Written Messages

Paris 31 Aug. 2006

Sensitivity is a holistic, integral and non-fragmented state, whereas sentimentality is a partial affair leading to disintegration and fragmentation. In sensitivity there is renewal, rebirth and resurrection,  whereas in sentimentality there is only the cultivated refinement and the continued re-fabrication of the illusory fiction felt as ''I'' with its everlasting sentimental ideas and projections. Sensitivity is dying from moment to moment to all sentimentality and thus living from moment to moment in the ecstasy of freedom, whereas sentimentality is division and delusion leading to longing and languishing in the entanglement of the limited embodied consciousness. Sensitivity is not gathered bit by bit, it is never cultivated and it is not a state of emotionalism. Sensitivity has no overtones of romanticism and fancy. Only a sensitive person can be awake to the actuality without running into judgements and jargons, opinions and obsessions, assumptions and ascriptions. This sensitivity is the austerity of seeing and understanding. It is the destruction of all stupid desires and demands. It is stripped of all sentimentality and its pleasure movements. There is great pleasure in refinement and its presentations, postures and pursuits. The way of refinement is endless with all its conflicts, contradiction and pain. There is always the compulsive and the heavily conditioned chooser, the one who continues to refine leading to self-enclosing activity and aloofness, the separation which too much vanity breeds. Sentimentality and refinement are just self-centred phenomena, however glorified aesthetically and morally. There is gratification in the refining process but no joy of depth. It is indeed very superficial and petty. Sentimentality is mind, but sensitivity is life that has no end. The saintly suppression is the saintly insensitivity and brutal dullness which is unfortunately regarded so highly by ''moral'' convention! To make the consciousness more stupid and dull, ideals and conclusions are invented and spread around. All forms of sentimentality, however refined or gross, cultivate resistance and decay.

Sensitivity flowers when one gets rid of all sentimentality. To be sensitive, utterly and intensely, is to have no scar of sentimental memory because every scar destroys sensitivity. To be sensitive from moment to moment, choicelessly, is to be free from scars, never allowing a scar to be formed. Accumulation of psychological residues and sediments of sentimental scars, brings about tremendous dullness and distortions. And then sensitivity withers away !

Sentimentality is still within the call of sorrow whereas sensitivity is questioning the structure of sorrow and going beyond it. This questioning is far more important than going to the temples, mosques, synagogues and churches which merely maintain the structure. Sensitive questions break the mental prison, whereas sentimental refining builds up new and more expensive prisons decorated with gods and saviours, with economists and leaders. Questioning by sensitive and rebellious awareness destroys the machinery of thought and does not substitute it by other thoughts, conclusions and theories. This questioning shatters the so-called authority and the most respected evil -- power. It explodes the moral and respectable selfishness with all its vested interests.  Selfishness is always modified, it is never smashed. This endless modification is the endless sorrow breeding more agony and despair. Explosive questioning by sensitivity ends sorrow. And then compassion and comprehension is something that concepts and conclusions can never measure.

Our mind is shallow and empty always demanding psychological security but the fact is that this desiring entity is an illusion breeding only fear. Here or in the hereafter, nothing is secure and  permanent except the sky. By sensitive questioning and listening, the pattern moulded by the mind is shattered for the life to be. Mind breeds sorrow, and love is the freedom from the mind.

Simplicity is the gut to live without goals, greed, god and gratification. A simple man is in the energy of presence. He is not a personality pretending or projecting simplicity. Humility is not against pride, it is the absence of pride. Humility is the natural state of understanding, but pride needs refinement to be presentable. Sensitivity is simplicity and humility. Sentimentality is complicated and full of pride. Sensitivity is stillness. Sentimentality is agitation.

JAI SENSITIVITY