Intellect Vs Intelligence ( 04 may 2006 )

Intellect vs. Intelligence

Training the intellect does not result in intelligence. Rather, intelligence comesinto being when one acts in perfect harmony, both intellectually and emotionally.There is a vast distinction between intellect and intelligence. Intellect is merelythought functioning independently of emotion. When intellect, irrespective ofemotion, is trained in any particular direction, one may have great intellect, butone does not have intelligence, because in intelligence there is the inherentcapacity to feel as well as to reason; in intelligence both capacities are equallypresent, intensely and harmoniously....If you bring your emotions into business, you say, business cannot be wellmanaged or be honest. So you divide your mind into compartments: in one compartmentyou keep your religious interest, in another your emotions, in a third your businessinterest which has nothing to do with your intellectual and emotional life. Yourbusiness mind treats life merely as a means of getting money in order to live. Sothis chaotic existence, this division of your life continues.

If you really usedyour intelligence in business, that is, if your emotions and your thought wereacting harmoniously, your business might fail. It probably would. And you willprobably let it fail when you really feel the absurdity, the cruelty, and theexploitation that is involved in this way of living.Until you really approach all of life with your intelligence, instead of merely withyour intellect, no system in the world will save man from the ceaseless toil forbread.

The Book of Life - May 4

This pure flame of passion ( 23 april 2006)

This Pure Flame of Passion

In most of us there is very little passion. We may be lustful, we may be longing forsomething, we may be wanting to escape from something, and all this does give one acertain intensity. But unless we awaken and feel our way into this flame of passionwithout a cause, we shall not be able to understand that which we call sorrow. Tounderstand something you must have passion, the intensity of complete attention.Where there is the passion for something, which produces contradiction, conflict,this pure flame of passion cannot be; and this pure flame of passion must exist inorder to end sorrow, dissipate it completely.

A petty mind ( 28 april 2006)

Petty Mind

A passionate mind is groping, seeking, breaking through, not accepting anytradition; it is not a decided mind, not a mind that has arrived, but it is a youngmind that is ever arriving.Now, how is such a mind to come into being? It must happen. Obviously, a petty mindcannot work at it. A petty mind trying to become passionate will merely reduceeverything to its own pettiness. It must happen, and it can only happen when themind sees its own pettiness and yet does not try to do anything about it.

Am Imaking myself clear? Probably not. But as I said earlier, any restricted mind,however eager it is, will still be petty, and surely that is obvious. A small mind,though it can go to the moon, though it can acquire a technique, though it cancleverly argue and defend, is still a small mind. So when the small mind says, "Imust be passionate in order to do something worthwhile," obviously its passion willbe very petty, will it not?—like getting angry about some petty injustice orthinking that the whole world is changing because of some petty, little reform donein a potty, little village by a potty, little mind. If the little mind sees allthat, then the very perception that it is small is enough, then its whole activity,undergoes a change.

The Book of Life - April 28

"We must die to all our emotions" ( 06 may 2006 sat)

We Must Die to All Our Emotions

What do we mean by emotion? Is it a sensation, a reaction, a response of the senses?
Hate, devotion, the feeling of love or sympathy for another—they are all emotions.Some, like love and sympathy, we call positive, while others, like hate, we callnegative and want to get rid of. Is love the opposite of hate? And is love anemotion, a sensation, a feeling that is stretched out through memory?...So, what do we mean by love? Surely, love is not memory. That is very difficultfor us to understand because for most of us, love is memory.

When you say that youlove your wife or your husband, what do you mean by that? Do you love that whichgives you pleasure? Do you love that with which you have identified yourself andwhich you recognize as belonging to you? Please, these are facts; I am not inventinganything, so don't look horrified....It is the image, the symbol of "my wife" or "my husband" that we love, or thinkwe love, not the living individual. I don't know my wife or my husband at all; and Ican never know that person as long as knowing means recognition. For recognition isbased on memory—memory of pleasure and pain, memory of the things I have lived for,agonized over, the things I possess and to which I am attached. How can I love whenthere is fear, sorrow, loneliness, the shadow of despair? How can an ambitious manlove?

And we are all very ambitious, however honourably.So, really to find out what love is, we must die to the past, to all our emotions,the good and the bad—die effortlessly, as we would to a poisonous thing, because we understand it.

perception of truth is immediate ( 20 may 2006 sat)

Perception of Truth Is ImmediateThe verbal state has been carefully built up through centuries, in relation betweenthe individual and society; so the word, the verbal state is a social state as wellas an individual state. To communicate as we are doing, I need memory, I need words,I must know English, and you must know English; it has been acquired throughcenturies upon centuries. The word is not only being developed in socialrelationships, but also as a reaction in that social relationship to the individual;the word is necessary. The question is, it has taken so long, centuries uponcenturies, to build up the symbolical, the verbal state, and can that be wiped awayimmediately? . . . Through time are we going to get rid of the verbal imprisonmentof the mind, which has been built up for centuries? Or must it break immediately?Now, you may say, "It must take time, I can't do it immediately." This means thatyou must have many days, this means a continuity of what has been, though it ismodified in th e process, till you reach a stage where there is no further to go. Can you do that?Because we are afraid, we are lazy, we are indolent, we say, "Why bother about allthis? It is too difficult"; or "I do not know what to do"—so you postpone,postpone, postpone. But you have to see the truth of the continuation and themodification of the word. The perception of the truth of anything is immediate—notin time. Can the mind break through instantly, on the very questioning? Can themind see the barrier of the word, understand the significance of the word in aflash and be in that state when the mind is no longer caught in time? You must haveexperienced this; only it is a very rare thing for most of us.

The Book of Life - May 20

do not name a feeling ( 13 may 2006)

Do Not Name a FeelingWhat happens when you do not name? You look at an emotion, at a sensation, moredirectly and therefore have quite a different relationship to it, just as you haveto a flower when you do not name it. You are forced to look at it anew. When you donot name a group of people, you are compelled to look at each individual face andnot treat them all as a mass. Therefore you are much more alert, much moreobserving, more understanding; you have a deeper sense of pity, love; but if youtreat them all as the mass, it is over.

If you do not label, you have to regard every feeling as it arises. When you label,is the feeling different from the label? Or does the label awaken the feeling?...

If I do not name a feeling, that is to say if thought is not functioning merelybecause of words or if I do not think in terms of words, images, or symbols, whichmost of us do—then what happens? Surely the mind then is not merely the observer.When the mind is not thinking in terms of words, symbols, images, there is nothinker separate from the thought, which is the word. Then the mind is quiet, is itnot?—not made quiet, it is quiet.

When the mind is really quiet, then the feelingswhich arise can be dealt with immediately. It is only when we give names to feelingsand thereby strengthen them that the feelings have continuity; they are stored up inthe center, from which we give further labels, either to strengthen or tocommunicate them.

The Book of Life - May 13

One must have great feelings ( 07 May 2006 Sun )

One Must Have Great FeelingsIn the modern world where there are so many problems, one is apt to lose greatfeeling. I mean by that word feeling, not sentiment, not emotionalism, not mereexcitement, but that quality of perception, the quality of hearing, listening, thequality of feeling, a bird singing on a tree, the movement of a leaf in the sun. Tofeel things greatly, deeply, penetratingly, is very difficult for most of us becausewe have so many problems. Whatever we seem to touch turns into a problem. And,apparently, there is no end to man's problems, and he seems utterly incapable ofresolving them because the more the problems exist, the less the feelings become.I mean by "feeling" the appreciation of the curve of a branch, the squalor, the dirton the road, to be sensitive to the sorrow of another, to be in a state of ecstasywhen we see a sunset. These are not sentiments, these are not mere emotions. Emotionand sentiment or sentimentality turn to cruelty, they can be used by society; andwhen there is sentiment, sensation, then one becomes a slave to society. But onemust have great feelings. The feeling for beauty, the feeling for a word, thesilence between two words, and the hearing of a sound clearly—all that generatesfeeling. And one must have strong feelings, because it is only the feelings thatmake the mind highly sensitive.

Memore clouds the perception ( 16 may 2006 tue)

Memory Clouds PerceptionAre you speculating, or are you actually experiencing as we are going along? You donot know what a religious mind is, do you? From what you have said, you don't knowwhat it means; you may have just a flutter or a glimpse of it, just as you see theclear, lovely blue sky when the cloud is broken through; but the moment you haveperceived the blue sky, you have a memory of it, you want more of it and thereforeyou are lost in it; the more you want the word for storing it as an experience, the more you are lost in it.

A Mind Rich with Innocense ( 01 May 2006)

A Mind Rich with InnocenceTruth, the real God—the real God, not the God that man has made— does not want amind that has been destroyed, petty, shallow, narrow, limited. It needs a healthymind to appreciate it; it needs a rich mind—rich, not with knowledge but withinnocence—a mind upon which there has never been a scratch of experience, a mindthat is free from time. The gods that you have invented for your own comforts accepttorture; they accept a mind that is being made dull. But the real thing does notwant it; it wants a total, complete human being whose heart is full, rich, clear,capable of intense feeling, capable of seeing the beauty of a tree, the smile of achild, and the agony of a woman who has never had a full meal.You have to have this extraordinary feeling, this sensitivity to everything—to theanimal, to the cat that walks across the wall, to the squalor, the dirt, the filthof human beings in poverty, in despair. You have to be sensitive—which is to feelintensely, not in any particular direction, which is not an emotion which comes andgoes, but which is to be sensitive with your nerves, with your eyes, with your body,with your ears, with your voice. You have to be sensitive completely all the time.Unless you are so completely sensitive, there is no intelligence. Intelligence comeswith sensitivity and observation.The Book of Life - May 1

Passion for every thing ( 30 April 2006)

In the state of passion without a cause there is intensity free of all attachment;but when passion has a cause, there is attachment, and attachment is the beginningof sorrow. Most of us are attached, we cling to a person, to a country, to a belief,to an idea, and when the object of our attachment is taken away or otherwise losesits significance, we find ourselves empty, insufficient. This emptiness we try tofill by clinging to something else, which again becomes the object of our passion.Examine your own heart and mind. I am merely a mirror in which you are looking atyourself. If you don't want to look, that is quite all right; but if you do want tolook, then look at yourself clearly, ruthlessly, with intensity—not in the hope ofdissolving your miseries, your anxieties, your sense of guilt, but in order tounderstand this extraordinary passion which always leads to sorrow.When passion has a cause it becomes lust. When there is a passion for something—fora person, for an idea, for some kind of fulfillment—then out of that passion therecomes contradiction, conflict, effort. You strive to achieve or maintain aparticular state, or to recapture one that has been and is gone. But the passion ofwhich I am speaking does not give rise to contradiction, conflict. It is totallyunrelated to a cause, and therefore it is not an effect.The Book of Life - April 30

A Passion for Everything ( 25.April.2006)

For most of us, passion is employed only with regard to one thing, sex; or yousuffer passionately and try to resolve that suffering. But I am using the wordpassion in the sense of a state of mind, a state of being, a state of your inwardcore, if there is such a thing, that feels very strongly, that is highlysensitive—sensitive alike to dirt, to squalor, to poverty, and to enormous richesand corruption, to the beauty of a tree, of a bird, to the flow of water, and to apond that has the evening sky reflected upon it. To feel all this intensely,strongly, is necessary. Because without passion life becomes empty, shallow, andwithout much meaning. If you cannot see the beauty of a tree and love that tree, ifyou cannot care for it intensely, you are not living.

24 April 2006 Beauty is beyond feeling

Beauty Beyond FeelingWithout passion how can there be beauty? I do not mean the beauty of pictures,buildings, painted women, and all the rest of it. They have their own forms ofbeauty. A thing put together by man, like a cathedral, a temple, a picture, a poem,or a statue may or may not be beautiful. But there is a beauty which is beyondfeeling and thought and which cannot be realized, understood, or known if there isnot passion. So do not misunderstand the word passion. It is not an ugly word; it isnot a thing you can buy in the market or talk about romantically. It has nothingwhatever to do with emotion, feeling. It is not a respectable thing; it is a flamethat destroys anything that is false. And we are always so afraid to allow thatflame to devour the things that we hold dear, the things that we call important.