The Eternally, Timelessly Sacred

The brain, which is so very old, which is extraordinarily capable, which has infinite capacities, has evolved through time, acquiring a great deal of experience, knowledge. Can that brain that is so heavily conditioned and constantly wearing itself out rejuvenate itself? Can your brain unburden itself of continuity, end continuity, to begin totally anew? Can the brain become totally innocent? I am using the word innocent in the sense of not capable of being hurt; that is, a brain that is not only not able to hurt others, but also not capable of being hurt.

Your brain, which is the brain of all human beings, evolved through immemorial time, conditioned by cultures, by religions, by economic and social pressures. That brain has had a timeless continuity till now, and in that duration it has found a sense of being safe. That is why you accept tradition, because in tradition there is safety, in imitation there is safety, in conformity there is safety. And there is also safety in an illusion. Obviously all your gods are illusions put up by thought. A belief or a faith is an illusion. There is no need for belief or faith, but having a belief—in God, in Jesus, in Krishna, or whatever you like—gives a sense of being protected, being in the womb of God; but it is an illusion.

We are asking if the brain can discover an ending of the continuity of time. That continuity, based on the continuity of knowledge, is considered advancement, progress, evolution, and we are challenging that. When the brain seeks continuity it becomes mechanical. All thought is mechanical because all thought is based on memory, which is the response of knowledge. So there is no new thought.

The "I," the "me," is a continuity. The "I" has been handed down for millennia, generation after generation; it is a continuity, and that which is continuous is mechanical, there is nothing new in it. It is marvelous if you see this.

Please listen quietly; don't agree, just listen. As long as the brain is registering hurts, pain, that gives it continuity. That gives the idea that "I" am continuing. As long as the brain registers, like a computer, it is mechanical. When you are insulted or praised, it is registering, as it has done for millennia after millennia. That is our conditioning, that is our whole progressive movement. Now we are asking if it is possible to register only what is relevant and nothing else? Why should you register when you are hurt? Why should you register when somebody insults or flatters you? When you register—when the brain registers—that registration prevents the observation of the other who has insulted. That is, you observe the person who has insulted you or praised you, with the mind, the brain that has registered, so you never actually see the other person. The registration is a continuity and in that continuity there is safety. The brain says, "I have been hurt once and therefore I'll register it, keep it, and so avoid being hurt in the future." This may be relevant physically, but is it relevant psychologically? One has been hurt because hurt is the movement in time of the building up of the image you have about yourself, and when that image is pricked, you are hurt. As long as you have that image you are always going to be hurt. So is it possible not to have the image and therefore have no registration? We are laying the foundation to discover what meditation is.

Is it possible not to register psychologically, but to register only what is necessary and relevant? When you have established order—when there is order—in your life, there is freedom. It is only the disordered mind that seeks freedom. When there is total order, then that very order is freedom.

To go into this very deeply, you need to understand the nature of your consciousness. Your consciousness is its content: without its content it is not. The content makes up our consciousness. The content is our tradition, our anxiety, our name, our position. That is the content and that is our consciousness. Can this whole consciousness, including the brain and the mind, with all its content, realize its content, realize its duration, and take one part of that consciousness, such as attachment, and end it voluntarily? That means you are breaking continuity. We are asking if it is possible to register only what is necessary, relevant, and nothing else. Understand the beauty of that question, the implications of that question, the depth of that question. I say it is possible. I'll explain, but the explanation is not the fact. Don't be caught up in the explanation, but through the explanation come to the fact. Then the explanation is no longer important.

The movement of time, the movement of thought, the movement of knowledge from the past, modifying itself in the present and proceeding, is continuity. That is the whole movement of registration of the brain, otherwise we could not have knowledge. Knowledge is continuity and the brain has found safety in this continuity and therefore it must register. That movement has taken over the psychological field. But knowledge is always limited. There is no omnipotent knowledge, but the brain, having found security in the movement of knowledge, clings to it, and translates every incident and accident according to the past. Therefore, the past has tremendous importance for the brain, because the brain itself is the past.

But your own intellect, logically, sees very clearly that what has continuity has nothing new. There is no new perfume; there is no new heaven; there is no new earth. And so the intellect says, "Is there an ending of continuity without bringing danger to the brain, because without continuity it gets lost?" It says, "If I end continuity, what then?" The brain demands to be secure, so what then? The brain has said that it can only function in security, whether it is false or true security, and the continuity of the registration process has given it security. And you say to the brain, "Register only what is necessary, relevant, and don't register anything else." So the brain is suddenly at a loss. Because it is functioning out of need for security it says, "Give me security and I will go after it."

There is security, but not that kind of security. It is to put knowledge, thought, in its right place. The very orderliness of life is possible only when the brain has understood that it is living in disorder, which it calls security. When it realizes that security implies putting everything in order, which is registering everything relevant and nothing irrelevant, then the brain says, "I have understood this, I have got it, I have an insight into this whole movement of continuity." It has an insight. That insight is the outcome of complete order, which is when the brain has put everything in its right place. Then there is total insight into the whole movement of consciousness. And therefore the brain will register only what is necessary and nothing else. In that is implied that the activity of the brain undergoes a change, the very structure of the brain undergoes a change, because seeing something new for the first time brings a new function to operate. When the brain sees something new, there is a new function, a new organism being born. It is wholly necessary for a mind, for a brain, to become very young, fresh, innocent, alive, youthful, and that is when there is no psychological registration at all.

Is love within this consciousness? Has love a continuity? We said consciousness is continuity, tradition. Is love part of this field or is it entirely outside the field? I am asking, I am challenging. I don't say it is or it is not. If it is within the field of our consciousness, isn't it still part of thought? The content of our consciousness is put together by thought. Beliefs, gods, superstitions, traditions, fear, are all part of thought. And is love part of thought, part of this consciousness? That means, is love desire, is love pleasure, sex? Is love part of the thought process? Is love a remembrance?

Love cannot possibly exist or come into being like the fresh morning dew if the intellect is supreme. And our civilization has worshipped the intellect because it has created theories about God, because it has created principles, ideals. So is love part of this stream, this consciousness? Can love exist when there is jealousy? Can love exist when there is attachment to a wife, to a husband, to children? Can love exist when there is the memory of sexual attraction, a remembrance, a picture. Has love a continuity? Please go into it and find out, because that thing does not exist in your heart and that is why the world is in such a mess.

To come upon this love, the whole stream of consciousness must come to an end: your jealousy, your antagonism, your ambition, your desire for position, your desire to become better, nobler, or your seeking power—whether it is the power to levitate or the power of business, position, politics, religion, or power over your wife, over your husband, over your children. Where there is any sense of egotism, the other is not. And the essence of egotism is the process of registration. The ending of sorrow is the beginning of compassion, but we have used sorrow as a means of advancement, becoming better. On the contrary, in the ending something infinitely new takes place.

There must be space, not physical space only, but space within the mind, which means not being occupied. Our minds are always occupied: "How shall I stop chattering?"

"I must have space." "I must be silent." A housewife is occupied with her cooking, with her children; a devotee is occupied with his God; a man is occupied with his profession, with sex, with his job, with his ambition, with his position. The mind is wholly occupied, and so there is no space in it. We establish order in our life that is not the order of discipline, control. We have seen intelligently that order can come only out of the understanding of disorder. We bring about order in our life, order in our relationship, which is very important, because life is relationship, a movement, an action in relationship. If there is no order in your relationship with your wife, with your husband, with your children, with your neighbor—whether that neighbor is near or very far away—forget about meditation. Without order in your life, if you try to meditate you will fall into the trap of illusions. If you have been serious, and you have order—not temporary order, but absolute order—that order can look to the cosmic order, that order has relationship with the cosmic order. Cosmic order is the setting of the sun, the rising of the moon, the marvelous sky of the evening with all its beauty. Merely examining the cosmos, the universe through a telescope, is not order. If there is order here, in our life, then that order has an extraordinary relationship with the universe. When a mind is occupied, there is no order, there is no space. When the mind is full of problems, how can it have space? To have space, every problem must be immediately solved as it arises. That is part of meditation—not to carry problems over day after day. Is it possible not to be occupied, which does not mean irresponsibility? On the contrary, when you are not occupied you give your attention to responsibility. It is only the occupied mind that is confused and therefore responsibility becomes ugly, responsibility then has the possibility of guilt. Please don't ask how not to be occupied, for then you will be occupied with a system, with a method, with slogans. But if you see, if you have an insight, that an occupied mind is a destructive mind, is not a free mind, that it has no space, it happens.

Then we can look at attention. Are you attending now? What does to attend mean? If you are really deeply attending, there is no center from which you are attending. And that attention cannot continue, as you would like it to. The continuity is inattention. When you are attending, which means listening, in that attention there is no center that says, "I am learning, I am hearing, I am seeing." There is only the enormous sense of wholeness, which is watching, listening, learning. In that attention there is no movement of thought. That attention cannot be sustained. When thought says it must find out how to arrive at or achieve attention, the movement of wanting to capture attention is inattention, is lack of attention. To be aware of the movement away from attention is to be attentive. Have you captured it?

The mind must have great space, limitless space, and that can only take place when there is no chattering, when there is no problem because all problems have been resolved as they arose. You can have great space only when there is no center. The moment you have a center, there must be circumference, there must be diameter, a movement from the center to the periphery. Space implies no center; therefore it is absolutely limitless. Attention implies giving all your energy to listen, to see, and in that there is no center. Then comes a mind that has understood order and is free of fear, that has ended sorrow, has understood the nature of pleasure and given it its right place.

Then the question is: What is the quality of a mind that is completely silent? Not how to achieve silence, how to have peace of mind—we are speaking of the quality of a mind that is absolutely, timelessly silent.

There is silence between two notes; there is silence between two thoughts, between two movements; there is the silence between two wars; there is silence between husband and wife before they begin to quarrel. We are not talking of that quality of silence, because they are temporary, they go away. We are speaking of a silence that is not produced by thought, that is not cultivable, that comes only when you have understood the whole movement of existence. In that there is silence, there is no question and answer, there is no challenge, there is no search, everything has ended. In that silence, there is a great sense of space and beauty and extraordinary sense of energy. Then there comes that which is eternally, timelessly sacred, which is not the product of civilization, the product of thought.

That is the whole movement of meditation.