DAILY THOUGHTS
(collection)

The old mind is bound by authority

The problem then is: Is it possible for a mind that has been so conditioned brought up in innumerable sects, religions, and all the superstitions, fears to break away from itself and thereby bring about a new mind?....The old mind is essentially the mind that is bound by authority. I am not using the word authority in the legalistic sense; but by that word I mean authority as tradition, authority as knowledge, authority as experience, authority as the means of finding security and remaining in that security, outwardly or inwardly, because, after all, that is what the mind is always seeking a place where it can be secure, undisturbed. Such authority may be the self-imposed authority of an idea or the so called religious idea of God, which has no reality to a religious person. An idea is not a fact, it is a fiction. God is a fiction; you may believe in it, but still it is a fiction. But to find God you must completely destroy the fiction, because the old mind is the mind that is frightened, is ambitious, is fearful of death, of living, and of relationship; and it is always, consciously or unconsciously, seeking a permanency, security.