Man's Search — The Tortured Mind — The
Traditional Approach — The Trap of Respectability
— The Human Being and the Individual — The
Battle of Existence — The Basic Nature of
Man — Responsibility — Truth — Self-transformation
— Dissipation of Energy — Freedom from
Authority
Man has throughout the ages been seeking something
beyond himself, beyond material welfare—something
we call truth or God or reality, a timeless
state—something that cannot be disturbed
by circumstances, by thought or by human corruption.
Man has always asked the question: what is
it all about?
Has life any meaning at all?
He sees the enormous confusion of life, the
brutalities, the revolts, the wars, the endless
divisions of religion, ideology and nationality,
and with a sense of deep abiding frustration
he asks, what is one to do, what is this thing
we call living, is there anything beyond it?
And not finding this nameless thing of a thousand
names which he has always sought, he has cultivated
faith—faith in a saviour or an ideal—and
faith invariably breeds violence.
In this constant battle which we call living,
we try to set a code of conduct according
to the society in which we are brought up,
whether it be a Communist society or a so-called
free society; we accept a standard of behaviour
as part of our tradition as Hindus or Muslims
or Christians or whatever we happen to be.
We look to someone to tell us what is right
or wrong behaviour, what is right or wrong
thought, and in following this pattern our
conduct and our thinking become mechanical,
our responses automatic.
We can observe this very easily in ourselves.
For centuries we have been spoon-fed by our
teachers, by our authorities, by our books,
our saints.
We say, 'Tell me all about it—what lies
beyond the hills and the mountains and the
earth?' and we are satisfied with their descriptions,
which means that we live on words and our
life is shallow and empty.
We are secondhand people.
We have lived on what we have been told, either
guided by our inclinations, our tendencies,
or compelled to accept by circumstances and
environment.
We are the result of all kinds of influences
and there is nothing new in us, nothing that
we have discovered for ourselves; nothing
original, pristine, clear.
Throughout theological history we have been
assured by religious leaders that if we perform
certain rituals, repeat certain prayers or
mantras, conform to certain patterns, suppress
our desires, control our thoughts, sublimate
our passions, limit our appetites and refrain
from sexual indulgence, we shall, after sufficient
torture of the mind and body, find something
beyond this little life.
And that is what millions of so-called religious
people have done through the ages, either
in isolation, going off into the desert or
into the mountains or a cave or wandering
from village to village with a begging bowl,
or, in a group, joining a monastery, forcing
their minds to conform to an established pattern.
But a tortured mind, a broken mind, a mind
which wants to escape from all turmoil, which
has denied the outer world and been made dull
through discipline and conformity—such a
mind, however long it seeks, will find only
according to its own distortion.
So to discover whether there actually is or
is not something beyond this anxious, guilty,
fearful, competitive existence, it seems to
me that one must have a completely different
approach altogether.
The traditional approach is from the periphery
inwards, and through time, practice and renunciation,
gradually to come upon that inner flower,
that inner beauty and love—in fact to do
everything to make oneself narrow, petty and
shoddy; peel off little by little; take time;
tomorrow will do, next life will do—and
when at last one comes to the centre one finds
there is nothing there, because one's mind
has been made incapable, dull and insensitive.
Having observed this process, one asks oneself,
is there not a different approach altogether—that
is, is it not possible to explode from the
centre?
The world accepts and follows the traditional
approach.
The primary cause of disorder in ourselves
is the seeking of reality promised by another;
we mechanically follow somebody who will assure
us a comfortable spiritual life.
It is a most extraordinary thing that although
most of us are opposed to political tyranny
and dictatorship, we inwardly accept the authority,
the tyranny, of another to twist our minds
and our way of life.
So if we completely reject, not intellectually
but actually, all so-called spiritual authority,
all ceremonies, rituals and dogmas, it means
that we stand alone and are already in conflict
with society; we cease to be respectable human
beings.
A respectable human being cannot possibly
come near to that infinite, immeasurable,
reality.
You have now started by denying something
absolutely false—the traditional approach—but
if you deny it as a reaction you will have
created another pattern in which you will
be trapped; if you tell yourself intellectually
that this denial is a very good idea but do
nothing about it, you cannot go any further.
If you deny it, however, because you understand
the stupidity and immaturity of it, if you
reject it with tremendous intelligence, because
you are free and not frightened, you will
create a great disturbance in yourself and
around you but you will step out of the trap
of respectability.
Then you will find that you are no longer
seeking.
That is the first thing to learn—not to
seek.
When you seek you are really only window-shopping.
The question of whether or not there is a
God or truth or reality, or whatever you like
to call it, can never be answered by books,
by priests, philosophers or saviours.
Nobody and nothing can answer the question
but you yourself and that is why you must
know yourself.
Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of
self.
To understand yourself is the beginning of
wisdom.
And what is yourself, the individual you?
I think there is a difference between the
human being and the individual.
The individual is a local entity, living in
a particular country, belonging to a particular
culture, particular society, particular religion.
The human being is not a local entity.
He is everywhere.
If the individual merely acts in a particular
corner of the vast field of life, then his
action is totally unrelated to the whole.
So one has to bear in mind that we are talking
of the whole not the part, because in the
greater the lesser is, but in the lesser the
greater is not.
The individual is the little conditioned,
miserable, frustrated entity, satisfied with
his little gods and his little traditions,
whereas a human being is concerned with the
total welfare, the total misery and total
confusion of the world.
We human beings are what we have been for
millions of years—colossally greedy, envious,
aggressive, jealous, anxious and despairing,
with occasional flashes of joy and affection.
We are a strange mixture of hate, fear and
gentleness; we are both violence and peace.
There has been outward progress from the bullock
cart to the jet plane but psychologically
the individual has not changed at all, and
the structure of society throughout the world
has been created by individuals.
The outward social structure is the result
of the inward psychological structure of our
human relationships, for the individual is
the result of the total experience, knowledge
and conduct of man.
Each one of us is the storehouse of all the
past.
The individual is the human who is all mankind.
The whole history of man is written in ourselves.
Do observe what is actually taking place within
yourself and outside yourself in the competitive
culture in which you live with its desire
for power, position, prestige, name, success
and all the rest of it—observe the achievements
of which you are so proud, this whole field
you call living in which there is conflict
in every form of relationship, breeding hatred,
antagonism, brutality and endless wars.
This field, this life, is all we know, and
being unable to understand the enormous battle
of existence we are naturally afraid of it
and find escape from it in all sorts of subtle
ways.
And we are frightened also of the unknown—frightened
of death, frightened of what lies beyond tomorrow.
So we are afraid of the known and afraid of
the unknown.
That is our daily life and in that there is
no hope, and therefore every form of philosophy,
every form of theological concept, is merely
an escape from the actual reality of what
is.
All outward forms of change brought about
by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and
ideologies have failed completely to change
the basic nature of man and therefore of society.
As human beings living in this monstrously
ugly world, let us ask ourselves, can this
society, based on competition, brutality and
fear, come to an end?
Not as an intellectual conception, not as
a hope, but as an actual fact, so that the
mind is made fresh, new and innocent and can
bring about a different world altogether?
It can only happen, I think, if each one of
us recognizes the central fact that we, as
individuals, as human beings, in whatever
part of the world we happen to live or whatever
culture we happen to belong to, are totally
responsible for the whole state of the world.
We are each one of us responsible for every
war because of the aggressiveness of our own
lives, because of our nationalism, our selfishness,
our gods, our prejudices, our ideals, all
of which divide us.
And only when we realize, not intellectually
but actually, as actually as we would recognize
that we are hungry or in pain, that you and
I are responsible for all this existing chaos,
for all the misery throughout the entire world
because we have contributed to it in our daily
lives and are part of this monstrous society
with its wars, divisions, its ugliness, brutality
and greed—only then will we act.
But what can a human being do—what can you
and I do—to create a completely different
society?
We are asking ourselves a very serious question.
Is there anything to be done at all?
What can we do?
Will somebody tell us?
People have told us.
The so-called spiritual leaders, who are supposed
to understand these things better than we
do, have told us by trying to twist and mould
us into a new pattern, and that hasn't led
us very far; sophisticated and learned men
have told us and that has led us no further.
We have been told that all paths lead to truth—you
have your path as a Hindu and someone else
has his path as a Christian and another as
a Muslim, and they all meet at the same door—which
is, when you look at it, so obviously absurd.
Truth has no path, and that is the beauty
of truth, it is living.
A dead thing has a path to it because it is
static, but when you see that truth is something
living, moving, which has no resting place,
which is in no temple, mosque or church, which
no religion, no teacher, no philosopher, nobody
can lead you to—then you will also see that
this living thing is what you actually are—your
anger, your brutality, your violence, your
despair, the agony and sorrow you live in.
In the understanding of all this is the truth,
and you can understand it only if you know
how to look at those things in your life.
And you cannot look through an ideology, through
a screen of words, through hopes and fears.
So you see that you cannot depend upon anybody.
There is no guide, no teacher, no authority.
There is only you—your relationship with
others and with the world—there is nothing
else.
When you realize this, it either brings great
despair, from which comes cynicism and bitterness,
or, in facing the fact that you and nobody
else are responsible for the world and for
yourself, for what you think, what you feel,
how you act, all self-pity goes.
Normally we thrive on blaming others, which
is a form of self-pity.
Can you and I, then, bring about in ourselves
without any outside influence, without any
persuasion, without any fear of punishment—can
we bring about in the very essence of our
being a total revolution, a psychological
mutation, so that we are no longer brutal,
violent, competitive, anxious, fearful, greedy,
envious and all the rest of the manifestations
of our nature which have built up the rotten
society in which we live our daily lives?
It is important to understand from the very
beginning that I am not formulating any philosophy
or any theological structure of ideas or theological
concepts.
It seems to me that all ideologies are utterly
idiotic.
What is important is not a philosophy of life
but to observe what is actually taking place
in our daily life, inwardly and outwardly.
If you observe very closely what is taking
place and examine it, you will see that it
is based on an intellectual conception, and
the intellect is not the whole field of existence;
it is a fragment, and a fragment, however
cleverly put together, however ancient and
traditional, is still a small part of existence
whereas we have to deal with the totality
of life.
And when we look at what is taking place in
the world we begin to understand that there
is no outer and inner process; there is only
one unitary process, it is a whole, total
movement, the inner movement expressing itself
as the outer and the outer reacting again
on the inner.
To be able to look at this seems to me all
that is needed, because if we know how to
look, then the whole thing becomes very clear,
and to look needs no philosophy, no teacher.
Nobody need tell you how to look.
You just look.
Can you then, seeing this whole picture, seeing
it not verbally but actually, can you easily,
spontaneously, transform yourself?
That is the real issue.
Is it possible to bring about a complete revolution
in the psyche?
I wonder what your reaction is to such a question?
You may say, 'I don't want to change', and
most people don't, especially those who are
fairly secure socially and economically or
who hold dogmatic beliefs and are content
to accept themselves and things as they are
or in a slightly modified form.
With those people we are not concerned.
Or you may say more subtly, 'Well, it's too
difficult, it's not for me', in which case
you will have already blocked yourself, you
will have ceased to enquire and it will be
no use going any further.
Or else you may say, 'I see the necessity
for a fundamental inward change in myself
but how am I to bring it about?
Please show me the way, help me towards it.'
If you say that, then what you are concerned
with is not change itself; you are not really
interested in a fundamental revolution: you
are merely searching for a method, a system,
to bring about change.
If I were foolish enough to give you a system
and if you were foolish enough to follow it,
you would merely be copying, imitating, conforming,
accepting, and when you do that you have set
up in yourself the authority of another and
hence there is conflict between you and that
authority.
You feel you must do such and such a thing
because you have been told to do it and yet
you are incapable of doing it.
You have your own particular inclinations,
tendencies and pressures which conflict with
the system you think you ought to follow and
therefore there is a contradiction.
So you will lead a double life between the
ideology of the system and the actuality of
your daily existence.
In trying to conform to the ideology, you
suppress yourself—whereas what is actually
true is not the ideology but what you are.
If you try to study yourself according to
another you will always remain a secondhand
human being.
A man who says, 'I want to change, tell me
how to', seems very earnest, very serious,
but he is not.
He wants an authority whom he hopes will bring
about order in himself.
But can authority ever bring about inward
order?
Order imposed from without must always breed
disorder.
You may see the truth of this intellectually
but can you actually apply it so that your
mind no longer projects any authority, the
authority of a book, a teacher, a wife or
husband, a parent, a friend or of society?
Because we have always functioned within the
pattern of a formula, the formula becomes
the ideology and the authority; but the moment
you really see that the question, 'How can
I change?'
sets up a new authority, you have finished
with authority for ever.
Let us state it again clearly: I see that
I must change completely from the roots of
my being; I can no longer depend on any tradition
because tradition has brought about this colossal
laziness, acceptance and obedience; I cannot
possibly look to another to help me to change,
not to any teacher, any God, any belief, any
system, any outside pressure or influence.
What then takes place?
First of all, can you reject all authority?
If you can it means that you are no longer
afraid.
Then what happens?
When you reject something false which you
have been carrying about with you for generations,
when you throw off a burden of any kind, what
takes place?
You have more energy, haven't you?
You have more capacity, more drive, greater
intensity and vitality.
If you do not feel this, then you have not
thrown off the burden, you have not discarded
the dead weight of authority.
But when you have thrown it off and have this
energy in which there is no fear at all—no
fear of making a mistake, no fear of doing
right or wrong—then is not that energy itself
the mutation?
We need a tremendous amount of energy and
we dissipate it through fear but when there
is this energy which comes from throwing off
every form of fear, that energy itself produces
the radical inward revolution.
You do not have to do a thing about it.
So you are left with yourself, and that is
the actual state for a man to be who is very
serious about all this; and as you are no
longer looking to anybody or anything for
help, you are already free to discover.
And when there is freedom, there is energy;
and when there is freedom it can never do
anything wrong.
Freedom is entirely different from revolt.
There is no such thing as doing right or wrong
when there is freedom.
You are free and from that centre you act.
And hence there is no fear, and a mind that
has no fear is capable of great love.
And when there is love it can do what it will.
What we are now going to do, therefore, is
to learn about ourselves, not according to
me or to some analyst or philosopher—because
if we learn about ourselves according to someone
else, we learn about them, not ourselves—we
are going to learn what we actually are.
Having realized that we can depend on no outside
authority in bringing about a total revolution
within the structure of our own psyche, there
is the immensely greater difficulty of rejecting
our own inward authority, the authority of
our own particular little experiences and
accumulated opinions, knowledge, ideas and
ideals.
You had an experience yesterday which taught
you something and what it taught you becomes
a new authority—and that authority of yesterday
is as destructive as the authority of a thousand
years.
To understand ourselves needs no authority
either of yesterday or of a thousand years
because we are living things, always moving,
flowing, never resting.
When we look at ourselves with the dead authority
of yesterday we will fail to understand the
living movement and the beauty and quality
of that movement.
To be free of all authority, of your own and
that of another, is to die to everything of
yesterday, so that your mind is always fresh,
always young, innocent, full of vigour and
passion.
It is only in that state that one learns and
observes.
And for this a great deal of awareness is
required, actual awareness of what is going
on inside yourself, without correcting it
or telling it what it should or should not
be, because the moment you correct it you
have established another authority, a censor.
So now we are going to investigate ourselves
together—not one person explaining while
you read, agreeing or disagreeing with him
as you follow the words on the page, but taking
a journey together, a journey of discovery
into the most secret corners of our minds.
And to take such a journey we must travel
light; we cannot be burdened with opinions,
prejudices and conclusions—all that old
furniture we have collected for the last two
thousand years and more.
Forget all you know about yourself; forget
all you have ever thought about yourself;
we are going to start as if we knew nothing.
It rained last night heavily, and now the
skies are beginning to clear; it is a new
fresh day.
Let us meet that fresh day as if it were the
only day.
Let us start on our journey together with
all the remembrance of yesterday left behind—and
begin to understand ourselves for the first
time.
