MEDITATION TIMES MAY 2010 by TAOSHOBUDDHA MEDITATIONS

A DOWNLOADABLE E-MAGAZINE Vol III * May 2010 * Issue V Meditation leads to Ultimate Flowering

Introducing various Masters & Dimensions of Spiritual Sojourn

THE WAY OF INTELLIGENCE

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A PRODUCTION OF www.taoshobuddhameditations.com Published by: www.taoshobuddhameditations.com Country of Origin: Trinidad & Tobago, West Indies. Chief Editor/Graphics Layout & Design: Swami Anand Neelambar Editorial Team: Swami Anand Neelambar, Taoshobuddha International Contributors: Hadhrat Maulawi Jalaluddin Ahmad Ar-Rowi, Lars Jensen Assistant Contributors: Ma Prem Sutra, Swami Dhyan Yatri, Sufi Lakshmi Sahai

In This Issue  Editorial  Krishnamurti  Cleansing the Mind  Death has little meaning

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 Fear is part of pain  Freedom

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 Right Living  Reincarnation  Arhat and Bodhisattwa  The Discipline of Transcendence

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 Buddha Vision – Swami Anand Neelambar

Third Anniversary Issue

MEDITATION TIMES Published by Taoshobuddha Meditations Trinidad, West indies

EDITORIAL In this out third anniversary issue we focus on Jiddu Krishnamurti. Krishnamurti is one on the Buddhas of this century, and like all Buddhas he is most misunderstood. And especially by his critics who are not enlightened. Only an enlightened can see into another enlightened master and say from what plane he is operating at. Krishnamurti was too advances for his disciples. Those who gathered around him could not fathom his depth and profound teachings. It takes great preparation to reach the dimension of Krishnamurti. Those of a future time will be able to grasp the precocious insights of Jiddu Krishnamurti. It was no accident that Krishnamurti was a contemporary of Osho. Both master were from another realm and could not be understood by the disciples around them. However in the case with Osh he sought to make every effort to make his vision available to the disciples. Osho came down to the level of the disciples. Jiddu tried in vain to elevate his disciples. The realm he came from was just too infinite to be brought down to normal consciousness. It was the tragedy that Jiddu could not reach his disciples. But he did prepare them to see beyond this realm and to seek the vistas into a new dimension of consciousness. Such a dimension was envisioned by Osho and Osho made every vista into the herenow available. And this could not have been possible were it not for the preparation by Jiddu Krishnamurti. Ramakrishna was also very insignificant as a precursor to Osho. It was Ramakrishna who first sought to seek God in all available paths at the time. The paths are many but the goal is one.

Jiddu insisted that there is no path. And he is right at the ultimate level. At some point all paths must be dropped to go beyond. But one cannot just begin at no path. It is difficult and man cannot go into the dark night with no staff to help him grope. The master is the staff. The master has been through the dark night and he can guide the disciple up the point where the disciples has to muster all his courage to take the plunge into the dimension beyond the known. It is from this dimension where Jiddu speaks. And Jiddu was one of the rare and few masters who spoke of the herenow as the ultimate state of being. When one is in the herenow one is in the totality of existence. One is interconnected to all and one is all. One becomes all and all becomes one. In our third anniversary issue we choose to highlight in much detail Jiddu Krishnamurti as he stands apart from all other masters. And as I mentioned earlier Jiddu shall only be understood in a future time when mankind has evolved to a level beyond knowledge. With our limited concepts of time and space we cannot fathom the herenow. The jump to the superman is possible when we go beyond the limits of time and enter the timeless state of awareness known as Samadhi. It is this dimension that is the home of Jiddu Krishnmaurti.

One of the most enlightened persons who have ever walked on this earth. Krishnamurti spoke not as a guru but as a friend, and his talks and discussions are based not on tradition-based knowledge but on his own insights into the human mind and his vision of the sacred, so he always communicates a sense of freshness and directness although the essence of his message remained unchanged over the years. When he addressed large audiences, people felt that Krishnamurti was talking to each of them personally, addressing his or her particular problem.

Introduction [May 11, 1895 - 17 February 1986] I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or coerce people along a particular path. After disbanding the Order and drifting away from the Theosophical Society and its belief system, he

spent the rest of his life holding dialogues and giving public talks on his observations on the nature of truth, sorrow and freedom. Krishnamurti did not accept followers, because he saw the relationship between a guru and a disciple as essentially exploitative. He asked people to explore together with him and â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;walk as two friendsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;. He accepted gifts and support given to him and continued with lecture tours and the publication of books for more than half a century.

rishnamurti is regarded globally as one of the greatest thinkers and religious teachers of all time. He did not expound any philosophy or

religion, but rather talked of the things that concern all of us in our everyday lives, of the problems of living in modern society with its violence and corruption, of the individual’s search for security and happiness, and the need for mankind to free itself from inner burdens of fear, anger, hurt, and sorrow. He explained with great precision the subtle workings of the human mind, and pointed to the need for bringing to our daily life a deeply meditative and spiritual quality.

talk in India a month before his death, in 1986, in Ojai, California. He passed away on

Mary Lutyens is the official biographer of Krishna and she has given authentic and unprejudiced accounts of the life, teachings and events surrounding the life of Krishna. Mary Lutyens wrote a book about Krishnamurti’s early life in India, England, and finally in Ojai, California, entitled ‘Krishnamurti: The Years of Awakening’. She was a close associate of his from the Order of the Star, and knew him from the early days until the end of his life. This book contains many insights into this period of his life, about which he rarely spoke. Furthermore Lutyens wrote three additional volumes of biography: ‘The Years of Fulfillment (1983)’, ‘The Open Door (1988)’, and ‘Krishnamurti and the Rajagopals (1996)’. Additionally, she published and abridgement of the first three volumes, ‘The Life and Death of Krishnamurti (1991)’. Other published biographies of Krishnamurti include: ‘Krishnamurti, A Biography (1986)’, by associate Pupul Jayakar and ‘Star in the East: Krishnamurti’, ‘The Invention of a Messiah (2002)’, by Roland Vernon.

Jiddu Krishnamurti was born on May 11, 1895 in Madanapalle, Andhra Pradesh, India. However as a teenage he was discovered, in 1909, by C.W. Leadbeater on the private beach at the Theosophical headquarters at Adyar in Chennai, India. Leadbeater recognized the uniqueness and the potential on the teenage boy. He was subsequently raised under the sponsored guidance of Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater was part of the world-wide organization of the Theosophical Society. Krishnamurti was believed to be a vehicle for a prophesied World Teacher. Jiddu along with his brother Nityanand, and another German had to undergo rigorous training. This had created aversion in Jiddu about the whole project. As a young man, when he was to declare himself as the ‘World Teacher’ he disavowed this destiny and also dissolved the Order established to support it. Thereafter he spent the rest of his life travelling the world as an individual speaker and educator on the workings of the human mind. At age of 90 he addressed the United Nations on the subject of peace and awareness, and was awarded the 1984 UN Peace Medal. He gave his last

His supporters, working through charitable trusts, founded several independent schools across the world—in India, England and the United States— and transcribed many of his thousands of talks, publishing them as educational philosophical books.

Mary Lutyens – the Biographer

Birth Jiddu Krishnamurti came from a family of Teluguspeaking Brahmins. His father, Jiddu Narianiah, graduated from Madras University and then became an official in the Revenue Department of the British administration, rising by the end of his career to the position of rent collector and District Magistrate. His parents were second cousins, having a total of eleven children, only six of whom survived childhood. They were strict vegetarians, even shunning eggs, and throwing away any food that the ‘shadow of an Englishman crossed’. (Lutyens, Awakening, p 1) He was born in a small town about 150 miles (250 km) north of Madras, India. His birth date has been

also stated as May 12, however Mary Lutyens, points out, that the Brahmin day is calculated from dawn and he was born at 12:30 AM, so therefore on May 11. It is only the Western world who would state this was May 12. ‘As an eighth child, who happened to be a boy, he was, in accordance with Hindu orthodoxy, called after Sri Krishna who had himself been an eighth child.’

Youth In 1903, the family moved to Cudappah and Krishna contracted malaria, a disease with which he would suffer recurrent bouts over many years. In 1904, his eldest sister died, aged twenty. In his memoirs, he describes his mother as ‘to a certain extent psychic’ and how she would frequently see and converse with her dead daughter. Krishna also states that he saw his dead sister on some occasions. In Dec 1905, his mother, Jiddu Sanjeevamma, died at Cudappah, when Krishnamurti was ten years old. Krishna says: ‘I may mention that I saw her [my mother] after she died’ (Lutyens, p 5) ‘Narianiah, though an orthodox Brahmin, had been a member of the Theosophical Society since 1881 (Theosophy embraces all religions).’ (Lutyens, p7). This was while Helena Blavatsky was still its alive and living in India. Narianiah had retired at the end of 1907 and wrote to Annie Besant to recommend himself as a caretaker for the 260-acre Theosophical estate at Adyar. He had four boys and Annie thought they would be a disturbing influence and so turned him down. He continued his requests and finally was accepted as an assistant to the Recording Secretary of the Esoteric Section. His family which included, he, his four sons, and a nephew moved there on Jan 23, 1909. It was a few months after this last move that Krishna was discovered by C.W. Leadbeater, who believed him to be the awaited vessel.

Leadbeater’s Influence This discovery created a bit of a problem, as there was already a conflicting claim made for Hubert van Hook (b 1896), son of Dr Weller van Hook, a surgeon in Chicago, and the General Secretary of the Theosophical Society in the United States. Hubert was also chosen by Leadbeater and after she left her husband, his mother brought him to India for

special training. After Krishna was found, Hubert was soon dropped. (Lutyens, p 12) Leadbeater had a history of being in the company of young boys, and gossip about that was vehemently denied by Annie Besant. The gossip erupted into a scandal in 1906 and led to Leadbeater’s resignation from the Theosophical Society; however at the end of 1908 he was re-instated on a vote. (Lutyens, p 15) Hubert and Mrs Van Hook, his mother, also arrived at Adyar and stayed there for some time.

Separation from father Krishna, or Krishnaji, as he was often known, and his younger brother Nitya were educated at the Theosophical compound and later taken to England to finish their education. His father at first grateful of the opportunities they got this way but also pushed into the background by the swirl of interest around Krishna, ended up in a lawsuit against the Society to try to protect his parental interests. As a result of this separation from his family and home, Krishnamurti and his brother Nitya became extremely close and in the following years they often travelled together.

A philosophical awakening Lutyens states that there came a time when Krishnamurti fully believed that he was to become the World Teacher. The death of his brother Nitya on November 11, 1925 at age 27 from tuberculosis, however, shook his fundamental belief in the masters, the leaders of the Theosophical Society and the whole idea of the world teacher (Lord Maitreya) project. He had prayed for his brother’s life to be spared and it was not. The experience of his brother’s death shattered his remaining illusions.

From The Song of Life (1931) My brother died. We were as two stars in a naked sky. He was like me, Burnt by the warm sun... He died; I wept in loneliness. Wherever I went, I heard his voice and his happy laughter. I looked for his face in every passerby and asked each if he had not met with my brother; but none could give me

comfort. I worshipped, I prayed, but the gods were silent. I could weep no more; I could dream no more. I sought him in all things, in every clime. I heard the whispering of many trees calling me to his abode. And then, in my search, I beheld Thee, O Lord of my heart; In Thee alone I saw the face of my brother. In Thee alone, O my eternal Love, Do I behold the faces of all the living and all the dead?

I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or coerce people along a particular path.

[Krishnamurti’s early teachings]

After disbanding the Order and drifting away from the Theosophical Society and its belief system, he spent the rest of his life holding dialogues and giving public talks on his observations on the nature of truth, sorrow and freedom. Krishnamurti did not accept followers, because he saw the relationship between a guru and a disciple as essentially exploitative. He asked people to explore together with him and ‘walk as two friends’. He accepted gifts and support given to him (his main residence being on donated land in Ojai, California) and continued with lecture tours and the publication of books for more than half a century.

From 1925 onward things were to never be the same again. ...An old dream is dead and a new one is being born, as a flower that pushes through the solid earth. A new vision is coming into being and a greater consciousness is being unfolded. ...A new strength, born of suffering, is pulsating in the veins and a new sympathy and understanding is being born of past suffering – a greater desire to see others suffer less, and, if they must suffer, to see that they bear it nobly and come out of it without too many scars. I have wept, but I do not want others to weep; but if they do, I know what it means. (The Herald of the Star, January 1926) In 1925, he was expected by Theosophists to enter Sydney, Australia walking on water, but this did not eventuate and he visited Australia the following year by ship. This new vision and consciousness reached a climax in 1929, when Krishnamurti rebuffed attempts by Leadbeater and Besant to continue with The Order of the Star, the section of the Theosophical Society devoted to the coming of the World Teacher. Krishnamurti subsequently disbanded the Order, whose head he was. On the opening day of the annual Star Camp at Ommen, Holland, August 2, 1929, in front of several thousand members, he gave a speech disbanding the Order, saying: You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, ‘What did that man pick up?’ ‘He picked up a piece of the truth,’ said the devil. ‘That is a very bad business for you, then,’ said his friend. ‘Oh, not at all,’ the devil replied, ‘I am going to help him organize it.’

Later years and ‘farewell talks’ In his later years, J. Krishnamurti spoke at the United Nations in New York, on the 11th April 1985, where he was awarded the United Nations 1984 Peace medal. In November of 1985, he revisited the places he had grown up in India, holding a last set of farewell talks between then and January 1986. These last talks were on fundamental principles of belief and lessons. Krishnamurti commented that he did not wish to invite Death, but was not sure how long his body would last, he had already lost some 6 kg (13 lb) and once he could no longer talk or teach, he would have no further purpose. He said a formal farewell to all four points of the compass, the socalled ‘elephant's turn’, on the Adyar shore where he had long ago come to the attention of others. His final talk, on January 4, 1986, invited his coparticipants to examine with him the nature of inquiry, the nature of life, and the nature of creation. It ended: ‘So we are inquiring what makes a bird. What is creation behind all this? Are you waiting for me to describe it, to go into it? ... Why? Why do you ask [what creation is]? Because, I asked? No description can ever describe the origin. The origin is nameless;

the origin is absolutely quiet, it's not whirring about making noise. Creation is something that is most holy, that is the most sacred thing in life, and if you have made a mess of your life, change it. Change it today, not tomorrow. If you are uncertain, find out why and be certain. If your thinking is not straight, think straight, logically. Unless all that is prepared, all that is settled, you cannot enter into this world, into the world of creation.’ ‘It ends.’ (these two words are hardly audible, breathed rather than spoken) ‘This is the last talk. Do you want to sit together quietly for a while? All right, sirs, let us sit quietly for a while.’ J. Krishnamurti passed away two and a half months later at the age of 90 from pancreatic cancer. His remains were cremated and scattered by friends and former associates in the three countries where he had spent most of his life, India, England and United States of America.

Influence Throughout his long life, Krishnamurti exerted a great influence at the confluence of educated philosophical and spiritual thought. Because of his ideas and his era, Krishnamurti has come to be seen as an exemplar for modern spiritual teachers particularly those who disavow formal rituals and dogma. His conception of truth as a pathless land, with the possibility of immediate self-realization, is mirrored in New Age teachings as diverse as those of Bruce Lee, and even the Dalai Lama. Krishnamurti was close friends with Aldus Huxley. Huxley wrote the foreword to ‘The First and Last Freedom’. Krishnamurti was also friends with, and influenced the works of, the mythologist Joseph Campbell and the artist Beatrice Wood.

Criticism of Krishnamurti Krishnamurti has been criticized, sometimes as to whether he practiced what he preached. A number of people who knew him through the years pointed out that Krishnamurti’s life expresses something of the Indian Brahmin lifestyle, for he was supported, even pampered, through the years by devoted followers and servants. The questions then arise as

to whether his attitudes were conditioned by indulgence and privilege. In her 1991 book, ‘Lives in the Shadow with J. Krishnamurti’, Radha Rajagopal Sloss, the daughter of Krishnamurti’s associates, Rosalind and Desikacharya Rajagopal, wrote of Krishnamurti’s relationship with her parents including the secret affair between Krishnamurti and Rosalind which lasted for many years. The public revelation was received with surprise and consternation by many individuals in the Krishnamurti community, and was also dealt with in a rebuttal volume of biography by Mary Lutyens (‘Krishnamurti and the Rajagopals’, 1996). Sloss’s allegations were centered around the notion that the secret liaison indicated that Krishnamurti had lead a deceptive double life in that he was believed to be celibate by his public following. A later biographical volume by Roland Vernon (‘Star in the East: Krishnamurti, the Invention of a Messiah’), questions the ultimate impact of the revelations when compared to Krishnamurti’s body of work as a whole. The allegations of Radha Rajagopal Sloss against Krishnamurti have to be understood at a deeper realm. We go on judging individuals on the basis of their actions. Actions are like leaves on the tree of consciousness. Just as when autumn comes the existing leaves turn gold before falling. Autumn is followed by spring when new foliage grows. This is the way the tree continues to grow. So too as the individual continues the inward journey and you delve deeper layers of the being unconsciousness surfaces as actions that are not needed any more. Such actions must dissolve in that inward journey continues. The moments of unconsciousness can only dissolve as actions. Human life comes into existence as the outcome of understandings of the past. These are known as actions. As one interacts along life many accounts open. For inward journey these accounts have to close. When an enlightened one enters into any relation he is totally aware of his actions. He is aware that these actions have to dissolve. Therefore he has to enter into such actions. But then problem comes because of outer religion, and its understanding. The organized religions that constitute the society has nothing to do with truth. Each religion determines its own tenets by distorting truth. The emphasis is

shifted from truth to morality. All such actions are considered immoral. All outer religions are the religions of morality instead of truth. One cannot deny the fact master has body as well. He has journeyed through other realms of consciousness therefore his consciousness in not at the level of the body – mind realm. But he still has body. The needs of the body have to be fulfilled but not the way of the ordinary one. This is why it is said master looks like you. He walks and talks like you yet still there is a vast difference between you and him. He lives in body but the body consciousness does not dwell in him. This is the reason we cannot understand the actions of an enlightened one from our level of consciousness. Alike other masters Krishnamurti was therefore subjected to such controversies. Krishnamurti’s once close relationship to the Rajagopals deteriorated to the point that Krishnamurti in his later years, took Rajagopal (head of Krishnamurti Writings, Inc.) to court in order to recover certain rights, manuscripts and personal correspondence being withheld by Rajagopal. The resulting litigation and cross complaints continued for many years, and were not resolved until after the death of Krishnamurti in 1986. Krishnamurti’s biographer Mary Lutyens placed the preponderance of responsibility for the acrimony of the lawsuits and resulting damage to Krishnamurti’s reputation on the personal animosity of the Rajagopals resulting from their loss of influence in Krishnamurti’s life. In spite of all allegations Krishnamurti is regarded globally as one of the greatest thinkers and religious teachers of all time. He did not expound any philosophy or religion, but rather talked of the things that concern all of us in our everyday lives, of the problems of living in modern society with its violence and corruption, of the individual's search for security and happiness, and the need for mankind to free itself from inner burdens of fear, anger, hurt, and sorrow. He explained with great precision the subtle workings of the human mind, and pointed to the need for bringing to our daily life a deeply meditative and spiritual quality.

Krishnamurti belonged to no religious organization, sect or country, nor did he subscribe to any school of political or ideological thought. On the contrary, he maintained that these are the very factors that divide human beings and bring about conflict and war. He reminded his listeners again and again that we are all human beings first and not Hindus, Muslims or Christians, that we are like the rest of humanity and are not different from one another. He asked that we tread lightly on this earth without destroying ourselves or the environment. He communicated to his listeners a deep sense of respect for nature. His teachings transcend man-made belief systems, nationalistic sentiment and sectarianism. At the same time, they give new meaning and direction to mankind’s search for truth. His teaching, besides being relevant to the modern age, is timeless and universal. Krishnamurti spoke not as a guru but as a friend, and his talks and discussions are based not on tradition-based knowledge but on his own insights into the human mind and his vision of the sacred, so he always communicates a sense of freshness and directness although the essence of his message remained unchanged over the years. When he addressed large audiences, people felt that Krishnamurti was talking to each of them personally, addressing his or her particular problem. In his private interviews, he was a compassionate teacher, listening attentively to the man or woman who came to him in sorrow, and encouraging them to heal themselves through their own understanding. Religious scholars found that his words threw new light on traditional concepts. Krishnamurti took on the challenge of modern scientists and psychologists and went with them step by step, discussed their theories and sometimes enabled them to discern the limitations of those theories. Krishnamurti left a large body of literature in the form of public talks, writings, discussions with teachers and students, with scientists and religious figures, conversations with individuals, television and radio interviews, and letters. Many of these have been published as books, and audio and video recordings.

K: What is the root of conflict? Not only outwardly, but also this tremendous inward conflict of humanity? What is the root of it? DB: Well, it seems that it is contradictory desires. K: No. Is it that in all religions, you must become something? You must reach something? DB: Then what made people want to do that? Why weren’t they satisfied to be whatever they were? You see, the religion would not have caught on unless people felt that there was some attraction in becoming something more.

rishnamurti had conversation with Professor David Bohm on certain topics. These form the integral part of ‘The Ending of Time’. This particular conversation on ‘the roots of psychological conflict’ took place on April 1, 1980. David Joseph Bohm (20 December 1917 – 27 October 1992) was a American-born British quantum physicist who made contributions in the fields of theoretical physics, philosophy and neuropsychology, and to the Manhattan Project. KRISHNAMURTI: How shall we start? I would like to ask if humanity has taken a wrong turn. DAVID BOHM: A wrong turn? Well it must have done so, a long time ago, I think. K: That is what I feel. A long time ago... It appears that way - why? You see, as I look at it, mankind has always tried to become something. DB: Well possibly. I was struck by something I once read about man going wrong about five or six thousand years ago, when he began to be able to plunder and take slaves. After that, his main purpose of existence was just to exploit and plunder. K: Yes, but there is the sense of inward becoming.

DB: Well, we should make it clear how this is connected. What kind of becoming was involved in doing that? Instead of being constructive and discovering new techniques and tools and so on, man at a certain time found it easier to plunder his neighbors. Now what did they want to become? K: Conflict has been the root of all this. DB: What was the conflict? If we could put ourselves in the place of those people of long ago, how would you see that conflict? K: What is the root of conflict? Not only outwardly, but also this tremendous inward conflict of humanity? What is the root of it? DB: Well, it seems that it is contradictory desires. K: No. Is it that in all religions, you must become something? You must reach something? DB: Then what made people want to do that? Why weren’t they satisfied to be whatever they were? You see, the religion would not have caught on unless people felt that there was some attraction in becoming something more. K: Isn’t it avoidance, not being able to face the fact, and therefore moving to something else - to more and more and more?

DB: What would you say was the fact that people couldn’t stay with?

K: It causes a certain amount - but we are discussing the idea of time,inwardly.

K: The Christians have said, Original Sin.

DB: So we have to see why time is so destructive inwardly.

DB: But the wrong turn happened long before that. K: Because I am trying to become something. K: Yes, long before that. Long before that, the Hindus had this idea of Karma. What is the origin of all this? DB: We have said that there was the fact that people couldn’t stay with. Whatever it was, they wanted to imagine something better. K: Yes, something better. Becoming! DB: And you could say that they began to make things technologically better, then they extended this, and said, `I too must become better.'

DB: Yes, but most people would say that this is only natural. You have to explain what it is that is wrong about becoming. K: Obviously, there is conflict, in that when I am trying to become something, it is a constant battle. DB: Yes. Can we go into that: why is it a constant battle? It is not a battle if I try to improve my position outwardly.

K: Yes, inwardly become better.

K: Outwardly, no. It is more or less all right outwardly, but when that same principle is applied inwardly it brings about a contradiction.

DB: All of us together must become better.

DB: And the contradiction is.?

K: That’s right. What is the root of all this?

K: Between ‘what is’ and ‘becoming what should be’.

DB: Well, I should think it is natural in thought to project this goal of becoming better. That is, it is intrinsic in the structure of thought.

DB: The difficulty is why is it a contradiction inwardly and not outwardly?

K: Is it that the principle of becoming better outwardly has moved to becoming better inwardly?

K: Inwardly it builds up a centre, doesn’t it, an egotistic centre?

DB: If it is good to become better outwardly, then why shouldn't I become better inwardly?

DB: Yes, but can we find some reason why it should do so? Does it build up when we do it outwardly? It seems it need not.

K: Is that the cause of the conflict?

K: It need not.

DB: That is getting towards it. It's coming nearer. K: Is it coming nearer? Is time the factor? Time - as ‘I need knowledge in order to do this or that’? The same principle applied inwardly? Is time the factor?

DB: But when we are doing it inwardly, then we are trying to force ourselves to be something that we are not. K: Yes. That is a fact. Is it that one's brain is so accustomed to conflict that one rejects any other form of living?

DB: I can’t see that time by itself can be the only factor.

DB: But why have people come to the conclusion that conflict is inevitable and necessary?

K: No, no. Time. Becoming - which implies time. K: What is the origin of conflict? DB: Yes, but we don’t see how time is going to cause trouble. We have to say that time applied outwardly doesn't cause any difficulty.

DB: I think we touched on that by saying that we are trying to force ourselves. When we are a certain

thing that we want to be, we also want to be something else, which is different; and therefore we want two different things at the same time. Would that seem right? K: I understand that. But I am trying to find out the origin of all this misery, confusion, conflict, and struggle - what is the beginning of it? That’s why I asked at the beginning: has mankind taken a wrong turn? Is the origin, ‘I am not I’? DB: I think that is getting closer. K: Yes, that’s it. And the ‘I’ - why has mankind created this ‘I’, which must, inevitably, cause conflict? ‘I’ and ‘you’, and ‘I’ better than ‘you’, and so on, and so on. DB: I think it was a mistake made a long time ago, or, as you call it, a wrong turn, that having introduced separation between various things outwardly, we then kept on doing it - not out of ill will but simply through not knowing better.

K: And therefore the brain has gradually narrowed down to ‘me’, to the ‘I’. DB: I don’t quite follow that. I understand that that is what happened, but I don’t quite see all the steps. You say energy was enormous and the brain couldn’t handle it, or decided that it couldn’t handle it? K: It couldn’t handle it. DB: But if it can’t handle it, it seems as if there is no way out. K: No, just a minute. Go slowly. I just want to enquire, push into it a little bit. Why has the brain, with all thought, created this sense of ‘me’, ‘I’? Why? DB: We needed a certain sense of identity to function. K: Yes, to function. DB: To know where we belong.

K: Quite.

K: Is that the origin of all this conflict?

K: Yes. And is that the movement which has brought the ‘me’? The movement of the outer? I had to identify, with the family, the house, the trade or profession. All this gradually became the ‘me’?

DB: I am not sure that it is the origin. What do you feel?

DB: I think that this energy that you are talking about also entered into it.

K: I am inclined to observe that the origin is the ego, the `me', the`I'.

K: Yes, but I want to lead up to that slowly.

DB: Not seeing what we were doing.

DB: Yes. K: If there is no ego, there is no problem, there is no conflict, there is no time - time in the sense of becoming or not becoming; being or not being. DB: But it might be that we would still slip into whatever it was that made us make the ego in the first place. K: Wait a minute. Is it that energy - being so vast, limitless - has been condensed or narrowed down in the mind, and the brain itself has become narrowed because it couldn't contain all this enormous energy? You are following what I am saying? DB: Yes.

DB: You see, what you say is right, that in some way this sense of the ‘me’ gradually strengthened, but by itself that wouldn’t explain the tremendous strength that the ego has. It would only be a habit then. The ego becoming completely dominant required that it should become the focus of the greatest energy; of all the energy. K: Is that it? That the brain cannot hold this vast energy? DB: Let’s say that the brain is trying to control this - to bring it to order. K: Energy has no order. DB: But if the brain feels it can’t control something that is going on inside, it will try to establish order.

K: Could we say that the brain, your brain, his brain, her brain, has not just been born; it is very, very old?

DB: Yes, I understand. Certainly if we didn't do that, the whole structure would collapse. K: That’s it.

DB: In what sense? K: In the sense that it has evolved. DB: Evolved, yes, from the animal. And the animal has evolved. So let’s say that in a sense this whole evolution is somehow contained in the brain. K: I want to question evolution. I understand, say, evolution from the bullock cart to the jet.

DB: But I don’t know whether there is not some other cause. K: Just a minute. I want to go into that a little bit. I am not talking theoretically, personally. But to me the idea of tomorrow doesn’t exist psychologically that is, time as a movement, either inwardly or outwardly. DB: You mean psychological time?

DB: Yes. But before you question, we have to consider the evidence of man developing through a series of stages. You can’t question that, can you? K: No, of course not. DB: I mean, physically it is clear that evolution has occurred in some way. K: Physically, yes. DB: And the brain has got larger, more complex. But you may question whether mentally evolution has any meaning. K: You see, I want to abolish time, psychologically. You understand? DB: Yes, I understand. K: To me that is the enemy. And is that the cause, the origin of man's misery? DB: This use of time, certainly. Man had to use time for a certain purpose, but he misused it. K: I understand that. If I have to learn a language, I must have time. B: But the misuse of time by extending it inwardly... K: Inwardly: that is what I am talking about. Is that the cause of man’s confusion - introducing time as a means of becoming, and becoming more and more perfect, more and more evolved, more and more loving? You follow what I mean?

K: Yes, psychological time, and time outwardly. Now if psychological time doesn't exist, then there is no conflict, there is no ‘me’, no ‘I’, which is the origin of conflict. Outwardly, technologically man has moved, evolved. DB: And also in the inward physical structure. K: The structure, everything. But psychologically we have also moved outward. DB: Yes, we have focused our life on the outward. Is that what you are saying? K: Yes. We have extended our capacities outwardly. And inwardly it is the same movement as outwardly. Now if there is no inward movement as time, moving, becoming more and more, then what takes place? You understand what I am trying to convey? Time ends. You see, the outer movement is the same as the inward movement. DB: Yes. It is going around and around. K: Involving time. If the movement ceases, then what takes place? I wonder if I am conveying anything. Could we put it this way? We have never touched any other movement than the outer movement. DB: Generally, anyway. We put most of our energy into the outer movements. K: And psychological movement is also outward. DB: Well, it is the reflection of that outward movement.

K: We think it is inward but it is actually outward, right?

DB: Yes. So if we say the brain has no fixed direction, then what is it doing? Is it moving in all directions?

DB: Yes. K: Now if that movement ends, as it must, then is there a really inward movement - a movement not in terms of time?

K: I am a little bit hesitant to talk about this. Could one say when one really comes to that state, that it is the source of all energy? DB: Yes, as one goes deeper and more inward.

DB: You are asking, is there another kind of movement which still moves, but not in terms of time?

K: This is the real inwardness; not the outward movement becoming the inner movement, but no outer or inner movement...

K: That’s right. DB: We have to go into that. Could you go further?

DB: Yes, we can deny both the outward and the inner, so that all movement would seem to stop.

K: You see, that word movement means time.

K: Would that be the source of all energy?

DB: Well, it really means to change from one place to another. But anyway there is still the notion of something which is not static. By denying time you don't want to return to something static, which is still time.

DB: Yes, perhaps we could say that.

K: Let’s say, for instance, that one’s brain has been trained, accustomed, for centuries to go North. And it suddenly realizes that going North means everlasting conflict. As it realizes that, the brain itself changes - the quality of the brain changes.

K: First about meditation. All conscious meditation is no meditation - right?

DB: All right. I can see it will wake up in some way to a different movement. K: Yes, different. DB: Is the word flow any better? K: I have been going North all my life, and there is a sudden stoppage from going North. But the brain is not going East or South or West. Then conflict ceases - right? Because it is not moving in any direction. DB: So that is the key point - the direction of movement. When the movement is fixed in direction, inwardly, it will come to conflict. But outwardly we need a fixed direction. K: Of course we do. That’s understood.

K: May I talk about myself a little bit? DB: Yes.

DB: What do you mean by conscious meditation? K: Deliberate, practiced meditation, which is really premeditated meditation. Is there a meditation which is not premeditated - which is not the ego trying to become something - or being able to negate? DB: Before we go ahead, could we suggest what meditation should be. Is it an observation of the mind observing? K: No. It has gone beyond all that. I am using the word meditation in the sense in which there is not a particle of any sense of trying consciously to become, to reach a level. DB: The mind is simply with itself, silent. K: That is what I want to get at. DB: Not looking for anything.

K: You see, I don’t meditate in the normal sense of the word. What happens is that I wake up meditating. DB: In that state? K: One night in India I woke up; it was a quarter past twelve, I looked at the watch. And - I hesitate to say this because it sounds extravagant - the source of all energy had been reached. And that had an extraordinary effect on the brain. And also physically. I’m sorry to talk about myself but, you understand, literally, there was no division at all; no sense of the world, of `me'. You follow? Only this sense of a tremendous source of energy. DB: So the brain was in contact with this source of energy? K: Yes, and as I have been talking for sixty years, I would like others to reach this - no, not reach it. You understand what I am saying? All our problems are solved. Because it is pure energy from the very beginning of time. Now how am I - not ‘I’, you understand - how is one not to teach, not to help, or push - but how is one to say, ‘This way leads to a complete sense of peace, of love’? I am sorry to use all these words. But suppose you have come to that point and your brain itself is throbbing with it - how would you help another? You understand? Help not words. How would you help another to come to that? You understand what I am trying to say?

DB: Well, it is hard to know beforehand if everything is going to be correct. K: Let’s go back to what we began with. That is, has mankind taken a wrong turn, psychologically, not physically? Can that turn be completely reversed? Or stopped? My brain is so accustomed to this evolutionary idea that I will become something, I will gain something, that I must have more knowledge and so on; can that brain suddenly realize that there is no such thing as time? You understand what I am trying to say? DB: Yes. K: I was listening the other day to a discussion on television about Darwin, his knowledge and what he achieved - his whole theory of evolution. It seems to me that this is totally untrue psychologically. DB: It seems that he has given evidence that all species have changed in time. Why is that untrue? K: Of course. It is obvious. DB: It is true in one respect, although I think it would be untrue to say the mind evolved in time. K: Of course. DB: But physically it seems clear there has been a process of evolution, and that this has increased the capacity of the brain to do certain things. For example, we couldn’t be discussing this if the brain had not grown larger.

DB: Yes. K: Of course. K: My brain - but not mine - has evolved. Evolution implies time, and it can only think, live in time. Now for the brain to deny time is a tremendous activity, for any problem that arises, any question is immediately solved. DB: Is this situation sustained or is it only for a period?

DB: But I think you are implying that the mind is not originating in the brain. Is that so? The brain is perhaps an instrument of the mind? K: And the mind is not time. Just see what that means. DB: The mind does not evolve with the brain.

K: It is sustained, obviously; otherwise there is no point in it. It is not sporadic or intermittent. Now how are you to open the door, how are you to help another to say, ‘Look, we have been going in the wrong direction, there is only non-movement; and, if movement stops, everything will be correct’?

K: The mind not being of time, and the brain being of time - is that the origin of conflict? DB: Well, we have to see why that produces conflict. It is not clear to say that the brain is of time, but rather that it has developed in such a way that time is in it.

K: Yes, that is what I meant. DB: But not necessarily so.

K: Yes. That is, can the brain, dominated by time, not be subservient to it?

K: It has evolved.

DB: That’s right. In that moment it comes out of time. I think I can see this - it is dominated only when you give it time. Thought which takes time is dominated, but anything fast enough is not dominated.

DB: It has evolved, so it has time within it. K: Yes, it has evolved, time is part of it. DB: It has become part of its very structure. K: Yes. DB: However, the mind operates without time, although the brain is not able to do so. K: That means that God is in man, and God can only operate if the brain is quiet, if the brain is not caught in time. DB: Well, I wasn’t meaning that. I see that the brain, having a structure of time, is not able to respond properly to mind. That’s really what seems to be involved here. K: Can the brain itself see that it is caught in time and that as long as it is moving in that direction, conflict is eternal, endless? You follow what I am saying? DB: Yes. Does the brain see it? K: Has the brain the capacity to see in what it is doing now - being caught in time - that in that process there is no end to conflict? That means, is there a part of the brain which is not of time? DB: Not caught or functioning in time?

K: Yes, that’s right. Can the brain - which has been used to time - can it see in that process that there is no end to conflict? See, in the sense of realizing this? Will it realize it under pressure? Certainly not. Will it realize it under coercion, reward or punishment? It will not. It will either resist or escape. So what is the factor that will make the brain see that the way it has been functioning is not correct? (Let’s use that word for the moment.) And what will make it suddenly realize that it is totally mischievous? What will make it? Certainly not drugs or some kind of chemical. DB: None of these outward things. K: Then what will make the brain realize this? DB: What do you mean by realize? K: Realize that the path along which the brain has been going will always be the path of conflict. DB: I think this raises the question that the brain resists such a realization. K: Of course, of course. Because it has been used to the old path, for centuries! How will you make the brain realize this fact? If you could make it realize that, conflict is finished.

K: Can one say that? DB: I don’t know. K: That would mean - we come back to the same thing in different words - that the brain is not being completely conditioned by time, so there is a part of the brain that is free of time. DB: Not a part, but rather that the brain is mainly dominated by time, although that doesn’t necessarily mean it couldn’t shift.

You see, people have tried fasting, austerity, poverty, chastity in the real sense, purity, having a mind that is absolutely correct; they have tried going away by themselves; they have tried practically everything that man has invented, but none of these ways has succeeded. DB: Well, what do you say? It is clear that people pursuing these outward goals are still becoming. K: Yes, but they never realize that these are outward goals. It means denying all that completely.

DB: You see, to go further, I think that one has to deny the very notion of time in the sense of looking forward to the future, and deny all the past. K: That’s just it. DB: That is, the whole of time. K: Time is the enemy. Meet it, and go beyond it. DB: Deny that it has an independent existence. You see, I think we have the impression that time exists independently of us. We are in the stream of time, and therefore it would seem absurd for us to deny it because that is what we are. K: Yes, quite, quite. So it means really moving away again this is only words - from everything that man has put together as a means of timelessness. DB: Can we say that none of the methods that man uses outwardly is going to free the mind from time? K: Absolutely. DB: Every method implies time. K: Of course. It is so simple. DB: We start out immediately by setting up the whole structure of time; the whole notion of time is presupposed before we start. K: Yes, quite. But how will you convey this to another? How will you, or ‘X’, convey this to a man who is caught in time and will resist it, fight it, because he says there is no other way? How will you convey this to him? DB: I think that you can only convey it to somebody who has gone into it; you are not likely to convey it at all to somebody you just pick up off the street! K: So then, what are we doing? As that cannot be conveyed through words, what is a man to do? Would you say that to resolve a problem as it arises you have to go into it immediately, because otherwise you may do the most foolish thing and delude yourself that you have resolved it? Suppose I have a problem, any psychological problem - can the mind realize, resolve it immediately? Not deceive it, not resist it - you understand? But face it, and end it.

DB: Well, with a psychological problem, that is the only way. Otherwise we would be caught in the very source of the problem. K: Of course. Would that activity end time, the psychological time that we are talking about? DB: Yes, if we could bring this immediate action to bear on the problem, which is the self. K: One is greedy, or envious. To end immediately greed, attachment, and so on, will that not give a clue to the ending of time? DB: Yes, because any action which is not immediate has already brought in time. K: Yes, yes. I know that. DB: The ending of time is immediate - right? K: Immediate, of course. Would that point out the wrong turn that mankind has taken? DB: Yes, if man feels something is out of order psychologically he then brings in the notion of time, and the thought of becoming, and that creates endless problems. K: Would that open the door to this sense of time having no place inwardly? Which means, doesn’t it, that thought has no place except outwardly? DB: You are saying that thought is a process which is involved in time. K: Wouldn’t you say that thought is the process of time? Because thought is based on experience, knowledge, memory and response, which is the whole of time. DB: Let’s try to put it that thought, as we have generally known it, is in time. K: Thought as we know it now is of time. DB: Yes. I would agree, generally speaking. K: Generally speaking, thought is time. DB: It is based on the notion of time.

K: Yes, all right. But to me, thought itself is time.

K: Yes. So he lives in time.

DB: Thought itself creates time, right.

DB: He lives in time because he has attempted to produce knowledge of the nature of the mind. Are you saying that there is no real knowledge of the mind? Would you put it that way? K: The moment you use the word `knowledge', it implies time. When you end time, in the sense we are talking about, there is no knowledge as experience.

K: Does it mean, when there is no time there is no thought? DB: Well no thought of that kind. K: No. There is no thought. I want just to go slowly. DB: Could we say that there is a kind of thought which we have lived in which has been dominated by time?

DB: We have to see what the word ‘experience’ means.

K: Yes, but that has come to an end.

K: Experience, memory.

DB: But there may be another kind of thought which is not dominated by time... I mean, you were saying, you could still use thought to do some things.

DB: People say, ‘I learn by experience, I go through something.’ K: Which is becoming!

K: Of course, outwardly that's so. DB: We have to be careful not to say that thought is necessarily dominated by time. K: Yes. I have to go from here to there, to my house; that needs time, thought, but I am not talking of that kind of time. DB: So let’s make it clear that you are talking of thought which is aimed at the mind, whose content is the order of the mind. K: Yes. Would you say knowledge is time? DB: Well, yes... K: All knowledge is time. DB: Yes, in that it has been known, and may project into the future, and so on. K: Of course, the future, the past. Knowledge science, mathematics, whatever it is - is acquired through time. I read philosophy, I read this or that, and the whole movement of knowledge involves time. See what I mean! DB: I think we are saying that man has taken a wrong turn and got caught in this kind of knowledge, which is dominated by time because it has become psychological knowledge.

DB: Well, let’s get it clear. You see there is a kind of experience, for example, in one’s job, which becomes skill and perception. K: Of course, but that is quite different. DB: But we are saying there is no point in having experience of the mind, psychological experience. K: Yes, let’s put it that way. experience is in time.

Psychological

DB: Yes, and it has no point, because you cannot say, ‘As I become skilled in my job I will become skilled in my mind, or skilled fundamentally’. K: Yes. So where is this leading? I realize that knowledge is time; the brain realizes it, and sees the importance of time in a certain direction, and that there is no value in time at all in another direction. It is not a contradiction. DB: I would put it that the value of time is limited to a certain direction or area, and beyond that, it has no value. K: Yes. So what is the mind or the brain without knowledge? You understand. DB: Without psychological knowledge? K: Yes, I am talking psychologically.

DB: It is not so much that it is caught in time as that it is without psychological knowledge to organize itself. K: Yes. DB: So we are saying that the brain field must organize itself by knowing psychologically all about itself. K: Is then the mind, the brain, disorder? Certainly not. DB: No. But I think that people being faced with this might feel there would be disorder. K: Of course. DB: I think what you are saying is that the notion of controlling yourself psychologically has no meaning. K: So knowledge of the ‘me’ - the psychological knowledge - is time. DB: Yes, I understand the totality of knowledge is ‘me’, is time.

DB: Yes. The ground of everything is energy. K: Of course. Everything is energy. And what is the source of this thing? Or is there no source of energy at all? Is there only energy? DB: Energy just is. Energy is ‘what is’. There is no need for a source. That is one approach, perhaps? K: No. If there is nothing, and therefore everything, and everything is energy... We must be very careful because here, the Hindus have this idea too, which is that Brahman is everything. You understand? But that becomes an idea, a principle, and then functioning is once more in the brain. But the fact of it is, there is nothing; therefore there is everything, and all that is cosmic energy. But what started this energy? DB: We are not talking of time. K: I know we are not talking of time, but you see the Christians would say, ‘God is energy and He is the source of all energy.’ No?

K: So then what is existence without this? There is no time; there is no knowledge in the psychological sense, no sense of ‘me’, and then what is there? To come to that point most people would say, ‘What a horror this is.’

DB: But the Christians have an idea of what they call the Godhead, which is the very source of God too.

DB: Yes, because it seems there would be nothing.

DB: It sounds similar in some ways.

K: Nothing. But if one has come to that point, what is there? Would you say, because there is nothing, it is everything?

K: And yet not similar. We must be careful.

DB: Yes, I would accept that. I know that. That is true, it has all.

K: And also the Hindus, the Arabic and the Jewish worlds have this. Are we going against all that?

DB: Many things like this have been said over the ages. K: Then is one just walking in emptiness? Is one living in emptiness?

K: No meditation, nothing. DB: Well, that is not clear. DB: Nothing. K: Nothing, that’s right. DB: A thing is limited, and this is not a thing because there are no limits... At least, it has everything in potential. K: Wait, Sir. If it is nothing, and so everything, so everything is energy.

K: There is nothing, and everything is energy. What is this? DB: Well, is there something within the energy? K: This is not different from energy. This. But the thing that is inside says, ‘I am totally different from that’.

DB: The ‘I’ encloses itself and says, ‘I am different, I am eternal.’ K: Why has it done this? Why has the separation arisen? Is it because outwardly I identify with a house and so on, and that identification has moved inwardly? DB: Yes. And the second point was that once we established a notion of something inward, then it became necessary to protect that. And therefore that built up the separation.

beginning. What is that? Because otherwise this seems so utterly futile. I am all energy and just the shell exists, and time has ended. It seems so futile. DB: Yes, if we stop there.... K: That’s all. DB: I think that really this is clearing the ground of all the debris, of all the confusion. K: Yes. So the ending is a beginning. But what is that? Beginning implies time also.

K: Of course. DB: The inward was obviously the most precious thing, and it would have to be protected with all our energy. K: Does it mean then that there is only the organism - which part of energy? There is no ‘me’ at all, except the passport name and form; otherwise nothing. And therefore there is everything and therefore all is energy? DB: Yes, the form has no independent existence. K: No. There is only the form. That’s all.

DB: Not necessarily. I think we said there could be a movement which had no time. K: That is all. I want to make it clear. DB: Yes, but it is hard to express. It is not a question of being static, but in some sense the movement has not the order of time. I think we would have to say that now. K: Yes. So we will use the word ‘beginning’ and deprive it of time. DB: Because ending and beginning is no special time. In fact they can be any time or no time.

DB: There is also the energy, you say. K: That is part of energy. So there is only this, the outward shape. DB: There is the outward form in the energy. K: Do you realize what we have said, Sir? Is this the end of the journey? DB: No, I should think not. K: Has mankind journeyed through millennia to come to this? That I am nothing, and therefore I am everything, and all energy. DB: Well it can't be the end, in the sense that it might be the beginning. K: Wait. That is all I wanted you to begin with. The ending is the beginning - right? Now I want to go into that. You see, in the ending of all this - the ending of time, we will call it briefly - there is a new

K: No time. Then what takes place? What is happening? Not to me, not to my brain. What is happening? We have said that when one denies time there is nothing. After this long talk, nothing means everything. Everything is energy. And we have stopped there. But that isn't the end. DB: No. K: That is not the end. Then what is going on? Is that creation? DB: Yes, something likes that. K: But not the art of creating like writing or painting. DB: Perhaps later we can discuss what we mean by creating.

We were saying that psychological time is conflict that time is the enemy of man. And that enemy has existed from the beginning of man. And we asked why has man from the beginning taken a ‘wrong turn’, a ‘wrong path’? And, if so, is it possible to turn man in another direction in which he can live without conflict? Because as we said yesterday the outer movement is also the same as the inner movement, there is no separation between inner and outer. It is the same movement. And we asked whether we were concerned deeply and passionately to turn man in another direction so that he does not live in time, with knowledge only of the outer things. The religions, the politicians, the educators have failed: they have never been concerned about this. Would you agree to that?

an continues to live within time and space. Sometimes the time is of inner space and other times it is of outer space. We are aware of the time in the outer space. But when we move from the outer realm to the inner realm we are still consumed by time. Dream and thoughts are factors of time as well. Dream is inner. No dream is possible without the time and space. Dream has its space for dream to happen and the time zone. This is not a current phenomenon instead it has been happening from the time man breathed

first. And this will continue until man mover from the outer circumference to the inner realm of the being. As part of his lectures, and talks Krishnamurti had conversation on various topics with eminent writers, and thinkers of his time. Prof Davis Bhom was one such person. The present conversation deals with the cleansing of the mind of the accumulation of time. David Joseph Bohm (20 December 1917 – 27 October 1992) was an American-born British quantum physicist who made contributions in the fields of

theoretical physics, philosophy and neuropsychology, and to the Manhattan Project. KRISHNAMURTI: We were saying that psychological time is conflict that time is the enemy of man. And that enemy has existed from the beginning of man. And we asked why has man from the beginning taken a ‘wrong turn’, a ‘wrong path’? And, if so, is it possible to turn man in another direction in which he can live without conflict? Because as we said yesterday the outer movement is also the same as the inner movement there is no separation between inner and outer. It is the same movement. And we asked whether we were concerned deeply and passionately to turn man in another direction so that he does not live in time, with knowledge only of the outer things. The religions, the politicians, the educators have failed: they have never been concerned about this. Would you agree to that?

time is abolished? And as we asked yesterday, when you come to? That point where there is nothing and there is everything, where all that is energy - when time ends, is there a beginning of something totally new? Is there a beginning which is not enmeshed in time? Now how shall we discover it? Words are necessary to communicate. But the word is not that thing. So what is there when all time ends? Psychological time, not time of... DB: ...time of day. K: Yes. Time as the ‘me’, the ego, and when that completely comes to an end, what is there that begins? Could we say that out of the ashes of time there is a new growth? What is that which begins - no, that word ‘begins’ implies time too. DB: Whatever we mean, that which arises. K: That arises, what is it?

DAVID BOHM: Yes. I think the religions have tried to discuss the eternal values beyond time but they don’t seem to have succeeded. K: That is what I want to get at. To them it has been an idea, an ideal, a principle, a value, but not an actuality, and most of the religious people have their anchor in a belief, in a principle, in an image, in knowledge, in Jesus or in something or other. DB: Yes, but if you were to consider all the religions, say the various forms of Buddhism, they try to say this very thing which you are saying, to some extent. K: To some extent but what I am trying to get at is: why has man never confronted this problem? Why haven’t we said ‘Let’s end conflict’? Instead we have been encouraged because through conflict we think there is progress. DB: It can be a certain source of stimulus to try to overcome opposition. K: Yes, Sir, but if you and I see the truth of this, not in abstraction, but actually, deeply, can we act in such a way that every issue is resolved instantly, immediately, so that psychological

DB: Well, as we said yesterday, essentially it is creation, the possibility of creation. K: Yes, creation. Is that it? Is something new being born? DB: It is not the process of becoming. K: Oh, no, that is finished. Becoming is the worst, that is time, that is the real root of this conflict. We are trying to find out what happens when the ‘I’, which is time, has completely come to an end. I believe the Buddha is supposed to have said ‘Nirvana’. And the Hindus call it Moksha. I don’t know whether the Christians call it Heaven... DB: The Christian mystics have had some similar state... K: Similar, yes. But you see, the Christian mystics, as far as I understand it, are rooted in Jesus, in the Church, in the whole belief. They have never gone beyond it. DB: Yes, well that seems so. As far as I know anyway.

K: Now we have said belief, attachment to all that is out, finished. That is all part of the ‘I’. Now when there is that absolute cleansing of the mind from the accumulation of time, which is the essence of the ‘me’, what takes place? Why should we ask what takes place? DB: You mean it is not a good question? K: I am just asking myself, why should we ask that? Is there behind it a subtle form of hope? A subtle form of saying, I have reached that point, there is nothing. Then that is a wrong question Wouldn’t you consider that so? DB: Well, it invites you to look for some hopeful outcome. K: If all endeavour is to find something beyond the `me', the endeavour and the thing that I may find are still within the orbit of `me'. So I have no hope. There is no sense of hope, there is no sense of wanting to find anything.

DB: Self-deception. K: Deception and all forms of illusion arise from that. So it is not that. I am clearing the decks as we go along. DB: Essentially it seems that you are clearing the movement of desire in its subtle forms. K: In its subtle forms. So desire too has been put away. Then there is only mind - right? DB: Yes, but then we have to ask what is meant by nature, if all is mind, because nature seems somewhat independent. K: But we have also said that the entire universe is the mind. DB: You mean to say nature is the mind? K: Part of the mind. DB: The universal mind?

DB: What is then moving you to enquire? K: Yes. K: My enquiry has been to end conflict. DB: Not a particular mind? DB: Yes, we have then to be careful. We are liable to produce a hope of ending conflict. K: No, no; there is no hope. I end it. The moment I introduce the word ‘hope’ there is a feeling of the future. DB: Yes, that is desire. K: Desire - and therefore it is of time. So I - the mind - put all that aside completely; I mean it, completely. Then what is the essence of all this? Is my mind still seeking, or groping after something intangible that it can capture and hold? If that is so, it is still part of time. DB: Well, that is still desire. K: Desire and a subtle form of vanity. DB: Why vanity? K: Vanity in the sense ‘I have reached’.

K: The particular mind then is separate, but we are talking of mind. DB: You see, we have to make it clear, because you are saying that nature is the creation of universal mind, though nevertheless nature has a certain reality. K: That is all understood. DB: But it is almost as if nature were the thought of the universal mind. K: it is part of it. I am trying to grope towards the particular in coming to an end; then there is only the Mind, the universal mind - right? DB: Yes. We have been discussing the particular mind groping through desire, and we said if all of that stopped...

K: That is just my point. If all that has completely come to an end, what is the next step? Is there any next? We said yesterday, there is a beginning, but that word implies part of time. DB: We won’t say so much beginning, perhaps ending.

DB: In some way... In so far as it is mind. K: Now if that energy is intelligent, why has it allowed man to move away in the wrong direction?

DB: But now is there something new?

DB: I think that that may be part of a process, something that is inevitable in the nature of thought. You see if thought is going to develop, that possibility must exist. To bring about thought in man...

K: Is there something which the mind cannot capture?

K: Is that the original freedom for man? To choose?

DB: Which mind, the particular or the universal?

DB: No, that is, thought has to have the capacity to make this mistake.

K: The ending, we have said that.

K: The particular has ended. DB: Yes. You are saying the universal mind cannot capture it either? K: That is what we are finding out. DB: Are you saying there is a reality - or something - beyond universal mind? K: Are we playing a game of peeling off one thing after another? Like an onion skin, and at the end there is only tears and nothing else? DB: Well, I don’t know. K: Because we said there is the ending, then the cosmic, the universal mind, and, beyond, is there something more?

K: But if that intelligence was operating, why did it allow this mistake? DB: Well, we can suggest that there is a universal order, a law. K: All right. The universe functions in order. DB: Yes, and it is part of the order of the universe that this particular mechanism can go wrong. If a machine breaks down, it is not disorder in the universe; it is part of universal order. K: Yes. In the universal order there is disorder, where man is concerned. DB: It is not disorder at the level of the universe. K: No. At a much lower level.

DB: Well, would you say this ‘more’ is energy? That energy is beyond the universal mind?

DB: At the level of man it is disorder.

K: I would say yes, because the universal mind is part of that energy.

K: And why has man lived from the beginning in this disorder?

DB: That is understandable. In a way the energy is alive, you are saying?

DB: Because he is still ignorant, he still hasn’t seen the point.

K: Yes, yes.

K: But he is part of the whole, yet in one tiny corner man exists, and has lived in disorder. And this enormous conscious intelligence has not...

DB: And also intelligent? K: Wait a minute.

DB: Yes, you could say that the possibility of creation is also the possibility of disorder. That if man had the possibility of being creative; there would also be the possibility of a mistake. It could not be fixed like a machine, always to operate in perfect order. The intelligence would not have turned him into a machine that would be incapable of disorder.

DB: Then what leads you to say it?

K: No, of course not. So is there something beyond the cosmic order, mind?

DB: You could almost say that it is saying it. In some sense, you seem to be suggesting that it is what is saying.

DB: Are you saying that the universe, that that mind, has created nature which has an order, which is not merely going around mechanically? It has some deeper meaning? K: That is what we are trying to find out. DB: You are bringing in the whole universe as well as mankind. What makes you do this? What is the source of this perception?

K: Would you say it is? Not, I perceive it, or it is perceived. DB: Yes. It is. K: It is.

K: Yes. I didn’t want to put it - I am glad you put it like that! Where are we now? DB: We are saying that the universe is alive, as it were, it is mind, and we are part of it. K: We can only say we are part of it when there is no ‘I’. DB: No division.

K: Let’s begin again: there is the ending of the ‘me’ as time, and so there is no hope; all that is finished, ended. In the ending of it, there is that sense of nothingness. And nothingness is this whole universe.

K: No division. I would like to push it a little further; is there something beyond all this? DB: Beyond the energy, you mean?

K: The whole universe.

K: Yes. We said nothingness that nothingness is everything, and so it is that which is total energy. It is undiluted, pure, uncorrupted energy. Is there something beyond that? Why do we ask it?

DB: What led you to say that?

DB: I don’t know.

K: Ah. I know. To put it very simply: division has come to an end. Right? The division created by time, created by thought, created by this education, and so on - all that. Because it has ended, the other is obvious.

K: I feel we haven’t touched it - I feel there is something beyond.

DB: Yes, the universal mind, the universal matter.

DB: You mean that without the division then the other is there - to be perceived? K: Not to be perceived, but it is there. DB: But then how does one come to be aware that it is there? K: I don’t think one becomes aware of it.

DB: Could we say this something beyond is the ground of the whole? You are saying that all this emerges from an inward ground? K: Yes, there is another - I must be awfully careful here. You know one must be awfully careful not to be romantic, not to have illusions, not to have desire, not even to search. It must happen. You follow what I mean?

DB: We are saying the thing must come from that. Whatever you are saying must come from that. K: From that. That’s it. It sounds rather presumptuous.

K: Yes. DB: Would that be something in the way of a substance? You see the question is, if it is not emptiness, then what is it? K: I don’t quite follow your question.

DB: You are actually seeing it. It is not that you look at it and say, that is what I have seen. K: Oh, no. Then it is wrong. DB: There isn’t a division. Of course, it is easy to fall into delusion with this sort of thing. K: Yes, but we said delusion exists as long as there is desire and thought. That is simple. And desire and thought are part of the ‘I’, which is time. When desire and time are completely ended, then there is absolutely nothing, and therefore that is the universe, that emptiness, which is full of energy. We can put a stop there... DB: Because we haven’t yet seen the necessity for going beyond the energy. We have to see that as necessary. K: I think it is necessary. DB: Yes, but it has to be seen. We have to bring out why it is necessary. K: Why is it necessary? Tentatively, there is something in us that is operating; there is something in us much more - much - I don't know how to put it - much greater. I am going slowly, slowly. What I am trying to say is, I think there is something beyond that. When I say ‘I think’, you know what I mean. DB: I understand, yes. K: There is something beyond that. How can we talk about it? You see, energy exists only when there is emptiness. They go together. DB: This pure energy you talk about is emptiness. Are you suggesting there is that which is beyond the emptiness, the ground of the emptiness?

DB: Well, you say something beyond emptiness, other than emptiness. I think we can follow to the energy and the emptiness. Now if we suggest something other to that, to the emptiness... K: This something other. DB: Yes, then that other must be different from the emptiness. Something other to emptiness, which therefore is not emptiness. Does that make sense? K: Then it is substance. DB: Yes, that is what is implied: if it is not emptiness, it is substance. K: Substance is matter, is it not? DB: Not necessarily, but having the quality of substance. K: What do you mean by that? DB: Matter is a form of substance in the sense that it is energy, but having the form of substance as well, because it has a constant form and it resists change. It is stable, it maintains itself. K: Yes. But when you use the word ‘substance’, meaning beyond emptiness, does that word convey that meaning? DB: Well, we are exploring the possible meaning of what you want to say. If you are saying it is not emptiness, then it would not be substance as we know it in matter. But we can see a certain quality which belongs to substance in general; if it has that quality, we could use the word substance, extend the meaning of the word substance.

K: I understand. So could we use the word ‘quality’?

DB: In the sense that if the mind thinks it already has this substance, then it will not be open...

DB: The word ‘quality’ is not necessarily the emptiness, energy could have the quality of emptiness, you see. And therefore it is something else. Something other might have the quality of substance. That is the way I see it. And is that what you are trying to say?

K: Of course not. Can that thing ever be put into words? It is not a question of avoiding something, or trying to slither out of some conclusion. But you see, so far we have put everything into words.

K: There is something beyond emptiness. How shall we tackle it? DB: Firstly, what leads you to say this? K: Simply the fact that there is. We have been fairly logical all along, we have not been caught in any illusions so far. And can we keep that same kind of watchfulness, in which there is, no illusion, to find out - or, not find out - that which is beyond emptiness? To come down to earth! Come down to earth in the sense to be communicated. You follow what I mean? DB: Yes. Well we could come back to the question before: why hasn't it come down?

DB: Well, I think that once something is properly perceived, then after a while the words come to communicate it. K: Yes, but can that be perceived? And therefore be communicable? Is this beyond? DB: This thing beyond, would you say also it is alive? Life beyond emptiness, is that still life? Living? K: Living, yes. Oh, yes. DB: And intelligent? K: I don’t want to use those words. DB: They are too limited?

K: Why hasn’t it come down? Has man been ever free from the ‘I’? DB: No. Not generally speaking. K: No. And it demands that the ‘I’ ends. DB: I think we could look at it this way: that the ego becomes an illusion of that substance. You feel the ego is a substance too in some way. K: Yes, the ego is substance.

K: Living, intelligence, love, compassion; they are all too limited. You and I are sitting here. We have come to a point and there is that thing which perhaps later on might be put into words without any sense of pressure, and so without any illusion. Don’t you see beyond the wall? The word, I mean? We have come to a certain point, and we are saying there is something still more you understand? There is something behind all that. Is it palpable? Can we touch it? Is it something that the mind can capture? You follow?

DB: And therefore that substance seems to be... DB: Yes. Are you saying it is not? K: ...untouchable. DB: But that ego is an illusion of the true substance - it may be that the mind tries to create some sort of illusion of that substance. K: That is an illusion. Why do you relate it to the other?

K: I don’t think it is possible for the mind to capture it... DB: Or grasp it? K: Grasp it, understand... for the mind even to look at it. You are a scientist; you have examined the atom, and so on. Don’t you, when you have

examined all that, feel there is something much more, beyond all that? DB: You can always feel that there is more beyond that, but it doesn't tell you what it is. It is clear that whatever one knows is limited. K: Yes DB: And there must be more beyond. K: How can that communicate with you, so that you, with your scientific knowledge, with your brain capacity can grasp it? DB: Are you saying it can’t be grasped? k: No. How can you grasp it? I don’t say you can’t grasp it. Can you grasp it? DB: Look, it is not clear. You were saying before that it is ungraspable by... K: Grasp, in the sense, can your mind go beyond theories? What I am trying to say is, can you move into it? Not move, in the sense of time and all that. Can you enter it? No, those are all words. What is beyond emptiness? Is it silence? DB: Isn’t that similar to emptiness? K: Yes, that is what I am getting at. Move step by step. Is it silence? Or is silence part of emptiness? DB; Yes, I should say that. K: I should say that too. If it is not silence, could we - I am just asking - could we say it is something absolute? You understand?

DB: You see, this notion is already an old one. This notion has been developed by Aristotle, that this absolute is the cause of itself. C: Yes. DB: It has no cause, in a sense. That is the same thing. K: You see the moment you said Aristotle... it is not that. How shall we get at this? Emptiness is energy, and that emptiness exists in silence, or the other way round, it doesn't matter - right? Oh, yes, there is something beyond all this. Probably it can never be put into words. But it must be put into words. You follow? DB: You are saying that the absolute must be put into words, but we feel it can’t be? Any attempt to put it into words makes it relative. K: Yes. I don’t know how to put all this. DB: I think that we have a long history of danger with the absolute. People have put it in words, and it has become very oppressive. K: Leave all that. You see, being ignorant of what other people have said, Aristotle and the Buddha, and so on, has an advantage. You understand what I mean? An advantage in the sense that the mind is not colored by other people’s ideas, not caught in other people’s statements! All that is part of our conditioning. Now, to go beyond all that! What are we trying to do? DB: I think, to communicate regarding this absolute, this beyond. K: I took away that word ‘absolute’ immediately.

DB: Well, we could consider the absolute. It would have to be something totally independent; that is what ‘absolute’ really means. It doesn’t depend on anything. K: Yes. You are getting somewhere near it. DB: Entirely self moving, as it were, self active. K: Yes. Would you say everything has a cause, and that has no cause at all?

DB: Then whatever it is; the beyond emptiness and silence. K: Beyond all that. There is beyond all that. All that is something, part of immensity. DB: Yes, well even the emptiness and silence is immensity, isn’t it? The energy is itself immensity.

K: Yes, I understand that. But there is something much more immense than that. Emptiness and silence and energy are immense, really immeasurable. But there is something - I am using the word, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;greaterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, than that. DB: I am just considering. I am looking at it. One can see that whatever you say about emptiness, or about any other thing, there is something beyond. K: No, as a scientist, why do you accept - not accept, forgive me for using that word - why do you even move along with this?

DB: In which sense? In the sense that you are using the beginning of everything as the ending? K: Yes. Right? You would say that? DB: Yes. If we take the ground from which it comes, it must be the ground to which it falls. K: That's right. That is the ground upon which everything exists, space... DB: ...energy... K: ...energy, emptiness, silence, all that is. All that. Not ground, you understand?

DB: Because we have come this far step by step, seeing the necessity of each step.

DB: No, it is just a metaphor.

K: You see all that is very logical, reasonable, and sane.

K: There is nothing beyond it. No cause. If you have a cause then you have ground.

DB: And also, one can see that it is so right.

DB: You have another ground.

K: Yes. So if I say there is something greater than all this silence, energy - would you accept that? Accept in the sense that up to now we have been logical.

K: No. That is the beginning and the ending.

DB: We will say that whatever you speak of there is certainly something beyond it. Silence, energy, whatever, then there is always room logically for something beyond that. But the point is this: that even if you were to say there is something beyond that, still you logically leave room for going again beyond that. K: No. DB: Well why is that? You see, whatever you say, and there is always room for something beyond. K: There is nothing beyond. DB: Well that point is not clear, you see. K: There is nothing beyond it. I stick to that. Not dogmatically or obstinately. I feel that is the beginning and the ending of everything. The ending and the beginning are the same - right?

DB: It is becoming clearer. K: That's right. Does that convey anything to you? DB: Yes, well I think that it conveys something. K: Something. Would you say further, there is no beginning and no ending? DB: Yes. It comes from the ground, goes to the ground, but it does not begin or end. K: Yes. There is no beginning and no ending. The implications are enormous. Is that death - not death in the sense, I will die, but the complete ending of everything? DB: You see at first you said that the emptiness is the ending of everything, so in what sense is this more, now? Emptiness is the ending of things, isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t it? K: Yes, yes. Is that death, this emptiness? Death of everything the mind has cultivated. This

emptiness is not the product of the mind, of the particular mind.

K: And that dies too. DB: Into the ground, right?

DB: No, it is the universal mind. K: Yes. K: That emptiness is that. DB: Yes. K: That emptiness can only exist when there is death - total death - of the particular. DB: Yes.

DB: So you could say the ground is neither born nor dies. K: That’s right. DB: Well, I think it becomes almost inexpressible if you say the universal is gone, because expression is the universal.

K: I don’t know if I am conveying this. DB: Yes, that is the emptiness. But then you are saying that, in this ground, death goes further? K: Oh, yes. DB: So we are saying the ending of the particular, the death of the particular, is the emptiness, which is universal. Now are you going to say that the universal also dies?

K: You see - I am just explaining: everything is dying, except that. Does this convey anything? DB: Yes. Well it is out of that that everything arises, and into which it dies. K: So that has no beginning and no ending. DB: What would it mean to talk of the ending of the universal? What would it mean to have the ending of the universal?

K: Yes, that is what I am trying to say. DB: Into the ground. K: Does it convey anything? DB: Possibly, yes. K: just hold it a minute. Let’s see it. I think it conveys something, doesn’t it? DB: Yes. Now if the particular and the universal die, then that is death? K: Yes. After all, an astronomer says everything in the universe is dying, exploding, dying. DB: But of course you could suppose that there was something beyond. K: Yes, that is just it. DB: I think we are moving. The universal and the particular. First the particular dies into the emptiness, and then comes the universal.

K: Nothing. Why should it have a meaning if it is happening? What has that to do with man? You follow what I mean? Man who is going through a terrible time. What has that got to do with man? DB: Let’s say that man feels he must have some contact with the ultimate ground in his life, otherwise there is no meaning. K: But it hasn’t. That ground hasn’t any relationship with man. He is killing himself; he is doing everything contrary to the ground. DB: Yes, that is why life has no meaning for man. K: I am an ordinary man; I say, all right, you have talked marvelously of sunsets, but what has that got to do with me? Will that or your talk help me to get over my ugliness? My quarrels with my wife or whatever it is? DB: I think I would go back, and say we went into this logically starting from the suffering of

mankind, showing it originates in a wrong turning, that leads inevitably... K: Yes, but man asks, help me to get past the wrong turn. Put me on the right path. And to that one says, please don’t become anything.

K: Of course. DB: Even going back, the ancient religions have said similar things that God is the ground, so they say seek God, you know. K: Ah, no, this isn’t god.

DB: Right. What is the problem then? K: He won’t even listen. DB: Then it seems to me that it is necessary for the one who sees this to find out what is the barrier to listening.

DB: No, it is not god, but it is saying the same. You could say that ‘god’ is an attempt to put this notion a bit too personally perhaps. K: Yes. Give them hope, give them faith, you follow? Make life a little more comfortable to live.

K: Obviously you can see what the barrier is. DB: What is the barrier?

DB: Well, are you asking at this point: how is this to be conveyed to the ordinary man? Is that your question?

K: ‘I’. DB: Yes, but I meant more deeply. K: More deeply, all your thoughts, deep attachments - all that is in your way. If you can’t leave these, then you will have no relationship with that. But man doesn’t want to leave these. DB: Yes, I understand. What he wants is the result of the way he is thinking.

K: More or less. And also it is important that he should listen to this. You are a scientist. You are good enough to listen because we are friends. But who will listen among the other scientists? I feel that if one pursues this we will have a marvelously ordered world. DB: Yes. And what will we do in this world? K: Live.

K: What he wants is some comfortable, easy way of living without any trouble, and he can’t have that. DB: No. Only by dropping all this. K: There must be a connection. There must be some relationship with the ground and this, some relationship with ordinary man. Otherwise, what is the meaning of living? DB: That is what I was trying to say before. Without this relationship...

DB: But, I mean, we said something about creativity... K: Yes. And then if you have no conflict, no ‘I’, there is something else operating. DB: Yes, it is important to say that, because the Christian idea of perfection may seem rather boring because there is nothing to do! K: We must continue this some other time, because it is something that has got to be put into orbit.

K: ...there is no meaning. DB: It seems impossible. DB: And then people invent meaning. K: We have gone pretty far.

Human beings continue behaving with the animal instincts? And it seems that the animal instincts, may be overpowering in their intensity and speed, and especially with young children. It may be that it is only natural for them to respond with the animal instinct. Even after a million years, we are still instinctively behaving like our ancestors? In some ways and probably our behavior is also complicated by thought; the animal instinct has now become entangled with thought, and it is getting in some ways worse. Far worse! All these instincts of hatred now become directed and sustained by thought, so that they are more subtle and dangerous.

he Ending of Time Chapter 7 17th April 1980 Conversation with Prof. David Bohm ‘Death Has Very Little Meaning.’ David Joseph Bohm (20 December 1917 – 27 October 1992) was a American-born British quantum physicist who made contributions in the fields of theoretical physics, philosophy and neuropsychology, and to the Manhattan Project.

K: And during all these many centuries we haven’t found a way, a method, a system - something that will move us away from that track. Is that it?

KRISHNAMURTI: Are we saying that human beings are still behaving with the animal instincts?

K: As we were saying, someone – ‘X’ - behaves naturally in a way that is not a response to the animal instinct. What place has this kind of insight in human society? None at all?

DAVID BOHM: Yes, and that the animal instincts, it seems, may be overpowering in their intensity and speed, and especially with young children. It may be that it is only natural for them to respond with the animal instinct. K: So that means, after a million years, that we are still instinctively behaving like our ancestors? DB: In some ways. Probably our behavior is also complicated by thought; the animal instinct has now become entangled with thought, and it is getting in some ways worse. K: Far worse. DB: Because all these instincts of hatred now become directed and sustained by thought, so that they are more subtle and dangerous.

DB: Yes. One of the difficulties, surely, is that when people begin to be angry with each other, their anger builds up and they can’t seem to do anything about it. They may try to control it, but that doesn’t work.

DB: In society as it is, it cannot be accommodated, because society is organized under the assumption that pain and pleasure are going to rule. You could say that friendliness is a kind of animal instinct too, for people become friendly for instinctive reasons. And perhaps they become enemies for similar reasons. So I think that some people would say that we should be rational rather than instinctive. There was a period during the 18th century, the Age of Reason, when they said man could be rational, could choose to be rational, in order to bring about harmony everywhere. K: But he hasn’t done so!

DB: No, things got worse, leading to the French Revolution, to the Terror and so on. But, after that, people didn’t have so much faith in reason as a way of getting anywhere, or coming out of conflict. K: So where does that lead us? We were talking really about insight that actually changes the nature of the brain itself. DB: Yes, by dispelling the darkness in the brain, insight allows the brain to function in a new way. K: Thought has been operating in darkness, creating its own darkness and functioning in that. And insight is, as we said, like a flash which breaks down the darkness. Then when that insight clears the darkness, does man act, or function, rationally? DB: Yes, man will then function rationally, and with perception, rather than by rules and reason. But there is a freely flowing reason. You see, some people identify reason with certain rules of logic which would be mechanical. But there can be reason as a form of perception of order. K: So we are saying, are we, that insight is perception? DB: It is the flash of light which makes perception possible.

DB: There are no rules. K: No rules; let’s put it that way; it’s better. This order is not based on rules. This means insight, perception, action, order. Then you come to the question, are insight continuous, or are it by flashes? DB: We went into that, and felt it was a wrong question, so perhaps we can look at it differently. It is not time binding. K: Not time binding. Yes, we agreed on that. So now let's get a little further. We said, didn’t we, that insight is the elimination of the darkness which is the very centre of the self, the darkness that self creates? Insight dispels that very centre. DB: Yes. With the darkness, perception is not possible. It’s blindness in a way. K: Right, then what next? I am an ordinary man, with all my animal instincts, pleasure and pain and reward and punishment and so on. I hear you say this, and I see what you are saying has some kind of reason, logic and order. DB: Yes, it makes sense as far as we can see it.

K: Right, that’s it.

K: It makes sense. Then how am I to have reason in my life? How am I to bring it about? You understand that these words which are difficult are all of them time binding. But is that possible?

DB: It is even more fundamental than perception.

DB: Yes, without time, you see.

K: So insight is pure perception, and from that perception there is action, which is then sustained by rationality. Is that it?

K: Is it possible for man with his narrow mind, to have this insight, so that pattern of life is broken? As we said the other day, we have tried all this, tried every form of self-denial, and yet that insight doesn’t come about.

DB: Yes. K: That’s right. DB: And the rationality is perception of order.

Once in a while there is a partial insight, but that partial insight is not the whole insight, so there is still partial darkness.

DB: Yes.

DB: Which doesn’t dispel the centre of the self. It may dispel some darkness in a certain area, but the source of the darkness, the creator, the sustainer of it, is still there.

K: But that order is not mechanical because it is not based on logic.

K: Still there. Now what shall we do? But this is a wrong question. This leads nowhere.

K: So, would you say, there is insight, perception and order?

We have stated the general plan, right? And I have to make the moves, or make no moves at all. I haven't the energy. I haven’t the capacity to see it quickly. Because this is immediate, not just something that I practice and eventually get. I haven’t the capacity, I haven’t the sense of urgency, of immediacy. Everything is against me: my family, my wife, society. Everything! And does this mean that I eventually have to become a monk?

intensity which sweeps him away. Darkness arises because it is so overwhelming.

DB: No. Becoming a monk is the same as becoming anything else.

DB: And they would say the other fellow, ‘X’, is unnatural.

K: That’s right. Becoming a monk is like becoming a businessman! I see all this, verbally as well as rationally, intellectually, but I can’t capture this thing. Is there a different approach to this problem? I am always asking the same question, because I am caught in the same pattern. So, is there a totally different way? A totally different approach to the whole turmoil of life? Is there a different manner of looking at it? Or is the old way the only way?

K: Yes.

We have said that as long as the centre is creating darkness, and thought is operating in that darkness, there must be disorder, and society will be as it is now. To move away from that, you must have insight. Insight can only come about when there is a flash, a sudden light, which abolishes not only darkness but the creator of darkness. DB: Yes. K: Now I am asking if there is a different approach to this question altogether, although an old response seems so absolute. DB: Well possibly. When you say it seems absolute, do you want a less absolute approach? K: I am saying that if that is the only way, then we are doomed. DB: You can’t produce this flash at will. K: No, it can’t be produced through will, through sacrifice, through any form of human effort. That is out; we know we have finished with all that. And also we agreed that to some people - to ‘X’ - this insight seemed so natural and we asked why is it not natural to others? DB: If we begin with the child, it seems natural to the child to respond with his animal instincts, with great

K: Yes, but why is it different with ‘X’? DB: First of all it seems natural to most people that the animal instincts would take over. K: Yes, that’s right.

DB: So that is the way mankind has been thinking, saying that if there are indeed any people who are different they must be very unusual and unnatural. K: That’s it. Human beings have been responding to hatred by hatred, and so on. There are those few, perhaps many, who say that is not natural or rational. Why has this division taken place? DB: If we say that pleasure and pain, fear and hate, are natural, then it is felt that we must battle to control these, otherwise they will destroy us. The best we can hope for is to control them with reason, or through another way. K: But that doesn’t work! Are people like ‘X’, who function differently, the privileged few, by some miracle, by some strange chance event? DB: Many people would say that. K: But it goes against one’s grain. I would not accept that. DB: Well, if that is not the case, then you have to say why there is this difference. K: That is what I am trying to get at, because ‘X’ is born of the same parents. DB: Yes, fundamentally the same, so why does he behave differently? K: This question has been asked many times, over and over again in different parts of the world. Now why is there this division? QUESTIONER: Is the division really total? You see, even the man who responds to hatred with hatred,

nevertheless sees that it doesn’t make sense, is not natural and should be different. K: It should be different, but he is still battling with ideas. He is trying to get out of it by the exercise of thought which breeds darkness. Q: I just want to say that the division does not seem to be so entire.

DB: But the difference is not intrinsic, it is not structural, built in like the difference between a tree and a rock. K: Agreed. As you say, there is a difference between a rock and a tree, but it is not like that. Let’s be simple. There are two responses. They start from the source; one has taken one direction, and the other has taken a different direction. But the source is the same. Why haven’t all of them moved in the right direction?

K: Oh, but the division is entire, complete. Q: Well, then, why are people not simply saying, let’s continue to live that way, and let’s enjoy it to the last moment? K: Because they can’t see anything except their own darkness.

DB: We haven’t managed to answer that. I was just saying that if one understands that, and then going back to the source, one does not have to take the wrong turn. In a sense we are continually taking this wrong turn, so if we can understand this, then it becomes possible to change. And we are continually starting from the same source, not going back in time to a source.

Q: But they want to get out of it. K: Just a minute, just a minute. K: Now wait a minute. Do they want to get out of it? Do they actually realize the state they are in, and deliberately want to get out of it? Q: They are ambivalent about it. They want to go on getting the fruits of it, but they have a sense that it is wrong, and that it leads to suffering. DB: Or else they find they can’t help it. You see, when the time comes to experience anger or pleasure, they can’t get away.

DB: There are two possible ways of taking our statement. One is to say that the source is in time, that far back in the past we started together and took different paths. The other is to say that the source is timeless, and we are continually taking the wrong turn, again and again. Right? K: Yes, it is constantly the wrong turn. Why? Q: This means that there is the constant possibility of the right turn.

K: They can’t help it. Q: But they want to get out of it, although they are helpless. There are forces which are stronger than their will.

K: Yes, of course. That’s it. If we say there is a source from which we all began, then we are caught in time. DB: We can’t go back.

K: So what shall we do? Or is this division false?

K: No, that is out. Therefore it is apparent that we are taking the wrong turn all the time.

DB: That’s the point. We had better talk of a difference between these two approaches. This difference is not fundamental.

DB: Constantly.

K: I don’t think they have anything in common. DB: Why? You say the difference is false, although fundamentally people are the same, but a difference has developed between them. Perhaps most people have taken a wrong turning. K: Yes, let’s put it that way.

K: Constantly taking the wrong turn. But why? The one who is living with insight and the other who is not living with insight - are these constant? The man who is living in darkness can move away at any time to the other. That is the point. At any time. DB: Then nothing holds him, except constantly taking the wrong turn. You could say the darkness is such that he doesn't see himself taking the wrong turn.

K: Are we pursuing the right direction, putting the right question? Suppose you have that insight, and your darkness, the very centre of darkness, has been dispelled completely. And I, a serious, fairly intelligent human being, listen to you. And whatever you have said seems reasonable, rational, sane. I question the division. The division is created by the centre which creates darkness. Thought has created it.

K: Vice versa, back and forth. And from all that, everything begins. I see that very clearly. What shall I do? So I don’t admit division. Q: Krishnaji, aren’t we introducing division again, never the less, when we say there is the man who needs insight?

K: From the darkness a shadow is thrown; it makes a division.

K: But man has insight. ‘X’ has insight, and he has explained very clearly how darkness has vanished. I listen to him, and he says your very darkness is creating the division. Actually, there is no division, no division as light and darkness. So he asks me, can you banish, can you put away this sense of division?

DB: If we have that insight, we say there is no division.

DB: You seem to be bringing back a division by saying that, by saying that I should do it, you see.

K: Yes. And man won’t accept that, because in his darkness there is nothing but division. So we, living in darkness, have created the division. We have created it in our thoughts...

K: No, not ‘should’.

DB: Well, in darkness, thought creates the division.

DB: We are constantly creating it. K: Yes, always wanting to live constantly in a state in which there is no division. That movement, however, is still the movement of darkness. Right?

DB: In a way you are saying that the thought process of the mind seems spontaneously to produce division. You say, try to put it aside, and at the same time it is trying to make division. K: I understand. But can my mind put away division? Or is that a wrong question? Q: Can it put away division as long as it is divided?

DB: Yes. K: No, it can’t. So what am I to do? K: How am I to dispel this continuous, constant darkness? That is the only question, because, as long as that exists, I create this constant division. You see, this is going round in circles. I can only dispel the darkness through insight, and I cannot have that insight by any effort of will, so I am left with nothing. So what is my problem? My problem is to perceive the darkness, to perceive the thought that is creating darkness, and to see that the self is the source of this darkness. Why can’t I see that? Why can’t I see it even logically?

Listen. ‘X’ says something so extraordinarily true, of such immense significance and beauty that my whole being says ‘Capture it’. That is not a division. I recognize that I am the creator of division, because I am living in darkness, and so out of that darkness I create. But I have listened to ‘X’, who says there is no division. And I recognize that is an extraordinary statement. So the very saying of that to one who has lived in constant division has an immediate effect. Right?

DB: Well, it’s clear logically. K: Yes, but somehow it doesn’t seem to operate. So what shall I do? I realize for the first time that the self is creating the darkness which is constantly breeding division. I see that very clearly.

DB: I think that one has to, as you say, put away the division... K: I will leave that; I won’t put it away. That statement that ere is no division - I want to get at that a little bit. I am getting somewhere with it.

DB: And the division produces the darkness anyway. ‘X’ s’ statement from this insight, that there is no division has a tremendous effect on me. I have lived

constantly in division, and come along and says there is no division. What effect has it on me? DB: Then you say there is no division. That makes sense. But on the other hand it seems that the division exists. K: I recognize the division, but the statement that there is no division has this immense impact on me. That seems natural, doesn’t it? When I see something that is immovable, it must have some effect on me. I respond to it with a tremendous shock. DB: You see, if you were talking about something which was in front of us, and you said, ‘No, it is not that way’, then that would, of course, change your whole way of seeing it. Now you say this division is not that way. We try to look and see if that is so right? K: I don’t even say, ‘Is that so? ‘X’ has very carefully explained whole business, and he says at the end of it that there is no division. And I am sensitive, watching very carefully, and realizing that I am constantly living in division. When ‘X’ makes that statement it has broken the pattern. I don’t know if you follow what I am trying to explain? It has broken the pattern, because he has said something which is so fundamentally true. There is no God and man. Right, Sir, I stick to that. I see something - which is, where hatred exists the other is not. But, hating, I want the other. So constant division is born out of darkness. And the darkness is constant. But I have been listening very carefully, and ‘X’ makes a statement which seems absolutely true. That enters into me, and the act of his statement dispels the darkness. I am not making an effort to get rid of darkness, but ‘X’ is the light. That’s right, I hold to that. So it comes to something, which is, can I listen with my darkness - in my darkness, which is constant? In that darkness, can I listen to you? Of course I can. I am living in constant division which brings darkness. ‘X’ comes along and tells me there is no division.

K: Of course that is no argument, but it is so! DB: Living in darkness is not worthwhile. But now we say that it is possible to listen in the darkness. K: He, ‘X’, explains to me very, very carefully. I am sensitive, I have been listening to him in my darkness, but that is making me sensitive, alive, watching. That is what I have been doing. We have been doing it together. And he makes a statement that there is absolutely no division. And I know that I am living in division. That very statement has brought the constant movement to an end. Otherwise, if this doesn’t take place I have nothing you follow? I am perpetually living in darkness. But there is a voice in the wilderness, and listening to that voice has an extraordinary effect. DB: Listening reaches the source of the movement, whereas observation does not. K: Yes, I have observed, I have listened, I have played all kinds of games all my life. And I now see that there is only one thing. That there is this constant darkness and I am acting in the darkness; in this wilderness which is darkness; whose centre is the self. I see that absolutely, completely; I can’t argue against it any more. And ‘X’ comes along and tells me this. In that wilderness a voice says there is water. You follow? It is not hope. There is immediate action in me. One must realize that this constant movement in darkness is my life. You follow what I am saying? Can I, with all the experience, with all the knowledge which I have gathered over a million years, suddenly realize that I am living in total darkness? Because that means I have reached the end of all hope. Right? But my hope is also darkness. The future is out altogether, so I am left with this enormous darkness, and I am there. That means, the realization of that is the ending of becoming. I have reached that point and ‘X’ tells me this is natural. You see, all the religions have said this division exists. DB: But, they say it can be overcome.

Right. Now why do you say you can listen in the darkness? K: Oh, yes, I can listen in darkness. If I can’t I am doomed. DB: But that is no argument.

K: It is the who said wilderness wilderness to my own

same pattern repeated. It doesn’t matter it, but the fact is somebody in this is saying something, and in that I have been listening to every voice, and voice, which has created more and more

darkness. Yet, this is right. That means doesn’t it, that when there is insight there is no division?

K: Yes. Would you say the ground is endless movement?

DB: Yes.

K: It is not your insight or my insight, it is insight. In that there is no division.

K: What does that mean? DB: Well, it is difficult to express.

DB: Yes. K: Which brings us to that ground we spoke of...

K: Keep on going into it; let’s express it. What is movement, apart from movement from here to there, apart from time - is there any other movement?

DB: What about the ground? DB: Yes. K: In that ground there is no darkness as darkness, or light as light. In that ground, there is no division. Nothing is born of will, or time, or thought. DB: Are you saying that light and darkness are not divided?

K: There is. The movement from being to becoming, psychologically. There is the movement of distance; there is the movement of time. We say those are all divisions. Is there a movement which in itself has no division? When you have made that statement that there is no division, there is that movement surely?

K: Right. DB: Which means to say there is neither.

DB: Well, are you saying that when there is no division that movement is there?

K: Neither, that’s it! There is something else. There is a perception that there is a different movement, which is ‘non dualistic’.

K: Yes, and I said, ‘X’ says that is the ground.

DB: Non-dualistic means what? No division.

K: Would you say it has no end, no beginning?

K: No division. I won’t use ‘non-dualistic’. There is no division.

DB: Yes.

DB: Right.

K: Which means again time. DB: But nevertheless there is movement. DB: Can one say that movement has no form? K: Of course. DB: What does that mean now, without division? K: I mean by movement, that movement which is not time. That movement doesn’t breed division. So I want to go back, lead to the ground. If, in that ground, there is neither darkness nor light, no God or the son of God - there is no division - what takes place? Would you say that the ground is movement? DB: Well, it could be, yes. Movement is undivided. K: No. I say there is movement in darkness. DB: Yes, but we said there is no division of darkness and light, and yet you said there is movement.

K: No form - all that. I want to go a little further. What I am asking is, we said that when you have stated there is no division, this means no division in movement. DB: It flows without division, you see. K: Yes, it is a movement in which there is no division. Do I capture the significance of that? Do I understand the depth of that statement? A movement in which there is no division, which means no time, no distance as we know it. No element of time in it at all. So I am trying to see if that movement is surrounding man? DB: Yes, enveloping.

K: I want to get at this. I am concerned with mankind, humanity, which is me. ‘X’ has made several statements, and I have captured a statement which seems so absolutely true - that there is no division. Which means that there is no action which is divisive. DB: Yes. K: I see that. And I also ask, is that movement without time, etc? It seems that it is the world, you follow? DB: The universe. K: The universe, the cosmos, the whole. DB: The totality. K: Totality. Isn’t there a statement in the Jewish world, ‘Only God can say I am’?

DB: Yes. K: You have abolished totally the fear of death. DB: Yes, I understand that when the mind is partaking in that movement, then the mind is that movement. K: That’s all! The mind is that movement. DB: Would you say that matter is also that movement? K: Yes, I would say everything is. In my darkness I have listened to ‘X’. That's most important. And his clarity has broken my spell. When he said there is no division, he abolished the division between life and death. I don't know if you see this? DB: Yes.

DB: Well, that's the way the language is built. It is not necessary to state it. K: No, I understand. You follow what I am trying to get at? DB: Yes that only this movement is. K: Can the mind be of that movement? Because that is timeless, therefore deathless. DB: Yes, the movement is without death; in so far as the mind takes part in that, it is the same.

K: One can never say then, `I am immortal'. It is so childish. DB: Yes, that's the division. K: Or, ‘I am seeking immortality’. Or, `I am becoming'. We have wiped away the whole sense of moving in darkness. Q: What then would be the significance of the world? Is there significance to it? K: The world?

K: You understand what I am saying? Q: With man. DB: Yes. But what dies when the individual dies? DB: Society, do you mean? K: That has no meaning, because once I have understood there is no division... DB: ...then it is not important. K: Death has no meaning. DB: It still has a meaning in some other context. K: Oh, the ending of the body; that's totally trivial. But you understand? I want to capture the significance of the statement that there is no division, it has broken the spell of my darkness, and I see that there is a movement, and that’s all. Which means death has very little meaning.

Q: Yes, it seems that when you make that statement, there is no division, and life is death - what then is the significance of man with all his struggle? K: Man in darkness. What importance has that? It is like struggling in a locked room. That is the whole point. DB: Significance can only rise when the darkness is dispelled. K: Of course. Q: The only significance is the dispelling of the darkness.

K: Oh, no, no! DB: Aren’t we going to say that something more can be done besides dispelling the darkness? K: have listened very carefully to everything that you, who have sight, say. What you have done is to dispel the centre. In darkness I could invent many things of significance; that there is light, here is God, there is beauty, and there is this and that. But it is still in the area of darkness. Caught in a room full of darkness, I can invent a lot of pictures, but I want to get something else. Is the mind the one who has this insight - who therefore dispels darkness and has understanding of the ground which is movement without time - is that mind itself the movement?

DB: Yes. The mind emerges from the movement as a ground, and falls back to the ground; that is what we are saying. K: Yes, that’s right. Mind emerges from the movement. DB: And it dies back into the movement. K: That’s right. It has its being in the movement. DB: Yes, and matter also. K: So, what I want to get at is, I am a human being faced with this ending and beginning. And ‘X’ abolishes that.

DB: Yes, but it isn’t the totality. The mind is the movement, but we are saying movement is matter, movement is mind. And we were saying that the ground may be beyond the universal mind. You said earlier that the movement, that the ground, is more than the universal mind, more than the emptiness.

DB: Yes, it is not fundamental.

K: We said that; much more.

K: You see what it does to a human being when there is no death? It means the mind doesn’t age - the ordinary mind I am talking about. I don’t know if I am conveying this.

DB: Much more. But we have to get this clear. We say that the mind is this movement. K: Yes, mind is the movement.

K: It is not fundamental. One of the greatest fears of life, which is death, has been removed. DB: Yes.

DB: Let’s go slowly. You say the mind does not age, but what if the brain cells age?

DB: We are not saying that this movement is only mind?

K: I question it.

K: No, no, no.

DB: But how can we know that?

DB: That is the point I was trying to get correct.

K: Because there is no conflict, because there is no strain, there is no becoming, no movement.

K: Mind is the movement - mind, in the sense, ‘the ground’. DB: But you said that the ground goes beyond the mind. K: Now just a minute: what do you mean by ‘beyond the mind’? DB: just going back to what we were discussing a few days ago: we said we have the emptiness, the universal mind, and then the ground is beyond that. K: Would you say beyond that is this movement?

DB: This is something that it is hard to communicate with certainty about. K: Of course. You can’t prove any of this. DB: But the other, what we have said so far... K: ...can be reasoned. DB: It is reason, and also you can feel it. But now you are stating something about the brain cells that I have no feeling for. It might be so; it could be so.

K: I think it is so. I won’t discuss it. When a mind has lived in the darkness and is in constant movement there is the wearing out, the darkness and is in constant movement there is the wearing out, the decay of the cells.

K: Yes, but the brain, which has had insight, has changed the cells.

DB: We could say that this conflict will cause cells to decay. But somebody might argue that perhaps even without conflict they could decay at a slower rate. Let’s say if you were to live hundreds of years, for example, in time the cells would decay no matter what you did.

K: No, don’t bring in time yet. We are saying that insight brings about a change in the brain cells. Which means that the brain cells are no longer thinking in terms of time.

K: Go into this slowly.

K: Of, course that is understood.

DB: I can readily accept that the rate of decay of the cells could be cut down when we get rid of conflict.

DB: If they are not so disturbed, they will remain in order and perhaps they will break down more slowly. We might increase the age limit from one hundred and fifty to two hundred years, provided one also had healthy living at all levels.

K: Decay can be slowed down.

Q: Are you implying that even the organic brain does not live in time anymore?

Q: Psychological time?

DB: Perhaps a great deal. K: Yes, but all that sounds so very trivial. K: A great deal. Ninety per cent. DB: That we could understand. But if you say a hundred per cent, then it is hard to understand. K: Ninety per cent. Wait a minute. It can be very, very greatly slowed down. And that means what? What happens to a mind that has no conflict? What is that mind, what is the quality of that mind which has no problem? You see, suppose such a mind lives in pure unpolluted air, having the right kind of food and so on, why can’t it live two hundred years?

DB: Yes, it doesn’t seem to make much difference, although it is an interesting idea. K: What if I live another hundred years? We are trying to find out what effect this extraordinary movement has on the brain. DB: Yes. If we say the brain is in some way directly enveloped in this movement; that would bring it to order. But there is a real direct flow, physically. K: Not only physically.

DB: Well it is possible; some people have lived for a hundred and fifty years, living in very pure air, and eating good food. K: But you see, if those very people who have lived a hundred and fifty years, had no conflict, they might live very much longer. DB: They might. There was a case I was reading of a man in England who lived to be a hundred and fifty. And the doctors became interested in him. They wined and dined him, and then he died in a few days! K: Poor devil! Q: Krishnaji, you generally say that anything that lives in time also dies in time.

DB: But also mentally. K: Yes, both. It must have an extraordinary effect on the brain. Q: You talked earlier about energy. Not the everyday energy... K: We said that that movement is total energy. Now this insight has captured, seen, that extraordinary movement, and it is part of that energy. I want to come much closer to earth; I have lived with the fear of death, fear of not becoming, and so on. Suddenly I see there is no division, and I understand the whole thing. So what has happened to my brain - you follow?

Let’s see something. See this whole thing, not verbally, but as a tremendous reality, as truth. With all your heart, mind, you see this thing. That very perception must affect your brain. DB: Yes. It brings order.

K: I am talking of the movement of thought, the movement of any reaction. DB: Yes. There is no movement in which the brain moves independently. You were saying that there is the movement of the whole, but the brain does not go off on its own, as thought.

K: Not only order in life but in the brain. DB: People can prove that if they are under stress the brain cells start to break down. And if you have order in the brain cells, then it is quite different. K: I have a feeling, Sir – don’t laugh at it; it may be false, it may be true - I feel that the brain never loses the quality of that movement.

K: You see, you have abolished death, which is a tremendously significant thing. And so I say, what is the brain, the mind, when there is no death. You follow? It has undergone a surgical operation. DB: We said the brain normally has the notion of death continually there in the background, and that notion is constantly disturbing the brain, because the brain foresees death, and it is trying to stop it.

DB: Once it has it. K: To stop the ending of itself, and so on. K: Of course. I am talking of the person who has been through all this.

DB: It fore sees all that, and thinks it must stop it, but it can't.

DB: So probably the brain never loses that quality. K: It can’t. K: Therefore it is no longer involved in time. DB: And therefore it has a problem. DB: It would no longer be dominated by time. The brain, from what we were saying, is not evolving in any sense, it is just confusion. You can’t say that man’s brain has evolved during the last ten thousand years. You see science, knowledge, has evolved, but people felt the same about life several thousand years ago as they do now. K: I want to find out: in that silent emptiness that we went through, is the brain absolutely still? In the sense, no movement. DB: Not absolutely. You see, the blood is going in the brain.

K: A constant struggle with it. So all that has come to an end. What an extraordinary thing has taken place! How does it affect my daily life, because I have to live on this earth? My daily life is aggression, this everlasting becoming, striving for success - all that has gone. We will pursue this but we have understood a great deal today. DB: In bringing in the question of daily life you might bring in the question of compassion. K: Of course. Is that movement compassion? DB: It would be beyond.

K: We are not talking of that. K: That’s it. That’s why one must be awfully careful. DB: What kind of movement are we discussing? DB: Then again, compassion might emerge out of it.

an has throughout the ages been seeking something beyond himself, beyond material welfare - something we call truth or God or reality, a timeless state something that cannot be disturbed by circumstances, by thought or by human corruption. Man has always asked the question: what is it all about? Has life any meaning at all? He sees the enormous confusion of life, the brutalities, the revolt, the wars, the endless divisions of religion, ideology and nationality, and with a sense of deep abiding frustration he asks, what is one to do, what is this thing we call living, is there anything beyond it?

saints. We say, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Tell me all about it - what lies beyond the hills and the mountains and the earth?â&#x20AC;&#x2122; and we are satisfied with their descriptions, which means that we live on words and our life is shallow and empty. We are secondhand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves; nothing original, pristine, clear.

In this constant battle which we call living, we try to set a code of conduct according to the society in which we are brought up, whether it be a Communist society or a so-called free society; we accept a standard of behavior as part of our tradition as Hindus or Muslims or Christians or whatever we happen to be. We look to someone to tell us what is right or wrong behavior, what is right or wrong thought, and in following this pattern our conduct and our thinking become mechanical, our responses automatic. We can observe this very easily in ourselves.

Throughout theological history we have been assured by religious leaders that if we perform certain rituals, repeat certain prayers or mantras, conform to certain patterns, suppress our desires, control our thoughts, sublimate our passions, limit our appetites and refrain from sexual indulgence, we shall, after sufficient torture of the mind and body, find something beyond this little life. And that is what millions of so-called religious people have done through the ages, either in isolation, going off into the desert or into the mountains or a cave or wandering from village to village with a begging bowl, or, in a group, joining a monastery, forcing their minds to conform to an established pattern. But a tortured mind, a broken mind, a mind which wants to escape from all turmoil, which has denied the outer world and been made dull through discipline and conformity - such a mind, however long it seeks, will find only according to its own distortion.

For centuries we have been spoon-fed by our teachers, by our authorities, by our books, our

So to discover whether there actually is or is not something beyond this anxious, guilty, fearful,

And not finding this nameless thing of a thousand names which he has always sought, he has cultivated faith - faith in a savior or an ideal and faith invariably breeds violence.

competitive existence, it seems to me that one must have a completely different approach altogether. The traditional approach is from the periphery inwards, and through time, practice and renunciation, gradually to come upon that inner flower, that inner beauty and love - in fact to do everything to make oneself narrow, petty and shoddy; peel off little by little; take time; tomorrow will do, next life will do - and when at last one comes to the centre one finds there is nothing there, because one's mind has been made incapable, dull and insensitive. Having observed this process, one asks oneself, is there not a different approach altogether - that is, is it not possible to explode from the centre? The world accepts and follows the traditional approach. The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another; we mechanically follow somebody who will assure us a comfortable spiritual life. It is a most extraordinary thing that although most of us are opposed to political tyranny and dictatorship, we inwardly accept the authority, the tyranny, of another to twist our minds and our way of life. So fl we completely reject, not intellectually but actually, all so-called spiritual authority, all ceremonies, rituals and dogmas, it means that we stand alone and are already in conflict with society; we cease to be respectable human beings. A respectable human being cannot possibly come near to that infinite, immeasurable, reality. You have now started by denying something absolutely false - the traditional approach - but if you deny it as a reaction you will have created another pattern in which you will be trapped; if you tell yourself intellectually that this denial is a very good idea but do nothing about it, you cannot go any further. If you deny it however, because you understand the stupidity and immaturity of it, if you reject it with tremendous intelligence, because you are free and not frightened, you will create a great disturbance in yourself and around you but you will step out of the trap of respectability. Then you will find that you are no longer seeking. That is the first thing to learn - not to seek. When you seek you are really only window-shopping.

The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality, or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosophers or saviors. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself and that is why you must know yourself. Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self. To understand yourself is the beginning of wisdom. And what is yourself, the individual you? I think there is a difference between the human being and the individual. The individual is a local entity, living in a particular country, belonging to a particular culture, particular society, and particular religion. The human being is not a local entity. He is everywhere. If the individual merely acts in a particular corner of the vast field of life, then his action is totally unrelated to the whole. So one has to bear in mind that we are talking of the whole not the part, because in the greater the lesser is, but in the lesser the greater is not. The individual is the little conditioned, miserable, frustrated entity, satisfied with his little gods and his little traditions, whereas a human being is concerned with the total welfare, the total misery and total confusion of the world. We human beings are what we have been for millions of years - -colossally greedy, envious, aggressive, jealous, anxious and despairing, with occasional flashes of joy and affection. We are a strange mixture of hate, fear and gentleness; we are both violence and peace. There has been outward progress from the bullock cart to the jet plane but psychologically the individual has not changed at all, and the structure of society throughout the world has been created by individuals. The outward social structure is the result of the inward psychological structure of our human relationships, for the individual is the result of the total experience, knowledge and conduct of man. Each one of us is the storehouse of all the past. The individual is the human who is all mankind. The whole history of man is written in ourselves. Do observe what is actually taking place within yourself and outside yourself in the competitive culture in which you live with its desire for power, position, prestige, name, success and all the rest of it - observe the achievements of which

you are so proud, this whole field you call living in which there is conflict in every form of relationship, breeding hatred, antagonism, brutality and endless wars. This field, this life, is all we know, and being unable to understand the enormous battle of existence we are naturally afraid of it and find escape from it in all sorts of subtle ways. And we are frightened also of the unknown - frightened of death, frightened of what lies beyond tomorrow. So we are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown. That is our daily life and in that there is no hope, and therefore every form of philosophy, every form of theological concept, is merely an escape from the actual reality of what is. All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society. As human beings living in this monstrously ugly world, let us ask ourselves, can this society, based on competition, brutality and fear, come to an end? Not as an intellectual conception, not as a hope, but as an actual fact, so that the mind is made fresh, new and innocent and can bring about a different world altogether? It can only happen, I think, if each one of us recognizes the central fact that we, as individuals, as human beings, in whatever part of the world we happen to live or whatever culture we happen to belong to, are totally responsible for the whole state of the world. We are each one of us responsible for every war because of the aggressiveness of our own lives, because of our nationalism, our selfishness, our gods, our prejudices, our ideals, all of which divide us. And only when we realize, not intellectually but actually, as actually as we would recognize that we are hungry or in pain, that you and I are responsible for all this existing chaos, for all the misery throughout the entire world because we have contributed to it in our daily lives and are part of this monstrous society with its wars, divisions, its ugliness, brutality and greed - only then will we act. But what can a human being do - what can you and I do - to create a completely different society? We are asking ourselves a very serious

question. Is there anything to be done at all? What can we do? Will somebody tell us? People have told us. The so-called spiritual leaders, who are supposed to understand these things better than we do, have told us by trying to twist and mould us into a new pattern, and that hasn't led us very far; sophisticated and learned men have told us and that has led us no further. We have been told that all paths lead to truth - you have your path as a Hindu and someone else has his path as a Christian and another as a Muslim, and they all meet at the same door - which is, when you look at it, so obviously absurd. Truth has no path, and that is the beauty of truth, it is living. A dead thing has a path to it because it is static, but when you see that truth is something living, moving, which has no resting place, which is in no temple, mosque or church, which no religion, no teacher, no philosopher, nobody can lead you to - then you will also see that this living thing is what you actually are - your anger, your brutality, your violence, your despair, the agony and sorrow you live in. In the understanding of all this is the truth, and you can understand it only if you know how to look at those things in your life. And you cannot look through an ideology, through a screen of words, through hopes and fears. So you see that you cannot depend upon anybody. There is no guide, no teacher, no authority. There is only you - your relationship with others and with the world - there is nothing else. When you realize this, it either brings great despair, from which comes cynicism and bitterness, or, in facing the fact that you and nobody else is responsible for the world and for yourself, for what you think, what you feel, how you act, all self-pity goes. Normally we thrive on blaming others, which is a form of self-pity. Can you and I, then, bring about in ourselves without any outside influence, without any persuasion, without any fear of punishment - can we bring about in the very essence of our being a total revolution, a psychological mutation, so that we are no longer brutal, violent, competitive, anxious, fearful, greedy, envious and all the rest of the manifestations of our nature which have built up the rotten society in which we live our daily lives?

It is important to understand from the very beginning that I am not formulating any philosophy or any theological structure of ideas or theological concepts. It seems to me that all ideologies are utterly idiotic. What is important is not a philosophy of life but to observe what is actually taking place in our daily life, inwardly and outwardly. If you observe very closely what is taking place and examine it, you will see that it is based on an intellectual conception, and the intellect is not the whole field of existence; it is a fragment, and a fragment, however cleverly put together, however ancient and traditional, is still a small part of existence whereas we have to deal with the totality of life. And when we look at what is taking place in the world we begin to understand that there is no outer and inner process; there is only one unitary process, it is a whole, total movement, the inner movement expressing itself as the outer and the outer reacting again on the inner. To be able to look at this seems to me all that is needed, because if we know how to look, then the whole thing becomes very clear, and to look needs no philosophy, no teacher. Nobody need tell you how to look. You just look. Can you then, seeing this whole picture, seeing it not verbally but actually, can you easily, spontaneously, transform yourself? That is the real issue. Is it possible to bring about a complete revolution in the psyche? I wonder what your reaction is to such a question. You may say, ‘I don’t want to change’, and most people don’t, especially those who are fairly secure socially and economically or who hold dogmatic beliefs and are content to accept themselves and things as they are or in a slightly modified form. With those people we are not concerned. Or you may say more subtly, ‘Well, it’s too difficult, it’s not for me’, in which case you will have already blocked yourself, you will have ceased to enquire and it will be no use going any further. Or else you may say, ‘I see the necessity for a fundamental inward change in myself but how am I to bring it about? Please show me the way, help me towards it.’ If you say that, then what you are concerned with is not change itself; you are not really interested in a fundamental

revolution: you are merely searching for a method, a system, to bring about change. If I were foolish enough to give you a system and if you were foolish enough to follow it, you would merely be copying, imitating, conforming, accepting, and when you do that you have set up in yourself the authority of another and hence there is conflict between you and that authority. You feel you must do such and such a thing because you have been told to do it and yet you are incapable of doing it. You have your own particular inclinations, tendencies and pressures which conflict with the system you think you ought to follow and therefore there is a contradiction. So you will lead a double life between the ideology of the system and the actuality of your daily existence. In trying to conform to the ideology, you suppress yourself whereas what is actually true is not the ideology but what you are. If you try to study yourself according to another you will always remain a secondhand human being. A man who says, ‘I want to change, tell me how to’, seems very earnest, very serious, but he is not. He wants an authority whom he hopes will bring about order in himself. But can authority ever bring about inward order? Order imposed from without must always breed disorder. You may see the truth of this intellectually but can you actually apply it so that your mind no longer projects any authority, the authority of a book, a teacher, a wife or husband, a parent, a friend or of society? Because we have always functioned within the pattern of a formula, the formula becomes the ideology and the authority; but the moment you really see that the question, ‘How can I change?’ sets up a new authority, you have finished with authority for ever. Let us state it again clearly: I see that I must change completely from the roots of my being; I can no longer depend on any tradition because tradition has brought about this colossal laziness, acceptance and obedience; I cannot possibly look to another to help me to change, not to any teacher, any God, any belief, any system, any outside pressure or influence. What then takes place?

First of all, can you reject all authority? If you can it means that you are no longer afraid. Then what happens? When you reject something false which you have been carrying about with you for generations, when you throw off a burden of any kind, what takes place? You have more energy, haven't you? You have more capacity, more drive, greater intensity and vitality. If you do not feel this, then you have not thrown off the burden, you have not discarded the dead weight of authority. But when you have thrown it off and have this energy in which there is no fear at all - no fear of making a mistake, no fear of doing right or wrong - then is not that energy itself the mutation? We need a tremendous amount of energy and we dissipate it through fear but when there is this energy which comes from throwing off every form of fear, that energy itself produces the radical inward revolution. You do not have to do a thing about it. So you are left with yourself, and that is the actual state for a man to be who is very serious about all this; and as you are no longer looking to anybody or anything for help, you are already free to discover. And when there is freedom, there is energy; and when there is freedom it can never do anything wrong. Freedom is entirely different from revolt. There is no such thing as doing right or wrong when there is freedom. You are free and from that centre you act. And hence there is no fear, and a mind that has no fear is capable of great love. And when there is love it can do what it will. What we are now going to do, therefore, is to learn about ourselves, not according to me or to some analyst or philosopher - because if we learn about ourselves according to someone else, we learn about them, not ourselves - we are going to learn what we actually are. Having realized that we can depend on no outside authority in bringing about a total revolution within the structure of our own psyche, there is the immensely greater difficulty of rejecting our own inward authority, the authority of our own particular little experiences and accumulated opinions, knowledge, ideas and

ideals. You had an experience yesterday which taught you something and what it taught you becomes a new authority - and that authority of yesterday is as destructive as the authority of a thousand years. To understand ourselves needs no authority either of yesterday or of a thousand years because we are living things, always moving, flowing, and never resting. When we look at ourselves with the dead authority of yesterday, we will fail to understand the living movement and the beauty and quality of that movement. To be free of all authority, of your own and that of another, is to die to everything of yesterday, so that your mind is always fresh, always young, innocent, full of vigor and passion. It is only in that state that one learns and observes. And for this a great deal of awareness is required, actual awareness of what is going on inside yourself, without correcting it or telling it what it should or should not be, because the moment you correct it you have established another authority, a censor. So now we are going to investigate ourselves together - not one person explaining while you read, agreeing or disagreeing with him as you follow the words on the page, but taking a journey together, a journey of discovery into the most secret corners of our minds. And to take such a journey we must travel light; we cannot be burdened with opinions, prejudices and conclusions - all that old furniture we have collected for the last two thousand years and more. Forget all you know about yourself; forget all you have ever thought about yourself; we are going to start as if we knew nothing. It rained last night heavily, and now the skies are beginning to clear; it is a new fresh day. Let us meet that fresh day as if it were the only day. Let us start on our journey together with all the remembrance of yesterday left behind - and begin to understand ourselves for the first time.

Fear is part of pain; is there fear without thought? How does one go beyond the defenses cultivated in childhood? Would one go to a psychoanalyst? One may think that is the easiest way and one may think that he will cure all the problems arising from one’s childhood. He cannot. He may slightly modify them. So what will one do? There is nobody one can go to. Will one face that? There is nobody. Has one ever faced that fact that there is nobody one can go to? If one has cancer one can go to a doctor that is different from the psychological knowledge that one has developed during childhood which causes one to become neurotic; and most people are neurotic. Question: Does not thought originate as a defense against pain? The infant begins to think in order to separate itself from physical pain. Is thought which is psychological knowledge - the result of pain, or is pain the result of thought? How does one go beyond the defenses developed in childhood? Jiddu Krishnamurti - Put a pin into a leg and there is pain; then there is anxiety that the pain should end. That is the momentum of thinking, the nervous reaction; then comes identification with that reaction and one says: ‘I hope it will end and I must not have it in the future’. All, that is part of the momentum of thinking. Fear is part of pain; is there fear without thought? Have you ever experimented with dissociating thought from pain? Sit in a dentist’s chair for some time and watch the things going on; your mind observing without identifying. You can do this. I sat in the dentist’s chair for four hours; never a single thought came into my mind. How does one go beyond the defenses cultivated in childhood? Would one go to a psychoanalyst? One may think that is the easiest way and one may think that he will cure all the problems arising from one’s childhood. He cannot. He may slightly modify them. So what will one do? There is nobody one can go to. Will one face that? There is nobody. Has one ever faced that fact that there is nobody one can go to? If one has cancer one can go to a doctor, that is different from the psychological knowledge that one has developed during childhood which causes one to become neurotic; and most people are neurotic. So, what is one to do? How is one to know, in a world that is somewhat neurotic, in which all one’s friends and relations are slightly unbalanced, that one is also

unbalanced? One cannot go to anybody; so what is taking place in one’s mind now that one no longer depends on others, on books, on psychologists, on authority? What has happened to one’s mind if one actually realizes that one cannot possibly go to anybody? Neuroticism is the result of dependence. One depends on one’s wife, on the doctor; one depends on God or on the psychologists. One has established a series of dependences around one, hoping that in those dependences one will be secure. And when one discovers that one cannot depend on anybody, what happens? One is bringing about a tremendous psychological revolution; one is usually unwilling to face it. One depends on one’s wife; she encourages one to be dependent on her; and vice versa. That is part of one’s neurosis. One does not throw it out, one examines it. Can one be free of it, not depending on one’s wife - psychologically, of course? One will not do it because one is frightened; one wants something from her, sex or this or that. Or she encourages one with one’s ideas, helps one to dominate, to be ambitious, or says one is a marvelous philosopher. But see that the very state of dependence on another may be the cause of the deep psychological neurosis. When one breaks that pattern, what happens? One is sane! One must have such sanity to find out what truth is. Dependence has been from childhood, it has been a factor against pain and hurt, a factor for comfort, for emotional sustenance and encouragement - all that has been built into one, one is part of that. This conditioned mind can never find out what truth is. Not to depend on anything means one is alone; all one, whole - that is sanity, that sanity breeds rationality, clarity, integrity.

Why has sex become so important in our life? It has been so, not only in the present period, but always. Why has sex been so deeply embedded in man? Apart from producing children, I am not talking of that. Why? Probably it is the greatest pleasure a human being has. Demanding that pleasure, all kinds of complications arise; volumes have been written with explanations of the psychological complications. But the authors have never asked the question as to why human beings have made this thing so extremely important in their lives. Question: Why does sex play such an important part in each one’s life in the world? Jiddu Krishnamurti - There is a particular philosophy, especially in India, called Tantra, part of which encourages sex. They say through sex you reach Nirvana. It is encouraged, so that you go beyond it - and you never do. Why has sex become so important in our life? It has been so, not only in the present period, but always. Why has sex been so deeply embedded in man? Apart from producing children, I am not talking of that. Why? Probably it is the greatest pleasure a human being has. Demanding that pleasure, all kinds of complications arise; volumes have been written with explanations of the psychological complications. But the authors have never asked the question as to why human beings have made this thing so extremely important in their lives. Our life is in a turmoil, it is a constant struggle, with nothing original, nothing creative - I am using the word ‘creative’ very carefully. The painter, the architect, the wood-carver, he may say he is creative. The woman who bakes bread in the kitchen is said to be creative. And sex, they say, is also creative. So what is it to be creative? The painters, the musicians and the Indian singers with their devotion, say that theirs is the act of creation. Is it? You have accepted Picasso as a great painter, a great creator, putting one nose on three faces, or whatever he does. I am not denying it or being derogatory, I am just pointing it out. That is what is called creation. But is that entire creativeness? Or is creativeness something totally different? You are seeing the expression of creativeness in a painting, in a poem, in prose, a in a statue, in music. It is expressed according to a man’s talent, his capacity great or small; it may be modern Rock or Bach - I am sorry to compare the two! They are quite incomparable. We human beings have accepted all that as creative because it brings fame, money, position. But I am asking: is that creativity? Can there be creation, in the most

profound sense of that word, so long as there is egotism, so long as there is the demand for success, money and recognition - supplying the market? Do not agree with me please. I am just pointing out. I am not saying I know creativity and you do not; I am not saying that. I am saying we never question these things. I say there is a state where there is creation in which there is no shadow of self. That is real creation; it does not need expression, it does not need self-fulfillment; it is creation. Perhaps sex is felt to be creative and has become important because everything around us is circumscribed, the job, the office, going to the church, following some philosopher, some guru. All that has deprived us of freedom and, further, we are not free from our own knowledge; it is always with us, the past. So we are deprived of freedom outwardly and inwardly; for generation upon generation we have been told what to do. And the reaction to that is: I’ll do what I want, which is also limited, based on pleasure, on desire, on capacity. So where there is no freedom, either outwardly or inwardly, especially inwardly, we have only one thing left and that is called sex. Why do we give it importance? Do you give equal importance to being free from fear? No. Do you give equal energy, vitality and thought to end sorrow? No. Why? Why only to sex? Because that is the easiest thing to hand; the other demands all your energy, which can only come when you are free. So naturally human beings throughout the world have given this thing tremendous importance in life. And when you give something, which is only one part of life, tremendous importance, you are destroying yourself. Life is whole, not just one part. If you give importance to the whole then sex becomes more or less unimportant. The monks and all those who have denied sex have turned their energy to god but the thing is boiling in them, nature cannot be suppressed. But when you give that thing all-importance, then you are corrupt.

any philosophers have written about freedom. We talk of freedom - freedom to do what we like, to have any job we like, freedom to choose a woman or a man, freedom to read any book, or freedom not to read at all. We are free, and what do we do with that freedom? We use that freedom to express ourselves, to do whatever we like. More and more life is becoming permissive - you can have sex in the Open Park or garden.

world, where you express whatever you like, the so-called individual freedom, or does freedom begin inwardly, which then expresses itself intelligently outwardly? You understand my question? Freedom exists only when there is no confusion inside me, when I am psychologically and religiously not to be caught in any trap - you understand? There are innumerable traps: gurus, saviors, preachers, excellent books, psychologists and psychiatrists; they are all traps.

We have every kind of freedom and what have we done with it. We think that where there is choice we have freedom. I can go to Italy or France: a choice. But does choice give freedom? Why do we have to choose? If you are very clear, perceive purely, there is no choice. Out of that comes right action. It is only when there is doubt and uncertainty that we begin to choose. So choice, if you will forgive my saying so, prevents freedom.

And if I am confused and there is disorder, must I not first be free of that disorder before I talk of freedom? If I have no relationship with my wife, my husband or another - because our relationships are based on images - there is conflict which is inevitable where there is division. So should I not begin here, inside me, in my mind, in my heart, to be totally free of all fears, anxieties, despairs and the hurts and wounds that one has received through some psychic disorder? Watch all that for oneself and be free of it!

The totalitarian states have no freedom at all, because they have the idea that freedom brings about the degeneration of man. Therefore they control, suppress - you know what is happening. So what is freedom? Is it based on choice? Is it to do exactly what we like? Some psychologists say, if you feel something, do not suppress, restrain or control it, but express it immediately. And we are doing that very well, too well. And this is also called freedom. Is throwing bombs freedom? Just look what we have reduced our freedom to! Does freedom lie out there, or here? Where do you begin to search for freedom? In the outward

But apparently we have not the energy. We go to another to give us energy. By talking to a psychiatrist we feel relieved - confession and all the rest of it. Always depending on somebody else! And that dependence inevitably brings conflict and disorder. So one has to begin to understand the depth and the greatness of freedom; one must begin with that which is nearest, oneself. The greatness of freedom, real freedom, the dignity, the beauty of it, is in oneself when there is complete order. And that order comes only when we are a light to ourselves.

Right action means precise, accurate action, not based on motive. It is action which is not directed or committed. The understanding of right action, right relationship, brings about intelligence. Not the intelligence of the intellect but that profound intelligence which is not yours or mine. That intelligence will dictate what you will do to earn a livelihood; when there is that intelligence you may be a gardener, a cook, it does not matter. Without that intelligence your livelihood will be dictated by circumstance. There is a way of living in which there is no conflict; because there is no conflict there is intelligence which will show the right way of living Question: I work as a teacher and I am in constant conflict with the system of the school and the pattern of society. Must I give up all work? What is the right way to earn a living? Is there a way of living that does not perpetuate conflict? Jiddu Krishnamurthy: This is a rather complex question and we will go into it step by step. What is a teacher? Either a teacher gives information about history, physics, and biology and so on, or he himself is learning together with the pupil about himself. This is a process of understanding the whole movement of life. If I am a teacher, not of biology or physics, but of psychology, then will the pupil understand me or will my pointing out help him to understand himself? We must be very careful and clear as to what we mean by a teacher. Is there a teacher of psychology at all? Or are there only teachers of facts. Is there a teacher who will help you to understand yourself? The questioner asks: I am a teacher. I have to struggle not only with the established system of schools and education, but also my own life is a constant battle with myself. And must I give up all this? Then what shall I do if I give up all that. He is asking not only what right teaching is but he also wants to find out what right living is. What is right living? As society exists now, there is no right way of living. You have to earn a livelihood, you marry, you have children, you become responsible for them and so you accept the life of an engineer or a professor. As society exists can there be a right way of living? Or is the search for a right way of living merely a search for Utopia, a wish for something more? What is one to do in a society which is corrupt, which has such contradictions in itself, in which there is so much injustice - for that is the society in which we live? And, not only as a teacher in a school, I am asking myself: what shall I do?

Is it possible to live in this society, not only to have a right means of livelihood, but also to live without conflict? Is it possible to earn a livelihood righteously and also to end all conflict within oneself? Now, are these two separate things: earning a living rightly and not having conflict in oneself? Are these two in separate, watertight compartments? Or do they go together? To live a life without any conflict requires a great deal of understanding of oneself and therefore great intelligence - not the clever intelligence of the intellect - but the capacity to observe, to see objectively what is happening, both outwardly and inwardly and to know that there is no difference between the outer and the inner. It is like a tide that goes out and comes in. To live in this society, which we have created, without any conflict in myself and at the same time to have a right livelihood - is it possible? On which shall I lay emphasis - on right livelihood or on right living that is, on finding out how to live a life without any conflict? Which comes first? Do not just let me talk and you listen, agreeing or disagreeing, saying ‘It is not practical. It is not like this, it is not like that saying,’ It is not practical. It is not like this, it is not like that’ because it is your problem. We are asking each other: is there a way of living which will naturally bring about a right livelihood and at the same time enable us to live without a single shadow of conflict? People have said that you cannot live that way except in a monastery, as a monk; because you have renounced the world and all its misery and are committed to the service of God, because you have given your life over to an idea, or a person, an image or symbol, you expect to be looked after. But very few believe any more in monasteries, or in saying, ‘I will surrender myself’. If they do surrender themselves it will be surrendering to the image they have created about another, or which they have projected.

It is possible to live a life without a single shadow of conflict only when you have understood the whole significance of living - which is, relationship and action. What is right action - under all circumstances? Is there such a thing? Is there a right action which is absolute, not relative? Life is action, movement, talking, acquiring knowledge and also relationship with another, however deep or superficial. You have to find right relationship if you want to find a right action which is absolute. What is your present relationship with another - not the romantic, imaginative, flowery and superficial thing that disappears in a few minutes - but, actually, what is your relationship with another? What is your relationship with a particular person? - perhaps intimate, involving sex, involving dependence on each other, possessing each other and therefore arousing jealousy and antagonism. The man or the woman goes off to the office, or to do some kind of physical work, where he or she is ambitious, greedy, competitive, aggressive to succeed; he or she comes back home and becomes a tame, friendly, perhaps affectionate husband or wife. That is the actual daily relationship. Nobody can deny that. And we are asking: is that right relationship? We say no, certainly not, it would be absurd to say that that is right relationship. We say that, but continue in the same way. We say that that is wrong but we do not seem to be able to understand what right relationship is - except according to the pattern set by ourselves, by society. We may want it, we may wish for it, long for it, but longing and wishing do not bring it about. We have to go into it seriously to find out. Relationship is generally sensuous - begin with that then from sensuality there is companionship, a sense of dependence on each other; then there is the creating of a family which increases dependence on each other. When there is uncertainty in that dependence the pot boils over. To find right relationship one has to enquire into this great dependence on each other. Psychologically why are we so dependent in our relationships with each other? Is it that we are desperately lonely? Is it that we do not trust anybody - even our own husband or wife? On the other hand, dependence gives a sense of security; a protection against this vast world of terror. We say: ‘I love you.’ In that love there is always the sense of possessing and being possessed. And when that situation is threatened there arises all the conflict. That is our

present relationship with each other, intimate or otherwise. We create an image about each other and cling to that image. The moment you are tied to another person, or tied to an idea or concept, corruption has begun. That is the thing to realize and we do not want to realize it. So, can we live together without being tied, without being dependent on each other psychologically? Unless you find this out you will always live in conflict, because life is relationship. Now, can we objectively, without any motive, observe the consequences of attachment and let them go immediately? Attachment is not the opposite of detachment. I am attached and I struggle to be detached; which is: I create the opposite. The moment I have created the opposite conflict comes into being. But there is no opposite; there is only what I have, which is attachment. There is only the fact of attachment - in which I see all the consequences of attachment in which there is no love - not the pursuit of detachment. The brain has been conditioned, educated, trained, to observe what is and to create its opposite: ‘I am violent but I must not be violent’ - therefore there is conflict. But when I observe only violence, the nature of it - not analyze but observe - then the conflict of the opposite is totally eliminated. If one wants to live without conflict, only deal with ‘what is’, everything else is not. And when one lives that way - and it is possible to live that way completely to remain with ‘what is’ then ‘what is’ withers away. Experiment with it. When you really understand the nature of relationship, which only exists when there is no attachment, when there is no image about the other, then there is real communion with each other. Right action means precise, accurate action, not based on motive; it is action which is not directed or committed. The understanding of right action, right relationship, brings about intelligence. Not the intelligence of the intellect but that profound intelligence which is not yours or mine. That intelligence will dictate what you will do to earn a livelihood; when there is that intelligence you may be a gardener, a cook, it does not matter. Without that intelligence your livelihood will be dictated by circumstance. There is a way of living in which there is no conflict; because there is no conflict there is intelligence which will show the right way of living.

What is it that incarnates, is reborn? What is it that is living at this moment, sitting here? What is it that is taking place now to that which is in incarnation? And when one goes from here, what is it that is actually taking place in our daily life, which is the living movement of incarnation – one’s struggles, one’s appetites, greed, envies, attachments - all that? Is it that which is going to reincarnate in the next life? Question: Would you please make a definite statement about the non-existence of reincarnation since increasing ‘scientific evidence’ is now being accumulated to prove reincarnation is a fact. I am concerned because I see large numbers of people beginning to use this evidence to further strengthen a belief they already have, which enables them to escape problems of living and dying. Is it not your responsibility to be clear, direct and unequivocal on this matter instead of hedging round the issue?

iddu Krishnamurti -We will be very definite. The idea of reincarnation existed long before Christianity. It is prevalent almost throughout India and probably in the whole Asiatic world. Firstly: what is it that incarnates; not only incarnates now, but reincarnates again and again? Secondly: the idea of there being scientific evidence that reincarnation is true, is causing people to escape their problems and that causes the questioner concern. Is he really concerned that people are escaping? They escape through football or going to church. Put aside all this concern about what other people do. We are concerned with the fact, with the truth of reincarnation; and you want a definite answer from the speaker.

What is it that incarnates, is reborn? What is it that is living at this moment, sitting here? What is it that is taking place now to that which is in incarnation? And when one goes from here, what is it that is actually taking place in our daily life, which is the living movement of incarnation – one’s struggles, one’s appetites, greed, envies, attachments - all that? Is it that which is going to reincarnate in the next life? Now those who believe in reincarnation believe they will be reborn with all that they have now modified perhaps - and so carry on, life after life. Belief is never alive. But suppose that belief is tremendously alive, and then what you are now matters much more than what you will be in a future life. In the Asiatic world there is the word ‘karma’ which means action in life now, in this period, with all its misery, confusion, anger, jealousy, hatred, violence, which may be modified, but will go on to the next life. So there is evidence of remembrance of things past, of a past life. That remembrance is the accumulated ‘me’, the ego, the personality. That bundle, modified, chastened, polished a little bit, goes on to the next life.

So it is not a question of whether there is reincarnation (I am very definite on this matter, please) but that there is incarnation now; what is far more important than reincarnation is the ending of this mess, this conflict, now. Then something totally different goes on. Being unhappy, miserable, sorrow-ridden, one says: ‘I hope the next life will be better’. That hope for the next life is the postponement of facing the fact now. The speaker has talked a great deal to those who believe in and have lectured and written about reincarnation, endlessly. It is part of their game. I say, ‘All right, Sirs, you believe in it all. If you believe, what you do now matters’. But they are not interested in what they do now; they are interested in the future. They do not say: ‘I believe and I will alter my life so completely that there is no future’. Do not at the end of this say that I am evading this particular question; it is you who are evading it. I have said that the present life is all-important; if you have understood and gone into it, with all the turmoil of it, the complexity of it - end it, do not carry on with it. Then you enter into a totally different world. I think that is clear, is it not? I am not hedging. You may ask me: ‘Do you believe in reincarnation?’ Right? I do not believe in anything. This is not an evasion I have no belief and it does not mean that I am an atheist, or that I am ungodly. Go into it, see what it means. It means that the mind is free from all the entanglements of belief. In the literature of ancient India there is a story about death and incarnation. For a Brahmin it is one of the ancient customs and laws, that after collecting worldly wealth he must at the end of five years give up everything and begin again. A certain Brahmin had a son and the son says to him, ‘You are giving all this away to various people, to whom are you going to give me away; to whom are you sending me?’ The father said, ‘Go away, I am not interested’.

But the boy comes back several times and the father gets angry and says, ‘I am going to send you to Death’ - and being a Brahmin he must keep his word. So he sends him to Death. On his way to Death the boy goes to various teachers and finds that some say there is reincarnation, others say there is not. He goes on searching and eventually he comes to the house of Death.

When he arrives, Death is absent. (A marvelous implication, if you go into it.) Death is absent. The boy waits for three days. On the fourth day, Death appears and apologizes. He apologizes because the boy was a Brahmin; he says, ‘I am sorry to have kept you waiting and in my regret I will offer you three wishes. You can be the greatest king, have the greatest wealth, or you can be immortal’. The boy says, ‘I have been to many teachers and they all say different things. What do you say about death and what happens afterwards?’ Death says: ‘I wish I had pupils like you; not concerned about anything except that’. So he begins to tell him about truth, about the state of life in which there is no time.

In enlightenment there is nobody there to get angry, and there is nobody there not to get angry either. So whatsoever happens simply happens. Krishnamurti does not get angry the way you get angry. Everything with an enlightened person happens on a totally different plane. His anger comes out of his compassion. Your anger comes out of hate, aggression, cruelty. He becomes angry -- sometimes he starts pulling his hair out, he hits his own forehead but out of compassion. And when they see that Krishnamurti can get angry, they are disillusioned, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;So this man is not a buddha, he has not become enlightened yet.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; I say to you that he is one of the most enlightened persons who has ever walked on this earth. Still he can get angry, but his anger comes out of compassion; it is condensed compassion. He cares about you, so much so that he becomes angry. This is a totally different quality of anger.

rishnamurti and Osho are contemporaries. Many times the aspirants visit Osho or Krishnamurti as the two lived in Mumbai. All Osho followers used the Saffron robes and Krishnamurti was against the institution of Guru. So whenever the Osho followers would sit in front row to listen to Krishna he used to get angry. This baffled the audience present there. From time to time the followers of Osho sought an explanation from Osho In the present talks of the anger of Krishnamurti. And thus Osho explained the difference between the ordinary human anger and that of Krishnamurti. The anger of the enlightened one is the expression of compassion.

happens simply happens. Krishnamurti does not get angry the way you get angry. Everything with an enlightened person happens on a totally different plane. His anger comes out of his compassion. Your anger comes out of hate, aggression, cruelty. He becomes angry -sometimes he starts pulling his hair out, he hits his own forehead -- but out of compassion.

Question: Beloved Osho, You have said that Krishnamurti can get angry. How is that possible, as in enlightenment there is no one there to be angry?

Just think, for fifty years or more he has been teaching a certain kind of truth to the world, and nobody understands him. The same people gather each year to listen to him -- the same people. Once he was talking in Bombay... somebody reported this to me, and the person who reported it to me is an old lady, older than Krishnamurti. She saw Krishnamurti when he was a child; she has seen him and listened to him for fifty years. And because she is a little deaf, very old, she sits in the front on a chair.

Osho: Henk Faassen, in enlightenment there is nobody there to get angry, and there is nobody there not to get angry either. So whatsoever

And for fifty years Krishnamurti has been saying that there are no methods for meditation, that meditation is not needed at all. Just be in the

present and live your life, that’s enough meditation, no other technique, is needed.... For one and a half hours he poured his heart out, and at the end the lady stood up and asked, ‘How to meditate?’ Now, what do you suppose he should do? He hit his head. This is not your anger. This is so unbelievable! He is tired of this lady, but this lady is not tired of him. She comes to every talk to listen to him, and asks the same stupid questions. When I say Krishnamurti can get angry, I don’t mean, Henk that he can get angry like you get angry. His anger is out of compassion. This situation is unbelievable! He wants to help this lady and he feels so helpless. He tries this way and that. His message is very simple, singular, onedimensional. For fifty years he has been saying only a single word. In essence his whole teaching can be printed on one side of a postcard.

goes on barking, on the other hand he goes on wagging his tail. He is playing the diplomat, so whatsoever the case turns out to be, he can always feel right. If the master comes and he sees that the master is friendly, the barking will stop and his whole energy will go into the tail. If the master is angry with the intruder, then the tail will stop completely, and his whole energy will go into barking. Your anger is also like that. You are weighing up how far to go, how much will pay; don’t go beyond the limit, don’t provoke the other person too much. But when a man like Krishnamurti becomes angry he is pure anger. And pure anger has a beauty because it has totality. He is just anger. He is like a small child, red faced, just anger all over, and ready to destroy the whole world. That’s what happened to Jesus.

He has been saying it in as many possible ways as one can invent, but it is the same citadel that he attacks from the north, from the south, from the west, from the east. And still people go on listening to him and go on asking the same old foolish questions. He certainly gets angry. And when a man like Krishnamurti gets angry, he is pure anger. Many in India have felt very disappointed with Krishnamurti because he gets angry. They have a certain concept that a buddha should not get angry. They go with a prejudice. And when they see that Krishnamurti can get angry, they are disillusioned, ‘So this man is not a buddha, he has not become enlightened yet.’ I say to you that he is one of the most enlightened persons who have ever walked on this earth. Still he can get angry, but his anger comes out of compassion; it is condensed compassion. He cares about you, so much so that he becomes angry. This is a totally different quality of anger. And when he becomes angry he is real anger. Your anger is partial, lukewarm. Your anger is like a dog who is not certain how to behave with a stranger. He may be a friend of the master, so he wags his tail; he may be an enemy, so he barks. He does both together. On one hand he

When he went into the great temple and saw the money changers and their tables inside the temple, he was in a rage. He became angry -- the same anger that comes out of compassion and love. Singlehanded, he drove all the money changers out of the temple and overturned their

boards. He must have been really very angry, because driving all the moneychangers out of the temple singlehanded is not an easy thing. And reports say -- I don’t know how far they are right, but reports say that he was not a very strong man. Reports say that he was not even a very tall man; you will be surprised, he was only four feet six inches. And not only that -- on top of it he was a hunchback. I don’t know how far those reports are true, because I don’t want to go to court! But it is there in the books, ancient books, very ancient books. So how did this hunchback, four feet six inches high, drive out all the moneychangers singlehanded? He must have been pure rage! Indians are angry about that. They cannot trust that Jesus is enlightened -- just because of this incident. People have their prejudices, their ideas. Rather than seeing into reality, rather than looking into an enlightened man, they come ready with so many concepts, and unless he fits them he is not enlightened. And let me tell you, no enlightened person is going to fit with your unenlightened prejudices; it is impossible. It happened, a lady came to me. She had been a follower of Krishnamurti for many years, then a small thing disturbed the whole thing and the whole applecart was upturned. The thing was so small that I was surprised. There was a camp in Holland where Krishnamurti holds a camp every year, and the woman had gone there from India. Near about two thousand people had gathered from all over the world to listen to him. The next morning the lectures were going to start, and the woman had gone shopping. And she was surprised, Krishnamurti was also shopping. An enlightened person shopping? Can you believe it? Buddha in a supermarket? And not only that -- he was purchasing a necktie.

Enlightened people need neckties? And not only that -- the whole counter was full of neckties and he was throwing them this way and that, and he was not satisfied with any. The woman watched, looked at the whole scene, and fell from the sky. She thought, ‘I have come from India for this ordinary man who is purchasing neckties. And even then, of thousands of neckties of all colors and all kinds of material, nothing is satisfying to him. Is this detachment? Is this awareness?’ She turned away. She didn’t attend the camp, she came back immediately. And the first thing she did was to come running to me, and she said, ‘You are right.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ She said, ‘You are right that it was useless wasting my time with Krishnamurti. Now I want to become a sannyasin of yours.’ I said, ‘Please excuse me, I cannot accept you. If you cannot accept Krishnamurti, how can I accept you? Get lost! ... because here you will see far more disappointing things. What are you going to do with my Mercedes Benz? So before it happens, why bother? What are you going to do with my air-conditioned room? Before it happens, it is better that you go and find some Muktananda, etcetera. You have not been able to understand Krishnamurti; you will not be able to understand me.’ People like Krishnamurti live on a totally different plane. Their anger is not your anger. And who knows that he was not just playing with those ties for this stupid old woman? Masters are known to devise things like that. He got rid of this stupid old woman very easily. Source: from book ‘The book of wisdom’ by Osho

Experiencing is one thing; helping others to experience it is not the same. In enlightenment there are no degrees; either one is enlightened or one is not. Once a person is enlightened he has the same flavor, the same fragrance as anyone who has ever become enlightened or will ever become enlightened. But to relate the experience, to communicate the experience is not possible for all. Traditions cannot be followed. You can understand them and understanding can be of immense help, but following and understanding are totally different things. So Krishnamurti is right when he is against following, but when he starts saying that you need not even understand, then he is wrong. Then he is speaking the language of an Arhata and he is unaware of the world of the Bodhisattva. Understanding is possible -- you can understand Buddha. What he is doing for forty years? What efforts has he been making for forty years?

Question: Osho, Could you please tell me your opinion about J. Krishnamurti, who is saying that you wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be free and therefore not happy as long as you follow any tradition, religion or master? Osho: Wolfgang, Gautam the Buddha has divided the enlightened persons into two categories. The first category he calls the Arhatas and the second Bodhisattvas. The Arhata and the Bodhisattva are both enlightened; there is no difference between their experience, but the Arhata is not a Master and the Bodhisattva is a Master. The Arhata has attained to the same truth but he is incapable of teaching it, because teaching is a totally different art. For example, you can see a beautiful sunset, you can experience the beauty of it as deeply, as profoundly as any Vincent van Gogh, but that does not mean you will be able to paint it. To paint it is a totally different art.

Experiencing is one thing; helping others to experience it is not the same. There have been many Arhatas but very few Bodhisattvas. The Bodhisattva is both enlightened and skillful to teach what has happened to him. It is the greatest art in the world; no other art can be compared with it, because to say the unsayable, to help people come out of their sleep, to find and invent devices to bring what has happened to him to those who are thirsty for it and help them to get it... it is a rare gift. Krishnamurti is an Arhata, he is not a Bodhisattva. His enlightenment is as great as anybody else's enlightenment; he is a Buddha, a Jesus, a Lao Tzu. In enlightenment there are no degrees; either one is enlightened or one is not. Once a person is enlightened he has the same flavor, the same fragrance as anyone who has ever become enlightened or will ever become enlightened. But

to relate the experience, to communicate the experience is not possible for all. Once Buddha was asked, ‘How many people have become enlightened amongst your disciples?’ He said, ‘Many.’ He showed...’Look!’ Manjushri was sitting by his side and Sariputra and Modgalyayan and Mahakashyap. He said, ‘These four people are right now present here -- they have become enlightened.’ The inquirer asked, ‘If they have become enlightened why they are not so famous as you are? Why nobody knows about them? Why they don’t have thousands of followers?’ Buddha said, ‘They have become enlightened but they are not Masters. They are Arhatas, they are not Bodhisattvas.’ The Arhata knows it but cannot make it known to the others. The Bodhisattva knows it and can make it known to the others. Krishnamurti is an Arhata. Because of this he cannot understand the beautiful world of a Master and his disciples. You ask me, Wolfgang: Could You Please tell me your Opinion About J. Krishnamurti, Who Is Saying That you won’t be Free and Therefore not Happy as Long as you Follow any Tradition, Religion or Master? He is right. If you follow a tradition, religion or Master -- remember the word ‘follow’ -- you will not be free and you will not be blissful, you will not know the ultimate truth of life: by following nobody knows it. What can you do by following a tradition? You will become an imitator. A tradition means something of the past, and enlightenment has to happen right now! A tradition may be very ancient -- the more ancient it is, the more dead.

A tradition is nothing but footprints on the sands of time of the enlightened people, but those footprints are not enlightened. You can follow those footprints very religiously and they will not lead you anywhere, because each person is unique. If you remember the uniqueness of the person then no following is going to help you, because there cannot be a fixed routine. That’s the difference between science and religion: science depends on tradition. Without a Newton, without an Edison, there is no possibility for Albert Einstein to have existed at all. He needs a certain tradition; only on that tradition, on the shoulders of the past giants in the world of science, he can stand. Of course when you stand on the shoulders of somebody you can look a little farther than the person on whose shoulders you are standing, but that person is needed there. Science is a tradition, but religion is not a tradition: it is an individual experience, utterly individual. Once something is known in the world of science it need not be discovered again, it will be foolish to discover it again. You need not discover the theory of gravitation -- Newton has done it. You need not go and sit in a garden and watch an apple fall and then conclude that there must be some force in the earth that pulls it downwards; it will be simply foolish. Newton has done it; now it is part of human tradition. It can be taught to any person who has a little bit of intelligence; even school children know about it. But in religion you have to discover again and again. No discovery becomes a heritage in religion. Buddha discovered, but that does not mean you can simply follow the Buddha. Buddha was unique; you are unique in your own right, so how Buddha has entered into truth is not going to help you. You are a different kind of house; the doors may be in different directions. If you simply follow Buddha blindly, that very following will be misleading.

Traditions cannot be followed. You can understand them and understanding can be of immense help, but following and understanding are totally different things. So Krishnamurti is right when he is against following, but when he starts saying that you need not even understand, then he is wrong. Then he is speaking the language of an Arhata and he is unaware of the world of the Bodhisattva. Understanding is possible -- you can understand Buddha. What he is doing for forty years? What efforts has he been making for forty years? How Wolfgang came to know Krishnamurti’s ideas? He is trying to explain, he is trying with great effort to make you understand. You cannot follow Krishnamurti, but you can certainly understand his vision, his perspective, and that will be enrichment. It will not bring you enlightenment, but it can be used as a steppingstone. Krishnamurti says he is fortunate that he has not read any religious scriptures. That is not right. In the first place it is not factual -- he has been taught when he was young all the ancient scriptures, not only of one tradition but of all the traditions, because he was brought up by Theosophists -- great synthesizers of all the paths and all the religions and all the traditions. Theosophy was one of the greatest efforts ever made to bring all the traditions closer to each other: Hinduism, Mohammedanism, Christianity, Judaism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Taoism. Theosophy was trying to find out the essential core of them all, and Krishnamurti was taught in every possible way all that is great. He may have forgotten about it, and I know that he must have forgotten because he will not lie, he will not say anything deliberately untrue. But he lived in a kind of hypnosis for twenty-five years. He was taken possession by the Theosophists when he was only nine years of age, and then he had been brought up m a very special way.

Many secret methods have been tried upon him: he has been taught while he was sleeping, he has been taught while he was in deep hypnosis, so he does not remember it at all. Only recently Russian psychologists are trying to find ways how to teach children while they are asleep, because if we can teach children while they are asleep much time can be saved. And one thing more: when a child is asleep he can be taught more easily because there is no distraction. His unconscious can be taught directly, which is easier. When we teach a child through his consciousness it is difficult, because ultimately the teaching has to reach to the unconscious, only then it becomes yours. And to reach to the unconscious through the conscious it takes long time, long repetition. You have to go on repeating again and again and again, then only slowly and slowly it settles to the bottom of the conscious, and from that bottom slowly it penetrates into the unconscious. But in deep sleep, or more precisely in hypnosis -hypnosis means sleep, deliberately created sleep - you can reach directly to the unconscious; the conscious can be bypassed, and a thing can be put into the unconscious. The conscious will not know anything about it. Krishnamurti was taught all the great scriptures in a deep hypnosis; he has completely forgotten. Not only that: he has been even manipulated to write while he was in hypnosis. His first book, ‘At The Feet Of The Master’, was written under hypnosis, hence he simply shrugs his shoulders when you ask about that first book - which is really a rare document of immense value. But he simply says, ‘I don’t know anything about it, how it happened. I can’t say that I have written it.’ Krishnamurti has been experimented upon by Theosophists in many subtle ways, so he is not aware that he has been acquainted with all the great scriptures and all the great documents, and what he goes on saying has reflections of all

those teachings They are there, but in a very subtle form. He cannot quote the scriptures, but what he says is the very essence of the scriptures. A tradition has to be understood, and if you can understand many traditions, of course it will enrich you. It will not make you enlightened, but it will help you towards the goal, it will push you towards the goal. Don’t be a follower of any tradition – don’t be a Christian or a Hindu or a Mohammedan. But it will be unfortunate if you remain unaware of the beautiful words of Jesus, it will be a sheer misfortune if you don’t know the great poetry of the Upanishads. It will be as if a person has not heard any great music -- Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, and Wagner. If one has not heard, something will be missing in him. It will be a misfortune if you have not read Shakespeare, Milton, Dostoevsky, Kalidas, Bharbhuti, Rabindranath, and Kahlil Gibran. If you have not been acquainted with Tolstoy, Chekhov, and Maxim Gorky, something in you will remain missing. The same is true if you have not read Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Lieh Tzu, Gautam Buddha, Bodhidharma, Baso, Lin Chi, Socrates, Pythagoras, and Heraclitus.

make you free of creeds and dogmas. That’s what’s happening here. I am talking about all the religions for the simple reason so that you don't become addicted with one standpoint. Life is multidimensional. Certainly Moses has contributed something to it which nobody else has done. Unless you understand Moses you will miss that perspective, that dimension; that much you will be poorer. And the people who listen to Krishnamurti, they start following him! There are Krishnamurtiites who have been listening to him for forty years or even fifty years. I have come across old people of the same age as Krishnamurti who have listened to him for fifty years, since 1930, and they have reached nowhere. All that they have learned is a kind of negativeness: ‘This is wrong, that is wrong.’ But what is right? About that there seems to be not even a glimpse in their being. Don’t become part of a religion, but visit, be a guest to all the religions. In the temple there is a beauty, in the mosque also, a different kind of beauty, in the church again a different experience. And this is our whole heritage; the whole humanity’s past belongs to you. Why choose?

These are very different, unique perspectives, but they will all help you to become wider. So I will not say that traditions are useless; I will say they become dangerous if you follow them blindly. Try to understand, imbibe the spirit. Forget the letter, just drink of the spirit. It is certainly dangerous to belong to a religion because that means you are encaged, imprisoned into a certain creed, dogma. You lose your freedom; you lose your inquiry, your exploration. It is dangerous to live surround by a small philosophy.

The follower chooses. He insists to be a Christian; he will avoid Upanishads, he will avoid Dhammapada, he will not bother about Koran. He is unnecessarily crippling himself, paralyzing himself. I also say don’t follow, but I will not agree with the statement that: don’t try to understand. Trying to understand is not following; your understanding becomes clearer, more sharpened. Krishnamurti goes on reading detective novels. Is he following those detective novels? Is he trying to become a detective?

You will be a frog in the well; you will not know about the ocean. But to understand is a totally different phenomenon. The very effort to understand all the religions of the world will

If he can read detective novels, what is wrong in reading the Upanishads? And detective novels are just ordinary, juvenile, and childish. Upanishads are the Himalayan peaks of human consciousness.

Don’t follow them -- there is no need to follow anybody. My Sannyasins are not my followers, they are just my companions. The word Satsang, the word Upanishad, means the company of a Master. The disciple is a companion a fellow-traveler, and of course if you are traveling with somebody who knows the territory, who has explored the territory, your journey will become easier, your journey will become richer, your journey will have less unnecessary hazards; you will be able to reach the goal sooner than alone. Traditions become dangerous only when you cling to them; then certainly there is danger. Traditions are group efforts to keep the unexpected from happening. If you become a part, then it is dangerous, because then the tradition becomes a hindrance to you for exploring. The tradition insists for belief -- believe in it and believe without inquiry. That’s what people are doing, what Christians and Hindus and Mohammedans are doing -- believing into something they have never inquired. And to believe into something without inquiring is very disrespectful towards truth and towards your own self. No, belief is not going to help -only knowing can free you. And he says the same about a Master. It is true about ninety-nine socalled Masters, but it is not true about the one, the real one He is ninety-nine percent right, because wherever there are real coins there are bound to be false coins too. A tradition is dead; a religion is a philosophy, a belief, a dogma. If you believe in it, it appears significant; its arguments appear to be very great. The moment you stand by the side and look with a detached view, you can see the foolishness, the stupidity. You can see that there are assumptions which have not been proved, not been established.

One morning a great philosopher was seen walking down the street touching every pole that he passed. Someone asked him, ‘Hey, professor, why are you touching all those poles?’ The philosopher grinned and said, ‘And why are you not touching all those poles?’ It is difficult to answer why you are not touching! The philosophers have their own arguments; you may not be able to argue against them. They may silence you; they may bring great proofs, logical arguments, and rationalizations. They may silence you, but that is not going to help. After giving a speech at Columbia University, the noted philosopher, Bertrand Russell, was answering questions from the audience. One student’s critical question brought him to a full stop. For a whole minute he said nothing, his hand over his chin. Then he peered at the student and rephrased the question, making it more precise. He asked the student, ‘Would you say that this is still your question?’ The student answered delightfully, ‘Yes.’ Again Lord Russell thought, this time even longer, and twice seemed about to speak. Then he said, ‘That’s a very good question, young man. I don’t believe I can answer it!’ But there are very few philosophers like Bertrand Russell who will accept that they can’t answer. They will invent answers; they will go on and on creating proofs, inventing proofs. For every kind of nonsense you can find proofs, you can argue. Religions are all based on theologies, and the very word ‘theology’ is a contradiction in terms. ‘Theo’ means God, ‘logy’ means logic -- logic about God. In fact, there is no logic about God; there is love but no logic. You can approach the phenomenon God or godliness through the heart, through love, but not through logic.

Indeed Enlightened one can never be wrong. So too, Krishnamurti is not wrong, but he never considers the situation in which you are instead he considers only the space in which he is, and that freedom is part of enlightenment. The enlightened person has reached the highest peak of consciousness; his abode is on Everest. Now it is his freedom to speak according to the peak, the sunlit peak where he is, or to consider the people who are still in the dark valley, who know nothing about the light, for whom the peak of the Everest is only a dream, only a perhaps. This is the freedom of the enlightened person. Krishnamurti speaks in terms where he is. Question: Osho, Can an enlightened person be wrong? This refers to what you told us about J. Krishnamurti, who keeps on saying that one does not Need a Master, which is actually not right please comment. Osho: Prem Pantha, an Enlightened person can never be wrong. Neither J. Krishnamurti is wrong, but he never considers the situation in which you are. He considers only the space in which he is, and that freedom is part of enlightenment. The enlightened person has reached the highest peak of consciousness; his abode is on Everest. Now it is his freedom to speak according to the peak, the sunlit peak where he is, or to consider the people who are still in the dark valley, who know nothing about the light, for whom the peak of the Everest is only a dream, only a perhaps. This is the freedom of the enlightened person. Krishnamurti speaks in terms where he is.

no question, because I know the peak and what he is saying is certainly true -- from the vision of the peak. Those who have arrived, for them the journey becomes almost a dream phenomenon. For those who have not arrived the journey is real, the goal is just a dream. They are living in two different worlds. When you are talking to a madman you have to consider him; if you don’t consider him you cannot help him. Once, a madman was brought to me. He had this crazy idea that one afternoon when he was sleeping, a fly has entered his mouth. And because he used to sleep with open mouth, nobody can deny the possibility. And since then he was very much disturbed because the fly was roaming inside him, jumping inside him, moving in his belly, going to his bladder, circulating in his bloodstream, sometimes in his head, sometimes in his feet. And of course he could not do anything because he was continuously occupied, obsessed with the fly.

I speak in terms where you are, I consider you, because if I am speaking to you, you have to be taken in consideration. I have to lead you towards the highest peak, but the journey will begin in the dark valley, in your unconsciousness. If I talk about my experience, absolutely inconsiderate of you, I am right, but I am not useful to you.

He was taken to the psychoanalysts and they said, ‘This is just in your mind -- there is no fly! And no fly can move in your bloodstream, there is no possibility. Even if a fly has entered it must have died! And now six months have passed; it cannot be alive inside you.’

An enlightened person is never wrong, but he can be useful or he can be useless. J. Krishnamurti is useless! He is perfectly right; about that there is

He listened, but he could not believe it because his experience was far more solid. He was taken to the doctors and everybody examined him and

they did everything, but finally they will say, ‘It is just a mental thing. You are imagining.’ He will listen what they were saying, but he could not trust because his experience was far more certain than their words.

is?’ And he said, ‘In the belly.’ And I touched the belly and I said, ‘Of course it is there!’ And I convinced him that I perfectly believe in him and then I uncovered his blanket and showed him the fly.

His family brought him to me as a last resort. The man was looking very tired because he was being taken to one person, then to another, then all kinds of physicians -- allopath and homeopaths and naturopaths -- and he was really tired. In the first place the fly was tiring him, and now all these ‘pathies’, medicines. And everybody was insulting him -- that was his feeling that they were saying that he was just imagining. Is he a fool or he is mad, that he will imagine such a thing? They were all humiliating him -- that was his feeling.

And he said to the wife, ‘Now see! And give this bottle to me; I will go all to those fools and take all the fees that they have taken from me! I have wasted thousands of rupees, and all that they did was they told me I am mad! And now I don’t feel the fly anywhere, because it is in the bottle!’

I looked at the man and I said, ‘It is so clear that the fly is inside!’ For a moment he was puzzled. He could not believe me, because nobody has said that to him -because nobody has considered him. And they ALL were right and I was wrong -- there was no fly, but the madman has to be considered. And I said, ‘All those fools are just wasting your time; you should have come first here. It is such a simple thing to bring the fly out; there is no need to bother. Medicines won’t help -- you are not ill. Psychoanalysis will not help -- you are not crazy.’ And immediately he was a changed man! He looked at his wife and said, ‘Now what do you say? This is the right man,’ he said, ‘who really knows. And all those fools were trying to convince me that there is no fly. It is there!’ I said to him that, ‘It is simple -- we will take it out. You lie down.’ Don’t open your eyes. Just remain silent, breathe slowly, so the fly settles somewhere, so we can catch hold of it!’ Then I rushed into the house to find a fly. It was a little bit difficult because for the first time I was trying that, but finally I succeeded -- I could get a fly in a bottle. And I came to the man, I moved my hand on his body, and I asked him, ‘Where the fly

He took the bottle, he went to the doctors. One of the doctors who knew me, he came to see me. He said, ‘How you managed? Six months a fly can live in the body? And that man has taken his fee back from me, because he was making such a fuss that I said, ‘Better give it back to him!’ And he proved that he was right!’ I said, ‘It is not the point who is right.’ Gautam the Buddha defines truth as ‘that which works’. This is the ancient most pragmatic definition of truth: ‘that which works’! All the devices are truth in this sense: they work; they are only devices. The Buddha’s work is ‘Upaya’; ‘Upaya’ exactly means device. Meditation is an ‘Upaya,’ a device. It simply helps you to get out of that which you have not got in the first place -- the fly: the ego, the misery, the anguish! It helps you to get free of it, but in fact it is not there. But it is not to be told... And Krishnamurti has been doing that: he has been telling crazy people that the fly does not exist and you don’t need any doctor. I say to you: the fly exists and you need the doctor! Because just by telling to you that the fly does not exist is not going to help you at all. For thousands of years you have been told the ego does not exist. Has it helped you in any way? There have been people who have told, in this country particularly, that the whole world is illusory, MAYA, it does not exist, but has it helped India in any way? The true test is there: whether

it has helped, whether it has made people more authentic, more real. It has not helped at all. It has made people more deeply cunning, split, and schizophrenic; it has made them hypocrites. All the religions have done this, because they don’t consider you. And you are far more important than the ultimate truth, because the ultimate truth has nothing to do with you right now. You are living in a dream world; some device is needed which can help you to come out of it. The moment you are out of it, you will know it was a dream -- but a person who is dreaming, to tell him that it is all dream is meaningless. Have you not observed in your dreams that when you are dreaming it looks real? And every morning you have found that it was unreal. But again in the night you forget all your understanding of the day -- again the dream becomes real. It has been happening again and again: every night the dream becomes real, every morning you know it is false, but that knowing does not help. In the dream one can even dream that this is a dream. And that’s what has happened in India: people are living in maya, deeply in it, and still talking that ‘This is all maya.’ And this talk too is part of their dream; it does not destroy the dream. In fact it makes the dream more rooted in them, because now there is no need to get rid of it -- because it is a dream! So why get rid of it? It does not matter. In a subtle way all the religions have done this: they have talked from the highest peak to the people for whom that peak does not exist yet. The people are living in darkness, and you go on telling them that darkness has no existence. It is true -- darkness has no existence, it is only the absence of light -- but just by saying to people that darkness has no existence is not going to bring light in. That’s what Krishnamurti is doing; it has been done by many people. Nagarjuna did it -Krishnamurti is not new, not at least in the East. Nagarjuna did it: he said, ‘Everything is false. The world is false, the ego is false, and nothing exists. Because nothing exists you are already free. There is no need for any meditation; there is no

need for any Master. There is no need to find out any device, strategy, technique, because in the first place there is no problem. Why go on looking for solutions? Those solutions will create more problems; they are not going to help.’ Nagarjuna did it; before Nagarjuna, Mahakashyap did it, and it has been a long tradition. Zen people have been saying the same thing for centuries. Krishnamurti never uses the word ‘Zen’, but whatsoever he is talking is nothing but Zen -simple Zen. Zen says no effort is needed, nothing has to be done. When nothing has to be done, what is the need of a Master? Because the Master will tell you to do something! Nothing has to be done -- what is the need of the scriptures? Because the scriptures will tell you to do something, to know something! Nothing has to be done, nothing has to be known. You are already there where you are trying to reach. And I know this is true, but to talk about this ultimate truth to people who are living in tremendous darkness is futile. Prem Pantha, no enlightened person can ever be wrong, but only few enlightened persons have been of help. The majority of enlightened people have been of no help at all, for the simple reason because they never considered the other. In fact, George Gurdjieff used to say, ‘Don’t consider the other.’ It was one of his basic teachings: ‘Don’t consider the other. Just say what is absolutely true.’ But the absolute truth is truth only when experienced; people are living in relative truth. My approach is different from Krishnamurti’s. I know that one day you will come to that point where nothing is needed -- no Master, no teaching, no scripture -- but right now the scripture can be of help, the methods can be of help, and certainly a living Master can be of immense help. The function of the Master is to give you that which you already have and to take away that which you don’t have at all.

To be a master and capable of communicating the same to others is the greatest art in the world. No other art can be compared with it, because to say the unsayable, to help people come out of their deep sleep, to find and invent devices to bring what has happened to him to those who are thirsty for it and help them to attain to the state of inner serenity is indeed a rare gift.

autama Buddha has divided the enlightened persons into two categories. The first category he calls the Arhatas and the second the Bodhisattvas. The Arhata and the Bodhisattva are both enlightened; there is no difference between their experiences are concerned, but the Arhata is not a Master and the Bodhisattva is a Master. That alone is the difference between Arhata and Bodhisattva. The Arhata has attained to the same truth but he is incapable of teaching it, because teaching is a totally different art. For example, you can see a beautiful sunset, you can experience the beauty of it as deeply, as profoundly as any Vincent van Gogh, but that does not mean you will be able to paint it. To paint it is a totally different art. Experiencing is one thing; helping others to experience it is not the same. There have been many Arhatas but very few Bodhisattvas. The Bodhisattva is both enlightened and skillful to teach what has happened to him. It is the greatest art in the world; no other art can be compared with it, because to say the unsayable, to help people

come out of their sleep, to find and invent devices to bring what has happened to him to those who are thirsty for it and help them to get it is indeed a rare gift. The Arhata knows it but cannot make it known to the others. The Bodhisattva knows it and can make it known to the others.

Origin ‘Arhata’ (Sanskrit) or ‘arahant’ (Pali), in the sramanic traditions of ancient India most notably those of Jainism and Buddhism, signified a spiritual practitioner who had – to use an expression common in the tipitaka – ‘laid down the burden’, realizing the goal of nirvana, the culmination of the spiritual life or brahmacharya. Such a person, having removed all causes for future becoming, is not reborn after biological death into any ‘samsaric’ (worldly) realm. In the Pali Canon, the word is sometimes used as a synonym for ‘tathagata’. The word ‘Arhat’ occurs as ‘arhattaa’ in the Rig Veda (Hopkins, P. 202The Great Epic of India) and as the first offer of salutation in the main

Jain prayer ‘Navakar Mantra.’ The latter word occurs mostly in Buddhist and Jain texts, but also in some Vaishnava texts, such as the ‘Bhagavata Purana’. ‘Arhattaa’ also occurs in the Vaishnava ‘’Srî Narada Pancharatnam (Vijnanananda, P. 203 Srî Narada Pancharatnam). The word was used, as it is today in the liturgy of Theravada Buddhism, as an epithet of the Buddha himself as well as of his enlightened disciples. The most widely recited liturgical reference is perhaps the homage: Namo Tassa Bhagavato, Arahato, Samma-sammbuddhassa. Homage to him, the Blessed One, the Worthy One, the perfectly enlightened Buddha

between the enlightenment of Arhata and Bodhisattva is that Arhata has attained to the same truth but he is incapable of teaching it, because teaching is a totally different art. For example, you can see a beautiful sunset, you can experience the beauty of it as deeply, as profoundly as any Vincent van Gogh, but that does not mean you will be able to paint it. To paint it is a totally different art. Experiencing is one thing; helping others to experience it is not the same. Both Arhata and Bodhisattva are enlightened however Arhata is not a master while Bodhisattva is a master.

What is an Arhata in Buddhism

Arhata and Bodhisattva are commonly understood terms in Buddhism. The Arhata is the pinnacle of spiritual achievement as mentioned in the Theravada scriptures, while the Bodhisattva is an ideal which spiritual seekers aim for in order to achieve Buddhahood.

In Buddhist tradition the word is used in a different meaning. In many Theravada texts, the Buddha is described as an Arhata, one who has completely extinguished birth and death. An Arhata is not reborn in any realm. This is the highest spiritual achievement, the goal of all meditation and practice. The Arhata is the final stage of four stages of spiritual evolution – the stream-enterer, the oncereturner, the non-returner and the Arhata.

There are several sects within Buddhism, the main ones being the Theravada (also called Hinayana) and the other being Mahayana. Arhata is a term used by the Theravada sect, while Bodhisattva is used by the Mahayana. And there is some amount of debate among the Buddhists on these terms and what they signify. In order to understand what this means, it is important to learn the context in which the terms are used. This is how the two terms are used.

The stream-enterer is one who has entered the path of Nirvana and within a maximum of 7 rebirths will attain to the level of Arhata. He cannot go back into the realm of suffering. The once-returner as the name suggests is reborn only once before he becomes an Arhata. The non-returner has no more rebirths in the lower realms but has not yet become an Arhata. The Arhata is one who has extinguished all desire, all ignorance which leads to rebirth.

In reality both Arhata and Bodhisattva are enlightened ones. The only difference

The way of the Buddha is not a religion in the ordinary sense of the term. It has no belief-system, no dogma, and no scripture. It does not believe in god, it does not believe in the soul, it does not believe in any state of moksha. It is a tremendous unbelief. Yet still it is unique and it is a religion. It is unique. You may not be at all in harmony with his heart, you may not believe him at all, you may not look at the proof. He has both the proof and the argument. You will have to listen to his argument Maturity accepts the fact and never creates any fiction around it. To accept the reality as it is, without trying to sweeten it, or decorate it, or trying to make it more acceptable to your heart. If it is shattering, let it shatter. If it is shocking, let it shock. If the truth kills, then one is ready to be killed. Buddha is merciless. And nobody has ever opened the door of reality so deeply and profoundly as he has done. He does not allow you any childish desires. He says: become more aware, more conscious, and more courageous. Do not go on hiding behind beliefs and masks and theologies. Take hold of your life into your own hands. Burn bright your inner light and see whatsoever is. And once you have become courageous enough to accept it, it is a benediction. No belief is needed. That is Buddha’s first step towards reality. Buddha does not say, ‘I have solved the mystery.’ he does not say, ‘here I hand over to you what truth is.’ he says, ‘the only thing that I can give to you is an impetus, a thirst, a tremendous passion, to become aware, conscious, and alert; so that you live your life consciously, full of light and awareness, that your life is solved.’ There is no need for some ultimate explanation of existence.

uddha says ‘the only thing that I can give to you is an impetus, a thirst, a tremendous passion, to become aware, conscious, and alert; so that you live your life consciously, full of light and awareness, that your life is solved.’ The way of the Buddha is not a religion in the ordinary sense of the term. It has no beliefsystem, no dogma, and no scripture. It does not believe in god, it does not believe in the soul, it does not believe in any state of moksha. It is a tremendous unbelief. Yet still it is unique and it is a religion. It is unique because Buddha simply devised methodology to evolve your godliness from deep within you. Buddha has created the way for your essence to manifest. Nothing has ever happened before like that in the history of human consciousness, and nothing afterwards.

Buddha remains utterly unique, and incomparable. He says that god is nothing but a search for security, a search for safety, a search for shelter. You believe in god, not because god is there; you believe in god because you feel helpless without that belief. Even if there is no god, you will go on inventing. The temptation comes from your weakness. But it is not so with Buddha. You may not be at all in harmony with his heart, you may not believe him at all, you may not look at the proof he is, but you will have to listen to his argument. He has both the proof and the argument. This is discourse on 42 Sutras of Buddha known as Discipline of Transcendence. The Buddha said: To be free from the passions and to be calm, this is the most excellent way.

Those who leave their parents, go out of the home, understand the mind, reach the source, and comprehend the immaterial, are called ‘Shramanas’. Those who observe the precepts of morality, who are pure and spotless in their behavior, and who exert themselves for the attainment of the fruits of saint ship are called Arhatas. Next is the ‘Anagamin’. At the end of his life, the spirit of the Anagamin ascends to the heaven and obtains Arhatship. Next is the Skridagamin. The Skridagamin ascends to the heaven (after his death), comes back to the earth once more, and then attains Arhatship. Next is the Srotapanna. The Srotapanna dies seven times and is born seven times, when he finally attains Arhatship. The ascending order is: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Arhata Anagamin Skridagamin Strotapana

By the severance of passions is meant that like the limbs severed they are never again made use of. The sutra of forty-two chapters the Buddha said: ‘moved by their selfish desires, people seek after fame and glory. But when they have acquired it, they are already stricken in years. If you hanker after worldly fame and practice not the way, your labors are wrongfully applied and your energy is wasted. It is like unto burning an incense stick. However much its pleasing odor be admired, the fire that consumes is steadily burning up the stick.’ The Buddha said: ‘people cleave to their worldly possessions and selfish passions so blindly as to

sacrifice their own lives for them. They are like a child who tries to eat a little honey smeared on the edge of a knife. The amount is by no means sufficient to appease his appetite, but he runs the risk of wounding his tongue.’ The Buddha said: ‘men are tied up to their families and possessions more helplessly than in a prison. There is an occasion for the prisoner to be released, but householders entertain no desire to be relieved from the ties of family. When a man’s passion is aroused nothing prevents him from ruining himself. Even into the maws of a tiger he will jump. Those who are thus drowned in the filth of passion are called the ignorant. Those who are able to overcome it are saintly Arhata.’ Buddha is unique. But it is not so with Buddha. You may not be at all in harmony with his heart, you may not believe him at all, you may not look at the proof he is, but you will have to listen to his argument. He has both the proof and the argument. He himself is the proof of what he is saying, but that is not all. If you are not ready to look at him he can force you, he can convince you; he is a rationalist. Buddha is so rationalist that even a man like Bertrand Russell finds difficult to ignore. Bertrand Russell was an atheist, and purely logical. He has said, ‘before Buddha I start feeling hesitant. With Jesus I can fight.’ He has written a book ‘Why I am not a Christian’. It is a great argumentative book. It has not yet been replied to by Christians as his argument still holds. But before Buddha he suddenly feels hesitant, he is not so certain about his ground. Buddha can convince him even on his own ground. Buddha is as much an analyst as Bertrand Russell. You need not be a religious person to be convinced by Buddha that is his rarity. You need not believe at all. You need not believe in god, you need not believe in the soul, and you need not believe in anything still you can be with Buddha. In the process by and by you will come to know about the soul and about the god as well.

But those are not hypotheses. No belief is required to travel with Buddha. You can come with all your possible skepticism. Buddha accepts, and welcomes, he says, ‘come with me.’ Therefore first he convinces your mind, and once your mind is convinced and you start travelling with him, by and by you start feeling that he has a message which is beyond mind, he has a message which no reason can confine. But first he convinces your reason. Buddha’s religion is supra-rational, but not against reason. This has to be understood in the very beginning. It has something to do with the beyond, supra-rational, but that supra-rational is not against the rational. It is in tune with it. The rational and the suprarational are continuity, continuous. This is the rarity of Buddha. Therefore the way of the Buddha is not a religion in the ordinary sense of the term, because it has no belief-system, no dogma, and no scripture. It does not believe in god, it does not believe in the soul, or in any state of moksha. It is a tremendous unbelief. Yet it is a religion. It is unique. Nothing has ever happened before like that in the history of human consciousness, and nothing afterwards. Buddha remains utterly unique, incomparable. He says that god is nothing but a search for security, a search for safety, a search for shelter. You believe in god, not because god is there; you believe in god because you feel helpless without that belief. Even if there is no god, you will go on inventing. The temptation comes from your weakness. It is a projection. Man feels very limited, very helpless, almost a victim of circumstances. He does not know from where he comes and where he is going. Also he does not know why he is here. Without god it is very difficult for ordinary man to have any meaning in life. The ordinary mind will go crazy without god. God is a prop for you. It helps you, consoles you, and comforts you. It says, ‘do not be worried the almighty god knows everything about why you are here. He is the creator he knows why he has created the world. You may not know but the father knows, and you can trust in him.’ it is a great consolation. The very idea of god gives you a sense of relief. It

gives you a feeling that somebody is looking after the affairs and you are not alone. It is an assurance that this cosmos is not just a chaos, it is really a cosmos. There is a system behind it, and logic behind it. It is not an illogical jumble of things, or anarchy. Somebody rules it. The sovereign king is there looking after each small detail. Remember not even a leaf moves without his moving it. Everything is planned. You are part of a great destiny. Maybe the meaning is not known to you, but the meaning is there because god is there. God brings a tremendous relief. One starts feeling that life is not accidental; there is a certain undercurrent of significance, meaning, destiny. God brings a sense of destiny. Buddha says: there is no god. It simply shows that man knows not why he is here. It simply shows man is helpless. It simply shows that man has no meaning available to him. By creating the idea of god he can believe in meaning, and he can live this futile life with the idea that somebody is looking after it. Just think: you are in an air flight and somebody comes and says, ‘there is no pilot.’ Suddenly there will be a panic. No pilot?! ‘No pilot’ simply means you are doomed. Then somebody says, ‘believe the pilot is there invisible. We may not be able to see the pilot, but he is there; otherwise how is this beautiful mechanism functioning? Just think of it: everything is going so beautifully there must be a pilot! Maybe we are not capable of seeing him, maybe we are not yet prayerful enough to see him, maybe our eyes are closed, but the pilot is there. Otherwise, how is it possible? This airplane has taken off, it is flying perfectly well; the engines are humming. Everything is a proof that there is a pilot.’ If somebody proves it, you relax again into your chair. You close your eyes, you start dreaming again and you can fall asleep. The pilot is there, you need not worry. Buddha says: the pilot does not exist. It is a human creation. Man has created god in his own image. It is man’s invention; god is not a discovery, it is an invention. And god is not the truth it is the greatest lie there is. That is why I say Buddhism is not a religion in the

ordinary sense of the term. Buddhism is god less religion that you cannot imagine? When for the first time western scholars became aware of Buddhism, they were shocked. They could not comprehend that a religion can exist -and without god! They had known only Judaism, Christianity and Islam. All these three religions are in a way very immature compared to Buddhism. Buddhism is religion come of age. Buddhism is the religion of a mature mind. Buddhism is not childish at all. It does not help any childish desires in you. It is very merciless. Let me repeat it: there has never been a man more compassionate than Buddha, but his religion is merciless. In fact, in that mercilessness he is showing his compassion. He will not allow you to cling to any lie. Howsoever consoling, a lie is a lie. And those who have given you the lie, they are not friends to you, they are enemies because under the impact of the lie you will live a life full of lies. The truth has to be brought to you, howsoever hard, shattering, and shocking it may be. Even if you are annihilated by the impact of the truth it is good. Buddha says: the truth is that man’s religions are man’s inventions. You are in a dark night surrounded by alien forces. You need someone to hang on to, someone to cling to. And everything that you can see is changing constantly. Your father will die one day and you will be left alone. Your mother will die one day and you will be left alone, and you will be an orphan. And from the very childhood you have been accustomed to having a father to protect you, and a mother to love you. As you grow your childish desire will again assert itself: you will need a father-figure. If you cannot find it in the sky, then you will find it in some politician. Stalin became the father of Soviet Russia and they had dropped the idea of god. Mao became the father of china and they had dropped the idea of god. But man is such that he cannot live without a father-figure. Man is childish. There are very few rare people who grow to be mature. My own observation is this that people remain near about the age of seven, eight, and nine.

Their physical bodies go on growing, but their minds remain stuck there somewhere below the age of ten. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, is the religions below the age of ten. They fulfill whatsoever are your needs. These religions are not too much worried about the truth. They are more worried about you. Instead they are more worried how to console you. The situation is such: the mother has died and the child is crying, and you have to console the child. So you tell lies. You pretend that the mother has not died: ‘she has gone for a visit to the neighbors -- she will be coming. Do not be worried, she will be just coming. Or ‘she has gone for a long journey. It will take a few days but she will I be back.’ or: ‘she has gone to visit god nothing to be worried about. She is still alive: maybe she has left the body, but the soul lives forever.’ Buddha is the most shattering individual in the whole history of humanity. His whole effort is to drop all props. He does not say to believe in anything. He is an unbeliever and his religion is that of un-belief. He does not say ‘believe!’ he says ‘doubt!’ now, you have heard about religions which say ‘believe!’ But you have never heard about a religion which says ‘doubt!’ Doubt is the very methodology. Doubt to the very core. Doubt to the very end. Doubt to the very last. And when you have doubted everything and you have dropped everything out of doubt, and then suddenly reality arises in your vision. It has nothing to do with your beliefs about god. It is nothing like your so-called god. Then arises reality: absolutely unfamiliar and unknown. But that possibility exists only when all the beliefs have been dropped and the mind has come to a state of maturity, understanding, and acceptance of ‘whatsoever is. And we do not desire otherwise. If there is no god, or no god makes no difference. And we do not have any desire to project a god. If there is no god, then we accept it.’ This is what maturity is. Maturity accepts the fact and never creates any fiction around it. To accept the reality as it is, without trying to sweeten it, or without trying to decorate it, or without trying to make it more

acceptable to your heart. If it is shattering, let it shatter. If it is shocking, let it shock. If the truth kills, then one is ready to be killed. Buddha is merciless. And nobody has ever opened the door of reality so deeply and profoundly as he has done. He does not allow you any childish desires. He says: become more aware, more conscious, and more courageous. Do not go on hiding behind beliefs and masks and theologies. Take hold of your life into your own hands. Burn bright your inner light and see whatsoever is. And once you have become courageous enough to accept it, it is a benediction. No belief is needed. That is Buddha’s first step towards reality. All belief-systems are poisonous and barriers. Buddha is neither a theist nor an atheist. He says, a few people believe that there is god and a few people believe that there is no god, but both are believers. His non-belief is so deep that even those who say there is no god, and believe in it, are not acceptable to him. He says that just to say there is no god makes no difference. If you remain childish, you will create another source of god. For example, Karl Marx declared: ‘there is no god,’ but then he created a god out of history. History becomes the god; the same function is being done now by history that was done previously by the concept of god. What was god doing? God was the determining factor. God was the managing factor. It was god who was deciding what should be and what should not be. Marx dropped the idea of god, but then history became the determining factor, then history became the fate. Then history is determining. Now what is history? And Marx says communism is an inevitable state. History has determined that it will come, and everything is determined by history. Now history becomes a super-god. But somebody to determine is needed. Man cannot live with indeterminate reality. Man cannot live with reality as it is: chaotic, and accidental. Man cannot live with reality without finding some idea which makes it meaningful, relevant, and continuous, which gives it a shape which reason can understand; which can be dissected, and analyzed, into cause and effect. Freud dropped the idea of god, but then the

unconscious became the god. Then everything is determined by the unconscious of man, and man is helpless in the hands of the unconscious. Now these are new names for god; it is a new mythology. The Freudian psychology is a new mythology about god. The name is changed but the content remains the same; the label has changed, the old label has been dropped; but a fresh, newlypainted label has been put on it that can deceive people who are not very alert. But if you go deeper into Freudian analysis you will immediately see that now the unconscious is doing the same work that god used to do. So what is wrong with poor god? If you have to invent something and man has always to be determined by something history, economics, unconscious, and this and that. If man cannot be free, then what is the point of changing mythologies, theologies? It makes not much difference. You may be a Hindu, or a Muslim, or a Christian, or a Jew makes not much difference. Your mind remains childish and you remain immature. You remain in search, you continue to search for a father figure: someone somewhere who can explain everything, who can become the ultimate explanation. The mature mind is one who can remain without any search even if there is no ultimate explanation of things. That is why Buddha says: I am not a metaphysician. He has no metaphysics. Metaphysics means the ultimate explanation about things -- he has no ultimate explanation. Buddha does not say, ‘I have solved the mystery.’ he does not say, ‘here I hand over to you what truth is.’ he says, ‘the only thing that I can give to you is an impetus, a thirst, a tremendous passion, to become aware, conscious, and alert; so that you live your life consciously, full of light and awareness, that your life is solved.’ There is no need for some ultimate explanation of existence. Nobody has ever come. Buddha denies metaphysics completely. He says metaphysics is a futile search. So the first thing: he denies god. And then Buddha continues….

BUDDHA VISION O wanderer on the mystical sojourn The merger of the two Shall reveal the singular way To the mysterious commune. Between the twin peaks Lays the inexhaustible source; The indivisible reality; The Mystic Female. It is in the beginning, It is in the end. Yet end and beginning, exists not. It is an eternal middle.

Neelambar sings: O my radiant paramour See with the Buddha eye The amrita that is closest This exists in mind immaculate. To a fool who squints One lamp is as two; The most firmly established on the path Appear the most remiss.

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