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Krishnamurti

K: Asit and I have been talking about the relationship of the human mind to the computer. He is involved in the manufacture of computers. And we have been trying, in different parts of the world, wherever we met, to find out what is intelligence. Is there an action which the computer cannot possibly do, something far more penetrating than anything man can do externally. And our conversation has been going on for several years. So I thought this morning we should meet and go into this matter.
A.C.: The Americans are developing super computers, and we as human beings have to, in a sense, do the same thing. We have to be more intelligent than the technology of the Americans to counteract the threat of that technology. And the technology is not only in computers, it is also in genetic engineering, cloning, biochemistry, etc. They are trying to control genetic characteristics completely. Since the brain has no nerves, during brain surgery the patient is conscious. One can communicate with him. I'm sure it's a matter of time before computer-brain interfaces are created. Then, in Russia, there is a great deal of research being done on the ability to read thoughts and transmit them to someone else. I would like to speculate a little bit, I am using the word `speculate' in the sense of seeing certain problems now which are solvable technologically in the next few years. I think it is important to do this because you are not merely talking to us but you are also talking to those in the centuries to come, to whom all this will be a reality. For example, consider the role of the teacher today. You can get a small computer, you put a magnetic strip in it and it will communicate in French with you, put another strip in and it is fluent in Arabic, Japanese, instantaneously. Suppose the strip could be put into a human brain; the problem is only the interface between the brain and the strip, because the brain operates as an electrical circuit. Then what happens to the role of the teacher? The next point is that in affluent societies, because of the tremendous increase in physical appliances like motor cars
and washing machines, the body has deteriorated. Now, since more and more mental functions are going to be taken over by computer, the mind is going to deteriorate not only at the level of what you are talking about, but even in ordinary functioning. I see this as an enormous problem. How does one face this problem in a world which is moving in this direction?
K: If learning can be done instantaneously, if I can be a linguist when I wake up in the morning, then what is the function of the brain? What is the function of the human being?
P.J.: Is it not a problem of what is humanness? What is it to be a human being apart from all this?
K: Apparently, a human being, as he is, is a mass of accumulated knowledge and reactions according to that knowledge. Would you agree to that? And as the machine, the computer is going to take charge of all that, what then is the human being? What is the function of a school then? Think a great deal about this. This is not something that needs quick response. This is tremendously serious. What is a human being if his fears, his sorrows, his anxieties are all wiped away by chemicals or by some implanted electric circuitry? Then what am I? I don't think we get the fullness of it.
P.J.: If you take a strong tranquillizer, your anxieties are temporarily over. That is not arguable. But if you can clone, you can do anything. We are missing something in all this. I don't think we are getting to the central thing. There is something else also involved in this.
K: Look, Pupulji, if my anxieties, fears, sufferings can be allayed and my pleasure increased, I ask then what is a human being? What is our mind?
A.P.: Do I understand that while, on the one hand, man has developed these extraordinary capacities, there is also a corresponding process of deterioration in the mind which is a side-effect of super mechanization?
A.C.: If you have a car and you stop walking, your body will deteriorate. So, if the computer takes over mental functions, the mind deteriorates. I mean just that.

K: I don't think we understand the depth of what is happening. We are arguing over whether it can happen. It is going to happen. Then what are we? What is a human being then? And then, when the machine, the chemicals - I am using the word `computer' to include all that - when the computer is going to take us over completely and we no longer exercise our brains, they physically deteriorate, how shall we prevent that? What shall I do? I must exercise my brain. Now it is being exercised through pain, through pleasure, through suffering, anxiety, all the rest of it. But it is working. And when the machine and chemicals take over, it will cease to work. And if it is not working, it will deteriorate; because we have problems, it acts.
Can we start with the assumption that these things are going to happen, whether we like it or not? They are happening, unless we are blind or uninformed. Then, let us enquire if the mind is deprived chemically of its problems or by the computer, whether it can survive at all.
A.P.: I am not quite clear about one point. There is in each human being a feeling of a void, of emptiness, which needs to be filled.
K: It will be filled by chemicals.
A.P.: It cannot be filled. No, sir.
K: Oh yes, it will be.
A.P.: I am questioning that. There is a strange void in every human being. There is a seed that is groping.
R.B.: What he is saying is that there will be other forms of LSD without the side-effects which will fill that gap.
K: Take a pill and you will never feel the void.
A.P.: At some point you have to see that there is something which will remain untouched.
A.C.: What if you don't find that?
A.P.: Before you come to that, the finding of that, at least you must posit a need for that.

K: I am positing a need.
A.P.: What is the need?.
K: The need is for chemicals, and the computer is going to destroy me, destroy my brain.
A.C.: I am saying something slightly different, that is, if this technology continues, there won't be any void in any human beings because eventually they may die out as a species. At the same time, as a human being, I feel there is something else which I don't know but want to find out. Is there something which is different, which needs to be preserved? Can I understand intelligence? How am I going to preserve that against all these dangers?
K: Asit, it may not be preservation at all. Look, sir, let us take for granted that chemicals - the computer - is going to take man over. And if the brain is not exercised as it is being exercised with problems of anxieties, fears, etc., then it will inevitably deteriorate. And deterioration means man gradually becoming a robot. Then I say to myself, as a human being who has survived several million years, is he to end like this? It may be so - and probably will.
A.C.: It seems to me that the movement of this technology is a very evil thing because there is a certain goodness which is being destroyed.
K: Agreed.
A.C.: The technology is created by human beings. There seems to be a movement of evil, and the evil thing is going to take over.
K: Is that evil? Why do you call it evil?
A.C.: Evil because it is destroying the world.
K: But we are destroying ourselves. The machine is not destroying us. We are destroying ourselves.
A.C.: So the question is how is man to create this technology and yet not be destroyed by it.
K: That is right. The mind is deteriorating because it will not allow anything to penetrate its values, dogmas. It is stuck there. If I have a strong conviction or opinion, I am deteriorating. And the machine is going to help us deteriorate faster. That is all. So, what is a human being to do? Then I ask, what is a human being, deprived of all this, if he has no problems and is only pursuing pleasure? I think that is the root of it. This is what man seeks now, in different forms. And he will be encouraged in that by the machine, by the drug. The human being will be nothing, but involved in the pursuit of pleasure.
A.C.: And the computer and television will provide the pleasure right in his home. We are saying there are not only computer scientists but there are also genetic scientists and multinationals engaged in entertainment electronics and they are going to converge to a point where man will end up either by destroying the capacity of the human brain or as a human being in a constant state of pleasure without any side-effects. And the pleasure will be obtained through the computer and chemicals, and direct relationships with other human beings will gradually disappear.
K: Perhaps no chemists, no computer experts have gone so far as yet but we have to be ahead of them. That is what I feel. So, what is it that man has pursued all through his existence? From time immemorial what is the stream he has always followed? Pleasure?
A.C.: Pleasure, but also the ending of sorrow. K: Pleasure, avoid the other, but essentially pleasure.
A.C.: He pursues pleasure and at some point he sees the need not merely for pleasure, but in the negative sense, the ending of suffering.
K: Which means pleasure.
A.C.: Is the ending of suffering pleasure?
K: No. You are missing my point. I want pleasure at any price and suffering is an indication to me that I am not having pleasure. Dispute it; don't accept it.
A.C.: What I am saying is, historically man has always pursued pleasure.
K: Which means what? Go on, analyse it.
A.C.: The self has pursued it.

A.P.: When you say `self', are you talking of the physical self or the psychological self?
K: Both. I want to survive physically and psychologically, and to survive, I must do certain things, and to do certain things, they must be pleasurable. Sir, look into this very carefully. Ultimately man wants pleasure. The pursuit of god is pleasure. Right? Is that what is going to be encouraged by the machine, drugs - that man will be merely an entity that is concerned with pleasure? Is the conflict to find a balance between the two? Pleasure is the most destructive thing in life.
I don't think you understand the significance of this. The conflict between good and evil has existed from time immemorial. The problem is to find a balance or a state where this conflict does not exist, which is pleasure. And pleasure is the most destructive thing in life. Right?
A.P.: In terms of what you are saying, does the search for freeing the mind from bondage come into the realm of pleasure? A.C.: We, in fact, reduce everything to that: That is what human beings have done. Attachment, bondage create suffering. That is why we want freedom. Can we see that all human actions ultimately end in wanting happiness or pleasure, and they are enormously destructive? They have ended up in a technology which is also a pursuit of pleasure, which is self-destructive. There must be some other movement of the mind which is not seeking pleasure, which is not self-destructive, I don't know if there is, but there must be.
K: Asit, let us get this clear between ourselves, you and I. It is a fact that human beings historically up to now have always been in conflict between good and bad; their ancient paintings indicate a struggle. The spirit of conquering pervades, which ends up in pleasure. I have looked at it and I realize instantly that the whole movement of man has been this. I don't think anybody can dispute this. I am saying the whole of it, not only physical, but also psychological. Self-preservation is also part of that movement. That is a fact. Is that destructive of the mind, of the brain?

R.B.: Sir, what do you mean by good and evil when you say it is trying to balance the good and evil which is pleasure?
K: You have seen those cave paintings, fifty thousand years old, paintings in the caves of France and Spain. There you see man struggling against the bull.
R.B.: Yes. It exists everywhere in some form or other.
K: Yes. This conflict between the two - what is called good, what is called evil - has existed from time immemorial. Right? And man has invented the good and the evil. Watch it, watch your own mind. Don't theorize. Look at yourself if you can, and see what is good and what is evil. The fact is never evil. Right? Anger is anger. But I say it is evil, Therefore, I must get rid of anger. But anger is a fact. Why do you want to name it bad and good?
R.B.: Whether you name it bad or not, it can be terribly destructive. K: It can be very destructive, but the moment I have called it bad, it is something to be avoided, right? And the conflict begins. But it is a fact. Why do you call it anything else?
P.J.: Take the pursuit of black magic. Would you say the pursuit of that in its very nature is evil or not?
K: What do you call black magic?
P.J.: Black magic is the pursuit of something with the intention of destroying another.
K: Which is what we are doing, though we may not call it black magic; but what is war?
P.J.: Let me go slowly; you are rushing us. What I speak about brings into operation, supposedly, powers which are not physical powers.
K: I had seen here at Rishi Valley some years ago, under a tree, a figure of a man or a woman in which they had put pins. I asked what it was about, and they explained it to me. Now, there was the intention to hurt somebody. Between that and the intention to go to war, what is the difference?
You are losing an awful lot, you are missing an awful lot. You are all so damn clever, that is what is wrong with you. Light is neither good nor bad. Which means what? Look, sir, the computer, the chemicals, are taking over man. This is neither good nor bad - it is happening. Of course, there is cruelty; of course, there is kindness. It is obvious. The mother beating up a child and somebody having compassion and saying, don't hurt anyone - there is a difference, that is obvious. Why do you call it good or bad? Why do you call it evil? I am objecting to the word, that is all.
Can we move to something else, which is, pleasure is always in the known. I have no pleasure today but day after tomorrow it might happen. I like to think it will happen. I don't know if you see what I mean. Pleasure is a time movement. Is there pleasure that is not based on knowledge? My whole life is the known. I project the known into the future modifying it but it is still the known. I have no pleasure in the unknown. And the computer, etc. is in the field of the known. Now the real question is whether there is freedom from the known. That is the real question because pleasure is there, suffering is there, fear is there, the whole movement of the mind is the known. And it may project the unknown, theorize, but that is not a fact. So, computers, chemicals, genetics, cloning are all the known. So, can there be freedom from the known? The known is destroying man. The astrophysicists are going to space from the known. They are pursuing the investigation of the heavens, the cosmos, through instruments constructed by thought, and they are looking through those instruments and discovering the universe, watching what it is; it is still the known.
P.J.: A very interesting thing struck me just now. The present mind of man, in the way it is functioning, is threatened. It is being destroyed. Either the machine takes it over and it is destroyed, or the other freedom from the known will also destroy its present functioning. The challenge is much deeper.
K: Yes. That is what I said. You got it. What Pupul is saying is, if I understand rightly, the known in which our minds are functioning is destroying us. The known is also the future projections as the machine, drugs, genetics, cloning all that is born out of these. So both are destroying us.
A.C.: She is also saying the mind of man has always moved in the known, in pursuit of pleasure. That has resulted in technology which will destroy it. Then she is saying that the other movement, which is freedom from the known, will also destroy the mind as we know it now.
K: Yes. Freedom from the known? What are you saying?
A.C.: There are two movements, she says. The movement of the known is leading to greater and greater destruction of the mind. The way out is freedom from the known, which is also destroying the movement of the known.
K: Wait. Freedom is not from something. It is an ending. Do you follow?
A.C.: Are you saying, sir, that this freedom from the known is of such a nature that you are not destroying this movement, that thought has its place, mind has its place? Are you saying in that there is freedom?
K: I say there is only freedom, but not from the known.
P.J.: I say the mind is functioning in a particular way, what we call the human mind operates in a certain way. That human mind is put under pressure by technological advances. This other, freedom from the known, also is totally destructive of this function of the mind. Therefore, a new mind - whether born of technology or one which is free of the known - is inevitable. They are the only two things; the present position is out.
K: Let us be clear. Either there must be a new mind or the present thing is going to destroy the mind. Right? But the new mind can only exist actually, not theoretically; it can only exist when knowledge ends. Knowledge has created the machine and we live on knowledge. We are machines; we are now separating the two. The machine is destroying us. The machine is the product of knowledge; we are the product of knowledge. Therefore, knowledge is destroying us, not the machine. So, the question then is, can knowledge end? Not can there be freedom from knowledge? Then you are avoiding or escaping from knowledge.
A.C.: The question is, can knowledge or the action born of knowledge end? Action out of knowledge can end. Knowledge can't end.
K: It can.
A.C.: Action out of knowledge?
K: Action is freedom from knowledge. A.C.: Knowledge can't end.
K: Yes, sir.
P.J.: What do you mean when you say all knowledge ends
K: Knowledge is the known, except technological knowledge. Can that knowledge end? Who is to end knowledge? The person who ends knowledge is still part of knowledge. So there is no entity apart from knowledge, which can end knowledge. Please go slowly.
A.C.: There is only knowledge?
K: There is only knowledge, not the ending of knowledge. I don't know if I am making myself clear.
A.C.: So, sir, there is the tremendous force of self-preservation and there is only knowledge. And you are asking, can knowledge end, which means self-annihilation?
K: No, I understand what you are saying. I am leaving now, for the moment, the ending of the self. I am saying the computer, which includes all technology, and my life are based on knowledge. So there is no division between the two.
A.C.: I follow that.
K: This is a tremendous thing. And so long as we are living in knowledge, our brain is being destroyed through routine, the machine, etc. So, the mind is knowledge. There is no question of saying it must free itself from knowledge. See that. There is only the mind which is knowledge.
I am going to tell you something. You see, you have blocked yourself. Don't say it is impossible. If you say it is impossible, you couldn't have invented the computers. Move from there. The mind when it says it must be free, whatever
it does, it is within the field of knowledge. So, what is the state of the mind that is completely aware, or knows, or is cognizant that it is entirely knowledge?
I have moved. Don't you see it? Now what has taken place? Apparently knowledge is movement. Knowledge has been acquired through movement. So, knowledge is movement. So, time, all that, is movement.
A.C.: You are speaking of the state of mind when time comes to a stop.
K: That is freedom. Time is movement. Which means what? It is very interesting, sir. Let me put it together. Mind has invented the computer. I have used the word to include all that technology, genetics, cloning, chemicals. That is born from the knowledge which man has acquired. It is still the known, the product of the known, with its hypotheses, theory and refuting the theory and all that. Man has also done exactly the same thing as the machine. So, there is no division between the two. The mind is knowledge. Whatever it does will be born of knowledge - man's gods, his temples are born of knowledge. Knowledge is a movement. Can the movement stop?
That is really freedom. That means perception is free from knowledge and action is not of perception, not out of knowledge. Perception of the snake, the danger is action, but that perception is based on centuries of conditioning about the snake. The perception that I am a Hindu, which has gone on for three thousand years is the same movement. And we are living in the field all the time. That is destructive, not the machine. Unless that machine of the mind stops - not the computer - we are going to destroy ourselves.
So, is there a perception which is not born out of knowledge? Because when this movement stops, there must be action.
A,C.: In other words, it is to act in the world, but nothing sticks, no marks are left. Nothing takes root.
K: Which means what? A perception which is not of knowledge. Is there such perception? Of course, there is perception which cannot be computerized. Is this enquiry born out of the instinct for pleasure? We are all enquiring. P.J.: I don't know whether it is for pleasure or for something else.

A C.: It doesn't matter whether the computer can do it or not. It is essential that we do it.
P.J.: Which leads to the position that there is something to enquire into.
K: You see how deep-rooted it is!
A.C.: The question is, what is the mechanism of the mind, what is the structure of the mind which operates with perception, with insight, with no accumulation.
K: But look what we have done - to come to that point, which is perception without record, how long it has taken. Why? Because we function in time.
A.C.: In other words, what you are saying is that you don't have to go through this process. If we have come to this point, and do not act, it is very dangerous, much more dangerous than not having a discussion at all.
K: That is what I am saying. It is a tremendous danger. Have you come to a point where you see what the mind has invented? - the machine which is the computer, drugs, chemicals, cloning, all this. It is the same as our minds. Our minds are as mechanical as that. And we are acting always in that area. And, therefore, we are destroying ourselves. It is not the machine that is destroying us.
P.J.: One can say at the end of it, tapas, tapas, tapas. It means we have not done our homework.
K: I am not sure if you are not back in time. You know, sir, a pianist once said, if you practise, you are practising the wrong thing.
P.J.: It is not a question of practice.
K: Pupulji, there are all the teachers. What are they going to do? Drop a bomb here? You follow what I mean? We are handling a bomb. It may go off any moment. I don't know if you realize this. It is a tremendous thing.
A.C.: It is far more dangerous.
K: This is really frightening. I wonder if you realize it. What will you do? This is real revolution.
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A.C.: And not only for teachers and students.
K: Of course, of course.
A.C.: I wanted to ask you, does the mind which has gone with you up to a point, the mind which reaches this point, become much more vulnerable to evil?
K: I understand what you mean. We won't discuss it now. So, sir, the question is stopping movement, ending movement, not ending knowledge. This is the real question.

Chapter 6 Part 3 Intelligence, Computers And The Mechanical Mind
Seminar Rishi Valley 30th December 1980
K: Would you accept that intelligence is not the product of thought? If intelligence is the product of thought, then intelligence is mechanical. Thought can never be non-mechanical.
A.C.: Intelligence can be the product of thought. The computer scientists believe it.
K: That's why they are investigating intelligence through thought.
A.C.: They want to know what is intelligence, and therefore, they want to know what is the thinking process, because the thinking process for them is linked to intelligence.
K: I am not saying it is so, or not. A.C.: So we have to enquire into what is thought and what is intelligence?
K: If you once admit that intelligence is not the product of thought, then the thinker has no importance.
A.C.: I think you are going too fast. If intelligence is not the product of thought, then thought has no importance. But negatively, it is important because, without understanding it, intelligence cannot come about.
K: Yes. Thought is a mechanical process; therefore, keep it in its right place. But you want to find out what is intelligence. Don't introduce thought into it. Can we go into what that intelligence is which is never touched by thought?
A.C.: Yes, I understand, How does one enquire into what is intelligence?
K: Not by using thought to enquire. If you use thought you are blocking yourself.
A.C.: I follow, in the sense that you are saying, don't use thought or the thinking process to enquire into what is intelligence.
K: Because intelligence is not the product of thought.

A.C.: I don't know that. If you say, don't use thought to enquire, then what do you want?
K: That's just it. Let us go into it. But let us be quite sure that thought cannot produce intelligence. Thought has produced the atom bomb, it has produced war. But you are enquiring into something which thought cannot enquire into. You are enquiring into what is intelligence. We say it is not a product of thought. If it is, you are operating with thought.
A.C.: I accept this; that's clear. I accept that you cannot use the tool - the thought process - to enquire into intelligence. Then how do you enquire? K: But first we must be quite sure that we accept that.
A.C.: I can see that Now - for then everything would be intelligence, everything that is thought. And it is not intelligence.
K: Of course.
A.C.: I see that there is no such thing as inefficient thought, good thought, bad thought, that is quite clear.
K: What the computer experts are doing in Japan is to enquire into thought.
A.C.: That is why they are stuck because they never reach intelligence.
K: Yes The Indians have tried to suppress thought, control thought.
A.C.: Why have they said that?
K: Because they feel if thought stops, the other may exist. Meditation to them is that.
A.C.: That means they had an insight into this other thing?
K: No. Look sir, perhaps the Buddha may have seen that intelligence is not thought. The other have spoken of how to suppress thought, control it. To them that is meditation. Which means what? That which is intelligence cannot be found through thought; therefore, suppress it.
A.C.: Do you feel that they have some insight into this whole thing? If someone told you, suppress thought, contain it, wouldn't you feel that the person had some insight into it? Can one refine thought?
K: Thought is as the child of a barren woman. Which means what?
A.C.: It's not creative. The computer scientists are trying to create a computer like the human brain, but they can`t do it because they don't know the thinking process. I wonder whether Indians who are supposed to have investigated for five thousand years into the human mind, nirvana and the other, could get together to create this.
K: Which two getting together?
A.C.: The Indian mind and the mind of technology.
K: Listen, the Buddha might have said there is intelligence that has nothing to do with thought. The rest of them read it or heard it; they translated that or repeated that.
A.C.: So, there is no meaning to their investigation.
K: It is the original man who said, `Look, I don't know what it is all about, but I'm going to find out.' That is research.
A.C.: I follow; you have answered my question. We come back. You are saying the computer scientist is approaching it wrongly; he is approaching intelligence through the thinking process and he can never find it and, therefore, he is stuck.
K: Which means the thinking process is mechanical.
A.C.: Yes.
K: Ah, be careful. Because thinking is based on knowledge. Right? Knowledge is limited.
A.C.: Even if they understand the thinking process, they still want to understand intelligence. So we come back to the question: How does one enquire into intelligence?
K: You can't because your enquiry is with the brain. The brain is conditioned to think. Is this clear?
A.C.: Are you saying that if you really saw this clearly you don't enquire using the thought process? Then, is there any enquiry into intelligence? Intelligence is, it exists.
K: No, no. Then you have to enquire into what it is to investigate. Can I discard the use of the brain, of thought - which is the brain, which is mechanical? There may be a part of the brain which is not mechanical - I don't know - but we can leave that for the moment. Intelligence is not the product of the brain as thought.
A.C.: Then one discards thought.
K: Not discards, one can't discard that. I want a baby. I can't produce a baby. So, what have you left when you are no longer using the brain to enquire?
A.C.: But you talk of seeing and listening. Would you call that the use of the brain?
K: Seeing is not the use of the brain. But I have seen the world through my thinking. I have seen what it has done in the word - atom bombs, destruction, etc., which is all the movement of thought. It has done evil things and good things. We will use evil and good for the moment. But that is not intelligence.
A.C.: I follow.
K. Thought can never beget intelligence. Therefore, I say to myself: I wonder whether I am approaching it wrongly.
A.C.: You have shown me that you cannot reproduce human intelligence that way but you can simulate thought that way, and you can get to know the thought process that way.
K: Yes, that's simple.
A.C.: That in itself could be dangerous.
K: That's what is happening. The computer will be able to think much better, quicker.
A.C.: That in itself is dangerous.
K: The fighter pilots have something inside the brain or outside. The moment they think and look, they shoot accurately.
A.C.: Yes, they will look at the target and then the shooting takes place. K: If you are really clear that thought under no circumstances can have intelligence, then what is the instrument that will investigate? We have used thought to investigate; now I have discarded thought, in the sense that thought has its place but when I am enquiring into intelligence thought has no place. Thought cannot investigate into intelligence. If you tell this to computer experts they will say, what the hell are you talking about? Then what is the instrument which is not thought that can perceive, investigate, look into intelligence?
A.C.: Seeing? Observing?
K: Don't use those words. Use your own words. Then it will have more clarity.
A.C.: There is nothing else except thought.
K: That's it. So the battle. And that's why they are stumped; they are moving in the same circle. They use thought and they want to enquire into the process of thought. The process of thought is very clear - it is based on memory, memory is based on knowledge and so on. The brain is conditioned to that; it has operated for a million years on that basis and now these experts come along and try to investigate intelligence with their brains which are highly trained. But their enquiry is still based on knowledge which is limited. Therefore, their investigation can never find out. Now, is there any instrument that will see what intelligence is - or is there no instrument at all? Do you see what I am talking about? I have so far used the instrument of thought to investigate. Now we have discarded that. But I am still searching for an instrument to investigate. That means I am still in the same groove.
A.C.: There is only thought.
K: There is no process of investigation. Now, what is it that is not contaminated by thought, that has no past, no future, no time element in it?
The time element is thought. The quality of mind that is not of time, not of tomorrow, not of yesterday, not of memory - that mind is an intelligent mind.
A.C.: Why do you call it that?
K: That is intelligence.
A.C.: Why is that intelligence?
K: I will show you in a moment. First of all we have given up thought, and there is no instrument that can investigate.
A.C.: Yes, for the instrument would be thought.
K: Thought may be waiting surreptitiously, unconsciously, to catch something. It cannot investigate that. If you admit that once, then what has happened to your brain? What has happened to your enquiry? You want to discuss intelligence. The moment you deny thought totally, that is intelligence.
A.C.: I don't know what intelligence is.
K: Why does one think one doesn't know?
A.C.: Because obviously...
K: Ah no, you are not answering my question. Because you are saying thought must know what intelligence is. But thought can never know.
A.C.: Yes.
K: Knowing means feeling, accumulating, acting.
A.C.: I see that.
K: If you follow that, there is no instrument of enquiry.
A.C.: I follow that.
K: Therefore, what? That state of the mind that has put away thought; it is not enquiring. So, what has happened? We will use another word - insight. Insight is not remembrance, it is not the accumulated knowledge which is thought. It has nothing to do with time. To see something instantly has nothing to do with time. A.C.: I see that. Are you saying that intelligence - insight - that state of mind does not exist if you approach it through the thought process?
K: If you are clear - as clear as in the knowledge that a cobra is poisonous - that thought can never under any circumstances reach intelligence, you wipe away all enquiry. These people are using thought to create a machine that can think, a super computer, artificial intelligence. They are working to create a brain which will be like ours, which will be mechanical. They are using their brain, with their tremendous knowledge of the brain, to produce a brain which is based on thought.
A.C.: In fact, they are using the model of the human brain to copy it.
K: Which is thinking. I follow that. Do you see this as a fact? To see it as a fact is to see that thought under no circumstances can have the other. If thought is no longer the instrument of enquiry, then you have nothing else with which to enquire. You can't enquire. Then what is intelligence, that is not based on enquiry? Look sir, I want to enquire into truth. I don't know anything about it. I don't want to depend on anyone to find out. So, I have to discard all the past. I want to find out what is supreme intelligence - that is what they all want to find out - not casual intelligence. We want to find out what is supreme intelligence. So, can I discard everything that I know? The only instrument I have is thought. I can think clearly because I have been trained to think, not sentimentally but objectively. Thinking which can produce so-called intelligence is then on the same level as thinking that has produced war. Therefore, it is not intelligence. So, under no circumstances will thinking have a perception of that. I must be absolutely clear. If I am not clear, unconsciously, deeply, then thought is going to interfere.
Before anything else, I want to clear the board. Is that possible? I see that what they are doing won't get them there. They will create mechanical, artificial intelligence which is like human intelligence that is capable of destroying the world. Right? Thinking, and all the instruments thought has invented to investigate into that - meditation, various types of silence, various types of self-denial - are out. The technologies won't accept that but true enquiry is that. And they haven't found it. They are anchored to Jesus or to the saint, which is thought, and from there they move through thought. They won't accept that
thought can under no circumstances come to that. Then what have I left to see that thought, under any circumstances, can produce intelligence?
A.C.: I understand that. It is not enough to see that thinking is not intelligence.
K: That is fairly simple, but the implications of it, the inwardness of it...
A.C.: When you say that intelligence is not the product of thought, it is clear.
K: Because you have applied your brain.
A.C.: But that is not enough. It does not mean that thought has found its proper place. To see something is not enough.
K: No. To see that you don't know - we all think we know - to see that thought cannot produce intelligence which is non-mechanical, you didn't use thought. Thought is limited. You accepted the fact; there was no thinking; you understand.
A.C.: I understand. My problem is slightly different. It is not enough to see that thinking is not intelligence.
K: To accept that is fairly simple, but the implications of it?
A.C.: That's what I want to know.
K: If you pointed this out to the computer scientists, what would their reaction be? They would treat it as mystical. Yet, these are the people trying to find out. A.C.: Yes. These people are trying to find intelligence. But other people are also trying to find that - the people whom you have been talking to.
K: They can't, they haven't. They react with thought. You have to apply your brain.
A.C.: To see something is not enough.
K: To see that you don't know - they all say they know. Progress in the last twenty years has been so rapid. They know; they wouldn't accept they don't know. I want you to see this.
A.C.: The person who has listened to you, who sees what you say, does not become intelligent. I am talking of myself.
K: But you don't have to investigate; it is all there. They want to investigate the point they want to reach. Their minds want to investigate where they want to go. When you see that thought is not the instrument, what will produce intelligence? Are you seeing the whole of it? Or are you seeing only in one direction? I don't know whether I am conveying something. That means, can the brain observe something whole without any kind of fragmentation? Intelligence is not fragmentation. The brain that investigates is fragmented, broken up. Whatever words you use, it functions in a very small field of knowledge. So, this cannot see it. Do you really feel this in your blood?
A.C.: What does that mean, sir?
K: This is something in which organized religions have no place. Why?
A.C.: Because we see what has happened with organized religions.
K: No, that means you are approaching it through reason - you see what is happening and from there you come to a conclusion.
A.C.: I follow what you are saying; it is possible. K: You don't have the insight to see that is wrong. So, when you say that you are using reason, logic, you are turning to thought and through thought you come to a conclusion. Can you have insight which says without logic this is wrong? And having seen that it is wrong, use logic then?
A.C.: I follow that.
K: In the same way, sir, thought cannot do this. We use logic to communicate and we say it is quite clear. It is not Logic has made it very clear; so what do you do? We may have discussed it, gone into it, but you are still following the same way of thought - logic, reason, facts. Right? Do you see that?
A.C.: In order to see that...
K: First see that clearly and then it comes naturally. Don't put it the other way round. Don't say, to live like that I must do this.
A1.C.: To see needs the right environment.
K: This is our environment. Wherever you are, that is your environment. If you are in a hotel room in London, that's our environment.
A.C.: If I am with you, it's different. If I am not with you, it's totally different.
K: Of course.
A.C.: The environment is different.
K: No, not the environment. Here I am forcing you to look. "Forcing', in quotes, pushing you. There no one is pushing; they are all thinking the same way.
A.C.: So, it becomes very important, and that is the trap: to have to be pushed.
K: Yes. It is very important to go to a doctor, a right doctor if I can find him. I am stimulated. When the stimulation is one you are back to what your environment is. To see this is no stimulation. Either you see it or you don't see it. We have discussed this for over an hour and we are beginning to see the nature of it. If you had another couple of days here, steadily working, thinking, you'd be in it.
A.C.: That's what I meant when I was talking to you, that's what I meant by environment.
K: But if you treat it as a-drug...
A.C.: Of course, I see that when I am with you it is different from when I am not with you. When I am away, it is completely overwhelmed and overpowered, but it does come back when I am with you. What can I do to see that it stays?
K: As you have other things to do, I would meet you very often till you are soaked in it, soaked in the sense that you understand what I mean, not just repeat what I say. You are born in it. How will you transmit this to your associates? Would they listen to you?
A.C.: No, they won't listen. This research into artificial intelligence will go on. Through thought they are going to produce a super computer better than `most people's brains'. They will do it and they will end up creating a world which will make the human mind obsolete. That is the threat to the human race.
K: Will they consider that they have reached the mystery of intelligence then?
A.C.: Yes. They will be able to reproduce anything that is mechanical, reproduce the thought process. That is the human brain, and that is frightening. What is most exciting is to investigate the nature of this intelligence and what can happen, not artificial intelligence. And I have been asking why in this environment I can feel a total change taking place.
K: Suppose we were to discuss every day, could you stand it?
A.C.: Yes. K: Careful.
A.C.: I could stand it, but to carry it out is the problem. The problem is when I go out of the door.
K: That means you haven't seen this. To see the danger of that, of thought, of the whole mechanistic process, the inwardness of it, is the very source of intelligence.

Chapter 6 Part 2 Intelligence, Computers And The Mechanical Mind

Seminar Rishi Valley 4th December 1980

(WAY OF INTELLIGENCE)