Active but Quiet

To discover the new mind, not only is it necessary for us to understand the responses of the old brain, it is also necessary for the old brain to be quiet. The old brain must be active but quiet. You are following what I am saying? Look, sir! If you would discover for yourself firsthand – not what somebody else says – if there is a reality, if there is such a thing as God – the word ‘God’ is not the fact – your old brain, which has been nurtured in a tradition, either anti-God or pro-God, in a culture, in an environmental influence and propaganda, through centuries of social assertion, must be quiet. Because otherwise it will only project its own images, its own concepts, its own values. But those values, those concepts, those beliefs are the result of what you have been told, or are the result of your reactions to what you have been told; so, unconsciously, you say, This is my experience!

So you have to question the very validity of experience – your own experience or of the experience of anybody else; it does not matter who it is. Then by questioning, enquiring, asking, demanding, looking, listening attentively, the reactions of the old brain become quiet. But the brain is not asleep; it is very active, but it is quiet. It has come to that quietness through observation, through investigation. And to investigate, to observe, you must have light; and the light is your constant alertness.