From the very beginning, we ought to establish our relationship. This is not a lecture as it is commonly understood. A lecture is a discourse on a particular subject by way of instruction. This is a conversation between you and the speaker. The speaker is not telling you what to do, what to think, how you should behave, and so on. But he’s having a conversation between you, as a person sitting there, and the speaker here. He’s sitting on a platform for the convenience of others, but he has no authority. This is a conversation between two people concerned with what is happening in the world, what is happening to man—not a particular man; man in the world. What is man doing to man, what he has done to other men? And we are going to talk over together amicably, dispassionately, objectively. So please, together we are going to think of what is exactly happening in the world—not in any particular part of the world, but what is happening to man on the Earth.

To have a conversation with another—a friendly, serious communication with each other—we must learn how to listen. We hardly ever listen to another. We carry on with our own thoughts, with our own problems, with our own particular ideas and conclusions, and so it is very difficult to listen to another. And we are suggesting that you listen. There is an art of listening. We are going to talk over together a great many things—the state of war, divided nations, divided groups, human relationship. We are going to talk over together the problems of fear, pleasure, and all the complexity of human thought. We are going to talk over together whether sorrow can ever end, and the implications and the complexities of death. And we are also going to talk over together what is religion, what is meditation, and if there is anything sacred, eternal. We are going to talk over together all these things.

And one must have the art of listening to all this; not what you think—with all your traditions, with all your knowledge—but to listen to another who is telling you something. Then communication becomes simple, easy. But if you are not thinking together (which is quite an arduous task), then you and the speaker will be thinking in two different directions. So there is an art of listening: not translating what the speaker is saying, but listening to the word, the content of the word, the significance and the depth of the word. But the speaker is going to go into many of these problems, step by step, slowly, clearly, objectively. And one must listen to the word, as both of us perhaps understand English. We are using ordinary, daily language. There is no jargon, there is no specialized subject about which we are talking. We are talking of human beings and their problems. Not a particular human being, but humanity as a whole. Is this alright, sir, now? Is this alright to you all here? Yes?

As I said, the world has great depth; the meaning of it. And as we are speaking in English, using the daily language without any mysterious words being used, it is important that you and the speaker establish a right relationship. He is not a guru. He is not going to inform you what to think, how to think. But together we are going to observe the activities of human beings right throughout the world—why they have become what they are after 40,000 years of evolution; why man is killing each other, destroying each other, exploiting each other; why man has divided the world into rationalities, as the Jew, the Arab, Hindu, Muslim, and so on. We’re going to look at all this, because it’s important to look, to observe—not from a particular point of view, as a Bengali, as an Indian, or as a European, or rational Chinese, or American. We are going to look together why man has become what he is—cruel, destructive, violent, idealistic, and, in the world of technology, doing astonishing things of which most of us are unaware. Why—after thousands of years of wars, shedding tears—why a human being, through a long period of time, is actually behaving in this manner. So please, we are thinking together. Not agreeing together, nor resisting what is being said, nor accepting, but observing, looking—as you would look at a map, exactly what is going on.

Man has divided the world into nationalities. Man has divided the world into the Catholic, the Protestant, the Hindu, the Muslim, and so on—religiously. Where there is division—as the Arab and the Jew, the Hindu and the Muslim, and so on—where there is division, there must be conflict. This is a natural law, which is what is actually taking place in the world. Why is there this division? Who has brought this about? Please, I hope you are thinking together. You and the speaker. You’re not just listening to him, merely accepting or rejecting what he’s saying. This is your problem. Your problem of humanity. And as we are human beings—at least we hope so—as we are human beings, we must consider all these questions. Doubt, investigate—never accept it! Not the authorities, or the gurus, or the sacred books, including the speaker. Never accepting. Questioning, doubting, asking. If you merely accept or reject, you remain where you are without bringing about a radical mutation in this whole psyche, in the whole content of consciousness. So please, if one may ask most respectfully, please let us think together.

You are walking down a lane—not in the lanes of Calcutta, but in a nice, quiet, wooded place with clean air, and we’re talking over together as two friends the problems which, as a human being he faces, and the problems of humanity. So we are talking together. We are listening to each other. It’s a dialogue between you and the speaker. Dialogue means conversation between two people. As there is such a large audience, that is not possible. But one can talk to each other—there are a thousand or two thousand people here.

So why has man—includes the woman, actually—why has man become what he is? In spite of great experience, in spite of great knowledge, in spite of vast technological advancement, why have we remained more or less what we have been for 40,000 years? Why? Is it because our minds, our brain, is programmed like a computer? The computer is programmed by the professionals, and it can repeat perhaps much quicker than man, more accurately, giving infinite information. Is it that every human being in this world has been programmed to be a Bengali, to be a Muslim, to be a Hindu, and so on, so on, so on? So is your brain programmed? That is, to think in a conventional, narrow, limited way?

Our brain within the skull is limited. But it has the capacity of extraordinary invention, extraordinary technological advancement. Perhaps most of us do not know what is actually going on in the biological world, in the technological world, in the world of warfare. Because most of us are concerned with our daily living, with our own particular problems, with our own fulfillments. And so we generally forget the vast advancement humanity is making in one direction—in the technological world—and totally, completely neglecting in the psychological world, in the world of human behavior, in the world of consciousness.

So we are together going to discover the causes of all this. That is: why human beings, being programmed as a Christian for 2,000 years, believing in certain doctrines, certain beliefs, saying there is only one savior, and the Muslim also has been programmed for the last thousand or more years to believe in certain principles, call himself Muslim, and the Hindus have been programmed perhaps for the last three to five thousand years. So our brains are conditioned. I wonder if one ever realizes how our brain is acting, thinking, looking?

So where there is limitation, there must be conflict. We are going to go into all this. That is: our brains are conditioned to be this or that; to behave in a certain manner, to enjoy, to suffer, to have a great burden of fear, uncertainty, confusion, and the ultimate fear of death. So we are conditioned to that. And there is a whole group of people—scholars, professors, writers, including the communists with their guru Marx, who say that the human brain will always be conditioned. It can never be free. You can modify that conditioning by environmental influence, by law, and so on. It can always be modified, changed here and there. But actually the human brain can never be free. Please understand the implication of that.

Therefore, the totalitarian governments are controlling human thought. They’re not allowing them to think freely. And if they do, they are sent to the psychiatric ward, and so on—to concentration camps. But we are asking—please do pay little attention to this. It is most important for you to find out for yourself, which is whether the human brain—which has been conditioned through experience, through knowledge—whether that brain can ever be free to have no fear, no conditioning. Where there is conditioning, there must be conflict. Because all conditioning is limited. Right? Is this clear? Are we meeting each other? Just a minute, sir, please. You will ask questions, perhaps, at the end of the talk if there is time. But the speaker is asking if you are following him at all, or at the end of a long day you’re tired and may not be listening at all. So he may be talking to himself. So please, be good enough, since you are here, to pay attention to what is beings said. Because it’s your life, not the speaker’s life. It’s your daily conflicting, confused existence, with all the sorrow, with all the pain and grief.

So please, in talking over together, you are aware of your own thinking, your own reactions, your own responses, how they are limited, how they are conditioned, how you depend on past knowledge. And so a life can become very narrow, rather sloppy, confused, and there is the fear of insecurity. If one is aware of all one’s own inward activities—you have your thoughts, your feelings, your reactions—then you will find out for yourself how conditioned you are, how limited you are. And when you recognize that fact, then you realize the consequences of that conditioning, that limitation. Wherever there is limitation as Hindu or Muslim, there must be conflict. Wherever there is a division between husband and wife, there must be conflict. And human beings throughout the world, after all this evolution, are still in conflict with each other. Not only the conflict of war, the preparation for war, the war machines that may kill millions of people with one blow.

So please, most respectfully, consider all this. Because we are concerned with your life as a human being. And that life, our daily living, has become extraordinarily complex, extraordinarily dangerous, difficult, uncertain. The future of man is really at stake. This is not a threat. This is not a pessimistic point of view. The crisis is not only physical, but the crisis is in consciousness, in our being. So please, in talking over together, become aware of all this.

So in becoming aware, you begin to discover. You begin to find out for yourself how your life has become such pain, such anxiety, such uncertainty. If you are so aware, we can then proceed further, deeply, more and more. But if you merely listen to the words—and words have very little meaning, words have certain significance—but if one lives in words (as most people do; in symbols, in myths, in romantic nonsense), then we make life more and more difficult, more and more dangerous, for each other. So please be good enough to listen, to find out, to question, to doubt—so that your own brain becomes aware of itself.

So we are asking why human beings—who have developed the most marvelous technology the world has ever known: easy communication, electricity, sanitary, and so on; we don’t have to go into all that—but psychologically, inwardly, we remain as we have been more or less for the last 40,000 years. Inwardly. I wonder if one realizes that. We have systems, we have ideals, we have all the so-called sacred books (which are not sacred at all, they’re just words). Why human beings—which is you—have not radically brought about a change, a psychological revolution? And we are going to inquire into that. And whether it is possible to bring about total mutation in the brain cells themselves. I hope this is clear: that we are talking about human condition, and whether that condition can be radically changed; bring about a mutation in it. Not transformation. Transformation means transforming from one form to another form. But we are talking about the radical change of human behavior, so that he is not terribly self-centered as he is, which is causing such great destruction in the world.

If one is aware (and one hopes that you are), aware of your condition, then we can begin to ask whether that conditioning can be totally changed so that man is completely free. Now he thinks he is free to do what he likes. Each individual thinks he can do what he likes, all over the world. And his freedom is based on choice, because he can choose where to live, what kind of work he can do, choose between this idea and that idea, this ideal or that ideal, change from one god to another god, from one guru to another, from one philosopher to another. This capacity to choose brings in the concept of freedom. But in the totalitarian state there is no freedom. You can’t do what you want to do. It is totally controlled. So choice is not freedom. Choice is merely moving in the same field from one corner to another. Is this clear? I hope you’re following all that’s being said.

So, our brain being limited, we are asking: is it possible for the brain to free itself so that there is no fear? Completely no fear. We have right relationship with each other. Man, woman. Right relationship with all the neighbors in the world. So we are going to ask the nature of our consciousness. Our consciousness is what you are—your belief, your ideals, your gods, your violence, fear, romantic concepts, your pleasure, your sorrow, and the fear of death, and the everlasting question of man, which has been from time immemorial, whether there is something sacred beyond all this. That is your consciousness. That is what you are, You are not different from your consciousness. So we are asking whether the content of that consciousness can be transformed, can be totally changed?

First, your consciousness is not yours. Your consciousness is the consciousness of all humanity. Because what you think—your beliefs, your sensations, your reactions, your pain, your sorrow, your insecurity, your gods, and so on—is shared by all humanity. Go to America, go to England, Europe, or Russia, China: human beings suffer. They are frightened of death. They have beliefs, they have ideals. They speak a particular language. But their thinking, their feeling, their reactions, their responses, generally is shared by all human beings. This is a fact—not merely the invention or speculation of the speaker. This is a fact. But you suffer, your neighbor suffers. That neighbor may be thousands of miles away; he suffers. He is insecure, as you are. He may have a lot of money, but inwardly there is insecurity. So is a rich man in America, or the man in power: all go through this pain, anxiety, loneliness, despair.

So your consciousness is not yours any more than your thinking. It is not individual thinking. Thinking is common, is general—from the poorest man, the most uneducated, unsophisticated man in a little, tiny village to the most sophisticated brain, the great scientists. They all think. They may think differently. Their thinking may be more complex. But thinking is general, shared by all human beings. Therefore, it is not your individual thinking. This is rather difficult to see and recognize the truth of it, because we are so conditioned as individuals. All your religious books, whether Christian or Muslim or another religious books, they all sustain and nourish this idea, concept, of an individual. You have to question that! You have to find out the truth of the matter!

We are investigating together. And we see that every human being in the world, however miserable, however low the structure of society, and the great philosophers of the world, great scientists, all think. And again, human consciousness is similar; is shared by all human beings. Therefore, there is no individual; outside, peripheral. He may be more educated, he may be taller, he may be shorter; outside the skin, as it were, he may be different, but inwardly he shares the common ground of all humanity. This is a fact if you examine it very closely. But if you are frightened, if you are caught in the conditioning of being an individual, you will never understand the immensity and the extraordinary fact that you are the entire humanity. From that there is love, compassion, intelligence. But if you are merely conditioned to the idea that you are an individual, then you have endless complications. Because it is based on illusion, not on fact. The illusion may be of thousands of years, but it is still an illusion. You are the result of your environment, you are the result of the language you speak, you are the result of the food you eat, the clothes, the climate, the tradition handed down from generation to generation—you are all that. You are the product of the society—which you have created. Society is not different from you. Man has created the society—the society of greed, envy, hatred, brutality, violence, wars. He has created all that. And also he’s created the extraordinary world of technology.

So you are the world and the world is you. Your consciousness is not yours. It is the ground which all human beings share, all human beings think. So you are actually not an individual. That is one of the realities; truth that one must understand. Do not accept what the speaker is saying, but question your own isolation. Because “individual” means isolation: to separate himself from another, like nations isolate themselves—as Indians and all the rest of it. And they think in isolation there is security. There is no security in isolation! But the governments of the world, representing humanity of each country, they are maintaining this isolation, and therefore they are perpetuating war. So if you recognize the truth, the fact, that you are not an individual—you may be short, you may be tall—but inwardly there is no division. We all share the same problems. When you recognize that truth—and I hope you do—then the problem is: can you, as a human being representing all humanity, bring about a fundamental psychological revolution?

You might say: If I, as a human being, change, will it affect in any way the rest of mankind? That’s the usual question. I may change, I may radically bring about a mutation in the mind—which we’ll go into presently. If I do change, if there is a change in a particular person, how will it affect the whole consciousness of mankind? Please do put that question to yourself. Even as a single isolated human being—which you are not, even if you think so—you are asking, “If I change, what effect has it in the world?” You know that—in making experiments in the scientific world, of which perhaps some of you may have heard; we are talking with one of those people who are experimenting—that a certain rat in a particular place (say, for instance, a group of rats in London), they’re experimenting with that group of rats. If the one generation of rats learns a particular lesson very slowly, it takes many generations to learn it completely. But their next generation knows much quicker. It is not genetic transformation. It is not genetic action. But a generation of five or ten rats, the last generation, the latest generation, learns the lesson far quicker—in a couple days. Now they are bringing the same experiment in Australia, same experiment in America and other places. Those rats which have learned much quicker than London affect the whole group of rats’ consciousness. You understand this? Am I making it clear? No? How easily you say no!

One group of rats, one generation, learns a lesson very slowly. Their next generation learns a little faster, and so on. The last generation—say 25 generations—the last generation learns the lesson in a couple of hours. Now, what they have learned in a couple of hours is transmitted to all the rats in the world. They’re experimenting with that. And it is not a genetic transformation, but a group consciousness is being affected. You understand this? That’s simple enough. I’m not going to explain further. If you don’t understand, you better study.

So the question is: if you change fundamentally, you affect the whole consciousness of man. Napoleon affected the whole consciousness of Europe. Stalin affected the whole consciousness of Russia and human beings all over the world. The Christian savior, he has affected the consciousness of the world. And the Hindus with their peculiar gods have affected the consciousness of the world. So when you, as a human being, radically transform psychologically—that is, be free of fear, have right relationship with each other, the ending of sorrow, and so on, which is a radical transformation (which we shall go into presently)—then you affect the whole consciousness of man. So it is not an individual affair. It is not a selfish affair. It is not individual salvation. It is the salvation of all human beings, of which you are.

So first, then, we must inquire: what is relationship. Why, in human relationship with each other, there is such conflict, such misery, such intense sense of loneliness? We are going to inquire together into that. Inquire means to investigate, to question, to doubt—about our relationship. Between man and woman, between your nearest neighbor and the farthest neighbor. Why is there such conflict?

From past history, from all the knowledge that has been acquired, studied—this air is very polluted, sorry—man has lived in conflict with each other. But relationship is existence. Without relationship you cannot exist. In that existence there is conflict. But relationship is absolutely necessary. Life is relationship, action is relationship. What you think brings about relationship or destroys relationship. The hermit, the monk, the sannyasi—he may think he is separate, but he is related: related to the past, related to the environment, related to the man who brings him some grains, some food, some clothes. So life is a relationship. Without life, without that interaction in relationship, there is no existence. So we are going to together explore why human beings live in conflict with each other: why there is conflict between you and your husband, between the wife and the man. Why? Please ask this question of yourself. The speaker may put the question, you are putting the question. Find out. Let’s inquire together.

Because where there is conflict in relationship, there is no love. But one wonders whether in this country, as in another country, there is love at all. So we are exploring together: what is relationship? Are you actually related in this sense—of course, blood relationship and so on. You may be related to a man, woman sexually. But apart from that, are you related to anybody? Relation means non-isolation. That is, the man goes to the office every day of his life, to a factory, to some form of occupation, leaving the house at nine o’clock or six o’clock, spending the whole day working, working, working for fifty, sixty years, and then dies. And the other man is ambitious, greedy, envious, struggling, competing. Comes home. And the woman, the wife, is also competitive, jealous, anxious, ambitious, going on in her own way. They may meet sexually, talk together, care somewhat, have children. But they remain separate, like two railway lines never meeting. And this is what we call relationship, which is an actuality. It’s not the speaker’s invention. It’s not his opinion or conclusion. But this is a fact of everyone’s life, the perpetual dissension between two people, each holding on to his opinions, to his conclusions. The word conclusion means putting an end after an argument. I conclude that there is God. Therefore, I put myself in a position where I’ve ended the argument. I conclude. So please do not conclude. That’s bringing something to an end; argument. We are not concluding. We are observing the fact. The fact is: however intimate that relationship may be, there is always conflict—one dominating the other, one possessing the other, one jealous of the other. And so this is what we call relationship.

Now, can that relationship—which we know now—can that relationship be totally changed? Ask yourself this. Why is there conflict between two human beings, whether they are highly educated or not at all educated? They may be great scientists, but they are ordinary human beings, like you and another—fighting, quarreling, ambitious. Why does this state exist? Is it not because each person is concerned about himself? So he is isolating himself. In isolation you cannot have right relationship. You understand? This is so terribly obvious! You’ll hear this, but you’ll not do anything about it. Because we said we fall into habit, we fall into a rut, into a groove, into a narrow little life, and we put up with it—however miserable, unhappy, quarrelsome, ugly it is. So please: inquire, question, doubt, whether it is possible to live with another with complete harmony. Without any dissension, without any division.

If you really, deeply, inquire, you will find that you have created an image about your her, and she has created an image about you. These two images—you understand the image? The image is the picture of living together for twenty years—the nagging, the cruel words, the indifference, the lack of consideration, and so on, so on. Each has built an image about the other, a picture about the other. These two pictures, images, words, are in relationship with each other. You understand all this? So where there is an image about another, a picture about another, there must be conflict.

I’m sure you all have an image about the speaker. I’m quite sure of it. Why? You don’t know the speaker. You can never know the speaker—as you don’t know your husband, your wife. But you have created an image about him: that he is religious, non-religious, he is stupid, he is very clever, he is beautiful, he is this, he is that. And with that image you look at the person. The image is not the person. The image is the reputation. And reputations are easily created. The reputation may be good or bad. But the human brain, the thought, creates the image. The image is the conclusion. And we live by images and the imagination. The making of pictures has no place in love. We don’t love each other. We may hold hands, we may sleep together, we may do this and ten different things, but we have no love for each other. If you had that quality, that perfume of love, there would be no wars. There will be no Hindu and Muslim, Jew and Arab. But you listen to all this and you will still remain with your images. You’ll still wrangle with each other, quarrel with each other, dissent. You understand? Our life has become so extraordinarily meaningless.

I wonder how many of you realize this. We are put together by thought. Your gods are put together by thought. All the rituals, all the dogmas, the philosophy, are all put together by thought. And thought is not sacred. Thought is always limited—which we’ll talk about, perhaps, tomorrow: why thought is limited. And so thought has created the image about you as the audience, about you as the wife and the husband, about you as the Indian, and you as the American, and so on. It is these images which are unreal, which are separating humanity. You should never call yourself an Indian. And I never call myself a Russian or American. But we are human beings. Then we should have no wars. We should have global government, global relationship. But you are not interested in all that. You remain mediocre—forgive me if I use that word. The word mediocre means a man who has only climbed halfway up the hill, who has never climbed right to the top. Psychologically, not in the business world or the technological world.

You hear all this, and if you don’t change radically, you are bringing about destruction for the future generation. So please give ear, give thought, attention, to what is going on outside you and also to what is going on—which is much more important—inwardly. For the inward psyche conquers the outer environment. As you see it in Russia, we give such importance to the outer: we must have right society, right laws, feed the poor, be concerned about the poor. We are not saying we should not be. But the inward thought, inward feelings, inward isolations, is separating man against man. And you are responsible for this. Each one of you is responsible for this. Unless you change fundamentally, inwardly, the future is very dangerous. They are preparing for nuclear war. Which means if a neutron bomb falls over New York, ten million people are vaporized. There is no existence of those ten million people. They vanish completely from the Earth. And those who remain are wounded, they’re isolated, and there is only one doctor for ten thousand people. They are preparing for all this. In this country, too. And you are responsible for all this. Unless you fundamentally bring about a change in your daily life, to have right relationship with each other, to live correctly, not be ambitious, and so on, then only there is a possibility for the ending of conflict between human beings.