Way of Intelligence

Way of Intelligence
By J. Krishnamurti
E-Text Source: www.jkrishnamurti.org

Index
Chapter 1, Discussion With Buddhists at Varanasi 1978
    Illusion and Intelligence - 13th November 1978
Chapter 2, Seminars at Madras 1981
    Part 1 - In Listening Is Transformation - 14th January 1981
    Part 2 - In Listening Is Transformation - 15th January 1981
    Part 3 - In Listening Is Transformation - 16th January 1981
Chapter 3, Seminars at New Delhi 1981
    Part 1 - The Future of Man - 4th November 1981
    Part 2 - The Future of Man - 5th November 1981
    Part 3 - The Future of Man - 5th November 1981
Chapter 4, Seminars at Madras 1979
    Part 1 - The Nature of A Religious Life - 2nd January 1979
    Part 2 - The Nature of A Religious Life - 3rd January 1979
    Part 3 - The Nature of A Religious Life - 4th January 1979
Chapter 5, Seminars at Madras 1978
    Part 1 - Insights Into Regeneration - 13th January 1978
    Part 2 - Insights Into Regeneration - 14th January 1978
    Part 3 - Insights Into Regeneration - 14th January 1978
Chapter 6, Seminars at Rishi Valley 1980
    Part 1 - Intelligence, Computers & Mechanical Mind - 1st February 1980
    Part 2 - Intelligence, Computers & Mechanical Mind - 4th December 1980
    Part 3 - Intelligence, Computers & Mechanical Mind - 30th December 1980
    Part 4 - Intelligence, Computers & Mechanical Mind - 31st December 1982

Acknowledgement
The copyright of this book is held by Krishnamurti Foundations. We are providing this e-book solely for non-commercial usage as a noble service. The printed book can be purchased from Krishnamurti Foundations.

Chapter 1
Discussion With Buddhists Varanasi
13th November 1978
Illusion and Intelligence

Rimpoche: Sir, when the observer observes, he is the matrix of thought, of memories. So long as the observer is observing from this matrix, it is not possible for him to see without naming, because that naming arises out of that matrix. How then can the observer free himself from this matrix?

Krishnamurti: I would like to know whether we are discussing this as a theoretical problem, an abstraction, or as something that has to be faced directly without theories?

Jagannath Upadhyaya: This question is directly connected with one's daily life.

K: Sir, who is the observer? We take it for granted that the observer is born of the matrix, or that he is the matrix. Or, is the observer the whole movement of the past? Is this a fact to us or an idea? Does the observer himself realize that he is the whole movement of the past? And that as long as he is observing, that which is being observed can never be accurate? I think this is an important question. Can the observer, who is the whole movement of the past, with all his conditioning, ancient and modern, be aware of himself as being conditioned?

Achyut Patwardhan: The observer when he looks at a fact, looks with his old conditioning, samskar. And so he cannot see the fact as it is.

J.U.: Can we accept this?

K: Are we all on the same level as Rimpocheji, who has asked this question: The observer is made up of the past and as long as he is rooted in the past, is he able to see the truth of a fact? If he is not aware of himself as the observer who is conditioned, there will be a contradiction between himself and the thing which is being observed, contradiction being a division.

A.P.: As long as he does not see this clearly, there will be conflict in the act of seeing.

K: Sir, the question arises then: Is it possible for the observer to understand himself and discover his limitations, his conditioning, and so not interfere with the observation?

RMP: That is the basic problem. Whenever we try to observe, the observer is always interfering in the observation. I would like to know whether there is a method to cut off the `me' which is interfering.

K: The observer is the practice, the system, the method. Because he is the result of all past practices, methods, experiences, knowledge, the routine, the mechanical process of repetition, he is the past. Therefore, if you introduce another system, method, practice, it is still within the same field.

RMP.: Then how can it be done?

K: We are coming to that. Let us first see what we are doing. If we accept a method, a system, the practising of it will make the observer more mechanical. Any system will only strengthen the observer.

J.U.: Then this leads to a deadlock.

K: No. On the contrary. That is why I said, does the observer realize he is the result of all experience, of the past and the present. In that experience is included methods, systems, practices, the various forms of sadhana. And you now ask, is there a further series of practices, methods, systems, which means that you are continuing in the same direction.

J.U.: I feel that it is not only possible to reject the past totally but the present as well. The past can be negated by observation, but the power of the present will not go unless the past is negated. One is concerned with the present moment.

A.P.: The present and the past are actually one. They are not separate.

J.U.: Therefore, we should negate the present. The roots of the past will be negated when the present is broken.

A.P.: You mean by the present, this moment, this present moment of observation?

K: This present moment in observation is the observation of the whole movement of the past. What is the action necessary to put an end to that movement? Is that the question?

J.U.: What I am saying is, it is on this moment of time that the past rests and on this moment that we build the edifice of the future. So, to be completely free of either the past or the future, it is necessary to break the moment in the present, so that the past has no place in which to rest and no point from which the future could be projected. Is this possible?

K: How is this movement of the past which is creating the present, modifying itself as it moves, and which becomes the future, to end?

J.U.: By the process of observation we negate the past. By negating the past we also negate the present. And we cease to build the future based on the desires created by the past. Only observation remains. But even this moment of observation is a moment. Unless we break that, we are not free from the possibility of the rising of the past and the creation of the future. Therefore, the present moment, the moment of observation, has to be broken.

K: Are you saying, sir, that in the state of attention now, in the now, the past ends; but that the very observation which ends the past has its roots in the past?

J.U.: This is not what I am saying. I do not accept the position that the past creates the present or the present the future. In the process of observation, past and future history are both dissolved. But the question is that again the histories of the past and the future touch on this moment, this existent moment. Unless this moment itself is negated, the past and the future are again restored to activity.

To make it clear, I would like to call it `existence', the moment of `is'-ness. One has to break this moment of `is' ness, and then all these tendencies, whether they reflect the past or project the future, are broken. Is this possible?

K: This question has special relevance for you. I want to understand the question before I answer. I am just asking, not answering: The past is a movement. It has stopped with attention. And with the ending of the past, can that second, that moment, that event, itself disappear?
J.U.: I would like to make it more clear: This moment is an `existent' moment.

K: The moment you use the word `existence', it has a connotation. We must look at it very carefully.

Pupul Jayakar: It is not stable.

J.U.: I would like to call this moment kshana bindu, the moment of time. The `suchness' of the moment, the `is' ness of the moment, has to be broken. Is this possible? In the movement of observation there is neither the past nor the possibility of the future. I do not even call it the moment of observation because it does not have any power of existence. Where there is no past or future, there cannot also be any present.

K: May I put this question differently? I am the result of the past. The `me' is the accumulation of memories, experience, knowledge - which is the past. The `me' is always active, always in momentum. And the momentum is time. So, that momentum as the `me' faces the present, modifies itself as the `me' but is still the `me', and that `me' continues into the future. This is the whole movement of our daily existence. You are asking, can that movement as the `me', the centre, cease and have no future? Is that right, sir?

J.U.: Yes.

K: My question is, does the `me', which is consciousness, recognise itself as the movement of the past, or is thought imposing it as an idea - that it is the past?

J.U.: Could you repeat the question?

K: I, my ego, the centre from which I operate, this self-centredness is centuries old, millions of years old. It is the constant pressure of the past, the accumulated result of the past. The greed, the envy, the sorrow, the pain, the anxiety, the fears, the agony, all that is the `me'. Is this `me' a verbal state, a conclusion of words, or is it a fact as this microphone is a fact?

J.U.: Yes, it is so; yet it is not absolutely so. It is not self-evident.

A.P.: Why? On what is it dependent?

J.U.: When I say it is so, it is only in terms of the past or future. It is neither in the past nor in the future. I do not accept it as transcendental truth. I may accept it at the level of a day-to-day order of reality.

A.P.: But you are saying it is the creator of the context.

J.U.: `This' is a creation of the past. What is the meaning of `this'? The `me' is the history of the past.

K: Which is the story of man who has been in travail, who has struggled, who has suffered, who is frightened, who is in sorrow and so on.

P.Y. Deshpande: It is the story of the universe, not of `me'.

K: It is `me'. Don't let us pretend it is of the universe.

J.U.: The `me' is history, which can be broken by observation.

A.P.: He is saying that these facts are unrelated to the centre as the observer.

K: Existence has no self-existence. It is a descriptive statement in observing; it is not a fact.

J.U.: It is history. It has nothing to do with observation.

P.J.: He says, I am this, I am that, I am history. This is a descriptive statement. In observing, it has no existence.

K: Let us go into it quietly. The `me' is the movement of the past, the story of humanity, the history of man. And that story is `me'. It expresses itself all the time in my relationship with another. So, that past in my relationship with my wife, husband, child or friend, is the operation of the past with its images, with its pictures, and it divides my relationship with another.

J.U.: This exists prior to awareness. With awareness the moment will be broken and with it all relationships.

P.Y.D.: At the point of attention everything dissolves.

K: You are saying that at the point of attention everything disappears. But does it disappear in my relationship with my wife?

J.U.: No. This is not my experience. I have no history; I have not made any history. History is independent of the `me' or the `I'.

A.P.: He says he is the product of history, and he has accepted this identity.

K: But if you are the product of history, you are the result of the past. That past interferes with your relationship with another. And my relationship with another brings about conflict. My question is, can that conflict end now?

J.U.: Yes. It will end because the moment is broken.

P.J.: It will end in the instant of attention, and with it the totality of the past.

Radha Burnier: This is absolutely theoretical.

J.U.: I am speaking from experience. Attention is an experience, a special experience - and it denies the past.

A.P.: Attention cannot be an experience because it would then be imaginary. It is a part of the past because there is an observer separate from the observed and so there is no attention.

K: That is why, sir, I began by asking in the beginning, are we discussing theories or facts of daily life? Rimpocheji, I think your first question was, can this past history, this past movement, which is always exerting its pressure on our minds, our brains, our relations, on all our existence, end, so that it does not prevent pure observation? Can the sorrow, the fear, the pleasure, the pain, the anxiety, which is the story of man, end now, so that the past does not interfere or prevent pure observation?

RMP.: Yes. That was the original question.

K: You asked, if I understood rightly, is there a practice, a method, a system, a form of meditation, which will end the past?

RMP.: Whenever we try to observe the past, the past intervenes. At that moment, observation becomes useless. That is so according to my own experience.

K: Of course, obviously.

RMP.: Now, how to observe without the interference of the observer?

K: What is the quality or nature of the observer? When you say the observer is all the past, is he aware of himself as the past?

RMP.: I don't think so.

K: No, he is not aware.

R.B.: Or is he partially aware that he is the past?

RMP.: No. At the moment of observation he is not aware of the past.

K: For the moment we are not observing; we are examining the observer. We are asking if the observer can be aware of himself.

RMP.: You mean at the moment of observation?

K: No. Not at the moment of observation; forget the observation. I am asking whether the observer can know himself.

RMP.: Yes. He can understand the past, he can understand his conditioning.

K: Can he understand his conditioning as an outsider observing it, or is he aware of himself as being conditioned? You see the difference, sir?

RMP.: Observation by the mind of the real man, whether it is dual or it is itself - that is not clear. The awareness of self - is it a duality?

K: I don't know about duality. I don't want to use words which we don't understand. To make it much simpler: Can thought be aware of itself?

RMP.: No.

R.B.: Is it the same as saying, is one aware of envy, anger, etc., as other than oneself?

K: Am I aware that I am angry? Is there awareness of anger as it arises? Of course, there is, I can see the awakening of envy. I see a beautiful carpet, and there is envy, there is the greed for it. Now, in that knowing, is thought aware that it is envy or is envy itself aware? I am envious, I know what the meaning of the word `envy' is. I know the reaction, I know the feeling. Is that feeling the word? Does the word create that feeling? If the word `envy' did not exist, then is it envy? So, is there an observation of envy, the feeling without the word? We don't know it exactly, but is there something to which we later give a name?

P.J.: Naming which creates the feeling?

K: That is what I am saying. The word has become more important. Can you free the word from the feeling? Or does the word make the feeling? I see that carpet. There is perception, sensation, contact and thought, as the image of owning that carpet, and so desire arises. And the image which thought has created is the word. So, is there an observation of that carpet without the word, which means there is no interference of thought?

RMP.: Observation of a carpet, an outside object... It can be seen without interference.

K: Now, is it possible to observe without the word, without the past, without remembrance of previous envies?

RMP.: It is difficult.

K: If I may point out, sir, it does not become difficult. First, let us be clear: The word is not the thing; the description is not the described. But for most of us the word has become tremendously important. To us the word is thought. Without the word, is there `thinking', in the usual usage of that word? The word influences our thinking, language moulds our thinking, and our thinking is with the word, with the symbol, with the picture, and so on. Now, we are asking, can you observe that feeling that we have verbalized as envy, without the word, which means without the remembrance of past envies?

RMP.: That is the point we do not see. As soon as observation starts, the past as thought always interferes. Can we make any observation without the interference of thought?

K: I say `yes', absolutely.

J.U.: The clue to all these lies in seeing that the walker is not different from walking. Walking itself is the walker.

K: Is that a theory?

J.U.: This is not a theory. Otherwise it is not possible to have a dialogue.

K: Is this so in daily life?

J.U.: Yes. When we sit here, it is only on that level of relationship. We are here to see the fact of `what is', we are separating the actor from action. It becomes history. When we understand that the actor and acting are one, through observation, then we break history as the past.

A.P.: Are we definitely clear that there is no distinction between relationship and the fact of relationship?

J.U.: I must make myself clear. There is a bullock cart and it is loaded. All that is loaded on the cart, where does it rest, what does it stand on? It is resting on that point of the earth, the point of the wheel which is in contact with the point of the earth. It is on that point that the whole load rests. Life is a point on which history as the past rests - past and future. That present existent moment, when I hold it in the field of observation, is broken. Therefore, the load and the bullock cart are broken.

A.P.: When you say it is broken, is that attention your experience? If what you say is a fact, then Rimpoche's question should have been answered. If his question has not been answered, then what has been said is theoretical.

RMP.: This does not answer my question.

K: Sir, your question in the beginning was, can the past end? It is a very simple question because all our life is the past. It is the story of all humanity, the enormous length, depth, volume, of the past. And we are asking a very simple but very complex question: Can that vast story with all its tremendous volume, like a tremendous river with a great deal of water flowing, come to an end?

First of all, do we recognise the immense volume of it - not the words, but the actual volume of it? Or is it just a theory that it is the past? Do you understand my question, sir? Does one recognise the great weight of the past? Then the question arises, what is the value of this past? Which is, what is the value of knowledge?

RMP.: It is the point of realization.

A.P.: The factual realization is impossible because at this point thought comes in.

K: There is no realization because thought interferes. Why? Why should thought interfere when you are asking me the question: What place has knowledge in my life?

RMP.: It may have its own utility.

K: Yes, knowledge has its limited place. Psychologically, it has no place. Why has knowledge, the past, taken over the other field?

P.J.: Sir, what is it that you seek by this question? I am asking this because the receiving of this question is also in the field of knowledge.

K: No. That is why I am asking you a very simple question: Why should knowledge take a place in my relationship with another? Is relationship with another a remembrance? Remembrance means knowledge. My relationship with her, or with you, becomes a remembrance - as, for instance, `You have hurt me; `She has praised me; then `She is my friend', `You are not my friend'. When relationship is based on memory, remembrance, there is division and conflict. Therefore, there is no love. How is this memory, remembrance, which prevents love, to come to an end in relationship?

A.P.: The original question that we started with has ended in a new question.

K: I am doing it now: What is the function of the brain?

RMP.: To store memory.

K: Which means what? To register, like a tape-recorder. Why should it register anything except what is absolutely necessary? I must register where I live, how to drive a car. There must be registration of the things that have utility. Why should it register when she insults me, or you praise me? It is that registration that is the story of the past - the flattery, the insult. I am asking, can't that be stopped?

RMP.: When I am thinking, it is very difficult...

K: I am going to show you it is not difficult.

RMP.: Sir, you say why not register only what is necessary, but the brain does not know what is necessary. That is why it goes on registering.

K: No, no.

RMP.: The registering is involuntary.

K: Of course.

RMP.: Then how can we register only that which is necessary?

K: Why has it become involuntary? What is the nature of the brain? It needs security - physical security - because otherwise it cannot function. It must have food, clothes and shelter. Is there any other form of security? Thought has invented other forms of security: I am a Hindu, with my gods. Thought has created the illusion and in that illusion the brain seeks shelter, security. Now, does thought realize that the creation of the gods, etc. is an illusion, and, therefore, put it away, so that I don't go to a church, perform religious rituals, because they are all the products of thought in which the brain has found some kind of illusory security?

J.U.: The moment of self-protection is also the past. To break that habit of self-protection is also a point. It is that point on which the whole of existence rests. This atma which is samskriti must also be negated. This is the only way out.

K: For survival, physical survival, not only of you and me but of humanity, why do we divide ourselves as Hindu, Muslim, communist, socialist, Catholic?

RMP.: This is the creation of thought, which is illusory.

K: Yet we hold on to it. You call yourself a Hindu. Why?

RMP.: It is for survival, a survival reflex.

K: Is it survival?

A.P.: It is not, because it is the enemy of survival.

P.J.: At one level we can understand each other. But it does not end that process.

K: Because we don't use our brains to find out, to say this is so: I must survive.

P.J.: You say the brain is like a tape-recorder recording. Is there another function of the brain, another quality?
K: Yes, it is intelligence.

P.J.: How is it awakened?

K: Look, I see there is no security in nationalism, and, therefore, I am out: I am no longer an Indian. And I see there is no security in belonging to any religion; therefore, I don't belong to any religion. Now what does that mean? I have observed how nations fight each other, how communities fight each other, how religions fight each other, the stupidity of it, and the very observation awakens intelligence. Seeing that which is false is the awakening of intelligence.

P.J.: What is this seeing?

K: Observing outwardly England, France, Germany, Russia, America, are at each other's throats, I see how stupid it is. Seeing the stupidity is intelligence.

R.B.: Are you saying that as one sees this, the unnecessary recording comes to an end?

K: Yes. I am no longer a nationalist. That is a tremendous thing.

Sunanda Patwardhan: You mean if we cease to be nationalists, all unnecessary recording stops?

K: Yes, with regard to nationalism.

R.B.: Do you mean to say that when one sees that security or survival is an absolute minimum and eliminates everything else, then the recording stops?

K: Of course, naturally.

J.U.: One song has ended and another has started; a new song has been recorded on the old. It will go on. The old destructive music will keep on breaking and the new music which is good, which is right, will take over. Is this the future of humanity?

K: No, you see, this is theory. Have you stopped being a Buddhist?

J.U.: I don't know. The past as history has shaped the image in my brain. My being a Buddhist is the past - a historical past.

K: Then drop it - which means you see the illusion of being a Buddhist.

J.U.: That is correct.

K: Seeing the illusion is the beginning of intelligence.

J.U.: But we would like to see that when one thing breaks another does not form.

K: Could we tackle this differently? We are surrounded by false illusory things. Must we go step by step, one after another? Or is there a way of looking at this whole illusion and ending it? To see the whole movement of illusion, the movement of thought which creates illusions and, seeing it, to end it - is that possible?

J.U.: This is possible.

K: Is it a theory? The moment we enter into theory, then it is meaningless.

J.U.: If we can break the self-protective process, then this is possible. The form of this process will then undergo a change; but the self-protective process itself will not end. When we think that something has existence, even that is an illusion. Thousands of such illusions break and thousands of new ones come into being. That is not sadhana; this happens all the time. So far we have been talking only of the gross illusions; these certainly break. But a new image is continually shaping itself. It is making its own thought structures.

A.P.: What he is saying is that this process of negating gives place to the arising of new, subtler illusions.

K: No. Thought being limited, whatever it creates is limited - whatever: gods, knowledge, experience, everything is limited. Do you see that thought is limited and its activity is limited? If you see that, it is finished; there is no illusion, no further illusion.

RMP.: This point, this thought, again arises.

K: That is why I said, sir, thought must find its own proper place, which is utility, and it has no other place. If it has any other place, it is illusion. Thought is not love. Does love exist? You agree thought is limited, but do you love people? I don't want theories. What is the point of all this? What is the point of all your knowledge, Gita, Upanishads, and all the rest of it? Have we made ourselves clear, or are we still at the verbal level?

RMP.: No, not at the verbal level.

K: When we have really discovered the limitations of thought, there is a flowering of something else. Is it really happening? Does that take place?

RMP.: I can now recognise the limitations of thought more poignantly.

Chapter 2

Part 1
1st Seminar Madras
14th January 1981
In Listening Is Transformation

Achyut Patwardhan: Reflective minds have come to realize that there is a certain degeneration at the very source of the human brain. Would it be possible for us to explore this source of degeneration?

Is it possible for us to start our exploration with a mind which says, `I see the fact of degeneration, I don't know its causes, I am willing to explore'?

Brij Khare: I am wondering whether we can discover the tools we are going to use in order to explore; what really are the tools we need to enter into such an enquiry?

P.J.: Is the brain the tool of enquiry and are we enquiring into the movement of the brain? Does the tool then enquire into itself?

B.K.: Is it characteristic of the human brain or mind to be an observer of itself?

A.P.: Is it possible to cleanse the brain of the source of pollution?

P.J.: Can we take these two questions together? Are the tools which are available to us adequate to explore the nature of this movement? If they are of the essence of pollution, can they investigate pollution? Therefore, should we not investigate the tools?

B.K.: I was also wondering, is it really a question of tools or can we directly see disorder? We can then ask what evolves from that. Degeneration somehow seems to imply a time scale. Clearly there is disorder.

Q: Will the examination of the tools by itself take us anywhere?

P.J.: I do not think the two questions are independent of each other.

A.P.: I discover that the tools are inadequate, and I put them aside, I say I can only see that there is this very rapid process of degeneration which threatens human survival. Now, how do we understand this?

P.J.: We said there is a state of degeneration, both outside and within, that this is part of the very condition of man, the degenerative process having accelerated and, therefore, degeneration being at our doorstep and within one. We start with the query, with what instruments do we enquire. Unless one asks this question we will keep on going round the circle of degeneration.

K.: I think all of us agree that there is degeneration, that there is corruption - moral, intellectual and also physical. There is chaos, confusion, misery, despair. To think is to be full of sorrow. Now, how do we approach this present condition? Do we approach it as a Christian, as a Buddhist, or a Hindu or Muslim, or as a communist? Or do we approach the problem without taking a stand, a position? The communist agrees that sorrow is the burden of mankind, but if one is to change that sorrow one must recondition society. If we could put aside all our stands, positions, then perhaps we can really look at the problem of degeneration.

The problem is very serious. Knowledge either of the technological world or of the psychological world, or knowledge handed down through tradition, books and so on, appears to be at the root of all degeneration. Let us discuss this. I see this chaos throughout the world, there is uncertainty, utter confusion and despair. How do we approach it? It is quite clear that I have no answer to this problem of degeneration within me. I imagine I have read Vedanta and the answer is in that; I imagine I am a Marxist and that there is an answer in that, and that only some modifications in the system are necessary. These positions would vitiate enquiry. Therefore, I don't want to say anything beyond what is based on observable fact.

P.J.: Krishnaji has brought an element into this enquiry which demands a great deal of examination, which is that knowledge per se - technological knowledge, skill, all that the human brain has acquired through millennia - is itself the source of degeneration. First, I must see that challenge. And how do I see the challenge, how do I respond to it?

Q: The challenge may be utterly false.

P.J.: I must discover the truth or untruth of it.

B.K.: I still say that perhaps we are anatomically, biologically, physiologically, inadequate to deal with the situation and we do not have appropriate tools. What I am enquiring is, is there a root cause for all this?

K: What is the root cause? Can we find out what is? We are not examining the symptoms; we all know the symptoms. Can we find out through sceptical investigation what is the effect of knowledge on our minds, on our brains? This has to be examined, and then the root cause will be uncovered. Can we find a different approach?

J.U.: There are two points from which we look at this problem: one is that of the individual and the other is that of society. Problems arise because the individual feels he is intrinsically free, but at the same time there is a dimension of him which is in interaction with society. The individual himself is, partly, an entity but, largely, he is the product of society. In order to examine the question, we have to draw attention to the problems of the individual and society separately. The individual in relation to himself on the one hand, and the individual in relation to society on the other, are really processes within society. I would not like to go back to the ancient past - I am confining myself to the last three to four hundred years of civilization. I want to stress that the problem lies in the nature of the relationship between the individual and society. There are moments when the individual acquires a greater importance, and moments when society acquires greater importance. What is the nature of the relationship of one to the other, and how are the balances disturbed? Is it in the transmission of knowledge or experience that one has to see the relationship between them?

K: I question whether there is an individual, whether society is not an abstraction. What is actual is human relationship. You may call that relationship society, but the fact is, it is relationship between you and another, intimate or otherwise. Let us find out whether we are individuals or we are programmed to think we are individuals. I am questioning very deeply whether the concept of the individual is actual. You think you are an individual and you act as one and from this arise problems and then you pose the question of relationship between society and the individual. But society is a total abstraction. What is real, actual, is the relationship between two human beings - which is society.

J.U.: Do you say that the individual is not? There are two levels of delusion at which one is working.

P.J.: Upadhyayaji says that the individual is not, but he deludes himself that he is. Society is not, but there is a delusion that society is. While the two delusions - of individual's existence and society's existence - `exist', there is conflict between the two which must also be resolved.

G. Narayan: Though the individual is an illusion and society is an illusion, we have made a reality out of them and all the effects are there.

K: Are you saying that the brain has been programmed as the individual, with its expressions, freedom, fulfilment, with society opposed to the individual? Are you admitting that the brain has been programmed? Don't call it a relationship; it is programmed to think in that way. Therefore, it is not illusion. Programming is an illusion, not what is programmed.

A.P.: To say that the individual is an illusion or society is an illusion is to say that we have created an imaginary problem which we are discussing speculatively. Actually, we are discussing the condition of man. The condition of man is a fact; he is degenerating, he is selfish, unhappy, in conflict, and is on the point of destroying himself. This cannot be denied. Krishnaji says to the traditionalists and to the Marxists that they are programmed.

P.J.: Achyutji, you are missing the point. Krishnaji says, don't call it illusion, it is not an illusion in that sense. The brain has not created it. The brain itself is that, because it has been programmed to be that.

K: If you call it illusion, then the programmed is the illusion. So if you stop programming the brain, which is illusion, you wipe out the whole thing. The computer is programmed and we are programmed.

J.U.: If I wipe that out, then what is relationship?

K: Not ifs and buts. Do we actually see the fact, not the theory of the fact, that we are not individuals?

RMP.: Whenever we speak of relationship, we are taking for granted that there are two points, between which we speak of relationship. My assumption is that before we examine relationship, we must examine the two points. To speak about relationship without the two points becomes merely academic.

B.K.: Does it include the animal, animalistic mind? If yes, then we cannot talk about the last three or four hundred years only - we must go back to the time when we were living in trees.

K: What is the point, sir?

P.J.: The whole point is in your saying that the brain is programmed. Where do we go from there? You have been saying that self-centred activity, the individual as he is, elaborated a little more, has to be negated at every point. But when we observe, whether it is the outer or the inner - sometimes the outer predominates, sometimes the inner - the interaction between the two is always evident. You can call it individual and society, or anything else, but there are always the two; I create it. This is the point. Therefore, as Rimpocheji says, we cannot wipe out the individual and just talk of relationship, we cannot because we have to examine the two points.

K: I question that. I am saying there is only relationship.

P.J.: Are you taking relationship out of the context of the two?

K: Yes. That is, the brain relating itself to the past. The brain is the past.

P.J.: Then, who is relating to whom?

K: It is not relating to anybody. It is functioning within its own circle, within its own area. This is obvious.

S.P.: But, sir, this brain is relating to other brains with which it has certain similarities.

P.J.: Sunanda, did you hear what he said - that you are never relating to another, that the brain itself creates the `other' and then relates to that?

K: Can you repeat what I said?

G.N.: You are saying that there is no relationship because the brain creates the `other' and then relates to it. In fact, there is only the human brain.

K: The brain is only concerned with itself, its own security, its own problems, its own sorrow, and the `other' is also this. The brain is never related to anything. There is no `other'. The `other' is the image created by thought which is the brain.

R.B.: Are you saying that relationship itself is part of the programming?

K: No. Let us move from that word `programme'.

R.B.: There is no `other' and no relationship.

K: No. Relationship is always between two.

S: Do you mean to say there is no `other'?

K: You exist, but my relationship with you is based on the image I have created of you. Therefore, my relationship is with the image which I have.

B.K.: But part of the brain is also questioning it.

K: Let us get this clear. My relation to you is based on the thought which I have about you, the image that I have created about you. The relationship is not with you, but with the image that I have. Therefore, there is no relationship.

B.K.: What I do not understand is, how does the programming come in?

K: Sir, the computer is programmed. It will believe in god, it will believe in the Vedas, believe in anything it has been told. My brain has also been programmed that I am a Hindu, I am Christian, I believe in god, I don't believe in god. Leave it for the moment. We are saying there is no `other'. Therefore, there is no relationship with `other'.

A.P.: I question this.

K: I am examining this. My brain is the common brain of humanity; it is not my brain. The common brain, which has existed for five to ten million years, has through experience, knowledge, etc., established for itself an image of the world - and also of my wife. My wife is only there for my pleasure, my loneliness; she exists as an image in me which thought has created. Therefore, there is no relationship. But if I actually see that and change the whole movement, then perhaps we may know what love is. Then relationship is totally different.

A.P.: You have stated something. Is this a description or a fact?

K: It is a description to communicate a fact. Question the fact, not the description.

A.P.: I am questioning the fact. I say the fact is that the world is full of people. They are divided into nationalities, etc. I cannot permit an over simplification of a situation in which the problem itself is reduced to what is happening in the brain - because I say something is happening outside, something is happening within me and there is an interaction, and that, that is the problem.

K: You are saying that there is an interaction between my psychological world and the world. I am saying there is only one world - my psychological world. It is not an over simplification; on the contrary.

Q: You said that my relationship with my wife is my ideal or image, but how does that image come about? For the coming into being of the image, you as an individual are necessary. I have created the image of her but for that she has to be out there as an object. Something has to trigger it off.

Q: You have taken away the object.

K: I have not.

P.J.: We are talking of degeneration. Anyone who has observed the mind in operation sees the validity of what Krishnaji says, that you may be physically a human being but you exist in terms of an image in my mind and my relation is to that image in my mind.

K: Therefore, there is no interaction. Therefore, there is no `you' for the `I' to interact with.

A.P.: I have a difficulty. Unless you accept the existence of the other individual, you are by implication devaluing or negating what arises as a challenge from the `other', which is as great a reality as my urges or responses. My urges and responses are no more valid than those of the other person.

Q: You are taking away the object which sets something in motion, which is a reality.

G.N.: The brain creates its own image which prevents real relationship. In fact, when the brain is relating to its own image, all the problems arise.

A.P.: Is the movement arising from the image sui generis, or is the brain a response to a challenge from outside? I say it is a response to a challenge from outside.

P.J.: The response is in the brain.

K: The brain is the centre of all the sensory reactions. I see a woman and all the sensory responses awaken. Then the brain creates the image - the woman and the man sleeping, sex, all that business. The sensory response is stored in the brain. The brain then reacts as thought, through the senses, memory and all the rest of it. Then this sensation meets a woman and all the responses, the biological responses, take place. Then the image is created. The image then becomes all-important, not the woman. The woman may be necessary for my pleasure, etc., but there is no relationship with her except the physical. This is simple enough.

A.P.: There is a certain fear lurking in my mind: Is this a process of refined self-centredness?

K: It is. I am saying that.

B.K.: Can we take one more step? Can there be a mental relationship? Images can be refined, modified, manipulated. So, can there be mental relationship?

K: Of course, the brain is doing that all the time.

P.J.: The real question then arises, what is the action or challenge or that which triggers the ending of this image-making machinery so that direct contact is possible? The trap we are caught in is, we see it is so but we continue in the same pattern.

K: This is so. Why is the brain functioning so mechanically?

P.J.: What is the challenge, what is the action which will break this mechanical functioning so that there is direct contact?

R.B.: Contact with what?

P.J.: Direct contact with `what is'.

K: Let us get this clear. The brain has been accustomed to this sensory, imaginary, movement. What will break this chain? That is the basic question.

J.U.: The implication is that everything that arises, arises out of the senses. Nothing arises out of outer challenges.

K: I said there is no outer, there is only the brain responding to certain reactions, which is knowledge.

S.: Are you saying that there is no outer and inner, but only the brain?

K: Yes.

J.U.: You have made a statement. I have listened to what you said. It is not part of my brain - that there is no outer challenge, that the image is born out of the image-making machinery of the brain itself, that the self projects the images of the other. All that you have said is not part of my brain.
K: Why?

J.U.: It is something new to me.

B.K.: It is programmed differently.

P.J.: The question is, what is your relationship to me or to Upadhyayaji or to Y? Are you not a challenge to me?

K: What do you mean by `you'?

P.J.: Krishnaji's statement or the way he has asked, or what he has been saying, to which I am listening, is it not a challenge to this very brain?

K: It is.

P.J.: If it is so, then there is a movement which is other than the movement of the brain.

K: K makes a statement. It is a challenge to you only when you can respond to it. Otherwise it is not a challenge.

P.J.: I don't understand that.

A.P.: You see, someone walking on the road makes no impression on me; there is no record and, therefore, there is no response. There is a possibility of something happening and of my not responding in any way; and there is another, that he says something and immediately it evokes a reaction.

K: Now, this is a challenge. How do you respond to challenge? As a Buddhist, as a Christian, as a Hindu, Muslim, or as a politician, etc? Either you respond at the same intensity as the challenge or you don't respond at all. To meet a challenge you and I must face each other, not bodily, but face each other.

J.U.: If you are a challenge, then why are you denying there can be a challenge from the outer?

K: That is entirely different. The outside challenge is a challenge which thought has created. The communist challenges the believer. The communist is a believer therefore, he is challenging another belief; so, it becomes a protection, a reaction against belief. That is not a challenge. The speaker has no belief. From that point he challenges, which is different from the challenge from the outside.

P.J.: What is the challenge of the no-centre?

K: If you challenge my reputation or question my belief, then I react to it because I am protecting myself and you are challenging from your image. It is a challenge between two images which thought has created. But if you challenge K, which is the challenge of absoluteness, that is entirely different.

P.J.: We need to go back to where we started...

S: My brain which is the image-making machinery responds to the other in the same way as the challenge created by a person like you. Does it not respond in the same way?
P.J.: It is so. But the question is, how is this movement to end?

K: How is this cycle of experience, knowledge, memory, thought, action - action again going back to knowledge, the circle in which you are caught - to end?

P.J.: It is really asking, how is the stream of causation to end? This process you have shown - challenge, sensation, action - does the learning of that action return and get stored?

K: Of course. Obviously. This is what we are doing.

J.U.: Does that which goes out return, or does something new return?

P.J.: It acts, and in between many causes have flowed into it. The whole thing comes back and is stored again.

G.N.: We have been saying the programme works this way - experience, knowledge, memory, action. Action further strengthens experience and this is repeated.

J.U.: In that process, what goes does not come back as it was, but something special is added to it. What is the special quality of what is added?

RMP.: In the whole thinking process, according to Upadhyayaji, there is this fixed point, which is the inner and outer. If we can discuss this, then perhaps it will be easier to understand.

G.N.: We are not denying the reality of the outer world, but there is nature, there are other human beings, there are things. Everything is real; war is real, nationality is real, the other person is real. But what we imply is: There is really no contact; only contact with our own image and this makes for no contact.

P.J.: It implies that at no point is there real freedom because, caught in this, there can be no freedom.

G.N.: This does not deny the existence of the outer world. Otherwise we go back to the me and society.

A.P.: You are not denying the outer world as things, you are denying the reality of the outer world as persons.

P.J.: No, you are denying the reality of the images that your mind has made of the outer world.

J.U.: I have accepted this, that he who makes the images is responsible for this process. He has gone that far only through a process of causation. When he returns, he returns with new experience, desires and urges. What is this new factor; from where does it come?

P.J.: How has this accumulation of knowledge taken place? That which was green has turned yellow as in a leaf, as in a fruit.

K: Sir, all that I am saying is, knowledge as it exists now, psychological knowledge, is the corruption of the brain. We understand this process very well. You ask, how is that chain to be broken? I think the central issue is psychological knowledge which is corrupting the brain and, therefore, corrupting the world, corrupting the rivers, the skies, relationships, everything. How is this chain to be broken?

Now, why do you ask that question? Why do you want to break this chain? This is a logical question. Has the breaking of the chain a cause, a motive? If it has, then you are back in the same chain. If it is causing me pain and, therefore, I want to be out of it, then I am back in the chain. If it is causing me pleasure, I will say, please leave me alone. So I must be very clear in myself. I cannot persuade you to be clear, but in myself I must have no direction or motive.

Satyendra: It is a central question and people keep on asking, `How do I break the chain?' But the question I ask is, given the brain that I have, is it possible to end the chain?

I am conscious of myself. Can I ask the question in this way - is it basically a way of looking at things? Is it a matter of reason, logic?

K: No, it is not a matter of analysis, but of plain observation of what is going on.

Sat: Without the mind forming an image?

K: The brain is the centre of all sensory responses. The sensory response has created experience, thought and action, and the brain being caught in that which is partial, is never complete. Therefore, it is polluting everything it does. If you admit that once, not as theory but as a fact, then that circle is broken.

P.J.: Practically every teaching which is concerned with the meditative processes has regarded the senses as an obstruction to the ending of this process. What role do you give to the senses in freeing the mind?

R.B.: I think what you are saying is not correct. All of them have never regarded the senses as obstruction because when they said `senses' they included the mind. They never separated the mind from the senses.

P.J.: After all, all austerities, all tapas, all yogic practices, were meant, as I have understood them, to see that the movement of the senses towards the object was destroyed.

K: I don't know what the ancients have said.

Kapila Vatsyayan: I think, at least in what is broadly called Hindu or ancient Indian thought, the senses are not to be denied. That is very crucial to the whole culture, and where it all began was with the Katha Upanishad, with sensory perception. The image they have is the chariot and horses. Yes, horses are primary; senses are primary and they are not to be destroyed. They are to be understood, controlled. They are the factors of the outer reality. They do not deny the outer.

P.J.: I am asking, what is the role of the senses,

K: The senses, as thought, create desire. Without the interference of thought they have very little importance.

P.J.: Senses have no importance?

K: Senses have their place. If I see a beautiful tree, it is beauty; the beauty of a tree is astonishing. Where does desire interfere with the senses? That is the whole point; not whether the senses are important or unimportant, but where desire begins. If one understands that, then why give such colossal importance to it?
R.B.: It sounds as if you are contradicting yourself.

K: No.

R.B.: Sir, you have said, not just now but earlier, `if you can observe with all your senses'... Therefore, you cannot deny the importance of the senses.

K: I did not deny the senses. I said if you respond to that tree, look at that tree with the sunlight on it after the rain, it is full of beauty, there is a total response, there is no `me', there is no thought, there is no centre which is responding. That is beauty, not the painting, not the poem, but the total response of all your senses to that. We don't so respond because thought creates an image from which a desire arises. There is no contradiction in what I have said.

P.J.: If I may ask Upadhyayaji, how would the Vedantin regard the senses?

J.U.: According to Vedanta, without the observer there can be no observation.

P.J.: What about the Buddhist?

S: There is seeing only when the seer is not. There is no difference between the seer and the seeing.

K: The observer is the observed. Just look what is happening here. We stick to the Vedantist attitude, the Buddhist attitude; we do not move out of the field. I am not criticizing. Let us come back. This is the whole point: The brain is caught in this movement. And you are asking, how is the chain which is built by thought - thought being limited because it is born of knowledge, which is incomplete - to be broken?

Knowledge has created this chain. Then you ask the question, how is the chain to break? Who is asking this question?

S: The prisoner is asking.

K: You are that. Who is asking the question?

S: That which is itself incomplete is asking itself.

K: Just look at it. The brain is caught in this. Is the brain asking the question, or is desire asking, `How am I to get out of it?' I don't ask that question. Do you see the difference?

A.P.: That I understand. When you say, is the brain asking that question, or is desire asking it, I am bogged.

P.J.: Don't we ask the question?

K: There is only this chain. That is all. Don't ask the question. The moment you ask the question, you are trying to find an answer, you are not looking at the chain. You are that; you can't ask any question. I am coming to the next point which is, what happens when you do that? When you do that, there is no movement. The movement has created this, and when there is no movement, that ends. There is totally different dimension. So, I have to begin by not asking questions.

But is the chain a fact to me? This chain is desire - desire in the sense of sensory responses. If all the senses respond, there is no desire. But only when the sensory responses are partial, then thought comes in and creates the image. From that image arises desire. Is this a fact, that this is the chain the brain works in? Whatever it does must operate in this?

B.K.: How can one be more in touch with that observation?

K: Look, I have physical pain; I immediately take a pill, go to a doctor and so on. That same movement is taken over by the psyche; the psyche says: `What am I do? Give me a pill, a way out.' The moment you want to get out, there is the problem. Physical pain I can deal with, but with psychological pain, can the brain say that it is so, I won't move from that? it is so. Then see what happens. Sceptical research, sceptical investigation is the true spiritual process. This is true religion.

Part 2
2nd Seminar Madras
15th January 1981
In Listening Is Transformation

J.U.: In Varanasi, you have been speaking over the years. Two types of people have been listening to you. One group is committed to total revolution at all levels and the other to the status quo, that is to the whole stream of tradition as it flows. Both go away, after listening to you, satisfied. Both feel that they have received an answer to their queries.

You say that when all thought, all self-centred activity, the movement of the mind as the `me' has ended totally, there is a state of benediction, endless joy, bliss, which is beauty, love, a state which has no frontiers. Now the man listening to you with the mind rooted in the status quo, takes a stand on what you have said regarding the eternal, goes back to the tradition of the great teachers who have also posited a state of eternal bliss, joy, beauty, love. He then posits that that alone is important. For him a transformation of society today is unnecessary. You can make a slight change here and there, but these changes are transient and of no importance. Neither a transformation in man nor in society is important. But you go on to say that when all thought, all self-centred activity, has ended, then there is a direct contact with the great river of sorrow, which is not the sorrow of individual man. From this will arise a karuna, compassion, beauty and love, which will demand transformation here and now. Only this will end the emphasis on eternal bliss which ultimately is an illusion. I do not feel that there is a place for the concept of eternal bliss, benediction, in your teaching.

K: Just what is the question?

P.J.: Today more and more people are hearing you and they see a contradiction - that the man who stands for the status quo and the one who stands for revolution, takes your teachings and amalgamates it into his. That contradiction needs clarification. What does your teaching stand for?

K: Let us take it one by one.

J.U.: I am a student. I am learning, and in this process of learning I see a contradiction when you posit a state which is beyond.

K: Cut that out..

J.U.: I can't cut that out; it figures very much every time you speak. When you posit a state beyond, which is bliss, etc., that is the contradiction. Therefore, I say that the stream of sorrow and the compassion which arises upon direct contact with that stream is the only reality.

K: I don't quite see the contradiction. I would like that contradiction explained to me.

A.P.: What I feel is that Upadhyayaji goes with you up to the point that there is no such thing as personal sorrow because personal sorrow posits the personal sufferer. So, there is the substance of human existence as sorrow. Out of this perception, arises compassion which becomes love. He is bogged down when you say that the perception of sorrow is the birth of compassion.

P.J.: No, no. He is seeing the contradiction in Krishnaji making any statement about the `otherness', because the mind picks on that.

K: First of all, I don't quite see the contradiction, personally. I may be wrong, subject to correction. One thing is very clear, that there is this enormous river of sorrow. That is so. Can that sorrow be ended and, if it ends, what is the result on society? That is the real issue. Is that right?

J.U.: There is this vast stream of sorrow. No one can posit when this sorrow will totally end.

K: I am positing it.

J.U.: There can be a movement for the ending of sorrow but no one can posit when that sorrow of mankind can end.

A.P.: We know life as irreparably built on the fabric of sorrow. Sorrow is the very fabric of our existence, but you have said that the ending of sorrow can be attained.

K: Yes, there is an ending to sorrow.

A.P.: This is not a statement about the sorrow of man ending at a certain time and date; it has no future or past. It is a statement that this state can end this instant.

K: I don't understand all this.

P.J.: Sir, Upadhyayaji says there is a contradiction in your positing the `other', and he is asking why is there this contradiction?

K: I don't think it is a contradiction. I think we all agree that humanity is in the stream of sorrow and that humanity is each one of us. Humanity is not separate from me; I am humanity, not representative of humanity. My brain, my psychological structure, is humanity. Therefore, there is no `me' - and a stream of sorrow. Let us be very clear on that point.

P.J.: Are you saying that there is no stream of sorrow independent of the human? Upadhyayaji suggests that there is a stream of sorrow which is independent of sorrow as it operates in individual consciousness.

K: No, no. The brain is born through time. That brain is not my brain. It is the brain of humanity in which the hereditary principle is involved, which is time. My consciousness is the consciousness of man; it is the consciousness of humanity because man suffers, he is proud, cruel, anxious, unkind, this is the common ground of man. There is no individual at all for me. The stream of sorrow is humanity; it is not something out there.

G.N.: I see a child being beaten. That perception is the moment of pity. How do you say that when I see a person beating a child I am also that sorrow?

K: Before we move to the specific, let us get the ground clear. The ground is, there is no individual suffering. Pleasure, fear, anxiety, vanity, cruelty, etc., all that is common to humanity. That is the psychological structure of man. Where does individuality come into this?

G.N.: I am different from that suffering of the child.
K: What are you trying to say?

G.N.: I am saying that there is a stream of sorrow; there is violence. I see something out there.

K: Outside yourself? Let us stick to that. It is outside me. Which is what? What are you? You are part of that stream.

P.J.: The fact is that I see myself separate from that child, that man. The state of consciousness within me which leads to that perception is also the state of consciousness which in another situation acts in a violent way.

G.N.: I see a certain action going on in front of me. The perception of the fact that a child is being beaten gives rise to another action. Therefore, there are two actions.

K: We are not talking about actions.

P.J.: The problem arises because we see ourselves as a fact, we see ourselves seeing the child being beaten, but we don't see the same consciousness in being rude to someone else.

K: But humanity is part of that child, part of the act of beating that child. We are part of all this.

J.U.: Krishnaji has said something which is of utmost importance. That is, there is no such thing as individual sorrow, that individual sorrow is the sorrow of mankind. Now, that should be investigated, understood, not as a theory but as an actuality. One sees the stream of sorrow, the stream of mankind, one sees that it has a direction, it has movement.

K: That which is moving has no direction. The moment it has a direction, that direction creates time.

J.U: A stream which is flowing may appear as a stream, but it is made up of individual drops, and when the energy of the sun falls on that stream, it draws up individual drops, not the whole stream.

P.J.: You see what is implied in it? It is a very interesting question. Does it mean that when there is the ending of sorrow, does it arise in the individual drop or in the whole stream? Upadhyayaji says that when the light of the sun falls on the stream of water which is flowing, which is composed of individual drops, it draws up drop by drop.

K: Take a river; it has a source. The Rhine, the Volga, the Ganga, all the rivers of the world have a source. The source is sorrow, not the drops of water. Has our sorrow a source, not the source of individual drops that make up the stream but is the very stream the source of our sorrow? To me, individuality does not exist. My body may be tall, dark, light, pink, whatever colour; it may have certain inherited genetic trappings. Basically, there is no such thing as an individual. If you accept that as a fact, you cannot then say that the source is made up of individual drops.

B.K.: You said the source is sorrow. If we translate this into human terms, that really means human beings are born of sorrow, and are condemned also.

K: No. I am not condemning. I am saying what is a fact. You cannot condemn a fact.

P.J.: You say there is the stream of sorrow. I am questioning it.

K: I want to start with a clean slate. I am not a Vedantist, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim. And I watch, I observe what is happening around me. I observe what is happening inside me. I observe that the `me' is that.

P.J: I observe what?

K: I observe what is going on. I observe how war is being fought, why it is being fought, I read about it, investigate it, think about it. Am I a Hindu against the Muslim? If I am, I produce war. I am going step by step. So I am the result of thought.

P.J.: You have leaped.

K: No. I am the result of experience, knowledge stored up in memory, that is, I am the result of thousands of generations. That is a fact. I have discovered that as a fact, not as a theory.

Sat: When I say I know, that I have gone through the whole of mankind, who is saying it?

K: Am I saying that as an idea or as a fact which is happening in me, in my brain cells? I am only concerned with I what is happening around me and in me. In me is what is happening out there. I am that. The worries, the anxieties, the misery, the confusion, the uncertainty, the desire for security, the psychological world which thought has built, is mankind.

P.J.: Sir, if it were so simple; we would be floating in the air. How is sorrow important? The importance is in the movement of sorrow, the movement of violence, as it arises in me. How is it important whether that movement is part of mankind or part of my brain cells?

K: I quite agree. You are concerned with sorrow; I am concerned. My brother dies and I shed tears. I watch my neighbour whose husband has gone; there are tears, loneliness, despair, misery, which I am also going through. So I recognise a common thread between that and my woe.

P.J.: How is it important?

K. It is important because when I see there is a common factor, there is immense strength. Have you understood that? I say that if you are only concerned with your individual sorrow, you are weak. You lose the tremendous energy that comes from the perception of the whole of sorrow. This sorrow of the individual is a fragmentary sorrow and, therefore that which is fragmentary has not the tremendous energy of the whole. A fragment is a fragment and whatever it does, it is still within a small radius and, therefore, trivial. If I suffer because my brother is dead and I grow more and more involved, shed more and more tears, I get more and more depleted, I lose contact with the fact that I am part of this enormous stream.

P.J.: When my brother is dead and I observe my mind, I see the movement of sorrow; but of that stream of human sorrow, I know nothing.

K: Then stop there. We are not talking of the stream of sorrow. My brother dies and I am in sorrow, I see this happening to my neighbour on the left and on the right. I see this happening right through the world. They are going through the same agony, though not at the moment I go through it. So, I discover something, that it is not only me that suffers but mankind. What is the difficulty?

P.J.: I don't weep at the world's sorrow.
K: Because I am so concerned with myself, my life; my relationship with another is myself. So I have reduced all this life to a little corner, which I call myself. And my neighbour does the same; everybody is doing the same. That is a fact. Then I discover that this sorrow is a stream. It is a stream that has been going on for generations.

J.U.: The particular and the stream, are they one?

K: There is no particular.

J.U.: The particular is experienceable, is manifest, but even when we say we see the stream, we see it as particulars put together. As long as the self is, the particular will have to be.

K: I understand that. I keep to this fact: My brother dies; I shed tears; I am desperate. It is a fact. It is not a theory, and I see my neighbour going through the same thing as I am. So, what happens? Either I remain caught in my little sorrow or I perceive this enormous sorrow of man.

J.U.: Even when I see this in a man who is a thousand miles away, I see it as separate.

P.J.: What is the factor, the instrument, which enables one to see directly?

K: See what has happened to my mind, my brain. My brain has been concerned with the loss of the brother. The visual eye sees this enormous suffering in my neighbour here or a thousand miles away. How does it see it? How does it see the fact that my neighbour is me, who is going through hell? The neighbour all over the world is my neighbour. This is not a theory; I recognise it, see it. I walk down the streets; there is a man crying because he has lost his son. I see it as a fact, not a theory.

J.U.: When Krishnaji talks of a thousand miles away, seeing people dying and the sense of sorrow which he sees as sorrow, it is not individual. He can do it because he has negated the self totally; K has negated time totally. There is no movement which is fragmentary in him. When my brother dies, I can't see with the same eyes. K is standing on the bank of the river and watching and I am floating in the river.

K: What has happened? Go through the actuality of it. My brother dies and I am shocked. It takes a week or two to get over it. When that shock is over, I am observing. I see this thing going on around me. It is a fact.

P.J.: You still have to tell me with what eyes I must see.

Mary Zimbalist: The stream of sorrow is so intense that in it there is not the fact of being particular. There is pain and sorrow; it is so strong, and one is part of the universality, not the individual or whatever it is that is causing sorrow. One can perceive in some extraordinary way, transforming it. One can at that moment see the enormity of it because it is enormous, and not enclose ourselves.

K: Am I so enclosed that I don't see anything except me and something outside of me? That is the first thing to be established. I want to go back to this point - sorrow of my brother dying - there is only sorrow. I don't see it as a stream of sorrow; there is this thing burning in me, I see this happening right and left and it is happening to all human beings. I see that too, theoretically. Why can't I see it as a fact, as me suffering and, therefore, the world suffering? Why don't we see it? That is the point we have come to.

P.J.: I don't see it, the sorrow of another. That passion, that intensity which is born in me when there is sorrow arising in me, does not arise when I see the sorrow of another.

K: All right. When you suffer, you close your ears and eyes to everything else. Actually, when my brother dies, everything is shut out and that is the whole point. If the brain says, `Yes, I won't move from that, I won't seek comfort,' there is no movement. Can I hold it, perceive it? What happens to the mind? That is my point. If you remain with sorrow, you have denied everything.

J.U.: That is so only for Krishnaji.

K: Panditji, throw K away. This is a fact. We never remain with anything completely. If the brain remains completely with fear, everything is gone. But we don't, we are always searching, moving, asking, questioning. Sir, my brother dies, I shed tears, do all kinds of things, and suddenly realize that there is no answer in reincarnation, going to the gods, doing this, doing that, nothing remains except the one thing. What happens then to the brain that has been chattering, making noises about sorrow, chasing its own tail?

B.K.: There is always some other interference.

K: There is no interference when you observe something totally; to observe totally is not to allow thought to interfere with what is being perceived totally.

J.U.: Sorry for going back to my original question. You have said when all duality has ended, when sorrow has ended, happiness will be there.

K: When sorrow has completely ended, then there is compassion.

J.U.: The perception that human existence is sorrow gives rise to compassion.

K: No.

J.U.: The perception of the fact that human existence is sorrow is the ending of sorrow, and without the ending of sorrow, there is no compassion. That is your position.

K: I will make my position very clear. There is only the stream of mankind.

A.P.: The perception of the stream is not compassion; the ending of sorrow is that perception.

J.U.: Is there bliss after ending sorrow? Will everyone be happy?

K: No. I never said that. I said the ending of sorrow is the beginning of compassion, not bliss.

S.P.: He is objecting to your talking about the `other'.

K: All right. I won't talk about the `other'. It is irrelevant, I agree.

P.J.: You must take the question as Upadhyayaji stated it in the beginning. He said people come to hear your talks, and at the end of the talk you say, `Then there is benediction, then there is a state of timelessness.' He says that makes them go away thinking that that is the final state.

K: To them `that' is a theory which they have accepted.

A.P.: Sir, I will go a step further. I can say that Upadhyayaji has listened to the fact that the substance of human existence is sorrow and the perception of this is compassion. This is also a theory and he seeks corroboration of this when you say this, and that also gives him satisfaction. I say this satisfaction and that satisfaction are on the same level.

K: I quite agree. I would like to ask something: Are we discussing this as a theory, as something to be learnt, studied, informed about, or is it a fact in our lives? At what level are we discussing all this? If we are not clear on this, we will mess it up.

The speaker says sorrow is an endless thing that man has lived with, whether it is his neighbour or a child being beaten and so on. And can it end? You come along and tell me it can end. I either treat it as a theory or I say, `Show me the way, show me how to end it, the manner in which it can end.' That's all I am interested in. We never come to that point. He says to me I will show it to you. Am I willing to listen to him completely? I am willing to listen to him because I want to end this thing. So he says to me, `Sorrow is the stream, remain with the stream. Don't be in it, don't be of it, under it or over it, but remain with it without any movement because any movement is the cause of sorrow.' I don't know if you see that. So he says, `Remain with it. Don't intellectualize, don't get emotional, don't get theoretical, don't seek comfort, just remain with the thing.' That is very difficult and, therefore, we play around with it. And he also tells us that if you go beyond this, there is some beauty that is out of this world. I listen to the `out of this world' and create a contradiction. Do you follow?

Sir, I still insist it exists; it is not a contradiction. I don't know why you say it is a contradiction. If you found something astonishingly original which is not in books, not in the Vedas, if you discovered something of an enormous nature, would you not talk about that, knowing that man will do exactly what he has done before - catch on to that and neglect this? He would do it, sir, because it is a part of the whole thing; it is not there and here. It is part of the tree. The tree is the hidden roots, and if you look at the beauty of the roots, you talk about them. It is not that you are escaping, not that you are contradicting, but you say the tree is the root, the trunk, the leaf, the flower, the beauty of the whole thing.