Inward Revolution Bringing About Radical Change in the World

is safe. That’s why authority has destroyed you; the religions have destroyed you.
Please do see this.
So we are going together, with care (and if there is time, in detail), to observe
what we have actually become, not what we should be, because there is no ideal,
there is no goal, there is no purpose, but only what is. If you have a goal, a
purpose, an end, you are avoiding or not seeing what is actually going on. Please
listen to this. When you have an ideal of what you should be or what you should
become, what must be, then you create conflict between what you are and what
you should be. And that’s such a waste of time. It leads to hypocrisy. Those of
you who have ideals, purposes, will become hypocrites, saying one thing and
doing another, thinking another, and talking everlastingly about ideals. One who
is concerned with truth has no ideals, for truth is in what is and going beyond it.
So you must understand what is, that is, what you are, not what you should
become, not how to end your sorrow. We will deal with all that, but first put
away totally from your mind, if you can, this dualistic attitude of what you are
and what you should be. That’s what you are being caught in; that is the very
essence of conflict, that there is a division between the observer and the
observed.
So what are we? What are you? Not according to any book, any authority, or
any psychologist; if you say what you are according to them, you are repeating
what they say, but you are not learning, you are not observing yourself. So when
you observe yourself, when you are aware of yourself, you see that humanity
throughout the world is caught up in pleasure and in fear. These are the basic
principles. We pursue pleasure both physically and psychologically, both
outwardly and inwardly. You can observe that our religions, the social structure,
social morality are based on pleasure. Your morality is greed, envy, hatred,
ambition, competition, aggressive acquisition. Watch yourself. Don’t just listen
to a series of words; watch it. The fact is that all that is what you call moral, not
what you think should be moral. The fact is that the social structure, the social
morality, of which you are, is totally immoral. Isn’t it? Aren’t you immoral? You
are greedy, envious, acquisitive, ambitious, with an occasional flare of what you
call love.
So one has to understand basically these two issues of fear and pleasure. To
understand means to be free to look, to observe what pleasure means, where it
has led us, what is involved in it, how it has brought about the extraordinary
division between the observer and the thing observed, the division in religions, in
nationalities, and so on. The economic, social, and religious fragmentation has
been brought about through pleasure.
One must also understand—deeply, not verbally, not theoretically—the whole
complex question of fear. When a mind is afraid, it cannot possibly see what
truth is. It lives in darkness. Haven’t you noticed for yourself that when you are
afraid of your neighbor, of your government, of your wife, husband, or the
policeman, how dull your mind becomes, how it is incapable of thinking
rationally, how confused the mind becomes? So to understand fear and pleasure
one has to observe it in oneself, not theoretically, but actually see it operating in
yourself.