Flash of Understanding ( 06 sept 06 wed)

The Flash of Understanding
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I do not know if you have noticed that there is understanding when the mind is very
quiet, even for a second; there is the flash of understanding when the verbalization
of thought is not. Just experiment with it and you will see for yourself that you
have the flash of understanding, that extraordinary rapidity of insight, when the
mind is very still, when thought is absent, when the mind is not burdened with its
own noise. So, the understanding of anything - of a modern picture, of a child, of
your wife, of your neighbor, or the understanding of truth, which is in all things -
can only come when the mind is very still. But such stillness cannot be cultivated
because if you cultivate a still mind, it is not a still mind, it is a dead mind.

The more you are interested in something, the more your intention to understand, the
more simple, clear, free the mind is. Then verbalization ceases. After all, thought
is word, and it is the word that interferes. It is the screen of words, which is
memory, that intervenes between the challenge and the response. It is the word that
is responding to the challenge, which we call intellection. So, the mind that is
chattering, that is verbalizing, cannot understand truth - truth in relationship,
not an abstract truth. There is no abstract truth. But truth is very subtle…. Like a
thief in the night, it comes darkly, not when you are prepared to receive it.

Book of Life - September 6th