The last four times we have met here, I have been talking about how important it is for the individual to free himself from the many social, cultural, and religious influences, for it is only then that there can take place the creative release of the good mind. It seems to me very important to understand the quality of the mind, and to bring about that which is good.

being is doing

Most of us are not concerned with bringing about the good mind, but only with what to do; action has become much more important than the quality of the mind. To me, action is secondary. If I may so put it, action does not matter, it is not important at all; because when there is the good mind, the mind that is creatively explosive, then from that creative explosiveness comes right action; it is not 'doing is being', but 'being is doing'.

 

Editor's note: 'being is doing', right action inevitably follows being The importance of K’s assertion here might not be readily apparent – but it is an extremely vital principle. There are millions and millions of dysfunctional people on the lower levels of Summerland, including a great many wanna-be teachers, who preach little else than “doing is being.” In other words, they exalt charitable works as a proxy for authentic spirituality. They emphasize works too much to the exclusion of godly growth and development, aligning one's mind with Source. Chief Blackhawk warned against this: you cannot become a spiritual person, he said, like earning a merit badge, with great effort and much doing, even if the doing is service-oriented. There are lots of people who do good works but are rotten on the inside. To err here is to fall victim to an error of thinking that ensnares many. This is true even in this world, as a majority, it seems, in the “New Age” Spiritualist movement get this wrong. I would recommend a thorough study of the article “500 tape-recorded messages from the other side.”

 

For most of us, action seems vital, important, and so we get caught in action; but the problem is not action, though it may appear to be. Most of us are concerned with how to live, what to do in certain circumstances, whether to take this side or that side in politics, and so on.

If you observe you will see that our search is generally to find out what is the right action to take, and that is why there is anxiety, this pursuit of knowledge, this search for the guru. We inquire in order to find out what to do; and it seems to me that this approach to life must inevitably lead to a great deal of suffering and misery, to contradiction, not only within oneself, but socially, a contradiction that invariably breeds frustration. To me, action inevitably follows being.

Editor's note: Absolutely. No need to worry about good works, as these naturally follow from the good mind.

That is, the very state of listening is an act of humility. If the mind is capable of listening, that very listening brings about the good mind, from which action can come into being. Whereas, without the good mind, without that strange, explosive quality of creativity, mere search for action leads to pettiness, to shallowness of heart and mind.

I do not know if you have noticed how most of us are occupied with what to do, and probably we have never had this quality of mind which immediately perceives the totality. The very perception of the totality is its own action, and I think it is important to understand this, because our culture has made us very shallow; we are imitative, traditionally bound, incapable of wide and deep vision, because our eyes are blinded by the immediate action and its results.

Observe your own mind and you will see how concerned you are with what to do; and this constant occupation of the mind with what to do can only lead to very shallow thinking. Whereas, if the mind is concerned with the perception of the whole - not with how to perceive the whole, what method to use, which is again to be caught in the immediate action - , then you will see that from this intention comes action, and not the other way around.

What is it that most of us are now concerned with? With violence and non-violence, with acquiring a little virtue, with the particular caste or nation we belong to, with whether there is God or not, with what kind of meditation to practise, and so on - all of which is on a limited, petty scale.

So the mind gets lost in little things; but this does not mean that one must not inquire into what is meditation. To discover what meditation is, is quite a different matter. But the mind is concerned with what system of meditation to use in order to arrive, and this preoccupation with a system makes the mind petty, shallow, empty - which is what is happening to most of us. We repeat the Gita, the Bible, the Koran, or some Buddhist book, or we quote Lenin or Marx, and think we have solved all the issues.

Whereas, it seems to me that what is important is to bring about the good mind, that extraordinary quality of the mind that captures instantaneously the totality of feeling, the totality of being; and I think that the good mind is not possible as long as there is effort. As long as one is striving in any direction, making an effort to be or not to be this or that, the good mind, the mind that is capable of perceiving the whole, is not possible. It is only the mind that is freeing itself from effort, from striving, that can understand the totality of being.