Inward Revolution Bringing About Radical Change in the World

thing is to understand how you regard, how you observe, how you see the world
and yourself. If you look at the world as an observer, or look at yourself
condemning, justifying, explaining, in that there is division and therefore conflict
and misery. So is it possible to observe, to perceive, without the observer?
The observer, the thinker, the entity that perceives, is the result of the past.
You who observe your qualities, your anger, your jealousy, your ambition, your
desire to succeed, you who are struggling, are the result of the past. That is fairly
simple, logical. The past is the observer, is the “me.” Now, can you look without
the observer, that is, without the past? When you are angry, at the precise
moment of anger or jealousy or envy there is no observer. The observer comes in
only a little later. Then he either justifies it, condemns it, or accepts it. So the
observer is the past; the observer is the censor.
Now, can you look at this vast field of life without the observer? Then only
you see the totality of life. I am going to show it to you. We will begin with the
simplest thing. When you look at a tree, how do you look at it, how do you see
it? You see not only with sensory perception but also with your mind, don’t you?
Your mind has created the image of the tree, and you say, “That is a palm tree.
That is a mango tree.” So your knowledge of the tree, which is the past, interferes
with your looking at the tree. This is very simple; knowledge of the tree prevents
you from looking at the tree. Looking at the tree means being in contact with it,
not identifying with the tree, but observing it completely. And you cannot
observe it completely if the past interferes. Do you see that?
We had better spend some time on this, because the next step is to observe
yourself in relation to another. You can observe the tree fairly easily because it
doesn’t interfere with your happiness, with your desires; it’s just a tree. If you
don’t understand how to look at a tree without naming the tree, without the
botanical knowledge of the tree, which is the past, then you cannot possibly see
the beauty, the wholeness of the tree. That is simple. The next step is to look at
your wife or your husband or your friend without the observer, which is, without
the image that you have created about your wife or your friend.
All this is going to lead to an action in which there is not a sense of
contradiction, but which is an action that is total, complete. Unless you
understand this, your action will inevitably be contradictory and therefore
conflicting.
You have an image about your wife, and she has an image about you. You
have an image about your friend, and your friend has an image about you. That is
obvious. Now, how are these images formed? What is the mechanism of this
image-building? Unless you understand the mechanism, you won’t understand
how to end the image-making. Do follow it, please. It’s your life, not my life—
your life that is so miserable, so small, petty, lonely, unhappy. You have to
understand your life, not what the speaker is saying. What the speaker is doing is
pointing to your life; if you don’t want to look at your life, don’t look, don’t
pretend. It is only by looking at your own life that you will bring about an action
that will be harmonious, not contradictory, and therefore beautiful.
You have an image about your wife or your husband. That image has been
built through many years or in one day. You have an image of your wife giving