So in listening to these talks if you are going to listen at all, we are not pursuing individual salvation. On the contrary we are trying to find out, we are going to investigate together what does it mean to have a common ground upon which we all stand and whether the mind, your brain is capable of totally disassociating itself from this concept of the individual, and so capable of taking a global outlook, not a provincial sectarian, narrow outlook, which is the individual outlook, as it is now, but when you see the fact, the truth that you are not an individual then perhaps we will have a global outlook. Therefore our relationship utterly changes to each other.

Society is an abstraction. You understand the word? An abstraction is not a reality, what is reality is relationship between man and man. The relationship between man and man has created this, which we call society. Man is violent; man is self-centred; man is seeking pleasure, frightened, insecure, in himself he is corrupt and in his relationship whether it be intimate or not, this way of relationship has created this so-called society. That is clear, obviously. But we always tried to change society, not change man who creates the society in which he lives. Please, this is logic, simple, clear. And the socialists, communists, capitalists and so on and so on have always tried to change this amorphous, abstract thing called society. But never tackled the problem of relationship between man and man. Right? Now can that be changed? That is the whole point. Can your relationship with another, intimate, sexual, pleasure-seeking, this idea that you are separate from another and therefore battle between each other, can all that psychological structure be transformed? You understand all this? Are we together in this? Or are you just merely following verbal structure? The speaker is not a reformer, a social reformer. He is essentially a religious man. He doesn't belong to any society, to any group of religious cantankerous believing types; he doesn't belong to any country; he has no belief, has no ideal, but only facing what is going on and seeing if that is possible radically to change. If you, as the audience, are serious enough to go into this let us walk together, knowing that individual salvation which is promised throughout all this structure of religions, has no meaning. The speaker is not offering personal salvation. We are trying to - the speaker is saying that there is an ending to sorrow; there is an ending to conflict between man and man and so a new kind of society can be born out of that. Are you all interested in this?

But if you want to go into this very deeply one has to enquire into relationship which thought has established. That relationship has created the society in which we live, a society which is so utterly contradictory: a group of people make enormous money, the others living in poverty, war, the butchery that is going on, all the rest of it. So to bring about a radical change in society, and that society is an abstraction of a relationship between man and man; it is your relationship with another that has created this monstrous world. I wonder if one realises this. Not accept it as an idea but the truth of it, the inwardness of it, how dangerous everything is becoming in the world. You understand? Over-population, division of nationalities, communal divisions, all that is going on in the world. This problem cannot be solved by any politician, by no scientist, by no bureaucracy, and no guru will ever solve this problem. And it is only you as a human being who is the entire humanity, if you see that, it is an extraordinarily vital thing because when you are living just for yourself as an individual that is the most destructive thing because in that there must be everlasting conflict, but if you actually, not as a theory, not as an idea, but see the truth that you are psychologically the entire world, entire human being, then you see what happens. It gives you enormous vitality and strength. But the conditioning is so strong, it has been going on for thousands of years, that you are a separate human being, your religion, your books, and everything says that, and if you accept it and live with it you are going to be everlastingly unhappy, everlastingly in conflict.

So come to the point: why human beings do not change. This is an important question. Why you who live in conflict, misery, confusion, uncertainty, quarrelling with your wife, with your husband, with all that is going on in the family, why you accept it, live with it, why? You understand my question? Is it because we are so accustomed to a particular pattern of thought, or a particular pattern of living that we are incapable of breaking that pattern. You understand my question? Please. Is it laziness, is it fear of the unknown, accepting 'what is' rather than moving out of 'what is'? Is it our brains have become so dull because of our education - you are all BA's, and MA's, and PhD's, and all the rest of it, is our education conditioning you to become an engineer for the rest of your life so that you are incapable of thinking of anything else except building bridges, railways, or if you are a biologist or a philosopher, is our education destroying humanity? Please, sir, enquire into all this, for god's sake. And what will change man, which is, what will change your relationship with another? You understand? That is the basic question. We are all concerned with the changing of society, the ugliness, the brutality, the horror that is going on and we never ask or demand why each one of us doesn't change, change in our relationship.

So what is our relationship? Right? What is your relationship with your wife, with your sister, with your daughter, with your husband, whatever it is? What is your relationship? Go on, sirs. Is that relationship based on egotistic pursuit, each one wanting his own particular way? You understand all this? So we have to enquire very carefully and of course sceptically, what is relationship. If we don't understand relationship we will never bring about the necessary revolution in society.

So what is relationship? Are we ever related to each other at all? You may have a wife or a girl friend, which is the modern fancy. You may have a husband or you may have several girls or several ladies but what is the basis of that relationship? Is it merely pleasure, sexual, is it merely a sense of comfort, convenience, social contract? Please sir enquire into all this. Do we dare to look into that relationship? Are we frightened to look into it? You understand my question? Are we frightened to look into our relationship - wife, daughter, girl friend, husband, the whole structure of relationship in the family? Here in India the family matters enormously. So shouldn't we find out for ourselves what is the truth of relationship. So let us enquire together, please don't accept what the speaker is saying. That would be too absurd, that would have no validity. It will have no significance in your life if you merely say, yes, somebody said that. But if you look into it, if you go into this question of relationship and to observe it without any direction, without any motive, just observe it, what is it? First look at what actually is going on. Is it pleasure, sexual, or pleasure of companionship, pleasure of having someone with whom you can talk, bully, quarrel with, or worship, adore? You understand all this? As we came down from the house we are living in there is an advertisement there, 'Body Beautiful' - do you understand all this? In that relationship, is there any love, or that word, that feeling is totally absent? And in this relationship with another you have an image of the other and she has an image about you. Right? The relationship is between these two images which thought has created. Right? I wonder if you see all this for yourself. I may have a wife or a husband. We have lived with each other for a number of years and I have built an image about her: sexual image, the image of comfort, encouragement; somebody on whom I can rely; who will bear my children, and she has an image about me. I am not married, don't worry. Thank god! You laugh, but you don't see the tragedy of all this.

So what is your actual relationship? You have none. Right? You may have a house and a wife, children. You go to the office every day from nine o'clock to five or six o'clock for the next fifty years, come home, bed, quarrels, no time for anything except for money; if you are seeking power, position, status, that is your life - conflict, and you call that relationship. Right? Don't agree. See the fact and see if that image- building can stop. You understand? Because most of us live with images, about ourselves and about others. The image of the politician, the image of the scientist, the image of the guru, the images made by the mind, and by the hand. We live with images. The images become all important, right? Not living.

So is there security in the image that you have built about yourself? Because there is no security in a living thing, in a moving thing, active, but there is security, at least we think, in the image which we have created. You know, we think there is tremendous security in knowledge. Right? If you are a professor, if you are a teacher, if you are a guru, if you are some kind of careerist, you have certain knowledge, that knowledge gives you a job, a skill, and in that you think there is great security. You have never questioned what is knowledge - knowledge apart from technological knowledge. Knowledge is invariably incomplete. You cannot have complete knowledge about anything. That is a fact. So knowledge is always in the shadow of ignorance. Just swallow that! It is always within the shadow of ignorance. So any action born out of that knowledge must be incomplete. Therefore, being incomplete it must invariably bring conflict. So the knowledge which we have about another in our relationship is incomplete, and therefore in that knowledge which is the image which you have about another, any action must bring about conflict. This is obvious. So is there a relationship which is not based on knowledge? That is, I know you as my wife, I have lived with you for twenty years and I know all about you - which is nonsense of course. But the knowledge I have is the image about her which thought has built. You understand all this?

So we are asking: is the machinery which is the movement of thought in relationship which creates the image and therefore division, where there is division there must be conflict, between you and the Muslim, between so-called India and Pakistan, the Arab and the Jew, the socialist, the communist, the catholic, the Hindu, and all that trivial nonsense, there must be conflict. So is it possible to end conflict in relationship? Right? Good sirs, enquire into it with me. The complete ending of conflict. Let us enquire into it, why humanity, you, human being, who is the rest of mankind, why you live in conflict in your relationship. Conflict must exist where there is division. Right? That is the law and if you see the fact that you are not an individual, but the rest of mankind, including your wife with whom you have looked at her face for the last twenty years, got bored, you know all that. Can that conflict end? That is, why does thought enter into relationship? You see the point? Thought invariably divides, thought invariably creates the image: you and the other. Why does thought enter into relationship? Which means is thought love? Is thought desire; is thought pleasure in relationship?

So we are asking why thought enters into relationship at all.

Please, sir, go into it, enquire into it. Is not thought dividing us, you a Hindu, I a Muslim, I a communist, you a socialist? You know all that stuff. And specially in our relationship, why should thought enter at all? Please ask this question, not superficially, not merely verbally or an abstract idea which you are going to examine, but if you say why should thought, in my relationship with you, enter? What place has thought apart from the technological world? You understand my question? In the technological world I need thought to build a computer, to build a robot, to build anything, a chair, to plant a good tree, I need thought. To learn a language I need thought. But why should thought enter into our relationship? Is it because, please look at it, look at it, is it because it has created the image about you as one has the image about oneself and that image becomes more important than actual relationship. You follow, you understand? So is it that we like to live in illusion and not with actuality? Is actuality so unpleasant that we are unwilling to look at it? So if you can look at your relationship, your daily relationship with your wife, with your boss, with your servant, if you have a servant, to look at all that relationship. In that relationship you as a self-centred entity become all important and therefore there must inevitably be conflict. And can thought itself realise that whatever it adds in relationship - not in buying furniture and all that - when you look at your wife, at your husband, to look and not let the word 'interfere' - the word is the thought. You understand? The word is the symbol. When you say, my wife, see what you have done. The word has become important. Right? In that word there is this whole structure of possession, domination, attachment and where there is attachment there must be corruption.

Sir, you listen to all this, does that listening bring about an abstraction called an idea, or in the very act of listening you see the truth of it? Which is actually going on in your brain? Seeing the actual truth or listening and making an abstraction of it into an idea and therefore the idea becomes all important, not the fact, which is what is going on. Are you actually observing what is the fact and can you - this is, if I may point out, this is important - can you remain without any movement of thought with the fact? You understand what I'm saying? Look, I have created an image about myself: myself sitting on the platform with a large audience, with a reputation, the world blah, blah, written books, praised, insulted, all that. So I have created an image about myself, if I have, and that image can be trodden on, can be hurt; somebody will come along and tell me, my dear chap, your audience is very small compared to somebody else, etc., etc., I get hurt because the image is hurt. If I have no image about myself at all, which is a fact for me, nobody can tread on it. Therefore a relationship with such a person is not based on thought. Therefore there is a relationship entirely of a different kind. But that is about the speaker, that is not important. What is important is you in your relationship - can you see the fact and remain with the fact? Not find excuses, justifying it, suppressing it, running away from it, but actually remain with the fact that your image is the factor that brings conflict with another.

Then if you do so remain solidly, without any movement, then that energy which has been dissipated through suppression, and so on that energy dissolves the fact. Do it and test it out, and you will see then that you have a totally different kind of relationship with another. Therefore a different society in which this terrible concept of an individual with his pursuit, his shoddy ambition and all the rest of it comes to an end. You live totally differently. That means you live with love. I am afraid in this country or in other countries that word has lost its meaning. Without that beauty of love, relationship becomes a horror. Right, sirs.