Freedom from the known

From Khalil Gibran

2008-12-09T03:53:00.000-08:00

Here it goes......

THE OLD, OLD WINE : from THE MADMAN written by Khalil Gibran

Once there lived a rich man who was justly proud of his cellar and the wine therein. And there was one jug of ancient vintage kept for some occasion known only to himself.

The governor of the state visited him, and he bethought him and said, "That jug shall not be opened for a mere governor."

And a bishop of the diocese visited him, but he said to himself, "Nay, I will not open that jug. He would not know its value, nor would its aroma reach his nostrils."
The prince of the realm came and supped with him. But he thought, "It is too royal a wine for a mere princeling."
And even on the day when his own nephew was married, he said to himself, "No, not to these guests shall that jug be brought forth."
And the years passed by, and he died, an old man, and he was buried like unto every seed and acorn.
And upon the day that he was buried the ancient jug was brought out together with other jugs of wine, and it was shared by the peasants of the neighborhood. And none knew its great age.
To them, all that is poured into a cup is only wine.

letter from Rama

2008-12-09T03:21:00.000-08:00

Hi all I am Rama, yap the same lord Rama as you all say, I have come for a direct one to one conversation because I could not bear my image as propagated in this country by those who call themselves as my followers. It is a pity that they are my followers because I never wanted any. I lived a fulfilling life according to my own convictions and wanted that everyone should live according to his. But alas I have got followers and they are the one who hurts most. I should admit, it is rightly said that lord returns on earth whenever there is a crisis on dharma. I have come back to save dharma from my own so called followers who have so much polluted the environ of this planet that dharma has been nearly obliterated. You will be wondering what I am saying, let me clarify.

I will put before you life of an average follower of mine. An average devotee of mine visits the temple in morning after this daily ablution. His morning offerings last an hour or so when he keeps repeating my name a thousand times. Now he goes to his work (say he works as a head clerk in the PWD department) , he puts a large framed picture of mine (with my wife, brother and of course Hanuman) on the wall behind me and after paying me homage for thousand and oneth time , he starts his daily chores. Sorry to say the daily work has not yet started because the tea has not yet come. Though the files are piling on his desk he wastes an hour or so in drinking tea and now opens the first file, hardly few mins would have passed he gets up to find how much India has scored against Pakistan in the ongoing one day series. After which his far off relative arrives from his village and he spends another hour with him. When his senior asks about the files he hurriedly completes the job (only I know how) and handles it to his boss who is also one of my devotees. If there is any public dealing of these devotees of mine they do not hesitate to take bribe. And before leaving office they don’t even forget to pay me their homage.

I never needed people to worship me. Can’t they see that repeating my name a thousand time has not made any difference in their character, they continue to remain the same rugged lazy idiots as they were. In reality they do not know anything about me. In fact they do not worship me but they worship there own fears and dogmas .They worship there own securities.

These people will never understand me and my life .How I lived with freedom and for what my life stood for. They tell their children to obey elders as lord Rama did. My obedience to my parents was spontaneous. It was out of my own convictions; my own freedom .My obedience is the epitome of my liveliness where as there obedience is the result of their blindness. My character was a result of my understanding.

My life stands for the understanding which I obtained from my own experiences. I never followed anyone because following anyone can’t lead to anywhere. By being a follower a man becomes blind, blind to his own experiences and a blind man can only live a borrowed life which does not yield anything.

I today pronounce to all of you not to follow me. Tore all my pictures and posters you have, raze all my statutes and temples from the surface of this planet, so that in future man has no guidance except his own wisdom except his own heart.

short story : Standing on ones own conviction

2008-12-09T00:31:00.000-08:00

Keshav was wondering what he wants from life. He was nineteen when he entered the monastery .It has been seven years now. He has led the most disciplined life in the brotherhood and all his fellow monks respect him. Keshav has got control over the his breaths, he eats once in two days, once he sat for three days in meditation. It is not that this austerity has not paid him off. Nature has opened many secrets before him; he knew how air operates in a human body, how by controlling it one can remain active and healthy.

No one in the monastery has attained so much control which Keshav had, but there was something which kept him disturbed. He could not sleep whole night. Is this life he wanted for himself, though all monks revere him but he knew that the feat he has attained can be achieved by anyone through practice. It is only that other monks are slow that they take so much time. Now Keshav needed something more out of his life, but he didn’t knew what.

He went to the head monk and told” sir, I have made some progress according to the instructions given in the scriptures. I have trained myself on the lines of the sacred books of monastery but I still feel empty, I feel that all this is leading me nowhere, as if I am stuck. On the one hand there is the appreciation which I get from the follow monks and on the other hand is the emptiness and lie which I feel in my achievement. I don’t know what to do.

The head replied “Keshav, the problem with you is not of achievement but of doubt. You doubt the scriptures, you doubt the methods therein, don’t you know that our monastery is 200 years old and we have a heritage of monks which are revered by monasteries all over Asia. Don’t you know that from the same methods our monastery has produced monks which are world admires, and still you doubt the inscriptions and procedures.”

“sir, for seven years I have followed the inscriptions by word , I never had any element of doubt in me but I never felt satisfied. I thought may be I will get the result later. But things are not working for me. May be the methods of the monastery do not fit on me or they need some change. May be that they worked for the great monks you mentioned, but they are not working now. I have not met a single monk in the monastery who has benefited from the procedures. Sir I humbly ask you that have you attained in life what you wanted to. Are you satisfied with yourself?

“Shut up Keshav you are insulting the monastery. Off course I am satisfied with myself and the progress of all the monks. If you have to be here you have to follow the ancient norms and procedures. Now retire into your cell.”

Keshav went to his cell but he could not sleep. How are the head and other monks so satisfied with themselves? Do they not realize the uselessness of their entire endeavourers. How can they rely on the procedures which do not bring about any change? What could be the reason for this all? He contemplated for a long time and came to conclusion that these monks do not have enough courage to deify the old scripture even if they do not get benefitted from it. They have renounced there homes to get something worth in there lives but actually they have not renounced anything, they just changed the objects they were clinging to. Before they were clinging to there family now they are attached to the monastery and the scriptures. He decided to leave the monastery at once.

When keshav stepped out of monastery it was too dark but he felt a new moon of his life taking birth. He had mixed feelings, he has been in the monastery for seven years, all monks respect him, and what he will get on leaving this monastery he did not knew. But he can also not remain static whole his life here. He has to go. Now keshav was realizing why other monks were still attached to the monastery. To step into this world on ones own is tougher than following the scriptures. For the first time keshav was experiencing what it takes to stand on ones own convictions. Till now it was very easy for him to follow the rules of monastery but now on he is responsible for all his steps. This was the beginning of a new learning for him, which he could not have undergone hath he remained in the monastery. This experience filled his heart with a very strange sensation which keshav himself has never felt before. He felt such peace and calmness which he never had in his seven years of sojourn in the monastery.

Though he was alone but he realized that he has begun his journey in the right direction.

A real Practical Man

2008-12-03T05:30:00.000-08:00

I feel that there are two type of people who inherit this planets the theorists and the practicalists. The theorist live in there own world, they derive there notions from the experience of others. They believe in logic and cause and effect principal. A perfect theorist is a man who is living happily in the condition life has offered to him or even if he tries to change his position ,he tries only in theory that is he logically tries to find out the cause of this present condition and then he thinks what he can do for the change. He continually thinks what he can do , but never has the grit to take that step. Some how either through logical conclusions or through the experiences of others he keep on convincing himself that what he is doing is the maximum he can do. Thus theoreticals continue there life. Many die without persevering any substantial change in themselves.

Now consider a man who is theoretical in the aforesaid manner but is a bit different, he is fully theoretical......I mean that he follows every thing which is available to him by the society in theory. If he is fully follows all the norms of the society than he will also follow truthfulness which society preaches. Now ones he starts practicing that truthfulness a great change will happen in his life .Infact I will say that a revolution will come about. He will see that entire his life he has been fooling himself . The social norms on which he pursued his life are not really worthwhile.

from hereon we will see the birth of a practical man.Man who does not take anything for granted and believes in his experiences more than anything else. For such a man experiences are the only key. He will take all the risks for the sake of continuing his experiences. Such a man I beieve is the real man , there is nothing which is artificial in him . He is the product of his own experiments.

Past present and future are-one

2008-06-13T20:23:00.000-07:00

We know that every motion in space is accompanied by that which we call
motion in time. Moreover, we know that everything existing, even if not moving in
space, moves eternally in time.
And equally in all cases, whether speaking of motion or absence of motion, we
have in mind an idea of what was before, what now becomes, and what will
follow after. In other words, we have in mind the idea of time. The idea of motion
of any kind, also the idea of absence of motion, is indissolubly bound up with the
idea of time. Any motion or absence of motion proceeds in time and
cannot proceed out of time. Consequently, before speaking of what motion is, we
must answer the question, what is time?
Time is the most formidable and difficult problem which confronts humanity.
Kant regards time as he does space: as a subjective form of our receptivity; i.e.,
he says that we create time ourselves, as a function of our receptive apparatus,
for convenience in perceiving the outside world. Reality is continuous and
constant, but in order to make possible the perception of it, we must dissever it
into separate moments; imagine it as an infinite series of separate moments out
of which there exists for us only one. In other words, we perceive reality as if
through a narrow slit, and what we are seeing through this slit we call the
present; what we did see and now do not see--the past; and what we do not quite
see but are expecting--the future.
Regarding each phenomenon as an effect of another, or others, and this in its
turn as a cause of a third; that is, regarding all phenomena in functional
interdependence one upon another, by this very act we are contemplating them
in time, because we picture to ourselves quite clearly and precisely first a cause,
then an effect; first an action, then its function; and cannot contemplate them
otherwise. Thus we may say that the idea of time is bound up with the idea of
causation and functional interdependence. Without time, causation cannot exist,
just as without time, motion or the absence of motion cannot exist.
But our perception concerning our "being in time" is entangled and misty up to
improbability.
First of all let us analyze our relation toward the past, present and future. Usually
we think that the past already does not exist. It has passed, disappeared, altered,
transformed itself into something else. The future also does not exist--it does not
exist as yet. It has not arrived, has not formed. By the present we mean the
moment of transition of the future into the past, i.e., the moment of transition of a
phenomenon from one non-existence into another non-existence. For that
moment only does the phenomenon exist for us in reality; before, it existed in
potentiality, afterward it will exist in remembrance. But this short moment is after
all only a fiction: it has no measurement. We have a full right to say that
the present does not exist. We can never catch it. That which we did catch is
always the past!
If we are to stop at that we must admit that the world does not exist, or exists
only in some phantasmagoria of illusions, flashing and disappearing.
Usually we take no account of this, and do not reflect that our customary view of
time leads to utter absurdity.
Let us imagine a stupid traveller going from one city to another and half way
between these two cities. A stupid traveller thinks that the city from which he has
departed last week does not exist now: only the memory of it is left; the walls are
ruined, the towers fallen, the inhabitants have either died or gone away. Also,
that city at which he is destined to arrive in several days does not exist now
either, but is being hurriedly built for his arrival, and on the day of that arrival will
be ready, populated, and set in order, and on the day after his departure will be
destroyed just as was the first one.
We are thinking of things in time exactly in this way--everything passes away,
nothing returns! The spring has passed, it does not exist still . The autumn has
not come, it does not exist as yet.
But what does exist?
The present.
But the present is not a seizable moment, it is continuously transitory into the
past.
So, strictly speaking, neither the past, nor the present, nor the future exists for
us. Nothing exists! And yet we are living, feeling, thinking--and something
surrounds us. Consequently, in our usual attitude toward time there exists some
mistake. This error we shall endeavor to detect.
We accepted at the very beginning that something exists. We called that
something the world. How then can the world exist if it is not existing in the past,
in the present and in the future?
That conception of the world which we deduced from our usual view of time
makes the world appear like a continuously gushing out igneous fountain of
fireworks, each spark of which flashes for a moment and disappears, never to
appear any more. Flashes are going on continuously, following one after another,
there are an infinite number of sparks, and everything together produces the impression of a
flame, though it does not exist in reality.
The autumn has not yet come. It will be, but it does not exist now. And we give
no thought to how that can appear which is not.
We are moving upon a plane, and recognize as really existing only the small
circle lighted by our consciousness. Everything out of this circle, which we do not
see, we negate; we do not like to admit that it exists. We are moving upon the
plane in one direction. This direction we consider as eternal and infinite. But the
direction at right angles to it, those lines which we are intersecting, we do not like
to recognize as eternal and infinite. We imagine them as going into nonexistence
at once, as soon as we, have passed them, and that the lines before
us have not as yet risen out of non-existence. If, presupposing that we are
moving upon a sphere, upon its equator or one of its parallels, then it will appear
that we recognize as really existing only one meridian: those which are behind us
have disappeared and those ahead of us have not appeared as yet. .
We are going forward like a blind man, who feels paving stones and lanterns and
walls of houses with his stick and believes in the real existence of only that which
he touches now, which he feels now. That which has passed has disappeared
and will never return! That which has not as yet been does not exist. The blind
man remembers the route which he has traversed; he expects that ahead the
way will continue, but he sees neither forward nor backward because he does
not see anything; because his instrument of knowledge--the stick--has a definite,
and not very great length, and beyond the reach of his stick non-existence
begins.

Let us imagine a consciousness that is not bound by the conditions of sensuous
receptivity. Such a consciousness can rise above the plane upon which we are
moving; it can see far beyond the limits of the circle enlightened by our usual
consciousness; it can see that not only does the line upon which we are moving
exist, but also all lines perpendicular to it which we are intersecting, which we
have ever intersected, and which we shall intersect. After rising above the plane
this consciousness can see the plane, can convince itself that it is really a plane,
and not a single line. Then it can see the past and the future, lying together and
existing simultaneously.
That consciousness which is not bound by the conditions of sensuous receptivity
can outrun the stupid traveller, ascend the mountain to see in the distance the
town to which he is going, and be convinced that this town is not being built anew
for his arrival, but exists quite independently of the stupid traveller. And that
consciousness can look off and see on the horizon the towers of that city where
that traveller had been, and be convinced that those towers have not fallen, that
the city continues to stay and live just as it stayed and lived before the traveller's
advent.
It can rise above the plane of time and see the spring behind and the autumn
ahead, see simultaneously the budding flowers and ripening fruits. It can make
the blind man recover his sight and see the road along which he passed and that
which still lies before him.
The past and the future cannot not exist, because if they do not exist then neither
does the present exist. Unquestionably they exist somewhere together, but we
do not see them.
The present, compared with the past and the future, is the most unreal of all
unrealities.
We are forced to admit that the past, the present and the future do not differ in
anything, one from another; there exists just one present-- the Eternal Now of
Hindu philosophy. But we do not perceive this, because in every given moment
we experience just a little bit of that present, and this alone we count as existent,
denying a real existence to everything else.
If we admit this, then our view of everything with which we are surrounded will
change very considerably.

Stop and watch

2008-04-19T00:49:00.000-07:00

When I tried to analyze why things are not the way we want them to be. Why we are at constant state of uneasiness? Why is it so that though we have acquired much but still we do not have something which is worthwhile? The problem I feel is the sense of acquiring something. We have to leave that sense and then work and only then we can be at ease . Today all our action are to acquire something or the other and that is the reason we acquire nothing. We have never in our life done anything intensely. I will ask you to be clear of what I am trying to say. We have never done things intensely on the other hand we have done things excitedly. Actually there is a huge difference between intensity and excitation. Excitation is a product of fear and intensity is a product of understanding, and we always take our excitation as our intensity and therefore we can’t reach anywhere worthwhile. Our excitation can make us the king of the world but it can never make us the king of ourselves. We will always remain a slave of conditions. This is what is happening with us.

Now what we have to do for this? How to get rid of this devastating situation? A situation that keeps us busy without any outcome (I mean worthwhile outcome).

Actually the key is that we have to do nothing. We have to just see the problem .We have to stop what all we have continued to do so far .We have to pause and watch and only through active watching we can get rid of our excited state. It is a bit difficult to “not do” than doing. And it is a bit more difficult to watch because we have never in our life practice watching and not doing. But to get rid of our excitation it is a must. And then there will evolve an understanding, a maturity of mind which will lead to intensity of actions. And only through his intensity we can gain anything worthwhile. This intensity is our lifelong companion as it has evolved through understanding of life and not like excitation which evolve through reaction.

The key is that we have to replace reactions from actions .Till now our all actions are not genuine actions but they are mere reactions, something that is byproduct of situation .We have to replace them through actions (genuine actions) which is the product of understanding and the most interesting thing is that for this we have to do nothing, we have to just become witness and see actively. Only this much is sufficient.

Actually we have in our life done nothing with intensity .Actually all our life we have divided our personality into many and applied our energy to opposite directions. We claim that we love but we have never been a passionate lover .We claim that we are social but in reality we have never been social in true sense of word. Our sociality as our love is mere an excitement a product of situations. It is our necessity and compulsion not a result of understanding that we put mask of being social.

This is the reason we are a failure in every walk of life, neither we are social nor we are individualistic, neither we are a lover of mankind nor we are an abhorrer (in true sense) neither we are “this” nor we are “that”.

Actually in our life we try to add qualities with different signs. And continue doing so whole our life but by bringing together positives and negatives we can only waste their respective energies.

Now it is the time either to become “this” or “that” either to become positive or negative than only we can gain anything worthwhile.

Yes a thing which seems negative to world when done with passion can work wonders. It is only intensity which counts not the nature of work. We have to only become intense this is the key, whether you become a lover of mankind or hater it does not matters but become one.

Take e.g. of Valmiki he entered into path which world will call evil but the one who can enter evil with full intensity ( understanding) can also be courageous to enter the realm of goodness with full intensity. Actually we are unable to become Devil with full intensity then how can we become God with full intensity.

So replace excitement with understanding and reactions with actions this is the only key.

Peace

2008-04-04T12:55:00.000-07:00

It is quite illogical that people talk of the absence of peace from their life while their every action is meant to create more and more chaos. They continue to produce more variables in their life and thus creating dependence on the externalities. How a man who is under some authority can be peaceful? This is the most common paradox I observe.

To understand this let me first logically build up the definition of peace. Peace is a state of being when you are most natural .A state when you are just what you are. There is nothing imposed. To get an idea of this just remember a moment in your life when you were happy. At that moment all that what is imposed in you would have vanished and only your true being would have left. You would have forgotten that weather you are an engineer or a doctor or a scientist or a businessman or a rikshaw puller you were just happy. At that moment there would have been no past no future but only a present. Peace can not be in future or in past it is possible only in this very moment. So to state in one line peace is a state of being when one is totally natural without anything imposed remaining in him.

Now how can it help us in understanding the paradox I mentioned earlier and solving it.
Going with this definition of peace you need yourself to be unimposed and natural. Now observe the action of people around you. How busy they are in creating more and more dependence on externalities. How busy they are in fantasying the future and lamenting the past while they forget about the moment that is passing. They are simply ignorant to the fact that they can only be happy in the present.

Have you ever thought when last you live in the present moment? We never live in the present moment. It will sound hard and absurd to hear but just think and you will realize that it has been ages you lived in the present moment. You continue to vacillate between past and future. Every action of yours to amass resources for your future continues to elude peace for you. It is as if you are running after gold and forgetting that the bag on your back has enough of it. You can never earn peace if you will not stop believing that anything external can earn it for you. No position , no power , no resource on earth is capable of earning it for you because as I have discussed earlier peace is the product of your unimposed nature, while in the process of generating resources you stop being your natural self and acts artificially. You think of yourself as engineers or doctors or damm anything and in the process you loose your unimposed self and thus peace slips from your hand. You continue to impose authorities on yourself. You make yourself artificial. When you are in office you impose a mask of an obedient employee of your firm. When with an acquaintance you act as you are his/her best friend though you detest him/her in heart. When with your husband/wife you act as if you love them from base of your heart where as you love only your desires.

Just perform a simple experiment. Close your eyes and think do I exist? What I am? If you will go on thinking what am I? What am I?.. then you will realize that you simply do not exist .you are nothing but the summations of your desires . You have so much perverted yourself that you have lost yourself, and how can you think to gain peace when infect you have lost yourself.

So what we have to do to gain peace. I feel that it is the simplest and most courageous thing one can do in his/her life. Simple because peace is your basic nature and courageous because it requires grit to defile the conditioning and remove the imposed externalities which have been laid upon you for centuries. And yet more courageous because no one else but you yourself are the one who has imposed them. You have to basically fight yourself in this whole process. You have to fight conventions, you have to fight dogmas, and you have to fight every authority that is laid on you. This is what I feel is the most courageous step a human being can take because these conventions however big an impediment they are in the process of attaining peace have their own temptations. These conventions have created a comfort zone around us, security for us and as we proceed to break all these conventions the comfort zone also breaks away and we find our self in the middle without any security all alone and this is very fearful for any conditioned human being.

So we are left with two choices either to continue living in our securities as we have always been and continue craving for peace in life or just become a bit courageous and change the direction of our life by breaking all the imposed conventions and gaining our true nature and peace….Choice is yours because life is yours…….

The two Negations

2008-04-02T10:32:00.000-07:00

From centuries man has faced an unavoidable question or to put it in other way man has faced two negations. The negations of materialist and that of spiritualists . So it has become an utmost necessity to find out a logical conclusion to these negations and put an end to this problem. now to start with materialists they always propose and give weight to objectivity ie that what is obvious and clear , that what do not call for any deep excavations and to takes world as it appears to be. Whereas on the other hand spiritualist are totally concerned with the subjectivity and try to build around that which is hidden deep and can't be reached by the help of our objective senses.

Let us approach logically to the problem and to examine take an example of a flower say a rose flower in a garden . First our materialist comes in and examines it .He comes closer to it looks at the flower
, smells it ,then touches it and get pricked by its thorn. Then he takes out his diary and writes something and leaves. Now the spiritualist arrived and he too performs the same act and lefts. To an observer studying this process of examination both of our examinees appear performing the
same actions except that the spiritualist was having no pen and diary. Now when materialist is asked by the observer to describe about the flower he puts out his description in points( objectively...) . so his points were 1) It was red coloured. 2) surrounded by thorns 3) with a peculiar and identifiable smell ......
thats all. when our observer asks him "dear sir is there any thing else left in your description ?" the
materialist scratches his head and tells"Hmmn... the experience was pleasing ..."
Now after the materialists departs with his diary our spiritualists come in and when asked to describe ........he remains silent and when our observers asks him " dear sir why are u silent please tell me about the flower " the spiritualists grabs the observer by his hand and takes him to the flower and says" Its all yours my
friend go ahead" . Our observer is stunned by the behaviour of the man and at once leaves the
garden.
So where do our initial problem stand in all this ???
Rather than considering the behaviour of both man as contradictory or in negation to one other I
will say that they were by the men at different levels of understanding towards life and both the behaviours are perfectly natural and in accordance to the mental state of the respective men. There is nothing as subjectivity versus objectivity but these two are just levels one pointing towards the other .I mean objectivity pointing towards subjectivity( as our first examiner told that the experience was pleasing...). Then why there has been for centuries so dispute between objectivity and subjectivity??? why always do materialists and
spiritualists have yelled on top of there voice for there respective propaganda??

It is only because proponents of objectivity and subjectivity both have done a tremendous mistake...The objectivists have too much engaged themselves into the objectivity that they forgot to take notice where this objectivity is pointing... they noticed the smell and colour of flower but forgot that these characters of a flower point to something intangible ( ie the soothing effect of flower's smell)
And the subjectivist are too much occupied with the subjectivity that they forgot that if they cling to there idea it would be impossible to communicate ones experience and will lead to dipute.( the same happened with our second examiner)
So what is the end of this prolonged debate . will it ever come to an end ? yes it can but only we have to become a bit mature and understand the nature and the various hierarchies inbuilt in its arrangement . We have to understand the levels which our nature ascribes as its most intrinsic property and only after being fully aware to it these two negations will look childish...

freedom from the known

2008-04-01T08:38:00.000-07:00

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 revolt, 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 dis- cipline 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 fl 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 theo- logical 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 recognises 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 recognise 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 is 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.