Active but Quiet ( 20 Oct 2006 )

Active but Quiet

To discover the new mind, not only is it necessary for us to understand the
responses of the old brain, it is also necessary for the old brain to be quiet. The
old brain must be active but quiet. You are following what I am saying? Look, sir!
If you would discover for yourself firsthand - not what somebody else says - if
there is a reality, if there is such a thing as God - the word 'God' is not the fact
- your old brain, which has been nurtured in a tradition, either anti-God or
pro-God, in a culture, in an environmental influence and propaganda, through
centuries of social assertion, must be quiet. Because otherwise it will only project
its own images, its own concepts, its own values. But those values, those concepts,
those beliefs are the result of what you have been told, or are the result of your
reactions to what you have been told; so, unconsciously, you say, This is my
experience!

So you have to question the very validity of experience - your own experience or of
the experience of anybody else; it does not matter who it is. Then by questioning,
enquiring, asking, demanding, looking, listening attentively, the reactions of the
old brain become quiet. But the brain is not asleep; it is very active, but it is
quiet. It has come to that quietness through observation, through investigation. And
to investigate, to observe, you must have light; and the light is your constant
alertness.

The Book of Life - October 20