Transcription
Can we observe – it doesn't matter what it is – without the word, without the naming, without the remembrance? Can you do it?
To look at your friend, or your wife, or whatever it is, to observe the person without the word 'my wife', 'my friend', we belong to the same little group, without any of that – to observe. Which is, not observe through remembrance. Can you do it? Can we do that? Have you ever directly tried it?
Now as you are sitting there, can we do it together? That is, not only look at the person without name, without time and remembrance, and also at ourselves? The image which we have built about ourselves, the image that we have built about the other, to look at that image as though you were looking at it for the first time, looking at a rose for the first time. Will you do that? That is, to learn to look. Learn to observe this quality without all the operation of thought.
Don't say it is not possible. It is like going to a professor, not knowing his subject but you want to learn from him – I am not your professor – you want to learn from him. So you go to him and listen. You don't say, I know something about it, or you are wrong or you are right, or I don't like your look. You listen, you find out. And as you begin to listen sensitively, with awareness, you begin to discover whether he is a phoney professor with a lot of words, or a professor that has really gone into the depth of himself. You understand?
Now, can we together so listen and observe, without the word, without remembrance, without all the movement of thought? Which means, complete attention. Right? Attention not from a centre to attend, but attention which has no centre. Of course, if you have a centre from which you are attending, that is merely a form of concentration. But if there is no centre, but you are attending, which means you are giving your complete attention, in that attention there is no time. Right? I wonder if you see this?
Suppose I am listening to you. You are telling me a story. A story which is a story of myself, a story of mankind. You are telling me that story, and I am listening to you because I don't know anything about it. But as I am listening not only to what you are saying verbally, to communicate what you think, but in that very sensitive attention to listening, I am not only listening to the words, but I have gone beyond the words, I am capturing the depth of the meaning of what he is saying. You understand?
Are we doing this? Look, many of you, unfortunately or fortunately, have heard the speaker for many years. And you say, this breaking the programme of the brain has not come about. And you repeat that statement year after year, it hasn't come about. Is it because – please listen – is it because you want to attain, become, have that state of brain in which the pattern has been broken. That is, you have listened, it has not come about, and you are hoping it will come about. Which is another form of becoming. Right? So you are still in conflict. And you brush me aside or say, I won't come here any more because I haven't got what I want. I want that but haven't got it. So the wanting is the becoming. I wonder if you see all this.
The desire to be something is the beginning of conflict. And that desire is part of the programmed brain. And we are saying to break that pattern, observe without the movement of time, thought. It sounds very simple but see the logic of it, the reason, the sanity of it, not because the speaker says so, it is sane. So, one must exercise the capacity to be logical, rational, and know its limitation. Because rational thinking, rational observation, is still part of thought, and knowing that thought is limited, be aware of that limitation and don't push it further because it will still be limited however far you go.
Whereas if you say, can I observe a rose, a flower, without the word, without the colour, just look at it? That look brings about great sensitivity, breaks down this sense of heaviness of the brain, and gives extraordinary vitality, because thought has its own energy through conflict, obviously. But there is a totally different kind of energy when there is pure perception which is not related to thought, time.