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BR84SBR1 - What is thought?
Brockwood Park, UK - 8 June 1984
Scientists Seminar 1



0:25 Dr Hancke: Some of the unresolved questions in the area of brain research lie in perception, memory, and the nature of intelligence. You, Krishnamurti, have explored these questions without any scientific background and yet have indicated that thought is limited. You have also indicated that there is an intelligence beyond the ordinary functioning of the brain. As long as there is psychological conditioning, which is the self, this intelligence cannot act.
1:04 I would like to introduce you to Dr Shainberg. He is a psychiatrist from the United States. Dr Peat is a physicist, writer, and filmmaker from Canada. Professor Bergstrom is a neuro-physiologist at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Professor Varela is a neuro-biologist at the Max Planck Institute for brain research in Frankfurt. I am a neuro-biologist and teacher at Brockwood Park.
1:39 One important instrument in the understanding of the brain has been thought. I was wondering if we could discuss whether thought can help us to understand the brain, and the complexity of life.
1:58 Krishnamurti: Do I start right off?
2:01 H: If you wish.
2:08 K: Can one understand one's own brain and the activities and the complexity of the brain without operating on animals, dead bodies and so on? Can one observe, the very complex structure and nature of the brain in oneself, rather than seek it externally, outside. Is that possible? I feel it is possible if one can watch very carefully, objectively, without any bias, the reactions, the biological responses, and the inward urges and temperaments and idiosyncrasies, the whole complexity of human existence.
3:39 To approach this very complex problem, if one has a complex mind then it's not possible to understand complexity, but if one can approach it very simply. I mean, by simplicity, without compulsion, without will, without a direction, motive, just to watch the whole operation of one's own activities. And then I think it is possible to examine, or to observe the activity of one's own brain without seeking it externally.
4:44 Dr Shainberg: What do you mean by understand?
4:47 K: By observing – I don't mean understand. By watching very carefully the complexity of oneself. What is the operation of thought, how thought arises, what is the cause of it, the origin of thought and the activities both externally, technologically, the movement of thought and the limitation of thought.
5:27 Dr Peat: When you say, is it possible to understand the brain, do you mean only thought and psychological reaction, or do you mean things like the fact that I can see the glass. Perception, do you mean perception as well? And the use of language?
5:46 K: Surely. Linguistics, all that. The whole complexity of human endeavours, action and feelings, imagination, the whole content of all that.
6:00 P: And learning.

K: Watching.
6:02 P: Watching and being able to learn something new. Being able to learn and work in a totally new situation.
6:09 K: Would you call it learning? What is there to learn by just watching?
6:21 Dr Varela: That seems to me precisely where there seems to be a fundamental distinction between merely observing, or not merely observing, or completely observing...
6:35 K: Yes, without the 'me'.
6:37 V: ... without the 'me' and a notion of creating a way of understanding how that observation comes to be, which is traditionally what western thinking has done, including science, creating what one can call a model, a process, a theory, a law, whatever. Now, would that endeavour be out in the approach you are proposing?
7:09 K: I don't quite understand 'out', what do you mean?
7:12 V: It would not be pursued, it would be left behind, actually coming up with a theory or a model that would explain how does it come that we see what we see.
7:30 K: Theory or model. Is it necessary to have a theory and model to see what is actually going on?
7:41 V: I wouldn't say it is necessary to see what is going on, but it seems to be necessary – as far as I can understand it – to understand why do I see what I see. If one has the inclination of asking the question: beyond the seeing, why do I see what I see?
8:00 K: Why do you see what you see, why do I feel what I feel.
8:04 V: Yes, why do I see blue when I see blue. Very simple questions which are the ones that I've been concerned with as well.
8:12 K: Is it... We have all called that book, 'book' and I accept that. We accept it, all of us. That thing is called a book, and that thing is called a table. But the computer can't call it a table immediately.
8:39 V: Then you can ask yourself why the computer can't and we can, how are we made different?
8:44 K: Because we have got the capacity to see anything, four legs or two legs, or one leg, a table, instantly.
8:53 S: But what is that capacity?

V: This is the point.
8:55 S: What is the capacity to do it... in other words what is the relationship of your capacity to say, that's a book, to your capacity to say it's a table, or to your capacity to see it's a table?
9:13 H: Perhaps we should go back to the beginning question. You introduced the question of observation somehow, which was different from theorising about something, and I think perhaps it would be good to start clarifying what we mean by observing something.
9:33 K: Shall we do that?
9:35 V: I felt that he clarified it very well. I felt that I understood what he meant by observing.
9:43 S: Can you tell me what you think he meant?
9:46 V: All right, I'll try. I think he meant by observing, completely bracketing a preassumed understanding and going into a mode of not being self-centred but of being with the object or with the movement without any precondition. To the extent that that is possible then there is an experience, there is an observation.
10:10 K: So, does that imply to observe there must be no conditioning?
10:17 V: Yes. I think I understand that.
10:20 H: We have to go slowly here because you mentioned an observation without the 'me', and it doesn't seem, for me, so clear because, whenever I am looking at something, there seems to be the separation between my observing and the thing. There seems to be this division in the brain.
10:43 K: Is that our conditioning?
10:45 H: It seems to be one of them. Why is that?
10:49 K: There is the seer and the seen, the observer and the observed, the thinker and the thought, the experiencer and the experienced.
11:01 S: Turning it the other way from what Professor Varela was saying, I'd like to know, what is for you the relationship between the theory and observation?
11:11 V: Well, this is precisely where I wanted him to move.
11:14 K: I don't think there is any theory.
11:17 V: All right. You accept therefore that the endeavour you are proposing would be a radical departure from what has been all of the models of knowledge from the west.
11:30 K: Yes, sir. I may be wrong, but in observing, why should I have a theory about it?
11:39 V: Well, it seems to me that, can I just try that for one moment? When I look at that question, it feels that there is something inside me that by itself is inquisitive about why is it, or how come this is the way it is. Isn't it interesting that the paper is white and book is blue, isn't that interesting, why isn't it red?
12:05 K: Oh, there is a red book there.
12:06 V: Yes, but why is that red and not this one red?
12:09 K: Because we have called that red.
12:12 V: Yes, but why have we called that red? What is the process through which that comes about? That is a natural inquisitiveness that leads one into building this sort of theory, which eventually, for example, might allow me to build a machine, which would have a mind, with big quotation marks, with thoughts which could say, oh, that is a red book and that is a blue book, just at the same time when I would say it. I would consider that interesting, that's what interests me in science.
12:45 K: That's not very interesting though.

V: No?
12:48 V: I find it interesting.

K: All right, go ahead. I thought you said that was not very interesting.
13:00 V: No, I find it interesting and that's why I said when you asked, do we need a theory at all, I said not really, but there is this inquisitiveness that seems to constantly come up of asking the question of how is it like that, how can we understand that, how can we have an image, a representation of a process where that can speak?
13:23 S: I don't think you're saying enough, and I wish you would say more. It's not just that the theory is good because you're inquisitive but the theory also functions to establish for you, or for me the interrelationship between these issues, therefore you're not just looking – this ultimately will come down to our question, what is the relationship of theory to observation – but your theory functions as a way to help you to distinguish red, white, and blue, and why you're seeing it, and therefore you have an interdigitation of many different aspects of your curiosity. So, it's more complicated than that.
14:07 P: We are talking about perception and it is not clear whether we are talking about psychological perception, but if we just ask how you see the glass and Krishnamurti has said that it is possible to explore the whole mechanism of seeing the glass of water, one can observe oneself doing it. All neuro-scientists would say that's nonsense, that can't possibly be true. There must be many levels of operation which are purely mechanical, which we can never have any direct experience of, at the level of the eye and the optic nerve. Krishnamurti seems to be saying something different, I'm not sure if I understand, something much more radical than that. Is it possible to be aware of every level of the process?
14:53 Prof. Bergstrom: Coming back to the original question about the brain, understanding the brain or dissecting it. If we look from the point of view of neuro-physiology and brain research and so on, there exists, as a matter of fact, two kinds of brain. The whole brain, which sees blue, red, and so on, and the other brain is the brain which consists of its parts, the cells, synapses, molecules, and so on. The physiologist looks, and there comes the theory: experimenting, dissecting, theorising and so on, looks at the brain which consists of the parts, an assembly of fragments. Now I am coming to the original question. The other way, we also have to face as physiologists that brain which perceives, which is only one, 'me', or whatever the individual calls itself, that is another way. We always have to distinguish between these two, the first would be the theoretical brain with fragments and parts, and the other would be the human brain. Therefore I answer Krishnamurti's question, I think we really can know about the brain without dissecting it.
16:34 V: That we cannot, you say?
16:36 B: That we can study the brain as a whole, that we do.
16:41 K: Why do we divide the brain at all?
16:43 B: Yes, that's the question.
16:46 K: Why not treat it as a whole movement?
16:49 V: I don't have anything against that. That doesn't resolve the issue of whether we need the theory for the observation. Because I can have a theory which is a holistic theory, which deals with the brain as a totality.
17:02 K: Not a holistic theory, but it is so!
17:08 H: I think the theory comes into being in order to organise the certain facts that you have. You have to give a certain coherence and logic to the facts that you are accumulating, and I think Professor Varela said something very interesting. If you take, for example, a child. From the very beginning it seems there is a natural tendency to discover things and to attribute meaning to things.
17:36 B: But a theory cannot be holistic. There are always parts, a collection of parts.
17:43 V: Oh, that's a touchy one, I don't agree. That would take us in another direction.
17:50 K: By collecting all the parts you make the whole?
17:53 V: No, of course not. I agree absolutely, but what I mean by holistic theory is a theory that has, built in itself, the awareness of its fragmentedness, which is quite a different thing.
18:11 K: All right, can we put it this way: one is aware that we are fragmented human beings, right? Those fragments, we are trying to bring all of them together, and that doesn't make the whole.
18:33 B: No, it doesn't.

V: Absolutely.
18:38 H: So, how is one to proceed then?
18:43 K: You see the obvious.
18:45 H: It doesn't follow from that.
18:47 K: I mean, spokes, you collect all the spokes of a wheel but the spokes don't make the wheel, you have to put it together, right? I don't quite see the difficulty in this.
19:03 P: To put the wheel together you also need some technical knowledge as well as the perception of the whole, and where does the technical knowledge come from?
19:12 K: Is that what we are trying to do? Technical knowledge, how to put the brain together?
19:18 P: No, but you say to understand the brain, the technical knowledge is really not important, the dissection.
19:26 K: I didn't say that.
19:28 V: He said 'can we' have a theory?
19:30 P: Can we, without opening the hood of the car and seeing all the parts inside.
19:34 V: For my part, that to me is a fascinating question. There is nothing that I would like more than to be able to ask the questions about how knowledge works, without having to disrupt an animal. It pains my heart that we have to carry on with this knowledge by disrupting life. I don't like that. As a matter of fact, I don't want to do it anymore, but still the inquisitiveness is there.
19:59 K: Now, where shall we begin, we have put so many things?
20:04 B: There is one reason why we should know a little bit about brain cells and so on, and that is the diseases, a sick brain. So, that I think is one of the reasons why they began to fragmentise and dissect.
20:31 H: Perhaps we could come back and stick to one question. We started by saying can the brain understand itself, what does that mean, is it possible that thought can understand the brain? I think we should stick to that.
20:45 K: Would you say the brain is the centre of thought?
20:50 V: No.

K: Just a minute. Thought, feelings, physical responses, biological responses, and also the brain is the centre of one's 'consciousness': fears, pleasures, anxiety, all that, sorrow, the whole of that consciousness – if you will accept that word – is in the brain, it is not out there. Would you agree?
21:30 V: I'm afraid I would have to disagree.
21:32 K: Oh, delighted.
21:33 V: I don't think that thought or consciousness is in the brain. That this is precisely one of the greatest mistakes.
21:39 K: Wait, thought is outside?

V: It's neither outside nor inside, there is a quality of relationship which thought is of.
21:46 K: Wait, then we have to inquire what is thought. Can we begin with that? Would you agree?
21:56 V: Yes, let's do that.
21:58 K: What is thought, what is thinking?
22:04 V: Do you want to go first?

K: It is a discussion.
22:08 V: I would say that thought belongs to a form of action which is related to separating, precisely, to separating a unit from its context. That any separation of a unit from its context is a form of cognition or thought, at a fundamental level. Therefore, the thought cannot exist without the relationship between that which is distinguished and what it is distinguished from.
22:44 S: Wait a second. Do you think that thought is an event that arises de novo, or is it some sort of process event which articulates the separation and arrives at the awareness? In other words, that the arrival of thought is the articulation of the separation?
23:08 V: No, it's an emergent quality.
23:11 S: So it's not a de novo separation, it's an emergent event.
23:15 K: It's emerging.
23:17 S: That's important, the emerging, not a separation at the instant.
23:21 V: It's immanent in the action of the separation.
23:23 K: It's emerging, it's being born.

V: Exactly.
23:27 S: That's an important distinction.
23:29 K: Yes, being born all the time.
23:30 S: Exactly.

K: From where?
23:33 H: What is the source?

K: Wait. The thought is being born, emerging, growing, coming and going, from where?
23:51 S: That may be the wrong question, from where, because by saying from where, you've already made a definition, and you've separated out process, you've made a distinction... – by saying where, you've got a definition.
24:13 K: No, put another word if you like.
24:20 S: I would prefer what's the action that arrives in thought?
24:26 K: Wait, then you have to ask what is action?
24:32 V: So it is a movement?
24:34 K: Yes, what is this whole movement?
24:36 V: OK, when I inspect that question in myself the only answer I can get to is it's an unlimited frontier. That is, the moment I am in thought I have obscured for myself that which I am asking. Therefore the source of movement, or the source of thought is an unlimited space which is beyond thought.
25:07 K: I wonder.
25:09 S: About what, what do you wonder?
25:12 K: What is the relationship between thought and action? That's what we are discussing.
25:18 V: Yes, but thought occurs, thought happens. I find myself in thought.

S: Therefore it is action.
25:26 K: You just now said thought is born, comes into being. It must have some causation.
25:40 V: Yes, but in order to see the causation I will have to put myself out from thought.
25:44 K: We'll see. So, now we have to inquire whether it is possible to observe the causation without the observer, who is the outside, right?
26:06 V: Right, absolutely.
26:14 K: So, can one observe the cause without the observer? Can the causation be observed without the outsider or the observer, the witnesser? Which means the observer, the person who perceives. Is not the observed the observer?
26:58 S: Say that again.

V: Can you say that again?
27:05 K: I know, I can't repeat it, I'll put it another way. There is a perception of you sitting there and I sitting here. When I see you, you have been introduced to me, I remember all that memory of it, it is the observer. Can I look at you without the observer, without the knowledge of you? Of course I can.
27:47 H: I think we have to go slowly because it is a great step.
27:54 V: Yes, you can.

K: Of course, therefore the observer is the observed. There is no separation. There is separation only when the observer is different from the observed.
28:08 V: Correct. Absolutely. So that is an observation.
28:14 K: That's real observation without the observer. The observer is the past, memory, knowledge, experience. All the observer is the past. Can I look at something without the past? Of course it's possible. Wait, just let me finish. And then what is action? You understand?

V: Yes. What is action for that...
28:54 K: What is action. Leave that for the moment. What is action? When there is no observer, what is action?
29:17 B: Being together only and nothing else, without separation.
29:24 H: I would like to, if I may, come back to the question. Why are we normally making this separation between what we observe – the brain is normally doing that anyhow. So, perhaps one could say that it might be normal for the brain.
29:41 K: That may be our tradition, that may be our education, may be we have been told from childhood that is different from you, you are different from me.
29:54 S: But let's say, when you were introduced to him your perception of him at that instant was the observation without the observer. Then now when you look at him, you've got the memory.
30:09 K: I begin to accumulate. The brain begins to accumulate the knowledge about him. He says he won't operate anymore, so I say, by Jove, is he... and all the rest of it. My point is, to put it much simpler, not to record.
30:36 S: But you did record.
30:38 K: I did, but that is very simple.
30:41 S: You didn't record, then you did record.
30:44 K: No, just a minute. In my relationship with you, with you all, I have recorded – suppose I have recorded – then that record becomes the observer, but if there is no record there is only seeing, observing.
31:07 S: But suppose we say that the brain is recording.
31:11 K: No, sir, is it possible not to record? I know the mechanism of recording. You're off on something else.
31:22 H: No, I think that is an interesting point.
31:25 V: Can you hold on just for a second because I want to pursue that for one moment. But we have agreed that it is possible to observe without recording.
31:37 K: Is that a theory?

V: No.
31:39 K: Actuality?

V: Yes, it is possible.
31:41 K: The moment you say it is possible, you have made it a theory.
31:46 P: I think we have to agree it is a theory for us. I don't think we are being honest. We are just saying yes, but we don't really believe that.
31:59 H: For example, In science, if there is a scientist one could say that this division between the observer and the observed is necessary to a certain extent, when you are dealing with an experiment or with the outside world. So, it doesn't necessarily follow that psychologically we are doing exactly the same.
32:30 K: I understand. After all, as a human being, with the result of fifty thousand years, tremendous accumulation of knowledge, experience, all that, I am that! And that is looking at something else, so separating itself constantly.
33:00 V: Yes, this is precisely the point, that that separation has to be sustained by an ongoing process which has constant breakdowns, and at the point of those breakdowns there is that closing the gap. So, for example, in my perception of you right now I am constantly having gaps or flashes of this observer, and it's cracky, it's gappy.
33:27 K: I say why is there this contradiction all the time.
33:32 V: No, this is precisely the point. Why do we have to see a contradiction there? It seems that both things are there. I was actually going back to something you raised. That it seems we have both of them, observation with the observer and...
33:52 K: At one level, yes. If I met you again tomorrow I can't reintroduce myself, it would be silly. At that level it is necessary, but at a deeper level, why should I carry all the memory of meeting you, why should there be a recording of it at all? I meet you, finished.
34:24 V: Didn't you just answer the question by saying that if you did one without the other, if you just met me without accumulation then tomorrow we would have to go through the presentation again. So therefore, both of them are necessary.
34:42 K: Yes, at one level.
34:49 S: I have never heard you use that word 'level'. What do you mean by levels and what is the relationship between levels in your terms?
34:58 K: I think it is fairly simple.
35:00 S: Well, I'm stupid, I don't understand.
35:02 K: I am stupid probably.
35:05 V: That makes two of us.
35:12 K: I need to know how to write a letter, right? There knowledge is necessary, to drive a car or anything. Physically to do anything I must have a great deal of information, knowledge and accumulated memory and so on, right? Psychologically, if you don't like to use that word, inwardly, why should I accumulate, why should there be accumulation?
35:50 H: If I understood well what you were saying, Francisco and you, even when you say that the brain does not record there is still a process of recognition which necessarily must involve certain levels of memory.
36:05 K: We said that.
36:08 H: So what do you mean by 'when the brain does not record'?
36:12 K: Is that possible first of all, psychologically, not to record? You understand my question? You say something brutal to me, why should I record it? This recording is the self.
36:32 P: Suppose I said that to see anything there has to be a great accumulation. You could say that there could be no perception without the accumulation and the accumulation includes the actual structure of the brain that has evolved over millions of years, that is in a sense a form of memory. Matter has formed in certain connections and that is preserved over a very long time. So I could say that there is no perception without some form of accumulation of memory and knowledge.
37:03 K: Of course, we agree, we have stated that.
37:05 P: So, without it there is no perception and this is something that always continues. Is this different from a psychological recording?
37:19 K: That is what we are asking.
37:21 H: That is an important question to clarify.
37:24 K: We made it clear just now, didn't we?
37:28 V: Absolutely.
37:29 K: That I need knowledge. If I am a carpenter, I need a great deal of knowledge. The quality of the wood, the grain and the instruments, and so on and so on. That is necessary, I don't object to that. That is so, otherwise we can't live. But at the inward level...

S: What level is that?
37:56 K: Forget the word, throw the word out.
37:59 K: Inwardly...

S: What is that, what is inward?
38:04 K: The feeling, the psyche. You should know, you are the psychologist.
38:14 P: Is there a separation between these two levels, are you pulling the two apart, that's the psychological, that's the practical, and the two can be absolutely seperate?
38:23 K: No, I see knowledge is necessary, and also I am questioning whether inwardly, psychically, psychologically, any word you use, inside the skin as it were, why should there be any recording at all? Wait, just a minute. This recording, inwardly, is the divisive process. The divisive process is the self, the 'me' and the 'not me' which is creating havoc in the world. That's all. Wait, let me finish!
39:20 The mechanism which has gone on for centuries, the 'me' and the 'not me', can that mechanism stop, so that there is no 'me' inwardly? The 'me' being the self, and all the rest. That's all. This has been not only a question for the scientists, but for the religious people, the serious ones, not the phoney ones. The real religious people have said, can there be no self at all, and live in this world, not go off into monasteries or run away to some kind of fanciful entertainment. Actually live without the self. That's all. Which requires a further statement, which is, is it possible not to record inwardly, psychically and all that? I'd say it is possible. You may say, you are a nut, you are crazy, but it's all right, we'll discuss it.
40:37 B: There is, I think, a stage in the development of the child, very early child, possibly a child can have this.
40:48 K: You see it already in the child. Give him a toy and you try to take it and he says, it's mine.
40:54 B: Yes, but I think before that stage, a child of one or two years, and then comes the that's mine, but before, there is a stage where I think they live together. They are one with the mother and so on.
41:17 K: I believe I've read somewhere or have been told, I'm not a reader, I have been told by scientists who are looking at babies that the babies already know when a visitor is friendly to the mother or not.
41:37 B: Yes.
41:39 K: Already, you understand, by the atmosphere, by the feeling, or by the mother's shrinking.
41:47 B: That's true.
41:50 V: But in your question, one of the reasons why it has so many sides to it is that, as a brain researcher, as a scientist, it seems reasonable to say that the brain is organised so as to construct a stable world, therefore to solidify, 'to record' in your words. That is what it is there for.

K: I understand.
42:19 V: This is what it's history has been. Maybe you disagree, but at least, as far as I understand. Now, it is only when it comes to human beings that this question is posed. Then we can ask ourselves the question, is this no recording possible, as a swimming against the current of natural history, as it were.
42:45 H: Of evolution.
42:46 V: Because natural history goes the other way, and in the moment this possibility arises, is it possible to unlearn evolutionary wise so as to come to the state of living in the world without recording, without self, and yet be a functional human being able to brush your teeth.

K: Of course, I said that.
43:07 V: Yes, I know. My feeling is that that is a question that can only be answered by exploring it from the actual experience of human beings, and the history seems to say yes, it is possible. We have examples and we know people who seem to have done that. Now from the point of view of what that implies for the brain, it's a fascinating point.
43:33 K: Sir, could we put the question differently? The brain has evolved through time. Centuries, a million years, or forty million years, or whatever it is, forty thousand, and it has probably reached its highest level, as much as it can, and that involves time, duration. What is time? Unless we understand what is time, I can go on indefinitely, right? People have asked too, is there an end to time – not science fiction, actually. Now, what is time? Apart from the clock, cut it out. Time is the past, the present, and the future. So time is contained in the now, all time. So the future is now.

V: Yes.
45:00 K: No, it is not a theory.
45:02 V: No, I understand.
45:05 K: The future is now and the past is now, then what is action? If action is, 'I will do', the future, or 'I have done', it is not action. Action is now. The very word act means now. So, can the brain which has evolved, you follow my question? Go on, sir.
45:54 V: The very description of saying the brain has evolved, is already the trap.
45:59 K: We said that, it's a fact. I am not denying that, but if there is no radical revolution psychologically I will be tomorrow, modified, the same as today.
46:21 S: I would like to come back to where we were at the very beginning of this because I see a connection here, which is the level that you talked about, the so-called inward level.
46:34 K: Leave the word 'level', I said cut it out.
46:38 S: Inwardly, there is an action. Now, at the beginning we talked about that inward action, immanent in that inward action is thought, and immanent in that movement of action is thought which separates. Now that's where the twist comes.
47:04 K: We are saying thought is limited.
47:07 S: What I am trying to get at is the fact that out of the inward level – I'll keep that word for the minute – out of the inward level comes thought. Now, the question is what is the relationship of that movement, that action, to thought?
47:25 K: I don't quite follow you.
47:26 S: In other words, the state of observation without the observer, the action is immanent within a thought.
47:38 K: No sir. The observer is the observed. We agree to that, right? It is not a theory. No, just wait a minute. The observer is the observed. That is a tremendous fact, it is not a theory. It changes the whole way of living. There is no division as the observer and the observed, therefore no conflict. That's a theory, but to live that way, which means total eradication of conflict upon which the brain has evolved. You follow? So, when the observer is the observed and no conflict, there is a radical change in the brain. You follow?

V: Yes.
48:46 K: A whole mutation takes place, if I can use that word.
48:52 H: Yes, but your mutation implies time.
48:56 K: No, mutation is change, biologically as well inwardly there is a radical revolution, because the brain has lived for forty thousand years on conflict.
49:18 V: Now, can I ask you what is the connection now between that possibility...
49:27 K: I wouldn't use the word possibility.
49:29 V: All right, what would you use?
49:34 K: When you use the word possibility, it means it may be possible.
49:38 V: OK, that actuality, and the question you posed at the beginning: can I observe my brain without tearing it apart?
49:50 K: And without books, all these books.
49:53 V: How do these two things relate?
49:58 K: Would you state that question again?
50:01 V: OK, you said at the beginning, I would like to say that I investigate my brain without tearing it apart, by seeing what is.
50:15 K: Yes, by seeing exactly what is.
50:19 V: And now you have also said there is the actuality of the ever-present nowness of the non-distinction where the observer is the observed.
50:30 K: Do you realise what that means?
50:33 V: I do and I don't, it comes and goes.
50:37 K: To you it is a theory.
50:39 V: Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not.
50:41 K: I am not being personal. It is a theory.
50:44 V: Well, sometimes it's not.
50:47 K: Either it is, or it's not.
50:49 V: It comes and goes.

K: No, it can't.
50:52 V: Why not? It is glimpses that do not persist.
50:57 K: Make it simple. When you see something dangerous, it's finished. You don't go and say, I'll go and play with something dangerous, it's over.
51:08 V: No, but you can see the car coming and get out of the way.
51:12 K: You do, but each time you see a car coming you can't keep out of the way all the time.
51:17 V: Are you telling me that it is not possible to learn by having a glimpse of something. When you have the glimpse you are there, and then something else happens that takes you off. There is a possibility of building on the continuity of the glimpses. Why does it have to be black and white, that it either is total or is not?
51:39 K: Don't put it as black and white, that means total division.
51:43 V: That's what I understood.
51:45 H: I think what you are saying is that in one's lifetime one sees certain things, one discovers something and then it becomes a memory from which one acts.
51:56 V: Which is not the thing itself.
51:57 H: I think what you are saying is that the moment you have an insight into that, it is obviously not memory.
52:04 V: It is actuality, but then it becomes memory, and then it becomes actuality again, and there is this back and forth. No?

K: No.
52:16 V: How is it then?
52:18 K: Look, I am not a philosopher or anything, I will put it very simply. I have been going north for the last forty thousand years. You come along and say, look, that goes nowhere, go south, or east or west. The very movement of moving away from north to south, in that second, moving, in that movement the cells of the brain have changed because it has been accustomed to going there. Keep it simple.
53:05 V: So you are raising, is that at all the case? Is that available to human beings?
53:15 K: Oh yes, if they pay attention.
53:18 V: Yes, but this is precisely my point...
53:21 K: They don't.
53:24 S: But why don't they?
53:26 K: That is simple enough, they have so many interests. First of all, they have to earn a livelihood – not that we don't have to. They have a dozen problems.
53:39 S: You came in and you've been introduced to Professor Varela, you were introduced to him, and to me, and tomorrow you come along and you say to me, hello, how are you today, implying that you've remembered. So, what is the relationship between that and this other?
54:03 K: We've made that clear.
54:05 S: No, we haven't because we're bringing up here: are you in that state at that moment, it seems to me you are caught by something else.
54:14 K: I recognise that it is necessary. That constant being introduced is silly. I see that's necessary, but inwardly it is not necessary.
54:39 S: What's your relationship to me at that moment that you are recognising me and seeing it's not necessary?
54:47 K: It is not necessary.
54:48 S: But at that moment what is the state?
54:52 K: I don't quite understand.
54:54 S: In other words, at the moment there is recognition what is the action, is there a state of action without the memory also going on?
55:06 K: I don't quite follow this.
55:08 H: Perhaps what he is saying is the very fact that you recognise somebody implies memory.
55:13 K: Of course, I said that.
55:15 S: But what is the action then at that moment of the memory?
55:19 K: What do you mean by action?
55:25 S: Is one able to observe without memory while using memory? While seeing the relevance of memory but not being trapped by it.
55:37 K: I see it is relevant to have memory of a certain kind. Inwardly, why should I have the burden of memory? You say something to me, flattering, why should I carry that, it is silly.
56:07 V: So, here is our man walking for forty thousand years to the north. Here is your man or our man, or me, walking for forty thousand years north, and then you come along and say, it's possible to walk south. And for the first time I turn around.
56:28 K: At that moment there is...
56:30 V: Yes, but now the observation, this is not theory, the observation of both the world, the natural world and in myself, is that I turn south and say no, I have to go north. Well, maybe I can go south. There is this kind of process until one finds a permanent reorientation.
56:53 K: Now, why? I'll show you in a minute. Why do we do this? I have been going north and you come and tell me, look, don't go that way, it is stupid, go east, and I'm not quite convinced. I'm not quite sure whether you are right because I have been used to going north. I have been used to that, and you say to me, go east. I say, I wonder if he is right, let me look at the east, no. There is this attraction to north which I've been going on for forty thousand years, and also I listen to you, there is some logic in what you say, reasonable, seems sane, and I turn but the attraction goes on, which means what? I have not really listened to what you have said. Whether you are really serious, whether you mean what you say, whether you are experienced – not theory, it's yours in the sense you have found it. So, what you are, the quality of your voice, the quality of your being says go east, and I say, by Jove, I've listened to you very carefully and then I go east, I forget north. It depends whether you are speaking the truth or the theory. Not you personally.

V: No, I understand.
58:50 K: Somebody says go north, I say, my dear chap, what do you know about it?
58:54 V: No, granted, but again I go back to the observation that that kind of complete communication...

K: That's all.
59:05 K: Complete communication then I forget north.
59:08 V: Why doesn't it happen?
59:14 K: It is fairly simple. Going north, you have found security.
59:21 S: But that's not true.
59:24 K: Don't reject it, look at it a bit more closely. To change a habit, a physical habit is fairly simple, but a psychological habit demands much greater energy.
59:52 S: OK, then let's go at it more concretely, what is it that would break the habit of memory?
1:00:01 K: No, memory is necessary to write a letter, to read a book, to drive a car, linguistic communication, all that is necessary, but inwardly, why should there be all this memory carried about what you said to me, where you hurt me, all that stuff, throw it out.
1:00:35 S: That's too simple. That's simplistic, just throw it out – we don't.
1:00:39 K: It may sound simplistic but it's not.
1:00:45 S: We don't.

K: Why? That is the point he was raising.
1:00:50 S: I am raising it too.
1:00:51 K: Because first of all, you come and tell me, I have been going north for the last forty thousand years, and you come and tell me, go east. I don't believe you. Who are you to tell me? What do you know about it? I begin to doubt, I begin to question, I'm cynical. So I have shut off all communication. But if you are really serious, in the sense that you have gone east, your whole being is different. I don't know. It is no longer a theory, it is a fact. I think we are cursed with theories, sorry.
1:01:53 V: I go back and look at the history of many of the greatest and most alive spiritual traditions, and they all have been concerned with is to precisely coming up with skillful means to constantly reopen up that communication, because human beings seem to be incapable of actually sustaining that communication except in the most extraordinary cases.
1:02:27 K: Why?
1:02:30 V: The only way I can say of why, is to become again a biologist and say there is just too much past. And it takes a long time for a change to occur. There is no way we can change that faster.
1:02:49 K: I know that argument. So we have taken forty thousand years and now another forty thousand years.
1:02:57 V: Well, maybe less.
1:02:58 K: All right, twenty thousand years. You don't say that to a person who is suffering.
1:03:04 V: No.
1:03:06 K: Exactly. A person who is frightened, with a lack of security, say, wait old boy, you have lived that way, well, live for another twenty thousand years.
1:03:15 S: Wait a second, you just said that I am going north and I don't change because I'm finding security in the north, but I am not really finding security in the north.
1:03:27 K: I think I am. That's it.
1:03:30 S: Now, what is the understanding of the false security? In other words, how am I going to understand that it's false security?
1:03:42 H: Where does understanding come to see what is false?
1:03:47 S: I'm going north and you say go east and I say, this is fine by me. I don't believe that that's any better. Why should I listen to you that that's better?
1:03:56 K: You don't.
1:03:57 S: That's right.

K: Why?
1:04:00 S: Because both seem... I don't know why.
1:04:10 V: I'll tell you what I think. One listens at least for glimpses and then frightens back, is because north causes pain.
1:04:23 K: Going north, why?
1:04:25 B: Because the security is constantly based in a sense of struggle, which is painful. Therefore that is what allows the communication of the alternative to happen because you say, that seems better. It is as simple as that.
1:04:42 K: But would you grant that human beings want security? The brain can't function at its highest energy if it is not secure. So where is there security? Either it's in illusion, or in a bank account, or in my relation to somebody. In my relation to somebody, I want it secure. No change. For God's sake, remain as you are! And no living being can remain what they are, so there is conflict, and, in spite of that conflict, I say, I must have security in her, or in him, or I seek security in God, in some faith, in some belief. Those are all illusions. So, I seek security in illusion, in relationship, in the bank account, or in the nation, in my tribe, My brain is wanting security.
1:06:23 H: The brain wants security in memory and thought but why is that?
1:06:28 K: Of course, because it must have security, and now the professors, the scientists come up with new theories, new problems, new issues, and the politicians – you know what they are doing – and come along so many gurus – I am lost. So I say, my God, where am I going to find security? So, another theory comes along, I say yes, I will hold on to that, it sounds reasonable. So the brain is always searching for security, somewhere.
1:07:24 S: I have the same perspective but slightly different in the sense that the brain is not only searching for security, but the brain is offering itself security in the process of the actual insecurity.
1:07:38 K: Yes, I agree.

V: That's the genius of the brain.
1:07:44 S: That's essential, it means we're stepping on our own toes all the time.
1:07:49 K: That's what I am saying. You invent God and then worship God.
1:07:53 S: Exactly.
1:07:54 V: Like somebody building up a Hollywood stage and then forgetting he built it, lives happily ever after.
1:08:01 V: I think we have the same question. This is precisely the point, we are so used to that which we can understand. It's crazy. That it's completely crazy.
1:08:14 K: Absolutely.
1:08:15 V: But it is like a body which has been falling for twenty thousand metres and five metres before the ground he cannot say, stop! He can say, it's stupid that I'm falling, but there is this mass of inertia that continues. And the experience of man's past has been that that kind of complete communication of completely grasping the craziness of keep on going north, has to go through that flicker and the learning is stabilising that flicker until one internalises that, and that might take, I don't know, a lifetime or whatever.
1:08:57 K: That's the whole point. You say going north has taken time.
1:09:04 V: A long time, yes.
1:09:07 K: And also you need time to go east. So we think time is necessary to change. Yes, of course.
1:09:23 S: No, I don't think that. I think we need to come to an awareness. The thing I object to in what you are saying is that you are implying somehow that we can see it, and I'm saying that we're so caught by stepping on our own toes we'll never get out of it, we have to somehow come to terms with what we are. We're stepping on our own toes, that's our nature.
1:09:50 K: Yes, but wait a minute. Somebody like me, or X, comes along and says, just keep quiet for a minute, please keep quiet, just listen. But we can't keep quiet. We're chattering, telling me you are right, you are wrong. And I say, for God's sake keep five minutes quiet.
1:10:15 S: Do you know the story of the scorpion and the turtle? The scorpion comes along and he says to the turtle, 'How about taking me across this lake?' The turtle says, 'Do you think I'm a nut? In the middle, there, you're going to sting me and we're going to drown.' 'Why would I do that?' says the scorpion 'we would both drown.' The turtle says, 'You're right, get on my back.' So they get out into the middle and the scorpion stings the turtle. He says, 'What did you do that for?' he says, 'That's my nature.'
1:10:51 H: But where are we now? We started with the question whether we can understand the brain.
1:10:56 K: Let's begin again.
1:11:01 V: That sounds good.
1:11:07 K: First of all I would like to ask do we see thought is limited? Whatever it does is limited. I don't know why you accept it so quickly.
1:11:26 V: Because it is something that I have been exploring myself.
1:11:29 K: Which means our experience is limited, our knowledge is limited, now or in the future. Therefore our memory is limited and without memory there is no thought, so thought is limited, the sequence. So, whatever it does is limited. Technologically, psychically, or inwardly it is limited. And limitation must inevitably cause conflict, division. Therefore, is it possible for thought to operate where it is necessary and not operate in other directions?
1:12:39 B: Is there something which is not limited?
1:12:47 K: Maybe, we don't know but you can only find that out if thought has its proper place and no other place.
1:13:00 H: I think the confusion arises when you say thought might be used in one place and not in the other place. It seems to introduce a certain fragmentation.
1:13:09 K: No, thought is necessary, I am speaking to you. I must know English and you know English. If you spoke French and I spoke French, then we would be speaking the same, or Spanish or Italian, we would do the same. So, knowledge is necessary to speak in English, right? Of course. Has knowledge any place in the psyche?
1:13:51 H: I would say it helps, to a certain limited extent to understand oneself.

K: No.
1:13:57 B: May I say that in Finnish, the Finnish language has a word for 'know', which is 'tie', and in English it means 'road', that is 'knowledge'. But then 'understand' in Finnish means embrace. So, in the Finnish language, 'to know' would be to go along a road and not to see anything else, but 'to understand' in Finnish is to embrace, go around, and therefore I objected when you said knowledge and understanding would be the same. Because the brain has two ways: knowledge is to go a particular way, to search and search, but understanding is also a function of the brain, it is to embrace.
1:15:17 H: I was saying that even knowledge has in itself a certain understanding that might be limited.
1:15:27 K: Would you use a different word, insight?
1:15:34 V: Or intuition.
1:15:36 K: Intuition is a bit doubtful, because having desires you can...
1:15:43 H: Could we say that the understanding coming out of memory and thought is to a certain extent mechanical?
1:15:49 K: Let's use the word insight for the moment. I have an insight going north is futile, and the insight says go east, and I move. There is no interval between the movement...
1:16:13 V: Again, we keep coming back exactly to the same point.
1:16:16 K: That's what I am saying.
1:16:18 V: Yes, but you asked a question a moment ago: can we have thought to take its proper place, there. That is to say we are respectful for what it is. Now when you say I have the insight to go east and I do it, to be respectful to thought is also to realise that it is in the nature of thought to obscure that insight, to fill it with thought and continue to go north.
1:16:55 K: It's not insight.
1:16:57 B: Well, it was for a moment and then it was occluded.
1:16:59 K: I understand, you are repeating the same thing.
1:17:02 V: Well, we are all going around the same subject. Let me put it this way, the question I have is: what is the basis from which you're saying that in that insight, all thought would be put into its right place without the flicker. What is the basis for that?
1:17:28 K: It's now five minutes past one, shall we stop?
1:17:32 V: We can pick it up next time, from there, please.
1:17:36 K: Yes, anywhere you like.
1:17:39 B: Insight, understanding, knowledge, these are the important questions.
1:17:44 K: First of all we ought to discuss what is insight, the word, to have sight in something. An insight implies no memory, no time, quick perception, instant perception.
1:18:14 H: Yes, but the perception has to display itself through...
1:18:17 K: Wait. Instant perception. Have we got that? Say for instance, I see something instantly and that perception never changes. I see the futility of all religions – organised. That's over, I don't belong to any religion. There is no going back to the temple, or to the church or to another guru, it's finished. I recognise those are all forms of entertainment really, and I don't want to be entertained, it is finished, wiped out. There is not any kind of temptation to go and investigate, to look – I understand it. And this is a fact to me because I have done it. I am not boasting or anything, it is so. Take any factor which human beings cling to, this terrible nationalism, to be a Hindu, to be a Muslim. So, I have finished with it. I don't go back and say, let me play with nationalism a little bit. So can one move that way, all through life?