Daily Quotes for the last three days!

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the delay. Some very early starts for me combined with a massive amount of work just now meant that the blog got put on hold. But here we go again, catching up.

Best wishes

Robert

Friday May 29, 2009

To be individual means complete freedom from all fear.

Surely, as long as the mind is caught in authority, it is not an individual at all. And, to find out what is real, what is God, what is truth, to discover that which is nameless, must one not be completely individual? To be individual means complete freedom from all fear, from all compulsion, from the desire to find a right way of living. That is what we all want, that is the cry in our hearts - to find a right way of action, a right way of conduct, a right method to live happily, to have peace. And, does not that very cry create authority, the authority of a book, of a person, of an idea? We want to be told what to do, how to live, in what manner to overcome the innumerable problems that we have. And, with that desire in our minds and in our hearts, we pursue those who can give us what we are seeking, those who we think will lead us to reality, to happiness, to God....

Now, can the mind be free of this whole process and live simply from day to day, understanding life as it arises from moment to moment? After all, that is the timeless, the nameless eternity - when the mind itself is the unknown. At present, the mind is the known; it is the result of time, of yesterday, of accumulated knowledge, experiences, and beliefs. And such a mind can never know the unknown. This is not some vague form of mysticism. Surely, if I want to know something that has never been experienced before, that is not of time, that cannot be put into the frame of authority, my mind must be totally free from the past, which means that it must be free from fear. . . .

The mind can never be free of fear as long as it is making an effort to get away from fear. All that it can do is to be aware that it is frightened and be completely passive, without any choice. Then you will see that the mind becomes extraordinarily quiet and, in that quietness, the problem of fear can be resolved. In that stillness of mind, authority has wholly vanished. What need have you of authority when, from moment to moment, you are seeing what is true?

Collected Works, Vol. VII - 300, 302

Saturday May 30, 2009.

To seek truth is to deny it; truth has no fixed abode.

Is God to be found by seeking him out? Can you search after the unknowable? To find, you must know what you are seeking. If you seek to find, what you find will be a self-projection; it will be what you desire, and the creation of desire is not truth. To seek truth is to deny it. Truth has no fixed abode; there is no path, no guide to it, and the word is not truth. Is truth to be found in a particular setting, in a special climate, among certain people? Is it here and not there? Is that one the guide to truth and not another? Is there a guide at all? When truth is sought, what is found can only come out of ignorance, for the search itself is born of ignorance. You cannot search out reality: you must cease for reality to be.

Commentaries on Living, Series I - 46

Sunday May 31, 2009.

It cannot be invited.

Let me put it differently: When the mind is free from the known, it is a new mind, an innocent mind; it is in a state of creation which is immeasurable, nameless, beyond time. And, we have been discussing...what it is that prevents us from coming naturally, easily, gracefully, to that state. It cannot be invited because a petty mind cannot invite the immense. All pettiness has to come to an end, and then the other is. The mind cannot imagine that state of immensity. From its pettiness, from its shallowness, it can project something which it thinks is beautiful, but that which it projects is still part of its own ugliness.

The psychological structure of society is what we are. When the structure is understood and there is freedom from it, then the nameless, that in which there is no time, no progress, comes into being.

Collected Works, Vol. XIII - 273