The brain demands, needs, complete security to function rationally, healthily.
And that brain finds that there is no security in thought. Previously it had sought
security in thought because that is the only instrument it had. And thought is
memory; thought is the past, the reaction to the past. Thought is not free; it is as
old as the hills, because thought is the response of memory. So there is no safety
in your beliefs, in your gods, in your political systems, in your religious
organizations, your idols, your temples, or your gurus because they are all the
inventions of thought. See the truth of it—not the word, the meaning, the
description, or the explanation, but the truth of it. So what happens? Then the
mind, the brain cells are concerned only with survival, and with nothing else, not
with gods, not with illusions. Then the psyche is nonexistent; only physical
survival matters. And that you would say is not spiritual at all; merely to survive
is not spiritual. You think spirituality is the invention of thought with all its
illusions. The brain then is concerned only with physical survival; the rest of the
brain is totally empty. That means the brain then is completely quiet.
Consciousness is heritage. Consciousness is the result of time. Consciousness
is the content of itself, which is time, sorrow, confusion, misery. And intelligence
has no heritage. When you see—when the mind sees—the importance of total
survival, and nothing else, there is intelligence. Then it will organize society
entirely differently. Then its morality will be real order.
So we come to a point now: what is silence? What is the mind that is
completely quiet? I hope we are communicating with each other. The speaker
isn’t traveling by himself; we are traveling together. In that there is love, there is
beauty, there is communication, sharing. So what is the mind that is totally quiet?
Because it is only the mind that is completely quiet which can observe, that has
no distortion, is not tortured. Most human beings are tortured; they have tortured
themselves in order to find security. And they have found security—at least they
hope so—in illusion, which becomes another torture. All their disciplines, their
yogis, their breathing exercises are compulsive torture: “I must get up at six
o’clock; I must force the body.” What have you done to your body, to your mind,
to your heart? You have destroyed the intelligence of the body. The body has its
own intelligence, but you have destroyed it through the desire for pleasure.
We are asking what a mind is that is completely silent. It is only when the
mind, the brain, is completely quiet that it can perceive. If I want to understand
what you are saying, I must listen completely quietly. When you tell me, “I love
you,” I must listen, mustn’t I? I must listen with a heart that has no movement of
contradiction. It must listen. Therefore to observe it is necessary for a mind to be
completely quiet. Just see the truth of it, not ask how to make the mind quiet. If
you ask how to make the mind quiet you are back in your old trap, and there are a
thousand gurus who will tell you how to keep your mind quiet. But to perceive a
tree, a cloud with the light of the setting sun on it, to see the light on a stretch of
water, just to see the beauty of it, your mind must be completely quiet, mustn’t
it? If you are listening to somebody who threatens your life, you have to listen,
haven’t you? You listen to your bosses very, very carefully, don’t you? You may
not like it, you may resent it, but you jolly well have got to listen, because your
michael s
(Michael S)
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