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Beyond Violence

 

 
 
  So being fragmented, broken up, contradictory, there is conflict between the various fragments. You know this as a fact, if you have observed it. And we come to the conclusion that nothing can be done about it, that nothing can be changed. How can this fragmentation be made whole? We realize that to live a harmonious, orderly, sane, healthy life, this fragmentation, this division between the 'you' and the `me' must come to an end. But we have concluded that this is not possible - that is the dead weight of 'what is'. So we invent theories, we wait for `grace' from something divine - whatever you call it - to come and miraculously release us. Unfortunately that does not happen. Or you live in an illusion, invent some myth about the higher self, the Atman. This offers an escape.  
 

 

 

 

 
 
  But by partaking in what is being said, sharing it, working together, you will find out for yourself how to observe this total movement, without separation, without division; because wherever there is any kind of division - racial, intellectual, emotional, or the division of the opposites, the `me' and the `not me', the higher self and the lower self and so on - it must inevitably bring about conflict. Conflict is a waste of energy and to understand all that we are discussing you need a great deal of energy.  
 

 

 

 

 
 
  What happens to a mind that has discovered this truth, this simple fact, that the 'observer' is the observed - psychologically speaking? If this is discovered, what takes place to the quality of the mind - which has for so long been conditioned by its concepts of the 'higher self' or the `Soul' as something divided from the body? If this discovery does not open the door to freedom it has no meaning; it is still just another intellectual notion, leading nowhere. But if it is an actual discovery, an actual reality, then there must be freedom - which is not the freedom to do what you like or the freedom to fulfil, to become, to decide, or the freedom to think what you like and act as you wish.  
 

 

 

 

 
 
  As long as that self exists there must be separation, as long as that exists there must be conflict - right? How is that self to disappear - without effort? The moment you make an effort, there is the `higher self', so-called, that is dominating the `lower self.' How can the mind dissipate this thing called `the self'? What is the self? - is it a bundle of memories? - or is it something permanent?