All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society.
And the point is, is it possible for the mind to be totally free from suffering and yet not become indifferent, callous, irresponsible, but to have that passion, the intensity, the energy that freedom brings, freedom from suffering.
When I said that I am the Buddha, the Christ, the Lord Maitreya, and more, it was not a question of superiority or inferiority. I added that phrase 'and more' very carefully, because I knew that people had a very limited understanding of the Buddha and the Christ, and hence if I said: 'I am the Christ, the Buddha', they would limit that Reality to their own conceptions of the Buddha or the Christ, and Life has no limit.
When your child is very young, you must protect him from doing harm to himself and others, then later by precept, explaining to him what is going to be for his eventual happiness.
Can't you fall in love and not have a possessive relationship? I love someone and she loves me and we get married - that is all perfectly straightforward and simple, in that there is no
conflict at all.
Discipline does not mean suppression and control, nor is it adjustment to a pattern or ideology. It means a mind that sees 'what is' and learns from 'what was'.
How is the mind which functions on knowledge how is the brain which is recording all the time to end, to see the importance of recording and not let it move in any other direction? Very simply: you insult me, you hurt me, by word, gesture, by an actual act; that leaves a mark on the brain which is memory. That memory is knowledge, that knowledge is going to interfere in my meeting you next time obviously.
You must know for yourself, directly, the truth of yourself and you cannot realize it through another, however great. There is no authority that can reveal it.
Meditation is like the breeze that comes in when you leave the window open; but if you deliberately keep it open, deliberately invite it to come, it will never appear.
You would never hear any song played twice in the same way. The words were retained, but within a certain frame there was great latitude, and the musician could improvise to his heart's content; and the more the variations and combinations, the greater the musician.
Only the mind that has emptied itself of the known is creative. That is creation. What it creates has nothing to do with it. Freedom from the known is the state of a mind that is in creation.
It is important to understand, not intellectually but actually in your daily life, how you have built images about your wife, your husband, your neighbor, your child, your country, your leaders, your politicians, your gods-you have nothing but images. The images create the space between you and what you observe and in that space there is conflict, so what we are going to find out now together is whether it is possible to be free of the space we create, not only outside ourselves but in ourselves, the space which divides people in all their relationships.