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MA83S2 - What is intelligence?
Madras (Chennai), India - 5 January 1983
Seminar 2



0:19 K: We are going to discuss, this morning, what is intelligence. The root meaning of that word, etymologically, is to gather information, to collect various forms of conclusions, and also, it means 'interlegere', to read between, not only what is printed in the book but also, read between the lines or between two people who are trying to express themselves in certain ways. So, as far as one can understand, that word is to collect information, to gather various forms of data, to interpret, to convey a significance of any subject and also, to read between two people who are talking not quite openly, not quite in total communication. So, the word 'intelligence' implies all that, according to a good dictionary. So, perhaps, we are going to discuss what is intelligence, what is its place in daily life and where does it dwell? What is its abode, in the human heart, in the human mind or elsewhere? Right, sir?
2:39 Achyut Patwardhan: I suggest we should start from the intellect. Because there is a common misunderstanding that there is some kind of a kinship between intellect and intelligence, that intelligence is only a refined form of the intellect. Whereas, the intellect may prevent you from being intelligent, from having intelligence.
3:10 K: According to dictionary meaning of 'intellect' is capacity to discern, capacity to reason, capacity to investigate, capacity to analyse, draw a conclusion from analysis, to choose, to understand. All those words are implied in 'intellect'.
3:42 AP: The intellect is a very valuable tool because with the intellect we have fought superstition, credulity, tradition, belief. So, the intellect is a very prestigious faculty because these rationalist associations and all the people who believe that reason is a very safe and a necessary aid to prevent man from falling in the trap of superstition, they stick to the intellect. But a point comes, like causality, that you cannot just permit yourself to be imprisoned in the circuit of that reason. I would like you to throw some light on the limit of the intellect.
4:43 K: Intellect?
4:50 AP: The actual 'what is' today, among the intellectuals, among the so-called intellectuals in all the universities, everywhere - I am taking the cross-section of society that lives by the intellect, that lives by its learning.
5:09 K: When you use 'learning', again we come to a totally different question. Perhaps Dr. Sudarshan who is a scientist, all the rest of it, he will explain perhaps what is the intellect.
5:24 George Sudarshan: No, I won't explain, but I saw Prof. Weber smiling. She also makes a living using intellect. I would like her to say something.

K: Then there are all of you.
5:41 Renée Weber: What is the question?
5:44 GS: Achyutji wanted to know what is the role of the intellect, the role of the intellectual, and the limits of being intellectual?
5:55 AP: I personally feel that we cannot enter upon this subject until we have a clear understanding of the limits of the intellect, that it only goes up to this point, not beyond that point, this helps us to it because the intellect is connected with thought.
6:15 RW: All right. It's become clearer, certainly to people in the field of philosophy, that the intellect is, by definition, limited. That is accepted by modern philosophers and that its peculiar strength
6:48 K: To discern.

RW: Yes. It classifies. It tries to be clear, logical, knows it operates in space and in time, since Kant and philosophers of that sort, that is accepted, and it is not assumed that the intellect can do more than that. I think the intellect is properly classified as a limited instrument that cannot know the real. That's true in philosophy for 300 years.
7:20 AP: Would Bertrand Russell subscribe to that view?
7:23 RW: Yes. For them, there is nothing to know beyond that, and in any case, we do not have the instrument to know reality.
7:33 GS: This is very much like the case of a liberator, a person who is trying to remove you from tyranny, coming over and taking over a popular revolution, then becoming the dictator himself. The intellect, in some sense, having liberated us from things, has imposed its own benign dictatorship.
7:56 Pupul Jayakar: May I interrupt, and say one thing?
8:01 K: Pupulji, would you wait? This lady began.
8:06 Q: It seems, in my profession which is also university teaching, that there is an occupational hazard of words and of thought, just like black lung disease is an occupational hazard for miners. And it seems, also, that although we articulate that we have this limit, that isn't what we live in practice, that there's a difference between even our intellectual understanding of what we're saying and what we are actually living in our lives.
8:46 GS: Even intellectuals occasionally transcend limitations of intellect.
8:52 RW: No. The opposite. I think that even when we say we are transcending, and we are moving in that direction verbally, that quite often we are really deluding ourselves, and it's not transcending. It's a new delusion.
9:16 K: Pupulji was talking.
9:21 PJ: Just before this discussion started, I asked both Dr. Sudarshan and my son-in-law, Hans Herzberger, a question as to what did Gödel really say? Gödel who was one of the great scientists. And they told me - correct me if I'm wrong - that knowledge is never complete. No knowledge is ever complete.
9:55 GS: Computable propositions or deductive propositions do not ever exhaust a system.

PJ: So, it's never complete.
10:03 K: Would you put it for a layman?
10:07 GS: Gödel proved a theorem, that if you have any mathematical logic which can be arithmetised, in which things can be listed and a category can be made, then you can always show that there are certain propositions which can be stated within the scheme which can neither be proved nor disapproved within the system. There could be no clearer evidence of the fact that the system is open, since the human mind is able to construct a system, it is quite clear that the human mind is not necessarily restricted by the same restrictions as a propositional calculation.
10:44 K: You invent a system and that system is open therefore the inventor has also the capacity to be open.
10:55 GS: And Dr. Herzberger further pointed out that what this means in philosophy is simply to recognise that therefore the human mind could not be arithmetised and therefore could not be mechanical, like an ordinary mechanical system is.
11:15 PJ: He's here. Hans, why don't you come for half an hour? He has got to go at 11, but you can come till then. He's got to go for his daughter's eye. But till then, come.
11:49 K: Gödel.
11:51 GS: Words have been put into your mouth. You could deny them. You heard what Pupulji has said?

PJ: No, you explained what he said.
12:06 GS: You said that what Gödel's theorem implies for contemporary philosophy and generally, is that the mind is probably not mechanical because the mind can conceive of a system which transcends that particular proposition.
12:22 Hans Herzberger: Yes, it is a disputed point but this is one interpretation, that the mind cannot be a closed system or a mechanical system or a formal system or a computer.
12:37 K: Is this merely a theory or factual in daily life?
12:41 Sunanda Patwardhan: How have they come to this, that there is a possibility that the mind is not a closed system?
12:47 HH: It's merely a theorem. There's a mathematical fact but the interpretation of that is merely a theory, hypothesis and very much disputed.

K: So, what are we discussing?
13:01 PJ: Look at the implications of that. If that is scientifically so, and accepted, then the human mind is open-ended. We are talking of it as a closed circuit.
13:27 K: What do you mean by the mind?
13:29 Asit Chandmal: Can I question this a little more? As I understand it, what Gödel said, in very simple terms, is that if you have a number of propositions, then if you can prove everything within that system then the propositions contradict each other and if you don't have any contradictions within the proposition then there are things which the system cannot prove. The system can't be both complete and without contradiction. That, essentially, is what he said. You have propositions. You find you can't prove something, so you add more propositions, and the later propositions start contradicting the earlier ones.
14:18 AP: Contemporary Indian philosophy, as far as I understand, has not gone beyond Bertrand Russell. Professor, please, correct me.
14:28 PJ: Would you accept what he has said?
14:33 HH: Certainly I would accept what he said. Another way of putting it is the truths of arithmetic which we can understand and grasp, can't be captured in a formal system.
14:46 K: That's all.
14:47 Radha Burnier: I think this is correct and that is the reason why every philosophical system is able endlessly to pick holes in the other systems because each one of them has some contradictions and each one is a well-worked out system.
15:06 PJ: But if you once say that it can never be complete, then the very incompleteness of it makes it open-ended, therefore it is not a closed circuit. It can probably be put in a more scientific language. The very fact that you say knowledge is limited which is a closed circuit. The moment you say knowledge is always limited, never complete - not 'limited', never complete.

K: No, use that word.
15:53 PJ: Then the very incompleteness of it leaves an open door.
15:59 K: Yes, yes, yes.

PJ: Leaves the door open.
16:02 AC: I wouldn't infer that from Gödel. As long as there is no contradiction in your assumptions of knowledge, there are several things you know, which you can't prove. That's all it says.
16:17 PJ: I just want this particular thing. If a thing is not complete, then the incompleteness of it leaves an open door.
16:28 AC: Open door to what?

PJ: Open door to the unknown.
16:33 AC: Not to the unknown, to the unprovable.
16:37 GS: That is the very important distinction. The problem is arithmetical systems are not closed, in that their propositions which you know to be true, you cannot prove within that system. You can expand the system to encompass this one, but then new things are true which cannot be proved within the system. But it is always the known which is not provable.
17:04 PJ: It is the known which is not provable?
17:07 GS: So, it is known but not so that you can drive it home to somebody who does not want to know it.
17:18 AP: I'd like to bring the discussion to a more pedestrian level. Pedestrian level of universities' philosophical teaching, in our Indian universities. They do not begin today to question the limits of the intellect. Any approach to intelligence is not possible, unless it performs the highest function it is capable of, that is, to see its limitation. I would like you to help us to see the limit of intellect. The intellect must first see that this cannot be got through the intellect. If you say everything can be got by the intellect...
18:08 K: Would you admit, however reasoned, a reason has always a limit. Would you admit to that?
18:20 AP: Yes, I will.

K: Right? Then you have shown it but it can go on expanding.
18:27 AP: No, the intellect itself has to realise its own limitation. This is the discipline of the mind, which the universities discourage.
18:40 K: Sir, before we get too bogged down, I'd like to ask, what's the difference between the mind and the brain? What is the quality of the mind and what is the function of the brain? You understand my question? If we could be little bit clear about that matter. What is the mind? We have used the word 'mind' so much. The meaning of that word, according to the dictionary, again, mind is that which is capable of reason and so on. Right? I would like to discuss this. You may want to discuss something else, one is free to discuss what one wants. When you are using the word mind, mind, mind, intellect, what's the difference between mind, the intellect and the brain?
19:58 GS: The last one is very easy to say. Brain is a piece of tissue. Very specialised, and very skilled, but rather non-adaptable tissue.
20:10 GS: Which we, by common consent, associate with certain processes.
20:16 K: Sensory responses.

GS: And information processing.
20:20 GS: So, it's probably like a computer. The English word 'mind' is really a very amorphous word, it's a portmanteau word.
20:31 K: I know, that's why I want to pin it down a little bit.
20:35 GS: We use the computer part, the deductive, the precise, the legal part of functioning, we call it 'mind'. We talk about the discrimination part, which appreciates what has been proved, what has not been proved, whether the method is fast or slow, whether it's acceptable or not, what would be called discrimination, also, within mind. Then the processes of intuition or the transition between the known and the expressed known and the unexpressed felt, unexpressed known. That connection also is called 'mind'. In normal English usage anything that's not connected with sensory perception, is called 'mind'.
21:26 K: Then what is the relationship between thought, brain, mind? Are we off? You look rather worried and displeased.
21:45 PJ: We have discussed this way...

K: I'm not discussing, just asking.
21:52 PJ: He has raised one more issue which I think is very important. Because he has described that part of the brain, which is held within limits.
22:10 K: Sensory responses.
22:12 PJ: Is there that in the brain or the mind which is not confined within this? But I still think that the question I wanted to ask and go through has certain very important implications on what you are saying.
22:37 GS: The implications of what you're saying.
22:40 K: What am I saying?

PJ: Asit, would you describe it?
22:48 AC: This theorem called Gödel's Theorem, in this century, is supposed to be the greatest argument of the human mind, at least, in mathematical logic - it's a very, very complex, very rigorously argued thing in which it proves that a system can either be complete but with contradictions, or it has no contradictions, but it's incomplete. Pupul maasi's interpretation of it is worth following up, sir, because it rigorously, mathematically proves what you are saying. You are saying that a mind which is free of contradiction is infinite. It also knows a lot of things, but cannot communicate it to us, or prove it to us.
23:36 K: Yes, yes.
23:40 AC: Mathematically, what you're saying has been proved in this century.
23:44 SP: But what is this knowing?

AC: Exactly. Wait, wait. So, the only thing one can do is to be free of contradiction. If one is free of contradiction, then the system is open-ended. You know a great deal of things, so you can never prove it or communicate it. What happens to us is also what you are saying. We are operating in limited, complete systems, full of contradictions, which is outside of Gödel's theorem, that you can create a complete system which proves everything within itself but it is contradicting itself. So, all of us are living in limited, complete systems, full of contradiction. And you are living in an unlimited state without any contradiction.
24:34 K: What do you want to discuss?
24:36 AC: If that is so, the only thing that matters is to be free of contradiction.
24:41 K: What is contradiction? Let's start...
24:45 PJ: Then it is also breaking through one of the statements of Krishnaji, that the brain can only move within a certain circuit. Because it is not complete, the very incompleteness of it, is the doorway.
25:12 AC: As long as it is free of contradiction.
25:16 K: That's all. Would you agree to all that, sir? I am a layman.
25:20 GS: I agree with all the things. But in the process, we have been complete and limited. Let's be incomplete but unlimited. Earlier you said intelligence - not intellect - intelligence means to read between the lines.
25:38 K: That's the dictionary meaning - 'interlegere' - in Latin.
25:44 GS: So, all these statements about proof are within the system. Your major premise, your minor premise, your conclusion or if you are a little more complete, a major premise, an illustration, a minor premise, a conclusion, a verification of the conclusion. But these are still within well-defined things. These days, somebody will construct a computer to do the job for you. Or you hire graduate students or research assistants to do the job, and they can be relied on. But the real purpose of the human mind, brain, body, soul is to be able to go beyond that which is expressed. To be able to comprehend - again, 'comprehend' somehow means limit. But to be part of, or to go on to, not to comprehend that which is not expressed but which is known. 'Known' in the sense in which Adam knew Eve. Somehow or other, become, to grow by being with it. Pupulji mentioned earlier about causality in that context. Again, if you look at the purpose of causality, in natural philosophy in science, it has never really been as it is public advertised, to connect everything together. This is simply a prelude to be able to consider them as one, and then find out what is not connected with it. It is always the gap between the things which is important. the gap which can be transcended, but not by reason. You must get between the lines. You see a line drawing. If you are concentrating on the lines, you will never see the drawing. When you can see not the lines but the picture, then you have seen it. What is it, sir, in us, which makes us see it? You don't see the lines, and we ask which line will show the picture?
27:59 K: Could we discuss, sir, whether the contradictions in the human mind, brain, body, whatever word one likes to use, could we discuss whether there is an end to contradiction in human relationship? Begin there. In human endeavour, in human struggle. Would you agree to that?
28:31 PJ: That, yes. Because contradiction is, it exists within me. But when you start with a statement, that all knowledge is limited and I'm continually moving in limit, this mind of mine can never see that.
28:55 K: What?
28:57 PJ: Can never actually - it may prove it - but the seeing of it, in actuality, is impossible. It can see contradiction.
29:14 AC: It is contradiction.
29:18 K: Could we discuss why we human beings live in contradictions? Not Gödel's theories, and go through all that. Just to find out if a human being can live without contradictions. Then, perhaps, we can go much further. Right, sir? Is that possible? What is contradiction?
29:54 PJ: In very simple language, the process of becoming.
29:59 K: Contradiction. See the meaning of the word.
30:07 GS: Obviously, you are going to do the etymology.
30:09 K: Go on, sir. I don't have to do it. You know it.
30:13 GS: Contradiction means the statement and the state do not coincide.
30:20 K: Contradict, dicere - to say, contra that.
30:26 GS: The problem is therefore not in the state of things but in the statement of the state of things.
30:33 K: Don't complicate it for me, please.
30:37 AC: To say one thing and do another.

K: That's all. Contradicere. To say something and do something else. To think something and act totally differently.
30:54 SP: To want and not to want at the same time.
30:57 K: No, just go slowly into it, please.
31:05 PJ: I think the greatest contradiction is the movement from the actual to the illusion. To move from what exists, to what I would like to exist. That is the greatest contradiction in the human mind, for me.
31:33 K: Pupulji, we all know what a contradiction is. We don't have to - I want, I don't want. I desire, I don't desire. There is in one, the whole living is a process of contradiction. Contradiction means to do something and think something else. I am, but I would like to be something else, so, there is contradiction. On that, lots of philosophies are based. Right? Duality is based. Advaita, Dvaita, I don't know whatever that may be. I question whether there is duality at all.
32:28 GS: But we always keep asking you.

K: Darling, wait! Right, sir? I know there is darkness and light, man and woman, tall and short and so on. What is duality? Something opposite to what is. I'm putting it in my own simple language. 'What is' cannot be understood, cannot be resolved, so thought invents the opposite. Then the conflict arises, there's a contradiction. If I could dissolve the problem of something, without the opposite, there is no contradiction. Am I making myself clear? I'm violent. I've invented non-violence. If there was no such an ideal or opposite, there is only what is. I am unhappy. I am unhappy and I want to be happy. There's a contradiction, immediately. But if I understood the nature of unhappiness, looking at it, living with it, letting it move, seeing what it is - the story of it, then I may accept the whole story and live with unhappiness or, with the understanding of the causation, I'm out of it. There is no - to me - psychological opposite. Subject to going into contradiction and the investigation.
34:47 PJ: There's no psychological opposite.
34:50 K: At all.
35:01 Ravi Ravindra: I wish to seek some clarification on this. Not merely a linguistic game, but it seems to me you've already assumed a conclusion.

K: I've not assumed it.
35:23 RR: Let me say how I see it. Supposing one said that reality are, what are, are. Why does one say 'what is'? The moment one says what is, then one immediately says there's unity and change from it is duality and contradiction.
35:47 K: No, sir. I don't think...
35:51 RR: Maybe I've not have understood what you're saying.
35:54 K: I'm not contradicting you. Perhaps explaining. I am envious. Right? Envy is comparison, measurement. Right? I'm envious. Then, I have been told from childhood or because I read some stupid religious book which says, 'Don't be covetous'. So, the book I accept, the condition and so on I accept, and then I have a battle, struggle, strive between envy and 'I should not be envious'. I am saying, I may be mistaken, subject to all your corrections, that the 'must not be' is merely a non-reality. Right? The 'must not', the 'should not'.
37:06 RR: It seems an ethical reality.

K: No, no. Ethical reality is only 'I am envious'. To be ethical, there must be freedom from envy. Right? I cannot be free if I pursue the opposite. I don't know, I may be wrong.
37:34 RR: If I may just stay with this, because it will help me understand. I see I am envious.
37:46 K: Stay there! Stay there.
37:54 Radha Burnier: Sir, it sounds as if there are the 'I' and the opposites. But the opposites are the 'I'.
38:05 K: Therefore, there is only - if one opposite... Is the opposite born from its own opposite? Wait, wait, wait. Right, sir? Would you agree to that?
38:22 GS: I would like to hear the next sentence.
38:25 K: You're all so damn clever, that's what's the matter. Would you admit that any opposite - let's take good and evil. If evil is the opposite of the good, then the good still contains the evil. Somebody agree with me, for God's sake.
39:01 GS: I completely agree with you.

K: You mean it?
39:05 GS: Yes, I completely agree.

K: If you really mean it, then there is only envy, nothing else. Right? Then the problem arises, is it possible to be free,
39:27 K: But to be free of it, which is totally different from being...
39:33 GS: I speak for myself and Ravindra, saying that we are concerned that at that time we are not even concerned about our envy. You say, 'Be there. Be with envy. Therefore, you are free of envy'.
39:48 K: No, no, no. No! Then the whole problem arises, can you look at envy without the idea, the constant repetition of parents - 'Don't be envious'? Can I be free to look at envy, a word, associated with the past so that the past doesn't interfere with my observation? All that's implied! Not just, 'Stay with it'. That means nothing.
40:27 RR: That is the crucial point. If we can stay with this, I'd feel all this has been worthwhile. Otherwise, we just talk words. It never seems to have clarification. Can we stay with this staying?
40:45 K: Ask them, sir. I'm willing to go through all this business.
40:50 RR: Can we stay with the staying? Please, agree. George agrees.

GS: I agree with you.
40:56 PJ: What is meant by staying with the staying?
41:00 K: I said that.
41:01 PJ: When he says, can we stay with the staying.
41:06 K: I said that. He's repeating what I said.
41:10 PJ: But I'm asking him what is meant by that.
41:13 RR: What is the nature of this staying? Because it seems everything is resolved in this staying. Insight is in this staying, understanding is in this staying, intelligence is in this staying, as far as I can understand it.
41:31 PJ: If I may ask Krishnaji. In my mind, there is a rising of jealousy. Rising of jealousy. You seem to imply that there is an interval after that, when you say 'staying with jealousy', can I remain with jealousy, not move from jealousy?
42:11 K: Would you kindly, as you pay so much attention to Gödel, also, pay a little attention to what I'm saying? I'm not Mr. Gödel. I'm just an ordinary layman.
42:27 PJ: You did say, Krishnaji.

K: Wait, wait. Give equal attention, equal thought, equal discussion as you do with Gödel, with this poor chap from Madanapalle.
42:47 PJ: Sure, sir.
42:51 K: Or Timbuktu would be just as good. I hate the words, 'I am saying', but you will understand, I'm saying that there is no psychological opposite. The psychological opposite is an illusion, it has no reality.
43:17 PJ: I would say, yes.

K: You would agree?
43:22 PJ: Yes.

K: Yes. Then there is only the arising of that sensation which we call 'envy'. That reaction of measurement - you live in Delhi and I live in Madanapalle. So, there is that measurement which is comparison. Now, is it possible for me to be free of measurement, which is the very nature of envy? Help me out, go on, sir.

GS: I was going to say, the trouble that Pupul has is the trouble we all have. It's not clear from your statement to us. Is it a statement about that which has already happened, to those for whom it has happened, or is it an instruction to those for whom it has not happened to help them?
44:30 K: No, it has happened and it is happening for all of us, measurement.
44:36 K: I see you as a great scientist or a great man, and I am envious of you. It is happening all through life.

GS: But you don't mean it.
44:56 K: I'm not envious of you, sir. You can have all the glory in the world. I'm a poor chap from that village. Or rather, just the hyphen between the philosopher and the sage. Right, sir? No, seriously. I compare. My whole life is comparison. In school it begins. More marks than - etc., in college, in university. Apparently, all living has become a measurement, which means envy. We agree to that definition. Then we have invented the idea of becoming non-envious, becoming, having no measurement. Then we struggle with having no measurement. But the speaker is saying there is no psychological opposite, only envy, and I say, 'Stay with it'. Now, what does one mean by 'staying with it'? 'Staying with it' means the word 'envy' has an enormous significance. Right? I am always comparing. To stay with it means understand the nature of measurement, the nature of becoming something, from what you are, to something else. Right? So, can one be free of the word 'envy'? The moment you use the word 'envy', you've already taken it into the past. Therefore, you're still contradicting. That's it. Got it! Yes, sir. Just a minute. If you understand, catch it really quickly. You've got a quick brain. The moment I use the word 'envy', I've already translated the feeling from the past, which is contradiction.
48:15 GS: The contradiction is, in fact, in retaining the past.
48:24 K: And so, can I look at that reaction without the word? You asked me what it means to stay. Without the word, without escaping, suppressing it, all that. You understand? Just to be totally aware of it, without any choice. That's what I mean by 'staying with it', in which there is no choice. An awareness that... when you translate that feeling, which is 'new', and put it back into the background of the past, you've already created the duality and therefore contradiction. And so, can you do that? Sir, I have a precious diamond, a thing that is sparkling, extraordinarily beautiful. I look at it. I don't say, 'I must have it, how beautiful', I look at it. It's a marvellous thing, without saying, 'I must have it, I mustn't', all the rest of it. What do you say, sir?
50:17 GS: Earlier, when you talked about measurement, we thought you are talking about the future, 'I am envious now, I would like to create an image of myself not being envious'. But you're now saying that it is not the future which is dangerous, but the past.

K: Yes.
50:35 GS: The moment you say, 'I am envious, or I have been envious', by naming it, by keeping it apart from me, I have created an object, and I'm staying there instead of going on wherever I should be going.
50:50 K: That is the contradiction.

GS: That's the contradiction.
50:57 PJ: May I ask?
50:59 RR: Can we pursue this?

K: Oh, pursue it.
51:10 K: Not change.

RR: I'm not thinking of change. I'm just a little concerned that there are certain words that are not allowed in here, so I'm trying to use some others. A quality of attention, in which time does not play a part.
51:35 K: Past is the time.

RR: Either past or future. Rightly or wrongly, practically all classical disciplines say that this quality of attention can be developed.
51:54 K: Ah! The moment... You got it?
51:59 GS: I got it but it is a problem which we all have. You would not want me to quote, but in Patanjali - I won't quote. The very first 'sutra' makes a certain statement as to what yoga is. The question is, can you get there? Or are you already there? If you're already there, you don't need the book. If you can't get there, then you need the book, but you're not getting there, you only have the book. In the same sense, here, the statement seems to be, 'Don't have a past'. If you have a past, then you're keeping on looking at it, and instead of going, you are staying there, 'I'm still far from the destination, I want to go somewhere, I'm here'. But our question is that a lot of good people here, all of us, we seem to be not wanting to be envious, and when we are envious, we're unhappy. We don't think it is right. We don't always get out of it. Sometimes we do, mostly we don't. Is it that we are forever destined to be here?
53:14 K: No, I think we are slack.

GS: We are slack.
53:18 RR: Precisely. Now we're getting somewhere. He's repeating the same thing.
53:46 K: No, sir. No, sir. Just a minute, sir. Dr. Sudarshan makes a statement, 'Stay with it'. He explains what it means. Right? Did you actually listen to him?
54:07 RR: I think so. This is always the problem.
54:11 K: He is making a statement, 'Stay with it'. He explained what it means. Have I listened to him, so that what he is saying - not the words - the reality of what he is saying. You understand? Have I seen the truth of it, or whatever words you like to use, or I'm discussing in my mind, 'I wonder if he's right, Do you listen?
54:59 RR: Krishnaji, the difficulty seems to be, whatever you say, I listen sometimes.

K: No, no. Now! I'm asking you, sir, have you listened to what Dr. Sudarshan says? He says something. Is your heart in it? Or only the mind that is listening, the idea, listening is forming the idea. And the idea is not what he is saying!
55:42 AC: Sir, I think that's a very unfair question.
55:46 K: What is unfair?

AC: Your question, because any answer to that has to be wrong. Any answer to that question is wrong.
55:55 K: Why?

AC: It is based on memory.
55:57 K: No. Asit, just a minute.

AC: Yes. Yes, sir! Is listening based on memory? That's all I am saying. You say all listening is based on memory.
56:13 AC: No, I said when you ask him a question, 'Have you listened?' any answer he gives has to be wrong, sir.
56:20 K: No! He made a statement - 'X', and he explains it, very carefully. To him it is a reality, which means I must be at the same level, at the same time, with the same intensity. Otherwise it's just words. The word then is merely an idea. Now, can I meet him? That's my question.
57:02 AC: No, sir, your question is, did you meet him?
57:06 K: I did.

AC: How do you know?
57:10 K: What he said is true. Therefore, it's not mine or his.
57:14 AC: No, when you ask that question, it is already in the past tense.
57:19 K: Don't quibble over it, Asit.

AC: No, it's important, sir. Because then you're immediately out of it, again.
57:27 K: No. Would you - You made a statement, just now. Can a human being live without contradiction? Right? How do I receive that question? How do I approach that question? Right, sir? I don't want to talk all the time, somebody jump in, help me out. That's my question, which is basically his question, how do I approach a question?
58:21 PJ: May I say something, sir? The basic contradiction, then, is not greed or becoming but the way the mind listens or sees. That's the contradiction. There is a contradiction there, because when you bring in greed or envy or anything, the attention moves to greed or envy, and not to this state.
58:58 K: Forgive me, Pupulji. Have you answered my question? He made a statement, Gödel and you all made a statement, 'Human beings live in contradiction'. Right? Our minds and all that, live in contradiction. Contradiction exists when there is a division. Right? Where there is a division, time exists. The very nature of time is to divide and disperse and all the rest of it. Right, sir? Now, I listen to that, and I say, is there a contradiction in me? Just a minute, follow it. And I see there is. Right? And he goes on to tell me what is the nature of contradiction and I'm watching in myself the movement of contradiction. Are you following what I'm saying? I hope you are. I'm watching it. I'm not denying it, not accepting it, I'm watching the nature of contradiction. I realise contradiction only exists when there is an opposite. The opposite is created, as we said, by the past, dividing time as the past, present and future, dividing time as the fact and contradiction to that fact. I see all that, instantly. Immediately, I see how extraordinary that is. Right, sir? I may be wrong, I may be in a state of illusion. If I may mention, Napoleon, when he was fighting the Austrians - I used to read as a boy, for fun - his battles, he told the General his order, and the General had to be with him right to the last word. Right? Otherwise - the General had to meet Napoleon at the same level, at the same time, with the same passion. Then the message was not Napoleon's - it was a message.
1:01:53 PJ: Sir, this I understand.

K: Ah, ah, ah. No!
1:01:59 PJ: No, please listen, sir. This I understand. When you say, 'Can you look at jealousy without the word?' Please listen to what I'm saying.

K: That's all explanations.
1:02:14 AC: Sir, if I were to ask you, 'Are you listening?', would you answer that question?

K: Yes.
1:02:27 RR: Sir, then I wish to take it from here.
1:02:33 K: Including myself.
1:02:35 RR:...have been conversing with you, arguing with you and in my case, I would even say fighting with you, for many years.

K: Why?
1:02:52 RR: Shall I tell you honestly? I think I'm in love with you.
1:02:56 K: What?

RR: I'm in love with you. And you frustrate me to the nth degree. But I can't get away. This is why I am listening to you.

K: Fall in love with somebody else.
1:03:24 RR: But I still really wish to come to this question. Every time I have been with you, somebody, including myself, raises more or less the same question. You say you listen to us, and I accept it. But I don't really have the impression that you understand my difficulty.
1:03:50 K: Oh, yes, sir. What is the difficulty? I'm asking most seriously, sir, I'm not trying to quibble over it. What is my difficulty? You say to me, 'Stay with it'. I don't quite understand the meaning of that, or the implications of it, so you have explained to me. Don't escape, don't put it in, etc. And I find it terribly difficult to do that. Right? And I say, why? Why is it difficult? Go on, sir.

RR: In my case, the mind is like a monkey, it's running around.
1:04:42 GS: I think I can say something which I have just understood. I've also had the same problem of the continuing, frustrating love affair with Krishnaji.
1:04:53 K: For God's sake!
1:04:58 GS: What he said seems to be a very peculiar answer between lines with regard to the question, 'How do we get there?'. Also, for the first time, I think I understand what he meant by, 'Don't listen to anybody', and then keep on talking. I've always worried about it - why does he keep on saying, 'Listen to me. Don't listen to anybody'. The point is that the listening must be a process which begins in listening but ends in not listening. You have to be there. In a sense, it is an instruction, even though he likes to say, 'Asit, there is no process'. The process is indescribable. Secondly, when it is listened with that total attention, there is no one who speaks. It is the truth. It is, and you are in it, you are at it, you are with it, it is around you, it is surrounding you, and therefore, there is no one to whom you are listening. You're not, therefore, going to do something, 'Yes, I understand now, therefore, I am going to...' It's not 'going to do something', you have seen it. Now, you may say 'No, I haven't seen it'. But attention is the only process that you can do. And it's not a process, because it is not a step-by-step thing. And it should not become part of one's knowledge, it is not something that Krishnaji has told us, or something that we have asked him, or that we have understood. It is something. Now, of course, the moment of clarity is rapidly fading, but the point is that it is not a process in the ordinary sense. Therefore, one has to read between the lines. And it is the sound, the words - not even the idea. Let me say 'shabda', he doesn't like Sanskrit words, but the sound, the reverberating sound. It covers you up. It becomes so complete that there's no seeing it as different from you, no question of it being a step-by-step thing. But it is something that just is at that moment.
1:07:29 RR: George, you know and I know, you can use all the right words. I can use all the right words. I can give lectures on Krishnamurti. That doesn't help. The fact is, if you don't know this - let me speak about myself - I don't feel that I have this radical insight, or this perception. I may occasionally have a taste of something but then it's not there. The words are all very nice, I can read many books. But there is only - in this audience here, there is only one cat with the meat. Sorry, this is a wrong metaphor in a vegetarian assembly.
1:08:23 GS: You could make it the cat with the cream.
1:08:30 RR: But, he denies that he is different. Krishnaji, I'm sorry I'm being so passionate about this.
1:08:39 K: Sir, the question really is, if I may repeat, do we ever meet at the same level, at the same time, with the same intensity - ever? Right, sir? That's all my question. If I met you at the - then there's no problem.
1:09:01 GS: Please don't go away from there. Once we have met, please don't go away from there, I said.
1:09:15 K: Sir, what are you talking about! What is that state when - you accept the words, at the same level, at the same time, with the same intensity? Don't use the word 'attention'. Don't use the worn-out words, but find out what is that state. Would you agree that state is - I hate these words! - is love? Right, sir? Then words are not necessary. Napoleon's message to the General, the General was the message, he was carrying out the orders of Napoleon. I wonder if you understand. What are you smiling at?

AC: To carry your analysis further, after he receives Napoleon's message and carries it out, he still remains a General and Napoleon remains Napoleon, and he has to keep going back to Napoleon for messages.
1:11:04 K: No, no, no.

AC: That's the difference.
1:11:07 K: No. I understand. Of course, he is the General, but in that relationship when we meet at the same level, there is no General and Napoleon.
1:11:24 AC: Yes, at that moment.

K: Ah, ah! Now, wait, Why do you say at that moment? Because the General has to salute, but those are all functions.
1:11:38 AC: There is that level of intensity meeting at the same level, at the same time. And then, there is a moving away from it.
1:11:49 K: All right. Why does this moving away take place? Tell me. Why?

AC: I really don't know. No, sir, I really don't know. I thought a lot about it.
1:12:04 K: Why do I move away from something which I have seen to be extraordinarily beautiful? Why do I move away? Is it attraction, temptation? - I'm using professional words - attraction, temptation, and I can't maintain that. I move away. I've created a contradiction, right away.
1:12:44 AC: No, sir, it's not so complicated. To find out why you move away, you also have to find out how you came to that point.
1:12:52 K: You don't come to it.

AC: You do, sir.
1:12:54 K: Darling, you don't come to it.

AC: Please, listen. You do come to it, sir. Please, listen.
1:13:01 K: You don't cultivate love.

AC: Not cultivate, sir.
1:13:06 K: Move towards it.

AC: No, sir. When I talk to you, I'm not at the same level, etc., etc. But in discussion with you, a point comes when - I might be in illusion -

K: Doesn't matter.
1:13:22 AC: I'm at the same level, at the same time, with the same intensity. Then, physically I move away and this falls down.
1:13:29 K: Why?
1:13:31 AC: Because you had brought it to that level.
1:13:36 K: Or, you, yourself, have come to that level. Not 'yourself'. Sir, now, just a minute. Let's go into this a little bit. Can you cultivate love?

AC: No. You can cultivate charity. You can cultivate goodness. You can cultivate every other thing, except that. If you once see that it cannot be cultivated, under any circumstances, what is left? That's what we went through, the other day. Once I see that human problems cannot be solved within the field of known, cannot be solved. If you really grasp that, you've already moved out of it. You don't say, 'How am I to move?' You have moved. In the same way, love is not cultivable. The moment you see that, you've already moved away. Love is not pleasure, not desire, love is not - all the rest of it. Right, sir? What do you mean 'move away'?
1:15:34 AC: Move away from that state of meeting you...
1:15:39 K: The moment you say, 'move away'...
1:15:41 AC: Not 'move away', that state ends.
1:15:44 K: No! The moment you say, 'That state ends', you have created a conflict.

AC: Yes, of course. You have, sir. You have created a conflict.
1:15:57 K: So, you've not really understood the nature of conflict.
1:16:03 AC: I wouldn't say that, because in that state there is no conflict. You don't have to understand it.

K: There is no conflict.
1:16:10 AC: The moment you move away, there is conflict. And you do move away. And then one meets you after some time and it occasionally comes back to that point, then moves away. Would you accept that?
1:16:47 RW: It's confusing and it sounds like a contradiction to me. In the example of Napoleon and the General, you said there was a meeting at the same time, at the same level, with the same intensity. And then you said, that's love.
1:17:12 K: No, no, not between the General and... Later, I said, when you meet somebody at the same level, at the same time, with the same intensity, that's love. Not General and Napoleon.
1:17:35 RW: The reason this assumes some importance in my question Look, he is Napoleon, I am his General. He's telling me something very serious, thousands of lives depend on it. He is telling me that I must do something. His message is not the words, the feeling. His message is the me that's going to act. You understand?

RW: My question is, if the message that he's telling you, where you're meeting at this level
1:18:33 RW: So, that example does not work.
1:18:36 Q: That example was given for listening, not for love. The example that you gave was the example of how to listen.
1:18:44 K: Listen, yes.

Q: It was not the example of love.
1:18:46 K: Of course, not, to go and kill a million people? There was no contradiction. No!
1:18:55 RW: So the total listening between the General and Napoleon is not what you mean by love.

K: Napoleon said, 'Listen, Old Boy'. And the General has to immediately listen!
1:19:18 AC: Sir, would you accept that in discussion you activate our brains and minds, enormously, bring it to a level of great intensity. You do it, and then you do communicate something. Would you accept that?
1:19:39 GS: Krishnaji's point seems to be, at least as I understood it, that when the General and Napoleon, when Krishnaji and you are communicating at this level, Krishnaji is not talking to you, you are not listening to him, there is no sayer, no listener, there is only being one. Therefore, my impression is that he is simply refusing even to enter into the question, was he responsible for bringing this about.
1:20:15 AC: But it is a key question.

GS: I realise that but...
1:20:18 AC: The General does not reach that state with another General, only with Napoleon. Napoleon has created that state. Would you accept that you're doing the same thing?
1:20:31 K: Would you accept that? Be careful, here, be careful.
1:20:36 GS: It is a very dangerous question.

K: I know. Ah, no, don't hedge about. Don't hedge about.
1:20:44 GS: I do not want to answer the question on the grounds it will incriminate me. Let me get ready to talk.

K: Fifth amendment?
1:20:57 RR: Sir, if I can interject here, but not move away from the question, how can the General himself be crowned?
1:21:08 K: For God's sake. Forget Napoleon! I said, sir - just a minute, I don't know if you heard it - I used to read Napoleon's battle, - how he arranged his army - I was a boy. So, forget Napoleon.

RR: Forget about the General, then. You speak about something that occasionally makes sense to me, about this very radical insight, a radical change which, perhaps, chemically alters the brain.
1:21:49 K: Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
1:21:51 RR: Now, my problem is, and I think this is Asit's problem, in your presence we seem to experience a little bit of this intensity and we can meet with you sometimes at the same level. But then we go away. That radical chemical change has not taken place, does not take place.

K: Yes, sir. That's right. Dr. Sudarshan says, 'I don't want to commit myself' - fifth amendment. Why?
1:22:35 GS: Can I say? I think I will say. That total attention sometimes happens without Krishnaji. In fact, when it comes - it sounds so ungrateful - I do not think he has done it.

K: Of course, not.
1:22:54 GS: Nevertheless, I then say, 'I must hang around this man, I must somehow hover around him, because it may happen again'. So, I can say, he's not responsible for it. Honestly, I have to say, he's not responsible, but I suspect he is.
1:23:24 K: You're not hurting me, sir.
1:23:27 RR: Even in a quantum mechanical change of state, which itself may be without time, there is a preparation of state. The conditions are prepared, so that this timeless change may take place. This is not so strange in physics. It seems to me you are part of those conditions, in which somehow we get heated up. Our state gets prepared. Maybe you're not responsible for it, wholly.
1:24:00 GS: I think what seems to be repeatedly said by him is, 'Please don't look at the preparation. Look at it'. If you can look at it, you can say almost anything about the other thing. But if you're only talking about the steps leading to the sanctum, that's no good. If you're at the place, and you experience it, and you accept that is the important thing, and at that moment there is no speaker, no listener, there is no process, etc., etc. Then, we could say almost anything about the rest. But if you don't say this, but pay attention to all the steps, that's when he goes into his tirade against gurus, and about listening, and about books. Isn't that right, Krishnaji?

K: Yes, perfectly.
1:24:53 GS: I never really understood this way of saying it until now. And, I think he will also agree that the traditional statement that ignorance or fragmentation has no beginning but an end. The end is in the perception. In the end, there are no sequences because until it ended, it was going to end, but it had not ended.
1:25:24 K: Quite right, sir. Are you accepting all this?

GS: At the moment, yes, sir.
1:25:36 K: No, no. No, no.
1:25:39 GS: At the moment, I'm too moved to be clever.
1:25:43 K: I'm asking you seriously. Are you really accepting all this?
1:25:54 GS: I'm accepting, with a little barrier.
1:25:56 K: No, no, no. No. Somebody comes and offers you something, you don't take a little bit of it. He says, 'Take the whole'.

GS: I take it. I'll take it.
1:26:13 K: And you say, 'No'. That is where you are... You understand what I'm saying? Somebody offers you a house and there's a lovely room in it. And you say, 'Please, I'll take the room, not the house'. That's what you are doing!
1:26:44 GS: The real problem is that having been there, one can't stand being away. And it appears it happens. That's what all of us are saying. The cataclysmic total, chemical change, physical transition which ends it all, seems to be not there at times. We have memory of times when it has not been.
1:27:14 K: Ah, that's memory, it's dead. Throw it out. Sir, would you say - I'm asking this seriously, not as a joke - would you say that we have never loved anybody? So, that there are no two individuals, you understand?
1:28:13 GS: You ask your question like we ask - 'never loved', it's about the past. But if you have ever loved, how can you ever say that you 'have loved'?
1:28:27 K: All right, I ask you. Don't take the fifth amendment. Have you loved, do you love? You understand, sir? That means what? Mr. Sudarshan doesn't exist. Right? The opposite number doesn't exist. There is that quality. That perfume exists, nothing else. Can you move away from it - ever?
1:29:28 GS: When you are in that perfume, you cannot move away.
1:29:31 K: No! You see, you're trying to be clever with me.
1:29:39 GS: When you ask that question the answer is, 'No, you cannot'.
1:29:43 K: I am saying, then you don't know what love is. You may catch the far-away scent of a jasmine. But move a step away, the perfume is gone. Right? If there is love... when there is love, is there a moving away from that, ever? No. You can move away from pleasure. Displeasure, unhappiness.
1:30:48 GS: I am in a dilemma because I... I feel what you say, I understand what you say. In fact... In that context, it becomes impossible to think how you could move away from it, because there is no place to go, there is no one to go.
1:31:07 K: No, sir. If I understand - you say to me, love is not desire, love is not pleasure, there is no attachment, domination, all the rest of it. Where there is love, there is nothing else. You tell me that. And you ask me, do I love somebody, like that. By that very question, you have awakened something which can never be put out. You understand? Never be put out. By asking me, telling me that love is not this, this, this, you have helped me to light the light. I've lit it, not you. How can that flame ever be put out? It'll be put out if I've said it is pleasure, love, desire, comfort, attachment, then, of course, I'm lost. If none of that is included in this, then I can never move out of it. Not 'I'. You understand?
1:33:07 RB: You started with intelligence. Is it the same thing as intelligence?
1:33:12 K: What, love? Yes. Love, compassion, is the essence of intelligence. Those are just words - I say so, but - Sir, a question arises from this - love has no effort and all the rest of it - the question is, why don't I understand that thing called love instantly, immediately? You understand? Why? You tell me something extraordinary, and I miss it. Why? I can give various - those are all - the basic reason, why do I move away, all the rest of it. Why? I can give a dozen explanations - laziness, etc., but that is not - So, is it my intellect has so overgrown - if I can use that word - has become so extraordinarily colossal, so strong, that the other thing which is much stronger than that - has no place. You understand what I am saying? Not that we move away.
1:35:42 GS: But the total attention, the seeing, the love, shouldn't it dissolve the intellect, too? The intellect functions with a purpose.
1:35:54 K: But if you understand that the intellect has been cultivated purposely for all - education. The moment it sees that, the other is flowering, not in time.
1:36:09 GS: But how does the intellect then come back?
1:36:12 K: It has its place.
1:36:18 GS: How does it move to serve a place which is not its own?
1:36:22 K: Because - you know. We don't know what love is. That's the difficulty. I love you, I'm attached to you, I posses you, I have sex, you know, everything goes on. And I call that 'love' - quarrels, squabbles, rows. This morning I saw the water lilies in bloom. I just stood by for a while, looked at them, and I was so happy. Then I asked myself, 'Would I want to carry this with me?' I said, 'No, I don't want to carry it with me'. But that moment of totally being with those flowers is gone. Now, when I go to US, I wish there would be a little lily pond where there were lilies. The moment I have, that comes back. Then the old feeling of total identification has gone. But why does it come back? Actually, I don't want a water lily!

K: You know the answer!
1:37:58 GS: I really, honestly, don't know the answer.
1:38:09 K: Sir, that raises the question, we are always recording. Recording. You see that lily in the pond. It has been recorded. Not to record. No effort - not to record.
1:38:39 GS: In a sense, back to the same situation.
1:38:42 K: No, no!

GS: In the sense that - some time ago I remember having heard you say, 'Grieve, but don't carry the impressions, don't carry the hurt. Leave the impressions behind. Don't go back on them'. Well, when it happens, it is so nice. But it does not always happen.

K: No, my question is not - Is it possible not to record? Of course, you must record going to the office and all the rest of it. But not to record anything psychologically, seeing the lily, the beauty of it, the colour of it, the shape of it, the reflection of it in the water, the perfume of it. You can almost feel it living and it is recorded. Not to record, but only see. The moment you record, the whole past begins.
1:39:59 GS: You're saying not only don't record the things which are hurtful, but don't record even those which are pleasurable. No recording at all. Be with it, at that moment.

K: No, no recording. I do need to record the language, my profession, my skill, all the rest of it. But why should I record any psychological activity, any sensory perceptions and so on?
1:40:36 GS: I think I understand. Let me try to restate it. Intellect deals with lines, with things which are stated. Intelligence functions between the lines. Don't make that which is between the lines into another line. So that you again say, 'Now, let me replay it back again'. That is hard.

K: No!
1:41:04 GS: It's not hard?
1:41:05 K: This is where our difficulty lies.
1:41:17 GS: Ravi, does it make sense to you?

RR: Yes, I don't think it's so hard. But it doesn't last!
1:41:27 GS: The not-recording does not last?
1:41:31 RR: I am constantly - this is part of my problem. Attention is fluctuating.
1:41:39 K: No, sir. No, sir. Attention doesn't fluctuate. Inattention does. Ah, no, no. This is serious.
1:41:59 RR: But one is still stuck, though, Krishnaji, either way.
1:42:05 K: No, sir, no, sir. Look, sir, he told me just now, 'Don't record'. There is no need for psychological recording. Right? He tells me that. He also tells me, 'You have to record certain things'. Right? I don't listen. That is my difficulty. He has made a statement which is extraordinary and I immediately create difficulties. 'How is it possible, is it possible? Why do you say that?' I don't receive the whole thing. I don't know if I'm making myself clear. I don't take the whole thing. I never come near him, not physically. I never come near to that statement. If I did, then there is no problem. I don't know if I am making... I stay where I am and he says something, and I say, 'How am I to get out of this?' Right? And he says, 'Look, come near me'. Come near, so that you and I see the same thing. If you remain there and I remain here, we'll... And he is constantly telling me, 'Don't do that, listen to me, come, look together'. Move from where you are. Don't take a position. One does take a position, because that's the safest, most secure thing. Right? He says, 'Look, this is much more secure, Old Boy, than what you think'. But you want him to guarantee it. Right? I think, sir, that is intelligence. What he says is intelligence. It is intelligence speaking. And he says, 'Listen to the intelligence'. The circus is over.