Does awareness bring an end to thought? With awareness is there a transformation where there is a pure state of awareness? That is, is awareness a higher state of consciousness, an enlightenment, without the pre-awareness troublesome mind? If I was talking about awareness would I think of a past condition which has been superseded, and is now defunct? Do I anticipate a thinking that is no longer erroneous? When we are trying to impress upon someone the evils of the world, the complications of the self, and the virtue of changing, is it some new awareness, resolved of error, that we think of, talk about, and write about? The language in use implies this doesn't it? It puts thought-mind as of the past, undone as it were, and provides a post-thought-mind case. The awareness implied by most communicators is an awareness indicating that the thinker has gained a new kind of thinking which is savvy to the old thinking. That the presently communicating mind is free of self delusion, and of the intrinsic mind complexity and confusion.

Of course there is no old mind! Giving it any kind of description, casting it in any light, is just thought, isn't it? These labels, old, bad, wrong, sick, whatever, opposed to good, right, healthy and so on, are just thought. This is the division of thought. Can we see the mind, without saying it is right thinking, or wrong thinking? There is thought and there is awareness of thought. Do we, in awareness, when we are watching thought, see ourselves as watching the lack of awareness? Or is there a watching where thought, with all of it's usual condition, as terrible or stupid as it may be, is acknowledged as being there, without involvement or judgment?

Inside fear.

It is not my, yours, our, their, fear, it is not an object, it is just fear. You can do anything you want with it, personalise it, talk about it, analyse it, make it into a myth, whatever you want. We can discuss it, but we are just talking about fear as known by us. It is just that known fear. We may think it is ours, or that there is some individual meaning in it, but that relates to our perception of ourselves. Fear, like any experience can be observed. Talking about it is simply that; talking about it, objectifying it. Now you, anybody, say you want to study it, learn about it. So you think by talking about it that is learning about it. This is the known examining the known. So it is important to first of all, see it, for yourself, actually, not as thought, the known, but as a fact.

The fact of fear. Looking at fear the fact is a direct experience, where you react, are brave, heroic, fearful, terrified, whatever. That is simply an action and if fully experienced that is all there is to know about it. I am just making this clear. But we have fear which is recurring, and in general, and we want to examine this. We want to find out about the mechanics of fear. So I am making it clear there is a different approach to this or any other matter of the mind. We can not just talk about it as an object, give examples, hypothesise, speculate, use thought to look at what we know, because fear is a part of that, in memory, in the mind. If you really want to examine fear you have to look at the inner mechanics of thought and see what happens within thought. We have to look at cause and effect.

The conditioned mind.

We are talking together. We are saying there is the self, I. It is not my self or your self. Living in the known world the self is fragmented. We are living as individuals and have no unity except in what institutions, gods, beliefs, we invent. Living freely, spiritually, there is no place for the self. This is a devastation. Self is unsettled, scared, and desperate. What asks questions about what to do with self, or any matter at all? It is the self. The self reflecting on itself. We can listen and see this in the mind. Thought chattering away. Memory nagging us. Theorising and discussing. We are caught up in the thinking, as part of the thinking, and using thinking. The thoughts are a dominant reality, making the thinker, a self, just a word, a point of view. Total fragmentation. We conform to the insanity. This is self knowledge. Self knowledge has no purpose, no reason, no resolve. It is not about power, authority. But I ask the question, powerless, ordinary, what do I do? Do you see, the content of the mind, thought, is driving the agenda, and we ignore this fact. This is conditioning. Thought is a culture of ideas, behaviour, morals, reality, giving us an artificial environment, which we inhabit as best we can, according to the artificiality. We work within this. Everyone, the virtuous, the rebels, the reformists, the outcasts, the recluse, the hermits, the impoverished, the indigenous natives, all have this condition. Love is the only conditionless.

We have to recognise ourselves. Our true nature. The self we normally think of is not only separate nations, countries, cultures, but also different beliefs, ideologies. The true self, if I can use that expression, is universal, and without exemption. There is war, violence, hatred, jealousy. This is a fact of life. It is in every part of you. You say there are families, friends, goodness, love. You believe that there are these exemptions. You don't see the brutal, horrifying fact. You may acknowledge it and discuss it, but you always have the escape; look how nice, kind, polite, generous I am. That is separation from the fact. The fact, violence, is what we are all really here to talk about and to enquire about. I am violent. I have to wonder what most of you think we are doing.