Be aware of inattention !

To be aware of inattention

Attention is this hearing and this seeing, and this attention has no limitation, no resistance, so it is limitless.

To attend implies this vast energy: it is not pinned down to a point. In this attention there is no repetitive movement; it is not mechanical. There is no question of how to maintain this attention, and when one has learnt the art of seeing and hearing, this attention can focus itself on a page, a word. In this there is no resistance which is the activity of concentration. Inattention cannot be refined into attention.

To be aware of inattention is the ending of it: not that it becomes attentive. The ending has no continuity. The past modifying itself is the future—a continuity of what has been—and we find security in continuity, not in ending. So attention has no quality of continuity. Anything that continues is mechanical. The becoming is mechanical and implies time. Attention has no quality of time. All this is a tremendously complicated issue. One must gently, deeply go into it.

Letters to the Schools vol II, p 31

Watch, even if there is nothing to learn

Watching though there is nothing to learn

I am learning about myself—not according to some psychologist or specialist—I am watching and I see something in myself; but I do not condemn it, I do not judge it, I do not push it aside—I just watch it.

..........I watch that I am proud—let us take that as an example. I do not say, “I must put it aside, how ugly to be proud.”—but I just watch it. As I am watching, I am learning. Watching means learning what pride involves, how it has come into being.

I cannot watch it for more than five or six minutes—if one can, that is a great deal—the next moment I become inattentive. Having been attentive and knowing what inattention is, I struggle to make inattention attentive. Do not do that, but watch inattention, become aware that you are inattentive—that is all. Stop there. Do not say, “I must spend all my time being attentive”, but just watch when you are inattentive. ...................

.........To go any further into this would be really quite complex . There is a quality of mind that is awake and watching all the time, watching though there is nothing to learn. That means a mind that is extraordinarily quiet, extraordinarily silent. What has a silent, clear mind to learn?

The Impossible Question, pp 25-26

You know, there are two ways of listening: to listen casually, to hear a series of ideas, agreeing or disagreeing with them; or there is another way of listening, which is not only to listen to the words and the meaning of those words, but also to listen to what is actually taking place in yourself.

If you listen in this way, then what the speaker says is related to what you are listening to in yourself; then you are not merely listening to the speaker—which is irrelevant—but to the whole content of your being. And if you are listening in that way with intensity, at the same time and at the same level, then we are both of us partaking, sharing together, in what is actually taking place. Then you have the passion which is going to transform that which is !

Nature of attachment

Suppose I am attached to something or somebody. Can’t I observe the consequences of attachment, what is involved in attachment, how that attachment arose? Can’t I observe the whole nature of it instantly?

I am attached because I am lonely, I want comfort, I want to depend on somebody because I can’t stand by myself, I need companionship, I need somebody to tell me, “You are doing very well, old boy.” I need somebody to hold my hand; I am depressed and anxious.

So I depend on somebody, and out of that dependence arises attachment, and from that attachment arise fear, jealousy, anxiety. Can’t I observe the whole nature of it instantly? Of course I can if I am aware, if I am deeply interested to find out.

"This Light in Oneself", p 59

We learn a great deal by watching

You learn a great deal by watching, watching the things about you, watching the birds, the tree, watching the heavens, the stars, the constellation of Orion, the Dipper, the Evening star.

You learn just by watching not only the things around you but also by watching people, how they are dressed.

You not only watch that which is outside but also you watch yourself, why you think this or that, your behaviour, the conduct of your daily life, why parents want you to do this or that.

You are watching, not resisting. If you resist you don’t learn. Or if you come to some kind of conclusion, some opinion you think is right and hold on to that, then naturally you will never learn. Freedom is necessary to learn, and curiosity, a sense of wanting to know why you or others behave in a certain way, why people are angry, why you get annoyed.Learning is extraordinarily important because learning is endless.

Learning why human beings kill each other for instance. Of course there are explanations in books, all the psychological reasons why human beings behave in their own particular manner, why human beings are violent. All this has been explained in books of various kinds by eminent authors, psychologists and so on.

But what you read is not what you are. What you are, how you behave, why you get angry, envious, why you get depressed, if you watch yourself you learn much more than from a book that tells you what you are.

Letters to the Schools vol II, pp 75-76