Public Talk 6, Bangalore, 8 August 1948

We have been discussing several times that we have met, the problem of transformation, which can only bring about a revolution, which is so necessary in the world’s affairs. And we have been saying that the world is not different from you and me; the world is what we make of it. And as we are the result of the world, and we are the world, the transformation must begin with us, not with the world, not with the outward legislation or mere blueprints and so on. We have been saying that it is essential on the part of each one that he should realise the importance of this inner revolution, which will bring about an outward change. Mere change in the outward circumstances is of very little significance without the inner revolution. And we said this revolution cannot take place without self-knowledge. That is, to know the total process of oneself, the ways of one’s thinking, feeling and acting, and without knowing oneself there is no basis for broader action. And so the primary importance is self-knowledge in all actions, or in all ideation and to begin, the understanding of oneself is obvious, naturally, because the self, the mind, the me, the oneself is so very complex, and subtle. So many impositions have been placed on the “me” many impresses [impressions], the racial, the national, the social, the environmental influences have shaped the mind, and to follow each step, to analyse each imprint, is extremely difficult, and if we miss one, If we do not analyse properly, and miss one step, then the whole process of analysis comes to an end, is miscarried.

So our problem is in understanding the self, which is the “me”, the whole of “me”, not just one part of “me”, the whole field of thought, which is the response of me, the whole field of memory from which all thought arises both the conscious and the unconscious, all that is the “self”, the hidden as well as the open, the dreamer and what he dreams. All that is the self. Now to understand that self, which alone can bring about a radical revolution and a regeneration, there must be, as we said, the intention, the intention to understand the whole process, which process is not individual, it is not opposed to the world, it is not opposed to the mass, whatever that term may mean, because there is no mass and you, because you are the mass. So to understand that process, there must be the intention to follow every thought, feeling and understanding. And in understand what is, which is extremely difficult, because the “what is” is never still, never static; it is always in movement and to follow “what is”, — the “what is ” is what one is, not what one would like to be. “what is” actually is what one is doing, thinking, feeling is what is; not the ideal, because the ideal is fictitious and “what is” is the actual and to understand the actual a very swift mind is necessary, an alert mind is necessary, an awareness is necessary. But if we begin to condemn “what is” if we begin to blame or resist “what is”, then we shall not its movement. If I want to understand somebody, I must study him. I must not condemn him. I must observe, I must love the very thing I am studying. If you want to understand a child you must love it, not condemn it. You must play with it, what its movement, its idiosyncrasies, its ways of behaviour, but if we merely condemn or resist, or blame, there is no apprehension of the child. Similarly to understand “what is”, “what is” is actually what one thinks, feels and does. That is the actual. Any other action, an ideological action is not the actual; it is merely a wish, a fictitious desire to be something other that “what is”.

So in understanding “what is,” to understand “what is” requires a state of mind in which there is no identification, or condemnation, which means a mind which is alert and yet passive which we do we are in that state when we desire to understand something, when the intensity of understanding is there, that state of mind comes into being. one does not need to force it, discipline it, or control it, but when I am interested in understanding “what is”, that as the actual state of the mind, the passive alertness, the watchfulness. I want to understand a picture or a person, I must put aside all my prejudices, bias, my classical or other training, and watch the picture or the person. this state of awareness comes when there is interest, which can only come with intention.

Now the next question is whether regeneration is a matter of time? Most of us are accustomed to think that time is necessary for transformation. I am something and to change what I am into what I should be requires time. I am greedy, with its result of confusion, antagonism, conflict and misery and to bring about a transformation, which is non-greed, we think time is necessary; that is time as a means of evolving something greater, becoming something. Now is time necessary? You understand the problem? The problem is I am, one is, violent, greedy, envious, angry, vicious, or passionate. Now to transform what is, is time necessary? Now why do we want first of all, to change “what is” or to bring a transformation? Why? Because what we are dissatisfies us, creates conflict in us, disturbing, what you will and disliking that state we want something better, we want something nobler, more specific. So when we desire transformation we desire it because there is pain, discomfort, conflict. Now is conflict overcome through time? If you say it will be overcome through time, you are still in conflict. Because it will take 20 days to get rid of what “one is,” to change what one is, but during these 20 days you are still in conflict, and therefore time does not change, bring about transformation. When we use time as a means of acquiring a quality, a virtue, a state of being, we use time merely to postpone or to avoid “what is” and I think it is important to understand this point. Greed or violence causes pain, disturbance, in the world, in our relationship with another. And our relationship with another is society. And being conscious of this state of disturbance, which we call greed, we term it as greed, or violence. We say to ourselves “I will get out of it”. “I will practise non-violence. I will practise peace. I will practise non-envy”. Now you want to practise non-violence because violence is a state of disturbance, conflict, and to overcome conflict you think you will through time, gain non-violence. So what is actually happening? Being in a state of conflict, you want to achieve a state in which there is no conflict. Now is that state of “in conflict” the result of time? That is, a duration. Obviously not. Because while you are achieving a state of non-violence you are still being violent and therefore still being in conflict.

So our problem is, is a conflict, a conflict, a disturbance be overcome through time, that is through a period, through many days, through years, through lives. What is happening when you say “I am going to practise non-violence during certain days”? The very practice indicates that you are in conflict. Does it not? Because you would not practise if you are not resisting conflict. So the resistance to conflict is necessary you say in order to resist conflict. I must have time. But the very resistance to conflict is a form of conflict. Only you are spending your energy in resisting one series of conflict, which you call greed, envy or violence. But your mind is still in conflict. So our problem is then to see the falseness of the process of depending on time as a means to overcome violence. And therefore being free of that, then you are able to be that what one is, which is violence itself, which is disturbance, a psychological disturbance, which we term as violence.

Now to understand anything what is important? Any problem, any human problem, or any scientific problem? What is essential? A quiet mind. Is it not! A mind that is intent on understanding. It is not a mind that is exclusive; it is not a mind that is concentrated, which again is an effort to resistance. If I want to understand something, immediately there is a state of quiet mind. That is, when you want to listen to music, which you love, or see a picture, paint, which you have a feeling for, what is the state of your mind? Immediately there is a quietness, is there not? When you are listening to music, your mind will not wander all over the place. You are listening. Similarly when you want to understand. It is conflict, which means you are no longer depending on time at all but merely you are confronted with “what is” which is conflict. Then immediately there comes that quietness of mind, the still mind, which is when we no longer depend on time as a means of transforming what is and seeing the falseness of that process, then you are confronted with “what is” and to understand ‘what is’ naturally you must have a quiet mind. It comes when you are interested in something. In that alert, passive state of mind, there is understanding. As long as the mind is in conflict, blaming, resisting, condemning, there can be no understanding. If I want to understand, I must not condemn you. Obviously. So it is that quiet mind, that still mind, that bring about transformation. Because, that mind is no longer resisting, no longer avoiding, no longer discarding or blaming “what is”, but is merely aware passively and in that passivity, of the mind you will find, if you really go into the problem, that there comes a transformation.

So transformation is not the result of time. It is the result of a quiet mind, a steady mind, a mind that is still, tranquil, passive, and a mind is not passive when it is seeking a result. A mind will seek a result as long as it wishes to transform or change, or modify “what is”. But if the mind merely has the intention to understand what is, and therefore the mind is still and in that stillness you will find there is an understanding of “what is” and therefore that transformation. We do this actually in any thing when we are confronted with anything in which we are interested you observe yourself and you will see this extraordinary process going on. When you are interested in something, your mind is quiet. It has not gone to sleep. It is extremely alert and sensitive and capable of receiving intimation, hints and it is this stillness, this passivity that which is alert, that ultimately bring a transformation, not using time as a means of transformation, as a means of modification, or change.

Therefore, a revolution is only possible now not in the future. A regeneration is now, not tomorrow. And you will find if you will experience with what I have been saying you will find that there is regeneration. A newness, a quality of freshness because the mind is always still when it is interested, when it desires, when it has the intention to understand, and with us the difficulty is that we have not the intention to understand because if we understood, if we had the intention, we are afraid that intention might bring about a revolutionary action in our life and therefore we resist. It is the defence mechanism that is at work when we use time or an ideal.

So regeneration is only possible in the present, not in the future, not tomorrow, and a man who relies on time as a process through which he can gain his happiness, or realise truth or god or what you will, is merely deceiving himself and living in ignorance and therefore in conflict. But a man who sees that time is not a way out of our difficulty and therefore he is free from the false, then his mind, because of his intention to understand, naturally spontaneously without compulsion, without practice, becomes quiet, is quiet. And it is only in that state that the mind is still, tranquil, not seeking any answer to any solution, resisting or avoiding. It is only then that there can be a regeneration, because then the mind is capable of perceiving what is true and it is truth that liberates, not your effort to be free.

I will answer some of the question that have been given to me.

Question 1.

“You speak so much about the need for ceaseless alertness. I find my work dulls me so irresistibly, that to talk of alertness after a day’s work is merely putting salt on the wound.”

K: Sir, this is an important question. Please let us examine it together carefully and see what is involved. Because most of us are dull by what we call the work. The job, the routine. Now both those who love work and those who are made to work, whose work makes them dull, are both dull. Both the category, both those who love the work and those who resist the work, are both made dull. Are they not? Because the man who loves the work, who identifies with the work and the man who resists the work are both dull. That is the man who resists and the man who identifies are made dull. A man who loves his work, what does he do? He thinks about it from morning to evening. He is occupied with it. He has so identified with that, that he cannot look at it. He is himself the action, the work and to such a person what happens? He lives in a cage, he lives in isolation with his work and in that isolation he is very clever, very inventive, very subtle, but still he is isolated and therefore he is made dull because he is resisting all other work, all other approaches, it is a form of escape. A man who loves his work, to him his work is an escape from life, from his wife, from his social duties, and so on, innumerable demands. And the man who resists, that is the man who is compelled to do something he dislikes, like most of you who dislike the job you are doing. The bank clerk and so on, the lawyer. Whatever our various jobs are.

Therefore what is it that makes us dull? Is it the work or our resistance to the work? Or the avoidance of other impacts upon us? You follow the point? I hope I am making it clear. That is the man who loves the work is so enclosed in his work, so en-meshed that is becomes his escape from love. Therefore his love of work is an escape from love. And the man who resists work wishes he were doing something else. To him the conflict, the resistance, to what he is doing is important. So our problem is does work make the mind dull, or the resistance to the work or the avoidance of love or the impact of life on the individual who says “I love the work” and is enclosed in it or the man who dislikes his work and wishes he would be doing something else. That is does action, work make the mind dull? Or is the mind made dull by resistance, by conflict? Obviously not work but resistance. If I had no resistance and I accepted work, then the work would not make me dull, because what happens? Only a part of our mind is working with the job that you have to do. The rest of your being, the conscious, the unconscious, the hidden, is occupied with those thoughts in which you are really interested. So there is no conflict. This may sound rather complex, but if you will carefully follow it, you will see that this is the only issue, that a mind is made full not by work but by resistance to the work or resistance to life. That is, I have to do a certain piece of work. It may take five or six hours. If I resist it and say “what a bore, what an awful thing. I wish I would be doing something else”, my mind is resisting that work and part of your mind is wishing you were doing something else. This division brought about through resistance creates dullness, because you are wasting your effort uselessly, wastefully, wishing you were doing something else. Now if you were not resisting it but actually doing what is necessary — I have to earn my livelihood and I will earn that livelihood rightly. Which is quite a difficult problem, which we will discuss perhaps later if we have time, because right livelihood does not mean the army, the police, nor the lawyer, because they thrive on contention, on disturbance, on cunning subterfuge, and so on. So if the mind is occupied in doing something, or if I am occupied in doing something which I have to do to earn my livelihood, if I resist it, obviously the mind becomes dull, because the very resistance is like putting on the brake on the engine all the time. What happens to the poor engine? It becomes dull. Does it not? Have you driven a car? And if you have driven a car, try it, keep putting on the brake all the time. You will not only wear out the brake, but you will wear out the engine. That is exactly what we are doing. Whereas if you accept what you have to do, and do it as intelligently and as fully as possible, then what would happen. Because you are no longer resisting your mind, the other layers of your consciousness are active, irrespective of what you are doing, you are only giving the conscious mind to your work and the unconscious, the hidden part of your mind is occupied on other things, in which there is much more vitality, much more depth, though you face the work, the unconscious takes over and functions.

This actually happens if you observe in your daily life. You are interested, say, in finding god, in having peace. That is your real interest, which your conscious mind, as well as your unconscious is occupied. To find happiness, to find reality, to live rightly, beautifully, clearly, but you have to earn a livelihood, because there is no such thing as living in isolation. That which is, is in relationship. So, since you are interested in peace, and your work or daily life interferes with that, therefore you resist that work. So I wish I had more time to think, to meditate, to practise violin or whatever it be. When you do that, you are merely resisting the work you have to do, therefore, that very resistance is a waste of effort, which makes the mind dull, whereas if you don’t resist, and say “I have got to do that work” not unwillingly, not with a boredom, you have got to do, we all do various things which we have got to do, writing letters, talking, clearing of the cow dung, or what you will. But if there is no resistance, the moment that work is over, you will find that the mind that, that the unconscious, the deeper layers of the mind, because they are interested in what you want in being peace. For example here you will find that peace begins to come. So there is no division between action which may be routine, which may be boring, which may be interesting and your pursuit for reality. Both are compatible. When the mind is no longer resisting, when the mind is no longer made dull, through resistance, it is the resistance that makes the division between peace and action. Resistance is then an idea, and resistance thus cannot bring about an action, and it is only action that liberates, not the resistance to the work. So it is important to understand that a mind is made dull through resistance, through condemnation, through blame, through avoidance. A mind is not dull when there is no resistance, when there is no blame, when there is no condemnation. Then it is alive, active. Resistance is merely isolation, and a man who is isolating himself continuously, consciously or unconsciously, his mind is made dull.

Question 2.

“Do you love the people you talk to? Do you love the dull and ugly crowd, the shapeless faces, the stinking atmosphere of stale desires, of putrid memories, the decaying of many needless lives, no one can love them. What is it that makes you slave away in spite of your repugnance, which is both obvious and understandable?”

K: Now, sirs, there is no repugnance, which is apparently obvious to you and understandable to you. I am not repelled. I only seek it like seeking a fact. A fact is never ugly. When you are talking seriously a man is ticking his ear, or playing with his legs, or thinking or apologise. You just take it, you just observe it, which does not mean that you are in revolt, that you want to avoid, that you hate truth. A smell is a smell, you just take it. And it is very important to understand that point. To see a fact as a fact is an enormous reality. But the moment you regret, you avoid it, you call it a name, give an emotional content to that problem, that is repugnance, that is avoidance, then resistance comes into being. So that is not my attitude at all. I am afraid the question has caught me wrongly there. It is like stating a person has a red sari or you have got a white coat, but if you touch the emotional content of the red and the white and then say this is beautiful or that is ugly, then you are repelled or attracted. Now the point in this question is why do you talk? Why do you wear yourself out?, If you don’t love? And the question says no one can love them, that is love the people who have shapeless faces, stale desires and putrid memories and so on. Now the point in this question is this, is it not? “Do you love people or is there love? Is love independent of people, and therefore you love people or one is in a state of love?” You follow what I mean? If you say “I love people” and I wear myself out talking, slave myself away, slave away, then the people become very important and not love. That is, if I had an intention to convert you to a particular belief, and slave away at it, morning till night, because I think I can make you happy if you believe in this particular formula, then it is the formula, the belief that I love, not you. Then I will put up all the ugliness, stale desires, the putrid memories, stinking atmosphere, and I say it is part of the whole routine. I will become a martyr to my belief, which I think will help me. Therefore I am in love with my belief and my belief is my projection, therefore I am in love with myself. After all, a man who loves a belief or an idea, a scheme, a formula, he identifies himself with that formula. That formula is the projection of himself. That is he never identifies with something, if he does not approve of it. If he does not like me that very like is his own projection. Now to me it is quite different. I am not trying to convert you to anything, to proselytise you to any particular religion or to propagandise you against a religion. I am just saying the facts. Because I feel the very understanding of these facts will help man to live more happily. Which means if I may put it without being personal, it is not very pleasant, when you are talking when one is in love with something or with a person, what is the actual state? Are you in love with the person, or you are in love, in a state of love. And the person attracts you or the person comes only when you are in that state? You are in that state of love and in that state of love there is no repugnance. It is like a perfume, like a flower, that is giving perfume. It may have, next to it a cow might have left its mark, but the flower is still a flower giving forth its perfume. But the man who comes along, and sees the perfumes and sees the cow dung, he sees it different. Sir in this question is involved the whole problem of attraction and repulsion. We want to be attractive and we want to avoid. That is identify with that which is pleasant, avoid that which is ugly. But if you merely look things as they are, the fact is never ugly or repelled. It is so. And a man that loves is more consumed in his love, rather than whether people have shapeless faces, stale desires, putrid memories. Don’t you know sirs, when you are in love with somebody, actually you are not very much concerned with what that person looks like, whether it is a shapeless face or a beautiful face. When there is love you are not concerned, though you observe the facts, the facts do not repel you. And it is that empty heart, the arid mind, the stale intellect that begins to be repelled or attractive, not love. And when one loves there is no slaving away. There is an ever renewal, a freshness, a joy not in talking, not in putting out lots of words, but in that state itself. And when one has not that love, then all these things matter, whether you are attractive or repelled, whether the face is shapeless, so on and on.

So our problem is not important. Why I slave away myself but our problem is that we have no love. That our hearts are empty, our minds are dull, weary, exhaustive, and we seek to fill the empty heart with words or things made by the mind or by the hand, or by repetition of words, manthrams, doing Pujas. Those things will not fill the heart. On the contrary, they will empty whatever the heart has. The heart can only be filled, when the mind is quiet, when the mind is not creating. Fabricating, caught up in ideas. Only then the heart is alive. Then one knows what it is to have that warmth, the richness in holding the hand of another.

Question 3.

“Is not all caress sexual? Is not all sex a form of revitalisation, through interpretation and exchange? The mere exchange of loving glances is also all act of sex. Why do you castigate sex by linking it up with the emptiness of our lives? Do empty people know sex? They know only evacuation”.

K: I am afraid it is only the empty people that know sex. Because sex then is a mere escape. It is only a release. I call him empty, who has no love. Therefore sex becomes a problem, an issue, a thing to be avoided, or to be indulged. So it is the empty heart, which is the mind that is so full of its own ideas, fabrications and its mechanisations, that is full. It is the mind, because it is full, makes the heart empty, and it is that heart that is empty that only knows sex. Sirs, have you noticed an affectionate man, a man full of tenderness, kindliness, affection, emotion, he is not sexual. It is the man who is intellectual, full of knowledge, knowledge is different from wisdom. A mind that has got schemes, a mind that wants to save the world, that is full of intellection, full of mentation, the intellectual is caught up in sex because his life is empty, because his heart is empty, the sex becomes important. And that is what is happening in the present civilisation. Because we have over cultivated our intellect, and the intellect is caught in its own cultivation as the radio, as the motor, as the amusements, as knowledge, the various addictions the mind indulges in. When such a mind is caught, then there is only one release for it, which is sex. Sir, look, what is happening with us, each one. Don’t look to somebody else, examine your own lives, and you will see how you are caught in this problem. What is your life? Please look at your own selves and you will see how extraordinarily funny it is. What is your life? Sirs? Arid, bright, empty, dull, weary, is it not? You have got your jobs, your manthrams, your Pujas, which you repeat, perform, go to your offices. When you are in office, you are subjugated, dull, you have to follow a routine, you have become mechanical, your religion, mere acceptance of authority, say religiously; in the world of business, in your education, in your daily life. What is actually happening? There is no creative state of being. Is there? You are not happy, you are not vital. You are not joyous. Intellectually, religiously, economically, socially, politically, you are dull regimented. Are you not? This regimentation is the result of your own fears, your own hopes. Your own frustrations. Therefore a man. A human being caught in that in which there is no release naturally has made sex as a release, there he can indulge. There he finds happiness. So it becomes automatic, habitual, routine. And also that becomes a dulling process, a vicious process. So that is your life actually if you look at it, if you don’t try to dodge it, if you don’t try to excuse it. The actual fact is you are not creative. You may have babies. Innumerable babies — that is not action or creation. That is an action of accidental, of existence.

So, a mind that is not creative, vital, the heart that is not affectionate, full, how can it be creative? And so not being creative you see creation through sex or through stimulation which is amusement, cinemas, theatres, watching others play and yourself merely the spectator where the other paint the scene or dance and you yourself an observer. That is not creation. That is why there are so many books printed in the world, because you merely read, you are the reader; you are not the creator. Therefore, where there is no creation the only release is through sex, you make your wife or husband the prostitute. Sirs, you have no idea of the implications of all this, the wickedness, the cruelty of all this. I know you are uncomfortable. You are not thinking it out. You are shutting your mind and therefore sex has become an immense problem in modern civilization, either promiscuity or making one into that mechanical habit of release, sexual release. So this problem will remain. This problem of sex will remain forever as a problem if there is no creative state of being. You may adopt birth control, you may adopt various practices, but you are not free of sex. Sublimation is not freedom, suppression is not freedom, control is not freedom. There is freedom only when there is affection and when there is love. And love is just love, is pure and when that is missing you are trying to become pure through the sublimation of sex, which is stupidity. The factor that purifies is love, not your desire to be pure. A man who loves, though he may be sexual, he is pure and without love, sex is what it is now in your lives — a thing of routine, an ugly process, a thing to be avoided. Or to be ignored, or to be done away with or to be locked up. So this problem will exist so long as there is no creative release. There can be no creative release, religiously, if you accept authority from the highest to the lowest which is the priest for authority compels, distorts, perverts and there is no authority where there is compulsion, and you accept authority because you hope through religion to have security. And therefore while the mind is seeking security — intellectually, religiously — there can be no creative understanding, there can be no creative release and it is the function of the mind, the mechanism of the mind that is always seeking security, always wants certainty. The mind is ever moving from the known to the known. And mere cultivation of the mind, intellect, is not a release. On the contrary an intellect can only grasp the known and not the unknown. Therefore the mere cultivation of the mind through more and more knowledge, more and more technique, is not creative. Therefore a mind that wishes to be creative must set aside the desire to be secure, which means the desire to find authority. Truth can only come into being when the mind is free from the known, when the mind is free from security, the desire to be certain. And similarly look at our education. Mere passing of examinations or getting a job, adding a few letters after your name has become so mechanical. It is the cultivation of the mind which is memory. In that way there is no release either. So socially, religiously, in every way you are hell, caught. Therefore a man who wishes to solve this problem must disentangle himself from thoughts of his own making and when he is in that state of freedom there is creativeness. That is his heart which is understanding of the heart then when a man loves, then there is chastity. It is the lack of love that is unchaste and without love, no problem, no human problem, can be solved. And instead of understanding the hindrances that prevent love, we merely try to sublimate, suppress or substitute the sexual appetite. Substitution, sublimation or suppression is called the attainment of reality. On the contrary, where there is suppression, there is no comprehension; where there is substitution, there is ignorance. And our difficulty is being caught in it, in this habit to withhold, to look at it in this habit, to be aware of the full significance not just one or two moments but all through life, through every day how we are caught in the machine, merely machine of routine and to break away from that needs understanding, that that needs intention, that needs self-knowledge. Therefore, it is important to understand oneself. Understanding of oneself becomes extremely difficult if there is no intention to understand, to understand, to study oneself. So the problem which is so important, so vast in our lives, which is sex, loses its meaning when there is the warmth, the kindliness, the tenderness, the mercy of love.

Question 4:

“Are you sure that it is not the myth of world teachership that keeps you going? To put it differently, are you not loyal to your past? Is there not a desire in you to fulfil the many expectations put in you? Are they not a hindrance to you? How can you go on unless you destroy the myth?”

K: The myth gives life. A suprious [spurious] life, a life of impotence. The myth becomes necessary when there is no understanding of truth every minute. Most peoples’ lives are guided by myths, which is they believe in something. The belief is a myth. Either they are the world teacher or they believe in an ideal or they have a message to the world or they believe in god and so on or they believe with the left formula for the government of the world or the right. Most people are caught in a myth. If you take away the myth their life is empty. If you took away all your beliefs, sirs, all your titles, all your possessions, you know the very looks and memories, what are you? You are empty, therefore the possessions, the ideas, the beliefs, are myths which you must hold. Or otherwise you are lost.

Now the questioner wants to know if it is not the myth of world teachership that keeps me going. I am really not interested in it. Whether I am or I am not, I am not particularly concerned, because I am interested to find out what is and see the truth of what is from moment to moment. Truth is not a continuity and that which continues has an end and that which continues knows death. But that which is from moment to moment is eternity. It is timeless and to be aware of that, which is true from moment to moment, is to be in that state of eternity. To know the eternal there must be the moment to moment life, not the continuous life. For that which continues knows the end and knows death. That which is living from moment to moment without the residue of yesterday is timeless and that is not a myth. And that state can only be when one is not loyal to the past because this past, yesterday that corrupts and destroys and prevents the present, which is now, today. And so yesterday loses the present as a passage to tomorrow. So yesterday moulds the present, and projects the future and that process, that continuity of mind knows death and such a mind can never know reality.

So it is neither the myth, nor the loyalty to the past nor the desire to fulfil those expectations that have been placed in me that makes me go on. They are a hindrance, the expectations, the past, the loyalty to the past, or the attachment to a label. On the contrary, they are a hindrance, they are perverting, they give a fictitious life. That is why those people who believe in a myth are very active. They are enthusiastic. Don’t you know people who believe in myths how they work, work and work and the moment they don’t work, they come to an end. Sir, the man who works, making money, that is his myth. When he retires at the age of 50 or 60 watch him. He declines very rapidly because his myth is taken away. Similarly, the political leader. Remove his myth and you will soon see how soon he is disintegrating, sinking. And the same man who believes in something. Remove all his beliefs, doubt his beliefs, question his beliefs, condemn his belief. He is done. Therefore, belief, loyalty or adherence to the past or living up to an expectation is a hindrance.

So what makes one, or me, you want to know, keep going? Obviously sir I have something to say, I feel I have something to say. If you like to put it a message which is ugly or sounds nice, in a headline. And also the natural affection, the desire, the affection of something, the affection of truth, the affection of love. When one loves, one keeps going. So love is not a myth. You can build a myth about love but the man who knows love, to him love is not a myth. He can be alone. To him whether he is sitting on a platform or sitting in a room or digging in the garden, is the same, because his heart is full. It is like having a well in your garden. That will is always full with fresh waters. The waters that quench, the waters that purify, the waters that put away corruption. And when there is such love it is not mere mechanical routine to go from meeting to meeting, from discussion to discussion, from interviews to interviews. Then it will be a bore and I would not do it. That would be destroying oneself; to do something which becomes a routine thing.

Sirs, when you know love, when your heart is full, you will know what it is to strive without effort, to live without conflict. It is the mind that does not love that takes up with flattery, enjoys flattery that avoids insult, that needs a crowd, that needs a platform, that needs a confusion.

but such a mind, heart will not know love. His heart is full with the things of the mind. Therefore his world is a world of myth. And on myths he lives. And the man who is free of myths, knows love.