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ND81S2 - Can fear come to an end?
New Delhi - 5 November 1981
Seminar 2



0:20 Pupul Jayakar: Sir, may we ask you to start the discussion from the point we left off yesterday and lay before us the landscape which you see in terms of the future of man, and the acuteness of the problem and the crisis which man faces, and what lies in the matrix of the human mind which makes it impossible for him to break free?
1:20 K: May I begin by stating I’m not a traditionalist. I haven’t read any of the sacred books, Upanishads, Gita, all the rest, but I have talked to a great many scientists, philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists and so on. First, what is the future of man? The computer can out-think man, learn faster than man, record much more extensively than man. It can learn, unlearn, correct itself, according to what has been programmed. Mathematicians, so-called well-known mathematicians had programmed the computer and the computer came up with two new theorems which the mathematicians hadn’t even thought of. These are all facts, I am not inventing them. The present computer can programme other computers and so keep going, increasing, learning more. And they are thinking of the ultimate intelligent machine – it’s called UTM. And so, what is the future of man, when everything that man has done or will do, the computer can outdo? Of course, it cannot compose Beethoven, but will come approximately to him. It cannot see the beauty of the constellation Orion, or the evening star by itself, lonely in the sky. But it can create new Vedanta, new philosophy, new gods and so on. These are all facts actually taking place now. We saw a film of a robot, a computer robot, putting together a motor, a Honda, in Japan. When the robot doesn’t do it properly, the computer stops the machine, tells the robot what to do and is started over again. This is happening. Please, don’t say it’s in the future. In about ten years, more or less, the whole problem of so-called mechanical intelligence will outdo man. And what then is man? Either he is entertained – as you know in the world of sport, football has become the king, football has become the gods and the priests are the players. Pupulji, what do we do? We are saying that the future of mankind, is either to seek entertainment, enter more and more into the world of sports, or religious entertainments. That is one line. The other is either go inwards, because the brain is infinite. It has got immense capacity, not the capacity of specialisation, not the capacity of knowledge, another kind of capacity – infinite. So, this is the future of mankind. Some of the MIT in Boston, they have agreed to this. They are concerned about the future of man, about what’s going to happen to man when the computer takes charge. So, what is the future? The brain is occupied now. So, it is active. When that brain is not active, it is going to wither, and the machine is going to operate. So, are we all going to become zombies, lose our extraordinary inward capacity, or become superficially intellectual, seeking the world of entertainment? I don’t know if you have noticed, more and more time on the television is given to sport, especially in Europe. So, that is the future of man. The future of man may depend on the atom bomb, the neutron bomb. In India, and in the East, war is very far away, but if you live in Europe, they are tremendously concerned about the bomb. War is very close to them. Here, it is just a theory. There, I have talked to both very young people, and old people who’ve been through the last war, they are terrified. There was a demonstration in London of 150,000 people marching, which is never heard of, as in Germany. So, there are those threats – war and the computer. So, what is the future of man? Either he goes very deeply inwardly, not through the traditional idea of inwardness, but actually delve into the depth of his mind, into the depth of his heart. Or, he will be entertained. So, freedom of choice, freedom from dictatorship, freedom from chaos, that’s the problem also. In the world, forgive me pointing out, if you already know, there is great disturbance, corruption, people are very, very disturbed, it’s dangerous to walk in the streets. So, when we talk about freedom from fear, we want outward freedom, freedom that is bringing about chaos, anarchy, or dictatorship. We want outward freedom. But we never regard, or go into if there is inner freedom at all, freedom of the mind. Is that freedom actual or theoretical? We regard the state as an impediment to freedom. The Communists, totalitarian people say there is no such thing as freedom, the State Government is the only authority, and they are suppressing every form of freedom. Perhaps some of you may have discussed with those people who have left Russia – you ought to hear about the terrible things that are happening there. What kind of freedom do we want? Out there, outside of us, or inward freedom? You may have... In Russia and Eastern Europe, they are being denied freedom altogether – conformity through threat, reward, punishment. In the West and Eastern world, there is still freedom. To sit like this, indicates freedom. You cannot do this in Poland. Only three people can meet. So, when we talk about freedom, is it the freedom of choice between this government, that government, going from here to there and so on, or an inward freedom? The psyche always conquers the outer. Right, sir? The psyche, the inward structure of man, his thought, his emotions, ambitions, greed, always conquers the outer, as has been shown in Russia. In the beginning they said, ‘The state will wither, there will be no army’, etc. The inward state, the inward structure of the mind conquered the outer. Now you have the elite who have everything they want in Russia – special food, special clothes, special shops. So, where do we seek freedom? Could we discuss that? Can there be freedom from nationality inwardly, which gives us a sense of security, freedom from all the superstitions, nonsense of all religions? That word ‘religion’, the intellectuals throughout the world spit on that word – politely. But new civilisations can only come about through real religion, not superstitious, dogmatic, traditional religions. I have said my share.
17:39 PJ: May I ask you a question? What choice does man have in the world of the outer when the world of the inner is not participating in the movement of freedom? That is, without knowing whether the mind is free or in bondage, is there a choice possible in the outer?
18:17 K: How can a confused mind choose?
18:21 PJ: That would bear discussion. Is it possible for a mind which is unexplored, to make a choice in the outer?
18:36 K: Obviously, not. That’s for discussion.
18:55 Participant: You spoke about computers and the possibility of the human brain withering away from lack of activity. Do you then foresee the possibility of man becoming extinct and being replaced by a non-biological trend in evolution?
19:12 K: Perhaps. But sir, my point is, we must take things as they are and see if we can’t bring about a mutation in our brains itself. That’s the point.
19:30 P: What can we do, sir, to prevent this from happening?
19:33 K: Let’s discuss it, sir.
19:44 Sudhir Kakkar: Sir, I would like to ask you a little more about freedom and the mind in bondage. All I can think of, and I’d like your reactions to it, is only relative freedom, that these complete distinctions between inner and outer, freedom, bondage, they somehow confuse me. For example, yesterday we were saying about grief and aggression all being part of man. To me, that makes man human, that’s what makes him distinct from the computers, that is as much a part of being human as the desire for transformation or desire of getting rid of them. I’d like to know more about freedom. Is it relative freedom? All the emotions you were talking of, what does one do with them? There are boundaries set by those emotions and to try to transcend them is maybe trying to transcend humanness itself.
20:53 K: Sir, one of the points raised was, can the human mind which has lived in fear for so many million centuries, can that inward fear end, first? Can it possibly come to an end, or are we going to continue with it?
21:22 PJ: Sir, if I may point out, what Dr Kakkar said was that it is these very elements of fear, envy, anger, aggression, fear, envy, anger, aggression, which make up humanness. What is your response to that?
22:04 K: Is love emotion, which is sensation?
22:17 PJ: Sir, you are speaking in the form of a koan, practically. You move away from fear and aggression and bring in another state altogether. But let us answer this particular thing. The question is, that fear, anger, hatred, anxiety are part of the humanness of man.
22:45 K: Is that so? We accept it as human nature of man. We are used to that. Our ancestors, present and future generations have put up with this. We accept it as man’s condition, that it indicates humanity. I question that. Humanity, human beings may be entirely different.
23:18 PJ: If you question it, then you must be able to show what it is that makes it possible to quench these elements so that the humanness which you speak about, can flower totally.
23:41 K: We’ll go into that.
23:43 PJ: How is it possible?

K: We’ll go into that. Is that what we want to discuss?
23:51 Romesh Thapar: It also means that there can be no such thing as freedom unless you have quenched these elements.
24:01 K: As long as I am attached to some conclusion, to some concept, to some ideal, there is no freedom. Should we discuss this?
24:20 PJ: After all, this is the core of the whole problem of mankind.
24:26 Jai Shankar: May I strengthen the question further by suggesting that in the question which Dr Kakkar asked, another concept of freedom is implied where you get freedom not by getting rid of fear, anxiety, greed and so on but you get freedom by integrating them, by incorporating them within a larger whole, where they make sense.
24:59 K: Integrating the opposites? Is that it? Integrating the opposites.
25:07 JS: Integrating in a larger awareness or consciousness.
25:10 Swami Dayanand: Do you mean learning to successfully cope up with them and still getting along in life?

JS: Yes, make creative use of it. Yesterday, there was a very interesting dialogue. You were not here. Ravi Mathai was describing a man, who, according to me, if I can translate it in this language, got his freedom not by widening his choices but by reducing his choices. By reducing his choices.

PJ: Reducing the choices. That is, by eliminating choice, eliminating wants. It comes to that. Eliminating choices.
25:57 K: Who is eliminating it?
26:03 JS: The person.

K: Who is that person?
26:20 JS: It was described yesterday.

K: I know. But I’m questioning, who is the person who eliminates all this, who integrates all this?
26:37 PJ: This is really the basic point. As long as you are talking of acting on these things, you posit a centre, an individual who can choose, eliminate, add, put together.
27:00 K: Yes, yes.
27:04 SK: May I just elaborate on that? My feeling is that there are two kinds of things. We have mentioned, fear, envy, greed, which is part of humanness, but also the desire of transformation, or the desire of eliminating them is also part of humanness. To take only the desire of elimination or getting into another state, is leaving out this other part. This is very important for the strategy. If I believe that greed, envy, fear, are what makes man human, my strategy is how to learn to live with them, how to make friends with them, and use them and see that the fears are not so great, that they always will be there, that the greed is not really that frightening. To reduce, lessen and use fear would then be the strategy. The other strategy, of course, is waiting for you to... This question remains.

PJ: Dr Kakkar is right, sir, you cannot take only the dark elements in man. It is the same centre which talks of transformation, which talks of the good, all elements which are considered opposites. The total thing makes up man – the dark and the light. Now, is it possible to integrate the dark and the light? And who integrates? This is the central problem. Is there an entity who can choose, integrate, choose one against the other? That’s the central point.
29:07 K: Could I ask, sir, why is there this division between the dark, the light, beauty, ugliness?
29:21 SK: I agree with you, there isn’t.

K: No, not agree. Why is there this contradiction in human beings?
29:36 Shanta Gandhi: Without contradiction there can hardly be any life. Life involves contradictions, birth involves death.
29:45 K: So, you consider life a contradiction?
29:50 SG: It is an outcome of contradiction. Outcome of contradiction.

K: Contradiction implies conflict. So, life is an endless conflict.
30:05 SG: Conflict which has a possibility of resolution which might create further conflict.

K: That’s what we are asking. You reduce life to perpetual conflict.
30:22 SG: Life as we know it, as I know it.
30:25 K: As we know it, we have accepted life to be a conflict. That may be our habit, our tradition, our education, our conditioning.
30:43 SG: Sir, my difficulty is that my tool of getting this awareness is also my own mind, which is the sum total of all that, which is conditioned by what has gone by. I have to start from that point, reacting to today.
31:05 K: We start with the human condition. Right? Some say it is impossible to change that condition. You can modify it. All the existentialists say that. You cannot possibly uncondition man. Right? Therefore, he must live perpetually in conflict. We are contradicting all that. That’s all. I may be wrong.
31:47 SK: I would like to answer your question about conflict. I feel that there are two conditions why that conflict is, and that is part of what evolution has created, which is human growth and development. There are two conflicts which are inescapable for everyone. One is the separation. In the beginning, one is together, the awareness that I am different from my parents, mother, is a part of human evolution. The second one is the differentiation, when one learns sex differentiation, I am male, the other is female. These are part of human evolution and the basis of contradictions. I feel they’re inescapable for humans. These are the basic two anxieties.
32:44 K: So, what is integrity?
32:47 SK: Trying to get them together again, and never succeeding.
32:50 K: You see, that’s it! Can you bring the two opposites together? Or there is no opposite at all? I mean just – May I go into it? I am violent. Human beings are violent. That is a fact. Non-violence is not a fact. Why do we indulge in non-fact? Violence is what is. The other is not. But all your leaders, philosophers, have tried to cultivate non-violence. Which means what? During the cultivation of non-violence, I’m being violent. Right? So, non-violence can never be. There is only violence. Why do I, the mind, create the opposite? As a lever to escape from violence? Right? Why can’t I deal only with violence and not be concerned with non-fact? So, there is only violence. The other is merely an escape from this fact. There is only what is, not what should be. Ideals, concepts, all that goes. Shall we come back to what we are talking about, whether the human mind can be free from fear, not relative fear, but totally?
35:44 Achyut Patwardhan: You must carry this point further to make sense. When you say that non-violence is only an idea and violence is the fact, then the inquiry must logically proceed a step further, and say, ‘Can violence end?’

K: Surely.
36:08 AP: Unless we pursue the inquiry in that direction, merely to say that non-violence is an idea, takes away from me the path which I think I ought to take without giving me the slightest clue to where I ought to proceed.
36:24 K: I didn’t know you wanted to take that particular point and pursue it to the end.

AP: A little further.
36:31 K: You don’t have to salute me, sir. What is violence? Conformity is violence. Imitation is violence. Right, sir? What do I call violence? Anger, hate, hitting another, killing another, for an ideal, for a concept, for the word ‘peace’ and so on. Is violence an idea or a fact? No. I’ll... Proceed, sir, I want to discuss this. So, it is not an idea. When I get angry, it’s a fact. Now, why do I call it ‘violence’? Why do I give it a name? I give a name to a reaction which is called ‘violence’. Why do I do that? There is a squirrel on the roof. Why do I name? You follow my question, sir? Is it for the purposes of recognition, thereby strengthening the present reaction? Of course. Am I...? So, the present reaction is caught up in the past remembrance and the past remembrance I have named as ‘violence’. I don’t know if you are following all this.
40:00 Jagannath Upadhyaya: (In Hindi).
40:24 K: Sir, that lady translates.
40:28 JU: (In Hindi).
44:46 Kapila Vatsyayan: I’ll try. He began by stating that he’d had the privilege of being closely associated with Mahmahopadhya Kaviraj Gopinath. Perhaps most of you are associated or acquainted with this name, but otherwise, the reputation of Mahmahopadhyaya Kaviraj Gopinath I am speaking now in traditional terms, is that this was a unique combination of both an intellectual and also bhakt, a gyani and a bhakt, and one of the greatest scholars of both Tantrism and Vaishnavism. He went on to say that during the 1950s there were four or five major thinkers in India, and all of them were of the view that a new type of creation – again the word ‘shrishti’ here is more important the Sanskrit word that he uses here, ‘shrishti’ – that the very nature of the organism of the universe will change. Let’s put it like that. This is what their view was. This view was very seriously challenged by other people. They did not think that a new type of a universe would be created or would come into being. To that, he himself has said that the other view and what was then finally accepted – I don’t know – was that conflict is inherent.
46:45 K: Inherent?
46:47 KV: Conflict is inherent and that the choices have to be made within that area of conflict. This was the nature of creation. Man’s freedom was a matter of how he operates within this area of conflict or looking at conflict. From that point, he moved to another point, and that was that there is someone – he used the word ‘vyakti’, that is an individual, translated into English – that it is this, or in Pupulben’s language, the centre. This was someone who was looking. Who was this someone who was looking? The moment of the looking and the concentration or the awareness was that moment of pain, ‘dukh’. And the manner in which the freedom could be manifested is the manner in which relationship with ‘dukh’ could be established. He is not posing that this is a quenching or a transcendence of dukh, but that...
48:37 JU: (In Hindi).
50:20 KV: His reaction was very beautiful. He said that the individual looks at, observes pain, not only observes pain...
50:35 SD: The presence of sorrow and suffering.
50:40 KV: And he observes it.
50:46 SD: If you would pardon me, Panditji did not at any stage use the word ‘conflict’. You said, ‘Conflict is inherent’, he did not use the word ‘conflict’. He was making the point that those who differed in both those views, they said, there is a purpose for man’s existence, and that purpose has to be recognised and discovered within the context of the duality which is inherent in man. That duality need not necessarily exist in the form of a conflict or contradiction. There is duality, and that is part and parcel of the human nature, not of the whole of man’s nature maybe, but part and parcel, and it is within this context of duality that man has to find his freedom. And how? He said, precisely in this way, by recognising life to be what it is, namely, the presence of pain, suffering and sorrow in life, and beginning to feel the presence of this sorrow, pain and suffering in his fellow beings and in all creatures, and by thus feeling and experiencing this suffering throwing up a sublime reaction wherein his urge that I cannot live allowing this sorrow and pain to exist in my own fellow beings, I have to make my life a process of doing something to ameliorate it, to mitigate it, to remove it, if possible. It is in this way he has to find his freedom.
53:02 K: If I may point out... One moment, Swamiji.
53:05 JU: (In Hindi).
53:58 K: Experts quarrel.
54:28 SD: I think I was saying within the context of this duality he has to evolve.
54:38 KV: (In Hindi).
55:36 KV: It is better this way, if this will meet the situation – opposites, the capacity to live in the... Sir, here his point was that it is in knowing – may I use the word ‘knowing’ instead of ‘experiencing’? Knowing and being aware and seeing. Observing is the word that I had used. The presence of pain and sorrow, and suffering around and responding to it, and my freedom lies...

PJ: In the seeing. If I may translate Panditji, I would say that he said that in the seeing of the play of sorrow, pain, the whole situation is held in that...
56:43 K: Observation.

PJ:... observation.
56:45 SD: In seeking to do something about it, is the freedom of man.
56:52 PJ: And the very seeing of it is the transcending of it.
56:56 K: That’s what we have been talking about.
57:02 SD: I’ll beg to differ.

PJ: I am asking you.
57:05 SD: (In Hindi).
58:00 PJ: Will you say something? Would you like to say something?
58:12 SD: He is also making the point of freedom. He says the genesis of freedom lies in perceiving sorrow and trying to do something about it.

P: Responding to it.
58:26 SD: Positively responding to it.

AP: Not trying.
58:31 KV: Sir, I’d like to go back to the question you raised yesterday, which has come up repeatedly, on this centre and the periphery. All this discussion assumes that there is a centre which is perceiving and an outside which is being perceived, and this is something on which you have written and said a great deal. I’d like to get back to that, because the moment he says that I perceive, and I perceive a sorrow which is outside myself, what is it? That is what I would like to ask.
59:25 SD: You mean to say, who is it that is perceiving? If there is no such centre, then whose freedom are we discussing?
59:47 K: Sir, you asked a question about violence. We haven’t finished with that. Right, sir?
1:00:00 SK: Yes, sir. I also discovered that violence is violating. That I was saying, ‘Yes’ to you without understanding it, so I was doing violence and also violating myself.
1:00:13 SD: May I make a request? When you are speaking on violence, of course, we know of the violence one does to another, perhaps, we may include in it violence that one does to oneself.
1:00:31 K: Yes, sir, I was going to do that. Sir, what is violence? Doing harm to another – let’s take that limited extent to that word. Semantically, let’s both understand, hurting another physically and psychologically. Now, that hurting another psychologically may be by persuading him, by reward and punishment. That’s violence, by making him conform to a pattern, by persuading him pleasantly, logically, affectionately, to accept certain cadre, framework, all that is violence. Apparently, that’s inherent in man. Inherent, according to the ordinary – don’t let’s use the word ‘inherent’. Man has this capacity, psychologically, inwardly. We call that ‘violence’. The intellectual world does it, enforcing their ideas, their concepts, their theories. So, all that’s violence. Would you agree to that?
1:02:59 P: If judging is violence without any value connotations.
1:03:02 K: No, no, any form of persuasion – logical, illogical, reward, punishment, is violence.
1:03:15 SD: It would mean all education is violence.
1:03:19 K: Ah! Don’t come back to education, for the moment. Right, sir? So, is there a mind which cannot be persuaded – not obstinate – a mind that sees very clearly. You see the difference? That’s all. That’s a further point. I didn’t want to – that’s too wide. So, can that violence come to an end?
1:04:07 SK: No.
1:04:09 K: Why do you say, ‘No’?
1:04:13 SK: You asked whether there’s a mind which can be persuaded, my point is that there is no such mind...
1:04:23 K: Sir, we are the result of persuasion, right? Every propaganda – religious, political – everything is persuading me, pressurising me, driving me in a certain direction.
1:04:45 SK: So much of that persuasion has gone where it cannot be reached by us. It wears so many masks that those masks cannot be seen any more.
1:04:57 K: So, can we be free of violence? Let’s take that word ‘hate’. Can we be free of hate? Obviously, sir, we can.
1:05:25 PJ: Don’t leave it there, sir. You can’t leave it there. If you say, ‘Obviously you can be free of hate’, you’re leaving it there.
1:05:37 K: I am going to take it. Have we agreed up to that point, sir?
1:05:51 SK: That we hate, yes, but whether we can be free of hate...
1:05:55 K: We will go into it, we’ll go into it. What is the raison d’être, the cause of hate? Why do you hate me when I say something which you don’t like? Hate, you understand? Why do you push me aside, you being stronger, intellectually more powerful? Why do I get hurt? Psychologically, what is the process of being hurt, which is part of violence? What is hurt? Who is hurt? The image I have about myself is hurt. You come and tread on it. You come and put a pin into it. I get hurt. So, the image I have about myself is the cause of hurt. You say something to me, call me an idiot and I think I’m not an idiot, so you hurt me, because I have an image of not being an idiot. Right? S

K: With one proviso. When you say, ‘idiot’ and the image is hurt, you’re not hurting it, I’ve invented you, also. We invent all others as we were inventing...
1:08:03 K: We’re all the result of everybody else.
1:08:06 SK: So, you’re not hurting me, but something I’ve invented is hurting me.
1:08:16 K: I think I’m a great man – suppose. You come along and say, ‘Don’t be silly, there must have been greater men than you’. I get hurt. Why? Obviously, I have created an image about myself being a great man. You come and say something contrary to that. I get hurt. You are not hurting me, you’re hurting the image which is me. The image which I have built about myself gets hurt. The next question is, can I live without an image about myself? Right? Can you?
1:09:25 SK: No.

K: Why? You see!
1:09:29 PJ: The question which I would like to ask is where do I discover, in what dimension do I discover that I’m making an image of myself? Where do I discover it?

K: What?
1:09:45 PJ: Where do I discover that I’m making an image of myself?
1:09:49 K: I don’t discover, I perceive.

PJ: Where?
1:09:52 SD: When you get hurt, then you perceive.
1:09:55 PJ: No, no. Where do I perceive?

K: What do you mean where?
1:10:01 PJ: There must be a...

K: You point out to me, just now, you point out to me I have an image about myself. I have never thought about it. Just a minute, let me finish. I’ve never seen that I have an image. You point it out. You make a statement... Just a minute, let me finish. Please, follow what I’m saying, that I have an image. I am listening to you, very carefully, attentively, and in that listening I discover the fact that I have an image about myself or I see I have an image about myself.
1:10:44 PJ: I am not making myself clear. I don’t see it as an abstraction. If I don’t see it as an abstraction...
1:10:54 K: I don‘t see it as that.
1:10:56 PJ:...then that image-making machinery is the ground in which this is seen. Let me go into it a little. There is a ground from which the image-making machinery rises.
1:11:23 K: Why do you use the word ‘ground’?
1:11:26 PJ: Because in talking and responding there is a tendency to become conceptual...
1:11:36 K: I am not conceptual.

PJ: If you cut out the conceptual and go to the actual, then the actual is a process of perceiving.
1:11:45 K: That’s all. That’s all. Stop there.
1:11:49 PJ: No, I cannot stop there. I ask you further. I don’t perceive it in your statement.
1:11:57 K: No.

PJ: Then where do I perceive it?
1:11:59 K: Perceive it as it is taking place in you.
1:12:03 PJ: Where?

K: I don’t understand ‘where’.
1:12:06 PJ: When you say as it’s taking place in you, where do you perceive it? Outside in my relationship?
1:12:14 K: I saw that squirrel walking across the parapet. I perceive it. I perceive, watch the truth of the fact that I have an image.
1:12:30 PJ: This is not clear.

K: Ah, it is very clear. Wait. You tell me I’m a liar. I know I have told a lie. Yes, I realise I am a liar. There is no perception...
1:12:45 PJ: If there’s such a thing – no, sir. There is realising I am a liar and perceiving that I’m a liar. The two are different.
1:12:58 K: I have perceived that I’m a liar. I’m aware – let’s use that word – I’m aware that I am a liar. Right? That’s all.
1:13:12 PJ: Where does perception rest at that point? Where does perception rest at the point of perceiving that I am a liar?
1:13:22 K: I don’t quite follow what you mean.
1:13:24 SD: Where does that perception rest? Where does it exist?
1:13:28 PJ: Where is it directed?

K: Nowhere. Why should it be directed? I perceive – just a minute – I perceive...You’ve told me I am a liar. It’s a fact. I have lied – suppose. I have lied, that’s a fact. What do you mean, ‘Where do I perceive?’ It’s a fact.
1:14:00 PJ: I perceive it in the movement of my telling a lie, as thought.
1:14:07 K: No, I have perceived that I have lied in the past...
1:14:11 PJ: And so that arises in my mind and I perceive that?
1:14:16 K: No, I perceive not that, I perceive when I am lying.
1:14:24 PJ: Yes, that’s exactly what I was trying to get to.
1:14:29 K: That’s it.

PJ: You perceive when you are lying. So, it is a state which is not an abstraction.
1:14:38 K: No, absolutely not.

PJ: It is a factual state.
1:14:43 K: Yes. Suppose I am envious, it’s a fact.
1:14:52 PJ: But there is a great deal of difference in a discussion with you to say I am envious, and to actually see envy moving in my mind.
1:15:07 K: Of course, that’s what I mean.
1:15:12 PJ: Can you open up the seeing of this movement within the mind? I think this is the core of the whole thing, sir. You cannot leave these statements where you leave them.
1:15:28 K: Pupulji, let’s come back. We talked about freedom from fear. Could we start there? Right? We want to discuss the whole movement of fear, not just partial fears, the whole... time-sequence of fear. Right? It begins with desire. It begins with time. It begins with memory. It begins with the fact of the present action or movement of fear. Right? All this is involved in the whole river of fear. Either that fear is very, very shallow and dries off, or it is a deep river of great volume of water. Right? We are not discussing the various objects of fear, but fear itself, per se. Right? Can we go on? Right, sir? These gentlemen are very quiet today. What, sir? Now, is it an abstraction of fear we are discussing, or actual fear in my heart, in my mind? You follow what I am saying? Is it that I am facing the fear? Living actually the response, nervous, biological, psychological nature of feeling the entire fear or are we discussing abstract fear? I want to be clear on this point. If we are discussing abstract fear, it has no meaning to me, because we are dealing with an actuality and what is happening is actuality. And if you say, ‘I’ll make an abstraction and discuss that, it has no meaning. I don’t know if you’re following. So, I am concerned only with the actual happening of fear. And I say in that fear all this is involved – desire and the very complexity of desire, time, the past impinging on the present, and the sense of wanting to go beyond fear. All this must be discussed. I don’t know if you... If you want to, I will. We have to take one... – one drop of rain contains all the rivers in the world. Right? The beauty of that, one drop of rain. So, one drop of desire contains the whole movement of fear. Shall we go on? If you are bored, tell me. Right, sir? So, what is desire? Why do we suppress it? Or, give it such tremendous importance? I want to be the minister. My desire is for that. Or my desire is for God. It’s the same. My desire to be a minister and my desire for God are the same, because desire is the same. I don’t know if I am making... So, I have to understand at depth what desire is. Why desire drives man, why desire has been suppressed by all the religions. Lord! Does somebody...? You want me to go on? I am getting bored with this. One asks what is the place of desire, and why the brain is consumed with desire. So, I have to understand it not only verbally, in explanation, in communication, but also, understand it at its deepest level, in my guts, if I can use that word without being impolite. What is the place of thought in desire? Is desire different from thought, or does thought play an important part in desire? Or, is thought the movement of desire? You follow, sir? Is thought part of desire or thought dominates desire, thought controls desire, shapes desire? So, I’m asking, is thought and desire like two horses running together, with thought controlling them, which is still thought? You’re following? Am I going on all right? Right, sir? So, I must understand not only thought, the whole movement of thinking, the origin of thought, not the end of thought, but the beginning of thought. Can the mind be aware of the beginning of thought and also aware of the beginning of desire? So, I have to go into the question of what is desire and what is thought. Desire, very simply put – forgive me for using ordinary words, not technical words. First, there is perception, contact, sensation. I see you in that dress, colour, contact with that colour, touch it, out of that touching, sensation. This is what is happening, all the time. Then, thought says, ‘How nice if I had that colour on me’. So, thought creates the image. At that moment, desire is born. That is, I see that blue shirt in the window, I go inside and touch the texture, and from that touching there is sensation. Then thought says, ‘How nice it would be if I put on that blue shirt’. The creation by thought of the image of that shirt on me, is the beginning of desire, not perception, contact, sensation. Right? Right, sir?
1:27:41 SK: May I ask you a question?

K: Please.
1:27:46 SK: The example you gave, you said, you feel it in the guts, that’s a very good image, because that’s where desire resides. You are hungry, and that’s where the desire for food starts. What about when there is hunger for love or for food in the guts and there are no objects yet? How does this sequence go?
1:28:10 PJ: When there is hunger for love? There is an equation which says hunger for food which is the same as the hunger for love. Did you say that?
1:28:28 SK: No. I said for this or hunger, guts was a good image, but what desire is starts from the guts, not from you seeing something.
1:28:37 PJ: In a sense, without the object. S

K: When the guts are empty.
1:28:41 K: So, sir, is desire love? Is pleasure love? You can’t hunger after love as you hunger for power.
1:29:06 PJ: Can’t you hunger for love?
1:29:09 SK: I have seen love addicts.
1:29:11 K: Look, when we are using the word ‘love’ – just a minute, let that wind play with itself – We are introducing a word like ‘love’, love has become sex, love has become love of my country, love of an ideal, love of my something or other. It has become a very common word and almost trodden upon. So, I want to find out what you mean by ‘love’. Is it an abstraction?
1:30:15 PJ: There is an ache...

K: To be loved.
1:30:19 PJ: There is an ache, which is an emptiness, – out of that emptiness comes an ache for something.
1:30:29 K: The want of something.

PJ: The want of something.
1:30:33 K: We are going off, aren’t we, little bit? Aren’t we, sir? We are talking, or rather discussing, what is desire, not what love is, or the hunger for love. Could we leave that for the moment?
1:31:01 SK: I was only giving an example of a want, arising from inside, in the guts, hunger for food, for example, how does that sequence of desire go?
1:31:11 K: Surely, hunger for food is natural, healthy? Right? Hunger for – what? – ambition, hunger for position, status, is that natural?
1:31:40 SK: One sees that they are the same. That the hunger for position in many people, is really hunger for food, those are the masks that hunger can take, hunger for love.
1:31:52 K: The two can hardly be compared. Hunger for food is a natural, biological instinct, right? Is competition, which is destroying the world, natural? You know, the Eskimos, the Eskimos never knew competition until the Americans introduced that word to them, by racing dogs. You understand? So, we cannot call it instinctive. It is probably carefully cultivated. We must go through this. We understand how desire arises. Not verbally or ideologically, I see it, in myself, this process takes place, where thought creates the image and desire begins. So, next is time. Is time a movement of thought? There is time – day, sun rises, sun sets, at a certain time, time as the past, the present and the future, time as the past modifying itself, becoming the future, physically, time as covering a distance, time as learning a language, or a skill. There is that type of time, then there is the whole psychological time, ‘I have been, I will be, I am’. It’s a movement of the past through the present, modifying, into future. Time as acquiring knowledge through experience, memory, thought, action. That’s also time. Don’t agree. You have to see this yourself, inwardly. Otherwise, it has no meaning. It’s just a lot of words. There is that psychological time and physical time. Is there psychological time at all? Or thought as hope created time. I don’t know if you are following. I am questioning whether there is psychological time at all. That is, I am violent, I will be non-violent, and I realise that process can never end violence. What will end violence is confronting the fact and remaining with it, not trying to dodge it, escape from it and play the hypocrite about it. So, there is no opposite. Only what is. Right, sir? May I go on? Thinking, what is thinking? Why has man given such tremendous importance to the intellect, to words, words, theories, ideas? Unless I discover what is the origin of thinking, how it begins, can there be awareness of thought arising? Or is there awareness only after it has arisen? Is there an awareness of the movement of the whole river of thought? Thought has become extraordinarily important. All the inventions, religious, political, economic, you know. Thought is – I won’t go into it, this is so obvious. Thought exists because there is memory, knowledge, experience. Experience, knowledge, stored up in the brain as memory, from that memory there is thought, and action. In this process we live, always within the field of the known. So, desire, time, thought, is essentially fear. Without these, there is no fear. I am afraid, inwardly, and I want order out there – in society, in politics, in economics, you follow, sir? How can there be order out there, if I’m in disorder in here? Do we discuss further?
1:40:15 Ravi Mathai: I would like to ask a clarification. If fear is the consequence of experience, of thought, of knowledge...
1:40:35 K: I said all that, sir.
1:40:40 RM:...a state of not being afraid or of fearlessness, or the non-existence of fear in me, can only be an instantaneous flash of awareness, what the medieval scholars would call a full ‘viraajya’.
1:41:00 K: Sir, I am afraid of death.

RM: How do I bring my children up? How do I bring my children up?

PJ: How do I bring my children up? Ravi Mathai is saying that all these aspects of fear within us, it is only in a flash that we are free of it.
1:41:30 K: Of course.
1:41:31 PJ: How then do I bring up my children?
1:41:37 K: Ah, that’s the question. How do I bring up my son and daughter not to be afraid. Is that it? By having no competition, first. In the school there is competition, in college, competition, if he’s lucky to go to university, there’s competition. Exams are most deadly frightening things. Right? It’s a very complex question, how to bring up my child.
1:42:33 PJ: It is getting to half past eleven. There are many problems of sorrow, death, meditation, the movement out of this groove. Would people like to discuss that? We can have a meeting this afternoon.
1:43:04 K: Ask them, I am willing.
1:43:06 PJ: I would like to know whether you would like a meeting this afternoon. I would like the participants to tell me. Krishnaji is prepared to go into these various problems.
1:43:25 P: Personally, Pupul, I have to catch a plane.
1:43:30 PJ: You are going away but would the rest be willing and happy to come? Then we will request Krishnaji to speak to us.
1:43:42 K: From 4 to 5:30, this afternoon? Do you want it, sirs? It’s up to you to say.
1:43:52 PJ: It’s very difficult. But there would still be a number of people. Those of us who can come, are most welcome to come. 4 to 5:30.
1:44:16 Rajni Kothari: Could I make a point?

K: Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
1:44:22 RK: I think we moved quite a distance, covered quite a lot of ground. But I would like to relate some of the issues, especially one set of issues between you and Sudhir Kakkar, and another between you and what Panditji has raised, which I hope can be taken up this afternoon. But I’ll take up this last point that you made, how can I bring order outside, if there is a disorder in me? You could reverse the question. Can I bring order in, if there is disorder out there? And I am deliberately posing it in this manner because probably the source of some, not confusion, but some diffusion in the discussion lay in your early dichotomy between the inward and the outward. That the outward, the computer on the one hand and atom bomb on the other is taking over, so I should either allow myself to be entertained, that’s where the future of man is, or I go inside, not in any ecclesiastical or traditional sense, but discover my freedom more and more. I think Panditji was trying to bring us back to the point that I cannot realise that freedom including the inner recesses of mind without relating myself to that outside where dukh is, where there is so much unhappiness, turmoil and violence. And any attempt to understand the process of freedom without relating the inward and the outward...
1:46:16 K: Have I understood the question rightly, sir?
1:46:19 RK: Go ahead, please.

K: I am just asking you, are you saying the division between the outer and the inner is false?
1:46:27 RK: For me, yes.

K: I say I agree with you. It’s a movement like a tide, going out and coming in, going out and coming in. So, what is outside is me, me is the outside.
1:46:45 RK: Yes. But then one has to contend with the computer and the atom bomb and intervene in that process also for the realisation of freedom. You cannot simply say I am going to handover the outside... I’m not saying that you’re saying it. I’m saying this issue has to be faced. In the decision about the choices regarding the future of man, the shaping of that by modern science, technology and all that, in the manner in which you posed it, and you posed it very succinctly, is the process of my gaining my freedom not inherently textured into that outside world? This was in fact the issue that Panditji was trying to raise. He raised it in terms of the unhappiness and suffering outside. But I would extend it to things like the computer and systemic violence and of manipulation to which you often refer. I hope this afternoon you could take up some of this. I’ll try and come.
1:48:01 K: The outer is a movement of the inner, the inner is the movement of the outer. There is no dichotomy at all. Right? But by understanding the outer, that is the criterion which will guide me to the inner, so that there is no deception. Because I don’t want to be deceived at the end of the circus. Right, sir? So, the outer is the indicator of the inner, and the inner is the indicator of the outer. There is no difference as far as I’m concerned. My part is not to put away the outer. I say I’m responsible for that. I’m responsible for everything that is happening in the world. Because my brain is not my brain. It is the brain of humanity, which has grown through thousands of years. I like to think it’s my brain, but it’s not. If my brain is functioning in a very narrow circle, I’m emphasising the division. But my brain is the brain of humanity which has grown through evolution and all the rest of it. So, there is a responsibility politically, religious, all along the line. If the man who flies from Bombay to Delhi felt responsible, he won’t be late arriving into Delhi. None of us feel this responsibility. We’re all responsible for the family, little this and little that.
1:50:25 RK: If you agree with that, I think the next question is what is the process of freedom in that overall context and yesterday’s question of the relationship between thought and experience and consciousness. Unless yesterday’s and today’s are linked, we’d be missing a lot.
1:50:48 K: We’ll link it, sir. That’s fairly simple.
1:50:53 RK: And whether the whole of humanity and the experience of that whole of humanity offers any choices, or we take the 25,000 years as a homogenous total that we should transcend and somehow make the leap. These questions are very difficult to interrelate, but they’re part of the same problem of freedom that you’re discussing.
1:51:19 K: Do I answer him now or wait?
1:51:22 P: May I add a question, which you might like to take together with this? I think we got distracted somewhat from our concern, earlier in the morning, with suffering. Essentially Rajni’s question relates to that, too. I don’t think we have distinguished between two kinds of suffering, one is what we might call unavoidable or necessary suffering. Fear of death, for example, is a human predicament. We have lived with it for 25,000 years as human beings and before that, as animals, a self-aware animal is afraid of death. We have to learn to live with it. Some can transcend it, some cannot. But there is another major kind of suffering in the world which you can call unnecessary suffering, suffering created by man, created by human institutions and organisations. Unless we take care consciously to separate these two kinds of suffering and attack the man-created suffering, we can’t deeply get to grips with the first kind of suffering.
1:52:45 K: War is unnecessary suffering.
1:52:54 PJ: I am asking, do you accept this position?
1:52:58 K: What position?
1:53:02 PJ: That there are two kinds of suffering.
1:53:04 K: No, I don’t. There is only suffering.
1:53:07 PJ: Would you accept that there are two kinds of suffering? One suffering which is inevitable like the fear of death...
1:53:18 K: I don’t accept that.

PJ: Please, listen to me. And the other suffering, made up of man-made manoeuvrings, where people are put into positions of want.
1:53:31 K: Do we discuss it, now?

PJ: No, it’s a very big question. You would have to go into it in very great detail. After all, it’s the crux and root of the human mind.
1:53:45 P: A very intricate set of questions.
1:53:46 PJ: We are going to go into it, this afternoon, 4 to 5:30. Beg your pardon? Rinpocheji, would you please say something?
1:54:16 S. Rinpoche: I don’t know what I should say. We are discussing the problem round and round. Sometimes we get quite near to a point but we just escape away. As far as I understand, we always keep in mind of our condition, our own conditioned concepts, which we are not in any case ready to give up, even in the process of discussion, also. In this way, our discussion always comes to an end which stress our conditioned conceptions or thoughts. Then we try to clarify it. But, again, it goes away. For example, the freedom, freedom from fear. But we talk of that freedom through a process of an unfree mind. The process of unfree mind makes a very narrow scope or a very narrow ground through which we could describe, or observe or see the freeness. We try to describe the freeness through a conditioned or limited word which is only capable of what our thought could perceive or image. Here, I find it very difficult to understand Krishnaji and also to have a direct dialogue. So, I would request you, sir, to open up further more, and don’t just leave us in your cross-questions. I think you could speak on our level which our conditioned mind could understand you.
1:57:43 PJ: If Swamiji would say something.
1:57:52 SD: Beloved brethren in the spirit, if you want me to speak frankly, I came here mainly to have darshan of Swami Sri Krishnamurtiji Maharaj and with no other intention, neither to speak nor to listen, but to sit beside him and just be, just feel him inside and just be. So, as far as I am concerned, I am fully satisfied, 110 percent satisfied, I feel myself greatly blessed and feel a joy which I cannot express. If you still want me to say a few things, I can only say, as Maharaj himself has stated several times, let us face facts. The fact is, whether we want to accept it or not, whether we want to perceive it or not, whether we exist in it or not, the fact is going to remain, and the fact is, in this world there is multifarity. I steer very clearly out of these rather controversial words like duality and conflict and contradiction. I steer clear of it. There are many things in this world, as there are many people sitting here. There is multifarity. Definitely, there is apparently no unity. Apparently, there is no unity. So, we have to live with the fact of multifarity. And in this multifarity, part and parcel of this multifarity is a beautiful blend of dualities, without which we cannot exist. They are necessary. And therefore, with this fact, let us start all processes, all action, all thinking, all feeling, all reacting, whatever life means. Maybe it means all of these things. Seeing the fact of us and seeing the fact of this multifarity which we call the world, let us try to make our response to this situation, a response which would constitute a manner of being and living that we would desire life to extend towards us. As we live, we want life to be towards us in this manner and this manner, and not in this manner, or this manner or this manner. So, that which the spirit within us says, ‘I don’t want’, let us not make a life process of giving such a thing to another. It may be a mosquito, or a flea, a worm, or a man, it may be anyone. Deep within us, the spirit says, ‘Let life mean to me this’. Let us make our life a means and a process of giving unto life around us that only. If you say I want to be happy, I want to be comfortable, let us live in order to make life around us happy, comfortable, and less painful. Something within us keeps telling us, ‘I do not want to shiver in the cold, in winter, without a blanket, without a place to lie in. I don’t want to be experiencing the pangs of hunger, and I do not want to be sick and ill and not have anyone to care for me and make me well’. If that is so, let us be a centre of a life which brings to life around us warmth where there is cold, and nourishing food where there is hunger, and maybe sympathy and a healing hand where there is disease, pain and suffering. I believe if we make our life this, we have lived not in vain. Life would have been lived. That is all I have to say.