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0一月二十八日 自我认识
如果不认识自己，那么随你怎么努力，都不可能进入禅定状态。我所谓的自我认识，指的就是去认识你的念头、情绪、感觉等心智活动——即使是所谓的大我、更高的我或梵我，也仍然局限在思想的范围之内，因此不需要去认识这些东西。思想是一种局限，一种从记忆中生出的反应。若是不先建立起深刻的自我认识，你不可能有美德。缺少了美德，禅定就会变成毫无意义的自欺活动。
请仔细地听我说，这是非常重要的一件事，因为缺少了美德，你的禅定跟真实生活就分家了——即使你打坐的姿态正确无误，而且终生都致力于禅定，你的视野也不可能超过你的鼻子，这么一来你所做的一切都失去了意义。因此，了解自己，毫无拣择地觉察自己，不去诠释自我的活动，而只是观察念头的来龙去脉，才是最重要的事。
如果你的观察是在累积一些东西——譬如该做什么、不该做什么、该达成什么，等等——那么就不是在观察心念活动了。因此我们必须如实观察，并且要看见当下心中的真相。如果带着成见去看当下的真相，就会产生我应该怎么样、我不该怎么样的反应，如此一来，心中的真相就被障蔽住了。这样你什么也领悟不到了。
January 28
Self-knowing
Without knowing yourself, do what you will, there cannot possibly be the state of meditation. I mean by “self-knowing,” knowing every thought, every mood, every word, every feeling; knowing the activity of your mind—not knowing the Supreme Self, the big Self; there is no such thing; the Higher Self, the Atman, is still within the field of thought.
Thought is the result of your conditioning, thought is the response of your memory—ancestral or immediate. And merely to try to meditate without first establishing deeply, irrevocably, that virtue which comes about through self-knowing, is utterly deceptive and absolutely useless.
Please, it is very important for those who are serious, to understand this. Because if you cannot do that, your meditation and actual living are divorced, are apart—so wide apart that though you may meditate, taking postures indefinitely, for the rest of your life, you will not see beyond your nose; any posture you take, anything that you do, will have no meaning whatsoever.
...It is important to understand what this self-knowing is, just to be aware, without any choice, of the “me” which has its source in a bundle of memories—just to be conscious of it without interpretation, merely to observe the movement of the mind. But that observation is prevented when you are merely accumulating through observation—what to do, what not to do, what to achieve, what not to achieve; if you do that, you put an end to the living process of the ovement of the mind as the self. That is, I have to observe and see the fact, the actual, the what is. If I approach it with an idea, with an opinion —such as “I must not,” or “I must,” which are the responses of memory—then the movement of what is is hindered, is blocked; and therefore, there is no learning.
