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We have many, many fears.
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Fear of darkness, fear of living,
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fear of public opinion,
fear what my neighbour might say,
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fear of my wife or husband
or the girl or the man,
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fear of insecurity,
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fear when you have security
economically,
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fear that you might lose it,
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fear - we have got so many fears.
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Why haven't we solved these fears?
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You have solved the problem of war
that is to continue war,
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and you have applied your brain
to prepare for war.
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All the vast generals on both sides,
or a thousand sides,
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they are all preparing for war,
plans, submarines, airplanes,
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all the rest of it.
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They have exercised their brain
to produce all that.
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And why hasn't that
same brain applied,
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apply to this
enormous sense of fear
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man has from the beginning of days.
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Why?
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Which means
why have you and the speaker
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not gone into this question
seriously,
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as you do go very seriously
when you are hungry,
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when you are ambitious,
when you want more money,
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you work at it.
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Why have we not gone
into this question of fear?
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The psychologists,
the therapeutists,
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have explained the causes of it,
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in different ways.
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If we could put aside
all that they have said,
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because after all it is all
what they have said,
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it may be merely verbal.
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They might be as scared as you
- probably they are!
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I met several of them,
I know they are scared like you,
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about something or other.
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And why have we not
solved this question?
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And is it possible to end the fear?
We are going to go into that.
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Apply not only your feelings,
your emotions and your brain
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to work at this,
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not escape from it,
not try to rationalise it
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but to see why we are incapable,
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or allowed ourselves
to become incapable.
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What is fear?
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And you know when there is fear,
the nature of it, how it throbs,
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how your physical organism shrinks,
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how your brain becomes addled,
almost paralysed.
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Don't you know all this?
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Am I describing something abnormal?
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It is a fact.
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It affects your sleep,
it affects your daily life,
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it brings suspicion,
anxiety, depression
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and you cling to something
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and hope that won't change,
and that won't bring fear.
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Either we deal
with the root of fear,
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or we trim the branches of fear.
Right?
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Right, sir?
Which do you want to do?
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Trim the branches of fear
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- please one is asking
this seriously,
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don't neglect
what the speaker is asking.
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Do you want to deal
with the branches of fear?
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There are a thousand fears.
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Like a lovely tree
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- a tree which is
the most beautiful thing,
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one of the most beautiful
things on earth,
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it has got many branches,
many leaves;
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likewise fear, which is so ugly,
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it has also got many branches,
many leaves, many expressions.
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Do you want to deal with that,
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the expressions,
the surface, outside?
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Or do we go together
into the root of it?
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Personally, the speaker
doesn't want to trim the branches,
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which is so futile.
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So let's together find out
what is the cause of fear.
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We know all the expressions of fear.
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So if we can find the root of it,
the expressions can wither away.
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So what is the cause,
or causation of fear.
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If one asks you that question:
what is the cause?
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would you answer it?
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The cause?
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Or do you expect someone
to explain the cause of it?
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The explanation is not the fact.
Right?
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You may paint a marvellous
picture of the mountain,
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hung in all the museums
of the world,
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but that picture
is not the mountain.
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The word 'fear' is not fear
- right?
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But the word 'fear' may evoke fear.
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So we are not dealing
with the description,
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with the word,
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but the depth
and the strength of fear.
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And we are trying
to find out together,
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not I explain, you accept
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but together find out for ourselves
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so that it is you discover it,
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therefore it is your truth
not somebody else's truth.
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You can't live
with someone else's truth,
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you can only live with truth.
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So what is the cause of it?
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The cause of it
- I will go into it.
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Is it thought?
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Is it time?
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Is it thought? Let's look at it.
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I am living - one is living now.
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And thought says,
'I might die tomorrow',
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or 'I might lose my job',
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'I have my money in the bank,
but the bank may fail',
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'I am all right with my wife
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but she may turn
to somebody tomorrow',
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'I have printed a book and I hope
it will be a great success',
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which means fear.
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'I want to be known'
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which is the most
childish thing in the world.
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'I want to be known
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and somebody is known
already much more than I am'.
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So there is this thinking,
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that is, thinking I might lose,
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I might gain, I might be lonely.
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So thinking is one
of the factors of fear - right?
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I am all right with my friends,
with my wife and my children
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but I also know,
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I have experienced this sense
of desperate loneliness.
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Don't you know it?
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A sense of deep
frightening loneliness.
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And I am frightened.
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Have you ever examined what
loneliness is? Why it has its cause?
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Don't you know, don't you have
this feeling of loneliness?
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Am I talking something,
saying something abnormal?
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Eh? You must all be saints.
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Sir, what is this loneliness
which causes - you understand, sir?
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which causes attachment,
holding on to something
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however illusory, however false,
however meaningless.
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I hold on to my wife.
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I hold on to my club,
to my god, to my ritual,
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to my friends,
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because if I let go,
I am utterly lonely.
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Have you ever gone
into that question:
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why human beings are
so frightened of loneliness?
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They may live with a group,
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they may follow some guru
and all the rest of that nonsense
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but strip them
of all their decoration
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and they are what they are, lonely.
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Why?
Why are they, what is loneliness?
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Not to have any relationship
with anything,
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with nature, with another,
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with the friend or woman or the man
with whom I have lived,
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all that somehow has withdrawn,
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I am left utterly empty,
lonely - why?
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What is this feeling
of utter despair?
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I will explain
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but the explanation
is not the fact.
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The word is not the thing.
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If that becomes very clear,
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that the word is not the thing,
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you Mr. Smith is not Mr. Smith,
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the word is not you,
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when you say,
'My wife', or 'My husband',
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that is - you understand?
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I am glad
you understand that at least.
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So explanation is
not the reality, the truth.
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So look at it, let's look at it
without the word,
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without the word 'loneliness'.
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Can you do it?
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To look at that feeling
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without using the word 'lonely',
or 'despair'.
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Loneliness comes when all our days
are spent in self-centredness.
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The very activity
of self-centredness
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is producing loneliness - right?
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Because it is narrowing my whole,
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or the vast extraordinary
existence of life
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into a small little me.
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And when one realises that
there is that feeling,
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'My god, how lonely I am'.
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And to face it,
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to be with it completely,
not move away from it,
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then there is a radical change.
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So we must come back
to this question of fear.
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We said thought is
one of the causes of fear,
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obviously.
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I am thinking about death
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because I am an old man, or young,
or you see some hearse going by
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with all the flowers, horses, cars.
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What a civilised country this is,
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with all the noise of death.
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And I see thought
is one of the causes of death,
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one of the causes of fear - right?
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Do you see this?
An obvious fact, right?
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Right, sirs?
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And also time is
a factor of fear - right?
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I am afraid what might happen.
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I am afraid of something
I have done
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which others are using
as a blackmail, you follow?
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I am afraid of that.
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So time and thought
are the root of fear.
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Time and thought.
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There is no division
between thought and time,
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thought is time - right?
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Now the problem is
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- I am sorry,
I won't use the word 'problem'.
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The question is:
thought is necessary,
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time is necessary - right?
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To go from here to there
time is necessary.
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And thought is necessary
to drive a car,
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to take a bus, take the train.
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Thought is necessary,
time is necessary at that level.
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Right?
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Now I am saying
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as thought and time
are the root of fear,
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is thought and time necessary?
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Vous avez compris?
There it is necessary.
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But psychologically
is thought and time necessary?
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Right? Is it?
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As long as time and thought,
if you think are necessary,
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in the psychological world,
in the world of the self,
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in the world of psyche,
in the world of inside the skin,
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then you will be
perpetually in fear
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- right?
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If you perceive that,
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if there is perception
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that thought is
the root of fear and time,
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perception, not acceptance,
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then thought and time are necessary
at the physical level,
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inwardly it is not necessary,
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therefore you are watching then.
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You are watching,
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the brain is actively
watching itself every minute
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to see that thought and time
do not enter into its realm.
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This requires - you understand? -
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this requires great attention,
awareness,
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so that the brain,
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which has accumulated
fear for centuries,
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or for one day,
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that brain sees
where it is necessary,
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where it is not necessary,
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therefore it is watching
like a hawk
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so that thought and time
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doesn't enter
into the whole process of living.
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You understand?
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This is real discipline,
this is learning.
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As we explained the other day,
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discipline means, the root meaning
of that word is disciple,
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the disciple is one who learns,
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who is learning all the time,
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he never says,
'I have learnt' and stays.
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The brain is watching itself
all the time so that it is active,
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so there is no time for it
to move or to change.
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You have understood something?
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It is now quarter to twelve,
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we must stop.
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You see, sirs and ladies,
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our difficulty is,
we listen to a lot of things,
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we know a great deal,
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we have searched, asked, read,
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we have sought the advice of others,
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we have wandered the earth
to find out,
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to find out what it is all about,
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but we never ask of ourselves,
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we never demand of ourselves
serious, deep questions.
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We always ask
superficial questions.
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And so we make our life
very superficial.
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But if you asked questions,
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questions that demand
answers from yourself
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so that you exercise
your brain, your feelings,
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your whole attention
is given to that question,
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then you begin
to discover for yourself
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without being told by anybody,
including the speaker.
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And so when there is
freedom from fear
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you don't want gods,
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you don't want anything
from anybody in the world,
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then you are really a free man.