When we are speaking together there is the individual who is regarded as the speaker. We listen and hear the voice of that individual and consider the words, ideas in terms of a relationship to a listener. Is it possible to just hear the voice, without any speaker- To hear an inner voice, a voice in the mind as it were? Do you hear that voice differently? When I listen to someone speaking I am hearing and immediately placing myself in a relationship to the words. There is an interpretation of my position in regard to the words- is it an instruction, a command, something to respond to; something that needs an answer, etc. When I am listening to an inner voice all I do is hear the words and there is no association with meaning, context, relationship. Like a dream, there are the images, words, standing on there own. Can we then talk together and hear the words standing on their own, and look at what information is in them, what they are indicating, without interpreting them as participating individuals? Do you need to free yourself from all that you consider is relevant in such a situation, all that affects the usual listening, the individuals perspective, or is it a simple action of listening more deeply?

We come together to discuss philosophy, psychology, meditation, spirituality- is any of that simple, ordinary conversation? When you spend time in a standard communication pattern there is never directly listening clearly and openly. We are filtering. The filtering, is the individual, is the confusion, corruption. We say we understand there is a deeper, complex, aspect to this. You have heard all this before. I am not saying it for repetition, but for action now, so that it is happening. Now, listening without the individual, standing on the ground of hearing words, what do you hear? Do you reflect the words with comparison, belief, plausibility, authority? is there any response at all? Don't you just listen and hear what is there to hear?

In fact a response, like most of use in ordinary conversation, just brings back the involvement of the individual, and is reflecting our cleverness, smartness, sentimentality. No verbal response is required. It is just the structural, social habit of organising life, for industry, for commerce, for association, that is at play. OK. So you are listening and want to say something, to ask a question, to express doubt, that's fine, but are you looking at the individual? This is not difficult. Watch what you think and say. If you are seriously listening it will be engaging, interesting, and naturally there is inquiry where the mind is moving deeper.

Terror of the mind.

Being someone is an illusion. What we call personality, character, myself, is ego. What I do for a living, making money, raising a family, being social, making a career, is what I, ego, have undertaken as part of that character. Where I am not fully satisfied, not completely successful, unsure of my status, it is the lack of material accomplishment that defines myself, not a spiritual awareness. The desire to create a greater awareness, is also ego. We can make the material accomplishment positive or negative, rich or poor, saintly or greedy. We don't think of spiritual as having no self, no becoming, no material accumulation. The actor in the illusion is ego, self, I. It is thought of as doing good, changing the world, making things better, acting in kind and loving manner. Wanting to be someone, desire, is the ego, trying to give substance to the illusion, which is empty of vitality.

As an ordinary person I get up in the morning, eat breakfast, go to school, go to work, talk to others, come home, go to sleep. We don't do this unknowingly, with a passion, with a sense of timelessness, unselfishly. We continually think about matters, happiness, freedom, responsibilities, pleasure, planning, worrying, feeling anxious, getting angry and sad. We continually follow habits and customs. You don't want life to be like this but the only mechanism you have for change is yourself. Your cares, concerns, interests, self-reflection, contemplation, all lie in the illusion of self, and so you are mixed up in, re-enforcing, a self-deception.

This I, ego, self, this center of our thinking, is our identity. Thinking about things, life, we are that center. Our perception of life centers in our own life, and change, betterment, improvement, is deeply involved in our center. What we think about, thinking, and the thinker, are one. We can separate the thoughts about animals, mother, food, country, God, life, death, but the thinker and the thoughts are inseparable. The mind, like you, like life, is unstoppable except in death. Aware of myself, of my thoughts, my way of life, my habits, my actions, there is a dilemma within myself. I am inseparable from knowledge. That is I am conditioned. I am living according to patterns, formulae, instructions, like a machine. I am not free. Freedom is then the end of the conditioning, influences and impositions, limits, of my mind. What is the end of the mind? As far as I am concerned it is death. Not only death of the mind, but death of the self, I, ego, and this is interpreted by the mind as total death. This is terrifying. In fear, the mind is then stimulated to refer ever more to knowledge, to the inner resources of the mind, and even less to life, the real world, living in death.

Look at yourself.

When I am thinking about a problem and the mind is swirling in creativity, it is a marvel. I get new ideas and invent things to do. Things I hadn't known before nor imagined I could do. This seems so amazing. Surely this is new and original. Much later, with no apparent connection, accidentally, I come across the same such solution or ideas, perhaps in a book, in a magazine, on TV, and the similarities are shocking. As if they were my own. What is happening? What ever it is, what is also interesting is that at the time it was specific to me. The thoughts and images were related to some real matter in my life, my activity. This was no idle dream but a particular episode and the thinking fitted the actual moment. How can there be separate and unrelated moments which accord with the same imagery, thoughts? Does that mean that there is more of me out there, and I am just doing the same as others in relation to some thing we all call I?