We should not use the word individual at all, nor the words mine and yours because they have no meaning, fundamentally. I am the result of my father and my mother and the environmental influence of the country and society. If I put myself in opposition, there is no understanding; the combination of opposites does not produce understanding.
But if I become aware and observe the ways of duality, then I will begin to feel the new freedom from opposites.
The world is divided into the opposites, the white and the dark, the good and the bad, mine and yours, and so on. In duality there is no understanding, each antithesis contains its own opposite. Our difficulty lies in thinking of these problems anew, to think of the world and yourself from a different point of view altogether, observing silently, without identifying and comparing.
The ideas which you think are the result of what others have thought in combination with the present. Real uniqueness lies in the discovery of what is true and being in that discovery.
This uniqueness, joy, and liberation which comes from this discovery is not to be found in the pride of possessions, of name, physical attributes, and tendencies.Self-knowledge, then, is the beginning of the freedom of the mind.
There cannot be understanding of oneself, fundamentally, deeply, if there is any form of assumption, any authority, either of the past or of the present. But the mind is frightened to let go of all authority and investigate because it is afraid of not arriving at a particular result. So the mind is concerned with achieving a result, but not with the investigation to find out, to understand.
That is why we cling to authority -religious, psychological, or philosophical. Being afraid, we demand guides, authorities, scriptures, saviors, inspiration in various forms, and so the mind is made incapable of standing alone and trying to find out. But one must stand alone, completely, totally alone, to find out what is true.