Choiceless Awareness
Bangalore 3rd Public Talk 18th July, 1948
As there are only a few of us, instead of my making an introductory
speech as I did last time before answering questions, may I suggest that
we turn this into a discussion meeting? Perhaps that may be more
worthwhile than my making a formal speech, and so on. So, would you mind
coming in a little closer? What subject shall we discuss which will be
worthwhile and profitable? What would you suggest, Sirs, as a subject to
be discussed?
Audience: Why are you touring around? Krishnamurti: Do you really want to discuss why I am touring around?
Comment from the Audience: May we discuss the purpose of life?
Krishnamurti: Does that interest everybody, to discuss what is the purpose of life, reincarnation and karma?
Audience: Yes.
Krishnamurti: Then let us discuss what is the purpose of life, and perhaps later we shall introduce other subjects.
First of all, in discussing any subject of this kind, we must
obviously be earnest and not academic, scholarly or superficial, because
that will not lead us anywhere. So, we have to be very serious, and
that means we cannot merely accept or reject, but must investigate to
find out the truth of any subject. One must be attentive and not
academic. One must be open to suggestion, and therefore one must have a
desire to investigate and not merely accept the authority, either of the
platform or of a book, of the dead past or of the present. So, in
discussing what is the purpose of life, we have to find out what we mean
by "life" and what we mean by "purpose" - not merely the dictionary
meaning, but the significance we give to those words. Surely, life
implies everyday action, everyday thought, everyday feeling, does it
not? It implies the struggles, the pains, the anxieties, the deceptions,
the worries, the routine of the office, of business, of bureaucracy,
and so on. All that is life, is it not? By life we mean, not just one
department or one layer of consciousness, but the total process of
existence which is our relationship to things, to people, to ideas. That
is what we mean by life - not an abstract thing.
So, if that is what we mean by life, then has life a purpose? Or is
it because we do not understand the ways of life - the everyday pain,
anxiety, fear, ambition, greed - , because we do not understand the
daily activities of existence, that we want a purpose, remote or near,
far away or close? We want a purpose so that we can guide our everyday
life towards an end. That is obviously what we mean by purpose. But if I
understand how to live, then the very living is in itself sufficient,
is it not? Do we then want a purpose? If I love you, if I love another,
is that not sufficient in itself? Do I then want a purpose? Surely, we
want a purpose only when we do not understand, or when we want a mode of
conduct with an end in view. After all, most of us are seeking a way of
life, a way of conduct; and we either look to others, to the past, or
we try to find a mode of behaviour through our own experience. When we
look to our own experience for a pattern of behaviour, our experience is
always conditioned, is it not? However wide the experiences one may
have had, unless these experiences dissolve the past conditioning, any
new experiences only further strengthen the past conditioning. That is a
fact which we can discuss. And if we look to another, to the past, to a
guru, to an ideal, to an example, for a pattern of behaviour, we are
merely forcing the extraordinary vitality of life into a mould, into a
particular shape, and thereby we lose the swiftness, the intensity, the
richness of life.
So, we must find out very clearly what we mean by purpose, if there
is a purpose. You may say there is a purpose: to reach reality, God, or
what you will. But to reach that, you must know it, you must be aware of
it, you must have the measure, the depth, the significance of it. Do we
know reality for ourselves, or do we know it only through the authority
of another? So, can you say that the purpose of life is to find reality
when you do not know what reality is? Since reality is the unknown, the
mind that seeks the unknown must first be free from the known, must it
not? If my mind is clouded, burdened with the known, it can only measure
according to its own condition, its own limitation, and therefore it
can never know the unknown, can it?
So, what we are trying to discuss and find out is whether life has a
purpose, and whether that purpose can be measured. It can only be
measured in terms of the known, in terms of the past; and when I measure
the purpose of life in terms of the known, I will measure it according
to my likes and dislikes. Therefore, the purpose will be conditioned by
my desires, and therefore it ceases to be the purpose. Surely, that is
clear, is it not? I can understand what is the purpose of life only
through the screen of my own prejudices, wants and desires - otherwise I
cannot judge, can I? So, the measure, the tape, the yardstick, is a
conditioning of my mind, and according to the dictates of my
conditioning I will decide what the purpose is. But is that the purpose
of life? It is created by my want, and therefore it is surely not the
purpose of life. To find out the purpose of life, the mind must be free
of measurement; then only can it find out - otherwise you are merely
projecting your own want. This is not mere intellection, and if you go
into it deeply you will see its significance. After all, it is according
to my prejudice, to my want, to my desire, to my predilection, that I
decide what the purpose of life is to be. So, my desire creates the
purpose. Surely, that is not the purpose of life. Which is more
important, to find out the purpose of life, or to free the mind itself
from its own conditioning, and the mind is free from its own
conditioning, that very freedom itself is the purpose. Because, after
all, it is only in freedom that one can discover any truth.
So, the first requisite is freedom, and not seeking the purpose of
life. Without freedom, obviously, one cannot find it; without being
liberated from our own petty little wants, pursuits, ambitions, envies
and ill will, without freedom from these things, how can one possibly
enquire or discover what is the purpose of life? So, is it not
important, for one who is enquiring about the purpose of life, to find
out first if the instrument of enquiry is capable of penetrating into
the processes of life, into the psychological complexities of one's own
being? Because, that is all we have, is it not? - a psychological
instrument that is shaped to suit our own needs. And as the instrument
is fashioned out of our own petty desires, as it is the outcome of our
own experiences, worries, anxieties and ill will, how can such an
instrument find reality? Therefore, is it not important, if you are to
enquire into the purpose of life, to find out first if the enquirer is
capable of understanding or discovering what that purpose is? I am not
turning the tables on you, but that is what is implied when we enquire
about the purpose of life. When we ask that question, we have first to
find out whether the questioner, the enquirer, is capable of
understanding.
Now, when we discuss the purpose of life, we see that we mean by life
the extraordinarily complex state of interrelationship without which
there would be no life. And if we do not understand the full
significance of that life, its varieties, impressions, and so on, what
is the good of enquiring about the purpose of life? If I do not
understand my relationship with you, my relationship with property and
ideas, how can I go further? After all, Sir, to find truth, or God, or
what you will, I must first understand my existence, I must
understand,the life around me and in me, otherwise the search for
reality becomes merely a escape from everyday action; and a most of us
do not understand every day action, as for most of us life is drudgery,
pain, suffering, anxiety, we say, "For God's sake, tell us how to escape
from it." That is what most of us want - a drug to put us to sleep so
that we don't feel the aches and pains of life. Have I answered your
question about the purpose of life?
Audience: May one say that the purpose of life is to live rightly?
Krishnamurti: It is suggested that the purpose of life is to live
rightly. Sirs, I do not want to quibble, but what do we mean by a "right
life"? We have the idea that to live according to a pattern laid down
by Shankaracharya, Buddha, X, Y or Z, is to live rightly. Is that living
rightly? Surely, that is only a conformity which the mind seeks in
order to be secure, in order not to be disturbed.
Audience: There is a Chinese saying that the purpose of life is the
pleasure of it, the joy of it. It is not an abstract joy, but it is the
joy of living, the pleasures of sleeping, drinking, the joy of meeting
people and talking to them, of coming, of going, of working. The joy of
living, of everyday happenings, is the purpose of life.
Krishnamurti: Surely, Sirs, there is a joy. There is real happiness
in understanding something, is there not? If I understand my
relationship with my neighbour, my wife, with the property over which we
fight, wrangle and destroy each other - if I understand these things,
surely out of that understanding there comes a joy; then life itself is a
joy, a richness, and with that richness one can go further, deeper. But
without that foundation, you cannot build a great structure, can you?
After all, happiness comes naturally, easily, only when there is no
friction either in us or about us; and friction ceases only when there
is an understanding of things in their right proportion, in their right
values. To find out what is right, one must first know the process, the
working of one's own mind. Otherwise, if you do not know your own mind,
how can you discover the right value of anything?
So, we are confused; our relationships, our ideas, our governments,
are really confused. It is only a foolish man who does not see the
confusion. The world is in an awful mess, and the world is the
projection of ourselves. What we are, the world is. We are confused,
fearfully entangled in ideas, and we do not know what is true and what
is false; and being confused, we say, "Please, what is the purpose of
life, what is the need of all this mess, this misery?"
Now, some will naturally give you a verbal explanation of what the
purpose of life is; and if you like it, you accept it and mould your
life accordingly. But that does not solve the problem of confusion, does
it? You have only postponed it, you have not understood what is.
Surely, the understanding of what is - the confusion within me and
therefore about me - is more important than to inquire how to behave
rightly. If I understand what has caused this confusion, and therefore
how to put an end to it,I understand these things, there comes naturally
a true, affectionate behaviour. So, being confused, my problem is, not
to find out what is the end or purpose of life, nor how to get out of
confusion, but rather how to understand the confusion; because, if I
understand it, then I can dissolve it. To put an end to confusion
requires the understanding of what is at any given moment, and that
demands enormous attention, interest to find out what is, and not merely
the dissipation of our energies in the pursuit of our life, of our own
methods, of our actions according to a particular pattern - all of which
is so much easier, because it is not tackling our problems but rather
escaping from them.
So, as you are confused, every man who becomes a leader, political or
religious, is merely the expression of our own confusion; and because
you follow the leader, he becomes the voice of confusion. He may lead
you away from a particular confusion, but he will not help you to
resolve the cause of confusion, and therefore you will still be
confused; because, you create the confusion, and confession is where you
are. So, the question is. not how to get out of confusion, but how to
understand it; and in understanding it, perhaps you will find the
meaning of all these struggles, these pains, these anxieties, this
constant battle within and without.
So, is it not important to find out why we are confused? Can anybody,
except a very few, say that they are not confused, politically,
religiously, economically? Sirs, you have only to look around you. Every
newspaper is shouting in confusion, reflecting the uncertainties, the
pains, the anxieties, the impending wars; and the sane, thoughtful
person, the earnest person who is trying to find a way out of this
confusion, surely has first to tackle himself. So then, our question is
this: What causes confusion? Why are we confused? One of the obvious
factors is that we have lost confidence in ourselves, and that is why we
have so many leaders, so many gurus, so many holy books telling us what
to do and what not to do. We have lost self-confidence. Now, what do
you mean by self-confidence? Obviously, there are people, the
technicians, who are full of confidence because they have achieved
results. For example, give a first class mechanic any machine and he
will understand it. The more technique we have, the more capable we are
of dealing with technical things; but surely; that is not
self-confidence. We are not using the word "confidence" as it applies to
technical matters. A professor, when he deals with his subject, is full
of confidence - at least, when other professors are not listening; or a
bureaucrat, a high official, feels confident because he has reached the
top of the. ladder in the technique of bureaucracy, and he can always
exert his authority. Though he may be wrong, he is full of confidence -
like a mechanic when you give him a motor he knows all about. But
surely, we do not mean that kind of confidence, do we? , because we are
not technical machines. We are not mere machines ticking according to a
certain rhythm, revolving at a certain speed, a certain number of
revolutions per minute. We are life, not machines. We would like to make
ourselves into machines, because then we could deal with ourselves
mechanically, repetitiously and automatically - and that is what most of
us want. Therefore, we build walls of resistance, disciplines,
controls, tracks along which we run. But even having so conditioned, so
placed ourselves, having become so automatic and mechanical, there is
still a vitality that pursues different things and creates
contradictions. Sirs, our difficulty is that we are pliable, that we are
alive, not dead; and because life is so swift, so subtle, so uncertain,
we do not know how to understand it, and therefore we have lost
confidence. Most of us are trained technically because we have to earn
our livelihood, and modern civilization demands higher and higher
technique. But with that technical mind, that technical capacity, you
cannot follow yourself, because you are much too swift, you are more
pliable, more complicated than the machine; so you are learning to have
more and more confidence in the machine, and are losing confidence in
yourself, and are therefore multiplying leaders. So, as I said, one of
the causes of confusion is this lack of confidence in ourselves. The
more imitative we are, the less confidence we have, and we have made
life into a copy book. From early childhood up, we are told what to do;
we must do this, we must not do that. So what do you expect? And must
you not have confidence in order to find out? Must you not have that
extraordinary inward certainty to know what truth is when you meet it?
So, having made life into a technical process, conforming to a
particular pattern of action, which is merely technique, naturally we
have lost confidence in ourselves, and therefore we are increasing our
inward struggle, our inward pain and confusion. Confusion can be
dissolved only through self-confidence, and this confidence cannot be
gained through another. You have to undertake, for yourself and by
yourself, the journey of discovery into the process of yourself, in
order to understand it. This does not mean you are withdrawn, aloof. On
the contrary, Sirs, confidence comes the moment you understand, not what
others say, but your own thoughts and feelings, what is happening in
yourself and around you. Without that confidence which comes from
knowing your own thoughts, feelings and experiences - their truth, their
falseness, their significance, their absurdity - , without knowing
that, how can you clear up the whole field of confusion which is
yourself?
Audience: Confusion can be dispelled by being aware.
Krishnamurti: You are saying, Sir, that by being aware, by being
conscious of the confusion, that confusion can be dissipated. Is that
it?
Audience: Yes, Sir.
Krishnamurti: For the moment, we are not discussing how to dissipate
confusion. Having lost self confidence, our problem is how to get it
back - if we ever had it at all. Because, obviously, without that
element of confidence we shall be led astray by every person we come
across - and that is exactly what is happening. What is right purpose
politically, and how are you to know it? Should you not know it? Should
you not know what is true in it? Similarly, must you not know what is
true in the babble of tongues of religion? And how are you going to find
out what is true among all the innumerable sayings, Christian, Hindu,
Mussulman, and so on? In this frightful confusion, how are you going to
find out? To find out, you must obviously be in a great strait, you must
be burning to know what you are in yourself. Are you in such a
position? Are you burning to find out the truth of anything, whether of
communism, fascism, or capitalism? To find out what is true in the
various political actions, in the religious assertions and experiences
which you so easily accept - to find out the truth of all these things,
must you not be burning with the desire to know the truth? Therefore,
never accept any authority. Sir, after all, acceptance of authority
indicates that the mind wants comfort, security. A mind that seeks
security. either with a guru or in a party, political or any other, a
mind that is seeking safety, comfort, can never find truth, even in the
smallest things of our existence. So, a man who wants this creative
self-confidence must obviously be burning with the desire to know the
truth of everything, not about empires or the atomic bomb, which is
merely a technical matter, but in our human relationships, our
relationship with others, and our relationship to property and to ideas.
If I want to know the truth, I begin to enquire; and before I can know
the truth of anything, I must have confidence. To have confidence, I
must enquire into myself and remove those causes that prevent each
experience from giving its full significance.
Audience: Our minds are limited. What is the way out of this impasse?
Krishnamurti: Now wait a minute. Before we enquire how to free the
mind from its own conditioning, which creates confusion, let us try to
find out how to discover the truth of anything - not of technical
things, but the truth of ourselves in relation to something, even in
relation to the atomic bomb. You understand the problem, Sir? We are not
self-confident, there is no confidence in us, that creative thing which
gives sustenance, life, vitality, understanding. We have lost it, or we
have never had it; and, because we do not know how to judge anything,
we have been led here and pushed there, beaten up, driven, politically,
religiously and socially. We don't know - but it is difficult to say we
don't know. Most of us think we do, but actually we know very little
except in technical matters - how to run a government, a machine, or how
to kick the servant or wife or children, or whatever it is. But we do
not know ourselves, we have lost that capacity. I am using the word
"lost", but that is probably the wrong word, because we have never had
it. Since we do not know ourselves and yet we want to find out what
truth is, how are we going to find it? Do you understand the quest;on,
Sir? I am afraid not.
Someone wanted to discuss reincarnation. Now, I want to know the
truth of reincarnation, not what the Bhagavad Gita, Christ, or my pet
guru has said. I want to know the truth of that matter. Therefore, what
am I to do to know the truth of it? What is the first requirement it,
must I? I must not be persuaded by the clever arguments or by the
personality of another, which means I am not easily satisfied by the
reassuring comfort which reincarnation gives. Must I not be in that
position? That is, I am not seeking comfort, I am trying to find out
what is true. Are you in that position? Surely, when you are seeking
comfort, you can be persuaded by anyone, and therefore you lose
self-confidence; but when you do not seek comfort but want to know the
truth, when you are completely free from the desire to take refuge, then
you will experience truth, and that experience will give you
confidence. So, that is the first requirement, is it not? To know the
truth of anything psychologically, you cannot seek comfort; because, the
moment you want comfort, security, a haven in which you are protected,
you will have what you want, but what you have will not be the truth.
Therefore, you will be persuaded by another who offers a greater
comfort, a greater security, a better refuge; and so you are driven from
port to port, and that is why you have lost confidence. You have no
confidence because you have been driven from one refuge to another by
your own desire to be comfortable, to be secure. So, a man who would
seek the truth in relationship must be free of the destructive and
limiting desire to be comfortable, to be secure. This fear of losing
oneself psychologically must go. Only then can you find the truth of
reincarnation or of anything else, because you are seeking truth and not
security. Then truth will reveal to you what is right, and therefore
you will have confidence. Sir, is it not more important to find out the
truth than to believe that there is or is not continuity? That is the
question, is it not? If I want to know the truth, I am in a position not
to be easily persuaded. Audience: When we asked the question about
reincarnation, we wanted to be reassured that there is reincarnation, we
did not want to know about truth and all that.
Krishnamurti: Of course you want to know if there is reincarnation,
if reincarnation is a fact, but you don't want to know the truth of it;
and I want to know the truth of reincarnation, not the fact. It may or
may not be a fact. I do not know if the distinction is clear.
Audience: It is not clear.
Krishnamurti: Alright, Sir, let us discuss it.
Audience: When we ask the question about reincarnation, it is in
order to be assured that there is reincarnation. In other words, we put
the question in a state of anxiety that there should be reincarnation,
and being anxious, we listen with a biased mind. We do not want to find
out the real truth of it; we only want to be assured that there is such a
thing as reincarnation.
Audience: Do you want to know whether there is such a thing as
reincarnation, or do you want to know the truth? Are you anxious that
there should be reincarnation, or are you seeking to find out the truth,
whatever it is?
Audience: Both.
Audience: You cannot do both. Either you want to know the truth about
reincarnation, or you want to be assured that there is reincarnation.
Which is the case?
Krishnamurti: Let us be very clear on this point. If I am anxious to
know whether there is reincarnation or not, what is the motive behind
that question?
Audience: The motive is quite clear, I think.
Krishnamurti: What is it, Sir?
Audience: The motive is that life begins at a certain stage and ends at a certain stage.
Krishnamurti: Which means what?
Audience: It means that the purpose is understood and the goal is reached or not reached.
Audience: When you say that life is limited, are you anxious?
Audience: I did not say that life is limited.
Audience: You said it begins at a certain point and ends at a certain point.
Audience: I mean by that, birth and death.
Audience: Life is spanned by birth and death. It is limited.
Audience: Yes.
Audience: When you ask whether there is reincarnation, are you in a state of mind which desires it?
Audience: I am in a state of enquiry. Audience: Are you a believer?
Audience: An enquirer, a seeker.
Krishnamurti: If I seek, what is the state of my mind? What is making me seek?
Audience: I do not understand, Sir.
Krishnamurti: What is making me seek?
Audience: We desire to know the truth.
Krishnamurti: Therefore, you are not anxious.
Audience: There is no motive, only anxiety.
Krishnamurti: So you are saying you are anxious?
Audience: Everybody is.
Krishnamurti: Therefore you are not seeking truth. You are not passive.
Audience: I seek out of anxiety to know the truth.
Krishnamurti: Yes, Sir?
Audience: What are you anxious about?
Audience: I am not anxious about anything. I am viewing it merely from an academic point of view.
Krishnamurti: Either we are discussing merely academically, superficially, or we are discussing very seriously.
Audience: Certainly.
Krishnamurti: I am not saying you are superficial; but surely, we
must know if we are merely discussing out of curiosity. If we are, it
will lead us in one direction, and if we are discussing to find out the
truth, then it will lead us in another direction. Which is it: As I said
right from the beginning this evening, if we are merely discussing as a
club for intellectual amusement, then I am afraid I shall not partake
in it, because that is not my intention; but if we are seeking to find
out the truth of anything, that is, the truth of our relationship, then
let us discuss.
Now, if I ask about reincarnation because I am anxious, surely that
anxiety comes into being because I am afraid of death, of coming to an
end, of not fulfilling myself, of not seeing my friends, of not
finishing my book, and all the rest of it. That is, my enquiry is based
on fear; therefore fear will dictate the answer, fear will determine
what truth shall be. But if I am not afraid and am seeking the truth of
what is, then reincarnation has a different meaning. So, inwardly,
psychologically, we must be very clear what it is that we are seeking.
Are we seeking the truth about reincarnation, or are we seeking
reincarnation out of anxiety?
Audience: I do not think there is much difference between the two. I am seeking.
Audience: I think he used the word "anxiety" to mean "earnestness".
Audience: It is obvious that if you are seeking out of anxiety, you are
prejudice in favour of a certain answer which will relieve you of that
anxiety, and therefore you cannot find the truth.
Audience: I can honestly tell you that I am neither in favour of this
nor of that. I want to know the truth. The question arose in me when we
were discussing the subject.
Audience: Why did it arise?
Audience: I cannot explain. That is for you to explain.
Audience: People usually ask questions about reincarnation in order to be assured that there is such a thing as reincarnation.
Audience: Not all.
Audience: It is very rare that somebody asks about reincarnation just to know the truth.
Audience: You can naturally understand that I am very much interested in the subject.
Krishnamurti: Alright. I am not answering your question for the
moment. We are discussing it generally. Does our approach lie through
anxiety, through fear; or, without being afraid, do we want to know?
Because, the results of our enquiry will be different in each case. As
has been pointed out by one of you, either I am anxious to know, and
therefore my anxiety is going to colour what is, or, I want to know
about continuity, independent of my likes and dislikes, fears and
anxieties. I want to know what is. Now, most of us are a mixture of
both, are we not? When my son dies, I am anxious, I am burning with
pain, with loneliness, and I want to know. Then my enquiries are based
on anxiety. But sitting and discussing in this hall and casually saying,
"Well, I would like to know" when there is no crisis - can such a mind
know? Surely, you can find truth only in a crisis and not away from the
crisis. It is then that you will have to enquire, not when you casually
say, "Let us discuss whether there is truth or not". Is that not so?
When my son dies, I want to know, not whether he lives, but the truth
about continuity, which means that I am willing to understand the
subject. Does it not imply that? I have lost my son, and I want to know
what makes me suffer, and if there is an end to suffering. So, it is in
that moment of crisis alone, when there is pressure, that I will find
the truth, if I want to know the truth. But in the moment of crisis, in
the moment of pressure, we want comfort, we want alleviation, we want to
put our head on somebody's lap; in moments of anxiety we want to be
lulled to sleep. And I say, on the contrary, the moment of anxiety is
the right moment to enquire and to find the truth. When I want comfort
in the moment of crisis, I am not enquiring. Therefore, I must know the
state of my own being, of my psychological or spiritual being. I must
know the state I am in before I can enquire and find out what truth is.
Sir, most of us are in a crisis - about the war, about a job, about
our wives running away with somebody. We have crises about us and in us
all the time, whether we admit it or not; and is that not the moment to
enquire, rather than to wait till the ultimate moment when the bomb is
thrown? Because, though we may deny it, we are in a crisis from moment
to moment, politically psychologically, economically. There is intense
pressure all the time; and is this not the moment to find out? Are we
not in this moment? If you say, "I have no crisis, I am only sitting
back and looking at life", that is merely avoiding the issue isn't it?
Is any one of us in that position? Surely, that is not true of any
person. We have crises one after another, but we have become dull,
secure, indifferent; and our difficult is, is it not? , that we do not
know how to meet crises? Are we to meet them with anxiety, or to enquire
and so find the truth of the matter? Most of us meet a crisis with
anxiety; growing weary, we say, "Will you please solve this problem?"
When we talk, we are looking for an answer and not for the understanding
of the problem. Similarly, in discussing the question of reincarnation,
the problem of whether there is or is not continuity, what we mean by
continuity, what we mean by death: to understand such a problem, the
problem of continuity or no continuity, we must not seek an answer away
from the problem. We must understand the problem itself - which we will
discuss at another meeting, because our time is nearly up.
My point is that there must be self-confidence - and I have
sufficiently explained what I mean by self confidence. It is not the
confidence that you have through technical capacity, technical
knowledge, technical training. The confidence that comes with
self-knowledge is entirely different from the confidence of
aggressiveness and of technical skill; and that confidence born of self
knowledge is essential to clear up the confusion in which we live.
Obviously, you cannot have this self knowledge given to you by another,
because what is given to you by another is mere technique. That is the
joy of discovering, the bliss of understanding, can come only when I
understand myself, the whole total process of myself; and to understand
oneself is not such a very complex business, one can begin at any level
of consciousness. But, as I said last Sunday, to have that confidence
there must be the intention to know oneself. Then I am not easily
persuaded: I want to know everything about myself and so I am open to
all the intimations concerning me, whether they come from another or
from within myself. I am open to the conscious and the unconscious
within me, open to every thought and feeling that is constantly moving,
urging, arising and fading away in myself. Surely, that is the way to
have this confidence: to know oneself completely, whatever one is, and
not pursue an ideal of what one should be, or assume that one is this or
that, which is really absurd. It is absurd because then you are merely
accepting a preconceived idea, whether your own or another's, of what
you are or would like to be. But to understand yourself as you are, you
must be voluntarily open, spontaneously vulnerable to all the
intimations of yourself; and as you begin to understand the flow, the
movement, the swiftness of your own mind, you will see that confidence
comes from that understanding. It is not the aggressive, brutal,
assertive confidence, but the confidence of knowing what is taking place
in oneself. Surely, without that confidence, you cannot dispel
confusion; and without dispelling the confusion within you and about
you. how can you possibly find the truth of any relationship?
So, to find out what is true, or what is the purpose of life, or to
discover the truth of reincarnation or of any human problem, the
enquirer who is demanding truth, who wants to know truth, must be very
clear as regards his intentions, If his intentions are to seek security,
comfort, then obviously he does not want truth; because, truth may be
one of the most devastating, discomforting things. The man who is
seeking comfort does not want truth: he only wants security, safety, a
refuge in which he will not be disturbed. But a man who is seeking truth
must invite disturbances, tribulations; because, it is only in moments
of crisis that there is alertness, watchfulness, action. Then only that
which is is discovered and understood.
