Jk relationships

 

relationship with most of us is actually a process of isolation, and obviously such relationship builds a society which is also isolating. That is exactly what is happening throughout the world: You remain in your isolation and stretch your hand over the wall, calling it nationalism, brotherhood or what you will; but actual, sovereign governments, armies, continue. That is, clinging to your own limitations, you think you can create world unity, world peace - which is impossible. As long as you have a frontier, whether national, economic, religious, or social, it is an obvious fact that there cannot be peace in the world.       Now, the process of isolation is a process of the search for power; and whether one is seeking power individually or for a racial or national group, there must be isolation, because the very desire for power, for position, is separatism. After all, that is what each one wants, is it not? He wants a powerful position in which he can dominate, whether at home, in the office, or in a bureaucratic regime. Each one is seeking power, and in seeking power he will establish a society which is based on power, military, industrial, economic, and so on - which again is obvi- ous. Is not the desire for power in its very nature isolating? I think it is very important to understand this; because, the man who wants a peaceful world, a world in which there are no wars, no appalling destruction, no catastrophic misery, on an immeasurable scale, must understand this fundamental question, must he not? As long as the individual seeks power, however much or however little, whether as a prime minister, as a governor, a lawyer, or merely as a husband or a wife 

in the home, that is, as long as you desire the sense of domination, the sense of compulsion, the sense of building power, influence, surely you are bound to create a society which is the result of an isolating process; because, power in its very nature is isolating, is separating. A man who is affectionate, who is kindly, has no sense of power, and therefore such a man is not bound to any nationality, to any flag. He has no flag. But the man who is seeking power in any form, whether derived from bureaucracy or from the selfprojection which he calls God, is still caught in an isolating process. If you examine it very carefully, you will see that the desire for power in its very nature is a process of enclosure. Each one is seeking his own position, his own security, and as long as that motive exists, society must be built on an isolating process. Where there is the search for power, there is a process of isolation, and that which is isolated is bound to create conflict. That is exactly what is happening throughout the world: each group is seeking power and thereby isolating itself, and this is the process of nationalism, of patriotism, ultimately leading to war and destruction.       Now, without relationship, there is no possibility of existence in life; and as long as relationship is based on power, on domination, there must be the process of isolation, which inevitably invites conflict. There is no such thing as living in isolation - no country, no people, no individual, can live in isolation; yet because you are seeking power in so many different ways, you breed isolation. The nationalist is a curse because through his very nationalistic, patriotic spirit, he is creating a wall of isolation. He is so identified with his country that he builds a wall against another. 

 our life, our relationship with another,  is a process of isolation. We are really not concerned with another; though we talk a great deal about it, actually we are 

not concerned. 

We are related to someone only as long as that relationship gratifies us, as long as it gives us a refuge, as long as it satisfies us. But the moment there is a disturbance in the 

relationship which produces discomfort in ourselves, we discard that relationship. In other words, there is relationship only as long as we are gratified. 

This may sound harsh, but if you really examine your life very closely, you will see it is a fact; and to avoid a fact is to live in ignorance, which can never produce right relationship. So, if we look into our lives and observe relationship, we see- it is a process of building resistance against another, a wall over which we look and observe the other;

 but we always retain the wall and remain behind it, whether it be a psychological wall, a material wall, an economic wall, or a national wall. 

As long as we live in isolation, behind a wall, there is no relationship with another; and we live enclosed because it is much more gratifying, we think it is much more secure. 

first  understand urselves. In becoming aware of oneself--of the various inward movements and fluctuations, one will understand the motives, the intentions, the perils that are hidden; and only in that awareness is there transformation

What does solve our problem is to cease to escape and to live with suffering; because, after all, to understand something, one must give full attention to it, and distractions are 

mere escapes. To understand escapes, which is to put an end to them by seeing their falseness, and to perceive the whole significance of suffering, is a process of self-knowledge; and without self-knowledge, without knowing yourself fundamentally, 

not the mere superficial effects of your actions, but the whole total process of yourself, both the thinker and the thought, the actor and the action - without that self-knowledge, there is no basis for thought. 

 self-knowledge is the technique of meditation, and without 

self-knowledge there is no meditation. Self-knowledge is not 

something acquired from a book, or from a guru or teacher. 

Self-knowledge begins in understanding oneself from moment to 

moment, and that understanding requires one's full attention to be 

given to each thought at any particular moment without an end in 

view; because, there cannot be complete attention when there is 

condemnation or justification. When the mind condemns or 

justifies, it does so either to deny or to escape what it perceives. It 

is much easier to condemn a child than to understand a child. 

Similarly, when a thought arises, it is easier to put it away or 

discipline it than to give it your undivided attention and thereby 

discover its full significance. Therefore, the problem is to 

understand oneself, and one can approach it rightly only when 

there is no justification, condemnation or resistance - and then you 

will find that the problem unfolds like a map. 

It is only when the thought process ceases, when the mind is 

literally and utterly still - and stillness can come about only 

through self-knowledge - , that reality is understood; and it is the 

real that resolves our problems, not our cunning distractions and 

formulated escapes. 

MOST OF US realize, when we dare look at it, that we are terribly lonely, isolated human beings. 

Whether we are consciously or unconsciously aware of it, we want to escape from it, because we 

do not know what lies behind and beyond it; being frightened, we run away from it through attachment, through activity and every form of religious or worldly entertainment. This is fairly obvious 

when one observes it in oneself. 

We isolate ourselves by our everyday activities, by our attitude and our way of thinking; 

although we may have an intimate relationship with somebody, we are always thinking about ourselves. The result of this is more isolation, more loneliness, a greater dependence on outward things, 

greater attachments and the resultant suffering which arises from it. 

 

 our whole activity is self-centred. We are thinking about ourselves endlessly: about our health, that we 

must meditate, that we must change; we want a better job with more money, a better relationship. `I want to attain enlightenment; "I must achieve something in this life" - "me" and "my life", my worries, my problems. 

 

 the mind,must cut itself off from every form of relationship if it is constantly 

occupied with itself. 

Relationship is the most important thing in life, because if you don't have a right relationship with the one, you cannot possibly have it with any other human being. You can imagine that you will have a better relationship with another, but it is merely at the verbal level and therefore illusory. If you 

understand that relationship between two human beings is the same as relationship with the rest of the world, then isolation, loneliness, has quite a different meaning.  

 

So what is relationship? whyhuman beings are so desperately lonely?

Not having love, but wanting to be loved they cut themselves off, physically and psychologically 

and thereby become neurotic. Most people are neurotic, slightly unbalanced, caught in some particular idiosyncracy.  all this arises from the utter lack of relationship. So   go into this question of relationship what it means to be related.  

 

 Are we related at all with another? Thought asserts that we are related, but actually we may not be, even though one human being may have an intimate, a sexual relationship with another. Unless 

one deeply understands the truth about relationship, it appears that human beings must inevitably end in sorrow, in confusion and in conflict. They may accept various forms of belief, or do social 

work, but all that has no value, unless they have established between themselves a relationship in which there is no conflict whatever. Is that possible? Can you and I be related? 

Perhaps you could have a very good relationship with me, because soon I am 

going away and then it is finished. Can there be a relationship between two human beings if each one is occupied with himself? - 

if each one is concerned with his own ambitions and worries, his opposition in the world and all the absurdity that human beings go through? When a human being is caught in that net, can he have 

any relationship with another? 

 What then is relationship? It seems to me that it is one of the most important things in life, because living is relationship. If there is no relationship, there is no living at all; then life merely becomes 

a series of conflicts, ending in separation or in divorce, in loneliness, with all the fears, anxieties, problems of attachment, and all the things that are involved in this sense of being 

completely isolated. 

 observe howextraordinarily vital relationship is in life, and how very few human beings have broken down the barrier that exists between themselves and another. To break down this barrier with all 

implications - not just the physical barrier - one has to go deeply into this question of action.  

 

 If I have a relationship with another - and relationship obviously is action - throughout the days, weeks or years of that relationship I have built an image and I act according to that image, and the other 

acts according to the image which he has; so the relationship is not between us but between these two images. 

 

 Our relationship is based on images, and how can there be a relationship with another, 

if it is merely the relationship of these images?  

 NOT a relationship in which there is no conflict whatsoever, in which I am not using or exploiting another, either sexually, for reasons of pleasure, or for the sake of companionship. 

 conflict destroys any form of relationship, so resolve that conflict at the very centre, 

not at the periphery. And  put an end to conflict by understanding action, not only in relationship but in daily life. 

 built a wall round myself; the wall being myself concerned with myself, with my future, my happiness, my health, my God, with my belief, my success, my misery - you follow? Or is it that relationship has nothing whatsoever to do with me or myself? 

Myself is the centre, and all the activities that are concerned with 

my happiness, my satisfaction, my glory must isolate. Where there 

is isolation there must be attachment and dependency; when there 

is uncertainty in that attachment and dependency then there is 

suffering, and suffering implies isolation in any relationship. I see 

all this very clearly, not verbally but actually - it is a fact.  

     For many years I have built images about myself and about 

another; I have isolated myself through my activities, through my 

beliefs and so on. So my first question is - how am I to be free of 

these images? - the images of my God, my conditioning, that I 

must achieve fame or enlightenment (which is the same thing), that 

I must achieve success and so I am afraid of being a failure. I have 

so many images about myself and about you. How am I to be free 

of them? Can I end the building of images through the analytical 

process? Obviously not.  

 

 how am I 

to be rid of every image which I have gathered, so that the mind is 

completely free, fresh and young, so that it can observe anew the 

whole movement of life?  

     First of all, I must find out non-analytically how the images 

come into being. That is, I must learn to observe. Is observation 

based on analysis? I observe, I see - is that the result of analysis, of 

practice, of time? Or is it an act outside of time? Zan has always 

tried to go beyond time by various tricks and they have all failed. 

Suspecting that perhaps he is incapable of getting rid of these 

innumerable images, he has created a super-image, and to that 

image he has become a slave, therefore he is not free. Whether that 

super-image is the soul, the higher self, the State or anything else, 

it is still not freedom: it is another image. Therefore I am vitally 

interested in ending all images, because then only is there a 

possibility of having a relationship with another; my concern is to   So I must find out if I can break the mechanism of the mind 

which builds images and at the same time go into the question of 

what it is to be aware; because that may solve my problem, which 

is the ending of all images. That gives freedom, and when there is 

freedom then only is there a possibility of having a true 

relationship in which every form of conflict has come to an end.  

     What does this awareness mean? It implies an attention in 

which there is no choice whatsoever. I can't choose one image 

instead of the other, then there is no ending of that image. So I 

must find out what it is to be aware, in which there is no choice at 

all, but only pure observation, pure seeing.  

     Now, what is seeing? How do I look at a tree, or a mountain, at 

the hills, the moon, the flowing waters? There is not only visual 

observation, but also the mind has an image about the tree, the 

cloud and the river. That river has a name; it makes a sound which 

is pleasant or unpleasant. I am always observing, am aware of 

things, in terms of like and dislike, in terms of comparison. Is it 

possible to observe, to listen to that river without any choice, any 

resistance and attachment, without any verbalization? 

 Can I listen to that river without any sense of the past? Can I 

observe these various images without any choice? - which means 

without condemning any one of them, or being attached to them, 

but just observe without any preference. You can't do it, can you? 

Why not? Is it because my mind has become used to prejudices and 

preferences? Is it because it is lazy and has not sufficient energy? 

Or is it that my mind does not really want to be free of images and 

wants to hold on to one particular image? So it means that the mind 

refuses to see the fact that all existence is relationship, and when 

there is conflict in that relationship, then life becomes a misery and 

loneliness and confusion follow. Does the mind see the truth non

verbally, that where there is conflict there is no relationship?  

 

 How can one be free of the images that one has? First of all I 

must find out how these images come into being, what is the 

mechanism that creates them. You can see that at the moment of 

actual relationship, that is when you are talking, when there are 

arguments, when there are insults and brutality, if you are not 

completely attentive at that moment, then the mechanism of 

building an image starts. That is, when the mind is not completely 

attentive at the moment of action, then the mechanism of building 

images is set in motion. When you say something to me which I do 

not like - or which I like - if at that moment I am not completely 

attentive, then the mechanism starts. If I am attentive, aware, then 

there is no building of images. When the mind is fully awake at 

that actual moment, not distracted, not frightened, not rejecting 

what is being said, then there is no possibility of building an image. 

 truth,is, 

that you cannot get rid of the images one by one; therefore the 

mind that really sees the truth of this is totally aware when it is 

creating an image. In that attention all the other images go away

 Images, then, are formed when the mind is not attentive; and 

most of our minds are inattentive. Occasionally we give attention, 

but for the rest of the time we are inattentive. When you are aware 

of one image attentively, and you are also attentively aware of the 

whole mechanism of the building of images and how it operates, 

then in that attention the building of all images comes to an end; 

whether they be of the past, the present or of the future. What 

matters is the state of attention, not how many images you have. 

 live a life in which there is 

no conflict whatsoever,  to find out how to end a 

human problem instantly, immediately means that you give 

complete attention to the problem and that you are not seeking an 

answer to it. 

Because if you are trying to find an answer, then you 

are looking beyond the problem, whereas if you remain with the 

problem and are completely attentive, then in the problem itself - 

not beyond it - is the answer.  

 

 We all have suffered psychologically in various 

ways, either with great intensity or to a lesser degree - we have all 

had suffering of one kind or another. When we suffer, instinctively 

we want to run away from it - through religion, through 

entertainment, reading books, through anything to get away from 

the suffering.  

     Now if the mind is attentive and does not move away from 

suffering at all, then you will see that out of total attention comes 

not only energy - which means passion - but also that suffering 

comes to an end. In the same way, all images can end instantly 

when there is no preference for any image; this is very important. 

When you have no preference, you have no prejudice. Then you 

are attentive, then you can look. In that observation there is not 

only the understanding of the building of images, but also the 

ending of all images.