Thirteen
Is it possible to change our
psychological nature radically?
I think there is only one fundamental question, which is how to live in this world
in spite of all our complications. How are we to live a life that is without conflict,
a very sane, healthy life with freedom and great intelligence, sanity, with great
affection, beauty? How are we to live so that we have no problems at all, to live a
life that has depth so that in the very living there is significance? Can we put this
question to ourselves, not merely verbally or intellectually, and find out for
ourselves a way of living in this world with sanity, with beauty, without any
pretense, without all this frightful conflict and misery? That, it seems to me, is
the most important thing, because without having a harmonious, rational,
balanced life in relationship, without understanding that and living it, you merely
follow the latest craze, do some kind of penance, sing and dance and do all that
kind of business that goes on. If we could find out a way of living where there is
really a great deal of love, intelligence, beauty, then perhaps we would be able to
find out for ourselves, not through somebody else, if there is something beyond
time, something which is not within the field of everyday strife.
We might perhaps devote time to find out for ourselves how to live with real
understanding, with a great sense of beauty, with a great sense of human
understanding in which there is no conflict in relationship. If we could spend
some time on that, then perhaps we could go on from there to find out for
ourselves what meditation is, and if there is such a thing as truth, as reality.
But first we must lay the foundation, not from someone else, however wise or
however caught up in illusion or his own experience, but one based on our own
lives, the life of our daily existence. If we could do that, do you know what a
world that would be? Not a utopian world, not an ideological world, but a world
of sanity, a world in which there is no war, no division between those who know
and those who do not know, those who pretend enlightenment and those who are
seeking enlightenment, those who assert that there is something and those who
assert that there is not. So, if you will, let’s find out if we can change entirely our
way of living.
First of all, we must look at this whole existence, our whole fragmentation
which we call living, in which are included the earning of a livelihood, the
problem of conflict, physical and psychological pain, mounting sorrow, the
things that we call love, joy, pleasure, fear, anxiety, and understanding what it
means to die. We must look at the whole of living and dying, not just one
fragment of it. We must observe the whole field of our existence, not just one
corner of it, not just how to earn a livelihood or just escape from this into some