>>12521691The 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.
