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MA79DSG1.1 - What is the nature of the religious life?
Madras (Chennai), India - 2 January 1979
Discussion with Small Group 1.1



0:40 Achyut Patwardhan: The subject that we would like to talk over with you is, what is the nature of a religious life.
0:52 But we would like to approach this question in a more concrete form like this: that a paradoxical situation has arisen during...
1:07 Krishnamurti: May I interrupt, sir? They can’t hear. I can’t hear either. Pupul Jayakar: You have to talk louder.

K: Much louder.
1:16 AP: The subject that we would like to talk over is: what is the nature of the religious life.
1:29 But we would like to make it more concrete by starting with a particular problem – a paradoxical situation has developed during the last four hundred years, recently during the last fifty years more so, that there has been an explosion of knowledge, and this explosion of knowledge has led to specialization, with the result that the wholeness of life is lost in the multiplicity of information.
2:12 And when we make efforts at correcting this, it is so-called interdisciplinary approach.
2:20 The interdisciplinary approach is really trying to put the parts together, and the parts together can never make the whole, because the whole is quite – you can’t see the parts in the right setting unless you have seen the whole.
2:39 So the problem has become more acute because every development in terms of knowledge seems to lead us further away from the religious life.
2:53 So whether it could be possible to explore this problem.
3:10 PJ: If I may ask, Achyutji, is the problem a perception which is total, or is it in relationship to a religious life, or is it a problem...
3:34 Are you suggesting that when there was not this plethora of knowledge, man’s capacity to see the whole was greater than it is today.
3:50 Is it the extension of the frontiers of knowledge, extension of the nature of knowledge which has made the problem more difficult, or is it the basic problem of man, his incapacity to see in a total sense, that the very nature of this seeing is fragmentary, whether there is vast knowledge or limited knowledge?
4:35 G. Narayan: But there is also the modern view that with knowledge we have ascended in terms of living conditions, comfort, equality, which some people feel has made for greater sense of well-being and sometimes awareness – the ascent of man through knowledge.
5:00 Because Achyutji is saying that knowledge has taken us away from the wholeness due to so much of specialization, and then you try to bring together all these specialists through interdisciplinary approach.
5:18 I think there are two situations here.
5:20 PJ: But his very statement suggests that when knowledge was not so intricate, was not so complex, that man’s capacity to see wholly was to that extent greater.
5:38 GN: Can we assume that?
5:40 PJ: I mean I thought that was part of it.
5:45 AP: What I felt was that there is an assumption in the proliferation of knowledge.
5:53 The assumption is that if we could know more, we would come nearer to the heart of that wholeness.
6:01 Now this assumption itself is totally illusory because we seem to move further away.
6:09 The more we move towards the more, in terms of knowledge, the further away we are from the centre.
6:18 PJ: When we say illusory, is it actually illusory to us?
6:25 K: I don’t know if they hear.
6:32 PJ: When you say illusory, is it actually illusory or is it conceptually illusory?
6:43 David Shainberg: I think there is a completely erroneous assumption you are making anyway. I don’t think that anyone ever thought that technology or knowledge would bring greater happiness.
6:58 I think it has always been an operation that more knowledge and more technology has been a kind of an instant response, a kind of a greed, the greed that curiosity is, you know.
7:11 Curiosity is a form of greed. They were only trying to get more, and there was a kind of an inquisitiveness to curiosity. And I think that knowledge operates right from one thrill to the next thrill, if you have ever watched yourself.
7:27 And you want to know something more, it’s more and more, and more and more. And the same thing with technology. And it’s a complete illusion. We don’t think that technology will ever provide happiness. An engineer is infatuated with creating more and more facility of aeroplane design. We can get there faster. Nobody thinks that because you can get from New Delhi to London in a few hours, that’s going to make you happier.
7:54 Do you get what I’m talking about?
7:56 PJ: But if I may say so, today in a country like this, in an underdeveloped country like here, the question of the distribution of technology, making available technology to a vaster and vaster number of people, there would be an assumption in that that you are going to bring happiness.
8:17 DS: I don’t agree.
8:18 PJ: There is an assumption in this country that you are leading towards happiness.
8:22 DS: No, I think you would have to evaluate what you mean by happiness there. That’s where I think you should go.
8:30 PJ: But happiness is not the same thing as seeing this wholeness.
8:34 K: Maria, who is that chap who talked about knowledge, ascent of man? Mary Zimbalist: Bronowski.

K: Bronowski.
8:40 DS: They are not looking for happiness. They are not looking for a deeper form of happiness, you are looking for a more faster way of living, more comfortable way of living.
8:50 PJ: But what is the basic question we are asking?
8:52 AP: I started with what is a religious life, because I want to keep our relationship to that and not get lost in any side-issue.
9:05 So I say that a religious life becomes difficult, and not easy, with the proliferation of knowledge.
9:15 That is because the nature of that knowledge is fragmentary. And I am saying that that fragmentary nature of knowledge is realised, and we seek a way out through interdisciplinary study.
9:37 Ultimately we find that interdisciplinary study, which are putting the parts together, does not lead us to wholeness.
9:46 That is to say, knowledge is not leading us towards the religious life, but away from the religious life.
9:54 Sunanda Patwardhan: In other words, you are saying even in the pursuit of a so-called religious life we are using the intellect to come upon it, and do you say that the intellect itself is fragmentary, and therefore we cannot arrive at this holistic way?
10:16 AP: I don’t want to start with the assumption that the intellect is an inadequate tool for man, because I say it is the tool that I have.
10:28 Whatever powers of understanding I have, have been secured largely by the development of my intellect, and I say that whatever I have gained through the intellect seems to lead me away from that religious base, from that centre.
10:55 Perhaps you could throw some light on this.
10:59 K: This a discussion, sir.
11:00 AP: No, sir, what I feel is, when I spell a question like this...
11:05 K: I would like to point out, if I may, what do you mean by a religious life; and why we deny the influence of knowledge on religious life.
11:24 Bronowski – perhaps you have heard of him – on the BBC in England, I used to watch him on the television for the last many many months.
11:36 He was maintaining that only through knowledge there is the ascent of man. He went through from the stone age and on and on and on, till modern age, and pointed out that man has evolved from savagery – if we can use that word with certain hesitancy – to modern man.
12:00 That is, the ascent of man is only possible through knowledge.
12:07 And you are saying knowledge is detrimental or prevents, or distorts a religious life.
12:20 AP: A religious life is absolutely essential to restore sanity to human existence.
12:29 K: Yes, sir.
12:30 AP: I think we after all search for a religious life in the context of modern society. We are not seeking for the religious life in terms that the church did, or the people who went in search of Brahman did.
12:44 We now find that human existence, the greater the resources made available to us, it’s becoming more insane, more self-destructive.
12:58 K: Sir, would you kindly define or explain what you mean by religion and what do you mean by life, religious life, the nature of a mind that is religious.
13:15 AP: I would say, sir, very briefly that a religious life is that perception which gives us a view of human well-being...
13:30 K: Human...?

AP:...well-being undistorted by contradictory, self-destructive tendencies.
13:47 K: But after all you are using knowledge now. When you define a religious life, you are employing the intellect to communicate a kind of religious life.
14:03 AP: Sir, we know what we want out of a religious life. We know that it is not some... after-life, we are not seeking for some kind of a theoretical moksha, metaphysical moksha.
14:21 What we want is a capacity to see human well-being as an indivisible fact, and ourselves as agents of that human well-being, in no way in conflict with human well-being.
14:40 After all, that is of the essence of...
14:42 K: You are saying, are you, sir, a religious life is concerned with human dignity...
14:47 AP: Human well-being.
14:49 K: I am coming – human dignity, human well-being, human happiness, right? Is that what you are saying?
14:56 AP: Yes, sir, the development of the human potential.
14:59 K: Yes. Yes.
15:07 Is that religious life?
15:10 AP: Sir, that is what leads us to the religious life.
15:14 K: No, I am just enquiring, sir, if I may. When you use the word ‘religious life’, I wonder what is the depth of that word, the significance, the quality of a mind that says that is inquiring into a religious life.
15:35 You are saying, are you, sir, aren’t you saying, that knowledge, as we have explained, is a major factor which prevents a religious life.
15:53 Let us hold on to that for a few minutes, if we may, and go into it.
16:02 Does knowledge interfere with a religious life?
16:11 Does a religious life – whatever that may mean, for the time being, we haven’t gone into that yet – a religious life has no knowledge? Or...
16:26 AP: No, sir...

K: Let me finish what I want to say. Or having knowledge, and not allowing that knowledge to interfere a holistic life?
16:38 AP: Yes. The other thing. The other thing. What you said second.
16:44 K: That having acquired great deal of information, knowledge of many, many centuries, and not allowing that knowledge to interfere or distort or colour a life that is whole, holistic.
17:04 AP: It loses its direction.

K: What?
17:06 AP: It seems to have lost its direction. It loses its direction.
17:09 K: Who loses?

AP: Without a religious life, knowledge seems to lose its direction.
17:15 K: Yes, sir. Now we have more or less defined what you mean by knowledge. But I haven’t quite understood what you mean by a religious life.
17:28 AP: Sir, very simply...

K: No. Convey it to me, sir.

AP: Yes, sir. I would like to say that a religious life is a life in which one could feel that no harm would come to another through anything – one’s knowledge, one’s capacity.
17:50 When one feels that... It’s too big to say that one would like to be a blessing, but it really means that the fact that you are a part of humanity should be to you a feeling that through you humanity is fulfilling itself, it is getting something.
18:14 It’s a sense...
18:15 PJ: I find this very difficult to understand.
18:19 AP: You should not try to be harmful to others? No harm should come to others.

K: Just a minute, Achyutji, hold a minute, hold on a minute. Are we discussing or having a dialogue theoretically...
18:31 AP: No, sir.

K:...or factually?
18:33 AP: Factually, sir.
18:34 K: That is, we are discussing not what a religious life should be...
18:42 AP: No, no, sir.
18:43 K:...but we are investigating, exploring into the nature of a religious life.
18:50 Therefore you can’t presuppose that you mustn’t hurt.
18:54 AP: No, not like that. What I feel is that, how do we come to a religious life.
19:00 K: Ah, ah.

PJ: I would say...
19:02 AP: No, sir, I say I come to the religious life because the greater my knowledge, the greater my mischief potential, the greater my capacity to do harm.
19:14 And I ask myself that knowledge certainly is not going to give me that by which I will not be harmful to others.
19:30 K: Sir, so-called religious people have done great deal of harm.
19:33 AP: I know, sir. Therefore I am saying we are not traditionalists.
19:36 K: Sir, I am asking you, sir.
19:37 AP: We are not going in terms of tradition.
19:38 K: I would, you are not... You haven’t answered my question, sir. Are we discussing this theoretically or examining it?
19:49 AP: Sir, it is out of a deep anguish...
19:51 K: No, no, no.
19:52 AP:...when you see that man’s knowledge is becoming an instrument of his own travail, then you go to a religious life to say, is there a way out of it?
20:02 PJ: I can’t say that. I would say that what has led me to even inquire, has been sorrow, loneliness, inadequacy.
20:22 K: What are you all talking.
20:25 PJ: These are three things which have led me to inquire. I don’t even know the nature of a religious life.
20:32 K: I think we are not investigating. We are making statements.
20:39 Forgive me if I point that out, sir. But we are saying that we mustn’t hurt another human being.
20:47 AP: No, sir, I say that the proliferation of knowledge, instead of giving us a capacity to grasp human well-being in its totality, does not help us to understand how this knowledge can be a blessing to man.
21:10 And it is becoming a curse.

K: Yes, sir.
21:13 AP: Seeing this we say, is it possible for knowledge not to be a source of destruction.
21:25 And I say that what can give it perhaps is the religious mind.
21:30 PJ: Achyutji, before you can come to this question, what do you do with the nature of the self which is so inadequate that it cannot even pose this question?
21:46 It cannot pose the question about humanity.
21:49 AP: I am out. I am completely out, because I feel that a man like me who is witness to appalling cruelties, appalling threats to human well-being arising out of human knowledge, I assert there is no self in that at all.
22:11 I am not bothered about the self. I am bothered about the situation of which I am an integral part. I can’t separate myself from it, I am part of this.
22:25 Questioner: Is it only human knowledge that creates this appalling condition or is it also human ignorance? So can we balance out? I don’t think one should place undue emphasis on knowledge and not say that also human ignorance is responsible for it.
22:41 PJ: You see, human ignorance, human knowledge are also far away from me.
22:46 AP: No, I say through the religious life that I have posed this question, we may come upon the discovery of a self which is not mere bloated egotism under the form of religious garbs.
23:01 Ravi Ravindra: Sir, may I raise this question, perhaps in a slightly different form, because I find this for myself a little too abstract.
23:12 Because whatever we might mean by religious life, here I say I wish to be religious now.
23:21 And I also wish to be in contact with some knowledge or at least not to be destroyed by it, not to be destructive with it.
23:33 So the problem is here. At least this is one way I would like to raise this, because the question of general human knowledge is too abstract.
23:44 Now, how can I be religious now, and still have a sense that what I do, for example as a physicist, there is a certain set of laws, certain operations that I teach or go through or perform, and I see that some of these relationships in terms of energy or time, whatever we talk about in physics, don’t necessarily relate to my sense of time and energy or momentum as I experience it inwardly.
24:37 And one way, it seems to me, I understand religious life – perhaps it is just a label – that there is a balancing of what I see is the external time or energy, and what I see its flow inwardly, time and energy moving.
25:10 In the rare moments that I can see them related with each other, that seems to me at least at that moment, I am in touch with the religious life.
25:24 Now the question that arises out of this for me, that when I can occasionally see this, then how is one still to continue what appears to me ordinary activities of teaching physics or doing physics.
25:48 K: Sir, are you saying: is a religious life compatible with ordinary, daily living.
25:57 RR: Yes.
25:58 K: That’s the point. Is that it, sir?
26:03 RR: Yes, I would say this is the problem.
26:09 K: I am a bit at a loss because you have said so many things. I would like, first of all, to find out what you mean by a religious life. Achyutji has pointed out: not to hurt a human being, and also he has pointed out that it’s a life holistic – if you can use that word – that is, a life that is complete, whole, and not fragmented.
26:39 And he also said that knowledge, misused as it is now, is destroying humanity.
26:48 And knowledge also prevents or becomes a distraction to a religious life.
27:02 But we haven’t yet gone into the question of what you mean by a religious life.
27:13 DS: Krishnaji, isn’t there something wrong with even the whole idea of a religious life?
27:21 It strikes me as just I don’t feel so good if...
27:24 K: I quite agree...
27:26 DS:...I am going to have to be religious. It’s a traditional goal.

K: Yes, sir. That’s why I am a little bit objecting to the word a ‘religious life’. I would like to go into this little more. That is, Achyutji has pointed out that man wants happiness, generally.
27:49 Happiness at what level? Physical level? That is having all the comfortable things, all the rest of that and at the psychological level, so that he has no problems, no conflicts, and so on.
28:13 And at a more higher level if you can call it, a sense of absolute relaxed sense of peace.
28:26 Would you call that a religious life? That’s what we want. That’s what every human being craves for, because he knows what knowledge has done in the world.
28:43 I am just explaining, sir. You can see what they are doing in Iran, what they are doing in Russia, what they are doing all over the place.
28:53 And then the question is, what place has knowledge in our human existence, in our human daily life.
29:03 Let’s for the moment forget religious life, if you don’t mind. Let’s find out if it is possible to live a life, a daily life here on this earth, which is our earth, not yours or mine, it’s our earth, can we live here with extraordinary sense of freedom from all problems, and never come to you?
29:41 Could we start from there? Would you object? What would you say?
29:49 PJ: My only query would be, sir, is it valid for there to be a movement towards, once you posit this.

K: What?
30:03 PJ: Once you posit this...

K: Posit...?
30:06 PJ: What you have said.

K: I am not positing anything. I am inquiring.

PJ: No, I am just saying, is it valid for there to be any movement towards?
30:19 To me the movement towards is a denial I would say of the religious life. Let me put it this way.
30:28 SP: I will put it this way: that I who am in contradiction, who is constantly moving between this and that, I want to end conflict.
30:37 So it is a very valid thing which I am seeking. When you say a movement from there to that is an invalid movement, I start first of all by asking the question: can I end this whole turmoil, this contradiction.
30:51 I think it’s a very valid question.
30:54 K: Pupulji, I am not moving from here to there.
30:56 PJ: That’s why I said to make it clear.
30:58 K: I am only here.
30:59 PJ: Now that’s what I want to make it clear...
31:01 K: I am not moving.
31:02 PJ:...that there is no movement towards.
31:06 DS: Krishnaji, you are moving in a sense that you are saying, ‘Can we live in peace?’...

K: No.
31:12 DS:...can we live in peace.

K: No. All that I am saying: this is my life.
31:19 DS: Okay, finished.

K: Wait. Ah, no.
31:21 SP: No, it is not finished, David. I will say a person who says this is my life, this is not the way I want to live, he or she naturally asks the question: isn’t there something different?
31:32 That movement is a valid question.
31:35 K: I don’t even ask that. I don’t even ask if there is something different. I live in conflict. Now just a minute, sir. I live in conflict, I live in misery, I live in confusion. This constant battle going on inside, outside, it is terrible to live that way, and I say please help me to live without this.
32:01 SP: Sir, when you say you don’t ask this question, it is not true of most people. Most people, seeing that, ask the question, is there anything different. Don’t deny the validity of this question.
32:11 K: The validity lies in their escape from this.
32:15 SP: Before they escape, the movement is there, in human mind.
32:18 K: No, because the movement away from the fact is an escape.
32:24 SP: So that is the insight which man has to have. But before he has that insight, both are facts.
32:29 K: I am facing facts. The facts are, my life is a dreadful mess. That’s all. That’s a fact.
32:41 RR: But, sir, the fact also is that I wish to change it. That is also a fact.
32:48 K: First, I must acknowledge the fact, right? To change it may be an escape from the fact.
32:59 DS: Isn’t your statement my life is a dreadful mess, look at the value judgements that you’ve made.
33:05 K: No, no value judgement, it is a fact. I get up at six o’clock, go to the office for rest of my life, ten hours a day and come back, you follow?
33:19 All the insecurity, the mess, the terrible things that are happening around me. That is not a value judgement, it’s a fact.
33:31 DS: Okay. Go ahead. There is, I still think...
33:34 K: No okay.
33:36 DS: I think there is a kind of judgement in it, the way you said it: you said it’s a terrible mess.
33:44 K: It is a terrible mess.
33:45 DS: But that’s a value judgement.
33:48 K: It is not a value judgement; it is a fact which I have observed in my life, which is, there is constant struggle, fear, all the rest of it.
34:01 That’s a fact which I call a mess. Doesn’t matter, leave that word. My question is, that is a fact. Now, the query about the religious life, what relationship has that to this?
34:21 SP: I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you as I see it. Religious life is not only asked by me today, it is in the very tradition of human experience.
34:31 There have been people who have talked about religious life, and I see a person whom I think is leading a religious life.
34:38 And I cannot take it away from my consciousness. So I seem to feel that there is a way...
34:43 K: But that may be, that may be your tradition. That may be your wish, an illusion in which you are living, because it’s tradition.
34:54 SP: Not only tradition. Someone else is talking about the state.
34:58 K: I’ve talked a great deal about it.
35:03 SP: I hear it and I say there seems to be a different state.
35:07 Q: But we know nothing about it. We know we are in a mess.
35:12 K: Sunandaji, I want to begin with where I am, and not jump into something which I don’t know.
35:19 Rajesh Dalal: But, sir, there is an actual position of a man who is in contradiction, recognizes his contradiction as a fact, says I want to change it, but I don’t know what to change into.
35:32 K: The change into is a movement away from the fact.
35:36 RD: He says I don’t know what to change into. But he wants to change it.
35:40 K: Now wait a minute. Let’s discuss that.
35:42 Q: Right. The change is from tweedle de dum to tweedle dee.
35:47 K: Let’s discuss that, sir. I find I am in a conflict with my wife, or husband, whatever it is, and I have to understand the nature of that conflict, not change it into something else.
36:06 Right? Now, how do I change this fact that I cannot get on with my wife? Right?
36:17 Because to me, a religious life is a life in which all these problems have completely ceased.
36:28 DS: You’ve got an assumption there.
36:30 K: Oh, no!

SP: No assumption.
36:32 K: This is not an assumption. It’s a fact to me.

DS: To you.
36:37 K: Eccolo, I mean, I am saying it. It is not a fact to you, it’s a fact to me. So I say don’t let us jump into what is religious life, what is not. Here I am as a human being caught up in this turmoil, in this trap if you like to use that word, or in this rat-race, and I say to myself, how am I to change this.
37:07 Not into something else, because I am fairly intelligent enough to see changing into something else is an avoidance of what is.
37:17 Right? So I say now how am I to change that fact.
37:26 Right? Is that what we are discussing?
37:31 DS: I think, Krishnaji, at that point perhaps we should start because the big thing is the subtlety of that question which is: how do I change that without trying to change it into this religious life.
37:45 K: I am not talking of religious life.
37:47 DS: That’s what I say, but that’s where the subtle jump is...

K: No.
37:50 DS:...because the mind or the brain immediately goes to – how do I change it into something better.
37:58 K: I am not changing into something better, because to me the better is the enemy of the good.
38:03 DS: Okay, but you are dodging, there’s a subtle point there, that right there it happens.
38:09 K: Sir, I see very clearly, not as something vague or better.
38:16 Logically, rationally, I see the movement away from the fact does not bring about the understanding of the fact.
38:30 That’s all my point.
38:32 RR: But, sir, if I see my conflict and I have also heard J. Krishnamurti say there is a state of no conflict.
38:44 Now that is my situation. I have heard that also. Perhaps that was my trouble that I heard it. But now...
38:51 K: Ah no, but he says, he has always said face the fact, don’t move away from the fact.
38:56 Q: Yes.

K: Ah, no. Ah, ah, ah.

RR: Yes. Please don’t move away from the fact. But my fact is that I have this conflict and I have also heard JK.
39:11 Now, which makes me think that there is another way of living my life.
39:20 K: Of course.
39:22 SP: You see that? To take that statement without making it a contradiction, without making a movement from here to there, how do you listen to it.

K: I am going to show it to you.
39:31 PJ: No, but I would...

K: Go on. I am not the chairman. I retire.
39:41 PJ: You say of course. What does that of course mean?
39:47 SP: You see, David, how subtle it is?
39:51 K: I don’t quite follow.

PJ: You said ‘of course’. A question was put to you, that there is another way of living...
40:00 K: I said of course.

PJ: You said of course. What does that of course convey to you?
40:06 K: That there is another way of living!
40:09 PJ: An approximation?
40:10 K: No! No, but you are missing the point. The man says very clearly, the other way cannot be found or come upon or reached or moved into, unless you have faced the fact and resolved the fact.
40:31 SP: But one true state is, that statement ‘of course’ has been received by this mind as an idea.
40:37 K: Yes, as an idea, therefore valueless.
40:42 Q: I didn’t hear you. What did you say?
40:44 SP: Valueless.
40:48 K: As long as it is an idea it is valueless.
40:52 SP: Yes, it is so, but it is...
40:54 K: Ah, that’s your fault. He says it’s valueless.
40:59 RR: But, sir, the idea is valueless, but my feeling that I am in conflict – that is not valueless.
41:08 SP: Of course not.

K: No. No, sir, let’s be clear. The fact is, I am afraid. Let’s take that. Doesn’t matter what it is. The fact – there is this feeling arising, identified by a name and all the rest of it.
41:30 I don’t face the fact, but I have created an idea about the fact and act according to that idea.
41:42 Obviously, you can see that. So, I say don’t do that, look at the fact without making it into an abstraction.
41:53 Stay with the fact, don’t move away under any circumstances.
42:02 That’s what he says.
42:04 SP: Sir, this is one thing. Not to move away from this is all right, but that idea, I don’t act from that idea...
42:11 K: What? What?

SP: I don’t act from that idea...
42:13 K: No, no, no!
42:15 SP: I don’t act, but the idea is there.
42:17 K: Why?
42:18 SP: That is what we say, consciousness...
42:20 K: No! The idea is there because you are conditioned to make an abstraction of the fact.
42:30 SP: You mean the very reception of anything is...
42:33 K: Yes.
42:35 RR: But, sir, when I hear you, for me it is an idea, what you say.
42:42 K: Ah, because, that means, why do you – you see that’s the difference. Now listen. I hear a statement, I don’t make an idea. I hear it.
42:53 RR: That’s the difference.

K: No, no!
42:55 RR: But I have to live with myself, not with JK.
42:58 K: No. Our conditioning is, hearing a statement and making that statement into an idea.
43:09 That’s our conditioning. The very word ‘idea’, if I can go into the word, means ‘to observe’, from Greek and so on, which is, idea is not what we have made of it now, but originally it meant ‘to observe’.
43:31 Right? That’s what... doesn’t matter. You make a statement to me. I hear it, and from that make a conclusion or an idea, right?
43:50 And I say don’t do that, but just listen to what is being said.
43:59 Don’t out of it create an abstraction which is an illusion, which has nothing to do with what is being said.
44:10 Listen to what is being said.
44:15 MZ: Sir, we are also in that suggesting that if one is in conflict or suffering, that part of that is that we’ve made an idea of it, we contribute further suffering to ourselves claiming an idea ‘I am suffering’.

K: Yes.
44:35 Now, when there is suffering, is that suffering an idea?
44:45 Go on, sir, tell me.

SP: No.
44:48 RR: No, it’s not.

K: Wait, wait. Wait, no, no, I won’t easily accept that.
44:53 MZ: The basis is suffering as such, not as an idea, not as an abstraction, the suffering is real.
45:01 K: No. I want to go into it little bit more carefully than say real or not real.
45:08 When there is suffering, is that suffering a concept?
45:18 Just a minute, sir, listen to it first before you jump on me, just listen. Is it a concept, an idea, a remembrance, or is it an actual moment of suffering?
45:34 Which is it?
45:42 MZ: Isn’t there a moment of suffering, an instant...
45:44 K: Ah, ah, no, please, I am just asking that question. Please just find out what one has to say. At the moment of sorrow, there is nothing else.
46:04 Right? There is nothing else. Is it possible – I am just asking, enquiring into it. Is it possible to remain with that moment without making an abstraction of it and saying, I am suffering?
46:36 Q: Isn’t that what happens the next moment? There is suffering and then the mind carries it...
46:41 K: No! You are missing my point. Forgive me, ladies, to contradict, jump in. I am saying at the moment of suffering there is no other factor.
47:00 The other factor arises when that suffering is made into an abstraction as an idea and ‘I am suffering’.
47:17 MZ: Sir, would you say then that that is the continuation of suffering.

K: Which?
47:24 MZ: The moment it moves into the abstraction...
47:26 K: It’s not suffering. It is just an idea of suffering.

MZ:...it’s pain. Where we go...
47:32 K: No, no, no, I am very clear.
47:35 AP: Sir, if we may compare this suffering with pain, there is an impulse of pain, followed by another impulse of pain, followed by a third impulse of pain, followed by, etc.
47:49 Now, therefore, that pain may be intermittent, but it is repetitive, and therefore it can never become an idea.
48:00 K: No.

AP: It is a physical pain. I am taking this only as an instance.
48:04 K: There is physical suffering – we must be clear.
48:07 AP: I am just saying that I give this to make it more down to earth, factual.
48:16 I say that when factually there is pain, pain is a series of sensations.
48:23 It goes on repeating. And that creates...

K: Ah, no. Repetition is the memory of that which has happened.
48:32 AP: No, sir, it is a pain.

K: Sir, no...
48:37 AP: The simple fact is that when there is pain, there is pain and we know that the nerves are constantly repeating that sensation.
48:52 It is not an idea. K; Achyutji, Achyutji, you have physical pain.
49:01 Now go into it little bit, slowly. You have physical pain.
49:07 AP: The nature of the...

K: No, wait, don’t. The physical pain – you have a toothache, and you do something about it, stop it.
49:21 But it recurs, comes back. So, ultimately you go to the dentist, pull it out, something or other takes place.
49:31 Now, the continuation of pain is the registration of a first pain in the mind, in the brain, and if that pain is repeated – actually, there is pain.
49:48 That’s simple enough, isn’t it?
49:50 AP: No, sir, when you say that there is pain, there is registration of that pain, that’s a fact.
49:57 But...

K: Wait, wait, wait, slow. Registration of that pain is a fact, you say.
50:04 AP: Is a fact.
50:07 K: Why does that registration take place?
50:14 SP: Are you talking of physical pain at the moment?
50:16 K: I am talking of physical pain.

AP: Physical pain.
50:18 SP: Sir, I have pain. There is pain in me. It has registered itself. It comes again, after a day, it comes after twenty four hours. So there may be a time interval between the first pain and the second pain, but every time it occurs, it is pain.
50:34 K: Yes, so what do you...
50:36 SP: So you are saying it’s an abstraction. It is not an abstraction.
50:40 K: You are missing my point.
50:44 DS: You say you are not saying that.
50:47 SP: Psychologically he says it is an abstraction.
50:50 RD: But registration of the physical pain...
50:52 MZ: It’s a neurological...

RD:...it does help, and the brain uses that registration to avoid further physical pain.
50:59 K: Of course.
51:01 RD: But it registers, it must register.
51:05 PJ: We are not denying the fact of physical pain.
51:09 SP: Waves and waves.
51:11 AP: I am comparing physical pain to suffering, because...
51:16 K: No, wait, wait.

AP:...it can also, by registration become psychological, is it not, sir?
51:21 PJ: It can become psychological.
51:22 AP: The moment you have registered it, it has become psychological.
51:25 PJ: Yes, but the physical pain as such is of a very different nature. It’s different from psychological pain. Psychological pain seems to be the shadow of human pain, seems to be the shadow of that.
51:40 It doesn’t arise because of any one particular reason. It shows itself with many faces.
51:49 AP: It may become very metaphysical.
51:50 PJ: No, it shows itself – one day I am depressed, one day I am alone, one day someone is ill, one day I feel inadequate.
52:00 These are all manifestations of that inner, deep inadequacy which is pain, which is psychological pain.
52:10 I am not hesitating. This is very factual. The point is, Krishnaji seems to posit that at the very instant when pain arises, there is action which cuts through the cord of continuity, that which connects this pain or suffering to the next.
52:53 And at the instant of it arising, he implies that there is a cutting of it. Now, I would like to go into the nature of this cutting.
53:04 K: Of...?

PJ: This cutting.
53:06 MZ: Can you say that the cutting is between the actual pain and the jump to an abstraction?
53:13 K: Is that what you are saying? I don’t know.
53:16 PJ: I say, sir, that you seem to imply that the instant of the arising of psychological suffering, at that instant there is a cutting, so that the continuity ends.
53:33 K: No, no, there is no cutting.

PJ: Then?
53:35 K: There is no cutting.
53:38 MZ: Is cutting the wrong...?

K:...word.
53:42 PJ: Remove the word, but please tell us.
53:44 K: No, the implication is, in her statement, an action of denial, an action...

PJ: No, sir.
53:53 K: Wait, wait, an action – I won’t, all right – an action...
53:57 PJ: An action...
53:58 K:...of moving away.

PJ: No. An action...
54:03 K: What?

PJ: An action...
54:05 K: No.

PJ:...don’t put in ‘moving away’.
54:08 K: No, no action.
54:11 RD: I feel it is the same. Why do you act at all?
54:14 PJ: No, I would like to go into this.
54:17 K: I think this is fairly simple.
54:18 PJ: I won’t leave this.
54:21 K: Are we discussing physical pain or psychological pain?
54:26 MZ: Psychological pain.

PJ: Psychological pain.
54:29 DS: We started out talking of physical pain.
54:30 PJ: But now we are talking of psychological pain.
54:32 Q: We are using that as a simile.
54:34 PJ: No, we are talking of psychological pain.
54:36 K: I sat in a dentist’s chair for four hours – drilling, all the rest of it.
54:46 When I got out of that chair, there is no registration of that drill.
54:51 DS: Why you remember it now. How can you say...
54:52 K: No, no, no, don’t... I mean, don’t jump on me that way.
55:03 PJ: That, I can even...

K: Wait, wait, just let me finish. I told this to Mariaji, Mrs Zimbalist, and I said, look, there is no remembrance actually of that four hours.
55:21 Psychologically suffering is an actual fact, it takes place at the moment, the arising of whatever it is.
55:39 We won’t go into that for the moment. And apparently, we don’t seem to be able to say, nothing else but that.
55:51 And that suffering, because you are not moving away from it all, there is no registration of it.
56:02 PJ: This is what I want to...
56:04 K: First let me – I have made a statement. Have you listened to the statement?

PJ: Yes.
56:15 K: That is, when there is no movement away from the second of that thing called suffering, there is actually no registration, remembrance.
56:34 Now, fight it out.
56:35 MZ: Sir, do you mean there is no registration psychologically?
56:41 K: I explained it physically, and I have gone into the psychological pain.
56:48 When I say, can the mind, can the brain remain absolutely with that feeling of suffering and nothing else?
57:01 SP: May I say something, sir?

K: I am not the chairman.
57:04 SP: At this moment I have no quality of suffering in my mind. When you ask this question, it has no reality to me. The mind is operating, but it hasn’t captured the quality of suffering at this point. I don’t know whether I am communicating...
57:20 PJ: That is valid.

K: You are on to something else.
57:23 SP: You are asking the question: can the mind remain at the moment of arising of suffering?
57:29 K: Yes, at the moment you are not.
57:31 SP: Now, at this moment how do I receive that statement?
57:33 K: I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you. At this moment humanity is suffering.
57:44 It is not an idea. It is an actual fact that all human beings are suffering.
58:00 It’s not, I am suffering, I remember it, now I am not suffering. Is this a joke?

SP: No, sir.
58:13 RR: But, sir, are you suggesting that this fact does not register for you because you are not running away from this fact?
58:22 K: I am saying, sir, the second of suffering has no registration.
58:36 It is only when thought takes it up and moves away from that second.
58:47 SP: Sir, will you elaborate the statement: at this moment all humanity is suffering. How are you relating it to the mind? What is that state? I am not able to get the feeling of it.
58:58 K: I am not suffering now.

SP: No.
59:01 K: Neither are you. You are sitting comfortably, around comfortably, in this light. We are not suffering. But there is suffering around you, immense suffering.
59:18 Are you in contact with that? Or is it an idea that human beings are suffering?
59:29 SP: There is no contact.
59:34 K: What?
59:36 RR: It is an idea, sir.

SP: There is no contact.
59:38 RR: It is an idea that humanity is suffering K: So, which means what? Continue with that, sir, explore that. It is an idea that human beings are suffering. What does that mean? Idea is not factual. Then why do you have it?
59:57 SP: What is the nature of this contact, sir?
1:00:00 K: What?
1:00:00 SP: What is the nature of this contact?
1:00:03 DS: How are we in contact with that?

K: We are not in contact with it. It is there! You see how we twist? I want to contact with it.
1:00:21 SP: There is no contact.

K: There is no contact. When you say I want to contact. But it is there.
1:00:33 RR: Sir, what is there? The suffering humanity or the contact is there? I am sorry, I’ve missed the word there.
1:00:40 K: Sir, let’s begin differently.
1:00:47 Do you feel, sir, that you are the rest of mankind, a global mankind?
1:01:04 Not from India, Punjab. This feeling that you are the whole of mankind.
1:01:21 RR: Sometimes, sir.
1:01:26 K: I am not talking of sometimes, sir. It’s like the curate’s egg. You know that story of the curate’s egg? Oh, doesn’t matter, leave that.
1:01:40 What are we talking about?
1:01:43 AP: Sir, that is what triggered the question. This is the point from which the question was triggered about the religious life. I said that this suffering, this deep anguish, is a fact, and out of this comes the exploration into what is a religious life.
1:02:18 DS: One thing, Krishnaji, it seems to me we sort of got off, or we detoured, where we were talking about the fact that there is the actual suffering, and there is actual suffering, and at that moment you suggested that there is a life but there is no suffering here.
1:02:35 K: I didn’t say that.

DS: You said where there is no...
1:02:40 K: I did not say that.
1:02:41 PJ: No, I would like to go back to this. Krishnaji said there is suffering. You may say that there is no suffering at this moment, but there is something at the moment. There is something you can put in place of suffering, it makes no difference. He says can there be no movement away from there, the movement being registration.
1:03:07 K: The movement is the registration, not...
1:03:09 DS: The movement is the registration, okay.
1:03:11 SP: That’s what I am saying.
1:03:12 DS: But I would raise another question which is to what degree is the very act of being in that condition, in other words that condition that we experience as suffering, or conflict.
1:03:27 There is something about that very state in which there is already somehow or other an implication of movement in it.
1:03:37 I mean, for instance, if someone is suffering because they’ve lost someone who is important to them, then they are already involved in a movement from a memory to an action.
1:03:47 So they are already caught in a movement.
1:03:49 K: That’s why.
1:03:50 DS: And your suggestion to Dr Ravindra that look, for me it is an actual fact there’s a condition where there is no conflict, and you said, no, look at that as a fact, don’t get – you know, it’s like a drug pusher on the street.
1:04:05 K: Ah, ah. I am saying, sir, all human beings suffer.
1:04:16 That’s a fact. And in investigating the whole thing, or rather, not investigating, having an insight into it, which is not investigation, you see that suffering continues when it is registered.
1:04:36 That’s a fact. Now, I am asking, I am investigating: Is it possible not to register, which gives a continuity and the memory and all the rest of it...
1:04:53 Then the whole problem arises: how am I to escape from suffering and all the rest of it. I am asking, investigating, is it possible for this non-registration taking place?
1:05:11 DS: My statement is – I am not arguing with you – what I am saying is, the act of suffering to me seems to be already an act of registering, you know, it’s already functioning.
1:05:24 K: Of course, that is our conditioning.
1:05:26 DS: Yes, that’s what I am saying.
1:05:28 K: I am saying that’s our conditioning.
1:05:30 DS: Yes.
1:05:31 K: If I am not aware of this conditioning, I keep on repeating the pattern.
1:05:38 But the moment I become aware of my conditioning – that’s what I am doing, aware in the sense, seeing what is actually taking place, then the very perception of that ends it.
1:05:57 That’s the point.

DS: That’s the paradox.
1:05:59 K: No, no, not paradox. That is a fact.
1:06:02 PJ: Sir, I would like to take up two or three things you have said. You have said when there is an insight into...

K:...the movement...
1:06:18 PJ:...suffering, into the movement of suffering...
1:06:22 K: You understand what I mean by insight? You must be clear on this.
1:06:25 PJ: Then the question arises: Can there be a total non-movement away from it?
1:06:40 K: Yes.

PJ: Now, what is the nature of this insight?
1:06:46 K: No, first of all we must understand what is insight.
1:06:49 PJ: Yes, what is the nature of this insight.
1:06:51 K: Yes.

PJ: In order because...
1:06:54 K: The poor chap tried to explain it for two talks there.
1:06:56 PJ: No, but listen, sir, I would like to let us negate what it is not. Let us negate what it is not. It’s obviously not of the nature of thought.
1:07:09 K: No.
1:07:11 PJ: You’d put it that. So there is no movement...
1:07:14 K: Go on, step by step. It is not a movement of thought; it’s not the movement of memory; it’s not the movement of remembrance.
1:07:26 Which means what? No prejudice, complete freedom from the known. That’s what he means.

PJ: First of all I will ask you, how does this freedom from the known arise, which is insight.

K: I don’t follow this.
1:07:49 PJ: How does this freedom from the known take birth in consciousness?
1:07:56 – in consciousness, outside consciousness...
1:07:57 K: No, no, no, no.
1:08:01 DS: Consciousness already implies the known.
1:08:03 PJ: I say in consciousness, outside consciousness, wherever you like to place it, how is it born?
1:08:10 This which has no past, no future, no present.
1:08:15 K: No, no, I am not... Freedom from the known can only take place when one has observed the whole phenomena of working in the field of the known.
1:08:30 That’s all I am saying. Then in the very investigation of the known, out of that comes the freedom from the known.
1:08:41 It’s not the other way round. So, what are we talking there?

PJ: The nature of this insight.
1:08:50 K: I am doing it. I say nature of this insight is freedom from the known, first, which implies no remembrance of the past, which is not amnesia, which is not a state of emptiness and all the rest of it.
1:09:08 It is complete, total attention in which there is no memory operating, no experience operating, no ideas, ideals, none of that exist – which is the freedom from the known.
1:09:29 Don’t accept what I am saying. It has no value. Quite right, has no value. But when you hear it, aren’t you interested to find out?
1:09:48 DS: Actually, the movement that I come upon when you say that, is not so much an interest in finding that out, that sort of a...
1:09:59 but I immediately come upon a sense of a tangle in this movement of the known. In other words the movement of the registration, the movement of memory...

K: Sir, make it very simple.
1:10:12 You call me a fool, which is immediately registered.
1:10:21 And from that arises hurt and all the rest of it. Why should I register it?
1:10:31 DS: You will register it if you are attached to what it means to be something different.
1:10:37 K: That is, I have an image about myself that I am not a bloody fool.
1:10:44 And you come along and say – you follow? – and insult me, and that is immediately registered. If I have no image, you can call me anything you like.
1:10:53 DS: No, but it is longer than that. It is longer than that, in the sense, if I call you a fool, it’s not likely that I am going to want to be with you in the next couple of hours.

K: No.
1:11:02 DS: Therefore you are going to be alone, without me.
1:11:05 K: Yes, but when I meet you next time, that I am the fool, remembrance remains.
1:11:10 DS: Yes.

K: I meet you with all the...
1:11:12 MZ: But, sir, that example of one may be free of images about oneself as a fool, but we were talking about pain, sorrow...
1:11:24 but let’s call it a pain, not physical, but a blow comes...
1:11:28 K: A shock.

MZ: Yes.
1:11:30 K: A psychological shock.

MZ: Psychological shock. Now, am I correct in understanding that the registration of that is the pain?
1:11:42 There is the impact of the shock, but what makes it pain as we experience it...
1:11:49 K:...is the continuation of the remembrance of that shock.
1:11:52 MZ:...is the fact of the registration.
1:11:54 K: That’s right. That’s right. That’s right.
1:11:56 MZ: So what you suggested was that if one remains with the blow or pain, whatever it is, without the vibration entering into registration...
1:12:06 K: That’s right. That’s right.
1:12:08 MZ:...then something else is happening, and would you call this the action of insight, or something else?
1:12:16 PJ: What is it that cuts the cord? What is it that cuts continuity?
1:12:22 MZ: You talked about insight, and you also talked about remaining with the pain, with the blow, not moving to registration and all that.
1:12:33 K: Would you consider a quiet pond, millpond and dropping...
1:12:43 Q: I didn’t hear it.

K: A millpond.
1:12:46 Q: Ah, ah.
1:12:49 K: Quiet, it’s absolutely quiet, and you drop a stone into it, there are the waves.
1:12:57 But when the waves are gone, it’s completely normal again. The normality is the non-registration because it is back to its original condition.
1:13:15 DS: But you can’t say the normality is the non-registration because there is no stimulus at that point. The normality is the quiet. Why would you call the normality the waves?
1:13:27 K: No, I purposely used the word ‘millpond’.
1:13:34 That is its natural state – quiet. You drop something into it, there are waves.
1:13:41 MZ: It’s natural.
1:13:43 K: No, but it is an outside action.
1:13:46 MZ: So is the blow, the pain.
1:13:47 K: So, just take it and don’t run the simile to death, but take the fact.
1:13:54 You have a shock for various reasons.
1:14:01 Can the mind remain with that shock, not setting the waves going, which is the registration.
1:14:15 Remain with the shock. Would there be any registration? Would you even call it a shock?
1:14:35 SP: Normally what happens is, sir, there is a shock, and the observation of that shock is in the nature of duality.
1:14:45 I am observing and somehow there is something wrong in the process of observation there.
1:14:51 K: I have a shock. For the moment I am paralysed. I can’t move: my son is dead, that’s a tremendous shock.
1:15:09 And a day or later begins the whole movement of saying I have suffered, I have lost, I am lonely, I am this – that movement takes place.
1:15:24 I am suggesting to remain entirely with that pain before the waves come in.
1:15:34 SP: Do you mean to say after that, if that is understood there won’t be loneliness, there won’t be...?

K: No, no don’t bring in.
1:15:41 SP: We see suffering in all those forms.
1:15:42 K: I am only saying, either you look at suffering which is holistic, which includes everything, or you break it up as suffering, fear, pain, pleasure, sorrow, anxiety.
1:16:03 That’s why I am suggesting that a religious life, quotes, is a life which is holistic, not the scientific holistic, but in which there is total insight into the whole structure and nature of consciousness and the very ending of that.
1:16:34 Bananas!
1:16:45 Have we answered this question? Not at all.
1:16:55 PJ: We have started probing. We have started probing into the question.
1:17:00 K: Where are we now after probing?
1:17:05 PJ: Probing, sir.
1:17:06 K: No, after probing I must come to something.
1:17:12 PJ: I can remain with the nature of probing.
1:17:16 K: Ah, ah.
1:17:18 PJ: If I do not know the millpond, I can only remain with probing.
1:17:23 K: Which means I have probed into the whole nature of knowledge, and placed it, put it in its right place, and therefore it is no longer interfering with my perception, which we began.
1:17:43 Right? You said knowledge is creating havoc in the world, destroying humanity and so on, all the rest of it.
1:17:53 And without having or living a religious life knowledge will inevitably destroy humanity.
1:18:06 That’s what you stated. And we discussed the nature of knowledge, and how this knowledge is praised by the scientists, Bronowski and others, that only man can ascend through knowledge.
1:18:25 And we are saying that the very ascent of knowledge is the destruction of man, and to prevent that destruction of man knowledge must be put in its right place, and in the very placing of it, is the beginning of a religious life.
1:18:44 That’s what our investigation so far has come to.
1:19:00 SP: Ten to eleven.
1:19:03 K: Ten to eleven. I think we better stop, don’t you? Do we meet tomorrow?

PJ: Yes, sir.
1:19:12 K: Woe is me!
1:19:31 This brings up a very interesting question: Is the nature of the mind and brain a constant movement?
1:19:45 DS: That’s what I was going to discuss, but you broadened the issue...
1:19:49 K: We’ll discuss it tomorrow.

DS: Yes.
1:19:51 PJ: There were two things I wanted to take up. This one thing about whether the mind is a constant movement and the other is the statement which you have made that when there is attention right through, that there is a physical transformation...
1:20:13 K:...of the brain. I stick to that.
1:20:19 MZ: You said, my son dies, and you spoke of remaining with that fact, maybe till the next day...
1:20:30 K: Remain with the fact only, without any movement for a day, a week.
1:20:40 MZ: When you bring time in it, what does it mean to remain with it?