Can the mind be profoundly free?

  • Freedom from something, like freedom from anger, freedom from jealousy, freedom from aggression, is an abstraction and therefore not real. A man who says to himself, “I must be free from anger or from jealousy,” is not free. It is not by cultivation of the opposite, but through observing directly by yourself, the fact of anger, what it actually is, and learning the whole structure of anger, the nature of anger, that there is freedom.

    That is, to cultivate bravery when one is not brave is not freedom. But a mind that understands the nature and the structure of what cowardice is and remains with it, does not try to suppress it or go beyond it, but looks at it, learns all about it, perceives the truth of it instantly, is free from cowardice and bravery. That is, direct perception is freedom, not the cultivation of the opposite. The cultivation of the opposite implies time.

    Now, to look at it completely, totally, is never to suppress it, never to give explanations, never to justify, but just to observe. As you listen to a noise that you can’t do anything about, in the same way observe completely the fact that there is greed, and remain with it. Which means that the observer is the observed; the observer is greed and not separate from the thing he calls greed. In the total perception of that there is total freedom. As you are listening, are you learning and doing? They are all the same: listening and doing now, not when you go home. I am listening to you and you say to me, “I am burdened with formulas, concepts; all my life is based on a future ideal,” which is a fact. I learn that, I see that, and I see the implications of that statement, the meaning of it – that it is time-binding, that it brings conflict between what is and what should be. I see that the ideal can never be achieved, and I see the whole structure and the nature of conflict when I have an ideal. Seeing the truth of that, I abandon it completely; I don’t have any concept.

    Without a mind that is free, you cannot live in order. You live in disorder, don’t you? Not only outwardly but inwardly. You try to bring about order, but that which you try to bring about, which you call order, is within the area of disorder. So a mind has to have order, and total order is total freedom. I am going to go into this question of order. Please do listen, give your heart to this, because it’s your life. First see actually, not theoretically, that your life is disorderly, contradictory – putting on masks in front of your guru and in front of your politician, pretending in front of your superior, being hypocritical without any sense of love, consideration, beauty. That’s your life. In the life you live there is great disorder; and the mind, the brain realizes that it must live in order, whether that order is neurotic or not. In neuroticism it tries to find order.

    So, order comes naturally, easily, by itself when you understand disorder. Order, which is living, comes out of the understanding of the disorder of your life – not how to go beyond it, not how to suppress it, but understanding the nature of it, the structure of it, the beauty of disorder. So freedom is order, complete order. And that order has come into being through the understanding of disorder, not through seeking order. If you seek order it becomes a principle, an idea, a formula, but if you actually understand totally the disorder of your everyday life and not run away from it, not try to cover it up, suppress it, but observe it, look at it with your whole heart and mind, then out of that comes an extraordinary sense of order which is living, moving, that has a quality of vitality, vigor.

    So, if you observe your life as it is, see the beauty of it and the destructive nature of confusion and see that a mind which has no formulas, which has no principles, is free to observe and to listen, then there is freedom which is order, a freedom that is complete, living in this world. And it is only such a mind that is free, that knows what love is, what beauty is. It’s only such a mind being free that can perceive what truth is.
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