BENGALURU: Observation implies that there must be no distortion in our reading. Any form of distorted observation will prevent clarity of reading. So are we distorted? Is our perception, our enquiry, our observation, is it distorted? Because if the observation has already come to a conclusion that the end of the book must be this, or that there are certain chapters which the mind doesn’t like in its observation, or that it must go beyond all this, all those factors bring about distortion.
If one is already caught in an illusion, which most people are, then our concern is not the book but why the mind is caught in an illusion. Because with a mind that is already in illusion, it can’t read. Therefore the concern then is, why is the mind caught in an illusion? Is it fear?The art of observation consists in giving thought its own place. Therefore the mind can totally, completely, absolutely be free of fear. Don’t accept my word for this, but it is so if you have gone into it.
Psychologically, there is an ending to fear. And there is the fear of pain, physical organic pain, which we also talked about yesterday, which is not to continue when the pain is over, as memory. Which is the registration of the pain of yesterday, and that registration is memory, and that memory hoping that there will not be pain another time. We went into that, we will go into it much more in detail.
So when the mind is caught in an illusion, is it aware that it is in an illusion? You follow? Or it doesn’t know at all it is in illusion? If the mind doesn’t know that it is living in an illusion, in a make-believe world, how is it to become aware of it? Suppose I am caught in an illusion - the word ‘illusion’ means ‘ludere’, to play - to play with ideas, to play with things that are not actual, which are conceptual, a series of conclusions and beliefs which are not actual.
I play with them. If this belief doesn’t suit me, I take on another belief. I play with beliefs and this playing is illusion, because I cannot face the actuality of what is actually going on. So the mind invents beliefs, dogmas. It is only when I do not know that I am in illusion then there is no possibility of moving out of it. But the moment I am aware that I am caught in illusion, the very awareness dispels illusion.
We are concerned with bringing about a radical transformation of the human mind which has lived for millennia, this way we are living, which is the quarrels, anxieties, violence, brutality, and such human beings can only live in disorder, and can never bring about a good society, a good human being, you will never understand what is goodness.