Crisis in Consciousness Chapter Seventeen 

The Question of Thought

To get into this question of thought at all fruitfully, there must therefore be an element of non-thought, i.e., love; we must be fascinated by the problem for its own sake and we shall then see that in its unraveling lies great beauty.  We shall, however, miss this beauty if we go into the problem without real love, such as when we expect a result from it, whether this be freedom from suffering or simply an enrichment of our intellectual store of ideas.  This love gives us the capacity for Fundamental Thought, implying direct perception, which is obviously required for an examination of thought, if we are not to go round and round in circles within thought. 

First, it may be useful to look at the relationship between love and Fundamental Thought.  Obviously fundamental thinking can exist on all levels.  After all, what is fundamental thought if it is not thought in the broadest categories?  Is not that thought fundamental which moves from the general to the particular, thereby seeing each thing through its matrix, which is placing it in a larger frame of reference?  But what we are concerned with is Fundamental Thought, with capital letters, and this must be thinking in the very broadest categories possible; this means that ultimately the terms of reference of thought itself are left behind, and thought is eliminated–and maybe then love is born.  After all, thought is always divisive, isolating, and love is the total elimination of all barriers. 

Thought is the stuff of which the manifested Universe is made, and we shall have to examine the relationship between the thinker and his thought, the observer and the Universe, in order to ascertain whether these much discussed relationships actually exist, or whether perhaps the thinker and his thought, the observer and his World are one.

Experience, which involves memory and so the activity of the brain cells, and the possibility of being communicated, can only be in this dualistic form, like computer language.

Thus man’s natural habitat, the material universe, when reduced to its simplest and most fundamental terms, exists in his consciousness as ultimate entities which are designated “elementary particles”--just like the ultimate elements of his psychological universe are “pleasure” and “pain” (Heaven and Hell). 

So the really creative physicist is he who can “forget” the limitations of duality in his contacts with non-duality; that is, he can use concepts like “particle”, “wave”, “mass”, etc. purely as working tools, all the time remembering that they are merely working symbols, thoughts, thus never allowing them to become blockages in his understanding.  

Now if all “things” are of Thought, then Thought is entirely on its own, and it is thus impossible for Thought to be related to any thing.  Therefore the “relationship” between thought and matter is a false one; it is not that there is no “matter”, but there is no matter as opposed to thought, nor is there thought as opposed to matter, for the two are one.  And that One, which in certain writings is sometimes referred to as Mind, is itself neither thought nor matter; neither is it composed of both, nor is it the absence of both.  From it all “things” and all “thoughts” emerge, and to it all things and all thoughts return; is not this the greatest miracle conceivable? 

Because thought occupies such an important position in relation to Mind, is it not surprising that we devote so little time to its understanding?  It seems to me that the key to a realization of Mnd in oneself is the understanding of thought; and at the same time, that without this comprehension, we cannot fully understand any problem at all. 

Happiness and the Death of Thought

One more important conclusion follows from our discovery that all things are within Mind; it is that there can only be Happiness by having order within one’s mind, and not through power without or within.  For any action I take outwardly to change my environment with a view to increase my happiness–and that is what most of us are busy with most of the time–is futile, since it can only result in a movement within thought, a rearrangement of mental pictures.  And any action which I undertake inwardly, to work upon my thought, is equally futile for the driving force is again thought–and thought as a driving force is the very cause of sorrow.  There will be the end of sorrow only when there is the dying to this driving force, the evaporation of the Motive that implies a Purpose whose realization is made a necessary condition for happiness.  The mind that has died to all that will be a Happy one, and it will also be an orderly mind, in which there is only place for “functional thought”, that is, thought which has no such Purpose lurking in its background and in which there is no involvement with pain and pleasure.  This mind is of the essence of simplicity, without wants or ambitions, ever agile, yet never growing beyond its own emptiness. 

Beyond the utilitarian sphere, is thought really necessary?

There is also thought which is not functionally essential, but is only psychologically a necessity to us–this we shall henceforth refer to as “psychological thought”.  In this kind of thought there is a direct movement of the psychological “me”, whereas in “functional thought” there is not.  To give a simple example, thinking how to obtain food when hungry would be a case of functional thought, but thinking how to obtain a particular kind of food–because the mind (and not the stomach) has a special appetite for it (due to conditioning, habit, est.)--that would, in our present terminology, be called “psychological thought”.  The difficulty is, as can be seen from the above example, that one type of thought can flow almost imperceptibly into the other.  Yet it is only psychological thought that makes up the entire texture of Suffering as a mental phenomenon.  Although I may suffer physically when starving, I only suffer mentally through the thoughts: “what is going to happen to me; there is worse to come”, and so on.  Similarly, when I have a bad toothache, or am suffering from some other painful physical condition, there is physical suffering which may or not be–but usually is–superimposed by conflict in the mind.  Once Krishnamurti made a remark to the effect that, having suffered from bad physical health for many years, yet not once his physical condition had given rise to conflict.

What we are concerned with in this discussion is psychological thought, in which and through which we suffer. We want to know its modus operandi, its birth and death, and perhaps knowing that, we shall be in a position to effect its prevention so that there is only functional thought left which gives no problems.

First, what does the general landscape look like in which there is both functional and psychological thought?  Just as a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, so purely functional thought is the shortest associative distance between two propositions.  It is truly a “straight and narrow path” this “thinking to some purpose” without entanglements and problems.  For any deviation I make takes me through the fields of pleasure and pain lying on either side of the path, giving rise to that “discrimination” which in future will make further straight functional thought more and more difficult and bringing with it the cultivation of an ego.  Still holding to this same picture, one may say that meditation consists in the process of seeing where functional thought derails on the embankment of psychological thought.

Then, this question of thought is further tied up with something else, the question of life and death; and the two may well be the same problem in different guises.  To most people there are only two fundamental states, life and death; but to the writer there is a third state, which lies beyond the aforementioned two, although it comprises both of them.  To him this is the only really fundamental state, and it is identical with the state that obtains when we have died to thought–and he does not care whether this occurs before or after the body’s death, for this is irrelevant.  To die to thought it is not necessary to die bodily first; and also, who knows whether after death of the body, there will be any such opportunity?  After all, we suffer now, and that is why it is important to investigate whether we can die to thought today, and not tomorrow.

Although most religious writers consider the body with contempt and a nuisance, may it perhaps not be its main function to give us the opportunity to find liberation–not from the body as is supposedly to happen at physical death, but fro the mind which is the real trouble-maker?  What I am driving at is the following: no problem in this world has ever been solved by its avoidance.  Similarly, the ego can only be transmuted by becoming acutely aware of itself, of its whole complicated machinery and of the impasse in which it finds itself.  This requires a firmly crystalized ego so that the strong forces which keep it intact can be utilized for its explosive shattering.  Now the body is, as we have explained elsewhere, the necessary agency through which this crystallization takes place. 

The paradox in this matter is that the center of individual consciousness must first be fully grown before it can disintegrate.  It cannot disintegrate half-way through its formation, for at this stage full understanding is not yet to be obtained.  This is reflected in the life history of the individual where the child’s personality must first be fully developed and the various outward urges and desires must have their sway, before all this energy is turned inwards in the confrontation of the center with what is.  Such is Nature’s law that the young will yearn for the world, because as yet all psychic energy is flowing outwards.  Only after this outward movement has completed itself, will the tide turn and will self-revelation commence; or so it should be, but the tragic part is that most of us remain caught in the outward movement throughout our lives, looking for the unknown treasure in the wrong direction.  

So we see that although body in itself is not important, it has a very significant part to play in the process of spiritual emancipation.  After this deviation let us now return to the consideration of this all-important question of the dying to thought. 

Occasionally we do die to thought, as when we fall into a dreamless sleep.  When we come out of this state, how wonderfully refreshed we feel; if only we could sleep like this every night!  This is an example of what the death of thought can do for us and how a total renewal of the organism can only take place after the mind has had a complete holiday.  Considering this blissful experience, is it not surprising that our greatest fear is to die, to take leave of the known and break continuity:  It is particularly strange what we have this terror of coming to an end when each night we go to sleep without so much as a qualm, and seeing that we spend so much of our lifespan sleeping.  This shows that our fear concerns not so much the state of oblivion and the desire not to lose the known.  Could it further be that the event of death has been over dramatized, and this is exerting a powerful conditioning influence?  

It may be objected here that the state of sleep differs in two important aspects from the state of death. First, in sleep the body carries on; and second, we have the knowledge that there is a very great probability that we shall wake up next morning.  But from the point of view we are considering here, that is, the dying of thought to itself, there does not seem to be a very great amount of difference between the two states.  ?As to the first point, in deep sleep there is no awareness of the body’s functioning.  If we died in our sleep, we would not know it.  The fact, therefore, that physiological functions continue seems irrelevant when there is psychological discontinuity.  Second, the knowledge that we shall wake up in due course is, consciously or subconsciously, with us to the last moment before loss of consciousness in deep sleep or complete general anesthesia.  However, at the actual moment of losing consciousness there is a dying even to that knowledge because there is an ending of all thought. We may remark that nobody has ever come to grief through the ending of his thought, but that on the contrary all psychological pain is the result of an inability to end thought.  Yet subconsciously, we realize the need for its ending, witness the many ways of modern man seeks oblivion, such as through drugs, sex, and the innumerable other forms of escape.

In the above example we have seen how occasionally man dies to all thought.  Let us now consider two cases where there is the dying to one thought or one complex of thoughts.  I do not know whether the reader has ever noticed how one fear can supersede and completely wipe out another fear?  For example, I have a fear of meeting a certain person, of confronting a certain situation.  However, suddenly I receive word that after having left my house in the morning a disastrous fire has broken out and there has been considerable damage to property.  Now there is only one thing that weighs on my mind: I do not yet know all the details, but I fear to have lost everything.  The other fear, the recurring thought which caused my earlier anxiety has completely disappeared. Where has it gone? Apparently the greater fear, the thought which has the stronger emotional significance, always ousts the lesser one.  And is not the same “displacement effect” noticeable with desire?  Apparently it is always the thoughts most closely involved in the “I”-mechanism, which are absorbed by Memory; in fact, it is this bundle of meaningful knowledge (i.e., meaningful to the “me”) that reacts as the “me” to outward challenges. 

The other case is the common knowledge that “Time heals all wounds”.  Memory of the sorrowful thought has, of course,worn thin and is being replaced by fresh engrams.

Although the dying to one thought is of an entirely different order from the dying to all thought–since it is merely a movement within thought and not a going beyond–it has been brought up here for showing so well the unreality of thought, and the mechanism by which it is the creator of all illusions.  Another significant pointer may be the fact that in all the examples given above the dying to thought took place involuntarily.  Just like we cannot will ourselves to fall asleep, so the mind cannot end its harassing thoughts by direct conscious action.  If “effort” is not the way, then maybe the whole thing is far more subtle than we imagined!

Although this chapter–and in fact the whole of this work–is primarily concerned with the question of how to end thought, it will obviously help us in our task to examine in detail how thought came about in the first place.  Subsequently we shall discuss how thought, once come into being, maintains itself; and finally, we shall see if there is a possibility of putting an end to thought, the desirability of which we have already discussed.

The Unfolding of Individual Consciousness

The birth of thought in the individual is, as it were, a recapitulation of its birth in Consciousness, which took place in some early phase of man’s biological evolution.  The tiny baby, soon after he is born, reacts to his having left the uniformly congenial conditions of the womb.  The equilibrium is crudely broken: he has to start breathing, the temperature of the outside world may not suit him, and there is a periodical need for food.  Once a certain threshold value of uncongeniality, of “discomfort”, has been reached, the organism reacts instinctively by crying, which is a purely physiological reflex at this stage.  Thus, through the shock of birth, with most babies the first action after gasping for breath, is to cry.

Consciousness is still an undifferentiated continuum; although physiologically very much alive and kicking, psychologically the baby is like the dead; in fact he is a mere biological automation consisting of not much more than a tube which ingests food at one end, chemically transforms it, and eliminates the decomposition products at the other end.

Soon, however, a fundamental change takes place.  Because his physiological needs are always relieved by action in the outside world, together with the capacity of memory afforded by his developing brain, the baby becomes aware of himself as distinct from the outside world.  This is the birth of thought and the real birth of the baby, his beginning as a psychological entity, which knows the “me” and the “not-me”.  Soon he will know (i.e. “recognize”) his mother and discover that he can achieve certain results by the action of crying.  Such crying is therefore no longer physiological, but a mentally induced action which, in a primitive way, may be the first stepping-stone of the incipient “cunning mind”.

Later still in his development the child’s consciousness will merge to an increasing extent with collective consciousness.  In addition to his own private conditioning through his sensing apparatus, i.e., his experiences of the physical, factual aspects of the world, he will absorb the multifarious ideas about the world. Whereas the former process signifies the building up of factual memory necessary for functional thought, the latter process represents the corruption of the child’s innocence by thought. 

How the child’s formation is a matter of his “own” conditioning throught sensuous perception plus the psychological conditioning by his environment, can be seen, for example from his tastes in food.  Although he partly discriminates according to his own pleasure/displeasure principle (which not only comprises the reaction of his taste buds, but also texture, smell of the food and the emotional circumstances prevailing during his first acquaintance with the particular food), the basis for much of the child’s likes and dislikes in eating is laid by his educators.  It is therefore only natural to find the child’s tastes and eating habits reflecting those of his environment.  And what applies to food, naturally applies to anything else; every possible experience the child could have is very soon labeled “nice” or “not-nice”, and thus a basis is laid for rigid good/bad mentations, from which he can subsequently free himself only with the greatest of difficulty. 

The child there is the consciousness of belonging to a particular family and the emotional security which this identification brings.

All this, however, has only been the preparation for the dualistic world picture in which the child is being “educated”.  For next he has to accept that he belongs to a certain country, is a member of the white or the “colored” race, is a Protestant, Catholic, Jew . . . or any of the other nonsense which obscures to the child the plain fact that he is simply a human being–moreover, who, but for his many labels, would be psychologically nothing.  The truth he actually is nothing becomes only apparent with the understanding that there is no such thing as individual thought, (psychological) thought.  To illustrate this further, how the child psychologically grows upon the substratum of collective consciousness we may consider here his incipient sexual development.  

Although sex is physically determined at conception,, psychologically the child is nothing at birth, that is to say sexually neuter.  This remains so until the pattern which the environment imposes has established itself,, which means the child has been made to dress, behave and function as a boy or girl,  whichever the case may be.  Thus in most cases the little boy or girl is identified with one of both sexual groups,, by falling in line with the various behavior symbols, before even knowing what it is all about and upon what physical characteristics the discrimination has been made. 

Once this basic sexual identification has occurred, further conditioning in the male or female role takes place as a matter of course.  This will come to include the notion that the opposite sex is “desirable”, and through this, together with the fact that the “female and male psychologies” are complementary as well as forming a pair of opposites (cf. the Yin and Yang in Chinese philosophy), a basis is laid for sexual attraction which is not merely (physically) functional.  This attraction is one more example illustrating the unity of opposites in consciousness, which manifests itself by the tendency to overcome their separateness and become one Whole.  

The important point is to see the primary part which conditioning plays in the establishment of the desire; therefore, as we have stated elsewhere, “all psychological desire is a conditioned reflex.”

Thus it is that “individual” psychological thought–which is desire–is always repetitive, never original, for it is part of the great conditioning steam of collective consciousness.  Only after the death of thought can there be true individuality.  

So we have seen that the first hesitant stirring of thought occurs as soon as the undifferentiated field of consciousness–the Nothingness–has split asunder in the “me” and the “not-me”, thus creating Thingness.  From thereon the course of events is completely inevitable.  The physical “me” leads to the psychological “me”, and hence to the basic schism in which numerous mental images exercise their power to fascinate and urge on this “me”. In the young child this interplay of symbols may be confined to a few basic ones, such as attention from the Mother, the fascination of the Toy, etc.  Later in life duality proceeds to an extraordinary degree with, concomitantly, a virtually unlimited number of ideation symbols (fixed ideas, one might say), all capable of exciting and pummeling the “me” into some action. 

It is this interplay of thought, which is the magnetism of the symbols for each other, that keeps the world turning.  Call it whatever you like, desire, ignorance, the search for fulfillment, it does not matter–but what matters is that it is a totally blind force which is inexhaustible.  It came into being with the first split in Consciousness, leading to the duality of “I” and the “not-I”, and will not end before these two have merged again.

This whole marvelous and fantastic world is thus within the field of thought, the storehouse of symbols, which comprises the observer and the observed, the thinker and his ideas, the striver and the striven for.  Because of this basic duality, the play of illusion will go on forever, for combinations and permutations amongst the dualities are infinite.

Man continually creates his own attractions for fresh symbols, the new excitements.  And whether this symbol be the image of naked woman, the idea of Death, or a word like Communism or Atheism, fundamentally its power to excite is as irrational and unreal as–to us–the proverbial red rag to the bull.  All this goes to show the tremendous potency of conditioning, particularly in early childhood.  It is hence mainly in this period that the basis is laid for the various neurotic conflicts which abound.  This occurs when the conflict in collective consciousness-i.e., a basic contradiction with which intelligence cannot cope–is imported to the growing psychological memory of the child.  Because there is a continuous merging between the individual consciousness and collective consciousness (so that it becomes unreal to speak of “individual” as opposed to collective consciousness) this transference of conflict occurs all the time.  

To give two very simple examples of such contradictions: Sex is represented at once as something highly desirable and highly reprehensible; killing is considered evil, but it is “glorious” when it is for the sake of some symbol, such as the nation, the race or some ideology.  The damage which these contradictions impart is untold, not in the least because it forces the unformed simple mind of the child to mold itself after the sophisticated and unreal pattern of collective consciousness. In this pattern everyone is assigned a certain role and woe betide the individual who wishes only to be himself and refuses to conform.  The “role” is really a rigid pattern within a pattern, all held together by tradition, the reign of the past. This role-playing has become so important in this age that even a commercial company “of repute” must project its “public image”, i.e., it is personalized, and usually expected to play the role of a successful, aggressive yet paternal type of individual!  Thus we see that the diseased mind of the Collective loses no time to infect the young mind, and that therefore the real crisis lies within consciousness. 

Maintenance of the Thought Momentum

A few serious-minded persons may ask themselves how this whole unreal structure perpetuates itself, and may wish to step out of it, if only they knew how.  These people form, however, such a small minority and, what is more important, even they still seek a solution within thought, that almost imperceptibly the Unreal–for that is what this whole psychological panorama represents–is taking increasing hold over us.  Not only does the momentum of thought proceed unchecked, because the fundamental thought structure is never challenged, but it is ever increasing like an avalanche rolling down the mountain-side, carrying everything with it in its destructive path. This is because duality can only give rise to more duality, and it is impossible for it ever to lead to non-duality.  As we have seen before, duality, which is thought, is not related to non-thought, which is non-duality.  Therefore thought will ever give rise to more thought, and so the mind is its own prison; this is also the reason why every problem we tackle in this world appears to give rise to further problems.  Furthermore, readers may have noticed how thought, notwithstanding its infinite possibilities as to content and depth, is very limited in scope and too often extremely petty, and how in the individual it is restricted to variations on only a few ever-recurring themes.  Yet we are still a long way off from the time that people will begin to recognize that thinking will now solve their many problems, as long as man has not got the capacity to keep his functional thought uncontaminated by psychological thought, and so free from the tyranny of the Collective.

Now we have examined the birth of thought, it may be instructive to examine in some greater detail the process of thought continuity, the inexorable mechanism through which we are the effective prisoners of thought.  It seems as though we are the victims of a Law of Inertia, which prevails throughout the Universe and governs not only the physical but also the psychological world.  Thus the momentum of thought all the time engenders more thought-energy; and one thought is sufficient to set the whole process going. 

To understand this we must first of all recognize that thought which is psychological and not functional has a counterpart on the level of sensation; that is, it is either pleasant or painful, and in this respect there is no neutral thought.  As we have already seen in the chapter entitled “Windows on Non-Duality”, the driving force behind the mechanism of thought association (which is the modus operandi of its continuation) is the pleasure/pain principle, which aims at the overall increase in pleasure and reduction in pain content of the thoughts.  

So let us suppose that to begin wit there is a thought with which pleasure is associated, i.e., its content or coloring is gratifying.  This will then bive rise to further thought with a view to perpetuate, intensif or safeguard gratification.  On the other hand, had the first thought been painful, this would have engendered a though concerned wit reducing the pain and transforming this into pleasure.  This process is thus self-activating and b its very nature destined to go on ad infinitum.  Thus there is a continuos swinging between painful thoughts (caused by the impact of reality, of facts, or our onions and interpretations of these facts) on theone hand; and pleasant, and pleasure-projecting (“hopeful”) thoughts to “compensate”, on the other.  Since the pain always wants to turn into pleasure, and pleasure always wants to continue, which is the mechanism of the “less” or the “more”, there is never an end to thought, which is an eternal oscillation between despair and hope.  Even at night, in dreams, this movement continues.  Man dreams about the things he has not got, but wishes for (dreams as wish-fulfillment) or fears (anxiety dreams or nightmares).

So it is that, at least most of us, do not know the existence of a pause in the thought process; this thought-pause is therefore a state beyond the opposites, free from Time (which is the pressure of the “next” thought).  And all that because we have never gone into the question of thought, never meditated!  For if we had, we might possibly have realized that we ourselves have initially caused this schism between (psychological) pleasure and pain, that there are only facts, but that it is the conditioned mind, which has colored these facts, and so has created its own gratifications and frustrations. 

Perhaps it may now be appreciated that the spiritual life represents a process of disengagement from the tyrannical thought symbols which dominate our life and actions.  This disengagement is not, however, the giving up of one enslaving thought habit and its substitution by another, as so often happens with those who practice mind discipline, or try to “be good”.  Nor is it what is popularly called “renunciation”, which is no renunciation at all, in the true sense of the word.  But it is rather to be conceived as the release from the tight grip of thought generally.

If I can come to an understanding why I am held by Sex, Money, Ambition, and so forth, then the waking up to the entrancement produces a relaxation all round in the compulsive forces of the mind, for the mechanism of enslavement is identical in each case.  Since all addictions have their roots deep in the mind, and have grown in strength as a direct result of our lack of understanding of thought, a clearer and sharper vision of the thought process in ourselves has at once a freeing effect on the mind.  It would therefore be true to say that “to understand the prison is to destroy the prison”.

The disengagement from the various driving forces will further induce the individual to cut out several of his unnecessary commitments, which will lead to a more relaxed life and give him time just “to sit and stare”. *

Thus far in this chapter we have dealt with the many varied aspects of thought, which were considered to be important for its understanding.  In the course of our discussion we have dealt with the birth of thought, its continuance, and we have dropped hints about the possibility of its ending.  We have seen that this ending is absolutely essential for the ending of sorrow.  In the final section of this study of thought we shall look particularly into the matter of its ending.

The Problem of Ending

Having seen that there is not a single psychological problem that cannot be resolved through thought,  I wish to rid myself of it; and so my question is: “how to end thought?”.  But is this stating the problem correctly?  Does not the “how” immediately lead to the continuation of thought?

So, obviously, this question is out; I must forget it completely and immediately, otherwise I shall create more food for thought.  Also out, as we have already seen, is the endeavor to end thought forcefully, for the only force I can apply is the force of thought itself.

This leaves me with only one thing, to remain with the thought but not in the thought.  This now is the crucial point upon which everything depends, to understand fully that there is literally all the difference in the world between direct perception of thought, and thinking along with the thought (which is to be absorbed in thought).  The two are mutually exclusive.  Since thought maintains itself only because of the blind driving force behind it, the perception of the thought process in action, and the seeing of how it is based on self-interest, insecurity, and so on, destroys its momentum.  (Compare the “paralysis” of the analytical mind, discussed on p. 47*)  Whereas thought leads to an “answer”, to no such answer, but to freedom, which is the cutting of continuity and so the destruction of thought.  

This is really the exact point at which the “spiritual life” begins.  Ordinarily these words are used very loosely, but in the author’s view the underlying state can be indicated fairly precisely.*  The spiritual life becomes only a reality the moment we step out of thought. Anything else is self-deception; it is merely the lay of the intellect, however much this may be disguised by the use of high-falutin terms.

So, if in meditation, we re-act to what is observed by producing more thought, at that moment we are lost to the life of the spirit, and back to the level of ideation. * Are not the newspapers full of solutions to the problems of an unhappy world, and is not everyone of them based on idea and so doomed to failure?  Even psychoanalysis, which “employs” perception (of repressed thought) as a means of purification, is concerned only with the perception of certain thought symbols within the framework of other socially well-established thought constructs; therefore it is still altogether within thought and so it can never lead to perfect freedom but only to an adjustment to Society.  But to adjust to Society, to “fit in” better, is, in a subtle way, to get more entangled.  Furthermore, because psychoanalysis proceeds within thought, that is within time, there is no end to it; one can go on everlastingly analyzing the dark recess of the Unconscious, with its many conflicts, but who is the analyser? Unless the analyser himself is totally free from darkness, he is not qualified for the job, because his analysis will reflect his own being and so inevitably introduce an error.

What we are concerned with here is the perception of the limitation and unreality (“emptiness”) of every kind of thought structure, which is to reject thought in toto, so that now even one thought will arise.  This frees one altogether from Society, yet at the same time maintaining normal relationships with that Society.  The stepping out of thought is therefore not a stepping out of Society; the latter could only be a reaction against Society, and the person who is free no longer has any need to react (“to be in the world, yet not of it”).

So what is required is to see the thought as thought, without merely going along with the thought, at the same time perceiving the subtle ways it touches on the interests of the ego.  That is all; this sounds simple but it is extremely difficult–or maybe “difficult” is not the right word because this implies effort, and one should rather say that it is highly elusive.  Perhaps our main difficulty in right meditation is this very habit of making effort, which is the first natural reaction when we try something new.  Only after having mastered something, do we seem to function effortlessly in its performance. 

Now in learning any technique on the material level, effort is obviously required because there we are concerned with the cultivation of memory, and with implanting a certain pattern of skill, of “know-how”, on the mind.  But this cannot hold true for meditation which is not mind training; perception and comprehension are always involuntary and therefore effortless.  Yet the habit is so strong, the structure of the mind is such, that effort always creeps in somehow.  In this connection the effort may take a very subtle form.  For example,, we become aware that in a personal relationship the attachment has begun to grow.  We may then be inclined to “watch” this relationship with a view to prevent the attachment from taking roots.  But even this implies a subtle sort of effort, does it not, for we have singled out this particular situation for our attention, which action represents a dualistic act of discrimination, which in itself binds.  Then what do we do?  This is hardly the right question, is it?--for the word “do” is not the correct operative term.  This should demonstrate to us once again that no single problem can be solved in isolation, on its own level.  Yet that is what everyone in this world is trying to do.  We seek to solve the “sexual problem”, the problem of war, of poverty, and so many others–without first solving the problem of man himself.  But the latter requires a total revolution in consciousness, and so it is much easier to fiddle with these individual problems, all on the level of words, and much less disturbing!  Only when there is a mindfulness in all directions, which is therefore choiceless, is there a release; and because it is directionless such mindfulness is completely effortless. 

Need for Passivity *

To do absolutely nothing is so essential in the spiritual life because “to do” and “to observe dispassionately” are mutually exclusive.  Because we are “doing” something all the time, in the process of re-action, we can never purely and simply look at anything; and if we do look, it is with one eye on the possible result of our action on the fact. Therefore the total significance of that fact eludes us, which is a pity.  For it is only through living totally, intensely and passionately with the facts–however “unpleasant”--that the transforming and liberating factor can work through the mind, and this will bring its own action which is not a re-action from thought.  

When there is a ruthless perception of facts without fancy, an observation no longer coloured by our desires, then a strange quietness comes into being.  In that quietness the usual ingoing movement from the outer to the inner, which is the acquisitive process of the ego, has come to an end; and in its place there is now a movement of a different order: an outgoing feeling, which may be the beginning of Love.  

So we have seen that total passivity is of the very highest importance, an essential factor, in the ending of thought.  Agitation in the mind there is and will be, but this only becomes pernicious when it is acted upon.  As long as there is agitation without re-action, the center remains unmoved, and there is no further accumulation of psychological memory; thus the energy of agitation must spend itself.  

The moment, however, thought is acted upon, reality (i.e., continuity) is given to the unreal (for psychological thought, being I-oriented, can never be the Real, which is neither personal nor impersonal).  This acting from thought, which is therefore re-action, ca be in the form of some physical action, leading to more “experiencing” and so to further thought; or, it can take the form of thought opposing the original thought (repression), superseding the original thought (escapism, sublimation), or increasing its momentum (indulgence).  However, whatever form the reaction takes, the result is always a further re-action; and this in turn will give rise to one more re-action, and so in ad infinitum.

Because of this mechanism, there is no chance at all for the agitation in the mind ever to come to a standstill.  This can only occur when the endless belt of thought images is ruthlessly intercepted and cut by the onset of meditation, that is when thought itself is passively directly perceived and exposed.  Then for the first time this thought–however socially unacceptable it may be–is left to its own devices, so that it does not give rise to re-action.  In this way only is real freedom possible.   

Freedom and Morality

Conventionally, absolute freedom is considered to be the possibility of unlimited, unfettered action and/or the total freedom of thought; but all this is really merely the opposite of slavery.  From our point of view, Freedom is neither the possibility of unlimited physical action, nor even the freedom of thinking, but it is the freedom from thinking (nor is it the freedom from any one particular thought, but all thought).  This Freedom is neither non-slavery nor slavery; (i.e., “total freedom” in the conventional sense) there may not lie Freedom at all. 

The totally revolutionary principle of the spiritual life thus lies in its non-interference with thought; this is the core of its difference from the conventionally “religious” life.  It follows that a society or community, which merely holds on to a moral or ethical code to live by, is fundamentally irreligious and, paradoxically, in a subtle way perpetuates that which it fights as “immoral” or “unethical”.  In fact, we can see that the very act of “moralizing” is a socially accepted way of vicariously indulging in the immorality, since, because it is a reaction to the immorality, is not free from it itself.   It is obviously not the author’s intention to deny or decry moral codes, but it is shown here that without anything further, i.e., without meditation, they are less than useless, for all life is then firmly imprisoned within the opposites, that is, within thought.  Therefore such a society will always live in the unreal, and it can never know what Love is.

Meditation and the Tyranny of Thought

The vision that all is empty, our whole world being within and from thought, and that thought itself–if we allow it–will everlastingly move from despair to hope and from hope to despair–this perception alone wipes away our denseness, worries, and provides the most wonderful mental tonic in the world.  It brings with it a sense of freedom which lifts us completely out of our usual troubled existence; this is pure Joy and however short-lived it may be, one feels quite literally “out of this world”, to use a much abused expression (for normally, when using it, we are very much tied up with things worldly).  However, for it to be of full value one should come to it standing in the midst of life, rather than in the “splendid isolation” of physical aloneness (which could betray a withdrawal from all relationship).

But let the reader experiment; if he does this and remains alertly passive, he will know what it is to meditate.  Is not this an experiment, which the world today needs more urgently than any amount of experimentation in scientific or technological laboratories, however spectacular and however expensive?  In a sense, of course, we may consider meditation the most supremely scientific of experiments, for is is not the most “fundamental” of them all?  Moreover, it is an investigation in which each of us needs to be a pioneer, in the truest sense of the word, there being no falling back upon the findings of others, no easy referring to text-books.

And the “results” of meditation, are they not much more far-reaching than any scientific project, whether it be going to the moon or the discovery of fundamental particles?  Whatever we do in science, we cannot get away from the “observer” who measures and correlates, and by his very presence vitiates, to a cerntain extent, the experiment.  On the human level, we cannot escape from the “self” that struggles to achieve and suffers in that process, but in meditation the limits of space and time–and so of the “self”--are altogether transcended.  Thus comes into being a different state of consciousness and so a different mode in which man functions. 

If the reader has come thus far, and experienced all this in his own meditation, let him be warned for the final trick which the mind can–and, undoubtedly, will–play on him at this stage.  It is, that thought will immediately endeavor to appropriate the “stepping out of thought” for its own purposes, since it is now literally fighting for its life!  That is, it will not mind when the thinker extracts himself from a painful situation by ending thought, but when pleasure comes along, it will encourage the thinker once again to stay within thought in order after all not to miss the many benefits and delights that only thought can offer him.  Perhaps this last snare prepared by thought has been appropriately symbolized in different religions by the accounts of temptations offered to the Savior by the Devil.

So, how do we measure up to this tricky situation?  It weems that ultimately we have the choice between the pleasures and the excitements of emotional involvement afforded by thought, and the lack of all that but the freedom which is born when we have died to thought.  It is again the Law of INertia, the magnetism of pleasure, that holds us back from attaining psychological death.  Even spiritually, man wants to have his cake and eat it.  Although we used the word “choice”, this is somewhat misleading, because in actual fact there is no choice–and if there were, who is it that chooses?  Would it not be thought that is the chooser?  This process has to work itself out and will only do so when there is the fullest understanding of the emptiness of all the various movements possible within thought; the recognition that there is no other way and no compromise, because–one might say–Nature rigidly applies the either/or principle.  According to this, something either is a fact or it is not, which leaves no scope for the mind’s usual bargaining and compromising.  After all, one does not bargain with Death, or with Sex, does one?  However much we like to “suppress” or cover up certain disturbing facts, they are there; and no amount of cerebral activity is going to make the slightest difference to them. 

It seems to me that, if it came to the point, very few people who profess an interest in the matters discussed in this work, would be prepared to live in this utterly revolutionary way.  To “take an interest” is something, but it is not enough; as Krishnamurti once said “it is not a matter of attending a few Talks”, nor is it a matter of continuing to read the latest books on Zen, orgainzing discussion groups, and so on.  What matters only is that we are sufficiently serious about these things, and such an attitude necessarily involves a clash with Society, thereby even further strengthening the forces of inertia.  

To be deeply serious means to thin fundamentally, and to be a “fundamentalist” in the proper sense of the word, is so very difficult because it requires the utmost simplicity.  To listen to the words such as God, “Buddhahood”, Truth, Live, Death, and to realize that each is just a thought–one only out of an infinite possible number of thoughts–and nothing more, not to be used as a basis for philosophy-building, but just left alone as thought or concept, requires a simplicity of mind which almost borders on idiocy.  This seems almost impossible with most of us,, because theWord holds an extraordinary power, it hypnotizes us so that we must react, we must spawn more thought.  The momentum of the mind is thus maintained by the continuous impetus of the Word; and so long as this mechanical process is not understood and therefore unbroken, there can be no meditation.  But to take just one idea, one thought, and to look at it, to play with it, to go into it thoroughly, so that its whole background is seen in relation to the thinker–which can only be done when there is the freedom from thought–that is true mediation.  That brings with it its own clarity, a unique blessing, which no amount of thinking-activity, however subtle or however noble can give us.  

However, the truth with most of us is that we live wholly within thought, and the saddest part of it is that we are not even aware how “intellectual” (in the sense of “cerebral”) we are.  When we think of love, it is only another thought-habit.  We love “because of”, but never “regardless” or in “spite of”.  To think of the beloved is to us love.  The beloved is simply a picture of an idealized entity that we worship.  We are in love with this thought-structure because it is complementary to the thought-structure which represents our own inadequate “me”, and so it gives us a feeling of security and comfort.  But the moment the other refuses to give us what we want or the idealized picture of the beloved is seen to be not according to reality, it crashes and love is no more.  Thus the personal and exclusive love relationship is at present one of the main avenues through which thought pursues happiness and fulfillment.  But happiness can only be when love is no longer thought, and thought is no longer seeking continuity; that is, when we no more depend for our happiness on another, or are crushed by circumstances.