Transcription
So, if you’re serious, you’re asking this basic question, a fundamental question, which you must answer: is there a possibility of not registering at all? That is, is there an action not born of thought? Do you understand my question? All our action is based on thought, with all its consequences.
Now, we’re asking, is there an action, is there a way of living in daily life, in which thought doesn’t operate? You understand? This is a very serious... It isn’t a question that you just play around with and discuss and all the rest of it, one has to find out. That means you must put passion into it, vitality, energy to find out. Those who do research, scientific research, or technological research, they love it, it’s their life, their blood, their bread-and-butter, everything is first. Then their wife, their family, comes second. In the same way, we’re asking, passionately, is it possible? I say it is. I’ll show it to you. Please don’t accept it because you don’t know what it means, so don’t come to any conclusions, don’t translate what is going to be said into your own terminology – then you’re lost! Then you are driven by the language, which you know. Therefore, you become a slave to language. But we are using language, not your conclusion, my conclusion or his – just words, without any circus round it. Then we can communicate, happily and easily. There is an action, a total, complete, holistic, whole action, in which thought doesn’t interfere, at all.
Are you waiting for me to tell you? That’s rather cheap! I do all the work, the speaker does all the work and you just listen and say, ‘Yes, I agree with that.’ What’s the point of that? But, whereas, if you really, you know, desperately want to find out, like an unhappy man, a drowning man – you know, there’s desperation to find some kind of thing to hang on to, so he can be saved. There, he exerts all energy. And that’s what we’re doing. First of all, do we see very clearly, each one of us, wherever we are, whatever our situation whatever our conditioning, however neurotic we are – most of us are – do we see, very clearly, that thought, under all circumstances, is limited? Not a verbal acceptance of it, but an actual fact, which you, in your blood, see it, irrevocably? Then, if you see that, not as an idea, not as a conclusion, not a thing reasoned out and therefore it is, if you do, it’s still thought. So, when you realise that thought is completely, totally, wholly limited, and from that limitation all activity, whatever type it is, must be limited and therefore, in human relationship it creates havoc, misery, from there, you ask the question. You understand? Not if you haven’t done all this. And you can do all this, instantly, not take time, years, months. Then you can ask, is there a perception, devoid of memory, devoid of remembrances, totally divorced from the past, is there an observation and, therefore, out of that observation action? Do you follow what I am saying? You look all puzzled. All right, I’ll take it up, again. You understand?
Our action is based on memory. Either ideological memory, a Utopian memory, or memories of past actions which have left certain marks on the brain, and all such activity must be continuously destructive in human relationship. If I love you because you have been pleasant to me, which is, you have given me something, sexually or this way, or that, which is from memory, with the pleasure of it, I say, ‘I love you.’ So, is there a love, which is not born of memory, which is not the result of give and take, which is not sensation? Obviously, there must be. There should be. Or this is all we know? Let’s put it that way. This thing that we call love, is all this. And that love breeds jealousy, anxiety, possessiveness, attachment, you follow? And out of all that, there is great misery. And is that misery love? Don’t. Don’t say, ‘No’ or ‘Yes.’ If that is not love, and you have totally abandoned jealousy, anger, all that, that which is left, completely, that is love. Right?
So, in the same way, if one understands the whole movement of thought, as measure and time, and born out of the past and, therefore, endlessly curtailed, limited, narrow. If you see that, very clearly, and, therefore, abandon it, then you have what one may call insight. I’m going to go into this, very slowly. Insight: insight, we mean by that word, according to the dictionary, to have a sight in something, an immediate perception of truth in that which is being talked about. That is, you have talked to me about the limitation of thought. You have talked to me. I’ve listened to you with all my energy because, perhaps, there is a new way of living, a new way of action, and I’ve realised my actions have always been bringing such sorrow, confusion and misery. And I’ve listened to you. And you say to me, ‘Have you really seen the truth that thought is limited?’ the truth of it, not the idea of it. Seeing the truth of it, is to have insight. Have you got it? That insight is not memory, is not idea, is not something out of the past. You see directly the truth of it and from that there is action, which is complete. So, do you, as a human being, and you who are the representative of all humanity – so you are the world. If you see the truth of this, then that truth will act in the world. You don’t act.
Quelle heure est-il? Q: Twelve. K: So, we have seen the mischief of thought which is limited, which has created the individual, and the opposite of non-individuality which is totalitarianism, authority and all the rest of it. We have also seen that thought, stored up in the brain as memory, knowledge, those very brain cells have become limited. For God’s sake, see this. Of course, obviously. But when you have an insight into all this, the very brain cells are no longer limited. The brain cells are functioning totally differently. Do this, please, do it! Don’t say, ‘Yes, how marvellous,’ ‘What a wonderful speech that was’ – which is all romantic nonsense, emotionalism. That has nothing to do with actuality. Can you see the truth that knowledge has its place, technologically, and has no other place, psychologically, which is to register? So, if you see the truth that registration, like hurt, brings narrow action, limited action, from which hate, violence and all the rest of it. If you see the truth of it, then you’ll have an insight, you’ll have an insight into the whole movement of thought. Therefore, thought then limits, naturally, itself and remains there. You don’t have to say, ‘I must stop thinking’ – that’s too silly. When you understand thought as measure, measure being comparison and the whole – it isn’t time, now. I must stop. So, if this is clear then we’ll talk about other things, on Sunday.