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SA80Q4 - 4th Question & Answer Meeting
Saanen, Switzerland - 26 July 1980
Public Question & Answer 4



0:31 Krishnamurti: I hope none of you will faint by this heat.
0:45 As we said, and I hope you don’t mind my reminding you again, that these questions are put so that we share the answer together. It is not a Delphic Oracle that is speaking, but together we are going to explore into these questions. And as we pointed out, the answers are in the questions themselves.
1:39 1st Question: You seem to object even to our sitting quietly every day to observe the movement of thought. Is this, by your definition, a practice, a method, and therefore without value?
2:03 You seem to object even to our sitting quietly every day to observe the movement of thought. Is this, by your definition, a practice, a method, and therefore without value?
2:29 I would like it to rain.
2:45 This is a question. We mean by ‘question’, the root meaning of that word is to seek, derived from Latin, Greek and also from Sanskrit. To seek. Now, the questioner asks: what is wrong with sitting quietly every morning for 20 minutes, afternoon – another 20 minutes, and perhaps another 20 minutes in the evening or longer. What is wrong with it? I do not know if you have heard of that ridiculous meditation that is practised by those who – T.M. Have you heard of all that, Transcendental Meditation? The word ‘transcendental’ is a good word but it has been ruined. They have learnt that by sitting quietly you can relax, you can observe, if you wish, your thinking, your reactions, your responses, and your reflexes, and so on, so on. Now, behind all this so-called meditation, what is the motive? Do you understand my question? What is the motive of all those people who sit quietly? I don’t know why they sit quietly. Sitting quietly by themselves, or together, or in a group, what is the motive behind the desire to sit quietly, for half an hour every day, and so on, so on? What is the motive? Isn’t that important to enquire before you sit quietly for twenty minutes a day, or half an hour a day, or whatever you do? Isn’t it important to find out why you want to do this? Is it because somebody has told you that, if you sit quietly, you will have parapsychological experiences, that you will attain some kind of illusory – oh, I mustn’t use the word ‘illusory’ – some kind of peace, some kind of understanding, some kind of enlightenment, some kind of power. And we, rather gullible, pay thousands of dollars or francs, or pounds, to receive instructions and a mantra so that we can repeat those. I know some people who have spent thousands and thousands of dollars to pay the man who will give you something in return, specially a Sanskrit word, that is much more romantic than saying Coca-Cola, and you repeat it. You have paid something, and you have received something in return, and what is the motive behind it? If you go into it, ask yourself why you are doing this. Is it for a reward, not financial reward, but a psychological reward? Is it that by sitting quietly you attain some kind of super-consciousness? Or is it that you want that which has been promised by your instructor?
7:43 So isn’t it important, before we plunge into all this kind of business, to find out why, what is your motive, what is it you want? Isn’t it important? But, you see, we don’t do that. We are so eager and gullible that somebody promises you something, and you want it. Now, if you examine the motive, it is a desire to achieve something, like a businessman – his desire is to earn a lot of money. That is his urge. Here the psychological urge is to have something that you think the other man – a guru or an instructor – you know, all the rest of it, promises. You don’t question what he promises, you don’t doubt what he promises, you don’t say, ‘Do you do it?’ ‘Do you levitate?’ You know about that, do you? But they say, ‘No, I am too old for that kind of stuff, I have done it’ – you know, pass it off. But if you question the man who is offering you something – is it worthwhile, is it true, who are you to tell me what to do? Then you will find that sitting quietly without understanding your motive leads to all kinds of illusory, psychological troubles. And the speaker has met – oh, dozens and dozens and dozens of such people, and they have mentally become gradually unbalanced, slightly neurotic, and something psychologically goes wrong. Don’t accept my word for all this. You can see it in your own faces if you are doing it.
10:47 So, if that is the intention of sitting quietly, then it isn’t worth it. Naturally. But sitting quietly, or standing or walking, without any motive – the word ‘motive’ means movement, the power to move, and when you are walking quietly by yourself or with somebody, you can watch the trees, the birds and the rivers, and the mountains and the sunshine on the leaves, and so on, so on, and in the very watching of all that, you are also watching yourself, not striving, making tremendous efforts to achieve something. I know, those of you who are committed to all this, to the other kind of meditation, find it awfully hard to throw it off because your mind is already conditioned: you have practised this thing for several years, and you are stuck. And somebody comes along and says, ‘What nonsense all this is’, and perhaps at a rare moment you become rational and say, ‘Yes, perhaps this is wrong’. Then begins the trouble. The conflict between what you have found for yourself to be wrong and what you have been practising for the last five, ten, three years. And the struggle is called progress, spiritual progress. You understand all this?
13:17 So. If you have observed, the mind is always chattering – right? – always pursuing one thought or another, one set of sensory responses to another set of series of responses. So the mind, the brain is always chattering, consciously or unconsciously. Right? This is so – if you observe your own mind, this is what is happening. So you want to stop that chattering, then you try to learn concentration, forcing the mind to stop chattering, and so the conflict begins again. Right? This is what we are all doing: chattering, chattering, talking endlessly about nothing. Now, if you want to observe something – a tree, a flower, the lines of the mountains – you have to look, you have to be quiet. But, you see, we are not interested in the mountains, or the beauty of the hills, and the valleys, and the waters, we want to get somewhere, achieve something, spiritually essentially, when we are young, because we are dissatisfied with the society as it is, with all the corruption that goes on, but we don’t mind being corrupted spiritually. Right?
15:52 So is it not possible to be quiet, naturally? To look at a person, or to listen to a song, or to listen to what somebody is saying, quietly, without resistance, without saying ‘I must change, I must do this, I must not do that’, just to be quiet. And apparently, that is most difficult. So we practise systems to be quiet. Do you see the fallacy of it? To practise a method, a system, a regular everyday routine, then you think the mind will at last be quiet, but it will never be quiet, it will be mechanical, it will become set in a pattern, it will become dull, insensitive, but you don’t see all that, but you want to get something. An initiation – oh, for God’s sake, it is all so childish!
17:33 So, if you listen – now, I hope, we are listening – if you listen quietly, not saying he is right or wrong, I am committed to this, how am I to give it up, I have promised not to give it up, and this, that, the other thing, but to listen to what is being said without resistance. Because the speaker is not saying something irrational, something stupid, or exotic, he is just pointing out. And if you can listen to that, to what he is pointing out, which is your own discovery of what you are doing, then your mind, in the very process of investigation, it becomes quiet. You understand this? I do not know if you have talked to any serious scientist, and if you have – serious, not those who are employed by the government, who are trying to compete with another scientist, who are really scientists, that is, to discover something totally new, to discover the cause of anything, who go beyond the enquiry of mere matter. Those scientists must have a quiet mind while they are observing, investigating.
19:37 So can we, ordinary people, with all our troubles and turmoils, be quiet? And listen to all the promptings of our own movements? But apparently that appears most difficult. It is not. If you are interested in something, you are naturally attentive. But if you say, ‘I am bored with myself’... So it is possible to sit or stand or walk quietly, without any promptings from another, without any reward and having extraordinary super-physical sensory experiences. Begin at the most rational level, for God’s sake. Then you can go very far.
21:05 2nd Question: I have a cancer and find myself in the following dilemma: Should I try to let medicine save my life, even if it may mutilate me, or should I live with this illness and pain and meet the consequences, which could be death, candidly without an operation?
21:47 I have a cancer and find myself in the following dilemma: Should I try to let medicine save my life, even if it may mutilate me, or should I live with this illness and meet the consequences, which could be death, candidly without an operation?
22:18 Do you want me to decide this? This is a very serious question. We all have illnesses, pain, physical pain, perhaps some unbearable pain. And one may have cancer, which is extraordinary, I believe, very, very painful. Now, first, let’s enquire into how to meet pain. Right? Are you interested in this? How to meet pain. How do you meet pain? Look at it. You have had pain – toothache, tummy ache, various kinds of headaches – pain. Now, how do you meet it? Rush immediately to the pill? Medicine? An aspirin? So, how do you meet it?
24:11 All right, let’s make it much more simple. How do you meet a noise? A train goes by, four trains during the hour that we sit here. How do you meet that noise? We are talking, thinking over together, and this train rushes by. How do you receive it? Do you resist it? Or let the sound go through you, and it is gone? You follow what I am saying? Which is it that you do? I am not instructing you, please. I am not your guru, you are not my followers, I am not your authority – thank God. How do you meet this tremendous noise that is so disturbing? Do you let it come without any resistance and go on? You understand? Do you do that?
25:32 Now, if you have pain, and the speaker has had part of it, like every human being, do you allow it to end? Or you want to end it with some medicine? You are following my question? Say, you sit in the dentist’s chair – the speaker has done quite a bit of it – you sit in the dentist’s chair, he drills. Do you associate the pain and identify yourself with the pain? Of course, if the pain is too intense, he gives you some kind of novocaine or whatever he gives you. But if it is not too unbearable, do you observe the pain without identifying yourself and say, ‘My God!’ – you follow what I am saying? Which do you do? Is it immediate identification with the pain? Or disassociation and observing? When you have pain, you instinctively hold, if you are sitting on that chair. But if you don’t identify with the pain, you can put your hands out quietly and bear it without too much... Which means, is it possible to disassociate oneself from the actual movement of pain? Enquire into it. Don’t say, ‘It is’, ‘It is not’. You find out for yourself how much, how far, how deeply one cannot identify, ‘Ah, I am in great pain’. You follow?
28:13 Now, the questioner asks, he has cancer – I am sorry – and should he take medicine or an operation, or bear with it? I know people who have cancer, I have seen them and they don’t want to go on the table to be operated. And they bear with that enormous pain. Whether that pain affects the brain, which has its own capacity to protect itself. I don’t know if you have gone into this, I am just pointing out. You understand what I am saying? If one has great, unbearable pain, the brain has its own capacity to protect itself against pain. The brain specialists are enquiring into this or finding out – because I have talked to some of them – are finding out that the brain has the capacity, through some chemical reaction, to protect itself against not too much pain, but some pain. Don’t accept my word for this. The speaker has found that out long ago that the brain has the capacity to protect itself against danger, against pain, against a certain amount of grief. Beyond that, the brain becomes unconscious, there is giving up. And the questioner says: what shall I do? Right? How can the speaker decide this? Perhaps I can hold his or her hand for a while, but that is not going to solve the problem. Either one has great sense of not identifying with the pain, but it is impossible when you have tremendous pain. And if one can bear without operation the extraordinary pain that one has, one must also be aware that it might injure the brain. You understand what I am saying? Haven’t you noticed this in yourself? That you can bear pain up to a point, which is, the brain has the capacity to bring about some chemical responses which will safeguard it against pain. But if you have too much pain, of course, that is impossible. Is that question clear?
32:37 3rd Question: What is enlightenment?
32:47 Qui demande cette question? I mean, who asked this question?
33:07 Q: Krishnamurti, may I ask about the possibility to heal the cancer?
33:12 K: Sir, give me your question, sir, written down.
33:15 Q: It is part of sickness-tension, and it is possible to heal it.
33:21 K: Whether it is possible to heal! Ah, that is a different question altogether. Sir, is that what you want to ask? Please, sir. Is it possible to heal people? Just a minute. Sir, sorry, unless you write out the question, I won’t answer it.
33:52 Q: No, sir, I think, because people are suffering from cancer, but it is possible to heal it, that’s all.
34:00 K: I am going to go into it. Sit down, sir, please, if you don’t mind. I’ll explain it. The question is – just a minute, sir, don’t agree or disagree, let’s examine it. There are people who heal by putting their hands on somebody. Wait a minute, sir. It has been proved. Don’t agree or disagree. For God’s sake, look!
34:49 There are people in India, and there are several people in England who have this capacity – nothing spiritual, divine, etc. – that by putting their hands on somebody’s head who has a great deal of pain, they seem to cure the pain. And, if I may, the speaker has done it – don’t turn up to be healed! – quite a lot. Please, remember, please, don’t want to be healed by me, go to somebody else. And it is possible. But to have such healing capacity, really, deeply, there must be no shadow of selfishness. It is not healing and give me money. There must be no quiver of selfishness, of the centre, me – healing. That is a totally different matter. What is enlightenment?
36:42 Again, this is one of those words that have come from India – to be enlightened. To be enlightened about what? Please, let’s be rational, not irrational. When we say ‘enlightened’, I am enlightened about what? Say, for instance, I am enlightened about my relationship with another. That is, I have understood my relationship with another is based on my image about the other, however intimate. That image has been put together through many years by constant reaction, indifference, comfort – you follow? – the nagging, all that between man and woman – all that. So the image is built, and she has built an image about you, so the relationship is between the two images, which is obvious. And that is what we call relationship.
38:12 Now, I perceive the truth of it, and I say I am enlightened about it. I am enlightened about violence. I see clearly, without any distortion, with clear eyes, the whole movement of violence. I see how sorrow arises, and the ending of sorrow is – I am enlightened about it. But we don’t mean that. Right? We mean something else. ‘I am enlightened, I will tell you about it. Come to me’. And you, rather gullible, say, ‘Yes, tell me all about it’. Sir, I don’t want to go into all this. I don’t know if you are interested in it.
39:30 You see, we must understand if we really go into what is enlightenment, illumination, the voice of truth, not my voice, the voice of truth, we must go very carefully into the question of time. The so-called enlightened people have come to it through time, gradually, life after life if you believe in reincarnation: I have come to the point when I am enlightened about everything. Right? Which is, it is a gradual process of experience, knowledge, a constant movement from the past to the present and the future – the cycle. Right? So if you are interested in it, is enlightenment, – the ultimate thing – a matter of time? Is it... I hope you aren’t bored by this, are you? Is it a gradual process, which means the process of time, the process of evolution, the gradual becoming that? You follow? So one must understand the nature of time, not the chronological time, but the psychological structure which has accepted time. You are following this? That is, I have hope to ultimately get there. The desire, which is part of hope, ultimately says, ‘I will get there’. And the so-called enlightened people, and they are not, because the moment they say, ‘I am enlightened’, they are not. That is their vanity. It is like a man saying, ‘I am really humble’. When a man says that, you know what it is. Humility is not the opposite of vanity. When the vanity ends, the other is. Those people who have said we are enlightened, say you must go through step by step: practise this, do that, don’t do this, become my pupil, I’ll tell you what to do, I’ll give you an Indian name or a Christian new name, and so on, so on, so on. And you, a kind of irrational human being, accept this nonsense.
44:06 So we are saying, asking, is that supreme enlightenment – you understand the meaning of that word? A mind that has no conflict, no sense of striving, going, moving, achieving. So we must understand this question of time, which is the constant becoming or not becoming, which is the same. Right? The becoming and the not becoming. And when that becoming is rooted in the mind, that becoming conditions all your thinking, all your activity, then it is a matter of using time as a means of becoming, achieving. But is there such a thing as becoming? You understand? ‘I am violent. I will be non-violent’. That is, becoming an idea. Right? I am violent, and the non-violence I project, the idea of not being violent, so I create duality. Violent and non-violent, and so there is conflict. Then I say, ‘I must control myself, I must suppress, I must analyse, I must go to a psychologist, I must have a psychotherapist’, and so on, so on, so on.
46:33 Without creating the opposite, the non-violence, the fact is violence, not non-violence. Right? The fact. The non-violence is non-fact. If you get that once, the truth of that. That is, I am violent, the concept of non-violence brings about this conflict between the opposites. The non-fact has no value, only the fact, which is, I am violent. Now, to observe the whole movement of violence – anger, jealousy, hate, competition, imitation, conformity and so on, so on – to observe it without any direction, without any motive. Right? Then, if you do that, then there is the end of violence, which is an immediate perception and action. I wonder if you understand this. Bene? Hai capito?
48:12 So, one can see that illumination, this sense of ultimate reality, and so on, is not of time. This goes against the whole psychological religious world, the Christians with their souls, with their saviours, with their ultimately… etc., etc.
48:51 We say perception is action, not perception, great interval and then action. In that interval you create the idea. Right? Are you following all this? Sir, we are pointing out something, which is: Can the mind, the brain, you know, the whole human nervous structure, as well as the psychological structure, be free of this burden of a million years of time, so that you see something clearly, and action is invariably immediate. That action will be rational, not irrational. That action can be explained logically, sanely.
50:09 So we are saying that ultimate thing, which is truth, is not to be achieved through time. It can never be achieved. It is there, or it is not there.
50:46 4th Question: People talk of experiences beyond the senses. There seems to be a fascination in such experiences, but the lives of those who claim to have had them seem to be as mediocre as before. What are these experiences? Are these experiences part of enlightenment or a step towards it? And so what is enlightenment?
51:22 People talk of experiences beyond the senses. There seems to be a fascination in such experiences, but the lives of those who claim to have had them seem as mediocre as before. What are these experiences? Are these experiences a part of enlightenment or a step towards it?
52:03 You like these kind of questions? It is strange, isn’t it? You are always talking about enlightenment, what you have said, what the speaker has said, what somebody has said. You never say, ‘Look, it is my life, I am in great pain, sorrow, this... How am I to resolve all that?’ – not what some idiot says. Everywhere the speaker has been there have always been these kind of questions. Not – how shall I live in this world, which is so corrupt, where there is no justice, and I am part of all that – what shall I do? You never ask those questions. And why don’t you? Why don’t we ask really a deep fundamental question about ourselves? Why is it we never ask: I don’t seem to have loved. I know all the descriptions of love, I know when I say to my friend, or my girl, or my wife, ‘I love you’ – I know it is not quite, quite, quite. I know it is sex, sensory pleasure, desire, companionship. I know all that isn’t that bloom, that flowers, that has beauty, that has greatness. But we want to know about enlightenment. Why, if I may ask? Is it we are frightened to be, to uncover ourselves? Not to me! I am not your father confessor, or group therapist, I have a horror of all those things! If you ask yourself that question: Why is it that I don’t ask the most deep, fundamental question about myself? Is it that we are frightened? Is it that we cannot bear to see what we are? The shoddiness, the ugliness, the pettiness, the vulgarity, the commonness, the mediocrity of it all, is that what we are frightened about? And, if we discover what actually we are, we say, please help me, tell me what to do. The father figure comes into being then.
55:47 So apparently, we never face ourselves. We avoid it at any cost. And that is why we become so irrational. And that is why we are exploited by all these people. It is really a tragedy: grownup people – at least we think we are grownup – playing with all this and not coming to the root of things, which is ourselves. We have to be forced, urged, compelled, pressurised, to face ourselves by somebody. And so we never, never, under any circumstances, avoid this thing. That is why there is no change in us.
57:19 Since this question has been put I must answer it: People talk of experience beyond the senses. There seems to be a fascination in such experiences, but the lives of those who claim to have had them seem as mediocre as before. What are these experiences? Are these experiences part of enlightenment, a step towards it?
57:58 Can you bear me going on? You won’t turn…
58:15 You know, life, the daily living of everyday, is a vast experience. Right? A tremendous experience: the joys, the pleasures, the anxieties, the burden of sorrow, the injustice round you, poverty, overpopulation, pollution, lack of energy, energy as petrol and in ourselves. This life is such a tremendously complex problem of experience – not problem, experience. And we are bored with it. We cannot face it. We don’t feel responsible for this. We separate ourselves from all this. And the separation is fallacious, unreal, irrational, because we are that, we have created that, each one of us. We are part of all that. And we don’t want to face it. So being bored, being exhausted by these trivialities of life, then we go and ask somebody, pay him, initiate, beads, new name, and hope to have new experience. And you will, because when you want something, you are going to get it, whether it is rational, irrational, sane or insane, it doesn’t matter.
1:00:45 So, first, there are... I will go into that presently. First, we must understand the nature of our living, the daily living, the daily irritation, the daily angers, the daily boredom, the loneliness, the despair of this world. Instead of facing that, understanding it, clearing all that, we want super-extrasensory experience beyond the senses when we haven’t understood the activity of the senses, the daily responses of the senses. And there are those people who will give you experiences; it is all trickery, gadgetry.
1:02:05 When one has really understood, lived, so that life – the everyday boredom, the loneliness, the ache of... something better – when that is all understood, not intellectually, not verbally, but cleansed, free of all that. That is to understand very clearly the sensory responses, how the sensory responses dominate, how they condition the mind. Right? And unaware of all that, unaware that one’s mind is conditioned, and from that conditioned state you are asking something more. And the man who promises you something more gives you according to his conditioning. He may say, ‘No, no. I am not conditioned. I am much more moral’. So what happens? If the decks are cleared – you understand that expression? – that is, when the foundation is laid, which is no conflict, you have understood desire, pleasure, fear, sorrow – you are sloughing it off, that is your daily burden – then you go beyond it, you will find: a mind that is asking for experiences is still in the state of being conditioned by the senses. And there is a mind that has no experience whatsoever.
1:04:43 5th Question: ‘Insight’ is a word now used to describe anything newly seen, or any change of perspective. This insight we all know. But the insight you speak of seems a very different one. What is the nature of the insight you speak about?
1:05:10 Please, this is an important question. It will affect your daily life if you have understood the insight. ‘Insight’ is a word now used to describe anything newly seen, or any change in perspective, in observation, in examining. This insight we all know. But the insight you speak of seems a very different one. What is the nature of the insight you talk about?
1:05:56 You understand the first part of the question, which is: They have experimented with monkeys, they hang up a banana bunch high up, and a monkey takes the stick, beats it, and the bananas drop, and you say he has insight. And there is the other monkey who brings the furniture together, on top of one another, and gets on top and reaches up and pulls it. That is also called insight. And also, they have experimented with rats – put a bait at the end of it, and he has to do all kinds of tricks, press this button that button, the other, to get at that. And that is also called insight. You understand? That is, through experiment, through trial, through constant ‘try this button, the other button’, it doesn’t work, if that doesn’t work, that button. Then pressing that button is recorded, which becomes knowledge – you understand? And pressing that button opens the door, the trap, and you get the cheese or whatever it is.
1:07:30 So this process of so-called insight is essentially based on knowledge. Right? I wonder if you understand this. This is what we are doing. You may not call it insight, but this is the actual process of our activity. Try this, if it doesn’t suit, you try that. Medically, physically, sexually and so-called spiritually, you are doing this all the time. That is, in trying, in experimenting and achieving, which becomes knowledge, and from that knowledge you act. Right? This is called, scientifically, insight. Right? Is that clear? Can I go on from there, if I may?
1:08:48 We are saying, insight is something entirely different. Which is, I will explain a little bit. When I try this and push that button and achieve a result, the brain has recorded: that button and the result. Then it becomes automatic. And the experimenter changes the button. The monkey or me presses that, but it doesn’t work, so he gets disturbed – this is what happens to you, please, watch it – disturbed, and you press this, that, by accident you press that, and the trap is opened, and you get your cheese. Right? So through experiment, through trial, you find a way of living which suits you, which is the cheese. And that is called insight. Now, if you watch it, that insight is the repetition of knowledge: acquiring knowledge, discarding knowledge, acquiring more knowledge, discarding – you follow? It is always based on knowledge, and knowledge is the past. I don’t know if you see that. There is no knowledge of the now or of the future, except under certain circumstances you may foresee the future, that is a different thing, we won’t go into that because that leads to somewhere else.
1:11:11 So this insight of which people are talking about is the outcome of knowledge, modifying itself all the time, which is recorded in the brain and therefore in the cells of the brain, which is, the rat, or the mouse or whatever they are experimenting with – the animal, or the monkey – remembers: that button is going to give me the cheese. If you change that button, I get disturbed. The monkey gets disturbed – we are monkeys, anyhow. The monkey gets disturbed, and that disturbance is the disturbance of the pattern of memory. And you change the button, and I accidentally press that, and I remember – this, not that button. So, if you constantly change the button, the monkey goes mad. And that is why we are going mad too. I don’t know if you realise all this. That is what we call uncertainty. This constant danger. As we said the other day, the scientists are saying that by 2000 the earth will be almost uninhabitable because of pollution, of what we are doing with the earth: the rivers polluted, the air polluted, overpopulation. You follow? So, the brain – please, listen to this – the brain is accustomed to one button. You understand what I mean by ‘button’? One pattern. But that pattern changes, it accepts it. It will not accept basic change. That means he doesn’t know where it is. Like the monkey, if you keep on changing the buttons, it gives up, because it won’t move. It is paralysed because it doesn’t know what to do. I don’t know if you are watching all this in your own self. Not knowing what to do, you rush off, asking somebody what to do, and you press the buttons.
1:14:34 Sirs, this is very serious, what we are talking about. It isn’t just casual, this is your life. And so this constant change which is happening in the world brings about this sense of paralytic inaction. I can’t do anything. I can go off into monasteries, all that, but that is too immature, childish when you are facing something tremendous. So we are saying: unless there is change – please, listen to it – in the brain cells themselves, the mere pressing buttons is the same pattern repeated. You get the point? Unless the brain, which is composed of a million, a trillion, or whatever cells... It’s hay fever. Unless there is a radical change there, it will be repeating the old pattern, modifying itself, uncertain, insecure, paralysing state of inaction, and being paralysed, go off to ask somebody else. You follow the whole movement? This is what we are doing.
1:16:30 So the question is: Can that brain, which is common to all of us, can those brain cells change? Not operated, not heat on the head, not given new drugs, not enter into new states of scientific investigation – astrophysics instead of something else, and so on. You have understood this? Really, in depth, not just up here.
1:17:10 Then the question arises: Is it possible for the brain cells themselves to undergo a change? Otherwise we will keep on repeating this, this pattern: certainty, uncertainty, certainty, uncertainty, and keep on repeating, it goes on. Right?
1:17:48 Now, is it possible for the brain cells to change? The speaker has discussed this point with several scientists, probably they will come out a little later. Which is: it can be changed. Don’t accept my word for it. I say it can be changed. This movement from certainty to uncertainty, certainty to uncertainty, is a pattern of time. You are following all this? Exercise, keep moving, sir, with me, with the speaker. This is a movement of time. And the brain is used to that. That is why all these questions about enlightenment, discipleship, and you know, all the rest of it, systems, and all that. It is accustomed to that. And we are saying, can that brain itself undergo radical change? And the speaker says, yes, it can. Which is – I’ll explain it to you, rational, not some illusory, fanciful, romantic, blah. Which is: can the brain, the mind, and so the nerves, the whole of that, observe? Observe itself. Which means no direction, no motive – you follow? When there is no motive, no direction, the movement has already changed. I don’t know if you follow all this. Have you followed this? My brain, your brain is accustomed to function with motives, certainty – my golly, I am uncertain – motive. So, when there is no motive in observation, you have changed the whole momentum of the past. Right? Is this clear? Don’t go to sleep, please. Exercise your minds. This is rational, what we are talking about. Therefore, when there is no motive, no direction, the mind becomes absolutely quiet – in your observation. And that observation is insight. And therefore, the brain cells which have been accustomed to a certain pattern have broken the pattern. I wonder if you understand this. Are you doing it with me?
1:21:33 Look, sir, let me put it that way, one way. We are brought up on ideals: the greater the ideal, the better, the nobler, all the rest of it. And the ideal is more important than ‘what is’. Right? So there is ‘what is’ and what the ideal is must breed conflict. I hope you are exercising your minds! Please, follow this. And that is the pattern in which we have lived. Almost all of us. This pattern which creates conflict, the ‘what is’ and ‘what should be’. Now, somebody, like this person, comes along and says, ‘Look what you are doing’. The ideal is the creation of thought, in order to overcome ‘what is’, or use the future as a lever to change ‘what is’. So this is fact and that is not fact. So you are using a non-fact to deal with fact. Therefore it has no result. Vous avez compris? Oh, for God’s sake, please, it is your life! You are trying to change ‘what is’, which is a fact, with non-fact, the ideal, therefore it can never change. You understand? This is so simple once you see it. So the discarding the ideal because it is valueless, and only the fact. That discarding the ideal has changed the pattern of the cells, because it has lived in that pattern, and it has now broken. And one has lived in the hope – I will gradually change. And when you see the gradualness means the same thing repeated, modified, repeated, modified, repeated. Right? And therefore never basic change. So when you see that, the whole structure of the brain has changed. That is insight. Not the repetition or the action of knowledge. Sir, this requires your – you know, putting your blood into this!
1:25:18 I think we better stop. It’s seven minutes to twelve. We’ll meet tomorrow.