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I shall show you the futility of this. Will you drop it? You have to see the futility of pursuing power.
When you are seeking power, there must be ruthlessness which involves pain. When you watch this carefully, you will see it leads to war. When I see this leading to war, I drop it.
When you know that power leads to ultimate destruction, why do you not drop it? You say that "destruction may happen long after now and, in the meanwhile, what does it matter so long as I get my satisfaction for ,oryears?" What is that mentality which says so?
That is what Napoleon and all the war-mongers did. You are also saying the same thing. How can such a mentality approach Truth - a mentality which says "I want to get this whatever it may cost"?
I cannot understand myself if I am tethered to anything - property, idea or thing. If I want to explore the South Seas, I must leave Madras. I am tethered when I say "what does it matter so long as I get what I want."
At least, this is honest as I do not quote scriptures in support of what I do. A mind that says "I want to understand Reality and I am seeking Truth" and yet is tethered, is a dishonest mind. Thus, we discover that there cannot be transformation if there is no honest thinking.
Why is my mind dishonest? I want to seek my own ends; but I cover this up by spiritual ideas, etc. Why do you do this?
Why can't you say "I want power"? One reason is 'bread and butter depends'. Why is not the mind honest at least with itself, though not in regard to others?
I am not face to face with myself. I do not know the result of my facing myself is going to be. There are so many different masks.
One day I am greedy, another day I am generous and charitable, then I want to be a Viceroy, etc. Again, the Higher Self is also an invention. Which is the 'me' to which I have to be honest?
I am broken up into different parts. Unless I am neurotic, I cannot say definitely "I am this". There are many contradictions in me.
In a state of contradiction, I cannot be honest. I can be honest only when the contradiction in my thinking ceases. To think truly, I must get rid of contradiction.
Do you know that you are in contradiction? At any one instant, there is no contradiction. Contradiction arises only when I analyse the past and the present.
There is a contradiction always going on in us. Are we aware of our contradiction even when we are in contradiction? Only honest direct understanding will lead to the ceasing of contradiction.
To understand something, I must give my full attention to it, which is possible when there is no contradiction in me. What is contradiction? Two inconsistent desires?
Can desires be contradictory? Is not the very nature of desire contradictory? There is only one desire which takesforms, one desire creating oppositions.
Am I in contradiction? I want power and I know the poison of power. I want to love but actually I hate.
Are you aware of this state in your daily existence? I now see that only very clear, honest thinking can bring about immediate transformation. One of the factors preventing this is this life of contradiction.
We are in contradiction, for instance, when we want to go somewhere else and yet we want to stay here. In that state, choice exists; and so, as long as choice exists, there must be conflict. Choice exists because you are confused.
There is no choice when you see a thing clearly. Contradiction is when I do not see clearly, when choice comes into action. When I see clearly what I want to do, there is no choice and no contradiction.
So, as long as I am choosing, there is contradiction and there is dishonesty in thinking. Do you agree to that? Your whole life is based on choice - between the Real and the Unreal, between Good and Evil etc.
; and therefore, there is contradiction. Are we not always in daily life, if we are intelligent, making a choice? You make a choice only when you do not know what to do.
For factual things, you must choose. But, choice in psychological things is when you are confused. You do not choose between pleasure and pain but you pursue pleasure.
A mind which is confused and choosing is a dishonest mind, i.e., doing a thing not knowing what it is doing. Dishonesty implies a standard of morality. No.
Choice exists only in matters that are irrelevant or are not clearly seen. Clear perception is honest thinking. As long as there is choice, there is confusion.
Do you ever psychologically choose? Yes; when I want to earn money or when I renounce something. No.
You are seeking pleasure whether it comes through earning money or renouncing something. Therefore, there is no choice, psychologically. I do not see clearly because I am choosing.
Psychologically, I pursue pleasure. As long as I am pursuing pleasure and using wrong words, I am deceiving myself - for instance, by saying "I serve the world," "I serve the poor" etc. All this is based on pleasure.
I must not deceive myself in any way. I must be very clear in my feelings, thoughts and actions. Then only there can be immediate transformation.
Do you not get what you want if that desire is not lukewarm? You envy Napoleons and Stalins who went ruthlessly and wholeheartedly after what they wanted. Spiritual leaders also have acted likewise, though with kid gloves.
Dishonesty is lack of perception, avoidance of looking at things as they are. We have now come to this Transformation is not a matter of words or explanations; it comes instantaneously when we see things clearly. When one gives up property or good income, how does one do it?
Have you given up anything instantaneously? I dropped 'belief' and 'authority' after I heard your talk on 'fear', at No. , Sterling Road.
Why do you want to give up something, for getting rid of fear or on seeing it as it is? You dropped because you were face to face with the problem and there was no retreat. You get rid of authority when you face the thing directly.
When you face it, you see the crooked action and it drops away. Why is it that you do not drop all that divides, conditioned thinking? Because you do not see that it is poisonous and because you do not give your full attention to it, you tend to slur over it.
Take war, for instance. You know all the causes, the opposites of ideologies. Yet, you all play with war.
If you give your complete attention to war, you will not play with war. There is no transformation now because your attention is not given; you think you have too may commitments and by such thinking you deceive yourselves. If we focused our attention on one thing and completely understood it, our mind is unburdened and is capable of looking at things directly; we would then understand anything psychological, and there would be instantaneous transformation now.
When we do not read the label clearly, we drink the poison and suffer the consequences. We can read the label only when we are attentive. One of our difficulties is we like to be lazy and we are inattentive in regard to things that do matter.
Can we help it? If I offer you something, will you take it? Take, for instance, a doctor.
Will it be enough if he merely put up a signboard? Must there not be a patient? There must be a patient and also a doctor; otherwise, the profession ceases.
If I am a patient, I will not leave the doctor till I am well. Is not that relationship essential? The disease may be incurable.
Even then, you go to the doctor. How can you suppose you are incurable before you consult a doctor? Between the doctor and the patient, there must be mutual affection, not respect; so also between you and me.
When you love somebody, then there is open receptivity, communion between both; there is understanding. This affection is not because he is going to cure me nor because I want to be cured. Because there is no affection wherever we are which means love, there is no immediate transformation.
It is that element which is missing in all of us. Therefore, there is no real communication between us, but only verbal. We are on the edge of things and not in the centre.
When there is love, there are no sentiments and no emotions. Apparently, we do not know love then. You are going to know it.
There is no flame without smoke. April , We were talking about the importance of immediate transformation and about the things that prevent us from radical regeneration. We were discussing the importance of the individual and his relationship with the world; how when there is a contradiction, there cannot be honest thinking; and how real understanding brings about transformation; and also, that love is not sentiment or emotion.
We must find out for ourselves the truth about the individual and his relation to the world, how the transformation of the individual immediately affects the world in which he lives. The world we live in is the world of our immediate relationship with our family, our boss, our cook etc., and not with a geographical world. If you can transform intrinsically, then there is sure to be an immediate transformation, not superficially but deeply, in the relationship in your world.
Will not this effect produce a revolution in your relationship? Is it not important to understand the necessity of individual transformation which will affect the world in which you live? Is that not a practical way of affecting the world you live in?
In confronting the war with its miseries, the limitations imposed by national frontiers, the economic confusion, the vast complexity, we feel frustrated with the enormity of the problem; but that frustration is a false response. You are not called upon to deal with the problems of America and Europe. Your talk about all this is mere gossip.
You may rebel against atom bombs etc., you can talk gossip about it and about what others say about it. But, you cannot do anything about atom bombs. You and I cannot do anything about them.
They are not our problems. But, you and I can do directly something in the world in which we live, by transforming ourselves. So the individual transformation is the only solution for this chaos.
Individual transformation alone will lead to other individuals transforming themselves and this will bring about a revolution in thought and therefore in action. This means you will be free of all organizations, systems, beliefs. You cannot rely on these absurdities, as you know it to be futile and empty.
If this is clear we can proceed further. Do you see the truth of it? There can be transformation in the world only when there is regeneration of the individual.
Mass action is therefore fallacious. The crowd, the mob, is invented by the politician. There is mass psychology which is used by clever people, but there is no such thing as the mass.
There seems to be a general idea that unless the mass changes, there is no use of any individual working. Are you caught up in the idea that individual action is without meaning unless there is a mass action? Mere belief is sluggishness indulged in in a hot climate.
Is mass action the only action? Is there the mass, the crowd? Groups can be influenced, infuriated to act - Hindus to kill all Muslims and Muslims to kill all Hindus.
Mass is composed of individuals and individuals can be persuaded, regimented to accept nationalism and to kill others. The action of the mass is thus influenced. If you begin to think, to be aware, to question, you cease to be the mass.
When you do not accept authority, tradition, belief, then you become an individual; otherwise, you are one of a conglomeration of people driven. If it is so, then all our actions must correspondingly change. It is a fallacy to think that there can be no radical transformation in the world unless there is mass action.
Label is the mass. The mass may be killed but it is difficult to kill an individual. When you look at another individual as an individual and not as a mass, your action is different; this means a radical revolution in your ways of thinking.
You are an individual seeking the truth for itself and therefore you are inviting an infinite lot of trouble. If you really have an inward revolution, your ways of behaviour to your family and to others will be transformed. We discussed whether contradiction can lead to honesty of thought.
There can be immediate transformation only when there is clear, honest perception of the problems. Is not our living in contradiction one of our difficulties - opposing desires, opposing demands? Therefore, we never see the problem as it is and we give it a different interpretation from what it is.
Why do we live in contradiction? Are we aware we live in contradiction? We talk about peace and anything we do is towards war.
We talk about brotherhood and we have castes, classes and titles. We want physical security and we do everything to destroy that security. We stand for unity and brotherhood yet we are exclusive in various ways.
What is it that destroys security? Nationalism destroys physical security. It brings about war.
Everything we do psychologically is against peace. When we jump out of our state of contradiction, will there be honest thinking? Or, must we isolate ourselves?
Are you aware that you are in contradiction? You cannot call yourself a nationalist and at the same time talk of peace. When property is used for self-expansion, it leads to hatred.
It is a contradiction. When you have particular beliefs, can you maintain real brotherhood? Please expand the ideas about property?
I need a little property. It is not a pursuit of exclusion. But the psychological expansion through property leads to hatred.
I may not, but another may seek self-expansion. What to do then? Then you will not cause hatred.
You will start a new culture. If you really enquire into the causes why there is no immediate transformation, then you will see. Where is contradiction in seeking self-expansion through property?
As I said, seeking security through property leads to hatred and therefore there will be no peace. As we live in contradiction in different ways, through organizations, through rituals etc., we do everything to destroy affection. If that is so, we must first be aware of it and put an end to contradiction.
We cannot jump out of it, it is not a net. We must become conscious of our thoughts and actions and become intelligent about every one of our activities. This is really difficult in a hot climate, where there are many things preventing clear, honest thinking.
If you want to think clearly, you must have sufficient food but no indulgence. Contradiction has a great deal to do with immediate transformation. This means that we must focus our attention on everything we do.
This is very difficult. We eat food placed before us on a feast-day, without thinking. This has direct relationship with our daily life.
You must have a clear swift mind to follow this clearly. You cannot indulge as you like. Contradiction is one of the hindrances to transformation as it will not allow any moment of full attention on something directly.
See what happens when we are voluntarily or spontaneously giving our attention to something, without seeking a result - examining a human problem. The mind is then in an extraordinary state, passive, pliable and capable of seeing clearly. Such a state is not possible when there is contradiction.
You know for yourself inwardly when you are not living in a state of contradiction, when you are in a state of integration. Why is there this contradiction? Is it not because you have never thought about a problem completely to the end?
If you have really thought out a belief, then there will be no contradiction about your analysis of the problem. You will then be so swift in perception that you will see clearly. Has this not something to do with capacity?
No. Only a few have capacity; capacity is a gift. You want to know if we can do this even when we have not got any special capacity.
Have we not got intelligence to understand? When we want something, we go after it. Now, you want to live in a state in which there is no contradiction.
If you really see that a mind in contradiction cannot see honestly, then you pursue every talk alertly and see where the contradiction lies and so on, till there is no contradiction. You can either shut your eyes to your state of contradiction or you can be aware of the contradiction that exists. If you are aware, you go after every contradiction.
You cannot do away with contradiction unless you are healthy physically, and you must become intelligent about everything you do. This has nothing to do with capacity. Some are more aware and others less aware.
Why compare yourself with others? You are this and why should you become that? To watch yourself from moment to moment, your thoughts and your feelings, does it mean capacity?
Please try for yourself and experiment. I want to try and therefore I want to get that capacity. Your desire for capacity is preventing experimentation.
I am not interested in capacity. How to try to be aware from moment to moment? Try to be conscious of, to know and to understand what you are doing.
You want to know what to do to try. He must wake up. I feel I am aware of what I am doing.
Are you? Are you aware of the contradiction? You go after a thing when you take interest in it.
Do you understand your doing pooja, do you find the whole meaning of it, i.e., whether you do it on authority or because your family likes it or because it gives you sensation or a self-hypnosis or an emotional kick? This finding of the whole meaning of what you do, is what is meant by being aware. The fundamental urge is to seek happiness.
As long as it gives me satisfaction, is it not happiness? Then, what is your problem? Is it for satisfaction to continue?
You can take a drink and be blind to the world, and you can think you are happy. But, the morning after the drink, you pay for it. You cannot maintain the immediate pleasure always.
It is not a question of capacity or gift. On the contrary, we can all do this. Only we must take interest in it, experiment with it and go at it seriously.
Asking for a way, etc., is just postponement. A contradictory mind cannot have honest thought. You must have honest direct thinking to bring about transformation.
A simple man does not live in a state of contradiction. Simplicity of heart and mind is the thing to transform you from moment to moment. We are all simple outwardly but complicated inwardly.
Simplicity must begin at the psychological and not at the outward end. When we see the contradiction, we are lost in positive or negative thinking. When you see the contradiction you will not be lost.
You go into the problem, look at it and then see what is. I am not aware of any contradiction. That is it.
You can be aware of contradictions only when you are alert; then only you can go into the contradictions. I don't see any contradiction but I pursue what I like. If you do not see any contradiction, it does not mean that there is no contradiction.
You can know for yourself whether you are in a state of contradiction or not. If there is no contradiction, your mind will be still, quiet. Apparently your mind is not quiet, but restless.
To know you, I must look at you and focus my attention on you without being distracted. There is no exclusiveness in awareness. I don't understand you.
I don't want to go into it now. Attention is not exclusive. If I exclude, there is effort and effort leads to distortion.
Awareness is not effort. When you go out for a walk what happens? You are receiving all the impressions, about birds, people, cars, etc., if you are alert and if you are not immersed in a problem.
You can give your attention to any one of these things and yet be receptive to the other impressions also. The mind, if not drugged by a problem, is receiving impressions; in that state of receptivity, one object, out of all the many, can be looked at more closely. If I have a problem and concentrate on it through effort, it is exclusive.