Inward Revolution Bringing About Radical Change in the World

I must also find out whether thought can help to bring about such an action.
You live a fragmentary life: you are different in the office and at home; you have
private thoughts and public thoughts. You can see this wide gulf, this
contradiction, this fragmentation. And one asks if thought can bridge all these
various fragments, can bring about an integration among all these factors. Can it?
We have to find out the nature and structure of thought before we say that
thought can or cannot, to say whether or not thought, thinking, mentation, the
intellectual process of reasoning, can bring about a harmonious life. To find out,
one has to investigate, examine carefully the nature and the structure of thought.
So, together we are going to examine your thinking, not the description or the
explanation of the speaker, because the description is never the described; the
explanation is not the explained. So, let us not be caught in the explanation or in
the description, but together investigate, find out how thought works and whether
thought can really, deeply bring about a way of living that is totally harmonious,
noncontradictory, complete in every action. This is very important to find out
because, if we want a world that is not so ugly, so destructive, brutal, if we want
a world that is totally changed, where there is no corruption, with a way of living
that has significance in itself, not an invented meaning, we have to ask this
question. We must also ask what sorrow is and whether sorrow can ever end, and
question pain, fear, love, and death. We must find out for ourselves the meaning
of all this, but not according to some book, not from what some other person has
said; that has no meaning whatsoever.
You know, knowledge has great meaning, has significance. If you want to go
to the moon—I don’t know why they want to go to the moon—you must have
extraordinary technological knowledge. To do anything efficiently, clearly,
purely, you must have a great deal of knowledge. But that very knowledge
becomes an impediment when we are trying to find a way of living that is totally
harmonious, because knowledge is of the past. Knowledge is the past, and if you
live according to the past, obviously there is contradiction, the past in conflict
with the present. One has to be aware of the fact that knowledge is necessary and
yet, that knowledge becomes a great hindrance. It is like tradition. It may be
useful at a certain level, but tradition responding to the present brings about
confusion, contradiction. So we have to inquire very, very seriously into our
thinking.
It is only serious people who live fully, because a person who is very serious
can pursue something consistently to the very end and not drop it when it suits
him, not be distracted, not be carried away by enthusiasm or some emotional
reaction. So we are inquiring into these questions about thought, the possibility
of ending sorrow, fear, the meaning of death and love—not according to anybody
else, least of all according to the speaker—to find out for ourselves a way of
living that is harmonious, highly intelligent, and sensitive and that has the depth
of beauty.
Now, we are communicating, sharing together. Please understand the
meaning of that word together. The speaker may sit on a platform, but that’s for
convenience only. When we share together there is no speaker at all, there is no
person. The thing that we are examining together matters; you or I do not. Please