Freedom of the Known
Key Takeaways
- Understanding Yourself
- The question of whethe or not there is a God or truth or reality, or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosophers or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself.
- To understand yourself is the beginning of wisdom.
- The outward social structure is the result of the inward psychological structure of our human relationships, for the individual is the result of the total experience, knowledge and conduct of man.
- To understand ourselves need no authority either of yesterday or of a thousand years because we are living things, always moving, flowing and never resting.
- Understanding is not intellectual process. Acquiring knowledge about yourself and learning about yourself are two different things.
- Free
- To understand anything you must live with it, observe it, know its content, nature, structure, movement. And to live with a living thing your mind must also be alive.
- Mind can not be alive if it is caught in opinions, judgements and values.
- You must have a free mind, not a mind that agrees and disagrees.
- You can see the totality of something only when thought does not interfere.
- One must become poor inwardly for there is no seeking, no asking, no desire, no - nothing!
- To come upon truth the mind must be completely free, without a spot of distortion.
- Conditioning
- Our responses to every problem are conditioned.
- When you become aware of your conditioning you will understand the whole of your consciousness. Consciousness is the total field in which thought functions and relationships exist. All motives, intentions, desire, pleasures, fears, inspirations, longings, hopes, sorrows, joys are in that field.
- Relationships
- I can observe myself only in relationship because all life is relationship.
- Relationship between human beings is based on image-forming, defensive mechanism.
- Fragments
- We live in fragments. You are one thing at office, another at home; you talk about democracy and in your heart you are autocratic; you talk about loving your neighbours, yet kill them with competition; there is one part of you working, lokking, independently of the other.
- We live in fragments. You are one thing at office, another at home; you talk about democracy and in your heart you are autocratic; you talk about loving your neighbours, yet kill them with competition; there is one part of you working, lokking, independently of the other.
- Attention
- Attention is not same thing as concentration. Concentration is exclusion; attention, which is total awareness, excludes nothing.
- You have to give your whole attention which is awareness. And you can give your whole attention only when you care, which means that you really love to understand- then you give your whole heart and mind to find out.
- Open the door to daily awareness and attention. It is like cleaning a room and keeping it in order.
- Selfish
- Perhaps because we are so concerned with ourselves, with our own petty little problems, our own ideas, our own pleasures, pursuits and ambitions that we are not objectively aware.
- Perhaps because we are so concerned with ourselves, with our own petty little problems, our own ideas, our own pleasures, pursuits and ambitions that we are not objectively aware.
- Another Day
- Skies begins to clear after a heavy rain of previous night. There’s always a fresh day. Let us meet that fresh day as if it were the only day.
- Skies begins to clear after a heavy rain of previous night. There’s always a fresh day. Let us meet that fresh day as if it were the only day.
- Discipline
- You have to be your own teacher and your own discipline.
- Face the fact, look at it, do not run away from it. The moment you run away fear begins.
- Memory
- “I must have it again tomorrow”. The continuity of an experience that has given deligh for a second is sustained by thought.
- A mind which is not crippled by memory has real freedom.
- Have you ever noticed that when you respond to something totally, with all your heart, there is very little memory?
- Thought is always old. Because thought is the response of memory and memories are always old.
- Occupied vs Empty
- One of the functions of thought is to be occupied all the time with something. Most of us want to have our minds occupied so that we are prevented from seeing ourselves as we actually are. We are afraid to be empty. We are afraid to look at our fears.
- One of the functions of thought is to be occupied all the time with something. Most of us want to have our minds occupied so that we are prevented from seeing ourselves as we actually are. We are afraid to be empty. We are afraid to look at our fears.
- Fear
- When you see that you are a part of fear, not seperate from it - that you are fear - then you cannot do anything about it; then fear comes totally to an end.
- When you see that you are a part of fear, not seperate from it - that you are fear - then you cannot do anything about it; then fear comes totally to an end.
- War
- If we know how to look at violence, not only outwardly in society- the wars, the riots, the national antagonisms and class conflicts - but also in ourselves, then perhaps we shall be able to go beyond it.
- When you seperate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence.
- So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the totalunderstanding of mankind.
- I feel responsible for all this anger and violence in the world. I can something only if I am beyond anger myself, beyond violence, beyond nationality.
- Clarity
- One hasn’t the eyes to see the whole thing at a glance; this clarity of the eye is possible only if one can see the details, the jump.
- To learn, to discover something fundamental you must have the capacity to go deeper.
- Comparison
- We are always comparing what we are with what we should be. The should-be is a projection of what we think ought to be. Contradiction exists when there is comparison.
- The ‘more’ plays an extraordinarily important part in our lives; this measuring ourselves all the time against something or someone is one of the primary causes of conflict.
- Time
- We think that changes in oursleves can come about in time, that order in ourselves can be built up little by little, added to day by day. But time doesn’t bring order or peace, so we must stop thinking in terms of gradualness.
- This means that there is no tomorrow for us to be peaceful in. We have to be orderly on the instant.
- Fear of the Unknown
- You can not be frightened of the unknown because you do not know what the unknown is and so there is nothing to be frightened of.
- You can not be frightened of the unknown because you do not know what the unknown is and so there is nothing to be frightened of.
- Dying
- You cannot live without dying. You cannot live if you do not die psychologically every minute.
- To live completely, wholly, every day as if it were a new loveliness, there must be dying to everything of yesterday, otherwise you live mechanically, and a mechanical mind can never know what love is or what freedom is.
- You must die - not physically but psychologically, inwardly, die to the things yuo have cherished and to the things you are bitter about.
- To die is to have a mind that is completely free of itself, empty of it’s belongings, pleasures and agonies.
- Look
- To look is one of the most difficult things in life-or to listen- to look and listen are the same.
- If your eyes are blinded with your worries, you cannot see the beauty of the sunset.
- It seems that one of our greatest difficulites in life is to see for overselves really clearly, not only outward things but inward life.