I AM TALKING TO MYSELF

I am talking to myself. But I represent each one of you.

I realize that love cannot exist when there is jealousy; love cannot exist when there is attachment. A mind that can be jealous cannot be loving, and vice-versa: a mind that is loving cannot be jealous.

Now, is it possible for me to be free of jealousy and attachment? I realize that I do not love. That is a fact. I am not going to deceive myself; I don't have compassion. I am asking myself do I love anybody - which means not asking anything in return? Right? Can I have compassion?

Not asking anything from that person I love, not dependent on that person at all. Because if I am dependent then fear begins, jealousy, anger. And if I am attached to somebody is that love?

I want to find out! And if all that is not love - I am just asking myself, I don't say it is, or it is not - if all that is not love then how can I have compassion? I am wanting for something much more than love. And even love I haven't got - just the ordinary love for another human being.So what shall I do?

"Look, let's go into this. Why am I, I understand this verbally, that love cannot exist when there is jealousy, love cannot exist when there is attachment, now is it possible for me to be free of attachment?"

This is a dialogue - then I will have a dialogue with myself, shall I, and you listen?

I am asking myself - how am I to be free of this attachment, not knowing what love is, I won't pretend - love of god, love of Jesus, love of Krishna, all that nonsense, throw it all out - if I have thrown it all out. So I am saying: how am I to be free of this attachment?

I am going to investigate. I don't know what love is, but I see very clearly, definitely, without any doubt, that attachment to that person means fear, anxiety, jealousy, possession, all the rest of it.

So I begin to en-quire. Then I get caught in a system. You understand? You are following this? I get caught in some guru who says, "I will help you to be detached, do this, this, this. Practice this, this". And I want to be free from it and I accept what the silly man says because I see the importance of being free, and he promises me that if I do this I will have a reward. So I want to be free in order to have a reward. You understand? I am looking for a reward. So I say, how silly I am. I want to be free and I get attached to the reward. You are following all this? Good! At last! I think I had better have a dialogue all the time with myself!

So I don't want to be attached and yet I find myself getting attached to an idea. You understand? That is, I must be free and somebody, or some book, or some idea, something says "Do this and you will have that." So the reward becomes my attachment - you follow? So I say, "Look what I have done. Be careful, don't get caught in that trap." Whether it is a woman or an idea it is still attachment. So I am very watchful now. I have learned something. That is, exchange for something else is still attachment - right? So I am very watchful. Then I say to myself, is there a way, or what am I to do to be free of attachment? What is my motive? Why do I want to be free from attachment? Because it is painful? Because I want to achieve a state where there is no attachment, no fear, no etc.etc? What is my motive? Please follow me because I am representing you. What is my motive in wanting to be free? And I suddenly realize a motive gives a direction. Right?

The motive has become my attachment, not only the woman, the idea of a goal, but my motive; I must have that. So I am all the time functioning within the field of attachment. Right? The woman, the future and the motive - to all this I am attached. So I say "Oh, my god, it is a tremendously complex thing. I didn't realize that to be free of attachment implies all this." Right?

Then I say to myself: "Now, is it possible for me to be free of my motive, to which I am attached, to be free of the woman for whom I have great attachment, and also the reward which I am going to get when I am free?" To all this I am attached. Why? Is it that I am insufficient in myself? Is it that I am very, very lonely, therefore escape from that feeling of that extraordinary sense of isolation and therefore cling to something, man, woman, idea, motive? Hold on to something. Now is it I am lonely? I am taking that. Is it I am lonely? Therefore I am escaping from that feeling of extraordinary isolation, through attachment of another. Right?

So I am not interested in attachment at all. I am interested in understanding why I am lonely, which makes me attached. You have understood? You are following me - my dialogue with myself? Which is: I am lonely, and that loneliness has forced me to escape through attachment to this or to that. Now I say as long as I am lonely, all the sequence is this. So I must investigate why I am lonely. What does it mean? Right? What does it mean to be lonely? How does it come about? Is it instinctual, inbred, heredity, or is it my daily activity that is bringing about this loneliness? You understand? I am going into it. I am having a dialogue with myself.

If it is inherited, if it is an instinct, which I question because I accept nothing - you understand? - I accept nothing because I don't accept it is instinct and say "I can't help it". If it is heredity, I am not to blame. As I don't accept any of these things I say, "Why is there this loneliness?" Now I question it and remain with the question, not try to find an answer. I wonder if you understand this? Is the mind doing this? Loneliness means total isolation. Right?

So I say, is the mind, the brain doing this? The mind which is partly the movement of thought, is thought doing this? You are following all this? Thought in daily life, is it creating, bringing about this sense of isolation? You understand? Which is, in the office I am isolating myself because I want to become bigger, become the executive, or the pope or the bishop - you know. Therefore it is working all the time isolating itself. Are you watching this? You understand sir?

So the problem then is: why does thought do this? Is it the nature of thought to work for itself? You understand what I mean? Is it the nature of thought to create this isolation? Does society create this isolation? Does education create this isolation? Right? Education does bring about this isolation - it gives me a certain career, a certain specialization, so it is isolation. You follow? So thought, being fragmentary, because I have found that - I have found that thought, which is the response of the past as knowledge, experience and memory, so thought is limited. Right? Thought is time-binding. So thought is doing this. So my concern then is why does thought do it? Is it in its very nature to do this?

I Think I am coming to the point when I am not pretending. I don't know what love is. I said in the dialogue that I don't know what love is. I know when I use that word 'love' there is a certain pretence, a certain hypocrisy, putting on a certain type of mask. I have been through all that. At the beginning of this dialogue I went into all that. So I come to the point now: why does thought, being a fragment, why does it bring about this isolation, if it does? I have found it does in my conversation with myself because thought is limited, thought is time-binding, therefore whatever it does must be limited. And in that limitation it has found security. It has found security in saying, "I have a special career in my life". It has found security in saying, "I am a Software professional. There I am perfectly safe. After seven years." - and there you are stuck for the rest of your life. And there is great security both psychologically as well as factual.

So thought is doing this. Now the problem then is: can thought realize - please listen to this - can thought realize that it is limited and therefore the moment it understands that whatever it does is limited and therefore fragmentary and therefore isolating, whatever it does will be this. Therefore can thought - please I am having a dialogue, this is a very important point - can thought realize its own limitations? Or does thought say to itself, I am limited. You understand the difference? Are you all asleep? Thought being me - do I say, thought is limited and therefore it says, "I am limited". Or thought itself realizes I am limited. The two things are entirely different. One is an imposition, and therefore conflict, whereas when thought itself says "I am limited" it won't move away from that limitation. Please this is very important to understand because this is the real essence of this thing. We are imposing on thought what it should do. Thought has created the 'we', the 'me', and thought and the 'me' have separated itself from thought and says, I will dictate, tell what thought should do. But if thought realizes itself that it is limited then there is no resistance, no conflict, it says "I am that. I am blue".

So does thought - in my dialogue with myself, I am asking - does thought realize this itself? Or am I telling it that it is limited? If I am telling it that it is limited then I become separate from the limitations. Then I struggle to overcome the limitation, therefore there is conflict, which is violence, which is not love. Are you following?

So does thought realize itself that it is limited? I have to find out. I am being challenged. I have got energy now, because I am challenged I have got all energy. Does consciousness - put it differently - does consciousness realize its content? Does consciousness realize its content is itself? Or I have heard another say, "Consciousness is its content, its content makes up consciousness"? Therefore you say, "Yes it is so" - you follow? Or does consciousness, my consciousness, this consciousness realize its content and therefore its very content is the totality of my consciousness? Right? Do you see the difference in the two? The one imposed by me, the 'me' created by thought, then if I impose something on thought then there is conflict. Right? It is like a tyrannical government imposing on someone, but the government is what I have created.


So we are asking: has thought realized its own littleness, its own pettiness, its own limitations; or is it pretending to be something extraordinary, noble? - you know, all the rest of it - divine? - which is nonsense because thought is memory, experience, remembrance. So I must, in my dialogue there must be clarity about this point: that there is no outside influence imposing on thought saying it is limited. So thought then because there is no imposition - you understand - there is no conflict, therefore it realizes it is limited. Therefore whatever it does - its worship of god, its worship of Jesus, its worship is limited, shoddy, petty....

So there has been in my conversation with myself a discovery that loneliness is created by thought. And thought has now realized itself that it is limited, so it cannot solve the problem of loneliness. You understand? As it cannot solve the problem of loneliness does loneliness exist? You understand my question? Thought has made this sense of loneliness. Right? And thought realizes that it is limited and because it is limited, fragmentary, divided, it has created this, this emptiness, loneliness, therefore when it realizes this, loneliness is not. I wonder if you see this? Right?


So therefore there is freedom from attachment. I have done nothing. You understand? I have watched it, the attachment, what is implied in attachment, greed, fear, loneliness, all that, and by tracing it, looking at it, observing it, not analysing it, examining, but just looking, looking, looking, and there is a discovery that thought has done all this. Right? Thought because it is fragmentary it has created this attachment. So when it realizes, attachment ceases. I wonder if you see this? There is no effort made at all, because the moment there is effort it is back again. You understand?