Why has the brain got caught in the narrow circle of the self?
Public Talk 1
Is it possible to live in peace?
Public Talk 1 Saanen
July 10, 1983
Where does one find peace? When you see something to be true, that very perception is action. If I am exploring into what is peace, the ‘I’ is separate from the thing that is being explored and so there is division. Does peace lie in memories? What is the cause of conflict? What is the deep, fundamental function of the brain?
Public Talk 2
The function of the brain
Public Talk 2 Saanen
July 12, 1983
What is the function of the brain? We are a series of movements of memory and time. Have you ever inquired into what is the present, what is ‘now’? Why has the brain got caught in this narrow circle of the self? What is thinking? Is the brain an instrument which is merely concerned with security, psychological as well as physical? To understand the nature of conflict and to see whether it is possible to end conflict in relationship, we have to inquire whether thought dominates relationship. What is intelligence?
Public Talk 3
Where does one find complete security?
Public Talk 3 Saanen
July 14, 1983
Doubt what the speaker is saying. Also doubt very much more your own reactions to what you hear. Let the seed of doubt move, flower, grow until it finds what is truth. What is security, apart from physical security? What is the ‘me’, the psychological structure? Your brain is nothing but memories. Those memories are limited and so thought is invariably limited, and so whatever it does is limited. To understand, to observe, to perceive the nature, structure and causation of violence needs no time.
Public Talk 4
What is supreme intelligence?
Public Talk 4 Saanen
July 17, 1983
What is intelligence? Conflict is one of the major factors of deterioration in the brain. To end the deteriorating factor of the brain is to hold on to the fact and put away all non-fact: no idealism, no conclusion, no prejudice, only the fact. Time is a movement of thought, psychologically as well as physically. The fact is now. The fact contains all the past, present and the future. For the fact to reveal its content, listen to the fact, not you tell the fact what its content is. Is it possible to find a way of living where there is no shadow of conflict?
Public Talk 5
Unconditioning the brain cells
Public Talk 5 Saanen
July 19, 1983
What is the future of mankind? Thinking is common to all of us and therefore it is not your individual, private thinking. What is going to happen to our brains when the computer and robot take over, when industry invents ultra-intelligent machines? Can we, even a few, change, bring about a mutation in the very brain cells? How does fear arise? Can we now, not tomorrow, end all comparison? When you are attached, when you are tied to something, then corruption begins. When there is a change, a radical mutation in conditioning, which means freedom from all conditioning, that freedom is love.
Public Talk 6
Religion and meditation 3
Public Talk 6 Saanen
July 21, 1983
One can ask what is religion only when we have established order in our lives. The art of listening demands the highest attention. What is the instrument that can probe into something that is not the activity of thought? Can you observe without the word? What is meditation? Is there something sacred, something holy? The necessity to find out if there is something more than thought, that very necessity creates the energy which then ends thought. When the self is not, the activity of thought is not, then there is vast silence in the brain.
Public Questions 1
1st Question & Answer Meeting 9
Public Questions 1 Saanen
July 24, 1983
Q1: I understand that in order to have a deep insight, thinking must stop. For thinking to stop there must already be a deep insight. Where does one start? Isn’t the brain working to achieve something and thus preventing insight? Q2: I long to be loved, and it is a constant anguish. What am I to do?
Public Questions 2
2nd Question & Answer Meeting 9
Public Questions 2 Saanen
July 25, 1983
Q1: Is there such a thing as right education? Q2: Could we speak about the brain and the mind? Q3: I once hurt someone very much. Why is the feeling of guilt such a deep tenacious one that endures in spite of every effort to be free of it?
Public Questions 3
3rd Question & Answer Meeting 4
Public Questions 3 Saanen
July 26, 1983
Q1: What is desire? Is desire awakened by external objects? Q2: You said it is necessary to have no opinions about anything. I feel it is necessary to have opinions about such serious things as Nazism, Communism, the spread of armaments, the use of torture by governments. One can’t just sit and observe these things taking place. Mustn’t one say something, or perhaps do something? Q3: From what we read, you have had strange and mysterious experiences. Is this kundalini or something greater? And we also read that you consider the so-called process that you have undergone to be some sort of expansion of consciousness. Could it be instead a self-induced, psychosomatic thing, caused by tension? Is not K’s consciousness put together by thought and words? Q4: What does death mean to you? Q5: After listening to you and thinking about these matters on my own, how am I to not just solve my problems but radically bring about a change in my life? Q6: What is a spiritual life?