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We don't say there is "real" love, or "real" spiritual love, and all that. We don't know. If the mind says, "Look, I want something which is not enmeshed in all this jealousy, possessiveness, mine, yours, physical love, spiritual love, divine love and profane love; I want to find something which is not all this", is there something else? |
The fact is, we are this. Unless the facts are faced and we are free, there is no possibility of anything else. We all know about action based on idea, action derived from approximating or adjusting oneself to an idea, the idea being organized pleasure, memory, experience or knowledge, which are always positive. |
just now I was speaking of something entirely different, action not based on an idea. In a state of negation, in that state of the negative which is not positive, there is only action, and therefore no idea. There can be action without idea. |
And thought has no place in that dimension. When you say that thought has no place in that dimension, I don't follow you. Sir, when do you use thought? |
Or if thought is taking place, when are you aware that thought is functioning? I ask you a most familiar question, what your name is, and your response is immediate. "Immediate", may be divided into seconds, but it is almost instantaneous, because you are very familiar with the answer to that question. |
Let us move a little further. You are not very familiar with some such question as the mileage between here and Zurich. You say, "Well, I don't know, but I'll look it up, or ask someone who knows, such as the garageman". |
You have taken time. Between the question and the answer there is a time interval in which you have tried to find out. Then there is the question to which you don't know the answer, or to which there is no answer. |
So what do you do? During the time interval between the question and the answer you are thinking, you are investigating, asking, waiting, demanding, looking up in books, going to a professor, a scientist or a priest. In the interval between the question and the answer, there was a lapse of time, which was thinking. |
Now, if a question is asked in which thought doesn't function at all, and you say, "Really, I don't know", in that state there is no expectation, no waiting for an answer, because there is no one to answer you. You don't know a thing about death, do you? You have seen death; but if you are asked what is beyond, what is the nature of death, the whole structure of that extraordinary thing, if you are really honest, not wanting to invent theories, you say,`' I don't know". |
What is the state of mind that says, "I don't know"? Is there thinking? Is there really thinking? |
You're not waiting, you're not expecting, your brain is faced with something it cannot possibly answer; the brain cells are quiet, because there is no response, there is no reaction. Either you become indifferent to the question and walk away, or you remain with the question, not knowing the answer. There you don't accept. |
Your mind, your brain is completely quiet, because it doesn't know. So is there any thinking? Your mind is tremendously active. |
Your brain is active; it hasn't gone to sleep, it hasn't become blank. That mind, that brain is now completely alive. Previously it was waiting for an answer. |
It was asking, demanding, looking, expecting - all that. When there is no answer at all, it doesn't mean that you are asleep. On the contrary, your whole body, your whole organism, your mind, your brain cells are tremendously active; but then thought is absent. |
To listen with that sense of intense aliveness to that car, to that train going by, what happens? Is there a thought? There is a state of mind in which thought is totally absent; it is a state of action. |
When that state of mind has to do something, what it does. is not based on an idea. So, one knows then the poisonous nature of positive action. |
When that is totally understood, not verbally, but completely, not fragmentarily, but wholly, then comes a natural state which is negation, a negative mind which is not a blank mind, which is not a reaction, which is not a rejection of the positive; such a mind is intensely active, and therefore it is action. The mind itself is action. August , What shall we talk about together this morning? |
We started out to see if the thinker could actually be known. Is there anything more we can do along that line? Can you not speak about the now? |
Is it possible to see ourselves as we are, without condemnation or justification? Sir, you said that the moment the positive and the negative meet, there is an explosion. Does it means that at that moment the whole positive is exploded? |
Oh, no, we were talking about something completely different. Let us leave to yesterday what we discussed yesterday. One questioner wants to know what is the now. |
Another question is, "Why do we always condemn or justify, without actually observing what is?". Shall we talk over the question of the now? In doing that, perhaps, sir, we will answer your question, and probably yours, too, madame. |
The now, the active movement of the present, involves the understanding of time, doesn't it? Is time a movement of the mind? We will go into what time is, not only chronological time, but also the other areas where thought creates or breeds or puts together this thing called time. |
Time involves distance, a movement.... If we keep on using the mind, we are going to be leaving the now. Every thought we have takes us out of the now. |
Ah, yes. Every thought one has is a movement away from the now. But to understand the now, whatever that is, mustn't we regard the whole area where time is employed? |
Mustn't we consider time as the past, the present, which is the now, and the future, which are all one movement? Can we separate the now as something distinct and apart from the past or the future? The now contains within itself all the past. |
I understand all that. Are we talking things over verbally, intellectually, argumentatively and dialectically, or are we trying to find out actually how to live in a state where time doesn't breed disorder? Well, you see, if you are living in the now, then there is order. |
My lady, how am I to live in the now? What does it mean? Well, you are already in the now. |
Oh, oh! But the mind keeps interfering with that. All right, you say I am really living in the now, but the mind interferes. |
How am I to stop this interference? How am I to stop the mind from interfering? By being aware and seeing that every movement of thought is taking you out of the now. |
Why does the mind move away from the now? If the now is so extraordinarily important and all-significant, why does the mind, or thought, or desire move away from the now? To understand the now, or to live in the now, I have to understand the whole area of time, the whole field of the movement of thought, the movement of the mind, the movement of desire, and all that. |
Isn't that going back again the old way? I am not going back the old or the new way. Look, madame, does one understand what it means to live completely in the now? |
You don't have to understand it, you have to live it. It doesn't need any understanding, it only needs constant and immediate awareness. But unfortunately one has not this constant awareness. |
How is one to cultivate it? How is one to get at it? Well, you see, if you are living in the moment,you are always knowing what it is to live in the now. |
All right, all right. But if I live in the now, what does that mean? What does it mean to live in the now? |
It means not to have a problem. There is no problem. If you do have a problem, the mind creates it. |
I have listened to you, and I have tested this in my life. I understand, madame. Practising is not living. |
A great deal depends on the meaning one gives to the words one uses. I know, that's why we are trying to clarify the meaning of the words that we are using. I want to find out what it means to live in the now. |
You don't have to find out; you just live it. Look, let's all have a little patience about this. Please don't get irritated with that lady, or amused by her. |
Let's all find out together what it means to live in the now. What does it mean? Are you asking me the question.) |
I am asking everybody. It means you have no problems. All the problems are created by the mind moving out of the now. |
Then if I have no problems, I might be either totally asleep, or totally awake. Which is it? Totally awake. |
Now, what does that mean, totally awake? Don't say, "No problems". Don't say, "You will know when that state arrives", and all the rest of it. |
What does it mean to have a mind that is living in the present and has no problems? Does it mean that it is totally asleep, or totally awake? Wait a bit! |
What does it mean to be totally awake? You live only one moment at a time. You only have one moment at a time in life, only the mind makes you think there is a past and a future. |
If you can live this one moment properly,you do not need to be concerned about anything else. I understand, madame. I'm afraid I have already talked a great deal about all that. |
But you have to live it. Now, wait a bit! I may or I may not live it. |
I'm not saying that you are not living it. I don't know; I may be. I am saying to myself, "I may live it or I may not live it; I don't know". |
But I am saying to myself, "What does it imply to live in a single moment totally?". What does it imply? Why do you want to know what it implies? |
(Laughter). Ah, wait! My lady, I want to find out whether I am deceiving myself. |
I want to find out whether my living is so verbal that when I say," Well, I just live so completely in the moment ", this is a form of self-hypnosis. I may be creating the illusion that I am living totally in the now, in the moment; but actually I may be very dull, and have no sensitivity to anything that is happening, not only within the moment, but round it. What instrument are you using with which to find out if you are self-hypnotized? |
That's right. What instrument am I using to find out? Generally we are using the instrument that has been created through reaction, through condemnation, through justification, as the instrument which is the censor; the intellectual background which has been cultivated along the line of a certain culture. |
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