excerpts

To enquire very deeply, there must be a sense of humility - not as a virtue. Humility is not a virtue, it is a state of being - you are or you are not. You cannot come by it, you cannot cultivate it; you cannot be vain and put a layer of humility on that vanity - as most of us try to do. We are going to learn about fear. And to learn about fear and its extraordinary importance in life, its darkness and its dangers, one must learn about it. And therefore there must be that state of unapprehensive, unrewarded, not-sought-after humility.

For most of us virtue is merely a thing that we cultivate as a means of resistance to all the demands of our own desires as well as the demands of a particular society in which one happens to be. But virtue is something not within the field of time. it cannot be accumulated, it cannot be cultivated. It is, for example, `being good', not `becoming good'. The two things are entirely different. To flower in goodness is entirely different from becoming good. Becoming good is a means of a reward or punishment or resistance; in that, there is no flowering.

In the same way, there must be humility, as an immediate state but not as a state that you acquire. It is only that state that can comprehend, understand and learn. Because there is only learning, and not being taught and acquiring information - especially with regard to non-technological matters. You can acquire information, knowledge, about mathematics. But you have to learn about fear, not from books, not from psychological study, but through observation of oneself. And you cannot learn if there is no humility. So, one has to be both the teacher and the disciple for oneself, the disciple being the mind that learns.

The person with the mind that learns is not a disciple that submits, accepts, follows. The person who submits, follows, is not seeking truth; he is merely conforming to a pattern of good behaviour which, he hopes, will ultimately reward him by giving him what he calls truth.