Why do we have images? How are these images formed? Who forms them? And what is the basis, the root, the nature, the demand for making images? To have an image of your wife or husband makes one feel secure about them. To have an image of yourself as a big businessman gives you a sense of security, gives you ambition and gives you the energy to fulfil that ambition. So there are images at work and in the family, about your children, your house, and so on – image-making. Now, why does the mind make images? These images are tearing us apart. There is the national image: American, English, French, Dutch, German – all images, labels. We’re asking why. Why does the human mind make images? Is it not because in having an image you feel you know somebody? It gives you a great sense of safety and security. In that image you feel safe, because you really don’t know the living human being. The image may be changed, but it is a static movement, a static state, the image-making. Whereas the living thing is never static – it is moving, living. And a living thing you cannot know, only a dead thing. So this image-making becomes all-important. Where there is the image, there must be separation and division. In this division, there must be fragmentation, quarrels and wars. From Interview 2 by Gary Null at Brockwood Park, 17 October 1980 Read more |