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BR73DSG4 - Meditation, control, belief and not knowing
Brockwood Park, UK - 7 October 1973
Discussion with Small Group 4



0:00 This is the 4th small group discussion with J. Krishnamurti at Brockwood Park 1973.
0:11 Krishnamurti: What shall we talk over together?
0:30 Questioner: Would it be possible to talk about meditation at all?
0:39 Because one or two nice people asked me had I ever meditated before, after sitting in your library for ten minutes.
0:46 And my friends in Scotland – the yoga – have started special sessions of half an hour sitting quietly, which they call meditation.
0:54 And I wondered whether that is meditation, or whether it’s part of meditation.
1:03 Krishnamurti: Shall we talk about meditation? Do you want to talk about it?
1:21 Do you really want to talk about it seriously?
1:40 Would you call sitting quietly meditation?
1:53 Would you call meditation sitting in front of a picture and trying to concentrate on that picture?
2:07 Is that meditation? Or take a phrase out of a religious book and meditate on that, think about it, see the implications of it and try to see if you can live that, what you have understood out of that phrase, or out of that sentence and carry it out in daily life, would that be meditation?
2:47 Or, follow somebody, a system somebody has put together, because you think he knows and because you don’t know, you are practising so that you will know what he knows – would you call that meditation?
3:17 I have personally seen every kind of meditation practice on earth, including the Zen – you know what Zen meditation is?
3:37 Where is Ted, he will tell you about it. He has practised a great deal for seven years the implication of what Zen meditation means.
3:59 The word ‘Zen’ comes from the word in Sanskrit ‘Dhyanam’, which means meditation; and as the Chinese couldn’t pronounce Dhya they turned it into Z and it became Zen!
4:22 And there they practise sitting very quietly, see how long you can be absolutely still and put you questions that have no answer, but you have to find an answer.
4:47 They practise attention, awareness and so on.
4:54 And there is the Christian practice of contemplation in certain monasteries, and so on.
5:05 In India there are dozens of different kinds of meditations – meditative groups, meditation classes and so on.
5:18 Now when you look at all that, is that meditation?
5:29 You don’t know what it is, so perhaps we can begin to examine why religions throughout the world have talked about the necessity of meditation.
5:54 Right? Interested in it? They said, because I happened to have talked to many gurus who come to see me – I don’t know why, probably they think I am a super nut like them!
6:22 – they come to discuss with me and they say, ‘What do you think is meditation?’ And they have practised meditation for years.
6:38 I know a man – I used to know a man, he was judge of a high court, and one morning he woke up and he said, ‘I am passing judgement on people all the time, I don’t know what truth is’ – and so he called his family and he said, ‘I am going to withdraw from the world and find out what truth is because I have come to a point when I can’t pass judgements on people without knowing what truth is.’ And in India it is still possible to go from village to village and be fed and clothed and looked after if you take the religious garb.
7:33 So one day he came to see me and he said, ‘You know I have been practising meditation for twenty-five years’ – you understand?
7:45 It wasn’t a game with him, it was twenty-five years he practised.
7:53 And he said, ‘What you say is true because what I have found in all these years of solitude, control, sitting quietly, going into myself, after all these years I have found that I have mesmerised myself, that I have been caught in some form of vision which I have unconsciously, or consciously, created, and that’s what I call meditation.’ Because he came to one of the talks where the speaker was talking about meditation and what is implied and so on.
8:45 So there you are. There are so many kinds of meditation.
8:55 And they all endeavour, as far as I understand, that you should have a very quiet mind because it’s only a very quiet mind that can see or experience reality.
9:21 That’s what they all say, that a still mind can reflect as a quiet pool reflects the trees or the evening stars, so a quiet mind is necessary so that it experiences, or the reflection of that something which man has sought, can come upon it.
10:03 That is the basic idea, as far as I know, of all meditation.
10:15 Right? Control, sit absolutely quiet so that your body is still without any movement and your mind also very still.
10:39 And they say you can achieve this through certain forms of Yoga – may I go on, you like all this?
10:52 Through certain forms of Yoga, certain disciplines, and a correct form of breathing so that your mind through exercise of control, guidance, a directive purpose, can receive or experience that which is called truth.
11:37 That is the basic idea, isn’t it, of Zen, the Hindu practice and perhaps in the western world also.
11:54 There are several things implied in it.
12:06 Control, thought must be controlled.
12:14 Thought must not chatter. Thought must not deceive itself.
12:28 It must lead a very religious life, a life where you do not hurt, kill, there must be no pride and so on and so on.
12:42 All that is necessary. Right? So let us examine it, let’s talk about it.
12:57 You understand, when you have a quiet mind you can see things clearly.
13:08 Right? When your mind isn’t chattering all the time, you can hear much more, you can see much more.
13:20 That seems so obvious, doesn’t it?
13:27 And how do you bring about such a quiet mind in which you can really listen, not only to the promptings of your own thoughts, conscious or unconscious, but also listen to the silence itself.
14:00 And to do that the Ancients have said thought must be absolutely controlled, because it’s the very nature of thought to chatter, it’s the very nature of thought to go from one association to another association.
14:28 So it is an endless chain in which thought is caught.
14:39 So they say control your thought.
14:47 And they have spent years in controlling their thought because thought is not so easily controllable.
14:59 Right? And they have said, some of them, that the controller is the higher-self.
15:11 Are you following all this?
15:22 The higher-self, the soul, the Hindus have certain words, Atman and so on and so on. So the controller is the entity that in meditation operates by controlling the vagrant, chattering, meandering thoughts.
15:52 That’s the first question.
15:59 Now we are going to investigate the thing together. That’s what they have all said, more or less, in various forms: sit quietly, breathe quietly in a certain way, control your thought.
16:28 Right? So one has to go into the question of what is thinking, what is thought, and who is the controller.
16:45 You understand? Unless we solve that problem fundamentally the real quietness of the mind is mechanically brought about.
17:06 You understand that?
17:16 So to find out whether it is possible to have a quiet mind without the controller, because where there is control there is suppression, there is conformity, there is the controller and the controlled, the conflict between the two, one is always trying to win over the other.
17:53 All right? I am talking, sorry, we’ll join together a little later. So that has to be solved: who is the controller, and what is the controlled, what is thought, and what is the nature of the movement of thought in which time doesn’t come into it at all?
18:32 We’ll go into it.
18:42 Who is the controller? You understand? I am sure you have heard, all our civilisation is based on it, ‘control yourself, sit straight, do this, do that, this is wrong, that is right.
19:03 Follow, obey, control’. Now who is the controller? Come on, sirs, let’s talk about it.
19:21 Who is the controller?
19:31 And why is there this division between the controlled and the controller?
19:44 Unless you really understand this, not verbally, but, you know, deeply understand this, meditation, what to me is real meditation, cannot take place.
20:01 You can play with it, you can mesmerise yourself, you can control, you can have visions, you can do all kinds of stuff, but that’s not the real thing, at least for me.
20:14 So unless we go into this very, very deeply and find out who is the controller and the controlled, why this division takes place, and can thought be ever made still?
20:44 You understand? Go on, sir. This is the basic issue, at least I feel that is the basic issue.
21:05 Because I have sat in my youth with those people who meditated, a group of people, very serious, and control, don’t move your body, sit still, sit still so that your very eyes are still.
21:30 You understand all this? Never a single movement, it doesn’t matter if a fly comes and sits at the end of your nose, don’t move.
21:44 I don’t think you know all this, this terrific discipline that takes place.
22:02 And I have also sat with those who practise various systems; self-denial, celibacy, no sex, fasting, one meal a day, never look at anything because that might be a distraction.
22:43 You understand all this?
22:52 So if you really want to go into this question of meditation – and I think it is important to go into it because perhaps in that meditation something totally different may happen.
23:17 That’s my personal – which has nothing to do in discussing this thing. So one has to find out for oneself who is the thinker, who is the controller.
23:36 Go on, sir.
23:48 And is the controller different from the controlled? Look: I am proud, one is proud, and is that pride different from the entity who says, ‘I am proud’?
24:21 You understand my question?
24:28 Let’s talk it over, sirs.
24:36 You are angry, or jealous, or whatever it is, is your jealousy, anger, different from the thought which says, ‘I am not jealous, therefore I can control jealousy.’ Please, sir, this isn’t one man’s dialogue.
25:12 It is a dialogue, which means talking over together.
25:19 Q: It seems on this point of who is the controller and what is the controlled – looking at that we are looking at a series of thoughts, you are looking at it in yourself going from whatever caused something like anger to begin to want to change it.
25:45 K: Do you consider, have you looked into this question whether the controller is different from the controlled?
26:01 If there is a difference, if the controller is different from the controlled, then the controller can perhaps operate on the controlled.
26:18 But is the controller different from the controlled and why does the division exist between the two?
26:27 Until you answer that you can invent lots of practices, lots of attitudes and opinions and beliefs and following, you haven’t solved the basic issue.
26:50 Q: We can have different ideas at the same time.
27:03 But perhaps they are just ideas.
27:04 K: Yes, madam, but you see – no. Is anger different from the entity who says, ‘I must control anger’ or rationalise anger, or justify anger?
27:21 DB: Well, at first sight when one begins they look like different because it seems there is somebody in the back who is trying to control the thing in the front.
27:40 K: Yes, control, that’s right, sir. The engine is in front and you are sitting at the back and control it.
27:44 Q: Perhaps this could be approached slightly differently.
27:53 I have a brain. This brain is not the product of any of the machinations I call my thoughts.
28:05 This brain has come into being, as far as I am concerned, without any contribution on my part whatsoever.
28:12 This brain is composed of cells and those cells vibrate. As those cells vibrate they obviously send energy out, which I assume is reflected back to me.
28:27 So we have two things here. We have a reflection back to me, and we have something, so to speak, inside which is building the thing which is vibrating.
28:37 So as I understand it the vibrations and the reflections produce out there what I call my thoughts, or my emotions, or my sense perceptions.
28:51 And these take control over the brain when the real control of the brain should be coming from some part I don’t know anything about.
29:08 K: Is the brain, sir, different from its content?
29:17 Not the cells, not the structure but the memories, the associations, the remembrances, the accumulated knowledge, experience and so on, that’s all there.
29:35 Is the content of the brain, or the content of consciousness, is the content different from consciousness?
29:55 Or the content is consciousness.
30:03 Sorry, is this a little bit too abstract or too high-brow?
30:13 Q: It’s outside ourselves.
30:16 K: No, sir, this has got to be tackled. You and I, we have brains. I am not a brain specialist. We have brains. It has evolved through millions of years.
30:38 It contains memories, obviously, which is the result of experience, not only my present day experience, but the experiences of thousands of years of human living.
31:01 And the brain contains knowledge.
31:11 That knowledge is acting all the time. That’s a pillar, that’s a staircase, that’s pink, that’s white – you follow? – this is functioning all the time consciously or unconsciously.
31:29 Q: Is that then the controller?
31:32 K: Wait, wait. We’ll go into it a little bit. Is the controller different from the content of consciousness?
31:49 Is that controller something outside the content of consciousness?
31:56 You follow, sir? Or is it a part of consciousness?
32:04 DB: Is there any part which is the controller?
32:13 K: Is there any part?
32:15 DB: I mean particular part, which is the controller.
32:20 Q: Surely we are the controller.
32:21 K: Dr Bohm asks is there any particular part of the brain which acts as the controller.
32:29 Obviously there is. You can see it.
32:35 DB: How do you see it?
32:38 K: Fire is there, you know it burns and you don’t touch it.
32:47 That is the – I don’t know, please understand, I don’t know the structure of the brain – there must be a part of the brain which stores up knowledge which is necessary for self-preservation.
33:06 DB: You say it is a function.
33:07 K: Yes, a function, yes.
33:08 MZ: Sir, could we just differentiate, or would it be useful, between brain and mind because the brain is the organic part, and the mind…
33:19 K: No, you see.
33:22 AR: Couldn’t we use brain for the physical organ, and mind for what we experience?
33:41 K: To me, sir, it is the whole thing: brain, experience, knowledge, memory, the reactions, the content of consciousness, is the mind.
33:58 The whole of it. The physical responses, neurological responses, the psychological responses, the responses of memory, the responses of knowledge, the stored up experience which says ‘Do’, ‘Don’t do’, ‘Must’ and ‘Must not’ – all that is the mind, in which the brain is included.
34:30 Now, that is, the whole content of that makes up consciousness.
34:42 If the content is not there, there is no consciousness. It’s so obvious.
34:53 The house is the four walls and the roof and the window.
35:00 Without the window, without the walls, without the pillar, without the staircase, without the floor and the roof, there is no house.
35:08 In the same way, this content which is stored up in the brain as knowledge, which receives all the stimulus and responds to all the stimuli, the memories of childhood, the memories which are the racial inheritance, collective responses, and so on and so on, the whole content of all that is consciousness.
35:48 SB: Could you say it is the meaning as well as the content, that makes up that?
36:00 Because it’s not just the individual, it’s the meaning that…
36:05 K: I am born in India. This body is born in India with certain parents.
36:17 And the brain is malleable, so young, it can receive impressions, be told what to do, tradition, the everyday custom, all that is impressed on the brain, day after day.
36:35 Don’t kill – being an orthodox Brahmin at that time, it was the constant repetition, don’t kill.
36:44 Don’t kill a fly, if you do you are hurting and therefore next life you will pay for it.
36:55 So this constant repetition – orthodoxy, tradition, the culture, the conduct, the behaviour, all that is being poured into this mind, into this brain, which is the conditioning: the Catholic, the Protestant, the Englishman, the German, the Russian with his communistic ideology, tyranny, all that.
37:32 That is the content of human consciousness, and without that content there is no consciousness, therefore consciousness is its content.
37:47 This at least seems so obvious to me. I may be mistaken, I am ready to be trodden upon, shown that I am mistaken.
37:58 Q: This raises a problem. Why I don’t know, one has a notion that consciousness is without form and yet…
38:12 K: Sir, that’s a concept, you see. That concept is part of your consciousness.
38:19 Q: Yes, yes. Therefore it creates…
38:23 K: It’s part of your consciousness.
38:33 And is the controller, as Dr Bohm asked, a part of that consciousness, part of that brain which says, be careful, don’t do that because if you do you will destroy yourself.
38:53 Don’t go near the precipice, if you do you will fall over, kill yourself.
39:01 And therefore there is a part of the brain which is all the time alert, watchful, for its self-preservation.
39:14 And would you call that the controller?
39:22 That is, don’t go near the fire, it burns.
39:34 Don’t touch that snake, it is a cobra, it’ll kill you. Don’t go near that, put yourself in front of a bus, and so on.
39:48 Obviously there is that otherwise it can’t survive.
39:55 Q: There is no harm in wanting to control.
40:00 K: No, no, please, we have not entered the field of control at all, we are just enquiring.
40:07 So there is a part of the brain, which functions, operates, which may be the controller, which says, do this, don’t do that, for self-preservation, to survive.
40:24 Right?
40:25 DB: Anything which acts that way, carries the utmost urgency.
40:34 That is it gets tremendous force.
40:37 K: Tremendous force, yes, sir. Have you understood?
40:41 Q: Well, there is that one thing only: everything that consciousness can think of is part of consciousness, but…
40:52 K: Wait, sir. To see that, that’s important.
40:56 GN: But there is one thing which still seems to be a point of doubt with me.
41:08 There is a lively quality in human beings, which gives life as it were to memory, you see, or living.
41:21 Is living, the living thing, is it also part of consciousness in the sense that you say, ‘I am living’? If I am dead memory ceases to function. Is there some living quality in the human organism which in some way is part of consciousness, but in some way is not part of it?
41:38 K: I understand, sir.
41:39 Q: That is the only thing I am not sure of.
41:41 K: Before we go into that, we must come to this point. Stick to the one point, we’ll come to that presently.
41:56 Apparently it’s very important for the brain to survive.
42:06 And to survive it must guard itself, it must protect itself.
42:18 It must have complete security so that it can function properly.
42:28 So one part of the brain says, be careful, don’t move, don’t do this.
42:37 That is, the years and centuries of experience says don’t go near the precipice, don’t – be careful when you touch a snake and so on and so on.
42:54 Now, is that the controller? You follow? Answer that question, don’t go off to something else for the moment. Is that the controller which says, ‘I must control thought’?
43:16 Just a minute. We are talking of meditation, and I said most meditations insist on controlling thought in one form or another.
43:31 And we are asking if the control is part of that brain which has learnt and which is a constant warning movement, telling you all the time, watching, watching, watching.
43:53 What were you going to say, sir?
43:55 Q: Surely there are many different controlling factors. There is morality which sends a man to war, it tells him it is more important to be...
44:10 K: A man who goes to war, why?
44:19 Q: Because his morality which is...
44:25 K: Which is part of my culture.
44:27 Q: It is terribly strong. It can be stronger than self-preservation.
44:31 K: Is it?
44:33 Q: It is self-preservation. It’s only one of dozens of…
44:37 K: Is it? Is it my self-preservation to go out and kill and be killed, take a chance?
44:45 Q: You don’t go out with the idea you are going to be killed though.
44:49 K: What, sir?
44:50 Q: You don’t go out with the idea you are going to be killed.
44:52 K: Ah, of course. But if you don’t go out with the idea of not being killed you are a silly ass! You are going to be killed, and it’s obvious.
45:04 No, this is really quite important to answer this question, please.
45:13 Q: It seems to me it is a practical difference.
45:31 If I am nearly run over crossing the road, there is a tremendous speed of movement back onto the pavement, which seems to me different in quality from the kind of image or conditioned part of the mind which says it must control itself, because this is the right thing to do.
45:47 K: I understand, sir. Sir, look: the brain’s functioning apparently is to survive, right?
45:58 Otherwise it cannot function. Survival is absolutely necessary for the brain.
46:12 And therefore control is necessary – bus, train – you follow?
46:21 – control is necessary. And is that control necessary, which means is it a form of survival to find truth?
46:36 I don’t know if I am jumping, am I?
46:45 Is the discovery, or the coming upon truth its complete survival?
46:54 If it is, then control may not be the factor at all.
47:01 I don’t know if I am conveying something?
47:05 Q: Intelligence, yes.
47:06 K: Ah, I don’t. Don’t let’s, if you don’t mind, sir, introduce a new word. Let’s keep to the few words that we understand. That is, I see physical control is necessary; running away from danger, running away from any form of hurt, physical hurt; and is the discovery of truth – whatever that may mean for the moment – is that also a form of survival?
47:56 Am I making myself clear, sir? Somebody who has understood put it more clearly than I have, if somebody has.
48:08 DB: Are you saying that the brain, which is discovering truth, is able to survive in a deeper…
48:16 K: In a deeper and in a more harmonious way.
48:20 DB: Harmonious. But of course the mind is now conditioned to believe that it is in mental danger. It is not only in physical danger, but it is in mental danger.
48:33 K: That’s what I want to get at. You have understood? The brain has cultivated memories and responses to physically survive, and added to that it says, ‘I will survive if I believe that I am an Englishman’.
49:01 So it thinks belief will be a form of survival. Right? And is belief a form of survival at all?
49:13 DB: Well I think that people feel that belief gives them the energy that will enable them to survive.
49:25 They feel without their beliefs they would be lost.
49:26 K: Yes. That is, we think belief will give me the energy to survive. The energy to fight another belief. I am a Hindu and you are a Muslim. My belief, I have the energy in that belief to kill you because you have a different belief.
49:50 Is that survival?
49:51 Q: Surely, we are also conditioned to think that mentally we are in a very dangerous position unless we have the right – well, we can call it belief.
50:07 You know the Christian church persecuted people not because they were worse than anybody else but they said to save these men, just like our doctors do now, we have got to make him believe, to set his whole mind in the correct order, Christianity.
50:25 K: Yes, sir.
50:27 Q: Therefore I don’t quite agree with what Dave said. You said that one is only conditioned to save oneself, the brain only needs to save itself physically.
50:41 I think it is also very much aware of the danger of wrong psychic…
50:43 K: Belief.
50:44 Q: …wrong psychic order.
50:45 DB: Well, I was saying that we are conditioned to believe that we are in danger unless we have a firm belief.
50:55 K: Yes, I understand. That without belief you are in danger.
51:01 DB: Faith.
51:02 K: Faith.
51:03 Q: But I don’t mean faith because all religions say that faith is only for the ordinary person, you have got to get beyond that to really see it.
51:12 K: So, sir, are you saying that belief is a form of security?
51:20 Q: I am saying that…
51:25 K: Gives you security.
51:27 Q: But one hasn’t got security, only physically.
51:32 K: Of course, sir, we are saying that.
51:34 Q: Unless the mind is rightly ordered and functioning rightly it is not secure.
51:39 K: Of course. That is, sir, there are physical dangers and the brain must protect itself against the dangers.
51:50 And also it says beyond the physical, it says, psychologically, inwardly, if I have no belief I’ll be lost.
52:04 And does that belief give security? Or on the contrary it destroys security.
52:22 After all, when I call myself a communist it is an idea.
52:33 It is a concept which I accept, or which has been foisted on me, and I am a communist.
52:41 That is an idea, as an Englishman, German, Hindu and all the rest of it. And in that idea, that idea gives me security because I am living with the communists.
52:53 If I am not a communist and living with that group I am in danger. So belief in any form is a danger.
53:04 Q: But understanding is what we want, not belief.
53:07 K: Yes, therefore I have understood. I have understood the necessity of physical control, which is part of the brain, which is always watching the staircase, how it goes down the staircase, fire.
53:31 And also it says, ‘I will find security in the communal belief.’ And that communal belief will obviously be different from another communal belief and they are at war.
53:52 And therefore communal belief is a destructive thing in which the brain has sought security.
54:04 Now to see that is security!
54:13 I don’t know. Am I all right, sir?
54:23 DB: Is this what you said before, that the truth is security, that is, it is ready to believe something as arbitrary – it is just an idea that you accept that.
54:39 Because then the difficulty is that it is very difficult to distinguish sometimes between this belief in the sense of truth.
54:41 K: Belief is – wait a moment. So here I am. My mind, the brain has cultivated a certain part of itself which is constantly on the watch; not to trip over, fall, hurt, not to get poisoned and so on and so on and so on.
55:09 And also part of the brain which says, ‘I am a Hindu’, Englishman, German – belief.
55:18 And living with the Germans it gives, that belief gives security.
55:28 And that belief giving it security comes into contact with other set of beliefs – we’re French – and they are at each other’s throat.
55:42 This is obvious. Or religious: I am a Catholic and you are a Protestant, and we are at it. Because living in a Catholic community there is great safety in calling myself a Catholic.
56:01 And you, being a Protestant, have great safety and so on and so on.
56:09 Does that offer security at all?
56:16 This division of belief, nationalities, culture, does that give security?
56:23 Q: Imaginary security.
56:26 K: You see there is no security, you can see it. World war, two wars, there have been five thousand wars after history began.
56:39 So, see what the brain is doing. Physical security is necessary. Then the brain says, ‘I am living in this community which believes in certain things, and living together, having this belief, there is safety’.
57:04 See what it has done. And according to that belief it acts. Which is in opposition to the other community with a different belief.
57:21 The belief gives it energy to fight that community. Right? You are following all this? So. And it sees that. And also it sees there is no security really in belief, therefore it says, ‘There must be security in a totally outside agency, God.’ And that gives a tremendous feeling of safety.
58:04 And you come along and say, ‘Don’t be silly, there is no God because communists…’ You follow?
58:16 And you are disturbing my God, my belief, my security, therefore I am willing to fight you.
58:28 Right? So physical security and psychological security are two different things.
58:42 There must be physical security. The brain must watch what it is doing, where it is going, how it is walking otherwise danger.
58:57 The psychological security in which the brain seeks safety, in that there is no safety at all.
59:08 DB: Isn’t that the thing that apparently needs to be controlled? Is this mechanism which is trying to protect your mind, actually the thing that is disturbing the mind and therefore is the thing which you are trying to control?
59:22 K: Control, that’s right. What is disturbing must be put away by controlling it! So there it is.
59:34 And all that is my consciousness and its content.
59:41 So psychologically I say, ‘I must control my thought in order to find whatever there is to find, which will give me the complete psychological safety – God’ – you follow?
59:57 – Enlightenment, etc., etc. I wonder if I am transmitting anything. Are we communicating? See what I have done. I have moved, my brain has moved security from the physical to the psychological, and the psychological security it finds is not there, therefore it invents a super security, God, whatever you like to call it, and through meditation, through control, through various practices you are going to get there and be completely secure.
1:00:39 I don’t know… I wonder.
1:00:41 Q: Is this quite right because surely one doesn’t do this for security, for the sake of security, one doesn’t enquire into meditation for security.
1:00:49 K: No, sir, of course not. But one must understand the fallacy of this, this idea of super safety.
1:01:06 There may be a sense of total security, not in the things that thought invents.
1:01:23 Q: That’s it. But then one…
1:01:29 K: Therefore one must find out how to go beyond the inventions of thought.
1:01:42 That to me is meditation. You follow, sir? I am putting it terribly crudely but that’s why it’s very important to understand the controller.
1:02:01 The controller may be the entity who says ‘Be careful, be watchful, be attentive.
1:02:09 There is no physical safety, because you are growing old, you may die by accident, but there may be greater safety other than physical.
1:02:37 Therefore learn or find out what that is. And you can only find out what that is through meditation’. You follow the game it is playing? Or through going to church, or accepting certain ideas and so on.
1:03:02 So is there security in any movement of thought?
1:03:12 Sorry to come to that.
1:03:20 Thought has invented God, churches, saviours, masters, reincarnation, the higher-self, the Atman, the Brahman, it has invented a tremendous lot.
1:03:37 And is there safety in all the things that thought has put together?
1:03:48 If there is not, then what is the function of thought?
1:03:57 Please, this is a tremendous question, it isn’t a kind of waiting for an answer.
1:04:08 Can the brain see the truth that there is no safety, no protection, no security in the things that thought, which is part of the brain as memory, therefore is there any security in memory and thought?
1:04:37 You understand? Till the brain is completely clear of that you can’t go beyond it.
1:04:54 So that is why they have said control thought.
1:05:01 You follow, sir? Therefore hoping thereby to enter into something where thought is not, hoping thereby there will be great, complete assurance.
1:05:16 I don’t know if you see?
1:05:21 Q: But it could be there is this other consciousness which is so different from thought that one doesn’t even want to think anymore.
1:05:32 K: Now, what is the nature of that? You see until I am – this brain is very clear that there is no safety in any structure which thought has created, enquiry into the other may be the projection of thought.
1:05:59 Therefore the brain says – at least my brain says – I won’t move till I have understood this.
1:06:09 I won’t enter into that, that is speculation, that has no value.
1:06:11 Q: Thought will start looking into it to find a way.
1:06:18 K: No, sir. I am sorry. Look, sir: thought has put together heaven, the saviour, the church, the dialectical truth, the thesis, antithesis of the communists; the whole world apart from the physical world is based on the structure of thought; technology, the science, the art of war, everything.
1:06:58 Q: When you are talking about the constructions of thought and the things that thought has invented, there does seem to me to be a danger of confusing thought either as intellect or as spirit.
1:07:16 I mean I think the things we are talking about, some of them can be the creations of intellect and obviously useless, and the others are completely autonomous inventions of the spirit.
1:07:37 I think we are lumping everything under thought. I think there is an enormous difference between spirit and intellect.
1:07:48 K: Sir, we are not differentiating or putting away the intellect or the spirit.
1:07:57 We are including all that. We are using the intellect now to think clearly, to see how the mind operates, we are using whatever intellect one has, it is examining.
1:08:24 And in that examination we are not putting anything away, we are saying the spirit may be the product of thought, or may not be.
1:08:41 God may be – ‘God’ the word, beyond the word may be something which is real.
1:08:52 And all that is part of our enquiry in which we are not saying don’t deny spirit – I won’t deny or accept, we are examining.
1:09:12 Because is not the ego, the ‘me’, the product of thought?
1:09:28 My house, my property, my wife, I own that picture, I am better than you, or I am not so good as you, I believe in reincarnation and you don’t believe in reincarnation.
1:09:48 I believe in Brahman which is a state of mind which is omniscient, omnipresent, and I believe in the nameless Jehovah and so on and so on and so on.
1:10:07 I believe in Marx and I don’t believe in the Bible.
1:10:15 All that is obviously the product of thought. All that thought has put together: the church, the salvation, everything.
1:10:29 I can’t see…
1:10:30 Q: But thought is a subordinate.
1:10:34 K: Wait. We’ll go into that, sir. Is it subordinate?
1:10:39 Q: It is a subordinate functioning or malfunctioning aspect of spirit.
1:10:45 K: Of search?
1:10:48 Q: Of spirit.
1:10:50 K: What is spirit, sir?
1:10:52 Q: I couldn’t define it.
1:10:54 K: Then why do I assume that there is a spirit?
1:11:01 Sir, look, sir. This is what happens when one goes to India, they assert, they say Gita, the Upanishads, the gurus, the Masters have said there is.
1:11:19 Q: No, I am not asserting.
1:11:28 When you breathe you don’t assert fresh air. You just breathe it.
1:11:30 K: I don’t know anything about the spirit. That may be – I am not patronising or condemning – that may be part of thought which says, ‘In the belief that there is a spirit I take shelter.’ And that may be unreal.
1:12:02 The Buddhists repeat everyday, ‘I take shelter in the Buddha, in his Law, in the way of his Truth.’ Now, the Buddha is their concept of what he was.
1:12:25 He probably never said, couldn’t have said, ‘Take shelter in me’ because from everything that one reads about what the Buddha said, he denied – you follow?
1:12:38 ‘Don’t follow me’ he said, ‘Don’t be childish, grow up.’ But the mind wants security.
1:12:48 So thought may invent the spirit, therefore it may be real or it may not be real; but thought must understand the nature of itself and whether thought can ever stop.
1:13:16 You follow, sir? Or we are approaching the whole thing wrongly.
1:13:21 Q: From one aspect, Krishnaji, aren’t you asking us to look at the tricks that thought can play on ourselves?
1:13:30 K: Of course, obviously, sir.
1:13:37 It may be totally wrong idea or concept – I am not saying it is, or it is not – that thought must stop.
1:13:47 Q: What should my attitude be, because one is aware that thought is on many different levels and it can be very harmful, so one does realise one must make certain times in the day when one sits quietly.
1:14:34 If you don’t make them they drift away and days go by and you don’t.
1:14:36 K: Yes, I understand.
1:14:37 Q: What is one’s attitude to ‘thought must be quiet’, if one is longing for something else.
1:14:40 K: I’ll show it. First of all, can thought ever stop? You follow?
1:14:47 Q: It can.
1:14:49 K: No, then I am not putting it rightly.
1:14:58 Sir, the brain is constantly in operation.
1:15:06 Right? During sleep, during waking hours, it’s constantly active.
1:15:12 Q: And also the appetites, I think.
1:15:15 K: Of course. It is active. And can the brain with all its memories, with all its experience, knowledge and so on, can that brain be still?
1:15:34 Q: At night it can be beautiful – it can or can not be.
1:15:42 K: Wait, sir. At night, is it still? Or is it active in ordering, in bringing about order in itself so as to be secure?
1:16:04 Is this all getting too much?
1:16:07 Q: Isn’t that speculative, sir, a bit? Isn’t that point speculative because we are not conscious of it the moment it is happening?
1:16:18 K: I think one can be conscious of it, sir. Look: Mr Digby pointed out, asked, at night the brain may be still – may be.
1:16:34 And is that stillness brought about by the compulsive nature of the culture in which you have lived, which says, ‘Be quiet’ – you follow?
1:16:59 Or it is so disturbed during the day it is only relaxed during the sleep and is quiet?
1:17:09 There are different quietnesses. So I am just asking: can thought ever come to an end?
1:17:25 Or we are looking at it in a wrong way. I am not saying it is, or it is not.
1:17:35 Because man has tried different ways to stop thinking, because he isn’t such an ass, he sees very well thought must end sometime: and it ends sometimes at death, but he is frightened of that therefore he says, ‘Please I must find out.’ Q: Surely, thought can be transcended in that state when movement and stillness are one with each other.
1:18:05 K: Yes, sir, but who is to transcend it? Who is the entity that says, ‘I am transcending it’?
1:18:14 Q: Well, that question wouldn’t arise if it succeeded.
1:18:16 K: What do you mean, sir?
1:18:21 Q: I can’t explain it any better than that.
1:18:36 K: Why should thought come to an end?
1:18:43 Q: We recognise what thought is doing.
1:18:48 K: Who is saying it should end?
1:18:50 Q: Thought.
1:18:53 K: (laughs) Yes, sir, but you see the ending of something is the beginning of something else.
1:19:10 The ending is the beginning. But the ending of thought, does it bring a beginning? I don’t know if I’m…
1:19:25 Q: You mean if we had something better to do?
1:19:34 K: No, not better or good.
1:19:39 SB: You said that thought seems to deal with two things, the content of itself, and then you were saying also that thought tries to order itself.
1:19:51 I can see that.
1:19:52 K: No, I didn’t say thought orders itself.
1:19:54 SB: Perhaps I misunderstood.
1:19:56 K: The brain needs order otherwise it can’t function.
1:19:59 SB: Yes. Are you saying then that the order of the brain is not thought?
1:20:10 K: No, madam, no. I am saying – look. Mr Digby brought in this question. He said the brain is quiet during the night. And I said is that so? It may be quiet because it is weary, it has had an awful day.
1:20:33 SB: It is just knocked out.
1:20:35 K: Knocked out and says, ‘For God’s sake, I must rest!’ Or it has put order, brought about order during the day in itself by being aware and doing true things, not illusory and so on, therefore by bringing about order out of disorder during the day, then the brain says – it is quiet then naturally.
1:21:06 Q: There somehow seems to me a key in what you are asking us.
1:21:11 K: That’s what I’m slowly coming to. So I want to find out: thought we have said must come to an end because one sees the structure of thought and what it has done in the world, both beneficial and destructive.
1:21:36 The high degree of technology and thought uses it to kill, to destroy – you follow?
1:21:48 – the earth, the people, the monstrous things they are doing.
1:21:57 So we say thought is very destructive.
1:22:04 It has its beneficial side, but otherwise thought is deadly and therefore it must stop.
1:22:15 And control, all the rest of it comes into being. I said this may be a totally wrong approach to this problem.
1:22:28 So I want to find out why thought should come to an end.
1:22:37 I know why it should come to an end because it is destructive in one sense and constructive in the other.
1:22:48 But can the brain, which is so active, which is alive, which is moving, which is all the time observing, consciously, unconsciously, storing up every impression, every memory, every incident, can that active brain be still?
1:23:14 You follow, sir? If that brain is still then thought is not made still.
1:23:23 I don’t know if I am conveying?
1:23:30 Am I?
1:23:34 DB: When you emphasise the brain are you saying that physically the brain is in harmony, or still, then that necessarily means that there is no thought.
1:23:47 K: Yes, that’s right.
1:23:48 DB: Rather than taking it the other way.
1:23:49 K: The other way, that’s right.
1:23:50 DB: Which is impossible.
1:23:51 K: Yes, that’s what I feel. Where there is harmony of the whole…
1:23:54 DB: You mean physically, harmony and so on?
1:23:58 K: Physically, psychologically, inwardly, out, the brain then is quiet.
1:24:03 DB: Then would you say non-harmony is thought then?
1:24:07 K: That’s right, sir. Sorry, I didn’t want to put it so brutally because you wouldn’t accept it!
1:24:16 DB: I mean except for the thought which is necessary.
1:24:22 K: Yes, that’s right. Except thought which is necessary, thought is disharmony. And so can the brain be totally inactive?
1:24:38 You understand? In the right sense, don’t misunderstand it, not going off to sleep and all that absurd stuff, but totally still.
1:24:47 Then thought has its – you understand, sir? Am I conveying?
1:24:53 Q: I see it as a picture but it is pretty far away.
1:24:59 K: That’s why I said can the brain be still?
1:25:03 DB: What is it that makes it continue to think then?
1:25:09 K: To think. Look, sir: I see the tree, memory of what kind of tree, the colours, the shape of it, the beauty of it, the depth of it and it is registered.
1:25:28 Then I meet somebody who says, ‘You are an ass’ and that’s registered. And so on and on and on, constantly acting and reacting.
1:25:44 And to go out for a walk without a single thought.
1:25:49 DB: So instead of trying to bring this disharmony to order by solving the problem by thought, there is another way.
1:26:05 K: Yes, that’s all, yes. That’s why I asked: can the brain be still, observing but still without the observer coming into operation, because the observer has been put together by thought and therefore the observer is the past, is time and so thought is time.
1:26:28 Q: Seeing without any movement, seeing without any reaction.
1:26:33 K: Yes, sir, put it your own way. And you can only see when the observer is not, and can that ever happen?
1:26:53 Can the brain look at itself – please follow this – can the brain look at itself and not create the observer?
1:27:13 Look at itself, its inanities and its rationalities, can it look at itself and observe what is going on without an outside agency or time involved?
1:27:42 Time in the sense the past observing. You see, sir, this is real meditation, it is just not a thing you play with for the moment, it requires tremendous attention, tremendous sense of hesitant enquiry.
1:28:12 Look: can you observe the way you sit without condemning – listen to it quietly – without condemning – the condemnation is the observer – the way you are sitting, without the observer and sit relaxed in the right position without direction?
1:28:55 Are you getting what I am talking about?
1:29:22 Q: Do you mean, sir, without selection, when you refer to sitting in a position without the mind selecting a position which is right or not right?
1:29:43 K: Partly, yes. Look: can the brain act without contradiction? Can the brain function non-dualistically, that is the opposites we went into the other day, and therefore in clarity, action?
1:30:06 Not in choosing – are you getting this?
1:30:12 GN: Just now you said that when there is harmony because the brain is still, thought can function.
1:30:29 K: Narayan, we said something, just a minute. Thought, we said, apart from the physical, is disharmony.
1:30:41 Right? Therefore harmony is non-thought except in a certain direction. Right.
1:30:51 GN: Now what I want to ask…
1:30:54 K: Wait, you and I are clear on that? Not verbally.
1:30:58 GN: No, harmony is non-thought.
1:31:03 K: Sounds awful!
1:31:06 Q: I see the relevance of it because there are moments in one’s life, however occasionally maybe, that the brain seems to be functioning very efficiently and still there is a certain amount of quietness.
1:31:23 K: Yes.
1:31:24 GN: The brain itself at the root.
1:31:25 K: So what is your question?
1:31:26 Q: Now what I am saying is: can this harmony be brought about through some kind of…
1:31:28 K: Discipline.
1:31:29 Q: No, not discipline. Education. Is there a way of setting about this business, not in using harmony but in bringing about harmony?
1:31:45 K: Yes, I understand. You are asking can this harmony, which is non-thought – I say it very dolce volte – I say that very, very hesitantly, because we both understand it – can this harmony, which is non-thought, can education bring this about?
1:32:17 Education being the learning. We went into it the other day when we had a school meeting here, what is learning.
1:32:33 Learning from a book, learning from hearing, learning from seeing; when the three are harmonious, all that is involved in this – not just hearing, we went into that pretty deeply – then the three, learning from a book, learning from listening – not listening according to my desire, according to my pleasure, according to my direction, but just listening – and hearing without judgement, without my conditioned responses interfering.
1:33:29 That, hearing, seeing, learning from books, when there is that total activity goes on in education, all the implications involved, not just one or two superficial remarks about it, then probably it will happen.
1:33:52 After all, that is the function of education.
1:33:56 Q: I am interested in it because it is also connected with a question, the doubt I raised, because if I say I am alive – what is alive in me is not thought.
1:34:13 Thought seems to get a certain…
1:34:14 K: Wait, others may say it is thought that makes me alive. ‘I am going to have such a good time tonight’.
1:34:19 Q: Yes, yes, I see that. But what I am trying to say is when you realise that consciousness is its content, and thought and consciousness make the content, the question comes: the fact that I am alive is it a part of this?
1:34:46 K: Obviously, obviously. I should think so, I don’t know.
1:34:49 Q: Well, there is some difficulty in this because what distinguishes something which is alive from something which is dead?
1:34:58 K: I don’t say my consciousness is dead. I say it is terribly alive because I have had a very good meal, I am going to have a good meal tonight – you follow? – I am going to have more money next week and I am going to enjoy myself. I mean it’s tremendously alive.
1:35:14 Q: Yes, all that you see as projection of thought. You are beginning to see thought functions at very, very subtle levels. And thought at those subtle levels is projecting the thinker. Then you see the thinker and thought are not different.
1:35:29 K: Yes.
1:35:30 Q: Then you come to the question: I am alive, what is it that is alive in me? Obviously…
1:35:32 K: Energy.
1:35:34 Q: That’s right. If it is energy, that energy, what is it? Is it a part of consciousness?
1:35:44 K: Oh, I see what you driving at.
1:35:48 Q: Or to a certain extent it is part of consciousness.
1:35:54 K: Of course.
1:35:55 Q: And to a certain extent it is not.
1:35:56 K: So what?
1:35:57 Q: The dividing line. Because it also seems to play some part between being alive and not being alive.
1:36:04 K: Look, sir, the question really from all this discussion is: can the brain, with all its activity, with all its incessant movement of action, interaction, of inter-relationship between actions and non-action, can that brain be absolutely still?
1:36:42 Then if that happens then thought has no ending.
1:36:50 Do you understand, sir? Then I am not seeking the ending of thought. Or thought is not seeking the ending of itself. You can’t answer this question, this has to be gone into tremendously deeply to see if the brain, which has evolved, which is the result of time, knowledge, experience, which is so tremendously subtle, weighted by time and experience and all that – can that movement which is part of energy, can that energy, not still – but, you see, I am discovering something – can that energy which has created disorder, thought as disharmony and therefore disorder, can that energy function harmoniously so that there is no disorder at any time?
1:38:26 I don’t know if I am conveying. And is that energy the spirit, God, truth?
1:38:45 If we say it is then the Hindus will jump at it and say, ‘Yes, my friend, you are back again into our field, which is what we have said right from the beginning, there is in you the Atman, the Brahman’ – you follow the game they play?
1:39:11 So my concern is only, not theoretical, but factual, which is: can the brain be still?
1:39:23 Or is that impossible?
1:39:29 Q: Can I say in a different way what I said last night?
1:39:44 You had a question last night, which began ‘can you’. And I think everybody in the room heard that question and for each person who heard it there is one of three answers to a question beginning ‘Can you’ – one of which is ‘no’, one of which is ‘yes’, and the other one is ‘I don’t know’.
1:40:06 K: That’s right, sir. If you don’t know – look, sir, if you say no, that’s finished. If you agree that’s also finished, it has no meaning. But if you say ‘I don’t know, I really don’t know after listening to you all this evening, whether my brain can really be quiet, I don’t know.
1:40:29 So what shall I do?’ Q: What was your last question before that?
1:40:35 K: He asked, sir, there are three ways of looking at all this.
1:40:40 Q: Yes, I know he did, but what did you ask before that?
1:40:43 Q: You asked can the mind be still.
1:40:47 K: My question was: can this brain, which is so active, can that brain be quiet?
1:41:05 To that question he says there are only three ways to answer it. One is to say ‘no’, or to say ‘yes’, or ‘I really don’t know’.
1:41:19 If I don’t know, how am I going to find out? You understand? This is an important question, let’s tackle it.
1:41:30 Q: When you say, ‘I don’t know’, you have in fact ceased to draw on what you think is your own knowledge.
1:41:38 K: Oh, I brush all that aside. When I say, ‘I don’t know’, I mean I don’t know. Not I am waiting for an answer.
1:41:49 MZ: Nor are you dismissing the question.
1:41:52 K: Nor am I dismissing the question, quite right. I don’t know, but not knowing, how shall I find out, how shall I uncover?
1:42:04 How shall I answer that question?
1:42:06 Q: I don’t think you can do it on your own.
1:42:13 K: You can’t do it alone, you are saying.
1:42:16 Q: Wait a minute. I thought of something earlier on but it’s gone!
1:42:23 K: Take your time, sir, don’t get…
1:42:33 Q: I think that once you have said ‘I don’t know’ – I know what I feel about this but I don’t know how to say it.
1:42:47 K: It doesn’t matter.
1:42:48 Q: Once you have said ‘I don’t know’, you’ve actually put aside all the thoughts from which you were drawing what you were saying.
1:42:56 K: That’s right.
1:42:57 Q: So you have in fact done it.
1:42:59 K: We must be clear. When you say, ‘I don’t know’, are you saying it superficially, or are you saying after examining very, very carefully, and looking, you say, ‘Really I don’t know what the answer is.
1:43:21 I don’t know’ – which means you are not waiting for an answer, you are not expecting an answer, you are not searching for an answer, and you say, ‘I don’t know’ you have no movement in any direction.
1:43:39 Right?
1:43:40 Q: That’s right, yes.
1:43:41 K: Now are you that way? If that is so then how will you find out the answer?
1:43:50 Q: I don’t think you need to go any further.
1:43:56 K: Wait, you have stopped yourself, you see? (laughs) Haven’t you? When you say you can’t, you have blocked yourself.
1:44:09 I want to find out whether the brain can be quiet. I really don’t know. So what shall I do?
1:44:32 No book will tell me – right? No person outside will tell me, because what he will tell me he knows already.
1:44:44 If he doesn’t know he can’t tell me. So I can’t look to a book, to a person, or to any authority. So my mind says, ‘I don’t know.’ Right?
1:45:05 What happens when you come to that point when you say, ‘Really I don’t know’?
1:45:14 What is the state of your mind?
1:45:16 MZ: If you really say that, haven’t you stepped out of thought?
1:45:26 If you really say that.
1:45:30 K: Do you understand what she’s saying? When you say, ‘I don’t know’, thought has come to an end.
1:45:43 It’s only the man who says, ‘I know’, or ‘don’t know’, that is churning in thought.
1:45:52 But a man who says, ‘I really don’t know’, and as has been pointed out, thought is in abeyance.
1:46:10 But what has happened to the mind, the brain or whatever it is, which says, ‘I really don’t know’?
1:46:18 Thought is in abeyance, I can’t look to authority to answer this question, no book, no person, so where are you?
1:46:30 Q: I would say you have reached truth.
1:46:41 K: No, we are asking what is the state of your mind, your brain that says, ‘I have looked, I have searched, I have asked, I have begged, I have expected, I am waiting, and at the end of it says I really don’t know’?
1:47:01 Q: (Inaudible) K: Look what has happened there, inside?
1:47:05 Q: Quietness.
1:47:06 Q: Is that then meditation?
1:47:09 K: What has happened, sir?
1:47:16 Q: I haven’t got a word for it at all.
1:47:27 Q: What has happened to the question now?
1:47:29 K: The question has been put. The question has been put unfortunately or fortunately. It has been put. And he says ‘I can’t look for somebody’ and all that. I am asking after putting the question, and explaining the meaning of not knowing, what is the state of your mind, the brain?
1:47:56 Q: The question…
1:47:59 K: No, sir, no, sir. When you say, ‘I don’t know’, you have negated everything else, haven’t you?
1:48:20 You have negated the movement of thought, haven’t you?
1:48:28 The movement of thought says, ‘I’ll look in the book, I’ll ask somebody, guru’ – you follow? – all the rest of it.
1:48:37 Or I am going to look, I am going to investigate, I am going to search around in every corner.
1:48:46 And when you say, ‘I don’t know’, thought is not…, thought itself has said, ‘I cannot answer you anymore.
1:48:53 I don’t know’. There is no answer I can give you as thought. So thought…What has happened? Come on, sir, look, look. What has happened? When there is negation, what has taken place? Thought is in abeyance, thought has no answer. Which is, thought which has created all these things, the structure, thought says there is no answer in there, thought denies all that; and only then it can say, ‘I don’t know.’ Right?
1:49:24 If it is playing with the things which it has made, it can’t say, ‘I don’t know’. So you say to the question ‘can the brain be quiet, still?’ – thought has answered it by saying, ‘I don’t know’.
1:49:45 I have tried this way, that way, the other way and there is no door there, therefore what happens?
1:49:52 I’ll be quiet. It is quiet, not ‘I will be quiet’.
1:50:01 So what takes place when you really don’t know?
1:50:19 Q: Intelligence comes in.
1:50:23 K: Maybe. I am asking, sir, what happens in the brain, what has taken place when thought says, ‘I have no answer to your awful question’?
1:50:46 Q: Are you free then to find out for yourself?
1:50:52 K: Are you in that position – not you madam, but generally – are you in that position when you say, ‘I really don’t know’?
1:51:02 My church, my community, my activity, my attachments, all that, they are not – you follow? – all that has been put aside.
1:51:13 It is only then you can say, ‘I really don’t know’.
1:51:24 Through negation, the ‘don’t know’ is a positive state.
1:51:33 It’s not ‘I don’t know how many miles between here and New York’.
1:51:45 You follow? The negation of not knowing is the positive, seeing what takes place.
1:52:02 I wonder if you see this.
1:52:04 Q: Then there are all possibilities.
1:52:11 K: What madam?
1:52:13 Q: All possibilities.
1:52:16 K: Ah, no, no, no. Look, madam: thought has created my attachment to my house; thought has created the pleasure of sex; thought has created the attachment to my furniture, to my pictures, to my name, to my work, to my success; thought has built this world of war, peace, destruction.
1:52:48 Right? Thought has done all that. And we said thought is disharmony because its products are disharmonious.
1:53:00 So we said thought is disharmony, except in a certain field.
1:53:07 And how to bring harmony I don’t know. Right? I only know the activities of thought, which has brought about disharmony; what is harmony I don’t know.
1:53:25 Right? Because you have seen what is disharmony and you have negated it – you haven’t verbally negated it, you have positively stepped out of it.
1:53:37 I may live in this house, but I am not attached – you follow? I am not caught in the images of pleasure and so on and so on. There is a break – not a verbal break but an actual break.
1:53:52 Q: Yes. Can I say something?
1:53:54 K: Yes. Sir, please, any time.
1:53:56 Q: I think that one of the basic problems is with people – and it was one of my problems too – that when they get to this stage when they say, ‘I don’t know’, they think there is something wrong that they don’t know.
1:54:08 They don’t want to not know.
1:54:11 K: Ah, no sir. I mean that is the most positive state that says, ‘I don’t know’. To say, ‘I don’t know that there is God. I don’t know whether Communism is the right way of life. I don’t know whether the Capitalist system is right’ – you follow? I don’t know. And the church and all that, I really don’t know. Is my mind capable of saying, ‘Really I don’t know?’ You follow?
1:54:49 That is the most positive statement which says, ‘I really don’t know.’ You see, from negation – you follow? – you’ve come to this statement when you say, ‘I don’t know’, which is the most positive.
1:55:09 Then what has happened?
1:55:11 Q: There is an access of unconditioned energy, it would seem, which makes me want to know.
1:55:19 I don’t want to know.
1:55:23 K: How can… Ah, sir. Who is ‘I’ who wants to know?
1:55:31 Q: It is a kind of climate that arises, that is why I am here, I want to know.
1:55:39 K: Ah, we have just now said, sir: thought says, ‘I want to know’, and whatever thought wants to know it will create.
1:55:53 ‘I want to know’, thought says, ‘I want to know if there is God’ – right?
1:56:00 And thought has created God.
1:56:02 Q: In response to the wanting.
1:56:08 K: In response to a wanting, fear, uncertainty, discomfort, the hopeless way of one’s life, all that.
1:56:21 So thought says, ‘I must know’. Thought never says, ‘I don’t know’.
1:56:26 Q: Can I enquire without thought?
1:56:34 K: Yes, sir.
1:56:41 That is, without thought to observe. That is, when you have totally denied everything thought has created: its belief, its nationality, its pride, all that, totally deny all that.
1:57:04 That very denial brings you to that position when you say, ‘I really don’t know’.
1:57:12 That is not a negation. The man who says, ‘I don’t know’, is the most positive thing.
1:57:23 What time is it?
1:57:38 Q: Five-twenty.
1:57:46 K: I think we had better stop, don’t you?
1:57:58 (pause) We said thought is disharmony. When there is harmony what is there to know?
1:58:09 Two hours is enough, isn’t it?