“One can have Abiding, lasting peace only when the individual understands himself [herself] and his [her] relationship with another, which makes society. Peace is within and not without…. We cannot create a peaceful, intelligent society if the individual is intolerant, brutal, and competitive. If the individual lacks kindliness, affection, thoughtfulness, in his [her] relationship with another, He [She] must inevitably produce conflict, antagonism, and confusion. Society is the extension of the individual; society is the projection of ourselves….”
“Man [woman] [The Human] is the measure of all things [being the creature that measures], and if his [her] vision is perverted, then what he [she] thinks and creates must inevitably lead to disaster and sorrow. Out of what he [she] thinks and feels, the individual builds the society. I personally feel that the world is myself, that what I do creates either peace or sorrow in the world that is myself, and as long as I do not understand myself, I cannot bring peace to the world; so my immediate concern is myself, not selfishly, not merely to alter myself in order to gain greater happiness, greater sensations, greater successes, for as long as I do not understand myself, I must live in pain and sorrow and cannot discover an enduring peace and happiness.”
“Instead of strengthening beliefs and ideologies, become aware of your thoughts-feelings, for out of them spring the issues of life. What you are the world is; if you are cruel, lustful, ignorant, greedy, so is the world. Your belief or your disbelief in God is of little significance, for by your thoughts-feelings-actions, you make the world terrible and ruthless, peaceful and compassionate, barbarous or wise.”
“You learn while you are doing. The doing is the learning.”
”I can’t sit in my room and try to find out whether I am violent. I can imagine I’m not violent, but the real test, the real action comes in relationship, to see if I am like that. That’s real work. And if you do that, you have tremendous energy because your life is in order.”
“Then there is the deeper conditioning, such as an aggressive attitude towards life. Aggression implies a sense of dominance, of seeking power, possessions, and prestige. One has to go very deeply to be completely free of that, because it is very subtle, taking many different forms. One may think one is not aggressive, but when one has an ideal, an opinion, an evaluation, verbal and nonverbal, there is a sense of assertiveness, which gradually becomes aggressive and violent. One can see this in oneself. Behind the very word ‘aggression’ – though you may say it very gently – there is a kick, there is a furtive, dominant, compulsive action, which becomes cruel and violent. That aggressive conditioning one has to discover, whether one has derived it from the animal or has become aggressive in one’s own self-assertive pleasure.”
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