Yesterday we spoke a little about the state of unthinking. Ordinarily, man lives in unthinking. There is slavery to passions on the one hand, and to faith and belief on the other. On the plane of the body man is dependent, and on the plane of the mind as well. Freedom on the bodily plane is not possible, but freedom on the mental plane is. I hinted at this yesterday. How can a person be free on the level of mind? How can thought be born within him? Today I will speak to you of that.
If thought is not born, then in truth there can be neither real experience nor creation in a human life. Then we will live and die in vain. Life will be a fruitless labor. For where there is no thought, there are no eyes; where there is no thought, there is no capacity to see and to move by oneself. And the one who does not see for himself, walk for himself, live for himself—no experience can arise in him that can set him free, no experience that can fill his heart with love, no experience that can illumine his very life-breath. Whatever happens in life, before that happening there must be eyes.
By thought I mean: vision. By thought I mean: the capacity to think for oneself. By thought I do not mean a crowd of thoughts. The crowd of thoughts is in all of us, but thought itself is not in us. Many thoughts wander within us, but the power of thought is not awake within us.
And it is very surprising: the more thoughts whirl in someone, the less capacity for thought he has. Where there is much turmoil, much movement, a great crowd of thoughts, the power of thought lies asleep. Only the person who can bid farewell to the crowd of thoughts comes to the power of thought. So if many thoughts run in your mind, do not imagine that you have become capable of thinking.
In fact, so many thoughts run because you are not capable of thinking. If a blind man wants to go out of a building, twenty-five thoughts will run within him—how shall I go, which door, how do I rise, whom do I ask? But one who has eyes, if he wishes to go out, he simply rises and goes out. No thoughts run within him. He rises and goes out. He can see.
The power of thought is the capacity to see. Seeing begins in life. But a crowd of thoughts gives no capacity to see; rather, in the crowd of thoughts the capacity to see, to witness, gets hidden, gets covered.
Let me say this first, and then we will consider how to awaken the power of thought. It is necessary to say beforehand that the thoughts in the crowd are alien; they are not one’s own. So when I say, “Let thought be born,” I do not mean: read the scriptures, read the books, collect many thoughts. That will not give birth to thought within you. To become a scholar is not to find thought. To gather many notions, many creeds, many answers, many philosophies is not to think.
What is thinking? Thinking means: the awakening of your own consciousness in response to life’s problem. It means: the solution to a life-problem arising out of your own consciousness. When life raises a question, the answer should not be borrowed; your own answer should awaken. Even now life raises problems every day, but our answers are borrowed. Therefore no problem of life ever really gets solved.
The problems are ours; the solutions are others’. There is no harmony between the two. Life raises questions every day, but we stand before life armed with readymade answers given by others. The problems triumph; our solutions collapse.
Let me tell a little story—it may help you understand how stale and outdated our solutions are, and why they lose.
In a village there were two temples. They were bitterly opposed to each other. Temples are always opposed. Villages have gambling dens and liquor shops, and there is no quarrel there. But where there are temples, there is antagonism. There should not be, but there always has been. The day there is no opposition between temples, that day a true temple of the Divine can be raised. As long as opposition remains, it cannot. The name will be “God,” the idols inside will be of God, but hidden within will be the devil—because opposition is the devil’s weapon.
In that village the opposition was so intense that the two priests would not even look at each other. Their devotees would not step into the other temple. Their scriptures had decreed: even if you have to be crushed under the feet of a mad elephant, do not take refuge in the other temple; that temple is worse than being crushed by a mad elephant.
Each head priest had a young boy serving him—fetching things, doing small chores. Because they were children, the disease of the old had not yet caught them. So sometimes they would meet on the road and talk.
Old people are very eager that their illnesses catch hold of children quickly. If they don’t, they fear the children will go astray. So the priests constantly warned the boys: Beware! Never go toward the other temple. Never speak to anyone from the other temple. But children are children; they were not yet old, not yet “wise.” Sometimes they would meet and chat.
One day the two boys were going toward the market and met on the road. The two temples were called the Northern Temple and the Southern Temple. The boy from the North asked the boy from the South: Where are you going? The Southern boy said: Wherever my feet take me.
The Northern boy was stumped. How to proceed from there? He came back and told his priest: Today I was a little defeated by the other temple’s boy. I asked, Where are you going? He said, Wherever my feet take me. I could think of nothing to say.
The priest said: That is very bad. To be defeated even by the other temple’s servant is a shame. Tomorrow go prepared. Ask the same question. If he says, Wherever my feet take me, then you say: And if you had no feet, would you go anywhere?
And so it happened. The boy went and asked: Where are you going? But this time the answer had changed. The other boy said: Wherever the winds take me. Now he was in trouble. He had a fixed answer ready, but how could he say: If you had no feet? He returned again. He complained: That boy is dishonest; he keeps changing his answer.
The priest said: That is very bad indeed. Tomorrow ask again. If he says, Wherever the winds take me, you say: If there were no winds, where would you go?
He went again. They met. He asked: Where are you going? But the other boy had already changed his answer: I’m going to the market to buy vegetables. Back he came. Master, it’s very difficult; he keeps changing. Today he said: I’m going to buy vegetables. And I returned defeated.
Life too changes every day. Yesterday’s answers don’t work today. And what we all carry are yesterday’s answers—learned answers, taught answers, scriptural answers, doctrinal answers, answers from the inertia of a thousand years. We stand before life with these. Life keeps changing. Then we blame life: it is dishonest, fickle. We do not blame our own rigidity.
Life’s changefulness is not the sorrow. Our rigidity is the sorrow; hence we cannot be in rhythm with life. Where there is life, there is playfulness. Where there is life, there is movement. Where there is life, there is change, transformation—there is a moment-to-moment revolution; moment-to-moment everything becomes new.
Where there is death, there is rigidity. Where there is death, there is no change. Where there is death, there is no moment-to-moment revolution—there it is all stagnation and blockage. Life is open; life is free. Do not be angry with its playfulness; see your own rigidity. Do not worry about its changing forms; examine your mind that refuses to change.
This mind of ours that stops, that clutches at solutions, clutches at scriptures—if it proves unable to triumph over life or to know it, there is no surprise. It cannot keep pace with life. Life flows on; we lag behind. A step behind—and then life becomes a burden, a failure.
Thought means: let the psyche be as dynamic as life is dynamic.
But you have heard that the restlessness of mind is a bad thing. You have read and heard that mind’s playfulness is the trouble. You have heard: stop the mind’s restlessness, arrest its motion, kill its speed; the more it is stilled, the better.
I tell you: the mind’s playfulness is auspicious. But let this playfulness be so intense, this motion so swift, that it comes into rhythm with life’s motion and does not lag behind it. The more movement the mind has, the more power it has.
So do not petrify the mind. Do not freeze it by turning a rosary and muttering “Ram, Ram.” A frozen mind gives birth to nothing.
Peoples upon whom the misfortune has fallen of striving toward mental inertia—no science was born there, no inventions, no creativity. They lived for thousands of years like the barren. Nothing was born of them, no new discovery. And it cannot be—how could it? If we kill the movement of mind, we will gain a stupor. But life is not for the inert; it is for heightened consciousness. Let mind have movement; let it not stop on dead solutions, but move with the problems.
Thought means: a dynamic mind. Thought means: when a problem arises, I do not search my memory for an answer. Whoever searches memory will bring up stale and musty answers. If I ask you: Is there God? and you rummage in memory—yes, I read in the Gita that God is; or I read in the Quran; or I heard that God is; or my father said so, and his father too—this answer comes from memory; therefore it is dead, stale, borrowed, someone else’s.
When life raises a question, put memory aside. Do not let memory speak. Tell memory: forgive me. When memory is utterly silent, your own consciousness will be compelled to find its answer. Perhaps no answer will come. That too is very auspicious.
If the question stands and no answer rises from consciousness, consciousness will awaken—awaken in the search for that answer. Its layers will open in the inquiry. No matter; let no answer come. But if you quickly accept a memory-answer, then there remains no reason, no means for consciousness to awaken. What consciousness should have done, memory does; then consciousness has no need to rise.
Leave the work of consciousness to consciousness; do not hand it over to memory—and thought is born. But we all live by memory. We consult memory every time. Our universities teach memory. Our priests and scriptures teach memory. They all teach: learn the fixed answers, and when questions arise, reply. In this the person commits spiritual suicide.
Memory’s answers are mechanical. They neither develop nor expand consciousness; they deaden it, cripple it.
You have heard—now there are machines into which every kind of answer can be fed, and they can give every kind of answer. Very soon man will not need to remember much. Everything can be fed into machines, and answers taken from them. Your memory too is a device.
And perhaps it will surprise you to know that very soon one person’s memory can be given to another. Experiments have already succeeded. A person’s entire memory can be transferred to someone else. Memory is a mechanism; it is a chemical change within. If the neurochemical traces in which memory is stored can be extracted from one brain and introduced into another, then without any study that entire memory will begin to speak in the other. Primary scientific experiments have succeeded: one person’s experience can be transferred to another without that person having the experience. A person’s memory can be conveyed by carrying its chemical substrates into another brain.
Memory is purely mechanical. It is not knowledge. It is not truly your experience; it is an accumulated storehouse. As wealth collects in a safe and, if the safe is given to a pauper, he becomes rich—so thoughts collect in memory. Until now it was not possible to transfer it; now it is. Very soon it will be easy to hand over memory wholesale. When scholars die there will be no difficulty—we will simply give their entire memory to children. Then scholarship, already hollow, will become a market commodity. It is already in the market. Even now it is of little worth. You repeat things and memorize; machines can repeat as well.
Memory is a mechanical function of the brain; it gives birth to no knowledge, no thought. Rather, memory constantly prevents thought from being born. Whenever there is a chance for thought, memory supplies an answer—and thought cannot be born. Life asks a question, memory answers, consciousness remains silent. It should be the reverse: life asks a question, memory is silent, and consciousness must seek the answer.
Therefore, for the beginning of thought, before you grow rich in the direction of thought, understand this first principle: teach your memory to be silent. Teach your memory to be still. Do not ask it to answer every problem.
I am not saying that for little matters—where your house is, what your name is—you should leave even these to consciousness. I am not saying that on your way home you should stand and wonder where your house is and hush your memory. No. On one plane memory is useful: on the plane of things, the worldly plane. If you study engineering or medicine, memory is useful there. On the plane of self-knowledge, memory is fatal.
All devices have their utility; so does memory. On life’s ordinary surface, memory is useful. Without it, living would be impossible. But on the deeper levels of life, past the surface, memory has no use. The answers it gives there are utterly false. There memory must become silent. What we have learned must sit quietly. What we have heard must be still—so that we can search for ourselves, so that we can know for ourselves, so that inquiry can happen, so that discovery can happen, so that we can enter and become acquainted with the Unknown. That unknown truth, that unknown life, the unknown self or the Divine—to know it, memory must fall silent.
For the birth of thought, memory must be silent. Wherever life’s deep problems arise, say to memory: be quiet. Do not let memory intrude. If it starts to speak, tell it: hush—so that my own consciousness can search.
The first principle for the birth of thought: it is necessary to teach memory silence.
Memory keeps talking endlessly, and because it works for ordinary life, the illusion arises that it will also work for deep exploration. There it cannot work—first thing. And the moment this becomes clear—that memory must be hushed—then all scriptures and all doctrines fall silent, for they live in memory. All Tirthankaras and all avatars fall silent, for they are in memory. The whole wealth of the world’s knowledge becomes silent, for it is in memory. Then you are left alone to search. Then only your consciousness remains for the quest. When the question of inquiry stands upon it, when an intense urge to research arises, when there is no other option and you must search—only then does the search begin. Under that pressure, that demand, inquiry begins and the life-breath becomes alert.
Any work we get others to do for us makes our own life-energy gradually dormant. If we could get everything done by others, our life-energy would fall asleep. Little by little we are indeed getting many things done by others. On the bodily plane, it is fine to take help. But on the plane of the soul, to take help is disastrous.
Confucius has written: I went to a village—two and a half thousand years ago. In a garden an old man and his son were drawing water from a well. Where today oxen are yoked to the lever, they themselves were yoked, and were drawing water. Confucius thought: Perhaps they do not know that this work can be done by oxen or horses. He said to the old man: Friend, do you not know, in the big towns people now use horses and oxen for this—and here you yourself are yoked? The old man said: Speak softly, lest my boy hear. And come back in a little while. Confucius was puzzled.
Later he returned. The old man said: Now speak. I too have heard this work is done by oxen and horses, but I am afraid my son will learn it. He too will have the work done by oxen and horses. But the matter does not end there. When we begin taking work from others, our own strength for that work begins to die. Today my boy has the strength that belongs to horses. If tomorrow he has horses do the work, his strength will dissolve. And it won’t stop there; soon we will let others do other works too. A time will come when man will get everything done by others—by machines and by men. Then what will man do? So please go, and keep your invention to yourself. Do not bring it to the village.
Confucius later told his disciples: That old man taught me something astonishing. And who knows—one day humanity will fall into the misfortune of letting others do everything. Then great difficulty will arise.
Camus, in a novel, imagined a time when people would even have servants make love for them. It seems shocking. But he said: One day man will think, why take the trouble of love? Let servants do it. Or, if machines can be invented, let machines do it. That seems unbelievable. We cannot imagine leaving love to machines. But we have already left knowledge to machines.
Memory is a machine. Because we leave it to memory, our own consciousness cannot awaken. For consciousness to awaken, the burden, the pain, the sting of problems must fall on consciousness itself. Let problems pierce consciousness, so that it flares up, rises, awakens. Only when life strikes does something awaken. Only when life throws a challenge does energy gather and respond.
Do not take help from memory. For life’s deep problems—for truth, for God, for the self—bid memory be silent; then thought is born.
It is not necessary that thought give you an answer. Many “answers” come only in silence, for which there are no words. You may ask, and consciousness may remain silent. Even in that silence a resolution begins to descend—one that transforms the very breath of your being. It is not that afterward you will be able to give answers to others; but your life will be another life.
An answer does not mean a phrase to bind a question in words. Answer or resolution means: your life-breath is transformed. You ask: Is there God? No yes or no comes. The yes would come from the memory built upon the theist; the no from the memory built upon the atheist. If you do not use memory at all and let consciousness seek, perhaps no answer will come. I myself feel that no answer comes.
But in that silence, in that wordless stillness, a resolution begins. It does not become words, but from the next day your life is different. Then if someone asks you, Is there God? you might not say yes or no, but you could say: Look at my life; perhaps you will know from that. God will be in that life. Perhaps you will say: Look into my eyes—and by looking the answer will come. Perhaps you will say: Listen to the beating of my heart—and in that throb the answer may be heard. What arrived in that silence will saturate your entire life.
Whether God is or is not is not a matter of verbal, intellectual answer; it is a prayer rising from your totality, your whole life. It is not of words; it is a fragrance rising from your whole life, a music arising from your whole life.
A young man once came to Buddha. He asked some questions. Buddha said: If you want answers, go elsewhere. We do not give answers; we give resolution.
The youth was astonished. Is there a difference between resolution and answer?
Buddha said: There is a great difference. Answers are intellectual, in words. Resolution is not intellectual; it is spiritual, total. Answers are in words; resolution is in practice. Answers I could give; resolution comes from within you. So I am unable to give you answers. But if you want resolution, stay. Answers can be given quickly; resolution may take years—perhaps a lifetime, perhaps many lifetimes. If you have that much patience, stay.
The youth said: I am weary of answers. For thirty years I have sought. Everyone gives answers. The answers come, the question remains exactly where it was. The question does not move. I am ready to wait.
Buddha said: Stay. A year from today, ask again.
He stayed. For a year he was taught the practice of silence, taught to be quiet.
Outwardly we know how to be quiet; inwardly to be quiet is very difficult. But one who becomes quiet within knows all. There is no greater key to truth or to the Divine than inner silence. But what do we see? Those who go to know God fill themselves within with Gita, Quran, Bible. How will they be silent? They recite every morning, memorize words. And the day the Gita is committed to memory, the joy of being “knowing” arises. They fill within. In truth, only the one who empties within comes to know; not the one who fills.
Buddha taught him the science of emptying: become utterly empty within. Bid farewell to everything within. The day the inner house is empty, that day resolution will come.
A year passed. Buddha said: Now ask.
But he began to laugh. As I emptied within, my questions dissolved. The questions were also part of what was filled; they too left. Now I have no question.
Buddha asked: Did any answer come?
He said: No answer came. But now I do not need an answer. The resolution I sought has appeared. My whole life has changed.
Fulfillment lies in the transformation of life, not in obtaining answers. Thought will not bring answers, but it will bring the transformation of the whole life.
The first principle is: bid memory farewell, silence it, tell it to wait. And the second principle is: live with the question in patience.
Whoever hurries will fall back on memory. If you want speed, memory quickly supplies. But the invitation is to wait in patience. If no answer comes, wait. Ask—and be silent. Do not accept someone else’s answer. Ask—and be silent. Try this experiment. Ask: What is love? Then be quiet. Whatever answer comes from books and scriptures, bid it goodbye. Do not let it intrude. Ask: What is love? Then be quiet. Wait.
No verbal answer will come about what love is. But slowly you will find that the question “What is love?” has pierced your life-breath. Slowly you will find love beginning to arrive in your life. Do not answer. Life will begin to fill with love. One day you will discover the question has vanished—and life is full of love.
Ask: Who am I? And do not answer: I am soul, I am this, I am that. Everywhere people teach answers: I am the pure, awakened self; I am infinite knowledge. Do not answer. Ask: Who am I? Then be silent. Ask at bedtime, on waking—Who am I?—and use none of the answers you have heard. In silence let the question “Who am I?” sink into life. Sleeping, waking, working—whenever you remember, ask: Who am I? Then fall quiet; do not answer from yourself. Gradually, one day the question will drop, and an inner resolution will be available. No words will be formed, but you will know who is within.
The answerer falls into delusion. The one who questions and lets the answer be still—the one who questions and waits patiently without an answer—one day receives resolution. This is what I mean by thought. By thought I mean: to inquire deeply and wait in patience.
Patience is a wondrous thing.
A man plants a seed, then waits patiently for the sprout. Then leaves will come, then flowers, then fruit. Long waiting is needed. But if you will not wait for living flowers, there are paper flowers in the market—you can buy them quickly. They are easily had. So too, the one who truly seeks life must plant the seed of the question and be quiet. Do not rush to bring an answer. If you do, it will be borrowed, stale, someone else’s, from the market—made of paper. There will be no life in it; it will not be alive.
Sow the seed of the question and then do not worry about the answer. Wait peacefully. Plant the seed and wait for the sprout of resolution. From that very seed the sprout will come. From that seed in which no life seems apparent—inert as it seems—the living sprout emerges. Its shell breaks and decays and becomes a sprout. And then life grows and comes to flowers.
In the very question where you see nothing, the answer lies hidden. But let the question fall deep into the soil of the heart; do not hurry. Let it lie there, soak there, break there; then the sprout will come and the answer will emerge out of that very question. But you must wait in patience. The more patiently you wait, the sooner the sprout appears. Then fruits of resolution will ripen, flowers will bloom, and life will fill with fragrance.
Whatever deep questions there are about life, they must be sown within. But we do not sow questions; we want to get rid of them. And there is only one way to get rid of them: ask someone for an answer and feel satisfied.
The question is meaningful; the answer is not. For one who would think, the question is meaningful, not the answer. For one who would believe, the question is not meaningful; the answer is. If you want belief, collect answers. If you want thought, put answers aside. Collect questions, inquiry, problems. The difference is great.
The believer collects answers. The thinker deepens the question, puts his very life into it. The thinker cultivates the field of the question. The believer fills his safe with answers, not questions. The collector of answers becomes a pundit. The one who sows questions attains to wisdom. The one who labors, who waits, one day receives the flowers of knowing.
The one who gathers beliefs, answers, solutions, doctrines—he gets fruit quickly and becomes a pundit. Ask him anything; he will answer. But in his life there is no ray of knowing, no fundamental transformation. Ask him about truth—he will answer; but there is no truth in his life. Ask him about love—he can write a scripture; but in his life there is not even a trace of love.
And it may be that the one who sows these questions within will find it hard to say or write much about love or truth—but the fragrance of truth and love will begin to pervade his life.
There was a Baul fakir in Bengal. A Vaishnava scholar went to meet him. Bauls are forever speaking of love—singing songs of love, praying in love, living and walking in love. The scholar asked the fakir: Is there God? He said: I don’t know—but there is love. And whoever knows love, one day knows God as well.
The scholar asked: What kind of love? Which love? Do you know how many kinds of love there are?
The Baul was astonished. I have known love, but I have not known its kinds. Are there kinds in love?
The scholar laughed. Scholars have always laughed at those who know. He said: You don’t even know that there are kinds of love? There are five kinds. By which kind can God be attained?
The fakir fell silent. The scholar pulled a book from his bag and opened it: In my scripture there is a description of the five kinds of love. He read out the fine distinctions. Then he asked: How does that sound? Is this analysis right or wrong? How does it strike you?
You will be surprised at what the fakir did. He began to dance and sing a song. Its meaning was wondrous. He sang: You ask how it felt when you began to describe kinds of love? It felt as if a goldsmith had brought his testing stone—on which gold is rubbed to check its quality—into a garden of flowers. It felt as if he were rubbing flowers on the stone to see which flower is true and which false. He danced and sang: The goldsmith brought his stone and tested the flowers.
He said: When I knew love, all kinds disappeared. When I knew love, all distinctions fell. When I knew love, neither I remained nor the one I loved. When I knew love, only love remained—no kinds, no differences, no duality; no lover and no beloved—only love. But those who have not known love and have read scriptures, they know the kinds of love.
There are two worlds, two directions in the search for life: the way of scholarship, and the way of wisdom.
Whoever goes the way of scholarship is lost for good. He has nothing but words. Whoever goes the way of wisdom loses words, little by little. He is left with wordless experience.
The one who collects thoughts becomes a pundit. The one who gives birth to thought gives birth to vision—the capacity to think. He asks the question, then challenges his consciousness and waits for the answer to arise from it. In his life, knowing is born. Not by thoughts collected, but by thought born.
We all fall into the error of collecting thoughts and think we have found thought. Thought will not be found that way; nor discrimination, nor wisdom.
For the search of wisdom, for the search of thought, I have given you two principles.
First: let memory fall silent. Avoid memory. Memory is dangerous, a great deceiver. Whoever falls into memory’s snare goes astray.
Second: ask the question; do not hurry to the answer. Sow the question; plant the seed of the question in your life-breath. Let the question revolve there, resound there. Let it grow ever more intense, let it move and stir the mind. Do not hurry to an answer. Accept no borrowed answer. Whatever answer comes, keep refusing. Let a moment arrive when only the question remains and no answer. Let the question enter your life-breath like an arrow. Then wait—with patience, with endurance. One day, from that very question, the answer will arise. The very soul that has asked the question is capable of giving the answer. But if we accept others’ answers, then that soul has no reason left to respond. The soul that has given rise to the inquiry, that has created the problem, is also capable of providing the solution. Remember: if there is a problem, there is also a solution. If there is a question, there is also an answer. If there is inquiry, there is also a resolution. From the very center of your being from which the inquiry is arising, allow that very center to give the solution. Do not hurry. Do not bring in borrowed, second-hand solutions. Those borrowed solutions become obstacles to the coming of the real solution.
These two points I have offered for the birth of thought. Avoid unthinking, avoid belief, avoid mere memory, and make a constant effort to awaken thought—then one day, surely, thought is born. Your whole life is transformed. In that moment of realization you will find that all the things current under the name of belief—under the banners of doctrine, of truth, of the scriptures—become clear to you in a very deep sense, become directly evident.
One who moves by way of inquiry one day attains real reverence, real trust—an experience about which no doubt remains, because it has been found by oneself, known by oneself.
We can be beyond doubt only about the truth we ourselves have discovered. A truth found by someone else—whoever that other may be, however great a person, even God himself—cannot be beyond doubt for you or for me. Therefore behind all these so-called beliefs, unbelief is hiding. Behind these beliefs, unbelief remains concealed. Behind these accepted notions, suspicion and doubt are present. That we keep them hidden is another matter; they are there.
You believe God exists, but search a little and within you you will find the thought that is doubting—who knows whether he is or not? You believe there is a soul, but within you the seed will be hiding that says, who knows whether it is or not? However strongly you believe in the soul or in God, the stronger the insistence, the stronger the inner doubt. Otherwise, against what are you mustering such firmness? Against that very doubt. You erect your firmness against the doubt that is within. You believe with great intensity so that the inner doubt does not come to mind. But it is there; it cannot go. It will remain hidden. That is the real thing. This firmness and all this so-called reverence are false. This belief is imposed. The doubt is the truth.
Therefore, as I said yesterday, let that doubt itself come to the surface. Do not impose a false belief. If someday you are truly to attain a state of trust and reverence, then let that real doubt be expressed; let it ask, let the question arise, let the problem come. And when the problem stands before you, do not supply an answer. One day the answer will come. From waiting, one day the solution will arrive. And it will transform your whole life-energy, your whole life.
The solution that changes your whole life—that alone is truth. And such a solution has never come, and can never come, except through inquiry.
These are a few things I have said about thought. Tomorrow I will speak about no-thought. In these three steps—unthinking, thinking, and no-thought—I am discussing with you how the truth of life can be found.
Thank you very much for listening to these words with such love and peace.
Osho's Commentary
Yesterday we spoke a little about the state of unthinking. Ordinarily, man lives in unthinking. There is slavery to passions on the one hand, and to faith and belief on the other. On the plane of the body man is dependent, and on the plane of the mind as well. Freedom on the bodily plane is not possible, but freedom on the mental plane is. I hinted at this yesterday. How can a person be free on the level of mind? How can thought be born within him? Today I will speak to you of that.
If thought is not born, then in truth there can be neither real experience nor creation in a human life. Then we will live and die in vain. Life will be a fruitless labor. For where there is no thought, there are no eyes; where there is no thought, there is no capacity to see and to move by oneself. And the one who does not see for himself, walk for himself, live for himself—no experience can arise in him that can set him free, no experience that can fill his heart with love, no experience that can illumine his very life-breath. Whatever happens in life, before that happening there must be eyes.
By thought I mean: vision. By thought I mean: the capacity to think for oneself. By thought I do not mean a crowd of thoughts. The crowd of thoughts is in all of us, but thought itself is not in us. Many thoughts wander within us, but the power of thought is not awake within us.
And it is very surprising: the more thoughts whirl in someone, the less capacity for thought he has. Where there is much turmoil, much movement, a great crowd of thoughts, the power of thought lies asleep. Only the person who can bid farewell to the crowd of thoughts comes to the power of thought. So if many thoughts run in your mind, do not imagine that you have become capable of thinking.
In fact, so many thoughts run because you are not capable of thinking. If a blind man wants to go out of a building, twenty-five thoughts will run within him—how shall I go, which door, how do I rise, whom do I ask? But one who has eyes, if he wishes to go out, he simply rises and goes out. No thoughts run within him. He rises and goes out. He can see.
The power of thought is the capacity to see. Seeing begins in life. But a crowd of thoughts gives no capacity to see; rather, in the crowd of thoughts the capacity to see, to witness, gets hidden, gets covered.
Let me say this first, and then we will consider how to awaken the power of thought. It is necessary to say beforehand that the thoughts in the crowd are alien; they are not one’s own. So when I say, “Let thought be born,” I do not mean: read the scriptures, read the books, collect many thoughts. That will not give birth to thought within you. To become a scholar is not to find thought. To gather many notions, many creeds, many answers, many philosophies is not to think.
What is thinking? Thinking means: the awakening of your own consciousness in response to life’s problem. It means: the solution to a life-problem arising out of your own consciousness. When life raises a question, the answer should not be borrowed; your own answer should awaken. Even now life raises problems every day, but our answers are borrowed. Therefore no problem of life ever really gets solved.
The problems are ours; the solutions are others’. There is no harmony between the two. Life raises questions every day, but we stand before life armed with readymade answers given by others. The problems triumph; our solutions collapse.
Let me tell a little story—it may help you understand how stale and outdated our solutions are, and why they lose.
In a village there were two temples. They were bitterly opposed to each other. Temples are always opposed. Villages have gambling dens and liquor shops, and there is no quarrel there. But where there are temples, there is antagonism. There should not be, but there always has been. The day there is no opposition between temples, that day a true temple of the Divine can be raised. As long as opposition remains, it cannot. The name will be “God,” the idols inside will be of God, but hidden within will be the devil—because opposition is the devil’s weapon.
In that village the opposition was so intense that the two priests would not even look at each other. Their devotees would not step into the other temple. Their scriptures had decreed: even if you have to be crushed under the feet of a mad elephant, do not take refuge in the other temple; that temple is worse than being crushed by a mad elephant.
Each head priest had a young boy serving him—fetching things, doing small chores. Because they were children, the disease of the old had not yet caught them. So sometimes they would meet on the road and talk.
Old people are very eager that their illnesses catch hold of children quickly. If they don’t, they fear the children will go astray. So the priests constantly warned the boys: Beware! Never go toward the other temple. Never speak to anyone from the other temple. But children are children; they were not yet old, not yet “wise.” Sometimes they would meet and chat.
One day the two boys were going toward the market and met on the road. The two temples were called the Northern Temple and the Southern Temple. The boy from the North asked the boy from the South: Where are you going? The Southern boy said: Wherever my feet take me.
The Northern boy was stumped. How to proceed from there? He came back and told his priest: Today I was a little defeated by the other temple’s boy. I asked, Where are you going? He said, Wherever my feet take me. I could think of nothing to say.
The priest said: That is very bad. To be defeated even by the other temple’s servant is a shame. Tomorrow go prepared. Ask the same question. If he says, Wherever my feet take me, then you say: And if you had no feet, would you go anywhere?
And so it happened. The boy went and asked: Where are you going? But this time the answer had changed. The other boy said: Wherever the winds take me. Now he was in trouble. He had a fixed answer ready, but how could he say: If you had no feet? He returned again. He complained: That boy is dishonest; he keeps changing his answer.
The priest said: That is very bad indeed. Tomorrow ask again. If he says, Wherever the winds take me, you say: If there were no winds, where would you go?
He went again. They met. He asked: Where are you going? But the other boy had already changed his answer: I’m going to the market to buy vegetables. Back he came. Master, it’s very difficult; he keeps changing. Today he said: I’m going to buy vegetables. And I returned defeated.
Life too changes every day. Yesterday’s answers don’t work today. And what we all carry are yesterday’s answers—learned answers, taught answers, scriptural answers, doctrinal answers, answers from the inertia of a thousand years. We stand before life with these. Life keeps changing. Then we blame life: it is dishonest, fickle. We do not blame our own rigidity.
Life’s changefulness is not the sorrow. Our rigidity is the sorrow; hence we cannot be in rhythm with life. Where there is life, there is playfulness. Where there is life, there is movement. Where there is life, there is change, transformation—there is a moment-to-moment revolution; moment-to-moment everything becomes new.
Where there is death, there is rigidity. Where there is death, there is no change. Where there is death, there is no moment-to-moment revolution—there it is all stagnation and blockage. Life is open; life is free. Do not be angry with its playfulness; see your own rigidity. Do not worry about its changing forms; examine your mind that refuses to change.
This mind of ours that stops, that clutches at solutions, clutches at scriptures—if it proves unable to triumph over life or to know it, there is no surprise. It cannot keep pace with life. Life flows on; we lag behind. A step behind—and then life becomes a burden, a failure.
Thought means: let the psyche be as dynamic as life is dynamic.
But you have heard that the restlessness of mind is a bad thing. You have read and heard that mind’s playfulness is the trouble. You have heard: stop the mind’s restlessness, arrest its motion, kill its speed; the more it is stilled, the better.
I tell you: the mind’s playfulness is auspicious. But let this playfulness be so intense, this motion so swift, that it comes into rhythm with life’s motion and does not lag behind it. The more movement the mind has, the more power it has.
So do not petrify the mind. Do not freeze it by turning a rosary and muttering “Ram, Ram.” A frozen mind gives birth to nothing.
Peoples upon whom the misfortune has fallen of striving toward mental inertia—no science was born there, no inventions, no creativity. They lived for thousands of years like the barren. Nothing was born of them, no new discovery. And it cannot be—how could it? If we kill the movement of mind, we will gain a stupor. But life is not for the inert; it is for heightened consciousness. Let mind have movement; let it not stop on dead solutions, but move with the problems.
Thought means: a dynamic mind. Thought means: when a problem arises, I do not search my memory for an answer. Whoever searches memory will bring up stale and musty answers. If I ask you: Is there God? and you rummage in memory—yes, I read in the Gita that God is; or I read in the Quran; or I heard that God is; or my father said so, and his father too—this answer comes from memory; therefore it is dead, stale, borrowed, someone else’s.
When life raises a question, put memory aside. Do not let memory speak. Tell memory: forgive me. When memory is utterly silent, your own consciousness will be compelled to find its answer. Perhaps no answer will come. That too is very auspicious.
If the question stands and no answer rises from consciousness, consciousness will awaken—awaken in the search for that answer. Its layers will open in the inquiry. No matter; let no answer come. But if you quickly accept a memory-answer, then there remains no reason, no means for consciousness to awaken. What consciousness should have done, memory does; then consciousness has no need to rise.
Leave the work of consciousness to consciousness; do not hand it over to memory—and thought is born. But we all live by memory. We consult memory every time. Our universities teach memory. Our priests and scriptures teach memory. They all teach: learn the fixed answers, and when questions arise, reply. In this the person commits spiritual suicide.
Memory’s answers are mechanical. They neither develop nor expand consciousness; they deaden it, cripple it.
You have heard—now there are machines into which every kind of answer can be fed, and they can give every kind of answer. Very soon man will not need to remember much. Everything can be fed into machines, and answers taken from them. Your memory too is a device.
And perhaps it will surprise you to know that very soon one person’s memory can be given to another. Experiments have already succeeded. A person’s entire memory can be transferred to someone else. Memory is a mechanism; it is a chemical change within. If the neurochemical traces in which memory is stored can be extracted from one brain and introduced into another, then without any study that entire memory will begin to speak in the other. Primary scientific experiments have succeeded: one person’s experience can be transferred to another without that person having the experience. A person’s memory can be conveyed by carrying its chemical substrates into another brain.
Memory is purely mechanical. It is not knowledge. It is not truly your experience; it is an accumulated storehouse. As wealth collects in a safe and, if the safe is given to a pauper, he becomes rich—so thoughts collect in memory. Until now it was not possible to transfer it; now it is. Very soon it will be easy to hand over memory wholesale. When scholars die there will be no difficulty—we will simply give their entire memory to children. Then scholarship, already hollow, will become a market commodity. It is already in the market. Even now it is of little worth. You repeat things and memorize; machines can repeat as well.
Memory is a mechanical function of the brain; it gives birth to no knowledge, no thought. Rather, memory constantly prevents thought from being born. Whenever there is a chance for thought, memory supplies an answer—and thought cannot be born. Life asks a question, memory answers, consciousness remains silent. It should be the reverse: life asks a question, memory is silent, and consciousness must seek the answer.
Therefore, for the beginning of thought, before you grow rich in the direction of thought, understand this first principle: teach your memory to be silent. Teach your memory to be still. Do not ask it to answer every problem.
I am not saying that for little matters—where your house is, what your name is—you should leave even these to consciousness. I am not saying that on your way home you should stand and wonder where your house is and hush your memory. No. On one plane memory is useful: on the plane of things, the worldly plane. If you study engineering or medicine, memory is useful there. On the plane of self-knowledge, memory is fatal.
All devices have their utility; so does memory. On life’s ordinary surface, memory is useful. Without it, living would be impossible. But on the deeper levels of life, past the surface, memory has no use. The answers it gives there are utterly false. There memory must become silent. What we have learned must sit quietly. What we have heard must be still—so that we can search for ourselves, so that we can know for ourselves, so that inquiry can happen, so that discovery can happen, so that we can enter and become acquainted with the Unknown. That unknown truth, that unknown life, the unknown self or the Divine—to know it, memory must fall silent.
For the birth of thought, memory must be silent. Wherever life’s deep problems arise, say to memory: be quiet. Do not let memory intrude. If it starts to speak, tell it: hush—so that my own consciousness can search.
The first principle for the birth of thought: it is necessary to teach memory silence.
Memory keeps talking endlessly, and because it works for ordinary life, the illusion arises that it will also work for deep exploration. There it cannot work—first thing. And the moment this becomes clear—that memory must be hushed—then all scriptures and all doctrines fall silent, for they live in memory. All Tirthankaras and all avatars fall silent, for they are in memory. The whole wealth of the world’s knowledge becomes silent, for it is in memory. Then you are left alone to search. Then only your consciousness remains for the quest. When the question of inquiry stands upon it, when an intense urge to research arises, when there is no other option and you must search—only then does the search begin. Under that pressure, that demand, inquiry begins and the life-breath becomes alert.
Any work we get others to do for us makes our own life-energy gradually dormant. If we could get everything done by others, our life-energy would fall asleep. Little by little we are indeed getting many things done by others. On the bodily plane, it is fine to take help. But on the plane of the soul, to take help is disastrous.
Confucius has written: I went to a village—two and a half thousand years ago. In a garden an old man and his son were drawing water from a well. Where today oxen are yoked to the lever, they themselves were yoked, and were drawing water. Confucius thought: Perhaps they do not know that this work can be done by oxen or horses. He said to the old man: Friend, do you not know, in the big towns people now use horses and oxen for this—and here you yourself are yoked? The old man said: Speak softly, lest my boy hear. And come back in a little while. Confucius was puzzled.
Later he returned. The old man said: Now speak. I too have heard this work is done by oxen and horses, but I am afraid my son will learn it. He too will have the work done by oxen and horses. But the matter does not end there. When we begin taking work from others, our own strength for that work begins to die. Today my boy has the strength that belongs to horses. If tomorrow he has horses do the work, his strength will dissolve. And it won’t stop there; soon we will let others do other works too. A time will come when man will get everything done by others—by machines and by men. Then what will man do? So please go, and keep your invention to yourself. Do not bring it to the village.
Confucius later told his disciples: That old man taught me something astonishing. And who knows—one day humanity will fall into the misfortune of letting others do everything. Then great difficulty will arise.
Camus, in a novel, imagined a time when people would even have servants make love for them. It seems shocking. But he said: One day man will think, why take the trouble of love? Let servants do it. Or, if machines can be invented, let machines do it. That seems unbelievable. We cannot imagine leaving love to machines. But we have already left knowledge to machines.
Memory is a machine. Because we leave it to memory, our own consciousness cannot awaken. For consciousness to awaken, the burden, the pain, the sting of problems must fall on consciousness itself. Let problems pierce consciousness, so that it flares up, rises, awakens. Only when life strikes does something awaken. Only when life throws a challenge does energy gather and respond.
Do not take help from memory. For life’s deep problems—for truth, for God, for the self—bid memory be silent; then thought is born.
It is not necessary that thought give you an answer. Many “answers” come only in silence, for which there are no words. You may ask, and consciousness may remain silent. Even in that silence a resolution begins to descend—one that transforms the very breath of your being. It is not that afterward you will be able to give answers to others; but your life will be another life.
An answer does not mean a phrase to bind a question in words. Answer or resolution means: your life-breath is transformed. You ask: Is there God? No yes or no comes. The yes would come from the memory built upon the theist; the no from the memory built upon the atheist. If you do not use memory at all and let consciousness seek, perhaps no answer will come. I myself feel that no answer comes.
But in that silence, in that wordless stillness, a resolution begins. It does not become words, but from the next day your life is different. Then if someone asks you, Is there God? you might not say yes or no, but you could say: Look at my life; perhaps you will know from that. God will be in that life. Perhaps you will say: Look into my eyes—and by looking the answer will come. Perhaps you will say: Listen to the beating of my heart—and in that throb the answer may be heard. What arrived in that silence will saturate your entire life.
Whether God is or is not is not a matter of verbal, intellectual answer; it is a prayer rising from your totality, your whole life. It is not of words; it is a fragrance rising from your whole life, a music arising from your whole life.
A young man once came to Buddha. He asked some questions. Buddha said: If you want answers, go elsewhere. We do not give answers; we give resolution.
The youth was astonished. Is there a difference between resolution and answer?
Buddha said: There is a great difference. Answers are intellectual, in words. Resolution is not intellectual; it is spiritual, total. Answers are in words; resolution is in practice. Answers I could give; resolution comes from within you. So I am unable to give you answers. But if you want resolution, stay. Answers can be given quickly; resolution may take years—perhaps a lifetime, perhaps many lifetimes. If you have that much patience, stay.
The youth said: I am weary of answers. For thirty years I have sought. Everyone gives answers. The answers come, the question remains exactly where it was. The question does not move. I am ready to wait.
Buddha said: Stay. A year from today, ask again.
He stayed. For a year he was taught the practice of silence, taught to be quiet.
Outwardly we know how to be quiet; inwardly to be quiet is very difficult. But one who becomes quiet within knows all. There is no greater key to truth or to the Divine than inner silence. But what do we see? Those who go to know God fill themselves within with Gita, Quran, Bible. How will they be silent? They recite every morning, memorize words. And the day the Gita is committed to memory, the joy of being “knowing” arises. They fill within. In truth, only the one who empties within comes to know; not the one who fills.
Buddha taught him the science of emptying: become utterly empty within. Bid farewell to everything within. The day the inner house is empty, that day resolution will come.
A year passed. Buddha said: Now ask.
But he began to laugh. As I emptied within, my questions dissolved. The questions were also part of what was filled; they too left. Now I have no question.
Buddha asked: Did any answer come?
He said: No answer came. But now I do not need an answer. The resolution I sought has appeared. My whole life has changed.
Fulfillment lies in the transformation of life, not in obtaining answers. Thought will not bring answers, but it will bring the transformation of the whole life.
The first principle is: bid memory farewell, silence it, tell it to wait. And the second principle is: live with the question in patience.
Whoever hurries will fall back on memory. If you want speed, memory quickly supplies. But the invitation is to wait in patience. If no answer comes, wait. Ask—and be silent. Do not accept someone else’s answer. Ask—and be silent. Try this experiment. Ask: What is love? Then be quiet. Whatever answer comes from books and scriptures, bid it goodbye. Do not let it intrude. Ask: What is love? Then be quiet. Wait.
No verbal answer will come about what love is. But slowly you will find that the question “What is love?” has pierced your life-breath. Slowly you will find love beginning to arrive in your life. Do not answer. Life will begin to fill with love. One day you will discover the question has vanished—and life is full of love.
Ask: Who am I? And do not answer: I am soul, I am this, I am that. Everywhere people teach answers: I am the pure, awakened self; I am infinite knowledge. Do not answer. Ask: Who am I? Then be silent. Ask at bedtime, on waking—Who am I?—and use none of the answers you have heard. In silence let the question “Who am I?” sink into life. Sleeping, waking, working—whenever you remember, ask: Who am I? Then fall quiet; do not answer from yourself. Gradually, one day the question will drop, and an inner resolution will be available. No words will be formed, but you will know who is within.
The answerer falls into delusion. The one who questions and lets the answer be still—the one who questions and waits patiently without an answer—one day receives resolution. This is what I mean by thought. By thought I mean: to inquire deeply and wait in patience.
Patience is a wondrous thing.
A man plants a seed, then waits patiently for the sprout. Then leaves will come, then flowers, then fruit. Long waiting is needed. But if you will not wait for living flowers, there are paper flowers in the market—you can buy them quickly. They are easily had. So too, the one who truly seeks life must plant the seed of the question and be quiet. Do not rush to bring an answer. If you do, it will be borrowed, stale, someone else’s, from the market—made of paper. There will be no life in it; it will not be alive.
Sow the seed of the question and then do not worry about the answer. Wait peacefully. Plant the seed and wait for the sprout of resolution. From that very seed the sprout will come. From that seed in which no life seems apparent—inert as it seems—the living sprout emerges. Its shell breaks and decays and becomes a sprout. And then life grows and comes to flowers.
In the very question where you see nothing, the answer lies hidden. But let the question fall deep into the soil of the heart; do not hurry. Let it lie there, soak there, break there; then the sprout will come and the answer will emerge out of that very question. But you must wait in patience. The more patiently you wait, the sooner the sprout appears. Then fruits of resolution will ripen, flowers will bloom, and life will fill with fragrance.
Whatever deep questions there are about life, they must be sown within. But we do not sow questions; we want to get rid of them. And there is only one way to get rid of them: ask someone for an answer and feel satisfied.
The question is meaningful; the answer is not. For one who would think, the question is meaningful, not the answer. For one who would believe, the question is not meaningful; the answer is. If you want belief, collect answers. If you want thought, put answers aside. Collect questions, inquiry, problems. The difference is great.
The believer collects answers. The thinker deepens the question, puts his very life into it. The thinker cultivates the field of the question. The believer fills his safe with answers, not questions. The collector of answers becomes a pundit. The one who sows questions attains to wisdom. The one who labors, who waits, one day receives the flowers of knowing.
The one who gathers beliefs, answers, solutions, doctrines—he gets fruit quickly and becomes a pundit. Ask him anything; he will answer. But in his life there is no ray of knowing, no fundamental transformation. Ask him about truth—he will answer; but there is no truth in his life. Ask him about love—he can write a scripture; but in his life there is not even a trace of love.
And it may be that the one who sows these questions within will find it hard to say or write much about love or truth—but the fragrance of truth and love will begin to pervade his life.
There was a Baul fakir in Bengal. A Vaishnava scholar went to meet him. Bauls are forever speaking of love—singing songs of love, praying in love, living and walking in love. The scholar asked the fakir: Is there God? He said: I don’t know—but there is love. And whoever knows love, one day knows God as well.
The scholar asked: What kind of love? Which love? Do you know how many kinds of love there are?
The Baul was astonished. I have known love, but I have not known its kinds. Are there kinds in love?
The scholar laughed. Scholars have always laughed at those who know. He said: You don’t even know that there are kinds of love? There are five kinds. By which kind can God be attained?
The fakir fell silent. The scholar pulled a book from his bag and opened it: In my scripture there is a description of the five kinds of love. He read out the fine distinctions. Then he asked: How does that sound? Is this analysis right or wrong? How does it strike you?
You will be surprised at what the fakir did. He began to dance and sing a song. Its meaning was wondrous. He sang: You ask how it felt when you began to describe kinds of love? It felt as if a goldsmith had brought his testing stone—on which gold is rubbed to check its quality—into a garden of flowers. It felt as if he were rubbing flowers on the stone to see which flower is true and which false. He danced and sang: The goldsmith brought his stone and tested the flowers.
He said: When I knew love, all kinds disappeared. When I knew love, all distinctions fell. When I knew love, neither I remained nor the one I loved. When I knew love, only love remained—no kinds, no differences, no duality; no lover and no beloved—only love. But those who have not known love and have read scriptures, they know the kinds of love.
There are two worlds, two directions in the search for life: the way of scholarship, and the way of wisdom.
Whoever goes the way of scholarship is lost for good. He has nothing but words. Whoever goes the way of wisdom loses words, little by little. He is left with wordless experience.
The one who collects thoughts becomes a pundit. The one who gives birth to thought gives birth to vision—the capacity to think. He asks the question, then challenges his consciousness and waits for the answer to arise from it. In his life, knowing is born. Not by thoughts collected, but by thought born.
We all fall into the error of collecting thoughts and think we have found thought. Thought will not be found that way; nor discrimination, nor wisdom.
For the search of wisdom, for the search of thought, I have given you two principles.
First: let memory fall silent. Avoid memory. Memory is dangerous, a great deceiver. Whoever falls into memory’s snare goes astray.
Second: ask the question; do not hurry to the answer. Sow the question; plant the seed of the question in your life-breath. Let the question revolve there, resound there. Let it grow ever more intense, let it move and stir the mind. Do not hurry to an answer. Accept no borrowed answer. Whatever answer comes, keep refusing. Let a moment arrive when only the question remains and no answer. Let the question enter your life-breath like an arrow. Then wait—with patience, with endurance. One day, from that very question, the answer will arise.
The very soul that has asked the question is capable of giving the answer. But if we accept others’ answers, then that soul has no reason left to respond. The soul that has given rise to the inquiry, that has created the problem, is also capable of providing the solution.
Remember: if there is a problem, there is also a solution. If there is a question, there is also an answer. If there is inquiry, there is also a resolution. From the very center of your being from which the inquiry is arising, allow that very center to give the solution. Do not hurry. Do not bring in borrowed, second-hand solutions. Those borrowed solutions become obstacles to the coming of the real solution.
These two points I have offered for the birth of thought. Avoid unthinking, avoid belief, avoid mere memory, and make a constant effort to awaken thought—then one day, surely, thought is born. Your whole life is transformed. In that moment of realization you will find that all the things current under the name of belief—under the banners of doctrine, of truth, of the scriptures—become clear to you in a very deep sense, become directly evident.
One who moves by way of inquiry one day attains real reverence, real trust—an experience about which no doubt remains, because it has been found by oneself, known by oneself.
We can be beyond doubt only about the truth we ourselves have discovered. A truth found by someone else—whoever that other may be, however great a person, even God himself—cannot be beyond doubt for you or for me. Therefore behind all these so-called beliefs, unbelief is hiding. Behind these beliefs, unbelief remains concealed. Behind these accepted notions, suspicion and doubt are present. That we keep them hidden is another matter; they are there.
You believe God exists, but search a little and within you you will find the thought that is doubting—who knows whether he is or not? You believe there is a soul, but within you the seed will be hiding that says, who knows whether it is or not? However strongly you believe in the soul or in God, the stronger the insistence, the stronger the inner doubt. Otherwise, against what are you mustering such firmness? Against that very doubt. You erect your firmness against the doubt that is within. You believe with great intensity so that the inner doubt does not come to mind. But it is there; it cannot go. It will remain hidden. That is the real thing. This firmness and all this so-called reverence are false. This belief is imposed. The doubt is the truth.
Therefore, as I said yesterday, let that doubt itself come to the surface. Do not impose a false belief. If someday you are truly to attain a state of trust and reverence, then let that real doubt be expressed; let it ask, let the question arise, let the problem come. And when the problem stands before you, do not supply an answer. One day the answer will come. From waiting, one day the solution will arrive. And it will transform your whole life-energy, your whole life.
The solution that changes your whole life—that alone is truth. And such a solution has never come, and can never come, except through inquiry.
These are a few things I have said about thought. Tomorrow I will speak about no-thought. In these three steps—unthinking, thinking, and no-thought—I am discussing with you how the truth of life can be found.
Thank you very much for listening to these words with such love and peace.