Exploration into Insight
by
J Krishnamurti
Foreword
The Central Root Of Fear
Action In Attention
The Chattering Mind
The Centre And Duality
Factors Of Deterioration
Silence And Disorder
How Deep Can One Travel
Listening With The Heart
Registration, The Movement Of Millennia
The Nature Of Despair
The Brain Cells And The Holistic State
Self-Knowledge And The Teaching
The Ending Of Recognition
Energy And The Cultivation Of The Field
EXPLORATION INTO INSIGHT FOREWORD
These dialogues extend over a wide range of subjects. For over 30
years, a group of people from various disciplines, backgrounds and
pursuits, deeply concerned with the enormity of the challenge
facing humanity and with one central interest, the unfoldment of
the self through the perceptive field of self-knowledge, have
gathered around J. Krishnamurti to undertake together, through
dialogue, the investigation of the structure and nature of man's
mind and consciousness and the energy resources that lie dormant
within man's being. The concern in these dialogues is the freedom
of the mind from the bondages of memory and time, a mutation in
consciousness and the arising of insight that gives deep roots of
steadiness to the mind.
In the world today, scientific and technological revolution has
unharnessed undreamt-of resources of power and knowledge.
However, man has failed to discover in himself the sources of
wisdom and compassion. What is needed is an inner revolution in
the psyche of man. The insight that man lacks is the apprehension
that he is the maker of his problems and that the root of this
problem-making machinery is his mind. It is in this area of
perception that the ultimate freedom of man lies.
Starting tentatively, there is in these dialogues a relentless
questioning, probing and inquiry, a `listening' and a `seeing' in
which depths of the self with its vast subtleties and hidden escapes
are exposed. This exploration to Krishnamurti is `a journey into
time, into the past, into the limitless'.
Man caught in the paradox of living, rarely questions. He
escapes from his anguish, his loneliness, his sorrow. In a world
sated with sensations, man turns to the guru, to the religious
experience, or extrasensory powers that arise from various forms of
concentration, as a further stimulus to his jaded appetites.
Krishnamurti's teaching negates the guru and the psychic
experience as a way to liberation. He demands a `life of
correctness', a daily life free from all self-centred activity. All
psychic experiences as they arise have to be put aside for they can
become obstacles and traps to insight, which alone frees man from
duality and the bondage of time as the past.
Krishnamurti's role in these dialogues is of great interest. The
dialogues are not questions and answers. Krishnamurti's mind is
tentative, pliable, learning, seeking, probing; it is questioned, it
pauses, observes, withdraws, to move forward again. There is no
exchange of opinion, no spilling out of the verbal, no operation of
memory as past experience, blocking the new. There is a listening
with the total flowering of the senses'. In that intensity of enquiry,
insight arises. Speaking of the nature of this state, Krishnamurti
says `there is only perception and nothing else. Everything else is
movement in time. Perception is without time. There is a
momentum which is timeless.'
The Krishnamurti Foundation India is offering these dialogues
to those who seek fundamental answers to the problems of life.
Pupul Jayakar Sunanda Patwardhan
EXPLORATION INTO INSIGHT 'THE CENTRAL
ROOT OF FEAR'
P: You have said, Krishnaji, that intelligence is the greatest
security in the facing of fear. The problem is: In a crisis, when fear
from the unconscious floods you, where is the place for
intelligence? Intelligence demands negation of that which comes in
the way. It demands listening, seeing and observation. But when
the whole being is flooded by uncontrollable fear, fear which has a
cause, but the cause of which is not immediately discernable, in
that state where is the place for intelligence? How does one deal
with the primeval, archetypal fears which lie at the very base of the
human psyche? One of these fears is the destruction of the self, the
fear of not being.
K: What is it we are exploring together?
P: How does one deal with fear? You have still not answered
that. You have talked of intelligence being the greatest security. It
is so; but when fear floods you, where is intelligence?
K: You are saying that at the moment of a great wave of fear,
intelligence is not. And how can one deal with that wave of fear at
that moment? Is that the question?
S: One sees fear like the branches of a tree. But we deal with
these fears one by one and there is no freedom from fear. Is there a
quality that sees fear without the branches?
K: K said, `Do we see the leaves, the branches, or do we go to
the very root of fear?'
S: Can we go to the root of each single branch of fear?
K: Let us find out.
P: You may come to see the whole, through one fear. K: I
understand. You are saying there are conscious and unconscious
fears and the unconscious fears become extraordinarily strong at
moments and at those moments intelligence is not in operation.
How can one deal with those waves of uncontrollable fear. Is that
it?
P: These fears seem to take on a material form. It is a physical
thing which overpowers you.
K: It upsets you neurologically, biologically. Let us explore.
Fear exists, consciously or at depths, when there is a sense of
loneliness, when there is a feeling of complete abandonment by
others, a sense of complete isolation, the sense of not being, a
feeling of utter helplessness. And at those moments, when deep
fear arises, obviously intelligence is not and there is ungovernable,
uninvited fear.
P: One may feel that one has faced the fears which are known
but unconsciously one is swamped.
K: That is what we are saying. Discuss it. One can deal with
physical, conscious fears. The outskirts of intelligence can deal
with them.
P: You can even allow those fears to flower.
K: And then in that very flowering there is intelligence. Now
how do you deal with the other? Why does the unconscious - we
will use that word `unconscious' for the time being - hold these
fears? Or does the unconscious invite these fears? Does it hold
them, do they exist in the traditional depths of the unconscious; or
is it a thing that the unconscious gathers from the environment?
Now, why does the unconscious hold fears at all? Are they all an
inherent part of the unconscious, of the racial, traditional history of
man? Are they in the inherited genes? How do you deal with the
problem?
P: Can we discuss the second one, which is the gathering of fear
from the environment?
K: First of all, let us deal with the first one. Why does the
unconscious hold them at all? Why do we consider the deeper
layers of consciousness as the storehouse, as the residue of fear?
Are they imposed by the culture in which we live, by the conscious
mind which, not being able to deal with fear, has pushed it down
and therefore it remains at the level of the unconscious? Or is it
that the mind with all its content has not resolved its problems and
is frightened of not being able to resolve them? I want to find out
what is the significance of the unconscious. When you said these
waves of fear come, I say they are always there, but, in a crisis, you
become aware of them.
S: They exist in consciousness. Why do you say they are in the
unconscious?
K: First of all consciousness is made up of its content. Without
its content there is no consciousness. One of its contents is this
basic fear and the conscious mind never tackles it; it is there, but it
never says, `I must deal with it'. In moments of crisis that part of
consciousness is awakened and is frightened. But fear is always
there.
P: I don't think it is so simple. Is fear not a part of man's cultural
inheritance?
K: Fear is always there. Is it part of the cultural inheritance? Or
is it possible that one is born in a country, in a culture that does not
admit fear?
P: There is no such culture.
K: Of course there is no such culture. And so I am asking
myself, is fear part of culture or is it inherent in man? Fear is a
sense of not being, as it exists in the animal, as it exists in every
living thing; the fear of being destroyed.
P: The self-preservative instinct which takes the form of fear.
K: Is it that the whole structure of the cells is frightened of not
being? That exists in every living thing. Even the little ant is afraid
of not being. We see fear is there, part of human existence, and one
becomes tremendously aware of it in a crisis. How does one deal
with it at that moment when the surge of fear comes about? Why
do we wait for the crisis? I am just asking. P: You can't avoid it.
K: Just a minute. We say it is always there, it is part of our
human structure. The biological, psychological, the whole structure
of the being is frightened. Fear is there, it is part of the tiniest
living thing, the minutest cell. Why do we wait for a crisis to come
and bring it out? That is a most irrational acceptance of it. I say,
why should I have a crisis to deal with fear?
P: Otherwise it is non-existent; I can face some fears
intelligently. One faces fear of death. It is possible to face it with
intelligence. Is it possible to face other fears intelligently?
K: You say you can face these fears intelligently. I question
whether you face them intelligently. I question whether you can
have intelligence before you have resolved fear. Intelligence comes
only when fear is not. Intelligence is light and you cannot deal with
darkness when light is not. Light exists only when darkness is not.
I am questioning whether you can deal with fear intelligently when
fear exists. I say you cannot. You may rationalize it, you may see
the nature of it, avoid it or go beyond it, but that is not intelligence.
P: I would say intelligence lies in an awareness of fear arising,
in leaving it alone, in not shaping it, in not turning away from it,
and so to the dissolution of fear. But you say that where
intelligence is, fear does not arise.
N: Will fear not arise?
K: But we don't allow fear to arise.
N: I think fear arises. We don't allow it to flower.
K: You see, I am questioning altogether the whole response to a
crisis. Fear is there; why do you need a crisis to awaken it? You
say a crisis takes place and you wake up. A word, a gesture, a look,
a movement, a thought, those are challenges that you say bring it
out. I am asking: Why do we wait for the crisis? We are
investigating. Do you know what that word `investigate' means? -
`to trace out'. Therefore, we are tracing out, we are not saying this,
that or the other. We are following it, and I am asking: Why do I
wait for a crisis? A gesture, a thought, a word, a look, a whisper;
any of these are challenges.
N: I don't look for the crisis. The only thing I am aware of is, it
arises and I am paralysed.
K: You get paralysed, why? Therefore for you, challenge is
necessary. Why don't you contact fear before the challenge? You
say crisis awakens fear. Crisis includes thought, gesture, word,
whisper, a look, a letter. Is it a challenge which awakens fear? I say
to myself, why should one not awaken to it without a challenge? If
fear is there, it must be awake; or is it dormant? And if it is
dormant, why is it dormant? Is the conscious mind frightened that
fear may awaken? Has it put it to sleep and refused to look at it?
Let us go slowly, we are tracing a rocket. Has the conscious
mind been frightened of looking at fear and therefore it keeps fear
quiet? Or fear is there, awake, and the conscious mind won't let it
flower? Do you admit that fear is part of human life, of existence?
P: Sir, fear has no independent existence apart from the outer
experience, without the stimuli of outer experience.
K: Wait, I question it, I don't accept it. You are saying without
the outer stimuli, it is not. If it is true to you, it must be so for me,
because I am a human being.
P: I include in that both the outer and the inner stimuli.
K: I don't divide the outer and the inner. It is all one movement.
P: Fear has no existence apart from the stimuli.
K: You are moving away, Pupul.
P: You are asking: Why don't you look at it, why don't you face
it?
K: I say to myself: `Must I wait for a crisis for this fear to
awaken?' That's all my question. If it is there, who has put it to
sleep? Is it because the conscious mind cannot resolve it? The
conscious mind is concerned with resolving it, and not being able
to do so, it puts it to sleep, squashes it. And the conscious mind is
shaken when a crisis takes place and fear arises. So I am saying to
myself, why should the conscious mind suppress fear?
S: Sir, the instrument of the conscious mind is analysis, the
capacity of recognition. With these instruments it is inadequate to
deal with fear.
K: It can't deal with it. But what is required is real simplicity,
not analysis. The conscious mind cannot deal with fear, therefore it
says I want to avoid it, I can't look at it. Look what you are doing.
You are waiting for a crisis to awaken it, and the conscious mind is
all the time avoiding crisis. It is avoiding, reasoning, rationalizing.
We are masters at this game. Therefore I say to myself, if fear is
there, it is awake. You cannot put to sleep a thing that is part of our
inheritance. The conscious mind only thinks that it has put fear to
sleep. The conscious mind is shaken when a crisis takes place.
Therefore deal with it differently. That's all my point. Is this true?
The basic fear is of non-existence, a sense of complete fear of
uncertainty, of not being, of dying. Why does the mind not bring
that fear out and move with it? Why should it wait for a crisis? Are
you lazy and therefore you haven't got the energy to go to the root
of it? Is what I am saying irrational?
P: It is not irrational. I am trying to see if it is valid.
K: We say that every living thing is frightened of not being, not
surviving. Fear is part of our blood cells. Our whole being is
frightened of not being, frightened of dying, frightened of being
killed. So fear of not being is part of our whole psychological, as
well as biological structure, and I am asking myself why is a crisis
necessary, why should challenge become important? I object to
challenge. I want to be ahead of challenge, not behind challenge.
P: One cannot participate in what you are saying.
K: Why can't you? I am going to show it to you. I know I am
going to die, but I have intellectualized, rationalized death.
Therefore when I say my mind is far ahead of death, it is not. It is
only far ahead of thought - which is not being far ahead. P: Let us
take the actuality of it. One faces death and one feels one is a step
ahead and one moves on and suddenly realizes that one is not
ahead of it.
K: I understand that. It is all the result of a challenge, whether it
took place yesterday or a year ago.
P: So the question is: With what instrument, with what energy,
from what dimension does one see; and what does one see?
K: I want to be clear. Fear is part of our structure, our
inheritance. Biologically, psychologically, the brain cells are
frightened of not being. And thought says I am not going to look at
this thing. And so when the challenge takes place, thought cannot
end it.
P: What do you mean when you say, `Thought says I don't want
to look at it'?
N: It wants to look at it also.
K: Thought cannot look at the ending of itself. It can only
rationalize about it. I am asking you why does the mind wait for a
challenge? Is it necessary? If you say it is necessary, then you are
waiting for it.
P: I say I don't know. I only know that challenge arises and fear
arises.
K: No, challenge awakens fear. Let us stick to that, and I say to
you, why do you wait for a challenge for this to awaken?
P: Your question is a paradox. Would you say that you don't
wait for the challenge but evoke the challenge?
K: No, I am opposed to challenge altogether. You are missing
my point. My mind will not accept challenge at any time.
Challenge is not necessary to awaken. To say I am asleep and that
challenge is necessary to awaken me, is a wrong statement.
P: No, sir, that's not what I am saying.
K: So it is awake. Now what sleeps? Is it the conscious mind?
Or is the unconscious mind asleep and are there some parts of the
mind that are awake? P: When I am awake, I am awake.
N: Do you invite fear?
K: If you are awake, no challenge is necessary. So you reject
challenge. If as we said it is part of our life that we should die, then
one is awake all the time.
P: Not all the time. You are not conscious of fear. But it is there
all the time under the carpet. But you don't look at it.
K: I say it is under the carpet, lift it and look. It is there. That's
all my point. It is there and awake. So it does not need a challenge
to make it awake. I am frightened all the time of not being, of
dying, of not achieving. That is the basic fear of our life, of our
blood and it is there, always watching, guarding, protecting itself.
But it is very much awake. It is never a moment asleep. Therefore,
challenge is not necessary. What you do about it and how you deal
with it comes later.
P: That is the fact.
A: Seeing all this, don't you accept the factor of non-attention?
K: I said it is awake, I am not talking of attention.
A: Fear is active, operating.
K: It is like a snake in the room, it is always there. I may look
elsewhere, but it is there. The conscious mind is concerned how to
deal with it, and as it can't deal with it, it moves away. The
conscious mind then receives a challenge and tries to face it. Can
you face a living thing? That does not need a challenge. But
because the conscious mind has blinded itself against fear, the
challenge is needed. Right, Pupul?
N: When you think of it, it is just a thought; still that shadow is
in the mind.
K: Trace it, don't jump to conclusions. You have jumped to
conclusions. My mind refuses challenge. The conscious mind will
not allow challenge to awaken it. It is awake. But you admit
challenge. I don't admit challenge. It is not within my experience.
The next question is, when the conscious mind is awake to fear, it
cannot invite something that is there. Go step by step. Don't
conclude at any second. So, the conscious mind knows it is there,
fully awake. Then what are we going to do next?
P: There lies inadequacy.
N: I am awake.
K: You are missing the whole point. It is the conscious mind
that is frightened of this. When it is awake, it is not frightened. In
itself, it is not frightened. The ant is not frightened. If it is
squashed, it is squashed. It is the conscious mind that says I am
frightened of this, of not being. But when I meet with an accident,
an aeroplane crashes, there is no fear. At the moment of death I
say, `Yes, I know now what it means to die'. But the conscious
mind with all its thoughts says, `My god, I am going to die, I will
not die, I must not die, I will protect myself; that is the thing that is
frightened. Have you never watched an ant? It is never frightened:
if somebody kills it, it dies. Now you see something.
N: Sir, have you ever seen an ant? If you put a piece of paper in
front of the ant, it dodges it.
K: It wants to survive, but it is not thinking about surviving. So
we will come back to it. Thought creates fear: it is only thought
that says, `I will die, I am lonely. I have not fulfilled.' See this: that
is timeless eternity, that is real eternity. See how extraordinary it is.
Why should I be frightened if fear is part of my being? It is only
when thought says that life must be different, that there is fear. Can
the mind be completely motionless? Can the mind be completely
stable? Then that thing comes. When that thing is awake, what then
is the central root of fear?
P: Has it ever happened to you, sir?
K: Several times, many times, when the mind is completely
stable, without any recoil, neither accepting not denying, nor
rationalizing nor escaping, there is no movement of any kind. We
have got at the root of it, have we not?
EXPLORATION INTO INSIGHT 'ACTION IN
ATTENTION'
K: I wonder what we mean by action.
M: Action invariably means change.
K: I want to find out the meaning of the words `to act', `to do',
not `having done' or `will do', either in the past or in the future.
Acting is always in the active present, not as past action or future
action, but action which is now.
P: Can there be action now?
K: I want to find out, Pupul, whether there is an action which is
continuous and, therefore, always a movement without a causation.
i am exploring, just move with me.
P: What do you mean by action?
K: Must action always have a cause, a motive, a direction?
P: Is it not a problem of the mind? Action is `to do'. It is related
to something. What is the movement of action?
K: The past, the present and the future. We know that. What do
we mean by action? To do, the physical doing, the going from here
to there, intellectually or emotionally working out a problem? So,
action to us means `operating on', `operating through', or `operating
from'. I am just exploring. Is there an action without producing
conflict - outside or inside? Is there an action which is whole, not
fragmented? Is there an action which is a movement unrelated to
environment, unrelated to me or to the community? Is there an
action which is a movement out of time? All that to me is action.
But to us action is in relationship to another. Action is related to
the community we live in. Our action is dictated by the economic,
climatic, personal, environmental condition. It is based on beliefs,
ideals and so on. That is the action we know. Now, I want to find
out if there is an action, which is not the result of environmental
pressure.
M: Action is not a separate movement. To be here or to be is to
act.
K: I want to see what is action. You are not helping me. What is
action, moving from here to there, snatching a child from the road
when a car is coming? Thinking about something and acting?
M: It is the motivation that matters.
K: Motivation is part of action. I want something and I get it. I
don't like you and I act, or I like you and act. We know that. We
are trying to find out what is action?
P: If it is obvious, then, what is the fact which propels that
movement?
K: Pupulji, I think we have to eliminate causation in action. Is
that possible?
P: We have started something which is a movement in a
direction. In attention there is also movement. It is not that one
goes to sleep with it. I am speaking to you now or Maurice is
speaking to you and we are listening to you and there is no other
movement within us. The question is: In this state, which has
nothing except seeing you, what is it that motivates, moves?
K: I want to get at something much deeper. What is the action
which is self-energizing? An action which is infinite movement
with infinite energy? Am I making something clear? I think that is
action. I am feeling my way into something. I feel all our actions
are fragmented. All our actions are destructive: all our actions
breed division and out of that division arises conflict. Our actions
are always within the field of the known and, therefore, bound to
time and therefore not free. That is so. Now I want to find out if
there is any other action. We know action in the field of the known.
We know technological action, the action of thought, the action of
behaviour. Is there any other action? P: How is this stream, the
`other action', contacted by or related to the brain cells? If it is not
related to the brain cells and consciousness, then it would be
synonymous with God.
K: I am asking what is action? Within the field of
consciousness, we know action very well. It is all within the field
of the known. I feel that such action must lead to various forms of
frustration, sorrow, disintegration. Now, let us go slowly. I ask
myself: Is there any other action which does not belong to this
consciousness with its frustration, failures, sorrows, misery,
confusion? Is there any action which is not of time? Is that a
legitimate question? One has acted always within the field of the
known. I want to find out if there is an action which is without
friction. That is all. I know every action breeds some kind of
friction. I want to find out an action which is non-contradictory,
which does not bring conflict.
A: You would not be here if the motive was not there.
K: This does not mean that action is consistent, follows a set
pattern. Following a pattern leads to a complete destruction of the
brain. Such action is a mere mechanical repetition. I want to find
out an action which is not repetitive, which is not conflicting which
is not imitative, conforming and therefore corrupt.
M: To live means to act on environment.
K: Therefore, I don't depend on environment. I want to live a
life without conflict, which means life is action. And I see that life
always has conflict in it. And I want to find a way of living which
is action in which there is no conflict. Conflict means imitation,
conformity and following a pattern in order not to have conflict,
which is a mechanical way of living. Can we find a way of living
in which there is not a breath of imitation, conformity,
suppression? First of all, it is not a question of `finding', let us
remove the word `finding'. It is a living now, today, in which there
is no conflict.
M: Such action may be disastrous?
K: It won't be disastrous. My intelligence, looking at all the
actions in the field of the known, observing them, paying attention
to them, my intelligence asks this question. Intelligence is in
operation now.
A: My intelligence tells me that I cannot hurt another without
hurting myself much more. In the world, there is no such thing as
doing evil to another without doing a greater evil to yourself.
K: The word `intelligence' means not only to have a very alert
mind, but to read between the lines. I read between the lines of the
known activity. Having read that, my intelligence says that in the
field of the known, action will be contradictory.
P: We appear to be totally blocked here. You say something and
there is no way to find out, there is no way to talk about it.
K: I said I am going to investigate.
M: When intelligence searches for something, what happens?
P: What is the difference between the words `investigate' and
`search'?
K: There is a great difference. Investigate means to `trace out'.
Search means `seeking something to find'.
P: How will you investigate this?
M: In science, investigation means finding the unknown.
K: I take the word `investigate', not what science means or what
I mean. According to the dictionary, investigation means `to trace
out'. I see that any action with a motive must inevitably bring about
a diversion, contradiction. I see that, not as an idea, but as a fact.
So, I say, is there in my mind any contradiction when I am
investigating it. I want to see what happens. I see, in paying
attention, that an action based on a belief is contradictory. So, I say
to myself: Is there a belief which is living, acting and therefore
contradictory? If there is, I go after that belief and wipe it out.
P: Who is it who goes after that?
K: In that attention there is no going after, there is no wiping
away. From that attention, observation, belief ends in me, not in
you. It ends. In that attention, I see that any form of conformity
breeds fear, suppression, obedience. So, in that very attention, I
wipe that away in me, and any action based on reward or
punishment is out, finished. So, what has happened? I see that any
action in relationship, based on an image, divides people. In paying
attention to the known, all the factors of the known, their structure
and their nature, end. And then attention becomes very important.
Attention says: `Is there any action which has none of these
things?'
M: Would you say that attention it self has none of these things?
A: Would you say that attention itself is action?
K: That is it. Therefore, attention is perception in action and
therefore in that there is no conflict. It is infinite. The action of a
belief is wastage of energy. Action in attention is producing its
own energy and it is endless. The brain has functioned always in
the field of conflict, belief, imitation, conformity, obedience,
suppression; it has always functioned that way and when the brain
begins to know that, then attention begins to work. The brain cells
themselves become attentive.
M: From what I have now understood, you seem to say that
attention calls for energy and then energy directs.
K: Attention is action. We also said, consciousness is its
content.
P: In a state of attention, do the brain cells themselves undergo
change?
M: Biologically, every cell is individual, able to recharge
energy and, therefore, to function. Every cell also functions
because awareness is built into the cells.
K: I think so. I would like to start from a different point. The
brain cells have gone through wastage of energy which is conflict,
imitation, all the rest of it.. They are accustomed to that. The brain
cells now have stopped that. They are out of that field, and the
brain is no longer the residue of all that. It may function
technologically and so on, but the brain that sees life is action and
is without conflict, is in a state of attention. When there is complete
attention, right inside, not imposed, not directed, not willed, then
the whole structure is alive; not in the usual sense, but in a different
sense. I think there is a physical transformation. I think it is a
direction of death and death is that. So, there is an action which is
non-repetitive and therefore freedom from the known is attention
in the unknown.
P: Freedom from the known is also within the brain cells. The
brain cells are the known but the freedom from the known is also
within the brain cells.
K: Therefore, there is a definite transformation coming into
being.
M: The brain is clear of engrams; that is a physical
transformation.
K: This logically is so in the sense that as long as the mind is
functioning within the field of the known, it is functioning in a
groove and the brain cells have been functioning in grooves. Now
when those grooves are non-existent, the total brain acts, not in
grooves, but in freedom, which is attention.
EXPLORATION INTO INSIGHT 'THE
CHATTERING MIND'
M: I want to discuss the problem of the chattering mind. What
makes our minds chatter? Where does the mind get the energy and
what is the purpose of that chattering? It is a constant operation.
Every moment it is murmuring.
P: Isn't it the very nature of the mind?
M: That does not explain it, does not offer any remedy.
P: It must operate in order to exist.
M: It is not a `must'. There is no `must'. The mind chatters all
the time and the energy devoted to that purpose fills a major part of
our life.
K: Why does the mind chatter, what is its purpose?
M: There is no purpose. As I watch the brain, I see that the
chattering happens only in the brain, it is a brain activity; a current
flows up and down, but it is chaotic, meaningless and purposeless.
The brain wears itself out by its own activity. One can see that it is
tiring to the brain, but it does not stop.
K: Is this worth pursuing?
P: If you take the process of thought continuous, without
beginning and without end, then why should one differentiate
between the chattering and the thought process itself?
M: Our awareness or attention is absolutely wasted on it. We
are aware of something that has absolutely no meaning. It is the
neurotic function of the brain and our time, our awareness,
attention, our best efforts are wasted.
P: Would you say there is meaningful thought activity and
chattering? K: Your mind chatters, why?
M: Because I cannot stop it.
K: Is it habit? Is it a fear of not being occupied with something?
A: It is an extra-volitional act.
M: It looks like a simple automatic activity. It just is there, there
is no feeling, there is nothing.
K: You have not understood what I mean. The mind apparently
needs to be occupied with something.
M: The mind is occupied all the time.
K: The mind is occupied with something and if it is not
occupied, it feels vacant, it feels empty and therefore it resorts to
chattering. I am just asking, is it habit or is it the fear of not being
occupied?
M: It is a habit, an ingrained habit.
K: I wonder if it is a habit?
P: There is what we call meaningful thinking, directed thinking,
thinking which is logical, which is analytical, which is concerned
with the solution of problems. Chattering is not a conscious thing.
In a non-aware state there is a continual movement of the mind
throwing up reflexes, coming out with the accumulation of the
rubbish the mind has acquired over the years and it keeps on
throwing out and suddenly you awaken and say your mind is
chattering. We give weight to what we call meaningful activity as
against what we call chattering. Is this weight valid?
K: Why is it chattering?
P: It chatters; there is no `why' to it.
K: He wants to find out why it chatters. Is it just like water
flowing, like water running out of the tap?
M: It is a mental leakage.
P: It indicates to me, that my mind is not alive. K: Why do you
object to a chattering mind?
M: Loss of energy, loss of time; common sense says that what is
going on is useless.
P: We are back in the intermediate stage - we are neither here
nor there. And it is not only the mind chattering, but also the
awareness of the chattering, which is an indication of inadequacy.
K: Drop attention, awareness, for the moment. I am just asking
you why does the mind chatter? Is it a habit or does the mind need
to be occupied with something? And when it is not occupied with
what it thinks it should be occupied, we call it chattering. Why
should not the occupation be chattering also? I am occupied with
my house. You are occupied with your God, with your work, with
your business, with your wife, with your sex, with your children,
with your property. The mind needs to be occupied with something
and therefore when it is not occupied, it may feel a sense of
emptiness and therefore chatters. I don't see any problem in this. I
don't see the great issue in this, unless you want to stop it
chattering.
M: If chattering were not oppressive, there would be no
problem.
K: You want to stop it, you want to put an end to it. So the
question is not `why' but what for?
M: Can a chattering mind be put an end to?
K: Can a chattering mind come to an end? I don't know what
you call chattering. I am questioning. When you are occupied with
your business, that is also chattering. I want to find out what you
call chattering. I say that any occupation, with myself, with my
God, with my wife, with my husband, with my children, money,
property or position, the whole of that is chattering. Why exclude
all that and say the other is chattering?
M: I am only talking about what I observe.
P: Because the chattering we speak of has no rationality.
K: It has no relationship to your daily activity. There is no
rationality. It is not related to daily life. It has nothing to do with
your everyday demands and so it chatters and that is what you call
chattering. We all know that.
P: Do you do that?
K: That does not matter. Don't bother about me.
A: Sir, our normal thinking has coherence to a context.
Chattering is that activity of the mind which has no coherence to
any context. Therefore we call it unmeaningful because we can
break through the context, but when the activity of the mind is
unconnected then it has no coherence.
K: Is chattering a rest to the mind?
A: No, sir.
K: Wait, sir, not so quick. Listen Achyutji, I want to ask you;
you are occupied with your daily work, conscious, rational,
irrational, and chattering may be a release from all that.
B: Would chattering bear the same relationship as the dream to
the waking state?
K: No. I wouldn't put it that way. My muscles have been
exercised all day and I relax, and chattering may be a form of
relaxation.
A: It may be totally irrelevant. But it dissipates energy.
K: Does it?
A: Relaxation should not dissipate energy. Relaxation is an
activity which comes into being after you have exhausted your
energy and then are resting.
K: Chattering, you say, is a wastage of energy and you want to
stop it.
A: It is not a question of wanting to stop it. The problem is that
the mind that is wasting its energy in chattering should be put to
something worthwhile. One can do some kind of japa, but that will
again be a mechanical thing, it will solve no problem. We come
back to understanding how this chattering process is going on. We
don't understand it at all. It is extra-volitional.
K: Would your mind stop chattering if it was fully occupied?
Just listen, sir; if there is no empty space, if there is no space or if
the whole mind is full of space, will it chatter? It is not a matter of
what word you use, - space, full, totally empty, or completely
without any occupation. Does the mind then chatter? Or does
chattering take place only when there is some little space which is
not covered? Do you know what I mean? When the room is
completely full, would there be any movement at all? When the
mind is completely full and there is no space, would there be any
movement at all which you call chattering? I don't know if I am
conveying something.
M: It is hypothetical.
K: In the sense that our minds are partly full, partly occupied
and the unoccupied part is chattering.
M: You are identifying with the unoccupied mind.
K: I am not saying that. I am asking, I want to find out why the
mind chatters. Is it a habit?
M: It looks like habit.
K: Why has the habit arisen?
M: There is no reason as far as we know.
K: I don't mind it chattering, but you object to its chattering. I
am not sure it is a wastage of energy. Is it a habit? If it is a habit,
then how does that habit come to an end? That is the only thing
that you are concerned with. How does a habit come to an end -
any habit, smoking, drinking, overeating?
M: Unless you know something from your own experience, it is
like talking to a child. It usually comes to an end by intensely
looking at it.
K: Will chattering stop when you intensely look at it? M: That
is the wonder, it does not.
K: I am not sure it does not. If I intensely observe smoking
paying attention to all the movement of smoking, it withers away.
So, why can't chattering wither away?
M: Because it is automatic, smoking is not automatic.
K: It is not automatic? It has become automatic.
M: Let us not refer to the beginnings. There are no beginnings. I
cannot trace any beginning to chattering. It is peculiarly automatic.
It is an automatic shivering of the brain. I see only the brain
shivering, murmuring and I cannot do anything.
P: All other systems that deal with this peripheral movement of
chattering say that it must end before one can get down to doing
anything else.
M: To end it, you repeat mantras, bring some uniformity, some
monotony to the mind. But chattering is not monotonous, the
content changes.
K: That is interesting: the content changes.
P: It is completely disjointed. The basic problem is that so long
as the thinking process fills the major portion of consciousness,
there will be both directed thinking and chattering. I don't think it
is possible to get rid of one and keep the other.
A: I would say that there is another approach to this, that our
mind functions at different levels and chattering is that movement
in which all these levels get jumbled.
P: I don't think it is so, Achyutji. I don't think the levels get
jumbled. The conscious movement of thinking is when the thinker
draws on thought to build a premise and moves from there
logically. In the field of the irrational, the chattering, many, many
things take place which the rational mind does not understand. But
I was wondering whether the two are not counterparts of each other
and whether one can exist without the other. B: We object to
chattering apparently, but we don't object to directed occupation.
P: That is what I am saying. I say, as long as this is there, the
other will also be.
A: I question that.
P: Let us discuss it. I wonder whether this is not a reflex of the
other.
B: The mind knows directed occupation, the mind also knows
chattering, a non-directional chattering. Does the mind know space
or emptiness?
P: Where does space come in?
B: Because Krishnaji brought in space.
P: Don't put it that way. If one exists, the other will exist. That
is what I would like to go into.
A: No. It is possible for a person to be efficient in the doing of
any single job to which he is directed. That is directed activity.
You say that any person who is capable of directed activity must
also have the lunatic fringe of chattering all the time.
P: Directed activity does not mean a purely technological
function; there is also the psychological activity which is directed.
As long as the psychological, emotional activity is directed, the
other remains.
A: You see, sir, the directed activity can be understood as either
a projection of the centre or that which strengthens the centre. So
directed activity can be traced to a source, that source is a centre or
it creates the source.
K: How do you stop chattering? That is what he is interested in.
P: If I may pursue it with Achyutji, he says that it is possible
that there can be a state of directed thinking both at the functional
level and at the psychological level within the mind; and there is
also chattering. A: That is directed activity. I know its source, I
know its intent.
P: Directed activity - do I really know the source?
A: That is how the centre sustains itself. This is the centre.
P: When I want to explore and find the root of that, I find
neither the root, nor do I find the source.
A: I don't find it either. I say this is a self-sustaining activity out
of which the centre gets strengthened, fed. Here is a channel of
movement which seems to be even unrelated to that.
M: So you divide the flow of the mind into chattering and
nonchattering.
P: How do you know that?
K: He says chattering is a wastage of energy.
D: Why do you say that? How does he know?
K: Oh, yes. It is so irrational, so illogical, sloppy, it is all over
the place.
D: Don't we know that all rational effort ends in nothing?
K: Wait, wait.
M: Right or wrong, why choose? There are three movements of
the mind - intended, non-intended and the mixed. I am not
quarrelling with the intended. My quarrel is with the non-intended.
Can I do away with the non-intended movement?
K: That is all that we are concerned with. My mind chatters. I
want to turn to any thing to stop it chattering, I want to stop it,
because I see it is irrational, tawdry. How is it to come to an end?
M: All I can do is to look at it. As long as I can look at it,it
stops.
K: But it will return later. I want to stop it for good. Now, how
am I to do it? Instead of being occupied with a directed, intended
movement, now I have occupied myself with stopping chattering. I
want to get at this. B: I don't object to being occupied with money,
with a hundred different kinds of things. I think that is all right.
Why does the wretched mind chatter? I want to stop that. A:
Looking at directed activity helps me to understand the ego
process, the centre, how it all gets tied up. The exploration always
leads to a little more clarity.
K: Achyutji, I want to stop chattering and I see it is a wastage of
energy. What am I to do? How am I to stop it for good?
P: I feel that as long as you are looking at any process of the
mind, whether it is directed action or non-directed action, you are
trapped.
K: Why do I object to chattering? You say you are wasting
energy, but you are wasting energy in ten different directions. Sir, I
don't object to my mind chattering. I don't mind wasting a little bit
of energy because I am wasting energy in so many directions. Why
do I object to chattering?
M: Because I waste energy.
K: So you are against wasting energy on a particular kind of
work. I object to wasting energy on any account.
M: It is a questionable point: what is waste of energy and what
is not?
A: I would also like to make sure that we are not shirking a very
difficult problem.
P: There are two ways of looking at this: the one way is of
saying, how can I solve the problem? The other, why does one
differentiate between the directed and non-directed?
A: I don't object to that.
K: Frydman objects to that.
M: In any case, whenever my mind is in a state of chattering,
there is anguish, there is despair. K: Sir, let us stick to one thing at
a time. You say it is a wastage of energy. We waste energy in so
many ways.
M: It is a most unpleasant way.
K: You don't want the unpleasant waste of energy, but you
would rather have the pleasant.
M: Of course.
K: So, you are objecting to the waste of energy which is
unpleasant. I will approach it differently. I am not concerned with
whether my mind chatters or not. What is important is not whether
there is movement, not-directed, directed, intended or not-intended,
but that the mind is very steady, rock-steady and then the problem
does not exist; the mind does not chatter. Let it chatter.
P: I have to ask you a question. Are you first aware and then
you speak? Are you aware of the word formations in the mind?
K: What is this? Wait, wait, hold on to that. I would approach
the question quite differently. If the mind is completely rocksteady,
then a word passing over it, somebody spilling water on it
or a bird making a mess on it, it brushes it off. That is the only way
I would approach it. Find out if the mind is rock-steady and then a
little wave, a little rain, a little movement does not matter. But you
are approaching it from the point of trying to stop wastage of
energy, irrational wastage, unintended wastage, and I say
unintended or intended wastage is taking place all around you, all
the time. Sir, to me the problem is very simple. Is the mind totally
steady?
I know the mind chatters, I know there is wastage of energy in
so many directions, intended or unintended, conscious or
unconscious. I say leave it alone, don't be so terribly concerned
about it, look at it in a different way.
P: Does your mind operate in thought at all, in thought and
word formation moving across the mind?
K: No. P: Do your brain cells ever spill out words which
indicate a chattering mind?
M: He does not know what he is going to say next but he says
something and it makes sense. Here is a man who is completely
empty.
P: So your consciousness is really empty?
K: This does not lead us very far. Let us drop that.
B: Sir, you approach the issue from two different positions: one,
you say look at fragmentation, look what happens; then you
suddenly take a jump, and you say leave it and you ask is there a
mind that is imperturbable?
K: I don't think the problem of chattering will be stopped the
other way.
B: What is the relationship of the two approaches?
K: I don't think there is any. Look, the mind is chattering and
we have discussed it for half an hour, talked about it from different
points of view. The mind still goes on fragmentarily, wanting to
resolve the problem by looking at it and by various means. I listen
to it all and I say this does not seem to be the answer. It does not
seem to complete the picture and I see it is so because our minds
are so unsteady. The mind has not got deep roots of in-depth
steadiness and therefore it chatters. So that may be it. From the
observation of `what is', I have not jumped away, I have watched
it.
B: You have not jumped away, we have dealt with the parts in
ourselves, whereas you have collected the whole thing together.
K: That is how I would operate, if my mind were chattering. I
know it is wastage of energy. I look at it and some other factor
comes into it - the fact that my mind is not steady at all. So I would
pursue that rather than the chattering.
P: When you say that if my mind chatters, I would pursue the
fact that it is not stable, how would you tackle it? Pursue what? K:
That would be my concern, not my chattering. I see as long as the
mind is not steady, there must be chattering. So I am not concerned
about chattering. So I am going to find out what is the feeling and
the quality of a mind that is completely steady? That is all. I have
moved away from chattering.
M: You have moved away from `what is' to `what is not'.
K: No. I have not moved away to `what is not'. I know my mind
chatters. That's a fact. I know it is irrational, involuntary,
unintended, a wastage of energy; I also know I am wasting energy
in ten different ways. To gather all the wastage of energy is
impossible. You spill mercury and there are hundreds of little
droplets all over the place. To collect them is also wastage of
energy. So I see, there must be a different way. The mind, not
being steady, chatters. My enquiry now is: What is the nature and
structure of steadiness?
M: The steadiness is not there with me.
K: I don't know it. I am going to enquire. I am going to come to
it, I am going to find out. You say steadiness is the opposite of
restlessness. I say steadiness is not the opposite of restlessness,
because the opposite always contains the opposite of itself.
Therefore it is not the opposite. I started with chattering and I see
the wastage of energy and I also see the mind wastes energy in so
many ways and I cannot collect all these wastages and make it
whole. So I leave that problem. I understand it, it may be that the
chattering will go on, all the wastage will go on in different
directions as long as the mind is not rock-steady. That is not a
verbal statement. It is an understanding of a state that has come
into being by discarding the enquiry how to gather the wastage. I
am not concerned about the wastage of energy.
M: I understand that when there is the rock-steady state of
mind, then there will be no wastage.
K: No, no.
B: There has always been this problem that with us, the
negative is transformed into the positive by the mind. The negative
does not naturally transform itself, you will say. But what would
you do about it?
K: I don't know. I am not bothered about it
P: But you also say that it will be your concern.
B: When he says that the negative is the positive, the negative
observation is instantly the positive. The negative goes through this
process.
K: Attention is applied in a different direction. Instead of how
to stop the wastage, it is now directed to the understanding of what
it means to be steady.
B: But it is not a mental direction.
K: No, obviously not. It is not a verbal direction. I think that is
really quite important. What is the nature of a steady mind? Can
we discuss that, not the verbal description of a steady mind?
P: What is the nature of a steady mind?
M: Are you talking about being momentarily steady?
P: I don't understand a state of mind which is momentarily
steady.
K: He said: `Is it temporary or permanent?' I don't like the word
`permanent'.
P: But what is the nature of a steady mind?
K: Don't you know it?
M: By your grace we all know it.
P: I would say that, but that still would not stop either the
chattering or the thinking process.
K: He said the sea is very deep, it is very steady, a few waves
come and go, and you don't care, but if you care then you remain
there. P: When you find yourself remaining there, the only thing is
to see that you are there.
K: And you see that and discard it. Don't let us make a lot of
fuss about it. As Balasundaram pointed out, the negative instantly
becomes positive when I see. The false becomes the true instantly.
The seeing is the rock; the hearing or listening is the rock.
EXPLORATION INTO INSIGHT 'THE CENTRE
AND DUALITY'
K: What is duality? Does duality exist at all?
A: Of course, it exists.
K: I won't postulate. I know nothing of Vedanta, Advaita,
scientific theories. We are starting anew, not knowing the
assumption of others, which may be secondhand. Wipe them all
out. Is there duality? Apart from the factual duality - woman-man,
light-darkness, tall-short - is there any other duality?
S: Duality of the `I' and `you' is structured within us.
K: Is there duality apart from the man-woman, dark-light: the
obvious? I want to be clear that we are all talking of the same
thing. I am not assuming that I am superior, I want to find out if
there is duality, psychological duality. There is obvious duality
outwardly - tall trees, short trees, different colours, different
materials and so on. But psychologically, there is only `what is' and
because we are not able to solve `what is', we invent the `what
should be'. So there is duality. From the fact, the `what is', there is
an abstraction to `what should be', the ideal. But there is only `what
is'.
D: They say `what is' is dualistic.
K: Wait, sir, I want to find out. I only know `what is' and not
`what should be'.
P: `What is' to me is duality.
K: No. But you are conditioned to duality, you are educated to
duality, you function psychologically in duality.
S: The starting point is a dualistic position. It may be due to
many factors. K: That is what I want to investigate - whether this
dualistic attitude towards life has come into being because the
mind has not been able to solve actually `what is'.
A: As far as we can see, the newborn baby does not cry only for
mother's milk, for nourishment. It cries whenever it is left alone.
Duality is the expression of an inadequacy in oneself for what I
am. This begins almost from the beginning of life.
P: It is part of the racial heritage.
S: What is the nature of`what is'?
K: That's what I want to get at. If I can understand `what is',
why should there be duality?
S: What is the instrument with which I understand?
B: Does the problem arise because there is no contact with
`what is'? Duality is postulated because there is very little contact
with `what is'.
K: That is what I want to find out. What is duality? Is duality a
measurement?
B: Duality is a comparison.
P: Duality is the sense of`I' as separate from the `not-I'.
K: That is the basic cause of duality. Now, what is the `I' that
says you are different? What is the `I'?
A: The centre, the body.
M: The brain.
P: I ask that question and in observing the movement of the `I', I
find that it is not something as factual as the chair or the table or
the body. In itself it has no existence.
K: May I say something? It may sound absurd. There is no
duality for me. There is woman-man, dark-light. We are not talking
of that kind of duality. Duality exists only as the `I' and the `not-I',
the space between the `I' and the `you', the centre as the `I' and the
centre as the `you'. The centre of the `I' looks at you and there is a
distance between the `I' and the `you'. The distance can be
expanded or narrowed down. This process is consciousness. Don't
agree with me? I want to be clear, I want to start slowly.
B: This distance enclosed is consciousness.
M: Distance is in consciousness.
K: No, no, sir, there is distance between you and me sitting
here, the physical distance. Then, there is the distance the mind has
created which is the `I' and the `you'. The `I' and the `not-I', the
`you' and the distance is consciousness.
D: You should distinguish between the physical and the
psychological.
S: Is the `I' a concrete entity?
P: That's why I say this enquiry into who is the `I' is difficult.
S: We started with what is duality - the `I' and the `not-I', the
centre.
K: The space between this centre and that centre, the movement
between this centre and that centre, the vertical, horizontal
movement, is consciousness.
P: Is that all?
K: I am just beginning.
A: Sir, you have suggested two centres - this centre which
comes across another centre. There is no other centre, sir.
K: I am coming to that. Go slowly, step by step. The other
centre is invented by this centre.
A: I don't know. I say that even without the other centre, the
distance comes.
S: Achyutji, the `I' creates the `not-I'. It is implied in the `I'
process. K: If I have no centre, there is no other centre. I want to
question the whole structure of duality. I don't accept it. You have
accepted it. Our philosophy, our judgement, everything is based on
this acceptance. The `I' and the `not-I' and all the complications
arising out of it, and I want to, if I may, question the whole
structure of duality. So, the `I' is the only centre. From there, the
`not-I' arises and the relationship between the `I' and the `not-I'
inevitably brings about conflict. There is only the centre from
which arises the other centre, the `you'. I think that is fairly clear;
at least for me. Don't accept it.
M: How does this centre arise? Because I have this centre, I
create the other centre.
K: I am coming to that. I don't want to answer that yet. In the
waking state, the centre creates the other centre. In that, the whole
problem of relationship arises, and therefore duality arises, the
conflicts, the attempt to overcome duality. It is the centre that
creates this division. I see that in the waking state because there is
a centre, its relationship will always be divided. Division is space
and time and where there is time and space as division, there must
inevitably be conflict. That is simple, clear. So I see during the
waking state, what is going on all the time is adjustment,
comparison, violence, imitation. When the centre goes to sleep it
maintains the division even when it sleeps.
SWS: What do you mean by saying the centre goes to sleep?
K: We don't know what that state is. We are going to
investigate.
S: In waking consciousness the experiencer is the centre.
K: The experiencer is the centre, the centre is memory, the
centre is knowledge, which is always in the past. The centre may
project into the future but it still has its roots in the past.
D: The centre is the present, I don't know the past or the future.
K: You would never say that, if you have a centre.
D: So far as my identity is concerned, the past and the future are
only accretions, I have nothing to do with them. I am the present.
A: You are the child of the past, you are the heir to everything of
the past.
D: Not at all. That is an hypothesis. How do I know the past?
K: The language you are speaking in, English, is the result of
the past.
P: If one exists, the other exists.
D: That is a theory.
A: How can that be a theory? The very fact that you come into
existence implies that you are the child of the past.
D: I don't know the past, I don't know the future.
P: If one is free of both the past and the future, then there is no
problem. Let us talk about people who are concerned with the past.
D: I am a very small nonentity with a feeling of `I'-ness. I know
nothing about the past or the future.
A: Is the `I' not created and produced by the totality of the past -
my father, my grandfather? How can I deny that? My
consciousness itself is made up of the past.
P: There is the personal, racial, human past. Look, Deshpande, I
remember the discussion of yesterday and the discussion comes in
the way of my discussing today.
D: My position is, I don't know about the past or the future. It is
an accretion.
A: Deshpandeji, when you say I am the present, please think.
Do you mean to say that you are only this moment, with no past
and no future? Is it a theory or a fact? Then you are in samadhi.
K: just a minute, sir. Let us be quiet. You speak English. That is
an accretion. What is the centre that accretes?
D: That centre I call `I', but I don't know. K: So the centre
which has accumulated is the `I'. D: The accumulator and the
accumulated are not the same.
K: Who is the centre that is accumulating? Is there a centre
without accumulation? Is the centre different from the thing it has
accumulated?
D: I can't answer that.
M: All that is the content of consciousness.
K: We said the content of consciousness is consciousness. If
there is no consciousness, there is no accumulation.
M: I have not said that.
K: I have said it, we started with it.
M: The content of consciousness is consciousness. That means,
when there is no content there is no consciousness.
K: That is what it means.
D: So it means that there is non-dual consciousness.
K: No, no. That is a speculation. Stick to what we started out
with. Consciousness is its content. The content is consciousness.
This is an absolute fact.
A: Sir, at any given time, this `I' is not able to command the
whole field of consciousness as its purview of perception. In my
perception, I don't see the whole field.
K: Because there is a centre. Where there is a centre, there is
fragmentation.
P: The `I' is only operational through a process of thinking
which is fragmentary.
K: That is all.
A: What I thought was that the content of consciousness has to
be part of my field of perception. Is it not so? P: If it were part of
my perception, then the whole content of consciousness is
consciousness and there is nothing else. Then I would rest with
consciousness. I would remain there. But I sit in front of you and
say, `Show me the way,' and you keep on saying `The moment you
ask the way, you will never know the way.' We still ask you to
show the way.
S: The first point is that we experience only fragmentarily and
not total consciousness.
K: That is what I am saying. As long as there is a centre, there
must be fragmentation and the fragmentation is the `me' and the
`you' and the conflict in that relationship.
S: Are you equating this centre with consciousness or is it a
fragment of total consciousness?
K: The centre is the content of consciousness.
S: So consciousness itself is fragmented?
P: You say this centre is time-space, you also seem to postulate
the possibility of going beyond the field of time-space. The centre
is that which operates. It is not able to go beyond. If it could, time
and space would cease to be the content of consciousness.
K: Let us start again. The content of consciousness is
consciousness. That is irrefutable. The centre is the maker of
fragments. the centre becomes aware of the fragments when the
fragments are agitated or in action; otherwise, the centre is not
conscious of the other fragments. The centre is the observer of the
fragments. The centre does not identify itself with the fragments.
So there is always the observer and the observed, and the thinker
and the experience. So, the centre is the maker of fragments and
the centre tries to gather the fragments together and go beyond.
One of the fragments says, `sleep' and one of the fragments says
`keep awake'. In the state of keeping awake, there is disorder. The
brain cells during sleep try to bring order because you cannot
function effectively in disorder. S: The brain tries to bring order. Is
that process dualistic or non-dualistic?
K: I'll show it to you. The brain cells demand order. Otherwise,
they cannot function. There is no duality in this. During the day,
there is disorder because the centre is there, the centre is the cause
of fragmentation; fragmentation it knows only through fragments;
it is not conscious of the totality of fragments and, therefore, there
is no order and therefore, it lives in disorder. It is disorder. though
it says 'I must experience', it is living in disorder, living in
confusion. It cannot do anything else but create disorder because it
functions only in fragmentation. Right sir?
A: Yes, sir. It is so.
K: The brain cells need order; otherwise, they become neurotic,
destructive. That is a fact. The brain cells are always demanding
order and the centre is always creating fragmentation. The brain
cells need order. This order is denied when there is a centre
because the centre is always creating destruction, division, conflict
and all the rest of it, which is a denial of security, which is denial
of order. There is no duality. This process is going on. The brain
saying `I must have order', is not duality.
A: Are they two independent movements?
P: I feel we are moving away from the thing which is tangible to
us.
K: This is very tangible.
P: It is not tangible. The brain cells seeking order is not
tangible.
K: I will show it to you in a minute.
S: Pupulji, the whole physical world, in spite of chaos,
maintains an extraordinary order. It is the very nature of the
universe to maintain order.
P: The scientists' sense of time is not a real thing to us. The
brain cells seeking order is not a real thing with us. I don't know
but it may be. You are moving away from a fact to a fact which is
beyond our comprehension.
K: P, we both see the point. Where there is a centre, there must
be conflict, there must be fragmentation, there must be every form
of division between the `you' and the `me', but the centre is
creating this division. How do you know?
P: Because I have observed it in myself?
K: Verbally or factually?
P: Factually.
K: The centre is the maker of fragments. The centre is the
fragment. This whole field is disorder. How are you aware of this
disorder?
P: I have seen it.
K: Wait, you are not answering my question. Forgive me. I am
asking you. How are you aware of this disorder? If it is the centre
that is aware that it is disorder, then it is still disorder.
P: I see that.
K: You see that when the centre is aware that this is disorder
then it creates a duality as order and disorder. So, how do you
observe disorder - without the centre or with the centre? If it is an
observation with the centre, there is a division. If there is no
observation of the centre, then there is only disorder.
P: Or order.
K: Wait. Please go slowly. When the centre is aware that there
is disorder, there is division, and this division is the very essence of
disorder. When the centre is not there and aware, what takes place?
P: Then there is no centre; no disorder.
K: Therefore, what has taken place? There is no disorder. That
is a fact. That is what the brain cells demand. P: When you bring
that in, you take this away. Let us now proceed.
K: Stop there. So I have discovered something, that the centre
creates space and time. Where there is space and time, there must
be division in relationship and, therefore, disorder in relationship.
Having disorder in relationship, it creates further disorder because
that is the very nature of the centre. There is not only disorder in
relationship, there is disorder in thought, action, idea.
P: I want to ask you a question: Which is the fact - the
perception of order or..?
K: You are only aware of disorder. Just listen. I am also feeling
my way, you understand. I see the centre is the source of disorder
wherever it moves - in relationship, in thought, in action, in
perception. There is the perceiver and the perceived. So, wherever
the centre operates, moves, functions, has its momentum, there
must be division, conflict and all the rest of it. Where there is the
centre, there is disorder. Disorder is the centre. How are you
aware? Is the centre aware of the disorder or is there only disorder?
If there is no centre to be aware of disorder, there is complete
order. Then the fragments come to an end, obviously, because
there is no centre which is making the fragments.
P: In that sense, the moment the fragments exist, the reality is
the fragment. When the fragments end, the reality is non-fact. So,
there is no division. You are back into the Vedantic position.
K: I refuse to accept it.
P: I am putting it to you.
A: I would say that when you say that `I' is the source and the
centre of disorder, or the centre is the source and it is disorder, that
is a fact for me. When you say that if there is no centre observing
that disorder -
K: No. I asked: Who is observing the disorder? Achyutji, see
this. There is no consciousness of order. And that is the beauty of
order. P: What does the word `reality' mean to you?
K: Nothing.
P: What do you mean by that? I would like to explore that word
`nothing'.
K: When it is something, it is not aware.
A: The field of cognition is the field of unreality.
K: No, be careful, sir. Just a minute. Leave that now. Let us go
into the question of the dream because that is apparently one of the
fragments of our life. What are dreams? What is the matrix of the
structure of dreams? How do they happen?
Q: It happens when desires are not fulfilled during the day.
K: So, you are saying during the day I desire something and it
has not been fulfilled, carried out, it has not been worked out. So,
the desire continues.
P: Why do we go beyond? Thought is an endless process
without a beginning, expelled from the brain cells. In the same
way, there is a period when the mind is totally asleep; it is another
form of the same propulsion.
K: It is exactly the same thing. The movement of the day still
goes on. So, the centre which is the factor of disorder, creating
disorder during the day, still goes on, the movement which
becomes dreams, symbolic or otherwise, is the same movement.
M: You keep on saying that the centre is the source of disorder.
K: The centre is disorder, not the source.
M: The sense of `I' is a constant demand longing for order.
There is nobody to create it, and I am in this world begging for
order, searching for order, and all the duality is a given duality, not
a created duality.
K: No, sorry.
M: I find it is so. I don't want duality. K: This search itself is
duality. All our life is a search for non-duality.
M: I know that whatever I do is for the sake of order. The order
may be temporary, a petty little order, but still there is no gesture,
there is no posture of mind which does not aim at order, whether
one is eating, drinking or sleeping. It also makes life possible. So,
chaos is something which is imposed on me, disorder is forced on
me. That is my observation. If you say it is not, then my
observation and your observation differ.
P: In all observations, we have sat with Krishnaji and we have
observed the self in operation and the nature of the self has been
revealed.
M: No, it is only an hypothesis. We are playing with words. The
mind is incapable of co-ordinating the factors. There is no such
thing as a revelation in this, sir. There is nobody to tell us.
P: I agree. The very process of self-observation reveals it. It is
not somebody telling you.
K: This man says this centre is the source of disorder. The
movement of daily life continues in sleep. It is the same movement
and dreams are the expression of that `me'. When I wake up, I say
`I have had dreams'. That is only a means of communication;
dreams are `me', dreams are not separate from the centre which has
created this movement, this disorder. The next factor is deep sleep.
Are you aware when you are deeply asleep?
S: Who is aware that there has been deep sleep? One is not
conscious of deep sleep. You don't say: `I have had an
extraordinary sleep.' You may say: `I have had no dreams, I had a
peaceful sleep.'
P: It is really saying that you have had a good sleep.
M: When I am deeply asleep, I am fully aware that I have no
thoughts, I have no consciousness.
K: So, all that one can say is: `I have had a very good sleep
without dreams.' How does one investigate that state which is
without dreams, a state which you called just now deep sleep? Do
you do it through the conscious mind or a theory, or by repeating
what somebody has said about it? How do you go into it?
S: The sleep has to reveal itself. Otherwise, you cannot go into
the other state.
K: Why do you want to go into it?
S: Because I want to know whether it is the same state.
P: There is a state of being `awake' and a state of `deep sleep'.
SWS: My own experience is that when there is a sleep without
dream, there is no centre. Then the centre comes again, it
remembers that I have slept without dreams, again the centre starts
its operation.
S: Deep sleep is a sleep without a centre.
K: Why don't we only talk about what is knowable?
P: But you wanted to investigate deep sleep. Is it possible to
investigate deep sleep?
D: I see only one fact: in sleep there is no centre.
K: That gentleman said deep sleep means no centre.
M: Deep sleep means very low intensity of consciousness.
P: I asked the question: Is it possible to investigate into deep
sleep?
K: What do you mean by `investigate'? Can I investigate, can
the centre investigate? You watch the film at the cinema. You are
not identifying with it; you are not part of it; you are merely
observing.
S: What is it that is observing without identifying?
K: There is no one to observe. There is only observation.
S: What Pupul is asking is: Can deep sleep be investigated? K:
We understand that. Can it be revealed, can it be exposed, can it be
observable? I say `yes'. Can I observe you, just observe without
naming? Of course, it is possible. The observer is the centre, the
observer is the past, the observer is the divider; the observer is the
space between you and me.
P: First of all, you should have the tools, the instruments with
which this is possible. One has to have a state of awareness where
this is possible. It is only when there is this state of awareness or
jagriti, that it is possible.
K: Is there an observation of this disorder without the centre
becoming aware that there is disorder? If that can be solved, I have
solved the whole momentum of it. What is order? We said the
centre can never be aware of order. Then, what is that state? Then,
what is virtue of which there is no consciousness of being
virtuous? What man traditionally accepts as virtue is practice.
Vanity practising humility is still vanity. Then, what is virtue? It is
a state in which there is no consciousness of being virtuous. I am
just exploring. If the centre is aware that it has humility, it is not
humility. Virtue is a state of mind where it is not conscious that it
is virtuous. Therefore, it topples all the practices, all the sadhanas.
To see disorder not from a centre is order. That order you cannot
be conscious of. If you are conscious of it, it is disorder.
EXPLORATION INTO INSIGHT 'FACTORS OF
DETERIORATION'
P: Could we discuss the problems of deterioration and death? Why
is it that the mechanism of the mind has an inbuilt tendency to
deteriorate, an ebbing away of energy?
K: Why does the body, the mind deteriorate?
P: With age, with time, the body deteriorates; but why does the
mind deteriorate? At the end of life, there is the death of the body
and the death of the mind. But the death of the mind can take place
even when the body is alive. If, as you say, the brain cells contain
consciousness, then, with the deterioration of the cells of the
human body, is it not inevitable that the cells of the human mind,
the brain, will also deteriorate?
K: Are we talking about the deterioration of the whole structure
of the mind and the brain with age, with time? The biologists have
given the answer. What do they say?
M: The cells of the brain and the body deteriorate because there
is no process of elimination. They are not made for perpetual
functioning. They do not completely eliminate the products of their
own metabolism. If they were given a chance to wash themselves
out completely, they could live for ever.
K: The question is: Why does the brain, which has been active
during a certain period of time, deteriorate? And the biological
answer to that is, given sufficient cleansing power, it can go on
living for ever. What is the cleansing element?
M: Adequate elimination.
K: It is much deeper than that, surely.
M: Adequate elimination is the outer expression of the
cleansing process. P: That's not adequate. If that were so the human
body if adequately cleansed, would not deteriorate. But death is
inevitable. Is the mind different from the brain cells?
K: Is it a deterioration of energy or a deterioration of the brain
cells in their capacity to produce energy? Let us first put the
question clearly.
B: When we say that the brain deteriorates, the assumption is
that the brain is very alive at some stage, but one of the problems
of existence is the mediocrity of the mind.
K: The question is: Why does the brain not keep its quality of
sharpness, clarity, deep energy? As it gets older, it seems to
deteriorate. This happens even at the age of twenty. It is already
held in a groove and gradually peters out. I want to find out if it is
a matter of age. You can see that certain minds, even though they
are quite young, have already lost this quality of swiftness. They
are already caught in a groove and the deteriorating factor has
already begun.
S: Is it that we are born with a certain conditioning? Is that the
determining factor?
K: Is it a matter of conditioning and the breaking through of that
conditioning which frees energy and therefore enables the mind to
go on indefinitely; or has the deterioration to do with a mind that
functions in decisions?
S: What do you mean by functioning in decisions?
K: That which operates through choice and will. One decides
the course of action one is going to take, and that decision is based
not on clarity, not on the observation of the total field, but
according to satisfaction and enjoyment, which are fragments of
that field. And one continues to live in that fragmentation. That is
one of the factors of deterioration. My choice to be a scientist may
be based on environmental influence, family influence, or my own
desire to achieve success in a certain direction. These many
considerations being about the choice of a particular profession,
and that decision, that choice and the action from that choice, is
one of the factors of deterioration. I disregard the rest of the field
and only follow a particular narrow corner of that field. The brain
cells do not function totally but only in one direction. See, this is
rather interesting. Don't accept this. We are examining it.
P: Are you saying that the brain functions not fully, but only in
one direction.
K: The whole brain is not active, and I think that is the factor of
deterioration. You asked what are the factors of deterioration, not
whether the mind is capable of seeing the total or not. I have
observed for these many years that a mind that has followed a
certain course of action disregarding the totality of action,
deteriorates.
P: Let us explore that. The brain cells themselves have an
inbuilt sense of time, sense of memory, instinct. They operate as
reflexes. The very nature of operating in reflexes limits the brain
from functioning totally. And we know no other way.
K: We are trying to find out what are the factors of
deterioration. When we see what the factors are, perhaps we may
get to the other, see the total.
P: One can think of twenty factors of conflict, for instance.
K: Let us not take too many. A pursuit, based on choice, which
has the motive of satisfaction of fulfilment or the desire to achieve,
that action must create conflict. So, conflict is one of the factors of
deterioration. Perhaps that is the major factor of deterioration. I
decide to become a politician. I decide to become a religious man. I
decide to become an artist, a sannyasi; that decision is made by a
conditioning brought about by a culture which is in its very nature
fragmentary. That is, I decide to be a bachelor because from what I
have seen, from what I have heard, I think that to attain God,
Truth, Enlightenment, I must remain celibate. I disregard the whole
structure of human existence, the biological, the sociological, and
all the rest of it. That decision obviously brings about a conflict in
me, a sexual conflict, a conflict in keeping away from people, and
so on. That is one of the factors of the deterioration of the brain. I
am only using one part of it. The very factor of dividing one sector
of my life from the rest is a factor of deterioration. So, choice and
will are factors of deterioration.
P: And yet they are the two instruments of action we have.
K: That's right. Let us look at it. All our life is based on these
two factors: discrimination or choice and the action of will in the
pursuit of satisfaction.
S: Why discrimination?
K: Discrimination is choice. I discriminate between this and
that. We are trying to see what is the factor of deterioration, the
root factor of deterioration. We may come upon something
different also. I see choice and will in action are the factors of
deterioration, and if you see that, then the question is, Is there an
action which does not have in it these two elements, these two
principles?
P: Let us take the other factors because there are many other
factors; there is the inherited, there is also shock, for instance.
K: If I have inherited a dull, stupid mind, I am finished. I can go
to various temples and churches but my brain cells themselves
have been affected.
P: Then there is shock.
K: Which is what?
P: The action of life itself.
K: Why should life itself produce a shock?
P: It happens.
K: Why? My son dies, my brother dies. It produced a shock
because I never realized that my son would die. I suddenly realize
he is dead, it is neurological shock. Are you using the word `shock'
psychologically or physically?
P: It is a physical shock, it is neurological shock, the coming
into actual contact with the validity of something which ends. K:
All right. Let us take shock - physical, psychological, emotional
shock of suddenly losing something, losing somebody, the shock
of being alone, the shock of something that has suddenly come to
an end. The brain cells receive this shock. Now what will you do
about it? Is that shock a factor of deterioration?
S: No, the way we respond to the shock is the factor.
P: Can one respond with a total quiet? The mind has registered
something which it is unable to understand. There are depths
beyond which it cannot respond. We are talking of shock and of
new responses. To what depth has one penetrated?
K: Wait Pupulji, just go slowly. My son is dead, my brother is
dead. It is a tremendous shock because we have lived together,
played together. That shock has paralysed the mind, and the shock
does paralyse it for the time being. How the mind comes out of it is
the important factor. Does it come out with a hurt, with all the
implications of hurt or does it come out without a single hurt?
S: I may not know. Consciously I may say I have worked it out.
How do I know that there is not a trace of hurt?
D: Sir, Could it be that in the case of shock, there is a death,
there is an ending completely of the pattern of mind and the very
seeing of that is the ending of it?
K: That is all implied. When my brother dies or my son dies,
my whole life changes. The change is the shock. I have to leave
this house, I have to earn a different kind of livelihood, I have to do
a dozen things. All that is implied in the word `shock'. Now, I am
asking whether that shock has left a mark or hurt, or not. If it has
not left a single mark, a single hurt, a single scratch or a shadow of
sorrow, then the mind comes out of it totally refreshed, totally new.
But if it has been hurt, brutalized, then that is a factor of
deterioration. Now, how does the mind consciously know that it is
not hurt deeply, profoundly?
P: If it is hurt deeply, profoundly, does it mean that there is no
hope and it is all over? Or is there a way of wiping away? K: We
are going to go into that, Pupulji. The shock is natural because I
have suddenly been thrown out on the street, metaphorically
speaking. Neurologically, psychologically, inwardly, outwardly,
the whole thing has changed. How does the mind come out of this?
That is the question. Does it come out with hurt or does it come out
totally purged of all hurt? Are the hurts superficial, or so profound
that the conscious mind cannot possibly know them at a given
moment and, therefore, they will keep on repeating, repeating? All
that is wastage of energy. How does the mind find out whether it is
deeply hurt?
P: The superficial hurts one can dismiss, deal with, but the deep
hurts...
K: How will you deal with them?
P: There is brutality, death, there is violence.
K: Don't bring in violence. How does the mind come upon the
deep hurts? What is a hurt?
P: Deep pain.
K: Is there a deep hurt?
P: Yes.
K: What do you mean by deep hurt?
P: The really deep hurts are because of a crisis, the very nature
of your being is on the edge of sorrow.
K: My brother dies, my son dies; husband, wife, whatever. It is
a shock. The shock is a kind of hurt. I am asking is the hurt very
deep and what do I mean by 'very deep'?
P: The depths of the unconscious are thrown up.
K: What is being thrown up?
P: Pain.
K: Pain, of which you have not been aware and shock reveals
the pain. Now, was the pain there or the cause of pain there? P: The
cause of pain was there. The cause of pain was there of which I
was not conscious. The shock comes and makes me aware of that
pain.
M: What do you mean by saying shock creates pain?
K: Pain was there. It is one of the factors. My brother is dead,
that is absolutely final. I cannot bring him back. The world faces
this problem, not you and I alone, everybody faces this problem.
There is a shock. That shock is a deep hurt. Was the cause of the
hurt there before and the shock has only revealed it? Was the hurt
there because I never faced it? I have never faced loneliness. I have
never faced the sense of loneliness which is one of the factors of
hurt.
Now, can I, before the shock comes, look at loneliness? Can I,
before the shock comes, know what it is to be alone? Before the
shock comes, can I go into this question of reliance, dependency,
which are all factors of hurt, the causes of hurt, so that when the
shock comes, they are all brought out. Now, when the shock
comes, what happens? I have no hurt. This is right.
M: What makes you prepare yourself?
K: I don't prepare. I watch life. I watch what are the
implications of attachment or indifference or the cultivation of
independence because I must not depend. Dependence causes pain,
but to cultivate independence may also bring pain. So, I watch
myself, I watch and see that dependence of any kind must
inevitably bring about deep hurt. So, when the shock comes, the
cause of hurt is not. A totally different thing takes place.
S: It can happen that in order to prevent suffering, we do all that
you have described.
P: Sir, all these things one has done. One has observed, one has
gone into the problems of attachment.
K: Would you say shock is `suffering'?
P: Shock seems to touch the depths of my being which I have
never been able to touch before, to which I have had no access. K:
What do you mean by that? If you have gone through loneliness,
attachment, fear, not seeking independence or detachment as an
opposite to attachment, then what takes place? When shock comes,
the shock of death, what takes place? Are you hurt?
P: That's a word I would like to enlarge upon. It seems to bring
out all the pains I have had.
K: Which means what? You have not resolved the pain - not
resolved the pain of loneliness. I am taking that as an example.
P: What I want to ask is: Is there a resolution of the pain of
attachment or is it a complete comprehension of whatever is, an
awakening to the total process of pain?
K: No. Look, suffering is pain. We use that suffering to cover
loneliness, attachment, dependence, conflict. We use the whole
field of man's escape from suffering and the cause of suffering. We
use the word `suffering' to include all that. Or, would you like to
use the term `the totality of pain'? The hidden and the observable
totality of suffering - the pain of a villager, the pain and sorrow of
a woman who has lost her husband, the sorrow of a man, ignorant,
unlettered, always in poverty; and the sorrow of man, the pain of
man who is ambitious, frustrated - all that is suffering and the
shock brings all that pain, not only yours, to the surface. Agreed?
What takes place? I don't know how to deal with it. I cry, I pray
and go to the temple. This is what takes place. I hope to meet my
brother or son in the astral plane. I do everything, trying to get out
of this torture of pain. Why should the shock reveal all this?
P: The roots of pain have never been revealed.
K: Seeing that beggar on the road, leprous, or the villager
endlessly working in sorrow, why has that not touched the human
mind? Why should shock touch it?
P: Is there a why?
K: Why does that beggar not shock me personally and the
whole of society? Why does it not move me? D: The shock attacks
the whole structure of pain and makes the structure of pain act.
K: I am asking you a simple question. You see the beggar on
the road. Why is that not a shock to you? Why do you not cry?
Why do I cry only when my son dies? I saw a monk in Rome. I
cried to see the pain of someone tied to a post called religion. We
don't cry there but we cry here. Why? There is a `why', obviously.
There is a `why' because we are insensitive.
B: The mind is asleep. The shock wakes it up.
K: That's it. The shock wakes it up and we are awakened to
pain, which is our pain: we were not awakened to pain before. This
is not a theory.
P: No, sir, when you make a statement like that, I am awakened
to pain and it is not a question of my pain...
K: It is pain. Now, what do you do with pain? Pain is suffering.
what takes place?
P: It is like a storm. If one is in the middle of a storm, you don't
ask `why'. In it is every pain.
K: I said that it is not your pain; it is pain. I felt pain when I saw
that beggar. When I saw that monk, I cried. When I saw that
villager, I was tortured. When I saw the rich man, I said, `My God,
look.' Society, culture, religion, the whole life of man is also the
pain of my losing my brother. So it is pain. What do I do with
pain? Is it deep or superficial? You say it is very deep.
A: It is very deep.
K: What do you mean by `deep'?
P: What I mean by `deep' is that it goes through every part of
my being. It is not sectional; it is not operating only in one part of
my life.
K: You say `It is very deep'. Don't call it deep. It has no
measurement. It is not deep or shallow. Pain is pain. Then what?
You remain in it, bear this hurt? B: We cannot escape from it or
substitute it.
K: So, what shall I do with the pain? Ignore it? We are going to
find out. Do I go to the analyst to get rid of the pain, or do I read a
book or go to Tirupati or to Mars to get rid of the pain? How shall I
get rid of it? What shall I do with it?
P: I am in the position of standing still.
K: You are in pain. You are that pain. Hold it. You are there.
You hold it. It is your baby, and then what? Let us find out. I am
that pain - the pain of the villager, the pain of the beggar, the pain
of that man who is rich who goes through agonies, the monk and
all the rest of it. I am that pain. What shall I do?
B: Is there not a transformation of this pain into wakefulness?
K: That is what I want to find out.
S: At the moment of death, everything is thwarted.
K: At the moment of death, a few days after, my whole nervous,
biological, psychological system is paralysed. I am not talking
about that moment. Don't go back to it again. Now it has passed. It
is a year old. I am left with this pain. What shall I do?
B: When there is an unintelligent operation of this brain,
suffering does wake it up. Apparently, it is a very unintelligent
operation.
K: A mother loses her son in Vietnam and yet mothers don't
seem to learn that their sons might be killed through nationalism,
through concepts and formulas. They don't realize it. That's pain. I
realize that for them. I suffer. We suffer. There is suffering. What
shall I do?
Rad: I will see what it is.
K: I see what it is. That beggar can never become a minister and
that monk is tortured by his own vows, by his own ideas of God. I
see all that. I see it so clearly. I don't have to examine it any more.
What shall I do with it?
M: The understanding by which the beggar's pain and another's
pain becomes your own pain is unknown to us. Not everybody can
see the beggar's pain as his own pain.
K: I have that pain, what shall I do? I am not concerned whether
everybody sees it or not. Many people do not see things. What
shall I do? My son is dead.
P: You are in the middle of it. I am talking of being held by it
and of being in it.
K: You heard that beggar singing last night. It was a terrible
thing. The fact is there - the pain, the suffering. What will you do?
M: You act, try to change the condition of the beggar.
K: That is your fixed idea. You want to do it your way and
somebody else wants to do it another way but I am talking about
pain. We asked what are the factors of deterioration of the brain
cells and the mind. We said one of the major factors is conflict.
Another factor is hurt, pain. And what are the factors? - fear,
conflict, suffering, and the pursuit of pleasure, call it God, social
service, work for the country. So, these are the factors of
deterioration. Who is to act? What am I to do? Unless the mind
solves this, its action will produce more suffering, more pain.
P: The deterioration will be accelerated.
K: That's an obvious fact. We have come to the point of pain,
hurt, suffering and the factor of fear, and the pursuit of pleasure, as
a few factors that bring about deterioration. What shall I do? What
shall the mind do?
SWS: By asking this, the mind tries to become something other
than what it is.
K: If it is in pain, how can it act?
S: How can it become something else? Becoming is another
factor of deterioration. Becoming is a factor because in it, there is
conflict. I want to be something; therefore, becoming is the
avoidance of pain, therefore conflict. So, what shall I do? I have
tried village work, I have tried social work, cinemas, sex, and yet
pain remains. What shall I do?
Q: There must be some way to let the pain go.
K: Why should it go? All you are concerned with is to make it
go. Why should it go? There is no way out, is that it?
SWS: You have to live with it.
K: How do you live with something which is pain, which is
sorrow? How do you live with it?
Rad: When I stop doing anything about it.
K: Are you doing it or are you just saying it as a theory? What
is the mind to do with this tremendous hurt which causes pain,
suffering, this everlasting battle that brings about the deterioration
of the brain cells?
B: One should try to watch it.
K: Watch what, sir? Is my suffering, is my pain different from
the watcher? Is it? Is the pain different from the watcher? So, what
takes place? The observer says, `I must get rid of pain'. But it is
still there at the end of the journey. Now, what takes place when
the observer is the observed?
M: We started with what is the factor of deterioration. We have
come to the conclusion that pain is the factor of deterioration. If we
don't want deterioration, we must not suffer pain. Therefore, doing
away with pain is important and we cannot say: `I am pain,' `I have
to live with pain'. This is endless. We must cease to suffer. Now,
what is the secret of it? You tell us.
K: Secret of what? You introduce words which I never used. I
am using words according to the dictionary. I don't want to be a
blank wall which does not feel.
M: Immunity does not mean insensitivity.
K: We all want to get rid of pain. It would be idiotic to say: `I
must endure pain`, and that is what most people do, and because
they endure pain, they take neurotic action like going off to
temples and so on. So, it is absurd to say that we must endure pain.
On the contrary, knowing that pain is one of the major factors of
deterioration, how does it come to an end? Sir, at the end of pain,
the mind becomes extraordinarily passionate; it is not just a dull,
painless mind. You want the secret of it?
M: Do you know the secret?
K: I will tell you. Do you want it? Let us approach it in a
different way. Is it possible for a mind never to be hurt? Education
hurts us, the family hurts us, society hurts us. I am asking: `Can the
mind, living in a world in which there is hurt, never be hurt?' You
call me a fool. You call me a great man. You call me enlightened
or wise or a stupid old man. Call me anything; can I never be hurt?
It is the same problem put differently.
S: There is a slight difference. There the problem was one of
being hurt and how to solve it. Here the question is: Is there a
possibility of never being hurt?
K: I am showing it to you. That is the secret. What will you do
with all the hurts that human beings have accumulated? If you
don't solve this problem, do what you will, it will lead to more
sorrow. Let us proceed. We just now asked what takes place when
the observer is the observed.
SWS: There should be an observation without the centre.
K: Observation without the centre means there is only that thing
which you call pain. There is no entity that says I must go beyond
the pain. When there is no observer, is there pain? It is the observer
that gets hurt. It is the centre that gets flattered. It is the centre that
says it is shocked. It is the centre that says `I know pain'. Now, can
you observe this thing called pain without the centre, without the
observer? It is not a vacuum. What takes place? M: The pain
changes the feeling.
K: What do you mean by saying that the pain changes the
feeling? Sir, this is a difficult thing because we are always looking
at pain from the centre as the observer who says: `I must do
something.' So, action is based on the centre doing something
about pain, but when the centre is pain, what do you do? What is
there to be done?
What is compassion? The word `compassion' means passion
and how does that come? By chasing around activity? How does it
come? When suffering is not, the `other' is. Does this mean
anything to you? How can a mind that suffers know compassion?
M: The knowledge that there is pain is compassion.
K: Forgive me. I never said become compassionate. We are
seeing the fact, the `what is', which is suffering. That is an absolute
fact. I suffer and the mind is doing everything it can to run away
from it. When it does not run away, then it observes. Then the
observer, if it observes very very closely, is the observed, and that
very pain is transformed into passion, which is compassion. The
words are not the reality. So, don't escape from suffering, which
does not mean you become morbid. Live with it. You live with
pleasure, don't you? Why don't you live with suffering completely?
Can you live with it in the sense of not escaping from it? What
takes place? Watch. The mind is very clear, very sharp. It is faced
with the fact. The very suffering transformed into passion is
something enormous. From that arises a mind that can never be
hurt. Full stop. That's the secret.
(My humble salutations to the lotus feet of Sri Jiddu Krishnamurti and
gratitude to the great philosophers and followers of him.)
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