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Madras, India. Afternoon Discussion
29th November, 1947
You follow a technique only when you want to imitate with a view to achieving something. It is only when you know what you want that you can discuss the technique necessary for acquiring the same. If you analyse your thoughts, you will find that you do not really know what you are seeking because at one moment you want something and at another moment another thing. Your mind is a battlefield of various thoughts and desires. Predominantly you feel some pain or some suffering from which you would like to be free. When you seek freedom from such suffering you find that you are restricted by many bondages. Without knowing the nature of those bondages and how they arose, you merely strive to be free from those bondages, which attempt always proves futile.
It is therefore necessary for you to be aware that you are bound and what you are bound by - i.e. you must understand and be aware of 'what is'. To understand 'what is' you must give your whole being to it. If you feel any effort in this, then it is an indication that your attention is divided between that understanding and some other distraction. In your daily life, almost everything is a distraction - i.e. rituals, cinemas, radios, enjoyment of the senses, etc. which is mainly due to your thinking in relation to the objects around you. Every thought which is really the result of the past is a distraction. When the mind realises that thinking itself is a dis- traction it also realises the futility of thinking. You have only your mind at your disposal and you have been depending only on it for all your understanding; and now you realise that that too is undependable.