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.
(My humble salutations to the
lotus feet of Sri Jiddu Krishnamurti and
gratitude to the great
philosophers and followers of him.)
1 Response to "The Ending of Time J. Krishnamurti and Dr. David Bohm - Part 8"
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