I do not know if you have gone into the question of enjoyment. There is a vast difference between pleasure and enjoyment. Pleasure has a motive. The pursuit of pleasure is the memory of a previous pleasure, and enjoyment is from moment to moment. You can’t cultivate enjoyment, but you can cultivate pleasure. And when there is enjoyment, the brain relaxes. Watch it, and you will see. But when it is pursuing pleasure, it becomes tense, it becomes purposeful, and thought then cultivates determination, will. Whereas if there is enjoyment, all the brain cells relax. I was told the other day, by someone who seemed to know something about this, that scientists have recently discovered that when there is enjoyment a gland functions at the back of the head and makes the brain more active in a way that does not strain it.
So to learn there must be enjoyment. And you cannot enjoy, be happy, in the act of learning when you are comparing, judging, evaluating, or when you are storing up what you are learning in order to enjoy more. Please watch your own brain cells in operation! This is really a part of meditation: to observe completely without the act of will. When there is the act of will there is conflict. And what we are trying to do now – not ‘trying,’ sorry. What we are doing – I don’t like the word try; when you try it means an effort. If you actually do it, it is going on. What we are trying to… – what we are doing is to observe happily why the mind is attached to property, because unless the brain cells, the mind, understands why there is attachment, death becomes a terror. Right? Why is the mind attached to so many things? Is it because there is nothing so permanent as property? There is the house, the furniture, the carpet, the picture, they are solid, and the mind can rest in and be attached to that solidity. Look at this, go into it fairly deeply, and you will see it for yourself.
Human relationship is uncertain. In it there is conflict, every form of struggle, jealousy, anxiety, fear, and pleasure, sexual or otherwise, companionship, and so on. And ideas too are rather uncertain, unclear, and property is the only thing that I can see that is solid.
Questioner: It gets bombed so often it is not solid at all.
K: Of course not, sir, but wait a minute. It has often been bombed, often destroyed, but human beings go back to it. You and I may say intellectually, ‘Well, property doesn’t matter,’ but if we look into this very carefully, it doesn’t matter what it is – one gets terribly attached to a pair of shoes. Perhaps those poor people in Vietnam may say that property doesn’t matter, but it does matter, because otherwise they would have nothing. So is that the reason the mind gets attached to property, whether mine or yours, or to the property of an institution with which it identifies as its property? And is it also because the mind needs to be occupied? It is never in a state of not being occupied. Please watch all this in yourself. And such occupation becomes extraordinarily important. A man goes to the office for forty, fifty, sixty years, and when being occupied with that comes to an end, he also comes to an end. So occupation becomes extraordinarily important, and the mind can be occupied with property, looking after it – you know all the business of owning something. So the mind needs to be occupied – whether it is with furniture, with social work, with a book, or with an idea of God, it is exactly the same – that it demands occupation. And is it also because the mind seems to have no existence in itself apart from the thing to which it is attached? What is the content of my mind, of my consciousness, or your consciousness? It is the property, the idea, the images that I have built about another or about myself. So the mind has no existence in itself apart from its content, and one of the contents is the furniture! And so it is not a question of being attached to it – furniture is the mind! And when the mind has no quality of itself, then attachment becomes extraordinarily important. Please observe this in yourself.
So the mind being lonely must have occupation, and the material existence of property and being occupied with that property take up a great deal of time in which one can be occupied. And the mind having no existence of its own finds existence in the content, in the attachment, in the idea.
And why are we so attached to people? Ah, this is much more interesting! Why are you attached to a person? Are you really attached to the person or to the idea, the image of that person? I am attached to you for various reasons: My attachment to you gives a quality, an existence to the mind, and my attachment to you is its existence. I am attached to you because I love you, you give me pleasure, sexual or otherwise; you give me something to which I can cling, companionship. An existence with you gives more certainty to the mind, and without you I am lost. And being lost, I have to find another companion, another attachment. Or if there is trouble between you and me – which is between the image I have of you and the image you have of me, which is called relationship – if there is conflict in that relationship, I try to break it up and establish another form of relationship, which is another image. Are you following all this?
So again I see that the mind, having no quality, vitality, existence, energy of its own, tries to find all that in relationship. Please watch this in yourself, not just listen to what the speaker is saying but actually look at what is going on in your mind when you are attached to a person, as obviously you must be when you call it love, with all its responsibility, all its neurotic behaviour, and so on. Then there is this whole gamut of ideation, mentation. That is, the images that thought has created and put together as an idea, an idea being the reasoned-out, verbal assertion of a thought.
And we live on a formula, on conclusions, which are put together by thought, thought being memory and the past. So we are living in the past, which may be projected into the future, but our living still has its roots in the past. So our attachment is to the past. Now, why does the mind live, act, behave upon a series of conclusions that thought has come to? I don’t know if you have noticed this in yourself. You have an experience – it doesn’t matter what it is, however trivial, however great – and that experience becomes the memory of it, and that memory with its knowledge is the process of thought, which comes to a conclusion, and according to that conclusion you live. The conclusion is nonphysical, non-existent; it is still an idea. And the mind, having no vitality of its own, has to depend on ideas, formulas, beliefs, doctrines, and all the rest of it, and therefore there is constant division between the conclusion and act. Are we all asleep?
So I see the mind is its content. It does not exist without its content. And it is afraid to let go of its content, otherwise it has no existence. And so it has got to occupy itself with its content: the furniture, people, the person or idea, idea being God, you know all the rest of it. You see how extraordinarily interesting it is, because meditation, what they call meditation, is cultivating an occupation with an idea, and the practicing of that idea, which is not meditation at all – we’ll discuss that perhaps later – but see how the whole thing hangs together like a marvellous structure.
Now, one has explained all this: the attachment to property, attachment to people, to conclusions, to your images, symbols, ideas. To have an insight into that, into the whole of it, is liberation from attachment, not at some future date but instantly. This is really important to understand. When you listen to this, do you say, ‘I will think about this and go into this much more later; because too many ideas are being poured out here, I must take it up and think about it later’? – which prevents you from having an insight now. If we are sharing this thing together, there is no time for you to think about it later.
We are sharing this food together because you are hungry, and the speaker is also hungry; we are eating the food together. You don’t say when you are eating together, or when you are hungry, ‘I will eat later’ – you are sharing it, actively eating. And if you have no insight into what has been said… why? Are you frightened of not being attached, of not being occupied, of what happens to a mind that has no attachment? Because when the mind is incessantly occupied, whether with your house, sex, God, drink, politics, or guru, that gives it a vitality, a certain quality of energy. And one is afraid of what will take place if there is no occupation at all. So when there is fear of that, you will not share; the fear will prevent you.
You need therefore to have an insight into that fear, which is far more important than to have an insight into attachment. And when you have such insight, attachment goes altogether, and a different quality comes into being, the quality that the mind itself has when it has understood, is aware of, and has had an insight into the whole process of attachment. That is love. How can I love you, or you love me, if I am attached to you? My attachment is based on my pursuit of pleasure, which you give me, the image of you and so on. I am attached to that image of you, and you are attached to the image of me. And the image is the past, is the response of experience, knowledge. So is love the past? Is love experience? Is love memory? Is love the reaction to that memory as pleasure?
So one discovers, or the mind comes upon the fact, that where there is attachment of any kind there is no love. This is not a statement, an idea, but an actual fact that the mind has discovered, which the mind, having an insight into attachment, sees the truth of. And seeing the truth of it, it is not occupied with the person, or with the furniture, or with the idea, and therefore it has its own energy. It is that quality of energy that is love, right? And therefore love can never be hurt – oh, you don’t see all this, do you? Love can never be jealous, never lonely, never ask to be loved – what a horror that is!
And one observes what one’s life is. What is our life? What is our existence? Look at it, please. Your existence, not mine. Which means, What is the existence of the ‘me’ in the field of knowledge? What is my living in the field of experience? What is my actual activity with the whole structure of memory, which is the past? Is my life based on the past – the past being yesterday, or ten thousand yesterdays? Please look at it. I want to learn about myself, and I have learned happily what my attachments do to the mind, and I want to find out also what my actual life is, not my imagined life, not the life I would like to have, not the life that depends on environment, on stimuli, but actually what my daily existence is based on. Am I living in the past, is my life the past, operating, reacting to the present based upon the past and therefore projecting that to the future? I want to find out – please listen to this carefully. I want to find out. I want to find out whether temperament and idiosyncrasy are my life, or is my life my conditioned state, or are temperament, idiosyncrasy, and conditioning my whole life? Am I making this complex?
What is temperament? What is idiosyncrasy? You have a certain temperament and certain idiosyncrasies, haven’t you? According to the dictionary, temperament is, as far as one can make out, based on experience, and idiosyncrasy is something that is put together. We all have various kinds of idiosyncrasy and temperament and their activity, but basically we are all conditioned, though the temperament and idiosyncrasy may vary from person to person. You and I are basically and deeply conditioned according to the culture, to the past, to all of that, conditioned consciously or unconsciously through heredity, tradition, through a thousand years of human struggle. And also according to time, climate, culture, which vary the expression of idiosyncrasy and temperament. That is, you are different in temperament from me. You have idiosyncrasies different from mine. And we try to balance these idiosyncrasies and temperaments and to bring harmony between us, which can never be done; whereas harmony between us exists, can come, only when the mind has an insight into the total conditioning.
Shall we take a breather for a minute? Because this is really quite important and rather interesting if you go into it. You see, we are trying to bring harmony outwardly in relationship between temperaments and idiosyncrasies. But inwardly we are deeply conditioned, and we try to somehow live together with our absurd idiosyncrasies and temperaments, and in that there is always battle, strife. I am trying to adjust myself to your temperament, and you are trying to adjust to my idiosyncrasies, aren’t you? This is what is going on in life. And there is this constant effort, battle, and I say to myself, ‘This is totally wrong somehow, it has no value.’ Because your temperament and idiosyncrasies can vary, change, and so character has no value. But what does have significance is to find out, to have an insight into this whole conditioning. Then if the mind is free from the conditioning that is its content, our relationship is entirely different; there is no conflict between you and me because it is not based on pleasure and all the rest of it.
Now, can the mind see, have an insight into, this whole business of conditioning, temperament, idiosyncrasy, how the mind is the result of the past, of evolution? Not tomorrow, but now, instantly, have insight into ourselves, and therefore that insight brings its own energy to transform what is. Insight has its own tremendous energy, which is not dependent on any stimuli, and therefore it transforms what is observed, which is attachment. Have you got that insight, and therefore that tremendous energy to actually change your attachment totally? So that the mind doesn’t derive its energy from attachment, from conflict, and all that, but has its own vital energy, independent of environment, of culture, of people? Come on! Then living means something quite different from the way we live now, which is in conflict.
Then we have to inquire into the whole question of what is death. Do you mind inquiring into that? There are a lot of young people here who may live a very long time, and there are a lot of old people too, including myself. We are the people who are going, and you are the people who are coming. But whether going or coming, you have to face death. So we are going to inquire into it, which means we are going to have an insight into it. And you cannot have that insight if there is any kind of fear, and fear comes only when you are attached to the things that are known, the things known being your images, your knowledge, furniture, opinions, judgments, culture, your shyness, your politeness – all that is the field of the known. And if you are afraid you will never have an insight into the whole problem of death.
I want to find out, as you must, what is death. Why am I frightened of it? Why am I so scared of old age and suddenly coming to an end? To wholly understand death is really a very complex business. And the very complexity of it makes one frightened. It is like very complex machinery, you daren’t touch it, because you know nothing about it. But if you approach it very simply, which means you are really trying to learn about it, and are therefore enjoying that – not the idea of death but enjoying the investigation, the approach, the inquiry – then you learn. And you cannot learn if you are unhappy or frightened. That is a basic thing.
So if you really want to go into this, you have to be very clear that your mind, which means your thought, doesn’t create fear of what it considers to be coming to an end, what it considers to be entering into something it doesn’t know.
I don’t know where to begin this. Fear being totally out of the picture, first of all I have to find out, I want to find out, if there is anything permanent as the ‘me.’ Permanent, that is, which has a continuity. I can leave my furniture to my brother, son, or whoever, and therefore it can remain in the family, or be sold to somebody else in an antique shop, but I want to find out if there is anything substantial, continuous, permanent as the ‘me’ who is frightened of death.
Is there anything permanent in me, in you – permanent in the sense of having a continuity in time, a duration in space as the ‘me’? The ‘me’ is the name, right? Has that name any permanency? Or is it that thought gives permanency to the name? In itself it has no permanency, but thought, by identifying itself with the body, the image, the knowledge, with all the experiences, sorrows, pleasures, agonies, by identifying itself with all that, gives it a quality of permanency. Otherwise is there anything permanent, a thing that has continuity in spite of the nonexistence of the body? Are you interested in all this? You are going to face this, whether you like it or not. You are going to face it either accidentally, or through disease or the natural decay of the organism. It is inevitable. You can avoid it by living longer, in a healthier way, taking more pills, and so forth – you know, carry on. But at the end there is this fact.
I must find out for myself if there is something permanent beyond death – permanent meaning timeless, which cannot be corrupted through civilization, through culture, something that in spite of all experience, knowledge, stimuli, reactions has its own existence and goes on as the ‘me.’ So man has said, ‘There is not the ‘me,’ but there is God’ – follow all this carefully. In Asia, in India, they put it differently, but it is still the act of thought that says, ‘There is Brahman.’ It is an act of thought that says, ‘There is the soul.’ It is thought that is frightened of the unknown, because thought is the known, thought is time, thought is the old, thought is never free.
Thought is the response of memory, experience, knowledge, and so it is always old, never free; and being of time it is uncertain of the timeless, of that which is beyond time. So it says, ‘I am not important; the ‘me’ is transient, has been put together by time, by accident, by the family, by tradition, by the culture in which it has been put together; it has developed certain tendencies, idiosyncrasies; it has its conditioning, but beyond all that there is the soul, there is something immense in me that is the permanent.’ All that is the process of thought. And thought, when confronted with the inevitable, which is death, the ending, says, ‘I can’t tolerate this.’ So it says, ‘There must be a future life’ or ‘I believe there is a future life’ or ‘There is heaven and I’ll sit next to God’ – it wants comfort when faced with something completely unknown. And there are thousands of people who will give you that comfort. All the organized churches offer it, and you want it, and therefore they exist.
Now, if you say, ‘How do I find out about all this?’ it is still the action of thought, and therefore based on fear, on imagination, on the past. That is, the field of the known, which is, ‘I am attached to the field of the known, with all its varieties, changes, its activities, and what I demand is comfort, and because I have found comfort in the past, I have lived within the field of the known. That is my territory, I know its borders, its frontiers – the frontiers are my consciousness, which is its content. I am completely familiar with all that, and death is something I don’t know, I don’t want.’
So my life has been the past, I live in the past, I act in the past; that is my life. Listen to this: My life that is living in the past is a dead life; my mind that lives in the past is a dead mind; but thought says, ‘That is not death, the future is death.’ So I see this as a fact, I see this as something enormously real. Therefore the mind, realizing that, actually dies to the past. It will use the past, but the past has lost its grip, its values, its vitality. So the mind has its own energy, which is not derived from the past. Therefore living is dying. Therefore living is love, which is dying. Because if there is no attachment, then there is love. If there is no attachment to the past, the past has its value that can and must be used as knowledge, but my living is then a constant renewal, a constant movement in the field of the unknown in which there is learning, moving. Therefore death is the ultimate aloneness. And so there is a totally different kind of life.