If you have this extraordinary thing going
in your life, then it is everything; then
you become the teacher, the disciple, the
neighbour, the beauty of the cloud—you are
all that, and that is love.
WHAT IS MEDITATION? Before we go into that really quite complex and intricate problem we ought to be very cleat as to what it is that we are after. We are always seeking something, especially those who are religiously minded; even for the scientist, seeking has become quite an issue—seeking. This factor, of seeking, must be very clearly and definitely understood before we go into what meditation is and why one should meditate at all, what is its use and where does it get you.
The word ‘seek’—to run after, to search out—implies, does it not, that we already know, more or less, what we are after. When we say we are seeking truth, or we are after. When we say we are seeking truth or we are seeking God—if we are religiously minded—or we are seeking a perfect life and so on, we must already have in our minds an image or an idea. To find something after seeking it, we must already have known what is contour is, its color, its substance and so on. Is there not implied in that word ‘seeking’ that we have lost something and we are going to find it and that when we find it we shall be able to recognize it—which means that we have already known it, that all we have to do is to go after it and search it out?
In meditation the first thing we realize is that it is no use to seek; for what is sought is predetermined by what you wish; if you are unhappy, lonely, in despair, you will search out hope, companionship, something to sustain you, and you will find it, inevitably.
In meditation, one must lay the foundation, the foundation of order, which is righteousness— not, respectability, the social morality which is no morality at all, but the order that comes of understanding disorder: quite a different thing. Disorder must exist as long as there is conflict, both outwardly and inwardly.
Order, which comes of understanding disorder, is not according to a blueprint, according to some authority, or your own particular experience. Obviously this order must come about without effort, because effort distorts; it must come about without any form of control.
We are talking about something very difficult in saying that we must bring about order without control. We must understand disorder, how it comes to being; it is the conflict which is in ourselves. In observing it, it is understood; it is not a matter of overcoming it, throttling it, suppressing it. To observe without any distortion, without any compulsive or directive impulse, is quite an arduous task.
Control implies either suppression, rejection or exclusion; it implies a division between a controller and the thing controlled; it implies conflict. When one understands this, control and choice come to an end. All this may seem rather difficult and rather contradictory to everything you have thought about. You may say: how can there be order without control, without the action of will? But, as we have said, control implies division, between the one who controls and the thing that is to be controlled; in this division there is conflict, there is distortion. When you really understand this, then there is the ending of division between the controller and the controlled and therefore comprehension, understanding. When there is understanding of what actually is, then there is no need for control.
So there are these two essential things that must be completely understood if we are go into the question of what meditation is: First, there is no use in seeking; Second, there must be that order which comes from the understanding of disorder which comes from control, with all the implications of the duality and the contradiction which arises between the observer and the observed.
Order comes when the one who is angry and tries to get rid of anger sees that he is anger itself. Without this understanding you really cannot possibly know what meditation is. Do not fool yourself with all the books written about meditation, or with all the people who tell you how to meditate, or the groups that are formed in order to meditate. For if there is no order, which is virtue, the mind must live in the effort of contradiction. How can such a mind be aware of the whole implication of meditation?
With one’s whole being one must come upon this strange thing called love, and therefore be without fear. We mean love that is touched by pleasure, by desire, by jealousy; love that knows no competition; that does not divide, as my love and your love. Then the mind, including with brain and the emotions, is incomplete harmony; and this must be, otherwise meditation becomes self-hypnosis.
You must work very hard to find out the activities of your own mind, how it functions, with its self-centered activities, the “me” and the “not me”; you must be quite familiar wit yourself and all the tricks that the mind plays upon itself, the illusions and the delusions, the imagery and the in\imagining of all the romantic ideas the one has. A mind that is capable of sentimentality is incapable of love; sentiment breeds brutality, cruelty and violence, not love.
Who established this deeply in yourself is quite arduous; it demands a tremendous discipline, to learn by observing what is going on in you. That observation is not possible if there is any form of prejudice, conclusion or formula, according to which you are observing. It you are observing according to what a psychologist had said to you, you really are not observing yourself; therefore there is no self-knowing.
You need a mind that is able stand completely alone, not burdened by the propaganda are the experiences of others. Enlightenment does not come through a leader or through a teacher; it comes through the understanding of what is in you, not going away from yourself. The mind has to understand actually what is going on in its own psychological field; it must be aware of what is going on without distortion, without any choice, without any resentment, bitterness, explanation or justification. It must just be aware.
This basis is laid happily, not compulsively, but with ease, with felicity, without any hope of reaching anything. If you have hope, you are moving away from despair; one has to understand despair, not search out hope. In the understanding of “what is” there is neither despair nor hope. Is all this asking too much of the human mind? Unless one asks what may appear to be impossible, one falls into the trap, the limitation, of what is thought to be possible. To fall into this trap is very easy. One has to ask the utmost of the mind and the heart, otherwise one will remain in the convenient and the comfortable possible.
Now are we together still? Verbally, probably we are; but the word is not the thing; what we have done is to describe, and the description is not the described. If you are taking a journey with the speaker you are taking the journey actually, not theoretically, not as on idea that has something that you yourself are actually observing—not something you are experiencing; there is a difference between observation and experience.
There is a vast difference between observation and experience. In observation there is no observer at all, there is only observing; there is not the one who observes and is divided off from the thing observed. Observation is entirely different from the exploration in which analysis is involved. In analysis there is always the analyzer and the thing to be analyzed. In exploring there is always on entity who explores. In observation there is o continuous landing, not continuous accumulation. I hope you see the difference. Such learning is different from learning in order to accumulate so that from the accumulation one thinks and acts. An inquiry may be logical, sane and rational, but to observe without the observer is entirely different.
Then there is the question of experience. Why do we want experience? Have you ever thought about it? We have experience all the time, of which we are either cognizant or ignorant. And we want deeper, wider, experiences: mystical, profound, transcendental, godly, spiritual. Why? Is it not because one’s life is so shoddy, so miserable, so small and petty? One wants to forget all that and move into another dimension altogether. How can a petty mid, worried, fearful, occupied with problem after problem, experience anything other than its own projection and activity? This demand for greater experience is the escaping from that which actually is; yet it is only through that actuality that the most mysterious thing in life is come upon. In experience is involved the process of recognition. When you recognize something, it means you have already known it. Experience, generally, is out of the past, there is nothing new in it. So there is a difference between observation and the craving for experience.
If all this, that is so extraordinarily subtle, demanding great inward attention, is clear, then we can come to our original question: What is meditation? So much has been said about meditation; so many volumes have been written; there are great (I do not know if they are great) yogis who come and teach you how to meditate. The whole of Asia talks about meditation; it is one of their habits, as it is a habit to believe in God or something else. They sit for ten minutes a day in a quiet room and ‘meditate’, concentrate; fix their mind on an image, an image created by themselves, or by somebody else who has offered that image through propaganda. During those ten minutes they try to control the mind; the mind wants to go back and forth and they battle with it. That game they play everlastingly; and that is what they call meditation.
If one does not know anything about meditation, then one has to find out what it is, actually—not according to anybody—and they may lead one to nothing or it may lead one to everything. One must inquire; ask the question, without any expectation.
To observe the mind—this mind that chatters, that projects ideas, that lives in contradiction, in constant conflict and comparison—I must obviously be very quiet. If I am to listen to what you are saying I must give attention, I cannot be chattering, I cannot be thinking about something else, I must not compare what you are saying with what I already know, I must listen to you completely; the mind must be attentive, must be silent, quiet.
It is imperative to see clearly the whole structure of violence. Looking at violence the mind becomes completely still; you do not have to ‘cultivate’ a still mind. To cultivate a still mind implies the one who cultivates, in the field of time, which he hopes to achieve. See the difficulty. Those who try to teach meditation say, ‘Control your mind absolutely quiet.’ You try to control it and everlastingly battle with it; you spent forty years controlling it. The mind that observes does not control and everlastingly battle.
The very act of seeing or listening is attention; this you do not have to practice at all; if you practice, you immediately become inattentive. You are attentive and your mind wanders off; let it wander off, but know that it is inattentive; that awareness of that inattention is attention. Do not battle with inattention; do not try, saying, ‘I must be attentive’—it is childish. Know that you are inattentive; be aware, choicelessly, that you are inattentive—what of it?—and at the moment, in that inattention, when there is action, be aware of that action. Do you understand this? It is so simple. If you do it, it becomes so clear, clear as the waters.
The silence of the mind is beauty in itself. To listen to a bird, to the voice of a human being, to the politician, to the priest, to all the noise of propaganda that goes on, to listen completely silently is to hear much more, to see much more. Such silence is not possible if your body is not also completely still. The organism, with all its nervous responses—the fidgeting, the ceaseless movement of fingers, the eyes—with all its general restlessness, must be completely still. Have you ever tried sitting completely still without a single movement of the body, including the eyes? Do it for two minutes. In those two minutes the whole thing is revealed—if you know how to look.
