do penetrate into this feeling of togetherness. We cannot possibly build a house
alone; we need to be together. That’s why it’s very important to understand the
meaning of communication, which is to create together, to understand together,
to work together.
So what is thinking? To understand the deep significance of thought and
whether there is any significance to it at all, we have to examine it freely. We
live by thought. Whatever we do is either reasoned out, examined, investigated,
or we do it mechanically according to yesterday’s pattern, tradition. If you
observe very carefully in yourself, don’t you find that thought is the response of
memory, which is experience, which is knowledge? If you had no knowledge, no
experience, no memory, there would be no thinking. You would live in a state of
amnesia. So thought is the response of memory, and memory is conditioned by
the culture in which you have lived—your education, the religious propaganda in
which you have been caught. So thought is the response of memory with its
knowledge and experience. And you need knowledge, you need memory;
otherwise you can’t get home; otherwise we couldn’t speak to each other. But
thought, because it is the response of memory, is never free; it is always old. Can
thought find a way of living that is totally harmonious and very clear, a way of
life that has no distortion? Thought is the response of the old, which is memory.
And yet we use thought to find a way of living. If we are objective, rational,
clear, sane, we say we will think it over and find a way of living harmoniously.
But thought is the response of the past, of our conditioning, so therefore thought
cannot possibly find a harmonious way of living. Thought can never find it, and
yet we use thought to try to find it. We know that thought at a certain level is
absolutely necessary, but thought becomes an impediment to finding a way of
living that is totally different from the past, from the disharmony.
So what does that mean? When you see the truth that thought will not find a
way of living harmoniously, however reasonable, however logical, however sane
and clear it may be, then what is the state of your mind? Are you following all
this, or are you merely listening to a few words and ideas? I hope you are also
working deeply and passionately. Otherwise you will never find a way of living
that is extraordinarily harmonious and beautiful. And one has to find it in this
insane world.
If you see the truth of this, not the verbal explanation but the truth of it, what
is the quality of a mind that sees this? What is the quality of the mind—not your
mind or my mind, but the quality of the mind—that sees the truth of something?
Don’t answer me, please. You see you are too quick with words and
explanations; you don’t let it soak into you. You don’t stay with it; you
immediately jump to words to explain something or other, and you know very
well the explanation isn’t the real thing.
We are asking what the quality of the mind is that sees the necessity of
thought and sees also that thought cannot possibly, do what it will, bring about
the beauty of a life that is completely, fully harmonious. You see, this is one of
the most difficult things to convey or to talk about, because we have lived all our
lives on somebody else’s experiences. We have no direct perception; we are
afraid to have direct perception. When you are faced with this challenge you are
michael s
(Michael S)
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