Choices, will and action Bombay 1954

Living has so many accidents and the mind gets so many scars. As we grow older, the accumulation of accidents, experiences, the constant battle with life, leaves many scars on the mind. We only know suffering with very little joy, and problems increase; that seems to be the lot of most of us, whatever our capacities are - intellectual, scientific or otherwise. We seem to burden our minds with all kinds of activity, our hearts wither away with the sense of frustration, fear and the everlasting shadow of loneliness. Very few of us are happy, and we never know the feeling of being creative. Having been grooved, it is very difficult to heal the mind again so that it is once again fresh and unspotted. And in the search of this happiness, this feeling, we pursue so many things, we have so many desires unfulfilled and fulfilled. And our society, our culture, our parents, our neighbours, husbands, wives are all the time impinging on the mind, shaping the mind, conditioning the mind, so that we hardly are individuals, though we have a particular name, a special face. If we are lucky, we have a house and a little bank account, and also a few capacities - that is, what we call individuality. But beyond the name and the few little qualities and the little puddles which we call our minds, we are not individuals at all; we are conditioned entities with very little freedom.

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There is no good choice and bad choice. Only the mind that is free from choice, is capable of perceiving what is true.

It is very important to understand this, because most of us live with choice - choosing a virtue, a person, an action - and choice invariably leads to misery; there is no good choice and bad choice. Only the mind that is free from choice, is capable of perceiving what is true. Truth does not come through choice. Truth does not come with analysis, with the capacity to choose between this and that, right and wrong; on the contrary, all choice is the outcome of our conditioning which is based on fear and acquisitiveness. We, you and I, call ourselves individuals but we are really not individuals at all. It is only when we are free from the background, from our conditioning, that there is real individuality; and that requires a great deal of thought, enquiry.