When the mind is like a pendulum swinging between surrealism and reality, then we board the wrong metro, drink decaf to keep the eyelids open in the office and wonder about ‘cogito ergo sum’ or ‘I think, therefore I am’. Now, Rene Descartes was no Salvador Dali, otherwise he would have claimed ‘I am, therefore I think’.
What has to be reversed by reflection is the selfconscious heart, which has to direct itself towards that point where the formative spirit is not yet manifest.
The thought is the manifest, the no-thought is the unmanifest. If your gestalt consists only of thoughts you will not know anything more than the ego. The ego is called “the self-conscious heart.” You remain nothing but a bundle of thoughts. That bundle of thoughts gives you a consciousness of the self, “I am.”
Descartes, the father of modern Western philosophy, says, “I think, therefore I am.” His own meaning is very different because he is not a meditator, but the statement is beautiful; in a totally different context it is beautiful. One can give it a different meaning. Yes, I am – only if I think. If thinking disappears, the I also disappears. “I think, therefore I am” – this I-amness, this self-conscious heart is nothing but a continuum of thoughts. It is not really an entity, it is a false entity, an illusion.
Ego is perhaps the subtlest thing in the world. Like a shadow….we run away from the shadow and the shadow runs with us…..inseperable. But what if we go under the shade of a tree? The shadow disappears…..don’t run and the shadow disappears. This tree is the manifestation of meditation-no mind, no ergo. It is absurd to say that “I think, therefore I am” or “Cogito ergo Sum”……because it implies that if I don’t think then I am not. But that is false…..in my not thinking, in my state of no mind lies my being. It is the state in which no thoughts are floating inside yet we are alert……When thoughts disappear, you are but you don’t feel you are. The I disappears, the amness remains. Those intervals between two thoughts, atomic intervals when we are but cannot say “I am” is the state when being is but ego is not. People renounce all wealth, power privileges to shed ego but then ego appears from the austerity, the so called modesty….from the humbleness.
Our social and religious structure is based on the urge to become something, positively or negatively. Such a process is the very nourishment of the ego through name, family, achievement, through identification of the 'me' and 'mine', which is ever causing conflict and sorrow. We perceive the results of this way of life - strife, confusion, and antagonism - ever spreading, ever engulfing. For what are we striving? What is it that each one is seeking? Until we are aware of our separate pursuits, it is not possible to establish right relationship between us. One might be seeking fulfillment and success, another wealth and power, another fame and popularity; some may wish to accumulate and some to renounce; there might be some who are earnestly seeking to dissolve the ego, while others may wish merely to talk about it. Is it not important for us to find out what it is we are seeking? To extricate ourselves from the confusion and misery in and about us, we must be aware of our instinctive and cultivated desires and tendencies. We think and feel in terms of achievement, of gain and loss, and so there is constant strife; but there is a way of living, a state of being, in which conflict and sorrow have no place. So to make these discussions fruitful it is necessary, is it not, first to understand our own intentions. When we observe what is taking place in our lives and in the world, we perceive that most of us, in subtle or crude ways, are occupied with the expansion of the self. We crave self-expansion now or in the future; for us life is a process of the continuous expansion of the ego through power, wealth, asceticism, or the cultivation of virtue and so on. Not only for the individual but for the group, for the nation, this process signifies fulfilling, becoming, growing, and has ever led to great disasters and miseries. We are ever striving within the framework of the self, however much it may be enlarged and glorified.
Is it possible to be a light to oneself and not depend on a single person? You have to depend on the milkman, on the postman, on the policeman who keeps order at the crossroad. You depend on a surgeon, on a doctor. But inwardly, psychologically, one doesn't have to depend to think clearly for oneself, to observe one's own reactions and responses, if one can be completely a light to oneself. Do you understand what that means - to be a light to oneself? It is not self-confidence, not self-reliance. Self-confidence is part of selfishness. It is part of egotism. But to be a light to oneself requires great freedom, a very clear brain, not a conditioned brain. But to have an active brain, to challenge, to question, to doubt, that means to have energy. But when you depend on others, you lose energy.
Thoughts are the objects and you will have to become aware of them. This is the first awareness: 'awareness one'. Krishnamurti talks about this, he calls it 'choiceless awareness'. Don't choose. Don't judge whatsoever thought is passing by, just watch it, just see that it is moving. If you go on watching, one day, thoughts don't move that fast; their speed has slowed down. Then, some day, gaps start coming: one thought goes and another does not come for a long time. Then, after some time, thoughts simply disappear for hours... and the road is just empty of traffic.
J. Krishnamurti is totally different in his expression, very logical, very rational. The beginning of his work is always with the mind; then slowly slowly he leads you beyond the mind. Intelligence has no choice. That's why Krishnamurti goes on defining intelligence as choiceless awareness. You will have to become more watchful about the thoughts, dreams, memories, flicking by, moving around you. You will have to have more attention focused on the thoughts. His idea is “freedom from thinking not the freedom of thinking”.
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