RELATIONSHIP

The cessation of violence, which we have just been considering, does not necessarily mean a state of mind which is at peace with itself and therefore at peace in all its relationships.

Relationship between human beings is based on the image-forming, defensive mechanism. In all our relationships each one of us builds am image about the other, and these two images have relationships, not the human beings themselves. The wife has an image about the husband—perhaps not consciously, but nevertheless it is there—and the husband has an image about the wife. One has an image about one’s country and about oneself, and we are always strengthening these images by adding more and more to them. And it is these images which have relationship. The actual relationship between two human beings completely ends when there is the formation of images.

Relationship based on these images can obviously never bring about peace in the relationship because the images are fictitious, and one cannot live in an abstraction. And yet that is what we are all doing: living in ideas, in theories, in symbols, in images which we have created about ourselves and others and which are not realities at all. All our relationships, whether they be with property, ideas or people, are based essentially on this image-forming, and hence there is always conflict.

How it is possible then to be completely at peace within ourselves and in all our relationships with others? After all, life is a movement in relationship; otherwise there is no life at all, and if that life is based on an abstraction, an idea, or a speculative assumption, then such abstract living must inevitably bring about a relationship which becomes a battlefield. So is it at all possible for man to live a completely orderly inward life without any form of compulsion, imitation, suppression or sublimation? Can he bring about such order within himself that it is of ideas—an inward tranquillity which knows no disturbance at any moment—not in some fantastic mythical abstract world but in the daily life of the home and the office?

I think we should go into this question very carefully because there is not one spot in our consciousness untouched by conflict. In all our relationships, whether with the most intimate person or with a neighbour or with society, this conflict exists—conflict being contradiction, a state of division, separation, a duality. Observing ourselves and our relationships to society, we see that at all levels of our being there is conflict—minor or major conflict which brings about very superficial responses or devastating results.

Man has accepted conflict as an innate part of daily existence because he has accepted competition, jealousy, greed, acquisitiveness, and aggression as a natural way of life. When we accept such a way of life, we accept the structure of society as it is and live within the pattern of respectability. And that is what most of us are caught in because most of us want to be terribly respectable. When we examine our own minds and hearts, the way we think, the way we fell and how we act in our daily lives, we observe that as long as we conform to the pattern of society, life must be a battlefield. If we do not accept it—and no religious person can possibly accept such a society—then we will be completely free from the psychological structure of society.

Most of us are rich with the things of society. What society has created in us and what we have created in ourselves are greed, envy, anger, hate, jealousy, anxiety—and with all these we are very rich. The various religions throughout the world have preached poverty. The monk assumes a robe, changes his name, shaves his head, enters a cell and takes a vow of poverty and chastity; in the East he has one loincloth, one robe, one meal a day—and we all respect such poverty. But those men who have assumed the robe of poverty are still inwardly, psychologically, rich with the things of society because they are still seeking position and prestige; they belong to this order or that order, this religion or that religion, they still live in the divisions of a culture, a tradition. That is not poverty. Poverty is to be completely free of society, though one may have few more clothes, a few more meals—good God, who cares? But unfortunately in most people there is this urge for exhibitionism.

Poverty becomes a marvellously beautiful thing when the mind is free of society. One must become poor inwardly, for then there is no seeking, no desire, no—nothing! It is only this inward poverty that can see the truth of a life in which there is so conflict at all. Such a life is a benediction not to be found in any church or any temple.

How is it possible then to free ourselves from the psychological structure of society, which is to free ourselves from the essence of conflict? It is not difficult to trim and lop off certain branches of conflict, but we are asking ourselves whether it is possible to live in complete inward and therefore outward tranquillity. This does not mean that we shall vegetate or stagnate. On the contrary, we shall become dynamic, vital, full of energy.

To understand and to be free of any problem we need a great deal of passionate and sustained energy, not only physical and intellectual energy but energy that is not dependent on any motive, any psychological stimulus or drug. If we are dependent on any stimulus, that very stimulus makes the mind dull and insensitive. By taking some form of drug we may find enough energy temporarily to see things very clearly, but we revert to our former state and therefore become dependent on that drug more and more. So all stimulation, whether of the church or of alcohol or of drugs or of the written or spoken word, will inevitably bring about dependence, and that dependence prevents us from seeing clearly for ourselves and therefore from having vital energy.

We all unfortunately depend psychologically on something. Why do we depend? Why is there this urge to depend? We are taking this journey together; you are not waiting for me to tell you the cause of your dependence. If we inquire together that discovery will be your own, and hence, being yours, it will give you vitality.

I discover for myself that I depend on something—an audience, say, which will stimulate me. I derive from that audience, from addressing a large group of people, a kind of energy. And therefore I depend on that audience, on those people, whether they agree or disagree. The more they disagree the more vitality they give me. If they agree it becomes a very shallow, empty thing. So I discover that i need an audience because it is a very stimulating thing to address people. Now why? Why do I depend? Because in myself I am shallow, in myself I have nothing, in myself I have no source which is always full and rich, vital, moving, living. So I depend. I have discovered the cause.