Exploration into Insight
by
J Krishnamurti
EXPLORATION INTO INSIGHT 'THE BRAIN
CELLS AND THE HOLISTIC STATE'
DS: I wonder if we could discuss the question of momentum -
which is the creation of the thinker and which produces the
identification with the thinker? The fact is that we are faced with
this momentum, this movement. Could we examine that?
P: Do you not think that in order to investigate that, one should
go into the problem of dissipating energy?
DS: I don't know what you mean by that.
P: The momentum which pushes us, creates and disappears. Just
as there is the engine which has energy, and which dissipates, there
is the same kind of energy involved in the momentum which we
are speaking about. Could we go into energy, the energy which
dissipates and the energy which does not dissipate?
DS: Maxwell says, for a scientist, the first principle of energy is
one of defining relationship. When you say `energy', I am seriously
asking what the problem is. I am wondering when we say `energy',
do we mean a substance, a definable force? Or, does this `energy'
imply a form of relationship?
P: I don't quite comprehend what you say.
DS: I question whether there is anyone who has actually
thought about what energy is in the psychological sense.
P: That is why if we discussed it, it might clarify matters.
DS: Do we mean a substance or a force that exists within the
person, or is `energy' something that is manifested in relationship,
and if so, then it raises a whole category of questions.
P: Doesn't physics (I have no knowledge of physics) accept that
there is an energy which dissipates and an energy which in itself
does not have the seed of dissipation?
FW: Yes, but you see, no physicist can define what energy is.
Energy is a basic assumption in physics - that it is there. We know
that energy is necessary. Without energy, no force is possible.
Without energy, no work is possible. So, energy and work are very
much related. So, we can use force, we can see work being done,
but we can never see energy.
K: Is there an energy which is endless, without a beginning and
without an end? And is there an energy which is mechanical which
always has a motive? And is there an energy in relationship? I
would like to find out.
P: Dr Shainberg asked what is it that gives momentum.
K: What is it? Let us keep to that.
P: Is momentum the arising of the thinker, and then the thinker
giving himself continuity?
K: What is the drive, the force behind all our action? Is it
mechanical? Or is there an energy, a force, a drive, a momentum
which has no friction? Is that what we are discussing?
DS: What is the momentum of this energy that becomes
mechanical? Let us stay out of the fantasy realm for a while but
keep to just this momentum of thought and desire and its
mechanical nature. What is the momentum of this energy, of
thought, desire and the creation of the thinker?
K: Go on, sir, discuss it.
DS: You see thought, sensation, then power, then desire, and
fulfilment of desire; the whole drive with a little modification goes
on, continues. So, that is the momentum.
K: You are asking what is the momentum behind desire. I desire
a car. What is behind that desire? We will keep it very simple.
What is the urge, the drive, the force, the energy behind the desire
that says, `I must have a car'? DS: Is it that you desire a car or does
the car come up as a desire and then creates the `I'? Is the `I'
created by desire?
K: If I didn't actually see the car, didn't feel it, didn't touch it, I
would have no desire for a car. Because I see people driving in a
car, the pleasure of driving, the energy, the fun of driving, I desire
it.
P: Sir, is it only the object which creates desire?
DS: That is the question.
K: It may be a physical object, or a non-physical object, a
belief, an idea, anything.
FW: But in the first place, it probably has to be perceivable by
the senses, because you perceive something by the senses, and you
make an image of it, then you desire it. So, could one say that
whatever can be desired has to be sensed? And so from your
question I ask: Anything which can be desired, has it first to be
perceivable through the senses? One could, of course, speak of
`God'. I can desire God.
P: It is desire that maintains and keeps the world going. Can you
take desire back to its roots?
DS: Would there be desire if there were no 'I'?
K: What is the momentum behind any desire? Let us begin with
that. What is the energy that makes me desire? What is behind my
being here? I have come here to find out what you are talking
about, what this discussion is about. The desire is to discover
something other than my usual rush of thought. So, what is that? Is
that desire? Now, what is behind the desire that made me come
here? Is it my suffering? Is it my pleasure? Is it that I want to learn
more? Put all these together, what is it that is behind all that?
DS: To me it is relief from what I am.
P: Which is identical with a sense of becoming.
K: Becoming? What is behind becoming? DS: To get
somewhere different from where I am, and there also there is
desire.
K: What is behind that energy that is making you do that? Is it
punishment and reward? All our structure of movement is based on
punishment and reward, to avoid one, to gain the other. Is that the
basic drive or energy that is making us do so many things? So is
the motive, the drive, the energy derived from these two: to avoid
one and gain the other?
DS: Yes. That is part of it. That is at the level of thought.
K: No. Not at the level of thought only. I don't think so. I am
hungry, my reward is food. If I do something wrong, my reward is
punishment.
M: Is that different from pleasure and pain? Is reward the same
as pleasure, and punishment the same as pain?
K: Reward - keep to that word. Don't enlarge that word. Reward
and punishment. I think that is the basic, ordinary, common drive.
P: Reward and punishment to whom?
K: Not `to whom'. That which is satisfactory, and that which is
not satisfactory.
P: But for whom? You have to posit it.
K: I have not yet come to that. The problem is, what is
satisfying I call `reward', that which is not satisfying I call
`punishment'.
DS: Yes.
K: So, is there not the `I' saying: `I must be satisfied', `I am
hungry'?
P: Hunger is a very physiological thing.
K: I am keeping to that for the moment. Does the physiological
spill over into the psychological field and does the whole cycle
begin there? I need food; food is necessary. But that same urge
goes into the field of psychology, and there begins a completely
different cycle. But it is the same movement. Singh: Sir, where is
all this process going on? If it goes on in me, what I experience,
when I participate in this process of investigation, where is it
taking place? Is it in the brain? Where do I find this pleasure - pain
need?
K: Both at the biological level and the psychological.
Singh: If it is the brain, then there is definitely something,
which one may say is twilight, between pleasure and pain. There
are definitely some moments when there is no need to satisfy
hunger and still the desire to be satisfied is there. I may be satisfied
and may still feel hungry.
K: I don't quite follow what you are saying.
Singh: Sir, if there is reward and punishment, and if this process
of reward and punishment is to be investigated in the brain, at the
physiological level, then there are some responses in the brain
which are in between reward and punishment.
K: You mean there is a gap between reward and punishment?
Q: Not a gap, but an interlink, a bridge.
GM: You mean there is a state which is neither reward nor
punishment?
Singh: Yes. Where one merges into another.
P: If I may ask, there may be another state, but I do not know
what it is. How does this answer the question, how does this further
the question of the nature of this force which brings it into being
and then keeps it going? Basically, that is the question.
DS: That is the question. Where is this momentum? Where is
this momentum of reward and punishment? And even if there were
space in between -
K: Are you asking, what is it that is pushing one in the direction
of reward and punishment? What is the energy, what is the
momentum, what is the force, what is the volume of energy, that is
making us do this or avoid that? Is that the question? Could it be
satisfaction, gratification, which is pleasure? DS: But then, what is
gratification? What is your state of being when you are aware that
there is freedom from hunger?
K: It is very simple, isn't it? There is hunger, food is given, and
you are satisfied. But the same thing is carried on and it is never
ending. I seek one satisfaction after another and it is endless. Is it
that this energy, the drive to be satisfied, is both biological as well
as psychological? I am hungry and psychologically I am lonely.
There is the feeling of emptiness, there is the feeling of
insufficiency. And so I turn to God, to the Church, to gurus.
Physiologically, the insufficiency is satisfied very easily.
Psychologically, it is never satisfied.
Par: At what point does one go from the physiological
fulfilment to the thought process?
K: Sir, it may be that the physiological movement has entered
into the psychological movement and carries on. Is this so?
P: What I am trying to enquire into is this: It is not a question of
whether it is possible or whether it is a matter of choice. It is so
from the moment I am born. Both types of wants begin. Therefore,
I am asking, what is the source of both beginnings, the
physiological and psychological?
Q: The one word `insufficiency' should be enough.
P: It isn't. Both are structured in a force which then propels.
That structure within one, the coming together of a number of
things, is the centre, the `I'.
K: Look. I don't think it is the `I'.
P: What is it? Why do you say that?
K: I don't think it is the `I'. I think it is the endless
dissatisfaction, the endless insufficiency.
DS: What is the source of that?
P: Can there be insufficiency unless there is someone who is
insufficient? DS: Who is insufficient?
P: Can there be insufficiency without the one who feels it?
K: I don't posit the `I'. There is continuous insufficiency. I go to
Marxism. I find it insufficient, I go from one to the other. The more
intelligent I am, the more awake I am, the more dissatisfaction
there is. Then, what takes place?
S: You are implying by that, that there is a matrix without the
reality of the `I' which in its very momentum can act.
K: I don't know the matrix. I don't know the `I'. All that I am
pointing out is the one factor that there is physiological
insufficiency which has entered into the field of psychological
insufficiency and that goes on endlessly.
DS: There is an endless sense of incompletion.
K: Insufficiency. Keep to that word.
A: I suggest at this point that we may cut out the physiological
insufficiency.
K: I am purposely insisting on that..It may be from the flowing
out of that, that we create all this misery.
Par: I question that. Is it a mixture of physiological and
psychological spilling over? What do we exactly mean by `spilling
over'? One is a fact, the other is not.
K: No. Therefore, there is only physiological insufficiency.
P: How can you say that?
K: I don't say that. I am just investigating.
P: There is both physiological as well as psychological
insufficiency.
K: Look, Pupulji, for the moment I will not use the word `I'. I
am not investigating the `I'. I feel hungry. It has been satisfied. I
feel sexual, that is being satisfied. And I say: `That is not good
enough, I must have something more.' P: The `more'?
K: The `more', what is that?
P: It is the momentum, isn't it?
K: No, the `more' is more satisfaction.
P: What is the momentum then?
K: Keep to that word. The brain is seeking satisfaction.
P: Why should the brain seek satisfaction?
K: Because it needs stability; it needs security. Therefore, it
says: `I have discovered this: I thought I had found satisfaction in
this but there isn't any. I shall find satisfaction and security in that,
and again there isn't any'. And it keeps going on and on. That is so
in daily life. I go to one guru after another, or one theory after
another, one conclusion after another.
Q: Sir, the very nature of this insufficiency at a physiological
level leads to sufficiency at the metaphysiological level. It leads
from some inadequacy in the physiological machine to the
completion of it. And it is this cycle that is operative; that is how
the brain works. If the physiological spill-over is ever to continue
in the psychological field, then this cycle of insufficiency and
sufficiency must continue.
K: Must continue? Examine yourself. It is very simple. You are
seeking satisfaction. Everybody is. If you are poor, you want to be
rich. If you see somebody richer than you, you want that,
somebody more beautiful, you want that and so on and on. We
want continuous satisfaction.
A: Sir, I want to draw your attention again to the central feature
of physiological insufficiency, that every activity to fulfil that
physiological insufficiency leads to satisfaction. That is to say,
between the insufficiency and its recurrence, there is always a gap,
as far as the physiological insufficiency is concerned; whereas
where psychological insufficiency is concerned, we begin a cycle
in which we do not know any gap. K: Forget the gap sir. That is
not important. Watch yourself. Isn't the whole of the movement the
energy a drive to find gratification reward? Shainberg what do you
say to this?
DS: I think what is coming out of this model of the
physiological reward-punishment scheme is definitely so. I mean
that is the whole way the `me' functions, whether it is logical or
not.
K: The whole momentum of seeking satisfaction is captured by
the `I'.
DS: Then it is there that the `I' becomes manifest.
K: That's it. That is what I mean. I am seeking satisfaction. It
never says, `satisfaction is being sought'. I am seeking satisfaction.
Actually it should be the other way: satisfaction being sought.
DS: Satisfaction sought creates the `I'.
K: So momentum is the urge to be satisfied.
P: I will ask you a question which may seem to be a movement
away. Isn't the `I' sense inherent in the brain cells which have
inherited knowledge?
K: I question that.
P: I am asking you, sir: listen to the question. The knowledge of
man which is present in the brain cells, which is present in the
depths of the subconsciousness, isn't that `I' part of the brain?
S: Pupulji, are you then equating the whole of the past with the
`I'?
P: Of course, the whole of the past. I am asking whether the `I'
comes into existence because of this manifestation of seeking
satisfaction. Or, whether that very centre of memory, the matrix of
memory, whether that is not the `I' sense.
K: You are asking, is there the `I', the `me' the ego, identifying
itself with the past, as knowledge.
P: Not identifying itself.
K: Wait. Let me get the question clear. P: Not identifying itself.
But `I' as time, time as the past. And the
'I' sense is the whole of that.
K: Wait. You said at the beginning, does the brain contain the
`I'? I would say tentatively, investigating, there is no `I' at all but
only the search for pure satisfaction.
P: Is the whole racial memory of man fictitious?
K: No. But the moment you say I am the past that `I' is
fictitious.
S: Is the past itself saying that I am the past, or a part of the past
saying that it is the past?
K: You see you are raising a question which is really very
interesting: Do you observe the past as the `I'? There is the whole
past, millennia of human endeavour, human suffering, human
misery, confusion, millions of years. There is only that movement
that current, there is only that vast river - not `I' and the vast river.
P: I would like to put it this way: When this vast river comes to
the surface, it brings to the surface the movement of the `I'. It gets
identified with the `I'.
Chorus: I don't think so.
K: Pupulji, the `I' may merely be a means of communication.
DS: Is it a way of talking, reporting?
P: Is it as simple as that?
K: No, I am just stating. It is not as simple as that.
S: Sir, at one point you said the manifestation of the stream is
the individual. When this vast stream of sorrow manifests itself as
the individual, is the `I' present or not?
K: Wait, wait. That is not the point. That vast stream manifests
itself in this, in a human being; the father gives to me a form and
then I say `I', which is the form, the name, the idiosyncratic
environment, but that stream is `me'. There is this vast stream
which is obvious. A: I am saying that we are looking with our
existing knowledge at the stream and identifying ourselves with the
stream. The identification is done post facto, whereas it really starts
with the momentum.
K: No, no.
P: How can one see that? You see, the way Krishnaji puts it
does not really lead to the depth of oneself. The depth of oneself
says,'I want to, I will become, I will be'. That depth springs from
the past, which is knowledge, which is the whole racial
unconscious.
K: Can I ask, why is the `I' there? Why do you say `I want'?
There is only want.
P: Still by saying that, you don't eliminate the `I'.
K: No, you do eliminate that `I'. How do you observe? In what
manner do you observe this stream? Do you observe it as the `I',
observing? Or, is there observation of the stream only?
P: What one does in observing is a different issue. We are
talking of that nature of energy which brings about the momentum.
Now I am saying the momentum is the very nature and structure of
the `I' which is caught in becoming.
K: I want to question whether the `I' exists at all. It may be
totally verbal, non-factual. It is only a word that has become
tremendously important, not the fact.
FW: Isn`t there an imprint of the `I' in the brain matter? Isn't
that an actuality?
K: No, I question it.
FW: But the imprint is there. The question is: If it isn't an
actuality, then what is it?
K: The whole momentum, this vast stream is in the brain. After
all, that is the brain, and why should there be the `I' at all in that?
P: When you are talking of the actual, it is there. K: It is there
only verbally.
DS: It is actually there. In the sense if you and I are together,
there are two parts to it; my identification with myself is the `I', is
the relationship with you.
K: Sir, when are you conscious of the `I'?
DS: Only in relationship.
K: I want to understand when you are conscious of the `I'.
DS: When I want something, when I identify myself with
something, or when I look at myself in the mirror.
K: When you experience, at the moment of experiencing
something, there is no`I'.
P: All right, there is no `I'. We agree with you. But then the `I'
emerges a second later.
K: How? Look, go into it slowly.
FW: There is the question of momentum.
K: You are missing my point. There is experience. At the
moment of crisis there is no `I'. Then, later, comes the thought
which says: `That was exciting, that was pleasurable,' and that
thought creates the `I' which says: `I have enjoyed it.' Right?
P: What has happened there? Is the `I' a concentration of
energy?
K: No.
P: The energy that dissipates?
K: It is the energy that dissipates, yes.
P: But still it is the `I".
K: No, it is not `I'. It is an energy that is being misused. It isn't
the `I' that uses the energy wrongly.
P: I am not saying I use the energy wrongly. The `I' itself is a
concentration of energy that dissipates. As the body wears out, the
'I` in that sense has the same nature, it gets old, it gets stale. K:
Pupul,just listen to me. At the moment of crisis, there is no 'I'.
Follow it. Now can you live, is there a living at the height of that
crisis, all the time? Crisis demands total energy. Crisis of any kind
brings about the influx of all energy. Leave it for the moment. We
will break it up afterwards. At that second, there is no `I'. It is so.
DS: That is a movement.
K: No. At that precise second, there is no `I'. Now, I am asking:
`Is it possible to live at that height all the time?'
DS: Why are you asking that?
K: If you don't live that way, you have all kinds of other
activities which will destroy that.
DS: What is the question?
K: The point is this: the moment thought comes in, it brings
about a fragmentation of energy. Thought itself is fragmentary. So,
when thought enters, then it is a dissipation of energy.
DS: Not necessarily.
Par: You said: `At the moment of experience, there is no 'I'.
K: Not that `I said'. It is so.
Par: Is that the momentum?
P: No. The question really amounts to this; we say it is so. But
still that does not answer the question as to why the `I' has become
so powerful. You have still not answered the question even though
at the moment of crisis, the `I' is not, the whole past is not.
K: That is the point. At the moment of crisis, there is nothing.
P: Why are you saying `no' to the `I' being the mirror of the
whole racial past?
K: I am saying `no' because it may be merely a way of
communication.
P: Is it as simple as that? Is the `I' structure as simple as that? K:
I think it is extraordinarily simple. What is much more interesting,
much more demanding, is that whenever thought comes into being,
then dissipation of energy begins. So, I say to myself: `Is it
possible to live at that height?' The moment the `I' comes into
being, there is dissipation. If you left out the `I' and I left out the `I',
then we would have right relationship.
FW: You said the moment thought comes in, there is dissipation
of energy. But the moment the `I' comes in, there is also dissipation
of energy. What is the difference?
K: Thought is memory, experience, all that.
FW: You have to use it in your life.
DS: Which is just what we are doing right now. I find when I
say dissipation of energy, I immediately see myself take up the
position of the observer and say `that is bad'. What I am suggesting
is that you can be neutrally aware. There is a crisis and a
dissipation, a crisis and a dissipation. That is the flow of existence.
K: No.
P: K's point is, there is that, but the transformation which we are
talking about is to negate that.
DS: I question whether there is any such thing as breaking out
of this. I think we remember the intensity of the energy of the
crisis, and then we say I would like to keep it all the time. Do you
do that?
K: No.
DS: Then why ask the question?
K: I am asking that question purposely because thought
interferes.
DS: Not all the time.
K: No. All the time. Question it, sir. The moment you have a
crisis, there is no past, nor present, only that moment. There is no
time in that crisis. The moment time comes in, dissipation begins.
Keep it for the minute like that. A: There is the crisis. Then, there
is dissipation and then identification.
P: At the moment of crisis, many things happen. You talk of a
holistic position at the moment of crisis. Even to come to that, one
has to investigate it very deeply, in oneself in order to know what
this thing is.
K: You see Pupul holistic implies a very sane mind and body, a
clear capacity to think, and also it means holy, sacred; all that is
implied in that word `holistic'. Now, I am asking: `Is there an
energy which is never dissipated, which you want to draw from?'
There is dissipation when it is not holistic. A holistic way of life is
one in which there is no dissipation of energy. A non-holistic way
of living in dissipation of energy.
P: What is the relationship of the holistic and the non-holistic to
the brain cells?
K: There is no relationship to the brain cells. Let us look at it. I
want to be quite clear that we understand the meaning of that word
`holistic'. It means complete, whole, harmony, no disintegration, no
fragmentation. That is the holistic life. That is endless energy. The
non-holistic life, the fragmented life, is a wastage of energy. When
there is a feeling of the whole, there is no `I'. The other is the
movement of thought, of the past, of time; that is our life, our daily
life, and that life is reward and punishment and the continuous
search for satisfaction.
P: Sir, the holistic is held in the brain cells. That is, it throws up
responses, challenges. The non-holistic is held in the brain cells. It
is the whole stream of the past meeting the challenge. Now, what
relationship has the holistic to the brain cells and the senses?
K: Have you understood the question, Doctor?
DS: Her question is: What is the relationship of this holistic
state in the brain to memory and the past and the senses?
K: No, no. You haven't listened. P: I said there are two states,
the holistic and the non-holistic. The non-holistic is definitely held
in the brain cells because it is the stream of the past held in the
brain cells, challenged and giving momentum. I am asking what is
the relationship of the holistic to the brain cells and to the senses?
DS: What do you mean by the senses?
P: Listening, seeing, tasting...
DS: Can I go into that? I think if there were something in what
we were saying, there would be a different relationship of such part
functions in the holistic state. They are not merely part functioning
but functioning as part of the holistic state, whereas in the
dissipation of energy and fragmentation, it begins to function as
isolated centres.
K: Sir, her question is very simple. Our brain cells now contain
the past, memory, experience, knowledge of millennia, and those
brain cells are not holistic.
DS: Yes, they are separate cells.
K: They are not holistic. Stick to that. She says the brain cells
now are conditioned to a non-holistic way of living. What takes
place in the brain cells when there is a holistic way? That is her
question.
DS: I would put it differently. I would say: `What takes place in
the relationship to the brain cells in the holistic state of perception?'
K: I am going to answer that question. Does the holistic brain
contain the past and therefore can the past be used holistically?
Because it is whole, it contains the part, but the part cannot contain
the whole. Therefore, when there is the operation of the part, there
is dissipation of energy.
P: After going through all this, we have come to this point.
K: Yes. A marvellous point. Stick to it. P: What is then its place
in the brain which is the structure of the human mind?
K: We know only the non-holistic way of living, keep to that.
That is the fact, that we live non-holistically, fragmentarily. That is
our actual life and that is a wastage of energy. We see also that
there is contradiction, there is battle. All that is a wastage of
energy. Now, we are asking: `Is there a way of living which is not
a wastage of energy?'
We live a non-holistic way of life, a fragmentary life, a broken
life. You understand what I mean by broken, saying something,
doing something else, a life that is contradictory, comparative,
imitative, conforming, having moments of silence. It is a
fragmentary way of living, a non-holistic way, that is all we know.
And somebody says: Is there an energy which is not wasted? And
with that question let us investigate it to see if it is possible to end
this way of living.
P: But I have asked another question, and you have still not
answered that.
K: I am coming to that. That is a very difficult question to
answer which is: one lives a non-holistic life, which is a constant
seepage of energy, a wastage of energy. The brain is conditioned to
that. One sees that actually. Then one asks: Is it possible to live a
life which is not that? Right?
Q: Not always, sir, that is what we are investigating. Whether
that breath of freedom could be a totality.
K: No, it can never be totality, because it comes and goes.
Anything that comes and goes involves time. Time involves a
fragmentary way of living. Therefore, it is not whole. Look, we
live a non-holistic life. The brain is conditioned to that.
Occasionally, I may have a flair of freedom but that flair of
freedom is still within the field of time. Therefore, that flair is still
a fragment. Now, can the brain that is conditioned to that, a nonholistic
way of living, can that brain so completely transform itself
that it no longer lives the way of conditioning? That is the
question. DS: My response to that is: Here you are in a state of
fragmentation; here you are in a state of dissipation of energy. And
there you are looking for satisfaction.
K: No, I am not. I am saying this is a wastage of energy.
DS: That is all we know and nothing else.
K: Yes. Nothing else. So, the brain says: `All right, I see that.'
Then it asks the question: `Is it possible to change all this?'
DS: I wonder whether the brain can ask it.
K: I am asking it. Therefore, if one brain asks it, the other brain
must ask it too. This is not based on satisfaction.
DS: Could you say anything about how you can ask the
question about what you state without seeking satisfaction? K: It
can be asked because the brain has realized for itself the game it
has been playing.
DS: So, how is the brain to raise the question?
K: It is asking it, because it says, `I am seeing through that.'
Now, it says: `Is there a way of living which is non-fragmentary,
which is holistic?'
S: And that question is as holistic as any.
K; No, not yet.
DS: That is what I am having trouble with - where that question
comes from. You say it is not seeking satisfaction, it is not holistic.
Then, what brain is producing this question?
K: The brain which says: `I see very clearly the waste of
energy'.
P: The very fact of your saying that the brain is seeing through
the whole problem of fragmentation...
K: Is the ending of it.
P: Is that holistic? K: The ending of it, that is holistic.
P: The ending is the very seeing of fragmentation.
DS: Is that holistic?
K: That is holistic. But she asked a much more complex
question in regard to the holistic brain which contains the past, the
totality of the past, the essence of the past, the juice of it, sucking
in everything of the past. What does that mean? The past is
nothing, but such a brain can use the past. I wonder if you follow
this. My concern is with one's life, actual, daily, fragmentary,
stupid life. And I say, `Can that be transformed?' Not into greater
satisfaction. Can that structure end itself? Not by an imposition of
something higher which is just another trick. I say if you are
capable of observing without the observer, the brain can transform
itself. That is meditation. Sir, the essence is the whole. In
fragmentation, there is no essence of anything.
EXPLORATION INTO INSIGHT ' SELFKNOWLEDGE
AND THE TEACHING'
P: What is the relationship between your teaching, as expressed in
the words you use in your books and in your talks, and the actual
process of self-knowing? In all other ways of arriving at truth, the
words of the teacher are taken as an indication of a direction,
something to move towards. Are your words of the same nature
and, if so, what is their relationship to the perceptive process of
self-knowing?
K: I wonder whether I have understood the question. Am I right
if I put it this way: What is the relationship between the word and
the actuality that K is talking about? Is that it?
P: When K talks about discipline, or talks about the holistic
approach, that is the word. Then there is the actual process of selfknowing
and what is revealed in self-knowing. What is the
relationship of K's word to this revealed knowing?
K: I don't quite catch this.
P: You say `no authority', no psychological or spiritual
authority. We have a tendency to take that expression `no authority'
and apply it to our lives; which is, not be in that state, not discover
freedom from authority in the process of self-knowing, but simply
to try to see whether we can reach a state of non-authority. We take
your word as the truth.
K: I understand. `No authority,' is it an abstraction of words and
therefore an idea and then one pursues that idea? When K says `no
authority', is it self-revealing, or is it merely a conclusion, a
slogan?
A: There is also another side: when you say `no authority', does
it become a commandment, a commandment to which one tries the
nearest approximation? K: Yes, that's right.
A: One is in the field of action, and the other is in the field of
abstraction.
P: There is self-knowing; that which is revealed in the process
of self-knowing is not knowable through the word. One hears you
speak, one takes in what you say, or one reads your books and
applies it to one's daily life; therefore there is a gap between selfknowing
and your word. Now, where does truth lie?
K: Neither in the word nor in the self-revealing. It is completely
apart.
P: Can we discuss that?
K: I listen to K and he talks about self-knowing and lays
emphasis on self-knowing, how important it is, that without selfknowing
there is no foundation. He says this. I listen to it. In what
manner do I listen to that statement? Do I listen to it as an idea, a
commandment, a conclusion? Or is it that in my self-knowing, I
realize the implications of authority and therefore see that what he
says tallies with what I discover for myself? If I listen to the word
and draw a conclusion about that word as an idea and pursue the
idea, then it is not self-revealing. It is merely a conclusion. But
when I am studying myself, when I am pursuing my own thoughts,
then in the words of K there is a self-discovery?
P: Now, is the word of K necessary to self-discovery?
K: No. I make a statement: without self-knowing whatever I
think whatever I do or proceed with, has no basis. So I come to talk
or read a book because I am interested in self-knowing and I
pursue that. And when I hear K talking about `no authority', what is
the state of my mind when I hear those words? Is it one of
acceptance, is it a conclusion which I draw, or is it a fact?
P: How does it become a fact? Does it become a fact through
the discovery of that in the perceptive process of self-knowing? Or
is it a fact because you have said so? K: The microphone is a fact.
It is not because I say it is the microphone.
P: But when you say `microphone', it is not a fact in the same
sense as the microphone is a fact.
K: So, the word is not the thing. The description is not that
which is described. So, am I clear on that point, that the word is
never the thing? The word `mountain' is not the mountain. Am I
clear on that? Or is the description good enough for me and I get
entangled in the description? Do I accept the description wanting
that which is described and clinging to the idea? Don't reject the
verbal structure altogether. I use language to communicate; I want
to tell you something. I use words which we both know. But we
both know that the words we use are not the actual feeling which I
have. So the word is not the thing.
D: One talks either through the mental process or one talks
without the mental process.
K: Sir, they are two different points. Either you communicate
through the word or you communicate without the word.
D: No, words are there; but when we listen to you, we know
you are not talking the way we talk.
K: Why do you say that?
D: It is a difficult question, but it is a definite feeling as factual
as seeing a microphone. K is not talking the way I talk, the source
of his words lies much deeper than the words we use.
K: I understand, sir. I can say superficially, `I love you', but I
can also say `I really love you'. It is quite a different thing - the
tone, the quality of the word, the depth of the feeling. The words
convey the depth.
D: I will go a little further.
K: Go further.
D: They really convey a deep feeling which is indefinable,
which we call love - but I do not know the word for it. K: You may
not know the word, yet I may hold your hand, I may make a
gesture.
D: That's true. But now between the gesture and the word, there
is no linkage.
K: Is that what you are trying to convey, Pupul?
P: One of our difficulties, in understanding and going beyond, is
that one takes your word, either the spoken word or the written
word, and it becomes an abstraction to which one approximates.
Then, on the other hand, there is the process of self-knowing in
which the truth of your word can be revealed; but it does not
normally happen that way. It always seems to me that listening to
you without obstacle may bring about a change in the nature of my
mind as such, but the discovery of the actuality of the words you
use, can only be revealed in the process of self-knowing.
K: What am I to say to that?
P: Sir, I think first of all we should investigate self-knowing.
We have not done it for a very long time.
K: Let us do that. `Self-knowing' was being spoken about,
thousands of years ago, by Socrates and by others before him.
Now, what is self-knowing? How do you know yourself? What is it
to know oneself? Do you know yourself from the observation of
experience; from the observation of a thought and from that
thought the observation of another thought springing up, and we
are reluctant to let go the first thought, so that there is a conflict
between the first thought and the second thought? Or is selfknowing
to relinquish the first thought and pursue the second
thought and then the third thought that arises dropping the second,
following the third; dropping the third and following the fourth; so
that there is a constant alertness and awareness of the movement of
thought? Now, let's proceed. I observe myself being jealous. The
instinctual response to jealousy is rationalization. In the process of
rationalization I have forgotten, or put aside, jealousy. So I am
caught in rationalization, in words, in the capacity to examine and
then to suppress. I see the whole move- ment as one unit. Then
arises the desire to run away from it. I examine that desire, that
escape. It is an escape into what?
P: Sometimes escape into meditation.
K: Of course, that is the easier trick - into meditation. So, I say,
what is meditation? Is it an escape from `what is'? Is that
meditation? It is not meditation, if it is an escape. So, I go back and
examine my jealousy: why am I jealous? because I am attached,
because I think I am important and so on. This whole process is
revelation. Then I come to the point: Is the examiner, the observer,
different from the observed? Obviously he is not. So true
observation is when there is no observer.
P: You said, `Obviously he is not'. Let us go into that.
K: The observer is the past; he is the past, the remembrance, the
experience, the knowledge stored up in memory. The past is the
observer and I observe the present which is my jealousy, my
reaction. And I use the word 'jealousy' for that feeling because I
recognize it as having happened in the past. It is a remembrance of
jealousy through the word which is part of the past. So, can I
observe without the word and without the observer which is the
past? Does the word bring that feeling or is there feeling without
the word? All this is part of self-knowledge.
P: How does one observe without the word?
K: Without the observer, without a remembrance. That is very
important.
P: How does one actually tackle the problem of the observer?
A: May I say that in the watching of the observer, there is also
the disapproval or the approval of the observer of himself.
K: That is the past. That is his conditioning. That is the whole
movement of the past, which is contained in the observer.
A: That condemnation is the barrier.
K: That is what Pupul is asking. She says: How do I observe the
observer? What is the process of observing the observer? I hear K
say that the observer is the past. Is that so?
Par: In asking such a question, another observer is created.
K: No, I do not create anything. I am merely observing. The
question is, what is the observer? - who is the observer? How do I
observe this microphone? I observe it through a word that we have
used to indicate that it is a microphone; it is registered in the brain
as a microphone, as remembrance; I use that word to convey the
fact of the microphone. That's simple enough.
P: Does one observe the observer?
K: I am coming to that. How does one observe the observer?
You don't.
P: Is it the inability to observe the observer which gives one the
understanding of the nature of the observer?
K: No. You do not observe the observer. You only observe
`what is' and the interference of the observer. You say you
recognize the observer. You see the difference? Just go slowly.
There is jealousy. The observer comes in and says: `I have been
jealous in the past; I know what that feeling is.' So I recognize it
and it is the observer. You cannot observe the observer by itself.
There is the observation of the observer only in its relationship to
the observed. When the observer arrests the observation, then there
is awareness of the observer. You cannot observe the observer by
itself. You can only observe the observer in relation to something.
That is fairly clear. At the moment of feeling there is neither the
observer nor the observed, there is only that state. Then the
observer comes in and says, that is jealousy and he proceeds to
interfere with that which is, he runs away from it, suppresses it,
rationalizes it,justifies it, or escapes from it. Those movements
indicate the observer in relation to that which is.
FW: At the moment when the observer exists, is there a
possibility of observation of the observer?
K: That is what we are saying. I am angry or violent. At the
moment of violence there is nothing. There is neither you the
observer nor the observed. There is only that state of violence.
Then the observer comes in which is the movement of thought.
Thought is the past - there is no new thought - and that movement
of thought interferes with the present. That interference is the
observer and you study the observer only through that interference.
It tries to escape from what is irrational in violence, to justify it and
so on, which are all traditional approaches to the present. The
traditional approach is the observer.
P: In a sense, therefore, the observer manifests itself only in
terms of escaping from the present.
K: Escapes, or rationalizations.
D: Or interference.
K: Any form of interference with the present is the action of the
observer. Don't accept this. Tear it to pieces, find out.
Par: If there is no past, is there no interference?
K: No, that is not the point. What is the past?
Par: The accumulated, stored contents of my experience.
K: Which is what? Your experiences, your inclinations and
motives, all that is the movement of the past, which is knowledge.
Movement of the past can only take place through knowledge,
which is the past. So the past interferes with the present; the
observer comes into operation. If there is no interference, there is
no observer, there is only observation.
In observation there is neither the observer nor the idea of
observation. This is very important to understand. There is neither
observer nor the idea of not having an observer; which means there
is only pure observation without the word, without the recollection
and association of the past. There is nothing, only observation.
FW: In that way is the observation of the observer possible?
K: No, I said: The observation of the observer comes only when
the past interferes. The past is the observer. When that past
interferes with the present, the observer is in action. It is only then
that you become aware that there is an observer. Now, when you
see that, when you have an insight into that, then there is no
observer, there is only observation.
So can I observe `no authority' per se, not because you have told
me?
P: No, I can only observe one thing: the movement of authority.
I can never observe `no authority'.
K: Of course not. But there is the observation of authority; the
observation of authority which is in the demand from another for
enlightenment; the leaning on, the attachment to another, all that is
a form of authority. And is there `authority' in operation in my
brain, in my mind, in my being? `Authority' may be experience,
knowledge depending on the past - a vision and so on. Is there an
observation of the movement of thought as `authority'?
P: What is important? Is it the observation of every movement
of my human mind, of my consciousness, or is it the attempt to
discover in my consciousness the truth, the actuality of what you
are saying? It is a very subtle thing. I do not know how to put it.
S: Can I put it this way? For instance, I observe hurt.
K: Do you observe hurt because K said it?
S: I see that I am hurt. I see the emergence of hurt. The
observation of the hurt is something which I can do as part of selfknowing.
But where do I create authority? When Krishnaji says:
`Once you see hurt it is over,' it is then that I create authority. Then
I project a certain state, a movement towards that state, because I
do not want to be caught in the trap of constant observation of hurt.
But there are several other factors in consciousness. I see that
instead of the observation of hurt, I hear from time to time a person
saying that the observation of the hurt without the observer is the
ending of hurt. That is where I create authority.
K: I understand. I observe the hurt and all the consequences of
the hurt, how that hurt has come into being and so on. I am aware
of the whole process of that hurt and in my mind I hear K saying,
once you see that in its entirety, holistically, then it is over, you
will never be hurt. He has said that.
S: It is there in my consciousness.
K: What is in your consciousness? The word?
S: Apart from the word, the state which he communicated when
he uttered that, because when K is talking, he seems to indicate a
`state' beyond the word.
K: Sunanda, look: I am hurt. I know I am hurt. By listening to
you I see the consequences of all that - the withdrawal, the
isolation, the violence, all that I see. Do I see it because you have
pointed it out to me? Or do I see it though you have pointed it out
to me?
S: Obviously the fact is there, you have come into my life and I
have listened to you.
K: Then the question arises; K says once you see it fully,
holistically, then the whole hurt is over. Where is the authority
there?
S: Authority is there because it affirms a state which I would
like to have.
K: Then examine that state which is ambition, which is desire.
P: I would like to examine your use of the word `holistic' and
also enquire into something you have said, which is: Can you hold
hurt and remain with it - that is, holistically? What is involved in
holding?
K: I am hurt. I know why I am hurt. I am aware of the image
that is hurt and the consequences of that hurt - the escape, the
violence, the narrowness, the fear, the isolation, the withdrawal, the
anxiety, and all the rest of it. How am I aware of it? Is it because
you have pointed it out to me? Or I am aware of it, I see it and I am
moving with you? In that there is no authority. I am not separate
from what you are saying. That's where the catch is.
S: Up to a point there is movement with you. K: I am moving
with you.
D: So your word is like a pointer.
K: No, no.
S: So long as I am moving with you, there is a relationship.
K: The moment I break that relationship, then begins my
question: How am I to do it? If I am following exactly what you
are saying - seeing that the image is hurt and then the escape, the
violence - I am moving with you. It is like an orchestra, an
orchestra of words, an orchestra of feeling, the whole thing is
moving. As long as I am moving with you, there is no
contradiction. Then you say `Once you see this as a whole, the
thing is over - 'am I with you?
S: It has not happened.
K: I will tell you why. Because you have not listened.
S: You mean to say that I have not listened for twenty years?
K: It doesn't matter. One day is good enough. You have not
listened. You are listening to the word, and you are carrying along
the reaction. You are not moving with him.
R: Is there a difference between that listening and the holistic
view?
K: No. Listen. Can you listen in the sense of no interpretation,
no examination, no comparison?
R: No expectation.
K: Nothing, just listening. I am listening. It is like two rivers
moving together there as one river. But I do not listen that way. I
have heard you say `holistically' and I want to get that. Therefore I
am no longer listening because I want that.
R: Therefore, the question of how to remain with whatever is, is
a wrong question, isn't it?
K: I am remaining with it. R: Yes, but the question itself is a
movement away from remaining with it.
K: Of course.
P: There is a feeling of intensity of sorrow and an observation to
see that this sorrow is not dissipated by any movement away from
it. In a moment of crisis there is an intensity of energy and to
remain with it totally, the only action is the refusal to move away
from it. Is that valid?
R: Does it not mean that one can only watch every movement
which is away from it and not to say how am I to remain with it?
P: Sorrow arises and it fills you. That is the way it operates
when it is something very deep. What is the action on that? What is
the action that will enable it to flower without dissipation?
K: If it fills you, actually, if your whole being is filled with that
extraordinary energy called sorrow and there is no escape; but the
moment you move away in any direction, it is a dissipation of that
energy. Are you filled with that energy which is called sorrow
completely, or is there a part of you, somewhere in you, where
there is a loophole?
R: I think there is always a loophole because there is a fear of
anything filling one's whole being. I think that fear is there.
K: So, sorrow has not filled your being.
R: No, that is so.
K: That is a fact. So you pursue not sorrow but fear. The fear
what might happen, etc. So you go into that, you forget sorrow and
go into that.
D: The use of the word `holistic' implies actuality. Actuality
itself is the whole.
K: No, no. Sir, let us understand the meaning of the word
`holistic'. Whole means healthy, physically healthy. Then it means
sanity, mentally and physically and from that arises holy. All that
is implied in the word `holistic' or `whole'. D: This is clear for the
first time.
K: When you have very good health and when the brain
emotionally, intellectually, is sane without any quirk, without any
neurotic movement, it is holy. That is the holistic approach. If there
is a quirk, an idiosyncrasy, a belief, it is not whole, - so clean it up,
do not talk about holistic. The holistic happens when there is
sanity, health.
(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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