Way of Intelligence

Part 3
3rd Seminar Madras
16th January 1981
In Listening Is Transformation

P.J.: Rimpocheji has asked a question: In listening to you over the years, one feels that the door is about to open but it does not. Is there something inhibiting us?

A.P.: We live in time. Do we find that the door to perception is closed because perception is not?

P.J.: Many of us have had this feeling that we are at the threshold.

B.K.: It is true for all of us, but part of the problem also - and perhaps it is implied in the question - is that we are afraid to open the door because of what we might find behind it.

P,J.: I did not say that.

A.P.: What you say would imply that there is somebody who opens the door. It is not like that.

K: What is it that prevents one, after exercising a great deal of intelligence, reason, rational thinking and watching one's daily life; what is it that blocks us all? That is the question, isn't it?

P.J.: I would go beyond that. I would say there has been diligence, seriousness, and we have discussed this over the years.

K: But yet something does not click. It is the same thing. I am an average man, fairly well educated, with the capacity to express myself, to think intellectually, rationally and so on; there is something totally missing in all this and I can't go any further - is that the question? Further, do I perceive that my whole life is so terribly limited?

P.J.: I say we have done what has to be done. We have taken the decisions.

K: All right. What is it that a man or a woman can do who has studied K, talked all these years but finds himself up against a wall?

P.J.: I am neither here nor there; I am in-between. I am in the middle of the stream. You can't say you are there nor can you say that you have not started. You must take this into account, sir, even though you say there is no gradual approach.

K: Then what is the question?

P.J.: It is as if something is at the point of opening, but it does not open.

K: Are you like the bud which has moved through the earth; the sun has shone on it but the bud never opens to become a flower? Let us talk about it.

G.N.: Biological time propels action because of the innate energy in it. You say, in the same way psychological time also propels a certain kind of action. Is psychological time a deposit like biological time?

K: You are mixing up the two questions. Pupulji says this: I have done most things, I have read. I have listened to K, I have come to a certain point where I am not entirely with the world nor with the other. I am caught in between. I am half way and I don't seem to be able to move any further.

B.K.: I think the answer has been suggested by you for several years and that is the intellectual answer we give.

P.J.: I am not prepared to accept that. When I put K this question, all this I have seen and gone through.

B.K.: The rational part of the mind is repressed.

P.J.: No, it is not so. I have observed time. I have gone into the process of time - psychological time. I have seen its movement. Some of the things K says seem so to me. I can't say that they are totally unknown to me. But there seems to be a point at which some leap is necessary.

K: In Christian terminology, you are waiting for grace to descend on you.

P.J.: Perhaps.

K: Or are you looking for some outside agency to break this? Do you ever come to the point where your brain is no longer saying, `I am seeking, searching, asking,' but is absolutely in a state of not-knowing? Do you understand what I am saying? When the brain realizes, `I don't know a thing' except the technological - do you ever come to that point?

P.J.: I do not say that, but I do know a state in which the brain ceases to function. It is not that it says, `I don't know,' but all movement ends.

K: You are missing my point.

P.J.: I am not.

K: I am afraid I am not making myself clear. A state of not-knowing - I think that is one of the first things that is demanded. We are always arguing, searching; we never come to the point of utter emptiness, of not-knowing. Do we ever come to that, so that the brain is really at a standstill? The brain is always active, searching, asking, arguing, occupied. I am asking, is there a state of the brain when it is not occupied with itself? Is that the blockage?

M.Z.: in emptiness, there is a tremendous openness where nothing is being stored, where there isn't any movement, where the state of openness of the brain is at its greatest.

K: I would not introduce all these words for the moment. I am just asking, is there a moment when the brain is totally unoccupied?

S.P.: What do you mean by `totally unoccupied'?

B.K.: It does not think at that moment. It is blank.

K.: See the danger, because you are all translating what I have said.

J.U.: All action is bound within a time-space framework. Are you trying to bring us to the point where we see that all action as we know it is bound by time and space, is illusion, and so has to be negated?

K: Yes. It is negated. Is that a theory or an actuality?

J.U.: Are you speaking of that state which lies between two actions?

K: Shall we begin by enquiring into action? What is action?

J.U.: In reality, there is no action.

K: You are all theorizing. I want to know what action is, not according to some theory but the action itself, the doing.

J.U.: Action is the movement of thought from one point in space to another or one moment of time to another...

K: I am not talking about thought moving from one point to another point, but of action, of the doing.

P.J.: What is the fundamental question?

K: I am trying to ask the fundamental question which you raised at the beginning: What is keeping us not flowering? I am using the word, however, with its beauty, its perfume, delight. Is it basically thought? I am enquiring. Is it time, or is it action, or have I not really, deeply, read the book which is myself? I have read certain pages of the chapter but I have not totally finished with the book.

P.J.: At this point, I say I have read the book. There is no saying I have read the book completely because every day, every minute, a chapter is being added.

K: No, no. Here we are - at last. I am asking a question: Have you ever read the book, not according to Vedanta or Buddhism or Islam, or according to modern psychologists, but read the book?

P.J.: Can one ever ask: Has one read the whole book of life?

K: You will find, if you have read the book at all, that there is nothing to read.

J.U.: You have been saying that if there is perception of the instant in its totality, then the whole instant is.

K: But that is just a theory. I am not criticizing, sir. Pupulji said I have listened to K. I have also met various gurus, I have meditated. At the end of it, there is just ashes in my hand, in my mouth.

P.J.: I won't say there are ashes in my hand.

K: Why?

P.J.: Because I don't see them as ashes.

M.L.: We have come to a certain point. We have explored.
K: Yes, I admit it. You have come to a certain point and you are stuck there. Is that it?

P.J.: I have come to a certain point and I do not know what to do, where to go, how to turn.

R.B.: You mean that the breakthrough does not come?

K: Why don't you be simple? I have reached a point and that point is all that we have said, and from there I will start.

P.J.: You must understand one thing. There is a difference, Krishnaji - to take a journey and then say we are in despair. I do not say that.

K: You are not in despair?

P.J.: No. I am also awake enough to see that having travelled, the flower has not blossomed.

K: So you are asking, why does the flower not blossom, the bud open up - put it any way.

A.P.: Just to take it out of the personal context - when you speak to us there is something within us which responds and says this is the true, right note, but we are not able to catch it.

P.J.: I have wept in my time. I have had despair in my time. I have seen darkness in my time. But I have also had the resources to move out and, having moved out of this, I have come to a point when I say, `Tell me, I have done all this. What next?'

K: I come to you and ask you this question, `With all that you have said just now, what would be your answer? Instead of asking me, what would you tell me? How would you answer?,

P.J.: The answer is tapas.

A.P.: Tapas means that you have to keep on, which involves time.

P.J.: It means, burn the impurities which are clouding your sight.

K: You understand the question? `Thought is impure' - can we go into this?

R.B.: This is very interesting: Thought is impure - but there is no impurity.

K: When you admit thought is impure, impure in the sense that it is not whole...

R.B.: Yes, that is what corrupts.

K: No. Thought is not whole. It is fragmented, therefore, it is corrupt, therefore it is impure or whatever word you would like to use. That which is whole is beyond the impure and pure, shame and fear. When Pupulji says, burn impurity, do please listen that way. Why is the brain incapable of perception of the whole and from that wholeness, of acting? Is the root of it - the block, the inhibition, the not flowering - the thought that is incapable of perceiving the whole? Thought is going round and round in circles. And I am asking myself, suppose I am in that position, I recognise, I see, I observe that my actions are incomplete and, therefore, thought can never be complete. And, therefore, whatever thought does is impure, corrupt, not beautiful. So, why is the brain incapable of perceiving the whole? If you can answer that question, perhaps you will be able to answer the other question.

RMP.: You have correctly interpreted our question.

K: So, could we move from there, or is it not possible to move from there? That is, we have exercised thought all our life. Thought has become the most important thing in our life, and I feel that is the very reason there is corruption. Is that the block, the factor, that prevents this marvellous flowering of the human being? If that is the factor, then is there the possibility of a perception which has nothing to do with time, with thought? Have you understood what I am saying? I realize, not only intellectually but actually, that thought is the source of all ugliness, immorality, a sense of degeneration. Do I actually see that, feel it in my blood? If I do, my next question is: Since thought is fragmented, broken up, limited, is there a perception which is whole? Is that the block?

J.U.: My mind has been trained in the discipline of sequence. So, there is no possibility of saying, can this be? Either it is so or it is not.

K: I have been trained in the sequence of thought - thought which is logic. And my brain is conditioned to cause-effect.

J.U.: I agree that thought is not complete.

K: The moment you agree that thought is incomplete, whatever thought does is incomplete. Whatever thought does must create sorrow, mischief, agony, conflict.

A.P.: Thought will only take you up to a point. It will only move to a degree.

J.U.: We have certain other instruments, certain processes, but you seem to dispense with them. You dissolve whatever we have acquired. Supposing we have a disease, you cannot heal it, no outside agency can do that. We ourselves have to be free of the disease. So, we have to discover an instrument which can open the door from disease to good health. That door is only thought which, in one instant, breaks the grip of the false, and in the very breaking, another illusion or the unreal comes into being. Thought again breaks that, and in this fashion, is negating the false again and again. There is a process of the dissolution of thought and thought itself accepts this and goes on negating. Thus the nature of thought itself is to perceive that it can dissolve itself.

The whole process of thought is discrimination. It leaves a thing the moment it discovers that it is the false. But that which perceived it as false is also thought.

K: Of course.

J.U.: Therefore, the process of perception is still riding the instrumentality of thought.

K: You are saying perception is still thought. We are saying something different - that there is a perception which is not of time, not of thought.

RMP.: We want to know your position more clearly. Please elaborate.

K: First of all, we know the ordinary perception of thought: discriminating, balancing, constructing and destroying, moving in all the human activities of choice, freedom, obedience, authority, and all that. That is the movement of thought which perceives. We are asking - not stating - is there a perception which is not thought?

P.J.: I often wonder what is the value of a question like that. You see, you pose a question; you say no answer is possible.

K: No.

P.J.: Is an answer possible?

K: Yes. We know the nature of thought. Thought discerns, distinguishes, chooses; thought creates the structure. There is a movement of thought in perception to distinguish between the right and the wrong, the false and the true, hate and good. We know that and, as we said, that is time-binding. Now, do we remain there, which means, do we remain in perpetual conflict? So, you ask, is there an enquiry which will lead us to a state of non-conflict? Which is what? Is there a perceiving which is not born of knowledge, knowledge being experience, memory, thought, action? I am asking, is there an action which is not based on remembrance, remembrance being the past? Is there a perception which is totally denuded of the past? Would you enquire with me that way? I know this, and I realize that this implies everlasting conflict.

A.P.: This process of thinking in the field of cause and effect has no way of escaping out of the chain reaction. It is only a bondage. Therefore, observing this, we let go of it here and now. Next we ask the question, is there a perception which does not touch the past, does not get involved in the past, the past being all that we have done and been concerned with?

K: It is a rational question to ask whether this can end; not an illogical question.

A.P.: Because we have learnt by experience that thinking through the medium of cause and effect cannot free us from the wheel of sorrow.

J.U.: Whatever instrument we had, you have broken that. Before an ailment afflicts us, you have removed it, which means, before a disease grips you, it is removed. The sick man will continue to live. Therefore, when he wants to be free from disease, it is necessary to point out to him some process by which he achieves this. Even after renouncing the chain of cause-effect, he needs to be shown its futility. I accept it is difficult to do this.

A.P.: No. What you are saying amounts to an assertion that we cannot let go the wheel of time.

J.U.: No, this is not what I am saying. Cause and effect is a movement in time, and if you say that at the end of this a `process' still remains, it must be a form of mental activity. Whatever that be, the question is: Can the patient be allowed to die before the ailment is cured? I accept the fact that the cause and effect chain is incomplete. I also understand that till we can break that, this dilemma cannot be broken; but the question is very simple, that the patient has to be restored to health and not be allowed to die. The disease will have to be cured without killing the patient.

K: If you say life is conflict, then you remain where you are.

P.J.: The metaphor Upadhyayaji uses is, he understands the whole movement of conflict in time and sees the inadequacy of it. But the ill man, the suffering man who wants to be cured, cannot kill himself before he is cured. What you are asking is for him to kill himself.

K: You are making a case which is untenable.

P.J.: He may put it in a different way. Don't also forget that conflict is the `I'. Ultimately society and all can go down the drain. Ultimately it is `I'. All experience, all search, centres round that which is thought, caught in time as conflict.

K: So `I' is conflict.

P.J.: I see it is so in an abstract way.

K: No, not in an abstract way. It is so.

P.J.: Maybe this is the ultimate thing which is stopping us...

K: Let us be very simple. I recognise conflict is my life. Conflict is `me'.

A.P.: After accepting the futility of cause and effect, what remains is an identification with a certain habit reflex. Does that identification break or not? If it does not break, then our dialogue is only at the theoretical level.

K: Don't introduce more words. When you say conflict ends, the `me' ends, there is the block.

P.J.: I know conflict.

K: You don't know it. You can't know it.

P.J.: How can you say that?

K: That is just a theory. Do you actually realize that you are conflict? Do I realize in my blood, in my heart, in the depth of `me', `I am conflict', or is it just an idea which I am trying to fit into?

J.U.: If you accept that the chain of causality includes the impact of time, space and circumstance, we must recognise that this is a major problem. This is like a wheel, and any movement of this wheel is not going to dissolve the problem. We accept this by logic and experience. What I was seeking to explain by the simile is that a process must remain which is within the wheel of sorrow. If the disease is not, and the wheel of sorrow is not, still some life principle must be left.

A.P.: Process is continuity.

J.U.: Then, what is it? Is it immutable?

A.P.: When perception and action are not related to the past, then there is a cessation of continuity.

K: I only know my life is a series of conflicts till I die. Can man admit this? This is our life, and you come along and say to me, must you go on doing this? Find out if there is a different way of looking, acting, which does not contain this. That is the continuity, that is all I am saying. Next, I am a reasonable man, thinking man, and I say, must I go on this way. You come along and tell me that there is a different way which is not this and he says I will show it to you.

J.U.: I accept that this circle of continuity in which I am moving is not taking us anywhere. I come with you up to there. Where it is a matter of experience, I clear my position with the help of an example. But you cut the ground under that example by saying that I must discard the continuity. If continuity is cut, the question itself disappears. So how can I accept the proposition that I renounce continuity altogether?

A.P.: Therefore you must let go of examples or similes. Let go of all anchorages of the past.

J.U.: If I give up the simile, it does not bring a termination; unless there is an ending, how can there be a new beginning?

K: Who is saying that?

A.P.: You have said that this is time; you say negate time.

R.B.: What Upadhyayaji is saying is this: Life is conflict, time, thought. He accepts they have to go.

K: I am not asking anything to go.

J.U.: If that goes, then what is the connection between that and what is to be?

K: I am not talking about any connection. I am a man who is suffering, in conflict, in despair, and I say I have been with this for sixty years. Please show me a different way of living. Would you accept that very simple fact? If you accept it, then the next question is, is there a way of looking or observing life without bringing in all the past, acting without the operation of thought which is remembrance? I am going to find out. What is perception? I have perceived life as conflict; that is all I know. He comes along and tells me, let us find out what is true perception. I don't know it, but I am listening to what he says. This is important. I have not brought into listening my logical mind; I am listening to him. Is that happening now? The speaker is saying that there is a perception without remembrance. Are you listening to it or are you saying there is a contradiction, which is, you are not listening at all. I hope you have got it. I say, Achyutji, there is a way of living without conflict. Will he listen to me? Listen, and not translate it immediately into a reaction - are you doing that?

A.P.: When a question is asked, when you are faced with a challenge, there must be listening without any reaction. Only in such a state can there be no relationship whatsoever with that which is the past.

K: Therefore there is no reaction, which means what? You are already seeing. You get it?

J.U.: I have not understood the state. For instance, at the same moment if one observes with attention all illusions, then in the light of that attention the whole process of illusion is dispelled. And that same moment of attention is the moment of true observation. Is that so? That means one observes `what is' as is.

P.J.: Krishnaji is asking us whether you can listen without the past, without bringing in the projections of the past. Only then, in such listening, is there perception.

J.U.: That is why I was saying that if the moment which is loaded with illusion can be seen with full attention, then it becomes the true moment of perception because the illusion is seen for what it is. To give an example: I see a coin on which there is the seal of the Ashoka chakra. The other side of the coin is different, but they are two sides of the same coin. Is the seeing, the perception which was caught in the past, the same seeing?

K: No. Now sir, you are a great Buddhist scholar. You know what the Buddha has said, all the intricacies of Buddhist analysis, exploration, the extraordinary structures. Now, if the Buddha came to you and said, `Listen,' would you listen to him? Please don't laugh; this is much too serious. Sir, answer my question: If the Buddha comes to you today, now, sitting there in front of you, and says, `Please sir, listen,' would you listen? And he says to you, `If you listen to me, that is your transformation.' Just listen. That listening is the listening to the truth.
You can't argue with the Buddha.

J.U.: This pure attention is the Buddha and this attention is action, which itself is the Buddha. That is why I gave you the instance of the coin, which has one seal on one side whereas the other side has another seal.

K: Would you listen? If the Buddha talked to me, I would say, `Sir, I listen to you because I love you. I don't want to get anywhere because I see what you say is true, and I love you.' That is all. That has transformed everything.

A.P.: When I am aware that this is the word of the Buddha, it is the truth. This truth wipes out every other impression.

K: Nobody listened to him; that is why there is Buddhism.

J.U.: There is no Buddha; there is no speaking of the Buddha. There is only listening and in the right listening the quintessence of that wisdom which transforms is there. The word Buddha or the word of the Buddha is not the truth. Buddha is not the truth. This attention itself is the Buddha. The Buddha is not a person; he is not an avatara and there is no such thing as the word of Buddha. Attention is the only reality. In this attention, there is pure perception. This is prajna, intelligence; this is knowledge. That moment which was surrounded by the past, that moment itself, under the beam of attention, becomes the moment of perception.

K: Now, just listen to me. There is conflict. A man like me comes along. He says, there is a way of living without knowledge. Don't argue. Just listen - listen without knowledge, which means without the operation of thought.

A.P.: That moment of attention is totally unrelated to the thought process, from causality.

K: I know my life is conflict. And I am saying, is there a way of looking, listening, seeing, which has no relationship to knowledge. I say there is. And the next question is, as the brain is full of knowledge, how can such a brain understand this statement? I say that the brain cannot answer this question. The brain is used to conflict, habituated to it, and you are putting a new question to it. So the brain is in revolt; it cannot answer it.

J.U.: I want to know this. The question that you have put is my question. You have posed it with clarity.

K: The speaker says, don't be in revolt, listen. Try to listen without the movement of thought, which means, can you see something without naming. The naming is the movement of thought. Then find out what is the state of the brain when it has not used the word in seeing, the word which is the movement of thought. Do it.

R.M.P.: That is very important.

A.P.: Your perception is that.

J.U.: This is right.

P.J.: The truth is to see the brain's incapacity.
K: My whole life has changed. Therefore there is a totally different learning process going on, which is creation.

P.J.: If this is itself the learning process, this is creativity.

K.: I realize my life is wrong. Nobody has to point that out; it is so. That is a fact and you come along and tell me that you can do something instantly. I don't believe you. I feel it can never happen. You come and tell me this whole struggle, this monstrous way of living, can be ended immediately. My brain says, sorry, you are cuckoo, I don't believe you. But K says, look, I will show it to you step by step. You may be god, you may be the Buddha, but I don't believe you. And K tells you, listen, take time, in the sense, have patience. Patience is not time. Impatience is time. Patience has no time.

S.P.: What is patience which is not time?

K: I said life is conflict. I come along and tell you there is an ending to conflict and the brain resists. I say let it resist, but keep on listening to me, don't bring in more and more resistance. Just listen, move. Don't remain with resistance. To watch your resistance and keep moving - that is patience. To know the resistance and to move along, that is patience. So he says, don't react but listen to the fact that your brain is a network of words and you cannot see anything new if you are all the time using words, words, words. So, can you look at something, your wife, the tree, the sky, the cloud, without a single word? Don't say it is a cloud. Just look. When you so look, what has happened to the brain?

A.P.: Our understanding, our total comprehension, is verbal. When I see this, then I put aside the word. That which I see now is non-verbal. What then happens to the accumulated knowledge?

K: What actually happens, not theoretically, when you are looking without the word? The word is the symbol, the memory, the knowledge and all that.

A.P.: This is only a perception. When I am observing something, keeping aside verbal knowledge and watching that which is non-verbal, what reaction does the mind have? It feels its whole existence is threatened.

K: Watch it in yourself. What happens? It is in a state of shock, it is staggering. So have patience. Watch it staggering, that is patience. See the brain in a staggering state and be with it. As you are watching it, the brain quietens down. Then look with that quiet brain at things, observe. That is learning.

A.P.: Upadhyayaji, K is saying that when you observe the instability of the mind, when you see that is its nature, then that state disappears.

K: Has it happened? The bond is broken. The chain is broken. That is the test. So, sir, let us proceed. There is a listening, there is a seeing and there is learning, without knowledge. Then what happens? What is learning? Is there anything to learn at all? Which means you have wiped away the whole self. I wonder if you see this. Because the self is knowledge. The self is made up of experience, knowledge, thought, memory; memory, thought, action - that is the cycle. Now has this happened? If it has not happened, let us begin again. That is patience. That patience has no time. Impatience has time.

J.U.: What will come out of this observing, listening? Does this state go on, or will something come out of it which will transform the world?

K: The world is me, the world is the self, the world is different selves. That self is me. Now what happens when this takes place, actually, not theoretically? First of all, there is tremendous energy, boundless energy, not energy created by thought, the energy that is born out of this knowledge; there is a totally different kind of energy, which then acts. That energy is compassion, love. Then that love and compassion are intelligence and that intelligence acts.

A.P.: That action has no root in the `I'.

K: No, no. His question is, if this really takes place, what is the next step? What happens? What actually happens is, he has got this energy which is compassion and love and intelligence. That intelligence acts in life. When the self is not, the `other' is. The `other' is compassion, love and this enormous, boundless energy. That intelligence acts. And that intelligence is naturally not yours or mine.

Chapter 3

Part 1
Seminar New Delhi
4th November 1981
The Future of Man

Achyut Patwardhan: Sir, there is a general feeling of a deepening crisis. This feeling is due to various factors in the environment - the arms race, pollution, economic problems, underlying all this is a deep feeling of moral decline; in a country like India, this feeling is quite overpowering. It would be valuable to understand the relationship between this inner moral crisis and its outer manifestations which threaten the survival of man. The problem is: Can we discover for ourselves the relationship of the crisis within man and the crisis outside?

Romesh Thapar: Sir, I would just like to add a word to what Achyutji has said. I, as a person who has been analysing problems, presenting a perspective within a time-span of about twenty-five to thirty years, look at the world and see it shrinking. When I look at the problem in my country, I see that I have to texture by the year 2000 A.D. a society for a thousand million people. I know that the texturing of that society cannot be done in the way in which other societies have been textured. If I want to be honest to my people, the texturing has got to be a special kind; the civilizational underpinning has to be of a special kind. But with the world shrinking and with communications playing the role that they do, value systems towards which I grope are constantly under attack and may even be destroying those modernizing elements that exist within society. Now I ask myself; Is it possible to work out some system of thought which will protect me from this horrendous scenario? For, if I am unable to retexture my society on just principles, and in isolation from what corruption is taking place elsewhere, I will establish a society which is very brutal and unjust.

T.N. Madan: I would like to seek a clarification regarding the first question which was raised. I do not know of any age, time, culture or country when people have not felt there was a moral crisis. The question, therefore, seems to be that one should first define what is the nature of our moral crisis; otherwise, we come much too close to our immediate problems and immediate surroundings and think that ours is the worst of times, that the best of times were in the past; or we think in terms of utopias. So, in the first place, could we define the nature of the moral crisis? And a clue to that might lie in what Mr. Thapar was saying. We adhere to the values we think were good, but perhaps those values no longer exist because the world has shrunk. The values of the village community will not serve the world community. We seem to be caught in a split - a split represented by changes which are being forced upon us, and value systems which we have inherited and which we naturally think are precious. How do we resolve this dilemma between a shrinking world which we have to accept and the world of values which we do not want to leave, do not want to get away from?

Rajni Kothari: Sir I would say that a feeling of moral crisis has from time to time arisen essentially when institutions are breaking down. There are many views about the present crisis. One is that we are going through a period of such rapid transformation that this crisis is bound to occur; we will have, as a result, to restructure all this at some point. I don't clearly see the outlines of an alternative system, a new way of restructuring human activity or the human intellect, and as there is nothing taking the place of what is crumbling, this sense of a moral crisis has come in.

Ashish Nandy: Frankly, I do not see any real moral crisis. But there is a moral crisis in people like us, and this has been manifest for many years. I am a great votary of the common man, and I don't think he suffers from a moral crisis; he suffers from a crisis of survival.

Q: One of the most significant facts is that today we have some technological tools which will make a big impact on the future of man. I happen to be a computer scientist and I am aware of some of the very important things that are taking place in the computer business. And what I would very much like to learn from this seminar is how to quantify and think about these value systems so that machines that are going to come about in the future, electronic computers which will have the ability to think and learn, will be able to make the right kind of choices.

Sudhir Kakkar: I question the feeling of moral crisis, also the pessimism expressed by previous speakers.

P.J.: I wonder why we are using the word `moral'. Is the crisis facing the human being of the same nature as the crises in the past? Or, because of a special set of circumstances, due to the pressures generated by the action of human beings - genetic engineering, computer engineering and the limitless possibilities of the computer taking over the functions of the human mind - is the crisis of a totally different order? It is not only a moral crisis; we have had moral crises in the past, but the crisis which strikes at the roots of the human mind is of a very different order. I think it is time we brought into this aspect, that the crisis that man faces today is the crisis of survival. With the growth of modern genetics and computer technology, methods will be forthcoming which will take over the functions of the human mind; the distinct possibility of the human mind itself atrophying is something which we can no longer disregard. If this is so, then shouldn't we start thinking of the crisis we face today? A few years later it may be beyond consideration. If there is a threat to the very root of the human mind, to the survival of what is called human, then what is the action of man? Is there such a threat? Is it possible to meet it? If it is possible to meet it, with what tools, what instruments of our own being, do we meet it?

A.P.: May I explain the point I raised? Consider Sakharov, the scientist, who, under pressure of circumstances, was responsible for inventing the hydrogen bomb but, later, finding that he was responsible for a colossal threat to human survival, sought ways to meet the crisis. This may be dramatic in the case of scientists. But the crisis exists as much for the farmer in the village as for the ordinary citizen in the town. There is a challenge to his integrity, created by the pressure of the environment.

J.U.: There is a political, scientific, social and also a moral crisis. What is the resolution of this crisis? Is it faith?

Jai Shankar: We have all talked about a moral crisis. The question is: Does it exist for all people? I don't think a moral crisis exists, for instance, for makers of computers, or for the makers of armaments and those who buy them, or for the people who wield political power at all cost. And at the other end of the spectrum, as Dr. Nandy said, the poor don't face any moral crisis; they face a crisis of survival. So what is the crisis we are talking about? The crisis is really not a moral crisis per se, but the result of dissociating morality from knowledge.

K.V.: Apropos of all that has been said, does fear play a part in this amoral knowledge ?

P.J.: I don't think anyone will question the premise that a tool is neither moral or immoral. It is only the application of the tool which is moral or immoral. Nobody can stop tools being made; but their application, the way they are used, can be controlled.

R.K.: I think Mr. Jai Shankar was referring to an integral part of the nature of modern science, whose motive, dynamic force, is manipulation, conquest of nature, the re-ordering of society; and it is not that there is no moral perspective behind modern science. There is a moral perspective which has led today to our becoming aware of the manipulative kind of knowledge which turns out to be amoral. I think Achyutji has already pointed this out in the case of Sakharov: it is also true of Einstein. After what they invented, they felt sorry for what had happened as a consequence. I think Jai Shankar is talking of something inherent in the nature of modern knowledge, which tends to make science and technology amoral.

J.S.: When does the tool cease to be a tool and become the master? That is the question. You presume that at all times tools can be controlled. I think that there could be tools that could overtake you; in fact, tools have already overtaken you; they control you, and there is very little freedom that is left to you.

O. V. Vijayan: I was wondering whether this crisis is modern at all, whether it is not the repetition of a perennial crisis with a contemporary, modern reference. What causes the collapse of morality?

J.U.: It is true that scientific and political developments have affected human consciousness. However, I feel that if human consciousness or that which is at the centre of human consciousness is strengthened, then it would always be possible for human consciousness to be the master of all the tools that it creates. The problem is awakening human consciousness so that it can master the tool it creates.

K. V.: At what point do tools become masters?

R.K.: There is a fantastic stirring of consciousness at the level of the ordinary person. In fact, the shrinkage that Romesh spoke of is not only the shrinkage that telecommunication and technology have brought about; it is also a shrinkage between the bottom and top layers of society. And that shrinkage gives rise to forms and issues that the mind has discovered. I have no answers to these two issues; it is an extremely complicated process. A process of the transformation of consciousness is on in such a radical manner that it makes me pretty nervous.

K: If I may point out, I don't think the crisis is in morality or values at all. I think the crisis is in consciousness and knowledge. Unless human beings radically transform this consciousness, we are going to end up in bloody wars. Has knowledge transformed man at all, at any time? This is the real crisis. Man has lived for twenty-five thousand years, from what modern discovery has shown. During these two hundred and fifty centuries, he has not radically changed. Man is anxious, frightened, depressed, unhappy, aggressive, lonely, all that. The crisis is there, and the crisis is in modern knowledge. What havoc has knowledge played? Has it any place at all in the transformation of man? That is the real question. We have to understand, not intellectually, not verbally, but deep down in our being the nature of our consciousness and this tremendous accumulation of knowledge in the last hundred and fifty years, whether that has brought about the destruction of man, or the ascent of man, or if it has any place at all in the transformation of man.

P.J.: What kind of knowledge are you talking about? When you ask, `What place has knowledge in the transformation of man?' should we not clarify your conception of knowledge?

T.N.M.: We surely have a problem here of communicating with each other and understanding each other, I was trying to explain to myself what Krishnaji meant by his observation about knowledge, and suggesting that perhaps what he meant was the will to be human through experience, to convert knowledge into experience. Now, this could be knowledge at any level. This could be the knowledge of the scientists. Let me, for a moment, be the devil's advocate and say that the rubric of the scientist is bad enough but his moral righteousness can be worse. And one must remember that the scientist who produces the computer does not do it in the name of bringing about human freedom. I think we should try to find out whether the problem is one of moral crisis or in the nature of knowledge or in the acquisition of knowledge.

P.J.: We seem to be going round and round this factor of knowledge. You spoke of consciousness, which contains not only knowledge about machines, computers, etc., but of more potent things, fear, greed, sorrow, envy, loneliness. This is not knowledge in the ordinarily recognised sense of the word, though you may consider all this part of the process of knowledge because it arises out of experience.

K: I would like to discuss what consciousness is, and what is the nature of knowledge. These two factors apparently are dominating the world. Thought is knowledge. Knowledge is experience. Knowledge, memory, thought, action - this is the cycle man has been caught in for twenty-five thousand years. I think there is no dispute about that. This cycle has been a process of accumulating knowledge and functioning from that knowledge, either skilfully or unskilfully. The process is stored in the brain as memory, and the memory responds in action. This is the cycle in which man is caught; always within the field of the known. Now what will change man? That is one problem.

The other is consciousness. Consciousness is its content; its content makes up consciousness. All the superstitions, beliefs, the class divisions, the brahmanic impressions, all that falls within consciousness. The idol, the belief, the idea of god, suffering, pain, anxiety, loneliness, despair, depression, uncertainty, insecurity, all that is within human consciousness. It is not my consciousness; it is human consciousness, because wherever you go, America or Russia, you meet the same problem. Human beings carry this complex burden of consciousness which contains all the things that thought has put together.

R.K.: I would like a definition of the content of consciousness. Is it all that thought has put together? Do you say both are co-terminous?

K: We will come to that presently. When you examine your own consciousness, whether you are a doctor, a scientist, a philosopher, a guru, you find your own anxieties, your uncertainties - all that is your consciousness. And that consciousness is the ground on which all humanity stands.

J.S.: Is that all? Is all this added up the sum of consciousness; or is consciousness more than this sum?

G.N.: If you say that the content of consciousness is the sum of man's past thoughts, of the things that man has known, then there is nothing that is added through aggregation. The question is: Is consciousness the sum of its past thoughts, knowledge, all that is put together, or, is there something more to it?

K: Is that the question?

R.K.: Is there something in consciousness which is not just an aggregation of anxiety and fear?

J.S.: There has been talk in our tradition about pure consciousness as well, a consciousness which is not an aggregate of anxiety, pain, despair. That one is more than the sum of these parts is a possibility that must be considered.

K: Even positing something as pure consciousness is part of our consciousness. Would you agree so far: whatever thought has put together, whether it is super-consciousness, ultimate consciousness, pure consciousness, is still part of our consciousness, is still part of thought, and thought is born of knowledge, and, therefore, completely limited? All knowledge is limited. There is no complete knowledge of the computer or of the atom bomb or of anything.

P.J.: Is consciousness a putting together of many fragments of different types, or has it a holistic quality in it?

T.N.M.: Consciousness must be integrated.

K: If it is limited, it is not holistic.

T.N.M.: If consciousness is not holistic, what about knowledge?

K: Consciousness is knowledge. Would you not say that our whole existence is experience? From experience - whether it is scientific, emotional or sexual - we acquire knowledge. And that knowledge is stored in the brain as memory. The response of memory is thought. Put in any way, the process is that.

S.K.: Thought is born of fear.

K: Fear is the product of thought, not the other way round. Would you admit that thought arises from knowledge, that knowledge can never be complete about anything? Therefore, thought is always limited, and all our actions - scientific, spiritual, religious - are limited. So the crisis is in knowledge, which is consciousness.

P.J.: The question which has been raised is: Is fear independent of thought? Does thought arise as a reaction to fear? How does fear arise?

J.S.: You had said that thought arises out of knowledge.

K: It is a fact.

S.K.: Well, I was suggesting that there is an intermediate step, that out of knowledge first comes fear; fear is the father of thought rather than the other way round.

J.U.: Knowledge constructs itself through a process: previous knowledge is replaced by new knowledge, there is conquest of knowledge by knowledge; knowledge rides on its own shoulders.

K.V.: Does that then constitute consciousness or does it not? Upadhyayaji said `yes', some of us certainly say `no'.

K: I don't quite follow the argument.

P.J.: We are not communicating; perhaps if you open up the whole problem of knowledge, thought, consciousness, it may be simpler to come to a meeting point.

K: Sir, what is reality? I would like to explore that question. What is nature, the tree, the tiger, the deer? Nature is not created by thought; what is not created by thought is reality. Thought has created everything that I know - all the temples, the churches, the mosques. There is nothing sacred about thought; the rituals, the mass, the namaz, the prayers, all that is the invention of thought. Then I ask myself: What is thinking? If you ask my name, I respond immediately because I am familiar with it. But if you ask me something which is more complex, it takes time to investigate, to answer. That is, I look to my memory and try to find the answer or I consult books or talk to somebody to find the answer.

So there are: an immediate response, a response of time, and the response which says, `I really do not know.' We never say, `I do not know.' We are always responding from memory. That memory is in the cells of my brain, derived through tradition, education, experience, perception, hearing and so on. I am all that. Born in India, educated abroad, the content of my consciousness is the result of Indian culture, European culture, Italian culture, so on and so forth; the content of my consciousness is the result of innumerable talks, discussions with scientists, religious people. My consciousness is me; I am not different from my consciousness. So the observer is the observed. That is a fact. My consciousness is the consciousness of humanity; it is not separate. And this consciousness has known conflicts, pain. It has invented god. Human beings have lived for twenty-five thousand years in this misery, inventing technology, using that technology to destroy each other.

Seeing all that, what am I to do? What I am is the rest of the world; I am the world. This is no intellectual idea, but fact. I am an ordinary man, not a highly intellectual type. I have looked to the gurus; they have not helped me; the politicians have not helped me; the scientists have not helped me; on the contrary they have destroyed me, apart from technological convenience, communication and all that. Their atom bombs, their military technology, are perpetually creating wars. For the last five thousand years we have had wars every year. This is a historical fact. However, will all this accumulation of tremendous knowledge help me to change all that? That is the real crisis. I have relied on everyone to help me. I have to discard all that help totally. I feel the crisis is there, and not in the world of technology or in the intellectual world or in the totalitarian world.

R.K.: Are you not ascribing a certain homogeneity to everything? You are giving the same character to different civilizations, different religious systems, systems of modern science and systems of thought that create wars all over the world.

K. Of course, I don't see any difference.

R.K.: I have no difficulty in seeing that a human being is a result of all those factors. But to give the same kind of character to all that without differentiation, that I don't see.

K: Physically you are taller, I am shorter; and psychologically there are certain characteristic tendencies depending on different cultures, following certain values.

T.N.M.: At a certain level we are different. But at the level of what we are, I think he has a point. Whether you are living in the Amazonian jungle or in a modern town, here is a basic universality to the human predicament. But surely in terms of what we have, whether we have the computer or the sewing machine, there is a difference.

R.K.: The question is not of differentiation but about the stream of consciousness that have gone on in the past. You talk in terms of twenty-five thousand years. Can the modern, scientific, homocentric view of knowledge and its impact on consciousness be put on a par with some of the ancient streams of consciousness? In other words, do experience and the accumulation of experience offer no choices to us at this moment of history, or are we doomed?

P.J.: As long as we continue within our known consciousness, its concern with the little better, the little worse, we are still caught in the grip of something from which we do not seem to be able to get out. Krishnaji is hinting at a quantum leap, and we are still within the structure of time. Perhaps tomorrow we may see clearly, but can we do so with the instruments with which we see the world, which are the instruments we have? Can we somehow come to this point from which we see? Otherwise, we will go round and round; we can be better, more moral, less moral, less destructive or more destructive, but we will still be caught within this framework. I think that is the problem.

J.S.: Sir, I understand your anguish. But I do not understand the problem. If this is the way we have been for the last twenty-five thousand years without any change, then we cannot go back to a period or a state where things would be more desirable than they are. If that is what we are, I don't see how we can make the quantum leap.

R.K.: That was exactly my point.

K: My question is: At the end of twenty-five thousand years I am what I am. We all see that. Hitler has left his imprint on us; the Buddha also has; if Jesus ever lived, he also has. The result of all that is my conditioning. Is it possible to be totally unconditioned? I say `yes', it is possible to be completely unconditioned.

Part 2
Seminar New Delhi
5th November 1981 Morning Session
The Future of Man

P.J.: Can we start laying the landscape of the future of man, the problems which he faces and what lies in the matrix of the human mind which makes it impossible for him to break free?

K: What is the future of man? The computer can out-think man, learn faster than man, record much more extensively than man. It can learn, unlearn, correct itself, according to what has been programmed. Computers exist that can programme other computers and so keep going, learning more. So, what is the future of man when everything that he has done or will do, the computer can outdo? Of course, it cannot compose like Beethoven, it cannot see the beauty of Orion on an evening in the sky. But it can create a new Vedanta, a new philosophy, new gods and so on. What then is man to do? Either he seeks entertainment, enters more and more into the world of sports, or seeks religious entertainment. Or he goes inward. The human mind is infinite. It has got an immense capacity; not the capacity of specialization, not the capacity of knowledge. It is infinite.

This is perhaps the future of mankind: Scientists have started asking what is going to happen to man when the computer takes charge of the whole of man. The brain is occupied now; it is active. When that brain is not active, it is going to wither and the machine is going to operate. We may all become zombies, lose our extraordinary inward capacity or become superficially intellectual, seeking the world of entertainment. I do not know if you have noticed that more and more time is given on the T.V. to sport, especially in Europe. So, is that the future of man? The future of man may depend on the atom bomb, the neutron bomb. In the East, in India, war may seem very far away. But if you live in Europe, there is tremendous concern about the bomb; war is very close there. So there are these two threats: war and the computer. So what is the future of man? Either he goes very deeply inward, not through delving into the depth of his mind, into the depth of his heart. Or he will be entertained. Freedom of choice, freedom from dictatorship, freedom from chaos, are problems that man has to face.

In the world, there is great disturbance, corruption; people are very very disturbed. It is dangerous to walk on the streets. When we are talking about freedom from fear, we want outward freedom, freedom from chaos, anarchy, or dictatorship. But we never demand or enquire if there is an inner freedom at all: freedom of the mind. Is that freedom actual or theoretical? We regard the State as an impediment to freedom. Communists and other totalitarian people say there is no such thing as freedom; the State, the government, is the only authority. And they are suppressing every form of freedom. So what kind of freedom do we want? Out there? Outside of us? Or inward freedom? When we talk about freedom, is it the freedom of choice between this government and that, here and there, between outer and inward freedom? The inner psyche always conquers the outer. The psyche, that is, the inward structure of man - his thoughts, emotions, his ambitions, his actions, his greed - always conquers the outer. So, where do we seek freedom? Could we discuss that? Can there be freedom from nationality which gives us a sense of security? Can there be freedom from all the superstitions, dogmas and religions? A new civilization can only come about through real religion, not through superstition, dogma or traditional religions.

P.J.: You have asked a question: What is the choice that man has in the world of the outer when the world of the inner is not participating in the movement of freedom? That is, without knowing whether the mind is free or in bondage, is there a choice possible in the outer? Is it possible for a mind which is unexplored, to make a choice in the outer?
S.K.: Sir, you talked about the computer and the possibility of the human brain withering away from lack of activity. Do you then foresee the possibility of man becoming extinct and being replaced by a non-biological entity?

K: Perhaps, but my point is, we must take things as they are and see if we can't bring about a mutation in our brain itself.

S.K.: I would like to ask you a little more about freedom of the mind when it is in bondage. We only know relative freedom. There is a complete distinction between inner and outer freedom and bondage; they somehow confuse me. For example, we are talking about greed and the aggression of the mind. To me it makes man human. This is what makes a distinction between a computer and man. I would like you to throw a little more light on this freedom. Is it relative freedom? Does it include all the emotions we are talking about? How can one be with them, live with them? It seems that somewhere there are some boundaries set by those customs and to try to transcend them is to try to transcend humanity itself.

K: The human mind has lived in fear for so many millions of centuries. Can that fear possibly come to an end? Or, are we going to continue with it for the rest of our lives?

P.J.: What Dr. Kakkar said was that it is these very elements of fear, envy, anger, aggression, which make up humanness. What is your response to that?

K: Are they? We accept them as human nature. We are used to that. Our ancestors and the present generation have accepted that as the condition of man. I question that. Humanity, a human being, may be entirely different.

P.J.: If you question it, then you must be able to show what it is that makes it possible to quench these elements so that the humanness which you speak about can flower totally. How is it possible?

R.T.: It also means that there can be no such thing as freedom unless you have quenched these elements.

K: Yes sir, as long as I am attached to some conclusion, to some concept, some ideal, there is no freedom. Should we discuss this?

P.J.: This is after all the core of the whole problem of mankind.

J.S.: May I stretch the question further by suggesting that in the statement or the question which Dr. Kakkar asked, there is implied another concept of freedom, where you obtain freedom not by getting rid of fear, anxiety, greed, so on and so forth, but by integrating them, incorporating them within a larger whole.

K: Integrating in a larger awareness of consciousness.

Swami Chidanand:. Learning successfully to cope with them.

S.K.: May I elaborate? There are two things; fear is a part of humanness; the elimination is also part of humanness. If you talk only of elimination of desire or of quenching it, reaching another state is, to me, leaving out the other part. And this is very important to me for a strategy. My strategy is that I believe that envy, greed, etc., are part of humanness because that is what makes man. Man has to live with them, but he has to make friends with them and use them. Then he will see that fears are not as great as we think; that greed is not really that frightening. To have fear reduced, lessened, used - that is my strategy.

P.J.: Dr. Kakkar is right; you cannot take only the dark elements in man. It is the same centre which talks of transformation of the good, which talks of all the elements which are today considered the opposites. The total thing makes up man - the dark and the light. Is it possible to integrate the dark and the light? And who integrates them? So the problem is really a central one. That is, is there an entity who can choose, integrate?

K: Why is there this division; dark, light; beauty, ugly? Why is there in human beings this contradiction?

Shanta Gandhi: Without contradiction one can hardly live. Life is full of contradictions. An outcome of life is contradiction.

K: Oh! You consider life a contradiction. Contradiction implies conflict. So to you life is an endless conflict. You reduce life to a perpetual conflict.

S.G.: Life, as we know it, certainly is.

K: We have accepted life to be a conflict. That may be our habit, our tradition, our education, our condition.

S.G.: My difficulty is that my tool for attaining this awareness is also my own mind. It is the sum total of that which is conditioned by what has gone by. And I can only start from that point.

K: So we start with the human condition. Some say it is impossible to change that condition; you can only modify it. The existentialists say that you cannot possibly uncondition that. Therefore, you must live perpetually in conflict. We are contradicting ourselves, that is all.

S.K.: What I feel is, there are two conditions; this is part of human growth and development. There are two conflicts which are inescapable. One is separation, the awareness of `I am' as different from my parents. This is part of human evolution. And the second is differentiation, when one learns sex differentiation - I am male and the other one is female; these are part of human evolution, faces of contradiction, of differences, and they are the basic anxieties which are inescapable in the human mind.

K: So what is integration?

S.K.: Trying to get them together.

K: Can you bring the opposites together? Or is there no opposite at all? May I go into that? I am violent; human beings are violent. That is a fact. Non-violence is not a fact. Violence is `what is; the other is not. But all your leaders, philosophers, have tried to cultivate non-violence. Which means what? Through the cultivation of non-violence I am being violent. So non-violence can never be. There is only violence. Why do I, the mind, create the opposite? As a lever to escape from violence? Why cannot I deal only with violence and not be concerned with non-fact? There is only violence; the other is merely an escape from this fact. So there is only `what is; not `what should be; ideals, concepts, all that goes.

A.P.: When you say that non-violence is only an idea and violence is the fact, then the enquiry must logically proceed a step further and ask: Can violence end?

K: Surely. First we should understand what violence is. What is violence? Conformity is violence. Limitation is violence.

S.K.: I would like to understand this a little more.

K: What do I call violence? Anger, hatred, hitting another, killing another for an ideal, for a concept, for the word `peace'. And is violence an idea or a fact? When I get angry, it is a fact. Why do I call it violence? Why do I give it a name? I give a name to a reaction which is called violence. Why do I do that?

Look, there is a squirrel on the roof. Do I have to name it? Do you follow my question? Do I do it for purposes of recognition, thereby strengthening the present reaction? Of course. So the present reaction is caught up in the past remembrance and I name the past remembrance as violence.

S.K.: Yes, sir, I also discover that violence is violating. I was saying `yes' to you without understanding what violence is.

S.C.: When you speak of violence, we of course know of violence; one refers to anger; there is also subjective violence.

K: I was coming to that. What is violence? Doing harm to others, hurting another psychologically by persuasion and through reward and punishment; by making him conform to a pattern by persuading him logically, affectionately, to accept a certain framework - all that is violence. Apparently that is inherent in man. Why do we call that violence? That is happening all the time. Tradition does it; the whole religious world does it; the political world does it; the business world does it; the intellectual world does it, enforcing their ideas, their concepts, their theories.

S.G.: Is all education violence?

K: No. I won't use that word `education' for the moment. Is there a mind which cannot be persuaded, a mind that sees very clearly? That is the point.

S.K.: No.

K: Why do you say `no'?

S.K.: Because the question you asked is whether there is a mind that cannot be persuaded. My point is there is no such mind.

K: We are the result of persuasion; all propaganda, religious or political, is persuading, pressurizing, dragging us in a certain direction.

S.K.: So deep is that persuasion that it cannot be reached by us. It wears so many masks that those masks cannot be seen by us any more.

K: Can we be free from that violence? Can we be free from hatred? Obviously we can.

P.J.: You cannot leave it there and say, `Obviously you can be free.'

K: Have we agreed up to that point?

S.K.: That we hate, yes. But can we be free from that hate? No.

K: We will go into that. What is the cause of hate? Why do you hate me when I say something which you don't like? Why do you push me aside, you being stronger, intellectually more powerful, etc? Why do I get hurt? Psychologically, what is the process of being hurt? What is hurt? Who is hurt? The image I have of myself is hurt. You come and tread on it and put a pin into it; I get hurt. So the image I have about myself is the cause of hurt. You say something to me, call me an idiot, and I think I am not an idiot; you hurt me because I have an image of myself as not being an idiot.

S.K.: With one proviso - when you say that the image is hurt when it is called an idiot, it means it is not you who is hurt but something which you have invented.

K: We are the result of every hurt.

S.K.: It is not you who is hurt.

K: No. Suppose I think I am a great man. You come along and say, don't be silly, there are many greater men than you. I get hurt. Why? Obviously, I have an image of myself as a great man. You come and say something contrary to that. I get hurt. You are not hurting me; you are hurting my image of myself. The image which I have built about myself gets hurt. So the next question is: Can I live without an image of myself?

S.K.: No.

P.J.: Where, in what dimension, do I discover that I am making an image of myself?

K: I don't discover; I perceive.

P.J.: Where?

K: What do you mean by where? You pointed out to me just now that I have an image about myself. I have not thought about it, I have never seen my image. You point it out; you make a statement that I have an image. I am listening to you very carefully, very attentively, and in that very listening I discover the fact that I have an image of myself. Or, do I see an image of myself?

P.J.: I don't think I am making myself clear. If I don't see it as an abstraction, then that image-making machinery is the ground on which this is seen. Let me go into it a little further. There is a ground from which the image-making machinery rises.

K: Why do you use the word `ground'?

P.J.: Because, in talking and responding, there is a tendency to become conceptual. If one comes out of the conceptual to the actual, then the actual is the process of perceiving.

K: That is all. Stop there.

P.J.: I cannot stop there. I ask you further: I don't perceive it in your statement; then where do I perceive it?

K: You perceive it as it is taking place.

P.J.: When you say `as it is taking place', where do I perceive it? Do I perceive it outside or in my imagination?

K:. I saw that squirrel walking about. I perceive it, I perceive the fact, I watch the fact that I have an image.

P.J.: This is not very clear.

K: It is very very clear. You tell me that I am a liar. I have told a lie. I realize that I am a liar.

P.J.: Is there a difference between realizing that I am a liar and perceiving that I am a liar?

K: I have perceived that I am a liar. I am aware - let us use the word `aware' - that I am a liar. That is all.

P.J.: Can you open up this seeing of the movement within the mind? I think this is the core of the whole thing.

K: We were talking about freedom from fear. We want to discuss the whole movement of fear. It begins with desire, with time, with memory; it begins with the fact of the present movement of fear. All this is involved in the whole river of fear. Either the fear is very, very shallow or it is a deep river with a great volume of water. We are not discussing the various objects of fear, but fear itself. Now is it an abstraction of fear that we are discussing, or actual fear in my heart, in my mind? Is it that I am facing the fear? I want to be clear on this point. If we are discussing abstract fear, it has no meaning to me. I am concerned only with the actual happening of fear. I say in that fear all this is involved, the desire and the very complexity of desire, time, the past impinging on the present, and the sense of wanting to go beyond fear. All this must be perceived. I don't know if you follow. We have to take a thing like the drop of rain which contains all the rivers in the world, see the beauty of that one drop of rain. One drop of desire contains the whole movement of fear.

So what is desire? Why do we suppress it? Why do you say it has a tremendous importance? I want to be a minister; my desire is for that, or my desire is for god. My desire for god and my desire to be a minister are one and the same thing - it is desire. So I have to understand the depth of what desire is, why it drives man, why it has been suppressed by all religions.

One asks what is the place of desire and why the brain is consumed with desire. I have to understand it not only at the verbal level through explanation, through communication, but to understand it at its deepest level, in my guts. What is the place of thought in desire? Is desire different from thought? Does thought play an important part in desire? Or is thought the movement of desire? Is thought part of desire or does thought dominate desire, control and shape desire?

So I am asking: Are thought and desire not like two horses? I must understand not only thought, but the whole movement of thinking, the origin of thought; not the end, but the beginning of thought. Can the mind be aware of the beginning of thought and also of the beginning of desire?

I have to go into that question: What is desire and what is thought? First, there is perception, contact, sensation. That is, I see a blue shirt in the window. I go inside and touch the texture, then out of that touching, there is sensation. Then thought says, how nice it would be if I put on that blue shirt. The creation by thought of the image of that shirt on me is the beginning of desire.

S.K.: You said, you feel in the guts. I think that is where desire resides.

K: We understand desire, how it arises, where thought creates the image and desire begins. Then what is time? Is time a movement of thought? There is time, the sun rises, the sun sets at a certain time; time as the past, present and the future; time as the past modifying itself, becoming the future physically; time as covering a distance; time as learning a language. Then there is the whole area of psychological time. I have been, I am, I will be. That is a movement of the past through the present modifying into the future. Time as acquiring knowledge through experience, memory, thought, action - that is also time. So there is psychological time and physical time.

Now, is there psychological time at all? Or, has thought as hope created time? That is, I am violent, I will be non-violent, and I realize that that process can never end violence. What will end violence is confronting the fact and remaining with it, not trying to dodge it or escape from it. There is no opposite; only `what is'.

And what is thinking? Why has man given a tremendous importance to the intellect, to words, theories, ideas? Unless I discover the origin of thinking, how it begins, can there be awareness of thought arising? Or, does awareness come after it has arisen? Is there awareness of the movement of the whole river of thought? Thought has become extraordinarily important. Thought exists because there is knowledge, experience, stored up in the brain as memory; from that memory there is thought and action. In this process we live, always within the field of the known. So desire, time, thought, is essentially fear. Without this there is no fear. I am afraid inwardly, and I want order out there - in society, in politics, economics. How can there be order out there if I am in disorder here?

P.J.: Can I bring order within, me if there is disorder outside? I am deliberately posing this problem which lay in your early dichotomy between the outward and the inward. The outward is compared to the computer on the one hand and the atom bomb, which I think is taking over.

J.U.: We cannot realize that freedom without relating ourselves to the outside where there is dukh (sorrow), where there is so much turmoil. We cannot understand the process of freedom without relating the inward and the outward.

K: Have I understood the question rightly? You are saying that the division between the outer and the inner is false. I agree with you. It is a movement like a tide, going out and coming in. So what is outside is me; me is the outside.

The outer is a movement of the inner; the inner is the movement of the outer. There is no dichotomy at all. But by understanding the outer, that criterion will guide me to the inner, so that there is no deception; because I do not want to be deceived at the end of it. So the outer is the indicator of the inner and the inner is the indicator of the outer. There is no difference. My part is not to put away the outer; I say I am responsible for that. I am responsible for everything that is happening in the world. My brain is not my brain: it is the brain of humanity, which has grown through evolution and all the rest of it. So there is responsibility, political, religious, all along the line.