Inward Revolution Bringing About Radical Change in the World

What you are experiencing then is the past. Look, when you are actually
experiencing something like anger, sex, violence, at that moment there is no
experiencer at all. Have you noticed this? When you are very angry or very
envious, furious, there is a total absence of the “me,” the “you,” the experiencer.
Only a little later the experiencer comes and says, “I have been angry.”
So those who say they know don’t know. Those who say they have
experienced reality have never experienced it. Because to experience implies not
only going through, but to experience something you must be able to recognize
it; otherwise, you can’t experience it. If I didn’t recognize you, which is an
experience, I wouldn’t know you. So when they use the word experience, in that
is implied recognition. To recognize something implies that you have already
known it. That which you have already known is not the real. So put aside
systems completely. Beware of anybody who says they have experienced or they
know; don’t be caught in their trap. That is their means of exploiting you.
And they have told you that you must concentrate, that you must learn
concentration. Have you ever investigated what concentration implies? There is
in that an action of will, which is to resist every other thought and focus your
energy, your thought on something, on a sentence, on a word, or on a phrase.
You repeat some word that you call mantra, repeat, repeat. Concentration implies
resistance. You resist every other thought from seeping in, or you try to control
thought from wandering. So concentration is a form of will, resistance, and
suppression. You need a free mind, a mind that is alive, full of energy, and a
mind that is in constant conflict wastes energy. And you need energy. You need
energy to go to your office; everything you do needs energy. If you can put aside
your favorite system, if you can see and understand the truth that concentration is
merely resistance, and therefore constant conflict and therefore a waste of
energy, then you can find out for yourself what is necessary for a mind that is in
a state of meditation.
Now let’s go together, may we? We are not meditating together. That is one
of those tricks: group meditation—a lot of people gathering, shutting their eyes,
and trying to meditate on something or other. We are investigating together what
meditation is, not meditating together, because you don’t know what it means.
You know only what other people have said. And distrust completely what others
say, including the speaker, because you are very easily persuaded. You are
persuaded because you are greedy to experience something that you think is
marvelous. So don’t be influenced by the speaker.
So let’s find out what the implications are of a mind that has the quality of
meditation. We said you have to reject systems, methods, the desire to
experience. We explained what the word experience means and the urge behind
it, which is the desire to experience something you know absolutely nothing
about. So you have to put all that aside, and also you have to put aside all the
circus that goes on: breathing, dancing, becoming emotional, sentimental,
mentally dead. Let’s find out together what is involved in this thing called
meditation. You are going to discover it; you are going to find out not how to
meditate, but the nature and structure of a mind that is totally free, that has no
movement of will at all, for will is resistance.