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OJ81S2.3 - Have we lost all sense of religion?
Ojai, California - 5 April 1981
Seminar 2.3



0:00 This is the third seminar with J. Krishnamurti in Ojai, California, 1981.
0:11 Krishnamurti: We just left off yesterday [with] what’s happened to the world, not only in this country but the rest of the world: India, Europe, and the terrible things Russia and Poland are involved [in], and the Japanese with their technology and they’re probably the most competitive nation in the world now.
0:43 What has happened?
0:50 Is it that we have lost all sense of religion?
1:00 Not the establishment that considers itself to be religious; that’s not religion at all.
1:16 Is it that’s what is missing in the world?
1:25 Religion in the sense a skeptical investigation into truth, what is truth – you know, the whole of that – and as long as belief and dogma and the rituals and the assertion, ‘There is only one saviour,’ and all the rest of that, is obviously not religion.
1:53 So is that what is missing in the world?
2:05 David Bohm: Well, would you say that religion never was in the world?
2:09 K: Yes, I should think so.
2:10 DB: That time? When was it?
2:12 K: Probably, never was; probably, one or two people that really were religious, the rest were merely believers, repeaters, studying the books and translating the books according to their own whims and fancies and demands.
2:33 I don’t see the... All that is not religion.
2:43 The skeptical investigation into that which is sacred – if there is such a thing as...
2:51 – the investigation of that, I should think is pre-eminently religion.
3:03 Is that gone out of all our horizon, beyond everything?
3:15 Could we go into that?
3:23 Or is that not worthwhile? David Shainberg: I don’t know if that is worthwhile, only in the sense that if you look at what is and then say that that is missing...
3:40 K: Not missing, it is not.
3:43 DS: It’s not present?
3:45 K: That’s not religion, the whole Christian hierarchy.
3:58 This morning, I heard on the television all the evangelists (laughs). Gosh, what a mess they are – you follow, sir? – fantastic things!
4:10 Q: Something extraordinarily evil about that stuff.
4:13 K: Yes sir. Not only evil, it is so depressing to see all that going on week-after-week, week-after-week.
4:22 Not depressing; it doesn’t depress me, but it should depress people who are listening to it. (Laughs) Q: Could I say something?
4:30 K: Yes, of course, sir; this...
4:31 Q: We’re not supposed to quote names and books and authors, but Marx, first – two authors I want to quote; they say the same thing but in a different sense – Marx says, ‘We have been criticised for over-proving our case.
4:59 Why hasn’t Capitalism collapsed in twenty-four hours?’ And he says, ‘Because of the momentum gathered in other ages, where there was more holy men together than the cache nexus.’ And Jacques Mellecamp says, ‘I have been accused of over-proving my case.
5:29 What holds Europe together?’ He says, ‘The prayers of the contemplatives in the monasteries.’ And, in a sense, I think this is right; if contemplation, as a habit of life, dies out altogether civilisation just simply collapses.
5:56 I don’t mean meditation, I mean contemplation.
6:02 Q: Well, sir, you...
6:04 K: Do you differentiate between contemplation and meditation?
6:10 Q: Oh, yes.
6:12 K: In what way, sir?
6:14 Q: Well, meditation is the method of learning contemplation.
6:26 K: (Laughs) That wouldn’t be considered in the Asiatic world.
6:42 Q: It would in Buddhism.
6:43 K: The Zen, the Tibetan, various forms of Buddhist meditations – as far as I understand; I may be wrong – they would consider meditation is part of contemplation.
6:56 Q: Well, at least in Zhen Gong, in Japanese esoteric Buddhism, you meditate on certain things, you learn meditation, and then suddenly all this stuff you’ve meditated on becomes purely conceptual entities; delusion, illusion passes away, and then you enter a contemplative state.
7:39 But the key to the contemplative state is the Bodhisattva vow.
7:43 K: Which is that vow?
7:45 Q: ‘I will not enter in Nirvana until I can bring all sentient creatures with me.’ K: Yes, the Bodhisattva is supposed to have said that, ‘I will not leave this world until all human beings are free of suffering.’ That is the Maitreya, ancient Hindu mythology taken over by the Buddhists, as my Bodhisattva – as I understand; as I’ve been told all this, I may be wrong.
8:15 Q: It’s also yours.
8:17 K: No... (laughs) (Laughter) DB: What is the Bodhisattva’s difference from the Buddha, say?
8:24 K: I do not know if you know... There is the Buddhist hierarchy, which is the Bodhisattva took a vow never to leave the world till all human beings are freed from suffering.
8:39 Buddha never took that vow; he was beyond all that. So a Bodhisattva remains in the world.
8:47 DB: I see.
8:48 K: I don’t know whatever that may mean.
8:53 DB: No, right.
8:55 Q: We have so little time with you, sir, and this whole question of living, of investigating what is so that we can really live is very important to me, and as you’ve used the word meditation it seems to me that that relates to this, and I hope we can really...
9:21 I know we will go into this. It’s very urgent to me.
9:25 K: Sir, he brought out the question that contemplation is different from meditation.
9:37 Meditation leads to contemplation. And the monks, Christian monks have that feeling of contemplation, whereas the Indian monks – I believe, as far as I know; I may be mistaken – through meditation, they try to totally go beyond or try to ascend the limited consciousness.
10:13 They don’t put it in these words – I am putting it in my... in ordinary language – they have got all kinds of Sanskrit words for all this, which I don’t want to go into, because that has no meaning here.
10:34 So is that what is missing in this world?
10:43 The priest has dominated with his images and all that and so he has been responsible to wipe out that which is really contemplative, really meditation and the inquiry into that which is sacred.
11:08 DS: Well, don’t you think the priest has gotten in... the way the priest has approached the situation, has been as a solution; in other words, the priest is like a function: you buy a car to drive, to go from here to there...
11:30 K: So you buy God.
11:31 DS: ...so you buy a priest, or the priest buys a religion in order to take people from here to there, which seems to me contrary to what we’re talking about.
11:40 K: Yes.
11:41 DS: It’s not... we’re not talking about a solution, but it has become solutions.
11:45 K: Yes. Yes.
11:47 Q: The grand inquisitor.
11:48 DS: Right. So it’s more than just that missing, there’s something else missing.
11:57 It’s the solution orientation that has covered over something.
12:05 K: One’s life as it is, sir, is pretty empty – right?
12:15 – pretty meaningless. I may be a great scholar, a great scientist, etc., etc., but inwardly there is a great vacuum, a great sense of utter loneliness, emptiness, nothing.
12:41 You follow? And apparently we are satisfied to live like that. (Pause) Would you agree to all this, sir? I don’t know... don’t let me go on talking... (inaudible) Q: Well, many earnest people who were willing, really, to give their lives so that they can break... see.
13:15 K: I don’t think the other thing happens by giving your life to it.
13:22 So does the missionary who goes to Africa, India, or some savage country.
13:29 This morning I heard it: a prayer to bless them all. (Laughter) Q: (Inaudible) Q: I meant willingly give up their... willingly see themselves; that’s what I meant by giving up one’s life.
13:44 I didn’t mean giving up one’s profession or this or that, although that may come about, but...
13:51 K: So what is it you’re asking, sir, if I may ask?
13:55 Q: I think you’re leading to it, sir; I’m just... maybe I’m jumping the gun...
14:05 DS: I think there’s a peace there, Krishnaji, that from the feeling of meaninglessness there’s, like, I mean...
14:28 I don’t know, there’s something that happens there where it’s either movement into hopelessness and taking up with all the occupation that we’ve talked about, or... that’s where everything goes blank.
14:51 K: Sir, if I am an ordinary man, fairly well-educated, fairly intelligent, I go to the office or to the factory from nine to five, for the rest of my life – conflict, ambition, competition there – and I come home, it’s the same thing going on, inwardly, so at the end of my days, what have I?
15:37 What – you understand, sir? – what is in my hands? Nothing but words and work, work, work.
15:54 And so, some Asiatics and Indians come here and say, ‘If you do these things: meditate, repeat, follow, you will find something different.’ Right?
16:14 That’s their... This has been the cycle in which man has been caught. ‘Heaven is not here but above’ – the Christian world – ‘If you don’t follow Jesus, you go down below’ – you know, the whole thing.
16:33 So if I’ve a fairly inquiring mind, fairly inquisitive enough to ask, that there is something more beyond this terrible life I have, ‘Is there something more?’ So you come along and tell me to contemplate.
17:08 He comes along and tells me to meditate; he offers me meditation as a system – TM meditation, that terrible stuff; pay fifty dollars, a hundred dollars, three hundred dollars, and I learn a mantra and repeat, repeat, repeat.
17:35 Right? – and somebody else comes along and says, ‘Practice this thing, you will have a different experience.’ Right?
17:47 Somebody else comes along, ‘Take this drug. (Laughs) You will have instant revelation.’ So these... I’m caught in all this. Right? Zen, Tibetan, Indian, Buddhist, the Christian. ‘Keep silent, never say a word,’ you know, the whole thing.
18:15 So I’m at a loss – ordinary man, youngish – so what am I to do?
18:28 (Pause) I’ve given up Catholicism, Protestantism – those are all too trivial – so I’ve studied Zen, I’ve studied... – you follow?
18:46 – followed the whole gamut of all that; at the end of it, I am still where I was.
18:53 DS: Well, I think, if I could fill in the blanks a little bit or the spaces there, as I hear what you were saying; if you take what happens with such a process that you’ve said, that a person who is involved in going to work every day, nine to five, and is involved in all that, his involvement with the process of work or his being caught up with all this competition, is the speed of the mind that we were talking about yesterday.
19:30 When he learns this meditation or contemplation technique, he learns to slow down, and what he finds very often is that he’s less attached to the movement of his mind, his thoughts.
19:45 Now, I think then he is... – I think I agree with you – what he comes to then is he is in a position of watching his movements but he has no passion of meaning.
19:57 K: That’s right.
19:58 DS: So that’s what I meant when I said there comes a point when there’s a kind of blank there, for most people who don’t have the passion about anything in existence.
20:15 K: So what am I to do?
20:20 Q: Well, when the process of meditation is achieved, when the end is achieved, it’s like yoga, it’s a ladder that you kick away, and beyond that lies a pure act of love; and if you act in love...
20:45 K: Yes sir.
20:46 Q: ...all acts are acts of love.
20:49 K: Yes sir, but to me that’s just another structure which has no reality to me.
20:58 You understand? I’m an ordinary man, an ordinary person going window-shopping of various gurus, various priests, various religions, and at the end of it all I have just nothing, and you come along and say, ‘Meditate.’ Q: No, he said, ‘Meditate.’ K: I mean, he said, ‘Meditate.’ You say, ‘Contemplate.’ And I say to myself, what does it all mean?
21:36 What am to meditate upon and why I should meditate?
21:42 Q: The feet of Kali, I... (inaudible) DS: What?
21:47 K: What, sir?
21:49 Q: I said, ‘The feet of Kali.’ K: Oh... (laughs) (Pause) DB: Well, if we say none of this has any meaning – right?
22:07 – life itself has no meaning and meditation and contemplation have no meaning, right?
22:12 K: It looks like it.
22:14 DB: Yes, then...
22:16 K: Where am I to start?
22:17 DB: Then what is meaning – you see? – where is...?
22:19 K: Yes. Where am I to start? I’m just an ordinary man, where am I to start with all this?
22:30 I certainly won’t join any group, any community. I don’t... I belong to Hinduism, if I understood that I reject all other religions; it’s man-made, imaginative, romantic, all that stuff, so I reject all that.
22:52 DS: Well, suppose you had a community that rejected all that.
22:56 K: What?
22:57 DS: Suppose I offered you a community that had all the same positions as you’ve got.
23:01 K: Ah... (laughs) I don’t want to join any community. I know the tricks of all that, too – I have been in one – so I start clean.
23:15 So I say, where am I to start to find out if there is anything sacred in life?
23:29 Not invented by thought and all that. I don’t know if I’m making...
23:31 DB: Yes, well, if the sacred means whole, in that...
23:36 K: Yes, sacred means whole, living, that which is absolutely good, where there is love, compassion.
23:45 What sir?
23:46 Q: See, we all know what you’re saying. (Laughter) Love is the end of that.
23:53 K: I haven’t got any of that. I’ve heard the word, sir; I’ve had a feeling about it, but an ordinary man like me, I’m just lost in this.
24:10 Right? So I want to begin where I can go deeper and... deeply, having rejected all that, all the trivialities that thought has invented about God and all that.
24:29 Are we in that state? So then we can learn from each other. Not from each other, we can then learn. If you and I are in that... at that common ground, then we can begin where?
24:57 Q: Well, you don’t mean that you have rejected your perception of life.
25:04 K: No, no. Ah... I’m talking of an ordinary man, Mr Smith in the street, and he has been through all this.
25:17 He has been to Japan, to Burma, studied various meditative systems and tricks, been to India, been to some of the silly gurus there, some of the silly gurus here.
25:32 I am that ordinary man, and I have nothing. I may have some affection for my wife and my children, and I see in that too there is tremendous bitterness, anxiety, struggle.
25:47 Right sir? This is happening in the world; I’m the man in the world. So where am I to begin? I don’t know if I’m making myself clear.
26:02 DS: It’s not where, is it?
26:07 K: Where? I am this. I have denied everything that man has thought sacred, holy, good, that which is absolute, complete and so on, so on.
26:28 Where do we begin?
26:33 Q: Well, you have discovered certainly in practice. I used to be a counsellor. I loathe the word lay analyst now, it sounds like (laughs) you were dodging the sheriff, but many, many people have come to me, and what do they have in common?
27:03 They are love-lost. That’s what’s the matter. It doesn’t make any difference. The patient always comes with his pre-prepared analysis; I mean, the patient comes as a Freudian patient or he comes as a Jungian patient.
27:20 You have to disabuse him of this. You have to get him stop talking about his anima, his id.
27:28 K: Or...
27:29 Q: And behind this, he is simply love-lost.
27:37 (Pause) K: Sir, there are many, many thousands of people in this position – young and old and dithering people – literally in this position.
28:11 They have been through everything; either they become terribly cynical or go back to...
28:23 you know, all that. If one doesn’t... one says, there is only one thing to start with.
28:33 Right? Let’s together learn about this.
28:39 DS: Well. I think, somehow or other, one of the things that comes up is that when you say, ‘Let’s together learn about this,’ it comes down to a point of that, sort of, yesterday we were... that open space that... you’re not learning any what, there’s nothing to learn.
29:11 So we’re into something that is... I mean, I don’t think we should use the word love. I think we should really... I don’t think we know what’s in that space.
29:21 K: No, of course not. So...
29:23 DS: And I don’t think we know what happens there.
29:25 K: So let’s begin. Not what happens there.
29:31 DS: Right.
29:33 Q: But it’s beyond the concept know.
29:41 DS: Right.
29:42 Q: The word know has no relevance to it.
29:46 DS: Yes, yes.
29:47 Q: It’s not knowing.
29:49 DS: That’s what I say. So I say that any presupposition or any precept – even using the word love, it presupposes something that’s going to happen here.
30:01 K: No sir. I leave all that for the moment; let’s leave all that.
30:08 DS: Yes.
30:09 K: Where... what is the beginning of learning about all this? I’m putting it differently.
30:17 DS: I think the beginning is not knowing, that’s...
30:24 K: Is that it? (Pause) Q: So beginning with myself, my loneliness, just my life, habits.
30:45 K: Sir, I want a mirror in which I can see myself very clearly.
30:53 Right? Just a minute, just a minute; go with me a little.
31:05 Because I’ve never seen anything straight, clearly, it’s always been distorted: my relationship, my... all that, is slightly or deeply distorted.
31:28 But I want to see clearly, without any deviation, distortion, all that; I want to see things clearly.
31:46 Would that be right? Would you begin there?
31:52 Q: (Inaudible) K: But I’ve never been able to see, perceive things as they are.
32:07 I’ve seen through the eyes of professors, through the eyes of psychologists, through the eyes of priests, the learned, and so I’ve never seen clearly for myself.
32:27 Right? Now, I have to reject all that – haven’t I? – to see clearly.
32:38 So I’m learning to see clearly, or have an insight into the fact that I am a secondhand human being; have an insight into it, not analyse and all that, see it, have an insight, so that all the secondhand thing goes away from me.
33:15 I’m no longer educated – right? I’m using the word impolitely – I’m no longer educated to be something.
33:39 So have I that insight to see this fact, that I am really, as a human being, a thousand second-hands.
33:59 That insight into that... dispels all the accumulated impressions that the mind has received.
34:15 Right? Is that... can that take place?
34:24 DS: It can take place...
34:29 K: No, actually, not... The thing is broken. I’m no longer humanly educated – forgive that word – I’m no longer the evolutionary result.
34:55 I don’t know if I’m putting it all rightly.
35:05 Have I that insight that says, ‘Finished’?
35:18 From there I start. I don’t know if you follow.
35:30 Then my brain, which is infinite, is no longer a slave to other people’s impressions and the evolutionary growth of knowledge.
35:48 Am I all right saying all this? (Laughs) Q: So first you understand the helplessness.
35:57 K: Oh no! I’m not helpless.
36:01 Q: Having found nothing.
36:04 K: Ah, I haven’t found... You’re saying you’ve found nothing; I haven’t said nothing. I said I’m an ordinary man who has been to all these temples and churches, gurus, practiced meditation, I’m fed up with all that.
36:23 They’re all damn silly, for me.
36:26 Q: So yours, you say, resultant consciousness.
36:34 K: No sir. I’m afraid we are not following each other.
36:51 You see, unless there is origin – I do not know if I’ve... – the origin must be that which is not nameable, that which is sacred, the origin.
37:15 But my origin is the origin of knowledge. I don’t know if I’m making my...
37:24 Q: But the discovery of the void leaves straight to the Bodhisattva vow.
37:30 K: Sir...
37:31 Q: Which is what you have made.
37:36 K: I know. I’m just... I mean, I’m talking as an ordinary man – not as K who... leave all that stuff – I’m talking about a man, as I’ve met so many of them, who have been through all this.
37:52 Q: But this is the reason for the belief in reincarnation.
37:55 K: Ah... no, no. I have incarnated, in one life, all this. I don’t have to be reincarnated, life after life, to find this very simple fact.
38:09 Q: But people don’t.
38:11 K: Ah. I said people don’t because they’re not interested in all this, but I am one of the ordinary people who’ve just been through all this and say, ‘Please...’ Right?
38:25 No books, no temples, no gurus, no gods.
38:29 Q: Well, why shouldn’t there be Bodhisattva washer-women?
38:32 K: Oh no. Bodhisattva doesn’t wash dishes. (Laughter) No, don’t let’s enter into the... (laughs) DS: What about the origin?
38:42 K: Yes sir. That’s what I’m getting at.
38:51 DS: Yes.
38:56 K: We don’t know the origin – right? – we invent the origin: God, Atman, the Brahman, and so on, the highest principle, we give it a name, but we have never discovered it, because we are secondhand people.
39:29 You follow what I...? Our knowledge is secondhand.
39:39 DS: More about it... yes, what... (inaudible) ...in discovery?
39:42 K: I’m doing that, sir. So I see that I’ve no... I said there must be insight into all this, which banishes, washes away all that which is secondhand, because I’m also secondhand, myself is secondhand, my name is secondhand – you follow? – so I have an insight into this.
40:19 So I’m beginning to learn about the origin of things.
40:36 I’m beginning; I don’t say I know. I see this is not. I don’t know if I’m explaining myself clearly. Am I?
40:46 DS: Yes.
40:47 Q: Yes.
40:48 K: Please don’t agree with me, sir, criticise me. Right? Are we together in this? Not verbally, actually.
40:57 DS: I will say one thing: we’re together but I find myself continually looking to get you to make a map for what originating is.
41:14 K: Ah!
41:15 DS: That’s where I find I keep reaching for that.
41:18 Q: It’s this spot.
41:19 K: Ah, there is no map.
41:21 DS: I know, but I say that’s what I’m... You know, that is what happens to get in the way of it. In other words, like your... – you’re talking about secondhand, fine – okay, we see the secondhandness but instantly there’s an effort to make this secondhand. You know?
41:40 K: Ah! To me this process of... not process, this observation, Zen Buddhism, etc., etc., the...
41:53 (inaudible) ...is part of meditation.
41:57 Q: Part of what?
42:00 K: Meditation.
42:02 Q: Yes. Sure.
42:05 K: Because I’m inquiring skeptically into all this.
42:11 Q: Why don’t you kick it away?
42:21 K: I don’t accept anything. Right? I’ve come to that point...
42:24 Q: How would you distinguish your position from Descartes, who also started with this kind of rejecting or doubting everything?
42:35 K: Descartes, I haven’t read. I don’t want to read Descartes.
42:41 Q: The French philosopher.
42:43 K: I don’t want to read Descartes.
42:44 Q: But it appears to me similar.
42:45 K: Sir, I don’t know what they say; I don’t want to know.
42:49 DB: Yes, I think the whole point is to begin one’s own inquiry.
42:53 K: Of course. This is simple enough.
42:55 Q: Yes, but if somebody points out that it is similar, also... (inaudible) K: Oh no. I’m not... may be or may not be. Why should I accept Descartes?
43:01 Q: I quite agree with that also, but at the same time I feel that doubting may be possible of that sort, that you can doubt everything.
43:10 K: No, I started with doubting, questioning, the religions, the authorities, the spiritual hierarchy, so on.
43:24 I’ve been through... I’ve explained all this; I don’t want to repeat all again. So...
43:32 Q: Well, then doubt ceases to be doubt.
43:37 K: Yes sir; doubt becomes... it’s like a purgation.
43:42 Q: Yes. But I don’t doubt Roman Catholicism or Buddhism or...
43:46 K: No, no. I don’t doubt, it has no...
43:51 Q: ...(inaudible), I don’t doubt any more because those are... (inaudible) K: No, it’s finished, finished. But I doubt it when I question it.
43:57 Q: Would I be going backwards to ask you if that mirror...
44:11 I want to see what is.
44:14 K: This is the mirror.
44:15 Q: This is the mirror.
44:18 K: The mirror which has been distorting.
44:26 Can we go on from there?
44:41 So I have... the learning of insight is the beginning of freedom.
44:50 DS: The learning of insight...?
44:55 Q: Is the beginning of freedom.
45:00 K: Learning what it is.
45:04 Q: Sounds very... (inaudible) K: Is that complicated?
45:10 DS: Yes, I don’t get what you... What is insight?
45:19 K: Ah... (laughs). I am saying now – I’m not the ordinary bird now. (Laughs) (Laughter) I am saying, K is saying, insight is total comprehension of the problem; absolute comprehension of the whole movement of a problem, without distortion, without time, without knowledge interfering with that perception.
46:08 If knowledge interferes, it’s partial insight. If there is a time sequence in it, it’s also partial.
46:28 It’s immediate perception and action.
46:35 DS: But when you said perception there, you mean holistic perception not fragmented perception?
46:40 K: Of course. Of course. Ah no, no; of course. (Pause) If... when you see the nature of one religion, orthodox religion, you have seen the whole lot, including the gurus, including the sects, including Zen Buddhism — the whole lot, you’ve seen it.
47:13 (Pause) DS: Are you suggesting that, in some way, that the comprehension of the origin is...
47:29 K: I’m showing you, sir; this is beginning.
47:36 DS: Yes.
47:38 K: Which is, insight is not born out of knowledge, which is totally... already different.
47:49 I don’t know if you...
47:57 Q: Walt Whitman had said cows had...
48:09 ‘I love to look at animals.’ And it’s possible to live that way.
48:18 DB: Well, if we’re going to learn insight...
48:21 K: Ah! No, I said learn in the sense: observe the nature of insight.
48:26 DB: Yes. That it’s total.
48:32 K: Yes. We said, sir – didn’t we, at the beginning – the brain is infinite, and thought is not infinite, it is limited, broken up and so on, fragmented, because it is born of knowledge; knowledge can never be complete, therefore it’s always partial, and that which is partial is destructive.
49:03 And holistic perception is insight without time, and all the rest of it.
49:13 To me, this is meditation: the skeptical inquiry and not merely intellectually inquiring [into] life, inwardly, to wash oneself, purge oneself of all the things thought has created as religion.
49:42 You follow, sir? Totally purge yourself of all that; you can do that through skeptical inquiry.
49:57 Right? Including Descartes, including everybody, so that the brain is now cleansed, has cleansed itself of all the things that have been imposed upon it.
50:14 Q: Is this insight study behind study?
50:19 K: What?
50:21 Q: Behind learning, something behind?
50:24 K: I don’t know what...
50:25 Q: Insight is operating something behind. Now that you have said that your beginning is skeptical all through, so whether this insight is going behind everything.
50:38 K: I don’t quite understand behind...
50:42 Q: Behind means behind knowledge. That is, you said you eliminated knowledge.
50:47 K: Ah! The ending of knowledge.
50:49 Q: So is it going behind?
50:52 K: No. Not going behind or going forward. The ending of thought as knowledge; which means – I’ve explained this – which is to see something very clearly, immediately and act.
51:11 (Pause) Q: I keep talking about people because my head is full of the rubbish of centuries, but the least likely man in the world to have said this, Theodore Dreiser, ends a novel, one sister says to the other, ‘Thou does not turn to the inner light, where will thee turn?’ but there’s no chemical analysis of the inner light.
51:48 K: (Laughs) Q: I mean, the sister doesn’t say the last part of it.
52:13 (Laughter) But there is no chemical analysis of the inner light.
53:04 (Pause) Q: You have said that one needs tremendous energy to inquire...
53:11 K: I have this energy; we have that energy to inquire.
53:18 Q: But so often we dissipate it...
53:20 K: No, we don’t even dissipate it; if you’re inquiring, you’re inquiring.
53:23 DS: Yes, but I want to take it another step, really; I mean, we always come to this in some way; we get this far and it seems to me that there’s a next step and there’s where I think that we could perhaps go, but it’s that an insight into the origin, as you said, of all this, Zen Buddhism and all the religions and all that, okay, there’s a... let’s say that, well, I mean, there is an insight into this: the origin of that.
53:53 Now...
53:54 K: Sir, the... insight into death...
53:57 Q: Into death?
53:58 DS: Yes, that is the next...
54:00 K: Go with... look at it, sir.
54:19 (Pause) Where are we now?
54:33 DS: We’re in some sort of black hole.
54:54 (Laughter) (Pause) K: Sir, what prevents us from the perception of the whole, of anything?
55:14 DS: Well, quite literally, that it’s the... that quick movement to make it our perception.
55:24 K: No...
55:25 DS: If it’s our perception it’s not the whole.
55:28 K: No. All right, you have stated that, so can you stop my perception?
55:37 You’ve stated what prevents the perception of the whole.
55:44 The very statement of it is the ending of it. I don’t know if you follow what I mean.
55:55 You stated the perception of the whole is not possible when there is the feeling or saying, ‘I perceive’ – the I is separative, divisive and all the rest of it – so having stated that, the very statement of that is the ending of my perception.
56:22 There is only perception, not yours or mine. Right? Has it ended? That’s the point. (Pause) Otherwise perception of the whole is not possible and insight is perception of the whole.
56:58 I mean, if I see a problem, with all its consequences, its inward nature of it and so on, so on, without distortion, the very perception of... is the ending of it.
57:16 Go on, sir.
57:21 DS: Well, the next... the question that comes up immediately at that moment is...
57:30 I don’t know how to put it, but there’s a kind of seeking for, or a wondering, if there’s any change.
57:42 I mean, in other words, ‘Does that give me anything?’ You see, so...
57:46 K: It doesn’t give you anything. Why do you want anything?
57:51 DS: Well, that’s what I was trying to wonder there.
58:01 I think...
58:02 K: It isn’t a reward.
58:04 DS: No, it’s not.
58:05 K: It isn’t something you gain.
58:10 DS: I think I want something so that I don’t have to keep doing that. In other words, so I don’t have... In other words, there’s the feeling that... there’s something that happens there – I don’t know what it is – of wanting something.
58:26 K: What is that? Let’s... Let’s look. What is it you’re saying, sir?
58:30 DS: In other words, it’s like, I don’t want to have to go ahead with the momentum of discovering this again and again.
58:41 K: No, no. Ah! If you discover one thing, it’s finished.
58:50 DS: That’s it. If you discover one thing it’s finished, but on the other hand, I don’t feel it’s finished because I haven’t gotten something. In other words, I still feel I have to go do it again.
59:02 K: (Laughs) Q: What happened to death, that you just mentioned?
59:04 DS: What happened to it?
59:05 Q: Yes, you just mentioned death. What about death?
59:07 DS: Yes, what about it? I think we...
59:10 K: (Laughs) We stopped there, sir, DS: ...we stopped.
59:19 Q: We stopped there...
59:22 K: We stopped there because I said can one have a total insight into the whole movement of death, so that death has a totally different meaning?
59:47 Q: I think so. I think that if one regards death as a form of love, the form of love...
59:56 K: Ah, no. Then you’re merely again putting another word in place of the other – if you will forgive me pointing it out.
1:00:05 You say when there is ending, if you understand that, there is love, but my mind is so programmed or so conditioned that death is something terrible – not my mind, I’m talking the ordinary mind – it’s something to be...
1:00:24 Q: It could be in that ordinary mind.
1:00:28 K: What? (Laughter) Q: It could not possibly be terrible to him.
1:00:44 Patricia Hunt-Perry: Would you go into death more, sir, so that we don’t get distracted with other things? Would you go into that a bit more? (Pause) K: Death is an ending, isn’t it?
1:01:03 Right? Have we ended anything at all, and we only know continuity?
1:01:21 (Pause) I have a habit of repeating somebody else’s saying – that’s...
1:01:39 I’ve learnt a great deal about that – and I repeat, repeat, repeat, like those people who learn a mantra, which is keep on repeating, repeating, repeating, like a machine that...
1:01:58 – you know? The Tibetans have that prayer wheel, they keep on... instead of repeating (laughs) they do that, which is the same thing.
1:02:08 So can we find out what is an ending?
1:02:18 (Pause) Ending to attachment. Can we end it? Without analysis, without argument, without rationalising, without conflict, saying, ‘I must cultivate detachment’ – you know? – going the whole messy round, can we end it?
1:02:50 (Pause) That’s the trouble.
1:03:00 That is death. If you can’t end... if there is no ending, there is no beginning.
1:03:14 Right? Not I begin. The I is the ending. I don’t know if you follow this.
1:03:24 DS: Can we...? Let’s do something for a second. I know that you meant this in a certain way, but I want to take it from another angle. You say, ‘Can we end attachment?’ I say, ‘No.’ K: Yes.
1:03:37 DS: All right. Now, let’s talk about it from that angle.
1:03:40 K: Yes. No. Why do you say, ‘No’?
1:03:43 DS: Well, because the mind...
1:03:45 K: No, no, be...
1:03:46 DS: Yes.
1:03:47 K: ...be logical, step-by-step. Why do you say, ‘No’?
1:03:51 DS: Well, I say, ‘No,’ from just what happened here, when I said the experience of, ‘I want something from...’ K: No sir.
1:03:58 We are talking of attachment – wait a minute – attachment to a person, to an idea, to an experience, to a belief, to a concept, and so on; attached to an...
1:04:12 Now, you say, ‘No I can’t...’ DS: Yes, I just say...
1:04:16 K: Now, why?
1:04:18 DS: Partly experience.
1:04:20 K: No, no. Little more; go into it. Don’t...
1:04:27 DS: Right. Just it seems so habitual, it seems repetitive, it seems like so...
1:04:32 K: So it is habit, is it?
1:04:34 DS: It’s habit. It’s...
1:04:36 K: No, inquire, sir; go on. We said we’d inquire.
1:04:39 DS: It’s like a gun; it just...
1:04:40 K: I know, but we said we will inquire. Right? You... we’ve started. Let’s inquire into it.
1:04:48 DS: Yes.
1:04:49 K: Now, why do you say, ‘No’? You know the consequences of it: jealousy, anxiety, fear, hate...
1:04:59 DS: I know that; right.
1:05:02 K: ...insecurity, the sense of loss, all that. Why do you say, ‘No’?
1:05:09 DS: I don’t... I guess one... I say, ‘No’... There’s something there of... I say, ‘No,’ because it seems like I can’t do without it.
1:05:29 K: You can’t do without?
1:05:31 DS: In some form.
1:05:32 K: In some form, yes.
1:05:33 DS: Yes, if I’m attached to non-attachment, I’m attached to non-attachment.
1:05:36 K: Yes, yes. Yes, in some form. Now, proceed sir; don’t stop there and let me go on.
1:05:46 DS: No, I’m going to go... Well, fear: I’m afraid to do without it. There’s something about death involved, that it’s the ending of me that I won’t give it up, that’s all — I won’t give up me.
1:06:07 K: All right.
1:06:08 DS: Right. That means you say, ‘Why?’ K: No, I don’t say...
1:06:16 If you say, ‘I can’t give it up...
1:06:18 DS: Right.
1:06:19 K: ...it is very precious to me.’ DS: Yes.
1:06:21 K: It’s finished.
1:06:22 DS: Well, but that’s a cop-out.
1:06:23 K: No. Ah; no, no.
1:06:25 DS: (Laughs) (Inaudible) K: No, no, no. If you say, ‘Look, I don’t want to go north because I prefer south,’ that’s the end of it.
1:06:31 DS: Right. That’s right.
1:06:34 Q: What do you say to a terminal patient?
1:06:43 DS: You say that you’re going to die, period, that’s the end, and you try to explore the relationship to the absolute; and you might simultaneously with the terminal patient sit down and talk about the wonders of the life they’ve lived, so that they experience...
1:07:11 (inaudible) K: (Laughs) (Laughter) DS: Yes, but it’s true; that has... I’ve done that, you know.
1:07:16 K: You are creating another fancy for them. (Laughter) DS: No, that’s not true. If you sit down with a person who’s about to die, let’s say, and you explore some of the...
1:07:29 Let’s say that this person had a... – I mean, I’ve seen this happen – I’ve sat down with such a person who had a wonderful feeling about their piano playing, let’s say, and you talk about it, then they meet death with a whole different freshness.
1:07:45 K: Sir...
1:07:47 DS: That’s a fact. I mean, you know, you don’t have to...
1:07:54 K: (Laughs) You are giving him a palliative to face death.
1:07:58 DS: Well, at that point, he’s made a move though, let’s say, from his denial of the whole situation and instead of blocking it out, he’s seeing it more clearly.
1:08:19 Would you...? But we are still exploring that other issue. I’ve said, ‘No,’ and you said, ‘Okay, forget it then.’ K: Yes...
1:08:28 DS: Go along your way.
1:08:29 K: Yes... (inaudible) DS: But that somehow strikes me as we are not really...
1:08:35 K: No, but...
1:08:37 DS: ...looking at the process of saying...
1:08:39 K: No, no. If a man says, ‘I won’t listen to you,’ what am I to do? I can’t hit him on the head, I can’t bully him, I won’t push him around.
1:08:51 I say, ‘All right, my friend...’ But if you’re willing, even for a second, to listen, I say, ‘Let’s listen,’ but if he says, ‘No,’ that’s the end of it.
1:09:09 DS: No, but this man doesn’t say, ‘No,’ like that; he says, ‘No...’ K: ‘I can’t give it up.’ DS: He doesn’t believe it’s possible.
1:09:16 He can’t give it up, but he’d like to give it up.
1:09:22 K: Ah! (Laughs) (Laughter) DS: But he says he can’t.
1:09:31 Now you’re really dealing with the ordinary man, if you want... (Laughs) Q: Sir, this insight, this inquiry, it could sound just intellectual, when actually...
1:09:46 K: Naturally sir, quite... No, she... that lady, she wanted to know, go into it more, death.
1:09:56 She said. Right? PH-

P: Right.
1:09:59 K: That’s what we are talking to... inquire for the moment, which is I asked, do we end anything willingly, without punishment and reward, just end, without any motive?
1:10:27 Suppose one is attached to a belief or to an experience or to a memory — to end it.
1:10:38 DS: Or to occupation; yesterday we were talking about being occupied.
1:10:43 K: Yes, end it. That is death. So while living, full of vitality, end something.
1:11:00 Especially that which you hold most precious.
1:11:09 (Laughs) Q: That’s why yogins begin meditation in the cremation yard.
1:11:18 K: Yes sir.
1:11:21 Q: Can you imagine Hollywood...
1:11:23 K: (Laughs) Q: ...taking up Zen Buddhism and meditating in Forest Lawn?
1:11:34 (Laughter) You have to... what’s left.
1:11:42 K: Sir, I don’t know, you must know the story of a Buddhist monk to whom the statue of the Buddha was given, which had been handed down from teacher to teacher, preacher to preacher, the – what do you call them?
1:12:09 – Zen masters...
1:12:10 DS: Roshi.
1:12:11 K: ...for generation after generation, and he was sitting with it, in front of it, meditating and it was terribly cold – twenty-five below zero – frightfully cold, and he was shivering, couldn’t meditate, and he was wanting to sit with it, and the statue says, ‘Burn me.
1:12:41 Get some heat.’ (Laughs) (Laughter) That’s why, sir, these things are not serious.
1:12:54 Right? We are not serious. We say, ‘I’ll end,’ but I don’t want to end.
1:13:06 Why? Why don’t we want to end something to which one is terribly attached?
1:13:18 (Pause) Fear, a certain sense of loss, thrown back on yourself with emptiness, so you fill that emptiness with all the rubbish that you collect and you hold on to that.
1:13:44 I must tell you of a man I used to know. He was a tremendously rich man. He was dying, he called his son and asked him to open all the cupboards in front of him; they were stacked with money (laughs) – literally this happened – jewels, everything in front of him.
1:14:14 He said, ‘That’s what I have got and I can’t carry it with me,’ and he was really not frightened of death, [but] that he has to leave that.
1:14:27 DS: I know what he means.
1:14:37 (Laughs) Q: But Sardanapalus said, ‘The women I have loved, the wine I have drunk, the viands I have eaten, I take with me; my jewels and gold, I leave behind.’ You can kiss...
1:15:08 You see, when you bid goodbye to the world – in St Paul’s use of the term the world – you can kiss the world goodbye, you don’t have to weep.
1:15:25 You can kiss it goodbye. You can look at things and I say, ‘I’m leaving you.’ K: But I can’t; the ordinary man says, ‘I can’t.’ That’s the whole problem, sir.
1:15:34 It’s nice to say, ‘I’m leaving you,’ but I can’t.
1:15:39 Q: But you can.
1:15:41 K: I’m an ordinary man now. (Laughs) (Laughter) Q: I can. I have a terminal illness; I look out here at these beautiful leaves and I don’t think it’s just terrible that they’re going to be gone someday.
1:16:04 (Pause) K: So sir, we talk about ending.
1:16:13 Right?
1:16:15 DS: What is ending?
1:16:17 K: That’s just it. What is ending?
1:16:22 DS: I don’t know.
1:16:25 K: No, inquire; go into it, sir; see it immediately.
1:16:32 (Pause) Ending means no time.
1:16:49 Ending means there is no continuity.
1:16:53 DS: No me.
1:16:56 K: I don’t want to go into me again. Ah no, keep me out of it. Me, continuity, time, both are the same.
1:17:17 Ending means not knowing.
1:17:32 Ending means the sense of total cessation. That is, while living to live with death.
1:17:40 Sorry, I mustn’t go into all this.
1:17:51 DS: What about space?
1:17:58 K: What space?
1:18:01 DS: Ending in space.
1:18:05 K: Ending is space.
1:18:09 Q: (Inaudible) (Laughter) K: You see, when the mind is occupied all the time there is no space.
1:18:28 When the brain is constantly in motion, apart from its own intrinsic motion – I don’t know if...
1:18:44 The constant, lasting occupation cannot have any space there, and space is necessary.
1:18:59 Q: No name, no form.
1:19:06 K: No space. I think that’s one of the reasons why there’s so much violence in the world.
1:19:23 (Pause) When we put all human beings together in a small space – you know, sir, like in New York, like in these big towns – there’s no space.
1:19:56 Q: ‘Get out of my way.’ K: Yes sir.
1:20:05 Therefore, there is all the battles – you follow? So if the brain has no space, it must invite all the brutality... you follow?
1:20:16 So that’s why ending, ending – you understand? – is to have a vast space.
1:20:41 Sir, you have made that statement: ‘Ending is vast space.’ I see, I feel the truth of it; I can see why space is necessary.
1:21:04 I’m the ordinary man. I see the space necessary. You have made a statement of that kind. Somewhere in the distance a bell rings. I say, ‘Probably that is true.’ I can quote examples, how they have experimented with rats, putting all of them together; I see that’s necessary.
1:21:30 Now, my next question is, how... give it to me, help me.
1:21:38 You follow, sir? That’s my crying, everlasting cry: ‘Help me to get that.’ And he comes along and says, ‘You will get it if you do this, this, this.’ And I’m so eager, so greedy, I’ll go to him.
1:21:58 You follow? This is what is happening. Now, why don’t I catch the truth of that immediately?
1:22:14 DS: Partly because of the way you put it: ‘Why don’t I catch it?’ K: No, no, no.
1:22:24 Just forget the words; forget the words. You have made a statement. I say... I jump at it. It’s not vibrating in me, it’s not alive, passionate, so why don’t I – you understand my question?
1:22:54 – capture it instantly? (Pause) I can give why I don’t capture it instantly: education, this, that and the other thing; I know very well the causes of it, and also I know discovering the cause is not going to... capture that, so I’m stuck.
1:23:43 (Laughs) So why is my brain not capable of immediate perception of it and say, ‘How marvellous, how beautiful’?
1:24:04 You understand what I...? Why?
1:24:10 DS: I think it has something to do with the way I... the way you or I experience that fact.
1:24:17 K: Ah. No, no, no, no. Why should you experience it? What do you mean by experience?
1:24:23 DS: Well, you say there has to be space, but...
1:24:29 K: I mean, it’s... I mean living in a small, two-room flat, it’s like living in a drawer; you know, pull out, leave it there and push it back.
1:24:44 (Laughs) It is not only claustrophobia but it is... – you know? – destroys one’s sensitivity, one’s... – you follow? – all that. You must have space.
1:25:02 Not only externally but deeply, inwardly, there must be enormous space, without any boundary.
1:25:13 When you say that, why doesn’t my mind absorb it and say, ‘Yes.
1:25:21 It is so. I’ve got...’ – you know? – ‘It is there.’ You understand my question?
1:25:31 Why? (Pause) Is it physically we are so insensitive?
1:25:41 Just... take it, sir; go... inquire into it a little bit.
1:25:49 DS: Well, we can become conditioned to anything.
1:25:54 K: No. Why is...? Why is...?
1:25:59 DS: We can get used to it.
1:26:04 K: Why don’t you...? You pick up something very quickly when you are interested.
1:26:14 (Pause) Q: But what separates man...
1:26:19 K: No sir, not only separates man; you say to me, ‘This extraordinary space one must have.’ Q: No, no.
1:26:31 I don’t mean that.
1:26:32 K: I’m just taking that, because we made that statement just now and I say, why doesn’t... why don’t I, as an ordinary man, see this thing instantly and have it, be there?
1:26:48 Why should I mull over it, think about it, meditate... – you follow? – because I haven’t time; there are other things... (laughs) Q: What you said.
1:27:11 (Pause) But what is that separates men and women – I’m a terrible feminist, I always say men.
1:27:24 K: (Laughs) Q: What separates human beings from those who are capable of detachment and those who seem not to be?
1:27:39 Is there some kind of positive evil functioning in the world; what is this that divides humanity?
1:27:47 K: We are all so wrongly educated, sir.
1:27:52 Q: Oh, yes.
1:27:54 K: That’s part of it. And also, we all worship knowledge; all this intellectual circus that goes on, we adore it, we put them on a pedestal.
1:28:09 After all, Jesus is the intellectual apotheosis of the worshiper.
1:28:29 (Pause) I can give you a dozen reasons, but at the end of it I...
1:28:40 You follow?
1:28:41 DS: I think I still come back to the fact that when you say that – I mean, we are still grappling with why that doesn’t get; why is it...
1:28:57 K: Yes.
1:28:58 DS: ...and it’s something to do with the way I hear it, I think.
1:29:01 K: No sir, just listen. You and I agree space is necessary – even in your little office you must have a little space, for God’s sake – but also inwardly you must have space; we won’t mention the dimension of the space, space is space.
1:29:33 (Laughs) To you it is a reality – suppose – and I hear it, I think it is right but somehow it doesn’t happen.
1:29:58 (Pause) So I’m inquiring, I say, ‘Why doesn’t it happen?
1:30:14 Is my mind so dreadfully dull, so bogged up with lots of...’ So I want to throw them all out and...
1:30:45 (Pause) Q: Space is the first form of illusion, nāmarūpa.
1:30:54 K: Ah, nāmarūpa...
1:30:56 Q: Name and form and illusion begins there...
1:30:59 K: Yes sir.
1:31:00 Q: ...but you don’t have the illusion.
1:31:03 K: No. Nāmarūpa – oh, I mustn’t go into Sanskrit. He goes... – means the name, rūpa means form – you know all that – name gives you the form, the space, but I’m not talking of that.
1:31:16 Q: No, but it begins illusion, but you don’t have the illusion.
1:31:20 K: No. Perhaps not, sir. Now, I’m not the ordinary man; I go back to myself.
1:31:37 (Laughs) (Pause) There is something very complex and very great in the idea of the Bodhisattva saying, ‘I take a vow not to disappear from the world till man...’ etc.
1:32:09 You understand, sir? In that is... Maitreya means friend, mercy, and all that is involved.
1:32:23 DS: What do you think it is? You say there’s something great and complex in that.
1:32:26 K: Complex, obviously. It’s just a figure, they have made it. The Tibetans have made it into a form. The Chinese have it – what do they...? – goddess of mercy.
1:32:44 Q: Guan Yin.
1:32:47 K: Guan Yin, yes. Yes. The Hindus have... in the Upanishads, too, I believe, Maitreya is mentioned very often.
1:33:01 Q: (Inaudible) K: Yes. So I’m just saying, there is something in the...
1:33:05 DS: Well, what do you feel it is; I mean, what’s the essence there?
1:33:08 K: The essence is that a man of comprehension can never leave the other alone.
1:33:16 (Laughs) (Laughter) DS: Occupied.
1:33:21 Q: He took the Bodhisattva vow and... (inaudible) K: That’s what is happening between... (laughs). I can’t leave you alone.
1:33:38 (Laughter) (Pause) Sir, we have talked for three days, discussed, dialogue, and all the rest of it, where are we – to take stock, as it were – where are we?
1:34:07 DS: A little more purged than we started.
1:34:13 K: (Laughs) Ah, that’s not good enough.
1:34:26 (Pause) (Break in audio) Q: We have escaped from Arjuna’s chariot.
1:34:45 (Laughter) Q: I feel your grace...
1:34:56 You are calling us at a level that I feel very strongly, as a very powerful seed.
1:35:04 K: It’s not me, sir, together we have created it.
1:35:09 Q: Yes. (Break in audio) K: ...went back to India and became one of the great judges.
1:35:18 One day he said, ‘I’m passing judgment on people, as though I knew truth.’ So he said, ‘This isn’t right,’ so he called his family and he said, ‘I’m leaving you; I’m going away, you won’t see me again, because I must find out what truth is.’ And, you know, in India you can disappear very easily.
1:35:57 The Brahmanas have established the tradition that a sannyasi, a monk, must be fed, must be clothed by the village, by the family, wherever he happens to be, he has to be looked after.
1:36:15 So for twenty-five years, he meditated about what is truth.
1:36:25 And it happened that a friend of his brought him to one of the talks which I was giving, and I talked about meditation and creating illusions in it.
1:36:42 So he came the next day; he was an old man – I should think over seventy, white hair and very dignified, very nice, a very clean kind of man – and he said, ‘You know what you said yesterday, that in meditation one can create illusions, and for twenty-five years I have lived in creating illusions.’ For an old man who has spent twenty-five years doing this, to acknowledge it – you understand, sir?
1:37:22 Q: Oh yes, I know. That’s very true. (Laughs) K: It’s a tremendous... He said... he came – we used to meet several times and he was really extraordinarily alive.
1:37:34 That’s a different story.
1:37:38 Q: But, you see, then that kind of meditation is purely with things.
1:37:46 I can literally raise the green top on the altar of Ramakrishna Brotherhood – well, the Sisterhood now – I can literally watch her dance.
1:38:00 I know how to do that. And there are all kinds of books of instruction teach you how to do that, but what you are doing? You might just as well buy a ticket to a show. (Laughter) K: I must tell you a story.
1:38:17 A disciple goes to a master and he says, ‘Please teach me truth.’ And the master says, ‘Stay with me.
1:38:26 Stay in my house, I’ll look after you. Stay with me.’ The boy, his disciple, stays with him for, oh, umpteen years, at the end of it says, ‘Master, I’ve learnt nothing from you.
1:38:42 I came here to find truth, you haven’t taught me anything.’ But the master says, ‘You have lived with me, that’s good enough.’ (Laughs) (Laughter) Wait a minute, I haven’t finished yet.
1:38:54 So he says, ‘Master, I’m leaving,’ goes away and comes back five years later and says, ‘Master, I have found it.’ He says, ‘You see that river, I can walk on it.
1:39:10 At last I have realised I can do this.’ And the Master says, ‘You took five years to do that?’ ‘Yes.’ He says, ‘There is a boat round the corner...’ (Laughs) (Laughter) (Pause) If you like these kind of stories, I’ll tell you another.
1:39:43 (Laughter) There was a very famous saint called Narada – you must have heard of it, some of you – so he goes to Vishnu, god, one of the Trinities, and says, ‘Lord, teach me what truth is.’ And the Lord says, ‘Narada, it’s such a hot day, give me a glass of water, will you?’ Wait, wait.
1:40:16 So Narada says, ‘Certainly, sir,’ goes along, knocks at the first house door and the door is opened by a beautiful girl, and he falls in love with her, they marry, they have children and all that – they have four children and so on – and one day it began to rain, rain, rain, rain, weeks, and the floods are coming and he catches hold of his wife, his children, puts them on his shoulder and fights against the current.
1:40:50 He says, ‘Lord, save me,’ and Vishnu says, ‘Narada, where is my glass of water?’ (Laughs) (Laughter) Q: Do you know the Yiddish story, about the man that came to the Rabbi and he was leaving...
1:41:15 (inaudible) ...for his wanderyar, and he said, ‘Rabbi, tell me, what is life?’ and he says, ‘Life is like a fountain.’ And years went by and he came back and he was very rich, and he said, ‘I went to Hamburg and on the way to Hamburg the boat sunk and I was swimming and I said, ‘Life is like a fountain,’ and I was saved.
1:41:51 I went to London, I went in the caps business.
1:41:58 I said, ‘Life is like a fountain,’ I made a lot of money.
1:42:05 I went to New York, I went in the caps business, I married a... (inaudible) ...I was very successful, I got a Rolls-Royce.
1:42:13 But still, what do you mean: ‘Life is like a fountain’? It’s saved my life again and again, but what does it mean? And the Rabbi says, ‘Puh! Maybe it isn’t like a fountain.’ (Laughter) K: (Laughs) Thank you for coming and seeing me, sir.
1:42:38 Thank you for coming.