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subscribe Tell a friend THE FUTURE IS NOW - CHAPTER 10
1ST JANUARY 1986 - 2ND PUBLIC TALK MADRAS
First of all, one has to doubt, be sceptical of your experiences, conclusions, thoughts. Doubt. Question - not accepting a thing from any book, including mine; I'm a passer by, not important. And we are going to enquire together to see what is clear, and what is not clear. We are together examining, doubting, never accepting what the speaker has to say. This is not a lecture to guide, to instruct, to help; that would be too stupid. We've had that kind of help for generations upon generations and we are what we are now.
We must start from what we are now, not what we have been in the past or what we will be in the future. What we shall be in the future is what we are now. Our greed, our envy, our jealousy, our great superstitions, our desire to worship somebody - this is what we are now. So we are together walking up a very long street - it requires energy - and we are going to go into this question: What is love? To enquire very deeply, very profoundly into it, we must also enquire: What is energy? Every gesture you make is based on energy. While you are listening to the speaker, you are exercising energy. To build a house, to plant a tree, to make a gesture, to talk, all these require energy. The crow calling, the rising and setting sun, all this is energy. The cry of the baby out of the womb is part of energy. To play a violin, to speak, to marry, have sex - everything on earth requires energy.
So we start: what is energy? This is one of the questions of the scientists. And they say: Energy is matter. It may be matter, but previous to that, what is primordial energy? What is its origin, the source? Who created this energy? Careful. Don't say `god', and run away with that. I don't accept god; the speaker has no god. Is that all right?
So what is energy? We are enquiring, not accepting what the scientists have to say. And, if you can, abandon all that the ancient peoples have said; leave it at the roadside. We'll take a journey together.
Your brain, which is matter, is the accumulated experience of a million years, and all that evolution means energy. And so I'm asking myself - you're asking yourself is there an energy which is not contained or stimulated or held within the field of knowledge, that is, within the field of thought? Is there an energy which is not put together by thought?
Thought gives you great energy: to go to the office every morning at nine o'clock; to earn money, a better house. Thinking about the past, thinking about the future, planning for the present, gives tremendous energy: you work like blazes to become a rich man. Thought creates this energy. So then we have to enquire into the very nature of thought. Thought has planned this society which has divided this world into communist, socialist, democrat, republican; the army, the navy, the air-force - not only for transportation, but also to kill. So thought is very important in our lives because without thought we can't do anything; everything is contained in the process of thought.
So what is thinking? You work it out, don't listen to me. The speaker has talked about this a lot, so don't go back to my books, don't say, I've heard all this before. Here you forget all the books, all the things you have read, for we must approach this each time anew.
Thinking is based on knowledge. And we have accumulated tremendous knowledge: how to sell each other, how to exploit each other, how to create gods and temples, and so on.
Without experience there is no knowledge. Experience - knowledge stored in the brain as memory - is the beginning of thought. Experience is always limited, because you are adding more and more to it. So experience is limited, knowledge is limited, memory is limited. Therefore, thought is limited. The gods whom thought has created - your gods, your thinking - will always be limited. And from this limitation we try to find the source of energy - you understand? - we try to find the origin, the beginning of creation.
Thought has created fear. Right? Aren't you frightened of what may happen later - losing your job, not passing your exams, not climbing the ladder? And you're frightened of not being able to fulfil, of not being able to stand alone, of not being a strength unto yourself. You always depend on somebody, and that breeds tremendous fear.
It's one of the daily facts of our life that we are frightened people. And fear arises because we want security. Fear destroys love; love cannot exist where fear is. Fear on its own is a tremendous energy. And love has no relationship to fear; they're totally divorced. So, what is the origin of fear? To question all this is to be alive, to understand the nature of love. Thinking has created fear - thinking about the future, the past, of not being able to adjust quickly to the environment, what might happen: my wife might leave me or might die; I'll be a lonely man; what will I do then? I have several children; so I had better remarry someone or other; at least she'll look after my children - and so on. This is thinking of the future, based upon the past. So thinking and time are involved in this - thinking about the future, the future being tomorrow. And thinking about that causes fear. And so time and thought are the central factors of fear.
So time and thought are the principal factors of life. Time is both inward - I am this, I will be that - and outward. And time is thought; they are both movements.
Then what place have death, pain, anxiety, suffering, loneliness, despair, all those terrible things I've gone through? - All the travail that man goes through - is that all our life? I'm asking you: Is this all your life?
This is your life. Your consciousness, if you examine it very carefully, is made up of its content: what you think, your tradition, your education, your knowledge, your time, your fears, your loneliness. That is what you are. It's a fact that your suffering, your pain, your anxiety, your loneliness, your knowledge, are shared by every human being. Every human being on this earth goes through sorrow, pain, anxiety, quarrels, coaxing, wanting this, not wanting this. So you are not an individual; you are not a separate soul, a separate atman. Your consciousness, which is what you are - not physically, but psychologically, inwardly - is the consciousness of mankind.
We are trying to find out, to enquire into, what is life. We're saying that as long as there is fear of any kind, the other cannot exist. If there is attachment of any kind, the other cannot exist - the other being love. So we are going to see what the world is and enquire into what is death. Why are we all so frightened of death? You know what it means to die; haven't you seen dozens of people killed, or hurt? Have you ever enquired very deeply into what is death? It's a very important question, as important as what is life. We said life is all this rot - knowledge, going to the office every day at nine o'clock, etc., battling, not wanting this, wanting that. We know what living is, but we have never enquired seriously into what is dying.
What is dying? It must be an extraordinary thing to die. Everything is taken away from you: your attachments, your money, your wife, your children, your country, your superstitions, your gurus, your gods. You may wish to take them into the other world, but you can't. So death says, `Be totally detached.' That's what happens when death comes: you have no person to lean on. Nothing. You can believe that you will be reincarnated. That's a very comfortable idea, but it's not a fact.
We are trying to find out what it means to die, while living - not committing suicide; I am not talking about that kind of nonsense. I want to find out for myself what it means to die, which means, can I be totally free from everything that man has created, including myself?
What does it mean to die? To give up everything. Death cuts you off with a very, very, very sharp razor from your attachments, from your gods, from your superstitions, from your desire for comfort - next life and so on. I am going to find out what death means because it is as important as living. So how can I find out, actually, not theoretically, what it means to die? I actually want to find out, as you want to find out. I am speaking for you, so don't go to sleep. What does it mean to die? Put that question to yourself. While we are young, or when we are very old, this question is always there. It means to be totally free, to be totally unattached to everything that man has put together, or what you have put together - totally free. No attachments, no gods, no future, no past. You don't see the beauty of it, the greatness of it, the extraordinary strength of it - while living to be dying. You understand what that means? While you are living, every moment you are dying, so that throughout life you are not attached to anything. That is what death means.
So living is dying. You understand? Living means that every day you are abandoning everything that you are attached to. Can you do this? A very simple fact, but it has got tremendous implications. So that each day is a new day. Each day you are dying and incarnating. There is tremendous vitality, energy there because there is nothing you are afraid of. There is nothing that can hurt. Being hurt doesn't exist.
All the things that man has put together have to be totally abandoned. That's what it means to die. So can you do it? Will you try it? Will you experiment with it? Not for just a day; every day. No, sir, you can't do it; your brains are not trained for this. Your brains have been conditioned so heavily, by your education, by your tradition, by your books, by your professors. It requires finding out what love is. Love and death go together. Death says be free, nonattached, you can carry nothing with you. And love says, love says - there is no word for it. Love can exist only when there is freedom, not from your wife, from a new girl, or a new husband, but the feeling, the enormous strength, the vitality, the energy of complete freedom.