Public Talk 3, Poona, 14 September 1958

PUBLIC TALK III POONA 14^th^ Sept, ’58

I think we will continue where we left off the last time that we met here. We were talking about the whole problem of effort, whether through effort there can be at all any radical change, whether it is possible for a mind in a state of self-contradiction to bring an end, to put an end to that contradiction through any form of coercive discipline, through any form of suppression, through any endeavour to overcome it. Because we said that a mind in contradiction must be in a state of effort and a contradictory mind, a contradictory, inward dissension, inward conflict will that produce a change which will be necessary to see things clearly and to live fairly peaceful, quiet life. That is what we were discussing. And it seems to me that it is important to understand this issue really deeply; can a petty mind, a small mind, a respectable mind which must inevitably create a contradiction within itself — because life is not petty; I would like to reduce life to my pettiness but life is not petty; it is too vast, too enormous, too demanding, too urgent, innumerable pressures, challenges which a petty mind cannot deal with and yet my mind being petty creates a contradiction between these and what is existing though unconsciously; or consciously. Now can such a petty mind, the respectable mind, can that which in its very nature being petty must create a contradiction and — can such a mind through any endeavour bring about a state in which there is no contradiction? You understand the problem, don’t you?

Obviously life is too demanding, too enormous, extraordinarily complex; its complexity cannot be solved in any one particular point. It must be tackled totally as a whole thing. It cannot be tackled from merely scientific point of view or from the romantic point of view or so-called religious point of view which is nothing but a series of dogmas, beliefs and ceremonies and the petty mind is caught in it and it has made its environment, a social condition in which it fits in. And I see as you must see, life is too extraordinarily beautiful, too deep, to profound, to impossible to put into words and with my little mind I am trying to meet it. My little mind which is fearful, anxious, which is acquisitive, which is violent, which has got so many social, religious sanctions according to which it must live and so there is a contradiction between what is and what it thinks should be. And having created this contradiction in which there is tension and from that tension, activity and I am trying to reform the activity, not the petty mind that creates the contradiction. It is like correcting my shadow in the sun; I see the shadow — is very sharp and I furiously scratch up the shadow and thereby thinking that I am doing a revolutionary thing; but the really revolutionary thing is to bring about a radical change in the mind itself, not in the mere thought which is projection of its contradiction. So how is this mind which is obviously very limited, conditioned, how is this mind to transform itself? You understand what I mean sirs, — conditioned — all environment is shaping the mind, what you eat, the climate, the customs, the tradition, the racial influences, the family, the innumerable conscious and unconscious pressures, influences are shaping the mind. You are a Hindu, Parsi, Mussalman because you are being influenced by your environment, by what you read. So your mind is conditioned and being conditioned, you face life whose challenge is not within the time, whose challenge is always within time. Sir, we think the challenge of starvation, the challenge of appalling inequality, we deal with it in terms of time. We treat the challenge in relation to our conditioning. If I am a Socialist, Communist, I meet it with the conditioned mind which has been shaped by many, many influences, a challenge which is out of time. All challenges must be out of time. It cannot be within the period of time; otherwise it is familiar and therefore I can deal with it. When the challenge comes to us it is always not in terms of the known. I will explain if I can what I mean by it.

I ask you what is God. Being a respectable Hindu or a Christian or what you will, you will answer according to your conditioning. God must be something unnameable, Unknowable, unthinkable. It is something which is totally unknown but your mind answers according to your conditioning. So you answer the challenge according to your conditioning, to your process of thinking. So the challenge is always within time and our responses are always within time. Sirs, think about it with me and do not deny or accept. There is an art of listening; it is very difficult to listen to something with which you are not familiar. You translate what is being said in terms of your own knowledge, which is not listening. Which is, you want to understand what is being said in terms of your own conditioning, in terms of your own language. So your mind is translating, correlating, referring to already what you know, what Shankara, the Buddha, or someone else has said. So in that process there is no attention. You are already away and if you approve you have already ceased to listen. You say yes, I understand but you have already stopped; or if you say, what you say has no, is not, you have already stopped listening. So listening is a very difficult thing and I think if one can listen with that attention, the attention which is not translating what is being heard, the attention which does not compare, the attention which is really giving the whole of its being to something which is being said, in that attention there is a listening. I don’t know if you have ever tried it, to listen to somebody with your total being, not with effort, strain which means you are either trying to get something from him, or avoid, or afraid or resisting, but those processes are not listening at all. So if I may most respectfully suggest that you so listen if you can, that you see the truth of what is being said. Truth is not something extraordinary, mysterious, romantic, speculative. Truth is that black is black, that there is a cloud in the sky, that you think in this way and in the process of thinking to discover what is false and what is true and to discover what is false you have to free the mind from its past traditions, hopes and fears and to look. So truth is something to be discovered from moment to moment, not something that is accumulated. I do not know if you have ever thought about this whole problem of gathering, learning. A mind that has learnt is incapable of learning. You understand sirs? A mind that has learnt is incapable of learning. If I may suggest what is your reaction? Because you are going to discover the process of your own thinking; you are not listening to me. This is not a lecture where you listen and agree or disagree and go home and do what you like but this is a discussion or talk where through my explanation you are watching your own mind and if you so watch your mind then these talks will have immense benefit. You will see unconsciously things happening without your demanding it. So I say a learnt mind cannot learn. A mind that has gathered, that has experienced, that says I know, that has studied so much that it is so full of other peoples opinions, ideas, speculations, descriptions and how can such a mind learn? Learning is from moment to moment; but if you learn in order to accumulate and with that accumulation direct your life, then you have ceased to live. You have merely gathered, you project what you think life should be. Therefore there is a contradiction between life which is vast and profound and a mind that is caught in its own environmental influence. So we come to the question of how to free the mind from self contradiction, because that is one of our major problems. I think this and I do that. Watch yourself and not me. One is full of arrogance, pride, of race, of achievement; and at the same time you feel there must be humility because humility is a beautiful thing. We will come to that.

I am full of arrogance, pride and I want also at the same time to taste the beauty of humility. So I am in contradiction. In this contradiction there is conflict. Contradiction always implies conflict and to overcome that conflict I exert. I say I must discipline myself, put away pride and try to have humility. So I discipline, dedicate myself to God, I give all my endeavours to what I think is the highest. But first I have tasted arrogance, pride; then I offer it to God because I am suffering, I am in conflict and to overcome that conflict I try to discipline, a set of ideas according to which I am conforming. That is what we are really doing, is it not? Now, the fact is that as long as there is contradiction within myself, that contradiction is the centre of the self. I mean by the self, not the Atman, the Paramatman and all the speculative self which for me has no reality. They are mere speculations, they are the say-so of somebody else. How do you know anything about it? And the Communist will deny the whole thing because he has been brought up that way. So I am talking of that self, of our everyday self, the self which is greedy, which says I must be not be greedy, because you say I must not be greedy, because through greed you have found pain, you have suffered, through ambition you are frustrated; the self that wants something and can’t get it; the self that is perpetually worrying about little things, that says I must achieve, fulfil and the self that knows through that fulfilment there is the shadow of un-fulfilment, frustration and despair. I am talking of that self, the self that wants to be more than what it is, that says I must be the Prime Minister, the biggest man in the land, executive or the biggest saint. I am talking of that self, not of any other self, because that is the only reality, not the other. So to find that out, that reality I must free the mind from the speculative, super, higher consciousness.

So there is the contradiction. I am proud and I want at the same time to taste the beauty of humility. Between the two, what is the real? the factual, the true? Surely pride, not that I must be, I must have humility. The must be, that is a future, that is a thing which may or may not exist. The problem is how to transform that pride without bringing in contradictory idea with which I remove pride. You see sirs, I feel it is important to understand this because I feel this whole problem of effort, is effort in our work, in our thinking, in our trying to change, to bring about a different society, effort to love, effort to resist hate, to get rid of fear; our whole being is constant effort, effort. There is never a moment of real feeling of a mind that understands a thing for itself and not trying to make out of what is into something else. So how is the mind to be free of effort because, I do not know if you have noticed in your thinking, if you think with any pressure, with any influence behind it, any form of trying to shape it, it can never fly straight. If I think I must do something because you want me to do it, that doing, the thought of doing is always biased. So the thought can never be a straight thought. That is a simple thing, surely. If I do something because I am afraid or if I want something out of that act, that act is a perverted act. It is not a clean, straight act. So in the same way, if any thought has any pressure behind it, it must go crooked. So how to free the mind from this contradiction and how to free the mind from pride. I can only free the mind, the mind can only free itself from pride when there is no contradiction, when the ideal ceases to be. Because the ideal is not the fact; the fact is pride. So I have to remove from my mind the whole idea of this ideals, the what should be, what must be, removed totally. So I have only that sense of pride. The problem is how to change that.

Most of us see that ideals mean nothing. You are not really idealists, you are merely verbalists. An ideal is merely an escape from doing something actual. I am proud and I say tomorrow I will be without pride. You will never be. So the fact is that how to deal with a fact, the fact that I am afraid, that I am proud, that I am arrogant. Because as I said, what is important is the individual, not the mass. This is a mass but you are individuals in the mass. If the individual changes radically the mass changes. It is not the other way round. No mass has created anything. No mass can be creative, write a poem, anything. Then the individual you, but that individual now, if I put it that way, is opposed to the mass and that individual is self-centred, and so they say why do you emphasise the individual, because he will be more self-centred. But as an individual has to solve this problem, you will have to become aware of your own problem and in the process of becoming aware, you must come upon this contradiction. The more there is contradiction, there is greater tension and greater the tension, the greater is the activity. So I am asking you to free the mind from a fact which you think is wrong, the fact that I am proud. First of all, what is wrong with being proud? Most of us are proud in our little ways; the more you are known, the greater the field of pride; the more capable, the wider the dimensions of pride. Now what is wrong with pride? Why should you not be proud? What does pride mean?

To be proud of what, of your achievement? Follow it sir, of your family, of your wealth, of your beauty, of your character? What is one proud of? If one is not proud, then one becomes inferior, the contradiction, to say I am nobody which is another subtle form of pride. I am nobody and so you are caught again. So before I begin to enquire why the mind must free itself from pride, I must know what is wrong with pride. Now let us take something else. I will come back to it.

Most of us have some fear of some kind in the corners of our mind, hidden or projected. Most of us have fears; fear of death, what the neighbour will say, losing a job, not being able to fulfil; Now why does one want to get rid of fear? Can you think clearly when you are afraid? Obviously not. Because if I am afraid of what my neighbour is going to say, then I am living according to my neighbour, which is, I want to be respectable in society. So I am afraid of not being respectable; therefore I comply, conform. So I am always living at a very, very superficial level and living at a superficial level when my whole conscious and unconscious thing is at a different level, there must be a contradiction; there again I bring the problem of contradiction within myself. So I say I must get rid of fear. Have you ever tried to get rid of fear? Are you aware of your fears first sir? Fear of losing your husband, of your job, I don’t have to enumerate what fear is. You can feel out fear. If you have, what do you do? Fear of death, let me take that. What do you do? Fear of death for the young; young people are afraid of death and the old people are, it is not just the old people who are afraid; everyone in the world is afraid of death, of ceasing to be. How do you solve that question? When you are confronted with death, somebody dies whom you like, what happens? You try to console yourself in some belief, obviously, in reincarnation, or in resurrection or in some form of rationalisation. So fear still exists. You have just run away from it. Now if I have to tackle that problem of fear and not escape from it, then I will have to go into the whole question of death, death being an end to what I think has a continuity. I think I must live for the next 500 years, I don’t know why but I must because I feel in living for the next 500 years, I shall do something. But the living one thousand years I will be the same at the end of one thousand years because I have not changed now. So the problem is not death but whether there is such thing as continuity. You understand sirs? If I can solve that question of continuity, then I shall not be afraid of death. But now what we do is to try to escape from death to various forms of rationalisation and so at the end of rationalisation I am still afraid. So I see through escape of any kind, whether it is the radio, the book, the ceremony, the cinema, the speculative God, the belief are all the same. They are all on the same level. One is not superior to the other and through escape there is no solution and so I have to find out if there is such thing as continuity, if there is in me a permanent entity that continues and I have to find out if there is anything permanent in life. Is it I have really solved that problem, gone into it, studied it, not according to some belief, but know the whole content of it? If I have not done that I shall not understand the significance of the other.

So I am asking myself is there a continuity, continuity, is there anything in me that continues. Do we go into this?

AUDIENCE:– Yes sir.

KRISHNAMURTI:– Why sir? Is death of interest to you? Just look sir, do think about it a little. You see sir, really what we should enquire into is not the problem of continuity after death, but where there is anything that we know that is permanent, that is without change. Do you know anything that is without change? My relation with my wife, I would like it to be made permanent, continuous; I will like to have property which is continuous, I like to live in a state of perpetual fame or perpetual love, perpetual state of bliss or peace of whatever you want. Is there such thing? Sirs, even our properties are now being questioned. If you have more than so much land you are heavily taxed. So is there anything permanent? The Communists want permanency of the worship of the state but they have already modified; there is continuous modification going on; it is only the religious mind that has fundamental, deep beliefs that is impregnable to any change. So is there such thing as continuity and how will you find out? Or is life a ceaseless change, a movement in which there is no permanency? Obviously there is no permanency. Even in our thinking, in our beliefs, ideals, everything you do; you might lose your job tomorrow, everything is uncertain and can the mind function in a state of uncertainty? Or must it be secure to function?

So let us go back. I do not want to go into the question of death because we will approach it differently at another time. What we are concerned this evening is how to free the mind from contradiction, because sir, if you really could understand, go into yourself and understand that, you will then approach every problem quite totally differently, because our whole life is geared to contradiction; our whole being is in a state of contradiction, not only the conscious mind but the unconscious mind and if I am to think clearly, if there is to be any understanding of what is true, the mind must be free from contradiction. So how is that to be free from contradiction? Can I look at anything without bringing the opposite into it? Do I know love because I know hate? Can I look at it completely, understand it fully, go into it with all my being to understand the truth of it? I wonder if you are meeting it. Are we meeting sir, are we understanding each other? So can I look at pride without wanting to get rid of it, or wanting it to continue? Can I be aware of pride first? Are you aware of yourself, what you are, aware? To know that you are in contradiction, that you say this and do that, you do not mean this, you know this whirlpool. Then what do you do about it? You try to get rid of it by doing something about it, which means you are not dealing with the problem itself but trying to uncover the problem with another series of ideas. So without covering the problem, can I look at the problem, the problem being pride? Can I look at it without any sense of contradiction? Have you tried it sirs, since I last suggested? To look at a flower without naming it, to look at a quality of which you are aware without trying to do something about it. If you are angry, have you ever looked at anger without saying I must not be angry? Just to look at it sir, — you will see how very difficult it is, because the mind is always interfering with the fact, bringing in the memory of what should be therefore never looking at the fact and I say if the mind will look at the fact without bringing its past experiences, past memories being aware of a fact, that very awareness of the fact changes it totally. So the awareness of the fact brings about a cessation of conflict. If I know I am a liar, and I don’t try to change it and I don’t say I must tell the truth, but if I say I lie, I go into the whole problem of why I lie, I don’t reject or accept but I want to know the whole background of my lying, to know the significance why I lie and so I go into it; I see I lie, because I am afraid, that is why I lie; superficially or very deeply I am afraid of what I have done, that you might discover or afraid of losing a job, ten different things. Now how to free the mind from fear? If I do anything about it, there is a contradiction and therefore a conflict. I am afraid and if I say I must not be afraid, I have created a conflict, a duality and between those two, there is everlasting battle going on. Now I don’t do that. I say let me not introduce the factor that I must not be afraid but let me look at the whole process, what has brought about that. That is, I am afraid, afraid of my neighbour, of losing a job, of death, and so many fears. Can I look at fear without trying to rationalise it, get away from it?

AUDIENCE:– Lie does not exist without truth.

KRISHNAMURTI:– It would be good if we could discuss with a large audience like this but we must put the question relevant to what is being said, not irrelevant questions; then it becomes impossible but it is worth while to turn this to a discussion if we could stick to the point; that gentleman asked I only know lie because there is truth. Otherwise I don’t know what a lie is. I know what cold is because I know what hate [heat?] is; I know pain because I know when there is no pain. So life as a dual process, this gentleman says. Of course life is a dual process; you are a man, a woman. But why do we identify with one and reject the other, why do we say I must have beauty and avoid ugly? That is the problem, not that there is not the true, the false but I say I must have the truth and put away the false and the contradiction arises because of this. Now sir, take this, look at this — we avoid the ugly and we cling to the beautiful, which is, follow me a little bit — we think we know beauty because we know the ugly; we know beauty as something manifest, as something expressed. I say this is a beautiful building or an ugly building and how do I know this is ugly or beautiful building? It is because of opinion, I have been told. So my mind is trained, conditioned according to tradition what is beautiful, what is ugly. Has beauty the opposite? Don’t answer me. Think it over. Has beauty the opposite, the ugly? If beauty has the opposite, is it beautiful? So the gentleman says, life is the false as well as the true. It is inevitable, that duality, of that state of duality is inevitable which we all know. But why do we create conflict between the two? That is the problem, not that there is not the beauty and the ugly. But why the problem, the conflict, the tension, why this enormous worry trying to be this and not that? Because I want to be that and not this, this is profitable and this is not profitable; that this is, with this I want to be identified, this I must put away. So as long as there is an identification with the one and the avoidance of the other, there is the centre of contradiction and that contradiction may be overcome through any form of discipline. Do what you will, follow any system, yoga, all the things that you do, you will not over come this. What will free the mind from contradiction is to tackle the mind, why the mind attaches itself to the one and avoids the other. That requires self-knowledge, going into yourself, studying yourself patiently, deeply; but we don’t want to do that; we want immediate result. So the problem is not that there is no man and woman, that there is no evil and good, the beautiful and the ugly but why does the mind operate in this two divisions. Which means, really going into the whole question of what is thinking. What is thinking — because we think in this way — that there is beauty, that there is ugly, I want beauty and I don’t want the ugly. I say to myself what is this machinery of thinking that says I must have this and I must not have that and thereby creates contradiction. So I say what is this thing that is thinking? You are following sir. I am not going away from the subject. I am now going to enquire into the question of what is thinking.

Now what is thinking? Sirs, this as also a very important question. What is thinking? Have you ever asked yourself that question or you just have thoughts? We have never said what is thinking, let me look. I will go into it. — Thinking surely is a reaction. If there was no reaction, there would be no thinking. I know the sanyasi and the so-called saints do various things in order not to have reaction and therefore destroy themselves. So what is thinking? Thinking essentially is reaction. I ask you something and you reply; I ask you where you live and you reply immediately because you are very familiar with it. The answer is immediate because you don’t have to think. You are so familiar, acquainted with it that you answer immediately. If I ask you a little more complex question you take time. The gap between the question and answer is the process of thinking, is it not? You are following what I am saying? So the gap between the question and the answer is thinking, which means you are enquiring, bringing your memories into operation and your memories then answer. Then if I ask you still more complex question, the time interval is greater and that time interval the mind is active, enquiring, searching in the various books, records, in which memories, knowledge, and at the end of it says this is the answer. If I ask you still more complex question, the interval is much wider and you say I don’t know. Do listen. It is not a laughing matter. You say I don’t know, but the I don’t know is merely a hesitation, an interval in which you are enquiring; You are waiting, waiting for the mind to find an answer, which means again mind is operating, searching, demanding, asking, waiting, which is all a reaction, is it not? When I ask you something with [which] you are familiar you immediately reply. If I ask you a little more complex question there is the gap. In that gap you are thinking. The time is much greater if the question is a little more complex. Still more complex question you say I don’t know, tell me. If I cannot, you begin to look at books. All those are reactions. That is clear. Now, that is all we know. That is all we know of the ways of our thinking, more complex, less complex, more subtle or less subtle, more crooked, more refined. But the whole process is that. So thinking is mechanical. Thinking is merely a reaction to something I know or I don’t which I can find out and ask. That is what the computers are doing. They can answer anything you want based on the same principle as association, recollection. So our thinking now is entirely mechanical. With that mechanical habit we approach life which is not mechanical. Life is not mechanical. It is not just a printing press throwing news out. So my thinking is mechanical and I approach life which is not mechanical. Therefore there is a contradiction and I try to overcome this contradiction again through the process of thinking. So I approach the whole process of life through the mechanical habit and therefore there is contradiction between me and that life. Now can I approach life with a totally different way? I won’t go into it yet.

I said what is thinking because it is our thought that has made this contradiction There is truth, there is the false, there is the beautiful, there is the ugly. Those are undeniable facts. I am sexual and I don’t want to be sexual and so on and on. Which is, thought identifies with the one and denies the other. So I have to understand the whole process of thinking, not only at the conscious level but at the unconscious level, deep down. So what brings out a different question, which is, we know there is the division between the conscious and the unconscious. Do you know it sirs?

Let us begin the other way. What am I, what are you? All that you think, all that you want to be, all that you exert, all the ambitions, hopes, fears, the totality of all that you are. The race, racial influences, the past traditions, what Shankara, the Buddha has said, what man has lived, thought for centuries upon centuries, all that you are; and also the superficial, sophisticated, educated mind; The technically trained, the lawyer, the policeman, all that you are. So you are not only the educated lawyer of this 30, 40, 15 years but also of the whole centuries of the past. You are the totality of that. Do you know this? There is a difference between knowing. I have described this. You can now say I know this. That is, you have heard, understood the words and you say I know. That is one state but to know is also another state which is, you experience this totality; the experiencing of that totality of what you are is the real knowing. The other is the descriptive understanding, acceptance. So most of us only know in the descriptive sense, not in the experience sense. So I am saying till you really know in the sense, yes, I have experienced, I know the totality of my being, then you can break that totality or continue; but merely to examine that knowing which is the real experiencing from the verbal knowing is entirely different. You see sir? I will show you how contradiction arises. There is a knowing which is experiencing; experiencing of the totality of your being which is both the conscious as well as unconscious; the experiencing that you are the whole race, all the traditions, all the books that have been read, written about God, about non-God, or Shankara, Buddha has said, the racial inheritance; on the top of that you have been educated in the Western system as scientists, doctors, professors. The whole of that is you, with your fears, ambitions; all that is you. Knowing, to know that is to experience that but you are not going to experience that because you will say that is too difficult, I will listen to you and know it verbally but inwardly you say I must experience that, that must be a marvellous state of experiencing. So you have created a contradiction. You want to experience this totality of your being because you see this verbal knowing is silly. It is really not knowing. So you don’t really experience it because you are preventing yourself by not going into it, by being satisfied at the verbal level. I say you cannot free the mind from contradiction till you know the totality of all this. Because you, you are lawyers, doctors, technicians but part of you is also the Hindu which says do your duty, dharma, think of God, put on your ashes or whatever you do. All that is there and you are living at the very, very superficial level. So there is a contradiction between the two. So you have dreams, anxieties, depressions. So till you have gone into it, into your background, you cannot possibly be free of this contradiction. Now how is one to be totally aware of this? Are you tired?

I will explain something. See the truth of it, not the verbal explanation but see the truth of it. We are this total thing. This total consciousness — the educated, the tradition; I mean by tradition of the past and the modern. You are all that. Now to understand all that, must you go through layer after layer? How am I to understand the totality of it? I can only understand it as generally explained by analysing, looking step by step into the whole content of the entity. You know it is like stripping the peel of the onion bit by bit, analysing every bit and seeing the whole content of it. That would take all your life, would it not? And you must have an extraordinary mind to do that, a mind that is capable of looking without any prejudice, to look at the things as they are and as it reveals without any bias, pressure, judgement because any judgement that you bring into it destroys examination. So your mind is conditioned, conditioned totally whether you believe in God or don’t, whether you are traditionalists or not, your mind is completely shaped. Now that is the truth. There is no part of your mind that is not shaped. If you say there is a mind which is not shaped, which is Paramatman, I say you only know that because you are a Hindu. If you were a Communist because he is also conditioned, he will say it is all nonsense. So your whole mind is conditioned, the totality of your whole being is conditioned, and if you want to get rid of it, still you are within the field of that conditioning. So thought operating upon the conditioned mind state will not free conditioned mind. Because thought is the result, a reaction to that conditioning. So thought is not the means to destroy this conditioning.

Now, to free the mind from this conditioning, you must see the totality of it without thought. This is not a conundrum; you experiment with it and you will see. Must you see always with thought? Do you see anything without thought? Have you ever listened, looked without bringing in this whole process of reaction? You say that is impossible. You will say no mind can ever be unconditioned. When you say that, you have already blocked yourself. You don’t know. So can I look, can the mind be aware of its conditioning? You understand sir? I think it can. Can’t I? Can’t I be aware that you are a Hindu, that you are socialist, Communist, that you are this, just be aware without saying this is right or wrong but just to see and because it is such a difficult task, we say it is impossible. I say it is only then when you can be aware of this totality of your being without reaction, then the conditioning goes totally, deeply, which is really the freedom from the self. Do not immediately translate into Gita, what Shankara or some other person has said. To look at the fact, this whole conditioning is the self, whether you believe in the Atman or don’t believe, the whole of that is the self and thought which is the reaction of that self cannot act upon that self. Do you see sirs, what I am saying? And yet this is what we are doing all the time. Whereas if you see the truth of it, see the truth that thought cannot break this conditioning, because thought is the result of that conditioning. If you see the truth of that, that thought cannot break this conditioning, any amount of analysis, enquiry, probing, introspection, all the rest of it, that thought cannot break the conditioning, then you are merely aware of the conditioning. In that awareness there is no choice, because choice again brings thought into being. Therefore to be aware of this conditioning implies no condemnation, justification, no comparison, but just to be aware. When you are so aware your mind is already free of that conditioning. Sirs, you experiment till we meet on Wednesday. Just to be aware of your thought, let the mind be aware of its conditioning, that it thinks in terms of a Hindu, Catholic, Buddhist, Communist. Just be aware and you will see an extraordinary thing happen to you. Do not say it is right or wrong or what will happen to me. Do not do any of that but be simply aware and you will see you are introducing a new factor altogether, a factor in which there is no identification or rejection of the self; and that factor is the release, that factor wipes the conditioning and that requires watching. That is why I suggest to you till we meet that you so observe and be aware.