Madras 1978

You Have Only Got This Life

Q: Do you know the meaning of the word "discontent"?

You are discontented not with something, but it is a flame burning in you, not fed by another, or by wanting more, wanting less. Do you want to suppress that discontent, or do you want that discontent to keep on burning?

What is discontent? Are you totally or measurably discontented? Is it superficial, or does it go deep? If you smother it you must become mediocre, a bourgeois little entity. You waste your life when you are satisfied with little things.

Is your life sacred, holy? If your life is sacred, you affect the consciousness of man. If it is discontent not with something but the flame of it then that energy of discontent, which is tremendous if you don't run away from it, will always find the right action.

The Innermost Nature of the Self

What is the self, the "me", how does it arise? Is the very structure of the self fragmentary? Is the self put together by thought, words, memories?

Do I observe with the memory of previous observation? Can I observe myself each moment as though it were fresh?

Have you ever observed anything with the totality of your senses? What relationship has love to sorrow? Does compassion come into being with the ending of sorrow?

Can you end in life, now something you hold most dear, which is your self? Can you end your attachment?

Learning is Never Ending

Q: Why do we identify ourselves with something?

Why do we accept to live a life in which there is absolutely no security, in which there is constant struggle, competition, uncertainty, confusion, infinite division, why do we live that way?

Why do we identify ourselves with something? All conflict arises through division. And yet we maintain that division in our daily life. Why do we do this, knowing division is corrupt and brings about violence?

How am I going to learn? Where do I begin to learn? In my reactions to my relationship with another I begin to find out the state of my responses.

You have learnt to compare, that's your conditioning. If you don't compare you will find out what you are actually. Learn to live without comparison and see what happens. Learn and therefore act from that learning.

Organisations Have Not Saved Man

There is outer and inner fragmentation. Who is going to change man? Have organisations of any kind helped?

To go very far we must begin very near which is with ourselves.

Is one aware of one's thoughts feelings, fears, pleasures?

Can one listen purely without any distortion? Isn't there a responsibility to listen to the world and to your own anxiety, sorrow?

Can you observe without any prejudice? To learn musn't the brain be free of knowledge? What is action in your life?

In relationship, has knowledge any place at all? Can the brain only register what is necessary?