Inward Revolution Bringing About Radical Change in the World

she has nagged you; you have bullied her—you know all the things that happen
in this terrible family life. You have built up through years an image about her
and she about you, and you look at each other through these images, don’t you?
Do be honest for a change; you are so frightened to be honest. You have an
image. Now, that image separates people. That image divides. If I have an image
about my wife and she about me, the images must obviously divide us.
Now, how is this image as a Hindu, as a Muslim, as a communist, as a
socialist, the image that one has built about oneself, and the image that one has
built about another to come to an end? If that image disappears, then there is a
totally different kind of relationship. That image is the past; the image is the
memory. The memory is the various traces on the brain cells that have taken
place through a number of years—which is the conditioning of the brain cells—
and that image remains. Now, can that image come to an end, not through time,
not gradually, but instantly? To answer that question, one has to go into what the
machinery is that builds the image.
Are you working, or are you merely learning from the speaker? Don’t learn
from the speaker because the speaker has nothing to teach you. He has absolutely
nothing to teach you because he doesn’t accept the positions of teacher and
disciple. That breeds authority, and where there is authority there is division—the
one who knows and the one who does not know. So you are not learning from
me, from the speaker; you are learning by observing yourself, by watching.
Therefore you are free to learn. Freedom is absolutely necessary to learn, but if
you are merely following, accepting authority, whether of somebody else or of
the speaker, especially of the speaker, then you are lost—as you are lost now.
So learn from observing. You are observing yourself. You are observing that
you have your image about another, that you have an image of yourself as a
Hindu, a Buddhist, a communist, a Christian, a Protestant, a hippie, and so on
and on. You see that image in yourself. Now you tell yourself, “I know how that
image has come into being, because I have been brought up as a Christian, as a
Hindu, as a Muslim. I am conditioned, and that image remains, and that image
divides people. Where there is division, there must be conflict outwardly and
inwardly.” Then you are learning from your own observation. You are asking
yourself, “Can this image come to an end?” When you ask that question, you are
also asking the question about the machinery that builds this image. We are
learning together to find out what this machinery is. Therefore you are not
learning from the speaker; it’s yours. You are asking yourself—I’m not asking
you—you are asking yourself if the image can come to an end. And not through
time, because the image has been put together through time. Time is thought;
thought has bred the images: “I have been insulted; I have been nagged; I must
dominate.” Thought has bred these images.
Now, what is the machinery that puts together the image? Just observe it,
don’t try to translate it and act upon it. Just observe what the speaker is saying;
listen to it, and observe the action of observation, perception on yourself. Just
observe it. You tell me I am a fool. The word with its association is seated in the
memory, in the brain cells. The word fool has its association, which is the
memory, which is the old brain. The old brain says, “You are another.” When