful about it being a cobra.
Why have we not transformed ourselves? Transformation is creative activity. Why is it that we do not see problems that are vital as clearly as we see a poisonous snake?
If we see a problem vitally and recognise its immense significance, then, we shall act properly in relation to war, nationalism, in our relationship to nature, individuals, ideas and problems of daily existence. Therefore, either we are unaware and therefore accustomed and immune to poison by constant habit, or we do not want to see. There is no transformation except Now.
I say it is possible to transform completely now and not tomorrow. Action on the basis of a belief in reincarnation is only postponement. The real problem is why do we not transform now?
Let us understand this now. Obviously, society is crumbling and deteriorating rapidly. Here, we are talking about change, etc.
But we are not creative; we are not the architects designing a structure away from all this. To do this, we must examine the causes of the present chaos. We must be the architect, the contractor, etc., for raising this new structure.
To do this, we must have complete transformation now - transformation in values, in outlook and in our whole being. I have seen this happening. Why are you not transformed?
Is it because you have been so long living with the cobra that you are immune to its poison? How do you find the true cause, not mere intellectualisation, of there being no immediate transformation? One reason is that you are immune to the poison.
I recognize that immediate transformation is the only solution of all problems - not tomorrow, not reincarnation; time does not produce transformation but only brings about continuity. Transformation is essential and can take place only now. What is it that prevents that marvellous thing happening to me, from my seeing the immense significance of transforming immediately?
Let us be definite about this. We cannot leave this at loose ends. We must act.
The problem is "I see the importance of transformation. Transformation can take place only now and not tomorrow. Why is there not that extraordinary drive that sees things clearly and sets about to act"?
I know instances of immediate transformation. There was a person who made an enormous amount of money by playing cards. After hearing my talks recently, that person gave up cards-playing immediately and without any struggle.
Why did not that person see this earlier? What are the causes that prevent your seeing the obvious things that drop away? What is the element that is required to say "I see it and it is gone".
One of the factors is that I must be aware I am suffering, I am in anxiety, in a state of confusion and of fear. To recognize that transformation is essential, I must not be self- contented. There must be real discontent.
It must have a quality which is not mere change. If you see a cobra and know it to be a cobra, you have an instantaneous response. There is the bodily response to the poison and you jump.
It is not out of fear that you avoid the poison; but, the understanding of the nature of the poison keeps you away from the poison. Most of us are afraid. Is not fear one of the principal causes that prevent transformation?
You are afraid and therefore there is no transformation. Everyone coming here wants transformation. I, for one, have no fear.
Yet, there is no transformation. Why is this? Is it laziness?
Is there a real desire for transformation? Do you not know the gravity of the present structure of society, its disintegration, its ruthlessness, etc.? Yes, that is why we want to do something in the service of others.
Service of others is really a foolish idea. What prevents transformation? Love is the only thing that transforms.
You can have actual experience of this. Have you not fallen in love with some one? Have you not been spontaneously affectionate with another?
We have been affectionate to others in our house; yet, there has been no transformation? You do not see the cobra, you do not see that you are on the edge of a precipice. Is that the trouble?
Why do you not see it? Are not all writers, historians, etc., shouting that the end of the world is near? Yet, are you not enclosing yourselves in ideas like 'reincarnation', 'the Masters are looking after us', etc., and therefore are you not blind to the world and to your relationship with others?
You, therefore, say "these are inevitable but everything will be alright soon or sometime later on". We see all the chaos but we feel helpless. The confusion is so colossal that our individual acts can obviously do nothing - for instance, against the use of the atomic bomb.
But, I, an individual, can create a structure away from all this confusion. We cannot persuade Truman and other big politicians to do what we think is correct; but we, though we are small people, can start somewhere else, i. e., with ourselves. Is it any use doing this in relation to the coming war, etc.?
You cannot prevent the world and the people going their own way. The same pattern can be seen in the case of all big leaders Kaiser, Hitler, Stalin, etc. Can I persuade them by prayers or by appeals to them?
No. Knowing the inevitableness of all this, I will not touch them. The simple way is for me to go my own way; I will transform myself.
So far, I have also been contributing to the confusion and to the chaos in the world; now, I will withdraw. Does this not mean isolating ourselves from the world? No.
What is isolation? Are you not now isolated in your relationship with your wife, etc.? Do you know them?
Is this not creating the mess in the world? If you read any paper or magazine, you will find that, in the world, there is steady deterioration. For instance, in the business world, there is black-marketing, no morality, etc.
How can all this be changed? It is not possible to change all this. Firstly, you must see that you cannot do anything with all this.
You must see that all politicians are hankering after power, etc., and that this is leading to war. Seeing this clearly, you will say "I will not hanker after power"; and that hankering will drop away. Now, why do I not do this?
I see what the politicians dabbling in power-politics are doing. I see that wherever there is search for power, there must be ruthlessness, war. I also see I am seeking power.
Then, why do I not drop this domination over my wife? Power is very destructive, is very evil. Then, what is preventing one from dropping this, one's domination over one's wife, etc.?
I am not conscious of this, my seeking domination over others. By becoming aware of your attitude to your wife and to others, will you not drop it immediately and not in the next life? Either you are unaware of your seeking power or you like power; therefore, you do not want to drop it.
If you like power, it vitalises you and you do not mind its effects on others. Power ultimately leads to destruction and deteriorates the relationship between people. I like power even in my little home, and I pursue it even if it brings about chaos and destruction.
I am conscious I am seeking power; I want it and I am deliberately in it; therefore, there is no problem. I want the gratification from power. If something else would give that gratification, I will follow that also.
You want power without paying for it; you had better be conscious of this without fooling about with spirituality, etc., be conscious of power and its consequences. You like power with its pleasure and with its pain; therefore, you do not want transformation. You all want to salve Mammon with God.
Why not be honest and say " I want to be a leader; so, I will go after power"? Everyone is going after power. Why?