Wholeness of Life
B: But that is the whole point about the image, that it imitates an actual fact, you get the feeling that it is real. In other words I feel that I am really there - an actual fact looking at the past, at how I have developed.
S: Right.
B: But is it a fact that I am doing that?
S: What do you mean? It is an actual fact that I get the feeling that I am looking.
B: Yes, but is it an actual fact that that is the way it all is and was?
S: No, it is not. I can see the incorrectness of my memory which constructs me in time. I mean, obviously I was much more at three than I can remember; I was more at ten than I can remember, and obviously there was much more going on at seventeen than I have in my memory.
B: Yes, but the me who is here now is looking at all that.
S: That's right.
B: But is he really there and is he looking? That is the question.
S: Is the me that is looking..?
K: ...an actuality. As this table is.
S: Well, let's...
K: Stick to it, stick to it.
S: That is what I am going to do. What is an actuality is this development, this image of a developmental sequence.
B: And the me who is looking at it?
S: And the me who is looking at it, that's right.
B: But it may be, in fact it is, that the me who is looking at it is also an image as is the developmental sequence.
S: You are saying then that this image of me is...
K: ...is not reality.
B: It is not a reality independent of thinking.
K: So we must go back to find out what is reality.
S: Right.
K: Reality, we said, is everything that thought has put together. The table, the illusion, the churches, the nations - everything that thought has contrived is reality. But nature is not this sort of reality. It is not put together by thought, though it is nevertheless a reality.
B: It is a reality independent of thought. But is the me who is looking, a reality independent of thought, like nature?
K: That is the whole point. Have you understood?
S: Yes. I am beginning to see.
K: Sir, just let's be simple. We said we have images; I know I have images and you tell me to look at them, to be aware of them, to perceive the image. Is the perceiver different from the perceived? That is all my question is.
S: I know. I know.
K: Because if he is different then the whole process will go on indefinitely - right? But if there is no division, if the observer is the observed, then the whole problem changes.
S: Right.
K: Right? So is the observer different from the observed? Obviously not. So can I look at that image without the observer? And is there an image when there is no observer? Because the observer makes the image, the observer is the movement of thought.
B: We shouldn't call it the observer then because it is not looking. I think the language is confusing.
K: The language is, yes.
B: Because if you say it is an observer that implies that something is looking.
K: Yes, quite.
B: What you really mean is that thought is moving and creating an image as if it were looking, but nothing is being seen.
K: Yes.
B: Therefore there is no observer.
K: That is right. But put it round the other way: Is there a thinker without thought?
B: No.
K: Exactly. There you are. If there is no experiencer is there an experience? So you have asked me to look at my images, which is a very serious and very penetrating demand. You say look at them without the observer, because the observer is the image-maker, and if there is no observer, if there is no thinker, there is no thought - right? So there is no image. You have shown me something enormously significant.
S: As you said the question changes completely.
K: Completely. I have no image.
S: It feels completely different. It's as if there is a silence.
K: So I am saying, my consciousness is the consciousness of the world, because, in essence, it is filled with the things of thought - sorrow, fear, pleasure, despair, anxiety, attachment, hope; it is a turmoil of confusion; a sense of deep agony is involved in it all. And in that state I cannot have any relationship with any human being.
S: Right.
K: So you say to me: To have the greatest and most responsible relationship is to have no image. You have pointed out to me that to be free of images, the maker of the image must be absent. The maker of the image is the past, is the observer who says "I like this", "I don't like this", who says "my wife, my husband, my house" - the me who is in essence the image. I have understood this. Now the next question is: Are the images hidden so that I can't grapple with them, can't get hold of them? All you experts have told me that there are dozens of underground images - and I say, "By Jove, they must know, they know much more than I do, so I must accept what they say." But how am I to unearth them, expose them? You see, you have put me, the ordinary man, into a terrible position.
S: You don't have to unearth them once it is clear to you that the observer is the observed.
K: Therefore you are saying there is no unconscious.
S: Right.
K: You, the expert! You, who talk endlessly about the unconscious with your patients.
S: I don't.
K: You say there is no unconscious.
S: Right.
K: I agree with you. I say it is so. The moment you see that the observer is the observed, that the observer is the maker of images, it is finished.
S: Finished. Right.
K: Right through.
S: If you really see that.
K: That's it. So the consciousness which I know, in which I have lived, has undergone a tremendous transformation. Has it? Has it for you? And if I may ask Dr Bohm also - both of you, all of us - realizing that the observer is the observed, and that therefore the image-maker is no longer in existence, and so the content of consciousness, which makes up consciousness, is not as we know it - what then?
S: I don't know how you say it...
K: I am asking this question because it involves meditation. I am asking this question because all religious people, the really serious ones who have gone into this question, see that as long as we live our daily lives within the area of this consciousness - with all its images, and the image-maker - whatever we do will still be in that area. Right? One year I may become a Zen-Buddhist, and another year I may follow some guru, and so on and so on, but it is always within that area.
S: Right.
K: So what happens when there is no movement of thought, which is the image-making - what then takes place? You understand my question? When time, which is the movement of thought, ends, what is there? Because you have led me up to this point. I understand it very well. I have tried Zen meditation, I have tried Hindu meditation, I have tried all the kinds of other miserable practices and then I hear you, and I say, "By Jove, this is something extraordinary these people are saying. They say that the moment there is no image-maker, the content of consciousness undergoes a radical transformation and thought comes to an end, except in its right place." Thought comes to an end, time has a stop. What then? Is that death?
S: It is the death of the self.
K: No, no.
S: It is self-destruction.
K: No, no, sir. It is much more than that.
S: It is the end of something.
K: No, no. Just listen to it. When thought stops, when there is no image-maker, there is a complete transformation in consciousness because there is no anxiety, there is no fear, there is no pursuit of pleasure, there are none of the things that create turmoil and division. Then what comes into being, what happens? Not as an experience because that is out. What takes place? I have to find out, for you may be leading me up the wrong path!
Dialogue 7
7th Conversation with Dr. David Shainberg and Prof. David
Bohm
Brockwood Park
20th May, 1976
KRISHNAMURTI: After this morning, as an outsider, you have left
me completely empty, without any future, without any past,
without any image.
Dr Shainberg: That's right. Somebody who was watching us this
morning said, "How am I going to get out of bed in the morning?"
K: I think that question of getting out of bed in the morning is
fairly simple, because life demands that I act, not just stay in
bed for the rest of my life. You see, I have been left, as an
outsider who is viewing all this, who is listening to all this,
with a sense of a blank wall. I understand what you have said
very clearly. I have, at one glance, rejected all the systems,
all the gurus, this meditation and that meditation. I have
discarded all that because I have understood the meditator is
the meditation. But have I solved my problem of sorrow, do I
know what it means to love, do I understand what compassion is?
- not just understand intellectually. At the end of these
dialogues, after discussing with you all, listening to you all,
have I this sense of astonishing energy which is compassion?
Have I ended my sorrow? Do I know what it means to love
somebody, to love human beings..?
S: Actually.
K: Actually.
S: ...not just talk about it.
K: No, no, I have gone beyond all that. And you haven't shown me
what death is.
Dr Bohm: No.
K: I haven't understood a thing about death. You haven't talked
to me about death. So we will cover these things before we
finish this evening.
B: Could we begin with the question of death?
K: Yes. Let's begin with death.
B: One point occurred to me about what we discussed this
morning: We had come to the point of saying that when we see
that the observer is the observed, that is death. Essentially
that is what you said. Now this raises a question: If the self
is nothing but an image what is it that dies? If the image dies
that is nothing, it is not death - right?
K: That's right.
B: So is there something real that dies?
K: There is biological death.
B: We are not discussing that at the moment. You were discussing
some other kind of death.
K: We were saying this morning, that if there are no images at
all in my consciousness, there is death.
B: That is the point. It is not clear. What is it that has died?
K: The images have died. `Me' is dead.
B: But is that a genuine death?
K: Ah, that is what I want to find out. Is it a verbal
comprehension?
B: Or, more deeply, is there something that has to die?
Something real. In other words if an organism dies something
real has died. But when the self dies...
K: Ah, but I have accepted so far that the self has been an
astonishingly real thing.
B: Yes.
K: Then you three come along and tell me that that image is
fictitious. I understand that, and I am a little frightened that
when that dies, when there is no image, there is an ending to
something.
B: Yes, well what is it that ends?
K: Ah, quite. What is it that ends?
B: Is it something real that ends? You could say that an ending
of an image is no ending at all - right?
K: At all...
B: If it is only an image that ends it is only an image of
ending. What I am trying to say is that nothing much ends if it
is only an image.
K: Yes. That is what I want to get at.
B: Is it? You know what I mean?
K: If it is merely an ending of an image...
S: ...then that is nothing much.
B: It is like turning off the television. Is that what death is?
Or is there something deeper that dies?
K: Oh, very much deeper.
B: Something deeper dies?
K: Yes.
S: How about the image-making process?
K: No, no. I would say it is not the end of the image which is
death, but something much deeper.
B: But it is still not the death of the organism.
K: Still not the death of the organism, of course. The organism
will more or less...
B: ...go on, up to a point.
K: Up to a point, yes. There is disease, accident, old age. But
death. The ending of the image is fairly simple, and fairly
acceptable. But that is a very shallow pool.
B: Yes.
K: You have taken away the little water there is in the pool and
there is nothing but mud left behind. That is nothing. So is
there something much more?
S: That dies?
K: No. Not that dies, but to the meaning of death.
S: Is there something more than the image that dies, or does
death have a meaning beyond the death of the image?
K: That is what we are asking.
S: Is there something about death that is bigger than the death
of the image?
K: Obviously, it must be.
B: Will this include the death of the organism, this meaning?
K: The organism might go on, but eventually it comes to an end.
B: Yes, but if we were to see what death means as a whole,
universally, then we would also see what the death of the
organism means. But is there some meaning also in the death of
the self-image? The same meaning?
K: That is only, I should say, a very small part.
B: That is very small.
K: That is a very, very small part.
B: But there might be a process or a structure beyond the
self-image that might die, that creates the self-image.
K: Yes, that is thought.
B: That is thought. Now are you discussing the death of thought?
K: That again is only superficial.
B: That is very small.
K: Very small.
B: Is there something beyond thought in this that..?
K: That is what I want to get at.
S: We are trying to get at the meaning of death...
B: We are not quite there.
S: ...which is beyond the death of the self, thought or the
image.
K: No, just look: the image dies, that is fairly simple.
S: Right.
K: It is a very shallow affair. Then there is the ending of
thought, which is dying to thought.
B: You said thought is deeper than the image but still not very
deep.
K: Not very deep. Now is there something more?
B: In what sense "more"? Something more that exists? Or
something more that has to die?
S: Is it something creative that happens?
K: No, no. We are going to find out.
B: But I mean your question is not clear when you say, "Is there
something more?"
K: Death must have something enormously significant.
B: But are you saying that death has a meaning, a significance,
for everything? For the whole of life?
K: For the whole of life.
B: It is not generally accepted, if we are thinking of the
viewer, that death has that significance. As we live now death
is...
K: ...is at the end.
B: ...is at the end and we try to forget about it.
K: Yes.
B: Try to make it unobtrusive.
K: But as you three have pointed out, my life has been in a
turmoil, my life has been a constant conflict...
B: Right.
K: That has been my life. I have clung to the known and
therefore death is the unknown, so I am afraid of it. And you
come along and say, "Look, death is partly the ending of the
image and the maker of the image, but death has much greater
significance than merely this empty saucer."
B: Well, if you could make it more clear why it must have.
S: Why must it?
K: Is life just a shallow, empty pool? Empty mud at the end of
it?
S: Why would you assume it is anything else?
K: I want to know.
B: But even if it is something else we have to ask why is it
that death is the key to understanding.
K: Because it is the ending of everything. The end of reality
and all my concepts, my images - the end of all the memories.
B: But that is in the ending of thought, right?
K: The ending of thought. It also means the ending of time.
B: Ending of time.
K: Time coming to a stop totally. There is no future in the
sense of the past meeting the present and carrying on.
B: Psychologically speaking.
K: Yes, psychologically speaking, of course; we are speaking
psychologically. Psychological ending to everything.
S: Right.
K: That's what death is.
B: And when your organism dies then everything ends for that
organism.
K: Of course. When the organism dies it is finished. But wait a
minute. If I don't end the image, the stream of image-making
goes on.
B: It is not too clear where it goes on. In other people?
K: It manifests itself in other people. That is, I die; the
organism dies and at the last minute I am still with the image
that I have.
B: Yes, well then what happens to that?
K: That image has its continuity with the rest of the images,
your image, my image.
S: Right.
K: Your image is not different from mine.
S: Right. We share that.
K: No, no. Not share it. It is not different. It may be a little
more frail, or have a little more colour, but essentially my
image is your image.
S: Right.
K: So there is this constant flow of image-making.
B: Well, where does it take place? In people?
K: It is there. It manifests itself in people.
B: You feel it is in some ways more general, more universal?
K: Yes, much more universal.
B: That is rather strange.
K: Eh?
B: I say it is rather strange to think of that.
K: Yes.
S: It is there. Like a river, it is there.
K: Yes, it is there.
S: And it manifests itself in streams.
B: In people.
S: Which we call people.
K: No, that stream is the maker of images and imagery.
B: In other words you are saying that the image does not
originate only in one brain, but is in some sense universal?
K: Universal. Quite right.
B: You are not only saying that it is just the sum of all the
brains; you are implying something more?
K: It is the effect of all the brains and it manifests itself in
people as they are born.
B: Yes.
K: Now is that all? Let's say, yes. Does death bring about this
sense of enormous, endless energy which has no beginning and no
end? Life must have infinite depth.
B: Yes, and it is death which opens that out.
K: Death opens that up.
B: But we say it is more than the death of the image-making. You
see, this is not clear. Is it something real which is blocking
that from realizing itself?
K: Yes. It is blocking itself through images and the
thoughtmaker.
S: The image-making and thought-making are blocking this
greater...
K: Wait a minute. There are still other blocks, deeper blocks.
B. That is what I was trying to get at. That there are deeper
blocks that are real.
K: That are real.
B: And they really have to die.
K: That is just it.
S: Would that be like this stream that you were talking about..
?
K. There is a stream of sorrow, isn't there?
B: Is sorrow deeper than the image?
K: Yes.
B: That is important.
K: It is.
S: You think so?
K: Don't you?
S: I do.
K: Be careful, sir, this is very serious.
S: That's right.
B: Would you say sorrow and suffering are the same, just
different words?
K: Different words.
S: Deeper than this image-making is sorrow.
K: Isn't it? Man has lived with sorrow a million years.
B: Well, could we say a little more about sorrow. It is more
than pain.
K: Much more than pain. Much more than loss. Much more than
losing someone.
S: It is deeper than that.
K: Much deeper than that.
B: It goes beyond the image, beyond thought.
K: Of course. It goes beyond thought.
B: Beyond thought, and what we ordinarily call feeling.
K: Of course. Feeling, thought. Now can that end?
S: Before you go on - are you saying that the stream of sorrow
is a different stream from the stream of image-making?
K: No, it is part of the stream.
S: Part of the same stream?
K: The same stream but much deeper.
B: Then are you saying that there is a very deep stream, and
that image-making is on the surface of this stream?
K: That's all.
B: Right. The waves on the surface, right? Could you say we have
understood the waves on the surface of this stream, which we
call image-making?
K: Yes, that's right. Image-making.
B: And the disturbances in sorrow come out on the surface as
image-making.
K: That's right.
S: So now we have got to go deep-sea diving!
K: You know, sir, there is universal sorrow.
B: Yes, but let's try to make it clear. It is not merely that
there is the sum of all the sorrow of different people...
K: No, no. Could we put it this way? The waves on the river
don't bring compassion or love - compassion, love, we have said,
are synonymous, so we will keep to the word "compassion". The
waves don't bring this. What will? Without compassion human
beings are destroying themselves. So does compassion come with
the ending of sorrow, which is not the sorrow created by
thought?
B: In thought you have sorrow for the self - right?
K: Yes. Sorrow for the self.
B: Which is self-pity.
K: Self-pity.
B: And now you say there is another sorrow, a deeper sorrow.
K: There is a deeper sorrow.
B: Which is not merely the total sum but something universal.
K: That's right.
S. Can we spell that out? Go into it?
K: Don't you know it? I am just asking. Don't you know, aren't
you aware of a much deeper sorrow than the sorrow of thought, of
self-pity, the sorrow of the image?
S: Yes.
B: Is it sorrow for the fact that man is in this state which he
can't get out of?
K: That is partly it. That means partly the sorrow of ignorance.
B: Yes. Man is ignorant and cannot get out of it.
K: Cannot get out of it. And the perception of that sorrow is
compassion.
B: All right. Then the non-perception is sorrow?
K: Yes, yes, yes. Are we seeing the same thing?
S: No, I don't think so.
K: Say, for instance, you see me in ignorance.
B: Or I see the whole of mankind in ignorance.
K: Mankind in ignorance. Ignorant in the sense we are talking
about - that is, the maker of the image...
B: Let's say that if my mind is really right, good, clear, that
should have a deep effect on me.
S: What would have a deep effect on me?
B: To see this tremendous ignorance, this tremendous
destruction.
K: We are getting at it. We are getting at it.
S: Right, right.
K: We are getting at it.
B: But then if I don't fully perceive, if I start to escape the
perception of it, I am in it too.
K: Yes, in it too.
B: The feeling is that universal sorrow is still something I can
feel, is that what you mean to say?
K: Yes.
B: Although I am not very perceptive as to what it means.
K: No, no. You can feel the sorrow of thought.
B: The sorrow of thought. But I can sense, or somehow be aware
of the universal sorrow.
K: Yes.
B: Right.
S: You say universal sorrow is there whether you feel it...
K: You can feel it.
B: Feel it or sense it.
K: Sorrow of man living like this.
B: Is that the essence of it?
K: I am just moving into it. Let's go.
B: Is there more to it than that?
K: Much more to it.
B: Then perhaps we should try to bring that out.
K: I am trying to. You see me: I live the ordinary life, image,
sorrow, fear, anxiety; I have the sorrow of self-pity. And you,
who are "enlightened" (in quotes), look at me, and I say,
"Aren't you full of sorrow for me?" - which is compassion.
B: I would say that is a kind of energy which is tremendously
aroused because of this situation.
K: Yes.
B: But would you call it sorrow? Or compassion?
K: Compassion, which is the outcome of sorrow.
B: But have you felt sorrow first? I mean, does the enlightened
person feel sorrow and then compassion?
K: No.
S: The other way?
K: No, no. Go very carefully. You see, sir, you are saying that
one must have sorrow first to have compassion.
B: I am not. I am just exploring.
K: Yes, you are exploring. Through sorrow you come to
compassion.
B: That is what you seem to be saying.
K: Which implies that I must go through all the horrors of
mankind...
S: Right.
B: Well, let's say that the enlightened man sees this sorrow,
sees this destruction, and he feels some tremendous energy - we
will call it compassion.
K: Yes.
B: Now does he understand that the people are in sorrow..?
K: Of course.
B: ...but he himself is not in sorrow.
K: That's right. That's right.
B: But he feels a tremendous energy to do something.
K: Yes. Tremendous energy of compassion.
S: Would you say then that the enlightened man perceives, or is
aware of the conflict, the awkwardness, the blundering, the loss
of life, but that he is not aware of sorrow?
K: No, sir. Dr Shainberg just listen. Suppose you have been
through all this - image, thought, the sorrow of thought, fears,
anxieties, and you say, "I have understood all that". But you
have very little left. You have energy, but it is a very shallow
business. And is life as shallow as all that? Or has it an
immense depth? Depth is the wrong word.
B: Well, yes, inwardness?
K: Inwardness, yes. And to find that out don't you have to die
to everything known?
B: But how does this relate to sorrow at the same time?
K: I am coming to that. You might feel that I am ignorant, that
I have my anxieties and fears. You are beyond it, you are on the
other side of the stream as it were. Don't you have compassion
for me?
S: Yes.
B: Yes.
K: Compassion. Is that the result of the ending of sorrow,
universal sorrow?
B: Universal sorrow? You say the ending of sorrow. Now you are
talking about the person who is in sorrow to begin with.
K: Yes.
B: And in him this universal sorrow ends? Is that what you are
saying?
K: No. More than that.
B: More than that? Well, we have to go slowly because if you say
the ending of universal sorrow, the thing that is puzzling is to
say that it still exists, do you see?
K: Eh?
B: You say if the universal sorrow ends then it has all gone.
K: Ah, it is still there.
B: Still there. There is a certain puzzle in language.
K: Yes, yes.
B: So in some sense the universal sorrow ends, but in another
sense it persists.
K: Yes, that is right.
B: Could we say that if you have an insight into the essence of
sorrow, universal sorrow, then sorrow ends in that insight? Is
that what you mean?
K: Yes, that's right.
B: Although...
K: Although it still goes on.
S: I have got a deeper question. The question is...
K: I don't think you have understood.
S: Oh, I think I have understood that one, but my question comes
before, which is that the image-making has died - right? That
is, the waves. Now I come into the sorrow.
K: You have lost the sorrow of thought.
S: Right. The sorrow of thought has gone but there is a deeper
sorrow.
K: Is there? Or are you assuming there is a deeper sorrow?
S: I am trying to see what you are saying.
K: No, no. I am saying: Is there compassion which is not related
to thought? Or is that compassion born of sorrow?
S: Born of sorrow?
K: Born in the sense that when the sorrow ends there is
compassion.
S: OK. That makes it a little clearer. When the sorrow of
thought...
K: Not personal sorrow.
S: No. When the sorrow...
K: Not the sorrow of thought.
B: Not the sorrow of thought, something deeper.
S: Something deeper. When that sorrow ends then there is a birth
of compassion.
B: Of compassion, of energy.
K: Now is there not a deeper sorrow than the sorrow of thought?
S: There is. As you were saying, there is sorrow for ignorance
which is deeper than thought - the sorrow for the universal
calamity of mankind trapped in this sorrow, the sorrow for a
continual repetition of wars and poverty and people mistreating
each other, that's a deeper sorrow.
K: I understand all that.
S: That is deeper than the sorrow of thought.
K: Can we ask this question: What is compassion? Which is love.
We are using that one word to cover a wide field. What is
compassion? Can a man who is in sorrow, in thought, in the image
- can he have that? He cannot. Actually he cannot - right?
B: Yes.
K: Now when does that compassion come into being? Without that
life has no meaning. You have left me without that. All you have
taken away from me is superficial sorrow, thought and
image-making. And I feel there is something much more.
B: Just doing that leaves something empty.
K: Yes.
B: Meaningless.
K: There is something much greater than this shallow little
business.
B: When we have thought which produces sorrow, self-pity, and
when we also have the realization of the sorrow of mankind,
could you say that the energy which is deeper is in some ways
being..?
K: ...moved.
B: ...moved. Well, first of all in this sorrow this energy is...
K: ...caught.
B: ...is caught up in whirlpools or something. It is deeper than
thought but there is some sort of very deep disturbance of the
energy.
K: Quite right.
B: Which we call deep sorrow.
K: Deep sorrow.
B: Ultimately its origin is the blockage in thought, isn't it?
K: Yes, that is deep sorrow of mankind. For centuries upon
centuries it has been like that - you know, like a vast
reservoir of sorrow.
B: It is sort of moving around in some way that is disorderly.
K: Yes.
B: And preventing clarity. I mean perpetuating ignorance.
K: Yes, perpetuating ignorance, right.
B: Because if it were not for that then man's natural capacity to learn would solve all these problems.
K: That's right.
S: Right, right.
K: Unless you three give me, or help me, or show me, an insight into something much greater, I say, "Yes, this is very nice", and off I go - you follow? What we are trying to do, as far as I can see, is to penetrate into something beyond death.
B: Beyond death?
K: Death we say is not only the ending of the organism, but the ending of the content of the consciousness - consciousness as we know it now.
B: Is it also the ending of sorrow?
K: The ending of sorrow of the superficial kind. That is clear.
B: Yes.
K: And a man who has gone through all that says, "That isn't good enough. You haven't given me the flower, the perfume. You have just given me the ashes of it." And now we three are trying to find out that which is beyond the ashes.
S: Right.
B: There is that which is beyond death?
K: Ah, absolutely.
B: Would you say that is eternal, or...
K: I don't want to use that word.
B: I mean is it in some sense beyond time?
K: Beyond time.
B: Therefore eternal is not the best word.
K: There is something beyond the superficial death, a movement that has no beginning and no ending.
B: But it is a movement?
K: It is a movement. Movement, not in time.
S: What is the difference between a movement in time, and a movement out of time?
K: Sir, that which is constantly renewing, constantly - new isn't the word - constantly fresh, endlessly flowering, that is timeless. But this word flowering implies time.
B: I think we can see the point.
S: I think we get that, the feel of renewal in creation, and coming and going without transition, without duration, without linearity.
K: Let me come back to it in a different way. Being a fairly intelligent man, having read various books, tried various meditations, at one glance I have an insight into all that, at one glance - which is the end of image-making. It is finished. I won't touch it. Then a meditation must take place to delve, to have an insight, into something which the mind has never touched before.
B: But even if you do touch, it doesn't mean that the next time it will be known.
K: Ah, it can never be known in a sense.
B: It can never be known. It's always new in some sense.
K: Yes, it is always new. It is not a memory stored up, altered, changed, and called new. It has never been old. I don't know if I can put it that way.
B: Yes. I think I understand that. But could you say it is like a mind that has never known sorrow?
K: Yes.
B: It might seem puzzling at first. You move out of this state which has known sorrow into a state which has not known sorrow.
K: Quite right, sir.
B: In other words there is no you.
K: That's right, that's right.
S: Can we say it in this way too - that it is an action which is moving where there is no you?
K: You see when you use the word "action", it means not in the future, nor in the past; action is doing.
S: Yes.
K: And most of our actions are the result of the past, or according to a future ideal. That's not action, that is just conformity.
S: Right. I am talking about a different kind of action.
K: To penetrate into this, the mind must be completely silent. Otherwise you are projecting something into it.
S: Right. It is not projecting into anything.
K: Absolute silence. And that silence is not the product of control - wished for, premeditated, predetermined.
S: Right.
K: Therefore that silence is not brought about through will.
S: Right.
K: Now in that silence there is this sense of something beyond all time, all death, all thought - you follow? Nothing. Not a thing, you understand, nothing. And therefore empty and therefore tremendous energy.
B: Is this also the source of compassion?
K: That's it.
S: What do you mean by source?
B: Well, in this energy is compassion...
K: Yes, that is right.
S: In this energy is...
K: This energy is.
B: Compassion.
S: That's different.
K. Of course.
S: This energy is compassion. You see that is different from saying the source.
K: You see, beyond that there is something more.
S: Beyond that?
K: Of course.
B: Why do you say of course? What could it be that is more?
K: Sir, let us put it, approach it, differently. Everything thought has created is not sacred, is not holy.
B: Because it is fragmented.
K: It is fragmented. We know that putting up an image and worshipping it is a creation of thought.
S: That's right.
K: Made by the hand, or by the mind, it is still an image. So in that there is nothing sacred. Because, as Dr Bohm pointed out, thought is fragmented, limited, finite; it is the product of memory and so on.
B: Is the sacred, therefore, that which is without limit?
K: That's it. There is something beyond compassion.
B: Beyond compassion.
K: Which is sacred.
B: Is it beyond movement?
K: Sacred. You can't say movement, or non-movement. A living thing - you can only examine a dead thing.
S: Right.
K: A living thing you can't examine. What we are trying to do is to examine that living thing which we call sacred, which is beyond compassion.
B: What is our relation to the sacred then?
K: To the man who is ignorant there is no relationship - right? Which is true. To the man who is free of the image and the image-maker, it has no meaning yet - right? It has meaning only when he goes beyond everything, dies to everything. Dying means never for a single second accumulating anything psychologically.
S: But he asked the question: What is the relationship to the sacred? Is there ever a relationship to the sacred?
K: No, no. He is asking what is the relationship between that which is sacred, holy, and reality.
B: Well, that is implicit anyway. I mean that is implied.
K: Of course. We have talked about this question some time ago. Reality, which is the product of thought, has no relationship to that because thought is an empty little affair.
S: Right.
K: Relationship comes through insight, intelligence and compassion.
S: What is intelligence, I suppose we are asking. I mean, how does intelligence act?
K: Wait, wait. You have had an insight into the image. You have had an insight into the movement of thought - the movement of thought which is self-pity, which creates sorrow. You have had a real insight into that. Haven't you? It is not a verbal agreement or disagreement or a logical conclusion. You have had a real insight into that, into the waves of the river.
S: Right.
K: Now isn't that insight intelligence?
S: Right.
K: Which is not the intelligence of a clever man, we are not talking about that. Now work with that intelligence, which is not yours or mine, not Dr Shainberg's or Dr Bohm's, or somebody's. That insight is universal intelligence, global or cosmic intelligence. Now move further into it. Have an insight into sorrow, which is not the sorrow of thought. Then out of that insight compassion. Now have insight into compassion. Is compassion the end of all life? End of all death? It seems so because the mind throws out all the burdens which man has imposed upon himself - right? So you have that tremendous feeling, that tremendous thing inside. Now that compassion, delve into it. And there is something sacred, untouched by man - in the sense of being untouched by his mind, by his cravings, by his demands, by his prayers, by his everlasting chicanery. And that may be the origin of everything, which man has misused - you follow?
B: If you say it is the origin of all matter, all nature...
K: Everything, all matter, all nature.
B: All of mankind.
K: Yes. That's right, sir. So at the end of these dialogues, what have you, what has the viewer got, what has he captured?
S: What would we hope he has got? Would you say what we hope he has captured, or what he has actually captured?
K: What he has actually, not hope. What has he actually captured? Has his bowl filled?
S: Filled with the sacred.
K: Or does he say, "Well I have got a lot of ashes left, very kind of you, but I can get that anywhere". Any logical, rational, human being would say, "They are discussing my part in all this and I am left with nothing".
S: What has he got?
K: He has come to you - I have come to you three wanting to find out, wanting to transform my life, because I feel that is absolutely necessary, not just to get rid of my ambitions and all the silly stuff mankind has collected - I have emptied myself of all that - the I has died to all that. Now have I got anything out of all this? Have you given me the perfume of that thing?
S: Can I give you the perfume?
K: Or share it with me.
S: Has the viewer shared with us the experience we have had being together?
K: Have you two shared this thing with this man?
S: Have we shared this with this man?
K: If not, then what? A clever discussion - oh, we are fed up with that. You can only share when you are really hungry - burning with hunger. Otherwise you share words. So I have come to the point, we have come to the point, when we see that life has an extraordinary meaning.
B: Yes, it has a meaning far beyond what we usually think.
K: Yes, that is so shallow and empty.
B: So would you say this sacred is also life?
K: Yes, that's what I was getting at. Life is sacred.
B: And the sacred is life.
S: Have we shared that?
K: Have you shared that? So we mustn't misuse life. We mustn't waste it because our life is so short.
B: You feel that each of our lives has a part to play in this sacred which you talked about? It is a part of the whole, and to use it rightly has a tremendous significance?
K: Yes, quite right. But to accept it as a theory is as good as any other theory.
S: Right. But somehow I feel troubled. Have we shared it? That burns, that question burns. Have we shared the sacred?
K: Which really means that all these discussions, dialogues, have been a process of meditation. Not a clever argument, but a real penetrating meditation which brings insight into everything that is being said.
B: Well, I should say we have been doing that.
K: I think we have been doing that.
S: And have we shared that?
B: With whom?
S: With the viewer?
K: Ah, are you considering the viewer? Or is there no viewer at all? Are you speaking to the viewer, or only to that thing in which the viewer, you and I, and everything is? You understand what I am saying?
S: You said we have been in a meditation, and I say we have been in a meditation - but how far have we shared our meditation?
K: No. I mean has it been a meditation?
S: Yes.
K: Meditation is not just argument.
S: No, we have shared in that.
K: Seeing the truth of every statement.
S: Right.
K: Or the falseness of every statement. Or seeing in the false the truth.
S: Right. Then being aware of the false in each of us as it comes out and is clarified.
K: Seeing it all, and therefore we are in a state of meditation. And whatever we say must then lead to that ultimate thing. Then you are not sharing.
S: Where are you?
K: There is no sharing. It is only that.
S: The act of meditation is that.
K: There is only that.
Part II
Chapter 1
6th Public Talk Ojai California
17th April 1977
Meditation Is the Emptying of The Content of
Consciousness
Meditation is one of the most important things in life; not how
to meditate; not meditation according to a system; not the
practice of meditation; but rather that which meditation is. If
one can find out, very deeply, the significance, the necessity
and the importance of it for oneself, then one puts aside all
systems, methods, gurus, together with all the peculiar things
that are involved in the Eastern type of meditation.
It is very important to uncover for oneself what one actually
is; not according to the theories and the assertions and
experiences of psychologists, philosophers and the gurus, but
rather by investigating the whole nature and movement of
oneself; by seeing what one actually is.
One does not seem to be able to understand how extraordinarily
important it is to see what one is, actually, as though one is
looking at oneself in a mirror, psychologically; thereby
bringing about a transformation in the very structure of
oneself. When one fundamentally, deeply, brings about such a
transformation, or mutation, then that mutation affects the
whole consciousness of man. This is an absolute fact, a reality.
To bring about a fundamental transformation becomes very
important, if one is at all serious, if one is concerned with
the world as it is, with all its appalling misery, confusion and
uncertainty, with all the divisions of religions and
nationalities, with their wars, with their accumulation of
armaments, spending enormous sums to prepare for war, to kill
people, in the name of nationality and so on and so on.
To see what one actually is, it is vital that there be freedom,
freedom from the whole content of one's consciousness; the
content of consciousness being all the things put together by
thought. Freedom from the content of one's consciousness, from
one's angers and brutalities, from one's vanities and arrogance,
from all the things that one is caught up in, is meditation. The
very seeing of what one is, is the beginning of the
transformation. Meditation implies the ending of all strife, of
all conflict, inwardly and therefore outwardly. Actually, there
is no inward or outward, it is like the sea, there is the ebb
and flow.
In uncovering what one actually is, one asks: Is the observer,
oneself, different from that which one observes -
psychologically that is. I am angry, I am greedy, I am violent;
is that I different from the thing observed, which is anger,
greed, violence? Is one different? Obviously not. When I am
angry there is no I that is angry, there is only anger. So anger
is me; the observer is the observed. The division is eliminated
altogether. The observer is the observed and therefore conflict
ends.
Part of meditation is to eliminate totally all conflict,
inwardly and therefore outwardly. To eliminate conflict one has
to understand this basic principle; the observer is not
different from the observed, psychologically. When there is
anger, there is no I, but a second later thought creates the I
and says: "I have been angry" and brings in the idea that I
should not be angry. So there is anger and then the I who should
not be angry; the division brings conflict. When there is no
division between the observer and the observed, and therefore
only the thing that is, which is anger, then what takes place?
Does anger go on? Or is there a total ending of anger? When
anger occurs and there is no observer, no division, it blossoms
and then ends - like a flower, it blooms, withers and dies away.
But as long as one is fighting it, as long as one is resisting
it, or rationalizing it, one is giving life to it. When the
observer is the observed, then anger blossoms, grows and
naturally dies - therefore there is no psychological conflict in
it.
One lives by action; action according to a motive, according to
an ideal, according to a pattern, or habitual and traditional
action, all without any investigation. A mind that is in
meditation must find out what action is. One of the major
problems in one's life is conflict and from conflict all kinds
of neurotic activities arise. To end conflict and therefore to
end neurotic action, is very important, so that one has a sane
mind, a mind that is healthy, a mind that is not neurotically
caught in beliefs and fears and so on.
How does one act, according to what principle, according to what
quality or state of mind does one act? Generally one acts from
memory, the memory which is set in a pattern, which has become
habit, routine. One acts according to that which is remembered
as pleasant; or one acts according to an ideal one has
determined to carry out in daily life; or one has an ambition
which one tries to fulfil. There are various types of action and
each of them is incomplete, fragmented; none is holistic - "I'm
a business man and I come home and I love my children, but when
I'm at business, there, I do not love anybody, I want profit,
etc. etc; I may be a scholar, a painter, but my life - though I
am an excellent painter - is shoddy, I'm vicious, greedy,
wanting money, position, recognition, fame."
One's actions are divided, fragmentary and when there is
fragmentary action it must inevitably bring conflict,
psychologically. Is there an action which is without conflict in
which there are no regrets, no failures, no sense of
frustration; is there an action which is whole, harmonious,
complete, an action not in a particular field contrary to
another field? One has to see what one is actually doing, how
one is actually living a contradictory life, acting
contradictorily and therefore in conflict. One must become aware
of it. And if one is completely aware, then what takes place?
Suppose I live in contradictory actions and you tell me, "Beware
of it". What do you mean by being aware of it? - I ask.
Awareness is not possible when you choose, when you say: "I like
that particular action, I would like to keep that; please help
me to avoid all other action." That is not awareness; that is
choosing a particular action which appears most satisfactory,
most comforting most gratifying, rewarding and so on. Where
there is choice there is no complete awareness. If one is
completely aware, there is no problem. There is then an action
which is continuous, without any break and therefore holistic.
It is to have a mind that is sane, which implies not being
committed to any particular form of belief, dogma, or ideal,
nothing. It is to have a mind able to think clearly, directly,
objectively. In the process of meditation one comes to find that
action.
To find out what meditation is, all previous knowledge of what
meditation is thought to be blocks the exploration. Freedom from
psychological authority is absolutely necessary. What is
necessary in the investigation? Is it concentration; is it
attention or is it awareness? When one concentrates, one's whole
energy is focused on something particular, one resists and puts
aside all interfering thoughts. In concentration one is
resisting. But to be aware of one's thought there is no
concentration; one does not choose in awareness which thought
one would like; one is just aware. From that awareness comes
attention. In attention there is no centre from which one is
attending. This is really important to understand, it is the
essence of meditation. In concentration there is a centre from
which one is concentrating, on a picture or on an idea or on
some image, etc; one is exercising energy in concentration, in
resisting building a wall, so that no other thought comes in and
there must be conflict. To totally eliminate that conflict
become choicelessly aware of thought; then there is no
contradiction, no resistance about any thought. From that arises
awareness; awareness of all the movement of one's thought. Out
of that awareness comes attention. When one is attending to
something, really deeply, there is no centre; there is no me.
In attention - if one has gone that far - one is free from all
the travails of thought, its fears, agonies and despairs; that
is the foundation. The content of one's consciousness is being
emptied; it is being freed. Meditation is the emptying of the
content of consciousness. That is the meaning and the depth of
meditation, the emptying of all the content - thought coming to
an end.
Meditation is the attention in which there is no registration.
Normally the brain is registering almost everything, the noise,
the words which are being used - it is registering like a tape.
Now is it possible for the brain not to register except that
which is absolutely necessary? Why should I register an insult?
Why? Why should I register flattery? It is unnecessary. Why
should I register any hurts? Unnecessary. Therefore, register
only that which is necessary in order to operate in daily life -
as a technician, a writer and so on - but psychologically, do
not register anything. In meditation there is no registration
psychologically, no registration except the practical facts of
living, going to the office, working in a factory and so on -
nothing else. Out of that comes complete silence, because
thought has come to an end - except to function only where it is
absolutely necessary. Time has come to an end and there is a
totally different kind of movement, in silence.
Religion then has a totally different meaning, whereas before it
was a matter of thought. Thought made the various religions and
therefore each religion is fragmented and in each fragment there
are multiple subdivisions. All that is called religion,
including the beliefs, the hopes, the fears and the desire to be
secure in another world and so on, is the result of thought. It
is not religion, it is merely the movement of thought, in fear,
in hope, in trying to find security - a material process.
Then what is religion? It is the investigation, with all one's
attention, with the summation of all one's energy, to find that
which is sacred, to come upon that which is holy. That can only
take place when there is freedom from the noise of thought - the
ending of thought and time, psychologically, inwardly - but not
the ending of knowledge in the world where you have to function
with knowledge. That which is holy, that which is sacred, which
is truth, can only be when there is complete silence, when the
brain itself has put thought in its right place. Out of that
immense silence there is that which is sacred.
Silence demands space, space in the whole structure of
consciousness. There is no space in the structure of one's
consciousness as it is, because it is crowded with fears -
crowded, chattering, chattering. When there is silence, there is
immense, timeless space; then only is there a possibility of
coming upon that which is the eternal, sacred.
Chapter 2
2nd Public Talk Saanen
12th July 1977
The Ending of Conflict Is the Gathering of Supreme Energy
Which Is a Form of Intelligence
There is the theory of old, that god, divinity, descends on man
and helps him to grow, to evolve and to live nobly. That is the
old tradition of the countries in the East and also in a
different way, in the West. In belief in such theories there is
great comfort; a feeling that one is at least secure in
something; that there is somebody that is looking after you and
the world. That is a very old theory and it has no meaning
whatsoever. That theory and teaching gives some kind of hope in
a Utopia in the future as made by the present; a hope arising
from the limits of what one is now. Unless there is a radical
transformation, such a future is the modified continuity of
"what is".
One realizes that there is no security whatsoever in the things
that thought has put together if one has gone into it
sufficiently intelligently, rationally and sanely to find out;
one sees that there is really no structure, either in the
future, or in the past, or in the present, philosophical,
religious, or ideological, which can give any kind of security
whatsoever.
One accepts very easily the path that is the most satisfying,
the most convenient, the most pleasurable. It is very easy to
move into that groove. And authority dictates, lays down, in a
religious or a psychological system, a method by which, or
through which, you are told you will find security. But if one
sees that there is no security in any such authority, then one
can find out whether it is possible to live without any
guidance, without any control, without any effort
psychologically. So, one is going to investigate, to see,
whether the mind can be free to find the truth of this matter,
so that one will never, under any circumstance, conform to any
pattern of authority, psychologically. When one is conforming to
a pattern, religious, psychological, or the pattern which one
has set for oneself, there is always a contradiction between
what one actually is and the pattern. There is always a conflict
and this conflict is endless. If one has finished with one
pattern one goes to another. One is educated to live in this
field of conflict because of these ideals, patterns,
conclusions, beliefs and so on. Conforming to a pattern one is
never free; one does not know what compassion is and one is
always battling and therefore giving importance to oneself; the
self becomes extraordinarily important with the idea of
self-improvement.
So, is it possible to live without a pattern? Now, how is one,
as a human being, the total representative of all mankind, how
is one going to find out the truth of this matter? Because if
one's consciousness is changed radically, profoundly - no,
revolutionized rather than changed - then one affects the
consciousness of the whole of mankind.
How is one going to go into this problem; with what capacity
does one investigate? To investigate there must be freedom from
motive. If one wants to investigate the question of authority,
one's background says: I must obey, I must follow; and in the
process one's background is always projecting, is always
distorting one's investigation. Can one be free of one's
background so that it does not interfere in any way with one's
investigation? One's urgency to find the truth, one's immediacy,
one's demand, puts the background in abeyance; one's intensity
to find out is so strong that the background ceases to
interfere. Although the background, one's education, one's
conditioning, is so strong - it has accumulated for centuries;
consciously one cannot fight it, one cannot push it aside; one
cannot battle with it and one sees that to fight the background
only intensifies the background - yet one's very intensity to
find out the truth of authority puts that background much
further away; it is no longer impinging on one's mind.
One needs to have tremendous energy to find out the truth of
this matter. Mostly, this energy is dissipated in the conflict
between "what is" and "what should be". One sees that "what
should be" is an escape from, or an avoidance of, the fact of
"what is". Or thought, incapable of meeting "what is", projects
"what should be" and uses that as a lever to try to remove "what
is". So is it possible to look at, to observe, "what is",
without any motive to change or to transform it, or to make it
conform to a particular pattern that you or another has
established - whatever may happen at the end of it? If one does,
the background fades away. If one is very intense to understand,
one forgets oneself, forgets one is a Hindu, a Christian, a
Buddhist, one forgets all one's background; therefore the whole
thing disappears, the background, the motive, everything,
because there is the present necessity and the urgency to find
out.
The intensity that is necessary can only come into being when
there is no cause and no effect and therefore no reaction. It
implies that one must be completely alone in one's
investigation. Aloneness does not mean isolation, it does not
mean one is withdrawn and has built a wall around oneself. Alone
means that one is all one. Then one is a total human being
representing all humanity, one's consciousness has undergone a
change through perception, which is the awakening of
intelligence. That intelligence finishes forever with
psychological authority; it profoundly affects one's
consciousness.
Is it possible to live a life without any pattern, without any
goal, without any idea of the future, a life without conflict?
It is only possible when one lives completely with "what is".
With "what is" means with that which is actually taking place.
Live with it; do not try to transform it, do not try to go
beyond it, do not try to control it, do not try to escape from
it, just look at it, live with it. If you are envious, or
greedy, jealous, or you have problems, sex, fear, whatever they
are, live with them without any movement of thought that wants
to move away from them. Which means what? One is not wasting
one's energy in control, in suppression, in conflict, in
resistance, in escape. All that energy was being wasted; now one
has gathered it up. Because one sees the absurdity of it, the
falseness of it, the unreality of it, one has now the energy to
live with "what is"; one has that energy to observe without any
movement of thought. It is the thought that has created jealousy
and thought that says: "I must run away from it, I must escape
from it, I must suppress it." If one sees that falseness of
escape, resistance, suppression, then that energy which has gone
into escape, resistance and suppression is gathered to observe.
Then what takes place?
One is not escaping, not resisting and then one is envious, the
envy being the result of the movement of thought. The envy
arises from comparison, measurement - I have not, you have. And
thought, because it has been educated to run away, runs away
from this thing. Now because one sees the falseness of it one
stops and one has the energy to observe this envy. That very
word "envy" is its own condemnation. When one says "I am
envious", there is already a sense of pushing it away. So, one
must be free of the influence of the word to observe. And this
demands tremendous alertness, tremendous watchfulness,
awareness, so as not to escape and so as to see that the word
envy has created the feeling; for without the word, is there the
feeling? If there is no word and therefore no movement of
thought, then is there envy?
The word has created the feeling because the word is associated
with the feeling, it is dictating the feeling. Can one observe
without the word? Now, words are the movement of thought used to
communicate - communicate with oneself, or with another - when
there are no words there is no communication between the fact
and the observer. Therefore the movement of thought as envy has
come to an end; come to an end completely, not temporarily - one
can look at a beautiful car and observe the beauty of its lines
and that is the end of it.
To live with "what is" completely, implies no conflict
whatsoever. Therefore there is no future as transforming it into
something else. The very ending of it is the gathering of
supreme energy which is a form of intelligence.
Chapter 3
5th Public Talk Ojai California
16th April 1977
Out of Negation Comes the Positive Called Love
Throughout the world human beings are always seeking security,
both physiological and psychological. Physical security is
denied when psychological security - which does not really exist
- is sought in various forms of illusion and in divisive
beliefs, dogmas, religious sanctions and so on. Where there are
these psychological divisions, there must inevitably be
physiological division with all its conflicts, wars and the
suffering and the tragedy and the inhumanity of man to man.
Wherever one goes in the world, it does not matter whether it is
in India, Europe, Russia, China or America, human beings,
psychologically, are more or less the same; they suffer, they
are anxious, uncertain, confused, often in great pain,
ambitious, fighting each other everlastingly.
Basically, psychologically, as all human beings are the same one
can with reason say that the world is oneself and one is the
world. That is an absolute fact, as one can see when one goes
into it very deeply. And the content of human consciousness is
the whole movement of thought and the desire for power,
position, security and the pursuit of pleasure in which there is
fear. Fear and pleasure are the two sides of the same coin.
Without understanding the whole structure and nature of
pleasure, based on desire, one will never understand and live a
life in which there is love.
Fear and the pursuit of pleasure are part of consciousness. But
is love also a part of consciousness? When there is fear, is
there love? When there is the mere pursuit of pleasure, is there
love? Is love pleasure and desire, or has it nothing whatsoever
to do with pleasure and desire?
One's brain, through the constant habit of seeking security has
become mechanical; mechanical in the sense of following certain
definite patterns, repeating these patterns over and over again
in the routine of daily life. There is the repetition of
pleasure and the burden of fear and the inability to resolve it.
So, gradually, the brain, or part of the brain, has become
mechanical, repetitive, biologically as well as psychologically;
one is caught in certain patterns of belief, dogma, ideology -
the American ideology, the Russian ideology, the ideology of
India and so on. There is the direction, the pursuit, and the
mind and the brain deteriorate.
However pleasant, the life one lives is a life that is
repetitive; however desirable, however complex, it is a
repetitive life - the same belief from childhood to death, the
same rituals, whether it is church or temple, there is the
tradition of it, over and over again. There is the repetition of
pleasure, sexual pleasure or the pleasure of achievement, the
pleasure of possession, the pleasure of attachment, all these
cause the brain to deteriorate because they are repetitive. So
long as there is the pursuit of pleasure as a repetitive process
and the burden of fear which it brings and which man has not
resolved - he has run away from it, escaped from it,
rationalized it, but still it remains - the brain deteriorates.
What is love? Is it pleasure - pleasure in the repetitive sexual
act, which is generally called love? The love of one's
neighbour, the love of one's wife, in which there is great
pleasure, possession and comfort, based on desire - is that
love? Where there is possessive attachment to another, there
must be jealousy, there must be fear and antagonism. These are
obvious facts - nothing extraordinary or ideological - they are
facts, "what is". So is attachment love? And what is the basis
of attachment? Why is one attached to something, to property, to
an idea, to an ideology, to a person, to a symbol, to a concept
which is called God? If one does not fully understand the
significance of attachment, then one will never be able to find
the truth of love. Is not the basis of attachment the fear of
being alone, the fear of being isolated, the emptiness, the
sense of insufficiency in oneself?
We are attached to people, to ideas, to symbols, or to concepts,
because in them we think there is security. Is there security in
any relationship? Is there security - which is really the
essence of attachment - in one's wife, or husband? And if one
seeks security in the wife or the husband and so on, then what
takes place? One possesses, legally or not legally. And where
there is possession there must be fear of losing - therefore
jealousy, hatred, divorce and aIl the rest of it. Is love
attachment? Can there be love when there is attachment; with all
the implications of that word which include fear, jealousy,
guilt, irritation leading to hatred - all that is implied when
one uses the word "attachment"? Where there is attachment can
there be love? These are factual, not theoretical, questions.
One is dealing with daily life, not with some extraordinary
life. One can only go very deeply and very far if one begins
very near, which is oneself. If one does not understand oneself
one cannot move far. One is delving into problems which are
tremendously important in one's daily life.
Although one has to go into this question logically, rationally,
sanely, one has to go beyond it; because logic is not love,
reason is not love. The desire to be loved and to love is not
love. Out of the negation of what is not love, every moment of
one's life, out of the putting aside of what is not love, comes
the positive thing called love.
Thought is fragmentary, limited; thought cannot solve the
problem of what love is and thought cannot cultivate love. When
one makes an abstraction in thought, one moves away from "what
is". That movement of abstraction becomes a condition according
to which one lives, therefore one no longer lives according to
facts. This is what one has done all one's life; but one will
never know what love is through abstraction, will not know the
enormous beauty, depth and significance of love.
Why does man put up with this suffering? Why worship suffering,
which the Christians do, apparently? What is the meaning of
suffering? What is it that suffers? When one says "I suffer,"
who is it that suffers? What is the centre that says "I am in an
agony of jealousy, of fear, of loss"? What is that centre, that
"essence", of a human being who says "I suffer"? Is it the
movement of thought, as time, which creates the centre? How does
that I come into being, which, having come into being says, "I
suffer, I am anxious, I am frightened, I am jealous, I am
lonely". That I is never stationary,it is always moving: "I
desire this, I desire that and then I desire something else", it
is in constant movement. That movement is time, that movement is
thought.
There is a concept in the Asiatic world that the I is something
which is beyond time; and further, the concept that there is a
higher I still. In the Western world the I has never been
thoroughly examined. Qualities have been attributed to it, Freud
and Jung and other psychologists have given attributes to it but
have never gone into this question of the nature and the
structure of the I which says "I suffer".
The I, as one observes, says "I must have that", a few days
later it wants something else. There is the constant movement of
desire; the constant movement of pleasure; the constant movement
of what one wants to be and so on. This movement is thought as
psychological time. The I who says "I suffer" is put together by
thought. Thought says, "I am John, I am this, I am that".
Thought identifies itself with the name and with the form and is
the I in all the content of consciousness; it is the essence of
fear, hurt, despair, anxiety, guilt, the pursuit of pleasure,
the sense of loneliness, all the content of consciousness. When
one says "I suffer", it is the image that thought has built
about itself, the form, the name, that is in sorrow.
The more intense the challenge is, the greater is the energy
demanded to meet it. Sorrow is this challenge. To that challenge
one has to respond. But if one responds to it by escaping from
it, by seeking comfort from it, then one is dissipating the
energy that one needs to meet this thing.
There is no escape - there is no escape because if one tries to
escape, sorrow is always there, like one's shadow, like one's
face, it is always with one - so remain with it, without any
movement of thought. If one runs away from it, one has not
solved it; but if one remains with it, not identifying oneself
with it - because one is that suffering - then all your energy
is present to meet this extraordinary thing that happens. Out of
that suffering comes passion.
There is a solution, there is an ending to sorrow - as there is
an ending to fear - completely. Then only is there a possibility
to know what love is. One thinks that one will learn something
from suffering, that there is a lesson to be learnt from
suffering. But when one observes suffering in oneself, not
escaping from it, but remaining with it totally, completely,
without any movement of thought, without any alleviation,
comfort, but just completely holding to it, then one will see a
strange psychological transformation take place.
Love is passion, which is compassion. Without that passion and
compassion, with its intelligence, one acts in a very limited
sense; all one's actions are limited. Where there is compassion
that action is total, complete, irrevocable.