Without some common social relationship and culture and communication, meaning would not develop very much.
We are conditioned by these assumptions, by the dispositions, not knowing that they’re there, and even having a considerable tendency not to want to know. Now that, I suggest, is rather a dangerous thing to be in, right? Especially if the whole human race is in it.
It seems to me that—well, many people have felt this—that the human race is approaching a critical situation. It can’t go on with this old way, which we’ve described. I mean, not fully, but sort of indicated. And many people feel that there really is danger—at the very least of ending this civilization, or producing tremendous destruction on the planet in other ways.
In order to maintain this complex society, we have used a great deal of conditioning—which is enforced; not free to be questioned. And therefore, that is another problem: how are we going to run a highly complex society with real freedom of the mind?
I think we have to have a direct perception of the nature of perception and communication. You see, for example, we are now talking. Is it possible that, in this talk, a direct perception would arise among all of us in a dialogue?
The root of “dialogue” is dia lógos. And if we say lógos means the word—but it’s really “the meaning of the word.” But one image you could make is that there’s a flow of meaning between, through, all of us. And to think of like the stream flowing through the country, between the banks. And so if the meaning were flowing in the group, whereas this would be quite different from a discussion where the meaning is being bounced back and forth like a ball, right?
