Truth and Actuality

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Saanen 5th Public Talk
22nd July 1975

We talked over together the last time, which was on Sunday, the whole question of fear. I think we ought to go into the problem of pleasure, enjoyment and that which is not pleasure, which is joy. It's really quite a complex problem because it involves a great deal and to understand this problem, this question, which man has been pursuing centuries upon centuries - the pursuit of pleasure - we ought to consider what is freedom with regard to pleasure, what part does intelligence play with regard to pleasure, and beauty which incites pleasure.

What is freedom? Many books and theoreticians and so-called philosophers - the word philosophy means the love of truth, not the love of words and theories - many philosophers and others have written a great deal, I believe, about pleasure, and about freedom. The Communist world denies freedom, all dictatorship, totalitarianism denies the necessity and the demand of freedom, they call it a bourgeois idiosyncrasy without any reality. I am using the word reality in the sense which we have been talking about. And religious people have said, there is no freedom in this world, you have to find it in heaven, or withdraw from this world into some kind of monastic world and seek freedom inwardly - freedom from everything that one has observed in oneself and in the world about one. If there is no freedom of expression, of thought, of speech, then one lives a life of slavery. But that freedom of expression has led to a great deal of danger, damage, a freedom to express oneself without investigating totally, completely what is expression and what is it being expressed, and who is it that is expressing it - without considering that, merely to demand freedom of expression does lead to a great deal of mischief and confusion. And in enquiring into this question of freedom, is that freedom total, whole or is freedom partial, that is, freedom from something which is invariably partial? That is: if I want to be free from something, it is only a reaction which cultivates the opposite. And the opposite invariably contains its own opposite - so in that there is no freedom. Are we moving together in this?

In the opposite - whether it is the Communist opposite as an antithesis - the opposite can never give freedom, because the opposite has its root in that which has been considered its own opposite. So in that there is no freedom. So is freedom away from reality, reality being that which thought has brought about, which thought has put together, which thought reflects upon, which thought has created the idea of freedom and then seeks it as something separate from itself - or is freedom not from something but from reality? That is to give reality its right place.

As we said the other day, the word 'art' means, to put everything in its right place, where it belongs. So in enquiring into freedom, is that freedom totally away from reality, though in reality there must be a certain order of freedom? If in the world of reality there is no freedom at all, then we are complete slaves. But when there is order, that is to put everything where it belongs in the world of reality, then there is a certain quality of freedom there. But that freedom is not the total freedom. Right? This is not a theory, this is not a speculative conclusion, but when one observes the whole demand of man for freedom, he has always sought freedom in the world of reality. Please, see that. He has always sought out this sense of self-expression, choice, identification - always in the world of reality and there he says: I must have freedom. And that freedom has created a great deal of confusion, chaos, individual pursuits and so that freedom, without order in the world of reality, becomes meaningless. But freedom, that is, total complete psychological freedom, is not within the field of reality. And in enquiring into this question of freedom one asks, what is intelligence? The word 'intelligence' in the dictionary says: to read between the lines in the printed page and to keep the mind very alert, but also read between linear expressions. I wonder if you understand - between two thoughts - and thoughts are always linear, linear, vertical or horizontal. And intelligence, also the dictionary says, is to keep a very alert mind. Is that intelligence? We are asking: what is intelligence? Because in understanding what is intelligence, we should be able to put pleasure where it belongs, otherwise the pursuit of pleasure becomes dominant in life. I wonder if you are meeting this?

Is intelligence merely to keep a mind extraordinarily awake, which is necessary, and is it merely to read between two thoughts, between two lines, between two words, between two symbolic conclusions? Or does intelligence come about through the orderly action in the field of reality and that orderly action in the field of reality gives intelligence to perceive? Am I conveying something at all or is it altogether Greek or Chinese? There must be freedom for perception. To see clearly, you must be free. You cannot see clearly, if you are not able to read between the lines, to have a clear undistorted mind and therefore there is the act, the total act of perception and that act of perception is intelligence.

I am investigating as we are going along. Because I see very clearly that in the world of reality in which we live, we live a very disorderly life, and to escape from that disorderly life, we resort to all kinds of absurdities. But if we do not bring about order in the field of reality, the field of reality being the activity of thought, seeing its limitation, seeing it cannot possibly go beyond its limitation however much it may expand, it is still limited and that thought, which has created a disorder in this world of reality, that thought itself cannot possibly bring order in that reality. To see all that is intelligence.

The word 'intelligence' is not merely just a word, it doesn't come by merely offering opinions or definitions about intelligence. You can play that game endlessly - but without that quality of intelligence, which is the act of perception, and the act of perception is to do what it sees immediately - that is intelligence. That is: a man who has ideals is unintelligent - forgive me - because his action is fragmented by what he calls a future achievement, according to the goal, the ideal and therefore he is not acting. If a man has a belief and acts according to that belief, it is not action. But a man who perceives acts instantly, such a man is an intelligent human being, because he sees the danger and acts. He sees the falseness and acts. Not: tell me how to act, or, I'll take time to act. When you see a dangerous animal, you act instantly. So the action of perception is the movement of intelligence. Have you got this? Please, don't accept my word or my argument, or my logic - just see it for yourself. Like a man who has been brought up in a culture which says: you must be nationalistic or a patriot, fight and kill etc, etc. If you see that, what it has done in the world, all the calamities, the misery, the suffering, the brutality of division - if you see this clearly, you act. Therefore you are no longer held within the boundaries of a particular country. I wonder if you see this. So such an action is supreme intelligent action - right?

Then also we must consider what is beauty in relation to pleasure. We asked what is freedom with regard to pleasure, because we all say: I must be free to pursue my pleasure. If I am thwarted, I'll become violent and all the rest of it. And in the understanding of pleasure, what is the relationship of intelligence to the pursuit of pleasure? The pursuit is one thing and pleasure is another. The pursuit of pleasure is the movement of thought in time. All right? May I go on?

So there must be an understanding, there must be the ordering of beauty in relation to pleasure. So what is beauty? You know again this is a very, very subtle question, because we all have opinions, unfortunately. We say beauty is this, beauty is that or this is not beautiful, and that is beautiful - and so on - this is ugly, that is beautiful. We are so entrenched in our own conclusions, in our own experience, in our own accumulated prejudice which we call knowledge - and if you could put aside all that, what you think is beauty, what other people have said about beauty, what you have experienced and hold that memory and say: as long as beauty conforms to that experience which I have had as beautiful, that is not beautiful. So if you could put aside all that, which is quite arduous - because that is freedom. If I cling to my experience of beauty and somebody comes along and says: look, that is not beautiful, I won't give up my beauty, because I have experienced it. I know, what it means. So if we could liberate ourselves from those various forms of conclusions, then what is beauty? Is beauty in the world of reality or is it not within the movement of thought as time? Please follow this carefully, we are investigating together, I am not laying down the law. I am not as stupid as that, I have no opinions about it, I have no conclusions about it, I am just asking myself: does beauty lie within the movement of thought as time? That is, within the field of reality. There are beautiful paintings, statues, sculptures, marvellous cathedrals, wonderful temples - if you have been to India, some of those ancient temples are really quite extraordinary, they have no time, there has been no entity as a human being who put it. Those marvellous old sculptures from the Egyptians, the Greeks and to the modern. That is, is the expression the creative feeling? Does creation need expression? Please, I am not saying it does or does not, I am asking, enquiring. Is beauty both the expression outwardly and the sense of inward feeling of extraordinary relation which comes when there is complete cessation of the 'me' with all the movements? I wonder if you follow this?

So before we begin to enquire what is beauty, we have to go into this question of what is creation? What is the mind that is creative? Can the mind that is fragmented - however capable, whatever its gifts, talents - is such a mind creative? If I live a fragmented life, pursuing my cravings, my selfishness, my division as the artist and everything is non-art world, my life, my activity, my thoughts, my self-centred ambitions, pursuits, my pain, my struggle - is such a mind - I am asking, please - is such a mind creative, though it has produced marvellous music, marvellous literature, built cathedrals and temples and mosques - and poems - English literature is filled with it, as other kinds of literature. Is a mind that is not whole, can that be creative? Or creation is only possible when there is total wholeness and therefore no fragmentation? A mind that is fragmented is not a beautiful mind and therefore not creative. I wonder if you get this?

No please, this is not my conclusion. I am not the Delphic Oracle, I am enquiring with you, we are enquiring together, taking the journey together into this enormous problem of what is called beauty. And does such a mind that is whole, whole in the sense - not fragmented, not contradictory in its action, not contradictory in its activity, not self-centred, caught in the movement of thought in time - all that - is such a mind, which always demands expression: my painting, my work, my picture, my poem, my everything else - which is identifying the expression with himself as the entity who expresses - is such a mind creative? Or a mind that has never known or lives in fragmentation? Fragmentation implies contradiction and therefore conflict, struggle. And you will say: that may be marvellous, but we have to live in this fragmented world, we haven't got that extraordinary feeling of totality - and so on. There is division then between the artist, the businessman, the scientist, the writer and you are just as destructive in this division as anybody else. I wonder if you see this thing, not accept my feeling about it.

So is beauty the expression of a marvellous building, the outline of an extraordinary structure? Is beauty the poem - however romantic, however usual, whatever its content, written by a poet who himself is ambitious, greedy, wants to have success, sensitive in one direction and totally insensitive in other directions, is such a man really creative and can such a man, though he may express the feeling of what he thinks is beauty in words and which we accept as beauty, is that really beauty?

So to find out what beauty is - the inward sense of it, not the expression of it: when you see the mountain which is beautiful, we don't have to be told that it is beautiful - and when you paint that mountain and exhibit it, the thing that is painted is not the mountain. So we have to go very deeply into the question of what is beauty, because apparently all religions have denied beauty. Have you ever watched monks in Europe in a monastery - they may have a lovely old, ancient monastery - but have you watched them? They are immersed with their own prayers, they are everlastingly looking at the book, they are caught in a routine and so on. Once in the mountains in the north of India I was following a group of monks, Hindu monks - they didn't know I was behind them but if they knew, they would have walked and turned round and done all kinds of silly superstitious respect. I was walking behind them: not one of them looked at the sky nor the beauty of a tree, nor the sound of the water, because they were chanting and never dared to look at anything that might incite a desire - a desire for a woman, a desire for great pleasure - nothing.

Only I have been told, in recent years the landscape was painted in Italy with the saints. So religions, because they said: beauty is associated with pleasure, therefore if you are pursuing god you cannot pursue pleasure, therefore don't be caught in beauty. You understand? This is happening. Beauty and love and pleasure.

We said a human being who is selfish - selfish being ambitious, greedy, worldly, worldly in the sense wanting a name, position, recognition, popularity, money, a status - all that is included in that word selfishness for the moment. A mind that is selfish, is it creative or is it only a mind that is totally unselfish that knows this feeling of total creation - not as an artist as nothing, total? That is: there is beauty only when there is total abandonment of the ego, the 'me', because the 'me' is the product of thought. Having created the 'me', the 'me' thinks it is different from thought. Haven't you? And that 'me' may have certain capacity, talents, gifts and that expresses itself and which we greatly admire, buy pictures, worth millions, because it has financial value later on. But we consider all that creative. It is like a person who is teaching or concerned with creative writing. Creativeness comes only when there is no me. Then there is beauty. That requires great sensitivity of the body, the mind, the whole entity.

So pleasure has been identified with beauty: the beautiful woman - the beautiful, which is lovely. So love and beauty and pleasure apparently have gone together. And one questions that whole concept, because it is a concept: that love is beauty and the pursuit of beauty is pleasure. So one has to go into this question of what is pleasure. You understand? Freedom which is an enormous thing, enormous issue; then there is intelligence. We said, intelligence is an act of total perception - not a cunning mind that reads between the lines or having a very alert mind. You can have a very alert mind by taking drugs, by various forms of stimulation - but that's not an alert mind, that is gradually becoming a dull mind. And also this freedom, intelligence and this quality of beauty with which is identified love and pleasure.

So is love pleasure? You understand? We have associated love with pleasure, with the desire - and what is pleasure and why does man everlastingly pursue that pleasure? If you have watched yourself, if you have gone into, looked at yourself even for ten minutes, ten seconds - this is one of the great principles, like suffering, pleasure, fear. And why does man pursue to the very end of his life or beyond it as coming nearer to God - the ultimate pleasure. Why? And what is pleasure? Is there such a thing as pleasure? Please go into it.

There are three things concerned with pleasure: joy, enjoyment and pleasure. This is so, look at it. You are going to find out what is the relationship between the three of them. Joy - real enjoyment of a lovely day, the enjoyment of seeing the mountains, hearing the great thunder rolling among the hills - and the mind that is pursuing the pleasure as that which has happened yesterday, with that lightning. So what is pleasure? Is there a movement of pleasure when you can say: this is pleasure; or you only know it after? You recognize it as pleasure when it is over, which is the movement of thought as time. I wonder if you see this thing! So is there a moment, when you say: "My god, this is great pleasure!" But only when thought, when that incident which has been called pleasure in quotes has been registered in the brain and then the awakening of thought and recognizing that as the like, pleasure and pursuing it - sexually - in so many ways. So what is the relationship of thought to pleasure? - pleasure being emotions, great feeling, sentimentality, feeling tremendously sentimental, gooey, romantic, ideological. What relationship has pleasure to thought, or is pleasure the movement of thought only? There has been a pleasure - what we call pleasure - a flattering, someone flatters you: "Marvellous, how beautiful, what a lovely writing that is, what a marvellous speech you have made!" That is pleasure. And you listen to that and you like the flattery of another, which means you are not really concerned with the truth of perception but the flattery of someone who says: what a marvellous fellow you are. Then thought picks that up, pursues it and you who have flattered are my everlasting friend and I seek more and more flattery. That is the pursuit of pleasure which also acts in the other opposite way, which is - you hurt me and I pursue that hurt, thought pursues that hurt, and you are my enemy or I don't like you, avoid you. It's the same principle. So is thought the pursuer, not pleasure? I wonder if you have seen that?

We are not pursuing pleasure but thought is pursuing pleasure. And when you, when thought pursues something, it must be in the field of time: therefore, yesterday the sexual pleasure, the remembrance of it and the pursuit of it. Seeing the pleasure, all pleasure, in quotes, the mountains, the sunset and the thunder rolling among the hills and thought pursuing that sound, pursuing that marvellous light of an evening on the snow. So it is the movement of thought as a remembrance in time that is the pursuit of pleasure. I wonder if you get all this?

I pursue a Guru - not I, I have an abomination of Gurus, because they are the new priests; before you accepted the Catholic domination - you were told exactly what to do and you did that - now you are bored with that and you take on new Gurus and you will get bored with that and then you will go on to the Gurus of China or Japan, or Russia - it is the same pattern.

So: can thought not pursue? You understand? You flatter me - and I listen to it - and that's the end of it. Thought then doesn't carry it over. You have said something which may be right or wrong, I listen to it - there is a reaction and that is the ending of it. The light on those mountains yesterday evening, with all that great sense of space, stillness and great strength, see it and end it, so that thought doesn't come and say, what a lovely thing that was, I am going to pursue it. I wonder if you understand?

That means to be totally awake to the whole problem of pleasure. And what is the relationship between pleasure and enjoyment? You enjoy a good meal - if you do - and you want the repetition of that enjoyment tomorrow. Right? So there is the enjoyment of the moment, and thought pursuing that enjoyment of the moment as a movement in time. I wonder if you see that. What is the relation of pleasure to joy? Is there any relationship at all? Or the joy comes unexpectedly, not invited. That which is invited is pleasure as thought in time. I wonder if we are getting this?

So, is love pleasure? Tell me, sirs? That is, we said: the pursuit, the hunter, is the thought. So is love to be hunted by thought? And which it does, as we live now - and is that love? Has love any relationship to thought? Please, sirs, go into it. And if it has no relationship to love, then what is my relationship to another whom I so-called love? To find out all this, not from another, because each one is concerned with his own life. His own life is the life of the world and the life of the world is you - because you suffer, you are anxious, you pursue pleasure, there is suffering, you have fear, so has another. So you are the world and the world is you - and this is your life. Don't waste it, for god's sake, don't waste it. And to find out what it is to be totally free.

So freedom, intelligence, beauty and love and the pursuit of pleasure are all interrelated, they are not separate things which we have made it: "I must be beautiful - not only physically attractive, sexually appealing". This is our education, our conditioning, and to see all this as a whole not as fragments, not as broken up - as freedom something separate, intelligence something separate and so on - to see the whole of it as a whole - that is the act of intelligence, that is beauty, that is love, that is freedom.

Here all this is important to understand and live - not merely intellectually, understand verbally, because we are going to deal with something which is the total truth and total creation, which is death. And to understand this problem which has torn man, which man has pursued, tried to understand the problem, overcome it - unless we lay the foundation, which we have been doing, because in comprehending what death is, we shall see what the meaning of life is. At present our life has no meaning - actually as we live it. Has it? If you are honest to yourselves, deeply, has it any meaning? Meaning in the sense: total significance. It might have a meaning in order to earn money and livelihood and all that - but that must be related to the whole of life. If you are merely concerned with the earning of a livelihood, unrelated to the rest of our existence, then that earning a livelihood does cause great mischief, then we become totally competitive - all that is happening in the world.

So we have this problem of death, and later on perhaps we will talk about meditation and all that. We have got two more talks, haven't we? Two more. We'll have to cover those two things in next two days that we meet here. But you know, if you have no sense of beauty - not painting and all the rest of it, paint your face and long hair and short nose and the latest fashion, you know - but the feeling of beauty which can only come about when there is total abandonment of selfishness, the total abandonment of the 'me' which thought has created. That means: there is only beauty, when thought is silent. You understand this? I've got it! Not when thought is chattering about the thing that is painted, only when thought is completely silent, then there is beauty. But when you say: how is thought to be silent, which is what you will ask - then you have lost beauty. And the gurus and all the professionals are supplying 'how to make thought silent'. Therefore they never had beauty. And when you pursue them, you are denying beauty. For god's sake see this.

So the whole meaning, the whole substance of life is this, if you can capture it and live with it; and if you do live with it then you will affect the consciousness of every human being. You can't help it.

Saanen 6th Public Talk
24th July 1975

We said we would talk about the very complex problem of what is death. I think we should look at this question not as something separate from other factors of life, like suffering, love, fear, pleasure and the chaotic world we live in and the confusion for most people. We should not separate this factor of death from the rest. We should take it, I think, as a whole process from being born to dying, a total, a whole movement of life.

And before we go into that we should also understand, I think, not verbally, the question of authority also. As the world is becoming more and more confused, more and more disturbed, authoritarian governments are gradually creeping in, in the East and so on. And when a political life is dominated by terrorism, by imprisonment, by all the totalitarian methods of propaganda which breeds fear, one has to be, I think, very much aware of this question, that it does breed great fear and so for those who live in those countries fear becomes part of their lives. And those who are seriously concerned with the whole of life should go into this question of authority. We are so eager to accept authority, the say-so of somebody, intellectual, so-called religious or psychological; so we submit ourselves to their concepts, to their description, to their way of thinking. And specially when we are considering this question of death, we should bear this in mind, that there is no authority whatsoever, including and specially of the speaker.

And we also should apprehend, that is hold, participate in the question of what is creation, which we went into the other day when we last met here. That which has continuity, which is thought, as movement in time - as long as time has no stop, there cannot possibly be creation. Time must have a stop to bring about that creative feeling, that creative action. And it is always very difficult to understand what it means for time to have a stop because we are going into the question of death, which is the ending of time in a totally different way. So we should understand, not intellectually, but feel our way, investigate, whether there is a possibility of time coming to an end. I do not know if you have ever thought about it. Poets have written about it, talked about it. Novelists have said there is an ending to time. But one does not accept all these romantic theoretical suppositions, one wants to find out for oneself what it means for time to end.

We said, thought is movement in time. That time is a bondage in the world of reality. We went into that. And whether time as measure, as movement of thought, can ever possibly end - either consciously or deep down. One may theoretically accept the possibility of time coming to an end, consciously one can work at it, one can imagine, one can almost feel the ending, but the movement in the semi-conscious state, in that dim consciousness, time is part of the structure. Because after all, all our conditioning is a result of time - it may be one day or ten thousand years. We are conditioned in so many ways, influenced through propaganda, influenced by books, by talks, by radio; everything around us is trying to penetrate deeper and deeper and deeper. And the more authoritarian the world becomes, with more penetration, the technological penetration of propaganda is becoming more.

So we are the result of all that which is fairly obvious, which we do not have to go into in great detail. You can believe in god, because that is your conditioning. But a Communist says: "That's all nonsense" - because that is conditioning. So, we are all conditioned. One can consciously eliminate, if one is at all serious and aware and alert, one can consciously put away all that. That is fairly simple, and not fall into another trap of conditioning. But the unconscious movement - that is, in the deep layers of one's consciousness, deep recesses of one's mind, there is the movement of time, the hope, the events of the past are deeply embedded. And whether that time as a whole, both as the conscious and at the deeper level, can totally come to an end? One can ask this question verbally but to penetrate into that, not intellectually, you can't do this intellectually which is the structure of words, the comprehension of words, the realization intellectually that words have no significance, but yet be caught in words.

And to go into that question of time coming to an end - because if it does not come to an end there is only variety in continuation, a modified change in continuity which is time. Thought can adjust itself to any environment and shape itself according to various influences and demands. One must have noticed all this around you, and to find out whether time has a stop, which is a tremendously important question, because that stops one's evolution, as we know it, which is a process of time: gradual growing, gradual becoming, gradual fulfilment, gradual activity of desire - all that is part of the continuity of time.

So we are going to go into this question of authority, which we have done a little bit, of the mind, thought, the brain adjusting itself to all environment whatever it is, because the brain needs security and therefore thought will adjust itself to Communism, to Catholicism, to whatever it is. And as long as there is a continuity, which is a movement of time as thought, unless that movement, however expressive, however capable, technologically perfect, unless that movement comes to an end there is no creativeness, because if we continue the same pattern - not only the same pattern but in a different mode - there is a constant continuity.

So that is the question. And is it possible, not consciously, because if you do something consciously, then it is part of the process of thought, to find out whether time has an end, not cultivated, not through the action of will to stop thought? Will is part of thought, will is part of desire, and when there is an action of will, then there is no ending of thought.

So we are going then to find out, what does it mean to die? Because that may be the absolute truth, that may be the ending of all time. Please, we are sharing this together, I am not taking a journey by myself. Is death something separate from living? Is death something totally opposite from existence? Is death the ending of all that one has built in oneself, that one has experienced, that one has observed, gone into? Does it all end? You understand my question? Or is death not something separate, but part of living though we have separated it, put it far away from us because we are frightened of it, we never even talk about it? Or is it part of the whole movement of life? Is it part of love? We are going to find all these things out.

First of all one has to consider what various religions and so-called people of ancient times have said about death. Because the modern generation does not talk about death. No books are written about it. Nobody says: "Live properly in order to die properly". Death is something to be avoided, something which you do not want even to look at. You may pass a cemetery or a crematorium and then shut your eyes and say: "How ugly it all is" - and move on.

So if we are serious we are going to look at it, we are going to face it, not avoid it, not speculate about it, not demand comfort and no tears. The Asiatic world, specially in India which at one time exploded over the whole of Asia, as Greece exploded over the western world, said there is an entity, called the 'self', the ego, the 'me', that gathers experiences through life after life, which is called reincarnation, goes through life after life, perfecting itself and ultimately arrives at the highest principle which is Brahman. They all call it different names. That is their whole concept. And people, specially in the Asiatic world, believe that most intensely. They said that they have proof that you exist, that what you are now, is the result of your past and that your future as an entity depends on how you behave now, what your actions are now. That will determine what you will be. Though the believers say this, they do not act, they just believe which is a very comforting, nonsensical, meaningless thing.

And you have in the western world also a concept of that kind. The Christian believes that you must be buried and ultimately Gabriel blows a trumpet and you go to heaven. You know all that business. And the ancient Egyptians - from what one has been told and one has been told accurately by professionals - that they believed in this reincarnation. It is a very old concept, it is a very old belief which gave man a great comfort, because they have said: "After all I live only eighty, forty, fifty years and accumulate so much - and what is the point of it all, if I don't continue?"

We want to find out what is the truth of this. Not a speculative, imaginative acceptance of tradition - tradition being that which is handed over from generation to generation, and also that word means; betrayal, betraying the present by the past. So we are going to find out. Please don't accept at all what the speaker is saying under any circumstances, because you are very easily influenced - because it is your life.

Before we go into that, you must also understand very deeply, not verbally, that you are the world and the world is you. Not an idea, but a deep understanding of it, the truth of it. What you are in essence, deeply, the world is. You are like the rest of the world, you have your problems, your suffering, your tears, your pleasures, your fears, your anxieties - all that is like anybody else, whether he lives in China, Japan, in Russia or America. Basically you are that, you are the world. And at the peripheral existence you are conditioned. And according to that conditioning your temperament is, your idiosyncrasies are, the way you behave - all conditioned by the culture in which you live on the outside, at the peripheral level - but basically you are like the rest of the world. Right? Please that is something you have got to understand. Therefore you are not different from somebody who is greedy, envious, accepting authority, afraid, competitive, violent. That is the world and you are part of that.

So what is death? There is old age, disease, accident, poisoning, various forms of physical destruction of the organism. That is a fact. I don't think one is afraid of that. One accepts it, doesn't one? As you grow older, as you may have an accident, you walk across a road and a bus strikes you or a car and that is the end. One accepts, if one is at all rational, sane, that the organism comes to an end naturally or unnaturally. That does not cause so much fear. What causes fear, it seems, is that the ego, the 'me', that has acquired so much, that has lived such a strenuous life, that has accumulated knowledge, that has accumulated all kinds of movement, it has accumulated and there is the ending of all that. It is that, that one is afraid of if one observes that.

So what is the 'me' that clings to what is the known? You understand? The unknown is the death and I cling to the known. The 'me' says: "I know, I have lived, I have acquired, I have experienced, I have suffered enormously, I have been through all kinds of delights". And that 'me' is resisting, frightened, avoiding this thing called death. Right? This is so. Please, we are going together, I am not dragging you like a train!

So one has to enquire, investigate, what is the 'me'? Is it the result of thought? Is it put together by the movement of time? Does it exist by itself, apart from thought? First of all, does it have a life of its own, independent of thought, or has thought put it together and that self thinks it is independent of thought? You understand the question? Do you understand the question? Thought we said is the movement of time. Thought in the world of reality separates itself from that which it has put together. Thought has built this, but that has become independent of thought. The mountain or the tree is not put together by thought, but it is independent of thought. And thought has built the 'me', obviously. And the 'me' has separated itself from the thought which has built me.

Now what is the reason for building the structure, called the 'me'? Why has thought done this? You are following all this? Please, move with me, don't go to sleep because this is really an extraordinarily important question, all this, because it is our life. We have to take this desperately seriously. Why has thought created the 'me'? If you see the fact that thought has built the 'me', if you say, the 'me' is something divine, something that existed before all time - which many do - we have to investigate this too.

So first we are asking, why has thought created the 'me' - why? I don't know, I am going to find out. Why do you think thought has created the 'me'?

There are two things, aren't they? One is, thought demands stability, because it is only where there is security there can be a satisfying answer to the brain. That is, where there is security the brain operates marvellously either neurotically or reasonably. So one of the reasons is that thought, being insecure in itself, fragmented in itself, broken up in itself, has created the 'me' as something permanent; the 'me' which has become separate from thought and therefore thought recognizes it as something permanent. And this permanency is identified through attachment: my house, my character, my wish, my desire, all that gives a complete sense of security and continuity to the 'me'. Isn't that so? We are investigating. You are not silent, just listening to me, you are going into it with the speaker. And the idea that the 'me' is something before thought - is that so? And who can ever say that it existed before thought? You understand my question? If you say it existed before thought - as many do - then on what reason, on what basis do you assert that? Is it an assertion of tradition, of belief, of not wanting to recognize that the 'me' is a product of thought, but something marvellously divine - which again is a projection of thought that the 'me' is permanent?

So one observes, putting away the idea that the 'me' is everlastingly divine, or everlastingly timeless or whatever it is, that is too absurd, but one can see very clearly that thought has built the 'me' - the 'me' that has become independent, the 'me' that has acquired knowledge, the 'me' that is the observer, the 'me' which is the past. The 'me' which is the past, passes through the present and modifies itself as the future, it is still the 'me', put together by thought and that 'me' has become independent of thought. Right? Shall we go on from there? Please, don't accept the description, not the words, but see the truth of this thing. As you see the fact of the microphone, see that thing. That 'me' has a name, a form. The 'me' has a label, called K or John and it has its form, it identifies with the body, with the face, with the whole business. So there is the identification of the 'me' with the name and with the form, that is the structure and with the ideal which it wants to pursue, or the desire to change the 'me' into another form of 'me', with another name. So this is the 'me'. That 'me' is the product of time and therefore thought. That 'me' is the word. Remove the word, what is the 'me'?

So that 'me' suffers. The 'me', as the you, suffers. So the 'me' in suffering is you. The 'me' in its great anxiety is the great anxiety of the you - therefore you and I are common. That is the basic essence. Though you are taller, shorter, more clever, have a different temperament, different character - all that is the peripheral movement of culture, but deep down, basically, we are the same.

So that 'me' is moving in the stream of greed, in the stream of selfishness, in the stream of fear, anxiety and so on, which is the same as you in the stream. I wonder if you get this? Please, do not accept what I am saying, see the truth of it. That is: you are selfish and another is selfish, you are frightened and another is frightened - basically - you are aching, suffering, tears, greed, envy - that is the common lot of all human beings. That is the stream in which we are living in the present. Right? That is the stream in which we are caught - all of us. We are caught in the stream while we are living. Please see that, that we are caught in that stream as an act of life. That is, the stream is selfishness. Let's put it this way - in that stream we are living, the stream of selfishness. That word includes all the descriptions which are just now given. And when we die, the organism dies but the selfish stream goes on. You understand? Just look at it, take time, consider it. Suppose I have lived a very selfish life: that is, self-centred activity: my desires, the importance of my desires, the ambitions, the greed, the envy, the accumulation of property, the accumulation of knowledge, the accumulation of all kinds of things that we have gathered - which I have termed as selfishness. And that is the thing I live in. That is the 'me'. And that is you also. In our relationship it is the same.

So while living, we are together flowing in the stream of selfishness. Got it? This is a fact, not my opinion, not my conclusion. If you observe it, you see it. Then you go to America, you see the same phenomena, in India, all over Europe, modified by the environmental pressures and so on - but basically that is the movement. And when the body dies, the movement goes on.

So there is this vast stream of selfishness, if I may use that word to include all the things implied in that word, is the movement of time and when the body dies that goes on. Go slowly in this. I am going to go into this a little more.

And I die, my wife tearful, upset, lonely, missing the companionship, having no money - you follow - still like the rest of the world. And she goes to a medium, seance, because she wants to get in touch with me, because she is lonely, unhappy, suffering, no money - all that. And the medium there gets into contact with what it calls the 'me', the husband and says: "Your husband is here, he has a message for you. He says, he is perfectly happy. Look under the drawer and you will find the testament". This phenomena is repeated differently in a different way all over the world. Either it is the medium picking up the intimations, unconscious intimations of the wife and repeating it. One can do that very simply if you have observed there is such a thing as transmission of thought. You must have played with it, you must know it, it has its own reality. Or out of that stream of selfishness the thought of K still exists and the thought manifests. So there it is.

We live in that stream in our daily life till we die, and when we die that stream continues. That stream is time. That is, the movement of thought which has created suffering, which has created the 'me', which the 'me' has now asserted itself, being independent and divides itself from you, but the 'me' is the same as you when it suffers. So the 'me' is the word. The 'me' is the imagined structure of thought. In itself it has no reality. It is what thought has made it, because thought needs security, certainty. So it has invested in the 'me' all its certainty. And in that there is suffering and all the rest of it. In that movement of selfishness, while we are living we are being carried in that stream. When I die, that stream exists.

Is it possible for that stream to end? You understand? I die physically, that is obvious. My wife may cry about it, but the fact is I die, the body dies. And this movement of time is going on, of which we are all part. That is why the world is me and me is the world. And will there be an end to this stream and is the manifestation of the ending of the stream, is it the manifestation of something totally different from the stream? I wonder if you follow all this? Are you interested in all this? Which is: can selfishness with all its decoration, with all its subtleties, come totally to an end? And the ending is the ending of time, and therefore there is a totally different manifestation of that ending - which is no selfishness at all. I wonder if you have understood this a little bit.

You see there are several things involved in this: in that stream, is there a 'you' and a 'me'? You understand? When there is suffering, is there a 'you' and 'me' - or is there only suffering? I identify myself as the 'me' in that suffering which is the process of thought. But the actual fact is, you suffer and I suffer, not me suffer something independent of you who are suffering. I wonder if you see that. So there is only suffering: not I suffer and you suffer. You suffer because my son, my wife, my husband, my neighbour, my relative is dead. I suffer because my wife has turned away from me. I suffer because there is loneliness. I suffer because I can't fulfil, because I can't get everything I want. I want position, power, money, sex - in that order - and I suffer. Don't you also suffer in the same way? So the suffering is the same as 'me'. It is not, "I suffer something separate from you". You understand? That is a tremendous thing to find out.

So there is no individual suffering. There is individual blindness - but that is a physical phenomena. But the suffering is the same as you and me. Therefore there is only the factor of suffering. Do you know what it does when you realize that? Out of that non-personalized suffering, non-identified as the 'me' who is suffering, separate from you - when there is that suffering - out of that comes a tremendous sense of compassion. I wonder if you see that.

The very word suffering comes from the word 'passion'. So I have got this problem now: living, there is selfishness, dying, there is selfishness. And that is the stream of time as a movement of thought. And that stream of selfishness can manifest itself, which is happening all the time. That manifestation of that selfishness may have a name - as John Smith, K and somebody else. But if there is no name, if there is no naming of that suffering as belonging to me - what is then the individual at all? You follow? I wonder if you see this? There is suffering and that suffering has been given a name, a form as K , K is me - and that name and form becomes the individual, separate from the stream of suffering. And that individual says: "I am different from you. I am cleverer, I am duller or you are more clever or this and that". If there is no naming the form, then is there an individual at all? The word individual means 'indivisible' - a human being who is not fragmented, indivisible in himself. That he is the whole - whole being healthy, sane, rational, holy. And when that takes place, when there is living is there an ending of time as movement of thought and suffering now? You follow the question? Can I as a human being, living, knowing in that stream I exist as selfishness, can that stream, can that movement of time come totally to an end? Both at the conscious as well as the deep level? You understand my question after describing it?

Now how will you find out? How will you find out whether you who are caught in the stream of selfishness, can completely step out of it, which is the ending of time? And therefore death is the ending of time as a movement of thought, if there is this stepping out of that. Can you, living in this world with all the beastliness of it, the world that man has made, which thought has made - the dictatorship, the totalitarian authority, the destruction of human minds, the destruction of the earth, the animals - everything he touches he destroys, including his wife and husband - now can you live in this world completely without time? That means no longer caught in that stream of selfishness? Can you?

Now who is going to tell you whether you can or cannot? You understand? Or will you take time? You understand? If you take time, you are still in there, still in the stream. So the whole idea of gradual change, gradual evolution, gradual process, is still the continuity of suffering, continuity of selfishness. So do you actually see that? See in the sense clearly as you see the speaker sitting on the platform.

You see there are many more things involved in this which we have not time to go into. But there is such a thing as great mystery - not the things invented by thought - that is not mysterious. The occult is not mysterious, which everybody is chasing now, that is the fashion. The experience which drugs give is not mysterious. This thing called death and seeing all this, the description and much more involved in it and the mystery that lies when there is a possibility of stepping out of it. Which is: as long as one lives in the world of reality - which we do - can there be the ending of suffering in that world of reality? Wait, wait, wait. Think about it. Look at it, look at it! Don't say: "Yes" - or "No". If there is no ending of suffering in the world of reality, which is order, if there is no ending of suffering, which is selfishness in the world of reality, it is selfishness that creates disorder in the world of reality, if there is no ending to that, then you have not understood or grasped the full significance of ending time. Therefore you have to bring order in the world of reality. That is, in the world of relationship, in the world of action, in the world of rational and irrational thinking - the fear, the pleasure - all that is in the world of reality.

So can one living in the world of reality as we are, end selfishness? You know it is a very complex thing ending selfishness, it is not just: "I won't think about myself". It is a very complex thing and very subtle. One may think one is not selfish, but deeply there is this root of it which shows itself in its peculiar ways. So to be enormously aware about all this, that means, being sensitive. You cannot be sensitive if you drink, if you take drugs, smoke, obviously. Or you cannot learn by going to college how to be sensitive. You cannot learn how to be sensitive from another. One has to be aware of one's insensitivity.

One is sensitive to one's desires, to one's hurts, to one's demands, but we are talking of being totally sensitive - both physiologically as well as psychologically. That means one has to have an excellent body, not a drugged body by alcohol or overeating or all the rest of it. So one has to be aware of this selfishness in the field of reality, because this selfishness in the field of reality is creating chaos. And you are the world and the world is you. If you change deeply you affect the whole consciousness of man.

Saanen 7th Public Talk
27th July 1975

We have been talking over together the many issues of our daily life. We have talked about education - perhaps not completely - we have talked about the world as it is with all the misery, confusion, suffering, dictatorship and a lack of freedom, and we also talked about fear - whether it is at all possible to eradicate it totally, not only the conscious but the deeper recesses of one's own mind, and we talked about thought, pursuing pleasure, and the things that thought has created, both outwardly and inwardly. Both the outward and the inward structure of thought is the world of reality in which we live. And we also talked about, considerably at length, I think, about death and the meaning of love - apart from the thing we call love which is the pursuit of pleasure and the fulfilment of desire. We talked about this whole process as a unitary movement, not to be fragmented - and thought invariably fragments all our existence. We talked about all this. We also asked, why thought is fragmentary, why all its structure in the technological world as well as in the psychological area, why thought must be fragmented, inevitably. And we said it comes about when thought has created a centre and that centre separates itself from thought and therefore thought becomes fragmentary.

We have talked about all this and we would like, if we may, this morning to talk about the quality of energy which comes about through meditation, and the quality of energy which is totally different from the energy of meditation and the energy which thought has created. This is what we are going to talk about this morning, as this is the last talk and we are going to have discussions or dialogues on Wednesday morning for the next four or five days.

There are two kinds of energies. I think they are separate. One is the energy of conflict, of division, of all the movement of thought. Thought has built outwardly a tremendous structure, technologically, socially, morally. That thought in its movement, which is time, has gathered together momentum, a tremendous vitality of force. And that energy is totally different from the energy which comes about through the understanding of the right area of thought and moving away from that area, which is the movement of meditation.

We know very well and fairly clearly after these days of talking over together and also by observing what is going on in the world: the division, the wars, the utter lack of consideration, callousness, brutality, violence and immense suffering brought about by this division, ideologically as well as psychologically. That energy has built the world of reality. I think this is fairly clear when one observes it, not only outwardly but also when one is aware of what is going on inwardly.

Now we are asking: as that energy has not solved any of our problems psychologically, and unless one solves this psychological problem of correct living - correct living implies accurate living, not a living according to a pattern or according to an ideal or to some gathered experience as knowledge, but that energy which thought has brought about has not solved human relationship. Now is there another kind of energy. We are inquiring together. We are not laying down, we are not the authority, we are just together, you and the speaker are investigating into a question which is: is there another kind of energy which is not the energy of thought in its movement as time, is there another kind of energy which will solve the problem of relationship, the problem of death, the whole human existence with all its complex problems? Because our existence is not very simple, it is getting more and more complicated, more and more complex. And we want a single answer to all this complexity: 'Tell us what to do and we will do it'. Or is there a way of living which is not the mere movement of thought with all its conflict? Is there a way of living in which there is no conflict, in which there is a unitary movement of mankind? And is there an energy which is not time-binding and which may uncover something that is really sacred? This is what we are going to enquire into together. The speaker is not talking to himself. We are sharing together this problem, knowing that thought, because it is fragmentary, is not the factor of the unification of mankind. Politically that is essential and no dictatorship, no Socialist or Communist government is ever going to produce this unity. Otherwise we will be destroying each other, which is what is going on.

So we are going to enquire into the origin of an energy which is not the movement of time. I do not know if we can do this together with such a large audience, because this requires a great deal of attention, a great deal of care, and no possibility of illusion, no possibility of deluding oneself that one has this peculiar energy. So one has to understand first that there must be no kind of self-hypnosis, no illusion, no deception, no hysteria. So we have to find out what is the cause of illusion. Right? If we are to enquire into this question, whether there is an energy which is not that of thought, one must be absolutely clear that one does not create illusion. The word illusion means sensuous perception of objective things, involving belief. So a mind that is caught in belief must inevitably bring to itself illusion. And there must be illusion as long as there is a desire - desire being something to which we cling to, which we long for, which we subjectively run after. All these factors produce illusion.

So if we are to enquire together into the question one must be free of having no end, no goal, no belief and therefore no illusion. Can you do this? Because we are going to go into something very, very complex and unless one's mind is very clear on this point that illusion, deception, imagination, a desire for some kind of energy, if there is any of that wave, or movement in one's enquiry, then you are going to end up in an asylum - which most people are doing already. This is very, very serious, it is not a thing that you play with.

So we are going to enquire with a mind that is not going to be caught in any form of deception. Deception arises only when there is a desire to achieve something, or to realize something, or to come upon something. Is this clear? So is there a different kind of energy? And to find that out accurately we must have naturally put order in our daily life. Because if there is no order in our daily life, enquiry into that is merely an escape, like taking a drug, drink, anything, it is just an escape and that escape becomes actual and illusory. Right? We mean by order in the world of reality, which is order in the world of relationship between you and another, between man and woman and so on - that relationship is society. Please, listen to all this. It is your life. And if there is no order in that life, in the field of reality in which we live, you cannot possibly - do what you will - come upon that energy which is not the product of thought.

We mean by order, a movement of total comprehension of the activity of thought which we have discussed perhaps ad nauseam for the last seven talks. To perceive totally as a whole movement of thought which has brought about in reality utter confusion. Perhaps this is the first time some of you are hearing all this, so I am afraid we can't go over all the things that we have already talked over together. But what we are saying then is that thought has brought about confusion. Thought has brought about division between human beings. And yet thought wants unity. Please follow this. And so it has created a centre, a centre that will hold things together, not only a centre in oneself but a centre in governments. You follow? After all dictatorship is a form of centre, trying to hold a group of people. Religions have made that centre, hoping to hold man together - Catholicism, Hinduism and so on, and so on, and so on. Thought has created a centre and that centre has become independent of thought and that centre exists hoping to create, bring about a complete unity of mankind. You are following this? You watch this in your own relationship. In the family there is a centre, the centre is the family and trying to hold that family together.

And thought in the field of reality, wanting unity, security, stability has brought about instability, insecurity. There is no cohesive movement, no co-operation. And when we are talking about order, we mean unity in the field of reality. Is this clear? So unless that sense of harmonious existence happens in the world of reality, you cannot possibly enquire into the other. Then your enquiry will be distorted because it is an escape, your enquiry then will pursue illusory imitations which then you will accept as reality. Right?

So we are going to see whether one's mind, whether one's life, daily life is accurate, which means care, which means attention, which means diligent application not negligence. There is a difference between diligence and negligence. Diligence means care, accuracy, mean what you say and live a life that is completely correct, orderly, with care. Contrary to that is negligence. So having laid the foundation of order in reality, then we can proceed to enquire into the question whether there is or there is not an energy which is not the movement of reality, which does not mean illusory. Right? That means there must be freedom to enquire, no attachment to a belief, to a person, to an idea, to a country, to a leader, because if you are attached, held to your opinion, to your judgement, to your conclusion, to your leader, to your guru, to your priest - all that - that very attachment denies freedom of enquiry. These are obvious facts. As a scientist: if he is to enquire very deeply, he cannot be bothered with the country, with the nation, with the border - he is completely absorbed in what he is doing.

So then the mind now is capable of enquiring. I hope your mind is capable. Capable means, having an instrument that can be actively, swiftly able to perceive, to see without distortion. And that distortion will take place as long as there is the observer. The observer is the past, the conclusions, his memories, his desires, his will. As long as there is that observer, whatever he perceives must be distorted. If I am a Hindu or a Catholic, or a Communist or whatever it is, or addicted to beliefs then perception, that is, seeing, becomes, clouded, distorted, not accurate.

What we have been talking about for the last six gatherings here is part of meditation. Meditation is not something separate from the understanding and the action in the world of reality. That is part of meditation. The meaning of that word meditation means to ponder over, to think about, to go into. That is what we have done, which is - we are saying - part of meditation. But unfortunately for most people meditation is something apart from life, apart from daily existence. We think by meditating we will achieve an experience which will alter our structure of thought and from there act in the world of reality. You understand? That is, I hope by meditating I hope to have a certain experience or understanding or realization which will then function in the world of reality and therefore bring order there. This is what most people are doing right through the world, unfortunately introduced by the gurus from India. See the fallacy of this. "First seek god, or whatever it is and then everything will be all right". But you have never enquired who is the seeker. The seeker is the observer, is the thing put together by thought.

So meditation is the understanding of order and accuracy in the world of reality. That's part of meditation. Meditation also means much more; not just bringing order in reality. Anybody can do that, any sane, rational, healthy human being can do that without meditating. But through meditation it gives beauty to the order in daily life. Are you following all this? Are you following somewhat?

So what is meditation? A mind that is free from all illusion, that is not attached to belief, to persons, to ideas, to conclusions. Complete freedom is absolutely necessary to proceed further.

What place has will in meditation? You understand my question? What place has will in trying to meditate - or in meditation. What is will? It is the action of desire for something. I desire to be rich - god forbid! - and I work for it. I exercise my will, my desire to achieve all the things that money will give. I work for it. That is, will is a movement of desire as thought. Will is thought. Will is desire. Desire is thought. They are not separate. Desire, the action of will, the movement of thought are one. And in meditation if there is the action of will that will is a form of resistance, and therefore that will is still the movement of thought as time and division. I wonder if you get this. Don't be bored. Do not yawn yet, give me another ten minutes or half an hour, before you yawn. You understand my statement? We are asking, what place has will in meditation? We say: there is no place for will, for will is desire. Desire means to achieve something or to cling to something, or demand enlightenment, beauty, love, all the rest of it.

And in that movement of meditation there are a whole complexity of activities. First of all let us look into the word 'Yoga'. Right? You know something about it, don't you? Yoga in Sanskrit means 'join', the root meaning of it. And there are different kinds of Yoga - the highest Yoga being Raja Yoga - 'King of Yogas' in which there is only the activity of the mind, the activity of living a right kind of life, accurate life. It has nothing whatever to do with exercises, postures, breathing and all that business. There are different kinds of Yogas and they have also said: "What the speaker is saying is another form of Yoga". You can wipe out all that rubbish and start again.

Then through meditation - because all this implies a highly sensitive mind, a highly sensitive body, therefore no drugs, no drinks, no tobacco - you follow - anything that makes the mind dull, which is repetition. Any practice will inevitably make the mind dull. Right? That is why when the gurus come to this country and bring their superstitious, traditional, conventional, conditioned practices of various kinds, they are destroying your brain, they are making your mind dull. And you need a very clear, active, subtle, sensitive mind and you cannot have that if you keep on repeating, repeating, repeating. You understand this, naturally. Then your mind becomes mechanical, which it is already, and you are making it more mechanical. So, put away, if I may suggest altogether this whole idea of following somebody and accepting their systems. Many gurus have come to see the speaker and they have brought out all their arguments. They say: "What you are saying is the highest truth, but we translate this truth to others, because they can't understand you". You understand the game they play?

So therefore first: no acceptance of authority. Please, do see this. When you don't accept authority there is the activity of freedom, which is intelligence. Then that intelligence will bring about right political activity which is not dependent on party politics, on their leaders, dictatorship and all that business.

So then in meditation because the mind has become astonishingly sensitive, there is all this field of clairvoyance, right? Field of healing, field of investigating into occult things, hidden things. Right? Unfortunately it is becoming the fashion now to talk about the occult, the hidden, the mysterious, all that. When the body is sensitive, the mind is active, accurate, therefore all these things come about. But they are totally irrelevant. They are playthings. Please, the speaker knows something of all this and there is great danger in all that, unless you really want to pursue that like a child with a toy. It has no value.

Now we can proceed to enquire, after clearing the ground accurately, with the question: is there an energy, a something, which is totally different - not the opposite, because the opposite of the energy of thought is still its own opposite, is still the movement of thought. Therefore we are using purposely a word that is totally different. Now we can proceed.

And also there is the whole question, brought over from India, of the energy which they think will come about through awakening the various centres in the body which is called 'Kundalini'. Have you heard all about this rubbish? It isn't rubbish if you know what it is, but as you don't know, you are playing with rubbish. Please forgive me if I talk frankly about all these nonsensical, unreal things, unless you have gone into it. You cannot go into it unless you have brought order in your life. They have brought this word called 'Kundalini' from India. It is now a fashionable thing to pursue. When it becomes common it has lost its reality, its worthwhileness. You understand? When everybody is trying to awaken their beastly little what they call 'Kundalini' it becomes too silly. A truth, when made common, becomes vulgar and therefore no longer truth.

Now we can proceed. No action of will, therefore no action of deception, illusion, no attachment to belief, to dogmas, to rituals, to all the myths that man has put together through thought. Then what takes place to a mind that has done this - not imagined it has done, actually has done? To such a mind there is that quality of silence, a silence that is not between two noises, the silence that is not between two thoughts. Please, watch it in yourself, you will see this. A silence that has not been put together by thought because it desires to be silent. Because there has been order in our daily life, because there has been no conflict as will, there is no division politically, religiously, no practice. Out of all that comes a natural intelligence, natural sensitivity and therefore a mind that is astonishingly quiet. That is, a mind that has put a stop to time - mind has not put it - but it has inevitably come about. You understand what I am saying? Time is movement of thought as measure. Time is thought. And thought as measure is from here to there, psychologically as well as physically. And when there is this movement of time as achievement, as experience, as gaining something, it is still the activity of thought, and therefore it is fragmentary, not whole. From that, when the mind has perceived the totality of thought - that is the totality of the movement of thought, all its varieties, all its movements, all its subtleties hidden and open - when the mind is totally aware of all that, then time, to such a mind, comes to an end, therefore there is complete quietness. Right?

Perception can only take place in silence. You follow this? Please. Are we sharing this together? Or am I pursuing my own investigation? You understand? If you want to hear what the speaker is saying, you have to listen, you have to pay attention. If you want to listen, if you don't want to, that is quite a different matter. But if you want to listen you have to pay attention. That means care. That means you have to listen, listen without any prejudice, without conclusion, comparing what you hear with what you already know. All those inhibit, prevent listening. So, when you want to listen, you must be completely silent, naturally. When you want to see the mountains, the flowing of the water in the river, there must be total observation, not the observer observing. Right? So there is this silence.

And what is the unifying character, what is the unifying movement, so that it brings about no division between man and man? Because that is a tremendously important question. You understand? When the world is divided - nation against nation, people against people, ideas against ideas - democracy - so-called democracy against autocracy and so on. When there is this tremendous division taking place in mankind, in human beings outwardly as well as inwardly, what is the unifying factor? Is there is no unifying factor we are going to destroy ourselves - unifying factor being co-operation. You understand all this? So what is that unifying factor in meditation? Because that is one of the most urgent absolute necessities. Politics and politicians are not going to bring this unity, however much they may talk about it. It has taken them thousands of years just to meet each other at Bonn or Moscow or in Washington or some other hideous place - thousands of years. Think of such a mentality that is going to bring unity to mankind.

What is that factor? You understand? We are talking about a totally different kind of energy which is not the movement of thought with its own energy. And will that energy which is not the energy of thought bring about this unity? You understand? Are you interested in this? It is your problem, isn't it? Unity between you and your wife, unity between you and another. You see we have to bring about this unity, thought sees the necessity of this unity and therefore has created a centre. Like the sun is the centre of this universe, holding all things in that light, so this centre created by thought hopes to bring mankind together. Great warriors try to do this, great conquerors. They did it through bloodshed. Religions have tried to do it, and those religions who have tried to do it brought about more division with their cruelty, with their wars, with their torture. Science has enquired into this, and because science is knowledge, the accumulation of knowledge, and the movement of knowledge, which is thought being fragmentary cannot unify. You understand all this?

So is there any energy which will bring about this unity? This unification of mankind? And we were saying: in meditation this energy comes about, because in that meditation there is no centre. The centre is created by thought. But something else totally different takes place - which is compassion. That is the unifying factor of mankind: to be, not that you will become compassionate which is again another deception, but be compassionate. That can only take place when there is no centre, the centre being that which has been created by thought, thought which hoped by creating a centre it could bring about unity - like a federal government, like a dictatorship, like autocracy. All those are centres hoping to create unity. All those have failed and they will inevitably fail. And there is only one factor and that is the sense of great compassion.

And that compassion comes, when we understand the full width and depth of suffering. That is why we talked a great deal about suffering - suffering not only of a human being, the collective suffering of mankind. You understand, sirs? Don't understand it verbally or intellectually, but somewhere else, in your heart feel the thing. And as you are the world and the world is you, if there is this birth of compassion then you will inevitably bring about unity, you can't help it.

Let us move further. That is: does this energy reveal that which is sacred? Mankind has always sought something sacred, knowing that nothing in this world is sacred - this world in which there is all the movement of agony, suffering, lack of love, despair, anxiety, competition, ambition, ruthlessness - anything, we are saying now, anything that thought has created is not sacred, obviously. The things that have been put in the churches, in the temples, in the mosques is not sacred, but yet we worship it. We worship the word, the symbol, created by thought and we pray to that. So we project that which is sacred according to our conditioning. If I was born in India - tradition and all the rest of it - I project that sacredness in a statue or something, a symbol, in the temple. And the Communist deny all that, but they have their own sacredness which is the State. For that they are willing to sacrifice, kill and all the rest of it. So anything that thought has put together is not sacred - your Christ, your Jesus, your saviours, the Hindu Gods - nothing!

So in meditation, because the mind is absolutely quiet and therefore compassionate, is there something sacred? If you do not find it, life has no meaning. You understand? Has your life any meaning? Except pleasure, money and power? That has very little meaning. Your daily existence has very little meaning. Right? And you try to find a meaning by joining communes, this or that, doing something - which is still the movement of thought. So when you see totally, when you perceive totally all the movement of thought, and whatever thought creates is nothing sacred.

So we are going to find out when the mind is completely quiet and therefore has that quality of great compassion, then is there anything that is sacred? That is, not supernatural? When the mind does not project anything, then the mind is still. You understand? If it does not project according to his conditioning, that which is called sacred, then the mind is still. Now in this stillness is there anything sacred? Or is there anything sacred, holy out of this silence?

You know there is mystery. All religions have said: there is a mystery, you cannot go beyond a certain point - logically, sanely. That is why they have created temples that are very, very dark. The Cathedrals have coloured windows and all the rest of it, but it is very dark, quiet, hoping thereby to create through thought a sense of great mystery or great myth.

When you understand this movement of thought as a whole, you have no myth, you have no mystery, no enquiry through reality a mystery. So when you have put away all that, then is there a mystery which thought cannot touch? You understand? That which is mysterious, not in the sense of the mystery that thought has created, that great sense of mystery which scientists are also enquiring into that mystery, that mysterious thing is sacred. It has no symbol, no word. You cannot experience it, because if you experience there is still the experiencer who is the centre, who is the 'me' who will experience, therefore still division. That division is still the movement of thought. So the experience of 'it' is not possible, but it is there when the mind has gone through this whole business of existence with clarity, in which there is no fear and the understanding of that enormous thing called death and suffering. And out of that comes great compassion.

And then when the mind is totally still in this compassion - your mind cannot be still without compassion, do understand this - then out of that comes something mysterious which is the most sacred.