you sexual pleasure. You know what goes on between husband and wife:
domination, bullying, nagging, irritation—you know much better than I do what
goes on. How are these images formed? Please observe this in yourself; don’t
bother about the explanation that the speaker gives, but watch it in yourself. Use
the speaker as a mirror in which you are seeing yourself. The brain cells are all
the time recording every incident, every influence, like a recording machine.
When the wife nags you, it is recorded; when you demand something of her and
she gets angry, that is recorded. So the brain is a machine that is recording all the
time, consciously or unconsciously. You don’t have to study biology or
psychology or any scientific book if you can observe yourself. You have the
marvelous book of yourself from which you can learn infinitely.
So through years or through days, you have recorded these memories, and
these memories are the images. She has her image, and you have your image
about her. The relationship between these two images is what you call husband
and wife; therefore, it is not relationship at all. Relationship means direct contact,
direct perception, direct understanding, sharing together. See how the machinery
comes into operation. That is, when you get angry with your wife, or when she
nags you, the image is formed immediately. That image is stored up, gets
stronger and stronger and stronger, and that image is the factor of division.
Therefore there is conflict between you and her. Now, can this machinery of
building the image come to an end so that you are in real contact with the world,
not through an idea? Look, sir, when you are hungry, you are directly in contact
with hunger, aren’t you? Nobody needs to tell you that you are hungry; you don’t
have to go to an analyst or to your guru to be told that you are hungry. It is your
direct understanding, your direct experience, your direct reaction.
So when there is an image about the world or about yourself or about your
neighbor or about your wife, there must be division. The image is not only of
anger and nagging but also of formulas, concepts, beliefs. When you say, “I am
an Indian,” that is an image; that image divides as when another person says, “I
am a Muslim; I am a Pakistani.” This image is not merely between two people;
formulas also have created these images. So you see that belief divides people.
You believe in God or in reincarnation or something else, and somebody else
believes quite the opposite. Which are all images. So images, formulas, concepts,
beliefs divide people. This is the basic reason for conflict outwardly and
inwardly. See this not intellectually, but in your heart. Then you will do
something, but if you keep it intellectual, it will blow off. When it is real, when
you see the truth of it and the beauty of it, then you will act entirely differently.
So our question is, How are these images formed, and can the image-building
come to an end? I have shown you how they are formed—the brain, which has so
many faculties, which is capable of going to the moon, inventing extraordinary
technological things, this very brain has also the quality of recording every insult,
every hurt, every flattery, every nuance of every action. Now, can this recording
take place without interfering with action? See the logic of it. First see the logic,
and you will see the beauty of it afterward. You have insulted me or flattered me.
I have an image about the person who has insulted me; I don’t like him. But I
like the man who has flattered me; he is my friend. The image has been formed
michael s
(Michael S)
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