If you have a great many desires, you will gradually eliminate them one by one, until you allow certain desires to dominate and the others to die away.
To concentrate implies bringing all your energy to focus on a certain point; but thought wanders away... Whereas attention has no control, no concentration. It is complete attention, which means giving all your energy, the energy of the brain, your heart, everything, to attending.
Meditation is the emptying of the mind of all the things that the mind has put together. If you do that -perhaps you won't, but it doesn't matter, just listen to this- you will find that there is an extraordinary space in the mind, and that space is freedom. So you must demand freedom at the very beginning, and not just wait, hoping to have it at the end. You must seek out the significance of freedom in your work, in your relationships, in everything that you do. Then you will find that meditation is creation.
Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself.
I say that when you have perceived or attained the goal, compromises, renunciations, do not exist. If you have seen the goal, compromise ceases to exist. It is then a question of a different attitude.
People must work things out for themselves. It is no good saying, "I have found a house which suits me and therefore everybody must adopt the same kind of house."
Our conflict is in relationship, at all levels of our existence; and the understanding of this relationship, completely and extensively, is the only real problem that each one has.
In our relationship with children and young people, we are not dealing with mechanical devices that can be quickly repaired, but with living beings who are impressionable, volatile, sensitive, afraid, affectionate; and to deal with them we have to have great understanding, the strength of patience and love.
It is very difficult to be like the other guy, to be ordinary. Mediocrity takes a great deal of energy. But to be ourselves is very easy. You don't have to do a thing.
If we want to change existing conditions, we must first transform ourselves, which means that we must become aware of our own actions, thoughts and feelings in everyday life.
When inquiry is suppressed by previous knowledge, or by the authority and experience of another, then learning becomes mere imitation, and imitation causes a human being to repeat what is learned without experiencing it.