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BR84SBR3 - Can thought come to an end?
Brockwood Park, UK - 10 June 1984
Scientists Seminar 3



0:24 Dr Hancke: During the last two days we have been talking about many topics, and what strikes me is that it seems to be very difficult to penetrate a topic. And I was wondering what does it mean to enquire into something in an intelligent way? And perhaps with that spirit, we can go into the question of intelligence, what we were talking about yesterday. Krishnamurti: I thought we did that yesterday. We said, if I remember rightly, that there is the intelligence of thought, and that intelligence is limited, and is there any other kind of intelligence which is not bound to time? And we said that there is, so we went into that, love and compassion, and out of that, that intelligence which is not limited at all. Because we said if love is limited then it's not love. If love has an opposite as hate, anger, jealousy and so on, then it's not love. That's what we discussed yesterday.
2:20 How would you enquire into that intelligence which is not born of thought?
2:32 H: It seems to me that, if we are using thought, then we have to be very hesitant in what we say.
2:39 K: Not only that, but how would you enquire into that intelligence which is not the product of thought? How would you enquire into it? That's what you are saying. How would you enquire into it? Would you enquire into it by saying that which it is not?
3:05 H: You mean by what is false?

K: Yes, what it is not. I don't know if I am conveying this. We said hate is not love. So is there in our psyche, in the skull – I won't even use the brain now because I am a little apprehensive of experts – in the skull, which is all the enormous activity of human beings, all the activities of human beings are contained in the skull, within the skull, within that sphere. And is love within it, or outside it? Yesterday, we asked that question too. How would you enquire into it?
4:24 H: Perhaps we could start by saying what is an action that is not intelligent? For example, if we take a machine, a machine that is repetitive, all the time doing the same thing. And in the same way one could say that the brain is disposed to work according to its condition. And this condition is somehow always the same. For example, when I see a person that I don't like, the brain seems to give meaning to that situation and plays itself out. In that sense I would say it's the same as a machine, a machine has a programme, a preset.
5:11 K: After all, we are programmed. Dr Varela: But also, this very same process, I wouldn't call it a machine, is capable of coming up with something which is completely new, novel, creative.
5:25 K: Different.
5:27 V: So in that sense it is nothing to do with a machine. And precisely the fact that it can up with creative acts, it means that the process cannot be so simply characterised as mere repetition, as in a trivial machine. I would make a distinction between what we call a trivial machine, which is a Coca-Cola machine, 10 pence or 50 pence going in, out comes a Coca-Cola. This is a trivial machine. This is not what life is about.

H: Of course not.
6:01 V: So let's not set up a straw man and say what the brain is not. The brain is not that kind of machine.
6:10 H: Could we say that intelligence has not to do with a pattern that is repetitive, would we agree to that? Because intelligence has to do with something that's new, out of the pattern. Dr Bergstrom: I think what you just said is true. We know in brain research, in brain physiology, when we are studying the brain in the usual way, we know for instance that the brain is capable of producing values. Constantly ordering the whole outer world in a new way. In that sense it produces quite a new kind of attention or values, and that is not the same as knowledge, ordinary information.
7:11 K: Is it new, or is it a different aspect of the old?
7:21 V: That's an interesting question. What is the nature of the creative act?
7:29 K: Then we must go into what is creation, and what is invention.
7:33 V: All right, shall we do that? I don't know if I'm interrupting you, or somebody else.
7:43 H: The question is how does one come about this intelligence?
7:55 K: That intelligence, can it be cultivated? All cultivation implies thought, time. Dr Shainberg: Are we acting intelligently now?
8:22 K: Just a minute, let's finish this. What did I say just now?
8:30 V: That all cultivation is in time.
8:33 K: Is in time and also, it has a motive and a result. Cultivation implies motive, result and time. That is the factor of any cultivation. Is the intelligence, which is born of some totally different state, or whatever you like to call it, is that cultivable?
9:08 H: It doesn't seem so.

V: I am not so sure. Well, I would say that the cultivation would come from actually observing in our life this quality of the new, the flash of the creative, the fresh of perception, for example, the freshness of perception is something that is happening all the time but we normally tend to obscure it because our mind is too speedy. But it is possible to cultivate a more slow pace of thought and thereby one begins to see the constant flashes of this quality of creative insight, or creative intelligence happening all the time. So it seems to me that it can be cultivated, not so much as to cultivate it as such, but to cultivate one's accessibility to it.
10:11 H: You mean by a process of observation rather?
10:14 V: Well, observation is not the word I would use. It's more a quality of taming the raw quality of one's mind.
10:20 K: Would you use the word attention?
10:22 B: Attention would be good, yes.
10:25 V: I am not so happy with attention because it implies something that is too forced somehow.
10:31 K: No, I don't want to go into all that. What are we discussing now, let's be clear.
10:40 S: Intelligence.
10:42 V: You asked the question, can this intelligence be cultivated?
10:46 K: Can that intelligence which is not born of thought, can that be cultivated? Obviously not. We'll come to that in a minute, go slowly, look at it. We said any kind of cultivation implies a motive, time, and a beginning and an end. Is love cultivable in that sense? I know you don't like that word, it is foreign to you, probably to all of you.
11:32 B: I think it is. If I begin to evaluate things differently then I am changing my brain. We know that changes occur which we don't know from where they come. We just notice that they come. So I think, after all, there is a possibility of changing the brain and it is with the values.
12:04 K: That means, doesn't it, a quality of silence.
12:10 B: That is better, silence. Not thought.
12:14 K: A quality of quietness, a sense of everything in abeyance, and then in that tranquillity something happens.
12:25 B: Yes, not of thought, but being quiet, letting the brain just be.
12:32 K: Can that be? When our brain has been active from childhood, work, work, work, struggle, pain, learn, don't learn, you follow, the whole human struggle, human endeavour. Can the brain, which has been so conditioned, can it ever be quiet?
13:03 B: There exists the possibility but it is difficult. Can you tell us, brain researchers, what could the value possibly be because we are in a limit, you see we know that in the brain, changes occur and these changes bring about new values, but what are they? We don't know because, with knowledge, we cannot go into them.
13:32 K: We both agree that there must be a certain ground of quietness, of tranquillity, so that something new can come. Would you agree to that?
13:55 V: And that can be cultivated.

K: Wait, question it.
13:59 V: I mean the attitude.

K: No, silence is not an attitude.
14:05 V: No, but to make yourself available to silence is an attitude.
14:09 K: Then who is it that is making you available?
14:13 V: That which needs or requires or wants the silence.
14:18 K: That means again desire, again thought.
14:24 V: There has to be a desire to make itself available to non-desire.
14:29 K: You go back again, you see.
14:31 B: Physiologically no, because we let the brain be, it is just there.
14:38 V: We might go into a very long discussion here when you say the brain stops. I have never seen a brain stop which is not dead.
14:45 B: I have seen my brain stop, be silent.
14:49 V: But as an electro-physiologist you know that if I put electrodes in your brain, it will not be inactive, it will be just as active as now. That doesn't mean anything to say the brain stops, it doesn't stop.
15:01 K: Would you say that the brain, – I won't even say brain, that thing which is inside the skull – it has its own rhythm, and there is the rhythm of thought. Can the rhythm of thought be quiet? That is all we are saying.

V: Yes, it can.
15:27 K: Wait a minute. Quiet, not just temporarily, not off and on, but quiet.
15:39 V: Once and for all?

K: Yeap! You see, you are objecting to this when you say 'once and for all' it means time. You see, this is our difficulty. A silent mind, silence, is not once and for all. You want it once and for all. And then when you say, once and for all, you introduce the whole movement of time.
16:20 V: Are we in time now, right now?

K: Of course.
16:25 V: Right, so we can only point to what we are not now, since we are in time and you are mentioning something which is out of time, how can we do it except by a pointer in time?
16:42 K: We are asking whether the brain – the thing that's inside the skull – can ever be quiet, apart from its own rhythm? That's the question we are asking.
16:56 B: It can.
17:00 H: I think this is important to clarify that perhaps quietness doesn't mean that the brain rhythm has to stop.
17:08 K: I said this. The rhythm goes on.
17:10 V: He is talking about the rhythm of thought, not the rhythm of the brain, which if it stops is dead.
17:16 K: No oxygen and there is the end of it.
17:19 B: The old St Peter experiment, cut the head, there is no life.
17:22 B: It is possible for that which is inside – I don't mention the brain – it is possible. We know that thought stops, but nevertheless there are functions going on which are not thought. We call it, in brain research, we call it consciousness. It is just being, or whatever is inside, but not the thought, not the sensation, the sensory, not the perception, not action. That we know quite well, and you know that also, I think.
18:09 V: We would have to discuss that.
18:14 K: This has been a question not only put now, but in the most ancient days they put this question: can the brain, can that thing, can thought – let's keep it to that – can thought come to an end, stop?
18:36 S: But if we say thought can come to an end, would it be a function of choice? You don't think it would be choice?
18:44 K: The sun is setting, it is finished. It may come up again tomorrow, but the sun has set.
18:51 S: And that's not an act of choice.

K: No, of course not.
18:56 V: But it is an event in time.
19:00 K: I question that.
19:02 V: But the sun setting is not in time?
19:04 K: I introduced that, forget the sunset. Silence, quietness, tranquillity, which means the ending of thought, not for a few seconds, but ending. Apart from the ryhthm.
19:32 S: Would you conceive of that as being some sort of event of the brain, or of thought?
19:38 K: No, look, sir, I am thinking all day long about my problems, my wife, my children, my career, my research, I am at it all day long, and when I go to sleep it is there again going on, all day and all night, ceaselessly. And it is wearing itself out. Now I am just asking can all that movement stop? Stop, not stop for some days, or some hours, stop.
20:29 V: It's not my experience.

K: Why?
20:35 V: May I say something at this point please?
20:38 K: When you say, it is not my experience, then your experience may be very limited.
20:47 V: Of course, but that's all I have.
20:51 K: Ah, no.
20:54 V: I can hear something when you say thought can stop, I can hear it as a possibility but it remains a mere possibility unless it becomes my experience.
21:07 K: Would you like to learn about it? Would you like to find out?
21:10 V: Yes, but can I say something right before? It seems that there is a third middle way, may I say possibility, which is not thought as ceaseless, neither thought as gone, but there is an intermediate possibility which is close to my own investigation, or experience, which is thought as being permeable. In other words, thought at the beginning, it seems that thought is a solid thing, that it never stops. Upon closer investigation, one sees that thought actually has lots of gaps. It is not like a solid veil but it has big holes in it.
21:53 K: An interval between thoughts.
21:56 V: No, it is not just intervals, it is like thought is like little glimmers in a much larger space. It is not just a space, it is not just a thought.
22:06 K: But it is still the movement of thought.
22:08 V: Movement of thought but within a vaster context.
22:11 K: Yes, it's still thought.
22:13 V: Yes, but it is in a vaster context which is not the same as ceaseless thought. There is a dramatic change from one to the other. So I want to know whether this is not also part of your experience.
22:32 K: I distrust all experience.
22:34 V: Including yours?

K: Including mine.
22:37 S: Including yours?

K: Yes sir, I am very sceptical about my own experiences, because you can get deceived terribly.
22:47 V: So what is the source of the understanding then if it is not your own experience, or my own experience?
22:54 K: Let's leave the word experience, that's a complicated word.
22:59 V: OK. What would you use instead?

K: I don't know, we'll find out. We are asking a very simple question, which is very complex: there is the rhythm of the brain inside. You agree to that.

V: Yes, no problem.
23:19 K: Then there is the rhythm of thought. Can that rhythm, not in a vast consciousness, can that rhythm of thought stop? That's all. Not induced, not cultivated.
23:51 S: Not chosen.
23:53 K: Of course. When you choose there is the activity of desire. So is there a cessation of thought?
24:08 B: Could it be that it should not be induced, but would there exist the possibility that if I devaluate the thoughts, if I don't give any value to thought, could it be possible that then thought ceases?
24:36 K: How do we investigate into this?
24:39 V: Fine. I hear the possibility now.
24:41 K: I don't even know the possibility.
24:44 V: Or the question.

K: I just posed that question. Just a minute, see what happens: if I pose a question and you reply to it, and then I reply to your question, and we keep this dialogue going until only the question remains and you and I disappear. You follow? There is only the question, which then has a tremendous vitality. You understand?

V: Absolutely.
25:30 K: Are we together in this?

V: Yes.
25:36 K: That is, we have posed a question: can the rhythm of thought which has been going on from the beginning of one's life until they die, can that rhythm of thought come to an end? You reply and this dialogue goes on. And then you said, in that process only the question remains. You don't answer, I don't answer. Now when the question remains your brain is quiet, because you are not acting, I am not acting, only the question. Right? That's one. And this has been a problem of every human being, to have some quietness inside there, some peace, say, 'For God's sake, stop!'. And they have invented various methods to stop it, control, suppression, agreed?
27:22 V: It seems that history records many attempts to do this.
27:25 K: Many systems, many methods to say, for God's sake let me have some peace, so that my brain – the thing – is quiet apart from its own rhythm.
27:41 H: But why does the brain do that? This chattering, why did it fall into that from the very start?
27:51 K: I don't understand.
27:53 V: Why does it have to be so full of itself?
27:59 K: From childhood, we have been trained that way, we have been educated, all education is work, work, work, learn, learn.
28:09 H: You mean it has been conditioned that way?
28:12 K: Yes, of course.
28:27 V: It doesn't seem complete to put only the two alternatives of either having thought going or stopping it. There is again the middle way possibility of not stopping thought but making so much room for it that it's not bothersome anymore.
28:49 K: But it is still thought moving.
28:50 V: Yes, but this is like having a very wild animal, a wild monkey in a small room. That is very bothersome and very complicated, but if the same monkey gets in a large field, it's fine, it doesn't bother anybody. It does what it does, it's monkey business.
29:07 K: Yes, but still give it any amount of space it is still the activity of thought.
29:14 V: Yes, it is still a monkey running around. But it doesn't bother anybody.
29:19 K: It is not a question of bother.
29:21 V: No, but you say, I want some peace. Or men have said, give me some peace.
29:28 K: People have asked this question thousands of years ago, saying can thought, however much it may have space, in that space, be silent.
29:46 S: Krishnaji, it could be that the very reason that people experience so much noise is because they're looking for it to be peaceful. In other words, if you take his position, to have a dialogue here with the question, the fact of the matter is that if you give it plenty of space you don't experience the desire to have that peace. That the people that experience 'give me that quiet peace' are people who are searching.
30:20 K: Are you saying, because I live in a city, in a drawer, various drawers, I want space and therefore that is my desire?
30:41 S: Yes. Your relationship inside your thought process that is the matter, not the fact that you have thought. You're so busy trying to get out of thought that you're cramped.
30:53 K: If you are in the country, not in a city's drawer, you then say, my God, how beautiful all this is. You revel in it, you say, God, it is beautiful.
31:10 S: In some way, yes.

K: But thought is still going on. That is all my point.
31:18 V: No, but you raised the question of stopping thought and that question was, and you yourself implied it and I agree: it has a motivation which is the desire to be free from that slavery. So we're raising the possibility that to be free from that slavery, maybe it's not necessary to stop thought but simply to give it space and maybe then that state of mystery can be equally attended.
31:47 K: Would you say thought is a material process?
31:51 S: What does that mean?
31:53 K: I don't have to tell you that.
31:56 V: I am afraid I would have to ask you that because in some sense it is and in some sense it is not. In the same way that the image on the television screen, is that image a material process? It is, because it needs those little chips to work, but it is not, because it is a relationship.
32:16 K: Agreed, but it is still a material process.
32:18 S: Yes, but it's a relationship. What's more important, a relationship or material process?
32:26 K: No, I'm not saying relationship, I'm just stating something. I'm not saying, what is the relationship, etc.
32:33 V: If you just put the question so bluntly no, it is not a material process.
32:37 K: All right, let's put it more softly. He doesn't want it bluntly, so let's soften it.
32:53 S: How do you want to put it softly?
32:57 K: What is thought?
33:00 S: It's a relationship.

K: With what?
33:04 S: It's a relationship, like we were saying the other day, it is imminent in the fact of your existence as a human being on this earth. It emerges out of that.
33:17 K: All right. The human being, what is he?
33:22 S: He is a relationship in the sense that he is a form that has taken place in all of this energy.
33:29 K: You want to discuss relationship?
33:31 S: You can't discuss thought without discussing relationship. You have to discuss relationship when you discuss thought.
33:38 K: Yes, sir. Let's discuss relationship. What is relationship? What do you mean by that word? To be related. I am related to my brother, my father, my mother, my wife, my children. I am related to the world.

S: To the trees.
34:02 K: Nature.
34:03 S: You are not related, you express the relationship by the virtue of your presence. No, I am talking at a very basic level.
34:15 K: Yes, so am I. So, are we related to nature?

S: By definition yes.
34:23 K: By definition, I don't mean definition, it has no meaning. When you see that tree in all those marvellous fields, and flowers, and the animals, are you related to it?
34:35 S: Actually, yes. You are in actual connection to everything around you.
34:40 K: Are you? Sir, don't let's quibble.
34:43 S: No, I mean actually.

K: That means what? That you will not kill anything.
34:54 S: That doesn't necessarily mean that.
34:57 K: Oh yes, if you kill that you kill yourself.
35:00 S: Yes, but the fox is in relationship to the rabbit.
35:03 K: Yes, but it kills the rabbit.
35:04 S: Yes, and it's in relationship to it.
35:07 K: So you kill the fox.

S: That's right.
35:10 K: And somebody else kills you.
35:12 V: That seems to be the way of nature's relationship.
35:16 K: Just a minute.

V: Love and death.
35:18 K: This is the accepted way of living.
35:20 S: Yes, but that's built into nature.
35:22 K: Just a minute, sir. I know this game, I have played this game. I know all this.
35:33 H: But are we not going a little bit away from the main point? Dr Peat: There seems to be tremendous resistance. We asked can thought stop, can there be an end to it, and we won't go into the question. We want to go around, in different directions and nobody seems to want to stay with the question.
35:51 V: No, I want to stay with the question but I want also to see that the entire question is dealt with, which is the possibility of thought continuing, the possibility of thought stopping, and the possibility of thought having so much space that it doesn't create the problems that we find it normally is creating. I would like the three possibilities to be considered and not discard one off hand.
36:16 S: And therefore relationship becomes an issue.
36:21 K: Now which shall we take?
36:24 S: I don't know, what do you think? What would you consider an intelligent way to approach this issue? Since we've said that we want to consider all aspects of thought, and we've said thought is relationship, what is the intelligent way to proceed, given this fact?
36:44 K: I don't know.
36:46 S: That's why we're here.
36:50 P: I don't think we've quite come here to ask somebody to give us the answers.
36:55 K: What is the question? Let's go step by step. First question, what is the question, desire? I'm asking. Is it desire? Is it space? Thought being contained in a small space? If it has vast space there would be no problem? Does space prevent thought from having problems?
37:43 V: That's a perfectly valid question.
37:46 K: You are saying yes?
37:48 V: I am saying yes because that is something that I can explore and it is part of my experience. Thought stopping is foreign to my experience.
38:00 K: Forget the stopping. Throw it overboard for the moment.
38:06 V: If I may say so, I would not like to throw it away because I am interested in learning something which is not available to me.

K: We'll come to that presently. We said just before, yesterday and the other day, that thought is limited. It can have vast space, it is still limited.
38:35 V: Yes, the monkey will still be a monkey.
38:37 K: It's well known, this monkey business.
38:42 V: Agreed.
38:44 K: Next question: it is still the monkey, then what is the next question? You said there are three possibilities.
38:54 V: The three possibilities to me have to do with the fact that when I discover that I can relate or see the monkey's action in a vaster space...
39:10 K: It is still the monkey.
39:12 V: ...but the space around it has a completely new quality.
39:16 K: Yes, but it still remains the monkey.
39:20 V: The monkey does, but not the space around the monkey. That's new.
39:26 P: Are you saying that you can control thought? You can put thought in a place.
39:30 V: Precisely not. This is what I'm not saying.
39:33 S: But you have enough space.

V: Listen to me for a moment. Precisely, stopping, to me, is the synonym of control. Instead, if I take this wild animal which is uncontrolled thought, and not throw it away, and not hit it on the head and try to kill it, but simply make room for it, then by itself the wild monkey in a big field simply goes to sleep.
39:57 B: You think there is enough room in the universe for thought?
40:00 V: That is precisely my point, it seems to be that in human experience it is possible to grow infinitely. That this space, it can grow infinitely.
40:14 K: Grow? I question that. What is it to grow infinitely? What is growing?
40:21 V: That which is around thought.
40:24 K: The space. Space can go on.
40:28 V: I'm not talking about the literal physical space. I'm talking of that which is where thought lives, the space around thought.
40:37 K: You see where he is leading to.

B: I don't understand it.
40:41 S: It's interesting.

K: It's speculative.
40:44 S: Well, it's speculative to say thought can stop too.
40:48 K: No, I am asking a question.
40:52 V: It is speculative only to the extent that one is not willing to see the source of the observation. The source of the observation is to remain in silence and see how thought moves.
41:03 K: I don't quite follow all this, sorry.
41:06 S: I think Krishnaji was having issue there because he wouldn't say, at least I have never heard you say in our previous discussions, he would say staying in silence is an act of control. In other words, to stay in silence implies that I am going to think my way into silence. That's just another form of control too.
41:27 K: The observer is the observed.
41:31 S: That's a real dilemma.
41:33 V: I'm lost now.
41:37 P: Say that all these actions begin with some sense of desire, or a goal, or some sense of control, and if you begin with control, can you control thought? Either by giving it a lot of space, or by controlling it, by trying to stop it. I guess we're saying that doesn't seem possible, to begin that way.
42:01 K: Sir, you used the word space. I can go to the Himalayas and there is immense space. I have been to one spot in the north where you see three hundred and fifty miles of snow. Tremendous. But the monkey is still there. That's all I am saying.

V: I'm not disagreeing with that.
42:42 K: And that space doesn't affect the monkey.
42:45 V: Oh, yes it does.

K: Somewhat.
42:48 V: It makes it tame and it usually just takes a nap, goes to sleep. It's like a monkey in a small cage is all neurotic but once it has all the jungle for it, it's a happy monkey.
43:03 B: Not always.
43:05 K: This isn't quite accurate, because you give man any amount of space, any amount, both physically, are you talking physical space?

V: No.
43:19 K: Psychological space, inward space. Inward space.
43:32 K: Who creates it?

V: Nobody.
43:35 K: Then how does it come about?

V: It doesn't come about.
43:41 K: Then human beings haven't got that space.
43:45 V: They have it, it's a matter of paying attention to it, of making yourself available to it. It's not that you create it.

K: Available to space.
43:54 V: Yes, available to the gaps.

K: Which means what?
43:59 V: Which means not speeding so much so that I don't see that they are there all the time.
44:06 K: Which means, would you say for the skull to have space there must be no self?
44:17 V: Yes.

K: That's all.
44:19 V: I agree.

B: That's better.
44:26 K: That means the self is limited, there should be no activity of the self, no deception – saying, 'I have no self', but hiding there. Then the monkey doesn't exist.
44:51 V: Well, this is again where I don't see it. It continues to exist.
44:57 K: Of course I exist, but the self I am talking about. The 'me', both the physical, psychological, all the me, memory, this vast bundle of memories which is me, if that bundle of memory ceases, then there is infinite space, that's all.
45:27 S: Where is the monkey now?

K: There is no monkey.
45:31 V: Well, this is what I don't see. The monkey is still there, it's just in a bigger space.

K: Let's define it. You mean the monkey as the body?
45:39 V: The monkey as the self, the monkey as the body, as the thought, as the memories, as the sense of I have a wife, etc.
45:46 K: We said that. We said memory, thought, experience, knowledge is limited. Therefore give him any amount of space inwardly it is still limited.
46:03 V: One thing is that it is limited, the other thing is that, in its limitation, it is now tame so that it is not the source or the cause of further trouble.
46:13 K: But it is still limited. That's all.
46:17 V: OK. Sometimes I don't know what you mean by 'that's all'.
46:25 K: I mean: it may somehow create, or bring about, or exist, or live in that space. And I say, in that space, however wide, however extensive, however deep, the monkey, the self is still there. You agree to that?
46:55 V: That's fine.

K: That's all.
46:58 V: We are in agreement.
47:01 S: That's an agreement, the monkey is there.
47:04 K: The monkey is still there. I know all the tricks of the monkey.
47:13 V: It doesn't matter.

K: No, I know all the tricks. I have watched the monkey operating at various levels, it is still the monkey. What is the next question? If the monkey is very satisfied, says, I've got a lot of space, I'm happy, I'm wiggling my tail and I'm related to everything and blah, blah, blah, you see, that's the end of it.
47:46 V: Fine. So the next question that I would ask myself is: that seems to be the fruition of a process of cultivation which I need to start from where I am, which is the monkey in a small space, to cultivate the larger space.
48:07 K: Now can the space – it comes to the same thing – can that space be cultivated?
48:12 V: The space itself, no. My attitude to it, yes.
48:17 S: I don't understand you.
48:18 V: Well, can I put an example. I can say for example – just a metaphor – if I close the curtains of this room it doesn't mean that there is no sky. I have to have an attitude to open up the curtains, and say oh, there is sky. So, it's not that I cultivate sky, I cultivate my attitude to make myself available to the perception of sky. It is the same sort of phenomenon.
48:46 K: I have an attitude that war is ugly, brutal. I have an attitude. But I go on killing.
48:58 V: It's a possibility. Or the attitude might bring me to say, I won't kill anymore.
49:06 K: It is not an attitude. What do you mean by attitude?
49:10 B: I wanted to ask what are they? Do attitudes have something to do with values? Attitudes, I can change.
49:24 K: I am just asking, how does the monkey create space for itself?
49:35 V: That is a great question. Let's examine that.
49:40 K: I put that question, and what do you do with that question?
49:46 B: It needs a change.

K: Kick it around? Put it this way, that way, and the other way, but the question still remains.
49:56 V: How about trying different ways?
50:01 K: You have tried it ten different ways this morning. I can see what we have done. You have kicked the monkey from corner to corner, in the same field. So, what is the next question: can the monkey create the space for itself? Which means, the monkey has to end, not as a physical monkey, but the whole inward structure, inward state, right? I'm putting it quickly. You can expand it, kick it around. We'll come back to the same thing. Can the monkey create its own space?
51:04 S: The question that comes up there is: the monkey is caught in the self, the monkey makes small space.
51:15 K: The monkey wherever it is, it will make a small space.
51:19 S: Now, that monkey is in this small space. It seems to me that there is some understanding of seeing that small space that dissolves it.
51:38 K: Now wait, keep to that one statement: when the monkey realises, sees, perceives, pays attention, whatever word you like to use, that itself, whatever it does, is still limited – agreed? Whatever it does, prays to God, goes to science, whatever it does it is still the monkey, so it cannot create space.

S: No, right.
52:11 V: At that moment it makes itself available to it though.
52:14 K: No, when you say available, it is still the monkey.
52:20 V: The monkey, up until the point at which he actually lets go of his being the monkey.
52:28 K: Wait, that's the whole point.
52:30 V: He has to be the monkey, make himself available to drop it before he can actually drop it.
52:36 K: He is still the monkey, whether he can drop it or not, right? It cannot create space. Agree to that?
52:53 V: I'm sorry, but it's like going back to David's point, the monkey, to be a monkey, has to be very smart, to create all of the illusions of its own enclosure, it has to be very smart. That intelligence is so intelligent that he can also see his own trapping.
53:11 K: We've said that.
53:12 V: But that is precisely the interesting thing: that this intelligence is two sided. On the one hand, it can create this confusion and on the other hand it can see itself. But when it sees itself, it is in some sense limited, but nevertheless in some sense its own creation, its own undoing.
53:33 S: This is important Krishnaji because in our past discussions, at this point we usually say that the insight of the monkey into the fact that he's enclosed in a space, that in some way brings a stop to the monkey. But the question is, is there more to the stop than the insight?
53:55 K: When does the monkey realise its own limitation?
54:03 S: When, did you say?

K: When.
54:07 V: At the moment it sees its own futility.
54:12 K: Now when does that happen? Go slowly. When does this happen? When you knock it on the head?
54:28 B: When it's suffering.
54:29 K: Wait, I'm coming to it. Let's go into it. When does it see, 'My God, whatever I do will always be limited?'
54:39 V: When there is a breakdown in its world.
54:43 K: When does it break down?
54:46 V: All the time there is a breakdown.
54:48 K: No, look, I am the monkey.
54:52 V: OK, you lost your wife, or your house burned.
54:56 K: So it means what? I am in crisis.
54:59 B: Crisis, suffering.

K: Wait, a crisis. See what you are saying. That it needs a crisis for it to wake up. I question that.
55:22 V: Wait a second. It needs it as a usual first step, but then, one realises that the breakdown is happening all the time. It's happening right now.
55:35 K: No, I asked just now, when does the monkey realise the fact, the reality, the truth, that it is limited? It can climb trees, it can run, it can swim, it can enter into laboratories and dissect, do everything it wants, it is still the terrible monkey. And when does it realise, when does it say, 'My God, I am limited' – not theoretically, but...
56:16 H: In a crisis, we said.

K: I question that. We have had crises. Every year we have crises, every day we have a crisis. I quarrel with my wife. Governments are cheating us, misruling us. You say one thing, another scientist says another thing. When do I realise that I am limited? I have had suffering, untold suffering, not only me but the world. When I see that D-Day entertainment, I suffer, I have suffered. That hasn't changed the monkey because we have suffered for thousands of years.
57:19 B: Why?
57:21 K: We have had thousands of pleasures.
57:26 V: So you need the convergence of two things: the suffering and the possibility of somebody, or something, or some...
57:38 K: You are now off again.
57:41 V: I am off to say that you have to have the combination...
57:45 K: Because when you say, you mean outside agency.
57:49 V: No, I'm saying that the outside agency can be a perfect, clear manifestation of the inside agency. But we have to have the combination of the two, of saying, this is futile, and there is an alternative. Like in your example the other day you run into somebody who says, you could go south. It is the same sort of thing.
58:12 K: Yes, so when does the monkey wake up and say, I am limited. Do you know what that means? Any action, any action of the monkey is still the monkey. Vertical, horizontal, create space, it's still the terrible little entity called the monkey. So man has invented God, outside agency will help me, he has prayed, he is still the monkey.
59:06 B: Can you say what should be done? I'm waiting.
59:28 K: Right?

V: Yes.
59:33 K: Have you come to an impasse?
59:39 V: In the dialogue, in the conversation?
59:41 K: No. When I said whatever the monkey does, whatever, it is still the monkey. Agree?

V: Yes, I agree.
59:52 K: That means you have come to a stop. It's an impasse, you have come against a wall. Wall. You understand? Don't misunderstand wall. You are stuck there.
1:00:10 V: You come to a realisation.
1:00:12 K: You've come to the realisation whatever it does...
1:00:16 V: ... is limited.
1:00:20 K: What does that mean? Is it a theory? Is it you say yes, let's discuss it, or it is an actuality that you are up against a wall, you can't move. There is no escape.
1:00:56 B: But there are people who know that. Researchers and scientists, we know that it is so. We agree.
1:01:07 K: Then what do we do, sir?

B: I just wanted to say there are some of us who know that you are right.
1:01:15 K: But what do we do?
1:01:16 B: I ask this. I don't know. What should we do? We should do something, we just can't wait.
1:01:24 P: We're stuck in the room now with the question, we can't go out of the room.
1:01:31 K: Look what you are doing. You don't stop and say look, I am at an impasse.
1:01:42 S: Let's stop right there. You say, we don't stop. What about that act of stop?
1:01:49 K: You are against a wall, you don't have to stop. The wall prevents you from moving. We never come to that point.
1:02:08 V: I question that.
1:02:10 K: Otherwise you have the answer.

V: Of course.
1:02:15 B: What should we do?
1:02:16 P: Tell us, we're here now.
1:02:22 V: We already said. One thing is that we don't know what to do, the other thing is that we don't apply ourselves to do it. Those are two different things. We talked about creating space around the monkey, didn't we.
1:02:39 P: I think we've been taking the point, we are there now and there is nowhere else to move. We can't talk about it anymore. We're stuck.
1:02:47 V: We are not.
1:02:48 P: To speak about it is to move away from it. We're stuck there.
1:02:52 B: What should we do? Slowly, tell us. I am waiting, and very much in my being at Brockwood. I hope to say something for those people at home who are exactly of the same opinion. As you said, we are stuck.
1:03:10 K: Have I said I can't move anymore?
1:03:15 V: No, you have said we can't move anymore.
1:03:19 K: You have said that to yourself.
1:03:22 V: No, sorry, I never said that.

B: What should be done?
1:03:26 V: I don't feel that that's true. There is the realisation of the absolute impossibility, and at the same time there are all the gaps, all the hope, all the space right there together at the same time.
1:03:40 K: No, there is no hope when you are up against a wall.
1:03:43 V: No, that's not true, because the sudden realisation of the complete limitation brings with it the complete clarity of the space with it. Those things are both true.

K: Is that an actuality to you?
1:03:59 V: Is it not, sir? Why couldn't it be shared?
1:04:11 K: We can share it together if we are both hungry and food is put.
1:04:15 V: But it is here.

K: Yes, sir. Do I realise that whatever I do I am still the monkey? Either in the future, or in the past – whatever I do! It is a tremendous shock to realise that. Shock, both organically and psychologically. Right? Shock. And if you can remain with that shock, not dissipate it. So that there is no escape, no explanation, no rationalisation, anything I do is still the monkey. See what has happened. There is then a totally different action. Yes, sir.
1:06:08 V: I thought you said there was no hope. This is exactly what I just said.
1:06:12 K: No, it is not a hope. I have no hope. No, I have no hope because I am against the wall. If I hope, I want to escape.
1:06:24 V: But you just said there's a totally different action coming out of that.
1:06:31 K: For me, not for you, maybe.
1:06:34 S: What do you mean, for me and not you?
1:06:38 K: Do I realise, I, you, Shainberg, that whatever you do, whatever you think, whatever you act, whatever you hope, it is still the monkey playing? That means you have come to a complete stop. Have you? I am not asking personally, that's up to you. Have you? Complete stop. No argument.

S: No, let's take it another step. How can I put it... what happens with you and me now? Now we're together in this stop.
1:07:33 K: I asked, has Shainberg, you are there in front of it, have you stopped?
1:07:46 S: There is no answer to that question.
1:07:48 K: Yes, there is. Don't dodge it. We have argued for three days, right?
1:07:57 S: If I say, I've stopped, that's 'I', and I haven't stopped.
1:08:02 K: No, that would be absurd. But you have come to realise – not you, forgive me, I am not being impolite or impudent – you have come to realise whatever you do is still the monkey, and therefore always limited. You understand? I'll tell you something. I met a man, I used to know him, he was a judge. And one day he said, I am passing judgement left and right about crime and murder, all kinds of things, but I don't know what truth is. So he said to his family, I'm going away, I'm going to find it. He spent twenty five years – these are facts – meditating to find out what truth is. So somebody brought him to one of the talks which I was giving, and he came to see me afterwards, he said, 'For twenty five years I've been mesmerising myself, deceiving myself. I haven't found truth.' You understand? There it is. For an old man to realise that he has for twenty five years deluded himself. To admit that, vous comprenez ?
1:10:10 You see, when one actually faces the fact that you cannot do anything – the monkey – the brain, the inside, apart from the rhythm, comes to sit quiet, it says, 'right', no tricks any more. This has been the problem of meditation, you know the word? I'm not insulting you, I'm sure you know the word. They have tried every method, Zen, Buddhist, Tibetan, going off in solitude, following various systems invented by thought, to come up against this and say, look, that's the end. He is looking at you.
1:11:49 V: Well, maybe he is looking at me. Maybe to go back to about half way into our conversation this morning when I said it's not my experience.
1:12:06 S: Yes, but what about right now? Right now in a sense I mean the stop and now. Now what?
1:12:18 V: You cultivate that.
1:12:22 S: Is that cultivating?
1:12:23 V: I don't know if it's cultivating according to Krishnaji.
1:12:26 K: No, not according to me.
1:12:32 V: I said I don't know, according to you.
1:12:36 K: We all agreed cultivation implies motive, time, end, and effort.
1:12:44 V: And I don't see that as an intrinsic problem. The problem would be that that motivation would not be cognisant of its limitations. But if a motivation says, I know of my lack of vision but it is an attitude that makes it possible to constantly come back to that realisation of limitation, then that is cultivating a meditative action. Motivation by itself is not problematic. Motivation is problematic when it's completely devoided of any context of its limitation, when it believes in itself. At least this is as far as any pragmatic, or any practical way of cultivation goes.
1:13:39 K: You are still... Not you, sir, the monkey is still active.
1:13:43 V: I said again, I don't see a problem with the monkey acting and being a monkey. The problem is when the monkey is in a little room. I don't have any animosity against the monkey.
1:13:57 K: Against being a monkey.
1:13:58 V: I do have animosity against being constrained.
1:14:01 K: No, I am not concerned. What do you mean by that word concerned?
1:14:06 V: Constrained, I said.

K: Constrained. Aren't we constrained?

V: Indeed. That's precisely what needs to be worked on and dealt with. Therefore what really interests me is what are the actual practicalities, the actual practicalities of cultivating that spaciousness? The monkey is not the problem, the constraint is what makes the monkey crazy.
1:14:44 K: You see the difference? I say it's not the constraint, it's the monkey constraining himself.
1:14:50 V: All right, it comes to say the same thing. The way we cultivate it is to make room for it. Not to hit it on the head.
1:14:58 K: The monkey cannot make room for itself.
1:15:01 V: Oh, I thought we concluded that it can, because its same intelligence can apply to see its limitations.
1:15:06 K: We said whatever it does is limited.
1:15:10 V: Yes, and when it becomes aware of that limitation there is space right there.
1:15:18 K: Yes, when it becomes aware that whatever it does...
1:15:23 V: ...is limited, it creates space right then and there.
1:15:27 K: Yes, all right.
1:15:31 V: Isn't that a fact?
1:15:38 K: If you say so.
1:15:39 V: I am posing you the question very much in the spirit of hearing what your experience is.
1:15:46 K: I would question myself whether one has – not you, I am not trying to be impudent – whether one has really realised the nature of the monkey, the monkey, whatever it does is still the monkey, and the depth of that realisation, which may be very superficial, or it may be profound. When it is profound, it totally changes one's life. That's all I am saying. I am not saying anything else.
1:16:35 V: I guess I am saying that that is possible but it may not be possible for every human being. Wait a second. My experience, and this is all I have, my experience, I cannot go by your experience or anybody else's experience, my experience is that those realisations come and go and come in different degrees of depth. Sometimes it is a realisation of a stupid limitation that I have imposed on myself and I can drop it. Sometimes it can be profound, then it is forgotten again. It is not a one shot deal. It is not like that.
1:17:12 S: I think you are raising another issue, if we can take a minute, and that is the fact, Krishnaji, what you seem to be saying is that when the monkey is the monkey, caught up in the monkeyness, in the monkey business, that there is no relationship to the intelligence whatsoever.
1:17:38 K: It is still monkey.
1:17:39 S: It's still monkey, therefore there is no intelligence involved. And in a way, that the brain itself, or some of its functions, that when that monkey business is going on, it's all monkey business. Now the question is whether the intelligence comes in, and if there is an aspect of the monkey which is intelligent. And therefore that the intelligence appreciates the limitations of the monkey and at the same time knows... You made a statement yesterday that the intelligence sees that thought is limited.
1:18:21 K: No, sir. We went into the question of intelligence. The intelligence of thought, and the intelligence of love.
1:18:37 S: Right, and I asked you, or we tried to get at and that's where we ended the other day: what is the relationship between the intelligence of love and the intelligence of thought?
1:18:51 K: What is the relationship – I understand your question – what is the relationship of the man who doesn't hate and the man who hates? There is no relationship.
1:19:08 S: None?

K: No.
1:19:10 S: That's not true. That's not my experience.
1:19:14 K: Not experience. I doubt everybody's experience, including my own. But I'm saying, let's discuss that, not experience, then you are lost: my experience, your experience. But what is the relationship of the man who loves – in the sense we are talking about – and the man who hates? Just look at it. How can there be?
1:19:46 S: I think there is a relationship.

K: All right.
1:19:50 S: I think you think so too. I have seen you embrace people who you know hate.
1:19:55 K: Just a minute. Of course.
1:19:59 S: So what is your relationship when you embrace a man you know who hates?
1:20:04 K: Ah! No. Hate has no relationship to love, but love has a relationship to hate.
1:20:13 S: OK.

K: That's all. Not the other way round.
1:20:20 S: So that intelligence has a relationship to thought?
1:20:24 B: Love has to do with embracing, as I told you the first day. That's a good word, embrace, understand in Finnish, so that I can understand and not the other way round.
1:20:38 S: So what is the relationship between intelligence and thought?
1:20:43 K: We said that.

S: No, we haven't.
1:20:46 K: Thought has its own intelligence. Right? We agreed to that. Love, compassion, has its own intelligence. The intelligence of thought has no relationship with that intelligence, but that intelligence has a relationship.
1:21:06 S: So, what is the relationship of intelligence to the monkey?
1:21:13 K: None.

S: Not this way?
1:21:16 K: That way, yes, but not the other.
1:21:19 S: OK. Now, what is the event of intelligence seeing the limitations of the monkey?
1:21:33 K: Just a minute, it's very simple: you are no longer the monkey. I am the monkey. What is my relationship to you? None.
1:21:47 S: But what is my relationship to you?
1:21:49 K: You have relationship, you have love, compassion, all that. But I have no relationship with you, I am still the monkey. When I cease to be the monkey I don't want you, you are finished. We better stop. One of the most unfortunate things in all this – I am not referring to you gentlemen – each one is pursuing his own way.
1:22:38 V: Is there a way to overcome that?
1:22:40 K: Yes, sir. I want my career, my business, all of us are doing this in the world. Creating havoc in the world.
1:23:03 V: So how could it be otherwise? You do what you do, I do what I do?
1:23:07 K: No. Can we all be together?
1:23:22 V: Yes.

K: Where?
1:23:26 V: Cultivate our love.
1:23:28 K: No, don't say cultivate love.

V: Why not?
1:23:32 K: Sir, that means what?
1:23:34 V: That means making yourself available to that possibility. Why does it have to be a complete...
1:23:40 K: Just a minute. We've discussed this point, you are going back to that again. That is not cultivable.
1:23:49 V: Itself it is not, but...

K: No, I won't...
1:23:54 K: This is it: you stick to your point, another sticks to his point. And this world is like that.
1:24:05 B: Beginning again the same round.

V: Well, it is not that. Not because we have different styles I don't appreciate you.
1:24:14 K: The communist sticks to his ideology, he won't budge.
1:24:19 V: Krishnaji, I wouldn't harm you because you think differently from myself.
1:24:23 K: I understand, but I am telling you...
1:24:26 V: Not for one minute.
1:24:28 K: Look, can we all be together, not physically but inwardly so that you are a light to yourself.
1:24:46 S: For that to happen it seems to me, you have to see him as a monkey in your space who has plenty of room to play.
1:24:54 K: Don't go back to that monkey business. No, this is our difficulty.
1:25:14 S: I think one of the difficulties is that we don't recognise, let the thing play, that we are different. You do your thing, I do mine, he does his, I even love that you are different, I love it.
1:25:31 K: If the love is there, there is no difference.
1:25:34 S: Well, that's looking at it at a different level.
1:25:38 K: If I love my wife, you think I have any difference? No.
1:25:45 S: Yes, you have difference in similarity.
1:25:47 K: No, sir. It's arguing again. It doesn't lead anywhere. We had better stop.