The crisis is in the very nature of thought
Public Talk 1
What is the root of the crisis in mankind?
Public Talk 1 Ojai, California
May 02, 1981
The crisis is not political, economic or religious, the crisis is in consciousness. What is the origin of the terrible confusion, the total disregard for human beings, for another? This consciousness with its crisis is not mine or yours but global, part of all human beings. Why has thought become so extraordinarily important in life? Is there another instrument apart from thought?
Public Talk 2
Life is a movement of relationship
Public Talk 2 Ojai, California
May 03, 1981
Thought is a material process. There is nothing sacred whatsoever in the movement of thought. The crisis is in the very nature of thought. What is beauty? Why have human beings who are so clever, so erudite in other directions become what we are? Self-education is the beginning of wisdom; the understanding of our own selfish, narrow, distorted activity that is going on day after day. Can the mind ever be free from problems? Relationship is life; one cannot exist without relationship.
Public Talk 3
Can thought bring about right action?
Public Talk 3 Ojai, California
May 09, 1981
Knowledge is always incomplete, always within the shadow of ignorance. Is there an action which is not limited, that does not bring conflict? Insight is not the remembrance of things past, but seeing something directly, purely, without any direction. That seeing, perception, is total action.
Public Talk 4
Do we have the patience to listen to ourselves?
Public Talk 4 Ojai, California
May 10, 1981
Patience is timeless, impatience is full of time. One must have patience to listen to oneself. Conflict indicates disorder. Choice indicates disorder. A man who chooses is not actually free, he is confused. Is there a different approach altogether, which is not analysis but pure observation? Discipline is the learning of the whole movement of desire, how it arises, its nature, how it operates. In the fullness of that understanding comes order in desire. Desire and time are the factors of disorder.
Public Talk 5
Remaining with sorrow
Public Talk 5 Ojai, California
May 16, 1981
How does fear arise and how is it met? Thought is the remembrance of things past or the projection of what might be. Thought is movement of time. Fear is another form of pleasure. What is suffering?
Public Talk 6
In ending, which is death, is great beauty
Public Talk 6 Ojai, California
May 17, 1981
How can there be love when there is fear? Can sorrow ever end? Death has an extraordinary sense of beauty. The ending of something is the beginning of something else, which is love. The whole idea of personal immortality becomes nonsensical when we realise that our consciousness is the consciousness of the rest of mankind. Is there something that is beyond all time and all corruption? The silencing of thought means the ending of time.