K School – Students Talk 22, Rajghat, 31 January 1955

I once saw a man in Sanyasi robes picking flowers from a next garden. He used to come there every morning to pick flowers from the tree or other trees and he picked every flower from the tree; his hands were greedy, his eyes were greedy for the flowers which he was going to offer to some dead image, a thing made out of stone. He would tear those leaves and flowers, lovely things, tender, just opening to the morning skies. He used to come every morning and whatever that garden held he used to strip not gently but viciously. Is God demanded a lot of flowers, lot of living things for a dead stone. And the other day I was watching here some children, grown-up students, picking flowers. They were not offering to any god, they were just tearing at those flowers thoughtlessly, talking, picking, and putting them away. Have you watched them and yourself in the act of picking flowers and I wonder why we do this. As you walk by you pick a branch and tear off the leaves, drop it and go off. Have you not noticed this? The old people do it and the young people do it. The old people do it in their own way and their brutality expresses in a different manner and the children’s brutality also shows itself. The appalling disrespect for living things, they all talk about ahimsa and everything that they do is destructive. Have you not noticed all these things?

I am sure your educators have pointed this out to you, at least I hope so, but still you go on. Indeed why do we do this, not only pick flowers off a tree uselessly. I can understand a flower or two to put in your hair or smell it or to give it to somebody with love, but to tear flowers off, why do we do it? The old people have their wars, they are ugly in their ambition, they butcher each other in competition, they corrupt each other through money, they have their own forms of ugly actions, and apparently the students here, as elsewhere, follow in their footsteps. You know the other day I was walking, and there was a flower on the road and I picked it up and one of the boys who was walking with me asked why do you do that? What does all this indicate? Is it a lack of respect or is it something totally different? You respect out of fear, don’t you, when an elder comes into the room, then you promptly jump up, I don’t know why, that is not respect; that is really fear, because if you really respected you would not tear those flowers. You would pick the stones off the road, you would tend to the trees, you would take care of a garden if there was respect. But there is no respect, why? Neither with the old nor with the young. Is it that we don’t know what love is?

You understand this? Simple love, not the complex love of sex, the love of god and all that, but just simple love to be tender to things. At home you don’t get it. The parents are too busy. At home there is no affection, no tenderness and so you come here with that background of insensitivity and you behave like everybody else. So how is one to bring about sensitivity, not that you must have regulations not to pick flowers, then you are held only by regulations which means merely fear to do something. But to be sensitive enough, so alert not to do any harm, not to do harm to flowers, to people, animals, how is that sensitivity to come into being, are you interested in it. You should be. Because if you are not interested in being sensitive, then you might as well be dead as most people are. They may live, eat three meals a day, have a job, children, drive a car, have good saris and achkans [long-sleeved men’s garment WS-07] but they are as well as dead. If one is not sensitive — do you know what that word means, to feel for things, to see an animal suffering, and do something about it, to pick up a flower off a road or a stone because so many bare feet walk on that road, to pick up a nail off a road because a car might get a puncture, to feel for people, for birds, for flowers, for trees, not because they are yours but just to feel the extraordinary beauty of things. How is that that to be brought about so that you will naturally, spontaneously not pick flowers, not tear things, not hurt people but have real respect, love for people, how is this to be brought about, because it is one of the most important things in life, perhaps the most important thing — to love. Not someone who loves and therefore we love that person. That is not love. To love without asking, just to love to have that extraordinary feeling and if you have not that, you may be very clever, you may pass all the examinations, doctorates and have big positions but heart will be empty and you will be miserable for the rest of your life. Now how is that heart to be filled with that extraordinary thing called love. You see, if you have that then you won’t pick flowers ruthlessly. Then you won’t destroy unnecessarily. Then there won’t be any wars, you will be happy human beings, because when you are happy, you don’t pray, you don’t seek god, because that happiness is god. So how is this to come about?

It can only come about when the educator, the teacher feels this. When in the class he is not only concerned with giving you information about mathematics, about geography or history but he talks about this, he feels this, he also picks the paper off the road, he does not allow the servant to come and do all the dirty jobs, so that in his talk, in the play, when he eats, when he is with you and by himself, he also feels this strange thing and to point this out to you often that without this your face is ugly. You may have a clear skin nice face, good sari. You may be a great athlete but without this extraordinary thing in your heart your face is ugly, ugly beyond measure and this is a fact that when you love, whether your face is ugly or beautiful it has radiance, that is the greatest thing in life — to love. And it is very important to talk about it, to feel it, to nourish it, to treasure it, because otherwise it is so soon dissipated, because the world is very brutal and if we don’t feel it while we are young, if we don’t look at flowers, animals, people with care with love, then when we grow up we will find life is very empty. You will be very lonely, dark shadows of fear will follow you always. But the moment you have this extraordinary thing, this love, that is, the feeling, the depth and the extraordinary delight and the ecstasy of it, then you will find, if you have it, the world is transformed.

Question: In a school of this kind why only rich people in power are invited for functions?

What do you think? Don’t look at the officials. I am asking you. Don’t you want your father to be a great man? Are you not proud if your father becomes the member of parliament. Are you not proud if your father is mentioned in newspapers? If he is a big man, if he has a big house or if he goes to Europe and comes back puffing a cigar, are you not proud. You see also big officials are very useful for institutions, you flatter them and they give you something. So it works both ways. It is not just why the school invites the big people but why you also want to be a big person, why you want to marry the richest, the well known, the most handsome man, something or the other, Don’t you all want to do that? So you have the seed of corruption in you already if you have those desires. You understand what I am talking? You know, leaving aside why the school invites, also there were poor people, were you, any of you, sitting near the villager, were you? No. Only one or two were. Did you also notice an extraordinary thing how the Canvases wanted to be seated right in front, how they pushed their way to the front. We all want to have prominence. You know the true Brahman is one who does not ask anything from anybody, not because he is proud but because he is a light to himself, but we have lost all that.

There is a marvellous story. When Alexander came to India and conquered who the prime minister was, who made such order in the country, who brought about such honesty, incorruptibility and the King said he was a Brahman and Alexander asked whether he would come, and where he was, he wanted to meet him. The King sent for the prime minister who had gone back to the village and he would not come because he would not show himself off to some stupid conqueror because he was a Brahman. We have lost all that and you have lost it, not that the Foundation members have lost it, but you have lost it. Because in ourselves we are empty, dull, sorrowful, and so we go out begging, seeking someone to nourish us, give us some hope, some nourishment, that is why we make things ugly; it is all right for the officials to come, to lay foundation, what is wrong with it, what is the harm, but the whole spirit behind it, that is what is corrupting. You never sit with the villagers, do you, you never go there, visit them, talk to them, feel with them, see what they eat and how little they eat, see how they work endlessly, day after day, week after week without rest, but you are ready to criticise, because I have pointed out to you when the big ones of the land come to do something. Don’t criticise. That is empty. But go and find out. Go to the villages, do something there, plant a tree there, talk to them, invite them, go and play with their children, then you will see that a different kind of land can come into being, because then there is love in the land, and the land without love is like a land without river. A land that has rivers is a rich land. It has abundance, it has beauty. So a land without love is as a desert and most of us grow without love and so we make the land hideous and the people in it.

Question: You say that god is not in the image but others say it is there. If there is faith in our hearts they say it is power, and will manifest itself. What is the truth of worship?

You know the world is as full of opinions as there are people in it. You know what it means, opinion, you say this and somebody says that — opinion, but opinion is not truth, does not matter what I say or what somebody else says but find out for yourself what is truth. Therefore don’t listen to opinions, because opinion has no value. Opinion can be changed overnight, but truth cannot. So you want to find out, don’t you, if there is god or truth in an image, an image, you know what it is — made by the hand and by the mind. Is it not a mind that conceives of it, imagines it and fashions it, out of wood or stone by hand, by hammer and chisel. The mind makes the image and do you think the image made by the mind is god, though a million people say it is god, because if the mind believes in the image, the question says, then the image gives power to the mind. Obviously. The mind created the image and so the mind derives power from its own creation, which means really the mind can create the image and out of the image draw strength for itself. So the mind is everlastingly producing its own images and deriving happiness, benefit from those images. So what is important is not the image or what the millions say but to understand the mind.

The mind makes god or unmakes god. The mind becomes cruel or kind, the mind has the power of most extraordinary things of creating illusion or creating opinions. It cannot create truth and that is the only thing it cannot do. It can do anything else. It can invent jet planes, build vast beautiful bridges, lay railways that travel at tremendous speed, invent machines that calculate beyond the measure of man but the mind cannot invent truth. If it does, it is no longer truth. It is merely an opinion, a judgment. So it is important to find out what is true and to find out what is true the mind must be very still, completely still without any movement and that stillness is the act of worship, not your offering, go- offering go into the temple with flowers and on the way kicking the servant, pushing aside the beggar, that is not worship, that is merely cheating the gods because you are afraid of them. But you understand the mind and for the mind to be completely still, that stillness is the act of worship, then in that stillness what is true, what is beautiful, what is god comes into being.

Question: You said one day that we should sit quietly and watch our mind but our ideas disappear as soon as we become conscious of observation and don’t we perceive by our mind too? How can we perceive our mind when our mind is the perceptor as well as the object of perception?

Is this put by an older person? Must be, and it is not quite fair, is it, when this talk is primarily for the student.

Questioner: It is true Sir. We asked it. We are trying to experience it. (Student)

Then will you listen, and not go to sleep halfway, because this is a very complex question, many things are involved in it. Now is there a perceptor — please follow this closely — or only perception, that is, is there a thinker or only thinking? When you are thinking is there a thinker? The thinker is formed out of thinking, the thinker does not exist first, only thinking exists first. Then thinking creates the perceptor, the perceiver, the enquirer, the observer. Thinking creates the thinker. Then separation takes place as the thinker and the thought. Now when the separation has taken place then when you watch your mind there is a watcher and the thought. There is the perceiver and the perceived, the object of perception and as the questioner says, if you watch your mind and if you observe a thought that thought disappears, that thought fades away but there is only perception, not perceiver who sees. When you see a flower, just see, is there an entity who sees or only seeing; seeing the flower makes you say, how nice it is, I want it. So the ‘I’ comes into being through seeing, seeing being desire, fear, appetite, ambition. All these create the I. The I is non-existent without these. So if you go still deeper into it you will see that when the mind is very still there is no thought, but movement of thought and so there is no experiencer, no observer but only the mind is so quiet, so still, then that very stillness has its own creative understanding. Out of that stillness the mind has become something else, but the mind cannot find that stillness by any means, by any discipline, by any practice, by sitting very quietly in a corner and trying to concentrate. That stillness does not come about that way. It comes when we understand the ways of the mind. The mind that has created the stone image which people worship, it is mind that has created it, it is the mind that has created the Gita, the religions, the beliefs and to find what is real you must go beyond the creations of the mind which means the mind must become totally and completely still.

Question: Is man different from mind and brain or something different than this

Is man only brain and mind or something else? Is man only mind and brain or something plus or minus. How are you going to find out, not believe, not speculate, not accept Shankara, Buddha or what somebody else says, which is not investigation, which is not trying to find out what is true. So how are you going to find out if man something more or something less. How will you find out. You have only one instrument which is the mind. The mind is is the brain also. Without the brain you have no mind. Without the organism there is no body. So to find out you must understand the way of the mind, must you not? If the mind is crooked you will never see straight. If the mind is very limited, you won’t understand the expanse. So the mind is the instrument of perception. So to perceive the mind must be cleansed. The mind must be made straight. The mind must be free from all conditioning, all fear. The mind must be free from all knowledge because knowledge also diverts, makes things crooked. So can the mind, if it would wish to find out what is more than brain and mind, mind being all the extraordinary capacity to invent, to imagine, to speculate, to think, which is enormous, the capacity of the mind — can all that capacity be put aside so that the mind is very clear and very simple because it is only the innocent mind, the mind that has experienced vastly and yet is capable of putting aside its knowledge and experience — only such a mind, such an innocent mind can find out. Otherwise what you find is by your coloured experience or what you will find will be what you have experienced and your experience is only the result of your conditioning. So the mind must be free of all experience and yet must not seek experience.

Question: What is the difference between need and greed?

Don’t you know? Does not something tell you when you are greedy? And you know when you have had your needs? Begin on a very small, lowest level and you will see it is so. You know when you have had enough saris, achkans or whatever it is. You don’t have to philosophize about that, but the moment the need becomes, moves into the field of greed, then you begin to philosophize, then you begin to rationalize, explain your greed. You will find a good hospital needs so many dress, beds and certain cleanliness, antiseptic and this and that. That is the need. A man travelling needs a car, overcoat, this or that. You need to carry out your crafts, information, if you are an engineer you must know but that knowing is for the craft but it can become the means to greed. So the mind uses the need as a means of its own self advancement through greed. It is a very simple thing if you observe, if you are aware of your own needs and whether the greed comes in and uses the need for your own aggrandizement, for your own importance. It is not so very difficult where the need and the greed are. Is that enough for this morning?

Question: Sir, the question is the mind and the brain are one and yet when an ugly thought arises or ugly demands come into being, so-called evil, then why do we concede to it, go on with it?

Why is it the mind which sees something ugly yet goes on with it.

Questioner: The brain points out.

The questioner says the brain points what is ugly to the mind and yet the mind goes on. Does that actually take place, just watch it. A pin is put into you. The nerves carry it to your brain and the brain translates it as pain, then the mind rejects the pain, rebels against it, takes away or kicks, does something, which is a fact. But the mind though it knows something as painful goes on with it. Smoking a cigarette, it knows how stupid it is and yet it goes on, that is the question, because the mind likes it and that is all. If the smoking was as painful as the pin on the body then it would drop it immediately, but we don’t see smoking as painful, but we see a thing as pleasurable, sociable and so it goes on. Same thing with greed. If it was as painful as the pain in your arm then you would stop it immediately, you will not philosophize, you will not write volumes about non-violence which is all nonsense because we don’t feel, we just talk about it.

If you eat something and it was a poison and you tasted it and it gives you a violent tummy ache you will immediately put it aside, won’t you? So if we once realise envy, ambition are as poisonous, as vicious, cruel as the sting of the poison, you would not touch it, but we don’t want to admit. The mind does not want to admit ambition, greed, lust, as pain; it says it is all right, it is very nice, let us carry on, let us talk about non-greed, ideals but let us carry on in the mean time, which means the mind wants it. So go on with it. Go on with your poisons. Find out and you will soon see how corrupting, how destructive that poison is, but you say, I must not, and you go on. You are playing the hypocrite. Be one thing or the other — hot or cold.