BENGALURU: Why has humanity given such extraordinary importance to thought? Is it because it is the only thing we have, even though it is activated through the senses? Is it because thought has been able to dominate nature, dominate its surroundings, has brought about some physical security? Is it because it is the greatest instrument through which man operates, lives and benefits? Is it because thought has made the gods, the saviours, the super-consciousness, forgetting the anxiety, the fear, the sorrow, the envy, the guilt? Is it because it holds people together as a nation, as a group, as a sect? It is because it offers hope to a dark life? Is it because it gives an opening to escape from the daily boring ways of our life? Is it because not knowing what the future is, it offers the security of the past, its arrogance, its insistence on experience? Is it because in knowledge there is stability, the avoidance of fear in the certainty of the known? Is it because thought in itself has assumed an invulnerable position, taken a stand against the unknown?
Thought is important in its right place, but it has no importance whatsoever psychologically. Thought is the reaction of memory, it is born from memory. Memory is experience as knowledge stored up in the brain cells. You can watch your own brain, you don’t have to become a specialist. The brain cells hold memory; it is a material process, there is nothing sacred, nothing holy about it. And thought has created everything that we have done: going to the moon and planting a silly flag up there; going to the depths of the sea and living there; all the complicated technology and its machinery. Thought has been responsible for all this. Thought has also been responsible for all wars. It is so obvious that you don’t even have to question it. Your thoughts have divided the world into Britain, France, Russia, and so on. And thought has created the psychological structure of the “me”. That “me” is not holy, something divine.
Can thought bring about a vital change? Up to now we have relied on thought, have we not? The political revolution, whether of the right or the extreme left, is the result of thought. And can thought fundamentally change man, change you and me? If you say it can, then you must see all the implications—that man is the product of time, that there is nothing beyond time, and so on and on. So, if I am to create a fundamental change in myself, can I rely on thought as an instrument to bring about that transformation? Or, can there be a fundamental change only when there is the ending of thought? My problem, then, is to experiment, to find out, and I can find out only through self-knowledge, through knowing myself, watching, being aware in moments when I’m off guard. It is only when I begin to understand the process of my own thinking that I can find out whether or not there is a possibility of a fundamental change; until then, mere assertion that I can or cannot change is of little significance.