CHENNAI: I think dependency — its attachments and the fear of loss — may be an important issue in our life, that we should really go into it rather deeply. After all, one can see that freedom cannot possibly exist when there is any form of dependency.
There is physiological dependency and psychological, the dependency on food, clothes and shelter are natural dependency. But, the attachment that arises through the biological necessity, as having a house to which one is psychologically attached, or attached to certain form of food, or the compulsive eating, because the other factors of fear which have not been discovered, and so on.
Then there are the psychological dependencies — really one has to watch this very, very carefully, because they flow into each other, they are interrelated. The dependency on a person or a belief, on a continuous established relationship, on psychological habits of thought. I think one can be aware of all this fairly easily. Because there is a dependency on something both physical and psychological, and that dependency and the fear of losing that to which one is attached, brings about or affects or breeds fear.
And how deeply does this attachment go. I do not know if you have observed it in yourself. We were watching it all throughout the day, to find out if there is any form of attachment — coming here regularly, living in a particular chalet, following or going to one country after another, talking, addressing people, being looked up to, criticised, exposed.
If you have watched throughout the day, one discovers naturally how deeply one is attached to something or other or not at all.
How does one observe hidden attachments? I may be stubborn, thinking I am not attached, I am not depending on anything — I may have come to that conclusion, and the conclusion makes for stubbornness. I don’t know if you’re following all this? But if one is learning, seeking, watching, then in that act of learning there is no conclusion.
And most of us are attached to some form of conclusion. And, according to that conclusion we function. And can the mind be free all the time, not occasionally, all the time from forming conclusions, and therefore being attached to those conclusions. That’s one problem, which is, can the mind not form any conclusion at all. I like and I don’t like — I like long hair, I don’t like long hair, I like this, I don’t like that, I believe — conclusions, intellectually or through some experience you have come to a way of thinking, whether it is the bourgeois way of thinking or the non-bourgeoise, whatever it is.
Can the mind act without conclusion? That’s one point.
Second — I am going to stop because you are going to, we are all going to discuss presently. Can the mind reveal to itself the hidden attachments, patterns and dependencies. And three, can the mind, seeing the nature and the structure of attachment, can the mind be completely, or sustain, move within, move with a way of life which is not isolating but highly active and yet no fixation at any point. I don’t know if you are following all this. We’ll go into it.
First of all, are we aware that we are psychologically attached, first of all, biologically, physically attached. Are you aware that you are attached physically to things? And being aware of that, are you aware also of the implications of those attachments. And also you realise, conflict between the body and the mind is not very good, doesn’t help, it becomes a problem, a struggle. What will you do? You must be extraordinarily free of all habits, if you can’t discuss this.