Is belief necessary at all? Why do we have beliefs? Probably because mostly you believe in something because you don’t actually see what is. If you saw actually what is—what is, in the sense, actually going on, both outwardly in the outward phenomenon and inwardly—then what is the necessity for a belief at all? You don’t believe the sun is rising—it is there and you have seen it. It is.
The whole problem of belief seems to me so utterly erroneous. It has no place in a person who is actually observing the whole structure and the nature of thinking, living, suffering, the agony of existence, the sorrow, and all the rest of it. Belief appears as a means of escape from the reality of what is.
To change the social structure—which obviously needs colossal change—one has to change oneself, because one is part of this society. So the change must begin with the human being, not with this outward structure.
If he wants to change the social structure, the change from confusion only breeds more confusion. Whereas if he could bring about clarity within himself, and from that clarity act, then such an action is really a deep psychological revolution. That revolution is absolutely necessary.
The problem is not how to change the individual, but: can the human being—who is part of this vast structure which he himself has created—can that human being radically psychologically change? Not the society—the society is the relationship between individuals. And can the human mind, which is so conditioned after so many centuries, can it un-condition itself completely? Be free from being a Catholic, a Hindu, a Communist, a Socialist, and see that he is part of this human structure, part of the world, and not the Catholic world or the Communist world?
Man must be aware, and so become very sensitive and very alert, and therefore intelligent. It is that intelligence that is going to change society.
The response to a challenge as violence is the most primitive form of response.
Religion is the—is; not what I think, but religion is this—is the sense of comprehension of the totality of existence in which there is no division between you and me.
A religious mind is a mind that is constantly aware, sensitive, attentive, so that it goes beyond itself into a dimension where there is no time at all.
The power of the outside agency is self-created. “I can’t do, I can’t live properly in this world, and I hope somebody outside is going to help me.” But I have created (as a human being) the social structure, the misery, the confusion, the enormous suffering. We have created this! Unless we change it, outside agency is not going to change it—either the Communist outside agency, the Politburo, or the Hindu center, or the Catholic center. So one has to have the clarity to observe all this.
One must totally die to find what love is.
What is death, what lies beyond death, whether there is reincarnation, whether there is a resurrection—all that becomes rather meaningless if you don’t know how to live. If the human being knows how to live in this world without conflict, then death has quite a different meaning.
