We are asking why the human mind conceives an idea from study, from reading, from listening to philosophers, and listening as you are doing now. First you conceive an idea and try to put that idea into action. Why does the mind do this? All the so-called great philosophies have done it. All religions—Christianity, Buddhism, Zen, and so on—are based on concepts. Concept means to conceive, from concipere—I won’t go into the etymological meaning of that word. Either it is thrust upon you by the specialists, the philosophers, the social experts, and so on, or you yourself, by observing and hearing, make an abstraction and from that abstraction act. This is obvious, isn’t it? Now, why does the mind do this? If you observe your own mind, you see that you live in concepts. Why do we do this?
I think it is very important to understand this very, very deeply, because the culture in which you have lived for three thousand years— the so-called Brahminical culture—has disappeared. Please, the speaker is not either for or against it; some of you are anti-Brahmin, so don’t jump up and fight it; or those of you who are rabid Brahmins, don’t be encouraged by what is being said. We are inquiring into why a civilisation, a culture which had existed for three thousand years and more has disappeared overnight. Why? The speaker has discussed this question with professors, scholars, politicians, and various gurus. We are inquiring into why a pre-Buddha civilisation has completely disappeared. Is it that the Western culture with all its vast technological knowledge—communication, railways, aeroplanes, science, medicine—has smothered this country? Or it really had no culture at all? It had tradition, it had all kinds of theories. So please ask yourself, why?
If you observe, your religion, like the rest of the world’s religions, is purely conceptual, put together by thought, which means this culture has lived on words. And a human being who lives on words obviously goes down the drain. That is what is happening in this country and elsewhere. So it is very important to find out why we are in a crisis—of consciousness. It is not an economic crisis or a moral crisis or a population crisis, but a crisis of consciousness, of the mind, of a mind that lives on words. Just think of it, sirs, what kind of a mind that is! You specialise as an engineer or as a scientist or as a sociologist or as a businessman and are fixed there. For the rest of your life, you don’t look at the skies, you never look at the beauty of the trees; you never look properly at a human being, even at your wife or husband.
So one asks why the human mind lives on concepts, what the process is. Why do you live on words—’Hindu’, ‘Christian’, ‘Buddhist’—or on any conceptual activity? Why? It is very interesting if you go into it very carefully. A concept, we believe, will lead to action; that is, first we conceive of or plan a pattern of action and then act. Why does your mind do it? Is it an avoidance of action, because you can postpone it? That is, you have an idea of what you should do, but you never act completely according to the idea. So there is a contradiction between conceptual action and action. Is that the root cause of why any civilisation lives on words? All the symbols of Christianity are just symbols, ideas. When you call yourself a Muslim or a Hindu or a Sikh, it is just a concept. Whereas you are essentially a human being first.
So, is the making of concepts an escape from action? Conceptual activity has become much more important than action. The conceptual movement has cultivated the brain and the intellect, and the intellect dominates everything. The function of the intellect is to discern, to understand, to gather information, to act. But when the intellect, which is the capacity to think conceptually, becomes all-important—as it has in the world, because all our education in schools, colleges, and universities is based on that—then the rest of the area of the mind is disregarded. You can observe this in yourself.
What then is action without the formulation of concepts? Is there an action which is not born out of concepts? The word action means acting, not ‘having acted’ or ‘will act’. We are used to this idea of acting according to a principle or a belief, which are all concepts. And when you act according to an ideal which thought has created, your action is limited. Your action is born out of the past, and therefore it is not action. I wonder if you understand this because, apparently, we are incapable of applying it. You hear, for example, that it is possible to bring about a transformation in the very structure of the brain cells and the mind. You hear that; if you at all pay attention, you hear that. If you watch yourself, your immediate reaction is ‘How?’ Which is, when you ask ‘How?’ you have already entered into the field of concepts. Then you have systems, methods, practices, discipline, and the whole circus begins. Now, can you listen and not make a concept but apply?