... So if you will we shall go into that first: whether it is possible, living in this world, to be free of this world, be free of anxiety, fear, despair, of the utter boredom of existence which has very little meaning as it is, and in which there is no affection. And living a daily life in this world, whether the mind can free itself from its own structure, which it has built; psychologically it has built a structure of greed, of acquisitiveness, of envy, of violence, of deep unmitigated despair. I think that is the real issue. People have attempted it by withdrawing from this world into a monastery, by various forms of escape, through drugs, through beliefs, through denials, through complete self-sacrifice and so on. But it seems to me that doesn't lead very far. What they escape into is their own projection, and their own projection is not very enlightening.

So one asks oneself, if one is at all serious, whether a mind caught in its own psychological structure can really free itself from its own bondage. Because it is only in freedom that one can see, that one can listen, observe and watch - being free, not in a particular direction but totally free, all round. Freedom is not in fragments - being free here and not free there. But a freedom that comes into being with complete self-knowledge - by knowing oneself completely - to enquire into such freedom and go into it more deeply, widely, seems to me worthwhile, because every other problem has very little meaning…

I do not know if you have ever looked at anything - looked at a cloud or a tree, looked at a flower or looked at your neighbour, or at yourself - looked, watched. I think that watching, looking, is immensely important. We look through the image which we have about the thing which we are watching. You look at me and you have an image about me and according to that image you are looking. Is it possible to look without the image? - to watch, to look, without any evaluation, but merely to observe what actually is? …

There is the propaganda of the church as well as the propaganda in the newspapers, of politics or sports, or whatever it is. We are conditioned. And with that conditioning we look at ourselves - that is, if we want to look at ourselves! And so we never observe 'what is', we are looking at the projection which we have formed about ourselves. So if one is serious, the first thing to discover for oneself is how one observes anything; how one observes the neighbour, the cloud, and oneself…

in one's watching, watch primarily the watching process rather than an object

If my mind wanders off I'm not listening. But to stop this wandering is a form of discipline which is a waste of energy. Whereas what is important is the watching: watching not only myself, but the wandering away from what I'm watching. What I am concerned with is watching, not that which I am watching. I want to watch myself but, as I am watching, my thoughts go off, wander off, so I try to bring those thoughts back to the point which I am watching, and so there is a conflict. Whereas if my concern is watching, I watch 'what is' and I am also watching when the mind wanders off, so there is no contradiction. My concern is watching all the time…