Inward Revolution Bringing About Radical Change in the World

old habits, with our old traditions, with our old thinking. The very structure of
our thought must change; our very brain cells themselves must undergo a
transformation to bring about order, not only within ourselves but also outwardly.
That is what we, you and the speaker, are going to share together, learn about
together.
The mind has been put together through time. The brain cells, which have
evolved through millennia, centuries upon centuries, have acquired tremendous
knowledge, experience, have collected a great deal of scientific, objective
knowledge. The brain cells, which are the result of time, have produced this
monstrous world, this world of war, injustice, poverty, appalling misery, and the
division of people racially, culturally, and religiously. All this has been produced
by the intellect, by thought, and any reconstruction by thought is still within the
same field. I don’t know if you see that.
Thought has produced this division among people for economic, social,
cultural, linguistic, and ideological reasons. It is not very complex; it is very
simple. Because of its very simplicity, you will discard it, but if you observe, you
will see for yourself very clearly that the intellect, with all its cunning reason
both objective and nonobjective, has brought about this condition, this state, both
inwardly and outwardly. You are caught by the way you think and the way
another thinks—the way you think as a Hindu, as a Muslim, as a Christian, as a
communist, and God knows what else. You are conditioned by the past, and you
think along those lines. That very same thought tries to find a way out of this
confusion, but that confusion has been created by thought. It is not what the
speaker says; it is what you have discovered for yourselves.
Are you listening with passion to find out? Because we have to change. We
can’t go on as we are, lazy, satisfied with little things, accepting certain doctrines
as truth, believing in something about which we know absolutely nothing,
following somebody—the various gurus with their concentration camps—hoping
that they will lead us to enlightenment. This is dreadfully serious.
All this has been produced by thought. And thought is the response of
memory. If you had no memory, you couldn’t think. Memory is knowledge,
gathered experience, and thought is the response of the past. Obviously. And we
are trying to solve immense, complex problems of human relationship in terms of
the past, which is thought. Are we moving together? It is only the serious person
that lives; it is only the serious person who can understand totally the whole
significance of this, not someone who just casually takes an interest for a few
days and drops it. We are concerned with changing our daily life, not substituting
one belief for another belief. We must negate everything that thought has put
together; otherwise, we cannot possibly find a new dimension. Are we going
together? Please don’t agree. It’s not a matter of agreement or disagreement; it’s
a matter of perception, seeing actually what is going on.
So, thought has brought about the cultures, Hindu, Christian, communist, or
what you will. It is thought which is the response of memory, which is
knowledge, that has created such confusion, misery, sorrow in the world. How
can the very brain cells themselves that contain the memory undergo a radical
mutation? Knowledge is necessary; otherwise, you can’t go home, write a letter,