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MA82DSG - Is it possible for the brain to act totally?
Madras (Chennai), India - 1 January 1982
Discussion with Small Group



0:24 and its ways of operating, and the mind, whether it is brain only or whether there is another element which together with the brain makes up mind.
1:02 K: I would like to point out that I'm not an expert, I'm a layman. But one has watched one's own brain in operation, and watched other people's brains in operation, too. So, I'm starting from an observation in one's own brain and other people's with whom I have come into contact. The brain is a very sensitive instrument, highly sensitive, but it has been drugged by knowledge, by drink, by drugs and all kinds of, all forms of destructive pressures. So, we should start by inquiring into what is the activity of the brain. We'll leave the mind alone for the moment, if we may. What is the movement of the brain? Surely it is essentially the centre of all the senses – right? – centre of all reactions and actions. It functions most effectively when there is complete security for it. And it finds security in experience and knowledge, from which thought arises through memory. So, within that cycle it finds complete security. When it doesn't, then it creates its own illusion and clings to that illusion, whether the religious illusion or psychotic illusions or various forms of other delusions. That is the activity of the brain. From experience, knowledge, memory, thought, action it's caught in that cycle and conditioned in that cycle, which is time, limited space, and tremendous effort not only to remain in that field, but also, the fear of the known and the unknown. That is the state of the brain, as far as I understand it.
4:11 PJ: You've said a number of things, Krishnaji. It is the centre of the senses, it receives and through the senses operates, it responds to the challenge, also through the senses.
4:32 PJ: Also, it stores memory and uses memory.
4:38 K: Skilfully or unskilfully.

PJ: Yes, but it stores. It's an area where storage takes place, and an area from which energy arises and responds – partially or impartially.
5:14 K: To see its own limitation? Are you asking, to see its own limitation, or, to see the whole movement of the brain?
5:30 PJ: I'm asking whether it can see the totality of itself. It is all these things. It's either using one or the other. It's always responding with a part of itself. It is either taking in or moving out. It is either drawing on memory or it is using that memory to respond to a thing, or it is taking from outside and storing in memory. I am asking has it also got the capacity to use all these things and respond or see?
6:17 K: I don't quite follow the question. Do you?
6:19 Dr Shainberg: I think she's really asking can this movement, this brain, this cycling movement, ever get an external perspective on itself? It's going around like this, can it ever be here, to see itself?
6:39 K: Can it observe itself, are you asking?
6:44 PJ: I won't use the word 'itself', because what it sees is itself. Can it use itself fully, totally? Because when you say, 'Can it see itself?', you are positing 'itself' as something else to what is seeing.
7:03 DS: But I think that's what you would have to postulate.
7:07 Radha Burnier: I think Pupulji is asking whether it can function fully. It receives sense impressions, but according to physiologists, it never receives fully. Are you asking whether the brain can act fully, completely? Not the right side and left side, balancing each other. Not balancing the right side and the left side.
7:44 PJ: I don't know anything about that.

K: I don't know either. Other people have told me about it.
7:49 PJ: Even with the limitation of itself they say you use only a small portion of the brain. But even that small portion of the brain you don't use totally. That portion of the brain is further divided, subdivided, there are twenty functions within the brain cells.
8:12 DS: That's not really true, but go ahead.
8:15 PJ: I'm speaking again as a layman.
8:18 DS: I think when we say it only uses itself partially, we're saying that the part that is operating is only part of the totality. When it's operating in that part, that part is total in itself.
8:34 K: Isn't it probably that any form of specialisation – any form – further limits the brain?
8:49 DS: It's a very interesting question. There are some new studies; they give people a dye, when you take a picture of it, it lights the brain up. These studies have shown that when you are writing only one part of your brain is lit up. If you are in pain, though, your whole brain is lit up.
9:09 K: Pain or suffering.

DS: Suffering or stress.
9:11 K: Or a great deal of shock.

DS: The whole brain lights up.
9:16 K: You can observe all this. You don't have to study books. You can observe this in oneself.
9:24 DS: When there's specialisation, there is a part.
9:27 K: That's it. When that part acts, it is acting fully in that part. It is not acting wholly. The brain is not acting completely. The question is how to – not 'how' – whether it's possible for the brain to act totally.
9:50 PJ: Yes.
9:53 K: Is that the question?

DS: That gets closer to it, but it's not exactly what she is saying.
10:01 PJ: We started by asking, we're inquiring into the nature and structure of the brain cells, how they operate.

K: That gets too technical.
10:14 PJ: What are the various functions of the brain? You started with that.
10:19 DS: You're trying to get at when the brain is operating as a special function, in one of its various specialised functions, is there any way for the whole process to ever be aware of itself?

K: Yes, yes, yes.
10:42 DS: Is that what you're getting at?
10:46 PJ: What I'm trying to say, is the same thing, only I'm using different language. You say aware of 'itself'. The 'itself' is all that it sees, all that it listens to, all its knowledge. That's itself. There is no itself apart from that.
11:04 DS: So you're answering your question. It isn't possible.
11:07 PJ: It is possible or it isn't?
11:12 K: What is the real question, Pupul? Let's move away from this.
11:16 PJ: I'm only questioning that word 'itself'. I'm saying can that brain operate totally with itself?
11:27 DS: Be aware of it... Be aware.
11:30 PJ: Operate totally.
11:33 K: As far as I can understand the question she is asking, when does the brain operate totally? We said just now, when there is intense suffering or a great shock or a challenge that it must answer totally. That's right?
12:00 PJ: What takes place in such a situation?
12:05 K: Yes, I understand, I have got your question. If it is a shock, it is absolutely still, throbbing, waiting. If it is suffering, it is operating fully, but it is trying to find a way out of it – chemically, physically, to escape from that suffering, or it invents an illusion. This has happened, sir. When one suffers tremendously, the shock of it is paralysing for a moment or two, or it may last couple of days, I don't know. When you come out of that shock, it tries to find a way of comfort, to ease the pain, to move away from the pain. And so, it must invent or find a method of escape, which is either through drink, taking a drug, going to various religious ceremonies – any form of escape. Right? Those escapes become very real, though illusory. So, that is the state, what happens. The unbearable pain, and the escape from it.
13:50 DS: Yes, to get a relief.

K: Get a relief. The relief becomes more important than the suffering. Drink becomes more important than pain.
14:04 DS: Yes, that becomes the goal.
14:07 K: So, the religious, the psychological, the philosophical concepts become more important than the actual suffering.
14:21 PJ: Does the brain find it extremely difficult to be totally awake? Awake, operative. Does it have to find these escapes...? You say in a state of great pain or sorrow, the total brain is awake.
14:42 K: Take a simple example, Pupul. You have a great challenge in front of you.
14:54 PJ: Death – it's the final challenge. You face death.
14:59 K: Let's take the challenge of death. Then the whole system is awake – fear, anxiety, loneliness, the desperation of separation, and all the rest of it comes into it. Now, what is that state of the brain when there is such intense challenge? Go and investigate, in your own mind, your own brain, investigate, look at it.
15:34 PJ: No, sir, anyone who has faced death fully,
15:43 PJ: Paralysed.

K: Of course, shock.
15:47 PJ: Is that state of paralysis a state of being awake?
15:51 K: No. No. Oh, no! It's the state of a shock. That's not awake.
15:58 PJ: No, but when you say that when there is a state of shock the total brain is lit up.
16:05 K: No. A shock through a compulsion.
16:11 PJ: Yes, but you also see that the total brain is lit up. Therefore, there is no part of the brain which is free of this shock.
16:22 DS: It is completely focused for a second, and the totality has... there's no words, it is a state of alert perception, for a moment.
16:39 RB: The total brain being lit up, may only mean that everything which is contained within the brain is stimulated at that moment, which is not the same thing as the brain functioning fully.
16:58 PJ: No, I wouldn't agree. I would say that if the brain is totally lit up, that's all we know. But it cannot remain with being totally lit up. It's too much for it. It immediately brings in the shadow to diminish that light. That's how I see it.
17:24 DS: It starts reaching for illusions or self-definitions which make these things more important than the reality or the suffering that is there.
17:37 RB: But Krishnaji has made a point that it is lit up because of pressure.
17:43 K: Of course.
17:44 PJ: We are moving from that. We don't know any other lighting up. We know the lighting up of pressure.
17:51 RB: But we can ask if there is any other lighting up.
17:57 K: What are we discussing?
17:59 DS: We were discussing, we moved away from your point, which is that, at a certain moment, the suffering is so intense that then there is a movement to the illusions, which become more important than the suffering. So, we were trying to see what it was in the suffering that made that movement, we went back to the totality.
18:28 K: Ah, not to the totality.
18:31 PJ: Can the brain stand reality, the fullness of reality?
18:42 K: What do you mean by reality?

PJ: Suffering. Death, suffering.
18:47 K: Wait a minute, Pupul, let's go step by step. My son dies, and it's a great shock to me. For a second – perhaps it may last a couple of hours, or couple of days, a couple of years, even. I'm in a state of shock, to which the brain is not accustomed and from which it wants to escape. Right? It wants to escape from this pain. And it finds some kind of escape. And it is satisfied with that. That's what generally takes place. It relies on that, it escapes from it, and feels satisfied with that. Then, what is the next question?

PJ: The next question is, is it possible for the brain to remain with the shock?
19:56 K: It has escaped.

PJ: But before it escapes.
20:01 K: Ah, now you are asking a different question. Before it escapes, can it hold, remain with that shock, get over that shock, in a couple of days, couple of years, couple of weeks, get finished with it, and not move away from that, from the loss of the son which has caused pain? Is that it?

DS: Yes.
20:34 K: That's what you're asking. Of course, it can.
20:40 PJ: Now, what is meant by 'getting over the shock'?
20:44 K: Getting over the shock, I've escaped, I've eased, my nerves have relaxed, my whole organism is more or less at ease. In other words, I have forgotten, I want to forget the pain of that day.
21:05 PJ: No, you used it in another sense. You said, instead of escaping, can it remain with that?
21:13 K: Of course, it can.

PJ: Get over the shock, and remain with it. What is 'getting over the shock', in terms of remaining with sorrow?
21:24 K: That's simple enough. Don't escape.
21:30 DS: What do you mean, 'don't escape'?
21:34 K: Don't escape.
21:36 DS: But who is going to 'don't escape', the brain?
21:40 K: No. No. No. The brain realises that escape in any form is futile.
21:58 DS: Can the brain do that?

K: Of course, it can.
22:03 DS: In other words, you're saying the habit of the brain is to immediately start solving problems. Immediately to get solutions.

K: So, we said that the other day. We said the other day that thought creates the problems, and then the brain is trained to solve the problems. So, it keeps in the cycle of having problems and resolving them. The resolution of problems becomes the problem itself. So, it's perpetually living in problems.
22:40 DS: Always throwing up new self-definitions, too. That's the habit.

K: That is the conditioning. My conditioning, when my son dies, is to escape.
22:57 DS: Yes. Well, to do something.
23:00 K: Escape, to cry, to howl, to lean on somebody and go to temple or mosque, whatever it is you do.
23:09 DS: That's the habit.
23:11 K: Now, can that habit realise it's a habit, and that habit is futile, and put it away? Of course. Of course, it's possible.

PJ: That means that in the middle of shock, in the centre of sorrow, there can be an awakeness which watches the escape, watches the tendency to escape?
23:45 K: No, Pupulji. I've lost my son. I have heard you or him or her, say to me, 'Don't escape, because that's futile'. That statement has been recorded in my brain, and that record keeps on repeating. And when my son dies, that record says, 'Don't escape'. It becomes a tremendous problem not to escape. If I'm alert enough, I say, 'All right, I won't escape, I'll remain with the problem, with the pain of my son's death. I remain with it. What's the question? What are you trying to get at?
24:42 PJ: No, sir, because that visualises that in the centre of this tremendous shock of sorrow, there is a capacity within the brain to break its habit.
24:55 K: Of course, it has. Take a very simple habit, any simple habit.
25:04 PJ: You can't take a simple habit. In the middle of a simple habit suddenly the mind can wake up. That's very different. When you are in the middle of a tremendous shock, like death, it's in that state of paralysis of the mind, body, brain and everything, you say that there is still the faculty within it. So you posit a faculty, apart from the habit faculty.
25:34 K: Habit is a record, a repetition. Habit is a repetition. During that repetition, I hear you say, 'Don't escape, when you are in great pain, psychological pain, look at it'. That is still going on in my brain. So, I attempt not to escape.
26:02 PJ: Here, please let me come in. Is it, just as there is a habit to escape, my hearing the statement of yours, 'Don't escape', also has become a layer of memory and that memory is stimulated? That memory is stimulated – 'Don't escape'?
26:25 K: Yes. It is stimulated. What's wrong? Go further.
26:29 PJ: Is it that stimulation of, 'Don't escape' which arises and makes my brain stand still and look?
26:41 K: Partly.
26:43 DS: I think it is more, though, an insight.
26:46 K: I don't want to use that word.
26:50 PJ: I am saying, is Krishnaji saying that one of the skills of the brain which is not used normally but it is still there, is to awaken to itself – if I may put it this way. There is a normal thing, which we understand of the brain, but has the brain one more skill which normally is not touched, but in a moment of shock can be awakened?
27:27 K: Can be awakened, if there isn't escape.
27:33 RB: Obviously, even biologically that is so,
27:41 K: It breaks it.

RB: It breaks it.
27:45 PJ: But a long habit is a very different thing because in a long habit it can break it anywhere along the line, but here, this is quite different. The shock is tremendous and the movement is immediate.
28:06 RB: No, but escape is a long habit.
28:11 DS: But has the brain learned not to escape?
28:16 RB: No, the point is, the brain has the capacity to break its own habit. When there is a crisis, it does so.
28:29 DS: Yes, but has it learned? In other words, I have a crisis and I go into my habit. I come along and I see it's not good for me to do that. The next time I meet the crisis, do I immediately not go that way, or do I have to say to myself, 'Don't go that way'? Have I learnt so that fundamentally I've changed?
28:57 K: Wait, sir. That means what? Let's look at this point. There is a difference between learning and accumulated knowledge.
29:05 DS: That's what I am saying. If I have to repeat, 'Don't do it', I've just accumulated knowledge. But if I've really learnt, then it doesn't stick.
29:16 K: There is a difference between learning and memorising.
29:20 PJ: So, the brain has the skill of learning.
29:25 K: And the skill of memorising.

PJ: That we know. The memorising part of it, we all know, but the other we don't know.
29:34 K: No, don't say we all know. We know it, but we keep on.
29:39 PJ: Yes. But we know it. We live in it, that's our life.
29:44 K: That's our life.
29:47 PJ: Learning is not our life.
29:50 K: What are you objecting to about learning?
29:52 PJ: I'm just trying to probe into it, I'm not objecting to it. I am saying that there is a skill in the brain which is a new way of listening or a new way of seeing. A new way of learning, which is not an accumulating process. If that has to arise in the state of shock and sorrow – I'm going to say something – it must have listened and learnt over time. Is it a question of time? Has it learnt this over time?
30:30 K: No. Learning is not accumulation in the brain.
30:35 PJ: Where is it in the brain?
30:41 K: I don't quite follow all this.
30:44 PJ: Memory is stored in the brain. Where is learning?
30:50 K: What do you mean by learning? Let's get into that, a little bit. I know memorising. That's fairly clear, repetition, I have heard it so often, there's memory, all the rest of it. It is accumulated information. That's what we call knowledge. What is learning? Is there learning apart from knowledge, accumulation of knowledge?
31:27 DS: If, in this instant, we are facing suffering directly, what is the learning there?
31:33 RB: But isn't seeing it directly itself the learning?
31:39 DS: Seeing the suffering directly, or seeing my movement into the habit directly? Where is the learning? My son dies, and I immediately go off from it. Where do I learn in there?
32:00 PJ: No, but many of us also are aware that, at a moment of crisis, before one heard Krishnaji, the brain used to automatically move away. After hearing Krishnaji, it does pause. There is space in which it can – I won't use the word 'choice', but there is a space in which it need not move away, let me put it that way. I'm trying to get at the space which arises in the brain Is it of the same nature of memory? Is it another memory which comes up? 'Don't move away.'
33:04 K: Could we use a different word than 'learning'? Which is perception. Perception is never continuous. It is not of time. I have had a shock, my son is dead. And I perceive escape is futile. That perception will prevent moving away from what is. It is not a habit formed. I wonder if I'm conveying this.
33:54 DS: What you haven't conveyed is, suppose my habit is to move away. So, it's the tuning up of perception.
34:05 K: Just a minute, just a minute. My son is dead. It's a great shock. At that moment, you, my friend comes along, and says, 'Look, don't ever escape from this'. You're my friend, you say it with great affection, with great care, 'Don't escape from this'. I hear you very clearly and I see the truth of it. You explain to me, the rationale of that, and I say, 'Yes'. That perception will prevent all escape. There is no decision not to escape. The mechanism of decision doesn't operate. Because I have listened to you very carefully, 'Don't escape, my friend'. It has entered into my heart. It's not just an intellectual concept. It has really penetrated into me and I say, 'Quite right'. I have perceived the truth that escape is utterly meaningless.
35:20 RB: What do you mean when you say it has really penetrated into me, it has entered into my heart? What is the matrix then of that perception? It's not the brain.
35:34 K: Why not? Why do you say it's not the brain?
35:40 RB: Because the brain functions in time.
35:45 K: Yes, it's involved in time, functions in time, knowledge is time. Its function is altogether within that area. When I am in shock of my son's death, my friend comes along and says, 'Look, Old Boy, you are suffering a great deal, we all experience...' We go through it all. And he says, 'Look, don't escape because that's utterly meaningless'. At that moment, he has pierced something into me. A seed that has a tremendous significance, which is, 'Don't escape, but stay with the fact'. That's what he's telling me. Because I have been sensitive to listen to various things, when he says that, I receive it very quickly, and very deeply. My brain then is acutely aware of my pain. Here my friend comes along and says, 'Don't do it'. It immediately sees the truth. Perception there, is not learning. It's perception all the time.
37:01 PJ: May I ask a question? Unfortunately, in the moment of great sorrow, we don't have a friend like that.
37:11 K: We have never cultivated friends.
37:14 PJ: Apart from friends – let's move away. Really, one is alone in sorrow.

K: Totally.
37:25 PJ: What takes the place of the friend, within ourselves?
37:32 K: That's fairly simple.

PJ: Isn't it? There has to be a mechanism within ourselves, which has the same nature as the friend, which evokes that within ourselves.
37:46 K: Are you asking this, is there a mechanism which operates, without the friend? What do you say, sir?
38:04 DS: I say that's where we come back to learning.
38:09 K: No, she's asking something else.
38:12 DS: Something has to hold there.

K: Pupulji is asking a question. I have no friends. When I suffer, there is no friend. I am utterly lonely. My brain feels this emptiness, aloneness, the sense of isolation. In that isolation, is there a factor which says, 'Remain with what is', without the friend telling me not to escape. That is the question. Right? Pupulji?
38:52 PJ: I have a feeling, it's not possible for a mind which has never looked at itself, inquired, investigated.

K: You can't discuss, then.
39:07 PJ: But a mind which has investigated, looked, inquired, within it, within that state of tremendous sorrow, itself there is an intelligence which can arise out of that. The arising of intelligence is out of that pool of energy.
39:39 K: Take another human being, who has seen the futility of memory, the limitation of memory, not escaped, all along the lifetime, and suddenly his son dies, his mind then is acutely aware of the pain, and also, because he has watched and learnt, perceived all along life, then there is no question of escaping.
40:19 DS: Now, he knows. He knows. He is totally committed to – he's got conviction.
40:26 K: Not conviction, he sees the truth is, there is no escape.
40:32 DS: What is the difference between him and the person who doesn't know?
40:36 K: Lots, because he's just a man who is asleep all his life. Somebody hits him on his head, he wakes up for a moment, then goes back to sleep again.

PJ: This brain which is awake and faces sorrow, it's not a brain which is moving within the past, present and future. This capacity of being in the present must be the factor of intelligence.
41:20 K: Are you saying – put it simply, Pupulji – this man has always remained with what is, never moving away.
41:37 RB: But to a mind which is always with what is, is there pain?
41:50 K: With what is, I'm attached to my son – that's a fact.
42:01 K: If you are really awake, of course, not.
42:04 RB: Yes, exactly.

DS: That's an important point, because if you are really attached to your son, then are ingredients of brain such that you still don't know, at that moment, not to do that?
42:19 RB: This is a contradiction because when you are always with what is, then it is a state of wakefulness where there cannot be attachment.
42:33 PJ: We are talking of the intermediate stage. We are not talking of that state where you are so awake, yet. We are talking of moments of awareness, moments of sleep, moments of sorrow, moments of running away – we are talking of a very mixed bag.
42:52 DS: Or talking of that subtle way that the brain tosses up, is faced with a moment of loneliness and tosses up, the self-definition, 'I am lonely' and then is attached to that self-definition, and then the real feeling and isolation is lost – the suffering.
43:19 PJ: So let us put aside that mind which always lives in the present. Let us take, what do I do, faced with sorrow?
43:33 K: All right. Let's start. Sit on a chair, you'll be more comfortable. I'm an ordinary man. Do I realise that I am the past, present and the future, that I am time-maker? This is important. Right? That I create my own future, that I am the time-maker. I am a slave to time. Do I realise that, first? I can walk very, very swiftly or crawl along. Do I realise what I am, the future is going to be? If I don't radically change, now, I have no future. You understand? So, am I aware of this immense fact, that I'm the time-maker, I am my own time-maker? I would start with a layman. I am a layman. You come along and tell me this, and I see the truth of it. Either I can crawl, sleepily for the rest of my life or, as I realise that I am my own time-maker, I can walk enormously fast, run, not to any end – run. Now, if that is the truth for me as a layman, then, in that state of mind, my son dies – I think this is important. My son dies, I have a shock naturally, physical shock. Also, there is psychological shock involved in it. As I am my own time-maker, you follow what takes place in me? There's no question of escape, then. I wonder if you're following all this. Ah, this is important. Go on, I understand.
46:26 PJ: So there are many perceptions, there are many perceptions which bring you to a state where the mind sees its inadequacy and, I will say, pauses. I won't say it ends. The brain cells pause. We are aware of that. That there are perceptions which lead to the brain cells pausing. I'm using another expression. You might say it's a perception that I am the time-maker. It may be a perception of the inability to see the reality of the 'I'.
47:24 K: Do you see the reality that you are the time-maker? I'm not talking of various other forms of perception. Do I see, when you tell me you are creating your own future, which is time-maker?
47:47 PJ: I think it's easy, it's possible to see that.
47:50 K: Now, wait, you see that. Not as an idea, not as a theory, but as a tremendous realisation. Now, my son dies. I am in pain, naturally. Then, I don't escape, because I am my own time-maker.
48:25 PJ: Sir, you see the difficulty? I am saying, I see that I am the time-maker, at this instant. My son dies. At that instant, 'I am the time-maker' is not within my mind.
48:42 K: Oh, yes, it is there.

PJ: How is it?
48:46 K: If I have seen the truth that I am the time-maker, when my son dies that truth doesn't run away, escape or hide. It is there.
49:00 PJ: If it is not there as memory...

K: No, it is not there as memory.
49:07 PJ: Where is it?

K: As truth, it is there. Not memory.

PJ: What is this mysterious thing? What do you mean, 'as truth it is there'? I have seen that I am the time-maker.
49:27 K: Your own time-maker. That's a tremendous thing.
49:33 DS: And now my son dies. I feel when my son has died, that my time that I have made has been disturbed.
49:51 K: We haven't got it, sir.
49:53 RB: Are you saying that if one has seen the truth I am the time-maker or whatever it is, that truth is not destructible, it is always there?
50:09 K: Of course.
50:15 RB: It is not memory coming up.

K: No, it's a germ. Like a seed that has been planted. Do what you will, it is growing. You can smother it, put cement on it, but it has got the vitality to break through the cement, like grass.
50:39 PJ: What is the relationship of that to the brain cells?
50:45 K: Ah, now, let's go into it differently. The brain cells have been, as far as I have watched, as a layman, that they are conditioned by knowledge. Knowledge is their security. Right? If it is not knowledge, it is some form of illusion – theoretical, philosophical, religious illusions. Now, it can move from one religion to another, one form to another, but it's not a mutation. Right? What brings about mutation? Is that what you're asking?
51:37 PJ: In a way, because if these germs are part of the brain, the brain is mutated.

K: They are. Then the brain is mutated. Let me put it to you, sir.

K: Thought is a material process.
51:54 PJ: No, I'm saying something different. If this germ of truth is part of the brain cells, then the brain cells have mutated.

K: Yes, they have.
52:08 PJ: This is what I would like to...

K: Of course, of course. That's what I am saying. If I listen to you, not as a theory, as somebody I have gone to, or this or that, but I listen to you with a tremendous feeling of respect, feeling of great affection, and I feel what you say is true, and I've found that what you say is true, that germ has been planted, and it has its own tremendous vitality. Right? This is obvious.
52:56 PJ: A germ which has nothing to do with time-making?
53:01 K: No – of course, of course.

DS: Or learning?
53:07 K: No learning. Sir, just a minute. I come to you, as a friend. We have talked to each other great deal. Actually, we have. We have talked a great deal. You come to me because my son is dead. You fly over from New York, and tell me, 'Look, don't escape, that is the worst thing you can do. Cry, that's part of release, but don't escape. I listen to you with tremendous attention because agony makes me listen. And I listen to you, and I see the truth of what you have said. I see it, not intellectually, I see that is true. That's a germ in me, an imperishable germ, and it is going on. I may cry, – but that says, 'Look, (inaudible)'. That's all I am saying. You have helped me to break the habit of the pattern of escape, which is mutation. I've been caught in this circle, you come along, point it out, it's broken. Do I do this all the time, not only at this moment of suffering, but do I do this all the time? That is the question. Not just at that moment, which is silly. But do I do this all the time? Listen, listen.
55:11 DS: That's the real question.
55:13 K: Of course, it's the real question.
55:20 DS: And that is such a fundamental question,
55:33 K: They become important, then.
55:35 DS: Within that context, within that question.
55:38 K: You challenge me, ask me, 'What are you talking about? What nonsense!'. You follow? If I'm alert enough and critical enough, in myself, you say, 'What nonsense', and I begin to ask, 'Is it? I want to look'. It's all the time afresh, not just at the moment of death, which is what happens to a sleeping man. If I'm asleep all day, habit, routine, money-making, sex or drink, at the moment of shock, I escape, but if I have been doing this, then death is a challenge to me, not as a sorrow or shock, as a challenge. In this context, we ought to discuss or talk over together, what is insight, which is not of time, which is not of memory. What is that? As we said the other day, is there an action which is not of knowledge?
57:23 DS: Would you call this perception? That's not of knowledge, no.
57:32 K: Of course, not. We were talking about it, here, some time ago, with Dr Bohm, this fact that insight transforms or brings about mutation in the very brain cells themselves. When we discussed it, he saw it, he agreed, if I'm not mistaken. I may be mistaken – subject to his correction– that, to see the truth of something immediately, not rationalise, explanation, conclusion and then, from that conclusion act, which is decision-making, which is a mind solving problems or a brain which is solving problems, but to see clearly, instantly.
58:32 DS: And then not ever to go in that direction.
58:35 K: Finished.
58:38 DS: I disagree with Dr Bohm in some way on that, not that I disagree – but I think that the fundamental difficulty
58:52 K: Wait, sir, I stated this, Dr Bohm didn't say it. He may have been polite.
59:03 DS: I just think that there's a... – let's put it this way... we need to go further into what it is that prevents this insight...
59:20 K: Lots.
59:21 DS:...from being so fundamental, so that the conviction is so strong that never move in that direction.

PJ: If I may say, I think the mind or the brain to learn to slow itself down, first of all. I am saying it with... I think the very observing of the mind, slows the brain down. This pause which arises, as it should arise between any impact and the response to that impact, I think it's in that pause, alone, that insight is possible. Whatever insights arise, arise when there is a certain gathering of all your senses to a point of immobility where they don't act.
1:00:30 DS: So, you're suggesting a method, which prepares the mind.

PJ: It's not a method. If I put a method, Krishnaji will jump down my throat. But the very observing of the mind, slows down the mind.
1:00:42 RB: Not a method, but for Krishnaji, insight might come instantaneously all the time, possibly, we don't know, but for most of us there is a process of enquiry, which is rational – if I might use that word – and that process of enquiry leads to some kind of an insight.
1:01:11 K: Wait, wait, wait, wait. I'm not sure.
1:01:16 PJ: I wouldn't put it that way.
1:01:17 K: I wouldn't put it that way at all.
1:01:22 PJ: As you see, perception flowers. I'm quite certain about it.
1:01:28 RB: But you don't deny the value of enquiry, sir.
1:01:31 K: No. Just a minute. I am greedy. I see the total implication of greed, not rationalise.

RB: No, not rationalising.
1:01:51 K: I see the whole complexity and the movement of greed, the whole of it, and to have an insight into that, is the ending of it. The brain cells are accustomed to greed, that's their habit. Now, perception of the whole consequences of that, breaks it. That is insight, which breaks it.
1:02:28 RB: Which is immediate.

K: Immediate – and finished.
1:02:33 DS: If that were true though, Krishnaji, we've been listening to you and talking about this for years and we have gone over this a thousand times.
1:02:42 K: But it doesn't happen.

DS: We don't see. And I think it is because the way we are enquiring, in some way itself, is limiting us.

K: Yes, sir. Don't enquire. Wait, wait, wait, no, just a minute. Don't enquire. What will you do? I am serious.

DS: I know.
1:03:10 K: I don't enquire. I am greedy. What happens? Do I indulge in it?

DS: It stops.
1:03:35 K: But if I enquire why I'm greedy, because of this and that, I'm off. Spinning along in the wrong direction. But I say, 'All right, I'm greedy'. That's a fact. I remain with that. I am terribly sensuous, I remain with that. Or any other human complications, I remain with that fact. Why should I enquire?
1:04:13 DS: That's the habit.

K: No! The causation, we hope, will help us to get rid of it.
1:04:19 DS: That's the habit.

K: No. It is the desire to find the cause.
1:04:25 DS: Which is, the desire to be free of the cause, But if I remain with that, it has got its own vitality.
1:04:45 DS: It is like giving up, it's so funny, it's such a paradox. The very thing that I want to do is go on enquiring because I want to get free of it, is the very thing that is trapping me.
1:05:00 PJ: Sir, may I ask, what is the split second before insight?
1:05:19 K: Look, suppose I have a problem, and I go to you and discuss with you, I go to you. I discuss, in the resolution of that problem. I discuss it because I really want to do something about it. I don't want to escape from it, I want to act. Right? You follow? I want to act. I am dictating to the problem, to act upon it. Whereas, the problem says, 'Don't act upon me, I am your problem'. The problem is not out there, it is here. Right? I have externalised the problem, and I want to do something about it, whereas, the problem is me. I wonder if I'm making it clear. So, I say, 'All right, I have understood this. I won't even analyse, do anything, the problem is there, that's me'. And I am watching all the time how it acts. How the 'I' acts, which is the problem. I'm watching, as though there was a snake in the room, I'm watching it all the time. Every reaction, every thought, I don't limit it or expand it, I don't exaggerate it. I say, 'I'm watching it'.
1:07:07 DS: That implies so deep a conviction that there is no difference between me and the problem and that I can't be any better than what it is. It didn't happen to me.

K: The more.
1:07:25 DS: But it implies more deeply that I was never any different from this, and there's no past and future.
1:07:35 K: Sir, but like the world, especially in America and Europe, more, more, more. I go to this, I go to that, I go to the other, getting more and more, then what? Sir, this brings up a really good question, sir. If I have a relationship with you, which is my friend. You're my friend, I have a relationship with you, therefore, I'm listening to you. Any relationship should be constant listening, exchange. We have stopped all that. There is no relationship. I go on my way and you go on your way. When it suits me, I'll cooperate with you, and if it suits you, you will cooperate, but otherwise, we are totally separate human beings. If I once realise I am totally related to you in the deepest sense of that word, I can't help listening to you.
1:09:05 DS: When you say 'listening to me' are you also saying that that implies that wherever I am, you're always listening to me?
1:09:15 K: Of course. Also, I'm terribly doubtful about everything. I question in myself, 'Is this..?' So, my mind is tremendously sensitive, the brain active, it hasn't gone to sleep in some beastly little habit.
1:09:35 PJ: At no point is that mind held. At no point is that mind of yours held.
1:09:45 K: No.
1:09:47 DS: Held in place.
1:09:51 PJ: There is no point at which it fixes itself.
1:09:56 K: Which means there is really no attachment. Forgive me, I'm using that word in the deepest sense. When there is no attachment, there's affection, love, all the rest of it. Now, let's go back. Have we time? You can go on, sir.
1:10:43 K: I'd like to discuss the difference between the brain and the mind.
1:10:52 DS: How specific do you want to discuss it?
1:10:55 K: As specifically as we can, not from any scientific or other point of view, but as a layman who has watched, observed himself, observed the world and so on, so on. I think there is a vast difference between the two. The brain is essentially a sensory organism. That organism is most dominant in life, in human beings, thought, all the implications of that. That brain is very limited because it's in the field of knowledge. It's conditioned by that. It is knowledge. That brain is constantly moving from one corner, one...(inaudible) but it is in the same area. Therefore, moving to one corner, it thinks it's free. Or going to the other corner in the same field, it thinks it's free. But it's still within the fence. Does the brain realise this? Or, you tell me about it, and then it submits to what you have said, and that very submission is within the area of knowledge. Or, I see the truth that my brain is basically, at present, limited, in this field. Do I see the truth of that? If I do, then I know knowledge is necessary at certain level and I have no other knowledge. You understand what I'm saying? No other knowledge – about myself, about... After all, knowledge is about myself. You understand, sir? When I realise I am still moving within that area of knowledge there is a break, which means the ending of the self. Ending of the self, then opens a corridor or a door into the mind, which is not my mind, it is the universal mind. Not 'the universal' – I don't want... Mind is tremendous, infinite. But once it has seen... there is a perception of the enormity of the mind, then the brain becomes also contaminated with that.
1:14:29 DS: Contaminated with that, but also in a different relationship to the mind. That would be another question, how the brain functions in the context of a total perception of the mind.
1:14:46 PJ: Before we can even go to that, I'd like to ask him a question.
1:15:06 K: Immensity.

PJ:...to that immensity.
1:15:21 K: Contaminates the brain.
1:15:23 PJ: What do you mean by 'contaminate'?
1:15:27 K: It's like fresh air coming in.
1:15:31 PJ: So that the brain is never the same?
1:15:36 K: Never the same – it can't be.
1:15:39 DS: Let's go into that more, what we mean by that contamination. What happens to the brain when it is contaminated?
1:15:54 K: What a word! What happens, then? What happens? You are then bringing in a gradual process. Ah, that's all. Careful, I said one. If I see the truth that the brain is functioning within this area all the time, moving from one corner to the other, choice, freedom,
1:16:43 K:...then it has broken the window, you open the window.
1:16:47 PJ: Can it go back?
1:16:49 K: How? It's like fresh air coming in.
1:16:52 DS: Never go back?

K: Never go back to what?
1:16:55 PJ: To again going into that cycle?
1:16:57 DS: In other words, we've got this, the corridor is open, we've got that.
1:17:07 PJ: Can the gate close?

DS: Can the gate close?
1:17:14 K: Can the gate close?
1:17:18 PJ: Is there an opening and closing?
1:17:21 K: Oh, good God, couldn't be – it isn't a game you're playing.
1:17:24 PJ: No, sir, it is not a game.

DS: It's a very serious question.
1:17:27 K: I understand. Who's going to close it? Who's going to open it?
1:17:32 DS: Brain, the habit of the brain.

K: No, we haven't understood.
1:17:35 DS: Society, living in the world.

PJ: No, no. We are sitting here with you.

K: The world is me.
1:17:44 PJ: We are sitting with you here. We are sitting with you here, and the gate opens.
1:18:03 K: No. The brain takes over.

DS: The brain takes over.
1:18:07 PJ: The brain takes over.

K: Knowledge. Wait, wait, wait. The brain takes over, knowledge takes over. Are you aware it's taking over?

DS: Yes.
1:18:20 PJ: It's again the gate is open.

K: Yes.
1:18:30 DS: Sometimes, though, you feel like you're running behind it.
1:18:33 K: Ah, sir, just look at it. By this conversation, the window is open. I go outside and the window gets closed. Am I aware the window is getting closed? That's most important.
1:18:57 PJ: It's open.

K:...it is already open. I don't do anything. It's not that I decide to close it, or to open it.
1:19:09 K: The moment I perceive it is closing, it is open. So, is this to be repeated? That's the question you're asking. Constantly aware, closing, opening. What would you do, if that took place? What's your next question? If you are really aware of the closing and opening of the window, and know the instant you are aware the window is closing, then it's open. Is this what you are going to do, all the time?
1:20:00 PJ: I can ask myself that question.

K: You've asked me, I'm asking.
1:20:07 K: What would you do?
1:20:10 PJ: I can only remain with the question.
1:20:12 K: No, I've gone beyond. Just a minute, Pupulji. I realise this. Is this what I am going to do for the rest of my life – open, close, open, close? Answer my question, sir. What will you do if you really perceived, are aware that the moment you're aware of the window closing, it's open? See what weariness this is? How terribly exhausting this game is? So, what will you do?
1:21:00 DS: It's not possible any more, once it's open.
1:21:03 K: Yes, it's possible. You say, 'To hell with it' and shut it.
1:21:10 DS: Or open it all the way.

K: That's right. Not open it all the way. That's the problem. Shut it.
1:21:21 PJ: We can't.
1:21:24 K: Ah, ah.

PJ: You can't shut it.
1:21:26 DS: Do you really think that you could shut it, after it's open? You don't really think that?

K: No, I don't. But to the man who says, 'I'm weary of this game', 'Then, my friend', I say, 'shut it. Keep it closed, for God's sake, don't bother about it'. Because it's exhausting. This is better – keep it closed. If it is open, you can never shut it. The idea that you shut can't take place. Because we are looking at it, and saying, 'I can do something about it'. That's the real crux of it. You can shut it, open it, you can play. Once you see the limitation of this feeling, so completely, then you open the door. And this says, 'You can enter in', but it has no meaning any more. We are finished?