Inward Revolution Bringing About Radical Change in the World

that is abundant, rich, that has meaning in itself, you have to understand the
question, Who is the observer that is learning?
I am watching myself; I am watching my speech, the way I talk, my gestures,
my brutality, my violence, my kindliness—I am watching this whole battle of
existence. Now, is the watcher different from the thing he is watching? That is, is
the watcher who says, “I am learning about myself,” an outsider watching what is
happening? Is the watcher different from the thing he watches, or are they both
the same? Is the watcher, the censor, the person who says, “I am watching
myself,” an entity different from the thing he watches? Or is the observer the
observed?
You will find, as you watch, that the observer is the observed. The two are
not separate. Therefore, there is no sense of contradiction, no sense of
suppression, control. Both are one. Again, this is reasonable, logical. You don’t
have to accept this from anybody; you can see this for yourself. There is no
higher-self watching the lower-self. The higher-self is a super-fragment of the
lower-self—you know all these things that man has invented. When you examine
this whole process, when there is this whole observation in which there is
learning, you will find that the observer is the observed. The person who is angry
is anger itself. The entity that says there is a soul, that there is an Atman, that
there is a super-self, is part of the thought that divides.
So what is important is to learn about oneself without the censor. The censor
is separate, isn’t it? When you have the censor who says, “Do this; don’t do that.
This is right; this is wrong. This should be; this should not be,” then you are not
watching. It is your previous conditioning, your tradition, your previous memory
interfering with your observation. Do you see this simple fact? And you have to
learn about yourself; otherwise, you have no basis whatsoever for clear
perception.
Then out of this arises the question of discipline. People have asserted that
you must discipline yourself, control yourself. You know, that is what we are
trained to do from childhood. All the books you read say that you must control,
discipline, shape yourself according to a pattern. Now, discipline means “to
learn”; the word itself means to learn, not to conform, not to obey, but to learn.
And the very act of learning is discipline. If I am learning about myself without
the observer, then that very observation brings its own order. After all, order is
necessary, but that has been translated as discipline. Order is necessary, but this
order cannot be brought about by any form of compulsion, by following a
pattern. Order can come about only when you have observed what disorder is.
That is, you live in disorder, your life is in disorder, your life is in contradiction,
messy, confused; by learning about yourself, you bring about order.
Therefore you have found for yourself how to observe yourself, to observe
without the observer—the observer being the entity that condemns, that judges,
that evaluates, that denies. The observer is the censor, which is the past. So to
observe without the past when you look at a rose, look at it without the image
that you have or the word that you have. When you call it “the rose,” that
prevents you from looking at the rose. Observe without the word.