Transcription
You seem to object even to our sitting quietly every day to observe the movement of thought. Is this, by your definition, a practice, a method, and therefore without value?
You seem to object even to our sitting quietly every day to observe the movement of thought. Is this, by your definition, a practice, a method, and therefore without value?
I would like it to rain. This is a question. We mean by 'question' – the root meaning of that word is to seek – derived from Latin, Greek, and also from Sanskrit – to seek. Now the questioner asks: what is wrong with sitting quietly every morning for 20 minutes, afternoon another 20 minutes, and perhaps another 20 minutes in the evening or longer? What is wrong with it?
I do not know if you have heard of that ridiculous meditation that is practised by those who – T.M. Have you heard of all that, Transcendental Meditation? The word 'transcendental' is a good word, but it has been ruined. They have learnt that by sitting quietly you can relax, you can observe, if you wish, your thinking, your reactions, your responses, and your reflexes, and so on, so on.
Now, behind all this so-called meditation, what is the motive? Do you understand my question? What is the motive of all those people who sit quietly? I don't know why they sit quietly, sitting quietly by themselves, or together, or in a group. What is the motive behind the desire to sit quietly for half an hour every day and so on, so on? What is the motive?
Isn't that important to enquire before you sit quietly for twenty minutes a day, or half an hour a day, or whatever you do? Isn't it important to find out why you want to do this? Is it because somebody has told you that if you sit quietly, you will have parapsychological experiences, that you will attain some kind of illusory – oh, I mustn't use the word 'illusory' – some kind of peace, some kind of understanding, some kind of enlightenment, some kind of power?
And we, rather gullible, pay thousands of dollars or francs, or pounds to receive instructions and a mantra so that we can repeat those. I know some people who have spent thousands and thousands of dollars to pay the man who will give you something in return, specially a Sanskrit word that is much more romantic than saying Coca-Cola (laughter) – and you repeat it. You have paid something, and you have received something in return, and what is the motive behind it?
If you go into it, ask yourself why you are doing this. Is it for a reward – not financial reward, but a psychological reward? Is it that by sitting quietly you attain some kind of super consciousness? Or is it that you want that which has been promised by your instructor? So isn't it important, before we plunge into all this kind of business, to find out why, what is your motive, what is it you want? Isn't it important?
But you see, we don't do that. We are so eager and gullible that somebody promises you something, and you want it. Now, if you examine the motive, it is a desire to achieve something, like a businessman, his desire is to earn a lot of money. That is his urge. Here, the psychological urge is to have something that you think the other man – a guru, or an instructor, you know, all the rest of it – promises.
You don't question what he promises, you don't doubt what he promises, you don't say, 'Do you do it?' 'Do you levitate?' 'You know about that, do you?' But they say, 'No, I am too old for that kind of stuff. I have done it,' you know, pass it off. But if you question the man who is offering you something: Is it worthwhile? Is it true? Who are you to tell me what to do? Then you will find that sitting quietly, without understanding your motive, leads to all kinds of illusory, psychological troubles.
And the speaker has met, oh, dozens and dozens and dozens of such people, and they have mentally become gradually unbalanced, slightly neurotic, and something psychologically goes wrong. Don't accept my word for all this. You can see it in your own faces, if you are doing it. So if that is the intention of sitting quietly, then it isn't worth it. Naturally.
But sitting quietly, or standing, or walking, without any motive – the word 'motive' means movement, the power to move – and when you are walking quietly by yourself or with somebody, you can watch the trees, the birds, and the rivers, and the mountains, and the sunshine on the leaves, and so on, so on, and in the very watching of all that, you are also watching yourself, not striving, making tremendous efforts to achieve something.
I know, those of you who are committed to all this, to the other kind of meditation, find it awfully hard to throw it off because your mind is already conditioned. You have practised this thing for several years, and you are stuck. And somebody comes along and says, 'What nonsense all this is,' and perhaps at a rare moment you become rational and say, 'Yes, perhaps this is wrong.' Then begins the trouble. The conflict between what you have found for yourself to be wrong and what you have been practising for the last five, ten, three years. And the struggle is called progress – spiritual progress. You understand all this? So.
If you have observed, the mind is always chattering, right? – always pursuing one thought or another, one set of sensory responses to another set of, series of responses. So the mind, the brain is always chattering, consciously or unconsciously. Right? This is so if you observe your own mind, this is what is happening. So you want to stop that chattering, then you try to learn concentration, forcing the mind to stop chattering, and so the conflict begins again. Right?
This is what we are all doing: chattering, chattering, talking endlessly about nothing. Now, if you want to observe something – a tree, a flower, the lines of the mountains – you have to look, you have to be quiet. But you see, we are not interested in the mountains, or the beauty of the hills and the valleys and the waters. We want to get somewhere, achieve something, spiritually essentially, when we are young, because we are dissatisfied with the society as it is, with all the corruption that goes on. But we don't mind being corrupted spiritually. Right?
So, is it not possible to be quiet – naturally? To look at a person, or to listen to a song, or to listen to what somebody is saying quietly, without resistance, without saying 'I must change,' 'I must do this,' 'I must not do that,' just to be quiet. And apparently, that is most difficult. So we practise systems to be quiet. Do you see the fallacy of it?
To practise a method, a system, a regular everyday routine, then you think the mind will at last be quiet, but it will never be quiet. It will be mechanical, it will become set in a pattern, it will become dull, insensitive. But you don't see all that, but you want to get something. An initiation – oh, for God's sake, it is all so childish!
So, if you listen, now I hope we are listening, if you listen quietly, not saying he is right or wrong, 'I am committed to this, how am I to give it up? I have promised not to give it up,' and this, that, the other thing – but to listen to what is being said without resistance. Because the speaker is not saying something irrational, something stupid, or exotic. He is just pointing out. And if you can listen to that, to what he is pointing out, which is your own discovery of what you are doing, then your mind – in the very process of investigation, it becomes quiet. You understand this?
I do not know if you have talked to any serious scientist, and if you have – serious, not those who are employed by the government, who are trying to compete with another scientist, who are really scientists, that is, to discover something totally new, to discover the cause of anything, who go beyond the enquiry of mere matter. Those scientists must have a quiet mind while they are observing, investigating. So can we, ordinary people, with all our troubles and turmoils, be quiet? And listen to all the promptings of our own movements?
But apparently, that appears most difficult. It is not. If you are interested in something, you are naturally attentive. But if you say, 'I am bored with myself.' So it is possible to sit, or stand, or walk quietly, without any promptings from another, without any reward, and having extraordinary super-physical sensory experiences. Begin at the most rational level, for God's sake. Then you can go very far.