Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom

Seven Public Talks1. Does self-knowledge come through searching? - 16 July 1949Duration: 59 minutes What is it that most of us are seeking? Does clarity come through searching and trying to find out what others say? Can incessant search and longing give you the extraordinary sense of reality orcreative being that comes when you really understand yourself? Without knowing your background and the substance of your thought, whereit comes from, surely your search is utterly futile and your action has nomeaning. The responsibility for any action depends on ourselves, not on others. Q: Do I have to be at any special level of consciousness to understand you? Q: The movement of life is experienced in relationship to people and to ideas. 2. Relationship has significance only when it is a process of self-revelation- 17 July 1949Duration: 37 minutes Where there is authority there can be no discovery of something new. Relationship based on an idea cannot be a self-revealing process. Self-knowledge is understood, uncovered and its process revealed throughrelationship. Is it possible to love without the interference of the mind? When the mind becomes supreme, all-important, then there can be noaffection. Q: What is that thinking that must come to an end? What do you mean bythinking and thought?3. If we had no belief what would happen to us? - 23 July 1949Duration: 39 minutes Without self-knowledge we cannot go beyond the self-projected illusions of themind. It s only in relationship that one can know oneself as one is. A mind that is filled with beliefs, dogmas, assertions and quotations is an uncreative, repetitive mind. Can we look at ourselves without beliefs? A mind that is quiet because it understands fear and understands itself iscreative. Q: Our mind knows only the known. What is it in us that drives us to find theunknown, reality, or God?4. Simplicity cannot be found unless one is free inwardly - 24 July 1949Duration: 57 minutes Only when the mind and heart are really simple is one able to solve the manyproblems that confront us. A religious man is he who is inwardly simple. Q: I have been a member of various religious organizations but you havedestroyed them all. I am utterly bored and work because hunger forces me toit. I am afraid to commit suicide. What on earth am I to do? Q: What have you to say to a person who, in quiet moments, sees the truth ofwhat you say, who has a longing to keep awake but who finds himselfrepeatedly lost in a sea of impulse and small desires?5. How is one to be aware? - 30 July 1949Duration: 64 minutes Does the understanding of ourselves demand a specialization? What is it that we need capacity for? How is one to be capable of meeting life as a whole? How are we aware of something? To understand relationship there must be an awareness which is notaggressively positive. Q: All religions have insisted on some kind of self-discipline to moderate theinstincts of the brute in man. You seem to imply that such disciplines are ahindrance to the realization of God. Who is right in this matter?6. What is true religion? - 31 July 1949Duration: 47 minutes Is religion a matter of sensation? Religion is not ceremony, dogma nor the continuation of tenets or beliefsinculcated from childhood. Belief in God does not make you a religious person. Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom. Q: Will you please carefully explain what is true meditation?7. To understand what is there must be no prejudice - 6 August 1949Duration: 40 minutes To understand reality, or for that immensity to come into being, one mustunderstand the process of one s own thinking. How is it possible to go into the deeper layers of consciousness? If we do not name then perhaps it s possible to go into the deeper layers ofconsciousness. To see things as they are requires enormous alertness of mind. Q: I understand intellectually that I am the resentment and hatred I feel, but Icannot cope with it. Can you show me a way?