To discover what is beyond time, thought must come to an end ...
It is the mind, it is thought, that creates time. Thought is time, and whatever thought projects must be of time; therefore, thought cannot possibly go beyond itself. To discover what is beyond time, thought must come to an end -and that is a most difficult thing because the ending of thought does not come about through discipline, through control, through denial or suppression. Thought ends only when we understand the whole process of thinking and, to understand thinking, there must be self-knowledge. Thought is the self, thought is the word which identifies itself as the 'me', and at whatever level, high or low, the self is placed, it is still within the field of thought. And the self is very complex; it is not at any one level but is made up of many thoughts, many entities, each in contradiction with the other. There must be a constant awareness of them all, an awareness in which there is no choice, no condemnation or comparison, that is, there must be the capacity to see things as they are without distorting or translating them. The moment we judge or translate what is seen, we distort it according to our background. To be is to be related, and it is only in the midst of relationship that we can spontaneously discover ourselves as we are. It is this very discovery of ourselves as we are, without any sense of condemnation or justification, that brings about a fundamental transformation in what we are -and that is the beginning of wisdom.
Collected Works, Vol. VI,220,Choiceless Awareness
