THERE IS FEAR. Fear is never an actuality; it is either before or after the active present. When there is fear in the active present, is it fear? It is there and there is no escape from it, no evasion possible. There, at that actual moment, there is total attention at the moment of danger, physical or psychological. When there is complete attention there is no fear. But the actual fact of inattention breeds fear; fear arises when there is an avoidance of the fact, a flight; then the very escape itself is fear.
Fear and its many forms—guilt, anxiety, hope, despair—is there in every movement of relationship; it is there in every search for security; it is there in so-called love and worship; it is there in ambition and success; it is there in life and in death; it is there in physical things and in psychological factors. There is fear in so many forms and at all the levels of our consciousness. Defence, resistance, and denial spring from fear. Fear of the dark and fear of light; fear of going and fear of coming. Fear begins and ends with the desire to be secure; inward and outward security, with the desire to be certain, to have permanency. The continuity of permanence is sought in every direction, in virtue, in relationship, in action, in experience, in knowledge, in outward and inward things. To find security and be secure is the everlasting cry. It is this insistent demand that breeds fear.
But is there permanency, outwardly or inwardly? Perhaps in a measure, outwardly, there might be, and even that is precarious; wars, revolutions, progress, accident, and earthquakes. There must be food, clothes, and shelter; that is essential and necessary for all. Though it is sought after, blindly and with reason, is there ever inward certainty, inward continuity, permanency? There is not. The flight from this reality is fear. The incapacity to face this reality breeds every form of hope and despair.
Thought itself is the source of fear. Thought is time; thought of tomorrow is pleasure or pain; if it’s pleasurable, thought will pursue it, fearing its end; if it’s painful, the very avoidance of it is fear. Both pleasure and pain cause fear. Time as thought and time as feeling bring fear. It is the understanding of thought, the mechanism of memory and experience, that is the ending of fear. Thought is the whole process of consciousness, the open and the hidden; thought is not merely the thing thought upon but the origin of itself. Thought is not merely belief, dogma, idea, and reason; but the centre from which these arise. This centre is the origin of all fear. But is there the experiencing of fear or is there the awareness of the cause of fear from which thought is taking flight? Physical self-protection is sane, normal, and healthy; but every other form of self-protection, inwardly, is resistance and it always gathers, builds up strength, which is fear. But this inward fear makes outward security a problem of class, prestige, power, and so there is competitive ruthlessness.
When this whole process of thought, time, and fear is seen, not as an idea, an intellectual formula, then there is total ending of fear, conscious or hidden. Self-understanding is the awakening and ending of fear.
And when fear ceases, then the power to breed illusion, myth, and visions, with their hope and despair, also ceases, and then only begins a movement of going beyond consciousness, which is thought and feeling. It is the emptying of the innermost recesses and deep hidden wants and desires. Then when there is this total emptiness, when there is absolutely and literally nothing, no influence, no value, no frontier, no word, then in that complete stillness of time-space, there is that which is unnameable.
It was a lovely evening, the sky was clear and in spite of city light, the stars were brilliant; though the tower was flooded with light from all sides, one could see the distant horizon and down below patches of light were on the river; though there was the everlasting roar of traffic, it was a peaceful evening. Meditation crept up on one like a wave covering the sands. It was not a meditation that the brain could capture in its net of memory; it was something to which the total brain yielded without any resistance. It was a meditation that went far beyond any formula, method; method and formula and repetition destroy meditation. In its movement it took everything in, the stars, the noise, the quiet and the stretch of water. But there was no meditator; the meditator, the observer, must cease for meditation to be. The breaking up of the meditator is also meditation; but when the meditator ceases then there’s an altogether different meditation.
It was very early in the morning; Orion was coming up over the horizon and the Pleiades were nearly overhead. The roar of the city had quietened and at that hour there were no lights in any of the windows and there was a pleasant, cool breeze. In complete attention there is no experiencing. In inattention there is; it is this inattention that gathers experience, multiplying memory, building walls of resistance; it is this inattention that builds up the self-centred activities. Inattention is concentration, which is exclusion, a cutting off; concentration knows distraction and the endless conflict of control and discipline. In the state of inattention, every response to any challenge is inadequate; this inadequacy is experience. Experience makes for insensitivity; dulls the mechanism of thought; thickens the walls of memory, and habit, routine, become the norm. Experience, inattention, is not liberating. Inattention is slow decay.
In complete attention there is no experiencing; there’s no centre which experiences, nor a periphery within which experience can take place. Attention is not concentration, which is narrowing, limiting. Total attention includes, never excludes. Superficiality of attention is inattention; total attention includes the superficial and the hidden, the past and its influence on the present, moving into the future. All consciousness is partial, confined, and total attention includes consciousness, with its limitations and so is able to break down the borders, the limitations. All thought is conditioned and thought cannot uncondition itself. Thought is time and experience; it is essentially the result of non-attention.
What brings about total attention? Not any method nor any system; they bring about a result, promised by them. But total attention is not a result, any more than love is; it cannot be induced, it cannot be brought about by any action. Total attention is the negation of the results of inattention, but this negation is not the act of knowing attention. What is false must be denied not because you already know what is true; if you knew what is true, the false would not exist. The true is not the opposite of the false; love is not the opposite of hate. Because you know hate, you do not know love. Denial of the false, denial of the things of non-attention, is not the outcome of the desire to achieve total attention. Seeing the false as the false and the true as the true and the true in the false is not the result of comparison. To see the false as the false is attention. The false as the false cannot be seen when there is opinion, judgement, evaluation, attachment, and so on, which are the result of non-attention. Seeing the whole fabric of non-attention is total attention. An attentive mind is an empty mind.
The purity of the otherness is its immense and impenetrable strength. And it was there with extraordinary stillness this morning.
It was a clear, bright evening; there wasn’t a cloud. It was so lovely that it was surprising that such an evening should happen in a town. The moon was between the arches of the tower and the whole setting seemed so artificial and unreal. The air was so soft and pleasant that it might have been a summer’s evening. On the balcony it was very quiet and every thought had subsided and meditation seemed a casual movement, without any direction. But there was, though. It began nowhere and went on into vast, unfathomable emptiness where the essence of everything is. In this emptiness there is an expanding, exploding movement whose very explosion is creation and destruction. Love is the essence of this destruction.
Either we seek through fear, or being free from it we seek without any motive. This search does not spring from discontent; not being satisfied with every form of thought and feeling, seeing their significance, is not discontent. Discontent is so easily satisfied when thought and feeling have found some form of shelter, success, a gratifying position, a belief, and so on, only to be roused again when that shelter is attacked, shaken, or broken down. With this cycle most of us are familiar—hope and despair. Search, whose motive is discontent, can only lead to some form of illusion, a collective or a private illusion, a prison of many attractions. But there is a seeking without any motive whatsoever; then is it a seeking? Seeking implies, does it not, an objective, an end already known or felt or formulated. If it’s formulated it’s the calculation of thought, putting together all the things it has known or experienced; to find what is sought after methods and systems are devised. This is not seeking at all; it is merely a desire to gain a gratifying end or merely to escape into some fancy or promise of a theory or belief. This is not seeking. When fear, satisfaction, escape, have lost their significance, then is there seeking at all?
If the motive of all search has withered away—discontent and the urge to succeed are dead—is there seeking? If there is no seeking, will consciousness decay, become stagnant? On the contrary, it is this seeking, going from one commitment to another, from one church to another, that weakens that essential energy to understand what is. The what is is ever new; it has never been and it will never be. The release of this energy is only possible when every form of search ceases.
It had been a hot, smothering day and even the pigeons were hiding and the air was hot, and in a city it was not at all pleasant. It was a cool night and the few stars that were visible were bright, even the city lights couldn’t dim them. They were there with amazing intensity.
It was a day of the otherness; it went on quietly all day and at moments it flared up, became very intense and became quiet again, to go on quietly. It was there with such intensity that all movement became impossible; one was forced to sit down. On waking in the middle of the night it was there with great force and energy. On the terrace, with the roar of the city not so insistent, every form of meditation became inadequate and unnecessary for it was there in full measure. It’s a benediction and everything seems rather silly and infantile. On these occasions, the brain is always very quiet but in no way asleep and the whole of the body becomes motionless. It is a strange affair.
How little one changes. Through some form of compulsion, pressure, outward and inner, one changes, which is really an adjustment. Some influence, a word, a gesture, makes one change the pattern of habit but not very much. Propaganda, a newspaper, an incident does alter, to some extent, the course of life. Fear and reward break down the habit of thought only to reform into another pattern. A new invention, a new ambition, a new belief, does bring about certain changes. But all these changes are on the surface, like strong wind on water; they are not fundamental, deep, devastating. All change that comes through motive is no change at all. Economic, social revolution is a reaction and any change brought about through reaction is not a radical change; it is only a change in pattern. Such change is merely adjustment, a mechanical affair of desire for comfort, security, mere physical survival.
Then what brings about fundamental mutation? Consciousness, the open and the hidden, the whole machinery of thought, feeling, experience, is within the borders of time and space. It is an indivisible whole; the division, conscious and hidden, is there only for the convenience of communication but the division is not factual. The upper level of consciousness can and does modify itself, adjust itself, change itself, reform itself, acquire new knowledge, technique; it can change itself to conform to a new social, economic pattern but such changes are superficial and brittle. The unconscious, the hidden, can and does intimate and hint through dreams its compulsions, its demands, its stored-up desires. Dreams need interpretations but the interpreter is always conditioned. There is no need for dreams if during the waking hours there is a choiceless awareness in which every fleeting thought and feeling is understood; then sleep has altogether a different meaning. Analysis of the hidden implies the observer and the observed, the censor and the thing that is judged. In this there is not only conflict but the observer himself is conditioned and his evaluation, interpretation, can never be true; it will be crooked, perverted. So self-analysis or an analysis by another, however professional, may bring about some superficial changes, an adjustment in relationship and so on, but analysis will not bring about a radical transformation of consciousness. Analysis does not transform consciousness.
The late afternoon sun was on the river and among the russet leaves of autumnal trees along the long avenue; the colours were burning intensely and of such variety; the narrow water was aflame. A long queue was waiting along the wharf to take the pleasure boat and the cars were making an awful noise. On a hot day the big town was almost unbearable; the sky was clear and the sun was without mercy. But very early this morning when Orion was overhead and only one or two cars passed along the river, there was on the terrace quietness and meditation with a complete openness of mind and heart, verging on death. To be completely open, to be utterly vulnerable, is death. Death then has no corner to take shelter; only in the shade, in the secret recesses of thought and desire, there is death. But death is always there to a heart that has withered in fear and hope; is always there where thought is waiting and watching. In the park an owl was hooting and it was a pleasant sound, clear and so early; it came and went with varied intervals and it seemed to like its own voice, for not another replied.
Meditation breaks down the frontiers of consciousness; it breaks down the mechanism of thought and the feeling that thought arouses. Meditation caught in a method, in a system of rewards and promises, cripples and tames energy. Meditation is the freeing of energy in abundance; and control, discipline, and suppression spoil the purity of that energy. Meditation is the flame burning intensely without leaving any ashes. Words, feeling, thought, always leave ashes and to live on ashes is the way of the world. Meditation is danger for it destroys everything, nothing whatsoever is left, not even a whisper of desire, and in this vast, unfathomable emptiness there is creation and love.
To continue—analysis, personal or professional, does not bring about mutation of consciousness. No effort can transform it; effort is conflict and conflict only strengthens the walls of consciousness. No reason, however logical and sane, can liberate consciousness, for reason is idea wrought by influence, experience, and knowledge, and all these are the children of consciousness. When all this is seen as false, a false approach to mutation, the denial of the false is the emptying of consciousness. Truth has no opposite nor has love; the pursuit of the opposite does not lead to truth, only the denial of the opposite. There is no denial if it is the outcome of hope or of attaining. There is denial only when there is no reward or exchange. There is renunciation only when there is no gain in the act of renouncing. Denial of the false is the freedom from the positive; the positive with its opposite. The positive is authority with its acceptance, conformity, imitation, and experience with its knowledge.
To deny is to be alone; alone from all influence, tradition, and need, with its dependence and attachment. To be alone is to deny the conditioning, the background. The frame in which consciousness exists and has its being is its conditioning; to be choicelessly aware of this conditioning, and the total denial of it, is to be alone. This aloneness is not isolation, loneliness, self-enclosing occupation. Aloneness is not withdrawal from life; on the contrary it is the total freedom from conflict and sorrow, from fear and death. This aloneness is the mutation of consciousness; complete transformation of what has been. This aloneness is emptiness, it is not the positive state of being, nor the not being. It is emptiness; in this fire of emptiness the mind is made young, fresh, and innocent. It is innocency alone that can receive the timeless, the new, which is ever destroying itself. Destruction is creation. Without love, there is no destruction.
Beyond the enormous sprawling town were the fields, woods, and hills.
Is there a future? There is a tomorrow, already planned; certain things that have to be done; there is also the day after tomorrow, with all the things that are to be done; next week and next year. These cannot be altered, perhaps modified or changed altogether, but the many tomorrows are there; they cannot be denied. And there is space, from here to there, near and far; the distance in kilometres; space between entities; the distance that thought covers in a flash; the other side of the river and the distant moon. Time to cover space, distance, and time to cross over the river; from here to there, time is necessary to cover that space, it may take a minute, a day, or a year. This time is by the sun and by the watch, time is a means to arrive. This is fairly simple and clear. Is there a future apart from this mechanical, chronological time? Is there an arriving, is there an end for which time is necessary?
The pigeons were on the roof, so early in the morning; they were cooing, preening, and pursuing each other. The sun wasn’t up yet and there were a few vaporous clouds, scattered all over the sky; they had no colour yet and the roar of traffic had not yet begun. There was plenty of time yet for the usual noises to begin and beyond all these walls were the gardens. In the evening yesterday, the grass where no one is allowed to walk—except, of course, the pigeons and a few sparrows—was very green, startlingly green, and the flowers were very bright. Everywhere else was man with his activities and interminable work. There was the tower, so strongly and delicately put together, and presently it would be flooded with brilliant light. The grass seemed so perishable and the flowers would fade, for autumn was everywhere. But long before the pigeons were on the roof, on the terrace, meditation was gladness. There was no reason for this ecstasy—to have a cause for joy is no longer joy; it was simply there and thought could not capture it and make it into a remembrance. It was too strong and active for thought to play with it and thought and feeling became very quiet and still. It came wave upon wave, a living thing that nothing could contain and with this joy there was benediction. It was all so utterly beyond all thought and demand. Is there an arriving? To arrive is to be in sorrow and within the shadow of fear. Is there an arriving inwardly, a goal to be reached, an end to be gained? Thought has fixed an end, God, bliss, success, virtue, and so on. But thought is only a reaction; a response of memory and thought breeds time to cover the space between what is and what should be. The what should be, the ideal, is verbal, theoretical; it has no reality. The actual has no time; it has no end to achieve, no distance to travel. The fact is and everything else is not. There is no fact if there’s not death to ideal, to achievement, to an end; the ideal, the goal, are an escape from the fact. The fact has no time and no space. And then is there death? There is a withering away; the machinery of the physical organism deteriorates, gets worn out, which is death. But that is inevitable, as the lead of this pencil will wear out. Is that what causes fear? Or the death of the world of becoming, gaining, achieving? That world has no validity; it’s the world of make-believe, of escape. The fact, the what is, and the what should be are two entirely different things. The what should be involves time and distance, sorrow and fear. Death of these leaves only the fact, the what is. There is no future to what is; thought, which breeds time, cannot operate on the fact; thought cannot change the fact, it can only escape from it and when all the urge to escape is dead, then the fact undergoes a tremendous mutation. But there must be death to thought, which is time. When time as thought is not, then is there the fact, the what is? When there is destruction of time, as thought, there’s no movement in any direction, no space to cover, there’s only the stillness of emptiness. This is total destruction of time as yesterday, today, and tomorrow, as the memory of continuity, of becoming.
Then being is timeless, only the active present, but that present is not of time. It is attention without the frontiers of thought and the borders of feeling. Words are used to communicate and words, symbols, have no significance in themselves whatsoever. Life is always the active present; time always belongs to the past and so to the future. And death to time is life in the present. It is this life that is immortal, not the life in consciousness. Time is thought in consciousness and consciousness is held within its frame. There is always fear and sorrow within the network of thought and feeling. The ending of sorrow is the ending of time.
It was hot and rather oppressive, even in the gardens; it had been so hot for so long, which was unusual. A good rain and cool weather will be pleasant. In the gardens they were watering the grass and in spite of the heat and lack of rain the grass was bright and sparkling and the flowers were splendid; there were some trees in flower, out of season, for winter will be here soon. Pigeons were all over the place, shyly avoiding the children and some of the children were chasing them for fun and the pigeons knew it. The sun was red in a dull, heavy sky; there was no colour except in the flowers and in the grass. The river was opaque and indolent.
Meditation at that hour was freedom and it was like entering into an unknown world of beauty and quietness; it is a world without image, symbol or word, without waves of memory. Love was the death of every minute and each death was the renewing of love. It was not attachment, it had no roots; it flowered without cause and it was a flame that burned away the borders, the carefully built fences of consciousness. It was beauty beyond thought and feeling; it was not put together on canvas, in words or in marble. Meditation was joy and with it came a benediction.
It’s very odd how each one craves power, the power of money, position, capacity, knowledge. In gaining power, there’s conflict, confusion, and sorrow. The hermit and the politician, the housewife and the scientist are seeking it. They will kill and destroy one another to get it. The ascetics, through self-denial, control, suppression, gain that power; the politician, by his word, capacity, cleverness, derives that power; the domination of the wife over the husband and he over her feel this power; the priest who has assumed, who has taken upon himself the responsibility of his god, knows this power. Everyone seeks this power or wants to be associated with divine or worldly power. Power breeds authority and with it comes conflict, confusion, and sorrow. Authority corrupts him that has it and those that are near it or seeking it. The power of the priest and the housewife, of the leader and the efficient organizer, of the saint and the local politician is evil; the more power the greater the evil. It is a disease that every man catches and cherishes and worships. But with it comes always endless conflict, confusion, and sorrow. But no one will deny it, put it aside.
With it go ambition and success and a ruthlessness that has been made respectable and so acceptable. Every society, temple, and church gives it its blessing and so love is perverted and destroyed. And envy is worshipped and competition is moral. But with it all comes fear, war, and sorrow, but yet no man will put these aside. To deny power, in every form, is the beginning of virtue; virtue is clarity; it wipes away conflict and sorrow. This corrupting energy, with its endless cunning activities, always brings its inevitable mischief and misery; there is no end to it; however much it is reformed and fenced in, by law or by moral convention, it will find its way out, darkly and unbidden. For it is there, hidden in the secret corners of one’s thoughts and desires. It is these that must be examined and understood if there is to be no conflict, confusion, and sorrow. Each one has to do this, not through another, not through any system of reward or punishment. Each one has to be aware of the fabric of his own make-up. To see what is, is the ending of that which is.
With the complete ending of this power, with its confusion, conflict, and sorrow, each one faces what he is, a bundle of memories and deepening loneliness. The desire for power and success are an escape from this loneliness and the ashes that are memories. To go beyond, one has to see them, face them, not avoid them in any way, by condemning or through fear of what is. Fear arises only in the very act of running away from the fact, the what is. One must completely and utterly, voluntarily and easily, put aside power and success and then, in facing, seeing, being passively aware, without choice, the ashes and loneliness have a wholly different significance. To live with something is to love it, not to be attached. To live with the ashes of loneliness there must be great energy and this energy comes when there is no longer fear.