the word? Why do we seek at all, and what is it that we are trying to find? In
seeking, there is the seeker and the thing he seeks, searches after. There is the
entity that is seeking, looking, observing, finding out, and the thing he is going to
find out about. In that there is duality, the “me” that is seeking, wanting to find
out and what it is that he is going to find. He may find according to his
conditioning. If he is a Christian, he is going to find what his culture has taught
him, the propaganda of his culture, and it will be similar if he is a Hindu, and so
on. So, according to your culture, according to your conditioning, according to
your knowledge, you are going to seek that which you call truth, happiness, what
you will. It is according to the past, to your experience, to your knowledge, to all
your accumulated memories, that you are going to seek. That is, the past is going
to seek something in the future, and the past is going to dictate what it will find
in the future. Therefore what it will find will not be truth at all; it will be
something according to the past, which is knowledge, experience, and memory.
So a mind that would find, that would perceive what truth is must be free of the
past, free of its conditioning. So, if you are a Hindu, you must be free totally
from all your conceptual conditioning, all your tradition. Otherwise you are
going to find what your tradition has dictated, what your tradition has told you to
find.
A mind that would perceive what truth is must be free of all the conditioning
of any particular culture, which means free of any belief. For belief is based on
the desire for comfort, for security, or on fear. You don’t believe that the sun is
going to rise tomorrow. You know it will rise. It’s only the mind that is
uncertain, confused, seeking security, comfort; it’s only the mind that believes.
So one must be totally free of all belief, all conclusions and, obviously, all ideals.
As you are listening, observe the fact that a mind that is clouded by belief, which
is based on the desire for comfort, security, which is the outcome of fear, cannot
possibly see what truth is, though it may search for it. As you are listening to this,
do you see the truth of it? If you see the truth of it, then it’s finished. Your mind
then is free to observe. As you are listening, are you observing your own beliefs,
your own conclusions? Do you see that such a mind is incapable of looking, of
perceiving clearly? If you would perceive clearly, the mind must be totally free
of belief—your God or my God. As you listen, are you free of it? Or are you so
heavily conditioned that without belief you feel lost and therefore frightened, and
therefore you are attached to your beliefs? Such a mind obviously is an
irreligious mind.
So a mind that is seeking will never find the truth, and all your conditioning is
to seek. Can the mind observe the truth that search implies a dualistic conflict,
and that a mind in conflict is always distorted and therefore it cannot possibly
see? And obviously a mind caught in rituals, all the circus that goes on in the
name of religion, is not a religious mind at all; it is after stimuli, sensation, every
form of excitement. Can a mind that is really inquiring and is serious, passionate
to find out, put aside totally all rituals, all beliefs, all the movement of seeking?
You can see also how organized religions have separated human beings—
Hindu, Buddhist, Christian. Are you who are listening free of this division? If
you are not serious you accept life as it is; you don’t see the danger of a divided
michael s
(Michael S)
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