Observer is the Observed

Time by the watch we know is a fact. We also know time as will, which is also a fact. We also know the gradual process when thought says, ‘Do it tomorrow, that’s good enough’ – which again is time. Now, what is time beyond this? Is there such thing as time? To find out, not merely theoretically or intellectually or emotionally but actually to feel your way into it, one has to go into the question of the observer and the observed.
As long as there is the observer and the observed there is time.
When you look at a sunset, there is the observer and the fact, the observed. There is a division between the observer and the observed. That division is time. The observer is not a permanent entity. Let me caution you here. Don’t say that the observer existed first – look at it as though you have not read a single sacred book. (Sacred books are not important anyhow.) Look at it as though you are looking for the first time, do not translate what somebody else said, that there is the original observer, the original entity, the silent watcher. You can spin a lot of words and theories, but you are missing the whole point.

As you watch anything, there is the observer, the censor, the thinker, the experiencer, the seeker, and the thing observed: the observer and the observed, the thinker and the thought. So there is always a division, and this division is time. This division is the very essence of conflict and contradiction. There is the observer and the observed, which in itself is a contradiction and separation. When there is conflict, there is the urgency to get beyond it, conquer it, overcome it, escape from it, or do something about it – and all this activity involves time.

So, as long as there is the observer and the observed as two separate entities, there is time. If the observer identifies himself with the observed, in that process time is involved too. If you say you believe in God, you try to identify yourself with that, which involves time because you have to make an effort, struggle, give up this, do that, etc. Or you blindly identify yourself and end up in an asylum.

The observer is watching, judging, censoring, accepting, rejecting.
So, one sees division within oneself. And one sees that as long as this division exists, time will inevitably continue, cannot come to an end. And is it possible for division to cease to exist? Which is, the observer is the observed; the seeker is the sought. Don’t translate it into your own terminology, that the seeker is God, a spiritual entity or whatever it is; thought saying, ‘I am the Atman,’ or some other entity. If you say this, you are deceiving yourself; you are not feeling your way into discovery, you are merely stating or asserting something which has no validity at all.

So, is it possible for this division between the observer and the observed to come to an end? As long as there is this division, time will go on, and time is sorrow. One who will understand the end of sorrow must understand this, must go beyond the duality between the thinker and the thought, the experiencer and the experienced. So what is one to do? I see within myself the observer is watching, judging, censoring, accepting, rejecting, disciplining, controlling, shaping. That observer, that thinker, is the result of thought. Thought is first; not the observer, not the thinker. If there were no thinking there would be no observer, no thinker; there would only be complete, total attention.

So, is it possible for the division between the thinker and the thought, the observer and the observed, to come to an end? No time must be involved. If I do certain practices in order to break down this division, time is involved and therefore I perpetuate the division as the thinker and the thought. So, what is one to do? Put that question, not verbally but with astonishing urgency. You are urgent only when you feel something very strongly; when you have physical pain, you act, there is an intensity. Man has lived for so many millennia, suffering, tortured, never finding a way out. To find a way out is an immensely urgent question. So one must understand this question very deeply, which is to listen to it, listen to what is being said.

See that the division between the observer and the observed is non-existent.
Do you know what it is to listen, to listen to that breeze among the leaves without resistance, interpretation or distraction? There is no such thing as distraction when you are listening. When you listen to that breeze among the leaves, you listen with complete attention, and therefore there is no time involved at all. You are listening, not translating, not interpreting, not agreeing or disagreeing, not saying, ‘I’ll think about it tomorrow – you are in a state of actual listening, which means you are so concerned, if I may use that word, because you are in sorrow. So you give your whole mind, your whole body, your whole nerves, everything you have, to listen.

If you have listened that way, we can go to another problem which will help the understanding and end of the division between the observer and the observed. There must be order, not only social order but order in the room, order in the street. Without order, you cannot function. Order is virtue, order is righteousness, and without order you cannot function efficiently. So order inwardly and outwardly is essential. Society and the human being are not two different entities; when there is order in the human being, there will be order externally. Because there is disorder in all of us, there is disorder outwardly. The mere patching up of order outside – and there must be social order – will not solve this inward disorder.

So, order is virtue, and virtue cannot be cultivated any more than you can cultivate humility. If you cultivate humility, you are covering up your vanity. Humility is something that must blossom naturally. Without humility, there is no learning. When you cultivate virtue, it is no longer virtue. You cannot cultivate love, can you? You can cultivate hate, greed, envy; you can be more polite, more gentle, more kind, more generous, but that is not love. Love is something which is not of time or memory. That quality of love is compassion, in which is included tenderness, kindness, generosity, and so on. But generosity and kindliness are not love. As you cannot cultivate love or humility, so you cannot possibly cultivate virtue. And yet our habit and tradition are to cultivate virtue – which is merely resisting the fact. The fact is, in spite of what you have said for centuries, you are violent. You may not hit another, but you are violent because you are ambitious, greedy, envious, and when your country is attacked, you sit up and take notice. Now, to bring order in violence is to end violence, and the ending of violence must be immediate, not tomorrow. The ending of violence, which is order, does not involve time. If time is involved, which is will, postponement, gradualness – gradually, through ideas and conformity, I will get rid of violence – you are not really free of violence. To be free of violence is now, not tomorrow.

Time ceases when there is space without the centre, without the observer.
So, there must be a feeling of righteousness, which comes into being without motive when you understand the nature of time. When you are good because you are going to be punished or rewarded, there is a motive. Therefore it is not goodness; it is fear. Righteousness is always without motive, and in that field of human relationship, of righteousness, time does not exist. When you love somebody, what does it mean? To love somebody, an animal, a tree or the sky – what does it mean? It means not intellection, not the reaction of memory, but an intensity between two individuals or between two objects, intensity at the same level and at the same time. Then there is a communication, non-verbal, non-intellectual, non-sentimental. Love is not sentiment, love is not emotion, love is not devotion.

So when one understands the nature of time, what is involved in it, there is order and virtue, which is immediate. When you understand this virtue, which is order, which is immediate, then you see that the division between the observer and the observed is non-existent. Therefore time has come to a stop. It is only such a mind that can know what is new.

We know space only because there is the object which creates space around it. There is this microphone, and because of that, there is space around it. There is space inside the house because of the four walls, and there is space outside the house, which the house as an object creates. When there is space which an object has created, there is time. Is there space without the object? You have to discover this; this is a challenge. You have to find out because one’s mind is petty and small, always functioning within the limits of its self-centred activities. All the activities are within that centre and around that centre, in the space which the centre creates within itself and round itself. Therefore when there is space which an object, thought or image has created, that space can never give freedom because in that space there is always time.

Time ceases when there is space without the centre, without the observer and therefore without the object. It is only such a mind that can know what beauty is. Beauty is not a stimulant; it is not brought about or put together by architecture, paintings, by looking at the sunset or by seeing a beautiful face. Beauty is something entirely different; it can be understood only when the experiencer is no longer there, and therefore experience ceases to exist. It is like love – the moment you say that you love, you cease to love because love then is merely mentation, a feeling, an emotion, in which there is jealousy, hate, envy, greed.