Krishnamurti - What is a holistic perception?

Krishnamurti Subtitles

MA79DSG1.3 - What is a holistic perception?
Madras (Chennai), India - 4 January 1979
Discussion with Small Group 1.3

0:27	Questioner: Shall I pose a question? What is the choice before mankind?
0:44	I shall try to make myself a little more clear. In trying to be, as I said, in trying to be, in the fire and grief of his experience, in the enormity of his grief, he falls upon illusion, which is a very, very, very devastating experience.
1:17	K: We all know that, sir.
1:18	Q: He crawls on all fours... K: Yes, sir.
1:20	Q:...to clutch at a blade of grass. He falls anew. He suffers the birth pangs of a new babe. He is lost. And then can he regress back, or is he to complete his birth?
1:47	Completing his birth, he has to undergo the pain in one’s birth.
1:59	Anyway, nature protects us. But not in this birth.
2:13	K: Are you asking, sir, what is the challenge before mankind.
2:24	Is that it?
2:26	Q: What is his choice: to be born or not to be born, to be or not to be?
2:34	K: Sir, oh, no. I mean, what is the challenge for mankind at the present crisis?
2:43	Would you say that’s the real question?
2:46	Q: No. That is not the real question.
2:49	K: What is the real question then, sir?
2:50	Q: The real question is: to be or not to be?
2:54	K: I don’t quite understand. To die or to live? Hamlet? Q: No, no, I do violence with language in order to carve out an idiom to communicate.
3:09	I fail perhaps to communicate.
3:11	K: I don’t quite understand, sir, the question. Perhaps you’d understand. Would you mind, can you explain it, sir? What is the real question which we have been discussing for the last two days?
3:31	We all see quite obviously the deterioration of mankind not only in this country but in practically every country.
3:42	And not only how to stop it but also to bring about a rebirth – not of the old pattern but a totally different way of life.
3:57	Is that the question that we are asking?
4:01	Q: I haven’t got it very clear.
4:07	K: We were talking too, we were asking, as science, Karl Marx, Gita, the Upanishads, Mao, science and all the organisational propaganda and institutions have completely failed. Right?
4:34	And we are asking: Is there a way of living which is totally religious in the sense we are using that word, and we are trying to investigate what is that religious life.
4:56	Because historically, as one observed, a new culture, a new way of painting, music, living, comes out of a deep profound religious life.
5:15	Historically it has been proved and so on. So we are investigating that, aren’t we?
5:22	Q: Yes.
5:25	K: So could we go back to that? Perhaps we’ll answer your question, sir, as we go along. What is that religious life, which is not sentimental, romantic, devotional and all that kind of stuff, because that’s utterly meaningless.
5:46	What is a truly religious mind? That’s what we are trying to investigate while in this group.
5:56	Q: Marx wasn’t a prophet.
5:59	K: He was not a prophet.
6:01	Q: He only discovered. He did not see.
6:06	K: He was an intellectual bourgeois.
6:12	Q: If he was a prophet, what would his job have been?
6:17	K: Sir, we are not discussing Marx, if you don’t mind. We are in the middle of this discussion. Right, sir? Let’s be clear. Right? Which is, as man, as we said, Achyutji pointed out day before yesterday, knowledge, whether it’s Marx, science, or the accumulated knowledge of mankind in that field, that knowledge is destroying man.
6:51	And to end that destruction, a new way which is a religious way, has to be found.
6:58	We are investigating that.
7:05	Pupul Jayakar: Sir, in discovering that, is it not valid and essential that that has to be tested…
7:25	K: In life.
7:26	PJ: …in life, in the environment...
7:30	K: Yes. PJ:...and in terms of man.
7:33	K: Is it possible to find a religious way in a modern world with all the technological advancement, with all the crumbling relationship and so on?
7:47	I wish we could stick to one thing and investigate into this. Right, sir? This is what we started out. You are here. Could we go into that, sir? Q: Definitely.
8:00	Q: Sir, yesterday we came to the conclusion, I believe, that religious life is the very antithesis of fragmentation.
8:08	K: Yes.
8:08	Q: A fragmented mind is not going to give us that kind of religious life which we have got in mind today.
8:15	In that connection we spoke about two things which are mutually incompatible, so far as I could see.
8:22	One, the completely emptying the mind. That was one approach. I think it was mentioned. K: Yes, sir.
8:29	Q: The second was, the removal of the fragmentation. The fragmentation is the opposite of totality. A totality is richness, not emptiness. We spoke about emptying the mind. Are you going to fill the mind or are you going to empty the mind? This incompatibility I am not able to follow.
8:49	K: Let’s talk it over, sir. Go on, sir. Won’t somebody take up the challenge?
8:56	Q: In fact, sir, that was the pertinent question which I also wanted to pose before you. Now, this emptying the mind, as a subsequent question I wish to pose, is it practicable, is it possible for day-to-day life, the relevance of it for day-to-day life?
9:24	K: Are we investigating, sir, what is a religious life?
9:31	We are trying to examine a way of life which is non-fragmentary, a way of life which is holistic, whole, and perhaps that will lead us to a truly religious life.
9:53	Now, we said too yesterday, thought in itself, because it’s limited, all its movements are fragmentary.
10:05	Thought itself is fragmentation. Right? Would you accept that, sir?
10:13	Q: Sir, there is one difficulty in accepting this.
10:16	K: Don’t accept it, sir. Examine it.
10:18	Q: No, since you asked whether we accept it.
10:21	K: In the sense do we move together.
10:23	Q: I am saying that the difficulty in accepting this, even this thought is the result of a fragmentary thought, is it not?
10:31	K: What, sir?
10:32	Q: Even this thought...
10:34	K: No, it’s not a thought. It’s a statement. You see, this becomes too… Achyut Patwardhan: Sir, it’s an insight, I was saying.
10:43	Q: All right, even if you call it as an insight, is it not the result of a fragmentary personality?
10:49	K: No, no, sir. No. G. Narayan: You see, we have a lot of knowledge and then out of that knowledge there is a way of functioning. What is the difference between knowledge and insight? What is the nature of insight? I don’t know if we can go into this. Because religious life, if you say a sane life to start with, there is some connection between that and insight which is not just knowledge, which is not a memory function.
11:29	Is it possible to communicate this distinction? It’s very difficult to communicate this distinction. But if one has insight, one may be able to speak of it.
11:39	AP: I would like to add one more clause to what you are saying. That is, an insight is different from a conclusion.
11:47	GN: That’s right.
11:48	AP: When there is knowledge there is conclusion. When there is insight, it opens a door. So we must also understand the difference between a conclusion which comes out of knowledge and an insight which is totally different, qualitatively different.
12:07	I think it would be useful to explore this, if what I am saying has any validity.
12:13	K: Sir, are we trying now to explore what is insight? Is that it? AP: We have to see this.
12:22	K: I’m just asking, sir. Is that what you are… David Shainberg: No, I think we’re trying to explore also here – This man makes a point. He says that you say thought is fragmented; you made that statement.
12:37	Now he says that’s a thought. You say that’s an insight.
12:42	K: No, I didn’t say it’s an insight.
12:44	DS: Well, you say it’s a statement. Now what’s the difference between a statement and a thought?
12:52	K: No, I think we’ll come to that, sir, if you don’t mind. Let’s first investigate whether thought, whatever it does, all its movement is fragmentary.
13:08	Could we explore that for a minute?
13:12	DS: We’ve often discussed this question of how can a fragmented mind… K: We’ll come to that, sir. First let us see that all the movement of thought must inevitably be a broken-up process.
13:30	That’s all. Now you are asking whether that statement is not also a fragmentary statement. It is.
13:41	DS: Right.
13:44	K: That’s all. Let’s move from there, sir.
13:48	Q: May I say something, sir? I see at the moment of thought – we discussed this yesterday – and I’m observing it.
14:02	Even as I observe, I become very silent.
14:09	But at the same time, I see the need for change, the urgency of change, and the very content of observation undergoes a change then.
14:26	As it happens, as the whole thing occurs, I see there’s a conflict because – I think this is...
14:33	to what these people are saying, because there is a conflict, because I want to change and I want others to change.
14:45	And I see it’s all in the movement of thought.
14:48	K: Yes. So as all that is the movement of thought and that very movement is a fragmentary movement, the point then, the question is: can that fragmentary movement end?
15:06	Right?
15:08	Q: Can it end?
15:11	K: Right? What do you say, sir?
15:17	DS: You know, Krishnaji, at some level even that question and her point, ‘can that end?’ becomes another fragment.
15:30	K: No. She used the word ‘perception’. She watches, she perceives her own life, and in that perception she discovers that there is conflict, that there is fragmentation and the need for change in herself, in others.
15:53	So the essential point in that question of hers is perception – the seeing of this whole movement of thought.
16:04	Would you like to...? Is that what you’re trying to say? Q: Yes, sir.
16:10	K: Could we then, please, – otherwise we get stuck – could we then please discuss what is perception? Not theoretically, but actually see what is perception. Could we go into that and move from there?
16:27	Q: Sir, if you permit me…
16:29	K: Sir, I am not the chairman. We’re all the chairman.
16:33	Q: Having discussed for two days more or less these matters, I think in view of the shortness of the time that we have at our disposal before you, the more relevant and useful thing will be, even taking for granted, I think there is no big dispute about whether a thought is fragmentary or not, Now how to end it?
16:56	You have suggested the cessation of thought process itself as a solution. I think the more relevant and useful thing for us to discuss today will be: what is the technique behind it?
17:10	And even if there is a technique and that technique is achieved, how it is possible as a practical solution for day-to-day life in this world. K: Yes.
17:24	PJ: Sir, do we start the investigation into the religious mind with the query: how should thought end?
17:39	K: Is that the question, sir? Are you asking that question? Is she answering…
17:41	Q: No, no. PJ: No, I am asking it.
17:43	Q: I am more down to earth. PJ: I am starting with it.
17:47	K: So am I. I am down to the earth, below the earth.
17:51	PJ: I am saying do you start a query into what is a religious mind, into an investigation into how thought should end?
18:03	Because then you have already projected before you start, that point which you want to get to.
18:16	It’s not a free enquiry because then all your direction, movement is towards the ending of thought.
18:28	It’s a motivated enquiry.
18:31	K: Would it help, sir, to answer your question and perhaps her question too, what is a holistic perception?
18:46	Would that help, sir, – in daily life?
18:49	Q: No, it won’t help my question. Unless there is a direct answer...
18:57	K: Let’s make it clear. What is your question, sir?
18:59	Q: Oh. My question is this: I for the time being accept your suggestion, your solution that you gave yesterday, that the solution for all the problems would be the cessation of thought, the stopping of thought process.
19:16	Then to achieve that… K: Wait. Do we say the ending of all problems, which is a religious life, is to end all movement of thought? Is that…?
19:34	Q: All movement of thought. K: Thought.
19:36	Q: Yes, sir, how I have understood it.
19:37	K: Yes. Now wait a minute. No, not quite, sir. It is much more complex than that. Shall we discuss that? Do you want to discuss? Rajesh Dalal: I am saying, sir, one difficulty I am observing arising in almost all of us is the ‘I’ and thought.
19:59	When we use a word like ‘thought’ and ‘I’ we seem to externalize them as if they are also a kind of object and we are talking about those objects.
20:09	We do not perceive them from inside. As you use the word ‘insight’, is to see from within. We are seeing these things, even the word ‘thought’, I do not see it as ‘I’. Is it possible for one to see from within?
20:28	K: Rajesh…
20:29	RD: If I don’t see it from within, sir, I am always going to ask the question how to end it, how to operate on it.
20:36	Is it possible for me to see I am that? I can’t see it. Or is it a fact at all?
20:49	K: I’m at a loss, because so many things have been put.
20:57	So where shall we begin?
21:00	Q: Shall we start off by discussing what is a religious life. Etymologically what that word ‘religion’ means.
21:20	K: Oh, etymologically the word ‘religion’ has not been established.
21:28	Q: (Inaudible).
21:29	K: Wait, sir, just, you asked me, I’m trying to explain, if you don’t mind. It has not been definitely, the root of it has not been found. It used to be ‘legere’ which means to tie, at one time. They changed that through historical process of time to... now they are accepting the word ‘religion’ means a state of total gathering of all your energy.
21:59	That’s all they have said in good dictionary. Etymological dictionary, it says gathering your energy, full stop. They don’t say any more.
22:15	Now let’s move, sir. You see, I don’t know quite where I am with all of you.
22:24	You have put so many questions, what shall we start with? Questioning me right, sir.
22:35	Do we all see or perceive or understand, either intellectually, verbally or deeply, that thought in itself, being limited, whatever its activity, is, or will be, broken up.
23:02	Do we see it, or intellectually agree?
23:10	So the next question arising from that would be, subject to correction, that is it possible to stop thought? and, if it is stopped, then what is my activity in my daily life?
23:31	Right? Now let’s look at it. Can it be stopped? And who is it that’ll stop it? Right, sir? If there is an entity which can stop it, that entity is either outside the field of thought, or created by thought itself.
24:03	Right? Right, sir? Either – I am repeating so as to make it quite…– either it’s an outside agency that’s going to stop it, if that agency is outside, outside in heaven or God or whatever you like to call it, then that very outside agency is created by thought.
24:26	So our problem then is: can thought realise itself as limited?
24:36	And therefore, being limited, it limits itself to a certain activity in daily life.
24:46	Is that clear? Am I answering your question, sir? Now, the next question is: can thought become – this is rather… – can thought become aware of itself, and in the very awareness it has put itself in a particular corner as it were, and from that corner it acts.
25:19	But it is limited and it knows itself as limited.
25:28	DS: Let’s look at it from another angle then.
25:31	K: Delighted.
25:33	DS: If I want to nail a nail in the wall, I take a hammer. Right? K: And hit your thumb!
25:41	DS: I hit the hammer. I hit my thumb. If I want to go rowing in a boat, I use an oar and I row.
25:51	For a screw I use a screwdriver. Now what happens that thought doesn’t see itself in such a fashion?
26:00	In other words, thought has a function like a hammer for a nail, a screwdriver for a screw, or an oar for rowing.
26:08	What happens that thought arrogates or is arrogant or takes on more than it’s supposed to take on?
26:17	K: I don’t understand the question, sir.
26:19	DS: In other words, we’re saying that you’re suggesting that thought…
26:22	K: I am not suggesting, I am just exploring.
26:25	DS: Well, we’re saying that thought has a limited function and that it operates like a hammer to a nail.
26:33	K: No, sir. Don’t bring in hammer and nail and all. Just let’s look. First of all, can thought... – this is a question, sir – can thought become aware of itself as being limited?
26:47	DS: Okay. K: No, no, don’t agree.
26:51	DS: Can it? That’s the question.
26:53	PJ: Can it? K: I am asking you.
26:55	PJ: This is my query to you. K: Oh lord!
26:57	PJ: Can thought become aware that it is limited? It’s a query to you, sir.
27:03	RD: Or can thought only think that it is limited?
27:06	K: Then it is still another thought which says, ‘I am limited’.
27:10	RD: But that’s the whole issue. K: No, no, if you will, let’s move out of thought for a while. Can your consciousness become aware of itself?
27:21	DS: Exactly.
27:23	K: That’s putting the same question, sir.
27:28	DS: The hammer to the nail question. PJ: No, sir. What is the difference between thought becoming aware of itself and consciousness becoming…
27:38	K: Same question, it is the same thing. I am moving it. Perhaps you might understand it more comprehensively.
27:44	PJ: I would ask you one thing: has consciousness itself got the capacity to reflect itself?
27:55	K: Has consciousness the capacity to observe itself? Yes, keep it simple, keep it simple, not reflect itself.
28:05	PJ: I agree, observe itself.
28:07	K: No, is there in consciousness a seed or an element that observes itself as…
28:19	PJ: As it is. K: …as it is? Now, go on, sir, enquire into it.
28:24	PJ: If it has…
28:25	K: No, no, don’t ‘if’, let’s enquire.
28:28	PJ: No, sir, I’m enquiring. If what you say – I am putting it to you – if what you say that there is a seed…
28:35	K: What?
28:36	PJ: If what you say there is a seed...
28:38	K: I don’t say there is a seed.
28:40	SP: He didn’t say that. Q: He doesn’t say that.
28:42	PJ: You ask a query: has consciousness a capacity to perceive itself?
28:48	K: That’s all.
28:51	PJ: Then you went on to say: is there a seed?
28:54	K: That’s questioning to enquire.
28:57	PJ: I am questioning that. Is there a seed? On the one hand…
29:03	K: No, there is no seed. That’s just a – of course not.
29:05	PJ: So we’ll wipe away the seed.
29:10	DS: Why not turn it the other way and say we see that consciousness is not…
29:14	PJ: Who sees? K: Wait, let him finish.
29:16	DS: There is an observation that consciousness is not seeing itself.
29:20	K: Now, sir, just a minute, sir, that’s why, I think that’s why I said it is very important to understand observation.
29:30	Forgive me, it is relevant to the question, sir.
29:33	Q: I understand that, sir.
29:35	K: Is there an observer observing? Or there is only pure observation. That’s what I want to settle first. Sunanda Patwardhan: But before you pin-point to that core question, I think some more opening out is necessary.
29:51	K: I’ll open it. Throw it out. I have no…
29:55	Q: If consciousness can observe itself, then I think we are introducing a duality even within consciousness.
30:03	K: Sir, consciousness is full of duality – I do, don’t do; I must, I must not; fear, courage – the whole consciousness is that, our consciousness.
30:18	You see, that’s why it’s so difficult. I say one thing, you say another. We never meet.
30:29	Mary Zimbalist: Well, only one question, sir. Are we admitting that thought is capable of recognising a fact?
30:37	K: No. MZ: No.
30:39	SP: Let me ask another question. Is awareness in consciousness part of consciousness?
30:50	I am aware of a fragment.
30:52	K: I would like to discuss, if I may, to come to the point: is there an observation without the observer?
31:04	Because if there is an observation which is not of the observer, then that observation operates on the whole of consciousness.
31:14	That’s all I’m trying to say. You may not accept. Just a minute, sir, let me finish. I am saying it is important to discuss or explore this question of observation.
31:28	We are missing the main point, which is: there is only observation, not the observer.
31:35	DS: Now, in other words, if I know that there is observation without the observer, I’ve already introduced the observer.
31:44	K: No. SP: Exactly. The question doesn’t come as a true question from my side. If there was pure observation there will be no investigation.
31:50	K: So why is there not pure observation? Because you are introducing an observer into that observation.
31:58	DS: Exactly.
32:01	K: You are introducing in your observation the observer. So who is the observer?
32:08	DS: Now wait a second. Am I introducing observer into my observation? Or is there observation and then I’m talking to you about it so there’s an observer?
32:17	K: No. No. No. We are discussing only observation, not talking to each other. I am asking: as long as there is an observer different from his observation and the thing he is observing, there must be duality and all the rest of it.
32:40	And as most of us observe with the observer, therefore we have to examine what is the observer.
32:48	Right? Am I moving away from your central question? Because I am not, sir. I want to come to a point where I can carry this out in my daily life.
33:03	I am only concerned with that and nothing else. So I begin, say: how can I observe without the observer? Can I observe my action – my wife, my husband, my children, the whole cultural tradition in which one has been brought up – without the observer?
33:27	If you can answer me that, discuss that, which is, what is the observer to which we give so much importance?
33:39	Q: Sir, we seem to be dogmatically accepting the distinction between the observer and the observation as though there is an observer apart from the observation.
33:48	K: No. I said, sir, we have established always in our life the observer.
33:57	Right? ‘I am observing’. Right? ‘I am looking’. ‘My opinion is that’. And so this whole build-up through generations, this idea the observer is different from that which he is observing.
34:24	I observe this house – obviously it is different from me, from the observer.
34:30	Q: The object is different from the observer, the observation, I mean.
34:33	K: Wait, sir, wait. I am coming to that. There is an observation of that thing called ‘tree’. There is an observation, and I say, ‘It is a tree’, and so on. But now we are talking psychological observation. In that observation there is a duality – I and the thing I am observing.
35:02	And the thing that is being observed is traditionally accepted that the ‘I’ is different from that which is observed.
35:13	I am saying it is the observer that brings about this division.
35:20	Right? Now, what is the observer?
35:25	Q: The mind.
35:27	K: No, don’t reduce it to the mind. Let’s go into it.
35:36	DS: It’s experienced as a place, a continuity, a bunch of criteria.
35:43	In other words, from there I know there’s a place from which to observe, a place that has to have some centre.
35:50	K: Sir, are you aware, if I may ask you, that there is this observer and the observed – division?
35:57	Now we are asking, what is this observer that is overpowering the observation.
36:07	Who is the observer?
36:13	SP: The whole collection of experiences and identifications…
36:17	K: That is knowledge, that is the past, the past being the tradition, the accumulation of experience of mankind, racial, non-racial – the whole system of the past.
36:31	The observer is the past.
36:34	AP: Sir, with one addition. K: Add.
36:38	AP: The addition is that the observer is the past plus the sense of continuity. K: I’m coming to it, sir.
36:49	Just a minute. SP: Yes, quite right.
36:50	K: The continuity is the observer which is the past meeting the present, modifying itself and continuing.
36:59	No?
37:00	SP: Even though… K: Wait. I mean, I don’t know if we agree to that. You see, we project all… Now let’s go…
37:06	DS: But there’s another piece here too.
37:08	K: Add!
37:09	DS: The other piece is that in observation…
37:13	K: I am not talking observation.
37:15	DS: No, no, no, I am saying that from the observer’s point of view...
37:18	K: No, I am asking, sir, please, sir, I am asking, one is asking: who is the observer? That’s all.
37:28	We are saying the observer is the past and that past has a continuity through the present, modified, and – future.
37:38	This whole process is the past.
37:42	Q: Yes, sir, I am saying what you are saying is partially correct.
37:49	K: Make it correct, sir.
37:51	Q: Tradition plus there is something which is according to me the mind.
37:58	It is possible for a mind to be bereft of that tradition.
38:03	K: Just a minute, sir. Use that word ‘tradition’. What we are saying is, the observer is all that.
38:16	Q: In totality.
38:17	K: The observer is that. Add more, take away less, the observer is that. And that observer is interfering, blocking observation or translating according to the past observation.
38:34	That’s all I am saying. Now, is there an observation without the observer?
38:45	SP: Will you grant here…
38:47	K: Just, I have asked you a question. You haven’t answered my question. SP: No one can answer that question. One has to ask another question. K: Yes, another.
38:55	SP: Which is, the observer has depths which are very difficult to fathom.
39:01	K: No, I don’t think so.
39:02	SP: Whatever I am saying, it’s my personal experience.
39:04	K: I know. I don’t think so. I’ll point out. The observer has great depth, as you pointed out, the depth being knowledge.
39:17	PJ: If I may say so, the nature of the observer is the field of consciousness.
39:28	K: Don’t bring in consciousness.
39:31	PJ: I am bringing it because when you say there are depths to the observer, you can keep on adding depths to the observer, widening it, stretching it, but in its nature it is the totality of knowledge which is the totality of consciousness.
39:51	Q: All right. From there what is your question?
39:53	PJ: The question is: if the totality of the observer is the totality of consciousness…
39:59	K: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
40:01	PJ: Sir, listen, sir. K: I am listening, but I want to be clear what you are saying.
40:05	PJ: That is, the nature of the observer and the nature of what it is trying to observe...
40:15	K: No, we are not… we haven’t come to…
40:17	PJ: No, sir, you said: can there be a…
40:20	SP: We are only analysing the observer.
40:23	PJ: We talked of the whole totality of consciousness.
40:31	Can there be an observation without the observer? That was the question. Now I say when you say there are depths to the observer, I say the observer himself – just please listen to it – the observer himself is the field of consciousness.
40:51	K: That’s agreed, agreed, agreed. What are you saying?
40:53	PJ: Then, sir, please listen, if the observer himself is the field of consciousness, is there an illuminating process? K: What? What?
41:05	PJ: Is there an illuminating process? Is there an illuminating quality which…
41:17	K: What? Go on.
41:18	PJ: …brings this into awareness without any movement?
41:22	K: What are you saying? I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Somebody understand.
41:26	PJ: Let me explain to you something, sir. You asked a question: can there be an observation without the observer?
41:37	An observation...
41:39	K: We are now enquiring – please stick to it, Pupulji – we are enquiring into the observer.
41:46	PJ: Now I am saying, when Sunanda said the observer has many depths, I say the totality of the observer is itself the field of observation.
41:58	You can keep on extending the observer endlessly.
42:02	K: Look, Pupulji, make it very simple. For God’s sake, let’s be simple. That is, can I observe my wife or my husband without all the accumulation I have had during my twenty years life with her?
42:16	PJ: You see, sir, forgive me for saying so, I may say, ‘Yes, I can’.
42:21	K: No, no, you can’t say… PJ: No, I can.
42:24	K: You can’t say yes.
42:25	PJ: If you bring up a particular, if you bring up a particular...
42:29	K: I am doing it, Pupulji, because that gentleman wanted it.
42:32	PJ: If you bring up a particular, I would say yes.
42:34	K: No, that’s no good just agreeing, saying yes.
42:37	PJ: No, sir, it’s not agreeing. I can observe you without the weight of knowledge.
42:43	K: No, you can observe me... Wait, wait! It’s very easy to observe me, I am not your husband. No, don’t, please, please.
42:55	PJ: You’re my teacher. It is much more difficult…
42:57	K: No, no! I refuse. I refuse. Please, we are not meeting the point. We are not meeting the point. Can I observe my wife or husband with whom I have lived?
43:20	And during the course of those twenty years I have accumulated knowledge about her and she has accumulated knowledge about me – quarrels and sex and the whole business of relationship.
43:35	Can I observe her without the accumulated knowledge? That’s all. That’s all I’m asking.
43:47	Q: As it is, even in dreams it is not possible.
43:50	K: What, sir?
43:51	Q: As it is, even in dreams it is not possible.
43:55	K: No, no, don’t bring in dreams.
43:56	Q: No, no, even in dreams it is not possible.
43:58	K: No, sir, don’t. If you bring in dreams, then we have to examine what dreams are, and it means we are off.
44:09	Please, just let’s stick to that one thing: the observer is the past. Whether he is the totality of the past, whether he is the totality of consciousness, whether there is infinite depth and so on, it is still the observer, the past.
44:30	No? Right, sir? Now, can I observe my wife, husband – I am sticking to that because that’s the most difficult relationship.
44:43	In my daily life, can I observe her or him without the past accumulated memory?
44:53	Try it. Let’s find out how to look afresh for the first time a human being.
45:02	Then my whole relationship changes. Right, sir? What? You are silent. Am I browbeating you?
45:15	SP: There is only one difficulty, sir, which is, one feels one has had occasions when one can see a husband or a friend without any movement of the past.
45:31	So one feels it is possible to see, but then if you say it will change the entire relationship forever, the turning point comes north to south, that is a difficult state. K: All right.
45:44	Have you first understood, have we communicated with each other that the observer who is the past and therefore time-binding, creates this division between myself and my wife?
46:03	I am dominant and I control her, push her away from me.
46:13	So the past is always operating. Right, sir? And therefore my relationship with her is based not on affection, not on love, but on the past.
46:26	Right?
46:28	SP: In which so-called affection is also included.
46:32	K: I question if you have affection, if you have the operation of the past.
46:39	Q: There is only one way out, sir.
46:41	K: I am not yet seeking a way out. I want to understand the problem in which I live. There is no way out.
46:51	SP: If you deny... Q: There is, I think.
46:52	K: Ah! I refuse to say there is a way out.
46:57	SP: Sir, you seem to deny any human quality to human beings in time dimension.
47:03	K: What?
47:04	SP: Living within the matrix of time, with a sense of time, because we live…
47:08	K: Love is not time.
47:10	SP: But now we are not talking of love.
47:13	K: That’s why we are talking of all this nonsense.
47:24	Right, sirs?
47:25	Q: Excuse me, sir.
47:27	K: Sir, my question is: I don’t want to get out. I don’t want to say this is a problem, I want to resolve it. All that I am concerned is, how I approach the problem – right? – because the approach is going to dictate the understanding of the problem.
47:48	Q: No, sir, I think you posed the question whether an observer can observe a thing without the burden of the past. K: Yes, that’s all.
47:57	Q: I am saying in a particular context it is possible. In a particular context.
48:04	K: No, wholly. I don’t want a particular thing, but I want to understand if I can observe…
48:12	Q: In a particular situation, if the observer gets into the technique of ceasing his thought…
48:17	K: Of course, I can observe that tree, it has nothing to do. I can observe you.
48:26	Q: Even then certain statements are not clear, sir. Sometimes you identify the observer with the past. You say observer is the past. K: Is the past.
48:34	Q: Sometimes it is said that observer carries with him the past.
48:38	K: Ah, no, observer is the past.
48:44	Q: Then the question will arise: is not the observer able to observe the past?
48:50	K: Yes.
48:52	Q: Then he is not the past.
48:54	PJ: No, but that is his query. You can’t cut. He says, can the observer observe the past? That is the essential nature of enquiry. Is it possible for there to be an observation without the observer?
49:18	DS: Where does that question arise?
49:20	Q: Is that the question or something different? What is exactly the question? Is it Question A: Can you make an observation without the burden of the past?
49:31	Or B: Can there be an observation without an observer?
49:36	PJ: Same thing, same thing.
49:37	Q: I think I find a world of difference.
49:43	K: Sir, this has been a problem with all of us. Which is, can I observe something anew – right? – without all my burden of the past?
50:00	Because if it is possible to observe something totally new, and that observation is not time-binding – do you understand what I mean by time-binding? – in the sense – it’s a little... – not a continuity.
50:24	Q: The moment you do it, don’t you fall into a new mode of existence?
50:31	K: No, sir. No.
50:35	Q: Something totally irrevocable.
50:38	K: No, sir. Please, my question, I might go back, can I observe without the past?
50:48	Q: Pardon me, sir. Just now I think, pardon me, please.
50:53	K: I am not, sir…
50:54	Q: You have introduced slowly a third dimension.
50:58	K: Which is...
50:59	Q: Slowly you have introduced a third dimension.
51:01	K: Which is that?
51:02	Q: First you said: can we observe without the burden of the past? Now you are introducing a new dimension slowly and in a subtle fashion, I think: can you observe afresh? K: Which is the same…
51:16	Q: I see a difference. K: No, no.
51:19	Q: In an afresh thing you can have a new thing, need not be the past.
51:30	K: Can I observe you, sir? Can you observe me, wife – because I’m sticking to that one thing because that’s the most difficult relationship, which is the most practical way of living, which we are concerned with.
51:45	Can I observe my wife as though I was looking at her for the first time?
51:56	Not at a certain time...
52:00	Q: Minus the past.
52:01	K:...but look at her all the time as though she was new.
52:12	That means, can the observer be absent?
52:20	Not at a particular time, at a particular level. Absent.
52:32	Then you say, ‘How is this to be done? What is the system?’ When you ask that question what is to be done, what is the system, you are introducing the factor of fragmentation.
52:53	The moment you say system, the how, it is the operation of thought that says, I must achieve that state, therefore tell me what to do.
53:06	Q: That is inevitable, sir.
53:09	K: No, it is not. Therefore we have to see systems are valueless.
53:20	PJ: Maybe, sir, the approach can therefore only make it in the sense that you can see yourself observing as the observer and negate it.
53:34	Maybe it is not possible to approach it differently.
53:41	K: I haven’t understood your question.
53:45	PJ: Sir, any approach which is positive is going to land you in a trap.
53:51	K: I said, look, Pupulji, is it possible? – which means negating the observer.
53:59	PJ: How is it – Is it possible to negate it?
54:02	K: No, I am asking. You are just splitting words.
54:06	PJ: No, sir, I am not splitting words.
54:08	K: Look…
54:09	PJ: How do you say, ‘Is it possible? Is it negation? Is it negating?
54:13	K: You have known me for the last thirty years. Can you look at me as though I was a fresh human being, for the first time you meet?
54:31	Then what happens? What is our relationship then? Which is the most practical thing, as you want to know. So we have to find out whether we have any relationship at all with each other.
54:48	Or it’s really memory. Right, sir?
54:59	Sir, you are all…
55:00	SP: At this point, what does one do? What’s there to do? There is no movement from there. K: Yes, there is. That’s why I’m saying, the process of observing the observer.
55:17	The observer is the past. Now listen carefully. The observer is the past. Can the observer see the movement of the past taking place?
55:37	Can you observe – not you – is there an observation of the past? The hurt, let’s take the hurt, for example. Is there an observation of the movement of hurt? The whole cycle of hurt – psychologically, biologically, physically and so on – the hurt which involves resistance, agony, pain, withdrawal, all that is implied in that.
56:14	Can there be observation of that hurt and let the story of the hurt reveal itself?
56:31	What? You’re all asleep? What do you say, sir? Is this beyond? Is this impractical?
56:36	SP: At this point you are again taking a fragment to reveal the whole.
56:42	K: You’re all too clever.
56:45	PJ: What is the fragment?
56:47	DS: Krishnaji, everything you say in some way is the action of the observer.
56:54	You wouldn’t be even interested in this if there weren’t some sort of discomfort, some sort of conflict, some sort of pain about the sense of duality and separation.
57:05	K: Yes, of course. Of course, sir…
57:06	DS: So every question arises in the condition of the observer.
57:11	K: If I say to you a simple fact that love is not of time and it is only possible in that state, duality, observer – everything ends.
57:27	DS: Now you make that statement. K: Absolutely. Swallow it or throw, spit it out.
57:34	DS: How am I to listen to that?
57:38	K: Any human being will say, well, now let me find out if you are talking nonsense, or, what do you mean by love.
57:45	Let’s understand it.
58:00	DS: All right then, what do you mean by love?
58:03	K: Ah!
58:06	DS: Go ahead.
58:10	K: Ask the flower, ‘What do you mean by the perfume that you have?’ Yes, sir.
58:20	What, sir?
58:21	Q: If it has a tongue, it will speak, the flower.
58:33	K: It has many tongues.
58:34	AP: Sir, I will say the fragrance is the tongue.
58:36	K: Of course, sir. What’s the matter with all of you!
58:40	Q: You are entering into the world of poets.
58:41	AP: No, sir.
58:42	Q: Not from the world of philosophers.
58:46	K: I am not a philosopher. Philosopher means, sir, the one who loves truth, loves life.
58:59	And philosophy has now become a lot of theories, speculations. When you call me a philosopher, I say, I’m sorry, I’m not.
59:12	MZ: Sir, what is it that receives that statement that you’ve made? And what is brought to bear to examine that statement?
59:24	K: There is nothing to examine.
59:27	MZ: But you asked...
59:28	K: If you have love in your heart, you will see it. If not, you’ll spit it up, tear the flower to pieces, say, what…
59:39	Right? Now we haven’t even begun to enquire into a religious life. This inevitably happens at every discussion; we go off at a tangent and get…
59:58	What is a religious life?
1:00:05	Go on, sir. Obviously all the things that go on, the circus that goes on is not religion. That’s – throw it out. So what is a religious life? If all the rituals, the dogmas, the beliefs, the gods, all that is out, then what is it?
1:00:40	Got it, sir? If all that you’ve thrown out, which means you are throwing out with it the self, the ‘me’.
1:00:51	So the essence of religion is the total absence of the ‘me’, of the self.
1:01:04	Q: What is it you mean by self, sir? Is it ego?
1:01:08	K: Ego, which means my characteristics, my desires, my fears.
1:01:14	Q: But not the mechanism of observation.
1:01:19	K: Yes, not the mechanism. Of course, of course.
1:01:35	Then the question arises, sir, you make a statement of that kind, and I understand it, I grasp.
1:01:49	Now I say, how is myself to get out of the way?
1:02:03	Right, sir? So I have to say, what is the self? Is it a lot of words, lot of memories, attributes, qualities and all that?
1:02:21	Is that the self? Q: No.
1:02:24	K: Then what is the self?
1:02:26	Q: Just a mechanism.
1:02:30	K: What do you mean, that’s a mechanism?
1:02:32	Q: An instrument to observe anything kept before you.
1:02:36	K: No, that constitutes the ego, the ‘me’, the ‘I’, the self.
1:02:42	Q: Not necessarily, sir.
1:02:45	K: Then what, sir?
1:02:48	Q: Minus these things, it can be a substance, a mirror-like thing, clean mirror.
1:02:54	K: You see, this is a theory. And I’m not, sorry, theories have no meaning to me.
1:03:04	AP: But would you accept if I say that the self is only an adhesive?
1:03:10	K: Additive. AP: Adhesive. It is something which has the quality of getting things to stick to it.
1:03:20	K: Sir, Achyutji, you will give your description of what the self is, he will give his description and she will give description, Pupul.
1:03:29	Q: Ultimately we want your description.
1:03:31	K: So add all the descriptions, add all the descriptions, that is not the self.
1:03:41	The description is not the self. Right? Are we discussing the description or the fact of the self?
1:03:59	AP: No, sir, I was only saying this because when he said it’s a mirror, I say it’s the opposite. It is not a mirror but it is an adhesive which has the quality of sticking things to it.
1:04:10	K: Yes, sir, you are still describing. I am not interested. I want to see what the self is and if that self can be washed out.
1:04:26	To me that’s religious life. Not the reflection of divine and all that kind of stuff. Those are all theories. Can I get rid of my jealousy, fears, anxieties, anger, everything, out of it?
1:04:47	As long as that is there – fear or this or that – I have no religious life.
1:04:55	I can pretend by going to a temple. That’s a dirty trip.
1:05:04	SP: I don’t know. It is true that one does not know what the religious life is.
1:05:13	K: I am telling you then. See that you are not selfish.
1:05:17	SP: Are you saying, sir, that the self can be wiped away, washed away, what...
1:05:27	K: Why can’t you be practical? That gentleman asked, ‘Be practical, down-to-earth’. That is, one of the symptoms of the self is jealousy, envy, greed, authority, power, position, domination, attachment – out of it.
1:05:58	And can you be selfless and live in this world. Right, sir? That’s what you asked.
1:06:07	Q: Pardon, sir?
1:06:09	K: Can you be without the self and live in this world?
1:06:13	Q: Not exactly that. We left yesterday that the solution for all the problems is to stop thinking.
1:06:25	I agree.
1:06:26	K: Who is going to stop thinking?
1:06:31	Q: The self.
1:06:33	K: Ah, no. Have you done it?
1:06:37	Q: I will try.
1:06:38	K: Ah! You can’t try it.
1:06:41	Q: Then all right.
1:06:42	K: Sir, I can’t try not to be jealous.
1:06:48	Q: Not to be...? K: Jealous. Either I operate on it, end it, and finish with jealousy. I can’t say, well, I’ll try it.
1:06:57	Q: No, you mean with regard to jealousy. Not to that little particular, dirty thing I am referring. I am referring to the whole process of thinking. If that is stopped, everything else will be wiped away.
1:07:10	K: Can you stop? Will you tell me that you have stopped? Sir, when you say, ‘If that stops’, stop it then.
1:07:18	Q: That’s why I raised the question that today’s discussion will be more fruitful if it moves to that focus… K: I am doing it. We are…
1:07:26	Q: …about the technique of stopping.
1:07:31	K: There is no technique, sir.
1:07:34	Q: Call it by any name, sir, if you don’t like the word.
1:07:40	K: No, no. No, it’s not a question. The word signifies practice, a continuous repetition.
1:07:51	Therefore your mind becomes mechanical. A mechanical mind can never have love. That’s just it.
1:08:01	Q: Certain processes we cannot avoid, I think.
1:08:04	K: Ah! It can be avoided. Q: Can it? I would like to get…
1:08:08	K: I say, see intellectually even, that a system makes the mind mechanical, intellectually even.
1:08:20	And if you see it intellectually, probe it further. We have had systems galore – right? – and nobody has come to anything with these systems.
1:08:41	AP: No, no, please, please. This is restricted to the participants.
1:08:50	They are observers. There is a system.
1:08:52	K: Ask him what he wants. Let him, sir. Let him.
1:09:02	Q: I wanted to ask. You have said there is no system, but nevertheless the fact remains that we have to do something.
1:09:10	We cannot just sit idle. So I agree that a system limits people, but could you please give us some guidelines?
1:09:20	But you have only given us some guidelines by saying that we should not be selfish, we should not be jealous.
1:09:27	So is it not possible to give some guidelines as to what to do in order not to be just idle?
1:09:39	K: Sir, if you love system, keep it.
1:09:48	DS: The reason that in some way... You see, Krishnaji, I think that the fact is we talked about this many times and inevitably or very often the question comes up: Is there a system?
1:10:01	In some way or other, it is related to what we’ve said that how does the question arise that we are looking at the observer?
1:10:14	Somehow or other in the nature of the observer arises the question: How can I be religious?
1:10:21	I mean, all these questions – How can I be transformed? How can I be unselfish? How can I be this? How can I be religious? – everybody wants to get another drug. Everybody wants to feel better.
1:10:32	K: Quite right, sir. Quite right, sir.
1:10:33	DS: And so this man’s question, ‘Is there a system?’, is simply another part of it. I mean, how can I get better? Everybody’s trying to get better! K: I see that.
1:10:41	DS: Nobody wants to be the way they are. It’s like another drug. This guy is taking a drug, taking heroin, this guy is taking spirituality, this guy is taking Ph.D.
1:10:52	K: No, sir, all that I am saying is – You are quite right, sir. Everybody wants to be something else. That gentleman put it: to be or not to be. And so everybody is doing something. I say, don’t. Just start where you are.
1:11:08	DS: But you don’t. If you’ll permit me, you really don’t.
1:11:12	K: Ah! No, sir. No. Forgive me. I say, start where you are.
1:11:19	DS: Okay. If you stick to that… K: I do!
1:11:22	DS: Well, you talk about being unselfish, being religious.
1:11:25	K: No. No, excuse me…
1:11:26	MZ: He talks about envy, jealousy, all these dreadful characteristics, as where you are.
1:11:31	DS: No, but in the way he is telling, there’s a subtle suggestion to get rid of envy.
1:11:37	K: No, sir. That’s your comprehension or, rather, your misinterpretation of what I’m saying.
1:11:45	I am saying, start near. That’s all. Because if you know how to read this whole history of man which is you, it’s finished.
1:12:01	That’s all. DS: You see, now wait a minute, you just can’t reject that, that’s very subtle – it’s finished.
1:12:05	K: No, look, finished in the sense – just a minute, sir, just a minute – it’s a book. Wait, just listen, sir. It is a vast book and I’m reading it. That’s all. I’m not trying to change it.
1:12:23	DS: It may turn out to be an encyclopedia.
1:12:26	K: I’ll find out. I start where I am, and I am reading it. I am reading it not slowly, I want to read the whole history instantly.
1:12:44	SP: Somewhere there is the difficulty. When you say read the whole history at once...
1:12:52	K: What do you mean?
1:12:54	SP: Without movement in time, without seeing the expressions of the self...
1:12:59	K: Sunandaji, we have explained now. I just want to know the whole content of myself, my whole consciousness with its content.
1:13:15	And I’m investigating that. You can investigate something when you are free, when there is no prejudice, belief, conclusion – just investigate. That’s all.
1:13:29	RD: Sir, then there is no investigation at all. Then there is no investigation of the history. The history is the prejudice. K: Yes, sir.
1:13:36	RD: And you are saying… K: Wait, wait, wait. When I end the prejudice, it’s over, finished. Then I have nothing. I have come to the end of the book.
1:13:47	SP: So you are really not concerned with investigating the content but where you are starting.
1:13:52	RD: Sir, let us take it step by step. There are people who are seeking systems.
1:14:03	Now one sees, as you say, at least intellectually, so I see it intellectually, that the seeking of the system will not end the problem at all.
1:14:12	So I say okay. I don’t seek. Now the question begins: Then what do I do? – as he put it. I am learning, I’m observing. But my tool of my observation is still the intellect with knowledge, and I’m sitting and discovering with you.
1:14:29	You come and point out that your tool is limited, your investigation is still through knowledge. I see this. Now where am I? I’m saying something which is very factual.
1:14:42	K: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Go ahead.
1:14:43	RD: I have denied systems, denied practices. I’m enquiring… K: No. If you have put away systems, practice, what is the quality or the state of your mind when you have done it?
1:14:57	RD: It’s enquiring. K: No! Don’t say it’s quiet.
1:15:01	RD: I say it is enquiring. K: No.
1:15:05	RD: But it is, sir. It is investigating.
1:15:06	K: No. You are not answering my question. What is the state of your mind when you put away systems? And you have put away the system. Why?
1:15:18	RD: Because you see it is false. K: Yes. So what is the state of your mind when it has seen something false, which has been the tradition of centuries, that it’s false. What’s the state of your mind?
1:15:41	RD: Sir, there is an alertness…
1:15:43	K: No. Watch it, sir, watch it carefully.
1:15:45	RD: There is an alertness as regards to what it has seen, but it is still caught in something else.
1:15:50	K: Wait, sir. Begin slowly. You’re all… You have seen something false and you have dropped it. You have dropped it. Why?
1:16:08	RD: Because I see it clouds… K: No. You saw something false therefore you put away. So the seeing of the false, what has it done to your mind?
1:16:24	Q: Enjoyment.
1:16:26	K: Oh, no! Lord, you don’t even look at – Do it, sir.
1:16:36	You put away systems. Why have you put away? Because you think that is silly. You see the absurdity of it. You logically see it. Which means what? Your mind has become sharper, clearer, more – not more – intelligent.
1:16:58	Right? So that intelligence is going to observe, put away everything that is false. Right?
1:17:12	Either that intelligence sees fragmentarily or it sees the whole falseness of it.
1:17:21	You understand?
1:17:23	RD: Sir, is there a point where this intelligence stops?
1:17:25	K: No. No. No. No. Rajesh, go step by step, old boy. When you put away something false, your mind is lighter.
1:17:40	Like climbing a mountain, you throw away things you don’t want. So your mind becomes very, very clear. Right? Which means, is your mind clear because you have thrown away these things?
1:18:02	Thrown them away, they can’t come back. You throw them down the precipice, they’ve gone.
1:18:12	So your mind has the capacity of perceiving that which is true and that which is false, and you discard everything that’s false, which is, everything that thought has put together is false, except buildings and… Right?
1:18:45	So the mind has no illusion.
1:18:52	Right? Sir, that’s the whole book.
1:19:05	I am not reading anything but the book. I began with the first chapter which says be aware of your senses.
1:19:21	And the next chapter says human beings are aware, partial senses, exaggerating one sense and denying or diminishing the other senses. Right.
1:19:34	So the third chapter says, see if all the senses can operate.
1:19:43	That means there is no centre of a particular sensory operation.
1:19:52	Right? And the fourth and so on. I’m not going to read the book for you.
1:20:12	Have we explored during these three days what is a religious life?
1:20:21	Have we?
1:20:32	I think we’d better stop, don’t you?