1978

Brockwood Park 1978

Brockwood Park 4th Public Talk September 3rd 1978

There are a lot of people and I hope some of you understand what is being said. You know we have been talking over together for the last week our human problems; not only talking over together as two friends but what each one of us has discovered for himself in our conversation, and in our exploration and investigation. It must become quite obvious for most of us, if we are at all serious and not treat these Gatherings as a kind of festival, a little more serious than the Pop Festival, or other kinds of festivals.

This morning it will be good to talk over together, as we have talked over fear, pleasure, sorrow, pain and death, I think we ought to talk over this morning the very complex and subtle problem of what is meditation. It is quite a serious issue and perhaps some of you will kindly pay sufficient attention to what is being said, if you care to.

This word is now becoming so common, even the governments are beginning to use it, even the people who want money are trying to meditate more to get more money. They are trying to meditate in order to become quiet so that they can do better business. And the doctors are practising meditation because it will help them to operate properly, and so on and so on and on. And there are different kinds of meditation - Zen, Tibetan and the ones you invent for yourself, and with all this in mind, the Indian type of meditation, the Tibetan, the Zen, the Encounter Group meditation and the aspiration to have a still, quiet, silent mind, bearing all this in mind, let us try to find out, if we can this morning, why one should meditate and what is the significance of meditation.

This word has recently been popularized from India. And people go to India and to Japan and to other places in order to learn meditation, in order to practise meditation, in order to achieve some kind of result through meditation - enlightenment, better understanding of themselves, have peace of mind, whatever that may mean, and generally they have a little peace, not a peaceful mind. And the gurus have invented their type of meditation and so on and on and on - right? I am sure you are aware of all this.

And of course there is the passing fad which is called transcendental meditation. It is really a form of siesta in the morning, siesta after lunch, siesta after dinner or before dinner, so that your mind kind of becomes quiet and you can do more mischief afterwards. (Laughter).

So consider all this, the various types and practices and systems, and question them. It is good to have doubt, it is good to be sceptical up to a certain point. It is like a dog on the leash, you must let the dog go occasionally, run freely: so doubt, scepticism must be kept on a leash all the time but often it must be allowed to run free. And most of us accept the authority of those who say, "We know how to meditate, we will tell you all about it".

So please we are together examining the whole problem, or the whole question of what is meditation, not how to meditate, for then if you ask how am I to meditate, then you will find a system to meditate; the 'how' implies a method. But whereas if you are enquiring into this question of what is meditation, and why should one meditate, then you will never ask how to meditate. The very questioning, the very asking is the beginning of enquiry which is the beginning of meditation.

As we said, this is a very complex problem and we have to go very slowly and hesitantly but subtly into this question. As we said during the last week, we are investigating, we are enquiring into it so that you are not listening to the speaker, you are asking the question of yourself and finding the right answer without accepting any kind of authority, specially the authority of the speaker sitting on this unfortunate platform. It doesn't give him any authority because he sits on a platform and talks. There is no authority in so-called spiritual matters, if I can use that word 'spiritual', in the matter of the spirit, in the matter of enquiring into something that demands very, very careful examination. So we are doing this together, not meditating together but enquiring what is meditation and from that discover for oneself as we go along the whole movement of meditation. Is this all right?

First I think one must be careful in observing that meditation is not something that you do. Meditation is a movement into the whole question of our living. That is the first thing: how we live, how we behave, whether we have fears, anxieties, sorrows, or if we are pursuing everlastingly pleasure, whether we have built images about ourselves and about others. That is part of our life and in the understanding of that life and of those various issues involved in life and being free from those, actually being free, then we can proceed to enquire into what is meditation. That is why we have, for the last ten days or the last week, we have said we must put order in our house - our house is ourselves - complete order. Then when that order is established not according to a pattern, but when there is understanding, complete understanding of what is disorder, what is confusion, why we are in contradiction in ourselves, why there is this constant struggle between the opposites and so on, which we have been talking about for the last ten days or last week. Having put that in order, our life in order, and the very placing things in their proper place is the beginning of meditation. Right? If we have not done that, actually, not theoretically, but in daily life, every moment of our life, then if you have not done that then meditation becomes another form of illusion, another form of prayer, another form of wanting something - money, position, refrigerator and so on.

So we are asking now: what is the movement of meditation? First of all we must understand the importance of the senses. Most of us react, or act according to the urges, demands and the insistence of our senses. And those senses never act as a whole but only as a part - right? Please understand this. If you don't mind enquiring into this a little more for yourself, talking over together, but all our senses never function, move, operate as a whole, holistically. If you observe yourself and watch your senses you will see that one or the other of the senses becomes dominant. One or the other of the senses takes a greater part in observation in our daily living, so there is always imbalance in our senses - right? May we go on from there?

Now is it possible - this is part of meditation, what we are doing now - is it possible for the senses to operate as a whole; to look at the movement of the sea, the bright waters, the eternally restless waters, to watch those waters completely, with all your senses? Or a tree, or a person, or a bird in flight, a sheet of water, the setting sun, or the rising moon, to observe it, look at it with all your senses fully awakened. If you do, then you discover for yourself, I am not telling you, I am not your authority, I am not your guru, you are not my followers - followers are the most destructive people and the gurus too - if you observe this, if you observe this operation of the whole senses acting you will find there is no centre from which the senses are moving. Are you trying this as we are talking over together? To look at your girl, or your husband, or your wife or the tree, or the house, with all the highly active sensitive senses. Then in that there is no limitation. You try it. You do it and you will find out for yourself. That is the first thing one has to understand: the place of the senses. Because most of us operate on partial or particular senses. We never move or live with all our senses fully awakened, flowering. Because as most of us live, operate and think partially, so one of our enquiries into this is for the senses to function fully and realize the importance and the illusion that senses create - are you following all this? And to give the senses their right place, which means not suppressing them, not controlling them, not running away from them but to give the proper place to the senses. This is important because in meditation, if you want to go into it very deeply, unless one is aware of the senses, they create different forms of neurosis, different forms of illusions, they dominate in our emotions and so on and so on. So that is the first thing to realize: if when the senses are fully awakened, flowering then the body becomes extraordinarily quiet. Have you noticed all this? Or am I talking to myself? Because most of us force our bodies to sit still, not fidget, not to move about and so on - you know. Whereas if all the senses are functioning healthily and normally, vitally then the body relaxes and becomes very, very quiet, if you do it. Do it as we are talking.

Then the question arises: what is time? what is the place of time in meditation? And what is the place of control in meditation? You understand? May I go on? I hope we are meeting each other, are we? First let's state whether it is possible to live a life, daily life, not occasionally but live a life without any form of control - which doesn't mean permissive activity or doing what one likes, rejecting tradition - you know all the modern young people are doing. That is no regret, no restraint, no control, do what you want - which the old people do anyhow only you think it is their prerogative, something they have invented.

Now we are asking a question, please consider it seriously: whether it is possible to live a life without any form of control, because when there is control there is the action of will - right? Are you following? So what is will? I will do this. I must not do that. Or, I should in the future do that, and so on. The operation of will. So we have to enquire what is will. Is not will desire? Is not will the essence of desire? Right? Please look at it. Don't reject it or accept it, enquire into it. Because we are now asking whether it is possible to live a life in which there is not a shadow of control, in which there is not a shadow of the operation of will. And will is the very movement of desire. We went into the whole question of what is desire. I won't go into it now because I have a lot to cover this morning. Desire is contact, perception, seeing, contact, sensation, from that arises desire and thought with its image - all that is desire, which we went into but I won't go into now.

And we are asking: is it possible to live without the action of will? Most of us live a life of restraint, control, suppression, and so on, escape. And we have to ask: who is the controller? When you say, "I must control myself, my anger, my jealousy, my laziness, my indolence" and so on, who is the controller? Is the controller different from that which he controls? Or are they both the same? The controller is the controlled. Is it all right? Do we understand? After all you have listened to me for a week, ten days, by now our language, our use of words must be quite common and understood. So as long as there is a controller he is exercising his capacity to control. And we are saying the controller is the essence of desire. And he is trying to control his activities, his thoughts, his wishes and so on and so on. So realizing all that, can one live life which is not promiscuous, which is not doing what you like but a life without any form of control, either sexual and not indulgence, the will to control what you should, should not, and all the whole problem of control. Very few people have gone into this question. And the whole eastern form of meditation is partly control. And personally I object to the whole, their system of any form of control, because the mind then is never free, always subjugating itself to a pattern, whether that pattern is established by another or by oneself.

So the senses, the control: then we must ask: what is time? Not the scientific fiction, science fiction of time. What is, in our daily life, what is time? What part does it play in our life? How important is it in our daily activities? You understand my question? Of course there is time by the watch. There is time according to the sun, the setting and the rising of the sun. There is time as yesterday, today and tomorrow. There is time as something that happened in the past, remembered and shaping the present and the future - right? So there is physical chronological time and we have also psychological time - I will be, I must, I am violent, I will be non-violent. All that implies a movement of time - right? Movement means time. Please understand this really very carefully because we are going to enquire into meditation, which is whether the mind can be absolutely quiet in which time as movement doesn't exist at all. You are following all this? Are you interested in all this? Even as intellectual curiosity? Because this is very important to understand, whether time, not chronological time but psychological time, can that come to an end? Or must there be always until I die this movement of, I will be, I must not be, I should be, I shall not be - you follow? - the whole psychological activity in which time is involved. That is, can time come to an end? Please see why it is important. Because our brains are conditioned to time, our brains are the result of a million years and more - it doesn't matter - immemorial, centuries upon centuries the brain is conditioned, it has evolved, grown, flowered, it is a very, very ancient brain, and as it has evolved through time - evolution implies time - as it evolved it functions in time - you understand? I wonder if you understand all this? The moment you say, "I will" it is in time. When you say, "I must do that" it is also in time. Everything that we do involves time and our brains are conditioned to not only chronological time, sun, rising sun, setting, but also to the psychological time. So the brain has evolved through millenia and the very idea, the very question whether it can end time - you follow? - it is a paralysing process. I wonder if you understand this? It is a shock to it. Does somebody understand this?

Because we are going to ask presently whether the brain itself can be absolutely quiet. You understand? Not your body, not your breathing, not your eyes and thought, the brain itself, which is constantly chattering, constantly thinking about this, that, the other. Whether those very brain cells can be absolutely quiet. So therefore we must understand the nature of time. That is, psychologically, inwardly we are caught in a network of time. I am going to die, I am afraid. I shall be. I have been. And I remember the happy things or the painful things. And the brain is functioning, living in time - right? You can see this yourself. These are obvious facts.

So part of meditation is to find out for oneself whether time can stop. You can't do this saying, "Time must stop" - it has no meaning. But to understand the whole structure and the nature and the depth of this question - right? That means: is it possible for the brain to realize that it has no future? Do you understand what I am saying? We live either in despair, or in hope. Right? Don't you? Hope is part of time. I am miserable, unhappy, uncertain, I hope to be happy - do you understand? Part of time is this destructive nature of hope, or the invention of the priests throughout the world - faith. You suffer but have faith in god and everything is all right. Do you follow all this? Again that is, faith in something involves time. Can you stand - stand in the sense, can you tolerate that there is no tomorrow psychologically? Can you? That is part of meditation, to find out that psychologically there is no tomorrow.

We were once talking with somebody quite intelligent, quite learned, about this question. And it was a real shock to him when we said: hope, faith, movement of the future as tomorrow is non existent. He was appalled at the idea and said: "I shan't meet you tomorrow, whom, I love" - do you understand what I am saying? I may meet you, I probably will but the hope, the pleasure, the looking forward to something, all that is involved in time. Which doesn't mean that you discard hope, which means that you understand the movement of time. If you discard hope then you become bitter, then you say, "Why should I live, what is the purpose of life?" and all that nonsense begins - depression, agony to live without anything in the future - do you understand all this?

So one has to go into this question not verbally, not theoretically but actually to find out psychologically in yourself if you have the slightest sense of tomorrow.

The next question in meditation is: whether thought as time can stop? Thought, as we have talked a great deal about it, is important, important in its right place. But it has no importance whatsoever psychologically. I wonder if you see this? I see I must go briefly into it.

Thought is the reaction of memory, it is born from memory. Memory is experience. Experience as knowledge stored up in the brain cells themselves. You can watch your own brain, you don't have to become a specialist - I am not, I just observe myself very carefully. The brain cells hold this memory. It is a material process. There is nothing sacred, nothing holy about it. And everything that we have done, going to the moon, planting a silly flag up there, going down to the depths of the sea and living there, thought has created all this immense complicated technology and its machinery. Thought has been responsible for all this. Thought has also been responsible for all wars - right? It is obvious, you don't have to question it even because your thoughts have divided Britain, France, Russia - you follow? And thought has created the psychological structure as the 'me' - right? That 'me' is not holy, something divine. It is just thought putting together the anxieties, the fears, the pleasures, the sorrow, the pain, the attachments, the fear of death, it has put all this together which is the 'me'. It is this 'me' with its consciousness - right? I wonder? May we proceed? You are following all this? This is 'me', this consciousness. This consciousness is what it contains. Consciousness, your consciousness is what you are - it is your anxieties, your fears, your struggle, your moods, your psychological despairs, pleasures and so on. The content of your consciousness is its content - right? Again there is nothing to argue about it, it is very simple. And that is the result of time. Right? I have been hurt yesterday, psychologically, you said something brutal to me, it has wounded me, and it is part of my consciousness. I have had pleasure and so on. So consciousness is involved in time. When we say can time end, it implies the total emptying of this consciousness with its content. It implies that. Whether you can do it or not that is a different matter. But it implies that.

When you are enquiring into time, whether the immovable layers of this consciousness, sensation, desire and all that, layer after layer, the whole structure of it, whether that consciousness which is a result of time, yesterday I was hurt and so on and so on, whether that consciousness can empty itself completely, therefore time psychologically ends? I am putting first this question for you to look at. Then we can ask: is it possible? Do you understand my question? You are aware of your consciousness, aren't you, you know what you are, if you have gone into it sufficiently, at least for the last week you might have done it somewhat. But if you have gone into it you will see that all this travail, all this struggle, all the misery, uncertainty is part of you, part of this consciousness, your ambitions, your greed, your aggressiveness, your anger, your bitterness - all that is part of this consciousness, which is the accumulation from a thousand yesterdays to today. And we are asking whether that consciousness which is the result of time, psychological as well as physiological, can empty itself so that time has come to an end? You have understood the question first? Please somebody say 'yes' or 'no' - please. Don't go to sleep.

We are going to find out if it is possible. If you say it isn't possible then you have closed the door, then you might just as well walk out, don't sit here and waste your time if you say it is not possible. And if you say it is possible you have also closed the door. But whereas if you say let's find out, then you are open to it, you are eager to find out - right? Please this is not an intellectual game. This is not an entertainment of a Sunday morning. This is not a sermon either. I must tell you a lovely story about it. There was a preacher with his disciples and every morning he used to give a sermon for ten minutes, quarter of an hour. And all the captive audience listened to it. (Laughter). And one day he gets on the rostrum and begins - just about to begin and a bird comes along, sits on the window sill and begins to sing. And the preacher doesn't say a word. At the end of ten minutes or five minutes, the bird after singing flies away. The preacher then says, "The sermon is over for this morning" - (Laughter). I wish I could say that too! (Laughter).

So the question now is, if you are serious enough to go into it: whether it is possible to empty totally the whole content of ourselves, the content of our consciousness, this consciousness which has been built through time? Is it not possible - please listen to it - is it not possible to end one of the contents of your consciousness, your hurts, your psychological wound? Surely you know what that means. Most of us psychologically have been hurt from childhood, parents, cruel - our whole existence we are hurt. That is part of your consciousness. Can you end that hurt completely, totally wipe it out without leaving a mark? You can, can't you? If you pay attention to the wound, know what has caused it and the wound is the image you have about yourself that has been wounded, and end that image that is wounded - you can do that if you have gone into it very, very deeply. Or if you are attached to somebody, if you are attached to your wife or your husband, it doesn't matter what it is, attached to a belief, to a country, to a sect, to a group of people and so on, to Jesus and so on, can you not completely logically, sanely, rationally end it? Because you see attachment implies jealousy, anxiety, fear, pain, and having pain you become more and more and more attached - seeing the nature of attachment, the perception of attachment is the flowering of intelligence. That intelligence says, how stupid to be attached - it is finished. You understand this?

So go into it. Or you have a particular psychological habit, thinking always in a certain direction. That is part of your consciousness. Can thought move away from the groove, from the rut? Of course it can. So it is possible - please listen - it is possible to empty totally, completely the content. Now if you do it one by one, that is, attachment, your hurts, your anxiety and so on, it will take infinite time. See what is involved if you do it one by one, it will take time. So we are caught in time again. I wonder if you see this? Whereas is it possible to empty it without involving time instantly, as a whole, not parts? I'll show it to you, don't shake your head, or agree or disagree. Do you understand my question? When you do it part by part you are still involved in time. If you really see the truth of it then you won't do it partially - right? Naturally.

Then you move to a different question which is: can it be done in its entirety? That is, is there an observation of this consciousness which is not mine really, it is not my particular consciousness, it is the universal consciousness. My consciousness is like your consciousness, or somebody else's consciousness, because we suffer, we go through agonies, etc. etc. There may be a few who have said "Out" - they have flowered out and gone beyond, that is irrelevant.

So we are asking: is it possible to observe the thing in its entirety, wholly, and in the very observation of that totality the ending of it? You understand my question? So is it possible to observe your hurt, or your anxiety, or your guilt or whatever it is, totally? You understand my question? Suppose I have guilt. I feel guilty - which I don't, but suppose I do. Can I look at that guilt, how it arose, what was the reason for it and how I am dreading further and so on - the entire structure of guilt, can I observe it wholly? Of course you can - no? You can observe it only wholly when you are aware of the nature of being hurt. You can be aware of it and the guilt and so on, all the various things that we have collected, you can be aware of it if there is no direction or motive involved in that awareness. Have you understood this? I'll explain, I'll go into it.

Suppose I am attached to something or somebody: can I not observe what is 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 arises fear, jealousy, anxiety - right? Can't I observe the whole nature of it instantly? Of course you can if you are aware, if you are deeply interested to find out.

So we are saying that instead of doing it piecemeal by piecemeal, it is possible to see the whole nature and the structure and the movement of consciousness with all its content. The content makes up the consciousness, and to see it entirely is possible. And when you see the entirety of it, it disintegrates.

The question then is - we are asking this question: as the content is part of our daily life of our consciousness, and that consciousness is the accumulation through time, whether that time can stop, which means is there an ending of all the struggles, you know, all the rest of it instantly? We say it is possible. I have shown it to you. It has been shown through examples. That is, to have a complete insight into the whole nature of consciousness - right? Insight means, implies without any motive, without any remembrance, just to have instant perception of the nature of consciousness and that very insight dissolves the problem. Have you understood this somewhat?

Then we can go to the next thing, which is: we are occupied with measure - right? I am tall, I am short. I must be different from what I am. Measure - you understand? Which is comparison, following an example. Our whole technological development is based on measure. If you had no measurement there could be no technological advance. That is, knowledge is movement in measure. I know, I shall know. It is all measurement. And that measurement has moved into the psychological field. Follow all this sir. Are you following? Watch yourself, how it works, you can see it very simply.

And so we are always comparing psychologically. Now can you end comparison, which is also the ending of time - right? Measure means measuring myself with somebody and wanting to be like that, or not like that. The positive and the negative process is a part, through comparison, of measurement. I wonder if you see? Are you getting tired? Go into it for yourself and you will see it.

So is it possible to live a daily life without any kind of comparison? You do compare two materials, one corduroy colour against another corduroy colour, but psychologically, inwardly to be free of comparison completely, which means to be free of measurement. Measurement is the movement of thought. So can thought come to an end? Do you follow all this? You see most of us try to stop thinking, try to, which is impossible. You may for a second say "I have stopped thinking" but it is forced, it is compelled, it is a form of saying "I have measured a second when I was not thinking". So we are asking something, which all the original real people who went into this question, who said, "Can thought come to an end?" That is, thought born from the known - you understand? - knowledge is the known, which is the past, can that thought come to an end? Can there be freedom from the known? Do you understand my question? Because we are always functioning from the known and therefore we have become extraordinarily capable and imitative, comparing, and this constant endeavour to be something - right? So can thought come to an end? Thought itself, when it is aware of itself, knows its limitation and therefore it has its place. I wonder? Are you doing all this while we are talking?

So we have talked about measurement, control, the importance of the senses and their right place - all this is part of meditation.

And we are asking next: when one has come to a certain point, the senses can develop extra sensory perception, because they become extraordinarily sensitive, telepathy, reads other people's thoughts, control various forms of clairvoyance and so on and so on. They are still within the field of the senses - right? So they have not this colossal importance that man is giving to them. Right? I wonder if you see this. The speaker has been through all this. Forgive me for entering personally, I have been through all this and one sees the danger of it, caught in all that sensory excitement, all that. It is stupid. So though these things there are definitely, but they are irrelevant.

We are asking now another question which is: man is always seeking power - right? The politicians, the priests, the everyday man and woman wants to dominate, wants to control, wants to possess. Power has become extraordinarily important. The two super powers. That means power in the hands of the few, to dictate what others should think - the Christian Church has done this excellently at one time. The heretics, the torture, the Inquisition and all that. Control man through propaganda, through books, through words, through images, controlling him through his fear and reward and punishment. Any form of dissent is either tortured, expelled, concentration camps, or burnt. Right? This is the history of man's stupidity, whether he calls it patriotic, religious. Now we are asking: is it possible to live without any sense of power? You understand what I am saying? Are you following all this, interested in all this? Which means, can you live in total anonymity and total humility? You may have a name, you may write a book, or talk, and be somewhat famous, notorious, whatever word you like to use, but nothing behind it. So we are not seeking power through clairvoyance, through telepathy, all this can be used by governments to control the captain in the submarine - they are all experimenting with this. For god's sake be aware of all this. And can one live without any sense of power? You know there is great beauty in that, to be totally anonymous. And the whole world is seeking identity, power, position.

Now the next question is: can the brain - please listen to this - can the brain, which is millions and millions of years old, so heavily conditioned, so full of all that man has collected through centuries, and therefore it is acting mechanically all the time, can that brain be free from the known, and can that brain never, never get old - old in the sense physically? Do you understand what I am talking about? Don't you ask these questions? Do you? Perhaps you do when you get old, when you are somewhat incapacitated, when you have lost your capacity to think, you are losing your memory and then you say, "My god, I wish I could go back and be young again, to have a fresh mind, a young mind, a decisive mind" - don't you ask this sometimes? Whether this brain can lose its burden and be free and never deteriorate? Don't say "Yes" or "No", find out. Which means - please listen if you are interested in this - which means never psychologically register anything - right? Do you understand? Never to register the flattery, the insult, the various forms of impositions, pressures, never. To keep the tape completely fresh. Then it is young. Innocence means a brain that has never been wounded - right? That is innocence, that knows no misery, conflict, sorrow, pain, all that, which is all registered in the brain and therefore it is always limited, old as it grows physically older. Whereas if there is no recording whatsoever, psychologically, then the brain becomes extraordinarily quiet, extraordinarily fresh. This is not a hope, this is not a reward, either you do it and discover it, or you just accept words and say, "How marvellous that must be" - "I wish I could experience that" - and you are off the mark. Whereas if you do it you will find out.

So the brain then becomes, because of this insight, which we have talked about, because of that insight the brain cells undergo a change. It is no longer holding to memories. It is no longer the house of vast collected antiquity - right? So that is that.

Then also we must ask the question: is there anything sacred in life? Is there anything that is holy, untouched by thought? Do you understand my question? Please understand the question itself. That which is holy, sacred, we have put them in the churches as symbols - the Virgin Mary, the Christ on the cross - and go to India, there they have their particular images, go to Buddhist countries they have their own images, and that has become sacred, the name, the sculpture, the image, the symbol. In certain places, churches, temples and so on, in the mosques - naturally there are no images in the mosques but lovely writing, which has become an image also.

Now we are asking a question: is there anything sacred in life? Sacred being that which is deathless, timeless, from eternity to eternity, that which has no beginning and no end - do you understand? We are asking this. You can only find that out - no, you can't find it out, nobody can find it out - it may come when you have discarded all the things that thought has made sacred - the pictures, the museums, the music, the churches and their beliefs, their rituals, their dogmas, all that is understood and discarded completely. There is no priest, no guru, no follower. Then in that tremendous quality of silence you may find out - in that silence there may come something that is not touched by thought, because that silence is not created by thought.

So one has to question, go into the whole nature of silence. There is silence between two noises, there is silence between two thoughts, there is silence between two notes in music, there is silence after noise, there is silence when thought says, "I must be silent" and creates that artificial silence and thinking that is real silence. There is silence when you sit quietly and force your mind to be silent. All those are artificial silences, they are not real, deep, uncultivated, unpremeditated silence. We said silence can only come psychologically when there is no registration whatsoever. Then the mind, the brain itself is utterly without movement. Then in that great depth of silence, not induced, not cultivated, not practised but in that silence there may come that extraordinary sense of something immeasurable, nameless. This whole movement from the beginning to the end of these talks is part of meditation. Finished.

1978

Brockwood Park 1978

Brockwood Park 4th Public Talk September 3rd 1978

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