Public Talk 7, Bombay, 29 February 1948

Sunday, 1948-2-29.

I shall answer questions only this evening and before I do so I would like to point out one or two things. I think there is an art in listening. Most of us listen through a screen of prejudice. We either are expecting a definite solution to our problems or we are not aware of the innumerable prejudices which prevent really hearing what another says or we are not sufficiently interested or concentrated to listen to what is being said. But if we can listen without the effort of hearing but listen as you would listen to a music, to something that you enjoy, that you know, not merely the repetition of a record, but as though you were listening to something fresh, new, without the strain, without the struggle to listening. You know what I mean. When you are enjoying something, a conversation, a piece of music or reading literature, you listen and the words, the music, the sound, the silence between two notes, slip in, enter without your struggling to understand. So, if I may suggest, it would be good if we can listen without the effort made to listen, to hear, to accept or to reject. If we can listen without erecting a barrier of defence or trying too eagerly to grasp what is being said. There must be a certain tension, like the violin string. When it is at right tension, it gives the right note. So similarly, if we listen with right tension, with right awareness, then I think we will understand far more deeply, extensively than merely listening to verbal expression. Then, you are really aware, then the words have a different significance. They penetrate more deeply. It is like a seed that is sown on a rich soil. So, if I may suggest, please listen to these answers, not so much with the intention of grapping the solution to the question, but rather that you and I are going to think out the problem together aloud and see where it will leads us Because in answering questions, to me as well as to you, it must be a rediscovery, not merely a repetition of an old record which you and I have learnt by heart. After all, music is the silence between two notes. If it was continuous noise, there would be no music. It is the silence between two notes that gives emphasis, beauty to the notes. So similarly it is silence between words, between thoughts that gives significance, meaning of the thought. So, in answering these question what is important is not either to accept or to reject, but to understand what is being said without the barrier of prejudice which is extremely arduous, because most of us are so grossly prejudiced or so unconscious of our prejudice, i.e. it is very difficult to penetrate through the thick armour of our own intentions, of our own bias. And if we can for an evening put this thick armour aside and listen as though we were really enjoying something together, then I think this and other meetings will have a definite significance.

Question: Our ideals are the only thing between ourselves and madness. You are breaking a dam which keeps chaos off our homes and fields. Why are you so foolhardy? The immature or the unsteady minds will be thrown off their feet by your sweeping generalizations.

Answer: This question is put with regard to what I have said concerning the ideals, the examples, the opposites. So, we will have to go over what I have said concerning the ideals. And, as I said previously, please listen to what is being said not through a resistance, but rather to understand what is being said. You are surely familiar with your own minds, with your own ideals and perhaps what I am going to say will be contrary to everything that you think, and what I say may have truth or may not have it. So, you have to listen with a certain resilience, with a certain freedom, with a certain elasticity. But if you merely enclose yourself within the walls of your own ideals with your own understanding, then surely what is being said will have no meaning. So, what I am going to say may be, I think probably will be, quite contrary to what you believe. So, please listen to it not with any dogmatism. With any defensive mechanism, but with a sense of trying to understand what the other fellow is trying to say. I have said that ideals in any form are an escape from understanding what is; ideals, however noble, however intriguing, however fine, have no reality. They are fictitious, without significance, because what is, is more important to understand than to pursue or follow an idea, an ideal or a mode of action which is equally an ideal. We have innumerable ideals non-violence, good, non-greed, peace, and so on, merit. You know the innumerable ideals within which our minds are enclosed. Now, are not these ideals fictitious,] not really factual, they are non-existent. And since they are non-existent of what value are they? Do they help to understand my conflict, my violence, my greed or are they not a hindrance to the understanding of greed. Will the screen of ideals help me to understand my arrogance, my violence, my evil? If they do then they have a significance.

If they do not give significance, then they are valueless. Can a violent man become non-violent through the ideal of non-violence? Can I understand violence through the screen of my own idealism of non-violence? Must I not put aside the screen, the ideal and examine my violence? And the ideal, will it help me to understand violence? This is a very important and a fundamental question. We ought to spend a little time concerning it, because the issues out of it are very significance, for our social structure is based on this idealism without any reality behind it. So, our problem is: Is evil understood through the ideal of good or is evil transformed, not through the ideal, through the pursuit of its opposite, but understanding it for itself? And does not the ideal in any form, which is the opposite preventing the understanding of what is? Which is: I am greedy, I am violent, I am arrogant, I am angry, vicious, brutal and will the ideal of non-violence, non-greed, kindliness, help me to overcome that which I am? Surely, we have tried the pursuit of the opposite and the conflict created between the opposites. We know that very well. We are entirely familiar with that extraordinary struggle to become something other than what we are. Our religious, social moral education is based on this attempt to become, to transform what is into something which it is not. Now we are familiar and we know the struggle, we know the pain, we know the constant battle of the opposites, of the thesis and the antithesis and hoping to arrive at a synthesis; capitalism in conflict with communism, hoping to arrive at a synthesis which is beyond both the conflict between good and evil and arriving at a synthesis which it is beyond both; violence and non-violence, the ideal of non-violence, and our trying to come at that state which is beyond both. We are familiar, though we have not succeeded at arriving at that state, we are familiar with both. We are familiar with the constant battle, the struggle, the conflict and the pain of the opposites. Now, is that struggle necessary? Isn’t that struggle fallacious, unreal because the opposite is unreal? What is the real actual? I am arrogant. The ideal is non-existent, it is fictitious. It is a creation of the mind as a means of escaping from what is. I am sexual, I am violent and will the opposite help me to overcome that which I am? Obviously not. You have struggled for centuries. You have struggled to overcome it. Yet, we are violent. So, the method of our approach must be wrong. Therefore there must be a new approach, a different way of attacking the problem of greed, of arrogance, of violence. So first we must see the fallacy of the ideal and, as it was suggested to me this morning, India is the nation of the industry of ideals. And it is your pet industry of creating ideals for the world. And do we need ideals? Please this is really a very important question. Because if you have no ideals, will you collapse, will you become immoral? Are your ideals acting as a dam against your immoral actions? Is your ideal of non-violence preventing you from being violent? The ideal of not being greedy, having enough to live, the ideal, is that making you less greedy? Sir, we must look at this, mustn’t we? Obviously, they are not. The man who is greedy, who wants to pursue riches, he goes on in spite of the ideal which he talks about. So, ideals obviously are non-existent except in theory, and therefore valueless. Why pursue them? In other words, an idealist is really a man who is escaping, avoiding action with that which is. And also you are very familiar with the idealists. How hard they are, how brutal, how resistant, that quality of hardness because they are really avoiding the central issue, which is what they are. So, by removing the ideals, will the weak-minded be thrown off their feet? The weak-minded are thrown off their feet anyhow by the politicians, by the gurus, by the Pujas, by their wedding ceremonies and the man who is strong anyhow disregards the ideals. He pursues what he wants. So, neither party pay attention to any ideals. It is a very convenient way to cover up great many false things. So is ideal necessary to understand what is, i.e., the ideal of non-violence, the ideal, not the man who is non-violent, the ideal of non-violence, will it help me to understand violence? That is, if I am violent and if I want to transcend violence, must I have the ideal of non-violence? Surely, I don’t have to have it. Have I? It is a hindrance. It is a positive hindrance to my direct understanding the state in which I am, which is violence. So, an ideal, the opposite, the example is a hindrance, an avoidance of understanding directly what is, and being violent, can I not understand it and transcend it? I can tackle it, understand it only when I am not escaping from it, when I haven’t this fantasy of the ideal. When I can look at it, examine it directly and act upon it. And I don’t want to directly act upon it. Therefore, I invent this marvellous thing called opposite, the ideal, the state in which I can never achieve, because it is merely a postponement. So, the problem is: how to transcend, how to go beyond that which is, which is violence, not how to go beyond the opposite. There is no opposite. There is the opposite of man and woman, a biological fact; but the opposite that the mind has created is non-existent. It is a convenient ruse and trick of the mind to avoid acting directly upon what is, and can I transcend that which is, not transform it, not make it into something else? i.e., I am greedy, violent and can that violence, greed, come to an end? Obviously, it comes to an end when I can examine it completely when I am aware of its whole significance, its social psychological significance and I can only look at it when there is no escape from what is which none of us want to do and that is the difficulty. None of us are honest enough to acknowledge that we are what we are and then do something about it. To know that I am liar, to know that I am greedy is already the beginning of freedom from greed, from lies. But, to acknowledge it requires certain honesty and as we are so dishonest in our thinking, in our relationships, in everything that we do, almost everything that we do, we are incapable of facing what is. So, in this question is involved the seeing the truth in the false, i.e., the truth of the falseness of the ideal; and the moment one is capable of seeing the truth in the false, then one is able it see that which is true as being true and it, that truth, the acknowledgment that you are greedy, without any pretence that you are violent, seeing the truth in the fact that that which you are brings about liberation from that and not in the pursuit of the opposite.

Question: Will sexual urge disappear when we refuse to name it?

Answer: I am afraid the question needs considerable explanation. It is the question put to me apparently after what we discussed yesterday evening. Now, the process of naming, terming is quite a complex problem and we must go into it very carefully and precisely; which means, we must understand the process of consciousness, and I am sorry the question, though very simply put, in it is involved a great deal and those who were not at the discussion yesterday might misunderstand if I answer it directly and very simply. So, I must go into it very, very carefully, explaining the whole issue. Now, what do we mean by consciousness? I am not asking this question irrelevantly. It is directly connected with the question itself. What do we mean by consciousness? Consciousness is surely challenge and response, which is experience. That is the beginning of consciousness, challenge, response and experiencing. The experiencing is name, is termed, given a label as pleasant or unpleasant. Then it is recorded, put away in the mind. So, consciousness is a process of experiencing, naming, recording. It is very simple please. Don’t complicate it. It is complex enough. Without the three processes at work, it is really a unitary process, there is no consciousness. Experiencing, naming or terming and recording, pigeon-holding, putting away in the framework of memory. Now, this process is going on all the time instantaneously at different levels which you call consciousness. The song is repeated in different moods, in different themes, but always this is the process of experiencing, which is: challenge and response, naming or terming and recording memory either profoundly deep down in the unconscious in the deep layers of consciousness or on the surface of consciousness, in our every-day life. This is the theme, this is the record that is being played. Now, what would happen if the middle process, which is terming is not done, if the middle process is put to an end, i.e., naming. That is, why do we name, why do we give a name to an experience, calling it pleasant or unpleasant, anger or violence, good and so on. Why do we term an experience? Please, to some of you all this may appear to be technical. It is not technical. It is very simple, though it demands a little concentration and as this is not a political lecture, you will have to be a little concentrated. And as most of us are used to political lectures, being told what to do or what to think, most of us very often find it very difficult to pursue evenly, easily a thought of this kind. So, as consciousness is a process of experiencing, naming, recording why is it that we name it? Why is it that we give a term to an experience, to a feeling? We give it a name either to communicate it with another or to fix it in memory, which is to give it continuity. Have no continuity, then mind is not, conscious is not. I must give continuity to an experience. Otherwise consciousness ceases. Therefore, I must give it a name. The giving of a name to a feeling, to an experience comes into being instantaneously, because the mind, which is the record-keeper, the memory, labels a feeling in order [Sentence cut off the page of the original at this point. Handwritten suggestion: ‘to give’. WS-06] it substance, in order to give it continuity, in order to be able to examine it which means in order for thought to continue. After all, the thinker who is the thought, without the process of thought, without giving continuity to the process of thought, there is no continuity, no permanency to the thinker. So, naming a feeling, experience gives permanency to the thinker, to the record-keeper, which is the mind. And now, what happens if you don’t give a term to an experience. We know what happens if you give a name to a feeling, to an experience. You give it continuity upon which the mind feels and says it is existent. Take any experience that you have anger, hatred, love; any of it, feeling, sensation, by giving it a name, you have stabilized it. You have put it within the framework of reference and if you don’t put it what happens to you, i.e., if you have no name, if you have no background, if you are not naming various sensations, where are you? So, the very nature of terming an experience is to give continuity to consciousness, to the ‘me.’ We know that. We are unconsciously so swift doing this process all the time. This record is being played at different levels, in different themes, with different words all the time, whether waking or sleeping. Now, what would happen if you don’t term, if you don’t give a name to an experience. What would happen is, if you have experimented with it, that feeling or that experience withers away. It has no continuity. Experiment with yourself, you will see it now. You have a very strong feeling of nationalism or idealism. You give it a name, feeling of nationalism, my country arises in that, and you term it and thereby give it a continuity. But, suppose you did not term it, which is very difficult because the feeling and the naming is so rapid, so instantaneous. Now suppose you did not name it, a feeling, what would happen to that feeling? Surely, the record-keeper cannot tackle with that feeling. He does not give it substance, he does not give it strength, he does not give it a vitality. Therefore, it withers away. Next time, when you are feeling that sensation which you term as irritation, don’t give it a name. Don’t call it; I am irritated don’t term it and see what happens. You will discover an extraordinary thing happening. The mind is bewildered, because the mind dislikes to be in a state of uncertainty. Then bewilderment becomes more important than the feeling and the feeling is forgotten and the bewilderment remains. And a mind does not like to be bewildered, puzzled Therefore, it seeks somewhere security and it seeks security, certainty, in the record, in the memory and thereby strengthens the record-keeper. It is really quite fascinating, if you observe the process of your own consciousness. All this you cannot learn in a book. No book teaches all this and what book teaches is not worthwhile. You can only repeat what the book teaches. But if you experiment and discover for yourself, then you are both the teacher and the pupil. Then, you don’t want the gurus and teachers and all the rest of it. Then you know how to tackle the problem yourself any problem that arises. Because you are both the teacher and the pupil, you know the ways of the [Sentence cut off the page of the original at this point. Handwritten suggestion: ‘working of your consciousness. You discovered that’. WS-06] in not terming, in not giving a name feeling, sensation comes to an end. And we will now say: I have learnt a very good trick. Now, I know how to deal with unpleasant feelings. I know how to make them come to an end quickly. Because I won’t term them. But will you do the same with regard to pleasant feelings. I am afraid you won’t. Because pleasant feelings you want to continue, pleasant sensations you want to give substance, you want to maintain them. Therefore, you will keep all giving them names. But that does not lead anywhere because the moment you give name, term, to a feeling which is pleasant, you are inevitably creating the opposite. And therefore you will have the conflict of the opposites always. Whereas if you don’t name, term, label a sensation either pleasant or unpleasant, they both come to an end and therefore the thinker, who is the creator of the opposites, comes to an end. Then only shall we know what love is. Because love is not a sensation. You can name it, but when you name it, you are naming the sensation of love, but it is not love. When you love somebody, what happens? When you think about a person, what happens? You are really dealing with the sensation of that person. You are concerned with that sensation and the more you give emphasis to sensation the less of love. Therefore, the question is, will the sexual urge disappear when not given a name? It will disappear obviously but if you don’t understand the whole process of consciousness, as I have explained carefully, merely putting an end to an urge, pleasant or unpleasant, does not bring about that eternal quality of love. Without love, merely putting an end to an urge has no meaning and you will become as dry as the idealist, i.e., passions very carefully held. Because they are always there, though you don’t name them. You have not understand the whole process of consciousness. Whereas if you understood the whole process, which is very arduous. Because I have explained, it is not easily understood. You may have understood the verbal expressions, but the inward significance, the inward meaning, that you will understand only through experimentation. So, as I said, where there is love, there is chastity. But the man, the idealist who wants to be chasty, who is passionate but wants to become dispassionate, he will never know love. Because he is only concerned in becoming something, which is another form of selfishness. He is only concerned with his struggles in his achievement to be the ideal, which is non-existent. Therefore, such a man has an empty heart and he fills his empty heart with the things made by the mind. And how can he know love, when his heart is filled with things made by the mind which is the ideal. So, it is a very complex and subtle problem, this question of terming, giving a name. But you will understand it if you experiment with it. Because there is enormous riches, enormous depth in this very simple fact of terming, naming a feeling, a sensation. Once you open the door to it, you will discover such vast riches; but to discover there must be freedom which is freedom to experiment and freedom comes through virtue, not becoming virtuous, but being virtuous.

Question: Why can’t you influence the leaders of a party or members of a government and work through them?

Answer: For simple reason that leaders are factors of degeneration in society and governments are the expression of violence. And how can you, any man who really wants to understand truth, work through instruments which are opposed to reality. Now, why do we want leaders, political or religious. For the obvious reason because we want to be directed, we want to be told what to do or what to think. Our education, our social system and religious organizations, are based on what to think not how to think, but what to think. Naturally, you must have leaders. Because one is confused, disintegrating, in misery does not know what to do, you look to somebody else, political religious or economic and so on, leaders who will help you to get out of this chaotic condition of existence. How, can any leader, political or religious, lead you out of this misery, out of this confusion/ Please, this is a very important question. Because, in leadership there is implied power, position, prestige. In leadership there is implied exploitation by the follower as well as by the leader. The leader comes into being, because the led wants to be led, which means the follower exploits the leader and the leader exploits the follower because without the follower, where is the leader? He is frustrated he feels he is lost and without the leader, where is the follower. So, it is a mutual process of exploitation and where there is a desire for power, for position, for guidance, dominance, truly, there is no understanding. Where the leader becomes the authority, the person to whom everything is referred, politically or religiously, then you become merely the record-player, the automaton and as most people want to repeat, to observe when the leaders play, the result is you become merely unproductive, thoughtless. So that is what has exactly happened in the world. So, our problem is why is that we need leaders? Can anybody lead you out of your confusion, which you yourself are creating? People may point out the causes of your confusion. Surely, they don’t become leaders. Say, for example, I am pointing out the cause of confusion. I am not becoming your leader or your guru. It is for you to perceive it and act upon it, to leave it or to accept it. But, if I made you join an organization, if I became your authority, then the result would be I would become important. What I said would become important and therefore your confusion will still exist and you will be merely running away from your confusion and giving emphasis to me; whereas the emphasis should be laid on your confusion and not on me. So, I am out of the picture. So, what is important is to understand your own suffering, your own confusion, your own pain, your own disastrous existence. And to understand, do you need anybody’s help? What you need is to look truly, to look with clarity, with eyes that are not biased. And that you have to do with yourself, you have to look in yourself whether you are biased, whether you are prejudiced. That means, you have to be aware of your own process, of your own terming and as most of us are unwilling to discover ourselves and as most of us are unwilling go into the process of self-knowledge, we look to a leader or rather we create a leader. So, the leader becomes important, because the leader can then help us to run away from ourselves. Then, the leader can be worshipped, put away in a cage and whispered about. So, the leader is really a degenerating factor. Surely, when a man, when a society, when a culture looks to a leader, it is in a state of disintegration. A society that is creative has no leader, because each individual is a light to himself and such a society which is the result of relationship between two people who are seeking deep, fundamental self-knowledge, understanding don’t require a static society with its leaders, with its definite social organizations.

Question: By what mechanism do we change the world when we change ourselves?

Answer: I have said that the individual problem is the world’s problem, that the individual with his inner conflicts, with his psychological struggles, with his frustrations, with his anxieties, pursuits, motives, that he projects into the world and that becomes the problem of the world. Therefore, the world and the individual are not two separate entities. The mass and the individual are interrelated. They are inseparable. When you consider the individual, we are considering the world, the mass, the whole. So, if we take or emphasize the individual, we are looking at the inter-relationship between the individual and the mass. They cannot be separated. The world is you and the world is not apart from you, not mystically, but actually biologically, physiologically, in relationship, [Sentence cut off the page of the original at this point. Handwritten suggestion: ‘the world’. WS-06] is you. Because whatever you do, your greed, your ambitions, your frustrations are projected into the world and whatever system, however cunningly and subtly brought about, the inner man always overcomes the outer. Therefore, there must be transformation of the inner, not in opposition to the outer, not in antagonism to the mass, not in separation from the world, but they are a total process. The individual and the world is a total process and to transform the world, we must begin with you, which is near, which is you. You cannot transform the world. It has no meaning, the world. The world has no referent. The individual has a referent, which is me, which is you. Therefore, I can begin with myself, not in opposition to the mass. It is not individualistic perfection and it is very important to understand we are not discussing individual perfection at all. That leads to isolation, to segregation and nothing can exist in isolation. We are not discussing self-improvement. On the contrary, self-improvement is merely another form of self-enclosure. We are discussing, we are trying to understand the individual process, which is not separate from the world process, but to understand the world, I must begin somewhere, which is: I can only begin with that which is near, which is me. So, if that is clear, then we can see the mechanism of change, how by my changing, I can transform the world, i.e., as long as I am greedy, as long as I am nationalistic, as long as I am acquisitive, I create a society in which greed, acquisitiveness and nationalism are rampant; which means conflict, ultimately leading to war. Therefore there is the mechanism of change, i.e., as long as I am greedy, my actions, as long as I am seeking power, my actions will inevitably bring about a state of power, which is political power, religious power, social power and therefore bring about conflict. Therefore I who am the total process of society am responsible for war and if I, who is the total process of society, wish ardently, concern myself with peace, then I must cease to be greedy, acquisitive. I must have no nationality. I must not belong to any organized religion or to any ideology. I who am the total process of the world, if I change, if I transform, I bring about radical transformation in society; but to be free of ideology, to be free from belief, which separates man against man, as the Hindu and the Muslim or the Christian, to be free from acquisitiveness, to be free from envy is very arduous. And a man who wants to understand this total process of existence, not as the individual opposed to society or the mass, but as the total process, he has to understand himself; which is, he has to be aware of every thought, every feeling, every action and in understanding which is not naming which is not thinking about greed, he puts an end to greed. And such a man will know love, because he is free from these factors that create antagonism as belief, as nationalism, as greed, and, therefore, he is a factor in bringing about a transformation in the world.

Question: What is true and what is false in the theory of reincarnation?

Answer: I hope after listening for two hours and ten minutes your minds are still fresh. Are they sirs and ladies? Yes? Alright sir. What we are trying here is to think the problem out together not merely you listening to the gramophone. And as I refuse to be the gramophone, your merely listening, being accustomed, shows that you are really not following at all. You are merely listening, being charmed by words and therefore, you are not the regenerators or creators of a new society. You are the disintegrating factors, sir. And that is the calamity. You don’t see the tragedy of it. Because the world, India included, is on the verge of a precipice, burning, disintegrating rapidly and a man who is merely listening to the leader, accustoming himself to words, being a spectator, he is contributing to the disaster. So, if you don’t mind, don’t be accustomed to what I am saying. I don’t repeat; I am thinking aloud each time I answer a question. If I merely repeat, it would be frightfully boring to me. As I don’t want to bore myself with repetition. I am thinking it aloud. And so must you if you have courtesy and the intensity to discover. Now, what is involved in this question of reincarnation? It is an enormous problem and we cannot settle it in a few minutes. Now, in examining this question, let us look at it without any bias, which does not mean you keep an open mind. There is no such as an open mind. There is an enquiring mind and not an open mind. We must be both enquiring into it. Now, in enquiring into it, what is it that we are looking for? We are looking to the truth, not according to your belief or my belief; because I have no belief, but I want to find the truth. Therefore I am enquiring, laying bare everything involved in this question, not taking shelter behind any particular form of prejudice. Therefore, I am enquiring honestly. Therefore, my mind is very honest to find out. Therefore it won’t be side-tracked, either according to the Bhagavad-Gita, or according to the Bible or according to your pet guru. I want to know, and to know I must have the intensity to pursue and a man who is tethered to a belief, however long the rope, is still held and therefore he cannot enquire. He can only enquire within the radius of his own bondage and therefore he will never find truth. So, what is the thing implied in reincarnation? What is the thing that reincarnates? You understand, reincarnates come back over and over again in different forms at different times. What is the continuous quality that comes into rebirth? There are only one or two possibilities that have continuity either it is the spiritual entity called the soul or the ‘me’, which is the bundle of memories, my characteristics, my tendencies, my unfulfilled desires, my achievements and so on. Either that which is the ‘me’ or that thing which we call the soul, that entity which we say is the spirit, i.e., we are looking into the problem. We are not taking sides. Therefore we are not defending. A man who defends will never know what is truth. He will find that which he defends and that which he defends is no longer the truth. It is his own inclination, it is his own bias, it is his own prejudice. Now, we are going to examine that which we call the spiritual entity. The spiritual entity obviously must not be created by me. It is not the outcome of my mind, of my thought, of my projection. It must be independent of me. Surely the spirit, the spiritual entity, if it is spiritual, must not be created by me. It must be other than me. Now, if it is other than the me, it must be timeless. It must be the eternal, it must be the real, and that which is real, that which is timeless, that which immeasurable cannot evolve, grow. It cannot come back. It is beyond time. Therefore it is deathless. Now, if it is deathless, if it is beyond me, then I have no control over it. It is not within the field of my consciousness. Therefore, I cannot think about it. I cannot enquire if it can or cannot reincarnate. Obviously, that which is beyond my control, I cannot enquire. I can only enquire into that which I know, which is my own projection and if the spiritual entity which I call Krishnamurti is beyond me, then it is timeless. Then I cannot think about it and what I cannot think about has no reality for me. Therefore, since it is timeless and since it is deathless and as I am concerned about death, about time, I cannot enquire in to it. Therefore, I need not be bothered. But we are bothered. What we are bothered is not about the continuance of spiritual entity, but whether I continue. Which the me; the me, with all my achievements, with all my failures, with all my frustrations, with all my bank-accounts, with all my characteristics and idiosyncrasies, the me of every day, the me of my property, the me of my family, the me of my beliefs, will that continue? That is what we want to know not whether the spiritual entity continues. That, as I pointed out, is an absurd question. Because reality, the timeless being, cannot be known through a person who is caught in the net of time. As thought is the process of time as thought is founded on the [Sentence cut off the page of the original at this point. Handwritten suggestion: ‘past, for thought to’. WS-06] think about the timeless is utter waste of time. It is an escape. So, that which is the result of time can only know itself, can only enquire into itself. So, the me, I want to know if it continues. The me, apart from the body which is going to die, the me, which is a total process, which is a psychological as well as physiological process, the me is not without the body and the me is also apart from the body. So, I want to know that me, if it continues, if it comes into being after this physical existence dies. Now, what do we mean by continuity? We have examined more or less what we mean by the me, my name, my characteristics, my frustrations, my achievements; you know, all the varieties are different levels of consciousness, is the me. So, we know that. Then, what do we mean by continuity; to continue, what does it mean. What is it that gives continuity. What is it that says. I shall or shall not continue. What is it that is clinging to continuity, continuity being permanency, permanency being security? After all, I seek security here in possessions, in things, in family or in beliefs and when the body dies the permanency of things has gone, the permanency of the family is gone, but the permanency of idea continues. It is the idea that we want to continue. We know this property is going to disappear. I know there will be no family. But the idea of becoming, continuing, that is what we want to know; whether the idea of me, or whether the thought I am continuous. Please it is important to see the difference. I know I shall be burnt, the body will be burnt. I know I shall not see you, my family; but is not the idea of the me existent? Is the idea of me continuous, i.e., continuous, being becoming, moving from time to time, from period to period, from experience to experience. So, that is the real enquiry: whether the me, the idea, the formulation of the me, will that not continue? Alright, sirs. You are not tired? You don’t dare answer, will you? So, what is the me? We have enquired. You know what the me is obviously. It means identify with a belief and that belief continues. Like an electric wave. I, identified with a belief, has continuity, has substance. There is a thought. I term it, I name it and thereby I give recognition to it as the me and that me obviously has a movement, continues, i.e., it becomes. Now, what happens to that continues, that which has continuance, what is its result? You understand the problem. What happens to the thing that is in constant becoming, constant continuity. That which continues has no renewal. It is merely repeating itself in different forms, but it has no renewal, i.e., the me identified with an idea or the idea that is identified with the me has continuance, but a thing that continues is constantly decaying. It knows birth and death in that sense, it continues and that thing that continues can never renew itself. And only a thing renews when there is an ending. This is again very important to discover and understand. What ends, in that there is renewal. Say, for example, if I have a worry, to do a problem and I go on to resolve it and I keep on to my worry. What happens? There is no renewal. Is there? Because I am still with the problem year after year day after day, week after week. But, when the problem is ended, there is a renewal. Only in ending there is renewal. Only in death there is renewal, which means death to the day, to the moment. But a man who merely wants to continue and identifies with a belief, which is the me or with a memory, in such continuance, there is no renewal, which is an obvious fact. Which is, a man who has a problem for a number of years, continuous problem, he is dead. There is no renewal. He is then living dead. He merely continues. But the moment the problem ends, there is a renewal. So similarly where there is ending, there is rebirth, there is creation. Where there is continuity, there is no creation. Sirs, see the beauty of it, the truth of it, because in it, in ending, there is love. It is new from moment to moment. Love is not continuous, it is not repetitive. That is its greatness, it is its truth. So, similarly a man who seeks continuity he will find it. Because he identifies himself with an idea and that idea or memory continues obviously but that is mere continuity that has no renewal. Therefore, in death, in ending there is renewal, not in continuity. You will say you have not answered the question. Which is: is there reincarnation for me or not. Surely, I have answered your question. Sir, to the problems of life, there is no categorical ‘yes’ and ‘no’. It is too vast. It is only the thoughtless that seek an answer, ‘yes’ and ‘no’. But, analyzing this question, we have discovered great many things, that there is beauty only in ending, that there is a renewal, a creation only in death, i.e., in dying every minute which means not hoarding, not laying up, physically or psychologically, and that which ends, there is a renewal, there is a beginning. So, life and death are one and the man who knows they are one it is he who dies every minute. Which means not naming, not letting the record-keeper playing over and over again, which is his particular consciousness. Immortality is not the continuance of an idea, which is the me. Immortality is that which is constantly renewing, therefore constantly dying.