A mind that is disciplined, controlled, is free within its own pattern; but that is not freedom. The end of discipline is conformity; its path leads to the known, and the known is never the free.
Relationship is action, is it not? Action has meaning only in relationship; without understanding relationship, action on any level will only breed conflict. The understanding of relationship is infinitely more important than the search for any plan of action. The ideology, the pattern for action, prevents action. Action based on ideology hinders the understanding of relationship between man and man.
A mind that is always comparing, always measuring, will always engender illusion. If I am measuring myself against you, who are clever, more intelligent, I am struggling to be like you and I am denying myself as I am. I am creating an illusion.
It is important to understand, not intellectually but actually in your daily life, how you have built images about your wife, your husband, your neighbor, your child, your country, your leaders, your politicians, your gods-you have nothing but images. The images create the space between you and what you observe and in that space there is conflict, so what we are going to find out now together is whether it is possible to be free of the space we create, not only outside ourselves but in ourselves, the space which divides people in all their relationships.
The moment you venture out, something takes place in you and about you. Life comes to your aid in various ways. You may not like the form in which it comes to you - it may be misery, struggle, starvation - but when you invite life, things begin to happen.
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."
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.
It is a great art to have an abundance of knowledge and experience - to know the richness of life, the beauty of existence, the struggles, the miseries, the laughter, the tears - and yet keep your mind very simple; and you can have a simple mind only when you know how to love.
So you have to be your own teacher and your own disciple, and there is no teacher outside, no saviour, no master; you yourself have to change, and therefore you have to learn to observe, to know yourself. This learning about yourself is a fascinating and joyous business.
There is only that inevitable danger as long as there is lack of understanding; but the moment the individual understands, there will be no formation of religion.
I do not think that you can try and systematize education for the whole world. I would try experiments in small communities and in schools to see how they work out, instead of taking the children of an entire nation and trying to bring them up on the same system.