excerpts

How do we see things actually, visually? And do we see anything, or do we merely interpret things? Do I see you and you see me, or do you interpret what you see and I interpret what I see? Interpretation is not seeing. Is it?

Don't be too anxious to find out what meditation is. This is part of meditation. Can I see without interpretation?

Can you see me without giving all kinds of tributes, without evaluation, without judgment - just see me, in which is employed no name? The moment you name, you have blocked yourself from seeing.

We are examining what it means to be aware. What does it mean? It means, obviously to be aware not only of the outward movement of thought and perception but also of the inward movement of thought and perception. Isn't it?

I see the trees and I respond; I see the people and I respond; I see beauty and there is a response to beauty; similarly there is a response to ugliness, to all this squalor, the pomp, the sense of power. There is an observation externally, outwardly, which is interpreted, which is judged, criticized; and that very movement which goes outward, also comes in - it is like a tide going in and out.

By observing the outward movement, the mind also observes the inward movement of that same act with all its reactions. So awareness is this total process of the outward and inward movement of thought, of judgment, of evaluation, of acceptance, denial.

Sir, do we understand anything by naming it? Do I understand you, when I say you are all Hindus, Buddhists, Communists, this or that? Do I understand you by giving you a label? Or do I understand you when there is no naming, when there is no interference of the label?

So, the process of labelling, giving a name is really a hindrance to comprehension. And it is extremely subtle, extremely arduous, to observe something without giving a name, without giving a quality, because the very process of our thinking is verbalizing. Isn't it?

What I am trying to convey is that awareness is a total process, not merely a state of mind which criticizes, evaluates, condemns or compares. To understand why it compares, why it criticizes, why it evaluates, what is the process of this evaluation, what lies behind this judgment, the whole process of that is awareness, which is really the mind being aware of the whole process of its activities.

If one has grasped a little bit of that, we can then go into the question of fear, envy and what jealousy means. Can you look at that feeling without giving it a name? Because, the naming process is the process of the thinker, who merely observes thought as though it was something apart from the thinker...

Sir, take a very simple example of envy, jealousy, anger. In all these things, in the moment of experiencing there is no contradiction. But the second after that experiencing, there is contradiction, as the thinker, the observer, looks at the thing and says, "It is good, or it is bad; it is anger, or it is envy". At the moment of experience, there is no contradiction - which is an extraordinary thing. Only when the experiencing is over, the second after, begins the contradiction.

And this contradiction arises when the thinker is in the process of judging, evaluating what he has observed, either accepting or denying it - which is essentially a process of verbalizing or reaction according to his conditioning. So, to wipe away this contradiction, can the thinker observe without giving words to that thing which is being observed?

Have you ever gone into the question of words, how the mind is a slave to words - the Hindu, the Buddhist, the Mohammedan, the Communist, the Capitalist, the Democrat, the Congress, the wife, husband, the word God, or no God? Our mind is a slave to words. And to free the thought from the word - is that possible?

Is it possible to free a thought from the word? And if it is possible, then can the thinker, the observer, look at the thing without the label, without the term, without the symbol? And when it can so directly look, without the interference of the label, the word, the symbol, then there is no thinker observing the thing. Now this is meditation.