There is No Thinker Only Thought (eBook)

Bombay, India, 1961

First Talk in Bombay

We see throughout the world a dreadful and frightening chaos. Everywhere people are one against another, not only individually, but racially, communally, as a country, as a group, or as a race. Nationalism is rampant, increasing. The margin of freedom is very small, not only for the individual, but also for the community, for the mind. Religions are dividing people; they are not the unifying factor at all. And there is the increase of tyranny, either of the left or of the right. There are various forms of religions, sects—innumerable, in thousands—all over the world saying that they have the real stuff. Religious tyranny is equally abhorrent to a mind that is really seeking what is truth, as is political tyranny, and both are on the increase. Catholicism with its dogma, with its creeds, with its excommunications, and all the rest of it, is on the move, is spreading; so is communism also on the increase, with its excommunications, liquidations, and denials of human rights, thoughts, and freedom, spreading poverty, squalor, chaos. In fact, the house is burning, and literally burning; and there remains only the final explosion, which is the atomic bomb. All this we know in a minor or major degree.

Every individual not only has the feeling that something must be done to see the problem, not merely intellectually, but also feels the inward necessity of an urgent response to the whole total issue. When one does not feel the total issue, one goes about reforming socially, reviving the old religions, going back to the Upanishads, the Gita, or to some ancient thought, or following some leader who promises more. There is the feeling that as one cannot do it by oneself, one must leave it to somebody else—to the guru, to the political leader. And there is reform in patches—giving land, appeasing, pacifying, coexisting, twisting words to mean different things apart from the direct meaning in the dictionary, to suit one’s own or one’s party’s ideological intentions. Sir, there is corruption, there is misery, there is increasing industrialization all over the world, and industrialization without revolution only leads to mediocrity and greater suffering.

A revolution of a different kind is necessary—that is what I want to discuss; that is what I want to go into. But I think one must see the utter futility of religious organizations completely, the absurdity of those organizations and of merely following a certain idea, a certain plan for the salvation of man. To a mind that is seeking truth, a religious leader has no meaning any more. I do not know how you feel about all this. But watching, going about, wandering about in the land, there is this sense of appalling death of human integrity because we have handed over ourselves politically to a party or parties, or religiously to books, or to the latest saint who wanders about in a loincloth with his particular social, political, or religious panacea, appeasing, pacifying. I do not think I am exaggerating what is actually taking place, not only in this unfortunate country, but also in the rest of the world.

Now, you know this. I have only described what is a fact. A mind that gives an opinion about a fact is a narrow, limited, destructive mind. You understand, sir? Let me explain a little bit further. This is a fact—what is actually taking place in the world. And you and I know it very well. You can translate the fact in one way, and I can translate it in another way. The translation of the fact is a curse which prevents us from seeing the actual fact and doing something about the fact. When you and I discuss our opinions about the fact, nothing is done about the fact; you can add perhaps more to the fact, see more nuances, implications, significance about the fact, and I may see less significance in the fact. But the fact cannot be interpreted; I cannot offer an opinion about the fact. It is so, and it is very difficult for a mind to accept the fact. We are always translating, we are always giving different meanings to it, according to our prejudices, conditionings, hopes, fears, and all the rest of it. If you and I could see the fact without offering an opinion, interpreting, giving a significance, then the fact becomes much more alive—not more alive—the fact is there alone; nothing else matters; then the fact has its own energy which drives you in the right direction. Opinions drive us, conclusions drive us, but they drive us away from the fact. But if we remain with the fact, then the fact has its own energy which drives each one of us in the right direction.

So, we know the fact of what is happening in the world, without interpretations. The interpretation should be left to the politicians who deal with the immediate, with possibilities, and who twist a possibility to suit their ideas, their feelings, their conclusions, their opinions, and all the rest of it. They are the most destructive people on earth, whether they are the highest politicians or the lowest vote-catchers. You can see this happening right through the world—separating the people, dividing the land, and enforcing certain ideas according to their prejudices, their petty, little opinions. So, seeing all this, we also see this perverse desire to be guided by a guru, by a priest, by a man who knows more—which is perverse because there is no such thing as a man who knows more; we, however, think that there are people who know more. It is our life that we have to live, it is our misery, it is our conflict, it is our contradiction, our sorrows that we have to deal with, not somebody else’s; unfortunately, we are incapable of solving them ourselves, and so we turn to others to help us, and we are caught in those things that are of little importance.

So, seeing this whole picture and also the tremendous sorrow and the turmoil that is going on all over the earth, to respond rightly to this whole problem, we need a different mind—not the mind that is religious, not the mind that is political, not the mind that is capable in business, not the mind that is full of knowledge of the past, of books. We need a new mind because the problem is so colossal.

I think one has to see the importance and urgent necessity of having this new mind—not how to get it. We have to see the importance of having such a mind because the problem is really colossal, so intricate, so subtle, so diversified; and to approach, to understand, to go into it, to bring about right action, a totally different mind is needed. I mean by the mind not only the physical quality of the mind—the quality of the mind which is verbally, in thought, very clear; a good mind; a mind that can reason logically, sanely, without any prejudice—but also a mind which has sympathy, pity, affection, compassion, love; a mind that can look, see, perceive directly; a mind that can be still, quiet, peaceful within itself, not induced, not made still. I mean by the mind all that, not just an intellectual thing, a verbal thing. I mean by the mind, the mind in which all the senses are fully awake, sensitive, alive, functioning at their highest pitch; I mean the totality of the mind, and it must be new to meet this urgency.

Man has explored in the past, gone into it, watched it, knows all about the past; the scientist, as you know, has explored all that and is exploring in time, in space, with rockets, with satellites. The electronic machines are taking over the functions of the mind in regard to calculations, translations, composing this and that; they are taking over more and more of the functions of the mind because they can do the things more efficiently than the average brain or the most clever brain can. So again, seeing all this, you need a new mind, a mind that is free of time, a mind which no longer thinks in terms of distance or space, a mind that has no horizon, a mind that has no anchorage or haven. You need such a mind to deal not only with the everlasting but also with the immediate problems of existence.

Therefore the issue is: Is it possible for each one of us to have such a mind? Not gradually, not to cultivate it because cultivation, development, a process, implies time. It must take place immediately; there must be a transformation now, in the sense of a timeless quality. Life is death, and death is awaiting you; you cannot argue with death as you can argue with life. So is it possible to have such a mind?—not as an achievement, not as a goal, not as a thing to be aimed at, not as something to be arrived at, because all that implies time and space. We have a very convenient, luxurious theory that there is time to progress, to arrive, to achieve, to come near truth; that is a fallacious idea, it is an illusion completely—time is an illusion in that sense. Such a mind is the urgent thing, not only now, but always; that is quite necessary. Can such a mind come about, and what are the implications of it? Can we discuss this?

Sirs, the issue is: Can we wipe out the whole thing and start anew? And we must because the world is becoming something new totally. Space is being conquered, machines are taking over, tyranny is spreading. Something new is going on of which we are not aware. You may read the papers, you may read magazines, but you are not aware of the movement, the significance, the flow, the dynamic quality of this change. We think we have time. You know somebody goes and pacifies the people saying that time is there. Somebody else meditates according to a certain system; he says, “Still there is time.” And we say, “Let us go back to the Upanishads, revive the religions; there is time; let us play with it leisurely.” Please believe me,...