Awareness Cannot Be Disciplined

If awareness is practiced, made into a habit, then it becomes tedious and painful. Awareness cannot be disciplined. That which is practiced is no longer awareness, for in practice is implied the creation of habit, the exertion of effort and will. Effort is distortion. There is not only the awareness of the outer -of the flight of birds, of shadows, of the restless sea, the trees and the wind, the beggar and the luxurious cars that pass by- but also there is the awareness of the psychological process, the inward tension and conflict. You do not condemn a bird in flight; you observe it, you see the beauty of it. But, when you consider your own inward strife, you condemn it or justify it. You are incapable of observing this inward conflict without choice or justification.

To be aware of your thought and feeling without identification and denial is not tedious and painful, but in search of a result, an end to be gained, conflict is increased and the tedium of strife begins

interval between thoughts : plunge into it !

The Interval Between Thoughts

Now, I say it is definitely possible for the mind to be free from all conditioning, not that you should accept my authority. If you accept it on authority, you will never discover, it will be another substitution and that will have no significance.

The understanding of the whole process of conditioning does not come to you through analysis or introspection, because the moment you have the analyzer, that very analyzer himself is part of the background and therefore his analysis is of no significance.

How is it possible for the mind to be free? To be free, the mind must not only see and understand its pendulum-like swing between the past and the future but also be aware of the interval between thoughts.

If you watch very carefully, you will see that though the response, the movement of thought, seems so swift, there are gaps, there are intervals between thoughts. Between two thoughts there is a period of silence that is not related to the thought process. If you observe you will see that that period of silence, that interval, is not of time and the discovery of that interval, the full experiencing of that interval, liberates you from conditioning or rather it does not liberate 'you' but there is liberation from conditioning. It is only when the mind is not giving continuity to thought, when it is still with a stillness that is not induced, that is without any causation, it is only then that there can be freedom from the background.

The Book of Life

Energy Creates Its Own Discipline

To seek reality requires immense energy; and if man is not doing that, he dissipates his energy in ways that create mischief, and therefore society has to control him. Now, is it possible to liberate energy in seeking God or truth and, in the process of discovering what is true, to be a citizen who understands the fundamental issues of life and whom society cannot destroy?

You see, man is energy, and if man does not seek truth, this energy becomes destructive; therefore society controls and shapes the individual, which smothers this energy. And perhaps you have noticed another interesting and very simple fact: that the moment you really want to do something, you have the energy to do it. That very energy becomes the means of controlling itself, so you don't need outside discipline. In the search for reality, energy creates its own discipline. The man who is seeking reality spontaneously becomes the right kind of citizen, which is not according to the pattern of any particular society or government.