CHENNAI: There is a different way of working, not in order to gain some reward, but for the very simple reason that there can obviously be no end to misery in the world as long as the mind does not understand itself. The world in which we live is not the enormous world of political activities or scientific research; it is the little world of the family, of the relationship between two people at home or in the office, between husband and wife, parents and children, teacher and pupil, lawyer and client, policeman and citizen. We want to escape from that world of relationship into an extraordinary world which does not really exist at all. If we do not understand the world of relationship and bring about a fundamental transformation there, we cannot possibly create a new culture and a peaceful world. It must start with ourselves. The world demands a radical change, but it must begin with you and me. But the mind is the result of the past, and all thinking is a projection of the past, so merely to think of creating a new world will never bring a new world into being.
The man who wants to improve himself can never be aware, because improvement implies condemnation and the achievement of a result; whereas in awareness there is observation without condemnation, without denial or acceptance. There is awareness of things about one, being sensitive to objects, to nature, then to people, which means relationship; then there is awareness of ideas. This awareness — being sensitive to things, to nature, to people, to ideas — is not made up of separate processes, but is one unitary process. It is a constant observation of everything, of every thought and feeling and action as they arise within oneself. Awareness cannot be practiced; it demands constant alertness. It is what you actually do when you are interested in something, You observe without condemnation, without identification; therefore in that observation there is complete communion: the observer and the observed are completely in communion.