Hindu Vedic Philosophy (The Paramardha Tattwam): The Ending of Time J. Krishnamurti and Dr. David Bohm

The Ending of Time J. Krishnamurti and Dr. David Bohm - Part 8

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The Ending of Time

J. Krishnamurti

and

Dr. David Bohm

B: And he thinks about what he should do.

K: The 'me' is different because it is becoming. I don't want to

complicate it.

B: Well, yes, 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. I must act upon it, or I will be vengeful, hurtful' - and

all the rest of it. So this movement of separation is time.

B: Yes, we can see that now. Now the point is - there is

something here that is not obvious. A person is thinking 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. You see,

let's try to make it very clear because you are saying that there is no

separation.

K: My rationality discovers there is no separation.

B: 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'.

B: Yes. I an this and I will become that.

K: Yes.

B: So I am hurt and I will become non hurt. Now that very

thought maintains the hurt.

K: That's right.

Q: But isn't that feeling of separation 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', 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: Already. When you say does not the separation exist already

when I say 'I am hurt'.

B: Well it does, but I think that before that happens you get a

kind of shock. The first thing that happens is a kind of shock, a

pain or whatever which you identify with that shock and then you

explain it by saying 'I am hurt' or whatever and that immediately

implies the separation to do something.

K: Of course. Of course. If I am not hurt I don't know anything

about separation or not separation.

Q: Well something might happen to me.

K: Yes, he has said a shock, any kind of shock.

Q: But at the moment I say I am hurt, then in that moment I

have already separated myself from that fact which...

K: No, no, no. I don't - all that I know is that I am hurt. Right? I

don't say I have already separated myself.

Q: No, I am not saying that. Isn't that implied?

K: No. I am just 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.

B: Now if you don't maintain it, what happens? Suppose you

say, 'OK, I won't go on with this becoming.'

K: Ah, that is quite a different matter. Which means I am no

longer observing using time as an observation.

B: You could say that is not your way of looking.

K: Yes.

B: It is not your theory anymore.

K: That's right.

B: Because you could say time is a theory which everybody

adopts for psychological purposes.

K: That's right. That is a common factor, time is the common

factor of man. And we are pointing out time is an illusion.

B: Psychological time.

K: Of course, that is understood.

B: Are you saying that when we no longer approach this

through time then the hurt does not continue?

K: Does not continue, it ends.

B: It ends.

K: Because you are not becoming anything.

B: In becoming you are always continuing what you are.

K: That's right. Continuing what you are, modified and...

B: That is why you struggle to become.

K: And all the rest of it. We are talking about insight. That is,

insight has no time. Insight is not the product of time, time being

memory, remembrance and so on and so on. So there is insight.

That insight being free of time acts upon memory, acts upon

thought which is rational. That is, insight makes thought rational.

Right?

B: Right.

K: Not thought which is based on memory. Then what the devil

is that thought?

B: What?

Q: That is the question.

K: No. Wait a minute sir. 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 psychologically,

not the other. We are saying to be free of time implies insight.

Insight being free of time, it has no thought.

B: We said that it may use thought.

K: Wait, wait. I am not sure. Just go slowly.

B: You are changing, yes.

K: 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 therefore

action is rational. Action becomes irrational when it is acting from

thought. So insight doesn't use thought.

B: Well we have to make it clear because in a certain area it has

to use thought. You see if for example you want to construct

something you would use the thought which is available as to how

to do it.

K: But that is not insight.

B: Yes, but even so you may have to have insight in that area.

K: Partial. We said the other day when we were discussing that

the scientists, the painters, the architects, the doctors, the artists and

so on, they have partial insight. We are talking of 'X', 'Y', 'Z', who

are seeking the ground, they are becoming more - not more - 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.

Q: Could this action be thought?

K: No. Sir, just a minute. Forgive me I am not making myself

into an example, I am talking in all humility. That boy, that young

man in 1929 dissolved the Order. There was no thought. People

said 'Do this, don't do that', 'Keep it', 'Don't keep it'. He had an

insight, finished. I dissolved it. Why do we need thought?

Q: You don't need thought.

K: Ah! We do, we employed thought to do something.

B: But then you used some thought in dissolving the Order. Say,

when to do it, how to do it.

K: That is merely for convenience, for other people and so on.

B: But still some thought was needed.

K: The decision acts.

B: I didn't say about the decision. The primary action did not

require thought, only that which follows.

K: That is nothing. It is like moving a cushion from there to

there.

B: Yes, I understand that. The primary source of action does not

involve thought.

K: That is all I wanted.

B: But it sort of filters through into...

K: It is like a wave.

Q: Does not all thought undergo a transformation in this

process? Before it was...

K: Yes, of course, of course. Because insight is without time

therefore the brain itself has undergone a change.

B: Yes, now could we talk about what you mean by that?

K: What time is it?

B: Yes, you see we must refer to time! It is twenty five past

five.

K: I think we will have to stop for a bit here.

B: Perhaps another day.

K: My head is buzzing.

B: Next time.

K: I think this is good. So does it mean, sir, every human

response must be viewed, 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, so end that - envy, greed, and all that is

involved in jealousy. You follow? We irrational people say, 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? And the insight, which is totally rational, wipes

all that away. Right?

B: Right.

K: Is that a fact? Fact in the sense 'X', 'Y', 'Z', will never again

be jealous, never.

B: Yes, well we have to discuss that because it is not clear how

you could guarantee that.

K: Oh yes, I will guarantee it! We had better stop. Isn't your

head aching too?

OJAI 4TH CONVERSATION WITH DAVID

BOHM 10TH APRIL, 1980 `THE ENDING OF

TIME'

J Krishnamurti: Would it be all right if we start, you and I, and

later on they can join in?

I would like to ask a question which may lead us to something:

what will make man, a human being, 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?

Dr Bohm: Yes. What you say is true.

K: Why? If you were concerned, as one must be, if one is

concerned with humanity, with human beings, with all the things

that are going on, what would be the right action that would move

him out of one direction to another? Is this question valid? Has it

any significance?

B: Well unless we can see this action it won't have much

significance.

K: Has the question any significance?

B: Well what it means is, really indirectly, to ask what is

holding people.

K: Yes, same thing.

B: The same question. If we could find out what is holding

people in their present direction.

K: Is it the basic conditioning of man, the basic being this

tremendous sense of egotistic attitude and action, which won't yield

to anything?

B: Well if you say it won't yield to anything...

K: Apparently it doesn't seem to yield at all. It appears to

change, it appears to yield, it appears sometimes to say yes, but the

centre remains the same. Perhaps this may not be in the line of our

dialogue for the last two or three days, two or three times, but I

thought we might start with that. If that is of no value, if that

doesn't lead anywhere...

B: Well have you some notion of what is holding people?

Something that would really change them?

K: I think so.

B: What is it then?

K: I mean this has been the question of serious human beings:

what is it that is blocking? Do we approach it through

environmental conditioning, from the outer to the inner and

discover from the outer his 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?

B: Right.

K: I wonder if I am making myself clear?

B: 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.

B: Well 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 it is so rigid, why does it hold?

K: That is what I am asking too.

B: Yes. If it were merely outward conditioning one would

expect it to be more easily changed.

K: Easily changed.

B: For example you could put some other outward condition.

K: They have tried all that.

B: They have tried it, the whole belief of Communism was that

would - with a new society there would be a new man.

K: New society, new man, yes. But there have been none!

B: Well I think that there is something fundamentally in the

nature of the inward that holds, which resists change.

K: What is it? Will this question lead us anywhere?

B: Unless we actually uncover it, it will lead nowhere.

K: I think one could find out if one applied one's mind. I think

one can. I am just asking: is this question worthwhile and is it

related to what we have been talking about the last two or three

times that we met? Or shall we take up something else in relation

to what we have been talking about?

B: Well I think that we have been talking about bringing about

an ending to time, ending to becoming. And we said that to come

into contact with the ground and through complete rationality. But

now we could say that the mind is not rational.

K: Yes, we said man is basically irrational.

B: This is perhaps part of the block. If you were completely

rational then we would of necessity come to this ground. Right?

Would that be fair?

K: Yes. You were not here the other day but we were having a

dialogue about the ending of time. Both the scientists through

investigation of matter want to find out that point, and also the socalled

religious people, not only verbally but they have

endeavoured to find out 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 time. Because insight is not

memory. Memory is time, memory as experience, knowledge

stored up in the brain and so on, as long as that is in operation there

is no possibility of having insight into anything. Total insight, not

partial insight. The artist has a partial insight, the scientist, the

musicians and so on, they all have partial insights and therefore

they are still time-bound. Is it possible to have a total insight? It is

only possible - we went into that step by step - which is the ending

of the 'me', because the 'me' is put together by thought, thought is

time, 'me' is time - me and my ego, my resistance, my hurts, all

that. Can that 'me' end? It is only when that ends there is total

insight. Right? That is what we discovered. Right?

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. And 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, you say that is very nice, it

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. Right sir?

B: Yes.

K: And we said there is.

B: The ground.

K: The ground. You were perhaps here at the beginning. And

the last thing, if I remember rightly, will people listen to this? Is it

the beginning of this enquiry is to listen. That is, I think, where we

left off it I remember rightly.

So - I had forgotten all that, I have just remembered it! So I

started with this question, the question which I just began. Let's

forget that question. We will come back to it perhaps a little later.

Will I, as a human being, give up my egocentric activity

completely? What will make me move away from that? Not me,

that is only a way of talking. What will make a human being move

away from this destructive, self-centred activity? It comes to the

same thing. If he will move away through reward then that is just

another - with it goes punishment. So discard that. Then what will

make you, a human being - if I may use the word 'renounce'

without reward - renounce it completely? Right sir?

You see man has tried everything in this direction - fasting, self

torture in various forms, abnegating himself through belief,

denying himself through identification with something greater,

with - so on and so on. All the religious people have tried it but it is

still there.

B: Yes. I think it becomes clear that the whole activity has no

meaning, it has no sense, but somehow this does not become

evident, you see. People will move away from something which

has no meaning, and makes no sense, ordinarily speaking.

K: Yes.

B: But it seems that the perception of this fact is rejected by the

mind, you see the mind is resisting it.

K: The mind is resisting this constant conflict, it is moving

away from this conflict.

B: Yes. It is moving away from the fact that this conflict has no

meaning.

K: They don't see that.

B: Not only that but the mind is set up purposely to avoid seeing

it.

K: The mind is avoiding it.

B: It is avoiding it almost on purpose but not quite consciously.

You said sometimes, for example, that it avoids it consciously like

the people of India who say they are going to retire to the

Himalayas because nothing can be done.

K: Oh, that is hopeless. You mean to say, sir, that the mind

having lived so long in conflict refuses to move away from it?

B: It is not clear why it refuses. It refuses to give it up, right.

K: The same thing, refuses to give it up.

B: It is not clear why the mind does not wish to see the full

meaninglessness of the conflict. The mind is deceiving itself, it is

continually covering up.

K: The philosophers and the so-called religious people have

emphasized struggle, emphasized the sense of striving - control,

make effort. Is that one of the causes why human beings refuse to

let go of their way of life?

B: Well that may be. They hope by fighting or struggling they

will achieve a better result. Not to give up what we have but to

improve it by struggle.

K: You can see man has lived for two million years, what has

he achieved? More wars, more destruction.

B: What I am trying to say is that there is a tendency to resist

seeing this, but to continually go back to hope - to hope that the

struggle will finally produce something better.

K: I am not quite sure if we have cleared this point: that the

intellectuals of the world - I am using the word respectfully - the

intellectuals of the world have emphasized this, this factor of

struggle.

B: Well I don't know if all of them have. Many of them have I

suppose.

K: Most of them.

B: Karl Marx.

K: Yes Marx and even Bronowsky who says through acquiring

more and more knowledge, more and more struggle. Is it that they

have had such extraordinary influence on our minds?

B: Well I think people do that without any encouragement from

intellectuals. You see struggle has been emphasized everywhere.

K: That is what I mean. Everywhere. Why?

B: Well in the beginning people thought it would be necessary,

they had to struggle against nature to live.

K: So struggling against nature has been transferred to the

other?

B: Yes, that is part of it. To become brave. You see you must be

a brave hunter, you must struggle against your own weakness to be

a brave hunter.

K: Yes, that's it, that's it.

B: Otherwise you can't do it.

K: So is it that our minds are conditioned, or shaped, or held, in

this pattern?

B: 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. I am used to it.

B: Yes, but I think that there is a tremendous resistance to

moving away from that.

K: Why? Why does a human being resist this? If you come

along and point out the fallacy of this, the irrationality of this, and

you show the whole cause and effect and examples, data,

everything else.

B: 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 it.

K: More to it?

B: To the problem. You see you may expose the irrationality of

it and for one thing people may say well what happens is that 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 people are not aware of.

K: Yes, but what would make them aware?

B: Well that is what we have to find. I think that 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, so abstractly 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?

B: 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 be extremely

interested? You see they have offered heaven as a reward if you do

this. Various religions have done this, but that becomes too

childish.

B: Well that is part of the pattern, reward. You see somebody

might say, 'I follow my self-enclosed pattern except when some

great thing comes up.' You see people do that thing in a real

emergency, they drop the self-enclosed pattern.

K: You can see that.

B: Ordinarily the rule is that I follow the self-enclosed pattern

except when something really big comes up.

K: A crisis.

B: Or reward is to be obtained.

K: Of course.

B: Something special is needed to get out of it, and then you fall

back in when that special thing is passed.

K: Now why? Why?

B: Well that is a pattern of thinking. I think that people must in

some way think that it has value, people believe - you see if

everybody were able to work together and suddenly you were able

to produce harmony, then everybody would say fine, I would give

up myself, but saying that 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.

B: I don't have much but I had better hold on to it because if

everybody was suddenly to become harmonious then maybe I

could leave it.

K: Yes. So are you saying if everybody does this I will do it?

B: 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.

B: 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? Go on sirs.

Q: Isn't it related to the question we dealt with last time again -

time and no time. You see when there is conflict...

K: But I know nothing about time, I know nothing about all

that, it is just a theory to me. But 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 -

the intelligent people - let this go but they apparently have not

succeeded.

Q: But they don't see that the very attempt at letting it go, or to

end the conflict, is still strengthening the conflict.

K: No, that is just a theory.

Q: No, you can explain that to them.

K: You can explain. As we said there are a dozen explanations,

very rational. At the end of it I 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, or Moody, said finished? You can give me a thousand

explanations and all probably a bit irrational and I say yes, very

nice, have you done it, or what?

Q: I don't even understand the question. When you ask me, have

you done it?

K: No, I am not being personal. Have you, when you have given

an explanation why human beings can't move away from this

pattern, or break through it, you give me some explanation.

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 explanation of

the observation is more then just an explanation.

K: Yes. I have accepted this. I can't observe this clearly.

Q: Well what is the problem.

K: So help me to see it clearly.

Q: For that there must be an interest.

K: Don't say there must. I haven't got an interest. I am

interested, as he pointed out just now, when there is a tremendous

crisis such as war, I forget myself. In fact I am glad to forget

myself, I 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, the pattern, or break

through it?

Q: Isn't it that one must see the falseness.

K: Show it to me sir.

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 and so on. And you have pointed out in a crisis, etc., etc., but

I fall back to this pattern all the time. Right? 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 interested? Pain?

Q: I don't know. Usually it doesn't. 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: Sir 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 engrained in me, is holding back. Right? I

want proof, I want to be convinced. Right?

Q: I am convinced but I don't see.

Q: We have to go into this question: why do I want to have

proof? Why do I want to be convinced?

K: Because you say to me this is a stupid, irrational way of

living. And you show me all the effects of it, the cause of it and I

say yes but I can't let go.

B: Well as a matter of fact I feel that it may well be that all this

is irrational but since I am there this doesn't change anything. You

see you may say that is the very nature of me, that I must fulfil my

needs no matter how irrational they are.

K: Sir, sir, that is what I am saying.

B: So irrationality eventually cannot prevail because you see

first I must take care of my own needs and then I can try to be

rational.

K: What are my needs then?

B: Some of the needs are real and some are imaginary, but...

K: Yes, that's it. The imaginary, the illusory needs sway the

other needs.

B: But you see I may need to believe I am good and right and

know that I will be always there.

K: Help me to break that, sir.

B: I think I have to see that this is an illusion. You see if it

seems real then I can say, 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 see 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.

B: No, no, it is something different.

K: I know what you are saying.

Q: You see can one see the illusory nature of that very demand

that I want to go to heaven? That very question - 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: My demand is based on becoming.

Q: Right.

K: The more.

Q: That is illusory.

K: No. You say that.

B: 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 you willing to really explore into this question?

K: I am willing on one condition. I lay my condition actually

because I want to find at the end of it something. See how the

human mind works.

Q: That's just it.

K: 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: No, no, you are going round and round in circles.

B: It sees the problem abstractly. That is it sees it...

K: That is it. Now why do I see it abstractly?

B: Well, first of all it is a lot easier.

K: Don't go back to that. Why does my mind make an

abstraction of everything?

B: Let's begin by saying that to a certain extent that is the

function of thought to make abstractions outwardly, then we carry

them inwardly. It is the same sort of thing as before.

K: Yes. So is there a way - I am just asking - is there something

else that we are missing in this altogether? That is we are still

thinking, if I may point out, still thinking the same old patterns.

Right?

B: Well I think the question itself contains that pattern doesn't

it?

K: Yes. But the pattern - the pursuit of the pattern is traditional.

B: Yes, but I mean that even in framing this question the pattern

has continued.

K: Yes, so can we move away altogether from this, and look at

it differently - can we? That is we are still saying, listen to me, you

must be interested, don't ask - you follow? Move away from that

altogether. Can I move away from all that? Can the human mind

say, all right, we have tried all this - Marx, Buddha, you follow?

Everybody has pointed out something or other, we have tried, after

a million years, obviously. And we are still somehow caught in that

pattern, saying you must be interested, you must listen, you must

do this and so on.

B: That is still time.

K: Yes. Leave all that. Then what happens if I leave all that,

actually leave it? I won't even think in terms of it. I wonder if I am

making myself clear?

Q: Is the action of leaving all that...

K: Not action. I know you have told me all that, I know all that.

The religious people have said it, Marxists, you follow, everybody,

and you add some more explanations, a new twist but it is the same

old twist. So I say let's leave that area completely and look at the

problem differently.

Q: The problem which is?

K: Which is: why do I always live in this centre of me, me, me?

Well sirs?

Would it be, I am a serious man, a serious human being, I have

listened to all this, after sixty years, or fifty years. All the

explanations I know, what I should, should not do and so on and so

on, can I say, all right, I will discard all that. That means I stand

completely alone. Does that lead anywhere?

B: Possibly, yes. I say possibly.

K: I think it does lead somewhere.

B: It seems to me that basically you are saying, leave all this

knowledge of mankind behind. Right?

K: That is what I am saying.

B: Apparently it is out of its place.

K: Yes. Leave all the knowledge and experience and

explanations, causes that man has created as human beings, 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.

Q: Well then it is not clear what you are saying.

K: Oh yes. 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 the

knowledge, by experience. Right?

Q: To some extent.

K: Yes. And more knowledge which I have acquired, as I have

evolved, as I have grown, as I have experienced, 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.

Discard all knowledge I have acquired. Sorry.

B: In this area, in this psychological place.

K: Psychologically, of course.

B: At the core, at the source, knowledge is irrelevant.

K: Yes sir.

B: 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, or at the beginning, was in that same position. The mind

at the beginning of whatever you call man was in that position, it

didn't have any knowledge.

K: No. I don't accept that. Why do you say that? The moment it

comes into being it is already formed in that. It is already caught in

knowledge.

Q: I don't quite understand.

K: Would you say that.

B: Well I think it is implicit in the structure of thought.

K: Yes sir, that is just it.

B: First of all to have knowledge about the outward, and then to

come inward and therefore without understanding that it was going

to be caught in it. It was good enough, developed enough to think

about the inward, then it would extend that knowledge outward to

the inward into the area of psychological becoming.

Q: Well you see, if the mind could start anew, it would go

through the same mistake again.

K: No. No. Certainly not.

Q: Unless it has learnt.

K: No. I don't want to learn. You are still pursuing the same old

path. That is what I am objecting to.

Q: I think I just have the problem of choosing the right words.

K: I don't want to learn - no sir, please just let me go into this a

little bit.

B: We should clear this up because on other occasions you have

said it is important to learn, even about observing yourself.

K: Of course, of course.

B: Now you are saying something quite different. It should be

clear that if it is different, why? 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.

B: Yes, but there was a state when it was important to learn

about the mind.

K: Don't go back. Just a minute. I am just starting. I have lived

for sixty years or eighty years, or a hundred years. And I have

listened to all this - the preachers in India, the teachers in India, the

Christians, the Muslims, I have listened to all the explanations,

psychological explanations, the cause, Freud, Marxist, everybody.

B: I think we should go a bit further. That is all the negative

stuff but in addition perhaps I have observed myself and learned

about myself.

K: Myself, yes, add that.

B: Add that too, right.

Q: Add K.

K: All that. And at the end of it I say perhaps this is a wrong

way of looking at it. Right?

B: Right. Having explored that way we finally are able to see it

might be wrong.

K: Perhaps.

B: Well I would say that in some sense perhaps it was necessary

to explore that way.

K: Or not necessary.

B: 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 all that

knowledge - we will put in that word - discard it. Because that

hasn't lead me anywhere - lead me in the sense that I am not free of

my egocentricism.

B: Well that alone isn't enough because if you say it hasn't

worked you can always hope that it may, suppose it may. But in

fact you could see that it can't work.

K: It can't work. Oh, I am definite on that.

B: It is not enough to say it hasn't worked but actually it cannot

work.

K: It cannot work.

Q: I am not definite on that. Isn't that just the difficulty?

K: It cannot work because it is based on time and knowledge,

which is thought. And these explanations are based on thought -

acquire knowledge and so on and so on. Would you say that?

B: Well as far as we have gone we have based it on knowledge

and thought and not only thought but also the habitual patterns of

skill, all that which is an extension of thought.

K: So when I put those aside, not casually, not with an interest

in the future, but I see the same pattern being repeated, repeated,

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.

Q: Has the structure of the 'me' gone?

K: Obviously.

Q: Without insight into it?

K: No. I won't bring in insight for the moment.

B: But there was insight to do that. I mean to say that to

consider doing it was an insight. The insight was the whole thing

that worked.

K: I won't bring in that word.

B: When you said it, that the whole thing cannot work, well I

think that is an insight.

K: For me. I see it cannot work. But you see then we go back to

that again: how do I acquire insight and all that.

B: But leaving all that aside and just saying that it was an

insight, but 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 - you follow - patterns, finished.

Q: Well would you say that that kind of thinking afterwards is a

totally different kind of thinking? Evidently you must still 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. Which is after having lived a hundred years and 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 an insight - I'll use that - I have an insight into that,

therefore it falls away. And therefore the mind has broken the

pattern completely.

Now, all right. Dr Bohm has achieved this - not achieved - has

got this insight and broken away the pattern. Please help another

human being to come to that. Don't say you must be interested, you

must listen, you must - then you fall back - you follow? How will -

no, not 'how'. What is your communication with another human

being so that he hasn't got to go through all this mess? You follow

my question? How will you - not 'how' - what will make me absorb

so completely what you have said, so that it is in my blood, in my

brain, in my way, everything, so that I see this thing, what will you

do? Or there is nothing to do? You follow me? Because if you have

the insight it is a passion, it is not just a clever insight, now sit back

and be comfortable, it is a passion, and this passion won't let you

sit still, you must move, give whatever it is. What will you do?

You have that passion. Exercise that passion of this immense

insight. And that passion must, like a river with a great volume of

water flows over the banks, in the same way that passion must

move.

Now, I am a human being, ordinary, fairly intelligent, read,

experienced, tried this, that and the other thing, and I meet this 'X'

and I say - and he is full of this - why won't I listen to him?

Q: I think you do listen.

Q: But that is the old question Krishnaji.

Q: Krishnaji I listen.

K: Do you?

Q: Yes, I think so.

K: Just go very, very slowly. Do you 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 all through all

that. We have walked the area endlessly, back and forth from

corner to corner, North, South, East, we have walked all over the

area. And 'X' comes along and says, 'Look, there is a different way

of living, different, something totally new' - which means, please

listen, will you so completely that you - you know.

Q: If there is a resistance one does not see the resistance.

K: Don't go back to school. I am not being rude.

Q: What do you mean?

K: Begin again all over again - explain why you resist.

Q: But one doesn't see the resistance.

K: Then 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 sir, 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 you can see it.

Q: The 'me'...

K: That's what I am preventing - he said don't go back to the

pattern. See it. 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. You

have quite a number of people who ask you with similar words to

see, put thought aside, if you would really look at this thing you

will see it. I mean that is what the priests tell you. So what is the

difference?

K: No, no, no. I am not a priest. 'X' isn't a priest. 'K' says, I have

left all that. I have left the church, the gods, Jesus, the Buddhas, the

Krishnas, I have left all that, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, all the

analysts, all the pundits, everybody. You see you haven't done that.

'X' says, do 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 sir?

B: Yes. You see I think that if you say leave all the knowledge

behind, but knowledge takes many subtle forms which you don't

see. Right? You see even...

K: Of course. You are full of this insight and you have

discarded all knowledge because of that. And I keep on puddling

over the pool of knowledge. And you say, leave it. The moment

you enter into explanations we are back into the game. And you

refuse to explain. It's rather good. Yes sir.

You see explanations have been the boat on which to cross to

the other shore. And the man on the other shore says there is no

boat. Cross! Now 'X' says that. He is asking me something

impossible. Right?

B: If it doesn't happen right away then it is impossible.

K: Absolutely. He is asking me something impossible for me to

do. (Noise of bees buzzing)

B: The bees are very active, it's so warm.

K: 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'

absolutely refuses to enter into the game of words. Then what am I,

who have played games with words, what am I to do? 'X' won't

leave me alone. Right sir? Leave me alone in the sense he may

leave personally, but in the sense that I have met something

immovable. And it is there might and day with me. I can't battle

with it because there is nothing I can get hold of.

So what happens to me? Go on sirs: 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 - sorry, I am just putting that - never met something like that?

You 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 I am terribly

puzzled by it, or I say, well I can't do anything about it. Walk away

from it. Or it is something that I must investigate. You follow? I

must capture it. Right? Which is it?

Q: But then we are back in the old pattern.

K: No, no. No.

Q: I want to investigate.

K: 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 those things I am back into the

old pattern. So I discard that. When meeting 'X' who is immovable

I see what the nature of it is. I wonder if I am? I am movable, as a

human being, but 'X' is immovable. The contact with it does

something, it must. It is not some mystic, it is not some occult stuff

and all that kind of thing, but it is simple, isn't it?

Q: Sir, it functions like a magnet, which is why everyone is in

this room. But it doesn't break something.

K: No, because you haven't let go the pattern. It is not his fault,

'X's' fault.

Q: I didn't say it was.

K: No, the implication is that.

Q: No.

K: When you use the word 'magnet', it means that, attraction.

Q: It has that effect.

K: No. Therefore you are back, you are dependent.

Q: What is taking place?

K: I understand. I am saying you, Moody, meet 'X', what

happens?

Q: You said effort to understand.

K: Ah, there you are, lost. You are back into the old pattern.

Q: But even the language of meeting suggests that you have..

K: No, no, don't break up the words. Meet, face, you see it, you

feel it, you know it, you recognize, it doesn't matter what word you

use, it is there.

B: Well can't you say that if 'X' communicates the absolute

necessity of not going on with the old pattern because you see it

absolutely cannot work.

K: Yes sir, put it in your own words. All right.

B: And that is unalterable, what is immovable - is that what you

mean?

K: Yes sir. I am movable: 'X' is immovable.

B: Well what is behind 'X' is immovable. Wouldn't you say that,

what is working in 'X'.

K: What is working is something of a shock first, naturally. I

have been moving, moving, moving, then I meet something that is

immovable. Suddenly something takes place, obviously. Not

something, 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 many, many - all the explanations - has made me

sensitive, obviously. 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. No? Bound to be. If I

am a musician, I like Beethoven, or Mozart or whatever it is, and I

have listened, listened, listened, it makes me sensitive to music. So

in the same way explanations have been given over and over and

over again. I have listened but it has made me either dull or I begin

to see explanations have no value at all. So in this process - I am

using the word - in this process I have become extraordinarily

sensitive to any word of 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 - you know - be silent and you

will receive. That's an illusion, you know. Well I have said enough.

B: Could I just say that when you see that this whole process of

time and knowledge and so on won't work then it stops, you see.

Now then this leaves one more sensitive. Right?

K: Yes sir. The mind has become sharp.

B: Because all this movement is getting in the way.

K: Yes. I think psychological knowledge has made us dull.

B: Yes, it has kept the brain moving in an unnecessary way. It is

clear.

Q: All knowledge.

B: Well no. You could say in some sense that knowledge

needn't make you dull, I suppose, but if it starts from the clarity of

where we don't have this knowledge at the core...

K: Yes sir. You remember we said too in our discussion, the

ground is not knowledge.

B: You see the first thing is it creates emptiness.

K: Yes sir, that's it.

B: But not yet the ground. But 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, you have explained, I have acquired knowledge.

Then I say I must have that.

B: Well the danger is it is very difficult to communicate this in a

book, you see, because it is too fixed.

K: But that is what generally happens.

B: 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. If 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 and more helpless. Right? Which is

what is happening.

B: Yes, well that is part of the same trend to organize our lives

in more and more detail.

K: What time is it?

B: Twenty past five.

K: Five twenty? I think we had better stop, don't you? Shall we

meet again?

B: On Saturday, we suggested.

K: Yes, let's do it Saturday.

B: The same time.

OJAI 5TH CONVERSATION WITH DAVID

BOHM 12TH APRIL, 1980 `THE ENDING OF

TIME'

J Krishnamurti: Anything you have to say sir?

Dr Bohm. Well I thought perhaps we could go on - we raised

several questions after these discussions. One was the nature of this

ground that we discussed, whether we could come to it and

whether it has any interest in human beings. And also we discussed

the possibility that there could be a change in the physical

behaviour of the brain.

K: Could we approach this question from the point of view:

why have ideas - because is the ground an idea? That is what I

want first be clear - why have ideas become so important?

B: Well I should say that perhaps because the distinction

between ideas and what is beyond ideas is not clear. Ideas are often

taken to be something more than ideas, that we feel it is not an idea

but actually a reality.

K: That is what I want to find out. Is it an idea, or is it an

imagination, an illusion, a philosophic concept? Or something that

is absolute in the sense that there is nothing beyond it?

B: How can you tell that there is nothing beyond it?

K: I am coming slowly. I want to see whether we look at that, or

we perceive that, or have an insight into that from a concept.

Because after all the whole Western world, and perhaps also the

Eastern world, is based on concepts. Their whole outlook, their

religious beliefs, are all based on that, and in the Asiatic world too.

But do we approach it from that point of view? 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, or when we want to investigate or explain, or

find out what that ground is?

B: Yes, well perhaps not even all the philosophers have been

basing themselves on concepts. Certainly philosophy is taught

through concepts.

K: Yes, I am just questioning that.

B: Whether all the philosophers really wanted to base

everything on concepts is another question.

K: I didn't say all, sir.

B: Most of them.

K: Most of them!

B: And certainly it is very hard to teach it except through

concepts.

K: So I just want to know. What then is the difference between

a religious mind and a philosophic mind? You understand what I

am trying to convey? Perhaps I am not doing it properly. Do we

investigate the ground from a mind that is disciplined in

knowledge?

B: Yes, well fundamentally we say that the ground is unknown

inherently.

K: That's what I want to know.

B: Therefore we can't begin with knowledge. Many years ago

we had a discussion in London and we suggested we start with the

unknown.

K: Yes, yes. Say for instance 'X' says there is such a ground.

And all of us, 'X', 'Y', 'Z' and 'A', 'B', 'C' say what is the ground,

prove it, show it, let it manifest itself. And when we ask such

questions, is it a mind that is seeking, or rather that has this passion

for truth, the love of truth? You follow? Or merely we say let's talk

about it?

B: I think that in that mind there is the demand for certainty

which says show itself, I want to be sure. So therefore there is not

enquiry, no?

K: No. Suppose you state that there is such a thing, there is the

ground, immovable and so on. And 'X', I will take the part of 'X',

'X' says, 'I want to find out, show it to me. 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, that is not put together by thought.

B: Yes, as soon as you say, prove it, you want to turn it into

knowledge.

K: That's it. Prove it to me. Show it to me.

B: To be absolutely certain knowledge is what you want.

K: That's it.

B: So that there can be no doubt. And yet of course there is also

the danger of self-deception and delusion, the other side.

K: Of course. We have been through all that very carefully.

Right from the beginning we said the ground cannot be touched as

long as there is any form of illusion, which is the projection of

desire, pleasure, fear and all that.

B: I merely meant to say that the person who says prove it, is

also trying to protect it against those illusions. But it is a vain hope.

K: So how do I, as an 'X', perceive that thing? That is what I

want. Is the ground an idea to be investigated? Or is it something

that cannot be investigated?

B: Right.

K: Because my mind is trained, disciplined, by experience and

knowledge, and it can only function in that area. And you come

along and tell me that this ground is not an idea, it is not a

philosophical concept, it is not something that can be put together

by thought, or perceived by thought.

B: Yes, or understood by thought.

K: Yes, understood by thought. Then what am I to do?

B: Yes, you are even adding more in some sense because the

person says that I want to find that by experience, not only thought

but also experience.

K: Of course.

B: It cannot be experienced, it cannot be perceived, or

understood through thought.

K: Yes. So what have I? I have only this mind that has been

conditioned by knowledge. How am I, as an 'X', to move away, to

move away from all that? Because there are more philosophers

than religious people. Sorry!

B: Well there are very few true philosophers too.

K: There are very few religious people too.

B: Very few of either.

K: I am just making a joke of it.

B: Well I don't know, you could say compare the number of

people who call themselves philosophers, call themselves religious,

far more call themselves religious. It doesn't matter. It doesn't

count.

K: So how am I, an ordinary man, educated, 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 technological,

the other kind of knowledge. And you are asking me an impossible

thing, 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

this is not a spurious question. It is a very serious question. This is

what everybody asks - everybody in the sense, I mustn't use a

general term, that serious people ask.

B: 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. 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 to free - you are asking the

mind, not the general mind but this mind...

B:... the particular mind.

K: You are asking this particular mind to eschew all knowledge.

My god, sir! Has this been said in the Christian world, or in the

Jewish world?

B: I don't know about the Jewish world. But in some sense the

Christians tell you to give your faith to god, to give up all your

personal, to give over to Jesus and let him...

K: Yes, they have said that, only through Jesus.

B: He is the mediator between us and god.

K: Yes. But what I am trying to find out is: has, say for

instance, Vedanta means the end of knowledge - you know that, of

course. The ending of knowledge.

B: It could mean that I suppose. I don't know Sanskrit that well.

K: I have discussed...

B: Veda by itself means knowledge.

K: It means the end of that.

B: That means the end of it, yes.

K: And being a Westerner, I say it means nothing to me.

Because from the Greeks and all that, this culture in which I have

lived is emphasizing knowledge. Last night Bronoski was talking

again about evolution of man and all that.

B: They reshoed it?

K: Yes. When you talk to an Eastern mind - I am talking of the

minds who have studied, not just the usual ones - they know, they

acknowledge in their religious life that a time must come when

knowledge must end. Vedanta is the whole way of looking. They

would immediately understand that the mind must be free of

knowledge. But it is only a conceptual, a theoretical understanding.

But as a Westerner, it means absolutely nothing to me.

B: Well, in the beginning. I think there has been a Western

tradition which is similar but not as common. Like in the Middle

Ages there was a book written called 'The Cloud of Unknowing',

which is on that line, but that is not the main line of Western

thought.

K: No, that is what I am saying: it is not the line of Western

thought. So what shall I do? How shall I approach the question? I

want to find it, not only find it, it gives meaning to life - not my

intellect gives meaning to life by inventing some illusion, or some

hope, some belief, but I see vaguely, that this understanding, or

coming upon this ground, gives an immense significance to life.

B: Yes, well people have used that notion of god to give

significance to life.

K: No, no. God is merely an idea.

B: Yes but the idea contains something similar to the Eastern

idea that god is beyond knowing. Most people accept it that way.

K: Yes.

B: Though some may not. So there is some sort of similar

notion.

K: But you tell me this is not created by thought. So you cannot

under any circumstances come upon it through any form of

manipulation of thought.

B: Yes, I understand what you are saying. I am trying to say that

there is this problem, danger, delusion, in the sense that in the West

people say, 'Yes, that is quite true, it is through a direct experience

of Jesus that we come upon it, not through thought', you see.

K: I mean after all a direct experience of Jesus...

B: Well those are my words, they might not even talk that way,

I don't know. I am not able to express their view accurately. The

grace of god.

K: The grace of god, yes.

B: Something beyond thought, you see.

K: As a fairly educated man, fairly thoughtful man, I reject all

that.

B: Yes, 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, or perhaps

there is, in it a great sense of illusion created by desire, hope, fear.

B: Yes. Some people do seem to find this meaningful, it may be

an illusion but...

K: But if they had never heard of Jesus, never heard of Jesus,

they wouldn't experience Jesus.

B: That seems reasonable.

K: They would experience what they had been taught. In India I

mean Jesus...

B: That seems to be the weak point that the particular form of

Jesus must be due to their having heard that idea.

K: Of course, of course, obviously. When you are daily

pounded with, Jesus is your Saviour - I mean, naturally.

B: I mean it would be interesting if someone who had never

heard of Jesus would have this experience. That would be some

sort of proof that there was more to it.

Q: But wouldn't you also say that there are some more serious

people in the religions who would say that essentially what they

want to say is that also god, or whatever that is, the absolute, or the

ground is something that cannot be experienced through thinking

or also they might even 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.

Q: I think the essence of some religions would say that too.

K: All right, I don't know. Here is a person who says there is

such a thing. And I listen to him and I see not only does he convey

it by his presence, he conveys it also through the word. And he

tells me, be careful, the word is not the thing. But he uses the word

to convey something to me which I vaguely capture, 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 am

I, whose brain is conditioned that way, in knowledge, disciplined,

how is it to free itself from all that?

Q: Could it free itself by understanding its own limitation?

K: Understanding what?

Q: That itself, that thought itself could understand that whatever

it is doing it is bound by some natural limitation.

K: So you are telling me, thought is limited. Show it to me. Not

by saying memory, experience, knowledge, all knowledge - I

understand all 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 told

me.

Q: Well it does require serious investigation.

K: No, I have investigated it. I have investigated that thought is

limited. Obviously. You don't need the investigation, it is so clear.

Q: I see. You are saying that thought sees it normally

indirectly?

K: No, no. I am saying, I see that. Intellectually I understand it.

It is so obvious. But I have no feeling for it. You understand?

There is no perfume in it.

Q: That is what I would say is indirect understanding.

K: No, it is not even understanding - it means nothing.

Q: It is just more knowledge.

K: Yes. It means nothing. 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.

K: That is far away.

Q: But rather 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. I know that very well, you

don't have to tell me.

Q: I would say you don't know it, you only think you know it.

K: Oh no. You think so. I know it. I have seen it. I have

captured it. I know when I am angry. I know when I am wounded.

It is not an idea, I have got the feeling, the hurt is carrying inside

me. I want to get at this. You understand sir? Am I conveying

anything? I am fed up with the investigation because I have done it

all my life. I go to the Hindu business and I say I have investigated,

studied it, looked at it, Buddhism, this and the other, Christianity,

Islam and so on. I say these are all just words. How do I as a

human being have this extraordinary feeling about it? You

understand? I wonder if I am conveying anything - am I? Because

if I have no passion behind it, it is just...

Q: What does the feeling spring from?

K: I am not investigating. I want to have this passion that will

explode me out of this little enclosure. You understand? I have

built a wall round myself, cultured, fairly respectable, educated, a

wall, which is myself. And I have lived with this thing for millions

of years. And I have lived trying to get out of it by studying, by

reading, by going to gurus, by all kinds of things I have done. And

I am still anchored there. And you talk about the ground because

you see something that is breathtaking, that seems so alive,

extraordinary and so on. And I am here, anchored in here. You,

who have seen the ground - see in quotes - must do something that

will explode, break up this thing completely.

Q: I must do something, or you must do something?

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 given up, 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 - which is a great discovery for me. You understand?

I thought I had moved from the beginning, at the beginning by

going through all this, but I suddenly discover I am back at the

same point where I started; I have more experience, I have seen the

world, I have painted, I have played music, I have danced. You

follow? But have come back to the original starting point.

Q: Which is me and not me.

K: Yes, me. I say to myself what am I to do? And what is the

human mind's relationship to the ground? That is what you are

saying. Perhaps if I could establish relationship it might break up

this centre, totally. You follow? It is not a motive, it is not a desire,

it is not a reward. I see if the mind could establish a relationship

with that my mind has become that. Right?

Q: But hasn't the mind then already become that?

K: Oh, no.

Q: But Krishnaji I think you have just wiped away the greatest

difficulty in saying there is no desire, there is no...

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, no, you are missing my point. My brain has lived for a

million years. It has experienced everything. It has been a

Buddhist, it has been a Hindu, a Christian, it has been a Muslim, it

has been all kinds of things, but the core of it is the same. Right?

And you come along and say, look there is a ground which is -

something. Are you going back to what I have already known?

You follow? Hindus, Buddhists. If you do I reject all that because I

say I have been through all that. They are like ashes to me at the

end of it.

B: Well all of those things were the attempt to create apparent

ground by thought. It seemed that through knowledge and thought,

through Buddhism, and various other ways, people created what

they regarded as the ground. And it wasn't.

K: It wasn't. Because I have spent a million years at it.

B: So as long as knowledge enters the ground that will be false?

K: Of course. So can I - I am just asking - is there a relationship

between that and the human mind? In asking that question I am

also aware of the danger of such a question.

B: Yes. Well you may create a delusion of the same kind that

we have already gone through.

K: Yes. I have played that before, that song.

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 I have to make a relationship.

My mind now is in such a state that I won't accept a thing.

Q: But the bridge, if there is such a thing.

K: 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, and

so on and so on. So I am asking this question being fully aware of

the danger of that question. Because that is what the Hindus say,

god is in you, Brahman is in you, which is a lovely idea. I have

been through all that.

So I am asking 'X', if the human mind has no relationship to it,

and that there is only a one way passage, from that to me...

B: Well that's like the grace of god then.

K: You see.

B: That you have invented.

K: That I won't accept.

Q: And also we are back again into the area of ideas.

K: No. They may be. So I am rejecting the explanation - the

grace of god.

B: You are not saying the relationship is one way, nor are you

saying it is not one way.

K: Maybe, I don't know.

B: You are not saying anything.

K: I am not saying anything. All that I want is - want in quotes -

this centre to be blasted. You understand? For the centre not to

exist. Because I see that 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, or bad? Right? It comes to the same thing. There is no

relationship.

B: It depends upon what you mean by relationship.

K: All right. Contact, touch, communication, being in the same

room.

B: Coming from the same root.

K: Yes, same root.

Q: But Krishnaji, are we then saying that there is the good and

that there is the evil?

K: No, no. Don't. Goodness - use another word, whole, and that

which is not whole. It is not an idea. Now, is there relationship

between these two? Obviously not.

B: Yes, well 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, 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 this thing - this petty little thing wants to have relationship

with that immensity. It cannot.

B: Yes, it is not just because of its immensity but because in

fact this thing is not actually.

K: Yes.

Q: But I don't see that.

K: What do you mean?

Q: He say the centre is not actual. And that is part of my

difficulty - I don't see the centre is not actual.

B: Actual in the sense of being genuine and not an illusion. I

mean something is acting but it is not the content which we know.

K: Do you see that?

Q: No. He says the centre must explode. It does not explode

because I don't see the falseness in it.

K: No, no, 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: Well you say the centre then must explode.

K: No, no, no. The mind says this is too damn small.

Q: Right.

K: And it can't do anything about it. It has prayed, it has done

everything. It is still there.

Q: Right.

K: And he comes along and tells me there is this thing. I want to

establish a relationship with that.

Q: He tells me there is this thing and he also tells me that the

centre is an illusion.

B: Wait, that is too quick.

K: No. Wait. I know it is there. Call it what you like.

Q: Yes.

K: An illusion, a reality, a fixation - whatever you like. It is

there. And the mind says it is not good enough, it wants to capture

that. Therefore it wants to have that relationship with it. And that

says, 'Sorry, you can't have relationship with me.' That's all!

Q: Krishnaji, is that mind that wants to be in connection, wants

to have a relationship with that, is that the same mind which is the

'me'?

K: Yes, yes. No, don't split it up sir. You are missing something.

I have lived all this. Don't argue with me. 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. Right? And that's a

tremendous shock to me. You follow? It is like you have knocked

me out because all my millions of years of experience says go after

that, seek it, search for it, pray for it, struggle for it, cry for it,

sacrifice. I have done all that. And suddenly 'X' says, you cannot

have relationship with that. You understand? You are not feeling

the same as I am. I have shed tears, left my family, everything for

that. And that says, 'Sorry'. So what has happened to me? That is

what I want to get at. You understand sir? Do you understand what

I am saying? What has happened to the mind that has lived this

way, done everything that man has done in search for that, and that

says, one morning, 'You have no relationship with me'. Sir, this is

the greatest thing. Right? I don't know if you follow what I mean.

Q: This 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 is valueless? All your

examinations, all your struggles, all the things that one has

gathered through years and years, centuries, absolutely worthless.

Either I go mad, because I say, 'My god, I have done all this for

nothing? My virtue, my abstinence, my control, everything and at

the end of it you say they are valueless.' Sir, you understand what it

does to me? You don't see it.

B: I mean if the whole thing goes then it is of no consequence.

K: Because what you have said, which is that absolutely you

have no relationship. What you have done, not done, what you

have, is absolutely of no value. You understand sir?

B: Not in any fundamental sense. It has relative value. It has

only relative value within a certain framework, in which itself has

no value.

K: Yes, thought has relative value.

B: But the framework in general has no value.

K: That's right. Whatever you have done on earth - in quotes -

has no meaning, the ground says. Is that an idea? Or an actuality?

You understand? Idea being that you have told me but I still go on,

struggling, wanting, groping; but it is an actuality, in the sense that

I suddenly realize the futility of all that I have done. So I must be

very careful - when I use the word 'I' it doesn't mean - I must be

very careful to see that it is not a concept, or rather that I don't

translate into a concept, an idea, but receive the full blow of it!

Where are we?

Q: You see Krishnaji for hundreds of years, probably since

mankind existed, man has pursued this, what he calls god or the

ground.

K: As an idea.

Q: As an idea for many people it was very...

K: No, for all people. It must be.

Q: But anyhow then science came along, the scientific mind

came along and also told that mind that it is just an idea, it is just

foolish.

K: No, no, no. Scientific mind says through investigating matter

we will perhaps come upon the ground.

B: Many feel that way, yes.

K: Many.

B: Well 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, guns and all that. They say as a scientist - we

are talking of good scientists, like him and so on - good, not a

governmental scientist, but a good scientist says, '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 indifferent to 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: Well I think it is just an idea.

K: Then, I am sorry, I have been through that. I was a scientist

ten thousands 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.

B: Because in general what people discover about matter does

not seem to affect them deeply, psychologically.

K: No. Of course not.

B: Though you might think that if they saw the whole unity of

the universe they would act differently, but they don't.

K: They wouldn't be competing for the Nobel prize and so on.

Q: You could even say that it has affected some of their lives.

You see the whole Communist idea is built on the idea of what

they think is the fact that whatever is, is just a material process,

which is essentially empty and then man has to organize his life

and has to organize society according to those dialectical

principles.

K: No, no. Dialectical principles are one opinion opposing

another opinion, hoping out of opinions to find the truth.

B: Well I think we should leave this aside. There are different

ways of looking at different meanings of the word dialectal - but it

also means to see reality as a flowing movement, not to fix things,

not to see things 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...

K:... their lives.

B: In Russia the same structures of the mind hold as elsewhere,

if not worse. And wherever people have tried this it has not

actually fundamentally affected the way they feel and think and the

way they live.

Q: Well you see what I wanted to say is the dismissal of the

pursuit of the ground has not had any shocking effect on people.

K: No, no. I am not interested. I am the people, it has given me

a tremendous shock to discover the truth, not ideas, discover all the

churches, all the prayers, all the books have absolutely no meaning

- except they have a meaning so that we can build a better society

and so on and so on.

B: If we could manage to bring this point to order then it would

have a great meaning - to build a good society.

K: From there I start creating a society.

B: 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 as long as 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 Krishnaji is that there are

many people who in their life have never pursued what you call the

ground.

K: The are not interested.

Q: Well I an not so sure. How would you approach such a

person?

K: I am not interested in approaching any person. I am

interested - not interested - all the works I have done, good,

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. Sorry!

B: Well I think that 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 sir, to come back to earth: why has man done this?

B: Done what?

K: Accumulated knowledge. Apart from the necessity of

knowledge in certain areas, why has this burden of knowledge

continued for so long?

B: 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?

B: It means illusion again.

K: Which means the saints, the philosophers, have educated me

in knowledge and through knowledge to find the ground.

B: But in fact even to create a ground by using knowledge...

K: Yes sir, I understand that very well. But 'X' says...

Q: To create a ground. You see in a way before we have had in

societies of mankind there were all these periods where mankind

was caught in the craziest superstition and there knowledge was

able to do away with that.

K: Oh no.

Q: To some extent it was.

K: Ah! Knowledge has only crippled me from seeing truth.

Sorry 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 Christ, about this, about that. At the end

of it I realize my mind is illusion. Sorry!

You see to me, who has lived for a thousand years, to find it is

absolutely worthless, it is something enormous.

B: When you say you have lived for a thousand years or a

million years, does that means in a sense that all the experience of

mankind is...

K:... is me.

B:... is me. Do you feel that?

K: I do.

B: And how do you feel it?

K: I feel it like - you know, how do you feel anything? Wait a

minute, I will tell you. It is not sympathy, or empathy, it is not a

thing that I have desired, that I am all humanity, it is a fact, an

absolute, irrevocable fact to me.

B: Yes, well perhaps if we could share that feeling. 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 sir that when you love somebody there is no -

what? - there is no me, it is love. In the same way, when I say I am

humanity, it is so, it is like that finger. It is not an idea, it is not a

conclusion, it is part of me.

B: Well let's say it is a feeling that I have gone through all that,

all that you describe, all those million years.

K: Human beings have been through all that.

B: If others have gone through it then I also have gone through

it.

K: Of course. But one is not aware of it.

B: No, we separate.

K: If we admit that our brains are not my particular brain but the

brain that has evolved through millennia.

B: Well 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.

B: That is the thing which has been going on.

K: But you come along and tell me, as a scientist, as a religious

man, that your brain is the brain of mankind.

B: Yes and all knowledge is the knowledge of mankind. So that

in some way we have all knowledge.

K: Of course.

B: Not in detail, of course.

K: So you tell me that, and I understand what you mean, not

verbally, not intellectually, I know - not know, it is so. But I come

to that only when I have given up ordinary things like nationality,

you know.

B: Yes we have given up the divisions and we can see that our

experience is of all mankind.

K: It is so obvious sir. You go to the most primitive villager in

India and he will tell you all about his problems, his problems, his

wife, children, poverty. It is exactly the same thing, only here he is

wearing different trousers, kimono, or whatever it is. For 'X' it is an

indisputable fact, it is so. And he says, all right, at the end of all

this, a million years, I suddenly show, discover, or show that it is

empty. You see sir, 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', and immediately the whole machinery of

thought begins. So they say, be silent. So I practise silence. I have

done that for a thousand years. It has lead nowhere.

So there is only one thing and that is to discover all that I have

done is useless. They are ashes. You see sir that doesn't depress

one. That is the beauty of it. I think it is like the Phoenix.

B: Rising from ashes.

K: Born out of ashes.

B: Well in a way it is freedom to be free of all that.

K: Something totally new is born.

B: Now what you said before is that the mind is the ground, it is

the unknown.

K: The mind? Yes. But not this mind.

B: In that case it is not the same mind.

K: Sir, if I have been through all that and come to a point when

I have to end all that, it is a new mind.

B: 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.)

Category: The Ending of Time J. Krishnamurti and Dr. David Bohm - Part 8

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1 Response to "The Ending of Time J. Krishnamurti and Dr. David Bohm - Part 8"

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Hindu Vedic Philosophy (The Paramardha Tattwam)

The Ending of Time J. Krishnamurti and Dr. David Bohm - Part 8

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