Theos-Talk Archives (May 1997 Message tl00345)

Hello

Here is another letter that Krishnaji wrote to the students of his schools.
Some might find it interesting.

........doss
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After all, the school is a place where one learns not only the knowledge
required for daily life but also the art of living with all its complexities
and subtleties. We seem to forget this and become totally caught up in the
superficiality of knowledge. Knowledge is always superficial and learning
the art of living is not thought necessary. Living is not considered an art.
When one leaves school one stops learning and continues to live on that
which one has accumulated as knowledge. We never consider that life is a
whole process of learning. As one observes life, daily living is a constant
change and movement and one's mind is not quick and sensitive enough to
follow its subtleties. One comes to it with ready- made reactions and
fixations. Can this be prevented in these schools? It does not mean that one
must have an open mind. Generally the open mind is like a sieve retaining
little or nothing. But a mind that is capable of quick perception and action
is necessary. That is why we went into the question of insight with its
immediacy of action. Insight does not leave the scar of memory. Generally
experience, as it is understood, leaves its residue as memory and from this
residue one acts. Thus action strengthens the residue and so action becomes
mechanical. Insight is not a mechanistic activity. So can it be taught in
the school that daily life is a constant process of learning and action in
relationship without strengthening the residue which is memory? With most of
us the scar becomes all- important and we lose the swift current of life.

Both the student and the educator live in a state of confusion and disorder,
both outwardly and inwardly. One may not be aware of this fact and if one
is, one quickly puts order into outward things but one is rarely aware of
inner confusion and disorder.

God is disorder. Consider the innumerable gods man has invented, or the one
god, the one saviour, and observe the confusion this has created in the
world, the wars it has brought about, the innumerable divisions, the
separating beliefs, symbols and images. Isn't this confusion and disorder?
We have become accustomed to this, we accept it readily, for our life is so
wearisome with boredom and pain that we seek comfort in the gods that
thought has conjured up. This has been our way of life for thousands of
years. Every civilisation has invented gods and they have been the source of
great tyranny, wars and destruction. Their buildings may be extraordinarily
beautiful but inside there is darkness and the source of confusion.

Can one put aside these gods? One must if one is to consider why the human
mind accepts and lives in disorder politically, religiously and
economically. What is the source of this disorder, the actuality of it, not
the theological reason? Can one put aside the concepts of disorder and be
free to enquire into the actual daily source of our disorder, not into what
order is but disorder? We can only find out what is absolute order when we
have thoroughly investigated disorder and its source. We are so eager to
find out what order is, so impatient with disorder that we are apt to
suppress it, thinking thereby to bring about order. Here we are not only
asking if there can be absolute order in our daily life but also whether
this confusion can end.

So our first concern is with disorder and what is its source. Is it thought?
Is it contradictory desires? Is it fear and the search for security? Is it
the constant demand for pleasure? Is thought one of the sources or the main
reason for the disorder? It is not merely the writer but you who are asking
these questions, so please bear this in mind ail the time. You must discover
the source, not be told the source and then verbally repeat.

Thought, as we have pointed out, is finite, limited, and whatever is
limited, however wide its activities may be, inevitably brings confusion.
That which is limited is divisive and therefore destructive and confusing.
We have gone sufficiently into the nature and structure of thought, and to
have an insight into the nature of thought is to give it its right place and
so it loses its overpowering domination.

Is desire and the changing objects of desire one of the causes of our
disorder? To suppress desire is to suppress all sensation - which is to
paralyse the mind. We think this is the easy and quickest way to end desire
but one cannot suppress it; it is much too strong, much too subtle. You
cannot grasp it in your hand and twist it according to your wish - which is
another desire. We have talked about desire in a previous letter. Desire can
never be suppressed or transmuted or corrupted by the right and wrong
desire. It remains always sensation and desire, whatever you do about it.
Desire for enlightenment and desire for money are the same, though the
objects vary. Can one live without desire? Or to put it differently, can the
senses be supremely active without desire coming into it. There are sensory
activities both psychological and physical. The body seeks warmth, food,
sex; there is physical pain and so on. These sensations are natural but when
they enter into the psychological field, the trouble begins. And therein
lies our confusion. This is important to understand, especially when we are
young. To observe the physical sensations without suppression or
exaggeration and to be alert, watchful that they do not seep into the
psychological inner realm where they don't belong therein lies our
difficulty. The whole process happens so quickly because we do not see this,
have not understood it, have never really examined what actually takes place.

There is immediate sensory response to challenge. This response is natural
and is not under the domination of thought, of desire. Our difficulty begins
when these sensory responses enter into the psychological realm. The
challenge may be a woman or man or something pleasant, appetising; or a
lovely garden. The response to this is sensation and when this sensation
enters the psychological fields desire begins and thought with its images
seeks the fulfilment of desire.

Our question is how to prevent the natural physical responses from entering
into the psychological? Is this possible? It is possible only when you
observe the nature of the challenge with great attention and watch carefully
the responses. This total attention will prevent the physical responses
entering into the inward psyche.

We are concerned with desire and the understanding of it, not the
brutalising factor of suppressing, avoiding or sublimating. You cannot live
without desire. When you are hungry you need food. But to understand, which
is to investigate the whole activity of desire, is to give it its right
place. Thus it will not be a source of disorder in our daily life.

1st May, 1979