Can we live together without conflict?
Public Talk 1
Thought and knowledge are limited
Public Talk 1 Ojai, California
May 14, 1983
Do you realise that nobody on earth or in heaven is going to help you? What is our action, facing this crisis, not only outwardly but crisis in ourselves? The thinker is always correcting and controlling thought, so there is a division between the thinker and the thought. Is that division real or fictitious? Where there is limitation of knowledge, there must be limitation of thought. Where there is limitation there must be division. Where there is division, there must be disorder. Is it possible to live in relationship with another without conflict? Is our relationship based on memory? If you lose relationship with nature, you lose relationship with man.
Public Talk 2
War is a symptom
Public Talk 2 Ojai, California
May 15, 1983
Is man forever condemned to live in conflict and wars, or is there a way out of this? Are we individuals at all? Is it possible to end ‘what is’; not to change it into that which we would like it to be? Is the observer different from the tree? Of course he is different, but is the observer different from anxiety? Is it possible not to be conditioned? What causes the brain to be conditioned? Is there an ending to fear?
Public Questions 1
1st Question & Answer Meeting 8
Public Questions 1 Ojai, California
May 17, 1983
Q1: What is the role of the artist and what is the significance of music, poetry and art in relationship to each other and the world? Q2: Is not the observation of thought a continuing use of thought and therefore a contradiction? Q3: Do you think a man and a woman should or should not live together without marriage? Q4: You have said that quietness, silence, comes unsought. Can we live in ways that will allow it to come more readily? Q5: Is there such a thing as a true guru? Is there ever a right use of mantra?
Public Questions 2
2nd Question & Answer Meeting 8
Public Questions 2 Ojai, California
May 19, 1983
Q1: Why don’t you be more practical and not so abstract in what you are saying? Q2: Most of my energy and time goes into the struggle to earn a living. Is it possible for me to be deeply unselfish and intelligent? Q3: You travel about a great deal in the world but I must stay with my family in one place and live in a limited horizon. You speak of a global vision. How am I to have this? Q4: You have stated that if one stays with fear and does not try to escape, and realises one is fear, then the fear goes away. How does this come about and what will keep it from returning on other occasions in a different form? Q5: Is it some lack of energy that keeps us from going to the very end of a problem? Does this require special energy or is there only one basic energy at the root of all life? Q6: Could you go into the nature of intelligence which manifests itself when perception takes place, and is this the only true source of action? Note: a total of 2 minutes and 28 seconds of missing video is replaced by audio only.
Public Talk 3
Ending without any motive
Public Talk 3 Ojai, California
May 21, 1983
When you observe beauty in silence it has great significance. Why do human beings throughout the world pursue this thing called pleasure? The understanding of desire is intelligence, and that intelligence will discipline desire. Can man live on this earth peacefully, without suffering or conflict? Without understanding the nature of sorrow, love cannot be. Who is it that is going to die? What is death? I am humanity. If one realises this, there’s tremendous meaning, depth and passion behind it. The responsibility of this is immense. As long as you are envious, you’re encouraging and sustaining the envy which exists in the world. Can you end envy?
Public Talk 4
To watch without any movement of thought
Public Talk 4 Ojai, California
May 22, 1983
Where does one find justice, equality? Can the brain cells themselves transform? It is possible if you are aware without direction, control or motive, just to watch thought and anxiety. There is constant comparison in us between the ideal and the fact; the fact of violence and the ideal of non-violence. In meditation, comparison must totally end. Meditation is not controlling thought or practising a system, but freeing the brain from its own conditioning. Silence is something extraordinary; it is not the silence between two noises. Peace is not between two wars. Silence comes naturally when you are watching without motive. In that watching there is something which is beyond words, beyond all measure.