The Ending of Time
J. Krishnamurti
and
Dr. David Bohm
Q: And you suggested that making thought the king is the main
irrationality?
K: That is right. We have reached that point.
DB: But how did we slip into making thought so important? K:
Why has man given importance to thought as the supreme thing? I
think that is fairly easy. Because that is the only thing he knows.
DB: It doesn't follow that he would give it supreme importance.
K: Because the things I know - the things thought has created,
the images, all the rest of it - are more important than the things I
don't know.
DB: But you see, if intelligence were operating he would not
come to that conclusion. It is not rational to say that all that I know
is all that is important.
K: So, man is irrational.
DB: He slipped into irrationality to say, all that I know is all
that is important. But why should man have done this?
K: Would you say that the mistake is made because he clings to
the known, and objects to anything unknown?
DB: That is a fact, but it is not clear why he should.
K: Because that is the only thing he has.
DB: But I am asking why he was not intelligent enough to see
this.
K: Because he is irrational.
DB: Well, we are going around in circles!
K: I don't think so.
DB: Look, every one of these reasons you give is merely
another example of man's irrationality.
K: That is all I am saying. We are basically irrational, because
we have given thought supreme importance.
Q: But the step before that is that the thought has built up the
idea that I exist?
K: Ah, that comes a little later; we have to go step by step.
Q: Surely for the `me', the only thing that exists is thought.
K: Would the scientists accept that? DB: The scientist feels he
is investigating the real nature of matter, independent of thought,
ultimately independent anyway. He wants to know the way the
universe is. He may be fooling himself, but he feels that it wouldn't
be worth doing unless he believes he is finding an objective fact.
K: So would you say that through the investigation of matter he
is trying to find something, he is trying to find the ground?
DB: That's exactly it.
K: But wait! Is that it?
DB: Precisely, yes.
K: Now the religious man says you cannot find it by becoming
terribly rational in your life. He doesn't accept that he is rational
but says he is irrational in contradiction, and so on. So either he
will have to clear up that first - step by step, or he can do the whole
thing at one blow. Right? One accepts that one is irrational.
DB: But there is a difficulty. If you accept you are irrational,
you stop, because you say, how can you begin?
K: Yes. But if I accept I am irrational - wait a minute -
completely, then I am rational!
DB: You will have to make that more clear. You could say that
man has been deluding himself into believing that he is already
rational.
K: I don't accept that.
DB: Now if you don't accept this delusion, then you are saying
that rationality will be there.
K: No, I don't accept it. The fact is, I am irrational and, to find
the ground, I must become extremely rational in my life. That's all.
Irrationality has been brought about by thought creating this idea of
me as separate from everybody else. So can I, being irrational, find
the cause of irrationality and wipe it out? If I can't do that, I cannot
reach the ground which is the most rational. Would a scientist who
is investigating matter accept that the ground exists at all?
DB: Well, tacitly he is assuming that it does. K: It does. Mr. `X'
comes along and says it does exist. And you, the scientists say
`Show it.' Mr. `X' says I will show it to you. A scientist meets with
other scientists, experimenting and being rational in that area,
although irrational in his own life. First become rational in your
life, begin here, rather than there. What would you say to all that?
This must be done without effort without desire, without will,
without any sense of persuasion, otherwise you are back in the
game.
DB: Let's try to put it like this: even in science you could no
pursue the science fully unless you were rational.
K: Somewhat rational.
DB: Somewhat rational, but, eventually, the failure of
rationality blocks science anyway. Scientists cling to their theories,
and they become jealous and so on.
K: That's it, that is all. The irrationality overcomes them.
DB: So then you could say you might as well look at the source
the whole irrationality.
K: That is what I am saying.
DB: But now you have to make it clear that it really can be
done.
K: Oh yes, I am showing it to you. I say, first recognize, see,
observe, be aware that you are totally irrational.
DB: The word `totally' will cause trouble, because if you we
totally irrational you couldn't even begin to talk.
K: No, that is my question. I say one is totally irrational. First
recognize it. Watch it. The moment you admit there is some part of
me that is rational, who wants to wipe away the irrationality.
DB: ...It is not that, but there must be sufficient rationality
understand what you are talking about.
K: Yes, of course.
DB: Essentially, I would rather put it that one is dominated by
one's irrationality, even though there is enough rationality discuss
the question.
K: I question that. DB: You see, otherwise we couldn't begin to
talk.
K: But listen. We begin to talk. A few of us begin to talk
because we are willing to listen to each other, we are willing to
say, we'll set aside any conclusions we have; we are willing to
listen to each other.
DB: That is part of rationality.
K: With some of us perhaps, but the vast majority is not willing
to listen to us, because we are concerned, serious enough to find
out if the ground exists. That gives us rationality to listen to each
other.
DB: Listing is necessary for rationality.
K: Of course. Are we saying the same thing?
DB: Yes.
K: The scientist, through the examination of matter, hopes to
reach the ground. We and `X' and `Y' say, let us become rational in
our life. Which means that you and I, and `X' and `Y' are willing to
listen to each other. That's all. The very listening is the beginning
of rationality. Some people won't listen to us or to anybody. So can
we, who are listening, be somewhat rational, and begin? That is all
my point. This is being terribly logical, isn't it? So can we proceed
from there?
Why has man brought about this irrationality in his life? A few
of us can apparently throw off some part of irrationality, become
somewhat rational and say, now, let's start. Let us start to find out
why man lives this way. Now what is the common dominant factor
in all our lives? Obviously it is thought.
DB: Yes, that is so. Of course many people might deny that and
say it is feeling, or that something else is the major factor.
K: Many people might say that, but thought is part of feeling.
DB: Yes, but that is not commonly understood.
K: We will explain it. Feeling - if there was no thought behind
it, would you be able to recognize it?
DB: Yes, I think this is a major difficulty, in communication
with some people. K: So we begin. There may be some who don't
see this, but I want the free `X' and `Y' to see it, because they have
become somewhat rational, therefore they are listening to each
other. They can say thought is the main source of this current.
DB: Then we have to say, what is thought?
K: I think that is fairly simple. Thought brings about
irrationality.
DB: Yes, but what is it? How do you know you are thinking?
What do you mean by thinking?
K: Thinking is the movement of memory, which is experience,
knowledge, stored in the brain.
DB: Suppose we want to have rationality which includes
rational thought. Is rational thought only memory?
K: Wait a minute. Let's be careful. If we are completely
rational, there is total insight. That insight uses thought, and then it
is rational.
DB: Then thought is not only memory?
K: No, no.
DB: Well, I mean since it is being used by insight...
K: No, insight uses thought.
DB: Yes, but what thought does is not just due to memory now.
K: Wait a minute.
DB: Outwardly thought runs on its own, it runs like a machine
on its own, and it is not rational.
K: Quite right.
DB: But when thought is the instrument of insight...
K: Then thought is not memory.
DB: It is not based on memory.
K: No, not based on memory.
DB: Memory is used, but it is not based on memory. K: Then
what? Thought being limited, divisive, incomplete, can never be
rational...
DB: Without insight.
K: That's right. Now, how are we to have insight which is total
rationality? Not the rationality of thought.
DB: I should call it rationality of perception.
K: Yes, rationality of perception.
DB: Then thought becomes the instrument of that, so it has the
same order.
K: Now how am I to have that insight? That is the next
question. Isn't it? What am I to do, or not to do, to have this instant
insight, which is not of time, which is not of memory, which has no
cause, which is not based on reward or punishment? It is free of all
that. Now how does the mind have this insight? When I say, I have
the insight, that is wrong. Obviously. So how is it possible for a
mind which has been irrational, and has become somewhat
rational, to have that insight? It is possible to have that insight if
your mind is free from time.
DB: Right. Let's go slowly because you see, if we go back to the
scientific, even common sense point of view, implicitly time is
taken as the ground of everything in scientific work. In fact even in
ancient Greek mythology Chronos, the god of time, produces his
children and swallows them. That is exactly what we said about the
ground; everything comes from the ground and dies to the ground.
So, in a way, mankind long ago began to take time already as the
ground.
K: Yes. And then someone comes along and says time is not the
ground.
DB: That's right. So until now even scientists have been looking
for the ground in time - and everybody else too!
K: That is the whole point.
DB: Now you say time is not the ground. Somebody might say
this is nonsense, but we say, we will stay open to that, although
some people might easily dismiss it right away. Now if you say
time is not the ground, we don't know where we are. K: I know
where I am. We will go into it.
Q: Is time the same movement as this thought which we
described first?
K: Yes, time is that. Time is thought.
DB: Let's go slowly again on that, because there is, as we have
often said, chronological time.
K: Of course, that is simple.
DB: Yes, but in addition we are thinking. You see, thinking
takes time chronologically, but in addition it projects a kind of
imaginary time...
K: ...which is the future.
DB: Which is the future and the past as we experience it.
K: Yes, that is right.
DB: That time which is imagined is also a kind of real process
of thinking.
K: It is a fact.
DB: It is a fact that it takes time, physically, to think, but we
also have time when we can imagine the whole past and future.
K: Yes, which are facts.
DB: So let's say that this time is not the ground, perhaps not
even physically.
K: We are going to find out.
DB: Yes, but we feel it to be the ground, because we feel that
we, as the self, exist in time. Without time there could be no `me'.
K: That's it.
DB: `I' must exist in time.
K: Of course, of course.
DB: Eternally being something, or becoming something.
K: Becoming and being are in the field of time. Now can the
mind, which has evolved through time... Q: What do you mean by
mind then?
K: Mind - the brain, my senses, my feeling, all that is the mind.
DB: The particular mind, you mean.
K: Particular mind, of course, I am talking of the mind that has
evolved through time.
DB: Even its particularity depends on time.
K: Time, of course, and all the rest of it. Now we are asking,
can that mind be free of time, to have an insight which is totally
rational, which then can operate on thought? That thought is totally
rational, not based on memory. Agreed?
DB: Yes.
K: Now how am I - as `X' and `Y' - to be free of time? I know I
need time to go from here to there, to learn a lesson, a technique,
etc. I understand that very clearly, so I am not talking about that
time. I am talking about time as becoming.
DB: As being.
K: Of course, becoming is being. I start from being to become.
DB: And being something in myself. Being better, being
happier.
K: Yes, the whole thing - the more. Now can I, can my brain
investigating to find out if the ground exists, can my whole mind
be tree of time? We have now separated time. The time which is
necessary, and the time which is not necessary. That is, can my
brain not function as it has always done, in time as thought? Which
means, can thought come to an end? Would you accept that?
DB: Yes, but could you make that more clear? We can see that
the first question is, can my brain not be dominated by the function
of thought?
K: Yes, which is time.
DB: And then, if you say thought comes to an end...
K: No! Can time as thought come to a stop?
DB: Psychological time comes to a stop. K: Yes, I am talking of
that.
DB: But we will still have the rational thought.
K: Of course. That is understood. We have said that.
DB: We are discussing the thought of conscious experience.
Q: Of becoming and being...
K: And the retention of memory; you know, the past, as
knowledge. Oh, yes, that can be done.
DB: You really mean the memory of experiences?
K: The memory of experiences, hurts, attachments, the whole of
it. Now can that come to an end? Of course it can. This is the point:
it can come to an end when the very perception asks, what is it?
What is hurt? What is psychological damage? The perception of it
is the ending of it. Not carrying it over, which is time. The very
ending of it is the ending of time. I think that is clear. `X' is hurt,
wounded from childhood. And he, by listening, talking, discussing,
realizes that the continuation of the hurt is time. And to find out the
ground, time must end. So he says, can my hurt end instantly,
immediately?
DB: Yes, I think there are some steps in that. You say, he finds
that hurt is time, but the immediate experience of it is that it exists
on its own.
K: I know, of course. We can go into that.
DB: That simply is something on its own.
K: Which means, I have created an image about myself and the
image is hurt, but not me.
DB: What do you mean by that?
K: All right. In the becoming, which is time, I have created an
image about myself.
DB: Well, thought has created that image.
K: Thought has created an image through experience, through
education, through conditioning, and made this image separate
from me. But this image is actually `me', although we have
separated the image and the me, which is irrational. So, in realizing
that the image is `me', I have become somewhat rational.
DB: I think that will not be clear - because if I am hurt I feel the
image is `me'.
K: The image is you.
DB: The person who is hurt feels that way, you see.
K: All right. But the moment you operate on it you separate
yourself.
DB: That's the point. Now the first feeling is that the image is
`me' hurt, and the second feeling is that I draw back from the image
in order to operate on it...
K: ...which is irrationality.
DB: ...because it is not correct.
K: That's right.
DB: And that brings in time, because I say it will take time to
do that.
K: Quite right. So by seeing that, I become rational, and act.
The act is to be free of it immediately.
DB: Let's go into that. The first thing is that there has been a
hurt. That is the image, but at first I don't separate it. I feel
identified with it.
K: I am that.
DB: I am that. But then I draw back, and say that I think there
must be a `me' who can do something.
K: Yes, can operate on it.
DB: Now that takes time.
K: That is time.
DB: That is time, but I mean, I am thinking it takes time. Now I
have to go slowly. If i don't do that, that hurt cannot exist.
K: That's right.
DB: But it is not obvious in the experience itself that this is so.
K: First let's go slowly into it. I am hurt. That is a fact. Then I
separate myself - there is a separation - saying, I will do something
about it.
DB: The `me' who will do something is different.
K: Different, of course.
DB: And he thinks about what he should do.
K: The `me' is different because it is becoming.
DB: It projects into the future a different state.
K: Yes. I am hurt. There is a separation, a division. The `me',
which is always pursuing the becoming, says, I must control it. I
must wipe it out. I must act upon it, or I will be vengeful, hurtful.
So this movement of separation is time.
DB: We can see that now. The point is, there is something here
that is not obvious. A person is thinking that the hurt exists
independently of `me', and I must do something about it. I project
into the future the better state and what I will do. Let's try to make
this very clear, because you are saying that there is no separation.
K: My rationality discovers there is no separation.
DB: There is no separation, but the illusion that there is a
separation helps to maintain the hurt.
K: That's right. Because the illusion is, I am becoming.
DB: Yes. I am this and will become that. So I am hurt and I will
become non-hurt. Now that very thought maintains the hurt.
K: That's right.
Q: Is the separation not already there when I become conscious
and say I am hurt?
K: I am hurt. Then I say, I am going to hit you because you
have hurt me, or I say, I must suppress it - or I create fear, and so
on.
Q: But isn't that feeling of separation there from the moment I
say I am hurt?
K: That is irrationality.
Q: That is irrational already? K: Yes, when you say, does not
the separation exist already when I say `I am hurt'.
DB: It does, but I think that before that happens you get a kind
of shock. The first thing that happens is a mild shock, a pain or
whatever, which you identify with that shock. Then you explain it
by saying `I am hurt', and that immediately implies the separation
to do something about it.
K: Of course. If I am not hurt I don't know anything about
separation or not separation. If I am hurt, I am irrational as long as
I maintain that hurt and do something about it, which is to become.
Then irrationality comes in. I think that is right.
DB: Now if you don't maintain it, what happens? Suppose you
say, I won't go on with this becoming?
K: Ah, that is quite a different matter. It means I am no longer
thinking, no longer observing, or using time as an observation.
DB: You could say that is not your way of looking. It is not
your theory any more.
K: That's right.
DB: Because you could say time is a theory which everybody
adopts for psychological purposes.
K: Yes. That is the common factor; time is the common factor
of man. And we are pointing out time is an illusion...
DB: Psychological time.
K: Of course, that is understood.
DB: Are you saying that when we no longer approach this
through time, then the hurt does not continue?
K: It does not continue, it ends - because you are not becoming
anything.
DB: In becoming you are always continuing what you are.
K: That's right. Continuing what you are, modified...
DB: That is why you struggle to become.
K: We are talking about insight. That is, insight has no time.
Insight is not the product of time, time being memory, etc. So there
is insight. That insight being free of time acts upon memory, acts
upon thought. That is, insight makes thought rational, but not
thought which is based on memory. Then what the devil is that
thought?
No. Wait a minute. I don't think thought comes in at all. We
said insight comes into being when there is no time. Thought -
which is based on memory, experience, knowledge - that is the
movement of time as becoming. We are talking of psychological
and not chronological time. We are saying to be free of time
implies insight. Insight, being free of time, has no thought.
DB: We said that it may use thought.
K: Wait. I am not sure. Just go slowly. It may use thought to
explain, but it acts. Before, action was based on thought. Now,
when there is insight, there is only action. Why do you want
thought? Because insight is rational, action is rational. Action
becomes irrational when it is acting from thought. So insight
doesn't use thought.
DB: Well, we have to make it clear because in a certain area it
has to use thought... If, for example, you want to construct
something you would use the thought which is available on how to
do it.
K: But that is not insight.
DB: But even so you may have to have insight in that area.
K: Partial. The scientists, the painters, the architects, the
doctors, the artists and so on have partial insight. But we are
talking of `X' and `Y', who are seeking the ground; they are
becoming rational, and we are saying insight is without time, and
therefore without thoughts, and that insight is action. Because that
insight is rational, action is rational. Forgive me, I am not making
myself an example, I am talking in all humility. That boy, that
young man in 1929 dissolved the Order of the Star. There was no
thought. People said, `Do this', `Don't do that', `Keep it', `Don't
keep it'. He had an insight; dissolved it. Finished! Why do we need
thought?
DB: But then you used some thought in dissolving the Order to
say, when to do it, how to do it. K: That word is used merely for
convenience, for communication with other people.
DB: But still some thought was needed.
K: The decision acts.
DB: I didn't mean about the decision. The primary action did
not require thought; only that which followed.
K: That is nothing. It is like moving a cushion from there to
there.
DB: Yes, I understand that. Then the primary source of action
does not involve thought.
K: That is all I wanted to say.
DB: But it sort off filters through into...
K: ...it is like a wave.
Q: Does not all thought undergo a transformation in this
process?
K: Yes, of course. Because insight is without time, therefore the
brain itself has undergone a change.
DB: Yes, now could we talk about what you mean by that?
K: Does it mean that every human response must be viewed by,
or must enter into insight? I will tell you what I mean. I am jealous.
Is there an insight which will cover the whole field of jealousy and
so end it? End envy, greed, and all that is involved in jealousy. You
follow? Irrational people go step by step - get rid of jealousy, get
rid of attachment, get rid of anger, get rid of this, that and the other.
Which is a constant process of becoming - right? But insight,
which is totally rational, wipes all that away.
DB: Right.
K: Is that a fact? Fact, in the sense that `X' and `Y' will never be
jealous again; never!
DB: We have to discuss that, because it is not clear how you
could guarantee it.
K: Oh, yes, I will guarantee it! DB: If it can reach those who are
able to listen...
K: Which means that to find the ground the first thing is to
listen.
DB: You see, scientists cannot always listen. Even Einstein and
Bohr were not able at a certain point to listen to each other. Each
one was attached to his particular view.
K: They brought their irrationality into operation.
THE ENDING OF TIME CHAPTER 4 10TH
APRIL 1980 CONVERSATION WITH PROF.
DAVID BOHM 'BREAKING THE PATTERN OF
EGO-CENTRED ACTIVITY'
KRISHNAMURTI: I would like to ask a question which may lead
us to something: what will make man change, deeply,
fundamentally, radically? He has had crisis after crisis, he has had
a great many shocks, he has been through every kind of
misfortune, every kind of war, personal sorrow, and so on. A little
affection, a little joy, but all this doesn't seem to change him. What
will make a human being leave the way he is going, and move in a
totally different direction? I think that is one of our great problems,
don't you? Why? If one is concerned, as one must be, with
humanity, with all the things that are going on, what would be the
right action to move man out of one direction to another? Is this
question valid? Has it any significance?
DAVID BOHM: Well, unless we can see this action, it won't
have much significance.
K: Has the question any significance?
DB: What it means is, indirectly, to ask what is holding people.
K: Yes, same thing.
DB: If we could find out what is holding people in their present
direction...
K: Is it the basic conditioning of man, this tremendous egotistic
attitude and action, which won't yield to anything? It appears to
change, it appears to yield, but the centre remains the same.
perhaps this may not be in the line of our dialogue over the last two
or three days, but I thought we might start with this.
DB: Have you some notion of what is holding people?
Something that would really change them?
K: I think so.
DB: What is it then? K: What is it that is blocking? Do we
approach through environmental conditioning, from the outer to
the inner, and discover from man's outer activities, the inner? And
then discover that the outer is the inner, the same movement, and
then go beyond it to see what it is? Could we do that?
DB: When you say outward, what do you mean? Do you mean
the social conditions?
K: The social conditioning, the religious conditioning,
education, poverty, riches, climate, food; the outer. Which may
condition the mind in a certain direction. But as one examines it a
little more, the psychological conditioning is also from the outer,
somewhat.
DB: It is true that the way a person thinks is going to be
affected by his whole set of relationships. But that doesn't explain
why the conditioning is so rigid, and why it holds.
K: That is what I am asking too.
DB: Yes. If it were merely outward conditioning, one would
expect it to be more easily changed. For example, you could have
some other outward condition.
K: They have tried all that.
DB: Yes, the whole belief of Communism was that with a new
society there would be a new man. But there have been none! I
think that there is something fundamentally in the inward that
holds, that resists change.
K: What is it? Will this question lead us anywhere?
DB: Unless we actually uncover it, it will lead nowhere.
K: I think one could find out, if one applied one's mind. I am
just asking: is this question worthwhile, and is it related to what we
have been discussing? Or shall we take up something else in
relation to what we have been talking about?
DB: Well, I think that we have been talking of bringing about
an ending to time, an ending to becoming. And we talked of
coming into contact with the ground, through complete rationality.
But now we could say that the mind is not rational.
K: Yes, we said man is basically irrational. DB: This is perhaps
part of the block. If we were completely rational, then we would of
necessity come to this ground. Would that be right?
K: Yes. We were talking the other day about the ending of time.
The scientists, through the investigation of matter, want to find out
that point. Also the so-called religious people have endeavoured to
find out - not only verbally - if time can stop. We went into that
quite a bit, and we say it is possible for a human being, who will
listen, to find out through insight the ending of use insight is not
memory. Memory is time, memory is knowledge stored up in the
brain, and so on. As long as that is in operation there is no
possibility of having insight into Total insight, not partial insight.
The artist, the musician, they all have partial insights and therefore
they still time-bound.
It is possible to have a total insight, which is the ending of the
`me' because the `me' is time? Me, my ego, my resistance, my
hurts, all that. Can that `me' end? It is only when that ends that
there is total insight. That is what we discovered.
And we went into the question, is it possible for a human being
to end totally this whole structure of the `me'? We said yes, and
went into it. Very few people will listen to this because it is
perhaps too frightening. And the question then arises: if the `me'
ends, what is there? just emptiness? There is no interest in that. But
if one is investigating without any sense of reward or punishment,
then there is something. We say that something is total emptiness,
which is energy and silence. Well that sounds nice, but it has no
meaning to an ordinary man who is serious and wants to go beyond
it, beyond himself. And we pushed it further: is there something
beyond all this? And we say there is.
DB: The ground.
K: The ground. Is it that the beginning of this enquiry is to
listen? Will I, as a human being, give up my egocentric activity
completely? What will make me move away from that? What will
make a human being move away from this destructive, self-centred
activity? If he will move away through reward, or punishment, then
that is just another thought, motive. So discard that. Then what will
make human beings renounce - if I may use the word - renounce it
completely without motive? You see, man has tried everything in
this direction - fasting self-torture in various forms, abnegating
himself through belief and denying himself through identification
with something greater. All the religious people have tried it, but
the `me' is still there.
DB: Yes. The whole activity has no meaning, but somehow this
does not become evident. People will move away from something
which has no meaning, and makes no sense, ordinarily speaking.
But it seems that the perception of this fact is rejected by the mind.
The mind is resisting it.
K: The mind is resisting this constant conflict, and moving
away from it.
DB: It is moving away from the fact that this conflict has no
meaning.
K: People don't see that.
DB: Also the mind is set up purposefully to avoid seeing it.
K: The mind is avoiding it.
DB: It is avoiding it almost on purpose, but not quite
consciously, like the people of India who say they are going to
retire to the Himalayas because nothing can be done.
K: But that is hopeless. You mean to say that the mind, having
lived so long in conflict, refuses to move away from it?
DB: It is not clear why it refuses to give it up; why the mind
does not wish to see the full meaninglessness of the conflict. The
mind is deceiving itself, it is covering up.
K: The philosophers and so-called religious people have
emphasized struggle, emphasized the sense of striving, control,
effort. Is that one of the causes why human beings refuse to let go
of their way of life?
DB: Possibly. They hope that by fighting or struggling they will
achieve a better result. Not to give up what they have, but to
improve it by struggle.
K: Man has lived for two million years; what has he achieved?
More wars, more destruction. DB: What I am trying to say is that
there is a tendency to resist seeing this, but also to go back to
hoping that the struggle will produce something better.
K: I am not quite sure if we have cleared this point; that the
intellectuals - I am using the word respectfully - the intellectuals of
the world have emphasized this factor of struggle.
DB: Many of them have, I suppose.
K: Most of them.
DB: Karl Marx.
K: Marx and even Bronowski, who talk of more and more
struggle, of acquiring more and more knowledge. Is it that the
intellectuals have such extraordinary influence on our minds?
DB: I think people do this without any encouragement from
intellectuals. You see, struggle has been emphasized everywhere.
K: That is what I mean. Everywhere. Why?
DB: Well, in the beginning people thought it would be
necessary because they had to struggle against nature in order to
survive.
K: So struggling against nature has been transferred to the
other?
DB: Yes, that is part of it. You see you must be a brave hunter,
and you must struggle against your own weakness to become
brave. Otherwise you can't do it.
K: Yes, that's it. So is it that our minds are conditioned, shaped,
held, in this pattern?
DB: Well that is certainly true, but it doesn't explain why it is so
extraordinarily hard to change it.
K: Because I am used to it. I am in a prison, but I am used to it.
DB: But I think that there is a tremendous resistance to moving
away from it.
K: Why does a human being resist this? If you come along and
point out the fallacy, the irrationality of this, and you show the
whole cause and effect, give examples, data, everything else?
Why? DB: That is what I said, that if people were capable of
complete rationality they would drop it, but I think that there is
something more to the problem. You see, you may expose the
irrationality of it but there is something more, in the sense that
people are not fully aware of this whole pattern of thought. Having
had it exposed at a certain level, it still continues at levels that they
are not aware of.
K: But what would make them aware?
DB: That is what we have to find. I think people have to
become aware that they have this tendency to go on with the
conditioning. It might be mere habit, or it might be the result of
many past conclusions, all operating now, without people knowing
it. There are so many different things that keep people in this
pattern. You might convince somebody that the pattern makes no
sense, but when it comes to the actual affairs of life he has a
thousand different ways of proceeding which imply that pattern.
K: Quite. Then what?
DB: Well, I think that a person would have to be extremely
interested in this to break all that down.
K: Then what will bring a human being to this state of extreme
interest? You see, they have even been offered heaven as a reward
if they do this. Various religions have done this, although that
becomes too childish.
DB: That is part of the pattern - reward. Ordinarily the rule is
that I follow the self-enclosed pattern except when something
really big comes up.
K: A crisis.
DB: Or when a reward is to be obtained.
K: Of course.
DB: That is a pattern of thinking. people must in some way
believe that it has value. If everybody were able to work together
and suddenly we were able to produce harmony, then everybody
would say, fine, I will give up myself. But in the absence of that, I
had better hold on to what I have! That is the sort of thinking.
K: Hold on to what is known.
DB: I don't have much, but I had better hold on to it. K: Yes. So
are you saying that if everybody does this, I will do it?
DB: That is the common way of thinking. Because as soon as
people begin to start to cooperate in an emergency, then a great
many people go along.
K: So they form communes. But all those have failed.
DB: Because after a while this special thing goes away and they
fall back to the old pattern.
K: The old pattern. So I am asking, what will make a human
being break through this pattern?
QUESTIONER: Isn't it related to the question we dealt with
before - time and no time?
K: But I know nothing about time, I know nothing about all
this, it is just a theory to me. Yet the fact is, I am caught in this
pattern and I can't let it go. The analysts have tried it, the religious
people have tried it, everybody has tried to make human beings
intelligent - but they have not succeeded.
Q: But they don't see that the very attempt at letting go the
pattern or ending the conflict is still strengthening the conflict.
K: No, that is just a theory.
Q: But you can explain that to them.
K: You can explain. As we said, there are a dozen very rational
explanations. At the end of it we fall back to this.
Q: Well, you only fall back to that if you have not really
understood it.
K: Have you understood it when you say that? Why haven't I, or
you, said `finished'! You can give me a thousand explanations, and
all probably a bit irrational, but I say, have you done it?
Q: I don't even understand the question, when you ask, have I
done it?
K: I am not being personal. You have given an explanation of
why human beings can't move away from this pattern, or break
through it.
Q: No, I give you more than the explanation. K: What do you
give me?
Q: If I observe something to be correct, then the description of
the observation is more than just explanation.
K: Yes, but can I observe this clearly?
Q: Well, that is the problem.
K: So help me to see it clearly.
Q: For that there must be an interest.
K: Please don't say `must'. I haven't got an interest. I am
interested, as Dr. Bohm pointed out just now, when there is a
tremendous crisis such as war. Then I forget myself. In fact, I am
glad to forget myself, to give the responsibility to the generals, to
the politicians. Under a crisis I forget, but the moment the crisis
goes away I am back to my pattern. That is happening all the time.
Now, I say to myself, what will make me relinquish this pattern, or
break through it?
Q: Isn't it that one must see the falseness?
K: Show it to me.
Q: I can't, because I have not seen it.
K: Then what shall I do as a human being? You have explained
to me ten thousand times how ugly it is, how destructive it is, and
so on, but I fall back to this pattern all the time. Help me, or show
me how to break the pattern. You understand my question?
Q: Well then you are interested?
K: All right. Now what will make me be interested? Pain?
Q: Sometimes it does for a moment, but it goes away.
K: So what will make me as a human being so alert, so aware,
so intense that I will break through this thing?
Q: You state the question in terms of an action, breaking
through, relinquishing. Isn't it a matter of seeing?
K: Yes. Show me, help me to see, because I am resisting you.
My pattern, so deeply ingrained in me, is holding back - right? I
want proof, I want to be convinced. Q: We have to go back to this
question - why do I want to have proof? Why do I want to be
convinced?
K: Because someone says that this is a stupid, irrational way of
looking. And he shows us all the effects of it, the cause of it, and
we say, yes but we can't let go!
DB: You may say that is the very nature of `me', that I must
fulfil my needs no matter how irrational they are.
K: That is what I am saying.
DB: First I must take care of my own needs, and then I can try
to be rational.
K: What are our needs then?
DB: Some of the needs are real and some are imaginary but...
K: Yes, that's it. The imaginary, illusory needs sway the other
needs.
DB: But you see, I may need to believe I am good and right,
and to know that I will be always there.
K: Help me to break that!
DB: I think I have to see that this is an illusion. You see, if it
seems real, what can I do? Because if I am really there, I need all
this, and it is foolish to talk of being rational if I am going to
vanish, break down or something. You have proposed to me that
there is another state of being where I am not there - right? And
when I am there, this doesn't make any sense!
K: Yes, quite. But I am not there. Suppose as a human being,
heaven is perfect, but I am not there; please help me to get there.
DB: No, it is something different.
K: I know what you are saying.
Q: Can one see the illusory nature of that very demand that I
want to go to heaven? Or I want to be enlightened, or I want to be
this, I want to be that? But this very question, this very demand is...
K: This demand is based on becoming, on the more.
Q: That is illusory. K: No. You say that.
DB: You haven't demonstrated it to me, you see.
K: That is an idea to you. It is just a theory. Show me.
Q: Well, are we willing really to explore the question?
K: We are willing on one condition - that we find something at
the end of it. See how the human mind works. I will climb the
highest mountain if I can get something out of it.
Q: Can the mind see that this is the problem?
K: Yes, but it can't let go.
Q: Well if it sees...
K: You are going round and round in circles!
DB: It sees the problem abstractly.
K: That is it. Now why do I see it abstractly?
DB: First of all, it is a lot easier.
K: Don't go back to that. Why does my mind make an
abstraction of everything?
DB: Let's begin by saying that to a certain extent it is the
function of thought to make abstractions outwardly, but then we
carry them inwardly. It is the same sort of thing as before.
K: Yes. So is there something else - I am just asking - that we
are missing in this altogether? That is, if I may point out, we are
still thinking in the same old pattern.
DB: The question itself contains that pattern, doesn't it?
K: Yes, but the pursuit of the pattern is traditional.
DB: I mean that in framing this question, the pattern has
continued.
K: Yes, so can we move away altogether from this, and look at
it differently. Can the human mind say, all right, we have tried all
this - Marx, Buddha, everybody has pointed out something or
other. But obviously after a million years, we are still somehow
caught in that pattern - saying we must be interested, we must
listen, we must do this, and so on. DB: That is still time.
K: Yes. Then what happens if I leave all that, actually leave it? I
won't even think in terms of it. No more explanations, or new
twists, that are the same old twists! So I say let's leave that area
completely and look at the problem differently, the problem being
why do I always live in this centre of `me'? I am a serious human
being; I have listened to all this and after fifty years I know all the
explanations - what I should, should not do, etc. Can I say, all
right, I will discard all that? That means I stand completely alone.
Does that lead anywhere?
DB: Possibly, yes.
K: I think it does lead somewhere.
DB: It seems to me that basically you are saying leave all this
knowledge of mankind behind.
K: That is what I am saying.
DB: Apparently it is out of its place.
K: Yes. Leave all the knowledge, and experiences,
explanations, causes that man has created - discard all that.
Q: But you are still left with the same mind.
K: Ah! I have not such a mind. It is not the same mind. When I
discard all this, my mind has changed. My mind is this.
Q: No, isn't the mind also the basic set-up?
K: Which I have discarded.
Q: But you can't discard that.
K: Oh, yes.
Q: I mean this is an organism.
K: Now, wait a minute. My organism has been shaped by
knowledge, by experience. And more knowledge which I have
acquired as I have evolved, as I have grown. As I have gathered
more and more, it has strengthened me, and I have been walking on
that path for millennia. And I say, perhaps I may have to look at
this problem totally differently - which is not to walk on that path
at all, but to discard all knowledge I have acquired. DB: In this
area, in this psychological place.
K: Psychologically, of course.
DB: At the core, at the source, knowledge is irrelevant.
K: Yes.
DB: Further down the line it becomes relevant.
K: Of course. That is understood.
Q: But I have one question. The mind at the beginning of its
evolution was in that same position. The mind at the beginning of
whatever you call man was in that position.
K: No. I don't accept that. Why do you say that? The moment it
comes into being, it is already caught in knowledge. Would you
say that?
DB: I think it is implicit in the structure of thought.
K: That is just it.
DB: First of all, to have knowledge about the outward, and then
to apply this to the inward, without understanding that it was going
to be caught in it. Therefore it extended that knowledge into the
area of psychological becoming.
Q: Well, if the mind started new, it would go through the same
mistake again.
K: No, certainly not.
Q: Unless it has learnt.
K: No, I don't want to learn. You are still pursuing the same old
path. I don't want to learn. please, just let me go into this a little bit.
DB: We should clear this up because on other occasions you
have said it is important to learn, even about observing yourself.
K: Of course.
DB: Now you are saying something quite different. It should be
made clear why it is different. Why is it that you have given up the
notion of learning at this stage?
K: At this stage, because I am still gathering memory. DB: But
there was a state when it was important to learn about the mind.
K: Don't go back. I am just starting. I have lived for sixty,
eighty, or a hundred years. And I have listened to all this - the
teachers in India, the Christians, the Muslims; I have listened to all
the psychological explanations, to Freud, Marx and everybody.
DB: I think we should go a bit further. We agree that is all
negative stuff, but in addition perhaps I have observed myself, and
learned about myself.
K: Myself, yes, add that. And, at the end of it, I say perhaps this
is a wrong way of looking at it.
DB: Right. Having explored that way, we finally are able to see
it might be wrong.
K: Perhaps.
DB: Well I would say that in some sense perhaps it was
necessary to explore that way.
K: Or not necessary.
DB: It may not have been, but given the whole set of conditions
it was bound to happen.
K: Of course. So now I have come to a point when I say discard
- we will put in that word - all that knowledge, because that hasn't
led me anywhere, in the sense that I am not free of my
egocentricism.
DB: But that alone isn't enough because if you say it hasn't
worked, you can always hope or suppose that it may. But in fact
you could see that it can't work.
K: It can't work. I am definite on that.
DB: It is not enough to say it hasn't worked, actually it cannot
work.
K: It cannot work because it is based on time and knowledge,
which is thought. And these explanations are based on thought - to
acquire knowledge and so on and so on. Would you say that? DB:
As far as we have gone we have based them on knowledge and
thought. And not only thought, but the habitual patterns of skill are
an extension of thought.
K: So I put those aside, not casually, not with an interest in the
future - but seeing the same pattern being repeated and repeated;
different colours, different phrases, different pictures, different
images - I discard all that totally. Instead of going North, as I have
been going for millennia, I have stopped and am going East, which
means my mind has changed.
DB: Has the structure of the `me' gone?
K: Obviously.
DB: Without insight into it?
K: No. I won't bring in insight for the moment.
DB: But there was insight to do that. I mean to say that to
consider doing it was an insight. The insight was the thing that
worked.
K: I won't bring in that word.
DB: When you said that the whole thing could not work, I think
that is an insight.
K: For me. I see it cannot work. But then we go back again to
how do I acquire insight, and all that.
DB: But leaving that aside and just saying that it was an insight,
the question of how to acquire it is not the point.
K: It is an insight that says `out'.
Q: Out to the pattern.
K: No, finished with this constant becoming through
experience, knowledge, patterns. Finished!
Q: Would you say that the kind of thinking afterwards, is a
totally different kind of thinking? Evidently one still must think.
K: I am not sure.
Q: Well you may call it something else. K: Ah, I won't call it
anything else. Please I am just fishing around. After having lived a
hundred years, I see everybody pointing out the way to end the
self, and that way is based on thought, time, knowledge. And I say,
sorry, I know all that, I have used that. I have an insight into that;
therefore it falls away. Therefore the mind has broken the pattern
completely. Not going North but East, you break the pattern.
Now, all right. Suppose Dr. Bohm has this insight, and has
broken away from the pattern. Please let us help another human
being to come to that. Don't say you must be interested, you must
listen, then fall back - you follow? What is your communication
with another human being, so that he hasn't got to go through all
this mess? What will make me absorb so completely what you
have said, so that it is in my blood, in my brain, everything, so that
I see this thing? What will you do? Or is there nothing to do - you
follow my question? Because if you have that insight it is a
passion, it is not just a clever insight, nor is it possible to sit back
and be comfortable; it is a passion that won't let you sit still, you
must move, give - whatever it is. What will you do? You have that
passion or this immense insight. And that passion must, like a river
with a great volume of water flowing over the banks, move in the
same way.
Now, I am a human being, ordinary, fairly intelligent, well read,
experienced. I have tried this, that and the other thing, and I meet
someone who is full of this, and I say, why won't I listen to him?
Q: I think we do listen.
K: Do we?
Q: Yes, I think so.
K: just go very, very slowly. Do we so completely listen that
there is no resistance, no saying why, what is the cause, why
should I? You follow what I mean? We have been through all that.
We have walked the area endlessly, back and forward from corner
to corner, North, South, East, West. And `X' comes along and says,
look there is a different way of living, something totally new;
which means listening completely.
Q: If there is a resistance one does not see the resistance. K:
Don't begin all over again on why you resist. I will show you your
resistance, by talking. You know. But yet you go back.
Q: Krishnaji, did not your initial question go beyond this, when
you asked, let's leave the listening, the rationality, the thought.
K: Yes, but that is just an idea. Will you do it? `X' comes along
and says, `Look, eat this.'
Q: I would eat it if I could see it.
K: Oh, yes, you can see it, very clearly. We said, don't go back
to the pattern. See! Then you say, how am I to see? which is the
old pattern.just see! `X' refuses to enter that pattern.
Q: The pattern of explanation?
K: Knowledge, all that. He says come over, don't go back.
Q: Krishnaji, to talk about a normal situation in the world; there
are a number of people who ask one with similar words to see, put
thought aside; if one would really look at this thing one would see
it. That is what the priests tell us. So what is the difference?
K: No, I am not a priest. I have left all that. I have left the
church, the gods,jesus, the Buddhas, the Krishnas, I have left all
that, Marx, Engels, all the analysts, all the pundits, everybody. You
see, you haven't done that. Ah, you say, no, I can't do it until you
show me there is something else beyond all that. And `X' says,
`Sorry.' Has that any meaning?
DB: Yes. I think that we say, leave all the knowledge behind.
But knowledge takes many subtle forms which we don't see.
K: Of course. You are full of this insight and you have
discarded all knowledge because of that. And another keeps on
paddling over the pool of knowledge. And you say, leave it. The
moment we enter into explanations we are back in the game. And
you refuse to explain.
You see, explanations have been the boat in which to cross to
the other shore. And the man on the other shore says there is no
boat. But `X' says, cross! He is asking something impossible, isn't
he?
DB: If it doesn't happen right away, then it is impossible. K:
Absolutely. He is asking something impossible for one to do. I am
meeting `X', who is immovable. Either I have to go round him,
avoid him or go over him. I can't do any of that. But `X' won't
leave me alone, in the sense that I have met something immovable.
And it is there night and day with me. I can't battle with it because
there is nothing to get hold of.
So what happens to me when I meet something that is
completely solid, immovable, absolutely true, what happens to me?
Is that the problem? That we have never met something like that?
We may climb the Himalayas, but Everest is always there. In the
same way, perhaps human beings have never met something
irrevocable. Something absolutely immovable. Either we are
terribly puzzled by it, or we say, well we can't do anything about it.
Walk away from it. Or it is something that we must investigate -
you follow - we must capture. Which is it?
Here is a solid thing. I am confronted by it. As I said, I might
run away from it, which I generally do. Or worship it. Or try to
understand what it is. When I do all these things, I am back in the
old pattern. So I discard that. When meeting `X', who is
immovable, I see what the nature of it is. I am movable, as a
human being, but `X' is immovable. The contact with it does
something, it must. It is not some mystic, occult stuff but it is
simple, isn't it?
Q: Sir, it functions like a magnet, but it doesn't break
something.
K: No, because you haven't let go the pattern. It is not `X's'
fault.
Q: I didn't say it was.
K: No, the implication is that. Therefore you are back, you are
dependent.
Q: What is taking place?
K: I am saying, you meet `X; what happens?
Q: You said, an effort to understand.
K: Ah, there you are, lost. You are back in the old pattern. You
see it, you feel it, you know it, you recognize it. It doesn't matter
what word you use, it is there.
DB: Well, can't you say that `X' communicates the absolute
necessity of not going on with the old pattern, because you see it
absolutely can't work. K: Yes put it in your own words. All right.
DB: And therefore that is unalterable, immovable - is that what
you mean?
K: Yes, I am movable; `X' is immovable.
DB: Well, what is behind `X', what is working in `X' is
immovable. Wouldn't you say that?
K: What is working is something of a shock at first, naturally. I
have been moving, moving, moving, then I meet something that is
immovable. Suddenly something takes place, obviously. You can
see what takes place. `X' is not becoming, and I am becoming. And
`X' has been through explanations and all the rest of it, and he
shows that becoming is painful. (I am putting it quickly, in a few
words.) And I meet that. So there is the sensitivity - all right, let's
put it the other way. The explanations and the discarding of all the
explanations have made me sensitive. Much more alert. When I
meet something like `X', naturally there is a response not in terms
of explanation or understanding. There is a response to that. There
is bound to be. Explanations have been given over and over again.
I have listened, but either they have made me dull, or I begin to see
that explanations have no value at all. So in this process I have
become extraordinarily sensitive to any explanation. I am allergic!
There is a danger in this too, because, you know, people have
said when you go to the guru he gives; so be silent and you will
receive. That's an illusion, you know. Well, I have said enough.
DB: I could just say that when one sees that this whole process
of time and knowledge and so on won't work, then it stops. Now,
this leaves one more sensitive - right?
K: Yes, the mind has become sharp.
DB: All this movement was getting in the way.
K: Yes, psychological knowledge has made us dull.
DB: It has kept the brain moving in an unnecessary way.
Q: All knowledge?
DB: Well, no. You could say in some sense that knowledge
needn't make you dull, I suppose, if it starts from the clarity of
where we don't have this knowledge at the core... K: Yes. You
remember we said too, in our discussions, that the ground is not
knowledge.
DB: You see the first thing is, it creates emptiness.
K: That's it.
DB: But not yet the ground, not immediately the ground.
K: That's right. You see, we have discussed all this; I hear it on
the tape, it is printed in a book, and I say, yes I get it. By reading it,
I have explained, I have acquired knowledge. Then I say, I must
that.
DB: The danger is that there is great difficulty in
communicating a book because that is too fixed.
K: But that is what generally happens.
DB: But I think that the main point, which could communicate
it, is to see that knowledge, in all its forms, subtle and obvious,
cannot solve the psychological problem; it can only make it worse.
But then there is another energy which is involved.
K: You see now what is happening? If any trouble arises I go to
a psychologist. In any family trouble I go to somebody who will
tell me what to do. Everything around me is being organized, and making me more and more helpless. That is what is happening.
THE ENDING OF TIME CHAPTER 5 12TH
APRIL 1980 CONVERSATION WITH PROF.
DAVID BOHM 'THE GROUND OF BEING, AND
THE MIND OF MAN'
DAVID BOHM: Perhaps we could go further into the nature of the
ground; whether we could come to it and whether it has any
relationship to human beings. And also whether there could be a
change in the physical behaviour of the brain.
KRISHNAMURTI: Could we approach this question from the
point of view, why do we have ideas? And is the ground an idea?
That is where we must first be clear. Why have ideas become so
important?
DB: Perhaps because the distinction between ideas, and what is
beyond ideas, is not clear. Ideas are often taken to be something
more than ideas; we feel they are not ideas but a reality.
K: That is what I want to find out. Is the ground an idea, or is it
imagination, an illusion, a philosophic concept? Or something that
is absolute, in the sense that there is nothing beyond it?
DB: How can you tell that there is nothing beyond it?
K: I am coming to that. I want to see whether we look at that, or
perceive that, or have an insight into that, from a concept. Because
after all the whole Western world - perhaps also the Eastern world
- is based on concepts. The whole outlook and religious beliefs, are
based on that. But do we approach it from that point of view or as a
philosophic investigation - philosophic, in the sense, love of
wisdom, love of truth, love of investigation, the process of the
mind? Are we doing that when we discuss, when we want to
investigate, explain, or find out what that ground is?
DB: Well, perhaps not all the philosophers have been basing
their approach on concepts, although certainly philosophy is taught
through concepts. Certainly it is very hard to teach it except
through concepts.
K: What then is the difference between a religious mind and a
philosophic mind? You understand what I am trying to convey?
Can we investigate the ground from a mind that is disciplined in
knowledge?
DB: Fundamentally, inherently, we say that the ground is
unknown. Therefore we can't begin with knowledge, and we have
suggested we start with the unknown.
K: Yes. Say for instance `X' says there is such a ground. And all
of us, `Y' and `Z', say, what is that ground, prove it, show it, let it
manifest itself? When we ask such questions, is it with a mind that
is seeking, or rather that has this passion, this love for truth? Or are
we merely saying let's talk about it?
DB: I think that in that mind there is the demand for certainty;
we want to be sure. So there is no enquiring.
K: Suppose you state that there is such a thing, that there is the
ground; it is immovable, etc. And I say, I want to find out. Show it,
prove it to me. How can my mind, which has evolved through
knowledge, which has been highly disciplined in knowledge, even
touch that? Because that is not knowledge, it is not put together by
thought.
DB: Yes, as soon as we say, prove it, we want to turn it into
knowledge.
K: That's it!
DB: We want to be absolutely certain, so that there can be no
doubt. And yet, on the other side of the coin, there is also the
danger of self-deception and delusion.
K: Of course. The ground cannot be touched as long as there is
any form of illusion, which is the projection of desire, pleasure or
fear. So how do I perceive that thing? Is the ground an idea to be
investigated? Or is it something that cannot be investigated?
DB: Right.
K: Because my mind is trained, disciplined, by experience and
knowledge, and it can only function in that area. And someone
comes along and tells me that this ground is not an idea, is not a
philosophic concept; it is not something that can be put together, or
perceived by thought. DB: It cannot be experienced, it cannot be
perceived or understood through thought.
K: So what have I? What am I to do? I have only this mind that
has been conditioned by knowledge. How am I to move away from
all that? How am I, an ordinary man, educated, well-read,
experienced, to feel this thing, to touch it, to comprehend it?
You tell me words will not convey that. You tell me you must
have a mind that is free from all knowledge, except that which is
technological. And you are asking an impossible thing of me, aren't
you? And, if I say I will make an effort, then that also is born out
of the self-centred desire. So what shall I do? I think that is a very
serious question. That is what every serious person asks.
DB: At least implicitly. They may not say it.
K: Yes, implicitly. So you, on the other side of the bank, as it
were, tell me that there is no boat to cross in. You can't swim
across. In fact you can't do anything. Basically, that is what it
comes to. So what shall I do? You are asking me, you are asking
the mind, not the general mind but...
DB: ...the particular mind.
K: You are asking this particular mind to eschew all knowledge.
Has this ever been said in the Christian or the jewish worlds?
DB: I don't know about the jewish world, but in some sense the
Christians tell you to give your faith to God, to give over to jesus,
as the mediator between us and God.
K: Yes. Now Vedanta means the end of knowledge. And being
a Westerner, I say, it means nothing to me. Because from the
Greeks and all that, the culture in which I have lived has
emphasized knowledge. But when you talk to some Eastern minds,
they acknowledge in their religious life that a time must come
when knowledge must end; the mind must be free of knowledge.
Vedanta is the whole way of looking. But it is only a conceptual, a
theoretical understanding. But to a Westerner, it means absolutely
nothing.
DB: I think that there has been a Western tradition which is
similar, but not as common. For example, in the Middle Ages there
was a book called The Cloud of Unknowing, which is on that line,
although it is not the main line of Western thought. K: So what
shall I do? How shall I approach the question? I want to find it. It
gives meaning to life. It is not that my intellect gives meaning to
life by inventing some illusion, some hope, some belief, but I see
vaguely that this understanding, coming upon this ground, gives an
immense significance to life.
DB: Well, people have used that notion of God to give
significance to life.
K: No, no. God is merely an idea.
DB: Yes, but the idea contains something similar to the Eastern
idea that God is beyond knowing. Most people accept it that way,
though some may not. So there is some sort of similar notion.
K: But you tell me that the ground is not created by thought. So
you cannot under any circumstances come upon it through any
form of manipulation of thought.
DB: Yes, I understand. But I am trying to say that there is this
problem, danger, delusion, in the sense that people say, `Yes, that
is quite true, it is through a direct experience of jesus that we come
upon it, not through the thought of God, you see!' I am not able to
express their view accurately. possibly, the grace of God?
K: The grace of God, yes.
DB: Something beyond thought, you see.
K: As a fairly educated, thoughtful man, I reject all that.
DB: Why do you reject it?
K: Because it has become common, first of all, common in the
sense that everybody says that! And also there may be in it a great
sense of illusion created by desire, hope, fear.
DB: Yes, but some people do seem to find this meaningful
although it may be an illusion.
K: But if they had never heard of jesus, they wouldn't
experience jesus.
DB: That seems reasonable.
K: They would experience something different that they have
been taught. In India I mean... QUESTIONER: But don't the more
serious people in the religions say that essentially God, or whatever
that is, the Absolute, the ground, is something that cannot be
experienced through thinking? Also they might go so far as to say
it cannot be experienced at all.
K: Oh, yes, I have said it cannot be experienced. `X' says it
cannot be experienced. Let's say, I don't know. Here is a person
who says there is such a thing. And I listen to him, and not only
does he convey it by his presence, but through the word. Although
he tells me to be careful; the word is not the thing; but he uses the
word to convey that there is this something so immense that my
thought cannot capture it. And I say, all right, you have explained
that very carefully, and how is my brain, that is conditioned,
disciplined in knowledge, how is it to free itself from all that?
Q: Could it free itself by understanding its own limitation?
K: So you are telling me thought is limited. Show it to me! Not
by talking or memory, experience or knowledge; I understand that,
but I don't capture the feeling that it is limited, because I see the
beauty of the earth, I see the beauty of a building, of a person, of
nature. I see all that, but when you say thought is limited, I don't
feel it. It is just a lot of words which you have said to me.
Intellectually I understand. But I have no feeling for it. There is no
perfume in it. How will you show me - not show me - how will you
help me - not help - aid me, to have this feeling that thought itself
is brittle, it is such a small affair? So that it is in my blood - you
understand? When once it is in my blood, I have got it. You don't
have to explain it.
Q: But isn't that the possible approach, not to talk about the
ground, that at the moment is far too removed, but rather to look
directly at what the mind can do.
K: Which is thinking.
Q: The mind is thinking.
K: That is all I have. Thinking, feeling, hating, loving - you
know all that. The activity of the mind.
Q: Well, I would say we don't know it, we only think we know
it. K: I know when I am angry. I know when I am wounded. It is
not an idea, I have got the feeling, I am carrying the hurt inside me.
I am fed up with the investigation because I have done it all my
life. I go to Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam - and I say I
have investigated, studied, looked at them. I say these are all just
words. How do I as a human being have this extraordinary feeling
about it? If I have no passion, I am not investigating. I want to have
this passion that will explode me out of this little enclosure. have
built a wall around myself, a wall, which is myself. An man has
lived with this thing for millions of years. And I have been trying
to get out of it by studying, by reading, by going to gurus, by all
kinds of things, but I am still anchored there. And you talk about
the ground, because you see something that is breathtaking, that
seems so alive, so extraordinary. And I am here, anchored in here.
You, who have `seen' the ground, must do something that will
explode, break up this centre completely.
Q: I must do something, or you must?
K: Help me! Not by prayer, and all that nonsense. You
understand what I am trying to say? I have fasted, I have
meditated, I have renounced, I have taken a vow of this and that. I
have done all those things. Because I have had a million years of
life. And at the end of the million years I am still where I was, at
the beginning. This is a great discovery for me; I thought I had
moved on from the beginning, by going through all this, but I
suddenly discover I am back at the same point where I started. I
have had more experience, I have seen the world, I have painted, I
have played music, I have danced - you follow? But I have come
back to the original starting point.
Q: Which is me and not me.
K: Me. I say to myself, what am I to do? And what is the human
mind's relationship to the ground? perhaps if I could establish a
relationship it might break up this centre, totally. This is not a
motive, not a desire, not a reward. I see that if the mind could
establish a relationship with that, my mind has become that - right?
Q: But hasn't mind then already become that?
K: Oh, no. Q: But I think you have just wiped away the greatest
difficulty in saying there is no desire.
K: No, no. I said I have lived a million years...
Q: But that is an insight.
K: No. I won't accept insight so easily as that.
Q: Well, let me put it this way: it is something much more than
knowledge.
K: No, you are missing my point. My brain has lived for a
million years. It has experienced everything. It has been Buddhist,
Hindu, Christian, Muslim; it has been all kinds of things, but the
core of it is the same. And someone comes along and says, look
there is a ground which is... something! Am I going back to what I
have already known - the religions, etc? I reject all that, because I
say I have been through it all, and they are like ashes to me at the
end of it.
DB: Well, all those things were the attempt to create an
apparent ground by thought. It seemed that through knowledge and
thought, people created what they regarded as the ground. And it
wasn't.
K: It wasn't. Because man has spent a million years at it.
DB: So long as knowledge enters the ground, that will be false?
K: Of course. So is there a relationship between that ground and
the human mind? In asking that question, I am also aware of the
danger of such a question.
DB: Well, you may create a delusion of the same kind that we
have already gone through.
K: Yes. I have played that song before.
Q: Are you suggesting that the relationship cannot be made by
you, but it must come.?
K: I am asking that. No, it may be that I have to make a
relationship. My mind now is in such a state that I won't accept a
thing. My mind says I have been through all this before. I have
suffered, I have searched, I have looked, I have investigated, I have
lived with people who are awfully clever at this kind of thing. So I
am asking the question, being fully aware of the danger of it, as
when the Hindus say, God is in you, Brahman is in you - which is a
lovely idea! But I have been through all that.
So I am asking if the human mind has no relationship to the
ground, and if there is only a one-way passage, from that to me...
DB: Surely that's like the grace of God then, that you have
invented.
K: That I won't accept.
DB: You are not saying the relationship is one way, nor are you
saying it is not one way.
K: Maybe; I don't know.
DB: You are not saying anything.
K: I am not saying anything. All that I `want' is this centre to be
blasted. You understand? For the centre not to exist. Because I see
that the centre is the cause of all the mischief, all the neurotic
conclusions, all the illusions, all the endeavour, all the effort, all
the misery - everything is from that core. After a million years, I
haven't been able to get rid of it; it hasn't gone. So is there a
relationship at all? What is the relationship between goodness and
evil? Consider it. There is no relationship.
DB: It depends on what you mean by relationship.
K: Contact, touch, communication, being in the same room...
DB: ...coming from the same root.
K: Yes.
Q: But are we then saying that there is the good, and there is the
evil?
K: No, no. Let's use another word; whole, and that which is not
whole. It is not an idea. Now is there relationship between these
two? Obviously not.
DB: No, if you are saying that in some sense the centre is an
illusion. An illusion cannot be related to that which is true, because
the content of the illusion has no relation to what is true. K: That's
it. You see, that is a great discovery. I want to establish
relationship with that. `Want; I am using rapid words to convey
something. This petty little thing wants to have relationship with
that immensity. It cannot.
DB: Yes, not just because of its immensity, but because in fact
this thing is not - actually?
K: Yes.
Q: But I don't see that. He says the centre is not actual, but I
don't see that the centre is not actual.
DB: Not actual, in the sense of not being genuine but an
illusion. I mean, something is acting but it is not the content which
we know.
K: Do you see that?
Q: You say the centre must explode. It does not explode
because I don't see the falseness in it.
K: No. You have missed my point. I have lived a million years,
I have done all this. And at the end of it I am still back at the
beginning.
Q: So you say the centre must explode.
K: No, no, no. The mind says this is too terribly small. And it
can't do anything about it... It has prayed, it has done everything.
But the centre is still there. And someone tells me there is this
ground. I want to establish a relationship with that.
Q: He tells me there is this thing, and also says that the centre is
an illusion.
DB: Wait, that is too quick.
K: No. Wait. I know it is there. Call it what you like, an illusion,
a reality, a fiction - whatever you like. It is there. And the mind
says, it is not good enough; it wants to capture that. It wants to
have relationship with it. And that says, `Sorry, you can't have
relationship with me.' That's all!
Q: Is that mind which wants to be in connection, in relationship
with that, the same mind which is the `me'? K: Don't split it up,
please. You are missing something. I have lived all this. I know, I
can argue with you, back and forth. I have a million years of
experience, and it has given me a certain capacity. And I realize at
the end of it all there is no relationship between me and truth. And
that's a tremendous shock to me. It is as if you have knocked me
out, because my million years of experience say, go after that, seek
it, pray for it, struggle for it, cry, sacrifice for it. I have done all
that. And suddenly it is pointed out that I cannot have relationship
with that. I have shed tears, left my family, everything, for, that.
And that says, `No relationship'. So what has happened to Me?
This is what I want to get at. Do you understand what I am saying -
what has happened to me? To the mind that has lived this way,
done everything in search of that, when that says, `You have no
relationship with me'. This is the greatest thing...
Q: It is a tremendous shock to the `me', if you say that.
K: Is it to you?
Q: I think it was, and then...
K: Don't! I am asking you, is it a shock to discover that your
brain, and your mind, your knowledge, are valueless? All your
examinations, all your struggles, all the things that you have
gathered through years and years, centuries, are absolutely
worthless? Do you go mad, because you say you have done all this
for nothing? Virtue, abstinence, control, everything - and at the end
of it, you say they are valueless! Do you understand what this does
to you?
DB: I mean, if the whole thing goes, then it is of no
consequence.
K: Absolutely, you have no relationship. What you have done
or not done is absolutely of no value.
DB: Not in any fundamental sense. It has relative value, relative
value only within a certain framework, which in itself has no value.
K: Yes, thought has relative value.
DB: But the framework in general has no value.
K: That's right. The ground says, whatever you have done `on
earth' has no meaning. Is that an idea? Or an actuality? Idea being
that you have told me, but I still go on, struggling, wanting,
groping. Or is it an actuality, in the sense that I suddenly realize the
futility of all that I have done. So, one must be very careful to see
that it is not a concept; or rather that one doesn't translate it into a
concept or an idea, but receive the full blow of it!
Q: You see, Krishnaji, for hundreds of years, probably since
man has existed, he has pursued what he calls God, or the ground.
K: As an idea.
Q: But then the scientific mind came along, and also said it is
just an idea, it is just foolish.
K: Oh, no! The scientific mind says that through investigating
matter we will perhaps come upon the ground.
DB: Yes, many feel that way. Some would even add, investigate
the brain, you see.
K: Yes. That is the purpose of investigating the mind, not to
blast each other off the earth, with guns. We are talking of `good'
scientists, not governmental scientists, but those who say, we are
examining matter, the brain and all that, to find out if there is
something beyond all this.
Q: And many people, many scientists, would say that they have
found the ground; the ground is empty, it is emptiness; it is an
energy which is different from man.
K: Now, is that an idea, or an actuality to them, which affects
their life, their blood, their mind, their relationship with the world?
Q: I think it is just an idea.
K: Then I am sorry, I have been through that. I was a scientist
ten thousand years ago! You follow? I have been through all that.
If it is merely an idea, we can both play at that game. I can send the
ball to you, it is in your court, and you can send it back to me. We
can play that. But I have finished with that kind of game.
DB: Because, in general, what people discover about matter
does not seem to affect them deeply, psychologically.
K: No, of course not. DB: You might think that if they saw the
whole unity of the universe they would act differently, but they
don't.
Q: You could say that it has affected some of their lives. You
see the whole Communist doctrine is built on the idea (which they
think is a fact) that whatever is, is just a material process, which is
essentially empty. So then man has to organize his life and society
according to those dialectical principles.
K: No, no, dialectical principles are opinion opposing another
opinion; man hoping, out of opinions, to find the truth.
DB: I think we should leave this aside. There are ways of
looking at different meanings of the word dialectical - but one
needs to see reality as a flowing movement; not to see things as
fixed, but to see them in movement and interconnection. I think
that you could say that whatever way people managed to look at it,
after they saw this unity it didn't fundamentally change their lives.
In Russia, the same structures of the mind, if not worse, hold as
elsewhere. And wherever people have tried this, it has not actually,
fundamentally, affected the way they feel and think, and the way
they live.
Q: You see, what I wanted to say is that the dismissal of the
pursuit of the ground has not had any shocking effect on people.
K: No! I am not interested. It has given me a tremendous shock
to discover the truth, that all the churches, prayers, books, have
absolutely no meaning - except how we can build a better society,
and so on.
DB: If we could manage to bring this point to order, then it
would have great meaning - to build a good society. But as long as
this disorder is at the centre, we can't use that in the right way. I
think it would be more accurate to say that there is a great potential
meaning in all that. But it does not affect the centre, and there is no
sign that it has ever done so.
Q: You see what I don't understand is that there are many
people who in their life have never pursued what you call the
ground.
K: They are not interested.
Q: Well, I am not so sure. How would you approach such a
person? K: I am not interested in approaching any person. All the
works I have done - everything I have done - the ground says are
valueless. And if I can drop all that, my mind is the ground. Then
from there I move. From there I create society.
DB: I think you could say that as long as you are looking for the
ground somewhere by means of knowledge, then you are getting in
the way.
K: So to come back to earth; why has man done this?
DB: Done what?
K: Accumulated knowledge. Apart from the necessity of having
factual knowledge in certain areas, why has this burden of
knowledge continued for so long?
DB: Because in one sense man has been trying to produce a
solid ground through knowledge. Knowledge has tried to create a
ground. That is one of the things that has happened.
K: Which means what?
DB: It means illusion again.
K: Which means that the saints, the philosophers, have educated
me - in knowledge and through knowledge - to find the ground.
Q: To create a ground. You see, in a way, there used to be all
these periods when mankind was caught in superstition. And
knowledge was able to do away with that.
K: Oh, no.
Q: To some extent it was.
K: Knowledge has only crippled me from seeing truth. I stick to
that. It hasn't cleared me of My illusions. Knowledge may be
illusory itself.
Q: That may be, but it has cleared up some illusions.
K: I want to clear up all the illusions that I hold - not some. I
have got rid of my illusion about nationalism; I have got rid of
illusion about belief, about this, about that. At the end of it, I
realize my mind is illusion. You see, to me, who have lived for a
thousand years, to find all this is absolutely worthless, is something
enormous.
DB: When you say you have lived for a thousand years, or a
million years, does that mean, in a sense, that all the experience of
mankind is.?
K: ...is me.
DB: ...is me. Do you feel that?
K: I do.
DB: And how do you feel it?
K: How do we feel anything? Wait a minute, I will tell you. It is
not sympathy, or empathy, it is not a thing that I have desired, it is
a fact, an absolute, irrevocable fact.
DB: Could we share that feeling, perhaps? You see, that seems
to be one of the steps that is missing, because you have repeated
that quite often as an important part of the whole thing.
K: Which means that when you love somebody there is no, me,
- it is love. In the same way, when I say I am humanity, it is so; it
is not an idea, it is not a conclusion, it is part of me.
DB: Let's say it is a feeling that I have gone through all that, all
that you describe.
K: Human beings have been through all that.
DB: If others have gone through it, then I also have gone
through it.
K: Of course. One is not aware of it.
DB: No, we separate.
K: If we admit that our brains are not my particular brain, but
the brain that has evolved through millennia...
DB: Let me say why this doesn't communicate so easily:
everybody feels that the content of his brain is in some way
individual, that he hasn't gone through all that. Let's say that
somebody, thousands of years ago, went through science or
philosophy. Now how does that affect me? That is what is not
clear. K: Because I am caught in this self-centred, narrow little cell,
which refuses to look beyond. But you as a scientist, as a religious
man, come along and tell me that your brain is the brain of
mankind.
DB: Yes, and all knowledge is the knowledge of mankind. So
that in some way we have all knowledge.
K: Of course.
DB: Though not in detail.
K: So you tell me that, and I understand what you mean, not
verbally, not intellectually; it is so. But I come to that only when I
have given up ordinary things, like nationality, etc.
DB: Yes, we have given up the divisions, and we can see that
the experience is of all mankind.
K: It is so obvious. You go to the most primitive village in
India, and the peasant will tell you all about his problems, his wife,
children, poverty. It is exactly the same thing, only he is wearing
different clothes or whatever! For `X', this is an indisputable fact; it
is so. He says, all right, at the end of all this, of all these years, I
suddenly discover that it is empty. You see, we don't accept it, we
are too clever. We are so soaked with disputations and arguments
and knowledge. We don't see a simple fact. We refuse to see it.
And `X' comes along and says, see it, it is there: then the
immediate machinery of thought begins - and says, be silent. So I
practise silence! I have done that for a thousand years. It has led
nowhere.
So there is only one thing, and that is to discover that all that I
have done is useless - ashes! You see that doesn't depress one. That
is the beauty of it. I think it is like the phoenix.
DB: Rising from the ashes.
K: Born of ashes.
DB: In a way it is freedom, to be free of all that.
K: Something totally new is born.
DB: Now what you said before is that the mind is the ground, it
is the unknown.
K: The mind? Yes. But not this mind. DB: In that case it is not
the same mind.
K: If I have been through all that, and come to a point when I
have to end all that, it is a new mind.
DB: That's clear, the mind is its content, and the content is
knowledge, and without that knowledge it is a new mind.
(Continued ...)
(My humble salutations to the lotus feet of Sri Jiddu Krishnamurti and
gratitude to the great philosophers and followers of him.)
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