Five
What is the quality of a mind that
is in a state of meditation?
We are going to talk over together what meditation is. It is fairly obvious that we
must totally change the way we are living. There must be a deep, radical
revolution in our lives that is not merely superficial, economic, or social, or that
upsets the establishment and in its place puts a new establishment. We are
concerned, if we are at all serious in this matter, with how the human mind,
which is so conditioned, can undergo a radical transformation and how it can live
and function in a totally different dimension. For centuries upon centuries we
have functioned within a very limited part of our brain, using the very structure
of the brain along a particular channel. Can there be a mutation in the very brain
cells themselves?
I think that is the major problem. We are responding to every challenge with
the old brain, which has been conditioned for millennia. Life is a constant
challenge, and when there is any kind of challenge we respond with the old brain,
with the mechanical, traditional, egotistic, self-centered responses. This again is
very obvious. When we ask whether the brain cells themselves can undergo a
radical transformation, a mutation, we have to inquire into the quality of a mind
that can perceive without any kind of effort, without any suppression, imitation,
conformity. We must wipe away all the traditional morality—which is no
morality at all—and find a way of living that is totally different. And perhaps
meditation is to find out how this radical transformation can be brought about.
As we have said, we are sharing this problem together. There is no authority
to tell you what to do, no new system of meditation. When you have a system of
meditation, it is no longer meditation. It is just mechanical repetition, and that is
utterly futile and has no meaning whatsoever. Many people throughout the world,
especially in Asia, have concepts of what meditation is. They have been told how
to meditate, what to do. The speaker has not read any books about all this. He
had no system; he had to find out for himself; he had to wipe away everything
that he had been told. Nothing must be repeated that one has not oneself
perceived, that one has not lived. If you will never repeat what you yourself have
not perceived with regard to meditation and with regard to any spiritual matters,
never assert or formulate what others have said, then we can communicate
together, share this together.
You have heard, read, or been told what meditation is. Can you put that aside
completely? Because you don’t know a thing about it, do you, except what others
have said, what you have practiced according to tradition, or what you have
experienced according to a system that offers something. Therefore it is not