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NY83CDS - Memory, thought and the illusion of continuity
New York - 14 April 1983
Conversation with David Shainberg



0:19 David Shainberg: Ok Krishnaji, the question I came up with is this: What is the power or the intensity that illusions have such immediacy? In other words, why is it that illusion and what thought creates has such power and such immediacy? That is question one, and then somewhere along the line: what can a person do if, let's say, if I or if you see the immediacy in my illusions and you see the quality of my illusions, what can a person do for another person who is caught up in their illusions? Those are two questions.
1:19 Krishnamurti: First of all, what do you mean by illusion?
1:23 DS: Well, when I use the word illusion I am going from discussions we have had before where we talked about the fact that thought creates a reality.
1:35 K: Thought creates illusions.
1:38 DS: And so therefore is illusion since it is making it up. And it has such immediacy. We all invest our thoughts with such intense needs. We have invested in security. I mean, what is that, this immediacy in illusion or thought?
2:02 K: When you use the word immediacy does it mean the urge to fulfil, the urge to do something? I don't quite understand when you use the word immediacy, what you mean by that.
2:21 DS: I am using the word immediacy in the sense of a reality. Let's say this, take it at two levels: if I imagine myself falling off a wall, I will jump. So that thought and that imagination has immediacy, an intensity.
2:53 K: Could we express it differently?
2:57 DS: Sure, go ahead.
2:59 K: I am not getting the meaning of what you are talking about.
3:03 DS: Well, I am really saying that we have thoughts that we invest with importance.
3:10 K: Yes. Let's stick to that.
3:12 DS: Now, what makes us invest it with such importance? In other words, I am really referring back to my work as a doctor where a patient comes in and he will say, terribly depressed if somebody died, terribly depressed if their lover doesn't show up, terribly depressed if they lose a job. Those are thoughts which have importance but for this person it is as if it is the whole life has collapsed. That is what I mean by immediacy – urgency.
3:57 K: After all, it is the urge of desire to fulfil.
4:03 DS: I am not getting you there.
4:09 K: I am not getting your meaning at all.
4:12 DS: Well, let me try another way. We talk a lot about what thought does.
4:17 K: Yes. We said that thought is limited. Thought, whatever it does, whether in the technological world or in the psychological world, is limited.
4:33 DS: Exactly.
4:35 K: I mean, a person who is concerned about himself all day long, his whole attitude towards life and towards the world is very, very, very small.
4:49 DS: Right. Now, if thought is limited, but actually thought begins to seem like it is unlimited.
5:00 K: That is just an idea. That is an illusion.
5:03 DS: That is an illusion but that actually happens.
5:05 K: So what is your question then?

DS: So what makes that happen? In other words, what makes thought appear so unlimited? And we invest it with such unlimited virtues.
5:19 K: Who does this?
5:21 DS: Everyone in this world that I know. Like yesterday in our discussion, the man says he is getting better because he can take a vacation, so in a way he has invested his thought. You see what I am getting at?

K: No.
5:43 DS: You still don't see.
5:50 K: Would you mind changing the words? Not invest – move away from this.
5:57 DS: All right. We will move away. We will try another way. We think what we think is important. Keep it at that.
6:08 K: What we think is important, which is, our prejudice.
6:15 DS: Our ideas.
6:16 K: Our ideas, our ideologies, our experience. We think that is important.

DS: Exactly. Now you are getting it.
6:24 K: Yes, now we are getting it.
6:25 DS: Now, what is that?
6:28 K: Not – what is that – why have they become important?
6:37 DS: But they start out important.
6:41 K: I have an experience, suppose, or I come to some definite conclusion.
6:49 DS: Alright.
6:50 K: I have thought a great deal about it, read about it, talked to people, and I have come to a conclusion that is final.
7:03 DS: Right.
7:07 K: In that finality there is a certain sense of – at last I have understood. This is what I must do or not do, and proceed from there.
7:26 DS: Right.
7:28 K: Now, what is the question? Put it from there.
7:31 DS: From there the question is: how did it get to be that you think that it is important and that it is final?
7:43 K: Because it has happened to me and I have seen all the implications of it, all the implications of an accident, I have reasoned it out and I say, this is so. But the difficulty is you come along and say it is not so, then I hold on to my conclusion.
8:16 DS: Because I say it is not. You mean it is simply in reaction?
8:19 K: No, you say – It is not. Your conclusion is wrong. Unless I am willing to listen to you, examine it, then I will change it, but if I am not willing to listen to you, examine it, I won't change, I will say, that is what I think.
8:42 DS: Yes, but before you already thought it was important, what you thought.
8:46 K: Yes, because it is happened to me.
8:48 DS: So it is me that is the issue, because it happened to me. So then you have invested me with importance?
8:56 K: Yes, me becomes the importance.
8:58 DS: Why?
9:01 K: Your question now is quite different: why human beings all over the world have given importance to the idea of the me.
9:19 DS: Such importance.
9:22 K: Tremendous importance. The whole world circles round it.
9:26 DS: Right. And so what does it?
9:30 K: What do you mean, what does it?
9:32 DS: I mean, in other words, why?
9:35 K: Why do human beings give importance to their own self-centred activity? Right?

DS: That is right.
9:46 K: Why? Is it because they think they are individuals separate from everybody else, and therefore because they are individuals, it is like building a wall around oneself and not letting any other thing interfere with that centre, and then naturally it becomes important.
10:24 DS: Wait a minute, why naturally?
10:27 K: Because that is the only thing I have.
10:30 DS: So having made this wall, I am taking in things that are building me up, so to speak.
10:36 K: And therefore that is the only thing I have left with me.
10:41 DS: Because I have made this –
10:43 K: Not only because of that but because through education, through religion and so on and so on, my brain has been programmed to think I am an individual. And being an individual, I must protect myself against you, against the environment and so on. So in the act of protecting myself, it becomes very important. The act becomes very important. So what you are saying too is that therefore all of these illusions that I build up spring from that. In other words, it is necessary, like getting more evidence. So it is really: why does this happen, this me?
11:36 K: I wouldn't put it why, put it around the other way. Why has humanity, human beings all over the world become so terribly self-centred? Would that be a right question?

DS: Yes, that is good.
12:04 K: Why, sir? From your training, from your analytical point of view as a doctor and psychotherapist and so on, why do you think they have given importance to this self-centred egotistic movement? Which is actually separative movement. Which is divisive movement. Why?
12:38 DS: Well, I think that the reason is that thought simply appears in the brain and that thought offers the security of the self, or the me. In other words, it creates the me.
12:57 K: I am asking: after having created the me, which is the image I have about myself, why have we given such importance to this? I am asking you.

DS: I know you are, my answer is: I hate to use the word security, but it seems that the me provides a security. Now, there I think is a question: why does the me provide such security, or seem to provide?
13:29 K: Or is it that I am seeking security fundamentally, and the feeling that all my activity must be within the area of my own experience, my own judgement, my own values, my own egotistic movement.
13:57 DS: Right. But it seems to me you are going backwards there.
14:05 K: No, look, let's begin again. Human beings all the world over have built up this illusion that self-centred activity is self-protective, defensive, aggressive, and one lives in that area and I know nothing else.
14:39 DS: But there must be some appeal or something inherent in us as human beings, that this happens. In other words, you can take the young child and it happens so quickly. It is literally like I gave you a shot of heroin and you said, ah, I like it, and you say, I want more of it. And it is as if the happening of the self, the me, is like a shot of heroin, you get a little and it is like it immediately just builds. You are addicted to it. It is really an addiction. Let's look at it as an addiction.
15:18 K: What is an addiction?

DS: The me. And the need for security is an addiction. And the me, is like a shot of heroin, which offers that drug. In other words, you are yearning for security. I come along and say to you, look, I am going to shoot you up with a little me – you know what I mean?

K: I understand what you mean. Let's begin again.

DS: Ok, sure.
15:48 K: Why do we seek security?
15:51 DS: Because we are insecure.
15:54 K: Are we insecure?

DS: Yes.
15:57 K: Or we imagine we are insecure? You understand my question? I want security, I must have security, physical security: clothes, food and shelter and so on. I must have a job in this rotten society. I must have somewhere where I can be quiet by myself, with my family, with whatever it is. Why have human beings – that is my fundamental question – given importance to the me, to thinking I must protect myself. Because the world is very dangerous. It began probably a million years ago when man began to come into being, he had to protect himself. There were wild animals, everything was chaotic. So, perhaps from there began the origin that I must protect myself – animals do. A deer which is being chased by a leopard, his instinct is to run away. Unfortunately the leopard is quicker and catches him and kills him, and so on. And also the deer escapes sometimes, fortunately. So from there we have inherited this sense of – I must protect myself. And I am asking: is it possible to protect yourself in isolation? After all, the very idea of protecting myself brings about isolation.
18:07 DS: Right.
18:10 K: Now, is there security in isolation?
18:14 DS: Well, if the deer runs away, is he seeking it in isolation?
18:20 K: No, poor thing, he just wants to survive.
18:24 DS: Is that possible, that maybe that is one of the things that causes the me, that he just wants to survive?
18:30 K: That is a natural instinct.
18:33 DS: But I said maybe the me is –
18:35 K: No – physically, I must survive.
18:39 DS: Then we must get confused and think the me is physical survival.
18:43 K: No. Physically I need clothes, food and shelter. I must survive. I must have a job and so on, a room and so on. Now, is there psychological survival at all?
19:05 DS: No. But I just had a thought. There is no psychological survival.
19:12 K: Why do you say that? I mean, everybody wants to psychologically survive. The me is the psyche.

DS: Right. But in some way it is confused with the body.
19:32 K: Which is identified. Identification takes place because in identification I put out roots. And having roots I feel secure.
19:51 DS: And you identify with your body.
19:53 K: Which is, my body, my name.
19:56 DS: So I am my body, I am my name.
20:00 K: I am what I am doing, and so on.

DS: Exactly. But isn't that similar to what the deer is doing when he is running away?
20:08 K: No. A deer doesn't think about himself.
20:12 DS: Exactly. But I am saying that there is a crossover there.
20:15 K: There is no thought operating probably in the deer.
20:18 DS: Ok, we will accept that.
20:21 K: It is just frightened, and runs. And then when we go into this me and identification
20:31 K: Then all the trouble begins.
20:34 DS: But isn't that in a way a sort of a wrong continuity from the deer? You know what I mean?

K: Not quite.
20:44 DS: Well, in the sense that you say we have inherited this need for survival from the animal.
20:51 K: We have inherited the instinct to survive.
20:55 DS: So we have inherited the instinct to survive.
20:58 K: Please, let's admit one thing: it is a natural instinct to survive.
21:03 DS: Exactly.
21:07 K: Every little cell wants to survive. And to survive, physical necessities I must have – a job and so on.
21:21 DS: A lot of people think me is a necessity.
21:27 K: Are you sure what you are saying?
21:31 DS: Yes.
21:33 K: Me is essential? They haven't even examined what is the me.
21:37 DS: Ah, but they still feel it is essential.
21:41 K: No sir, they feel in the me there is security, in the psyche, and I cling to the image of myself.
21:58 DS: Exactly.
22:01 K: But we never examine what is the psyche. If there is clinging to something which I call me, it may be an illusion. So we have to examine what is the psyche. Has it any ground on which it can stand firm? Or is it just a movement, a series of movements. I don't know if you are following.

DS: I am following you.
22:45 K: And these movements, experience and so on, is the me, and I know nothing else.
22:59 DS: Well, one question that comes up there is that in the act of experiencing, as I am looking at it, there is a sense that the me appears in the act of experience.
23:13 K: Just a minute. Is that so? I had an experience this morning: a car ran into me. It hurt me, and the pain is registered. The accident, the pain, is recorded in the brain. And I remember it, I will remember it for a month or two. And so I am very careful after that not to be run over, not to be knocked down. The remembrance has a continuity. That continuity is the self. The remembrance. Remembrance of things past, the incidents, the accidents, the pleasures, that memory has a continuity. Memory. And memory then says, I have had this experience, I must be careful. Right?

DS: Right.
24:48 K: So, there is no other factor than the continuity of memory.
24:57 DS: Except next time I have an experience, what happens? I add it to that.
25:02 K: Of course, continuous addition or subtraction. Now, is memory, which is actually continuity, what value has that? Apart from a skill – a doctor. You have to have a continuous memory in order to examine me. Right? A series of time, a series of accumulation of knowledge and so on. You are the doctor. So there is only, I am saying, continuity of memory – that is all. Memory is me. There is no separate me from memory, and that gives me security.
26:16 DS: What is that?

K: What?
26:17 DS: The security you get in that memory.
26:21 K: Knowledge. Knowledge of my accident, of my pain or pleasure, the things past. That is, the structure of memory based on experience and knowledge.
26:40 DS: I see.
26:46 K: That brings a sense of continuity which is the me. The me is not something separate from memory. So memory is the only thing that continues.
27:03 DS: And that is security.

K: Naturally. No, you see, what has continuity seems to appear to give security.
27:20 DS: That is the question: what is the appearance?
27:25 K: Memory is the only factor in our lives that has continuity.
27:34 DS: Yes.

K: You understand? And what is memory?
27:43 DS: It is the storing, it is the past.
27:45 K: Things of the past, not of the future.
27:49 DS: No, it is only the past.
27:55 K: We are going to discover something extraordinary. That is, the past has continuity, modified, but the past continues. Right?

DS: Right.
28:09 K: So, that which has continuity, though modified, is the only source of security. Anything that breaks up – death, say death, let's take death – that ends that continuity, so I am frightened of it.
28:39 DS: Exactly. Anything that interrupts that continuity.
28:45 K: So, memory is the centre of the psyche and that memory has continuity and therefore that which has a series of movements, similar movements, I feel safe, it brings a sense of safety, security. So memory brings security.
29:14 DS: Right.
29:16 K: Wait a minute. And is that security?
29:23 DS: That is what I was going to ask. I don't know. It is not security, it can't be security.
29:29 K: Just see what we have done: we human beings want continuity and that continuity we find in memory, in remembrance, in the record in the brain. That has continuity. And so there is not only a sense of permanency, and also a great sense of security in memory. Now, what is memory? To remember. To remember to keep to right side of the road in America or in France, but in England it is the left side of the road. To remember the address I have to come to. So memory is something – go on, investigate. See what is happening. Memory is put together by past incidents which are dead, gone. I have lost my brother, my son, they are gone, incinerated or buried – finished. But the memory remains. Memory is not the actual.
31:11 DS: No. The actual is the absence.
31:13 K: Gone. But I have got a photograph of my son on the mantelpiece. I keep on looking at it. The picture is not the brother, son, memory is not the son or the brother. So memory is – what?
31:38 DS: Always going back over.

K: No. I have lost my son or brother, my mother, whatever it is, and there is the picture of them on the mantelpiece to remind me.
31:54 DS: To reawaken the memory.
31:56 K: Yes, I keep on thinking about it. Memory. We will keep to memory, not thought, for the moment. So that memory – that memory represents something that is gone, dead, finished. So memory is not real. I don't know if you follow.

DS: Yes.
32:26 K: You follow? Memory is not the actual son or the brother. So memory, though it appears to have continuity, it is a dead thing. So I seek security in something dead. Right?

DS: Yes.
32:56 K: If my son or brother was living, I found security with them. I loved them, they loved me, I felt safe with them, they would protect me, they would see to my old age and so on – I am safe. But they are gone, never to return.
33:20 K: But the memory of them remains, which is memory of a dead, past thing. So memory, which appears to have continuity, is a dead thing – not the actual living brother and son.
33:45 DS: Right.
33:49 K: So what is thought clinging to? Clinging to something that is dead. To discover I am clinging to something that is gone. So much water under the bridge. So there is no security in memory. But to find that out – we are unwilling to do that.
34:32 DS: There. What is that unwillingness?
34:38 K: It is habit, tradition. I have been programmed for the last 2000 years to worship a symbol called Jesus, or in India 5 to 10,000 and I am stuck there.
34:52 DS: I think there is more to it, Krishnaji. Let's go into it a little bit further. I have been programmed, but again, if I have been programmed, in some way, I find that something holds it there.
35:07 K: What holds it? Just the program.

DS: No, I think it is more.
35:10 K: Go into it, sir. I have been programmed as a Dutchman – no, we will take a Catholic, because that is much more precise – I have been programmed for 2000 years to be a Roman Catholic, to worship the symbol, the cross, to follow the rituals, to be baptized, to obey the Pope. That is my conditioning. That is, the brain cells have been conditioned to that.
35:49 DS: Yes.
35:51 K: And my son or my grandson and grandson and grandson, I insist they be conditioned that way, because I feel safe in a society which says we are all Catholic.
36:07 DS: Right.
36:10 K: That program is memory. And when I say I am Catholic, all the 2000 years of memories is there. Right?

DS: Right.
36:27 K: So I am clinging, holding on, to something that is gone, that has no validity. Jesus may not have existed, but we have invented the original sin and you can't escape from it, only somebody else can save you. I have been programmed to that.
36:50 DS: But you are doing it.
36:52 K: I am doing it because I am an automatic machine where this is concerned. But in the business world I am not an automatic machine. There I am active, I am changing, I am moving.
37:08 DS: You are giving up, you are not operating on memory. But here you are operating with memory.
37:13 K: Here I am operating on tradition, on a program, on a program which has conditioned the brain cells, that is mechanical.
37:28 DS: You are doing it, though.

K: I am mechanical. The computer is mechanical it is doing, it is producing, it tells you what to do.
37:38 DS: Is there anything that is making you do it?
37:41 K: No. The programming itself is making me do it.
37:45 DS: Simply automatic. I don't know about that. There is something that appeals to you about it.
37:52 K: Just a minute, look at it carefully. I am programmed as a Roman Catholic and you are programmed as a Buddhist – let's assume. Neither of us are – I am not programmed to be Catholic, neither are you a Buddhist, but let's assume I am programmed as a Roman Catholic or I am a Muslim, Islamic cult, and you are Christian, if you prefer. Now, I have been programmed for the last 1400 years to be a Muslim, to read the Koran, to follow it, to go on my knees facing the west. I have been programmed. The program is working. And the working of the program gives me the security of the I. 'I am doing it' – etc. And you are doing the same thing in a different way – going to church every Sunday, genuflecting, obeying the Catholic hierarchy, exactly the same thing in a different pattern.
39:14 DS: Right.
39:15 K: So, it is the program that is operating, nothing else.
39:28 DS: And if the program is operating, how could anyone not be in that program?
39:37 K: She comes along or he comes along and says, look what you are doing.
39:41 DS: Do you think they can hear?
39:44 K: Unless they say, sorry, I won't listen to you. You are a heathen, you are an evil person – and shut you up, then of course you can't hear. But there is always, in an intelligent, inquiring mind, there is always a little spark of doubt.
40:04 DS: Right.
40:07 K: And that person tells me, look what you are doing. You are merely living on a dead memory which is programmed. Your life is mechanical. Your thinking is mechanical because you are fundamentally living according to a program. Even in the business world it is the same. Right?
40:35 DS: But you know, it is hard for a person to see their own programs. For instance, let's take perhaps a more practical thing, take the business man. The business man is programmed to think in terms of making money. Or take a doctor, he is programmed at such levels as to think of himself as separate from his patient, or he is programmed to think in terms of knowledge. You pass over knowledge, but that whole thing of knowledge itself, in the good places where it works well, gets into other places, into the program. You know what I mean?

K: I understand. But if we both agree, or see the fact that our whole psyche is being programmed – I am talking of psyche for the moment – which is I am a Catholic, I am a Jew, I am an Arab, I am a Hindu, and so on, so on, so on, a communist, which are all ideologies. Right? Ideologies.

DS: Exactly.
41:50 K: And the ideologies have been put together by thought: clever thought, crooked thought, irrational thought and so on, it is still thought. Now, that thought has been programmed.
42:10 DS: Sure. And so deeply.
42:14 K: Obviously.

DS: I mean, the me itself.
42:17 K: Sir, after 10,000 years and 5000 years, you can't help being deeply programmed.
42:23 DS: But so deeply in the sense of this me, where we started, if we go back and start over.

K: The program is me.
42:29 DS: Exactly. Now, the program is me and the very act of being me is programmed.
42:40 K: Yes.
42:41 DS: But that is a phenomenal thing.
42:43 K: I am acting like a computer according to what I am programmed.
42:52 DS: Well, that is phenomenally difficult to see that.
42:54 K: See the importance of this, how deeply rooted it is. The inheritance, the tradition, the heritage, the genetic, all that is born from the animal and so on, gradually to man, and all that is great experience, knowledge and so on, which is the past, and the brain is living in the past. And the past is the program.
43:39 DS: The very act of living in the past is a program. The act of living in the past is a program, the brain is a program, the me is a program.
43:48 K: And therefore what does a human being do when he realizes this? That means there is no freedom. You may talk about freedom of will and all – that is nonsense. It is like a machine, but more clever, more subtle, more inventive and so on – the brain – but it is conditioned, it is programmed, and as long as one lives in that area, there is no freedom. It is like a machine that quickly adjusts itself to various factors, impressions and so on and so on, but it is still a brain that has being programmed, that can only think. And the thinking is limited.
44:50 DS: Yes. It is right in the program.
44:53 K: That is all. First of all, to realize that is a bit of a shock to me. The other day we were discussing with some well-known scholar and scientists and so on. The scholar was conditioned by his knowledge. Right?
45:21 K: He has read a great deal, Asiatic philosophy and Western philosophy, religions and so on. He has got tremendous knowledge which has conditioned him.
45:34 DS: Exactly.
45:37 K: So, when you say, please, let's put aside all your knowledge about something, let's go into the whole idea of knowledge, how it binds.
45:51 DS: What did he say?

K: He took some time. He refused. And then he began to quote Bronowski and the others who said, 'Knowledge helps man to ascend.' I mean, this whole concept of knowledge helping man to ascend seems so utterly nonsense to me, because we have had 7000 years of war, which has brought us enormous knowledge killing with a stone, with an arrow, then with a gun and so on, until now we have got the atom bomb.
46:35 DS: Exactly. Yes. We have got increased knowledge.
46:38 K: Knowledge. And we will take another 10,000 years adding more and more and more, perhaps we will be able to wipe out the whole earth.
46:49 DS: Well, we will have that much knowledge.
46:54 K: So the point is, I am programmed, I accept that, suppose I accept it completely.
47:04 DS: Do you accept it?

K: Suppose, I said, for the moment.
47:08 K: You come along and say, look, my friend, you have no freedom here. You are just a machine. A very clever, intelligent machine. Which you are, the brain is a machine, it can react and all the rest of it. And as long as the brain remains in that area, it is never free. Its energy is limited, its capacity is limited, though technologically you have advanced.
47:58 DS: Yes. Can we take a look here? I have no freedom. My energy is limited. Now, there is an implication there that I am to think about having more freedom or having more energy.
48:14 K: Wait – when you think of the more it is the same movement.
48:20 DS: So, it is my perception of my mechanization and my perception of the constriction of my energy that is an issue. Isn't that it?

K: Yes. And not only that is the issue, sir, let's put it down this way: suppose I realize that I am programmed – all of me, biologically as well as psychologically. And you come to me because you have investigated much more, you are a doctor, you have gone into the issue, studied various things, and you say, look my friend, you have no freedom. You are like a very good, subtle machine. In that, because it is automatic, limited, you are creating infinite trouble for yourself, pain for yourself, conflict for yourself, and you have created this society and therefore you and society are creating hell on earth.
49:33 DS: By going around inside of that.
49:35 K: In that limitation.

DS: Right.
49:38 K: You point that out to me. Then I say, please, I see the fact. Help me to break through it. Right?

DS: Right.
49:52 K: And you say to me, no, I won't help you, because you have to see the truth of this.
50:02 DS: And your asking me to help you is the system itself.
50:05 K: Yes. So you tell me, don't do that, don't ask my help or ask the help of anyone, including God.
50:16 DS: Can we stop right there. How is it that when you ask me to help you that that really is just another way to show my conditioning?
50:24 K: Yes, I have acknowledged.

DS: It is that, because you are making yourself into a thing for me to fix, really.
50:31 K: No, I have acknowledged that I have been programmed, caught in a trap, and I can't get out. I think I can't get out.
50:44 DS: So what can I do for you?
50:45 K: Therefore, I come to you. You are a doctor, a psychologist, psychotherapist, you are well known, blah, blah, blah. I come to you and I say, please sir, this is my state. I realize that if one lives on a dead thing it becomes narrow, limited, and therefore I am creating conflict not only between me and my wife and society, I live in conflict.
51:18 DS: Right.
51:20 K: Help me to understand the nature of memory, the programming, the root of conflict, and show me or help me to get out of this blasted hole. That is what all of us are asking.
51:43 DS: Exactly.
51:44 K: They go to church for that purpose, temples, prayers. Help me, oh God – invented by thought – help me to get out of this. And nobody has helped so far after 10 million years or 5 – nobody has helped me, but I keep on praying somebody will help me, which is insanity – you understand? That is neuroticism.
52:11 DS: Well, what do you think it is, though, what do you think it is about the program that breeds asking for help?
52:22 K: No, it is not asking for help. When you come along and point out to me the limitation of being programmed, then I begin to look at it.
52:36 DS: But then you ask me for help.

K: Then I ask you for help.
52:39 DS: But that is part of your program to ask me for help.
52:41 K: No, it is not part of my program.
52:43 DS: No?

K: No. Yes, in a certain way, yes. That is part – but I have moved out of that. I come to you for help – just listen – and you say, that is part of your nasty program. I say yes, quite right, but all the same, let's inquire into it. Please, let's go together. You follow?
53:07 DS: Yes. So we can talk together.
53:11 K: Together. That means you are not helping me to climb out of the hole.
53:18 DS: Right. We are in this together.
53:21 K: Together. Which means what?
53:25 DS: We are both programmed.
53:26 K: We both realize we are both programmed, we are in a hole, and by talking over, looking over, investigating, we begin to see there is nobody going to help you.
53:43 DS: Or you.
53:44 K: Nobody is going to help me or you, both of us. What does that mean? I remain with my program.
53:57 DS: We are together in it.
53:59 K: We remain, let's put it that way, we remain in the hole. Because I don't know how to get out of it. You don't know either. We remain in the hole. Right? But what has happened when I have not accepted help, I have not looked to anybody – God or...
54:26 DS: Well, but wait a second. I came along and I showed you your program.
54:33 K: Yes.
54:34 DS: Did I give you help?

K: No.
54:36 DS: I didn't? You didn't see it?
54:38 K: I didn't see it, but you have shaken me.
54:40 DS: So I helped you?
54:42 K: No, you have helped me like a thunderstorm. The thunderstorms give you a lot of...
54:48 DS: I shook you up a little.
54:50 K: You know, nitrogen to the soil, thunder.
54:55 DS: We have got three minutes.
54:58 K: You acted as a thunder, which is a natural event. We happened to meet and we said, look, let's go into this.
55:10 DS: Am I out of the program because I could see your program? Am I out of the program? I can see your program, I am still in the program.
55:20 K: Of course, we both are in it.
55:22 DS: We both are in it. Right. I have shown you your program.
55:26 K: And by talking to me, you have discovered that you are also programmed.
55:29 DS: Exactly. Ah, that is quite a discovery.
55:33 K: Of course. Both of us discover it.
55:38 DS: Not me. I have this insight, or I saw it.
55:45 K: When I realize I am programmed, the fact, I realize all human beings are programmed. Right? I watch it. It is so.
55:57 DS: All human beings are programmed.
55:59 K: Of course. Except those who say, sorry, I have been programmed, I am out. The brain is no longer conditioned. That is quite a long process – not process – that needs tremendous investigation, which is meditation and all that. I won't go into all that. But the fact that memory has continuity and in that, that gives us security. Continuity gives us security. Memory is a dead thing, not a living thing. You can't have a memory about a living thing. So, I am living with dead things. When I live on past memories I am living with death, with things that have gone. And I cling to those memories because it gives me certain comfort, security and so on, but it is like holding onto a dead carcass. So, if I realize that, actually see the truth of it, there is a mutation in the brain cells.
57:24 DS: Yes, and there is a mutation between us as we talk together.
57:28 K: Yes, in the brain cells, and therefore it is possible to be free, to totally climb out of the hole. Finished? I have found something new.
57:57 DS: What did you say?

K: I have found something new.
58:01 DS: Me too. It is like Christmas, right? – presents.
58:11 K: Yes, sir. You see, my brain is very selective, selective memory – very, very selective. All the things that have happened to me, gone. Literally gone. The record remains but not the content of the record.
58:45 DS: Is it that the content remains but the selective apparatuses...

K: No, the other way around. I am right, you will see it in a minute. You have to have memory to drive a car. All the things they did to me, which was recorded, that record has no depth, no feeling.
59:19 DS: No stickiness, nothing stuck to it.
59:22 K: That is too dirty. So, the brain has now, I have noticed, I have gone into...