Talks in New Delhi - 3rd Public Talk - 6th November, 1982 - 'Factors of Disorder'

If one may point out, we are probing together, questioning, doubting, asking, and this is not a lecture. We are together enquiring, taking a walk together into the whole field of existence, not dealing with a particular problem, but the problem of man, the problem of human beings. One of the factors in our existence is that we live in disorder. Apparently, after thirty, forty thousand years or more, we have not been able to live in total order in the universe; not relative order, but to have order within, under all circumstances, wherever we live - socially, politically, and so on. What is important is that we, you and I the speaker, should unfold the causes of disorder, not merely listen to the explanation or the description which the speaker might offer, but together think, observe, go into ourselves, not in any way selfishly or self-centredly, but look at our lives, look at what we have made of the world; why man, the human being, lives in perpetual disorder outwardly and inwardly. To enquire if it is possible to live in order inwardly first, then outwardly, not the other way round. But first, inwardly, deep within ourselves one can live in complete order. Also, we should be able to discuss, talk over together this evening, the problem of suffering and this enormous mystery of death.

Beauty is complete order. But most of us have not that sense of beauty in our lives. We may be great artists, great painters, expert in various things, but in our own daily life, with all the anxieties and miseries, we live, unfortunately, a very disordered life. It is a fact. You may be a great scientist, you may be a very great expert in a subject, but you have your own problems, struggles, pain, anxieties and the rest of it. We are asking together, is it possible to live in complete order within, not impose discipline, control, but to enquire into the nature of this disorder, what are the causes, and to dispel, move away, wash away the cause? Then there is a living order in the universe.

Order is not following a particular pattern of life, or following certain systems blindly or openly, but to enquire into ourselves and discover for ourselves; not to be told, not to be guided, but to unfold in ourselves the real causes of this disorder. So, what are the causes of this chaos, not only in the world outside of us, but also of our own inward psychological confusion which has produced disorder outwardly?

Would you consider desire as one of the factors of disorder? What is desire? For most of us desire is a potent factor: desire drives us, desire brings about a sense of happiness or disaster. Desire changes with the objects of desire. Is desire one of the causes? Why is it that all religions, all so-called religious people, have suppressed desire? All over the world the monks, the sannyasis, have denied desire, though they are boiling inside. The fire of desire is burning, but they deny it by suppressing it or identifying that desire with a symbol, with a figure and surrendering that desire to the figure, to that person. But it is still desire. Most of us, when we become aware of our desires, either suppress or indulge it or come into conflict; the battle goes on. We are not advocating either to suppress it or to surrender to it or to control it. That has been done all over the world by every religious person. We are examining it very closely so that out of your own understanding of that desire, how it arises, its nature, out of that understanding, self-awareness of it, one becomes intelligent. Then that intelligence acts, not desire.

First of all, are we aware, each one of us, of the extraordinary power of desire - desire for power, desire for certain things, desire for god, desire for enlightenment, desire to follow some system? Desire has so many aspects. It is as intricate as the weaving of a great master weaver. One has to look at it very, very simply and then the complexity arises. But if you start with complexity, then you are not going further. If you start simply, then you can go very far. We are looking at it - the root and the beginning of desire.

Have you ever noticed how our senses operate? Does one become aware of one's senses, not a particular sense, but the totality of the senses? - the feeling, the tasting, the hearing, the seeing - to have all these senses in operation fully? When all your senses are active, functioning, have you ever looked at a tree that way? Have you ever looked at the sea, the mountain, the hills and the valley with all your senses? If you do, then there is no centre from which you are looking. The whole of your sensory reactions are complete, not controlled, shaped, suppressed. Unless you understand this very clearly, it is a dangerous thing to say this because, for most of us, our senses are partial - we may have very good taste for clothes and a rotten taste for furniture! You know all that. Our senses are limited as we now live. Nobody, no religion, no other philosophers, have said this. All the senses have to flower and, in that flowering, perceive the beauty of the world.

So, what are the causes of desire? Let us go into it very carefully. What is desire; How does it arise? It doesn't arise by itself. It arises through sensation, through contact, through seeing something - seeing a man or a woman, seeing a dress in a window, seeing a dress or a car or the great hills. There is immediate sensation. It is natural, healthy, to have such sensation, such response. Then what takes place? I see a beautiful woman, a beautiful man, a beautiful house, a beautiful dress. I see a beautiful shirt made most delicately. I go inside and touch the material. First seeing, then contact, and from that contact, sensation, right? Then what happens? Enquire into it: You have touched the shirt, you have the sensation of its quality, its colour. Up to now there has been no desire; there has been only sensation. Then what happens? You have touched that shirt or dress. Then thought creates the image of you in that shirt, in that car, in that dress. When thought creates that image, that is the moment desire is born. That is, desire begins when thought creates the image. I see a beautiful violin - I want to have it; the beauty of that sound that violin makes - I like to possess it. I look at it, touch it, get the sense of that old structure, and I would like to have it; that is, the moment thought enters into the field of sensation and creates the image, then desire begins.

Now, the question is, whether there can be a hiatus, a gap; that is, have only sensation, and not let thought come and control sensation. That is the problem. Why does thought create the image and hold on to that sensation? Is it possible to look at the shirt, touch it - sensation - and stop, not allow thought to enter into it? Have you ever tried any of these? When thought enters into the field of sensation - and thought is also a sensation - then thought takes control of sensation, and desire begins. Is it possible to only observe, contact, sensation, and nothing else? Do you understand that? And discipline has no place in this because the moment you begin to discipline, that is another form of desire to achieve something. So one has to discover the beginning of desire and see what happens. Don't buy the shirt immediately, but see what happens. You can look at it; but we are so eager to get something, to possess a shirt, a man, a woman or some status that we have never the time, the quietness, to look at all this. So, desire is one of the factors of our disorder. We have been trained either to suppress or to change the object. But we have never looked at the moment of the flowering of desire. That is one of the causes of disorder in our life. Please bear in mind, we are not trying to control desire - that has been tried by all the so-called saints - nor are we talking of indulging desire, but we are looking at it like a flower, how it grows.

Then, is fear one of the causes of disorder? Obviously, it is - fear of failure, fear of not being able to fulfil, fear of losing, fear of not gaining. We have every kind of fear. You have fear of the guru - have you ever noticed how you crawl in front of a guru? You kind of become inhuman, you are afraid. You want something from him and so you worship him. In that worship there is fear. So, there are multiple forms of fear. We are not talking of one particular form. We are asking what is the root of fear. If we can discover the root of fear, then the whole tree is there. Do you understand that? But if I am concerned with my particular little fear of darkness, or of my husband, wife, or something or the other, my brain is not involved in the discovery of the whole root. This is clear. So, what is the root of fear? How does it arise? This is a very complex problem. Every complex problem must be approached very simply, the simpler the better. Simpler means to say, 'I don't know how to deal with fear.' Then you begin to discover. If you have already come to a conclusion as to what the root of fear is, then you never discover what the root is. But you have to approach fear very simply, the trunk and the root of fear, not the branches. We are asking what is the cause or the causation of fear.

Would you say time is a factor of fear? Time - that is, I am living, I might die tomorrow, which is time, right? To go from here to your house, that requires time. There are only two kinds of time: time by the sunrise or sunset, time by the watch, time by the distance you have to cover, time that is physical. There is the other time which is psychological, inward: I am this, but I will be that; I am violent, but I am practising non-violence; I am brutal, but give me time, I will get over it; I hope I will meet my friend tomorrow. Hope implies time. Do you understand this? There is time by the watch, time as psychological becoming, climbing the ladder of becoming, that is, creating an ideal and then trying to reach that ideal: I am this but tomorrow I will be different; I have not reached the position of power, but give me time, I will get it - all that implies psychological time. Is that clear? So, one of the factors of fear is time.

We must ask what is time, not by the watch, but time that we have: 'I hope I will', which is measurement. Hope implies measurement. Time is movement, isn't it? When we begin to understand that there can be an end to fear completely, inwardly; then there is a possibility of being totally free from fear. To find that out, one must begin to enquire. Desire is one of the factors of disorder. Fear is one of the factors. Fear is time. Time is a movement from one point to another point, both physically and psychologically - I need time to learn a language. It may take a month, two months, or three months. To go from here to London takes time. To drive a car I need time. We need time there. But when we use that time to become something inwardly, we have moved over from the physical fact of learning a language to the psychological field, and I say to myself: I also need time to evolve, to become less violent. Do you understand this? I need time to learn a language and also I think I need time to get over violence, to bring about peace in the world. That is a movement in measurement. That is a movement which is thought. Thought is a movement and thought has created time. That is, I want to change 'what is', and to change that I need time.

So, desire, time, thought, are the factors which bring about fear. I have done something wrong two years ago, and that has caused pain, and I will not do the same thing again. Now, what is thought? The whole world is moving in the realm of thought. The technological world with all its extraordinary complexity is brought about by thought. Man has built the most extraordinary, complicated machines like the computer, the jet, and so on. It is also put together by thought. All the great cathedrals are put together by thought; all the temples and all the things that are in the temples and cathedrals are put together by thought. The rituals are invented by thought. The guru is invented by thought. When you say 'I am a Sikh', it is thought conditioning itself as a Sikh and operating. So thought has become the most important factor in our life. In our relationship, thought dominates. Thought has created the problems of war, and thought then says, 'I must have peace also', which is a contradiction. Do you understand? Why has thought become so extraordinarily important in the world?

What is thought, what is the origin and the beginning of thought, and why does man depend on thought? All the great intellectuals, the great scientists, great philosophers, all the books that have been written, are all the result of thought, are based on thought. What is thought, by which we live? Is there a thought without knowledge? What is knowledge? There are several kinds of knowledge, but we will take two: knowledge you acquire by going to a school, college, a university, or by becoming an apprentice and gradually accumulating skill. If you want to be a carpenter, you must learn the grains of wood, what kind of wood to use, what instruments to use, and so on. If you want to be a scientist, you must have tremendous knowledge. Knowledge is born of experience. One scientist discovers something; another scientist adds to it or detracts from it. So, there is a gradual accumulation of knowledge. Now, is knowledge complete, or is knowledge always limited? Can the human thought which is born of knowledge, can that knowledge, be totally complete about anything? Knowledge is always limited. The Gita, the Upanishads, the Bible, they are all knowledge. And knowledge, whether it is given by a saint, by a politician, by a philosopher, is limited. So don't worship knowledge. If it is limited, as it is, then knowledge always lives with ignorance. So, thought is born out of knowledge. Do you understand this - the complexity of thought, the delicacy of thought, the extraordinary capacity of thought? In one direction, in the technological direction, it has invented the marvellous machinery, the dynamo, the piston engine, the jet, and so on, and on the other hand, thought has created wars. It has created instruments of war. We want to kill each other. If thought is the only instrument we have and that instrument is becoming blunt and creating problems, we are asking if there is another kind of instrument which is not thought.

We see disorder in our lives, at whatever level we may live. You may have the greatest power on earth, be a politician or a guru, but you live in disorder inwardly. Therefore, whatever you touch, to it you bring disorder. You see this all over the country. There are many factors of disorder, and desire is one factor. We went into it - desire, time and thought. If you exercise thought to create order, you are still creating disorder. Do you understand? Our whole life is based on discipline. We have disciplined ourselves to do this and not to do that. The word 'discipline' is, the root of it is, 'to learn; not from somebody, but to learn from oneself, one's own reactions, one's own observation, and one's own activities and behaviour. But discipline never brings about intelligence. What brings about intelligence is observation, and being free from fear, and understanding the nature of desire. For example, if you understand desire, see the nature, structure, its vitality, and find out for yourself the sensation and when thought enters it, when you become aware of that, you are beginning to have intelligence, which is not your intelligence or my intelligence but intelligence. So, is it possible to be free of fear which is such a tremendous burden? You have listened. Are you free from it? If you are honest, you are not. Why? Because, you have not really investigated, gone into it step by step and said, 'Let me find out' with your passion, with your guts, putting your vitality into it. You have not done that. You have just listened casually, you are afraid to look at it. And so you live with it, as with some horrible disease, you live with fear, and that is causing disorder. If you see that, you are already operating from intelligence. If you understand the nature of thought, the intricacies, the subtleties, the beauty of it, from that understanding the unfolding of a flower happens. It is unfolding - the beauty of the flower.

Do you see the beauty of the flower, of the mountain, of a full moon on a leaf, the lights of silver on a piece of rock? Sir, what is beauty, not in a painting, but beauty in our life? What is the nature of sorrow, the ending of that burden, puffing away of sorrow? If you suffer pain, anxiety, ambition, and so on, you don't know what love is. You want to be ambitious, you want to have power, position, better house, better cars. Have you ever understood that a man who is ambitious has no love in his heart? And we are all very ambitious to achieve nirvana or to become a bank manager. To reach nirvana or moksha is the same thing as becoming manager of a bank because both are ambitions. To live a life of intelligence means no ambition but to be tremendously active. Sir, we have to talk over together the ending of sorrow, and what are the implications of death, and what is religion. Without religion you cannot create a new structure, a new society. What we have as religion is utter nonsense, meaningless. We have to enquire into the depth of that word. Because, only a new culture, a new civilization, can be born out of true religion, not all that paraphernalia that goes on in the name of religion. Religion is something entirely different. To have a religious life means to have compassion, love; it means the ending of sorrow, to find right relationship with each other. What most people want is not to be disturbed. They want to continue with their own particular pattern of life. So, please consider, give your energy, your capacity, to find out whether there is a different way of living on this earth.

You don't love anybody. If you love somebody, then this country would not be in chaos as it is; and there won't be wars if we love people. Your books, your rituals, your japas have no meaning whatsoever because you have lost the most precious thing in life. You probably never had it: to love without jealousy, without possession. Love is not attachment. If all of us under this tent, if we all love, then there will be a different India tomorrow. You are all so verbal, you just use words, but find out why your life is empty, shallow, why you have no love, why there is no compassion, why you are a Hindu, a Sikh, and a Muslim. You have never asked these questions, sirs. Meditation is to ask these questions. Meditation is to find out the reality of these questions and the truth that lies behind these questions.