Can the brain be free of all pressure?
Public Talk 1
Why should the brain register hurt?
Public Talk 1 Madras
December 24, 1977
To investigate, observe and listen, one must be free. Freedom is not at the end but at the beginning. Every human being in the world from childhood is wounded psychologically. The unpressured brain can move in any direction but always comes back to the centre. Part of meditation is to free the mind from all pressure, which means no practice. Register what is necessary only - language, technological information - don’t register anything else. One has to learn the art of observing.
Public Talk 2
Observing the content of consciousness
Public Talk 2 Madras
December 25, 1977
When you examine yourself, what are you? Can you observe the content of consciousness? If you observe violence and try to bring about a change in it, that is another form of pressure. Can you observe without the pressure of tradition or like and dislike? How do you observe your wife or husband? What is the origin of thinking? Can you observe the arising of thought? Is there a thinker if there is no thought?
Public Discussion 1
Desire in itself is not contradictory
Public Discussion 1 Madras
December 27, 1977
About what are you really concerned? Do you know that you lead a double life, contradictory and hypocritical? Desire can never be contradictory, but its objects can. Our conditioning is to identify ourselves with what we want. The way of non-violence is fictitious, is not real. What is real is that I am violent. Deal with the fact of violence, not with non-violence. Can you observe that feeling without the word and calling it violence? Do you observe the fact you are conditioned with the motive that you must be free of conditioning?
Public Discussion 2
What are you afraid of?
Public Discussion 2 Madras
December 29, 1977
What is your particular fear? Your name, the familiarity of your habits, everything is stored in the past as memory, so you are living in the past. Life is a movement from the past through the present to the future. What do you mean by the word ‘pleasure’? At the moment of the arising of that thing called anger, there is no time. When you name it, it becomes time. Have you ever ended an attachment?
Public Talk 3
What place has knowledge in correct action?
Public Talk 3 Madras
December 31, 1977
It is very important to learn for oneself the art of listening. What place has knowledge in our life? What is right action? Does knowledge bring order? Order implies a way of living in which direction as a motive comes to an end. Do you know what fear is, or do you only know fear because you think about the past and the future? Giving thought its right place brings freedom from fear.
Public Talk 4
Fear and pleasure are movements of time
Public Talk 4 Madras
January 01, 1978
There is a way of learning which is having insight. Do you instantly capture the significance that fear is the movement of time, or do you argue with it and draw conclusions? Time exists only in relation to knowledge and its action. There is no other time. Is pleasure the movement of thought? Fear and pleasure are movements of time and remembrance. Where time exists, there is no love.
Public Discussion 3
Discontent with yourself and the world
Public Discussion 3 Madras
January 03, 1978
What do we mean when we say we understand intellectually or verbally? What are you discontented with? Are you coming to the well with a little pot or with a tremendous thirst? Find out for yourself why you are discontented and whether you would go to the ends of the earth to quench all discontent. Are you wasting your life? Is your life sacred? Can you observe without the word the fact of the reaction you named envy? Does choice come when you are not clear?
Public Talk 5
The innermost nature of the self is not-a-thing
Public Talk 5 Madras
January 07, 1978
Your activity is based on the self. What is that centre from which you are acting? When you go through the process of introspection or analysis, what happens? I can only find out about myself by observing my reactions in my relationships. Relationship reveals what I am. Is it possible to observe myself each moment afresh, not letting remembrance operate? Have you observed anything with all your senses? When thought is not, love is Does compassion come into being with the ending of sorrow? Death means ending.
Public Talk 6
Can the brain renew itself?
Public Talk 6 Madras
January 08, 1978
By understanding the arts of listening, seeing and learning, pressure on the brain is understood. If you listen with your heart, with care, attention and affection, that listening is a flowering. There is beauty in listening. One of the problems of meditation is whether the mind can be free of all pressure, which means a mind that is free. Is it possible to act in daily life without will or control? Meditation is the awakening of intelligence born out of compassion and clarity.