There is the desire for security. And one can understand this desire to be secure when you meet a wild animal, a snake; or you watch when you cross the road. But there is no other form of security. Really,if you look at it, there is no other form. You would like to have security with your wife, children, neighbor, your relations—if you have relations—but you don't have it. You may have your mother, you may have your father, but you are not related, you are completely isolated— we will go into that.
What you are, the world is. So your problem is the world's problem. Surely, this is a simple and basic fact, is it not? In our relationship with the one or the many we seem somehow to overlook this point all the time.
First of all, why do we want to change what is, or bring about a transformation? Why? Because what we are dissatisfies Us; it creates conflict, disturbance; and disliking that state, we want something better, something nobler, more idealis-tic. So, we desire transformation because there is pain, discomfort, conflict.
Thought is the very essence of security, and that is what the most bourgeois mind wants—security, security at every level! To bring about a total change of the human consciousness, thought must function at one level and must not function at another level.
Ignorance is lack of knowledge of the ways of the self, and this ignorance cannot be dissipated by superficial activities and reforms; it can be dissipated by one's constant awareness of the movements and responses of the self in all its relationships.