#3.3. A Crisis in Human Consciousness

The crisis is not in economics, politics, religion, but the crisis is in our consciousness - why we are,

what we are after thousands and thousands of years - that's where the crisis is. And merely to solve the

economic crisis or the political crisis or the brutality of ideologies and wars, it's not only there but it's

much deeper. So we are going to enquire first, because they're all related, all problems are related to

each other, they are not separate. If we can solve one problem completely, then we have solved all other

problems because there is no separate problem.

Let us start from the beginning, from the point which we call ‘past’. Can we say that we are the past? It

is so because the same past meets ‘present’ to modify it into ‘future’. If I am self-centered today, I will

surely be the same tomorrow. Also was I the same in late past. So, can we say that what we refer to as

past, present and future are essentially the same? Then there exists no psychological time as such. So

can the human undergo a mutation without the factor of time interfering? Neither change nor transform,

for both of these implies time and time actually yields nothing. So what we need is perhaps the radical

ending of something and the beginning of something totally new i.e. a revolution in our Consciousness.

We have always made Consciousness a complex thing to approach. Let us make it very simple.

Consciousness can be thought of as a huge bag where we are storing each and every thing we come

across - our pain, sorrow, pleasure, memories, beliefs, image about others and even ourselves

everything. Therefore, is the content of Consciousness, the Entity which we call Consciousness itself?

A very major chunk of this content comprises of our sensations, desires and the resulting thought

processes. Sensations are vital to our survival. We perceive and hence interact with our surrounding and

so survive. But is thought required in these sensory processes? 

When we look at a well maintained garden, lovely flowers, neatly mowed and green fresh grass,

beautiful birds and butterflies – do we just admire the magnificence and move on? No, instantly a

thought pops up ‘I wish I had one such garden in my backyard’, doesn’t it? So our thought which we

believe appears from nowhere but which is an invented item, modifies our sensations which are neutral

in nature into desire. Here it is in our hands to find out whether there can be an interval between the

stimulus (here garden) been registered and a response (here the craving for owning such a place) being

given. Can we really ‘just admire and move on’? Maybe this requires a lot of alertness and attention to

the sensation which we fail to give. That’s what is meant by a crisis, a shattered potential running

behind trivial and transient things.

Thought has made this world in which we live, the technological world as well as the psychological

world. And one asks again if one is aware of this fact. Thought has created the marvelous cathedrals,

the churches, and also thought has created what is put in them - the rituals, the candles, the prayers, the

symbol, the savior, as they are elsewhere in the world. Thought is responsible for war, for Hiroshima,

for the present condition of man's confusion, anxiety, uncertainty. Thought has however not created the

nature, the deer, flower and the awesome stars. Astrophysicists can nonetheless know about the stars,

which is again movement of thought. Please as it has been said earlier, I do not wish to propagate any

idea. This all can be utter nonsense, no issues, but at least we can explore.

Then one may say if thought is no good and if one should get rid it, then one would reduce to the state

of a vegetable. Thought is important it is a pre-requisite for living a life. But does this thought require

this much importance which we give it?

We all are parrots we just blindly repeat what we contain within us as knowledge. In that regard, even I

am just repeating, the reader will also perhaps repeat a fixed set of responses based on the stored data.

Even this is crisis, can we be free from this repetition. Unless we understand the extraordinary subtlety

of thought with its memory, we shall not be able to meet this crisis. This is very important because we

are all so learned, we have read so much, or been told so much, that we depend on others to tell us what

to do. They tell us everything. And we unfortunate human beings comply, slightly resist, but conform.

We very conveniently blame ‘society’ for every ‘evil’ – Our society is like this. Society itself is a

product of thought which in turn is the product of man’s brain. Society is just an abstract idea, isn’t it?

The relationship of a Human with a Human should be our concern. The problem apparently is, society

can only be changed if human beings who have created it change themselves. That is the real problem,

the real core of the problem. Society, which is corrupt, which is immoral, which is ugly, there is

injustice, cruelty, the rich and the poor, all that, the society, which human beings have created, not god,

not some outside agency, but human beings have created it; created the division, the national division,

religious divisions, economic divisions, and so on and on, we humans, humanity has created it. Unless

humanity, of which we are, changes fundamentally none can bring about a society which is healthy,

sane and rational. Now, how does each one of us approach this crisis? Approach this fact that human beings have created

society, society cannot change by itself, because society is part of human beings, unless human beings

fundamentally change society cannot change.

That is the real core of our problem. And how does one come to that? Is it a mental, rational conclusion,

an abstraction that you have, after observing, come to? Or this is a fact. Is it a concept, an idea, or a

fact? If it is a concept, then we must see what happens. Concept is merely a conclusion derived

cleverly, or unintelligently, rationally or irrationally, a conclusion that society cannot be changed;

human beings cannot be changed, so should we carry on amicably? So we are asking each other, is it an

idea because we have been told; or it's a fact for yourself? See the difference. When it is a fact for

yourself, not given by another, then you have to deal with it. That is when you have pain you deal with

it. When you have toothache you do something immediately. But if toothache is an idea then you say,

well, perhaps I'll postpone it! No, don't laugh, see the rationality of it. We need to understand this,

sorrow is shared by all mankind, it is not your sorrow or mine, it is mankind's sorrow, mankind's

anxiety, pain, loneliness, despair, aggressiveness. So you, and I, we are the rest of humanity, we are not

separate human beings psychologically. You may be a woman, I may be a man, you may be tall, dark,

short and so on, but inwardly, psychologically, which is far more important, we are the rest of mankind.

You are the rest of mankind, and so if you kill another, if you are in conflict with another, you are

destroying yourself. You can observe this very, very carefully if you look at yourself without any

distortion.

                 

                                         Part 4