On the Nature of Sensitivity and Beauty

Look at all the birds, the trees, and at the dirty streets. Look at people. Look at your parents and teachers; notice how they talk to you, what kind of words they use.

Passive listening presence is not itself a thought-process. The presence is always something new and spontaneous

To be the thought present in passive listening, is to see it completely with the heart and the mind, to observe it neutral as in a mirror, without saying yes and no, and feel it deeply and incisively, without seeking to achieve anything with it.

And this presence is not itself such a thought-process. The presence is always something new, young and spontaneous.

The thought is the eternal recurrence of the same, and therefore never new.

The passive listening presence and the active evaluating thinking are two completely different things, and they can never meet.

But the habitual in our surroundings dulls us, so we shrug our shoulders and say: ”What is the use of it? That is the way of life”.

Thereby we spoil our sensitivity, so that we never act, when we are facing hideousness, exploitation, cruelty and suffering. Also our admiration and deep joy over all beauty are destroyed.

In this way, our life of feelings slowly and imperceptibly withers away.

When the mind seeks to control the body, and suppress the senses, the body is made insensitive

The mind not should seek to control the body.

The mind can perhaps control the body, and suppress the senses, but thereby the mind makes the body insensitive; and an insensitive body becomes a hindrance for the own full unfolding of the mind.

To restrain the body certainly doesn´t serve the investigation of the deeper layers of consciousness.

This is only possible when there doesn't exist a conflict between the mind, the feelings and the body.

It is only possible when they are complete, and in mutual harmony, and are this in an effortless way, without becoming drifted to it by some specific images of life, a particular conception, belief or ideal.