Chapter 1: Introduction
Until I, in my relationship to you, understand myself I am
the cause of chaos, misery, destruction, fear, brutality.
Chapter 2: What Are We Seeking
Only when the mind is tranquil - through self-knowledge and
not through imposed self-discipline - only then, in that tranquillity, in that
silence, can reality come into being.
Chapter 3: Individual And Society
So one of the fundamental causes of the disintegration of
society is imitation, and one of the disintegrating factors is the leader,
whose very essence is imitation.
Chapter 4: Self-Knowledge
If we can understand ourselves as we are from moment to
moment without the process of accumulation, then we shall see how there comes a
tranquillity that is not a product of the mind, a tranquillity that is neither
imagined nor cultivated; & only in that state of tranquillity can there be
creativeness.
Chapter 5: Action And Idea
When there is love - which is not mentation, which is not
ideation, which is not memory, which is not the outcome of an experience, then
that very love is action. That is the only thing that frees.
Chapter 6: Belief
A mind that would be in a state in which the new can take
place... must surely cease to acquire..., it must put aside all knowledge. A
mind burdened with knowledge cannot possibly understand, surely, that which is
real, which is not measurable.
Chapter 7: Effort
Therefore action as we know it is really reaction, it is a
ceaseless becoming, which is the denial, the avoidance of what is; but when
there is awareness of emptiness without choice, without condemnation or
justification, then in that understanding of what is there is action, and this
action is creative being.
Chapter 8: Contradiction
Contradiction arises only when the mind has a fixed point of
desire; ...when the mind does not regard all desire as moving, transient, but
seizes upon one desire & makes that into a permanency - only then, when
other desires arise, is there contradiction.
Chapter 9: What Is The Self
Whatever the mind creates is in a circle, within the field
of the self. When the mind is non-creating there is creation... Reality, truth,
is not to be recognized. For truth to come, belief, knowledge, experiencing,
the pursuit of virtue-all this must go.
Chapter 10: Fear
Fear exists so long as there is accumulation of the known,
which creates the fear of losing. Therefore fear of the unknown is really fear
of losing the accumulated known.
Chapter 11: Simplicity
only when a mind is really sensitive, alert, aware of all
its own happenings, responses, thoughts, when it is no longer becoming is no
longer shaping itself to be something - only then is it capable of receiving
that which is truth.
Chapter 12: Awareness
Reality is not a thing which is knowable by the mind,
because the mind is the result of the known, of the past; ..therefore the mind
must understand itself and its functioning, its truth, & only then is it
possible for the unknown to be
Chapter 13: Desire
Beyond the physical needs, any form of desire ... becomes a
psychological process by which the mind builds the idea of the `me..' When u
see this process...w/o opposition,..u will discover..that the new is never a
sensation; therefore it can never be recognized [nor] re-experienced. It is a
state of being in which creativeness comes without invitation, without memory;
and that is reality.
Chapter 14: Relationship And Isolation
This identification with something greater - the party, the
country, the race, the religion, God - is the search for power. Because you in
yourself are empty, dull, weak, you like to identify yourself with something
greater.
Chapter 15: The Thinker And The Thought
What is important is to see that the maker of effort and the
object towards which he is making effort are the same. That requires enormously
great understanding, watchfulness, to see how the mind divides itself into the
high and the low.
Chapter 16: Can Thinking Solve Our Problems
There must be a quiet, tranquil mind. Such a mind is not a
result...of a practice, of meditation, of control. It comes into being through
no form of discipline or compulsion or sublimation, without any effort of the
`me', of thought; it comes into being when I understand the..process of
thinking..In that state of tranquillity of a mind that is..still, there is
love.
Chapter 17: The Function Of The Mind
Only when we know how to love each other..can [there] be
intelligent functioning,.. [and not] through intellect..imitation..idolatry.
Only when you discard completely, through understanding, the whole structure of
the self, can that..eternal..come into being. You cannot go to it; it comes to
you.
Chapter 18: Self-Deception
Truth is not something to be gained. Love cannot come to
those who have a desire to hold on to it,.. to become identified with it.
Surely such things come when the mind does not seek,.. is completely quiet, no
longer creating..beliefs upon which it can depend. It is only when the mind
understands this..process of desire that it can be still, ..not in movement to
be or not to be.
Chapter 19: Self-Centred Activity
So long as the mind uses consciousness as self-activity,
time comes into being with all its miseries,..conflicts,..deceptions; and it is
only when the mind, understanding this total process, ceases, that love can be.
Chapter 20: Time And Transformation
Regeneration is..only possible in the present. A man who
relies on time as a means [to] realize truth..is..living in..conflict. A man
who sees that time is not the way out of our difficulty and who is therefore
free from the false..has the intention to understand. Therefore his mind is
quiet spontaneously, without compulsion, without practice.
Chapter 21: Power And Realization
When the mind realizes that any speculation any verbalization,
any form of thought only gives strength to the ‘me’, then it is watchful,
everlastingly aware of how it is separating itself from experience, asserting
itself, seeking power. In that awareness, if the mind pursues it... without
seeking an end... there comes a state in which the thinker & the thought
are one. In that state there is no effort, ...no desire to change; ...the ‘me’
is not, for there is a transformation which is not of the mind. ...that the
state of creative emptiness is not a thing to be cultivated - it is there, it
comes darkly, without any invitation; only in that state is there a possibility
of renewal, newness, revolution.