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RA85T3 - As long as there is a meditator, there is no meditation
Rajghat, India - 22 November 1985
Public Talk 3



2:13 K: Would anybody like to come and sit here? I really mean it, sir. You can come.
2:30 Q: Sir, may I come?

K: Do, yes.
2:40 K: Or would you like to come up here? This is alright, sir. Two gurus.
2:59 Q: Only one.
3:14 K: Is this alright?
3:36 This is the last talk. We’re going to talk over together a great many things this morning, a great many things, and as we said, we’re not the only speaker. You and the speaker are partaking, sharing together the whole problem, or issues that we are going to discuss, talk over. As we said, you are participating in it, not just listening casually or something that you must listen to, but together we are going to talk over many things. We’ve dealt with, in the last two talks and a discussion, many things: fear and all the travails of man, the problems that we have, those problems which we never seem to resolve, and we still carry them. We went into that carefully. The problems exist because our minds are filled with problems therefore there is no freedom to look at any problem. This is not the time to go into it now – we went into it very carefully. And also we went into the question of thought: why thought has made this life so utterly impossible. Thought has brought about a great deal of conflict – wars for two and a half million years – that means practically every year we kill each other, in the name of god, in the name of patriotism – my country against your country, our religion against your religion and so on. War after war, not perhaps in Benares – here you’re fairly off the real world, but we are facing wars every year. And we also talked about the nature of thought, why thought divides man, or brings them together to do a certain project, like going to the moon. To build that rocket, probably you had to have over 300,000 people, everybody doing their little job perfectly. Either we get together in a crisis like war, which is born of hatred, or we come together for some national issue, or we come together when there is a great crisis like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, natural incidents and so on. Apart from that, we never get together.
8:25 Now this morning, if I may most respectfully suggest, that we all get together, as we are all sitting together, and gather energy so that we can think out very clearly the various issues that we are going to raise. Together. That means you are actively thinking, actively hearing, to activate our brains which are rather sluggish – forgive me for pointing this out – sluggish, slow, monotonous, repetitive and so on. So we, together this morning, keeping our brains alert – I’m not insulting, I’d like to insult, but I won’t. That’s only a joke! To keep not only the physical organism active, because that gives energy: different forms of walking, swimming, and different types of yogic asanas and so on, but also to have a very clear, active brain, not a specialised brain as a philosopher, as a scientist, as a physicist and so on. Those specialised brains become very narrow. I know some friends who are scientists here – I hope I’m not insulting them. Or the doctors, or the philosophers who talk about talks. You understand? See the joke? Talk about talks, either Plato, Aristotle, various Greek philosophers, or your own. Philosophy actually according to the dictionary means ‘the love of truth’, ‘the love of life’, ‘the love of wisdom’. Not theories – adding more and more theory, or quoting somebody and explaining what they have quoted. All the universities, colleges, schools all over the world are conditioning the brain.
12:12 I don’t know if you’ve ever gone into the question of learning, what it is to learn. Now we’re going to find out together, what it means to learn. We generally mean learning to mean memorising – go to school, you memorise how to read and write, you memorise mathematics, and so on. All through school, college, university, if you’re lucky to reach up to that level, or unlucky to reach that level, you memorise. And that memory can be used actively – to earn a livelihood, to gain power, possessions, prestige, patronage and so on.
13:23 So what is learning? Is there another kind of learning? We know the ordinary kind of learning – school, college, university. Or learning a skill, to become an excellent carpenter or a plumber or an excellent cook. There are several friends of mine here who are very good cooks and also very good philosophers, and psychiatrists and physicists – they are all there – here – not in that direction. So, what is learning? Is there another kind of learning which is not merely memorising? Have you ever thought about it? When you’re memorising your brain is filled with memories. That’s simple. So, memory multiplies, keeps you somewhat alert, you learn more, more, more. We’re asking you, he and

I: Right, sir? We’re asking you: is there another kind of learning, not merely memorising? As we said, we are together, and our brains are active. So the speaker is asking you: is there a different kind of learning altogether?
16:01 Q: Understanding is learning, sir.

K: No, sir, don’t define it yet, think it through, look at the question. Is there a different sort of learning which is not memorising? This is a very important question because the brain records everything, every incident, every kind of memory. When you’re hurt, it is recorded, but you never enquire who is hurt. We’ll come to that presently. So the brain is recording. See the importance of that. It has to record, otherwise you and I wouldn’t be here. So the brain is constantly recording, discarding. Now, is it necessary to record? You understand my question? You record an incident in a car; an accident. It’s instantly recorded, because you have pain, or you are hurt, or your car is hurt. So, the brain has the capacity, the energy, not only to record, but also to safeguard itself. We’re asking: is it necessary to record everything? Or only record that which is necessary – and nothing else? Have you put this question to yourself, including the psychiatrists, including the physicists and so on. Have you ever considered this question? The brain records for its own security otherwise you and I wouldn’t be sitting here. We recorded how long it would take to come here and so on. We’re asking, it is necessary to record certain things, and totally unnecessary where the psyche is involved. You understand my question, sir?
19:15 Is it necessary when you are flattered to record it? Or when you are insulted? Is it necessary to record those things? Because the recording builds up the psyche. Are we talking over together? Or you are just saying, ‘Yes, it sounds rather good’. This is a very serious question. Because the psyche which is made up of all the elements, characteristics, ethos, is contained there in the brain, which we call consciousness. In that consciousness, all the activities of memory, fears, etc., is contained. So we’re asking again – don’t go to sleep, please – again: is it necessary to build up the psyche? ‘Psyche’ means the self. The self being all the memories, the activities of thought, imagination, fascination, fear, pleasure, sorrow, pain. So, recording. Which makes up the whole psyche, the ‘I’, the persona. You understand? Is it necessary to record so as to build up the self? You don’t think about any of these things. So I’m asking, we are asking, he and I – poor chap, I am sorry you are sitting here, you don’t mind?
21:35 Q: If you want.

K: If I want? You are sitting there, sir.
21:48 Have you ever thought about this, looked at it, or investigated as you would into various philosophical, religious matters, gone into this question of recording? If I didn’t record how to drive a car – the speaker has driven a car at 120 miles an hour two years ago – if I didn’t… if there was no recording, I couldn’t drive. So, it is necessary to record certain things and totally unnecessary to record others. See the beauty of it, so that the brain is not always conditioned in memory, so that the brain becomes extraordinarily free, but active.
23:10 So that’s the first question. Learning is not to record. I would like to discuss this with a psychiatrist – they are here. We have discussed this matter in New York. They were fascinated with the idea of not recording. So that the brain cells themselves mutate. You understand? Oh, no. Our brains are built up with cells and so on – I’m not a professional – and in the brain cells are the memories. And we live on those memories – the past, all the remembrance that one has, and the older one gets, the more you go back further and further till you die. Back. And it’s rather an important question to find out, learn, learn to find out whether the brain needs recording everything. Not forgetting – the difference between forgetting and recording are entirely two different matters. So, when you are hurt – not physically – psychologically, inwardly, what is hurt? You say, ‘I am hurt’. Haven’t you heard that phrase? Is it new to you? You are all hurt, aren’t you? From childhood till you grow and die, you are being hurt all the time. You say, ‘I can’t stand any more hurts. I’ve been hurt so much, I’m frightened’. I build a wall around myself, isolate myself, and all the consequences of being hurt. Now, who is being hurt? Answer this, sir, don’t sit there. You’re all hurt. Every human being on the earth is somewhat hurt, from childhood – the scolding, the slapping, all that goes on with children. All of us have had hurts. Now, who is hurt?
26:27 Q: Me.
26:28 K: Don’t just answer me, sir, please. Just think it out, sir. You say, ‘It’s me’, as that gentleman points out. Then what is ‘me’? You just say, ‘Me’, ‘I’, ‘ego’ – any word that comes. But you don’t investigate who is the ‘I’. Who is the persona, who is the personality, who are you? A name, a degree, if you are fortunate, or unfortunate enough, a job, a house or a flat – measly little flats, living in boxes – and a title after a name – IAS, MSc., or MAD. More like MAD – and so on. So the image that you have built about yourself, and the images you have built about other things which is yourself, so when you say you are hurt, the images are hurt, about yourself. Are you clear? No, please, don’t be clear about the explanation. But all those images are you. You’re a physicist, you’re a doctor, you’re a philosopher, you’re an MP – I don’t know what an… yes, sorry, I do – or an engineer. Have you ever realised they are all introduced, ‘He’s the engineer’, ‘He’s the cuckoo’. Always introduced by his profession. Do you understand, sir, it’s all crazy.
28:55 So the self, the psyche, the persona is the image which you have built about yourself, and the image you have built about your wife and she builds an image about you, and these images have relationship. See what is happening. The images have relationship, not the persons, but the images. And you live on that. So you never know your wife or your husband or your friend. Or you don’t care to know, but you have the image. So the question is: can you live without a single image – about the prime minister, about persons like him and me? Can you live without a single image? See the implications of it, the beauty of it, the freedom of it.
30:14 There are so many things to talk over. May we go on? Not just say, ‘Yes, go on’, but you are partaking in it, you are actively thinking together. Not just say, ‘Yes, let me listen to what you have to say’. Which you don’t really listen at all, anyhow.
30:43 So, we ought to talk about together: why all this effort in life? Why do we make such an immense effort to do anything? Do you understand my question, sir? I am asking this gentleman. Why make effort? I’ve been through all this – don’t answer quickly. I’ve been put through the grind by scientists, philosophers, by various forms of religious cuckoos, every kind of person, so don’t quickly say. Why do we make such effort in life? You make tremendous effort to meditate – we’ll come to that presently – tremendous effort to live, to fight, to battle one another, opinion against opinion, judgement against judgement, I agree with you, I disagree with him. Why all this effort? For what? For money? I am asking you, sir, keep awake. For money? For your family? Please carefully listen. For your affection, that you must be loved by somebody? Why all this effort? When you ask that question, then you have to ask – may I proceed? – you have to ask: what is love? That stumps you. Is love effort? I must love you, therefore I am going to make an effort about it. Is love an effort? Then you have to enquire, what is love? Do you mind enquiring into this? Do you know what love is? Apparently you don’t, because you are all very silent. What is love? Can there be love when there is ambition? Sir, don’t… Please, this is serious. For god’s sake. This is not for somebody who doesn’t care, who just wants his own way. Is it ambition? Is it greed? Is it self-centredness? Is it ambitious achievement? Is love the opposite of hate? Oh, lord!
34:47 You know, sirs, we are always fighting, from the beginning of time. You see this in various caves in France, and the Greek mythology, the good fighting the bad, all through life. Do you understand what I am saying? The good fighting the bad. You see it in paintings as symbolised the good, as symbolised the Devil, or the something… In Greek mythology and other mythologies it is a bull against another – black bull against white bull – or the good fighting the evil in different shapes, symbols and so on. We still do that, the good fighting the bad. Right? Don’t you do it? Is the good separate from the bad? The good guy and the bad guy. Is the good born out of the bad? Don’t look suddenly grave, sir – it’s all a game for you. If the good is related to the bad, then it’s not good. If the good is born, comes from the bad, then it’s not good. That is simple, isn’t it? But if the bad is totally divorced from the good, there is no relationship between the good and the bad, they have no relationship with each other, then there is only the bad and the good. Totally divorced from each other, therefore they can’t fight.
37:36 So then we have to enquire, what is the good? Are you interested in all this? Therefore, you have to ask, can love contain hate? Or hate has nothing to do with love. Therefore there is no relationship between the two, therefore they can’t fight each other. You understand – this is an important question for you to understand, to delve, to go into it, because you are always saying, ‘I have been not good today, but I will be good tomorrow’. ‘I have been angry today, but I won’t be angry tomorrow’. This is the relative relationship between the good and the bad.
38:53 So love has nothing whatsoever to do with jealousy. Love has nothing whatsoever to do with hate. Where there is hate, pleasure, anxiety and so on, love cannot exist. Yes, sir. And the speaker questions whether you love anybody at all. And what is love? How does it come about? You understand my question? Don’t you ask that question? Do you really ask that question, or am I just asking it for you?
39:57 Q: The question is with us.

K: What question?
40:02 Q: Whether we love.

K: Yes. Whether you love. Can love exist where there is sorrow? Careful, sir, don’t answer me. Most of us are in sorrow of some kind or another. Failing an exam – god, think what we are – failing an exam, failing not to be successful in business or in politics, or in your relationship with your wife or a relationship with somebody upstairs. You understand – upstairs! – which may be your guru or some other imaginative figure. So, when you can’t succeed, when there is no success in you, you are depressed, you are sorrowful. Or you are sorrowful because you live in a small little village, you don’t know how to read and write – thank god – and you don’t know how to drive a car, or you have no bath, hot bath, you wear one dirty cloth. We have been through all that. The speaker has been through all that. You’re all fairly well-to-do and so on. So he suffers. The man in position, high up the ladder – nobody pulls down the ladder but he is high up. So he suffers too, because there are a few more steps to go up. So everyone on this earth, everyone from the poorest to the richest, from the most powerful man to the least powerful – they all suffer. Right, sirs? They all suffer. Every woman on earth suffers. Men have pleasure, the women suffer. So, suffering is not yours, because everybody around you suffers. It’s not my suffering – it’s suffering. I wonder if you understand that? My son dies and I get terribly upset. I weep and I say, ‘Oh, god, I’ve lost my son’, and that becomes a perpetual problem. I weep every time I see a little boy or a little girl. And I go through the pain of loneliness, sorrow, etc. Do we ever consider, sorrow is not mine, it’s everybody’s, which doesn’t minimise sorrow – it’s there. And can that sorrow end? As long as I am suffering – because I’ve lost my wife, or I’m not as great as I thought I was, or I’ve got pain in my joints, or something or other, I’m always suffering about. I’m asking, can that sorrow end? If there is sorrow, there is no love. Please realise this. If I suffer, suffer, suffer, it’s part of self-pity, part of my concern, it is only I am suffering, nobody else, my sorrow is different from your sorrow, like my god is different from your god, my guru is stronger that your guru. It becomes a joke.
45:23 So is there an end to sorrow? Or, mankind must go through this horror all his life? Yes, sir. The speaker says it can end, otherwise there is no love. If I’m shedding tears all the time because I’ve lost my son and he’s the only son I have, to me the son represents me, my continuity, my property, however small it is, I had hoped he would become prime minister, better house, more learned, get more money. You know? We all think the same way, don’t play around with this. So I suffer. And you come along and tell me, ‘Every human being on earth suffers, it’s not your suffering, old boy, we all share it’. I refuse to accept such a statement because my sorrow – I love my sorrow. I’m happy in my sorrow, and I want to be separate in my sorrow. So it requires a great deal of enquiry, persuasion, talking about it, to say, ‘Look, it isn’t quite yours, have a little bit of it, but it isn’t quite yours’. That means no self-pity and that means you are really sharing the burden of sorrow for all the rest of mankind. Go on, sir – you don’t know anything about it. Think about it, look at it. You are part of humanity, you are not separate from humanity. You may have a better position, better degrees, better money, professor, you are part of mankind, your consciousness is part of mankind. That is, your consciousness contains all the things that you have thought about, imagined, feared, and so on. Your consciousness is that and that is the consciousness of mankind. Mankind has fear, sorrow, pain, anxiety, shedding tears, uncertain, confused – every human being on earth. And you are like the rest. So you are not – listen carefully – you are not individuals. I know my body is different from your body. You are a woman, I’m a man, and so on. But we are in the world as one unit. That relationship when you feel you are the rest of mankind then something totally different takes place. Not just words, imagination, but the feeling of it, the enormity of it.
49:18 So we’ve talked a bit about that. Then we ought to talk about death. Sorry. On a lovely morning, sitting under the trees, quiet, no train is crossing the bridge, we are very quiet on a lovely morning. And to talk about death may seem morbid, may seem ugly, may seem something to be not talked about. They are writing books in America, ‘How to die happily’, doctors are doing it, telling their patients how to die happily. Now together we’re going to examine it, share it. Not just you listen and I talk. That’s childish. So, what is death? Why are we so frightened of it? Why do we keep death for ten years later, or twenty years later, or a hundred years later? Why? Living, and death? Then you have not only to ask: what is death, what is dying, but also what is living? You understand what I am saying? What is living? What you are living. Office from nine to five, as a clerk, as a governor or whatever it is, as a factory worker. Nine to five for the rest of your life, except when you retire; gaga old man. And your life is breeding children, sex, pleasure, pain, sorrow, anxiety, problem after problem, illness, doctors, Caesarean operations, pain giving birth. This is our life. Do you deny that? No. And you call this living. Don’t look at me as though I’m a strange man. This is what we call living. And you support it, you enjoy it. You want more and more of this. So this is what you call living. And you put far away death – as many years away as possible. And in that distance of time you are building up that same pattern, over and over – your children, your grandchildren live in the same pattern, which you call living. Don’t deceive yourself saying that nature struggles therefore we must struggle. Monkeys struggle, so we are monkeys. You know there is a very famous author – we used to know him – may I include you in that? – we used to know him – and he wrote, ‘Perhaps we should be behind the bars, not the monkeys’.
54:20 So this is what we call living. And I say this to myself – we are sharing this together – why not bring that which you call death to living, together. You can’t take anything with you, even your guru, even all that he has said, all that you have tried to live up to. You can’t take it with you. Your furniture, your wife, your children, all the silver that you have collected, all the money in the treasury – none of it you can take with you. That’s one thing certain: death, and you can’t take anything with you. Except – we won’t go into that. So, as you cannot take anything with you, so why not let the two meet? You understand what I’m saying? Why not death come today? Not suicide – I’m not talking of that. After all, I’m attached to my wife or to my furniture – more like it! Sorry to laugh. You are a crazy crowd! So, I say to myself, or you say to yourself, I’m attached to something or other. To my shirt, or to my robe – like that gentleman – or to some guru, some fantasy, some symbol – I’m attached. Death comes along in ten years and says, ‘Old boy, you can’t take that with you’. So, why not get totally free of attachment now? Which is death. You understand? Totally detached. Today not tomorrow. Tomorrow is death.
57:14 So, why can’t I be free of my attachment? Now. Therefore living and dying are together all the time. I wonder if you see the beauty of it. Not ten years later or forty years later. That gives you an immense sense of freedom – to your profession, to everything about you. So, living and dying are together, always. It’s not something to be frightened about. So, if the brain can do that – you understand? – then there is a totally different quality to the brain. It has no hooks. It has no sense of the past, the future, the present. It is living. I can’t go into it now because it is really endless way of living, that is, every day is a new day; every morning is a sun of the morning.
59:01 And also we should talk about religion. Don’t mistake what I’m talking about – what K is talking about. Future is now. Therefore there is no ‘I shall be born next life’. That is an idea to which you’re attached, it gives you great comfort, blah blah, etc. But if you believe in reincarnation then you must act right now, act rightly now, because next life you are going to pay for it, or be rewarded. If you believe in reincarnation, as most of you probably do – it’s a very comforting idea but it’s meaningless because if you act rightly now righteousness has no reward. Righteousness is righteousness, not what you are going to get out of it. That’s a merchandise attitude, mechanical attitude. I won’t go into all that – there’s no time because we have some other things to talk about.
1:00:38 What is religion? Sir, this is one of the most important questions in life. There are temples all over India, mosques all over the world, churches all over the world, and their priests beautifully decorated, beautifully garbed, all medallions… and so on. This has been one of the problems from ancient of times. The priest and the king. The priest wanted power. The king also wanted power. But the priest was stronger because he was the one who wrote, read, and the king had to obey him because he was the wiser man – or he was supposed to be. And gradually the king said, ‘This is not good enough’ and so there was a war between the priest and the king. This is historical – you’ll find it in different ways. And the king won. And said, ‘You keep to your place’. But the priest also wanted to have power. You know all this, don’t you? It’s happening right now. And the popes have three crowns – spiritual, terrestrial, etc. So, there was a conflict in parliament between... and the priest So, the priest was put out. So, they had to be religious. Religion has been built. I won’t go into the word ‘religion’. It had a very complicated meaning at one time, but now it has become a symbol, a ritual, a superstition. In this country, it’s a superstition, a ritual, worshipping a symbol. This is repeated all over the world, over and over again – a mixture of these three. And is that religion? Parsi, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist – is that religion? Or religion is something entirely different. I’m sorry to upset all of you. But is that religion? Going to the temple three times a day, the Muslim calling five times a day and the Buddhist and so on. Is that religion or is religion something entirely different? It has nothing whatsoever to do with rituals, with symbols. Because all these are invented by man, because the priests wanted power, position, so he put on new hats, new clothes, and grew long beards, or shaved their head. So, all that is called religion. To an ordinary thoughtful man, fairly intelligent, he will say, ‘That’s rubbish, total rubbish’. If he discards all that, really discards, totally puts away being a Hindu, with all his superstitions, symbols, worship, prayers, all that stuff. And the Christian does, and the Buddhist, then what is religion? He is a serious man, he is not just a wordmonger – not warmonger but wordmonger. So what is religion? We’re talking over together – the speaker is not laying down the law, no authority, he says, let us talk about it, let’s investigate, let’s go into it.
1:05:57 Our brains are chattering all the time. Never a second when it is quiet. Haven’t you noticed it? Chattering, chattering, chattering, or imagining, or perpetually in action. You know that, don’t you? And there is never a moment of silence. And that silence is also a repetition: ‘Ram, Ram’ or whatever you repeat. When you repeat, repeat, repeat, your brain becomes very dull. Right? Do you agree to this? When you repeat something mechanical and you repeat the word, or something or other, and gradually your brain through repetition becomes dull and quiet, and that quietness is something marvellous to you. Do you understand what I am saying? Are you all asleep? Or are we awake to talk to each other?
1:07:19 This repetition either physically, or sexually, constant repeat, repeat, repeat, makes not only the body, the organism dull, but also the brain. And when it becomes dull, you think that’s quiet. My golly! So, if you discard all that nonsense – for the speaker it’s complete nonsense, like going to a circus – for the speaker, not for you. But we’re sharing it together, we’re talking about it together. I am not persuading you, influencing you – do this or that.
1:08:16 So, we have to enquire what is meditation, what is silence. Silence allows space. You can’t be silent in a tiny space. Space. So we have to go into the question of meditation, space, time and whether there is an ending to time. You understand? Not, ‘Tell me how to meditate’. You understand, sir? We are not telling you how to meditate. Your meditation now is achievement. The meaning of the word ‘meditation’ means to ponder over – in a dictionary you will find this – ponder over, think over, weigh, look at it carefully. And also it means ‘measure’, ‘ma’ in Sanskrit. Measure. So, meditation now is, as is now: repetition, making the mind dull, and so say, ‘At last!’. Because it is dull, and being dull it becomes quiet. And you think you’ve achieved some tremendous thing. And you go round repeating this to others. And the poor gullible people say, ‘Yes, yes’. So, we’re going to consider all this now.
1:10:18 It is five minutes past ten. Do you want to go on? Am I working or are you working?
1:10:27 Q: Together.

K: Are you sure?
1:10:30 Q: We are sure.
1:10:37 K: Meditation as is generally practised is to cultivate this dullness. And therefore gradually make the brain subservient, quiet. And if you feel quiet, you say, ‘My god, everything is achieved’. For the speaker that is not meditation at all. Don’t ask how to meditate. It is like asking a carpenter how to build a beautiful cabinet. If he is a good carpenter, you don’t have to tell him. So, we are not asking how to meditate, but we are asking what is meditation? Two different things altogether. Not how, but what is meditation? As is generally practised, it is a series of achievements. And you say, ‘Buddha is enlightened’. I don’t know what that means but that doesn’t matter.
1:12:04 So, when you compare, which is meditation – ‘ma’ as I said means in Sanskrit ‘measure’. ‘I was this today, I’ll be better tomorrow’. That is measurement. So, measurement has no place in meditation. Measurement has a great place from the Greeks onwards. Measurement is necessary in all technology – in all technology, whether you build a chair, or the most complicated trajectory to go to the moon. Measurement is necessary. So we are saying, meditation implies total freedom from all comparison and measurement. Now, this is difficult because meditation is something that is marvellous if you know what to do – not you, meditation.
1:13:27 The meditator is different from meditation. As long as there is a meditator, there is no meditation. You understand all this? Because the meditator is concerned about himself – how he is progressing, what he is doing, ‘I hope I will be better tomorrow’, anxiety, in meditation there is no meditator at all. Once you have seen this for yourself, the beauty of it, the depth of it, the subtleness of it.
1:14:11 So, the practice of meditation is no meditation. Sitting on the banks and looking… You know – making the mind more and more dull, and say, ‘Yes, I’ve spent an hour, marvellous’, and you prostrate to him, touch his feet. By the way, please don’t touch my feet. That’s most undignified, as a human being. You can hold my hand any amount you like, but not the feet of somebody, it’s inhuman, undignified. Right. So, meditation is something that cannot be practised, as you practise a violin, a piano. In singing you practise. That means that you want to reach a certain level of perfection. And in meditation there is no level, nothing to be achieved. Therefore it is not a conscious, deliberate meditation. I wonder if you understand all this. There is a meditation which is totally undirected, totally, if I can use the word, unconscious. It is not a deliberate process. Let’s leave that. We can spend a lot of time on this – an hour, more, a whole day, the whole of your life to find this out.
1:16:03 And also we ought to talk about space, because meditation is that. Space – we have no space in the brain. Have you realised that, sir? No space. There is space between two struggles, between two thoughts, but still within the sphere of thought, and so on. What is space? Does space contain time? Or, time includes all space. We talked about time. May I just briefly go over it, though it is nearly a quarter past ten – don’t blame me afterwards for keeping you here. Time – I am going to put it very briefly, if you don’t understand it I’m sorry – time is yesterday – all the memories, all the incidents, all the quarrels, the uncertainties, and the long, two and a half million years of memory – all that is yesterday. And the present is the environment, what is happening now. All the past is modified by circumstances, by time, by events now. And the future is modified, is reshaped in time as the future. So the past modifying itself in the present becomes the future. So, all time, the future, the present and the past is contained in the now. Don’t agree, please, this is the most… It is a tremendously revealing thing because it demands action – not just agreement, say, ‘Yes, I’m going home…’, and go on with your life. The whole of time – the future, the present and the past, is now. So, action changes now, not tomorrow. ‘I will be good tomorrow’. So all action, all thought, all time is now. We went into that. I won’t go further. So what is space? Don’t imagine it because then it’s just your thought imagining space is this, the heavens. I must tell a very good joke. May I?
1:19:37 Q: Please, please.
1:19:43 K: This happens to be hell, and the devil is there in the distance. I am not pointing at anybody! The devil is far in the corner – you know, Christian devil with two horns and tail – and there are two people talking together. One says to the other, ‘It’s very hot here, isn’t it?’ Hell – very hot. The other fellow says, ‘Yes, it’s very hot but dry heat’. No joke? Funny people. All right, sir. I have got lots of jokes, I can’t begin.
1:20:36 So what is space? If space contains time then it is not space. Then it is circumscribed, limited. So, can the brain be free of time? Sir, this is such an important, immense question. You don’t seem to gather it. If life, all life is contained in the now, you see what it means? All humanity is you. All humanity, because you suffer, he suffers, anxiety, pain and so on. His consciousness is you. Your consciousness, your being, is him. There is no you and me, which limits space. So, is there an end to time? Not to the clock, which you wind and it stops. To the whole movement of time. Time is movement, a series of incidents, movements. Thought is a series of movements, so time is thought. So we are asking: if space contains time – yesterday, tomorrow, etc. – it is not space. So, is there an end to time? Which means is there an end to thought? So, which means is there an end to knowledge? So, is there an end to experience? Which is total freedom. And this is meditation – not sitting on the banks and looking at the… That’s all too childish. This demands a great deal of not only the intellect but an insight – don’t use that word again, please – insight into all this – the physicist, the artist, the painter, the poet and so on have limited insight. Limited, small. We are talking about a timeless insight. So this is meditation,