I think we should consider this morning what is a religious mind. I would like to go into it fairly deeply because I feel that only such a mind can resolve all our problems, not only the political and economic problems, but the much more fundamental problems of human existence. Before we go into it, I think we should repeat what we have already said, that a serious mind is a mind that is willing to go to the very root of things and discover what is true and what is false. There is a mind that does not stop halfway and does not allow itself to be distracted by any other consideration. I hope that there are at least a few who are capable of doing this and earnest enough to do it.
I think we are all familiar with the present world situation and do not need to be told of the deceptions, the corruption, the social and economic inequalities, the menace of wars, the constant threats. To understand all this confusion and bring about clarity, it seems to me that there must be a radical change in the mind itself and not just patchwork reform or a mere adjustment. To wade through all this confusion, which is not only outside us but within us, to grapple with all the mounting tensions and the increasing demands, one needs a radical revolution in the psyche itself, one needs to have an entirely different mind.
For me, revolution is synonymous with religion. I do not mean by the word ‘revolution’ immediate economic or social change; I mean a revolution in consciousness itself. All other forms of revolution, whether Communist, Capitalist or what you will, are merely reactionary. A revolution in the mind, which means the complete destruction of what has been, so that the mind is capable of seeing what is true without distortion, without illusion – that is the way of religion. I think the real, the true religious mind does exist, can exist.
I think, if one has gone into it very deeply, one can discover such a mind for oneself. A mind that has broken down, destroyed, all the barriers, all the lies which society, religion, dogma, belief have imposed upon it, and gone beyond to discover what is true, is the true religious mind.
So, first let us go into the question of experience. Our brains are the result of the experience of centuries. The brain is the storehouse of memory. Without that memory, without the accumulated experience and knowledge, we should not be able to function at all as human beings. Experience – memory – is obviously necessary at a certain level, but I think it is also fairly obvious that all experience based on the conditioning of knowledge, of memory, is bound to be limited. And, therefore, experience is not a factor in liberation. I do not know if you have thought about this at all.
Every experience is conditioned by the past experience. So there is no new experience, it is always coloured by the past. In the very process of experiencing, there is the distortion which comes into being from the past, the past being knowledge, memory, the various accumulated experiences, not only of the individual, but also of the race, the community. Now, is it possible to deny all that experience?
I do not know if you have gone into the question of denial, what it means to deny something. It means the capacity to deny the authority of knowledge, to deny the authority of experience, to deny the authority of memory, to deny the priests, the church, everything that has been imposed on the psyche. There are only two means of denial for most of us – either through knowledge or through reaction. You deny the authority of the priest, the church, the written word, the book, either because you have studied, inquired, accumulated other knowledge, or because you do not like it, you react against it. Whereas true denial implies, does it not, that you deny without knowing what is going to happen, without any future hope? To say, ‘I do not know what is true, but this is false,’ is, surely, the only true denial, because that denial is not out of calculated knowledge, not out of reaction. After all, if you know what your denial is leading to, then it is merely an exchange, a thing of the marketplace and, therefore, it is not true denial at all.
I think one has to understand this a little, to go into it rather deeply, because I want to find out, through denial, what is the religious mind. I feel that through negation one can find out what is true. You cannot find out what is true by assertion. You must sweep the slate completely clean of the known before you can find out.
So, we are going to inquire into what the religious mind is through denial— that is, through negation, through negative thinking. And obviously there is no negative inquiry if denial is based on knowledge, on reaction. I hope this is fairly clear. If I deny the authority of the priest, of the book, or of tradition, because I do not like it, that is just a reaction because I then substitute something else for what I have denied. And if I deny because I have sufficient knowledge, facts, information and so on, then my knowledge becomes my refuge. But there is a denial which is not the outcome of reaction or knowledge, but which comes from observation, from seeing a thing as it is, the fact of it. That is true denial because it leaves the mind cleansed of all assumptions, all illusions, authorities, desires.
So is it possible to deny authority? I don’t mean the authority of the policeman, the law of the country and all that; that is silly and immature and will end us up in jail. I mean the denying of the authority imposed by society on the psyche, on the consciousness, deep down; to deny the authority of all experience, all knowledge, so that the mind is in a state of not knowing what will be, but only knowing what is not true.
You know, if you have gone into it so far, it gives you an astonishing sense of integration, of not being torn between conflicting, contradictory desires; seeing what is true, what is false, or seeing the true in the false, gives you a sense of real perception, a clarity. The mind is then in a position – having destroyed all the securities, the fears, the ambitions, vanities, visions, purposes, everything – in a state that is completely alone, uninfluenced.
Surely, to find reality, to find ‘God’, or whatever name you like to give it, the mind must be alone, uninfluenced, because then such a mind is a pure mind; and a pure mind can proceed. When there is the complete destruction of all things which it has created within itself as security, as hope and as the resistance against hope, which is despair, and so on, then there comes, surely, a fearless state in which there is no death. A mind that is alone is completely living, and in that living there is a dying every minute; and, therefore, for that mind there is no death. It is really extraordinary. If you have gone into that thing you discover for yourself that there is no such thing as death. There is only that state of pure austerity of the mind which is alone.
This aloneness is not isolation; it is not escape into some ivory tower; it is not loneliness. All that has been left behind, forgotten, dissipated and destroyed. So such a mind knows what destruction is; and we must know destruction, otherwise we cannot find anything new. And how frightened we are to destroy everything we have accumulated.
There is a Sanskrit saying: ‘Ideas are the children of barren women.’ I think most of us indulge in ideas. You may be treating the talks we have been having as an exchange of ideas, as a process of accepting new ideas and discarding old ones, or as a process of denying new ideas and holding on to the old. We are not dealing with ideas at all. We are dealing with fact. And when one is concerned with fact, there is no adjustment; you either accept it or you deny it. You can say, ‘I do not like those ideas, I prefer the old ones, I am going to live in my own stew’; or you can go along with the fact. You cannot compromise, you cannot adjust. Destruction is not adjustment. To adjust, to say, ‘I must be less ambitious, not so envious,’ is not destruction. And one must, surely, see the truth that ambition, envy, are ugly, stupid, and one must destroy all these absurdities. Love never adjusts. It is only desire, fear, hope, that adjust. That is why love is a destructive thing, because it refuses to adapt itself or conform to a pattern.
So we begin to discover that when there is the destruction of all the authority which man has created for himself in his desire to be secure inwardly, then there is creation. Destruction is creation.
Then, if you have abandoned ideas and are not adjusting yourself to your own pattern of existence or a new pattern which you think the speaker is creating, if you have gone that far, you will find that the brain can and must function only with regard to outward things, respond only to outward demands. Therefore, the brain becomes completely quiet. This means that the authority of its experiences has come to an end and, therefore, it is incapable of creating illusions. To find out what is true it is essential for the power to create illusion in any form to come to an end. The power to create illusions is the power of desire, the power of ambition, of wanting to be this and not wanting to be that.
So the brain must function in this world with reason, with sanity, with clarity, but inwardly it must be completely quiet.
We are told by the biologists that it has taken millions of years for the brain to develop to its present stage and that it will take millions of years to develop further. Now, the religious mind does not depend on time for its development. What I want to convey is that when the brain, which must function in its responses to the outward existence, becomes quiet inwardly, then there is no longer the machinery of accumulating experience and knowledge. Therefore, inwardly it is completely quiet, but fully alive, and then it can jump the million years.
So, for the religious mind, there is no time. Time exists only in that state of a continuity moving to a further continuity and achievement. When the religious mind has destroyed the authority of the past, the traditions, the values imposed upon it, then it is capable of being without time. Then it is completely developed. Because, after all, when you have denied time, you have denied all development through time and space. Please, this is not an idea, it is not a thing to be played with. If you have gone through it, you know what it is, you are in that state, but if you have not gone through it, then you cannot just pick up these as ideas and play with them.
So, you find destruction is creation and in creating there is no time. Creation is that state when the brain, having destroyed all the past, is completely quiet and, therefore, in that state in which there is no time or space in which to grow, to express, to become. And that state of creation is not the creation of the few gifted people – the painters, musicians, writers, architects. It is only the religious mind that can be in a state of creation, and the religious mind is not the mind that belongs to some church, some belief, some dogma; these only condition the mind. Going to church every morning and worshipping this or that does not make you a religious person, though respectable society may accept you as such. What makes a person religious is the total destruction of the known.
In this creation there is a sense of beauty, a beauty which is not put together by man, a beauty which is beyond thought and feeling. After all, thought and feeling are merely reactions and beauty is not a reaction. A religious mind has that beauty, which is not the mere appreciation of nature, the lovely mountains and the roaring stream – but quite a different sense of beauty; and with it goes love. I do not think you can separate beauty and love. You know, for most of us love is a painful thing because with it always come jealousy, hate and possessive instincts. But this love of which we are talking is a state of the flame without the smoke.
So, the religious mind knows this complete, total destruction and what it means to be in a state of creation – which is not communicable – and with it there is the sense of beauty and love – which are indivisible. Love is not divisible as divine love and physical love. It is love. And with it goes, naturally, without saying, a sense of passion. One cannot go very far without passion – passion being intensity. It is not the intensity of wanting to alter something, wanting to do something, the intensity which has a cause so that when you remove the cause, the intensity disappears. It is not a state of enthusiasm. Beauty can only be when there is a passion which is austere. The religious mind, being in this state, has a peculiar quality of strength.
You know, for us, strength is the result of will, of many desires woven into the rope of will. And that will is a resistance with most of us. The process of resisting something or pursuing a result develops will and that will is generally called strength. But the strength of which we are talking has nothing to do with will. It is a strength without a cause. It cannot be utilized, but without it nothing can exist.
So, if one has gone so deeply in discovering for oneself, then the religious mind does exist; and it does not belong to any individual. It is the mind; it is the religious mind apart from all human endeavours, demands, individual urges, compulsions, and all the rest of it. We have only been describing the totality of the mind, which may appear divided by the use of the different words, but it is a total thing in which all this is contained. Therefore, such a religious mind can receive that which is not measurable by the brain. That thing is unnameable; no temple, no priest, no church, no dogma can hold it. To deny all that and live in this state is the true religious mind.