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ND81DTV - About God
New Delhi - 1 December 1981
Conv. with P. Jayakar & A. Patwardhan



0:22 Pupul Jayakar: Krishnaji, speak to us of God. For millennia, man has searched. In grief, in sorrow, he turns to the deepest depths of himself, searching for that eternity to give him solace. You appear to negate thought. You say the gods are man-made, and the gods that you have made did not make you. Does that mean that in your teaching God does not exist? And yet you are not a materialist. How do you explain this paradox?
1:32 Krishnamurti: I think we should make quite clear right from the beginning of this dialogue that man actually has created God. If God created man then he must have wished that man live a rotten life, a miserable life, which I am sure is absurd. I think man has made God in his own image, but expanded it, given various attributes to that which he has created and so on. Are you asking: if you deny God, which is man-made, then man in sorrow is not seeking eternity, is not seeking something beyond himself or something timeless, but he really wants something that will give him a great comfort, a sense of deep, inward security. That is what he wants. He doesn't want in that moment, or in that period of sorrow something that is beyond time. What he actually desires is some form of security, some form of alleviation of sorrow, some panacea – that is what he wants. If we agree to that, then we should really go into the question: if you negate, as we do, the whole mythology, the whole structure of God, if you totally negate it – and how you negate it matters enormously – then what is there? Is that what you are questioning?
4:16 PJ: May I say one thing. You have just said that God could not have made man. Do you imply by that, that the being of man is a biological, material process?
4:39 K: It appears so.
4:40 PJ: Do you also then mean, that when you say the gods which man has made, that there is – you may not call it God, you may call it reality, you may call it the timeless – but there is a reality, a truth, which is not man-made?
5:14 K: To affirm a thing like that, we have to really find out if thought can ever stop. Then only you can discover something.
5:30 Achyut Patwardhan: But while one listens to you in your discourses, there is a perfume of sacredness, and it appears very odd that a person, while you are addressing, just creates an atmosphere of sanctity around him. And then you say that our gods are made by us. It may be true up to a point that the gods that we have made are made by our minds. But as you said, then you must go beyond thought for that. I want to ask: is there any such thing, whose nature is sanctity, which is available to man?
6:36 K: If you posit that there is...
6:40 AP: I am only inquiring.
6:41 K: Yes. If you are really inquiring and not stating it, then can we inquire, explore, not if there is god, if there is not god, which is quite obviously rather absurd, can we explore the nature of sanctity, the nature of sacredness, not the sacredness which we are seeking, not the sacredness or the benediction that man wants in order to feel happy, in order to feel that he is protected, in order to feel that there is something on which he can rely.
7:39 AP: There is something which we are seeking, and there is something which comes unsought, and it is that which is really beyond man's control. Man can do nothing about it.
7:55 K: No. You must be careful when using language like that: 'man can do nothing about it'. It may be unconscious or deep layers of his consciousness which have been so conditioned they project themselves occasionally from the depths. So, let's be clear. What is it we are talking about?
8:20 PJ: You will accept that in life, life itself is a mystery. It is a tremendous mystery – being born, living, dying, and this great, unknowable truth. The whole of that is a mystery.
8:43 K: I don't see why you call it a mystery.
8:45 PJ: Because the mind cannot understand it.
8:49 K: The mind cannot understand the unknown, but the mind can understand this whole process of living.
8:59 PJ: Man cannot understand birth, man cannot understand death.
9:03 K: That is all. Man cannot understand the nature of death, what happens after death, if there is something beyond time and so on. We are inquiring into something unknown.
9:17 PJ: Yes. So you would accept that there is a mystery. So I say, we cannot explore into a mystery. Then it would no longer be a mystery. So, as man cannot explore into a mystery, he skirts around, trying to find a door into this.
9:39 K: Yes. But he cannot find it through intellection.
9:46 AP: Granting that he cannot find something through intellection, he has an experience of something that is too sacred for words. And that is not imaginary.
10:00 K: We must be awfully clear, Achyutji, that it is not a deep, unexplored layer of his own consciousness which is longing to have something secure, and translates that urgent demand into something mysterious.
10:19 AP: One comes upon it unsought. You are in a forest, you are facing the Himalayan ranges or you are by the side of the river and suddenly in that silence, in that quiet, there is something that comes into being. And you get a feeling of the sacred.
10:39 K: I don't question it. We all do.
10:43 AP: Well, you can't say it is a make-believe.
10:45 K: No. All that we are pointing out is, one has to be very careful that we are not deceiving ourselves.
10:55 AP: That is true.
10:57 K: We are not caught in some kind of illusion and then say, that is the truth.
11:03 AP: No, I say we don't know.
11:11 PJ: You were speaking of negation.
11:21 K: I was saying, can man wipe out all that he has accumulated as psychological knowledge – totally, completely negate all that. Is that first of all possible? And if it is, to inquire, not theoretically or abstractly or intellectually, but actually in life to negate his whole conditioning. And in that negative state which is the most positive, see or come upon something which is not man-made, which may be sacred. Is that possible?
12:37 PJ: To move into this field of negation it is necessary to inquire into that word: to negate.
12:48 K: To negate, to wipe out, to leave.
12:54 PJ: What is the nature of negation? What is it to negate?
13:06 AP: When you said that all the centuries of psychological knowledge has to be wiped out, I would say this is just a plain statement of fact, that when we come to ask ourselves – what is this quality of sanctity – we have to face the fact that we know nothing about it. And you have to say I don't know. In that one single recognition, which is very simple, that I don't know the nature of all this, then automatically you have negated everything. When you say I don't know, or you feel something that you don't know.
13:51 K: No, Pupulji was asking: what is it to deny?
14:00 AP: I am saying it is not a rational thing, it is something where reason merely accepts the fact that it has come to its limit.
14:08 K: Yes, it has come to the end of its tether.
14:11 AP: No, you just say that I don't know.
14:14 PJ: Let us not talk of facing a river or a mountain. Let us talk of negation in a very ordinary set of circumstances. Because unless you understand negation in an ordinary set of circumstances, that negation which comes when you look at something extraordinarily powerful, it may be just the taking over of yourself by that power.
14:46 K: Are you asking, Pupulji, are you asking what is the nature of negation?
14:55 PJ: Yes.
14:58 K: I think that is fairly simple. If one is attached to some person or some belief or some conclusion, historical or dialectical, – to negate that, that is to say, I will not have it, I will push it out of my mind completely.
15:23 PJ: But you deny will.
15:25 K: I deny will.
15:26 PJ: So the instrument of pushing it out...
15:32 K: Is perception.
15:35 PJ: Normally in the human mind, it is will.

K: Yes.
15:41 PJ: That is how negation normally takes place. When you want to say that I want...
15:48 K: I will not have.

PJ: There is a want in it.
15:50 K: Yes, there is a causation.
15:52 PJ: There is a causation, and action of will which puts the thing aside.
15:57 AP: But there is also another form of negation, Pupulji. Like some people believe with all their guts in communism, and they come upon the truth that you cannot have a new social order of free and equal men through that particular idea or ideology. Now, that ideology loses its validity with no will. You are honest, intellectually you are honest and you say that this has dropped.
16:32 PJ: Maybe, but you are not free of belief.
16:35 AP: No, when your belief ends with the confrontation of facts which are not of your own creation, there is a negation. An honest man must see that his belief has become invalid.
16:49 PJ: But if I may say, Achyutji, being creates negation, which is the negation of the self as 'I', as the process which does, moves, propels, never takes place.
17:08 AP: I will never use the word never because it is too absolute. I would say that one does not come upon it as one comes upon the invalidity of a belief.
17:21 PJ: Because the nature of that is entirely different, I think.
17:25 K: What are we talking about?
17:27 PJ: I say the nature of that negation which sees the becoming in so many aspects of one's existence, to negate deep, at the depths of one's self, that process is a movement of becoming.
17:53 K: Let's not use the word negate, can we understand this whole becoming with all the conflicts never ending, with all the travail of human anxiety, loneliness and all that, that is the perpetual movement in which we are caught – wait a minute, let me finish – and see it, see the actuality of it, and without exercising will see the truth of it and that very perception of that truth ends that process. That is what I call negation.
18:36 PJ: Negation then is the ending of becoming?
18:43 K: No. Negation is the perception of the truth of becoming, seeing what is involved, the consequences of that becoming, and the very perception of that whole movement in which time, the whole of that thing is involved, ends the becoming. That is all I am saying. It is the perception that ends, not will and so on.
19:14 PJ: I am asking something which is a little subtle. Does truth lie in seeing, or seeing of becoming? Where does the fact or actuality take place? Is it in the nature of seeing?
19:42 K: No, the actuality takes place in the mind. There is a perception, say for example, of attachment – I am taking that purposely – Attachment to position, to a person, to something or other. Now, without investigation, without analysis, without all this process of thinking, that is what I am saying all the time. Not searching out the cause, analysing the reason why one is attached and so on. Why do you bring in truth? I used the word truth in the sense, the truth of attachment, the implications of that attachment, the consequences.
20:38 PJ: No, but what I am trying to get at is, is understanding it?

K: No.
20:51 PJ: They are not separate.

K: No,
20:53 K: but we must understand what we mean by understanding, what is the significance of understanding. I will explain what it means to perceive. That is fairly simple. Which is, to perceive without the past, without the nature of the mind which is conditioned by the past memories and so on. To perceive simply, directly.
21:22 AP: We understand what you say but our difficulty is that with us, it is always a partial process, a fragmentary process. I may see how stupid and harmful is this attachment to nation, nationality. Nationality has become an anachronism in our age of technology. Now, I can see this with respect to nationality because when I have applied my mind to it, I can see that nationality has become a total anachronism, but I am pointing out that our minds are always functioning in a limited field. You are saying that – with you, as I hear you – it is a total perception.
22:11 K: Yes, of course, that is obvious.
22:13 AP: But how does one move from the particular to the general?
22:19 K: You are expanding the question, Achyutji, if I may say so, remind you. We started out asking, if you deny God as man-made and all the rituals and all the circus that goes on in the name of religion, if you see the absurdity of it inwardly, you put it aside. Then you won't be a hypocrite.
22:48 AP: When I mentioned communism, when I mentioned nationalism, I was taking the modern God.
22:54 K: Yes, of course.
22:56 PJ: Krishnaji says, that to come to it there has to be a negation of everything which is the mind.
23:06 K: Yes, that is it. Let's stick to that one thing, and let's proceed. We are going off.
23:12 PJ: And therefore, in going into the nature of negation, we came to perception. And now I am trying to probe into perception, I am probing into perception, asking him whether the act of perception, which is seeing, and without mentation. How does understanding arise?
23:41 K: Ah, there is no understanding in it – seeing without the whole process of thought. That very seeing, which is insight, that insight dispels all illusions. You see, we are not going step by step. We are saying that understanding – what does it mean to understand? I understand the language we are using. I understand the reason, but understanding is something much deeper than merely hearing words and translating in words and reacting to words, but understanding implies a complete reception or receiving something that you are saying so completely I understand it, I have got it.
24:49 PJ: Yes. It is as if there is darkness and suddenly light falls on it and it is revealed.
24:55 K: Yes, that is all.
24:57 PJ: There is a revealing of what exists.
24:59 K: Yes. Don't let's complicate it further.
25:04 PJ: So perception in that sense is what reveals.
25:09 K: Yes.

PJ: If I may put it that way.
25:11 K: It reveals the whole process of any causation.
25:21 PJ: So is it the perception without mentation?
25:25 K: That is it.
25:30 K: Is the clue.

PJ: Is the clue?
25:33 K: Yes. You see, that is what I am saying. Say for instance, I have negated that organisations, institutions will in no way help man to comprehend, to arrive, to perceive that which is eternally true. I have said that. Now, it is in me, I am the result of thousands of institutions, traditions, I am all the propaganda of institutions, that is religions, politicians and so on – I am all that. Which is, I am the past, the present and the future. In me all that is – that is me. Now, can I, can the mind move away from that cycle – becoming, which is the past, the present and the future as me, moving along that direction, as we have been doing for millennia after millennia, can we, can the mind see... deny that slavery, and discover something else? After all, that is the new mind, to discover something new.
27:39 PJ: You see, we come to this point. Any question I ask you after this point, you will negate.
27:51 K: Surely, of course. But Pupulji, a true relation of man's experience, psychologically, can that be wiped away, which is to deny, which is to negate. How you negate matters, because in that very negation the positive is taking place. You see, is it – when you negate God, the word God or the feeling of God or the man-made gods, – there is the fear of utter emptiness, utter nothingness? It is that which is preventing us, the fear of that that is preventing us from denying the false. We don't deny the false. We are finding out reasons to sustain the false. But when you deny the false and see...
29:23 PJ: It would appear, sir, that what we feel as the sacred, what we feel as the ground of sanctity, has to be denied.
29:40 K: Oh, yes, absolutely. Because that may be our deep down urge, a desire.
29:50 AP: It has to leave, the will to believe.
29:51 K: Yes. There is nothing. It is not darkness of the soul and all that kind of stuff. But to see that there is absolutely nothing, and to come to that point that thought has no place at all in it. Remain with that nothingness. I don't know if I am making this clear.
30:26 AP: Isn't there something which is infinite, which is eternal, which has nothing to do with my volition, with what I am, what I am not?
30:43 K: Yes. But why do you suppose?

AP: No, I am not supposing.
30:47 AP: I am merely saying...

K: Questioning.
30:49 AP: that we are now going along in one way. I want to go another way and say, isn't there something...
30:59 K: How can you know?
31:01 AP: We don't know about it. All that I say is...
31:03 K: Then inquire...

AP: How do you inquire?
31:06 K: How do I enquire – is to wipe all that I know, psychologically. We come back to the same point.
31:15 AP: We do.
31:16 PJ: You see, the interesting thing is, or the thing which is very difficult, one comprehends the negation of what we call thought, of becoming. But this feeling of the sacred...
31:43 K: You see, there is a point – after all, when you go to a temple, a very old temple, – as you must have done – a very old temple, there is an extraordinary atmosphere about it, because millions of people have been there, worshipped. It maybe all illusory, but there is this sense of worshipping something which man has made, and out of that worship, out of that adoration, out of that sense of devotion, you create an extraordinary atmosphere, extraordinary sense of sanctity. But that sanctity, that atmosphere, that worship, is all the result of enormous work of human beings. That is not sacred.
32:40 PJ: You have talked of going to a place of great antiquity and getting that feeling. When one sits at one of your talks, and you talk, there is a feeling of great sacredness which descends on the mind, and you see it as if it were holding the whole of that place. If that is also part of this process of illusion...
33:18 K: No, not quite.
33:20 PJ: Then?

K: I am going to explain that.
33:23 K: First of all, the speaker has a certain reputation. Whether it is right or wrong, that is not the point – he has a certain reputation. So, the audience has created an image about the person. And that image also is conditioned by their religious spirit, their traditionalism, their cynicism, all that. So there is an atmosphere created. Now, is the person who is speaking more vital than the image they have created about him, so that image has no value. You follow? And if the speaker is really enormously compassionate and all the rest of it is involved, in his speech, in his feeling, that creates its own extraordinary atmosphere. So, if the person is really, deeply, only honest, has such integrity in what he is saying, then that itself is a momentum towards the other.
34:45 AP: That is precisely what I was trying to drive at, that there is something which is infinite, which is incomprehensible, and which comes into being without my volition.
35:00 K: No.
35:02 AP: I said, intimation of it.
35:04 K: Sir, I have heard various people say that there is a guru with whom if I sit quietly, in whose presence I feel completely present. I question that. You are attributing the same thing in different words.
35:28 AP: No, I am not saying now that it is in relation to anything. I am saying, is there not something...
35:36 K: There may be, but it is for me or you or Pupulji to come upon that, not that there is, posit it, and then imagine what it is, and then say yes, I have received it. That is all illusion.
35:56 AP: Yes, that is quite clear. We are not pursuing an illusion.
36:01 K: No – pursuing from fact to fact to fact.
36:06 AP: Yes.
36:09 K: The fact is: can I deny? Either I negate one by one, or there is a perception which comprehends the whole. And that perception of the whole is the very denial of all that. Holistic perception.
36:42 AP: I want to say that this holistic perception of which you have spoken, it is not only a step by step rational process.
36:55 K: Oh, no. It is not.
36:57 AP: It also has a deep feeling in it.
36:59 K: Of course. A deep affection, love, compassion. – that is perception, that is intelligence. You see, Achyutji, if I may point out, if I can go into this a little more – you see, we don't negate. We are talking always, therefore there is always this play between the fact and non-fact. I say, I won't play that game, because it is so childish. If we comprehensively negate so that there is absolutely nothing, psychologically. I can't deny that lamp, I can't negate that lamp or the technology that lies behind that lamp. But to negate the whole process of becoming so completely, so that your mind is not caught in the past. The past I need to have, to learn and so on. Can we do that? And if we don't, talking about the eternal gods, timeless, it becomes so meaningless.
38:47 PJ: Is it not necessary for a mind which today, which now rests without movement, to hear the words said about the nature of that which is unknowable?
39:27 K: What? Can you?
39:30 PJ: I said, the mind is still.
39:35 K: That is all.
39:37 PJ: Now, is it not necessary for that still mind to hear of the nature of that which is timeless?
39:57 K: The mind is still, quiet, not achieve quietness ever, be still, not induced, not practised, not go after it with words, but in that awareness of the mind – which sees it is in the nature, it is law, it is chattering, and sees the utter...
40:30 PJ: Yes, but when there is a situation, that there is a man who can speak of God which is not man-made.
40:55 K: Be careful – I did not use the word God.
40:58 PJ: I am using that word God.
41:02 PJ: Don't let us...

K: Quibble about the word.
41:07 PJ: There is a man, and is it not necessary when a mind is still, to hear that voice speak?
41:17 K: Of course, though you can't hear. You are telling me a story...
41:23 PJ: But I am saying to you, and I am saying it with great... can you speak to us?
41:36 K: About?

PJ: About that which is the timeless?
41:52 K: I don't know if it is possible to put it into words. We are measuring with words the immeasurable. That is the whole point.
42:06 PJ: I don't want to measure. That is why I said...
42:10 K: Now, just a minute. If your mind is actually quiet, absolutely silent, not induced, not in this conversation trying to capture that silence, but actually, after listening, deep, inwardly silent. When there is that silence, you cannot ask that question.
42:44 PJ: I can ask that question.
42:46 K: Only when there is not that silence. Go ahead. I understand.
42:55 PJ: I see you, and I don't want to do it. It is not that I want to capture what you are saying.
43:07 K: No, that is why we must be very clear.
43:09 PJ: It is not that I want to capture what you are saying, but I feel that when there is a stillness of the mind, the hearing of that which lies beyond the mind...
43:35 K: Look, Pupulji, I understand what your question is. Achyutji and you too are listening. Or, I am listening to you with great, deep, with complete affection to what you are saying. That very attention is silence. Then you are telling me or conveying to me something much more infinite than silence. And can you convey that in words? Or, your very presence, that very presence is impressing me and I become silent. Wait. If there is this extraordinary quietness which has no cause, and therefore it is that very silence which is space, which is timeless, is infinite. This infinity is the universe. And therefore the universe has no cause. But all my life is based on cause. And can I understand one – in the understanding of one cause, I am infinite, my brain is infinite.