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Krishnamurti

P.J.: Could we discuss regeneration, its nature, and whether it is essential to man? And if it is essential to man and society then what is the place of self-knowing in this whole field?
A.P.: The importance of our discussions so far has been to establish the limits of knowledge. I feel that the relevance of knowledge to the entire process of self-knowing has already been outlined in limits of growth, limits of knowledge.
P.J.: Is knowledge and its limits dependent on the process of self-knowing? The problem of regeneration is not contained in the limits of knowledge; the latter is only one of the factors of regeneration. Self-knowing is also integral to it. Are these two independent?
A.P.: Our approach has been to negate that which appeared to assume preponderant importance in our own development. It takes the form of pursuit of knowledge, a very subtle process which goes on inhibiting, distracting or distorting the mind from direct confrontation.
P.J.: We are familiar with the additive process. In a sense the additive process is the extension of the field of knowledge. I am talking of knowledge as information. Are we talking of the limits of knowledge, independent of self-knowing or regeneration?
A.P.: Of course not.
P.K.S.: The problem of the regeneration of man is mostly connected with the limits of knowledge. We assume knowledge is information, not that kind of experience which is self-knowing, and we are asking, what can we know? The question also concerns the origins of knowledge.
K: I don't know what you mean by regeneration - to be made anew, made afresh? We are talking about the transformation of man, the ending of his anxiety - his whole way of life; a life which is ugly - and out of that ending, a
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new thing being born. Is that what we mean by regeneration? If that is so, what is the relationship between knowledge and regeneration? Is knowledge a fixed point? Is it static, additive? Is the process of self-knowledge additive and does it, thereby, bring about regeneration? Is that what we are asking? Can knowledge which is accumulative, probably infinite, bring about regeneration? Then there is the understanding of oneself, the `Know Thyself'. The Hindus have said it, the Buddhists have said it in a different way, all religions have said it. Is that knowing yourself additive? Is the very substance of the self, knowledge, knowing being experience stored up as memory, all the things man has accumulated? What is it we are asking?
Can we begin with the question, `Can I know myself?' Not according to some philosophers, but can I know myself? I would like to examine the word `to know'. Dr. Illich pointed out yesterday, `I have knowledge of you but I don't know you.' I have knowledge in the sense that I have met you, and so on. I have knowledge of you but can I ever know you? In the same way, I have knowledge about myself, limited knowledge, fragmentary knowledge, knowledge brought about by time. But can I know myself fundamentally, irrevocably?
R.B.: What do you mean `irrevocably'?
K: A tree is a tree; it is irrevocable. A pear tree does not become an apple tree.
A.P.: This is where my difficulty arises. Even with regard to knowing oneself, verbalizing has a very important place. If that is taken away, will we have the capacity to know anything?
I.I.: I am asking the same question. Knowledge, insight, which comes in a flash and can be interpreted logically later on, can be referred to in words; is that knowledge in your terminology?
A.P.: The channel of insight may be non-verbal but our normal movement is perceiving and naming, and with naming comes recognition and what we call
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knowledge. So, actually, naming plays a preponderant part in knowledge. Self-knowledge may be in the field of insight.
K: Are you asking if there is no verbalization, whether the `me' exists at all? I would say if verbalization does not exist, the self, the `me', the ego, ceases, comes to an end. Can there be a knowing that the word is not the thing? The word is not the thing, obviously. The word `tree' is not the actual fact. So if there is no verbalization, then what is the fact, what remains? Is it still the self?
P.J.: How does one answer this?
A.P.: You have jumped.
G.N.: There are forms of knowledge akin to insight and some forms of insight which cannot be converted into knowledge through the additive process. The way one approaches it is very significant. Some types of knowledge have the taste of insight but they get reduced to knowledge.
K.: We said we understood the meaning, the significance, of regeneration. How is man to regenerate, completely renew himself, like a phoenix? Does he depend on environment - social, economical? Or has regeneration as knowing nothing whatever to do with environmental pressures? We must go into that. We will come to a different kind of knowledge presently. Do we agree on the meaning of regeneration as a total, psychological, profound, revolution, in the sense that something new is born out of it?
Now, is knowing oneself the central factor of regeneration? If that is so, then how am I to know myself - knowing that the word is not the thing, the description is not the described? If there is no verbalization, then what next? You have cut away, if you don't verbalize, the whole area of morality, ethics. To us words have become very important. Take the word violence; if I don't use that word and am free from verbalization with all its significance, what remains?
Sir, why do I verbalize? I verbalize my feeling for you because I want to communicate to you.
A.P.: Also with myself. That is the greatest danger.
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K: I am coming to that. First I verbalize what I feel to myself and then I verbalize to communicate. A.P.: In this there is a big trap. I feel the phenomenon of sorrow. I see somebody in pain, I can express that without feeling compassion in my heart. I live on words. Therefore, words are my biggest protection and they also become a barrier to self-knowledge. Unless I am able to deal with words, I cannot move. The human brain stores images, creates images, symbols, etc.
K: Does it mean all our relationships - intellectual, sexual, between two human beings - are based on words, images, pictures?
Is there thinking without verbalization? When I say to somebody I love you, do the words convey what I feel? The words are not the thing, but they need to be expressed and I use the words as a medium of communication. Now we are asking, how is man to regenerate himself without any cause, without any motive, without any influence of the environment - social, political, moral, religious. I think we ought to settle that and then proceed. What do you say, Dr. Illich?
I.I.: I would like to ask you a question. Are words also part of the environment?
K: Yes.
I.I.: Therefore, when I use words, I also do something to the environment, besides being influenced by it.
K: The word is also the environment and the word influences my thinking. If I am born in this particular part of the country, my whole cultural, development, progress, is based on this culture. The language itself is affecting me; it may be a barrier between you and me.
I.I.: Like anything it can destroy two people.
K: So, realizing that language can also become a barrier, I cut it. It is finished. I use it only to communicate.
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I.I.: Is there anything within me which has not been affected by language in the same way as my body is affected by breathing? Is there a point somewhere in me which the environment has not touched?
K: Do you see what is happening, sir? We are already in communication with each other. Your question, `Is there something in this "me" which is not affected, touched, shaped, moulded by the environment' has already put us in communication. The Hindus say there is something. Dr. Illich wants to know if there is in `me' the structure of existence which is the `me', some spot, something which is not shaped, moulded, contaminated, pressurized by the environment. You are a scholar, a pundit - what would be your answer?
P.K.S.: Those parts which are supposed to be affected by language, etc. are only the psychological `me'. That is the empirical development of the ego. But even before the development of the empirical ego, there should be a basis for this development. Otherwise language as environment would be futile. The word as environment affects me. It is not brought about after it has been affected by the environment; rather something is there already which is supposed to be affected. Now, if there is something prior to being affected by the environment, what is its character, can it be increased or decreased by the environment? If you believe that the environment makes the self, at the same time pre-supposing something which is prior to the influence of language, you are contradicting yourself. I think something exists prior to the environment affecting it.
K: I don't quite follow you.
R.B.: Prof. Sundaram says there is a substratum, essential nature, on which thought builds, the psychological, the empirical, `me'. Therefore, logically, there is an area which is unaffected by thought.
K: So you are saying that there is in me, in my existence, in my life, an uncontaminated, unshaped state. Does that satisfy you? I.I.: I accept your words, I won't use other terms, and yet, since it cannot be affected by language, I can only speak in negative terms. This particular spot, something which is light, which throws sparks, is yet something about which there is no
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proof, that I can grasp. And when I speak about it, I dare to capture it in a word. Would you accept that?
K: I don't think so, sir.
P.J.: How do we explore this then? How do I find out whether one statement or the other is real?
K: May I put it differently? I don't even ask that question, `Is there something in me which is not shaped by the environment?' All that I know is, unless a human being finds the springs of regeneration, and not the idea, the new is not possible. So my concern, then, is the word `environment', culture, society - all that is `me' and I am the product of all that. I am the entire product of all influences - religious, psychological, social. Regeneration is possible only when the influences from the outside or the influences which I am creating as a reaction come to an end. Then I can answer it. Until then I can only speculate. So I begin. I say it is absolutely necessary as a human being to bring about a revolution in the whole structure. Not at the biological level, because I can't grow a third arm; but is there a possibility of a total regeneration? You tell me `Know yourself,' that is, to have knowledge about yourself. I see the danger of knowledge, knowledge being accumulative, progressive, dependent on the environment and so on. Therefore, I understand the limitations of knowledge. I say to myself, I have understood this. So when I use the words `know myself', I see that knowledge, when verbalized, may be the cause which prevents me from enquiring deeply into myself. So I ask, can my brain, my mind, my whole structure, be free of words?
A.P.: I think this is where the limits of knowledge lead you.
K: Achyutji, you are missing the point. We have said knowledge is accumulative. Knowing myself may not be accumulative at all.
A.P.: Verbalization is the quintessence of knowing.
K: Can I use the word `knowledge' where necessary and in my enquiry be free of the word? Is that possible?
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S.P.: Are you saying there is an enquiry without the word?
K: That's it.
A.P.: When we enquire, the word is inevitable and it is an obstacle.
K: Obviously. Dr. Illich's difficulty is, we are using a language which he is not used to. To us knowledge means something and to him it means something else. And he says, I don't follow you. So we must establish a linguistic, semantic communication.
So I come to the point that I don't know the substratum, the foundation on which `I am'. I won't pre-suppose anything; I won't accept any authority including my own hope. So I ask, how am I to enquire into myself, what is the movement, the elan, `to know yourself? Not to have knowledge of yourself?
P.J.: Could you explain a little more the distinction between knowledge of myself and knowing myself?
K: I have knowledge of myself through my reactions, my feelings, through my responses to another in my relationship. I have been jealous, sensuous, angry. These are all reactions, but it is much more than that. All that I know is based on verbalization. I say I have been jealous; the word jealousy, with all its connotations prevents observation of that feeling which I have named as jealousy. So is it possible to observe without the word? Can there be only the feeling without the word, the word being the environment?
There is feeling. In that feeling is the observer. In that there is division. That is, is the observer different from the observed? He divides the two. I am different from the thing observed. But in observing myself so long as the word is associated with the thing I am observing, it distorts the observation. So I ask, can I observe, be aware of the feeling, without naming it?
Can I just observe? Can there be only observation without identification with the word? If so, we remove altogether all division as the opposite. So I eliminate one of the traditional factors that this division brings about - me and jealousy - and, therefore, observation is not verbal; there is only observation.
A.P.: I have not come to that.
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K: Then how shall we communicate with each other? You have not wiped out the word. You have said verbalization is the barrier. How am I to tell you of that central factor in which there is no conflict, only observation?
P.J.: Can one wipe out the word? How does one wipe out the word?
K: I realize the word is not the thing. That is a deep understanding. When I say I love you, it is not just a word; it is beyond the word. Therefore, I am not caught in the word. I cannot wipe it out; words are necessary to communicate. But I am saying one eradicates it in oneself or it falls away when one sees the observer is the observed, the thinker is the thought, the experiencer is the experienced. Division comes to an end totally and, therefore, conflict comes to an end.
A.P.: It is like the halting of the traffic light. I say that verbal communication stops like a traffic light and comes back again.
K: Are you saying, I see this for an instant but then I am back again in the old grooves?
R.B.: Can we put it another way? You mentioned jealousy. There may be a movement of jealousy, and if one watches it without the word, at that moment there is an abeyance of that thing. In self-knowing, there is not only the movement of jealousy but of an enormous content which has been built up. How is one to catch the whole thing without the word?
K: Do you realize, actually, not theoretically, that the word is not the thing?
R.B.: I do realize it at certain moments.
K: That is not realization. It is like danger, like a bus hurtling down on you.
R.B.: We are all conditioned to mix the two. It is a longstanding thing. I can say that at this moment the word is not the thing.
K: No, it is the eternal truth. If that is so, and the word `jealousy' is not the state, can we look at jealousy without the word? Without all the association of the word? Look at it as though you were looking at it for the first time and not bring in all the associations connected with it? That requires great alertness,
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awareness. It has its own extraordinary discipline, it is uninfluenced. We are concerned with regeneration - whether a human being, without outside influence, can bring about this extraordinary quality of regeneration in his brain, his mind, his feeling.
To understand that deeply, you must `know yourself'. So I ask, what is the word `know' apart from knowledge? You are already limiting it by saying, `I know.' Now, can I observe myself without the word, language, knowledge or recognition? Do you understand? I watch myself, and I am watching without analysis. I have this feeling of jealousy; it arises. There is an instant reaction, a verbalization of that feeling, which means I have brought into it the remembrance of that which has happened before and so I recognise it. If there is no recognition, then it is something new and that is the beginning of regeneration.
A.P.: I notice in observing, the arising of recognition through the word, and I say it is the word which is giving stability to what I am observing because I am not different from that which I am observing.
R.B.: But Krishnaji is saying there is no recognition because memory is eliminated and, therefore, the new is there.
K: You say, `know yourself.' But how am I to know myself, observe what I am? Do I bring into that observation past memories, the hurts, the remembrances, and with those memories look at myself? That is my point. If I bring in these memories, then I am not looking, memories are looking, and memories are in action.
Can there be an abeyance, can I put memories aside and observe? That may be the factor of regeneration because in that observation there is a breaking away from the past.
S.P.: Once for all?
K: That is greed. Look at it. I want to know myself because otherwise I have no foundation for anything. I know the limits of words. There is an observation of the word and an observation of the limits of knowledge. I see that when I
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use the words `know myself', I have already put it in a cup, blanketed it. So I don't use those words. Is there an observation of the movement of the self without the word, without recognition, without the previous experience which in observation distorts what is happening?
I.I.: I can't, truly, humanly, look without being totally myself in looking. And, therefore, I can put the word in abeyance. But at times I need crutches.
K: The moment you use the words `I need crutches', you will need them.
I.I.: I accept your criticism of the word `need'. Now and then I find myself using crutches, and I won't, for this reason, despair.
K: Achyutji, you were speaking of the red traffic light that stops you for the moment. Can all the past stop? But it is so strong that it comes back. Dr. Illich also says the same thing, that he needs crutches at moments.
To know myself is very important. I see the limitations of knowledge, I see very, very clearly that the very word `know' is a dangerous word in the sense that it has tremendous associations with knowledge. So what have I left? I have understood the limitations of knowledge, I also see the Anglo-European word `feeling' and the danger of that word because I can invent a lot of feeling and a whole lot of froth. So I can also see the limitations of that. And at the end of this, where am I?
I started out with regeneration, came to the limitations of knowledge, the limitations of feeling, the dangers associated with that and, at the end of it, I ask, `Do I know myself?' For, `myself' is the limitation of knowledge, limitation of the word `to know', the feeling and the entity who says I have to get rid of this and asks, `Who am I?' All this is the self, with its associations, with all the extravagant, fragmentary things involved in it. At the end of it, where am I?
I can honestly then say with genuine affirmation - in the sense that I am not inventing it - that I am not accepting the authority of somebody else, that there is nothing to know. Which does not mean there is something else. All that I can say is there is nothing, which means there is not a thing, which means not a single movement of thought. So there is an ending, a stopping, to thought.
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There is not a thing. On that we have built all this - my attachments, my beliefs, my fears. On this nothing, everything is. Therefore that is unreal;this is real.
So I have found a key to regeneration, the key being emptying the mind of all the past which is knowledge, the limitations of knowing, feelings and the content of my feelings. Would you call this meditation?
I.I.: When I do it for myself, yes.
K: Myself is a word. I.I.: When I do it, yes.
K: Is that doing progressive or immediate?
I.I.: It seems to be immediate and not progressive.
K: That is right, keep it there.
I.I.: But I agree there is a temptation to make it progressive, to transform it again into something you want.
K: What does the word temptation mean? One of our difficulties is that we see all this intellectually and then make an abstraction of it, which is an idea, a conclusion, and then work with the conclusion. Have I really understood deeply the limitations of knowledge, knowledge meaning institutions, systems, everything?
I would like to ask you, is there a regeneration taking place? Forgive me if I put you in a corner. We have all listened and say, this is true. I see regeneration is tremendously important. Have I captured it, tasted it, has it a perfume? Have I got it? Not in the sense of holding it. If we have not, then what are we all talking about? Are we merely ploughing in sand and never sowing? Dr. Illich, are we in communication with each other linguistically?
I.I.: I think so. May I ask a question? I don't want to seem impudent. When you ask the question, is there a regeneration going on, I wanted to answer! I listen very attentively to the crow up there on the tree.
K. Yes sir. I have also been listening to it.
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Chapter 5 Part 3 Insights Into Regeneration
2nd Seminar Madras 14th January 1978
P.J.: Could we discuss the problem of the sorrow of man, the nature of compassion and meditation? I feel we are in a trap: being in sorrow and not understanding the nature of compassion.
K: May I ask, what are your ideas or concepts about sorrow, meditation and love?
A.P.: Sorrow is an inescapable part of life. We are helpless victims when a part of humanity is forced to live a subhuman life, with no hope of change in their way of life. Unless one sees some affirmative process, one feels completely lost.
P.J.: You can't talk about the sorrow of another.
A.P.: But it is my sorrow. I am not talking about another's.
P.J.: Sorrow is something integral to one.
A.P.: I am talking about sorrow. It is integral. Nothing can be more integral than the fact that there is no compassion in me as an authentic response. When I witness the sorrow of another, I am part of that sorrow.
K: Sir, is there such a thing as my sorrow, your sorrow and his sorrow?
P.J.: Sorrow is not a concept, not an idea. It is deeply in me.
K: I wonder what we mean by the word `sorrow'. Let us go slowly, because it is rather important. What do we mean by sorrow, grief, pain? Every human being goes through this ugly business of sorrow. Some people think that it is a cleansing process, an enlightening process. Some give explanations which appear to satisfy them - you did something in the past, you are paying for it now. Strip away all these words; what remains is the actuality, the feeling of sorrow; not the word; not the connotation of that word, not the evocation of the images that word brings up. Now, what is this deep feeling that we call sorrow? My son dies, and there is a tremendous feeling. Is that sorrow?
P.J.: It is sorrow.
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K: In that is involved self-pity, loneliness, a sudden realization that I have lost somebody and I am left alone. I suffer because he has not lived as long as I have lived and so on. But the root of this enormous sorrow is what man has carried through timeless centuries.
P.K.S.: As a preliminary definition of the word `sorrow`, not the connotative definition, what is actually felt when you are in sorrow? I think there is some sense of privation, a want, and this produces a state of mind, a pang which is called sorrow. In it is a sense of limitation, finitude, helplessness.
A.P.: If I may suggest, we human beings know pain, physical pain. Physical pain is a condition which we have to accept; we can do nothing about it. Sorrow is the exact equal of that - psychologically; that is, we are totally unable to do anything about it. We have to just take it and be with it.
K: Sir, you meet the poor people next door, you have great sympathy for them. Perhaps you may feel guilty because you get used to their poverty, their endless degradation. Perhaps you may have great affection for them. Would you call the fact, man living in this appalling way, sorrow?
I.I.: I do. I, at least, know that there are different kinds of sorrow in my life. One of them is that sorrow of which we speak: sorrow when I do something violent to somebody else, which takes away from somebody else. I live in society. So many things I cannot undertake without taking away big chunks from others. For instance, tomorrow morning I take the jet plane from Madras to Delhi and on this plane which I take for my benefit, I have calculated that I will grab out of the atmosphere more oxygen than a little herd of elephants from birth to their death can breathe. I will be co-responsible for an exploitation of many thousands of Indians, each one who in a sensible way pays his taxes and lives in a world dominated by the planes so that some of us can have that sense of importance of flying in a jet today. I do something which if I didn't, I would have to radically, totally change the way I live. I have not yet decided to make that change. In fact, I create for myself legitimate reasons by word-constructions for taking that plane, and in this sense I feel a very particular
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kind of sorrow which is the one about which I would want you to enlighten me most.
K: We will discuss it, sir. As you said, there are different kinds of sorrow. There is your kind, what you described; then there is somebody losing a son, a father and mother; seeing appalling ignorance, and seeing that there is no hope for man in a country like this. And there is the sorrow, the deep agony of realizing you are nothing. There is also the sorrow of how man treats man and so on. Now, what does all this sorrow mean? According to Christian terms or Hindu terms, is there an end to sorrow or is it an everlasting thing? Is there an end to any sorrow at all?
I.I.: Certainly there is no end to this sorrow as long as I am willing to participate in violence.
K: Then I shut myself up. If I narrow down my life, `I won't do this, I don't do that,' then I would not be able to move at all. For myself I have faced this. I can see from what you say, that we exploit people. So what can I do? Before I answer, before we can discuss that question, could we ask what is love? Perhaps it may solve the problem and answer this question.
I am asking what is love. Biologically, life is reproduction and all the rest of it. Is that love? I would like to go into it, if you don't mind; then, perhaps, we shall be able to answer the fundamental question, which is, whatever I do at present causes some kind of sorrow to another. The very clothes I wear is making somebody work for me. So I would like to approach this question from a different angle. The word `love' is loaded; misused, vulgarized, sexualized, anything you like. What then is love, because that may answer this gradual inaction that arises when I say, `I can't do this; if I do this, I am depriving somebody of that, I am exploiting somebody,' and out of that comes sorrow; perhaps we can have a dialogue about this feeling of love.
Do I love my wife? Sir, let us go into it a little bit because this may resolve our problems of sorrow, exploitation, using other people, narrowing down our lives. I am trying to prevent myself from being reduced to narrow activity. So I
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want to ask this question, is everything biological? Is my love for my wife biological?
R. Krishnaswamy: Yes.
K: Would you say that to your wife?
K.S.: Yes, sir.
K: I am not being rude. I am not being personal. Then you are reducing it to a purely sensory reaction.
K.S.: Yes, it begins like that and then we begin to verbalize it, romanticize it.
K: Yes, it begins there and then you build up the picture, the image. Is that it?
K.S.: I think that is true. The primitive man, the hunter, did not have any of these problems which we are facing now. Is my love for my child also this? Is this an extreme form of selfishness, because we want to perpetuate ourselves?
K: You are saying, sir, that this state is not only biological, it is sensory. Sensory love may begin with desire, desire being seeing, perception, contact, sensation, thought, the image and desire; that is the process. You are saying love is desire, it is biological. I want to find out whether love exists at all apart from the sensory, apart from desire, attachment, jealousy and, therefore, hate. Is that love? If I told my wife it is all sensory, and if she is at all intelligent, she would throw something at me. We have reduced love to such a limited, ugly thing. Therefore, we don't love.
Love implies much more than the word. It implies a great deal of beauty. It does not rest in the woman I love, but in the very feeling of love, which implies a relationship with nature, love of stars, the earth, stones, the stray dog, all that, and also the love of my wife. If you reduce it to desire and sensation, if you call it a biological movement, then it becomes a tawdry affair. Your wife treats you, and you treat her, as a biological necessity. Is that love? So I am asking, is desire, pleasure, love? Is sexual comfort love?
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I.I.: Is love communion?
K: How can I commune with another if I have an image of her?
I.I.: An image may be an obstacle to communion?
K: Can I be free of the image I have of you, of my wife, of the professor, doctor and so on? Only then is there a possibility of communion. I don't have to use words.
I.I.: And love, perhaps, is free communion?
K: I would not like to say so, yet. We will come to it presently.
P.K.S.: In a fundamental sense, love is the opposite of desire. What I mean is, desire insists on getting. Love insists on giving.
K: You see, sir, you are categorizing, conceptualizing, you have already put it in a cage.
P.K.S.: I only wanted to suggest that love is not merely biological; it is much more than that. It is giving, a sacrifice.
K: Sir, if I have a wife, what is my relationship to her apart from sexual, apart from attachment, apart from all the rest of the traditional meanings of relationship? Am I really related to the lady? Relationship means to be in contact at all levels, not just the physical level which is desire, pleasure. Does it not imply, when I say, `I love you,' and I mean it, that you and I meet at the same level, meet with the same intensity, at the same moment?
I.I.: Yes.
K: That happens apparently only sexually, at the biological level. I question this whole approach to life, life in which there is this immense thing called love. Now, are we not concerned to find out what it is? Does not your heart, mind, say that you have to find out? Or, is everything reduced to a verbal level?
N. T.: If love is sensual pleasure and based on the pursuit of desire, it is not love; love has to be based on compassion.
K: But what is compassion?
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N.T.: Compassion itself is love.
K: Sir, you have freedom with words.
N.T.: Love is universal.
K: I want to find out, I want to have this sense of love. As a human being it is like breathing; I must have it.
N.T.: That sense of love is universal, not moved by desire.
K: All right sir, don't think me impudent, don't think me rude. Have you got that love, or is this just theory?
N.T.: It does not arise in the human mind.
K: That is verbalizing it. I want to know as a human being, do you love anybody?
N. T.: Not through a possessive type of love.
K: Oh, no. You are all theorizing.
N.T.: No, sir.
K: You are a priest, you are a monk; I come to you and say, please, for god's sake, let me have the perfume of that which is called love. And you say love is compassion, compassion is love, you go around it.
N.T.: Love in the absolute sense is present in all human beings.
K: Is it there when you kill somebody, when Stalin kills twenty million people, when India fights Pakistan? Is there love in every human being?
N.T.: Love is there in every human being.
K: If there were love in every human being, do you think India would be like this - held in poverty, degradation, dishonesty, corruption? What are you all talking about?
Prof. Subramaniam: Sir, if love means being related to another person at all levels, when I don't understand myself and when I don't love myself, how is it possible to love another? I am not talking about self-love. I don't find that I am
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relating myself at all levels to myself. When that is so, I realize that I am not related to another person, whether it is my wife or another, at all levels.
K: So, as a human being, don't you want to come upon this, don't you want to find out? Don't you want to have a sense of this great thing? Unless you have it, I don't see the point of all these discussions, pujas, and all that is going on in this country.
R.B.: I think the point is that when there is no relatedness inside oneself, when there are warring elements within oneself, there can't be love.
K: Sir, I would rather put the question this way: If this thing, love, is merely a biological process and one sees it even intellectually as a shoddy little affair, and a human being has never had this perfume, don't you want to find out this love, this state of passion; don't you want to drink at that extraordinary fountain? Or have we mesmerized ourselves verbally so that we have become incapable of any movement outside the field of our own particular verbalization? The Christians, Dr. Illich will tell you much more easily than I, have said, `Love Jesus, love Christ, love your neighbour as you would love yourself,' and so on. I question that any religious approximation or dictum is love. One may go to the church, one may go to the temple and love god, if god exists. Is that love?
R.B.: Sir, you started with the question of what is sorrow and followed it up with the question of what is love. Could you say what is the relationship between the two questions?
K: Is love this constant battle, words, theories and living at that level? I personally can't imagine any human being not having this love. If he does not have it, he is dead.
A.P.: Is that not the crux of the problem of regeneration?
K: Yes, sir. If you haven't got love, how can you regenerate anything? If you don't look after the plant that you have just put in the earth, if you don't give it water, air, proper nourishment, affection, see that there is plenty of light, the
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plant won't grow. Let us leave love for the moment. Shall we go into what is meditation?
P.J.: Without comprehending sorrow and love, we cannot know what is meditation.
R.B.: But is that itself not the problem? Millions of people are not even asking what is love.
I.I.: Is it, perhaps, also something so secret, hidden, personal? But it is so different because of its being concrete in each one of us. You spoke about our loving each other, some kind of close existence.
K: Sir, I can belong to a community, a commune, and then feel close to the others because we are there at the same time.
I.I.: Yes, but that has nothing to do with it.
K: Yes. I.I.: But somewhere at the very deepest level, the marvellous, glorious thing which I believe makes for love is that, your life and my life at that moment are both made sacred, the forms of renewal of mutual presence.
K: Forgive me, I wouldn't say that. I would say: When there is love, there is no `you' or `me,.
I.I.: Sir, that could be easily understood. I know you don't mean it that way, but love is a symbiosis.
K: No.
I.I.: There is no `you' and there is no `me', but on the other hand, there is more of you and more of me.
K: Sir, when there is great beauty like a mountain, the majesty of it, the beauty of it, the shade, the light, `you' don't exist. The beauty of that thing drives away the `you'. Do you follow what I am saying?
I.I.: I follow what you are saying.
K: At that moment, when there is no `me' because of the majesty of the hill, there is only that sense of great wondering glowing beauty. So, I say: Beauty
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is when I am not, with my problem, with my gods, with my biological love and all the rest of it. When I am not, the other is.
I.I.: And yet - correct me if I am wrong - at that moment the transparent flame is burning higher and the stream of life is clearer, fresher, and the renewal of this world goes on.
K: At that moment there is a new rejuvenation taking place, if you like to put it that way. I am putting it this way, that there is a sense of an otherness than me.
I.I.: Yes. That otherness implies...
K: The otherness is not the opposite.
P.J.: May I then ask, what is it that makes the spring, the stream flow?
K: I have seen the birth of the great river right in the hills. It starts with a few drops and then collects, and then there is a roaring stream at the end of it. Is that love?
P.J.: What is it that makes the stream flow fully?
K: I come to you and say, `Look, I don't know what love is, please teach me, help me, or let me learn what love is.' I say, attachment is not love, the mere biological pleasure with all its movements, with all its implications, is not love. So can you be free of attachment, negate it completely? Through negation you may come to the positive, but we won't do that. I come to you who are learned, who have studied, who have lived, suffered, who have children, and I say: `Please teach me, help me to understand love.' Don't say, `Love is consciousness without words,' and all that. I want this thing in me. Don't give me ashes.
P.J.: What is the relationship of sorrow to love? Is there any relationship?
K: You must relate sorrow, love and death. If you end attachment, end it. Do not say, `I will end it today but pick it up tomorrow.' End it completely and also jealousy, greed. Do not argue, but end it, which is death. Both biologically and psychologically the ending of something is death. So, will you give up,
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renounce - to use a traditional term - your status, position, attachments, beliefs, gods? Can you throw them into the river and see what happens? But you won't do this. Will renunciation give love, help you to understand the beauty of it? Please, sir, you are monks, you have studied, please tell me.
P.K.S.: Renunciation, sir, can be of many kinds. Renunciation of selfishness certainly won't be love.
K: Will my becoming a monk, giving up the world, taking a vow of celibacy, give me love?
P.K.S.: No. One can be a monk, take vows and yet not have love.
K: So what am I to do? You are a philosopher, you teach all this. Philosophy means love of truth. Are you giving me life? Are you giving me, helping me, to understand truth?
P.K.S.: From your observations we obtained certain descriptions of love.
K: I don't want descriptions of love. I want food.
P.K.S.: We have got certain characteristics of love. One of these is unselfishness, the other is non-possessiveness. These are all positive aspects. Certain characteristics that you mention are positive, but the very nature of ourselves is that there is jealousy and greed.
K: Right, sir. I am your disciple; I come to learn from you because you are a philosopher. I am not being rude, but I ask, sir, are you living it or are these only words? If you are, then there is a communion between us. I am fighting for a breath of this. I am drowning. What am I to do?
I say to myself, nobody can help me. No guru, no book, nothing, will help me. So I discard the whole thing; I won't even touch it. Then I ask, what is love? Let me find out because if I don't have that flame, that love, life means nothing; I may pass examinations, become a great philosopher, but it is nothing. I must find out. I can only find out something through negation. Through negation I come to the positive; I don't start with the positive. If I start with the positive, I end up with uncertainty. If I start with uncertainty, then something positive occurs. I say, I know love is not merely a biological thing. I
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put the biological movement, desire, in its right place. So I am free from the biological explanation of love. Now, is love pleasure which means desire, will, pursuit of an incident which happened yesterday, the memory of that and the cultivation of that? Pleasure implies enjoyment, seeing the beauty of the world, seeing the beauty of nature; I put that also in its place. Then what is love? It is not attachment, obviously; it is not jealousy, possessiveness, domination; so I discard all that.
Then I ask, what place has thought in relationship? Has it any place at all? Thought is remembrance, the response of knowledge, experience from which thought is born. So thought is not love. In that there is a denial of the total structure which man has built. My relationship to my wife is no longer based on thought, event, sensory desire, biological demand or attachment; it is totally new. Will you go through all this? Now I ask, what is love? It is the ending of everything that man has created in his relationship with another - country, race, language, clan. Does that ending mean death?
P.K.S.: It is knowing the completion of life.
K: No, no. I said the ending of thought in relationship. Is not that death?
I.I.: Sir, could we not say I have never loved enough until the moment of my death?
K: I want to invite death, not commit suicide. So death means an ending. I am attached to my wife and death comes and says, look, that is all over. Ending means death; ending of attachment is a form of death. The ending of jealousy, biological demands, is also death, and out of that may come the feeling called love. We are educated to believe that death is something at the end of our life. I am saying death is at the beginning of life, because death means ending. This ending is the ending of my selfishness. Therefore, out of this comes that extraordinary bird called love, the phoenix. I think if one has that sense of love, I can take the aeroplane. It doesn't matter if I take a bullock cart or an aeroplane, but I won't deceive myself. I have no illusions.
I.I.: Is it also the end of sorrow?
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K: Yes. Sir, do you know the Latin word for sorrow? In it is involved passion. I know most human beings know what lust, biological pleasure and all the rest of it is. Are they actually aware of what sorrow is? Or is it something that you know, recognise, experience after it is over? Do I know sorrow at the moment my brother, my son, my wife, dies? Or is it always in the past? I.I.: I do not know the sorrow of my own injustice, which I feel is connected like the shadow of my own action. A single bullock cart - that's a very small affair.
K: So I won't reduce it to that. Sir, you are saying, if I take the jet, specially the Jumbo, I am up there; when I take the bullock cart, I am down here. And if I walk, I am still further down.
I.I.: Would it not be wisdom to learn, to act with sorrow and, therefore, keep sorrow also in its place? If I have the courage to act with the sorrow which I understand, then at the very same time, I will progressively eliminate from my life all those things which cast a very long shadow of sorrow.
K: Sir, why should I carry sorrow?
I.I.: Because I do injustice; otherwise how can I justify that which cannot be justified?
K: No, I won't justify. I want to find out what is right action, not justify, not say I won't fly by jet. I want to find out what is right action under all circumstances. Right action may vary in different things, but it is always right. We are using the word `right' - correct, true, non-contradictory, not the action of self-interest; all that is implied in that word "right action". What is my right action? If I can find that out I have solved it, whether I go by aeroplane or by bullock cart or whether I walk. But what is right action in my life? Right action will come about when the mind is not concerned with the `me'.
P.K.S.: Can I ask for the definition of meditation? Is it constant awareness?
I.I.: There is no exercise of the mind about it but an awareness.
K: The word `meditation' implies, according to the dictionary, to think over, ponder, to reflect upon, to enquire into something mysterious; not what we have made of it. P.K.S.: But could it not be applied to cases where something
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has been known to be true and ascertained to be true without any shadow of doubt?
K: How can I ascertain something to be true?
P.K.S.: For example, practice of love.
K: Love is not something to practise.
I.I.: No, in the sense of being aware of.
K: No sir, I said ending of something. There is no practising the ending of something. I end my jealousy. I want to find out what love is. Obviously love is not jealousy. So end it without argument. Because my whole urge, my whole concern is to find this thing, I will come upon it. In the same way, I want to know what meditation is: Zen meditation, Burmese meditation, Indian meditation, Tibetan meditation, Hinayana meditation. Must I go through all this to find out what meditation is? Must I go to Japan, spend years in monasteries, practise, go to Burma, go to India, to all the gurus?
I want to know what you understand by meditation. Would you agree, sir, that the basic principle, the essence of all this meditation is control? If you ask a Christian what is meditation, he will tell you one thing; if you ask an Indian guru, he will tell you something else. If you ask a man who has practised meditation for twenty-five years, he will tell you something else again. So, what is meditation? Is it control of the mind, or thought, and, therefore, control of action? Control implies choice. Choice implies no freedom at all. If I choose, there is no freedom.
P.K.S.: Control is an important element in meditation.
K: So you are saying control is part of meditation. Then who is the controller, the Higher Self, the atman, the super-consciousness, which are all put together by thought? Now, can I live a life without control? I.I.: Sir, for the purpose of this conversation, could we not say that meditation is the rehearsal of the act of dying?
K: Forgive me, why should I have a rehearsal?
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I.I.: One day I will be called upon for a last time, and before I could really engage in that supreme activity which is to die...
K: So why not die now?
I.I.: Now, if it is the act of dying, I will be happy to put it that way. Only if I say to somebody that meditation means dying, and if I say that tomorrow morning I will have breakfast with you, people won't understand me; that is the reason I suggested the term.
K: No, sir. I don't think we are meeting each other. The word `meditation' has now become the fashion in Europe. It is vulgarized, industrialized, money is made out of it. Wipe away all that. Is not meditation to come upon something sacred, not put together by thought which says, `This is sacred'? I mean sacred in the sense of something that is not contaminated by time, by the environment, something that is original. I am shy of these words, but please accept it. Is meditation an enquiry into that?
I.I.: Into that of which we speak shyly?
K: Yes, into that. My enquiry then must be completely undirected, unbiased. Otherwise, I will go off at a tangent. If I have a motive for meditation because I am unhappy and, therefore, I want to find that, then my motive dictates. Then I go off into illusions.
I.I.: If I said the same thing in different terms: Meditation is the readiness for radical surprise, will you accept it?
K: Yes, I accept it. So my concern in meditation is - have I a motive? Motive means movement. So I have a motive in meditation. Do I want a reward? I must be very clear that there is no search for reward or punishment, which means there is no direction. And also I must be very clear that no element creates an illusion. Illusion comes into being when there is desire, when I want something. I see the fact that the mind in meditation must be tremendously aware that it is not caught in any kind of self-hypnosis, self-created illusion. So part of meditation is to wipe away the illusory machine. And, if there is control, it is already directed. Therefore, it means, can I live a daily life in which there is
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absolutely no control? That means, no censor, saying `do this, do that'. All our life, from childhood, we are educated to control, to suppress, to follow. So can I live a daily life, not an abstract life, with my wife, with my friends, without any control, without direction, without movement?
That is the beginning of meditation.

- Chapter 6, Seminars Rishi Valley 1980 -
Chapter 6 Part 1 Intelligence, Computers And The Mechanical Mind

Seminar Rishi Valley 1st February 1980

K: We have been talking about the relationship between the brain and the computer: are they similar or intrinsically different, and what is the difference? There is very little difference as far as I understand. The brain which is the storehouse of memory, knowledge, is programmed according to a particular culture, religion, economic conditions and so on. The computer is also programmed by human beings. So there is great similarity between the two. The computer people are enquiring, if I understand it rightly, what is the difference then between the brain and the computer which also has been programmed, which is learning, correcting itself and learning more and more? It also is the storehouse of a certain kind of knowledge. Then, what is the essential difference between that and the brain? Or is there a totally different activity of the brain which is not comparable to the computer?
Q: No computer has feelings. There is a difference between animate matter and inanimate matter. No computer has feeling of any kind or consciousness. So, there is a fundamental difference between the two.
K: Then what is consciousness?
Sriram: They have produced a computer programme and it was a psychiatrists' programme. They set up a booth into which people could go and communicate with this computer through the screen and they would say things to the computer such as I am having difficulties with my wife, she doesn't understand me; and the computer would produce answers and questions and psychoanalyse them. And when these people came out they were convinced that the computer understood them better than anyone else. And they wanted to go back to it, to be analysed by it again, and this was a machine which was not supposed to have feelings or understanding.

K: But there are people who say the brain has a quality which is totally different from the computer. I accept it, and if I may explain it a little more, our brain works on the basis of experience and knowledge, and the brain or thought has created the psychological world. So the brain and the psyche are the same essentially but we have divided them. Thought has created the psyche with all psychological problems. Knowledge is the basis of all this. And the computer can produce exactly the same thing.
Sir, could we for the moment forget the computer and examine the brain in ourselves - how it operates, what is the relationship between the capacity to think and the psychological structure - and then go back to the computer? As far as I see, I start with scepticism; for scepticism is the essential capacity to doubt what you are observing, what you are feeling. Now, I have this brain which has been cultivated through millennia. It is not my brain; it is the brain of humanity. Therefore, it is not I who am investigating. There is no `me' at all. I don't know if you have come to that point.
A.C.: Sir, the brain is the only instrument we have for investigation. The brain as you have said is Limited, stupid. It is good with memory responses.
K: Which is generally called intelligence.
A.C.: Even people who work with the computer know how stupid it is.
K: Don't bring in the computer yet.
A.C.: Once you see the similarity between the brain and the computer, and you see how stupid the computer is, it is very easy to see the limitations of the brain. But the human brain is the only instrument we have. How can it possibly investigate what is beyond it?
K: Absolutely not.
A.C.: Then what exists?
K: Only the movement of thought.
A.C.: Which is the brain?
K: Which is the brain, limited.

A.C.: How can it investigate?
K: Wait. First let us recognise that the brain has evolved from the primitive up to now. It is not my individual brain; it is the brain of humanity. It is so, logically. Therefore, the idea of the `me' is imposed by thought to limit itself to an action.
A.C.: The idea of the `me' as an individual?
K: To limit itself because it cannot possibly conceive the totality of humanity. It can conceive in theory but in reality it cannot see the wholeness of it. So, we recognise that thought which has created and cultivated the psyche is more important than the operations of the brain.
A.C.: The cultivated brain is much more dangerous because the psyche has at its disposal a very efficient instrument.
K: Psyche in the dictionary means the soul, the ecclesiastical concept of an entity which is not material. Thought has created the psyche and thought has also imagined or conceived that psyche as different from the brain. For me both are the same. The brain with all the activity of thought born of knowledge, etc. has created the psyche.
A.C.: Are you saying the brain is also the seat of emotion? K: Of course, the seat of fear, anxiety, etc. The brain and the psyche are one. Follow the consequences. Do you see factually, not theoretically, that the brain with all the activity of thought, born of knowledge, is part of the same movement as the `psyche' and that thought has created the `I', the `me', separate from the rest of humanity, and thought has made the `me' more important than anybody else?
G.N.: Are you saying that thought creates the psyche and thought divides the brain from the psyche, but brain and psyche go together?
K: That is right, and in that process is created the `I'.
G.N.: And that makes the brain mechanical?

K: All knowledge is mechanical. Knowledge is a mechanical process of acquisition. I mean by mechanical, repetitive, which is experience, knowledge, thought, action. From that action you learn and you are back again. This repetitive process is mechanical, my brain is mechanical. Now is my psyche mechanical?
Q: Why are we making the division between the psyche and the brain?
K.: Thought controls the psyche - `I must not feel this.' `I must become that.' So the becoming is the psychological process invented by thought. And so the whole process is mechanical.
A.P.: There is a mystique about human existence.
K: I have no mystique.
A.C.: I think the crucial thing is why the brain, the psyche, is mechanical. I find no difficulty in accepting this.
K: They have also found that the brain, when it is in danger, produces its own mechanical reaction which will protect it. These are material processes. So, thought is a material process. Do you agree? Do you agree that the psyche is a material process? That is the crux. A.C.: I think what he is saying is that when the brain sees the totality, then thought ceases, the `I' ceases.
K: I don't think the brain can see the totality. That is the point. The brain is evolved through time, time being knowledge, from the most primitive to the highly sophisticated. There is evolution in time, in knowledge. That is a material process. That thought has created the `I' with its psychological mess. I am not saying it is mystical and all that. Would you agree?
SAT.: Now, what could be a non-material process?
K: That which is non-matter, that which is no-knowledge, that which is not of time, that which has nothing to do with the brain. But it is speculation for you. Let us start with something factual.
So, do we admit that all thinking in any form is a material process, whether we think of the eternal, of god or the supreme principle, it is material process?

If you agree, then we can proceed. It takes a long time to come to this: The psyche, the brain, the I, are all a material process.
A.C.: I want to know where you are taking me.
K: I am going to help you to take the first step. I have only come to a point which is very simple. I said that the brain has evolved in time. Therefore, it is evolved with knowledge. So, knowledge is time, and time and knowledge are a mechanical process. And thought has created the psyche. Follow it; if everything is movement, thought, psyche, time - it is all a material movement - the brain cannot stand this constant movement. The brain functions with knowledge, and it must have security. See how the brain rejects the idea of constant movement. Watch it, watch yourself. You want a place where you can rest. The brain says I must have some place where I can stay put. So that becomes the `I'. Sir, if I am a beggar everlastingly wandering, there must be some place where I can rest, some place where there is security. Can the brain accept this constant, endless movement? It cannot accept it; in that there is no security. It is eternally moving within the area of time, knowledge.
A.C.: Is it a question of accepting?
K: No. See how the brain works. As a child needs security, the brain says, I can't keep this eternal movement. So, I must have some point where I can stay `quiet'. That is all.
A.C.: That point you call the `I'.
K: A fixed point. It does not matter; a house, a belief, a symbol, an attachment. Do you get it? So, whether it is illusory or actual, it needs a fixed point.
A.C.: Then what?
K: The brain cannot live with perpetual movement. Therefore, it must have a fixed point. There is danger in not accepting the movement which is life. See physically what happens. Can you accept life as a perpetual movement within the area of time and knowledge? Verbally you can, but actually can you say life is constant movement?

Q: Is the brain itself responsible for this movement?
K: It is. The brain is thought, knowledge and the psyche.
Q: It creates the movement which it cannot stand.
K: It is movement itself.
Q: The instinct of the brain is to move towards security; and it is this instinct to avoid danger and to attach itself to security which makes it fix on something.
K: Of course. Would you accept this whole movement within this area as energy caught within this?
Q: Is it energy or does it require energy?
K: It is energy, caught in movement. Right? And that energy is a material process. And a human being cannot live in the world and have a brain that is constantly in movement - he would go mad.
A.C.: It seeks permanence, does not find it any more.
K: Realizing this constant movement, it seeks security, a movement where it can be sure. That is all I am saying.
A.C.: Is it important?
K: It is important to establish that the `I' is the centre where it finds security. Call it whatever you like. Then it begins to discover it is insecure, and, therefore, it finds another security. There is only search for security. Take a child with a toy, and the other child says I must have that toy. That attachment to that toy and the pleasure of the toy is the beginning. The beginning is from the beginning of man.
A.C.: The question is that energy.
K: No, I said energy trapped.
A.C.: How can you open the door in which energy is trapped?
K: Now comes the real question. How long we have taken to come to this! Can we proceed from here?

A.C.: You said energy is trapped in knowledge. Are yon making a distinction between energy and thought?
K: No. The whole thing is energy trapped. Thought is energy, knowledge is energy, the whole movement is within the area of knowledge and time. That is all I am saying.
A.C.: Then the next question obviously is that since thought and knowledge are limited, can energy stop expressing itself as thought?
K: No, no, it cannot. Otherwise, I can't go to the office.
A.C.: I talk of energy expressing itself as psychological memory.
K: I know what you are trying to say, which is, can the psyche have no existence at all? Don't agree. If there is no content to the psyche - anxiety, attachment, fear, pleasure, which makes the psyche, which are all the products of thought - then what is life?
A.C.: Which is the product of energy?
K: Which is the product of energy trapped in time. You see that clearly. Therefore, thought is saying I must create order in this area. Therefore, that order is always limited; therefor, it is contradictory; therefore, it is disorder.
A.C.: I am still not clear about energy and thought. It appears to me that you were saying that thought is limited but energy is not.
K: I said energy is trapped. I didn't say any more than that.
A.C.: You are saying energy is trapped, but if it is not trapped, it would be different. That is what I am asking. There is difference between energy and thought.
K: That is theory.
N.S.: Are you saying there is an energy which is not trapped in thought?
K: I am going to show it to you. That question can only arise when we have seen this in its completeness. I am not sure we see this.
N.S.: You said that thought is energy and that energy is trapped in thought.

K: No, I didn't say that. The brain is the product of time, time is knowledge, experience - time, knowledge, thought. Thought is a material process. All that is energy. All that energy, that whole movement, is endless within this area. Therefore, the brain cannot stand it. It must have security. It finds it in knowledge or in illusion, or in an idea, whatever it is. It is always moving within this area. What is the next question? A.C.: The next question is energy is trapped, and is there an opening for that trapped energy?
K: It is trapped. I don't say there is an opening.
A.C.: Does it not imply that?
K: No, sir. A trap is set to catch a fox.
A.C.: It implies that something outside the trap can set the fox free.
K: No. You miss my point. In here thought is trying to create order; that very order becomes disorder. That is what is happening actually - politically, religiously; that is the whole point. It is becoming disorder, more and more, because we are giving importance to thought. Thought is limited. Now, does the brain realize this? Does the brain realize that whatever it does is within its own limitation and, therefore disorder? We are stating it. And the next question is, is that theory or actual realization?
A.C.: How can the brain which is all this realize it actually?
K: Realize its limitation, that is all. Sir, what do you mean by the word `realise'?
A.C.: What I mean is, the brain is only capable of thought; it realizes it as knowledge.
K: Do you, as Asit, realize it in the sense that you realize pain? I know I have pain, there is complete knowledge of pain. Does the brain see its tremendous limitation? Let us begin again. What is perception? What is seeing? There is intellectual seeing; I understand, comprehend, discern. Then there is seeing through hearing, verbal hearing and capturing the significance. Then there is optical seeing. Now, is there a different perception which doesn't belong to any of these three? I am asking; I am not saying there is. I am

sceptical. First see this: I see how my mind operates - intellectually, through hearing, optically. That is all I know. So, through these media, I say I understand or I act, which is a material process. Get the point? That is all. Now, is there any other perception which is not a material process?
Sriram: Therefore, that is not part of the brain.
K: I don't want to say that