13. Finding a Purpose

13. Finding a Purpose

The third part of the Commentaries on Living trilogy was published in 1960. Consisting of 57 stories from the notebooks of K, it was edited by Rajagopal, as were the previous two books in the trilogy.

The book opens with a description of a beautiful evening. We then move on to a conversation with a world-travelled man about the relationship between knowledge and truth.

The man wonders why K claims that knowledge must be set aside to understand truth. K responds that truth is a living thing, whereas knowledge is based on the past experience and is therefore dead.

Truth cannot be experienced or achieved. When one recognises the false as false, the mind is set free to see the truth.

K meets all kinds of people, including a career civil servant, a white-bearded sannyasi, an arrogant politician, a nervous young professor, and a woman who tries to tempt him to join an animal welfare society.

K asks how a politician can know what is good for people. By assuming things and making conclusions based not on facts, but on ideas and preconceptions.

'Good' is that which is free from influence. Both the leader and his followers are chained, enslaved, either by a book, another person, or knowledge. Together, they build the world around them. This way of thinking must be completely abandoned if the world is to truly change for the better.

The Search Creates the Seeker

One man wants to free himself from conditioning; the other wants to escape his inner void. K asks them both why they are looking for something that they seem not to have.

You can find what you are looking for, but not the truth. Experience proves nothing about the truth of the matter. We can only find what we can recognise. What we recognise as truth is always conditioned by our own mind.

The search creates the seeker. When the whole pattern is seen to be false, the mind abandons the pattern by which experiences are produced. The experiencer is at the centre of the mind's self-centred movement.

When all searching stops, the limitations created by the mind fall away, and the mind is what it is, immeasurable.

On the Other Shore

Elderly, pious man was eager for sympathy and blessings from K, even though he had his own spiritual guide. He felt it was necessary because he was 'not yet on the other shore'.

K replied that it is important to see the riverbank on which you are. There is no other shore; it is a myth invented by a frightened mind. The river is life.

Life is not just something to be endured. You must lay the right foundation by getting to know what your life really is, otherwise the house will not stand.

We must let go of illusions and get to the heart of the thinker. The thinker is the product of thinking.

Thinking has created the observer, the controller. There is a conflict between the observer and the observed, which arises when one tries to overcome or change the other.

All thinking is conditioned and maintains contradiction. Every movement of thought only reinforces thinking. When one is fully aware of this fact, the movement of thought ceases and there is no longer a thinker separate from thinking.

There Is No Hell!

A couple who had lost a child asked why such a terrible thing had to happen to them. K says that everyone has to face sorrow in life and that no one can escape it. If you seek comfort, you may find it in an explanation, a drug, or a belief. A mind seeking comfort will always be in sorrow.

However, the mind need not be held captive by its conditioning. There is no everlasting hell. When you realise your own bondage and understand it to be a movement of cause and effect, they both cease to have an effect, and you are free from the mental trap.

In the next chapter, a dying old man asks K for a clear answer about what happens after death.

K asks why he needs to know and why he is not satisfied with the fact that nobody knows. Isn't it more important to know what you have before you die?

Everyone must walk the journey of life and death alone. The mind must be purged of all the things that it has gathered.

"Truth is a strange thing; the more you pursue it, the more it will elude you. You cannot capture it by any means, however subtle or cunning; you cannot hold it in the net of your thoughts. Realise this and let everything go. On this journey of life and death, you must walk alone."

Ego Is Decay

Two women and four men wanted to talk about the deterioration of the mind. They had all felt how life had worn them down, and how the fire of creative spark had faded away with age. They did not want to lose the beauty and power of creativity.

K stressed that deterioration is inevitable in a corrupt society based on patterns and conformity, and the pursuit of power and achievement. However, this is merely a consequence.

The real cause of decay, however, is the ego and self-concern. Society encourages people to develop themselves, climb the ladder of success, gain recognition, and seek acceptance. Any kind of self-centred activity leads to degeneration. When all striving ceases, the mind returns to a creative state.

"It is only when the totality of the mind is still, that the creative, the nameless comes into being."

Don't Explain, Understand

A brother, a sister and their friends came to discuss the discontent gnawing at one of them in particular.

K first asked what was wrong with being totally discontented. It's just a symptom of some deeper cause. What matters is how you react to that feeling, whether you try to tame it by finding something satisfactory to do, or whether you search for lasting satisfaction. In both cases, the mind loses its sensitivity to the movement of life.

"Satisfaction is a drug, and it is comparatively easy to find. But to understand the full significance of discontent, the search for certainty must cease. Then self-fulfilment is a vain pursuit, it has no significance at all."

Change by Giving up

A successful politician had decided to quit politics and wanted to know how he could to give back to society more than he had received from it.

K asked him why he thought he had received something from society, when he was actually part of it. We are all both givers and takers; we all support the structure of our society.

"To change society, you must break away from it. You must cease to be what society is: acquisitive, ambitious, envious, power-seeking."

As long as we are part of a set of values accepted and respected by society, we are helping it to degenerate. Modification and improvement will never lead to anything positive.

A man who thinks he is the centre of the world cannot create a good society. When you see things as they are and are simple yourself, you are creating a new kind of society.

Helping or Healing?

The psychologist wanted to know if her profession could do more for people.

K said that society makes people unhealthy because it is unhealthy itself. Psychologists help people to adjust to a society where there are wars and fights.

Why should people have to conform to a structure of hate, envy, ambition and superstition? Isn't it also the responsibility of physicians to heal society as a whole? They can only do this if they are free and whole themselves. This is impossible as long as people are endlessly occupied with themselves, want to be or become something.

Endless Learning

Three young men wanted to know what is the purpose of life and how they could find it.

K asked them a counter-question: if someone told them the answer, would they accept it and let it guide their lives? And if there was a purpose, how would they know it was true? When a confused mind comes up with something comforting, it only strengthens its confusion.

Life itself is more important than any description of it. We have separated ourselves from life. Petty minds seek, question and try to understand. They pursue ideals, create systems for their security and cultivate virtues.

For the unknown to fill the mind, one must die to all that is known.

Noise Annoys if You Resist It

Three teachers wanted to know how to quieten noisy children.

K asked them, when does noise disturb us? When we resist it. Why do we resist it? Because it is unpleasant. Resisting noise increases the disturbance. There is a conflict within us between opposites: by resisting evil, we cultivate good, and by avoiding hate, we think we are promoting love.

"To be only partly sensitive is to be paralysed. To be open to beauty and resist ugliness is to have no sensitivity; to welcome silence and reject noise is not to be whole."

When something bothers you, you try to do something about it. This attempt in itself causes a disturbance in your mind. When the mind is quiet, it knows how to react to noise. When there is silence in the teacher, it will help the child to be silent too.

The Toys of the Mind

K talks about awareness with a man in his thirties who practises meditation. If the only aim is to control thoughts, any method or drug will produce the desired effect.

The whole journey to reality starts with the first step. There is nowhere to climb and nowhere to reach. The experiencer always craves more and needs time to achieve it. True meditation liberates the mind from all self-centred activities.

We must start by observing what is happening in our inner life and around us. Mind-created patterns arise from attachment.

Christians and Hindus have different visions because their traditions are different. Everyone has their very own mental toys, and when these are taken away, what remains is emptiness, pain or fear.

We don't need toys when we are attentive. To understand attention, we must focus on the mind rather than on the object that absorbs it.

We are aware of the moon when we stop calling it the moon. Where there is full attention, there is reality. All this is meditation.

Justification for Killing

A group of one woman and several men came to discuss eating meat. Some of them ate meat, some didn't; both sides could easily defend their position.

K asked whether any form of killing could be justified. We can also kill with a word or a gesture, whether for our country or ideology. While killing one person is punished, someone who kills thousands
of people by bombing is seen as a hero. Animals are killed for food, profit, or pleasure.

Where is the line between cruelty and hatred that we do not want to cross? Can we draw it for others – or even for ourselves?

"In being concerned first with the details of action we get lost in the particular without comprehending the totality of the problem. So the issue is not merely the killing or non-killing of animals, but the cruelty and hate that is increasing in the world and in each one of us. The hate that exists in ourselves and is expressed in the exploitation of the weak by the powerful and the cunning."

In order to act, we must feel. Having a feeling for the whole issue leads to total action.

"The compassionate man knows right action. Without love, you cannot comprehend cruelty; a peace of sorts may be established through the reign of terror, but war and killing will continue at another level of our existence."

No Motive for Doing the Right Thing

In the next chapter, K is visited by a group of a lawyer, a government official, an engineer and a social worker.

The lawyer says that he abhors all influence. The hardest thing for him is to recognise and give up subconscious influences, because they also guide his actions.

K emphasises the importance of direct experiencing, attention without motive, no becoming, only learning.

The social worker asks whether any activity is possible without a motive, and whether everything that is done has a defined or undefined purpose.

To K, right action is never fragmentary or contradictory. Each individual must understand what total action is and where it derives its power.

Lust and Glory

A young man wanted to know why K dissolved the Order of the Star organisation, of which he had been the head.

K replied that, as there is no way to the truth, it cannot be organised, and no one can guide us to it.

"Truth has no fixed abode; it is a living thing, more alive and more dynamic than anything the mind can think of, so there can be no path to it. Can truth be organised with a president and secretary, or with high priests and interpreters? The leaders are as blind as their followers."

Religious organisations never liberate the mind; they only make it conform to a particular creed or belief. One may follow what is considered to be right action, but that does not lead to love. Following the light of another only leads one into darkness.

Politics Cannot Be Spiritualised

A small-town lawyer involved in politics wanted to know if politics could ever be spiritualised.

K said that a truly religious person is not concerned with politics. Every political leader tends to cause more fragmentation and division.

Reforms are necessary, but if you don't understand a human being as a whole, reforms will cause further damage and require more reforms.

Politics always involves the use of power, which inevitably leads to evil and destruction. Unfortunately, most people want to be led; they want to be told what to do.

Leading others makes a person feel important, but followers are also empowered by belonging to a movement. Therefore, politics cannot be spiritualised. If you want to improve the world, it is best to start with yourself and to get to know the limits of thinking. Then you won't get caught up in politics and religions.

We Need a New Mind

After taking a six-month break from public speaking, K gave seven talks in New Delhi, followed by ten in Bombay.

In 1961, K delivered 55 public talks on three continents. After a five-year break, he gave thirty talks in Europe in three months: first twelve in London in May, then nine in Switzerland in July, and nine in Paris in September.

Only those interested in K, were invited to the London talks in May 1961, which were recorded and published.

Also present for the first time was the quantum physicist David Bohm, who would go on to become a prominent figure in K's circle.

K began by saying that the purpose of the talks was to explore life together and honestly. This exploration should transcend the boundaries of the mind and not be limited to one's own experiences. We need a new kind of mind that is not enslaved by words, but remains fresh and innocent.

Looking down from an aeroplane, we can see how artificially the world is divided. These divisions are the work of the mind. Without thought, they would not exist. We live in a world of myths that trap us in endless contradictions.

We are not asking whether it would be possible to live completely without conflict. Conflict consumes the mind and makes it fragile. A healthy mind is sensitive to both beauty and ugliness. Then it knows how to act correctly in all situations.

For the next 25 summers, K gave a series of talks in Saanen, in the Swiss Alps. These attracted people from all over the world. For the first two years, the talks were held indoors, since 1963, they have been held in a tent beside the Saane River.