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BR84SBR2 - Is there an action in which there is no limitation?
Brockwood Park, UK - 9 June 1984
Scientists Seminar 2



0:25 Dr Hancke: I would like to say a few words today, at the beginning of the seminar. It would be nice if we could have a friendly dialogue, in the sense that when we go into the questions we have a certain hesitation rather than asserting things. And if all of us together could go into the questions we are going to discuss. Yesterday we opened up the seminar by asking whether thought can help us to understand the brain, and we also went into the question whether it is possible for the brain not to have psychological recording. And finally, we very briefly opened up the question of insight and I think that is where we stopped. So I wonder what question we would like to start with. It doesn’t seem too clear, the question of whether the brain can be in a state of not recording. I think perhaps that might need a little bit of clarification. What do you think?
2:06 Krishnamurti: I would like to ask whether we are discussing speculatively, theoretically, or actually? Actually in the sense, applying. Apply in the sense, functioning not theoretically but with facts. Could we do that? Am I proposing something outrageous?
2:46 H: No.
2:51 K: Because theories, speculations, whether psychological, spiritual, have no meaning to me. What has significance to the speaker, to K, is dealing with facts. Facts being that which has happened, that which is happening – not what will happen.
3:28 Dr Varela: So, is the brain a fact now?
3:31 K: Of course.

V: How so?
3:33 K: Because it is functioning. Functioning in the sense that it wants to communicate something verbally, and also perhaps non-verbally.
3:49 V: All right, communication is fact but when you call it 'the brain' that is an inference, a theoretical inference.

K: Beg your pardon?
3:58 V: When you describe that as the brain doing something or other, that is a theoretical inference.

K: That's a fact.
4:07 V: No, because there is a gap. There is an inference between the fact of communication now and when you used the word the 'brain', because the brain is associated to communication through a long series of observations which are not now.

K: Of course.
4:23 K: Which is now taking place. Observation has been, I said that. Fact is what has been, what is now. What has happened, what is happening now, right?
4:45 Dr Bergstrom: May I ask, do you mean that insight really has something to do with the brain, or would it be apart from the brain?
4:58 K: Are we discussing insight, or are we establishing first whether we are theoretically discussing, or... I have pain, suppose I have pain.
5:12 Dr Shainberg: That’s the fact.
5:14 V: OK, now the question is, how are we going to address such a fact?
5:20 K: No, how am I going to be free of my pain? That’s all I am concerned with.
5:27 S: No, you've made a jump though. First you have your pain, that's your fact.
5:32 K: Wait. The fact is I am in pain.
5:36 S: Period.

K: Full stop. And also the fact that there must be freedom from pain.
5:43 S: What do you mean there must be?
5:46 K: That's human nature. What are you saying?
5:50 H: What K might be saying is that when you are in pain you want to get rid of it.
5:56 K: That's all a fact.
6:00 S: The thing I am trying to say is that the fact is the pain, the next fact is...
6:06 K: ... is also wanting to get rid of it.
6:08 S: Ah, that’s two facts.

K: Those are both facts.
6:11 S: Right. Those are the facts.
6:16 K: But wait a minute, are we discussing 'about pain', 'not having pain', which becomes a theory?
6:27 V: Fine. I would like to discuss pain as a fact. Now, I want to go back to the fact that you used the word brain as related to pain.
6:37 K: Yes, otherwise if the brain didn’t function I wouldn’t know what pain was.
6:42 V: But isn’t that an inference? How is that happening now? The fact is you used the word 'brain' is because there have been people in the past who made a relationship...

K: I would like to get at this, I don’t quite understand this. I'm not disputing.
6:56 V: No, maybe I'm not understanding you correctly, but when you say, I experience pain, it is clear to all of us that this is now. Now I come around and say, pain has to do with brain. The relationship to juxtapose these two words, brain and pain, has a long series of intermediate steps, which required work from the past of people who actually pointed out the existence of such a thing as brain, which is not something we are doing now. We are not opening up a skull and saying this is brain, and cutting the brain in parts...
7:42 K: Don’t do it with me, please.
7:44 V: I won’t. So, you see what I'm saying, that the moment I invoke the word brain I'm bringing with it a huge edifice of inferences and relationships which are not now.
8:00 K: Yes, which is all the past.
8:02 V: So, how is the fact that you used the word brain now consistent with your desire to deal only with present facts? Could you clarify that?
8:16 K: I don’t quite follow. I'm trying to understand, I'm not resisting.
8:22 V: Can I say it in some other way?
8:25 K: Please understand between us, I'm not resisting anything.
8:28 V: Absolutely.

K: I am enquiring.
8:32 V: May I phrase it some other way? You are trying correctly, as far as I am concerned, to establish the ground of what we are dealing with, and you say, can we deal with facts as they are now and not theories about things. So the next moment you say 'brain', which I am claiming cannot be said unless we invoke theories.
9:03 K: I agree.
9:04 V: OK, so how are these two things then consistent?
9:08 K: The brain is the result of long evolution, right?
9:14 V: That's also a theory.

K: No, it's a fact.
9:20 V: Can we say that from what we are experiencing now?
9:25 K: That's a fact.

B: Then the brain is a fact.
9:28 Dr Peat: If I have a pain in my hand, there's a pain, but to talk about the brain is to talk about something that I've read about in a textbook. That up here there are lots of nerve cells...
9:39 K: Yes, if I had no brain I wouldn’t feel. Nerves and all the rest of it.
9:46 V: But, that you don’t know from the observations you're having now.
9:50 P: We don't experience our brains. We don’t experience the fact of anything being in here, I don’t experience the nerves, the connections.
10:06 K: Tell me simply, sir. I am a stupid man so tell me simply.
10:11 H: Perhaps what we are trying to say is that there are facts that are actually taking place now, and some facts that are in the future.
10:20 K: Not future, I said past. I said the past with all the memories, etc., are also facts.
10:31 S: But that’s a jump. What we're saying is all you really have is the fact of your pain, then you have the fact that you want to be free of the pain. But when you make the statement, the brain is responsible for the experience of pain, you have entered a whole new world of language whereby when using the word brain it connects you to assumptions that people have made about what a brain is, what a brain does, theories.
11:05 K: I know nothing about that.
11:07 S: Then you can’t use 'brain'. All you've got is fact, pain, and that's all.
11:12 K: Wait, all right. All that I have is pain.
11:18 S: You've got pain.
11:19 K: And also the fact I must be free of pain.
11:22 S: That's all you have.
11:26 K: All right, proceed from there.
11:29 V: No, the point is, and I really appreciate it, honestly, to have these conversations, and we are all biologists or scientists. So, supposedly the enquiry has something to do with what science can contribute to it, maybe not, but maybe yes, it’s open. If there is something that science has to contribute, then it must address to what science can say. Things like brain, or atoms, or whatever.
12:11 K: Yes, I understand.
12:13 V: So if you rip that apart and you say, all we have is the moment of experience now.
12:18 K: I don’t rip all that apart, naturally.
12:20 V: OK, so we have to evoke brain, we have to jump out of the immediate experience of now.
12:26 K: Yes, I agree.

V: Fine.
12:28 B: So that in order to be free from pain we need to do something with the brain, with medicine...
12:39 K: I go to the doctor, he gives me a pill, I take it and the pain is gone.
12:43 B: Yes, it influences the brain. Is that a fact? This process of getting free from pain, getting pills, or something, is that a fact or is that a theory, or how would you say?
13:00 H: Could we say that whatever goes inside the brain is a fact, whether it's an illusion, whether it's a pain or so on, but perhaps the difference is whether it is actually taking place in this moment or not.
13:17 K: Is that it?

H: Perhaps, I don't know.
13:22 P: You have the pain which is the fact, and the fact you want to be rid of the pain, then does knowledge and science have anything to do with any next step? Does knowledge and science come in in the next step?
13:33 V: Yes, what is the relationship between the actuality...
13:37 K: ... and knowledge. Keep it to that. At last. What is the relationship between what is happening now, pain, and knowledge.

V: Such as brain, etc.
13:54 K: What do you mean by knowledge? Go slowly, I am not a scientist.
14:02 V: I am only an apprentice.
14:04 K: I am a human being, I am not a scientist. What do we mean by knowledge? What is knowledge? Knowledge is accumulation of various experiences, incidents, and those experiences can be enormous or very small, and all those experiences have become knowledge. Knowledge stored in the brain as memory, that’s all. And, from that, thought.
14:46 V: Yes, absolutely. I would add one more thing which is that scientific knowledge is accumulated by language agreement between people who say, this is a fact, do we agree, yes we agree, so we put it aside and move to the next. So it becomes this network of assumptions and presuppositions.
15:08 K: It's all that, I said that. Knowledge is all that. Now, what place has knowledge, what is the relationship of knowledge to pain? It's not a question, it is a fact. If there was no knowledge I would have no pain.
15:36 S: What?
15:41 V: Can you go slowly now, please? You must go slowly at this point.
15:47 K: I am going slowly. Please, you are all scientists, you are all experts, I am not.
15:52 V: I am only a human being.
15:55 K: I am saying knowledge is stored in the brain, or in the heart or wherever you like to call it, it's stored, and we function with that knowledge, as a carpenter, as a surgeon, as a psychologist. We function with what we have learned, as knowledge, accumulated.
16:33 V: Absolutely.
16:35 K: I communicate with you in English, or French if you want it, or Italian, or Spanish. I know those four. So we can communicate with each other. So there is knowledge, accumulated, and what is the relationship of that knowledge to action? Let’s put it that way. Not pain, let’s leave pain for the moment. Would you agree?

V: The actualness.
17:05 K: There is this knowledge, and I have to act. Is action born of knowledge?
17:20 H: It seems to be that way.
17:23 V: That's the question you are asking?
17:25 K: I am questioning. Apparently it seems so. Right, agreed?

V: That’s not too clear.
17:37 B: In the brain, not only.
17:39 K: Leave the brain for the minute, we'll come back to it a little later.
17:43 V: It's not so clear because if I look at that I see that knowledge has something to do with action, with the manifestation of a present situation.
17:57 K: So we have to enquire what is action.
18:00 V: It doesn’t follow that it's just knowledge that initiates.
18:04 K: There is knowledge, we have come to that. What is action? Either action according to a memory, knowledge, from the past, or action with an idea, in the future, or an ideal. Either according to the past, or according to the future: 'I will do this'.
18:45 V: But what about the actions that your description doesn’t cover? In my experience, it's those actions that seem to be born out of nowhere.
18:53 K: Wait, I am coming to that. Out of language.
18:56 V: Out of nowhere, out of a place which I cannot pin down.
19:00 K: We will come to that in a minute. Action born from the past, memory, I have done this, I will do that tomorrow. So, what we know of action is born of the past or of the future.
19:18 H: So action involves information.
19:24 K: Agree? Then that is a limited action.
19:36 V: It's limited by the knowledge you have.
19:38 K: Or knowledge which you have accumulated, which the race has accumulated.
19:44 H: Whereas the present, the past or the future doesn't matter, are you saying that?
19:49 K: When action is based on the past or on the future that action must invariably be limited.
19:56 B: Is there another kind of action?
19:59 K: Just a minute, we will come to that.
20:01 B: I am interested in that.
20:05 K: So is there an action which is not limited? Because if action is limited it must create conflict.
20:19 P: Maybe I haven’t quite gone that distance. I don’t quite go that whole distance. If every action born of knowledge must be limited...
20:30 K: I didn’t say that.
20:31 P: Action born of knowledge must be limited.
20:34 K: We said action according to the past or the future is limited.
20:42 V: By definition, because you are acting on the limited resources of knowledge.
20:46 P: Wait, I pick up this glass and drink the water, is that limited, does that lead to conflict?
20:53 V: I'm not sure about the leading to conflict. As I understand it, it is limited in the sense, for example, you are a right hander, and you pick it up with your right hand, not with your left, but I pick it up with my left hand. Why you do that and I do this is because we have accumulated a different style of approach and it's limited. That's why you pick it up with your hand, not with your foot.
21:18 P: But can that be just a simple, mechanical, self contained action which begins and ends and that's the end of it?
21:24 V: This is the point that we're coming to, why is the limited action leading to conflict – necessarily? It can, it's clear that it can.
21:32 K: I am going to explain. If I am thinking about myself all day long, which most people do, it's a very small action, a limited action. When I am associated or identified with a nation, it's a very small action. Therefore there are wars. One of the reasons of war is nationalism, based on economic division, and so on. That is all very limited. Agree?

V: Absolutely.
22:22 P: Well, these are psychological actions. They're actions in relationship.

K: Even physical action.
22:27 P: Well yes, but are they to do with simple things like digging a hole, lighting a fire? Let’s make the distinction between that and the larger actions which are motivated by nationalism or relationships.
22:44 H: It seems that you might have an action within the limitation that can also be rational, it might not necessarily create conflict. It seems to be obvious. But I think you are addressing another question, which is, psychologically, when your action is based on the limitation, there is conflict.
23:06 K: I said, when I am thinking about myself I am digging a hole for myself, it is small. Right?

V: Yes.
23:20 K:When I am thinking about my future, my problems, it is all enclosed, small.
23:28 H: So it is the opposing limits that create conflict.
23:31 K: Yes, naturally. Right? You are doubtful.
23:35 V: Yes, I'm doubtful because it seems when you say that if the knowledge has 'me' as the reference point it will create conflict, yes. Question, does it have to have that 'me' reference by necessity, or is there not a possibility of a limited action, a limited understanding, but which does not have 'me' as a reference point?
24:01 K: There may be limited action when I am digging a hole, to take his example, but we are talking of a much wider issue.
24:12 V: No, even wider issues for example...
24:14 K: Let me finish what I want to say. Any action born out of limitation must inevitably create conflict. If I am a scientist and I am only concerned with my career, with my investigation, with my research, it is a very small affair, and I don’t care a hang what happens in the outside world.
24:50 V: Is that a limitation of thought or it's a limitation of that kind of thought?
24:54 K: It is a limitation of thought, limitation of capacity, limitation of environment. I include everything.
25:04 B: How can we widen this?
25:06 K: Just a minute, we will come to that. You understand, have we communicated with each other?
25:13 V: I think I understand what you are saying but again you seem to me to be shifting from the nature of knowledge to the nature of a kind of knowledge.
25:24 K: No. We started with knowledge, we know we agree, and I said, what relationship has action to knowledge?
25:32 V: Right, and you said every action born of knowledge is limited and it creates conflict.
25:40 K: Yes, because knowledge is limited.
25:43 V: Yes, but again I am trying to examine that step of the relationship between the limited actions born of limited knowledge, which we agree is limited, to the conclusion that such actions necessarily lead to conflict. Where you invoked an extra quality to knowledge which is self-centred knowledge.
26:07 K: We said knowledge and action, we both understand that, and action born of any limited knowledge, the action also must be limited. Next step, such action breeds division. Let’s take it step by step.
26:41 V: Division, yes. Distinction.
26:43 K: Where there is division there must be conflict.
26:46 B: Yes.

S: Is that true?
26:50 K: Just a minute, he is working it out.
26:57 V: I must say that I can see the conflict arising only when this extra quality of having an absolute reference point to the division arises, such as me.
27:09 K: I see this, sir.
27:11 V: The division in itself is not conflictive. It is the division plus a solid reference point that makes the division divisive.
27:19 P: Suppose you work in the laboratory and your knowledge is limited and you're working on this drug or this chemical, you forget about everything outside. Now, you may say there is no self in that but that does create a lot of conflict for the world, the fact that your starting point is so limited. You don’t take into account the whole environment, and the implications of what you are doing.

V: I don’t see that. Let’s transport that metaphor to an ecological metaphor. If I take the foxes, foxes like rabbits. Is the limited inclination of foxes to chase these other animals a limitation because they do not take into account the entire ecosystem? It doesn’t seem to be the case. The ecosystem is a very harmonious totality in which every part of it has a limited part but they all work as a harmonious totality.
28:16 K: We don’t.

V: Why not?
28:19 V: No, I mean the ecosystem, not human beings. Human beings add something extra, which is what you are pointing out, add something extra to knowledge, to limited knowledge, which is a solid reference point of me-ness. This the fox does not do, it simply does what it does.
28:37 S: Isn’t it the distinction between difference and division? You seem to put differences and division into one pot.
28:46 K: Division, let’s stick to the word division.
28:48 S: No, let’s make a distinction between difference and division.
28:52 H: What do you mean by difference and division?
28:54 S: In other words, foxes are different from rabbits.
28:58 V: And they only know how to chase rabbits and not birds.
29:02 S: And that's a difference but that's not a division.
29:06 K: No, of course not. That tree is different from me.
29:10 S: Exactly.
29:11 V: And there is no conflict there necessarily.
29:14 K: Of course not.
29:15 V: OK, so we agree then that the step from knowledge as limited and creating divisions or distinctions does not necessarily lead to conflict. Because for example the fox, being limited in his knowledge of the world, doesn’t create the conflict.
29:31 K: See what is happening in India or in Beirut, or the Arab and Israel.
29:42 V: Sir, I have been through a civil war myself.
29:44 K: Yes sir, you know that. So what happens? What has brought about this division?
29:53 V: It has been brought about by division plus the sense of me being right.
29:59 K: Yes, that’s all.
30:03 V: No, but please understand me. I am not denying that point, I entirely see it, But it seems to me that we have to separate that extra, which is the me-ness or the self-centredness from knowledge as such. That knowledge as such can exist in a limited aspect.
30:21 K: I understand. Knowledge as such in those books.
30:25 V: No, knowledge as such as my knowledge, for example, that I can pick up this glass of water, or larger knowledge such as how to run an economy, or a railway station.
30:39 K: Of course, that's understood.
30:44 V: I am trying not to put what seems to be a distinction of knowledge for a particular kind of knowledge.
30:55 P: I can’t quite go along all the way with you on that, particularly on the one with the foxes. I don’t think that's a good analogy between foxes and humans. I think maybe we are going off the track.
31:07 H: Perhaps we should go back to the question, that all our actions seem to be born out of knowledge.
31:14 K: Yes, and that knowledge, as we already said, is limited. So action is limited, right? Let’s start from that.
31:27 The next step for me is that, as knowledge is limited, action is limited, and that's one of the reasons, or one of the causes of human division in their relationship, the me, my ideas, my ambition, his ideas, his ambition, his competitiveness and my competitiveness, my aggression and so on. This constant division is naturally breeding conflict in the world. That’s all. Wait, let’s agree to that. And I say, for God’s sake let’s stop this conflict because it is killing human beings – the Russians, the Americans, the democrats, the totalitarians, you know. The Arab and the Jew, the Muslim and the Hindu, the Sikh and the... We are destroying each other. And I say to myself, is there an action, seeing all this, which is not limited? That’s all. Which transcends this, goes beyond this, otherwise we can’t solve this. I stick to my Indian, and he sticks to his Arab, and we fight. So can we communicate, dropping your Arab and my dropping my Hindu, and say, as human beings, let’s solve this problem, not to kill each other. So is there an action which is not divisive, which is not limited? Would you agree to that? Now how are we going to find that out? That’s all my point.
34:14 V: It seems to me that you are asking two questions at the same time. If the hope is to find a way in which this strife can be stopped.
34:29 K: That’s one question.
34:31 V: I fully agree it is something absolutely essential and necessary. It seems to me that there are two possibilities of answering. One is the one you propose which is: can we have an action which is not born out of limitation? But the other possibility is to say, is there not a possibility of learning action born out of knowledge, therefore limited, but which is not centred in defending the point of view, or the me-ness? But both are equally valid to me, equally valid courses of action.
35:08 K: Both are valid and both are contained in this one question.
35:14 V: Both are contained in the same question.
35:17 S: I want to add another question, both are contained in this one question but there's another question now. We're all scientists sitting here and one of the things that has come out of science, or investigation of the brain in a scientific way has been the fact that we never perceive anything except with reference to what we already know.
35:40 K: I question that.
35:42 S: I know you question it, but it seems to me that there is some sort of edge of discussion there because if that's true then the only way we can discover an unlimited action, the only road that we can take is through that kind of situation. If that's not true then it may be possible to have an unlimited action. Now, you question it, and there is all this other statement to the effect that it questions you.
36:19 K: What are you trying to say?
36:20 S: I'm saying that there is some question among scientists as to whether it is possible to have an action that is not born out of knowledge. Perception is always governed by knowledge.
36:34 P: And action goes from perception.
36:36 V: Absolutely fair. There are two separate questions therefore. One is: can we actually discover action which is unlimited, and two: is that action something that can be possibly related to what science is, or has to say.
36:51 K: Or to human life or to human existence, which is part of science.
36:59 S: What I am interested in is we really only know limited action. That’s all we know. That's the only fact.
37:07 K: Agreed, don’t go on. And somebody comes along and says, perhaps there is an action which is not limited.
37:20 S: Exactly.
37:23 K: Unless I am totally blind, and deaf and dumb and stupid, I listen to him.
37:30 B: I just wanted to go back, not to the brain but yesterday I talked about small children. There is a stage in childhood where action is not that limited. It begins, of course, the limitation then, but in the beginning they have some quality of action which is not that limited. They are open to the whole of the environment, to the family, to other children. They don’t distinguish between nationalities.
38:11 K: Yes, babies don't, children don’t. Later on they are trained.

B: Quite.
38:19 K: They are educated to hate the black and purple and blue.
38:22 B: May I say one thing, when we grow older we still have the brain of the little child in our brain, in our mature brain. We have it, we know it, and as I see it we have in our brain, – I beg your pardon, I am talking about brain – we have this part which can act not quite unlimited, but not that limited. So I think we have to – as a scientist I am saying that – that being adult we have to find this childlike view. The values of the little child.
39:18 K: You are also saying the same thing in a different way that there is in all of us a divine spark. It comes to the same thing. Please, I am not laughing at it.
39:39 V: No, I'm laughing because I thought the analogy was wonderful.
39:43 K: Millions of people feel that there is in them something far superior than the ordinary brain, far superior to environment, economics, etc.
39:57 S: Krishnaji, if you take a small child, there was an experiment that was done with a child three months old, and these children were hooked up to, where they were sucking a breast. If they sucked that breast, there was a picture on the wall that was out of focus. There was a moving picture on the wall. If they sucked this breast a certain way – these were three month old children – the picture came into focus, and the child responded – at three months old – positively to the fact that he was able to focus that. So there's something built into the organism which responds to focus.
40:52 H: May I say something, K raised the question whether there is an action not born out of limitation.
41:00 V: Not born out of limitation.
41:06 H: How are we going to find out?
41:08 P: I think David added the question, could there be any perception that doesn’t require knowledge?
41:16 V: OK, let’s stick to that one.
41:20 B: But in a little child there is this kind of perception.
41:24 V: I disagree with you actually, because your little child is still perceiving, it's still limited.
41:31 B: I am a little child, now, here.
41:33 V: Yes, but a little child is different. Not because it's different it is less limited. It's just as limited.
41:40 H: Can we go back perhaps to the original question? Let’s try by asking what is perception.
41:52 V: Let’s continue with the investigation of how can we know, or come to know this unlimited action, unlimited perception.
42:03 S: Is it possible? That’s the whole question. Science says no, there is no such thing as unlimited action.
42:09 B: No, science says yes, in the children.
42:15 K: Just a minute. There are millions of people in the world who say there is God. You come along and say, that's just the invention of thought. They say all right, go to hell, I'll go on worshipping, and that’s that. We are not in that position, I hope.
42:35 V: So let’s investigate.

K: So we have to explore it. We have come to a point where we have said action born of limited knowledge is divisive, and therefore conflict arises where there is division. That is all we have stated. Then the next question arose, is there an action which is not limited?
43:10 S: OK.
43:13 K: Now, how are you going to find out?
43:20 H: Do you have any suggestions?
43:22 K: I am asking, you are the scientists.
43:24 V: I said before, I agree entirely with David, from the point of view of the scientific framework there is no way to approach that question. But at the same time, as a human being, by examining my own mind...
43:39 K: You are a human being, not a scientist. Thank God. We can talk as human beings. Good.
43:44 V: But also I happen to have this craft as a scientist.
43:49 K: Yes. That is of secondary importance.
43:53 V: But as a human being, when I observe my mind I do notice that there are certain actions I do which do not seem to come out of knowledge but seem to be born out of themselves.
44:05 K: We'll find out.
44:07 V: OK. This is observation now.
44:09 K: Yes. So it may be false, it may be true.
44:14 V: It is observation.

S: Before we go on, I want to present him this question, is it conceivable, or isn’t it true that in our scientific investigation very often when we think that this action is born out of an unlimited... it seems to appear, that on further investigation we discover how limited it was. More often than not.
44:42 V: There is nothing I could counter to that.
44:45 K: I want to find out if there is an action which is not limited, and which is not consciously or unconsciously connected with knowledge. The same thing.
45:03 V: Fine, there we are.
45:06 S: That means that you have to be available for my most astute going after it to find out if I can find a way to show to you that really did come out of your knowledge.
45:22 K: Yes, I am willing.

S: OK.
45:31 K: What is your response to that question?
45:35 V: I think I said all I know.
45:38 K: I know what you said but let’s go a little deeper.
45:42 V: Fine.
45:48 K: We are asking a question: is there action in which there is no limitation? The self is limited, the me. The self is knowledge. Go slow, I’II explain. The self is a bundle of memories. So, as long as that self is acting there is limitation. So is there an ending to the self? Ending, not continuing. That's our first question. To end the whole... May I use the word consciousness ? With all its memories, with all its fears, sorrows, pain, anxieties, depression, faith, belief, the whole content of consciousness is the movement of thought. That is the self. That is knowledge. We said the self is a whole series of memories, it's a bundle. And as long as that action is born from there, it is limited, therefore conflict. We agreed to that.

V: Yes.
48:02 K: So can the self end? It is only then there is action which is not limited. It's a logical step.

V: Yes, absolutely.
48:21 K: Can the self end? And the self is so deceptive, it can hide behind the most holy things, and the most extraordinary imagination, and in the scientific, in anything it can hide like a cockroach. Can that self end? The word mantra, you have heard that word, means that. The original root meaning of that word is ponder, think over, meditate on not becoming, and also put away all self-centred activity. The meaning of that word is that – the root meaning. You understand what I'm saying? Meditate on not becoming, which is an immense factor. That means there is no psychological evolution for the me, there is no me to evolve. But we think there is me continuing, in heaven, in hell, I write a book, there it is, immortal. Or you throw it in the waste paper basket. So can the self, which is a whole series of memories and time, can that completely end, knowing that it is the most deceptive thing. Right? Find out. I say it can totally end, and live in this world.
50:48 V: Well, if indeed it can end, and you are saying you are still in this world,
50:55 K: Absolutely.

V: It means that, for example, this person who has no self but who is in this world, drives a car.
51:08 K: Of course, there he has to use knowledge.
51:10 V: Fine, but then it means that that knowledge is there. So that action out of knowledge is present.
51:18 K: Of course.
51:20 V: So, this is the question I'm asking you...
51:23 K: It's simple, you can see for yourself. Don’t ask me, it's simple.
51:28 V: No, let me put it this way...
51:31 K: Sir, I have to write a letter, which means a great deal of knowledge, writing the letter, sequence, the words. Tremendous knowledge is involved in writing a stupid letter. That knowledge is necessary.

V: And it's self-centred action.
51:54 K: It is not.

V: Why not?
51:56 K: If the self is not, that is not.
51:58 V: But how could it not be self-centred action, according to your definition of self, since it is a bunch of memories.
52:04 K: No, not my definition. Please, we agreed.
52:09 V: Wait a second, we agreed but I repeated at least a couple of times that to me there was a difference between knowledge, and self-centred knowledge, and that not all knowledge was self-centred knowledge.
52:26 K: I said, sir, the self is knowledge.
52:30 V: So if there is no self, there is no knowledge, that follows.
52:34 K: But I can use it. Just a minute, careful. So we have to enquire into something totally different, which is, what is intelligence?
52:49 V: OK, I am willing to enquire into that, but why do we have to do that?
52:53 K: I'll tell you why in a minute, I'll show it to you. Where there is intelligence, that intelligence can use knowledge. And intelligence is not born of knowledge.
53:20 B: From where is it?
53:22 K: Take is slowly. You may all disagree, tear it to pieces, but I'll go into it. So we have to enquire what is knowledge? If knowledge can say, Well, I'll use this here and nowhere else. Knowledge has a certain place, but psychologically, etc., it has no place whatsoever.
53:53 H: From what you say, it seems to me that being free from the self doesn’t mean that you are completely free of knowledge.
54:01 K: I said to drive a car, to write a letter, to speak a language, right?
54:10 V: But we are back to the question. We have to be careful in analysing this question.
54:17 K: We have settled all that.
54:18 B: Intelligence.

K: What is intelligence? Is it born of knowledge, born of thought? It required tremendous knowledge to go to the Moon. Tremendous. The work of three hundred thousand, or ten thousand people, co-operating, making every part perfect, to go the Moon. That is the intelligence of thought.
55:00 V: Yes, and then you are asking the question where does intelligence come from.
55:04 K: That intelligence is limited.
55:09 V: It seems very clear.
55:13 K: Prego, prego, avanti!

V: Ma io non parlo italiano. So when I examine, what happens is that in thought there is intelligence that is proper to thought, which is limited, like when I resolve an equation. And there is also an intelligence which seems again to have a quality of being out of nowhere.
55:42 K: We will come to that.
55:45 V: All right, but to me there are the two intelligences.
55:48 K: Yes, let’s... Wait. There is the intelligence which thought has brought about.
55:57 H: Rational thought. Logical thought.
56:01 K: Rational or logical, clever, cunning. The businessman is very intelligent in his business. A terrorist organises beautifully to kill somebody.
56:19 V: There is an intelligence to build itself as ego, or as self.
56:23 K: So, there is so-called ordinary intelligence born of thought, therefore that intelligence becomes cruel, kindly, the whole series of human activity, which is limited. Then is there an intelligence which is not born of thought? I say there is – I may be cuckoo – I say there is. And that intelligence can only come about... if you want to go into it I will go into it.
57:07 V: Yes, but we have gone into investigating the nature of intelligence out of the quandary or the paradox of what you said before, that in order to find out unlimited action I have to finish with the self, which was a collection of memories. But if I am finished with the self as a collection of memories it seems from what we said before, that there would be no knowledge, therefore that this person could not write a letter.
57:34 K: No, I did not say that. On the contrary he can write a letter.
57:39 V: But if he writes a letter it requires knowledge.
57:42 K: That's why I said let’s enquire into intelligence, then that intelligence says, I'll use knowledge here and nowhere else.
57:52 V: I see, so the intelligence is now the mediator.
57:58 K: Don’t use the word mediator. Keep the word for a minute.
58:03 S: So what is intelligence?
58:06 K: If we say thought, with its extraordinary capacity has created a certain intelligence, building a cathedral, most beautiful houses, gardens, furniture, implements of war, it's all the result of thought. The atom bomb. Such intelligence is limited. Agree? Now is there an intelligence which is not limited? Now, how do you enquire into this? Exercising thought? Wait, wait!
58:57 V: The same way you would investigate action which is unlimited, namely by observing, by completely observing without thought.
59:08 K: Is that possible, first?
59:10 V: Well, it seems that it is possible.
59:13 K: Not a theory.

V: No, you can do it.
59:17 K: Let’s be clear. That perception is not based on thought.
59:25 V: Yes, right.

K: Keep that perception going.
59:35 P: Do you agree with that?

S: I don’t agree, no.
59:38 V: You don't?

K: Convince him please.
59:40 V: You mean it is not possible for you, you are walking out of your house, it is a very sharp beautiful day, and you open the door and you see the tree, and there is a moment when you simply see the tree, there is no thought coming in. The quality of the experience is that there is no thought, there is a gap in your thoughts there is absolute purity of perception, a complete sense of present centredness, and the tree-ness of the tree is right there. And then thought comes up again. Isn’t that an experience for you?
1:00:17 S: I'm going to play the devil’s advocate, and it is: I think in that very experience there is a sense in which we project out our knowledge.
1:00:30 K: No.
1:00:32 V: I didn’t say there is no knowledge. I said there is no thought.
1:00:36 S: Did you hear the distinction?
1:00:39 K: Please, just a minute. Is there a perception without the word?
1:00:48 P: Without the word?

S: Yes.
1:00:52 K: Just answer step by step.
1:00:54 S: Well, your step by step, sometimes you set up a question that's already a trap.
1:01:01 K: I am not trapping you, for God’s sake.
1:01:03 S: Perception without a word, yes.

K: Without the network of words.
1:01:06 S: But there is a sense in which perception without the word is already based in some sort of knowledge.
1:01:15 K: No, I am just saying, we've been through all this.
1:01:20 S: No, this is our question.

K: Can you look at me without all the image, all the nonsense, just look at me?

S: I don’t think you can, no.
1:01:33 V: Are you saying scientifically?

S: I am saying actual fact, I think in some way we are always operating out of some knowledge.
1:01:45 V: Can we take this slowly.

S: Very slowly.
1:01:50 V: I can look at you, I think, I can look at you or a tree or whatever, and not have thought.
1:01:57 K: Yes, that's all I am saying.
1:02:01 V: Question, when I see the tree, nevertheless I see a tree, I don’t see a cat. What he is saying, which I think is important, that that is knowledge. It is limited knowledge.
1:02:15 K: All right, agreed. Move.
1:02:18 V: So there was a point.

K: I understand this.
1:02:22 S: It is an important question, what is the relationship of intelligence to the actuality that I am saying that you can’t have a perception without knowledge?
1:02:32 K: We are going to find out.

S: That’s what I want to get at.
1:02:34 K: We are coming to the same thing in a different way. What is this intelligence – if there such intelligence – which is not cultivated by thought.
1:02:49 H: But it uses thought.

V: We don’t know if it uses it yet. We have come to the point of seeing that there is an intelligence that seems to come out without being based on a train of thought.
1:03:02 K: Yes, that’s all I am asking. Is it temporary, is it something casual, perchance? All those. Or is there an intelligence which is not intermittent, which is not fiction, theoretical, and so on? Or imagination, deceptive, illusory, all the implication of all those words. I say there is.
1:03:40 V: How do we find that out?

K: I am coming to that. I am ninety years old, I've been at it for a long time. What place has love in all this? Is love desire? Is love pleasure? Is love sensation? Is it?
1:04:33 B: Yes, limited love.
1:04:36 K: Love is love, not limited, unlimited. Go slowly. Is love desire? All the rest of it.
1:04:51 V: Why do we need to examine love now?
1:04:53 K: I will tell you in a minute, we will come to it. The ball is in my court.
1:05:04 V: You are now asking us to examine the nature of love because it seems necessary to answer the question, of how to we get to examine...
1:05:12 K: Not get. How does that intelligence exist? Exist. I say it cannot exist without love.
1:05:31 B: What is love?
1:05:32 K: We are saying what is love. You understand? I say that intelligence which is not born of thought – which is limited – that intelligence is the essence of love. Therefore I say, is love desire? Is love ambition? Is there love when there is pleasure, and so on. Or is love something outside of the brain? You understand? Let me finish. You can jump on me afterwards. It's still in my court.
1:06:40 V: OK, that’s a question.
1:06:43 K: And which means compassion. Where there is love and compassion there is that intelligence which is not the product of thought. And that is not intermittent, that doesn’t come and go. And that love is not the opposite of hate. Love has no opposite. And compassion, love, cannot exist if there is any form of attachment. I am a Catholic, or a Hindu, or a Sikh, and I am attached to my God, attached to my anchor and say I have compassion. That's not compassion.
1:07:49 B: It's limited.
1:07:58 K: Limited. Right? Now, proceed. Wait! Take your racket. Get ready. To me, or to K, that's the only thing that matters. If that does not exist, the rest is all limited. And therefore you will have perpetual conflict between each other, between the world and so on. That’s all.
1:08:38 S: Are you ready for me?
1:08:41 K: Wait, have you understood what the speaker has said? What K said?
1:08:46 S: I think I have but I have a question.
1:08:48 K: Wait. Have you felt it, smelt it, have you tasted it, have you swallowed it before you kick it?
1:08:59 S: I don’t want to kick it.

K: No, I am asking you.
1:09:05 S: I say, I think I have.
1:09:11 K: Sir, it means unconditioning the whole human, the structure and the nature of thought.
1:09:24 V: Now we have grasped that, and listened to that.
1:09:30 K: Now proceed, it is in your court.
1:09:32 S: Now I want to ask you a question. A few minutes ago I brought up this three month old infant. A minute ago I mentioned this experiment with the three month old infant and the focus.
1:09:47 K: I have seen it with my eyes actually, I don’t have to look up there.
1:09:51 S: Fine, what I want to say is this, here we have a three month old infant that I told you about, and this in a way is the basis for desire. In other words, the desire for that focus. That's the essence of desire at three months of age. Now given that fact, that desire is so central to the brain, – we'll use that word – what is the relationship of what you've just said to this basic fact that desire is so...
1:10:34 K: Yes, I'll tell you. Then you have to ask what is desire.
1:10:42 V: I have another question which is related. We might be able to handle both at the same time. Which is that I have heard you, I have grasped it or felt it, then I have the question, how do I know it is true?
1:10:57 K: You don’t know. Which means?
1:10:59 V: Which means that I have to investigate it.
1:11:02 K: With what?
1:11:03 V: Well, this is exactly the point, with what? The only way I know is to observe very carefully what happens in my experience, which means that what I see is not the continuity of that intelligence but the intermittency of that intelligence. So how can you, beyond saying, actually make it possible for people to see that it's not just words?
1:11:51 K: Therefore you have to go into the whole question of what is the place of desire?
1:12:01 V: Yes, that is why the two things are related.
1:12:03 K: What is the place of desire, and why has desire become so important in our life, the whole movement of desire. Have we time?
1:12:19 S: A few minutes.
1:12:22 V: It's up to you, I'm happy to go on.
1:12:25 K: There are people waiting for lunch.
1:12:29 S: Well, this is a crucial issue.
1:12:32 K: Yes, I will come to that.
1:12:37 V: You mean to continue more?
1:12:39 H: Yes, around the idea we're talking about, because we have about five minutes.
1:12:44 B: Desire and love. That would be important.
1:12:49 K: If there is no becoming psychologically, there is no self. Theoretically it sounds all right.
1:13:09 S: You keep going back to this, in theory it sounds all right...
1:13:12 K: To see the reality of it and cut it!
1:13:17 H: How do you see that?
1:13:21 K: He tells me, he has been at it for a number of years, he says, look, there is no becoming. Is it this becoming has spilled over from the physical becoming, becoming a clerk, stepping up the ladder. Has that movement spilled over into the other field and therefore you're still thinking in terms of becoming psychologically, inwardly. And don’t let it spill. Expand from there. Then is there a becoming? 'I will be'. 'I must not'. I am comparing myself. So, the ending of measurement. Complete ending of measurement, which is comparison.
1:15:01 H: Stop?

V: I was ready to continue. It's up to you.
1:15:14 K: Is there an end to knowledge?
1:15:20 S: Is there an end to desire?
1:15:22 K: No, is there an end to knowledge?
1:15:29 V: I don’t see that.
1:15:32 K: Ask that question, sir.
1:15:36 B: I think there is an end.
1:15:41 K: If we are functioning all the time within the field of knowledge, it is very limited. Therefore, is there an end to something...
1:15:53 V: Oh, is there an end in the sense of is there an edge, a place where it's no longer there.
1:15:59 B: Yes there is.
1:16:01 K: Which means what?
1:16:03 B: That means we are not coming forward with only knowledge, this kind of knowledge.
1:16:16 K: Could I put another question? Can the brain stop chattering, completely, empty. Only act when it is asked, like a drum, highly tuned, but it is always empty, it is only when you strike on it that it gives a note.
1:17:00 B: What is emptiness?
1:17:03 K: That's what I am saying, is there an end to knowledge? Of course. That’s another matter.