The difficulty in assessing our “headway” is that we want a result to convince ourselves that our desire has progressed, that we have been transformed. (1,700 words)

You may have practiced (something) for many years. Have you practiced in order to arrive somewhere and then be conscious of that arrival? It is like the man who practices humility. Can humility be practiced? Surely, to be conscious that you are humble is not to be humble. You’re practicing in order to achieve a particular state, to satisfy a certain egoistic desire, a place where you will never be disturbed, where you will find everlasting happiness, permanent bliss. It is the ancient drive for permanent security, in new clothing.

There really is only the movement of learning—and that is the beauty of life. If you think you have arrived, there is nothing more. And all of you want to arrive, not only in your business, but also in everything you do; so now ?ARE you dissatisfied, frustrated, and miserable? There is no place at which to arrive: there is just this continuous movement of learning, which becomes painful only when there is an excess of accumulation. A mind that listens with complete attention will never look for a result, because it is constantly unfolding; like a river, it is always in movement. Such a mind is totally unconscious of its own activity, in the sense that there is no left-over energy for the perpetuation of a self, of a “me”, that is seeking to achieve these ends.

The Lure of Enlightenment

The priests throughout the world, whether Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Tibetan, or other, have always said that there is a promise of something greater. Follow my mental (thought-based) instruction and you will go to heaven, and if you don’t follow it, you will go to hell. Which is interpreted one way in the Hindu version, and in another way in other versions, but that is an irrelevant difference. Our minds are conditioned heavily by something other than “what-is.” The other is the promised land, it’s never-never land, heaven, enlightenment, nirvana, the moksha of the Hindus. Because I don’t know what to do with THIS, the “what-is,” and I reject it, my whole longing is for THAT. the what-should-be.

It is put in different ways: the Communists want a perfect State, a perfect environment. It is the same problem, the same issue only put in different words—the tomorrow is the refuge of hope, evolution, and achievement; fear and worry are all in the domain of tomorrow. So that it may be—that this question—is one of the fundamental reasons why human beings don’t change, because they have THAT—the perfect highest principle, called in India Brahman, or nirvana by the Buddhists, heaven by the Christians, and so on. That may be one of the fundamental reasons why human beings don’t change. Because of this perfect ideal, the perfect man or woman, which means the “what-is” is not important, but the perfect ideal is the only importance, the perfect State is important, the nameless infinite is important. So don’t bother with “what-is,” don’t look at “what-is,” but translate “what-is” in terms of “what-should-be.” You understand? We have created a duality: the “what should be” and “what-is.” And we are saying that it may be one of the major reasons why human beings don’t change.

When there is this division between “what is” and “what should be” (the highest), then there is conflict, right? Wherever there is division there must be conflict, that is an ironclad law.  We have been conditioned in creating this division, to accept, to live in this division between the “what-is” and “what should be.” The “what should be” has been brought about because I don’t know how to deal with “what-is.” Or the “what should be” is seen as a lever—you understand?—a lever to get rid of “what-is.” So it is a conflict, it is a permanent struggle. So why has the mind created the “what should be”? And why is it totally NOT-concerned with “what-is”? Why has the mind done this? Why has thought done this?

Thought, if it is at all aware, already knows it has created “what-is,” and thought says, “this is only a fragment, this is transitory, but my ideal, that is permanent”. This “what-is” is transitory, and thought has created the highest principle, which it defines as a fixed permanent TRUTH—thought thinks that out. This is impermanent, that is permanent. Both sides being the creation of the same thought process.  God, the Savior—all created by thought, the “what-should-be”, created by the same thought from the same repository of memory.

Thought has created this division, and then thought says, “I cannot solve THIS, but I am going to approach THAT.” Now when you see the truth of it, (that which does not exist), Only this remains. Thought has created the perfect ideal, the perfect State, perfect nirvana, perfect moksha, perfect heaven, because it does not know what to do with THIS, with the “what-is”, with my sorrow, my agony, my impenetrable ignorance. So thought has created this division. It is not your logical acceptance of it that will change anything, but realizing the deep truth of it?

IF you see the truth of it, then THAT—the ideal, the perfect—doesn’t exist. Because you know nothing about it, it is merely a mysterious projection of thought. They’re your thoughts, but mostly they are the borrowed thoughts of millions of others. There is a great momentum to it. With the THAT gone, you have an abundance of energy to deal with the “what-is.” Instead of losing energy out-there, you now have the energy to deal with what is happening. You see the difference? So now you have the energy to deal with “what-is.”

Then you have to learn how to look at “what-is.” To observe “what-is.” Now you no longer have the duality created by “what should be,” but only “what-is.” Are you beginning to see the implications of it? When there is no “what-should-be,” NO more “highest principle”, you have only this. THIS is a fact, and THAT is not a fact. We can deal with facts. When there is no duality, there is only one thing, say, for instance, violence. There is only violence, not the ideal of nonviolence. The nonviolence is “what should be.” So when you see the truth of it, there is only violence, right? Now you have the energy and the focus to deal with this violence.

What is violence? Go into it for a moment. Violence: anger, competition, comparison, imitation—imitation being I am this, but I must be that. Violence psychologically is comparison and imitation, various forms of conformity, essentially a comparison—I am this, I must be that—that is violence. (Not just throwing bombs, physical violence, that is something quite different). That is brought about by our rotten society, our immoral society, we won’t go into that just now.

There is only this one thing, violence. What is important here? What is the nature of it? You may not agree with this description, but you know what we mean by violence—jealousy, anger, hatred, annoyance, arrogance, vanity, all that is part of the structure of violence. That violence comes with the picture, with the image I have created, that is part of my images, my conclusions. Now, can the mind be free of the image? As long as there is an image, a picture, I must be violent. The picture is formed through sensation, plus an overlay of descriptive thought, and the image appears. So a human being realizes that as long as there is this image created through sensation plus thought, as long as that image—which is defined as the me—exists, I must be violent. Violence means “me” and “you,” “we” and “they.” So violence is there as long as these images of self exist. And each image is sensation plus thought. And there is no image if there is only complete sensation, (with no attaching thought). So then we can deal simply with “what-is.”

Look: I am angry, or I hate somebody—(I don’t), but we can take that as an example. I hate somebody because he has done something ugly, hurt me, and hurt all the others. My instinctual response, being a fairly intelligent, fairly normal human being, is to say, “I mustn’t hate him, it would be worse.” I now have two images: I hate, and I mustn’t hate. Two images. So there is a battle between these two images. One says: control, suppress, change, don’t yield—that goes on all the time as long as two images exist. And I know—I have realized this very deeply—that the images are formed through sensation plus thought. That is a fact. You can realize that.

So I put away non-hate, the ideal—you understand? I have only this feeling of annoyance, anger, hatred. What is that feeling, created through the image, by some action of another? You have done something to the image-that-is-me. And that image is hurt, and the reaction to that hurt is anger. And if I have no image, (thought, plus sensation), if I have no image, you don’t touch my equanimity—you understand? There is no wounding, there is no hate—which as of now is the “what-is.” Now I know, I am aware of what to do with the “what-is.”

So I have found human beings don’t change because they are wasting their energy, they don’t change because they are exercising their will, which they think is extraordinarily noble, which is called freedom of choice. And also, they don’t know what to do with “what-is” and therefore project “what should be,” and also perhaps because THAT, the nirvana, moksha, heaven, is far more important than this “what-is”, the violence or whatever. These are the blocks that prevent human beings from changing, this is why they don’t radically transform themselves. If you have understood this deeply, with your blood, with your heart, with all your senses, then you will see that there is an extraordinary transformation without the least bit of effort.

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