The first thing is to realize that the world' s problem is the individual's problem; it is your problem and my problem, and the world's process is not separate from the individual process.
As an individual, it is your responsibility to bring about a tremendous change in the world. It is your responsibility, because you are part of this society, because you are part of this tremendous sorrow of man, this constant effort, struggle, pain, and anxiety.
You are responsible. Unless you realize that immense responsibility and come directly in contact with that responsibility and listen to the whole structure, the machinery of that responsibility, do what you will, go to every temple, to every guru, to every master, to every religious book in the world, your action has no meaning whatsoever.
Can you and I, then, bring about in ourselves without any outside influence, without any persuasion, without any fear of punishment- can we bring about in the very essence of our being a total revolution, a psychological mutation, so that we are no longer brutal, violent, competitive, anxious, fearful, greedy, envious and all the rest of the manifestations of our nature which we have built up the rotten society in which we live our daily lives?
It seems to me very important, then, to understand the total process of individuality, because it is only when the individual changes radically that there can be a fundamental revolution in society. It is always the individual, never the group or the collective, that brings about a radical change in the world, and this again is historically so.
Now, can the individual, that is, you and I, change radically? This transformation of the individual but not according to a pattern- is what we are concerned with, and to me it is the highest form of education. It is this transformation of the individual that constitutes religion, not the mere acceptance of a dogma, a belief, which is not religion at all. The mind that is conditioned to a particular pattern which it calls religion, whether Hindu, Christian, Buddhist, or what you will, is not a religious mind, however much it may practice all the so-called religious ideals.
Is it possible for the thinker and the thought, for the observer and the observed, to be one? You will never find out if you merely glance at this problem and superficially ask me to explain what I mean by this or that. Surely, this is your problem, it is not my problem only; you are not here to find out how I look at this problem or the problems of the world. This constant battle within, which is so destructive, so deteriorating; it is your problem, is it not? And it is also your problem how to bring about a radical change in yourself and not be satisfied with superficial revolutions in politics, in economics, in different bureaucracies.
You are not trying to understand me or the way I look at life. You are trying to understand yourself, and these are your problems which you have to face; and by considering them together, which is what we are doing in these talks, we can perhaps help each other to look at them more clearly, see them more distinctly. But to see clearly merely at the verbal level is not enough. That does not bring about a creative psychological change. We must go beyond the words, beyond all symbols and their sensations.