Biography of J. Krishnamurti [Excerpts]

J. KRISHNAMURTI - A Biography [Excerpts]
By Pupul Jayakar

We are like the man who tries to fill water into a pail that has holes. The more water he pours in, the more it pours out, and the pail remains empty. (p.3)

Krishnaji refused to move from "what is", the actual. He refused to discuss abstracts like God or eternity while the mind was a whirlpool of lust, hatred, and jealousy.

If you have been experimenting with self-knowing, you will notice that your thinking process has slowed down, that your mind is not restlessly wandering. Try working out each thought to its completion, carry it right through to the end. You will find that this is very difficult, for no sooner does one thought come into being than it is pursued by another thought. The mind refuses to complete a thought. It escapes from thought to thought.

Thought can only come to an end when the thinker understands himself, when he sees that the thinker and the thought are not two separate processes. That the thinker is the thought, and the thinker separates himself from thought for his self-protection and continuance. So the thinker is continually producing thought which is transforming and changing. (p.7)

Is the thinker separate from his thoughts? Remove thought, where is the thinker ? You will find the thinker is not. So when you complete every thought to its end, good or bad - which is extremely arduous - the mind slows down. To understand the self, the self in operation has to be watched. This can only be when the mind slows down - and you can only do this by pursuing every thought to its end as it arises. You will then see that your condemnations, your desires, your jealousies will come out before a consciousness that is empty and completely silent. (p.7-8)

If you follow each thought to its completion, you will see that at the end of it there is silence. From that there is renewal. Thought that arises from this silence no longer has desire as its motive force, it emerges from a state that is not clogged with memory.

But if again the thought that so arises is not completed, it leaves a residue. Then there is no renewal and the mind is caught again in a consciousness which is memory, bound by the past, by yesterday. Each thought, then to the next, is the yesterday - that which has no reality.

The new approach is to bring time to an end. (p.8)

Take a thought, stay with it, hold it in consciousness, you will see how arduous it is to hold one thought as it is to end thought. (p.9)

For the mind to be creative, there must be stillness. A deep stillness that can only come into being when you have faced your loneliness. (P.10)

You do not condemn a man who has a disease. This is your disease. Look at it calmly and simply, with compassion. It would be stupid to condemn or justify. To condemn is another movement of the past to strengthen itself. Look at what takes place in your conscious mind. (p.10-11)

As you look at the conscious mind, slowly the unconscious will throw up its intimations - in dreams, even in the waking state of thought.

The seed has been planted, allow it to germinate - let it lie fallow for a while.

To be free from aggression is not to become weak or humble. (p.11)

"If religion perish here, it will perish everywhere and in India's hand is laid the sacred charge of keeping alight the torch of spirit amid the fogs and storms of increasing materialism. If that torch drops from her hands, its flame will be trampled out by the feet of hurrying multitudes, eager for worldly goods; and India, bereft of spirituality, will have no future, but will pass on into the darkness, as Greece and Rome have passed." (Annie Besant) (P.23)

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized.

Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. (p.78)

I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.

As I have said, I have only one purpose: to make man free, to urge him towards freedom; to help him to break away from all limitations, for that alone will give him eternal happiness, will give him the unconditioned realization of the self.

Because I am free, unconditioned, whole - not the part, not the relative, but the whole Truth that is Eternal - I desire those, who seek to understand me, to be free, not to follow me, not to make out of me a cage which will become a religion, a sect. Rather should they be free from all fears - from the fear of religion, from the fear of salvation, from the fear of spirituality, from the fear of love, from the fear of death, from the fear of life itself. As an artist paints a picture because he takes delight in that painting, because it is his self-expression, his glory, his well-being, so I do this and not because I want anything from anyone. (P.79)

You are all depending for your spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on someone else.

My purpose is to make men unconditionally free, for I maintain that the only spirituality is the incorruptibility of the self which is Eternal, is the harmony between reason and love. This is the absolute, unconditioned Truth which is Life itself. I want therefore to set man free, rejoicing as the bird in the clear sky, unburdened, independent, ecstatic in that freedom. (p.80)

Truth is in everyone; it is not far, it is not near; it is eternally there.

You have the idea that only certain people hold the key to the Kingdom of Happiness. No one holds it. No one has the authority to hold that key. That key is your own self, and in the development and the purification and in the incorruptibility of that self alone is the Kingdom of Eternity.

But those who really desire to understand, who are looking to find that which is Eternal, without beginning and without an end, will walk together with a greater intensity, will be a danger to everything that is unessential, to unrealities, to shadows. And they will concentrate, they will become the flame, because they understand. Such a body we must create, and that is my purpose. (p-81)

My teaching is neither occult nor mystic for I hold both as limitations placed on man in his search for Truth. (p.83)

There will be always death as long as our understanding is limited by personal, egotistical outlook. (p.85)

Two flowers or things can be similar, but not the same. (p.104)

The Real is near, you do not have to seek. Truth is in 'what is', and that is the beauty of it. (p.110)

You cannot mix god and mammon. Reality is not for the man who has his hand in his neighbor's pocket - who exploits and fills his heart with the riches of the earth. (p.112)

To perceive the truth, there must be a focusing of attention. (p.113)

Right action is only possible when the mind is silent and there is a seeing of 'what is'. Action that arises from this seeing is free of motive, of the past, free of thought and cause. (p.128)

Where there is love there is protection. Hatred permits evil to enter.

I have asked myself what happens when there is no movement of the brain. It ceases completely. Only when it has to manifest it comes. It ceases to exist when it is not there. Has air any place, has light any place? Air is enclosed and so it is there. Break the enclosure, it is everywhere.

To love is to be chaste, pure, incorruptible. (p.142)

See yourself in the pit and you will be out of it. Next time you will be watchful and see that you do not fall back into the pit. (p.142)

We feel that the 'I' is permanent, because all other thoughts come and go. If the thinker is permanent, then thought can be changed, controlled, transformed by the thinker. But is not the 'I' the result of thought? Your mind separates the 'I' from thought because it cannot bear impermanency. Thought cannot move from the known to the unknown. To free the mind from the known is all the mind can do. To find out what lies beyond words, words must cease. I can only use words to get to the door. (p.146-147)

Begin where you are. Read every word, every phrase, every paragraph of the mind, as it operates through thought.

The desire to avoid pain and seek happiness (is the common factor amongst all people).

Freedom from fear can only arise when man perceives the movement of fear within himself. The seeing of it is the quenching of it. (p.147)

A reformer is concerned with effects and their rearrangements. Only a revolutionary goes to the root, to the cause in which the end is contained. (p.148)

Politics ages the mind, it is destructive to the flowering of the mind.

Anandamai Ma, the most famous of the then-living deified "Mothers", with a very large following in North India, came to meet Krishnaji. They met in the garden, as the Mother never entered the home of a householder. She did not speak English, and spoke through a translator. She had a radiant, smiling presence. She said that she had seen a photograph of Krishnaji many years before and knew that he was very great. She asked him, "Why do you deny gurus? You who are the Guru of Gurus".

He (Krishnaji) replied, "People use the guru as a crutch".

"People come to listen to you in thousands," she said. "That means you are a guru." He held her hand gently and did not answer. (p.149)

Man is, because he is related; without relationship, man is not. To understand life you have to understand yourself in action, in relationship to people, property and ideas.

Most of us are not aware of our relationship to nature. When we see a tree we see it with a utilitarian view - how to get to its shade, how to use its wood. Similarly, we treat the earth and its products. There is no love of the earth, only a usage of earth. If we loved the earth there would be frugality of the things of the earth. We have lost a sense of tenderness, of sensitivity. Only in the renewal of that can we understand what is relationship. That sensitivity does not come by hanging a few pictures or by putting flowers in your hair. It only comes when the utilitarian attitude is put aside. (p.154)

Stand alone. If you have acted out of the depths of self-knowing because you feel in yourself that what you have done is right, then throw yourself on life. Its water will hold you, carry you, and sustain you. But if you have been influenced, then God help you. The guru has disappeared. (p.159)

The mind is cause and effect, it is caught in time, it has a beginning and an end. Mind can never experience that which is without cause, the timeless, that which has no beginning and no end.

In silence what is there to experience? Silence can only experience silence. (p.164)

Consciousness is the thought of the moment before, or the moment after. Thought is always of the moment or many moments before. Thought is the result of a stimulus.

We live in cause and effect, constantly rearranging them. We reject our background, our past of yesterday and of thousands of years, without being even aware that the past we reject is an aspect that lies deep within. And so the background remains undiscovered and always in conflict, in contradiction.

Do we see that consciousness is never in 'the now', that it is always a projection, a backward or forward movement? That it is never in the present.

Understanding of the 'now' can never be through thought, through consciousness.

The mind cannot understand the 'now' which is the new. It is a fact, like the wall is a fact.

I see you. I hear your voice. Mind as thought is not there and yet sensory perception continues, is present. Only identification has ceased. (p.165)

First comes the layer of everyday activity - eating, going to the office, drinking, meeting people, the conditioned habits that operate automatically. It is obviously a static state that conforms to a pattern.

When one's routine is disturbed, this surface layer ceases for an instant and what is below reveals itself. For convenience we will call this the second layer (of course, since consciousness is non-spatial, it cannot be accurate to use terms indicating layer or level). The thinking that emerges from this layer is still conditioned memory, but it is not as automatic as the surface layer. It is more active, more elastic; it is more nuances. Here thought need not conform so completely to pattern, it has more vitality. The next layer is conditioned by like, dislike, choosing, judging, identifying. Here there is the sense of the ego established and in focus.

Next come the unconscious memories of the individual and the collective, the tendencies, the forces, the urges, the racial instincts; this is the whole network of desire, the matrix of desire. There is an extraordinary movement here. The ego is still functioning - ego as desire moving in its patterns of cause and effect. The ego as desire that continues. The ego with its unconscious tendencies that reincarnate.

Seeing the fact of consciousness - not the word, not the theory, but the fact of it - is ending not possible? Again, whatever I do to move toward the other is of effort and so destroys it. I can do nothing except be indifferent to it. And concern myself with the ego, with what I am, and my problems. (p.165-167)

The fools enter the kingdom, not the cautious. (p.170)
I can live in silence and whatever I do is not contradictory so long as I live in silence and do not resist it. Then everything is in it except resistance. It is resistance that creates its own whirlpool, like fire the flames leap to the skies. (p.171)

When the little operates in the whole as part of the whole then the little is limitless. When it acts separately, then it is limited. The mind operating as part of the whole is endless. (p.173)

How does a man transmit the creative touch to another?

There is something operating through K which I would like to share. I know it is possible. I feel it is as possible as the sunshine.

I feel from the beginning it was open to me. It has always been there. The distance getting clearer, clearer, closer .

What is our problem? I have it, you don't, and I say you can have it. But if you ask, 'Have I got it? And what is the test? And is there a test? How can I know that I have it?' - then you are lost. For there is no test. You ask, 'Is this enough?' It is this asking for more that is the blockage. (p.178)

Religion comes when the mind has understood the working of itself. When the mind is quiet, very still - the stillness is not the peace of death; this stillness is very active, very alert, watchful. To find out what God - Truth is, one has to understand sorrow, and the struggle of human existence. To go beyond the mind there must be a cessation of the self, the 'me'. It is only then, that which we all worship, seek, comes into being.

I would go into the way of teaching, the quality of attention. I would enquire how to teach the child to learn without memory being predominant. I would talk about attention and not concentration. I would go into the way the child sleeps, his food, the games he plays, the furniture in his room; I would see that the child is attentive to the trees, the birds, the spaces which are around him. I would see that he grows in an atmosphere of attention. (p.197)

Can one live without self-concept? Can one live without the reflected self-image? Only in that is there action without consequence.

To live without self-concept is to be aware of the constant projection of the self and seeing it to negate it. (p.202)

Desire to become is the soil in which sorrow takes root.

There is an astounding movement in the stillness of discovery moment to moment, which destroys germination in the mind. Self-knowing is the understanding of becoming in oneself. The religious revolution is the ending of becoming. (p.207)

The straight line being the 'I' and the horizontal bar, the negation of the 'I'. (regarding the sign of the cross) (p.214)

It is important to have a free mind that is not full of experience, but free to see beyond experience. One has to die to experience every day.

In science, one drops past experience, to discover a new insight. From the very beginning one should be taught to be free of conditioning - as a Hindu, Muslim, Christian. None of us let go. We only pretend to do so.

One has to cease to be Hindu or Muslim; one has to be a human being. But that is very difficult. Thinking about being free leads you nowhere.

First, one must be free. Freedom first, not through thinking about freedom.

God is a phrase. To realize God, you must have a free mind, a good mind that does not follow anybody. A mind that has no guru, no system.

There has to be self-knowledge. Not knowledge of the Atman, but how one thinks, why one thinks - how one acts. What is the 'oneself'? I am not speaking only of the conscious self, but of the deep levels of the unconscious. What is needed is a revolutionary mind. You cannot have that by sadhana. If you see only through one window, your view is limited.

There is no my way, your way, his way. There is only one way.

I think in one way, you think in another. We mislead a whole generation. One has to be free, man has to be free to speak of God. The Communists say there is no God, you say God is. You are both conditioned. You are both saying the same thing. That is the calamity. There is no your or my way of meditation. There is only meditation.

Religion is the source of life, not reform. I am not against reforms. They are necessary. But religion is different.

Do you have anything in this country except politics? Why is there nothing deeply creative?

There is a deep contradiction in the Indian mind. We talk about ideals and do the opposite. We are inhibited from becoming something because we feel we should not be ambitious. So frustration leads to superficial reformation and we pursue that with passion. I say, act and observe the result. But tradition and the gurus say the opposite. In this country one sees frustration, contradiction, and the sense of being a very old race. We search for God, but we have not lived life. That may be the reason we turn to the superficial which we call 'reform'.

People take politics very seriously in India. Politics is most destructive. When people say they are working for peace, for reform, it is always the 'I' that is important. People who touch politics cannot have a fresh mind. The world needs fresh minds, clear minds, not minds that are conditioned by being Hindus or Muslims.

You have to be alone to find the real - totally alone.

The mind has become so mechanical. It needs and seeks a goal in life. We follow paths to a goal. We never question. We are too respectable. But one must have a free mind, not a mind burdened with tradition, with the past. Extreme freedom is needed. But the moment you think you are free, you are not free. One has to unearth oneself, unravel oneself, delve into the corners of one's mind - ignite the mind. (p.222-225 -- talks with Vinobaji)

What is necessary is to further the mind, and the mind cannot be furthered if there is an end in view.

To be a revolutionary, you have to see further than the immediate. If you want to further the mind and have object in view, you are limiting the mind. (p.233)

Acceptance, adjustment, rationalization are escapes. They have no place. You are being self-defensive. Look at the fact without emotion or sentiment - otherwise you close the door of perception. (p.234)

The timeless is whispering around every corner, it lies under every leaf. It is open not to the dehydrated human being who has suppressed himself and no longer has any passion. But to the mind, which is in a state of meditation, moment to moment.

Practice for ten thousand years, you will still be within the field of time, of knowledge.

If there is a living coming to an end from moment to moment, there is an extraordinary state of being nothing. Of coming to the abyss of an eternal movement and dropping over the edge, which is death. (p.235)

A perceiving mind is living, moving, full of energy.

There are no answers to life's questions. The state of mind that questions is more important than the question itself. If it is a right question, it will have no answer, because the question itself will open the door. But, if it is a wrong question, you will find ways and means to solve the problem and so remain in bondage. For he who asks the question is himself the bondage.

To uncover is to discover, but to accumulate what you discover is to cease to discover.

Attention implies a clarity of all togetherness, in which there is no exclusion.

I have nothing to offer. If you are listening, you are already in that state.

Can the mind, without motive, let go? That is real renunciation. Keep the mind clean, alert, watchful, observe every thought, see its significance without motive, urge, or compulsion, then there comes an energy that is not your own, which descends upon you. There is a limitless being, and in that energy is reality. (p.236)

We are not concerned with being, but with having been and becoming. There is an active present, a state of being, a living, active state.

Benediction comes when there is a state of non-reaction. It is benediction to know death because death is the unknown.

For most of us, what is explored is not important; therefore, it does not open up the capacity to enter into 'what is'. Life is an extraordinary thing - we call the past the time before, and the future as the time after; can one go into it through the present? Truth has no future, no past, no continuity. Meditation is the state of living in which the frontiers of the mind break down. There is no self, no centre, and therefore, no circumference. (p.237)

Through negation there is creation. Whatever is born of a mind, that is completely empty, is creation. Out of that arises negative thinking. Such an approach, based as it is on attention, can have no measure. The mind that goes into itself deeply enters on a pilgrimage of enquiry from which there is no return. To open the door to the eternal, the journey into the self is the only way. (p.238)

Creation can only be when the mind is completely empty; whatever is born of that emptiness is negative thinking. It has no root, no source.

The probing is with nothing into endless being. (p.239)

When the mind is not concerned with the particular; then comprehending the whole, it can play with the particular.

One has to see inwardly and outwardly. That seeing brings an extraordinary energy. In that seeing, there is an awareness that there is no outer and inner, they are really one continuous movement. It is the tide going out and the tide coming in.

Time prevents perception. A mind that thinks of distance as space from here to there, as becoming, as achievement, such a mind cannot see a thing totally. (p.240)

The quality of going beyond itself belongs to the new mind, which is free of time; time as an inner psychological process. The time of the psyche brings about fear and so limits the flow. To understand the enormous pervasive nature of fear, to see the complexities in which mind is entangled, you must understand time. Fear and time go together. Fear is the destructive energy in man, it withers the mind. (p.240-241)

When the scientific mind breaks through the limitations of the known - then perhaps it approaches the religious mind.

The scientific mind with its logic, its precision, its enquiry, investigates the outer world of nature, but this does not lead to an inward comprehension of things; but an inward comprehension brings about an understanding of the outer. We are the result of the influences of the outer. The scientific mind is precise and clear in its investigation. It is not a compassionate mind, for it has not understood itself.

What is the true religious spirit? Obviously, not the man who believes - who goes to temples and churches. Nor is the reaction to that the religious spirit. It is only when one denies all belief or non-belief, when there is a seeing of the fact and the falseness of belonging and reaction, that the mind is in a state of negation, which means the mind is alone, it has no authority, no goal; therefore, it is not in a state of fear, which is reaction.

How does the religious mind enter the unknown? It cannot come to the unknown except by 'jumping'. It cannot calculate and enter the unknown.

The religious mind is the real revolutionary mind. It is not a reaction to what has been. The religious mind is explosive - creative.

The religious mind is the only mind that can respond totally to the present challenge and to all challenges, at all times. (p.241)

The human mind, as it is now, is the result of environment. The mind has to extricate itself from all influences to find the 'timeless'.

To understand time, not put it aside, not create a theory about it, you have to investigate your own mind, grow aware of the extraordinary impact of influence. Time is the influence of a thousand yesterdays. There is not only chronological time, time by the watch, but there is time as memory, stretching backwards and forwards. This memory is unconscious, buried, hidden deep in the vast recesses of one's mind. This is time, from place to place, from here to there, and there is time as becoming. I am this and I shall be that. This reaching into the future to become introduces the permanent and the transient. (p.242)

It is only when the mind observes itself as being conditioned that there is no observer.

The mind cannot come to it (the unknown); the mind that measures itself in time must wipe itself away and enter into that, without knowing that. You cannot know it. It has no colour, no space, no shape. You cannot make a statement about it. All you can do is to jump out of the old, then you won't even know, for you are part of that extraordinary state.

What is needed is a new mind that functions wholly. The scientific mind is directive; the religious mind explodes without direction. Self-knowing is essential; because it is only a mind in self-knowing, because it is understanding itself, that it withers away, for the new mind to be.

What is demanded is a fertile mind. Fertile in the sense of rich, in which a seed can grow, be nurtured, carefully watched over, a mind that is deeply enquiring, searching, looking, watching. Only that mind, exquisitely pliant, not tethered to anything, is sensitive. The fertile mind is empty, like the womb before it conceives. Can you take one thing? Take envy - understand it and go through it ruthlessly. Put your teeth into it and strip the mind of envy. Take stock of yourself, day after day, minute after minute, to ruthlessly penetrate this appalling thing - envy. (p.243)

The mind is a vast thing. It is not a spot in the universe. It is the universe. To investigate the universe demands an astonishing energy. It is energy greater than all rockets, because it is self-perpetuating, because it has no centre. This is only possible when there is an enquiry into the inner and outer movement of the mind. The inner, the racial unconscious, in which are the urges, compulsions, the hidden dark fears, is the story of man. How do you observe? How do you listen? If the observation, the listening, is direct, then you are observing negatively. Then the mind has no conclusions, no opposites, no directives. In that looking it can see what is near and what is far away. In that there is an ending. Such a mind is the new mind. It has exploded without direction. Such a mind is the religious mind. (p.243-244)

You cannot watch (the mind) from morning till night. You cannot be vigilant, never blinking for the whole day. So play with it. Play with it lightly. To question 'how am I to be aware' is to create conflict. But as you are playing, you learn.

The mind that explodes without direction is compassionate, and what the world needs is compassion, not schemes.

The new mind is not within the field of knowledge. It is that state of creation which is exploding. For that, all knowledge has to come to an end.

The new mind cannot come into being with authority, with masters, with gurus. With a burnt-out mind, you cannot come to the new mind. You need a fresh, eager, live mind. What releases energy is direct perception. The greater part of the brain is the residuary animal and the remaining part undefined. We live our life in the very small part. We never investigate. Sensitivity arises when you watch a tree, bird, animal, ant. Watch how you walk, bathe, dress; watch yourself being important. If you so watch, if you so observe thought and every emotion, flowering, then the brain is very sensitive; out of that, the flowering of the mind begins. That is mutation.

To watch, to observe everything, is to be aware of totality, never to limit any thought, to let everything flower. A mind that is completely quiet, without any reaction, is only an instrument of observation. It is alive, sensitive.

Mutation is only possible when you have brought this about through awareness, without effort. The challenge of the present time and of every instant, if you are awake, is to respond totally to something that is new.

Creation is not invention. The universe is not made of invention. (p.244)

Don't please do these exercises with any strain; if there's a strain, the exercises are not being done properly. Give complete attention and things will come right. Don't settle down; keep the flame alive.

Don't get lost in trivialities; don't let yourself be drowned; keep awake; be in a state of complete attention.

Days are too short and one lives in a day, a thousand years. Keep alive, aware and don't let anything whatsoever smother the flame. Don't let a single thought escape without observing from where it came, its motives, and significance. Keep awake.

As one grows older, as the mind gets more set and more mechanical, it is very important to break down every pattern of thought and feeling - to be aware of every movement of thought, to watch ceaselessly, never to allow moods to gather strength or allow the physical to cloud the clarity of the mind. Don't let the flame die down or let the smoke of everyday events smother it. (p.246)

Don't be smothered by mediocrity and by everyday events of nothing. Be intense and don't let the flame die.

Life is short and there is so much to discover not outwardly but within. There are vast unexplored regions within and don't let a day go by without discovering something. Be explosive inwardly and then the outer things will take care of themselves.

Don't get entangled, be aware of deep thoughts and feelings. Be direct simple and clear.

Fear really destroys and perverts all seeing. It breeds illusion; it dulls the mind, it destroys dignity. Search it out - be open to it. Don't find excuses for it. Go into it ruthlessly. Be aware of every form of fear and wash it away. Don't let it remain with you for a single minute. There is no innocency where there is fear, jealousy, attachment. Be burningly aware of it. (p.247)

There is an inward observation which is not the outward observation turned inward. The brain and the eye which observe only partially do not comprehend the total seeing. They must be alive completely but still; they must cease to choose and judge but be passively aware. Then the inward seeing is without the border of time-space. In this flash a new perception is born. (p.248)

A new mind is only possible when the religious spirit and the scientific attitude form part of the same movement of consciousness.

When you see fear, enquire into it, face it, then it goes away.

There are two kinds of death. Bodily death and death of thought. We are not afraid of that (bodily death). We are afraid that thought as the 'me', which has lived, acquired money, family, the 'me' that wants to become important, will end. (p.250)
You have finished looking at things outside, and now with your eyes closed, look at what is happening inside. Watch what is happening inside you. Do not think, but just watch. Do not move your eyeballs, just keep them very very quiet. There is nothing to see now, you have seen all the things around you, now you are seeing what is happening inside your mind. And to see what is happening inside your mind, you have to be very quiet inside. And when you are quiet, do you know what happens to you? You become very sensitive, you become very alert to things outside and inside. Then you find that the outside is the inside. Then you find out that the observer is the observed.

It is only when thought flowers that it can naturally die. Like the flower in a garden, thought must blossom, it must come to fruition and then it dies. In the same way, thought must be given freedom to die.

Look at the garden, the flowers in front over there ! They come to bloom and after a few days they wither away, because it is their nature. Now, frustration must be given freedom so that it blossoms.
(p.251)

Is there a momentum which keeps moving, keeping itself clean, healthy? That momentum, that flame which burns, can only be when there is freedom for everything to flower - the ugly, the beautiful, the evil, the good, the stupid - so that there is not a thing suppressed, so that there is not a thing which has not been brought out and examined and burnt out. And I cannot do that if through the little things I do not discover frustration, misery, sorrow, conflict, stupidity, dullness. If I only discover frustration through reasoning I do not know what frustration means.

The little mind always deals with symptoms and never with the fact. It does not have the freedom to find out. It is doing the very thing which indicates the little mind, for it says, 'It is a good idea, I will think about it', and so it is lost for it is then dealing with idea, not with the fact. It does not say, 'Let it flower, and see what happens.' Then it would discover.

Can I see the symptom, go into the cause, and let the cause flower? But, I want it to flower in a certain direction, which means I have an opinion on how it should flower. Now, can I go after that? Can I see that I prevent the cause flowering because I am afraid I do not know what will happen if I allow frustration to flower? So, can I go into why I am afraid? I see, that so long as fear exists there can be no flowering. So I have to tackle fear, not through the idea of fear, but tackle it as a fact, which means, can I allow fear to blossom?

All this requires a great deal of inward perception. To allow fear to blossom - do you know what that means? Can I allow everything to blossom? This does not mean I am going to murder, rob somebody, but can I just allow 'what is' to blossom? (p.252)

Do you know what jealousy is? At the moment of jealousy, do you say it is imagination? You are burning with it, are you not? You are angry, furious, why do you not pursue it? Pursue it not as an idea, but actually. Can you take it out, look at it, and see that it flowers? So that each flowering is a destruction of itself and, therefore, there is no 'you' at the end to ask who is observing the destruction? In that is real creation.

Take a bud, an actual bud from a bush. If you nip it, it will never flower, it will die quickly. If you let it blossom, then it shows you the colour, the delicacy, the pollen. It shows what it actually is, without your being told it is red, it is blue, it is pollen. It is there for you to look at. In the same way, if you allow jealousy to flower, then it shows you everything it actually is - which is envy, attachment. So, in allowing jealousy to blossom, it has shown you all its colours, it has revealed to you what is behind jealousy.

To say that jealousy is the cause of attachment is mere verbalisation. But, in actually allowing jealousy to flower, the fact that you are attached to something becomes a fact, an emotional fact, not an intellectual verbal idea. And so each flowering reveals what you have not been able to discover; and as each fact unveils itself, it flowers and you deal with it. You let the fact flower and it opens other doors, till there is no flowering at all of any kind and, therefore, no cause or motive of any kind. (p.253)

Be supple mentally. Strength does not lie in being firm and strong but in being pliable. The pliable tree stands in a gale. Gather the strength of a swift mind.

Life is strange, so many things happen unexpectedly, mere resistance will not solve any problem. One needs infinite pliability and a single heart.

Life is a razor's edge and one has to walk on that path with exquisite care and with pliable wisdom.

Love is a dangerous thing, it brings the only revolution that gives complete happiness. So few of us are capable of love, so few want love. We love on our own terms, making of love a marketable thing. We have the market mentality and love is not marketable, a give-and-take affair. It is a state of being in which all man's problems are resolved. We go to the well with a thimble and so life becomes a tawdry affair, puny and small.

What a lovely place the earth could be, for there is so much beauty, so much glory, such imperishable loveliness. We are caught in pain and don't care to get out of it, even when someone points a way out. (p.255)

Be alert to all your thoughts and feelings, don't let one feeling or thought slip by without being aware of it and absorbing all its content. Absorbing is not the word, but seeing the whole content of the thought-feeling. It is like entering a room and seeing the whole content of the room at once, its atmosphere and its spaces. To see and be aware of one's thoughts makes one intensively sensitive, pliable, and alert. Don't condemn or judge, but be very alert. Out of separation, out of the dross comes pure gold.

To see 'what is', is really quite arduous.

To perceive 'what is' there must be the spirit of intelligent revolt.

To see the rope as the rope needs no courage, but to mistake the rope for a snake and then to observe needs courage. One must doubt, ever search, see the false as the false. One gets power to see clearly through the intensity of attention; you will see it will come. One has to act; the river is never non-acting, it is ever active. One must be in a state of negation, to act; this very negation brings its own positive action. (p.256)

One must be very clear within oneself. Then I assure you everything will come right; be clear and you will see that things will shape themselves right without your doing anything about it. The right is not what one desires.

There must be complete revolution, not only in great things, but in little everyday things.

Don't settle back, keep at it. Keep the pot boiling, inwardly.

How little we know of love, of its extraordinary tenderness and 'power', how easily we use the word love; the general uses it; the butcher uses it; the rich man uses it and the young boy and girl use it. But how little they know of it, its vastness, its deathlessness, its unfathomability. To love is to be aware of eternity.

What a thing is relationship, and how easily we fall into that habit of a particular relationship, things are taken for granted, the situation accepted and no variation tolerated; no movement towards uncertainty, even for a second, entertained. Everything is so well regulated, so made secure, so tied down, that there is no chance for any freshness, for a clear reviving breath of the spring. This and more is called relationship. If we closely observe, relationship is much more subtle, more swift than lightning, more vast than the earth, for relationship is life. Life is conflict. We want to make relationship crude, hard, and manageable. So it loses its fragrance, its beauty. All this arises because one does not love, and that of course is the greatest thing of all, for in it there has to be the complete abandonment of oneself.

It is the quality of freshness, of newness, that is essential, or otherwise life becomes a routine, a habit; and love is not a habit, a boring thing. Most people have lost all sense of wonderment. They take everything for granted, this sense of security destroys freedom and the wonderment of uncertainty. (p.257)

We project a far distant future, away from the present. The attention to understand is always in the present. In attention there is always a sense of imminence. To be clear in one's intentions is quite an arduous task; intention is as a flame, ceaselessly urging one to understand. Be clear in your intentions and you will see, things will work out. To be clear in the present is all that one needs, but it is not quite so easy as it sounds. One has to clear the field for the new seed and once the seed is planted, its own vitality and strength creates the fruit and the seed. Outward beauty can never last, it is marred always if there is no inward delight and joy. We cultivate the outer, paying so little attention to the thing inside the skin; but it is the inner that always overcomes the outer. It is the worm inside the apple that destroys the freshness of the apple.

It needs great intelligence for a man and woman to be forgotten, to live together, not surrender to each other or be dominated by one or the other. Relationship is the most difficult thing in life.

You will always remain unscared if you are inwardly very alert and awake and warmly adjust to things externally.

Substitutes soon whither away. One may be worldly even though one has a few things. The desire for power in any form; the power of the ascetic, the power of a big financier or the politician or the pope is worldly. The craving for power breeds ruthlessness and re-emphasises the importance of oneself, the self-expansive aggressiveness is in essence worldliness. Humility is simplicity, but the cultivated humility is another form of worldliness.

Very few are aware of their inward changes, setbacks, conflicts and distortions. Even if they are aware they try to push them aside or run away from them. Don't you do it. I don't think you will, but there is a danger of living with your thoughts and feelings too closely. One has to be aware of one's thoughts and feelings, without anxiety, without pressure. The real revolution has taken place in your life, you should be very much aware of your thoughts and feelings - let them come out, don't check them, don't hold them back. Let them pour out, the gentle as well as the violent ones, but be aware of them. (p.258)

We have never gone deep down into ourselves and discovered 'what is'. We exist on the surface, satisfied with so little and made happy and unhappy by such small things. Our petty minds have petty problems and petty answers, and so we spend our days. We don't love, and when we do it is always with fear and frustration, with sorrow and longing.

I was thinking how important it is to be innocent, to have an innocent mind. Experiences are inevitable, perhaps necessary; life is a series of experiences, but the mind need not be burdened with its own accumulative demands. It can wipe off each experience and keep itself innocent - unburdened. This is important, otherwise the mind can never be fresh, alert and pliable. The 'how' to keep the mind pliable is not the problem; the 'how' is the search method, and method can never make the mind innocent; it can make it methodical, but never innocent, creative.

It is always difficult to keep simple and clear. The world worships success, the bigger the better; the greater the audience the greater the speaker; the colossal super buildings, cars, aeroplanes and people. Simplicity is lost. The successful people are not the ones who are building a new world. To be a real revolutionary requires a complete change of heart and mind, and how few want to free themselves. One cuts the surface roots; but to cut the deep feeding roots of mediocrity, success, needs something more than words, methods, compulsions. There seem to be few, but they are the real builders - the rest labour in vain.

One is everlastingly comparing oneself with another, with what one is, with what one should be, with someone who is more fortunate. This comparison really kills. Comparison is degrading, it perverts one's outlook. And on comparison one is brought up. All our education is based on it and so our culture. So there is everlasting struggle to be something other than what one is. The understanding of what one is uncovers creativeness, but comparison breeds competitiveness, ruthlessness, ambition, which we think brings about progress. Progress has only led so far to more ruthless wars and misery than the world has ever known. To bring up children without comparison is true education. (p.259)

Fulfilment of desire is such a small affair, however pleasant; but with its fulfilment, as it keeps on satisfying itself, routine, boredom sets in and the real thing fades away. It is the real thing that has to remain and the wonder of it is, it does - if there is no thought of fulfilment but just seeing things as they are.

We are so very seldom alone; always with people, with thoughts that crowd in, hopes that have not been fulfilled, or are going to be - recollections. To be alone is essential for man to be uninfluenced, for something uncontaminated to take place. For this aloneness there seems to be no time, there are too many things to do, too many responsibilities and so on. To learn to be quiet, shutting oneself in one's room, to give the mind a rest, becomes a necessity. Love is part of this aloneness. To be simple, clear, and inwardly quiet, is to have that flame.

Thoughts may not be easy but the more one asks of life, the more fearful and painful it becomes. To live simply, uninfluenced, though everything and everyone is trying to influence, to be without varying moods and demands is not easy, but without a deep quiet life, all things are futile.

How clear the blue sky is, vast, timeless and without space. Distance and space is a thing of the mind; there and here are facts, but they become psychological factors with the urge of desire. The mind is a strange phenomenon. So complex and yet so essentially simple. It is made complex by the many psychological compulsions. It is this that causes conflict and pain, the resistance and the acquisitions. To be aware of them, and let them pass by and not be entangled in them, is arduous. Life is as a vast flowing river. The mind holds in its net the things of this river, discarding and holding. There should be no net. The net is of time and space, it is the net that creates here and there; happiness and unhappiness. (p.260)

Pride is a strange thing, pride in small things and big things; in our possessions, in our achievements, in our virtues, pride of race, name and family; in capacity, in looks, in knowledge. We make all this feed this pride, or we run to humility. The opposite of pride is not humility - it is still pride, only it is called humility; the consciousness of being humble is a form of pride. The mind has to be something. It struggles to be this or that, it can never be in a state of nothingness. If nothingness is a new experience, it must have that experience, the very attempt to be still is another acquisition. The mind must go beyond all effort only then … (p.260-261)

One can't have both, the inner and outer riches. The inner fullness far outweighs the outer. One can be robbed of the outer, outer events can shatter what has been carefully built up; but the inner riches are incorruptible, nothing can touch them, for they have not been put together by the mind.

The desire to fulfil is very strong in people and they pursue it at any cost. This fulfilment, in every way and in any direction, sustains people; if fulfilment fails in one direction, then they try in another. But is there such a thing as fulfilment? Fulfilment may bring a certain satisfaction, but it soon fades away and again we are on the hunt. In the understanding of desire the whole problem of fulfilment ceases. Desire is effort to be, to become, and with an ending to becoming the struggle to fulfil vanishes. (p.261)

It is strange how most people want recognition and praise - to be recognized as a great poet, as a philosopher, something that boosts one's ego. It gives great satisfaction but it has very little meaning. Recognition feeds one's vanity and perhaps one's pocket, and then what? It sets one apart and separation breeds its own problems, ever increasing. Though it may give satisfaction, recognition is not an end in itself. But most people are caught in the craving to be recognized, to fulfil, to achieve. And failure is then inevitable, with its accompanying misery. To be free of both success and failure is the real thing. From the beginning not to look for a result, to do the thing that one loves, and love has no reward or punishment. This is really a simple thing if there is love. (p.261-262)

How little attention we pay to things about us, to observe and to consider. We are so self-centered, so occupied with our worries, with our own benefits, we have no time to observe and understand. This occupation makes our mind dull and weary, frustrated and sorrowful, and from sorrow we want to escape. As long as the self is active there must be weary dullness and frustration. People are caught in a mad race, in the grief of self-centered sorrow. This sorrow is deep thoughtlessness. The thoughtful, the watchful are free from sorrow. (p.262)

Thought has a root or roots, thought itself is the root. There must be reaction or otherwise there's death; but to see that this reaction does not extend its root into the present or into the future is the problem. Thought is bound to arise, but to be aware of it and to end it immediately is essential. To think about thought, to examine it, to play around it, is to extend it, to give it root. This is really important to understand. To see how the mind thinks about thought is to react to the fact. The reaction is sadness and so on. To begin feeling sad, to think of the future return, to count the day etc., is to give root to the thought concerning the fact. So the mind establishes roots, and then how to root them out becomes another problem, another idea. To think of the future is to have roots in the soil of uncertainty. (p.262-263)

To be really alone, not with yesterday's memories and problems but to be alone and happy, to be alone without any outward or inward compulsion, is to let the mind be un-interfered.

You must a have a clear mind, a free un-tethered mind; this is essential, you cannot have a clear, penetrating mind if there is fear of any sort. Fear clogs the mind. If the mind does not face its own self-created problems, it is not a clear, deep mind. To face its own peculiarities, to be aware of its urges, deeply and inwardly, to acknowledge all this without any resistance, is to have a profound and clear mind.

What is important is not to prove or disprove a point, but to find out the truth.

The 'what is' is not different from the thinker. The thinker is that 'what is', the thinker is not separate from that 'which is'. (p.263)

It's not possible to be at peace if there's any kind of want, any hope for some future state. Suffering follows if there's any want, life is generally full of want; even to have one want leads to endless misery. For the mind to free itself from that one want, even to know that one desire needs attention, and that is quite an affair. When found, don't let it become a problem. To prolong the problem is to allow it to take root. Don't let it take root. The one want is the one and only pain. It darkens life; there's frustration and pain. Just be aware of it and be simple with it. (p.263-264)

Everything in life, except for a few things, is second-, third-, or fourth-hand - the Gods, poems, politics, music. So our life is empty. Being empty we try to fill it - with music, with Gods, with love, with forms of escape, and the very filling is the emptying. But beauty is not to be bought. So few want beauty and goodness, and man is satisfied with second-hand things. To throw it all off is the real and only revolution, and then only is there the creativeness of reality. (p.264)

It's strange how man insists on continuity in all things; in relationships, in tradition, in religion, in art. There's no breaking off and a beginning new again. If man had no book, no leader, no one to copy, no one to follow, to example, if he was completely alone, stripped of all his knowledge, he would have to start from the very beginning. Of course this complete stripping of himself must be wholly and fully spontaneous and voluntary, otherwise he would go mad, force himself into some kind of neurosis. As only a few seem to be capable of this complete aloneness, the world carries on with tradition - in its art, its music, its politics, its Gods - which everlastingly breed misery. This is what is happening in the world at the present time. There is nothing new, there is only opposition and counter-opposition - in religion the old formula of fear and dogma continues; in the arts there is the endeavour to find something new. But the mind is not new, it is the same old mind, ridden with tradition, fear, knowledge, and experience, endeavouring to search the new. It is the mind itself that must denude itself, wholly, for the new to be. This is the real revolution. (p.264-265)

The desire to be secure, in one form or another, is so dominant that the mind will adjust itself to any pattern that can give it security and safety. But there is no security; and when one really understands this, there's something totally different, which creates its own way of life. That life cannot be understood or copied; all that one can do is to understand and be aware of the ways of security, which brings its own freedom. (p.265)
I was thinking, can we educate man on the outside but leave the center free? Can we help man to be free inwardly and be always free? For it is only in freedom that he can be creative and so be happy. Otherwise, life is such a tortuous affair, a battle within and so without. But to be free inside needs astonishing care and wisdom; but few see the importance of this. We are concerned with the outer and not with creativity. But to change all this, there must be at least a few who understand the necessity of this, who themselves are inwardly bringing about this freedom. It is a strange world.

What is important is a radical change in the unconscious. Any conscious action of the will cannot touch the unconscious. As the conscious will cannot touch the unconscious pursuits, wants, urges, the conscious mind must subside, be still, and not try to force the unconscious, according to any particular pattern of action. The unconscious has its own pattern of action, its own frame within which it functions. This frame cannot be broken by any outward action, and will is an outward act. If this is really seen and understood, the outward mind is still; and because there is no resistance, set up by will, one will find that the so-called unconscious begins to free itself from its own limitations. Then only is there a radical transformation in the total being of man.

Dignity is a very rare thing. An office or a position of respect gives dignity. It is like putting on a coat. The coat, the post gives dignity. A title or a position gives dignity. But strip man of these things, and very few have that quality of dignity that comes with inward freedom of being as nothing. Being something is what man craves for, and that something gives him a position in society which it respects. Put a man into a category of some kind - clever, rich, a saint, a physicist; but if he cannot be put into a category that society recognises, he is an odd person. Dignity cannot be assumed, be cultivated, and to be conscious of being dignified is to be conscious of oneself, which is to be petty, small. To be nothing is to be free of that very idea. Being, not of or in a particular state, is true dignity. It cannot be taken away, it always is. (p.266)

To allow the free flow of life, without any residue being left, is real awareness. The human mind is like a sieve which holds some things and lets others go. What it holds is the size of its own desires; and desires, however profound, vast, noble, are small, are petty, for desire is a thing of the mind. Not to retain, but to have the freedom of life to flow without restraint, without choice, is complete awareness. We are always choosing or holding, choosing the things that have significance and everlastingly holding on to them. This we call experience, and the multiplication of experiences we call the richness of life. The richness of life is the freedom from the accumulation of experience. The experience that remains, that is held, prevents that state in which the known is not. The known is not the treasure, but the mind clings to it and thereby destroys or defiles the unknown. (p.266-267)

We are, most of us at least, creatures of moods and a variety of moods. Few of us escape from it. With some, it is caused by the bodily condition, with others it is a mental state. We like this up and down state, we think this movement of moods is part of existence. Or one just drifts from one mood to another. But there are few who are not caught in this movement, who are free from the battle of becoming, so that inwardly there is a steadiness, not of the will, a steadiness that is not cultivated, nor the steadiness of concentrated interest, nor the product of any one of these activities. It comes upon one only when the action of will ceases.

Money does spoil people. There is a peculiar arrogance of the rich. With very few exceptions, in every country, the rich have that peculiar atmosphere of being able to twist anything, even the Gods, and they can buy their Gods. Riches is not only of wealth, but the capacity of being able to do things. Capacity gives man an odd sense of freedom. He also feels he is above others, he is different. All this gives him a sense of superiority, he sits back and watches other people squirming; he is oblivious to his own ignorance, the darkness of his own mind. Money and capacity offer a very good escape from this darkness. After all, escape is a form of resistance, which breeds its own problems. Life is a strange business. Happy is the man who is nothing. (p.267)

Take things easily, but inwardly with fullness and alertness. Don't let a moment slip by without being fully aware of what is happening inwardly and about you. Often this is what it is to be sensitive, not to one or two things, but to be sensitive to everything. To be sensitive to beauty and to resist ugliness is to bring about conflict. You know, as you watch you will perceive that the mind is always judging - that is good and that is bad, this is black and that is white - judging people, comparing, weighing, calculating. The mind is everlastingly restless. Can the mind watch, observe, without judging, calculating? Perceive without naming and just see if the mind can do that. (p.267-268)

To be simple is for the mind to free itself from all results, is for the mind to empty itself of all conflict.

Thought cannot, do what it will, free itself from the opposites; thought itself has created the ugly and the beautiful, and good and the bad. So it cannot free itself from its own activities. All that it can do is to be still, not choose. Choice is conflict and the mind is back again to its own entanglements. The stillness of the mind is the freedom from duality.

There is so much discontent and one thinks an ideology, communism or other, is going to solve everything, even banish away discontent, which of course it can never do. Communism or any other organized religious conditioning can never do away with discontent; but one tries every way to smother it, to shape it, to give it content, but it is always there. To be discontented, one thinks, is wrong - normally not right, and yet one cannot do away with it; it has to be understood. To understand is not to condemn. So really go into it, watch it without any desire to change it, to channelize it. Be aware of it as it operates during the day, perceive its ways and be alone with it.

Freedom comes when the mind is alone. Just for the fun of the thing, keep the mind still, free of all thought. Play with it, don't make it a very serious affair, without any struggle, be aware and let the mind be still. (p.268)

There is frustration as long as one is seeking fulfilment. The pleasure of fulfilment is a constant desire and we want the continuity of that pleasure. The ending of that pleasure is frustration in which there is pain. Again the mind seeks in different directions fulfilment and again it meets frustration. This frustration is the movement of self-consciousness which is isolation, separation, loneliness. From this the mind wants to escape again into some form of fulfilment. The struggle to fulfil brings the conflict of duality. When the mind sees the futility or truth of fulfilment, in which there is always frustration, then only can the mind be in that state of loneliness from which there is no escape. When the mind is in this state of loneliness, without any escape, then only is there freedom from it. Separation exists because of the desire to fulfil; frustration is separation. (p.268-269)

Be very strong inwardly. Be firm and clear. Be complete; don't try to be complete, be complete. Don't depend on anyone or on anything or on any experience, or memory; the dependence on the past, however pleasant, only prevents the completeness of the present. Be aware and let that awareness be intact and unbroken even if it be for a minute.

Sleep is essential; during sleep one seems to touch unknown depths, depths that the conscious mind can never touch or experience. Though one may not remember the extraordinary experience of a world that is beyond the conscious or the unconscious, it has its effect on the total consciousness of the mind. Probably this is not very clear, but just read it and play around it. I feel there are certain things that can never be made clear. There are no adequate words for them, but nevertheless they are there. (p.269)

You must easily, voluntarily put aside all the pleasurable memories and images, so that your mind is free, uncontaminated for the real thing. Do, please, pay attention to what is written. Every experience, every thought must end each day, each minute, as it arises; so that the mind does not put out roots into the future. This is really important, for this is true freedom. Thus there is no dependence, for dependence brings pain, affecting the physical and breeding psychological resistance. And as you said, resistance creates problems - to achieve, to become perfect, and so on. In seeking is involved struggle, effort, endeavour; this endeavour, this struggle, invariably ends in frustration - I want something or I want to be something - in the very process of getting there is the craving for the more, and the more is never in sight and so there is always a sense of being thwarted. So there is pain. So once again one turns to another form of fulfilment, with its inevitable consequence. The implication of struggle, of effort, is vast, and why does one seek? Why does the mind everlastingly seek and what makes it seek? Do you know or are you aware that you are seeking? If you are, the object of your search varies from period to period. Do you see the significance of search, with its frustrations and pain? That in the finding of something that is very gratifying there is stagnation, with its joys and fears, with its progress and becoming? If you are aware that you are seeking, is it possible for the mind not to seek? And if the mind does not seek, what's the immediate, actual reaction of a mind that does not seek?

Play with this, find out; don't force anything, don't let the mind coerce itself into any particular experience, for then it will breed for itself illusion. (p.269-270)

How frightened we are of death; what we are frightened of is living; we do not know how to live; we know sorrow and death is only the final sorrow. We divide life, as living and dying. Then there must be the ache of death, with its separation, loneliness, isolation. Life and death are one movement, not isolated states. Living is dying, dying to everything, to be reborn every day. This is not a theoretical statement but to be lived and to be experienced. It is will, this constant desire to be, that completely destroys the simple 'being'. This 'being' is totally different from the sleep of satisfaction, fulfilment or the conclusions of reason. This being is unaware of the self. A drug, an interest, an absorption, a complete 'identification' can bring about a desired state, which is still self-consciousness. True being is the cessation of the will. (p.270)

We have such infinite capacities, in every direction, to find the nameless or to bring about hell on earth.

There is a life without will, without choice. This life comes into being when the life of will comes to an end. (p.271)

The weather represents man's moods, up and down, darkness and temporary light.

It is strange how we want freedom and we do everything to enslave ourselves. We lose all our initiative. We look to others to guide us, to help us, to be generous, to be peaceful; we look to the gurus, masters, saviours, meditators. Someone writes great music, someone plays it, interpreting it in his own way and we listen to it, enjoying it or criticising it. We are the audience watching the actors, football players, or watching the cine-screen. Others write poems and we read; others paint and we gape at them. We have nothing, so we turn to others to entertain us, to inspire us, to guide or save us. More and more, modern civilisation is destroying us, emptying us of all creativeness. We ourselves are empty inwardly and we look to others to be enriched and so our neighbour takes advantage of this to exploit, or we take advantage of him. (p.271-272)

When one is aware of the many implications involved in looking to others, that very freedom is the beginning of creativeness. That freedom is true revolution and not the false revolution of social or economic adjustments. Such revolution is another form of enslavement.

Our minds make little castles of security. We want to be sure of everything, sure of our relationship, or our fulfilment's, hopes, and of our futures. We build these inward prisons and woe to anyone that disturbs us. It is strange how the mind is ever seeking a zone where there will be no conflict, no disturbance. Our living is the constant breaking up and the rebuilding, in different forms, of these zones of safety. Our mind then becomes a dull and weary thing. Freedom consists in having no security of any kind.

It is really astonishing to have a still and a very calm mind, without a single wave of thought. Of course, the stillness of a dead mind is not the calm mind. The mind is made to be still by the action of will.

It is really most amazing what happens when the mind is, thus, silent. In that state all consciousness, as knowing, recognising ceases. The instinctual pursuit of the mind, memory, has come to an end. And it's very interesting how the mind begins to do its best to capture that worldless state, through thinking, verbalising, perfecting symbols. But for this process to come to an end, naturally and spontaneously, is like dying to everything. One does not want to die, and so there is always an unconscious struggle going on, and this struggle is called life. It is odd how most people want to impress others, by their achievements, by their cleverness, by their books - by any means to assert themselves. (p.272)

Are your days swifter than a weaver's shuttle? Do you live in one day, a thousand years? It is strange, for most people boredom is a very real thing; they must be doing something, be occupied with something, an activity, a book, the kitchen, children, or God. Otherwise they are with themselves, which is very boring. When they are with themselves they get self-centered, crotchety, or become ill and ill-humoured. An unoccupied mind - not a negative blank mind, but an alert passive mind, a totally empty mind - is a sweet thing, capable of infinite possibilities. Thoughts are wearisome, uncreative, and rather dull. A thought may be clever, but cleverness is as a sharp instrument - it soon wears itself out, and that is why clever people are dull. (p.272-273)

Let there be an unoccupied mind without deliberately working for it. Let it happen rather than cultivate it. Read this with awareness and let it take place. Hearing it or reading about the unoccupied mind is important, and how you read and how you listen.

What is important is to have the right kind of exercise, good sleep, and a day that has significance. But one slips so easily into a routine, and then one functions in the easy pattern of self-satisfaction, or in the pattern of self-imposed righteousness. All their patterns invariably lead to death - a slow withering away. But to have a rich day, in which there is no compulsion, no fear, no comparison, no conflict, but to be simply aware, is to be creative.

You see, there are rare moments when we feel this, but most of our life is made up of eroding memories, frustration, and vain efforts, and the real thing goes by. The cloud of dullness covers everything and the real thing fades away. It is really quite arduous to penetrate through this cloud and to be in the simple clarity of light. Just see all this and that is all. Don't try to be simple. This trying only breeds complexity and misery. The trying is becoming and the becoming is always desire, with its frustrations.

How important it is to free oneself from all emotional, psychological shock, which does not mean that one must harden oneself against the movement of life. It is these shocks that gradually build up various psychological resistances that also affect the body, bringing various forms of illness. Life is a series of events (wanted and unwanted); and as long as we pick, choose which we shall keep and which we shall discard, there must inevitably be a conflict (of duality) which is the shock. These series of checks harden the mind, heart; it is a self-enclosing process and so there is suffering. To allow the movement of life, without choice, without any particular movement, desirable or undesirable, to take root needs enormous awareness. It is not a matter of trying to be aware all the time, which is wearisome, but seeing the necessity of the truth of awareness, then you will see that the very necessity operates without your forcing yourself to be aware. (p.273)

One may travel, be educated in the best of schools, in different parts of the world; have the best of foods, instruction, climate; but does all this make for intelligence? One knows of such people, and are they intelligent? The Communists are trying, as others, like the Catholics, to control and shape the mind. The very shaping of the mind does have certain obvious effects - more efficiency, a certain quickness and alertness of mind - but all these different capacities do not make intelligence. The very learned people, those who have plenty of information, knowledge, and those who are educated scientifically, are they intelligent? Don't you think intelligence is something entirely different ? It is really the total freedom from fear. Those whose mortality is based on security, security in every form, are not moral, for the desire for security is the outcome of fear. Fear and the constraint of fear, which we call morality, is really not moral at all. Intelligence is the total freedom from fear, and intelligence is not respectability, nor is it the various virtues cultivated through fear. In understanding fear there is something which is wholly different from the formulations of the mind.