Krishnamurti Subtitles home


RV78DSG - The mind of Krishnamurti
Rishi Valley, India - 11 December 1978
Discussion with Small Group



0:00 This is a small group discussion with J. Krishnamurti at Rishi Valley, 1978.
0:12 Krishnamurti (K): Sir, come and sit there so you are more comfortable. (…) is coming?
0:27 Q: No sir.. (inaudible) Pupul Jayakar (PJ): Sir, I wanted to ask you something I have been observing over the last thirty years as I have listened to you.
1:00 I am first going to speak of your approach to the unfoldment of a problem in the process of discussion.
1:20 You say there is no way, but as I have observed you, a certain—don’t call it a way if you like—but a certain process, I will use the word process.
1:43 Krishnamurti (K): Methodology PJ: I will use the word process—methodology is too hard a word—has revealed itself, and I would like to investigate the way you receive a question and what follows after that, the actual way you penetrate into a question, because I have tried to observe with great intensity, and this is coming through to me, and I wanted to know whether what I feel is valid or not valid.
2:36 This is as if I am trying to explore your mind, Krishnaji. Forgive me...
2:40 K: You are exploring my mind?
2:41 PJ: ...forgive me for putting it this way...
2:43 K: Not at all.
2:44 PJ: …but I am trying to explore your mind, because in exploring your mind, possibly we are laying bare the whole way of exploration which we are getting bogged down with.
3:12 Now, if I may first ask you a question. I have put this question to you.
3:19 K: Which question?
3:21 PJ: How do you receive a question which is put to you? Could we go into the state of mind which receives?
3:33 K: Right. How does K receive, how does K, when a question is put to him, how does he proceed with the answer of it?
4:05 I think he would say, first he listens, listens without any conclusion, without any barrier.
4:28 And because I think there is no hindrance, it is—could I use the word empty?—the mind being empty in the sense that there are no preconceived answers or answers that have been given, and therefore recording those answers, there is no remembrance of previous answers and so on.
5:32 In that sense I am using the word empty. There is no conclusion, there is no remembrance of a question, perhaps the same question which had been answered before and so on.
5:46 There is a state of—I think that would be right to say—of an emptiness, and out of that K answers.
6:03 PJ: Now, in this state what is the function of attention?
6:20 There is a function of attention which is searching; attention also searches.
6:30 Attention, if it does not search, what happens to the question?
6:44 You see, it may receive it in emptiness, but what actually happens to the question, because you respond.
6:51 K: What?
6:53 PJ: You respond.
6:54 K: Yes.
6:55 PJ: It means that there is a...
6:59 K: The question is put...
7:01 PJ: Yes.
7:03 K: ...there is a hearing of it, not only the hearing of it with the ear, but also there is a hearing of it without the usual process of hearing.
7:20 Which means it is like a seed put into the earth, and the earth then acts upon the seed and so on, the seed acts upon the earth, and gradually out of that comes out a plant or a flower and so on.
7:39 So I think that is what goes on. There is the question put, it is heard with the ear, and there is also a state in which the hearing is not with the ear, and out of that there is the answer.
8:05 PJ: You said something just now.
8:12 You see if I may say it, when one observes you it is as if, you see, your eyes are as much participating in the listening process...
8:27 K: Yes.
8:28 PJ: ...as your ear. You have a listening eye, if I may put it. Now I ask you, you have said there is a listening with the ear, and there is a listening...
8:40 K: ...without the ear.
8:42 PJ: ...without the ear.
8:43 K: Yes.
8:45 PJ: Is it that a new instrument has come into being, an instrument which is not...
8:54 K: I understand. I understand.
8:56 PJ: ...a physical growth in the brain cells, but a new capacity, a new instrument?
9:01 K: I think so. I think, that implies, Pupulji, if you go into it a little more—you see, I would like to answer this question by bringing into it another word, insight.
9:22 Insight is a state of mind in which there is no memory—ah, no remembrance, let’s put it there—there is no conclusion, there is no sense of anticipation, there is no quality of a reaction, and more is involved in that—that I call insight.
9:59 Now, when you ask a question there is the hearing with the ear, and there is also a hearing with the non-ear, which means the mind is in a state where there is no remembrance, no conclusion, no previous recording of that question and therefore replying to that question according to the memory.
10:28 All that being not there, there is an insight into the question.
10:36 PJ: Does this hearing with the non-ear come into being with the very ending of the processes of the mind?
10:55 Or is it something else?
10:58 K: Yes, that is when there is an insight of that kind, the brain cells themselves undergo a change.
11:08 When there is insight, that insight transforms the brain cells.
11:14 PJ: Sir, I would like to—you have said there is a hearing with the ear and a hearing...
11:20 K: ...with the non-ear.
11:21 PJ: ...with the non-ear. Now, K: ...which is no ear.
11:24 PJ: ...no ear. You have said just now that insight brings about a change in the brain cells.
11:36 K: Yes.
11:38 PJ: Insight arises because of the non-hearing?
11:42 K: Yes—no, no, hearing with no-ear.
11:46 PJ: Now, can we investigate this hearing with the no-ear or is it not possible to investigate it?
11:55 K: Let us find out. Let’s find out.
11:57 PJ: Can you open this particular thing?
11:58 K: Yes, I understand. Let’s say first there is the hearing with the ear—which we all do—the vibrations and all the rest of it.
12:20 And the hearing without the ear is like a tranquil pond, a lake that is completely quiet.
12:34 And you drop a stone into it, it makes little waves till it disappears. I think that is what the state is when there is no hearing with the ear.
12:47 There is absolute quietness of the mind, and then the question is popped into it, and then the response is that, the waves, little waves.
13:01 I don’t know if I am making it clear.
13:04 PJ: This receiving, this receiving of the question, this receiving of the question...
13:11 K: Yes, yes. The question is the little stone or the stone dropped into the pond which is completely quiet.
13:21 PJ: Now, is the pond the matrix of the mind?
13:30 K: What do you mean, the matrix?
13:34 PJ: Is it mind only?
13:39 K: Ah, ah. I don’t quite, now I will have to go into this. When you say is it mind only, what do you think, what do you mean by the mind?
13:52 PJ: That is, it is the totality of what has been.
13:59 You see, consciousness as you have said so often, is its content.
14:05 K: Yes, its content, yes.
14:06 PJ: It is fragmented. The way we use it, it is fragmented.
14:10 K: The very way...
14:11 PJ: The receiving into...
14:13 K: Now, wait a minute, look at it. Suppose the mind is fragmented, the consciousness is fragmented, and you put a question to that fragmentary consciousness, the answer would be fragmentary.
14:27 PJ: But when the question comes, as you say, as a pebble into a pool…
14:31 K: That’s right.
14:32 PJ: …is it the totality which receives?
14:34 K: It is. It is. You see, I think that is really quite interesting, which we should go into little bit.
14:45 Can the mind be so extraordinarily receptive that it has no—not only barriers, it has no, the past doesn’t enter into it?
15:04 I don’t know if I am making...
15:08 PJ: The past as the fragment.
15:10 K: Yes. The past, past is the fragment. So the past doesn’t come into it at all.
15:16 PJ: When you use the phrase, you used the phrase ‘there is a listening, and there is a listening without the ear’, if I may put it...
15:31 K: Yes.
15:33 PJ: Has it the same quality as listening? We know listening.
15:40 K: We know listening with the ear.
15:42 PJ: ...with the ear. Now what, you used the word listening. It’s a word.
15:46 K: Yes.
15:47 PJ: Now, is the listening without the ear...
15:51 K: Has that a different quality from...
15:55 PJ: Is it of a different nature?
15:57 K: Oh, yes, obviously.
15:58 PJ: What is that nature?
15:59 K: Obviously.
16:01 PJ: What is that nature?
16:05 K: Listening with the ear or hearing with the ear, and the response from that listening to a question, will necessarily be fragmented.
16:23 Right? That is obvious. But when there is a listening without the ear, that state of listening is not fragmented.
16:39 Because listening with the ear implies the recording, and the remembrance, and from a past knowledge, experience, answering the question.
17:01 The other is, there is no past involved in it at all; therefore it is not fragmentary answer.
17:10 I think that’s right.
17:15 PJ: Is the non-ear listening different from that which receives?
17:26 K: Which?
17:27 PJ: From that which receives?
17:29 K: I don’t quite follow this. Let’s be clear.
17:33 PJ: Sir, a question is put. You say it is received...
17:39 K: ...without the ear.
17:41 PJ: ...without the ear. But there is a non-ear listening. You have used it. Now, is that non-ear listening the same as that which receives?
17:57 K: Ah. Yes. Must be, of course! I think that simile is very good: A pond is absolutely quiet; the question is popped into that pond.
18:19 That pond is pure water without all the pollution that man has put into it, which is the past, which is, and so on.
18:34 So, that pond is clear, clean water, and into that you put a question as a pebble, and the reply is the waves.
18:51 I think that’s how, at least with me, it functions.
18:55 PJ: Now, as there is a non-ear listening, there is also a non-eye seeing?
19:05 K: Non...?
19:07 PJ: As there is a non-ear listening, is there a non-eye seeing?
19:12 K: Yes. You mean the eye in the sense the visual...
19:15 PJ: The visual.
19:16 K: ...the optical.
19:17 PJ: The optical.
19:19 K: Yes.
19:20 PJ: Can we go into the nature of that?
19:24 K: My lordy! So, let us see, the hearing with the non-ear, and seeing, the visual seeing, without the past interfering with the seeing are the same.
19:51 The hearing without the ear, the seeing, visual seeing, the optical seeing is the non-remembrance.
20:07 The past doesn’t interfere in either case. That is simply put.
20:14 PJ: Sir, tradition maintains that the outward movement of the eye is the movement of focusing, of naming.
20:29 K: Yes.
20:30 PJ: The movement—optic movement, now I am putting it—optic movement which turns back breaks through the naming process.
20:45 K: Yes.
20:46 PJ: Breaks the naming process, dissolves the naming process. Is that so?
20:53 K: No.
20:54 PJ: It’s not so.
20:55 K: No. No. At least if I understand the question rightly. Are you saying the optical vision going out...
21:08 PJ: Yes.
21:09 K: ...and then in the coming back from the outward movement to the inner movement...
21:16 PJ: No, that’s not it.
21:17 K: Ah, then I misunderstood.
21:18 PJ: No, sir. There is a movement outer which we all know, which is the movement of seeing, registering, focussing, etc.
21:26 Then there is a, for the sadhaka, I will use that word sadhaka, that is a man who is following, going on the path of search.
21:38 There is a movement of the eye within, away, of the very optic seeing is thrown within, which breaks the naming process.
21:52 K: Breaks the..?
21:54 PJ: Breaks the naming process,...
21:58 K: Aha.
22:00 PJ: ...the divisive process. In fact it is given a name as the backward-flowing movement. It is used in various ways, by the Chinese. They call it the backward-flowing movement.
22:16 K: Forward movement and backward movement.
22:19 PJ: Not the forward movement turning backwards.
22:23 K: But?
22:24 PJ: But an optic—the senses which move out and the sense which does not move out.
22:32 K: Ah, that is a different matter. I understand. It is not like a tide going out and coming in.
22:40 PJ: No, this is not that.
22:41 K: Ah. There is only the going out.
22:46 PJ: Going out. And another movement altogether...
22:50 K: ...which is going in.
22:52 PJ: Going in. Which is optically going in.
22:56 K: So, that is what tradition says.
23:01 PJ: That is what tradition says.
23:02 K: That is, Chinese and all the rest of it. What do you say?
23:11 PJ: The looking within—the looking. You see, the looking out focuses normally outwards.
23:26 K: Yes. Looking out. Looking at that tree.
23:35 PJ: But the looking within ends focusing, I would say.
23:42 K: Is...?
23:44 PJ: Ends focusing.
23:45 K: Ends the...
23:46 PJ: ...the very instrument which focuses. It is as if...
23:51 K: I think I must understand this very clearly. You haven’t made it very clear to me. It is not the tide going out...
24:00 PJ: No.
24:01 K: ...the tide coming in.
24:02 PJ: No, no.
24:03 K: That’s clear. It is not the movement of the eye which goes, which looks, observes the external world...
24:10 PJ: No.
24:11 K: But—let me see if I understand—but the looking in, which is not the ebb and the tide—the sea going out and coming in, but it is an entirely different way of looking inward.
24:33 PJ: Yes. Because the looking inward is also not a tide.
24:35 K: It is not a tide. That I understand.
24:38 PJ: It is not a tide. The looking inward can be a tide.
24:43 K: Of course, that is the danger of it.
24:45 PJ: The looking inward can also be a tide.
24:46 K: That is, the reaction, that is. The tide goes out, the tide comes in. It is the same water.
24:50 PJ: You can look in with the same...
24:52 K: I mean it is the same water. Whereas this going out optically, and the looking within are two different, entirely different processes.
25:09 PJ: Yes.
25:10 K: That’s right.
25:11 PJ: Would you say the seeing without—the outer seeing—is of this nature?
25:17 K: You see, I would question this whole thing.
25:23 PJ: Yes, that’s what I wanted to...
25:27 K: I wonder if there is a looking within.
25:34 PJ: Can we explore that, sir?
25:41 K: I am beginning to, I wonder if there is anything of that kind—looking within.
25:52 Looking within implies a movement of thought.
25:55 PJ: No, sir.
25:57 K: I am just asking. Does it imply a movement of thought?
26:02 PJ: No, sir.
26:03 K: Then, if there is no movement of thought, then what do you mean by looking within?
26:12 PJ: By looking within, I would say it is a seeing of that which exists at that particular instant both within and without.
26:37 There is no within and without in that state.
26:40 K: That’s the whole point, you see. No, let us be very clear. The tide goes out, the tide comes in.
26:56 PJ: Yes.
26:57 K: What traditionally, from what you are saying which may be right, which may be wrong, I don’t know, I can’t.
27:04 You are saying the tide going out and the tide coming in is not like the outward looking and the inward looking.
27:21 The inward looking is not the reaction of the outward looking.
27:27 PJ: Yes.
27:29 K: The inward looking is entirely different...
27:32 PJ: Yes.
27:33 K: ...from the outward looking.
27:35 PJ: Yes.
27:36 K: This is what you are telling me.
27:39 PJ: Yes.
27:40 K: And that inward looking dispels the whole structure of thought.
27:55 PJ: Yes.
27:56 K: That’s what you are saying.
28:03 PJ: Yes.
28:07 K: I question that—whether there is inward looking at all.
28:20 Just let me go easy, I am just exploring, Pupulji, I am not saying that it is so.
28:32 What is there to look inwardly?
28:45 One can look inwardly—from what you have said—into the whole movement of thought.
28:53 PJ: Yes.
28:54 K: Is that inward looking?
28:58 PJ: I would say it is inward looking, because there is a physical looking.
29:05 K: Yes, the outward going.
29:07 PJ: ...and it’s a non-physical looking. That is, the looking is physical, but what is seen is non-physical. Thought is not a thing which is like a microphone.
29:20 K: No. All thought is a material process.
29:25 PJ: But it is so fleeting...
29:27 K: I know, but it is a material process.
29:34 Remembrance, the recording of a knowledge, all that is a material process.
29:42 PJ: Yes. You may say that, sir, but there is a distinction still...
29:48 K: That...
29:49 PJ: ...between seeing a microphone and seeing a flashing movement of the mind.
29:57 K: But that flashing movement of thought is still a material process.
30:04 PJ: Yes. But—all right. I agree to that. It is a material process. Its existence is in a dimension which we call the within.
30:15 K: Is called within.
30:16 PJ: It’s a dimension which we call the within.
30:19 K: Within?
30:20 PJ: Within.
30:21 K: I question that whole thing.
30:23 PJ: Now, it is somewhere, sir.
30:26 K: Yes. Why should it be within and without?
30:30 PJ: Because it is not without; it is not something which is visible, without.
30:34 K: Oh, I see what you are trying to get at.
30:41 It is not visible as one’s face in the mirror.
30:44 PJ: Face in the mirror.
30:47 K: And thought cannot be perceived with the eye, as you perceive the face in the mirror.
30:56 PJ: Yes.
30:59 K: You can perceive your face in the mirror, but thought cannot be perceived in the mirror.
31:07 PJ: Yes.
31:08 K: So, that which is not perceivable is what you call the...
31:14 PJ: ...inner.
31:15 K: ...inner.
31:16 PJ: And yet it exists. And yet it exists, it exists.
31:22 K: Yes. But I would question whether it is the inner at all.
31:27 PJ: You know, sir, you can take away the word inner and put another word.
31:33 K: No, no.
31:34 PJ: Where is it?
31:35 K: I am going to tell you something. I believe the Eskimos, when they use the word thought, they mean something outside.
31:42 PJ: Yes, but I am talking about myself.
31:46 K: No, that’s very interesting. Look at it carefully, look at it, think about it.
31:49 PJ: Yes, I understand, sir. But let me, let’s—I am taking myself. I say there is something which I can see outside, which is the physical seeing. The nature of thought itself I can never see.
32:04 K: Is?
32:05 PJ: The nature of thought itself I can never see with the same optical...
32:10 K: You can’t. It is very simple. I can see my face in the mirror. I can’t see the thought, my thought in the mirror. That is simple.
32:18 PJ: I cannot see it. Where do I see it?
32:20 K: What?
32:21 PJ: What is the seeing then?
32:22 K: That’s why—I don’t think there is a seeing at all.
32:24 PJ: And yet you have kept on saying, see.
32:31 K: Seeing, seeing the flower.
32:33 PJ: But seeing also anger.
32:36 K: No, I said that seeing...
32:39 PJ: You have said something just now.
32:41 K: Yes, the seeing...
32:43 PJ: Then I don’t think there is seeing at all.
32:46 K: Yes.
32:47 PJ: Can we investigate that?
32:48 K: Yes, that’s it.
32:49 PJ: Because there may be...
32:50 K: Now wait a minute. I must be very clear on this point, because this is rather interesting. We must be clear. First there is the hearing with the ear, and there is a hearing without the ear which is like a millpond that is absolutely without a single movement; there is no air that ruffles it.
33:16 And the question is put in, popped into that like a piece of stone, and the waves are the answers.
33:25 PJ: The waves are the answers.
33:28 K: To the question. Of course!
33:32 PJ: Which it throws up itself.
33:37 K: Yes.
33:39 PJ: Which the question itself...
33:42 K: That’s right. He said so, right from the beginning. He said you must approach the question afresh and all the rest of it.
33:54 So the very throwing of that question into that millpond produces the answer.
34:01 There is no entity that answers.
34:05 PJ: I understand.
34:07 K: Now, that’s very important.
34:09 PJ: I understand.
34:10 K: Now, bearing that in mind, the seeing of the face in the mirror is clear.
34:20 You see your face in the mirror, but the seeing of thought in the mirror is not possible.
34:29 Now. And so, what is this seeing of thought?
34:37 PJ: Yes. Yes.
34:40 K: That’s what you mean. I don’t think there is a seeing of thought.
34:46 PJ: Then what actually takes place?
34:49 K: That’s what we are going to find out. First let us be clear: there is no seeing of thought. Then that implies there is a see-er and thought, separate.
35:24 [Some interruption] The seeing of the face in the mirror is clear.
35:37 The mirror cannot reflect thought.
35:44 And the seeing of thought implies there is the see-er and thought.
35:54 The see-er is thought. So there is only thought, which cannot be seen in the mirror.
36:13 So, for me, there is no inward looking.
36:19 PJ: Then what do you mean when you talk of seeing of what is?
36:25 K: Seeing of what is is to not only observe with the visual, with the optical eye, with the optical nerve, but also hear what is, without the ear what is.
36:42 It implies all that—seeing, hearing.
36:44 PJ: But you say thought cannot be seen.
36:50 K: No, thought cannot be seen with the inward look.
36:56 PJ: But by what is thought seen?
36:59 K: Thought cannot see...
37:01 PJ: If it is not seen by the inward look, it is not seen as you see in the mirror, and yet there is a seeing...
37:10 K: No, I wouldn’t use the word seeing.
37:13 PJ: Then what would you use?
37:14 K: I would use ‘thought becoming aware of itself’.
37:19 PJ: Thought becoming aware...
37:22 K: Yes.
37:23 PJ: ...of itself.
37:26 K: Of its own activities.
37:28 PJ: So, are you telling me, sir, you have been talking all these years of seeing of what is.
37:35 K: I said that. Seeing of what is...
37:37 PJ: Yes. Also...
37:40 K: Yes, yes, seeing what is happening...
37:43 PJ: Yes.
37:44 K: ...actually, inwardly...
37:45 PJ: Yes.
37:46 K: ...which is not the observation of what is happening with an optical eye or with another thought.
38:00 Seeing implies that.
38:03 PJ: Then what is that state?
38:07 K: That is what, that state, we are inquiring into that. If you say, as you say, ‘seeing inwardly’, I say that is not possible. I say then you are bringing about a dual state, the seeing and that which is seen.
38:29 Right? Right?
38:31 PJ: Can there be a seeing without a dual state?
38:39 K: Yes. Seeing implies a non—implies, in that there is no opposites.
38:47 PJ: Yes. Because it has the same quality as that lake.
38:54 K: Yes, yes. That is why I carefully went back to that. When you say ‘inward looking’, I don’t think it—to me that sounds an artificial and a, from what you say, traditional approach.
39:18 I think the thing works like the lake. The thought itself has to be quiet as the lake, and when you put that, a question to that, the question is being answered from the lake.
39:39 PJ: No. But, sir, anger arises or jealousy arises.
39:46 K: Yes, now wait a minute. Say jealousy, jealousy arises.
39:48 PJ: It is a material thing.
39:51 K: Uh?
39:52 PJ: It’s a material thing. It is a material thing.
39:56 K: Absolutely.
39:57 PJ: I grow aware, let me put it, I grow aware, it is already over because I cannot see that which is over.
40:09 K: Uh, uh, uh?
40:11 PJ: I cannot see what is over.
40:14 K: No. You said jealousy arises.
40:16 PJ: Jealousy arises, but...
40:19 K: And the watching of it...
40:21 PJ: Can there—this is one of the things which has always puzzled me—can there be a watching of the actual state of jealousy arising?
40:34 K: Yes.
40:36 PJ: It would not arise.
40:41 K: Yes. No! Look, there is jealousy—the word, the fact, which is a reaction which is named as jealousy.
40:58 Before you name it as jealousy, can that reaction be watched?
41:05 Not as a watcher watching, you follow?, you understand what I am saying?
41:12 PJ: Yes.
41:13 K: But the watching in which there is no opposites. Just to see the reaction. The seeing of the reaction, I mean by that word seeing is observation without the eye or the ear.
41:41 PJ: Say that again, sir.
41:47 K: The observation of the arising of that reaction is the non-hearing—is the hearing without the ear, the seeing without the eye.
42:05 [Laughs] Crazy. Crazy! No, let’s be clear, what we are saying.
42:15 PJ: I don’t understand that.
42:18 K: I am saying, we are saying this, Pupulji: a question is asked, and that question is like a piece of stone dropped into a millpond.
42:38 Millpond is absolutely quiet. The very answer is the dropping of that stone into it.
42:50 It comes out because of the stone because otherwise it is quiet.
42:59 Right? Now, what we are talking about is not the tide going out, the tide coming in.
43:12 It is an observation of what is without the previous remembrance associated with what is.
43:27 That’s all.
43:29 PJ: You say, that is neither optical nor aural.
43:36 K: No, obviously.
43:38 PJ: But yet you use the word observing. With what?
43:44 K: Observing, yes, observing in the sense, I explained that. In the observation there is no remembrance of the thing which you are seeing, which is being observed .I am right in this.
44:01 Let me go slowly—In the process of observation there is no centre from which it is being observed, the centre being memory, various conclusions, hurts, jealousy.
44:20 There is no point from which it is being observed. Right?
44:25 PJ: Yes.
44:27 K: And in this observation there is no conclusion, there is no association with the past events, which means the seeing is as quiet as the millpond, and the question is put, or the thing, what is is a challenge.
44:54 What is is a challenge, and the millpond which is so quiet, the challenge drops into it and responds.
45:02 That’s clear. I’m very clear. I don’t know if I conveyed this at all.
45:05 PJ: Now, if I may take it one step further...
45:06 K: That’s right. I must get this point clear to myself. [Laughs] PJ: You have said a number of new things today.
45:21 K: What?
45:22 PJ: You have said a number of new things.
45:23 K: New things. I must be very clear on this myself. Yes, I will—quite right, let’s go ahead.
45:29 PJ: The ripple is the response.
45:31 K: The ripple is the response.
45:33 PJ: Now...
45:34 K: Ah, that’s a marvellous idea!
45:35 PJ: I know that, sir, I see that, sir. I have observed you, sir, listening to your own response, listening to your own response with the same way as you listen to a question.
46:00 K: Yes.
46:01 PJ: Do you listen to your response? You respond.
46:06 K: Yes, I listen to see if it is accurate.
46:08 PJ: That is what I am asking. This is something which I have always found: you listen to your own response, so that your response and what another person is saying, as far as this non-ear is concerned, are at the same level.
46:27 K: No, no, let me get this clear. I haven’t understood your question.
46:31 PJ: Sir, normally when a person responds, he never listens to his own response.
46:38 K: No, no, let’s take that.
46:41 PJ: He is always listening to what the other is saying.
46:45 K: Yes, let’s take that, I don’t know.
46:47 PJ: He never listens to his own response.
46:49 K: I am not sure.
46:52 PJ: At least I don’t listen to. I’ve watched myself. I don’t listen to my own response. I listen to my own response afterwards.
47:01 K: Casual talking you don’t listen.
47:02 PJ: No.
47:03 K: But if you are talking seriously and you listen, you are listening to the questioner, and you are listening, there is an act of listening.
47:10 PJ: Yes. There is an act of listening.
47:12 K: Both directions.
47:13 PJ: Yes, yes. I take it...
47:15 K: Not I listen to my response. There is only listening.
47:20 PJ: Yes. So, but you listen, and if what is said is not so, you move...
47:35 K: ...away from it.
47:37 PJ: ...away from it. There is a total flexibility, if I may put it so.
47:44 K: Yes, yes.
47:45 PJ: There is no taking an answer and holding to it K: Yes.
47:51 PJ: Now...
47:52 K: You see, if the pebble is very light, the ripple is just two waves.
47:59 But if it is a small rock, it goes down and brings great many waves.
48:10 If the challenge is great...
48:15 PJ: Yes.
48:16 K: ...the waters must move very—as series of waves, but if the challenge is very light, there is just a ripple.
48:30 So, the act of listening is not only to the persons challenging, but also listening to the answering.
48:43 It is a total state of listening—the questioner and the person who replies.
48:55 Yes, when the person who replies, it isn’t quite as it should be, naturally there is not; because you are listening, there is a withdrawal from that.
49:08 PJ: There is a withdrawal from that.
49:10 K: And then you change it, move.
49:12 PJ: There is another thing which I have seen...
49:18 K: So I have discovered something: there is no inward looking.
49:22 PJ: One has to go into that greatly, I mean, I have just been taking it in.
49:29 K: There is only looking. Rajesh Dalal (RD): Sir, in jealousy, is the response the same way?
49:38 K: What?
49:39 RD: Is the response of the millpond to a questioner’s question...
49:44 K: Ah, I told you.
49:45 RD: And in jealousy...
49:47 K: A millpond—you know what a millpond is. It is dead quiet. It has not a ripple on it. You drop a stone into it; if the stone is just a tiny little pebble, it has just, you know.
50:06 But if you drop a really heavy thing, the ripples go on.
50:10 RD: Now, I am saying when a reaction which we normally call jealousy within oneself, how does the millpond respond to that, to that reaction, the jealousy—in the same way?
50:25 K: Of course. Mary Zimbalist (MZ): What is a millpond, sir?
50:34 PJ: No, but if—Where there is a millpond...
50:38 RD: ...can there be jealousy. I know but that is what I am asking.
50:41 PJ: You see...
50:42 K: No, she says, she began by asking, ‘Can we investigate your mind?
50:45 PJ: I am not investigating.
50:48 K: That is why he is answering. If you say, what is that millpond...?
50:51 PJ: No, I am not, I am not asking.
50:56 K: She asked it, ‘What is that millpond?’ That’s a different question. If you say’, What is the millpond, which is your mind?’ we enter into something quite, quite—I don’t know if I would investigate that.
51:17 PJ: You wouldn’t, sir?
51:19 K: I am not sure, I said.
51:21 PJ: It would take another—I don’t want to raise it today. But I think it is a thing which has to be raised with you.
51:29 K: What?
51:30 PJ: I think it is a thing which has to be raised with you.
51:33 K: Which is, what is...
51:34 PJ: What is that millpond?
51:38 K: First of all, whose millpond? [Laughs] PJ: We are talking now, if I may say so, we are talking now...
51:47 K: Is it your, the millpond of your mind, K’s mind, or the millpond of a person who is agitated and all the rest of it?
52:01 That’s a mill, not a millpond.
52:02 PJ: No. We are talking of K’s millpond, because, I mean, what is being attempted here is to see how far one can go in throwing open K’s mind.
52:16 K: Ah yes, I understand what you are talking, I know what you are saying. That’s what she is asking too, which is to say, what is the state of the millpond that apparently K has?
52:29 PJ: Yes.
52:30 K: I don’t think K is aware of this millpond.
52:38 PJ: What are you aware of, sir?
52:40 K: No, no. This is important to understand this. If he is aware of it, it’s not a millpond.
52:47 PJ: No...
52:48 K: Wait, wait, wait. Yes, that’s right, that’s right.
52:56 PJ: Sir, if I may ask...
52:58 K: Go ahead.
52:59 PJ: ...what is the inner nature of yourself?
53:03 K: What is the...?
53:04 PJ: Inner nature of yourself.
53:06 K: Oh! I haven’t even asked—what is the inner nature of K’s mind, of K?
53:34 Would you, if I replied nothing, which means not a thing, would you agree, would you—there is nothing.
53:55 Would that be, would that be acceptable?
54:07 Would you comprehend this state of K’s inner being? He says there is nothing, absolutely nothing.
54:12 MZ: Sir, may I go back to what you said just before this important question Pupul raised, and that is, you say, ‘K cannot be aware of the millpond, he cannot know...’ K: No, no, of course not, of course not.
54:35 MZ: Do I understand correctly that you mean that any examination of yourself, evaluation of it would be a use of...
54:51 K: No, it is like measuring the immeasurable.
54:55 MZ: Well...
54:56 K: I am not saying my mind is that, you follow? It is like measuring the immeasurable. Scott Forbes (SF): Would you say that the millpond shows itself only in those ripples?
55:12 K: Yes.
55:13 SF: Otherwise nothing else could be said about it? Otherwise it doesn’t....?
55:18 K: You see, the word is not the thing. [Laughs] I have fallen back on an old trick.
55:26 MZ: Are you saying that any examination of it is on a totally different level?
55:32 K: You can’t examine it! With what are you examining it?
55:36 MZ: Well, that’s the point. If you cannot examine, or are you saying it would be an examination using the tool of thought...
55:48 K: …thought, word, image, pictures and so on.
55:53 MZ: Then if you cannot examine something...
55:55 K: No.
55:56 MZ: ...because it would enter into thought.
55:57 K: It cannot be examined.
55:59 MZ: How can those of us who may not have a millpond, what is our tool, do you understand?, the tools that are available to the mind in your case would not apply or be touched or used to examine something.
56:19 K: Look, ordinary person’s, ordinary person’s pond is constantly in agitation.
56:27 MZ: Agreed, but whatever our...
56:31 K: From that agitation you are asking the question.
56:35 MZ: But you were saying we should not use all these, thought, etc., etc., to examine.
56:43 K: I am telling you, you cannot examine it.
56:50 And you keep on repeating in different ways. You cannot examine it.
56:59 MZ: You cannot examine it with the tools...
57:08 K: You cannot examine it!
57:09 MZ: No, which are you talking about: ourselves or your millpond because...
57:11 K: You asked my—Pupul raised that first—we want to examine your mind.
57:14 MZ: Your mind...
57:16 K: My, K’s mind. And K says there is a state of absolute nothingness. And that nothingness cannot be examined, because the examination implies measurement, and there is no measurement to nothingness.
57:42 Full stop. Right?
57:45 MZ: Why does it imply measurement?
57:52 K: Of course it implies measurement.
58:00 All examination is a process of measurement.
58:03 RD: But what about perception?
58:07 K: No, no. You can only perceive nothingness if your mind is also...
58:14 RD: ...is nothing.
58:15 K: Of course, obviously!
58:19 PJ: Sir, may I take it one or two steps further?
58:26 Before I take up another thing, I wanted to ask you: in this, your investigation in a discussion, I also find that there is great use of the pause—you pause.
58:42 K: Yes, yes.
58:44 PJ: What is the significance of the pause?
58:54 K: What is music?
59:07 Space between two tones, right?
59:10 PJ: Yes, yes.
59:14 K: Now, K pauses. Why does he pause? I don’t know, I have never thought about it.
59:35 [Laughs] Ah, I’ve got it.
59:42 K pauses, probably, to see that the answer is from the millpond.
1:00:02 I think I am…more or less.
1:00:03 PJ: Yes, I understand. Now, the very dialogue which takes place, question and then movement, it appears to the person who is observing that you—it appears, sir, I may be totally wrong—it appears that you start at the same level as...
1:00:33 K: ...the questioner.
1:00:34 PJ: ...the person with whom you are discussing.
1:00:36 K: Yes, yes, yes.
1:00:38 PJ: Now, I have a very serious question to ask you here. Is it that the mind, the pond...
1:00:47 K: Oh, yes.
1:00:48 PJ: ...the mind which is nothing enters the state of the mind of the person who is in duality?
1:01:01 K: No, no, no.
1:01:04 PJ: Then?
1:01:05 K: No.
1:01:06 PJ: That the...
1:01:08 K: There is no remembrance of nothingness. Do you understand, Pupul? Just go into it a little bit.
1:01:19 PJ: Yes, there is no remembrance.
1:01:20 K: If K remembers nothingness, it is not then nothingness.
1:01:29 PJ: Yes.
1:01:30 K: So it is there, but he doesn’t—we don’t enter into that. And you are asking a question, so I say...
1:01:40 PJ: How do you comprehend my duality?
1:01:46 K: By listening to what you are saying.
1:01:50 PJ: But you don’t know the nature of duality.
1:01:55 K: But, no, but I am listening to you saying—what? How to be rid of jealousy, how to be rid of something or other. What? And I see you cannot get rid of it. My instant reply is: there is no riddance of anything.
1:02:16 PJ: No, but there is also another thing. I may make a statement: I see. And you will say, immediately you will say, is that a theory or is that a fact?
1:02:31 K: Yes.
1:02:32 PJ: There is a capacity within you to tell when the person is speaking truth.
1:02:40 K: Oh, obviously! Everybody has that.
1:02:44 PJ: Not always, sir.
1:02:47 K: No, not always. But as I have been questioned for the last fifty years, it’s fairly quick. [Laughs] PJ: Now, out of this questioning, out of this it grows intenser and intenser and intenser; out of the questioning suddenly you say, ‘I see’.
1:03:06 K: Yes, yes.
1:03:09 PJ: Now, what is it which brings about that insight which then makes everything...
1:03:17 K: ...clear?
1:03:18 PJ: ...clear.
1:03:19 K: Because as I told you, I listen, K listens. You, Maria, Ahalyaji, somebody or the other, all are talking and I listen.
1:03:32 The listening is to that, and listening also, listening, and suddenly there comes out, out of nothingness.
1:03:45 PJ: In the very listening it comes out.
1:03:48 K: Yes, that is right. Because to me, I mean what is important is the act of listening. There is a listening to the question—like a pebble in the pond.
1:04:08 It’s simple.
1:04:09 PJ: Now, is this state of yours which you have spoken about in the last, I don’t know how long, the same as takes place when you are having an interview and when you sit on that platform?
1:04:27 K: No, when K sits on the platform, it is quite different. In an interview the person, he has problems, so both of us discuss—that’s a different matter.
1:04:38 PJ: But when he sits on the platform...?
1:04:39 K: Oh lordy! [Laughs] PJ: Or you wouldn’t like to talk about it today? Because I would like to, I would like to explore that someday. These are things I have to explore.
1:04:49 MZ: Just ask, Pupul, the platform, which he says is different.
1:04:54 K: I am not sure it is different. There it is much more concentrated—not concentrated, there is the whole, he has to be...
1:05:01 PJ: I would like to explore that with you.
1:05:06 MZ: Sir, very quickly, if any of us are talking, the question is taken in and goes presumably through the thought process.
1:05:12 K: No, no.
1:05:13 MZ: Not for you, for us.
1:05:15 K: Ah.
1:05:16 MZ: Can one say that when you are listening in seriously in an interview, that question never obviously goes through all that clutter.
1:05:27 K: No, no.
1:05:28 MZ: It goes to the millpond...
1:05:30 K: Yes.
1:05:31 MZ: ...when in an interview.
1:05:33 K: Yes. No, in an interview, because it takes time explaining and back and forth: ‘Why are you eating so much?’ ‘Why should you?” ‘Why don’t you...?’ PJ: One thing we see very clearly when you are having an interview with Krishnaji that you really see the nothing.
1:05:52 K: What?
1:05:53 PJ: If I may say so, sir, those of us who have had the privilege of having an interview with you [K laughs] that when we are having an interview with you, it is like facing a totally empty thing.
1:06:08 K: Yes.
1:06:09 PJ: There is nothing except the self reflected. You throw back on the person exactly what is in the person.
1:06:22 K: Yes, that’s what Aldous Huxley—throws back to you, it’s your—yes.
1:06:32 Now, all right. If I am listening—I am now Pupul, and you are K, and I ask you, ‘How do you come to this extraordinary quality of the millpond?’ That would be my inquiry.
1:06:58 What—how do you capture, how did you come by it?
1:07:09 How did you—what practices, why, how did it happen to you and not to me?
1:07:16 What—tell me the things that prevent the millpond.
1:07:21 PJ: Sir, proceed, sir.
1:07:24 K: Uh?
1:07:26 PJ: Proceed, sir, because you can be the questioner as well as the....
1:07:31 K: Yes, that’s what I am doing!
1:07:33 PJ: No one else can answer it.
1:07:36 K: Yes. That’s very—great fun this. [Laughs] How do I get to it?
1:07:48 First of all, I have no comparison. You tell me ‘Don’t compare.’ Right?
1:07:59 It is not that you have got it and I haven’t got, which means comparison.
1:08:06 So can you, you tell me, ‘Can you be totally free of comparison?’ And that is something new to me.
1:08:26 I say it’s a puzzle, it’s a statement that I don’t quite understand.
1:08:33 So I say, ‘I have lived by comparison, and you are asking me to throw away all the things that I have learnt through comparison—the struggle, the pain, the envy, the jealousy, the drive.’ You say all that must completely be dissipated.
1:09:01 Right? And you tell me, ‘Don’t take time over it. Don’t say I will do it tomorrow.
1:09:16 It must be done instantly.’ That’s what you tell me. And because I have listened to you very carefully, with my ears—the hearing and the non-hearing with my ears—I am very alert to what you are saying, and I say, ‘Yes, I cannot possibly dissipate it through time, it must be—I see it.’ Your very challenging that makes me respond.
1:09:56 Your challenge being very vital, very urgent, very forceful, that very challenge awakens in me the quality of urgency.
1:10:22 And so, yes, I say, all right, I’ve understood. I’ve understood so completely, it is wiped. Right? That is how I would act if you put it to me. And I say—and you tell me also, don’t accumulate anything, except clothes.
1:10:54 [Laughs] Don’t accumulate memories, problems—nothing.
1:11:02 Don’t accumulate. Because I am listening to you.
1:11:14 Therefore I really have understood it, instantly.
1:11:23 You tell me, clothes—that’s trivial, don’t even bring that.
1:11:30 So don’t accumulate anything—hurts, memories, name, form. Nothing. Don’t accumulate. Understood, sir, immediately, because my whole being is in listening to you.
1:11:53 Then you say to me every problem must be dissolved—resolved instantly.
1:12:00 That requires great deal of back and forth.
1:12:11 At the end of it I see what you mean.
1:12:19 And the ordinary things—no fear, understand pleasure, don’t suppress it, understand the whole movement of pleasure, and the ending of sorrow, and all that.
1:12:32 I am in a state like I am surrounded by an immense stretch of water, and the water is warm, healthy, sane, and I am swimming in it.
1:12:57 And, I am swimming in it, and I won’t leave you.
1:13:06 You understand? I won’t leave you because every time the flower is different.
1:13:16 I don’t know if I am talking...
1:13:25 Like somebody says to me, ‘Why does Mrs Rao or Mrs Smith or Wilson come and listen to you every year?’ I say ‘I don’t know.’ But if I was Mr Wilson, Mr Smith or Mr Scott, I would come and listen every year, if possible every day, because the flower is different every day, beauty is different every day.
1:13:56 That is all, finished.
1:14:03 Namaste. [Pause] Now Rajghat.
1:14:49 Sorry. You have to go, you remain. This tape stops, sir.