Ojai, California | 9th Public Talk 1945
All the conflicting entities which make up the me have also brought into being the other me, the observer, the analyser. To understand myself I must understand the many parts of myself including the I who has become the watcher, the I who understands. The thinker must not only understand his many contradictory thoughts but he must understand himself as the creator of these many entities. The I, the thinker, the observer watches his opposing and conflicting thoughts-feelings as though he were not part of them, as though he were above and beyond them, controlling, guiding, shaping. But is not the I, the thinker, also these conflicts? Has he not created them? Whatever the level, is the thinker separate from his thoughts? The thinker is the creator of opposing urges, assuming different roles at different times according to his pleasure and pain. To comprehend himself the thinker must come upon himself through his many aspects. A tree is not just the flower and the fruit but is the total process. Similarly to understand myself I must without identification and choice be aware of the total process that is the me.
How can there be understanding when one part is used as a means of comprehending the other? Is it possible to understand one contradiction by another? There is understanding only when contradiction as a whole ceases, when thought is not identifying itself with the part.
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