What is correct action in a deteriorating world?
Seminar 1
What is one to do in a world of increasing violence?
Seminar 1 Brockwood Park
September 13, 1979
Q: What am I to do to change this world of increasing violence and disorder? How do I approach this problem? The approach may decide the quality of my inquiry. There is disorder, disintegration, confusion. We must examine what is happening, the cause of the violence. I may be having difficulties with my family my wife, keeping a job, earning a livelihood so I am not greatly concerned with what is happening in the world. Is the world of misery something out there that I have nothing to do with? Why do we lose sight of the understanding, the reality that we are the world? Do we see the fact that there is terror, violence and disintegration? The fact is what is actually happening, not opinion. Why is it so difficult to see a simple fact?
Seminar 2
Observing my prejudice
Seminar 2 Brockwood Park
September 14, 1979
Q: What is correct action in a deteriorating world? The world is me and I am the world. In this disordered, violent society with its terror, confusion, misery, what am I to do as a human being, what is my action? Is there an action that is accurate, precise and not self-centred? Can I observe myself, which is the society without any distortion, without any illusion? I have prejudices of various kinds - opinions, prejudgements, experiences - to which my mind in memory is attached. What will make us, each one of us, drop our prejudices? Is the observer different from the bundle of prejudices? I change completely when I see the truth that the observer is that bundle.
Seminar 3
What is the root cause of the disorder in the world?
Seminar 3 Brockwood Park
September 15, 1979
Q: Is there an area in my consciousness not put there by thought? My consciousness is made up of all the accumulated despairs, anxieties, grief, sorrow and violence thought has put there. All that is me. Do I know consciousness with all its content, or only part of it? Mankind has gone into, asserted and denied that there is something not put together by thought. In the process of examination and investigation are we missing something that has great vitality which will wipe away all this? Are you observing all this as an idea or as truth that you are an integral part of this whole, vast, decaying humanity? If you realize that, there comes quite a different state and from that there is action.
Seminar 4
When the illusion of individuality ends
Seminar 4 Brockwood Park
September 16, 1979
Q: What takes place in the mind that sees that it is part of the whole? What is right action in this world? Is individual action right action? As an individual whatever action I do must be destructive, pleasurable, violent. When we discover the truth that we are an integral part of this enormous humanity what place has individuality? Is there an action that is not born out of the idea of the individual? I can only find out if I am not living in an illusion. When you drop the illusion of individuality do you still carry the memories, the structure, your past in your mind or have you lost the remembrance of sorrow? Is your individuality dead? Then what is action?
Seminar 5
What do I do in a deteriorating world?
Seminar 5 Brockwood Park
September 17, 1979
Q: Can the individual love? Where there is separation there must be the expression of individuality. Can this entity that thinks it is separate, which is essentially an illusion, can this entity love? Can I have an insight into the nature of action which is not individualistic? Is there an action without the ‘me’? Can separativeness come to an end through immediate perception which brings about intelligence that is love? When there is love there is care, there is attention, responsibility. An action will arise from your new state of mind which is a state of compassion.
Seminar 6
Can you have insight if there is a centre?
Seminar 6 Brockwood Park
September 18, 1979
Q: Can the individual ever be complete, whole? Can we perceive the whole movement of the individual in its activities and its organizations? If there is that insight and intelligence with love and affection what is the action of the mind in a world of violence? What is the quality of the mind that is no longer centred in itself? As long as there is self-centred activity occasional insight will not bring about a radical illumination of the centre. Is there such an action as insight that totally eliminates self-centred activity? Have I reached the point when I can do nothing psychologically? That means no activity of thought so that my brain, my thinking is entirely different.