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Madras, India. Group Discussion 24th October, 1947
Words have a verbal meaning as well as a nervous response and their full significance has to be understood. There has to be self-discovery. Self-understanding alone leads to right thinking and right acting. In discussing, we should become aware of our own ways of thinking. It would then be possible to bring about almost instantaneous perception of truth and to change ourselves radically, fundamentally and immediately.
What are the chief obstacles in the way of understanding? We see things with a bias, at an angle, with a prejudice, with a desire to escape from the problem; there are also subconscious blockages. Our problems are not static but ever-changing; to understand them, we should be as alert as the problems. Therefore, any intellectual, verbal or authoritarian, positive or negative conclusion - which is a picture of the past - is a hindrance to understanding; so also is a hypothesis, working or otherwise. For example, you cannot understand your son if you first discuss with professors and experts, form conclusions, and then look at your son in the light of such conclusions.
To understand a living problem, one should be alert and watchful and must follow the movement of life as quickly and correctly as possible. If you have a ready-made conclusion or hypothesis, it means that you have not understood life. A conclusion is an impediment as it only remains on the verbal level; but if you see the truth of a matter or if you discover a fact by your own thinking, it is not a conclusion.