BENGALURU: So I am interested in understanding why I am lonely, for I see it is that which makes me attached. That loneliness has forced me to escape through attachment to this or to that and I see that as long as I am lonely the sequence will always be this. What does it mean to be lonely?
How does it come about? Is it instinctual, inherited, or is it brought about by my daily activity? If it is an instinct, if it is inherited, it is part of my lot; I am not to blame.
But as I do not accept this, I question it and remain with the question. I am watching and I am not trying to find an intellectual answer. I am not trying to tell the loneliness what it should do, or what it is; I am watching for it to tell me. There is a watchfulness for the loneliness to reveal itself. It will not reveal itself if I run away; if I am frightened; if I resist it. So I watch it.
I watch it so that no thought interferes. Watching is much more important than thought coming in. And because my whole energy is concerned with the observation of that loneliness thought does not come in at all. The mind is being challenged and it must answer. Being challenged it is in a crisis. In a crisis you have great energy and that energy remains without being interfered with by thought. This is a challenge which must be answered.
I started out having a dialogue with myself. I asked myself what is this strange thing called love; everybody talks about it, writes about it - all the romantic poems, pictures, sex and all other areas of it? I ask: is there such a thing as love? I see it does not exist when there is jealousy, hatred, fear. So I am not concerned with love anymore; I am concerned with `what is’, my fear, my attachment. Why am I attached? I see that one of the reasons - I do not say it is the whole reason - is that I am desperately lonely, isolated. The older I grow the more isolated I -- Page 5 -- become.
So I watch it. This is a challenge to find out, and because it is a challenge all energy is there to respond. That is simple. If there is some catastrophe, an accident or whatever it is, it is a challenge and I have the energy to meet it. I do not have to ask: ``How do I get this energy?’’ When the house is on fire I have the energy to move; extraordinary energy. I do not sit back and say: ``Well, I must get this energy’’ and then wait; the whole house will be burned by then.
So there is this tremendous energy to answer the question: why is there this loneliness? I have rejected ideas, suppositions and theories that it is inherited, that it is instinctual. All that means nothing to me. Loneliness is `what is’. Why is there this loneliness which every human being, if he is at all aware, goes through, superficially or most profoundly? Why does it come into being?
Is it that the mind is doing something which is bringing it about? I have rejected theories as to instinct and inheritance and I am asking: is the mind, the brain itself, bringing about this loneliness, this total isolation? Is the movement of thought doing this?
Is the thought in my daily life creating this sense of isolation? In the office I am isolating myself because I want to become the top executive, therefore thought is working all the time isolating itself. I see that thought is all the time operating to make itself superior, the mind is working itself towards this isolation.